Chapter 166, 1/2

Darabella said, “So! I need to move some things around and then we can get down to carving.”

With a tap of her wooden knife upon the white stone table, runes lit up around the metallic edge. The stone pulled away from the adamantium sword and solidified under the black metal. Darabella grabbed the weapon with her free hand and tossed it on a nearby stone counter, where it chipped the counter and clattered against the wall, but Darabella didn’t seem to care. It was an adamantium sword, so the toss wouldn’t damage it, and the counter was easily [Mend]able.

Then she grabbed a metal cube out of one cabinet and a short sword out of another, and brought both to the white table. The cube was about ten centimeters to a side and grey-silver; some sort of high quality steel. Darabella struck the cube with her knife and the cube transformed into a short sword; a match for the other short sword.

“We got two swords here. This real one is great. This fake one is bad.” Darabella said, “It has no forging lines or— Do you know how to forge metal? Why [Metalshape] is bad?”

“I’ve not heard any real reason why [Metalshape] is bad for making finished products, though I certainly know it is.” Erick said, “I just got through with a lesson from Tharagi about proper tempering and annealing and casting and all of that, but his lessons were primarily around gears and making metal work with other metal. I don’t know much about forging a weapon, and while I can guess at much of it, weapon smithing isn’t something I am focused on, either.”

Darabella listened, and then announced, “You need to learn how to forge a proper weapon, but that doesn’t truly matter for runes— It matters, for sure, but let’s work on painting inside the lines before we care about composition and flow.” She gestured back to the fake sword, saying, “This one is worthless, but the shape is close enough to a sword to make it take [Conjure Weapon], which is the runework that we’re going to carve into it.” She gestured to the real sword. “This one gets the same treatment—” She turned to Erick. “You have a mana sense? An aura? Aura control?”

“Yes. Yes. Not yet.”

“… What aura?”

“[Greater Lightwalk] and a Domain of Light. Though I have many other types of spell auras if you think one of them would be better.”

Darabella narrowed her eyes at him. Then she decided, “The ones you mention; those are good. Domains are good for this. You can fix a lack of skill with enough power, and a Domain paired with an Elemental Body certainly qualifies for that.” She turned to her short swords, saying, “Now watch me inscribe these two, and tell me what you see. Use whatever senses you have.” She tapped the stone table with her knife, causing the white stone to grab onto the knives and hold them still. “Tell me if you get uncomfortable. A lot of people tell me they don’t like my Domain.”

Erick kept himself calm, for he had his own Domain sitting at his back that was ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Still, someone else using a Domain around him did temporarily send his paranoia spiking, setting him on edge.

… It was very possible that having his own Domain active all the time is what set a lot of other people on edge around him.

As soon as Erick had that thought, he decided that if his Domain was a problem, then other people were just going to have to suffer his presence; he wasn’t turning his [Lodestar] off unless he absolutely had to, and probably not even then if he had any say in the matter.

Darabella took on an edge, herself, but hers was more literal. Light bent around her skin, fracturing into tiny rainbows that melded back into the manasphere in odd, disconnected ways. Her fingers seemed longer, but they weren’t. Her eyes seemed sharper, but they weren’t. Her hair was a hundred thousand individual knives, slicing through the air as she moved, but that wasn’t what was happening at all.

Erick took a half step back as he gazed upon the wooden knife in Darabella’s hand. A simple wooden weapon had become the edge of the world, like she had grabbed the horizon and held it like a simple tool.

The Rune Smith took her edge, and rapidly cut the fake sword with it, like she was dragging a knife through butter. Except the ‘butter’ wasn’t displaced. It was severed. As her hand-held horizon passed by, grains of steel flaked away from steel grooves like sand billowing away, revealing writing beneath. ‘[Conjure Weapon]’; that was all she had written. It was an indelible mark upon the steel, and yet…

It was a poor imitation of the Ancient Script carved here and there upon the walls and metal plates out there in the city. Though the tool Darabella had used was magnificent, the effect was not that at all. This rune seemed lesser, somehow. Probably because it was.

Then Darabella moved to the real sword, and that made a world of difference.

Something inside the forged weapon broke and was remade as Darabella’s hand-held horizon carved away everything that wasn’t a weapon, and yet Darabella did not touch the edge, or the shape, or any structural part of the weapon itself. She carved upon the solid nature of the item, straight down the center of the blade, carving divots that made the whole thing both less, and more, than what it was before. All the while, broken steel flexed away from the weapon like so much displaced trash.

Darabella lifted her knife; the work was done. Her horizon faded, revealing her wooden knife. Erick was struck by the dichotomy between her horizon and the simple, blocky wooden thing in her hands. It was completely unremarkable, and impractical; if you used it to cut a cake, you’d end up with a smushed cake rather than a nice slice of dessert.

She turned to Erick. “Did you see?”

Erick took a moment to respond. “I saw some sort of conceptual carving that refined a definition out of the short sword.” Erick said, “In the first case, with the Shaped sword, the definition was barely there, so it was harder to carve away the excess, and even though you managed it, the end result is weak. But with the forged weapon the definition was already there, so it was easier to carve away the excess; to uncover the Truth of the weapon out of the raw material.”

Darabella’s eyes went wide. Then she dropped her wooden knife as she turned around and rushed to her desk, saying, “I need to write that down! That’s so much simpler than how I say it.” She grabbed a pen and her pad, saying, “Repeat that.”

Erick smirked as he did as she requested.

When Darabella was finished writing his words down, she brought the notepad with her to the stone table, saying, “So yeah. You got it. Form is not enough to allow you to carve a good rune. You need items that already have form and function imbued into them through the act of the creation of those items.” She tapped the table with a finger— She stopped. She began looking around—

Erick picked up her wooden dagger from the ground and handed it to her, hilt first.

“Oh!” Darabella took the dagger. “Thank you—” She winced and looked at Erick’s hand, worry in her eyes. “Oh! Uh.” Puzzlement, then recognition. “Oh? You’re… not bleeding? Huh.”

Erick glanced at his perfectly fine fingers. Nothing wrong there. He held up his hand. “Was I supposed to be bleeding?” His [Personal Ward] hadn’t even flickered white.

“I mean... No. Ha ha! What? No. I don’t know—” Darabella waved him off as she nervously laughed again, saying, “Nothing wrong here! So. Uh.” She tapped the table with her knife and released the swords from the white-stone taffy. They clattered a bit. “How about these swords! Uh. Want to try carving into something else? Inspect the swords more? Uh? Something else?”

“How about we start at what it means to conceptually carve something.” Erick said, “I managed to put what I saw into words, but I don’t know what those words actually mean.”

“… Oh? Ah. Okay.” Darabella thought for a moment, then she said, “Let’s start even more basic. Language. What does it mean to you?”

“Definitions emplaced by people onto concepts in order to facilitate communication.”

Darabella smiled. “Okay! Yes. That’s a good one. Just let me… Write...” She grabbed her pad and wrote a bit. “Okay! There. Now: What does Ancient Script mean to you?”

“Not much.”

All the books Erick had ever read on enchanting were about using Ancient Script and various methodologies to create enchantments because that was how enchantments were done. None of them ever went into depth about that reasoning. Some of those books spoke about language as magic, but the only people Erick had ever heard talk about language as magic were Fallopolis, Tenebrae, and now Darabella.

Erick suspected this was due to shenanigans by the Headmaster, and the Arcanaeum Consortium which was the largest supplier of magical books the world over. [Duplicate] allowed the Book Binders to effectively drown out all other methods of publishing books, after all.

This was yet another thing to bring up with Kirginatharp the next time Erick saw him.

Erick added, “Ancient Script is not something I think in, or use often, and it was never something I used to converse with the mana, anyway.”

“Hmm. I suppose you did sing your songs to make Particle Magic…” Darabella nodded to herself, saying, “Yup. Your communication channel is messed up, for sure. But that’s okay. You can retrain yourself.”

Erick was skeptical.

“Anyway.” Darabella continued, “Ancient Script is a language of power specifically because everyone uses it as a language of power in order to speak the same language as mana. You didn’t do this, which brings you problems, I’m guessing. But that’s okay, for make no mistake: mana does not speak Ancient Script. Mana speaks in possibilities. Mana speaks in every language that has ever existed, or ever will exist. The Script, and the Ancient Script upon which it is based, is merely a forced, shared language, that every single Matriculated person is imbued with when they Matriculate.

“I will let you in on a secret. If you—” She paused. She asked, “Did you try to buy a weapon or something at Black Blade? Did they tell you about how we could imbue any spell into any item? And that we could work with you to make the runework, if you didn’t have the Ancient Script for your spell?”

Erick wasn’t sure where Darabella was going with this, but he was interested. He said, “I did go there and they did say something to that effect.”

Darabella nodded. “So here’s a secret: We can carve the runes for practically any spell because—” She paused. She asked, “You know that you can generally only work in magic that you have yourself?”

“Of course.”

“Yes. So. With runes, we can ignore that requirement of ‘having magic to make a magic’. We can make runes that the end user can use themselves, without having access to that magic ourselves.”

Erick stared a little. “Overcoming that tenet is overcoming one of the cornerstones of Script magic itself.”

And probably key to making [Gate], since [Gate] certainly qualified as ‘a spell Erick did not have’.

Erick tamped down his expectations.

“Correct.” Darabella said, “But we’re not actually making magical items here. We’re making anchors. Most of the time, all a person needs to do is to give us the blue box for the desired spell. Sometimes, we need to see the spell in action, but that’s not a big deal. That blue box makes its way to one of us Rune Smiths and we carve the words that match the Ancient Script of the text into the weapon or armor or whatever. That, along with a few Class Abilities, is all it takes to make an anchor for a spell we cannot use ourselves. The Script does the heavy lifting, because of its shared language.

“This shared language enables a lot.

“Primarily, this is the reason that adamantium weapons and otherwise grow more powerful with continued use. When you first start using them, that communication connection is weak. It’s just words on a weapon that can accept your [Conjured Weapon]s spellwork. But with continued use, provided that the runework isn’t damaged and as long as the runes were made properly, that communication connection improves over time.” Darabella smiled as she stared off into the distance. “Like lovers learning how to love each other.” She shrugged, and looked to Erick, “Or whatever metaphor you like.

“And so, to bring it all together:

“Before the Script, you have your mana, and mana is possibility.

“People also have mana, but the possibilities of people are a lot larger than the possibilities of ambient mana.

“Individual possibilities rarely interact well with each other.

“But the Script enables communication on a level that is impossible otherwise.

“So by carving a message with your own mana, into a language that is readable by everyone, the recipient can still imbue their own meaning into the message given to them, eventually making that message their own.

“But if that were all it took, then any language could be made runic, and that’s not how it works.

“Because you’re missing the most important step. You have to carve the runes with a bent of love and good faith behind it all, for the mana sees this good faith, and it helps to bridge the gap that even the Script cannot bridge.” Darabella got a happy look in her eyes, as she said, “Imagine speaking to someone you love, and who loves you. Someone who seeks the best for you. Who wishes you to succeed. Someone who never takes your words out of context, or…” Her voice trailed off. Then she said, “The mana already loves you. But it doesn’t know what you want. So you must make your message heard, felt, and realized, and if you’ve done it right, then mana will see your message and understand your ideas, making an anchor for subsequent love in the shapes of spellwork. If you’ve done your carving well, then anyone can see that love; everyone can leave their own mark upon your marks, reinforcing what you’ve already laid down, and making it their own.”

Darabella spoke with warmth in her voice and hope in her eyes. She spoke her Truth to the world, and the mana seemed receptive all around her, like it vibrated in sync, except not at all.

Erick felt the phantom joy radiate from Darabella, and his own chest swelled with a resonant warmth.

And then Darabella came down from her high, as she shrugged, adding, “I can’t make it any simpler than that. This is all rather magical stuff. If you get it then you get it. If you don’t then you don’t.”

“I think I do. I think I understand.” Erick asked, “Got an extra sword? I’d like to try.”

“Oh! Yes.” Darabella gestured to the cabinets, saying, “Go ahead and grab one— Oh! Uh. You don’t know where they are. I’ll get you one.”

Erick couldn’t help but smile.

Darabella rapidly moved to the cabinet labeled ‘training swords’ in small print, saying, “Everything is labeled in here, so you’ll figure it out eventually. But for now—!” She pulled a short sword out of the drawer, then came back to the table and began setting up the fresh sword. “—I can do this for you.”

Erick chuckled.

In a matter of moments, the carved swords were removed from the table and tossed in a bin labeled ‘for reclamation’, while the fresh one was stuck into the white stone of the table.

Darabella stepped to the side, asking, “So take your dagger and— Ah. You have no dagger yet? Ah. You need to practice your carving, first, don’t you. This is your first time doing runework! Of course it is; you said that already.”

“All correct.”

“Okay. I can work with this.” Darabella went to the cabinets, speaking to herself, “I know I have an extra dagger here somewhere.” She dropped her wooden knife as she searched, and she didn’t seem to care that she dropped it. Drawers opened, then slammed. Cabinets flung open, then slammed. She went to the other side of the room, to a different set of cabinets, and did some more searching.

Erick pointed to her desk, saying, “I see a label for extra student daggers in your top left desk drawer.”

“Oh?” Darabella turned around, frowning a little, as though Erick had said words that were impossible to be true. Then she hummed as she went to her desk. “Oh!” She yanked open the drawer and went, “Oh? Oh! Yes!” She grabbed a student knife, saying, “I swear I’m not usually this confused, but it’s not every day that a Savior of Light comes asking for lessons.”

Erick said, “And I appreciate these lessons; thank you.”

Darabella grinned; she had dimples in her cheeks. She handed Erick the knife, handle first.

Erick took the knife. It was adamantium and blocky, with a curved back and a straight edge. Aside from the full metal construction, it didn’t look special at all.

“Oh! I’ll get you some sheet metal, too.” Darabella tossed her hands up as she scuttled off to another side of the room where thin, meter square sheets of steel laid against the wall, saying, “You know: I heard about your attempts at making some sort of [Renew] spell, but we already got something like that here.”

Erick was suddenly all ears.

Darabella brought the metal sheet to Erick and put it on the table, saying, “All the buildings have [Lightward] on them, and any citizen can cast a lightward of any type into the runes we got set up out there, and that spell will then be forced into the proper shape and shared across the entirety of Enduring Forge. Everyone is required to spend 5000 mana on upkeep of the city’s defenses, or 10 gold to the defense effort. Most people pay others to cast the spell for them, and that requires some paperwork, but it works out in the end.”

Erick stared, his mind whirring with possibilities.

And then he hit a snag.

What she outlined didn’t sound like [Renew] at all. Maybe superficially, it did; she was talking about communal efforts which created a massive area of light all around the city, which drove back the more deadly shadow monsters. But this was not [Renew]. Perhaps Darabella had heard a mangled version of what Erick was trying to do with [Renew] and she attributed it to what they already had going on here at Enduring Forge.

Or maybe Erick was the one misunderstanding.

Erick gave her the benefit of the doubt, and explained, “My goal with [Renew] was to allow anyone to input mana into a powerful magical construct, effectively allowing anyone to contribute to an archmage’s permanent defensive spells. Is that what's is going on here?”

“Well yeah.” Darabella said, “Not exactly like that, but close enough. People gotta use specific low-tier spells; not just a simple ‘[Renew]’ and as much mana as they want to use.”

“… Are there any drawbacks?”

“Lots and lots!” Darabella said, “The varied lightwards cast by individuals are easy to forge into a cohesive, uniform effect, but sometimes people make their lights so wrong that they can’t contribute like everyone else. Those people are slagged, so they pay the fine or pay someone else half as much to cast the spells. The runic web we got can do a lot more than lightward, though. We have a seldom-used option to grant a city-wide [Absorption Ward], but in practice, that system is rarely used because an area attack can wipe out the imbued magic of the entire system. A much better option is the [Envelop Item] runework. Those work very well for general building defense. Most people who can’t or won’t fight are required to spend as much of their mana as they can imbuing [Envelop Item] or other spellwork into the platforms. A protected house is a great deal of defense during a wide-scale attack, anyway.” She added, “We also have [Healing Beacon] runework to use against low-power gas attacks and other aura magics. That works really well, because we have healers that can fill the whole system with False Health [Healing Beacon]s, effectively doubling the Health of every single lower-level person in the city. Not that there are much of those; most people here are at least level 50.”

“Yeah. That’s... Not exactly what I had in mind when I started talking about [Renew] to everyone. But that’s…” Erick said, “That’s pretty darn impressive. That’s… I don’t know what to do with this information yet, but I am thoroughly impressed.”

Darabella smiled. “How about we get back to making runes, then?” She touched the metal plate, saying, “Let’s see you channel your [Greater Lightwalk] and Domain into your dagger, and try to carve something. Try [Envelop Item]. All that spell does is a layer of dull, protective Force upon the steel, and it should work well with these metal plates. Simple and effective— Oh! No. Let’s try [Light Ward], first, since you’re already Light-based. Yes. Then we’ll do [Envelop Item] when you get good with [Light Ward].”

“Okay. Sounds good.” Erick held up the knife, and…

He wasn’t sure what to do here, exactly, so he started at the beginning: He tried a simple channeling of mana—

Erick blinked. A white glow came out of his hand, like normal, but that glow soaked into the blade, like water swirling into a drain. The black dagger took on solidness in the manasphere that was the encroachment of Reality upon reality. It was also wildly unfocused for Erick barely understood what was happening as his mana joined with the dagger’s existence; Sparks of light burst from the edges of the blade.

Darabella just watched, silent.

Erick tried shifting around his mana, causing flares and valleys in the light around the dagger. After several shifts and movements, he began to understand what was happening. He controlled his output of mana, smoothing out the release and allowing the dagger to take in what it could take. His Domain and Light soaked into the weapon, and stayed there upon the edge, like a force waiting to inflict its Reality upon the world. He held it like that for half a minute, gaining an understanding of how the imbuing worked, and what he was doing.

Darabella nodded, saying, “Good control. Very good control. Try carving. Try imbuing your idea of [Light Ward] into the metal. It’s okay to mess up. We got plenty of spare metal sheets.”

Erick took the weapon and… applied it to the steel. The metal resisted him, as metal was wont to do, so Erick applied more pressure—

“Pressure isn’t good.” Darabella said, “Carve the Truth of your message into the steel. Don’t actually carve the steel. Do the work with your magic, not your muscles.”

‘Carve the steel without carving the steel. Sure. Makes sense.’

Erick focused again, because his dagger was sparking again. Soon, a controlled glow suffused the tool.

And Erick laid the dagger’s tip against the steel—

He paused.

‘Oh. Actually. This does make sense. It’s how I normally talk to the mana, but different.’

In a moment of clarity, Erick focused on the Truth of Light, imbuing his ideas of photons and wavelengths and energy into a compact message that would fill the world with Light. The tip of the dagger remained on the surface of the steel, but the illuminated edge of his power dipped into the metal, then all the way through.

Erick moved his hand, his whole arm, carving out ‘Light’ and ‘Ward’ in Ancient Script upon the center of the metal plate.

When he was done, he stepped away. His [Greater Lightwalk] and Domain retreated to the small of his back. The work had been done. To Erick’s mana sense, the metal plate was now carved; its path through existence was now parallel to the idea of wardlights. To his actual sight, the metal had yet to accept its new Truth; the carved cavities retained their dusted steel, like metal filings packed into holes.

“Hmm,” Erick hummed.

Darabella tapped the steel plate with her finger, and the metal dust of the carvings fell out of the holes in the metal, leaving behind… Well.

Darabella hummed, then she said, “It’s… legible. I suppose.”

Erick admitted, “It’s chicken scratch. And I should’ve accounted for the holes that would come from certain loops of Ancient Script. I need to work on my penmanship.”

“No no no.” Darabella gave a little white lie, “It’s… It’s fine!” And then she couldn’t lie that much anymore, saying, “You’ll get better. This is why we have practice plates.” She tapped the remaining empty space of the meter-square plate, saying, “Plenty of space left to carve! So get carving!”

Erick asked, “Don’t you want to test this one for quality?”

“… Oh. Uh. Sure?” Darabella said, “I can already tell it's of good quality, even with the accidental holes, but if you wanna… You probably should actually confirm the quality. Go ahead!” She walked back to the pile of plates, saying, “I’ll get you another one and cut it up smaller, though, for other tests.”

Erick smiled, then he cast a lightward onto the metal he had cut. The spell soaked into the plate and the entire plate poured light into the room, acting more like a fluorescent bulb than a lightward imbued onto steel.

Darabella paused, looking at the metal plate.

Erick asked, “Is it supposed to look like that?”

Darabella broke out of her trance and grabbed another metal plate, saying, “Sure! Why not? Looks great!” Darabella returned and set the new metal plate on the table. Then she squinted at the brightly-glowing metal sheet. “Is that a normal lightward? 50 mana? Lasts a day?”

“50 base, yes.” Erick had only spent 4 mana, though. “Lasts a day, too.”

“It’s rather bright… But that’s fine. That—” Darabella tried pointing with a knife she did not have, so she broke off her words and started to look around for the knife.

Erick handed her the wooden tool.

Darabella happily took the knife, continuing, “That should last for two days, then, instead of one!” She began cutting up the meter-wide steel plate into pieces, saying, “Maybe more, since you used a Light-aspect Domain to do it. Errr… Depending on the modifiers, it might last a really long time.” In a few flicks of her hand, the metal sheet had been turned into nine square pieces.

Erick smirked, saying, “We’ll see.” He took the luminescent plate and set it down on the ground, out of the way. “But anyway: how do you make plugging in a lightward at one end of town light up the other end of town? And what about malicious actors purposefully marking up parts of the system wrongly, to mess up the lights? Like erasing the ‘anti’ parts of the ‘anti-Shadow’ runes I’ve seen out there.”

“… Hmm. That’s an odd way to put it, but I take your meaning and I am very glad that I specifically cleared runic web talk with Grosgrena.” Darabella held up her wooden knife and began forming a lightward in the air, as she explained, “This part gets complicated, but breaking it down into pieces and ignoring the difficulty of making it all work… Upon each platform, there is a many-wired system of solid bar-stock metal spanning through the platform like a giant spider web. It’s a part of the sewer system. The metal we use down there is not adamantium but it doesn’t have to be. It needs maintenance, but not too much.

“The original system was adamantium, but that got stolen long, long ago. Long before most people here were alive. Probably better that it was stolen before our time. When that first runic web was stolen, Enduring Forge almost collapsed because we couldn’t replicate that magic and the normal threats from the Underworld never stopped. We had to rebuild the system from schematics and old books while fighting off monsters from every side. These days we keep people trained in that sort of thing, and the system needs constant maintenance anyway, ensuring that people remain with the knowledge to fix or wholly replace the system, if needed.

“Anyway.

“Every house has a runebox that the resident can both imbue with power, and, with the help of a Rune Smith— Or anyone, really. You don’t need to be a Rune Smith to make runes— They string metal wires through their house, usually behind the walls, into prepared metal plates. Those metal plates, when properly runed, will begin to transmit light and other functions to nearby structures.

“It’s not really that simple, because most runework won’t work properly unless the runic system is whole and uncompromised.

“But it’s not that hard, either, because the spells imbued into the metal do flow, and they flow quite well. For instance, [Envelop Item] will be able to protect three stories of apartment building as long as the runework on the middle story is done properly. Explaining all of that is a very complicated thing that you don’t need to know about yet, at this stage of the process. But this is one of the reasons that only every other floor of a building is runed, or that only the floors and ceilings are runed.

“Because, backing up a bit, as you have already guessed, this is the point where we have to talk about security. In a truly connected system someone could inscribe bad spells like [Fireball] inside the network, and hurt everyone.

“Solving for the flow of magical power solves the majority of these issues.

“The runed web of each individual platform is actually split up here and there by nodes that only allow certain magics to flow past them, and alert when any non-standard spell enters the network. They are both connective bridges to make the piece-wise system act as a whole, and [Alarm Ward]s. These spherical nodes are the ‘secret’ to making the entire system work.” She shrugged. “It’s not that big of a secret, though. I’m sure if you walked around with a mana sense on you could see it— Oh! And the adamantium chains used to be part of the system inside the platforms, but that changed when the original web was stolen. No one has ever been able to steal the chains, for they’re much more secured against everything than the runic web was secured… And that’s a big topic that I don’t need to talk about either.

“Anyway. Now we have 3 separate systems with lots of redundancies built in. The chains, the platforms, and… Uh. We only have 2 systems. Yes. Only two.” Darabella said, “And that's that!”

Darabella stood there, gently smiling as though she hadn’t shattered Erick’s worldview of the top-end defensive capabilities of the people of Veird.

He felt a profoundness.

And then he felt a contraction; a harsh question burbling to the surface.

He asked, “Why not tell everyone how to make a system like this?”

Darabella rapidly answered, “Because it’s baby-slime easy to break. A concerted effort of a hundred people could bring down the whole thing in a matter of half an hour and it’ll take between ten minutes to repair it, or a whole day, or even longer.” She said, “We have a lot of backup orbs and runners to replace what gets broken, but we’ve faced threats that have broken the whole system wide open multiple times. That's why we have the evacuation centers.” She ended with, “Aside from a few niche utility uses, this system is more of a supplement to our people defending themselves from the dark than an actual protective measure itself. The runic web is not unbreakable. Mostly, people protect themselves, and the runic web protects their homes and mitigates encroachment.”

Ah.

Well then.

Erick tamped down his expectations. “That is a lot more reasonable.”

“Yup.” Darabella said, “And most people don’t like using runes, anyway, so it’s been really hard to get Surface cities to adopt runework. Even most Underworld cities don’t like the stuff.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Ohh... Could be any of a hundred reasons.” Darabella waved her knife around, pointing at imaginary forces as she named, “A lack of powerful people mandating and supporting runework infrastructure, which is its own ball of spiders, but even at the bottom of the stack, most people don’t have enough mana to support city-sized runework. Almost everyone in Enduring Forge is level 50 and with Scion of Balance, so we got that covered; other people are stuck in the shit. Add to that, anyone can carve runes if they know how, but maintaining a system like this is a communal effort. And then you got the lack of Rune Smiths out in the world, and you do have to be a Rune Smith if you want to actually create good systems—” She hummed. She said, “We’ll have to talk on that point a lot, later, because while anyone can do runework, only Rune Smiths can do the best rune work. That’s a big conversation; the expectations of working outside your Class. You probably won’t like that conversation.” She went back to the main topic, saying, “Anyway. Then there’s the problem that most people don’t know dirt about how to properly work metal, and that’s major. Then, back to the first point, you got leaders not wanting the people under them to be able to fight, like over in the Sovereign Cities what with their civil war, or with the wrought cities, what with their caste system, or Songli, or the Greensoil Republic, or practically every single Underworld city, and… A lot of places, actually. Most of the Surface is like that.

“But then you got the big, overarching problem: Everyone’s got their own methods of defense, and no one wants to try new things, because trying new things means mobile knowledge, and that means everyone will know how to tap the rocks under your foundation to knock down your house.”

“All good points.” Erick said, “I suppose a lack of metals is a problem, too.”

“Oh yeah! That’s probably a problem for other people, for sure.” Darabella said, “Not one of our problems, though.” She picked up a piece of steel, saying, “Oh! I forgot to tell you— Now for smaller runework it doesn’t matter, but for the larger stuff, you need to spend near the same amount of base mana to carve the runes as it would take for you to cast the spell yourself. Anything over 25 mana qualifies for this adjustment.” She set the metal in front of Erick, saying, “Okay then! I think I hit all the rudimentary lessons. Try carving some— Oh. Uh. There’s a few more lessons, for sure. We’re sort of skipping around. Uh. Back to carving?”

Erick laughed a little. The lessons were coming fast and disjointed, but he wasn’t having any trouble keeping up. Darabella’s teaching methodology seemed to be piecing together random puzzle pieces, then filling in holes before Erick fell into them.

“Back to carving then,” Erick said as he grabbed the metal and held it in his light—

“No no.” Darabella said, “Runework requires stability. Uh. You have to do your carving on a stable, unmoving surface. Or at least ‘unmoving’ with regard to the largest, nearest landmass. If you can accomplish this sort of stability with your light —Possibly with hard light structures— then that’s great! But stability is what the table is for.” She tapped the table, and began explaining, “This thing is imbued with a specific [Stoneshape] that all the Rune Smiths in the building pay into; all the rune beds in this building are on the same system, and you work it like this…”

Erick placed the metal on the white stone table, and tapped a [Stoneshape] into the working, exactly as Darabella told him to. White stone lifted from the table and grabbed the metal to hold it in place. Soon, he was carving [Envelop Item] into that metal, while Darabella instructed him from the side.

Soon, a rune of [Envelop Item] appeared out of the metal sheet, created with all the intent of layering Force over the structure. To ensure it worked, Erick cast the spell onto the metal, and a thin layer of Force held onto the working like a layer of varnish that was magically tough. The original spell would last for 10 hours, baseline, while inside this rune, it should last for 15; Darabella pronounced that carving adequate, but not that good. Erick could do better.

And then he did better, not three carvings later.

Darabella held up the latest carving and declared it good, saying it would last for at least 20 hours; double duration. Erick laughed, for this was kinda fun.

He said, “I’ve never been good at enchanting, so this was quite a nice change.”

“It’s not surprising that you’re good with this.” Darabella said, “But enchanting is almost as easy, so it is curious that you’re not good at normal enchanting.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Erick almost grunted out in annoyance, but he held that back and said, “Normal enchanting is not that simple.”

“Ehhhhhh… It kinda is. Maybe your Particle Magic creation soured how you communicate with the mana? Or changed it, anyway.” Darabella said, “But besides that: You don’t have a crafting Class so of course you’re experiencing problems with crafting-focused endeavors, like enchanting. Which reminds me: We need to talk about how far you hope to actually go with rune crafting.”

Erick would have continued down that conversation, but he had to focus on one part of Darabella’s comment. “What do you mean, crafting Class? No one needs a magic Class to learn magic, or a warrior Class to hit with a sword, or an enchanting Class to learn enchanting. They’re bonuses, but not necessities.”

Darabella scrunched her face as she smiled a little, unsure how to proceed. She acted like she was trying to be let in on the joke, saying, “Yes you do.”

“No you don’t,” Erick said, not joking. “My Juggernaut guard is the most skilled mana senser of us all, and she’s even awakened her aura and learned to Remake several spells. With gridwork, my daughter, who had trouble with combining even the most basic spells like [Fireball] is now making tier 4 spells. I don’t have any Farmer Skills or Class Abilities, but I bet I can out-farm any single Farmer out there.”

Darabella pulled back, nodding in recognition, but not in defeat. She said, “But, as for rune crafting, you won’t ever have the Class Ability, Greater Enduring Runes, which makes any runes I craft resist all forms of degradation for at least a day from the carving. This lets me craft runes in literal mud. And here’s the big one: I have an Ability called Greater Shifting Runes, which lets the runes I craft shift to better suit the spells imbued into them. The normal Ability that most other Rune Smiths have only lasts for 12 hours, or less. My Greater version remains in the runes I craft for one whole week. During that time, the runes will shift with time and use, uncovering the Ancient Script words and strengthening the Script meaning behind any of my runework, producing a product that is literally perfect for anyone with any odd spellwork.

“This is in addition to the normal way in which runes will shift with time and use.

“I could craft you a runic anything, for any of your odd spells, and it would eventually work perfectly for you. You want that [Undertow Star] in a pillar? I can make that, even though I have no idea how you managed to make that spell.” She added, “You’ll be able to do some of this, because runes do get better with time, but I can write ‘[Undertow Star]’ in Ecks, making an absolutely terrible rune, and those words will eventually shift to Ancient Script.”

Erick could only say, “… Oh.”

Erick would have to check his Class Ability options when he got somewhere private, but even if he did get a rune crafting option, it probably wouldn’t be something as nice as Shifting Runes!

… And. Wait. Even if he did get that Ability, he probably wouldn’t take it. Opportunity cost, and all; he’d have to get rid of something else and there was nothing he wanted to drop.

Darabella nodded, saying, “Classed Enchanters have similar Abilities that help them make enchantments. So if you were comparing yourself to them, then… While, yes, everyone can make enchantments or potions or whatever, if you don’t have the Class Abilities to guide your hands, then someone else who is actually a Classed crafter will always make a better product than you.”

Erick thought for a second, debating with himself what he actually needed out of runecrafting. He landed on an answer, rather soon, so he asked, “Without the Class, can I still craft runes that link with other runes, enabling a runic web?”

“Oh? Sure. No problem there.” Darabella said, “Runes do two or three… or maybe five or six things really well. Two, for sure. One: they allow for longer duration and provide physicality to some spellwork. And two: they can be chained together over separate systems of similar metal.

“But without the Class, you have to be good at rune carving and precise at your connections and have a lot of power in your system to make it work, but physicality and chaining are very much attainable.

“We even have a few non-Rune Smiths working on the rune web of the main city. My father was even one of those people; he was a Stone Mage. He’s retired now.” Darabella digressed, “Anyone with enough skill can make and install the infrastructure of a rune web, but most people can’t achieve the level of skill needed to do this outside of the Class. So let’s run through more basic spells, and get some of that understanding!” She asked, “Yes?”

“Yes,” Erick agreed. “Thanks for teaching me, by the way.”

“Oh yeah yeah. Sure sure.” Darabella said, “You can have that knife, by the way. I got lots.”

“Thank you, Darabella.”

“No problem, Archmage.”

“You can call me Erick.”

Darabella smiled a bit, saying, “Then I shall!”

And it was a genuine smile, this time, her dimples on full display. Darabella lost all of her fear in that moment, making her seem like an even brighter individual. Her hair, wavy and reddish brown, like a much darker shade of her skin, bounced around her shoulders as she moved, while her eyes were reddish gold that almost shone like bright, brushed copper.

Erick smiled too.

And then he got down to carving.

- - - -

An hour later, Erick had produced the runework for the full suite of Arcanaeum-required spellwork. [Husbandry], [Alter Friction], [Alter Size], [Force Platform], etcetera. Everything. Many of his inscriptions were a poor fit to the small squares of metal he runed, but he still managed to rune the metal properly.

Erick was rather amazed with himself. He even looked over to Poi, and Poi just nodded; he knew what it meant that Erick had finally managed to do some proper ‘enchanting’, even if it wasn’t actually enchanting at all.

It wasn’t long before Darabella announced that Erick was skilled enough to move on to weaponry.

[Conjure Weapon] went into a forged dagger, and made the weapon stronger for it. The original duration on [Conjure Weapon] was only 10 minutes, so it was easy to check if Erick had done it right. And he had! As Erick was working on something else, at the 13 minute mark, the spell finally faded from the steel.

From there, Darabella decided that they could move on to lessons about flowing magic through runic systems, allowing for multiple inputs and drastically increased areas of effect. This led to Erick speaking of Earth technologies, and of the similarities between runes and their systems, and wires and electricity.

Darabella gained a real interest in listening, and in understanding how, exactly, electricity worked, and how it changed the world. For a little while, Erick became a teacher, and Darabella giggled as she jokingly spoke of ‘a world run on runes!’.

The lesson eventually went back to Erick learning how to string together runes and how to carve them properly, but this time, Darabella’s nervous energy had been replaced with eager calm. Erick suspected that they could have continued like that for a few more hours, at least. Or days, perhaps. But bodies demanded food and drink and it was already midnight, by then.

The day had vanished.

And downstairs, a problem had been piling up; boxes with weapons were stacked up by the front desk, awaiting inscription, while the occasional person came in wanting to talk to Darabella, or something along those lines. The guy at the front desk had been constantly turning people away, all day long. One guy in particular had come in three times already, and this third time he would not be denied.

It was that guy’s insistence that finally ended Erick’s lesson with Darabella.

Darabella laughed in mirth at Erick’s mention of ‘Wind-powered runes’, saying, “I wish ambient mana worked that way!”

Erick smiled, and said, “Just need to find some way to—”

The man’s voice carried upstairs, “I’m going up there, and don’t try to stop me!”

The front desk guy whisper-shouted, “She’s with the archmage!”

“And I’m going up there anyway!”

Erick sighed. He still smiled, but it was fainter than it had been. “I have kept you from your duties for too long.”

“Ah…” Darabella glanced toward the staircase. She had heard the voice, too. And now she heard the footsteps, too. “Yeah— Oh. Damn.” She glanced toward the clock on the wall. “Is it one in the morning already?” For a brief moment she panicked, and then she relaxed with resignation, whispering, “Oh well.”

The barging man came up the stairs. He wore a cream and green colored suit, but aside from his clothes, the rest of him was rather unimpressive. He locked eyes with Darabella, then he quickly looked to Erick. And then he really looked at Erick, and realized he hadn’t been lied to at the front desk.

In one swift motion, the intruder turned around and went back down the stairs, calling out behind him, “Sorry for the disturbance!”

Erick chuckled a bit, and then he turned to Darabella, saying, “This has been wonderful for me. Thank you very much. But it’s time to stop for now.”

Darabella touched him on the arm, briefly, saying, “A pleasure to have you here, Erick.” She pulled back, happily adding, “Come back anytime. Maybe after you've learned how to properly forge, then we can get into some really interesting runic structures.”

“I’ll probably be doing that.” Erick bowed just a fraction, then raised, saying, “See you around.”

Darabella twirled her wooden knife in her hand in a casual display of competency, smiling as she said, “See you around.”

Erick took his leave.

- - - -

“I’m so sorry, Poi,” Erick said, on the way to the gates of the Smithy. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Poi laughed a little, saying, “You’re already getting me a million-gold armor.”

“Yes, but that’s like… Baseline of being a good boss. How about some good fish for dinner?”

“I will take that offer. There’s a place on the south side of the main platform that I want to try. They’re open at this hour.”

“Then that is what we shall have! And then it’s back to the room, I suppose.”

“Teressa could come back here with you. She’s probably up, though my communication is blocked when we’re in here so I don’t know for sure. If she’s not, then she can wake quickly enough.”

“Ah... Maybe I’ll do that.”

- - - -

After a nice meal of seared fish and rice and Erick trying to pay but the restaurant absolutely not accepting any of his money, while simultaneously trying to give him much more food than he ordered, Erick brought Poi back to the room. Teressa got to eat some nice leftovers, for she was awake.

Over their midnight lunch, Erick spoke of what Darabella had told him about runes and their flowing nature, both to get Poi’s opinion of what he had heard and to let Teressa know to keep a lookout on the ground beneath them, to see if she could understand what she was seeing down there. The runic web was an interesting structure, for sure, but Erick needed a second and third opinion (and probably a lot more than that) before he thought about implementing this system in other parts of the world.

So it was a good thing that not ten minutes after opening the paper boxes filled with hot, delicious food, that Nirzir and Jane woke up. They joined Erick and Poi and Teressa at the table, and Erick explained what had happened with Darabella and her runes again, running through the highlights of a runic web.

Teressa repeated a bit of what she had already said for the benefit of Nirzir and Jane, “The [Envelop Item] ability is massive. That and the lights are possibly the best use of a runic web. Even just a weak [Envelop Item] stretched over a house will prevent [Stoneshape]s and other spells from directly affecting the structure.”

“Seems ripe for abuse,” Nirzir said. “Scattered systems like that? Too easy to break.”

Jane nodded, then asked, “How would a [Force Breaker] work against the [Envelop Item] runes?”

Erick’s smile dropped. “Ah. I’m not sure.”

Poi finally revealed his judgment of the whole thing, saying, “The system is too easy to corrupt.”

“Oh yeah. For sure.” Teressa said, “Anyone with enough knowledge could destroy a normal runic web, or worse, stick [Fireball]s in the system.”

Erick frowned a little. “I’m sure they have safeguards against that. And against [Force Breaker] and [Dispel]s, too.”

“They have to; yes.” Teressa said, “But any safeguards can be ripped apart with sufficient force, knowledge, or power. Never trust a defensive structure to protect against the more devious monsters or people. Only trust yourself, and the power you can wield in that particular moment.”

Jane nodded. “Yup.”

“The Void Song works well because it comes from a central source which is easy to monitor and maintain.” Nirzir said, “Not that our system doesn’t have problems, too. But a scattered system? That seems foolish.”

Erick hummed in thought.

They talked for a little while longer, with Nirzir poking ever larger holes in a scattered ‘runic web’ and Jane wondering at how easy it would be for a well-made [Chaining Dispel] to take the whole thing down. Purely as a matter of security, after all. And then Teressa postulated that all they had in the runic web were utility spells, so perhaps their actual defense was something else much stronger.

Most everyone in the city was level 50-ish, after all.

They decided that the people were the main line of defense, so the conversation trailed off.

With a lot more questions on hand, and very few answers, Erick went back to the Smithy with Teressa in tow while Jane was on watch and Poi and Nirzir went to sleep.

The city seemed no less active at night than it was during the day, and Erick found that he really liked that. It reminded him of the times he visited New York City, or Chicago, but better, for Enduring Forge was truly a city that never slept. Half of the stores around the main city were actually primarily awake at night, and it wasn’t just restaurants and bars, either. Book stores, schoolhouses, places like that. Many places never shut down, and foot traffic never truly died down, either, but it was hard to call ‘night’, ‘night’, because the lights in this land never went out.

- - - -

Back at the Smithy, Erick wandered down the pathway toward the head office, where Grosgrena usually was. The Old Smith was asleep and elsewhere, but the ladies behind the counters were eager to point Erick in the proper direction to learn basic forging techniques. So Erick went to the forge, and found his target, who turned out to be the man who Grosgrena pointed out yesterday; Mordog, the human man with as much muscle as an orcol.

Mordog handed Erick off to a different teacher, though, once the gruff man heard that Erick wanted remedial lessons to ensure that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Erick was pretty sure he knew the basics, but he had never really forged before, so he wanted lessons, from the bottom up. Mordog seemed to take particular issue with this idea that Erick was ‘doing it mostly correct’.

“Yer damned definitely doing it wrong. Everyone always is! And no offense meant, archmage, but I got orders to fill and no time to teach if all you want is basic shit.” Mordog said, “My guy here will learn ya, then you come back to me and I’ll get you hammering an iron sword strong enough to carve turtles in twain.”

“Fair enough. Thank you.”

So Erick went with a man by the name of Obrik to a different part of the forge.

In a private forge, Erick learned the grain structure of metal and of forging temperatures by color as it related to type of iron or specialty metals. Of deformation stresses both good and bad, and of pouring and folding. Tempering and quenching. Different ways of annealing. How to temper different parts of the metal in different ways to achieve flexibility in one area and strength in another. He hit a lot of metal with lots of hammers of various sizes, and also his own hard light. He squeezed metals in giant presses. He had a much easier and faster time squeezing metal with his own hard light. He made a dagger that broke as he slammed it into a boulder, sending shrapnel flying across the workshop. And then he watched as Obrik took a dagger Obrik had made and shoved it into the stone, like he was simply placing the dagger back where it belonged.

Erick joked that he weakened the stone for Obrik, and Obrik laughed, and joked back, saying that weakening a foe is only worth 25% Participation, and that he had gained all the rest. Erick just smiled at that, while Obrik [Stoneshape]d the rock back into its normal boulder-self.

12 hours and a few breaks later, Erick knew he could have spent another month with Obrik, and he still wouldn’t know as much about steel as this man did, and they had only gone over basic steel. There was still rustless steel, and iron, and all sorts of magical metals that went into weapons, or otherwise.

Erick wasn’t going to be making any weapons, but swordcraft (or spearcraft or daggercraft) was the starting point for many Smiths, though few people ever mastered any of the various disciplines. As far as Obrik and the Smiths of Enduring Forge were concerned, even though they were some of the best in the world, most of them still felt inadequate compared to some of the masterpieces hanging in the ancestral homes of the nobility, or in the forges of their neighbors, or even the casual work made by people like Mordog, the Adamantium Sword Smith, or Idalial, the Adamantium Armor Smith.

At the end of it all, Obrik said, “You learned rather fast, but you’ve got a long way to go.”

Erick joked, knowing the man’s answer already, “Would you buy a sword from me?”

“Nope.” Obrik said, “I might buy a spoon, if you give me a discount.”

Erick laughed, and then he said, “So this was all truly helpful, and I know I took you away from your work. Do you want a thousand gold for the day? Or you got a going rate I could pay you? I probably should do the same for the other teachers I learned under, but… Well I’m here, and offering— Actually. I’m not offering. How does 2000 gold sound for the day?”

Erick knew it was a good offer, for he had heard the various figures passed around the forge by neighbors, or by people walking through, talking shop. Obrik had predictably started to sputter out a denial of Erick’s offer, but when Erick had escalated to 2000 the man couldn’t rightly refuse.

Or. Well.

Obrik tried to refuse.

Erick didn’t let him refuse, saying, “I’ll just hand the money over at the front office. I know I’m taking up your time. So I’m paying you for your time. Thanks, Obrik.”

Obrik frowned, saying, “Well. Slag. I can’t refuse that, now can I! Sure. Thank you, Archmage.”

Erick nodded.

Obrik bowed.

The lesson was over. Erick moved on to the next…

But first! A detour back to the room to switch out Teressa for Poi.

- - - -

On the way back to the room, Erick asked Teressa, “That wasn’t too boring, was it?”

Teressa had been rather attentive and interested the whole time, but she proved that Erick wasn’t seeing interest that wasn’t there, as she said, “Metalworking is amazing. I still can’t see the grain structure that he talked about, though I could certainly tell it exists.”

“Same.” Erick said, “It’s a Smith-only thing to see the grains, and it affords them rather perfect control over the outcome, but they still gotta learn how to forge the hard way. They just get a hand up toward true mastery.”

Teressa smiled.

Erick asked, “Would you want to learn some metalworking, too?”

Teressa instantly shook her head, waving a hand, saying, “No no no.”

“Well. Maybe not here, if that’s what makes you nervous.” Erick said, “But eventually?”

Teressa thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah. I could see myself hitting steel with a hammer.”

Erick smiled.

They stopped for a proper… lunch, yes. It was lunch time now? Maybe. Sure. They stopped to get lunch at one of the places on the north side of the main town platform. Erick had forgotten what time it was, briefly, but if the various clocks here and there weren’t enough to inform him of the time, looking up at the crack in the roof of the cavern was enough to reorient him. Mostly. The sun was somewhere high above, though even the crevice up there was so far deep in the mountains that the sun never really appeared. The shadows up there were certainly less than normal, though.

With extra lunches retrieved, Erick and Teressa went back to the room.

Erick talked a bit with Jane, who had gone exploring in the city alongside Nirzir and Poi, briefly, and mostly just for an errand for Nirzir. Jane hadn’t gone back to Hothalls, though, as Erick had expected her to.

Jane confessed, “Oh gods, dad. My stomach… I was not prepared for what ran through it. You weren’t here, but I was on the toilet for a good three unfun hours.”

Erick laughed loud and happy. “You could have [Cleanse]ed it out!”

Jane touched her still slightly red hair, smiling as she said, “I like the red, though.”

“Red is a good color on you,” Nirzir said to Jane.

Jane smiled wide and tousled her hair, saying, “I think I might color it with [Polymorph]— Here. See?” She shook her head, and her hair returned to vibrant red as she laughed. “Ha! How’s this look?”

“Looks great, Jane,” Erick said, sharing in his daughter’s happiness. He asked, “So what’d you all go into the city for?”

“Well.” Nirzir began, “I got that knife, and I want to use it, so...”

Nirzir needed metal plates to make a formation. She wasn’t carving runes, though, but rather she was carving Thunder Song Formations, which was apparently a Singer thing, and which might help her to recreate Erick’s Undertow effect. Erick was interested, but Jane was not too interested because none of the traditional magic making methods had ever worked for her.

But traditional methods and Singing had worked quite well for Nirzir, even if she was having a bit of trouble with her current project. Nirzir showed Erick three discarded formation plates and her current fourth, which might turn out better than the other ones. They looked like vibration-table designs, but with a lot more traditional magical diagrams stuck into them here and there. Erick wanted to know more about Nirzir’s designs, but there wasn’t much to say besides the purpose of the formation, and all the rather obvious magical diagrams sketched out in charcoal, waiting to be carved away by Nirzir’s new adamantium dagger.

“The goal,” Nirzir said, “If I get it right, is that my Void Song will produce its own solidified harmonies, which is what we call it when a Song is constructive. You usually need two Singers to make a constructive song, but I’m trying to do it on my own. In turn, this solidification will produce a stabilized song that will live as long as there are people to Drain.”

Jane was off in another room, and Erick was alone with Nirzir. It was not nearly as awkward as he feared it would have been, which he was thankful for, but he was about to make it more awkward, because now he wanted to talk about sound.

After a small deliberation with himself, Erick offered, “Want to talk about sound? How it works? The physics behind it all?”

Nirzir looked to Erick with a gleam in her eye, but also suspicion. “Uh. Sure. What do you know about sound?”

Erick ignored the barely concealed skepticism in Nirzir’s voice, for he had never shown off what his [Physical Domain] could actually do, had he? Erick smiled, as he asked, “Want to see which one of us can blow up a mountain with sound?”

A good four, maybe seven emotions passed across Nirzir’s face. Disbelief, first and foremost, but then came skepticism and intrigue. She grinned, unsure, saying, “Okay?” Then, more strongly, “Yeah. Sure. I mean… Maybe not a mountain, but—”

Poi’s voice carried over from the other room, “No, no!” He rushed into the room with Erick and Nirzir, saying, “Let’s not do that!”

“Bah! Why not!” Erick said, “I could put back any mountain I blew up… Maybe?” Less sure, he said, “I would need to make a mountain-building spell, but I could probably do that, too.”

“No no.” Poi said, “You’re delirious. You’ve been awake for too—”

Jane came up behind Poi, happily teasing, “I want to see him try.”

Poi instantly turned, glaring disapproval. “No.” He turned back to Erick, “No.”

Erick delightedly pushed Poi’s button, saying, “I might need to blow up a mountain some day. It’d be good to know if I could do it before I had to try.”

Nirzir spoke up, raising a hand as she did, “I’d like to try blowing up a mountain top.”

“Please no.” Poi said, “Erick. Go to bed, and if you still want to in the morning, then…” He tried a new tactic. “Destruction for the sake of destruction is just destruction. Don’t be that type of archmage.”

Ah.

The moment died.

Erick lost his joy. Jane lost her enthusiasm.

And then Erick started to think, and his emotions crashed even further down.

All of them were in friendly-yet-scared territory, and that territory was full of unknowns. If Erick started blowing up shit, then the people might become even more worried than they already were. Relations could deteriorate rather fast from there. Erick wouldn’t be the aggressor, but… if he went out and blew up a mountain, then he might be seen as an aggressor by anyone who might be watching. And besides that, blowing up a mountain for shits and giggles would give away some of his secrets. All of those outcomes would be bad. And for what? To learn that he was capable of blowing up a mountain if he wished? He didn’t need to know that.

A memory of Last Shadow’s Feast came to him.

Of standing in the sky, watching as the Aerie exploded, destroying a vast swath of the northern part of the Jungle, reshaping the face of Ar’Kendrithyst, killing many nearby survivors and sending shockwaves bouncing across all of the Dead City, setting it to ring like a drum. Erick’s skin went cold as a small trill of fear and hatred thrummed up and down his spine, then settled across his shoulders and neck.

There was no need to purposefully blow up a mountain; especially not ‘for fun’. No one needed to have that kind of power, and even if they did, no one needed to exercise that power just to see if they could.

“Ah. Yeah,” Erick sighed. “You’re right, Poi. I don’t know what I was thinking. I am tired. I’m going to take a nap.”

Poi sighed in relief. “Thank you, Erick.”

Jane eyed her father carefully, noticing his shift. She kept her own emotions guarded, too.

Nirzir frowned a little, saying, “Restraint is important, I suppose.”

“Yup.” Erick said, “It is.”

He went to bed.