037

Erick had gone to bed early and woken up with the sun. No attacks came in the middle of the night; the day was already better than what Erick had expected. Jane made coffee-tea, and however she had done it, she had accomplished a brew much better than Erick’s attempts.

“Big day,” Jane said, sipping her coffee on the veranda. The sun had yet to rise above the city walls, but already the sky was awash in golds and reds. “Are you prepared?”

“Should be.” Erick refilled his cup from the pot nearby. “Are you going to join me?”

“Yes. Some of it. Most of it, actually.” She held her coffee. “Mog asked a lot of people to be there, mostly on the sidelines. I was going to be there anyway. Something is going to happen, for sure.”

Erick smiled. “You haven’t been out to the farms for a rain yet, have you?”

“I’ve met everyone, but no. I haven’t been there for a rain.”

Erick drank his coffee-tea. Gazing at the hot green liquid, he said, “I hope there’s some non-sacrilegious way to take a piss out there.”

Jane chuckled.

She went quiet.

She said, “I felt like you were going to get yourself killed until a few days ago when you went and destroyed those mimics. Then you rescued me from the spiders, and went on to kill a hundred mimics around the farm… Now you’re getting beat up every day at the Guild. But you’re also getting up every time.”

Erick joked, “That’s making news, eh?”

“It is! And… It’s…” She blurted out, “It’s nice. Okay? It’s nice to know that you’re here. I didn’t think you were really here-here, seeing what I was seeing, until… Until very recently.”

Erick set his coffee down. He listened.

“You have this trusting nature and I didn’t… I’ve never respected it. Especially lately.” She blurted, “Thank the gods we were labeled ‘planar’ or else… I don’t think the incani would have stopped with the attack on the Sewerhouse. One of us would have died and I don’t know which would have been worse. You leaving me, or me leaving you. I’m just…”

Erick felt his eyes cloud, but he held back. Jane wasn’t done.

“I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m glad you killed those mimics. You always used to talk about the social contract when I was a girl, about helping your neighbors as a way to help yourself; that expecting a return was failing to understand that the contract is never about getting a return. It’s about faith.” She sniffled. “I’m really glad to see your faith hasn’t been misplaced—” She looked over to Poi standing at the side. “Guards are still weird to me, but I’m glad they’re here. I’m also glad to see that you’ve stepped up to your end of the social contract.” She smiled, looking away from Erick, at the rising sun. “I hope I can keep up with you.”

Erick watched the sky, listening to Jane.

He said, “Life on Veird isn’t that different from Earth.”

Jane sipped her coffee, then nodded, saying, “Sure… There’s monsters and gods and everything else. But. We’re just closer to the front lines on Veird. It’s a luxury to be able to fight over school funding and zoning; here, luxury is carved out of the desert with blood and sweat, then served up on the dinner table.”

Erick nodded.

Jane and Erick both watched the brightening sky.

– – – –

The temple was the same as before; massive, 8 pillared, with a statue of Atunir in the back. The only change to the center of the farms was a small, four walled, no-roofed hut with a hole in the bottom, located just outside of the Ring of Gods. As far as bathrooms went, Erick had seen worse. At least the room was stone and sturdy.

The farms themselves looked a lot dirtier than the last time Erick had seen them. Most of the land had been tilled under, but the small grasses in front of Erick were yellow. Erick pointed out the yellowing to Valok.

Erick said, “They were perfectly healthy before, weren’t they? Shouldn’t some water still be in the soil, or did they really dry out this fast?”

Apogough answered, “That’s [Grow] fatigue, not drying. We tilled and planted new crops in every field, but it looks like we missed some weeds.”

“Look here, now.” Valok pointed toward the temple. A few young dragonkin were hanging out; one of them was Pinkscale, Valok’s daughter. “We got runners for anything you want. If you don’t ask for them, they’ve been instructed to stay away and not make much noise.”

Erick looked to the temple, then looked beyond, to Ar’Kendrithyst.

Apogough asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just waiting for the drama to start. I’m expecting fireballs, but I’m also expecting to be surprised.”

Valok, Apogough, and Poi, joined Erick in looking at the walls of the Dead City.

Poi said, “We have contingencies in place. If there are interruptions, then there are interruptions. This experiment will be cut short upon first violence. Hopefully, nothing happens, but we are prepared for many possible events.”

Erick nodded. “Then I guess… We’re ready?”

“Ready,” Valok said.

“Whenever you are,” Apogough said.

Krakina was not there. Erick felt a bit sad at that.

But the show must go on.

Erick said a prayer to the gods, then—

[Exalted Storm Aura].

Fog rolled in, then up. Clouds began to roil, spreading across the farms, then a bit further. Muted thunder echoed across the Crystal Forest as silver light coalesced in the sky. Platinum rain fell. Yellowed grasses perked right up, turning green, but no further; they weren’t proper targets for Erick’s magic. Apple trees, wheat fields, rice paddies, vines of fruits and bushes of spicy peppers; every crop began to [Grow], as every waterway began to fill. The cows joyfully mooed in the gentle rain as their pasture turned lush, vibrant, and tasty.

Erick moved out of the rain and in to the temple. He went to his bench and took a book out of his shoulderbag. It was one of several novels he had borrowed from Zago after he returned her books on flying, and showed off his unusual aura.

She had said his [Flight of a Thousand Hands Aura] was a good flight spell, and quite similar to the usual one already in the Script; but no one bought that version of [Fly]. Upon reading the description, Erick could see why they didn’t, and why neither Zago nor her books recommend the option.

10 mana a second for walking speed? Utter shit. How could someone even make that, when the base costs for [Airshape X], [Telekinesis X], and Mana Shaping X, added up to 600 base cost every 10 minutes? Even the most basic version of Erick’s Handy Aura shouldn’t have added up to 10 mana a second.

Zago had no explanation for the inflated costs, but just that ‘sometimes it’s like that’. Erick either got really lucky, or maybe his understanding of the spell was different than current understanding, which both of them agreed was probably the case.

Erick listened to the rain, and went back to his borrowed book. The light in the temple was a bit dim for reading, so Erick cast three light orbs into the air, each at a varying height and distance. Together, they gave off some good, varied reading light.

Jane showed up shortly after the rain started. She settled into the bench across the temple from Erick, then took out her own books. They looked new, or possibly freshly [Mend]ed. That was odd.

“Did you buy those?”

Jane held up her book. The title was in some foreign language. “Political history of the Crystal Forest. Bought it yesterday down in Portal.”

Suddenly stricken between loss, and anger, Erick asked, “… You went to another town?”

Jane’s eyes went wide. She schooled her expression. “Yeah. I did.”

“And you didn’t invite me!”

Suddenly serious, Jane said, “You can’t go anywhere without your guards.”

Erick was more than a little mad, but he got over it. He sighed. He said, “Maybe I should get [Polymorph] and take a trip incognito, too.”

Jane shook her head. “Sorry, Dad. I tried transforming into other people. Can’t be done without looking like a toddler’s clay sculpture. I mean, you can— The books in the Mage Guild’s Library say you can, but you gotta eat a person to take their form. I’m not doing that.”

“That’s disturbing and wow! Nasty.”

“Yeah.” She asked, “Want me to pick you up something the next time I’m there? I’ve only been twice.”

“Books on mechanical engineering. I want to make a typewriter and a printing press.”

“I think they already have those. I could buy you a typewriter, if you want. Don’t know about a printing press, though.” She smirked, asking, “You want to write a thesis and nail it to a church door somewhere? Distribute some leaflets?”

“Phhbt! No.” Erick held up his book. “What I want is books written in legible block text.”

“… And how would you do that?”

“I’m not sure. Take a book written by hand, and feed it through some sort of magic? That’s my working theory.”

“Quite a working theory.”

Erick grunted, then went back to reading.

Not much happened except for some reading, and some harvesting.

Erick’s story was about a dragonkin on the high seas who—

A field to the south exploded in darkness. Poi rushed to Erick’s side. Jane moved to Erick’s other side. Mog materialized in front of the temple, and the farmers in the fields abandoned whatever they were doing to either run away or materialize armor around their bodies. The kids in the temple ran away, quietly, surely. Erick never stopped the rain; he wasn’t about to let some singular explosion stop him.

A voice carried on the air, “Hello, denizens of this turd-of-a-city, this steaming pile of poor architecture north of our great Kendrithyst!” The explosion had passed; dust and debris were washed out of the air by platinum rain. In the middle of a field two hundred feet away, where wheat had been growing, there was a non-distinct man made of shadow, but thin; stretched out in the arms and legs. He raised a hand at the walls of the Dead City behind him. “Prepare to receive the words of my master!”

Erick waited for someone else to kill the Shade. “That’s a Shade, right?” When no one did, or answered him, he asked Mog, “Want me to [Withering] him?”

“No. That’s not a Shade. You’d know if you saw a Shade.” Mog stepped closer to Erick. “They love their drama. Don’t interrupt yet.”

The great mountainous walls of the Dead City, seven miles away, shifted in hue, the brown and white and grey and orange stone drifting through to black, to grey, to dark brown.

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Mog whispered, “That’s a Shade.”

Erick stared.

A deepness took hold in the black on the Dead City’s walls, like someone punching a hole into darkness, and in that darkness there bloomed a white light. One light at first, then two, horizontal from each other, thousands of feet apart, dozens of feet wide. Spur was seven miles away from Ar’Kendrithyst, but the thing that dominated the walls was still intelligible, even through the glowing rain and the vast distance. White expanded, filling with black; the whites were eyes, staring across the land and down at Spur. They were the same kinds of [Scry] eyes Erick had seen before, and so very similar to the very first eye he had seen in the darkness of his first Meditation. But the eyes on the wall were massive; If the walls were a mile high, then those eyes were thousands of feet tall.

Below those eyes there formed a crack of utter darkness; a window to an abyss. The crack moved; a pulsewave of sound blasted out across the sands of the Crystal Forest, to crash against Spur, and the farms.

“Tania greets you, mortal ants! Bow and be spared, stand and be severed.”

22 points of damage ticked off Erick’s [Ward], but not a single person bowed. The people of Spur, having secured and readied themselves, stood tall, chins up, facing the darkness with eyes wide open and mettle in their souls.

Erick muttered, “Oh thank god.”

“Did you think we would ever bow to them?” Mog asked, a smile on her face.

“I didn’t think I’d see a giant face yelling at me for 22 points of damage, either!”

Mog smiled wide at him. “She’s going to want something. Likely from you. But—”

Silverite’s voice carried on the air. “What do you want, Tania Webwalker, Foul Shade of the Dead City?”

Her voice came from above! Erick moved out of the temple, into the rain. Yup. Silverite was standing atop the temple, feet firmly planted on the domed roof, waiting for Tania’s response.

“To gobble you all up, of course! But I am willing to trade for something lesser. The living body of one Jane Flatt, delivered to me, giftwrapped in platinum slave chains. For this small trifle I am willing to spare your hovels and your selves.”

As Tania’s voice ticked for a dozens points here, thirty points there, Erick felt his stomach drop. He felt cold. Tania was going to take Jane. Silverite would let it happen. Maybe even sanction—