In the illuminated yurt, where Erick, Poi, Nirzir, Jane, and Teressa stood or sat, there was silence.

And then Poi said, “There’s not much to tell, but I will explain.”

Erick almost told Poi to forget it, for lingering anger still percolated in the back of his brain, and he truly didn’t care to hear the Mind Mage’s justifications for not helping when they could. But maybe he needed to hear those justifications.

Erick already knew the broad strokes, and he could guess at the rest. What probably happened, was that the Mind Mages tried to help suss out the various problems everywhere, but people didn’t believe that they could do what they said, and then when the Mind Mages proved themselves, they were corrupted by interior or exterior forces, which likely led to a civil war, and also to the people of the world coming down on them. Shades were likely involved.

Except, now that he was thinking about it, Erick doubted that it was that simple.

The Mind Mages were a part of the Forgotten Campaigns, after all, and those were massive purges of certain peoples of Veird in order to rid the world of something too damaging to let exist. Those tragedies were not fully the Mind Mages’ faults, though, for the gods and the wrought were also involved. A great many people were likely involved in purging knowledge of Atomic Magic (for example) out of the civilizations of Veird.

That was just Erick’s educated guess, though.

So, the reason Erick did not stop Poi was, perhaps, that it would be nice to know the actual, true history of the Mind Mages. If the Mind Mages were capable of telling people their true history, anyway. They likely had forces out there that compelled them to speak lies all the time, and possibly to believe their own lies, too. Would Poi just spout lies at him? Lies that he didn’t even know were lies, himself?

Ah. Erick’s anger wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Best hear some more lies, then.

Poi paused, eyeing Erick a little, then said, “Perhaps we could shelve this conversation until after all these major events have calmed down.”

Erick said, “I would prefer to have it out, now, for I need to know why these problems can’t be solved by the people capable of solving these problems.”

Teressa glanced between Erick and Poi, seeming unsure who to stick up for. Jane looked at her father like she was slightly mad. Nirzir spoke to someone else through [Telepathy] about whatever it was she was doing, or maybe she just had an open connection; her eyes were very much focused on Erick at the moment, and she looked both frightened and intrigued.

The yurt continued to trundle along, without anyone paying too much attention to the path ahead; the land was flat and the grass was level, so this was fine.

Erick sat down. Everyone else took their seats.

After a long moment of silence, Poi began, “The story of why Mind Mages don’t openly involve themselves in the world begins at the beginning, in 195 Post Sundering on the continent of Quintlan. This was about 55 years before the Fall of Quintlan, which started around 250 PS, and continued all the way to 350 PS, when it is widely regarded that the oozes became too much to fight.

“It was upon this stage that the first Mind Mage, and his entire school of magic, was created through the direct Wizardry of Melemizargo.”

Jane, Teressa, and Nirzir jolted; they didn’t know this.

Erick had only just now guessed that Melemizargo had been involved. Those Shades and their Dark God got everywhere, after all. They were responsible for practically all of Veird’s woes.

Erick asked, “Should we have a Privacy up for this?”

“Unnecessary.” Poi said, “This is a story that anyone would know if they went looking. It has simply taken you this long to ask this question.”

So Poi was being a bit flippant. That was fine. Erick saw that the guy was obviously uncomfortable with this new scrutiny. Erick had never wanted to intrude upon Poi’s privacy before, or upon the Mind Mages, so he had mostly stayed away. He had never expected this sort of conversation to happen, either, but here it was, and here they were, and so, Erick had to know why life was more dangerous than it had to be.

Perhaps Melemizargo was to blame, again. Perhaps the Shades vowed to kill the Mind Mages whenever they stepped out of the shadows. But that seemed too simplistic.

The Mind Mages were intensely insular, by choice. They did supply truthstones to everyone who wanted one, though, and they had avenues of communication open between them and everyone in power the world over. But they never did anything proactive. In both a good and bad way, and in a way that likely had nothing to do with the Shades at all, the Mind Mages had a strict moral code that prevented them from telling people’s secrets to the world.

And yet…

Erick amended his earlier ideas about the reluctance of Mind Mages to include the idea that the Mind Mages were the way they were, because if people knew their Dark history, they would be judged for it. So, in that way, Erick couldn’t blame them for their reluctance.

But if anyone could find out this story, like Poi suggested, then that meant that the Mind Mages were beyond their beginnings, and that they held onto those beginnings only to show how far they had come. Or maybe they had asked for a Forgotten Campaign on their behalf, and they had been denied?

Whatever the case, Erick nodded, and waited for Poi to continue.

Poi, meanwhile, heard every single one of Erick’s thoughts, though he did not act like it.

It was tough being a Mind Mage, wasn’t it?

Poi continued, “The first Mind Mage was a Shade. That Shade went on to create a thousand lesser Mind Mages, and since Shade plots were what they were, within three years the world was one week away from annihilation, though they never knew it. Shadowy forces had infiltrated or gotten emotionally close to every single power that upheld the world, either through passive thought reading, or [Mind Control].

“But before Melemizargo could topple the world, a flaw in his magics would ruin his plan.

“Mind Mages hear the thoughts of others. These days, we have training to withstand those thoughts, but back then, we had none. Every single infiltrator had been altered by the people they had infiltrated, either through mental bleed, emotional bleed, or just plain kindness changing a person. Those people became the first Dissenters, though they did not call themselves that until the end of those first three years.

“In the beginning, these Dissenters were not willing to rebel, and they hadn’t even coalesced into a coherent group. Most were able to play along; able to infiltrate and corrupt as they were commanded. Some… Were not. Those few who saw what they were doing stepped out into the open. They tried to formally ask the Mind Mage Shade to stop his plans.

“They were killed for their kindness, or else they suffered worse fates than that.

“The Shade kept his plans. The years ticked by. Problems grew, but went unsolved, for while Melemizargo pressured his Shade to work harder, the Shade could only try to work better, and that disparity was easy to exploit. And so, when it finally came time to attack our assignments the world over, and plunge Veird into absolute chaos, the Dissenters turned on their Shade creator, and on every single other Mind Mage who wanted to keep to Melemizargo’s plans.

“Melemizargo, of course, remained untouchable.

“It was bloody. It was quick. It was over.

“The Dissenters, who were now just Mind Mages, stepped out of the shadows. The civil war had culled the population to a third. 330 Dissenters of Shadow had survived. A few Shadow Operatives had survived, too, but they didn't matter till later.

“It was into this state of affairs that the Dissenters succeeded in joining with the rest of society.” Poi briefly gazed up and away. As he turned back to Erick, his voice changed into someone else’s, but barely, “We were successful with our integration into civilization. This was because we were already highly placed in many different governments the world over, and we had made them aware of what was happening. There were some difficulties, of course, but once the extent of our abilities became known and we started actively helping to cull the world of shadowy forces, using methods that no one else ever had access to… Well. That is untrue. The immortals of the world knew what we were capable of, for there were other names for our kind back in the Old Cosmology. We existed before Veird; before the Sundering.

“Those are unimportant details, though.

“What was important is that we were a known quantity that no one knew about until then. Using our power, we tore through almost all of Melemizargo’s power, reducing him to a handful of Shades that could only exist in the darkest parts of the Underworld.

“Fifty years passed like a dreamless sleep.

“In the year 260, Post Sundering, Veird seemed more stable than ever before. The Shades were beaten and the Light was here to stay. You understand: This was before the Rise of Ar’Kendrithyst in the year 503, when the spread of the Crystal Mimics and easy [Polymorph] potions became a pox upon us all. The nearer tragedy of the Fall of Quintlan was still 90 years away, in 350 PS, though as I will tell you: we were already into the first years of the gradual Fall. We just didn’t know it yet.

“The population of the world was at 15 billion people, and for the first time in a long time, it was climbing.

“Many, many Mind Mages had kids by then. And those kids had kids.

“Someone invented the truthstones, and though they were used in small business dealings first, their power proved invaluable to judicial systems the world over. [Witness] had long since been invented, of course, but in those early years, when no one knew how to circumvent the truthstones, having one on hand went a long way toward knowing if a Sin Seeker had to be called in for further investigation, or not.

“More and more decades passed. By 300 PS, over a hundred years since the creation of the first Mind Mage, Quintlan was in the middle of the Fall, though the population of the world, overall, was at 21 billion and still climbing. We were still rather short of the original number of survivors to make it to Veird, before the Death of all Halves, and before the Rage Wars, but we were getting there.

“It was in that fifth generation, and in some places, sixth, that we knew we were in the middle of a disastrous failure.

“Our strict self-appointed rules against using Mind Magic to influence the people of the world began to falter around the second generation, and even more around the third. By now, there was full blown abuse in the noble houses of Quintlan, and in other places the world over. Our Mind Magic had also been spreading into the rest of the world through the Script for the last 100 years. [Sense Emotion]. [Calm]. [Sleep]. On the surface, they were all perfectly fine spells to allow into the populace, but in edge cases, there were problems.

“Monsters were always a problem; that had never stopped. The stresses of mortal danger put systemic stresses on everyone, and so some Mind Mages thought to solve these problems by Controlling people to erase their traumas. This ended up with people committing even more traumas, and not even knowing how damaged they were until they had unhealable psychotic breaks.

“And yet, Melemizargo’s Shades attacked here and there, though each scheme was easily seen through by the Mind Mages. Mostly, Mind Mages were bastions of power and safety. We healed the damaged minds of those who needed such healing, and we discovered the criminals and double agents hidden among us.

“But then, there was a fracture.

“Quintlan was already having trouble with [Create Food and Water], but then it got a whole lot worse. The nobles exacerbated the problem by hiring Mind Mages to track down commoners who could use the spell well, and then those unscrupulous Mind Mages mentally controlled those commoners into only working their magic for the nobles. Though, of course, those situations were both not that simple at all, and truly simple, once you got down to it.

“We know enough to not get involved in that sort of thing anymore. But back then, our children didn’t know, and our families were tied up in the various powers of the world, so we had to defend them; we had to defend ourselves.

“It was here, that many history books diverge. Some call the Tragedy of Quintlan the work of the Mind Mages. Some call it the work of [Create Food and Water]. Some say that with the systematic culling of monsters and the safety provided to the common person, that the people in charge weren’t busy enough with fighting for their lives on a daily basis that they had to invent fights with each other, and so they did. Some attribute the deaths of billions of people to a million small factors that worked in concert to tear away everything built in Quintlan.

“And then the wars of nobility started, and everything went to shit.

“The Mind Mages went to war, again, exactly how you wish for us to go to war these days, except not all of us were on the same side. There were even a few Shadow Operative Mind Mages still around, still working for Melemizargo and the Shades, for our purge had not been nearly as complete as we thought it had been. Those Shadow Operatives were even beginning to release the first Mental Monsters into the cities of Quintlan. The Puppet Minds. The Spinal Spiders.

“War came, and we saw through face stealers. We found Hunters. We found dragons. We found mental monsters, and some of us even made mental monsters to counteract the other mental monsters out there. Book Slippers. And others. Obviously, these were mistakes.

“Then came escalation. The world turned against us, for the Shadow Operatives were in full control of propaganda machines the world over, and we did not want to utilize even more Mind Magic to wrest control away from them, for that would surely result in widespread psychotic breaks.

“So the vast majority of us went into hiding.

“Wars rocked Quintlan, and yet the Tragedy of Quintlan was not contained to that continent alone. There were wars in the Underworld. Nergal and Nelboor and Glaquin. Billions died, and the Mind Mages fractured into a thousand smaller groups, each helping their own people to fight against all the rest as best they could.

“Many years later, when Quintlan was dead and only oozes prowled the land, many Mind Mages still had yet to learn our lesson of exposing the thoughts of the people around us.

“It always starts the same way, too. A call to compassion for those around us. We see problems that we can solve, so we should! Obviously, we should expose the hidden people before they can strike at others. This is all well and good.

“This tactic lasts ten years, and then the next generation in power realizes that they can do so much more ‘good’. It always goes the same, though the scale is sometimes smaller, or larger, it always looks the same.

“A Mind Mage tries to solve the world, and thus, when they see problems, they decide upon obvious solutions.

“What does the local buying-selling market look like? Oh! I should exploit this for more funds for this great project over here.

“What’s going on with the rulers? Oh! The king is cheating on his wife, and endangering the kingdom with a war of succession! Let’s Control that problem away.

“Which noble among all the rest is using blackmail and bribery in order to prosper? Oh! Roughly 90% of them! Well let’s stop that right now. So what if one or two of them die from psychosis-induced brain damage. It’s for the greater good.

“Where is the nearest dragon, and what does that dragon know about magic? Oh! They know everything? Let’s take all of that for ourselves, and also the dragon’s hoard, for we can do a lot of good with that gold. But first: How can we get two dragons to meet out in the open, elsewhere, so that we can loot both of their hoards while they are gone? So what if thousands die in the crossfire! They were always going to die anyway, for the local lord was going to use them in a war of his own making. So, hey! We just prevented a war, too.

“All of these are categorically, morally, awful things to do.

“None of these examples are exaggerations.

“And yet, in the moment, they all seemed like perfectly reasonable steps to take. It isn’t till one is way down on the road to darkness that they realize the road they are on. For even if you have a good reason, it’s never as good as you think it is.

“All sapient life and decisions must be respected, for no other reason than it is the right thing to do, and leads to a better world for all.

“And so, we have implemented a line that we do not cross.

“That line is ‘is someone in mortal danger at this moment, and if I speak up, can I stop this immediate danger?’ It is a simple line, and it is easy to keep. It is not fraught with morality. It requires no individual choice, which is often wrong. Even if you, yourself, have perfect morality, and are able to make every judgment call with exacting precision, the person who comes next may not be as good as you.

“And besides that: people are not the sum of their thoughts, or their actions, or their person. Sometimes a face stealer becomes a better king than the previous king. Many times, a Wizard becomes a beacon of civilization. Almost always, a dragon meets another dragon, and both are so good at their disguise that no one starts a fight. Almost every adventurer kills a hundred thousand more monsters than they kill people.

“We have no moral authority to judge people for what they think, or what they do, and neither do you, for even more important than the discussions of morality, there is one truth that we have found more true than most: Violence begets violence. And so, we can only help when violence is what we are up against. This is the line that we keep. We stop the violence of mental monsters, and the violence of rogue Mind Mages, and the violence that happens directly around us, in our presence.” The entity speaking through Poi said, “Ask no more of us, for we have given a lot already.”

For a brief moment, the only noise in the yurt was the sound of wheels turning, and the gentle mooing of distant cows.

Poi spoke, “There are history books that you have not read, that I have. There are memories of historical events that I have experienced from a first-person perspective, that you have not experienced. I know the danger of thinking that I can change the world by revealing the thoughts of those around me.” He stared at Erick, and said, “Apocalypse is what lies on the other side of that door, so it is a door that we keep firmly shut.”

Erick said, “Okay.” That Mind Mage story was not the whole story, but it was enough of one to make the whole of their hidden society make a bit more sense. Erick said, “I can respect that line that you will not cross. I take it that the face stealers and otherwise know of this line, and they purposefully stay your hand by working around you?”

“Not only them, but many people.” Poi said, “If you saw any play in any theater with a Mind Mage character in the cast, then you would know that everyone knows how to get around us, and so we try not to advertise who we are.”

“… And that’s the true reason for your peoples’ reluctance to stand in the open.”

“Correct.”

“So. Just to be clear.” Erick asked, “You won’t help find face stealers.”

“I’m all for the persecution and ending of face stealers and Hunters and all those types, but I cannot step past that line, Erick. I will, however, scan people who agree to be scanned, as I have done before, and as I will do again. But I won’t ever be proactive about this.” Poi said, “People deserve the privacy of their own minds, and I will not take that from them.”

“… Okay.” Erick felt some of his anger flow away. The Mind Mages were never going to help with this sort of thing, and he knew that already, but hearing the reasons helped to chip away at some of his anger. He asked, “So what do you think will happen when I Bless all of these Knives of the Night into Empathy, or with the dragon Ordoonarati when we get to Ooloraptoor?”

“What!” Jane asked, “You found the dragon?!”

At the same time Nirzir rapidly asked, “You’re Blessing all of the Knives of the Night!?”

Teressa just breathed out, not really prepared for such a quick shift of topic.

Poi suggested, “How about you tell us all of what has happened, recently?”

Erick looked around at the exasperated faces of his people, and said, “Yeah. I should do that, I suppose. So apparently ‘Master’ Daizing of the Knives of the Night is having all his people—”

Erick glanced over to the star dais he had installed upon the far off mountain. There was another person waiting for their Blessing standing upon the symbol of Koyabez. The person looked to be out of resources, too, for there were no more twisting white glows flowing off of them, to be sucked up into the [Undertow Star] hanging above.

Erick whipped his Crystal Star through the light and Blessed the man.

Erick had never really left himself, as he continued saying, “—come to a certain place to the north, where I have a Star Draining them, so that I can Bless them and…”

He spoke. They listened.

And then they started talking.

“Explain this,” and, “What about that,” and, “I didn’t understand this.”

Erick felt better as the conversation meandered through retellings and clarifications. He wasn’t exactly sharing his burden with others, for the power to make a choice here was still his, but it felt nice to listen to other people talk about problems that were essentially his problems.

Jane said, “I think you should Bless the people who show up at the altar, and also accept Daizing’s help in finding all the others who won’t allow themselves to be Blessed. At that point, something else has to be done, though. This is too much for you.”

Teressa and Nirzir looked at Jane a little bit funny, for what she had said was pretty ‘classically evil’ according to the tale Poi had told them. Erick did not share this look, though. He wasn’t going to stop doing good himself, just because whoever came next would fail to live up to his ethical standards.

And then Poi surprised everyone by saying, “I agree with Jane.”

Erick eyed the man.

Teressa went, “Uhhh…” She glanced at Poi, saying, “But mind control is evil. Isn’t soul control the same? Isn’t that the whole reason why you don’t [Mind Control] people into being better people? You just said that.”

“[Mind Control] is Evil, but [Mind Control] is not soul shifting,” Poi said, “I have recently learned that when you shift the soul, the mind follows, but when you shift the mind, the soul rebels, and this leads to the psychotic breaks that are normally associated with [Mind Control] failures. From a purely utilitarian point of view, [Mind Control] is more evil than soul shifting because [Mind Control] never lasts and it causes long term damage. When done correctly, soul shifting causes long term changes that propagate into the mind, and change a person from within. It is still evil to change a person through soul shifting, but… It’s not that bad, because it can be fixed.”

Erick said, “Ah. Yeah. You mentioned psychosis earlier. But that’s a real problem with Mind Magic, then?”

“It can be. Usually, it’s not, but all magic possesses the capability for harm.” Poi said, “You can heal almost all the damage caused by both Soul and Mind Magic with more applications of the same, too, so it’s not that bad. But in a utilitarian morality sense, Soul Magic actually causes less potential harm than Mind Magic.”

Teressa shivered. “Let’s not talk about utilitarian morality, okay? Some things should not be reduced to their effects. Both Mind Magic and Soul Magic are inherently evil when used against people.”

Poi said, “I agree, Teressa, but there is room for therapeutic applications of both.”

Teressa frowned, hummed, then said, “Yeah. I guess.”

Nirzir, who hadn’t spoken much at all and mostly listened, had focused on a different part of the conversation. She said, “Clan Void Song is willing to help end the sects of Nelboor.” As everyone turned to the young girl she almost recoiled from the sudden pressure, but she puffed out her chest, and with false bravado, said, “We have the manpower to accomplish this task, and can even take over this responsibility, if you wish.”

Teressa said, “Now that is something that should not be done. No offense to the clans, of course.”

Nirzir deflated, frowning a little. “Some offense taken?”

Teressa winced, as though she realized that she had accidentally taken a large overstep. She looked to Poi, saying, “Help me out, here.”

Poi frowned at her, then said, “What Teressa means to say is that what Erick is doing is a spiritual cleansing.” He looked to Erick, saying, “And I agree with Teressa. This is what you are doing, Erick, even if you don’t see it right now. This is too important to put in the hands of mortals, with mortal concerns, like Empire. You need godly help for this.”

Erick… let that thought sit for a moment. Poi and Teressa were probably right.

Nirzir frowned a bit more, saying, “We’re responsible mortals.”

“I think Void Song would be fine to help. But!” Jane said, “Koyabez’s churches were destroyed. He could use some new priests, right?”

Erick immediately said, “Oh. Uh. No. There’s a lot of merit in this general idea of enlisting help with this shitstorm, but I feel that asking for what you are suggesting, Jane, is a bad idea.” Erick said, “I truly don’t think Koyabez would want soul shifted people as priests. Especially if they’re former priests of Melemizargo and also cultists… which is redundant to say, now that I think of it. Anyway: It’s a bad look. But perhaps he’d have some priests willing to guide these people into… better walks of life? That’s what the churches of Koyabez do, sometimes. When people are exiled, they can sometimes go to Koyabez for redemption, or something. I’m not too sure how that works, though.”

Jane nodded. “That’s probably a better idea; yes. But whatever happens, you don’t have to be involved in all of it. You’re already stretched thin and you don’t need more responsibilities.”

“Yes, yes. I agree—” Erick had an idea. “So Candlepoint exists, too, and they’ve already taken in cultists. Would it be a bad idea to have all these people go to Candlepoint?”

Teressa frowned. Jane frowned. Nirzir was already frowning. It seemed no one liked that idea.

Erick said, “Candlepoint is the land of reincarnation and second chances.” He added, “Or, it was… but not officially? Though actually saying the words… I like that idea. Candlepoint could be a land of second chances? Perhaps. It already is, anyway.”

Jane said, “You’d need to get more priests of other deities to show up, before you could call it that.”

“That’s a good point, too,” Erick said.

“No other deities have joined Candlepoint.” Poi said, “And besides that: We shouldn’t go back to Glaquin until you’re off this Worldly Path.”

“Just putting ideas out there for now, Poi.” Erick said, “But now that I’ve met the dragon that attacked me, and as long as the truce we made holds, it might not be long till we’re out of here.”

Nirzir asked, “You’re not going to kill the dragon? Even after knowing that he mutilates the souls of people to get what he wants?”

No one looked to Nirzir except for Erick; everyone else just ignored her rather childish words. They had more faith in Erick than the young princess from Void Song.

“I will not act against Ordoonarati unless he breaks the truce, for I will not be the aggressor. And yet, I fully expect him to break this truce when I help the people of Ooloraptoor to kill or Bless every single face stealer and Hunter in this society.” Erick said, “But if that doesn’t happen, then I might participate in a debate or two, just to cement some ties with Pale Cow, and only because I feel like it. Other than those two possible events, I think the next few days will be rather calm and we might be moving on to the next location rather quickly.

“Perhaps we can visit the Adamantine Smiths of Underworld Nelboor? Their head offices are in the Northern Chasm Region of the North Tribulation Mountains, and I am sure those people have some interesting metals with which to make various enchanted objects. We were already going there for a nice weapon for Jane, but I could use some various metals myself to use in the possible enchanting of a Gate.” He looked around, “And if anyone else wants a weapon or armor or whatever, we could get some? You still like that old armor, Poi? Teressa? You want a new weapon?”

Poi smiled a little. “I like this armor, yes. But I would like some new armor, even more.”

Teressa said, “I need a backup weapon. That Radiant Nacreous Weaver ripped right through my Force spells.”

Jane nodded, torn halfway between the prospect of a new sword and concern for her father.

Erick told her, “I’m fine, Jane. It’s just getting to me. This is all big stuff, you know?”

“I do know that.” Jane said, “But… I could use a sword. Thanks for remembering.”

Erick teased, “We’ll get you the biggest, most gaudiest gold and electrum katana that Veird has to offer.”

Jane breathed out through her nose.

“Anywhere you want to go, Nirzir?” Erick asked, “You’re a part of this party, too.”

Nirzir froze and blushed, then she shook her head, saying, “I don’t need weapons— No wait! If we’re really going to the Adamantine Smiths, then I need to use this opportunity to think of something I would want. They’re world class Smiths and… If it wasn’t you going there, I don’t think they’d let you into their mountain.”

Erick smiled. “Aw. Drat. I wanted to go incognito.”

“That’s a five year waiting list.” Nirzir said, “Maybe more.”

“Maybe we could still go incognito, and then we could look for some down-on-their-luck Smith who just needs one good break to rise up, to become an Adamantine Smith! I could be that break.” Erick asked, “How does that sound?”

Teressa offered, “Ya know, boss, if you want to do the ‘old mysterious man bit’ you’re about a hundred years too young for that.”

“So what you’re saying is that I need some beard and hair growth tonics, and some bleach.”

Jane smiled as she said, “Let’s go as ourselves, get some weapons, and then move on. Perhaps we won’t get stuck in local politics this time.”

Erick barked a sudden laugh, and for a good three seconds, he was the only one laughing. But soon, Teressa chuckled, and Poi smirked. Nirzir smiled politely

And then Nirzir exclaimed, “Oh! I just remembered: I think they have a tournament going on this time of year. Some lucky warrior usually wins themselves an artifact-class flying sword.”

Jane stared, wide-eyed at Nirzir, her mouth dropping open into the largest smile Erick had seen on his daughter in a long time. She called out, “Tournament Arc!”

“What?” Erick asked.

Jane explained.

Erick went, “Oh. Uh. That sounds… Not fun.”

“What!” Jane said, “Heathen!”

Teressa and Poi burst out a laugh, to which Nirzir, Jane, and Erick, all asked, “What?”

Poi explained, “To call you a ‘heathen’— Okay. I have to start at the beginning. There was this play that—”

“It’s a cultural thing.” Teressa said, “For a daughter to call her father a heathen always marks the point in the story that the daughter— Well. It varies by story.”

“It’s a meme, Jane,” Poi said.

“… I don’t think I like being out of the loop on memes,” Jane said.

Erick laughed, “You must be getting old.”

The conversation moved on.

The five of them spoke of lighter topics, and Jane made coffee for everyone. Nirzir made cold chicken sandwiches, with lots of mayo and onion, while Teressa kept a casual eye on their surroundings as she told a story about an old man who traveled the world with seven couatl [Familiar]s. It was a lighthearted tale of jokes and cultural references that Erick picked up from context, but of which he knew nothing about until that moment. It was still a nice story.

Nirzir, Jane, and Teressa were treating Erick with soft gloves, and he was not blind to this. It made him feel embarrassed, but it also made him feel nice. Poi needed some fragile handling, too, but only because Erick had made the man feel precarious about his position in Erick’s life, and Erick had not meant to do that to him.

Poi had always been there for him, and when Erick had lost his calm amid all the events of the last two days, he had taken out his anger on Poi, and that had been wrong. The Mind Mages had always had a clear line that they were never willing to cross. Erick truly shouldn’t have been surprised, or angry at where they placed that line.

If Erick, himself, had demanded that the Mind Mage’s lines be moved forward a step, then down the line, someone else would demand their limits move one more step further. It was a slippery slope, and at the same time, it was also the slippery slope fallacy. Killing face stealers and Hunters seemed like a no-brainer to Erick, and yet, even the Mind Mages had ideas of redemption in their modus operandi. And so, Erick wasn’t going to argue with a thousand year old institution about their limits, when the Mind Mages had only managed to survive the rest of the world because they kept strict limits.

(And he valued the idea of redemption, too, he supposed.)

As the hours ticked on and nothing happened except for the Blessing of cultists, Erick had time to reflect on his own lines in the sand.

He decided that he would always fight against people who came after him, or the people around him. Lethal violence was still on the table, but Erick was powerful enough that non-lethal means were a valid option.

Helping people who asked for help seemed like a good limit, too; that’s what a lot of other archmages did. Tenebrae operated in this manner. The ‘bar to entry’ for gaining Tenebrae’s help was, firstly, money, which showed a commitment to whatever problem a petitioner wanted. Secondly, the petitioner needed to actually find the cantankerous old archmage, which showed a certain amount of competency on the part of the petitioner.

Erick decided he didn’t like the bars to entry that Tenebrae set.

To get hold of the Headmaster, all one needed to do was show up at Oceanside and fill out paperwork, and then the Headmaster would choose to see a petitioner, or not. Erick was already operating on this sort of system, and it seemed like a good one. For now.

Anyway.

Ending evil when Erick saw evil seemed like something he definitely needed to keep doing. There were problems with that commitment, what with ‘evil’ being nebulous and not always apparent, but Erick didn’t want to think of those morality problems right now, because there was a larger problem with these ideas.

That problem, was this: Once you see one person dying on the street due to hunger, if you look close enough, somewhere a warlord is withholding food, and answering that problem required assassination, and then you’ve got a whole new settlement under your control, or a bunch of angry people, who were rightfully upset that their leader was just murdered…

Okay. So Erick had fallen right down that slippery slope, hadn’t he.

Anyway.

Limits.

Erick had thought he already had some good ones. ‘Don’t make any more world-threatening magic’ and ‘Don’t…

Hmm.

Oh.

He only had that one limit, didn’t he? He was a killer, now. A mass murderer, actually. Ah. Shit.

Ah.

Erick set that trauma aside and vowed to deal with it another day. He thought, instead, about how Poi had made himself really vulnerable today. He also thought about the person who had spoken through Poi. What was all that about? Or was that whole ‘other speaker’ just Poi accessing shared memories? Or was there a dragon on the other side of the Mind Mages? The Headmaster often spoke through his Elites. Did other dragons do that, too? Erick hadn’t seen it happen, but… Perhaps they did?

Or. No. The much more reasonable explanation was that the Headmaster had some Mind Magic of his own. The Headmaster did have ties to the Mind Mages; this much Erick had been told, and he had seen for himself.

Anyway, Erick would apologize to Poi for his harsh thoughts with some nice armor, and a verbal apology when they weren’t out in the open. Yes; this would do.

- - - -

In the evening, Clan Pale Cow set up next to a small riverside. Tomorrow, the clan would move into their designated territory near Ooloraptoor, and begin meeting with other clans, to speak of Integration. Tonight, though, there would be a pre-meeting, and Erick was to host them.

He had already spent all day meeting people from Ooloraptoor already, and though he had done some counter-Hunting, mostly he just spoke of how he would counter-Hunt to a lot of different people. And now, some of those people were coming here.

Erick set up his yurt a kilometer to the south of Pale Cow and Shaped some platforms and tables and chairs out of the grasslands. Wardlights went up on the corners of the raised platform to drive away some of the night, while cushions were taken from the yurt and set upon the chairs to make seating a bit more comfortable than otherwise. And then, it all looked kinda trashy, so Erick spent a good twenty minutes making it look nice.

The raised platform of stone turned white, like marble. The stone chairs were replaced with scrollwork chairs made of eternal stonewood which Erick then embellished with small lightsculptures that resembled tastefully placed gems. Erick combined the assorted tables into one main table with a grand design of curled edges and a perfectly flat surface. And then Erick Shaped a side table for the food to be placed upon. With some [Bug Ward]s the various small insects wouldn’t be a problem, while a subtle [Air Conditioning Ward] kept the space comfortable. He even brought some beer and wine from Alaralti, along with some nice dinnerware. Erick did not go all out; this was not everything that he could have done. But it was a lot, especially for this area of the world.

… With a few last minute adjustments, Erick diminished some of the designs, and erased some of the embellishments, trying for a ‘homey’ atmosphere, and less of an ‘expensive dinner’ theme. He also added a ‘teleport square’ of stone off to the east, so that people would know where to blip in and out without drawing any more attention than usual.

Half an hour later, as the sun began to set in the west, guests began to arrive.

Niyazo, Koori, and Speaker Yorila were the first to walk across the distance from Pale Cow to Erick’s own location. Amasar, the man Erick had saved, and a few other cowherds came with them, carrying trays of food, acting rather professional. The lot of them gazed at Erick’s overt magics, though only Yorila had words to say about the spellwork.

“It’s all so lovely!” Yorila said, “And the colors are perfect sunshine and hearth.” She pointed to a firelight that Erick had set into a warming cauldron. “Is this firelight actually warm, itself, or is that an overlapping effect?”

Erick smiled, saying, “That’s just an overlapping [Ward] effect.”

“I thought that was what I was seeing, but I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins; truly well crafted.”

After they dropped off the food, Amasar and the cowherd went to vacate the premises; they did not feel comfortable here, at all. Amasar did manage to say a few words, though.

“I was a toad in a well, when I made the promise of my life to your service. I can see that I am unneeded.” Amasar bowed quickly, saying, “I apologize for my presumption.”

Ah. He was mad that Erick hadn’t accepted his ‘life debt’. Erick had missed that, until now.

“I didn’t seek you out to accept your promise, Amasar, because I don’t like that sort of debt.” Erick said, “We’re culturally not on the same page. Sorry if my unwillingness to accept your offer has offended you; it was nothing personal.”

Amasar had been very offended, and he had also been very good about not showing that emotion. Now, though, he was offended, relieved, and embarrassed that he had been anything other than professional, all at the same time. But he accepted Erick’s words in the nature they had been given. He said, “If you change your mind, I am here. Thank you for saving my life, Archmage Flatt.”

“You’re quite welcome.” Erick asked, “Are you going to stick around for dinner?”

Amasar said, “It is not my place.”

And with that, Amasar and the cowherds turned and left, returning to their own dinners among the circled yurts of Clan Pale Cow. The people over there were already strumming stringed instruments or telling stories around fires, while cooks dished food out of massive cauldrons.

The teleport square blipped pink with the arrival of more guests.

Sin Seeker Vania had come, along with three Elders; Elder Uriol, Elder Teer, and Elder Puuroi. A few cowherds had come along with them, too, but only to carry their food. Erick already had casual contact with all three of the elders, but it was good to see them in a personal setting. But… Only three of them? And only elders?

Erick asked, “I expected a few more Clan Leaders, and elders, too?”

Elder Uriol, an old man who was easy to get along with, said, “We had a few more coming, but now they’re all in a tizzy because of all the uncovered face stealers. Just updating our methodology has uncovered more and more, all over the place.”

Elder Teer, a stern woman of at least 110, shook her cane a little as she said, “After you stopped for the day we found two more cells among two of the further traveler clans who almost never come to Ooloraptoor. Silver gods; I never thought we would suffer this particular indignity.”

Elder Puuroi, a short and skinny woman of 70, explained, “Which is why we need Integration. If we had a functioning guard force with set rules that worked, then some of these clans wouldn’t have been infiltrated in the first place.”

Teer glared at her smaller counterpart, then turned to Erick, saying, “Usually, we know too much about each other to let something like this happen, but, apparently, my usual objections to Integration have faltered in the face of this disaster.”

Uriol said, “Normal societies have face stealers in them, too. Integration is just one of many necessary solutions to this problem.”

Of the first two Elders, Erick already knew that Puuroi was a staunch Integrator, while Uriol was a moderate, but Erick was just now finding out that Teer was on the side of the True Travelers. Or perhaps she was a neutral Elder like Uriol who had been won over in the face of this current crisis? No way to be sure, at the current moment.

“We’ll deal with the uncovered evil soon enough, but first—” Erick gestured to the table of drinks, saying, “Want a drink?”

Uriol went straight for the beer. “Don’t mind if I do!”

Niyazo and Koori greeted the Elders next, while everyone got their first drinks, and first dishes. Soon, Erick was seated around the main table with all of his guests, as well as Nirzir, who sat on his left. Conversations rapidly turned to Integration talk, and then trade, and then it meandered in another direction. All the while, Nirzir didn’t join any of the conversation topics. Erick wasn’t Nirzir’s father, but he felt a certain responsibility to her, since she was with him, for now, so he wanted to include her in their talks when he could, but there were no opportunities for a long while.

In the third course, though, there was a great opportunity. The conversation had moved on to vehicles and the laws regarding them while inside Songli’s borders.

Elder Teer said, “Almost every caravan and clan gets down to Alaralti for trade with some of their outer cities… Perhaps once a year? Average of once a year. But we’re only able to get into the first cities on the edge! It’s disgraceful of Songli, if you ask me. All these city dwellers purposefully keep us out, and when it’s not purposeful, it’s part of entrenched building practices. For the vast majority of Songli cities, there is simply no room for the yurts and the cows.”

Niyazo smiled, saying, “We travelers do not travel lightly.”

“Like turtles!” Uriol laughed.

Everyone else gave a light, polite chuckle, which was completely lost on Erick. There was some cultural significance there, for sure. So Erick asked, “What about turtles?”

Uriol smiled. “We destroy the roads wherever we go, just like turtles.”

Nirzir looked like she wanted to object, but she did not.

So Erick asked her, “There are [Mend]ing forces out there that clean up the roads, though?”

Nirzir froze under the sudden sights of everyone else. Then she set down her fork, and said, “The roads can handle the tonnage; they’re built for such work loads. But it is the… uh, volume of people, that’s the problem. Caravans travel together, and with all those cows, too. So all grass traveling caravans are required to stay outside the cities. It has become a point of contention, actually.” She added, “But we’ve been at war more often than not, so that’s not lent itself to great relations, either. Though it’s always been Polite… from my understanding.”

Teer smiled, and there was an edge to her countenance. “It usually starts Polite, but then Songli thinks they can renege on their agreements when they lose.”

Nirzir was quick to say, “I don’t know much about that.”

Teer saw an opening, and so she took it. “Then why are you sitting at this table if not to discuss historically significant events and how they relate to the present?”

Erick smiled softly, as he ended further prodding in that direction, “To learn; same as me.”

Nirzir just went silent; she wasn’t quite sure why she was here, either.

Erick let that lay.

“Fair.” Teer asked Erick, “So, speaking of learning. I heard that you came to Veird in a wheeled vehicle. How did your vehicle compare to the style of yurts?”

“Ah? You heard about the car, did you?” Erick asked, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it always surprises me when people hear odd things about me.”

“Us oldies often have nothing to do but talk, so we get to it rather thoroughly,” Puuroi said.

Uriol chimed in with, “The body can’t do much beyond moving the mouth, so we make do.”

Puuroi scoffed at the old man, and she wasn’t the only one. Some people looked scandalous, including Vania, but Erick just smiled.

Uriol said, “Take Teer, here, for instance. Though she can whip a brat with her cane if they give her cause.”

“I’ll whip you with my cane, you old turtle,” Teer scowled, but there was no heat to it.

Uriol just laughed.

Teer sighed, then said to Erick, “I heard about your car because 50 years ago my family and I emigrated from the Wasteland Kingdoms, to get away from the war. Been happy here, ever since. I still have some family back there, of course, so when I heard you were in the area, I gave them a call. None of them are highly placed, but I heard some noble family or the Magisterium retrieved some sort of vehicle from your crash site, and when my uncle described it to me…” With a curious and slightly joyful tone, Teer asked, “I have to know: Did you travel the stars in a yurt?”

The other people at the table looked at him as though he had suddenly grown another head, but Erick just chuckled.

“No. Not in a yurt. Here.” Erick held up his hand and conjured a see-through image of a stereotypical car. “We don’t travel in yurts back on Earth. We have homes, but we also have cars to get around in.”

“But you have no magic?” Teer said, “That’s what I heard.”

“The combustion engine.” Erick dismissed the image of the car and conjured a lightward of the engine, the frame, and the wheels, and then he started explaining, “That’s this part here. It uses tiny explosions of gasoline to…”

Erick knew he was giving something away even as he spoke of fuels and rotational forces and gears, but this was fine. Everyone was highly interested in what they were seeing, and what he was telling them. Niyazo and Koori seemed extremely interested, actually. Why were they— Ah. Erick saw the appeal. This was movement without magic. Obviously, this sort of thing would appeal to orthodox grass travelers.

As Erick got to the wheels, though, he did say, “The wheel sections of cars are much different than the wheels of yurts, too; they have to be, both because the turning of the drive shaft has to turn the axle of at least one set of wheels, and so that the wheels can turn independently of each other, so we can take corners in roads. Yurts are very good at going the distance and requiring little maintenance, but they can’t turn at all, and the bouncing can be a bit much if the plains are not level.” He conjured more images in the air as he said, “See this part, here? Instead of an axle on a leaf spring, we have a rigid axle on a set of spring-leveled arms. These arms can move up and down, so that one wheel hitting a rock doesn’t move the whole vehicle; or at least not as much as it could. This gear set in the middle of the axle is what allows the yurt to turn without one wheel skipping out of the dirt, or dragging the dirt along with it as you turn. And… Ah. I think that’s about all there is to how a car works. That’s the major systems, anyway. Questions?”

The elders had been rather interested the whole time he spoke, but Teer was both interested and skeptical.

Teer asked a cutting question, “And how fast can you go?”

… Erick wasn’t quite sure why Teer thought she was asking a cutting question, but he answered anyway, “A hundred kilometers per hour is easy to achieve.”

Teer retreated a little, her skepticism giving way to plotting.

Uriol went next, asking, “Could we commission you to build us a prototype?” Uriol said, “I am interested in the turning capabilities and these gear boxes, for I have never been happy with what the Metal Clans have for sale, and— apologies to the orthodox among us— But all of this is easily workable without this engine. I’m not asking for that part. The axles and the rest would be wonderful, and [Control Machine] isn’t that hard to make.”

Teer frowned at her fellow Elder, saying, “But the engine is the most interesting part! Erick has listed the rate of travel as ‘per hour’, which means that they routinely travel in multiples of hours—” She looked to Erick. “You do travel for multiple hours, correct? Routinely? Without needing to stop for a ‘tired cow’ situation?”

Erick smiled a little. “With a car, you stop when you need fuel or a break, but the only limitations were our own desires to keep going, or not. There were no cows or other animals involved, at all.”

“Ah ha!” Teer smiled. “Yes. The engine is the most important part. [Control Machine] can’t compare, either; not without an excessive amount of mana. All you need is fuel! And not much of it, either. Even gear systems can’t compete with this idea.” She said to Uriol, “We have the same wheel and axle designs he has here; just on smaller vehicles. I know what I’m talking about. The engine is the important part.”

“Then you must be aware of some history that I am not, because I have never seen these ideas before.” Uriol said, “For if we could get ‘cars’, then perhaps our problems with trading among the cities of Songli would vanish, for we could keep our yurts outside the city, and then drive a car into the city to get goods. No need for cows to come along, either!”

Puuroi said, “If we Integrated into a real city then resource scarcity would also vanish, for we could set up Teleport Squares and have permanent trade routes.”

Uriol ignored the smaller elder, and said, “I don’t like only going to the places they allow us to go, Puuroi. I want to explore with a ‘car’.”

Teer scoffed, saying, “I could get you a prototype ‘car’ myself, Uriol. Just ask Metal Rider or my own clan of Silver Yurt. There’s nothing here we don’t already have except for the engine.”

With an accusatory edge to her voice, Puuroi asked, “And why, pray tell me, don’t we have these systems already, Teer?”

“You might as well ask why we don’t all have artifacts in all of our yurts!” Teer said, “They’re too expensive and they require too much specialized knowledge to repair and replace. But I’ve never seen an engine before, and so that is the interesting part.”

The elders moved on to a discussion among themselves that did not involve Erick, at all. They kept those smaller discussions to a minimum, though, and rapidly came back around to wanting a prototype of Erick’s design.

They spoke of cars well into dessert.

Erick would have a prototype ready whenever he got around to making one, for he had never worked on a car before. He also didn’t have any materials for such a construction. The elders rapidly offered to provide all of the raw materials.

This started another round of small debates among the elders as all of them wanted the completed prototype for themselves and their clans, so they each wanted to be the ones to provide the raw materials, all by themselves. Soon enough they came to an agreement; Erick would have his raw materials waiting for him when Pale Cow got to Ooloraptoor tomorrow evening.

Erick was more than happy to have an easy task ahead of him, for a few different reasons. Giving away some axles and some gears seemed non-destructive, especially if the grass travelers already had them; they just didn’t use them for various technical and economical reasons. In addition to that, since the Wasteland Kingdoms of Glaquin were already dissecting Jane’s car, they had all of that stuff, too. Therefore there was no problem at all with spreading around some basic technologies to prevent a monopoly. The elders true goal here was to establish working ties with Erick, anyway; no one cared about the tech.

Except for the engine. Teer wanted that engine. Too bad Erick probably couldn’t make one!

But besides all that, Erick plain wanted something to take his mind off of all the recent shit happening around him, and the Blessings that he had been doing in the mountains all this while.

He was up to 500 people Blessed, so far. There had been two attempts to steal the Crystal Star, but both were rather inadequate attempts. The would-be thieves didn’t have Domains, and they had vastly underestimated the amount of [Luminosity] that the [Undertow Star] could put out against forming magics. The [Undertow Star]’s Extreme Light had even brushed against the Crystal Star, too, but to no effect. Perhaps the thieves had been trying to get Erick to break his own artifact? Well, that just seemed impossible. The Crystal Star had a spark of divine fire in it, after all, for Koyabez had helped to make it a greater artifact.

Those attempted thieves were both Blessed now, though, which was probably not what they wanted.

Meh.

Erick didn’t feel sorry for those people. He tried but… it just wasn’t happening.

The night ended with a farewell to the elders, and to Niyazo, Koori, and Yorila.

Soon enough, everyone was inside the yurt, in their beds, or in the chairs scattered around the circular room. It was nearly bedtime, but no one was ready to sleep. It had been like this many times already since this ‘camping trip’ started, for danger seemed an easy possibility, and no one was truly safe out here in the open world. They were still, technically, on high alert, after all.

As [Prismatic Ward]s and Erick’s [Domain of Light] wrapped around the outside of the yurt, leaving the interior comfortably dim, no one was ready for bed, and yet, someone would need to take first shift, and the others would need to stay awake. Erick usually left that up to Poi, and yet Poi hadn’t set out the order.

… Unless they were actually safe, right now? Were they? Was Erick just being paranoid, and was everyone going to go to sleep at the same time? Leaving Ophiel as the only one awake?

Jane broke Erick’s cycle of thoughts as she asked her father, “So you’re going to make a car?”

“Not much of one. But some parts? Sure.” Erick glanced to his yurt, saying, “The turn radius on these things sucks pretty hard; it could use an improvement.”

Nirzir chimed in, “They have to have that axle compensator that you showed in your car diagram; the one that allows easy turning. We have those in the cow carts all over Eralis. I think we have solid axle stabilization designs, too.”

“I’m pretty sure they only asked for this because they wanted some easy contact, and this was what came up.” Erick shrugged. “Or maybe they do have actual problems with size? Maybe cart-sized solutions don’t work for yurts.”

Jane said, “Maybe it’s a problem of orthodoxy. All of the carts in Songli used [Force Platform] to make themselves lighter and less bouncy, and that solution doesn’t work for grass travelers.”

Nirzir got an unsure look as she asked, “Could Teer be asking you for this ‘car’ because of the Wasteland Kingdoms?”

“Probably.” Erick said, “All world powers have connections with each other, though, but also: Koori and Niyazo looked particularly interested in the designs of a car. If anything, then the elders might have asked for this because they knew the value of such a thing to Clan Pale Cow and others of their kind. Tonight wasn’t just them trying to use me, but they were also trying to use everyone else at that table. They tried to use you, too, Nirzir.”

“… Yeah. People have been trying to do that a lot.” Nirzir said, “It was one of the reasons I had to get out of Songli for a little while.”

Erick said, “Perhaps ‘use’ was the wrong term. To me, ‘using’ and ‘working with’ seem rather interchangeable when it comes to working with governmental bodies. Those elders were certainly trying to work with everyone they could.”

Nirzir’s lips scrunched as she hummed a bit, then nodded.

Erick asked, “What do you think, Teressa? Poi? About the cars?”

“Carts and yurts don’t work well in the Forest, so we made do with lots of assistance from [Force Platform] and [Gravity Ward]s to get our carts through the deeper parts. We never had cows, though; we did it all by hand or spell. Cows are just tasty morsels when they’re inside the Forest.” Teressa said, “Personally, I think cars are trinkets and nothing more than novelties. So it doesn’t matter if you make them for these grass travelers. The more complicated they are, though, the easier they break down; like Elder Teer said.”

Poi said, “In the Underworld, you don’t need much more than a giant barge to get large loads moving, because once the load gets large enough, everything floats down there.”

Jane startled, then she smiled. “Let’s hope we don’t see any spider clowns when we get down there.”

Poi startled too, as he looked at Jane. He went a bit paler blue. Jane startled all over again.

Erick asked, “What’s this about? What’s going on there.”

Jane frowned while staring at Poi. “I think there are clown spiders in the Underworld?”

“There are.” Poi said, “They’re not called that. But the spider Jane is thinking of does exist— Not in that exact way. But you’ve already seen them. They’re ballooning spiders.”

“Oh!” Jane laughed, “Ha! Those aren’t that bad. Oh hey! Maybe I’ll get to eat one of them this time— Why are you shivering, Poi? They’re not that bad?”

Poi said, “Ballooning spiders are everywhere down there, [Cleanse] doesn’t always work on their venom, and though their hive mind hordes aren’t in the millions, they are still hive mind hordes. The hives are just smaller. Thirty to a hundred, usually.”

“At least they’re not dimensional spiders,” Jane said.

“Now that sounds like a story I want to hear.” Teressa asked, “But since it’s already almost midnight: Do we want to stay up tonight, or sleep in smaller shifts? Are we on high alert?”

Erick said, “There is some merit to staying awake for at least another hour to make sure nothing is coming this way. Then we can do sleeping shifts. You all can sleep while I drive the cart tomorrow, too.”

“Excellent.” Teressa said, “Then let's hear your dimensional spider story, Jane. A full story, too! You heard me tell some, and now it’s your turn.”

Jane turned concerned. “Ah. I’ve never told this one, actually. I did write it down for the Headmaster, I think… Yeah. I can tell it. Okay. Let’s do this.”

“Sounds fine to me!” Teressa said, “Ah. Wait. I need to refill my mug. Anyone else want another beer?” She went to the cooler.

No one had drunk much of anything tonight, but there had been some drinking.

Erick decided to continue drinking. He gestured to his mug, saying, “Fill me up, too.”

“I’ll take a little,” Poi said.

“Half for me, too,” Jane said.

“I’m good with tea,” Nirzir said.

As Teressa filled up cups all around the yurt, she told Jane, “Make some pictures, too, otherwise it won’t be scary enough.” She crashed into her chair, eager for the show, saying, “You got [Illusionshape], yeah?”

“I can do that.” Jane smiled wide, getting into it more and more with every passing second. “I’ll make it good and scary.”

“Now that’s what I wanna hear!” Teressa said, smiling.

Poi frowned, though.

Nirzir breathed out heavily as she crawled into her bed and under the covers, whispering, “I don’t know if I like this idea.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad—” And then Erick saw his daughter’s face, and knew that it would be that bad. “Oh… Uh. Jane. There’s no need to go overboard, right?”

Jane’s wicked smile seemed to expand past her face as she lifted her hands and began Shaping images in the center of the yurt. [Greater Lightwalk] and [Greater Shadowalk] joined together to form an illusion, transporting the five of them to the center of a main street that would not look out of place in any small city in the northern United States.

And Erick’s memory was tickling.

He didn’t know this one… But he thought he did? Did he?

Jane’s voice was a gentle knife in the dark, “Our story begins in a small town named Derry, located in the middle of rural America. Everyone knows everyone else, and yet the city holds a dark secret in the sewers, known only to the kids…”

Erick frowned as the rains started and the edges of the street turned into minor rivers. A little boy placed a small folded-paper boat onto the rushing water, to watch the boat float down the way, to a storm drain where a gloved hand snatched the boat and dragged it deep into the dark.

Eyes appeared in the dark of the sewer and Erick suddenly knew this story.

He spoke up, saying, “Don’t you dare shift to a spider form to make this more realistic, Jane! I’ll blip you away! I’m not kidding!”

Jane cackled, and the serrated mouth in the sewers cackled with her.

“Oh bright gods,” Nirzir mumbled.

- - - -

Teressa had some comments here and there, which helped to ease the mild terrors inside Erick’s head.

“What the FUCK is wrong with that guy’s face!”

“Jane. You cannot kill a kid. You just can’t. This story cannot be about killing kids.”

“Wait a second. This thing eats fears? And you kill it by not having fears for it to eat? That’s so stupid. A mental mage would tear it to pieces.”

At that last one, Jane dropped the illusions, and said, “Okay. Look. This monster is the equivalent of a mental monster in a world without any defenses against it, at all. Also, I might have given up too much information in that last part; you’re not supposed to actually know that weakness yet. I’m working off years-old memories here.”

“Okay okay. Fair.” Teressa said, “I’ll stop.”

Poi said, “Just so you all know: The Shades have tried to make this kind of pure mental monster before. It didn’t work out well. I think they were called Hope Eaters and absolutely everything preyed upon them.”

“Guys. Stop criticizing the monster.” Jane softly added, “And my story telling.”

Nirzir offered, “If it makes you happier: I’m perfectly terrified.”

“Thank you!” Jane said, “The rest of you all are just desensitized.”

“Yup.” “I’m getting there.” “I agree with that statement.”

- - - -

“It ends with them bullying the monster to death!? No twist?” Teressa said, “What the fuck!” She rapidly added, “Otherwise: Enjoyable. Good job.”

Jane glared a little.

“Like I said,” Poi said, “Everything kills these types of monsters.”

Erick said, “I didn’t need to sleep anyway. I’ll take first shift.”

“I’m not sleeping yet, either.” Nirzir said.

“Then I’m tucking in! See you on second. Good night,” Teressa said, as she laid down in bed and shut her eyes. She was out cold within minutes.

Everyone else took a while to calm down, though Poi was a second place finisher in the ‘sleep as fast as you can’ game. Poi probably cheated by casting [Sleep] on himself.

- - - -

The day dawned.

Nothing had happened that night. Which was great! Soon enough, the yurts and cows of Clan Pale Cow were moving right along, toward the north, toward Ooloraptoor. Today was the final day of travel; they should arrive at their designated spot by early evening.

Breakfast was served from the cooking yurt, as usual, but it was breakfast-on-the-go for a lot of people, including Erick. Jane and Nirzir had to rush across the grasses to get some bowls of congee, but they brought back enough for everyone.

While Erick enjoyed the breakfast made by the cooks of Pale Cow, while sitting in his captain’s chair, he got to work with the Elders of Ooloraptoor, to suss out face stealers among their clans. By noon, he had found four hundred and thirty five impostors, while another five hundred to seven hundred people had simply vanished during the search. No one was quite sure of those final numbers, because those numbers were gathered from hundreds of clans, all over the grasslands. And so, began a more methodical type of search.

The vanished people left behind a lot of family and friends. The Sin Seekers questioned those left-behinds about the whereabouts of the suspiciously vanished, but all those people had to say about the vanished was about how their brothers or their sisters or their parents or children were ‘just out for the day’, and ‘they didn’t know we were counter-Hunting! Or else they would have been here!’ According to what Erick was seeing, and what the Sin Seekers corroborated, the left-behinds were innocent of wrongdoing. The missing people, however, were suspect.

Erick did manage to find some of the vanished people, though.

Some people were out and about, doing everything from stealing from others, to having secret trysts, to hunting monsters in the Tribulations for fun, profit, and/or levels. Those people were not a problem. It was the other people who were the problem. Some were face stealers, for sure, hiding out amid their trophies of past kills, or in the very act of eating the heart and brain of another, hoping to escape Erick’s search. Twice, he even found his targets amid the cows, looking like cows themselves. He would never forget the sight of a cow realizing that they had been found out, and that there was no escape.

But other than that…

Nothing too exciting happened in the morning, or all through lunch, except more Blessing of people in the mountains. Erick hadn’t stopped doing that at all, except for the brief hours of sleep he caught before dawn. Now that it was past noon, though, and the counter-Hunting was done for the day because the Sin Seekers of Ooloraptoor needed a break and to reorganize...

Erick set a sign onto the blessing dais telling people that he would be back in a few hours, and then he took a nap.

Nothing happened while he slept.

When he woke up, he found that the yurt had trundled along without interruption.

Everyone was working on something of their own, which was better than them being under siege, for sure. Jane was working on some magic creation; but it was only gridwork at the moment. Teressa was experimenting with [Future Sight], and her greyed-over eyes showed that she was not home right now. Poi was talking to people through [Telepathy], but other than that, he was on active alert. Erick cast his gaze back to the mountain—

He had left a hole in the [Undertow Star]’s area of effect, specifically so that the people who showed up for a Blessing could have a place to stay where they could still use their magic. When Erick had last seen that place, that area had held four utilitarian buildings. Now, those buildings were gone. Now, there was just a wardlight statue to Koyabez, reaching down from the clouds, lifting up a mass of eyes and scales and Darkness back into the light. It was a lightsculpture done by a true artisan.

Erick ignored the sculpture for now, though it was very hard to ignore, and he focused, instead, on the Teleport Square-like area in front of the statue. People blipped onto the mountain, to stand under the wardlight sculpture, to then walk a path across the mountainside, to end up at the blessing dais.

There was a collection of people waiting for Erick to return. Some were seated on the ground. Some stood, their arms crossed. Some wore armor while others wore clean robes. They were ready to be changed. They were ready to move on.

The wardlight sculpture was not the only change to take place on that mountain.

Beyond that dais, a kilometer away from the [Undertow Star]’s effect, was the start of a city.

There were three, hundred-room apartment buildings of utilitarian make that were little more than organized stone boxes with beds. There were no doors. The first ‘hotel’ was full-up of people. Almost all of those people were in various stages of catatonia or wailing or normal-ish weeping. Only one of the buildings was full. The other two were empty, still. Erick had Blessed more than 500 people so far, so some of them had moved on already. Some were not capable of moving on, just yet.

And there was Daizing and Roia, helping two different groups of people to settle in to their new life, both of them giving small, animated talks about redemption and new possibilities. It was not only Daizing and Roia, but other Knives of the Night were also organizing the people Erick had Blessed. They were becoming a force of their own. Some of the recently Blessed were even [Grow]ing fields of food down in the valley where a thin river ran through the rocky land.

… Whatever!

Ophiel stepped out of the light, onto the dais, as Erick took the ‘be back later’ sign and blipped it away. Thirty four people watched as he did this, each of them gazing at Ophiel with varying levels of hope and rage and desperation in their eyes.

Before now, Erick had not spoken as he Blessed people. But now, he felt an urge to speak. He told these people, “This Blessing is not salvation. I won’t save you from your crimes. But with this Blessing you might find out how to live again, without hurting others. I believe that redemption is possible, but I am not the judge of your lives. Now. With that said—” Ophiel floated away from the dais, opening the space to those who wanted to step up. “Any takers?”

A man with a scarred face and mismatched eyes, who seemed more serious than most people in life, instantly stepped forward; he had been the next person in line, after all.

Erick Blessed him.

A moment passed as the weight of the world fell upon the man and he buckled under its weight. He breathed out hard, ragged, as he fell to his knees. Tears flowed like blood from a rock.

Erick blipped him closer to the buildings that Daizing and Roia had set up.

And then the next person came forth.

Erick devoted half of his attention to Blessing people, but the other half was spent on his own surroundings, for while nothing was happening around him, something was happening to Nirzir.

Nirzir had decided to climb onto the top of the yurt and sit crosslegged with her eyes closed. The wind flowed across her, ruffling her robes and playing with her long, loose white hair. Spots of violet light sprung up around her as she hummed a gentle tune of power.

He wondered what she was working on.

And then he wondered what he should work on. Maybe making some sort of magic would take his mind off his current problems. But what to make—

No. Let’s work on aura control.

Yes.

Erick sat down on his chair, and willed his aura to fruition. It didn’t work, of course, but he kept trying.

It was a quiet afternoon.

About three hours till sunset, Erick got a message from Sin Seeker Vania asking for more Imaging services. They had uncovered some more problems, but with the speed Erick had displayed earlier in the day, they didn’t expect the job to take more than half an hour. Erick readily agreed.

- - - -

Half an hour later, Clan Pale Cow reached the edge of Ooloraptoor’s parade grounds.

All day long Pale Cow had been adjusting their course to match their designated spot, so when they reached the city, they also reached their spot. It was like all the other multi-kilometer areas set up all over the place, most of which held the spread-out yurts and cows of various clans. In this place, shallow pools of water were connected by pipes which reached far under the ground, to connect to the lake itself, providing safe access to water across many thousands of square kilometers of prairie land. The actual lake and Elder House were still ten kilometers forward, out of direct sight. From the captain’s chair of his yurt, Erick mostly saw cows, and pools, and other yurts here and there among the herds. It was all rather sparse, actually; plenty of space for the cows to graze wherever they wanted. Some of the cows were actually in the waters, wading and mooing their joy into the evening air.

Erick pulled his yurt up to one of the pools near Clan Pale Cow, since Niyazo’s ‘kilometer distance’ rule was not applicable in this space. He still picked the pool furthest from the clan out of courtesy; about a hundred meters away from everyone else. Erick smiled as he looked down at the placid waters of his own private pond; this was a nice place.

He said as much to Jane, “This place is pretty nice.”

“… It’s a calm way of life, for sure.” Jane glanced down at the pond. “It’s a bit mucky.”

“Bah!” Erick threw a [Cleanse] at the pool. Muck turned to mana. Thick air boiled out of the waters. In seconds, a shallow, sloping basin of solid white stone stood exposed under crystal clear water. “Just needed a bit of cleaning! Reminds me of the sewerhouse, actually.”

“Probably a fair bit of ‘sewer’ in the water around here, too.”

“Aye.” Erick said, “Luckily, our cows are not real cows.” He glanced to his illusory cows; they were still stuck to the front of his yurt. With a mental command, the four cows unraveled into glittering white mana, giving one quiet chorus of moos before they vanished completely. “No cow poop here!”

Teressa spoke up, “We’re heading to the cooking yurt for dinn—” She whipped around to face Nirzir.

Erick followed her gaze to the top of the yurt.

Nirzir had been meditating atop the yurt since noon, burbling with purple lights and tiny sounds, as her unfocused eyes stared into the far distance. She hadn’t shifted much from that position. But now she did. Her eyes glittered with violet light as she focused on a point ahead of herself, and then up. Words spilled out of her, like a precious song spoken to a loved one.

“I establish here a star of light

“Shining from a Void so bright.

“Pulling. Draining. Never maiming.

“Tendrils touching, always aiming

“For those who are a living blight

“Let them know power, sustaining!”

Nirzir had spoken to the world, and the world responded.

A diffuse brightness took hold in the sky above, becoming a nebula of purples and violets and pinks. That nebula collapsed here and there into pinpricks of light; stars birthing at the start of a nascent universe. A thousand thousand lights tumbled out of the sunset air, only to swirl around a central density, like dancers at a ball. And then that central density flashed into a cascading Star, similar, and yet so very different from Erick’s own [Undertow Star].

Shadows and Void crawled forth and Erick deployed his [Domain of Light] across the land, protecting almost everyone from the power coming down from above. He left Nirzir out of his effect, though, for he did not want to disturb her spell creation unless he absolutely had to. The girl was too enamored with her own spellwork to see what Erick was doing, anyway, so defending everyone from her errant magic likely wouldn’t break her concentration.

The tendrils of her Void Star touched down upon Erick’s light. Pressure built. Erick felt nicks and cuts here and there in his power, and then great big swaths drilled out of his Domain. He startled. There was a lot of power in Nirzir’s spell, as well as her Domain.

Nothing to be too worried about, though.

With a pulse of intent and directed focus, Erick strengthened his Domain, and Nirzir’s Void bounced off of his power.

Nirzir, for her part, was still insensate, sitting crosslegged atop his yurt, with her eyes staring upward. The tendrils from her own spell reached down and touched her, but those tendrils moved right along, as though Nirzir wasn’t even there.

Erick kept his Domain pressed against Nirzir’s, containing the young girl’s magic, and stopping everyone else from interfering. Through his light, Erick saw a lot of nearby people wondering what the fuck was going on. Erick spoke through his Domain, saying that his light was just a magical protection to hold off a magical experiment in the sky, and that nothing was happening. Nothing to worry about.

His explanation helped some people, but not all.

Surprisingly, though, expanding his Domain across all of Pale Cow revealed some secrets. Koori had a Domain, and she was able to push back against Erick’s Light; all around the angry woman, Erick’s Light turned to thick air. She wasn’t able to push far, and she stopped pushing the second she felt Erick’s attention on her, but she had a [Cleansing Domain], for sure.

Erick, Teressa, Poi, and Jane, looked up at Nirzir.

Jane spoke first, “Is she gonna come out of that trance? That’s Void up there, right?”

Teressa asked, “Should we... Do something?”

Poi said, “She’s almost back. She’s not in any danger, either. Nirzir is well defended against her own magics.”

Jane looked to her father. “Maybe ask her for some pointers about how not to kill oneself when casting. You could use some of that, and since she’s obviously copied your magic for herself, you should have no trouble asking her for this much information.”

“It’s not [Undertow Star].” Erick said, “That spell up there is all sorts of unstable. Look: it’s already breaking apart.”

The dancing stars in the sky began to falter in their twirls and whirls. One by one, lights fell from their track, into the center star, like falling into a black hole. Within a minute, every single light was gone, and the tendrils followed, getting sucked up into the Void above. The spell lasted a single minute.

Nirzir frowned as she looked upward. “Ah. Hmm.”

Her spell broke into fractured violet mana.

Erick relaxed his Domain, telling people that the experiment was over as his light retreated to the much smaller size he kept localized to the center of his back. He called up to Nirzir, “Did it work?”

Nirzir jolted, as though waking from a daydream. Perhaps that was exactly what had happened. Erick had surely been knocked out by his own magic, so he certainly understood what the young woman was feeling.

Nirzir looked down toward Erick, her face turning red as she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! Sorry! I didn’t mean to do that here! Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone is fine.” Erick said, “I know you didn’t mean to do that. Sometimes the mana simply wants to be magic.”

Nirzir briefly experienced pure joy, as she said, “Exactly! I was—” And then she looked around. Her face fell. “Oh. We’re in Ooloraptoor. Ohhh. I didn't mean to—” She eyed a squad of people walking their way. Erick had already seen them but he wasn’t worried, for they didn’t look angry, but when Nirzir saw them, she paled. “Oh. Uh. That’s probably not good.”

Erick said, “Don’t worry about them. Did you manage to make the Undertow effect?”

“… No.” Nirzir frowned. “Not the most important part. The spell collapses after a minute.”

“We can talk about that later, but I’ll talk to these people for now.” Erick turned back toward the approaching envoys and called out to them, “Hello! Just some experimenting gone large. Nothing to worry about; we had it under control.”

The three approaching people did not stop approaching. Two of them looked like professional guards of some high order, for they wore silver armor and flanked the third person, a woman, who led their way toward Erick. The woman was of regal bearing and dark ruby-red skin, and while she had horns, those horns had been clipped down to flat spaces on the sides of her forehead. Her silver robes swished as she walked, unflinching, toward Erick, while a silver star glinted on her chest.

Oh. Erick knew what this was.

The silver star upon the woman’s chest was instantly recognizable, for Erick had had one just like it. He still did, in a way, but his silver star was now the Crystal Star. These people were from the Church of Koyabez. Maybe from a different part of the world, or maybe from some smaller church in Songli, since all of Koyabez’s major churches in the Highlands had been destroyed by Terror Peaks. Erick had been wondering if some of those people were going to show up, considering that he had been Blessing people upon the holy symbol of Koyabez. Erick had kinda expected Koyabez himself to say something, or to issue a Quest, but mortal agents were fine, too.

The priestess of Koyabez called back to him with a calm, strong voice, “We’re not here about that. We’re here about the Knives of the Night.”

“Of course!” Erick said, “I was wondering when someone was going to show.”

Erick’s people arrayed themselves behind him, while Nirzir remained on the top of the yurt, watching.

The woman and her people stopped five meters away. “Greetings, Archmage Flatt. My name is Lorizal Ex, the newly appointed Head Priestess of Koyabez for the Highlands region. I have been charged with rebuilding the temples of Koyabez in this part of the world, and as such, I have been made aware of various actions taking place in my God’s name. I would like to discuss one action in particular with you.” She pulled out a piece of paper from a fold in her dress; it was one of Erick’s own meeting forms, and yet it was not. The ink of the form boxes was a slightly different color, and the calligraphy of the text was nicer. Someone else was copying his forms and distributing them, eh? Lorizal said, “I have your paperwork here. This meeting need not take long, but it needs to happen now.”

“Of course.” Erick gestured forward, extending a tendril of sunform to take the offered paperwork. It floated up to his hand, and he quickly read it, then he put it aside, and said, “We can meet inside. Or I can set up some chairs down there if that is more comfortable. Privacy is available if you wish it.”

Lorizal said, “Some chairs down here on the grass is acceptable; thank you. I have no need for privacy for this.”

With a flick of light, Erick took some chairs from inside and set them down onto the short grasses beside his yurt. With a light step, he stood upon those grasses, next to a chair, saying, “When I saw you coming this way, I expected you to be from the Elders of Ooloraptoor to talk about the problems of open use of magics.” He sat down in his chair.

Lorizal took her own seat, then said, “There was actually a line to speak to you from all of those people. But the display of magic scared off many of them. I found myself rushed through the queue, as it were. Well. My acolyte did; I have been rather busy recently and could not hold my place in line myself. I only just arrived in Ooloraptoor in the last five minutes, but it is my understanding that people have been waiting for you to arrive for days, now.”

Erick glanced toward the next land over. He had wondered why there were people over there, standing how they were, but now that Lorizal had told him what they were doing, it was easy to understand them. There were about fifteen groups amid the scattered yurts and cows and otherwise, each of them looking like they had wanted to come this way, but they had refrained. One of those small groups even had a small cart with them that was loaded with dark metal ingots. That one must be the elder’s promised metal to use in the construction of a car.

Now that Erick had retracted the light, and Nirzir’s spell overhead had vanished, some of those scattered groups were coming back out of hiding.

Ah.

Erick was not going to get any rest right now, was he? Oh well! He chose this.

He turned to the priestess. “What does the Church of Koyabez require of me?”

With stoic mien, Lorizal spoke, “We wish for your oversight and protection as we go out to the mountain you have blessed in Koyabez’s name, so that we might meet with these people and help to decide what the Highlands is going to do with all of them.” She said, “If things go well, the Church of Koyabez formally requests the dispensation to use the space you have altered to create a Church of the Silver Star; to have a location in this war-torn land that is unassailable—” She breathed. Her eyes watered, but she held back those emotions. This was tough for her. She likely lost a lot of people when Terror Peaks destroyed Koyabez’s churches in Songli. “—To have a space that is unassailable by outside forces. You should know that none of these are requests from Koyabez. These are requests from the mortal advocates of the Silver Star, with the goal to ensure peace and prosperity in these lands.”

Erick felt in his heart and saw with his eyes that Lorizal was a good woman, or at least all of her words were true. It was, perhaps, too early to make a judgment of her character, but the Silver Star on her chest looked genuine and priests were generally a good sort of people.

So Erick simply asked, “What is the church’s goal with these people I Blessed?”

Lorizal nodded, then said, “The Church of Koyabez is always in pursuit of peace. Sometimes, we take in exiled people and give them new homes as members of our church, either rehabilitating them or placing them where their characters and excesses are virtues, rather than vices.

“Our goal with these people you have Blessed is something similar to that, but different.

“Another function of the Church of Koyabez is that of a neutral party, through which two or more warring factions are able to talk to each other without emotions and destruction getting in the way of productive conversation. Your own [Zone of Peace] that you gifted to Koyabez has been a great stride forward in these sorts of talks.

“In the case of these Blessed, the Church of Koyabez will find out if these peoples’ intentions for requesting your Blessing are true, and then, if they are, we will negotiate on their behalf with communities that are willing to take them in. They all have dangerous pasts, but they’re also all high leveled, and therefore they have powers that are beyond the range of normal citizens of this world. In the end, we expect to take many of them in, ourselves. Our only concern is for the long term effects of your Blessing, and what effects might come out of such a magic, but we hope for the best.” She finished, and waited for Erick’s declaration.

Erick was quite happy to say, “I did not know if Koyabez would want to take them in since the vast majority of them are Cultists of Melemizargo, but I am glad to see that I am proven wrong.”

“Everyone is capable of redemption, Archmage Flatt. Even cultists. We have taken in these types of people before, and we will do so again.” Lorizal said, “Your Blessing does ensure that these people have a desire for actual change, though, so in this case, we’re a lot more hopeful for these cultists than for others who have tried to come in from the Dark only to bring the Dark with them.”

“… What do you do when the desire for change isn’t real?”

“Execution. This is especially true in the case for those who attempt to call themselves Silver Priests, and who will use our good names to commit evils. We will not allow anyone to use Koyabez’s name in dishonest ways.”

She had said it so calmly, and the words themselves were so very honest, that Erick could not help but know them as truth.

“I probably should have expected that.” Erick said, “Koyabez is the god of peace, but peace doesn’t necessarily mean pacifism, and it very much does not mean weakness.”

Lorizal nodded. “Peace is only possible when all participants in a society are faithful actors toward a common good. Usually, almost all people are capable of being faithful actors, so this is not a problem. But we do deal with the Dark edges of society, so we do see the problems more than most.” Lorizal said, “It is our hope that your Blessing ensures that it is impossible for a person to become truly unfaithful, and in that case…” She smiled a gentle, loving smile. “In that case, everyone gets redemption, for everyone deserves a new chance, just like any other faithful actor.”

“Of course.” Erick glanced toward the north, through the Ophiels he had floating around the cultists of Melemizargo. He Blessed another person who had been waiting. He said to Lorizal, “Let me know who you’re sending out to the cultists’ mountain and I can approve them for operation under the [Undertow Star]. You know how the Star works, right? You shouldn’t need much more of my direct help outside of that.”

“I respect the need for certain secrets, but I would know if there is something important I should be aware of. Does it do much more than simply Drain everyone, and stop most magics from working, except if you are approved?”

“Nope. That’s about it.”

“Then I am satisfied.” Lorizal stood. “If you do not mind, and since this meeting went how I hoped it to go, the people I have tagged for assisting with the cultists are able to appear here. Now, if you would allow it.”

Erick stood with her, gesturing to the side as he said, “They can come in right over there.”

Lorizal nodded, then she turned to her pair of guards. One of them was already telepathically linked to someone. That guard then nodded at Lorizal, then turned toward the spot of land to the side.

Ten meters away, the air blipped bright yellow, revealing a trio of priests in silver robes. Two women, and a man, all demi, ranging in ages from 35 to 55. Lorizal introduced them by name, and Erick spent a few minutes talking to them, to get a feel for them as people, but other people were already lining up a hundred meters away, waiting to talk. Some of those other people even had paperwork. Only a few of those papers were the ones Erick had actually made, himself.

The priests of Koyabez seemed like solid people, more than capable of dealing with cultists, so Erick enabled them as allies of the [Undertow Star] he had cast into the mountains to the north, and had an Ophiel lightstep them to that area.

Then he turned to Lorizal, and said, “I hope this goes well.”

“I do, too.” Lorizal stepped back, and bowed, saying, “Archmage. Thank you.”

“I didn’t expect to be Blessing so many people so quickly, but the option to end a sect appeared, and I took it. I think Daizing wants to form some sort of joint, Dark/Silver church, or something. I have no idea how to handle that, and my appointment book is very full right now.” Erick said, “So thank you for taking this over.”

Lorizal bowed again, and her people bowed with her. Then they stepped away.

The next people to come forward were the ones with the metal ingots. Erick quickly discovered that they were a joint venture from Silver Yurt, Elder Teer’s people, and Metal Rider, who got in on the action after they heard what Erick was doing. They dropped off a good three tons of solid steel, while asking a few questions of their own about the plans Erick was going to use, of which Erick mostly decided not to answer; they would get their answers in the shape of the prototype, whenever Erick finished making it.

Then the envoy from Metal Rider noticed the suspensions on Erick’s yurt, and asked where he got them.

Erick smiled, and said, “You have a good eye. I got those from Metal Rider, actually. Paid a grand core, too.”

The envoy seemed incredibly embarrassed, vowing to refund Erick the grand core and saying how he never should have been charged anything. Metal Rider was honored that he was using their suspensions, though. Erick waved the envoy off; he was fine with paying for things.

And then the envoy from Silver Yurt asked if Erick wished for a comparative set of suspensions, to see how much better Silver Yurt’s metal work was than Metal Rider’s.

Erick laughed that off, and ended the conversation diplomatically, before Silver Yurt and Metal Rider had some sort of clan-feud, which seemed very much possible, considering the barely hidden animosity he sensed between the two envoys this entire time.

The next people in line were from a poorer clan known as Sand Rider. Their homeland was about 1500 kilometers southeast of Alaralti; they were among the most southern of all the grass traveler clans, near where the verdant prairie began to turn into the dry prairie, and then further still into the drylands. Clan Sand Rider made a living traveling the grassy dunes, but lately, a rockmulch glider infestation had driven them out of their homes, eaten all of their livestock, and then settled into the water holes that were already in rare supply. There wasn’t much rain down that way, so water was always at a premium. Gliders, as they were usually called, were monsters that were usually easy to deal with, but in the recent war with Terror Peaks, the warriors of Sand Rider had tried to help their allies in Alaralti, and they had been killed for their efforts.

Would Erick please kill the gliders for them? Sand Rider couldn’t offer him much, but they had brought a grand core for payment.

Erick agreed to kill the gliders. He did not accept payment; he did it for free.

The monsters were dead within three minutes.

The envoy from Sand Rider had no idea what to do with themselves when Erick denied payment, and even less of an idea of how to act once Erick had told them it was done. Rapidly, though, they pivoted and invited Erick out to drinks and dinner and for hospitality whenever he came around that part of the world. They brewed a mean spirit wine that would get someone with a hundred Vitality drunk in one cup! Guaranteed!

Erick happily said that he would accept a small keg of the drink, and then sent the ecstatic clansmen on their way.

The next people in line had a monster kill request, too.

Erick managed to grab dinner between appointments, but only because Jane went to Pale Cow’s cooking yurt and grabbed him some food.

Eventually, Sin Seeker Vania showed up, taking the forward place in line only to walk up to Erick and give a reluctant, “Please don’t do large scale magics around here unless it is necessary, Erick.”

Erick smiled wide at that, and said, “I was wondering who they’d send out to me. So I guess you pulled that shit duty, eh?”

“Apparently.” Vania frowned at no one in particular. “Everyone is scared of you, and finding out that you’re after dragons doesn’t make you any less scary.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I found the dragon I was searching for. Now, all that dragon needs to do is stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of their way, and nothing else needs to happen.”

Vania perked up, but then she instantly frowned. “That only worries me more.”

“I’ll keep it nonviolent while they keep it nonviolent.”

Vania’s frown deepened. “… Thank you for your consideration.”

The meetings went well into the night, but Erick stopped accepting visitors an hour after sunset, for though he was getting through the line rather quickly, more and more people were showing up to take a spot, and to fill out an application. He dismissed the twenty three remaining groups in line, telling them that he would be available for meetings tomorrow afternoon.

The morning would be for him.

Erick wrapped his yurt and the surrounding ten meters of land, as well as the pond, with Ophiel’s [Prismatic Ward]s. No one would be getting through that layered defense without a lot of work. Or with a simple [Chaining Ward Destruction]. But that was a very rare spell!

- - - -

Before he finished being outside for the day, Erick tracked down the source of extra applications. The trail led to a Knowledge Mage in Alaralti, who was making the applications by hand and selling them for a gold apiece.

Erick let that problem go.

- - - -

Erick entered his yurt.

Poi was talking to people through [Telepathy].

Jane was messing around with gridwork that contained the parts for [Lightshape] and [Shadowshape] which combined to form [Illusionshape], but she was trying to do more than that. She was going for [Mysticalshape].

Teressa was writing what appeared to be notes for a story.

Nirzir was meditating with her eyes closed. Little sparks of violet light danced around the area in front of her chest.

At Erick’s entrance, all of them looked to him.

He said to his people, “Do any of you have any needs? I want to be sure you’re all doing okay, too. And Nirzir, we can talk about some of what you might be missing with the Undertow effect tomorrow morning, for sure. I just got sidetracked with all the other people.”

Nirzir smiled softly, then nodded. “Thank you.” Then she rapidly added, “Uh! And I can trade you information for how to make a nice [Personal Ward]? If that is something you would be interested in? Though I am not sure I have something that you actually desire…” Her voice trailed off as she frowned.

Erick said, “Then we can have an exchange, and that would be fine.”

Nirzir brightened.

“I don’t need anything, dad, unless you get someone asking you to kill a giant spider, or some other exotic monster.” Jane said, “Some unique Familiar Form might be good, but otherwise, I’ll stay here.”

“Sure.” Erick nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Poi said, “I have no needs, though there are other Mind Mage communities out there that are thinking about sending in a request for Imaging services for monsters.”

“Right.” Erick asked, “Where would we need to go next for that?”

“Wherever you decide to go, we will find monsters there.” Poi said, “But if you want an actual itinerary, we have a plan for the systematic elimination of every mental monster on Nelboor. Afterward, Nergal would be an easy continent to clean, for we would mainly focus on Eidolon and Archipelago Nergal. We would skip the Toxic Forest altogether. Glaquin would be a mire of Quiet War problems if we approach the problem openly, but we’ll only do that after you’re done with the Worldly Path, anyway. As for Quintlan: we have no desire to tackle those ooze-infested lands, or the undead metropolises of the Fractured Citadels. We don’t need to go to Quintlan at all.”

Erick paused as he considered the depth of that sort of commitment. “That could take… two weeks? I imagine?”

Poi smiled. “Maybe only one!”

Erick said, “Let’s start on Nelboor tomorrow, after I work on the car for these people… Okay. That’s a fucked up priority. We’ll start on the mental monsters of Nelboor first thing tomorrow.”

“All we need you for is the Imaging, Erick.” Poi said, “You can still work on the car. I doubt we need to move on to Nergal yet, anyway. We were already planning on going there to visit the Orrery of Rozeta, and that need not happen right now, either.”

Erick felt a tension unwind in his chest, for Poi was going easy on him and that was nice of him, but then that tension tightened right back up. Erick said, “People are dying every second that I do not help. We could start tonight, actually. I don’t need to sleep—”

“Dad.” Jane stared at him. “You need to take breaks, too. Like right now, you need a break.” She gestured to Teressa. “Teressa’s been working on a redo of the story I told last night, and I want to hear it, and I want you to relax and hear it, too.”

Teressa waved Jane off, saying, “It’s not necessary—”

“Yes it is. Breaks are necessary.” Jane said, “You do too much, dad. People don’t need you to hold their hand 24 hours a day, ten days a week, forever and always. You need to let others live their own lives, free of your influence.”

“Obviously, that is true, Jane,” Erick said, “But it’s hard to stop, since it’s literally the work of ten minutes to save the lives of countless people who won’t survive the night unless I act.”

Jane frowned. “Everyone is always in danger, all the time, and it is your responsibility to be there to help against the big things; not to prevent every single death-by-monster in the whole world.”

“She’s right, Erick,” Poi said.

Teressa just nodded.

For a long moment, no one said anything.

Jane added, “So how about we all just take a break, and listen to Teressa’s take on It. It’s not like we’re under attack right now. Let’s cherish these moments while we can.”

Erick just breathed, and had a deep think.

Erick decided, “Okay. Yes. You’re right, Jane.” He went to his bed, and sat down, saying, “So. Yeah. I want to hear your take on ‘It’, too, Teressa.”

Teressa had looked unsure, but now she smiled. “Let’s do this!”

The tense atmosphere of the room became something less oppressive, and then vanished altogether for four of the five people in the yurt.

Nirzir let out a pained sigh, trying to convince herself, “It won’t be as bad since I heard it once already.”

Teressa’s smile widened, exposing her lower fangs. “I think I’ve cobbled together something that will properly terrify you. I even managed to make [Illusionshape]!” She added, “I had to Remake all the Shaping spells to begin with, since I never bought them, but that was easy enough with some aura control.”

Erick laughed, feeling happy for Teressa, and then he seriously warned her, “If I see a giant spider then you’re getting blipped into the sky.”

Teressa lost her smile. She checked over her notes, then stoically asked, “How about some spindly legs in the dark? That’s all Jane did.”

“And I almost got blipped for it,” Jane said to Teressa, “Just so you know! I’m going to complain every time you make it not-scary, Teressa.”

“I would not have it any other way.” Teressa then asked Erick, “All the other fake monster forms are fair game, right?”

Erick decided, “… Yes. All the other monster forms are fair game. Just don’t make them loud.” He added, “And constrain them to the center of the yurt! No creepy crawlies shuffling across the corners of the room!

“I can work with that,” Teressa said.

Ragged words tumbled out of Nirzir, “It’s okay, Nirzir. It’s just illusions.”

- - - -

Twenty minutes into Teressa’s rendition of It, the clown burst into a million spiders that got absolutely everywhere.

Nirzir screamed. Teressa got blipped into the sky.

Erick apologized afterward, but Teressa just laughed.

And Jane, good natured, complained how no one screamed when she told the story.

- - - -