175, 1/2

Sitting cross legged on the beach, with his hands on his knees and his eyes focused on the waters before him, Erick’s aura wafted from his skin like a clinging, glowing mist. He flexed that mist, churning a small portion of it to clarity around his left shoulder, like pulling back a curtain of light, leaving thick air behind. Another twist flowed mana into that clarity, manually forming a well known spell.

A normal [Force Bolt] silently shot from his shoulder, impacting into the illuminated waters of Yggdrasil’s lake and sending a small splash into the air. And then Erick did it again. Sweat gathered on his brow as it had many times for the last two hours; his clothes were already soaked. He breathed deep. Then he moved on to clear several more spots of his aura, all at once, turning light to thick air, and then into Bolts which flickered out to slam harmlessly into the water. Normal Bolt, normal Bolt, normal Bolt. Sweat dripped. And Erick fucked up. The eleventh Bolt was brighter than the first ten, while the twelfth and thirteenth Bolt were made of Light; not Force. He had allowed his aura to cloud over with light again.

Erick sighed and relaxed. His light aura vanished.

Tasar, standing to the side, said, “That’s… a rather fast improvement for someone with your level of aura contamination.”

“I can cast ten thousand Bolts at once with [Greater Lightwalk].” Erick said, “This is a downgrade.”

“Aura control will always be a downgrade from Elemental Body spellwork. Aura control is never about power, anyway. It’s about clarity and understanding, which will allow you to go further with normal Script tier work.”

Erick asked, “You have Healing Magic? Yeah?”

Tasar side-eyed him. “… I am afraid to say yes.”

“Ophiel can handle it, then.” Erick nodded to his [Familiar] then bega—

“Wait. Wait.” Tasar said, “I got it. What are you going to do?”

“An adjustment of light all the way into Force. I might end up with Force erupting from my skin, but probably not since I’m not putting any mana into the working.”

Tasar nodded, once.

And then Erick flicked his aura on and held a hand up and began channeling mana through [Force Bolt]. With his other hand, he channeled through Mana Altering, listening for Force. He already knew what Force sounded and felt like, for Force was a neutral sound of solidness and clarity, but he was just making sure. Closing his hands, cutting off the channel, Erick hummed the Force he heard, starting the noise in his throat. He had never attempted this with his [Greater Lightwalk], and he had never had the idea to try this, either, but it should work with his Light-contaminated aura. Maybe.

Erick moved the sound of Force into his aura—

Waves of Force rippled out from his chest, shattering the light of his aura into curling, thick air as barely-there Force, like wild snakes, pushed away from every part of him, sending Ophiel into the air with a squawk. His clothes rippled like tendrils were reaching out from every part of his skin. Sand pushed away, scattering like he was a child throwing dirt—

Erick dropped a decimeter into the sandy beach and cut off his aura. His small crater slumped back onto him, but he pulled himself out of the dirt easily enough, scattering more sand as he brushed himself, saying, “The aura was clear, right?”

Tasar looked at him, concerned. “Yes. But the Light will come back, and transitioning to an aura of Force isn’t good, either. You have to go neutral, of which Force is merely a step in the right direction. But… Now that I realize that you can do this, I feel that you could probably transition through all the various Elements rapidly enough to understand what a ‘neutral’ aura would feel like. Fire and Stone might be dangerous, but no more so than Lightning or Magma.”

“… I don’t think I need to go through all of the Secondary Elements, too.”

“You might. If you have a better Familiar Form that can handle all of the oddities of this method then I suggest you use that form. We have steel slimes if you want one. They might prove useful for this methodology.”

Erick actually was interested, but not for the idea of taking in another slime form. “Steel, or platinum?”

“… Steel,” Tasar said, but she was unsure.

Erick suddenly had to ask, “Why are steel and platinum the same thing? They’re very much not the same thing at all. Steel can rust, for one. Platinum doesn’t rust at all. Why use the same Ancient Script word for both?”

“Ah. That’s what you mean.” Tasar relaxed a little. “It was a translation error in the creation of Ancient Script that other languages like Ecks don’t have. Once you go looking for small stuff like that you’ll see them everywhere. Like…” She switched to Ecks, saying, “There’s only two words for ‘blue’ in Ancient Script; Willpower-blue and Focus-blue. If I wanted to name a color between those I would have to qualify them with other directional variations that come off of the color wheel theory of mana.

“Remember when Riivo spoke of [Rebound] being taken out of Mana Altering and put on its own? That happened rather recently when it came to colors. There weren’t Ancient Script words for any of the colors made by the New Stats, until the Dark God made those colors and threw those runes into the Script.” She began interspersing her language with Ancient Script words that Erick had never heard before. “Now we have <Constitution> which is the same as saying ‘sunshine yellow’, but there is a color for that already in the Script, and we used to say <stone> but in a yellow sort of way. It’s a contextual language.” Tasar added, “You probably didn’t even notice since you used [Language Acquisition] and no one pays attention to the way language actually works, but the same thing is true for platinum and steel. They’re the same word in Ancient Script, but the one that turns to rust becomes <decay steel> while platinum remains <steel>.”

Erick realized a lot in that little bit of explanation.

After a moment, he said, “I didn’t think that the problem with Ancient Script was this intractable. I suppose that’s why it rhymes so well. The downside is that it’s a dead language.”

“I wouldn’t call it dead.” Tasar shrugged, saying, “But, yes. Growth and change are for other languages; not for the solid stone upon which all other things are built.”

Erick had another thought. “How is <Constitution> being received by your people? Do people use that word to refer to <yellow>?”

“Not at all.” Tasar frowned a little. “If you knew anything at all about wrought society you would not be asking a question like that. Would you like to talk about what to expect during Bright Tea when standing before the King, or what to expect in the inquiry?”

Erick decided, “If I’m going to be taking Bright Tea inside the city could we go inside the city? Before those things happen? I’d like to see it with my own eyes. I’m ready to go now.”

Tasar blinked a little. “Sure. We can absolutely do that. But right now? I would have thought you would have wanted to talk about [Gate] or any number of other topics before moving on.” Tasar softly said, “You can go slower, Erick. There’s time.”

Erick tried not to let his stress enter his voice too much, but it surely did as he said, “There’s no time to go slow, Tasar.”

“… Okay. Then I will be less polite about my words, and tell you that you must go slower, for moving this fast is incredibly rude to the vast majority of wrought society.” Tasar said, “We move on time tables of years, with disturbances to our daily routines taken as great affront.”

Erick frowned a little, then said, “Okay. I can understand that. Then… Tell me about Stratagold, first. Gate can wait.”

Tasar nodded, then she breathed deep, and began explaining, “Inside Stratagold you will see multiple types of areas and you’ll have no idea where you are unless you live there, or have lived there, and so I will escort you through so you don’t absolutely offend someone and ruin their day, or yours. I won’t have an international incident on my hands, please. A routine breaker is something that you must not become, understand?” She paused, looking to see that Erick understood. He did, though if he was being honest, he did not. He was already very much a ‘routine breaker’, though Tasar said the word like she was calling someone a ‘bastard’ or a ‘fucker’, so Tasar’s use of the word meant something more specific. Tasar continued, “The Geodes are lands where time stands still for a lot of people, and they like it that way. They walk certain paths every day and take pride in reading the same book for the last hundred years and…”

– – – –

Erick stepped away from the t-station into a land of light and crystal. For a brief moment he was back in Ar’Kendrithyst, stepping through the Crack the first time to see the lands beyond, for Stratagold was exactly like that, but with a different color scheme.

Spires of gold crystal with white striations rose up from indeterminable depths of light and wind to plunge into the sky of the same. Clouds flowed through some of those far away spaces, like mist carved up by the crystals, obscuring much of the further lands in soft white shadows. The spires themselves were dozens, or hundreds of meters wide, and shot through with housing and green spaces and all sorts of normal, everyday mainstreet-like areas of shops and houses. Roads of crystal connected every spire to every other spire. And as above, so it was below; Like stacked civilizations, everyone lived above someone, and below someone else.

And the people! So many people.

Mostly— No. Entirely copper people, now that Erick understood what he was seeing. Tasar had told him this was a copper neighborhood, after all. To be specific, it was ‘Copper Human Neighborhood 156’. The lands above were ‘Copper Human Neighborhood 157’, while down below was 155.

The burnished bright orange-gold coppers were the young ones, and they were in the minority, for at least 90% of people were some shade of green, with some people so aged they were almost the color of the Statue of Liberty; white green. Browns, like aged yet not-old copper, were almost as rare as the young ones. They were all technically immortal, but only a few people actually made it to ‘adulthood’, which Tasar had explained was 100. She had also explained that when a new wrought came into being they were both physically and mentally adults, but those young ones were not allowed out of special protection areas. Tasar hadn’t gotten into the breeding habits of wrought, though, and Erick hadn’t asked. He still wasn’t sure if wrought were like [Familiar]s turned real, or if there was sexual reproduction, but based on the fact that Tasar was both adamantium and copper, he guessed that there was some sex going on somewhere. That was just speculation, though.

Erick had left most of his Ophiel behind at the t-station back by Yggdrasil, ready to blip into this particular t-station the second they were needed. They didn’t seem to be needed, though he did keep one Ophiel on one shoulder, while Yggdrasil’s eye was on his other side.

Nothing bad had happened and nothing bad looked to happen.

Tasar had been on the level when she explained what would happen on the other side of the t-station transport.

And now, after noticing no subterfuge, Erick took full stock of his situation. Tasar had taken him and Ophiel to a t-station in her old neighborhood to show him how most Geode wrought lived, because some of what she had said was just too hard to believe. Tasar now stood beside Erick, gauging his reaction.

The t-station was positioned in a very out-of-the-way location, upon what looked to be an addition to the side of a small footbridge between two towers. Erick gestured to the nonuniform crystal where the t-station rested, and the uniform crystal of the path, asking, “You had to put an addition up to put this t-station here?”

“Correct. We could not disturb the routine.” Tasar said, “And this particular footpath isn’t used by anyone at this time of day, so we’re good with staying here to watch, for a while.” She rapidly began, “Now remember: don’t engage with anyone. Observe if you want, but don’t engage them first. Us talking here doesn’t matter, but actual approach and disruption does. The young coppers might come up to find out what we’re doing and that’s fine; you can talk to them like you would anyone else. But do not engage the old coppers. Do not stand in their way. Do not touch anything or move anything, and if you have to move something then move it back afterward. Mostly, everyone here should glance your way and do nothing. If they do engage, then be polite and try to end the conversation as soon as you can, unless you want to be culturally obligated to be stuck having the same conversation for all time.” She stared at him, saying, “And be polite. You are disrupting their lives just by being here and that is unkind. But you have ample reason for disrupting them…” She pulled back, saying, “We already had this talk… I am just worried. This right here is a rarity. But it’s… It’s a rarity that needs to happen.”

Erick simply nodded; they had spoken at length about what to expect, and Erick had already asked all the important questions he could think to ask. ‘Are wrought robots?’ was his major question, to which an explanation of robots was necessary, along with an explanation of the limits of computer language, before Tasar could finally answer that, ‘No, we’re not robots. We have souls and grow, but we grow deeper, like an indelible mark on reality; not like a tree, growing taller. Security and strength over expansion and absorption.’

Back in the present, Tasar repeated her major warning, “Geode wrought like their routine and overly disturbing that routine is a horrible offense. You might get a raging wrought trying to kill you if you disturb them too much, so don’t do that.”

“Right.” Erick looked outward, at the clean, efficient city. The spires of golden crystal were rather thick, filling up half of all space, but there was plenty of space to step into the air and avoid accidentally disturbing any routines. He turned to Tasar. “And no lightstepping?”

“Correct.” Tasar said, “One Ophiel on your shoulder is probably okay. Yggdrasil’s eye…” She frowned. She dropped the subject.

Erick turned away from Tasar and scanned the area. He saw no overt displays of magic upon anyone. No [Scry] eyes anywhere. No runic webs. No open displays of magic at all. One guy over there was gardening with clippers and— Ah! The gardener used [Grow] on the plant— Oh. It was a specific [Grow]. Now that Erick looked down the row of trees lining the sky road, he saw that every single one was straight-trunked and spherical of canopy. The gardener’s spell had fluffed the tree out, and then the guy conjured a ladder to reach the canopy, to trim it down to proper shape and size.

Tasar saw where Erick was looking, and said, “That guy has been taking care of those six trees on that road since I lived here nearly 500 years ago. I learned the hard way not to make that guy angry. Anyone you see using any magic at all should be considered extremely dangerous. It is a privilege to use magic in the open where it could disturb other people, and that privilege has been hard earned.”

Erick looked around. From their vantage point on the side of the bridge he saw at least twenty five people openly using magics, though they were small magics, for sure. A conjured broom, to sweep out the storefront. [Fabricate] to make a dress out of cloth. A [Prestidigitation] to prod the fire in a bakery…

Hmm. Odd. Wrought didn’t wear clothes or need to eat fleshy-people food.

Erick asked, “Dresses and baked goods?”

Tasar smiled fondly as she looked toward the bakery, three towers over and one level down. “Now there’s a man we might be able to talk to, if you want. Getting there might be dangerous.” She looked toward the bridge with the trees. “Have to walk past him.”

“… No. Let’s not do that. Just tell me… Why the dresses and baked goods?”

“Well, we do eat food for the taste of it and some people do wear clothes instead of metal. But it’s about being the people we strive to protect, more than anything.” Tasar looked toward the dress shop that Erick had seen, saying, “The seamstress will sell one red dress to a woman who comes by at 9 in the morning, but who isn’t sure if she wants the dress. The woman comes back at 10 and buys it, though no money changes hands; we’re beyond money here… Which. I suppose I can tell you that practically every green-white wrought here has [Duplicate], and the seamstress has the spell, too. That’s how she has her fabrics to make her red dress, and also a black dress that she doesn’t sell, and a blue suit that she sells to a man getting married to his wife tomorrow. The marriage is always tomorrow, too.” Tasar softly smiled. “156 is on a one-day rotation, but there’s a larger weekly rotation that happens in some neighborhoods. 161 is full-weekly rotation. One small area which we will not venture is on a year rotation; they’re outliers, though.”

Erick nodded, and softly said, “This is all kind of terrifying, but I can see the appeal of living the same day over and over. Nothing changes, meaning nothing bad happens.”

Tasar reluctantly, but knowingly accepted Erick’s words when he mentioned his terror, but then her small smile returned as he spoke of nothing bad happening. She said, “It’s nice to know that tomorrow is going to be the same as the day before. I tried it for a while but… I didn’t fit in.”

“I hope it’s not offensive to ask, but…” Seeing that Tasar was waiting for Erick to ask the obvious, to ask about her own history here, Erick went in a slightly different direction, asking, “Sitnakov promised you elevation to Heavy. What is required for that?”

“… That’s not where I thought you would go.” Tasar thought for a second, then looked away, back to her home neighborhood, saying, “My elevation to Heavy is more me humoring that man than anything that will truly happen. Such an elevation is reserved for royalty born improperly, and I’m just a bastard. I have been more than fine with this designation for a long, long time, and besides, I’m not going to spit in my mother’s face like that.”

“Ah. Well. That’s…” It was rather personal, is what it was. Erick focused on the actuality of the theoretical process, “I was theorizing that all it would take would be a lot of adamantium, but if [Duplicate] is already here then you’re already a post-scarcity society so such a transition to adamantium must take something more than extra adamantium.”

“Yes. It does take more than that.”

Erick waited a moment, wondering if Tasar would elaborate.

She did not.

Erick said, “So this deepening of Truth through routine, instead of expanding Truth to encompass more… Is this how the Script works? Directly through the repetition of the wrought?”

Tasar scrunched her face a little. Unsure, she said, “… No?” More strongly, she said, “That’s not how the Script works, but then again, none of us actually know how the Script truly functions. It’s theorized that this tendency toward routine might be a side effect of the Script, but… Some people find their glory in routine; in making sure that home is safe, and that other people are free to experience ‘events’.” She added, “One thing that routine does work on, though, is magic, and a lot of us need a lot of power to keep this home safe, so… That gardener over there deepens his Truth of Pruning with every repetition of his path. He is very skilled at pruning monsters down to size. The baker has a Truth of Bolstering, with support spells that spread like fire and make generals and archmages envious of the armies he leads. The seamstress has a Truth of Mending, and with that, she’s one of the best wrought-specialized Healers you will ever see.

“But interrupting that routine does nothing bad for the Script. This entire neighborhood has mobilized for war time and time again, at the single warcry of King Alfonin. It has happened before and it will likely happen again. Months at war…” Tasar said, “If a disruption of routine is all it took to break the Script, the Script would already be broken.”

Erick had a small epiphany. “Ah. It’s trauma. That’s why routine.”

Tasar’s face turned a bit softer, as she said, “That’s the more accepted reasoning. Immortals live a very long time. We see a lot of shit. We…” Her voice trailed off; she thought about speaking more, but she decided against it.

“I understand trauma; war response. Maybe not as much as some people, but I understand it both personally, and through helping others.” Erick added, “We called it post traumatic stress disorder, back home.”

“We have therapy services. I’ve used them myself after going through a few… wars, and otherwise.” Tasar said, “One of the best things they ever told me was not to compare my trauma to that of others, for there is no comparison except that everyone hurts in different ways, to different degrees.”

Erick smiled. “That’s what I’ve told people a few times, too.”

“Ah?” Tasar glanced his way, her eyes briefly going wide as though she had fucked up. “Oh. I suppose you would have known this already, and you’ve lost your whole world. Sorry. Sometimes it’s hard to gauge where other people are in their lives, and you look rather young. I apologize for my misstep.”

Erick chuckled a little, saying, “Veird is home but I did have another, yeah. Aside from a few things I don’t really miss Earth. And hey! I have Jane, so it’s all good. Plus, if I hadn’t fallen here with Jane then I would have likely died of cancer; either this year or the next.”

Tasar went still. When she mentally returned to the moment, she seemed stiffer, as she spoke from on high, “We have ways to grant immortality to mortals should you prove yourself worthy.”

She had returned to her persona of ‘distant immortal’, but Erick could tell it was just a facade that she wore to distance herself from the pain of losing people. That much was as easy to see as the sun on a cloudless day.

Erick decided to tease her about her reaction, saying, “Unless your people plan on killing me then I should be sticking around for many, many years to come, even without your immortality methods.” Tasar turned his way, letting her mask fall and her incredulity show, so Erick added, “There were dozens of theorized methods toward non-magical immortality back where I came from. I just need to figure out a few of them. Phagar even said that he’d allow a single cast of such a spell, too, if only to plug that hole in the Script.”

Tasar’s eyes went wide. “… I did not know you were that close to Phagar.”

Odd reaction. Tasar had a lot of odd reactions… Almost as though she hadn’t been spying on Erick all this time? What an odd thing for her to pretend at.

Erick said, “I included my acceptance of Phagar’s Championship when I handed out that point-of-view memory of Last Shadow’s Feast. Phagar told me that he wouldn’t accept such a thing in such dire circumstances and I’m kinda glad that he denied me, but yeah. Phagar’s a good guy. We talk sometimes.”

“Ah. That ‘report’ of yours.” With complete seriousness, Tasar said, “I did not believe it. Almost no one did.”

Erick blinked a few times, then laughed. He asked, “Do you believe it now?”

“Your power is undeniable but there were holes in your report.”

“Well of course there were holes.” Erick asked, “If you had gone through what I had, would you have given a complete accounting to the entire world? Some witnessed events should not be spread out to everyone.”

“Will you give a full accounting at the inquiry?”

“Nope.” Erick said, “And you evaded my question. Would you have given a full account to the entire world?”

“… No.” Tasar said, “My own report would have been considerably smaller, and would have gone through the proper protocols for dealing with the Dark to ensure I was not compromised. But what you did was more than that. It was a wide-ranging statement to the world, and it played right into the Dark’s claws to fit his narrative of becoming something else than who he has always been.”

Erick had a quick rejoinder for that, but he waited a suitable amount of seconds to allow Tasar’s words to have some weight; she seemed to need that. Then he said, “I much prefer wide ranging open honesty than allowing the majority of people to remain unenlightened.”

“Unfettered Truth has been the cause of many Forgotten Campaigns.”

Erick paused.

He listened to the wind and the small voices of people carrying on all around them, as he thought.

Eventually, he said, “Regarding the inquiry… I’ll answer questions. I’ll speak truths. Though I don’t really understand what you people need to question me for, anyway. You’ve probably had spies on me since I landed on Veird. Don’t you know everything already?”

“The inquiry will be an official hearing where you present yourself for evaluation, the judges decide Stratagold’s official stance with you, and then we go from there.” Tasar said, “I get the feeling that you think an inquiry is a bad thing, but that could not be further from the truth. An inquiry is what every single group of people at the embassy wishes they could have, because a successful inquiry means the weight of Stratagold falls behind you, lifting you to new glories with manufacturing and magical assistance and help with monsters and other problems. Consider a successful inquiry as the wrought version of Kirginatharp’s bargain of trade.”

For a moment, Erick felt untethered.

His entire worldview shifted in the moment.

Tasar continued, “Enduring Forge succeeded in their inquiry around 100 post-Sundering, and they’ve fallen to the Dark several times, only to be propped back up by the wrought city of Titanite. Oceanside exists due to the Headmaster, yes, but Stratagold falls behind Kirginatharp whenever there are any threats too big to handle. I wasn’t there when it happened, but it is my understanding that the Fall of Quintlan is partially due to not a single nation on the Surface being able to satisfy an inquiry.” She said, “You don’t need an inquiry to succeed in this world; just look at Songli. But it helps, a lot.” She added, “We have limits, obviously, but a lot of those limits might relax now that the Dark Clergy has been purged or Blessed into submission.”

Erick felt a bit better about everything…

But he kept his expectations low. Maybe he would try to do this ‘inquiry’ thing correctly.

He said, “Okay. That’s a lot better than what I was expecting out of an inquiry.”

“Don’t misunderstand in the other direction, Erick.” Tasar said, “An inquiry is very much a judgment. But the good outcome is great for you and your descendants. The bad outcome is exile and distancing.” Tasar didn’t need to mention the truly bad outcome, but it was there; unsaid.

Erick turned his thoughts toward the future, thinking about what he desired, and no more easy words seemed ready to be said. So he simply stood by Tasar, the two of them staring out at the land in front of them. Tasar likely saw a lot more than he saw, by simple virtue of knowing these people, and knowing their routines. The black-green wrought seemed happy as she gazed upon her homeland. Happier than Erick had ever seen her, though admittedly he had not seen a lot of her. That would change in the coming months, with or without approval from Stratagold and the Church of Rozeta’s inquiry.

And so, Erick watched. He listened. He did not judge, but…

The whole thing with wrought and routines was a little freaky, but as Erick stood there, letting his mind wander while the gardener trimmed his trees and the baker baked his bread, it seemed nice. It wasn’t long before Erick noticed a rhythm to it all, as the seamstress clipped her threads in time to the gardener snipping small branches, as the people walked across skybridges talking of whatever, and a woman sat on her porch and turned the pages of her book in time to it all…

To always know what was going to happen next. To never worry about the danger of a disrupted life…

There was a certain allure here. But this kind of life wasn’t for Erick, and he still found it really weird, no matter how much he realized that this was just the wrought’s culture.

Erick broke the personable silence between him and Tasar, asking, “Do you have [Duplicate]?”

Tasar pulled herself away from the sights around her, turning to Erick. “Yes, but you’ll never see me use it outside of private spaces where I am absolutely sure that no one else can ever see. Here is okay. Outside of Stratagold? Never.” She added, “And only for essentials. They tell us all when we gain that spell to never leave a trace of it anywhere you go.”

“Have the Geodes ever considered transitioning the rest of Veird to a post-scarcity society?”

“That’s the second time you used that phrase.” Tasar said, “I don’t understand.”

“The idea of ‘post scarcity’ is where the need for items is fulfilled, so people’s wants and actions and lives are filled with the pursuit of pleasure or intellect or something other than scrapping in the dirt for gold to pay for food, for example.”

Tasar thought for a second, unsure.

Erick added, “Giving [Duplicate] to everyone, for example, would transition society to post-scarcity.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Tasar’s eyes went wide, and then she solidly said, “Oh, no. That would be a bad idea. Every time that [Duplicate] has gotten out into the wider world bad things have happened.”

“Well yes.” Erick said, “But that’s an unequal distribution allowing for the exploitation of systems already in place, like one person making gold and crashing the local economy and then getting themselves and a lot of other people killed. I’m talking about, like, everyone who reaches level 75 gets [Duplicate]? Or maybe everyone who saves a hundred lives gets [Duplica— Ah. And I instantly realize that this would just incentivize rulers to cause wars, or whatever. Anyway. Imagine instead of Farmers, you had Duplicators— And I realize right now that this would cause Atunir to turn Dark again…” Erick asked, “Are the gods the reason we can’t have a post-scarcity society?”

Tasar took a moment to think, and then a moment longer to answer, unsure, “Why would we want to risk everything we already have to enact such a system?”

“Because new worlds aren’t going to have anything on them at all.”

Tasar stood a bit straighter, saying, “That is a very good point.” After a moment, she added, “One to think about.”

“I’ve thought about it a bit, but nothing too deep.” Erick said, “I suppose if [Duplicate] were handed out to every Mind Mage, or some other organization of honorable people, then that would be fine. Probably.”

Tasar eyed him. “Do you want to be in charge of such an organization?”

Her question was slightly barbed like many that came before, but only because she was worried. Worried over Erick’s goals, and his power, and his true desires. She believed him a highly competent liar, and he was gaining that skill, for sure, but Erick wasn’t lying about any of the important stuff.

Not much of the important stuff, anyway.

Erick answered with compassion, “I want to ensure that no village is ever razed by monsters or war. That every child gets an education. That the land is filled with life and people. That every single person can feel safe in the pursuit of their mundane or magical goals. That cities are safe from the predations of monsters or other evils, whether those evils are shaped like people or not. That the world is connected and that all good peoples can move freely and live freely, without overworrying about their lives or their livelihoods. Obviously I’ll never change reality itself, for monsters will always prowl around where there is magic, but I have a responsibility to use my power for the betterment of all, and so I will.” He added, “I don’t really care how these good things happen or the exact form it all takes in the end, but I know what I generally want out of life, and that is to make life better for everyone I meet.”

Tasar got a softness to her face and her shoulders that she didn’t have before. Her voice was quiet, as she said, “That’s quite a larger dream than my own.”

Erick asked, “So what do you do?”

“Logistics.” Tasar asked, “Would you like to see what I do? Or we could talk over dinner? When was the last time you ate?”

Had she really just asked that?

Erick semi-rapidly spoke, “Are you asking me out on a date?”

The second his words left his mouth he realized he had misinterpreted Tasar.

Tasar’s eyes went wide. “No! I mean…” She rapidly explained, “People need to eat so there is a culture of feeding the non-wrought we are with and generally making sure they’re comfortable— It’s rude to not take into consideration the needs of others and I know fleshy bodies need more than our metallic ones.” She added, “Not a date.”

Erick got over his own embarrassment as Tasar’s was more than enough for both of them. He smiled, and then his smile grew. “Okay. Yeah. Actually, I could eat. This is—” He paused in remembrance of his first time talking to Anhelia, the front desk girl / information broker at the Mage’s Guild in Spur. “The very first time I spoke to a wrought looking for information, they took me to a place to eat and drink while we spoke.” Oh. “I accidentally flirted with her, too. Oh.”

Oh.

Tasar rapidly recovered from her rejection of embarrassment, giving a little sigh, and saying, “It was actually rude of me not to offer food before now, but we’ve been talking for several hours and it seemed like a good opportunity to ask if you were still comfortable. Wrought can talk with each other for weeks before we need breaks.”

Erick decided that teasing was the best policy. “What about poop breaks?”

Tasar leveled a glare at him, then pulled back, saying, “Those are accounted for.”

Erick laughed. “How!”

“The same way that I know you’re hungry; my mana sense tells me so.” With nonchalant grace, Tasar quietly announced, “I suspect you have at least 4 hours before you need to defecate, but I have been proven wrong before.”