152, 2/2

Breakfast was spicy sausage patties, fluffy pancakes dripping with caramelized cactus syrup, freshly ground coffee, piles of scrambled eggs, and an announcement from Jane, after she woke up and joined them at the table.

Jane set down three folders on the table, saying, “So I didn’t want to bring this up when you were working, but the Knowledge Mages around here are giving out packets of info on you. I think it’s propaganda in your favor.”

Erick paused in his bite of pancake. After a moment of thinking, chewing, and swallowing, he said, “Yeah. I know.” He added, “Well. I did not know that, specifically. I knew that information was going out through official channels, of which the Mind Mages are one, and then Treehome was another, and information was getting out there. I didn’t know that the Knowledge Mages were a part of this, but in retrospect, they must be. I’ve never actually been to one before… I try not to think about being under that much scrutiny.” He glanced at the folders. “What sort of propaganda?”

Jane said, “Great things, actually. How you saved lives. How you worked with Songli. Stuff like that.”

Teressa smiled. Poi said nothing. They both ate breakfast without interrupting Jane.

Jane continued, “I think they’re making you a national hero.”

“Ah.” Erick stabbed another bit of pancake, saying, “In the most rational sense, I am a national hero.”

Jane frowned. “I did not expect to hear you say that.”

“I’m either a hero who helped them push back against Terror Peaks, who helped to clear out thousands of hidden killers, and who cleared out the borders of even more hidden threats, or I’m a plot from Melemizargo to— I don’t know. Take over the world? Take over the next one, for sure, if Yggdrasil works out like I hope he does, and just lets anyone through anywhere they want to go. Or something.” Erick thought for a second, then said, “Melemizargo’s plan is more complicated than that.

“Melemizargo’s goal is to make Shades palatable again. His story would be that all the old ones needed was a Blessing of Empathy in order to stop them from working to harm the world, while the new ones would be much better. A part of that plan is him making me look good, else wise my Blessing upon the old Shades means nothing.

“I am not sure if Songli is playing to his tune because they must, for it is in their own interests, or maybe Melemizargo worked to make it so that their interests align, or… I should probably try to find Goldie or Queen and ask them what the fuck they’re doing, but…” He added, “Anyway. I expect Melemizargo to swoop into the scene in fifty or a hundred years and start making new Shades, when no one but the immortals remember how much pain they caused.”

Teressa had stopped eating the second the Darkness was mentioned.

Jane frowned, thinking.

Erick’s words had unsettled them both.

Poi simply nodded, though, saying, “That’s in line with our current expectations of the future.” He added, “By the way. We would like to search for puppet minds and masters, spinal spiders, putrescent slugs, and book slippers.”

Erick exclaimed, “Oh my gods! How did I forget about that? Yes! Let’s do that. Today. Talk to whoever needs talking, including Songli. Might as well start here, right?”

“Thank you, sir,” Poi said. He started sending out tendrils, as he said, “It should be considerably easier than counter-Hunting, or at least require fewer resources. Eradicating these monsters is a specialty of us Mind Mages, but finding them is a lot more difficult than you would think.”

Erick asked, “Is it because of antimemetic defensive mechanisms? Or whatever it is? Or some other reason?”

Jane came out of her thoughts to look at her dad, saying, “Where’d that come from? Antimemetic?”

Poi, on the other hand, froze, even as Erick was speaking his words. He unfroze, and said, “We don’t like to speak of Mind Magic protocols.”

Jane looked at Poi with sudden curiosity. “Is it because thinking is okay, but speaking activates latent thoughts? Or something?”

Poi said, “You both should stop… Talking about memes? Huh. Okay. Whatever. Do what you want.”

Something was obviously going on there.

Jane got a funny, happy look in her eyes, and turned to her father, asking, “With that super high intelligence you must remember some memes, right?”

Erick instantly said, “It’s been 84 years, Jane. I don’t remember all the ones you sent me.”

Jane chuckled, then said, “Okay, okay. This is so surreal for me. It’s like—”

And then small numbers and functions and math started to swirl around her head, written in white light as Jane’s mouth dropped open a little.

Erick responded, “To be fair, you have to have a really high IQ to remember more than a handful of memes.”

Jane laughed once, loud, then did something else. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened a little, in an ‘o’. And then her skin turned yellow, with red patches on her cheeks.

Oh!

“I know this one!” Erick exclaimed, “Surprised pikachu!” He laughed, saying, “I shared that one around the office when you sent it to me in an email. It was cute!”

Jane chuckled, and turned back. “I could have gone full pikachu, but you never go full pikachu.”

“I liked the o’rly owl, too,” Erick said, “But that one was before your time.”

Poi simply nodded at this exchange.

Jane almost said something more to Erick, but she noticed Poi. She turned to him, asking, “Those aren’t the memes you meant, were they?”

“Not at all.” Poi said, “And I won’t be elaborating on the kind I did me— dammit.”

Jane was already smiling. She said, “A meme which deletes itself and specific memories upon the speaking of it. All you have to do is get someone to say a thing, and something is deleted in them. I imagine it works like a temporary memory wipe, perhaps wiping out the previous hour, or maybe whatever sort of object you link to the wipe, with the potential to wipe anything from a specific person to a monster infection out of the mind of the recipient.”

Poi frowned, and said nothing.

“Am I right?” Jane asked.

Teressa had resumed eating at this point, but she paused to tell Jane, “You shouldn’t poke fun at what the Mind Mages do. Be glad you lived through your encounter with the one meme you did find.”

Jane’s good humor vanished. “Ah. Yeah. The moon reachers.” She frowned, asking Poi, “If you don’t want to talk about it, then fine.” She turned to her father. “But we should talk about you being made into a hero of Songli.”

Teressa nodded. “They’re gearing up to formally woo him to the Highlands.”

Poi said, “Yup.”

“I’m not sticking around here,” Erick said, frowning a little. “I like them well enough, but I need a smaller community. I like being able to theoretically disappear here, but it’s too… It’s too stuffy. I think. I’m not sure. I certainly didn’t get all of what I came here to get, though, so that’s a bit of a bummer.”

Jane said, “Kaffi seemed… alright. At the end, anyway. Still highly suspicious, though. I don’t know. That’s probably just me.”

Teressa said, “They’d do anything you want of them, including giving you a whole space for the shadelings of Candlepoint.”

“Well. Probably. But so what? I’ve got plans for Candlepoint and the Crystal Forest. I still need to make that place livable again.” Erick added, “And you know what? Maybe [Polymorph] needs to be harder to come by. Less crystal mimics means less [Polymorph] means less Hunters and face stealers.” As soon as he said it, he knew that he had to do it. Turning the desert into livable land, getting rid of all the crystal mimics, would be a major blow to the various evil uses of [Polymorph] around the world. But… “The Crystal Forest is the only place that [Polymorph] comes from, right?”

“The major source.” Poi said, “Alchemists with the spell can make the potion themselves, but without mimic ingredients that potion doesn’t always work right. Much, much less success rate.”

“I spent a lot of money on my first potion, and that failed. I got curious to know if that first alchemist cheated me, so I went back to check out his operation ready to see malfeasance, but the man was making potions properly; using the mimic parts people brought him.” Jane said, “Even back when I got my potion from him, he had a great big warning over his counter, and then he personally told me that it’s not a guaranteed potion. But I hoped it would work anyway. It didn’t. Ramizi told me the same thing, but his potion worked. I kinda felt bad about assuming I was cheated that first time, but it was nice to see I wasn’t.”

“That potion is a dice roll.” Poi said, “With mimics, you get a proper potion half of the time. Without mimics, you get a successful potion 2-3% of the time. But what’s worse, is that without mimics, the price of that potion flies into multiple grand-rad territory. 20 or 30 grand rads, actually. Economically non viable for all but the most dedicated. From there, the price would only get worse as time moved on and the mortals capable of making [Polymorph] potions passed on.” Poi said, “All of that is listed in the definitive [Polymorph] potion book; ‘A Study of [Polymorph] Potion’. A banned book, just so you know.”

Teressa said, “Some immortal or whoever would keep around some mimics, though. Just for that reason. That’s a mountain of gold; a massive investment in the future.”

At that, Erick had a funny thought.

He said, “Spur could regulate [Polymorph].”

“We’ve tried.” Poi said, “Didn’t work.”

“It would work if only one nation of the entire Crystal Forest controlled all the mimics,” Jane said.

“Yes.” Erick said, “That.”

Poi frowned. “I don’t think Silverite would want to do that?”

“Maybe she would.” Teressa said, “I hadn’t even considered the end of the Crystal Mimics bringing the end of easy [Polymorph]. It always seemed like such a far-off idea. Make believe; nothing truly real.”

Breakfast continued, and ended.

Erick decided to try his hand at making brownies, afterward. It was a nice diversion from his current responsibilities, and he felt he deserved it, so he was doing something nice for himself while he could. Later, he would send Ophiels to the Tribulations, to farm mist stone gluttons for their cores, to make up some of the money he had spent on the university. Later, he would talk to Tsung, and hunt for the Mind Mage threats, and see what was happening with the Warlord Clans.

Later.

Poi, who had been sitting at the kitchen table and sipping his coffee while he read, looked up, and said, “The Mind Mages are ready for Imaging. They’ve got samples and Songli has given the go-ahead.”

Erick laughed as he spooned brownie batter into trays. “You guys work fast— Ah. Oh. You probably had this ready for a while. Sorry about forgetting.” He paused, then said, “Songli worked fast, too. Were they ready for me to offer something like this?”

Poi smirked, then said, “I couldn’t say.” He added, “But for all their speed, only 9 targets in Warlord Clan lands seemed low. Were they actually doing everything they could, there? I’m not sure. They could have added more as the time wore on, but nothing more came.”

“Yeah. Something fuckey is going on there.” Erick put his three brownie trays into the oven, saying, “I think I may need to go out there my—”

From the other room, Teressa roared, “SOMETHING BIG IS COMING!”

For a long second, Erick blanked.

Then his instincts kicked in; [Hunter’s Instincts], specifically.

In the next flickering second, Erick focused on the world through Ophiel and his own mana senses. It took precious seconds, but he soon saw the attack. It was coming from the Ophiel he had floating ten kilometers up, in the billowing clouds above.

It seemed not to care for the [Alarm Ward]s it floated within, triggering with its presence.

Green scales. A long body, like a snake’s. Thick arms and legs. Horns with bits of horn floating around themselves. Spiked scales that rose along the back like a mountain ridge, as the entire body undulated downward. The dragon was the spitting image of Rozeta, except in green, and with its face pointed down at Erick’s temporary house. Its flesh was perfect; it was not a wyrm. It was a dragon.

The dragon was much, much larger than the Flare Couatl, or the Black Dragon that eventually killed the Flare Couatl. Its jaws were opened wide. If it were near Erick’s house, it could have swallowed the whole three story mansion on its own.

Why was it so big? Dragons weren’t usually that big. It had to have come empowered. Perhaps it had only just now dropped its various [Invisibility]s or other such obscuring spellwork. Erick guessed this much because as he watched, more and more of the dragon was revealed, as power began to gather in its mouth, like color draining from the world. Like mana draining from the world, to gather in a point of light between massive fangs, above a curling, forked tongue.

Three seconds had passed since Erick spied the beast. In that time, he had erected three spellworks around his house, and across First Devouring Nightmare Mountain. [Prismatic Lullaby] became a shield across all of the mountain, defending from the attack from above. [Spatial Denial] was a bubble around his house, but no further. [Domain of Light], supplemented by his own [Lodestar] Domain control, went across the entirety of First Devouring Nightmare Mountain.

He felt some Domains try to expand within his own, but he locked them down, and kept his own strong and active. High Clan Devouring Nightmare was trying to respond, but they were doing a poor job of it.

Erick would protect them.

So Erick flew an Ophiel into the dragon’s mouth, into the gathering spell, armed with a sunform and [Animadversion]. Ophiel flew right into the spellwork, not even triggering a shift in the light of what Erick now saw was an illusion of impeccable quality.

Erick came back to himself, saying, “The dragon is an illusion diversion. Look for the true attack.”

It was a very well made illusion. Ophiel was already loaded with Sight spells, and Erick still didn’t notice the dragon was fake. Now that he had interacted with the spell, though…

The dragon charging its attack still seemed real.

Poi was already talking to a dozen people on the other end of thought tendrils. Teressa stood a step into the dining room, wearing full armor and with her eyes closed in concentration. Jane stood in the doorway wearing her own conjured armor, ready for anything.

A few defensive spells went up around the clan mountain, but nothing large enough. There was no City Shield here, for some bizarre reason. Why wasn’t there a city shield? The dragon might be fake, but something was going down.

“What do you see?” Erick asked Teressa.

Teressa said, “Something is still comin… No?” She frowned, and opened her eyes. “Something was coming. I saw it! I know I did. It was a massive shadow in the manasphere, occluding all forward paths. Explosions? No. It wasn’t. You have to believe me!” Her voice was strained, with Teressa trying to keep it as level as possible.

“Of course I believe you,” Erick said, wondering why she sounded half-desperate. “This is likely a case of counter-Prognostication. Redarrow’s notes said—”

The dragon released its spell and a beam of power the width of Erick’s house lanced down through three intervening Ophiels, each with their own active [Animadversion]s, each poised to reflect whatever came their way.

The dragon’s spell went through the Ophiels without doing anything at all.

Then the illusionary magic struck against Erick’s [Prismatic Lullaby], and Erick felt, as much as saw, a terribleness turn real. The dragon wasn’t an illusion. It was Illusion. Elemental Illusion.

Light and shadow spilled in every direction, fountaining up and out of Erick’s [Prismatic Lullaby], but also punching through that barrier and reaching the [Domain of Light] underneath. Erick felt the attack against his Domain like someone was stabbing into his heart.

But he was prepared for it. The small pressures of the other small Domains of High Clan Devouring Nightmare were like tiny tests. This was the true exam.

Erick pushed back with the light that covered the clan mountain, straining against the power of the dragon’s Illusionary beam. Light and shadows burrowed into his power like an unceasing drill, like splattering acid. Like fakery made real.

Erick held.

The beam stopped after ten full seconds.

As the attack ended, the dragon vanished into the clouds like fading imagination.

It was then that Erick saw that he had not fully defended the mountain.

It was as though veils of obfuscation were lifted from every surface of every building, revealing exposed rooms and missing walls and blood and harm. The dragon’s Illusion Magic had not punched far into Erick’s Domain, but of the twenty one pagodas that reached up from the top of the white plateau, every single one had lost something. Some upper floors were simply gone. The lower floors were wholly intact, though. Most of the damage had been done to that which was close to the edge of Erick’s power.

It was as though droplets of Illusion had turned to acid across much of the rest of the mountain, eating away at gold decor and floors and gardens and—

Erick said, “Teressa. Tell me if you see anything else. I’m going to help people.”

He was already reestablishing his Domain of Light, and recasting the Lullaby.

Erick went into emergency healing and helping mode. The entire rest of the hornet’s nest that was Devouring Nightmare responded almost as fast. Before he knew what was happening, Poi stepped into Erick’s mind and helped him to coordinate with everyone else.

After five minutes, nothing else happened.

After ten, Devouring Nightmare was prepared for war, with defensive spells blossoming all across the mountain. A few nearby mountains had responded in kind.

After thirty minutes of nothing, people started to relax.

An hour later, with the mountain looking like a cake of various colored icing and gold decorations, everyone who needed to be healed had been healed. Casualties were counted.

Zero deaths.

Erick had to hear that a second time to believe it.

Zero deaths.

A good hundred and twenty close calls, but no deaths. Even the old ladies who watched Erick make magic had been perfectly fine, even though they spent a lot of their time on that porch, watching the world. They had been exposed to the dragon’s breath, which was what everyone was calling the attack, but they knew what it meant when Erick’s spells spread across the mountain. Everyone got to ground as fast as they could, as soon as they saw the air fill with power.

Most people were gracious and polite enough to thank him for his warning. Not a single person told him off for casting such large scale magics across everyone around him, though he could tell some of them wanted to yell at him. Erick had been prepared to apologize, and he had done so at first, but everyone was quick to tell him that he needn’t worry about that. He was obviously working for the good of them all. What need have he to apologize to those below him, and especially because he saved their lives with his actions?

It rubbed Erick the wrong way.

– – – –

In a caravan to the north, a man sat in a yurt on a chair, waiting in the green darkness, waiting for good news, waiting for his contact to get back to him. Suddenly, the flap to the yurt opened, spilling light into the darkness, haloing a woman in sunlight and illuminating the green furniture of the room. The man smiled.

The woman came inside, and shut the flap. Shadows swarmed, but held back from the woman.

The woman was not smiling.

The man’s demeanor crashed. He tried to reevaluate the path forward, but this woman had been his primary source of hope. And now she came to him, reeking of problems added to his hoard.

The woman sat down, saying, “Failure.”

“How?”

“Some anti-magic shield and his own [Domain of Light].”

“You assured me that you could get through the [Domain of Light] and his reflections.”

“What we actually said was that we could carve through a [Domain of Light] unless there are other tricks. There were other tricks. New tricks, too. We did get through his reflective magic, though, so that was nice to know.” The woman said, “There are counters to every magic out there. This is what it means to live under the Script. You knew that assaulting Erick would only ever be a chanced affair.”

“Fine. New plan. Let’s—”

“No.”

“… No?”

“No. We’re done. You liquidated your bargain of trade for an assassination attempt on Flatt. You’re on your own, now. If you wish to continue, then we will be discussing a new bargain of trade.”

The man stared hate at the woman, calmly saying, “The bargain was for a favor owed. Any favor at all. The favor demanded was an assassination. Not an attempt. We agreed that you would do whatever it took.”

“According to what we’ve seen you’re not going to be alive much longer when Erick gets here, so what do we care about upholding bargains with you?”

“You care, because if we survive, then we will bring papers against you in Ar’Cosmos.”

“So it is in our interest to help Erick, and to have him kill you, then? We are glad that we used your illusion in the attack, then, just as we knew we would need to do.”

The man reeled in his anger. “… Do not give in to our Cursed nature. We shall work together, for that is what we have always done. You merely need to uphold your end of our bargain, as we have always done. As we will always do.”

“Times are changing. Everything is changing.” The woman said, “Even bargains of trade are no longer as inviolable as they once were, especially when it comes to World Trees and new worlds.”

“The Storm Woman has a World Tree, too.” The man said, “Even if that man walks the Path, he will never last the hundred years it would take for Yggdrasil to become real.”

The woman smiled. “And so, we come to an option; the creation of another bargain. One much more conducive to our needs. Both of our needs.”

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“… We had thought we were of one mind, but then you failed to uphold your bargain and now you come at us with this new demand.” The man deadpanned, “What do you want?”

“We want the World Tree in mortal hands. It will be much easier to use this way. We know this. You know this. Let us not argue this point.” The woman stared at the man, her red eyes glinting in the light. “Instead, help us to understand your true problem. It is in the fact that Erick is coming this way, and you want him to not?” She needled, “Is there some true reason why you don’t want him coming here and clearing away the Hunters and the face stealers? He’s not even targeting our kind, though with how we enacted your bargain, that might change.”

“Why did you even do it that wa—! Unimportant.” The man frowned. “Flatt’s magic will eventually find us. He is culling the world of threats, and Kirginatharp already has him in his claws, and so, Flatt will come for us, sooner or later. Now that he is coming my way, his existence has become a problem we cannot overlook.” The man explained, “Our bargain was for a solution to Flatt’s longstanding, major threat against all of our kind. This is how we presented it when we requested the assassination. It was under these understandings that you agreed with our reasoning. What changed your mind?”

“We see we are talking across each other and not actually conversing.” The woman said, “Shift your stance to come at us directly, and honestly, or this conversation ends now. Why not clear out the rats and trash inhabiting your lands? Were 9 kills too close to home? Or was it the fervor with which those 9 were judged that made you uncomfortable?”

“This conversation is over unless you can see that you have wronged us, and that you have failed in the enactment of our bargain.” He spat, “Shift your own stance, and talk plainly.”

The woman laughed. “We will talk plainly for you, and only you. Erick needs to walk the Path, and then he needs to be hidden from the world for a hundred years. Defended, ideally. Sequestered, less ideally. If you want to talk about actual solutions then bring the man to Ar’Cosmos of his own volition, and let us work at single purposes upon him. In the worst possible case, we can lock him into a time-shift, and ensure that he survives long enough to ensure Yggdrasil becomes what he is meant to be.”

“This would be a fine solution if we were not having a problem with him right now.”

“Learn to live in a city, and your ‘problem’ will go away.”

The man huffed. “If you will not assist us in how our bargain demands, then get out of our home. We will be bringing charges against you in Ar’Cosmos.”

“If you survive!”

“Remove yourself.”

The woman got up and left, shoving wide the flap of the domicile, briefly illuminating the shadows, revealing green scales and claws that were not truly there. And then the flap shut again.

The man was alone in the green darkness of his yurt.