081, 1/2 — Start of Book 4

A crowd gathered around Erick’s front door just before noon. Poi informed Erick of who they were and what they wanted twenty minutes before they arrived, so he was somewhat ready for them, but what they wanted was a nebulous thing. That’s why they came to him, for they wanted to find out what he wanted, too. After some initial introductions and some initial understandings, Erick would have invited them inside, but Poi had already made a fair point earlier about that setting an unwanted precedent.

So Erick went out into the front yard a ways away from the house, and [Stoneshape]d a nice, medium-sized stone pavilion, with a large table in the center and chairs enough for everyone. If he got grief from this unsactioned use of the city’s stone, then he’d put it back later, but he doubted that he would; these people had come here on official city business, after all.

Soon, everyone was inside the pavilion, while Kiri went to fetch drinks, and Poi took up his position behind Erick.

Old greyscale Ratchet, the spice lady, smiled as she sat down, saying, “All the transients are gone, but we locals are here to stay.”

An incani man with magenta skin, who Erick knew as a vendor in the Farmer’s Market named Rollo, was already sitting. He said, “Ain’t no small thing like Red Dots gonna drive us real spurians away.”

The only wrought in attendance, a blue metal dragonkin-shaped named Kip, said, “But it has driven a lot more people to live outside of the city. I hope that this won’t prove to be a problem with regard to the new regulations with Portal.”

Erick didn’t know much about Kip, but he knew that the wrought was a caravaneer, and one of the porters for the goods produced by the former Farm.

Hera, the yellowscale who was Silverite’s right hand woman, said, “Silverite has gained concessions that we are able to sell to anyone who is a citizen of Spur, or adventuring with Spur as a base. Citizens living outside of the walls still count.”

“Bah!” Rollo said, “Let those feckless people starve! The real citizens live inside the city and kill those who would seek to undermine Spur. I killed two hunters that night, you know! Actually gained ten levels. Those people living outside the walls are too safe. They shouldn’t be citizens.”

Kip’s voice took a careful edge as he said, “Those people are still a part of Spur.”

“Debatable,” Rollo countered.

Hera added, “Not debatable. They are citizens. End of discussion.”

Rollo waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Bah!”

“We’re here to talk about plants, Rollo, not logistics or politics,” said a deeply purple, older incani woman with small black horns. Her name was Calizi. She was the former head of the Farmer’s Council, years and years ago. She had been tending to her private gardens and enjoyed her retirement in Spur, but then the Farms were directly attacked. She stepped up in the aftermath, to take a spot on the new Community Gardening Council. “Let’s get to dividing the land and hashing out crops.” She pointed to the west side of the Human District, some hundreds of meters away. “I want the plots over there.”

“Me too.” Rollo said, “As will everyone. That’s prime real estate next to expensive property.”

“I’m taking at least one portion down south, near my house,” Ratchet said.

Rollo added, “Everyone except her.”

Hera said, “Everyone will get their share. If there is some debate, then we will roll dice or something to see who wins.”

Calizi seemed to quote someone as she said, “To each their need and their ability to help their neighbor.” She stared daggers at Rollo, saying, “All he’s good for is money. I can produce more than him. Always have, always will.”

“And there’s the politics,” said a violetscaled younger woman named Missoli, who had been somewhere in Valok’s administration of the Farms.

Erick watched the arguments unfold, familiarizing himself with these people who would become his new partners going forward. He barely knew anything about any of them, so he decided to only step in when the conversation turned to rains and schedules. Their conversations had not turned in that direction though, not yet.

They spoke at and over each other, about plots and produce, contracts and customers. Voices rose, but no one yelled. Rollo and Calizi obviously had some sort of long history with each other. Their bickering was almost pleasant. Erick watched, smiling.

Hera frowned at Erick.

Erick looked away from Hera and cleared his throat before he spoke over the crowd, beginning with, “I’m sure we can come to agreements over all of—”

“Not meaning to disparage, archmage, or to negate the importance of your rains,” Rollo interrupted. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? You were hands off.” He looked to Calizi, saying, “I was there. Calizi was the old Farm Master. I’d trust in the success of this enterprise if either of us took the actual lead.” He looked to Missoli, saying, “Or even Missoli, here.”

Calizi and Missoli grumbled. Erick lost his smile.

“Then I’ll do it!” Rollo said.

Calizi instantly said, “No you will not!” She turned to Erick, saying, “He can sell a furnace to a firebug but he can’t grow shit, archmage.”

“This isn’t about growing anything, Calizi.” Rollo said, “This is about feeding Spur, and you just don’t have the mind for those logistics. Never have, never will. You think putting out a hundred tons of grain is good enough! Or those awful sour fruits you flooded the markets with twenty years ago! I still have nightmares about selling those.”

Calizi rounded on the man, saying, “Purlberrys are great and good for you! You have no taste!”

Hera spoke up, “The people here are all cleared for whatever this endeavor requires. Silverite doesn’t care how it happens, only that the restaurants and the Market gets their food.”

Rollo and Calizi both frowned, but went silent.

Erick said, “Then that demand comes to me, doesn’t it? How much land does it take to fill the cold boxes of everyone in Spur, using platinum rain? Anyone got any hard numbers?”

Rollo rattled off numbers, “Spur’s population is currently around 250,000 people, but orcols count twice and we don’t service wrought via the food we produce here. We’re about 5 percent wrought and 25 percent orcol, so this means roughly 300,000 person’s worth of demands on food. One 100 meter by 100 meter plot of land, a hectare, under the effects of [Exalted Storm Aura], can create almost a thousand tons of rice every 24 hours. The average spurian eats a hundred kilos of dry rice a year, or a little over a quarter kilo per day.” He said, “In one day of rain, on one hectare of land, we can produce enough rice to feed every single person in this city for about 15 days. Less, if rice is all they’re eating.” He added, “But that’s just going off of one hectare. The Farms had over 300,000 hectares. The land we’re taking from this district is only about 176 hectares; 25 percent of the nearly seven square kilometers of this mostly empty land.” He concluded, “We can easily fill the cold boxes of Spur with just some platinum rain on the weekends. Normal rains and shading [Ward]s are all that’s necessary to keep the plants from baking in the harsh light of the Crystal Forest between harvests.”

Erick’s eyes went wide. “That’s… We really were a breadbasket, weren’t we?”

The table went silent for a small moment.

Erick added, “We don’t have to worry about actually feeding everyone, then. We just need to worry about division of labor and goods.”

Rollo said, “So about those divisions—”

“Before we get to carving up the Human District…” began a brownscaled man named Apogee, who Erick had never seen before this morning. He was also the last person in their little group to speak.

Apogee was a dragonkin, of course, but he was unlike any other dragonkin Erick had ever seen. Backswept horns crowned his head, while his face was closer to a dragon’s muzzle than a human’s visage. And he had a tail. It was thick and ridged like a gator’s and it came out of the backside of his pants like a third leg. His legs were also shaped more like a dragon’s, too. Apogee was literally the only dragonkin Erick had ever seen who truly resembled a dragon, and not just a scaled humanoid. He was also about 130 years old, at least, according to Poi, but he didn’t look older than anyone else around the table. Was he actually part true-dragon? Probably not. That would have put a target on his back for the hidden dragons of the world.

But maybe he had already gone through all that trouble, and shrugged it off?

He was certainly muscular enough to make people think he specialized into Strength and was able to defend himself, but that would have been a false conclusion, because Apogee was well known as a Scion of Focus. Apogee was the proprietor of the Wayfarer’s Guild, after all. Everyone knew Apogee was one of the best Spatial Mages in the area. Everyone except Erick, until Poi told him during their introductions ten minutes ago.

The thing everyone else also knew about Apogee was that he was Planar, exactly like Erick and Jane, but also not at all.

Erick needed to talk to this man, in private. He had resolved as much as soon as Poi filled in a bit of history earlier in their meeting. Poi had tried to dissuade him from that course of action, but Erick was having none of that. Not at that moment, anyway.

Apogee said, “I need meat. That’s not hyperbole. So all this talk of vegetables and such is great and all, but I enjoyed having cows so close. I’m sure you all did, too. Not to mention the milk and the cheese that came with those cows. Now I’ve got someone lined up already to take over the meat production that Mister Ooragh did so well, but the problem is getting Silverite to agree. According to those trading rules she hammered out with Portal, we can have no off-season production outside of the city limits. But I know I’d never get everyone here to agree to cows in the city.” He turned to Hera. “So I want those rules she made with Portal bent, somehow.” He asked, “Can we put a short wall around outside? Claim the ranch as technically inside the city walls?” He added, “And what about all the chickens and bees, too? I don’t want to go without chicken and honey, either.”

Missoli teared up, murmuring, “That Red Dot killed all my cats, too.”

“No more crying, dear.” Calizi sat straight, saying, “There’s been enough of that already.”

Missoli sniffled, then said, “Sorry.” She added, “I want the cats to come back, along with all the other animals, too.”

This garnered more than a few nods and assents around the table. Everyone wanted the bees and chickens and cows to come back to Spur. Some of them were more than happy that the cats were dead. Rollo complained that they ate too many chickens. Missoli just glared at the old man until he apologized.

Hera frowned throughout the whole discussion of meat getting back on the menu. A single line of intent radiated from her head to vanish into the manasphere.

Erick wasn’t the only one to notice Hera’s displeasure, but he was the one to speak up about it, “We all want the meat to stay, Hera.” He glanced north, saying, “Silverite was talking about a reservoir north of the city. What if it were grasslands for cattle and a short wall and a reservoir? Would that be possible?”

The table went silent, as they turned to Hera.

After a long moment, Hera said, “Silverite is comfortable with building a short wall for the cows and such, but the problem is not Portal, in that case. The problem is Ar’Kendrithyst. Whenever we expand the walls, something happens, and it’s never a straight retaliation.”

Erick felt his anger rise. He controlled his temper, to say, “They’re already doing something weird and new in there. I say we expand the walls just to prove the point that we can do weird and new, too.”

Hera, Apogee, Ratchet, Rollo, Kip, Calizi, and Missoli, each looked to Erick. Some of them smiled a little. Others sighed.

Hera said, “We were already doing something weird and new in the first place with your rain, Erick.”

“They started first, with Bulgan,” Rollo countered.

Ratchet said, “I never thought I’d live see the day when those assholes finally got it up their ass to spawn another of themselves.”

Hera leveled with Apogee, asking, “Who do you have in mind to run the cattle ranch?”

Apogee smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. “Me. That’s why I came here today.”

Hera frowned.

Rollo said, “I thought you’d get back to your guild?”

“I trained up ten wayfarers in the last three months to meet Valok’s demands —rest his soul—”

Most everyone bowed their head for a moment.

Apogee continued, “—But now that the Farm is glassed, we’re overstaffed by half. Instead of firing the people I trained, I’m stepping out. My son, Fork, is taking over.” He said, “I want cattle, chickens, and bees back in Spur, so if I gotta do it myself, then I will. I figure Silverite won’t object if I’m putting myself on the line.”

Hera sighed, then said, “Silverite has made a decision. We’ll build a short wall to encompass the cattle land, and another for a reservoir.”

Apogee smiled wide.

Erick spoke up, “Fish in the reservoir? Make it a lake, instead?”

“This is expected,” Hera said. “The lake is expected to be about the size of the Human District itself. We can move some plans around and incorporate a ranch of a similar size outside of the city walls.”

“Excellent!” Apogee said.

Erick glanced out of the pavilion to the orange stone of the Human District. “If it’s just the people here farming for the whole of Spur, then we should be able to knock out a rough plan in a few hours. So? 170 hectare plots? Really?”

Rollo said, “It’s under 2 square kilometers.”

Apogee said, “I don’t need any land inside the city. The ranch is good enough.”

Hera spoke up, saying, “The plans for the plots have already been set. They’re more or less evenly spaced out around the edge of this district.” She looked to everyone, saying, “There will be a trial period of a month, and then Silverite will reevaluate how everything is going, but Spur has been without the Farms for almost a week, now. We’re starting to see shortages in the stores. She wants this up and running by the end of the day.”

Calizi frowned at Rollo, saying, “I want that land to the west. I already got some workers lined up.”

“You’re gonna have to roll some dice for it, Calizi,” Rollo said. “I got help just waiting for me to give the word, too.”

Calizi brought out a deck of cards from her shoulderbag, saying, “Cards. Not dice.”

“You’re going to lose either way.”

Hera ignored the two of them, as she cast a hand across the table. A miniature lightward version of the Human District sprang into existence, complete with a panoply of rectangular lots all along the outside edge. She said, “These are the plans. Make your choices however you want. Silverite trusts you all to get it done in a timely and orderly fashion.”

Rollo started yelling about dice. Calizi vehemently rebutted, demanding cards. Kip sarcastically offered a test of marksmanship, which the others immediately decried. Ratchet just went ahead and declared a grouping of plots in the south as hers, while Missoli said she’d take whatever was left, but it had to be continuous.

Erick said, “I got my own garden around my house so I won’t be taking any land, but I’ll probably be selling to some people in town, anyway.”

Rollo said, “We’ll get you set up, too, archmage.”

“Thank you.” He said, “You can all call me Erick, by the way.”

“Sure thing, Erick,” Calizi said, “Those potatoes are great. Reminds me almost of the whiteroot I ate as a kid.”

Rollo frowned at Calizi, saying, “I’m growing the potatoes, Calizi. We already had that discussion.”

Calizi smiled beatifically at Rollo, saying, “And I won.” She dropped the smile. “I’m growing the potatoes.”

Erick asked, “We’re not actually splitting up the harvest like that, are we? Can’t everyone just grow whatever they want?”

Ratchet spoke up, “Those two can’t.” She added, “I’m on the spices.”

Rollo said, “You’re not getting a monopoly on those, Ratchet.”

“On this, we agree,” Calizi said.

Erick sat back in his chair, relaxing as people spoke of growing things and feeding people, of potatoes and corn, of purple tomatoes and Erick’s red variety. Of corn, and wheat, and rice. Parts of the discussion were not pleasant. But it was all about normal, mundane things. Not of life and death, or about the deeper mysteries of magic. It was kinda nice for a change.

When Missoli spoke of cats again, Kip brought up the shadowcats from before, and Erick’s mind wandered to threats left living, out there in the world.

He needed to search for Bulgan. Give it at least a half-assed try, though he doubted he would find anything. He couldn’t directly search Ar’Kendrithyst, but he could have a little look-see from the outside.

As the conversation chugged on around him, Erick thought more of that man, and how he had tried to set a trap in Spur’s sewers, expecting Erick and Jane to find the oozes first, but how unfortunate rookies had lost their lives to the living acid, instead. There was no concrete proof that Bulgan was behind the lethal Sewerhouse attack, but Erick did not doubt that he was behind that, too.

… Or maybe there was concrete proof, and Silverite didn’t want to tell Erick for fear of rocking the boat.

At the time, a lot of the incani of Spur that were involved in those attacks, either directly, or simply in the know. Erick never found out exactly who all was directly involved. Zago was involved, for sure, but she seemed repentant enough, and no one was comfortable with how far Bulgan actually took his crusade. Not after Bulgan brought shadowcats into the city. He had planted them into the Human District that Erick now lived in, in an effort to kill Erick and Jane, heedless of the collateral damage and deaths he caused. It took the whole city to rout that infestation.

That infestation was the first time Erick had used [Call Lightning] against a living target. At the time, it was a sobering experience. But looking back at it now, almost nine months later…

Shadow monsters certainly didn’t do well versus lightning.

Not many things could!

The new Community Garden Council continued to talk about plants and plots, while Kiri delivered lemonade in huge pitchers to the gathering, eliciting a whole new discussion on sugar cactus, and who would be growing that. Sugar cactus was one of the most lucrative products to grow. Everyone wanted a piece of that pie. Missoli wanted that whole pie, all to herself, but that was simply not happening.

Erick joined in on the discussion when necessary, but mostly only when they spoke of the raining schedule. Instead of raining every morning for a few hours, Erick and the Council worked out a plan for platinum rain on the weekends to ensure a grand seconday harvest in the Market, while normal rain would blanket the whole city on a to-be-decided schedule. According to Hera, every house and apartment building was getting outfitted with their own extra water collection areas, so the whole city could use some rain.

The discussion about the city-rain schedule was out of this Council’s hands. Silverite would hold a vote however she wanted to soon enough, to decide how much rain would come, but Hera, and thus Silverite, was expecting a few hours of rain once or twice a week.

While they all talked of planning around rain, Erick’s mind went to his own plans, to thinking of how to kill Shades.

Shadow monsters were rather vulnerable to lightning, weren’t they? The books Erick had read at Oceanside even said as much. Oceanside had considered Mana Altering to Lightning to be an extreme form of light, before Erick came along, meaning that they thought that shadows were vulnerable to extreme forms of light, but when there was only a little light, that little light made the shadows stronger.

But obviously lightning was not light. Was there something special about the violent movement of electrons equalizing charge that shadows were vulnerable to? Or was there a much simpler answer? Were living things simply vulnerable to electrical disruption, and ‘light’ was not involved at all?

Erick would have to experiment a little on the monsters near the Hole up north; the nearest open entrance to the Underworld. Other than Ar’Kendrithyst, the Hole was the only other local place where shadowolves and other shadow monsters lived.

… Could he make a [Summon Lightning Elemental]?

Bah. No. He couldn’t do that. He would need Particulate Force, the Particle Mage Class Ability to combine normal magic and Particle magic, in order to get [Conjure Force Elemental] and [Call Lightning] to play with each other. But Jane said that she’d never talk to him ever again if he ever took that Ability.

Oh! But Rats has [Greater Treat Wounds], too! He could make a rod of—

Rats was gone. Shit. How could Erick have forgotten that? Dammit. Hopefully Rats was doing okay out there with Messilina… wherever he was.

Oh. Jane could make a rod of [Greater Treat Wounds], too. And she would be home soon. Maybe they could work on some magic together? Ah, but she would have to learn Ancient Script. That was no big deal. He could pay Irogh a grand-rad to get [Comprehend Languages] cast for Jane. Maybe he would get that spell cast on him, too. Everyone spoke Ecks, for the most part, but not every book was written in Ecks. Most of the books in the Mage Guild’s library were written in other languages, like Inferni for all the technical books coming out of the Wasteland Kingdoms, or Draconic for the rarely used genetically-imprinted language of all dragonkin. There were orcol exploratory journals written in Gargantual that Erick wanted to read, too, to understand a bit more about the wilder places of Veird. Jane already knew Karstar, the language of human nobility and the angels, so Erick needed to learn that, too.

How would Jane react to him wanting to take Particulate Force?

… But what Class Ability would he have give up to get Particulate Force?

… Shape Spell? But Shape Spell was so useful.

… He would have to give up something to get Particulate Force, to prepare for whatever was coming out of Ar’Kendrithyst.

Erick casually looked up from the discussion, to gaze south. Spur rose past the flat lands of the Human District like orange blocks and spires. Beyond that was the wall; barely visible between buildings. Beyond that wall was a large expanse of Crystal Forest, and beyond that, lay the much larger wall of Ar’Kendrithyst, dominating the southern horizon.

They were up to something in there.

 

– – – –

 

Far away from the tall walls of Ar’Kendrithyst, in the deep south, east of the Wall that separated the Wasteland Kingdoms from the Crystal Forest, there stood a man. While the sun shone overhead, that man stared at the western sky. He was close to his homeland, but this is as close as he wanted to go.

This place, in the middle of nowhere, not even near the ocean, was perfect.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

In the distance, further than mortal eyes could see without the aid of magic, lay the Wall. There were many such ‘Wall’s on Veird, but this one was the only one the man would ever consider the true ‘Wall’.

This division between biomes was like a minor mountain range, but it was flatter, more organized. It was a necessary Wall, too, for the Greyhorn mountains to the north did not fully close the gap between themselves and the ocean, so the people of the lands beyond had had to raise this minor mountain range on their own, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, to keep the Crystal Mimics out. The Wall was mostly unmanned, but every hundred kilometers towers rose from the Wall and settlements lived on the other side. It was a harsh life, no one really thrived there, but it was a good life, and it was barely more difficult than living in Spur.

The man stared at the Wall, thinking. He had lived there when he was a child. He had traded with travelers, and he had helped his mother bake bread. He had grown jewelfruit and apridates with his father, and played with his brothers and sisters under tall trees and in the deep dunes on the other side, where the danger came from sunburn and heatstroke, and other people.

That had all changed when the humans attacked. His home was gone, now. It had been gone for twenty years. His real home had been Spur, until recently.

A spike of deep, thrumming anger tingled at the edge of the man’s mind, but his anger was a well worn armor. It was a cool breeze on a hot day, or a hot dagger held coldly; a centering emotion. He held his anger close, and used it to further his goals, just like he always did, and just how he was doing right now.

Today was the start of something special, and the man was going to make this plan work, even if he had to kill his former countrymen to do so.

The man was born an incani. His skin had always been dark and his horns of a goodly size. Now, his skin was the color of night, and his horns were flickers of shadow barely longer than his black hair. His clothes were darker than black; the color of almost everything about him, these days.

He smiled, staring at the wall separating the Crystal Forest from the Wasteland Kingdoms.

He turned to a puddle of darkness on the ground next to him. “This is your new home. Make of it what you will.”

The puddle vibrated. The noon sun seemed to stretch down into the darkness, as the darkness opened. People gripped the edge of that hole in the ground and pulled themselves out, onto the sands of the Crystal Forest. They were not as perfectly formed as the man, but these shadelings had begun to show intellect in the recent months, and thus, they were here, taking part in this plan.

The people hauled themselves out of the hole in twos and threes, easily lifting themselves into the sun, each of them spreading out in whatever direction they decided. If some of them chose to run, the man would hunt them down, but none of them did. They were smarter than that. Some of them spoke to each other in hushed tones; discussions of where and what they should build.

A trio walked a short distance from the hole in the ground and joined hands. Shadowstuff stretched from each of the people; a creation from nowhere, taking hold in the light like a mirage turning real. With practiced effort, the shadelings pulled a squat building out of the air, and then began to stretch it taller.

Other shadelings created thin towers. Or crystalline spikes the size of small kendrithyst towers. Trees made of illusions stretched over sand that turned into dark stone roadways.