227, 1/2

 

Erick stepped back through the [Gate] to Storm’s Edge, into the disused throne room of Regency Castle. Pillars of blue stone formed a spacious hallway through the center of the area, separating the place into three parts. Metal fish and sharks and other sea life swirled up and down those pillars in a frozen ode to the ocean. Blue and gold tapestries held to the sides of the room, while everything else was pure white stone. Pure white light filtered down from massive ceiling windows providing ample illumination for the space, though here and there on the pillars, and on the tapestries, a faint blue light also provided illumination for the room, giving the whole place an almost underwater feel.

But there was no actual throne in the room, and though there wasn’t any dust either, this place hadn’t seen visitors in days, according to the manasphere. Just the cleaning lady two and a half days ago.

“Are you sure you don’t want to become an actual king, Augustive?” Erick asked, as he looked around the architecturally-interesting-but-empty room. “You have the throne room.”

Augustive smiled a little bit, as he adjusted his gold-coin shoulder cape. “We might not be quite a democracy, but we’re close, and after talking with your Overseer Mox I believe I prefer being the custodian of the city instead of an outright ruler. Besides that, I believe a Regency connection to House Benevolence and you taking over the dungeons here will directly solve many of our problems, as it wasn’t until those dungeons a decade ago that we ever had any real problems with our various powers here in Storm’s Edge.” His voice turned a fraction serious, though, as he added, “The Regency will still get the agreed-upon taxes from the delvers, yes?”

“20%, if Gold Taker is up to continuing the task?”

“He should be. I haven’t had a chance to speak with him, but that is likely due to his reluctance to be around you at all.”

“I hope to alleviate whatever terror he might feel about me soon enough. Should I approach him? Or do you have a better idea?”

Augustive was a little bit surprised that Erick was asking for his opinion, but he rapidly found he liked the Wizard asking him for his opinion. “I’ll put in a word for you. Through his work in the dungeons, he knows that he doesn’t know anything when it comes to truly powerful people, and that makes him rather skittish around people like you, and others. He absolutely won’t speak to The Headmaster at all, and we asked if he wanted to see the Arbors of Treehome and he completely refused for various reasons. There aren’t a whole lot of people in the kingdom that know who Gold Taker actually is, and I would prefer to keep it that way, if you please.”

“I can do that, and I’ll wait for him to approach me.” Erick moved on, “So then, will you be going directly into meetings? Would you like my accompaniment for any of the major ones? Get everyone in a room and I’ll [Hasted Shelter] us so we don’t take forever to talk.” He added, “Or, I can give you a [Hasted Shelter] for yourself and your people to use.”

“… The second option, please, though I would appreciate your attendance at a later date, maybe in a few hours? After I get the full news out to my people.”

“Of course. Ophiel? Please help Augustive with whatever he needs.”

Ophiel hopped off of Erick’s shoulder, saying, “I’m here! I help!”

Augustive couldn’t help himself but grin at the little guy. “The Regency thanks you for your service.”

As Ophiel flitted onto a very surprised Augustive’s shoulder, another Ophiel flitted into the room and sat down on Erick’s shoulder, where he usually sat.

Erick said to Ophiel, “Cast whatever normal spells he wants, Ophiel.”

As Augustive reflexively gasped a little bit at the power Erick had granted him, no matter how temporary—

Ophiel happily said, “I can do that!”

Erick nodded, then opened up a [Gate] to his next destination; the Pit. And then he stepped through and closed the [Gate] behind him.

Back in the disused throne room, Augustive quietly tested Ophiel, “Could you give me a [Gate] to my offices? Please?”

“Yes!”

And then Ophiel opened a [Gate] to Augustive’s offices, where a few surprised clerks and one overeager guard went on sudden high alert, only to become very, very confused as Augustive stepped through. The Regent was giggling a little bit, but he stopped that, faking a cough to hide his giggle, as soon as he realized what he was doing. He was not used to this level of power, and it was a quaint thing to have.

Erick pulled his Sight away from Augustive—

– – – –

—to focus on the task at hand.

As the sun began to dip down behind the western mountains that encircled the Pit, casting much of the newly Shaped land into shadows, Erick watched as Archmage Wiloza flew through those shadows, anointing the land with great big transparent balls of radiance. She placed the final wardlight over the last dungeon, providing ample light above all seven black holes in the world. It seemed that Aroido had moved all of them back into position, and then moved back inside those dungeons to hide from the world, or something. Erick could not see any of them out here, and a quick search with Ophiel revealed no Aroido outside the dungeons.

He did see some flying fish made of more spines than anything else, floating through the air, flying down the northern monster road. Monsters once again followed the thick mana in the air, as it led them toward the Pit. It was nice that the system had not been disrupted much. Erick had an Ophiel fly over to the northern entrance to that road, to see if ‘Gold Taker’ was funneling mana through that road once again…

Everbless was not there.

A quick check of everywhere except for Everbless’s harbor revealed that the giant tentacled avatar of the world tree was nowhere to be seen.

And now that he was looking at the monster roads, he saw a problem; he saw the results of Everbless not funneling the mana like he usually did. There were a lot of monsters fighting in the northern, southern, and eastern monster roads. The anemic flows of naturally-drawn mana were still sluicing through the grooves in the ground, pulled along by the dungeons, but the bounty inside the chests of the other monsters was causing a bit of a pileup, as monsters fought to kill each other instead of to follow the flow to the bounty up ahead.

… Rather anemic, really.

Erick frowned at that.

He could fix that himself. Maybe he should. Show Everbless that if he didn’t want to come out, that he would be replaced. It was a bit of a dick move to do to a kid, but Everbless wasn’t a normal ‘kid’.

“Hey Wiloza!” Erick called out to the archmage.

Wiloza was about two kilometers away, but she heard him well enough.

She floated over to him rather fast, and then began to slow down as she approached. “Is something wrong, Wizard Flatt?”

“Not really. We’ve got most of this whole dungeon thing sorted so I’m going to be having some meetings with your people later, under a [Hasted Shelter]. You’re welcome to attend those meetings, but from what Augustive explained to me, you take a rather hands-off approach to the Regency?”

Wiloza set down onto the battlement next to Erick, saying, “I don’t get involved with the daily events or anything like that. I try to stay out of all Storm’s Edge politics, for that’s a mire that one can easily get lost inside.”

Erick nodded. That was much the same as Augustive had already explained. “A lot of the people in power don’t like to be in power around here, do they?”

Wiloza gave a small, easy grin. “That’s been the Regency’s official stance for a long time. There have been a few power-grabs by certain regents in the past, of course, but those times in history have always ended poorly for one reason or another. Shades come calling, sometimes, but often the outcome is a simple exodus of people to other, less authoritarian islands, or an execution of the regent in the worst of cases.”

“I’m kinda surprised about that. There are monsters out there, but I suppose those lands are more inhabitable than they are not?”

“Oh yes. The Archipelago is a vast string of inhabitable lands home to millions of people, and everyone can grab their boat and move to one of the other islands if they wish— Or [Teleport], back when you could do that sort of thing.” She said, “Once you’ve secured some walls, and made a few blind harbors, most of the sea monsters can’t get in and those that do you’re going to be able to kill, or to escape from.” She waved a hand toward the Pit, adding, “Even the flying fish will have trouble with a wall that is curved over toward the waters. The Tidewalkers have always been some of the more reputable, open-handed wall builders around, though, so though the Regency might only oversee Storm’s Edge, we have friends in all the islands.”

Erick nodded as he took in the sight of the fortresses Wiloza had built around the Pit, saying, “Excellent Stone Shapers, all around. Have you taken on many apprentices?”

“I have trained hundreds of students on stonework now and again. You can buy [Cityshape], after all, but most people don’t have the engineering knowledge or perspective to not have Shaped-houses crash down on them.”

Erick asked, “Did you train Gold Taker, in order to do the mana flowing, too?”

“Ahh… Yes. Gold Taker isn’t doing his usual job, is he. I did train him, actually. But only a little. He’s rather good at mana flows, and your [Control Weather] does much of the heavy lifting.” Wiloza frowned a little bit toward the Pit, asking, “Are you going to kick him out of a job, too? Like you are with the Aroidos?”

Ah. She was angry that he was taking over here. Well. It was her land, so she had every right to be angry.

Erick spoke as the Apparent King, saying, “This event right here will require everyone on board in order to make it function well, and Gold Taker is one of those requirements to a proper function. I don’t want to replace you, or him, or the Aroidos. So the question then becomes: what sort of job do you want here, Wiloza?”

“On-call backup; emergency response only.” Wiloza said, “But unofficially, I want to be involved with this every step of the way. This is my land, Wizard Flatt; I have overseen the safety of my people here for a very long time, and until I die that will not change.”

“No daily duties?”

“No.” Wiloza said, “I’m pushing 90. I like baking bread, going to plays, and doting on my great grandchildren whenever they should visit. I don’t actually like collapsing oceans onto enemies, or such-and-such.”

The Apparent King nodded. “I will then require you to speak and work with Vanya. Do you wish for an introduction?”

“Not today; a week from now, if you could. I am a bit squeamish around necromancers. Usually we kill those kinds around here.”

“Fair enough, for now.” The Apparent King asked, “Then what are we to do about Gold Taker’s unwillingness to appear before me? Augustive said he would ask Gold Taker to visit me first, but I want those monster roads handling the mana better. If necessary, I will enact some mana-shaping spellwork and a node network of my own, fully pushing out the need for Gold Taker at all.” Erick didn’t actually have such spellwork himself, for ‘moving mana around’ was more of an aura control thing, and not a real spell. But he could make such a spell rather easily. “It wouldn’t work nearly as well as a World Tree moving the mana of the world around, but with a large enough node network it would functionally be the same.”

Wiloza did not like that idea, but she spoke diplomatically as she said, “It’s good for Gold Taker to be involved with the dungeons, for he loves them more than—”

She never got a chance to finish her sentence.

A large tendril, blood red and thick as a dragon’s tail, slapped out of the sky, crushing into the space where Erick had been standing, sending stone flying, as a childish, angry voice screamed,

“MY DUNGEONS!”

But Erick had stopped time before the tentacle had crashed down.

As that tentacle still held in the air above his crown of black horns, Erick had casually moved Wiloza aside through an application of the only spell he could really use at-will, outside of the Script Second; [Gate], and only because of his Class Ability Gatemaster. Rozeta had said many years ago that he should be able to open and move around [Gate]s at will, and he could.

Gatemaster also allowed for something else that normal [Gate]s could not do, and that was to move without breaking.

In a near endless moment, Erick opened a portal of white lightning to Wiloza’s left, and then swept that portal over her, depositing her in a similarly-moving portal on the other side of the Pit, several kilometers away. And then he moved himself in the same way, to a position ten meters away from where Everbless’s tentacle would smash down.

He allowed time to resume.

The tentacle smashed. Stone flew. And then another tentacle smashed down again, right onto where Erick had moved.

Erick didn’t bother with the timeless trick this time. He simply lightstepped to another spot another ten meters down the wall of fortresses.

Everbless screamed, filling the air with red-tinged vibrations as he appeared in the sky in his full octopus-avatar. He was a crash of a thousand kilometer-long tentacles, each of them whipping back and forth, each of them lined with suckers and fangs for gripping and tearing. If he had any eyes in that form they were too small to see. He kinda looked like a tangled hydra, but a lot more menacing.

“MY DUNGEONS! NO STEALING MY DUNGEONS!”

Erick allowed Everbless to attack.

Twice more the child struck with a single tentacle, whip-fast, too fast for a normal person to evade at all. That was why Erick had needed to [Time Stop] the first time, but he honestly could not have said if that spell cast was another of his Class Abilities working, Failsafe: [Time Stop], or if he had been ready and waiting to cast that spell himself. Either way, he was here now, and he was acclimated to the battle.

He lightstepped another ten meters down the edge of the Pit.

Everbless screamed and attacked with multiple tendrils at the same time, sweeping the battlements and smashing down onto Erick five times in quick succession. Each time, Erick moved out of the way. Soon, Erick decided to only move a few meters out of the way, in order to test Everbless. He was here, wasn’t he? Might as well see what the kid can do.

Everbless smashed down once, lightly, and then tried to grip and pull Erick into the sky.

Erick moved—

The air turned solid, Forceful, as Everbless’s Domain spread across the land.

Erick held firm his own sunform against Everbless’s Domain, but he did not push back. He did not want to break the kid, for a broken Domain was a specific kind of hurt that sometimes sent people into comas. What Erick wanted, and the reason for him openly taunting Everbless like he had, was for Everbless to show himself, to see how Everbless handled that situation. Perhaps Erick had handled that poorly, though. There had been no need to truly taunt the kid. But then again, Erick hadn’t thought that Everbless would actually respond as he had.

So Everbless was handling this poorly, too.

Perhaps…

Perhaps, all Everbless had ever learned in the dungeons, from Aroido, from the delvers, from his entire life so far, was force, and so when someone actually threatened him with something as simple as the removal of his toys, this was how he responded. Erick suspected that Everbless saw his removal from the dungeons more as Erick threatening the ‘removal of his entire life’; not just the removal of toys. Everbless was still a kid, and this experience he was having was highly likely the very first time anyone had ever threatened him emotionally at all.

Raising Yggdrasil had been easier, since Erick had been there the whole time.

Erick dodged another seven strikes—

As Everbless screamed, “GO AWAY, SCARY WIZARD!”

Calmly, Erick said, “I will not go away—” Words were interrupted by another dozen tentacle slams, all at once. Everbless continued to attack, but Erick managed to keep his voice calm throughout the whole assault. “Stop this nonsense and let us have a talk, or else I will be forced to put you in a time out, Everbless.”

The assault tripled down. “Why you know me! Intervention no work!?”

“Take your pick of reasons,” Erick said, stepping left across the battlements of the Pit. A trail of tentacle-based destruction followed him. “I’m sort of like your father, for one. Yggdrasil is your brother, and he’s still a part of me. Any of the godly blessings I’ve gotten over the years. Many different reasons all could be valid; I don’t know. If you feel like having more discussions, then you must cease this assault. If you do not stop, then I will be firmly taking these dungeons from you, and you won’t have any say in them at all. All I’ve done is talk about what needs to happen next. All you have done is ensure that you’re seen as not mature enough to handle this sudden responsibility befalling the Archipelago.”

Everbless struck once more, but all the threat of the attack failed halfway through. The tentacle slapped down on the battlement and then flopped away, as the sky turned darker with sudden clouds. In a moment, the tentacle avatar wilted, and then a wailing filled the air as ‘Gold Taker’ vanished completely, disappearing from the sky.

Rain began to fall across the entire island and much of the local ocean, turning visibility down to near-nothing. It was not the storm of a century, or a sky filled with tornadoes or anything like that. It was just a storm of rain. But then again, it had only been ten seconds since it started, and it could get worse. Erick sent his senses outward to see if it was getting worse.

A quick check through Ophiel confirmed that the storm was nothing more than a dense rain, falling everywhere within Everbless’s reach.

Five minutes later, it was still just heavy rain.

It could rain for a while; that was fine.

Okay. So… This wasn’t that bad. Could have gone a lot worse.

Erick had spoken with the Arbors of Treehome about how to properly raise young Arbors many times over the years, even though almost none of their advice would actually apply to Yggdrasil, being as he was divinely sealed to Erick’s soul. Even with that major caveat, Holy O’kabil and Wyrmrest and Nosier and Home had explained a lot of ways of being that should still hold true for Yggdrasil, as they did for all Arbors.

Young living trees weren’t like people, with emotions that ran dry after ten minutes because their brains got tired of having those emotions. Their emotions did eventually run dry, and for much the same reasons, but an emotion due to an exceptional stimulus might last as long as a full day, or maybe a week. Younger Arbors experienced time faster, so a young tree might take a day to return to an even keel.

‘Leave a young arbor alone for a few hours after any sort of traumatic teaching moment, but don’t leave them alone for any longer than that, and especially not if their sadness causes problems for others.’

That had been the Arbors’ general consensus.

… And the rain wasn’t that bad? Yeah. The rain was fine.

Erick would go visit Everbless at sunset and introduce him to the Arbors at that time. They would likely have quite a lot to say about Everbless’s current behavior, and today seemed like the time to force that sort of introduction. The stormy guy was probably going to remember this first real interaction with the ‘scary wizard’ for the rest of his life… Which was kind of a shame, but if Erick had to be the stern uncle, then that was fine. Everbless probably needed a lot more solidity in his life than he was getting…

Erick looked to the raining sky again…

Lightning flashed, and the rain seemed to get heavier.

He needed to speak to the Arbors of Treehome right now, actually, to get their professional opinion.

– – – –

“And so that’s the current situation with Everbless,” Erick finished.

It had taken Erick half an hour to set up this meeting and then ten minutes to explain the situation, here in a meeting room near Arbor Holy O’kabil. The room itself was glass and steel and on the edge of O’kabil’s dominion. The tree herself grew outside in the distance, looking like a kilometer tall silver chalice, holding greenery inside silver wires and surrounded by silver spires. The other Arbors were not visible from this place, but three of their avatars had come in person, and all the rest had shown up as [Scry] eyes. Each of those avatars or eyes sat or floated atop their own large chair.

No one spoke outwardly for a good half a minute, after Erick had fully divulged the situation down in Storm’s Edge. Or as much as he could, anyway. The intervention prevented people from knowing that Gold Taker was Everbless, even up here, a quarter of a world away.

Erick had managed to speak around that intervention, mostly, but all the Arbors were talking amongst themselves while Erick explained everything to them, and—

Arbor Home, who had shown up as a brown and green eye, asked, “Pardon me, Erick. I’m still confused on the part where Everbless is killing people, but the dungeons are reviving them. I thought you had to die in a dungeon to get that resurrection?”

“Dammit. What is…” Nosier, who had shown up to the meeting as a lanky, 4 meter tall orcol who veered more toward the troll side of that heritage, was having a problem. “It’s some sort of mind lock, isn’t it? I feel it slipping away from me— I HAD IT, though. I had it. And then it went… What were we talking about?”

O’kabil, who had shown up as an older orcol lady wearing a silver dress with a white fur coat, said, “Explain it again, Erick. Smaller and less nuanced this time.” She took a drag of her long pipe.

All the Arbors nodded at that.

Erick succinctly said, “I took away Everbless’s toy because he was abusing the toy, and because other people need it more. And then he started crying and now there’s a minor hurricane developing across Storm’s Edge and the nearest islands. I am not going to return his toy; not yet, anyway. Other people need it much, much more than him. But, I think I want him involved with that toy, and in a very large way.” Erick said, “And also, I’ve gotten permission from Sininindi to finally interact with him, and also I want to introduce all of you to Everbless. Apologies that this meeting had to happen like this, and under these circumstances.”

Wyrmrest, who had shown up to the meeting as an elderly orcol man in a suit made of soft starlight, clarified, “And he attacked you when you threatened to keep his toy out of his roots, yes?”

The Arbors all stared at Erick; some disbelieving, others worried beyond simple words.

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“Yes,” Erick said, “I didn’t fight him, but I did avoid his attacks. He destroyed a freshly-made fortress trying to get at me.”

Nosier frowned, asking, “And he knew who you were?”

“Yes.”

All the Arbors looked to each other again. Somewhere deep below the ground, their roots all tangled together, and they spoke privately about everything all the time. That conversation was likely going to last a long, long time beyond today—

O’kabil said, “I want to see him.”

The others looked to her.

Firebrand, an eye wreathed in fall-colored leaves that were also on fire, declared, “I want to see the boy as well, but not today. Not in an emergency.”

A few others agreed with that.

Wyrmrest said, “You need to be the sterner parent in this situation, Erick. You should Drain him dry. He’s a real tree, and it would simply put him into a torpor.”

Erick went a little wide-eyed at that. He knew that he might need to do that, but… “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that.”

None of the Arbors looked positively upon Erick’s answer.

O’kabil stood, saying, “I would take a [Gate] to him, to see the problem for myself. Perhaps there is no need to crush him under the heel of necessity.”

Wyrmrest stood, saying, “I would go as well.”

Nosier said to the group, “I have no stomach for ill-mannered arbors. I would always say that they should be spared, and that they will grow up differently, but the fact is that what an arbor is when it is young is exactly the kind of arbor they will be when they grow, and once you get to this point where they’re already speaking… You will wish you had never seen them when they were young, and you had said that they were making simple mistakes, for that will always weigh upon you when they start killing others.” He said to O’kabil and Wyrmrest, “You two should go and evaluate, and save the group the strain.”

Erick hastily added, “He’s not a bad kid. He’s just… He has some issues.”

Home said, “This prophecy of this ‘Storm not of Sininindi’s make’ could easily mean Everbless.” She added to the group, “He was ready for an introduction to us years ago, and yet the Church has said no, preventing our meeting! None of them wanted us to see what poor parenting they’re doing!”

“Wait a moment,” Erick asked, “You’ve tried to contact him before?”

Wyrmrest said, “Yes, but not seriously. We have heard that he was cognizant and we have sent representatives down there, but we have been rebuffed from more than a cursory glance at the youngling. I would have that in-depth glance now, Erick, if you would, and I would have you with us and leading the way.” He said to the others in the room, “Perhaps we should all keep our preconceived notions to a minimum, and approach this interaction with the severity and openness that it demands.”

Rapidly, many of the Arbors decided that Wyrmrest had the right of it.

Nosier said, “I don’t like it.”

He was in the minority.