Ar’Kendrithyst - Chapter 209

Chapter 209, 1/2

Before Erick knew it there was a single week left till the end of the year, then came Shadow’s Feast, and then the week-long Triumph of Light celebration afterward. He had not actually been planning much for any of that, but now that the hour was near, just like with last year and Last Shadow’s Feast, Erick got a wake-up-call telling him it was time to prepare.

That call had come in the form of a letter from a person Erick hadn’t thought about at all in recent months.

While sitting at his desk, Erick read the letter again.

– –

Dearest Fire of the Age, Erick Flatt, Wizard and Dragon of Benevolence,

GREETINGS!

It has been a whole year since I saw you directly! And yes, that does mean that I have been spying sometimes, as a concerned citizen of the world sometimes does when Wizards start walking around openly and honestly. You should know that I still have your fun little [Blessing of Minor Truth] active. I am looking forward to telling you all about what I’ve been doing this last year when I next see you in person! For we will be meeting again for this year’s Shadow’s Feast, will we not? Surely we will!

Since you are hosting the Feast this time.

I look forward to your opening song to the Dark, for My God has mentioned that once or twice or a hundred times— it is how it is with ancient gods and finding something they truly look forward to, you know.

But after that opening magics, there will have to be planned festivities and honors and such and such! I cannot wait to see what you come up with, for it is your year to plan and produce the whole thing! Goldie and Quilatalap are there to help you if you need help, and surely you will, but I will be showing up a day before the event and I suspect all the rest of us will be showing up a day before, too! They’ve all got triumphs to share with you, themselves, but I’ve kept tabs on them, so I can share a little bit right now.

Lapis, Shade of Enchantment. Ensuring the Quiet War remains as silent as it can be.

Farix, Shade of Education. Ensuring the safety and prosperity of the Brightwater refugees.

Treant, Shade of Forest. Cultivating the wild spaces to reduce danger and increase life.

Queen, Shade of Empire. Bringing Songli back from devastation, and more.

Hollowsaur, Shade of Life. Dismantling and reforming problematic species into beneficial things.

And of course you know of Goldie, Shade of Counter-Assassination.

And then there is me!

I look forward to seeing you again, Erick.

-Love, Fallopolis, Shade of Civilization, Culler of Corruption

– –

Erick looked up from his desk at the person who had given him the letter. “So… Goldie? Got any ideas for the party?”

Goldie stood on the other side of Erick’s desk, wearing her customary black leathers, with her customary black plank of a sword hovering at her back. She was at rest-stance, though that was rather normal. She was always as prim and proper as could be when she was around Erick in any sort of official capacity, and this was one of those times.

Instead of confirming that Erick would, in fact, be accepting the duty of hosting Shadow’s Feast himself, Goldie easily rattled off, “It will take place in the main tower of House Benevolence. You will cast your Time Magic in a large enough way to envelop this entire space, which will require you to make something new. Over the course of 1 night, we should have at least 48 hours of time in which to lay out all the accomplishments of everyone.

“The only people present from your side should be those you deem worthy of telling their exploits to others, and who you trust to hear the exploits of everyone else, and who you do not mind learning certain secrets that you have kept hidden for a long time. I have suggestions on that front, but I would not feel comfortable clouding your judgments with those personnel suggestions, so I will not give those.

“You will supply dishes and drink enough for everyone to consume to their core’s content—”

She stopped.

Because Fairy Moon stepped out of the open air to the side. The not-young-woman-at-all wore her usual pink and green dress, with a white corset. Her heterochromatic pink and green eyes sparkled, as she smiled, asking, “I wish to be welcomed for this feast.”

… It seemed things were moving fast in his life again.

Erick considered Fairy Moon’s request/order, and paused in his response so that Fairy Moon knew that he was truly considering it. The fae gained a small smile.

And then Erick asked, “Can I talk you out of this request?”

Fairy Moon frowned. “You could, but you could also not. Ask instead for agreements of secrecy sealed, and gain gifts of Ar’Cosmos catering and care instead.”

Goldie said nothing. She gave a light look at Fairy Moon, but Erick could tell nothing of how she felt— Ah. Goldie had shifted to shadow a small amount, and was perfectly controlling her countenance…

And with that particular thought, Erick gained some insight into his first of several open-ended requests.

Erick leveled at Fairy Moon, “You and whoever you bring will see things they were never meant to see. Things which could destroy the world if they got out. Therefore, you will remain silent about the secrets you spy— And you will stop infecting everything with your Fae Magic. And! These words are not to be lawyered out of. They are general wishes of goodwill desired from you, about all things. The closer you adhere to the spirit of this sentencing, then the better off I will be, and you will be, and all of everything we are doing here will go better, and what you are doing in Ar’Cosmos, will be better. You will be as a perfect guest. You will not influence anything in any untoward manner, unless that untowardness is required for the good of all of everyone.” He added, “And you’ll bring food and drink of all sorts, and… At most one or three more guests who will agree to the same.”

Fairy Moon listened to all of Erick’s words, and then instantly said, “I agree.”

Erick looked at her.

Fairy Moon smiled a little bit. “I agree! What more do you want?”

Erick said, “There’s going to be a small amount of my great big secrets revealed, even though I don’t want them revealed. The Shades already know them, but as far as I can tell they didn’t tell anyone, so the only real problem here is you and whoever you bring.”

Erick was talking about a lot of secrets, but the major ones were his possession of [Duplicate] and also that his real form looked like a small Melemizargo—

… His real form? What the fuck was that thought?

Erick ignored that thought for now.

“I can cast some compelling curses to keep your secrets as secure as the secrets of Ar’Cosmos, so that you will be able to announce those secrets to your people at the party, and then retract those secrets at the end.” Fairy Moon smiled, saying, “I would maintain those mysteries myself, but I am also great at keeping confidence when charged with that call. It would be as though the party happened in a dream for all other people.”

Goldie spoke up, “There will be none of that at the party. Melemizargo is about open honesty, and that secrets once given cannot be taken. If you cannot trust someone not to spill your secrets, Lord Flatt, then you should forbid them from the festivities.” Goldie winced a bit there at the end, for she was speaking in alliteration. With bright white eyes, she glared at Fairy Moon. “Do not.”

Fairy Moon almost responded—

But Erick made his words final as he spoke, “We will not be doing fae seals on the party. If you cannot trust your plus-1, 2, or 3, then you cannot bring them. If I cannot trust you, then…” Erick simply looked at Fairy Moon. “I want to trust you. Don’t screw this up. Don’t let others screw this up, either. You are an ally to me, so act like it more, please.”

Fairy Moon simply nodded. “I am aware I am in-the-hole with you. I will make it up to you this Shadow’s Feast, and you will know me for who I wish to be. I will ensure Bright Smile is on her best behavior, too, for she will be my plus-1, and there will be no others.”

“… Okay. That’s fine. I look forward to hearing the truth of what is going on in Ar’Cosmos in a friendly manner and from Bright Smile herself. Also, I do not appreciate you listening in to conversations that were clearly not about you. I did not say your name at all. You were not invited into this conversation.”

Fairy Moon smiled a little, and then vanished, her voice trailing away on the air, “See you soon!”

Erick ignored Fairy Moon, who was probably still in the room with them, and turned to Goldie. “As you were saying?”

Goldie turned away from where Fairy Moon was, then said, “Guest list. Guest quarters. Guest food and drink and comfort and security. Slotted time for the Shades to speak— Fairy Moon. Leave please.”

Something ephemeral left the room.

Erick held up a hand and flashed a Privacy through the space, dismissing it as soon as it was cast, using it as a manasphere cleanser. And then he flicked a [Cleanse] through the space to be sure. Thick air spilled away from Goldie and from all the rest of the space, but not that much, really.

Erick asked Goldie. “Do you have an idea of why she was here like that? This usually doesn’t happen.”

Goldie said, “Worried over the end of the year. Everyone is. Everyone has called last year’s festivities ‘Last Shadow’s Feast’ and we allowed it and encouraged it, but it was never going to be the ‘Last Shadow’s Feast’, for ‘Shadow’s Feast’ has happened every single year for a million years. The nature of that party changed in the New Cosmology, but since the Culling of our Clergy, it is Melemizargo’s hope that the Feast is back to being what it used to be… hopefully.”

“Yeah… Figured it was something like that.” Erick said, “So let’s change the name, then. Start something new.”

Goldie paused, her eyes going a little wide. “Uhh.” And then she recovered. “There are metaphysical reasons it is called ‘Shadow’s Feast’, because it is an honoring to the Dark, yet in such a way that existence can survive that honoring. People cannot survive honoring the Dark directly. So we gift a feast and the Dark takes what He desires, as one does for dragons and gods.”

“How about ‘Shadow’s Triumph’? Less of a connotation of devouring the world. More of an idea of spreading and honoring?” Erick said, “It aligns with the same sort of ideas of the Triumph of Light, too, and this way there is parity on both sides. Maybe the Triumph of Light can change into something less ‘anti-Shadow’ and ‘anti-Dark’ as well. But that’s not up to me. That’s an entire world changing their thoughts.”

Goldie went, “Uhh… You could try it— How about Shadow’s Festival? It’s almost the same?”

Erick nodded. He would try that, too. He could workshop a bunch of names, actually.

“Anyway.” Goldie continued, “There should be time for each Shade to speak, to tell you how they have tried to make the world better. Then there’s the public orgy event, which is always popular but we never got to last time. I believe you spoke about missing the last one because the whole event sort of… fell apart there. But you can certainly make that happen this year. Then there are non-Shade talks that should happen. Quilatalap will be expected to speak on something; he can do whatever he wants though, as he usually does— Ah! Exhibits are necessary and good. Since we’ll have at least two days of a party— more are better— then there should be multiple small parties lined up. You need to do the opening ceremony with the song that Melemizargo desires, then I suggest a party in the beginning, a day of exhibits and speeches, another party which is probably the orgy. Sleep. Another party, more speeches. End of day dismissal.” Goldie said, “Those are my suggestions.”

“… No orgy this year, either. Save it for your own time, or for personal inclinations during the event.”

Goldie nodded.

Erick asked, “Any guest list suggestions?”

“Less is more, in this case. You and a date or three. More dates is a good thing. All the Shades get a plus-1… Maybe 25 people, total? 30? None of your overseers… Except maybe Zolan? Mox, too; she’s incredibly good at her job. They’ll be expected to give small exhibits, at least. Probably no speeches.”

Erick had some ideas about all of that. He rapidly decided, “Those two can probably take the night off for a party. Everyone else will be on high alert. Will you be an assistant coordinator for me? Not sure what that will entail, but I’ll figure it out.”

Goldie stood fractionally straighter. “Absolutely.”

“Good. Then…” Erick said, “Then I’ll put everyone on alert and you can tell me when the other Shades all get here. I’ll greet them, and they can shuffle off into their rooms in the Shade tower…” Erick stood up. “I need to make some new magics.”

Goldie bowed, and then she straightened and vanished.

– – – –

Once Erick was back in his warehouse, and probably alone, he sat down on the ground and had a minor panic.

He was going to host the Shades for a Shadows Feast.

This was really happening. Erick had hoped that Melemizargo would have forgotten about the Feast and no one would ever mention it again, but holy shit. Of course that wasn’t going to happen. Like Goldie had said, this party had been happening every year since the dawn of the Old Cosmology.

And now here he was, expected to host Shades…

Okay.

Erick forced himself to stop panicking, and he was mostly successful.

Erick got up and got to work. First thing he needed to do was combine [Hasted Shelter] with [Renew], making an expandable hasted space, like he had with [Fairy Stronghold]. Easy enough. This was actually a spell Erick had been thinking about a lot, since a lot of dragons were way too large to fit inside his single Shelter, but he had never really had a need to make a larger magic, since, as a dragon, Erick’s range and size of every spell had gotten rather large. He could easily fill a 40-by-40-by-40 meter spherical-ish cube with a single [Hasted Shelter], if he wanted. Too bad the House was a lot larger than that.

And there was no way a Feast could ever fit in a single 40-meter-cubed space.

Erick shook himself out a little, shaking his hands and rolling his shoulders. He did a few small pushups to get the blood flowing, and then he stood and centered himself, briefly closing his eyes.

He opened his eyes.

With a few quick commands, Erick had a few Ophiel surround him. He handed out spellwork to all of them, rapidly bringing a new song to a crescendo of [Renew]ed and expandable Time Magic, and then he cast. A very similar Hasted area filled the space around Erick, but it was different in all the ways that mattered.

He dismissed the spell.

A blue box appeared.

Expandable Hasted Shelter, instant, close range, 500 + Variable

Multiply the subjective time of a large area to a variable degree, or expand the area of an existing cast. If one section breaks, the spell will contract, and not fully break.

Base version is 1 hour of subjective time in 1 minute.

500 points of damage to the barrier will break the effect. Always Restful. Always Cleansing.

Pretty much the same as before, but now it was ‘Expandable’, and Erick had even managed to work in that part about not fully breaking if one section broke.

Which was great!

… But the spell was rather a great deal stronger timewise than it needed to be, if they were only going to do 48 hours of partying in 12 hours of real time. With this, Erick could have 30 days of a party inside a single night.

… Had Tania Webwalker’s ‘hasted shelter’ spell, that covered the entirety of Ar’Kendrithyst, been weaker in strength? No. Obviously not. Obviously it had simply been tuned more for area, and less for density of time. Was Erick’s own spell a problem?

… No. They would have a normal night until midnight, and then Erick could cast [Expandable Hasted Shelter] and seal everyone into the party, rapidly filling the House with this magic. And then, from midnight to 1 am, they could have 60 hours of time to do whatever they wanted. Good. Yes. That… Could work.

He could keep going with this magic, though; add in some Undertow and such—

Oh!

No. He wasn’t going to make this magic drain the people inside in order to keep working longer. That seemed like… A really bad idea. REALLY bad, actually.

But Erick’s stray Undertow thoughts knocked loose some other magic he had been meaning to make for a while. Not a combo of all this other ‘party time enabling magic’, but something far more useful. A generalized Undertow, able to extract mana from donors from one side, and through a [Renew], empower any magics on the other side. He hadn’t actually put that magic together yet, and now was a good time to do so—

As a few Ophiel came together and started to sing, Erick realized that this spell was likely larger than most of the magics he had ever made. He stopped Ophiel’s song. He restarted.

Had to do this right, remaking all of this particular magic from the very beginning, Basic Tier, and he had to write everything down so that future generations could do this magic right, too. After a few false starts with wording, Erick got some paper and wrote down his thoughts… Mostly.

It starts with a set of magic controlled.

A [Renew] laid down to form the base mold.

Then comes Abyss to pull mana and hold

in a [Ward] made of Drain, the mana will fold

into self-made creations; eternal stronghold.

The base form is set, conditions are laid;

take all you’ve made, and now start to braid.

The Abyss plunges far, drawing mana down deep.

Collapsed shadow to star! Light bleeds, it doth creep

In the form of [Renew] laid down at the first

powering self and others, here now, determinant.

It’ll work well now that you’re magically versed

And capable of making power that’s Permanent.

It wasn’t a poem Erick sang to the mana. It was a primer for people, and therefore it was purposefully cryptic.

It was also rather unnecessary, considering the whole point of [Renew] was that anyone could buy that and use that to directly power any other magics out there; that was how Erick had created that magic, after all. But with this Erick could set out a ‘charging station’ for his eventual city-wide runic web, that would eventually be powering all the city…

Oh. He could go a bit further, couldn’t he?

Erick’s grin went wide as he laughed a little, happily aware of what his next spell would look like; what it could do.

He lined up some Ophiel and they sang with him.

Seconds later, a spellform popped into existence.

The base nature of the magic was a blot of cold shadows in the air, and a tiny pinprick of light in the center. It almost looked like Erick’s [Undertow Star], all made of tendrils of shadow and hovering above the ground, but in a much, much smaller form. It was only about a meter across. This spell was only tier 2, as Erick had started from the base creation of his Undertow effect and added [Renew] right at the beginning. This was because he had needed to start over. All his other Undertow spellworks had been much too specialized already, and this was the spellwork he imagined many, many other people would attempt to replicate in the many, many years to come.

The blue box for the spell was taking a while to come through.

So Erick got to experimenting. He had an Ophiel hover near the shadowy tendrils and, almost lazily, the tendrils began to touch Ophiel. This was a subdued version of this spell; not fast acting at all. At least not right away. As glowing lights flowed from Ophiel into the ball of shadows, the light at the center of those shadows began to glow brighter and brighter—

The tendrils released Ophiel; the spell was fully—

Node of the Renewing Undertow, instant, super long range, 500 mana + Variable

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Conjure a node that you can further direct to Renew spellwork within line of sight of the node. Nodes once linked to other spellwork will continue to Renew that spellwork until told otherwise, or until that spellwork is fully powered.

Ethereal. Permanent. Self-recreating, if part of a network.

10,000 base mana containment.

10,000 extra mana containment per 500 initial mana invested.

Erick smiled. That was a good blue box.

He summoned another [Node of the Renewing Undertow] a hundred meters away from the first. For a few seconds the two Nodes just hovered where he had placed them. And then, with an easy-to-understand, almost instinctual feeling, he directed the two Nodes to link.

A thin beam of light shot from the mana-filled-Node and struck the shadows of the new Node. Erick had Ophiel move away from the first Node as he watched that first Node pour ethereal power into the second. The first Node dimmed. The second Node brightened.

They rapidly equalized.

This, now, was a runic web, but in spell form.

No need for metal at all—

“Oh!” Erick chuckled a little, then said to Ophiel, “This is probably the supremely easy version of whatever they got going on in Ar’Cosmos with Redflame’s nodes.” Ophiel twittered. Erick nodded, then looked to his Node, saying, “… Maybe I should expand my own Gate Space, too? That space is also called a ‘node’.”

… But where, though?

He only had one Gate Space out there right now. Every single Yggdrasil guarded a main entrance to that singular Gate Space.

Erick needed to double up on Gate Spaces, for sure, just in case something happened to the original. It was only… Hmm. How much did it cost to make a new Gate Space node? Erick brought up the box for [Gate].

Right there in [Gate]’s big blue box, it read, ‘Special Function, Special Cost: Open a gate into to a known location OR create a node inside to claim a portion of that space as your own gate space.’

Yeah.

The ‘special cost’ was a bit worrying, but he still needed to make at least one backup Gate Space. But where?

… Maybe Rozeta would have a good idea. He needed to ask her about the special cost, and also about this whole ‘Shadow’s Triumph’. Lotta reasons to call her up, actually.

So Erick surrounded himself in a Privacy and then opened his Minor Relevant Entity permissions and wordlessly sent off his magical question, in the form of a prayer.

He got an immediate response.

Normally the founding of an expansion to your Gate Space would require the use of your core to create a new node, but you managed to avoid that cost the first time through breaking yourself from the Script temporarily and using your mana to do that. If you can do that again, then I suggest you make several backups. If it doesn’t work, then you will get an Error message. Shouldn’t hurt too badly.

I will work on ensuring that you can reconnect, so don’t worry about that.

If you can do that, then put a Node at each Yggdrasil you have in the world, and somewhere else, too.

But you will likely have to wait until you can make a second core and extract that from your body in order to use it for base materials, before you can make another Gate Space.

All of the most permanent and special forms of magic make use of this type of artifact creation, and Gate Spaces are no exception.

“… Ah.” Erick said, “Thanks. I suppose I should work on accretion more than I already have, huh.”

Your original Gate Space is well protected. Anyone seeking to invade would have to go through every single Yggdrasil simultaneously including the one inside the Gate Space itself, incapacitate you at the same time, and then corrupt all of Benevolence itself into their own mana. The list of entities capable of doing that is very, very small, and only really includes me, Melemizargo, and Koyabez, and we’re all invested in ensuring that no harm befalls you in those sorts of ways.

We can’t do much about mortal worries, but there aren’t any of those capable of truly harming your Gate Space, either. Small harms, yes. But harms you can recover from.

As far as accretion, though:

It would be good if you could make extra cores, but since exceeding a certain level of power might kick you off the Script (even with all the extra attachments I have given you, and continue to maintain), I would caution against trying to go too far with accretion.

The Script can account for a lot, Erick, but it can only do so much against a truly powerful Wizard.

I’ll warn you if it looks like you could possibly lose Script access long before you actually do.

Erick smiled a little. There were worries in that note, but also a lot of hope, and friendly reassurance. “Thanks, Rozeta.” And then he moved on to the meat of the conversation, asking, “Any thoughts on this ‘Shadow’s Triumph’, thing?”

The box took a moment to appear, and begin filling with words.

Hopefully nothing untoward will happen, but of course my father would demand an honoring. We had all hoped that he would maybe skip a year or twenty, but of course he would not. We’ll be watching and ready to support your side if you need us, Erick, but what we suspect will happen, if anything, is that nothing will happen and he will lull you and others into a false sense of security.

Anything big might happen long after new worlds are opened.

So play whatever parts you feel you need to play, but don’t fall too deep down into whatever abyss my father makes inviting.

“Then I’ll proceed as planned. Thank you, Rozeta.”

The blue box bobbed a bit, and then vanished.

Erick canceled the Privacy.

And then he opened a [Gate] to the Yggdrasil over at Songli.

The night was deep in this part of the world, but Yggdrasil was full of light. Erick glanced down at the world below, at the lake waters, and at the Wanzhi River that ran north to south, to the west of the lake. Yggdrasil’s roots, like white dragons, had buried into the lake, cropping up here and there as illuminated white arches, and in and out of the ground, almost like exposed stitching, crashing into the lakeside and expanding far into the river. This location had been rather large for Yggdrasil, back when Erick had originally planted him, but Yggdrasil had ‘outgrown the flowerpot’ sometime in the last few months. House Benevolence and Songli had been in talks to create a Gate Network for a while now, but ever since Erick had decided against marrying Nirzir, those talks had gone rather frosty.

The expansion to the Network should have gone down… there… somewhere.

Erick saw no good place for the Network to go, though. Everything was stitched with glowing white roots. If talks ever properly resumed with Songli, the expansion to the Network would probably have to go… Over at Holorulo? On the horizon over there?

Erick gazed across the world, to the west, and saw the clan mountains of Holorulo. They stood in light, almost like Yggdrasil stumps, ringing the central ceremonial city between them all. Erick cast his gaze further, seeing through Ophiel, looking upon the ancestral homes of High Clan Devouring Nightmare, where the former-Scion, now-Patriarch of Devouring Nightmare, Hangzi… was probably not there right now.

Hangzi was probably doing work somewhere, or something.

Erick should be doing work, too.

Erick had half a mind to search out Patriarch Hangzi Devouring Nightmare, and also Matriarch Lingxing Void Song, and also Matriarch Tipanri Severing Crescent, to get them all in a room together and actually fix this problem; to get them their Gate Network expansion. That would be incredibly rude, though.

Eh.

Whatever.

Erick had enough plots on his plate. Let this one take years to happen if it had to.

Erick turned his attention back to Yggdrasil.

He floated into Yggdrasil’s crown, to where he stood above a part of Yggdrasil’s branches that had a particularly fluffy looking patch of moss covering. With a twitch of thought, he pinged Yggdrasil attention. “Yggdrasil? You see me?”

An iridescent eye popped into the air beside Erick. “Hello father! What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to try something. Keep an eye out, okay? I might fall down onto this moss, but it shouldn’t be any worse than that.”

“Okay!”

And then Erick cast the Special Function of his [Gate]—

A blue box appeared bigger than anything, an ERROR message, but the size was simply Erick’s imagination because something spun inside of him, attempting to rip him open from the inside out. Everything went dim as horrible wrenching pain ripped at his insides and—

And then the pain flashed and vanished.

Erick came to, on his knees, on the moss. He coughed up glowing red blood that splattered across Yggdrasil’s mossy surface, sprouting little red mushrooms everywhere it landed. Something was caught in his throat, so Erick hocked up blood and bile. He spat out even more blood, and one shard of his own core.

Erick paused.

Yup. That white, glowing shard of something gem-like had been a part of his core.

—had been a part of his core.

He didn’t feel that bad, but upon seeing that shard he looked inside of himself.

Panic went up, and then down. It was just a surface crack through the whole thing, mangled arteries that were already healing, and a heart that was already pumping blood back where blood should be pumped. His lungs had taken some damage and there were other shards of core inside his body…

But he could fix that.

Erick went back home to his warehouse in Candlepoint’s Yggdrasil and sat down on the floor. He started to accrete like he did every morning, but this time there was a lot of damage to heal through, and shards of core to reattach. It took about half an hour to repair the damage, using a combination of [Renew] and accretion.

He did not realize until he was fully healed how absolutely shitty he had actually felt when his core was that damaged. He had been kidding himself before; tricking his mind into not feeling the pain. Or maybe… It just wasn’t that painful, until it was gone, and then it was like looking back at something he was glad was over.

But anyway. Now he breathed easy.

And then he said, “Fucking hell that had hurt!”

Maybe his opinion of ‘it won’t hurt much’ was different from Rozeta’s.

But… He was never in any danger of death… He supposed.

Erick decided that he could wait to make multiple cores before he tried that again. It was time to plan for a party, anyway; Erick had already planned out the magic, but there was a lot more organization to do than that. He summoned a chalkboard and began a rough sketch of the plan.

Ten minutes later, he was mostly done making a plan, because, even though he had so much other shit to deal with he was expected to put on a party for Melemizargo. Which. Fine. Let’s do this right, and such. Keep the alliances going and all that…

With some basic planning done, it was time to do more than that.

Erick went to see Quilatalap.

– – – –

Quilatalap’s Library was impressive.

Most of it was hidden behind a great many illusions. Erick had to walk a certain path to be admitted to the main library, which also caused him to go out of Sight of almost everyone as soon as he got halfway down that path. It was similar to the way that Kydyr had hidden his own [Fairy House], but different, for they were still on Veird inside Quilatalap’s ‘[Library Space]’.

Erick needed to ask Quilatalap how he did this, exactly. It was one of his many new questions for the big guy—

Ah. Fuck. Stop with those sorts of thoughts, Erick. Quilatalap was just a guy who had a rather easy time making connections with others. He didn’t actually mean anything when he asked you out on a date.

It wasn’t a date!

It was just dinner!

Okay.

Stuff those thoughts away…

Erick walked down a hallway of books that were all trash. Daily distributions from popular copper-coin publications. Old editions of various Arcanaeum Consortium classroom publications that everyone and their grandfather had likely read in their Introduction to Force Magic class. All of those had been positioned here specifically to discourage people from looking deeper. And then Erick crossed a threshold. In big black letters over an archway made of bones and monster skulls, which looked like sapient skulls (but which were not, according to Quilatalap) the actual entrance to the library read:

‘VENTURE FORTH, THOSE WHO VALUE KNOWLEDGE MORE THAN THEIR LIVES’.

Erick had a lot of thoughts on that proclamation.

Part of him was all like ‘oh, okay, Quilatalap doesn’t want odd people to poke around; this is fine’. The other part of Erick was not happy with such dangerous proclamations being present in his kingdom, for any reason whatsoever. And yet, Erick was fine with it, for Quilatalap was simply protecting himself.

Quilatalap was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

… And Erick really wanted to have dinner with the guy, but he hadn’t found a good time to finalize those plans… Or to talk about the warning Quilatalap had posted outside his library. Or to talk about all the magic he wanted to talk about.

Erick had kinda found himself in the last few days, simply wanting to be around Quilatalap. They had talked a lot about a bunch of topics, and yet neither of them had brought up that promised ‘date’—

An orcol skeleton came walking around the corner with its arms outstretched, fires in its eyes, and a dead-to-the-world incani in its grip. The man was not actually dead, but he was missing his left arm up to his bicep. It looked like he put his arm into an explosion of some sort.

Erick had seen something like this happen twice before, though, so he wasn’t too worried; Quilatalap was removing someone from his library. Erick merely stepped to the side and let the skeleton walk the guy out of the library. The injuries were new, though. A repeat offender?

Erick couldn’t tell; the guy looked different—

Suddenly narrowing his eyes, Erick watched as the unconscious man and his skeleton escort vanished around the corner. If that man had face-stolen someone else’s body to come here… Erick needed to talk to Quilatalap about that, too.

With his libido now firmly annihilated, Erick walked below the archway, into the library proper, his mana sense collapsing with each step forward. Soon, Erick could only see what he could actually see, and a bit through the shelves upon shelves of books. He walked below skeletal birds, who watched everyone who came and went, and then he passed into the main room.

It would be a fantastic library one day. Many, many eternal stonewood shelves (Quilatalap knew that spell himself) stretched up multiple stories into the air. Rows upon rows. Depths upon depths. But as for actual books, there were only a few scattered around here and there. They were all books on magic. Almost all of them were from the Arcanaeum Consortium catalog, of which Quilatalap had managed to acquire about 40%. The rest of that whole entire catalog was on backorder. Soon, Erick would have a copy of Oceanside’s public library here, at House Benevolence, and he kinda loved that entire idea.

What had arrived so far came in by the Platform-full. On the east side of the library, Quilatalap was still unboxing those books and setting them out on the shelves. Erick found the ancient archlich setting a nice set of books on Force Magic out on the shelves.

“Hello, Erick!” Quilatalap said. “Come to inspect the library?”

“It’s looking great, but that’s not why I’m here.” Erick thumbed backward. “That guy was missing most of an arm?”

“And he’ll find a healer to get it back for him. Maybe next time he’ll think before he pesters me for answers to something I have told him I cannot tell him.” Quilatalap didn’t say those words with any rancor at all; he was merely explaining what had happened.

“Was he a face stealer?”

Quilatalap jerked a little. He finished putting away a book, and then he turned to Erick. “I don’t think so? Though I will probably get one or two of those in here eventually.”

With conviction, Erick said, “Feel free to murder those who murder others in order to take their Familiar Forms.”

“Ehhh… I try not to murder anyone these days, Erick. Maiming? Sure. I could relinquish those types to Burhendurur, though?”

Erick blinked. “Uh. Yes. That’s a better idea. Uh…” He looked back toward the entrance, then he turned back to Quilatalap. “I just got a bad feeling about that guy?”

“He’s… Probably not harmless.” Quilatalap glanced up, then turned back to Erick. “There. The guy is being handed over to Enforcement now.”

A flush of relief passed through Erick. “Thank you.”

Quilatalap smiled a little, asking, “So why are you here? Just that? Or are we going to the Saucery tonight? I keep waiting for you to set a date, but it appears I might need to do that myself.”

Erick’s heart thumped. “Uh. Yes. Tonight? Tonight. Yes. I’ll. Uh. I’ll pick you up here at 7?”

Quilatalap smiled wide. “Sounds good to me!”

Erick smiled a little bit, too. And then he nodded, and turned—

He turned back. He had come here to ask about preparations for ‘Shadow’s Triumph’—

He turned back around and kept walking out.

Getting a date set was much more productive.

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They could talk about the party on their date.

He paused—

He had come here to ask about accretion. Not just the party. Erick needed to know what Quilatalap knew about making multiple cores. Erick could ask some other dragons, too, but multiple opinions were good.

— he kept walking; they could talk about that on their date, too.

Behind him, Quilatalap grinned and went back to stocking the shelves.