112, 2/2

The Upper Layer of Ar’Kendrithyst started to change colors once Erick got a few kilometers past the Armory. Erick didn’t notice until Fallopolis remarked upon the hues of the surrounding kendrithyst, and the sky. Crimsons turned to pink. Purples became lilac violet. The sky to the south was tinged with a brighter darkness, as though the sun were rising far, far ahead.

She said, “We’re a good ten kilometers from the Brightwater District; specifically, from the Temple District part of it all. We’re not going through the temples.” She gestured toward the southeast, as she stepped that way, saying, “We must go around, to reach the Spire and approach the Brightwater Expanse with official clearance.”

Erick asked, “What’s wrong with going through the temples?”

“You’re marked by summoned guardians of all kinds if you don’t go in the right way. You can fight them off, sure, but they’re a hive mind, and as soon as one spots you, they all do, and then the real problems begin.”

“That’s not what I expected you to say.”

She laughed. “What did you expect?”

“Warnings about shadows nipping at my feet?” He added, “I already knew the part about being found out almost instantly, but I was told they were just ‘shadows’.”

“You’ve seen the Crystal at Candlepoint, yes?” Fallopolis said, “The versions here are much stronger, and varied. Bulgan got the ‘warrior’ version to use at Candlepoint, but there are others. Mage, Sentry, Sniper. You get the deal. They work quite well for killing most people. But you already knew that.”

… Of course they used those horrible magic items here. Erick felt a disgusted anger as Fallopolis casually brought up the murder of almost a hundred thousand shadelings, as though it was a tidbit of information. Maybe she was taunting him?

Fallopolis smirked, asking, “Did you figure out how it worked?”

Definitely a taunt.

Erick frowned. “No.”

Fallopolis shrugged. “If you ask around, you might be able to find out how it works. Maybe even get your own crystal up and running again.”

– – – –

To the north, the sky was crimson, dark, and full of stars and imaginary planes, while the Mana Ocean flowed from one impossible land to another. But to the south, beyond a curtain wall of pink and lilac kendrithyst that stretched solid from the Lower Layer of Ar’Kendrithyst, all the way up here to the top, the sky was not crimson at all. Twilight held in the air all around, while a look to the wall ahead, far beyond black orb-like sentries, the air sky was blue, and filled with a singular hovering illusion that Erick could barely see from this angle.

It was solid black orb rimmed with light, like an eclipsing sun. It was similar in style to the orb sentries holding on top of the pink wall, but the dark star in the sky beyond felt like an eye, watching him. Who knew? Maybe it was an eye. Maybe it was watching him, and everyone else in this Dead City.

– – – –

They passed the Garden.

It was green and lush and beautiful. But also wild.

Signs outside the Garden, placed every ten meters, read: ‘Only animals are allowed beyond this point. If you are not an animal, you are prey.’

Fallopolis said, “I’m not about to [Polymorph] myself into some critter just to see the Gardens. It’s quite rude of Treant, if you ask me.”

Erick hadn’t asked her, but she had spoken anyway.

– – – –

The Spire would have been beautiful compared to the Armory, if not for the horrors Erick had seen to get to this point, and the horrors that must surely exist therein.

A wide, pink crystal road led from the broken kendrithyst city that made up the majority of Ar’Kendrithyst into a land beyond a pink crystal wall, where the road, and the towers beyond, were the palest pink, and purple. Far ahead, the towers became perfectly clear and slightly iridescent. On this side of the wall, shadows roiled under the road like chaotic ink, but beyond the wall, those same shadows formed into two main arteries under the surface of the crystal, to the left and right sides of the skyroad; they might have truly been arteries, for while both sides flexed and flowed, one clearly flowed into the Brightwater District, and the other flowed out. Fallopolis noticed Erick staring at the arteries, but just smiled.

Atop the pink walls were more dark sentry orbs, along with shadelings who manned them. The shadelings bowed as Erick walked past them, through the opening in the wall that separated the Spire from the rest of the Dead City. Maybe they had bowed to Fallopolis; he wasn’t sure. But the orbs themselves seemed to turn away from the two of them, in either case.

Erick and Fallopolis walked through the large, ungated opening, following the iridescent road into a land of bright towers. He glanced through the ground, and almost panicked.

Looking down, Erick saw skyroads and buildings in the crystal below, where people walked on streets like this was a normal place to be. Some held groceries. Others had kids with them. A school was letting out for the day, and Erick fully retracted his sunform. His heart beat hard to see such a sight.

They were shadelings, one and all.

Grey eyes, some brighter than others, but all of them had grey eyes.

That was just the first kilometer down; the first three levels that Erick could see, before the depth of the crystal and the dark arteries running through the whole place became too much, and sight was blocked due to the thickness of all the intervening land. This was just the Upper Layer. Erick had heard that Brightwater Lake was on the Lower Layer, more than thirty kilometers down. Did this metropolis under him go all that way down? Were there actually this many shadelings in this land?

The road Erick and Fallopolis were on was above it all; among the highest parts of this populated land. It was also the only road that was completely empty of all people. This road led right to the Spire itself, and sure, that was pretty, and it dominated the skyline. But now that Erick was beyond the curtain wall…

This…

This place was a metropolis. Millions of people, at least. Maybe more? Millions upon millions!

And they were not quiet.

Erick lost himself a bit in the noise that filled the crystalline city. It was the noise of calm life. The quiet susurrus of daily struggle. People bargaining at a nearby market below. Kids playing. People unloading cargo into a shop. Wind whistling through the towers, and through trees in cultivated gardens below. And then came the smells. Baking bread. Back behind Erick, a garden full of flowers grew under artificial lights, taking up an entire level of one particular tower. The smell of flowers was heavy in the air.

Erick whispered, “What the fuck is going on here?”

Fallopolis pointed ahead with her red-purple kendrithyst staff, saying, “We’re going to check in at the Spire, of course.”

Erick gave the Spire another glance. It was as beautiful as the first time he saw the structure, but a multitude of perfectly organized crystals, with some floating in the air, didn’t compare to the people he saw down below, in every direction he looked.

“With the people below, Fallopolis.” Erick said, “What is going on with all these people? Are they real?”

Fallopolis looked forward. She squinted. She said, “… Yes.”

“Is that what I want to hear, or is it the truth?”

“How can anyone know if someone is real or not?”

Erick had considered that argument for a while now. He did not have a perfect answer, but he had one that worked for him. He said, “The soul is untainted by the will or wills of outsiders, and they could potentially gain access to the normal Script available to every person on Veird.”

“By that measure… They are not real, but they could be. What they fail is the second part of your qualifications, since they are the unthinking dead, and unthinking dead do not have access to the Script.” Fallopolis said, “They are a step before the wandering ones that you saw in Candlepoint. When they get to the ‘wandering one’ stage, they are ousted from their stupor down below, and given over to someone who can rouse them further.”

“… Are these stolen souls, Fallopolis?” Erick asked, “Why are they here?” And then he asked a question that had been plaguing him for a long time. “Why shadelings? Why do this to a person?”

“Stolen! Ha! No. That is not what is happening below us.” Fallopolis looked to Erick, and said, “Some of the souls down there are from before the Sundering. Melemizargo had dominion over an entire universe of magic and many, many people prayed to him. The people below are my Dark God’s attempt to hold in eternal bliss those who were a part of his flock. Those who had died, who he tried to save. Those who he was not able to shift into new bodies on Veird in the Great Translation.”

Erick breathed out, as he stared below, at the people walking, living, talking, and just existing. That was when he noticed that some of them were neither human, incani, orcol, shifter, dragonkin, or any of the other races Erick had seen on Veird so far.

A lady with wings and arms; not a harpy, but something else. A man with the lower body of a lizard. A woman with the lower body of a horse. A small grouping of cats that walked upright, on their back feet.

Fallopolis said, “Shadelings, as you know them, exist for much the same reason. When people use magic, they are praying to Melemizargo. Those who have no other god or who don’t choose the End will invariably go to Melemizargo when they die.”

“That’s a lie.” Erick said, “I know I am not praying to Melemizargo when I use magic. There’s something out there that is much older than him.”

“Hmm. Technically true. But also not exactly true. A debate for the ages, for sure.”

Erick found himself asking, “But what about all these souls? Why does he hold onto them? Is it just because he can? That he needs them for his own power?”

Fallopolis said, “He kept his souls with him after the Sundering, for they had died with His name on their lips, and the bond between person and god is inviolable; Melemizargo wasn’t about to let the gods of this impostor world take his people.” She said, “His insanity is lessening, though, so who knows what will happen. All the gods are talking to each other again, and it’s a great big universe out there! I’m not too sure if it’s not an illusion myself, but whatever Melemizargo decides to do, is what I will work to achieve. Maybe those people below will be born again, for real, soon enough.”

Erick was having a lot of complicated thoughts about gods and worshipers at the moment, but they were too complicated to articulate. And besides, the Spire was straight ahead. It was time to meet more Shades and attend Shadow’s Feast, the yearly party where they talked about how much of the world they fucked over.

Offhandedly, Erick said, “This Feast is going to have to change, you know. If Melemizargo isn’t some evil god, then a party dedicated to how everyone has harmed the Script and the world and the people therein, is rather counterproductive to being a force for good.”

“True.” Fallopolis said, “But magic has never been about good or evil. Maybe all of us Shades will become people who goad others into more than they were before.”

The Spire loomed above; a collection of iridescent clear-crystal towers, some of which floated around a stable central structure. The road under Erick’s feet ran right into the main building, which reminded Erick of those pictures he had once seen, back on Earth, of people driving through roads cut through the trunks of redwood trees. Or more locally, it reminded Erick of the gazebo under the Crystal at Candlepoint, but about a thousand times larger.

A thousand times larger, and weird.

The road ran in this side of the Spire, and out the other, but in the building itself, there was white marble flooring, and winding staircases on both sides leading up and down. The sides of the Spire, to the left and right of the road, were complicated, large places, that reminded Erick a lot of a DMV, or a licensing office, but for very fancy people. In the middle of the road, directly ahead, there was a large arc of a counter where a man sat behind the table and dealt with a woman standing in front. To the sides, off the road, other people milled about under strong lighting, talking to people behind counters, where paperworks passed from hand to hand and stamps smashed down, leaving red or green marks behind. Everyone was either a shadeling, or a normal-looking person with normal eyes, just going about their business.

All that interior space looked invisible from the outside, though.

Erick sent an Ophiel wide, to get a look from another angle, further out. Fallopolis noticed, but said nothing.

With a position a hundred meters off the right side of the road, Erick clearly saw that the visible Spire he was seeing was invisible from all angles except from the front. Okay? So the whole place was enchanted to look like a spire of crystal? But it was actually a place of business? That sort of checked with what he had uncovered on the other kendrithyst towers of the city, when he had dropped his [Domain of Light] on the normal, red-purple-shadow crystals of Ar’Kendrithyst. Back there, the shadows hid the truth of the city. In here, they did the same. Maybe those shadows hid these parts of the city, all year long?

Maybe that’s why Killzone hadn’t told him about all of this? It seemed that Killzone would have known about all of this. Or if not him, then Silverite.

Erick followed at Fallopolis’s side.

“We’re entering, now.” She said, “All spells, pulled back. Pull your Ophiel in, tiny.”

Before Erick could tell her to do all of that first, Fallopolis dropped all her shadows, and stepped onto the crystal road, suddenly walking much slower, and at a normal pace. Erick didn’t want to follow her advice, for the simple reason that he was leaving himself vulnerable, but…

… But he had to, right?

He turned his Ophiel tiny and had them flock behind him, as he pulled his lightwalk to the center of his back, along with his [Lodestar]. He could redeploy both spells in a moment’s notice; if something bad happened, hopefully he would get that moment.

The woman at the main counter with the man looked behind her. Her eyes glowed white, but she lowered her head, and stepped away; maybe she wasn’t a Shade? What was a Shade, exactly?

Erick had asked that question a few times in his time in Spur, ever since he heard about shadelings. Killzone had said that the difference was one of night and day; too large for one to ever be mistaken for the other. In that case, the demarcation between ‘shadeling’ and ‘Shade’ seemed like a difference in power. Silverite had said that Shades have very few identifiable Script-derived spells, for they had no access to the Script. If a shadeling showed you their Status, they were a shadeling, for sure, since even a Shade couldn’t show a false Status; they too, would be slapped by the Script for conjuring a fake blue box and trying to lie about the system. There were cases of Shades showing false Status and not flinching as the Script punished them, but in that case, if they showed you something and you weren’t able to store that box in your own Script-access and pull it back out later, then you would know those illusionary blue boxes as fake.

This ‘put it away and pull it out again’ method was used to verify much of Erick’s own magic, when he was first starting out in Spur, making things like [Call Lightning]. He hadn’t known it at the time, not really, but he was under heavy, heavy scrutiny.

… And Erick’s thoughts were wandering again.

Fallopolis had walked into the Spire, proper, and Erick had followed. Some people stared at him, or at the Shade with him, others pointedly did not. Not much was ‘see-through’ inside the Spire; almost everything was either white stone, or vaguely metallic, except for some conspicuous crystal pillars scattered around this main space. Those pillars were filled with pure darkness; the same arteries that Erick had seen outside the building, that ran through the crystal road. Some of those dark rivers of shadows went up. Some went down.

Fallopolis pulled up to the man behind the front counter. “Here for the Feast.”

The man purposefully moved papers around on his side of the counter, stacking them in a professional way, while saying, “Welcome back to the Spire and to Brightwater District, Shade Fallopolis. Do you desire a carriage to Queen’s royal residence?”

Fallopolis glanced back to Erick. “You want a carriage?”

“No.”

She turned to the man. “No. We’ll be seeing some sights on the way over.”

“Very well.” The man gave Fallopolis no token, or cast no spells. He merely said, “You’re cleared.”

She stepped aside. She looked to Erick; waiting.

Erick tentatively stepped forward.

The man looked to him, and with the same monotone voice, said, “Welcome to the Spire, and to Brightwater District, Fire of the Age, Erick Flatt.”

Nothing direct happened.

But everything shifted.

It was as though the air gained a charge of lightning, briefly, while the dark arteries running through the pillars of the room pulsed thicker. And then it was done.

With a dawning horror, the same thing had likely happened to Fallopolis, but Erick had been looking to the Shade to see if anything happened to her, directly. He had not been looking thirty meters out, to see how the environment of this place reacted to her introduction.

No. Wait. But he had? Had he just missed the change in the air?

Maybe it was an invisible spell, to all except those who is was cast upon?

Erick didn’t feel any different, but he had to ask, “What was that?”

The man said, “An environmental shift. Now the shadows won’t react adversely to your presence; you have been introduced.”

“Oh?” Erick relaxed a fraction. “Not a spell cast on me, then? Instead, I was introduced to the magics of the Spire?”

“The second one.” The man asked, “Since you are new to Brightwater District, would you like a map, or a guide?”

“He has me.” Fallopolis turned to Erick, saying, “You know: some would find introduction to a system to be scarier than gaining a key.”

Erick thought about that for a second. He asked, “Because gaining a key means a low-grade magical system, whereas being introduced is… Is like meeting a sapient system?” He looked to the black arteries running through the pillars of the room. “Oh? Is that supposed to be Melemizargo?” Suddenly unsure of himself, he spoke quietly to the room, “Hello.”

The room shook, “Oh! Hello.”

Fallopolis gained a wild look in her bright eyes. She promptly and quietly giggled like a schoolgirl, staring out into the empty air of the Spire; excitedly waiting. The entire rest of this first floor of the Spire went absolutely quiet. No one moved. Someone dropped some papers, scattering noise into the air.

A shadow slipped from the arteries, to prowl around in the brightness of the room. The spectre form of Melemizargo had a friendly voice, as he said, “Welcome to Brightwater District, Erick! Don’t mind the threats; they won’t do anything to you. Have some fun. Explore a bit. Try taking in a class at Truedark Arcanaeum. We teach things quite a bit different here. I can’t stay long, so I’ll leave you to it. All of us are talking again, and I swear my head has never felt clearer. I should probably be more worried about that, but I finally have a grasp on these particles and their assorted oddities, and seeing the [Mesmerize] is the first step to breaking it, or coming to terms with the idea that this might truly be a new universe. We’ll see figment and truth, soon enough. Anywho! Talk to you later. Enjoy the Feast! I’ll probably make an appearance near the end of it all.”

“See you around.” Erick waved goodbye, trying to keep up appearances but also sweating a bit, as he mulled over Melemizargo’s casual use of the words ‘breaking it’.

The shadow slipped back into the pillars.

Sound resumed. Erick glanced around him, at the people bowing down to where the shadow had been. Papers laid where they had fallen. Stamps rested on their sides, dripping ink onto bureaucracy. Some people held their foreheads to the marble floor. Some openly stared at the darkness flowing through the pillars of the room. One woman clutched her chest, smiling, as tears rolled down her face.

Even Fallopolis had taken a knee. She smiled softly as Melemizargo departed. Glowing tears rolled down her unlined face; she looked even younger than before, and though her hair was still frizzy and grey, the 450 year-old woman could have passed for forty.

The room came alive again. People stood, some quietly cheering, or sniffling back tears, or just smiling. Most went back to whatever they were doing before. Some, who had been waiting in line, decided they didn’t want to wait in line anymore, and left, walking out of the other side of the Spire, down the road, toward Brightwater Lake. Erick couldn’t see the waters from here, for they were kilometers and kilometers above the lake, but he knew what was supposed to lay in that direction.

Erick whispered to Fallopolis, “What now?”

Fallopolis got to her feet as she happily said, “Whatever you want.”

Erick had one pressing concern, as he glanced around the room. “I see a lot of people here, so I think I’d like to know how that all works. How did I not hear about all the people that live here? Not all of them are shadelings. Where do they eat? Where do they live? Is there work? How does that all function?” He said, “Either this is all new, and you’ve all made some great game of tricking me into believing that this is who you are, or this is who you are, and the rest of the world just doesn’t know? Or hates you anyway? Or… Whatever the case, there’s some propaganda going on, for sure.”

Fallopolis looked to Erick, like he was a slow-witted child. “Oh. Erick. There’s been no tricks. Everyone here got involved with us because we either wanted to destroy the world, or certain peoples in it. Some, like myself, got in this life to free us and our god from this [Mesmerize]. That’s never changed.” She gestured to the air where Melemizargo had been, moments ago. “Or maybe it has?” She smiled. “Maybe you just made a whole new slew of true friends, and a whole new party of true enemies.”

Erick calmly took in his audience, scattered all around this level of the Spire, some openly listening to him and Fallopolis, as though this was a great moment in history. Some people were listening more covertly, with their heads turned away, yet with their body posture poised to hear. He tried to deflect Fallopolis’s words, saying, “The stage is set; the knowledge is out there. Nothing I do from here on out will stop what is coming down the road.”

“That remains to be seen,” spoke a new voice.

A Shade resolved onto the road in front of Erick and Fallopolis; it was the one with all the layered robes, and the black mask. Erick didn’t know their name, yet, but Fallopolis regarded the person as though they were a stain on the hem of her frilly dress, or a pile of shit on the side of the road.

Fallopolis said, “Don’t trust Rodel. He’s the Shade of Whispers, and is responsible for most of the evil that Shades commit around the world. He wants to burn selected parts of civilization, just so his own goals come out ahead.”

The masked man turned to Fallopolis, saying, “Spoken like a jilted housewife who only sees adulterers, or a miser who only sees the greed in others.” He added, “Stay out of politics, Fallopolis; you haven’t been at the top of your game in a hundred years, ever since Silverite toppled your kingdom and you were reduced to the Culler.” He spoke to Erick, “Fallopolis, the former Shade of the Long Night, has led no fewer than five incursions into the world to destroy it all. Thankfully, she failed.”

“You should kill him, Erick.” Fallopolis said, “I’ll help. Right here. Right now.”

People had been slowly moving out of the Spire, but at Fallopolis’s words, they ran. Some dropped into the roads, turning to shadows, flowing alongside the dark veins in the crystal. Some raced into the air. Some huddled behind their counters.

Rodel spoke, “Fallopolis would see you dead, Erick. Now that our Lord has a favorable impression, this is the perfect time for you to die and disappear.”

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Fallopolis countered, “You overplay your hand, Rodel! Now who’s the miser who only sees greed?”

Another Shade slipped into the room; Erick saw her arrival. Fallopolis and Rodel did not instantly notice, but they both jolted at the second step in the room of Tania Webwalker, Champion of Melemizargo. She looked exactly as Erick remembered; pale skin, a dress that seemed made of loose, white silks, and a veil that did nothing to hide her bright white eyes. Her white spider was nowhere to be seen, but she had a diner-plate sized, white tarantula upon her right shoulder. She spoke, and her words allowed no argument. “No one is killing anyone. We’re not doing that this year.”

“Then what are we doing this year?” Another voice joined the fray, belonging to a tall, dark-skinned man in flowing red robes. He was strong-looking, with perfect features and glowing, white eyes. Erick would have called him handsome in any other setting. He said, “I had planned to guard Erick with a minion, but I’ll need to know if I need to guard him directly.”

Erick found himself staring at the man.

The man noticed. He turned to Erick and bowed, then rose, saying, “I’m Crimsonair, Healer of Brightwater, and also the Shade of Blood. A pleasure to meet you.”

Erick tried to be polite, since it was his first instinct, “A pleasure,” and then he realized he didn’t want a blood mage anywhere near him, “But I do not wish for your guarding services at this time.”

“Afraid that’s not one of your choices, Erick. Someone will try to kill you and keep you dead, but I cannot allow such a thing, as I have hopes for this new world order.” Crimsonair said, “But if you don’t want me, then the task will likely fall to my teacher; Quilatalap.”

“Ah.” Erick had no idea how to respond to that. Everything was happening very fast.

“That’s fine.” Quilatalap, orcol archlich and Caretaker of the Armory, stepped onto the road behind Erick. “I can do that.” He said to Erick, “Hello, again.”

“Hell—” Erick’s voice broke. “Hello.”

Tania decreed, “We are going to have a perfectly normal Shadow’s Feast, and everyone is going to pretend that Erick is the help, for that is all that he had earned. You will also all do well to not involve him in our disputes.”

Erick had suddenly had enough.

“Fine by me!” he declared, as he put both arms at his sides, like they usually were, and then some feet went in front of feet, and steps were taken. “Thanks, everyone!” he said, as he walked through the Spire and out the other side, exaggerating swinging his arms, which were still at his sides, like they usually were. “Oh, wow! That’s pretty! Isn’t that pretty, Ophiel?”