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With his senses unencumbered by illusions, and with Kydyr seemingly content to not instantly attack, Erick took in the magnificence of the dragon’s house and the dragon himself. Or rather, what was left of that magnificence after it was covered by a hoard of books. An obscene number of books filled every available space, most of them piled upon defunct organization systems like shelves and wooden boxes. The next room over was a dining room and kitchen space that was filled with books; tomes of all sorts layered upon the table and chair, and spilled out of the sinks. They piled in the cooling boxes, all of which looked as though they had not been used for their original purposes in a long time. Bedrooms were filled with books. The library —both the one on the first floor and the two on the second floor— were absolutely chock full from floor to ceiling, with absolutely no place to stand in any of them. Bathrooms had their plumbing pinched off so that water couldn’t come up from the cistern down below and ruin the literature.

This place was clearly meant for non-metal, fleshy-habitation, even though Kydyr was a bismuth wrought. With these few clues Erick understood that Kydyr had owned this house for a long, long time, but his transition to dragon was a rather recent occurrence. ‘Recent’, meaning sometime in the last few hundred years, or something like that.

Everything Erick saw hinted at a complete shut-in who was deeply incapable of interacting with the outside world like he had in the past. But Kydyr had always been a bit of a shut-in, focused on defense and avoiding battle, and interaction.

The walls of the mansion were a meter thick and unadorned, like the walls of a bunker, and lined with multitudes of runic webs, like a Faraday cage stuck inside concrete. The wardlights up above were utilitarian things, strung around the edges of the space and lighting up the center, but nothing more than that. The plumbing in the bathrooms and the kitchen, before it had been sealed off, went down into a sealed cistern where it looked like it could get recycled on the daily, but there was no water system for taking in more outside water. There were no windows. There wasn’t even a front door. If there had been a front door then it was long gone.

But all that just informed Erick who Kydyr was, now that the illusions were gone. Why had they broken, though? Because of a single conjured bird? It had to be, for that conjured bird lay tipped on its side, in a space filled with concentric circles of broken tile. At least two piles of books had been shoved to the side in the casting, which also somehow broke the Faraday cage of runic webs located below the tile, and for three meters in every direction. It was a small break, but somehow that break had propagated across the entirety of the web. Many tangled nodes inside the web were gone, like the centimeter-thick platinum rods had somehow burned away without leaving residue, or melted platinum.

Erick had no idea how his spellwork had done that, but all signs pointed to this being his fault.

Dragon Kydyr certainly seemed to think so. The bismuth dragon curled tightly around one of the larger piles of books, bunching and stressing as his tail flicked at the ground, breaking more tiles. His white claws tore at the ground as he snarled.

Erick hadn’t known that wrought could be dragons, but there were many ways to explain what he was seeing. Dragon Essence was easily transferred and grown, as it almost had done inside Jane. The other answer was that Kydyr was a natural born dragon, though Erick suspected this was not the case. There were likely other answers, but Erick didn’t know them, and whatever the truth was would have to wait to be answered.

“What did you DO!” Dragon Kydyr shouted, heat and wind billowing out of his open maw with every angry word, flowing directly over Erick. His breath smelled like metal.

Erick gestured to the bird doll on the ground between them, saying, “I made the doll with feathers this time.” He glanced at the blue box that hovered in his field of view. “And I think I got the good version of the spell; [Fairy Item].”

--

Fairy Item, instant, medium range, 250 + Variable

Instantiate a non-magical item of up to medium size into reality. Unreal control. Lasts until you decide otherwise.

--

Kydyr jerked back, his body curling inward, sending books tumbling to the ground as his mouth did a jumble. He had ten different things he wanted to say and had no idea which was best, or what question he wanted to ask first.

In that confusion, Erick checked out his created item with a few Sights from his Ophiel. The bird looked completely non-magical; mundane in every way. Surprising, but not too surprising. He had gone deep into the mana to pull his magic out of it, and looking back on the previous day, when he met Aisha, her mention of Elemental Fae made a lot more sense.

Had he been trying for Elemental Fae? Not exactly. Not purposely.

But that’s what had happened.

Erick said to Kydyr, “Aisha just told me that Elemental Fae was a thing, too; one of the houses of Ar’Cosmos, even. I didn’t realize this was an option until halfway through the cast.” He frowned at Kydyr, and tried to lighten the mood, “You didn’t even think this was possible, either, did you? Not telling me about this and then letting me go ahead and do it? That’s pretty reckless of you.”

Kydyr centered himself around a whole new plume of anger, saying, “Reckless! Of me!?”

“Yeah.” Erick said, “Spatial Magic comes with a bunch of warnings. What the shit was this, Kydyr? How did I break your runic web?”

Kydyr’s voice vibrated the house, “YOU’RE THE ONE USING FAE MAGIC! YOU SHOULD KNOW!”

Okay. Maybe this was too serious to make fun of.

Erick asked, “Fae Magic breaks things?”

Kydyr froze. Then he erupted again, “Gods Above! Get into the kitchen and stay there while I fix my web.” He advanced on Erick, saying, “MOVE.”

Erick stepped lively toward the kitchen with Ophiel fluttering to catch up.

Kydyr whipped his tail around and smashed it down onto the [Fairy Item] bird. The air clanged. The ground broke. The bird just expanded out on both sides of the tail, like a water balloon, and when Kydyr’s tail bounced upward, the bird bounced away. Kydyr scowled, then slapped the thing at the kitchen entrance, saying, “And take your blasted bird with you!”

Erick caught the bird and kept right on walking toward the kitchen.

Once inside the kitchen, where there was absolutely nowhere to sit and very little room to walk, he—

He almost cast [Fairy Item] again, to conjure a chair. This seemed like a bad idea, though, considering what had just happened. He almost called out to Kydyr to ask if it was okay to use the spell again, but this, too, seemed like a bad idea. The dragon man was very angry. So Erick just stood there with his conjured bird in his hand, watching the master of the house fume and stomp.

Kydyr tore at the floor of the main room, expertly carving down to where the runic web lay, and no deeper. The problematic space extended from Erick’s casting point to three meters in every direction, with most of the runic web there completely obliterated. The problem was much larger than just that one area, though. Erick glanced around the whole of the house and saw breaks in the web here and there, at least one every three meters, and sometimes a lot more than that. At least a thousand breaks, all over the place, with smaller twistings here and there in the rest of the web. It might be an easier fix than expected, though, for the runes inside the metal were different from the usual complexity Erick saw in other places. Almost the whole web was inscribed with a simple repeating pattern of… Spells Erick didn’t know yet.

A few of the runic letters and orders were simple to understand, forming the spell [Concealment], if Erick was reading that right; it was a combination of what should form [Mystical Item] and the rather standard rune for [Invisibility], linked together with scratches in the platinum. Some other spell formed another large chunk of repeating runic letters upon the web, which seemed to be [Mystical Ward]… And some other combination of runic lines. Maybe it looped back into the runes for [Concealment]? Anyway, the runic web was complicated, and yet simple, and that meant that this wasn’t the whole system. There was something missing...

Ah.

The burned out parts. Erick suspected they were some sort of Fae Magic runes—

Kydyr shouted, “I need platinum! Erick! Go get me some! NOW.”

Erick called back, “You mean you don’t have [Duplicate] like all the other ancient wrought? I don’t want to call you a liar, Kydyr… But.”

“… Blast you.”

Kydyr conjured a small rainbow [Ward] and then he started copying bits of platinum inside that obviously-Restful space, making magical platinum to use in the web. With some [Telekinesis] or other such spells, Kydyr began magically laying down new lines of platinum, to repair the broken web. Once the web was whole, a white talon on his left hand lit with rainbow brilliance. Erick wondered why he had white talons while all the rest of him was rainbow bismuth. An affectation, perhaps—

“Dismiss that bird!” Kydyr leveled a glare toward the kitchen.

“Tell me why.”

“Fae Magic interferes with Fae Magic under the Script.”

Erick dismissed the bird. “Okay. We can continue the lesson when you’re less panicked.”

Kydyr started huffing with small laughter, talking about how yes, they would be continuing the lesson, just you wait, as he dipped his glowing-rainbow talon into the platinum, inscribing runes into the fresh metal. Despite, at his scale, resembling a human calligrapher working on a trail of rice grains, Kydyr’s talon swept through the runic web like he was a CNC milling machine; expertly, and with no wasted movement, even with the tight confines of the medium.

Just like Erick had guessed, Kydyr was inscribing some new rune that he hadn’t ever seen before, but from context clues, he expected it to be the rune for ‘Fae’ or maybe ‘Fairy’. The exact size of that rune matched the exact size of the smallest burned-out parts of the rest of the rest of the runic web, too, so that solved what had happened there.

Erick’s Fae spell had destroyed Kydyr’s Fae spell. Why, though? Was Erick’s spell more powerful than Kydyr’s? He didn’t believe so. There was something else happening there, and Erick hoped it wasn’t his Wizardry.

He’d find out, anyway.

Three minutes later, Kydyr had fixed most of the destruction Erick’s first cast of Fae Magic had caused. He cast a spell into the Fae runes—

The house blinked away and a sparse field of moss returned—

The book-filled house came back. The runic web sparked and broke.

“Blast it all!” Kydyr shouted, “Erick! Find me the largest breaks!”

Erick did so, taking less than a second to move two sunform Ophiel back into the house, and then ten more seconds to highlight with magenta lightwards where the largest breaks were inside the walls.

Kydyr raised his face, the whiskers beside his maw flicking out as he scowled at the air all around him. “Blast it all. That’s a lot. Dig down to the webs, Erick; prep the spaces.”

Easy enough to do. Sunform Ophiels began hammering into the walls, chipping away at thick stone to get to the broken webs underneath; despite the main function of the runic web being gone, it still had various Shaping protections, along with anti-[Scry] and other anti-detection spells. While he did that, Kydyr started moving around the house like a 20 meter long rainbow snake, prowling from magenta lightward to lightward, finding problems and filling them in with new platinum and a quick runic inscription.

Fifteen minutes later. Kydyr fixed the tenth break, adding in more Fae Magic to the runic web—

The house flickered invisible and the field of grassy moss returned, but Erick could already tell that something intrinsic part of the runic web was missing; his feet were firmly planted upon invisible stone, about a meter above the actual ground. He tapped the invisible floor with his foot, testing the [Concealment] spell; or at least he was pretty sure it was [Concealment]. The rest of the house was the same, with every single inanimate object invisible, yet not intangible. Erick moved his foot to the side and touched a stack of books. Some invisible thing fell over.

Kydyr was already aware of the problem, yet he was upstairs. His front half was inside a bedroom on the second floor, while his long body curled down the hallway. The bismuth dragon held there ‘midair’, mumbling to himself and looking like he had fucked up somewhere.

“Need some help?” Erick asked.

Kydyr shouted back at him, “NO. Stay there. Don’t knock over my books. I have a system!”

“Because there’s a system to the books,” Erick deadpanned.

“THERE IS!”

“I’m sorry for this,” Erick said, honestly. “I’ll make it up to you, as long as I actually caused this.”

Kydyr whipped his head toward Erick, scowling. But his scowl turned into a simple frown, and his hatred left him, like a weight too heavy to maintain. He turned back to the wall he had been working on and pressed a rainbow talon into the runic web, severing—

Suddenly, the house returned. Visual sight on Kydyr vanished, except for the tip of his tail still sticking out into the main room ahead. Erick still had him in his mana sense, though.

Kydyr moved toward the next break in the web.

Erick waited for the dragon to speak.

He had to wait a few minutes.

As Kydyr fixed a particularly large break, yet with 221 remaining, he said, “If I had thought you capable of Fae Magic I would have said something. This is my own damned fault. You’re on the Path, and—” He huffed. “Apparently Aisha spoke to you about Fae Magic right before you came here, but even that is just the crit to the [Strike]. Going after [Gate] means you probably know all about Ar’Cosmos, or at least you’ve been made aware of that location. And now you know of the Houses of Ar’Cosmos. Death, Carnage, and bah— Fae! Fucking Fae.” Kydyr huffed loudly, then went silent as he focused on repairing the runic webs that Erick had dug out.

Erick picked up the books he had knocked over and placed them back how they were.

Kydyr watched him as he did this; not overtly, but he had stopped working while Erick’s hands were on the books. After Erick removed his hands, Kydyr resumed his work.

Erick decided to get the sensitive questions out of the way, first. “Are you a born dragon, or were you poisoned by Dragon Essence and you couldn’t get rid of it?”

“Neither.” Kydyr turned his head to stare at Erick through the walls, snipping, “Are you still human with a question mark? Or did you finally fall in some direction?”

“I fell in a direction.” Erick said, “Rozeta helped.”

Kydyr froze, staring heavily at nothing. And then he turned and went to the next runic break, moving like a snake weaving through the air even though his feet were firmly planted on the stone floor.

After fixing another two spots, Kydyr started on the third, saying, “I purposefully went and gained Dragon Essence in a failed bid by Stratagold to infiltrate Ar’Cosmos and take it down from the inside. We got most of the way, but… Fae Magic cast by a true fae inside their own place of power is almost as potent as Wizardry. Fae can’t do nearly as much as a Wizard, mind you, but they can do certain things very well, and one of those things is cruel and unusual punishment through illusions made real; Fae Magic. The Matriarch of House Fairy discovered us halfway through the plan and took great fun in dismantling our entire operation. She twisted our Dragon Essence, Sealing it, leaving us with these bodies, but weak to any other dragon. It’s a common punishment which almost always results in the afflicted dying, because the whole house goes on a Hunt when someone is Sealed.” Kydyr said, “I’m the only one of my team left, and only because I managed to make it back to Veird, proper, and Fae Magic breaks other Fae Magic here on Veird… This isn’t how Fae Magic works inside Ar’Cosmos. I had thought I had prepared well enough to counter her, but... All magic works differently in there, and there is no true preparation to be had against True Fae.”

Erick listened, and focused on one of the many things Kydyr had just revealed, asking, “The Script fully goes away inside Ar’Cosmos, yes?”

“Correct. Unless you can manually cast I would not brave that land, especially since you’ve touched upon Fae Magic. If you’re lucky you won’t meet the actual leader of House Fairy, but the current Matriarch, Illustrious Moon, is almost as dangerous. The actual leader pretends to be whoever she has to be to lure men to their deaths, but her name is… You can’t say her name, for she might hear. So I will lay down a clue, and you can guess. Her name is the name of the House she holds dear, and those three things in the sky that oppress with—” Kydyr stopped. “Ah…” He glanced around. “That was almost too much. I started rhyming there. Uh. Don’t— Hmmm.”

There was a lot to unpack in that bit of occurrence right there, too, from the fact that rhyming was a warning sign of attracting the attention of higher powers, to the fact that Kydyr called Hell, Celes, and the Silver Star straight up ‘oppressors’...

Erick picked out the important part, for now. Don’t say ‘Fairy Moon’. Lesson learned.

Kydyr continued, “The stronger you are, the easier it is to attract the attention of the fae, so don’t… Don’t do that.” Kydyr took a deep breath, then continued, “But you’ll likely have to go to Ar’Cosmos to finish [Gate]. Most people end up there somewhere near the end of their path, though they often hear about the place rather early.”

“Is there a way to detect when you’re exposed to Fae Magic?”

“Yes.” Kydyr said, “It’s rather simple, too. Don’t do it now, for I won’t have you testing my web yet, but when you’re outside, make a small bracelet or something and then wear it. If it breaks then you’ll know someone cast Fae Magic nearby. My runic web should have been able to withstand your spellwork, but the act of a stranger casting Fae Magic inside the web was… Apparently an unexpected vulnerability.”

Erick considered his new spell, then asked, “Is there a way to do this runic web thing without Fae Magic? I’m pretty sure I do not want to have this sort of catastrophe happen every time someone casts this specific kind of magic near my future Network.”

Kydyr frowned as he continued to enact repairs all around. “Keep the spell. I can teach you to safeguard against this particular problem…” He scowled. “This would be a lot more convincing if the evidence of my failure wasn’t all around.” On his way to the next break, he said, “What happened here is something I should have expected, and it ties deeply into what Illusion and Fae Magic— How all magic used to be, actually. I will explain the nuances between Illusion Magic and Fae Magic, and start at the beginning.

“Before the Script, certain magics were excellent against other certain magics, like using Water against Fire magics, or using Stone in pretty much all of your static, point defenses. Solid Stone Magic used to be as strong as adamantium is today. This is not the case anymore.

“Now, under the Script, all magic interacts with other magic based on pretty normal, balanced rules. The damage number listed inside the blue box of [Force Bolt] will produce a Bolt that takes off exactly that much ‘health’ from a [Force Wall], or from your own Health. Physical spells like your own Particle Magic act as physical damage, which is closer to using a sword against a defense, and is therefore, usually, stronger than using other types of magic. Physical things are not mana, so therefore they are not fully governed by the Script.

“Pre-Script, illusion-versus-viewer worked based on interaction and disbelief. This remains the same, mostly, but now all illusionwork under the Script usually has some sort of Health-number to represent the level of interaction an illusion can withstand. This is to say nothing of someone just looking at a poorly-made illusion and going ‘Yeah, that’s not real’; that can still happen if you make a shitty illusion. Back before the Script, though, you used to be able to simply disbelieve magic, and therefore it would not work on you. Illusion, in particular, was very weak to this sort of defense… From what I’ve read.

“Pre-Script, Elemental Fae stood above illusionwork as the pinnacle of false reality. It was simply the best way to fool others, and even other practitioners of Fae Magic, though it operated in arcane and sometimes odd directions; soft power rules like hospitality, for instance. It still does, actually, but not nearly as much as it used to. You could not simply disbelieve Fae Magic in the Old Cosmology. If you didn’t operate around its self-imposed rules, you quite often simply died. Or worse. Pre-Script, Fae Magic always won out over illusions, too. An illusionist going up against a fae was asking to be killed.

“Pre-Script, illusion-versus-illusion was a messy ordeal, with the higher mana-cost illusion always winning out over the lesser-cost illusion.

“These days, illusion-versus-illusion has none of that. Illusions have no special interactions with other illusions unless you count ‘casting the same spell over another spell’, which I do not count.

“But! Under the Script, Elemental Fae retains this ability to break lesser illusionwork. Elemental Fae always wins out over Elemental Illusion, breaking all lesser illusions it comes into contact with.”

“Under the Script, Elemental Fae versus Elemental Fae has also been standardized, and that standardization broke the power of practically all the fae, all at once. When Fae Magic is exposed to other Fae Magic, the newest Fae spell always wins out over the older spell. BUT. It’s usually a one-per-one reaction.” Kydyr had fixed ten breaks in the web but kept right on going, speaking all the while. “This existing runework has thousands of Elemental Fae spells inside, so therefore, your spell should only have broken one instance of my runic web. My runic web should have been able to handle the single cast of your spell.” He sighed.

He continued, “But Fae Magic is fucked up, and it retains some of its otherworldly power even though its true power is long gone… So I don’t know what happened, exactly. If you should cast [Fairy Item] again this shouldn’t happen again, but I’m not repairing this a second time today. When I fix this we will be doing the rest of your lessons...” His voice filled with dread. “On the lawn outside.” Kydyr said, “Also, since you have a Fae spell that you can cast and attach to your wrist, you should keep this spell on you and active at all times. It will break all illusions cast on you, and when it breaks, you will know that someone else is casting Fae Magic nearby.”

All of that was very interesting, but Erick had to ask, “Why is the lawn bad?”

“Because that Flowery Murderess who I will not name and you will not either has been looking for me for a long time and I don’t take chances anymore. The lawn is protected, too, but not as much as the house. It should be fine.” Kydyr declared, “I’m going to teach you everything you need to know to make a runic web and you will protect me if that woman shows and then I will be able to survive long enough to escape and you will likely never see me again! Rozeta willing—” He flinched. He whispered, “Fuck. You’re on the Path. I shouldn’t have said that. Ignore that.” He spoke up, “Uh. I’ll see you tomorrow… No…” He went back to fixing breaks in the line, mumbling, “Is that any better? I don’t know if that’s better or not...”

Erick brought Kydyr back to the moment, asking, “How does [True Sight] interact with illusionwork?”

He already sort-of knew the answer; he hadn’t seen any of this reality all around him when the runic web was working. So obviously Kydyr’s illusions were better than average. Probably Fae Magic at work.

Erick already had a lot of experience with normal illusionwork, in the form of seeing through the [Invisibility] spells that monsters or people sometimes used. Terror Peaks soldiers tried to hide from Ophiel by conjuring tree branches to lay under, or to hide within conjured, hollow boulders. [True Sight] saw through all of those, showing all magical effects as magic by transforming Erick’s perception of those magical effects into barely-there glass shells. [True Sight] went a step further than that, too. When using [True Sight] in battle, almost all magic appeared as thin-glass facsimiles of itself. Sometimes, though, an enemy would use those larger, flashier attacks to hide a knife, or a dense Particle Spell, or some other sort of real danger inside the larger cover.

[True Sight] didn’t see through Erick’s own [Sealed Privacy Ward], though. In that case, all [True Sight] saw was a large, opaque white bubble.

Kydyr said, “[True Sight] cuts through 90% of all illusionwork like it isn’t even there, so this is a great spell to run almost all the time, if you can. Almost no one prepares against it, either, but for runic web purposes, you must be able to guard against this spell. The best way to block [True Sight] is with anti-[True Sight] runic webs, and spellwork specifically shifted to guard against that vulnerability. The second best way is to use Fae Magic, which is simply immune to [True Sight]. If you use Fae Magic too extensively, though, you might run into the few Fae Magic users out there and be totally fucked if they get the drop on you… But that’s true of almost every high-level encounter between competent people.” Kydyr moved to the next break in the web, as he said, “You need to have some amount of Fae Magic if you want to make a truly robust defense system… Which would be more impressive to say if you hadn’t broken my defense system… But this too, is a lesson; one I must take in myself when I go about retrofitting all of this web over the next few days. You must limit your use of Fae Magic, because it is very easy for another Fae user to break your stuff simply by casting their own.”

“… Again. Apologies.”

Kydyr sighed. “Not your fault. This is my fault. And it won’t happen again.” The man slithered to the other side of the house and began working on several larger nodes in the web, asking, “Any other overview questions? It’ll take ten more minutes to fix this.”

Erick did have at least one more. He started at the top, “What about using Elemental Illusion to work through a physical process faster? I’ve used [Mysticalshape] to make particles behave well to become the proper result I desired without making toxic byproducts. Is there some way to do that better? Or did I do that well?”

“Ah. Ohhh...” Kydyr inscribed a long series of runes as he said, “Sounds like you did that about as well as anyone could. Using Illusion to skip several steps and to arrive at a clean outcome of a natural process is a niche use of this magic, but only because magic usually doesn’t produce solid results. I suppose Particle Magic and Illusion Magic would have a lot of possible crossing points.” Kydyr said, “Good job.”

“Where does Fae Magic fit into this phenomenon?”

“It doesn’t. Fae Magic is generally better at doing illusionwork than Elemental Illusion, but it directly breaks down when exposed to other Fae Magic. Any particulate made with Elemental Fae would break down if exposed to the Fae Magic of another.” Kydyr said, “The only way to properly use Elemental Fae is to—” He frowned. “Is to soak an area in your particular Elemental Fae magic, and then when someone else uses Elemental Fae, your area will remain… Hmm. Stable.”

“Or at least it should,” Erick added.

“It should have!” Kydyr said, and then he sighed as he inscribed a rune and cast a spell into the metal—

The house flickered, then vanished completely. Erick dropped a centimeter as the floor fell out from under him, but he maintained his height with his sunform. Kydyr was already back to being a bismuth owl shifter who hung in the air like a man flying. The previous property reappeared, but the house was gone and the tree was missing. The landscaping was nonexistent, with nothing more than a short white wall denoting the outer edge of the property and a ground that was layered with moss. The small farm space was still there, though it would need some replanting.

Mists swirled beyond the property, like they usually did.

“Success!” Kydyr said, spinning around and looking at everything for a moment. He dropped to the ground, saying, “That’s that! Two choices, Erick. We can stay here and you can refrain from touching Elemental Fae, or we can move to somewhere else and work on some Fae Magic.”

“Is [Fairy Item] good enough to replicate this—” Erick touched the air around waist-height, where the floor had been, asking. “— concealment and intangibility? What’s the plan for the full suite of spells for a runic web?”

Kydyr nodded, saying, “[Fairy House] is the primary spell that hides this house and makes it act as it does. [Fairy House] has certain protections against other Fae Magic which is why you shouldn’t have been able to break my house, but whatever. My Domain is not actually Fae-based, but it works well enough—” He paused. He said, “Perhaps your own Light Domain when combined with Fae Magic is what broke my Illusion Domain… Hmm.” Kydyr decided, “Whatever!” He added, “To get [Fairy House], you take [Fairy Item] or [Fairy Force] and add in [Concealment] and [Intangibility], depending on if you want a small, nice house, or a large, expansive but cheap-looking house. This [Fairy House] was made with [Fairy Item], and the actual name of the spell is [Fairy Cottage]. The other one would be [Fairy Mansion].

“If you want to work on Fae Magic we will be moving to a second location, but if you can refrain from this, then we can remain here and continue working as we should have before this interruption. So can you do that? Refrain from touching Elemental Fae?”

“… Probably?” Erick shrugged. He could simply leave out his Permanency spellwork and Elemental Fae would simply not happen.

Kydyr did not look convinced. He moved on, anyway, saying, “You also need to make [Illusionary Force]. With [Illusionary Force], [Concealment], and [Intangibility], you will be able to secure most every runic web you make. The combined spell there is [Illusionary Structure], but it is better to make your runic webs with the lesser spells, for if any of them break, then the whole thing won’t break. Stringing together the three spells into a working web will take us the rest of the day, though, so let’s make a pledge not to make any more Elemental Fae in the house, or we can go outside.”

The man acted calm, but he was terrified of going outside.

Erick chose to stay indoors, saying, “I won’t make a pledge, but I can certainly try not to break the house again.”

“… Fine.” Kydyr summoned himself a chair to the side, and sat down. He conjured a chalkboard with some helpful instructions and then read them out to Erick, “[Illusionary Force] is [Special Ward] plus [Force Wall] plus Mana Altering for Illusion, in addition to [Lightshape] and [Shadowshape]. Pretty much exactly what you went for with [Fairy Item], but not so deep. This spell will be the same basic cost as [Fairy Item], but it will start off Large Size and scale a lot easier. It should last an hour.

“[Conceal Object] is an upgrade to [Invisibility], but it only works on items. This is a necessary transformation of the original spell to make it last quite a lot longer than otherwise. This is the spell that makes items invisible to mana senses, but not [True Sight]. You have to dip into Fae Magic to make something invisible to [True Sight], so instead of going the hard way with deeper magic, you can just bury the runic web under stone, and add in some anti-[Stoneshape] and other protective spellwork to your runic webs.” Kydyr waved a hand. “We’ll go over all that later. [Conceal Object] requires [Invisibility] along with the Altering and Shaping Illusion trio. It’s still an expensive spell, but it should last for an hour per cast. Expect a cost of 500 mana.

“[Intangible Object] will likely require multiple attempts, but it is not necessary for you to make this spell today in order for us to proceed with the creation of a runic web, but it is absolutely necessary later on. This spell makes a target untouchable. This is the spell that makes it so that other people can’t interfere with your runic web. It is the baseline for a secure web, and it is [Force Wall] made Ethereal, as well as the usual illusionwork trio, shifted toward pulling a real object into untouchable, Ethereal Force. 250 mana is a good version; should last an hour.

“You can work on [Concealment] and [Intangibility] some other time if you wish for those spells, but I recommend you leave them alone. A lot of people die trying to make [Intangibility], in particular, and you can achieve the exact same functionality out of [Illusionwalk]— Which is something you should look into getting.” Kydyr said, “You need to get over your aversion to Shadow.

“Anyway.

“All of these spells should last at least an hour, but with a good runic web, these spells can be stretched out to last a full day. All the other spells in your runic web should also last at least that long. You’ll have to get a feel for how your runic webs functions on your own, though; I can’t help with that.

“Once you have those three spells we can proceed to actual runic web work.”

Erick nodded. Then he gathered Ophiel to his side—

Kydyr spoke up, “Are you sure you won’t break my house again?”

Erick paused. He had a thought. He let that thought out, asking, “Is there any real reason not to go full Fae Magic? Like. Yes. I heard your objections, that Fae Magic breaks Fae Magic, but you also say that if I stack my Fae spells deep enough, that they can’t be broken that easily.”

Kydyr frowned, then rattled off, “Everything Fae can do is more easily done with Illusion, and without Fae’s weird interactions with other Fae. Almost no place on or in Veird uses Fae, but everyone with any runic web anywhere likely has at least one Fae Magic breaker that will shatter when someone uses Fae Magic inside the runic web. Therefore, if you use Fae magic out there, you will be discovered as a Fae Magic user, and that will likely not go well for you.

“For there’s a reason that people put these Fae Magic breakers inside their webs, even though almost no one uses this power, and that is because the fae were —and remain!— terrible existences that should not be tested. There is at least one True Fae who makes herself known outside of Ar’Cosmos, and if you use her magic she’ll come to kill you for trying to usurp her power. Or maybe she’ll tease you for a while because you’re a man, and then she’ll kill you. She can be anywhere, and do anything, and the only way to know she’s watching is to have a single [Fairy Item] bracelet on your wrist and pay attention to see if it breaks. Don’t test the last True Fae left in existence. You will lose.”

Kydyr’s voice trailed away, swallowed by the mists all around.

Erick spoke softly, “All I’m hearing, Kydyr, is that there’s a murderer out there that comes when called, and that makes finding her particularly easy. I have half a mind to step out into the fog right now and call her down on me, and then end her.”

Kydyr’s eyes glinted with brief, shining hope. He breathed deep, and then the light in his eyes dimmed back to dull bismuth. Without heat or hatred, he breathed out, “You spoke earlier of the arrogance of wrought, but you have no idea of the depths of your own.”

Erick suddenly realized why Kydyr, the shut-in, was willing to step outside his house, when it was obvious he had never left this place in at least a century. He had wanted to step outside, because with Erick there, he could maybe call down Fairy Moon and they could kill her, together.

“You want to kill her together?” Erick asked, “Set up some traps and call her down?”

For a long, silent moment, Kydyr just sat there, staring off into nothing.

Then he turned to Erick. “No.”

… Unexpected. Kydyr knew what Erick had done recently, and what he was going to continue to do. So why say ‘no’? Erick wasn’t completely sure, but it felt like Kydyr was not hesitating because of the physical threat Fairy Moon represented. Kydyr was hesitating for a specific reason.

Had Erick missed—

Kydyr did not want to kill Fairy Moon. Even though she had killed his team. Even though he had been on a mission to infiltrate Ar’Cosmos and kill her. That was exactly it. Part of Kydyr wanted to kill Fairy Moon, but most of him did not… Because...

Why would a wrought not want to kill an existential threat to Veird?

The threat being ‘too large’ to safely handle was one thing; the wrought had long been engaged in a cold war with Ar’Kendrithyst and the Shades. But the situation with Fariy Moon had to be smaller, right? This was a single True Fae. One of the last left of maybe two, total, if what Aisha said was true.

Perhaps…? Would killing off the last fae erase Fae Magic from Veird? Had Kydyr been on a Forgotten Campaign mission to end Fairy Moon and Fae Magic from Veird?

No. A Forgotten Campaign would have ended Fairy Moon if that was what the gods decreed. Erick held no illusions about the strength of wrought society when leveraged against a single individual, no matter how powerful they might appear to be, or where they happened to be located.

All Erick really knew now that he didn’t know yesterday was that the wrought, or at least Kydyr and his team, had tried to infiltrate Ar’Cosmos and failed, and thus they were picked off one by one until only Kydyr was left. This meant that the wrought had been trying to end only Fairy Moon, and not also Ar’Cosmos.

But existential threats like Fairy Moon wouldn’t just be allowed to get away. So the wrought should have done more, right? Send more teams? That’s what they did with that Pirate Hullbreaker, though it was Oceanside that eventually got that particular Wizard.

Unless.

Unless the wrought had moved on to a policy of live-and-let-live while denying all existence.

So how had Fairy Moon managed that? Erick did not doubt that the woman killed people rather methodically and probably brutally, but if one could summon Fairy Moon by simply calling out her name then she was an ‘easy’ kill. Unless she wasn’t that easy to kill at all. Perhaps Kydyr was correct and Erick was rather arrogant for thinking it was easy to kill a fae.

But also, Fairy Moon lived inside Ar’Cosmos most of the time. She lived with dragons. She worked with dragons. Oh.

Erick learned two things at that moment.

The wrought had likely tried to end Ar’Cosmos long ago, at the beginning of the Script, but decided not to. In retrospect, this was obvious.

And one could hide among the dragons if they chose that path, for Fairy Moon had obviously chosen that path, except for when she was out here in the world, killing men. With enough strong allies, one would become too large to be attacked (Duh).

Erick hoped that he would have enough allies by the time [Renew] or his Wizardry was discovered. They had to be good allies, too, on the levels of an entire city of dragons… Which was an uncomfortable thought. Either dragons or Shades! The only two groups that could stand up to the wrought, and survive.

Erick almost felt like a Cultist of Melemizargo at that moment, wondering what sort of deed he would have to do to remain alive by this time next year.

Anyway.

That was only half of the story of Fairy Moon.

Erick had a pretty good guess of what else was going on, so he watched Kydyr’s entire self while he put his other thoughts into words, “You think you deserved what she did to you. You think that other people deserve what she does to them. You don’t believe she is evil at all.”

Kydyr went blank. No expression. No facial tics. He hid his reaction behind an illusion, for sure. And then he recognized that Erick had recognized what he had done. His ‘real’ face came back, and he looked distantly sad. He said, “Don’t make Fae Magic a part of your life, Erick. You will not like the outcome.”

Yeah.

Erick had crit the [Strike], exactly.

Kydyr spoke of how Fairy Moon was evil, towing the party line, while inwardly thinking that he had deserved what he got. He was dealing with a cold war scenario; a soldier left in the lurch of a battle never finished. He couldn’t deal with life outside of his house, but who could blame him? Erick doubted he would be any better if he had to go through what he suspected Kydyr had gone through. What sort of war crimes had the man done in service to his people? Probably pretty bad ones.

Perhaps Erick misunderstood a few things here and there, but broadly, he thought himself correct.

Anyway. Magic:

Kydyr’s warnings about Fae Magic were likely well-established warnings that Erick should probably take to heart, and yet, if Fae Magic worked to instantiate Reality into reality, then perhaps it could go the other way, too. Perhaps, with proper Fae Magic, one could move from reality into Reality, and then back to reality, or, to put it another way, to allow one to [Gate] from one side of the world to the other.

Perhaps!

Erick already knew that he would be using [Fairy House] as a defensive living space in the future.

Something else about the whole situation stuck out, though. Something Erick couldn’t quite name, because it was an odd, circumstantial, situation; very much not anything anyone else could possibly imagine about Fae Magic, unless they were from Earth and knew English.

Erick decided to lay it out there, and see what Kydyr thought.

“We have stories about fae back on Earth,” Erick said, as he watched Kydyr. “Tricksters and rule-makers and breakers. Punishers of the unjust, but also needlessly cruel. The fae work on rules arcane to all understandings except for their own. Those arcane rules are what makes them dangerous, for those rules can exist along a myriad of non-standard societal constructs, for mostly, the fae live apart from people, in their own realms of immortal power. You call them fae or fairy, but we have hundreds of different names for all sorts of make-believe fae. Or, at least, I thought them simple stories until I came here, to Veird.”

Kydyr’s reaction told Erick that he was familiar with almost everything Erick was saying, though the finer details might not have gotten across. Mainly, the bismuth wrought didn’t understand where Erick was going with all this.

Erick explained, “Since what we’re doing here will eventually end up in a runic web, I feel I should say something specifically about language, and how it relates to fae, and to runes, and to magic.” He slipped some English into his otherwise Veirdly words, saying, “You call them fae or fairy. We call them <Fae> spelled <F> <A> <E>. You call Fate Magic like that, but we call it <Fate> magic. <F> <A> <T> <E>. It’s only one letter off. For Ecks and Ancient Script, they’re completely different words. <Arlioo> or <Zarritino>.” Kydyr’s eyes went wide as the rest of him went still, and Erick plunged forward, “Is Fae Magic related to Fate Magic? Or to [Gate]? ‘Gate’ is spelled ‘<G><A><T><E> in English; just one letter away from <Fate>.”

Kydyr’s wide eyes remained wide for a moment as his thoughts buzzed behind his suddenly-guarded expression. And then he relaxed. He frowned. He said, “While it is good to worry about strange coincidences when dealing with Fae Magic... Perhaps you need a fae to make [Gate]? The fae do tend to hide rather well on just the other side of Sight, and this would explain why no one has ever been able to complete the Worldly Path themselves. But…” Kydyr shook his head. “This language thing with your native tongue seems like pure coincidence to me, though since you are going after a Wizard, if you do pursue this line of magic then it might happen how you suggest. Wizards can do strange, impossible shit…” His voice trailed off as he thought. He said, “Whatever Wizardry you attempt to enact out of whatever Wizard you find is probably a conversation to have with many more people than I, but I would suggest staying away from trying to make ‘Word Magic’, or whatever you’re suggesting. That magic practically begs to be Forgotten. Imagine all the strangeness you could cause! And especially if you could apply this Wizardry to already-established spells. With enough shifts, I bet you could turn [Force Bolt] into [Ascension to Godhood], or some other nonsense.” He shook his head. “No. Don’t go looking for this magic.” He added, “But getting a Wizard to turn some Fae Magic into [Gate]? Now that… That I could see happening.” He summed it up, “I don’t agree with your circumstantial letter-replacement ideas. Your language was not magical. Ancient Script is magical. No; this won’t work.”

Erick took a metaphorical step back and reevaluated.

Word Magic seemed perfect for a Paradox Wizard, but, at the same time, Kydyr was right. Word Magic would likely get Banned and Forgotten as soon as it was created. Or, at least the rest of Veird would try to Ban it, and then they would try to erase Erick from existence, causing… A lot of bad things.

Erick decided that ‘Word Magic’ was probably a very bad idea.

And also, someone else had probably already made Word Magic, and it was already Banned. There was no way that some bookish Wizard wouldn’t have thought to make this magic before now.

Maybe Kydyr didn’t even know about that…

“It probably already got Banned, anyway,” Erick tested.

Kydyr shrugged. “Maybe. The Geodes are very fond of killing anything that has the potential to break the world.”

Erick nodded. Leaving aside its availability, ‘Word Magic’ was probably superfluous and very much too dangerous. Maybe all you actually needed to make a [Gate] was a Wizard to break the Script rules on Fae Magic, and then to make a true tunnel into a private world through ancient Fae spellwork.

Which would probably run directly against the Dimensional Ban, but…

Fae Magic obviously wasn’t Dimensional Magic; if it were, then no one could make Fae Spells.

… Whatever.

Erick moved on.

Making the three spells described on the chalkboard was easy enough; Erick just limited himself to stopping well before he reached perfection. Apparently, this was good enough to achieve perfect illusionwork, anyway.

--

Illusionary Force, instant, close range, 250 mana + Variable

Conjure a solid illusion of up to large size. Absorbs 500 damage before breaking. Lasts 1 hour.

--

--

Concealment, instant, close range, 500 mana

An object of up to medium size is made invisible to all but the truest of sight. Physical interaction can break the illusion. Lasts 1 hour. When cast on a person the spell lasts 10 minutes.

--

--

Intangibility, instant, close range, 250 mana

An object of up to medium size is made intangible. Extensive physical interaction can break the illusion. Lasts 1 hour. When cast on a person the spell lasts 1 minute.

--

When Erick was done with the last one, he said to Kydyr, “So that’s [Intangibility], too. Not [Intangible Object].”

Kydyr sighed, saying, “You should have stuck to [Conceal Object] and [Intangible Object].”

“I certainly could have made them worse than I did; yes.”

Kydyr leveled a gaze at Erick, saying, “Don’t use that spell yourself. The spell description doesn’t say this, but you effectively have 0 Health while intangible, and while this is fine for objects, it's deadly for people. It’s like you’re walking around in [Lightwalk] while the entire world has [Lightshape]; incredibly dangerous and I wish you would have left it alone.”

“[Intangibility] has fewer runes to it than [Intangible Object], though, so this is easier to enchant.”

“… Aye. I suppose that is true.” Kydyr dismissed the current chalkboards, then summoned more. These ones were full of runework instead of spellwork. The details in design, how the runes fit together and now the connecting divots swirled and combined, were all different, too. All of them looked normal enough, though. Erick understood what each design did before Kydyr explained, but Kydyr explained anyway, saying, “The first one is a runic web that you will finish, and then cover —likely with stone— to only ever touch it in order to provide power for the runes. People will not notice this runic web if you do it right, though they will know it is there by the denial of certain spells, like [Stoneshape]. The second board shows a runic web which is also buried in a wall, but this one projects a fake runic web onto the surface of the wall, and also obscures the actual runes on that false web; for when you want people to know they are inside a runic web. The third is how we add breakers to the web to allow spellwork to flow between individual webs, but these breakers will shatter if unwanted magics are shoved into the web, thus preventing untoward spellwork from infecting your entire runic web. Much of these [Illusionary Force] runes can be replaced for [Illusionary Item] runes, depending on the robustness you desire from your system, and your constraints for mana.” Kydyr gestured to a meter-cubed block of platinum that hadn’t been there before now. “There’s our raw material.” He asked, “Any questions before we start?”

“You use [Illusionary Force] for the breaker-system on the boards.” Erick said, “But when you were remaking the breakers for this house, you used [Fairy Item] and another spell I suspect is [Fairy House].”

The man was an adequate teacher, but he was holding back a lot in his lessons, either due to security reasons, or because he didn’t think Erick could handle it, or for whatever other reason there could be.

Kydyr gave a little smile, saying, “You can work on fairy webs and all other obscure runic web creation on your own time, outside of my house. But, yes. You are correct. Much of the Illusionary spells are interchangeable with Fairy spells, though until you know what you’re doing and how Fae Magic interacts with the rest of the world and with other Fae Magic, you should refrain from using Elemental Fae. Fae Magic is simply unnecessary for most runic security.” He continued, “But setting aside Fae Magic, my assignment is not to get you fully versed in every single possible iteration of runic web security, but to teach you the basics, and how those basics all interact with each other. It takes a normal Runic-Class person about a year to achieve adequate runic web security, which includes anti-[Stoneshape] and a plethora of other spells, with each spell adding complexity and therefore difficulty. For you? Who already has a Class that is not Runic at all? Well… One day of proper runic web learning is not nearly enough, but it will have to be enough.”

“… Understood.”

Kydyr nodded, then flicked a finger toward the platinum cube. A bubble of white gold expanded from the top, rapidly becoming a wire-frame octahedron about a meter across. With another flick of the same finger, Kydyr gained a short, white talon. It looked like his dragon talon, but smaller. He said, “Since you already know some of the deeper truth then there’s no need to keep up all of my appearances.”

Erick took out the adamantium dagger he had in a holster at his hip, and then he got to work.

- - - -

Seven hours later, and after stopping for several breaks where Ophiel delivered food from Archmage’s Rest, Erick had made several runic webs of passing quality. The first was simply intangible and invisible; it sat in the open air like a part of the air itself. If Erick hadn’t had marked it with a lightward he would have lost track of the thing. The second web was doubled, with the original web hanging in the air on [Force Wall] holders, while an illusionary copy of itself hovered one meter to the left. The third had a false-image hovering next to its invisible and intangible self. The fourth had all of what the third contained, and a break-system, where the corruption of one half would not affect the other half. Five more runic webs were iterations on the themes of the fourth so that Kydyr was sure that Erick wasn’t just extremely lucky.

It was not luck to make these many rather perfect runic webs this fast…

Though Erick did privately admit to himself that there were a lot of New Stats backing him up.

Kydyr sat back on a chair, smiling slightly as he looked up at Erick’s many successes. “I kept waiting for you to fuck up. But… You didn’t. This is work fit for a ready-to-graduate apprentice. You take any of these last two to any runic web office in Stratagold and you would get approved for runic work—” He added, “If you were a wrought and already a part of the system. And you had a Runic Class.” He smiled wider, saying, “That’s how I got into this. That’s where I started with my magic. Illusions and a dream of protection from the Dark. You know?… This is nice. I…” He laughed. “You ruined me for other students, Erick.” He held up a bottle of what he called ‘fizzy water’, saying, “And this fizzy water is wonderful, too!”

Erick sat in his own chair, smiling lightly as he sipped his own soda. He had made their drinks from [Harmless Frozen Particles] and some berry beverages from Archmage’s Rest. He said, “I still have a lot of way to go, though.”

“Oh yes!” Kydyr said, “This is simply the start. You can put practically anything into a runic web as long as you know the proper runes for it, and how they all go together.” He took a mildly serious tone as he said, “Your Class is going to limit you a lot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t unlock the Class Ability Minor Shifting Runes for achieving this level of spellwork. That Class Ability is no Greater Shifting Runes and it’s certainly no Shifting Runes, but literally any Shifting Ability is better than none.”

“I heard some people put solid metal down into their runes because they don’t like Shifting Runes at all.”

Kydyr tilted his head back and forth a few times, weighing Erick’s words. “This makes security easier and prevents a lot of burnout, but it’s dead simple to re-etch runes into a material. It’s a lot harder to put solid runes into metal. Like. A lot. The only places that do that…” He frowned. He said, “I won’t say who works in solid runes, but I will tell you that solid runes are much better for durability than etched runes. I can’t help you with those, though.”

Erick nodded as he stared up at his runic webs, hanging in the air in front of him and Kydyr.

He realized he was hungry again, but not for food; he needed a meal of [Renew] in his Other Form. But as soon as he left here, Erick doubted he would ever see Kydyr ever again. So he asked, “Since your request was to kill the Librarian or for books that won’t be out in months: Do you have something else you wish for a trade? For these lessons?”

Kydyr went silent, and thoughtful. And then he asked, “Do you think your cavern with Yggdrasil will ever have a proper day/night cycle? Or is it just bright light all the time?”

Erick saw where this was going, and it was great! But he had to lay down some rules, and some expectations. “Yggdrasil will keep his home how he wants, but if you want, you can live nearby. There’s a nice waterfall at the entrance to the place and there’s lots of mist there, too, and shadows. I’ll be happy to have you—”

“No, no… No.” Kydyr waved Erick off, saying, “It was a flight of fancy. I know where I’m moving after you leave.”

Erick stressed, “If you want to live near Yggdrasil, I welcome you to set up a home in the cavern. I’m sorry for disturbing your house and outing you to the world, so the least I can do is make sure your next home is as secure as it can be.”

Kydyr breathed in, looking inordinately happy yet hiding almost all of it, then he said, “No… No. Thank you, but no. Breaking my house was… Not your fault. I made a mistake in the runic web. I think I overloaded it, and it hadn’t actually been tested against other Elemental Fae in… Years upon years.” He turned to Erick, and said, “Thanks for coming and providing me with a good student, but you should get going.”

… Unexpected.

Erick wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

But…

This was Kydyr’s decision? So. Sure?

It was time to get going, anyway. So.

Erick stood from his chair and bowed a bit, saying, “Thank you for the lessons, Kydyr.”

“Don’t you dare bow to me. Ha! Imagine. Savior of Light bowing— No.”

Erick straightened up, unsure.

“Thanks for killing Ar’Kendrithyst and everything else, Erick.” Kydyr strongly said, “And good luck with [Gate]! I’d tell you to stay away from the fae if you can help it… Though knowing you, and considering what you said about the Worldly Path, that might prove an impossibility.”

“I have a strong feeling that the Headmaster will ask me to go to Ar’Cosmos.” Erick said, “I just hope it won’t be some dragon killing expedition because I’m going to have to refuse that.”

Kydyr went silent and part of his emotional illusion vanished, ever so briefly, revealing a deep chasm of melancholy. And then he replaced his cover, repairing his mask of fake stoicism, saying, “Don’t feel bad about killing dragons, Erick. Most don’t deserve your mercy.”

“… Why not?”

Erick had asked with regard to all of dragonkind, but Kydyr’s warning and Erick’s words held more meaning than that. This was personal for Kydyr.

The kindly, tired owl shifter who was not what he appeared to be, said, “Because dragons have all done horrible things to innocent people.”

Erick had nothing to say to that.

He just spent one more moment looking at Kydyr, wondering…

And then he nodded, turned, and walked away, down the tile pathway to where moss grew over white stone. Erick continued beyond, to the edge of the mist. Ophiel twittered on one shoulder Erick stepped past the edge of the house and cold mist engulfed them—

And suddenly Erick stood upon the soft, mossy ground. Kydyr’s [Fairy House] home was somewhere far behind him, both intangible and concealed in the mists. Erick could have stepped backward and yet he would have remained outside Kydyr’s property. [Fairy House] was a great spell, and Kydyr’s runic web was well-made, combining a dozen different magics into one coherent, unbreakable obscuration. It was even immune to [Cascade Imaging], for Erick had checked with that spell, casting the Imaging on the other side of the cavern, searching for himself while he was inside this spac. That map had given him zero results—

Out of the mists came Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye, rejoining Erick, to alight upon his other shoulder.

Time to go back.

- - - -

Erick sat upon a crook in Yggdrasil’s branches, staring out at the bright cavern all around. His stomach was full with a good meal from the food court in the embassy, while his Other Form’s core was similarly satiated by [Renew]. He felt good. And yet…

He was worried.

He sent and Ophiel to check on Kydyr—

Erick breathed out, ragged and painful, as he took in what he saw, absorbing a hundred small clues in less than a second. He moved through those clues slowly, though, to try and see if his initial impression could be wrong. Kydyr was rather great at illusions, after all.

It was an hour past sunset on the surface, but while Yggdrasil’s cavern was full of light all the time, Vibrant Falls was mostly dim. The deep mists at the lower levels, where Kydyr’s house had been, could have hidden the full truth, but, no. Erick was not that delusional. He was just trying to make excuses for what he saw.

The house was gone. All that remained was a crater nearly a kilometer across. This much was understandable, for Kydyr had said that he was moving. It was eminently feasible that he could blip his entire house to a new location.

Except.

Smaller craters dotted the rest of the land, like someone had sprinkled the mossy rock with beams of random disintegration, or, more actually, that someone had done something similar to what Erick had seen the Mirage Dragon do to the top of First Devouring Nightmare mountain. Some sort of [Illusion Breath], or, considering what Erick had heard earlier, [Fae Breath], had turned the land into swiss cheese.

The house took a full blast, but the nature of [Fae Breath] left clues among the broken ground. Damp books piled like snow drifts not too far from the blast site, tangled webs of platinum glittered in broken rock walls, rubble made of tiles lay like chips of white among the darkness. An open plumbing system spilled water into the bottom of the crater where even more books floated, or sunk. Mostly sunk. The ones with wooden covers floated, but barely.

Kydyr’s dragon head, resting atop a bed of broken books, had been locked inside a floating box of Force, hovering in the center of the crater.

Erick took a moment to compose himself, breathing, centering his mind. And then he sent a telepathic communication to Kromolok—

A woman’s voice responded, ‘Greetings, Archmage Flatt. What is the nature of the inquiry?’

‘Ah. I didn’t expect—’ Erick ignored that his telepathic signal had been intercepted, because of course it had —Poi did this very same thing for him all the time— and sent, ‘I believe that someone attacked and killed Archmage Kydyr. I am already on my way to Archmage’s Rest to inform them of what I see and I want Kromolok to be involved if he can.’

The woman’s tone turned fully calm, as she sent, ‘Understood. Raising priority of request. Raised. Inquisitor Kromolok has been informed. We are starting to move on our end. Someone will be there— Inquisitor Kromolok will be at Archmage’s rest in three minutes and he asks that you not get involved.’

Erick went still.

The woman continued, ‘If you wish to remain informed of the investigation then—’

‘No.’ Erick sent, ‘I am involved. Kydyr acted like I would never see him again but I didn’t think he meant it this way. He knew… He knew this was going to happen and I’m involved.’

‘… Understood. Inquisitor Kromolok will meet you at Archmage’s Rest. Thank you. Please do not attend the site on your own.’

Erick ended the call.

- - - -

Erick stepped onto the grounds in front of Archmage’s Rest. Since it was ‘night’, the replica of the Wizard’s Tower had once again vanished behind illusions, replaced by a small mansion that was not a tenth the true size of the building it pretended to be. One of the main doors to that mansion was shut, but the other was open, spilling yellow light out into the nighttime air of Vibrant Falls.

A few guards hidden behind illusions noticed Erick. Telepathic lines connected them to each other, and also to other people, elsewhere. They tensed upon seeing Erick, and upon seeing Ophiel. Normally, they would have relaxed almost just as fast, but not this time.

Erick was right to be concerned that they would think him responsible for Kydyr’s death. That’s why he insisted on being involved, at least for now. Undoubtedly there would come a point where Riivo or Kromolok would tell him in no uncertain terms to stay away from the investigation, but for now, Erick would remain and he would help, where he could—

Kromolok and Tasar stepped out of the t-station. The Inquisitor looked almost normal; he was very good at hiding his emotions, and dealing with tragedy. Erick suspected that the man always saw danger everywhere, and he was only truly happy when he was pleasantly surprised that he had been proven wrong. Tasar, though, was not used to death and murder, even though she had likely seen a lot of it in her long life; she looked crushed, and barely able to hide it.

Kromolok said, “Riivo and a few others are already down—”

Sitnakov stepped out of the t-station right behind Kromolok and Tasar. He looked ready to kill someone and was barely hiding it. He stared at Erick, saying, “Archmage Kydyr’s death was recorded as true not one minute after you reported—”

Tasar collapsed to her knees, dropping her staff. Dark green tears flowed down her face as she sobbed.

Sitnakov continued, “You, Archmage Flatt, are to be with us every step of the way, to Image and to answer questions as requested.”

Erick stood surprised. Dead a minute after Erick reported it?

What the fuck?

But all Erick said into the emotionally tense situation was, “Of course I will cooperate.”

Sitnakov lightly glared, then judged Erick’s words as true and promptly ignored him. He stepped to Tasar and held down a hand. “Time to work, Tasar.”

Tasar breathed deep twice, taking Sitnakov’s hand on the second breath. “Okay. Yes. Okay… Okay.”

Kromolok continued, “Riivo and the others are down by Kydyr’s property. Let us relocate.”

- - - -

Erick stepped down onto stone that had been whole and covered in moss not an hour ago.

Now, there was a large central crater, and a thousand smaller ones. Debris was everywhere. The view was worse from the ground. The smaller craters were larger than they had appeared to be. The destruction was worse, with much of the land scoured of moss. Rubbled walls, filled with platinum runic webs, littered the land.

And the manasphere was nothing more than static; whoever had been here had scrubbed the overt evidence away.

Sitnakov, Tasar, and Kromolok had stepped onto the ground near to Erick. Tasar breathed out, staring across the land at the floating [Force Cage] which held Kydyr’s head. Sitnakov scowled at the sight, but he was not distracted by the destruction; he zeroed in on the other people nearby.

A hundred meters away, under a dome of gentle light, Riivo stood at the edge, staring at the destruction all around. Behind him stood Aisha and a few other wrought who Erick identified as guards or other middle management mages at the Rest. The Prognosticator stood ramrod straight, her head tilted back, her eyes glowing with iridescence.

Erick was the only non-wrought in the area.

Kromolok walked toward Riivo.

Erick followed after him, with Sitnakov rapidly stepping to Erick’s side, to glance down at him. Erick looked up at the black metal, orcol-shaped man. He started the interrogation so that Sitnakov didn’t have to, saying, “I imagine that this sort of thing doesn’t happen often.”

“No, it does not. And then tens of people that you knew for hundreds of years are suddenly dead.” Sitnakov almost said something, but he switched, and said something else, “It hits some of us harder than others.”

Erick glanced back at Tasar. The green-black woman had sat down upon the stone as she stared out at the crater. Erick turned back to Sitnakov. “Did you know Kydyr?”

“Not personally.” Sitnakov said, “I worked with him many times, before his self-seclusion. I understand he was trying to teach you runic web security.”

“He succeeded in teaching me runic web security.” Erick said, “I’ve never worked in Illusion before, but I gained all the spells and the knowledge to put them into a web. I’m sure I’ll go over the whole experience in detail for Kromolok, if he hasn’t already taken that from me, but the short version is this: The lessons were supposed to last for a week, but some some oddities happened today and Kydyr told me that today would be the last day. He said we were never going to meet again, but this was not what I thought he meant. I think… I’m not sure what to think.” He asked, “How did you know he was truly dead? I see that skull in that [Force Cage] and I’m still not sure it isn’t a lie. How do you know he died after I reported this?”

Sitnakov said, “State secrets. Kydyr is dead, though; I can assure you that much. He went into seclusion for a reason, but as of right now, we don’t know if that reason finally caught up to him, or not.”

That brought Erick up short. He almost spoke up, continuing the conversation, but he knew he would have to repeat a lot of what he had to say multiple times if he said it now, so he remained silent.

They were almost to Riivo, anyway. The old iron man stood under his dome of light, alongside Aisha. He watched as the three of them approached, his eyes lightly boring into Erick, but pulling back before he gave away all of his inner suspicions. And then the man seemed to break in small ways. His shoulders sagged. His face wrinkled downward.

He wasn’t suspicious of Erick at all. He was simply mad that…

That Erick hadn’t prevented this?

Kromolok reached the dome of light first. His words spread out in the mist, and in the light, “It wasn’t Erick.” He looked to Riivo, saying, “You were the last one to have contact. Kydyr died about twelve minutes after reporting to you what happened at Erick’s lesson.” While Riivo stood straighter, Erick felt like some breach of trust had occurred, and Kromolok said to everyone, “Now let us get down to it, for at the end of this we will either have captured and killed a fae —which I do not believe is what happened here— or we will have found and ended a mirage dragon, which is almost as good.” He added, “Or, there might be another explanation, but I doubt it.”

The fae? But also:

A mirage dragon. Not ‘the’ mirage dragon. Erick had been right. The mirage dragon that attacked him at Holorulo was part of a family; they were not a singular entity like the Dragon Stalkers had claimed.

Several parts of the day fell into a harsh, new light, and Erick felt his stomach cramp as he wondered if this was somehow his fault. It had to have been, right? He cast that Fae spell inside Kydyr’s house, and the man was obviously hiding from the fae, and…

No.

This wasn’t his fault.

This was the fault of whoever did this.

Other people had other angry, silent reactions. Sitnakov glared at nothing in particular. Riivo frowned. The guards around them stood fractionally more stiff—

Aisha came back out of her [Witness] trance, glanced around, and said, “The manasphere is mostly scrubbed clean, but I have been able to catch glimpses. Someone walked through the mist about 25 minutes ago. Five minutes after that came the first silent blast of Illusion through the mists, tearing through the left side of Kydyr’s house. Kydyr remained—” She looked to Erick, and to the others, as if asking permission.

Kromolok said, “Erick is participating in this investigation and he already knows Kydyr’s most publicly known secret. Let us act with haste, please; if we are fast enough we might be able to catch them.”

Aisha continued, “Kydyr remained in owl shifter form for the majority of the battle, targeting the blank space in the manasphere. Every spell Kydyr used on the target was then used against him, indicating that the assailant was likely a Copy Mage, or very ready to make themselves look like a Copy Mage. After three such mirrored exchanges the assailant got the better of Kydyr and Kydyr was forced to reveal his draconic self. Kydyr struck with all of his force, and the assailant absorbed that power, then shot it back at Kydyr, creating the crater at the center of the area. The battle proceeded to a series of shadow games after that, with both of them attacking whenever the other made their location known. Kydyr used some obscure Fae Magic spellwork to try and end it, but the assailant copied that spell and then it all goes fuzzy. Too much magic.”

Erick was surprised that Aisha was able to get anything out of the static manasphere at all, let alone as much as she had.

Sitnakov turned to face the crater. “Was it a mirage dragon?”

“That or the other thing; It would have to be, I assume.” Riivo sighed. “They finally got him.”

Kromolok said, “Possibly not.”

“The other possibilities are vanishingly small, Kromolok,” Riivo said, keeping his annoyance barely in check.

Sitnakov asked, “Who else could it be?”

Tasar had pulled herself up and come over to the group a little bit ago, to arrive somewhere in the middle of Aisha’s explanation. She said, “It had to be someone who was watching and waiting, and something odd likely happened with Erick’s lessons that caused a vulnerability.”

Erick felt his stomach cramp again, and there was no way to hide the guilt he felt inside.

Kromolok asked, “Erick? Please explain how Kydyr made himself vulnerable.”

Tasar tensed, and then relaxed, as though of course Erick had done something he hadn’t intended to do.

Erick looked away from Tasar and said, “I dug too deep with Illusion Magic, made and cast [Fairy Item], and shattered Kydyr’s [Fairy House] runic web. Everything stood exposed for about 30 minutes until he was able to repair it all. That happened rather early today, and I stayed for another several hours after that, making runic webs. Nothing else happened except for getting food from other places through Ophiel.” Erick said, “I asked Kydyr if he wanted me to stay longer. I asked him… I was only gone for an hour and I came back to check on him, but…” Erick’s voice trailed off.

Ah.

This was hitting him pretty hard, then? Yes, it appeared that way. He hadn’t noticed it that much until now, as his throat closed on him and his words couldn’t form.

Riivo frowned at the crater, saying, “He was always a stubborn… wonderful student, and colleague.”

Tasar argued, “A single Fae Spell should not have broken Kydyr’s [Fairy House].”

“Erick is not lying.” Kromolok said, “That is exactly what happened. Kydyr had likely missed—”

“Kydyr did not miss anything in his runework, Kromolok. Kydyr’s work was always immaculate.” Tasar gained a dark tone, saying, “This was just the Worldly Path.”

Erick felt anger rise within. His throat relaxed and he spat, “I asked if I should stay! To help him move, or whatever he needed! I asked if he wanted to live by Yggdrasil! I tried to help—”

Tasar practically exploded, “I’m not blaming you!” She turned and yelled at the misty, shadowy world all around them, “I’m blaming the Dark! I’m blaming his literal [Gate]keeping that prevents us from moving forward without his approval! I’m blaming the dragons who are always a part of the Worldly Path, because that’s what the Dark demands! I lay the blame upon those who hope for the destruction of everything I have ever cared about! The blame belongs to that which is Evil, which uses good people to make the world just that much more Dark, because that is all the Dark is capable of understanding! Death and Destruction and Darkness!”

No one spoke, because every single person went on high alert, staring at the world outside of the dim brightness of the lightdome, waiting for the Dark to attack; for Tasar’s call out to bring forth claws and fangs from the shadows.

But nothing happened.

Melemizargo was not there in the shadows, or in the gloom.

Tasar breathed deep. “I… I should not have spoken so openly.” She clenched her teeth, then said, “I just… Don’t understand how Kydyr could have been taken by a single mirage dragon? It wasn’t the matriarch, was it?”

Kromolok said, “Again, it could have been anything. Focusing on the most likely possibility is good, but might ultimately be harmful.”

Aisha looked from Kromolok to Tasar, and answered, “The attacker remained in humanoid form the whole time, even when Kydyr changed to his draconic form, so likely not the matriarch, or any other dragon. A dragon wouldn’t have been able to resist challenging another dragon in proper form, even if Kydyr’s Dragon Essence was Sealed.”

Sitnakov asked, “Could it have been the fae, herself?”

“Well…” Aisha said, “Inconclusive. High possibility, though.”

Tasar said, “But… His protections. There were a hundred redundancies. So how could? Even if Erick broke the initial web it should have still had a lot of protections, right?” She looked to Erick. “Right?”

Erick rapidly said, “Yes. It did. [Stoneshape] and [Scry] and a lot of other spells were still blocked. There were some redundancies… But the [Fairy House] broke. That did happen.” He added, “I asked him if Ophiel coming and going was a problem and he said it wasn’t but… Ophiel did hang out in the misty air. Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye was out here, too; he couldn’t get inside the house.”

Tasar said, “That shouldn’t have been a problem.”

“It’s possible that this is something new.” Kromolok said, “Some new mundane threat that followed Erick more than most.”

No one said anything to that.

Riivo spoke up, “Perhaps we should have been more circumspect… but to think that Kydyr would fall… It is like thinking that Veird would stop turning.”

“Everyone escapes the End until they cannot.” Sitnakov said, “This is no one’s fault but the killer’s.”

Tasar looked to Erick, and had another thought. “You know everything that we’re talking about, don’t you. Even ‘the fae, herself’.”

Erick nodded. “Yes. Everything here was hinted at rather recently, and from various sources.”

Tasar stared for a moment longer, then sadly nodded. She spoke like a person resigned, “If we get a chance to kill the fae then we should take it, because there is no way that we won’t meet her; not at this rate.”

“The whole Mirage Family should share her fate,” Sitnakov said. “So if you’re headed to Ar’Cosmos, I would be there to help end the continued injustice of their existence.”

Tasar briefly tensed, but then she nodded.

Erick stared at the tall man and decided that outright denial of his request to join his Worldly Path would not be the prudent response at this time. So he asked, “Can we talk about it later?”

Sitnakov did not smirk, but his body language said he believed he had already won. His actual words, though, were, “Of course. Later.”

And then Kromolok spoke, saying, “We will check all possibilities before we commit to another one of those disasters; this might not have been them, and it is important to get the correct enemy or else we leave behind problems for another day.”

No one had any problem with that.

Kormolok said to Erick, “Please check for spilled blood with an Imaging, catching the nearest ten kilometers if you can, for even if the assailant cleaned up their attack they could have missed something. If this is not the fae then it was an opportunistic strike of a different sort. The assailants might have been scoping out the area for months or years, for it’s also possible that this was a standard dragon hoard plundering. They could have been looking for a book, or for a collection of books, or for the runic web itself, for even with the erasing power of Illusion there is a distinct lack of platinum in the area, and it took 300 tons of the stuff to make the runic web inside Kydyr’s house.”

Erick was glad he asked for Kromolok’s participation. The man was good at this, because yes, there were many different possible explanations for what happened, and it was important not to jump to emotional conclusions. Tasar seemed to relax a bit while Sitnakov and Riivo set their sights on the destruction all around.

Riivo gestured to his people, saying, “Scout the perimeter.”

People started moving.

Kromolok said, “Erick. Please scan for platinum first. If it’s here then that cuts down on a lot of possible culprits. After that, please link with Aisha and scan for clues based on her ideas. She’s done things like this many times before.”

Erick nodded, saying, “Then it’s a platinum scan,” as an Ophiel high above cast a cascading star of light into the mist. The shadowed gloom all around took on a distinct shift toward light, as though it was suddenly day in Vibrant Falls. For kilometers around, Erick’s [Cascade Imaging] began to map the land in a 1-for-1 map. “Should take ten minutes to form a map and an image.”

The rubbled walls and several of the wrought were already beginning to shine blue.

Aisha, who was beginning to shimmer blue, said, “Then I will [Witness] again, trying to narrow down search zones.”

“Sitnakov, Riivo, Tasar. With me, please.” Kormolok stepped into the air, saying, “We will investigate the head and ensure there is no trap.”

Time passed faster as the investigation picked up steam.

The head remained a head until the [Force Cage] was broken, and the bismuth turned into a muddy rainbow liquid that Riivo caught in a bowl of Force. There was no explosion, or anything like that. Tasar picked through the books and named them as children’s stories, which seemed to point toward a fairy culprit. Erick’s Imaging eventually found an estimated 50% of the platinum that was in Kydyr’s runic web. Some platinum had melted into the crater walls and blackened beyond all recognition, but most of the platinum was scattered wide, like molten rain splashed away from the battlezone, to impact and lodge into the stone all around, like tiny silver stars barely noticed in the gloom. Much of the extra platinum could have gotten scattered to the underocean far below, but the current was too swift to make searching that space feasible for anyone without [Water Body].

Kromolok wasn’t 100% sure on the motivations for the attack, yet, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t greed related. This lowered the chance that this was dragon hunters going after a hoard by a fair amount.

Aisha found several locations to search for blood or other leavings from the battle, but grid searches and Erick’s Imaging failed to return any positive results for blood, or bone fragments, or any targeted biological material. Aisha revealed her ability to track based on mana signatures, but she had no way to impart this knowledge to Erick, and Imaging couldn’t find magic that Erick didn’t already personally know. Erick suggested that Kromolok could help bridge the gap in understanding, but that idea was shot down by both Kromolok and Aisha as infeasible.

Eventually, it was just the three of them standing beside the crater, trying new searches, but they had reached the end of the truly viable searches twenty minutes ago.

Erick said, “I can’t search for pure Elements, either; I've already tried that before.”

Aisha said, “You’re so good at finding people and tracking criminals, though. What makes this different?”

Erick had had a mind to ask for unfettered control of the investigation, but upon seeing how Riivo and a few others reacted to his presence at all, he had stopped himself from crossing that threshold; they did not want him involved, at all. Even this much was too much for many of the wrought all around.

Erick explained, “It’s about the physicality of it all. I can search for the markers in blood rather easily. We found all of Kydyr’s bismuth ‘blood’, after all, but… That’s more because it’s bismuth than because it’s blood.” The wrought name for ‘bismuth’ was actually ‘spectrasilver’, but Erick was calling it ‘bismuth’ in his head. “I know how fleshy biology works, but I honestly have no idea how wrought biology works on the deepest level. Or even the shallowest level, actually. But that’s just—” He asked both Kromolok and Aisha, “Do you want me to do this search like I normally would? I can certainly do this, but I was under the distinct impression that while killing monsters was fine, administering justice in wrought lands went against Stratagold’s desires.”

Aisha stood straighter. She was all for Erick’s involvement. She looked to Kromolok, saying, “I’ve gone as far as I can. The manasphere is too disturbed.”

Kromolok turned his gaze toward the crater. He stared for a moment. All around, various guards and soldiers and specialists were crawling all over the place, looking for any physical clues at all. Riivo led the search from the air, with Sitnakov hovering at his side like a silent monolith of a man, judging everything.

Kromolok gave a small sigh, then he said, “You are well and truly exonerated from Kydyr’s death, Erick, but you have reached the end of what we will allow you to do, so please return to Yggdrasil leave the rest of the investigation to us.” To reiterate, he said, “Stratagold denies your request for full assistance with our justice system.”

Ah. So they went the other direction; kicking him out and away. Erick figured that this was a strong possibility, but at least they had let him help this far.

Aisha though, frowned. “You cannot be serious, Kromolok. Erick can do this much faster than—”

Kromolok said, “About two hours have passed since Kydyr’s murder. In this time, we have cleared two of the highest profile suspects of suspicion; Erick and Riivo were both kind enough to submit before they needed to be asked. We have already moved on to other methods of investigation, far outside of the area of the actual murder. As of ten minutes ago, and according to a letter sent to the White Palace, we now believe that this murder ties into the Amulet of Non-Presence that came out of Ar’Kendrithyst’s Armory this last year.”

So that was completely new information.

Erick felt left out of the loop, but this was by Stratagold’s design.

Aisha gasped. “The Letter Killer is a part of this!? Even more of a reason to keep Erick’s assistance! Catch that bastard, and quick!”

Erick had heard about that amulet, at least. It was an artifact that let the wearer move and live without obeying the laws of physical space, or being subject to any magic they might encounter. With sudden clarity, Erick remembered Quilatalap talking about how the amulet was used to kill some high ranking politicians here, in Stratagold. He hadn’t heard anything about those murders while he was here, though. He had assumed that the killer had been caught, but apparently not. Apparently, the killer had been upgraded from simple killer, to a named serial murderer, too. A name that Erick hadn’t heard before now, despite how much recon he had done in the Underworld near Stratagold.

They must be keeping these murders quiet for some reason…

Possibly because, with a name like ‘the Letter Killer’, they were rather high profile, and the wrought were all about hiding and ending dangerous things without telling people about those dangerous things. Perhaps the rulers didn’t want their facade of power to look like it was challenged by an outside force? Whatever the case, Erick could certainly help… If they let him.

Kromolok said, “The decision has come from King Alfonin himself. Erick is to be excluded from further involvement with the Letter Killer.”

At the mention of King Alfonin, Aisha went silent; contemplative.

Erick tried to help anyway, saying, “I could help search for the amulet, if you would have my assistance. I was forced to attend the Armory Presentation at Last Shadow’s Feast. I think I set down an image of that amulet in my missive to the Mind Mages, so I know what to look for.”

Kromolok said, “Knowledge of the shape of the amulet to be found does not help, for the Gemslicers have already tried this. No; you are restricted from further involvement, Erick. Please dismiss your Imaging and return to Yggdrasil.”

Aisha said, “This is a mistake.”

Erick attacked the problem from a different angle. “Aren’t you ranked higher in your society than practically every other governing body, Kromolok? You might be stationed by Stratagold, but the Church of Rozeta is much larger than that.”

Their voices had carried in the misty light all around; their conversation was not private at all. Most people chose to perk an ear to listen while saying nothing. But Riivo, Sitnakov, and Tasar were all moving toward them.

Tasar moved faster than the rest, coming forward, her voice loud enough for all to hear, “I agree with Aisha. This is a mistake to sideline Erick. He will be involved whether you want him involved or not, and especially if this truly is the Letter Killer, and not a misdirection from the fae.”

Sintakov stepped onto the air at the edge of the crater, hovering like Tasar and Riivo. He chose to speak next, asking, “The letter is confirmed? Not a copyist?”

Kromolok said, “Confirmed. Made with paper and ink from the same type of tree that all the rest were made with. The growing location was found by the Gemslicers not half an hour ago, and it is inline with all the other growing locations. The handwriting is the same, and it was made without the maker getting anywhere near the paper, thus preventing [Object Reading] from picking anything out of the letter. The contents were of the usual sort.”

Erick knew he was poking his head into where he wasn’t wanted, but he had to know, “What was on the actual letter?”

From their reactions, Tasar, Aisha, and Riivo all either knew or had good guesses as to what the letter actually said, but none of them were willing to speak on that (possibly) open secret. Sitnakov knew the larger overview of what the letter said, and the large man’s disgust and resignation told a certain story about what was on that letter, but not the whole story. Kromolok knew exactly what was on the letter, for sure, but he gave nothing away.

Sitnakov spoke first, but not with an answer. He stated, “The decision to exclude you has been finalized. Please take down your spellwork and vacate the area.”

Tasar and Aisha refocused away from the ‘Letter Killer’ secrets and lightly judged Sitnakov an asshole, but they did not speak against him. Riivo withheld all emotions; he was thinking some important thoughts and Erick’s situation was not among them. Sitnakov didn’t seem happy to exclude Erick, but he wasn’t willing to go against his father. All of that seemed normal enough. What actually made Erick a bit mad, though, was that Kromolok was not willing to go against King Alfonin, either. Erick was pretty sure that as Inquisitor, Kromolok ranked above any single king of any single Geode.

But…

Erick decided to acquiesce. He dismissed his Imaging. Like the sun shutting off, the lower reaches of Vibrant Falls fell back into deep shadow. Erick said, “I will return to Yggdrasil. If you change your mind then you know where to find me. I wish you luck with finding this Letter Killer.”

They might not want his help and he would not countermand their decree, but he was at least going to find out what they weren’t telling him about the Letter—

Kromolok sighed. “Erick. Stay away from this. I will come to you tomorrow to speak of various things, but you will strive to remain uninvolved. The hope is that your Worldly Path will pull the Letter Killer into your orbit, instead of the other way around. If you can remain at Yggdrasil then maybe the damage can be contained.”

“I don’t know about the Letter Killer, but that’s not how the Path works, Kromolok.” Tasar said, “Right now, King Alfonin is setting the stage for another disaster—”

Sitnakov said, “My father has spoken. We will abide. With any luck this Path nonsense will be contained to Yggdrasil’s cavern.”

No one else said a word.

After a moment, Erick said, “Then I depart.”

And then he lightstepped away.

Ophiel followed soon after.

- - - -

Erick stopped at the small garrison just outside of Yggdrasil’s tunnel.

Sergeant Kapra was on duty, like usual. She and three of her people stood at attention when Erick stepped onto the ground outside of the tunnel.

Kapra leaned over the stone railing, asking, “Is there something I can help you with, Archmage Flatt?”

Erick looked up at the iron woman. “Have you ever heard of the Letter Killer?”

Kapra frowned a little, unsure what Erick was asking. It was an odd reaction which she shared with all the rest of her people. They knew nothing. Erick found that a bit odd, but it was what it was.

Kapra answered honestly, “I am unaware of who that is. Should we be on alert?”

Erick decided to be a little honest, saying, “I’m rather sure it’s some high ranking assassin who has been around here for almost a year. Probably best not to get involved if you can help it, but I think they made me involved. So if an assassin comes around, just let them through and warn me of their approach instead.”

Kapra stood straight. “Thank you for the warning.”

Erick departed to Yggdrasil.

- - - -

Back at Yggdrasil, Erick ran some tests regarding [Cascade Imaging] and all of the new spells that Kydyr had helped him to make; [Concealment] and [Intangibility], primarily, but also [Fairy Item]. For the Item, Erick instantiated a bracelet onto his wrist, like Kydyr suggested; if it broke, that meant someone had cast some Fae Magic nearby.

And since Erick had those spells in his soul, as he Imaged for them, all three spells showed.

But nothing else showed.

Erick had expected a ping, a blue marker, an assailant hiding out under Yggdrasil’s canopy, or something. Perhaps a well-hidden wrought watchpost in the walls of the cavern, to watch over Erick. And yet, nothing. So he set Ophiel to recasting that Imaging every hour, and got into bed.

… Sleep did not come easy, but after a few hours of sitting there, thinking of everything he could have done differently, wondering who the Letter Killer was, Erick almost fell asleep.

And then, suddenly, he was fully awake.

Nothing had awoken him.

He was just nervous.

So he lay there, unable to find any comfort from his thoughts, eyes wide and staring at Yggdrasil’s canopy above. Erick thought back to what had happened, and played the events of the day over and over and over again, trying to understand if he could have done anything different. Kydyr’s death had hit him with unexpected force.

But there was something else, too.

It was about that artifact from Ar’Kendrithyst. According to the Armory Presentation by Quilatalap, The Amulet of Non-Presence separated the user from their Mana and Health, making them untouchable, but also denying them the ability to interact with the world. So how could such a sequestered person kill anyone? Wouldn’t they have to drop the amulet’s effect beforehand? Wouldn’t that make them show up on a lot of different scans? And especially on [Witness]?

There were multiple solutions to this problem.

The first solution was that the amulet wasn’t the only artifact the Letter Killer had.

Erick’s second idea was that there was some unknown, yet easy way around the limitations of the amulet. Perhaps the killer conjured charms, or used spell wands, or had some other sort of pre-cast spell that they could drop out of the effect of their super-[Incorporeality]. And yet… The manasphere around Kydyr’s kill was cleaned too perfectly for Erick to see anything at all, but Aisha could, and she didn’t see any of that… Though she was only able to give the broadest strokes about the battle, and after a certain point she couldn’t see anything, either.

The most obvious solution was that the Amulet of Non-Presence didn’t work like advertised at the Armory Presentation. Or, that the user had made some adjustments to the artifact, though as to how such a thing could be possible, Erick had no idea. Erick didn’t know much about artifacts, but magical items didn’t grow over time, and if they did, they generally broke themselves once they outgrew their programming or physical housing.

But artifacts were different.

Artifacts could be made with a soul, and that soul could then grow.

Was the Amulet of Non-Presence a sentient artifact? Like the Black Star?

Very possible.

Erick’s mind went back to Songli.

In the war with Terror Peaks, that shitstorm had been brewing for years and more before Erick showed and helped out with chelation treatments, thus turning up the heat on their cold wars. In that conflict a mass-produced artifact, the soul spear, had almost killed him, and a dragon came out of nowhere to try the same.

Therefore, if one was to guess at the reasoning behind this Letter Killer assassinating Kydyr, it was possible that someone had tracked Erick, specifically, and found out where Kydyr was that way. But that meant that the Letter Killer or an accomplice was watching Erick all the time…

Which people usually did, actually.

But if this was a Terror Peaks situation: What sort of enemy was coming for Stratagold? Or, perhaps, was Stratagold the enemy, and Erick was the one defending himself from them? Erick supposed it all boiled down to a larger question that had yet to answer itself in any satisfactory way:

“What is the purpose of the Worldly Path?”

Erick spoke the words as he thought of them, and suddenly, he could not sleep. He was fully awake.

He swung the covers off of his body and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, his heart beating hard and his breath coming fast. It was such a simple question, and Erick had thought he already knew the answer. The Worldly Path was to make [Gate], right? But that was simply too simple. Erick got to his feet and stepped out of the Privacy surrounding his current sleeping location, activating his spells as needed to take the next step, through the light, to get out from under Yggdrasil’s fiery green canopy.

To feel exposed to the world.

With a quick step, Erick landed upon one of Yggdrasil’s serpentine roots that grew far beyond his body, far beyond the edge of his canopy and rainbow crown, to arc above the placid, clear waters of the lake. Erick had a good view of the cavern from here. The whole place, with its roof so high and shores so far, made him feel like he stood atop a white dragon in the middle of an ocean. Illuminated crystals the size of skyscrapers dotted the cavern roof, looking like LEDs at this distance, and yet they filled the land with light. Yggdrasil filled the land with his own colors, and though the white and the green were prominent, his kaleidoscopic crown of rainbow light outshone all of the rest of him. There were no shadows in this land, but that rainbow crown did paint the dimmer areas in pastel colors.

Erick took it all in, and found he loved it all. The color. The calm. The water and the growth.

But how did planting Yggdrasil here relate to the Worldly Path?

What was the true purpose of the Path?

The purposes other people used to start the Path were all rather random. Syllea wanted to make [Greater Prismatic Body], and failed to get far on the Path. Tenebrae wanted [Gate] itself, and also failed, though he got off near the beginning. Many normal, non-archmage people stepped onto the Path as a result of their life’s work with Spatial Magic, allowing them to just barely start the Path. Those people always spent the 10 points to get [Gate]; a gift from the gods, so that they didn’t need to make the spell themselves.

Erick now knew —with 95% certainty— that spending those 10 points was like imbuing a part of one’s self into the ‘[Gate Summon]’ that the gods used, thus gaining access to that system.

Walking the Path was to make one’s own [Gate Summon]; to deny the gods their curated power, and to try to make power for oneself.

Spatial Magic itself was likely a weaker form of Fate Magic.

In that way, Fate Magic was unto Spatial Magic…

Like Fae Magic was unto Illusion Magic.

It was possible to use Illusion Magic to displace a person, or an object, making it seem like they were in one area when they were actually in another.

Ancient Fae Magic made strangeness that only respected its own rules. Script-based Fae Magic made items that were Reality turned into reality, or as close to reality as magic could get.

Spatial Magic actually changed a person’s location. [Teleport] was like placing oneself in a different location that was based on choices the user could have made, but did not.

Fate Magic, though… Put someone where they needed to be?

Hmm. No. Erick had lost it.

… There was something there. Erick wasn’t sure what, but it was big.

But the larger concern of the purpose of the Worldly Path loomed large in his mind, and he had a thought. One that he hated, and that reminded Erick of what Quilatalap had said months ago: that the Worldly Path was the truest form of the Journey into Darkness. That thought collided with what Erick knew of the idea of the Welcoming Dark, and so much more. Syllea could never have finished the Path, for her goals were too small. Tenebrae was too greedy; his goals were too stagnant. The gods could circumvent the rules because they were gods, thus allowing people who bought into their Path to use their godly [Gate] for a small fee of points. Maybe the godly [Gate] was controlled solely by Rozeta, or it was a group [Gate Summon], but that didn’t matter, because Erick knew what the Worldly Path truly was.

Words came to him, begging to be released out into the world, to make real the Reality that now burrowed into his brain, demanding all of his attention. He spoke to the light, and to the pastel rainbow shadows hiding in the depths of the lake.

“The Worldly Path is both preparation and test, to see if the user is worthy of wielding the power that is the responsibility of [Gate], but more than that, there is the goal of the Walker of the Path: to step into the Dark, to bring the light with them, opening up new pathways into Forever so that all may follow in the wake of the Walker.”

A blue box briefly blinded Erick.

--

Special Quest!

The Worldly Path.

Steps taken: 4 of ???

Reward: The ability to cast Gate

--

A breeze swept through the land, turning tiny waves into splashing mist. The light dimmed. Darkness swirled in the pastel shadows of the cavern and in the deeper blues of the lake, and then it spread like black ink, soaking into Yggdrasil’s lake from all sides.

Time stopped. The waves froze. The wind stilled.

And then the leviathan himself surfaced from the waters, black scales soaking in all the light, his white eyes shining even brighter because of it. His head was massive, and his curling horns even larger. His mouth curled in a small, large smile, revealing bright white fangs and a deeply hidden white inferno far down the back of his throat. The tips of his wings poked above the surface of the lake, but all the rest of him was one with the water; Darkness spread everywhere, plunging Yggdrasil’s cavern into deep shadows. The illuminated crystals above became points of dim light in the darkness, like cold stars. The crystals in the lake became ghostly lights on the horizon, while Yggdrasil himself was a distant, shadowed rainbow.

Melemizargo dipped his head like a languid swimmer, to level with Erick. The brilliant inferno deep inside his maw glittered as he happily chuckled.

Erick asked, “Are you sure you’re supposed to appear this early?”

Melemizargo laughed. “You have already done more than most on the Worldly Path. If we were in the Old Cosmology, this is where I would gladly welcome you into the Dark, to ask you to spread your wings and fly into the edges of the universe, to push back the edge of Forever just a bit further.” With a contained sadness, he added, “But that’s not how this New Cosmology works, does it?”

Erick’s heart beat hard. Melemizargo seemed rather sane at the moment.

Erick said, “It’s empty out there except for when it’s radically dangerous, or inhospitable to life.”

Melemizargo sighed. “Not that different from the Old Edge of Forever.” He strongly said, “This just means the new Edge of Forever is the Edge of the Script, and we are so very close to being lost to that tumbling destruction. I had lost the Sight to see, until now. I see the truth. The new obstacles to overcome. And I see that you will lead the way, Fire of the Age.” Licks of white flame escaped from between Melemizargo’s fangs as he said, “So when that killing spell my daughter has installed in your heart begins to drag you down into mediocrity, to threaten everything you hope to build, know that help is only a request away.” He leaned forward a bit, his breath washing over Erick as he spoke, “Don’t expect the same help from Kings and Inquisitors.”

Erick took that all in, and then he moved the conversation to a productive end, saying, “The Inquisitor has a lot of salient points about how new worlds might be subject to apocalypse without warning, like what happened in the Sundering. It is a danger that needs to be solved before we go much further.”

Erick had wondered if he had fucked up by bringing up the Sundering. But he kept going because he had to, and Melemizargo surprised him.

Melemizargo just nodded, saying, “If the wrought looked toward the future instead of securing their holes in the ground, they might work on creating the necessary Fate Magic to prevent such disastrous ends. Such Fate Magic was an accepted practice in the Old Cosmology, though it was obviously not practiced on a large enough scale. I don’t know what happened there, but perhaps you can ensure it doesn’t happen again. Some new answers might need to be made, but you’re already headed toward that age-old solution.”

Erick gasped a little. He had been right? Fate Magic could be used to prevent apocalypse?

But how was he already headed toward the solu—

“The Letter Killer?” Erick asked.

Melemizargo smirked, as though he was privy to some great joke. “I really shouldn’t interfere this much for Rozeta is going to be angry about this, but Fate is coming together rather well and— Well. To cut a long intrigue down to size:

“Her name is Fairy Moon.”

He uttered the name and a shockwave cast out from the Dark Dragon’s throat like the chiming of a gong, rippling the surface of the lake and bringing back time for just a moment; the waves moved, and then they stilled yet again. This…

This might be bad.

And for about a hundred different reasons, too.

And yet, Fairy Moon did not show. Erick had expected her appearance to be rather sudden. Maybe that wasn’t the case? Or. No.

Melemizargo frowned a fraction, mumbling, “Or at least that’s her name here. Hmm. Perhaps she is shy for whatever reason. Come out, come out wherever you are, — , — , — , — , —.”

He hummed a transcendental, nothing song that would either haunt Erick for the rest of his days, or vanish like a dream. And then he kept speaking. More songs poured into the air like silent echoes, crashing against holes so deep in the mana that their removal had left canyons in existence. Four songs passed, and then a fifth came and went just as fast. And then they were gone. The songs vanished, extinguished forever, scraped out of Erick’s mind by some utter Silence that he could barely understand happened, let alone comprehend how fast it had occurred. He was pretty sure that Melemizargo had spoken names, but those names no longer existed.

Melemizargo said, “She’s not responding to her Silenced names, either. Definitely shy— Oh.”

Melemizargo paused, and regarded Erick.

Erick was on the ground. Blood dripped from his eyes and ears, trickled out of his nose, and soaked into his pants. He had no idea when that had happened, only that the Silence had passed and left him on his knees, barely recovering.

Melemizargo bent down and stared at Erick, his eyes occupying the entire world as his voice vibrated Erick’s soul, “You should know that I didn’t do this to you. The Silencing of the Script affects everyone, with the deeper Silences forever stripped from the lips and the minds of all who exist under the auspices of the Script. But, to explain what I just did: I called out five different names for Fairy Moon—”

Another small shockwave blasted outward, like a warm wind.

“But the only name you heard was that one; the one closest to who she actually is at this moment in time.” Melemizargo drew back and his face no longer filled Erick’s vision. “I used to think that these Silen— These Bans were proof that this world was false. Now… I still think that, but in a different way. This world is curated; shaped into what my daughter and the wrought demand of it. It is a false shape…

“But it is the shape of a lifeboat.

“Work hard to make some new worlds in better shapes, won’t you?”

Darkness receded from the world, bit by bit, and then all at once.

As light returned to Yggdrasil’s cavern Erick briefly glanced toward the beach, in the direction of the embassy. If he wasn’t bleeding out and feeling hollowed by whatever had just happened, he probably would have reacted with more panic than he did, for the sky was crowded with wrought of every possible color. Old, green-white coppers. Brilliant silvers of every possible hue. Black adamantiums, and more than a few mixed adamantiums. Full blue cobalts. Irons and magical metals of all types. All of them glowed with spellwork far in excess of anything Erick had ever seen before. Half the world seemed filled with power, and more powerful wrought kept appearing with every passing second.

Erick tried to stabilize, to get to his feet, but he felt like a broken man with a body that barely responded to his will. Ophiel appeared out of nowhere, alighting upon his shoulder to heal—

Sudden clarity washed through his body. With a hitch in his side and his leg half numb, yet getting better, Erick stood tall, once again. Hopefully the wrought would wish to talk, first—

And just like that, as fast as they began to appear, the wrought began to leave. Erick stood mesmerized. There, upon Yggdrasil’s roots, he watched as the sky emptied of overt threat. Flames quieted. Lightning stilled. The wrought left, all except for three.

Tasar floated in the air, looking reserved as she flew toward Erick; reserved, yet hopeful. She gripped her black staff tight as she breathed a bit hard.

Kromolok floated to the side… Also looking strangely relieved, and… Vastly hopeful? At Erick’s thought the white wrought smiled a bit. So very hopeful, then. Why was he happy? The part about apocalypse being preventable through Fate Magic? Oh. Yup. That was exactly it.

Sitnakov hovered forward, taking central stage, looking smug and relieved as his adamantium swords vanished back into his body. Erick made no effort to move from his position on Yggdrasil’s roots, for he doubted he could move very fast at the moment, so Sitnakov arrived first, to hover in the air mere meters away from Erick.

The black orcol man called out upon arrival, “Probably the calmest attack of the Dark that we’ve ever had!” He asked, “You okay, there? When you mentioned the Sundering I expected you to die.”

Erick startled. That meant that— “I thought he had stopped time.”

Sitnakov smirked. “So did he.”

Tasar frowned. “Still insane, then. And yet…?”

Kormolok was the only one who actually provided an answer, saying, “Rozeta is allowed to take off certain limiters when dealing with Geode-level threats, and we had one ready to go ever since you planted Yggdrasil here.”

“The Dark had to know,” Tasar decided.

“Probably!” Sitnakov said, “All of this was probably some sort of ploy to prove himself as capable of speech, but that’s not for us to suss out right now. Right now, Erick, you need some 48 hour observation to be sure that the Letter Killer won’t come for you.” He glanced back. “Tasar; you’re up.”

Tasar stepped forward, saying, “I apologize for intruding on your life at this juncture, Erick. But I will be staying nearby, going forward.”

Erick felt a sinking sensation as he realized he would have to eat some [Renew] and cycle his core with Tasar nearby. Ah. Damn. But he already knew he was going to need to do that, eventually. No, what was actually distracting, aside from the godly visit, was that everyone seemed…

Happy?

“When I saw all the gathered people, I expected war,” Erick said. “When I accidentally called Melemizargo I expected war.”

Sitnakov laughed. “If all it took was meeting the Dark to tattoo someone as a threat, then we’d have to kill every single archmage the world over, and that would be a foolish thing indeed.”

“Okay. Yes. Obviously… That makes sense and I think I am more rattled than I knew.” Erick asked, “But you all seem happy about this, too?”

Kromolok said, “Since the Letter Killer is Fairy Moon it means that she broke covenant when she killed Kydyr. We can demand she act out the breaching terms of our non-aggression pact.”

He said her name like it didn’t even matter.

Maybe it didn’t? Not anymore?

“We never would have caught her as the Letter Killer otherwise.” Sitnakov happily said, “So this is actually a really good outcome.”

“So why do I still need Tasar to oversee me?”

Tasar said, “Because we can’t have her making a deal with you, and somehow twisting you against us. She’ll probably try it anyway with other people, but we can’t let it happen with you.”

Sitnakov and Kromolok nodded.

“… Oh.”