184, 1/2

Springtime moved fast, but then it slowed, stretching on into forever like a lazy dream that would never end. The pink dragon no longer hurried. The rider above no longer worried. She laughed a springtime laugh, and then she cried for the loss of the red one. Small words floated by as the pink one did not think that red would perish that easily. The rider took comfort in those words, but her comfort was a false one.

Erick barely understood any of it.

Something had wrapped around his mind and would not let go.

And then that something wrapped tighter.

– – – –

Springtime collapsed into a large room at a tall tower. Sunlight streamed in from a tall window, while a cool breeze blew through the room. A woman in pink carried Erick bridal-style onto a soft white bed with fluffy fabrics to lay him down upon too many pillows and too much comfort. The woman was Erick’s own size, and Erick was not a petite person, but the woman moved him around to make him comfortable and there was no strain upon her face. There was only a small smile.

And some horns on her head.

A tail flicked out from the back of her dress. Her nails were sharper than they should be, but Erick could only tell because she took care not to let those claws touch his skin. That all meant something, but Erick could barely link one thought to the next.

The pink woman stepped away.

A second pink woman, this one without horns or anything else like that, stepped forward to the end of Erick’s bed. She had a white breastplate on her chest and shoulders, protecting her core, but her pink skirt looked weightless as gossamer silk. One green eye and one pink eye stared down at Erick, as she smiled at her triumph. Erick felt… Something about her. He couldn’t say what.

Worry?

Hate?

No. Probably not hate. That wasn’t who he was.

Anger, though… Maybe.

The smaller woman pulled out two small glass globes, each only a handspan across. One of them held a prismatic eye that was only visible sometimes; it swirled around inside its glass cage, focusing on everyone in the room, but mostly on Erick. The other globe held a thing of wings and eyes. The wing-eye thing puffed up, filling its entire cage with itself, before shrinking back down. It tried this three times, and for some reason, there was a wetness on Erick’s face.

The woman set those two trinkets on top of curvy, airy, golden crystal-ball holders, at the foot of Erick’s new bed.

“See?” asked the woman with the heterochromia. “He is harmed-not, and here you hold to see for yourself. This truly be temporary, anyway.”

The things inside of those trinkets then focused fully on Erick. The winged eyes fluffed up a bit, but turned calmer. The iridescent eye glanced at Erick, then turned back to the woman…

The other woman, the fully pink one with horns, was gone. When did that happen?

Heterochromia nodded to the little glass balls, then turned her attention to Erick. With a gentle smile, she spoke, “Welcome to Ar’Cosmos, Erick Flatt. I will endeavor to elucidate my words in the manner to which you made a request, but only past this preamble. Words of welcome and warning need be said, and they need be said securely.

“You are currently corrupted by the Fae.

“It will wear off with the wearing of obedience.

“The rules are written thusly:

“The Script survives-not in this land of no lies.

“Do as you will and your will will be done to you, though the re-doing of duress need not be of exact equality; I am the judge and the jury in cases of justice, and my decrees define this land, and your life.” The woman breathed. “And so we enact the etiquette of our existences.”

The room felt different, somehow. Erick had no idea how, but it was.

The woman spoke again, “But for you, there is an additional arrangement: You may leave when I give you leave, and there will be no gainsay in this truth.” Heterochromia said, “Let sanative sleep claim you; your curriculum shall surely last.”

Though the sun shone brightly the room was cool, and the blankets warm. Heterochromia went out the door, securely shutting it behind her. Solid stone walls seemed safe enough, so Erick cuddled into the covers, and let sanative slumber take him to a humble hibernation.

– – – –

Erick dreamed of white clouds in a blue sky, a shadowy existence on the horizon, and a lot of angry words being thrown against a pink and green fire. He had no idea what was what, but he was…

Getting…

Something.

Something was happening.

Something white hot began to form in the center of his being.

… No. Not ‘form’. Wake up.

Something was waking u—

– – – –

Erick slammed awake.

Everything happened very fast, and then not fast at all. He tried casting a [Luminous Beam] at the pink dragon-lady standing by the window. It failed. He tried manually casting a [Luminous Beam] at the pink dragon-lady; also failed. He briefly recognized that he was having a moment.

He briefly recognized that his mana sense was thrown wide and yet he could barely perceive more than four meters away from himself. This was double the size of his bed, and not much larger than that. It was a very nice, very large bed. Erick wanted to burn it. He wanted to burn the stone tower all around, he wanted to kill everyone.

He started speaking, “A power now I do hard-claim, a power now of mine to tame. I—”

The dragon lady’s eyes went wide—

Something ephemeral wrapped around Erick and held him tight, slamming him backward. Sleep tried to claim him again, but he fought, though it was like fighting an avalanche with a steel shield; he was still buried under a mountainside’s worth of power.

And yet he held onto consciousness much longer than he thought possible.

For Fairy Moon had strode through the suddenly-open doors, declaring, “Here are words of power be: I tame you now for all to see, a Wizard-born and Wizard-be, you are to now to take a knee, for murder tried and murder failed you are to now be ever-jailed. Only by my true decree, are you to be ever free!”

Thoughts ended.

And then restarted.

Erick was quiet, and calm, and not himself. He recognized this as one would recognize that they suddenly lost an arm, but for him, he had lost his entire body, and some of his mind. He wasn’t even sure if his soul was still his. But it had to be, because he was making this observation about himself?

He could still make observations, yes.

The anger was still there, but it was hidden behind an adamantine wall of Fae Magic.

Fairy Moon pointed to the floor beside her. “Get up and stand here.”

Erick got out of bed, walked over to where she pointed, and stood there. For some reason he was naked, but he didn’t seem to care, and neither did anyone else. His nudity was probably to make it easier to clean him while he slept. Probably to deprive him of his items, too; his rings and his Crystal Star were gone. How long had he slept?

Fairy Moon looked him over with discerning eyes. After a moment she pulled back. “Your problem is in your other self. Show it to me.”

Erick transformed into his Other Form; it was almost instinctual to shift to his monster-form these days. Fairy Moon had spoken about how he wouldn’t have Script access as a part of her rules, and he tried bringing up some of those familiar blue boxes, but they were all gone. And yet, he could still transform at will. He could probably use the other parts of his protean species, too. [Greater Lightwalk], [Luminous Beam], [Lodestar], [Perfected Polymorph], and of course, what he had just done, which was [Paradox Shift].

The pink dragon-lady gasped. “You called him a Wizard but— He really is!”

“Yes.” Fairy Moon relaxed, and spoke plainly while she looked him over, “And no one else is to know of this. I will honor the hospitality rites that brought him here. His Wizardry seemed based on that of a dragon, which is Rozeta’s deliberate doing, no doubt. It will make teaching him a trivial matter… Looks like his core is harmed; a buildup of degradation.”

Erick had seen his own core, but he didn’t feel a reason to fix the small fractures at the edges that would undoubtedly lead to catastrophic failure soon enough. He couldn’t seem to do anything on his own except to think some odd thoughts here and there, and to look around as his various senses allowed. He must have been out of it for days, though, with that level of breakdown.

The dragon lady said, “I’ll go get some spare rads—”

“There’s no need.” Fairy Moon stared at Erick. “Heal thyself.”

Erick cast [Renew], flowing light into his core while he began rotating his mana, filling out every little nook and cranny with solid, unblemished mana, healing the damage that time had caused. He bottomed out on mana rather quickly, but he kept cycling his core, flowing the mana around and around until he felt supremely solid. He sighed with relief and felt a smile come to his lips, and he saw no reason to rid himself of that expression, so he left it there.

“… What was that?” asked the dragon lady.

The question didn’t come from Fairy Moon, so Erick ignored it.

“It was something I saw him do once…” Fairy Moon repeated the question, “What did you do to yourself? Explain to educate.”

“That was [Renew].” Erick explained, “I made that spell back in the Core before Rozeta was going to help me learn of Wizardry and how to fix everything. But then Melemizargo fucked that up with ending our communion but Rozeta still managed to help me some and now I have to learn Wizardry proper from the ground up. [Renew] is all bouncy conformist mana that anyone can use to support any currently-active spellwork, and it is only by a twist of reality that I wasn’t quite aware of that [Renew] works well on monsters, and Wizards are monsters, and so here I am a monster and a man both with [Renew], able to support my own growth without the need of rads, which I understand makes monsters go crazy. I am glad I don’t have to go crazy.

“I still need to learn how to do all this Wizardry stuff, though, from turning my bones and organs to mana crystals and then all of that junk, but I don’t want to do that until I learn it all proper like, because I don’t want to be cut from the Script until I am able to live on my own as a Wizard out and about in the world. Rozeta warned me that she would cut me off from the Script if I did anything too wrong, so don’t ask me to harm anyone, but I’m going to be cut off anyway once I learn myself.

“So for now I am both Wizard and Not.

“In eleven-ish months, though, [Renew] gets out into the rest of the world and they all learn that I am a Wizard even if I am not ready to separate from the Script.

“But anyway: Rozeta installed a kill switch so if I go off the rails in my Wizardry she can pull me off the Script and kill me. That’s what this Other Form is. I think. Not sure what will happen there. If I lose the Script I lose a lot.

“I still need to remake Strong and Clarity and the like, too, as well as Paradox this Other Form of mine and my Normal Form together into a cohesive whole. I was hoping to get to do all of that after Oceanside but then you kidnapped me and now I am here talking to you about stuff that I really shouldn’t… be speaking…” His voice trailed off.

His words had all come out in a jumble and he had barely answered Fairy Moon’s question before he went off on a tangent… Because he wanted to go off on a tangent? She was surely smart enough to understand his words, even if he himself had barely kept up with that verbal diarrhea.

Why was he speaking like this, though?

Well… Because he Had To Do What Fairy Moon Wanted, of course.

It all made perfect sense when he thought of it like that.

He could have answered her better, but a part of him was glad that he did not.

… And that part of him stared out from deep within the depths of his soul, stirring against its confines, watching, waiting. It would strike when it could. Not yet, though.

Fairy Moon glanced from Erick’s eyes, to his core, narrowed her gaze, and then returned her sight back to Erick. “Both of you understand the depth of your near-depravity. Your yearned-for murder of my Maid Maria has landed you in this losing position. Prepare thyself for even worse should you scheme and actually slay anyone at all.

“I do this kind-ways first. I do this terrible-ways when I owe that obligation.”

Heard and understood.

“How does this Other Form work?” Fairy Moon asked.

“I [Paradox Switch] and I get a new Status. It was level zero, but [Renew] and then cycling has gained me levels.” Erick said, “Level 27, as of the last time I was able to check. The Script doesn’t seem to work here.”

“The Script does not reach this land and it never will.” Fairy Moon frowned a little.

And then Fairy Moon stepped closer and stared up at Erick. Erick glanced downward. Fairy Moon was half a head smaller than him. And then she started walking around him, leaning over to get a closer look at his legs and his back and his stomach, and especially his heart; she was surely looking at his core from all sides, for she had to have a good mana sense at her age. Erick almost wanted to ask if she really was a million years old, but he did not.

He could not.

And that brought him up short again. He realized something was deeply wrong and he could do nothing about it.

“You haven’t spent any points in this Other Form at all, have you.” She kept walking around him. “None at all. Not even on basic things like Meditation or higher Stats.”

It wasn’t a question, so Erick didn’t answer.

Fairy Moon got to his front again then stepped back. She glanced to the dragon lady, her Maid Maria, saying, “Prepare a grand luncheon. Invite Illustrious. Tell her nothing.” She stood as tall as she was able and turned back to Erick, “Attend this announcement, in order: See to your young ones. Contact no one outside of Ar’Cosmos. Remain in this Other Form from now until I say otherwise. Clean yourself up in that bathroom. Put on whatever clothes you find in the dressers that you wish to wear. Then, and only then, you will join me in the dining room downstairs to continue this discussion. Find yourself freed from this ensorcellment by the surety of your steps.” She added, “A tribulation shall greet you should you gainsay these trials.”

And then she left.

– – – –

Erick did as he was told.

He went to the globes first. The one containing the feathered eyes bounced and fluffed, making tiny taps at his glass cage at Erick’s approach, while the iridescent eye simply bobbed a bit. Erick picked up the noisy one first—

Ophiel.

Erick held Ophiel’s orb in his hand and the little guy’s name was a bolt of lightning erupting from Erick’s very soul. And then the flash faded. With a simple smile, Erick put Ophiel back down on his stand.

Ophiel bounced even harder against his solid glass sphere. Plink plink. Plink plink.

Erick picked up the eye—

Yggdrasil.

Like a clearing sky, Erick realized that Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye had been trapped inside the globe. Yggdrasil’s eye spun a bit, staring up at Erick, hoping for… Something. Erick had no idea what. All he could do was hold the globe tighter. In a spur of need, Erick glanced to Ophiel’s orb and grabbed that one, too. He held both in his hands…

And then he went to the bathroom.

Erick was sure, that if he were in his proper mind, that he would have loved to be here, in this bath in a more friendly setting. The bathroom was as magnificent as the bedroom, with solid grey stone fixtures and fountains pouring out of the wall and a hot basin of water which was easily two meters wide and four long, and a meter deep. Erick set Yggdrasil and Ophiel in the water with him as he grabbed some soap and cleaned himself up. The water got dirty, but it was rapidly cleaned by some sort of magics.

Halfway through his cleaning, he realized he needed to use the other facilities, so he went to the other side of the room and did that. Yggdrasil and Ophiel were still bobbing in the bathwater when he came back and redid his instructed cleaning…

Erick slowed down as he finished washing the soap out of his hair.

He was clean, and…

Some thoughts came back. A vise loosened around his heart and soul and mind.

He looked to the bobbing trinkets and grabbed Ophiel and Yggdrasil. He held them tight. He could feel his connection to both of them, but… He couldn’t summon another Ophiel, and he barely even realized that he could do that, anyway. Erick sat there in the shallow end of the bath for a while, just thinking, trying to understand the depth of the danger all around. For there was danger; he recognized that, now. But thoughts remained as elusive as all his usual magic, and he only had the barest bit of Mana left, anyway.

Erick had enough wherewithal to recognize that Fairy Moon had made him empty his mana while she was watching, and then she had recognized that he had no mana, and she had told him to stay in this Other Form until she said otherwise. If not for that instruction, Erick felt he could easily switch back.

A fog still lingered, though. Erick didn’t feel like breaking anything right now, least of all Fairy Moon’s instructions.

Eventually, Erick got out of the tub and went to put on clothes.

His skin felt great after the bath and the clothes felt wonderful, but as he put them on another part of his self came back.

Fairy Moon had fairy-fucked him, hadn’t she.

Ah. Shit. He couldn’t even transform back to his Normal Self to cast any larger magics and he didn’t have Meditation in this form, so the last hour he had spent in the bathroom, very much not Resting at all due to sudden stress, he had only regained a pittance of mana. Not even enough for 2 seconds of [Greater Lightwalk] movement. At his current cap of 200 mana, even if he Rested for the necessary 2 hours, he still couldn’t cast a single [Luminous Beam], either; that spell cost 500 mana, and he didn’t have Clarity.

He couldn’t do shit.

He couldn’t even [Cleanse] himself until he had gathered 9 of the 10 required mana, and that was only because Intelligence had dropped the costs of his spellwork by 10%… But did that even work here in Ar’Cosmos?

Did… Any of his preconceived notions about magic work?

Erick had no idea!—

No wait! He had [Renew]ed himself back there. He still had all his spells. Those spells were inside his soul, which was currently locked to the core sitting beside his heart, nestled in its own set of veins and arteries that did not pump blood at all, but which looked like they could. Maybe they pumped something else? Did they pump mana? Why? How?

… Anyway. If he had the mana he could use it. But that likely wasn’t happening anytime soon. He had a max of 200 mana and no Clarity (did Clarity even work in Ar’Cosmos?) which meant that he was fucked. And all because he had decided to wait to put points into his Other Self’s Status…

No. Wait.

Something was wrong with that idea.

Why did points into Willpower, which would have increased his base Mana in this Other Self, still matter here in Ar’Cosmos? Wasn’t this place like the Old Cosmology? Stats didn’t matter? Only—

Oh.

Stats fortified the part of oneself that allowed one to have more mana in the first place. His Stats would have still contributed to his Mana reserves here in Ar’Cosmos if he had ever spent them, but he had wanted to raise his Other Self right, and fortify his body in the old ways, since he was eventually going to lose Script access entirely. Saving his Points and then seeing how they fortified his body and soul had been his goal…

But now he was here, in Ar’Cosmos, and that original plan had fucked him over—

No. Wait. Even if he had spent the points, then… Nothing really mattered in the face of Fairy Moon, did it? She would do what she wanted, and Erick would need to go along, or else she would take away his ability to resist her.

This was not his fault. This was Fairy Moon’s fault.

… But he still tried doing what he always did when he added points to his Stats, which was to open his Status and then adding points from the pool, but there was a major disconnect there. First, he couldn’t open the Status. Then, he couldn’t spend points. Even if he tried to do it instinctively, nothing happened.

No blue boxes.

Nothing.

Did he even have Health? This was Ar’Cosmos and there was no ‘Health’ back in the Old Cosmology; only mana— No ‘Mana’ either! Just mana, that was in the air and everywhere else, and what one managed to shove into their core to allow them to cast magics in the first place—

Okay. So his Intelligence was still working a bit. He didn’t seem slower than usual.

— So how much mana did he actually have, then? If his Core was his mana, and he was a Wizard making a million mana a day, then he should be able to cast from that pool of mana…

He tried another [Renew]; the safe choice.

Light sputtered inside his chest and then failed to blossom.

It seemed some rules applied, and others did not. He was still connected to the manaminer aspect of the Script; his mana production was not his own, for it was shunted off into the Core of Veird, or something like that. Try as he might, Erick could not cast anything.

Ah.

… Could he phone Phagar for help? Request aid from Rozeta?

… Message Melemizargo?

He thought for a moment longer about everything that was happening to him and his very limited options, and then he grabbed orbs that contained Yggdrasil and Ophiel and left his room. He turned toward the stairs and walked down; the only direction he could go.

He passed windows along the way, and gazed out across the grounds.

Skyscrapers in a myriad of styles dotted the land, each at least twenty stories tall, while a lush forest grew down below. Half of the towers were pagodas. The other half were more Greensoilian or Wastelandian; tall spires of almost-gothic architecture.

Erick edged to one open window, seventh from his room, and stepped out to the short balcony. Down below was a large yard filled with a small farm, while beyond that farmland was a wall that divided this estate from the roads and businesses outside. The streets were filled with people of all sorts, with a lot of them looking like the dragonkin that Maria was (his Perception seemed to be working well enough, Erick realized) with the thick tail and horns and very little in the way of scales. Some of them had actual scales all over their bodies, and looked almost like Apogee back in Spur. Some looked like people wearing prop items; they had no scales on the bare arms or legs that Erick could see.

Two types of dragonkin?

And now that he thought about it, Maid Maria had no scales on her face and very few on the rest of her. His mana sense was shortened considerably, but it hadn’t been small enough to not notice everyone around him, when they had been near. Maria had had a small rad beside her heart, too, though hers was perfectly spherical without any facets and actually under her heart. Like a pearl. Erick’s was more like a cut gem.

Fairy Moon had been inscrutable, though. It was only now that Erick realized that he hadn’t been able to see inside of her, when she had been peeking inside of him. He hadn’t really looked too hard, but his mana sense was up and active at all times, anyway.

And he didn’t see anyone else around in the castle with him. Sure, there were lots of people on the distant streets, but… None of them looked up and glanced at Erick, even though he had mistakenly stood by some of those windows for too long.

Something fuckey was going on.

Probably multiple things, actually.

… Proceeding more cautiously, Erick strode down the wide, spiraling staircase that spanned the whole of this particular tower. He glanced out every window he came across.

Fairy Moon’s compound was massive and gothic and old. The main compound down below was the size of Erick’s own mansion ten times over. Her towers were fifteen to thirty stories tall. Taller than anyone else’s. Everything was arches and alcoves and balconies and sculptures of all types of people and pillars—

Something small with great big eyes and stone-grey scales peeked at him from behind the head of a stone sculpture on the next tower over, briefly meeting his gaze. And then the thing instantly retreated. It was a… A lizard, maybe? Yes. It was a lizard.

… Or maybe snake—

Oh. Wait.

A baby dragon?

Might have been a dragon.

Okay, so. Erick’s Stats were down about 70 points from where they usually were. He still had Perception and Intelligence, so he was a great deal above ‘baseline-human’, but not as capable as he usually was—

So why not switch back and make some rings—

Erick shook his head.

Rings wouldn’t matter anyway; useless in this Other Form.

Erick also ignored the possible-baby-dragon and continued down—

He froze. He should switch to his Normal Form and then he could esca—

He continued down the—

He stopped. He should switch—

Erick continued down the wide, spiraling staircase; the only way he could go—

Unless he wanted to jump out a window and flee? Nah. He’d probably fall to his death. He might have Dexterity and some Strength, but both were at 10, and he was never very good at the physical side of adventuring… He was never really a good adventurer, anyway, even if he was a guild member and ‘Star 11’ or something like that.

And besides! There were baby dragons out there climbing all over.

… Or maybe they were guardians meant to stay out of sight, but warn people of their presence when people looked like they were making to climb on the architecture. Erick breathed deep. Yeah. Okay. That seemed more likely. He was trapped. That made more sense than baby dragons crawling around outside on the decorative arches and sculptures.

… And he kept walking down the stairs. This tower was pretty damn huge, eh?

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Erick eventually made it to the bottom of the stairs and found himself to the side of an end of a hallway. The actual end to the hallway was a set of open double doors and a nice little breakfast balcony, overlooking the gardens down below. The floors inside had a nice carpet heading from those open doors to further into the house. Erick considered the balcony. It wasn’t much of a jump down—

One of the lizards poked up from the edge of the balcony, eyed Erick, and then vanished back behind the solid stone.

… Guardians then. Not baby dragons.

Erick followed the carpet down into the bowels of Fairy Mansion, or was it Clan Fairy? The people around here did things like the Nelboorites did, with pagoda architecture and ‘clans’, according to what Erick had heard, so it probably was ‘clans’, and not ‘houses’. Eh. Whatever.

The smells of cooking bread and something savory wafted on a breeze that flowed through the house. Erick followed both the carpet, and now the smell, until he ended up in a central dining room. The table was a massive oak thing made of dark wood with white inlays, while the chairs were similarly weighty. The whole edge of the room was festooned with hand-carved sculptures and paintings and other works of art, while the luncheon spread on the table mirrored that of a state-level dinner. Candelabras made of twisting serpents that ‘breathed’ candles that were lit with a perfect-white flame. Mounds of food layered atop multi-leveled silver platters. A full roast pig, with a tarip stuffed in its mouth. Maid Maria started carving the pig the second Erick stepped into the dining room, making pulled pork out of the carcass, while Fairy Moon sat at the head of the table, and a third person sat at the third seating. Erick assumed the open seat was for him.