Chapter 29

Erick had a long way to go before he started experimenting with electricity. He needed targets. He had no targets, except for the single jut of stone in the center of the roof that Al had put there so Erick could practice Aurifying spells.

… He needed to finish Aurifying [Force Shrapnel], now that he thought of it.

But first! [Stoneshape]!

Stoneshape 1, 1 minute per level, medium range, 10 MP

Slowly move minor amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape.

Exp: 0/100

[Stoneshape].

Nothing seemed to happen.

“A bit anti-climactic.”

Poi asked, “Were you expecting a quake?”

“No… Not really. But you understand my apprehension with new magics.”

“Quite.”

Erick focused on the stone roof under his feet. Ah. No. That was a bad idea. He focused instead on the stone seat Al had made. He pushed at the 3 foot tall stone cylinder with [Stoneshape].

Nothing.

No! Wait! There was something. A piece of chipped stone at the base of the cylinder wobbled.

Erick focused on the wobbling chip and it lifted into the air.

“Ah ha!”

Erick moved the chip—

The spell cut. A minute had passed. The chip skipped across the ground.

“‘Minor’ is very small, isn’t it.”

Poi did not answer. Erick didn’t really need an answer, since the answer was self evident.

[Stoneshape].

Erick practiced with the chipped stone. He moved it this way and that. He spun the stone in the air. He struck the stone into the roof, creating more chips. He gathered up the chips—

He crumbled the chips into sand.

Ohhh. Now that was interesting. He floated the sand—

The spell cut.

Mmm.

Aurify.

[Stoneshape].

Erick picked up all the sand, all around him. Ohh. That was impressive. Aurifying [Stoneshape] took a stream of constant mental energy, but the mental energy needed seemed to be directly comparable to the mana it consumed per second. Aurifying [Stoneshape] only took 5 mana a minute, which was an immediate 1 mana, then some small amount of mana per second. That fraction was too small for Erick to bother calculating. Al would probably know. Whatever the number, this was much less effort than a 1 pound dumbbell over his head; he could hold this mental strain for a while. So he did.

Soon, a blue box appeared.

[Stoneshape] has leveled!

Level 2!

Stoneshape 2, 1 minute per level, medium range, 15 MP

Move minor amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape.

Exp: 15/200

As the next round of [Stoneshape] began, Erick felt a difference in the spell. Not only did it cost more, but it moved everything around him faster. The sand and chipped stone moved like water though the air, instead of like molasses. He didn’t have any fine control, but he could move sand in streams and chips in swirls. [Stoneshape] itself felt more like a second sense, too. An earthsense—

No. Not an earthsense. A Veirdsense

.

But, as Erick thought about how to translate that to Poi, there was a problem. Ecks didn’t have a word for the ground like English had ‘earth’ back on Earth. The ground was either ‘stone’ or ‘dirt’ or ‘sand’ or some other descriptor. They didn’t pick up a handful of dirt and say ‘hmm, this is good veird’. They would say it was good dirt. The closest to the English equivalent to ‘earth’ would be ‘stone’ in Ecks.

So Erick ignored trying to properly translate his new magical sense, and just said to Poi, “It’s almost like I have a Veirdsense.”

Poi looked at Erick with a strange scrunched expression. “I don’t get it, sir.”

“That’s okay.”

Erick went back to playing in the dirt.

[Stoneshape] has leveled!

Level 3!

Stoneshape 3, 1 minute per level, medium range, 20 MP

Slowly move small amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape.

Exp: 30/300

Now this? This felt good. He stepped, and the stone under his feet flexed. Not very fast, mind you, but fast enough to be felt. Like he was walking on molasses that he could control. ‘Small’ seemed to be a great deal more than ‘minor’.

Wow. Aurify was great. Stoneshape was great. He could see where the skill was going, and it looked highly promising. If he had started on this route instead of that experiment with lightning at dinner…

Everything would have been different, wouldn’t it?n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Erick smiled. He had learned long ago not to yearn for the might-have-beens. [Stoneshape] was pretty cool, but lightning was pretty damn cool, too. And so was rain—

Erick had a realization.

“That’s where I get the water for my personal hot tubs! From the sky! Duh!”

Erick played in the stone for a while, but while his stonesense dipped into the ceiling of his apartment, he kept his play to the topmost layer of the roof. [Stoneshape] was a hammer and the world was putty. He picked apart the jut of stone in the middle like a child would destroy a sandcastle; in great big splashes of power, scattering sand and stone into the air. Fine control eluded him, but Erick mostly controlled the fall of stone. With enough material floating around him, he had an idea. He began to smash rocks together, forming irregular stones. That wouldn’t do, so he ground them against each other to shape 9 spheres of various sizes. The largest one was head-sized. The one Erick focused most of his attention on was only fist-sized.

Poi watched as Erick formed Earth’s Solar System.

Erick explained:

“My Very Eager Mother Allegedly Just Served Us Nine Pies.

“This one is Mercury. It’s a tiny red thing, blasted by the Sun, which is me in this scenario.

“This one is Venus. It’s a cloudy average sized planet, where acid rains from the sky and the very air would crush you to stand on the surface.

“This one is Earth. It’s where Jane and I are from. Only humans. No magic. This is the only place with current life in the Solar System. We landed on our moon, Luna, before I was born, and everyone thought we’d have houses up there by now. That never happened.

“This one is Mars. This red planet might have had life in the distant past, along with a breathable atmosphere. Some of us want to send people to Mars to see if we could live there. Seems farfetched to me. But who knows? Personally, I think we should try to live on Luna, first.

“This string of debris is the Asteroid Belt. It might have been a planet in the very distant past, or maybe this is just where the forces of gravity decided to put all the floating junk in the system. I certainly don’t know.

“This big one is Jupiter. A great big gas giant. The largest planet in the Solar System. Something like 1300 Earths could fit inside one Jupiter. It has a perpetual storm we call the Great Red Spot that we’ve never seen stop storming in all our observations. I tried to recreate that storm here on the sphere. See? I think I did okay.

“This is Saturn. A bit smaller than Jupiter, but it’s beautiful because of the giant rings. These giant rings might be from some ancient collision; we don’t really know. But the ring of orbiting ice and stone is constantly grinding itself up; there’s no chance for it to ever reconstitute into a moon.

“This is Uranus. Another gas giant, but smaller than Saturn. Uranus rotates on its side. It’s the only one that does that; it’s a little funky that way.

“This is Neptune. Another gas giant, about the same size as Uranus. Not much that I could tell you about this one. It’s named after an old god of the oceans.

“This little one is Pluto. It’s rather small. Smaller than Earth’s Moon.”

Erick moved the planets more or less on their corrects orbits. He did a terrible job of swinging them around at the correct speeds. They weren’t rightly sized, or correctly distanced. None of the spheres of orange stone matched the actual planets they represented, except maybe Saturn and Jupiter. But while exactitude was lacking, the emotion was there. The Solar System was Erick’s previous home, and something very similar to that old place floated around Erick.

Keeping the spheres orbiting was rather easy, actually. After some adjustments and some rearranging, everything flowed around Erick in a lazy, beautiful, diorama of a far away, eternal dance.

It was too much. Not physically; Erick felt that [Stoneshape] could do a great deal more than this, and especially when he got to a higher level. The spell was only level 4 right now; it had leveled somewhere in making the miniature Solar System.

Stoneshape 4, 1 minute per level, medium range, 25 MP

Move small amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape.

Exp: 35/500

This was too much emotionally.

He gradually gathered the planets and set them to the side. He looked up at the blue sky. Veird’s sun was still hours away from setting in the west. The color of the sky and the stars were close to Earth’s, but the three moons rising in the east were not like Luna at all. One was small and pink. The next was large and grey; almost the same color as Luna. The last moon was small and white.

Where am I? How would I find out where this is?

As if knowing what Erick was thinking, Poi said, “You should consider visiting the Mage Guild Library.”

Erick looked at him.

“No, sir. I am not reading your mind, but humans are easy to read.”

“Ha! I am, am I?”

Poi said nothing.

Erick nodded. “I should visit the library. But not right now. It’s time for some experimentation.”

Erick used [Stoneshape] to pop two spheres of stone out of the roof, then he set those spheres on two chest-high thin pillars about 5 feet apart from each other, on the very edge of the roof. Erick walked to the other side. Poi stayed well clear of whatever Erick was doing. Then he popped a small blue [Ward] around himself.

Erick turned to the stones on their pillars.

He paused.

He turned around and looked down. The ground was awfully far down. “Hmm.” He looked over to the stones he had set up. “Hmm.” Erick walked back over to the two spheres and shoved them back into the roof. “We can do that some other day. Let’s go to the library.” He picked up the Solar System to store in the apartment.

Poi was silently grateful. He did not show his relief in any overt way, but Erick could tell.

Erick didn’t want to accidentally get launched off the roof, either.

- - - -

The library was the smaller tower of the two towered Mage Guildhouse. Books on wooden shelves lined the walls here on the first floor, and as Erick walked into the middle of the library, he looked up through the center of the tower, to at least three more layers similar to the ground floor.

The bookshelves were ten feet tall and made of rich, dark wood. There were dark wood shelves, and even dark wood chairs and tables. Small wardlights sat inside conical metal hoods on the tables, illuminating papers and people at five different desks, each of them studying their own stacks of books. There was space down here for fifteen more students. If there was space in the upper floors for more people, then the library had space for maybe a hundred students at a time.

There had to be at least 100000 books here; maybe a lot more.

Tamarim whispered beside him, “It’s not the largest library in a thousand kilometers, but it’s pretty big. Looking for anything in particular, Archmage? Hehe.”

Erick looked to the orangescale dragonkin. He was smiling. Tamarim wasn’t the first to joke around with Erick’s ‘archmage’ title. Anhelia joked, too, and Erick wanted to like her, but he was still reeling from his first experience with the guild’s information broker.

Erick smiled back, whispering, “What do you have on—”

“SHHhh—it.” The kid who shushed them turned right back around, whispering, “Sorry.”

Erick walked to the side of the room anyway, to what looked like a checkout desk. Tamarim followed then stepped behind the desk.

Erick whispered, “I’m looking for an introduction to cosmology.”

“Pre-Sundering, or modern?”

“Uhh? A comparison? Maybe? And how does your library work?”

“5 silver for a search. If we have what you’re looking for, I will retrieve your book for you and set it down at whichever table you want. You cannot take the books with you; trying to leave the library with a book is a major fine of 5 gold and suspension of library privileges as the librarian deems necessary. Repeated violations increase the fine by 5 gold each time. You may peruse the stacks at your leisure, but any books you take out you must leave out; I will refile them and charge you 1 silver per restocking. We have paper and copy services, those are also 1 silver per page copied. You don’t pay here; we deduct it from your account. Ah! And no food or drink inside the library.” Tamarim said, “All pretty standard stuff, but I know you might not have much experience. Sorry if an unexpected fee crops up later. Almost every normal service or fee is 1 silver, except for search and retrieval.”

“Sounds good to me. So, about that comparison cosmology...”

- - - -

There were several planets in the current Veird cosmology. Did their names matter? Did their positions matter? No, none of that mattered because Erick was instantly caught up in 1400 year old history and the facts of the Sundering.

The pre-Sundering cosmology was well documented. The Old Wizards were either super advanced or super sideways-evolved, because they had explored all of their universe and even terraformed barren planes into verdant lands.

Their ‘universe’ was probably much smaller than Erick’s previous one, though.

Maybe.

Erick still wasn’t sure about all of that.

Pre-Sundering Veird was a planet adrift in a sea of mana with no known end and no known beginning; there was no sun, or moon, or stars, as there were on modern Veird. Instead, there was the Day-light, which post-Sundering would become a part of today’s Sun, the Silver Star, yes, that Silver Star, which would become the large grey moon, and Starlight, which would fall to Veird and elsewhere to become the rads inside monsters.

Normally, Erick would have put all that in the ‘obvious mythology’ box and move on.

But the Old Wizards had actually gone out and visited the Daylight, the Silver Star, and the Starlight, and even collected a Star. One well known starlight still existed; it was on private display at Oceanside Academy and was considered the largest rad on Veird. They used it to charge rare and valuable magical artifacts, but only twice a year and for astronomical fees. As long as they didn’t use it too much it would recharge, just like grand-rads recharged if used sparingly.

The original Veird had originally been one of many Planes in a multiverse of Planes and Demiplanes. Their whole pre-Sundering universe was theoretically within the grasp of any Old Wizard with the desire to move among the Starlight. The Old Wizards only had to cast a [Planeshift], or ride an Astral Ark out across the sky, following currents of mana to destinations well known, or to places yet to be seen.

To the Shadowrealm, to the Wild Places, to the Elemental Plane of Fire or the Maelstrom Sea. To the Fathomless Hells or the Infinite Heavens. To countless worlds, some waiting to be discovered and flush with native life, some waiting for life to return to reclaim the wastelands, some lost forever until the Mana Ocean flowed just right to allow visitors, and some twisted to nefarious or benevolent ends by ancient gods and primeval monsters, but well trod and easy to reach.

Veird wasn’t even the biggest of the previous planes, or the original plane of the Old Wizards; it was simply the most stable and the most populous at the time of the Sundering.

Of the books Erick read, there was a constant theme: proving that the Sundering happened by showing evidence of the previous worlds, peoples, and cultures. Erick quickly realized that he was not looking at a mythology, but a real and well documented history.

There was just so much history lying around on Veird that proved the old cosmology used to exist. Like the Ancient Orrery, maintained by the Monks of Rozeta in the Splinter Mountains. Or the Underworld, and the Deep Artifacts of the Old Cosmology that people occasionally discovered in those dark depths. The fact that the Underworld existed at all was proof of some major

historical magical fuckery, though that fact likely only occurred to Erick. The Underworld was at minimum five times the surface area of the Surface, and if that didn’t scream ‘Magic is doing this’ then Erick didn’t know what the fuck was happening with Veird’s plate tectonics. And then there were the stories of the Gods, the Angels, the Demons, and the Dragons. Ask any of the thousands of immortals who were there for the Sundering, who took part in the Old Cosmology, and they’d tell you stories that would leave you weeping.

Because the Sundering had happened, and everything changed.

Veird popped into a universe with real stars, and everyone who was able to help struggled to save whatever they could save.

The Fathomless Hells became the small pink moon, the new home of the Demons. The Infinite Heavens became the small white moon. The former home of the Angels was now a place of dirt and stone. The Silver Star became a real moon, with real mass, and was placed between the Angels and the Demons to prevent those ancient enemies from crashing together and destroying even more of the Old Cosmology.

So, yes, back to Erick’s original question: There are planets in Veird’s solar system. They’re what was left of the Old Cosmology; Planes and Demiplanes, twisted into planets to fit into a new Reality. The Day-lights of every plane that survived, and all of those who didn’t, were taken from those individual planes and combined into one and set as the Sun, upon which all the new planets revolved.

The Mana Ocean survived, too, but now it existed individually on each planet; tiny seas of mana; puddles compared to what came before.

Not every plane survived the Sundering, or the transition into planets. Untold trillions died in the initial cataclysm, and in the roiling aftermaths. Many documents showed that the ‘Infinite Heavens’ and ‘Fathomless Hells’ truly were too large and too populous to have an end. It’s highly likely that many, many, many more died than ‘trillions’.

Countless civilizations were lost.

The Elves, the oceanographers of the Sundered Mana Ocean. The Fey, whose Primal Forests were burned away by elemental fire. The Dwarves, whose underground lives were cut short by planequakes. The Elementassi, the children of elementals and mortals, dead in the first moments of the Script’s trials to repair the damage. The Orcs and the Trolls, a proud people and a monstrous species combined into one and driven to Rage by another failure of the Script. The Alvani, a people born of angel and human, but gone now, their immortal souls forever mourned by parents unable to forget, or forgive.

A universe was killed.

Now Veird wanders in a new universe, unsure of what is coming or where it is going, only that it must go where it goes, and hope that whatever comes is not as bad as what came before.

And that’s too much for me!

Erick closed the book. He set it aside.

“That’s enough existential dread for today.” He turned to Poi. “Holy crap that’s depressing.”

Poi said, “That’s why I stay away from those books, sir.”

“You could have stopped me!”

“With all due respect, I disagree.”

“… You’re right.” Erick looked across the library. He said, “I need a drink. Let’s go find Al.”

- - - -

Erick was on his third stein of beer. It was a thick beer, hearty and good. He drank it while eating from a plate of fried monster chicken strips. The meal came with a delicious pale purple-red not-tomato sauce. Erick would have called it ketchup, but it was not. It was spicy and creamy, and it suited the crunchy fried chicken well.

Al had his own double order in front of him. He was also on his third beer.

By this point, Erick had been moping for a while.

And Al had had enough. “What happened? I thought you’d be happy. Everyone is talking about changing everything to accommodate your new magic. I saw the rain. It was great! Beautiful silver color, too. Perked up the gardens around town.”

Erick frowned. “I read a book about the Sundering today. The cosmology of your solar system. Holy fuck it’s depressing.”

Al sipped his beer. He nodded.

Erick said, “Trillions dead? Worlds gone? Holy crap.”

Al nodded again. “Every so often you get people claiming that it’s all a lie concocted by Rozeta and the gods in order to control people, or some shit like that. But there are people alive today who remember the suffering. Who went through it all.” He sipped his beer. “The naysayers usually get run out of town if they’re normal idiots.”

“… What if they aren’t normal idiots?”

Al sighed sadly. “Fifty years ago…? No. Sixty, I think. Sixty years ago a republic of incani kingdoms far to the west started some nonsense like that. It was just some normal ‘the Script is bad’ sort of thing. But then it went another step. Eventually they ended up with a bunch of low level people who couldn’t take care of themselves without the help of their leveled army and leveled rich. It’s an old story; it’s happened several times throughout Veird’s history.”

“Let me guess. The low leveled people were taken advantage of by those in charge.”

“That was just setting the [Force Trap].” Al ate a bit of chicken and washed it down with beer. “Eventually it got so bad their doctrines were spilling into the rest of the world. That’s when some Ancient Ones —the Headmaster was one of them— they went to the people and showed them a [Memory] of the Sundering. After that some revolutionaries killed their kings and queens and generals and set off a whole chain of back and forth violence. Civil war after civil war. The last war finally died down maybe ten years ago, but the land was a blasted wasteland forty years ago. That’s even what people call it these days, ‘the Wasteland Kingdoms’. Whatever they were, they’re not that now.”

Erick whispered, “Fuck.”

Al nodded. “The Sundering might have happened 1400 years ago, but it’s still the largest event to ever happen in the history of Veird.”

Erick ate a strip of chicken, and started thinking.

He ate his last piece of fried monster chicken and finished his beer.

He ordered another beer and more chicken. And more sauce.

Eventually, Erick said, “Hey, Al? Would helping people like those in the Wasteland Kingdoms with this [Exalted Storm Aura] be a good idea, or a terrible idea?”

Al smiled, gentle and warm. He said, “A terrible idea, until you’re capable of defending yourself from nations.”

Erick nodded. He ate another chicken strip.

Al added, “And it sounds to me like some transient farmers would like to make a permanent home in Spur, if the good weather would hold.”

Erick could have smacked himself. “You’re right! Duh!” He declared, “Think global, act local.”

Special action!

You have grown Stronger!

+1 Strength!

“Hah!”

“What?” Al asked.

“Plus 1 Strength.”

Al chuckled. “Congratulations.”