110, 2/2

The sky was full of lands composed of myriads of mixed elements and stars brighter than they had any right to be, while the horizon in every direction was a crimson glow of towers, fading down to violet, shadowed depths. A comfortable wind blew through the quiet city. Not too hot, not too cold. Erick’s white [Conjure Armor] was fine to wear for extended periods of time, especially with his new clothes.

But a bit of thirst got to him.

Fallopolis continued to talk, “… And then there’s the weirdwood. It’s an Arbor that grows in the third layer but sends roots everywhere to feed off of dead shadows and adventurers. What usually happens, is that the adventurers think they’ve found a simple duskwood grove, and they’re all like ‘Oh! Duskwood heartwood! That’s good for such-and-such enchantment or so-and-so potions’. And so they try to attack it and if they’ve run into the main tree, they die, but if they run into the side growths, they might live.” She added, “It’s rather similar to your Yggdrasil, but it’s not a true World Tree.” She continued, “And then there’s—

“A World Tree?” Erick asked, interrupting Fallopolis.

It barely fazed him that she knew what had only happened two hours ago, but her casual naming of the ‘world tree’ phenomenon sparked Erick’s interest; he couldn’t not interrupt her.

She didn’t seem to mind. “Of course! People try to make them all the time and they almost always fail, because World Trees are Arbors of a larger sort, but the Script doesn’t like them because they are extreme defensive structures, the lot of them. Back in the Old Cosmology, they truly did protect entire worlds.” She added, “I doubt your Yggdrasil will ever be what it could have been. The Script constricts the top and nurtures the weak. If you’d’ve made this tree in the Old Cosmology, you would have truly created something to behold. A defensive treasure worthy of founding a multi-plane civilization.”

“You’ve spoken like this a few times, now.” Erick said, “No one needs that much power. The Script could do with a lot less power, in my opinion.”

“Ha!” Fallopolis said, “I am glad we have come to this part in our discussion, because every single Shade agrees that most people could do with a lot less power, for the Script is an unfair equalizer. Mages study for decades to make their part of the world a bit better with a bit of magic, but then some unlearned asshole comes along with two points, buys [Strike] and [Invisible], and beheads the mage, turning their part of the world back to anarchy. The same phenomenon happened in the Old Cosmology, too, of course, but back then, a mage could protect themselves, and assassins had to really know their trade to get you. Anyone could overcome old power, in fact. But it wasn’t as simple as ‘spend two points’.”

“I think you misunderstand. Even mages don’t need that much power. No one does.”

“Now that’s insane! Of course people need power, for the truly natural world is a dangerous place, and I’m not talking about this curated experience of Script and monsters. I’m talking real magic; unfettered.” She asked, “Would you get rid of magic itself?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well good. Then you’re not a total lost cause.” She asked, “Where would you set the bar of acceptable spells, then?”

“I’d keep [Cleanse] and [Greater Treat Wounds]. Maybe [Telekinesis], too. I could do without all the rest, if it meant no more monsters, or ancients, or archmages of any kind.”

For the first time, Fallopolis went speechless. “… I was not expecting…” And then she said, “But you love magic? Creating the higher tiers, working Particles? Ophiel. [Exalted Rain]. All the rest.”

“I do.” Erick smiled at the illusion-filled sky, saying, “But I also love talking with neighbors and helping people and having dinner with friends. I do not love fighting for my life because some ancient mage decided to create a monster and loose it upon the world some thousand years ago, or even just last week.”

Fallopolis glanced at him, then looked forward, not breaking her stride. Erick had spied a frown, but not much of one. For a long moment, the only sounds were the sounds of wind, blowing through Ar’Kendrithyst, and the gentle hum of the Ophiel trailing behind Erick. The ones on his shoulders were completely silent.

Erick broke the silence, offering, “I have a canteen of water. Would you like one, too?”

“… Sure.”

Erick directed the lightform Ophiel, currently holding his bag, to reach in and copy his canteen. Another Ophiel did the same action, effectively letting Erick briefly pass the global cooldown of the Script. With a reach of his own light, he grabbed both bottles out of the dense air around the bag. With a gentle extension of solid light, he handed one of the round canteens to Fallopolis.

She eyed the canteen, and took it. With a flick, the cap came off and fell into the violet depths below.

Erick drank from his own bottle—

The attack came suddenly, but Erick had been ready this time, for his vision had not been blocked by the canteen, at all. Even still, it was only his lightform self and his lightform Ophiel that allowed him to see well beyond the normal spectrum, and see the [Invisible] creatures as they detached from the crimson kendrithyst, from the surrounding five crystal towers.

With no color to describe them and with the barest shift in their surrounding heat, Erick registered the threat, and waited to see if they actually attacked. They had two arms, two legs; maybe more. They were certainly multi-jointed, with skin flaps between every part of their blanket-like bodies. With such a figure, they easily took to the air, like flying squirrels. They flew toward Erick, and the Ophiels trailing behind him.

Erick shot out four [Shooting Star]s from four Ophiel.

The first monster came toward Erick, like an unfolding blanket, but it met a speedy ball of light that ripped it apart, sending a shower of suddenly-visible gore into the air. The death of their member did not seem to deter any of the other thirty-ish [Invisible] killer blankets. Some attacked Ophiels, but Handy Auras caught those offenders and ripped them apart, sending more gore into the depths below.

Laughing, playing balls of light, killed most of the tiny pack hunters. Few made it close enough to be ripped to shreds. Every single light orb avoided Fallopolis by a wide margin, but the [Invisible] blankets did not; those that got near the Shade were torn to shreds by telekinetic forces of a different sort.

Erick just watched the destruction, as he sipped from his canteen. Ahhh, that felt good. Nice water. It even tasted better than usual. Since it was duplicated inside a [Prismatic Ward], was it also magically imbued, like the metal in Erick’s wrought-quality metal experiment?

The encounter took about four seconds. There was a brief pause in the forward march as the monsters completed their suicidal attack, but Fallopolis continued to stride ahead as she saw Erick had it under control, and Erick soon resumed his own quick pace, beside the Shade.

When it was over, he had another Ophiel spread out a [Cleansing Aura], wiping away the little bit of red gore than had managed to spray across all of them. Erick noticed the gore that had gotten on Fallopolis, this time, before it turned to thick air.

Every [Shooting Star] gave a chuckle and a laugh as they faded out; their killing spree done and over.

Fallopolis shook the canteen, sloshing water, saying, “This is good water.”

Also ignoring what had just happened, Erick asked, “Does it have any special qualities? I just found out the other day that [Prismatic Ward] is more special than I gave it credit for.”

“Yes.” Fallopolis said, “A very minor mana potion effect. Too small to notice, too limited to matter.”

“Interesting.” Erick asked, “Are we really going to walk through the Swamp to get to the Palace?”

Fallopolis shrugged as she walked. “Up to you.” She gestured with her staff, saying, “The Swamp is there. Or, we could go left, and walk along the wall. The Swamp is marginally safer than the wall walk, for the walls of Kendrithyst are home to many areas of no return.” She gestured right. “We could also descend to the central layer and hit the highlights of the city, as well as find fewer monsters. It’s generally safer where Shades routinely move, but all of them will likely be taking the high roads, to see the planes above. In such an odd case as tonight, it might actually be less monster-filled to also travel the high roads, but we might meet other Shades.

“In either case, we might not hit any more monsters at all. Like all battles, Kendrithyst is mostly blank space, punctuated by moments of terror and triumph, or defeat.” She looked to Erick, and with a gleam in her white eyes, said, “We could also attempt to sneak into a few choice locations and steal everything that isn’t cemented down. A trip to the Library, perhaps, for some tomes of True Magic? A swing by the Jungle, to net one of Hollowsaur’s level 90 beasts? That’s a lot of levels for you! Oh! Or the Armory! That place is locked up tighter than a virgin’s arsehole, but the rewards are well worth the conquering.”

“If all those are options, then why are we on a direct line to intercept the center of the Swamp?”

“My greatest hope, is that you will meet the Witch, and when she proves herself incapable of participating in Polite Society, she will try to kill you and then either you kill her, or Melemizargo kills her. Either way works for me.” Fallopolis added, “Your rings will protect you from a great many curses, so you’re the best bet I have for murdering Perri.”

Erick said, “I want to avoid the Swamp and the Witch. Let’s go west and take the Center Lane.”

The Center Lane was not a proper feature of the Dead City, like the Swamp, or Abyssal Lake, but it was a general north-south aisle that could be drawn on a map from the north, to the Armory in the center of the city. It avoided most of the larger dangers, skirting both the Jungle in the west and the Swamp in the east.

“The Witch will be at the Feast, and she always aims to kill whoever she fixates on. Kill her now or be her victim later; your choice.” Fallopolis said, “But very well. We will take the Center Lane.” She asked, “Upper, Middle, or Dark?”

“Upper.”

Fallopolis promptly turned right, crossing in front of Erick, who suddenly stopped to let her pass.

Erick followed, and resumed a proper walking distance from the Shade.

“What were those flying things, anyway?”

“Skyskins.” Fallopolis asked, “What was that orb spell?”

“[Shooting Star].”

“You know…” She spoke with a joyful edge to her voice, saying, “You could make countless [Shooting Star]s with your [Greater Lightwalk], all in an instant, if you became a Shade and pledged yourself to Melemizargo. As a Wizard in tune with his power, he can break your connection to the Script and reforge your soul to allow you to experience true magical might.”

A question Erick had been wondering about for a while suddenly bubbled up. “What are Wizards, exactly?”

Fallopolis smiled wide, gaining a pep to her shadow-laced steps. “Why you are, of course! But you’ve barely done anything with your own power, so you probably shouldn’t poke around in your soul in an attempt to break yourself from the Script.”

“… That doesn’t explain anything.” But it did cause a lot more questions.

“Wizards defy explanation.”

“Can you try?”

Fallopolis breathed deep. She said, “I will try, but it won’t do you any good.” She added, “Not because I don’t want to explain, but in trying to describe the ineffable, my description would fall short. Language is a problem, in this case, for it fails in the enormity of the truth. Ideas like ‘Creator’ or ‘Destroyer’ or ‘Paradoxical’ fail to describe the wholeness that is a ‘Wizard’. In the Old Cosmology, Wizards birthed whole planes of existence with a snap of their fingers. They destroyed swathes of Reality with a wave of their hands. They recreated souls lost to the destructive efforts of other Wizards.”

“Okay… But where does the power of a Wizard come from? Darkness?”

Fallopolis said, “Darkness is just the visual expression of Wizardry. Creation, Destruction, Paradox, all wrapped in one, and purposefully unknowable to mortal eyes; even a Shade’s. I searched this whole world for an answer to that very same question, along with a dozen others. I eventually sought help from the gods. They were little more helpful than asking the same questions to children, and yet, I continued to put out fires and raise the quality of life everywhere I went, all in the pursuit of asking my questions of the highest beings in the land. For my efforts, they gave me parables and truths I could not use. I have given you those answers, just now, in a slightly condensed version, and without the knowledge that I gained when I came looking for better answers from Melemizargo’s flock.”

Erick looked to Fallopolis with a bit more care. Words tumbled out, “You’re a wizard?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” She had said the words without anger, but there was a measure of steel in her voice. And then she softened. “You can ask Melemizargo about Wizardry if he shows up this year. We think he will, and if he does, he will likely want to speak to you.”

Erick felt he had touched a line in the sand. He asked no more of Wizardry.

Fallopolis fell into a silence.

They walked for twenty minutes, before another monster appeared. Both Erick and Fallopolis heard this one coming long before it appeared. Slithering sounds and raspy chitters wrapped up the side of a kendrithyst tower, echoing in the otherwise silent sky. Fallopolis stepped through the air, directly toward the sound, moving thirty meters in five steps.

A dark centipede as large as a subway train appeared, a hundred thousand legs on each side. It wove around three kendrithyst towers like it was the world’s most agile wyrm, but with none of the usual craziness of those dying dragons. Erick could instantly tell that this was an intelligent monster, of some larger brainpower than most. Erick knew this because the centipede saw Fallopolis walking at it, and it tried to run, tried to turn around and rush back into the violet depths below.

Fallopolis snapped a hand forward. A good hundred meters of the centipede’s body stilled, but its legs ripped large furrows in the kendrithyst towers as it struggled and failed to get away. Fallopolis flicked her whole hand. The centipede exploded. Gore rained. Erick activated [Cleansing Aura], turning that falling gore into thick air that washed across him and his gathered Ophiel.

The Shade was outside of the effect, for now. Gore rained on her, but she didn’t care, as a line of white dots —several grand rads— flowed from where the centipede’s upper third had been, into Fallopolis’s chest, like drops of radiant water. She breathed deep. She turned back to Erick.

“Got any good food in that bag?” She asked.

“I do. Do you want dessert, a beef and cheese sandwich, or a salad?” He asked, “Do you want a [Cleanse], first?”

“Sandwich, salad, [Cleanse]; yes.” She asked, “Hot sandwich?”

“I can make it hot.”

“Hot, then.”

Erick obliged with the [Cleanse], first, casting the spell at Fallopolis, erasing the bits of black shell and red insides that had fallen onto her. With a few other casts and a wait in a [Hot Ward], the Shade got her food. Erick copied a chocolate cupcake for himself.

Fallopolis seemed to approve of the sandwich, if her ravenous consumption of it was any indication of how she truly felt. But she took her time with the salad. She had spotted the creamy dressing upon it, and decided to eat that one second.

She did this, of course, as they were practically racing through the sky, double-stepping it further west.

When she bit into the first bit of salad, using [Telekinesis] to eat, she stopped in her tracks. Erick stopped with her.

With a quiet voice, she said, “This dressing. What is it?”

“Ranch dressing.” Erick elaborated, “Veird has the sour cream and buttermilk and such, but I recreated the black pepper, garlic, dill, and chives, and made better sour cream than what was available outside of Spur. When I first made Ranch, I thought that sour cream was a personal invention, too, but you guys just used limes, and your sour cream was neither prevalent nor available in Spur. My only actual change was to use lemons, which I did invent.”

Fallopolis began eating and walking again, as Erick spoke. When he finished, she had already finished the salad, and said, “That was pretty good. Both of them.”

“Thanks.” He offered, “Want a cupcake? Sour cream went into these, as well, to lend the cake a moister, tangier flavor. I had thought I had invented this technique, too, but a lady I recently met informed me that I had not.”

“… I want a cupcake.”

“Chocolate or vanilla buttercream? I recreated both of those flavors, too.”

“One of each.”

 

– – – –

 

They walked in silence toward the west, their footsteps shining dark and bright.

There were occasional monsters. Birds made of iridescent swords. Bugs too large to be normal. Another Kendrithyst Mimic, which was only level 75, maybe; Erick wasn’t quite sure, but the experience he gained was enough to put an actual, noticeable difference in his Status.

Fallopolis displayed her power in killing both large and small monsters, as Erick did the same. Erick had no idea what the Shade was truly thinking with this walk, and this civility, and this easy atmosphere of monster eradication, but it was easy to match her visible power against various hungry or territorial foes. Erick and Fallopolis fell into an easy ordering. She killed one monster, or group of monsters, Erick took the next. Back and forth it went, though sometimes the monsters fled before they fully committed to their attack. Those ones survived. Whoever’s turn it was, took the next encounter.

It was hard for Erick to gauge how much either of them were truly holding back, for Erick had never truly tested himself in person, where he had to worry about his spells hitting himself, and Fallopolis was a Shade. Erick stuck to [Shooting Star] and the power of several Ophiel each wielding a Handy Aura, but he never used more than four global cooldowns out of his available eleven.

Fallopolis held vast telekinetic strength, but how much power did she actually have behind those invisible grips, and ripping thoughts? She only seemed to care about the grand rads inside a few of the monsters they met, but otherwise, she showed no signs of fatigue, or worry.

Erick was doing fine, too. Good thing he was a Scion of Focus.

Which bade him to again break the companionable silence, “Why do people choose Scion of Willpower?”

Without looking back, Fallopolis said, “Kirginatharp’s stranglehold on the proper teaching of magic is a problem with many facets. The predilection for Scion of Willpower is one of them. Kirginatharp is not a gifted mage, so when he made his spells, and since he is the Second of Rozeta, he had to fall in line with the workings of the Script or be ousted as Second.”

Erick wore a confused expression. “You’re going to have to break that down.”

Fallopolis easily elaborated, “In the beginning of the Script, there was another who could have become Second to Rozeta. Kirginatharp’s brother, Idyrvamikor. It is a tale never told in arcanaeum or most published books, for Kirginatharp controls both of those avenues to power.”

“If you’re trying to convince me that the Headmaster is a great evil, then you would have to try a lot harder than that. It was Melemizargo who cursed Dragon Essence into existence, was it not? Even if this story with Idyrvarmincor —or whatever. Even if true, all of the Headmaster’s cannibalistic tendencies are laid at the Dark Dragon’s claws.”

“The curse of Dragon Essence is a lie propagated by Kirginatharp.” Fallopolis said, “Idyrvamikor created the Dragon Curse, all on his own, for he was as much a Wizard as his grandfather.”

Erick listened, frowning, as the Shade’s voice filled the silence of the Dead City.

“Idyrvamikor was a right evil bastard, so it’s probably just as good that Kirginatharp won and his brother’s life is relegated to the Void.” She said, “But to condense a great history of hope and betrayal down to its core components: As the Script was being laid, and the process of rightful God of Magic succession was being usurped from My Dark God, the presumptive Seconds went to war. Kirginatharp, and his brother, Idyrvamikor.

“It is unknown who struck first, but it happened. The result was Archipelago Nergal, as half of that continent and most of that Underworld was consigned to the waves. Kirginatharp rose as the victor, but Idyrvamikor used the power of his death to cast the Dragon Curse.

“But even discarding the Dragon Curse, Kirginatharp’s victory was not a clean victory.

“This was over 1400 years ago, at the beginning of the Script, when no one was sure how anything was supposed to work. Idyrvamikor planned for the long run, and thus did not create any spells for that fight. Kirginatharp seized reckless power, tripping several failsafes in the Script meant to keep mages weak, and thus his spell costs ballooned. He won, but at the cost of his future advancement. He became a Scion of Willpower, because it was necessary in order to cast the magics he had created.

“For, as I already said: He was no great mage.

“He has never been a great mage. He gets by, with his stranglehold on learning, and his Elites succeeding as little as they do, spreading his power and bringing back treasures to him to further enable more power. It is in this way that his poison spreads in the minds and magics of those who attempt to learn from him.

“Scion of Willpower is purely inferior to Scion of Focus, for all that is necessary for Scion of Focus to truly shine, is that you learn to make your spells better. But they teach harmful techniques in every arcanaeum, which come from Kirginatharp himself, so people must choose Willpower, or else they lack the mana to cast the ‘proper spells’ that they have been taught to cast.” Fallopolis finished with, “And that, is why Scion of Willpower is more popular than Scion of Focus. For the political reasons of a megalomaniac who, if he broke his power and started again, even a little? Well. He would almost instantly be ousted by the hundreds of other dragons waiting to kill him and take his place as Second to Rozeta.”

It was too fantastical to be real. Erick said, “A conspiracy that large is too large to succeed.”

“And now the topic moves on to Draconic Society, the Mind Mage Cabal, and the Forgotten Campaigns of Veird.”

Erick frowned. He didn’t know anything about ‘Draconic Society’, and this was the first time he had heard those words with such emphasis, but he had already heard of ‘Forgotten Campaigns’, way back when he stood in front of gods and they argued over Particle Magic. It was only now, that he combined the idea of a Forgotten Campaign with the fact that the gods could not directly exercise their power upon Veird, and he realized that they would need intermediaries. He said, “I can already guess at all that, so there’s no need to elaborate.”

“Oh?” She smiled at him. “What’s your guess at ‘all that’, then?”

“Large-scale [Mind Wipe]s, or whatever the spell is called. They probably keep the dragons hidden, too, for obviously the Mind Mages would know who the dragons were.” Erick added, “Likely selectively deleting various memories.”

“Ah! Then you do know.” Fallopolis asked, “But did you know about the killings?”

The realities of Veird and magic were trying, sometimes, and this was no exception. Erick reluctantly said, “No, but I can guess.”

“No need to guess!” Fallopolis said, “Let me tell you of the hidden purges of both memory and physicality, all across the globe, led by the wrought. For while the dragons are a part of it, they stay out of it all for if they meet, then they kill each other.

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“But the wrought! They have no such troubles. When a Forgotten Campaign is called, they spill out from their geodes in the Underworld, filling the world, culling everything that the Relevant Entities mark as a problem. And I’ve lived through one.” She looked forward, and almost spoke again, but she stopped. She paused in thought, and then she said, “I do not want to speak of this, but I will force some of the past to the surface.” With a dismissive hand, she declared, “My memory is spotty because of what they managed to do to me before I got away. All I know is that they attacked, I defended, I found salvation in Darkness, and I am still looking for answers as to why the gods decided to erase my Wizard mother from the world, and then sundered her soul.”

A wind blew. A monster died somewhere out of sight, down below, attacked by something else unable to be seen from where Erick and Fallopolis walked the crimson, purple sky.

The conversation had turned heavy.

Too weighty. Erick was too close to seeing Fallopolis as a person. It was much easier to see her as a monster.

Erick wasn’t naive, though he had certainly been called that now and again. He knew that people could be monsters, and that worse crimes had been committed by sapients, simply because they were in full control of their own actions, and they chose to do evil. He knew some people were better off dead. Unrepentant murderers. Rapists. Slavers. And in his darker moments, others made the list. Certain CEOs, politicians, bankers, pharmaceutical producers that gouged the public with insulin prices, polluters…

The unrepentant? The purposefully harmful? Those who didn’t want to be better? Those who reveled in their power and loved to harm?

Well they were better off dead.

And Erick hated himself for that dark, reductive thought. He hated that Fallopolis was likely using this aspect of him to ingratiate herself, to prove that not all Shades were as evil as they appeared to be. That she was one of the ‘good Shades’…

Erick changed the subject, “What are your favorite parts of Kendrithyst?”

She smiled wide, then said, “There’s the Planetarium. That’s where I killed the Astronomer. Then there’s Abyssal Lake. I’ve killed a hundred False-Shades down there. Then there’s the Crack, of course. I keep that place open and active and under my power, to let me try to dissuade untested adventurers from joining the dead of this grand city.” After a moment of thinking, she said, “The Spire is pretty to look at, but not much more than that. I only appreciate it because I’ve prosecuted more than three hundred and seventeen convictions against False-Shades, and then carried out those convictions to the satisfaction of all involved.”

She was definitely ingratiating herself to him.

Erick asked, “Which Shades need to die?”

“All of them.” Fallopolis swung her arm wide, across the lights and shadows of the city, declaring, “Every single Shade needs to die. They’re all monsters. But Melemizargo wouldn’t approve. So until the day that I’m allowed total power and personal appointment of every Shade, when I wouldn’t need all the rest of these self-indulgent Shades to avoid death at the hands of the Geodes and the misguided idiots who call themselves our ‘gods’, then I will have to suffer living with these monsters.”

Erick had no idea how to respond to that.

So he didn’t.

 

– – – –