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Springtime moved fast, but then it slowed, stretching on into forever like a lazy dream that would never end. The pink dragon no longer hurried. The rider above no longer worried. She laughed a springtime laugh, and then she cried for the loss of the red one. Small words floated by as the pink one did not think that red would perish that easily. The rider took comfort in those words, but her comfort was a false one.

Erick barely understood any of it.

Something had wrapped around his mind and would not let go.

And then that something wrapped tighter.

- - - -

Springtime collapsed into a large room at a tall tower. Sunlight streamed in from a tall window, while a cool breeze blew through the room. A woman in pink carried Erick bridal-style onto a soft white bed with fluffy fabrics to lay him down upon too many pillows and too much comfort. The woman was Erick’s own size, and Erick was not a petite person, but the woman moved him around to make him comfortable and there was no strain upon her face. There was only a small smile.

And some horns on her head.

A tail flicked out from the back of her dress. Her nails were sharper than they should be, but Erick could only tell because she took care not to let those claws touch his skin. That all meant something, but Erick could barely link one thought to the next.

The pink woman stepped away.

A second pink woman, this one without horns or anything else like that, stepped forward to the end of Erick’s bed. She had a white breastplate on her chest and shoulders, protecting her core, but her pink skirt looked weightless as gossamer silk. One green eye and one pink eye stared down at Erick, as she smiled at her triumph. Erick felt… Something about her. He couldn’t say what.

Worry?

Hate?

No. Probably not hate. That wasn’t who he was.

Anger, though… Maybe.

The smaller woman pulled out two small glass globes, each only a handspan across. One of them held a prismatic eye that was only visible sometimes; it swirled around inside its glass cage, focusing on everyone in the room, but mostly on Erick. The other globe held a thing of wings and eyes. The wing-eye thing puffed up, filling its entire cage with itself, before shrinking back down. It tried this three times, and for some reason, there was a wetness on Erick’s face.

The woman set those two trinkets on top of curvy, airy, golden crystal-ball holders, at the foot of Erick’s new bed.

“See?” asked the woman with the heterochromia. “He is harmed-not, and here you hold to see for yourself. This truly be temporary, anyway.”

The things inside of those trinkets then focused fully on Erick. The winged eyes fluffed up a bit, but turned calmer. The iridescent eye glanced at Erick, then turned back to the woman…

The other woman, the fully pink one with horns, was gone. When did that happen?

Heterochromia nodded to the little glass balls, then turned her attention to Erick. With a gentle smile, she spoke, “Welcome to Ar’Cosmos, Erick Flatt. I will endeavor to elucidate my words in the manner to which you made a request, but only past this preamble. Words of welcome and warning need be said, and they need be said securely.

“You are currently corrupted by the Fae.

“It will wear off with the wearing of obedience.

“The rules are written thusly:

“The Script survives-not in this land of no lies.

“Do as you will and your will will be done to you, though the re-doing of duress need not be of exact equality; I am the judge and the jury in cases of justice, and my decrees define this land, and your life.” The woman breathed. “And so we enact the etiquette of our existences.”

The room felt different, somehow. Erick had no idea how, but it was.

The woman spoke again, “But for you, there is an additional arrangement: You may leave when I give you leave, and there will be no gainsay in this truth.” Heterochromia said, “Let sanative sleep claim you; your curriculum shall surely last.”

Though the sun shone brightly the room was cool, and the blankets warm. Heterochromia went out the door, securely shutting it behind her. Solid stone walls seemed safe enough, so Erick cuddled into the covers, and let sanative slumber take him to a humble hibernation.

- - - -

Erick dreamed of white clouds in a blue sky, a shadowy existence on the horizon, and a lot of angry words being thrown against a pink and green fire. He had no idea what was what, but he was…

Getting…

Something.

Something was happening.

Something white hot began to form in the center of his being.

… No. Not ‘form’. Wake up.

Something was waking u—

- - - -

Erick slammed awake.

Everything happened very fast, and then not fast at all. He tried casting a [Luminous Beam] at the pink dragon-lady standing by the window. It failed. He tried manually casting a [Luminous Beam] at the pink dragon-lady; also failed. He briefly recognized that he was having a moment.

He briefly recognized that his mana sense was thrown wide and yet he could barely perceive more than four meters away from himself. This was double the size of his bed, and not much larger than that. It was a very nice, very large bed. Erick wanted to burn it. He wanted to burn the stone tower all around, he wanted to kill everyone.

He started speaking, “A power now I do hard-claim, a power now of mine to tame. I—”

The dragon lady’s eyes went wide—

Something ephemeral wrapped around Erick and held him tight, slamming him backward. Sleep tried to claim him again, but he fought, though it was like fighting an avalanche with a steel shield; he was still buried under a mountainside’s worth of power.

And yet he held onto consciousness much longer than he thought possible.

For Fairy Moon had strode through the suddenly-open doors, declaring, “Here are words of power be: I tame you now for all to see, a Wizard-born and Wizard-be, you are to now to take a knee, for murder tried and murder failed you are to now be ever-jailed. Only by my true decree, are you to be ever free!”

Thoughts ended.

And then restarted.

Erick was quiet, and calm, and not himself. He recognized this as one would recognize that they suddenly lost an arm, but for him, he had lost his entire body, and some of his mind. He wasn’t even sure if his soul was still his. But it had to be, because he was making this observation about himself?

He could still make observations, yes.

The anger was still there, but it was hidden behind an adamantine wall of Fae Magic.

Fairy Moon pointed to the floor beside her. “Get up and stand here.”

Erick got out of bed, walked over to where she pointed, and stood there. For some reason he was naked, but he didn’t seem to care, and neither did anyone else. His nudity was probably to make it easier to clean him while he slept. Probably to deprive him of his items, too; his rings and his Crystal Star were gone. How long had he slept?

Fairy Moon looked him over with discerning eyes. After a moment she pulled back. “Your problem is in your other self. Show it to me.”

Erick transformed into his Other Form; it was almost instinctual to shift to his monster-form these days. Fairy Moon had spoken about how he wouldn’t have Script access as a part of her rules, and he tried bringing up some of those familiar blue boxes, but they were all gone. And yet, he could still transform at will. He could probably use the other parts of his protean species, too. [Greater Lightwalk], [Luminous Beam], [Lodestar], [Perfected Polymorph], and of course, what he had just done, which was [Paradox Shift].

The pink dragon-lady gasped. “You called him a Wizard but— He really is!”

“Yes.” Fairy Moon relaxed, and spoke plainly while she looked him over, “And no one else is to know of this. I will honor the hospitality rites that brought him here. His Wizardry seemed based on that of a dragon, which is Rozeta’s deliberate doing, no doubt. It will make teaching him a trivial matter… Looks like his core is harmed; a buildup of degradation.”

Erick had seen his own core, but he didn’t feel a reason to fix the small fractures at the edges that would undoubtedly lead to catastrophic failure soon enough. He couldn’t seem to do anything on his own except to think some odd thoughts here and there, and to look around as his various senses allowed. He must have been out of it for days, though, with that level of breakdown.

The dragon lady said, “I’ll go get some spare rads—”

“There’s no need.” Fairy Moon stared at Erick. “Heal thyself.”

Erick cast [Renew], flowing light into his core while he began rotating his mana, filling out every little nook and cranny with solid, unblemished mana, healing the damage that time had caused. He bottomed out on mana rather quickly, but he kept cycling his core, flowing the mana around and around until he felt supremely solid. He sighed with relief and felt a smile come to his lips, and he saw no reason to rid himself of that expression, so he left it there.

“… What was that?” asked the dragon lady.

The question didn’t come from Fairy Moon, so Erick ignored it.

“It was something I saw him do once…” Fairy Moon repeated the question, “What did you do to yourself? Explain to educate.”

“That was [Renew].” Erick explained, “I made that spell back in the Core before Rozeta was going to help me learn of Wizardry and how to fix everything. But then Melemizargo fucked that up with ending our communion but Rozeta still managed to help me some and now I have to learn Wizardry proper from the ground up. [Renew] is all bouncy conformist mana that anyone can use to support any currently-active spellwork, and it is only by a twist of reality that I wasn’t quite aware of that [Renew] works well on monsters, and Wizards are monsters, and so here I am a monster and a man both with [Renew], able to support my own growth without the need of rads, which I understand makes monsters go crazy. I am glad I don’t have to go crazy.

“I still need to learn how to do all this Wizardry stuff, though, from turning my bones and organs to mana crystals and then all of that junk, but I don’t want to do that until I learn it all proper like, because I don’t want to be cut from the Script until I am able to live on my own as a Wizard out and about in the world. Rozeta warned me that she would cut me off from the Script if I did anything too wrong, so don’t ask me to harm anyone, but I’m going to be cut off anyway once I learn myself.

“So for now I am both Wizard and Not.

“In eleven-ish months, though, [Renew] gets out into the rest of the world and they all learn that I am a Wizard even if I am not ready to separate from the Script.

“But anyway: Rozeta installed a kill switch so if I go off the rails in my Wizardry she can pull me off the Script and kill me. That’s what this Other Form is. I think. Not sure what will happen there. If I lose the Script I lose a lot.

“I still need to remake Strong and Clarity and the like, too, as well as Paradox this Other Form of mine and my Normal Form together into a cohesive whole. I was hoping to get to do all of that after Oceanside but then you kidnapped me and now I am here talking to you about stuff that I really shouldn’t... be speaking…” His voice trailed off.

His words had all come out in a jumble and he had barely answered Fairy Moon’s question before he went off on a tangent… Because he wanted to go off on a tangent? She was surely smart enough to understand his words, even if he himself had barely kept up with that verbal diarrhea.

Why was he speaking like this, though?

Well… Because he Had To Do What Fairy Moon Wanted, of course.

It all made perfect sense when he thought of it like that.

He could have answered her better, but a part of him was glad that he did not.

… And that part of him stared out from deep within the depths of his soul, stirring against its confines, watching, waiting. It would strike when it could. Not yet, though.

Fairy Moon glanced from Erick’s eyes, to his core, narrowed her gaze, and then returned her sight back to Erick. “Both of you understand the depth of your near-depravity. Your yearned-for murder of my Maid Maria has landed you in this losing position. Prepare thyself for even worse should you scheme and actually slay anyone at all.

“I do this kind-ways first. I do this terrible-ways when I owe that obligation.”

Heard and understood.

“How does this Other Form work?” Fairy Moon asked.

“I [Paradox Switch] and I get a new Status. It was level zero, but [Renew] and then cycling has gained me levels.” Erick said, “Level 27, as of the last time I was able to check. The Script doesn’t seem to work here.”

“The Script does not reach this land and it never will.” Fairy Moon frowned a little.

And then Fairy Moon stepped closer and stared up at Erick. Erick glanced downward. Fairy Moon was half a head smaller than him. And then she started walking around him, leaning over to get a closer look at his legs and his back and his stomach, and especially his heart; she was surely looking at his core from all sides, for she had to have a good mana sense at her age. Erick almost wanted to ask if she really was a million years old, but he did not.

He could not.

And that brought him up short again. He realized something was deeply wrong and he could do nothing about it.

“You haven’t spent any points in this Other Form at all, have you.” She kept walking around him. “None at all. Not even on basic things like Meditation or higher Stats.”

It wasn’t a question, so Erick didn’t answer.

Fairy Moon got to his front again then stepped back. She glanced to the dragon lady, her Maid Maria, saying, “Prepare a grand luncheon. Invite Illustrious. Tell her nothing.” She stood as tall as she was able and turned back to Erick, “Attend this announcement, in order: See to your young ones. Contact no one outside of Ar’Cosmos. Remain in this Other Form from now until I say otherwise. Clean yourself up in that bathroom. Put on whatever clothes you find in the dressers that you wish to wear. Then, and only then, you will join me in the dining room downstairs to continue this discussion. Find yourself freed from this ensorcellment by the surety of your steps.” She added, “A tribulation shall greet you should you gainsay these trials.”

And then she left.

- - - -

Erick did as he was told.

He went to the globes first. The one containing the feathered eyes bounced and fluffed, making tiny taps at his glass cage at Erick’s approach, while the iridescent eye simply bobbed a bit. Erick picked up the noisy one first—

Ophiel.

Erick held Ophiel’s orb in his hand and the little guy’s name was a bolt of lightning erupting from Erick’s very soul. And then the flash faded. With a simple smile, Erick put Ophiel back down on his stand.

Ophiel bounced even harder against his solid glass sphere. Plink plink. Plink plink.

Erick picked up the eye—

Yggdrasil.

Like a clearing sky, Erick realized that Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye had been trapped inside the globe. Yggdrasil’s eye spun a bit, staring up at Erick, hoping for… Something. Erick had no idea what. All he could do was hold the globe tighter. In a spur of need, Erick glanced to Ophiel’s orb and grabbed that one, too. He held both in his hands…

And then he went to the bathroom.

Erick was sure, that if he were in his proper mind, that he would have loved to be here, in this bath in a more friendly setting. The bathroom was as magnificent as the bedroom, with solid grey stone fixtures and fountains pouring out of the wall and a hot basin of water which was easily two meters wide and four long, and a meter deep. Erick set Yggdrasil and Ophiel in the water with him as he grabbed some soap and cleaned himself up. The water got dirty, but it was rapidly cleaned by some sort of magics.

Halfway through his cleaning, he realized he needed to use the other facilities, so he went to the other side of the room and did that. Yggdrasil and Ophiel were still bobbing in the bathwater when he came back and redid his instructed cleaning…

Erick slowed down as he finished washing the soap out of his hair.

He was clean, and…

Some thoughts came back. A vise loosened around his heart and soul and mind.

He looked to the bobbing trinkets and grabbed Ophiel and Yggdrasil. He held them tight. He could feel his connection to both of them, but… He couldn’t summon another Ophiel, and he barely even realized that he could do that, anyway. Erick sat there in the shallow end of the bath for a while, just thinking, trying to understand the depth of the danger all around. For there was danger; he recognized that, now. But thoughts remained as elusive as all his usual magic, and he only had the barest bit of Mana left, anyway.

Erick had enough wherewithal to recognize that Fairy Moon had made him empty his mana while she was watching, and then she had recognized that he had no mana, and she had told him to stay in this Other Form until she said otherwise. If not for that instruction, Erick felt he could easily switch back.

A fog still lingered, though. Erick didn’t feel like breaking anything right now, least of all Fairy Moon’s instructions.

Eventually, Erick got out of the tub and went to put on clothes.

His skin felt great after the bath and the clothes felt wonderful, but as he put them on another part of his self came back.

Fairy Moon had fairy-fucked him, hadn’t she.

Ah. Shit. He couldn’t even transform back to his Normal Self to cast any larger magics and he didn’t have Meditation in this form, so the last hour he had spent in the bathroom, very much not Resting at all due to sudden stress, he had only regained a pittance of mana. Not even enough for 2 seconds of [Greater Lightwalk] movement. At his current cap of 200 mana, even if he Rested for the necessary 2 hours, he still couldn’t cast a single [Luminous Beam], either; that spell cost 500 mana, and he didn’t have Clarity.

He couldn’t do shit.

He couldn’t even [Cleanse] himself until he had gathered 9 of the 10 required mana, and that was only because Intelligence had dropped the costs of his spellwork by 10%… But did that even work here in Ar’Cosmos?

Did… Any of his preconceived notions about magic work?

Erick had no idea!—

No wait! He had [Renew]ed himself back there. He still had all his spells. Those spells were inside his soul, which was currently locked to the core sitting beside his chest, nestled in its own set of veins and arteries that did not pump blood at all, but which looked like they could. Maybe they pumped something else? Did they pump mana? Why? How?

… Anyway. If he had the mana he could use it. But that likely wasn’t happening anytime soon. He had a max of 200 mana and no Clarity (did Clarity even work in Ar’Cosmos?) which meant that he was fucked. And all because he had decided to wait to put points into his Other Self’s Status…

No. Wait.

Something was wrong with that idea.

Why did points into Willpower, which would have increased his base Mana in this Other Self, still matter here in Ar’Cosmos? Wasn’t this place like the Old Cosmology? Stats didn’t matter? Only—

Oh.

Stats fortified the part of oneself that allowed one to have more mana in the first place. His Stats would have still contributed to his Mana reserves here in Ar’Cosmos if he had ever spent them, but he had wanted to raise his Other Self right, and fortify his body in the old ways, since he was eventually going to lose Script access entirely. Saving his Points and then seeing how they fortified his body and soul had been his goal…

But now he was here, in Ar’Cosmos, and that original plan had fucked him over—

No. Wait. Even if he had spent the points, then… Nothing really mattered in the face of Fairy Moon, did it? She would do what she wanted, and Erick would need to go along, or else she would take away his ability to resist her.

This was not his fault. This was Fairy Moon’s fault.

… But he still tried doing what he always did when he added points to his Stats, which was to open his Status and then adding points from the pool, but there was a major disconnect there. First, he couldn’t open the Status. Then, he couldn’t spend points. Even if he tried to do it instinctively, nothing happened.

No blue boxes.

Nothing.

Did he even have Health? This was Ar’Cosmos and there was no ‘Health’ back in the Old Cosmology; only mana— No ‘Mana’ either! Just mana, that was in the air and everywhere else, and what one managed to shove into their core to allow them to cast magics in the first place—

Okay. So his Intelligence was still working a bit. He didn’t seem slower than usual.

— So how much mana did he actually have, then? If his Core was his mana, and he was a Wizard making a million mana a day, then he should be able to cast from that pool of mana…

He tried another [Renew]; the safe choice.

Light sputtered inside his chest and then failed to blossom.

It seemed some rules applied, and others did not. He was still connected to the manaminer aspect of the Script; his mana production was not his own, for it was shunted off into the Core of Veird, or something like that. Try as he might, Erick could not cast anything.

Ah.

… Could he phone Phagar for help? Request aid from Rozeta?

… Message Melemizargo?

He thought for a moment longer about everything that was happening to him and his very limited options, and then he grabbed orbs that contained Yggdrasil and Ophiel and left his room. He turned toward the stairs and walked down; the only direction he could go.

He passed windows along the way, and gazed out across the grounds.

Skyscrapers in a myriad of styles dotted the land, each at least twenty stories tall, while a lush forest grew down below. Half of the towers were pagodas. The other half were more Greensoilian or Wastelandian; tall spires of almost-gothic architecture.

Erick edged to one open window, seventh from his room, and stepped out to the short balcony. Down below was a large yard filled with a small farm, while beyond that farmland was a wall that divided this estate from the roads and businesses outside. The streets were filled with people of all sorts, with a lot of them looking like the dragonkin that Maria was (his Perception seemed to be working well enough, Erick realized) with the thick tail and horns and very little in the way of scales. Some of them had actual scales all over their bodies, and looked almost like Apogee back in Spur. Some looked like people wearing prop items; they had no scales on the bare arms or legs that Erick could see.

Two types of dragonkin?

And now that he thought about it, Maid Maria had no scales on her face and very few on the rest of her. His mana sense was shortened considerably, but it hadn’t been small enough to not notice everyone around him, when they had been near. Maria had had a small rad beside her chest, too, though hers was perfectly spherical without any facets. Like a pearl. Erick’s was more like a cut gem.

Fairy Moon had been inscrutable, though. It was only now that Erick realized that he hadn’t been able to see inside of her, when she had been peeking inside of him. He hadn’t really looked too hard, but his mana sense was up and active at all times, anyway.

And he didn’t see anyone else around in the castle with him. Sure, there were lots of people on the distant streets, but… None of them looked up and glanced at Erick, even though he had mistakenly stood by some of those windows for too long.

Something fuckey was going on.

Probably multiple things, actually.

… Proceeding more cautiously, Erick strode down the wide, spiraling staircase that spanned the whole of this particular tower. He glanced out every window he came across.

Fairy Moon’s compound was massive and gothic and old. The main compound down below was the size of Erick’s own mansion ten times over. Her towers were fifteen to thirty stories tall. Taller than anyone else’s. Everything was arches and alcoves and balconies and sculptures of all types of people and pillars—

Something small with great big eyes and stone-grey scales peeked at him from behind the head of a stone sculpture on the next tower over, briefly meeting his gaze. And then the thing instantly retreated. It was a… A lizard, maybe? Yes. It was a lizard.

… Or maybe snake—

Oh. Wait.

A baby dragon?

Might have been a dragon.

Okay, so. Erick’s Stats were down about 70 points from where they usually were. He still had Perception and Intelligence, so he was a great deal above ‘baseline-human’, but not as capable as he usually was—

So why not switch back and make some rings—

Erick shook his head.

Rings wouldn’t matter anyway; useless in this Other Form.

Erick also ignored the possible-baby-dragon and continued down—

He froze. He should switch to his Normal Form and then he could esca—

He continued down the—

He stopped. He should switch—

Erick continued down the wide, spiraling staircase; the only way he could go—

Unless he wanted to jump out a window and flee? Nah. He’d probably fall to his death. He might have Dexterity and some Strength, but both were at 10, and he was never very good at the physical side of adventuring… He was never really a good adventurer, anyway, even if he was a guild member and ‘Star 11’ or something like that.

And besides! There were baby dragons out there climbing all over.

… Or maybe they were guardians meant to stay out of sight, but warn people of their presence when people looked like they were making to climb on the architecture. Erick breathed deep. Yeah. Okay. That seemed more likely. He was trapped. That made more sense than baby dragons crawling around outside on the decorative arches and sculptures.

… And he kept walking down the stairs. This tower was pretty damn huge, eh?

Erick eventually made it to the bottom of the stairs and found himself to the side of an end of a hallway. The actual end to the hallway was a set of open double doors and a nice little breakfast balcony, overlooking the gardens down below. The floors inside had a nice carpet heading from those open doors to further into the house. Erick considered the balcony. It wasn’t much of a jump down—

One of the lizards poked up from the edge of the balcony, eyed Erick, and then vanished back behind the solid stone.

… Guardians then. Not baby dragons.

Erick followed the carpet down into the bowels of Fairy Mansion, or was it Clan Fairy? The people around here did things like the nelboorites did, with pagoda architecture and ‘clans’, according to what Erick had heard, so it probably was ‘clans’, and not ‘houses’. Eh. Whatever.

The smells of cooking bread and something savory wafted on a breeze that flowed through the house. Erick followed both the carpet, and now the smell, until he ended up in a central dining room. The table was a massive oak thing made of dark wood with white inlays, while the chairs were similarly weighty. The whole edge of the room was festooned with hand-carved sculptures and paintings and other works of art, while the luncheon spread on the table mirrored that of a state-level dinner. Candelabras made of twisting serpents that ‘breathed’ candles that were lit with a perfect-white flame. Mounds of food layered atop multi-leveled silver platters. A full roast pig, with a tarip stuffed in its mouth. Maid Maria started carving the pig the second Erick stepped into the dining room, making pulled pork out of the carcass, while Fairy Moon sat at the head of the table, and a third person sat at the third seating. Erick assumed the open seat was for him.

So he went to his seat. All the while Fairy Moon and the other person watched him. No one said a single word. Erick set down Yggdrasil’s and Ophiel’s orbs on some obviously-for-him orb holders near his chair and sat without giving a single word, either—

His butt touched the soft leather seat.

Suddenly, his mind cleared. The fog went away.

Perhaps most oddly, the first thing he realized was a correction to his previous thought about ‘House’s versus ‘Clans’. Ar’Cosmos used ‘Houses’. Erick had already been told this a few times, and most recently in Archmage’s Rest, by Prognosticator Aisha, when she named the three Houses of Ar’Cosmos as House Fae, House Death, and House Carnage; each one named after the change that they had enacted upon their Dragon Essence to rid themselves of the Dragon Blood Curse.

And then he realized that he had noticed that he was under a mind fog, but it wasn’t truly gone until now.

Quickly coming around to the idea that yes, he was fully cleared—

He tried switching back to his Normal Form, and found himself unable.

Not fully cleared, then.

But at least he recognized that he was… Soul-shackled? Yeah. Probably. There could be only one reason why he was able to recognize all this, though: He had fulfilled all of Fairy Moon’s instructions. Yes, that had to be it. Erick ignored that for now...

Time had seemed to stretch as Erick finally took in the situation happening all around him.

Fairy Moon, if she was presenting as her true self, was incandescent with silent, barely-visible anger. But it wasn’t directed at Erick. It was directed at the woman sitting across from Erick; The only person in the room unknown to him.

She was a woman of soft purples fading into deep violets, with horns on her head looking as though they were made of amethyst. They weren’t crystal, though; they were her true horns. She did not have a tail, but there was absolutely no way anyone would mistake her for either a dragonkin or an incani. She was a dragon in ‘human form’, and was rather open about that fact. She stared at Erick with glittering violet eyes, then her gaze drifted down...

She wanted him, but not sexually, or in any way that Erick would ever be comfortable with. She wanted his heart, or probably his core. She stared directly at his core and then smiled, showing off a smile that was too large, and fangs that were too sharp.

“He is not yours, Illustrious,” Fairy Moon said, trying not to be too sharp in tone. “He is mine.”

“There’s enough of him to go around.” Illustrious said, “Just look at him! He’s a baby but even I was terrified of him coming here, and now you show me that he’s a Wizard! I owe Bright Smile a hundred truegold.”

“You mistake why I have invited you, and you continue to mistake why you are here. This is his choice; and it is not up to you to make it for him.” Fairy Moon turned to Erick, saying, “So choose: My way, or I hand you over to the tribunal and they decide what to do with your Wizardly nature. This second choice means that Illustrious Moon gets to bid on your Breaking, and then you will be broken into Fae, or Carnage, or Death. If you take well to the Breaking then you might even find true power and happiness in those lives. But, you and I have a connection already…

“And so if you choose me, then I will guide you in the ways of the fae for however long it takes for you to open the Grand Pathways once again, and for me to be sure that I have not created a cancer to deal with in the future.”

Erick—

Illustrious Moon gasped. Everything about her changed; from vicious to bewildered to contrite and then to amazement and wonder, all in the blink of an eye. She whisper-shouted, “You don’t really believe that dung about him opening new worlds, do you!” When Fairy Moon said nothing, Illustrious leaned back, slowly turning serious by measured degrees. She eyed Erick and Fairy Moon a second time. “… We’ve been laughing over that for the last year… But if it’s true...”

“I don’t know if he can.” Fairy Moon continued to stare at Erick. “Fate seems to want him to go that direction, and maybe it is time for me to move on from this land. Maybe it is time for my brothers and sisters to return. I was honestly enjoying the break from all their antics, but… Seasons shit and dynasties die at the whims of true Wizards.”

“Ah…” Illustrious Moon said, “Well then. I apologize for eyeing you like that, Erick. It’s hard to know that I could save another hundred kids this year…” She said to Fairy Moon. “I’ll still take him, though.” She looked to Erick. “I will see you treated right if you choose me, but there will be some distinct changes in your usual operations.”

Erick almost exploded at Illustrious.

He dearly, dearly wanted to.

But he contained himself.

By Illustrious’s words, Fairy Moon seemed to lose most of her earlier anger. She said, “Those are the options, Erick. Fall in with the fae and test your Fate, or test your luck and your life upon the tribunal.”

Erick took a moment to breathe, and then he said, “I choose my own Path, and if you want to walk it with me, Fairy Moon, then you may accompany me for a while.”

Illustrious’s eyebrows rose. Maid Maria paused as in her preparation of the plates for lunch, but she resumed almost as fast. And then both Illustrious and Maria looked to Fairy Moon.

Fairy Moon met Erick’s gaze with her own. She was judging. Weighing. Then she decided, “This accord is acceptable, though it would be easier for you if you yoked yourself to my mandates.” She stared. “I can make you do anything I wish now that you have broken hospitality. Ware this warning but once, Erick Flatt. If you should not apply yourself I might decide that you aren’t learning fast enough to outrun fate, and that will go poorly for you, but it will still go the way I choose it to go.”

Erick stared right back, though he kept his anger and his true emotions out of his voice, “If you would have come at me with a combination of more candor and care, and less subterfuge and seals, then maybe I wouldn’t be rightfully riled or, no matter how this shakes out, resentful.”

Illustrious Moon and Maid Maria almost gasped at Erick’s disrespect.

Fairy Moon simply nodded, though, saying, “I know that according to your kind our last meeting and the subsequent ones went poorly, but in time, you will see that this was the best outcome for all. Stealing away a pretty mortal into the fae can be quite the pure-motive pastime, for there are a lot of rules for me to follow in this regard, so you are not in any actual danger unless you upset the unity of this slice of the Old Cosmology. Take ware the warnings and you will flourish and find your way. Make wrong choices and make yourself a crypt.” She added, “Besides! You want to make Elemental Benevolence! Take heed of this benevolence of mine and adjust your mind to your new environs. You might be here a while.”

Illustrious jolted at the idea of Elemental Benevolence, which meant that this was her first time hearing that idea—

Dragons were very expressive? Did Erick have that right? Illustrious and Maria had to be old, right? But here they were fully expressing their emotions on their faces.

— Illustrious exclaimed, “Elemental Benevolence!”

Illustrious Moon was surprised for multiple reasons there, all of which Erick barely gleaned. Erick was more focused on Fairy Moon anyway, for he did not like what she was saying. She called this ‘her benevolence’? This kidnapping and all the controlling shit? And that was her honest feeling, too, from what Erick could gather. She wasn’t lying about how she felt about anything. She truly believed that she was doing the best thing for everyone.

Fairy Moon added, “What I will apologize for is speaking of my age, or the ages of anyone in that meeting. That was rude of me.”

That was too much. Erick snapped back, “But kidnapping wasn’t?”

“Not at all. You stepped into the Path of your own volition. I merely took advantage, as was my right.”

“Let me switch back to my Normal Self.”

“No. You are to learn proper magic and proper Wizardry and you won’t learn any of that in your already Script-enhanced body. Take it as a boon of the Path that you were granted this whole new life before you got here, and that you didn’t fuck it up before I got a chance to get to your proper re-creation. And now:” Fairy Moon set a necklace down in front of Erick. It was made of the finest silver with a small pink/green/white crystal droplet in the center. “Wear that and you will be immune to the Sights and dangers of others for as long as you live peacefully in this place. It won’t protect against any average defenses so don’t go dawdling around in unapproved places, like on the outsides of houses either big or small.”

Too many things were happening all at once.

Erick kept up with all of it, but he dearly wanted to go back to the part where he had been kidnapped. He was not done being angry about that, and now he was also mad about almost being fed to the dragons of Ar’Cosmos. But with Fairy Moon’s last statement she had obviously seen Erick look out the windows up there and contemplate running away.

Yeah... Big news. Whoop-de-doo. Erick was under constant surveillance. Probably mind surveillance, too. Erick took the necklace and put it on. It probably had a tracker in it to directly allow her to observe him; he wouldn’t be surprised. He couldn’t tell that anything had changed, but Illustrious stopped glancing at his chest.

The violet dragon-lady whispered to herself, “That’s much better.”

At least the people around here seemed to be wearing their emotions openly.

Erick ignored Illustrious and turned to his [Familiar]s. “What happens if I break the glass?”

“They are free to wander around, though whatever they do comes back to you.” Fairy Moon warned, “Be ready to contain your feathered one if you should let him loose.”

Erick instantly smashed the glass orbs onto the stone ground beside his seat.

Both orbs shattered. Yggdrasil flew up to Erick’s left shoulder, but Ophiel fluffed out like an eldritch demigod, filling most of the airspace above the table before Erick could think otherwise, going knife-feathered and sharp-eyed, but no one seemed to care—

Fairy Moon warned Ophiel, “I’ll put you back in a bubble and the second one won’t break so easily.”

Erick regained full control of Ophiel and brought him back down to his front, and then he loosened his grip. Ophiel forgot his anger once in Erick’s warm embrace. The little guy batted at him with his wings a bit before switching to hugs. Erick hugged him tighter, too, and for a brief moment, everything was fine.

But everyone was looking. Maid Maria had a small smile. Illustrious had a sad, almost empathetic expression. Fairy Moon just stared a little, like she wanted what Ophiel had, but she could not, for she had done too much to ever deserve such honest love ever again.

… Erick was not touching that minefield with a hundred-meter pole.

Erick held Ophiel a bit more, and then Ophiel calmed down and eventually climbed onto his other shoulder, opposite Yggdrasil. With the fluffy guy on his right and the iridescent eye on his left, Erick breathed deep, and said, “So when does this Wizardry learning start?”

Fairy Moon instantly said, “After. First, a meal. If you will, Maid Maria.”

Maria set out the filled plates.

Fairy Moon took the first bite of pork, declared it good, and then Illustrious Moon began to eat. After a moment of indecision, the food smelled too good and it made Erick’s completely empty stomach grumble hard. Eventually, he ate.

… It was, perhaps strangely, one of the worst, well made meals he had ever had. Maria was a great cook. The spices were on point. The meat was seared well and the vegetables had lots of butter. It was very, very good, in presentation and smell and taste and texture. But it was also terrible. Perhaps Erick would have enjoyed it more in a better setting. Still, though, he ate. Everyone ate. Maid Maria even fixed herself a plate, but she ate in the other room. No one spoke.

Erick finished relatively first because he was more hungry than he realized.

Illustrious and Fairy Moon both stopped eating when he did. Maid Maria rushed back into the dining room shortly thereafter and began clearing the plates and the lunch.

Erick spoke first, asking, “Where are my rings and my Crystal Star?”

“The rings are broken, for I would not risk those things corrupting people with even more Stats.” Fairy Moon said, “The New Stats themselves would not work within Ar’Cosmos anyway, for none of the boosts of the Script apply in this land, except it the most basic of ways, but they would unlock the New Stats for anyone who should think to wear them. Therefore, they had to be broken in my first disagreements between Illustrious Moon and myself. They wouldn’t do you any good while you are here, anyway, for it is only through the Script that that form of enchanting works at all.”

Illustrious Moon withheld her disdain for that particular decision, though her emotions still showed upon her face.

Erick withheld his own annoyance at Fairy Moon, too. Whatever. He could make his rings again. That wasn’t a problem.

And then Fairy Moon continued, “The Crystal Star is another matter. That is in the vault, for now. This will soon change. With your decision to allow me on your Path, we shall be returning the Crystal to the Church of Koyabez, along with a letter detailing that you are safe and under my protection.”

Erick started—

But Illustrious got there first, speaking with horror in her voice, “You would let that twisting artifact return to Veird? I thought it would get lost in the vaults!”

She did not mean ‘lost in the vaults’. She meant ‘destroyed’.

Erick glared, saying, “You have no choices to make regarding the Crystal Star other than to return it to me.”

“No.” Fairy Moon said, “The divine energies invested into that trinket and the soul twisting power you placed within will hamper your growth as a true Wizard. Therefore, it is to be given back to the god who helped make it and you are to never touch it again.” She gazed at Erick, saying, “And! When we get the time, we shall have a good and long talk about what justice truly is.”

And now Erick was mad for an entirely new reason. “You would rather kill someone than let them become someone new? You would deny those who wrong others the ability to see how they have wronged others?”

“Death is cleaner.” Fairy Moon said, “In the jumbling of souls that occur between one life and the next, whoever comes out the other side is not who went in. What you have done is an abomination to the natural order—”

“There is no such thing as a natural order.” Erick said, “All we have is what we make of it, and what we make is justice and society and civilization. It is not natural, and you attempting to naturalize the unnatural is you imposing your own outdated beliefs on others.”

Fairy Moon smirked. “And is your Crystal Star not doing the exact same thing? Imposing ideas?”

“Of course it is! Society is about imposing ideas on each other and working out compromises.”

“And when I say ‘natural order’ I mean exactly that. You think I know nothing about the unnaturalness of my nature?” Fairy Moon said, “When I speak of natural order I mean to see civilizations grow up, without outsized influences upon them, and besides that: your Crystal Star needs to be in the hands of a collection of desires, at the very least, and not in your own personal hands. One man does not get to gradually corrupt the cycles of death and resummoning, for I have seen where your Crystal Star ends up, Erick, and it is in a world of stagnation and excess that eventually falls to the monsters outside that society.”

“First of all: I much prefer the term ‘reincarnation’. Ecks leaves much to be desired when it comes to concepts of rebirth—” And then Erick realized he wasn’t arguing for an outcome he truly wanted, anyway. He did not need the Crystal Star. He would be happy to let the Crystal Star go back to Koyabez, but… “I would be happy to let the Crystal Star return to Koyabez, but I was going to use that model of magic to try and cleanse all of the dragons of Ar’Cosmos of their Dragon Essence Curse. To turn Dragon Essence into Elemental Empathy. But now? Fuck you,” he said, looking at Fairy Moon. He turned to Illustrious Moon, saying, “If anyone could have uses some Elemental Empathy it’s you.”

Fairy Moon almost said something—

Illustrious spoke first, half-incredulous, “You. A Wizard. You would have come here willingly?”

“Yeah. After I figured it all out first and probably cured the Headmaster, first.” Erick said, “Though I’ve been told that a true flight of dragons would destroy this world, so I have no doubt that someone would have talked me out of it. I still would have countered that the idea of Elemental Empathy could not be cooped into murder-for-all or some other horror show all that easily. I feel I would have won that argument, eventually.”

Fairy Moon withheld whatever she was going to say, as she gained a small smile.

For Illustrious had heard Erick’s words, and she looked, for a long and terrible moment, like a woman who had found out she had won the lottery the day after she threw away the ticket. Erick felt a profound sense of joy at seeing Illustrious fall apart, no matter how small that crumbling was. And then he realized that he shouldn’t have so much joy at Illustrious’s suffering.

Then he went back to his first feelings. Illustrious was very ready to take him and ‘Break’ him in order to make new dragons. Therefore, Erick decided to hold onto his schadenfreude for a while longer and not feel too guilty about seeing the pain he caused in Illustrious.

Honestly, this whole situation was fucked up.

“Honestly, this whole situation is fucked.” Erick said, “I was going to come here anyway. I was trying to help you assholes.” He wanted to slam his knife into the table, but he did not. “Why did you do this, this way?” He glared at both of them, asking, “What the fuck?”

Neither Illustrious or Fairy Moon had the decency to look ashamed.

Maid Maria, who was currently between rooms, winced, as though she realized she had stepped in dog shit. At least one person here was capable of empathy. Maria was probably younger than both Illustrious and Fairy Moon. Fairy Moon was older than at least one universe, though, so her way of thinking was simply…

Fairy Moon was simply alien, and that was the truth. Maybe she was incapable of true empathy? An amoral fae… Well that was pretty cliché. But the more experience Erick had with Fairy Moon, the more he realized that she was simply, truly, foreign.

Erick was still having trouble grasping that idea, though. To him, everyone was understandable if you tried hard enough. It was quite infuriating that Fairy Moon was the way she was.

Illustrious was easy to understand, though, for all her age and power and separation from the real world. She was in denial, as she said, “The Headmaster would never let you come here if you looked to help us, and we both know what we do to Wizards. If it weren’t for Fairy Moon then we would be doing that to you, right now; trading one life for a hundred. And it would be the right thing to do.”

“I gave the possibility of redemption to six Shades.” Erick rhetorically asked, “What makes you think I wouldn’t want to help your people from needing to consume Wizards just so you could move around without killing each other on Veird? Those dragon fights kill thousands each year, and according to everything I know the fact is normal dragons just cannot help yourselves. That Curse is an affliction that needs to be cured.” He added, “But maybe it is like others have said: ‘The world cannot handle a true flight of dragons’, and maybe they were right, if this is how you treat people once you have them under your sway.” Erick almost told of how maybe the Dragon Stalkers were right to murder every dragon they could find, but that was a step too far. The Stalkers were in the wrong, too, and not just because their zealotry had harmed Poi. There was no clean side in this conflict. Just pain all around.

Illustrious wanted to speak—

Fairy Moon got there first, saying, “One life for a hundred is an argument that could be agonized over for a million years, and whatever outcome came out would still be wrong, for the scales of justice wander and wither in the face of weighing lives against lives. Speak no more of this pedantry at this time, for this discussion is too large to have at the moment. We are talking of actual tasks to undertake, not theory to theorize over.”

Erick could tell (at least) that Fairy Moon seemed to love to argue, for she very much wanted to talk of the nuances of justice, but as she said: there were larger, more personal things to discuss right now. Still, Erick almost launched right into a talk of ‘justice’, if only to countermand the fae’s demands to move the conversation along.

Fairy Moon said to Illustrious, “You know the truth of Erick. Do not spread any truths discovered at this dining. Instead, be ready in all ways, and especially prepared for when [Renew] enters the Open Script. And be ready to assist with core formation and growth, for Erick will need a teacher, and one must be provided that is closer to draconic than fae.” She turned to Erick. “Before you learn Wizardry, we will speak more of this Elemental Benevolence you named back at that beach, along with several smaller ideas, for acclimation comes before academia.”

Illustrious got up from her chair, and Erick saw for the first time that she was a truly tall woman, and that was before her horns. She said, “I wish to hear more of this new House you wish to raise, Fairy Moon, but I will accept a full debrief when this orientation is over. Welcome back to Ar’Cosmos.”

— A new House? Why the fuck would Erick agree to that? Why would he agree to anything these assholes wanted, at all? Like, well… It was the easy way out. ‘Give the mugger your wallet, because it isn’t worth your life’ but Erick had thought he was past that part of his life. Apparently not, though.

… Obviously he wasn’t past this part of his life.

Erick scowled a little, but he was unsure who he needed to be scowling at the most. Everyone here deserved a lot of scowling, though. Perhaps some more snappy snipes, too. There wasn’t much else that Erick could do in this situation, anyway, because he couldn’t summon more Ophiel, Ophiel couldn’t summon more Ophiel (Erick had tried once, just to see what would happen, and he got a minor Error message from the Script… But they were in Ar’Cosmos now… Could he…? Something to test later), and he didn’t want to risk Ophiel being taken away from him, anyway. If he acted out, at all, besides with words, which seemed to be okay, then there would be consequences. Erick didn’t want to experience any more of those consequences, thank you very much. He was still reeling from the horror of having all his bodily autonomy and mind taken away from him, but he was able to compartmentalize that.

… That compartment was getting pretty full, and like an overfull closet, Erick couldn’t close the door anymore. Stuff kept spilling out. He would need time and calm and… not this, if he were ever to regain his full sanity.

And yet, Erick maintained.

Fairy Moon said, “I am not sure if it will be a House, but it might have to be. Whatever Erick makes needs to last for All Always and the usual way to do that is with pervasive life, for Elemental Benevolence will be this New Cosmology’s anti-Sundering Element.” She frowned a little at nothing in particular, saying, “I do not want to go through that Sundering nonsense ever again, and I don’t want anyone else to, either, but this act of Creation will be challenging, because Erick has already been set upon the path of Paradox.” She got up from her chair, and she seemed like a child compared to the very tall Illustrious. She said, “Your welcoming is well received, Illustrious. I look forward to auditing the House after I get Erick settled in with some proper scrolls and spellwork.”

Illustrious’s had been wide with every new announcement from Fairy Moon. Her voice was a whisper, “Anti-Sundering—” She recovered. “An auditing will be availed to you whenever you wish.” She bowed, then she left the dining room, down the tunnel toward what Erick could only assume was the front entrance.

Fairy Moon turned toward Erick, saying, “The Dragon Curse is only part of the reason for that hungry look she gave you in the beginning.”

Erick felt whiplash as he reoriented to Fairy Moon.

Fairy Moon continued, “The Script itself is a terrible burden for all beings who ascend, for it makes their mana no longer their own, and monster and man alike is forced to take in the mana of the conquered, or be driven insane with anger like the common monster.” Fairy Moon gained a bit of her own anger, but it was well controlled, as she said, “When Idyrvamikor laid down that Dying Law against his murderous brother, it only compounded the problem of being a dragon on Veird…” Her voice trailed off as she looked away.

Erick could infer a lot from Fairy Moon’s sudden bout of emotion.

The woman obviously had had some sort of relationship with Idyrvamikor, and she probably knew the most about what the Dragon Curse was. Perhaps this was why she threw in with the dragons. Perhaps she was the one who even made the Gate Network in the first—

… No. There were too many ways Erick could be wrong about that. He stopped himself from making any preconceived notions. He decided to just ask her.

“Did you make this land?” Erick asked, “Or did you take the Gate Network laid down by the Old Dragonkin and make it into something larger?”

Fairy Moon continued to gaze out at nothing for a long moment, then she turned to Erick, asking, “How much do you know of this land? Of the current-day workings but also of the founding years of what was to be the greatest civilization in this New World?”

“Of history, I know the broad strokes.” Erick said, “The founding of the Old Dragonkin Gate Network happened in year 2 or 3 in what would eventually become the Forest of Glaquin. There were a few decades of peace and then came the Death of All Halves, in year 25, which was caused by the Old Demons in their efforts to create their own hybrid human people, the incani, and to deny the angels their alvani; the half angels.

“Fully repairing the Script from the Death of All Halves caused the creation of the orcols, combining orcs and trolls into one people, which caused the Rage Wars. [Teleport] didn’t come along till year 100 or so, though, so the Gate Network left by the Old Dragonkin was the only way to get around Veird in any timely manner, so the orcols tried to capture the Gate Network. They succeeded some, which caused the Rage Wars to spread nearly unchecked.

“But all the rest of the world eventually fought the orcols to a standstill and then Aloeth, the elven goddess of beauty, captured the Rage of the orcols and transformed herself into Aloethag, actually ending the war. But by that time the Old Dragonkin Gate Network was in tatters.

“Idyrvamikor’s Dragon Curse happened somewhere in there, I think, but I do not know the exact timing, or the circumstances involved. His name is scrubbed from the history books.” Erick said, “I also have no idea how you are involved, or how the dragons came to be here, or anything of note with why it is the way it is, except for that dragons can come to Ar’Cosmos and not be affected by the Dragon Curse.” He added, “And Wizards can remove that Curse.” He added a bit more harshly, “And you kidnap Wizards all the time and harm them to get what you want. For multiple reasons, all of which boil down to the people of this land all doing what they want and not caring about how it affects other people, or the Curse making the people in here act certain ways, or other workings of circumstance, you are a danger to the outside world; Yet another enemy of Veird.”

Fairy Moon ignored all of Erick’s anger, saying, “It seems we are in need of a history lesson and a tour, first, for while you have touched upon the touchstones of this land, you know very little. Get up, and follow me.”

Erick got up. He asked, “I’m not really safe here, even when under your aegis, am I?”

“If you are worried about Illustrious then you are smart, but while she will try something, I will be there, and I doubt she will actually reveal your Wizardry to anyone else. If you are worried about all the lesser dragons around here, then you insult me with these words.” Fairy Moon added, “By that same token, if you get into trouble that is of your own making or if you out yourself as a Wizard, then I will only rescue you when you are nearly dead, and the secret will be too large to keep quiet if that happens.”

Erick was having a hard time understanding many things about Fairy Moon and her motivations, and he wanted clarity in this regard, so he asked, “And you’re really not out there telling everyone that I’m a Wizard? Or letting this information flow out of control?”

“I did not tell anyone. They saw your truth for themselves—”

Erick ignored the rage in his heart.

“— But in the case of Illustrious Moon and Maid Maria, they’ll both be involved in helping you become a proper Wizard and they know better than to cross my creations. That necklace will prevent any accidental reveal of your truth, though.” Fairy Moon said, “I expect this attempt at subterfuge to fail rather fast, and even faster as soon as other people realize you are here, and that you can’t do nearly as much magic as you should. If you want to play like you’re here to help us solve the Dragon Curse and to learn of Wizardry, then that lie might be manageable. Do you wish to navigate with this narrative in mind?”

“… Are you controlling my communication with the outside, too?”

“Yes.” Fairy Moon waved a hand, deciding, “We will discuss all of everything else as the present permits, but let us move to our first lesson: a true telling of legacies and legends lost to time. We go to meet with the creator of Veird’s original Gate Network.”

Fairy Moon started walking.

… Erick decided to start following.

And Erick checked himself, briefly.

For one thing, Erick was interested in finding out more about Ar’Cosmos. He didn’t think that inquisitiveness had anything to do with whatever controls Fairy Moon had put on him. In fact, most of those controls felt gone. But Erick knew those controls were just dormant.

He knew those controls were mostly dormant because he was still really fucking angry; he was capable of being angry, and capable of having murderous thoughts, like picking up the knife back on the table and driving it into Fairy Moon’s left eye. But if he tried to switch back to his Normal Form, he could not.

… He had a good reason for being angry. It had only been through his own words and demonstrated scope of what he could promise, that he was not currently being ‘Broken’ into yet another Wizard for these dragons to ‘eat’. All the good that he had done before and all the plans he had in place to do more good for everyone, including these dragons, didn’t fucking matter to any one here.

That really pissed him off. The kidnapping and everything else up until now was actually a close second compared to the rage he felt at the injustice of it all. The pure close-mindedness. The inability to see Erick’s history, and his Truth, and still judge him as incapable of helping even those who don’t deserve help at all.

The third thing making him angry was that Fairy Moon was apparently some ‘fae of justice’ or something and she couldn’t see the shit she was doing to him, or perhaps she was willfully ignorant—

Compartmentalize. Stuff that box full. Bury it in the depths of your mind and look to the brighter things in life. He was alive. Ophiel and Yggdrasil were here with him. He was clean and uninjured and had just eaten.

… And he could cycle his mana whenever he wanted. He did that as they walked, and instantly felt bet—

“You’re doing that wrong,” Fairy Moon said, “Continue as you must, but I’ll show you a better method later.”

For a long, terrible moment, Erick felt like he wanted to fall to the stone ground and lay there, pretending to be dead. Fairy Moon could see inside his soul, even when the necklace should have blocked everyone from looking, but of course she could see past it. And now Erick didn’t want to walk anywhere. He didn’t give two shits about history, no matter how much relevance it had on the current day.

He hated how much he wanted to kill Fairy Moon.

But he kept putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually those awful feelings passed into the background.

Down another hallway they went, and then toward a closed door.

Erick said, “I expect recompense for this terrible treatment.”

Fairy Moon stopped in her tracks, but she did not look at Erick.

Erick added, “And also! Before we go on, I need you to tell me why you chose to kidnap me back there. Why do you think that this is somehow ‘justice’? Why did you need to be in control of something that I was already handling without your interference?”

“My goals, then?”

Erick would take that, too. “Your goals. Unvarnished and uncomplicated.”

For a long moment Fairy Moon was quiet, then she said, “It has to do with the pedantry of arguing over one life versus a million deaths in the near future, or a trillion trillion lives in the far future when this universe inevitably allows for another Sundering. Is there a point to try for titanic civilization ever again? Perhaps not. But, perhaps, if we lay the laws down properly and prudently, and if we have the right of it in the beginning… But is that hubris? To think ourselves better than all of everyone else who came before? Better than all those who failed to find their way to Veird, or failed to stop the Sundering? Yes. This is hubris. But also: this is a topic too large to fully embrace in a single hallway’s walk, or to speak even the slightest weight it truly requires on timelines as large as star shifting in the sky.” Fairy Moon breathed, then said, “But that is my true goal. My life, and my Truth.

“I arrive at the answers to the ineffable and impose those findings on the firmament. I conform chaos and order into something more substantial, and less chaotic. I am the friend to the faithful and the lost looking for light, and the foe of all who would forswear the lives of others.

“And you, right now, are plowing heedlessly ahead. You make plans and other people perish to the sides, never to be seen ever again in this life. You think to work with the wrought and they would wring you for all you were worth, and then leave you out on your lonesome, or worse! With a sword across your neck at the dying of the day. And I see your anger against this announcement. You don’t blame yourself for trying better than all those who came before. And I don’t either. But the fact remains:

“You play with powers that you have no standing to side with, while those sides play around you, gaming for trifles of the treasure you will create.

“There were two ways this meeting between you and I could have ever possibly gone,” Fairy Moon said, “Either I would give you to the dragons, and continue my support of those sorry people, persecuted by the one who should have been cast down long ago.

“Or, I help you do this right. We build for eternity, instead of for emergency. Not a Script, but something better.

“Before I knew you as a Wizard I had high hopes for you, Erick, but then I discovered that you were the one thing that could destroy or recreate everything, as he deemed necessary. This was too much power for you, and I truly did think that you would be better off dead, or used to enact some of my own agenda; it would be a reduction of ideas and a recycling of life into what could be salvaged. But you have proven your true character by your actions and your words a thousand times over, and yet again there in that luncheon with Illustrious, you proved your character.

“And so… I have decided to help you.

“For it is as that Inquisitor of Rozeta’s has said: You are to be the firmament upon which the rest of civilization will rest. Maybe you won’t end up like Xoat, who was strewn across all of their Old Cosmology in order to enact that universe. Or maybe you will. Only time will tell.” Fairy Moon added, “All I know is that you need a lot more help, and I must give it to you. Wherever that help leads is up to you and I, and if things seem to be going wrong, and they cannot be salvaged, there will be a salvaging of a different sort, and you will not survive that event.”

Erick had a lot of thoughts about all that. Mostly, he did not like the idea of being a ‘firmament’. He just liked to help people. That didn’t mean he wanted to actually go around being the basis upon which everyone else relied.

But as Fairy Moon’s words sunk in, he realized that she was at least right about one thing: his wishes for a better world would mean a lot of changes, and those changes would cause catastrophe, and that he wasn’t being nearly tough enough on himself.

What he wanted to do was a lot larger than the simple flight of fancy that he had originally intended it to be, when he mouthed off to that Lower Trademaster of Portal, Caradogh Pogi, about cutting their Pearl Kingdom out of all trade by Erick making his own [Gate] network. Now that was him mouthing off, and to the detriment of everyone around him. That was one of the reasons he stopped himself from mouthing off again to Fairy Moon, and her idea of him being the ‘basis upon which all else would come’. Her little warning there at the end barely registered, since she had already said as much before then, but it was good to know her measure, in full.

But everything was way more complicated than Erick had ever planned.

Erick said, “All I ever wanted to do was to help people. I thought I would figure it out, eventually. Go slow. Learn what it meant to open the world to easy travel— It’s not like [Teleport] isn’t right there in the Script for anyone to take. It’s not like I’d be upsetting much, except… Travel in and out and around the Underworld would change dramatically. I didn’t even think about new worlds until everyone started talking like that. I did not think I was doing something this large when I started.”

And now he was here, prisoner of the fae.

Fairy Moon nodded, saying, “I know you don’t appreciate it now —no one ever does— but in fifty years time, if everything should work out, when you’re still out there living the life of an unchained Wizard, and anti-Sundering magic has been on Veird for 49 years, you will look upon what had happened here in Ar’Cosmos as the best possible outcome of all fractured figments. But make no mistake. This will not be easy.”

Erick breathed in, then looked to the door, saying, “I still wish you would have simply asked.”

“We both know that never would have worked.”

“… It might have.”

Fairy Moon ignored Erick’s small words and opened the door to a garden path. The sun shone brightly. The sky was a cloudy blue. The flowers smelled sweet. Beyond the path lay the five-meter high stone wall of Fairy Moon’s compound, along with a gate ten meters tall, and open.

Beyond lay a forest path.

Erick walked beside Fairy Moon, neither of them speaking, for Erick had nothing more to say, and neither did Fairy moon. So Erick gazed around, taking in the sights.

He noticed something fucky right away, with Fairy Moon’s mansion, rising up behind them. The place had five towers, four of which were about seven stories tall with one that was ten tall, all of them scattered among three main house-like structures, each at least three stories tall. The place was practically an art piece itself, with sculptures of stone people dancing and praying and other sorts of actions, while the architecture was very gothic and solid. But it was not what Erick had seen from the windows when he came down from his room.

Erick tried to mentally chart the path they had taken to get to this point outside the garden walls, but he could not. The tower that was his bedroom had to have been 20 stories tall, and he saw none of that, and his bedroom had been on a corner tower for sure, for his tower had been smaller than the other towers by a lot, but all of the towers he now saw were about the same height.

Non-euclidean geometry? Probably. Made a lot of sense, actually.

It was just one more thing to explore with regard to [Gate], for at this proof, it seemed there truly was such a thing as ‘Fae Space’, like Tasar had named.

And so, they exited Fairy Moon’s place, stepping deeper into the forest—

They were headed away from the city, it seemed. Erick would have thought that their historian would be with all the other people. But… Guess not?

- - - -

The forest looked mostly normal, and there was a path to follow, so it was mostly a normal walk through the woods. The evergreen trees were larger than average, though, at over a hundred meters tall and with the trunks and canopies to match, but this was certainly not the Forest of Glaquin, for every tree in the Deep Green was at least a kilometer or more in height. Ar’Cosmos was located inside the Forest of Glaquin, though. Erick still wasn’t sure how that worked, but he would likely find out soon enough.

This space had a lot of little Fae Magic touches, if you knew what you were seeing.

Two things stuck out the most to Erick. The largest event happened when they circled a large tree with decorative white-thread rope tied loosely around the trunk; they took a right, and then another right, and then another right, and they never crossed the path they had started on, even though they should have. The second major thing was that the tallest spire of Fairy Moon’s mansion always appeared through a gap in the trees, if Erick looked for it. He tested this twice to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing, but then he noticed Fairy Moon with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smirk. She was watching him figure it all out. Erick didn’t like that at all, and he almost shut down again, but he powered through that tough emotion.

All in all, his problems were not as large as they could have been. Erick had already experienced what it meant to be truly helpless once, and he was not eager for a repeat performance. He could play along…

And if Fairy Moon’s goals turned out to be true, then Erick could do what he needed to do and then get the fuck out of here. Hopefully.

The green forest gradually gave way to a land of autumn, with red and gold leaves on the trees and in golden and brown drifts nestled at the bottom of every trunk, and wrapping around every boulder. The air smelled faintly of spices and cold, but it was a far off scent.

They traveled around another roped tree, and the springtime returned, but this time the green trees were smaller. A craggy grey mountain rose in the distance, like the edge of a continental shelf rising up, dividing the land between a forest on the lower half, and a castle town on the upper cliffside. White spires and barrier walls and cathedrals rose upon that upper cliff, looking like the whole thing would both fall off the edge at any moment, and like the white stone garrison had been stable upon that land for the last millennia.

Erick and Fairy Moon had been walking for an hour and would likely walk for another hour to get all the way to that castle, which seemed to be where they were headed. All this while, Erick had been cycling his mana, and feeling a lot better for it. It was strange how much better he felt when he kept his core maintained with proper upkeep. Was this a substitute for therapy? Or was he drugging himself into complacency? Or was this Fairy Moon’s doing?

Hard to say, really.

Erick ignored that problem for now, too. He was coping. It was enough.

Eventually, they reached the mountainside below the white castle. Fairy Moon had guided them directly to a ten meter tall grey stone door that looked as though it was carved out of the rock of the mountainside. There were no guards, or obvious defenses, but then Fairy Moon went up to the door and knocked.

The grey stone transformed into white, and then simply vanished.

Beyond lay a curving hallway lined with white pillars. Bright red-flame torches in black iron sconces merrily burned away at the side of each pillar, but they still cast out white light into the deep hallway that looked as though it would have gone on forever, if not for the slight curve going left. The ground was solid white stone, and the ceiling was arched. Red flame, black iron braziers hung from the ceiling, too. Fairy Moon went in, and Erick followed—

The world transformed.

Behind them lay the hallway of white pillars and red fire. They had traveled the entire hallway in a single step.

Ahead lay a foyer of white stone with a twenty-meter tall blood-red crystal in the center, and two curving staircases leading upward on both sides. This was some central location, for sure, because everywhere Erick looked there were archways that led to ballrooms and libraries and more hallways.

And the whole place was sized for dragon sensibilities. The crystal was 20 meters tall. The arching ceiling was 50 meters high. Erick saw no dragons, or anyone else at all, but as the enormity of the castle quickly dawned on him, he saw human-sized amenities here and there. That staircase’s main steps were two meters tall, but there were side staircases set into the main one, with runners every third-meter, like normal. The open doors to the library had smaller doors set into them for people to use. The books upon the massive shelves of the library looked small from this distance, but the fact that Erick could see the individual books at all meant that they were huge, but there were small, mobile ladders that were like long toothpicks leading up to those big books. Human-sized people worked here, under the dragons, or rather, above. For far above, on the ceiling, catwalks artfully crossed through open air, leading this way and that so that people didn’t have to walk where dragons stood—

The red crystal shimmered.

A red dragonkin covered in normal dragonkin scales stepped out of the crystal, onto the ground a fair distance from Erick. The man wore a sharp white dress-robe, like a mage would back at Oceanside if they were going to a party, and he had both a tail, and horns. And as the man came closer, Erick saw that he was an orcol-sized dragonkin. He reminded Erick a lot of Apogee, back at Spur, but a lot taller.

A sudden thought occurred: Had Apogee come here? He had been on the Worldly Path before. He had gotten all of the way, too, hadn’t he? But then he decided that he didn’t want to connect the people of this world with each other, or with other worlds, because none of them deserved it. Apogee had spoken of the dragon overlords of his homeworld, too, hadn’t he…

Apogee had always known how shitty these people were to others.

And now Erick understood Apogee a whole lot more. He was a grouch because he had very good reasons to be grouchy. If Erick ever made it back to Spur, he decided he would need to buy that man a drink. But that would come later.

The red dragonkin’s eyes went super wide and he almost stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Erick; there was a clear look of recognition there, though Erick thought it more of a ‘holy shit, it’s Erick Flatt’, and less a personal recognition. The man acclimated to what he was seeing quickly though, and went right up to Fairy Moon and bowed politely, asking, “May this one be of service, Fairy Moon?”

“Yes.” Fairy Moon said, “We wish for a history lesson for Erick Flatt, regarding the creation of Ar’Cosmos, along with the fall of Idyrvamikor and the creation of the Dragon Curse.”

The man looked torn for a moment. He didn’t know whether to inform Fairy Moon that his master was away, or to inform his master that Fairy Moon had come calling. Or maybe it was something to do with Erick’s presence.

The man looked up, and then back to Fairy Moon. “Master Redflame has been informed of your arrival. He asks you to wait wherever you wish to wait, and he will get to you when he can. He has been informed that Erick Flatt has come calling, too.”

Fairy Moon turned, saying, “We’ll be where we are.”

Erick watched as Fairy Moon opened a human-sized door in the wall that was not there to begin with. Beyond lay yet another massive room, with—

Fairy Moon went through and Erick followed before he was left behind.

The red servant remained behind and the door shut, and then vanished, leaving a perfectly flat expanse—

Of open air. They had walked through nothing and arrived at the center of a large room with a wooden gazebo-like structure to the side. It was the only thing in the much, much larger room and it was— Oh. It wasn’t a gazebo at all.

Erick realized he was looking up at the bottom of a massive table, at least 20 meters tall with tree-trunk thick legs and what appeared to be a small balcony on the side. A staircase wrapped around half of the table, leading up to that balcony space. Fairy Moon started walking up the curving stairs and Erick followed for fear of being left behind, again.

The rest of the room was stone with open windows from floor to ceiling, which was only 40 meters up there, maybe. Erick wasn’t quite sure. Red flame on the columns of every pillar in the room illuminated the space with white light, showing off that this was a dining room, of sorts. Erick noticed a chair by the window that was more like a massive bed than a chair any humanoid-person would use. Perhaps a large cat? As they reached the top of the table, Erick saw chairs that were sized for him and Fairy Moon, set to the side of the large table...

Yes it was a table; Erick’s initial guess had been correct. They were in a dining room and this large thing was a table with settings for 2 meter tall people on one quarter of the structure, so people could sit down and eat food on the same level as the other people, who Erick could only assume would be dragons in their full size, who would be eating on the other sides. At least they wouldn’t suffer the indignity of eating on top of the larger table; that would be like the smaller people setting themselves up as a meal, or the larger people setting themselves up to eat ‘off of the floor’.

A four meter tall red splash of crystal sat in the center of the table, no doubt for easy movement between kitchen staff, for that thing was obviously part of a quick-movement system set up inside the castle—

The pillar flames stirred to a great whirlwind of fire on the other side of the table—

Erick almost panicked.

But Fairy Moon didn’t seem to care about the whirlwind of fire. Erick decided not to feel jumpy, too, because apparently he was god damned jumpy these days. Or maybe just recently? No… This had been going in for a while. Everything was surprising him and it was only getting worse.

He cycled his mana and felt calmer.

Anyway. The fire in the braziers on the pillars came to life and a massive wyrm-like dragon spilled out into the room and solidified on the other side of the table. Redflame, for this had to be him, stood as tall as Erick expected him to stand, and for some reason Erick’s thoughts wandered to wondering if the man was connected to Arbor Redarrow back in Treehome, if only because of the name and how Arbor Redarrow had an Old Dragonkin-shaped false-person body.

Redflame stood tall past the edge of the wooden table, but only the tallest several meters of him showed; his face and up to his arms. He had to bend his neck over to make his position comfortable enough to eat, though, and Erick wondered just how comfortable that could actually be. Whatever!

His voice was warm fire and solid strength, “Welcome to my home, Fairy Moon.” He turned to face Erick, and he smirked, “And Erick Flatt.”

A woman dragonkin stepped out of a red crystal on the table, pulling a cart behind her like she was stepping out of a kitchen door. A full roast cow came out on the cart that resembled a large plate, and the woman moved it over toward Redflame where she locked it into position on the table. A second server came out with smaller meals for both Erick and Fairy Moon.

While Erick was busy realizing that Redflame knew him, which of course he did, he was also mentally wrestling with the idea that he was somehow in a baby chair at the ‘adult table’. His server set down a beer and a water for Erick, while Fairy Moon got wine to go with her food.

Fairy Moon readily took the wine and had a sip, saying, “You always do have the best vintage, Redflame.”

Erick followed along and sipped his beer, since it seemed like the right thing to do, and everyone was watching him out of the corner of their eyes. After he had a sip of the quite good beer —it tasted like amber honey— everyone relaxed.

Redflame even gave a little chuckle. “Is it good?”

Erick honestly said, “It’s great. Love it.”

Redflame smiled wide, though he tried to keep his teeth mostly hidden while he did so. White fangs still showed a little. “I was wondering when you would show up here in Ar’Cosmos. I was all prepared to shove my weight around and prevent a war to talk to you on even terms, and to get Fairy Moon to assist you, too, since you seemed to be amenable.” He looked to the gem on Erick’s neck, saying, “I am glad to see that I didn’t have to do any of that.”

Erick felt a wave of sudden, unexpected gratitude at those words.

It passed quickly.

“I would have loved for that to have been what happened. But that is not what happened at all.”

Redflame’s eye ridges went up. And then he glanced from Erick to Fairy Moon, and then back, then he stared at Fairy Moon and frowned. He muttered, “… You didn’t.”

“I did because I had to.” Fairy Moon said, “Adjustments needed to be made due to certain discoveries, and so I made those adjustments. I would have preferred diplomacy, too.”

Erick glared, but then he just sighed.

Redflame kept his frown, but then he glanced around, speaking his thoughts, “What could have happened? As far as publicly known Erick wasn’t going to Melemizargo to get [Gate]… Ah?” His face fell. “The wrought have a Wizard— No wait. Not that. … No. I give up. What changed—” Excitedly, he looked to Erick, saying, “Oh! Of course! I know. It’s that [Renew] you were working on! Wasn’t it! Oh, with that you should be able to gather up enough mana to enact some near-Wizardry of your own in a decade or two.” Fervor faded. “… It might be enough. Don’t think Melemizargo would let you linger that long on the Path… Nor would the wrought. And if you made [Renew] even at tier 4 or 5, proving that capability exists in the mana, then that would lead to Wizardry, too.” He nodded, like he had solved a puzzle. “That is my final guess. Am I right?”

Near-Wizardry through [Renew]?

Erick did not like the sound of that.

Fairy Moon said, “A lot has happened since last we supped. Rozeta has come to me demanding details of magics to make Sunderings never happen ever again, for all always. And then, when I spoke with Erick and the heads of the wrought on the beach of the world tree, Erick’s Path twisted. It demanded him make this miracle happen. And so, that is but one of the reasons he was rescued from the wrought—”

“Rescued!” Erick said, “Are you fucking kidding—”

Fairy Moon waved him off like a child. “He doesn’t believe me at this moment, but that’s normal.”

Redflame glanced away from Erick, saying to Fairy Moon, “You shouldn’t have done that. I had diplomatic plans in place should he show. We all had plans. You would have known this if you spend more than a day here every five years, or if you talked to anyone else besides Illustrious and your Maid Maria.” He said to Erick, “You’re quite the divisive topic around here, you know. I heard that House Handinoi tried to attack you to get you to come to us when it became clear you weren’t receiving our letters, or our other attempts to reach you. Of course House Handinoi’s largest attempt didn’t work either, though, and now they have Dragon Stalkers coming their way, and what’s more: you went to that Ordoonarati fellow instead. Fate twisted hard to make this not happen until now.” Redflame said, “Ordoonarati is a vile little hermit who wants nothing more than to live in his grasslands; very regressive, that one.” He looked to Fairy Moon. “You still could have handled this better.”

Fairy Moon shrugged and dug into her meal like she hadn’t just eaten three hours ago.

Erick eyed Redflame, though. “… You sent letters?” he asked, having a hard time reading Redflame to tell if he was lying or not. He didn’t seem to be, but what the fuck did Erick know about anything? Not a whole lot, apparently.

“We tried, but after the first three attempts ended in the outing of a dragon, that plan was stopped.” Fairy Moon said, “We think Melemizargo was intercepting them, directly.”

“No one was willing to risk a personal visit, either.” Redflame said, “Too much of a chance that one of us would encounter each other out there, where who knows what could have happened. No. It is probably better that you are here now, even if your arrival was under stressful methods. Especially if you want to solve the Sundering problem!” Redflame huffed a small laugh, saying, “Good Fire! That’s a tough one. Well time enough for all that.” He turned to Fairy Moon. “Now that you’re here and look to be here for a while, Fairy Moon, I have lots of things to discuss with you but that will have to happen later.” He turned to Erick. “And now that you’re here, Erick, I desire to speak with you about [Renew]. As I implied earlier, you might be able to work a [Renew] into coalescing mana into a crystal that, once large enough, you can enact a small Wizardry, based on the starter mana crystal. My own plans for this particular magic are theoretical and— Ah! This is all out of order. I had plans and I am being unconscionably rude. We can do all of those plans later, too. For now—” He asked, “You all came here for a reason, I take it? Something about history?”

“… Well now I kinda want to ask about this idea of [Renew] leading to Wizardry.” Erick said, “I hadn’t even considered that. No one has.”

In retrospect, maybe he should have.

As far as Erick’s understanding of Wizardry went, anyone could enact ‘wizardry’ if they gathered enough personal, focused mana, but the timescales for that gathering were rather rough on most people. Everyone naturally produced mana, including non-Wizards. Normal people produced 10 mana per day, but dragons produced about 500-5000, according to Rozeta. In the Old Cosmology there were immortals who had cultivated their own mana for centuries just so they could create within their souls the perfect magic, and then use that magic. Wizards made millions of mana over a period of days, though, so it was very easy for them to make and cast Wizardry.

Erick still wasn’t clear on the exact difference between shaping mana and casting spells, and whatever the fuck Wizardry with mana crystals was, but he would likely find out soon enough.

Except...

Erick had serious doubts that [Renew] would allow for easy Wizardry. He let that doubt show, saying, “I don’t think it would work like that. For one, even if people are using the mana gifted to them by the Script, to prop up spells that they did not make themselves, the end result is a spellwork consisting of the input mana of everyone; not single-source mana. As far as I understand you need perfect, self-created mana to make wizardry.” He added, “At least that’s how I understand it.”

Redflame smiled, saying, “My final goals are likely unreachable, but I am still going to try, for there are historical records of wide scale muddled-Wizardry being enacted in ritual by a thousand mages at once, with each one of them attuned to the ritual and to each other. [Renew] should be able to shortcut this level of organization to some degree, but we shall see! I’m very glad that you are here in Ar’Cosmos now, Erick, because I have the mana necessary to make [Renew] at Basic Tier, and I want to! I have been saving up for just such a special occasion. I would dearly like to speak to you of what you think is necessary, and if I succeed, then I will gift this magic to you, and you can take it back to Veird with you when you go.” Erick surely had a surprised expression on his face, because Redflame’s own face morphed into joy. “And that is my spiel to you. Most of it, anyway. It was all in the letter, but you never got it, which is fine. You’re here now.”

“Why do you want [Renew], though?” Erick asked.

“Because I can hand it out to you and help you in your goals, but I can also hand it out to all my own people, too.” Redflame said, “Upkeep on a castle this large and on the borders of Ar’Cosmos is costly and [Renew] would solve most of those costs. And then there’s the big hope…” Redflame got a shine in his eyes, as he said, “If [Renew] is actually capable of Wizardry, then we will be able to cease our hunting of wild Wizards out in Veird and still be able to Paradox every newborn child into one of our three Houses. Maybe we could even undo the source of the Curse itself by targeting through an afflicted and hitting Kirginatharp. Ohh! Now that is the dream!”

For a long moment, Redflame’s hope for the future mirrored Erick’s, and he felt a deep kinship. This man had gone after [Gate], and according to the rules to get [Gate], he had to be the kind of person who wanted to expand civilization through the use of [Gate]. That was pretty much exactly Erick’s idea of [Gate], too.

Erick almost blurted out that he had created [Renew] already, and that Redflame’s experiment was already out there and ready to be performed. But he could not.

Not after being kidnapped into this land. Not after the shit that he had been put through. But mostly, because that would be outing himself as a Wizard, right then and there, and he didn’t trust anyone in this land. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But something didn’t sit right.

He asked, “If you can do small Wizardry already with the mana you already have, then why not use that to free your children from the Curse?”

Redflame blinked a bit, then eyed Erick from afar. “… Ah. You truly know nothing of this land, do you?” He nodded. “Ah. I see it now. I see why Fairy Moon stole you away— To answer your question: We do use our small-wizardry to free as many children as we can. It’s an imperfect system we can only do every other year, for one person, but it is not nearly enough and those freed usually end up as dragonkin. It is rare that we can make full dragons. Sometimes the process goes well…” His voice trailed off. He came back. “ArCosmos is at its population and mana and self-Wizardry cap. The only way we have found to actually expand is to use real Wizards.” He added, “And just so you know: We do treat our Wizards well, here in Ar’Cosmos. I know you likely have some wrong-headed ideas of what we do to our Wizards here, because in Veird they kill and imprison them, or strip them of their power and leave them to languish in some watched-over city. But here in Ar’Cosmos we do try to see that they are comfortable and happy and fulfilled.” He looked sad for a moment. “We’ve fallen so far from the heights of the Old Cosmology, but it is what it has to be, for the Old Wizard truly did destroy the Old Cosmology.”

Erick had a lot of thoughts about that. He picked one, and asked, “Did they truly kill the Old Cosmology?”

“… Well.” Redflame said, “That’s a course of study at the arcanaeum. If you wish to audit classes while you’re here you may do so at your leisure. We even have some former Wizards there, if you wish to speak to them? If you do find any nascent Wizards out there in Veird to help you make your [Gate]— I might be able to help with [Renew], but certainly not with [Gate]. If you find any Wizards, I would have you know that we don’t just ‘Break’ them and steal their power and then throw them away like they do out there on Veird. We do treat them well, and between Fairy Moon and I and an untouched Wizard, we could certainly help you to make [Gate] if you find a Wizard of sufficient power.”

He had already received such an offer from Stratagold.

Erick decided to tell them that. “Yours is a competing offer from the one I got in Stratagold.”

Redflame smiled wide, though he tried to keep his fangs hidden. “Tell me how to tip the scales and I will do so.”

Fairy Moon brought the conversation back around, “But before all that, we need you to explain the history of Ar’Cosmos; Erick has no basis for understanding our problems, yet. He still has many wrong-headed ideas.”

Erick did not have that many wrong-headed ideas in his head… Probably.

“Oh yesyesyes. I’m simply excited; don’t mind me,” Redflame said, waving an arm. “Where would you like to start?”

Fairy Moon said, “Begin before the Sundering, and continue on until the stabilization of Ar’Cosmos and the Three Houses. Tell all the secrets that you usually leave out. Erick is on the Path and he needs to know of [Gate], but keep most of that talk for another time.”

“Oh my.” Redflame lost a bit of his mirth. “That far back? I usually don’t go that far back in my lesson plans. Modern day history is much more relevant. Also: those secrets are graduate level work and they put ideas into people’s heads— Op! Wait. Yes. He’s on the Path. Of course. Might as well lay down the truth as early as I can.”

If Erick was reading him right, Redflame wasn’t sad or angry about the Sundering. Perhaps he had put it behind him? Most immortals Erick knew had not.

“Erick doesn’t know the true story of Idyrvamikor, either,” Fairy Moon said.

“Ah. Well. You would tell that part better than I, but I will give the usual seven-hour Sundering Lecture with the usual caveats. Feel free to eat and drink while I speak, or to ask for a break, for I know I will be taking some breaks now and then.”

Erick sipped his beer and settled in. The beef was great, but he was still full from lunch, and yet… he could eat again. It was quite good.

Redflame nibbled on his cow, which involved biting off a leg and swallowing it whole. He followed this with draining half a barrel full of ale. He licked his lips with a curling non-forked tongue, then he smiled, and began, “Back before the Sundering, I was doing the same thing as I do now; teaching history. That universe was very different from this universe, but mostly it was the same…”

- - - -

The Sundering happened on a Fourthday while I was teaching a class on the history of the Radiant Depths. By a quirk of fate I happened to look out the window and saw Primal Lightning consume my homeworld’s sister plane. I and a hundred thousand of the people I could reach within the next hour managed to bunker down in what you all would call my [Gate Space], which would one day become Ar’Cosmos, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I didn’t get a second hour to search for more survivors. The Sundering ripped through my home plane and severed all the Paths leading everywhere.

We were cast adrift, along with the [Gate Space]s of every other person who had ever managed to make the spell, and who managed to get inside before the Primal Lightning came. There were quite a few of us, huddling down for safety in the Deep Paths, gathered together, but as the Old Cosmology began to fully collapse, even those spaces weren’t proof enough against The End.

When the Primal Lightning crossed the mana ocean, it left the Yawning Voids in its wake, and those True Voids eventually began to link together. Our gathered Paths were like boats in an ever-shrinking ocean. This is why we had gathered; it was not by choice, but by the magical laws of the Old Cosmology. We didn’t understand that foible right away, but we did soon enough.

And as the ocean drained away, some of those Paths began to fall into the Voids, even though we could not see them, or touch them, or know them at all.

Almost all of those Paths fell into the Yawning Void. I and the people I rescued were lucky, though. We managed to stay afloat in the mana ocean. We found solidity on Veird.

The rest of our time in the Old Cosmology you surely know. The final trip into the Yawning Void. The Script holding us together. The sacrifice of gods and monsters and everything that could not survive on the other side for at least a few minutes. In those few minutes, we lost so very many [Gate Spaces], but then the Grand Translation happened. We survived.

Pure chaos followed for about four years; both on Veird and also inside all the surviving [Gate Space].

There were wars everywhere on the Veird, both above and below. Melemizargo killed 95% of everyone in the Underworld. About 50 different [Gate Spaces] from just as many Travelers were set adrift as their owners were killed or lost to the Deep Paths, trying to get back to the Old Cosmology. The fae took over about 50 other [Gate Spaces] from their owners and had their own Fae Wars out of sight of everyone else, for the Script trapped them all here on Veird, even those who should never be left in the same room together. A lot of them just went insane. Most fae actually committed suicide-by-wrought as they left the Paths and sought rest. Temporary rest, but all the same; effectively dead.

For the fae normally cannot die, you see. They are reborn in the mana with the memories of who they were before, but those memories are like faded thoughts. And thus, most fae passed on from this world, one way or the other.

Fairy Moon stayed, though. She’s been killed and reborn countless times, choosing to come back each time to ensure the stability of Ar’Cosmos, because of a pact formed between myself and her soon after the Sundering.

I normally would not tell you the wording of the Pact, for it was a sacred act of cooperation made between us back then, but she has told me to tell you, and so I will.

“To never forsake and to always help flourish, no matter the times or tribulations that may occur. To never ask for something that cannot be given. To always give what you can.”

It was actually a marriage vow, for those were some crazy times back then. Ah! Anyway. We still love each other in our own ways, but Fairy Moon is a hundred lifetimes removed from that old life, and I would not hold her to the marriage part of those vows, but the old vows still hold when we wish them to hold.

And so, Fairy Moon is reborn in Ar’Cosmos, and Ar’Cosmos is about a thousand times larger than it could be otherwise. Normally, [Gate Spaces] are much smaller than this. Normally, they’re about the size of a field of flowers with a hundred different waypoints of travel. The extra space in this land is attributed to those early years, when we spent 25 years gathering up all the [Gate Spaces] left by those who had passed on. Due to that, Ar’Cosmos was the size of Glaquin itself. It was almost a whole plane separated from Veird and the Script, and we had taken in all kinds of refugees who could not live inside the constraints of the Script. We even had a few rescued fae, other than Fairy Moon, but those people have mostly gone to their temporary rests, for now.

It was a complicated, messy time.

Fairy Moon died a few times, going on more dangerous missions. And one time she came back with Idyrvamikor at her side; her new husband. I was furious of course. But Idyrvamikor was, at the time, the strongest dragon on Veird, and so he had a certain amount of power over all the other dragons, including me. Not Rozeta, though, or Melemizargo, of course. I did not fight Idyrvamikor’s arrival, and after a while, I decided I did not want to. He was a good man who proved his goodness, and Fairy Moon and I were quits, anyway.

Idyrvamikor had come to Ar’Cosmos a mission, though. A mission of peace to finally ascend to Rozeta’s Second, to fully stabilize the Script. To patch up old wrongs and make right the future. But more specifically, Rozeta had sent him on a mission to secure his power as the Second and to stop the small fights that he and Kirginatharp were getting into all the time. So he came here, and he tried to secure our power under his aegis.

Now that man was a true Wizard, in every sense of the word. He moved and magic moved with him. He spoke and magic made his words true. He wanted the best for everyone, and he did what he needed to do to get it done.

This was 24 years into the New Cosmology.

At this time, Ar’Cosmos was still quite close to Veird. The Script was actually active in this place, but it was a figment of what it is on Veird. You had to touch specific stones to gain access to your Status; it was a compromise...

And then, in late Year 25, the Death of All Halves occurred.

The Old Demons enacted a Demonic change upon the Script, and the mana followed the Script’s decree. All of the Old Dragonkin died. All of my children. All of my nephews and nieces and neighbors and 90% of everyone I worked with on a daily basis.

It was another Sundering, of a different sort.

All of the [Gate Space] that we had managed to gather instantly began to fray and split and fall off into the True Void, for the controllers of those Gates and the people we had appointed were either broken, or dead. An entire civilization of dragonkin died all at once.

In this crisis, Idyrvamikor helped to contain and strengthen some of our Ar’Cosmos, to prevent further disaster, but he was needed elsewhere. He went out into the world to fix the problem with the Script before the whole world broke apart.

Idyrvamikor succeeded, but halfway through his success, Kirginatharp attacked for Idyrvamikor was weakened by his act of High Wizardry. Kirginatharp would not have won that battle, it would have been one of their normal spats, if not for Melemizargo intervening and securing Kirginatharp’s victory.

Now. I will say this:

The truth of that battle is only known to the dead, the insane, and the one that yet lives but who has his own version of events. I would not call him a liar, but I would not call him a truth-teller, either.

The outcome of this horrendous act was myriad.

The first outcome was the orcols. Some people argue that the orcols came about directly because Kirginatharp attacked when Idyrvamikor was in the middle of his High Wizardry. Some argue that Idyrvamikor was too in tune with the dead and the hateful of the world when he was dealing with all that death, so he created the orcols on purpose, and he would have combined all people into one, erasing all lines of race and species and preventing all wars based on those lines, ever again. Some say that this act was too full of Idyrvamikor’s rage, and in doing this, he created Elemental Carnage and put it inside the orcols, and that Idyrvamikor had planned this, and thus he needed to be stopped. Some say that Idyrvamikor was always full of Elemental Carnage, and he used that dangerous power to good cause, but the orcols and the Rage were an accident. Some say that Idyrvamikor called for aid against his brother Kirginatharp, and the orcs and the trolls responded first, and thus they were caught up in Idyrvamikor’s spiral of power.

That was only half of the battle, though.

The other half was when Kirginatharp responded with Wizardry of his own, and attempted to wrest all of Idyrvamikor’s power from him. The outcome of that was recorded for all time; made indelible onto Dragon Essence itself, if you know how to look. But it also might be just something that Melemizargo did, all on his own.

Kirginatharp Cursed.

Idyrvamikor laughed in the face of True Death, and his laughter was a Curse as well.

Melemizargo did something at the exact wrong time.

Hate melded with hate. Rage melded with rage.

And thus was born the Dragon Essence Curse.

I knew none of this at the time, though. I explain this here, at this juncture, simply because that was how it chronologically happened.

The next part is a complete blur, for I was also afflicted by that Curse. Every single dragon was. The Death of All Halves almost caused the extinction of we dragons, too. So I will touch upon some major points and skip over most of what came next. Mostly, it was war.

The Rage Wars.

Back then, [Teleport] had not yet been invented. All we had to move around easily were the [Gate Space]s that were now falling apart and also untended. The newly-formed orcols came for those [Gate Spaces] in order to spread their war. The war progressed, but I didn’t care. In my own personal Rage I killed everyone in my [Gate Space] and finally knew peace. I instantly went the way of Melemizargo; rejecting the Script-filled world, trying to find the way back to the Old Cosmology, even though I knew it was impossible.

But the Deep Paths were still there.

In my grief, and my pain, and with every Path rapidly filling up with Orcols, who were the only people I could stand to be around for we shared a kind of Rage, but it was not the same, and so we could not coexist.

I took my Gate Network and twisted it. I knew that the Script was ‘distant’ inside Ar’Cosmos, so I went deeper with that Truth. Deeper than anyone should ever go in the Paths. I could have fallen off into the True Void at any moment in time, but I did not care. I was running. And then a curious thing happened. As I ran, I felt better. As I ran faster, I felt better faster. The Rage slowly drained away as the Path became ever-more twisted and distant.

And so, I buried myself in the Path until I was under so many layers of distance that I found my salvation once again.

I found Fairy Moon in the mana. It wasn’t till then that I knew that I had not been running from pain, but running toward love. In that act of reconnection the Rage finally left. I revived Fairy Moon, and she brought me back to myself.

In this act, we lit the way toward the future.

This land would eventually blossom into the Ar’Cosmos of today; a respite from the Dragon Blood Curse that exists only out there in Veird.

Fairy Moon and I reconnected, but I would not leave this land. The world out there was too painful. So she left instead, and she returned with refugees. No dragons, though. All of those who had survived were in deep hiding. We began to grow Ar’Cosmos once again, though even 1400 years later it has still not reached the heights of those first 25 years, Post Sundering.

Eventually, though, after stabilization occurred, I went upward and outward for the first time in three decades.

The Rage came back in small parts and then deeper, the closer I got to Veird. I thought my core had been completely corrupted by the actions of Idyrvamikor and Kirginatharp, though I did not know that the problem was a lot deeper than that until later. I did what anyone does when their core does not suit them: I divested myself of it. It still had some use, though, so I set it down in Ar’Cosmos and gave it the assignment of stabilizing the land. It worked. This system continues to work to this day.

And so I went out into Veird without any problems at all, searching for answers to what had happened between Idyrvamikor and Kirginatharp and the orcols and the Rage and all the rest. I had heard snippets from refugees, but none of them had a complete story.

I needed to find out what had happened.

There was only one dragon living openly, though, so I went to the only place I could to find answers. I went to Oceanside, and I visited Kirginatharp. This was a mistake.

I learned, first hand, that something had happened to Dragon Essence itself. I barely survived the battle, and only because I was able to kowtow to Kirginatharp and almost die in the process, while also escaping back to Ar’Cosmos.

Kirginatharp knows I exist, though, and his Curse compels him to eat the hearts of every dragon he finds, and to rip the essence out of every person who so much as touches Dragon Essence. He is cursed with the original Curse. There is no saving him, for he likes it that way, for the Curse makes him like it that way. It is a self-deepening spell.

And that is the problem.

The problem is the Script, and the Curse. They are a self-recreating cycle. The Curse exists, and so the Script makes the Curse exist, but the Script makes the Curse, so the Curse makes the Script make it all over again. It would take an act of Wizardry on the level of the now-dead Idyrvamikor to break that cycle.

But anyway.

Ar’Cosmos is a land divided from Veird, where dragons can live and where the Script is too far distant, through winding, tricky Pathways, to allow for the Dragon Blood Curse to reach us here. But we have found ways to go back to Veird and not be affected by the Curse; mostly, this involves dragons leaving their cores behind when they come here, and then they’re okay. Every trip into Ar’Cosmos is a permanent weakening of the dragon who makes the journey, but there is no other way to keep the Curse out of this land.

Except to shift one’s Dragon Essence into something else.

And so, that is what we do. In those first years after we started reestablishing Ar’Cosmos, an orcol Wizard was brought in by Fairy Moon. This man managed to turn my Dragon Essence into Carnage Essence, which is not the same thing at all, but functionally, for me, it is. I can now travel on Veird without falling prey to the Curse. It was the only way.

But make no mistake: Dragon Essence itself is not the problem.

Kirginatharp and the Curse and the Script; These are three individual problems that reinforce each other, and which Rozeta is content to let happen.

Some people prefer to live as what they would call ‘True Dragons’ here in Ar’Cosmos. I am not one of those people, but I would not begrudge anyone their own choices in this life.

Anyway. Eventually, Fairy Moon found two more Wizards of great skill, and that is how we got the three Great Houses of Ar’Cosmos.

House Handinoi, also known as House Fae. Current Matriarch by the name of Illustrious Moon. She has held the position for the last 1100 years and done great things with it, ensuring that outside Wizards are continually found and brought into the fold, so that we might keep them safe and also prevent them from breaking the world ever again. House Fae are the builders of Ar’Cosmos, and the keepers of the Path.

House Welixor, also known as House Death. Current Patriarch by the name of Inferno Maw. He has held the position for 800 years. He ascended to his position as Master Necromancer at the young age of 125. He and his necromancers oversee the outside defense of Ar’Cosmos; they guard the Paths in, and out.

House Fizacaw, also known as House Carnage, is my own house, though I stepped down as patriarch many, many years ago. Current Matriarch by the name of Bright Smile. She has held that position for the last 150 years. We are responsible for the defenses inside Ar’Cosmos.

Then there are the unaligned dragons; those with unshifted Dragon Essence who come and go, but who are unable to settle down either due to personal choice of not wanting to shift their Essence, or unable to get a shift, due to the lack of Wizards.

And…

Hmm.

I think that’s it. Yes.

Oh, sure, there’s 1300 years of history I’m leaving out, but that’s not important right now, since all the actual [Gate Space] stuff is mostly from those early years or better explained by Fairy Moon and others in House Fae. I did not make my [Gate Space] myself; I walked the Worldly Path back in the Old Cosmology, and Melemizargo helped me take that final step. The fae have always been inside any [Gate Space] they ever wished to find, though. Mostly they just leave people alone unless you go poking at them directly.

One thing I will say, though, is that unless you’re willing to support the growth of civilization, like I am, then you are simply never going to get [Gate Space], no matter what sort of tricks or knowledge you learn. Of that, I am certain.

- - - -

Erick sat back in his chair. Breaks had been had and drinks had been sorted and Erick switched to water and light mead somewhere around hour 3. But Redflame was a great speaker. Erick almost forgot his own problems with Fairy Moon in that half a day of listening; in hearing how she always worked hard to rescue so many others.

Erick hoped that was true, and not propaganda.

Erick was pretty sure it was true enough. Redflame definitely gave off the air of a true historian who knew his stuff, and wanted to impart the truth to you as much as ‘truth’ could exist in the chaotic depths of history. Redflame had even said as much a few times during his lecture, in the more controversial parts.

And now the lecture was over.

Redflame finished off another barrel of his own mead, smiled, then asked, “Questions?”

“A lot, but I will content myself with one:” Erick asked, “If Ar’Cosmos is under space constraints, then why is there a whole empty forest out there?”

Redflame smiled wide again, but he was still very aware that he had large fangs, so he smiled without showing his teeth. “An astute observation! That’s all a fae trick. If you could see through the Paths then you would see that it’s ten people per ten square meters, and some of us are dragons! Ah ha! But yes— There are space constraints here. We try to keep everyone comfortable by hiding that as much as we can.”

“… How does that work?”

“As good as we can make it work,” Fairy Moon said. “Actual learning on that subject would need to happen at House Fae, though, with Illustrious Moon and my people. Redflame can manage the land, but he cannot make it more.”

“Quite right!” Redflame stretched up to his full height. “And I think that’s a good place to leave it, for now. I would give you a token to let you return here whenever you wished, if you desire, Erick. I’m sure we have lots to discuss!”

“I would take that token.” Erick said, “And be back later. I have a lot to think about right now.”

Redflame nodded, then turned his eyes to the part of the table directly in front of Erick, where his plate had been. His eyes flickered. A bright red flame coalesced out of the air and shrunk down into a tiny ruby ring. “Just wear that however you wish and you can always find your way here.”

Erick picked it up, but he did not put it on. He slipped it into a pocket, saying, “Thank you.”

Fairy Moon stood from her chair, saying, “I would take the shortcut back home.” With a smirk, she added, “It was good seeing you again, my ‘husband’.”

“And you as well, ‘wifey’.” Redflame said, “Ah! And now I must get back to my students. I gave them the day off but then there’s the night classes. I will prepare all my [Renew] materials for when you decide to show, Erick. I look forward to working with you! And I hope you get [Gate Space] working, without Melemizargo’s Wizardry. Even if he is acting better these days, I wouldn’t trust him.”

Fairy Moon stood from her seat. Erick followed, saying he appreciated the meal; he decided against ever saying ‘thank you’ while here in Ar’Cosmos. The large, red dragon nodded, then vanished back into the braziers on the sides of the room, and Erick and Fairy Moon walked through a white stone door that hung in midair.

- - - -

They landed in the dining room where Erick had met Illustrious Moon.

Fairy Moon held up Redflame’s red ring, saying, “I’ll give this back to you if you promise only to wear it in most-dire circumstances. I won’t have your presence portend the end of my dearest dragon.”

Erick touched his pocket, but he could already tell that yup, the ring was gone. He was slightly miffed about the small theft, but it was honestly small potatoes compared to everything else, and to the realization that just now entered Erick’s mind.

Erick said, “You’re worried that I am going to kill everyone here. That’s why you’re doing this.” He added, “You know. I would consider that rude of you, if you hadn’t overshadowed that small failure to trust with all the other ones already demonstrated.”

“I have many weary worries, and the outcomes of your actions are but one of them. Also, this ring will reveal your Wizardry to Redflame. You were smart not to put it on.”

Erick felt a chill. Yes; he had considered that a possibility when Redflame offered the chance to come back and then gave a ring to enable his return. But to have it spelled out so blatantly...

Erick asked, “What would he do if he found out?”

“About your Wizardry, or your [Renew]?” Fairy Moon asked, guessing at the rest of Erick’s thoughts without him needing to say them.

“Either.”

“A golden cage and every need met, including speaking to the outside world; the same for any Wizard we capture, but on the better end of the spectrum of fates— DO NOT get captured by anyone else from House Carnage. If such a thing looks to happen, then run to Redflame, if you are able.” After a tense moment, Fairy Moon continued, “The difference between Redflame and I is that I am willing to let you leave when you prove your power and capture the Silencing of all Sunderings, in addition to making [Gate]. But he would never let you go; you would have to force that future.”

“… I’m going to bed.” Erick looked around and saw a window. “Does the sun ever set around here? How long have I been here in Ar’Cosmos, anyway? How much time has passed on Veird?”

The sky shifted outside the window. Night crept in and barley-pink flames all throughout the house threw deep shadows and warm light across the stone and the wood and the sculptures in the walls.

“Night happens when I want.” Fairy Moon asked, “Would you like a normal cycle, or a chosen cycle?”

“… Normal solar cycle would be fine; 12 hours of sun, 12 of night.”

Fairy Moon nodded. “About five days have passed since I stole you from Stratagold, both in here and on Veird. We don’t tinker with time here in Ar’Cosmos; it gets too confusing.”

Erick nodded, then held out his hand. “Ring.”

Fairy Moon handed the ring over.

And then Erick walked off, saying, “Good night!”

“Your room is down the other hallway. Just follow your necklace; it will always lead you there.”

Erick turned around and went the other direction. And now that he tried to feel his necklace… Yup. It was pulling him in that direction. The ring, now in his pocket, was pulling him in a different direction. Well okay then.

Fairy Moon said, “Sleep well.”

Erick hurried to get out of the woman’s direct line of sight, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that that was something he could ever actually do.

- - - -

Back in his room and once again alone enough to relax, but probably not alone at all if there were truly ‘10 people inside every 10 square meters of space’, Erick instantly went to the bathroom, puked up nothing because he had eaten five hours ago, and then he had a nice long bath. As steam rose all around him and Ophiel played in the water, Erick watched a very large, subtly green sliver of a moon cross the sky outside the picture window. It was an unnatural moon, and it was only half there. The parts that were in shadow actually had stars floating where the moon itself should have occluded all view. It resembled a child’s drawing, made by a kid who didn’t understand that moons were actually spherical even if parts of them were in darkness; they were not simply the slivers of light they sometimes appeared to be.

The wind blew outside. Candlelight danced all around.

Erick let himself sink into the waters. He hoped Jane was okay. How was she doing after the soul slime? What was the outcome of that? Was Spur okay? They probably were. How was Stratagold responding to Erick’s disappearance? What were Tasar and Sitnakov and Riivo doing? Had Koyabez’s church gotten the Crystal Star back, yet?

… Could Erick phone Phagar?

He had a hundred mana. He tried it. Nothing happened.

Ah. Well then.

Eventually Erick surfaced, dried off, and went to bed—

He had an idea.

[Renew] as Elemental Benevolence? That could work.

… Tomorrow. He would work on that tomorrow.