104, 2/2

Ophiel flew under the dark sky, his wings almost invisible in scattered starlight that barely reached the rolling dunes below. The moons were on their way out; nothing but slivers of pink, silver, and white, hanging up there in the cold void. It was cold down here, too, in wind-whipped air that fluttered through the [Familiar]s feathers, but failed to reach any core, or chill any blood. Ophiel had no core, or blood, so he was fine with the cold.

The only true chill in the air tonight, was through Ophiel’s connection to Erick, who was safely ensconced in a warm room, in Spur, in the light, and down below, in the myriad shadows, hunting in the dunes.

Ophiel paused. This was a good enough spot as any.

Erick cast a dark, searching magic into the air.

A ball of shadows, even higher in the sky than Ophiel, was only visible by the tendrils of anti-light that blinked out the stars beyond. The more visible part of the spell hovered around Ophiel, eliciting swirls of some inky magic that flowed into a form, that was more a space, than a working spell. Erick watched. It took a good minute, but swirls of darkness came together, the expanse of shadow condensed down into a shape Ophiel, and Erick, recognized.

It was a map, but it was made of shadows and darkness, and hidden in the depths of the night. Erick cast the spell again, searching for a common enemy.

Red dots appeared all across the map, like drops of blood fire, inky and insubstantial. A quick check revealed that yes, [Cascade Imaging] could image just fine; the map corresponded to the mimics below. Another cast for other targets Erick did not want to hit, put the red dots far, far away, to the south, at Spur—

And a spot a hundred kilometers to the west. There were some people out here, at night, apparently.

… Well they weren’t here. So Erick got on with the next experiment.

Ophiel held his wing forward, pointing at a stone pillar raised from the ground moments ago. Erick cast one of his strongest spells, and the world turned darker, as a ball of shadows erupted from Ophiel, forming a line in the night that cut, spilling shadows where it struck the sands and the ground. Erick dragged that line of power across the dunes and the pillar below, severing a small part of the world from itself. Sand caved downward. The pillar fell over. The spell ended.

In the aftermath of a shadow-shifted [Luminous Beam], there was no molten sand. There was no heat at all. Dragging the spell across the ground only had one effect: pure destruction. Annihilation, perhaps. The dunes where the beam had struck had certainly folded in on themselves.

Erick frowned, to himself. Was that the true nature of Shadow? Annihilation? Or was that just how [Shadow Conversion] operated on [Luminous Beam]?

Ophiel flew back up, to continue the experiment.

With a cast toward the sky, the roof of the world broke into shattered fragments, as something darker than black rushed down to fill the world with power. Wind stilled. Sound ceased. Shadows descended, and spread, far and wide, and thin. Thinner than paper, those shadows flowed in across the ground, turning the land below into a dark ocean, where dunes became islands brushed by high, shadowy waves, and mimics drowned in cloying magic. Everything drowned in cloying magic.

Erick watched through a hundred eyes, and high above, as mimic after mimic fell into that shadowy sea, pulled down by something stronger than gravity. They struggled. They flailed. They failed. Crystal Agave did not struggle, but they, too, fell into the shadow ocean.

When the [Shadow Conversion] [Vivid Gloom], came to the last moments of its existence, it had formed a shadow mockery of the land for twenty kilometers in every direction. Shadowy dunes. Shadowy flat lands. But no shadowy life. The world was wiped clean of every living thing.

When the spell ended, and began to dissipate, the fake land flaked away like so much broken ash, revealing a new depth to this part of the Crystal Forest that had not existed before today. Erick had made a canyon. The scratch in Veird’s surface was deep, winding from east to west more than north to south; a depth to the world that starshine could not penetrate. There was still a darkness down there.

The darkness shifted. Flickered. Then sunk below.

The canyon stood revealed to the night, and Erick’s heart stopped beating wildly. He calmed. He considered making an actual shadow spell, if that’s what it took to kill Shades. But much like how he could throw stones at Ancient Stone Elementals, and do some damage, looking down at the canyon he had made… Actual shadow magic would be a lot of collateral damage, wouldn’t it?

As his heart calmed, Erick tried a few smaller spells.

Under the power of [Shadow Conversion], lightwards became shadowards, spilling obscuring fog into the night. Force spells cast in bright Light, became dark mockeries of themselves, annihilating all they touched. [Vivid Gloom]’s change, from turning the land molten, to eradicating the land altogether, was the largest difference of all of the spells he tested.

Before Syllea’s [Shadow Conversion] ended, and after he was able to speak to Silverite, Erick shifted his sights to Candlepoint.

After waking up Mephistopheles and Zaraanka, and getting Slip involved, who was overlooking the lake with dreamy, white eyes, he told them what he wanted to do. Zaraanka was thrilled to get a potential shadow source, as she called it, and rapidly took over the placement of such a spell.

In a blocky building in the southern side of the city, two stories tall and well away from other structures, Erick was free to work his magic. It was dark inside, but Zaraanka carved open the roof with a wave of her hand, pushing away stone, letting in the starlight. Her pink dress glittered in the shadows both from above, and from the open doorway that led out into the glowing city. She smiled, and stepped all the way into the building.

She said, “I was going to make this a restaurant, eventually. A food kitchen, tomorrow. We have a good thirty people waiting for that to happen. But we can forgo that for a proper shadow source.”

Erick, through Ophiel, asked, “What’s it going to do?”

Zaraanka smiled wide, saying, “A few minutes next to a Shadow Source, and all shadow monsters begin to naturally heal, like a minor [Rejuvenation] and a [Treat Wounds], at the same time. The Lost Ones will naturally congregate here, so this can be theirs for a while. After they come back to themselves, we can turn this into a healer’s pavilion.” She spoke with reverence in her voice, saying, “We can be a city of people! No more wandering on the streets, like they’re drugged out of their minds. We can go adventuring out into the Crystal Forest, and as long as we come back fast enough, we don’t need your healing magics.”

Erick had heard all that before, from Silverite, not minutes ago, when he got her involved, through Poi. She had been much more knowledgeable than either Justine, or his own Oceanside dungeoneering books, about what it meant when a spell said, ‘supports the growth of Shadow Essence creatures’.

She had also said that Erick could go ahead and give Candlepoint this boon, if he wished. It could be dangerous. But if they were real people, of which Silverite was now about 35% sure that they might be, then they would need help to survive the world.

Erick, through Ophiel, turned to Zaraanka, and said, “That is what I heard, too.” He looked up. He cast.

The original [Kaleidoscopic Radiance] was every pastel and saturated color of the rainbow, and some of those outside of the visible spectrum, too. Infrared. Ultraviolet. All in a swirling, churning, five meter wide whirlpool of light. Yellows, reds, blues, greens, and every color in between. That was the original spell.

What took hold in the air above was that, but not at all.

A shifting whirlpool of rainbow shadows floated in the air, like gasoline on dark waters. Whatever [Shadow Conversion] had done to the spell, the light of the original magics still existed, but now that light glittered in a space beyond touch.

Erick stared at the spell, wondering if he had made the right choice.

Zaraanka stared at the spell, too, her grey-light eyes catching every color, briefly, and maybe remaining rainbow in the edges, as the center greys became something clearer; whiter. She breathed deep the cold night air, and stretched her arms down to her sides, as she bathed in the light of the dark prism. She blinked, long. She opened her whiter eyes, and smiled. She tore her sight away from the spell, and said, “That feels really good. I’ve had a sore in my foot for a day, but it’s gone, now.”

Erick watched, casually saying, “It might not be good for your eyes to stare directly into the shadows.”

“Of course not.” She said, “It’s always bad for your health to look upon true shadow. But since we’re shadow monsters, I think we can handle a little reverence.” She clasped her hands in front of her, one over the other, and bowed. “Thank you, Archmage Flatt; Liberator.”

“Ehhhmm— Maybe no special titles.”

She raised her head. With a sly smile, she said, “I will find you a title you like.”

“Never mind that.” Erick switched the topic, saying, “Everything seems to be going well in town, but looks can be deceiving. What could be done easier, or better, with my help?”

Zaraanka frowned a little, as she scrunched her eyebrows together. She said, “I do want to actually talk to you about sex work. You said ‘no’, but quite honestly, this is my life, and the lives of my men and women. I would either like your blessing to continue, or at least to not be called out on it when we begin again.”

“… I have not prepared for this conversation.”

“Quite alright. If you could tell me what you’re worried about, then maybe I can alleviate some of your fears. Is it, perhaps, how they do it in other parts of the world? Have you heard the stories of Nergal, or Nelboor?” Zaraanka quickly added, “Prostitution is a noble profession in the Greensoil Republic. Courtesans. Escorts. And yes, sex work, but—”

Erick decided that if this was really happening, that he’d lay his fears out there. “My problem is that I don’t want you taking advantage of people who have nowhere else to turn to but selling their bodies and damaging their emotional lives in order to turn some yellow.” He stressed, “I am particularly against the reality of sex trafficking and slavery.”

Zaraanka listened, then she said, “I can see the reality of my profession in Nergal and Nelboor has prejudiced you against the rest of us, and that is a shame.” She said, “There is no trafficking or slavery in my Pink House, and there never was. And this part about ‘damaging their emotional lives’ is something I take major issue with.

“A major part of my profession, as I run it, is emotional labor. We help each other get though the hard times, but we also help our communities survive when death is all around and we have nowhere to run to escape it all but the softness of each other. And yes, there is sex for money. But there is also empowerment, betterment, stability of a community, and many other benefits.” She said, “But besides all that: We are all adults, Erick. No one gets into my Pink House either as a client or as an escort, without knowing what they’re getting into. There is no abuse under my roof, unless someone pays for it and all parties consent. The ideas of Nelboor’s whorehouses and Nergal’s slavehouses have no place in my Pink House, and never have.”

Erick needed to research this topic more, before he continued this conversation. But for now, he said, “I will not stop you from opening your doors, but if I see something I don’t like, then I will confront you in private.”

Zaraanka bowed again, down and up, then said, “I will not disappoint you.”

“I hope not.”

Ophiel hovered away, leaving Zaraanka behind in her room of rainbow shadows.

First, he checked on Ava. The snake woman was still sleeping in the bed he had summoned, but the food beside her had been eaten, and she was not in the same position he had left her. He departed before she woke—

She sat up, and yawned, exposing fangs for a brief moment as she stretched into the dim light of the room, saying, “Hello, Archmage Flatt.”

“Hello, Ava.” Erick dropped Ophiel’s partial lightform, to fully materialize the feathered [Familiar] into the room, a good five meters from her bed. “Sorry to wake you, I was just checking to see if you were okay.”

She smiled, and her green eyes briefly turned from human circular, to serpent slits, then back again. Anyone else might have brushed it off as a trick of the light, but Erick knew what he saw, with Ophiel’s twelve eyes pointed in Ava’s direction. She said, “I’m fine. Thank you for the meal and the accoutrements of proper civilization. I will have to get my own, soon.”

“You are welcome. I’m glad you made it.” Erick asked, “I heard you’re to be the sewermaster?”

Ava seemed to have heavy thoughts behind her eyes, but she only said, “I am.”

Erick decided to talk business. “The lake has three inlets, not one, how I thought it had.” Erick said, “I capped them off, but the problem got a lot larger before I noticed the streaming eels, pumping out young from every other centimeter of their bodies.”

“The size of this lake and the nature of the infestation is nothing to worry about. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before, and with much more complications besides.” She said, “I plan on hunting mimics for a short while, then getting to work.”

Erick asked, “Do you want an Ophiel to boost you, tomorrow?”

“I could use a guide, and someone to talk to about the outside world, but I am fully capable of killing mimics on my own.” Ava said, “I heard that the people of this town are in danger from the rest of the world. How true is that?”

“Very true. There’s been constant attempts to kidnap shadelings, thinking that they know how the unique magical items were made.” Erick said, “Ophiel here has [Teleport Other]’d about a hundred people out of the city since five days ago, when I gained control. Only five today, though.” He asked, “Is there anything you need, to make your job easier?”

“Yes. But I’m going to get them myself.” Ava lounged on her bed, saying, “This city is going to be great, Erick. It will be a monument to beauty, and I will make it happen.” She smiled, and stared off into nothing, saying, “The more I think of it, the more I see this as an opportunity for something new. Something better than what came before. I have a new life. New options.” She laughed. “A lake on the surface of the Crystal Forest. That just doesn’t happen.” She added, “As long as we can defend ourselves from those who wish to take what is ours, we will have good lives; I promise you that. This city could be another Spur.”

Erick couldn’t help but feel some of her joy. “I think that would be great.” He said, “I’m here to help.”

Ava laughed, a tinkling chime of a sound, then she stopped. She pondered. She asked, “Do you know if the Jadescale Clan is still around?”

Erick ripped the bandaid off as politely as he could. “They are not.”

Ava sharply inhaled. “… Surely you have investigated me more than that.”

Erick said, “I know that they died out due to a cascade of failures, around a hundred years ago, or close to that. What was left of them moved to a different clan, and when the Jadescale city became a nest of shadows soon after, the Obsidianscales had to evacuate, too. They left their homeland and moved closer to the surface.” Erick said, “The Obsidianscales still exist.”

Ava listened. She stared off into the distance, her green eyes going unfocused. When Erick finished, she blinked. She said, “Thank you for telling me.” She looked out of a window, and saw night. She said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to sleep.”

Ophiel backed away, as Erick said, “I’ll see you later, then. Call out to an Ophiel when you want company for your mimic killing, but know that I’m also boosting Justine Erholme, the other person who succeeded in reclaiming themselves. I will have to stagger your appointments.”

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Ava nodded, then laid back down, facing away from Ophiel. She pulled the covers over her body and breathed deep in her cotton cocoon.

Erick departed, leaving to find another person he needed to speak with.

Ophiel quickly scoured the town, looking for Slip. It wasn’t until Erick journeyed to the other side of the lake, to the western coast, far away from the town, that he found his quarry.

Slip sat on the stone railing that surrounded the water, hunched over, relaxed in his armor, watching the waves ripple under the wind, and glitter under the starlight. Candlepoint wasn’t even a glow on the horizon.

On Earth, the horizon was only about three and a half kilometers away. On Veird, that number was closer to 6.7 kilometers to the horizon. It was only when you got at least a hundred meters up, that you could actually see the entirety of Candlepoint’s lake, and the barest bit of the land beyond.

But here, just above the surface, next to Slip, it appeared as though half the world were nothing but water. It was a calm location, even with the maybe-Shade sitting here, staring out across the wind-stirred waves, with his bright white eyes. Erick watched with him, for a moment.

Slip broke the silence, “Damned violet eels. I really want to go swimming. And fishing.” He sighed, adding, “And sailing.”

“… Do you want a boat?” Erick said, “I could get a small one for you, though I have no idea what kind of boats there are in this world.”

Slip smiled. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to [Grow] the pieces and put it all together, myself.” He added, “But we could use some books on law enforcement, and city charters, and all of those things that make a city run. We got people from all over the world out there, all with different expectations of running a city. Now that Bulgan is gone, some people are doing blood magic. Some are doing necromancy.” He said, “I don’t know what to enforce.”

“Are there problems I can fix?” Erick asked, worriedly. “With the city, or with outsiders coming in?”

“Not yet, but there will be. Mephistopheles is doing his best, but his best is the best of a commoner.” Slip said, “The ones who knew how to do this properly are all dead.” He stared out across the water, saying, “I was following the lead of a man named Karoo, who was following the lead of a man named Judias. Judias died to Bulgan a week before the spidering. Karoo died to automatons in the spidering.” He said, “It’s only 10,000 people, but it’s 10,000 scared, hungry, angry, high level people.”

“I’ll look around for those books.” Erick moved ‘law research’ to the top of his ‘to-do’ pile. He’d have to get Silverite involved for that. He asked, “How are jobs and work and purpose, going?”

“We’re figuring it out. Got a few bakers working with the wheat farmers. Made some of our own loaves, today.”

Erick felt a flush of relief. It was small, but it was not nothing. “That’s good.” He asked, “So how’s the lake looking? Problems there?”

Slip waved his hand, saying, “Nah. No real problems. Just the eels. The mud flits are winning again, now that you killed those streamer eels and plugged the holes.” He said, “You could go down into the depths with your [Familiar] and look for the greater purple eels, if ya want. There’s bound to be at least one upstream. Somewhere in the mazes down there, past all the other streamer growths. I heard it could take a week to find the bugger, so no one’s expecting that.”

Erick gazed out over the lake. Would he have to do that?

Slip added, “But we’ll probably just reroute some of the waters down below and avoid the problem all together. That’s what people usually do. I talked to Ava about it for a little while, and she says we need some bobber worms and glow fish to fully seal the problem on this end. I doubt that’s all of her plan, but it was a good suggestion, and leads me to have high hopes for the woman.”

Erick smiled, though Ophiel gave none of that away. “Good. I’m glad to hear that, too.” He said, “If there’s anything else you can think of that you need, go ahead and ask. Ophiel will be around.”

“Sure thing, Erick.”

Erick nodded Ophiel, and left.

Mephistopheles had gone back to bed, so Erick wasn’t going to disturb him again. Valok was asleep in his own room in a house on the north side of the city, overlooking the farms. Daetrio bunked with others, in another room of that same house. A lot of the farmers lived together, for now.

There just wasn’t enough good housing in the city, but as Ophiel looked down from above, he saw the dark roads and the rubble of the destroyed parts of Candlepoint, and also the new housing, and new roads, and new lights, of the parts that people had managed to clean up. It would take at least another full ten days, maybe less, for the destruction and construction crews to fully repair the city. But even those repairs would be temporary things, at best. Temporary housing, temporary roads.

Rerouting water and getting fabrics for beds, and clothes, and all of the hundreds of smaller details that would make a city a good place to live…