155, 2/2, End of Book 5

While Nirzir slept the sleep of the dead, since she was not on a watch, yet, Erick woke up at the crack of noon, just in time for lunch.

Jane had made lunch; she had stayed home today. But even more surprising than that, was that she had cooked.

For a certain definition of ‘cooked’, anyway.

Erick happily took the paper box with the image of rice on it —it was the largest box of the whole set— and grabbed himself some rice, teasing, “I love it when you cook, Jane.”

“It’s quite a magical experience, to be sure. All I do is tell someone what I want, and I get what I want.” Jane stuck a fork in her not-general-tso’s chicken, smiling as she said, “Not quite as magical as the nascent Twisted Vision you made last night.”

Erick paused halfway through dumping some seared vegetables onto his plate. Teressa was looking at him, waiting for a denial. Poi was eyeing him, knowingly. Jane was being nonchalant about it, but she was rather sure she hit the mark, exactly right. And she had.

Erick served himself some vegetables, and said, “So you all talked about that, eh? I was hoping that fact would go unseen for a little while longer. I was going to bring it up… eventually. But. Anyway. I certainly did not plan on that aspect of [Undertow Star], but you’d have to be blind not to notice the way the ambient mana moved last night. Spells don’t normally make mana move like that.”

Teressa softly said, “I was hoping I was seeing things last night. But… I guess I wasn’t.”

“Nope; you weren’t. And now that we’re openly talking about it, we can go ahead and talk about it.” Erick handed the three of them [Luminosity], saying, “I also made this spell yesterday when you were all sleeping. It’s a Particle spell based around extreme light, and I used it when making [Undertow Star]. Its purpose is to deny the magics of non-approved people. [Spatial Denial] is also part of [Undertow Star], as you noticed last night, Jane.

“Both of these things mimic the most widely known abilities of Twisted Visions; primarily the ability to fuck up any escape through Spatial magic, and to also deny you your strongest offensive powers.” Erick said, “I did not intend this when I was making [Undertow Star], but the similarities cannot be denied.”

Poi sent, ‘We’re moving this conversation to silent telepathy before you mention [Duplicate] out loud.’

‘Fair enough.’ Erick said, ‘As Poi has brought up, right before I could, I did not put [Duplicate] in this working. I don’t think I ever would have, either. But that brings me to the next thought: The soul spear.’

Jane and Teressa gasped a little. Poi frowned.

Yes; he was deflecting them off track for talking about [Undertow Star]. Erick wasn’t going to admit that, though. Erick had hoped he would have at least another day to organize his thoughts better, but what could you do? His people were not dummies, after all. He decided to just be glad that other people were seeing what he saw; it helped to confirm he wasn’t being paranoid.

‘Oh my gods.’ Teressa said, ‘They got the soul spear from the dragons.’

Jane countered, ‘Or Xangu had a Vision copy the spear. We still haven’t found the man, or his trail.’

Teressa eyed Erick. ‘Well that’s a dead end, anyway. How would we even check on such a thing? I want to talk about [Undertow Star] more. How deep does this go?’

Erick nodded; back to the main subject, then. ‘Let’s go all the way back to the beginning, to my ideas of a [Renew] spell. I want anyone to be able to cast into an ongoing spell to keep that spell working, but that idea never worked out, exactly.

‘But while we were here, on this Worldly Path, I saw the guards of Treehome use Draining spells to knock down killers. That’s where I got the idea to go in a different direction with [Renew]; to make a [Drain Ward] that could power other spells. It wasn’t till we got here, to Songli, to where I saw the Void Wall and heard the Void Song that I actually went forward with those nascent ideas formed in Treehome.

‘But the Undertow spell I made last night is incomplete, if one were to compare it to a Twisted Vision, and it’s incomplete because I just didn’t think to include those other parts of this spell. I didn’t even think about including those parts until just now, here in this discussion.’

Teressa looked concerned with her lips in a slight frown, exposing her large lower fangs. Jane narrowed her eyes, worried, but in a way that said ‘My gods, dad, what did you do?’. Poi took Erick’s words in stride; probably because he had already figured this stuff out long before now, what with his Mind Mage information network, and everything.

Erick continued, heedless of the looks he was getting, ‘As I see it, there are certain pieces missing from [Undertow Star] that are present in a Twisted Vision. [Duplicate] is the major piece, but I’m not putting that in there. Why would I? No thank you. I also failed to include [Mysticalshape], which is another spell I just learned and then used to great effect, but which didn’t go into last night’s spell. I also used [Spatial Denial], where a Twisted Vision spell might use [Teleport] instead, or— OH! Now that I’m talking about it: a Spatial Magic Domain. That’s probably more correct.

‘That the Vision has a Domain is likely why it recognizes other Domains really quickly.’ He added, ‘Oh yeah. And that’s another thing… Another two things, actually. First: Twisted Visions live in the Forest, of which there are trees, and I just learned some impressive tree magic. So that’s probably a part of [Gate], too, though I didn’t include that, either. But more importantly, as it concerns [Gate]:

‘I don’t think [Gate] is actually about linking two spaces, at all. That’s just what it looks like to the end user. I think [Gate] might truly be about the creation of a being —a summon— that opens up in two different areas. This creature then allows the people who go through the summon at one place to travel to a different place. Perhaps such a creature might even look like [Undertow Star] with tendrils for people to enter through and then exit out the other side, in another place. Or maybe such a summoned creature would look more like a tree? World Trees are supposed to naturally have this functionality, too, after all. Perhaps this functionality is a feature of having bodies that stretch across the universe.

‘But I might need to make a Spatial Magic Domain and add that into [Undertow Star] in order for the emergent property of the ‘[Gate] spell’ to appear out of the working.

‘Or, perhaps, I am completely wrong about that.

‘Probably not wrong about the Space Domain, though.

‘But I pursued [Draining Elemental] in order to produce a framework into which [Gate] could be slotted, so that anyone could expose themselves to the [Gate] and power the [Gate], without me or anyone else needing to [Renew] or recast the [Gate]. In that pursuit, I arrived at the Undertow effect, which is applicable to any spellwork, and which can last forever, if enough people, or monsters, are exposed to the spellwork. But now that I’ve made it…

‘Perhaps the Old Dragonkin Gate Network has a similar Undertow spell working in the background, and since it is a magical construct that has ‘lived’ this long, maybe the Network has gained a sentience. Maybe it has gained a soul. Maybe that’s the answer to Teressa’s concern over ‘what happens when Undertow Star Drains a million mana’, or, in this case, billions upon billions of mana. Trillions, even. Maybe, eventually, when exposed to that much mana, the Gate Network mutated from its original purpose, to become a Twisted Vision.

‘Or perhaps, the Twisted Visions are the fully intact and functional Old Dragonkin Gate Network, but the Gates that those monsters used to attach to are long gone, lost to the Rage Wars and to civilization’s solution to those wars of destroying the Gate Network.

‘Perhaps the writing inside of the Gates Tenebrae has found are truly nonsense words, only there to guide where the [Gate] openings should be, written in a language known only to the Visions, or to the Green Labyrinth, in particular.’

Erick stopped sending.

Teressa, Jane, and Poi, sat there around the lunch table, digesting what he had sent them, and also their food. No one had stopped eating while Erick was sending, and Erick didn’t stop eating, either. Now that he was done, though, Jane had a slight scowl. Poi was surprised, but not talking about his surprise.

Teressa…

Teressa sent, ‘Okay. That was a lot. You might be right about the Twisted Visions… But they don’t look like trees. They look like crystal growths the size of an orcol, planted in the middle of a grove.’

‘Really?’ Erick said, ‘Tenebrae’s writings said they were any number of things that were inside the main monsters of the Twisted Vision, like cores.’

‘Treehome has killed smaller Visions when they encroach upon the city, or when they hunker down in the center of major roads. We know what they look like,’ Teressa sent. ‘They’re almost exactly like monster cores, but only when they’re disturbed. Otherwise they’re just big hunks of crystal planted in the middle of a grove. When they’re disturbed, they summon a monster to surround the crystal. That’s how they move from place to place, too.’

Erick grinned, happy to see Teressa having a contribution to the discussion. ‘Where did you read that? I haven’t read that anywhere, yet?’

Teressa said, ‘I looked it up after we left Treehome. Sent some messages to some people and they got back to me, through Poi.’

Poi nodded, sending, ‘That is correct.’

Erick was ecstatic, ‘Oh! That’s great news then, Teressa! That helps me to understand the problem, too. Thank you. Maybe [Undertow Star] is capable of making one of those large crystals? Maybe not. I don’t know anything about that at all.’

Teressa briefly blushed, then shook her head, waving off the nice words.

Jane sent, ‘I wanna know about Yggdrasil. How does this relate to him?’

‘Ah! And that’s another thing.’ Erick sent, ‘I made a World Tree while on the Worldly Path. But is Yggdrasil the World Tree because the blue box says he is? Or is Yggdrasil still locked down by divine mandate, and he will become a World Tree when those locks are broken?’ Erick handed out the box for Yggdrasil, saying, ‘This box has never changed from its initial form.’

Erick sent, ‘It still says that ‘The World Tree has yet to be planted’ even after all this time.’

Jane read along with everyone else, but she was the first to send out her thoughts, ‘So. Yeah. I think you need to give him [Gate] for him to be able to [Gate]. Or perhaps the Yggdrasil that Sininindi got is the real one, and since that one is still growing, maybe that other one might take over your Yggdrasil when it comes of age?’ She added, ‘Your spell specifically says ‘Sapling’. So… I don’t really know—’

Poi sent, ‘Nirzir is awake.’

‘She wasn’t already?’ Jane frowned, then turned back to her father. ‘What does the Quest for the Worldly Path look like?’

Erick showed her, and everyone else at the table, too.

‘That one hasn’t changed, either.’ Erick said, ‘We can table the rest of this discussion for now, anyway; it’s a lot to think about.’

Jane nodded, then helped herself to some seconds. Aside from a few ‘large news’ pauses during lunch, no one had really stopped eating.

Erick served himself seconds, too, saying, “It’s a lot easier to send while eating, isn’t it?”

Poi said, “It’s considered highly rude in most cultures. Less so among adventurers in the field.”

“It’s a sign of bad times back at the Forest,” Teressa said, with her fork stuck in the last bite of her own lunch. “The need to be quiet is never a good need.”

Erick said, “If Nirzir turns out well, then we should be able to have these discussions more openly, soon enough.”

Lunch was over, but there were plenty of leftovers for Nirzir for when she finally dragged herself into the kitchen. She certainly took her sweet time about it, though. While everyone else went their separate ways for a little while, Erick remained in the kitchen to make some cinnamon rolls. After he got through making the dough, he sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and a book, to wait for the dough to rise.

Nirzir finally got out of bed and plodded toward the kitchen. As she rounded the corner and entered Erick’s sight, Erick almost laughed. The girl’s hair was a mess. Her robes were askew. She had bags under her eyes and she slumped as she walked. Was this, perhaps, the very first time she had ever gotten up on her own, after a long night out?

That possibility was high!

Nirzir blinked around, and grogged out, “I smelled… food?”

“About half an hour ago.” Erick chuckled, and with a lightform touch, he blipped a plate of lunch out from the cold box, and onto the table. He added a small [Heat Ward] to the chilled meal, saying, “It’ll take a moment to heat.”

Nirzir’s eyes lit upon spying the piled food. She sat down immediately, saying, “Thank you, thank you.”

Within seconds, the food was steaming and the [Heat Ward] canceled on its own. Nirzir dug in.

By the time she had finished her lunch, the dough had risen, so Erick offered her, “Want to learn to make cinnamon rolls? I already made the base.”

Looking much more alert than she had when she walked in the room, Nirzir said, “Uh.” She decided, “Yes. Yes I do.” She added, “I also need to go get some stuff and bring it back here. Am I. Uh. Am I carrying my own things?”

“Yup.” Erick said, “And there’s not going to be any [Force Platform]s, either. Just a backpack, if you can.”

Her eyes went a little wide. Then she glanced backward, and asked, “What are you going to do with all of your stuff?”

“I’m going to hide it in a nice spot and leave a guardian to watch over it.”

Nirzir frowned a little. She offered, “You could leave it with my family? We got space.”

Erick looked to Nirzir, and considered. Taking her offer would be a good way to establish some sort of relationship with the main Void Song family, wouldn’t it? Or maybe accepting her offer would just be the logical extension of what Erick was already doing; handing over stuff wasn’t as valuable as handing over a daughter, but there would at least be some reciprocity in the gesture. But… He would not entrust anyone with the important books, and he was just fine with stuffing everything into a stone sphere and dropping that sphere into an uninhabited part of the unpopulated plains. He wasn’t even going to put up a ‘guardian’ over the location, or anything like that, for that would just give away the buried treasure.

He decided, “I appreciate the offer, and I thank you for it, but I will not be accepting. No doubt you will one day have banned books and untold power written down in your possession, too, and you wouldn’t want to entrust those materials to anyone else, even if you trust them not to read what is written. I would feel better with the materials stuffed into the ground somewhere, and so, that is what I am going to do.” He got up, and said, “Now let’s make those cinnamon rolls.”

Nirzir’s face reddened with embarrassment, briefly, and then she steeled herself, and said, “I am ready.”

Making cinnamon rolls was much easier than other types of cooking, considering Erick had already made the dough. Nirzir got into it, and with flour on her hands and a smile on her face, she spoke about how it was just like Shaping, but with her hands instead of her aura! Easy stuff!

They were good rolls.

Afterward, Nirzir went back home for a bit, to pack and get ready for the trip. Jane offered to go with her. Erick thought that a bit odd, and he was still worried about Jane ditching them on the rest of the trip… But he did not voice that concern. Nirzir was happy for the company.

After the two girls had gone, Erick spoke to Teressa and Poi, “I told Nirzir that I would seal our stuff in a boulder and drop it off somewhere, but I’d prefer to just drop it off at Spur. And besides that, I have to recast Yggdrasil in the lake; they have to be running out of [Control Weather] by now— Okay. I see you have objections, Poi.”

Poi said, “Don’t worry about the weather over Spur. Kiri is filling in with a derivative of [Call Lightning], tuned to bring the rain. Don’t worry about our stuff; you should just put it inside a boulder and drop it in the ground somewhere. That is standard operating protocol for a reason. And do not forget: Silverite has strict instructions for you not to return to Spur until you are off your Worldly Path, and I feel you should honor that request.”

“I gotta agree with Poi, Boss,” Teressa said.

“… ugh. Fine. You’re probably right.” Erick said, “But we still need to get ready to go. I’ll put up a [Teleport Platform] on the third floor, so let’s start gathering.”

They started moving.

Erick quickly realized that he had gotten a lot of stuff. Books, mostly, but there were also clothes he had made, and small things he had bought at stores here and there, just so he could commemorate the trip. There was a nice vase that was practically ‘stereotypical Chinese’, but instead of blue on white, it was red on white; it was a minimalist brushstroke landscape of the Tribulations. Erick liked it. He also liked the small box full of blue weed that Syllea had given him, and his record player that he didn’t get a single chance to use yet…

He still hadn’t figured out how to make a camera.

He missed his camera; he would have liked to have taken some photos.

Whelp!

He could magic up some lightwards, though! So Erick did that, grabbing some stone from outside and shaping some settings, using his memory of the people he had seen to lightpaint people onto that stone. There was Xue and Sikali. Ari. Kaffi. Tadashi; a whole and healthy version. Jane with her sword and armor. Teressa in her veil. Poi in his silver armor. Syllea and Bayth. Tenebrae. The Arbors of Treehome, as seen from below…

… Heh. This was nice.

Erick decided to do everyone he had seen— Well. Not everyone. A lot of people, though. He quickly realized that he needed to be a bit more professional about this, though, for stone tablets were not the longest lasting material. So he sent an Ophiel out to grab some of the eternal Stonetree from the copy of his house, sitting out there on the plains. Then he made a few dozen uniform 3 decimeter by 2 decimeter portraits, each half a centimeter thick and yet as inflexible as steel. He recast his lightpaintings into those settings. Soon, he was done with the portraits. He moved onto landscapes, grabbing images straight from Ophiel, as the [Familiar] hovered over Holorulo, and then Alaralti. In Eralis, Erick snapped out lightpaintings of the Void Temple, and the clan mountain of Star Song, and white mountain of Clan Red Ledger—

Teressa smiled as she interrupted, “You could make a living out of that, if this archmage thing doesn’t work out.”

“Ha!” Erick said, “Thank you.”

“You know… That ability to visualize is probably why you’re so good at magic. Almost no one can just… Pop out a lightpainting like that.”

Erick smiled. “When I was a kid I took some art classes because I liked it, but I never had the material skill to bring my vision to reality. But lightpainting? Lightpainting is a direct translation between vision and reality. It’s amazing.”

“I guess it is.” Teressa looked like she wanted to say something else, but, she did not. “Well. I got stuff to pack.” She almost walked away—

What was happening there—

Oh. Duh. Erick could have kicked himself. Obviously, she wanted a painting!

Before she got far, Erick offered, “Do you want a lightpainting, Teressa?”

She paused. She halfway turned back. “… Nah.”

“I’ll make you one!” Erick tapped the blank canvases, saying, “Eternal Stonewood! Won’t break or be Shaped under normal conditions! It’ll last a long time.”

And that made her come back.

Teressa asked, “Do you remember what… my…” She sighed, and her words streamed out, “Do you remember the waystation that we [Cleanse]d away? The one my village used all the time? Did you get a chance to see through the mana, to see what it used to look like?”

Erick solemnly said, “I did. Hold on.”

He grabbed a blank canvas, and then he grabbed another. With a Shaping, he joined them into a larger surface, and then he painted with light. There was the porch with the old people who laughed at the kids playing in the streets. There was the well that had been overgrown, but it was now in working order, and a man was drawing water from it with a [Watershape].

Much of Teressa’s waystation had been badly damaged by the Witch, and that included the mana. Everything Erick put down into light was an interpretation, for the final [Witness] that Erick had cast into that place was jumbled with pain and the impression of fire. Erick did not include the fire in his lightpainting. But he did stitch together a lot of images taken from normal village life that probably never happened all at once.

Teressa’s lightpainting took a few minutes to make since it was actually several lightpaintings, all joined into one scene of transient village life.

Erick looked up when he was finished, and said, “There we go— Ah.”

Teressa had small tears rolling down her face as she gazed upon the lightpainting.

Erick wordlessly handed it over. Teressa accepted it like it would have burned her if she wasn’t careful.

Then she stood a bit straighter, and said, “Thank you, Erick.”

Erick gave a smile, and said, “Anytime, Teressa.”

Erick finished with his lightpaintings, and got back to packing, properly.

Soon, the City Shield, the books, the clothes, the new lightpaintings, everything that wasn’t necessary, was placed into stone containers, ready to be dropped into the ground. It took three hours to get to that point, for Erick discovered that he was loathe to slash his library or his wardrobe down to the bare essentials. What self-respecting mage would go somewhere without a book? But then again, he had nearly sixty books. That was too many. He eventually settled on only keeping the book of Illusion Magic; he hadn’t gotten very far into that one, and it might prove useful if the Mirage Dragon showed up. (It probably wouldn’t be useful at all for it was an intermediary text, but he still needed something to read in the downtime!).

Making his go-bag was tough, but he did it, because it was necessary. The bag itself was a simple, yet well made, brown leather backpack. It held a change of clothes, a canteen, his book, and a few smaller things. Teressa and Poi were similarly prepared. A small bag of essentials, along with [Mend], [Cleanse], and lightwards, were all that one really needed to venture out into the wide open world. Of course, one still needed weapons and magic to kill the monsters that prowled out there, but supplies were easy to get and maintain with just a modicum of mana.

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Erick started making dinner.

He finished before Jane and Nirzir showed, so he let it sit there, hot, as they waited.

And waited.

And there goes the sun setting.

Erick looked to Poi.

Poi said, “They’re fine. They’re just late. We can eat without them.”

Erick frowned. They better not be late because Jane wanted to stay beh—

A purple blip deposited both Nirzir and Jane into the living room.

Erick relaxed.

Jane came into the kitchen dining room, and smiled brightly. “Oh good! Just in time for the best part of dinner: Eating!”

“Ha ha,” Erick said. “You’re late.”

Nirzir looked embarrassed for a second, but she got over it fast. Whatever had happened at her house was not of Erick’s concern. He didn’t think it was of Jane’s concern, either, but his daughter was working with the people of Songli a lot closer than he was, right now. She even knew of Nirzir’s brother, which probably meant something…

Erick didn’t want to think too deeply of all that, though. Jane was probably trying to make it on her own, forging her own connections and meeting her own circle of people, and he respected that.

– – – –

The next morning a letter courier arrived with a formal invitation to a feast, with Erick as the guest of honor. The party would be that night, on First Devouring Nightmare Mountain.

Erick decided to attend.

It was a lavish affair of drinks and too much food and short speeches given by people whom Erick had barely met, but whose lives he had saved during the war. It was bittersweet, really. They told him that he had done a lot, and for them, he had, but personally, Erick felt he had not done enough; he kept that opinion to himself, though.

Scion Caina of Small Scare gave a small speech, talking about how Erick had prevented a Hunter of Terror Peaks from infiltrating her squad by [Teleport Other]ing the fake initiate away and executing him on the spot. When a woman in her group asked after the missing man, Erick explained how the guy was over level 70, and therefore he was not who he appeared to be. Caina had given her speech as a thanks to Erick, but she had delivered it in such a routine, soldier-like manner, that it brought down the mood of the party. After she sat down, there was a lull. In that lull, Erick saw that people were looking for Caina’s much more sociable brother to stand up, to say something to cover for his sister’s social lacking, but then, just as quickly, most people remembered that her brother had been killed in the fighting.

Erick still said to Caina, “Thank you for your kind words.”

Caina nodded.

The next person stood up, and started talking.

Mostly, it was a nice night. In some ways, it was boring. In other ways, it was eventful.

There was an attempted murder.

Erick wasn’t involved in that.

It happened in the next building over, and occurred between two women because of some drama with some man. Some elite guards on the periphery caught the attempted murder happening right as it was going down. The only reason Erick learned of it all at was because those elite guards blipped away from the sides of the gathering as the attempted murder was going down, and the nobility demanded to know the reason for the breach of etiquette. After briefly checking things out with Ophiel, Erick decided that it wasn’t his business. He didn’t get the whole story, nor did he want it.

In the course of the evening, Erick found out that Nirzir was terribly introverted. The princess of Void Song sat in a place of honor beside the main table, barely doing anything except to politely eat and pretend to fade into the background. People tried to talk to her, but none were able to get her to say more than a few words in response.

Erick accepted a lot of thanks from a lot of people.

Jane was talking to Patriarch Mirizo and a few others from Star Song and Void Song who had been invited to the party. Xue and Riri were not in attendance, though.

When it was over, Erick went home and went straight to bed. He was completely exhausted.

– – – –

The next morning Erick had one final meeting with Hangzi.

The Patriarch of Devouring Nightmare came to him, and sat down in his temporary living room. Jane served tea, and then she and all the guards departed to a different, nearby room.

Hangzi had not given any speeches last night, for as the Patriarch of a High Clan, he was above that. It was his job to act in control, and never cede authority to anyone. Except now, that facade broke a little. He said, “Thank you for remaining for this last week. I hope your stay in my Clan has been satisfactory?”

“Yes.” Erick said, “Thank you for your hospitality.”