215, 2/2

Or at least he would have moved on to the next presentation, but apparently Lapis had been the only person who was fully ready for him.

So Erick sat down for breakfast with someone who he had never sat down with before; a ‘general’ of the Quiet War, First Knight Harriz Greysteel. The older man contented himself with a cup of really good breakfast tea, for he had already eaten, while Erick had a cheese pastry and coffee, opting for something light this morning. The two of them sat off-center of the food court floor, well away from anyone else, but fully visible to everyone in the area, which was on purpose.

“I must admit, Wizard Flatt,” Harriz said, his hands placed both stoically and nervously around his teacup, “I am surprised you decided to accept my and the Wasteland’s overtures so quickly, what with your reluctance to treat with us prior to today.”

Erick sipped his coffee. Then he said, “Unfortunately the Quiet War is a fact of life with the Kingdoms and I do not wish to be involved in that utter shitshow. Based on your wording, you assume there was more to my reluctance than that?”

Harriz lost all of his nervousness when Erick called his entire career a ‘shitshow’. He stared Erick in the eyes, saying, “The angels are an unparalleled menace to this world and all other worlds to come. They must be purged from existence, for they can never change; that is their curse, their boon, and they would spell the doom for all of us, were it not for the demons pushing back against their unchanging ways.”

“They would say the same about you. Honestly, with how much destruction both sides get up to, Kirginatharp has the right idea; destroy both moons. There’s absolutely no reason for this fight to have continued to go on like it has, except for all the inertia of the Forever War.”

Erick was being purposefully antagonistic. He wanted to see how Harriz would react. Would he bring up the fact that the Old Demons were all dead, and all the people on Hell were incani, and that the angels were enacting an ancient war, and that was the start of this Quiet War? Or would he bring up something else? Would he just get mad?

Harriz remained completely unfazed.

Perhaps he might have even gained a measure of true steel to him, to go alongside his last name of Greysteel.

“The Forever War is contained to the moons. If the moons were destroyed, then a Hell or a Celes would form here, on Veird. Yes, both sides would lose immensely, but the base nature of Elemental Vile and Elemental Exalted would remain, and those two opposing deep sources of afterlife would quickly resume the intake of souls, reforming the whole problem but in a less organized way.” Harriz said, “Those moons up there are little more than dirt and Elemental Vile or Exalted, and they would come back soon enough.”

… An interesting idea, and one that Erick had never heard before. Admittedly he tried to stay out of the Quiet War, except when it was actively stopping the war and researching the reasons behind the war, and learning what Elemental Vile, Exalted, Demonic, and Angelic actually did. He had never heard of this ‘source of afterlife’ angle to the Forever War, though. Nor had he heard of this ‘ability to come back’ of the moons before.

Erick said, “There is still something good to be said for destroying intractable enemies who spill their wars off on to all the rest of us, even if that only shoves the problem to a hundred years in the future. I would prefer to never hear another thing about angels or demons or their war, though, so do you think that there is a way to actually solve the war?”

“… An impossible task. The best we can do is mitigate the touch of the war upon our world.”

“Perhaps. But if there were a way to stop both wars without causing untold horrors in the result, I would do that. Very few people deserve angels or demons calling for their deaths, and no one deserves the generational perpetuation of endless cycles of violence. If you have a way to break those cycles, I would hear them. This is the main reason why I invited you to dine with me for breakfast.”

Harriz gazed upon Erick, his mind whirring with thoughts. After a moment he found something specific inside those thoughts, and said, “I will have to think on this. I have nothing for you at the moment that is not a counter-offensive or defensive territory capture, and I doubt that you would wish to hear of those.”

“Perhaps something more specific is in order: I would like to talk about the Kingdoms and the Sovereign City of Pearl, in particular. You all share a mountain range, and a long history of killing and otherwise. I recently conquered Pearl, and changed all their nobility to be less violent, alongside installing some dragons into power. I’d like to know, specifically, the feasibility of common trade between your nations, instead of the trading of lives in a long history of ‘counter offensives’ and ‘defensive territory captures’ that are not nearly as pleasant as those phrases would suggest.”

Harriz was prepared for this specific conversation, apparently, for he spoke rather easily, “Impossible as of right now. We would rather our Gate systems be completely disentangled from them, with the only place to meet somewhere in Candlepoint, under a [Zone of Peace] and other such magics. We are most looking forward to trade with Songli, and Stratagold, and so if any trade between us and the Cities happen, it will likely happen through those intermediaries.”

“Acceptable. So tell me more about the Shades you have had in the Wastelands. I heard you had one before you worked with Lapis. A man who was like an uncle to Caizoa; Anopix.”

Harriz looked confident as he said, “Shade Anopix had been a silent benefactor for the Kingdoms for the last fifty years, until Last Shadow’s Feast, helping us to fight back against the Greensoil Republic the entire time. He came to us back when the Kingdoms were known as the Lori Dukedom, and the Opalice Empire was growing and burning the whole place down. Anopix was instrumental in bringing about a new equilibrium, helping us to eliminate the Greensoil-backed Opalice Empire. He was a Shade, and he was terrible in his wrath. As a dragonkin he was perhaps even more angry with Greensoil than most incani, due to the Greensoil Republic’s treatment of anyone who is not human as lower than human. The incani they simply kill, but the dragonkin? That entire society helps all humans, but never anyone else, engendering a specific, deep hate in the non-humans.

“Anopix had charity work all over the Kingdoms, from orphanages to farming collectives; many different interests in rebuilding the nation after the collapse of the Empire and of the Dukedom into the Kingdoms. He even had some remaining family, which is where Black Star Caizoa came from, along with every single member of Caizoa’s group. He was the one who sent them into Ar’Kendrithyst to take the Trial of the Dark, to recover the Black Star to use it against the Angels, since we needed that artifact to uncover the depth of the angel infection within our own lands, and within the lands outside of the Kingdoms.

“I understand he was murdered by Tania Webwalker long before the rest of the killing happened.” Harriz asked, “Do you have any idea why that happened?”

It was a schooled question, and to any outsider, they would have seen the man’s question as a simple thing. But there was a lot going on in that simple inquiry. Some unknown intrigue between Tania and Anopix; two dead people, a year gone.

Something connected Harriz and Anopix, too; unknown.

Some intrigue between the Wasteland Kingdoms and the Greensoil Republic.

While Erick was thinking of all that, he remembered that Anopix was responsible for the birth of the Halls of the Dead; the people who had created the daydropper which carbon-dioxide’d Odaali, killing many people in that city. The Halls of the Dead had also almost summoned a Breach Demon last year, and they would have, except Erick had stopped that.

… This talk was a rather dangerous thing, posing as something innocuous.

Erick said, “I try not to get involved in the Quiet War, but I understand why you ask this; it doesn’t make much sense that Tania, with her plans to eradicate all humans, would want to kill Anopix, a man who was already firmly on the side of the demons. Do you have any idea why that happened?”

Harriz frowned a little. “Nothing beyond the fact that Anopix was a good Shade, and all the rest were not. I was hoping you would have a satisfying reason.”

… It seemed like Harriz believed what he said; that he had come to Erick asking about Anopix because he genuinely wanted to know why. But according to what Erick had heard last year, and if Harriz was actually connected to Caizoa and the rest of all that organization, as he claimed and as he had already proven to be, based on the presentation he had given on behalf of Lapis…

Erick knew why Tania had killed Anopix.

He decided to tell Harriz.

“Tania killed Anopix because Anopix saw the opportunity to turn Caizoa and her group against me; to have whoever got the Black Star add one more name to the list of humans who needed to die.” Erick said, “And so, since I was still under Melemizargo’s anti-kill orders, Tania killed Anopix.”

“That cannot be the real answer!” Harriz instantly said, his voice raised in well-worn anger. “You’re not even human and you were bargained to kill the Converter Angel!”

Erick couldn’t help but smile softly, though he did school that expression away as soon as he felt it creeping upon his face. “Didn’t make much sense to me, either, but the Shades are all tainted by Melemizargo’s insanity. Are you sure that Anopix wasn’t a little weirder than he should have been?”

Harriz’s demeanor crashed, though he managed to salvage enough of himself to remain in the conversation, as he said, “Thank you for answering my questions, Wizard Flatt.” And then he regained full control of himself. “Is there anything else I can answer for you?”

The man was getting punched from every angle, and was able to keep right up. It seemed like he was a good guy to know… Which was why Lapis had brought him here, of course.

Erick said, “I want to help the Wasteland become something more than ‘the Wasteland’, either through assistance or trade or whatever. I don’t want to support a land just to see them get into That Old War with the Greensoil Republic, or with the other human lands out there.” Erick asked, “Is there a way to ensure that the Kingdoms only fight defensive wars? Or hopefully no wars at all? My own tentative idea is for the lure of progress and trade to eventually outweigh the possible boons of a successful war, though that will be a long time coming.”

Harriz’s eyes went fractionally wider. “I don’t know the feasibility of trade impacting the Quiet War in any meaningful way, but…”

They spoke for a little while, the conversation meandering here and there.

Erick gained an appreciation for Harriz, as a person. The guy was deep in the Quiet War, for sure, and he had been for a long time. But he seemed to only partake in the War in order to protect his people, or, at least, that’s what it seemed like. Harriz spoke of all of the defensive actions he had taken with regard to defending against Greensoil, and all of the failed counter-attacks against Greensoil that he wished would have not happened, like with the Halls of the Dead and the Daydropper. Those sorts of things only caused more war down the line.

He was much easier to talk to than Lapis, for sure.

Erick was rather sure that if he had been forced to talk to Lapis for more than ten minutes, that the conversation would have gone off the rails somewhere. Harriz was a welcome go-between.

It wasn’t until after Erick had left that conversation, to go on to the next presentation, that he wondered if accepting Harriz as the person to talk to, instead of Lapis herself, was a bad move. Did it show weakness of character? That his relevancy could be mitigated by putting a new face between himself and a Shade? Or was Lapis simply making a professional connection between Erick and the Wasteland? Or was Lapis just protecting herself from Erick’s wrath?

The real truth likely involved a little bit of every suspected thing.

And also Erick’s own paranoia; couldn’t forget that.

– – – –

Erick stepped into a cleared office-like space, located on the second ring of the atrium.

The presentation space was almost completely empty.

White eternal stonewood walls. Lights in the ceiling. Bare floors.

A single crude lightpainting on the right side of the room.

A simple message written in scrawled shadows; ‘I did nothing this year. I await your judgment.’

Erick frowned a little. This was Treant’s ‘presentation’, and he was having troubles, apparently. Perhaps he was even having trouble seeing the good that he had done, as good? Erick knew that Treant had killed countless monsters around Treehome, quite a few of which were the insidious, horrible kind, like unicorns hunting on the edges of society and wyrms gorging themselves on people and even more small horrors, that got everywhere and did every horrible thing they could. Treant had moved on, though, when Treehome continued to tell him to go away. Apparently, Treant had moved on to solving an intractable problem of the world, but Erick had no idea what Treant himself had actually done. He only knew what Treant had done thanks to another person’s presentation.

Erick decided to go next door, and see what Hollowsaur had done, in Hollowsaur and Treant’s joint venture in Quintlan. Hollowsaur seemed more than willing to give credit to the bark-skinned orcol who was his contemporary, with a quarter of that presentation all about what they had been working on together, but apparently Treant thought he was worthless.

Hmm.

– – – –

Last year at Last Shadow’s Feast, Hollowsaur had been a loincloth-wearing orcol man who had dark green skin that was knobbly with ritual scars. When the fighting had started, Priestess had detonated some sort of conflagration ‘Red Dot’ish magic, and splashed the Temple District into glass, catching Hollowsaur in the effect, along with a bunch of other people. This had not been good for Hollowsaur’s existence. Erick had found the skeletonized Shade trapped in a splash of glass, whereupon Erick had offered the man help in the form of the first [Blessing of Empathy], and some Healing Magic.

From there, Hollowsaur had seen the error of his ways, and he had rushed over to the minotaurs whom he had cursed with horrible fates and monstrous natures in order to fix those ugly, hunched and evil-inclined people. Through Hollowsaur, the minotaurs had become a bronzed skin, orcol-like people.

Erick hadn’t seen the man past that.

Hollowsaur, and many of his goblin friends who oversaw Hollowsaur’s domain in the Jungle, had vanished. But Hollowsaur was back for the Feast, and so was one of the goblins. That goblin stood in the back of the room, wearing nice clothes and seated behind a small desk. That small green guy looked like a businessman of some sort, though Erick might have been mistaking his role; if the goblin was important then Erick would likely hear from him, too.

But the Shade of Life, as he was calling himself these days, stood in the center of his presentation space, looking like a well-to-do chieftain of some rich grasslander clan. Hollowsaur wore furred leathers with chainmail inserts that looked more like a half-robe crossed with a suit. And he wore it well, but not because he was an orcol, though that part of him could not be denied. No. The change that made him look good was in the man’s face.

He looked happy.

Last year Hollowsaur had been a furious man, constantly fighting with everyone, needing to kill all who opposed him. But here he was, looking joyful.

Erick looked up at the man. “You look almost fulfilled, Hollowsaur.”

“I am!” Hollowsaur smiled almost as brightly as his glowing white eyes. “The oozes of Quintlan have been and will continue to be an intractable problem for many years to come, but I think Treant and I might be able to make a real difference in that land through careful monstery and forestry. And we already have even more allies than I thought we would! A few weeks ago, Zenipeq of Frostflower crashed out of the sky into our hidden encampment, telling us that she would participate in our cleansing of Quintlan, declaring her full support for our actions! We are grateful for the ice dragon’s inclusion, Erick; she will be a great help.”

Erick smiled softly. “Glad to hear it. With any luck, we’ll have a Gate connecting to Frostflower soon enough; perhaps as early as next month. Once that happens we’ll be able to trade and support the cleansing of Quintlan more easily, though I would ask that you use some fronts to purchase goods. Perhaps just buy stuff in Frostflower. I won’t support you directly, but I will allow tertiary support to happen. I believe Lapis is going to go through Farix and New Brightwater; you can do the same as it suits you.”

Hollowsaur grinned. “I will do that, then! So!” He waved a hand at the presentation space. “Shall I go over what we’ve tried, and what has failed?”

“I would love that. I have not had much experience with Quintlan and its oozes, though. Can you start with why you call the problem intractable?”

“Of course! That’s over here, in these images. The problem of oozes on Quintlan is one of a thousand vectors, each of which reinforce the rest. The problem is not, as many postulate, only because of the elusive ‘dungeon-creating ooze’, which is more of a classification of ooze type than any specific ooze. The entire idea of a dungeon maker is a false idea, for the real problem lies in how oozes are constantly at war with each other, scouring the world, and then remaking that conquered territory into nests for their element, which in turn pushes out all other forms of life…”

Erick listened and learned of oozes. Most of this stuff he had heard offhandedly before, but he was not aware of the nesting capabilities of stronger and purer mana-type oozes. Fire oozes became inferno oozes which then burned away mountainsides, melting stone into magma and creating deep holes in the ground where fire slimes were birthed, and then gradually grew into oozes.

Stone oozes formed the bedrock of the whole ecosystem over there, though, and it was these oozes which people called ‘dungeon makers’, for they bored holes into the world and made nests which gave birth to stone slimes. When those nests began gathering too much mana, because they always did, this caused the transformation of stone slimes into stone oozes, or, which happened a lot more often, some other type of ooze infiltrated and consumed the slimes therein. And thus, that invader slime turned the stone nest into whatever element the invader happened to be.

There were a great many ancient, 1200-year-old labyrinthine dungeons all over Quintlan which were originally the sewers of old cities, or the dungeons of old cities from before the Fall, but almost every single one had been taken over by oozes long, long ago. Those original underground spaces had been expanded over and over again, collapsing the ground above or expanding deep below. When they went too deep, though, something from the Underworld usually ended up fighting the oozes for dominance, locking the two sides into something of a semi-permanent war state.

Sometimes some oozes, like the rare stonework ooze or wooden ooze, actually built cities or city-like structures with their secretions on the Surface, not going underground at all. These advanced-intelligence slimes would make houses or hovels, or even wooden shacks in the woods, and then lie in wait for animals or adventurers or whatnot to come into those places, looking for shelter or treasure. This was just one of the reasons that Quintlan killed so many people. No one walking in that land could ever be sure of what they were walking into, because sometimes oozes built places like a person would, and all oozes were ambush predators by nature.

Adding to all that, oozes preyed upon other oozes in a vast web of interconnectedness that was impossible to actually break, because oozes were omnivores capable of eating other oozes, and they would fill any niche missing in any ecosystem, as they had in Quintlan.

“They don’t like plants, but they’ll eat anything else.” Hollowsaur said, “Fungi, mold, anything that isn’t plantfiber. The wooden ooze doesn’t even eat wood; it will shape wood into planks and build houses out of that wood, and some joining slime. And so…” He gestured to the actual presentation, saying, “We’re working on plant-based solutions to the ooze problem…”

What followed next was talk of spreading plants that consumed oozes in a myriad of ways, and which Erick had been concerned about ever since he stepped into the room. Plants were one of the few ways that a person could create propagating magic, and Hollowsaur and Treant had come up with a lot of plant-based solutions to the ooze problem of Quintlan.

Lichens that invaded soft bodies and grew moss everywhere. Most people could shake off this mossification, but oozes could not.

Vinewolves, like shadowolves but made of vines, which spread with spores injected into oozes, using the ooze body as part of its life cycle.

A variation on the deathsoul shroom that infected oozes, eventually killing the ooze and becoming a tower of spore-spreading shroom, which then infected even more oozes. Each tower would collect the primitive souls of oozes and use those souls to defend itself, and seek out more ooze sustenance.

All of those ideas seemed really bad to Erick.

But then there were other horrors, including an idea about the creation of another type of ooze which would out-compete all the other oozes, eating them all and then making more of themselves, but which could not spread through eating its own kind. That ooze-ooze would be able to eat anything except ooze-oozes.

At the end of it, Hollowsaur stood proud.

And Erick calmly asked, “So what happens when any of these solutions run out of control? When an ooze-ooze gains the ability to eat other ooze-oozes?”

Hollowsaur neatly said, “Then they’ll eat their young, and the problem will become self-solving.”

“… Oh.” Erick narrowed his eyes and looked across the presentation again. “What’s your solution for when the vinewolf turns different?”

“It becomes a normal part of the ecology. The vinewolf’s main form of reproduction involves sporification of watery, rad-occupied bodies, though, so it’s rather incapable of infecting normal, non-monster life; that rad inside the host is how it makes more of itself. The oozesoul shroom is similar, and yes, it could infect a person, if that person was unhealthy, but in all normal ways it should only be able to truly infect something with a rad inside. The lichen only grows when the host does not move, and every living thing normally moves a lot, except for oozes, when they get into ambush mode. Everything here is just tentative, though; Treant and I have spent most of the year trying to understand the whole problem from the ground up, asking experts about how they would solve the problem, but the two of us already are experts in the field of forestry and monstery, so we’re covering our—”

“It’s an intractable problem,” Treant said.

Treant had walked into the room around when Hollowsaur mentioned the man not five seconds ago. The Shade of the Forest, as he was calling himself these days, was a massive orcol with brown, bark-like skin, who wore little more than a furred kilt/loincloth, and a joyless expression.

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Hollowsaur said, “It’s not intractable. We can fix it, Treant.”

“Every solution you have created is either a terror unleashed upon the world, or not strong enough. Oozes are too variable; they will simply evolve away from every solution you have.” Treant looked to Erick, and knelt upon the ground. He was eye-level with Erick now. “I submit myself for your judgment, Wizard Flatt. I have no idea where to go, and the Dark will not tell me what to do.” And then he put his head on the ground, kowtowing.

Erick frowned.

Hollowsaur frowned, too, rapidly saying, “We have a plan to clean Quintlan, Treant. This will work.”

“I’d rather be a tree in the middle of nowhere, with no thoughts in my head. I have never felt what other people felt until my Blessing, and I wish I could forget it all, but the Dark will not let me, and the plan for Quintlan will be a failure that I cannot participate in how you want me to, Hollowsaur. We’ll end up solving the problem for a decade, and then either the problem will mutate, or Death Throne will decide to go on a crusade against the living now that they’re not fighting oozes for territory all the time.” Treant did not lift his face at all as he continued to speak to the ground, “We will end up like Queen and Goldie; we will have attempted to do something good, only to fail and doom millions in that failure.”

Erick had some sudden mixed feelings. Here was Treant, a formerly unrepentant murderer, kneeling, but not in repentance; in defeat. It felt wrong in too many ways to label.

Some small thing inside of Erick snapped, and so did his voice, “Get the fuck up off the floor, Treant. Right fucking now.”

Hollowsaur’s eyes went wide. He almost stepped back, but he stopped himself.

Treant froze.

Erick allowed Treant a moment.

And Treant unfroze. He raised his face. Tears of light raced down his visage, rolling down his chest to fall onto the floor, leaving streaks of soot in their wake. He stared at Erick with false anger, for if being sad was not allowed, then maybe fury would allow him to survive this tribulation. His attempt at hate was mediocre though, and he knew it.

Erick said to the two of them, “Plants survive in Quintlan. Animals and monsters do, too. Since I am sure that oozes will eventually mutate past your ideas, which I believe is what Treant means about this all being unworkable, then I ask if you have considered altering the life that is already there? Instead of making new possible problems? No need for new ooze types, or new deathsoul shroom variants, or anything that could spread so fast that it would trigger a Kill And Exterminate Quest, like we had for the Daydroppers. I know there are primal frost owls that eat oozes, so why not make more birds to eat more oozes? Birds can get away from the ground-based monsters, after all, and they won’t spiral out of control as fast as a plant or otherwise can spiral.” He added, “Or, the real solution could be systematically using a spell like [Landshape], or similar, to transform the entire surface of Quintlan into a new Surface one piece at a time; drive out all the oozes from their hiding spots and remake the entire continent into a new image. That’s what we had to do here to clear out the crystal mimics, and it’s what we’ll continue to do to keep clearing out the mimics.”

Treant said, “We tried remaking the continent but we were driven away by idiots who didn’t see the good we were doing.”

Hollowsaur said to Treant, “With Zenipeq’s involvement that might not happen again.”

Still kneeling and unable to make himself rise further, Treant sighed, “It won’t work.”

Hollowsaur suddenly glared, but he saw Erick looking at him, and he forced that emotion away. Erick could tell that the man was exasperated with Treant, and he had no idea how to fix the situation.

… Briefly, in a surreal sort of way, because here he was mediating a collaboration between Shades, Erick felt himself step out of himself, to assess this situation from an outsider’s perspective. Here was Hollowsaur, a man who regularly worked with people and animals and every living thing on Veird, trying to adapt everything he was to a new life. Before his Blessing, the Shade had taken adventurers who assailed his place in the Jungle of Ar’Kendrithyst, looking for magical animal parts, and turned those people into amalgamations of cow and magical effect. In this way, Hollowsaur made even more magical animal parts. He had probably even carved up one of those unfortunate people and sent their magical meat to Last Shadow’s Feast, and then served this meat at the party, where Erick had partaken, unknowingly. Calling Hollowsaur an ‘asshole’ was like calling the Chelation War ‘a little spat between nations’.

But make no mistake; Hollowsaur was an asshole of the worst sort.

Or at least he used to be.

Maybe he still was an asshole in some major way that [Blessing of Empathy] could not fix.

Treant was just as bad, except his nature was to sit in his garden and do nothing almost all the time, until someone invaded, looking for magical plants. And then Treant would do what he needed to do to murder the invader as swiftly as possible. People got mulched. Bones got turned into fertilizer. Souls went on their way, wherever they wanted to go. Treant probably did some soul torture and transformation, too, just like Hollowsaur, for he helped to make those Stat Fruits, but as far as Erick knew, he did not do the horrible things that Hollowsaur had done to people.