232, 1/2

Erick hated the smell of uncleaned battlefields. Of blood and mud and piss and shit. Of death. All of those smells now assaulted him, as he walked across the bloodied grasslands of floor 2, of the Glittering Depths. The scent brought to mind all the death Erick had seen in the wake of the Wizard of Anarchy, raising a mountain all the way to the Edge of the Script in the center of Quintlan, in the Fractured Citadels, where undead were as numerous as trees in an endless forest. Memories of eliminating Terror Peaks came to mind next, and of the millions dead in the Chelation War, where bodies weren’t able to be cleaned for days…

When had this ‘battle’ of the second floor even taken place? It smelled a lot worse than it should smell. Or had Erick ‘arrived’ at this battlefield on day 2 or 3 of the slaughter? Maybe even day 4.

Erick held his head high, and walked on. The bodies were getting less and less numerous as Erick and his band of rescued people got further away from the front lines. Erick had encountered several patrols of the red tabarded in the two hours they had walked away from the front lines, each one rather more deadly than the last, but he had rescued more than a few soldiers, including Kinder. Those rescues even helped rescue even more people, but mostly in a distracting sense; Erick did most of the damage. His rescues now numbered 47 semi-healthy people, and another 13 people on makeshift stretchers.

He was up to number 6 in the Rescue and Revenge questline. Every completion netted him another 500 mana regen, along with a small collections of metamonds and metirons. He had a very small hoard of loot at the moment, but all of it was useless without being transformed into proper, working tools.

Erick looked to the air, and said, “Status.”

– –

Ashes Woodfield (9 saves remaining)

MP per day: 8500

Meta-Irons: 1850, 0 in storage

Meta-Diamonds: 5/10, 0 in storage

Bracelet of [Self Rejuvenation], 97/100

Rod of the Lightning Guardian, 872/1000

Necklace of [Meditation], 47/50

Wand of [Drinking Food], 200/200

Belt of Many Functions, (depleted), (depleted), [Unsensible], 247/250

Shield (depleted), 211/250

Unused Meta-Irons: Staff of the Anti-Magus (BROKEN) 50/50, Wand (Empty) 5/5, Wand (Empty) 5/5, Bracelet (depleted) 5/5, Bracelet (depleted) 5/5, Breastplate (depleted) 250/250,

Unused Meta-Diamonds: [Murky], [Benediction], [Flaming Ooze], [Shadow Bolt], [Paper Control], [Memorize], [Minor Treat Wounds], [Force Shield], [Force Spike], [Health] x 7, [Basic Light] x5, [Basic Shadow], [Basic Stone] x2, [Basic Air] x2, [Basic Fire] x3, [Basic Water] x4, [Unknown] x18

– –

Erick didn’t actually carry all that. Kinder wore the breastplate and another of the soldiers carried almost all of the extra metamonds and metairons. Apparently that was ‘close enough’ to Erick carrying it that it still counted under his status.

A few of the people Erick had rescued even had meta-items of their own, and some of them had proven very useful in certain situations. There was one woman who called herself ‘Scout’, who had magic in that same vein as her namesake. A group of over 60 soldiers was not a quiet thing, even though most of them were trying to be quiet, so Erick had sent Scout ahead every so often to check the way forward, to ensure that they weren’t ambushed.

Scout once again appeared in the air ahead of Erick, about forty meters away, already walking Erick’s way. Air and Light and Shadow peeling away as she came closer. She bowed, unhurried, and then rose when Erick got close. She spoke in a monotone voice, “I detect no enemies ahead of us, sir.”

Erick was pretty sure that she was an NPC, because what he had asked her to do was look for enemies, people who needed help, and Marii’s hidden base. Several times now, Scout’s only response when returning had been that she had seen no enemies ahead of them. Erick asked, “Did you see Marii’s base?”

“I detect no enemies ahead of us, sir.”

Kinder spoke up, his voice rather like a normal person’s, “We might be close to Marii’s.”

Erick told Scout, “Go out and check for more enemies, then report back. Make sure we’re not ambushed. If you see Marii’s then report back and bring us there.”

The woman backed away and half-vanished, the world seeming to curl around her body, leaving her mostly invisible. Her supple shoes and lower legs were still visible when she moved too fast, which is what she did, her feet lifting off the ground as she almost floated away, hopping through the air. She took ten steps for every one anyone else would take.

Erick nodded to himself as he saw Scout vanish up the low hills. “That’s a good movement skill; trustworthy, even if it’s not foolproof. I prefer an entire Elemental Body, though.” He asked Kinder, “Are there Shaping spells here? I haven’t seen any yet.”

Kinder, who was probably from Greensoil and not an NPC at all, said, “Might have some Shaping magic inside those unknown gems you picked up, sir, but maybe not. Those are rare.”

“Do you know why some of those looted gems are unknown?”

“I’m surprised you can tell what any of them are at all, without [Identify].” Kinder plucked out a gem from his pocket, to hold it aloft. It shimmered blue and white and gold. “I have no idea what this one is. Gold is divine magic, right?”

“Usually.” Erick shrugged. “White and blue means Light and Water, so maybe Healing Magic is my guess.”

Kinder put it back in his pocket, where he was keeping all other truly special-seeming ones that Erick had given him to hold. “Marii should have [Identify]. She’ll be able to tell us more.”

“So where is she?”

Kinder looked around, then directed his gaze up a distant, yet nearby hill, just to the right of their current direction. There was a rock at the top of that hill. “Architect Marii put stones like that around her location, so we’re close. Want to walk up to the top of that hill there and see if we can see?”

“Yes.”

Erick began walking that direction, and the caravan followed. When they got closer, Erick directed the caravan to stay in the lowlands, as he and Kinder ascended the hillside. Two minutes later, Erick stood at the top of a hill with a stone half buried near the top.

He saw their destination. Or at least he saw where their destination probably was. He also saw the entire plains spread out before him.

This was a vast, vast land of undulating hills and trees here and there. To the area that Kinder had called ‘fallward’, which was where the sunstar fell every evening, which was what Erick termed ‘west’ in his mind, lay the majority of the battlefield, and the resistance headquarters known as the Plains. Smoke rose from there, like someone had started prairie fires across half the horizon. To the north, or ‘moonwards’, where the actual moon of Insten sat in the sky, like an unmoving silver dot, lay the mountains. To the south, or ‘Riamways’, where Riam hung in the sky, lay the depleted lands of Insten and the actual frontlines of Insten’s war for independence.

Erick, Kinder, and the caravan had been headed ‘risewards’, or east, to get here, wherever ‘here’ was.

“There,” Kinder said, as he pointed. “Those hills. Marii’s base is hidden under Illusion Magic or whatever she does with the place. There are probably traps from Marii scattered all over there. Maybe Riam ambushes too; trying to stop people like us from reconnecting with known forces.”

Erick nodded. “Yeah. Probably.”

Kinder smiled, even though there was danger. “But the place doesn’t look on fire. Looks like it survived.”

Five hills over from their current location, a collection of six hills sat in a hexagon pattern. Each one of those hills had one very bent tree growing just off the side of the hilltop, which was odd, but not too odd. But each of the six hills were exactly the same, and every hill’s tree was turned a sixth of the way around on the hilltop, as though the hill had been copied, rotated a little, and set in a 6-hill grouping.

“Which hill is the correct one, Kinder?”

“All of them.” Kinder said, “And none of them. Whichever one the enemy is not at.”

A slow smile crept upon Erick’s face. “Oh? That’s interesting. Can you take down that defense with a simple numbers attack?”

Kinder frowned a little. “Not sure what that is, sir.”

“Putting a person on each possible hill, or attacking all hills at the same time.”

“Oh! … I don’t know. Architect Marii has pretty good defenses, and I’ve heard stories of people sneaking up on all sides and one of them getting in to see Marii. But that’s okay, right? Means she’s split the enemy into six parts, and she can pick whichever one she wants to kill first.” Kinder said, “She’ll see us coming, sir. We can probably go up all at once and she’ll just let us in.”

“We’ll find out.”

Scout appeared out of the air nearby, before stepping closer enough to report, which she did. “I detect no enemies ahead of us, sir.”

Erick pointed toward the six hills that made up Marii’s defenses. “Go alert Marii. Tell her we’re coming in with refugees.”

Scout dashed off.

Ten minutes later, Erick stood at the base of the nearest illusionary hill, with his caravan of people behind him.

The air shimmered ahead, and light parted, revealing a collection of towers and walls with glittering metal roofs and floating gems above those roofs. The ground outside of Marii’s base was empty, save for Scout, who stood in the middle of the shimmering portal to safety.

Scout said, “Architect Marii is waiting.”

Find Architect Marii’s hidden location. 1/1

Erick told his caravan of people, “Inside. Double-time.”

For another five minutes, Erick stood outside of the protected space, making sure the others got into the protected area first. And then Erick went inside, and the shimmer of Illusion magics closed behind him. They hadn’t been assaulted at the last moment. Which was pretty good! Erick had expected an ambush.

Perhaps Marii and her people had actually already killed all ambush-capable forces? That’d be nice. Erick hadn’t seen much of Architect Marii’s place, but already he was interested in what he saw. The idea of scattering the position of a house over several locations was novel to him. Maybe he could even replicate the effect back on Veird, with his cloud castle. You could never have too many defenses, after all.

As Erick followed the caravan into Marii’s hill-spanning castle, he imagined that he would be spending some time here making some new mana-crystal-based magic, for mana crystals were excellent tools for making further magic.

Mana crystals weren’t used on Veird itself, but they were used inside Ar’Cosmos, and other Script-distant lands, like here in the Dark. Maybe some of it could even translate to Veird, so that he could use it in case he ever needed to go past the Edge again.

… Hopefully that would never happen again, but there was a lot of good to be had in preparing for Edge cases.

Erick chuckled to himself at his own joke, as the shimmer separating Marii’s hill from the rest of the world closed behind him.

From this angle, inside the shimmer, Erick looked out across the land, inspecting what he was seeing. Each of the six hills were maybe half a kilometer across at the top, with another half kilometer between them. Marii’s hill had her castle, of course, but the other tops of the other five hills looked like they were green pies, with a large helping of foggy ‘meringue’ on top. That airy, watery, foggy area was probably a major component of the illusion magics that made this place appear on whatever hill Marii decided to appear on… Or something like that.

He’d find out about all that later.

A gate into Marii’s castle held open in front, where soldiers stationed at this base scanned Erick’s rescued people with various magics, and guided refugees to tents and cots and other resting stations inside the castle. Other people started healing the refugees, while the soldiers Erick had gathered began to seamlessly mix into Marii’s forces.

Good.

Erick wouldn’t have to deal with all that organization.

Kinder stood just ahead, having waited for Erick, to say, “Marii will see us, now.”

– – – –

Inside a side room, off the main castle courtyard, Erick met with the woman in charge of this castle.

Marii was a short woman with flaming red hair and bright green eyes, and a rapid, no-nonsense way of speaking, “You’re the rescuer, then? Good. What do you need to kill all the Reds attacking us? Or are you going to coward out and go to the mountains like the rest of the bastards that came this way?”

Her words were spoken with half-inflections, as though she were stating words off of a script that she had never practiced for. She was clearly an NPC, and not really ‘there’, but Erick treated her as he would any person; with as much truth as he could.

“Gonna kill the reds here, so I need access to your mana chambers and I need help identifying the stuff I managed to take back and scavenge from the patrols.”

Marii breathed out a little, and her tone turned easier. “Good answer.” She retrieved a ring from her pocket, and held it out to Erick. The ring had a dull white gem. “Ring of [Identify].”

Erick took the ring—

Marii pointed with her now-free hand. “Mana chambers that way. Don’t break them. They’re all we have left from this location.”

“Meta-iron forging facilities?”

“Through the door next to the mana chambers. Those are hard to replace, too.”

“Do you know how to shape a new meta-iron from old meta-irons?”

“Yes. Melt down the scrap, pour it into a prepared mold. Take the iron out of the mold and clean it up. Runes and words if you want. Prime the iron with several meta-diamonds that you don’t give a shit about, but which are similar to the meta-iron that you want to eventually use, then you break that meta-diamond and start inserting the ones you care about. Test with [Identify] each time you add a new gem to make sure you’re doing it right. Wham bam, there’s your completed item. We done here?”

“… Sure. We’re done.”

Architect Marii walked away. She was busy, apparently.

Erick watched her go for a moment, then he went off to the mana chamber room.

– – – –

The mana chamber room held three different cubes like the ones Erick saw back at the arcanaeum, on floor 1, each of them three meters wide on all sides. A few tables sat opposite the mana chambers, ready with tools of all sorts and to hold whatever projects anyone might be working on. This was clearly a space where many different people could all work on their own projects at the same time.

Erick took up the entire space himself. After having the people he rescued, who held his loot, set out that loot from the R&R missions on the left-most table, Erick began sorting it as he desired, tapping his new Ring of [Identify] on everything, one by one.

Most of the metamonds were attack magics, like [Wind Cutter] and [Fireball]. Most of them, and especially [Fireball], had similar displays to what Erick would expect to find in a blue box from the Script, but different. Erick recalled the standard blue box for [Fireball].

– –

Fireball, instant, long range, 75 mana

Launch a quick ball of fire that explodes on contact, damaging a medium area for 50 + 2x WIL and igniting everything touched, dealing WIL damage per second for 10 seconds.

– –

But the floating text for the [Fireball] of the Glittering Depths read:

Fireball, instant, long range, 75 mana

Launch a quick ball of fire that explodes on contact, damaging a medium area for 100 damage and igniting everything touched, dealing 25 damage per second for 10 seconds.

Mana Density Multiplier: 50%

The damage of the [Fireball] of the Glittering Depths was flat, without any modifiers. Erick suspected it was based on a person with 25 Willpower. This told Erick a lot about a lot, but he’d organize those thoughts later.

That MDM number was concerning. A bunch of the stuff Erick used [Identify] on came back with that ‘Mana Density Multiplier’, but certainly not all. [Wind Cutter] was at 50%, just like [Fireball]. But [Water Bolt] was at 95%. [Stone Shot] didn’t have an MDM.

Didn’t take a genius to understand that every single spell that had a large area of effect component was hit hard by the Mana Density Multiplier. Spells that conjured some solid thing and then threw it, like [Stone Shot], weren’t affected at all.

All the spells inside Erick’s gear, surprisingly, didn’t have an MDM at all. He would have expected a few things, like [Self Rejuvenation] and his Lightning Rod to have that mana density drawback, since they were both buff or debuff spells and those things seemed like they would dissipate in the mana density disparity between his body and the dungeon (or an enemy’s body and the dungeon).

Erick had a quick think.

Spells were like balloons filled with just enough air to fill them out, and not to actually expand them at all. Depending on the environment a spell was cast into, that spell would act based on its environment. Perhaps the best notion of what was happening here, with this MDM entry, was what happened when you cast an air spell underwater, or when you cast a water spell (meant for underwater combat) above water. Or an air spell inside stone (but not really the other way around, since stone was rather non-compressible, in most scenarios.)

At high interior mana pressure as compared to outside space, a spell would either grow physically larger than expected and thus weaker, or fail altogether. At equalized mana pressure, a spell would act as expected, doing what you made it to do. At a high exterior mana pressure, a spell, once cast, would collapse inward, with a smaller area of effect, or fail, as the flows of intent and magic inside the spell could not move as they were made to move.

High exterior mana pressure existed in places like the tunnels near the Core of Veird, where mana flowed through the planet in flying rivers thick enough to see with the naked eye, where monsters roamed in order to naturally draw all that thick mana into their own grand rads. In there, spells didn’t so much fail due to mana pressure… So maybe not like there at all.

That was probably due to the Script, though.

Moving on.

Equalized mana pressure happened almost everywhere else on Veird.

Past the Edge of Veird, and also here, in the Glittering Depths, almost all spells had a higher interior mana pressure than the emptiness everywhere else. So spells like this [Fireball] metamond, which created an effect outside of a body… Had some sort of low multiplier?

Erick wasn’t sure exactly what this ‘multiplier’ meant. Was it a thing that area of effect spells had, to explain how they would act in this environment down here? Or was it a purposeful effect, imposed upon area spells by the dungeon?

… Erick was leaning on the idea that it was some sort of estimated behavior, a way to tell the user that it would have a ‘50% effect’ (whatever that meant) because dungeons were meant to be places of learning. If the dungeon was doing weird shit to your magic, making your magic act in strange ways that it would never act like anywhere else, then those dungeons were generally shit. Grand Dungeons, like these Glittering Depths… Sure, it had a Second Script, but it was meant to be a learning place, and it was a learning place, with lessons that could be learned and then taken outside the dungeon.

… And with that in mind, Erick suspected spells with a low MDM were highly affected by mana density, and spells with a high MDM were not affected at all; spells like [Stone Shot].

Stone Shot, instant, long range, 5 mana

A bolt of stone strikes where you aim.

But [Water Bolt] had a bit of MDM, because it was a ‘splash’.

Water Bolt, instant, long range, 5 mana

A highly distracting bolt of water unerringly splashes a target.

Mana Density Multiplier: 95%

Water was prone to shifts in density a little, so that 95% was understandable, but Water’s malleability was nothing like Fire and Air, while Stone was rock solid through most conjuring, simply because Stone was… Well. Stone.

Erick might put [Fireball] inside one of his extra wands and see what happened; to actually test his theories. He expected to make a [Fireball] that was… Larger and weaker, probably.

Anyway. Moving on to other theories and crafting…

Why did his Rod of the Lightning Guardian not have any MDM at all? Why did [Self Rejuvenation] not have an MDM?

Rod of the Lightning Guardian, attuned artifact, 1000/1000

Spend a variable amount of mana to empower the rod with Benevolent Lightning. Touching any living thing with this empowerment will inflict a lingering destruction unto the touched target, disrupting auras, exterior magic, and steadily causing physical damage.

Bracelet of [Self Rejuvenation], attuned artifact, 99/100

Continually heal at ten times normal rate.

Overcharge healing for 25 mana, condensing a week of healing into 10 minutes.

So things got complicated here.

Erick started at the beginning.

A body, which was currently under the control of a soul, had a sort of ‘stickiness’ or ‘merge-ability’ to it, when it came to certain magics. Healing magics, primarily. Both normal-living-things, and monsters with a core had souls that controlled their bodies. Normal people had souls all throughout their bodies. Monsters (and people like Erick) had souls inside their cores, which exuded control over the body through a natural ‘aura like’ effect; but it wasn’t the soul, exactly.

Health, as that which existed on Veird, was an example of this sort of soul-control a living soul had over the body it inhabited.

But there was no Health in this dungeon, without actually using a metamond for Health.

And here’s the big thing: without Health, the body was completely vulnerable to interior spellwork. Erick could have taken his rod and stabbed it into one of Fyuri’s wounds, or whatever, and fried her from the inside. Even touching her body at all had fried her much, much more deeply than was possible on Veird, where Health would have stopped that from happening.

And so, without Health… Shouldn’t these spells that affected living things be stripped away, as mana was stripped away from people, here in the dungeon?

Well.

Obviously not.

Erick’s rod’s lightning and the [Self Rejuvenation] were obviously working their power on the soul-animated body, and not being pulled away or negated by the dungeon’s mana vacuum.

So that was half of the answer as to why his bracelet and the rod both did not have a multiplier; they both functioned to affect a body.

… But Healing Magic outside of the Script went off of the blueprint of the soul… And Erick’s soul was fully contained into his core, as was the case with most people who had cores. So there were some interesting interactions happening there.

For Erick’s purposes, the Healing found in the Glittering Depths had to be tied to the physical body more than it was tied to the soul, because if it was tied to the soul, then Erick wouldn’t have had any physical changes at all when he came into the dungeon. Or maybe he had that backwards?

Erick had adjusted his body through [Perfected Polymorph] and gained a temporary Familiar Form called ‘Ashes Woodfield’.

But this Form is not the one he had made earlier.

Erick looked down at himself.

His hair was a bit longer, and he was a bit more muscular than he had made himself, before he stepped into the dungeon today. A little younger, too. Erick had initially thought all of that was due to some sort of resonance with the memory of the dungeon and the Dark and Ashes-of-the-Old-Cosmology, but perhaps this change was a conflict of soul versus body, and brought to a conclusion outside of Erick’s expertise because of the generalized Healing Magic of his [Self Rejuvenation] bracelet.

Was this Wizardry? Making him look more like how Ashes should have looked?

… No way to really know, though, without extensive magical testing, and another talk with Atunir.

Could also have something to do with his draconic soul, and Erick, in his heart of hearts, wanting to be more handsome than he had originally made Ashes… Because yes, he was a bit vain sometimes. Who didn’t want to look pretty!

So maybe this different form was from the disconnect between his body, his soul, and what he wanted, and what he made, and how Elemental Healing was working here in the dungeon…

Erick almost chuckled.

He was quite far out of his depth right now! All of these tiny things coming together in odd ways!

Erick was rather sure that if some academically inclined person desired to make a name for themselves in the Healing arts, then they might want to come to the Glittering Depths to do safe Healing Magic experiments in a low-mana environment. Dragons and normal people; both would be good to have down here, doing experiments. Sure, it was a dungeon with different rules of magic, but the Glittering Depths was specifically made to help people understand magic in a low mana environment; not to fuck up peoples’ basic understanding of how magic worked.

So, perhaps, the Glittering Depths, free of all Script interference, might actually be the purest expression of magery anywhere on this planet… Except for maybe Melemizargo’s own, personal dungeons.

Even Ar’Cosmos, with its anti-Script nature, couldn’t boast this level of pure magic, basic and unmangled.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

… Was someone already doing this, though? Seems like someone might. But Erick couldn’t recall if he knew of anyone trying to figure out Healing Magic in low mana, non-Script environments. Such research would be good for civilization, for once they got past Veird and into outer space, mana would behave like itself, instead of like how the Relevant Entities decided it should behave.

… Did Erick want to do that research himself?

No. Not really. He did not have enough time for such a distraction, and he did not want to become a hermit, living inside a dungeon, separate from Veird and the people he cared about.

… Maybe he could set up a lab at the Edge of the Script? That might be nice. Safer than being inside a dungeon, but not by much at all…

Maybe.

Anyway!

Healing Magic and various bodily-affecting magic probably worked (arguably) reasonably normal in a low mana environment, because the body was a natural ‘conductor’ for mana-based effects (with that whole ‘it’s the aura, but not really the aura’ thing happening here).

And that wasn’t even bringing up the complications of monsters and healing! Monsters had bodies separate from their souls, which made their bodies easier to repair because an attack on the body did not attack the soul, as was the case with what happened to most other people when you cut off their arms, or what-have-you. If a person got their arm cut off, and they were not healed for a long time, then the soul that existed in that arm would gradually fade away and/or retract, and that unfortunate person would need to get a [Reincarnation] from Erick in order to regain their arm, because the arm would be gone.

And that whole thing was complicated, too.

On Veird, Healing Magic worked perfectly fine to heal people with degrading soul conditions, because the Script heavily supported that action. But gradually, if the underlying soul damage wasn’t healed, either through powerful magic (for large, dangerous injuries) or time and careful healing (for smaller injuries, since souls did heal over time), then the person’s ‘healed’ body would gradually fail in those areas where their soul didn’t reach anymore.

Healing Magic was incredibly complicated, but here in the Glittering Depths, Erick felt he was seeing Healing Magic unaffected by the Script for the first time.

He was also seeing how magic worked in vacuums.

Erick used his [Identify] ring on his belt, to check out [Unsensible].

He got another surprise.

Belt of Many Functions, attuned artifact, 0, 0, 247/250

(Empty)

(Empty)

Unsensible, self, low grade buff, 25 mana

Let no one else mana sense your self. Lasts 10 minutes.

Automatically recast when spell fades.

Mana Density Multiplier: 75%

That ‘Automatic’ clause was something Erick had never found on a Script-based spell, and that it labeled itself as a ‘buff’ was different too. Buffs were usually harmful to people, because they messed with the nature of one’s soul. But [Unsensible] had not harmed Erick at all, as far as he could tell…

Maybe it was harming him? He couldn’t tell, though? He had only been using it for a few hours?

… It probably was harming him.

Erick flicked his aura through the belt, and turned off the [Unsensible].

… And he waited.

He waited for the crash of a stressed soul, and for the weakness of a buff —any buff at all— leaving the body…

And he felt… Just fine? Weird.