201, 1/2

Erick started the day with an omelet, pancakes, and bacon, eaten on the porch as he watched the sunrise over Candlepoint. He had made his own breakfast as he sometimes did, while making more for Poi, Kiri, and Teressa, for when they eventually woke. Those were under preservation [Ward]s, for now.

He was alone, save for Ophiel and Yggdrasil, and a daily report from Zolan.

It was yesterday’s end of day summary, but it was more than that. Later in the report were the goals for today and the goals for the following weeks and months. There were even some long standing goals for the far future listed on page 3, the last page. ‘Open new worlds’ was the final entry. These reports were a nice way to start the day.

Zolan had made reports like this for Kirginatharp, and it was all too easy for Zolan to start making the same sorts of reports for Erick. Erick didn’t even have to request such reports. Zolan was simply good enough to know that reports needed to be made.

Today’s report seemed special, though. Almost all of the news was simply reports on what the other overseers were working on; current projects and the like, and how far along they were. Only two entries in the beginning had any sort of bearing on Erick’s plans for today.

Volaro had finally wrapped up the story of the meat thieves, putting to rest the problems with the disappearing livestock from last month. It had taken a while for Burhendurur and Slip to uncover and locate the 21 people who had been poaching from Candlepoint, but only a few days to capture them. Those people had been in confinement for a little while, and now, their trial was done.

Apparently, those 21 people were one great big extended family and their father had been exiled from the Wasteland for political issues, and the kids were the people who stole the livestock. They were terrified of the Wizard, but they felt they had no other choice but to steal to survive, and then they accidentally overcompensated in their theft. ‘They didn’t mean to steal that much, they swore!’ That was their story, anyway.

The outcome of the trial was an offer to join the ranch and work for the food they wanted, or exile, with the threat that being caught again was execution. It was a rather lenient sentence, all things considered.

Volaro’s official decree was that the defendants were lying about something, but that didn’t matter. If they proved to be good citizens, then he didn’t care if they lied (and Erick didn’t either, for he had been consulted before the final decree came down). Most of the chickens and cows were back with Daetroi, anyway, and in a few days, Daetroi would get 19 more people to work at the ranch.

Actually getting the livestock back didn’t mean much besides how it looked, politically, to protect Candlepoint from even the smallest of threats.

Erick had ‘solved’ the problem of not having enough meat options in town weeks ago; he had made Zolan figure it out. Zolan’s solution was to put Daetroi in contact with his own Wasteland contacts in order to buy more animals. The ranch had gotten more livestock within two days after that. And now, with 19 more people working under him, Daetroi and the other ranchers were no longer overworked.

Those 19 people hadn’t even stepped on the ranch yet, but Daetroi was glad to get them.

There was also a bit of news about the dungeons.

Mox’s Stone dungeon and Air dungeon were both starting to produce slimes, while the Water dungeon was ramping up to capacity. The Fire dungeon was still waiting for its first slimes, but that was normal. Fire dungeons took a long time to get going. The Light dungeon was on hold, because of Erick’s previous agreement with Kirginatharp to not do another Light dungeon for 10 years, but they had broken ground on the Shadow dungeon four nights ago. The shadelings Mox had hired for that area were working well. There was still no overt sign of Melemizargo down in those dark, damp tunnels, but he was still very much there, of course. Melemizargo was inside every darkened corner of every part of Veird. The Shadow dungeon might produce some good slimes in a month.

The Benevolence dungeon was a tower and a pit (since no one was quite sure which was best) situated to the north of the Gate District. It was ready for Erick’s experimentation, but he had been too busy to do much of that recently.

And that was it for current events!

A single report on the meat thieves, and a notice that Mox was ready for Erick to try his hand at making a Benevolence dungeon. Everything else was long term, from Zolan speaking with Songli to get a hookup to the Gate Network, to overtures of the same to Spur, to Aisha working on turning iron into viable magical metal, and other things.

Even the Benevolence dungeon wasn’t that much of a priority, because esoteric dungeons almost never worked. Erick was still going to try, though.

And so, since Erick didn’t have any necessary meetings, or anything like that…

What to do?

Time Magic with Phagar? A Boon from Rozeta? Or working on Benevolence? Or even making himself into more of a Wizard, with forceful accretion? He could even have a talk on dragons with Burhendurur and/or Volaro.

Erick smiled as he considered his possibilities—

Poi joined Erick on the porch, carrying his own breakfast.

“Morning, Poi!” Erick happily asked, “Any news I should know about?”

“Nothing I can think of.” Poi asked, “What do you want to do today?”

Smiling again, Erick asked himself, “What do I want to do today? I think…”

Erick took a look around his kingdom.

… And it was doing alright. People were already out at the market. Goods were coming through the Stratagold Gates, stopping at customs, and then moving either to parts unknown, or moving through a Gate that led across the Gate Road, to the Wayfarer’s Guildhouse. The people at that guildhouse then moved goods to buyers all across the Crystal Forest. Some of that stuff was even headed toward Spur.

Stuff was headed out, but stuff was also headed in, appearing in the center of the Wayfarer’s guildhouse and then moving through a Gate to the other side of the Gate Road, to Stratagold’s property, where it moved through more Gates and into the Underworld.

Stuff was also headed through Gates that led to Candlepoint, where another Wayfarer’s office had set up down the road from Market Street. People in Candlepoint were buying goods from the lands around Stratagold, while the lands around Stratagold were buying all sorts of foods that grew best up here, or fabrics from the spidery, or meat from the ranch.

The world was moving through Erick’s [Gate]s, and it was good.

It wasn’t much right now, but the volume was increasing daily.

Surprisingly enough, Erick had only ever had to recast a [Gate] into one of the Gates once, and only because someone was doing some very drunk shipping and rammed into the side of the Gate with a million ton shipment of pure white marble, multiple times. The first ramming didn’t budge the physical Gate at all, but the second ramming actually managed to move the glowing white square and break the [Gate] on the inside.

Aside from that recast, which took all of ten minutes to do, Erick’s Gate Network was working well. House Benevolence was doing pretty good, too. All of Erick’s overseers were doing their jobs, and they were doing them well. This whole organization ran like a clunky old car trying to turn over in cold weather, but everyone was warming up to each other, and Burhendurur (and even Goldie, in three instances) had stopped every single fight between House members before they got too bad.

This whole thing worked.

It worked well.

Zolan had given Erick his first month financial review just the other week. Even though Erick was bleeding money like a strung-up cow in order to pay everyone’s wages and otherwise, he could survive another 2 years of paying for everything all on his own.

If he did a monster hunt for 2 days, once a year, and transferred all those rads to Mage Bank, House Benevolence could survive indefinitely. According to some very lucrative offers, handed to Zolan in the strictest of confidences, if Erick started selling [Reincarnation]s then he would never have to worry about the House or the Gate Network turning a profit, ever.

But having a Gate Network was going to be very profitable, eventually. Just needed about 6 more months to really get there. As people started to realize that Erick wasn’t scary at all, and that yes, he really was allied with all the major powers of the world, the amount of money coming out of the Gate Network would break even with how much money Erick was spending on the House.

When he opened the next land, though, the profit would come rolling in like an avalanche.

If he got the next Gate set up and running, anyway.

Songli was dragging their heels. Tentatively, Erick might be opening up [Gate]s over there in the next week, but Zolan was still in talks with Holorulo regarding specifics. Might be a week! Might be a month. Or two or three. Erick had tried to be a part of those talks, but he scared off the people on Holorulo’s side of the table. Which was… What it was. Erick didn’t even know the people who Holorulo had sent, so it didn’t matter to him to miss that meeting, which was odd.

Holorulo hadn’t sent anyone whom Erick had known.

At the current rate, Erick might be opening up a [Gate] to Spur, next.

But that was for later! For today, Erick had nothing to do, except for what he wanted to do.

Erick smiled to himself, saying, “I want to have more days like this.”

– – – –

“So it’s time to learn some Time Magic,” Erick said, sitting alone in the middle of his Gate warehouse.

He had temporarily banished Poi and Teressa off to the house to do something else, and though Kiri desperately wanted to be let in on this lesson, she, too, was banished. Well… ‘Banished’ was a harsh word. Erick had asked them to stay away, and so they did.

But it was definitely a command, no matter the wording.

And now it was time to meet a god.

Erick sat back in a chair, relaxing his mind wide, his mana sense flowing outward—

And suddenly the world was a fractal stained glass window, and nothing moved anywhere, except for everything still moving all at once. Erick knew, somehow, that he was outside time, and yet… He wasn’t outside of time at all.

Another Erick stepped out of that fractal mess, though he was clearly the God of The End and Time.

“Hello, Phagar,” Erick said. “It took me a while to get around to this. I hope the offer still stands.”

With an easy voice that was exactly Erick’s, but different since it came from someone else, Phagar said, “Of course the offer still stands.” Phagar sat down in a chair that mirrored Erick’s, saying, “It’s better to approach this after settling many of your mortal worries, anyway. Any idea where you would like to start?”

For all his godly nature, Phagar was quite pleasant and calm to be around; an easy talker and listener.

But Erick wasn’t sure where to begin, so he offered, “At the beginning?”

Phagar gave a small smile, saying, “The Beginning and the End are often connected in Time Magic, so that’s the first thing to learn. But as for something useful? There are a large handful of concepts you should try to understand before you start putting those concepts together, so I’ll go through the whole thing once.

“There are easy Time Magics. There are difficult Time Magics.

“Then, there are Wizard-level Time Magics, which fall outside of the realm of simple categorization, because for some people they are easy, and for some they are hard.

“But before all that, there is Elemental Time, upon which all Time Magic is based. Yes, there is an Elemental Time. That is the first secret. Perhaps the largest.

“Easy magics are relegated to moderately speeding up or slowing down your own passage of time, or the passage of time for another. [Haste], for oneself. [Slow], as you have experienced with your own Ice Magic experiments. [Stop], as with your Ice Magic again.

“[Haste] requires clearance from me to learn, but since you have that, you could try and likely achieve that spellwork as soon as I explain how it works.

“[Haste] is achieved through the realization that Time is a parameter like gravity. It is not achieved through Elemental Fire, or anything like that. Instead, if you look at Elemental Ice, and you see how Slow and Stop work, then you should be able to understand Elemental Time, and through the grasping of that idea, you can achieve [Haste].

“Coincidentally, if you happen to speed up yourself, you will find that everything feels lighter. If you start moving really fast, then you could break other things just by touching them, but you will likely have broken yourself, if you go too fast. Making another version of [Haste] with some stabilization magics to remove that foible and allow yourself to properly move once again. Or, you could just use an Elemental Body while [Haste]d, and avoid that trouble altogether.

“Conversely, if you [Slow] someone, they will experience a heaviness.

“And while Slowing your enemies is always useful, [Haste] is not nearly as useful as a normal mage would think, for the Script Second still applies even in faster time, so unless one has a fair bit of experience with manual casting, or if they’re good with a sword and that sword can withstand accelerated time, then [Haste] is somewhat useless for most mages.

“This caveat doesn’t apply to you, but it must still be said.

“As a note: All Time Magic is magic cast upon a contained area. Never try to cast Time Magic upon ‘the area outside of myself’, or something equally nonsensical. It would be like trying to cast a magic without having enough mana to cast that magic; it would fail.

“Or, you could die. Either or, really.

“Moving on.

“Difficult Time Magics are applications of Elemental Time upon oneself in such a way as to travel one’s soul and mind through one’s own world line into the past. This application of Time Magic is completely removed from the physical world of Particle Magic, so slowness and gravity and speed don’t matter.

“An example of this magic is known as [Return].

“This is what I did for you at Last Shadow’s Feast, returning you to your subjective world of 5 minutes ago. I say ‘subjective world’, because you were already under heavy time dilation while inside the Shadow’s Feast barrier, so those ‘five minutes’ of time I gave you were in fact only 15 real seconds.

“15 real seconds costs a lot. The reasons are manifold, from the cost of paradoxes to the stress on the soul that needs to be compensated for, to many other smaller factors. The cost of [Return] increases rapidly for anything over 10 seconds.

“[Return] is just as much Soul Magic as it is Time Magic, and since this level of self-magic is so dangerous, most people never achieve this. It is along the same difficulty as learning [Teleport].

“You managed to brute force Remaking [Teleport] because you have Ophiel, and he could cast that magic for you, but using [Return] requires a soul and a world line attached to that soul. Ophiel has no soul of his own right now; all he has is yours. You could always try some Wizardry there, but I would caution against that. Ophiel would likely gain a soul if you tried that with him, and thus you would lose him as a summon.

“If you tried this with Yggdrasil, you would run into that Divine Seal on your soul, and likely just hurt yourself.

“Skipping forward in time is similarly difficult, if you want to actually skip forward in time. For example: if you don’t want to physically sleep, but you know you need to, you could [Onward] and find yourself waking up from a good night’s sleep.

“If you, however, just want to go forward in time, you can [Slow] yourself and watch the world go by.

“As a side effect, for those who are not immortal, [Slow]ing oneself is a great way to extend one’s lifespan, though you do miss out on life; it’s a tradeoff. As another note, using [Haste] too much could add virtual years to every decade of regular use, and for non-immortals, this is a problem.

“It shouldn’t be a problem for you, as you are immortal now.

“And then we have the Wizard-level Time Magics. There are a few well-known examples of this, and we can focus on those for now.

“The first is moving around through time, outside of your worldline guide. [Return]ing to an event a thousand years ago, or [Onward]ing to a thousand years in the future, without actually experiencing that intervening time.

“The second is moving around through time, cheaply. I list cheaper costs and outside-one’s-worldline separately, because they are, though there is a lot of overlap.

“The third is ignoring paradoxes. The classic example of a paradox is that, if you move through time and kill your mother before you are born, then this will unmake you. A proper Paradox Wizard will be able to make themselves exist outside of time, and thus they are immune to this effect. Normal mages can be made paradox proof but it is not an easy process, though it does get easier with more time and more paradox proofing. This type of Time Wizardry is why the ‘Paradox-Creation-Destruction’ split has ‘Paradox’ as part of that trio of Wizard types. Paradoxing is a major part of Wizardry.

“You’re already far on your way to being paradox proof.

“And then there is the fourth magic, the skill that you are actually most familiar with: ‘Making things always be that way’, otherwise known as Establishing. There is no codified magic for this ability, as there is with [Return] or [Onward], or the idea of Paradoxing, for Establishing is strictly a Wizard thing.

“There are a few Establishing-type frameworks present inside Spatial Magics, but that’s like saying a full-grown tree is the same as a splinter from that tree; they’re not the same at all.

“You’ve Established things many times already, from the rune of [Renew] to making your Elemental Body be Elemental Benevolence instead of Elemental Light, to Ophiel and Yggdrasil gaining mana even though they shouldn’t have mana. You’ve even done some Establishing for your apprentice, and that guildmaster’s progeny, with their own [Familiar]s.

“And those are the basic magics of Time.” Phagar finished with, “If you would accept a suggestion, I recommend that you stick to the smaller applications of Time Magic. You are very good at Establishing, but Establishing is rather dangerous and I wouldn’t recommend you go doing that too much. You might find yourself suddenly having been born a woman all this time, or other such oddities, and that gets messy.”

Phagar stopped talking.

And Erick had about a thousand thoughts about all of that.

Erick rapidly said, “Thank you for explaining everything all at once. I can go through all that on my own time, later…” But there were still a fuck-ton of questions! Erick asked the first one to come to mind, “Ophiel and Yggdrasil are Paradoxes? How?”

“Both of your [Familiar]s will become real people one day.” Phagar said, “Much like how you used [Death’s Approach] to steal from your own future mana generation, you have Established the same sort of power inside Ophiel and Yggdrasil. You have made [Familiar]s which you absolutely plan on becoming real one day, and… Everything sort of came about from that fact.” He added, “As another note: That’s how [Death’s Approach] works… Somewhat. Go ahead and figure that one out when you want to, as well; it’s okay to steal from your own future, and to help other people take from their own, but don’t try taking other people’s future generation. Rozeta doesn’t like that.”

“Okay—” Erick filed that away for later, then he latched onto the other massive thing Phagar had said. “There’s Elemental Time!? But first: How does that relate to space— Or Spatial Magic! You already know of the connection between space and time because of the gravity thing you just mentioned— All this time! You already knew?! About space and time? I mean— I knew! But no one else on Veird ever thinks to connect the two—” Erick paused. “No… People know. You know. Some of your clergy knows?”

“Some of my people know,” Phagar nodded, saying, “Most of my clergy accepts the Time Magic I give them and they’re never able to replicate those spells because they lack both my clearance, and the knowledge of how Time and space are connected. Mostly, though, I have a lock on Time Magic, because Time Magic is among the most dangerous magics out there. Wizards are usually able to exempt themselves from that restriction though, either by proclivity or chance. You already have, many times already.”

“If there is Elemental Time…” Erick narrowed his eyes, deep in thought. “Is there Elemental Space— No. There’s Spatial Magic but that’s just deciding how things had happened in the past to alter the present. Spatial Magic is Time Magic, but in a different way?” He frowned, and looked to Phagar. “Is it?”

Phagar leaned back, saying, “I see Spatial Magic more as ‘I changed this thing in the past without actually going into the past’, sort of thing. It’s not really Establishing, but… It could be. It’s one of the easiest applications of Establishing, and a lot of people are more than capable of this small Wizardry, when it’s used in small ways.

“But really… Spatial Magic, to me, is more an application of Force Magic. You are physically shifting the past rather than actually going to the past yourself… But then again, it’s not really ‘forceful’ Force magic at all.” Phagar hummed. “Spatial Magic is an application of Elemental Force, and Elemental Time, yes, but most people don’t even try to use Elemental Time in anything that they do. Elemental Time likes to hide and work without being known. Pure Time Magic has little to no Elemental Force, and very rarely Forces anything into any sort of position.”

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So that was a large bit of philosophy.

Erick would probably be digesting those small words for a very, very long time.

“… Back to gravity and time.” Erick asked, “Those two should be more related than what I’ve seen? I’ve never seen a Slowed thing look heavier? … I have also never cast the spell upon myself.”

He should [Slowing Bolt] himself and see how it made him feel.

He probably should have done that long before now.

“Well… That’s complicated.” Phagar said, “There are quite a few knock-on effects to stepping outside of one’s normal experience of time, either going faster or slower. It’s harder to breathe, mainly, unless you shift time in a space beyond your soul boundary, and even then you can’t sustain such an effect for too long unless you bring along a [Cleanse] to clean up the bad air you produce. Go way too fast and you can’t even see, for light might not reach your body fast enough, though you can overcome this with a good mana sense. Also, you’ve never actually experienced your [Slowing Bolt] yourself. Give it a try when we’re done.”

“… But increasing one’s weight with a [Gravity Ward] doesn’t cause the Slow effect, does it?”

“It does, actually. But it’s very minor. Hardly noticeable.” Phagar said,

Erick felt himself falling deep into his memories of highschool physics lessons and youtube videos, trying to remember everything he could. He came upon his next question fast enough, but he knew he had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he’d figure it out later. He began, “As an effective Light Elemental, when using my former [Greater Lightwalk], I effectively weighed nothing. Why was I not under a constant [Haste] effect?” Erick added, “Or a [Slow] effect? Subjective time moves slower the faster you go, right?”

“Elemental Time is rather sticky. It gets everywhere, even where you think it wouldn’t be, because everywhere is subject to time in some capacity.” Phagar smiled, saying, “Time was one of the ancient functions of gods and Wizards in the Old Cosmology; to establish a time zone and maintain everything in that zone under the same experience.” Phagar said, “But on a smaller, more direct scale, there’s a lot of Time Magic in everything everyone does on Veird. Spatial Magic is a big one; those spells cause small paradoxes every time someone travels a thousand kilometers in less time than it takes for reality to recognize the change. For a brief moment, when looking at the whole of the world, a person is effectively in two places at once. Gravity Magic is another thing filled with Time Magic. There’s an Elemental Time aspect to Fate Magic, too, and your Elemental Benevolence has a lot of Time-like aspects.” He said, “But the simpler, more correct reason why using [Greater Lightwalk] does not instantly send you to the far, far future —because going as fast as light would make your subjective time slow down a lot— is because Elemental Light is not physical light.”

“… Oh. That’s… Duh—” Erick moved on. “I’m still having trouble understanding that ‘Elemental Time’ is a thing. I thought Time Magic would just be another working of Elemental Force, like Spatial Magic? Why have I not heard of Elemental Time before?”

Phagar nodded. “Because I and my clergy go around and ensure that time remains uncompromised.”

“… Ah.” Erick recalled Rozeta talking about how those first years of Veird in the New Cosmology were lost to them because someone had fucked them all to hell with Time Magic. “This is a big deal, isn’t it; my learning of Time Magic. Here I was thinking I would use this magic to simply get eight easy hours of sleep into a ten minute period, every night, but it’s a lot bigger than that. It’s almost funny how much… bigger it is than I thought it would be.”

Erick was trying to defuse his sudden worry with humor.

It wasn’t working for him, or for Phagar.

But Phagar was far past worry; he was at acceptance, as he always seemed to be. This made sense now that Erick thought of it. Phagar was simply everywhere he needed to be, when he needed to be there, and if he wasn’t there, then he wasn’t needed.

Phagar softly said, “I would not help you learn this magic if I did not trust you. But I trust you, Erick. I trusted you all the way back when I offered you my Championship so long ago, and that trust has never been misplaced, but now I can actually speak openly about these deeper secrets of this world. You’ve proven yourself, Erick, and not just to me. To everyone. Beyond any doubt, you have proven yourself, and you deserve all the good things that your proof brings you. Time Magic is just one of the smaller, larger ways to prove that we see you, and we’re glad you’re here.”

“Ahh…” Erick felt a bit weird accepting such a compliment from Phagar, somewhat because this whole conversation was sort of like looking himself in a mirror and giving himself a pep talk, but also because for him, his own morality had never been in doubt— Well. That was simply untrue. He had had a lot of trouble back in the beginning, when he fell to Veird, when he was learning that he actually needed to kill certain things to make life better for everyone. That seemed like so, so long ago, though. But that set Erick to wondering… He asked, “You offered me that Championship because I was going to End a lot of bad things, eh?”

Phagar smiled. “Not everything is set in adamantium, but some things are more solid than others. I knew you would be an asset, but I wasn’t quite sure how. I was prepared to offer my Championship to help achieve those goals, but a single [Death’s Approach] seemed to be all the help you needed.” Phagar said, “As for all the help you might need next, if all you want is eight hours of easy sleep inside a 10 minute time period, then I am glad to help in that way, too.

“I suggest [Haste] and [Ward] with a large enough Variable Cost Variable Effect for the sleeping spell. [Ward] is necessary for that, because you don’t want to tear up your bed with a casual pillow flip in the middle of the night, or something like that.

“I suggest you make another VCVE personal [Haste] spell, in order to have a version for use in battle.” Phagar said, “That one will take some getting used to so that you don’t accidentally break bones trying to do something as simple as open a door… Though with your Constitution and [Unbreakable Form] you would have to be moving quite fast in order to harm yourself.”

“Heh… Thank you, Phagar.”

“Anytime! And I mean that most literally.” Phagar said, “When you feel like doing something besides just sleeping in, let me know, and we can move on to the next lessons.”

Phagar stood up from his chair and vanished into the fractal world beyond, like a thousand reflections of Erick himself moving just out of frame.

Erick’s mana sense contracted, no longer supported by the divine.

Time resumed.

And wow! Had that been a talk!

Erick’s mind whirred as he just sat there in his empty warehouse, thinking about what he was going to do next, and about everything Phagar had told him of Elemental Time, and Time Magic, and Paradox Wizardry.

And then he called in Ophiel to help pull some sounds out of some magic.

– – – –