188, 2/2

Rozeta felt the mana shift before it happened.

And then the shift occurred, like an echo cast backward from the future, touching upon the entire manasphere to see where it should land, moving like living lightning. For a horrible, terrible moment, Rozeta had a flashback to the Sundering. But the lightning didn’t grow. It circled a drain, and Rozeta followed the flow.

The mutation in the mana rapidly centered upon the intangible lands of Ar’Cosmos, deep in the green Forest of Glaquin.

For a tense moment Rozeta cast her eyes in multiple directions at once, one part of her staring upon the Green, while another inspected a small section of the Core of Veird, upon a tiny space dedicated to one person, and one person only. That entire small space clicked. An alarm had been tripped by the passing of something unknown.

That was where the lightning had started, but where it flowed, was to its creator.

Rozeta felt another round of terror for a long moment.

This was it. Erick had turned Wizard, growing his core into something half-respectable a day ago, and now they were here. The birth of something new. The creation of something calamitous, but also caring. Had he intended the lightning? Had he meant to make it look like the start of another Sundering?

Was something even larger happening?

Why?

Just.

WHY.

And then Rozeta knew why. Erick had always been close to lightning, and now Fairy Moon had struck.

That realization hit Rozeta hard. The clouds in her blue sky turned dim, and distant, but then she took an eternal moment and began to inspect the newness. Fairy Moon had touched upon Erick in a moment of weakness and demanded a creation, and now that creation was here, and the similarities to an old horror were too much…

Rozeta’s fear held strong for an eon, and for less than a millisecond.

Gradually, calmly, as Rozeta looked, as she did some preliminary tests, she found that Erick’s new ‘lightning’ was not Primal Lightning at all. For one, it responded to her tests. She was able to shape and poke at it without blowing up thousands of kilometers of the Core. Primal Lightning was terrifying. This stuff was… The opposite of terrifying.

Hopeful?

… Fairy Moon had struck well.

Was it just coincidence that had caused this creation to look so similar to that old horror?

… Sure. Let’s go with that, for now.

The new Element was small. It was already well integrated. Only one person had the Element in them in any measurable sense, so there wasn’t much to play around with, but Rozeta was able to get some decent readouts. Erick surely had a name for his creation, and Rozeta suspected that that name was ‘Benevolence’, but until he was out of Ar’Cosmos and could tell them the name of this element, then calling it ‘Benevolence’ was just a guess.

His creation, though, was already in the Script, like it had always been. It fit well into the standard model… Sort of. Benevolence was between Light and Air and Water, but with a deep touch of Fae that placed it firmly into Fate and Time magic. If anyone else had made this then Rozeta would have ripped it out of the Script, put it in a void box, and sent paladins after the creator. Benevolence was too strong. It was too varied. It wasn’t deadly, but it didn’t need to be.

It was also a part of [Renew] while never having been there before now.

It was also a part of Yggdrasil, but mostly because it even had some sort of [Grow]ing aspect to it, putting it onto the Stone-Water axis—

“Old gods!” Rozeta cursed, as her inspection revealed something more. “Fire-Healing axis, too? …‘Warmth’? Ah. Concepts. Ah… Erick—”

And then she frowned, for she had seen something else that was more worrying than all the rest.

“… Dammit, Erick.”

A pinprick of Darkness held inside the new Element.

… Rozeta continued her inspection to ensure that what she was seeing was correct. Ten years and ten moments later, she pulled back. She had seen enough. She had tested enough. This was firmly not Primal Lightning. This was something new, and helpful.

The metaphysical conversation around why Erick had made a visually similar Primal Lightning-like element would come later.

After going through several more minor emotional crises on her own over the course of the next ten months spent in solitude and more testing, Rozeta had arrived at her response.

She called up Phagar and demanded he share in her worries. It was easy to commiserate with Phagar, for while there was some trouble happening in the near future, the near future was suddenly very stable. More stable than it had been in a while, too. This was no doubt due to the chaos Erick had made today, and Phagar agreed.

Atunir and Koyabez both came into the conversation third, for Rozeta had found Elemental Benevolence inside [Exalted Rain], and also inside the Crystal Star that Erick had made. Atunir was surprised, but then not surprised at all that Erick was a Wizard. She was mostly just resigned.

Rozeta could relate.

Koyabez was not surprised about any of this, and was, in fact, the most happy of everyone. Phagar came in a close second, because he already had a good idea of what would come next, though he wasn’t going to tell anyone; like usual.

They spoke for a while about possible connections to Primal Lightning, if only due to the similar visuals, but the fact was that Elemental Benevolence and Primal Lightning were completely opposite in effect and nature.

And then came Sininindi. The goddess of storm and sea had called up Rozeta before Rozeta even considered calling up her, or even including her in this particular conversation. Sininindi was still smarting from the last Wizard to darken her shores, and Rozeta didn’t want her to be involved with Erick at all. The damage from Hullbreaker still haunted several port cities even twenty years later.

But something had happened to Yggdrasil’s twin, and Sininindi was demanding answers.

Sininindi took in the news, and stood back, silent. And then she began demanding to know how Elemental Benevolence worked with regard to natural disasters, and about its visual similarity to Primal Lightning. That particular conversation took an hour and a year, but the gist was that Benevolence was not Primal Lightning, at all.

It was the opposite.

Rozeta said, “We’ll have to wait and see, but Benevolence should provide all users with an innate understanding of when bad things will happen, with the degree of feeling directly proportional to the degree of danger of the future event, based on how much overall harm might happen to life in the area. For a normal murder, I suspect Elemental Benevolence won’t give any notice at all except for in the hands of the truly skilled, and possibly only in the hands of someone like Erick.

“Some users will likely use Benevolence to track storms, but I don’t foresee this method being more prevalent than the normal [Future Sight] methodology.

“Users will be able to foresee if some malicious actor decides to cause a storm. Possibly. It’s too early to tell how mortals will use this creation, and [Renew] is still a year away, so that common source of Elemental Benevolence is still out of reach of most people. [Exalted Rain] has a little Benevolence inside, but unless those users are specifically made aware of this then they might not realize that the Exalted in there is actually Benevolence. Many things that look like something else, are actually Benevolence, for Benevolence seems highly capable of masquerading as any number of other Elements. As for Yggdrasil’s twin, the only ones who now know he has Elemental Benevolence inside of him are all of us, Erick, and whoever he decides to tell. I imagine many people will figure this out sooner rather than later, though.”

Sininindi frowned.

She looked to Atunir.

Atunir seemed pleased.

Atunir held out a hand, saying, “I win the bet. Cough up the goods.”

Sininindi slapped a single, completely normal gold coin onto Atunir’s hand, saying, “Technically, he has been and will continue to be monumentally destructive, but he’s also similarly creative. On balance, you did not actually win, and the future has yet to be written.”

“I told you to stay away from him and we’d all be better for it, and now he’s solving an existential problem that continues to worry us, even now. I don’t think any of us like how Benevolence looks but Erick has always had an affinity for lightning, so that explains that. Therefore, I was right; I won the bet. Decades or centuries more do not matter for this.” Atunir smirked as she said, “Don’t be inglorious, Sininindi; it is not a good look on you.”

Sininindi frowned.

Atunir added, “And be nicer to him. Maybe he’ll let you hook up to his [Gate].”

“I would already be able to…” Sininindi frowned, then she lost her frown, and said, “I tried to get my priests to find him after that [Teleport]er incident; to save him! Bah.” She waved a hand. “Ehhh!” She focused. “Rozeta! Tell us of Benevolence scenarios. You have already run some, yes?”

The conversation continued.

They had all already thought that Erick might have been a Wizard, but now they knew.

If they all kept to the covenant then their priests and otherwise wouldn’t know about Erick unless they really paid attention to their spells, or their environs… But that was a long shot.

Koyabez would likely adhere to the covenant. Phagar never told anyone anything, so his reaction to this news was a foregone conclusion, and it was quite possible that he had known of all the day’s events long before Rozeta, and maybe even before Erick and his daughter had fallen to Veird. Atunir… Her clergy would likely find out soon, for they were the closest to the magics that Erick had put out there; specifically, [Exalted Rain]. Her Champion, Yetta, was still out there, so… That was a thing. Atunir would likely directly ally with Erick-as-Wizard. Or at least Yetta would. Maybe.

Sininindi was as wild and unpredictable as her Storm Priests, and she couldn’t keep secrets for shit.

… There was no keeping this secret.

Rozeta had at least one person to personally inform, anyway.

– – – –

Kromolok awoke with a start, coming back together from his bed like an ooze reforming out of a bowl.

Something had—

Rozeta stood in front of him.

Kromolok almost sighed, full of sudden worry, but Rozeta’s expression was one of hope, and surety. Something had happened. Something good.

With a voice full of trepidation, Kromolok asked, “What happened?”

Rozeta’s grin was brighter than the sun. “Erick hasn’t made a [Gate], but he has solved the Sundering problem by creating Elemental Benevolence. I have some concerns over the exact nature of his solution, but it might actually work. The created Concept is mostly beneficial to others, but it has a Dark aspect to it that is close to Destruction, which should be easily malleable into targeted Forgotten Missions. If I’m right, then the job of the Inquisitor just got a lot easier.”

Kromolok sat, stunned.

Rozeta continued, “There will need to be experiments and infrastructure and Erick will need to be involved with all of that, but first we need to get him out of Ar’Cosmos. Draft a letter. Diplomacy might work, but if it does not…” Her brightness turned immutable, and deadly. Rozeta always tried to be a comfortable goddess, but she had a harder side that came out when necessary. “Light and Ash, Kromolok. Light and Ash.”

A familiar weight, like a worn blanket, fell upon Kromolok’s shoulders. “Then that is how it will be.” He stood, asking, “Has Kirginatharp been informed?”

“I will be dealing with him.”

Expected, and yet… Kromolok felt the need to say, “Erick is likely going to ask Ar’Cosmos for assistance in some way, and he might have even have solved the Dragon Curse. What will we do when he releases those un-Cursed dragons into the world and looks to them for alliances?”

“If we give those dragons a chance to spread out into the world unchecked then they will take over everything, and a Forgotten Campaign would destroy too much while trying to push them back into Ar’Cosmos.” Rozeta said, “So approach the problem diplomatically, and lay down some rules that they can follow. Feel them out. Don’t be too stringent. They have been keeping their own society in check for a while now, but that was only due to space concerns. If you lift up the heads of houses to proper governmental status then we might be able to work together. That is only if Erick actually goes to them for alliances, though, which he might not do. I want him to ally with the wrought and I want him to ally with Kirginatharp, so depending on whatever they did to him in there and the nature of his mind control, then our goal of Erick-working-with-us might either be easy to achieve, or difficult.” She frowned a little, then lost that emotion, saying, “The full truth is this, Kromolok: Erick is and will always be a danger. But so is every other good person in the world, and I want to trust Erick and this new Elemental Benevolence that he has made. Keep this in mind once you finally get to see that Element for yourself.”

Kromolok had heard similar words from his goddess scant few times before. Each time, Rozeta’s hopes had never come to fruition. Every time, Kromolok had needed to clean up the mess. And yet, he still felt hope that this time might be different. He had taken Erick’s measure many times, and the man seemed a practical Saint.

And yet, Erick was a Wizard, and Rozeta’s final words were a hammer blow to the psyche.

Kromolok took those words to heart, and then he moved on to seeking problems with Rozeta’s ideas, to look for solutions, as was his purpose in life.

Erick was a Wizard that had done too much, in too little time, who had changed how the very world would function going forward. Erick hadn’t created his own [Gate] yet, but after this news Kromolok was sure that [Gate] was only days away. And yet, Melemizargo had never ended Erick’s Worldly Path. The problems Erick churned out just got bigger, and bigger.

And there was one problem that was still on Erick’s list to solve, that he had not solved yet.

“Kirginatharp still has the delegations from Hell and Celes at Oceanside.” Kromolok asked, “Is Erick’s Path truly so large that he is going to solve the Forever War?”

“… Well.” Rozeta said, “There are multiple ways to solve that problem. Erick could pick any of them. Or he could fail. If he tries to actually get both sides to stop fighting then he will likely fail. So… Be prepared for the inevitable.”

Kromolok let that particular thread of the conversation go for there was nothing he could do about that looming danger, and moved onto the next largest question. “What about Melemizargo?”

“I haven’t heard from him. This is worrying, of course. He’ll show up like a wraith when it’s least beneficial. Be ready for that, for that is all any of us can truly do when it comes to the Old God of Magic.”

Kromolok bowed a fraction, saying, “Thy will be done, my Goddess.”

Rozeta nodded. With her message complete, she vanished in a splash of divine, golden fire.

And Kromolok went to work.

– – – –

Dinner was done, and it was Jane’s turn to put away the dishes. The only problem was that plates were already stacked high in the stone cupboard, and there was no room for more. When did they even get this many plates? Must have been Kiri. She liked to go antique shopping. Teressa too, Jane supposed. Well whatever. Jane opened up the other cupboard and began making some room among the cups. There weren’t too many dishes in this particular cupboard, since all the stuff here was the ‘good china’.

Some of the good stuff could be moved around, though. So that is what Jane did—

A cup fell out of the cupboard and smashed into the counter, for Jane’s hands were too full of plates to catch it. The tinkling-crash was loud in the relative quiet of the kitchen.

Jane set down the plates.

And then she stared at the shards, puzzled for a handful of reasons. Why had she not reacted to grab the cup before it could break? She could have with her new aura. Activating her aura was possible outside of the Script Second. With that thought, she opened herself to her prismatic light and her power flowed across her skin. She touched the shards of the cup and [Mend]ed it whole—

She jolted.

Jane recognized the cup. It was a part of a cup and saucer set that her father had gotten months ago, at one of the antiquing excursions that had seemed to become more and more commonplace since then.

Now…

Jane did not believe in signs or portents or omens, but she finished putting away the dishes and, with sweat trickling down her back, she went to find Teressa—

Teressa was currently upstairs, in the middle of the third floor hallway, alone, eyes open as she gazed upward at nothing. Her face was slack while her sight danced with grey light.

Jane’s worries ratcheted up several notches.

Nothing had happened for two weeks since her father had been abducted by the fae, except for the letters from him and all the yelling and talking by a lot of people far above Jane in the political landscape. Jane wasn’t privy to any of that, except when those conversations concerned her and what had happened with the Soul Slime.

Teressa had been looking for Erick’s return on the daily, though.

Jane slowly approached the tall woman, asking, “Teressa? Do you see something? Teressa?”

Where was everyone else? Surely it wasn’t just her and Teressa in the house right now? At this late hour? Had Kiri fucked off somewhere? Maybe she had, actually. Maybe she was talking politics with someone right now. Poi would have gone, too, if there had needed to be talks. Everyone usually did their own thing after dinner, anyway, or pretty much all the time now, actually. Jane kinda missed Nirzir, too, but the princess of Songli had gone back home not seven days ago. It might actually be just Jane and Teressa in the house right now.

Teressa wasn’t answering, but the grey light in her eyes seemed to deepen, and brighten. A book lay at her feet, half opened and on its pages. It was a novel she had been reading. For some reason, she had wandered out here into the hallway and then just… dropped her book to stare at the ceiling, to have a vision.

Jane waited.

And then she couldn’t wait anymore.

“Teressa? Teressa. Teressa.”

No response.

Jane ventured closer and poked the woman in the hand—

Jane jumped back.

Teressa giggled and sudden tears poured out of her eyes, down the sides of her face. She turned her head to look at Jane and her eyes were still full of grey light, but somehow the grey was diminished, and in its place was white.

She looked happy.

With a voice of pure emotion, Teressa spoke, “I see it all, Jane. A possible future. It’s never been so clear… before.” She pulled back from that brightness. “But… It clouded?” She frowned, and then her emerald eyes came back. She blinked several times in quick succession, then said, “I think… I think Erick will be fine? Maybe. Something happened. Something big.” She looked to Jane. “We need to talk to Poi.”

But Poi never spilled his guts over anything. He wouldn’t even talk to her about the mental impressions he had shown her back during the assault on the soul ooze.

Jane asked, “Specifically, Poi?”

Stolen story; please report.

“Yes. He will know more.”

So they went to go find him.

– – – –

All across Ar’Cosmos, in every layer of the city, the mana shifted.

In the depths of Nightly Road, where the land was tight-packed with tenements and tenants both temporary, and who had lived there all their lives. Some of those people had barely breached the higher layers to see Central City, or any of the other parts of Ar’Cosmos. Portals opened in that twisted place, and houses were suddenly split in half. A lucky woman opened the door to her bathroom and saw a storage room filled with gold. She giggled in nervous joy.

Along the causeways of Central Road ten thousand people hawked their wares to any who would buy, and there was always a buyer. The entire world of Veird, as curated by the dragons who lived out there in secret, came here to sell their gains and their creations for chances to rid themselves of their Curse; to join a House, and not have to live in the shadows anymore. In the middle of all this a river opened up, flowing down from the farmlands.

Chaos flew through Central Road for long moments while houses suddenly appeared on skyways, and skyways suddenly replaced houses. The guards of House Carnage moved fast to reestablish order but they had no idea what was happening, either.

Thieves and opportunists escaped in the flow of change, darting through walls that should have been solid, but which had been replaced by farming fields, and bright, bright sunlight.

The tall skyways of High Road ended in cliffs.

– – – –

A woman with a crown made of her bright red horns, like red stone, gazed across her well-appointed study. She set down her paperwork, for there was a more pertinent problem than payroll. Her study was half missing. Half of her monster trophies were gone somewhere else, for half of her room had been replaced with half of a classroom.

Luckily, Inferno Maw was in that other half of her new room, and so the woman’s bright, bright smile had a better target than the students. The students likely had nothing to do with whatever this was, so good for them. They were already cowering in fear, as was right; uninvolved people needed to get the fuck out of the way when danger happened.

“So what’s all this, then?” Bright Smile asked.

Inferno Maw frowned, narrowing his grey eyes at the division that separated the classroom from Bright Smile’s study. “The rooms are perfectly aligned… Mostly.” He looked to the left, where a broken wall met open air, and wind whistled into both rooms from outside. “Someone was doing Fae-based Wizardry, but the only one I know of who could do that would be Redflame… But he was supposed to wait till tomorrow to try for [Renew]. But even then… This is his [Gate Space]. Whatever this is should not have happened if he caused it.”

Bright Smile finally rose from her chair, smiling all the while. “Shall we go see the man, then?”

Inferno Maw told his class, “Dismissed for the day. Do be diligent with doing your— Ah.” He whispered to himself, “Yes. Fae Magic, then; I was speaking in alliterations.” He turned back to the students, “Don’t forget your bookwork.” He turned to Bright Smile. “Let’s be off.”

Bright Smile gestured in the direction of Redflame’s cliffside mansion, which was directly across the classroom. The problem was that there was most of a classroom and likely many buildings in the way, but they weren’t Bright Smile’s classroom or buildings. With a flick of power a tornado of red light opened a hole directly through Ar’Cosmos, stabilizing the space in a tunnel, opening up a path through to the forest that surrounded Redflame’s home.