A mental tickle touched Erick’s mind as he was making breakfast in the kitchen.

‘Hey, dad!’

A pair of eggs fell from Erick’s hand and splattered goo across the orange floor. That wasn’t important.

‘Jane!’ Erick sent, ‘Are you in town?!’

‘Not yet.’ Jane sent, ‘Still in Oceansidle. I wontad tool tak ta ool— Sorry. Distant connection. Nothing important or wrong, but I wanted to talk. Alibeth is helping me send to you, but she can’t stay. Send Ophiel down here.’

Erick immediately conjured four Ophiel and sent them blipping across the ocean, in the exact opposite manner he had done for almost three months. The Ophiel on his shoulder whistled in violins, as he sent to Jane, ‘What’s up! What’s happening? How are you feeling? Have you been awake for long?’ He added, ‘I haven’t heard from you in so long! Oh my gods, I miss you, Jane.’

A pulse of forlorn happiness flowed through the connection to Erick, as Jane sent, ‘I miss you, too, Dad.’

Erick [Cleanse]d the eggs from the floor and grabbed another pair. He went back to the flour for his pancakes, while he spoke to his daughter. They talked. It was good. She had heard all about the Red Dot attack, and about all the deaths. Erick briefly spoke of his [Pure Reflection Ward], and Jane jumped in to talk about how she used that against the Ancient Unicorn. They both laughed at that, and then Erick told her of the resurrections, and of who he knew that had been brought back from the End. Savral; Al’s son. Soux; Ulrick Ulrick’s receptionist. Mother Eriliad; the woman at the Interfaith Church who raised Rats. That led to Erick speaking of Rats’ departure.

Incensed, Jane said, ‘That asshole! He left?! HOW? Why?! And with MESSALINA?! Really?’

Erick flipped pancakes as he sent, ‘He has some soul sickness that’s been plaguing him since he was young and he’s hoping for a fix. I hope he finds the cure and comes back—’ He forcefully added, ‘And I don’t want you to make him feel unwelcome when he does!’

‘I’m gonna be mad at him if I want.’

‘And that’s fine. But if he does come back, I’m accepting him back, with only the barest level of security-necessary questioning.’

‘… Have you eaten that unicorn horn yet?’

‘Nope! That’s your horn—’

‘No. I have [Lightwalk] and I didn’t get [Greater Shadowalk] by eating more shadowolves. I doubt that thing would grant [Greater Lightwalk], at all. Besides! I want you to have some way to evade a [Teleport Lock]. That would make me feel a lot better about having the security breach formerly known as Rats out there living and working with the enemy.’ Exasperated, Jane added, ‘And getting his soul messed with! And especially if you’re already willing to take him back! Shit, dad.’

‘… That’s another way to look at it, I suppose.’

‘Get it done.’ Jane took a moment to soften her voice, to say, ‘In other news: I’m going for a water slime body and [Water Body] while I’m down here, and then I’m going to help Oceanside take care of a few problems to pay them back for the use of their dungeons. I might stick around Oceanside for a while longer than that. Maybe get [Air Body] and [Stone Body], too.’

A dozen questions roared at Erick, each of them demanding an answer, but instead of being overprotective and mad and terrified, like he wanted to be, he calmly asked, ‘You mean you’re not coming home?’

‘I still need three more elemental forms for Polymage. Air, stone, and water.’ She said, ‘I was going to go after a Prismatic Octopus, but I’ve been talking to a few other Polymages down here about good forms. Besides the fact that Prismatic Octopuses are notoriously hard to use, they’ve all said that too many strong forms means a higher chance of one of them going rogue. Oozes are apparently as dangerous to have as unicorns, and none of them are quite sure how strong shadow spiders truly are.’

Erick calmly added more butter and batter to the skillet to begin making pancake #35, as he forced his voice to an even keel, sending, ‘They are?’

‘Yeah. But I’ve had no side effects. Still. I might just stick to slimes for two of my remaining three forms. I am going after the bapuali, though. Air slimes don’t fly well.’

‘That’s the bird from the Mondariska Mountains, right? The one that flocks in groups?’

‘Yeah. The people down here call them razorwings. They’re simple forms; barely more trouble than a slime. I’m also changing my stone essence monster from a kerikil to a metal slime.’ Jane added, ‘Kerikils are the stone dogs of the Underworld I told you about.’

‘I remember those. I remember that the Headmaster also has dungeons for metal slimes, too.’

‘Only a small one.’ She said, ‘But he also has a stone slime dungeon for actual stone essence farming.’

While Erick spoke to Jane and continued to make breakfast, Teressa came in and took a huge plate of pancakes, followed closely by Poi who went right to the coftea. By the time Kiri wandered in, Erick had finished making breakfast, but he was still talking to Jane while he ate his own pancakes and everyone else discussed their morning schedules.

He was still happily talking to his daughter when everyone finished breakfast. Kiri cleaned up, while Erick sat back and sipped his coftea while he spoke to Jane of [Cascade Imaging] and plans for the Community Garden and the Council. The topic of Apogee came up.

‘I didn’t know there was another planar person in Spur.’ Jane sent, ‘But that’s interesting about [Teleport]. All the more reason for you to eat that unicorn horn.’

Erick smiled, sending, ‘I’ll get right on that.’

‘You should! And then we can talk about pseudo-[Teleport]s and— Ah. Hold on… Doctor Alibeth just walked in the door. She’s telling me I should take a nap. She’s probably right.’

‘Okay. I love you, Jane.’ Erick sent, ‘Talk to you later.’

‘I love you, too, dad. And oh yeah! One more thing. Caradogh is dead. He made the mistake of coming to Oceanside.’

Erick froze. Everything flickered into hyperfocus as [Hunter’s Instincts] turned on. He breathed. He centered himself. He wasn’t in any danger. Jane wasn’t in any danger, either. If she was, she would have said something in the past two hours. Everything was fine. They still hadn’t found the Red Dot mage, but—

‘Dad? You still there?’

Erick slammed [Hunter’s Instincts] back into storage, turning off the skill as he sent, ‘Yeah. Sorry. I’m… Okay. I’m okay. That’s… Good? About Caradogh? He’s dead? I feel weird about that. I don’t like how I didn’t hear about that until now AND YOU’RE OKAY?! Wait. Yes. You are. Of course you are.’

‘… eat that unicorn horn. It’s pure light essence, so it shouldn’t give you any problems. I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.’

‘Bye. Love you.'

The connection held for a moment, then it broke on Jane’s end.

Erick closed his eyes and held them tightly shut for a long moment. Then he opened his eyes. Ophiel trilled in concerned, questioning cellos on his shoulder. Erick patted the little guy as he dismissed the Ophiel hovering over the ocean. He got up and went to Jane’s tower.

The Queen of the Forest’s main horn rested upright in the center of the tower. The space had not been tall enough to completely house the twisted spike of radiance, so Erick had to bore a hole into the floor, into an unused storage room down below. Even so, the horn still scraped the ceiling, seven meters up.

Erick flopped down into his light slime form, his clothes becoming like a nest, his rings falling to the side. Ophiel hooted in surprised guitar. That particular stringed instrument was a new sound that he had taken from the band at Al’s party. He didn’t use it much, but he seemed to use it to indicate unknown surprise.

From inside his clothes, Erick mentally sent Ophiel, ‘I’ll be more surprised if it takes the whole horn to get [Lightwalk].’

Ophiel switched to flutes and then to violins, as he settled down onto the bare worktable on the other side of the tower. With a dozen open eyes, Ophiel watched.

Erick flopped out of his clothes and plopped onto the stone floor. The floor was a little cold, and touching that solid surface was a little unnerving. The ground vibrated with distant footsteps in a way wholly unfamiliar to Erick.

Moving was different, too. He had to stretch himself into odd shapes in order to get around. But all of that was nothing compared to his vision. As a slime, Erick saw everything in every direction, like he was one great big magical eyeball. Even [Scry] didn’t work like this. Erick much preferred his own body. He didn’t know how Jane could stand this.

Erick decided he could withstand being uncomfortable for a little while. Heck, he hadn’t been anywhere near his comfort zone in a long time. [Polymorph] was just a new form of uncomfortableness, but it wasn’t all bad. Seeing things from a new perspective was a good thing, and light slimes saw the world in a way Erick never had.

He was almost a hundred percent sure that light slimes saw more colors than humans.

As a human, the unicorn horn was a spike of crystalline radiance.

As a slime, the unicorn horn was a towering crystal of reds, blues, greens, and everything in between, but contained into a white, twisting spike of iridescence. With his light slime sight, Erick saw how violets flickered on the edge, twisting up and down the length of the horn, while colors combined into white, then split again into rainbows. It was beautiful. Erick felt he could have stared at the horn for hours, except that some other desire began to take hold in his body. As a slime, Erick recognized the light essence swirling inside the crystal tower. He saw them as packets of possibility crystallized into a whole. Those packets called to him in some primal sort of way.

Whatever emotion prodded at Erick wasn’t exactly ‘hunger’, but it was hunger-adjacent.

Erick mentally smirked at himself, and at this novel emotion urging him to eat.

Theoretically, what he was about to do could lead to him transforming into a radiant ooze. But that was a low probability. No one really knew how radiant oozes came into existence, but one thing was true, all across all the slimes and all the oozes ever recorded: slimes needed mass in order to transform into an ooze. A lot of mass, and a lot of levels. It was this fact that made Erick sure that eating this horn would not be a problem, because essences were not food. This unicorn horn was pure light essence; not even a trace of dragon essence, either. This nine meter horn was less substantial than cotton candy. The whole thing probably weighed less than a kilogram, in total. Maybe. When Erick ate it, he wouldn’t even have to dispose of any extra body weight, because there was nothing extra to dispose of.

He rolled over to the horn. Its radiance stretched up like a spire of swirling, rainbow light.

He reached a pseudopod to the solid radiance. Touching it was like tasting rainbows and finding joy.

He began with a little sip. A depression formed in the horn. Light essence swirled into Erick’s body, brightening his core, settling into [Flash] like the missing piece of a puzzle. He took a longer slurp, carving away a section of the horn near the floor that was almost him-sized. A notification appeared, but it wasn’t a notification for [Lightwalk]. He ignored the blue box, because of a more pressing concern. If he continued to eat the horn like this, it would crack in half. It was already fractured, with a great spreading crack that wrapped up around the length. The horn was stronger than it looked, but there was no reason to make an unexpected mess.

Erick backed away to gaze at the top of the horn, all the way up there, at least twenty body-lengths away. With a thought, he Handy Aura’d into the air and landed on the side of the tip of the horn.

His entire body was a tongue and a mouth at the same time. The tip of the horn disappeared into his body as Erick carved out a seat at the top, like it was a throne of delicious candy and he was the king. He savored the moment, sitting there on the top of deliciousness, before he began eating his way downward.

Gravity and gluttony made a good combination.

He kept track of his notifications as he ate downward. He indulged, but he was prudent about it. Light essence funneled into itself. Some puzzle pieces bounced off and turned into nothing. Others locked into place and brought large sections of completed magic with them.

The promised notification came when Erick was almost all the way down to the floor of the tower.

Lightwalk, instant, close range, 5 MP per second + Variable

You are the light.

With a roll and a plop, Erick flopped to the floor. The horn was a fraction of its former self.

… There was still two more meters of horn to go.

… Erick was having a really, really hard time telling himself to stop, to give the rest of the horn to someone else. He had eaten nearly seven meters of light essence, but that tip was a point, and the horn got wider at the base. It was entirely possible that the rest of that horn was enough essence to make another [Lightwalk]; enough to complete another puzzle.

A part of him demanded he finish his meal; if he didn’t eat the whole thing, Jane would be mad at him.

And that was all it took. A bit of rationalization, and he hopped back onto the horn.

He dropped into the windowless room below, eating as he went. Light essence funneled into [Lightwalk], but flickered away as fast as it touched the completed whole. The puzzle had been completed, but Erick could not stop eating. He ate and ate until he could eat no more, because suddenly there was nothing left to eat.

Erick rested on the stone floor. Orange stone was cold to the touch. The room was dark, and Erick felt a little sad. Sadness quickly gave way to anger, wholly directed at himself. Someone else could have used the rest of that horn. Erick felt after [Lightwalk], touching the spell with his mind. He never would have guessed that [Flash] was a single puzzle piece of the whole, until today. All eating that essence did was throw another incomplete puzzle onto the finished one, to destroy something beautiful in pursuit of decadence, to make the world a little less bright than it was before.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

It was dark in this small room under Jane’s tower. Dark and cold and—

No. Wait. That wasn’t it.

Erick’s slime body was practically radiant. Light splashed away from him like the light off of a [Cascade Imaging] orb. He was a lightbulb in a normally lit room, so of course the room looked dark by comparison.

And yes. Melemizargo was probably nearby; he always was. But that didn’t mean anything.

No. This darkness around Erick was normal darkness; a comparative darkness. Erick was a ball of incandescence that rivaled the sun, after all. Of course the room was dark compared to him. Excess light essence spilled away from his rolly body like twisting ribbons, and that was okay.

For a long moment, Erick sat in the relative darkness of the unused room, reveling in the experience of being a pinnacle light slime, committing to memory the taste of purple and orange and every other color, and the gentle, mostly intangible hum of magic that had come with each bite. Whatever secret there was to [Greater Lightwalk], Erick felt he already had all the pieces. The pieces were already put together for him, too. He just had to understand what it all meant, and when he did, he would tell Jane, and ask her what [Greater Shadowalk] meant to her.

Erick stayed like that, sitting in the dim room with no windows, acting as the brightest light source around, for a good twenty minutes. Eventually, his body turned darker. Excess essence dissipated into the room, out of the hole in the ceiling. Natural light came down from that hole, outshining the lightwards down here.

Erick looked up at Ophiel. The winged [Familiar] clutched the edge of the hole, looking down at Erick, gently whispering in harps and violins. Erick relaxed into his bubbly body, spreading out, experiencing the moment, listening to Ophiel’s music.

Erick’s reprieve from duty was short lived. Footsteps echoed through the stone underblob well before their owner stopped in front of the closed door to the room.

Poi said, “Sir. They’re ready for the first rains. Silverite wants me to be diplomatic about it, but I’m going to just tell you: Everyone expects food in the markets by evening.”

Erick smiled to himself. With a shift and an expansion, he was back to his human body. Nude, of course, but that was fixed with a bit of Handy Aura, reaching back up into Jane’s tower to retrieve his clothes, and his rings. He said, “Be right there,” as he shimmied into his pants.

- - - -

The Human District of Spur was the city’s smallest district by far. But even so, losing 25 percent of the flat, orange land around his house did not feel like a large loss. In fact, it felt like a gain. Green land would soon surround the Human District, and that was good.

As Erick stepped out of his front door he gazed toward the distant edge of his neighborhood, next to the rest of the city. Raised beds and tilled stone occupied those edges, while people milled around, working on their soon-to-be gardens. Stone moved through the air under the direction of young men and women. Seeds scattered and drilled into the soft dirt under the direction of older, experienced farmers.

Erick briefly activated [Ultrasight] to better see who he was working with. After a moment, he decided that he knew none of the people standing out there. Whoever the Community Garden Council decided to hire for their farming needs was of no real concern to Erick. His goal was to get the thing up and running and operating without issue.

… But that reminded him: he needed to speak to Ikawa Kali, Krakina’s granddaughter, and Delia Greentalon, Valok’s daughter. Hopefully they were doing… If not mentally okay, then at least physically okay. Ikawa was old enough to take care of herself, but what about Delia? She was only 16, or thereabouts. Had she even Matriculated, yet?

To his right, obscured by his own fully grown garden, was the Mage Trio’s house. To his left, a hundred meters away, was a stone pavilion. It was not the stone pavilion Erick had spent all of one minute raising from the ground yesterday. This pavilion was a nicer construction, with pillars like faux tree trunks with curling roots and stone branches holding up a roof adorned with scalloped shingles. People were inside the pavilion, namely yellowscaled Hera and two more; the rest of the Community Garden Council must be out at their gardens.

Erick began walking to the stone pavilion.

He arrived to see Rollo, Calizi, and Hera in residence.

Hera greeted him with a beatific voice that was clearly put upon, saying, “Glad to see you, Archmage Flatt.”

Hera stood next to one of several tables. Rollo and Calizi sat across from each other at Hera’s table. A small assortment of papers and books sat on the stone surface between the three of them. Hera looked taxed. Both of the incani looked like they had eaten a lemon. Something angry stirred in Rollo and Calizi’s eyes, but it wasn’t directed at Erick. They looked about ready to kill each other, or at least cause serious injury.

“Hello, Hera,” Erick said, as he stepped up into the pavilion and out of the sun.

Calizi blurted, “Archmage Flatt! Don’t rain on Rollo’s—”

“You old hag!” Rollo cursed, “Rot in heaven!”

Hera shouted at them, “Please! Have some decorum!” She forced her voice to calm and turned to Erick, saying, “There has been some difficulty—”

Calizi said, “He stole my workers!”

“She stole my contracts with twelve restaurants!” Rollo replied.

“You shouldn’t even be on this council.”

“I have more of a right than you!”

“Wow,” Erick said, putting as much admonishment in his voice as he thought necessary. “I miss Valok and Krakina and Apogough more than I thought possible. I never heard them talk like this except when it came to Portal.”

The two older incani instantly went quiet. Anger drained away like pus from a wound.

Erick waited.

Rollo was the first to break silence, saying, “It is beneath us to act this way, especially in the face of challenges such as ours.”

Erick asked, “Are the grocers really out of food?”

“No.” Hera said, “But they’re getting low. The rice is rationed. In two days the wheat will be, too. The Red Dot attack hit the granaries outside of the walls, taking with it most of our storage.”

Calizi eyed Rollo, then turned away from the man, saying, “In two days the restaurants around town will start having to offer neutered menus. We would like to avoid this. We’ve taken care of everything on our end, but we need that rain, archmage.”

Rollo flinched in anger as he listened to Calizi speak, but he spoke to Erick, saying, “Our workers are well paid, but you can’t eat gold. We’ve drawn up a preliminary schedule, if you’d like to approve?” He gestured to a paper on the table.

Erick picked up the paper, read it, then summarized, “Platinum rain on the Gardens on firstday and tenthday, for four hours in the morning. Normal rain on the Gardens on thirday, fifthday, and seventhday, an hour in the morning. Normal rain across the whole city every fifthday for three hours at noon and an hour in the evening. Normal rain as needed to keep the reservoir north of the city full and the pasture green.” He asked, “That’s it? I expected a lot more. This is almost nothing.”

Hera said, “That’s it.”

“Except for today.” Rollo said, “My people are ready for you to start whenever, but we’d like five hours of platinum rain, and soon.”

Hera added, “Except for today. Right.”

Calizi frowned. “Kip is almost ready. He’s the last one.” She lifted her chin, facing north, saying, “The rice paddies are almost set up. None of our soil is very good right now, and his is giving him more trouble than the rest of us.”

Erick looked north. Past his house, past the Mage Trio’s house, the northern wall of the city rose from the ground. There weren’t many buildings over there; it was just a small dragonkin neighborhood, with individual houses. But on this side of that small neighborhood, Erick saw people’s heads and torsos poking up from the flat orange stone. They bent down and vanished, only to stand back up. They were doing something over there, but whatever it was, Erick guessed they had it under control.

Calizi continued, “It’s all sand right now. Not a lick of good brown dirt anywhere. But he’ll set it to rights. He’s an odd wrought, growing food he can’t ever eat, but I’ve known him since I was a baby. He knows how to grow practically everything under the sun, under every condition known. Sand ain’t a big deal in the short term.”

Erick said, “My garden is full of sand, too. Whole thing got glassed by the Flare Couatl. I’m keeping an eye on it, making sure it stays healthy until I can revive my compost pile and redo the garden properly. If this raining schedule needs to be adjusted until we all get back to normal soil then you just let me know.” He looked back to his group.

Calizi smiled with genuine warmth. “I’ll be sure to do that, archmage. I mean— Erick.”

Erick smirked.

Hera stood straighter. “Kip just sent that he’s ready. That’s the last one.” She added, “And I hope to never do this again, Erick. This bickering is too much for me. I’m just here for this transitional period to see that it gets done.”

Erick turned back toward the north. A blue wrought who was in a depression up to his waist, waved his way. Erick said, “Thanks for your help, Hera. I’m sure we can take care of it ourselves, now that you’ve got it up and running.” He asked, “So let’s bring on the rain?”

“Please,” Calizi said.

“We’re ready,” Rollo said.

With a thought and some control, white mist spilled out of the air in every direction. For a brief moment, the Human District was filled with heavy fog.

A cheer began in the distance, building up into a roar of approval.

Erick smiled as Calizi clapped in happiness and Hera grinned at the sky. Rollo said something solemn in some other language, only to have Calizi laugh and clap louder.

Fog turned to clouds, that rose into the sky, flickering with white flashes, obscuring the morning sun. Dark patches appeared in the underbelly of the roiling mass above. Drops of platinum fell—

“Oh! My own stuff!” Erick flickered Ophiel over to his garden. With a chain of thought, Erick set down five [Weather Ward]s across the green space, blocking out the rain. He laughed a little, then turned back to his new partners in the farming business, saying, “I don’t plan on selling much of my stuff, so I don’t need that much rain.” He paused. He added, “As a matter of fact, I probably need to go prune all of that back, now. I had it good this morning.”

Hera said, “I need to get back to work, too.” She turned to Erick, Rollo, and Calizi, to say, “It was a pleasure working with you all, and if this is still working in a week, I will be very happy.” She walked out of the pavilion, into the glittering rain, saying, “Later!”

Erick said, “Later!” He turned to Calizi and Rollo, asking, “Have you two heard from Ikawa or Delia? I saw Ikawa at a party five days ago, but I haven’t actually asked if she was okay. I haven't seen or heard of what’s become of Delia at all.”

Calizi’s voice turned soft and sad, as she said, “I don’t know about Ikawa, but Delia went to the Adventurer’s Guildhouse. That poor girl had everything taken from her, and she is angry. I tried to console her, but there’s no hugging out that sort of despair. Her father was her only family.”

“… Shit,” Erick said.

Rollo said, “Delia might come out of this stronger for her hardship. It happens more often than you’d think.”

Calizi practically yelled at the man, “How can you be so heartless!”

“I am pragmatic!” Rollo countered, “Valok was a great man. His daughter is certainly the same. I saw that greatness in her when she was out working in the Farm, pre-matriculation. No spells to help her and she worked just as hard as anyone else! Harder, even, because she didn’t have the Script to help. Don’t go coddling her now, Calizi. She doesn’t need that. No one does.”

Calizi frowned and almost said something more, but she held her tongue. She looked away, toward the falling rain. Greenery had already started to poke up from the edge of the Human District, like a band of life amid the orange stone.

Rollo said, “Ikawa is at the Mage Guildhouse. Krakina was in the process of teaching her how to be a proper Weather Witch, but that process was cut short. She’s a strong one, too.”

Erick nodded.

Calizi said, “If you go seek them out, just be aware that you’ve denied them their revenge. Maybe not so much Ikawa, I don’t really know her, but Delia, for sure. Valok’s killers were among the first tracked down and ended.”

“The only ones that got away were the Red Dot mage and a handful of others.” Rollo’s face turned darker as he added, “And Caradogh.”

Erick said, “I just heard from my daughter in Oceanside: They got Caradogh. I didn’t hear the full story, but I think he tried to go after Jane. It failed, thankfully”

Rollo said, “Good riddance!” He cursed a string of darker, hard-sounding words, then spat on the ground.

Erick silently agreed, and hated that he felt that way. Killing was not supposed to be the answer.

Calizi frowned at the spit on the ground. She gestured. The spit vanished into a spot of thick air, as she said, “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

- - - -

Bulgan ended another five attacks on his city in more or less the same manner as the first two. There was some variation, but mostly it was the same old same old. The only notable fight was with a pair of dragonkin who were both outfitted with [Lightwalk] and [Shadowalk]. That was a fun fight; they had honestly expected to be able to kill him. Bulgan actually had to dodge an attack.

He could have let their [Shadowblight] hit, but it was their big, kill-a-Shade, kill-a-city spell, and they thought they had trapped him into an unmovable position. How they ever got that fool idea in their heads, Bulgan would never know. He just stepped to the side and let the spell hit the city. It killed a few hundred shadelings, but they were replaceable. Mostly.

The buildings were certainly replaceable. In fact, the replacements had already gone up hours ago. The city was whole again.

Bulgan stood atop the tallest spike of shadow kendrithyst, watching the west, plucking hard nuts from an apridate frond and cracking them in his hands to reveal the orange fruit inside—

He paused.

He stared out across the desert.

A thin trail of dust, blowing south in the wind, heralded the arrival of a person on a floating platform, traveling fast, and close to the ground. They were coming his way, and they were holding a purple flag.

Bulgan smiled. He tossed the apridate frond to the shadeling waiting at his side. With a thought, he vanished from his spot and reappeared next to the new arrival.

The new arrival was a thin man wearing nice clothes that didn’t fit him, riding a [Force Platform] shaped like a log with handles for his hands and stirrups for his feet. At Bulgan’s appearance, the man screeched loud but short as he went tumbling sideways, spinning around his log to put the structure between him and Bulgan, before his secondary thought processed kicked in. The purple flag was lost somewhere in the tumble, but the man regained composure and righted himself. He slowed. He stopped.

Sitting upright on his floating log, the man stared at Bulgan.

Bulgan smirked, waiting for the ‘sacrificial cow’ to say something.

The man, now sweating profusely, and not just from the heat, took the initiative. He spoke with a cracking voice, “How—! How does the day find you, fine gentle— gentleman of the Great— Great city of Kendrithyst?”

“Just fine.” Bulgan asked, “How does it find you?”

“It finds me at a loss!” The man looked away from Bulgan, toward the dark city up ahead, saying, “Uh! What? What fine construction… Such a beautiful… city. Pray tell please—” The man’s demeanor had briefly cracked, but he pulled himself together as he turned back to Bulgan, asking, “Pray tell? What ever is it for? What do you want? I mean… Uh...”

Bulgan let the man think he was in deep shit for a long moment, before smiling wide, saying, “Since you have asked so nicely.” He swung a hand toward the shadowy city in the distance, finding not-a-little joy in seeing the man recoil in horror and almost fall off his floating log, as he said, “We’re an adventuring city! Tell all your friends to come on by. Get some new magics and some new money. My people survive on rads, so if you come, come rich, and be prepared to leave even richer.”

The man’s eyes went wide. He took a moment to ask, “And what… pray tell… is the name of your… city?”

“I’m thinking Candlepoint.” Bulgan toyed with the man, asking, “Unless you have a better name?”

“Candlepoint is great!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Bulgan said, “So glad of someone taking the time to talk instead of throwing around ineffectual spells. As a reward—” A round, deep blue fruit appeared in Bulgan’s hand. It glowed with a gentle light. He lifted the gift into the air and floated it over to the terrified man. The man did not take the fruit. Bulgan glowered, saying, “Take the gift.”

The man grabbed the blue fruit.

Bulgan nodded, then said, “It’s an Oceanfruit. It gives one permanent point of Willpower to the consumer, with a safe maximum of 25 extra points possible. Anyone eating more than 25 fruits is liable to experience unforeseen effects, but if you quest enough and you’re daring enough, you can eat as many as you want. We don’t put limits on people, at Candlepoint. We also have fruits for every Stat. They’re one of the bigger quest rewards, so keep that in mind.”

The man stared at the fruit in his hand like it was a king’s artifact, and he was a lowly peasant; merely touching such a thing would end in his death. If he didn’t offload the fruit to whoever his master was behind the Wall, and soon, then he might die anyway; the victim of an assault by one of the hundreds of people watching through [Scry] eyes.

Bulgan made a point to look at the [Scry] orbs in the sky, then said to the man, “If you’re in danger from some unworthy master, then Candlepoint will provide sanctuary. The Guest District is fully functioning with water and food, and even some brothels. We’re a full service sort of town, you see.”

The man came back to the moment. He realized where he was, and who he was talking to. He said, “Sorry. I must humbly decline your kind offer.”

“Of course, of course.”

“I must be going. If… If that is okay?” The man carefully, casually, turned his floating log back to face the Wall. “It was nice to meet you…?”

“Bulgan Shadoweater. Not fully my original name, but such is life.”

“… Master Shadoweater, then.” The man bowed in his seat, as his floating log began hovering back toward the Wall. “Thank you for your hospitality and your kind reception.”

Bulgan smiled as the man’s floating log picked up speed. When the man got a good distance away and sand billowed at his passing, Bulgan vacated the field.

He reappeared atop the tallest spire of Candlepoint. He held his hand out to his side. His attendant shadeling handed him his apridate frond and Bulgan went back to cracking open the little pods, and eating the dense orange flesh inside.