183, 1/2

After Bright Tea at the White Palace, Erick felt lost. So he went to bed.

It had been a good decision, though he didn’t actually get to sleep for a while. His mind was too full of thoughts.

The people at Bright Tea had not asked if he was a Wizard, and it was only now that Erick realized why. They didn’t ask because they did not want to know. Their stance had mirrored that of Poi’s, back when Erick finally thought to bring up the subject with him back when they were at the grass travelers. Poi already knew, but he did not want to talk about it because talking about the issue would make it real. And so, just like with Poi, the wrought of Stratagold did not want to consider that Erick might be a Wizard.

Because if Erick were a Wizard, then they would be obligated to commit certain acts of violence, or magical neutering, or whatever it was they did to a newly-discovered Wizard. So they chose to forgo that specific question. And what was worse, is that if they would have asked, Erick would have lied, and Kromolok’s white [Zone of Truth], or whatever, would have called him out on the lie, and then things would have gotten very messy, anyway. So they had chosen to ask instead after Erick’s goals and character. What they found there was acceptable…

But then Erick had told them that he was likely immortal, now, thanks to Rozeta…

And that was a big deal for them.

It was like a switch had been flipped in the royals and in everyone else in that room.

That Erick was now immortal put him into a whole different category of interactions. What sort of interactions? Erick had no idea at the moment.

Eventually, as his thoughts rounded and he went over them for the tenth time, he found nothing new to consider. No new angles. No new unexpected threats.

He slept.

When Erick woke up the next day he did his usual business behind a Privacy then walked out to the front room of his [Fairy Stronghold], and saw the proof of his new path of interaction with the wrought sitting on the kitchen table. It was some herbal food sitting under [Preservation Ward]s to keep one cold, one warm, and one of them dry on a little plate. It was breakfast made by a health nut whose ideas of health were from another world. Which, Erick supposed Tasar was. Or if he wanted to be truly technical, Erick himself was.

One bowl of green slop. Pasted herbs, or something. Smelled okay. Cold, which was… It was a cold slop. It wasn’t Erick’s best idea of a good breakfast. But… Cereal was cold? So maybe this was fine.

A tea of bitter black root. Did not smell good at all. It stank, actually. Like herby dung, or something similar.

A few cubes of some sort of— Ah. Soul balm palm cubes. Little hard-and-waxy tan things; the dried sap of the soul balm palm trees. Erick at least knew the reason for that particular health food; it helped to speed up the healing of the soul. Was Erick’s soul broken, though? He didn’t think so. He remembered drinking soul balm palm tea back in Treehome, courtesy of Syllea, and it was rather good tea. This stuff looked vaguely more… Homey? Expensive? Both, actually. This version looked different than the one Erick had already had; it was a tea that had been distilled into candy form, probably.

There was also a thin book next to the ‘meal’. The book was handmade, with a red cover and no outside writing. Erick had already glanced inside through his mana sense, though, and saw it was a primer on acquired immortality. Erick just blinked at that.

Of course the wrought would have some sort of… Not a mass-produced primer, but of course they would have a primer of acquired immortality. Sitnakov had said something about helping Erick ascend to immortality if he threw in deep enough with Stratagold. This was probably an extension of that.

And over on the other side of the house, Erick saw Tasar blipping stuff from one end of the large empty room to the other.

She stopped a few moments after Erick entered the kitchen, tripping a purposefully-left puddle of green shadows she had left on the wall. She stepped out of that section of air, into the kitchen, smiling brightly, “Good morning!”

“Good morning.” Erick asked, “So what’s all this, then?”

Tasar got right to it, saying, “I suppose you’re keeping your immortality under cover, but I got to talking with everyone else who was in that room with us yesterday and the King and the Queen sent over some supplies for you. A welcome-to-eternity gift. All of them are good supplies to have on hand for the type of immortality you seem to now possess, but it’s clearly different from what Stratagold was offering to help you learn how to cast. Still, though, the supplies are useful for all people with enhanced natural lifespans. They don’t do much for normal people, unfortunately; The Script already pulls up mortals as high as baseline biology will allow, but immortals need something a bit extra.”

“Yes…” Erick said, “Stratagold tried to offer me immortality spellwork to tempt me to side with them… But I know for a fact that Phagar has said that true [Immortality] magic is not a thing under the Script. So what was going on there?”

“Ah. Okay. Well.” Tasar said, “It’s all in the primer, but I would rather explain it all to you if you are amenable. It seemed like a lot of things happened yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if you were ready for this sort of talk yet.”

“Thank you for the concern. I’m ready, though.” Erick pulled out the chair to the side of the ‘breakfast’ and sat down, saying, “I’d like you to explain all of… There’s a lot, actually.”

Tasar pulled out the chair opposite Erick and sat down, saying, “Gladly. Where would you like to start?”

One series of questions rocketed to the front of Erick’s mind and would not allow any other thoughts until it was satisfied. “What were the other types of immortality on offer? What does it all mean?”

Tasar nodded, then said, “Before we begin, a warning.

“Mortals don’t like dying, as you are well aware. But these spells are self-cast only, by the designs of the Script, and they’re not truly [Immortality], either, since Phagar locked that up tighter than a Ban, as you already know. Not many people actually know that, but I should not be surprised that you do. Anyway.

“All of these magics are functional immortality. And as such, they all have drawbacks.

“But mortals don’t care about drawbacks when they’re dying. The powerful ones will go through any danger if it means living a longer life. Sometimes the weak ones do, too. This desperation always leads to problems. Killing and sacrifice. Generalized disruption which leads to more death and… A lot of bad things happen if these methods to immortality were to be explained to the general public, because they would want them, and they can’t cast them anyway, so this is my warning:

“Don’t go telling people what I tell you right now.” Tasar said, “That way leads to death. Maybe not now, but eventually. It always does. Without fail.”

Erick nodded. He left the rest of that whole discussion for another time for he did not feel like digging too deep into the ethics of immortality-for-some right now. “I understand.”

Tasar continued, “There are a handful of major ways to achieve functional immortality.

“The first is [Polymorph]. Almost everyone knows this way, and I’m not talking about killing and eating a younger person. We’ll execute you for that if we find it happening. What we wrought can do, is grant you the use of our neighborhoods to allow you to blend in as one of our people in one of those neighborhoods. It’ll take a year or three, but if you can follow the programs set down and the routine, then you can eventually [Polymorph] into one of the types of people in those neighborhoods. Using this method, if you lived in an orcol community you would become a flesh and blood orcol. You won’t become a wrought, though; that never happens, no matter how much some people might want it to.

“This is the easiest method as it requires almost no actual magical skill, beyond learning the intricacies of [Polymorph]. A whole school of magic unto itself, but still just a single spell.

“After the first three transitions you should be able to do this anywhere in the world, in any community.

“The second way to achieve functional immortality, and also the reason for these items here today, is to be able to cast the high-tier Blood Magic spell [The Rite of Ancient Blood]. The higher tier the better. At eighth tier, which is the one you want, it costs a million and a half mana and has to be cast in ritual, once per year. If you cannot reach the eighth tier and you are forced to go for a lower tier, this still works, but it is an inferior method; the usual result is the spell [Blood Renewal]. [Blood Renewal] needs to be cast every month for a million mana, in the same sort of ritual.

“This is the method which requires the most upkeep, in the form of sagetree soup, bitterblood tea, and soul balm palm tea.” Tasar gestured to the items on the table. “Every time you cast this type of magic on yourself you need to do this health regimen, which means [Blood Renewal] will have you eating these things 12 times a year, as opposed to [The Rite of Ancient Blood]’s once per year.

“Sagetree soup is a blend of herbs gathered from a sagetree, which some Blood Mage created in the year 150 Post Sundering in order to make all his Blood Magic work better on himself. Sagetree soup actually heightens all beneficial magic you cast on yourself, granting a small but noticeable multiplier to things like [Personal Ward]. It’s only about 5% to 10%, where you spend 100 mana and get the effect of spending 110 mana, but the effect lasts a long time if you don’t stress it; nearly a month!

“It will be used up within three days if you use Blood Magic’s path to immortality.

“Bitterblood tea is the exact opposite, as it strips away harmful effects of spellwork cast from any source upon you for the next month. If something is supposed to deal 100 damage, it might actually only deal 90 or 95 damage.

“Same deal there with a month-timeframe reduced to days in the case of major Blood Magic.

“Together, these two effects eliminate the dangers of an unchecked [Blood Renewal] or [The Rite of Ancient Blood].

“And then you have the general panacea for magical ailments; soul balm palm tea. It helps to speed along the healing of the soul which is always necessary after large body-altering magic.

“And finally, the last method to immortality is to cast the spell [Timelessness] on yourself.” Tasar said, “That is very much a double-sided spell. You no longer age, but you also no longer naturally heal, or tire, or get less-tired after resting. You also no longer take damage from any damage over time effects, and you don’t need to breathe. You can cancel the spell at any time, and there are no side effects from canceling it, but there’s also no turning back the clock once you allow time to flow forward. You can only ever stop time; you cannot reverse it.

“[Timelessness] also doesn’t run down the clock on improperly-created magic. You must still break the magic and then wait days or months without [Timelessness] active in order to gain the creation powers of the Script once again.

“And the fourth method… It’s not really immortality.” Tasar said, “It’s lichdom. Learning enough soul magic to become a self-summoned creature, creating your body as necessary. Lot of drawbacks to that one… Really too many to name in any short amount of time. The short version is you lose your senses and you have to become a creature of mana sense and otherwise, and also you lose the pleasures of the flesh, which include sleeping and understanding humor and love. You can regain a lot of those pleasures if you become very good at Soul Magic and Blood Magic and Summoning Magic— Necromancy is a very large field of magic. But otherwise… you become an unfeeling, uncaring husk of a person.

“There’s technically a fifth method, too, but that requires you to become a dragon.” Tasar shook her head a little, saying, “I don’t think you want to become a dragon.”

Erick sat back in his chair and took that all in. “Immortality is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.” He glanced at the three bits of ‘food’ on the table. “Those seem like they would allow me to use [Bloody Ward] without issue.”

Tasar instantly narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “You should still not use that spell. The effects from sagetree soup and bitterblood root tea are extensive, but also minimal, and they will get used up if you actively stress them. These foods probably won’t even do anything for you, depending on…” She seemed to want to hold her tongue, but then she could not, “Depending on what exactly happened between you and Rozeta; the nature of your specific immortality. But the Blood Magic route is the one that Stratagold was most ready to present to you, and so there is no need to deny you the items that they had prepared for you, anyway.” She rapidly added, “You don’t have to tell me what sort of immortality you gained, and I am specifically not asking you to tell me…” She paused, then decided that those words were enough. Then she nodded.

Erick looked at the green slop…

It wasn’t actually slop. It did look like green tomato soup, though. And it was cold.

“I’ll try it.” Erick asked, “I assume it’s expensive?”

“Ruinously. Magical herbs and other items are among the most expensive in the world because you can’t simply [Duplicate] them.” Tasar said, “I understand that Stratagold has three groves of sagetrees and two fields of bitterblood root and they’re all guarded like a king’s bedchambers. I’m not even sure where those places are, but they’re certainly not anywhere near Stratagold itself. The soul balm palm is much, much less expensive. I know where that grove is. That stuff you can harvest every year.”

“This all seems very useful.” Erick frowned a little, muttering to himself, “Maybe I should look into alchemy as a hobby.”

“Oh yes.” Tasar said, “With your penchant for [Grow]ing new things you should look into long-harvest high-potency alchemical ingredients. Even if you don’t use any of it yourself, some of these things —bitterblood root especially— only get more potent and powerful with age. I think this tea was harvested on a 3 year cycle, which is at about the minimum timeframe for it to become useful.”

Erick breathed deep, then asked, “Why does it take so long for magical plants to grow, anyway? I heard it was because they become monstrous if you try to force their growth, but that doesn’t seem any worse than monster cows, and I know people raise those all the time.”

“It’s something to do with a shift in potency; a dilute effect grows stronger as the plant ages and naturally matures, but once monsterfication occurs all that potency is subsumed into the growth of sentience and malfeasance. That’s about all I know on the subject, though.” Tasar said, “I’ve spent a few decades here and there playing around with plants, but— My biology is different from yours, so this stuff is not my focus. I do grow magic crystals, though. Those are pretty useful as a wrought. Like sagetree soup; a long term buff to all spellwork.”

Erick decided that he had enough of immortality talk for now. It wasn’t like there was any pressing need to learn the ropes, anyway. He had eternity if everything went right.

… And suddenly eternity seemed like a very long time.

Erick pulled away from that sudden abyss of thought and focused on the present as he changed the subject. “To change the subject: I’ve been trying to understand a specific type of spell that I don’t know if it actually exists, but you would know. [Spelleport]; [Teleport] but targeting other people’s spellwork, to shift it to some other space or direction.” He added, “Specifically, the moving of very, very strong magic. Like— Did you hear of the Red Dot that some mage threw at Spur? That sort of magnitude 9 sort of spell. I want to be able to redirect that sort of thing.”

Tasar brightened at the subject of Spatial Magic, or maybe at the specific subject, Erick wasn’t sure. And then she focused, and said, “This is a very simple answer, but for very complicated reasons.

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“No.

“That doesn’t work.

“You cannot [Teleport] magnitude 9 spellwork cast by another, in any way, shape, or form. You can only mitigate it.” Tasar happily said, “But! Anything below mag 5 you can [Teleport Magic] to some other location or aimed in a different direction. Anything at or below mag 7 you can [Spatial Domain] to some other location. Mag 8 and 9 spellwork can only be altered by other mag 8 or 9 spellwork, or mitigated by a lot of lower level spellwork.

“In almost all scenarios where facing high magnitude magic, you should simply run the other way, or if you must try to counter it then you should use as many layers of defense and mitigation as you can. Transmutation from one Element to another works best, if you got it. Reflection broadly does well in all scenarios. Simple Force can mitigate a lot, if it’s thick enough and ablative enough.

“The reason you can’t do much against high mag spellwork is because high mag spellwork alters the very nature of the manasphere in an area.” Tasar said, “It’s almost always Domain-based, first of all, which means you have to break that to alter the spell, but secondly, high mag spells are almost always very, very high mana cost—” Tasar waved a hand, saying, “It gets complicated. We can speak on that if you wish but—

“But if you want to learn [Teleport Magic] anyway, I can certainly teach you that! It’s a lot less useful than you might think, but it’s surely useful in some scenarios.” Tasar added, “A [Spatial Domain] is much more useful, though.”

Erick said, “I want to learn [Teleport Magic], if you are willing, but before we get there: What about using [Gate] to move a Red Dot?”

Tasar gave a small smile. “This tactic works. One of the many, many reasons to get [Gate].”

“… Okay.” Erick said, “Lower mag spellwork has a hard time affecting higher mag spellwork.”

“Broadly true, yes,” Tasar agreed.

“Does that mean that [Gate] is mag 10?”

Tasar jerked as if slapped. Slowly, she spoke, “… Noooo… ooh?” She shook her head. “No. I mean… [Gate] is already out there and we know the functionality of the spell. There are historical records of [Gate] being used to move mag 9 spellwork around— Okay. So. I don’t know the reasoning why it works, but I never imagined it worked because [Gate] is mag 10. [Gate] is probably not mag 10. It just looks that way because of the effect, which is to seamlessly connect two parts of the world together and to allow free movement between those two points.”

“Yes.” Erick said, “But if, as my current Worldly Path suggests, [Gate] is actually just a Fae Domain and a Spatial Domain and some existence inside the mana connecting two places together, maybe [Gate] just looks like it seamlessly connects two places together.” He added, “Plus, we already know that back in the Rage Wars the Raging orcols tried to capture the Gate Network. They did this by breaking open a [Gate] to get at the space between the seemingly-solid ring of magic that is [Gate]’s magical manifestation. The records of that are spotty, but this is what I gathered from Archmage Tenebrae’s books on the subject.”

Tasar frowned a little. Erick could tell that she did not like Tenebrae; no one did, it seemed. But she said nothing.

Erick continued, “So this might mean that [Gate] is mag 10. Maybe that is what a Wizard is meant to do to the Walker’s [Spatial Domain] or [Fae Domain]. Maybe a Wizard is not meant to actually combine those two Domains into one, but to heighten the power of a Domain all the way to mag 10.”

Tasar scowled, but Erick could tell it was directed at herself. She muttered, “I suppose a direct-increase of a spell’s power is one of the easiest things for a Wizard to do… But this would break the magnitude limits set by the Script…” She said, “But then again this is what Wizards do, so… I don’t know. It’s a theory…”