Chapter 49

‘Are you okay, Jane? You didn’t call last night, again.’

Erick had awoken as normal; purple and gold stretched across the sky outside of his window. In the middle of swirling hot water over grounds of coffee tea into a large coffee pot, he decided to call Jane. There was no immediate answer, but that was okay. Erick left the line open and went about making the rest of breakfast for everyone. Rats was already up. Rats poured himself some of the communal coffee and was now sipping from his own cup in his seat at the kitchen table. He looked like he was talking to someone with [Telepathy]; two minuscule lines of intent were coming out of his head to fade into the surrounding mana.

Erick cracked eggs into a large bowl with his actual hands, using a pair of Handy hands to keep the freshly cracked yolk and white separate from the rest, to make sure the egg wasn't bloody. Erick had already experienced enough of that on Veird to know not to add fresh eggs directly to a full bowl. He also used his Handy Aura to turn the stove on and get the pans and butter into position. As he was adding the eggs to the hot pan, Jane’s voice came through.

‘Hey, Dad. Sorry about the delay. It’s been a busy night and I’m still in the middle of it.’

Erick smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

Jane seemed to groan on the other side of the connection, like she was just sitting down for the first time in 48 hours. ‘I’ve been killing shadows for the last day trying to rescue a pair of idiots from the Middle Reaches, inside the Teleport Lock Zone, directly under the eyes of a Shade.’

Erick remained calm by virtue of needing to not burn breakfast; these were the last of the eggs. ‘Go on.’

‘Fallopolis— I told you about that one, right? She’s an old Shade who watches everyone who comes through the Crack. Well these two idiots I’m beside right now decided to piss her off, even though this is one of the specific things an Ar’Kendrithyst permit specifically requires people to acknowledge is a bad idea.’

Jane continued, ‘Fallopolis alerted her displeasure to another Shade, Porter. Porter, you need to understand, is capable of forcefully [Teleport]ing people into prepared locations. The other Shades contact him when they want to fuck over some adventurers in some unique ways. Which is what happened yesterday morning.’

The eggs were done. Erick pulled them from the fire and put a lid over them, as he listened to Jane.

‘Porter [Teleport]ed these two people into the Arena, which is a common punishment game overseen by a Shade named Gora. These people managed to beat the Arena, so now they just had to escape back to the Crack to make it to freedom. But Fallopolis was waiting for them and she kept them on [Teleport] lock. They were able to get a message to Forward Base, though. Somewhere in the middle of that, Fallopolis struck a deal with Forward Base: She would allow me and one other person to escort these people back to the Crack, and if all four of us managed to make it, she would let them go unmolested. Otherwise she was just killing them right then and there. Tormenting two people is not as fun as four, Fallopolis said.

‘Kiri and I are currently in the middle of this. We’re about 40 kilometers away from the Crack.

‘Fallopolis noticed your [Telepathy]. After some hectic bargaining regarding the exact wording of the rules she laid out, she is allowing us a break so that I may talk to you.’

Erick felt cold. He sent, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘The Shades are all horrific monsters, but Fallopolis is the most… Eh. Well she’s not honorable. But something like it. Don’t worry about it too much, okay? I have five more minutes.’

‘Uh.’ Erick stumbled. ‘Uh. What… I don’t remember why I called.’

‘Something to do with your Class? We can have a much deeper conversation later.’

‘Uh. Is this a normal event for you?’

‘This is the first time I have had to do this sort of thing, but other people tell me that it happens from time to time. None of the Shades have ever reneged on their sides of these sorts of bargains as long as we stick to the rules, so we should be fine. It’s still dangerous, but mostly there’s just primal shadowolves and umbral giants. We’re not on a set course; we’re just running through the Middle Reaches, avoiding the more dangerous parts of the city while Fallopolis watches and tries to force us into those more dangerous parts.

‘Please call me when you’re through.’

‘I will. I’ll talk later. I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’

Jane cut the connection.

Erick found that he was sitting at the kitchen table, over a plate of untouched eggs. He looked around. Rats and Poi were eating eggs and toast at the table with Erick, but Poi was watching him, worried.

Erick asked, “My daughter is currently being chased across the Dead City by Fallopolis. She and Kiri are escorting two adventurers back through the city, through the Middle Reaches, toward the Crack. How much danger is she in? Why is she doing this, and not a veteran?”

“I’m hearing about it right now.” Lines of intent filtered into Poi as he said, “There are risks, but Kiri and Jane should make it back to Forward Base without undue injury. Fallopolis does not usually kill except in error or exuberance. I don’t know about the people they’re escorting; apparently one of them propositioned Fallopolis in a carnal manner. The reason it's Jane and Kiri, is because those two are at the relative strengths of the two they’re escorting. And when the time came for someone to step up, both of them volunteered for the mission.”

Erick felt a sudden rush of pride, like a warm drink radiating from inside his chest. And then he tried to think about how he could help. “Do you guys use magical items in there?”

Instantly, Poi said, “It has already been decided that any Staff of the Withering Slime you produce will not be allowed to enter Ar’Kendrithyst, under penalty of the Shades actively attacking Spur.”

Erick paused.

Fuck.

Then he ate his eggs.

He cleaned up, silently.

He made more coffee, and then it was time to go to the farms.

After starting the rain, and failing to make a proper [Familiar]—

Summon Wisp, close range, 1 hour duration, 109 mana

Summon a wisp! It doesn’t do anything but think.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Erick looked at the spell he had created. He said, “That’s funny, Script,” as he crushed the box, separating the component spells back to their own corners. He really should have paid more attention to what he was creating. He really should be working harder to kill all the Shades. Right now he was in a reactive state, preparing for something bad to happen, feeling a dread for the unknown, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Erick stared out into the sky, watching the ebbs and swirls of ambient mana flow downward, alongside platinum rain from silver clouds.

He thought he was being proactive. He was getting to know his neighbors in preparation for turning the city against the Shades. He was creating new magic that would prevent specific threats. He was even thinking about visiting the Headmaster and enlisting the old dragon’s help; Maia kept dropping hints that the Headmaster would be more than willing to help Erick rid the world of Shades.

But then this Daydropper shit happened—

That reminded him; Erick pinged his Daydropper quest. A split second of intent shot out of Erick and the speed of light. One minute later, the Divine Scan returned 0 results, for 2500 kilometers around.

—And then this Daydropper thing happened, and he had to visit the other two towns and clear out their Daydroppers. And his new magic failed, and his Class was stripped to the bones.

The point was, is that he knew he should be more active. This morning’s talk with Jane reminded him of his goals, and that he still had at least one part of his plan to visit the Headmaster that he could salvage. Erick had responsibilities in Spur, but there might be a way to make it rain as needed, and also visit Oceanside, which was some 10 [Teleport]s away.

[Conjure Force Elemental].

Two white parakeets flitted through the air. One of them landed on Erick’s shoulder. The other landed on the table in the temple. Erick began threading a tiny stream of white mana into the one on his shoulder, aiming for the one on the table. He pumped them both with 100 mana each, then, through the one on his shoulder, he imbued 500 mana and [Exalted Storm Aura] into the second bird.

A gentle mist rose up across the farms, but it was hard to see under all the rain.

That would be the bird’s aura.

Erick cut off his own aura as he maintained the flow of spell and mana through the paired parakeets. To anyone on the farm, it looked like nothing had changed; the rain was still coming down, just as before. To Erick, with Meditation active, the parakeet on the table in the temple was the center of a storm of mana that rushed out in every direction, keeping the silver clouds full and raining. Erick remained physically still, but magically, he was prodding and feeling out his spell, making sure the connection held, and that he was flowing enough mana through the paired birds to keep the rain coming, and to keep the birds intact.

Poi watched.

Erick turned his own aura back on.

Two [Exalted Storm Aura]s flowed into the air, and that was okay.

Exalted Storm Aura, super long range, 1 MP per second ~{Favored Spell}~

Anoint the land with blessed rain, rapidly growing all to and restoring vibrancy to all other plant life and soil. If used in a , highly nutritious beans will sprout after .

Particle Mage Only

As a Favored Spell, it only cost Erick 900 mana an hour. He regenerated 6000 an hour with Meditation, as a Scion of Focus. But, as Erick looked out across the fields, the rain was coming down quite a bit harder than normal. Plants were suddenly growing faster. Erick dismissed the second aura. He’d ask the Farmer’s Council about doubling the rain before he deployed this method; if they thought it was a good idea.

He waited for his mana to tick back up a bit, then he imbued the table-parakeet with [Scry], and then with [Teleport]. The bird blipped white, vanishing, taking the [Scry] eye with it.

The parakeet reappeared a thousand kilometers to the north. Erick’s [Scry] still active. Looking through the bird, he saw that it was in the air and flying around. He waited a bit for his mana to come back, again, then he [Teleported] the bird another thousand kilometers north.

And again, and again. He had to reorient back toward the horizon before the last [Teleport]; the bird was already in the clouds.

Suddenly, Erick’s parakeet was flying in the sky over the largest mountain range Erick had ever seen. Craggy grey and green depths stretched up into white capped mountains in every direction. The parakeet tumbled through the air, buffeted by strong winds; it was not made for this sort of environment. Bits of white flaked away from its body as fast as Erick could pump mana into the bird, restoring the spell’s integrity. Erick quickly tested [Exalted Storm Aura] through the linked birds.

Four thousand kilometers from the farms of Spur, silver mist lifted up around a flying, near-frozen parakeet, before turning into a spell of life and growth, blanketing deep green forests with platinum rain. Erick held his magic open for a minute, making sure he could actually sustain this spellwork. He could. This was sustainable. Erick dismissed the extra aura, and the birds. He kept his [Scry] orb open for a little while longer, there above the green forests, watching the sky rain itself out.

Erick eventually returned to himself, back in the temple in the center of Spur’s Farms.

Just to make sure he wasn’t being an idiot about something that everyone else knew was possible, he tried to activate [Exalted Storm Aura] on himself twice…

Nope!

Auras didn’t work that way. Erick chuckled.

With that test out of the way...

Erick moved on to another part of another plan; his enchanting plan. He started with thinking up a rhyme, stringing together words and thoughts and physical science in his mind.

Now… how did diamonds actually work? He didn’t really know, but he did know that they were fully carbon with strong covalent bonds, which sounded like they were bonds that were fully integrated, but that was just a guess. Magic could probably fill in the gaps in his knowledge, if he gave it enough of a head start.

“Hey, Poi.” Erick asked, “Do you guys have coal anywhere?”

“… What do you mean by ‘coal’?”

“It’s a black rock that burns. You usually find it underground. It’s completely non-magical. Back on Earth, people used to throw it in stoves and burn it to stay warm in the cold months.”

Poi looked into the air. He said, “Yes. It’s considered useless, though. People use rads and [Prestidigitation] stoves for that, if they don’t want to burn wood or use a [Ward].”

Erick nodded, then turned away to face the rain. He had an idea in his head along with words and intentions and emotion, as well as physical structure and the strong, strong nature of a diamond, and about the compression of coal. Erick touched upon his Class Ability: Particular Insight. A hundred mana flowed away into the sky.

Erick’s own voice returned to him, but different: ‘The minor version of this spell has yet to be invented, but it won’t be invented this way because purposefully arranging specific atoms in a specific way violates the Infinitesimal Ban. You might be able to achieve your desired outcome with several spells layered on top of each other, but not by the way you have laid out. Find another way.’

Erick would have been disappointed if he hadn’t expected that answer. There were probably many other ways to get the carbon needed to make a diamond and then arrange that carbon; Erick just needed to figure out one of them. He shelved his idea of heat and pressure, and began to work on the problem from another angle. After a few minutes, he had another idea. Erick silently worked on a rhyme, a goal, a natural process that he would mimick that would not require heat and pressure, and then he tossed a hundred mana into a question.

The answer came back, ‘Clever. It would work. You’re not

directly violating the Infinitesimal Ban. This is a grey area, but there’s already precedents for this kind of skirting the rules.’

Erick said to Poi, “Can you get Rats or Teressa to buy a few cheap diamonds in town, and bring them out here? Loose gems, poor quality. They have to be diamonds, though. Clear preferred; no color.”

Poi looked to the air. After several moments, Poi said, “Rats will be here shortly with several types of loose diamonds that should total you no more than 50 gold. He will be paying this money out of the Army’s account, and then your account will be deducted this amount. This is the decision that Liquid has made.”

“Sounds good to me. Thank you. All three of you.”

Poi nodded.

Erick worked out his rhyme and what the magic required while he waited.

Half an hour later, Rats came walking down the path, carrying a small box. Erick was almost ready for him; he had [Stoneshape]d a large bowl and left it under a downspout to collect rainwater. He had tossed a full strength [Absorption Ward] across the temple’s interior, just in case of catastrophic spell failure. His rhyme was good to go and Insight said it might work. When Erick saw Rats, he retrieved the bowl, sloshing with platinum rain, and placed it on a table to the side of the temple’s interior. The bowl was three feet wide and about two deep, and completely occluded by platinum glows. The platinum glow might actually be a bad thing in this case, so Erick threw a [Cleanse] at the water.

The platinum water remained platinum.

Obviously nothing happened, because the platinum glow wasn’t a toxin. Erick was uncertain of the effects of the magical water on the gem he wanted to make. But. Eh. Whatever. He would leave it like that for now, just to see what happened.

Erick threw a hundred mana at the sky anyway, questioning this platinum addition to his spell.

A voice responded, ‘It might still work, but not how you intend.’

Erick frowned.

Rats walked over to him, holding out the box, saying, “Sir. Your gems.”

“Thank you, Rats.”

Erick took the small wooden box. Inside were seven small, fine-cloth bags. He opened them all atop another table, away from the table with the bowl of water. Diamonds were cheap on Veird, so there was no need to be careful with them; the ones Rats had gotten were no exception. Each of them were kinda clear; most of them were uncut. Three were cut into the most primitive spheres, likely made by someone who was using them for practice [Stoneshap]ing, before they got to the real gems. From what Erick could see, whoever shaped these still needed practice. It was obvious no one cared about these particular diamonds. Erick picked one of the clearer stones, and placed it in the bowl of platinum water. He couldn’t even see it at the bottom. That shouldn’t matter, though.

Erick focused on the gem in the water, on the process of crystal formation, on the seed crystal growing, and a usually hot, dense process, lifted up into magical ease. Of pieces of the atmosphere slip-sliding into proper order, using the water as a medium for easy growth and to keep out unwanted interlopers. Erick's spell would be like taking a box full of puzzle pieces and shaking it around, with luck turned up to 11 in some cases, and 1 in others. The cumulative effect should be growth, though.

And then he went small.

“Here we have a little gem

“the stuff of life, it does comprise

“an anointment for a diadem

“if only more would [Crystallize].”

As the water bubbled, a box appeared.

Congratulations!

You have created a new Basic Spell. Your spell has been added to your skills for free!

The spell you have created will appear in the Script after a year and a day.

Your spell is the alpha version, and will shift with time and use.

The spell that appears in the Script might be different.

Here is your spell:

Crystallize Diamond 1, close range, 1 minute per level, 25 MP

Cause a diamond to .

Rozeta thanks you for enriching the Script.

+1 ability points.

Cute ~Rozeta

Erick waved the boxes away so he could look at his spell. The water bubbled; the air smelled of something vibrant. Erick couldn’t place the smell but it was probably oxygen, if he got the spell right. The platinum water was clearing; he could see the diamond, now. All the platinum glow in the water was falling into the gem. When the first minute passed, Erick let the spell end there.

The gem that went into the spell was pinky fingernail size and off-clear; maybe a little white. The one that came out was silver, like a piece of actual silver, but shaped like two pyramids stuck bottom-to-bottom, with the triangular sides full of extra, thinly-raised triangles. All together the gem was rather rounded.

And two centimeters large.

Rats said, “Ohh. That got big.”

“It certainly did!” Erick said, “And the water got clear, too.” He looked closer at the water. “Mostly.”

Erick held the silver gem in his hand and activated [Stoneshape], fine control, focusing on the gem, not trying to break it, or mold it to some other shape, but to shave away everything that wasn’t part of a perfect sphere. Silver diamond dust flecked onto Erick’s hand. He rolled the gem inside his power, curving the cut, trying to get it into a perfect sphere—

He stopped. He should invent another spell for this.

He threw another hundred mana into the sky.

The results came back immediately, ‘Perfect spherical gem polishing has already been invented; there’s only going to be one of those, too. That girl that invented it is already making a name for herself down in Nergal.’

‘Damn,’ Erick thought.

Erick went back to polishing his platinum diamond with [Stoneshape]. It didn’t take long to get something approaching satisfaction; maybe 10 minutes. When he was done, the gem was now only 1.5 centimeters wide.

It was still the biggest damn diamond Erick had ever seen in person. It wasn’t very pretty, though; it looked like a ball bearing. Erick set it down with the other diamonds and picked another at random. This new seed diamond was clear-ish, uncut, naturally octahedral. The water in the stone bowl was a bit cloudy, though, so Erick cast a [Cleanse]. A tiny bit of thick air spilled up from the water, into the temple and out into the rain. Whatever had been in the water, a side effect of the diamond process or platinum leftovers, it was gone now. Erick placed the new gem into the fresh, clear water, and cast [Crystallize Diamond].

The water bubbled again, but softer this time. Erick watched as the gem tossed and flipped in the bowl, as water swirled around and something seemed to soak into the gem, steadily growing it from a large grain of sand to something visible, to a centimeter across, to more, before the spell cut. Erick renewed the spell, and the gem kept growing.

He went to the table and picked out the closest gem. He moved it away from the others, setting in onto the ground, as he cast [Crystallize Diamond]. That one flipped as it touched the temple floor, wind moving around the seed diamond, causing it to jump like a flea without a destination. The floor-gem grew—

The water gem stopped bubbling. Erick renewed that spell; [Crystallize Diamond] leveled to 2. The spell would last 2 minutes per cast, now. Erick renewed the spell on the gem on the floor, which was still growing and jumping, but not as fast as the gem in the water. And then he went and did all the other gems.

By the time Valok and Krakina showed up an hour later, half an hour after the designated stop time, Erick had seven gems growing in seven deep bowls filled full of water. Growing the gems in the air was substantially slower than Erick's original growing plan.

Krakina paused when she saw the bowls. “What is going on in here?” She pointed at the bubbling, jumping water. “What is that?”

Rats laughed. “The devaluing of a gem.”

Erick glared at Rats, then said to Krakina, “I’m growing diamonds for enchanting.” He added, “I haven’t figured out color yet, but all that takes is some proper doping, I think. I can do platinum diamonds just fine, but none of us know if platinum diamonds are good or bad. I’m guessing they’re bad.”

While Krakina and Valok stood there looking confused, Erick walked over to a bowl of clear water that had stopped bubbling. He cast a [Cleanse] at the water, spilling thick air into the temple, then he Handy Aura’d the gem in the water into view. The diamond glittered in the light, a perfectly clear and internally flawless octahedral diamond the size of a fist.

“Holy gods!” Krakina rushed to the gem. “Can I hold it?”

Erick handed her the diamond. She grabbed it in her wing-claw hands, stunned. The outside of the gem was a mess of different growth plates, all triangles over every surface, but it still caught the light; some captured radiance showed through even such a messy outside.

“It’s beautiful!” Krakina asked, “And it’s diamond?”

“Yup.” Erick said, “We found out that one of the starter gems I used was not diamond, but I just broke off a piece from one of the real diamonds and started growing that, instead.”

“They’re too big for enchanting.” Krakina handed Erick back his diamond, asking, “What are you going to do with them?”

“Sell a few and buy some gems for enchanting.” Erick took back the fist-sized diamond, saying, “This diamond is completely out of my skill, but Ulrick might want to buy one. From there it’s learning how to enchant, and seeing what that can do for me.”

Krakina asked, “Can you do anything with these? At all? Besides cut them into jewels.”

“I honestly don’t know!” Erick laughed. “I’ll find out, though.”

- - - -

“I’ll give you two hundred gold.” Ulrick held a clear, fist-diamond in his hand. He stood behind his counter in the back of his shop, while the other six gems laid atop the glass. Three silver diamonds, and four clear diamonds, total. He set the clear one down and picked up the silver one. “300 for this one, just because I’ve never seen it before. I’m ninety percent sure that they’re completely unworkable.”

Erick scoffed. “At Ruby's Reds they had staffs with huge gems at the top. You mean to tell me that one of these couldn’t be used in a nice staff?”

Ulrick looked at Erick like he had said something that was so uneducated, he didn’t even know where to start calling Erick wrong. He sighed. He relaxed. He said, “I’ll trade you a rod of [Treat Wounds] for two of these gems. One silver, another clear. You need another one of them, right?”

Erick smirked. “Yes. I could use another rod. I’ll take that deal.”

“I feel like I’m getting screwed, here,” Ulrick muttered.

"And I think you doth protest too much."

Ulrick tried not to grin.

Erick said, "The only way you’re going to get any diamonds of this size is through me. Even if they’re useless for enchanting, they’re still a novelty that you’ll never get anywhere else.” Erick added, “For at least another year.”

“Yes yes.” Ulrick picked out his two gems, taking only the barest moments to decide. He took them into the back room, saying, “Be right back.”

Erick put away his other gems into one of the many burlap sacks he kept in his shoulderbag.

Ulrick returned with a filigreed steel rod of [Treat Wounds], and handed it to Erick, saying, “Those big gems on those staffs are not gems, but glass. They’re little more than aiming devices. I don’t know what specific staff you were looking at, but I guess they were staffs of fireball. Aura staffs don’t need to be aimed; the radiating gem needs to be protected. It would never be exposed like some ‘huge gem on top’.”

“I learn something new every day! Thank you, Ulrick.”

Erick smiled, taking the rod from Ulrick. He then handed the rod to Poi, who put the rod behind the metal thigh-guard of his armor.

- - - -

On the way home, Erick noticed something new along Market Street, besides the crowded streets that were easily twice as full of people as when Erick and Jane first walked into Spur. There was a peculiar addition to the floating business signs and the glows of street lamps.

Someone had hung Script-blue text boxes along the street, every ten meters and on both sides. Some people were reading the signs. Some people were talking about the signs as they walked away from the blue boxes.

“Are those new?” Erick asked Poi.

“Yes.” Poi frowned, lines of intent floating away from his head, as he said, “They went up while we were out at the farms.”

Erick stopped at the third blue box.

Attention, People of Spur!

Due to the increased threat of Daydroppers, and our ability to easily handle them, the city of Spur will be experiencing daily, random [Withering Slime]s in the near future, for the foreseeable future. All blank spots to Mana Sense will be investigated thoroughly, beginning today.

[Withering Slime] targets organic beings with 5g (10 mana) rads inside of them!

[Weather Ward] blocks this spell.

If you or your loved ones are suffering from Intestinal Rads, we urge you to make plans to get treated before this program is rolled out in two days, on the 28th of this month! The Interfaith Church, the Adventurer’s Guild, the Mage’s Guild, and the people at the Courthouse, can easily check you for Intestinal Rads as well as remove them, free of charge.

This spell will kill you if you are suffering from Intestinal Rads.

May all the Relevant Entities watch over us.

“So.” Erick said, “Okay. That’s happening.” Erick started walking down the street, saying, “I expected that, but there’s a difference between expecting it and seeing the signs for it posted all along the street.”

Poi nodded, staying 5 to 7 feet away from Erick at all times.

- - - -

Halfway home, Erick turned right, and went somewhere else.

- - - -

Erick caught Silverite in the hallway of the Courthouse, just outside of her office.

“Erick!” Silverite asked, “What brings you here?”

“I saw the signs, and I wondered if you want me to [Withering] today. Or if there’s something else I need to be doing.”

“They put those up already?” Silverite frowned. “I told them— whatever.” She shook her head, then paused. She looked to the air. She looked back to Erick, and said, “No [Withering] today, for Spur. But Viscount Helix spoke to me earlier requesting your services. I was going to visit you this evening to ask for your cooperation, but if you want… I think we can do this now.” She checked the air again; tendrils of intent faded away from her body. She was talking to at least 5 people. She turned to Erick. “Maybe in an hour. Yes. In one hour.”

“Sure. But...” Erick said, “I have a question regarding the use of [Conjure Force Elemental], and ranged spells, like my [Withering] aura. Is that considered a crime? It seems like it would be a war crime.”

Silverite said, “There are many styles of fighting that give little Participation but great reward; summoning is one of these. If you wish to fulfill Helix’s request in this manner, I will not stop you. Many of Spur’s Archmages interact with society in this way.”

Erick thought, then said, “I’ll be back here in an hour.”

“Mog and I will meet you at your house.”

“You’re coming?”

“Yes. If you uncover more Daydroppers, I want to be there.”

- - - -

There weren’t many weeds in Spur, but still, some had managed to grow in Erick’s garden. When he got home he spent ten minutes weeding the garden with his Handy Aura, a little while watering the plants with a localized rainstorm, and then a little while longer preparing the back garden and making sure the [Scent Ward] over the compost pile was still functioning. He turned over the compost to ensure it rotted properly then recast the [Scent Ward]. Then Erick moved into the southern tower of the house; his mage’s tower, that he had yet to really utilize.

He had stored some seeds in a chest, and installed some benches and shelves with [Stoneshape], but for the most part, the tower was empty. The only real decoration in the room were the 9 planets of the Solar System Erick had carved when he first started experimenting with [Stoneshape]; those rested in individual holders attached the ceiling, frozen in time in orbit around a bright sunlight orb. Natural sunlight shone into the room through huge picture windows that faced south, toward Ar’Kendrithyst.

Erick’s tower was in a good position to remind him of the enemy.

Erick laid out his 5 remaining fist-sized diamonds atop an empty bench. This was a good room for enchanting, so he might as well get started. But as he looked upon his huge diamonds, he knew that shaping them into spheres was going to be a problem; he wasn’t very precise with [Stoneshape]. How would he fix that if he couldn’t use a spell—

Oh.

You use a tool.

Duh.

Maybe he could make a lathe…

Yes! Lathes were the progenitor of all machine tools; you can’t make the complicated stuff if you ain’t precise, and the best way to ensure precision was to carve away from a stable spin. Erick wouldn’t put the diamond on there, though. Diamonds were simply too hard to spin on a lathe...

Eh. He’d try it anyway, once he got himself a lathe.

Then Erick had another idea. A better idea than spinning the diamond on a lathe was to create a perfectly spherical grinding cup and fill it with diamond dust and grind and grind and grind! Erick could even put the diamond onto a ‘pottery wheel’ and grind it from multiple directions at once. Hmm. Yes. That could work. Erick left the diamonds on the counter and went to find—

Teressa was right there, walking from somewhere to somewhere else. She would do.

“Teressa!” Erick asked, “Have you ever heard of a lathe?” He gestured with his hands, helping him to explain, “Its a spinning metal tool that holds a thing like this— and then it all spins like this— and then you use this action to cut a thing down in a controlled sort of way.”

Teressa sent lines of intent into the air. She answered, “Yes. They’re expensive. 400 to 700 gold for a good one, according to Liquid.”

“I need to go shopping for one. Maybe not today, though.”

“I’ll find out where to get one, sir.” Teressa looked away. Then back to Erick, saying, “But Guildmaster Mog and the Mayor are here.”

“Thank you, Teressa.” Erick walked away, down the hallway toward the front door, saying, “I guess it’s time to visit Frontier.”

- - - -

Okay. So. Maybe Erick misjudged Frontier the last time he was here; they were obviously rebuilding from Bulgan’s attack last time. This time, life had obviously improved in Frontier.

Erick sat at a garden table in a mostly open-aired, sand-garden courtyard, in the second to the top level of one of five castle towers. Except for some hallways and the rest of the castle, Erick could see Frontier all around him, in every direction but east. The castle to the east was a purely functional thing; all solid orange stone multiple feet thick. Multiple curtain walls and dozens of smaller towers dotted the outer walls; places where defenders might strike at forces both within and without. There was little care given to comfort in the castle; no ornate, green gardens, or thin flourishes of stone among the staunch strength of the castle. Nothing besides smooth, strong, orange rock.

The city beyond the rebuilt castle, to the north, west, and the south, was not much different than the castle. Thick walled houses were made with small windows pointed north, toward Ar’Kendrithyst, while larger windows pointed toward the open south; though there were some clear violations of this building practice. As for coloring, the city of Frontier was more orange than Spur, about twice as thick in all of its construction, and a lot, lot less green.

Though that last fact was probably due entirely to Erick’s rainy contributions to Spur. Both cities likely had the same access to underground water; a fountain bubbled up in the rocks in the center of the sand garden, but there were no plants here. Water was precious; the fountain itself was probably an ostentatious display. The garden around Erick was sand and a few outcroppings of rocks, along with decorative lines someone had raked through the sand in swirls and lines, with concentric circles radiating around the larger outcroppings of rock. This ‘garden’ was likely the only purely decorative thing in Frontier’s Castle; at least on the outside. Erick had not been inside the castle; they weren't invited past this sand garden.

That was okay. Erick liked the sand garden.

Helix walked in through a stone arch of a hallway, accompanied by the woman Erick had seen with him last time. Mog stood behind Erick and Silverite, slightly away from the both of them, who were sitting at the table when Helix appeared. At Viscount Helix’s entrance, Silverite stood; Erick stood with her.

“Greetings, Archmage. Mayor.” Helix bowed just a tiny bit, with only his head, before continuing his walk toward Erick and Silverite. “We are ready when you are.”

Erick said, “Sure thing.”

[Domain of the Withering Slime].

A white sphere of light slowly materialized five feet in every direction around Erick. Thick air flowed up from every surface. Erick turned toward the city of Frontier, watching as thick air turned into a slime monster that flooded out across the entirety of the orange city. Notifications started to appear almost immediately.

“Shadowolves— Mimics already?” Erick said.

Helix moved closer to the edge of the courtyard, to look out across his city. “It’s bigger?”

“Much.” Erick said, “About 15 kilometers in every direction, now.”

Erick watched as the slime slipped through the town, touching everything, and as he watched, he saw that it moved differently. More than just Aurify 3 differently. Before, it moved like water, rushing here and there to search out new places. Now, Erick's spell moved like caffeine overloaded slime. Thick air silently splashed across the city, racing with the wind, searching for monsters.

After a minute, Helix asked, “Nothing unusual?”

Erick looked through his notifications; it was all mimics now. Past mimic Z, the ‘numbering’ system was a little weird; it looped back around to A and then proceeded adding the whole alphabet again. Erick was currently up to ‘EB’, which, with a little easy math, equalled 132, but that number was still ticking up.

“Just mimics, now.” Erick said, “No daydroppers, or anything else, really.”

Helix smiled. He said, “You can cut the spell. Thank you, Archmage.”

Erick cut the spell. The white orb around him flaked away like dispersing ash. He asked, “Did you find out where those Daydroppers were? Who was growing them?”

Helix said, “Part of me was hoping that your efforts today would give us another lead to follow. The larger part of me is simply grateful that we have no more reason to fear those pestilential things.” He asked, “What is your total count?”

Erick looked up his recent kills. With a bit of math… “99 wolves, 146 mimics.”

Helix’s Girl Friday, still standing near him, held up a green stone, and said, “Agreed.”

“Thank you, Veil.” Helix nodded to Erick. “The rads will be remitted to Spur by tomorrow. Thank you for coming. Now, if you excuse me, the requirements of leadership are neverending.”

Silverite did a small curtsy as she said, “The pleasure is Spur’s. Call upon us any time.” She turned to Mog, and nodded. “We’re off.”

Erick gave a short bow to Helix, then walked over to Mog.

In a flash, the three of them were outside of Erick’s house again.

Silverite instantly cursed. “That fucking liar. He completely evaded your question.”

Mog frowned. “I thought so, too.”

Erick felt lost. He asked, “What?”

“You directly asked where they were, and who was growing them.” Silverite said, “And he gave some unimportant response about how he ‘hoped your spell would provide another lead’. Perfectly political response, and completely out of the place in a discussion about the tactical vulnerability of us all. And then he instantly changed the topic and rushed us out of there.”

“Yup.” Mog said, “That’s what I thought, too.”

“He sounded like a normal politician to me… Which is a problem. I see that now.” Erick asked, “Why do you think he had anything to do with his Daydroppers, though?”

“Because that is what humans and incani do,” Mog said.

Silverite said, “Because the Greensoil Republic saw a weapon of mass destruction, and didn’t care that it was part of a Kill and Exterminate Quest.” She frowned. “They’re going to use it against the incani, as they have before and will do again. And right in my own dammed neighborhood!”

Mog added, “All your spell really did, Erick, was confirm that their protections around their daydroppers are good enough to keep you out.”

“They’ll probably deploy soon.” Silverite spat, “Dammit.”

Erick asked, “What about what happened in Kal’Duresh? Was that also Frontier deploying against them? Or was that Kal’Duresh preparing to deploy against Frontier?”

Mog frowned.

“We have lots more to discover, and to decide. Do we want to step into this? It was good and right to step in to help clear their cities of shadow monsters, but this is the Quiet War.” Silverite paused. She said, “We have to prove that this hypothesis is true, before we do anything else. And then...” She frowned. “I’ll keep you informed, Archmage.” Silverite walked away, saying, “Be careful, Erick.”

Mog nodded one last time to Erick as she followed Silverite, moving to stand beside the Mayor as they both walked across the flat land of the Human District. A line of telepathic intent connected them to each other. After a moment, several lines of intent spilled out of both of them, floating away into the manasphere.

Poi stood in the open door to the house. “Welcome back, sir.”

- - - -

Erick was fucking tired of reacting to the problems around him.

It was time to be proactive, at least in his own way.

Erick sat in his mage tower, staring at Ar’Kendrithyst in the far distance, while the late afternoon sun draped in from the west, coloring the browns and oranges of Spur with pinks and yellows. He had smashed a clear diamond into fragments on the workbench in front of him, just so he would have more seed crystals. They glittered with sunset colors, while Erick thought.

Erick got up and went to the kitchen to make some coffee.

Soon, he was back at the bench, staring, brooding.

Thinking.

A tendril of thought connected to his mind, and all of Erick’s thoughts crystallized into pure relief.

‘Hey, Dad. I’m safe. Everyone is good.’

Erick wanted to smile. But all he could do was say, ‘Thank you for being okay, Jane.'

‘… what happened?’

‘What happened with you?’

‘Some stuff. But we’re fine. You don’t sound fine.’

Erick breathed. He said, ‘There’s a lot that happened since you helped with my Class Abilities. Yesterday, I got my first magic item, a nice ring for plus-10 Strength, and then today I made some diamonds using this workaround of the Infinitesimal Ban, and I think Frontier is planning on killing all of Kal’Duresh with Daydroppers. Silverite isn’t sure if the reverse is also true.’

‘Oh boy.’ Emotions like a person sitting down, flowed through Jane’s connection. She sent, ‘Tell me about this Daydropper stuff, first.’

‘It’s like this...’

Erick talked.

After a while, Jane understood Erick’s day, and Erick hoped, most of his problems.

Jane said, ‘What do you want to do about these undetectable Daydroppers?’

‘I want to kill them all, obviously.’

‘… that’s really not obvious to me, Dad, which is probably a good thing. Right now people aren’t treating you like a player. This is one of your greatest strengths, if you can leverage it without actually making a move.’

‘I’m not a player?’

‘No.’ Jane waffled back and forth, then said, ‘Well. Yes. But not directly. You’re a deterrent and a defense mechanism. You do not want to be seen as a player.’

Erick let that lie, and continued, ‘I see a lot of problems to solving this Daydropper crisis. One: Withering does not target monsters with 5 mana rads; it only targets those with 10 mana rads. Some daydroppers must be slipping under the radar, like the smaller slimes do. So, do I try and increase that radar and risk the spell targeting people? Or do I find some other way? Compounding this is that these Daydroppers are already invisible to the Divine Scan, probably because they’re behind antirhine.’

‘Combine your Domain with a close-range, powerful scanning spell. Something that can punch through antirhine.’ Jane added, ‘Or you could just call it lead.’

‘… I don’t think it’s possible for anything to pass through lead, least of all magic, so there’s no getting around this restriction.’

Erick paused. He said, ‘Maybe I could add something to the Domain that makes it eat through lead shielding. Like how I did with random chance striking CO2 into C and O2.”

‘Even if you did, it’s probably under a [Weather Ward] by now. The only reasons you found anything at all, was because they dropped the [Ward] so you could test their defenses. Kal’Duresh was probably also testing your ability to test them.’ She added, ‘If that is indeed what is happening here.’

‘Shit!'

‘Even if you did manage to use this work-around you discovered with the Infinitesimal Ban to use some lead product to strip away lead shielding… I don’t think you want to go using this functionality on an attack spell. It seems fine on a spell that concentrates something onto an item, though.’

‘… Give me ideas, Jane, not more problems.’

‘Here’s a major solution, then: This isn’t your war. Stay out of it.’

Erick frowned.

Jane continued, ‘Or. Ask one of them gods for help. You seem to be getting along with them.’

Erick almost told her about the offer to become Phagar’s Champion, but he wasn’t about to put that out into the world, even to discuss the idea with his daughter. Not today, anyway.

‘They have their side of things, we have ours. Got another idea?’

‘Start beating people up until someone falls out of the woodwork?’

Erick frowned, but sent, ‘I love you, Jane.’

Jane laughed through the connection, then sent, ‘I love you, too, Dad. Now talk to me about these diamonds. I would love to see a six-inch diamond.’

Erick smiled, then sent Jane an image of the diamonds in front of him. After she ooh’d and ahh’d, only half sarcastically, Erick started talking about enchanting, and about his Class Quests, while keeping Insight purposefully vague.

As the sun set, the conversation wound down.

Toward the end, Erick asked, ‘Do you remember what sapphires and rubies are made out of?’

‘The same thing. Aluminum Oxide. AL-2 O-3. Everything about the red or the blue are just inclusions, but I forget what those inclusions actually are. It would be hard to find aluminum, either way. I don’t think you need those gems though; just create a color mask. Use a [Special Ward] to absorb every color except red, or blue, or whatever.’ She added, ‘Or better yet: try to create a something that increases every stat, all at once.’

Erick was floored by multiple parts of Jane’s reply. ‘A color mask! Duh! But... Are there All-Stat items? I haven’t seen anything like that in these books. They all talk about single Stat, singularly enchanted items.’

‘There also wasn’t Particle Magic until you came along. So. Ya’ know.’

Erick laughed, sending, ‘I'll test it out.'

‘It’s getting late, Dad. I love you. I’ll think about the daydropper problem. Call you later.’

‘I love you, Jane. Talk to you later.’

Erick broke the line of intent between them. And then he grabbed his enchanting textbooks, and started reading from the very beginning.

- - - -

Around midnight, Erick got to his first practical exercise.

And right there, in a colored box beside the text for the first practical exercise, was Jane’s idea for a [Special Ward] color mask, written as a tip for the beginner enchanter, to keep costs down. Erick smiled at that. He would have to tell her tomorrow. Erick whipped out 50 mana, and the entire room filled with the proper red color for Strength enchanting: Crimson. Not a red light, though; just a color mask.

Erick picked up one of his smaller diamond fragments, around a centimeter across, and began [Stoneshape]ing it into a sphere inside his Handy Aura, constantly turning the gem around and around, seeing his work from all sides, gradually shaving away everything that wasn’t a perfect sphere. After a few minutes, Erick thought that what he had created was close enough to what the book required; this was beginner enchanting, anyway.

Erick transferred the spherical diamond to his actual hand. The gem was about one centimeter across, and in this red [Special Ward], the gem appeared red. Erick focused on his—

He still had his Strength Ring on. He should take that off; the books all warned of wearing enchanted items while trying to enchant other items. If he took it off fast and put it back on before the False HP vanished, then it should maintain its resonance. Erick took off the ring and set it aside, so that it wouldn’t interfere with imbuing a resonance into the gem in his hand.

And then, on a whim, he threw a 500 mana Absorption [Ward] into the air, which produced a 2000 point shield throughout the room. Better safe than sorry.

... Erick hoped he didn’t become some paranoid archmage. From what he’d heard about other archmages, paranoia seemed to be a recurring theme.

—Erick focused on the gem in his hand, creating a link between his own Strength Stat and the gem. He opened his eyes to Meditation, and tried to feel the resonance, somewhere inside of him, inside of his Strength. In a way that was completely counter intuitive, but was listed by the textbook, Erick pushed a point of mana through his Strength Stat.

Nothing.

He tried two points of mana—

...mmMmmMmmM...

Oh! Erick felt that; it was like a tiny hum in the center of his self, but not in the center of his physical self. The hum came from elsewhere. The hum probably came from the Script, itself.

He pushed more mana through his Strength. Another hum touched his entire being, like the sound of a muted television, or fluorescent lighting. Erick set a path for his mana, then started a stream, through his Strength, through his hand, into the gem in his palm. His hand glowed red, and if he wasn’t in this red [Ward], Erick was sure the glow would have been white; the color of his own magic.

The glow soaked into the gem, skittering around the inside, maybe even finding equilibrium.

Erick cut his stream of mana and the red [Special Ward]. The diamond was still perfectly clear in the light of the sunlight orb up above. Erick picked up a blank iron ring setting that he had already made with [Metalshape], and with another application of [Metalshape] and the careful placement of the diamond, Erick had a diamond ring. He put it on his finger.

According to the textbook, this was a rousing success!

But Erick felt a little underwhelmed.

Erick Flatt

Human, age 48

Level 39, Class: Particle Mage

Exp: 4,257,054,608/10,233,415,500

Class: 3/6

Points: 16

HP

873/660

600

MP

900/900

6000 per day

Strength

20

+2

[22]

Vitality

20

+0

[20]

Willpower

30

+0

[30]

Focus

50

+0

[50]

Favored Spell waiting!

Not bad for his first try. Erick took off the ring he made, and put on the ring he had bought from Ruby’s Reds.

- - - -

The next morning, Erick went right back into his tower and read more about enchanting. In particular, one aspect of the previous night’s enchanting bothered him: Was white mana predisposed to an easier time creating Stat enchantments?

After a bit of careful reading, including some parts of the textbook he had skimmed over last night, he discovered that, no, the color of a person’s mana did not matter for enchanting purposes, because the very act of flowing mana through a Stat or Skill changed the color of a person’s mana. Color did matter for the longevity of a Stat enchantment, but anything besides a perfect color match didn't matter; perfect matches lent a Stat enchantment to lasting indefinitely.

Erick took his Strength ring off, and set it to the side.

Erick [Metalshape]d the diamond from last night out of its metal ring. He placed the spherical diamond on his open palm and flowed mana through his own Strength Stat, into the diamond. A muddle of all different red lights came out of his palm, soaking into the gem. Crimsons and carnelians, maroons and scarlets, like a tiny crash of every kind of red, from vibrant to subdued, from pink to near-black, all soaked into the diamond.

The diamond vibrated. Erick didn’t have time to understand what was happening. The diamond shattered in every direction like an m-80 detonating in his open hand, carving hundreds of points of damage from the [Ward] Erick had put in the room last night and stinging like a mother-fucker. Erick flinched back, hard, leaping away from his seat, holding his hand. Teressa appeared at the doorway.

“I’m fine!” Erick said, stopping Teressa from rushing into the room. “Ouch.” He unclenched his hand, slowly, flinching at the lingering pain, saying, “Bad enchant. That’s on me.”

Teressa nodded, staying out of the room, but remaining in the doorway.

Erick looked at his hand. There was a bit of blood, but not much.

And then he stood up straight, holding out his hand. He strung mana through the rest of his Stats, in order, producing prominences of light out of his palm, like he was holding rainbow fire.

Strength produced a small radiance of every red.

Vitality was also red, but a shade more orange.

Willpower shone brilliant blue, like the sky and the ocean and blueberries all at once.

Focus radiated blue, but more teal, and a bit lighter all around.

HP radiated Strength’s colors, but shifted deeper, like someone had turned up the contrast. HP Regen was a heavily contrasted version of Vitality. Mana and Mana Regen followed this same trend.

“Huh.” Erick said, “Neat.”

Erick’s next experiment was flowing mana through both Strength and Willpower at the same time. It worked, sorta. Out of Erick’s palm came every color of magenta, purple, and violet under the sun. Another experiment with this new magenta light and another prepared diamond instantly caused another explosion, but Erick and Teressa were both ready for it, and the [Ward] in the room had already regenerated to full. Creating an All-Stat item was going to take some skill, and some time, and it might even prove impossible, but creating enough Willpower and Focus gems to complete his Class Ability Quest might only take another day or two.

Erick looked over his workbench and put his 10 Strength ring back on. He might not be able to make a plus 30 Stat gem, but he could certainly string together fifty of the smaller ones. For Erick's immediate needs, the enchant would only have to hold a moment, anyway. He would feel a lot better about his ability to defend himself when his daily [Ward] was worth 5800 points and could regenerate a thousand points every 5 minutes.

Erick packed up his enchanting books, tomes, and some diamond fragments into his shoulderbag; it was time to head out to the farms.