035

Erick stumbled out of his room, screaming, “Where the fuck is everyone!”

Strips of lightorb gripped the edges of everywhere, shining sunlight onto orange stone.

And a body. Large, grey armor, Teressa. No head. Red blood everywhere. Head must be somewhere—

Two bodies. Bluescaled Poi, surrounded by his own lake of red.

Poi was dead.

Erick screamed, “JANE!” He ran through the hall—

Poi coughed and Erick rounded on him.

His rod of [Treat Wounds]! Erick rushed back into his room and grabbed the rod from the dresser beside his bed. He raced back to Poi and slammed a charge of [Treat Wounds] into the dragonkin, who coughed out something far too quiet for Erick to hear. Erick hit him with another charge.

Poi gasped, “He— Heal Teressa!”

Erick did as he was told, even though Teressa had no head.

Teressa’s head began to regro-OLY SHIT that’s creepy! Erick had to hold back a barf.

Jane.

Erick dashed to Jane’s room.

She wasn’t there. The bed was rumpled. The window was open—

The window was torn open, off its stone hinges. Erick rushed through the room to the window, sticking his head out into the night. The light of his lightward had covered a great deal of the house, shining bright sunlight into the darkness, like he had strung the place up for Christmas.

There was nothing out there, save for the normal lights of the far away city, and the flat land of the Human District.

Poi lurched into the doorway. “They came too fast—”

“How long since they took her?” Erick spat out, “Are you in contact with the Army?”

“Shadowvenom blocks many mag—”

“GUESS.”

Poi forced himself to stand a bit straighter. “Based on my blood pool… 3 minutes. Maybe less. They should have tried to taunt you and they wouldn’t have done that unless they were sure of their escape. What did they s—?”

Erick didn’t answer; he didn’t have the time to answer. He was furious. Anger was a poison, and it was all consuming. Erick moved as fast as his body would allow.

Aurify.

Mana Shaping X.

[Airshape X].

[Telekinesis X].

A brand new spell popped out.

 

 

Instinct gripped Erick as he gripped the windowsill with a hundred invisible arms. He launched himself out of Jane’s room, leaving Poi behind, looking for a trail, holding on a thousand pockets of air with a thousand unseen hands, racing two stories above the ground.

A very distant part of him flew across the land in wonder, marveling at magic.

A very present part of him was beyond anger.

The [Alarm Ward] on the house had been silent, and keyed to everyone. He fixed this oversight now with another [Alarm Ward] and raced through it, triggering a blaring warning in his own voice.

“Shadowspiders in the City! Shadowspiders in the City!”

The alarm repeated, loud and vibrating. Having been triggered, it would run out of energy soon enough, but the message had been delivered. The Oceanside Mage’s house lit up. Out in the rest of the city, lightorbs bloomed in the night.

Erick saw a shadow slip over the northern wall, carrying a bundle, the dark silhouette limned by silver-pink moonlight. Anger turned to hate, as Erick said a prayer of thanks to whoever was the goddess of chance, as he raced across the land, picking up speed.

[Special Ward].

A massive spotlight of brilliant white light sprang into existence 50 feet up, illuminating the northeast wall of the city. Two spiders were climbing up the wall, their stark spindly forms like black etchings against orange brown stone.

Mana Shaping

[Withering].

300 mana flowed through Erick as he splashed his [Withering] against the spiders far ahead, wrapping the spell up and over the wall, then letting it flop and adhere to the other side in a mile-wide semicircle.

Two spiders winked out, falling into their own shadows. Not dead; [Shadowalk]ed away, probably.

A visual alarm came up from the wall, two hundred yards left of where the spiders had been climbing. Someone was there and lighting [Special Ward]s of their own. Orange globe things; Erick didn’t know what they were supposed to mean, exactly.

Erick felt a tingle on his mind.

Killzone’s voice came though, ‘Erick. Are you there?’

This is [Telepathy]? They took Jane. They’re still here.

Erick was at the wall. There were no signs of spiders, but how would there be? They didn’t seem to leave web trails wherever they had walked; they weren’t slugs. Erick flew up and over the city wall, his thousand hands finding the tiniest of purchases, and when they didn’t find a spot to hold on to, they gripped air and that worked well enough. Erick flung himself over the wall.

Three half-moons shone down upon a dark land studded with ten foot tall gems.

 

 

Far below, a thousand feet from the wall, was Jane. She was wielding a shield of light and pulling a sword covered in dark ichor out of a dark dead thing. Erick spread his aura wide to glide across the distance.

“Jane!”

She turned to see him fly in. “Dad!”

She laughed as Erick touched down, throwing her sword and shield to the desert sands. They raced into each other’s arms.

“Are you hurt!?”

“I couldn’t cast anything until your spell dried out the webs!”

“You’re safe? You’re good? You—”

“I’m good. I’m good.” She gasped. “Is everyone else—”

“They’re fine.” Erick hugged Jane tight. “I don’t know how I didn’t wake—”

“It happened fast. I woke up in webs halfway out of the window.” Jane hugged tight.

She shook a little, and Erick held her tighter. He was probably shaking a little, too. Erick stood there, holding Jane until both of them stopped shaking.

She sighed out, and Erick sighed with her.

Jane pulled away, asking, “How did the [Alarm Ward]s fail?”

“The only reason I woke up…” Erick breathed deep, then said, “I woke up because one of them purposefully triggered the [Alarm Ward] by my window. They must be able to see the [Ward]. I thought Al and I had hidden them better, but… I think I need to get a [Solid Ward], or whatever you call it. Bacci and Al both have one, but they can only have one [solid ward] at a time… It was on my to-do list.”

“Mine, too.” Jane looked her father up and down. “That’s a handy spell you got there, Dad.”

Erick chuckled, the terror of the last minutes evaporating. He breathed out, and said, “It kinda just… Seemed natural.” Erick focused on his FoaTH Aura, silently laughing that the acronym was at least intelligible. The air shifted around him. His thousand hands touched upon the soil, the air, and the corpse of the spider. Eww, that felt nasty. “Uh. Should we take it with us?”

Jane smiled at him, and then at the spider corpse. “Yes. Absolutely. Be careful with it, too. See that flickering shadow? No one kills these things. They’re worth a lot of money.”

Erick was immediately faced with an oddity. “That’s… corruption, isn’t it? It didn’t [Cleanse]?”

“That’s shadowstuff; not corruption. And I killed it. So it didn’t [Cleanse].” She chuckled. “I had some help, of course, but I got the kill.”

Erick smiled as he inspected the monster. There were flickering shadows around the joints, the spinnerets, and the fangs. So that’s what he was feeling with his aura. Eww. Shadowstuff looked like dark fire, but it felt like he was like sticking his hand in a bowl of cold, slimy macaroni, like the ones Erick set out every year at the rec center for the neighborhood kids’ Halloween party. But worse. Shadowstuff was definitely worse than cold, slimy macaroni. Though it wasn’t corruption! That was good to know.

He picked it up without complaint.

“You look really weird right now, Dad.”

Erick looked at himself. Nothing seemed that strange, but with Meditation active, he saw the streamers of intent that connected him, in some vague airy sort of way, to a thousand clumps of controlled air and force in the shape of tiny human hands.

Erick said, “Let’s go home. I can carry you, too.”

Jane smiled in the light of the moon. “I love you, Dad.”

Erick picked her up like she was a kid again, in the crooks of magical arms that were and were not his own. He held her in a seated position on his right. On his left he held the spider. He pushed himself into the air, and with a few hundred telekinetic hands, made his way over to the wall and up, into the spotlight he had created—

Killzone blinked into existence on the wall beside them.

Jane shouted, “FU— oh.”

Erick’s telekinetic arms were almost upon Killzone, but he pulled his punch; Killzone noticed, but didn’t seem to care. After Erick’s heart stopped pounding, he just glared at the man. The solid black orcol-shaped wrought seemed content to let Erick figure out the rest of his response. Eventually, Erick decided to set Jane and the spider down on the three yard wide walkway that was the top of the city wall.

“Howdy,” Killzone said. He pointed at the spider. “That’s going to be a problem. Who actually killed it?”

Jane said, “I did. What are you talking about? Problem?” She almost turned angry, but Erick could tell she was holding it in. “They attacked. We defended.” She corrected, “Dad defended. He gave me the opportunity to counterattack.”

Killzone spoke with authority. “That’s one of Tania’s spiders. She lent them out to Bulgan six days ago.” He said, “Don’t get me wrong. It’s good that you didn’t get captured; that would have been a bad day for everyone. But you might’ve tipped a power balance over to Bulgan’s side. Tania might kill Bulgan, or she might ally with him. The politics of the Dead City are on a precipice and the whole thing could crash one direction or the other. Whatever the case, I’ll need to inform Frontier that they might be receiving some pain.” His voice turned heavy, “I’m sorry my people couldn’t defend against some spiders.”

Erick’s anger returned. He barely kept the rage out of his voice, “What would happen if I flew into the air and cast [Withering] into their city?”

Jane stared at Erick. Erick kept his eyes on Killzone.

“If they didn’t shoot you out of the sky?” Killzone spoke without passion. “They would retaliate in force. Your new magics would likely help a great deal, but Spur would fall. There’s no question about that. Thousands would die. We could kill 4 out of the known 38 Shades and empty the city of many shadows. Those of us who survived the attack would be able to venture deep into the Dead City, clearing out those who remained. In seven months, we would either have the head of every Shade on pikes atop the gates of Spur, or Spur would be a pile of stone.” He added. “I am comfortable with this risk.”

Erick’s anger gutted low; a raging fire turned to cold embers.

Killzone said, “But you are not comfortable with this risk. And that is fine. Choose your battles, Archmage. Grow stronger. Strong enough to kill those that need killing.” He turned to the spider corpse, and Jane. “If you’re going for Polymage, you need to eat that spider, Jane. The whole thing; shadowstuff and all, within 2 days. If you don’t have enough gold, the spider should have a grand-rad inside the belly area.”

Jane nodded. “Thank you, Captain Killzone.”

Killzone turned back to Erick. “Thank you for saving Teressa.”

“How is she alive after that?!” Erick blurted.

“It’s the troll heritage. She’ll be odd, for a while, but she’s gone through this before. The Shades like to pluck orcol heads off if they can; orcol are rather impressionable after recovering from that trauma. If she wants out of her ‘vacation’, please let her.”

And that was enough. Erick was done with excitement, tonight.

“That’s enough insanity for one night.” Erick said, “I’m ready to go home.” He picked up the spider corpse and waited for Jane to be ready. She was. He picked her up. “See ya, Killzone.”

“Later, Archmage.”

Erick turned off his spotlight [Ward] on his way to the house; his [Alarm Ward] about spiders in the city didn’t need to be removed, it had blared and then died all on its own.

 

– – – –

 

Hours had passed. Erick found himself unable to sleep, and now sitting at the kitchen table.

“I want a cup of coffee,” Erick said.

“Oh my gosh!” Teressa beamed, from her own nearby seat, “What is coffee?”

The mage trio and a few others had come over to see what was wrong, but they had left hours ago. Jane discovered that Ramizi had made [Polymorph] potions for each of him, Maia, and Eduard. She quickly haggled out a deal, and handed him the spider’s grand-rad, but would not part with the corpse itself, even after they offered her 10,000 gold. They were all gone now, back to their homes. Jane had even gone back to sleep, after making sure the spider was in both a [Preservation Ward] and a [Cold Ward].

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

And Erick was left with a very bubbly Teressa. He couldn’t sleep. He was still jittery. Sitting there with Teressa was rather awkward, though. She was quite different after recovering from headlessness. She was a gorgeous green woman with short golden hair, a bright smile, and emerald eyes. She refused to wear her armor, and she wanted to know everything. Erick had been answering her questions for a while, now. She was a good distraction from his own dark thoughts.

“Coffee is a bitter-sweet drink made from the dried and roasted beans of the coffee tree. You don’t have it on Veird; it’s from Earth, and I miss it terribly.”

“Oh! That’s so sad! You should [Grow] yourself some.”

“It’s on the list to [Grow].”

“What else is on your list?”

“Potatoes. A starchy root vegetable. Corn, a great feed crop for animals and people. Uh. Pineapple! Right. Pineapple is on the list.”

“What’s a pineapple?”

“Fruit that tastes like sunshine.”

“Oh! I want a pineapple! Can you make me one?”

“I’ll try, Teressa.”

Rats was also awake and nearby, bustling in the kitchen. He hadn’t been in the house during the attack; Killzone found him in some young woman’s bed halfway across town. Right now, the young redscale was making breakfast, trying to make up for his absence in any way he could. The man still looked as terrified now as he was when Killzone unceremoniously dumped him in the front foyer.

“Breakfast will be ready soon!” Rats said, his voice vibrating with tension.

Erick said, “You don’t have to make breakfast right now. Sunrise is still hours away.”

“I can make breakfast again at that time!” Rats tried to chuckle, but it came out as tiny screeches. “We have to be ready for the day! Always ready!”

He tried to stifle a sob, but Erick still heard him.

Teressa chimed, “What’s ‘day’?

“It’s when Veird turns to face the sun, and light pours across the land.” Erick looked around. He asked, “Anyone know where Poi is?”

“I know!” Teressa smiled wide.

Erick waited.

Erick asked, “Where is he?”

“He’s out talking to Killzone!”

Rats dropped about five plates and a pan of his egg rice, muttering curses before the pan and plates crashed against the stone floor, then yelling curses as they hit. The whole tumble took less than a second, but Erick saw that it broke Rats all over again. Rats tried to hide his tears, but he couldn’t.

“Oh! Fun words!” Teressa asked, “What do they mean?”

“Expressions of displeasure.” Erick stood and walked over to help Rats.

Rats was kneeling in the mess, staring at scattered rice and fluffy egg and broken stoneware. Erick flashed a [Mend] with Mana Shaping X. Plates flowed together; the chipped floor where the pan had crashed restored itself. Another flash of [Cleanse Aura] cleaned up the mess, and wiped away the tears streaming down Rats’ face.

Erick knelt down to gather up the plates, the pan, and then when those were on the counter, he knelt next to Rats, and said, “You’re okay. We’re okay. Right now, we’re fine. You did nothing wrong.”

“Please don’t…” Rats breathed hard. He said, “I did many things wrong… sir.”

“We both fucked up quite a bit, but that’s okay. We’ll do better.”

Rats looked up at Erick. “You did more than any of us. If it weren’t for you…” He looked to Teressa, who was humming some nonsense song as she played in the table spices. “If it weren’t for you, we’d have suffered grave losses tonight. I’m sorry I wasn’t… I wasn’t here.”

Erick held his hand out to Rats. “I tried to run away from my duty, too. But I’m here now, and so are you.” He smiled as Rats took his hand. “So up, up!” Erick pulled the man upright, 20 Strength making Rats as light as a feather. “We’re okay. And we’re going to do better. You and I are both going to do better.”

Rats nodded. A tear fell from his face, but he rubbed it away, and went back to making breakfast with a fresh set of eggs and another pot of water for more rice.