022

Erick was not dreaming, because Rozeta, Goddess of the Script, the Ever Moving, the Golden Sky and Gentle Star, had said multiple times now that he was not dreaming. And yet…

“So… I’m… Not? Dreaming?”

Erick was having some trouble. There was just something about standing in the clouds, talking with a four mile long white-gold serpentine dragon, the average thickness of a school bus, that did not lend itself to believability. She was constantly moving, too. Was she right in front of him? Was she twenty miles away? Were her scales the exact color of the clouds? The answer to that last one was ‘sometimes’, and only when the light did not catch on her scales and split into rainbows, or when she glittered gold. Which led to the next question: Were the clouds her? Or what?

She also had the annoying habit of stopping to speak, and moving while she listened. When she stopped to reply, it was often from a direction you weren’t looking. Erick had almost tripped over himself trying to remain face-to-face with her house-sized, catfish-whiskered white visage.

Rozeta sighed and the clouds moved. She spoke, and exasperation tainted her voice, “Please. Can we move on?”

“Sure,” he said, magnanimously. To illustrate this, he reclined on a cloud. It was bit stiff of a cloud, so he reached around and fluffed it up. “That’s better.” He turned to Rozeta, snuggling into the air as he spoke, “What’s this about a dream?”

She eyed him, her giant eyes like miniature suns. “[Call Lightning] is too strong. I’ve gotten complaints from a dozen different relevant entities. Most particularly, a Goddess of Storms from Nergal —that’s the continent across the ocean south of you— has threatened divine action if your spell is allowed to enter the Script. Personally, I think she’s an airhead, but she’s happy and non-disruptive as long as her faithful are the only ones allowed to have actual storm magic. As you can probably guess, your use of the physical laws of the world crossed a deep theological line with her and her people. But. You did use the natural physical laws of this universe, so the magic is going to stay. About the same number of relevant entities want your spell in the Script, but stronger. Or some other variation. The rain-thing makes a lot of people happy so that’s going to stay as well, but the <damage> will not. Do you have a solution? If you do not, then I will have to implement my own solution, and you will not be happy.”

Erick thought for a moment. “It won’t work through a weather [Ward], will it? I kinda thought that was a glaring flaw, but I didn’t really know.”

Rozeta blinked, and the world dimmed for half a second. She slowed along her ever-moving journey. She stopped. “It would have, until now. Enough relevant entities are happy with this solution that I am comfortable pushing this change into the Script. +1 points to Erick Flatt, how about that!” She moved, then spoke from the other half of the sky, “Any questions before I go?”

Erick thought for half a moment. He said, “I want to try making a blacklight orb, but I’m worried about causing radiation. Is radiation a concern, with magic? How are the cancer rates on Veird? Is there a [Cure Cancer], or other cure spells for other long lasting physical ailments? Are there long lasting physical ailments on Veird? Am I in danger of a heart attack like my doctor on Earth was concerned? Speaking of cancer, what about curing aging? Like— telomeres are repetitive chains of nucleotides at the ends of chromosomes that prevent deterioration of DNA caused by cell division, but they fall apart as cells copy and divide. This is one of the main reasons for cancer and aging. Is there a way to restore telomeres using magic?”

Rozeta slowed as Erick spoke, eventually pausing altogether as he asked his last question.

She spoke, “Probably not.”

The dream ended.

Erick awoke on the living room couch. It was barely morning; the sun had yet to crest the walls of Spur. For all of three seconds Erick was not angry. Then he yelled at the ceiling, “That’s a shitty answer!”

“Dad!” Jane yell-groaned from inside her room. “Keep it down. Shit. Fucking hangovers even with fucking healing magic. Fuck.”

Erick checked his recent notifications.

Back up to 22 points.

22 was way too many extra points. He needed to buy something. Some base stats, for sure. Maybe he should talk to Al, first. Maybe Al was awake? Erick sat up—

Ohh… He should not have sat up so fast. He laid back down and horizontality was almost as bad as near verticality; his head was swimming. He groaned. He slowly sat all the way up this time, it was easier if he went slow, then looked around.

It had been a pretty good party, but if someone would have told him this place held one of the largest parties Spur had seen in several years, he would not have believed them. The place was clean. [Cleanse] probably had much to do with that. It dissolved unwanted trash like cow bones just as well as it rid the world of vomit and other bodily expulsions. [Cleanse] really was one of the best things about Veird. [Mend], too. And HP, now that he thought about it. And magic.

Veird was pretty great. Erick hadn’t felt this fulfilled in…

Well. Helping people on Earth get money from the government and have better homes, helping kids out of gangs and into college. Food drives and Habitat For Humanity whenever he could. All of that was nice. It was fulfilling. He liked his previous life.

But Erick made it fucking RAIN yesterday. How cool was that!

Well. Hmm.

Helping people pay for cancer treatments was one thing. It was one, very, very nice thing, that he had managed to do more than once. Helping people always made him feel better about the world, and it was fulfilling. He liked his life on Earth. But if he could straight up cure cancer on Veird? Wow.

Hmm.

He still didn’t know if cancer existed on Veird. Aging certainly did.

He shook his head.

One thing at a time, Erick. Let’s get out of bed and get ready for the day. Besides, you’re no scientist. All you know is what you’ve read. How about we throw some ideas into the world and see if there’s smarter people out there than us?

Disseminating information was a better idea than experimenting all on his own.

He stood up—

And promptly crashed back on his ass.

He laid down on the living room couch. More sleep was a good idea.

– – – –

A second sleep was a good idea. Erick awoke refreshed and relaxed, sunlight falling across his legs. But he didn’t awaken naturally; he had heard a noise in the kitchen. He leaned up and saw Jane was there, making herself a sandwich out of left over pulled beef. It wasn’t actually beef, though. The animal was close enough that Erick and Jane both didn’t bother with trying to mentally call it anything else. The animal was a cavert, in Ecks, but translated to English, it might as well have been ‘cow’.

Jane saw Erick sit up. “Morning. Want me to make you a sandwich?”

“I would love one. Please. What time is it?”

“Early afternoon.” Jane sliced off more meat from the leftover ‘cow’, saying, “You got a lot of mail, and not all of it on paper. Guildmaster Zago ‘requests your presence’; that came by envelope. Silverite sent Hera over here to ‘say hello’; Silverite seems to be taking a less direct approach to courting your favor. That pinkscale girl we saw when we first arrived came by to deliver messages from the farmer’s council. You remember her? Her father is on the council. You met him last night. I think you met most of them last night.”

Erick recalled last night through a haze of alcohol. “Valok? And… Apogough?”

“Valok. Yeah. Father to Delia. Pinkscale. What’s your plan? Where’re you going first?”

“… I need to talk to you, first. I got some insider information yesterday about the reasons for the shadowcats in Spur.”

“Oh?” Jane had two sandwiches ready to go into a heat [Ward], but she paused, a spark of concern tainted her voice. “What did you hear?”

“You remember Bulgan, right? Well, Guildmaster Zago said…”

By the end of that conversation, Jane promised not to go into Ar’Kendrithyst, for any reason.

Erick’s news helped to put several things into perspective for her, too. Most notably, Savral and his team had been discussing offering her an invite for their next journey into Ar’Kendrithyst, but then, at the party, that invite was rescinded as ‘premature’. That rescission had been followed by phrases like ‘sorry, maybe next time’ and ‘we go in there all the time, missing out on a few trips is not a big deal’.

She was disappointed about her invite vanishing, but now she knew why they couldn’t take her. Jane explained that the Shades had their own society inside Ar’Kendrithyst, like some dark mockery of life. They were the hurricanes of the Dead City; you didn’t fight them, you got the hell out of the way. But Jane and Erick were actual targets to a Shade. Not just fun toys to torment, like what usually happened to adventurers unlucky enough to draw the attention of those monsters.

Maybe Jane would never get to explore Ar’Kendrithyst. That’s what usually happened to people who drew the ire of a Shade, and managed to survive. And whoa! If you killed one? You were on every Shade’s shitlist. Silverite didn’t exile you when that happened, but only because she didn’t have to; everyone else forced you out of town.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

– – – –

Erick entered the Mage’s Guildhouse without much fanfare. A few people on his walk to the guild had given him weird looks. They were friendly looks. They were almost like the ones he used to get back home from gang kids, or teachers, or students that knew and approved of him. But it was still odd to see strangers look at him like that. Not to mention that they were either draconic, orcol, wrought, or incani. He still wasn’t used to all the different peoples.

And then, just when he thought he could have a normal day of guildwork, Anhelia, all grey-black iron and smiles, rose from her seat at the receptionist’s desk. She called out, and her voice was amplified to fill the guildhouse, “Welcome, Mage Erick Flatt! Planar Mage of Spur! Caller of Lightning and Bringer of Rain!” As guildmember after guildmember turned to witness Erick at the entrance hall, Anhelia’s voice returned to normal “Though dominion over the sky isn’t that rare.” She smiled wide and happy.

The people in those front rooms of the guildhouse were like iron to Erick’s magnet; the first person to get close was the bronzescale Erick had seen at both Zago’s side and as a receptionist. She spoke quick, “I need to see it,” she said. “Please. Just take the spell out right now.”

Erick did so. Bronzescale read the spell then passed it to another, who passed it to another, then another and another. But by that time, Erick had lost track of who was talking around him.

“How did you come up with the idea?”