Chapter 252, 1/2

A week passed with little fanfare, a few emergencies that were easily handled with liberal usage of [Gate] and Super Long Range or Super Large Area spells, and a whole lot of talking with a great many different people. Mostly, people wanted to congratulate Erick on the successful instantiation of Ophiel. Ophiel eagerly wanted to participate in a ‘debut party’, which was the tradition of nobility across the world when their children came of age and Matriculated into the Script. But Erick shut that down politely, because Ophiel was only mentally around 14, even if he already had Script access.

They could have a party maybe next year.

Jane, Abigail, Beth, Candice, Evan, and Solomon, all visited for a short while, but aside from spending a day with the family, all of them swimming and talking with Ophiel and hanging around, they were all incredibly busy with bringing things out of the Dark and setting up for the Lifeblood Heart.

When the topic of the anti-meme came up, Ophiel briefly displayed a moment of future clarity again and pointedly called out, “No business! Only play!”

Solomon eyed Erick, saying, “So we’re not talking about it.”

“Solomon!” Ophiel said, splashing in the waters. “No business!”

Solomon looked at Quilatalap with the Lightning Shield for the tenth time so far, and moved on, saying, “Lots to not talk about right now, then.”

“Exactly,” Erick said, and then he waved his hand through the water and caused a minor tsunami, sending Solomon swimming. Ophiel giggled and all the girls and Evan resumed their games of tag with the new kid in the family.

Between a sudden deluge of gifts given by everyone across the entire world, and Erick needing to put down several problems happening across the world because they thought he couldn’t work his magic as well without Ophiel, another week passed inside Benevolence.

Quilatalap had to leave Benevolence in the third week after Ophiel’s birth because Benevolence was starting to itch against his skin as it always did to those who stayed too long. Thankfully, Quilatalap was immune to the Red Sparks by that time, which is probably why it took him over 26 days to get kicked out instead of the normal 5; Benevolence had been shoring up his soul. And now that he was fully inoculated against the Red, Quilatalap needed to destroy and remake every single phylactery he had ever made. First, though, he created a phylactery for Erick to squirrel away on Yggdrasil inside Benevolence.

And then he left to travel around the world, remaking his soul depositories.

The Red Sparks did not interfere with Erick all that time, and Erick did not have another incident regarding them ever since he stepped foot inside Benevolence. They didn’t interfere with Quilatalap, either, and Erick checked in on the man daily to be sure.

This was the first time Erick had ever spent any great length of time inside Benevolence, which was not that surprising to him since there were always problems in the real world to solve and Benevolence was a peaceful land where nothing happened except prognostication. But with Ophiel here, growing up, Benevolence became a land of 1 playful child in 10 bodies, and a father who was struggling to keep up, but in a happy sort of way.

Erick also spent days with Yggdrasil, too, sitting on his roots, talking about this or that. With Erick ‘not really doing anything’ and always being nearby, Yggdrasil eagerly took the time to speak with him about everything happening everywhere, especially inside the House, where Yggdrasil had his office of helping people. ‘What would you do here?’ ‘How would you help this person?’ ‘I met this grandmother who was having this problem with her grandson and this complication with her granddaughter-in-law; how would you help?’

Yggdrasil also sometimes just plucked people out of trouble here and there across the world, opening [Gate]s for some bleeding person, or crying person, or lonely person to fall into, and then stay for a moment or a day in peace and quiet upon a distant gateplate of Benevolence. There, those guests of Benevolence would eat from fruit trees growing on the sandy banks of floating rivers, and sleep upon soft grasses under a never-dark sky, before they got up and left one way or another, with a less-tattered soul and a healed body. Yggdrasil rarely interacted with those people unless they called out, or if they needed real help.

Erick wasn’t quite sure how Yggdrasil was doing that.

“Mainly the knowing to help someone, somewhere,” Erick said. “I’m not clear on that.”

Yggdrasil simply answered, “I feel a pain, and then I help heal that pain. It’s more like scratching an itch than anything else. Working in the House makes more sense than opening [Gate]s for random people to fall into. The House does directed help. That’s easy to understand.”

“Huh. Well, that’s kinda really nice, Yggdrasil. How often does that happen?”

“A few times a month? Sometimes I rescue animals, too. There was a cow that stayed on the Nelboor gateplate for a month. She was a great big orange shaggy thing. She eventually took a dip in the river and kept right on swimming down, through the bottom. I followed her with an Eye and she ended up walking out of a puddle on a farm, into the arms of some old man; she was his prized cow who had almost died to his son trying to butcher her for meat, to hurt his father.”

Erick went, “… Huh.”

Ophiel’s assistance with interlopers was much more direct. He also somehow knew where people needed help, so he snapped [Gate]s across people who didn’t expect help at all, grabbing people in the middle of combat who were fighting for their lives. This ended poorly for Ophiel half the time.

The fourth time some adventurers accidentally-on-purpose killed Ophiel was when Erick got truly angry.

“OPHIEL!” Erick yelled, sitting in the living room, catching up on some paperwork for the House, while also watching Ophiel spawn from the Ophiel in the house, who had been playing with blocks on the living room floor. Both Ophiel winced. Erick stared at his son and controlled his voice, “Do NOT rescue people without being prepared to rescue those people! It might take you an hour to manually cast an [Animadversion] but that shield lasts forever.”

Yggdrasil was sitting in his orcol form to the side of the room, reading quietly, but now he was watching Ophiel get yelled at. He seemed to share Erick’s disappointment in Ophiel.

“But Daaaaaad!”

“No buts! Stop getting yourself killed! That’s an order!” Erick forced himself to calm— And then a lightbulb went off. “You know what. All the girls and Evan and Solomon have been asking to know things that I won’t tell them, and Solomon wants to visit you, so they’re going to come in here and you’re going to start training with them.”

Ophiel made a face. “… Do I have to?”

“YES.”

Ophiel sighed big time, saying, “FINE.” And then he bargained, “How about after you release Yggdrasil? He knows stuff I don’t know and I think we need that before other people get involved.”

Yggdrasil raised his eyebrows. He knew about Ophiel’s time displacement, and he was interested in being himself, so it was hard to pin down which part of Ophiel’s words were more interesting to him.

“… I suppose I do need to press the issue with Rozeta. It’s been much more than a week.”

“And your soul is healed,” Yggdrasil said, with a bit too much enthusiasm.

Erick couldn’t blame Yggdrasil too much for that enthusiasm, but he could blame him a little. “Ophiel is still vulnerable, Yggdrasil—”

“He’s going to be vulnerable for 25 years!” Yggdrasil exclaimed.

“Butthead!”

“Fluffbrain!”

“Stop it, both of you.” Erick said to Ophiel, “That’s a smart bargain you tried to do by distracting me with Yggdrasil’s issues and then gating your participation behind his seal release. You’re not using the Lightning Path on me, are you?”

One Ophiel managed to look completely oblivious.

The other Ophiel looked down and away, as though he had been caught.

Erick frowned a little. “Don’t use magic to solve social problems, Ophiel.”

“But it makes it so much easier for everyone!” Ophiel said, “You got what you wanted and I got what I wanted!”

Yggdrasil said, “And I would like to be unsealed, too.”

Erick decided not to argue the point at all. He had given the lesson. Time and personal failure were always better teachers than the words of parents; all Erick could hope to do was to ensure that enough lessons got through to stave off the worst of the bad ends.

“… I still don’t like you using Benevolence against me, or against anyone you care about. It’s like someone using Mind Magic to solve social issues.” Erick added to Yggdrasil, “And I’ll work on that soon.”

Yggdrasil wasn’t entirely convinced.

Ophiel had a different reaction. The two of him paused. Then both of them looked at Erick. “… Did you use the Benevolent Path against me?”

Erick’s face scrunched in complete disbelief. “What? No.”

Yggdrasil smirked a little. “I think you might have, Dad.”

“I did not!”

Ophiel said, “Empathy is magic, too.”

“So is Intelligence,” Yggdrasil said.

“Words are very magic,” Ophiel said, sagely.

Yggdrasil said, “And he’s a Wizard, so you never really know with those types—”

“Okay! Okay. Okay. You made your point.” Erick got up out of his chair, saying, “I need to go talk to Rozeta anyway.” He glared at Ophiel, “I love you. I do not like to see you in pain. I certainly don’t like to see you die.” He lightened. “Please keep yourself safer, Ophiel.” Erick looked to Yggdrasil, “And you, too, Yggdrasil. I want you to be safe, too.”

Yggdrasil complained, “What did I do!”

Erick Looked at him. “Have you done nothing worthy of my worry?”

Ophiel’s black iridescent eyes went wide and all of him looked like he wanted to burst with information—

Yggdrasil glared at Ophiel—

Erick nodded, saying, “I don’t need to know everything about what you all do. I just want you to be safe.” And then he went to Ophiel and hugged the left and then the right one quickly, but both of them demanded extra kisses and they got them on the forehead. Erick moved on to Yggdrasil and hugged him, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead, too, even though he didn’t ask for one. Yggdrasil was smiling nicely and his hug was full of warmth, though, so that told Erick more than enough. “I’ll be back later and hopefully with good news.”

Yggdrasil smiled—

Ophiel said, “I want to come, Daddy!” And then one of him turned into a blackbird. He squeaked, “Twwweeee!” He paused. “Twee?”

The other Ophiel looked down at the bird. “My words aren’t wording in bird body.”

Erick patted the bigger Ophiel. “You’re not coming anyway.” Ophiel began to complain, but Erick turned to Yggdrasil and said, “Look after him!”

“But daaad!” said everyone.

“No buts!” Erick added, “And get your girlfriend ready for a visit, Yggdrasil— And don’t you dare say anything, Ophiel.”

Ophiel briefly pouted.

And Yggdrasil went still. “… Okay.”

- - - -

Erick stepped out of Benevolence onto the wide open prairies of what used to be the endless sands of the Crystal Forest, but which was now a simple grassland between several burgeoning towns and villages. He was well over a thousand kilometers northeast of the Greater Candlepoint area. There were at least thirty kilometers between the villages out here, in the middle of nowhere. The only visible thing was a road made of very durable rock, sands, gravel, and stone, and a line of light in the sky, about a kilometer up, following that road left and right. That line was a connection to the Node Network of Candlepoint, and it serviced all the little places out here.

For all that Erick had done for the world, there were only a few new ‘must have’ spells of the Script. Even so, only one or maybe two people out of every family purchased [Renew] for a point, and then spent another point on [Node Network], which allowed them to tap into the lines of light that kept defensive spellwork functional all the time. Even so, the Lighter’s Guild had a lot better spellwork than just [Node Network] to maintain the node networks scattered across the Crystal Forest; they had diagnostic and troubleshooting magics to ensure that there were minimal leaks, and that people who used the node network were at least contributing some mana back into the system. They were always hunting down people who misused the network, too; that was where they spent the bulk of their time.

Of course, some people didn’t use the system at all, and simply put up [Node Network]s around their homes that their families contributed to, which supported all the [Ward]s and lights around some of the more remote structures out there. Even in this world without [Teleport], some people still liked to be hermits, and those places were not maintained by the Lighter’s Guild.

Erick marveled for a moment at how different life was for him now that Ophiel’s senses were not there for him to use.

And then he got onto the somewhat-dirt road, and started walking in a direction… North, he decided. The warm winds of the land brushed against his face and curled inside his loose tunic and brown pants, and he wondered, for a moment, if he was underdressed. He was barefoot because the roads that House Benevolence had paved across this part of the world were suitable for going barefoot along their hard-pack sand edges, and Constitution and Strength kept any small bits of gravel from feeling like much at all. Not to mention his [Unbreakable Form], which was like he was wearing armor all the time.

Nothing was wrong with Erick...

But walking in the real world was surreal.

Erick had been ‘gone’ from this side of reality for almost a whole month, and after today he would probably go back to Benevolence to be with Ophiel a while longer and to give Yggdrasil some good news, which meant further sequestering himself from the world for a little while. Honestly, he was probably traumatized by the Red Leviathan; by Nothanganathor and his Primal Lightning.

But at least with Gatemaster, and the Class Ability to move [Gate]s around at will, and make them outside of the Script Second, Erick was able to keep tabs on the entire world easily enough. Mostly. With Ophiel, he could have put his eyes out there, to see what was going on. But with [Gate]s, all he had was his mana sense, unless he directly looked through the [Gate]s.

So that’s what he had to do. He looked at the world, with his actual eyes.

Like some sort of savage.

Erick kinda chuckled at that.

He floated tiny holes in front of his eyes, this way and that, to spy upon the world, to see that Eralis of the Songli Highlands was doing fine, and its Void Wall shaped like Rozeta and its Node Network were keeping the millions of people there safe as could be. The Wasteland Kingdoms were doing well, along the river that ran through the middle of their lands, where incani farmed the marshes and the lakes and the land didn’t look much like a ‘wasteland’ at all. Greensoil and its humans were doing fine, though there was still a lot of racial prejudice there, and Erick saw some dragonkin getting chewed out for loitering by some human guards on the street… Erick almost got involved there, but that would be overstepping. Treehome and the orcols and all the arbors were doing well, surrounded by the Forest of Glaquin on one side and the Wyrmridge Mountains on the other.

Yggdrasil was easy to see far, far in the distance, far beyond Treehome, from Erick’s kilometers-high mini-[Gate]. He was like a mountain of green fire, surrounded by a rainbow, far, far into the Forest, well past the Arbors and their similarly eclectic bodies of flame, or steel, or rot, or red…

Hmm.

Red.

Well. No Red Sparks. Just the normal red bark on Redarrow… Who was the prognostication specialist of the Arbors of Treehome. This realization caused Erick to do a thorough investigation of the tree, which probably caught his attention, but Erick was circumspect about it as much as he could be and no Red Sparks gathered in the air. Redarrow was clean.

Erick wondered if he was now traumatized by the simple color red.

Probably.

Not many Red Sparks in most of the world. Just the normal amount, really, which was almost none.

Phagar walked beside Erick, looking like his twin in every respect, except he was smiling. “Finally decided to come out of Benevolence?”

“I did.” Erick asked, “Any idea if unsealing Yggdrasil is going to happen?”

“It could happen. I need to know why, though. Also why you won’t let any mortals touch your mind, why Quilatalap has the Shield, and why he’s acting cagey with mental barriers up tall, and why you weren’t willing to spill the secrets to your family, either.”

“Ahh… So did Rozeta hit a roadblock in discussions? Or she simply decided ‘no’?”

Phagar said, “You’re avoiding the question.”

“I am; yes.”

Erick was also watching the world for Red Sparks. None seemed to be approaching, which was great, but also suspicious. Erick opened a good thirty tiny [Gate]s, most of them into nowhere in particular; the air high in the sky in several places across the Surface, inside some major tunnels of the Underworld, a few places closer to the Core, but not in the Core at all. Erick kept his Domain heavily pressed against them all to ensure nothing came through, not even the Domains of monsters down there in the depths. He felt a minor pushback in those deep places, but nothing approaching the level of a Domain; just some auras.

Phagar noticed all of that. His initial smile turned into an even expression. “You’re avoiding something big, Erick.”

“Did you know? I had a daughter named Debby. She died not too long ago.”

“… I am aware that youbelieve you had a daughter named Debby, but there was never any soul there, Erick.”

Phagar was trying to gently tell Erick that he needed help, and that he might be influenced by something that did not exist. Perhaps Melemizargo was fucking with him. Perhaps he had stared too long at the mana, and the mana was influencing him with possibilities that did not exist. Phagar didn’t want to say that, though, because to say it was either to be incredibly rude or to be met with disbelief. Anything more than what he had already said would have been pushing the issue too far.

Erick tried a different tack, saying, “All this New Cosmology has people from other lands constantly visiting Veird. We call them planars. Outworlders. Outsiders. A few different names for them; all meanings are the same. People from outside Veird, like me.” Erick looked up and out. “Most people assume they come here as a vagary of magic. Accidents. Perhaps some do come here as accidents. But the fact remains that they exist out there, and something is stopping us from being a part of that larger community.” Erick looked to Phagar, saying, “Melemizargo is not a problem. I would bet my life on that fact on most days, especially considering how close we’ve come to the Sundering Search, to figuring out that most evil of Evils, and also considering all the good things we’ve pulled out of the Dark, to stabilize Veird.”

Phagar looked at Erick a moment longer, then he turned his face forward and simply walked alongside Erick. Northern winds blew the smell of greenery across the land. It smelled a little bit like flowers. A little bit like moisture and rot. New life, and the like.

Erick and the God of the End and Time walked in thoughtful silence for a little while.

Phagar asked, “Would Yggdrasil allow people to come to all his hidden locations, to check to make sure he isn’t making seeds?”

“I’ll ask him. He might say yes. What happens if he does?”

“Then we go back to the Relevant Entities with that development and see how the vote shakes out.”

“How is the vote looking right now?”

“Not great.”

“How would a voluntarily monitored Yggdrasil make the vote shake out?”

“Better than ‘not great’.”

Erick walked along, thinking.

Did he tell Phagar about the Red Leviathan? Did he throw out those Big Names that would draw attention? Could he go back to Benevolence and invite Phagar in there? Or would that be inviting the Red Sparks into his sanctuary, and dooming himself and everyone else?

Erick had not been taking it truly easy these last weeks. He had been looking at the world from ten thousand angles, viewing the Red working its magic everywhere. He had had long talks with Melemizargo, and Quilatalap. Ophiel could talk about this stuff but was too young to discuss the topic at length. Yggdrasil had not been a part of those talks. Erick suspected that Yggdrasil didn’t know about any of those Red Talks with anyone inside Benevolence, which was only possible through any number of explanations, but there was no reason to go exploring that problem right now, so Erick hadn’t talked about any of this with Yggdrasil at all. When Yggdrasil separated, he could send the big guy a huge [Telepathy] packet to detail everything...

… Erick wondered if he could ‘info bomb’ other people with a deep explanation of the Red Sparks and rapidly bring individuals up to speed on this whole problem, without the Red Sparks being able to act fast enough… It probably wouldn’t work that way. Erick could already see the Red problem forming in the air around him as he considered info bombing Phagar through one of Phagar’s head priests. Maybe Xerixio down at the Grand Unified Cathedral of Candlepoint? Phagar’s Head Priest was a rather great old man.

Red Sparks crawled through the air, touching Erick and Phagar and passing right through both of them. Nothanganathor’s Sight was not upon them, but his Element was doing its automatic thing right now, trying to latch on to the worst possible futures and make them happen, or maybe to prevent others from knowing about him. The Red couldn’t actually touch Erick or Phagar, though, which was informative.

It could probably touch them if Erick poked at them, though.

Red Sparks tended to cling and activate when someone poked at them.

Erick had avoided every single Big Conversation with everyone else because every time he spoke to others anywhere near the real world, he imagined divulging information, and then Red Sparks would begin to gather, like the charge before a storm.

Erick changed tacks again. “You never tell anyone what you see, but you see everything, yes? The whole multiversal possibility arrayed against us, and for us. All the different ways Veird can either succeed or fail long-term.”

“I do not see everything—”

Erick almost gasped when Phagar said that. As it was, he stopped in his tracks, right in the middle of a crossroads.

Phagar eyed him, then stopped with him, eyeing him as he continued, “… Though I do see a great majority. Hmm. Erick?”

Erick’s mind was whirring.

Phagar said, “Seems you have realized something big.”

Phagar was the arbiter of the God Pact; the thing which Erick suspected was the main reason how Veird had managed to keep and stay ahead of Nothanganathor all this time. And if Phagar couldn’t see the Red Sparks, it was because... He existed outside of alignment with the Red Sparks, maybe? Erick had just made that up; ‘alignment’. But it seemed correct. Phagar and —now that Erick was thinking of it— maybe all the other gods who were part of the God Pact, literally could not interact with the Red Sparks because they were on a different wavelength than the Red Sparks. If they did interact with the Red Sparks, then they ended up falling off the God Pact, leaving the other gods behind… Maybe.

But the God Pact remained, and the pieces of the gods who chose to ignore the Red remained.

Melemizargo was a god, though, and he was heavily affected by the Red Sparks, but he had a physical body, so...

Erick had lost his train of thought because there were too many holes in that burgeoning theory.

Was the God Pact stable because Phagar was more powerful than Nothanganathor? Or was Veird outrunning Nothanganathor through multiversal shenanigans? Or was something else going on there?

No way to know until it was too late, and it was infuriating to not know exactly how this shit worked. ‘A Wizard Is Doing This’ was probably the best explanation. Wizards inflicting pain, Gods saying ‘nuh uh!’, and thus the conflict between realities…

Which was probably exactly right.

There was one test he coulddo to understand what was happening here. He just didn’t want to, because the ‘good’ result was all of Veird being put into the sights of Nothanganathor, which was still really bad, and the bad result was Erick having to escape the Red Realm again. Erick wasn’t so sure he could continually escape the Red Realm. Surely, if the Red Sparks were alive and controlled by someone —and they were, based on that Red Eye Erick had seen last month— then that person would directly confront Erick eventually, and with his full power.

Erick looked at the god who looked like him.

He saw Benevolence trying to guide him away from this action.

And yet, he knew this was the right action to take.

The Path shifted; Erick had made it shift.

And Erick asked, “How secure can you make an area?”

A shadow rose from the side of the road, poking into the daylight.

Melemizargo said, “We’re not ready for this.”

Phagar smiled a little and the world timed out.

The very air froze. The light of the sun went out. Nothing moved at all, except for Erick, Melemizargo, and Phagar, all of them standing upon an unimportant crossroads northeast of the Greater Candlepoint area, like they were inside a bubble of muted light and all the world was gone. Phagar almost said something—

But Erick instantly said, “I need to know that the rest of the God Pact world still exists as I speak to you, Phagar. Can you do that?”

Phagar paused for a moment, then said, “Yes. All the rest of the world still exists. We’re in a time apart; nothing else happens beyond this land.”

“Good.” Erick began, “Do you know of the Red Sp—”

“It’s not going to work like that, Erick,” Melemizargo’s shadow said, interrupting him, as though he was fearful of the Red appearing. “We’re not ready for this and all these gods are figments in the mana.I told you already: Debby tried to speak to Phagar and Rozeta, and both of them simply forgot what they were told. Debby tried Rozeta twice, both times Rozeta seemedlike she would be able to do something, but then Rozeta did nothing because she forgot.” Melemizargo looked at Phagar, who looked concerned, and added, “And if youtry to interact with Phagar in this way then I am not sure what the outcome will be. Bad, I assume.”

Erick said, “I heard you, but this could work. Besides that, I want Yggdrasil released, and that vote needs to happen in a certain way, and soon.”

“I’ll work on that.” Melemizargo said, “But will you please be more careful when dealing with gods. Your chaos is astounding and I didn’t even see this happening, and that worries me.”

“I didn’t see it happening either, Melemizargo,” Phagar said to the shadows. “It’s hard for me to predict anything in this conversation, or past this area of severed time. But I assume this has to do with the anti-meme and the Sundering Search.” Phagar said to Erick. “If the danger of me knowing the truth is too much, then I will lose my memory after this moment, and that is not a large worry. I simply don’t have a corporeal form, so if this part of me comes back to the whole with intolerable memories, then I will cut it off and never know what you said, but I will know that some interaction had taken place and that the outcome was a cutting. Rozeta does the same thing. All gods have this capability so as not to infect the whole with something intolerable. It’s why we could ‘fall to Veird’ in the first place, and why Melemizargo calls us all phantoms. Because we are phantoms. Veird could never have held our true forms at all.”

“… I didn’t know any of that,” Erick said. And then he asked, “So this conversation with you does not matter?”

“No, it does. But only if my larger self determines it does, which it will not based on the words already said here. It will think that you have infected this part of me with a memetic threat that even I could not overcome. The outcome of this moment will likely be everyone leaving you alone, and your threat level rising high, and Rozeta telling me that I should have known better than to get into this conversation with you.” Phagar said, “It’s honestly terrifying, Erick, because it’s not often that I die, even in smaller pieces.”

“Exactly!” Melemizargo said to Erick, “Phantoms. Just like I said. On the off chance that they decided to accept the parts that you infect with the Red, then bad things could happen. We’re not ready for this, Erick.”

Erick frowned. “Fine. Good to know how gods actually work, though. Didn’t know that before.”

Melemizargo huffed in annoyance.

Phagar said, “Tell me the big secret, Erick. Let me decide.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Melemizargo bared his glowing white fangs, saying, “This is a bad idea.”

“I would side halfway with Melemizargo on this one, Phagar.” Erick said, “In that regard: Are you aware of just how much of yourselves have been purged from yourselves? With just the knowledge that you truly are phantoms, and that parts of you are simply not there, shouldn’t you know that you should know about the New Cosmology? Like. There is no way that you shouldn’t know everything about this land, from the part of the universe we are in, to the shape of the galaxy, to where the Other Fae are, to the reasons for Planars, to all of that. And yet you don’t.

“Is this failure to know a blind spot of yours? Or something more sinister?

“And if it is something more sinister, then should I tell you about it, or not?

“Adding to all of that, I have just had another big thought.” Erick said, “Melemizargo has previously spoken about this New Cosmology being a trap for him. Is there any way at all that he is correct? That, since you are a phantom, that something has tried to trap the larger part of you and all the other gods and him in this place? I don’t believe we are trapped at all. I believe that Veird is a lifeboat. I also believe that something is eating at you always, but you cannot see it. The ocean we ride upon devours, Phagar.

“So why can’t you see it?”

A moment passed in thoughtful, black silence.

Erick added, “And why do I sometimes have conversations that I am sure that Melemizargo has overseen, and that you have overseen, but that don’t lead to the Bad Ending for us all, and that Melemizargo doesn’t remember? Does every god constantly clip yourselves away from yourselves?”

“What have I forgotten!”

“The concept of Many Worlds.”

“I still don’t believe that one.”

Phagar said, “I’m going to ignore those big questions because those are the answers of gods, and we trust you a lot, Erick, but not that much. Never. Every mortal comes into godhood in their own way, because to do otherwise is to make oneself vulnerable. No god ever helps another rise to power without those freshly ascended becoming beholden to the gods that help them up. If anyone ever helps you to godhood, you should be truly scared of them, Erick. No good ever comes from accepting a rise to godhood—”

“I disagree when it is me raising gods to power,” Melemizargo said.

Phagar ignored the Darkness and said to Erick, “You should tell me how you became immune to it when we gods are not.”

“Benevolence is the counter.” Erick said, “Everyone thinks that Benevolence will one day go bad, or that someone will figure out a way to make Benevolence’s opposite, and thus cause another Sundering. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, Phagar, that That Other Element was invented first. It caused the Sundering, and Benevolence is the counter.”

Melemizargo’s shadow looked like it wanted to say something else, but he refrained. He relegated himself to watching Phagar’s reactions.

Phagar paused. “… Well that would explain a few things. I assume that the Other Element is still here? Invisible. Intangible. The anti-meme. Hmm.” He paused again, and then he said, “I will be putting what you previously said beyond a little wall for myself to open in case of any Prophesied Storm-like phenomenon. What comes next is what I might allow through; that, and a personal message for myself. So. Erick. Tell me how to best help you help us all.”

Erick said, “I need Yggdrasil’s seal released. It’s fine if he has watchers. Melemizargo won’t be trying shit. The danger is not my son or what he can do, at all, and it never will be.” Erick wasn’t sure why he said the melodrama he said next, but he knew it was right, as he spoke, “Yggdrasil is the answer to questions I cannot answer, and which you cannot know.”

Phagar nodded. “Good. Short and poignant.”

And then Phagar vanished, the time bubble popped, and Melemizargo’s shadow drifted on the light of the sun—

Phagar came back to the crossroads. He looked a little miffed, as he said, “I am trying rather hard to not look at that tiny portion of myself I just sealed away, Erick. Please don’t go spreading around how gods work. Don’t know how you found out about that or the God Pact, or any of these larger secrets. They’re secret for a reason.” And then he relaxed. “That said… When are you going to invite us all to see Ophiel officially? I have a present for him. It looks like I’ll have to make one for Yggdrasil, too, if your message works, which I believe it will.”

Melemizargo drifted away, looking relieved.

Erick was relieved, too.

And so, Erick walked for a while with Phagar, talking of children and the future, allowing Phagar to see that nothing too untoward was happening between Erick and Melemizargo, and also to simply be a friend. The Benevolent Path gathering in Erick’s mind wasn’t perfect, but with every step Erick took, every word he spoke, he made it clearer.

Red Sparks touched the world around them, but not them directly.

- - - -

A fishing shack mansion stood poised upon a large white root that crested above illuminated waters, under a glowing, yet dim green sky. The sun was not visible down here, beneath Yggdrasil’s dense canopy, but the light of his white roots and his green canopy was enough to constantly color the world with soft brilliance.

It was nice.

Yggdrasil kept this land mostly in order, but this land was a part of the Forest of Glaquin, located close to the headwaters of a half-continent-spanning assortment of rivers. And the Forest was dangerous. Even in this age of dungeons, monsters of all kinds still prowled that dark Forest. The fish that came up that system of rivers, and the fish that lived here to begin with, were either fast or smart enough to get away from the big eaters, dangerous enough to be the big eaters, or prolific enough that their population survived through sheer numbers.

And then there were the orcols.

They were not the undisputed masters of these lands, but they were close.

They were out there on boats of all kinds, some large, some small, hauling fish out of the waters with [Watershape] and [Telekinesis]. Some men and women dove into those waters and breathed in those waters, their Abilities or spellwork allowing them to survive on air or water or others, as they took their spears and themselves to the deeper parts, to hunt out the fish that never came to the surface. Sometimes they hunted for food. Sometimes they hunted to kill. More often than not the big fish were more invasive than useful.

Those dangerous fish struck hard and fast, trying to clip off legs or arms or heads, and sometimes they succeeded, but then healing magics happened, and the orcols showed off how good they were at endurance hunting, at surviving blows that would kill all others.

Erick glanced down there, deep deep down, looking through Yggdrasil, watching as a man speared a false rivergrieve from the side and the eel-like monster whipped around, [Force Jaw]s flaring from all sides of its body, to snatch at the man. But the man twisted away from the multi-pronged attack, more slippery than the water around him, as the rest of his team attacked from the other side.

There were two heavy hitters and five on backup, with two of those five trying to learn how to fight as the heavies, but they were mostly kept out of danger. The heavies had some great friction-based magics that they controlled for more friction or less friction depending on the moment, allowing them to slip in and out of danger. Some of that anti-friction magic even allowed them to disregard some of the attacks of the false rivergrieve, but Force was Force, and it didn’t wholly care about if something was too slick to rip at, or not. The hunting team seemed to be doing fine, though, baiting the monster to attack and then falling away into the control of the anchors, who were part of the reserve 5.

Their team had two anchors; one older woman, and one young woman who seemed like an apprentice. They were responsible for creating barriers in the water, to control how the water flowed with Force of their own, but more so with water currents than Force since this was a false rivergrieve. Those eel monsters almost had [Force Body], allowing them to move through Force at will. It was a difficult battle for the team to maintain, but they managed. They didn’t seem like Mind Mages, but they certainly had some coordination going on in that sort of way.

Two heavies, two anchors, two apprentices, and the last person, a young girl of maybe 16 who looked like she didn’t want to be there at all, but she was still there, spear in hand, trying to stay out of everyone’s way and still get in some attacks now and then. She was a Metal Mage of some sort, for sure. She had bracelets wrapped around her arms, legs, and waist, and she moved those around in the water to move herself, instead of the slippery spellwork that the others in her hunting group employed. Her spear was also fully metal, instead of the bone spears that everyone else used, but everyone in the group used their weapons as extensions of themselves anyway, so it would have been hard to tell that without Erick’s extra senses, and Yggdrasil’s sights.

The odd girl out was named Darnella Bastion.

She was Yggdrasil’s ‘girlfriend’, but that wasn’t quite what she was at all.

Erick would have to wait until their fishing was done to get to know the girl, and he looked forward to that.

“Here you go, my dear,” said the old woman named Oga Bastion, who lived in the fishing shack with her family, as she set down a cup of tea next to Erick. “I’m sure they’ll be back soon. Rivergrieve sightings are never a sure thing, but the Bastion family has taken care of them for long enough that we’re rather sure we can take care of this one, even if it ends up being a real rivergrieve.”

Erick was not currently shaped as himself. Instead, he was a rather average orcol man of black hair and black eyes, wearing the suit of a man from House Benevolence. It was a bit of subterfuge that Erick had agreed to before he came here because Yggdrasil had asked it of him, and so Erick had agreed. Yggdrasil didn’t want to disturb Darnella’s life too much; she was already the odd-woman-out in her family.

‘And we’re not even really dating,’ Yggdrasil had confessed an hour ago. ‘We’re just… really good friends. And… I want good things for her?’

Yggdrasil was still coming to terms with what it meant to ‘like like’ other people.

Erick accepted the tea, saying, “Thank you, Missus Bastion.” He took a sip. “I’m assuming it’s usually a false rivergrieve, though?”

“Oh my yes,” Oga said, as she sat down across from Erick. “A True Rivergrieve is a rare sighting indeed. Yggdrasil ended up taking care of the last one to plague these wonderful lands and we’re thankful for that, as well as for the land to build this fishing house. There were never any opportunities for us nomadic fishers to settle down anywhere truly nice until he came along.”

The two of them were seated on an outcropping of the fisher house, overlooking the depths of Yggdrasil’s territorial waters. The home itself was meant to be a generational home with a good dozen rooms and several stories, but it had only been built recently. It was seated on one of Yggdrasil’s largest roots, about thirty kilometers from his trunk. Erick’s largest son rose upon the horizon like a mountain of light, supporting a green conflagration overhead, while the depths below were illuminated by distant, deep roots, looking like white lines far, far below the blue. There were other houses and structures like this one seated upon other massive roots here and there in the far distances, but many such places were smaller than this one. The Bastions had a certain amount of pull in their community, which is why they got this particular spot of land. But it wasn’t the largest ‘land’ in the area.

One of the largest roots to the north was a collection of roots and that place had a whole city built upon it. That ‘city’ was rather cramped and built taller than it was wider, but it also had a whole lot of docks that made it even larger than its footprint. That place was home to the Local Area Gate Network and House Benevolence's offices.

That minor city overlooked the artifact known as the Fishery that Erick had retrieved from the Dark for Yggdrasil a while ago. It wasn’t the same Fishery that he had given to the Freelands, but both were similar to the Million Fish Grass that Erick had planted in the lake at Candlepoint which facilitated the health and wellbeing of every fish that ever got close, as well as providing for general water quality and everything else within the nearby area. ‘Nearby’, in the meaning of this particular artifact, meant ‘within a hundred kilometers’.

So the fishing business was booming.

Erick was happy for them.

But he was also slightly worried.

Erick said, “I heard about the new Fishery they got installed down there, in the north. Do you believe the rivergrieve appearance was because of that?”

“Oh of course!” Oga said. “But you can’t have the best fishing ever seen on Veird without some monsters cropping up. Those dungeons suck down most monsters that appear in the area, so it’s not that bad out here in the real world. Kinda sad that the kids these days need to go hunting to find a good challenge, though. Back in my day, we risked our lives daily to eke out a great living...” She smiled at fond memories as she looked out across the waters. “But this is a good life, too.”

Erick smiled a little, saying, “It is a rather nice place.”

“Which makes me sad that Darnella doesn’t want to be a part of this life.”

Erick had arrived at the Bastion’s household pretending to be a part of an outreach program from Candlepoint Arcanaeum and University, for Darnella had secretly filled out some paperwork months ago to apply for a scholarship. That secret had gotten out to the rest of the Bastions two weeks ago, but they hadn’t been expecting anyone to show up for a while. According to Yggdrasil, the family was heavily divided on Darnella’s choice of futures. Also according to Yggdrasil—

“It’s all that boy’s fault,” Oga said, without much rancor at all. “Yorgol Forest. I assume you got an application from him, too? They put in their applications together.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss information regarding anyone except those who I am scheduled to meet with today, and even then, only with their direct family.”

Oga chuckled. “Good luck finding that kid. We all have bets on where he lives, but only Darnella can find him with any reliability. They both got those Illusion Magics going for them, so it’s no surprise. We would have grabbed him and gotten him adopted somewhere but he’s slippery. He seems to do alright, though. Growing into a fine young man, that one.” She eyed Erick. “You sure you can’t tell me about him?”

“I cannot.”

“… A shame. I used to worry about him and Darnella being so close, but… It’s probably fine.” Oga went silent as she sipped her tea. Erick sipped his tea, too. It was rather nice tea. And then Oga said, “We don’t have much money, but I’ll make sure Darnella can do this arcanaeum thing no matter what it takes. Is there anything I can do to ensure this happens for her?”

Oga was a kind matriarch to her family, and Erick saw that quite clearly. This whole conversation kinda felt like the conversations of another time, another place, half a universe and a whole lifetime ago.

Erick said, “The first year is usually the hardest because your granddaughter will need to prove that she can gain a rounded understanding of the world, from how a dungeon works to math to history to basic Script understandings and all of that. Most students from nomadic tribes without much formal education fail that first year, but since her background is a nomadic background without much formal schooling, her tuition is completely free. Housing, all of that, is provided by the House. Such a huge change of lifestyle from nomadic to sedentary usually causes problems and she will have to navigate those problems, of course, but money is not one of those problems.

“The tests at the end of that first year determine what level of assistance the House is willing to provide to students for the following year. According to the preliminary tests that Darnella filled out in her application, she will likely fall somewhere along a spectrum of 50% to 100% subsidized for her second year, provided there are no unforeseen issues.

“A lot of students choose to subsidize their lives through mana payments to the node network, but those prices are rather underworld-bottom these days, so most students get part-time work. Candlepoint has a great fishery scene, so Darnella may be able to subsidize her own life down there.”

Oga nodded along, but she spoke up now, saying, “I want her learning what we never had the opportunity to learn in this family. I want to provide for her because I know that as soon as she gets to the books she will never want to do anything but schoolwork and learning. So how can I help that happen?”

Erick nodded, saying, “I understand your family is currently divided on her enrollment. It would be better for her if she weren’t worried about leaving behind hurt feelings. That is the major problem that we always encounter among the children of nomads. Orcols especially.”

Oga got a far-off look in her eyes as she thought, saying, “I can work that—” She asked, “Did you leave behind a family when you went to Candlepoint?”

Erick smiled sadly, and then he put that emotion away, and said, “My entire world was gone, but I’m rebuilding another one down in Candlepoint. It’s a good place. Best place in the world, in my opinion.”

Oga nodded and Erick saw her heart go out to him, but she had other, more personal concerns. She decided not to pry at all, and then she started with, “How much is a loaf of bread down there?”

Erick answered, “Depending on the bakery, just a few copper to a full gold, but half a silver is normal.”

“What about eggs? Milk?”

Erick started answering questions about the cost of things. Oga was trying to gauge how much money to send Darnella, or something like that. Erick wasn’t entirely sure. It was a good conversation to have anyway since they needed to kill time before Darnella and the family showed up.

Half an hour later, a pillar of water lifted from the waters outside of the Bastion residence, carrying with it the swimming forms of Darnella’s father, mother, and Darnella herself. The other four must have peeled off somewhere else earlier, perhaps to take the kill to the city to get it vetted and get paid.

Erick stood and walked down to the landing zone, just below the deck where he had taken tea with Oga. He was the only one wearing formal wear. The Bastions wore skin tight swimwear.

Erick stepped to the edge of the entrance platform and stood tall, while Mister and Missus Bastion eyed Erick, and Darnella looked like she was caught in a [Force Cage] that was rapidly closing in.

But she also looked incredibly hopeful.

Erick tried to greet them, but Mister Bastion slammed his spear into its holder to the side and stormed into the house. Oga intercepted her son with harsh, yet quiet words, and he tried to brush his mother off. He wasn’t nearly as capable of brushing off Oga, though, for that old woman was onhiscase.

Darnella’s mother eyed Erick for a moment. “Candlepoint arrives earlier than expected.”

“Correct, ma’am.”

“You’re here for my daughter?”

“Preliminarily. She filled out the applications, and I’m here to assess her for a full scholarship for one year of university. Everything beyond that she will have to gain on her own.”

“She would have a better life here,” said the mother, and then she placed her spear into the holder beside her husband’s and walked off, adding, “Talk here in the open; not on our tea porch. Then you may leave. Darnella should be learning the stories of our people; not whatever fool things you teach down there.”

Erick nodded at the woman, then he turned to Darnella. With a wave of his hand, he conjured a table and a pair of chairs on the entrance zone, making sure to keep them basic, yet sturdy. “Let’s sit then, shall we, Darnella Bastion?”

The teenager’s eyes flicked to behind Erick, to see her mother watching from the shadows in the depths of the house. She turned back to Erick. Hope bloomed, and she rushed over to set her spear into its holder along with the others, before she rushed back to take a seat at the conjured chair, marveling, for a moment, at its solidity. She was envious. She wanted to learn magic.

And then she started talking about her qualifications and her hopes, and Erick knew her as a perfectly normal teenage girl.

Years ago, Yggdrasil had met her when he had adopted a temporary avatar form that he had cobbled together from his current one, trying to make himself look younger. That would be the ‘Yorgol Forest’ that Oga had spoken about. Yggdrasil had pretended to be an orphan of the Forest, and it had worked. Erick didn’t get the full details of their childhood relationship from Yggdrasil, for he did not ask, and he would not ask Darnella for those details, either.

But Erick did end up asking her, “You appear to be a Classed Metal Mage? But that’s not all.”

“Oh yes, sir!” Darnella held up a bracelet and transformed that black metal into a knife that went into her hand, and then back into a bracelet. “This is adamantium, too— Well. No. It’s not adamantium.” She looked ashamed that she had lied, but she hadn’t lied completely. “You can’t [Metalshape] adamantium. It’s just steel.” She pulled away her spellwork from the metal completely, showing it as plain steel. And then she flowed her aura into the metal again, and it transformed back to black. “I’m adding some strong Illusion Magics to the metal to make it function as adamantium, though.” She looked at the chair and the table again, touching the simple stone, saying, “I really want to learn how to do stuff like this. This is… This is quality work.”

Erick smiled a little. “How did you get into Illusion Magics?”

“Telling stories. Better to have visual aids, yeah? That’s how I got into math, too; to make perfect spirals and grids and… And a lot.” She looked embarrassed. “But math isn’t important for all magic.”

“Of course it is. I never got into too much of that myself, but a lot of people see great success doing things by equations and all of that.”

Darnella’s eyes seemed to light up as Erick spoke. “I hope to learn more at university. There’s…” Her sight faltered for a moment. “There’s not a whole lot of math out here.”

Erick nodded. Darnella’s practice math scores were in the top percentile of all applicants coming from this part of the world; from any nomadic background, really. Merchant families stood out in that particular arena as well, but pure nomads like the Bastions were always low on the math scores. Darnella was an exception there, most of all.

“Is that how you unlocked your aura, too? Math visualization with illusions?”

“Ah… That was when I was trapped under some roots trying to escape a monster. It was sightless and my illusions weren’t doing so well. That was when I learned that I needed metal to back up my magic. Simple illusions just didn’t cleave it. I kinda… felt a calling to the Metal. To this, actually.” She held out her necklace, which was little more than a leather thong with a wrapping of wire around a twist of what looked to be a tiny spearhead made of illusion steel. The light bent around it, making the spearhead look brighter and darker than normal grey. “It’s a good luck charm about making sure your spear strikes true through all the illusions of life. I decided to do the Metal Mage because of all that and… It was a contentious decision.”

“I bet it was,” Erick said, without judgment.

Darnella felt that Erick understood at that moment. She opened up a little bit more.

Erick spoke with the young girl for a while longer, and Darnella talked about math. Erick easily pretended to be interested in all of that, because that’s what you did for kids.

“I have a small dream of wanting to win the youngster’s bracket of the math tournament at Oceanside, too…” It was a lot larger than a ‘small dream’, based on what Erick was seeing, but Darnella moved on. “I want to come back here, too, but… When I’ve seen all the rest of the world, you know?”

Erick nodded. And then he stood, saying, “It was lovely to meet you, Darnella Bastion. Your first year is approved. You’ll be getting a letter in the mail—”

Darnella went into frozen shock. And then she squealed as she hopped out of her chair and grabbed Erick in a sudden hug, and then she backed off, saying, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Erick smiled softly. “You’ll be getting letters in the mail detailing all of what is to come. The fourth quarter semester starts in a month…” Erick almost continued, but Darnella went quiet and concerned. “Yes?”

“… There’s a guy who probably sent you an application. Yorgol Forest? He’s a… A good friend. We sent our paperwork in together.” With her voice full of understated hope, Darnella asked, “Did he get in, too?” She rapidly said, “I know his math scores aren’t as high but he’s strong and smart and—” She cut herself off, knowing that she was saying way too much.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the applications of others, but if this ‘Yorgol Forest’ is a child of nomads and he passed the application tests as well as you, even if his math was not as good, then his chances are rather high that he’ll get a visit from someone like me.”

Darnella wasn’t fully happy with that answer, but she decided to let that answer be enough. She nodded.

Erick tried to have some final words with the parents, but Oga was the one to see him off, saying, “I’ll make them understand, sir. This is good for Darnella; we all know that, even if we don’t say it.”

Darnella blushed.

Erick nodded, and then he called out to the air, “Yggdrasil. Back to Candlepoint, please.”

A [Gate] opened up on the edge of the entrance platform, Erick took a bow while the family stood in awe and Oga elbowed her son, muttering, ‘I told you he was for real’, and then Erick left.