083, 2/2

Erick followed Sizzi into the main room, back by the receptionist’s desk. Anhelia was not there. Instead, the young man Erick had seen before was there, trying to deal with an angry customer he was woefully ill-equipped to handle. He caught Sizzi’s eyes, and whisper-shouted to her for help. Sizzi shook her head, mouthing, ‘Sorry,’ and kept walking.

Up the main staircase, they walked; Sizzi leading the way.

Every step they took, Erick felt dread settle onto his shoulders. Ophiel trilled in quiet flutes. He may not have understood exactly what was happening, but he understood about as much as anyone. Whatever had happened could not possibly have been a good thing.

The war room was not located up any tower, but was instead down at the bottom of a staircase, past a few deep, well lit, yet empty rooms. There was not a shadow to be seen, down here; not even under Erick’s own feet. An archway at the end of the hallway held a thick pair of deeply red doors, but those doors were open. A flurry of activity rustled papers and scratched on chalkboards beyond. Raised voices spoke of shadelings and danger, and of … Magical items? Gifts? Points?

Erick glanced back to Poi as they walked. Poi, in turn, had about thirty lines of intent radiating from his head, and a grimace on his face. He glanced to Erick, but said nothing. Erick held his questions close as he followed Sizzi into the red room.

It took a moment to take in the sight of so many people working fast and speaking at each other, though from the threads of intent in the air, there was a lot more happening below the noise.

Largely, the room seemed divided into two sections. One section was situated around a strong wooden longtable, where magically-powered screens floated at one end, near the wall. There were chairs scattered around the longtable, and near the viewing screens, but nobody was there, yet. The other part of the room was filled with desks and individual floating screens, and the people who likely controlled those screens. That half of the room was full of people, but almost none of the screens held anything except for solid colored light; likely the colors of whoever had cast those spells. They were still in the set-up stage, if Erick was reading all of that right.

Zago blipped in at the head of the longtable, opposite the viewing screens. She immediately turned to Erick. She said, “Take a seat. Hold your questions, please. There’s no immediate rush to action, but there will be heavy decisions made today.” She added, “Sizzi? Please wait to the side with the others.”

Erick glanced to the side. Anhelia and a few other people from the Mage Guild stood to the side of the room, against the wall, watching the unfolding mess in front of them. Sizzi went to Anhelia and began whispering with the wrought woman. Kiri stepped to the side, near to Sizzi, but not next to.

An orangescale man who Erick barely remembered as Tamarim, walked from the crowded viewing screen area, to the seats sitting beside the main screen. He sat down, speaking to the room, “Main view is coming on right now.”

The largest screen in the center of the rest, flickered from orange to blue sky, orange sands, crystal agave and mimics, no doubt, and a blot of black on the horizon. The view moved closer. The dark blot slowly resolved into a city made of shadows—

Poi said, “Silverite and Killzone are arriving now.”

The air next to the longtable blipped silver and black; Silverite, the silver dragonkin-shaped Mayor of Spur, and Killzone, the completely black orcol-shaped general of Spur’s Army.

Silverite said, “Attention, everyone!”

The room went silent.

She continued, “The city is called Candlepoint, and the threat of this location has been downgraded from imminent danger to threatening. As you were.”

At least two guys visibly relaxed at their desks on the other side of the room. A few others just nodded, and turned back to their discussions. All around the room, viewing screens flickered from solid colors to images of ‘Candlepoint’; from the sky, to the streets, to the walls, to far away. Erick watched as shadelings walked across dark roads or hauled colorful fruits across the view, or spoke with one another.

All at once, in every single interior view, the shadelings turned to the camera.

Erick felt his blood freeze as a collective gasp went through the war room. [Hunter’s Instincts] went on, instinctively.

Without doing anything else, the shadelings returned to whatever they were doing; harvesting fruits, feeding their babies, talking to their neighbors, talking to adventurers—

Erick watched a shadeling behind a market stall, characterized by a gentle shadow that licked across their skin, talking to an adventurer on the other side, characterized by their heavily guarded stance and distinct lack of shadows; compared to the shadeling, the person was a riot of brown leathers and bright pink skin and white hair and color. The adventurer looked to be trying to sell something to the shadeling; a pile of rads, perhaps?

Erick pointed across the room, whispering, “What the fuck is happening there?”

Killzone spoke without the comforting twang to his voice, “It’s commerce, of a sort. They require rads, and then sell… we’re not quite sure what they’re selling.”

Poi said, “Mog and Merit are arriving, now.”

The air blipped grey in one area and orange in another; Mog and Merit, already on opposite sides of the longtable.

Mog took a seat. Merit took a seat on the opposite side.

While Poi stayed to the side and Kiri had already made herself a nonspeaking fixture to the side of the room, Erick took a seat at the longtable, next to Mog. The large orcol smiled a bit at that, but on the other side of the table, Merit mouthed, ‘I need to talk to you about more scanning’. Mog switched to a glare at nothing in particular. Zago sat down on the other side of Erick. Killzone took his place at Silverite’s left hand side.

Silverite looked to the air as she sat down at the head of the longtable. A tendril of intent flowed out, then back.

The air blipped on top of the table, near Silverite, revealing the pixie, Fillarina. She spoke to those seated, saying, “The archmages send their representatives.”

There were just enough seats left for three more blips. One blip was opalescent, revealing a hovering, pearly ovoid without any defining characteristics. The other two blips were black and blue; a hovering, dark jumble of star points the size of a head, and a hovering blue blob, with air bubbles trapped inside. All three of the new arrivals were about the same size.

Ophiel trilled on Erick’s shoulder at the new [Familiar]s, but quietly; he knew something important was happening.

Silverite began, “Fillarina. What have you uncovered?”

Fillarina stood atop the table, saying, “This shadowy city is called ‘Candlepoint’. They claim to be something of an adventuring town, but this location is also a means for them to put their new magics out into the world.” She flicked a hand up, toward the main viewing screens. “These new magics are either created through wizardry, or through divine magic, and since the source is the Dark Dragon, it’s probably wizardry. Whatever the case, they’re gamechangers, and everyone is interested for varying reasons.”

The main screen changed, revealing a carved section of Candlepoint’s walls, that looked more like a treatise than a proclamation. This particular section was to the right of the open archway; the city’s main entrance. Based on the people in view standing in front of the proclamation, reading right alongside Erick and everyone else, the walls of Candlepoint were easily ten meters tall.

 

 

The room remained silent though more than a few people had finished reading the list and began to look toward Silverite, or Killzone. A few people even glanced at Erick.

“Okay.” Mog asked, “That all looks… really bad. But what is Dexterity?”

Fillarina answered, “A new Base Stat, like Strength or Willpower—”

The side of the room containing Mage Guild people went loud. Zago snapped her fingers, and the murmuring died off.

Fillarina continued, “—We’re not sure what Dexterity does, exactly, but we do know that it enables better bodily reaction speeds and combat effectiveness and weapon use.”

Erick heard himself say, “Can he do that?!”

Silverite’s mouth was a hard line. She said, “Apparently.”

Erick asked, “Are we flattening the place?”

Before the mumbling and the discontent could inundate the room, Silverite said, “Fillarina. Continue with the report.”

Fillarina spoke, filling the waiting silence of the room, “The listed rewards are less than a percent of what is actually on offer inside Candlepoint. Their largest trade seems to be Basic Tier items, and that includes almost anything you could find in a normal magic shop. Rods of [Treat Wounds]. Staffs of [Fireball]. High tier potions. That sort of thing. Many people have already begun trading in rads for darkchips, though that only started this morning. Candlepoint itself has only been existent for three days, now.”

The main viewing screen vanished, as eight smaller ones moved to fill the air, each holding a different perspective on the dark city. There were markets and hotels and gardens and farms, filled with shadelings, and even the rare person.

Fillarina continued, “The cities of the Wall already tried flattening Candlepoint. They even sent out a pair of level 75 Darklight mages. There is a Shade on site. This Shade killed all attackers, effortlessly. He’s still there, too. Usually, he is stationed atop the shadow kendrithyst in the center of the city.” The main viewing screen shifted to show a dark-skinned incani on the top of a dark stone. “It’s Bulgan.”

Erick whipped around to look at Zago. Zago sat stoically; unwavering and unblinking, staring at the screen in front of them all. Erick was not the only one looking Zago’s way, but he barely noticed the other people, because anger roiled through his chest like lava. Just as quickly as he looked to Zago, he turned back to the screens. Fillarina was still talking.

Fillarina continued, “We don’t know the purpose of this charade. We don’t know how they managed to make shadelings look and act like normal people. As far as I can tell, it’s all a trick of some sort, but I don’t see their angle, except to make more shadelings from the adventurers that come into the city without those people realizing that they’ve taken on the Curse of the Shadeling.”

Zago said, “Of the people the Wall has tested for the Curse, they have found none afflicted.”

Mog said, “There’s not a single person that gets a quest in this city that doesn’t know the dangers of dealing with Shades. We make them all sign off on that before they take quests for Ar’Kendrithyst.”

Fillarina continued, “There is more. Aside from the rewards listed on the wall, and inside the city at what passes for their ‘Upper Trade District’, other rewards are scattered throughout Candlepoint. One of them is an option to have a fair fight against Bulgan. It’s written up there by where he stands.”

The camera moved to the right of Bulgan, to zoom in on a stone plate near an attendant shadeling.

 

 

Killzone spoke up, “If you win, they probably take you and break you until you agree to become a Shade, yourself, and then set you up as the ruler of that city.”

Silverite added, “Likely.”

Mog asked, “What am I telling my adventurers, Silverite?”

Silverite said, “For now, you make them know how dangerous it is. Try to stop them if you can, but I don’t know if that’s possible. The Shades will just keep upping the temptations until they get a flood of people knocking down their doors, hungry for magic that would likely damn them for eternity.”

Erick stressed, “So flattening Candlepoint is out of the question? I really feel that we should flatten the place. As soon as possible.”

“For now, we will take no overt actions against Candlepoint.” Silverite said, “For those of you who might not know, we’ve seen strange things coming out of Ar’Kendrithyst in the past few weeks from a location known as Umber Street, just a few city blocks from the Spire; the largest zone of no return in the Dead City. There have been people wearing boots that give them the movement options of the Elemental Body Skills, and bone stitches that enable faster movement without an increase in Health cost. One woman was even able to confound a Mind Mage into letting her go, without the use of mind magic. Candlepoint might be the culmination of Umber Street, or Candlepoint might be a stepping stone to what lies in the Dead City. We’re not sure.

Silverite added, “Whatever the case, this is the old god of magic doing some major fuckery with the Script. Gods, demons, and angels are likely to get involved, and soon. I expect Champions to come to Spur. I expect Champions to be created in Spur, or elsewhere nearby. We haven’t seen this sort of action from Ar’Kendrithyst, ever. Usually, they’re a lot more violent, but sometimes they start off acting nice. I don’t expect any existent government to fall for it, but the people will. They always do.”

No one spoke.

The spiky black star broke the silence, “I vote we destroy Candlepoint. Get everyone together, and Red Dot the place.” He added, “Oh. And I reinvented that spell. It wasn’t very hard.”

Erick suddenly felt like the world’s worst archmage.

The bubbling orb said, “You did not! That thing you made barely counts as the Red Dot.”

Silverite said, “Obsidian. Take this to heart: We will not be destroying Candlepoint until they reveal their true motive. By then, the rest of the world will want to move against them, too, if history has taught me anything.”

“I told you, Obsidian!” said the bubbling orb. “I told you exactly what she would say.”

The spiky black orb, Obsidian, grumbled.

Opal spoke up, “Destroying Candlepoint is the final option, because if it fails, there will be no second chance. When the Wall tried to tear down Candlepoint, Bulgan poked ten kilometer holes in the Wall, then set about a hundred mimics loose beyond the border. In three days, those hundred mimics have become ten thousand. The horde is out of control. The Kingdoms are calling for help with that problem, too.” She said, “And that was Bulgan being nice about his retaliation.”

Erick said, “I’ll send Ophiel to help clear mimics. It won’t be a full extermination, but it will get all the adults.”

Silverite said, “Thank you, Erick. Zago? Set it up.”

“Of course,” Zago said.

Opal continued, “I haven’t been able to spot where they’re making these items in Candlepoint, so either they are hiding their stashes very well, or they’re making them in Ar’Kendrithyst and sending specific items to Candlepoint when someone turns in darkchips.” She said, “This means that most, if not all, of the Dead City is in accordance with Candlepoint. This means, that unless we have a coalition of nations backing us, attacking Candlepoint is a fool’s idea, as the Wall has already illustrated.”

Killzone said, “I agree with most of Opal’s assessment, but it is entirely possible that Candlepoint could fall apart from the inside in a month. If it does not… then we will have to consider drastic measures.”

Silverite said, “Here’s what I want to happen: The Guilds will tell people not to go, and warn them of the Shadeling Curse. The Guard will keep an eye out for strange magics around town, and give every single person that they haul in a full body scan for any strange magics. Use your Sin Seekers to find those with extra Stats and have them tell you what they do. The Army will conduct business as normal, but you will see about finding a way into Umber Avenue, and reporting on what, exactly, is happening there. Archmages: Do not directly engage Candlepoint. Aside from that— Opal. I want to know everything about Candlepoint you can possibly discover. Obsidian; you’re on discovering what new magics are coming out of Candlepoint. Link up with Merit and do what you have to do to understand the threat and what these new Stats and other magical items are doing to people. Wave; Find out where Melemizargo is right now, and his recent locations over the past week. Erick? I don’t know what you want to do, but figure out some way to contribute. And where is Melemizargo right now? Has anyone had any sightings?”

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Zago said, “Not for years.”

Killzone said, “Not since Planter and Yetta.”

Obsidian said, “Five days ago, around Wyrmrest Mountains. He harried me while I was working on the Red Dot. For your information, the mountains have a new caldera.”

“Just can’t shut up about your magic, can you?” Wave said, but the floating blob of water seemed to be looking toward Erick.

Silverite’s face seemed to relax.

As others mentioned recent encounters, Erick felt his own encounter was less important, less unique, in the grand scheme. Erick spoke up, “I went to the Hole yesterday with Ophiel to test out [Lightwalk] and practice evading attackers. I’m pretty sure Melemizargo was down there, watching the whole time.”

Silverite went from whatever small joy she had, to staring off into nothing, looking like a person fending off a headache.

Okay. So. Maybe his most recent encounter with Melemizargo was not a normal occurrence.

Wave said, “I’m glad you said it! I was gonna say—” She spoke to the group, “But yeah! The big DeeDee is in the neighborhood, near the surface. Recent activity put him near the Hole, just like Erick says. People are talking about it, too. They were saying how there was this pair of ethereal winged creatures, one made of light, the other made of white, and how Melemizargo bounced around the Hole, following them around. A few adventurers witnessed the whole thing. Thankfully, DeeDee was busy with Erick!”

Killzone went stony silent, along with Zago and Silverite. Merit grinned at Erick, while Mog looked down at him with pain in her eyes. Obsidian seemed to bounce in the air, while Wave just blorped, and Opal remained steadfast and still.

Erick added, “He never said anything or made an overt appearance, though.”

Killzone spoke over Erick, “The Shades talk like he’s regained some of his hold on sanity, but…” He added, “I haven’t heard anything from the Geodes. Have you, Silverite?”

“I’m as unwelcome as you are; no, I haven’t.” Silverite turned to Erick saying, “Just ignore him; that’s the only thing you can do with Melemizargo. Hopefully he never wants to speak with you, but if he does, then you must thread a thin road between becoming too interesting for him to ever let go, and him killing you out of disappointment.” She stood up and turned toward the whole room, including the guys in the back, by the viewing screens. She said, “That goes for everyone here! If you ever happen to meet him: If he’s not actively harming you, then you probably don’t have anything to worry about from him. But if a Shade is there, too, then you are likely dead as soon as Melemizargo leaves. Jane got very, very lucky when they let her go. Don’t expect the same treatment at all.

She turned to Zago and Fillarina, saying, “I want to know every single thing you can discover about that town, using whatever normal means necessary. The rooms beyond this one are to be turned into information hubs open to us all here and in the Army or Guard, or any other trusted sources, but not for the public.” She said, “This scenario is unique, but we have dealt with weird Shade shit before. Maybe not some of you, personally, but I have. Killzone has. We’ll get through this, together.”

Most people in the room, not at the longtable, were looking better than they had before. Less antsy. Less worried.

Silverite continued, “Is there anything else anyone needs to say to me? To ask?”

Erick had long ago decided to ignore Melemizargo until he became a direct threat, but it was nice to hear Silverite directly address that concern. It was nice to hear her have a plan, too. When she finished speaking, he waited for someone else to say something, but when no one else spoke up, he did, “I want to make rings for the Army and Guard. I already dropped off a shipment of 600 to Liquid’s office, but I can do a lot more than that. They’re plus-10 All Stat rings, too—”

Zago smiled, as she sighed. The pointed black [Familiar] seemed to turn all of its attention on Erick. Even Opal seemed to look his way.