As the harsh sun beat down through scattered clouds, a warm breeze flowed in from the west; a product of the controlled weather causing the deviation from the natural northern flow. That deviation wasn’t exactly welcome, but besides that, the day looked to be a great one for experimenting with some plants, so that was exactly what Erick was going to do, until such time as either Killzone appeared, or something else happened.

With a sudden realization, Erick knew he could have made any day a good day for working outside.

With that thought in mind, Erick stepped out of his house and into the western shadows of the house, as the sun rose in the east. As the western breeze was getting a bit strong, and he had some guidelines handed to him by Silverite for how she wanted the weather, Erick looked up at the clouds, and changed the unacceptable western wind.

A barely-visible pulse of white light, weightless and yet full of power, crashed out from his body, racing upward and outward, dissipating as it traveled, but causing more and more changes as it traversed the sky. Wispy clouds turned solid. The western winds shifted to northerlies. It would not rain today and the clouds would mostly vanish in the afternoon, but order had been restored. Erick was sure that a lot of someones out there appreciated the return to northern winds; after all, the city’s architecture was built with that sort of weather in mind.

Erick breathed deep the rushing breeze, as Ophiel took off from his shoulder to fly above the trees of the garden. With a gentle laugh and a step into the green space, Erick got out his Handy Aura and began pruning, picking, and prospecting in the soft, dark-brown dirt. Carrots, corn, tomatoes, turnips, peppers, potatoes, peas, and more, all of that came out, alongside the few Veird-born vegetables he kept in his garden, like the purple tomatoes, and the ripe pods of the tarip trees kept near the lemon trees. The tarip pods would come in use later, but soon, stone baskets beside the garden were absolutely full of raw food.

Kiri watched, and helped, but mostly she tried to use [Greater Lightwalk] with proficiency, attempting to prune and pluck right alongside Erick. She wasn’t very good with her lightform yet, but she’d get there.

Teressa helped move full vegetable crates inside the house, for Justine to place into cold storage. Poi was there, too, but he mostly talked to whoever he usually talked to, never having less than five tendrils of intent coming off of his head at any one moment.

After half an hour, Erick had finished most of the upkeep of the garden, while Kiri had done less than fifteen percent of the work. It was easy to see why she had failed to do that much; her [Greater Lightwalk] control was worse than Erick had initially seen. She took three tries to pick a lemon without turning it to pulp or letting the fruit slip out of her lightform grasp. Erick said nothing, though. She was trying.

Near the end, Kiri said, “I need to make that Handy Aura. My [Lightwalk] is simply not dexterous enough for this fine, forceful work.”

Erick said, “I have Shape Spell, Class Ability. Really glad I went with that one.” He added, “But yeah; a Handy Aura is better for this than [Lightwalk].”

“… I need to get Shape Spell, too, I guess.” Kiri quietly lamented, “There are just so many good choices.”

“You’ve got a month till Particle Mage.”

Kiri smiled, as she sighed. “Thank the gods. Only a month left.”

“Do you have some points saved up for more Ability Slots?”

“I do.” Kiri said, “I’ve made a few adjustments to my necessary list, too. After watching you make that [Plasma Bolt] yesterday, I think I’m gonna get 20% off Particle Spell costs instead of 10% off all costs, and then try for a VCVD Particle Plasma spell.”

Erick looked to his apprentice. “You sure about that? I have found the 10% All Costs to be remarkably useful, though it doesn’t work with having your [Familiar] cast the spell.”

“I’m sure.” Kiri said, “I’m going to remake all of my wanted spells as Particle spells. Plasma. Infrared. The physicality of it all is just too much to pass up.” She looked up to the sky, saying, “The ability to control the weather. All of these things are too important to not be done.” She turned to Erick, and turning serious, asked, “I would like to ask for your cooperation in gaining some of the Basic Spells you have made, when they finally make it to the Script.”

Erick smiled at Kiri’s courteous tone, and her demeanor. “Of course, Kiri.” He added, “I’m not sure how that’s going to work, since I’ve already been informed that [Condense Particle] is going to be the Basic Tier Particle Spell, but we’ll figure something out when the time comes. Maybe you will be able to learn [Call Lightning]? We won’t know until we try.”

Kiri smiled softly as she repeated, “We won’t know until we try.”

Erick turned back to the tarip trees, asking, “Now… Do you know how to make a [Fermentation Ward]?”

“… Academically? Yes. Actually? No.”

Erick rubbed his hands together, deciding, “Then we’ll both give it a shot.” With a Handy snatch, he plucked three tarip pods he had set aside from the rest. “Let’s make some chocolate.”

- - - -

The sun beat down through clouds on the eastern side of the house, as Erick stood beside a loamy field of brown dirt. He held in his hand a football-shaped fruit, covered in red and white stripes, with a fleshy interior and a thin line of walnut-sized seeds down the center. The seeds took up barely any space at all. Most people used the fruit itself to make jellies or fruity toppings. The fruit tasted pretty good. Almost like a strawberry and a cherry had a baby. It was easy to eat, too. The rind was tough enough for shipping, but if you peeled from the top, it came off like a banana peel. The seeds themselves were great for planting; almost every single one would sprout a tree, in almost all situations, including situations found in nature. From planting to fruit, it took three years, or an hour of [Grow], for the tree to produce fruit of its own. Tarip was a great fruit.

But Erick hated tarip. It tasted like strawberries and cherries, yes, but it smelled like dying. Erick hated the smell of unprocessed tarip. Most people called it an acquired taste, and it sure was. Another problem was that that sickly sweet smell rapidly attracted flies and all manner of insects, and if these plants weren’t growing in Spur, where there were hardly any bugs, or under [Bug Ward]s anywhere else, then the tree would never get to harvest size. It would be dead to bugs ten times over. More people than him had tried to get rid of the smell and bug problem by cultivating the tarip into something other than what it was. And that was another part of the problem.

The tarip tree was actually one of the most meddled-with plants known to the people of Veird.

Erick figured that fact was one of the myriad of reasons he had failed to make chocolate through the tarip tree. Too many cooks, cooking in a kitchen that had been in use for a thousand years. That was the problem with tarip. If you tried to do anything new with the stinking fruit, you usually ended up fucking some important thing up, and it turned nasty. Instead of just smelling like death, it tasted like death, too.

So the first thing he was going to do today, was return the tarip to its original form, if it even had one.

In his casual pursuit of chocolate, ever since he was turned on to the idea by Jane, all he found regarding the tarip was that it was heavily changed from the original. No one knew what the original looked like. Maybe he would have more luck making chocolate by starting from the original? Maybe not.

But maybe so!

There was a reason that Erick hadn’t gotten very far in the creation of chocolate. He had tried, here and there, and could never get past the ever-present smell. But maybe he could, today!

Erick peeled the fruit, uncovering the fleshy, red interior, and multiplying the smell three-fold. He was standing to the side, though, so most of the smell flowed away on the breeze. From this angle, the scent of sweet death was quaint, and tiny.

Then he pulled it open with tendrils of light.

His entire face felt like he had stuck his head into the swill of a decaying garbage dump, and the remains of a wood-chippered fruit filled grove, all in one. He almost retched. Kiri, standing just downwind, breathed in deep through her nose. Erick almost gagged a second time as he saw her do that.

Kiri laughed. “It smells good!”

“It does not.”

Kiri shrugged.

Erick discarded the flesh as he pulled out the line of seeds from the interior. Like a bunch of lima beans separated, held together, and covered by white, spongy flesh, the seeds were hard little things. With his face scrunched up like a crumpled napkin, he popped the first seed from its loose container, and then dissected it. Without the white flesh covering, the seed was still white and lima-bean shaped, but now Erick saw the two halves to the seed, and a nib on one side at the joining of those halves. The shape was okay, but was nowhere near what a cocoa bean needed to be.

At a mental command, the Ophiel in the sky lifted his power, conjuring clouds from the surroundings like fog rolling in. As his aura spread and stabilized, it raised to the sky, where clouds formed, and silver flashes broke through, illuminating the growing darkness above. Platinum rain fell, soaking the ground, flowing into the experimental garden, but nowhere else. Erick held his seeds apart from the growing rain, for now. When the ground was good and soaked, Ophiel cut the rain. The sky returned to comfortably cloudy.

He planted the seed in the still-glowing soil, casting [Grow] as he did, directing his spell to uncover what had been, when the tarip was first created, discarding all that had come in the centuries since its creation. To become its own ancestor. To become the original.

A sapling sprouted.

Over ten minutes the sapling became a tree, then over more time and more applications of [Grow], the three meter tall tree sprouted flowers that appeared and then fell to the ground. Fruit appeared where flowers had been. They were small green buds, at first, the fruit gradually became something rounder, then redder. There were no white lines, and no football shape. It was here, that Erick removed his directed growth, and imbued the tree with [Tree of Light], letting it become its perfect self on its own.

That appeared to be the right decision.

The air filled with the scent of tart cherry, the tree rapidly shifted itself into something more primal, with a trunk lined in spikes and fruits that began dangling from almost-vines. The fruits swelled, as the tree stabilized. Brown bark glowed orange in the cracks of itself, while deep green leaves were edged in green light.

Erick smiled. “This one smells good.”

Kiri eyed the tree. “Too many spikes… I think the ones near the bottom are dripping. Uh.” She took a step back. She asked, “[Cleanse]?”

With another look, Erick saw what she saw. He rapidly cast the appropriate spell.

A storm of thick air erupted from the plant. The tree deflated. Fruits burst. Thorns turned to nothing. Branches broke, like balsa wood with too much weight on them. Leaves turned brittle. The scent of cherry completely vanished. Kiri ‘eek’d, and then threw a [Cleanse] over her and Erick.

For a moment, Erick’s skin reddened. He coughed. Kiri coughed, too, muttering about poisons as Sunny, wrapped up around a rod of [Treat Wounds], tapped her with the rod, and then Erick. Erick had to laugh at that, so he did.

“I was not expecting poison,” Kiri said, keeping her couatl [Familiar] hovering closer to her than Sunny had been hovering before.

“Me neither.” Erick said, “Fast thinking with Sunny. You were a hair faster than I was.”

Kiri just smiled.

Erick turned his attention back to the ‘tarip’ tree. The not-tarip was thoroughly dead.

Erick frowned. “… Oh well.”

Kiri said, “One more try!”

“Eh.” Erick said, “I’m just going to try from tarip to cocoa, again. I’ll try smaller shifts in change, this time.”

His second try for cocoa, of the day, but to adjust the current tree away from strawberry flavors, wholly to cherry.

This time the tree came out much better. [Cleanse] did not deflate the tree, and the scent of decaying sweetness was less. So that was good.

Using this second tree, Erick continued his iterations, making small adjustments to approach his goal of a heavily-seeded fruit, without the smell of the original. When the tree was down to something unoffensive, he began throwing in as much feeling and memories of chocolate as he could. The taste of chocolate cake, the bitterness of baker’s chocolate, the creaminess of milk chocolate, the pick-me-up it gave on a bad day, the capstone on a good day. How it tempered into something shiny.

Erick was never one to seek out chocolate, but he never passed it up, either. That was probably the most major reason that he never went as far as he had with cocoa. He could have probably done this all before, but now, with Jane’s desire for chocolate chip cookies clear in his mind and with her actually back home, for now, Erick wanted to make her happy.

Ah. Don’t get off track. Back to [Grow]ing.

Erick gave a heavy nod toward the fat content of the bean, and the proteins, and the carbohydrates of it all, along with polyphenols that ensured good health, combating heart disease, inflammation, and other useful effects, but damn if Erick couldn’t remember much more than that. Remembering the word ‘polyphenol’ at all was an arduous task, but Erick had studied what his death would look like, back when he was on Earth, and though cancer was the highest risk factor, heart attack was second.

And so, on more than a whim, he imbued a bit of healthiness to this chocolate. A bit more complexity, a bit more depth of flavor, a bit more better.

Three hours, many trees, and many rains later, Erick plucked a red-orange football from a maybe-cocoa tree. Everything about the seedpod seemed okay. He had stripped away the problems of the original tarip tree one small nudge at a time, with much smaller structural strippings than he had done with his other plants.

This one seemed good, though. It was several iterations deep in the ‘clarification process’, as Erick liked to think of it, where everything looked good, but Erick kept going anyway, just to make sure everything actually was good. So...

This one might be a success?

The seedpod smelled fine; like a casually fruity fruit. It peeled just like the original, too; like a banana. A [Cleanse] revealed no thick air, either on the pod, or in the tree itself. Erick smiled. There was practically no flesh to this seedpod, with the seeds and their stretchy, white coverings taking up most of the interior. It almost looked like an egg sac. Each seed was still the size of a walnut, and there were a good hundred to each pod.

With a light touch, Erick pulled apart the seeds.

If he remembered correctly, eating the seeds was fine, for chocolate. While the fruit should be fruity, the seeds themselves, or rather, the beans, in this case— The beans should taste like bitter chocolate. Really bitter chocolate. Erick eyed the beans. The [Cleanse] had come up empty, so…

Erick plucked a bean and shoved it in his mouth.

Kiri’s eyes went wide, watching him chew.

He did not bite into the bean right away. First, he chewed the white coating around the bean. It took him a moment to come up with the flavors he was experiencing. Cherry, yes. Maybe some lemon? Something tart. It was a complex flavor, for sure. When he was through with the coating, and most of that complexity was gone and swallowed, he bit into the bean.

An almost forgotten flavor burst into his mouth. Coffee. Bitter, barely sweet.

Memories flooded to the forefront of Erick’s mind, as familiar and unfamiliar tastes exploded in his mouth. Of sitting on a porch and watching the sun rise, as his daughter got on the bus and he drank his dark brew before work. Of watching Jane try her first cup at 16 and then spitting it out into the sink, and then laughing about that every so often, for years and years to come. He laughed about it right now, remembering that day.

Oh! And there were more flavors, as the chewing commenced. There was a richness that was slightly fruity, too… Wait.

Okay. This was not coffee.

Or maybe?…

No. It was similar, and maybe he could use his chocolate tree to make a coffee tree, too, but—

This was chocolate. A supremely dark chocolate. But yes, chocolate.

He smiled, as he spat the seed bits into the dirt.

Kiri glanced at the brown bits in the dirt, saying, “It looked like it could have been a winner to me?”

“It was!” He said, “Still bitter as hell, though.” He added, “I made chocolate, but I could also make coffee with a few more iterations. Real coffee. This could go either way. The fermenting and drying process for both is similar, if I recall correctly.” He plucked more pods from the tree using his lightform tendrils, then began peeling them and discarding the unwanted bits a dozen fruits at a time. With some casual concentration, he dumped the unwanted bits into the compost bin, while keeping the seeds and their white coverings in a floating ball.

Kiri eyed the ball. “Don’t you want to get rid of the white parts, too?”

“Nope.” Erick floated the hovering mass of seeds and white fruit flesh over to a stone box he had already prepared. Holes, much smaller than the size of the beans, had been carved into the bottom, and the box itself stood on small stilts. Erick dumped the beans into the box, then asked Kiri, “Let’s try a [Fermentation Ward].”

Kiri frowned a little, but she banished that look off her face and stepped forward. She cast into the box. A green glint took hold of the air around the stone structure. White beanflesh turned tan, then brown, in a matter of a dozen seconds. Erick used his Handy Aura to stir the beans. When Kiri asked why he was doing that, he responded that it was to ensure a proper fermentation. When Kiri said that he shouldn’t need to do that for a proper fermentation, Erick paused.

“Why not?” Erick said, “Fermentation is a bacterial reaction, isn’t it? And I want the bacteria everywhere.”

Kiri frowned. “Not… really... It’s not a bacteria. [Fermentation Ward] is a combination of [Grow] and [Ward], but targeted to the yeast that ferments, and that stuff gets around. But don’t take my word for that. Alchemy was not my area of study. At all.” She looked down to the browning box of slime and beans. “I am not sure if I did it right.” She added, “Oh. Yeah. I did that wrong.”

The beans turned black, in bits, then seemingly all at once. Erick stepped back as a rotten smell of decay flowed into the air. Kiri reacted with a [Cleanse], and to disperse her green [Ward].

Black sludge turned to thick air. Kiri said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Erick looked to the house. “Justine was an alchemist. I am just now remembering this.”

Kiri said, “I’ll go get her.”

While Kiri ran off, Erick [Stoneshape]d the now-clean bean bin, plucking it from the ground. He set it next to the porch, where Justine could still stand in the dense air of the house, while still being able to cast her [Fermentation Ward] into the bin.

Erick went back to the successful tree, and cast [Tree of Light]. The tree flexed, regrowing pods, stretching tall to soak up the sun, thickening its trunk as roots curled outward, digging deeper.

With a second batch of pods plucked, cut open, and their beans dumped in the bin for Justine, Erick sat down, next to Poi, and waited. He offered to get Poi a drink. Poi accepted, but for something non alcoholic. In two minutes, the two of them each had a tall glass of lemonade in their hands.

Kiri came outside, with Justine appearing right behind her.

“Hello,” Justine said, “I understand you want a [Fermentation Ward]?”

Erick smiled at Justine. “Hello! Yes, please.” He pointed at the bin, just outside of the [Prismatic Ward], full of white, fleshy beans. “Is that close enough?”

“Yes.” With a twist of her hand, a red [Ward] sprung up around the stone bin. “It’s a common enough spell. Would you like me to teach you? We would need a microscope, though. The yeast this [Ward] is meant to [Grow] is a very specific shape, and it is best to see this for yourself before you attempt this spell.”

“Would a picture work?” Erick asked.

Justine shook her head. “It is better to use a microscope. Being able to see and directly interact with the yeast before creating the spell always produces better results.”

Erick said to Poi, “Then I need a microscope. Can Liquid procure one for me?”

“They’re something like five thousand gold.” Poi said, “I know you don’t care about that, but I’m telling you, anyway.”

Erick smirked. “You’re right. I still want it.”

Poi looked to the air, sending out a tendril of thought.

Erick stood up and went to the bin. With Justine’s spell working on the beans, their white coating was beginning to tan. He asked Justine, “What does this spell do, exactly?”

Justine stepped closer, looking down to the box, saying, “It’s a [Spell Ward], with [Grow] as the imbued spell. This particular one is imbued with 500 spell mana, which activates [Grow] every second, for 5 mana. I don’t actually have [Ward] or [Grow] high enough to make a spell with them, so I can’t show you [Fermentation Ward], but a properly made version would cost around 250 mana with Clarity, and last for a good five minutes.” She gestured to the box. “This one will not do that, since this isn’t a true [Fermentation Ward]. But it should work, anyway. It looks like it’s working. You’re going to want to stir that.”

Erick reached out and stirred the seeds around with his Handy Aura. In a short minute, the box of tanned seeds became a box of brown, muddy seeds. Trace amounts of steam flowed up from the filled bin, to vanish in the northern wind. Slowly, but surely, a fruity, bread-like smell rushed out of the box. It was actually a pretty good smell.

Justine sniffed the air, following Erick’s own sniffing. She smiled. “That’s the correct smell. If you smell anything other than that, you’re either fermenting something weird, or your spell went wrong.” She asked, “How far do you wish to take this fermentation?”

“I have no idea,” Erick said, as he stirred the beans. “This is all an experiment.”

Justine nodded. “This is just a guess, but I would suggest you go until the majority of the flesh is gone, or turned muddy.”

“Sounds good to me.” Erick asked, “Do you know a lot about fermentation?”

Justine gave a sad smile, as she looked down at the box of beans. “Had to keep the sanity somehow, when I was in the Dead City.” She looked to Erick, then looked away. “A lot of us made alcohol however we could. It was better than the drugs we would sometimes smoke. Shades could smell smoke a lot more than they could smell alcohol out in the open, and getting caught never turned out well.”

Erick said, “If this peace turns out to be true, we’re going to want to free everyone from the Shades, including those still stuck in Ar’Kendrithyst. I’m sorry you went through that, Justine.”

“I’m sorry you’re going to Shadow’s Feast,” Justine said, trying to change the topic away from her. “It won’t be easy, but you should be fine, according to everything I know.”

Justine had overheard all the talk at yesterday’s dinner, but she hadn’t said anything about it until now. That was probably a good thing. Jane would have ripped into her, even more than she already had. Though the gods had something closer to a real interaction with Melemizargo, and thus they were privy to ‘real’ information, all the mortals like Erick and Justine had to go on were the words of the gods, working behind the scenes, and the words of people in power, like Silverite, and Killzone.

Like a minor heart attack, Erick realized: Justine didn’t truly have anyone on her side, did she?

He said, “Thank you, Justine. I know you’ve been through a lot, but still you’re looking out for me. I can only hope to do the same.”

Justine stood still for a moment, as she just breathed. She sniffled, then tried to pass it off as sniffing the air, as she brought a hand up to her face to hide her eyes. From one moment to the next, she seemed to ignore or discard whatever emotions she was having, as she flapped a hand at the box. “They’re done!” She stood just a bit taller than she had before, as she cancelled the spell. “Now what?”

The beans were wet, and covered in what could almost be a red mud-like substance. Erick pulled a handful out, letting beans and not-mud fall between the fingers of his telekinetic hand, saying, “Now, they dry.” He put the beans back, then picked up the whole box with a [Stoneshape] breaking the stilts and lifting it higher. A puddle of red muck sat below the box, having oozed out from the fermentation. Erick walked the box over to to a stone table he had already set up in the sun. It was nothing more than a long slab of stone, raised from the ground, and with a lip all around. He dumped the box out, then spread the beans wide enough to form a single layer. He set the box back down next to the house, back on its stilts, then cast a [Cleanse] over the fermenting station, ridding the box and the ground of its red muck. With a turn back to the table, and another cast, a white [Drying Ward] filled the table. He did not [Cleanse] the beans. Erick said, “And that’ll take an hour.”

Justine asked, “I saw you working on tarip, but I don’t know what you’re actually making?”

“It’s an experiment in chocolate,” Erick said, turning back to her. “I might have gotten it right. But maybe I didn’t. We’ll know soon enough.”

Poi spoke up, “A runner will bring your new microscope here in an hour. Liquid has already deducted the bill from your account, as per your permissions.”

“Excellent!” Erick said, “No need to send Kiri out for this one.” He looked to his apprentice, who was currently standing next to the bean table, watching the red-muck beans become red-dust beans. They’d spend an hour under that [Drying Ward] before they would be ready. He said to Kiri, “Teressa had to run all your errands while you were gone.”

Kiri shrugged, looking up to him. “Got any errands for me, now?”

“Not really.” Erick said, “But it is time for lunch.”

Kiri nodded. “I’ll get that started.”

Erick smiled.

Killzone had yet to show up, or send word. Poi said that this was normal, and Teressa backed him up. Kiri gave a shrug at Erick’s open wondering of Killzone’s whereabout, the young woman not having nearly as much experience with the General as the other two. Killzone would show up when he showed up, as was his prerogative.

- - - -

As the sun passed over the house, the microscope arrived, and ten minutes later, Erick made a new spell.

Fermentation Ward, instant, close range, 500 mana

Support the rampant spread and life of fermenting yeast, in a small area. Lasts 5 minutes.

It would be a useful spell.

It was also slightly terrifying. Could he make a spell like this for animal tissues?

… Ew.

And also, oh no.

Erick left that thought far behind for now and went back into the backyard, to check on the beans. They had sat under the sun and a [Drying Ward] for a full hour, and they had both done their job. Where once was red muck, now was brown bean, almost all of the red having turned to dust and blown away on the northern winds.

There were more than a few reasons why he had not done much with chocolate before now. One of them was that this middle process was a mystery to him. Oh, sure, he knew the broad steps. The raw beans tasted like bitter fruit. Fermentation and drying helped develop the proper flavors. And now, he needed some sort of grinding to bits, thing…? Roasting, for sure. Then a lot more grinding, under heavy stones, to produce a fine, fine texture. That part he was sure about. Heavy stones, grinding brown muck to something closer to liquid chocolate.

… And then there was more.

And then you had bars of chocolate!

Simple! Right?

Eh. He’d go as far as he could. Getting to the stone-ground process would likely be good enough. And then you’d add powdered milk and sugar and stuff—

Oh! And then you’d grind some more? Right? That had to be right. There was probably a word for both the first grind and the second grind, but Erick had absolutely no idea what those words could possibly be, or if they even existed, or if there was only one grind necessary.

… Two grinds seemed necessary.

He turned to Poi, standing behind him, asking, “Is there some Mind Mage way to help me remember something I’ve forgotten?”

“No.”

“… I feel like your ‘no’ is a lie.”

“Your feelings sure do exist.”

Erick turned back to his beans, brushing Poi off with a, “Fine fine fine.” With a single part of his Handy Aura, he grabbed a bean and twisted, crushing the bean into… Parts. Hmm. Erick took a closer look at another bean, and used his hands this time. The bean came apart as he touched it, a paper-thin coating flaking away on the breeze, revealing a solid, black interior that smelled faintly of vinegar. Erick pressed his fingers together, his 82 Strength going to work at his physical demand, shattering the bean into broken shards. Erick smiled, as he opened his fingers apart. Brown stuff coated them. “It’s certainly fatty enough.” But the vinegar smell threw him for a small loop. Was this correct? Erick shut down his hopeful thoughts. He had come further today with chocolate than he ever had before, but the day was not done, and the road to chocolate was undeniably long.

He almost thought to get Kip involved again, to ask for the use of his hopper. But he didn’t have that much to do, and the process of separating shells from the bean inside seemed easy enough. Maybe he’d get some professional equipment later, but for now, hand-made was fine.

With the help of two Ophiel and more than enough open space around his house, Erick gathered up the beans in a thousand Handy hands and a large bowl of his [Greater Lightwalk] self. Under his own guidance, air spun though the beans, ripping off shells, spilling red dust into the air. Ophiel guided heavy winds through the spell work, their instinctual [Airshape]s whipping away the dregs, while the heavier beans fell back into Erick’s lightform bowl. The first cleaning was okay. The second cleaning got rid of even more shell. The third cleaning came up empty, all the red dust and thin shells having been blown away on the breeze.

And now came some cooking.

Browning the beans was simple enough. But here too, Erick was unsure where to go with it all.

He split the beans into six piles. Three piles were [Cleanse]d, pulling a thin amount of thick air from them that was not much more than a heat mirage. Justine had told Erick that some of that was the fermentation yeast, for sure. The other three remained uncleaned. After throwing a [Cleanse] on the drying table, he [Stoneshape]d the table into six parts, separated by raised stone. He threw down six [Heat Ward]s, one each of low and slow, medium, and fast and hot, with the two types of beans separated accordingly.

He set to making his ‘grinders’—

But how?

He went and got Kiri’s help with the general idea of a stone grinder, but Kiri was quick to point out Justine’s wealth of knowledge. Erick went and got Justine, to ask for her help.

“Of course I can help with that!” Justine said, happily.

Justine’s grinders were simple things; an inverted cone of stone, with a mostly flat, yet rounded tip, set inside of another conical stone, almost perfectly flush with the central grinding stone. It was a variation of a mortar and pestle, and was almost what Erick was going to make, but not quite. Erick was going to make a mortar and pestle, and have the central stone pound up and down, but this seemed much better. The end result ended up being half a meter tall, and capable of grinding a good portion of beans at any one time. Since Erick was planning on just grinding and grinding, this version did not have the hole in the bottom that the normal version possessed.

One of the many things to keep in mind when making this ‘emergency grinder’, as Justine called it, was the creation process. For turning any old dirt that was just sitting around into a functional grinder, you first had to turn the stone to sand, then came a [Cleanse] to get rid of any exposed impurities, with this part repeated a few times, depending on location. After getting good, clean dirt, then came the shaping. This type of grinder needed to be as solid as possible, on the level of marble, or stronger, so that while the stone ground on and on, it did not grind itself to sand when it was working.

By the time Justine, Erick, and Kiri finished the first set of knee-height grinders, the first batch of ‘hot and fast’ beans seemed ready. Looking at them, Erick saw that they were certainly browned. Hopefully they weren’t burned.

The [Cleanse]d batch went into one grinder; the non-[Cleanse]d batch went into the other grinder. With a simple application of [Control Item], for the contraptions that Justine had created counted as ‘items’, the grinders began to grind all on their own. Beans broke under the onslaught of their own weight and inexorable stone, turning from whole to bits, then becoming little more than lubrication for the grinding, grinding grinders.

While Erick waited on that, he cleared up every tarip tree except his success, turning them all to kindling, and setting them downwind to burn in a [Cleansing Flame].

An hour passed. By then, all six grinders churned away at all six experiments, turning bits to muck, and muck to silk, theoretically. The noise was horrendous after only five minutes, though, so Erick threw down a shaped [Stillness], turning the cacophony of six simultaneous avalanches into six ‘cars-on-gravel-driveways’, and a lot of flashing light.

While the grinders ground, and as the second hour of grinding approached, Erick sat on the porch. With a beer in his hands, he watched the lights flash around the moving stones; sound turned to luminescence. He smiled, as he realized that he had created a spell that turned sound into light, way before he ever considered shifting elements around, or before he had ever experienced Syllea’s [Shadow Conversion].

“But what is shadow?” Erick asked himself. He turned to Kiri, sitting beside him, also on the porch, but mostly just reading her ‘Dawning Sun Style’ book. “What is Shadow?”

Kiri looked up, and out, thinking. Her voice came slowly. “… You’re asking me… It’s like you’re asking me ‘what is the space between Particles’. Shadow is a force, like any other. A Fundamental Force of Magic, more like magnetism than anything else… But no. That’s wrong. And also partially right?” She thought. She said, “If you want me to just throw out some ideas, though, it could be that the ‘Particle’ of Shadow is Shadow Essence. You can’t directly manipulate Shadow Essence, much like how you can’t manipulate individual atoms, and maybe even for the same reason: the Infinitesimal Ban.” She scrunched her face. “But I don’t know about all that. I always heard that the essences of the primary six elements were more like pieces of souls, than anything else. You can interact with them with soul magic, but the only people who would know for sure would be some necromancer, or maybe people like the demon or angel summoners of the incani or the humans.”

“Hmm… But elementals are like primitive souls?”

“You could probably ask an Elementalist, too.”

Erick gave her a questioning look.

Kiri answered, “A specialized Class that sometimes draws in the Summoner-types, or those who wish to take the Elements to their highest peaks. You’d have to talk to some highly, highly skilled Elementalists, though, if you want to know what Shadow is, at its soul-based level.” She looked to Erick, asking, “What’s the problem? You seem flustered in an odd way.”

Erick said, “Can you make a [Shadow Bolt]?” At her questioning nod, Erick pointed to the dirt of the experimental garden, and with a [Stoneshape], raised a tiny pillar. “Hit that.”

Kiri pointed. A bolt of inky shadows sailed from her fingertip to strike the pillar with a resounding smack, louder than the grinders nearby. The pillar remained fully intact, as Kiri startled, looking to the air. “Oh. I got a spell for that. I wasn’t really trying.” She pushed the spell box to Erick.

Shadow Bolt, instant, long range, 10 mana

A bolt of shadow unerringly strikes a target for 2x WIL damage.

Erick gazed at the pillar. “Looks like a simple damage effect, both in box and in reality?”

“Yeah. That’s about my thoughts, too. I have heard that Shadow spells are highly Willpower-dependent, and the spell I made seems to validate some of that.” Kiri said, “If you had wanted an answer to ‘What is Shadow’, but angled more towards ‘What damage does Shadow do?’ that was what I would have said. Shadow is heavily Willpower-dependent spellwork.”

Erick listened, then he pointed at the stone. He cast.

A bolt of dark shadows flicked from his finger to slap near-soundlessly against the stone, like he had flung a spoonful of jelly at the pillar. The shadow ball stuck there for the briefest moment, before dissipating, leaving a hole carved out of the pillar. No blue box appeared. Erick said, “No blue box, either.”

Kiri inhaled deeply, then exhaled, thinking, studying the pillar in the short distance. She said, “I do not know what that means.” She inhaled again, purposefully sniffing the air this time, adding, “That grinding certainly smells good, now.”

Erick chuckled, as he stood up, and wandered closer to the grinders. Each of the conical grinders were full of silky brown liquid, and set with a low-grade [Heat Ward], just high enough to kill any unwanted growths and speed up any possible chemical reactions. Justine had recommended the heating, when Erick had decided to forgo [Cleanse] for half of his experiments, but he had decided to heat up every grinder because it sounded like a good thing to do, anyway.

He breathed deep, and noticed what Kiri had noticed. The chocolate smelled great. There had been a slight vinegary scent in the beginning, but that was gone, now. All he smelled, was…

… Was it chocolate? It was something close to chocolate, for sure. There was certainly enough fat in these samples to make it all look like chocolate; none of the brown sludge had turned to cake, at all.

With six tendrils of light, he poked into each grinder’s brown messes and brought up six samples. He hesitated, for whatever reason he could not say. And then he started sampling.

Bitter, and burned, was the [Cleanse]d sample, that had been heated on high heat. The un[Cleanse]d sample was similarly bitter and burned, but softer, and closer to the taste that he hadn’t had in a year. Still not quite there, though. He should have been able to tell from the color that it had been burned, since they were both slightly darker than the other batches, but there was no way to know that high, fast heat wasn’t the way to go, until he tried.

Medium heat, [Cleanse]d, was missing something that the un[Cleanse]d one was not missing. The second was richer, for sure. [Cleanse] might be the wrong move, here. There was nothing toxic about chocolate, unless he had truly fucked up somewhere along the line, so maybe it was the caffeine and other mood lifters turning to thick air, when he had cast the [Cleanse]? It was probably bits of the fermentation process, actually. Maybe there had been some alcohol in there? No way to really know, right now.

A [Cleanse] upon the tree and the beans themselves revealed no thick airs, so this process had created these thick airs, for sure.

The low and slow batch was grainy, and not at all what he wanted. The un[Cleanse]d] one was also grainy, but it had something that all the others lacked; a good taste. The only reason that it was grainy was because all the other ones had been in there for an extra hour, or an extra half hour.

Erick smiled. He kept all six ‘machines’ grinding away, renewing [Control Item] for the spell only lasted 100 minutes, but he looked to the last one, and knew that that one was the winner, if any of them were. Maybe all it needed now was sugar, powdered milk, and possibly more cocoa fat.

He’d check back in an hour, and see how they were doing, then.

“Hey, Kiri. Want to try some?”

Kiri set down her book, saying, “Sure.”

Three minutes later, Kiri stood beside the grinders, her face in a scrunch.

Erick said, “The graininess will buff out from the last batch. Give it another half hour.”

“The first four are not winners. Aside from the grit… I like the un[Cleanse]d one better. The taste is interesting...” Kiri said, “But they’re all bitter.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“It needs sugar, yes, at the very least.” Erick said, “Powdered milk, too. Maybe I need to add cocoa butter… I would get cocoa powder from that process, so maybe I should do that anyway.” He said, “You can make both of those by pressing out the oils in this sludge; the dry parts become powder while the wet is the butter. There’s no water in any of these, and adding water of any sort is bad.” He glanced over to the almost-cocoa tree. “I’ll hold off on making another iteration of the base plant, but I will probably need to do that, anyway.” He waved a hand at the light-sparking grinders, saying, “But this part? This part is almost there, and from here, it’s just more and more grinding. I’m gonna have to make a metal grinder, though. Stone is okay for now, but not for as fine as the chocolate needs to be.”

Kiri asked, “How would you make the metal grinder? I’ve never heard of a metal grinder.”

“… I’m not sure.” Erick said, “Maybe a metal cylinder that rolls up and down the bottom of a curved basin? That idea seems familiar, but I’m not too sure.”

“There has to be a spell that could speed this up.” Kiri said, “A Particle Spell to purposefully break it down to molecule-sized.”

“Maybe, but not right now. Besides, this process is necessary to develop the flavors and get rid of the byproducts, like that vinegar smell that’s now gone.” Erick renewed some spells over the grinders, finishing up with the whole batch fast enough. “So this is good enough for now.”

Erick had an Ophiel cast a small [Prismatic Ward] over the knee-high grinders, then left them to their work, as he and Kiri went back inside. A quick check on Candlepoint revealed that he had not accidentally unbarred the springs in the bottom of the lake.

… He really needed Ava and all of them to get on that project. But, eh, the city also needed plumbing and sewers. She’d get to it when she could, Erick was sure.

… He’d still bother her about it tomorrow. Just to see where they were on that necessity.

Killzone had yet to show up, or send word.

- - - -

Erick had enchanted knives to be sharp months ago, along with all the other uses of [Prestidigitation] trinkets, and wands of [Force Bolt], along with all the other little enchants that everyone learned in their first months of Enchanting 101. There was nothing that impressive about basic enchanting. To enchant something like [Force Bolt] into a wand, all you had to do was take your basic rad stylus, and using this metal-erasing magic tool, carve out the Ancient Script words for [Force Bolt] into an appropriately sized length of wrought-quality metal. When that was done, you dusted the carving with rad dust, then said your rhyme, hoping the separate pieces of the puzzle came together in a correct manner. Done correctly, you thus created a magical item. This was the basic methodology for all spell enchanting.

So basic, that his wands of [Force Bolt] were only capable of 10 casts before they broke, and to attempt charging them higher than that usually caused the wand to melt, or explode, or, in one interesting instance, to twist in on itself, almost cutting off a finger.

To call this ‘enchanting’ would be as placing a painting done by a 3 year-old into the same category of ‘it’s a painting’, as you could a painting created by a 400 year-old wrought who had devoted all of their time to color and composition and the study of anatomy and everything else that would, by all that practice and understanding, give every one of their paintings a real chance at being labeled a masterpiece. There was a surface comparison between the two, sure, but not much more than that.

This was the gulf of difference between Erick’s current enchanting capabilities, and even those who plied their trade in Spur, like Ulrick Ulrick.

And that wasn’t even taking into account the ‘Enchanting Spell’ that every capable enchanter possessed, and that Erick had been warned many times, through all of his books, that he shouldn’t even think of attempting to create. Not yet, anyway.

Rings were easy to make. Everything else was beyond him, for now.

But at least Erick knew at least one way his current enchants were failing.

His ‘calligraphy’ was atrocious. Each time he succeeded, it was by the barest margins. A success looked like this: When he etched the final bit of the writing for [Force Bolt] into the appropriate length of metal, and after dusting the writing with powdered rads, he said the rhyme straight out of the book. Powdered rads then crystallized into a whole, in the grooves of Ancient Script, like sugar precipitating out of a solution. The wand of [Force Bolt] was thus complete. If left to soak in the light of grand rads, those disjointed mana crystal would then fill up, granting more charges to the item.

Mostly, though, Erick endured failure after failure. Failure only happened at the end, though. It wasn’t till after the rhyme, till after his attempt at solidifying the spell into the metal, that the metal would warp, or burn, or break. Sometimes, the warping and the breaking wasn’t so bad, and Erick could troubleshoot his mistakes. This was where he discovered stray scratches that ruined the whole work, or too-shallow etchings that also ruined the work, or parts of the metal just melted for no apparent reason.

His first theory into how to fix all his enchanting problems was to pour all his effort into a stamp, and then stamp the iron with a perfect-calligraphy ‘[Force Bolt]’. Then, he would just powder the rads and pour them into the groves. So how about inventing a stylus that etched it all, all at once?

Kiri nixed that idea. Machines could never overcome handwritten Ancient Script. People had invented stylus stamps before, and they always failed.

Yet another enforcement of the Script, no doubt. Maybe this foible came directly from Rozeta. She liked handwritten books, but mass-produced machine copies were not her thing. Thinking about it a bit more, this restriction was probably an enforcement of the Script so that the Script couldn’t be abused by automation. Some variation of the Propagation Ban, perhaps?

For that’s what enchanting was, at its core. It was turning the usefulness of the Script into items separate from oneself. Self-propagating machine magic was therefore nixed before it ever got off the ground.

But anyway!

Tangents.

Anyway, that was just the first form of enchanting. There was another form of enchanting that was slightly different. Erick hadn’t begun to make inroads in this second form of Script weaving, either.

This second form of enchanting was creating items that could be refueled through the use of sticking rads into receptacles. This was how the enchanting stylus was created, and how the Grand [Prestidigitation] Stove was made to work. Almost all household items and magic tools were of this nature, and ranged in price from 10 gold, to 50 gold, on average, or a lot, lot more, for the higher end enchantments.

The major difference between the first and second types of enchanting, was that the first type used set-down mana to create a spell, and the second type used the ‘offgassing’ of rads to fuel their working. The first type broke from too much use. The second type was pure mechanical trapping and rounding of ambient mana, fueled by the rad that had been placed inside.

In this way, it was not totally incorrect to say that this second type of enchanting was similar to dungeon creation and maintenance, where instead of priming the area for slimes to spawn, you created magical effects based on how mana flowed through hollowed out areas of Ancient Script and their adjoining circuits.

But all enchanting required perfect calligraphy, and in this way…

Erick wasn’t doing so well.

Erick hunched over his desk, in his tower, painstakingly inscribing [Force Bolt] into a length of iron. His hand slipped. The stylus carved through two letters, easy as marring the frosting on a cake, but this furrow left ethereal rads in its travels and ruined the entire piece. The metal even flickered at him, like a light bulb breaking. Anger flowed into Erick. He sat straight. He waited for the anger to pass, like a warm breeze. When it did, he sighed. He cast a [Mend] onto the metal bar, and the whole thing flexed back into its starting shape, ready to accept more calligraphy.

… It would have to accept that calligraphy some other day.

He still had yet to make the ‘enchanting spell’ that people like Ulrick Ulrick used to ‘automate’ this process, but much like how most people couldn’t make a good spell without knowing the basics, his own ‘enchanting spell’ was outside of his reach, for now.

Killzone had yet to show up, or send word.

- - - -

Kiri sat a huge bag of sugar on the kitchen counter, saying, “They just gave it to me.” She put her hands on her hips, adding, “This thing is worth 15 gold. That’s a full day’s pay at a really good job.”

Erick smiled, as he stirred the almost-boiling pot in front of him. A good dozen long black bean pods, each split in half, soaked in the water, filling the house with the smell of vanilla as the water turned darker. He said, “I hope you paid them anyway.”

“Of course I did!” Kiri said, as she smelled the air. “Left it on the counter; wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”

“Thank you, Kiri.”

“How’s the chocolate looking, outside?”

“Doing fine.” Erick said, “I made a ‘conching’ machine out back. Go take a look and tell me what you think.”

“… What’s ‘conching’?”

“No idea where the word came from, but I messaged Jane about what was going on, and she gave me a few more tips. A conching machine is all about the second grind. All we’ve done so far is the first grind.” Erick pulled the pot off the stove, and then poured the whole steaming contents through a sieve, into another pot. “One of those tips was about vanilla, which, thankfully, I already made.”

Kiri walked closer, to see what he was making.

Erick set the first pot aside, then discarded the spent beans. He said, “I think I’m supposed to do this with high-quality clear alcohol, but that’ll take three weeks, and ain’t nobody got time for that.” With a concentration given to the brown-liquid pot, Erick cast [Distill]. The brown liquid flashed white. Brown settled to the bottom. With another cast, Erick [Watershape]d the liquid out of the pot, and dumped the water down the drain, leaving a dark brown sludge at the bottom of the pot; all the vanilla flavor. Erick picked up this sludge with his [Watershape] and pulled out as much actual water as he could, leaving behind an almost-dry paste.

Kiri asked, “Have you made this before? Or was this just another experiment?”

“I did.” Erick said, “When I made vanilla ice cream. You weren’t there for that, but I probably made it wrong, then, too, but whatever. Ah! I need to make more ice cream. It’s so much better than icies.” He scooped out what may or may not have been an appropriate amount of vanilla, into six normal-sized spoons; one each, for each grinding outside. “But that’s for another day.”

Kiri eyed a pile of white powder, sitting to the side, in a bowl. “What’s that for? Some other distilled item?”

“Yup! That’s powdered milk.” Erick grabbed the bowl of powdered milk, and held his spoons of vanilla paste in his hand, saying, “Come, it’s time to add these. You can tell me if the conching machine looks wrong.” With his Handy Aura, Erick also picked up the bag of sugar, and walked out to the back porch.

In the backyard, Justine stood beside a metal rolling device, set inside a curved basin.

Erick said, “Does it look good?”

Justine turned, looking like a deer in headlight, then seeing Erick, she calmed. She breathed out.

“Sorry for scaring you,” Erick said.

Justine shook her head. “Not your— Never…” She gestured to the metal contraption. “This looks interesting. I can see the intent in the design. It’s a finer grind, I am guessing?”

“You guess correctly.”

A thick and heavy cylinder of steel, half a meter wide, sat in a curved steel basin. Raised slopes ran along both sides of the basin, ensuring that the chocolate would always flow to a grinding point, via gravity. The cylinder itself was ribbed to stay on tracks, and attached on both ends to a metal arm, reaching down from a position above, that would also ensure the cylinder stayed on track. The weight of the cylinder would do more to ensure proper conching, than any pressure from that arm.

Erick said, “It’s probably going to break down pretty fast with chocolate getting in that gear, but it might not!”

Justine said, “You can solve that with a creative use of [Control Item], but a better way to solve that problem is with [Alter Friction] and [Control Item]. With these two, you might get [Control Machine]. That spell tends to make all machines work like they’re properly oiled and cooled or heated, even when you have none of that on hand. Sand stays outside of gears. Belts don’t slip that often. That sort of thing.”

Erick had a moment. Could using Jane’s car, if he ever found it, be as easy as one spell away? One simple [Control Machine]? Erick laughed, as he set that project aside for another day. He’d need to find her car, first, and where the heck could it be? Inside Ar’Kendrithyst?

Eh. Probably.

“I was wondering if I’d ever find a use for [Alter Friction].” Erick said, smiling. “It was a part of Oceanside’s enrollment, but I never used it before.”

“I don’t have much knowledge of that spell, but...” Kiri said, “But the point is to have friction. To grind the chocolate? You can’t grind without friction.”

“Eh!” Erick said, “I can make it work. Probably just requires a shaped spell.”

Justine said, “It shouldn’t require a shaping. Just an intent. This will inflate the spell cost depending on how complicated you are with the working. More complicated machines have a very high [Control Machine] cost, or else your cast will just tear the machine apart.”

“… Oh.” Erick said, “Well then. Good to know.”

Maybe his idea of a single spell to control an entire car was too fanciful.

Erick set down his spoons of vanilla paste, his powdered milk, and his sugar onto a nearby short table, and then rubbed his hands together, smiling. He held his hands apart, and listened; Ophiel leaning forward on his shoulder to hear, too.

In one hand, he channeled mana through [Control Item], producing the sound of endless, controlled movement. Of puppets on strings, and gears grinding away at some labyrinthine process.

In the other, he channeled mana through [Alter Friction], producing a slickness and a stiffness at the same time. Silky smooth movement, and halting refrain.

… Despite the two vastly different sounds, there was a harmony there. A melding that was close to being perfect, already. With some mental gymnastics and the help of the Ophiel on his shoulder, echoing his spells and blending them together, Erick cast upon the conching machine. A blue box appeared.

Control Machine, instant, close range, 15 mana + Variable

Imbue a non-living machine of complicated processes with your intent. Very Fine control. Lasts 100 minutes.

The metal cylinder in the conching machine began to roll back and forth in the basin, slowly, but surely. Up one curved slope, then back down, then up the other. There were no halting movements here, just the silent rolling of a great weight, and the minuscule strain of the metal arms moving that weight back and forth. Erick instantly saw a way he could make his machine work better; he needed to make the strain on those arms less, by adding some weights to a disk, or something.

But! This was fine! This was great. Once the chocolate was in there, the straining noises might vanish.

Erick distributed the box, saying, “How’s this look?”

Kiri didn’t know what to make of the box, since that was all outside of her usual wheelhouse, but Justine’s ruby eyes went a bit wide.

“That ‘Very Fine’ is usually the sign of a great spell,” Kiri said.

Justine said, “That’s a good version. You should have no trouble keeping the parts of the machine you wish to keep clean, clean, with that version.” She stumbled over her words, saying, “And you just… You just made it. Like that. I had heard... Seeing is different than listening.”

Kiri smirked. “I know what you mean.”

“And now that you know the method, you can try too,” Erick said, using his Handy Aura to pick up the spoons of vanilla paste and sugar— He paused. He smiled. He looked to the grinders, still grinding away, still sparking with light instead of sounding like minor avalanches. “Instead of scraping the insides, I can use [Alter Friction] to dump out the contents.”

Justine said, “Yes. This is one of the more useful ways to use this spell. You merely have to have a good, several-point hold in the grinder. Without friction, it could crash out of your control. I’ve had that happen to me more times than I would have liked.”

With inspiration all around, Erick went to work. He dismissed the [Control Item] spell grinding away on the last grinder; the one containing the long-and-slow roasted beans, that had not been [Cleanse]d. Using a good twenty hands, and surrounding it from all sides, he first picked up the conical grind stone. Silky brown sludge clung to the piece, but not for long. He held it over the metal grinder, and cast.

Brown slop fell into the concher, as the stone cone tried to wiggle out of Erick’s Handy grasp. He canceled [Alter Friction], and the grinding cone became easy to hold again.

He did the same thing with the base of the grinder.

Brown sludge filled the metal concher, and the roller rolled right through it, not even halting at all. The grey-metal roller was rapidly covered in chocolate that flew this way and that, splashing here and there. Erick made some adjustments. [Control Machine] got canceled, [Metalshape] turned the basin into something that held the chocolate fully inside, and then Erick recast [Control Machine].

After a minute of motion, Erick decided that this would work. The cylinder slipped back and forth, causing waves of thin chocolate to flow over the metal roller. There wasn’t much chocolate inside the machine Erick had built; it could easily hold all six batches of chocolate, from all six grinders. But it was good enough for this experiment. It certainly made a lot less noise, too, and that was great.

Erick tossed a spoonful of vanilla paste into the five running grinders and the single concher, along with a cup full of granulated sugar. Powdered milk went into each grinder, and though it was likely not enough, and though every item he had put in was likely not enough, or in the right ratio, this was good enough.

After renewing all the heating and movement spells on all the various machines, it wasn’t long before the extra ingredients had all incorporated. The smell was fantastic. It reminded Erick of strolling down the high-class artisan street back on Earth, near where he went to college, where the chocolatiers made an entire profession out of this one item, that may or may not have been grinding away in front of him.

Erick went back in the house.

He tried enchanting a bit more, but his mind was firmly elsewhere and all his attempts ended in failure. Twenty minutes passed.

He rushed outside, to taste.

And ohhh, did this brown slop taste good.

Memories flooded his mind. Of snapping chocolate bars and handing a piece to Jane. Of chocolate birthday cake. Of chocolate bunnies in baskets; the centerpiece to a plethora of other candies.

And Halloween! And Jane dressing up like a dragon! A cute little dragon!

Erick laughed, as he tasted. He looked to Justine and Kiri, and Poi, who had come out with him, saying, “You have got to try these. Where’s Teressa?” He waved at the first two grinders, saying, “I don’t think I burned those, but they’re not the best flavors.” He pointed to the concher, and the [Cleanse]d version, grinding away in stone. “Those are the best. I like the concher one better though. It’s slightly smoother.” He smiled wide, “Oh! Where’s Jane?”

“Here I am.” Jane came out of the doorway, with Teressa following. “I heard you rushing out here from upstairs.” She looked to the grinders, and smelled the air. “It smells… It smells right?” She decided. “It smells right. I wonder if it will temper.”

Erick waved off that concern, saying, “That’s just a crystallization process, right? I can make a spell for that.” He looked to everyone. “Well! Get to tasting! Tell me what you think.”

Teressa said, “I’ll get some spoons.”

With an easy lightform stretch, Erick reached all the way into the kitchen with his [Greater Lightwalk], easily over 15 meters away, winding through the house. He grabbed a bunch of spoons, and pulled them through the light. They appeared in his hands—

Other spoons appeared in Jane’s shadowy hands, as she said, “I got it.”

Teressa had yet to step back inside the door. She looked to Erick and Jane, and said, “That’s a nice trick.”

Erick and Jane looked to each other, both smiling, as they handed out spoons.

Different looks of questioning wonder appeared on everyone’s faces as they tasted the chocolate. Poi’s blue-scaled eyebrows went up in surprise. Kiri kept going back to the [Cleanse]d grinder chocolate. Teressa took a great big spoonful of the medium-roast un[Cleanse]d chocolate. Justine went for the conched stuff. Erick and Jane both went for the conched stuff, too.

Jane had the first proclamation, as she dipped her spoon back into the conched chocolate. “Okay. So. Dad. You’re a miracle worker.”

“Ha ha!” Erick said, happy and lovingly, “Magic did all the work; I just asked for a memory.”

Jane shrugged, and ate another spoonful.

Teressa said, “This is going to be a big hit.”

Poi asked, “Do you want me to keep guarding the tree? You’ve had no less than ten attempts to steal a fruit, so far. Everyone’s seen how your process works, too.”

Poi knew Erick all too well.

Erick smirked, saying, “Let them steal some of it; I don’t mind. I’ve already saved the seeds from this one inside the house. And besides, if no one steals it, then the only way I’m going to be able to visit a chocolatier and get some high quality chocolate is if I sell it, and that seems like too much work.” He said, “Everything I’ve done here is the barest idea of what is possible with chocolate, and I can’t do everything on my own—” A sudden memory came to him, of a conversation held months and months ago. “Oh. And besides...” He said nothing.

Erick had a goddess to speak to regarding chocolate.

Jane eyed him. “What?”

Erick turned the conversation back to the chocolate, asking, “So what do you think it needs?”

Kiri said, “Nothing. It’s great. I’ve… I’ve never had a taste like this before.”

Erick smiled. “That was my thought when I first had bluebell.”

“Maybe a bit more sugar.” Teressa said, “Not much more. But more.”

“There are about a hundred ways to make this better, but they’re fractional changes, at best.” Jane asked, “Did you add the powdered milk?”

“To every one.” Erick said, “It wasn’t enough, was it?”

Jane smirked, “Not really. It’s almost dark chocolate.”

Justine’s eyes went wide as she stared at the working conching machine. She quietly said, “That’s what it’s missing.”

“Oh yeah.” Erick said, “Milk chocolate is much better than dark chocolate.” He began to walk back into the house, saying. “I’ll go make some more powdered milk, right now, and add it to the metal batch.”

He did so.

The conched batch was much better with more powdered milk, and more sugar. Teressa still liked the darker stuff.

By the time dinner rolled around, Erick had been experimenting with chocolate for almost the entire day. With some of Jane’s insights, he even tried tempering the chocolate, which was all about getting the cocoa fats to crystallize at the right temperature. Four hours later, and after Teressa had made dinner, Erick had not managed to luck into the tempering process.

All of Erick’s chocolate, once cooled, became a mess of lighter brown stripes and darker spots upon a mostly-solid mass of thick brown almost-clay. It still tasted great, but this chocolate was not so easily tempered. It might not temper at all, either. This was ‘chocolate’ Erick had created on a planet unknowably distant from Earth, from a seed plant far from the cocoa tree, with magic bridging all of the gap between memory and reality.

He’d still try to temper it the mechanical way, before he tried using magic. Magic was the item of last resort, in this particular case.

Killzone had yet to show up, or send word.

But Poi and Teressa weren’t worried, so neither was Erick.

Mostly.

- - - -

Reading in the sunroom in the hours before bedtime, for a change of pace, Erick held out his ‘Enchanting for Beginners’ book, asking Kiri, “Are there just these two types of enchanting?”

“Umm.” Kiri looked up from ‘Esoteric Elements’, cautiously saying, “No.” She thought. She said, “Yeah, no. There’s more. The older students always spoke of how inadequate the beginner books were, but I have no idea what the other types are.” She gestured at the book in Erick’s hands, saying, “That book doesn’t even tell you how to create an Enchanting Spell. You don’t learn that spell till fourth year Enchanting.”

Erick hummed, then considered the other people he knew.

He went to go find Justine.

The pale incani woman was tending to her plants on the small third-floor balcony, exposed to the night. She stood under a pale white lightward that cast her features in soft shadows. She heard Erick approaching well before he reached the open door. With a turn, she looked to him, and gave a demure, “Hello, Erick.”

“I’m not interrupting, am I?”

She shook her head, and said, “Not at all. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Do you know much about enchanting?”

She eyed the book in his hands, as her lips scrunched. “I know that book is wholly inadequate.” She added, “But all I ever saw were the ways that Shades enchanted. Only the barest impressions of standard enchanting were ever present in their work.”

Expecting nothing and yet gaining everything, Erick stood stunned for a moment. He rapidly asked, “How did they do it?”

Justine was silent for a long moment, seeming to have some trouble of either where to begin, or if she should even open her mouth and let that much more horror into the world.

Erick saw her discomfort, saying, “It’s okay. Don’t worry. Sorry for asking. After thinking about it for more than just a second… They probably had some rather horrible methods. I’ll go talk to Sirocco.” He looked past her, to her plants. The splash-of-neon Alchemist’s Friend was growing well, at good twenty centimeters tall and bushy. To the sides were assortments of blue flowers, red grasses, and white button mushrooms. “The plants look good. I can guess the red and the blue, but why the mushrooms?”

Justine relaxed a fraction, then smiled. She reached over and plucked a shroom, saying, “They taste great.” She ate the fingernail-sized shroom, then said, “They’re from Underworld Nelboor, near the Tribulation Mountains. Where I was… before.” She sighed, only a little, then put those heavy thoughts aside, saying, “My original home is gone, but pieces remain. Memories. These puff mushrooms are still too tiny to make a real treat out of them, but they’ll get there, soon enough. Want to try one?”

Erick shrugged. “Sure.”

Justine took a second to pick out a shroom, seeming to pick the best one. She plucked one, and handed it to Erick.

He ate it.

With the consistency of marshmallows and the taste of browned sugar, it was easy to see how these shrooms could remind a person of their home; they were a unique treat, apart from anything else Erick had ever had on Veird...

Oh. There’s a memory.

Now he wanted rice krispies.

But how in the heck do you make a marshmallow?

Is ‘puffed rice’ even a thing? People have to know about puffed rice, right? Rice was abundant in Spur, and a lot of the rest of the world. People ate that more than they ate wheat-based products. Erick’s introduction of corn was catching on in a few places as a third grain, but it still wasn’t easy to find corn in any of the markets around—

And he was getting off on a tangent.

… How do you make puffed rice?

You fry it?

“Thoughts?” Justine asked, rescuing Erick from his rabbit hole. “You blanked…”

“It’s good!” Erick said, “It just reminded me of other desserts. Do you know of puffed rice?”

And now it was Justine’s turn to blank, but she came back faster than Erick had, saying, “Yes. First you prepare it like usual, then you dry it, then you fry it, preferably making sure that at no point in the process the rice sticks to itself.”

Erick smiled wide. “Excellent.” He looked to Justine’s mushrooms, saying, “How about these, but as sugar. Like, a white, fluffy thing, that if you were to melt it, it would become a white gloop.”

“Those are called puffs; they’re named after these puffshrooms. I don’t think there’s a name for the fluff they make when you cook them, though.” Justine said, “I prefer the actual mushrooms. The confection just doesn’t do the taste and texture justice.”

Joy all around!

Erick tentatively asked, “And now for the big question. Do they make confections out of puffed rice and puffs?”

Justine readily answered, “Puff-puffs.”

Erick did a little dance, saying, “Aww yeah! I don’t have to invent that!” He looked to the night sky, and his mood shifted to something more subdued. “Ah, shit. Any confectionery around here is probably closed for the night, isn’t it.” He decided, “Tomorrow!” He added, “Or… I could just take a trip to Oceanside. Or… Nelboor? I don’t know any places on Nelboor. Is Nelboor in the sun right now? It has to be, doesn’t it? Ah, geography.” He said, “Thank you, Justine.”

Justine gave a short bow. “You are most welcome, Erick.”

- - - -

Erick ran into Poi in the second floor hallway.

Erick almost asked Poi a question, but...

Poi was wearing his nightclothes. At Erick’s appearance, Poi’s eyes went a little wide, and became a little more tired.

Thinking of the time, Erick realized that it was only an hour till bed. Maybe four hours till midnight. Sirocco was probably awake, but it would be rude to come to the guild at this hour, expecting a nice talk. Even with all the other people possible to ask about enchanting… it was getting late.

Erick said, “Good night, Poi.”

Poi sighed, as relief washed over him. “Good night, sir.”

- - - -

The basics of enchanting were easy enough to understand, but it was turning theory into practice that brought all the difficulty.

But after Justine’s words…

The Shades enchanted in a myriad of ways. Did this mean, that the depths of enchanting were deep enough for each of them to have a different method? If that were true, then that would mean that maybe the only thing that mattered was intent. If ritual and idea were more important than style and delineation, well, Erick could certainly do ritual and idea, couldn’t he?

Maybe he needed to try creating his ‘enchanting spell’, anyway.

But first, Erick went back to his book, ‘Enchanting for Beginners’, and read the preface in a different light.

- -

Enchanting, in a few words, is about imbuing Script effects into items outside of yourself.

Stats are nothing more than mana given function; manalight trapped in gems that will resonate with your aura, and push your own Stats that much higher.

Spells are nothing more than intent given form; mana laid down and organized so that another might flick their aura through the item, causing the imbued spell to manifest.

Abilities, Alters, Shapings, and such, are nothing more than additions to the natural spellcasting process that are familiar to any mage. These items taint your aura in specific ways, changing how you cast your magic.

Ranked from easiest to hardest enchantments, we have Stats, Spells, and then all the rest. Why is it this way? Go and ask Rozeta, and good luck. But for those of you who wish for the best answers that this author has discovered in his lifetime, read on.

- -

Erick sat back, and thought.

Everything a proper mage did came down to aura work, didn’t it? They didn’t talk about auras at Erick’s two months at Oceanside, or even in his Esoteric Magic classes. The first time he had really heard about aura was after he had stumbled into his use of [Greater Lightwalk] to recreate some spells—

He had more spells to recreate.

… He’d do that later. That task sort of fell to the side, along with a dozen others.

—but apparently every good mage worked with their aura in order to cast magic in useful ways. It was easy, then, to understand why ‘Aurify’ was a part of Mana Shaping. The process of utilizing your aura, was the process of mana shaping, and vibrating, and ‘using’ your mana, but without actually spending mana. Al had been very clear on that last part, in all of his ill-guided attempts to help Erick with his aura. Proper aura utilization came with no mana cost.

Proper aura utilization also didn’t do anything, unless you used mana.

Erick was still unsure how those two ideas worked with each other.

But still! Proper aura control let you cast spells from your hands, or other parts of your body. Proper aura control was also the only way to activate a great many magical items, for putting buttons on your wands of [Force Bolt] was okay, but that had a tendency to use up extra charges with each cast.

Looking back on it, Erick had cast [Force Beam] from his eyes instead of his fingers, back when he and Jane were looking to buy property in the Human District, all the way back in the beginning of his time on Veird. At that time, he thought nothing of it. Casting from his eyes made it easier to aim at the shadowolves that attacked them. Erick smiled at that thought, then got back to thinking.

Another major use of proper aura control, was that it let one recreate spells and add them to their Status for free. Erick had bypassed the requirement of precise aura control because [Greater Lightwalk] let him skip that step. But good aura control was still useful in other ways.

Specifically, in using magical items.

Erick held out his hand, and with Meditation active, mostly just saw the dense air of the [Prismatic Ward] that surrounded and pervaded the entire house.

… There would be no aura monitoring in this environment.

He got up from his chair and went to the third floor classroom, the only space in the house that he had left without the [Prismatic Ward].

Stepping through the door to this room was like stepping outside. Here, using [Meditation] showed the normal chaotic whorls and streams of mana that normally inhabited the world. Here, when he held out his hand, he could see, ever so faintly, a difference between the air just above his skin, and the air a centimeter out.

Like a heat mirage, the air around his skin bent the whorls of mana that flowed unimpeded everywhere else.

He tried pushing that heat mirage out further from himself. Failure. He tried for twenty minutes, and got twenty more minutes of failure. He was obviously missing something important, and it was either time and effort, or some physical or ethereal need. He was banking on the first.

But this was boring, and much like how he had too many things to do to learn mana sensing, to learn [Witness] like Teressa had learned, Erick had too many things to do to devote the proper time necessary to learn proper aura control. Besides—

Erick transformed to light. The whorls of mana in the room remained exactly as they were before, but now, his lightform self and the heat mirage of his aura, ended at the same place. Erick reached out with his own light, easy as blinking, and his lightform hand deformed at his command, deforming his aura at the same time. With [Greater Lightwalk], he was his aura, and his aura was him.

A thought occurred to him.

What if there was a way to mix harmonies and spells and rads and wrought-iron all together? Without the need for inscribing and all of that? Not a single book Erick had ever read, spoke of harmonious magic. What would such a magical item look like?

A tuning fork?

Erick smiled, imagining a large creation of spiked steel, reaching up to the sky. At the touch of natural wind, it vibrates, gifting the world a song that brings the rain, thus ending its own contribution to the sky, to only vibrate out again when the controlled weather was no more.

… For not the first time, Erick considered a journey to the Songli Highlands of Nelboor, where songstresses sang their magic into existence. They probably had a more natural way to enchant than everything he had read, so far.

Like, come on! Erick had created [Call Lightning] by singing out his desires to the world!

He really should have planned a trip to the Highlands long before now, and enchanting really should be much easier for him than it was. Besides, how did people enchant their higher tier spells, where the Ancient Script of those items was an unknown jumble of words; a secret held in confidence by Rozeta and the Script?

Oh. Wait. Erick knew this answer.

Kiri had once said that the only way people knew of Ancient Script was through well-made spells that displayed that script, like Erick’s own [Teleporting Platform] displayed the Ancient Script words for [Teleport]. It was only in these higher tier spells that the runes appeared at all.

But that meant, that Erick’s ‘Esoteric Elements’, with all of its Ancient Script writings, were all parts of spells?

No. That didn’t make sense.

Maybe some wrought leaked all the Ancient Script. Or, more likely, Melemizargo did.

That makes more sense.

… Erick was getting so off track. Sometimes he wondered if he had ADD.

It was time to make some magic.

With a quick shifting from where he was, to his mage tower, using [Greater Lightwalk]’s pseudo-[Teleport] ability, Erick grabbed some supplies, then went back to the third floor room. Here, in this barren room, where lights lit the corners of the orange stone and anyone could appear at any moment, Erick felt shadows watching as he prepared a small experiment.

He was going to try and make an ‘enchanting spell’, like all good enchanters used to enchant.

All the books said that he would fail at this spell creation unless he knew exactly what he was doing. This was true for all magic. But there was another truth. Since [Metalshape] was tier 2, the resulting spell would only be tier 3, and a failure only meant 10 days to try again. Big deal! 10 days was nothing he couldn’t handle.

Erick smiled as he grabbed some stone from outside. With a minor thought, he crafted a circular table in the middle of the room. It stood upon three legs, with a thick stone top that came up to Erick’s waist. With expert control, he turned the top of the table to liquid stone, leaving solid a rim around the edge. The liquid leveled itself, perfectly.

Another thought came to him.

With a quick check on Candlepoint and the dismissing of three idling Ophiel, Erick came back to himself, and reconjured those Ophiel. They joined the fourth Ophiel already here, floating around the room. Erick had them turn small as could be, and take their positions on the circular table. North, South, East, and West. It seemed appropriate, and right. Then he placed a cube of metal in the center of the table, along with eight 10-mana rads, placed evenly around the circular space.

Then, he gave a piece of the puzzle to each of Ophiel.

[Metalshape], [Prestidigitation], [Conjure Item], and [Airshape].

Everyone made their own enchanting spell differently, but these four options seemed best, to Erick.

One spell to shape the metal, another to call upon the varied depths of magic, another to create shapes that would disintegrate and leave a working item behind, or give form to what would become, and finally, a spell to flow it all together, and harmonize with the world. Each Ophiel sang their part, then handed off their part to another, flowing their song together in a wonderful harmony of metal and creation.

Erick joined them,

“Here is a spell, of mine to share, a shape and form; entrusted care

“Vibrations now, a primal touch, a call to mana, in the clutch,

“Here is a spell, of mine to share, a shape and form; entrusted care

“A sympathy, runes in here find, a symphony, now here [Spellbind].”

Erick finished. Ophiels continued to sing, but harmony became something… not.

The metal cube, once shiny and dark grey, turned matte, and globular. The eight rads broke into fracturing glitters that spun into the center of the table, into the grey metal.

Metal twisted. Broke. Reformed. Shaped itself. Cubes became rods, became triangles, became crystals, that flickered back a perfect sphere. The circular table cracked. Ophiels fluttered away, their song ended prematurely as their sitting spots fell to the floor in pieces.

And still, the metal orb hovered there, in the center of the room, atop a crumbling pile of stone.

Time slowed. Ophiels hovered in the air; unmoving feathers and unshifting eyes. Stone fell, but paused on its descent. The night sky outside turned a shade darker, as a deep shadow flowed around the room, inspecting. Curious for a moment, but then judgmental.

“You have crafted the castle without founding the foundation. You tried this much too soon, and you should have used higher grade materials and a larger ritual. Try again another day, or with other components.”

The shadow left. Time resumed.

The metal orb flared out into a frozen splash of spiked metal that crashed to the stone pile with an annoying clang. A blue box appeared.

Enchant, special cast time, close range, 10x cost of target spell + Special Material Costs

Using appropriate materials and appropriate ritual, imbue a clean metal item with a known spell. Impossibly low success rate.

Erick frowned at the spell. “Shit.”

And then he frowned at the room, but said nothing.

It was time for bed, anyway. Erick left everything like it was, and tore apart [Enchant]. The spell wasn’t even named correctly. Bah! He’d try again in ten days, if he lived that long.

… Or he could try with different components, tomorrow?

But the ones he chose seemed so perfect?

Eh.

Time for bed!

- - - -

In the morning, after breakfast, Erick first went out and grew some more beans to make more chocolate from the beginning. He left the growing and preparation to Kiri, though, because while that was going on, he began more experiments with the chocolate he had made from yesterday. It was all cooled by now, and though it was still good, each batch he had made was as stable as caked mud. It was all very untempered.

Jane suggested a marble cooling table and agitation with big spatulas, but had no help beyond that. She wasn’t quite sure what was needed to temper chocolate, either.

Erick decided to use the main floor dining room for his chocolate experiments. It was a sparse room, with bare furniture and a long table that also never got used, but now all that furniture was shoved to the side, and a large stone table placed into position. Erick leveled the table off with [Stoneshape] while ensuring the top was as smooth as glass. Somewhere in the rearranging of furniture, the conching machine came inside. The grinders stayed outside.

And then came the [Heat Ward]s and the variable temperatures and the [Cooling Ward]s on the table itself and lots and lots of trial and error. Heat the chocolate to liquid, stir it a lot, cool it down fast while mixing, and then…

More brown slop. It was good tasting brown slop, but it was not tempered.

Maybe Erick had made the cocoa wrong, or maybe he had screwed up somewhere in the tempering process. Either were valid points of failure. Justine, Kiri, Teressa, Poi, none of them were any help figuring out how to accomplish what Erick wanted to accomplish.

“It’s supposed to get hard and shiny?” Kiri said, “I don’t know of any candy like that, that isn’t mostly made of sugar.”

“It’s supposed to snap, too, when you break it,” Erick said.

“There’s a spell to make sugar crystallize out of solutions...” Justine added, “But I take it you don’t want that one?”

“No. I’m pretty sure its the fats in chocolate that crystallize,” Erick said.

“Fats turn to crystal? How does the white part of beef become crystal?” Teressa said, “That doesn’t make much sense to me.”

Erick grumbled.

After a long moment, Poi said, “I can truly say that what you are attempting to create is completely new.”

“… hmm.”

Right as Erick was getting ready to tear his own hair out, Killzone showed.

FINALLY.

- - - -

Killzone towered over Erick, radiating restrained power, but that was nothing new. He was only slightly taller than Al, and a bit taller than Teressa, and while Killzone was shaped like an orcol, he had none of that natural charm common to all orcols. His face was nice to look at, but it wasn’t as utterly enamoring as every other orcol Erick knew.

For a brief moment, Erick wondered how wrought chose their forms. Why did Silverite become a female dragonkin, while Killzone became a male orcol, and Anhelia became a female incani? But that was a question for another day. Somehow it seemed a rude question to ask any wrought.

Erick welcomed Killzone into his house, saying, “I was beginning to worry if you were okay, but Poi and Teressa kept saying you were.”

Killzone stepped into the foyer, saying, “Shucks. I’m fine. Sorry if I worried ya. I know I’m a bit late, but there were some complications that bear no more mentioning.”

Erick blinked a bit, having forgotten that Killzone liked to affect an easy speech when things were going well. Come back to the moment, Erick said, “So I’m supposed to bring some desserts and some magic. I made chocolate. Would you care to try some?”

“I suppose I should, but fleshy food isn’t my thing like it is Silverite’s.” He asked, “Is that what I’m smelling, in the air? It almost smells like candy, but it’s not.”

“Yup. That’s chocolate.”

Erick swung Killzone by the main dining room, where Justine was hard at work, taking up where Erick had left off. She stopped as Killzone appeared, looking a little scared as she stepped back from the stone table. Kiri had been standing to the side, dumping freshly ground cocoa sludge into the metal concher, but she too, stopped, as Killzone appeared. Her eyes went a little wide.

Erick turned, sensing something amiss—

Killzone stood in the doorway to the room, stock still, his eyes wandering over the scene, taking it all in. Erick turned back to the room, wondering what he was looking—

Justine’s hands covered in brown. Brown slop slipping back and forth under metal rollers. Aprons covered in brown. Ah. So that’s what it is.

Killzone’s face broke into a smile, as he chuckled, then laughed. “Oh Rozeta, you’re going to make them eat shit.” He laughed again.

“It’s not shit!” Erick said, probably more defensive than he meant to say. “It’s chocolate!”

Killzone laughed louder.

Erick went over and grabbed a small block of chocolate. They hadn’t managed to temper it to smooth and glossy, but it was still mostly hard when cooled. He handed it to Killzone—

He tried to hand it to Killzone.

Killzone backed away. He had dropped to a chuckle, but now, he was back to a laugh.

“Just try it!” Erick said, breaking the piece in half. It did not snap, but at least it broke cleanly. “It’s good.” He ate the other half, and it was good, no matter that it didn’t look perfect and glossy.

Killzone’s laughter turned to something smaller. He breathed in, then out, then accepted the piece of chocolate. He put it in his mouth like he hadn’t just called it excrement.

Erick waited.

Killzone didn’t really chew. But after a few moments, he spoke in a normal manner, “It’s fine, I guess. It’s not shit, but I don’t like fleshy foods, either, so my expertise is not useful in judging the quality or taste of this product, but it should be a fine showcase of magical skill. Most people cannot make new foods, and you’ve made more than your fair share.” He looked around the room, saying, “You’re going to have to find some other way to present this ‘chocolate’.”

Erick was less than happy with that proclamation, but not everyone liked chocolate. He said, “You can use it as flavoring in almost anything. Cakes, candy, cookies, brownies— Brownies are really good. They’re like a thick cake. You can make hot drinks out of the powdered stuff… But I can see how I shouldn’t be bringing in brown bars to the Feast.” He changed his mind, “Actually. No. I can’t see that. They’re going to eat chocolate bars and if all they can think are horrible thoughts, then that makes me feel a whole lot better about all of this.”

Killzone smiled. “That’s a good attitude.” He said, “Let’s talk somewhere.”

Erick lifted his hand toward the door, saying, “Let’s go to the sunroom.”

Once inside the cozier room, Killzone situated himself on his couch, while Erick sat across from him.

Killzone began, “Where would you like to start?”

“What is Shadow’s Feast? I mean— What does it mean to the Shades?” Erick said, “I heard that it was a holiday only celebrated by the Cult of Melemizargo, but anything beyond that was only spoken of as an afterthought, as the time that comes before the Triumph of Light, which is the actual name of Festival Week, after the last month of the year.”

Killzone nodded. “The original Feast happened way back in the beginning of the Script, when people were still racing away from the collapsing Old Cosmology, when Rozeta and the Relevant Entities were working to create the life raft that is Veird. When Melemizargo fell here along with all the rest, he twisted Divine Creation itself into making monsters out of the living, to fight the Script from all sides. This moment, this creation of monsters, was the first Shadow’s Feast.

“Since then, Shadow’s Feast has become the day when Melemizargo’s cult celebrates everything that the Dark Dragon and they have managed to do in their pursuit to tear down the world and the Script.” Killzone said, “Usually, the Feast is done in private, in the small cult hideouts scattered across the world. But in Ar’Kendrithyst, this celebration is turned into a week long affair.”

Erick felt his blood drain away. “Oh fuck. An entire week?”

“It lasts a week.” Killzone said, “But the party takes place in a single night.”

“… Right. Melemizargo does have those time magics.” Erick decided he needed to have a private chat with Phagar, the God of Death and Time, before he went to this Feast.

Erick and Killzone sat in the sunroom, and spoke of Shades. Of power dynamics. Of too many things to consider, and of grand overviews. The conversation took many turns, with Erick diving down many tangents, but Killzone brought the talk back to the bigger issues, and the bigger topics.

The talk ended faster than Erick would have liked. Killzone was a busy man, called off to duty well before Erick was comfortable with any of what was to come.

He’d probably never be comfortable with walking, alone, into Ar’Kendrithyst.

But that’s what was going to happen.