135, 2/2

Yggdrasil’s sight around his father had failed him too many times in the last few days. Mostly, when Erick went into the space between the trees. That space was tough to navigate. The mana went all sideways and stretchy in ways that Yggdrasil did not understand.

So while all of that was happening, Yggdrasil contented himself to look upon the world outside of his father’s current odd obsession. The man certainly did run through them all rather fast, didn’t he? Yggdrasil felt more ‘laid back’ than that… Yes. ‘Laid back’, a term that Yggdrasil liked.

He quickly counted himself lucky that, though he might be at the bottom of a liquid darkness that was filled with monsters and strange people, and that he was not ready to poke above the single surface that he was close enough to poke out of, he was not in the Forest. Thank the gods!

This dark place was sometimes scary when people or shadows prowled around, but that dark place was full of problems. Everything was always eating everything else, and, if he was being honest, shitting everywhere. So much shit! Why so much?

Yggdrasil suspected that living trees liked all the fertilizer. Currently, Yggdrasil just liked the mana, and the light. Maybe, when he grew up, he’d like all that poop on his roots, too, but right now? Eww.

The other trees made the space for other things to live, though, and Yggdrasil liked that whole idea a whole lot.

… And not only because it involved a lot of him ‘being himself’, and ‘going with the flow’. He wasn’t lazy. He was just going with the flow! Exactly like his creator.

… His… Father?

Eh. Yggdrasil wasn’t sure if he approved of that designation. That other archmage’s former [Familiar]s seemed to call their creator their ‘father’. Seemed kinda needy, if you asked Yggdrasil.

… Such strange thoughts flowing through his trunk these days. Maybe, next week, he’d like to call his creator his ‘father’? He didn’t know right now. Maybe he’d never know.

Meh. He’d know, sooner or later.

Oh. Wait. He had already thought of Erick as his father, didn’t he?

Well there’s the answer, right there! Or maybe not. He’d think about it.

What he certainly knew, is that he didn’t like it when the shadelings or anyone else came down to look at him. It made him feel all weird. One of them was doing so right now, but whoever it was, was disguising himself like a pile of mud, slowly drawing closer. That tumbling bit of mud couldn’t fool him! Yggdrasil had [True Sight]! But why was this person trying this? Hmm.

‘Bout to find out.

Yggdrasil’s white roots were arced into the muddy soil all around, like the bones of creation, holding him steady atop a plateau deep under the surface of the lake of Candlepoint. His trunk was a growing, twisting curve the size of a tower, while branches spread out, filled with neon green leaves. Light spread into the dark waters all around, like rainbow glitters.

And a person, little more than the size of one of Yggdrasil’s leaves, in the form of a mud slime, plip-plopped across the silt, drawing closer to one of Yggdrasil’s further roots like a mosquito coming in for a snack. It extended a small glass vial from itself, moving quick but hidden, thinking itself beneath Yggdrasil’s notice. It was beneath the tree’s notice, in truth. Or it would have been, in most other cases. But Yggdrasil’s sight was on his surroundings at the moment—

Oh. This mudball had come before today, hadn’t it?

Yggdrasil had forgotten. They had taken leaves. Just… Pluck-pluck! Snatchy-grab. Those leaves had been about to fall off anyway, but they hadn’t actually fallen off. They had been taken. Not a big deal, now that Yggdrasil thought of it. But best to discourage theft. This mudball was obviously not a monster trying to eat it. Yggdrasil had chased off plenty of those. It was more like the fish in his boughs that swam around in his light and leaves like they were birds.

Except… A bit more parasitic.

This required a small touch. How to defend…

Now where was… Oh. His twisted silver shield had been broken? Or maybe it had drifted off? Maybe Yggdrasil forgot to hold onto it. Yeah. That was probably it.

And. Huh. He should remake his [Prismatic Ward] around himself. He had outgrown that warding a while ago. Somehow, though, he got the impression that he couldn’t make it much bigger than it already was. Maybe he could sculpt it to the shape of his body? Yeah. That would extend the range by a lot.

The mudball scraped off some bits of tender, newgrown roots.

And then it retreated, fast as it could.

Ah. Too late. Yggdrasil missed his opportunity to defend himself.

Oh well. Besides, grasses and fishes and all sorts of life were growing up all around him, anyway. Big deal if some person takes some roots! How long would they even last outside of his body? He was a [Familiar], after all. Nothing remained once it was cut from him. Even the fish that tried to eat his leaves only found themselves munching on glimmers of light.

But, still! Fish were one thing, but Yggdrasil didn’t like being poked by mudballs, and he had a solution to this problem. He recast his [Animadversion]. A twisted hunk of silver metal took form out of the waters, to hover in front of Yggdrasil’s trunk. That shield slowly began to circle Yggdrasil, like a slowly orbiting moon.

… He liked it like that. It reminded him of the Silver Star in the sky.

His father had called him a ‘World Tree’. Maybe one day he’d have a real moon of his own!

That sounded pretty ‘cool’.

Yggdrasil liked that word, too. It did not mean exactly what it meant! How cool was that!

The mudball came back the next day. The mudball struck at another root with another glass vial. The vial bounced off of Yggdrasil’s white roots; reflected! The little vial must have been a lot of magic to actually reflect like that. How odd! How funny!

Ha! Yggdrasil laughed a little as the mudball kept trying.

His laugh sent vibrations through the lake.

That mudball froze as the fishes that swam around Yggdrasil all suddenly billowed out of the [Familiar], like flocks of birds disturbed by a great threat. The mudball seemed to look up at Yggdrasil.

Yggdrasil popped open a [Scry] orb, big as the mudball and as shifting as a kaleidoscope, right on top of the mudball, staring down at the camouflaged creature.

The mudball blipped away.

… But would it come back?

Whatever!

Yggdrasil turned his attention back to his ‘father’, and realized that he liked that term the more he used it. ‘Creator’ was too… was not… was inadequate. Yes. ‘Creator’ was inadequate. Creators created and then did whatever. Fathers raised.

He watched his father try to understand [Gate].

He copied some of what he saw with his roots, and branches, but he didn’t understand what he was seeing, either. Oh well!

– – – –

Justine walked along the shores of Candlepoint’s lake, her shoes tapping on the dark stone boardwalk as her new dress fluttered in the breeze. It was a nice day, made nicer for the fact that her current guest was a rather pleasant person, most of the time, and that the boardwalk was actually ready to be visited. It did not look this good yesterday!

Princess Weilux pointed out a restaurant, saying, “That was a pile of bricks. And now it is much more than that.” She sniffed the air, and smiling, said, “Now it smells like lunch. Let’s go!” She walked off, her pace quicker than before.

Justine kept up with the younger woman, saying, “Of course, Princess.”

The princess’s guard scowled, as always, but said nothing, as always. She was a rather taciturn woman with too many scars upon her face and enough plate to her fullplate to mark her as a rather high-powered warrior, but she moved without making a sound, keeping right up with her charge, and with Justine. There was another hidden bodyguard not ten meters away that kept up with the princess, too, but that bodyguard was more of a nightmare figment than an actual presence on the field.

Neither of the Princess’s charges spoke, for whatever reason. Justine had asked after the princess’s guards, once. She had tried to make the three of them comfortable when they arrived two days ago, but for all of the 19 year-old’s child-like acting and niceties, the Princess of the West Bank, daughter to King Rashi and second in line for the throne, only acted like this to put people at ease, before she went for the throat.

She did not see to the comfort of her subordinates. She did not actually care for the desires of other people. She was probably a sociopath, according to the dossier that Mephistopheles had put together for Justine. Or maybe she was just exactly as much of a ‘princess’ as she had to be, which, in her case, was pretty damned scary. She had gotten even more scary after it was revealed that her younger sister had been Converted, and then unconverted.

But for all that, Princess Weilux was not as scary as a Shade, for she was first and foremost a diplomat.

The only power she truly held was the ability to angle the entire Wasteland toward war with Candlepoint, or away from war. So, she wasn’t as scary as a Shade, but all-out war was scary in its own way, for there was no way that Candlepoint could survive. Oh, sure, they could all run away and hide like they were cultists, or some shit like that.

But Candlepoint was the chance for shadelings to live in the open, under their own power. And sure, Justine wasn’t a shadeling anymore, but that had been a large part of her life, and she would never abandon her people. Even if she hadn’t been reborn under Koyabez’s power and charged with bringing lasting peace between shadelings and the rest of civilization, she would still be here, still doing exactly this, but in some other, unknown way.

The princess stopped at the outdoor settings, just outside the restaurant, where other people were already sitting down and eating. The Princess looked to a seat that was occupied, near the waters; the perfect seat, hence the current occupation.

… And then she chose the second best seating, a bit closer to the water, a bit more in the wind. The table had yet to be cleaned, but that didn’t bother the princess. She threw a [Cleanse] at the space and sat down, then organized the now-cleaned plates with a quick [Telekinesis] and moved them off to another table.

Other people watched this. So did Justine. But Justine sat down across from the princess and said not a word. The entire action had taken less than five seconds.

Princess Weilux was a dangerous person, because she tried to put you at ease. Justine recognized this. Unlike how Erick tried to put people at ease because he wanted peace and prosperity for all, Princess Weilux wanted power for the Wasteland above all, and she wasn’t afraid to murder to get it.

Her dossier put her first murder at age 7, when a nanny came into her rooms with poisoned cupcakes.

Princess Weilux snapped her fingers at the waiter looking at her, who was likely wondering ‘who the fuck this bitch was’. But he got with the program fast enough. Most shadelings could do that, if given enough context clues, and there certainly were a lot of those clues going on around here right now. For starters, Justine was well known, and she would have been in Mephistopheles’s position if fate had been slightly different.

The waiter ignored his other shadeling guests and came right over, saying, “What may I serve you today?”

“A nice wine, purple, if you got it, and three of your best fish dishes.” Princess Weilux asked, “And how did you get a clientele when you weren’t open yesterday?”

“Right away ma’am.” The waiter noticed that the Princess was testing him, though he did not know the test. How could he know the test? He couldn’t. So he said, “And our cook and a few of us have been cooking in the neighborhood for a while, just trying to make it, but then the lake happened and then all the fish, too. It’s been going well, and so we decided to open this place. We got our approval for this place a few days ago, but it wasn’t till last night that the building crew got to us, and so today is our first day. Thank you for blessing us with your business.” He waited.

Princess Weilux smiled; a mask. “Good luck on making your fortune. You’ve certainly got a good location.”

The waiter smiled, also a mask. “It is our good fortune.” He bowed a little, then said, “I’ll go put your order in.” He walked away; not too fast, not too slow. He ignored the people at the other table that he had been serving. Those others were just more shadelings, like himself, and there was a hierarchy in all the world that demanded he serve this unknown incani guest, first.

Or at least get her order into the kitchen before coming back to the tables.

Princess Weilux said, “I know it was seeded a while ago, but fish do take time to grow, especially in a new lake.” In a way that was both casual and not, she asked, “You didn’t even have a fish restaurant open in this city when I booked my trip. And today, you do. Are the fish old enough to be served?”

There were many ways this could go. Justine considered telling Weilux that her known love for fish dishes was considered by Mephistopheles and herself, and thus this restaurant was fast-tracked through the system, all in an effort to make the princess feel more comfortable. This was the most truthful statement.

Another ‘truth’ would be that they were hurrying to develop everything that they could develop, and that included restaurants on the boardwalk. This was closer to a lie. Despite all of the bounty that was available to Candlepoint, utilizing that bounty would require trade and resources that the city just did not have. Restaurants with luxury food were low on the list of necessities. This new fishery was an extravagant endeavor. It would have been better to spend resources, both in the collective manapower and time of Candlepoint’s residents, on developing the cottonfruit fields and the textile industry. Now there was an industry. Something that could be exported. Restaurants? Not so much.

But people gotta eat, and bad food is one of the ways that people just stopped caring about everything else, and retreated back into that servile fugue-state of the before times. Justine had seen that specific backslide many times when she was a shadeling in Ar’Kendrithyst, and a few times more recently.

Justine chose a middle ground, deflecting the answer into another way that would entice Weilux to learn more, and explore more. “Our sewermaster, Ava Jadescale, is spearheading the development of the luxuries of Candlepoint. One of those luxury items is good food, but we could all use some good food. This fishery is just one such place.”

“Hmm.” Princess Weilux nodded, then asked, “How much is this meal going to cost?”

Another question with a few good answers.

Justine picked out the best truth for the moment, saying, “We don’t operate on a gold-currency right now, so this makes a normal economy difficult at the moment. All the people you see here are here on work-vouchers. Anyone who works gets vouchers; the darkchips that Candlepoint started with. A lot of people work in the fields, but I’m sure that once the fish start truly populating the lake, then we’ll open up that industry, too.” She added, “As for how much this meal will cost? It’s free, for you are a guest of Candlepoint.”

“… Adequate.” Weilux asked, “But how much would it cost, in gold, if you had access to the economies of our Wasteland?”

“3 silver for a good meal. 5 silver for a meal here.” Justine said, “We are working to provide luxuries, but this is as good as we can do at the moment.”

“I suppose it would have been rude of me to expect a 10 gold fillet.”

Justine did not respond to that except to put on a tiny smile and pretend like everything was okay.

The waiter brought out three dishes and set them before Weilux. Each of them was normal fish fare, dressed up as nice as could be, given the circumstances. One was breaded and fried, with some fries on the side; lotta grease, there, but it was a popular meal and a nod toward Erick bringing potatoes to the world. The other fillet was steamed, and served with citrus from Erick’s Myriad Citrus trees; that would be the best one, in Justine’s opinion. The third was some sweet sauced fish on rice; a staple dish of the Wasteland.

Each of the dishes were made of singular fillets of fish. Each of those fillets were barely half the size of Justine’s own hand. They were full fillets, too. Young fish. Too young. Justine winced, internally.

Weilux smirked at the fish, saying, “Young fish. Too young. Oh well. They’ll grow up, I’m sure.” She gestured to the dishes. “Would you like one? I had expected to share, but I didn’t expect to need to share quite this much. If I like one, I might have to order another, if that’s okay with your voucher system?”

Justine zeroed in on the citrus one, saying, “That one. I love the citrus trees that Erick— that Archmage Flatt has provided us.”

Weilux slid the plate toward Justine, saying, “You were a part of his household for a little while, I understand—”

The waiter rushed out with the wine, his white eyes too wide. He had panicked and not served the wine first. A mistake like that would have gotten him killed in Ar’Kendrithyst, but here—

Weilux did not look to the man, as she said, “Wine generally comes before the meal.”

“A thousand apologies, Prin—” He shut up.

Weilux brightened, though. She turned to him, saying, “So you do know of me!”

The man, who was named Grett, and who Justine had known for months, now, said, “Uh.” And then he left the bottle and got out of there as fast as possible.

Not the best strategy, in Justine’s opinion, but he didn’t have to deal with Weilux anymore if he wasn’t actually here anymore. So? If it works, it works.

Weilux served herself some wine, happy as a cat who caught a mouse, as she asked, “I know that Candlepoint is poor, and that you throw resources at diplomats in order to make yourself look better, or to woo us, but I’d like to not do that anymore. If we’re to trade, I need to see Candlepoint for what it is.”

Justine shrugged, going with the flow as she grabbed a lemon slice and squirted it on her fish, saying, “Sure. You know, I expected your tour to break down yesterday when we were walking through the threadspinner fields. Some people barely know how to raise a good spider, but we’re learning.”

Weilux held up her wine glass, asking, “How much did you learn under Archmage Flatt?”

Without missing a beat, Justine said, “Enough to know that he’s a man too good for this world, and so he’ll make some new ones, for sure.”

Weilux paused, her drink halfway to her lips. And then she took a sip. She set down her glass, not taking her eyes off of Justine for a single moment. She said, “You really think that.”

“It’s a fact.” Justine said, “I could stop the whole tour right now, if that’s all you want to know. One day, Candlepoint will be the gateway to the stars. Do you want to get in on that? A lot of people have, so far. A lot of people have decided otherwise.”

Weilux hummed, then ate a bite of her fish. She smiled, saying, “This is rather good sweet-sauced fish for 5 silver, even if the portions are rather small. Ripping xerix, if I’m not mistaken.”

Justine said, “We’ve got fields and fields of million fish grass out there, and yes, ripping xerix. Several types of xerix, from silverscale to pin to zorut. We’ve the three reservoir fish going strong. Rainbow flits. Goldscale slippers. Striped silvertail. Bountiful fortuna, too, but those will take years to mature to a proper sport-size. Right now they mostly hide out in Yggdrasil’s underwater boughs.”

Weilux asked, “Is Yggdrasil on the tour?”

“If you want him to be, though I suggest you just look at him from afar, with a [Scry]. People started to gather around him too much and he didn’t seem to like that. I can point him out on a map for you.”

“You give out his location so easily.” In the most non-threatening manner, Weilux asked, “You’re not worried that someone will just [Dispel] him, erasing Candlepoint’s future at the same time?”

In the same non-threatening manner, Justine said, “Not an issue. People have tried to [Dispel Familiar] him along with a whole mess of other erasing magic. None of it worked. We’re not sure of all of his protections, but there’s a lot of them.”

You’d need a Wizard to [Dispel] Yggdrasil, but Justine did not say that.

Weilux smirked.

They resumed their lunch.

– – – –

It had been three days since the older archmage had fallen ill after a sudden scare. The Senior Rockys had come to Tenebrae’s Estate and made themselves at home, though not many of them were willing to speak to Erick, or anyone else in Erick’s party. Jane and Teressa had decided on the second day of inactivity that they wanted to explore the Forest, or rather, Jane had decided, and Teressa looked like she wanted to go, so Erick made the suggestion that Teressa go with Jane.

Teressa readily accepted.

What was there to explore? Erick had no fucking idea, and the excuse of ‘more monster forms!’ seemed pretty damn thin. The two women weren’t going into the Green Labyrinth, though, which was the most dangerous place around, so they were probably fine. Erick sent along a pair of Ophiel with them so he could watch and rescue them, if needed, but he shouldn’t have bothered. All he ended up doing was making himself a worried mess.

The two women were absolute powerhouses. Lesser Armed Sloths came out of the trees, slamming into Teressa from every angle, hitting her shield, or her armor, or getting blocked by her mace, failing to harm the Juggernaut at all. Teressa just roared, flickering with grey light as she taunted the beast, drawing the monster’s full attention as Jane moved to kill.

His daughter was a blur of shadows and ethereal armor. The sloth struck toward her with two long, multi-joined arms, claws ready to pierce and slash. Jane ghosted through the attack and clipped off the offending arms with a snicker-snack of her meters-long sword; her usual weapon.

Erick had yet to see her pull out her [Prismatic Body], and he doubted that he would. The monsters around here were deadly, yes, but Jane and Teressa were both outfitted with artifacts on their fingers, boosting their Stats to powerful heights, and they both had lots of experience with dark places and big monsters. Were they actually in danger?

… Erick told himself that they weren’t. That they knew their limits, and that neither of them were using their major spells or abilities. Teressa moved like she had eyes in the back of her head. Erick watched as she sidestepped poison darts that exploded from vines twining up trees in the dark; her mana sense was active, for sure. Jane did much the same, as she bobbed through the suddenly-there spider webs from a particularly red, person-sized spider that was hanging on the tree, and that had not been red before that moment—

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Erick’s heart caught in his chest as the unmoving spider threads suddenly moved, detaching from where they anchored, twisting up and around Jane like—

Jane turned prismatic, easily slipping out of the spider threads. In a quick click of movement, Jane was suddenly standing in the air beside the spider, her longsword embedded in the bark under the spider.

The bottom half and then the top half of the spider slipped off of the tree, falling down to the loam below. Jane turned back to human, laughing, eyes wide. Teressa’s eyes were wide, too. They gave each other some mental back-and-forth in their telepathic connection, no doubt. Jane shrugged.

The red spider was dead.

Jane turned into a black spider and began eating.

… Erick looked away.

Erick read over a particular account of Tenebrae’s trip through the Green Labyrinth for the tenth time, the words mostly flitting in and out of his head as he tried not to worry over something he shouldn’t even worry about. Jane and Teressa were fine. Everything was fine.

– – – –

One of the fun things about being a Polymage, Jane thought, was that with her Class Ability, Shifting Form, she could integrate most any piece of any Familiar Form into any other Familiar Form. Some things just did not translate, though, like the High Flier of her Frost Owl and any form that did not naturally fly, like the new barnacles she got at the auction.

It was rather difficult to integrate the camouflage ability of her Prismatic Octopus into any other form, too, because that particular ability required malleable skin and a malleable body. Shadow Spiders did not have skin, for instance. She could partially integrate the Octopus’s color changing ability into every form, but in most cases, all she could do was to make herself be able to change color. Great for having options, but it was not the best.

But having two Familiar Forms that were as close as her Shadow Spider and this new Red Thread Weaver? Brilliant! This new spider form had [Telekinetic Threads]. It was a much improved version of [Telekinesis], but only with regard to the threads that Jane laid, and much cheaper on the mana. A lot of man-eater spiders had this ability, but Shadow Spiders did not; they were more tarantulas than other species.

Jane had almost picked up a Ballooning Spider form to get this Ability, but those ones had an ability that was more air control focused than the [Telekinetic Threads] of this beautiful Red Thread Weaver.

And with Shifting Form, she was even able to give herself a red hourglass on her butt! How cute!

And thus, some childish part of her was overjoyed!

Teressa spoke up, “You’re cackling, Jane. It’s disconcerting.”

Jane abruptly stopped cackling. And then she slipped through the shadows to stand a few meters from Teressa. “Boo!”

Teressa inhaled sharply. She did not break stride. After a moment, she sent, ‘So why the red triangles?’

Jane ‘walked’ alongside Teressa, but it was more like floating. Her black legs held onto wispy threads that moved her along like a bacteria with a thousand well-controlled flagellum. [Telekinetic Threads] was pretty cool! As soon as the next monster appeared, Jane was gonna wrap it up with her already-prepared threads.

Jane sent, ‘It’s called an ‘hourglass’ pattern, and it’s the marker of one of the deadliest spiders on Earth, though the spider on Earth is only the size of your smallest fingernail, and it’s not all that deadly with modern medicine. Also, I’ve taken a lot of liberties with the form. The original spot for the hourglass is on the abdomen, but you can’t really see that, can you?’

‘It’s certainly making you stand out.’

‘… Yeah… Maybe it’s not the best.’ Happily, Jane sent, ‘Still, though! I didn’t expect to find a Red Thread Weaver out here.’

‘We could find you a Furry Stalker if you want something truly deadly.’

‘… Um. I’m not sure I like the name of that one.’

‘What is this hangup?’ Teressa smiled as she bent down, just a little, then vaulted five meters up, onto a fallen tree that blocked their path. She looked down at Jane. ‘What’s wrong with Furry Stalkers? Do you even know it? I assure you, it is deadly!’

Jane guided her threads to move her up the tree, like a queen on a palanquin. She rejoined Teressa, and sent, ‘I heard of them. They spread fine fur in the air that chokes and kills.’

Teressa nodded. Then she leapt off the other side of the fallen tree, landing in a mound of deadfall and sinking up to her knees. She trudged out of that like it was nothing, breaking rotten branches and making way too much noise, in Jane’s opinion.

Jane decided to try something. She expanded her threads outward, catching the air, falling much quieter than the orcol woman, but much less controlled. As her threads left the solid surfaces all around her, Jane slipped left and right in the air. She sent threads back to the tree behind her, guiding her controlled fall. She landed beside Teressa.

[Telekinetic Threads] did not mean [Air Threads], apparently.

… Maybe she should have gone for one of those Ballooning Spiders when she had the chance, but they were all underground, now.