Erick watched as Kromolok and Sitnakov departed back across the lake, toward the shore in the far distance. And then he turned to the side and glanced over Tasar. The human-shaped, green-black woman looked a great deal relieved compared to the previous times Erick had seen her. Her newfound serenity had something to do with relief at not having to fight Melemizargo, and maybe some of what the Dark God had said, too.

So Erick asked, “I know why Kromolok is happy, but why are you happy?”

“You solved the Path, Erick.” Tasar’s smile grew a little, as she said, “What you said— The Path is both preparation and test with the goal of allowing the Walker to open up new worlds, and to bring civilization along with them. In retrospect, this is obvious, so it’s obvious why no one has ever gotten this far. You solved it, and even if we can’t find a Wizard to finish out this particular Path, now that we know what the true end goal is— This is massive, Erick.” She pulled back, speaking in less-enthusiastic caveats, “We don’t want to actually proceed until we can solve the Sundering problem, but Kromolok and others will be able to demand answers from—I’m hesitant to call out her name, so I’ll just call her the Letter Killer. Kromolok will ask, and she will have to answer in a satisfactory manner, because Fae Magic demands such.” She paused, then said, “I suppose she could deny us a proper answer, saying we have no proof of her oath breaking, but I’m sure Kromolok will work it out; he always does.”

Her words were hopeful, but their content meant something unsettling had happened.

To be sure, Erick asked, “You really heard everything, then?”

Tasar said, “Long range [Scry]s can do a lot and the prognosticators warned us something was going down when you decided to land atop this root. It should come as no surprise that we can respond fast to danger.”

… Maybe Rozeta was able to cast a wide-scale [Anti Time Stop] spell on her people along with a dozen other spells. She had done as much for Erick during Last Shadow’s Feast, after all. But all that didn’t really matter. Erick was suddenly bone-tired, as if his injuries had caught up to him. He couldn’t put on a stoic face for much longer.

“A lot of things have come as surprises today.” Erick said, “I don’t want to be a hermit, Tasar, but I am starting to see the appeal.”

Tasar nodded. “If you want to go to bed I can watch over you. I will have to be introduced to Yggdrasil, though. I was hoping such an introduction would happen naturally, but… Needs must, and Stratagold demands.” She had spoken her last words like a common saying.

Erick had never heard the saying before, but he could understand where it had come from. He decided to get it over with, and said, “Yggdrasil, this is Tasar. Tasar, this is Yggdrasil.”

Tasar glanced arou—

Yggdrasil’s meter-wide [Scry] eye appeared in the air beside Erick, shimmering and prismatic white. Tasar was startled but she settled quickly, then bowed to the eye. The eye nodded back, as Yggdrasil’s voice carried on the air, “Hello, Tasar.”

“Hello, Yggdrasil.” Tasar said, “I’m going to be staying with you for two days if that is okay.”

Yggdrasil’s eye looked to Erick.

“It’s fine.” Erick stepped into the air, his tattered clothes only holding onto his body because of his lightform, saying, “Let’s all get along then, shall we?”

Tasar looked almost giddy with anticipation as she turned toward Yggdrasil, waiting for Erick to lead the way.

And then Erick led the way.

- - - -

Upon one of the lower branches, beside one of his many, many [Sealed Privacy Ward]s, Erick landed upon Yggdrasil’s white bark. He stuck his hand inside the Privacy and it disappeared up to his wrist, as he explained to Tasar, “They’re each only the size of a small house, but they should be large enough for us to both comfortably exist for a while. I granted you Prismatic permissions.”

“I know this is an imposition, but I promise to be as unobtrusive as I can,” Tasar said, stepping to the edge of the Privacy and sticking her own hand inside. She brightened. “It’s a nice setup.”

Erick stepped into the Privacy and Tasar followed. Furniture appeared, though it had always been there, it just wasn’t visible from the outside; from the outside, all anyone could see was the flat surface of Yggdrasil’s branch.

Erick explained, “This room is the main room, but the actual sleeping area moves around, though I’ll just stay in this location while you’re here.” It was a bit more complicated than that, involving paranoid sweeps through all set Privacys, Yggdrasil periodically moving stuff around on his own, and other assorted nuances that Tasar didn’t need to know about. Erick gestured around, saying, “Kitchen. Library. Dividers to put up to separate the spaces and to make it feel more like a home, instead of open space on Yggdrasil’s arm. Feel free to copy and adjust whatever furniture you need to suit your own needs, or I could make you new things.”

“You don’t have to adjust yourself, Erick, or take care of me.” Tasar said, “I know it is a strong imposition for me to remain near you for the next 48 hours, so I am more than willing to acquiesce to your needs. If you want to move around I am okay with moving around, too.”

Erick shook his head. “No. That’s… No. We can stay in one place for a while.” He added, “Besides that, I was going to make [Fairy House] out of what Kydyr showed me yesterday. That place would be more permanent, but also vastly more secure. But then… She killed him and things happened.”

At the mention of Kydyr, Tasar lost a bit of her mirth. But like a good soldier, she regained her composure, and asked some tactical questions, “Were you planning on copying metals or just using the base spell?”

“… I was going to use a runic web from copied platinum.”

“I advise you not to [Duplicate] any metals. Let me secure some platinum for you through Archmage’s Rest to give you a book trail. You don’t want the golds wondering where you got the metal for a proper runic web. If they know you have [Duplicate] then they simply will not make any trade deals. They hate that spell with a passion.”

Erick was briefly interested in talking about history, and about how [Duplicate] was rampant inside the Geodes, but he let that conversation go. “I suppose the people in charge of the economy would hate that spell.” Erick asked, “How long would it take for a shipment of metals? And wouldn’t you get them from [Duplicate], anyway?”

“We have a strategic reserve of all types of metal that we can give out for certain needs, and at this juncture, a proper defensive house for you, or for any people you invite to Yggdrasil, would count against that reserve.” Tasar said, “And that’s what we tell everyone, but the ‘strategic reserve’ is just code for [Duplicate]; please don’t go sharing that information around, though.”

“Then that works.” Erick glanced around to his ‘house’, his mind going a bit fuzzy with the need to sleep, as he said, “Let me make you a space... Or you can make it yourself? I think I need to… Lay back down— Wait. I already offered. You said you could handle yourself. Yes. I will let you do that, then.” He tugged at his tattered clothes, saying, “And I will make myself some new clothes and maybe eat something, before sleeping.”

Tasar nodded, then moved further into the ‘house’, saying, “I may technically be your keeper for two days, but you can pretend as though I’m not here. If you desire, though, after you’ve had a chance to rest, I’m interested in continuing some spellwork. Aura work? Or any other spellwork you might wish to discuss. If you’re up for it.”

“Yeah. Sure… Later.”

Tasar nodded, then she went to a divider and copied it, before proceeding to [Fabricate] the copy into furniture for her own space. She asked, “Do you mind if I leave a summon on the edge of the Privacy? I can’t mana sense the world outside like this.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Erick moved on to his own part of the house, saying, “Do whatever you need to do.”

Tasar nodded, then summoned a small creature that looked almost like a blackberry; tiny and seemingly made of even smaller black spheres. She set the summon at the edge of the Privacy, where it lodged into the edge of the space and remained. She smiled, as her senses of the outside world likely came back in full.

Erick turned his attentions back to his own predicament.

And since it was foolish to try and ‘hide his dignity’ behind a screen, he stripped right there and put on some fresh night clothes from a dresser. A [Mend] failed to fix his tattered clothes, so Erick dumped them into a bin of recyclables; Melemizargo’s Silenced words must have damaged them rather deeply. He would [Fabricate] them into something new tomorrow.

For now, he went to the kitchen, grabbed a large, meaty, cheesy sandwich out of the cold storage, copied it, put the original back, and began heating up the copy. Soon, it was steaming hot. He sat down at the table and offered to make Tasar a meal, but she politely declined his offer. She was almost all the way through making a nice little room for herself at the edge of the Privacy and she wanted to finish.

Erick stayed up a little while longer reading from the small library he had managed to amass in the Underworld, mostly the books about Wizardry he had gained from the Core. He had already read them once before, but none of it was information he could use yet, anyway. After only ten minutes of reading, Erick felt his full-body lethargy finally reach his mind, though his anger was on the rise. He could ignore the anger for a while. He set the book aside, gave one final thought to how his rage was only going to rise, and then he closed his eyes.

He watched Tasar for a little while longer through his mana sense, but she wasn’t doing anything aside from sitting in her new chair and reading her own book. Hers was a fiction story, number 25 in a series titled ‘The Meandering Mage’, and Tasar was savoring each page. The soft sound of turning pages eventually melded into the background rustle of leaves, far, far overhead, and Erick fell asleep.

- - - -

Erick woke fully rested.

He was also quite pissed off.

And then he breathed out, took a deep breath in, stretched, and some of his anger melted away. Most remained, though. Like a pink haze, rage became a small buzz in the back of his mind as he got up. Tasar had remained in her chair the whole night. She was almost to the end of her novel, so several hours had to have passed, at least. Erick ignored her, for the moment, and turned his mana sense toward the kitchen. His rage grew a little more when he realized that he didn’t want to eat any of the foods in cold storage. It was all shit!

… Ah.

He was angry.

This did not bode well for the remaining 40 hours of this… Whatever this was. This nannying. Babying. Painting Erick as someone who couldn’t be trusted to run his own life in a satisfactory manner. Thinking about Stratagold’s casual disregard of Erick’s competence got Erick’s blood boiling.

And this was just the start of this shit.

Erick had no doubt at all that 48 hours would become 72, would become 100, and then a thousand.

This was untenable. So this problem needed to be solved sooner, rather than later. If Erick left this for later he would surely explode at someone, and who knew what that would lead to. Erick didn’t want to think too deeply of how, exactly, his relationship with Stratagold could sour and then turn to poison...

So Erick stood at the edge of his Privacy, near Tasar. She was currently reading her book, and she seemed to savor the pages, reading at a sedate pace that made Erick clench his teeth as yet another spike of small rage layered on top of all the rest.

He calmly asked her, “What’s a guy gotta do to get some real privacy?”

Tasar jerked away from her book, only now realizing that Erick was looking at her. “Uh. Sorry. I was paying attention. Uh? Real privacy?” She set her book aside and stood, saying, “I apologize, but until Kromolok can pin down the Letter Killer in an agreement that satisfies all involved, then we cannot allow her to visit you, which she certainly would. The fae lost much of their power after the Sundering and with the Script keeping them in line, but deals made by fae are still dangerous to accept, and she can make a deal with anyone, simply by accepting hospitality, or your ‘thanks’. Any number of arcane reasonings is enough to grant her a modicum of power over you, and that would be bad.”

“… Yes. Well. Visiting me isn’t the problem. The problem, I suppose, is that you believe I cannot be trusted to not make deals with strange people.” Erick said, “This feels like a rather baseless assumption and makes it seem like I am some sort of idiot.”

Tasar made a show of listening and nodding, then she maintained the party line, “This is a decision that has come down from the King himself. I would like to honestly report that after these 48 hours are over—”

“40.”

“—That after these 40 hours are over, that there was no contact. That’s all I’m trying to do.” Tasar said, “But that said, we will be working in close proximity until the end of your Path, so I would like to work with you to make this arrangement and all other future arrangements work comfortably. If you bear with it, then I will be sure to leave you alone after these 40 hours.”

“… This whole thing has been very stressful for me and if I don’t get some alone time, and soon, then I will probably explode on someone. I do not want that to happen.”

After a moment, Tasar said, “Okay. I understand.” Tasar said, “I can put a bubble around the [Prismatic Ward] of this space to alert me if anyone should happen to cross into this barrier. It should last against the Amulet of Non-Presence, for it’s a detection spell in ways in which we believe the Amulet cannot defend. It will last 10 minutes, but I will be coming back inside if anyone should happen to touch the barrier. Is ten minutes enough private time?”

Erick’s shoulders tensed as he fought off making his hands into fists. And then he heard ‘ten minutes’. A wave of relief flowed through his body as muscles started to relax. He said, “As long as it’s not some sort of surveillance spell and I can actually be alone, then that’s fine with me.”

“It is a surveillance spell, but I can shape it to remain on the edge of the Privacy.” Tasar said, “And also across Yggdrasil’s surface, of course. As long as nothing crosses the edge, then I will remain outside.”

Erick felt his anger roar at being treated like a child, or a would-be criminal.

But.

But.

He could do this.

“This place is protected by [Prismatic Ward], anyway.” Erick said, “And this Letter Killer isn’t on my list of allowed people.”

Tasar said, “Even so. She does have that Amulet, and it does make her immune to almost all forms of detection. I’m not 100% on it working, either, but it should. It would work better if I wrapped it through the whole space, but— We’re just trying to look out for you, Erick.”

Erick breathed deep.

Stamp down the anger.

This was fine.

Erick sent Ophiel outside and gently nudged Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye out of the space, as he said, “Sure. Let’s do it. I’m going to lay on the bed. Wrap it through everywhere but the bed space, if you need to do that to feel secure. I’m going to meditate for a little while and I don’t want to be disturbed, or viewed.”

Was this stupid?

Perhaps.

It would be more stupid to let this problem build any higher.

Tasar relaxed a little bit, smiling graciously, saying, “That does make me feel more comfortable. I will do this. It will detect telepathy or [Scry] eyes, and even the connections to Ophiel, but I will allow for those connections.”

Erick nodded.

Tasar cast a shimmering black light throughout the whole Privacy and suddenly Erick’s body began to fluoresce like a wrought under blacklight, but green. Tasar glittered the same, looking like a green glowstick at a midnight rave. The spell layered across Yggdrasil’s glowing bark, and across the air above. Erick noticed short, green prominences that stood out from his body, and with a bit of understanding, he realized those flares of green sparkles connected him to every Ophiel out there. He lifted a foot and watched as green light connected him to Yggdrasil. He moved a bit, testing the space, and the detection spell glittered with green sparks like he was moving through water filled with bioluminescent algae. As he stopped moving, though, the glow began to fade, and all that remained was dark air. His sunform, kept tight and small against his back, still radiated a brilliant green glow, though. Tasar’s glow had already faded almost entirely, leaving her fully black, standing among her shadows.

And then Tasar’s mouth made green sparkles as she once again moved, saying, “It calms down if nothing happens. Anyone moving through the space, at all, will produce an effect that I or anyone else can see. I will leave you to your meditation.” She added, “I have taken the liberty of leaving your small bathroom untouched, as well.”

Ah.

She thought he needed to poop. Okay. That worked.

Tasar nodded, then moved out of the space, regaining her glowstick-look as she moved to the edge of the Privacy, saying, “When you move out of the space I will begin watch. Please purposefully tap the space to let me know. I will respond to the first intrusion, and that includes [Telepathy] intrusions.” With a casual turn, she stepped outside of the Privacy.

Erick was left with a dozen uncomfortable realizations.

He only had ten minutes of ‘free time’ to do what he needed to do, like some convict inside a prison,

He rapidly moved to the bed, stepping out of the inky air like a glowing green cloud, to crash onto the mattress and into possible privacy. For a moment, Erick watched the shadowy spell, as the green glitters he left inside gradually began to fade. Nothing else disturbed the shadows, anywhere.

… Time to get this over with!

Erick switched to his Other Form, watching Tasar all the while. She did not blink, or move, or react at all. Erick rapidly activated [Renew], feeding his core while also cycling, trying not to lose himself to the sudden relief that filled his entire soul as mana flooded inward and fixed a thousand tiny degradations. Twenty seconds later Erick had bottomed out on mana, but he had never stopped watching Tasar. She didn’t react at all. Erick continued to cycle for a little while; ten seconds, and then twenty. And that was enough. He switched back to his Normal Form.

More seconds passed in blissful solitude.

And Erick had a thought. Did he want to keep up this specific ruse? To play along with Tasar’s thoughts on what he was actually doing in here? Pooping? If so, then he needed to take the full ten minutes.

Or at least a minute.

Yeah. One minute for the ruse. This was fine. Erick just sat there on his bed, breathing, and feeling good for another ten seconds, and then the minute was over. And then he realized he should actually go to the bathroom, since it was morning, and Tasar had left the path to the bathroom open. So he went to the small bathroom he had set up, did what he needed to do, and [Cleanse]ed away the mess, recasting his normal [Personal Ward] like he would during any normal morning. He also recast [Sealed Privacy Ward] over the space, erasing the latest history of the manasphere throughout the area—

Everything flashed green.

Tasar suddenly shifted into the space; she did not walk in, and she did not appear where she would have been if she had walked in. She appeared by the library’s bookshelves, nearly 5 meters away from where Erick had expected her to appear.

Well that was terrifying, both in the speed of the action and with how quickly Tasar reoriented to adjusted surroundings. For a brief moment she looked ready to kill someone, and then the moment passed; she realized nothing was happening. No need to worry. No need to kill an intruding fae.

It appeared Erick was touchy, yes, but Tasar was also touching about defending her charge.

Erick just waved, happily saying, “Thanks for the break.”

As the glow in the air faded back to shadows, Tasar rapidly resumed her professional facade. And then she canceled her spell, returning light to the Private space, as she said, “I apologize again for intruding on you. This seemed to work out, though, so if you need to do this again, just let me know.”

Her words were calm and diplomatic, but a few small clues gave away her inner thoughts. The tension in her shoulders. The darting of her eyes to see if anything had moved; she had a good mana sense, but she used her eyes just as much as her other senses. She wondered if he had met with the fae, and then lied about it. Such a suspicious nature would be dangerous going forward.

Erick tried to make her feel calmer, saying, “Morning ritual taken care of. Thank you for the actual privacy.”

“… Sure.” Tasar asked, “Are you feeling better?”

“Sure. Care to watch me make [Fairy House]?”

“Of course.” Tasar said, “I have the metal on order from our reserves. It will take a few hours more but it will arrive in large enough quantities to form a decent web. I believe Riivo is bringing it, himself, for we both want to ask you about Kydyr’s final day, if you’re up for that?”

“… Yeah. Of course.” Erick said, “We can do that, too.”

Tasar smiled a little, but it was a worried expression, filled with tension that didn’t need to be there—

Wait.

She wasn’t suspicious that Erick was hiding something.

She was suspicious that she had missed something, and thus they would both be in danger.

Erick realized his anger had been blinding him to a smaller truth that had remained true this entire time; Stratagold was doing what it thought it had to do for the good of the world, and now, that ‘good for the world’ included Erick. They were trying to look out for him. They were trying to be allies. They had some pretty strict codes of what was ‘good’ or ‘allowed’, but they were trying, and everyone was upset over all the recent events so no one was at their best. If what Erick knew about the fae of Earth held up here on Veird, then their worries were probably well-founded.

This increased security was completely understandable, and they weren’t actually treating Erick like a child. If they were, then Tasar would not have agreed to give him any alone time at all. No; after yesterday, he was pretty sure that they were treating him as an actual ally. Or at least trying to.

Tasar seemed to have her own, personal hangups and Erick was still trying to figure those out.

Reevaluating Sitnakov’s and Kromolok’s reactions last night made clear that things had changed for one specific reason. Kromolok already knew, but now Sitnakov and everyone knew that Erick had a kill spell in his heart. It was easy to be allied with a world-destabilizing force when one already had the ability to kill that force without worry.

… Hmm.

Erick would milk this known avenue of discourse for all it was worth, at the appropriate time. Not right now. Not for something as small as demanding private time for himself, no matter how important that [Renew] time might be for his sanity, especially if they were in an actual, active danger situation.

Erick said, “I’d also like to know more about fae; from you, and from Riivo. While I appreciate your people’s insistence on providing security to me in this dangerous time, I would have you know that before his death, Kydyr told me about how dangerous the fae were, and he made sure I understood. He spoke of how the Letter Killer went around murdering men in her spare time, and how if the fae met me, she would likely try to woo and then kill me. But one thing we never spoke about was how much I already knew of fae.” Erick added, “We have a lot of stories about fae back on Earth. Tell me, does this sound like them: The fae are all old monsters who twist words and make bargains that you wouldn’t ever consider fair, but which, by the letter, they are; according to the fae, anyway. Stories of people kidnapped out of their homes. Of babies replaced with [Polymorph]ed fae. Of small rituals like leaving bread on windowsills to keep the fae from harming you. Of a hundred years stolen from an invader of the forest because they didn’t speak properly with the inhabitants. Of warnings to be playful with fae, but not overly playful, for the fae will take everything from you that they possibly can.” Erick said, “I know not to get involved with that sort of stuff, but even if I have to get involved, I think I can navigate small interactions.”

Tasar’s eyes briefly went wide halfway through Erick’s talk, and by the end, she was both greatly relieved, and also knowingly worried. “I did not know that there were fae stories on Earth, and I don’t believe Stratagold knows this, either. Stories of the fae are kept rather quiet on Veird, on purpose, but I suppose it makes sense that the fae would have visited your world before now—” She perked up. “I think your daughter wrote some small stories about fae? I confess, I did not read everything she wrote for Kirginatharp for most of it was completely nonsensical.”

“My daughter would know more fae stories than I, but it is true that I have no idea what was real. I bet a lot of it was real, though.” Erick said, “Not only does Melemizargo’s mana escape from the world and travel out into space, but the Old Cosmology had been around for a long time before that and Dimensional Magic did not use to be Banned. Earth has likely been tangentially exposed to the mana of Veird’s previous universe for a long, long time, influencing much of our cultures without us even knowing it. There might even be fae remaining on Earth, right now.”

Tasar gave a small, nervous laugh, saying, “Now that is a terrifying thought.” Tasar shook her head, saying, “Usually, planars don’t know anything of magic, but you took right to it. I guess it makes sense that the fae would have had a larger presence on your world than most. Ah. I think Riivo would greatly like to participate in this conversation. Do you mind if we table talk about fae for now?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“I will say, though, that some of the oldest books spoke of fae as though they were the original planars; traveling to and fro from world to universe and back as they were wont.” Tasar spoke excitedly, “I studied them on my own Worldly Path, but my steps fell far short of a visit from—” Tasar said, “I’m really sorry for thinking you knew nothing of the fae. I’m sure if we talk to Stratagold we can remove much of this oversight, and even if they ask for the oversight to remain, with a good [Fairy House] you should be able to have your… Alone time… Whenever you wish, without us actually being vulnerable.”

Erick lost a lot of the tension in his shoulders, and in his chest. “I would like that.”

Tasar nodded.

Erick offered, “Time to make some magic?”

“Yes, please. I haven’t actually gotten to see you make magic before, so this is rather exciting.”

Erick chuckled a little. “You’ve never been to Songli?”

“Not… really.” Tasar said, “It’s a big deal for a Geode Guardian to visit a major city and I can’t go incognito. If I am to be a bit overly honest, I am hoping that traveling with you will allow me to be a bit more normal and in the background.”

It was such a sincere expression that Erick blanked, and then his mind restarted. He chuckled a bit, saying, “Maybe we can work on some Fae Magic disguises.”

“Oh. No.” Tasar waved him off, saying, “Fae Magic disguises are a more dangerous use of that magic. I never went far with it, but I have one spell, and that is enough.”

There was a story there, but…

It was time to make magic.

- - - -

Erick stood on a part of Yggdrasil’s roots that stuck out of the water not too far from his trunk. Still under the green canopy, with the kilometers-tall tree not a hundred meters away, Erick watched the waves for a little bit, listening to the gently crashing water as a soft breeze flowed across the cavern.

Tasar stood on a different root, not twenty meters away, well and truly outside of the area of effect of his magic. She had already told him that there would be watchers in case Fairy Moon would show in the middle of this magic, but Erick put that concern out of his mind. It took a moment to get in the proper mental space to make magic, but he was close.

… He focused on the sounds around him.

All ten Ophiel hovered nearby, but only four remained with Erick; one for each sound of the coming spell and for the corners of the compass. Erick already knew that [Fairy House] was going to be a special sort of spell. He couldn’t tell what, exactly, would make it special, but he had some ideas. A hidden entrance, that only someone in the know would know. Invisible and intangible to all but the allowed. A space, almost sacred in a way, and more well-protected than all others possible within the Script.

And yet, the Script would make it fragile.

The fae were the true creators of Elemental Fae, but then the Script gifted it to everyone, and in that gifting, they built vulnerabilities into that magic. No single magic or individual person would ever again be allowed to act with impunity, and the fae were no exception to this absolute decree. In that way, Erick’s [Fairy House] would be vulnerable to other Fae Magic unless Erick did a whole lot of runework to guard against that vulnerability, and yet, such protections still might fail when they were needed most, like how Kydyr’s protections had failed him.

The specific way in which runework ‘solved’ this problem was that it stacked up many, many [Fairy House]s, like nesting dolls, only allowing the outermost one to be subject to Fae Magic’s specific vulnerability to other Fae Magic.

So, in this way, it might be possible to ‘fix’ this problem by importing runework’s ‘stacking feature’ into his [Fairy House] spell, directly. And so, he would add [Renew] to the working.

Erick smiled.

This was a good plan.

Erick stepped forward and Ophiel surrounded him, floating in the air on all four corners; to the North, South, East, and West. And then Ophiel began to dance around Erick, fluttering and full of eyes, watching him and the rest of the world as they hovered. Before he even asked them to, Ophiel began to sing the individual songs of [Intangibility], [Concealment], [Fairy Item], and [Renew]. For a moment, Erick lost himself in the sounds, in the music of ethereal force, a hidden grove, a tinkling laugh that could simply be a trick of the wind, and a flowing refrain that took everything that came before and made it more.

He grinned as he realized that there wasn’t much work to do to get everything into proper alignment, and then he smiled as he heard one way in which it could be better; deeper. He would play a little ‘fae trick’ of his own. Anyone could see the blue box, and it would look like a normal spell, but the part about [Renew]’s bolstering effect would remain obscured; hidden in clever wording and nuanced meaning.

The laughter of [Fairy Item] turned suddenly happier, as though a joke had played well.

A refrain of joy turned into a cavalcade of deepening song—

The magic passed through him; without asking, without demanding. It happened, for Erick was merely a conduit for something else. More than two thousand mana vanished into invisible air, transforming something just beyond his sight. He could feel the shift in the air…

He could not see it.

For a long moment, there was nothing.

Erick glanced around, searching with his mana sense and his visual sen—

The blue box appeared while Erick was still looking for the spell effect itself.

Fairy Stronghold, instant, close range, 1005 + Variable

Instantiate a protective fairy space into reality. Medium size. Unreal control. You may expand or reinforce the space with extra casts of this spell. Only those you show the path can enter this stronghold. Lasts until you decide otherwise.

As he blinked away the notification, he saw it.

A white door set in a white brick wall, standing on Yggdrasil’s white root like someone had carved the structure from a house and plopped it down. It was not well-attached, sitting atop loose, white gravel and flagstones. It could topple over at any moment, but Erick knew it wouldn’t; not yet, anyway. A trio of white flagstones extended out from the door, angled toward Erick.

Erick was already standing on the first stone.

To all his mana senses and Sights, the door did not exist. But to his visual eyes, it did. He stepped a bit to the left, taking one foot off the flagstone, eyeing the door—

The door vanished. Like how the whorls of tree bark could resemble a face from a certain direction, or how a pile of clothes could look like a dog on the floor if it was dark and you didn’t look too closely, Erick had moved, and changed everything. The door was gone.

All there was, were the blue waters of the lake, and twenty other roots of Yggdrasil arcing out of those waters. The first flagstone had vanished out from under his feet, too. The vanishing stone was perhaps more strange than losing track of the entrance. Ophiel kept dancing around him this whole time, supremely interested in whatever it was he was doing. The little guy didn’t seem able to see the door, at all. He also flew right through the space where the door was without any trouble.

Erick stepped back onto the flagstone.

The door reappeared.

He stepped onto the second flagstone, then to the third, to stand before the door itself. As Ophiel flew through the brick wall, not noticing the wall at all, Erick placed his hand on the knob...

- - - -

Tasar watched as Ophiel hovered around Erick, singing in some sort of ritual. She didn’t understand it herself. She was classically trained in all the proper methodologies to make the most of the Basic Script that was open to everyone. This ritual and ceremony were sort of how Kirginatharp cast his larger spells, or how the Song Magic of Songli worked. A lot of the older immortals from before the Sundering had their little rituals like this, and those rituals had invaded almost every culture of this world.

Without proper magical learning, Erick had been raised like many of those immortals had; through stories and folklore of magic was somehow ‘strange’ or ‘impossible to truly know’. A lot of planars failed to grasp magic because they approached it in this way…

Or maybe it was because magic just ‘didn’t make sense’ to them.

That was probably a more true statement.

Magic made a lot of sense to Erick, though, and that was because magic was easy to understand. He came at it from an odd direction, but it worked for him. That’s how it worked for almost everyone, actually. One just needed to approach magic from the proper angles of math and study, with the proper tools of gridwork and runework and all the other small tricks that one eventually learned if they stuck at it long enough. One had to find a good teacher, too, obviously. The truest power was locked behind ‘[Gate]s’ of ‘do you know the right professor’ or ‘have you proven you won’t fuck up the world if we teach you this’. Perfectly reasonable demands to make of anyone, before they are allowed to know how to wield power. All of that learning was mostly just tricks to organize how magic behaved in one’s own mind, though.

For those magically-deficient planars were only technically right that magic ‘didn’t make sense’.

Some people, like Erick, came at it all on their own, though, and with a system that worked because he made it work.

With a strong enough personal Truth and a history that tapered well into how he wanted to use magic, the mana had responded particularly strongly to Erick’s desires for growth and prosperity. Erick’s methods worked for him, though Tasar doubted they would ever work for her—

He vanished.

Tasar instantly focused, her mana sense cast wide to pick up any disturbances in the fabric of space, peeling out fact from fiction to try and discern the Truth of Location—

‘Report,’ came Uchena’s insistent voice.

Ophiel hovered around where Erick had been, looking briefly confused. They broke away from their controlled flight around Erick’s casting location to resume their passive, standby hovers. Tasar easily recognized that particular mannerism of the summoned creature. Ophiel was unsure, but not worried. Therefore, Tasar wasn’t worried either.

‘I do not see him but I doubt he's left the area.’ Tasar sent, ‘My detectors aren’t catching any movement. His spell creation likely worked. If he’s not back in one minute then we can start attempting to [Dispel] the area to bring him back—’

Erick reappeared, and then vanished again.

Ophiel squawked at the disturbance, wanting to play but not being allowed. He was only a year old, wasn’t he? That was 20-year-old behavior… Unless Erick was leaking his feelings too much. He probably was.

‘There, see?’ Tasar sent, ‘He’s just made a good [Fairy House].’

‘You need to be more worried about this, Tasar.’ Uchena sent, ‘It doesn’t matter if he has a kill spell inside. The Church and Rozeta don’t always agree on what should be done about strange actors.’

Uchena remained angry at Erick even after the public reveal of Erick’s execution spell, but Uchena was Uchena. Paranoid, and often proven right, but just as often proven wrong. It was why she was second in command of the Inquisitors, and not the first. Tasar wished she would relax.

‘I think he should have told us about the kill spell.’ Tasar sent, ‘Then we could have avoided all of these political games… But I suppose Erick wanted to move forward on his own merits, and that is laudable. He’s a good person, Uchena.’

‘Good people do terrible things all the time.’

‘And if he looks to break the world then Rozeta will be there killing him long before you can.’ Tasar sent, ‘He even knows about the dangers of fae! I think we can all take a step back and relax a little; perhaps even a great deal. I certainly don’t think I need to actually be there with him every single hour of every single day, either. He needs his space, Uchena, or else he is going to explode.’

Uchena sighed. ‘You should have remained with him.’

‘I don’t need to watch him poop, or do anything else that he feels the need to do. It was embarrassing enough when he undressed in front of me.’

Uchena’s generalized, wordless disagreement flowed through their connection—

Erick reappeared exactly where he had been, looking exactly the same as before.

‘And there he is. Again.’ Tasar sent, ‘Looking exactly the same as before.’

A quick check of his body with her mana sense informed Tasar that Erick was either a perfect copy, or Erick himself. She leaned toward Erick being Erick, and Uchena must have felt the same, for she closed off their connection without Tasar’s input. That woman seriously hated the man, which was normal for Uchena, but it often led to self-fulfilling problems. She was highly gifted in the Mind Mage arts, and in killing, but she had not a single knack for Prognostication or interpersonal relationships.

Tasar happily called out, “How does the new magic look!”

- - - -

Erick called back, “Come on over and see!” He touched the air around him. “I left it running.”

Tasar stepped through the air to land on the glowing white root next to him. For a brief moment, she was confused, then Erick mentally gave her Stronghold permissions and she lost her confusion. She glanced at the ground, to the paver stone she was suddenly standing on, and then up, at the conjuring Erick had created.

“Oh.” She stared, disbelieving, saying, “There it is.”

“Yup!”

He hadn’t gone too much further with his new, modular magic, but he had managed a two-story tower that clung to Yggdrasil’s root like a building constructed on a cliff’s edge. The ‘materials’ were super light, too, so even though no building inspector would ever sign off on this construction, it probably wouldn’t fall, anyway.

The first floor was kept small, since the root was only three meters across, with enough of a footprint and securing bars to keep it from tipping over, and enough space to provide arch support for the second floor. The second floor had almost four times the floor space of the first. It was very top-heavy and completely untenable for long-term habitation, but it was good for an experiment. Erick stepped through the first-floor door and Tasar followed. A staircase occupied most of the first floor. Erick walked up and Tasar followed.

All the while, Tasar was wide-eyed and speechless, testing the ground as she walked, flickering through several Sight spells to try and see through the magic. But this was a Fae Spell, and to all senses it looked real, from the inside, anyway; Erick had already checked on that himself.

The space didn’t seem to exist from the outside, at all, which Erick was still wrapping his head around. Now that he had his own [Fairy House] spell, Erick could finally do some proper tests on the space.

The second floor was more impressive than the first, by far. It was a dome of clear crystal, with the staircase coming up from the center and panoramic views all around. Yggdrasil’s green canopy and lightning-like branches held far overhead, while the lake all around them seemed as large as an ocean. More glowing white roots spread out everywhere, arcing above the waters, but to the north-west, Yggdrasil’s trunk dominated the view.

Erick said, “I added in a lot of the Permanency-[Renew] ideas I’ve been working on into this spell, so I can even extend the space with more casts.” He gestured at the roof and spent a thousand mana, translating into about 20,000 mana after Intelligence. The thick crystal dome transformed into an iron-braced viewing room, with a ladder leading up to a widow’s tower at the top. “It’s an expensive spell but it’s modular, so I can make you your own rooms if you want, and I can expand pretty darned far, even without the use of a runic web. I am pretty sure I can even make individual rooms that are invisible to each other until you cross the threshold; either through runework, or nested spells.”

Tasar stared around, stunned and impressed and working to figure out how it was done. “Permanency is something people work for decades to— And it’s modular?” She touched the ladder leading up as if it would break at her touch, but the solid, fake metal remained strong. “How did you— How much mana did you put into this working? How much space do you get per cast? This should be way too expensive to—” She relaxed a fraction as she realized something. “Ah. Intelligence.”

Erick nodded. “Variable spell. One medium-sized space per thousand mana, with every extra thousand mana giving another medium-sized space; a little over a two-meter diameter sphere.” Or, Erick could double the strength in an area, though he hadn’t done much of that yet. Erick said, “One cast at 1000 extra mana was only enough to make the front door and a small closet beyond. It took the equivalent of 130,000 mana to make this small tower and secure it to Yggdrasil so it wouldn’t topple into the lake.”

Tasar was already casting detection spells, sending them outward. “My senses of the outside are blocked by the walls like normal vision, even to [True Sight], and mana sense goes out like normal… Spells coming in from the outside are funky, though— Oh. Look at that.” Ophiel flew through the space, from the outside, passing right through the crystals and iron bars and even Erick’s stretched-out hand like a semi-transparent ball of feathers and eyes. Tasar smiled, saying, “Things from the outside pass right through. This is the good version, Erick. It just needs a runic web to be truly secure.”

“I was thinking of getting breakfast at the embassy before Riivo showed up with the platinum.” Erick asked, “Do we have time?”

“Oh. Sure.” Tasar poked at the crystal window with a rigid finger, saying, “I’d like to help you on your aura control sometime soon, too. Have you run into any problems with that? There’s a platinum slime designated for you if you’re having trouble with aura cleaning and you want to brute force it.” She touched the iron reinforcing bars, saying, “This truly does look like metal. Huh.”

Erick grinned. “I want to do some resiliency tests with this spell before I go back to aura control. Do you have any Fae Magic?”

Tasar stepped into the air, preparing for the space to pop. “Just the one spell. You want to test it?”

“Yes.” Erick stepped a fraction off the floor, saying, “I reinforced the spell with some redundancy through Permanency, but it will likely break. Not sure how much damage it can take.”

Tasar nodded as she held a hand out to stomach height and cast a quick spell.

An orb of glass materialized in her hand and the bracelet on Erick’s forearm evaporated as though it was made of dust in a windstorm. The stone floor of the house only rippled. Erick looked down, expecting something more to happen. Tasar did the same, her eyebrows going up.

“Huh.” Tasar dismissed the glass orb then said, “The reinforcement held, I see, but more likely the shattering effect caught upon your bracelet instead.”

“The effects of the house are technically closer to the casting point of that orb, though.” Erick asked, “Can you conjure outside?”

“Of course.” Tasar focused for a moment, then pointed to the windows, saying, “Right there, and then inside the structure. I’ll go for a few casts.”

Erick watched as a small blackberry floated out of Tasar’s hand, then darted up and out of the [Fairy Stronghold]’s upper exit. The summon rapidly moved to hover outside the window. With a flicker of black-green light, another glass orb materialized outside the window and promptly fell down; lost to the lake waters. And the windows held. Tasar’s eyebrows went up again.

She moved the blackberry to the window, then inside, the construct turning ethereal as it entered the area of the house. Erick smiled. Ophiel did the same thing when he flew through. It very much reminded him of… Almost like looking at an illusion through [True Sight]. Which… Was exactly what it was, but different?

Oh.

Okay.

Oh.

This was big. Erick didn’t know how it was big, but it was. He didn’t notice the similarity until it happened a few times but now that he noticed, he noticed.

Perhaps the fact that other things could enter the space, but they were illusions to anyone already inside the space… Or perhaps it was the idea that Erick had made something more real than reality… Or perhaps—

Erick blinked as another glass orb released from the blackberry and the entire Stronghold fractured like lightning struck the center. Erick’s false Fae Reality crumbled and broke like so much shattering white mana.

And Erick lost his train of thought—

No! Wait!

Fae Magic operated on a different wavelength!

Oh.

Wait.

Wow. Was that it? Just make a different wavelength of reality? Overlap the world with other worlds that no one could actually see? Was there a ‘wavelength’ inside the mana? Did the fae live on a different slice of reality? Oh. Shit. That made a lot… of sense...

Wait.

What the FUCK did the DIMENSIONAL BAN actually DO?

All this time, had the answer to [Gate] been staring him in the face? All he had to do was make a different wavelength of reality through fae magic and then have that different reality operate through different rules to allow for [Gate] to function anywhere mana existed. Was that it? The whole story? Mana had to exist in two different points of space for [Gate] to work through them, because… of course it had to? Mana had to exist in the location one was [Gate]ing to, duh. Yes. Of course it did.

Was all mana in touch with all of itself, all the time?

Was mana just a separate reality, overlaid atop the physical one?

… Okay, that second ‘overlaid’ question was an obvious and emphatic ‘YES’. Duh. Mana was a separate reality that was mostly unaffected by this physical one.

So, thinking back to how ‘all mana was connected to all other mana’… That was probably how Erick and Jane had fallen to Veird. They had touched upon a different slice of reality and gotten sucked up into this larger pool of reality, here on Veird.

Which was likely why [Gate]ing back to Earth would be impossible. Erick would have to first make a [Gate] spell that could target specific spots of mana, and then target that one specific bit of mana back on Earth that had shoved them here to Veird.

… But that one bit of mana would have already passed on, right? Earth certainly had a low amount of mana, for sure.

In this way, the same sort of event had happened to other planars in other parts of the universe, didn’t it? They had encountered a knot or an eddy or a particularly aligned bit of Elemental Fae, or something, and… It was just like what happened to Erick when he stepped on that Teleport Pad in Enduring Forge. He had stepped into the mana when he did that, didn’t he? And then the mana flowed as it normally flowed, to the Core. Mana normally flowed everywhere. But a lot of it flowed back to Veird’s Core.

Holy fuck. No. That didn’t seem right? The order of magnitude of ‘luck’ needed to not die in such a situation was… Very large, for sure. Erick and Jane had ended up in the Underworld with monster—

With Melemizargo right there.

Was he constantly calling for help from outside? Perhaps? Maybe he was? Was he acting as a separate ‘Core’ for all the planars to fall to? Or was that another magnitude of ‘luck’ that Erick and Jane had succeeded, where many, many others had failed?

Oh, gods, so many sudden questions.

This ‘sliding through the mana’ was real, though. For sure.

Back in the Old Cosmology, in order to [Teleport], one had to ‘pick themselves up in one area and set down in another’, following the flow of mana. That is what Erick had read when he read about the creator of Spatial Magic on Veird, Everlin Etherspray, and how she had first worked that particular magic. The story was likely apocryphal, but the way in which people [Teleport]ed in the Old Cosmology was well documented and true. (One could also work against the flow, as Everlin did, but that was harder to do.)

But when that Spatial Magic got into the Script, it was streamlined.

And yet [Gate] was Old Cosmology Spatial Magic, and likely a bit more Fae Magic aligned than all the rest. It was trickier. More devious.

Erick wasn’t sure, but he felt like he was sneaking up on a Truth.

In the process of falling to Veird, Erick and Jane had gone from an area of low mana to the only other place where mana existed in large quantities, Veird. Or, perhaps, they rode the natural direction that probability flowed; from a space with a single mana (or a small amount, for sure), to this planet with a veritable ocean of mana. Or Fae Magic was being True Fae magic, since it was operating outside of the Script’s bounds, and playing some cosmic, improbable trick.

Okay.

Lotta questions. No easy answers, aside from all the answers Erick had just figured out.

To do:

Research the Dimensional Ban; what does it do, exactly. Does that Ban simply prevent [Gate] from punching through to different dimensions, like the one Veird originally came from? And yet, the Dimensional Ban and [Gate] exist in the same Script, at the same time, so then [Gate] must not be Dimensional Magic at all. But how could it be anything else?

Research how probability flows in mana. Does flowing mana actually matter for [Gate]? It probably does, considering how the Twisted Vision inside the Forest of Glaquin constantly sucks mana toward its center, and how Old Cosmology Spatial Magic used to work.

Research how Fae Magic seems to exist on another plane of reality. Research how mana itself is like a different plane of reality. Research how viable it is to create structures in the mana that exist on other wavelengths of reality, if such a thing were even possible.

—All these thoughts took place in one impossibly long single second. And then Erick’s [Fairy Stronghold] finished breaking. As the light show cleared, Erick and Tasar remained in the air over Yggdrasil’s root.

Tasar looked to him, saying, “It’s a good spell, but it needs the solidity of a proper runic web to make it viable for defense.”

Calmly, Erick nodded, as though his entire worldview hadn’t been shattered, yet again. He said, “I can put it in a runic web, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Won’t be a problem to use it out in the field if no one sees me put it up, though, and especially if it’s inside a [Prismatic Ward], which should protect it from people casually walking through.”

“Sort of defeats the purpose of having a hiding spot, though, right? If you can see the magic of the [Prismatic Ward] you’ll know where the house is.”

“I could put the [Prismatic Ward] on the inside. I can nest the systems.”

Tasar nodded. “I suppose so.”

As Erick’s thoughts overflowed with questions and hypotheses without any good answers but that which would come with time, he asked, “Want some breakfast at the embassy before the day truly starts?”

“Sure!” Tasar said, “We should stop by the EIPC rooms and I can grab my mother from my office, for the news of yesterday has certainly sent rippling effects throughout the whole of Stratagold, if not the whole Underworld. We should find out what’s happening there while we can.”

Erick very much noticed Tasar’s use of ‘we’, and she meant it in a good way, as though they were partners. He appreciated that. He said, “We should do all that; yes.”

Tasar smiled brightly.

- - - -

Erick and Tasar managed to make it across the open space in front of the embassy and into the front halls before they could go no further. Crowds gathered faster than any of the nearby guards thought they would as the entire embassy seemed to rush forward to see what Erick had to say for himself. With a team of riot-control wrought surrounding him, keeping the nobility and smartly-dressed commoners back with a small amount of force, Erick felt suddenly lost.

Everyone wanted a piece of him, and though none of their exact needs were exactly the same, all of them were out there for nearly the same reason.

‘How close is [Gate]!’

‘Are you selling property in the cavern!’

‘Are you going to find the Letter Killer!’

‘Did you call out to the Darkness!’

That final yelled question shifted the mood.

And then one person suddenly yelled, “Why you got a kill spell in your heart! What did you do to make Rozeta hate you!”

Erick should have remained at Yggdrasil. He hadn’t been thinking straight for his mind was filled with Fae Magic and implications. If he had been more present then he never would have walked into this mess. He had thought, with the wrought riot team’s quick response, that these people would decide that pressing forward was a bad idea, but...

But these were the mortals living under the auspices of the wrought, and they had much more mortal reactions, full of rightful worry.

Erick suddenly lost his appetite, but while Tasar and the nearby guards singled out the rowdy speaker —an incani who seemed like he personally hated Erick for whatever reason— Erick called out his only real response to the sudden questions from the sudden crowd, “Rozeta and I are working together, and the kill spell is a side effect of the boons she bestowed.”

Tasar suddenly whipped around to stare at Erick. She was not the only one who had the moment crystallize into something unexpected and strangely fantastic. ‘A boon?’ ‘What sort of boon!’ ‘What are your plans for the planet Yoril!’ All sorts of strange questions came at him while the rowdy incani flummoxed for —and rapidly found— another bit of vitriol to shove at Erick. But Erick was hearing none of it. He told Tasar that he was headed back to Yggdrasil while he was already walking that way. The riot control wrought began pressing back toward the door, holding back the crowd and then parting to let Erick through. They held back the crowd from chasing after him, but Tasar got through.

Tasar rushed to catch up. She was apologizing even before they made it back to Yggdrasil, though it was not her fault and Erick said as much.

Back at Yggdrasil, and after a calming moment just sitting there, Erick almost made himself breakfast. But then Tasar hopped to work, and began fixing him food, which consisted of a copy of the sandwich which Erick was going to get himself and a strong tea. He thanked her while she spoke a lot about security, seemingly fixated on making him comfortable and to know that such an incident will not happen again, and if he wanted, they could have a chef or three move to Yggdrasil. Erick didn’t want that…

“But I appreciate your offer.” Erick said, “Don’t worry about it, though. I’m… I’m thinking of a lot of thoughts about [Fairy Stronghold] and [Gate] and— I should have known that I couldn’t walk in the embassy like that; not after what happened yesterday. That was my fault.”

Tasar frowned a little, torn between wanting to ask about [Gate] and obviously thinking that the mob event back there was a failure of hers and Stratagold’s, not of Erick. By her expression, Erick could tell that she chose to let him talk on [Gate] on his own time; she went for the second topic, saying, “Okay. Well. Let me know if you change your mind about the chefs.” She added, “At the very least we can order delivery. You don’t have to actually go inside the embassy, yourself.”

Erick politely waved her off, and then moved the conversation to nicer topics, like how to Remake the various boosting abilities, like Clarity and Strong, and how to best clear out one’s aura of unwanted Essence pollution. He wanted to distance himself from [Fairy Stronghold] for a little bit, to let his ideas on that magic percolate until they were more filled out, and what better way to do that then to work on regaining absolutely all of the points he had ever spent on the Open Script.

Remaking all of the boosting Skills basically came down to something Erick had once thought to do, and which Tasar had given him books on, but which he never got around to doing. Tasar was more than willing to speak on the books, too.

Tasar explained, “Remaking things like Strong, for two and eventually three times base Health, or any of those specific boosting abilities is basically Soul Magic; major Blessings, in particular. Imagine it this way: When you purchase Strong from the Script, you’re actually putting a blessing into yourself. This minor blessing will eventually max out at level 10 through continued use. The whole process is a great deal more difficult to do on your own, but the Script can streamline the process so you can arrive at Strong rather easily, and you already have a lot of experience with making Blessings, so I imagine you will find this process similar to the others, but with nuances.

“For instance: You only have to reach deep enough into Soul Magic to make that initial, small blessing; to create a magnification of your Health. The Script will compensate and grant you the larger Skill, or grant you the Remake Quest Completion in your case. The simplest way to learn what this means is to put a point into a Stat, watch how it changes the body, and then use your aura control to make a blessing/magnification of that exact same thing though a permanent shift in your soul.” She added, “If you do it wrong you could end up making a curse instead, which still has some use, but then it’s either Soul Magic to completely remove the curse, or, if you’re interested in doing some debilitation curses, you can try to transform that curse you’ve cast into yourself into an offensive spell. But since your rings automatically break curses then you might not suffer that particular fate.” She added, “There are other ways to go about getting these particular Skills for the Script is very good about streamlining efforts into particular directions, but you’re already good with Blessings, so I would go that route if I were in your position.”

Erick glanced at his rings. “Huh.” He took the ring off, watching his soul seem to go from a properly-filled water balloon to suddenly overflowing. His Stats decreased by 31 all across the board, dropping his max Health and Mana by a lot, but he still had that Health and Mana inside of his soul, as a part of his body until it went away. He frowned a little, then stuck the ring back on, saying, “That’s too complicated to look at right now.”

“Oh yes.” Tasar said, “And it’s technically Soul Magic, too.” She added, “Clarity for 50% reduced Mana costs and Precision for 50% Health costs are both matters of precision with aura control and manual casting. You’ve done gridwork, yes? Now all you have to do is make a proper [Force Bolt] or whatever with half as much mana as usual. You likely won’t ever make [Clarity], for it is one of the hardest skills to ever Remake, but you can get close.” She gestured to the books on the shelves of the library, saying, “Those books I gave you have some lessons that might help you with all of that.”

Erick smiled gently, saying, “I’ll get around to that reading when I can. Thank you. Say? So what sort of house would you like? I can start making one, or at least the plans for one. I’d also like to talk about what it means for us to travel together. What you’re expecting. That sort of stuff.”

“Ah! Okay.” Tasar happily began conjuring lightwards, saying, “I prefer a house like...”

Lightwards and plans abounded, as Erick and Tasar spoke of architecture and separation of rooms and privacy, and if [Sealed Privacy Ward] worked to separate parts of the [Fairy Stronghold] from each other. The answer was that yes, Erick could separate his room with a Privacy, and Tasar would likely be able to do the same with her own. They were still at 35 hours remaining on fae watch, but Tasar felt she could certainly leave Erick to his privacy for ten minutes here and there; shouldn’t be trouble at all. As the two of them sat around the kitchen table talking, and planning, Erick was happy to find that mundane conversation was actually quite nice.

Relaxing.

Better than talk of murder and danger, for sure.

Riivo showed up hours later.

- - - -

Erick and Tasar stepped down onto the beach near the t-station. Riivo had appeared less than a minute ago, looking like the kindly old iron man that he tried to be. A block of platinum a meter across held in the air next to him, shining bright with reflected light; it was 21 metric tons, and taking it through the t-station like Riivo had was the same as blipping 21 people, so it must have cost a fair bit of mana to move. Erick commented on that if only to be polite and to start the conversation. Riivo said it was no trouble at all, and then went through some pleasantries of his own. When those were done Erick introduced Riivo to Yggdrasil.

With a pleasant smile, Riivo bowed to the meter-wide iridescent eye of Yggdrasil, saying, “Hello, Yggdrasil. I’m Riivo of Archmage’s Rest. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hello, Riivo. I am Yggdrasil of Erick.” Yggdrasil tipped his eye, saying, “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Riivo had a little chuckle while Erick and Tasar grinned at Yggdrasil’s introduction.

Moments later, Erick set down the block of platinum inside his Privacy space, upon Yggdrasil’s boughs, while Tasar and Riivo sat down at the table. Yggdrasil’s tiny [Scry] eye prowled the Privacy, watching the newcomer as he had watched Tasar earlier. Ophiel did the same, but from his various perches around the room. Both of Erick’s summons had much the same reactions to new people in this space; they didn’t quite like it. Possibly because Erick didn’t quite like it, either, but it was what it was.

Erick offered, “Would you like any tea? We have some here, courtesy of Tasar’s mother, Otaliya. It’s quite good.”

“I have always enjoyed Otaliya’s blends, so I would gladly take some tea,” Riivo said, “I would also enjoy speaking of Kydyr’s final days.”

The mood was already somber because everyone knew that this was going to happen, but at Riivo’s declaration it was time to actually start that conversation. So, as Erick began making tea, talking all the while. He spoke a little of how his lessons with Kydyr went, speaking of how he had problems with shadowork and how Kydyr had helped. He still didn’t think shadows were ‘real’, but that didn’t really matter. Mostly, he spoke of how Kydyr had acted before the Fae Magic incident. And then… How he acted after. He spoke of how Kydyr had gone raging mad, and how he had no idea what he had done, so Kydyr explained, and then went on to explain quite a lot. Erick had never heard of Elemental Fae before then. Kydyr warned him away from further Fae Magic, and started warning of the ‘Flowery Murderess’ with a little rhyme that he purposefully didn’t finish, because he realized he was rhyming, and apparently that would have called her down on him. Eventually, Erick offered to kill the Flowery Murderess with Kydyr’s help, but Kydyr said no.

Erick said, “Then there was talk of the Worldly Path, and what sort of magic I should try to get a Wizard to make in order to complete [Gate] without Melemizargo.”

Riivo nodded solemnly. Tasar sighed.

Riivo said, “I would prefer to discuss the [Gate] business after we know of Kydyr’s full final day.”

Erick nodded. “Then Kydyr helped me to make the standard runic web spells, though he did want me to do the Object variants. I did not do that. I made the full [Concealment] and [Intangibility] spells, and then we moved on to runic webs.” He continued, “Several hours and meals later, Kydyr said I was as competent as anyone hoping to graduate from apprenticeship, but that I would forever have trouble because I have no Runic Class, or Class Ability which grants runic assistance.

“Kydyr casually spoke as though he wanted to move to Yggdrasil’s cavern, and I approved. I was happy about the move. So I began to set down some small rules, which mostly involved making sure Yggdrasil was comfortable with the move before the move… And Kydyr rescinded his desire, calling it a flight of fancy. I tried to get him to come, but…

“Since we were done, he told me to go.” Erick said, “He thanked me for killing Ar’Kendrithyst and I moved on toward talking of what was coming next, and how I hope the Headmaster didn’t ask me to go into Ar’Cosmos to kill a bunch of dragons for him. And then…” Erick frowned. “He spoke as though all dragons deserved to die, for they’ve all ‘done horrible things to innocent people’. I now believe that he knew what was coming for him, though I did not understand as much at the time.”

Tasar and Riivo had listened the whole way through. Both had sipped their tea, but most of the caramel-colored liquid remained in their cups, growing cold.

Riivo spoke first. “He always thought himself guilty of some great crime.”

Tasar scowled. “He was not guilty of anything. He tried, and he failed, to purge the world of Ar’Cosmos, along with a great many more of us. There was no crime committed except for the crime that can exist between nations attacking mass murderers.” She added, “And that whole thing was done with! We had a treaty. Our treaty enforced certain lines but the Flowery Murderess—!” Tasar glared at nothing. “She broke treaty.” She breathed, then she relaxed, and said, “Theoretically, anyway. If the Dark’s words prove to be true then there might be another war. A more solid one this time, too. Less small solutions to small problems. More permanent solutions to apparently permanent problems.”

Riivo frowned. “Outright war is likely not the best solution.”

“Ar’Cosmos is not going to give up their progenitor, and executing the Flowery Murderess’s current persona of Letter Killer is not going to be enough.” Tasar said, “The Shades are dead. Erick is going to make [Gate] within the year time limit given to us by Stratagold. We wrought will enforce peace and prosperity across this world, and that means inside Ar’Cosmos, as well. Kirginatharp is undoubtedly going to call for a purge—”

“I do not care for that bloodthirsty man.” Riivo said, “And you should be less eager for what the changing world will bring. Destruction will come before stability, and I am not looking forward to that first half of the coming changes. The dragons are not a threat at the current moment, even with the Flowery Murderess’s action, but if we push, they could become a threat. This is what almost happened last time.”

Tasar frowned at the old iron man, saying, “Ending an existential threat to the world should not be a problem for you.”

In that moment, Erick was conflicted. He saw in Tasar’s words his own words, reflected and changed but embodying the same sort of emotion as his own emotions, when he had spoken those same words about the Shades.

Riivo calmly said, “Tasar. To start: A Geode Guardian should be more concerned with defense than offense, but also, I do not wish to have this conversation at this moment. I wish to discuss Kydyr’s death; not the full implications of what his murder means for troop movements.”

Tasar pulled back. She relaxed. “Of course. I will say one last thing, though. The dragons threatened to march on the world before but the Shades dominated the Surface and stopped them. With the Shades gone, the dragons will choose domination again.”

Erick could no longer be a bystander in the conversation. “I have a question about that.”

Riivo froze, as though realizing Erick was here, and then he nodded. Tasar gasped a little, a sudden dark gleam in her eyes. Both of them had briefly forgotten about Erick, but now, they realized what their conversation looked like, and especially how it looked to Erick. Tasar had focused on the vengeance…

But Riivo had focused on… too much to narrow down. He was especially hard to read in that transformative moment.

Erick said, “To make sure I am understanding correctly, the dragons of Ar’Cosmos have Dragon Essence and therefore the Dragon Blood Curse, so they can’t enter the world, but the threat you’re talking about are the specific houses of Fae, Carnage, and Death. Correct? Those are the only ones that can actually enter the world, and search for more Wizards to bring back to expand their Houses, unless I misunderstand something. What are we actually looking at, if war were to happen?”

Riivo said, “An offensive war, delving into Ar’Cosmos itself, is going to be terribly bloody.”

Tasar had a great deal more to say, though. “There is an estimated half a million people living inside Ar’Cosmos, though personal accounts vary wildly between 5,000 and a few million. It’s a realm so deep in the mana that space itself is twisted and tangled, so there is some discrepancy on true numbers, and none of our scouting missions have ever been terribly successful. All we have are estimates.

“But the three Houses of Ar’Cosmos are somewhat known to us, and each one holds between 20 to 50 full powered dragons, with Essence that has been shifted to their house’s Element. Each one is as strong as a real dragon, though those strengths have been shifted toward their specific power base. Maybe 1% of the people in there are these dragons.

“Them going on the offense means we will have between 30 to 50 full powered dragons entering the world. We can actually deal with that, and mostly, they can escape at-will back to Ar’Cosmos, which is why they remain inside. The Shades would have ended them too if they stepped out, but that is not something we would have ever counted on.

“Almost every other permanent resident of that place is either a dragon working to be elevated to a House, or a dragonkin that has yet to try and grow their Dragon Essence into something large enough to where they can become a true dragon, and thus become eligible for elevation to a House. This is about 25% of the population.

“Then there are the transients that live in Veird, and participate in dragon society inside Ar’Cosmos. These people enter the Forest of Glaquin and call to that Twisted Vision, and the Twisted Vision answers with a [Gate], providing a safe and private passageway which leads to the city itself.” Tasar said, “Once inside the city, the guest dragons will sometimes bargain to store their eggs until they can hatch in the safety and power of the Old Cosmology, though that is rare. Mostly, though, the transient dragons try to have something of a shadow society with banned books and the terrible learning of harmful magics and stripping Veird of anything valuable to bring back to Ar’Cosmos in the hopes of elevation to a House.

“And we’re probably going to have to go there because they do have [Gate] magics.” Tasar frowned as she nearly growled out, “All because of that Flowery Murderess! I don’t understand why she had to kill Kydyr. Gods above!” She breathed hard, then said, “We had a good thing going. We had peace.” She glared. “But the dragons… And That Fae. They saw a weakness. They took it. That’s who they are. And we’re going to have to go the full distance this time. The Shades are gone.”

“I disagree.” Riivo said, “Emotions are heightened right now and though war will likely happen, it will not happen simply because one hermit of an archmage was murdered— And I know that was awful to say, Tasar, but it is the truth.”

Tasar buried her feelings, saying, “We have lots of good reasons for war, and absolutely no reason to let them strike us first. Or again!”

Erick needed to shove the conversation away from war before he started asking questions about dragons and likely received horrible answers in turn. So he said, “I want to talk at length about Ar’Cosmos, but there are other topics which need hammering. My first concern should go quickly, but then I wish to talk of [Gate].”

Tasar sat up a bit, most of her anger purposefully crushed down in favor of magical discussion.

Riivo smiled softly, saying, “I have lots of time today for this, for I too, wish to talk of [Gate].”

Erick nodded, then said, “My first concern is that I will be making a runic web here, with the metals you brought. But I wish to know if I have actually secured your vote for the inquiry.”

Riivo nodded in thought, then he said, “I have a question, in turn. About the kill spell the Dark has revealed and you have turned on its head with your stunt in the embassy. What is the nature of the boon, to counter the burden?”

And because Kydyr had likely already told Riivo…

Erick simply said, “She helped me select a race of people; sorting out the question mark on my Status.”

Tasar went wide-eyed; surprised and full of questions.

“And the nature of this race?” Riivo asked, acting surprised, but not, because Kydyr had already told him, no doubt.

Tasar glanced at Riivo, surprised that he would ask such an invasive question. Matters of meetings with gods were always private affairs unless freely given.

Erick answered, “Between me and her, and no other.”

Riivo frowned a little, then said, “Kydyr had told me something like that, but I wasn’t sure and he had no further answers… Very well. Thank you for answering my question at all.” Riivo said, “Kydyr also told me that you were rather competent for your experience, so I doubt I will need to verify whatever [Fairy House] you construct in this location, but I would ask that you allow me to do so, anyway, whenever you manage to complete the project, or sometime soon afterward. As for the inquiry: I ask that you fulfill a few outstanding quests at the Rest so that I can give you the vote you request. If you complete these quests before Bright Tea, then I will be excited to call myself your ally in that venue.”

Erick smiled, and said, “Then I can do those quests after this meeting. On to [Gate]?”

Riivo said, “Please, yes.”

“What thoughts have you?” Tasar asked.

“I’ll lay them all out there, and then we can talk as you want.” Erick took a deep breath, then began, “Mana is an alternate reality that we connect to through our souls, which touch upon all possible realities at the same time. Fae Magic, in particular, can form an alternate reality and actually allow the user to step into the mana. You can see this from inside a [Fairy House] rather easily; when another thing moves from outside the space into the space, that other thing appears to be an illusion, or at least what an illusion would look like through [True Sight].

“So does [Fairy House] allow the user to step into an alternate reality inside the mana? Possibly.

“Could [Gate] be a deep enough step into this alternate reality, and then the inhabitant steps out of another location? To an outside observer, this would appear like [Gate]. Only the time spent in the alternate reality separates such an action from being [Gate], itself.

“So is the Wizardly part of this experience to shorten the time spent in the alternate reality? To create a door between one part of this material space that passes through this alternate space inside the mana, to then exit in another location?

“As a side note, it could be possible to create a construct in the mana that [Teleport]s someone down the path, but this would go against the 1000km limit of [Teleport] and maybe this idea isn’t the full idea, or even part of the idea, but I speak of it anyway, for completion’s sake.

“But back to alternate realities:

“What does the Dimensional Ban ACTUALLY DO?” Erick added, “And then there’s more about how Fate Magic is actually Spatial Magic, but maybe both Fate and Spatial Magics are truly Fae Magic? Which is actually Dimensional Magic? I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of puzzle pieces here and very few definite answers.”

Tasar was on the edge of her seat, looking like she wanted to speak up right as Erick mentioned alternate realities, but then Erick continued to speak. As he went through his ideas, Tasar looked less ready to speak, and more ready to listen, and think. She also frowned a little for any number of reasons; possibly about the idea of ‘realities in the mana’, but Erick wasn’t sure.

Riivo had a much calmer reaction, just listening.

When Erick finished, Riivo said, “Mana is not an alternate reality. The Dimensional Ban prevents transitioning to new realities. What Fae Magic does is trick, and deeply. Deep enough that we can call a place like Ar’Cosmos a fragment of the Old Cosmology but it is not actually that. In my learned opinion, this idea of Fae Magic acting like [Gate] is likely a good ending point for the Worldly Path, for a Wizard could likely Paradox such a thing into working as [Gate] appears to work.” He sighed. “But now, if this is true, then that means you must find a Paradox Wizard who is also learned in Fae Magic, which… I must be honest. You will likely fail.”

Tasar found something to say in that moment. “Riivo is correct that we could spend our allotted year searching for a Paradox Fae Wizard, or… We could just go to Ar’Cosmos and take whatever Fae-aligned Wizard they already have, for they have to have at least one for Essence Shifting purposes.”

“Oh!” Riivo perked up. “Yes. That might work. House Fae likely does have a Fae Wizard locked up… Or possibly drugged into compliance. Or…” His voice trailed off as he wasn’t sure how to say what needed to be said.

Tasar had no such trouble speaking. “Politeness is for polite times, Riivo.” Tasar said to Erick, “To tell it like it is: House Fae likely has at least one Wizard soul-mutilated into Fae Paradox, and compliance. Such a kidnapping mission would be beyond deadly, but it has the highest chance of us actually finding and securing a Wizard before the year is out.” She added, “We could search for a Wizard on Veird. Such a search would be difficult, but with a lot less potential for danger, though we would likely have to break such a Wizard along the Fae-Paradox axis ourselves, which I am not comfortable with… Or the Worldly Path could provide.” She did not look happy as she added those last words.

Letting the Worldly Path decide anything seemed like a bad idea to Erick, too.

Riivo nodded. “Better to kidnap such a mutilated Wizard out from under Ar’Cosmos, fully break them to acquire [Gate], and also to release them back into a normal life.”

Erick was awash with a dozen different emotions, from relief that the two wrought had instantly tried to solve [Gate] in the way that Erick had ‘solved’ gate, but through more exact, specific means, to how Tasar spoke openly about how they would need to rescue a Wizard from Ar’Cosmos, which was also nice. But then she mentioned fully breaking the Wizard for their own uses, which was… What they were going to have to do, Erick supposed, or leave it up to the Worldly Path, and Erick wasn’t sure which option was worse.

And then Riivo suggested a ‘release back into a normal life’, which was also nice, but in a creepy sort of way, because he spoke like it was only right and proper for him to decide the fate of others. But that’s what wrought did, Erick supposed.

Erick went back to the beginning of Riivo’s words, though, to focus on what he needed to understand. “So this idea of mine where [Gate] magic is primarily Fae Magic, but also Spatial Magic and Fate Magic and the construction of a sentient passageway in the reality of the mana, has merit?”

Riivo said, “On the surface, I should say so, especially that part about sentience, for Twisted Visions certainly have sentience. But I don’t understand what you mean by ‘alternate reality’, exactly. Dimensional Magic is Banned, as I have said. It could be that I am misunderstanding you, though.”

Tasar said, “I would also like more information.”

“Okay. Then first...” Erick asked, “Can you tell me what you think the Dimensional Ban does? From the top, please.”

Riivo sat back a moment in thought.

Tasar got right to it, saying, “To understand the Dimensional Ban, one needs to first understand how the Old Cosmology worked. Back before the Sundering, one could deepen one’s connection to any of the Elemental Planes that existed inside the mana and thus create rifts that radiated pure mana from any of the planes one could reach. The planes of Fire, Air, and the like, were easiest to reach, but there were also many others. In this way, the old mages were able to take in Fire mana, for instance, and then use that Fire mana to cast fire spells. This form of magic still exists to this day in the form of Rift Magic, but it’s not the same function at all.

“Not all Elemental Planes existed everywhere, but the primary six usually did.

“The Sundering had the effect of creating—

“Let me back up. One of the major theories of the Sundering is that someone created a Primal Tear in Old Cosmology, which then manifested as Primal Lightning, which crossed the entirety of the Old Cosmology, leaving behind massive voids in the manaocean. Veird, and all of the rest of the Old Cosmology, was sucked into one of these voids, to end up here, in this New Cosmology. It was only through the efforts of everyone within the proto-Script that they were able to manifest the Grand Translation, thus bringing Veird into physical alignment with this New Cosmology.

“The Dimensional Ban was meant to maintain the veil on the other Elemental Planes that exist inside the manasphere, preventing us from reaching them as the mages of the Old Cosmology routinely did.” Tasar said, “Therefore, your idea that [Gate] is some sort of dimensional hopping spell is likely not correct, since that magic was specifically Banned.”

Erick sat back in thought.

Riivo said, “That is the short version, and there’s some discrepancy about how Wizards create new Elements, but I agree with Tasar’s condensed explanation.”

Tasar nodded, then sat back and waited.

“Could Melemizargo’s Wizardry be enough to break that Ban?” Erick asked.

“Yes.” Riivo said. “If this Quest looks to go in that direction I suggest you stop and make do with t-stations.”

Tasar was sad at losing out on [Gate], but only for a moment, then she nodded, accepting Riivo’s words, adding, “Any Wizard we find won’t be able to break the Foundational Bans, anyway, so if this goes that way, we need to stop as soon as possible, if only to prevent further death through Fate’s tribulations as we keep trying to reach for something that we cannot grasp.”

“… Well. The good news is that I do not believe we need to break the Dimensional Ban.” Erick said, “But also, I believe that Fae Magic gets around this ban. All magic gets around this Ban, as you have stated it to exist.”

Riivo frowned, hummed, and said, “Controversial. But please continue.”

Tasar was all ears.

“I can make a [Sun Rift] that pours mana out of it to boost and harm in equal measure. Boosting magic is sort of like the mana alignment that you spoke of when you mentioned ‘mages taking in elemental fire’, Tasar.”

Tasar frowned a little. She did not believe him, but she wasn’t about to countermand his ideas before he was done with them.

Riivo had much the same reaction.

“Anyway.

“Fae Magic is weird, because everyone’s Fae Magic disrupts everyone else’s Fae Magic.

“Some magics get along fine, like overlapping [Ward]s work well together. Two people can cast two [Fireball]s on the same location, and while there is some fluid dynamics stuff going on with that, mostly, the spells coexist. For a lot of spells, there are fluid dynamic interactions, or strict Health versus Damage interactions, but almost all magic can coexist in the same space because mana has a lot of space inside of itself.

“I postulate that the reason that Fae Magic disrupts Fae Magic is the same reason that it is hard to cooperative cast; all individualized mana is anathema to all other individualized mana, unless people work hard to smooth away that discrepancy.

“But Fae Magic is crushed into the same category by the Script.

“Therefore, all of the ‘alternate reality’ of Fae Magic is therefore trying to occupy the same reality, but it can’t. There is some wiggle room, of course, but broadly, the Script denies the breadth of magic that the Fae used to enjoy in the Old Cosmology.

“Perhaps this is why the fae were truly killed off. They could simply not physically or magically coexist.

“For all Fae Magic exists as a specific power/area in the manasphere; it’s own instantiated reality. Maybe not as strong as a true break in the Dimensional Ban, but it’s close, and if you go deep enough with it, you can reach beyond the scope of the Bans, but that’s not important for this discussion. It will be important for a discussion about assaulting Ar’Cosmos, though.

“Anyway. In all of these ways, Fae Magic is more like Domain Magic than any other magic out there because it inherently needs access to the alternate reality designated as ‘fae’ inside the mana and Script in order to function. You can see as much when you’re inside a [Fairy House] and someone tries to walk through the space. It is like they are illusions, and you are real, so perhaps Fae Magic is able to accomplish this because it is a true perspective shift, and… That thought isn’t fully fleshed out yet.

“Moving on.

“A Domain is an area of power attuned to your desires which automatically denounces the desires of others by the simple fact that you got there first. When two Domains collide, what happens there is that two people are comparing strengths of influence in the mana, and the stronger one wins.” Erick said, “Two different Domains cannot exist at the same time; they naturally fight.

“And when one Domain wins, their will becomes absolute. Perhaps even strong enough to evade the Script. So, in this way, I think that someone with a Fae Domain might be able to make their influence inside the mana near-absolute. Or perhaps just strong enough to produce all the effects that we know exist inside Ar’Cosmos; the ability to evade all outside Sight, differing rules of magic, a pacification of the Dragon Blood Curse, and the ability to control the length of reality inside a [Fairy House], for instance, thus producing an effect functionally identical to [Gate].

“So.” With his heart hammering in excitement, but also subdued by the fear of being wrong, Erick asked, “Do you know anyone with a Fae Domain I could speak with in order to verify any of this?”

For a long moment, no one said a word. Tasar looked quietly surprised, while Riivo frowned at nothing in particular, both of them thinking. Erick’s heart thumped loudly in his chest as he waited.

Tasar rhetorically asked, “A Fae Domain to mimic the workings of [Gate]? I… I could see that.”

Erick’s face broke into a smile.

And then Riivo both crushed and refined Erick’s hope, saying, “Only the Fae can get a Fae Domain. I know of no mortal or immortal with that capability.”

Erick cautiously nodded, saying, “I expected that.”

Tasar rapidly spoke, “But how would the math work— Perhaps the math is different inside Fae… Space? Fae Space? Sure. Let’s call it that, for now.” She said to the two of them, “It… It could be very possible that the math of Fae Space would allow for this sort of spatial transition that would mimic what we see when we look at [Gate].”

“I know nothing of math, but I assume you have a Spatial Domain, Tasar.” Erick asked, “Do you have [Fairy House] as well? We could test this right now.”

“No; I do not.” Tasar said, “Never cared for the stuff. I learned a bit about runic webs and illusionwork through Kydyr and knew many of his fae spells, but I never had a knack for that school of magic.” She frowned at nothing in particular.

Erick asked, “Would a Spatial Domain work inside a Fae Spell? What could you do with a Spatial Domain?”

“No. See.” Riivo said, “As soon as you activate a Domain inside Fae Space, the Fae Space collapses.”

Erick perked up, remembering how he had activated his Domain on Ophiel when Ophiel was inside the Twisted Vision of Ar’Cosmos, and thus Ophiel got instantly noticed and sucked all the way to the edge of the city inside. That was when he met that pink/green/white fiery smile, too.

And then he had another thought.

Erick said, “I… Had my Domain active at all times while with Kydyr. I could have broken it then?”

Riivo brushed off Erick’s sudden, new concern, saying, “You can compensate for other people’s Domains in a runic web; Kydyr had compensated for this.”

Sudden relief!

“I can work my own Spatial Domain to not disrupt Fae Space, but that’s about it.” Tasar said, “My own just cements my position and lets me alter the positions of others. Having a Spatial Domain is about the only way to make short-range Spatial Magic work in the Underworld; everything over line-of-sight is blocked. My Domain was what allowed me the insights into making the t-stations work, but I have no… ‘same reality’ [Fairy House] with which to experiment with.”

At that moment, Riivo decided, “This Fae Space angle has merit. Perhaps I need to take a walk through the old stories and read up on Fae again. I seem to recall many old, old tales of people getting lost in the woods and ending up thousands of kilometers away from where they started. Old Cosmology stories.”

Erick just laughed. “Yes! We have the same stories, specifically linked to rings of mushrooms; step into one ring of mushrooms and end up in another world, or somewhere far beyond where you first walked into the woods.”

Tasar smiled brightly.

Riivo nodded, saying, “That’s how a fair bit of Old Cosmology fairy tales begin, though this ‘mushroom ring’ is a nuance I have never heard before.”

And then Tasar couldn’t hold back her mirth. She giggled, saying, “It could be that this is the true secret to [Gate]. Maybe two spells, and that’s it! [Fae Domain] and [Spatial Domain]. Through probability manipulation at two different doors in two different locations I can make someone step through one and exit the other. I never managed this much with my summons holding onto my Domains, but maybe inside Fae Space… it’s different!” She rapidly added, “I would need to thoroughly investigate a [Fairy House], though, to check on the math of it all. Would you mind aiding me on this, Erick?” She scowled. “I need to make this spell myself.”

Erick said, “I’ll help you in both ways, Tasar.”

Tasar giggled.

“Such a combination of spellwork is a difficult proposition.” Riivo said, “I am unaware of anyone ever managing to combine Spatial Magic and Fae Magic, though the second is much more rare than the first. Combining Domains is even worse. Impossible, even.”

Tasar said, “The twisting of magic into something not normally possible is well within a Wizard’s capabilities, especially if they already have the two previous magics themselves. There’s one way to know if this is the proper Path, though!” She excitedly asked Erick, “Did you get a Quest update?”

“Ah. No.” Erick crushed Tasar’s sudden hope. “No update.”

“Ahh. Dammit.” Tasar frowned. “Ah… You might not ever get another update, I suppose, if what that Dark said was true; You’re already at the end.” She resolved herself to strength, then said, “These seem like big pieces. We just need to put them together, without the help of the Dark.”

“I would like some verification of your ideas about how Fae Magic operates on a small scale.” Riivo asked, “Could we do some experiments? I might as well see your [Fairy House] in action, and whatever proof you have of this ‘alternate reality’ idea. I confess, I too, never delved deep with Fae Magic. I wish Kydyr had survived.”

“It’s the Worldly Path.” Tasar said, darkly. “If Kydyr were alive we would be able to answer these questions. This is Melemizargo keeping us from solving these questions ourselves.”

Erick felt a sudden stab of guilt, but Tasar hadn’t meant it like that, and Riivo didn’t mention Erick’s culpability, either, so Erick simply stood, saying, “Let’s try some Fae Magic.”

Riivo and Tasar stood with him.

Soon, they were on the boughs of Yggdrasil and Erick had summoned some passageways with [Fairy Stronghold], creating short ‘houses’ with two doors opposite of each other, about five meters apart. First, he showed how objects not in the House appeared as Illusions when they passed inside the occupied space, and then Tasar tried to [Teleport] across the length of [Fairy Stronghold]. Normally, at this depth of the Underworld, [Teleport] moved the caster about one centimeter. This fact remained true even near Yggdrasil, and all throughout Stratagold. The only time this truth was broken was inside the anti-Dark protections of the t-stations, and then only when moving between t-stations.

But perhaps, inside the ‘alternate reality’ of ‘Fae Space’, this truth would break.

Tasar blipped—

And reappeared exactly where she had been. Perhaps a single centimeter forward.

Erick frowned—

But Tasar laughed loudly. “If that had worked I was going to be so angry! I would have needed to redesign all of the t-stations to include— well. No. That’s too much Fae Magic.”

Riivo nodded, saying, “People who dive too deep with Fae Magic almost always meet unfortunate accidents, which we had attributed to the last surviving fae, but perhaps that was attributing her too much power? Perhaps ‘going too deep’ is the very nature of Fae Magic itself, but without a Domain to secure it against breaking… Erick.” Riivo spoke strongly, “I must caution you on an unforeseen issue that I might just now understand: Perhaps, going too deep into the Fae Magic, and then getting that magic disrupted around you, is what kills all middling practitioners. It could be that they experience a [Partial Teleport] situation and they die to bifurcation, or other such horribleness. But! It looks like this is the Path to follow.”

Tasar calmly nodded, agreeing with Riivo.

Erick said, “The warning is sensible, so thank you for that, but also, I agree: Fae Magic seems like the way to [Gate]. Maybe I need to make a very, very large [Fairy House], along with a nested house, to see how deep I can go with the magic, to test your theory of [Partial Teleport] dangers.” Erick said, “I could send Ophiel into those depths to do some experiments with manual [Teleport]s.”

Tasar was unsure, as she said, “I would stick to the shallows, for now. Let me look into the maths of Spatial Magic in illusionary and fae spaces, first. See if someone else has done any research in that direction.”

“… Then I can experiment with that later.” Erick said, “For now, I’d like to explain a theory about planars, how we get here, mana streams, and some stories of fae on Earth…”

Riivo and Tasar were all ears.

They moved back into the Privacy, where they spoke for a few hours about everything from fairy stories, to esoteric [Gate] theories, to all of Tasar’s experiences on her own Path (which mostly involved running from Melemizargo; he didn’t like wrought on the Worldly Path, at all), to the creation of the t-station network and how the greater systems all worked.

Toward the end of the day, Riivo said, “I would ask after [Renew] before we finish up here. Have you any luck with that?”

Erick flinched, and then he realized he shouldn’t flinch. He played it off as nothing, saying, “I could do it at tier 4, I think. But that’s not what I want, so those theories don’t work for the final goal.” He shrugged.

Tasar said, “Maybe when we’re forced to capture a Wizard out from Ar’Cosmos you can have them make it for us.”

“Hmm. Yes. Ar’Cosmos seems like your final destination, Erick. Try to do what you can to not go there, though. Anyway!” Riivo smiled wide, then happily said, “Ah… This has been a good experience, but I would like to move on to my request for some monster hunts. Would you be willing to help with that now, Erick?”

“Sure.” Erick asked, “What needs doing?”

“There have been some reports of aquatic terrors crawling up from the underocean, beneath the Vibrant Falls. The Gemslicers have been unable to help in a satisfactory manner, therefore I need...”

- - -

Not too long later, Erick had cleared out some variant tangled hydras called abyssal decay seekers and a bunch of other horrors from the underocean, all around Stratagold. Riivo was pleased. He left Yggdrasil with a true joy on his face at having problems solved, and at having a profitable meeting; he said as much and seemed not to be lying, either.

Once the old iron man was gone, Erick began setting up a [Fairy Stronghold] according to the plots and plans he had made with Tasar. Getting some actual walls was rather nice, and though Erick would prefer not to have a keeper, Tasar was incredibly excited about getting to experiment inside Fae Space and to take measurements of everything. Her joy was infectious, and Erick gained a small bounce in his step as he spent effectively hundreds of thousands of mana making a simple longhouse with two short towers on either end, on Yggdrasil’s upper boughs.

A large central room, a kitchen, a library, a bathroom. Separate rooms on either side of the house. And above those rooms, two separate private spaces. While Tasar was moving into her space, Erick filled his upper room with a nested Privacy, and, to his joy, discovered that it did work exactly as he wanted it to; Tasar covered the outside of the [Fairy Stronghold] with her sensory magics, and Erick could retreat to his Privacy to have some alone time. But not right yet. It was time to eat.

Visiting the embassy was a lot easier this time, but only because Erick went in differently than normal.

Erick and Tasar went up the back way to eat in Tasar’s office, with her mother, Otaliya. The aged copper woman had been working with Erick’s EIPC people rather closely, once Melemizargo’s appearance got out. She had wanted to talk to him earlier, but that just simply didn’t happen, though the outcomes of his boon/burden revelation were quite another [Fireball] to ride out. With a professional, yet happy tone, and while Erick ate a nice burger and fries from the world diner’s market, Tasar’s mother launched into a wardlight presentation regarding all the major rumors going through the embassy, and how that talk affected public opinion.

“The boon/burden revelation has had profound effects among many of the staunchest opponents, which wasn’t too many people at this point, to be honest. Some of the barons who requested meetings with you, who you denied, are disappointed or angry, but since the goal is getting a good inquiry the people of the lands surrounding Stratagold are less important than the major players inside the Geode.” Otaliya said, “With the work you’ve done for Archmage’s Rest to clear out the underocean, and especially after the Offices of the Inquisition refused to comment on your situation, almost every detractor has gone quiet. Of the smaller voices out there, almost everyone believes that Rozeta does have a kill spell in your heart, and quite a few people are calling it an injustice, but not many.” She continued, “Of the farmworker fields, which are overseen by...”

Otaliya talked for quite a while, and it all sounded great. Toward the end, Otaliya suggested Erick wait a week to see if anything came of this Letter Killer stuff, but other than that, he was likely good to go to take Bright Tea, and then move on from there to the inquiry.

After that informative dinner, Erick bid Otaliya farewell and went back to Yggdrasil with Tasar.

But instead of going into the [Fairy Stronghold] that he had very ‘publicly’ made, since he was under no illusions (ha!) that he wasn’t being observed all the time, he and Tasar landed in a separate Privacy bubble that already had copies of various items, like a bed and a library. There was no actual [Fairy Stronghold] around this open area, though. The [Fairy Stronghold] was left completely alone, but with an Ophiel inside, watching, and waiting for someone, anyone to show.

They had a small discussion about sleeping inside Privacys, and Tasar reluctantly agreed.

So Erick bid Tasar good night and went to his room, where he cast a nested Privacy, and he relaxed. Tasar set herself down in a chair in the living room, cast her detection spell across the outside of the space, and began to write out a bunch of maths on a bunch of paper; traditional Spatial Magic.

Laying down on his bed in what was likely a private space, Erick kept his cool and his anger firmly shoved down for a little while longer. He had been fighting his rage for the last few hours. It had been hell getting through dinner with Otaliya, reporting on how he was close to being accepted, but it would still take effort to actually get there.

Didn’t these people understand the good he had done!

Ugh. But that was just his rage yelling at him.

Erick ground down his rage and cast another Privacy around himself, nesting himself twice over, hoping that Tasar wasn’t actually peeking in on him. If she was, then things were about to get very ugly. But if she wasn’t… Then everything would be fine.

… Erick switched to his Other Self.

Nothing happened.

Tasar remained where she was.

He channeled [Renew] into his body as he cycled his mana. Rage cooled. Comfort filled his muscles and his core as he stretched out on his bed and sighed a great sigh. He blinked, relaxing, and when he had cycled enough, he switched back to his Normal Self.

And then he regarded the woman lying in bed with him.

She looked human, 30 or ageless, with one eye bright pink and the other bright green. She wore an airy pink dress, but with a white leather corset around her midsection, with green lacing. Erick supposed she wore the leather because it was rather sexy, in a protective sort of way. Everything about her was either pink or white or green. There was a distinct space around her neck that Erick’s eyes slid across without finding purchase; he wouldn’t have noticed that discrepancy without his Perception. The slippery area was likely hiding the Amulet of Non-Presence; the only way she could have evaded all the tricks and traps Erick and Tasar had layered around this land.

She smiled upon Erick with the brightest smile he had ever seen on a person, like she had been given a gift of the highest order, or maybe she had finally identified her soulmate. She had not been there in his bed before he sat down. She had appeared somewhere in the middle of his cycling, but she had said nothing. She had just watched, calm and knowing all the while.

“This is very rude of you, Fairy Moon.” Erick sat up, saying, “I did not welcome you into my home.”

Fairy Moon smirked, then sat up, saying, “Veird’s values are all twisted and tapered so I go where I grant myself the motion to be, but in this instance, Melemizargo marked you, youngling. At Mel’s insistence, I insist on a true talk of weighty words, quick as a quip.”

“… Undo the utterances of this talking trap, and you may stay awhile while speaking plain parlance.”

Fairy Moon’s eyes went wide and her smile matched, then she got down to business, saying, “A true talking might make for—”

Erick glared at the woman; she was still talking in reinforcing rhyme.

Fairy Moon sighed, then spoke with a much more subdued speech, “When they discover you’re a Wizard they will try to end you, for the wrought are nothing but stagnation. I propose a different path. Come to Ar’Cosmos, learn how to break dragons of their Curse, and you can benefit from the same good fortune that I experience; safety and power and obscurity whenever I desire.”

“I would prefer to be left alone to my own devices.” Erick said, “Therefore, your offer has no weight. It will have even less weight in a hundred years when Yggdrasil finally starts spreading to other worlds, and I can get lost among Forever.”

Fairy Moon nodded, saying, “There will be war long before that. Wars, perhaps. Wars of dominance. Wars of control. Help me ensure that the wrought aren’t the only strong power in the world. Use your Wizardly breaks to cure the Dragon Curse, and we can protect you on this world or any other, for all time.”

“Why did you kill Kydyr?”

“He obliterated an orphanage as a way to weaken—”

“Did he kill the orphanage, specifically? Or was it a result of war?” Both were horrible, but one was worse than the other.

“Specifically. As a way to weaken Ar’Cosmos for generations to come, even if their main attack failed.” Fairy Moon stressed, “Erick. Please understand that I am a Judge of Justice, first and foremos— Apologies. I did not mean to speak like that.” Fairy Moon continued, “All actions stem from that base. Kydyr deserved to die for crimes committed—” Fairy Moon frowned, then continued, “This is difficult for me because you are so very close to everything I desire in a complimentary existence. You have been absolutely magnificent, Erick, and I truly wish we could have met in better circumstances. What you did with the orcol commune in Treehome? And then with Terror Peaks! Amazing.”

Erick said, “I find your sincerity hard to believe.”

“Proof of sincerity can only come with time, of course.” Fairy Moon paused, and then stated, “Stratagold will demand something of me in recompense for my rightful execution of Kydyr and I will demand something of them in return. I plan to involve you. If you do not agree to the arrangements I accomplish, then know that I have information about you that could be dangerous and disastrous for others to know. I do not desire to do this, but I will do what I must. I desire your freedom. I also desire for you to learn how to properly use the magic of my people, because if you’re successful then that means I, too, can finally leave this tiny, overly-controlled planet.”

And then she was gone.

Erick felt a sudden, complicated rush of tangled emotions flow through him, leaving his muscles cramping in their wake. She hadn’t cast any magic on him, for she probably couldn’t with that amulet around her neck, but… He had no way of knowing. He wasn’t under any spell he could see, though; he had been Sighting and sensing himself, the room around him, and Fairy Moon ever since he switched back to his Normal Form. He was not about to have a conversation with the woman until at least those many precautions were taken.

… Fairy Moon had never overtly cast anything on him…

But who the fuck truly knew!

Erick felt tangled in a Gordian Knot. He was going to have to cut this knot, and soon, before it strangled him into an early grave…

He contemplated not telling Tasar, but it was highly likely that Fairy Moon would speak of this meeting elsewhere, and he couldn’t take the chance of Stratagold thinking of him as non-trustworthy. That would lead to problems down the road. So he canceled the Privacy and went to Tasar.

He told her about the encounter.

Tasar flipped her shit.

Erick explained better. He left out the important parts about his own secrets being given away, but he told her about how she wanted an arrangement out of him that she would try to secure through Stratagold.

And then Tasar spoke about how it should have been impossible for someone to cross her Spatial Domain without her knowing, for that’s what her shadowy, green-glittering spell was; her Domain. Rather rapidly, though, Tasar calmed and calculated. Soon, she started telepathically talking to someone outside of the space.

While she did that, Tasar spoke to Erick, “Apologies about losing my temper. I had thought my defenses were— Doesn’t matter what I thought. The enemy is a fae who—” She glanced away, sending to someone else, then she turned back, saying, “I apologize for not realizing that you were this competent with fae for it doesn’t sound like you made any deals with her. I would like to remain with you until we discover the nature of whatever deal she is trying to conjure, though. I feel that you are still in danger.”

Erick hadn’t been too sure about what Tasar’s deal was when he first met her, for she was on-edge and they hadn’t met under the best of circumstances, but he was pretty sure he had a good read on her these days. Mostly, Tasar just wanted everyone to be secure and happy. She went about it like how a watchful mother would baby a teenager, so that was rather infuriating but ultimately forgivable.

Erick had played along with Stratagold’s orders for long enough, though. It was time to push back.

Erick said, “We might as well start living together for the rest of this Path if you want, but I will be putting up my own private spaces, and we can move into an actual runic web house. To that end, I wish to know more of your capabilities as an archmage. Mainly, what to expect and how to work with you. I saw a lot when we walked through the mana stream tunnels, but I know that you have more than that, and I know that you know practically everything that I can do.”

Tasar paused for a moment, then she said, “Of course. We can do that.”

“Also. Not to [Strike] overly hard, but this is my Path, Tasar.” Erick said, “I appreciate and understand your position as a Geode Guardian and your desire to complete this Worldly Path with me, and I appreciate all that you’ve already done, and all of the knowledge that you bring to the table, but I’m the one Walking this Path, this time. So unless you have good reasons for me to sequester myself in certain spaces and in certain ways, then I’m going to do my own thing, exist in my own private spaces when and how I want, and I ask that you accept this.”

Tasar went tense in shoulders and face as she considered how she wanted to proceed. Eventually, she said, “I will accept these limitations if you will accept my counsel when necessary.”

“I will always accept your counsel, Tasar. You have been around this world a lot longer than I have, and I respect that.”

Tasar relaxed a fraction, giving a stiff nod. “Thank you. My first counsel is that we should not be out of each other’s sight for more than five minutes. Less, if we can help it. This part of the Path is exceedingly dangerous, Erick, as you have just found out. No more sleeping in Privacys, please.”

“… Okay. No sleeping in Privacys.”

Tasar nodded.

“Then.” Erick added, “Tomorrow, I will start [Fairy Stronghold] experiments with regard to [Teleport] distances and otherwise, and I would appreciate your input on that. I will also attempt experiments with Ophiel and [Fairy Stronghold], though Yggdrasil will not gain this spell yet, for I don’t wish him to be instantly broken by that strange interaction. Perhaps if I gain a Fae Domain, then that will change.” He glanced toward the block of platinum sitting to the side, saying, “But for now, I’m going to work on a runic web for a [Fairy Stronghold] to live inside since my plans for sleep have gone awry and the failure-state of ‘meeting the dangerous fae’ has been rendered obsolete.” He asked, “I assume?”

Tasar simply breathed, then said, “Yes. Her power is vastly limited while out here, but… She’s a great deal more dangerous when inside Ar’Cosmos, and any interactions had with her out here might transfer into there. So. Be careful, when you meet her again.” After a moment of indecision, she added, “Many immortals cannot venture into Ar’Cosmos because of the small ways in which they have interacted with her before; she would kill them instantly, and without difficulty. I have not had interactions with her, so I am mostly safe. I would prefer if you maintained a similar distance from her, for the safety of us all.”

“Thank you for explaining the exact danger.” Erick said, “I will do my best to follow your advice.”

With a certain uncomfortable tension, Tasar nodded, saying, “Thank you for listening.”

Erick went to the block of platinum and started stringing it into lines. Tasar, meanwhile, spent a great deal of time telepathically communicating with others. Eventually, though, she began to help with the construction of a new, solid house in the crook of Yggdrasil’s upper boughs.

A day later, the new [Fairy Stronghold] had three floors and more than enough rooms for Tasar, other guests, a room for Jane, enough space for Poi, Kiri, and Teressa if they wanted to visit, and a private tower stuck on the side, for Erick. Tasar tested the space with the smaller Fae Magics she possessed, and there wasn’t even the slightest disturbance to the runic web, or to the house itself. It wasn’t as fancy or as structurally changeable as Kydyr’s house, but it was hidden from the world, and once inside, a person was literally untouchable by the outside.

It was perfect.

Erick went to his temporarily private space in his new room, [Renew]ed his Other Form, cycled mana till he was satiated, and then switched back, removed the Privacy, and went to bed.

Sleep came easy, either because he felt truly safe for the first time in a while, he and Tasar had come to a real understanding, or perhaps, because he finally knew all the players on the board.

… Most of them, anyway.

He still wondered about certain, smaller things that would likely come back to bite him on the ass sometime in the future, or sooner. The Patriarch of Terror Peaks was still out there with his mysterious soul spear benefactor. The Mirage Dragon assassin and her family of Fae Dragons, as well as that one dragon from Ooloraptoor, were still out there. Whoever it was that attacked Yggdrasil at Holorulo. Candlepoint with all its shadelings who were simultaneously their own person, and also potential mouthpieces for Melemizargo. Securing trade routes and nice lives for all the shadelings, even though no one would trust them, and as soon as Erick came out as a Wizard, people would descend on Candlepoint like locusts. The world would descend upon Yggdrasil, too. The Red Dot mage was either in the wind, or locked up in Messalina the Life Binder’s dungeons getting soul tortured. Fallopolis was still out there. The rest of the Shades were out there doing who-the-fuck-knows-what. Kiri’s mysterious encounter in the halls of that Old Dragonkin museum had never been answered. The cultists of Nelboor were trying something, but Erick wasn’t sure what...

And something was happening at Spur.

Erick hoped that Jane and the rest of them could resolve that problem on their own. He had given them a lot of help, or at least as much help as Silverite was willing to receive. It would have to be enough.

For now, though, he was comfortable, sated, secure, and ready to get on with Bright Tea and the inquiry, and then to leave Stratagold behind.