106, 2/2

Erick channeled mana through [Plasma Cutter], then through Mana Altering for Fire, then through [Conjure Weapon], then through [Telekinesis]. [Plasma Cutter] was a combination of all of those spells, but picking out the ‘Plasma’ from the rest was a difficult task, not unlike isolating a background rhythm from a song, that was also repeated in the main chorus, and also a part of the lyrics. It was actually too much for him, on his own. So he summoned help, dismissing some of the superfluous Ophiel from Candlepoint and resummoning them to his side.

Ophiel’s help was immeasurable. Once they got going, Erick was sure he couldn’t have done this without them.

The four part song of [Plasma Cutter] came apart under Ophiel’s perfect pitch, each piece of the spell vibrating the air around each Ophiel. Erick discarded the sounds that did not fit ‘Plasma’. Then he moved on to the next part of picking apart Plasma.

With two Ophiel singing before him, one in chorus with itself and Mana Altering for Fire, while the other sang of something purer, both less percussive destructive and higher energy, Erick was sure the second sound was pure ‘Plasma’.

Ah, this was magic. It was nice.

Erick folded the sounds of Plasma into [Force Bolt] and [Force Wave], gifting parts to each Ophiel around him, guiding the VCVD sounds in there as well, like adding a reverb or an echo chamber to the magic; something to pulse the power high, then even higher, but to keep it all contained to a small Bolt, that would then release in a wave, in the target. Agile and easy going, yet containing as much energy as Erick wanted to put into the working. Maybe even enough energy to turn anything it touched to Plasma.

Ophiels’ songs rose to a crescendo, as each feathered [Familiar] caught the harmony all at once, and the idea crystallized.

Erick didn’t even point. The spell took hold in the air between him and his Ophiel. It was a speck of white that flowed warmth into the breeze, as it lazily, rapidly, curved through the air like a cart at the top of a rollercoaster, dropping toward its stone pillar target, almost happily, leaving a rush of wind in its wake. It missed the target, but curved, almost impossibly, spinning around the pillar once before it was inexorably drawn down to strike.

It struck.

The stone pillar was a small one. Only five meters tall by two meters wide, and only a football field away. [Force Bolt]s would normally do nothing to anything of that size. [Force Wave] was a lot better at affecting a target of that size, but this spell had erred more to Bolt, than to Wave.

The bolt of white plasma splashed across the surface of the pillar, causing a minor explosion as a half meter section of stone blasted from the whole, sending chunks of rock to the sand below.

A blue box appeared.

 

 

Erick said, “Ah ha! [True Plasma Bolt].” He turned back to Kiri. Her eyes were already wide, as he handed her the blue box, saying, “Inexorably strikes a target. I guess ‘True’ and ‘Inexorably’ are higher key words than ‘Pure’ and ‘Unerringly’?”

Kiri blinked at the box, saying, “That second part is worrying.”

Teressa looked over Kiri’s shoulder, reading along with her. She asked, “How much mana was that?”

Poi, who was wide awake now, rapidly said, “Please step behind the [Prismatic Ward] before you launch a full powered one.”

Erick smiled at the three of them, as he took a step into the dense air, saying, “About a hundred mana. But now that I have the box, Clarity and 10% reduced spell costs comes into effect.” He paused. He hummed, “But not for Ophiel, I guess.” He turned back toward the pillar, and stuck his hand out of the dense air, saying, “I can spend 4000 and achieve the same effect as Ophiel would—”

Poi said, “Use Ophiel! On a pillar a good kilometer away!”

“Oh fine.” Erick lowered his hand. With a thought, all four Ophiel joined him in the dense air, as he summoned a fresh [Familiar]. The newest Ophiel flew out into the sky, gaining distance. With a little control and direction, Erick guided him to find a target—

There! A mimic; tall spiky crystal, sitting on top of a low dune, just past another low dune. He couldn’t see it from his current position, but the monster was far enough away that the spell shouldn’t reach. Erick guessed two kilometers, distant. That was far enough. Erick smiled, as Ophiel cast, with 99 percent of his mana, leaving just enough stability in his form for Erick to watch a half second of the spell’s emergence from the manasphere. The wind and heat of the white dot destroyed Ophiel.

Erick’s vision returned to his body. He watched, transfixed, as the space where the Ophiel had been became a disharmony of burning atmosphere and casual lightning surrounding a sparking white dot; a flashing white spider of power that zoomed to the ground like the world’s most dangerous toddler. It touched down behind the intervening dune before Erick could raise a [Scry] orb to watch.

The explosion was visible enough, anyway.

Fire pulsed into the air. Lightning arced. A shockwave passed through the world, rumbling the ground under Erick’s feet, like someone had dropped a meteor just beyond the horizon. And someone had. Sort of.

“Holy—!” Kiri cut herself off as she summoned a Sunny that instantly blipped away.

Erick did the same with an Ophiel on hand, to see the destruction.

The crater was not that big. Maybe only a meter deep and a few meters wide. Bits of blackened, half-melted sand, littered the area, but there was nothing else. The mimic was gone, completely. Erick searched the surrounding area, trying to find some crystalline spike or some other remnant of the mimic. But there was nothing. He came back to himself.

Kiri was already back to herself. She looked to Erick, and simply said, “You obliterated it.”

Erick thought back to Syllea’s dice, rolling ‘Air’ as much as it did. He said, “I think… I would say I vaporized it.”

Teressa smiled, saying, “And also fried and burned and turned to ash.”

“The lightning and the fire were side effects of both the particle soup nature of the spell, as well as the energy involved.” Erick looked to the spell box for [True Plasma Bolt], saying, “I don’t think I could have gotten a better result if I had gone the Particle Spell creation route. This is a really clean spell.” He turned to Teressa. “I never asked, but can you go through a [Witness] slowly, to see a scene as it played out, exactly?”

“Of course.” Teressa eyed the area where Erick had killed the mimic, saying, “Want a scene of it?”

Erick smiled. “Yes.”

“Kay. One sec.” Teressa blinked, rapidly, as she settled onto her feet, balancing herself, breathing normally, then slowly. Her emerald eyes turned grey, the same color as her [Conjure Armor], as her short blonde hair tousled on a breeze that was not there. For three seconds, she stopped blinking, and stared into infinity. She came back to herself just as fast, blinking again. She sighed. She looked to Erick, saying, “There’s some degradation because of the mana involved, but here you go.”

Teressa formed a telepathic connection between them, showing him what had just happened, but from a much nicer position, and all slow-mo. [True Plasma Bolt] was quite pretty from this angle. If there was degradation somewhere, Erick didn’t see it.

Lightning wreathed the white-dot bolt as it flew into the center mass of the mimic. Parts of the mimic burned well before the bolt struck, either from electrical flickers, or from pure radiant heat. But then the bolt struck. The white dot seemed to soak into the mimic, flickering even more lightning as it sunk into the barely moving beast. Here was where the degradation started. Parts of the image were simply not there, like scattered blind spots. Erick still saw more than enough, though.

White light flashed from the center of the monster all the way to the crystalline white-blue leaves, causing the interior to cloud, then bubble, then burn with bright white fire. White fire turned yellow, then orange, then red, fast, flashing from the inside out. Steam erupted from every structural weak point. Plant matter turned to kindling.

The mimic exploded from every bit of itself, at the same time.

Erick came back to himself

Teressa smiled, saying, “That’s a powerful spell.”

Erick agreed, “It’s a proper Shade killer.”

Kiri said, “I think I need to go back to the chalkboard… and the books. Are you going to make any more spells?”

“… Not right now.” Erick said, “I want to get dinner started.”

 

– – – –

 

On the dark steps leading up to the only round roofed building in Candlepoint, an envelope had appeared on the ground, on the top of the top step. The first time someone noticed it was in the evening, when the clouds above turned the afternoon to twilight, but before it got truly dark. Maybe the letter had appeared between shifts, when almost everyone was asleep. Or maybe it had appeared between the blinks of one of the guards on the scene, who had not truly been awake until the full sun had waned to something less.

It was a well made envelope, slightly off white, like bone, perhaps. It was obviously hand crafted to some degree, as the grain of paper fibers was visible in the envelope. It was not unadorned, either. Black triangles, that some might call open fangs, and other, less knowledgeable people might call simple lines of triangles, had been printed around the full edge of the envelope, in black ink. That same dark ink had been used to write the name of the recipient in the center of the letter, in beautiful calligraphy.

The letter now sat in Mephistopheles’ office, surrounded by the powers that had arisen in Candlepoint.

Ava flicked a hand at the letter, saying, “What’s the big deal? It says ‘To Erick’. Burn the damn thing or give it to him.”

Zaraanka said, “It is not a simple letter.” She sighed. “It is a problem.”

“Obviously!” Ava imperiously said, “But this ‘meeting’ is inane. This letter is not our problem.” She added, “Not directly, anyway. But I can put a few clues together. I assume, from your reactions, that this is from a Shade?”

Valok and Slip watched the proceeding, silent.

Zaraanka, her grey eyes wide, said, “Yes.”

Mephistopheles explained, “These letters go out every year, to every Shade, officially requesting their presence at the Spire, for the official celebration of Shadow’s Feast. If an invited Shade does not go, they lose face. To put it simply: Overt predation against them becomes the norm.” He gestured to the letter, saying, “This is addressed to Erick. He is already a target. If we give this to him, he will… I don’t know what he’ll do. If he’s smart, he’ll stay away. He might be smart.” Mephistopheles said, “But if he doesn’t go, and since he is Untouchable, they will come for us. Knives in the shadows, or worse, just to prove how much power they have. So…” He looked to the group. “We need to convince him to accept this invitation.”

Valok spoke up, “No.” He stared at the letter. “Burn that shit.”

Mephistopheles said, “We knew something like this was coming. We all talked about this—”

“I did not,” Ava said.

“You weren’t here yet,” Mephistopheles said.

“That does not matter. I can guess what your ‘talk’ included.” Ava added, “Do not summarily include me in your schemes for self-preservation, Mephistopheles. If we do this against our benefactor— If we capitulate to implied threats, we prove that we cannot be treated as people capable of working against Ar’Kendrithyst—”

Mephistopheles slapped his hand against the table, next to the letter, saying, “There is no ‘working against Ar’Kendrithyst’! You don’t remember a damned thing, do you? How old are you? 200? 300? You forget your time working in the Dead City because it was too much for you to remember. But it happened. OHHHhh! Believe me! It happened. It happened to all of us. I remember.”

“You are both correct.” Zaraanka stared daggers at the envelope. “But we were already doomed when this whole Candlepoint plan came about. We should burn the letter and attempt to distance ourselves from Ar’Kendrithyst as much as we can. Some of us will survive.”

Mephistopheles said, “The Shades won’t even harm him. Physically, anyway. This is their opening move against him.” He looked to Ava, but caught everyone with his words, “We all knew this was coming, even if you weren’t part of the meeting. If you didn’t recognize this possibility, you don’t deserve to be in this room.”

Ava scowled, saying, “My decision is to burn the letter.”

Slip spoke for the first time. “You say that because it’s not your eternal soul on the line, Ava. You’re not a shadeling anymore.” He added, “I don’t think they would overtly harm him, either.”

“You’re wrong.” Zaraanka said, “They will, and no one will see it coming.”

Ava almost spoke.

Mephistopheles cut Ava off, saying, “You’re free to tell him whatever you want to tell him. I’ll just be telling him the full, complete truth of the matter, as I work to get him to accept this invitation.” He added, “Besides! No one has looked inside, yet.” He flipped the letter over, revealing an intact black wax seal, still undulating with securing spells. “The seal is intact. Maybe it’s good news?”

Zaraanka laughed; a dark sound.

Silence descended upon the room.

Valok said, “I think he should go.”

Ava sharply inhaled, turning to the man. “Valok! I thought you were his friend?”

Valok eyed Ava, saying, “Why are you even arguing for not telling him?” He said, “This is outside of our decision—”

Zaraanka said, “That is false. It was dropped here, in Candlepoint. We are a part of this decision. Burn it, and forget you ever saw it.”

“The next attempt at communication will not go as smooth as this.” Mephistopheles said, “If he shuns them, we will die.”

More silence.

Ava said, “I see the value in convincing him to go—”

Zaraanka glared at Ava. “You just said you wanted to burn the letter!”

“I know what I said. I also wasn’t done speaking.” Ava continued, “But I said that because Mephistopheles was shoving us all in one direction, and I needed to be contrary to see what the true opinions of the room were.” She looked to the red horned man, saying, “He is gathering power to himself and everyone is letting it happen.”

Mephistopheles said, “Be reasonable, Ava.”

“I am being eminently reasonable. I’m the sewermaster. Zaraanka is headed toward leading both guilds. Slip is the guard, and Valok is the farmer. I thought that you were the leader.” She stared at Mephistopheles, saying, “But you have too readily jumped on this plan of convincing Erick to go, and that doesn’t sit right with me. A leader should look out for their people, and Erick is the only reason this town hasn’t been destroyed by everyone around us. You lead him to a trap. Zaraanka is right, we are a part of this decision, by its very nature of being delivered to the steps of this building, instead of the hundred other ways it could have been delivered directly to Erick.”

Zaraanka nodded.

If one were looking closely, they would see Zaraanka’s usual pink dress was of a distinctly higher quality than before.

Ava added, “That said. We should give Erick this letter and if he asks us, we should tell him what we know, and let him decide.”

Zaraanka exclaimed, “What!”

Ava said, “There is no way we’re keeping this from him, Zaraanka. Mephistopheles is correct about that much. But feel free to tell him it’s a trap, because it most assuredly is. I will be telling him this much, if he asks.”

More silence.

Some stared at each other. Some stared at the letter. All thought their own silent thoughts.

Mephistopheles asked, “What is our decision?”

 

– – – –

 

While Erick rained on the farms, cleared a few more clusters of violet eels, [Mend]ed and [Cleanse]d constantly across all of Candlepoint whenever anyone came to an Ophiel with a problem, he also cooked dinner, in his kitchen, for his daughter, his guest Justine, and his people. Kiri helped by making the desserts; a nice lemon cake with buttercream frosting. Partway through, Kiri asked why there weren’t more sour and sweet deserts; she quite liked the flavor of sour citrus when it was inside some confection. Erick spoke of how he had once thought of making a sugar empire; he could certainly grow enough sugar cactus if he wanted, all on his own.

Jane came in and had some jerky while Erick cooked, saying, “I still don’t have my chocolate yet, dad.”

“Ugh. Chocolate.” Erick sighed, saying, “Chocolate is a pain in the ass. Did you see the tarip trees out front?”

Jane shook her head.

Erick asked, “Do you remember what chocolate tasted like?”

“Barely. I was hoping you’d make some so I could remember.” Jane mocked disappointment, adding to the effect by saying, “I am very disappointed.”

Erick leveled a sarcastic glare at his daughter.

Kiri said, “It’s hard to make new flavors. Almost all the plants out there were made by someone who fell to Veird in the Sundering, back at the beginning. Sure, there’ve been new varieties. But evolution hasn’t had time to properly function; to create new varieties for people to find in exploration.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Jane said, “[Grow] makes new plants all the time. Dad made ninety percent of those plants out there in the garden.”

Kiri frowned, as she folded whipped eggs into batter, saying, “Most new [Grow]-created plants turn out poisonous, or nasty. Erick has done surprisingly well. I hear the potato is causing a cultural overhaul over in the Republic.”

Jane snorted. “You went and recreated the Great Potato Famine, dad.”

Erick scowled. “They can make new varieties!”

“Of course they can make new varieties. Mostly. I heard from my mother that they’ve got priests of Atunir working diligently on that—” Kiri looked to Jane, then Erick, then a light clicked. She said, “Oh! Your world only had the one variety?”

“Not really. Just that one good variety got spread around to a lot of poor people, and no one bothered to plant anything except the best. Some disease spread and killed the potatoes. Famine killed the people.” Erick said, “There are hundreds of potato varieties now.”

“And soon there will be hundreds of varieties of potatoes, here, too,” Kiri said, dumping cake batter into greased tins.

Jane said, “Let’s talk chocolate. Have you tried the tarip plants out there?”

“Have you tried them?” Erick stuck out his tongue as he made a face, saying, “Tarip is disgusting!”

Kiri laughed, as she re-cast a [Temperature Ward] in the hot box that was the oven. Erick guessed that the quicksilver thermometer in the front of the space, must have shown that the original [Heat Ward] wasn’t the proper temperature.

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Jane said, “Tarip can’t be that bad.”

Erick turned back to Jane, saying, “Go get one! I’m not even sure where to go with the taste. Real chocolate is bitter, and I certainly got that part correct. But how the heck does milk and sugar go into it? Liquid? Hot chocolate is not what I want.”

 

Jane said, “Powdered milk. Granulated sugar. A few grinding stones. Then it’s work, work, work. Grind, grind, grind.”

Erick froze in the middle of chopping vegetables. “… Powdered milk!” He shook his head, adding, “Still tastes bad. Too much oil. Too much berry. The seeds are more seed than bean, too.”

“Then make a chocolate vine.” Jane said, “There’s so much preparation that goes into turning the tree pods into chocolate, but you can cut out almost all of that. Besides. I want real coffee, too. Not this coftea stuff.”

Erick said, “I think that’s part of the problem, actually. In normal chocolate creation, there’s a fermenting process and a drying process. Except when it comes to alcohol and other specialty food items, those processes are all considered to take too long. Everyone expects the plant to be ready to eat, right away, and I just haven’t had time to get around to experimenting with those long-paced projects.”

Jane said something, but someone else spoke, too.

As a mental call to action that sounded more like a flute and guitar trill than words, filled his mind, Erick said, “One sec. Something is happening.” He turned his attention to Candlepoint.

Valok, Ava, Mephistopheles, Zaraanka, and Slip, stood on the courthouse steps, in a line. Mephistopheles had called out to Ophiel. The red-horned man held a suspicious envelope in his hands.

A pit opened up in Erick’s stomach.

An Ophiel descended to the five, all winged and made of eyes, as Erick asked, “Hello? What’s up?”

Mephistopheles said, “You have received a letter from the Spire.”

“… Ahh, shit.”

Mephistopheles handed the letter to Ophiel, and there were some words exchanged. While Erick heard it all, he mostly heard the thumping of his own heart, drowning out all other noise. Things evolved rapidly from there.

Poi was involved, almost immediately, then Teressa, then Justine. Erick did not bring the letter to Spur, yet, and Justine’s frozen, pallid reaction only served to prove that leaving it at Candlepoint was a good idea. Silverite came onto the picture minutes later, concerned, but withholding her judgment. She called in Killzone. Then came Sirocco Zago.

Kiri took over cooking dinner, for Erick was no longer in his house at that point.