157, 2/2

Erick sat beside Poi and sipped his coffee, while he glanced out over the clan and the herd, through Ophiel. The clan and their herd was spread out over several kilometers, with cows grazing everywhere, or else drinking water in the small tributary nearby, which was the reason that the clan had stopped here for the night. There was no riverside near this stop, but there was a riverside at the next stop, 30 kilometers away. Once the clan got there they’d be [Grow]ing crops to refill the cold boxes.

Erick decided he wanted to help with that; not only to get some of his own favorite foods into his own cold boxes, but to introduce some variety into Clan Pale Cow, to see how they like chocolate, and vanilla, and other spices, as well as lemons and potatoes. Ah, yes! Potatoes. Much better than whiteroot. Whiteroot was just too stringy.

He asked Poi, “So why are you in here, and not out there doing some small job, like everyone else? I’m pretty sure we’re as safe as could possibly be.”

Poi paused, and then said, “I thought that I would help with cooking, with Nirzir. But after being rushed out of the kitchens last night when I tried to help… I decided to guard you, instead.”

“And I appreciate it.” Erick nodded. “But about Pale Cow. It’s the hypocrisy that’s getting to you, isn’t it?”

Poi froze a little, then thawed, and said, “Most people are hypocrites and some people are worse than others, but these people… It’s bad. Painful to be around, to tell the truth. Everyone is using magic all the time, but everyone lies about it and hides it from everyone else.”

Erick chuckled. “Yeah. It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? The kitchens are full of [Ward]s of all types, and everyone is using [Cleanse] on their yurts to keep them clean, or [Ferment] to make mead, or [Mend] when they tear something, and don’t forget the conjured Force when they have to fight something.” Erick guessed, “Maybe this cultural phenomenon stems from the general taboo regarding casting the magics in front of other people? But taken to an extreme? Maybe it’s not actually hypocrisy… maybe.”

Poi frowned a little. “Perhaps.”

“Well, whatever it is…” Erick said, “I’m not gonna let it stop me from defending myself properly. I’m going to make a yurt, and it’s gonna be pretty darn magical. Got any requests? You want your own room? I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to give Nirzir her own room.”

“Don’t make it anything special, at all.” Poi said, “Make it normal sized, and exactly in the style of everyone else’s yurt. That means no separate rooms for anyone. Just one central room with the firepit in the center, and an opening at the top to let out the smoke. A [Prismatic Ward] inside the space is good enough defense.”

“… I guess that’s one way to go about it.” Erick considered his other necessary spellwork, and said, “Perhaps I can throw in some Mana Altering for Illusion when I make the [Spectral Cow] spell. Make them look as normal as possible?”

“That would also be for the best.”

Erick breathed deep, then stood up, saying, “Time to get to work!”

A great big thud shook the ground outside, as Ophiel deposited the raw material needed to make the yurt.

“At least we’re a good hundred meters from the rest of the caravan.” Poi said, “But I guess there was no way to get the eternal stonewood here other than to blip it in, was there.”

Erick smiled, said, “Everyone blips around inside their yurts, anyway, Poi. I’m just being more open about it.”

A large-sized boulder of the material in question rested on the ground, not twenty meters from the [Obscuring Redoubt]. Erick had scooped the boulder off of the small clan mountain he had made upon the plains and Shaped into a copy of his house in Spur. The boulder would serve well as a yurt, considering that eternal stonewood was stronger than stone, and about the same weight as oak.

People on the porches of the caravan were looking his way, though for the most part, all they could see was Erick and his new boulder. The [Obscuring Redoubt] was invisible to everyone not tagged to be able to see the spell.

Poi followed Erick out of the [Obscuring Redoubt], and Erick saw a few quiet surprises on the faces of the onlookers. To them, Poi’s appearance was like a man appearing out of nowhere; quite terrifying, actually. These people had some strange ideas about magic… Very strange, actually. Maybe one of them would be willing to talk to him about their culture? Later?

But anyway—

Erick asked, “Did you like sleeping in the Redoubt?”

“It was fine.” Poi said, “It will serve well when we move on from this land and are forced to hide to have any measure of true safety. But the Redoubt should only have one room, too. It’s both a boon and a liability to have everyone in the same space, but I feel that the boon outweighs the danger.”

“Hmm. Fair.”

Erick turned to the boulder, and considered how he would Shape it.

From what Erick had seen in videos on the internet now and again, the yurt of a grass traveler was not exactly like the yurts of the people back on Earth. Those Earth yurts were oftentimes grey because they were made with wool coverings, or other cloth-like wrappings. Some of the more expensive yurts on Earth were white canvas, with decorations on the outside, but mostly, decorations were reserved for the interior, in the forms of carpets and other fabrics.

The yurts of the grass travelers were similar to all the expensive, decorated and professional yurts that existed on Earth. But with one major difference, of course. Sometime in the distant past, someone on Veird had gotten the bright idea to make carts that could tow the yurts, and thus the ability for a yurt to be taken down, to be moved somewhere else, was no longer a concern. The yurts of the grass travelers became more solid constructions, with an odd yurt here and there actually having two stories; though those oddities were reserved for special buildings, like the hawkery.

Erick vaguely recalled that the people of Earth had mobile yurts, too, but for the richest of people and mostly in the ancient past of Mongolia, or places like that. But then again, Erick barely remembered if he had read that, or if he was conflating that idea with what he was seeing before him.

The yurts of modern day grass travelers were all mobile houses. They were all colorful things of love and dedication, with each one unique in their beauty and personality. For starters, only half of the fabrics that went into the construction of a yurt came from the [Grow]ing of cottonfruit, producing a stark white fabric that was the outside of the yurt. Onto that whiteness, the people of Clan Pale Cow had embroidered colorful thread made from their wool-producing cows. Every single white yurt had decorations of all kinds, mostly composed of flowers, or clouds, or cows, or geometric designs.

In the light of a new day, and after having a relaxing night, Erick was actually able to see the beauty in the yurts all around him. The people took a lot of care with their own appearances, too. Only the warriors of the tribe wore leathers and furs. Most people wore layers of plain white cloth, while their outermost layers had little flowers embroidered upon the hems, or vests with expansive geometric designs.

The carpets of every house, many of which were laid out on the front porches, were works of art. The leather flaps that served as doors each had designs upon them, and each house’s design was unique. Not a single thing in this land was mass produced. Everyone made their own stuff, or at least everyone added their own touches to their own stuff. As Erick looked out, he even saw people embroidering onto their yurts at this very moment, either to repair old designs, or to make new ones.

But, looking more clinically and with an eye toward information gathering, every yurt was constructed more or less the same.

The average construction was a circular room about ten meters across, with gently angled flat walls that went to a mansard-like roof, with a hole in the center of that roof that could be closed with the flipping of a cap. The materials that made a yurt were wooden supports, attached to varying rings of wood. The largest wooden ring was ten meters across, serving as the base of the structure, while the smallest was only a meter across, serving as the hole in the top. The white fabrics that surrounded every wooden frame were the same, and every house had the same layered system; from the inside to the outside, there was a layer of white fabric, the inner wooden frame, a layer of loose wool to act as an insulator, the outer wooden frame, and then two layers of outer fabric with both being waterproof.

The cart under every yurt was more or less the same, too.

They were seven meters in width, but eleven in length, with the yurt positioned directly in the middle so that there was a porch-like space in both the front and the back, with the front porch being where the cows would be hitched, and where the driver would sit. The two axles of the vehicle were located at meter two and meter eight.

The wheels might not be hard to understand, but the axles and their suspension systems were complicated, and there was no way the people here made those. Firstly, they looked forged. But also, they were layers of arced and braced-together metal, suspended on an undercarriage that was fully replaceable, and looked to be screwed on to the yurt’s bottom. They were not custom made for each vehicle. Clan Pale Cow either traded for those suspension systems, or they had workshops somewhere else for some other clan members to do some heavy forging, because there were no forges in this caravan.

Their suspensions were easy enough to understand, though, and even if Erick didn’t do the forging properly, he could temper the metal in other ways… But there was a lotta metal down there.

Erick didn’t have any metal.

He could make some wooden suspension, probably? Each yurt must have weighed at least three tons or more, and while eternal stonewood could easily support that much weight, eternal stonewood was not normal wood.

When Erick built the clan mountain for Red Ledger, there were a few things he had to keep in mind during the construction, like ensuring that the mountain was one continuous piece. When a mass of eternal stonewood was large enough, it was able to ‘heal’ itself through small damages, such as temperature stresses and the moving of people, but this healing was less in the way of automatic [Mend]s (which was a whole other problem), and more in the way of ‘ignoring through illusions’ all the damage being done to it.

The problem of [Mend] and eternal stonewood was that [Mend] worked on unliving things, but large masses of eternal stonewood were ‘alive’, and so, [Mend] should not work on a clan mountain. Erick supposed that this ‘alive’ functionality of the clan mountains blurred the lines well enough to allow [Mend] to function, but still, that blurring was odd, once one knew enough about what they were seeing.

Was Illusion magic some kind of a Schrodinger’s Cat thing?

Interesting, if true.

But anyway. Eternal Stonewood used in small portions (like that which was the size of a yurt and cart) was very much deadwood, and so, any suspension he made for his yurt, that he made out of wood, would be subject to all the problems of wood that was practically unbendable.

And suspension systems needed to be bendable to work.

Erick quickly decided that he was not even going to try and make some ‘bendable’ wooden suspension systems. To try that was to ensure that he had a bad time. He simply needed to ask someone where they got their suspension systems, and he could go buy one. They probably came from several suppliers in Songli, right? And besides! This would be a good time to get to know some people. Perhaps they wouldn’t run away from him this time? One could only hope.

Erick glanced around, and locked on his target. The target was a neighbor, about a hundred and ten meters away, currently brushing down some cows, getting them happy and ready to pull his yurt. That man probably knew about the suspension systems for his yurt. Erick took a step—

Air springs.

He stopped.

… Air springs were rather rigid structures that—

No. Wait. Air springs needed rubber, and they were very much not rigid. Not going to work. And how did that work, anyway? They were like… Okay. So. The axle of the vehicle was on a floating arm that was offset from the axle, and that could move up and down, but between where the axle met the frame of the vehicle, there was a rubber balloon-like structure that could fill with air as needed. ‘As needed’ was determined by some computer sensors, usually, but it should be possible to use a [Conjure Force Elemental] and Elemental Ooze to make some sort of balloon-like substitute—

Nope. Erick decided against going that route.

He could probably do a lot with magic. He could make a vehicle that worked exactly as he wanted, which allowed for a perfectly smooth ride. But that would be rather showy, wouldn’t it? And showy magic would be rude. No need to be rude.

Besides, he could probably just use [Control Machine] on whatever suspension systems everyone else was using in order to create a mostly smooth ride. He had made [Control Machine] back when he made chocolate but he barely used it, except for when he made the phonograph. Oh! Now there was a nice bit of non-magical technology that might be good to show off around here. Maybe they’d like the mechanical nature of it? Record players weren’t magical at all, after all.

Last night, more than a few people got out their instruments to try and get a small music group happening, but then Ophiel joined in—

Ah.

Erick had made a lot of missteps last night. Oh well. He could be more circumspect about his magic. Erick headed toward the man brushing down the cows, with Poi following close behind.

It didn’t take long to get near enough to the target and his house.

The man’s wife, who was on their porch breastfeeding their baby, saw Erick coming their way. She said something to the man down on the ground, and the man whipped around to see Erick.

The man froze like someone had cast [Stop] upon him. And then he blinked, and animated again, only to look left and right, trying to guess if Erick was walking at him, or toward someone nearby. The wife helpfully clued her husband in that Erick was walking exactly this way.

“You parked us here for this reason, Zan,” the wife whispered/hissed.

The man turned, glared lightly at his wife, whispering, “Yes, Solia. This is what I wanted.” Then Zan turned back toward Erick. He was all gentle smiles.

Erick had yet to get within 50 meters of the man, and already he was thinking this was a mistake. But Erick pressed on!

Ten meters away, Zan called out, “How does the sun greet you, Archmage Flatt?”

It was a bit of an archaic, polite greeting, but Erick had caught on enough here and there to respond, “With as much warmth and light as I hope it does you, Herder Zan.”

Zan flinched at the saying of his name.

Erick added, “And you as well, Herder Solia.”

Solia flinched half a foot into the air, her baby coming undone from her breast and giving a tiny cry. Without missing a moment, Solia gave an excuse that the baby must have messed himself and then she retreated into her yurt, escaping from the gaze of the archmage.

Zan ignored the disturbance behind him, asking, “Uh. How can this one help you?”

Erick ignored the drama, and said, “I’d like to know where you got the suspensions for your yurt. Everyone seems to have the same ones, and you’re the closest, and yours looks the newest, so I thought I’d ask you, first.”

Zan paused, his eyes going wide. “Uh. Leader Niyazo gets them for us. Usually as wedding gifts for the founding of a new yurt. That’s where we got ours a year ago. Uh. I’m not sure how you would get four of them?”

Erick nodded, saying, “Thank you for the directions.” Erick already knew where Niyazo’s yurt was, so he turned that way, and gave a farewell to Zan, “Blessings to you and your new family.”

Zan piped up, “Uh! Can I— Can I have a moment of your time?”

Erick turned to the man. “Certainly.”

Zan instantly said, “Thank you for helping to find my mother’s killer. The face stealer had her face for the past three months, but I knew she was wrong. She was always such a wonderful mo—” Sudden tears streamed down his face, and his voice cracked, but he kept talking through the lump that settled in his throat, “She was a wonderful mother, and person. She’d do anything for you, and you’d do anything for her in return. She was never a burden. She was always a boon. But then she just changed. Overnight. At first, we didn’t think anything of it because people change, sometimes. But it was bad and— We caught her looking at our child and—” He stopped crying, as his face turned hard. He said, “And then Songli tracked a face stealer through to our shared home. They found the thing posing as my mother…” He looked up to Erick. “Thank you. Who knows what the monster would have done if you weren’t here.” He rapidly added, “I couldn’t say anything last night. But now… Thank you.”

Erick had not expected that. For a moment, he felt as if any push at all would topple him to the ground, for the man’s pure conviction and relief was almost a palpable force upon the air. Erick eventually found some words, and said, “I’m sorry that happened to your mother. She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

Zan blinked out another tear. “She was. Thank you.” He paused, then added, “Uh. Good day to you, Archmage Flatt.”

Erick nodded, then resumed his walk toward Niyazo’s yurt, keeping his face as expressionless as he could, and his breathing even.

Two minutes later, Erick was walking by a different yurt, with different people brushing down different cows, when an interruption appeared.

A young girl who had been eyeing his walk all this while, stepped away from her cow, calling out, “Archmage Flatt!”

Erick stopped and turned to the girl. She had to be 14, perhaps. “Yes? Can I help you?”

Like a triumphant merchant, the girl said, “Yes you can! I want—”

The girl’s mother, who was also brushing down the cows, rapidly interceded, stepping between the girl and Erick, saying, “Please pay her no mind, esteemed Archmage. She is a precocious child who knows not with whom she speaks.”

Erick experienced a whiplash of emotions, as he read the face of the concerned woman in front of him, and came to the conclusion that the woman thought that he was going to harm her daughter. Erick was almost offended—

But the girl was apparently offended, too, and on Erick’s behalf, no less. She shouted, “He’s not gonna hurt me, Ma! You shouldn’t listen to those storytellers so much!”

Erick said, “I assure you, madam, that I would never hurt a child unless they were secretly a dragon, or a Shade, or a Hunter in disguise. And only if they were out to harm me, or others, first. I believe my track record is rather solid when it comes to these facts.”

The girl looked less sure of herself as Erick added caveat after caveat. The woman’s eyes simply went wide.

Erick added, “Now why did you call out to me, young lady?”

Emboldened, the girl hopped around her mother and declared, “I want some pretty night lights! Can you do it?”

The mother looked both scandalized and deeply embarrassed. She wanted to run away, but she did not.

Erick simply gave a tiny smile, and asked the girl, “In what colors, and in what designs?”

At that, the mother’s grip on her brush failed. The hairy instrument tumbled to the ground, and the woman left it there, as she turned, and walked away from the situation. The girl’s older brothers had stopped brushing their cows to watch whatever was happening with their sister, but at Erick’s question their casual interest turned into incredible, unspoken jealousy.

The girl didn’t notice that. All she did was exclaim, “Bright orange and white and yellow! Like fire! Something to see with at night! Something to drive away the dark!”

“How about I make one for each of you kids?” Erick asked the boys behind the girl, “Would you like that?”

The boys’ jealousy evaporated like mist under the sun.

One of them said, almost sadly, asked, “Can you do blue, like the ocean? I ain’t never seen the ocean.”

The second boy, desiring to hurt his sister, said, “I want fire, but bigger than Cor’s!”

The young girl, Cor, turned to her brother and promptly started cursing at him like a sailor.

The mother looked their way, briefly, then turned away, muttering about how she can’t save them from themselves all the time. The boy who had asked for the water globe seemed to mirror these sentiments.

Erick, meanwhile, had already had an Ophiel shape some eternal stonewood into tiny pellets, and then had him attach the requested lightwards to those pellets. He did not make the boy’s fire larger than the girl’s, both were ten centimeter wide spheres, but he did make two that were slightly different from each other. One was more for reading, with better ambient light, but the other was flashier, with tiny sparkles in the fire. Erick was happier with the water orb lightward, though, for it looked to him like a world made of water, but when gazed at from outer space. Whorls of clouds hung in the sky, forming miniature storms and air currents, while the waves of the water’s surface reflected whatever light was around, sparkling like a proper ocean. The boy would need very good eyesight to see all of what Erick had packed into that tiny, ten centimeter blue sphere, though.

With a flicker, and before the girl’s tirade got going and the boy was forced to give a response, Ophiel came to Erick’s side in a step of light, floating there with the three stones in his lightgrip. The wardlights for those stones floated above them, one sparking, one glowing, and one oceanic.

The girl stopped talking. The fire boy’s clenched fists relaxed as his eyes went wide. The ocean boy smiled a little as he gazed upon the blue sphere.

Erick had Ophiel extend the ocean wardlight to the ocean boy, saying, “Here you go. It’ll last for a while, but not forever.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The boy tried to grab the sphere, itself, but his hands passed through it, and his entire persona went from happy, to crushed in an instant, thinking that a trick had been played on him. The brother and sister saw this happen, too, and were instantly angry at Erick. Erick almost laughed at that; At least they could come together against a common enemy. But he did not. Their anger was genuine, even if it was misplaced by mistake.

Before they could get mad, Erick said, “Grab the stone under the light. The [Ward] is attached to the stone, so that you might set it somewhere and have it float where you set it.”

The kids paused their anger.

“Oh.” The boy grabbed the stone, and the lightward came away from Ophiel’s grip. “Heh.” The boy wiggled the stone around, and the lightward wiggled around with it, but Erick had made this one special, and the water actually broke from the surface of the sphere, like an ocean exploding into the sky. “Woah,” went the kid, as he stilled the rock, and the ocean settled down. He looked to Erick, saying, “Thank you, Archmag—”

“Which one is for me!” said the fire boy.

The fire girl said, “I want that one!”

“You want the ugly one?!” Fire boy said, “Fine by me! I want the pretty one!”

Oh thank god. It worked out like Erick hoped it would.

He handed the prizes to their respective kids, saying, “There’s no inherent magic to any of them, besides being lightwards. Don’t expect them to save your life, or anything. Low magic, like these items, doesn’t work like that. Low magic works exactly as you want it to work, and these are just lights. That is all.”

The girl looked disappointed for a moment, but inside their yurt, their mother was deeply relieved.

Fire boy said, “Duh! I knew that!”

The girl didn’t care about her brother’s words. She only had eyes for her wardlight, except when she looked up and rapidly said, “You’re alright.” And then she went back to staring at her prize. She wiggled it back and forth, and the light broke apart and came back together almost like the ocean sphere had, but the effect was much less pronounced.

Erick walked on, leaving the kids to their new toys.

The other yurts of the caravan were spread a fair bit apart from each other, but they were all close enough for the more inquisitive people to notice that Erick was walking through ‘town’, talking to whoever approached. And there were a lot of inquisitive people; someone always had eyes on the horizon and ears open, searching for signs of monsters.

There were none more inquisitive than those of the hawking yurts, which were easy to tell apart from all the other yurts due to their two story structure, and their wooden walls, instead of walls made of canvas. The hawking yurt of this main branch of Clan Pale Cow was raised even higher than the norm, with a raised platform above the second floor, so that people could stand on top and keep eyes out with [Ultrasight] and other abilities. All the real grass traveler clans used hawks to send official messages around to each other, as well as patrol for monsters from the sky. In that way, the hawkery was as much a mailroom, as it was a radar station.

And since Erick was walking past the hawkery to get to Niyazo’s yurt, they very much knew he was passing by.

The flap to the hawking yurt flew open and a man rushed outside. He was a heavily muscular man, more so than normal, and as he put his hands on the railing of his yurt he locked eyes on Erick, making sure that he was seeing who he was seeing. He called out, “Ho! Archmage Flatt! Spare a moment, please!”

Erick turned his walk toward the hawking yurt, asking, “Can I help you?”

The man excitedly said, “None of my hawks have seen any monsters all last night or even today! Did you kill them all?”