Chapter 248, 1/2

Chapter 248, 1/2

Erick watched Solomon walk through the portal of the slime dungeon like his world was falling apart, but he needed to keep it together anyway. Erick felt the same way. He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened here in the clearing in front of the dungeon, for Melemizargo had kept him from interfering as he worked some sort of Wizardry in the area, but based on the shadows in the history of the manasphere... Erick was sure of one thing.

Solomon had experienced a deep expression of Time with his daughter, Debby.

And Debby was Solomon’s daughter, for sure. Debby was Solomon’s, in a way that Debby was not Erick’s at all. Erick wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but he did. As he looked to the other girls, and to Jane in particular, he worried. He thought.

And he realized he wasn’t going crazy, which would be the more rational response right now.

For some reason he wasn’t going crazy with Debby’s death... Or maybe he was numb right now. Maybe. Solomon had seemed to go crazy for a long moment there, as he cursed and begged miracles from the mana, and Debby’s corpse continued to cool, there on her white stone bed. That’s what the initial signs of ‘crazy’ should probably look like; not this numb feeling that Erick was experiencing.

Erick looked at Debby, dead and cold on that white stone bed like she was enjoying a nice dream, and she wasn’t deader than dead. She wasn’t even warm. Solomon had only been worrying over her for an hour, though. She should still be warm, right? Why wasn’t she warm?

She should have been warm. Right?

In a disassociated sort of way, Erick looked to his girls, all of them standing to the side, all of them talking softly with each other— They noticed him. All five of them stepped forward, trying to be the first to say they would take care of the body, but that rapidly stopped when they all saw each other try to do the same thing.

Jane spoke for them all, “We’ll take care of the body.”

Erick wanted to say no. He wanted to tell them that they were all kids, and that he was the adult, so he would take care of this. But that was an incorrect thought. They were adults, too, and they seemed to want to do this; to take this burden upon themselves.

So Erick said, “Okay, Jane. Girls—” He couldn’t leave it at ‘girls’; that would be a loss too great. He named them all. “Abigail, Beth, Candice, Emily. Jane. I love you all. Thank you. I need to check on Solomon.”

And then Erick went to Debby and kneeled by her corpse. His hand hesitated.

She was cold to the touch.

Erick stayed there for a moment.

Eventually, he got up and went to the dungeon.

- - - -

In the kitchen of the replica of his house in Spur, Solomon was trying and failing to explain anything at all to Poi, or to himself. He shouted at the walls. He punched the table. He wrecked papers. Benevolent Lightning fried diagrams on walls, destroying their simple, easy-to-understand records of what had been pulled from the Dark, and what was coming next. Over the last 45 days, the kitchen dining room had been transformed into a base of operations, while the actual dining room had been used for eating. And now Solomon was destroying the records.

Poi tried to understand. Erick tried to understand. They voiced their question and they were met with rage. Their misunderstandings only invited more anger—

“I don’t understand it myself!” Solomon shouted, as he shook his left arm. A broken line of black and silver wrapped around his forearm. It was the remnant of the Bracelet of Memory. “This fucking transfer failed! That atomic woman FAILED. All I have are half-memories and...” He let his anger flow away.

Erick and Poi waited.

Solomon secured himself. He stood strong. With a whip of mana and intent, Solomon restored everything that he had destroyed. Diagrams, papers, all of that returned to their proper positions. And then Solomon looked at Erick, and said, “There is only one thing I truly know, Erick. I know that I am also Erick, but of a different Path than you. I experienced lifetimes when I held Jane’s hand. In all of those lifetimes, I was the One Who Lost Jane. I was the one who died to my own hubris. I was the one that the gods fought and won against because I went crazy with grief. I also know that I am not going to do any of that, because I’m more than the sum of my parts.” Solomon breathed deep. Guile stood at his side, looking up at the man. Solomon said, “I am more than what I was, and I will get Jane back this time.”

“... You understand how worrying that is to me, yes?” Erick asked, being forthright instead of circumspect, moving past his own emotions. Perhaps some tactfulness would have been better, but after Erick said the words, he knew they had been the right words to say. Solomon breathed deep. He settled. Erick said, “I see that you do understand. Do I need to worry about you, Solomon?”

“I understand more than you know... More than I know, too. This anti-meme is getting to all of us... Somehow. I’m not even sure how it works, only that it does. It got Jane— Debby... No. ‘Jane’. She was Jane, you know.” Solomon said, “A lot of different Janes from different... Places. My memory of all that is kinda shot...” His voice trailed away as he looked at the broken black tattoo around his wrist again, saying, “Never gonna get those memories fully back, either. It’s all going to be a mess for the rest of my life.”

Erick thought back to the clearing, in the moments when Debby took Solomon’s hand, and then all of the myriad shadows that came afterward. He thought of Debby dying there, and suddenly it hit him all over again. He had lost a daughter, too, dammit! Why wasn’t he allowed to grieve?

Debby had been there all the time, listening to him talk of magic... and to Solomon talk of magic, too.

... She had gone dungeon delving with Solomon, not with Erick.

She had listened to Erick’s multiversal theories of magic. She had tried her own. And then she had taken off after talking to him in his office about needing to do this... this exploration of mental magic threats. She didn’t confront Solomon about her leaving them. That journey had taken her all across the world, and then she had come back to him—

Except she didn’t come back to Erick at all.

She came back to Solomon.

Was Erick allowed to grieve at all?

Erick wasn’t sure. All he really knew was that he needed to be there for Solomon.

And so, Erick spoke softly through the tears, saying, “The girls are doing something with her body. A burial, or something. Do you want to do something else?”

Solomon tensed. He fought back a rage with the cold hard fact that other people were hurting, too. He was still ‘Erick’, even after his experience with Debby there in that clearing. Or at least he would be for a little while longer. He saw Erick. He saw Poi, standing to the side, looking worried but not saying anything. He glanced down to Guile, standing beside him in a companionable manner. Those two had grown to be good friends in the last few months, which was great to see. And then Solomon looked back to Erick.

“Sorry. Obviously you’re hurting, too...” Solomon went silent. “They can handle Jane’s funeral, if that is what they want to do.” He looked toward the hallway. He stepped that way, saying, “I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me for the funeral. That corpse is not my Jane and I won’t watch her End. I’m gonna find her again, and bring her back.” He was at the door to the hallway, his back turned. He stopped.

Erick waited.

Solomon continued on, not looking back, saying, “I’m going to sleep for a while.”

- - - -This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

The funeral took several hours to put together and then longer.

A day after Debby died, they held her funeral. It was a quiet affair.

Erick was surprised, and not surprised, to learn that the girls each had all of their death paperwork in order. What they wanted to be said over their dead bodies. Where they wanted all their stuff to go. Each of them set up some paperwork so that if one of them died everyone else got a split share of their wealth. Each one of them had planned for their possible death on this endeavor, this Sundering Search, and they wanted those that remained to have everything they left behind.

Jane read Debby’s speech. It was short. It was written months ago, back when Debby was still freshly created from her dungeon master slime; a fresh repro. Debby had been surprised to learn that she wasn’t Jane, and that made her mad. Her final letter also told of how she desired to do some magical learning this time, and that she was going to learn from their father because she had never done that properly.

“ ‘And if I should die before everyone else, one of you’—” Jane breathed. She grinned, but it was a malformation of emotion, too strained in multiple directions to be a real grin. “ ‘One of you cunts better learn from that man and become a respectable mage. I’m sure if we actually tried to learn magic from someone who knows magic, we might actually learn something’. And that’s where it ends.”

Erick was already drowning in sorrow, but it all hit harder in that moment. Tears flowed freely.

It just didn’t seem real, and yet it was.

They scattered Debby’s ashes across each continent, at the places Debby had said she wanted her ashes spread. Archipelago Nergal, on a nice beach near a Hawaiian-like isle. At Wyrmrest Mountain, near the Firemaws and their endless red flames and lava pools. In the Underworld, near the cavern of tornado obsidian. In the Tribulation mountains in Nelboor. And finally at Ascendant Mountain, on the balconies of their crystal hotel room, overlooking the depths below, where Debby’s ashes could disappear into the crack in the world. Tens of dungeons lurked in those depths, each one of them filled with horror and adventure alike.

The others jokingly complained that now they needed to pick new spots.

At the end of it all, there the family stood, on a crystal cliffside of the hotel room with the sun setting in the west and all the world painted gold. Tears flowed, halting and yet free.

Jane wiped her face, sniffled, then said, “Well this cements that I want a wake at my funeral. No tears. Only drinking.”

“Oh for sure,” Candice said, “This was way too fucking depressing.”

Abigail said, “She went out a hero.”

Jane sighed, saying, “A great big fucking hero.”

Beth said, “A great hero.”

“Who took our paladinhood from the rest of us,” said Candice, half-jokingly, half-very-seriously.

Emily broke down sobbing, saying, “I love you all.”

And that started the full group hug, with everyone crying. Erick had five surviving daughters. He loved them all as if all of them had been with him his entire adult life.

Ophiel swooped down from the sky to hug all of them as much as he could, and each girl hugged the Ophiels. Yggdrasil had only watched until that moment, his big [Scry] eye made smaller for the occasion, but now he sent a small mental question, wordless and yet full of need, and Erick nodded. In a flashing second Yggdrasil’s current [Avatar] form of a big orcol male in a formal black suit stepped out of a portal, already crying. He joined all the rest of the family on the crystal cliffside, and his hugs were a welcome addition to the group.

“Holy fuck this is exhausting,” Candice eventually said. “I need sleep now. Wow.”

Erick chuckled at that. “Funerals are exhausting...” Softer, “Especially big ones.”

Yggdrasil asked, “Why didn’t Solomon come?”

Erick had no good reasoning to give, so he said, “Because he didn’t want to see it finalized. He’s going to...” Erick said to all of them, “Don’t treat him gently, for that would make him angry. But do be there for him. He’s having a harder time about this than... Than any of us. I think he went through a good thousand hours of talking and trying to talk to Debby, there in that clearing. Constant retries of... of I’m not sure. All I know is that I tried a [Return] to get back to before Debby appeared and all that happened, but it didn’t work. I zeroed out my mana, even with the Script helping me. That means... Well. You know what that means. You all have my numbers.”

It meant Erick could go back in time around 18 minutes without needing to do Wizardry, which should have been more than enough time to get back to before Debby descended. Erick wasn’t going to say that out loud, for that was an operational security risk. Other nations had surely put together that particular bit of information, but there was no need to go spreading that information wide, especially in a non secured area.

At the concerned comprehension of the girls and Yggdrasil, and even Ophiel, Erick nodded.

Emily asked, “What does that mean, dad?”

Erick said, “Aside from the unknown memetic threats and responses and whatever happened there. I think what happened there was the same reason that Paradox Wizards can’t get to the dawn of Veird’s existence here in this New Cosmology. You all heard that story about the Time Wizard who they tried to use to fix the world post-Sundering?” Concerned looks shifted to comprehension, and Erick added, “Yeah; whatever happened in that clearing is similar. Time Magics were used too much in that area and so that time became both indelible, and impossible to traverse. There’s no rescuing Debby from the fate that happened in that clearing.”

Erick’s children all nodded or frowned or thought, as they considered his words—

“I’m done for now.” Candice said, “I love you all. I have to sleep.” She came up to Erick and hugged him again, and then she broke off and went into the hotel, headed straight to her bed.

The others had similar, but softer ideas. They simply split off, giving Erick one more hug before leaving him behind. Soon, it was down to just Yggdrasil, Emily, and Erick. Ophiel remained, but he did not have much input on what came next; he was still struggling with what had happened in front of them all. When it was just Erick and Ophiel, Erick expected the little guy to ask something of him, to try and understand what this funeral was, and why it made everyone sad. But for right now, Emily stared at Yggdrasil, and Yggdrasil stared back, both of them unwilling to speak.

Erick broke the stalemate, “Who wants to go first with their big news? Or do you want a coinflip and we go that way?”

Emily faltered—

Yggdrasil blurted, “I want another Fishery like the one you gave to the Freelands. That’s it. Simple! Sorry. I didn’t expect it to be a big deal. I didn’t know how to say it, either, or even if it could be done... That’s all. It’s completely inappropriate for this...” He trailed off, looking self-defeated.

“We’ll look for one, Yggdrasil; absolute—”

“Okay I have to—” Emily began, but failed to finish, because she transformed into a man, her purple coloring of her nails and hair transforming into something brighter, more magenta than purple, which had been Emily’s original way to mark her as different from the others. He was remarkably handsome, with broad shoulders and just a bit taller than Erick, while his coloring was obviously demi. He had a concerned look on his face as he said, “I’m Evan.” Evan threw up his hands, saying, “That’s all! ... Uh.” He demurred, “... Yeah.”

Erick smiled and took his son in for a hug, holding him tight. Evan was frigid for a moment, and then Erick said, “I’m glad you have decided to live your best life. Love you, Evan.”

Evan thawed in great big sobs as he hugged back.

Yggdrasil tried to back away—

Erick grabbed Yggdrasil with a free hand and pulled him into the hug. His huge arms went around both of them and Evan chuckled. Ophiel wasn't sure what was happening, but he joined in, too.

And since Erick had his two boys with him —and one eventual boy when Ophiel materialized— he decided it was time for a Talk. “Now you both know to use protection when you have sex with girls, right? There’s this nice little plant that grows in Nelboor that deadens the little swimmers for a day—”

Yggdrasil muttered, “I know not to—”

Evan laughed loud.

And Jane came back out to the group, for it wasn’t like ‘the guys’ were being quiet at all.

Jane said, “Okay fine. We go for a wake. We can just do that. It doesn’t have to be planned. Debby would have wanted it.”

Candice rose out of her bed like a zombie, muttering about how she was ready for a party, too, and then Beth and Abigail followed.

Evan told Erick, “I’m still into dudes, dad; my ‘swimmers’ don’t matter.”

Erick laughed as he nodded. “That’s one way to ensure no accidental pregnancies.”

Jane clapped her hands, drawing attention, as she said, “Who wants to go get Solomon back out here for the wake? And also where are we going?”

Everyone froze.

“... There’s a lot there that I am just going to leave be, Erick, and simply say that you should not be trusting That Dragon this much.” Rozeta said, “But the part about Debby telling Solomon something and now Solomon wants the Heart is setting off red flags for me, as you say...” She paused.

Erick waited.

Rozeta said, “There’s a reason I asked after Solomon’s mental health. There’s a secret to the Heart that I am now sure that Guile has absolutely told Solomon, and which he should not have done, because that secret should have stayed secret, because that secret of the Heart has killed countless nascent Wizards. It’s also the reason that I am rather sure I can actually capture the Heart for Veird and stuff it in the Core... If certain precautions were taken first. Those precautions would last for a while. Maybe as little as a week. Or as long as forev...” She adjusted her words. “Maybe just a year.

“But it can be done.

“In the Old Cosmology people would chase the Heart, but the Order of the Sacred Pulse would try to dissuade people from that, usually through force. They wanted the Heart to fly across the universe as it was wont, because that is what they believed was the best course of action for the universe. And so, the Heart flew where it wanted. But the Old Cosmology had dangerous places, too. The Heart could have been destroyed if it went wherever, like it if ever went to the Abyssal Depths. And so, the Order of the Sacred Pulse took to shepherding the Heart a little, and only when absolutely necessary. But how can you shepherd the untouchable? It wasn’t actually through [Force Wall]s or anything like that. Those simple methods do not work.

“But the Heart can be absorbed by people. For a time.

“A person can brave the mana tide from the Heart, and all the mana spilling out of their own core, and touch the Heart. It would be like walking through a tidal wave with the source of the waves constantly running away from you. But people managed it. And then they absorbed the Heart, and transformed. If they survived the absorption they became Wizards. In that moment of Ignition, with all that greater self-mana generation from the new Wizard, the Heart would erupt from them, pushed on by forces beyond anyone's control. This was a very violent event, as you can imagine. The Heart Eater, as they were known, would need to survive both intake and exit. Most people who got that far managed that much.

“The Heart would then continue on its path through the universe, but the Heart would usually be wildly knocked off course. And so, that is where the Order of the Sacred Pulse would step in.

“That is how they would shepherd the Heart. When the Lifeblood Heart got itself trapped circling a dangerous Void or Abyssal Star, or when someone from outside the Order managed to capture the Heart for a time, the Order of the Sacred Pulse had an Initiate of the Heart go to the Heart, absorb it, and then aim it back onto a proper course, in some direction that took it back through civilized lands. In that action, the initiate would become an archmage, or sometimes a Wizard. Usually just an archmage, though. The Order did not like the Heart moving too fast.”

Well that was all very interesting.

Did it change Erick’s mind about letting Solomon have this?

Erick said, “And Solomon wants to hold onto the Heart for a little while.”

... Erick wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“Undoubtedly.” Rozeta said, “That ability to absorb the Heart is what I will be using to contain the Heart to Veird for a little while. I’ll need to construct a path for the Heart to exit the Core so it doesn’t just erupt out of the planet and take lots of lives with it, but that shouldn’t take too long. It is possible that I could even construct a series of bouncing ‘holds’ between Veird and the Silver Star, but I doubt such a thing is possible, for if I aimed the Heart at the Silver Star...” She shrugged. “With the force of all the mana of Veird pushing it away, the Heart might simply go right through that uninhabited moon; only un-bodied souls are up there, and they don’t make much mana. So I won’t be doing that. I could try aiming at the sun, but that seems like a bad idea. I absolutely don’t want to lose the Heart in that fiery destruction. It’d probably go right into the sun and then disintegrate under dense particle forces and no opposing mana source in the sun... Depending on how the Heart is translated to this reality, of course. It’s very possible that it might cause all the world to erupt in physical material, in which case it will need to be destroyed instantly.

“Though the Heart was the furthest thing from cancer, so I doubt it would act like that in this New Cosmology.”

Erick was glad to hear that the Heart wouldn’t be a cancer —which was one of his many different worries about the artifact— but he would certainly be taking steps to ensure that something like that did not happen. Or at least, he would be taking the steps he could theoretically take, like singing to the mana about ‘healthy growth’ instead of ‘unlimited growth’. It would be a similar situation to the Life Seed that they had given Fangorl.

But besides that, something tickled Erick’s memory when Rozeta mentioned starlights. He asked, “Didn’t you all drop the starlights in the sun to make the sun at the start of the Script? Shouldn’t there be some mana up there? Or did you find the Killing Sun already here? Stories are conflicted.”

Rozeta said, “Those starlights were destroyed by the Killing Sun when they dropped out of our control and we allowed them to fall into the sun that was already here. That story you heard about us actually making the sun? That was embellishment of mortals, and a misunderstanding which we allowed to happen. There’s a lot of that around the start of the Script, post-Sundering. We did not make the sun, but a lot of our stuff fell out of our control, into the sun.”

Erick moved on. “Should we allow Solomon to absorb the Lifeblood Heart?”

“I’d wait till after the Prophesied Storm has passed, and then say I’ll likely say ‘maybe’ and ‘depending’. This is if I get everything else up and organized, which is a big ask. I still want to do this, though, Erick.”

Erick understood that feeling well enough. “So what items would be best to have for the Storm?”

“Have you tried the dungeon down in Storm’s Edge, yet? Sininindi and I spoke a day ago about how things were going and if she needed help with anything, and she spoke of the dungeon down there being 90% ready for you to visit, to take the Shield. It might only be a few more days until the Lightning Shield re-materializes from that place. The dungeon itself is only 70% ready for an evacuation of the Archipelago, as per my understanding.”

“Ahh... The Ritual of Breaking the Shades performed on that Shield... Quilatalap realized that scenario? Made it possible to steal the Shield from them?”

Rozeta shrugged. “I think it’s close. You would have to go there yourself to see one way or the other.”

Then it was probably time to go back to Storm’s Edge.

Erick smiled a little bit. He could see Quilatalap again... if the guy wasn’t working himself to death like he usually did when he was deep in dungeonwork. If they were 90% ready for him to take the Shield from the Shades...

It was probably time to force the big guy into a proper break, and also work some Wizardry. Either event seemed fun! And ‘fun’ seemed important right now, even with all this work looming overhead, and this anti-meme business which surely got Debby murdered...

Erick brushed away a fly, then asked, “The anti-meme that you all used with Everbless... That’s not gotten out of its cage, has it? As a reason for why we can’t find the Sundering Source, I mean.”

“What we gave to Everbless was a basic anti-meme that self-regulates to death. The Propagation Ban, you know. People and living things might mutate, but cast magic does not, thanks to the Propagation Ban.”

“... Until magic matures into a real thing, like with all those memetic threats Debby killed— You know.” Erick paused. “When I gave you a blanket offer of help on all the problems of this world —which I have done many times and continue to do— I did not expect to find out that the Inquisition and the Mind Mages were keeping threats controlled instead of letting me help them End those threats.”

Rozeta smiled a little. “The Inquisition and I talked about that, years ago. We decided to not get you involved in those problems because the risk of infection running rampant outweighed the reward. Anyway—” Rozeta said, “The anti-meme we granted Everbless to make people not connect him to Gold Taker has an expiration date of maybe a month. It could have lasted years more had you and Quilatalap not been allowed into the circle of people who know of that anti-meme, but that particular magic always had a general end date. This is the complete opposite of the dangerous memes and anti-memes your daughter ended. Those were cancers that gained strength in the unknowing. Everbless’ spellwork is a divine gift from Sininindi that she controls completely, and which the Script watches over to make sure it doesn’t mutate. And it’s not mutating. I’ve checked.”

“Could there have been an anti-meme that mutated to block out the Sundering Search?”

“Doubtful. We would have no reason to make such a thing.” Rozeta was satisfied with that answer.

Erick was not. “... Unless you had a reason for making such a thing, and you don’t remember.”

Rozeta frowned a little, shaking her head. “I really don’t believe we would do such a thing, Erick.”

... And that’s what it was, for now.

Erick stood, saying, “It was nice to talk, Rozeta. Looks like it’s back to work for me.”

Rozeta nodded. “Always a pleasure, Erick.”

- - - -

Erick stepped through a ring of white lightning, leaving behind the frozen Splinter Mountains of Continental Nergal to stand upon the castle fortifications surrounding the Grand Dungeon of Storm’s Edge. The sky in the distant northwest was cloudy with thunderheads piled high, like an ever-stretching pile of cotton that wisped out here and there in flatter sheets, where the air density was set slightly different within the space of the Script. Below those clouds, not visible from this location due to mountains, was Everbless’ Cove and Yggdrasil’s brother himself. Directly north from Erick lay the monster road, where Everbless’ anti-meme’d avatar, Gold Taker, funneled thick, mana-laden air and monsters toward the dungeon, located here, in the center of the island, to this valley located between many mountains.

The place was honestly looking rather great.

It was still a very large valley of flat stone and high walls, but those walls had been transformed from temporary fortifications into permanent structures filled with solidness and some bureaucracy. Erick had [Gate]d directly onto one of the side fortifications, so he wouldn’t step right into the major fortifications to the south, where a large intake center and barracks had been placed.

The land outside of the fortifications and the fortifications themselves had become refugee detainment centers and rife with protective spellworks, layered with node networks that were much more guarded than the anti-magics strewn throughout the air.

Erick turned his attentions toward the valley floor.

Inside of the fortifications lay the main, flat dungeon ground. Instead of short valleys and raised areas all throughout the many square kilometers of the valley, which had served to guide monsters to dungeon portals for dungeons 1 through 7, the monster roads led directly to monster intake portals, located to the very edges of the valley floor. Those monster entrances were specifically for monsters, and they were guarded as such.

The main entrance to the dungeon, for people, stood exposed in the center of the valley, like a 10 meter-wide black disk, set upon the face of a white circle of stone just so that people would go through the proper side, and not the backside. All around that entrance were a few scattered lookout towers, with colored lines of stone upon the valley floor. Those lines were like the Gate District’s direction lines, to help guide people in and out and all that jazz. To Erick’s All-Seeing Eye, the place down there was absolutely layered with power.

Not a whole lot of people down there, though.

Just some guards here and there. There were a lot more guards and otherwise inside the fortifications and outside of the main valley, all of them getting ready for the Prophesied Storm, while the dungeon entrance itself looked rather... Unguarded. There was a single skeleton standing in front of the black portal and a bunch of surrounding, invisible magics... Which was probably enough for Quilatalap... Or rather, ‘Vanya’.

Was Quilatalap still incognito? As far as Erick knew his cover hadn’t been blown at all.

Erick stood where he entered the valley, very clearly visible to all who might look his way, very much out of place on top of the fortification, keeping his own eyes peeled as Ophiel flew everywhere, looking at everything. He was waiting.

Soon, his welcome wagon appeared.

The Archmage of the Regent, Lady Wiloza Tidewalker, was an older woman with tanned skin and her grey hair done up in a bun. She was publicly a Stone Mage, but in reality she was an Ooze Mage with a focus on Stone. The elderly woman appeared at the Gate that led to Storm’s Edge, rushing forward through the small crowd, telling slow guards off as she cleared the no-flying zone and took to the air, flying in Erick’s direction. By the time she arrived all of her worries at Erick’s arrival had vanished under professionalism and she was much better put together.

Wiloza landed beside him. “Greetings, Wizard Flatt. What brings you here?”

“Greetings, Wiloza. I’m checking up on everything. The Prophecy is either 4 days or 10 days or 4 months away, and I heard the Shield might be ready for pickup.”

Wiloza winced. And then she tried, “Are you sure there are no better prognostications than... That scattering of unknown dates?”

“Apologies, but that’s the truth. Sometimes these things are funky that way. If you pardon the spellwork, though.” Erick raised his hand and looked to Wiloza, and Wiloza was calm. So Erick cast a Privacy around them. They could still see out, but to everyone looking their way, they wouldn’t see anything at all. Erick lowered his hand. “I am going to be doing checks every now and again going forward, looking for lightning-ringed persons—” Wiloza gasped a little, but she maintained. Erick continued, “I hope not to find one, but there is that possibility, and so I will be looking into that. Do you want some enchanted glasses or a ring to let you do your own looking? The glasses are better than the ring. Either way, I must warn you that if you do see anyone that you cannot do anything against them. You must report them to me, directly. I am deadly serious about this restriction, Wiloza. Also, you will give the ring back after this Storm passes without trying to dissect how it works, and without giving it to anyone else.”

To hand out a Benevolence Ring, as some people called them, was a very big deal.

Wiloza and Erick both knew what he was saying.

The ring and the glasses were highly regulated items, all of them numbered and kept track of inside the Benevolence research department, but they weren’t that enchanted or powerful at all. Mostly, they were complicated runic web workings with a bunch of tracking spells and solidification magics and a Drain/[Renew] that allowed the whole thing to function in certain ways first and lesser ways secondarily. Their primary function was to be located, so that Erick and House Benevolence knew where they were at all times. Their secondary function was the [Benevolence Detection] spell, which was a simple spell that Erick cast himself, which he could cancel at any point in time with a concentrated thought.

Wiloza smoothly said, “I accept this restriction. I’ll take a ring. Can they be tricked?”

Erick plucked a ring from his pocket, but what he really did was reach through a small [Gate] into House Benevolence, into the detection cases where everything was labeled and tracked. He picked up Ring 7 and marked it down on the list, which automatically alerted both the Offices of Enforcement and Magic to this action. With ring in hand, Erick cast the [Benevolence Detection] spell on the ring, and a bit of [Renew] activated the various other magics upon the thing. He canceled the tiny [Gate] and handed the ring over.

Erick said, “They can be tricked. I wouldn’t rely on them fully.”

They couldn’t be tricked; not really. Erick had done extensive testing, through many experiments. Even if someone projected an illusion of a lightning ring around their neck, or if they used Benevolence to make a ring around their neck, those paltry things just didn’t compare to the real thing. A ring-wearer or a glasses-user could instantly tell the difference.

They would just know.

The only real way they could be ‘tricked’ was by severity. Sometimes the loss of life which led to a Benevolence ring appearing on a target was as few as tens of people, for some wearers of the ring were very sensitive to that sort of thing. But [Benevolence Detection] didn’t just trigger on those who would kill, or harm. It triggered on those who would help and support their communities and the world, like some healers and teachers.

That was why these things were so highly regulated.

There was no way to know which way Benevolence swung on any given ring without some investigation.

Erick felt he could trust Wiloza, though.

Wiloza put the ring on a finger, saying, “No such thing as Shadeproof, is there.”

Erick smiled at that. “No, there is not.” And then he asked, “So how are things out here? Outside of the dungeon?”

Wiloza seemed to relax a little bit as she said, “Massive influx of people. Just as big of an exit, though. Real estate prices are in massive flux from people trying to leave and nobles buying up all they can because they want to stay and then there’s development on the south side of the island where the storms never get too bad. Lotta people are expecting this whole thing to blow over. The Priestesses of Sininindi are giving us trouble with evacuation plans, though. So if you want to put your finger on a scale, that’s probably a good place to start.”

Erick was almost disappointed that there was a problem with the priests at all, but Tiza Nindi would go to the grave hating him, so this news wasn’t too much of a surprise. “Is Tiza still blaming me for the coming Storm?”

“Not openly, but quietly, yes. She raised a stink over some Aroidos trying to come back to Storm’s Edge, too, and from there it was a whole big thing with the Reincarnated and all that.”

“... I’ll visit her later. What else?”

Wiloza smiled a little, saying, “Vanya has managed to get 39 out of 147 inhabited islands of the Archipelago to sign on for her dungeon evacuation protocol, and yeah, that’s not much, but it’s good enough, and maybe 20-ish of those might actually keep their words! More might join in when the lightning starts flowing, and...”

As Wiloza talked, Erick felt she had an easy sort of way about her these days. Probably because she didn’t have to worry about any Aroidos going crazy anymore, and there hadn’t been a single dungeon incident at all ever since Quilatalap took over. And then Erick asked about that, and Wiloza told him what he already knew to be true. And then she told him something else.

“We’ve even got some delvers delving in the last few weeks,” Wiloza said, as though that wasn’t a big fucking deal.

“I thought the dungeon was closed to delvers,” Erick said.

“Most delving, yes, but Vanya opened up two wings of her grand dungeon, and they’re working out well. The Water Temple and the Stone Temple. The dungeon does need to be mana positive, after all.” Wiloza shrugged. “Or at least that’s what Vanya tells me.”

That’s what Quilatalap had told him, too, but Erick didn’t think the guy was going to actually open them for delvers for... A while? Well. Erick wasn't sure. For ‘a while’, at least. And yet... Yeah. This was normal for Quilatalap. He liked people testing themselves against his creations, and he liked to test his creations, too. So if parts of the dungeon were ready, then sure, he would open it for people to test themselves again.

Erick said, “Thanks for the updates, Wiloza. It’s time for me to go inside.”

Wiloza bowed.

Erick canceled the Privacy and did a little show of transforming into Benevolent Lightning to ‘lightstep’ to the dungeon entrance. He chuckled to himself as he thought of Tiza Nindi watching, because she was always watching whenever Erick showed up, and she always complained of him using lightning at all. It was kinda fun to ‘go out of his way’ to purposefully use ‘lightning’ when he visited Storm’s Edge—

He and Debby had laughed about that once, when he told her that, before she went on her meme-hunt...

Erick sighed a little, then he straightened up and nodded at the skeleton ‘guarding’ the main gate. The skeleton nodded back, then stuck a hand into the black entrance to the dungeon. He pulled his hand back, and then bowed toward Erick. The skeleton had signaled someone inside, then; probably Quilatalap.

Erick strode into darkness.