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The South Central Tribulation Mountains formed a barrier much larger than that of the Songli Highland’s western flank. This land of relative peace only claimed about 3000 kilometers of the range. To the north of that claimed space, the mountains continued on for another 2000 kilometers, before the South Central Ridge joined the curving Eastern Ridge. To the south of the Songli Highlands’s staked-out land, the South Central Ridge continued on for another 4500 kilometers.

The South Central Ridge was nearly a thousand kilometers wide in some places, but it was mostly only 500 kilometers wide, on average. Near the Highlands, the Tribulation Mountains were, on average, 700 to 400 kilometers wide.

Some of those mountain peaks soared 20 kilometers into the sky. Some of those valleys plunged just as deep into the surface, where parts of the Underworld were exposed for all to see.

A man could get lost in those mountains.

Not Ezekiel, though. He knew right where he was:

In the middle of a battle of life and death.

He smashed his staff into the head of a charging Mist Stone Glutton, deflecting the multi-ton monster with a [Strike] made of pink fire that burned the beast and sent him scurrying, into the ground, leaving behind wisps of flame on the surface. No time to finish off that beast; another one was coming up from behind, directly at his head.

Without turning, or even acknowledging the new monster, he fired off a magenta [Firelight Beam] from the back of his head, right down the glutton’s throat. Pink fire erupted inside the monster and burst out of breaks in the rocks here and there, briefly filling the air with steam before more fire came forth. The beast roared in pain, and tried to bite down on the thing making it hurt. Instead, it bit down on a pink shield made of thorns and reflections. Stone teeth fractured.

Ezekiel turned his body, just in time to let the raking claws of the monster scratch along his edges instead of where they had been aiming, turning possible major injury into lesser damage to his renewable defenses.

Ah.

But.

The creature was still several tons of stone. And that stone was coming for Ezekiel with the inexorable force of weight with nowhere else to go but through. It was still on Firelight fire; Ezekiel’s beam was still trained on the monster, still damaging it for 4x Willpower per moment. It didn’t seem able to transform back into mist while it was on fire.

Good to know!

He was still going to get crush—

Odin, already in pink-lightform, grabbed Ezekiel and moved him out of the way in a moment of shifting light.

The glutton fell to the ground, phasing into the mountain, leaving behind glowing pink fire.

Ezekiel’s beam was still trained on that spot, which was helpful, because the first monster came back, transforming from mist to stone while it was still in the air on Ezekiel’s left. He trained the beam on that one as it lunged at him. Stone caught firelight. The beast burned.

Ezekiel stepped to the left, out of the monster’s attack vector and without Odin’s help this time. The glutton sailed past, unable to become mist while it was on fire, and unable to escape into the ground because it was a meter above the ground.

With another second to cast, Ezekiel purged the water from the on-fire glutton, which… Had the effect of instantly putting out the flames. But also hurting the monster! He did manage this much! He had not fucked up; he just didn’t think that the mundane water would put out the magical fires.

Yes. That was what he was going with.

Stop it! He’s learning.

And quickly, too.

The [Firelight Beam] was still going; it had five seconds left in its 10 second duration. It was still trained on the beast, who was now not-on-fire and not getting there any time soon. But something had changed after he purged the water.

The [Firelight Beam] carved through the beast’s forehead, then then across the body, splitting the monster in half. Small droplets of burned sand scattered across the battlefield. A notification came. [Firelight Beam] ended on its own.

There had been a few fuckups on his part. Some non-ideal action. But he had taken care of his targets. Mostly. Where was the first one? Not here, not bothering anyone else…

He could have done better. There was just something about being actually in the fight that made it all so much more confusing and him all that much more clumsy.

But as his daughter had said: No way out but through!

He glanced his daughter’s way. Now she was good in a fight. Look at that giant hammer in her hands! Swinging it like it was nothing. And surrounded by monster corpses, too. It had only been twenty seconds since the start of the fight, and only ten minutes since they landed, and already Julia had taken out three gluttons, in this glutton-filled canyon.

Tiffany was surrounded by corpses, too, but hers were completely demolished. If he didn’t know any better, the scene would have made Ezekiel think that Tiffany was breaking rocks in a quarry for fun. She looked so happy.

Paul was easily avoiding the monsters and had even caused two of them to crash into each other, twice. Those gluttons apparently didn’t like getting in each other’s way. They had started tearing into each other right after that. Last Ezekiel saw, Paul’s opponents were rolling down the mountainside—

Whoops!

He lifted an arm and his shield caught the jaws of the other glutton he had been fighting. He brought around his staff for a Firelight [Strike], directly to the side of the beast’s head, experimenting to see if Firelight, or rather, Radiance, was particularly good against these guys. That last glutton went down rather easily, and this one had taken a good twenty seconds to get back in the fight.

The grey-blue stone cracked. The monster went limp. Ezekiel stepped to the side as the glutton fully fell out of the mist like a puppet with its strings cut. It landed with a heavy, burning thud. Had he somehow dazed it? But they were elementals? Could you do that to elementals, if you used the proper Element against them? That wasn’t true for many Elementals, and most people were cautioned against trying to rely on elemental weaknesses...

These were weird monsters. Maybe Radiance was good against mist—

… That made sense.

Oh. Well. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? A little bit of elemental weakness? Like how fire was weak to water, water was weak to ice, and ice was weak to fire… Mist might be weak to Radiance? Best practices on combating elementals was based upon the idea of transforming the base Element which composed the targeted elemental into something else, in order to kill that elemental.

So in that way, ‘burning’ away the mists of a mist stone glutton seemed to be right on track for best practices.

Anyway.

There was a monster, stunned, not frozen with a Stop-effect, at Ezekiel’s feet.

Julia was suddenly there with her giant hammer. That glutton became dead stone after a few heavy attacks.

The fight was over seconds before that, anyway.

The bodies of eight more Mist Stone Gluttons lay scattered across the mountainside.

Ezekiel stood tall, and scanned the land with his eyes and his mana sense, watching the gently curved mountainside for any more threats.

There were lots.

But they kept back, like prowling shadows, twenty meters away, thirty, thirty-five. Most were at the very edge of his own senses. He counted maybe seventy.

Tiffany, giddy, said, “I count a hundred twenty.”

Paul spoke softly. “This is a great area for rigorous combat training. I’m not denying this. But maybe we should pick a different valley. One less populous. While we can.”

The original target of the day had been a valley a bit south from this one. The four of them walked around there for a good half hour and only got three gluttons to give a probing strike. They killed one of those gluttons, but the other two retreated, oddly enough.

This valley, three valleys over from that first one, had some nice mostly-flat areas for easier fighting, and a lot more gluttons. The four of them had barely spent any time at all in one of those flat spaces before the gluttons began to come up for a bite. While the gluttons were weird monsters, this land was also pretty weird.

If Ezekiel would have had ten extra minutes of rest, he would have tried a [Witness] in the area, just to see if all these flat spots actually used to be foundations for houses; if this land used to be a mountainside village. It well and truly could have been. Except for the monsters, and the mists, and how deadly the Tribulation Mountains were, there was a nice river down in the valley, the sun could show whenever the clouds decided to play nice, and [Grow]ing food here would have been easy with the mists providing all the necessary water. This would have been a nice space for a little town.

You know… except for the monsters.

Always monsters. Everywhere.

Ezekiel held his staff in both hands, since he didn’t need to hold his shield, as he stared out into the gloom. “Firelight seems to work exceptionally well,” he said, as he walked to regroup with his party.

“It does. I started using [Radiance Strike], too.” Julia stared out into the mist, holding her hammer like she was ready to strike at anything, as she repositioned herself, too “Seems like a standard Elemental interaction.”

“Standard?” Ezekiel said, “There’s nothing standard about these guys.”

Tiffany punched a gauntlet into the other, eliciting fire from the air. “Plain fire does better.”

“Any sort of heat-based attack would work fine, for the dryer they are, the more damage you can do. That is what you are seeing.” Paul said, warily watching the world around him, as he stepped closer to everyone. “The problem is that they can wipe off the fire and purge the heat by diving into the stone.”

The gluttons circled in the mist, their blue eyes flickering like ghostly fireflies.

Ezekiel had a few thoughts.

He thought back to Kiri, and her [Firelight Defender]; the automated turret-like summon that spawned countless [Firelight Bolt]s at designated enemies. And then he considered something else.

Was Ezekiel a Fire and Light kinda guy? Wind and Mercy, yeah… But firelight?

Or rather, Radiance?

No no. Not Radiance. Firelight; that other term for the same thing. Yes. Erick would have spoken of Radiance, but Ezekiel?

Clan Phoenix was about Fire. Maybe a bit of Light. Ezekiel could be about Firelight, too, or at least some of his spells. He would have had a history of fire and light in his family, anyway, right?

Yeah. Sure.

And besides that, he recalled meeting a Riftcaster, once, who cast Rifts into the air to bolster certain elements and deny opposing elements. That man had a brother who had learned incantations from the Songstresses of the Songli Highlands in order to adjust his [Healing Beacon]-derived healing and harming spell into whichever was needed at that moment.

Ezekiel was getting off track.

Neither Ezekiel nor Erick had ever made a Rift, he decided. There was something of a need for an actual Rift, but Erick had already made the precursor to a Rift a while ago, and that would do, for now.

--

Firelight Shift, instant, long range, 190 MP

Drastically empower your fire and light aspect magic in a large area. Shadow aspect magic turns solid. Dark and water aspect magic is greatly weakened. Lasts 1 minute.

--

The difference between a Rift and a Shift was one of degree and intent. Rifts were better, by and large, and Ezekiel should probably make one out of this particular spell.

… Later.

He said, “This should help us.”

He cast, directly above them all.

A dot of intent unfurled like a blazing lotus, expanding and enveloping like a wash of pink plasma. For several meters in every direction, the land was not actually hot, but stone did appear to be on fire, and the air filled with the idea of heat and magenta light.

Mists vanished; pushed away by magic that was anathema to its existence.

A pink panic seemed to take hold in the blue eyes of the monsters in the mist. Gluttons screamed. They ran away; into the mountain, into the air, as fast and as far as they could get. But only the closest ones. The gluttons that were already a hundred meters away flinched under the pink false-fire surrounding the party, for sure, but they remained. They did not approach, but they did not leave, either.

“Clan spells, am I right?” Ezekiel smiled, saying, “Some phoenixes are just as much light as they are fire.”

“Yeah yeah. Wave to the [Witness], why don’t you.” Julia watched the eyes in the mist as she spoke, “What is that spell, anyway?”

Ezekiel handed her the spell. “Firelight.” He frowned. “I told you about this stuff?”

“Did you?” Julia asked, as she glanced at the box. She dismissed it, then focused on the mists beyond the flickering pink ‘fire’. “Is this one of those Rifts you mentioned months ago?”

“Oh. I remember what happened, now. We talked about Rifts and then… we just never talked of them again. But I did tell you about Domains not too long ago, right?”

“… Oh. Yeah. That.” Julia frowned a bit.

Ezekiel knew that Julia likely didn’t want to hear him talk of Domains and Rifts, and certainly not again and in this space, but maybe she would? Since she had learned gridwork from Tenebrae? There was a definite difference in how much his daughter was willing to talk of magic since she learned of gridwork...

Ezekiel plowed ahead, even though he likely shouldn’t have, saying, “[Prime Area] is the basis for both Rifts and Domains. You can make [Prime Area] through any combination of any two Force spells. The ones I used are [Force Bomb] and [Force Wave]. To make [Firelight Shift], I took [Prime Area] and Mana Altered it for Firelight. I have not made a Rift out of this. That was one of the options, and that option is most normally used to produce something which enhances the power of a specific element, and maybe even the growth of those specific types of Elemental Essence creatures. A variation on this idea is a spell which makes a Domain; an area that is under the control of the caster who makes such a spell, and is usually based around an element. The two ideas are similar, but different, in like how all bladed weapons have blades, but not all of them are swords.” He added, “Rifts are unaligned boosting and denial. Domains are controlled boosting and denial.”

Julia’s frown deepened. “… Yeah.”

Pink firelight continued to dance on the ground like waving neon grass.

Seventy meters away, gluttons prowled in the mist.

Ezekiel started, “Do you want me to help you make [Prime Area]? It’s the basis for a lot—”

“I can’t even see the damned monsters except their eyes,” Julia complained. “And only when they want them seen!”

“Yup. There’s five times as many gluttons out there than the eyes you can see.” Tiffany spoke up, “We should decide if we’re moving or staying—”

Paul rapidly spoke, “Fully scare them away, now, or we need to move. They’re preparing to swarm through this spell.”

Ezekiel didn’t even gesture. He just willed the magic to flow, targeting various clumps of gluttons.

With every passing second a new [Firelight Shift] blossomed on the mountainside, driving back the mists with large impressions of hot summer bonfires. Gluttons screamed as they raced to get away from the heat and the light, though this level of spellwork was not truly dangerous to those beasts. The spell wasn’t even hurting them. But it was greatly weakening water magics, which was apparently more than enough to disperse the horde.

With the passing of seconds upon seconds, the mountainside was soon awash in imaginary summer heat.

Mists dispersed. Gluttons raced away.

And the mountainside looked different under the light.

This area had to have been an abandoned mountain village. Ezekiel and his people were likely standing in what had once been a main square. The air smelled of summer bonfires, and it reminded him of roasting marshmallows by the fire, and having Julia burn hers and then toss the still-burning treat at the neighbor’s kid.

Ezekiel smiled at the memory.

Tiffany asked, “So [Prime Area] is just any two Force spells? Because this [Firelight Shift] looks damn effective against elementals. Or at least these elementals.” She gestured at the frightened gluttons, saying, “This is great crowd control.”

“The spell isn’t even hurting them; they’ll attack soon, I’m sure. Rifts are better and still I need to make this one.” Ezekiel said, “But yeah, Tiffany, I’ll help you make [Prime Area], too, if you want.”

Julia frowned at the world, her eyes firmly fixed on the mists that remained. “Did that chase them off?”

Tiffany said, “They’re out there. They’re staying far away, too.”

A wind blew from the northeast, flowing through the valley. The remaining mist kicked up into the sky, vanishing through the mountain passes in the south. There was still an ocean of mist out there, though. Ezekiel had only banished the barest bit.

And then Ezekiel eyed the north. He decided to have some fun.

An Odin fluttered into the northern passage into the valley, where mists flowed through a kilometer’s wide passage like it was a connection between two oceans. Ezekiel threw a few [Firelight Shift]s into the ‘mist-intake’, creating a dissipating blockage in the flow. Air came through, and so did mist, but a lot of it did not. As the wind kicked up, mist vanished into the south, uncovering more of the valley with each constant gust. Gluttons appeared out of the mist like dropped leaves, briefly piling up before they vanished down, into the mountains, or they raced with the mist toward the south, or they gathered near the river, so far down, where the mist never left.

Julia watched her dad throw out orbs of magenta heat.

When it was done, and the village foundation around them was clear, she asked, “What was that for?”

Tiffany put one hand on her hips and gestured across the valley with the other, saying, “For the view! Obviously.”

Ezekiel chuckled. “Yes! For the view.” He renewed several patches of pink fires on the nearby mountainside, and said, “And magic is fun! You know? What do you say? We could take some time and each try to make a Rift—”

A strange gorge appeared on the other side of the valley, nearly three kilometers away, as the mist peeled further out of the valley. The hole into the mountain looked man-made, in the way that it would look if someone had cast a great magic and carved a great furrow straight and deep into the stone; with chipped edges where the attack exited, or maybe entered the space beyond, breaking reality under the violence of the attack, but with defined edges in the center of the slice.

Ah. So.

He should have expected this? He should have expected something when he cleared the mist from the valley. So Ezekiel prepared several contingencies right now, that he hoped he would not have to use, which mainly involved having Odin buff himself, out of sight—

And, yup! There were people over there. Lights, too. They eyed Ezekiel, Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, from the edge of that break in the mountain. They did not look friendly.

Ezekiel waved, anyway.

One of the people, a man in red who held a sword the same color, waved back, with his sword.

Ezekiel said, “In my defense of not spotting them, they were covered by mists.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Julia said. “I can’t see five damn meters in that soup.” She looked to Tiffany. “What’s your excuse?” She turned to Paul, and with more enthusiasm, asked, “What’s your excuse?”

Tiffany waved at the likely-not-friendly people, saying, “Out of range.”

Paul did not wave. “Same, though I am now focusing...”

“So.” Julia sent, ‘I am now accepting bets on if its the lost alchemist’s kidnappers, or not. I think it is them and I am betting 10 gold.’

The red guy on the other side was joined by four others in variously colored [Conjure Armor]. He had stopped waving for thirty seconds, now.

The two parties stared at each other from across the valley.

Paul sent, ‘No one is taking that bet. We are now in deadly territory. Our experiment with me not helping with fights is over, for now.’

‘Agreed.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘So no takers on my bet? You might make some easy money!’

Paul sent, ‘I’m picking up some heavy thoughts… One of them is thinking about killing a man named Tadashi in their camp.’

Ezekiel floundered for half a second, then scoffed, ‘No way. Too much of a coincidence. Maybe ‘Tadashi’ is the name of their lookout?’

Julia laughed.

Paul elaborated, ‘Nope.’

Julia asked, ‘Are we fighting, or are we—’

The air blipped red a hundred meters away. The red man and a few of his people appeared on the empty foundation of a former home. They all looked human.

“Hello!” the Red Man called, in a cheerful voice.

Ezekiel recognized in the man’s voice an undercurrent of joyful violence; that he was happy he had some new butterflies with fresh wings to pluck. Ezekiel didn’t know how he knew this, but he did, with every fibre of his being.

Ezekiel responded politely, anyway, “Hello? How can I help you? And pardon me for refreshing this spell I just put up.”

The first of the magenta [Firelight Shift]s had started to fall apart. Ezekiel recast one toward the north, Mana Shaping it into the absolute for another 500 mana, going the full distance through the actual pass, stretching his spell absolutely wide, and thin, like a curtain of magenta fire. It would block out all that was opposed, which would be the mist and thus the gluttons, and—

A blue box appeared.

--

Firelight Curtain, instant, super long range, 690 MP

A shimmering curtain greatly strengthens all passing fire and light magic, while greatly weakening all passing water and shadow magic. Blocks dark magic. Lasts 1 hour.

--

Ezekiel was surprised at the new spell, but he tried not to betray that surprise. He said to the people around him, “That one should last an hour. So! Hello. Who are you? Are we intruding?” As he also sent to his people, ‘We’re doing this, and Odins will arrive with your shields when this goes south, but I’m going to try to talk them out of it, first.’

‘Yes, sir.’ ‘You got it, Boss.’ ‘Ready.’

For a nice, calm moment, Ezekiel felt great about his people. He was delighted that they chose to follow him halfway across the world, even if they ended up in situations like this.

The Red Man lifted his eyes toward the spell in the distance. “Soon our valley will be fully without mist and our protector gluttons do not like that. Could you cancel that spell?”

“I would rather not.”

The Red Man innocently asked, “Why?”

“Because,” Ezekiel said, “It appears you have a captured Tadashi Diligent Scribe in your hideout back there, and I would like him back.”

The Red Man went stock still. His people froze. Cheer vanished, and calculation came forward. The Red Man nodded, once, then asked, “Tell me: Did you make that spell over there at this very moment?”

“Yes.”

Breezes flowed through the valley, clearing out mists. With the even-better curtain spell standing in the distance, cutting off the flow, even the deep mists were starting to dissipate. The river appeared far below, like a winding blue snake at the bottom of a green world.

The Red man said, “I saw you reading, so— Of course you made it as I was watching. Not a liar! I appreciate that.” He paused. He said, “Okay. Sure. You can have Tadashi. We’re not going to die to a Scion, and especially not one so accomplished in the arcane.” He declared, “Pack it up, boys! We’re out of here in half an hour.” He asked Ezekiel, “Will you give us this much time?”

“… Sure,” Ezekiel said, knowing that he was being buttered up, yet unsure why the Red Man thought that his buttering would work.

The Red Man resumed wearing his easy smile from before, as he teased, “Let us go, and Tadashi gets to live.”

And then he blipped away, followed instantly by his people, before Ezekiel could say another word. The Red Man reappeared across the valley, and then rushed down the inward path, into the crack in the mountain. In moments, every visible person had vacated the entrance.

Ezekiel sent to his people, ‘He’s lying out of his ass about everything, right? Should we have jumped him right there?’

Paul blurted, ‘He didn’t lie. If it was up to him, he would leave. But he’s not in charge, and the guy in charge—’

A speck of a spell flowed across the canyon, traveling kilometers in moments, headed straight at Ezekiel.

Something was happening, and there would be fighting, apparently.

This was fine.

Ezekiel resolved himself to the situation. He was already running [Hunter’s Instincts], anyway.

With a flick of mana sense, he understood the spell flying their way. It was packed with magic and it would have exploded the second it touched anything at all; Reflection was not an option. But it was elemental-based, so the solution was easy enough.

[Prismatic Breaker].

A speck of rainbow impacted the approaching spell. They annihilated each other, with zero explosions, or fires, or waves of shadow, or anything else. Both spells simply vanished, like they had never been. [Prismatic Breaker] was a good spell. Probably too good for the situation, but whatever. Ezekiel wasn’t about to let some strange spell hit them.

Instead, he called out, “That wasn’t very nice!”

His voice took a second to reach the other side of the valley. The response came quick enough.

The Red Man’s voice boomed, “I know! Which is why I just killed my boss! Good luck getting Tadashi out alive, Scion!”

Ezekiel prepared to annihilate another attack while he listened to the Red Man speak. But...

Nothing.

Thirty seconds passed.

“So.” Julia asked, “We going in?”

‘Not yet.’ Paul sent, ‘There are sound blockers beyond that crack in the mountain. You can’t hear it, but I can. They’re fighting. The red guy and a few others are trouncing the rest… Hard to tell.’ He held a hand against his temple. Lines of intent flowed out of his head and into the manasphere. ‘I can’t tell much. There’s a fight. That’s all I know—’ Paul stopped. He sent, ‘It’s over. The last mind just died.’

Ezekiel instantly sent four Odins into the crack in the mountain, feeling odd about not doing so earlier. Would it have been his place to stop this disagreement between the bandits? If they hurt Tadashi, that would have been on him—

Beyond the gorge and several active [Ward]s that layered the tunnel-like canyon, was a land of small houses, nestled under tall cliffs. Between them all was a wide open space at the bottom. Sunlight poured into the hideout at an angle, striking a garden with several fruiting trees, all of which were on fire. The entire place was on fire. Red fire, blue fire, gold fire. Harmful magic glowed in every part of the former bandit hideout, sometimes on stone or grove, but also on all the bodies laying around.

Odin began putting the flames out with [Fire Breaker]; deleting the fire from existence.

Within moments Odin had scouted the whole hideout with several different Sights. Everyone was dead, except for one person; an absolutely emaciated man with pale pink skin and tiny nubs for horns. He was in a hut near the bottom of the stacked houses, slumped against a wall, ass to the ground. He looked barely able to move, as if he was drugged, or poisoned, or something. As soon as Odin went to touch him, to [Teleport Other] him directly to Julia—

Odin vanished. Popped. Not even [Dispel]ed; just pure negation. He was alive, though!

Ezekiel came back to himself, saying, “Coast is clear. We’re going in. No traps found. I found Tadashi.”

With a lightstep, the four of them stepped right into the hideout. A third scan with [True Sight] and the mana sense of all his nearby Odin reconfirmed what he had seen before. The hideout was empty, except for the man in the hut over there. Ezekiel rushed that way—

Tiffany rushed ahead of Ezekiel, glaring at him like he was putting himself in too much danger—

‘Which you are.’ Paul sent, ‘Antirhine is deadly. Let us do our jobs, please.’

… Ezekiel followed Tiffany. In seconds, the two of them stood in the room with Tadashi. Tiffany had to crouch down a little, but she was in there, with her eyes fixed on the alchemist. She sighed, and shook her head.

The man looked worse in person. They had him in a loincloth, and nothing else. He didn’t even have a bed; likely, because everyone around here used conjured beds, and this man could not. Another quick scan with various Sight spells returned a whole mess of oddness. To [True Sight], the man was exactly as he appeared to be; this much was not that odd. [Blood Sight] and [Soul Sight] returned nothing, though; Ezekiel could not see the man’s life or his soul. Mana sense gave him a better idea of what was going on, but an even greater oddity occurred. Ezekiel could not see inside of the man, at all.

Stepping a few seconds back in time revealed nothing; the mana where Tadashi had been was just static to the manasphere.

Mana still flowed into him like it normally did, but there was no way to see that mana when it was inside of Tadashi, or when it was within half a meter of the man, either. And when the mana left him, it left without a single impression of the man. Mana always filled with random noise after passing through a person or important object; this is what a person saw when they used Meditation and they viewed the manasphere, seeing false eyes and false monsters and visions. This truth was apparently not true when mana traveled through those who were afflicted with Antirhine.

If it wasn’t for the obvious truth of his living nature, Ezekiel would have thought the man was dead. But even dead objects, like rocks and water, filled the manasphere with some small impressions.

Solid antirhine reflected all mana and stripped all magic from mana, but the Elixir seemed to work in a more diffuse manner. Less lead for more effect.

Tadashi raised his tired eyes toward Tiffany. He spoke in Inferni. “Weird death vision. I didn’t ever pray to Aloethag, did I?”

Tiffany tried to be nice as she smiled and responded in Inferni, “She only answers prayers of Rage, and you don’t look very angry, Tadashi.”

Tadashi laughed, but momentary joy turned to what Ezekiel now recognized as existence-deep sorrow. Tears began to roll down the man’s face. He slumped to the ground, pressing his nose to the floor.

Ezekiel couldn’t not go to him, so he went—

Tiffany whipped a hand out and prevented the contact, speaking in Ecks, “Not within a meter, sir.”

“It’ll be okay, Tadashi,” Ezekiel said, in Ecks, unable to keep the lie out of his voice.

Tadashi’s sobs turned quieter.

“We will get you home,” Ezekiel said, and this much was true. “I simply haven’t figured out that process, yet.”

Tadashi chuckled, darkly, directly against the stone floor of his room. He spoke in Ecks, saying, “I haven’t either! This antirhine aura is extraordinarily destabilizing. I could make it for a while through the mists, though; the gluttons don’t like me. But the other monsters...ha.”

“How far does it…” Julia stepped closer, reaching a hand out. Her dark blue [Personal Ward] and her gauntlet began to unravel well before she touched the crying man, but she did get within half a meter. She retreated, shaking her hand out. She reformed the gauntlet with an expression of her [Mutable Aegis]. “That’s going to be tough.”

Paul suggested, “Enough [Force Platform]s and a center of dirt. Keep him in the center.”

“I thought about it, and it would work, but such a working would be a huge target, and too slow,” Ezekiel said.

“It would.” Paul said, “But you could defend that much space.”

“Maybe. But. The other option is:” He looked to his daughter. “Julia? You have a Primal Frost Owl? She’s really big?”

“Oh yeah.” Julia said, “I can carry Tadashi; no problem.” She asked him, “He’ll be far enough away from my wings that I can still use internal magics, but external magics will not work. Need some mundane straps, though. [Fabricate] together some of the bandit leathers out there?”

Ezekiel nodded.

Julia asked Tadashi, “Do you want a ride on my back, or in my talons? How much Health do you have—” She kept most of her joy out of her voice, but not all of it, as she asked, “How much damage do you think you can sustain on a wild ride through the Tribulation skies? I’ve never gone up against a Thunder Bird, but I’m willing to try!”

Tadashi’s face was still pressed against the stone floor. But at Julia’s words, he rolled a little, and eyed her. “Are you some... adventurer?”

Ezekiel said, “That is my daughter and she was, but she is currently in line to the throne of Clan Phoenix. I would ask you to appreciate being rescued enough to overlook certain possible issues.”

“I don’t have problems with adventure... ers?” He rolled over, fully eyeing Julia, and then Ezekiel. “Your… Daughter? This is a very weird death vision.”

“She is my true born daughter, and you are not dying, but you are certainly weakened. Are you hungry? We could get you something to eat, before we leave? I see fruit trees out there and they’re not on fire anymore.”

“I’m just gonna carry you in my talons. Can you survive a [Super Quick Flight]?”

Tadashi grumbled, “In the thin chance that this is not a hallucination, my answer is that I probably cannot survive a [Super Quick—”

A crumbling, breaking sound echoed outside, in the bandit’s hideout. Tiffany raised her head, bumping the ceiling. As Julia raced outside, Ezekiel was already looking, through Odin.

He watched as some burning blocks of something fell from the cap in the overhead cliffs, and the various [Ward]s that had stretched across the entrance gorge, suddenly broke. What was that all about?

Odd.

Ezekiel had an Odin fly into the smoking pile of whatever, and turn on his [Cleanse Aura].

[Cleanse] didn’t get rid of it. Odder yet! It wasn’t poison? Or anything? Maybe it was magic?

Ezekiel tried a [Grand Dispel] for a thousand of his own mana, even though it didn’t look like a magic. Nothing happened.

And then the scent reached Ezekiel. Flowers, growth, rain, and green. It was a good smell. Odd smell, sure, but really nice. Like some high-class incense that—

A mist stone glutton stepped up from the ground and tackled the scent bomb like a cat going after catnip, spreading the burning, smelling herbs like a bath bomb going off in a pool. The glutton continued to tackle the burning herbs, spreading them fast, and far.

And then a second and third glutton appeared out of the stone and batted the burning herbs everywhere they could, before a fourth one appeared and started rolling in the mess.

In the very next second, four more gluttons poured out of the walls of the bandit hideout.

The herbs had been burning for less than ten seconds.

“Oh. Shit,” Paul said, taking the words out from Ezekiel’s mouth, though he had not even seen the problem yet.

Ezekiel teased, “You read my mind.”

Ezekiel had an Odin cast himself into a full-strength [Prismatic Ward] into the stone hut, into the ground below and around Tadashi, but he avoided the man himself with a three-meter wide scoop taken out of the large-sized dense air. With a flicker of mana sense, he saw that gluttons were already racing underneath the stone below, but those gluttons deflected off of the density Ezekiel had erected in this space.

For his next trick, a sunform Odin grabbed much of the burning grasses with a thousand flicks of a thousand light tendrils. He flew upward, carrying the burning package toward the hole made by the cliffs above, just in time for that same Odin to catch even more bundles of flaming herbs that were on their way down.

The gluttons below tried to follow the burning scent up, turning to mist, but there was no mist to ride in here so they raced along the stone walls of the hideout, up, up, racing across roofs and walls, and then clinging to the cliffs above.

And then Ezekiel had to rethink about the fact that there was no mist in the hideout, as a thick fog rolled down the tunnel leading to the valley, carrying a wave of gluttons on its forefront. The bandits must have destroyed the [Firelight Curtain].

This area was rapidly becoming much more dangerous than it needed to be.

The Odin carrying the burning herbs crested the cliffs, and entered into the full sun. People stood on those cliffs, wielding even more bundles of herbs ready to fall into the space below. The Red Man smiled as he saw the bird-shaped Odin, carrying his flaming gifts back to him.

Odin threw the package directly at him with the full force of a sunform-empowered slap, and burning herbs went everywhere, again. But that Odin vanished. Ezekiel didn’t even see how it happened.

With the Odin inside the hideout, he saw all of those burning herbs fall back down into the soupy air, full of gluttons.

A different Odin tried to catch the falling package, but he failed as soon as he got near the burning herbs at all. He winked out of existence.

The grinding noise of the monsters turned worse. It became a constant avalanche.

Julia cast a [Stoneshape] closing off the entrance to their small hut, saying, “It’s flaming antirhine!”

Yes. He already knew that. But—

They needed another way out, and fast, but not through the hideout. Ezekiel did not trust any of his magic in the face of Antirhine. From what he was seeing, through the Odin outside which were far away from the smoke, the new brand of smoke was having some strange effects on the gluttons, too.

They did not float through the mist in the air, nor did they rise from the ground around the burning lead and herb debris. But they did swarm in from outside, like a feeding frenzy of sharks moving in for the kill. Some did come right out of the ground near the burning herbs, and instead of themselves breaking to the loss of magic, they broke the stone they stepped out of, instead, leaving great holes in the bandit’s hideout. And then they piled onto each other, rushing for the burning lead, scrambling and breaking whatever they could to get nearer to the herbs.

They raced across the roof off the hut, their scrambling claws scraping against the edge of the [Prismatic Ward], chipping the stone in their passing. In every direction, they scraped against that dense air.

Okay. So. Let’s get out of here, right now.

He had a spell for this, though it would be tricky, what with all the monsters already inside all the stone all around them.

--

Stone Travel, instant, medium range, 50 MP + Variable

A large area of stone stabilizes around you, then quickly moves at your discretion across or through other stone. Lasts 1 hour.

--

Using it normally would not help Tadashi, but he could create a tunnel.

Maybe.

Ezekiel turned to the right, to the wall that the building shared with the mountain, where gluttons crashed against the [Prismatic Ward], and where they would have crashed through, if not for that spell.

Tadashi started to giggle like a broken man. Maybe he was. He said, “Thanks for the rescue! But I’ve been dead ever since they Elixir’d me! Sorry you didn’t get your points! How much was I worth, anyway?”

“Five points,” Ezekiel said, “And we’re getting you out.”

Tadashi laughed. “Five points! I’ll have to work forever to make that up to them!”

Ezekiel smiled, saying, “I promised my retainers points, and they’re going to get them! Don’t go crazy on me yet, Tadashi.”

“They’ll swarm for hours.” Tadashi almost reached for the dense air around him, but he stopped. He started to laugh, his eyes going wide. “I could kill us all by touching your Solid Ward.”

“Just yourself,” Ezekiel said, “We can get out of this with a [Teleport]. Don’t fuck yourself over, okay?”

Tadashi crashed to the ground, again, his face against the stone while gluttons crashed against every single wall of the hut. The roof was starting to break. That would be bad. Antirhine would get in.

Tiffany said, “Waiting it out isn’t a viable option. We have to move through that mountain wall—”

A corner of the building broke off as a glutton raced across that stone, exposing the dense air inside to the lead air outside. Dense air began to become normal air.

Juila plugged up the hole with a rapid [Stoneshape], taking stone from the floor of the hut and exposing the gluttons racing below. As soon as her magic touched the lead air, controlled stone became solid stone. It stuck in the hole, anyway.

Ezekiel turned toward the mountain.

He pierced the wall with [Stoneshape], flowed a sunform Odin into the space he had just cast, then had that Odin cast [Stone Travel] in the center of a dozen flowing gluttons. He had measured the distance correctly. The platform took hold, expanding a bubble out of the stone around it which ended right at the back edge of the house, opening a hole into the glutton-filled space beyond.

Odin was made of light, so he was not bothered by the gluttons. He still whined in flutes, though. He did not like being crashed through. And he was being crashed through.

A veritable ocean of gluttons, likely attracted from every single nearby valley, was trying to get into the hideout. This small part right here was just the smallest bit of that ocean.

The noise was incredible. Ear splitting. Ezekiel could barely think, and yet he did.

Odin rode the [Stone Travel] directly out, and then he went up at a 30 degree angle, up and out, to the north west. The platform’s travel created a perfectly smooth tunnel in the stone, doing here what it had done way back when Ezekiel helped his people to escape a Hunter ambush, while they were out hunting wyrms. [Stone Travel] was such a useful spell.

With any luck, there wouldn’t be any horrible monsters in these surface mountains? You know, except the gluttons, of which there were tens of thousands.

With another cast, Ezekiel threw a thousand mana [Hermetic Shredder] into the space, into the crashing glutton horde, twisting the spell forward like sprayed spiderwebs, absolutely coating the walls and ceiling of the tunnel with the spell. With his modifiers, a thousand mana became 19,000 strings of molecular wire, each of which would deal 19,000 damage before breaking. The spell reached far forward, but the tunnel would be kilometers long; he would need to do this a few times.

The effect of the spell was rather spectacular, though.

Gluttons turned to stone cubes as they raced through the cutting space.

No time to admire his spellwork, though.

The house crumbled around them. Julia patched holes as best she could. Tadashi stared into the dark tunnel and at the crumbling house as though seeing his death lurch closer with every passing second.

Tiffany just waited for Ezekiel.

Ezekiel caught their attention, yelling to overcome the avalanche of noise, “Here’s how it’s going: Julia? You have a carrying form, Yeah?”

“On it!” Julia turned to shadows, except for her clothes. And then her shadow form expanded. She returned to the physical world as a unicorn, all sparkling white and with a spiraling horn made of rainbows. She crowded the small room even more than Tiffany did. Julia asked Tadashi in a horse voice, “I hope you know how to ride.”

“Don’t get on yet, but after we’re in the tunnel.” Ezekiel said, “It’s too cramped in here and you’ll break the [Ward].”

Tadashi seemed to regain a lot of himself in that moment. He said, “Yes. I can do this.” He reached for her, but stopped and pulled his hand back before he neared the Solid Ward all around him. “I am not as strong as I used to be.”

Tiffany said, “I can help keep him on there.”

“Good. I need you on threat-finding, too. And you, too, Paul.”

Paul nodded.

Ezekiel turned to the new hole in the mountain. The Shredder had done a great job. The gluttons did not enter the space, and those that did, died fast. Now that there was nothing there but dead stone, Ezekiel had another Odin cast another [Prismatic Ward] into the edges of the tunnel, but he kept the center clear. He dismissed the [Hermetic Shredder]. A [Stoneshape] shoved the dead Mist Stone gluttons back into the mountain, clearing the way forward.

Ezekiel pointed to the hole in the mountain, saying, “Odin just popped out the other side. It’s not safe, but it’s safe enough. I’ll [Ward] the tunnels as we go. Julia, keep Tadashi in the center of the space. When we get to the other side, we will have a new plan, I am sure. Let’s go.”

They went.

Behind them, the house collapsed, as too many gluttons broke the walls in their frenzy to get to the smoke.

Tiffany helped Tadashi onto Julia’s back. She was a large unicorn; almost fit for an orcol to ride. The alchemist looked almost like a toddler on her back. Julia’s white fur turned black in large patches around wherever he touched.

And then they started running. Julia with Tadashi on her back, in the center, while Tiffany was at Julia’s side, and Ezekiel and Paul were in the back. The path carved by the [Stone Travel] was large-size and flat on the bottom, while the roof was arched tall. They did not have to run in a single file, but they did have to run; there was no telling how long such a tunnel would last, especially with gluttons seeming to pour into the previous bandit hideout from absolutely everywhere.

The lead smoke broke that first [Prismatic Ward], completely, before the smoke started to flow into the tunnel. Ezekiel nipped that potential problem in the bud with a quick [Stoneshape], collapsing the tunnel behind them.

With a small breather, Ezekiel attempted another [Stone Travel], right underneath the five of them.

It failed. The magic just didn’t happen with Tadashi there, in the center, even if he was a good two meters off of the actual stone platform.

The second cast of [Stone Travel] was done through another Odin, floating far ahead of the party, moving forward before everyone else, just to keep the ceiling intact; the first tunnel had already collapsed in its first thirty seconds of existence.

Ezekiel did not panic, but he wanted to.

Tadashi panicked, but no one blamed him.

Moving forward was a quick process but still done with methodical precision since gluttons were still absolutely everywhere.

The first step was a [Hermetic Shredder] that went up for 500 mana, which was more than enough to coat the ceiling and the walls for a large space forward, while leaving a path in the center clear of danger. Gluttons slammed into the shredders, thus enabling the second step, which was the casting of [Prismatic Ward] formed in a similar manner. And then they moved forward, their feet finding purchase on the fresh grey-blue gravel that layered the tunnel’s bottom, the sunform Odin on the [Stone Travel] platform lighting the way.

The tenth time this process repeated, they were finally in a space without so many gluttons. They slowed down. Ezekiel relaxed.

And then the mountain cracked a little bit above them, sending a minor rush of dirt and stone down onto the path ahead, even though the second [Stone Travel] was reopening the tunnel right in front of them. It seemed that stone, just shoved to the side, did not make for good walls, even though it was countless tons and tons of stone and it was impacted deep into the mountain all around them and—

Ezekiel dropped that useless train of thought.

They picked up the pace, racing forward, feet and hooves crunching on gravel as they flew through the darkness, the path illuminated by Julia’s bright horn and several bird-like sunform Odin. Odins moved fast to support the ceiling when it started to break here and there, but they did not stay still for long.

The party exited the tunnel into the midday sun, below a cliff, right as the tunnel began to fully collapse, showering them with dirt and debris. A sunform Odin parried a boulder, knocking it away, as the mountain settled into a new position behind them, while in the front…

The myriad peaks of the Tribulation mountains dominated the horizon, like jade-green island jutting up from seas of white blue mist. The bright sun shone down from above, bringing a small warmth to the otherwise chilly air.

Ezekiel took a moment.

Everyone took a moment. Paul chuckled. Tiffany sighed, and smiled. Julia just stared ahead.

And Ezekiel breathed deep the mountain air. It smelled great.

And then Tadashi began ugly-crying into Julia’s mane, still holding onto her for dear life, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Julia glanced backward, she said, “Help him off, Tiffany. Time to fly outta here!”

Tadashi was still crying, but he startled and sat up straight. “Oh bright gods.” Tiffany’s hands went around Tadashi. “Right. I’m on top of a person...” Tiffany helped him off of Julia, returning Julia’s black fur back to brilliant white. She set the alchemist upon the ground. He lifted his head to face the sun and tears rolled down his cheeks. He bowed to Julia. “Thank you for the ride, my good lady.” He said to Ezekiel. “Respected… Scion? To what Clan do I owe my rescue? Who are you?”

Julia flickered with [Polymorph], her orcol-sized unicorn form transforming into a five-meter tall snow-white owl; a full person taller than Tiffany. She fluffed her wings out, spreading them wide.

Odins were positively entranced by the large bird that had appeared in their midst. They responded in kind, fluffing themselves up. One chirped loud and instantly sat down upon Julia’s head, then transformed itself to look exactly like her, but miniature. Julia angled her head a bit, turning it all the way upside down, kicking the playful Odin off of his perch as she chirped in her own laughter.

Tadashi looked up at her, in even more awe.

Ezekiel fluttered his Odin into the sky, and all around, having each of them work their Sight to look for any approaching danger, or possible issues with where the tunnel popped them out of the mountain.

He saw none.

While he did that, he turned to Tadashi and gestured around, drawing the man’s attention back to himself as Ezekiel said, “Ezekiel, Tiffany, Paul, and Julia. We are of Clan Phoenix, and we came to Eralis to ask around about Songstress magic. This is only our first real day in the city, though, and we needed money, thus we came out here to hunt. We were not prepared to find you, but we did hear about the Quest regarding you. So. Let’s get you back home, and get some points for ourselves. And if you happen to know of any good methods to approaching the Songstresses to learn of their magic then I would love to hear it. Or, we could just talk to the people we turn you into? I suspect we will have to do some of that, anyway. Do you have specific people to which you would like to be returned?”

Tadashi listened intently, and when he heard ‘Quest’, he faltered. “I overheard from my captors… And then you said—” He winced. “It was truly 5 points?”

“Yes.” Ezekiel looked at the alchemist, and said, “This distresses you.” He added, “I am unaware of how they do this Questing down here in the Highlands, so if I need to know something tactical, please let me know.”

“I would prefer to not accidentally die in the crossfire between High Clan Scions and their lessers.” He flicked his eyes toward the mountain-covered horizon. “Or to the dangers of the Tribulations. Where are we, exactly?”

Ezekiel produced a wardlight map of the general area. “This might be minimally incorrect since I have not been in Eralis for long, but my scouting capabilities are well developed. You are here. We are about 300 kilometers north of the direct east-west line of Eralis, which means roughly 1400 kilometers to Eralis, which means it will be half a day to get you back home, and that is without detours, of which there will be some… But... I might have that wrong. What is your fastest speed, Julia? I never asked, and I fear my own is much slower.”

Outside of lightstepping, of course.

Julia spoke using [Prestidigitation], “500-ish kilometers per hour with [Super Quick Flight]. I should be able to keep that up the whole way, but likely not with a dampener in my claws, for multiple reasons.” Julia raised a massive down-covered paw with huge talons, half a meter long. “And he won’t be able to survive that without cushioning and me dropping to half-speed. Maybe lower.”

Ezekiel quickly calculated. “A hundred kilometers per hour seems reasonable, which means 3 hours to get out of the Tribulation Mountains, and then 11 more hours to get to Eralis. We can stop halfway through if needed, but I would prefer not to.” To confirm what he already suspected, and to make sure he wasn’t making this more complicated than it needed to be, he asked Tadashi, “Should we contact someone for you? For them to come get you?”

Tadashi seemed to have gotten hold of more of his senses in the last several minutes. He said, “Absolutely not, good Scion. It would be best if we saved any contact for when we reach a border city where I am already safe, and someone aside from you can contact my clan for you. We might not have to go the whole way in— It would be for the best if we did not go the whole way into Eralis. But we must get out from the danger of actually being caught in crossfire between multiple Scions, out here in the Tribulations. You might not know this, but they will have grudges that they will enact upon each other without care for completion of any Quest, if it means a hated rival is thus ended. I would prefer to avoid that.”

“That’s exactly what I feared.” Ezekiel said, “Very well—

Tadashi shivered in the sunlight, though he tried not to show it.

“Right. Sorry,” Ezekiel said, full of knowing. “You have no clothes. We have no extras. We have no supplies for this, at all. We were not expecting you. Uh. Should we slow this down? I can make you food and clothes if I have some time. We’ve only been exposed for ten minutes, so far, and we are several kilometers away from the bandits’ hideout. And a few higher, too.” He looked around. “Opinions?”

Paul said, “I will go along with whatever you desire, Scion, but that Red Man was not happy to see us escape. He is likely searching for us right now.”

Julia asked, “Should we counter-ambush?” She said, “I feel that we should counter-ambush. Best not to leave a threat like him lying around.”

Tadashi shivered, almost uncontrollably, as he suddenly muttered, “I would prefer to escape. Please.”

Tiffany said, “Let’s not tempt the dragon. Let’s move, with purpose, and out of the Tribulation mountains.” She looked to Julia, and smirked. “Make him a spider silk robe.”

Julia chirped, “Bah!”

“Can you do that? With spider silk? I mean. I know you can.” Ezekiel asked. “I’ve never seen you weave clothes before.”

“Clothes?” Tiffany laughed. “Hardly.”

“I have tried several times and failed twice as often.” Julia gazed down at Tadashi with giant, blue eyes. “I can wrap you in mundane threads and strap you to my legs. This is no problem.” She flexed her talons, and her voice trailed off, “Let’s see…”

She lifted a feathered foot into the air, and the feathers receded. White unicorn fur appeared over bright white chicken-skin a moment later, and then the tops of her toes, just above the talons, bulged. Her other foot similarly transformed.

Julia eyed the mountain slope below the party. A moment later, stone flowed into a large bird perch, and several short pillars that resembled a miniature Stonehenge. With a flow of lightform, Julia moved onto the perch.

Controlled threads flowed out from her talons a moment later. They spun in the air, controlled to land and stick to the pillars. More and more threads moved at her command to spin around the center of that spider web base. It thickened, layer upon layer.

Ezekiel walked closer. He looked up at his daughter, asking, “[Fabricate]?”

“… Don’t have it.”

Cheerfully, Ezekiel said, “I think I found your problem.”

Julia cackled a tiny laugh. “I don’t have it, yet. I am working on Remaking that spell and not spending the point, but it’s been difficult.”

“Oh!” Ezekiel said, in realization. “For all your lessons, you never took any sewing instruction, did you? Or learned fabric weaving.”

Another laugh. “Nope! But I have [Thread Control] now, so it might go easier.” She asked, “Do you want to try to [Fabricate] some robes? I can spit out a whole roll of non-sticky thread, if you want it.”

“Yes. But not right now.” Ezekiel glanced backward, at the shivering Tadashi. He turned back to his daughter, whispering, “He’s in a bad way. We need to get to civilization.” The layers of silk, which Ezekiel could tell alternated between sticky and not, were already as thick as a heavy winter comforter.

Julia swiveled her head toward Tadashi, then turned back, saying, “We do.”

“Oh. And—” Ezekiel asked, “Could you carry a carriage? So you don’t have to carry him? I don’t think he could survive that.”

Julia chirped. “Try not to make it too heavy. This is going to take a minute more. I need to make it thick but not too sticky and I think I failed in a few spots already. He can wear this, but I’ll fill in whatever basket you make with softer threads.”

Ezekiel nodded. And then he went to work, while the pale pink alchemist came over to watch Julia’s crafting.

First, he had an Odin find an unattended, small tree. The nearest, easiest to reach specimen was a mountain over to the west. A few casts of [Treeshape] and some heavy intent-filled growth later, and that Odin blipped in with his prize.

It was essentially a large, specialty-made wicker basket large enough for a person to comfortably rest within. On the outside, though, it was like a spiked ball, with those spikes turning into plenty of hand-holds a few meters away from the central seat, so that anyone would be able to carry the thing if it was necessary. Finally, a door was attached that would close the whole thing, to ensure Tadashi would not fall out, no matter how much he might accidentally be tumbled through the air. The alchemist should even be able to stick his head up and look out through several small windows, if he wanted.

… He would probably be fine. The basket certainly wasn’t up to any possible ‘flying carriage’ code, if such codes actually existed, anywhere, but it was light enough, and it would get the job done.

By the time Ezekiel deposited the basket beside Julia, Tadashi was sitting on the ground, surrounded by a rather crude, yet fluffy blanket made of white spider silk. [Warming Ward]s spewed heat at him, for they couldn’t actually warm him directly. He was already looking better.

Julia began to fill in the carriage with enough spider silk to make it like padding. When that was done, Tadashi tried to get up to go test it, but his comforter was stuck to the ground and itself; but not to him! Another helping hand from Tiffany pulled open the comforter and released its temporary prisoner. Tiffany began to pick at the comforter to get rid of most of the large stones, for Tadashi would still use it inside the basket, while Tadashi tested his new ride and found it adequate.

Julia fixed up the comforter, too, ensuring that it had no sticky exterior, at all.

When everything was ready, but before anyone was locked into any baskets with some spider silk, Ezekiel asked, “Anyone need to use the privy before we go? Or need water, or something?”

Tadashi blushed, and then paled, and then almost lost all of the small composure that he had managed to regain.

Ezekiel spoke before a terrible sadness overtook the man, “It’s not embarrassing. It’s just how it is for now, and this is why I asked. Don’t have a crisis about life before we’re out of danger. Have your existential crisis after you are back home.”

Tadashi pulled himself back from the brink. With uncertainty in his voice, he said, “I… I would like water, and… if… you could provide… facilities—” He rapidly said, “I apologize for this disgusting—”

“I might as well take a shit, too,” Tiffany said, lightening the mood. Or, at least, trying to.

Tadashi just looked that much more mortified.

A [Stoneshape] to the side provided privacy. An Odin [Watershape]ing mists into liquid provided the water for Tadashi, both for drinking and for a wash basin. Tiffany cleaned herself out of sight of Tadashi with a quick [Cleanse]. Ezekiel was glad for that, and Tiffany gave a knowing nod; no need to rub in the fact that Tadashi would never be able to [Cleanse] himself ever again. The man was already mumbling about [Cleanse] and he couldn’t even wear conjured clothes...

But there were some untended clothes not too far away, weren’t there?

A quick check in at the bandit’s hideout, from afar at first, and then from inside, revealed that the Red Man and his accomplices were gone, the lead smoke had either dissipated or sunk out of the air, and the hideout itself had been turned from a ramshackle set of buildings and an open square, into a scraped-out canyon full of mist. The walls appeared as though they were clay, and someone had dug their fingers through the entire space, hollowing it out into a near-sphere with furrows everywhere, all going the same way.

Ezekiel still checked the place over, hoping for some clothes to give to Tadashi, but that fate wasn’t in the cards.

While that was happening, Tadashi cleaned himself with provided warm water then re-donned his spider-‘cotton’ blanket, then he loaded himself into the spiky wicker basket.

Nothing had bothered the five of them in the half hour it took to get to this point.

Odin had been scouting the eastern mountains while everything else had been going on, in preparation for the forward flight. Odin even turned solid as he scouted a little bit of the ways ahead, but nothing came out to greet him. He was only in the air for a short while, though. The journey to the barest bit of safety would take a few hours, at least, and across some of the most dangerous skies in the world.

With Tadashi in the basket, Ezekiel unveiled his next best idea.

A magenta Odin latched onto Paul, Tiffany, and Ezekiel’s backs. Those Odin expanded, becoming multiple pairs of giant wings extending over the shoulders of each of his people and himself. Since Julia was literally flying on wings out of the mountains, why not everyone?

A few Odin also latched onto the extra handholds of Tadashi’s basket, to support it if Julia needed to do something else. There were multiple redundancies in the plan to carry the Alchemist out of the mountains, and in the plans to combat the known monsters they would likely encounter. Hopefully those redundancies would be enough. For now, Julia, as a Primal Frost Owl, sat atop the basket like a parrot on a perch, waiting to fly away with that perch.

Tiffany tilted her head backward to see her new set of wings. Odin fluffed at the attention, a few small eyes appearing here and there, to look back at Tiffany. She smiled, and poked the feathers near an extra eyeball, eliciting guitar thrums from her new ‘wings’.

Paul reached back and touched his ‘right wing’, including everyone in the conversation as he sent, ‘This is different.’

‘Just for show, of course.’ Ezekiel smiled.

‘Too angelic, dad.’ Julia sent, ‘But I like it.’ She added, ‘Odin’s gonna have to provide some wind shear protection, yeah?’

‘Yes, and also help reduce weight and strain for you. They’re all in sunforms. And— Here.’

The Odins each cast small [Prismatic Ward]s either upon the clothes of their person, or upon their perch, and Julia’s perch, too. The Restful air would provide much needed stamina for the long journey.

‘I like it.’ Tiffany touched the solid light braced against her chest and torso, and the light that came up under her feet as she lifted her leg. She stepped onto the light, half a meter into the air. ‘Feels secure, but still loose enough to move.’

‘Hopefully!’ Ezekiel sent, ‘Let me know if it’s uncomfortable. Or. Actually. Let Odin know?’

Paul sent, ‘Let’s not experiment with telepathically contacting your [Familiar] and risk all that False Damage, please. We all have our own flight spells, anyway. If we fall, just don’t leave us behind.’

Tadashi watched, with rapt attention, from the tiny portholes of his basket.

‘Of course not. So!’ Ezekiel said aloud, “Here we go!”

Tadashi gasped, big, as he held onto the grab bars in his basket.

With a trill of violins, Odins raised into the sky, taking their cargo with them, giving Julia an easy way to take off, fast, from a bit higher than ‘ground level’. Julia cackled a little, obviously happy, as she unfolded her massive wings and her entire snow-white body glimmered with dark blue magics. She beat her wings, and they moved—

Tadashi screamed a little.

Julia slowed down; slowly, easily. In a moment, she simply hovered in the air, supported on her own light, as she peered down into the basket. “You okay, Tadashi?”

“I’m fine!” came the strangled cry of the alchemist. He righted himself, bracing his arms against the basket, saying, “My hand slipped from the handle! Sorry!”

“Then we go again!” Julia said, “Let me know if something is wrong!” She opened her wings and took off from midair, increasing her speed slower than the first time. “You okay?”

Ezekiel, Paul, and Tiffany, followed on magenta wings. They were all fine. Tadashi, though?

Tadashi called out, “I’m good!”

Julia chirped in happy owl sounds, as she flapped her silent wings and gained speed. Unoccupied Odins happily repeated her noises as they chased after her. For a brief moment, Ezekiel was simply along for the ride.

The dark tunnel was behind them. The deadly Red Man was out of sight. And they were flying over some of the most beautiful land Ezekiel had ever seen, with his daughter up ahead, and his people beside him.

And also: Flying never got old.

The full weight of the moment seemed to hit him as the world rushed under their feet, the mist ocean dropping away, the mountain-top islands becoming smaller, and smaller. This was dangerous, sure, monsters everywhere and all that, but it was also exhilarating. Yesterday had been Hunters. Today had been bandits and then a rescue from a swarm of monsters, and yet, the day had barely even begun.

They were still in danger, right this moment.

Ezekiel was still running [Hunter’s Instincts].

And yet…

Julia raced forward. Odin raced to catch her with all of his bodies, but she was faster than them by far, and wasn’t that a sight to see! Ezekiel had known that she would be better at flying than him, just as she was better at fighting, but to actually see his daughter surpass him never got old. She barely beat her wings, and the heavens flowed over her snow-white feathers faster than the light could move, for the light was being rather buffeting, at the moment. No real aerodynamics for this light. Not when they had a Tadashi to protect from the elements but without touching him.

Ezekiel smiled wide as they ascended, high into the sky, the wind barely touching them, the cold barely seeping into their armor. This was fun. And look at that land below! Majestic.

Julia flew faster and faster, into the eastern sky. Odin tried to keep up, but it was rather apparent that he could not. Julia kept pouring on the speed—

Tadashi appeared through the holes in the basket. He called out, his voice failing on the wind, but still heard because of [Hunter’s Instincts], “We are going too fast!”

Ezekiel spoke through the Odin on the basket, “Are you injured?”

“I am taking injury, yes! That’s a hundred Health so far!”

At that, the party slowed, greatly. Julia relaxed her flight. She hadn’t been jumbling him around, but without a way to heal except for naturally, every point of Health was precious defense that didn’t need to be wasted needlessly.

“Ach! Sorry about that, Tadashi,” Julia said through the light, near to Tadashi.

“Quite alright! Thanks for the rescue!”

Odins caught up to Julia. Tadashi relaxed into his basket.

A sudden bubble of blue light expanded from the mountaintop on the left—

And here came the expected attack from the expected Thunder Bird.

“Nope-nope-nope!” Ezekiel said, as he reacted.

The rest of the party followed, preparing for what was to come. They had been briefed on how Ezekiel wanted to handle this, and they agreed with his assessment.

The party stopped, midair.

Tadashi poked his head up, confusion writ large on his face, and then came dawning realization, and horror, as he saw the blue bubble growing on the mountaintop below.

Ezekiel set up his seven-part reaction, because he wasn’t sure what, exactly, would be the best defense against the sound-based attacks of the Thunder Birds; the main predator one needed to watch for when flying through the Tribulation Mountains.

Unoccupied Odin lightstepped into the air between the mountain and Tadashi and the party. The intervening space was a good five kilometers away, and though the Thunder Bird was nesting down there, the species also hunted and mated and lived high above; it was an even chance to get attacked from above or below, when traveling these skies.

[Airshape] took control of a section of air, making it Odin's own, while a [Prismatic Ward] of 6000 points of defense took control of another airy space. [Quick Wall]s covered another part of the sky, layered like the scales of a dragon. A [Normalize Aura] took control of another layer, behind all the rest, for Ezekiel had no idea if that would actually work against a large-scale sound-based attack. It probably would, but better safe than sorry. A [Discord Aura] took hold of the air beyond the [Normalize Aura], for that would surely work against the sound-based attack. The final line of defense was Ezekiel himself, lightstepping into the space between the attack and Tadashi, prepared to unleash a full sunform of his own. His [Animadversion] likely wouldn’t do much, since the attack of a Thunder Bird was spoken of as wholly physical, but he still had that silver shield strapped to his wrist. Hopefully the bird’s shockwave spell wouldn’t get that far—

Tiffany stepped right in front of Ezekiel. With a massive forward shield held in both of her hands, she cheerfully chided, “Let the tank tank, please! Mages always out of position, I swear.”

The bubble of blue light around the entire mountaintop island—

Super Large Area. Thunder Birds go big, it appears.

—rippled, all across its surface, building in power, in waves. The entire space became like an ocean’s surface, that then peaked in only one direction; the direction of the party. The cresting wave of the blue dome shifted like an eye moving in its socket as it took aim directly at Ezekiel and his people.

This was why the party had stopped flying forward; Unless they were going at speeds too fast for Tadashi to handle then the heavy ordinance of the Thunder Bird would have tracked them, anyway.

The entire blue eye blinked, the pupil tracking them as it sent out waves of concentrated power, cascading in the party’s direction.

Thunder roared.

[Airshape] was the closest spell to the shockwave, and that was utterly useless. The shockwave tore right through that flimsy excuse of a spell, and then continued right through the 6000 points of defense that was the [Prismatic Ward], popping that dense air like the shattering of a glass ornament. [Quick Wall]s held, but the shockwaves merely flowed around them, their power barely reduced by that defense.

As he watched the power of the Thunder Bird, Ezekiel was reminded of watching the Aerie explode, back in Ar’Kendrithyst, during Shadow’s Feast, except smaller, and more concentrated.

[Normalize Aura] turned shockwaves into something smaller, but still present.

Shockwaves struck the chaotic layer of [Discord Aura] from a nearby Odin, and died, completely.

The shockwaves never reached Tiffany, the party, [Animadversion], or a to-be-deployed sunform.

A few more seconds passed to the great shock of everyone present, as the spell continued on past the party.

Tiffany laughed a little, as she said, “Look at the size of that magic! Never seen anything like it!”

Ezekiel gave a good chuckle at that joke, while Julia gave a single, loud caw.

The blue bubble on the mountain island flickered and died.

Paul brought everyone back to the moment, shouting, “Let’s get going again before it recharges!”

Ezekiel laughed as the party resumed racing through the sky. “I can negate the Thunder Birds just fine!”

Tadashi’s head appeared in the portholes. “You didn’t know if you could?!”

“Don’t worry, good alchemist!” Ezekiel deployed his [Physical Aura] into the sky, but only as the barest bit of [Discord] about half a kilometer out, saying, “I made a new spell recently and it works better than I thought it would against Thunder. I’m always making new spells, though probably not as much as I could. Gotta study how they all work, first!”

Tadashi’s eyes went wide, and then he disappeared back into the basket. “Always new magics...”

“Ah. Shit,” Ezekiel whispered. He raced forward and called to Tadashi, “Sorry!”

A half-hearted wave came out of the basket.

Ezekiel tried, “Hey! You heard about that new Particular Magic, right? Maybe antirhine is a particular that you can extricate from the body! With alchemy! There’s a good lifelong goal for you.”

“… Yeah,” came Tadashi’s sad voice that tore on the wind.

Paul sent, ‘Really.’

‘What! I was circumspect.’

Paul mm’hmm’d at him.

Tiffany flew beside Ezekiel and shook her head a little, though she was still smiling from the thunder bird ‘fight’ and her joke of only a minute ago.

Julia’s head rotated all the way around to stare straight at her father, as she sent, ‘Particular Magic. Eh?’

Ezekiel smirked, as he sent to all of them, ‘This whole incognito-thing is just to be able to see the world as it actually is. We might have seen enough of the Highlands at this point, so I’m willing to give up this facade if necessary if it means helping someone. I don’t want to actually announce myself, though.’

Julia turned her eyes forward, and beat her wings, sending, ‘Ah. The ‘old wise man handing out swords in caves,’ shtick.’

‘Oh?’ Tiffany sent, ‘Is that a story from Earth? We have a similar one, but it’s about an old woman in a grotto handing out swords.’

‘I’m not that old!’ Ezekiel sent.

Julia ignored her father’s rejoinder, and exclaimed, ‘Ha! You tell yours first, then I’ll go next. We got a long ride and I could use a story.’ She looked down, then returned her eyes forward. ‘Looks like Tadashi trying to sort out something amongst himself, anyway. He’s shaking his hands at the air and mumbling to himself.’

A cause for concern?

“Tadashi?” Ezekiel flew closer, cheerfully asking, “Are you okay in there?”

“… How would you remove antirhine from the body?”

With a sudden seriousness in his voice, Ezekiel said, “I have no idea, but I would start with blood treatments. Maybe there’s a way to gradually weaken the amount of Antirhine in a person—”

The sky above and to the left, three-ish kilometers away, erupted in a kilometer-wide blue bubble. Waves crested on that surface, forming an eye that aimed at the party, releasing shockwaves in a torrent of physical power as the blue bubble collapsed inward, onto the sparking blue bird at the center. This time, the attack consolidated and came much faster, and the party never stopped moving forward. Just like he had been told, the Thunder Bird’s attack tracked them through the sky, spilling shockwaves across the moving party like it was was directing a laminar flow of breaking sound.

[Discord Aura] completely negated the attack.

They were a calm 500 meter center to a kilometers-wide flow of vibrating power.

What didn’t hit them kept on flowing, to the mountains below. Mist exploded. Rocks shook. But the attack had been mostly dissipated by then.

Ah. Hmm.

Ezekiel decided to extend his aura out even more and completely block the next attack, should something like this occur again. No need to accidentally send an attack at whoever might be below them. He sent an Odin back to where the bird’s attack struck to search for people—

Tadashi had poked his head up just in time to see the negation of the attack. “We’re too close and that one is hunting. It will attack us.”

Ezekiel had been prepared to ignore the bird, since the mountain-bound one had not giving chase, but—

This flying blue bird was sized to Julia; easily five meters tall, and twice that wide. It was shaped like an eagle. Lightning crackled across its feathers as it let out an ear-piercing screech, dive-bombing the party. The screech was completely negated, just as the shockwaves had been, but Ezekiel could tell what the bird had tried to do; it had tried to hit Julia, for whatever reason.

Maybe it didn’t like other birds?

When the bird was close enough and not seeming to want to change course, and with Tadashi screaming in the background that they were all dead, Ezekiel intercepted the bird with a lightstepping Odin that blasted the bird with a thousand mana [Slowing Bolt]. Not Ezekiel’s thousand mana; he needed his mana for the full escort. Odin’s thousand mana was more than enough.

A pink cloud-puff inexorably struck the speeding bird well before the bird could get anywhere near Julia and her wicker basket cargo.

Julia wordlessly adjusted her position with a silent flap of giant wings.

The Stopped thunder bird zipped right past the party.

It recovered itself into a Slow when it was well past the point of being a problem. With a single caw and a small blast of power aimed at the party, which was dissipated by the [Discord Aura], the thunder bird flew on. They weren’t monsters, after all, and animals tended to react to danger smarter than monsters. They knew when a meal was too big to be trifled with.

Tadashi had watched the Stopped bird fly past. He had stood in his basket, his face pressed to the port hole, watching the bird fly away in search of easier prey. And now, he sat back down, out of direct sight, but not out of lightsight.

Ezekiel flew next to the basket, but not too close, as he said, “As I was saying: Blood treatments to cure the Antirhine Elixir could—”

“Doesn’t work.” Tadashi spoke while out of direct view, “The Antirhine Elixir is not a simple case of Antirhine poisoning. The Elixir bonds to bone unless you get it out of a person before they’ve had time to digest and... I’ve had time to digest.”

Ezekiel listened, and then he tried, “How about blood treatments to get rid of all non-bonded antirhine, and then when all you got is what is in your bones, you might be able to cast through the aura over your stomach, for instance, since that might be far enough away from your bones.”

Tadashi shook his head, exasperated. “But... Eh.” And yet, there was something there in the glints of his eyes. “Eh. No. I mean… Maybe that would work… A little.” He shook his head. “No. The aura poisoning of Antirhine is very thorough.”

“Does it actually poison the aura? Does it make you have an Antirhine aura?”

“… No. That’s just what the effect is called.”

Ezekiel said, “You won’t know until you try, and it might not work, but maybe it could work at least a little. You won’t be able to [Cleanse], or take in healing magics, but you can still cast. Maybe.” Ezekiel said, “During any possible blood treatment you would have to pay special attention to infections. One of those would likely kill you well before you got anywhere close to being able to cast from your belly.”

Tadashi laughed, a sick sound, and said, “And I’d have to eat enough to regain a stomach, too!” He lamented, “Bright gods, but I am terrible at aura work.”

“Another thing to learn!” Ezekiel said, “I’m not that great at it myself, but there’s time.”

“That’s right…” He stepped up in the basket, saying, “You said you were here to learn from the Songstresses… but your spellwork seems to easily negate the Thunder Birds. Are you really here to learn from them?”

Ezekiel gave a genuine smile, as he said, “I know a few tricks and some of my magic resembles some of what I heard that they do, but I never had reason to come to the Highlands until events recently conspired to bring me and my retainers to Eralis. My hope is to return home, triumphant, with more than a few new insights into what I can already do.”

“… Yeah. That makes… Sense.” Tadashi glanced around, then sat down. He instantly stood right back up, and with strong eyes, he looked at Ezekiel, as he said, “I wish you good luck in your endeavors, and I thank you deeply for the rescue. Clan Diligent Scribe will most assuredly offer great recompense and I can even introduce you to some…” He paled. Softer, he said, “I could have introduced you at the Void Temple. But… I cannot go there anymore. Apologies. I… I don’t know what I’m good for, anymore.”

“We’ll get you home, Tadashi.” Ezekiel said, “Everything beyond that will happen when it happens.”

“… Thank you, Scion Ezekiel.”

Ezekiel asked, “Do you have a preference who you’re returned to? There are three names on the Quest: Elder Mirizo Star Song, Enforcer Sikali Song, and Elder Doniro Diligent Scribe.”

Tadashi’s eyes went wide. He sat down in his basket, saying, “Ah… Can I think for a while?”

“… Of course. I didn’t think it would be a big question, but by your reaction, I can tell that it is. Take your time.”

Tadashi gave no response. He just curled up into his spider silk comforter, wrapping himself tighter in his white-walled basket.

After a few minutes of flying at a relatively quick, but non-damaging pace, and every visible and known crisis seemingly dealt with, for now, Julia sent to the four of them, ‘What was the story you were going to say, Tiffany? About the person giving out swords?’

Tiffany’s thoughts took on the tone of a practiced bard, ‘We call her the Woman Of The Grotto, though that is but one of her many names. Sometimes she lives in a small hut in the lee of a large tree, or down a deep well. Other times she is the woman who is everyone’s aunt, who lives past a specific bend in the summer home’s game trails. Sometimes, she is not a woman at all. She is the one you go to for potions of fertility, or to find out where the monster lives…’

- - - -

They flew, fast enough, magenta wings of light and air carrying three of them to the east, and snow white wings carrying the other two. Julia’s powerful claws and her threads helped to keep Tadashi’s basket secure in her powerful grip.

The Alchemist quickly found enough of a comfort that everyone else soon found him asleep in his spider silk container, slumped into his comforter. He was exhausted, and no one could blame him; he was as thin as a rail with hints of bruises here and there on his pink skin. They had made plans to stop at a town Ezekiel had already scouted, and get Tadashi, and themselves, some good food with the little money they still had. They could likely buy Tadashi some real clothes, too, or at least some supplies that could be [Fabricate]d into decent clothes.

While they flew across misty mountain ranges, Tiffany spoke of legends and fact as though they were campfire tales, and she herself was a bard. She certainly showed off a knack for knowing history and culture, and the trip was better for it.

Time passed.

The [Prismatic Ward]s cast on clothes, or on top of Tadashi’s basket, helping to keep everyone’s Health and Mana high with its Restful air.

Thunder Birds occasionally turned their blue eyes toward the party, waking Tadashi with their rumbling, but then Ezekiel would deploy his [Physical Domain] and turn a terrible encounter into an easy passage. Except for that bird that tried to dive bomb Julia, none of the other flying Thunder Birds attempted to do so, once their flow of shockwaves met Ezekiel’s perfect defense.

(His Odin didn’t find anyone in the blast zone of that one spell he allowed to get by.)

The mist ended first.

Buffeting winds and easy outflows for the sea of mist allowed the full grandeur of the Tribulation Mountains to come into sight. The world dropped away another five kilometers before rising in front of them, causing them to fly higher, only for the world to drop away ten kilometers down, or in one case, twenty. And then the surface came back up, but never as high as it had been before. The largess of the mountain range began to lessen.

Still, they flew.

Skyscraping mountains became merely mountains, which then gave way to hills.

Rivers mirrored the passage of the party, winding through those mountains and hills to join into tributaries of the Wanzhi River. These rivers certainly had names, but whatever they were, Ezekiel did not know.

They found the village that Ezekiel aimed for.

And then they went past the target, and flew to a second village that was more of a minor city.

They did this because as soon as they had passed into the hill lands, a man claiming to be ‘Elder Doniro Diligent Scribe’ had sent to his group a certain message, and thus it was intercepted by Paul.

‘To the unknown people carrying my lost Alchemist: Come to this Border Clan city here, or you will be executed and your prize taken from you before you make it anywhere near Eralis.’

After they woke him up, Tadashi had been ambivalent about the change of plans, saying, “It’s for the best. Elder Doniro is a good man, and ending the Quest as soon as possible will prevent any possible interference from a third party.” With dignity, he said, “Thank you for the rescue, Scion Ezekiel Phoenix. With your skill and power you have delivered me from evil. Thank you.”

Ezekiel looked at the man, and saw behind the obvious mask. Tadashi was breaking inside and barely holding it together.

Ezekiel asked, “Do you mind if I check up on you in a few days?”

Tadashi allowed himself a small grin, as he said, “I would appreciate that. If they will not allow you into the Alluvial District of Eralis on your own name, then a message might be gotten to Diligent Scribe through the guards at the bridge. I am not sure what will happen to me, but I suspect I will be within Diligent Scribe’s Potion House for quite some time…” His brief cheer eroded, but he kept his stoic speech, and said, “I will be somewhere in the Alluvial District— Er. The Noble District, whatever the case. I look forward to seeing you again under better circumstances.”

“And I you.”

A moment later, Tadashi added, “I would keep up whatever Thunder negation you have running when meeting the Elder.”

“… Noted.”

- - - -

With magenta wings curling the air around them, three members of the party landed onto a land of bare, grey stone, outside of the unknown city. The fourth flapped her wings and came in for an easy landing, setting her precious cargo down upon its legs, and then steadying herself upon her perch atop the basket. With a similarly easy motion, she transformed into blue light, which stepped down onto the grey stone. As her temporary form receded, she was once again a young woman in peasant clothing, and dark blue armor. The rest of the party was similarly attired in their own armors of grey, blue, and bright magenta. Magenta Odins turned from wings to shoulder-riders, and while most of the party got one, two settled upon Ezekiel’s shoulders.

Odin was being rather good right now about only having two eyes; he knew this meeting was important.

On the other side of the field, not thirty meters away, stood the dozen people they were meeting. To the left and the right, and further away, stood even more people, all of which likely invited themselves to this meeting, as was the prerogative of powerful people. Most of the extras were likely Scions or young masters that Ezekiel had screwed out of the day’s Quest, who had come to see who, exactly, had fucked them over.

Some of their sneers were worn rather openly.

Ezekiel briefly wondered if he had fucked up somewhere along the way between his arrival in Eralis and this moment, here. But… Oh well.

Best walk in with full power active, and get it done as politely as possible. At least all of the people here looked to be somewhere between human and incani, with only a few which looked truly human, and a few which clearly swung the other way. There’d be no obvious Quiet War stuff going on here, which was kinda nice. 

And then he heard whispers of ‘adventurers’ and ‘upstarts’, which was cause for another kind of concern, while some of the gathered people were no doubt thinking of how best to jump the four of them and to take Tadashi—

The alchemist in question stepped out of his basket, and a blue box appeared.

--

Special Quest Complete!

As the leader of your party you may determine how to assign your <5> points by thinking at this message at any time.

--

Ah. Good. There’s one issue settled before it began. He dismissed the message, for now.

Everyone saw Ezekiel look to the air. They all knew what that meant. A few laughed, but some just grumbled, and others blipped away, not wishing to bother with whatever else was going to happen. In seconds, the battlefield was half as occupied as it had been. The people Ezekiel was delivering to, all remained, straight ahead.

They had been on the ground for ten seconds, so far. Tadashi walked forward, covered in his comforter like it was a robe without arms.

Ezekiel and his party walked behind him.

The four of them could have left! Right then and there; bug out before things got too hairy. It was an option. But it was the option of cowards.

Tadashi stood before his people, and spoke, “Greetings, Honored Elders.”

The older man in front of the reception party wore blue and black robes, while his skin and horns were a dull magenta, and his hair solid black. “Our wayward Alchemist returns to us. What have you to say regarding your negligence in getting captured?”

“I have no excuse, and can only thank you for the Quest to rescue me from the barbarians who had the audacity to attack the power of Eralis, and of Diligent Scribe. I will, of course, work to repay the 5 points that were spent on securing my recovery, Elder Doniro Diligent Scribe.” Tadashi bowed in the sunlight.

Elder Doniro narrowed his eyes at Tadashi. Then he raised his eyes, toward Ezekiel, flickering his sight to Tiffany, then Julia, then Paul. He returned to Tadashi, saying, “Rise, Alchemist Tadashi, and tell me about your appearance and your saviors.”

Tadashi rose. “I apologize for my appearance. My rescuers are highly competent, but they did not expect to find me, and we raced away from the site of my containment with all possible haste from several antirhine-based attacks. The rest of the journey was spent fleeing from the monsters of the skies.”

Several members of the audience scowled deeply, but at which part of Tadashi’s words, Ezekiel could only guess. Maybe they were jealous they missed out on the points? There was certainly some undercurrent of deepening distrust when Tadashi said, ‘did not expect to find me’, but the rest of the disdain he was seeing was likely due to jealousy.

A pair of people to the right of Elder Doniro were eyeing Ezekiel with a lot more barely-restrained bloodlust than he was comfortable with, though. One was a woman of pale skin in black armor, without her helmet on. The other was a tanned man with bright red robes. They stood together.

At Ezekiel’s gaze, the pair of people returned their own.

Ezekiel smirked, and gave a half-nod.

The woman in black smirked back, along with her partner in red. Their bloodlust became almost palpable.

… Ezekiel returned to watching the confrontation between Tadashi and Elder Doniro.

Tadashi stepped to the side, gesturing behind him to Ezekiel and his people, saying, “Scion Ezekiel Phoenix, his two retainers of Tiffany Phoenix, the orcol, Paul Phoenix, the dragonkin, and also his daughter, Julia Phoenix. I have only known them for the four hours since they found me.”

Elder Doniro gestured away, saying, “Welcome back to Eralis, Alchemist Tadashi. Loremaster Xue Star Song and Enforcer Sikali Star Song have prepared a sky boat for the rest of your journey back home. You will be questioned. Cooperate.”

The black armored woman and the red robed man gave a half nod to Tadashi. Far behind the greeting party stood what was likely the ‘sky boat’; a pale-wood medium-sized boat that was mostly flat, open space, but with a cabin in the center. The boat was intricately carved from stem to stern with red runes.

Tadashi acknowledged the red man and black woman, then turned to Ezekiel, and said, “Thank you, once again, Scion Ezekiel.”

“Good luck with your endeavors, Alchemist Tadashi. I’ll check up on you in a few days, if that is to your liking.”

“It is. Thank you.” Tadashi turned and walked to the side of his escorts, though he kept himself away from them, and they kept themselves away from him in turn.

Doniro turned his attention to Ezekiel. “Alchemist Tadashi called you a Scion, but you are no Scion I have ever seen. I have just now been informed that ‘Clan Phoenix’ does not exist in our records, either, except for our first entry which entered the Records Office just yesterday.”

A ripple of intrigue passed through the collected audience.

Ezekiel affected an easy attitude, which seemed to be the best course of action here, and said, “I was worried that my Clan would already have a record, for I would have no idea what it could have possibly said. I am glad to see that the Record Office has such tidy operations, though. I have been pleasantly surprised about your whole society down here, ever since we came here yesterday, and I like to be surprised in the ways I have been.”

“Oh?” Elder Doniro asked, “What has been the most surprising?”

“I know someone must have noticed by now, but I do have a Silver Star. I appreciate that if there’s to be war, that it’s not over such distasteful things such as prejudice and promises of experience.”

The black woman and her red man seemed to be reevaluating Ezekiel with every word he said, as did everyone else, but at his latest words, several people lost their scowls and gained some grins. Most of those grins were clearly of the ‘look at the country bumpkin’ kind. A few were truly appreciative, though.

Ezekiel continued, “I’m not sure, exactly, how you do it down here, but I am eager to learn. Which is why I came to the Highlands in the first place. I am interested in your magic. It was for this reason that I came to the Highlands with my retainers, and my daughter.”

Doniro’s mouth remained shut. Then he glanced to the side, toward an older woman of deep purple skin and bright white hair. She was obviously incani in a large way, but she had no horns. Doniro stepped back, but was he satisfied? Maybe.

As the woman stepped forward, the rest of the audience seemed to stand taller, or stiffer.

The woman named herself, “Elder Arilitilo Star Song. You may call me Elder Ari, if I may call you Ezekiel, Scion Phoenix.”

“Elder Ari. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“I thought I knew all the important Scions of the continent, but your presence is an anomaly. Your timing is suspect, as well.”

Ezekiel nodded, and spoke plainly, “Neither I nor my people had anything to do with Tadashi’s… anything. I did see the Quest this morning, but we decided against going for it unless the man happened to fall into our path. Which was exactly what transpired.”

Some of the people in the audience did not like that. One even called out about luck being too good.

Ezekiel asked, “Do you need me to speak under truthstone? I did see a lot of that at your Teleport Squares and with a few guards here and there. Can’t say I appreciate those things brought out at every occasion, but I understand the need for them in certain events, and especially when unknown powers rear their unexpected heads.”

Elder Ari pleasantly said, “There will be no need for that. I am satisfied. Feel free to contact me if you wish for another chat. We could even discuss magic. I was a Loremaster before I became an Elder, so I have had my hands in all sorts of specialties. What is your specialty?”

“Right now I am interested in matters of song and magic.”

“That would be appropriate, wouldn’t it.” Elder Ari stepped back, and said, “Welcome to Eralis, Ezekiel.”

Doniro said, “Then we are done here. Good day, Scion Pho—”

A voice came from the side. “You all may leave, but we are not done here.”

The speaker was a young man of white; white hair, skin, eyes, and horns. Even his clothes were white, save for black trim and black threadwork.

Elder Doniro and his party, each and every one of them, bowed slightly to the interrupter.

The Elders rapidly departed with Tadashi in tow. The red man and black woman guided them to the sky boat, which hovered in the air but a scant centimeter. There was already a stone set of temporary stairs leading upward, and into the cabin in the center. For half a minute, everyone who was not interested in the white boy’s words, watched as Tadashi walked up the stairs on his own and entered the cabin in the center of the sky boat. Everyone else lightly flew into position atop the craft. Soon enough, with its cargo secured and its complement of Elders and Enforcers standing by the railing, the sky boat ascended upward. It took off toward the east, toward Eralis.

The white boy did not like that Ezekiel was one of those who watched the departure, instead of him. He spat, “You dare to not give me your focus, Foreign Clansman?”

“Clansman? That was not how I was introduced.” Ezekiel gave the boy his focus, and then asked everyone else, “Is this boy the manner in which the rest of you compose yourself?”

It was the wrong thing to say, which is exactly why Ezekiel said it. The collective attention of the audience went as wide as their eyes.

The boy exclaimed in a suddenly nasal voice, “I am not a child!”

“In addition to your face and your words, the growth plates on your bones have yet to fuse. You are 19. Maybe less. You are a child.”

The white kid went silent as he stared; terribly angry.

And then Ezekiel felt embarrassed for himself.

The kid was a kid. Why did he engage with him on his level? It was unconscionably rude to say what he said, and also beneath Ezekiel. And yet… Every single face in the audience was silently weighing him against their own, deciding if he was trash, or useful. The very idea that he could be stronger than any of them did not register, because not a single one saw him for who he was, which was by design, yes, but also rude of them.

One should treat others how they wished themselves to be treated, after all.

But everyone here saw him as a toy. The boy had definitely seen Ezekiel as a toy… That was probably why Ezekiel had said what he said, and also why the boy had started his own confrontation. Was Ezekiel an easy target? He certainly wasn’t in his element.

… And honestly, maybe they were stronger than him, in certain ways.

And there was something to be said of giving deference to those whom other people gave deference.

The white kid likely had none of these thoughts in his head. He was simply angry.

A large, dark-skinned woman on the other side of the field stepped forward, wearing heavy violet armor, and said, “You can’t expect to be treated like a Scion in a foreign land without being run through your forms. That is all Scion Nightmare was doing. But you took your rebuttal too far.”

That was also true.

The violet woman continued, “Now, I will challenge you for the sake of honor.” She turned to Scion Nightmare, asking, “If it pleases High Clan Devouring Nightmare.”

Ah. A ‘High Clan’. Hmm.

Yeah. He should have taken the verbal beating from the kid, and not said another word. Oh well!

“Thank you, Scion Small Scare! It does please High Clan Devouring Nightmare!” Scion Nightmare declared, “A simple demonstration of the power of the Highlands should remind all foreigners who is in charge around here.” He sneered. “Or, Ezekiel can post another 5 point Quest and hand over what he stole from us.”

Scion Small Scare half-bowed to Scion Nightmare. Then she turned to Ezekiel, and waited.

Ezekiel was already happily saying, “Oh? Well. Sure! Why not. Pardon my ignorance, I didn’t know this was actually a shakedown—”

Several people openly laughed, but Scion Nightmare just scowled. Scion Small Scare held her ground, patient.

“—Let me just—” Ezekiel turned to his people. “Do any of you want the points, before I do this? Just say yes, and I will have a spar instead.”

“Kick her ass, dad!” Julia exclaimed.

There were a few odd looks between a few people at the word ‘dad’.

“Please refrain from lethal blows, Scion,” Paul said.

“Can I get in on a spar, too?” Tiffany happily asked, getting into the spirit of the moment.

A man in green heavy plate stepped forward, cheerfully saying, “Yes you can, fair giantess!”

Tiffany scowled behind her helmet. “I’m gonna have to pound you into the ground for that insult, you know.”

Scion Nightmare interrupted the laughter of the group and the green plate man, saying, “We have but one bout at the moment, and it is between Clansman Phoenix, and Scion Small Scare. Clear the battlefield.” He glared daggers at Ezekiel, saying, “When you lose, I want those points. Don’t try [Teleport]ing away, either.”

“Why would I want to [Teleport] away? That seems rather unsport—”

“Clansman Phoenix,” Scion Small Scare interrupted the verbal jousting for she clearly wanted less of that. “State your rules.”

Ezekiel said, “We are in your lands. What are the customary rules? I assume no lethal attacks, at least.” he waved back toward his people.

Julia, Paul, and Tiffany, each got the message; they moved backward, clearing space. At their movement, the rest of the gathered audience also moved backward ten more paces. Soon, it was just Scion Small Scare and Ezekiel, ten meters from one another.

Ezekiel said, “I also do not know your name.”

“You may call me Caina.” Caina said, “The rules are as follows: No attacks above the neck. We fight to first lost limb greater than a finger or toe, or first weapon planted in the heart; whichever comes first.”

Ezekiel tried to control his face from paling. He failed.

Scion Nightmare’s smile was a ragged, awful thing.

Sensing Ezekiel’s confusion, Caina asked, “Is this not how they do it where you are from?”

“We mostly fight monsters where I’m from so we try not to injure each other that much. How about we fight to first blood, instead?”

The crowd did not like that. Several scowled.

Caina asked, “Do you look down upon me? Or is this the trick of a Blood Mage? I do not appreciate the insult, either way.” She lost a fraction of her cool demeanor, as she upped the ante, saying, “Rest assured, we will heal any injuries received, but should you lose those rings on your fingers due to a lost hand, you will not be getting them back.”

Ezekiel pivoted his verbal position, saying, “Do I get those daggers hiding behind your back if I win? They are quite shiny.”

“I will not be using those in a spar.” Caina gently nodded, saying, “But since I have set my sights on your rings, then I will accept this additional wager.”

Best to get through this ordeal as fast as possible.

Ezekiel said, “Let us spar in the way of your land.”

Caina summoned a pair of identical violet longswords, one for each hand, as she said a prayer to someone, “Goddess guide me to greater heights.”

“Activate your [Defend]s!” Scion Nightmare shouted, “Begin!”

Ezekiel stood still, casting and also prepared to cast more from the Odins on his shoulders. Caina’s swords glinted with violet void as she stepped to the left—

Spells were cast, attacks were met head on. Anyone not looking would have missed it, and those who were looking also had trouble keeping up.

Just like that, the fight was over.

But understanding what had happened took a moment or seven.

Caina’s first sword had dipped down low and come up from below, chipping into the magenta Force breastplate covering Ezekiel’s stomach, breaking through that surface and digging into the woven Force underarmor below, but not getting far. His [Physical Domain] was wrapped tight around himself in order to prevent any Thunder-based attacks so he didn’t have his [Lodestar] active, but his [Greater Lightwalk] had still likely done its fair share of dulling her damage.

Due to that portion of Caina’s attack, his 110,000 point [Personal Ward] had dropped below half power.

Cain’s second sword had attempted to impale him directly through his breastplate, to his heart. Instead, that half of her [Dual Strike] landed upon a magenta shield made of reflective spikes. Power rebounded.

Caina went completely still as her attack struck into her entire self and blood poured from every gap of her armor, for she had seen the other magics that Ezekiel had done in that impossibly small instant between the start and the end of the battle, and she knew she would not survive moving in any manner save for a Spatial extraction. Her next Script Second was still a second away.

For molecular wire shimmered on the air like lazy spider webs frozen in time. She had passed through several of them to get to Ezekiel, breaking them, and parts of her own violet armor in the process. She was lucky he had used his lesser spellwork; [Hermetic Razor] was certainly not [Hermetic Shredder].

--

Hermetic Razor, instant, medium range, 500 mana

25 molecular wires stretch through a medium-sized space, at your command. One wire does a maximum of 100 points of damage before breaking.

--

The remaining wires now scratched against her violet armor as Caina held still. One gently sliced against her left forearm, where her armor had been broken entirely.

But the thing that truly stopped her from moving was the [Flying Striker] positioned at her back, over her heart, like a fragment of magenta Force waiting for the command to dive right in and eviscerate. Ezekiel gently moved the Force weapon to press into Caina’s violet armor, but no further.

Caina likely had room to continue her [Dual Strike], to press her weapons further into Ezekiel, but her momentum was gone.

And the fight over, of course.

She had a shadow-adjacent Elemental Body active, which Ezekiel guessed as a [Void Body], or something, and she could have escaped that way. But in the same way that Ezekiel did not deploy his full lightform because [Lightshape] exists and is a hard counter to that ability —without a [Domain] to back it up— Caina likely did not wish to open herself up to a full counter through the full use of her own Elemental Body.

The crowd was silent as the singular moment of battle came to an end, and everyone saw the various ways in which it could have gone much differently had either side aimed to kill.

With an easy grace despite the sword touching his gut, Ezekiel asked Caina, “May we call it a draw?”

Struggling to hold to her strength, and succeeding, Caina said, “Retract your insults to High Clan Devouring Nightmare.”

“They are retracted. I honestly do not know any of the people here, and that made me unwary and uncouth.” He looked over to Scion Nightmare, who was in clear shock, and said, “I apologize for calling you a child. That was beyond rude of me, and I should not have done that.”

“A— Apology accepted,” the white man said. “I command you both to end your hostilities. It is a draw. No further action is to be taken.”

Ezekiel did so. Molecular wires vanished. His [Flying Striker] returned to his side as he stepped away from Caina. Her swords remained where they were for a brief moment, then she dismissed them as she righted herself.

Ezekiel gave a small bow. “Thank you for your instruction. You were incredibly fast. I am impressed.”

Caina glowed with a violet light and the little grimace she allowed herself faded with each passing heartbeat. She stepped backward. “Your spells are more potent than they appear. Thank you for the spar.”

Ezekiel said, “I am reminded that weapons can do quite a lot. That was at least a hundred thousand points of damage even with my mitigation, was it not?”

After a moment of consideration of her opponent, Caina said, “I am reminded that the variation of magic is never ending.” She acknowledged him, “Scion Phoenix.”

“Scion Small Scare.” Ezekiel turned and asked everyone, “So what happens now? Drinking and feasting and talk of nothing important? Or shall I and my party depart and find our own sustenance?” He added, “And if anyone happens to know a good tailor, I could use one. I arrived in the Highlands without much to my name, but I am willing to work for it.”

Caina looked to Scion Nightmare, who stared at Ezekiel with something in his eyes between wonder and contempt. The whole congregation seemed to wait on the white man’s words.

Scion Nightmare suddenly recalled where he was, as he said, “Treat our fair nation properly, and it shall treat you properly in return, Scion Phoenix.”

Ezekiel bowed, then raised his head.

Scion Nightmare and Scion Caina Small Scare both blipped away under their own power. The rest of the audience rapidly began departing as well. No one here used anyone else as a [Teleport] buddy, it seemed. The green-armored man saluted Tiffany with a fist planted over his shoulder and a smile on his face, before flickering green and vanishing.

Soon enough, the only people standing on the grey rock were those of Ezekiel’s party.

He turned to his people, and said, “That went better than I thought it would!” He almost conjured a chair because he felt a great need to sit down, but he did not. [Witness] was a spell that existed, after all.

Julia stepped to his side and tapped him with a dark blue hand, worry in her eyes as she quietly asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

It was true. He would be fine.

Julia eyed him for a moment, then accepted his words. She glanced toward where her father had almost been skewered right in front of her, her heart still beating hard. She asked, “What sort of attack was that?”

“I’m okay, Julia.”

“… I know.” Julia sighed. “I would have liked a calmer introduction to the Highlands.”

“Me too.” Ezekiel smiled, then said, “Cania’s [Dual Strike] was Elemental Void. I think her Elemental Body was of the Void, too. Her attack drew me into her swords just as much as she tried to plunge those swords into my torso. Void does that; it creates openings that allow two things to easily come together.” He added, “Well… That’s one of the things Void does.”

“I haven’t worked with Void much, yet.” Julia cracked a smile, saying, “So? Clan ‘Small Scare’, eh?”

“Oh yes! Aptly named.” Ezekiel touched his breastplate, where Cania’s sword had chipped past the exterior layer. “My heart beat hard, for sure.” He looked to Paul, asking an unsaid question.

Paul sent, ‘Surprisingly, none of them suspect anything that is close to the mark, which could be a problem in an entirely expected direction. I can’t really talk about it, though, since there’s no immediate danger to your life.’

‘That’s fine, Paul. Thank you.’

Ezekiel breathed deep, savoring the moment. There was just something about being in life or death danger that was… kinda fun. If nothing else came from this, then he at least understood his daughter a bit more. Julia certainly looked happy for the moment.

Ezekiel asked, “Any of you want these points, before we find some food and clothes?”

The atmosphere of danger seemed to evaporate, even more.

Julia looked to Paul, then up, to Tiffany. Paul looked from Tiffany to Julia. Tiffany stared down at both of them.

Paul suggested, “Wizard’s Towers? One win, one point?”

Tiffany and Julia both scoffed.

Julia said, “And have you get them all? No! How about some duels, instead?”

“No.” Tiffany laughed.

Paul said, “No way! Then you’d get them all.”

“That’s not a hundred percent certain.”

“One point each and then we flip some coins for the other two,” Tiffany suggested.

Julia said, “Eh. Fair.”

“Fair and fine,” Paul said.

Ezekiel instantly handed out three points, then tested the waters, “And two for me!”

Tiffany mocked, “What! You hardly did anything at all!”

Ezekiel erupted into laughter.