Time stood still for two more moments, and then it resumed, but slowly. Redflame’s wide eyes ponderously shut all the way and then opened once again; a minute spent on a single blink.

And then he was present, in the moment. Broken space filled the world all around, while the tower itself almost fell apart, but grey light held it together, filling in the cracks left by the removal of Elemental Benevolence. Redflame did not seem to like the state of his estate, but instead of getting angry, he looked to Fairy Moon.

Fairy Moon’s left hand was charred black, exposing bone and blood. Lightning burns went all the way up to her elbow. Her blood was red as could be, dripping out of her flesh like an open tap. She should have been and possibly was in a great deal of pain, but she smiled despite it all. Warmth, love, and hope held in her deep, green and pink eyes, and in the curl of her lips. She sighed; a fond expression. And then she moved her burned hand away from Erick’s fully intact hand, curling the bone and burned flesh to hold it tight against her chest. Blood dripped upon her dress, and she flinched as she moved, betraying her physical pain, but what was the physical to one such as her? It was nothing. Fairy Moon took a moment to be thankful for what she had done, and what Erick had done, while she held her crispy flesh close.

Maid Maria remained far behind Erick, cowering behind the bar and behind a silver serving tray, but she poked her head out, now that time had resumed.

The three heads of the houses of Ar’Cosmos each hovered on the other side of separate windows to the tower. Illustrious’s foxtail-like aura extended out from behind her like the fanning flames of a violet fire. Inferno Maw held himself up via a grey density in the air; it was his grey magic that seemed to be holding up much of the crumbling tower. Bright Smile floated among harsh red light, with her smile full of fangs, and with a thin collar of white lightning circling her neck, with spikes pointing inward.

Erick had a similar crash of iridescent white lightning inside his mana veins, but his was a lot less violent looking.

Erick decided to speak first, “So it seems that was Elemental Benevolence.” He glanced to Fairy Moon. “It seems like it will work out, too.”

Expressions of concern, intrigue, hope, and worry, abounded.

Fairy Moon just giggled, then she tore the burned flesh from her left arm like she was taking off a long glove, revealing perfectly healthy flesh beneath. In that same movement she turned the removed glove into a small ring that she then slipped upon that hand’s ring finger. That white ring sparkled like a tiny circle of Benevolence lightning, and she held it up for all to see. “A beautiful thing, this beatific creation! Benevolence is cause for celebration! Not concern!” She gestured with her newly beringed hand at the Eraser and Replacer [Renew] rings. “And [Renew] will solve both the half-dragon dilemma and the small shattering of our Ar’Cosmos. But since the shattering is rather serious, that is the rudeness we must rectify first.” She said to Illustrious, “Illustrious! Illuminate the in-flow nodes for Wizard Erick to begin repairing the mess he has made! It will be a grand first-use of his radical [Renew].” She said to Erick, “For you will be repairing the ravaging you have done, don’t you think?”

Illustrious instantly took up the option to control the conversation, saying, “But of course.” She began to float into the room, to land upon the floor near her window. “An inflow of proper mana will begin to repair the damage done, and what better way to test out the veracity of [Renew] than to heal this land, directly?”

Inferno Maw and Bright Smile followed Illustrious’s lead, and floated inside the tower, to land on the floor.

Inferno Maw said, “I would seek a proper accounting of whatever happened here, before anything too drastic should happen, such as revealing the nodes that dictate the stability of this land to an unallied Wizard.” He lightly glared at Erick, saying, “I am quite disappointed to know that Particle Magic isn’t real.”

Erick frowned at the man, his thoughts going sideways as he latched onto Inferno Maw’s little snipe. “Your world fell into my universe, Inferno Maw. This universe has particles. I did not invent those.”

Fairy Moon sighed, and sat back to wait out the drama.

“How can anyone be sure? You might have even invented ‘Earth’ as a concept of your own past.” Inferno Maw said, “You’ve changed so much, so fast, and unless I am mistaken, you have just now invented a new Element. I have no doubt this new mana has propagated backward into the past, and likely infected every single spell you have ever cast. Who is to say that you haven’t already done this once before? I believe you have.”

Erick would have been dumbfounded by Inferno Maw’s nonsense, but he saw a truth in the man. Inferno Maw was scared, and trying not to show it. He wasn’t the only one. Practically every single person in that tower room was least a little terrified, except for Fairy Moon. She seemed like she knew that everything would be okay.

Erick… Mostly felt that everything would be okay.

Except for the ring of lightning around Bright Smile’s neck; that was a major concern.

Erick was currently engaging with Inferno Maw, though, so he said, “Fairy Moon was the one that caused this to happen. I was going to get together a committee to talk about how to solve the problem of the Sundering, and then I was going to enact their will, creating a true Sundering solution that would last forever. But… I think this will work.”

Fairy Moon happily said, “You make a mistake, Erick! This was not me, my wonderful Wizard.”

Erick frowned, though he could not find it in himself to be mad like he thought he should be. Fairy Moon had tricked him, right? Or did he have that wrong? Did a trick even count if it wasn’t magically enforced? … What had happened in that moment when Fairy Moon had asked that question, anyway?

And why wasn’t Erick madder at her? A side effect of Benevolence? Maybe. Maybe not. He could run some experiments with getting angry another day; for now, though, anger would be counterproductive.

There were more things to be worried about than all that nuance, though.

At the mention of Sunderings, Inferno Maw forced his breathing and his heart rate to remain even. Illustrious let her heart beat fast and hard, for she did not care who knew her emotion— She wanted people to know what she wanted them to know. Not ‘she did not care’. Bright Smile just grinned wider.

Erick suspected that Bright Smile might have a screw loose.

Redflame spoke, though, because he had had enough, “I am entering into a formal alliance with Erick. I expect you all to fall in line. Sort out the details at another time, though.” He said to Erick, “Erick. Thank you for the [Renew] rings. I will begin testing on them today with some of our sorrier cases. Do you wish to be kept apprised of this development?”

Erick did not miss that the man had said ‘thank you’. No one had missed that. Erick still didn’t know if saying ‘thank you’ was bad to say around Fairy Moon, or around anyone inside Ar’Cosmos, but at this rate he was gathering ‘thank you’s and he had no idea how to cash them in, or if he even could. Whatever!

“Yes; I wish to be kept apprised.” Erick said, “These rings might not work, though. If they look to fail in some way then stop the procedure and let me make some new ones.” He stressed, “I am not comfortable with person-experimentation, but we’re at that level. I hope that there are no untoward effects.”

Redflame said, “The people who could benefit from these bloodline erasers or creators—”

Inferno Maw exclaimed, “Bloodline Magic!”

Illustrious laughed. “He did it!”

Bright Smile demanded, “Make one for Paradoxed Carnage.”

Redflame glared at Bright Smile, announcing, “We will talk later. All of you. Later.” He turned to Erick, “These people I plan to use these on are half-dead already. They are kept in stasis… Those who can afford it keep themselves or their loved ones in stasis, to come out of that stasis every so often to accrete to see if they can clear up their bloodline. We have a lot of death row cases like that. If this helps, then this helps. If not, then they will at least have gotten a chance that they did not have before now.”

Erick steeled himself. “I am glad to know your measure, Redflame, and I am very glad that this meeting… Has worked out, mostly. I can see through the Ophiel I left on the roof and I apologize for… Whatever happened when I made Elemental Benevolence.”

Elemental Benevolence had shattered all of Ar’Cosmos, apparently.

“I can see the various destruction as well,” Redflame said, “But I highly doubt that anyone except for the truly unlucky have been injured, and even those who have been injured are likely receiving help.”

Illustrious spoke up, “House Fae and House Carnage are seeing to the repair, as we speak.”

Bright Smile glanced to Illustrious, and decided to follow the woman’s lead, saying, “Carnage takes care of our people and this level of destruction is nothing to us dragons. We will make good allies going forward, Erick, for together, we shall carve lands out of this world that will accept us all, or they shall accept fire and death.”

Illustrious tried not to frown at the end of Bright Smile’s announcement, but she couldn’t help it. She frowned. Erick wasn’t too happy with the ‘fire and death part’, either, but they would undoubtedly talk about that before they got that far. Redflame glared lightly at Bright Smile, but then ignored her threats.

Inferno Maw said, “The Pathways are secure. Ar’Cosmos has not been breached. This level of destruction has come upon us before, and we have weathered these storms time and time again… Even if this time the circumstances are rather unique.”

Erick almost paled, but he caught himself.

He had almost caused a breach of Ar’Cosmos, eh? That would have been bad.

And at that thought, Erick discovered he could get mad. He was furious at Fairy Moon, but also at himself for what he had almost done, but he stuffed that emotion down, calmed, and moved on.

Erick said, “I hope we can work on many projects together, and on these [Renew] rings, too, in order to solve some of your problems this month, instead of next year when [Renew] enters the Open Script— Though it’s only… ten months from now. Not a full year. Perhaps you will have proper runic [Renew] rings before next year’s Water Season begins?”

Redflame nodded solemnly, then said, “That was to be the first of my deadlines for a working prototype, if I had managed to make [Renew] myself.. Now that you are here, though, and helping, I gratefully accept your help and look forward to working with you on this temporary and individual solution to the Dragon Curse.” Redflame said, “In time, when our people are… Perhaps living beside Candlepoint, or some such, we will have time to work on more projects together.”

Erick said, “There is lots of room around Candlepoint. I can only hope that when the wrought and Kirginatharp find out that I’m a Wizard— Okay. Well. I just made Elemental Benevolence. So. They likely already know. Therefore, I want to be sure this alliance is going to work.” He looked around, but mostly at Bright Smile. “I do not want a single war to happen because of the removal of the Curse.”

Bright Smile spoke, “We won’t go looking for war but we will not back down from a war if war should come, and war will come for us. If you enter into an alliance with us, that means that you will protect us, and we will protect you, and if someone should attack us, then you must attack them alongside our forces. That is the preliminary alliance agreement, but more words would be put down on paper later. If you cannot agree to that, then we will need to have different discussions about you leaving Ar’Cosmos intact, or not.”

Erick ignored the threat, and felt the lightning in his veins seem to focus.

His words came out calm, but inside, he had a feeling like butterflies in his stomach. “I am aware of what it means to be allies, Bright Smile.” Erick spoke with feeling, “I am also aware that with enough power, that all sides might choose not to go to war, for the outcome of such a war would break Veird. I will not participate in such a conflict if it should escalate to that point, or if it looks to escalate anywhere near that point. I urge you to not do this, either. The release of dragons from Ar’Cosmos does not need to cause a war.”

Bright Smile brought the building storm to a point, “They will force a Forgotten Campaign against you. The entire world will come for you. The only thing you can do is decide if you want to lay down and die, or thrive in the violence. I know my choice. When the choice comes to you, I hope you make the right one, or else we cannot be allies.”

And here now was the turning of a world.

A knot in the tapestry.

A choice made before all other choices.

Bright Smile’s lightning necklace glittered in Erick’s eyes, and in his eyes only.

Erick felt himself speaking, guiding his words and his future toward somewhere better than before, “So if war is not inevitable... If they choose to let Benevolence stand? If they choose to let Ar’Cosmos enter the world without violence? What then? Will you go to war even when there’s so much land out there to occupy and populate, and war only diminishes yourself and your own resources? Soon, we’ll be opening up whole new worlds, Bright Smile. I will make that happen. There is absolutely no need for war. Why go to war, when you won’t even have the resources necessary to found a proper Empire? To occupy and control and cultivate all the infinite lands out there that you will eventually gain?” Erick said, “No; War is not the best possible answer. Posturing and promises of war, followed by surgical strikes against entrenched enemies are something that could happen, but believing and acting like open war is inevitable is the surest way to ruin.”

Bright Smile kept her ruinous grin, as she said, “‘Believing’ and ‘acting’ have nothing to do with my stance that war is inevitable. I know war will happen, Archmage Flatt, because as soon as dragons are allowed to be strong then Rozeta and the wrought and Kirginatharp will come for us, as they have time and time again. Forgotten Campaigns. Genocidal Dragon Stalkers. Mind Mages, and most of all, Kirginatharp, who Cursed us all and who maintains that Curse within his own soul, ensuring that none shall ever challenge him again.” She adopted a bravado of relaxation, saying “But I understand your particular stance, even if I think it too hopeful by far. Dreamers like yourself make this world worth living. But when this turns into another Chelation War I expect you to hold up your end of this bargain made today. I expect you to bring extermination to those who want nothing more than to exterminate us.”

Erick blinked a little, as the depth of Bright Smile’s conviction threw him for a loop.

And just like that, possibility collapsed. Erick could not grasp at the tapestry again, for it was out of reach, for now. The lightning choker around Bright Smile’s neck remained.

Ah. Well. Bright Smile was rather willing to talk. So, perhaps she was not a disaster waiting to happen? At least not right now? They would need to have more discussions later, it seemed—

As soon as Erick had that thought he realized that Bright Smile did not become the head of a house of Ar’Cosmos through utter violence… Well maybe she had, but even Redflame has said that the woman had enacted some ‘good reforms’ in her tenure as the head of House Carnage, which has been for the last 150 or so years, if Erick recalled correctly, and he did.

Erick tried to put himself out there one more time, “I hope I am not allying with warmongers, because if you decide you need to war just because you can, then this alliance is dead in the water.”

Bright Smile said, “If—

“That’s all the talking for today,” Fairy Moon spoke over the dragon woman. She stood. “We will all return to our residences and Erick is to remit to us enough [Renew] to repair the ravaging he has done to this domain. Tomorrow or on tomorrow’s morrow, there will be more talking. Today, we are done.” She clapped.

An echo traveled outward.

And suddenly, Erick, Fairy Moon, and Maid Maria, were all in Fairy Moon Manor, in the dining room, standing around. Not a [Teleport], but a shift in space. Fairy Moon had ended the conversation then and there, and just because she could… Maybe see what Erick had seen?

Redflame’s tower and all of the dragons had been left behind, along with the [Renew] rings he had given the old dragon. Erick just blinked for a bit at the sudden movement, and then Ophiel twittered on his shoulder while Yggdrasil looked all around, excitedly.

It appeared that Fairy Moon Manor did not make it through Erick’s Benevolence unscathed.

The room was broken in half, with one half filled with farmland, and the other half filled with the dining room.

Fairy Moon announced, “Wonderful work, Erick. Maid Maria; it’s time for a repast, so get on that, while I make notice a node for this resident Wizard to [Renew].” She gestured to the side, and a torso-sized ball of pink/green/white depths appeared, like a sudden abyss opening in the air. “This is a node of Ar’Cosmos, Erick. [Renew] it, and repair my mansion, first.”

Maria scampered off toward the hallway that should have led to the kitchen, but Erick saw that the hallway ended in a library. Maria didn’t seem to care about the changed space, though, for she touched a bookshelf and that bookshelf turned back into the hall it should have been.

Erick ignored that, and turned back to the node. With barely a command, and more of an understanding, Ophiel flitted over and hovered next to the multicolored abyss. Light streamed out of the little guy, flowing into the abyss—

The broken edges of the dining room, the sculptures half there and the paintings hanging loosely on the walls, took on a pink/green/white shimmer. All too quickly, Ophiel bottomed out on mana, having rapidly pumped 2500 [Renew] into the hole in reality.

Erick glanced around the room.

Fairy Moon did, too. She frowned a little. Nothing had changed.

A sinking feeling dragged down Erick’s stomach as he—

“Oh!” Fairy Moon exclaimed, squinting her eyes into the far distance. “Ah. It’s realigning the river. That’s probably best purposes.” She clapped her hands again, and happily exclaimed, “Repair as you can, or suffer the shame of me doing this same destruction to you. An arm for a leg and a leg for a head—”

Okay. That was too much.

Erick interrupted her, “Your warning is unneeded, and entirely too violent. I am still mad that you slaved to your will, again. Do not mark me as an enemy, Fairy Moon.” Erick easily found his anger, but it was background noise. He needed a nap, or maybe he was just hungry. He forced himself to relax. “The mana will come as it comes, and not a minute faster.”

Fairy Moon shook her head. “Mark you as enemy? Madness! I mark you as maker of worlds and wisdom! And slaved to my self? Senseless! All I did was ask; you were the one who answered. This Benevolence is all yours, Archmage. Your accomplishment, your actions! I did not do this; only you. This is your Benevolence.”

“… I wanted a committee. You tricked me?”

“I asked and you answered.” Fairy Moon said, “It’s not my fault that mana loves your locution, and that you attained the awareness necessary to nurture this Fairy Fate of beneficent Benevolence.”

Somehow, Erick had forgotten that Fairy Moon was fae.

… Whatever.

Erick held out a hand and mangled up some magic, using Elemental Mystical to make the mana help him cast Ophiel. Another little guy popped out of the air. He was up to four, now. He asked, “Is this the only Node where the magic needs to happen? Will [Renew] filter out to all the other ones?”

“Yes indeed.” Fairy Moon kept smiling. “We might not have runic webs here, but we have better magic than that.”

“Good.” Erick had Ophiel cast a [Prismatic Ward] next to the node while the first one conjured up a bird stand that could eventually hold nine Ophiel next to the node. He asked, “Will Maid Maria be back soon? I feel like taking a nap— after I summon all of my Ophiel and they get set up around the node, of course.”

Fairy Moon had looked like she was about to interject, but then she relaxed, and said, “Supper will surface when Maid Maria wills it to be. Go and get a snack if you’re starving.”

“… Then that is what I am going to do— Ah. When the letters from my current and past allies start coming in, calling for my release, let me know, if you will.”

Like an energetic teenager, Fairy Moon said, “You will not be released until Ar’Cosmos is intact, once again! So the sooner you—”

“Okay. Okay. Okay.”

Erick conjured another Ophiel and with that, he was tapped out, for now. That Ophiel took his place next to the other Ophiel on the bird stand, and Erick went toward the hallway and its unexpected library, to follow where Maria had already gone.

Fairy Moon remained in the dining room with a happy smile upon her face. As Erick passed out of normal sensory range, she started giggling. And dancing. And hopping around. Erick still saw her through Ophiel, though.

Erick ignored that, and continued to the kitchens, passing through rooms he had never seen before, and damaged architecture, everywhere. Some walls had toppled over. One tower had crashed across one room…

And Erick stopped.

He had no fucking clue where to go, at all. So he turned around and went back to the dining room.

Maid Maria was already back, and with two carts laden with all the best looking food that Erick had ever seen. Fairy Moon was getting drunk off a whole bottle of wine that was as large as an orcol’s forearm, and full of deeply purple drink. In that moment, some of Erick’s previous anxiety and worries began to erode. Nothing else was going to happen today, it seemed? Yes. That seemed correct. He was safe, for now.

Fairy Moon happily offered to share some of her purple wine with him, and since Maid Maria was already partaking, Erick decided to have some, too.

It was wonderful.

The food was fantastic, too.

In great, crashing chunks, Erick’s worries began to melt away. He was still safe, for now. Everything had changed. His entire life was gone, and replaced by what would come next. This then, was the turning of his Fate on this here Veird. He almost wanted to go up to his (prison) room and crawl into bed to sleep for a year—

And then Fairy Moon must have seen that Erick wasn’t having enough fun, so she performed the first of many small songs, and Erick started to feel embarrassed for his own heavy, unsaid emotions. Fairy Moon was beyond happy, and she wanted to share that joy with everyone.

“A celebration today, hooroo hooray! Benevolence comes and lights the way! So drink and eat and make merry and pray, for Erick the Wizard has come here to stay!” Fairy Moon affected a false frown, singing, “Not in Ar’Cosmos of course, he doesn’t like that!” She cheered, “But maybe as ally he’ll come up to spat, with us when we venture out into the world, to let our dragon wings come out unfurled! A celebration today, hooroo hooray! Benevolence comes and lights the way!”

The next verse was about city and civilization building, and that was much better.

Erick felt better, too.

Eventually, Fairy Moon even started clapping and music started playing from somewhere.

Maid Maria brought out more drinks.

Somehow, when Erick wasn’t looking, the sculptures around the room had taken up instruments, and moved around as they wished.

It was not long at all until Ophiel couldn’t hold himself back anymore and he joined in on the fun, dancing and twirling between channeling [Renew]s into the Node. Erick even got up and danced a jig with Maid Maria first, and then Fairy Moon second while Maria played a set of drums that had come out from somewhere; Erick had no idea where.

All the while, Erick summoned more Ophiel as he could, and those Ophiel continued to [Renew] the node sitting off to the side. Erick saw absolutely none of the repair work that his mana was apparently doing, but that was fine. Apparently other places had been hit harder by the creation of Elemental Benevolence, and those places would get repaired first.

Erick contented himself with the food, and the drink, and the small party. At Erick’s mention that he had no idea what he was repairing, Fairy Moon began explaining, and with lightward illustrations in the air. The coliseum was coming back together, and then the farm lands were being extracted from home lands, and then the arcanaeum was fixing itself. Maid Maria remained silent, mostly, for she listened right alongside Erick about all of Ar’Cosmos coming back together; she kept the food coming, though.

Erick had no idea where he was putting all the food, but it was good, and he kept eating.

Eventually, Fairy Moon was partied out, which happened when she gazed for the thirtieth time at a sculpture of a man that had yet to move the entire night.

It was a somber moment to end the night, though, so Maria brought out more good food and more good drink, and Erick continued to have no idea where he put it all, as he continued to eat right alongside Maria and Fairy Moon.

And then the party was over.

Erick went back to his room, feeling full, and relaxed, and a lot better about whatever might come next.

Looking out the windows, Erick had thought they had spent days feasting, but the city was still a shattered mess, and it would take days to fix it all. The party had only been several hours long.

Erick’s mind moved on to the tasks ahead.

The party had been a fantastic break, and Erick would sleep well tonight, but...

Ophiel continued to pump [Renew] into the node, as his Rested Regeneration would allow; he was good at doing small, repetitive tasks, too, so Erick barely had to adjust him when he got going. Apparently, though, Ophiel was used to having a lot more mana than he currently had. Twice, he poofed himself. But that was fine. He was learning. Erick resummoned him as necessary.

Erick almost wanted to get to learning about his new Elemental Body, too, but… He had obligations, right now. Politics and readiness for danger. He had no idea if Bright Smile, or anyone else, was going to strike in the middle of the night, or whenever, so now was not the time for Benevolence experiments, anyway.

As the full moon hung outside his window, bathing his room in gentle green/pink/white glows, Erick tried to go for a swim in the bathing pool, but it was broken. Completely dry and cracked right through the middle! So Erick just went to bed. Sleep came intermittently.

Eventually, though, Erick managed.

- - - -

The sun rose.

The city of Ar’Cosmos continued to heal, bit by little bit, for Ophiel continued to pump mana into the node down below, in the dining room. Fairy Moon and Maid Maria had a nice breakfast to themselves.

And Erick slept in.

- - - -

Bleary-eyed and needing to use the bathroom, Erick finally awoke, for good, and this time he did not feel like going back to bed. The clock read just after noon, which was pretty damned late. But, whatever! Erick shucked his clothes as he walked to the bathroom. Rushing through his morning routine, he soon jumped into the bathing pool, splashing water everywhere. Last night the bathing pool had been broken, but this afternoon it was fixed. Erick didn’t know whether that was due to his own [Renew] efforts, or more to do with Fairy Moon or Maid Maria working on the room while he slept. Or maybe House Fae was working overtime to fix everything, too, which was definitely a thing that was also happening. Whatever the case, warm, cleansing waters caressed his skin, and with a small towel, Erick began scrubbing away the sweat and the grime that seemed to happen due to sleeping in too much.

And then he just relaxed in the waters. Yggdrasil bobbed in the waves with him while one Ophiel splashed around in the shallows. Thoughts happened, but they were too much to think about. For an hour, Erick lost himself in thoughts about what would happen next, and what it meant to have Elemental Benevolence running through his veins.

The lightning was still there, of course. The inner Sight of it all vanished when he wasn’t looking, but if he turned even the least bit part of his senses inward, he could see that lightning inside his mana veins.

But more than that, there was the problem with Bright Smile.

He had tried to persuade the woman away from thinking that war was inevitable, but his attempt had not been enough. Luckily, Redflame seemed to be on Erick’s side. Also luckily, it seemed whatever problem or opportunity that Bright Smile represented was still a long ways away. Erick had no idea how he knew that, and he could be very wrong, but that’s what he felt.

It wasn’t a normal feeling, either.

It was like putting a finger on an electric stove to see if it was hot. Right now, Bright Smile was simply ‘warm’. She was also the only person within all of Erick’s senses that was ‘warm’, at all. Granted, he hadn’t spent too much time looking at many people; mostly just himself and the people nearest to him and… No one else, actually. Erick glanced through Ophiel, to see the dining room. The dining room was empty.

Maid Maria and Fairy Moon were elsewhere.

Erick was here alone? Or… Probably not. Maid Maria might be hiding; Erick had thought her over her fear of him, but after yesterday Maria’s fear seemed to be back, in full. So Erick was likely alone, unless circumstances dictated otherwise.

Whatever the case, it was time to do some investigating with regard to Benevolence.

Erick had Ophiel flit out of the shallows and go to the balcony. There, Erick gazed through his eyes and saw the various people of Ar’Cosmos going about their days like normal. He tried to focus on his own Benevolence, to see if he felt a ‘lightning rod effect’ drawing him to any of the people out there… But he got nothing. Maybe his senses didn’t work through Ophiel’s senses? Maybe so. It was time to get out of the water, anyway.

With a quick hop out of the waters and a toweling, Erick put on some nice clothes and went outside, onto the balcony. Ophiel twittered at him as he joined the little guy at the railing. After a little pat on Ophiel’s feathers, Erick turned his direct attention to the people far below, in the city outside Fairy Moon’s manor.

The people went about their business like normal. Mostly.

There were still a few cracks in the sky, but the city itself seemed mostly intact. Sure, there used to be a large tree in that one blank space there, and at least two houses were missing, entirely, but there was a sapling in that space where the tree used to be, and people were already carting large flats of brick and stone into place, to get ready to rebuild the houses. The gaggle of women with the big hats were out and about, talking up a storm and laughing loudly as they passed down the street, on to do whatever it was they normally did together. Further below, inside Fairy Moon Manor’s property, Maid Maria looked to be helping a farmhand harvest some crops, doing a completely normal task like she usually did.

Erick kept looking for something out of place.

… Twenty minutes later, Erick had found nothing.

He had expected to latch onto something, as he had with Bright Smile. And yet, there was nothing. After a moment Erick realized this was actually quite a relief. Most people were just normal people, after all, simply trying to do good for themselves and their immediate circle, which was perfectly fine…

And yet, it was not fine, because this made whatever had happened with Bright Smile even more important.

… Erick went to find breakfast. He would save experimenting with his ‘Elemental Benevolence Body’ for later, when his stomach was full.

- - - -

The hallways leading to the kitchen were intact, and so was the kitchen itself, though it was missing two stoves and a work table. The cold storage looked like it was half depleted, for instead of being full of racks of frozen meat and crates upon crates of supplies, half the room was empty and everything that had survived had been reorganized on the other side.

The pantry, which was once full of shelves upon shelves of bubbled food from centuries of maids, that had extended several floors upward and a kilometer deep, was now half that. Maybe a little less. Maybe only a third.

Erick felt a profound sense of loss at that destruction of comfort; at the loss of food made by hands that no longer existed. And then he considered what else Fairy Moon had lost over her many years, and that perhaps Erick was feeling something that was not actually present in the old fae. Fairy Moon had likely gained and lost way too much over her life for this temporary loss of the past to be anything but an old wound, already numb to most pain.

Other people in the city had experienced similar losses, and were likely a lot more broken up about it, but when Erick studied the world outside of his balcony he didn’t see a single sad person— Well. Having a breakdown on a street was likely something just not done, but still, Erick hadn’t seen any obviously unhappy people down there, on the streets outside of Fairy Moon Manor.

Had the creation of Benevolence not actually been that bad, at all?

… Erick picked out some spicy fried chicken tortilla wrap-like foods from one of Maid Maria’s bubbled options, along with a pitcher of tea and some cookies from the bakery table. Then he went back to his room.

- - - -

Empty plates and a full stomach! This was good. There were still three more sugar cookies to eat, but he was full, and it was time to try some magic.

Erick stood where he usually accreted, though the space was now clear of all pillows and otherwise. With a flick, he turned on his mana sense and found that sense to be exactly as it has always had been; like becoming part of the mana and thus able to sense all the world around him. His range was still rather low, at only five meters distant, but that was likely more due to the nature of Ar’Cosmos, and not any personal failing.

Next came aura control. This, then, was the first real test of what his aura had become in the wake of Benevolence.

Feeling out a familiar flow between thought and action to create a minor control over nearby Reality, Erick opened up his third eye and—

Lightning and light spilled from his body like he had opened up all of his mana veins and let the electricity out. He had become a tesla coil and all the world had become a ground; white lightning danced from the floor to his legs, while arcing off his outstretched hands to touch upon the air like it was reaching for something that was not there.

—Erick cut his aura off.

He paused.

He inspected himself for damage. He found none.

Then he braced himself and opened his aura again.

Not-lightning crackled and snapped all around him, arcing away like so many sparks, and then, it calmed. Oddly, the lightning sort of remained, and yet, not exactly.

Past the initial burst of personal Reality encroaching on nominal reality, Erick’s normal glowing aura filled out his normal amount of aura space, but instead of wisping away in any stray gust of wind, it now curled and turned to sharp lightning, to strike out at any nearby structure. The lightning made no sound. The small strikes made no actual burn marks on anything. It was still aura, and thus it was just Erick’s soul’s expression of itself upon the manasphere. Opening his aura did not automatically create magic. It didn’t really let out the lightning in his veins, either.

Over the course of ten seconds, and then twenty, and then a full minute, Erick’s natural lightning calmed down. Every bit of light that wisped away did automagically transform into lightning, to strike whatever was nearest, but it was still light when it was nearer to his body.

With a thought, Erick held his aura tight, forcing it to remain intact and in a bubble around him, like he would do when accreting.

Instantly, the lightning stopped. The storm calmed. His aura turned solid white and surrounded him like a bubble—

… No? No.

That wasn’t quite right, either.

Erick gazed upon his controlled aura and watched as tracers of lighting, like movement inside fog, zapped from his body to the edge of his aura, like he was the center of a plasma ball lamp. The effect was faint, but it was there.

… He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He moved on. The next experiment was bloodline suppression—

With barely a thought, his aura completely responded to his desire and his bloodline suppressed all the way back to his core, leaving his mana veins completely devoid of lightning. They were back to how they had been when Erick had first attained this Other Form; mere shadowed spaces inside his body. And, strangely enough, suppressing his bloodline had been easy. Easier than it had been when his bloodline had been Light Essence based, and by a lot.

That meant something, too, but as to what, Erick could only guess.

He moved on.

A twist of 5 mana made a [Force Bolt] out of his suppressed aura, which impacted the stone floor without damaging it at all. Completely normal. For Erick’s second Bolt, he used one mana and packed it with Elemental Mystical, but in a Clarity sort of way, attempting to make a normal [Force Bolt] for 1 mana.

That second bolt did not work. Instead of a spot of clearish-whitish light, Erick got an eyeball conjured out of the manasphere which struck the ground and splatted, exactly how an eye would have splattered.

Okay. So. That was a [Mystical Bolt], probably; a scraping of the manasphere for an effect, and having found a [Scry] effect —that looked a lot like Yggdrasil’s eye— it copied that effect and created a Bolt of that same shape. That was just a guess, anyway. Maybe there were a thousand invisible [Scry]s around him at all times! Wouldn’t that be completely different than normal!

Moving on.

With 2 mana, and through the use of Elemental Mystical tag-along ideas, Erick was able to make a normal [Force Bolt]. Theoretically he should have be able to get his Bolt costs down to 1 mana, for that’s what they had been back on Veird. Obviously, this was a skill issue, then.

… Erick relaxed his suppressed aura. Wispy, white lightning filled the air around him.

With a twist and a spark of intent, a little lightning bolt of Benevolence shot out of his aura and struck the floor, leaving a teeny tiny scorch mark upon the stone that sparked for five seconds, and then settled down. The spark barely made any sound at all.

Most of his Benevolence stuff was completely silent, which was quite at odds with how Erick usually expected electricity to act, but, of course, this wasn’t electricity now, was it?

Anyway. Erick cast again.

A tiny not-lightning bolt arced from his aura to strike a spot on the floor just to the left of his first strike. Again, the struck area sparked for a bit, and then settled down, leaving a tiny black spot when it was over.

… Erick suppressed his aura, manually Mana Altered for Elemental Lightning, and threw a proper Bolt—

The air crackled as a Bolt of white lightning, like a golfball of power, zapped out of Erick’s clear aura and struck the ground, smacking hard. And then it was over. There was no lingering lightning. There hadn’t been an actual bolt of lightning either, like how one would normally see lightning in the sky; there had certainly been a [Force Bolt]-shaped Bolt, though.

As for the stone floor, there was barely any indication that Erick had struck the ground at all… Perhaps a small discoloration? He really had to look to see that discoloration, though. It was definitely not a black mark like the Benevolence lightning had left, nor had the [Lightning Bolt] lingered at all. And what’s more, the [Benevolence Bolt] had been an actual lightning-shaped bolt, too—

Ahh.

Erick grimaced.

Terminology was going to be a problem. A Bolt was not a bolt was not a [Chain Lightning], while the word ‘lightning’ (lowercase) was usually used to indicate the normal lightning bolts that came out of clouds, and ‘Lightning’ (uppercase) was used to indicate Elemental Lightning.

Though some people still appended the word ‘bolt’ onto lightning to indicate the natural feature that came out of clouds.

Erick was almost tempted to invent a new word.

“Arrow, would work, for the lightning-bolt shape.” Erick glanced over to his enchanting workspace, where a few [Renew] rune drawings sat. “I suppose that rune does look like an arrow curled up from tip to tail.” But he was unsure. The word ‘arrow’ in Ecks was already used to denote pointers and directionality, and Erick had already firmly established that ‘arrow’ as the English ‘arrow’ in his mind. It would be even more confusing to try and untangle the idea of ‘lightning bolt’ out of ‘arrow’ every time he said the word ‘arrow’ and didn’t actually mean ‘arrow’—

“Wait!” Erick said, “There’s ‘jolt’. Yes. ‘Jolt’ is good.”

Erick shot out a ‘jolt’ of Elemental Benevolence, striking the stone ground, creating a tiny black mark and a temporary sparkle of lingering power.

He smiled a little. He hadn’t done much with Lightning Magic in a long time, except way back at the beginning, so he had somehow forgotten the term ‘jolt’. ‘Jolt’ was used all the time in Medium-sized Lightning Magic, which were usually made using a combination of Elemental Lightning and [Force Beam]. ‘Spark’ was the term used for Small-sized Lightning Magic, which were primarily derived from [Force Bolt] combinations. The term ‘Lightning’ itself was used for the Large to Super Large castings.

Erick’s first spell he ever made, himself, was [Call Lightning], and that spell was both Super Large and also used the term ‘Lightning’ in its name.

Lowercase words could refer to the simple shape of a spell, though, and for that ‘jolt’ would work fine.

Erick suppressed his aura again and tried to make a [Lightning Spark] through [Force Bolt] and Elemental Lightning.

A spark of white lightning zapped out of his clear aura, fizzling the air as it instantly struck the stone floor, and then it was over. Erick inspected the stone. No lingering sparks. Only the tiniest bit of a discoloration—

KNOCK KNOCK

Erick almost jolted off the ground. He tentatively asked, “Hello?”

Fairy Moon’s voice came through the door, “Please do not destroy my mansion! We have places to practice newfound power!”

Erick frowned at the door, and then looked down at his floor. Then he went to the door, opened it, and said, “It’s barely a mark on the stone.”

Fairy Moon did not look relieved. “No destruction in my domain! And wear that amulet to produce more high-powered Ophiel; the [Renew] of Ar’Cosmos is taking too much time.”

Erick paused. He asked, “Is there a problem with the current rate of repair?”

“The rate of repair would be respectable at any other time, but your [Renew] rings work too well and Ar’Cosmos’s response to your request for alliance is being hotly debated in City Hall due to this circumstance.” Fairy Moon said, “You’re not invited to that self-interrogation of intents, but the news of your invention has already gotten out and gained wings.”

Erick straightened up; stunned. Slowly, his voice started to work again. He asked, “The rings work?”

“The rate of that repair is slow and steady, too, but three people have been healed of their half-dragon heritage, as of this hour.” Fairy Moon said, “That is why I have returned to this residence: Redflame is reviewing your runes and wishing to talk with you, if you should choose to chance another meeting of dragons inside Ar’Cosmos.”

Erick rapidly picked apart that statement, and said, “So that means you’re not keeping me captive anymore?”

“Here now is the turning of an age.” Fairy Moon announced, “You may walk out that window and venture back to Veird, if you wish. Or, you can cement your bargained-for civilization here, and now, on your own terms, now that everyone of effect knows the measure of your making.” With her bright green and pink eyes lightly staring at Erick, Fairy Moon asked, “So shall we travel to Redflame? Or shall I show you the door?”

A thousand thoughts flitted through Erick’s mind.

He landed on the most important series of thoughts rather quickly.

If he left, then Bright Smile could continue to be a problem. If he stayed, and helped Redflame, and acted like an actual ally, then perhaps he could circumvent whatever was going on with Bright Smile. Or at least he could take the measure of her Fate a bit more. Perhaps she was destined to be a ruler of many people, and that was why she had such a strong pull to Erick’s Benevolence. Or perhaps all Erick was truly seeing were the criminals Bright Smile would kill due to her harsh-on-crime stance, which was… A thing Erick wasn’t comfortable with, but… He left that thread of thoughts alone, for now.

Perhaps, all Erick was seeing were the enemy warriors that she was going to kill in the future, when all of the world came to try and stop the birth of a dragon nation inside the Crystal Forest. Or maybe he saw how Bright Smile would save his life one day, when all the world came for him.

Both were highly likely.

… Or perhaps Bright Smile was a simple warmonger, and when the world came for her, her response would be overly harsh. Theoretically, responding to attempted murder with murders of one’s own was not a bad stance to take, but it was when innocents got involved that a line was crossed. And since Bright Smile was the leader of a house of Ar’Cosmos, she would not resort to counter assassinations.

She would go to war.

And war was rarely the correct solution to any problem.

Erick looked back to Fairy Moon, and said, “Let’s go to Redflame and see what’s going on with the rings.”

Fairy Moon calmed. “This is the correct choice.” She gestured to the amulet sitting on Erick’s enchanting board. “Conjure some more mighty children and then we will leave to join Redflame.”

Erick balked. “Children?” He looked to Ophiel on his shoulder. The little guy took a moment, and then mirrored the action, looking back at Erick with a rapidly increasing number of eyes. Erick patted him, and then he looked to Yggdrasil. Well… Yggdrasil; Erick could see Yggdrasil being a child, for sure. Ophiel seemed pretty far off, though.

“Children as I count them; likely not as you list them. Mostly Yggdrasil anyway.” Fairy Moon gestured again to Erick’s amulet on the enchanting table. “Conjure some stronger Ophiel! You might not be here much longer and I want this place to be perfect.”

“Fine fine fine,” Erick said, walking over to the table. He slipped on his amulet and felt a warm chill as the spiky crystal thing joined its power to his own. He dismissed one of his weaker-cast Ophiel and conjured a replacement, and sent that replacement racing past Fairy Moon, to the dining room where the node lay exposed. “If I could transform back then I could conjure some much stronger Ophiel.”

Fairy Moon waved a hand, saying, “You already can.”

Erick stood stunned, again.

And then he [Paradox Shift]ed back to his Normal Form.

The transition was seamless. One moment, Erick had a core, the next he had a soul that fully filled out his body—

Weakness struck near instantly, but not in a normal way. Erick did not collapse to the floor, for it was like he had always had this sort of body, but he certainly felt it when he lost about 65 in all his physical Stats. His spiritual Stats actually increased, or at least his Willpower and Focus did. Without his rings, Erick recalled his Normal Form was at 25 in every category except for Willpower and Focus, which were at 165.

He had a lot more mana in his Normal Form, even without his rings, but more than that, he had Scion of Focus, which quadrupled his Mana Regen. His amulet seemed to work in both forms, too, though he had no real way of telling exactly how much it worked without viewing his Status, which was still outside of his capabilities here in Ar’Cosmos. At a guess, he suspected he had 11,000 Mana, and something like 43,000 Mana Regen per hour while at Rest.

Erick happily said, “Then let’s conjure some Ophiel.” He lifted a hand and—

Light puffed out of his hand. No Ophiel.

He had failed to cast [Summon Ophiel]? Yes. He had. Why—

Before Erick could understand what happened, Fairy Moon answered, “Script restrictions; Clarity does not control the mana here, and the distance to the Script means you must remain under 500 mana per Script Second.”

Erick began ritually casting Ophiel, manually using Elemental Mystical to decrease the costs, while he said, “I will be glad to never have to worry about these ridiculous little nuances after I leave.”

And when Intelligence started automatically pulling its weight again, dropping his mana costs to pennies on the dollar.

Fairy Moon shrugged. “You’ll be a Wizard yet, which eventually means removal from the Script and careful casting of meticulous magic. Prepare more now, for less pain later.”

A new Ophiel popped out of the air. Erick canceled three more of his low-Mana Ophiel, and began working on the next summon, saying, “Are we walking or are you moving us, and will we wait till I am finished with these? I also have some more experiments to do before I’m ready to move on to Redflame.”

Fairy Moon turned around, waving behind her as she said, “We are walking, so I await your arrival in the dining room when you’re done! No more destroying my domain, though!”

“Yeah yeah yeah yeah,” Erick muttered as he continued to cast Ophiel.

While he was doing that, he ran through some other tests of his new aura, just to be sure that nothing had actually changed.

And it hadn’t.

His aura was still filled with Benevolence lightning on the fringe edges, and deeper if one knew what to look for, but there was no more solid lightning inside his body. Wherever that lightning had gone… Maybe it had vanished into the depths of his soul? Erick looked harder.

… And found nothing. The lightning was there, but it was also not.

Whatever! Suppressing his normal aura still felt as simple as pulling back an offered hand.

Casting a jolt of lightning at a conjured stone boulder —not the floor— came just as easy as before.

His soul and body and everything had undergone a massive shift, but tracking that shift, or using his new Elemental Benevolence, would have to remain mostly intuitive until after he left Ar’Cosmos. He would still do some experimenting, though, for sure. Just later, after this new crisis with the Renewal Rings, or whatever they ended up being called—

Well.

A new magic saving people from certain death was not a crisis. It was a boon and a blessing.

… But, not having enough of the new magic?

Now that would be a crisis.

Ah. That’s what was happening out there, wasn’t it? Yeah.

To better prepare for such a crisis, Erick decided to spend some mana casting a spell he hadn’t been able to cast in what seemed like a very long time. [Unbreakable Form]. He missed his [Personal Ward], and though [Unbreakable Form] wasn’t ideal, [Personal Ward]s were even less ideal.

This was because Erick would need to ritually cast any and all [Personal Ward]s while inside Ar’Cosmos. Therefore, any [Personal Ward] would not have the massive multiplier that Erick usually had. [Unbreakable Form] was 7,500 mana, though, and when he cast it twice, the 500 points of absolute defense —that was permanent until dismissed— would likely do a lot more for him than any degrading [Personal Ward].

And so, through a combination of resonance and humming and channeling mana into his aura, Erick picked the part of his soul that was [Unbreakable Form] and began the ritual casting. He messed up the first time, going too fast, hitting the 500 mana-per-second limitation even while he was trying to use Mystical to reduce his spell costs. Hitting that limitation was like hitting a minor ERROR message in the Script; uncomfortable tingles filled his body, emanating from his soul.

His second time he succeeded in casting [Unbreakable Form]. An ethereal fog of bright white lightning light settled into his body and then vanished, like mists evaporating under the sun. The ‘lightning’ part of it was new, and a bit startling, but… Whatever? Yes. Whatever. Erick would deal with that oddity later. He had to wait a while for his mana to regenerate enough to cast the spell a second time, but that was fine. The second cast was much the same as the first.

Erick moved on to testing his [Greater Lightwalk], next, along with [Lodestar].

As he flicked on those spells and played around with their interactions for a few minutes, he was, perhaps, both surprised and not surprised at what he found. Both spells had some sort of Benevolence Lightning-like thing happening with them, but only barely, and at the very edges. [Greater Lightwalk] more so than [Lodestar], though, and by a lot. [Lodestar] seemed to solidify his [Greater Lightwalk] into something only barely sparky.

When Erick worked those spells how he usually worked them, though, they acted just like they normally did.

He had done something to his [Greater Lightwalk] and to a much lesser extent to [Lodestar], but as to what? Exactly?

Erick had no idea.

- - - -

An hour after practice and barely any true understanding, though hopefully enough whereas he could do what he needed to do in a pinch, Erick joined a joyful Fairy Moon and a rather humble-looking Maid Maria in the dining room. Maria wouldn’t meet Erick’s eyes. Erick decided to ignore that for now.

Nine of his newly-cast and higher-Stated Ophiel surrounded the node on the other side of the room, each of them joyfully either twittering, or casting [Renew] into the pink and green abyss. One Ophiel remained on Erick’s left shoulder, though; the Ophiel with the highest effective Stats, from back when Erick still had his Stat rings and his Normal Form was categorically stronger than his Other Form.

The gap between Normal and Other had closed considerably, but his Normal Form still won out a lot simply due to his Class Abilities for Double Mana and Double Mana Regen, and Scion of Focus for four times Mana Regen. Once he managed to get his Class Abilities to work with his Other Form, and once he actually got Scion of Balance in his Other Form, his Other Form would actually be a little bit better than his Normal Form, Stat-wise.

That was without the boost provided by Stat-light rings, though.

… Erick would figure all that out later.

For now, Erick was in his Normal Form, and while he was physically weaker by a lot, he actually had a good amount of Mana and Mana Regen, for once. He had still left that gaudy crystal amulet back in his room, though.

He kinda wanted to turn right back around and resume testing Elemental Benevolence, but securing the terms of this alliance needed to happen, too. Whatever the case, Erick would likely stay in Ar’Cosmos for a little while, if only to put off rejoining Veird and dealing with the next headache.

He was a Wizard, people knew, and [Gate] still had to be made.

All that could come later.

Erick asked Fairy Moon, “We’re not [Teleport]ing through Ar’Cosmos like you did yesterday?”

Fairy Moon said, “Today is not an emergency.”

Erick felt a little chill crawl up his spine. “Ah. Yesterday had been an emergency, then.”

“Several major and several minor, all wrapped up in your Path and threatening to push people over the precipice.” Fairy Moon said, “But today is tamer. Today, they have distance, and those destined to die are already being born again, so your words might have gained weight with those who have the brightest of smiles.”

Well that was good news, then?

Fairy Moon had probably been correct to pull Erick out of there when she did.

Fairy Moon obviously wanted this to work out, and she had obviously seen some of what Erick had seen yesterday in that room with Bright Smile. But how much had Fairy Moon seen, exactly? Yesterday, when she burned her hand while touching his Elemental Benevolence, she had taken off that flesh and bone like she was removing a long glove, revealing a completely unharmed hand underneath. Then she had taken that glove of burned flesh and turned it into a ring of bright white diamond. That ring still held on her left hand, and it seemed to glow to Erick’s sight. Did that ring, perhaps, grant her his own [Benevolence Sight], or whatever it was he had made?

Erick simply asked, “Yesterday, with Bright Smile. Did you Sight what I Sight?”

“Did I Sight the warning round Bright Smile’s neck? Or did I catch sight of your own eyes wandering in specific ways?” Fairy Moon shrugged. “Who’s to say? I prefer to judge based on actions undertaken, but there is something great and good to say about woeful warning given well and true.”

Ah.

So yeah.

Fairy Moon warned everyone about whatever lines she didn’t want them to cross, before she crossed them… Yup.

But while there was a similarity between Fairy Moon’s warnings and the warning given by Benevolence, Benevolence was not just an early warning system.

“I hope Benevolence becomes a warning system of opportunity and problems; not just problems.” Erick let loose a fear that he had not given voice until now, “I don’t want Elemental Benevolence to only pick out who will create problems, for that way leads to assassinations and tyranny and evil. I want Benevolence to do more than that. I want Bright Smile to represent an opportunity to create great things. I don’t want her to be the node upon which the entire world might break… Even if she looks like she could be that, and all my instincts are telling me that she might be exactly that. But at the same time, maybe Bright Smile is a great person, and the problem she will create is a thousand years in the future. Is creating a thriving civilization a good thing, if you know that civilization will eventually grow to take over the world and crush all others? I don’t believe it is, no matter what sort of good might come about in the short term, and yet… There needs to be short term good, too, and the long term bad might not ever happen.”

Maid Maria’s eyes were wide as she gazed upon the floor, not willing to meet Erick’s bright white sight.

Fairy Moon had no trouble looking him in his eyes, as she said, “I judge based on actions, not futures, for anything else is tyranny and Chaos can always cause Fated futures to falter, anyway.”

Erick frowned a little. That was already his stance, and it had been his stance many times before. And yet, that way lay the Chelation War, and the burning of the Farms of Spur, and the Hunter attacks on Spur, and probably countless other problems that could have been prevented if Erick had acted sooner. He was trying to be a lot more proactive in his life, and especially since the Chelation War. He had succeeded in being proactive with the grass travelers, and with that dragon who lived there, and also with the Sects of Nelboor, and that had turned out fantastically.

Erick openly wondered, “If I just told her that I know that she will one day change the world, for good or for ill, will she choose to step away from the edge of evil, herself? Or will she take it as Fate that she is destined to decide the future of a great many people, all on her own, and she best get to positioning herself to make that happen?”

Fairy Moon nodded, like an expert seeing a child make a correct decision. “All you can do is give warning, and if they gainsay your wisdom, then make your warning a reality.”

Ah.

So there it was.

Maid Maria looked up, her eyes darting from Fairy Moon to Erick, and then back to the floor.

Erick spoke softly, “So many small lessons coming together, I see.” He raised his head, and said, “I will tell her when I am no longer vulnerable to her desires.”

“A genuinely good stance to stand.” Fairy Moon said, “Perchance you might make a phylactery and make yourself truly Immortal, Erick Flatt, and then you can go around warning whoever you wish, fixing it all forever, or as long as you love to live.”

Erick felt his heart beat hard.

“No. I won’t be doing...” Erick breathed. “… Probably not that—” And then he narrowed his eyes at Fairy Moon, asking, almost incredulously, “You didn’t just add another step to my Worldly Path, did you? To the Fractured Citadels of Quintlan? To Quilatalap?”

Fairy Moon giggled brightly, then gestured to the left and the wall opened into a door. She jumped through, like a gazelle leaping through a field, trailing a beckoning hand behind her as she called out, “Come what may, come what may! But for today, there’s dragons to sway!”

Erick followed after her, but he was still stuck on the ‘phylactery’ bit. Was playing a trick on him? Had she added a step, and was playing it off like she hadn’t? Or did she not add a step, and she chose to act as though she had?

Could go either way.

- - - -

Somehow, five fast minutes later, Erick spotted Redflame’s castle through a break in the canopy.

An hour walk had taken them a fraction of the usual time.

As they stepped to the grey door at the base of the cliff, Erick asked, “So it only took 5 minutes of walking to get here, right? I’m not imagining that?”

To the side, Maid Maria was looking just as surprised as him.

Fairy Moon just grinned happily, saying, “It might not be [Teleport], but you are yielding a lot of mana into the matrix of Ar’Cosmos; some convenience is sure to be coming, and especially when time is of consequence.” She tapped on the door, transforming the grey stone to white and opening the way to the flame-lit hallway beyond, as she added, “The present is precious at this precipice; more so than a bit of mana.”

Fairy Moon leapt through the portal.

Erick and Maria followed close behind.

After the transition into the main house, the three of them stood in the main greeting hall where a large red transportation crystal held in the center of the hallway. Almost instantly, a beleaguered and very contrite half-dragon man stepped out of the giant red crystal, spotted Erick like he knew who he was looking for, and started talking about how thankful he was that Erick had finally shown. And then came the begging.

“I need another ring!” The large half-dragon fell to his knees, pleading, “Not for me! But for my son! He would never survive the Trial of the Wyrm but he’s otherwise so healthy so he’s going to be so far down the list of candidates to use your rings and—”

Erick wanted to back away, but he did not, for the transportation crystal flashed again, as three more people stepped out. And then came more.

Erick held his ground as suddenly ten different people were all suddenly on their knees begging for more [Renew] rings—

The fires in the hallway suddenly flared bright, swirling high into the air before they came together to form Redflame’s fiery visage, hovering in the air of the hallway like a bright red festival lantern. A rather angry festival lantern. He shouted at the gathered people, calling them out by name, but it was more a disappointed shout than an angry shout.

The begging turned on him, instead.

Redflame told Erick, “Come to the laboratory!” Then he turned to the people, “Your children and brothers and sisters will get their turn! I won’t let the houses take this from you but you have to be civil about this!”

Fairy Moon gestured to a door that was not there before, and then she stepped through.

Erick and Maria raced to follow.

The door shut behind them, even though some of the people in that hallway desperately wanted to follow Erick, too. They could have followed. Some almost did. But they did not.

Erick did not expect violence, but he was glad that he had taken the time to cast [Unbreakable Form] earlier.

- - - -

Erick took it all in as fast as he could, for he surely would be busy rather soon.

Yesterday, the aircraft-sized enchanting room had been filled with machinery-like bits of rune work that had been strewn about like discarded airplane parts, like they were awaiting inspection before the plane was put back together.

All of that was still there, but most of it had been unceremoniously shoved to the side. What remained were the larger, circular parts, waiting to be transformed into workable runic devices, and the prototypes.

Two burned prototypes, each looking like they would have been 5 meters tall if they had not failed, held to the side of the room. One was a melted mess of a glass container the size of a person, held inside the similarly melted half of a [Renew] ring. It looked like some catastrophic failure had burst out from the top center of the artifact, briefly liquefying everything it touched and then splashing that touch outward. The second one had a layer of crackled soot on the inside of the glass pod, inside the [Renew] ring, while the ring itself was intact, save for the connecting non-joint at the top.

A third prototype held in the center of the room, separated from everything else. That one had worked.

The [Renew] ring itself was seven meters wide and set into a stone foundation, while the glass pod inside the ring was filled with bubbling liquid, with a naked man floating inside that liquid. The man floated in a relaxed sort of way, but vertically and held loosely in place by some sort of magics inside the artifact. The [Renew] ring itself was glowing brightly, with ten thousand runes strung all across the surface in a spiraling pattern that interlocked with itself. A flow of power circled through that larger ring, like waters under a frozen lake surface.

The man was a half-dragon, with horns and a tail and scales, but everything about him was malformed. A massive left hand, and right foot. One shoulder larger than the other. One horn larger than the other. A tail that bent horribly and then split to become two tails halfway down its length. His lower left fang jutted out of his mouth, and was sized to an actual dragon’s fang; it laid against his forehead like a sword resting against his skull.

And yet, he was not dead, and he was getting better.

Redflame, in human form, stood to the side of the ring, where he held a hand against the metal and channeled power into the ‘machine’. That power flowed through the runes like red light, flowing upward, becoming pink and then white well before it hit the angled space in the ring and turned into glowing white rain. That rain fell into the opening above the glass container, and soaked into the waters of the tank.

And little by little, the man’s features transformed.

Redflame looked to Erick, and nodded in acknowledgment of his appearance, seeming to relax a great deal in that moment. But then he turned back to the machine and kept channeling. He wasn’t the only one casting magic into the ring, for there were two sides that one could stand upon. On the other side of the ring stood an older woman who held her hand to that side of the ring and channeled maroon-colored magic into the massive runic web. That maroon coloring rapidly faded as the woman’s power joined the ring, turning to white light, becoming part of the flow that then joined Reflame’s power; to become part of the magic that split from the flow to fall into the tank from the top.

The white rain falling from the gap mirrored the tears of joy falling down the woman’s face.

Aside from the people Erick had expected to see, which was mainly just Redflame, there was an entire crowd packed onto one side of the room. About thirty five people. Many of them wore the colors of House Carnage, and some of those people were mages or servants that Erick had already seen, but some of the people were from House Fae, or House Death. Some people looked unaffiliated. All of them looked on in wonder, and surprise.

Their faces were a mix of joy and trepidation and desire, as they gazed up at the guy in the tank. Some of them had been whispering, but now that Erick was here, they fell silent, to watch him, and to watch the patient undergoing treatment.

Erick could barely take his eyes off the guy. He watched, transfixed, as scales sloughed off of the man in the water. The twin tail broke apart, both ends falling away, leaving exposed bone to hang out in the water, leaking blood. None of the blood or bone remained, nor did the water cloud at all, for as parts fell away, the water swished, and cleared, removing the evidence of the man’s disfigurement.

And it wasn’t just his body that was transforming. Erick stepped forward, close enough to catch the guy in his mana sense. The guy didn’t have a core, his soul filled out his body, matching his flesh like souls usually did. Except, little by little, the [Renew]ing waters soaked into his soul, chipping away at his mutated Dragon Essence bloodline, erasing every part of him that wasn’t a normal orcol. And then the flesh fell away next.

The guy was clearly being selected for an orcol body, but Erick wasn’t sure how that worked exactly. He had thought that a user would have to transform into their selected body first, and then his [Renew] ring would work. But Redflame was doing everything, all at once.

Erick had had no idea of how —in practice— the nuances of Familiar Forms would have worked, but apparently Redflame figured it out. Or someone here had. Erick glanced around the room and noticed quite a few of the mages who had helped set up Redflame’s [Renew] presentation ten days ago. Some of those people were just watching the transformation along with the rest of the crowd, but a few were writing down observations and having small discussions with each other.

Maid Maria, almost absentmindedly, walked up to step nearer to Erick, but she wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. She gazed up at the person in the pod, tears flowed down her face. Her breath was shallow. This was a miracle to her.

That thought suddenly hit Erick like a train.

He looked around the room. This was a miracle to most of them.

Fairy Moon took notice that Erick was finally back from his own short reverie, and stepped forward, speaking into the otherwise silence of the room, “A minor miracle of magic. A wonderful wonder to be sure. So what happens now that a known nadir looks like to pass by without preamble, or preparation?”

Redflame spoke, as though reading from a script, which, perhaps, he was, “I look to our savior Wizard Erick Flatt for that pronouncement. How do you wish Ar’Cosmos to repay you for this priceless kindness?”

Not a single person in the audience looked surprised at the use of the word ‘Wizard’.

They wanted answers. Direction. Security. Only one or two expected and hoped for benevolence, for that was all Erick had ever shown anyone. Most of them expected some sort of price paid in blood. The woman who stood beside the man’s pod looked ready to lay down her life for Erick…

Which was a big deal that Erick wasn’t ready for.

He wasn’t ready for the cat to be out of the bag, either, but here they were.

Well.

Okay.

Erick rapidly organized his thoughts, then said, “I plan on opening up the Crystal Forest to habitation, and for now, that opening will happen near Candlepoint. Eventually, I hope to spread civilization all across the desert, pushing back the crystal mimics and replacing the desert with forest and plains and rivers, like it used to be before the mimics poured out across the land. I am not looking for a place of power among the people I help, for all I want is to be the support of any and all who need support.

“Currently, Ar’Cosmos needs some support, and so I am here to lend that support. I wish to help this land and its people expand past its borders, and get back out into the world.” He turned toward the pod, saying, “And it seems like the [Renew] ring works. It seems like the people who use this won’t have any dragon essence inside of them anymore, so therefore, you’re just normal people, and you need homes. I offer you those homes.

“But, I am a Wizard… apparently.

“I don’t wish to bring my problems to you, but if you would stand beside me, together, we can weather any storm.” Erick tried to end on a bit of levity, “For I can control the weather, but I can’t and don’t want to control people.”

A moment passed in breathless silence.

By the worried, yet hopeful faces of the crowd, Erick could tell that he had hit on a lot of their dreams, and yet, he had not promised them what they had actually wanted to hear.

Erick added, “To that end, I will be founding a new House of Ar’Cosmos, using the Element I created the other day, and which I am sure all of you saw. It will be House Benevolence, named after the Element of the same name—” Suddenly, an idea came to Erick. One that spoke to his heart, and all of his experiences on Veird. A culmination. He spoke, “But benevolence without the power and will and action to cause good and prevent evil is not benevolence at all; it is just wishful thinking. And to that end, I will be helping Redflame create many more of these pods—”

People started to break down in joyful tears.

“—and to help him ensure that this healing goes well. So.” Erick stepped toward Redflame—

He took in several facts rather quickly.

Redflame’s hand touched a specific point upon the large apparatus, and that point was where Erick’s own runic [Renew] ring had been embedded into the larger structure. That ring appeared to be the ‘Null’ ring. The woman on the other side of the apparatus had her ring on a blank spot that was surrounded by runic inscriptions. The woman looked exhausted, but was still putting mana into the machine. Redflame looked tired, too.

He had likely stayed up all night to create this machine.

Neither Redflame nor the woman had [Renew], so both of them were putting in bare mana to try and get an effect out of it. As Erick glimpsed the sight of red mana flowing out of Redflame’s hand, into the machine, and through watching how much transformed into white mana versus how much simply disappeared, Erick guessed that the rate of proper conversion had to be… 25%? Maybe 35%?

Erick offered, “I have [Renew]. Want me to cast it into the machine?” He turned back to Fairy Moon. “Is Ar’Cosmos healed yet? Can I take Ophiel off of that node?”

Ophiel perked up at his name.

Fairy Moon said, “In four hours you may move Ophiel, and not a moment before.”

Redflame was relieved anyway.

He raised his voice and spoke to the crowd, “All unapproved people may leave; you have your answers. Healing will proceed as fast as it can and with as quick of an organization as we are able to create. There will be a list, and you will be on that list or you will not get healing, and the list will be organized as I have already discussed.” His voice took on an uncomfortable edge. “Get out of this room. Now.” He rapidly added to the woman on the other side of the apparatus. “You will stay.” He turned to the mages taking notes. “Stay.” He turned to everyone else. “LEAVE. NOW.”

People rapidly vacated the room, rushing out of the door or being hurried along by the mages who had been dismissed. In less than ten seconds, the doors to the room had been slammed shut.

Time seemed to relax a bit, though that could have been Erick’s imagination.

Redflame sighed out in relief, his head drooping a fraction. Then he lifted his head, stared at Erick, and said, “I did not intend for your affairs to be so vastly spread, or so quickly, Erick. Apologies for that. Tell me how I can make it up to you and I will.”

Erick shook his head lightly, saying, “It’s fine. It was going to get out, anyway.”

“I do not accept that answer, but I will accept an answer at a later date.”

Erick smiled at that, and then he gestured at the tank. “So that works, huh?”

The woman on the other side mumbled about miracles and saviors and reincarnation, trying to keep silent but silence was impossible, so she contented herself with quiet reverence. Erick did not miss the use of his own word that he had put out into the world, ‘Reincarnation’, but he let it pass unremarked.

Redflame began explaining, “It works. The runic devices you gave work on their own, but they do nothing to heal an unconscious person, unable to select their own Form. The rate of mana loss is too great, too. I think, somehow, you made your machine to work better on people with a core, but not everyone has a core. No one died in those first experiments because we’ve seen practically every failure of mutated essence transformation, and we prepared accordingly, but we did go through a lot of rats. Your ring itself was not enough, though, for the stated reasons. So now we’re here.” Redflame glanced up at his creation, saying, “This, then, has been enough. But it could be better.”

Erick looked back up at the gradually-transforming man in the tank. “I did expect the user to have a core, and no, I did not foresee this level of… remaking. I can already tell where I went wrong, and I can make a new system for you that will work better for this… I think. How much mana are you spending right now?”

“Good. Yes. I want a new system.” Redflame said, “I’m hardly using any mana to do this, though, for I’m mostly channeling Mystical which takes well to [Renew]-type magics. With that gained efficiency and a loss of efficiency through not actually having [Renew], I believe I’m powering the system at a 1-for-1 rate of mana-into-[Renew]. You could likely quintuple my current rate using the actual spell, but as with most Soul Magic, this is a delicate operation and excess power is not the answer. The next machine I make will be less finicky; more throughput.” He corrected himself, “The next machine we make together.”

Erick nodded. “I see you’re using the Null Ring. What happened to the Replacer Ring?”

“Burned out.” Redflame said, “Had high hopes for that one but it melted the very first time we tried to use it. This Null Ring works well, though. Hasn’t burned out at all. Just seems to be getting more and more solid. Strips out every single bloodline a person has, though; no [Dragon Body] for any of the people who go through this process. Which is fine. But it means no easy [Greater Lightwalk]s, either.”

“Huh.” Erick said, “Well… That’s disappointing about the Replacer Ring. Perhaps it does need to be made out of Light Essence?”

Redflame shook his head. “Unknown. With any luck, the actual problem there is simply my personal lack of the spell, [Renew].”

“I’m going to try for a Benevolence Ring.” Erick said, “[Benevolence Body], I think.”

Redflame’s eyes went a bit wide. “I heard your speech there, but I did not believe that you would actually found a House Benevolence—” He caught on fast. “It won’t be Draconic Benevolence?”

“You are correct. It won’t be Draconic Benevolence.” Erick said, “Should be functionally the same as [Greater Lightwalk], though… But I don’t know. Benevolence is strange. Not like Lightning at all, even though that’s what it looks like— That’s something I’m still trying to understand.” Erick gestured at the [Renew] machine, asking, “How did you arrive at this design?”

Redflame looked up at the machine in front of him, saying, “It’s about ten different theories all crushed together, taken from a hundred different projects over the years, and then stripped down to their bare essentials before being strung through your Null Ring. Your ring accounts for about 25% of the workings you see. In the tank itself, there’s a targeted [Cleanse] and a [Baleful Polymorph] keeping the body intact and healthy throughout this process, while also choosing the body that the boy will end up with, for your ring doesn’t seem to have made any attempt at doing that. The larger ring, in which I have embedded yours, combines a [Healing Rain] and the Null Effect from your ring in order to produce the transformative waters. There are more spells to hold the boy in place and keep him comatose during the procedure.” He paused, then said, “I’m manually targeting the boy’s soul and body in order to transform him in a stable and smooth manner, so he doesn’t end up temporarily without a heart, or some nonsense like that, but that’s about all I’m doing. Your inscrutable ring is pulling a lot more weight than my own attempts at this magic.”

Erick stared up at the man in the waters, watching as the guy’s single large fang broke off, floated away, and disintegrated. The guy had a nice face once that was gone. “So you’re saying there’s a lot of room for improvement on my part.”

Redflame said, “For starters, some runic designs done in Ancient Script would be great so that I could actually diagnose what in the abyss your ring is actually doing."

“Sure.” Erick said, “I can do that. I only went with my own language because… Well the enchanting books from Inferno Maw said it was an option to have a personal language that one uses when one converses with the mana. Do you not believe this to be useful?”

Redflame paused, pulling back a bit as he reorganized his thoughts. With a partially scrunched face, he said, “Well. That… Might actually be for the best—” He shook his head. “No. I take it back. Those books are correct when dealing with nuanced magic that doesn’t fit with normal Script Magic. But your ring here is not something that you will only use yourself. The whole point of this working is to use this magic on other people, and a shared language does wonders for such magic. More than that, though, your [Renew] is a part of the Script and it already has a specific rune that is unique to that spell, and you are using that rune in this working, but your Earth-language doesn’t have runes, does it? I might not be able to read what you have here in this runic artifact, but I can tell that these aren’t actually runes; they’re words.”

“… Well. Those are all… Very good points.” Erick glanced back up at the guy in the tank. “How long till he’s healed?”

“Twenty minutes,” Redflame said. As the woman on the other side of the runic tank gasped out a laughing, happy sob at that short of a time frame, Redflame continued, “So I’ve got to be here for that, but then afterward I wish to discuss the theories behind your own workings, and then we can make machine number four. In the meantime: Do you desire to see the other patients?”

“Absolutely!” Erick asked, “I heard there were three?”

Redflame nodded. “We’ve got three so far. Two have already been taken by their families to their homes. If you wish you can disturb their reunions, for I am sure they would not mind. The third’s family perished two hundred years ago, but they secured their son’s [Stasis] for long after their deaths, or at least until I found a viable method to transform him without turning him wyrm. Since there is a viable method now, the third patient is healed, and currently alone with the doctors.”

The enormity of this transformation of Ar’Cosmos society hit Erick again, and then he moved on, saying, “I’d like to see the third one; no need to deal with families at the moment.”

Redflame nodded, then he turned to the note-taking mages. “Bring Erick to Hizogard.”

A woman stood up and promptly bowed, then gestured to the side, saying, “This way, Archmage Flatt. Or would you prefer to be called ‘Wizard’?”

Erick tried to smile, and wave away his sudden, nervous laughter, but it probably came off a bit deranged. He said, “None of that Wizardry nonsense, please. ‘Archmage’ is fine.”

The woman bowed, then walked toward a closed door in the side of the large room. Erick followed. Fairy Moon followed closely behind, but only after saying some small words to Maid Maria, telling her it was okay for her to stay. So Maid Maria stayed behind. Erick could tell, as the woman stared up at the tank, but also took in all the runic designs of the thing, that she was highly interested in the magic happening.

Erick still had no idea how good Maria was at magic, or not, or what she did besides ‘be a maid’.

As Erick passed beyond the door, he glimpsed Maria beginning to talk in a friendly way to Redflame which only inflamed his curiosity more, but then the door closed behind them, and Erick’s destination lay ahead.

- - - -

The room was appointed like a hospital room, but a little bit nicer; a dorm room, perhaps.

A nice large window to view the forest valley outside of Redflame’s castle. Some books and warm tea sitting on the bedside table, within easy reach. A doctor and a nurse, both silently standing to the side of the room, while Erick walked in, followed closely by Fairy Moon. A single bed, larger than most and able to fully fit its occupant.

Hizogard was a human man of about 30, with pale blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale skin. He was conventionally handsome, and through mana sense, Erick saw that he was physically fit. All his body parts were where they needed to be to mark him as fully human. If it weren’t for his current state, he looked like he could hop right out of that bed and go work on a farm, or put on some armor and hold the line against a horde of monsters.

But he was distant. His eyes gazed to another place and time. He had briefly flicked his eyes toward Erick, but there was no recognition. When he recognized Fairy Moon, though, he mentally resigned himself to whatever terrible truth the doctors had already told him. It had probably been less than ten hours since he was decanted, realized he had a new body, and then slapped with the knowledge that the people who had paid to put him in that [Stasis] were long dead. His people were gone, and they were not coming back.

The half-vacant stare in his eyes as he looked at the ceiling was a good indication of his mental state.

“I understand your name is Hizogard,” Erick began.

The man gave no response.

“I understand you’re in a lot of emotional distress right now over the loss of your people—”

The man sat up violently, all trace of passivity gone, as he yelled, “How the fuck would you understand anything!”

The man was angry. This much was obvious.

And yet, Erick could not help but be stricken by the sudden reality that this guy had no fucking clue who he was; that he had lost his whole world. Erick should have expected this dearth of knowledge on Hizogard’s part, he realized, but he had not. And besides that, while he had lost Earth, he still had Jane, which was more than enough.

Hizogard rapidly realized that his outburst had probably been a bad idea. He had no idea if Erick was a doctor, or a person in charge, or what, and so, Hizogard fell backward, back onto the bed, turning his eyes upward as tears fell.

Erick could see that the guy’s soul was fine, and that all he needed now was emotional healing. That would take time, though, and that was not why Erick was here. Erick wasn’t even sure why he was here, actually, until he was.

Now, Erick knew what needed to happen.

Erick said, “I’ll keep my words brief. You have lost everything, but you have gained a new lease on life; a reincarnation. I am working to heal all the other people in your own situation and to expand the walls of Ar’Cosmos. I’m also working to ensure that everyone who wants it will be able to leave Ar’Cosmos and find homes out there in the world, for I plan to leave this place when it is convenient. You can still find a home out there, if you wish to find one, and if you cannot find one, you can make one. Now that you are healed the power of your destiny is once again in your hands. If you wish to be a part of House Benevolence and the recovery and expansion efforts going forward, find me and let me know; my name is Erick Flatt.” Erick said, “Good luck with your recovery, Hizogard.”

Erick turned and left. Fairy Moon followed.

Quiet sobs echoed out of the hospital room.

Erick hoped he had spoken what needed to be said. Everything seemed to be happening too fast right now, and there was not a lot of time to ensure that everything got done 100% correctly.

- - - -

Erick reached the enchantment hanger just in time to see the guy in the tank being decanted.

The patient had been an orcol with a mutated half-dragon body, with one oversized arm, one oversized leg, and a scattering of haphazard and thick scales across his entire body. Now, he was just an orcol with deep green skin. A bit thin. A bit haggard. But maybe all he needed were a few good meals to set him right. Orcols were rather resilient like that.

He was completely comatose, too, but his soul was solid and he breathed fine, and as they set him down in on a floating bed, his mother, bawling this whole time, touched his chest and his arms and his legs and his face, making sure he was real; he was. Redflame stepped in and stopped the mother from picking up her son and hugging him right there. The boy needed rest, for now. The mother contented herself with a light hug and resting her head on his chest while he lay there, sleeping.

Soon, though, the doctors pried the mother off and began carting the boy on a floating platform bed, toward Erick, toward the hallway that led to the hospital wing. Erick stepped to the side, letting them pass. The mother rapidly pursued, pausing only briefly to kowtow to Erick three times, before rushing to catch up.

Erick went to Redflame.

He began, “So Hizogard looks physically healthy. The rest will come with time, I assume.”

“Massive soul changes often lead to temporary mental issues, but this system seems to minimize those because...”

Soon, they were discussing [Renew], and how the Renewal Tank worked, and targeted healing, and how Elemental Healing worked outside of the Script. The conversation was a welcome reprieve from the haste of the last few hours, but the conversation was still quick because time was a resource in short supply. Erick did manage to speak of his own time learning a few healing spells back in Songli, and of how a targeted shift in the use of [Healing Word] had been enough to get him [Greater Treat Wounds] and a few others besides; that the Script had created his healing spells without much input from him. From there, he asked after how healing was different here in Ar’Cosmos.

“Those spells mostly still work here in Ar’Cosmos as they would on Veird, but their effectiveness is almost halved. All the spells the Script imbues into a person are like that.”

To be sure he was understanding Redflame correctly, Erick asked, “So the spells the Script makes are purposefully limited, or is something else going on there?”

Redflame shook his head. “The Script does not put purposefully harmful spellwork into a person; no. What is actually happening there is that the Script can no longer assist you with your spellcasting here in Ar’Cosmos, and so some of the more nuanced spellwork which requires active Script assistance to work properly, cannot find that active assistance, and simply errs on the side of caution. Spells that deal with the body in all ways have a great deal of these cautions built in, and so does everything over 500 mana. Simple stuff, like [Conjure Weapon] works perfectly fine. [Conjure Flying Scalpel], though, or anything with a great deal of nuance to it, will feel clunky, because the Script is no longer there to help. Health cost skills are particularly hard hit by this nuance.”

“That reminds me: Do you know how to get Class Abilities to activate in monster form? I have Blood Mana but it’s not active in my other form.”

Redflame casually said, “You’ll best wait to do that back on Veird, for the process is a lot simpler over there. There are two main ways, and a rarely used third option. Take hold of Point you have gained from leveling through accretion and then find the part of you that is the Class Ability you want to activate, and then you select that Class Ability. It sounds a lot more difficult than it actually is, for the Script does the rest. The second option is to accrete for a pseudo-Point, hold it in your aura, and then spend it on the Class Ability, though this requires a fair amount of personal mana saved up. The third way is to go to a Registrar and have them turn it on, though that will cost you a Quest and you will be revealing yourself to be a dragon to the— Ah! Apologies. Reacquiring Class Abilities is a common question I get from our advanced students all the time… Uh. You won’t be revealing yourself to be a dragon… Nor would mana concerns matter…” Redflame digressed, “I don’t know if you want to reveal yourself as a Wizard to a common Registrar, though, or accept another Quest for what you’ve already acquired and just need activated.”

Erick smiled a little. “That’s a good answer; I’ll take it.” He gestured back to the Renewing Tank. “Time to make version four?”

Redflame stared at him, blinking a bit. “Already? Some haste is good, but too much is too much.”

Erick gestured at the piles of magical machinery shoved to the side of the room, like bars of gold shoved into a trash heap. “I want to make something, there’s lots of parts we can recycle, we’ve gone over all the larger parts of the puzzle, and news is spreading fast.” He finished with, “I can already tell that either someone is going to try and stop this, or something big is going to happen which prevents me from helping past today, so I want to help you make this reincarnation machine while I am able to help.”

Redflame had a lot of thoughts about all of what Erick had just said, but he quickly picked out the concern that rose above the rest, asking, “I have heard people using this word before today, and here, too. ‘Reincarnation’. I believe I understand what it means, but I do not know its exact meaning, and its link to the shadelings of Candlepoint worries me. Enlighten me, if you could?”

“Back on Earth, reincarnation is the belief that when you die you will be reborn as a new person, or plant, or animal, or some other living thing, and that you will have no idea what you were in your previous life, but that doesn’t matter, anyway. What matters is what you do with the life you’re currently living.” Erick could have elaborated more on Earth sensibilities, but those didn’t really matter. The nuances of the word reincarnation had changed with the word’s introduction to Veird. “Here, the word ‘reincarnation’ has become conflated with high-tier Summoning Magic and putting dead people into new bodies with necromancy. But that’s not what reincarnation is at all. Reincarnation is... a clean Status. A new life, and a new journey. I think a lot of people are taking the word to be synonymous with ‘forgiveness’, but that’s not really what it is, at all. The idea is that the person you were is dead, and now you’re a new person. It’s very much not [Resurrection].”

Redflame listened cautiously, then he said, “Different than [Polymorph], but not a high-tier summoning either. It seems that you’ve skirted the [Resurrection] problem, too, by simply accepting that the person that comes out of the other side is someone else than who went in… Well that’s a philosophical conundrum for another day.” He glanced up at the renewal machine, then he turned back to Erick, and said, “I changed my mind about not including English words in the inscription. You should include that one. ‘Reincarnation’. What is it, like 8 letters? That’s a bit long for an inscription, but it will have to do.”

Erick chuckled. “It’s 13.”

“Oh! Then, no. That won’t do at all… Perhaps a smaller variant might work. Perhaps using the runes for [Renew] and soul and… Maybe just that? The Script is not fully present here in Ar’Cosmos, but the Ancient Script is still felt throughout all that the Script touches, and cobbling together new words out of old words sometimes works quite well. This is especially true when dealing in high-concept, multitudinous-effect magic.”

Erick asked, “Maybe [Renew Soul]? Sure. That can be the word for [Reincarnation]. So how about we get on with the reincarnations and turn a rat into a fish? I notice the smaller trial tanks in the pile, but I don’t actually see any rats. You did speak of rats earlier, didn’t you?”

Redflame waved a hand at a far door, saying, “They’re in that room, on loan from the arcanaeum. I don’t keep them around, normally, but when experimenting with souls it is always better to try on smaller, less important souls first— Pardon me.” He looked away as a tendril of thought connected to his head. After a moment, he came back, saying, “You are correct about the necessity of moving fast. Bright Smile has known you were here for a while and keeps trying to get me to get you to discuss the future of your House Benevolence, but I have secured your time for today. By this time tomorrow they will likely ask you to stand before all three houses and give an accounting of your desires.”

So many things, happening all at once.

Erick had been debating on whether to ask Redflame this next question, or not, but he decided to go for it, since he had brought up the possible-calamity’s name. “Ah. Well. Speaking of politics… Do you think it is possible for Bright Smile to understand that war is not what I want? Because it certainly seems like she wishes to go to war with the world, if she has to.”

Redflame paused, turning his eyes to Erick, and then sliding away off to the side. He thought, then he turned back, saying, “Bright Smile is an asset, for there will be some sort of battle. Ar’Cosmos has tried to expand out onto Veird multiple times before, but every time we openly expand there is always at least one battle, or maybe even a small war. It’s not always the Dragon Stalkers or Kirginatharp’s forces, or the Shades or the wrought, who drive us back into Ar’Cosmos. Sometimes the people on the other side are just the Free Dragons who have found our outside lands, or who go insane from their Dragon Curse activating. But we always need more resources, and so we have needed to content our dealings with Veirdly matters to side-markets and even black markets, on occasion.” Redflame said, “And so, there will be a war. I didn’t want to bring it up today, but since we’re here…

“This Renewal Tank project is cauterization of our population problems; it is not a [Treat Wounds] at all.

“Land ownership outside of Ar’Cosmos has been a dream for a lot of people, for a very long time, and so when it happens there will be a war, regardless. But!” Redflame added, “I can surely tell you that Bright Smile won’t go looking for war, but at the same time, she won’t let our people be cows to the inevitable slaughter, either. She will attempt to strike a balance that is in Ar’Cosmos’s favor.”

Erick heard and understood that some sort of war was inevitable, and yet, he didn’t think he was being understood, either. He elaborated, “That’s fine. But I don’t want Super Large Area spells targeting any civilian population centers. Do you think that Bright Smile will abide by that particular request?”

“Oh.” Redflame frowned a little, as though he hadn’t truly understood Erick until then, and that lack of understanding had caught him off guard. He said, “Bright Smile has never targeted people who have not deserved her ire. There will be no [Grand Fireball]s targeting markets, if that is what you are thinking. What I expect to happen is that Ar’Cosmos will attempt to put out a population into a city that we also create ourselves. We will attempt to be neighborly, or hermits, and yet we will be targeted. Bright Smile and others will retaliate. Escalation will happen, which include assassinations from all sides, and then all of our people will either be dead or in retreat, or all of the aggressors will be dead. Before, we have always needed to retreat. But now...

“With this Renewal Tank, we will have a great deal more soldiers than usual, and all at high levels, and with true knowledge of magic running through their cores. And, we have you. And! I suspect we will try to link up with Candlepoint, too. Kirginatharp and everyone else have avoided going to war with them, so I suspect they will make good allies… Maybe.” Redflame shrugged. “As long as they are people and not mouthpieces of Melemizargo, Ar’Cosmos and Candlepoint might get along truly well.”

All of that was rather…

Par for the course.

The last part about ‘mouthpieces for Melemizargo’ almost had Erick freaking out, though, because Rozeta had said that that was exactly what the shadelings were. Sure, they were people, too. But if Melemizargo decided to, he could take over any of them, turning them into a tool.

Erick decided not to tell Redflame that, or at least not here, in this open area with other mages present and awaiting orders from Redflame.

So Erick moved on, saying, “I hope we all get along well. Cooperation and civilization is the best security against monsters and chaos, and I wish to have a lot of cooperation going forward. I already expect my own Wizardly nature to turn a great deal of people against me… And for that information to have already gained wings and flown to pretty much every part of the world, by now.” He breathed deep, and then did not sigh, though he felt like he needed to. He said, “So let’s make some Renewal Tanks.”

And so they did.

- - - -

Two hours later, Erick had cobbled together a small Renewal Tank fit for a rat. He had used Redflame’s designs, and kept his own thoughts of improvement to himself, for now. Erick simply began channeling mana —not [Renew]— into the prototype.

Over the course of 570 mana, the rat transformed into a bright red fish that promptly churned away into nothing as a result of the [Cleanse] functions of the tank. The fish had been absolutely filled with cancers and wrong bones and a backwards-facing digestive tract. There was brain where the tail muscles should have been, while those tail muscles were simply missing. That rat was dead on arrival, so the [Cleanse] functions erased it.

Redflame explained that Erick had fucked up on the manipulation of mana inside the machine. He used nicer words than that, but Erick had heard what he heard.

He tried again. It took a lot of concentration, and a lot of delicate aura control, but the next 480 mana turned a rat into a proper fish. The new red fish swam around in its tank, flicking its tail like it was drunk, but quickly came to terms with its new body. The rat’s soul now fit the fish, and the fish recognized itself as a fish.

Redflame stood back, frowning, saying, “You’re… Very good at this.”

Erick laughed, then suddenly stopped. He said, “Apparently it’s all Wizardry, though.”

“No. I mean…” Redflame paused, then decided to just say what he wanted to say, “Wizardry merely means your mana responds how you want it to respond. This is actual skill, too.”

“Oh. Well. Then I appreciate the compliment.” Erick moved on, saying, “So I was thinking of trying a different design for the next prototype…”

An hour later, Erick’s prototype was ready. The largest change was the inclusion of the runes for Renew and Soul, combined and together as though they were one word; it wasn’t ‘[Reincarnation]’, for that spell did not exist. But it was a close approximation, and Erick felt like it would work well.

Redflame was less hopeful, for he still wasn’t sure about how Erick had exactly included that ‘new word’ into his runic design, but he was willing to indulge Erick’s curiosity. The bad outcome was just a corrupted rat, after all.

Erick put the sleeping rat into the tank and then began to channel [Renew] into the ring; not just simple mana. Iridescent white waters began to rain down into the glass container and soon the rat was floating, suspended and sleeping and calm, inside those waters.

Erick increased his rate of [Renew], channeling comparatively quickly into the runic machine.

120 mana and three seconds later, the rat was now a fish, still sleeping inside its waters. Erick cut the channel. The mana faded. The water remained. The fish woke up. It lazed around the tank, looking rather bored.

From what Erick could tell, there was zero soul or body dysmorphia. Not only had the [Baleful Polymorph] taken hold, but the soul now recognized the given form as the correct form. It had worked.

Complete success.

Redflame’s eyes were wide. “I had not expected your… minimalist design to work so well.”

“And all I did was channel [Renew], too, so this form will work later, and at volume.” Erick said, “No aura control. No special control at all. I imagine for a person the amount of mana required will be a lot more, but the basic design should still work. The Null option, anyway. This is just a basic fish. I don’t think we can give someone an Elemental Bloodline body with this methodology. And yet…” Erick gestured to some parts of the machine, saying, “We could at least give people the option of selecting a new species. We could replace this part here that can flip between ‘rat’ and ‘fish’ with some sort of slotting system, and have the [Baleful Polymorph] be able to select from various Familiar Forms.”

“But the way [Baleful Polymorph] works best is when it merely shifts a target along a pre-prescribed path, according to the person’s innate predilections.” Redflame said, “Attempting for a base-orcol to select a human Familiar Form requires more normal [Baleful Polymorph] costs, and while that is more in line with what the spell normally does, it means our mana costs go up by 10. I don’t feel that this is a proper solution to the problem of removing half-dragon essence from a person.”

“Okay. Well. That is a good point, and I can see that I’m getting ahead of myself. But what if a person doesn’t want to fall back on their original Familiar Form? Like that one guy you let me see, Hizogard. People like him might want a truly fresh start, away from their base species. It would be easy enough to implement, anyway.” Erick said, “Like, we could put that selection part into a key, and then we can put different keys into the machine, and thus create a Renewal Tank that is capable of making different selected forms, and not just the forms we preprogram into the runic machine, or the base Familiar Form of the person undergoing treatment.”

Redflame thought for a moment, then he said, “It’s time to involve Inferno Maw. He’s a Necromancer and he knows souls a lot more than I, and what you are thinking of doing is more than the scope of the problem we are trying to solve.”

“Oh? Well…” Erick supposed he was ready to talk to Inferno Maw again, though he was not looking forward to the dragon man’s coming disdain for all things Wizardly. “Sure.”

Redflame nodded, sending off a tendril of thought as he said, “He was over earlier to inspect my work and inspect the first transformation, but he’ll want to be here for this— Ah.” Redflame turned away from Erick, to talk to whoever was on the other end of the line. Probably Inferno Maw. Redflame turned back, “He’s on his way.”

Erick nodded, and then he flipped the fish/rat switch on the machine over to ‘rat’. “Time to see if this works in reverse.”

The Renewal Tank did just as fine a job of turning a fish into a rat, as it had turning a rat into a fish. The groggy, wet rat got dried off by an assistant and put back into its cage to wake up on its own time.

- - - -

Inferno Maw ended the call with Redflame, then turned his attention back to the delegation from Stratagold.

The main antagonists of this particular evening stood strong on the grasses before him. The meeting itself took place in the vast, open Twisted Vision of Outer Ar’Cosmos. No one had been willing to stand within fifty meters of each other, or allow any deeper ingress than this, and Stratagold had sent unknown lackeys instead of actual diplomats who could make actual decisions, but that was fine by Inferno Maw. All this was preliminary talk, anyway. Posturing was important in these sorts of conversations, and so Inferno Maw took no small amount of joy since he had finally gained a proper reason to bring this farce to a close, for today.

With grey Death licking out of the depths of his cavernous maw like the fires of The End, Inferno Maw reared up to a suitable height. This caused a minor panic in the diplomats on the other side of the Forest Path. A particularly flighty wrought even held his shield up in front of him, like that would have saved the young tyrant from Inferno Maw’s true fury.

Which was all well and good, because things had honestly gone rather well, so far, all things considered.

“The time for talking is tomorrow, young tyrants; our time is up for today.” Inferno Maw would have frowned at Fairy Moon’s meddling of his speech, wherever she was, but he moved on, not letting his brief annoyance show. Apparently his alliteration was terrifying, though, if the faces of the opposition were to go by, so this was fine. “As our honored guest has done for countless others, he has apparently created something new and exciting and I need to go investigate.”

The wrought gave their final, most succinct threat, “You will not be allowed to control Elemental Benevolence, Inferno Maw. Do not try. Return Erick Flatt to us, and you will be allowed to continue as you have.” And then they added an enticement, “We are willing to allow actual trade with one of our cities if you return him to us now; intact and uninjured.”

Inferno Maw shook his head, and then, on a whim, and in the spirit of Erick’s own possibilities, he spoke softer, “You will have Erick when we are done with him, and only after suitable recompense for all the injury and unjust treatment you have visited upon us all these centuries. Trade is a starting offer. We also desire the secret of [Duplicate], and for Kirginatharp to come to the table with regards to removing his Curse.” He offered, “You could even remove that Curse from him yourselves! This would be fine with us, too.”

“[Duplicate] is not on the table.” The diplomat lied, “But we could talk to Kirginatharp and see about actually removing the Curse. There might be a new way to remove it with Erick’s help, but you must return him to us.”

“See. Now.” Inferno Maw said, “That was a lie. You’re not going to actually talk to Kirginatharp about what we need him to do at all.”

For his part, the diplomat did not flinch, or give away any tell at all that Inferno Maw was right.

Inferno Maw continued, “Bringing lies to the table of peace talks is no way to run a world, but I suppose tyrants wouldn’t know any better. We’re done for today. Try again tomorrow. You have ten minutes to vacate Outer Ar’Cosmos before I release the monsters and drive you out.”

The diplomat simply nodded, then said, “We look forward to more talks tomorrow, and urge you to reconsider your adherence to the idea that we are tyrants, or I might have to start calling you a belligerent wyrm.”

Inferno Maw balked a minor laugh, and his own delegation of four Death dragons laughed with him. And then he stopped laughing. The dark forest went absolutely silent. One by one, Inferno Maw’s own delegation vanished into the gloom of Outer Ar’Cosmos, and then he followed, his voice lingering in the dark air, “Five minutes till monsters.”

The delegation of wrought retraced their steps back out of the Twisted Vision, but they were slow about it, not actually leaving until exactly 4 minutes and 59 seconds after Inferno Maw’s threat. When they were finally gone, Inferno Maw moved that particular exit. He would give them a different exit to find tomorrow. Perhaps at the bottom of a bog?

That seemed suitably petty.

But whatever!

It was time to go see what the resident Wizard had conjured out of thick air.

Most Wizards had no idea what the fuck they were doing, and all their achievements were based around nonsense and forcing mana to act as they desired, but Inferno Maw had done some investigating since last he had seen Erick. There had never been a single case of a Wizard creating multiple Elements before. Such a thing was considered truly impossible since a created Element was created to coincide with the creator’s Truth, and so, since Erick had created Elemental Benevolence, that meant the odds that he also created Particle Magic were abysmally low. So while he undoubtedly was a Wizard, he was one of the capable ones.

Erick was rather a good sort of person, too, which was unreasonably rare in this world. And, he even seemed to remain good, even through all the wars and tribulations he had faced.

Inferno Maw still wanted him out of Ar’Cosmos as soon as possible.

The wrought had been diplomatic today, but they were maybe… Three? Four? A handful of days away from open war.

Plenty of time.