The Upper Layer of Ar’Kendrithyst started to change colors once Erick got a few kilometers past the Armory. Erick didn’t notice until Fallopolis remarked upon the hues of the surrounding kendrithyst, and the sky. Crimsons turned to pink. Purples became lilac violet. The sky to the south was tinged with a brighter darkness, as though the sun were rising far, far ahead.
She said, “We’re a good ten kilometers from the Brightwater District; specifically, from the Temple District part of it all. We’re not going through the temples.” She gestured toward the southeast, as she stepped that way, saying, “We must go around, to reach the Spire and approach the Brightwater Expanse with official clearance.”
Erick asked, “What’s wrong with going through the temples?”
“You’re marked by summoned guardians of all kinds if you don’t go in the right way. You can fight them off, sure, but they’re a hive mind, and as soon as one spots you, they all do, and then the real problems begin.”
“That’s not what I expected you to say.”
She laughed. “What did you expect?”
“Warnings about shadows nipping at my feet?” He added, “I already knew the part about being found out almost instantly, but I was told they were just ‘shadows’.”
“You’ve seen the Crystal at Candlepoint, yes?” Fallopolis said, “The versions here are much stronger, and varied. Bulgan got the ‘warrior’ version to use at Candlepoint, but there are others. Mage, Sentry, Sniper. You get the deal. They work quite well for killing most people. But you already knew that.”
… Of course they used those horrible magic items here. Erick felt a disgusted anger as Fallopolis casually brought up the murder of almost a hundred thousand shadelings, as though it was a tidbit of information. Maybe she was taunting him?
Fallopolis smirked, asking, “Did you figure out how it worked?”
Definitely a taunt.
Erick frowned. “No.”
Fallopolis shrugged. “If you ask around, you might be able to find out how it works. Maybe even get your own crystal up and running again.”
- - - -
To the north, the sky was crimson, dark, and full of stars and imaginary planes, while the Mana Ocean flowed from one impossible land to another. But to the south, beyond a curtain wall of pink and lilac kendrithyst that stretched solid from the Lower Layer of Ar’Kendrithyst, all the way up here to the top, the sky was not crimson at all. Twilight held in the air all around, while a look to the wall ahead, far beyond black orb-like sentries, the air sky was blue, and filled with a singular hovering illusion that Erick could barely see from this angle.
It was solid black orb rimmed with light, like an eclipsing sun. It was similar in style to the orb sentries holding on top of the pink wall, but the dark star in the sky beyond felt like an eye, watching him. Who knew? Maybe it was an eye. Maybe it was watching him, and everyone else in this Dead City.
- - - -
They passed the Garden.
It was green and lush and beautiful. But also wild.
Signs outside the Garden, placed every ten meters, read: ‘Only animals are allowed beyond this point. If you are not an animal, you are prey.’
Fallopolis said, “I’m not about to [Polymorph] myself into some critter just to see the Gardens. It’s quite rude of Treant, if you ask me.”
Erick hadn’t asked her, but she had spoken anyway.
- - - -
The Spire would have been beautiful compared to the Armory, if not for the horrors Erick had seen to get to this point, and the horrors that must surely exist therein.
A wide, pink crystal road led from the broken kendrithyst city that made up the majority of Ar’Kendrithyst into a land beyond a pink crystal wall, where the road, and the towers beyond, were the palest pink, and purple. Far ahead, the towers became perfectly clear and slightly iridescent. On this side of the wall, shadows roiled under the road like chaotic ink, but beyond the wall, those same shadows formed into two main arteries under the surface of the crystal, to the left and right sides of the skyroad; they might have truly been arteries, for while both sides flexed and flowed, one clearly flowed into the Brightwater District, and the other flowed out. Fallopolis noticed Erick staring at the arteries, but just smiled.
Atop the pink walls were more dark sentry orbs, along with shadelings who manned them. The shadelings bowed as Erick walked past them, through the opening in the wall that separated the Spire from the rest of the Dead City. Maybe they had bowed to Fallopolis; he wasn’t sure. But the orbs themselves seemed to turn away from the two of them, in either case.
Erick and Fallopolis walked through the large, ungated opening, following the iridescent road into a land of bright towers. He glanced through the ground, and almost panicked.
Looking down, Erick saw skyroads and buildings in the crystal below, where people walked on streets like this was a normal place to be. Some held groceries. Others had kids with them. A school was letting out for the day, and Erick fully retracted his sunform. His heart beat hard to see such a sight.
They were shadelings, one and all.
Grey eyes, some brighter than others, but all of them had grey eyes.
That was just the first kilometer down; the first three levels that Erick could see, before the depth of the crystal and the dark arteries running through the whole place became too much, and sight was blocked due to the thickness of all the intervening land. This was just the Upper Layer. Erick had heard that Brightwater Lake was on the Lower Layer, more than thirty kilometers down. Did this metropolis under him go all that way down? Were there actually this many shadelings in this land?
The road Erick and Fallopolis were on was above it all; among the highest parts of this populated land. It was also the only road that was completely empty of all people. This road led right to the Spire itself, and sure, that was pretty, and it dominated the skyline. But now that Erick was beyond the curtain wall...
This…
This place was a metropolis. Millions of people, at least. Maybe more? Millions upon millions!
And they were not quiet.
Erick lost himself a bit in the noise that filled the crystalline city. It was the noise of calm life. The quiet susurrus of daily struggle. People bargaining at a nearby market below. Kids playing. People unloading cargo into a shop. Wind whistling through the towers, and through trees in cultivated gardens below. And then came the smells. Baking bread. Back behind Erick, a garden full of flowers grew under artificial lights, taking up an entire level of one particular tower. The smell of flowers was heavy in the air.
Erick whispered, “What the fuck is going on here?”
Fallopolis pointed ahead with her red-purple kendrithyst staff, saying, “We’re going to check in at the Spire, of course.”
Erick gave the Spire another glance. It was as beautiful as the first time he saw the structure, but a multitude of perfectly organized crystals, with some floating in the air, didn’t compare to the people he saw down below, in every direction he looked.
“With the people below, Fallopolis.” Erick said, “What is going on with all these people? Are they real?”
Fallopolis looked forward. She squinted. She said, “… Yes.”
“Is that what I want to hear, or is it the truth?”
“How can anyone know if someone is real or not?”
Erick had considered that argument for a while now. He did not have a perfect answer, but he had one that worked for him. He said, “The soul is untainted by the will or wills of outsiders, and they could potentially gain access to the normal Script available to every person on Veird.”
“By that measure... They are not real, but they could be. What they fail is the second part of your qualifications, since they are the unthinking dead, and unthinking dead do not have access to the Script.” Fallopolis said, “They are a step before the wandering ones that you saw in Candlepoint. When they get to the ‘wandering one’ stage, they are ousted from their stupor down below, and given over to someone who can rouse them further.”
“… Are these stolen souls, Fallopolis?” Erick asked, “Why are they here?” And then he asked a question that had been plaguing him for a long time. “Why shadelings? Why do this to a person?”
“Stolen! Ha! No. That is not what is happening below us.” Fallopolis looked to Erick, and said, “Some of the souls down there are from before the Sundering. Melemizargo had dominion over an entire universe of magic and many, many people prayed to him. The people below are my Dark God’s attempt to hold in eternal bliss those who were a part of his flock. Those who had died, who he tried to save. Those who he was not able to shift into new bodies on Veird in the Great Translation.”
Erick breathed out, as he stared below, at the people walking, living, talking, and just existing. That was when he noticed that some of them were neither human, incani, orcol, shifter, dragonkin, or any of the other races Erick had seen on Veird so far.
A lady with wings and arms; not a harpy, but something else. A man with the lower body of a lizard. A woman with the lower body of a horse. A small grouping of cats that walked upright, on their back feet.
Fallopolis said, “Shadelings, as you know them, exist for much the same reason. When people use magic, they are praying to Melemizargo. Those who have no other god or who don’t choose the End will invariably go to Melemizargo when they die.”
“That’s a lie.” Erick said, “I know I am not praying to Melemizargo when I use magic. There’s something out there that is much older than him.”
“Hmm. Technically true. But also not exactly true. A debate for the ages, for sure.”
Erick found himself asking, “But what about all these souls? Why does he hold onto them? Is it just because he can? That he needs them for his own power?”
Fallopolis said, “He kept his souls with him after the Sundering, for they had died with His name on their lips, and the bond between person and god is inviolable; Melemizargo wasn’t about to let the gods of this impostor world take his people.” She said, “His insanity is lessening, though, so who knows what will happen. All the gods are talking to each other again, and it’s a great big universe out there! I’m not too sure if it’s not an illusion myself, but whatever Melemizargo decides to do, is what I will work to achieve. Maybe those people below will be born again, for real, soon enough.”
Erick was having a lot of complicated thoughts about gods and worshipers at the moment, but they were too complicated to articulate. And besides, the Spire was straight ahead. It was time to meet more Shades and attend Shadow’s Feast, the yearly party where they talked about how much of the world they fucked over.
Offhandedly, Erick said, “This Feast is going to have to change, you know. If Melemizargo isn’t some evil god, then a party dedicated to how everyone has harmed the Script and the world and the people therein, is rather counterproductive to being a force for good.”
“True.” Fallopolis said, “But magic has never been about good or evil. Maybe all of us Shades will become people who goad others into more than they were before.”
The Spire loomed above; a collection of iridescent clear-crystal towers, some of which floated around a stable central structure. The road under Erick’s feet ran right into the main building, which reminded Erick of those pictures he had once seen, back on Earth, of people driving through roads cut through the trunks of redwood trees. Or more locally, it reminded Erick of the gazebo under the Crystal at Candlepoint, but about a thousand times larger.
A thousand times larger, and weird.
The road ran in this side of the Spire, and out the other, but in the building itself, there was white marble flooring, and winding staircases on both sides leading up and down. The sides of the Spire, to the left and right of the road, were complicated, large places, that reminded Erick a lot of a DMV, or a licensing office, but for very fancy people. In the middle of the road, directly ahead, there was a large arc of a counter where a man sat behind the table and dealt with a woman standing in front. To the sides, off the road, other people milled about under strong lighting, talking to people behind counters, where paperworks passed from hand to hand and stamps smashed down, leaving red or green marks behind. Everyone was either a shadeling, or a normal-looking person with normal eyes, just going about their business.
All that interior space looked invisible from the outside, though.
Erick sent an Ophiel wide, to get a look from another angle, further out. Fallopolis noticed, but said nothing.
With a position a hundred meters off the right side of the road, Erick clearly saw that the visible Spire he was seeing was invisible from all angles except from the front. Okay? So the whole place was enchanted to look like a spire of crystal? But it was actually a place of business? That sort of checked with what he had uncovered on the other kendrithyst towers of the city, when he had dropped his [Domain of Light] on the normal, red-purple-shadow crystals of Ar’Kendrithyst. Back there, the shadows hid the truth of the city. In here, they did the same. Maybe those shadows hid these parts of the city, all year long?
Maybe that’s why Killzone hadn’t told him about all of this? It seemed that Killzone would have known about all of this. Or if not him, then Silverite.
Erick followed at Fallopolis’s side.
“We’re entering, now.” She said, “All spells, pulled back. Pull your Ophiel in, tiny.”
Before Erick could tell her to do all of that first, Fallopolis dropped all her shadows, and stepped onto the crystal road, suddenly walking much slower, and at a normal pace. Erick didn’t want to follow her advice, for the simple reason that he was leaving himself vulnerable, but…
… But he had to, right?
He turned his Ophiel tiny and had them flock behind him, as he pulled his lightwalk to the center of his back, along with his [Lodestar]. He could redeploy both spells in a moment’s notice; if something bad happened, hopefully he would get that moment.
The woman at the main counter with the man looked behind her. Her eyes glowed white, but she lowered her head, and stepped away; maybe she wasn’t a Shade? What was a Shade, exactly?
Erick had asked that question a few times in his time in Spur, ever since he heard about shadelings. Killzone had said that the difference was one of night and day; too large for one to ever be mistaken for the other. In that case, the demarcation between ‘shadeling’ and ‘Shade’ seemed like a difference in power. Silverite had said that Shades have very few identifiable Script-derived spells, for they had no access to the Script. If a shadeling showed you their Status, they were a shadeling, for sure, since even a Shade couldn’t show a false Status; they too, would be slapped by the Script for conjuring a fake blue box and trying to lie about the system. There were cases of Shades showing false Status and not flinching as the Script punished them, but in that case, if they showed you something and you weren’t able to store that box in your own Script-access and pull it back out later, then you would know those illusionary blue boxes as fake.
This ‘put it away and pull it out again’ method was used to verify much of Erick’s own magic, when he was first starting out in Spur, making things like [Call Lightning]. He hadn’t known it at the time, not really, but he was under heavy, heavy scrutiny.
… And Erick’s thoughts were wandering again.
Fallopolis had walked into the Spire, proper, and Erick had followed. Some people stared at him, or at the Shade with him, others pointedly did not. Not much was ‘see-through’ inside the Spire; almost everything was either white stone, or vaguely metallic, except for some conspicuous crystal pillars scattered around this main space. Those pillars were filled with pure darkness; the same arteries that Erick had seen outside the building, that ran through the crystal road. Some of those dark rivers of shadows went up. Some went down.
Fallopolis pulled up to the man behind the front counter. “Here for the Feast.”
The man purposefully moved papers around on his side of the counter, stacking them in a professional way, while saying, “Welcome back to the Spire and to Brightwater District, Shade Fallopolis. Do you desire a carriage to Queen’s royal residence?”
Fallopolis glanced back to Erick. “You want a carriage?”
“No.”
She turned to the man. “No. We’ll be seeing some sights on the way over.”
“Very well.” The man gave Fallopolis no token, or cast no spells. He merely said, “You’re cleared.”
She stepped aside. She looked to Erick; waiting.
Erick tentatively stepped forward.
The man looked to him, and with the same monotone voice, said, “Welcome to the Spire, and to Brightwater District, Fire of the Age, Erick Flatt.”
Nothing direct happened.
But everything shifted.
It was as though the air gained a charge of lightning, briefly, while the dark arteries running through the pillars of the room pulsed thicker. And then it was done.
With a dawning horror, the same thing had likely happened to Fallopolis, but Erick had been looking to the Shade to see if anything happened to her, directly. He had not been looking thirty meters out, to see how the environment of this place reacted to her introduction.
No. Wait. But he had? Had he just missed the change in the air?
Maybe it was an invisible spell, to all except those who is was cast upon?
Erick didn’t feel any different, but he had to ask, “What was that?”
The man said, “An environmental shift. Now the shadows won’t react adversely to your presence; you have been introduced.”
“Oh?” Erick relaxed a fraction. “Not a spell cast on me, then? Instead, I was introduced to the magics of the Spire?”
“The second one.” The man asked, “Since you are new to Brightwater District, would you like a map, or a guide?”
“He has me.” Fallopolis turned to Erick, saying, “You know: some would find introduction to a system to be scarier than gaining a key.”
Erick thought about that for a second. He asked, “Because gaining a key means a low-grade magical system, whereas being introduced is… Is like meeting a sapient system?” He looked to the black arteries running through the pillars of the room. “Oh? Is that supposed to be Melemizargo?” Suddenly unsure of himself, he spoke quietly to the room, “Hello.”
The room shook, “Oh! Hello.”
Fallopolis gained a wild look in her bright eyes. She promptly and quietly giggled like a schoolgirl, staring out into the empty air of the Spire; excitedly waiting. The entire rest of this first floor of the Spire went absolutely quiet. No one moved. Someone dropped some papers, scattering noise into the air.
A shadow slipped from the arteries, to prowl around in the brightness of the room. The spectre form of Melemizargo had a friendly voice, as he said, “Welcome to Brightwater District, Erick! Don’t mind the threats; they won’t do anything to you. Have some fun. Explore a bit. Try taking in a class at Truedark Arcanaeum. We teach things quite a bit different here. I can’t stay long, so I’ll leave you to it. All of us are talking again, and I swear my head has never felt clearer. I should probably be more worried about that, but I finally have a grasp on these particles and their assorted oddities, and seeing the [Mesmerize] is the first step to breaking it, or coming to terms with the idea that this might truly be a new universe. We’ll see figment and truth, soon enough. Anywho! Talk to you later. Enjoy the Feast! I’ll probably make an appearance near the end of it all.”
“See you around.” Erick waved goodbye, trying to keep up appearances but also sweating a bit, as he mulled over Melemizargo’s casual use of the words ‘breaking it’.
The shadow slipped back into the pillars.
Sound resumed. Erick glanced around him, at the people bowing down to where the shadow had been. Papers laid where they had fallen. Stamps rested on their sides, dripping ink onto bureaucracy. Some people held their foreheads to the marble floor. Some openly stared at the darkness flowing through the pillars of the room. One woman clutched her chest, smiling, as tears rolled down her face.
Even Fallopolis had taken a knee. She smiled softly as Melemizargo departed. Glowing tears rolled down her unlined face; she looked even younger than before, and though her hair was still frizzy and grey, the 450 year-old woman could have passed for forty.
The room came alive again. People stood, some quietly cheering, or sniffling back tears, or just smiling. Most went back to whatever they were doing before. Some, who had been waiting in line, decided they didn’t want to wait in line anymore, and left, walking out of the other side of the Spire, down the road, toward Brightwater Lake. Erick couldn’t see the waters from here, for they were kilometers and kilometers above the lake, but he knew what was supposed to lay in that direction.
Erick whispered to Fallopolis, “What now?”
Fallopolis got to her feet as she happily said, “Whatever you want.”
Erick had one pressing concern, as he glanced around the room. “I see a lot of people here, so I think I’d like to know how that all works. How did I not hear about all the people that live here? Not all of them are shadelings. Where do they eat? Where do they live? Is there work? How does that all function?” He said, “Either this is all new, and you’ve all made some great game of tricking me into believing that this is who you are, or this is who you are, and the rest of the world just doesn’t know? Or hates you anyway? Or… Whatever the case, there’s some propaganda going on, for sure.”
Fallopolis looked to Erick, like he was a slow-witted child. “Oh. Erick. There’s been no tricks. Everyone here got involved with us because we either wanted to destroy the world, or certain peoples in it. Some, like myself, got in this life to free us and our god from this [Mesmerize]. That’s never changed.” She gestured to the air where Melemizargo had been, moments ago. “Or maybe it has?” She smiled. “Maybe you just made a whole new slew of true friends, and a whole new party of true enemies.”
Erick calmly took in his audience, scattered all around this level of the Spire, some openly listening to him and Fallopolis, as though this was a great moment in history. Some people were listening more covertly, with their heads turned away, yet with their body posture poised to hear. He tried to deflect Fallopolis’s words, saying, “The stage is set; the knowledge is out there. Nothing I do from here on out will stop what is coming down the road.”
“That remains to be seen,” spoke a new voice.
A Shade resolved onto the road in front of Erick and Fallopolis; it was the one with all the layered robes, and the black mask. Erick didn’t know their name, yet, but Fallopolis regarded the person as though they were a stain on the hem of her frilly dress, or a pile of shit on the side of the road.
Fallopolis said, “Don’t trust Rodel. He’s the Shade of Whispers, and is responsible for most of the evil that Shades commit around the world. He wants to burn selected parts of civilization, just so his own goals come out ahead.”
The masked man turned to Fallopolis, saying, “Spoken like a jilted housewife who only sees adulterers, or a miser who only sees the greed in others.” He added, “Stay out of politics, Fallopolis; you haven’t been at the top of your game in a hundred years, ever since Silverite toppled your kingdom and you were reduced to the Culler.” He spoke to Erick, “Fallopolis, the former Shade of the Long Night, has led no fewer than five incursions into the world to destroy it all. Thankfully, she failed.”
“You should kill him, Erick.” Fallopolis said, “I’ll help. Right here. Right now.”
People had been slowly moving out of the Spire, but at Fallopolis’s words, they ran. Some dropped into the roads, turning to shadows, flowing alongside the dark veins in the crystal. Some raced into the air. Some huddled behind their counters.
Rodel spoke, “Fallopolis would see you dead, Erick. Now that our Lord has a favorable impression, this is the perfect time for you to die and disappear.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Fallopolis countered, “You overplay your hand, Rodel! Now who’s the miser who only sees greed?”
Another Shade slipped into the room; Erick saw her arrival. Fallopolis and Rodel did not instantly notice, but they both jolted at the second step in the room of Tania Webwalker, Champion of Melemizargo. She looked exactly as Erick remembered; pale skin, a dress that seemed made of loose, white silks, and a veil that did nothing to hide her bright white eyes. Her white spider was nowhere to be seen, but she had a diner-plate sized, white tarantula upon her right shoulder. She spoke, and her words allowed no argument. “No one is killing anyone. We’re not doing that this year.”
“Then what are we doing this year?” Another voice joined the fray, belonging to a tall, dark-skinned man in flowing red robes. He was strong-looking, with perfect features and glowing, white eyes. Erick would have called him handsome in any other setting. He said, “I had planned to guard Erick with a minion, but I’ll need to know if I need to guard him directly.”
Erick found himself staring at the man.
The man noticed. He turned to Erick and bowed, then rose, saying, “I’m Crimsonair, Healer of Brightwater, and also the Shade of Blood. A pleasure to meet you.”
Erick tried to be polite, since it was his first instinct, “A pleasure,” and then he realized he didn’t want a blood mage anywhere near him, “But I do not wish for your guarding services at this time.”
“Afraid that’s not one of your choices, Erick. Someone will try to kill you and keep you dead, but I cannot allow such a thing, as I have hopes for this new world order.” Crimsonair said, “But if you don’t want me, then the task will likely fall to my teacher; Quilatalap.”
“Ah.” Erick had no idea how to respond to that. Everything was happening very fast.
“That’s fine.” Quilatalap, orcol archlich and Caretaker of the Armory, stepped onto the road behind Erick. “I can do that.” He said to Erick, “Hello, again.”
“Hell—” Erick’s voice broke. “Hello.”
Tania decreed, “We are going to have a perfectly normal Shadow’s Feast, and everyone is going to pretend that Erick is the help, for that is all that he had earned. You will also all do well to not involve him in our disputes.”
Erick had suddenly had enough.
“Fine by me!” he declared, as he put both arms at his sides, like they usually were, and then some feet went in front of feet, and steps were taken. “Thanks, everyone!” he said, as he walked through the Spire and out the other side, exaggerating swinging his arms, which were still at his sides, like they usually were. “Oh, wow! That’s pretty! Isn’t that pretty, Ophiel?”
Ophiels chirped in concerned flute sounds as the ten of them floated fast to catch up with Erick.
“Oh! It’s not that bad, Ophiel,” Erick said, “Look at that giant black sun! And the city below! That’s a big lake, too.”
By now, he was well out of the Spire, and almost a kilometer down the skyroad. A quick glance behind him showed five more Shades standing in the center of the Spire, where he had left them. The total number of Shades in that room would soon reach a critical mass.
They were arguing. Loudly.
Erick stepped forward, ignoring the growing cacophony behind him, as he walked down a crystal skyroad, over a crystal city full of people of questionable sapience, and then stepped past a circular platform, to head down, down, down. Beyond this space, the upper levels of the crystal city formed more or less a slope of tower tops toward the waters, far, far below.
As the world exploded behind him and dark shrapnel careened through the sky above, he rushed down the unobstructed sky between him and the lake.
The skyroad broke behind him. The circular platform crashed down through a skyroad, but stopped on the next. These crystals were pretty sturdy! Someone would probably be by to clean that up, soon enough. Who did Killzone say did that? Cludolphis, the Shade of Mending, right?
“They probably do this all the time, right?” Erick said to himself.
Ophiel chirped in guitar and flute sounds—
Quilatalap stepped into the air beside him, keeping up with his race down to the lake, saying, “They do—”
“Holy FUCK—!” Erick reflexively threw a [Luminous Trap] at the man and launched himself to the left, becoming his sunform.
The lich just stepped through the dark space, smiling, saying, “Good instincts, but an ineffective target.” He thumbed back the way they had come, saying, “They do that all the time. Cludolphis will fix it all up fast enough. You heard of her? She’s the Shade of Mending.”
Erick retreated back to human form to catch his breath as he hovered, unmoving, staring at the orcol archlich. He stared a bit harder. And then he dismissed the dark blot of void which was now fifty meters back the way they had come; Erick had moved rather far from where he had cast that spell. Quilatalap had, too.
“What the FUCK,” Erick said, unsure of what else to say.
“You’re in danger.” Quilatalap said, “So here I am. A neutral party.”
“… Great.”
- - - -
Erick strode through the sky, walking down airy paths, beside crystalline towers. A bright lake glowed far ahead, but much closer than five minutes ago. With a few more steps, he finished his thirty kilometer descent, to arrive in a place that was practically the Underworld, but was still exposed to the sky. Bright waters stretched off past the horizon, where another land of crystal towers reached all the way back up to the sky. But where Erick was right now, the Brightwater Expanse flowed back the way he had come, the glowing waters flowing around thick crystal towers, and adding a whole new depth to the waters that Erick hadn’t expected. He looked down into those waters for a moment, and saw merpeople and frog people shadelings down below the waves, living their afterlives, he supposed.
Raising his head, and looking east, Erick wouldn’t have been surprised if the glowing waters of Brightwater Expanse continued all the way to the pink curtain wall around this whole place.
Turning back to the lake, Erick regarded the dark sun above the center of it all. It was an eclipse; black in substance, yet radiant on the edges.
… This whole place was rather bright. Erick almost considered sunglasses, but he could see just fine if he used his lightform, or sunform, to see. His human eyes, though, were very taxed by the brightness.
His current companion seemed to have no visible troubles with the light.
Ha! ‘Visible troubles’.
… Erick was fine. He wasn’t losing it. He was just in the ‘gallows humor’ stage of panicking. This was fine. This was fine. This was fine. Quilatalap was fine. Quilatalap was of normal orcol stock, with thick black armor, and a large grin. He stared out into the lake alongside Erick. He didn’t look like a lich, but he was, apparently.
Erick had remembered a bit more about liches since his current introduction to the concept. Jane had spoken of ‘undead necromantic spell casters’ more than a few times when she was growing up. Hearing the term ‘lich’ had knocked loose some other, more recent memories. Liches were the undead mages who ruled the Fractured Citadels in Central Quintlan, weren’t they? Weren’t they supposed to look like corpses? The zombies and undead Erick had seen all looked like corpses in varying states of decay.
Erick asked, “Are you related to the Fractured Citadels in Quintlan?”
“The better question, is how are they related to me.” Quilatalap said, “And to answer that one, I would need to regale you of my family tree. Do you want to hear that?”
“Not at this moment.” Erick said, “But like… Sons and daughters?”
“Adopted children who then go out to make more of themselves. I’m just a teacher for the more promising ones. Or when one of them begs me to teach an outcast, or something.” He added, “It happens more often than you might think.”
Erick admitted, “I have never truly considered necromancy, before, so right now, all of my thoughts are on the subject. I’m thinking that ‘as often as I might think’ is every other month.”
Quilatalap smirked. “Oh?”
Erick brushed away those thoughts, and changed the subject, “How does Rozeta not smack you down? The Shades get sanctions, don’t they? What is the difference?”
Quilatalap breathed in deep, expanding his massive chest, lifting his humongous shoulders and huge arms and—
And stop that, Erick.
Quilatalap said, “All Shades are removed from the Script only because them having power gives Melemizargo power. They’re the only exception to the rule that ‘all magic is controlled by the Script’, because Shades are tied so directly to the Dark Dragon.” Quilatalap said, “I’m just a Soul Mage, by comparison. I’ve never had their particular qualms regarding a lot of their particular problems with the world.”
Erick studied the orcol for a moment, for purely non-sexual reasons. “You don’t care about the Shades’ problems with the Script?”
“I care, but… I was born in a small village on the original Veird, 1600 years before the Sundering, and a good 6000 kilometers below the current surface of this world. I was there when they laid the Script. I even helped.” He smiled at the waters ahead, saying, “Back then, Melemizargo was just the God of Magic. And now, he’s a constrained god. I’ve always held out hope that he could get better, and it seems that he might.” He shrugged. “But you are right about me not caring as much about the Script versus ‘free magic’ that the Shades have always worked toward. I’ve always held myself apart from their True Faith, for I have always worshiped three Gods, and the other two are just as big a part of my life as Melemizargo.”
The man seemed a bit sad. A bit approachable.
Erick wasn’t going to fall into that trap.
But at the same time… Who was Erick, if he stopped believing in people. Here was a man, who was not a Shade—
“Can you show me a Script box?” Erick asked.
The man laughed. “Sure.” He looked to the air, read, and tilted his head a little as if debating which apple on a tree was ripe for picking. After deliberation, he plucked a blue box from the air, and handed it to Erick. Erick read, and his eyes went wide.
Greater Phylactery, special cast time, super long range, 100,000 mana + special costs
Using the right materials, create a soul vessel of your choosing that will automatically capture your soul upon your death and recreate your body in whatever state you wish your body to be. You may have 5 Greater Phylacteries at any one time. When you die, you can choose which Greater Phylactery where you are reborn.
Erick had very little idea of what to make of the blue box sitting in his hands, but he put it away and pulled it out again; it was a real Script spell. He was holding in his hands a real spell, that allowed real resurrections. So what did that mean?
He asked, “What about Phagar?”
“People often confuse Phagar for the God of Death, and no one in his clergy or even he himself does much to dissuade this notion. But he has always been the God of the End. He doesn’t drag you to death; he’s not that kind of God, and long ago I chose to choose my own End.” Quilatalap said, “Phagar is one of the gods I worship.”
“… Who are the other two?”
“Melemizargo, of course. But also Koyabez.”
“… I almost believe that, but peace has a limit.” He added, “Besides, Koyabez works to kill errant angels, demons, and undead, doesn’t he?”
“I juggle three gods, Erick.” Quilatalap said, “And my faith is much, much older than the Quiet War. Besides that, I don’t like killing. The days I kill someone are days when there is no other choice.”
Erick just looked at the man; confused.
Quilatalap noticed. “What?”
“The Armory! Killing people who invade! Allowing people to leave with artifacts that kill and destroy the balance of the world! What the fuck!”
“Ah?” Quilatalap stood straighter. “I would have thought Fallopolis would have said, but those people who cleared the hard-mode trial today? They’re people from the Wasteland, who were looking for items to kill the Converter Angel. They got them. You’ll likely hear from those people later, and during the Feast, when they’re invited into the party.” He said, “I have a whole lot of images from all the other groups that won this year, who then went on to avenge the murders of their parents, or kill the people who killed their loved ones… There’s a whole lot of that, actually. The ones that failed the trials were those people who wanted to commit more murders, or who wanted to use their power to raze a city.”
Erick looked at the armored orcol. He narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying you orchestrate who wins whatever it is they win?”
“Absolutely not; I am not saying that.”
There was an inflection to his voice in the middle of his response; barely noticeable, but still there.
If this was Erick’s only problem of the day, he might have pursued that conversation to its end. But another one of the day’s problems was rapidly approaching from above, and behind.
“Yoo-hoo!” Fallopolis called out, as she stepped down toward Erick and Quilatalap, saying, “You waited for me! How nice!” She came up beside Erick, saying, “Did you two have a nice little talk? Well! Just in case you didn’t:” She moved from one of them to the other, saying, “Like any proper immortal, Erick here likes guys and gals, and I think he has a particular raised-bridge for fine, fit, orcols. While our resident archlich here likes anyone who can hold a conversation and is capable of giving informed consent.” She looked to Erick and did a great job of fake-whispering, saying, “He’s into you. Go for it!” And now speaking, “After our own time is at an end, and we arrive together at the Palace, of course.” She started walking ahead, and when Erick stood stunned, not following, she added, “Come on, Erick! I want more than just a cupcake! You gotta tell me what’s good.”
Erick had no idea how he accomplished such a feat in view of all the revelations all around him, but he loosened his legs and began walking south, following Fallopolis. The crystal towers of the Spire rose like sheer mountains on his left; shadowed and rainbow due to the Brightwater Expanse that glowed to his right, under a black sun.
Quilatalap followed, soon catching up, for Fallopolis did not walk fast; they were close to their destination.
- - - -
In a few steps, the space where crystal towers vanished down into the Brightwater Expanse became less like towers sticking out of the glowing water, and more like towers broken and laid on their sides. Those broken crystals quickly turned into beaches, where stone crusted over the crystal, the light wasn’t quite as bright, and green trees grew along the banks. In the distance, to the south east, the crystal towers formed a thirty-kilometer tall wall that reached up into the sky, while houses dotted hills and smaller mountains scattered here and there, and the glows of crystals were locked away under normal-looking rock, dirt, and sand. Trees grew in this place, while roads connected houses to houses, and to markets. People walked under those trees, as they shopped at food stalls and ate at restaurants and seemed to be living normal lives.
Erick walked atop the white sands of the beach, his footfalls stepping onto the light, his conjured boots never sinking into the soft sands. Quilatalap, a step to Erick’s left, and further up the beach, walked the same, though Erick saw no change in the sands to indicate a [Stone Body], like Ava, or the flashes of light that showed under Erick’s steps. Maybe he just weighed nothing in all that dark armor? Who knew.
Fallopolis was barefoot and skipping along in the shallow surf, kicking sand with each step, and sinking in when she felt like it. By all outward appearances she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She wasn’t the only one. The waters of the glowing lake lapped at the beach, while children played in the waters and parents watched. A young man whispered to a young woman, under a tall tree, both of them with eyes only for themselves. A woman on the boardwalk beyond the beach argued with a man over something quiet, while the woman changed the diaper of a baby. Only some of them were shadelings.
All of them noticed either Fallopolis, or Quilatalap, and though some paid attention to Erick and Ophiel, all eyes eventually turned to the Shade or the lich. There were a few silent stares, a few open prayers. Some bowed. Some kowtowed. Neither Fallopolis nor Quilatalap did anything to acknowledge the attention.
After a fifteen minute hike on the beach, and seeing a dozen different little communities on the shores and up the hills to the south, Erick saw the end of this beach up ahead, where sands gave way to crystal. No one had said anything about the community to the left, yet, and Erick couldn’t take it anymore.
He said, “I thought you all were incapable of society.”
“That’s a harsh thing to say,” Fallopolis merrily chided.
“It’s a true thing to say.” Quilatalap said, “Historically, to be a Shade is to be a beacon of civilization, and some of the old demands of their station are hardwired into their souls. What you saw there in the Spire, and what you see here in the Platinum Market, and what you will see all around in the Brightwater District? These are the true natures of the Shades. What you see out in Kendrithyst, and elsewhere? The horrors and the murders? Those are Shades mutated by Melemizargo’s insanity. For a very long time, there was more insanity than true purpose.” He spoke to Fallopolis, “So while it was a harsh thing to say, it was true.”
“Which is why I try to get every Shade as dead as I can get them,” Fallopolis said. “The sooner they die, the sooner that Melemizargo can appoint those who would be true to the purpose of the Shades.”
Quilatalap hummed a tiny disapproval, but said nothing else.
Erick returned to watching the world around him, to hearing the waves, to smelling the air. This place smelled good; like a freshwater lake and civilization. But metaphorically, something smelled rotten. Erick looked to the people at the beach, and in the city beyond; he had a good eye on the place, with his Ophiels floating in the air behind and above. Seeing the people here reminded him a lot of the people of Candlepoint, but surely a place like this would have been known to the outside world, right? Unless it happened in the last year?
But even then, Killzone or someone would have told Erick about a place in Ar’Kendrithyst that seemed like it held a true civilization. Silverite would have said. Someone would have spilled this secret, here, well before now.
What about the orcols that came to the Spire and got cleansed of their shadeling Status? Did they see the people in the crystal towers around the Spire? Did they see the workers in the Spire itself?
Maybe they did see all of this, and those memories were wiped from them?
“Was this place like this, last year?” Erick asked.
Quilatalap said, “Yup.”
Fallopolis said, “The population moves around. The Platinum Market is more of a vacation area than the other parts of Brightwater.”
Hmm.
Erick asked, “Why is this place called the Platinum Market? Killzone’s map named it as a ‘market’, too.”
Fallopolis said, “It used to be a market. Sometimes it’s still a market. These days, people mostly just live here.”
Erick asked, “What do they do, here?”
Fallopolis glanced back at Quilatalap.
Quilatalap said, “Some of them live their lives here, supporting their communities, but most of them, most of the time, make continuous pilgrimages out into the depths of the Spire or elsewhere around the District, searching for Lost Ones. Once a Lost One is found, they bring them to the Temple District. Sometimes the Lost Ones regain themselves and become a part of the community here. But most of the time, their soul damage is too deep, and they completely lose the memories of their previous life, or they’re too violent to let into Brightwater. Those ones are given over to the Shades, for work out in Kendrithyst, or elsewhere. Those ones are the shadelings you see out in the world. Those are the ones you gained at Candlepoint.
“Some of the Shades use this allocation of people as a horror, but for the longest time, none of the Clergy believed this world was real. So what was the bother with using the faithful against horrors perpetrated by the other gods? When shadelings die in service to their truth and their faith, they never actually die. Maybe in their next attempt they would come back stronger than before.” Quilatalap ended with, “That is the normal doctrine.”
Erick sighed. “What you’re saying sounds like a lie, and that all of this here is only here to dupe people like me who want to believe.”
Fallopolis spun around in the sand, smiling to Erick as she asked, “How can you possibly think that we’re lying, when you see all of this around you? We’re not hiding anything from you.” Losing her smile, yet trying to stay upbeat, she said, “But the gods! The gods have erased more knowledge from this world than you or I will ever know. The Geodes rise up and slaughter whatever they cannot control. Rozeta incentivizes handwritten books! And then there’s people like you, who believe what they’re told—” She suddenly stopped, then said, “You know what? Never mind. Telling people the truth never works. They always have to find out for themselves.”
Quilatalap chuckled, saying, “It is good you are skeptical, Erick, but to deny what is right in front of you is to deny the world, and that way leads to madness.”
They reached the end of the beach without further comment.
Beyond the white sands, laid more crystal towers, but they did not rise up to the sky like the ones in the far distance. Beyond a low divider of crystal, and the glowing waters flowing through the space, parts of the Palace District rose up high enough to be visible. Spires of white stone lifted above the intervening crystal, while floating gardens drifted through the space, pouring waterfalls onto the hidden lands beyond.
Fallopolis stepped onto the air beyond the beach, leading the way, her feet splashing shadows as she stepped. Erick and Quilatalap followed.
A short walk later, Erick truly saw the Palace District.
Beyond a long beach, beyond manicured green grass and flowered bushes, laid a tiered land of white towers, wide roads, and roofs of every color. It was a palace in the style of Kal’Duresh, for sure, but it was also a small city, with people dressed in white and black, and guards wearing white metal. Beyond the Palace, to the south, waterfalls fell from mountains of crystal beyond, cascading down thirty kilometers, hitting thousands of small green spaces on its way before falling out of sight. Straight ahead, was a gate, twenty meters wide, made of gold, cast in decorative whorls and lines. The gate stood wide open with guards on both sides— Oh. Wait.
The guards were not people, but they weren’t shadelings, either. There were spaces between their metal arms and torso and helmets, and every other part of them; they were the same type of automatons that Bulgan had in Candlepoint. They were also motionless.
A familiar butler and his two accomplices in black stood in the center of the open gate. He was the one who had taken Erick’s bags. He ignored Fallopolis completely, and only had white eyes for Erick.
After a short bow, the butler rose, and said, “Welcome to the Pala—”
An explosion of shadows and fire rocked one of the white towers up ahead, breaking one of them at the base, sending a spire of white stone toppling like a tree to smash down the layers of the tiered cake of the Palace. Clouds of dirt and smaller fires erupted in its short, violent journey, while a beam of darkness carved across the sky, and a woman laughed loud, dancing through the air. The beam connected against the woman, then scattered wide, turning to flaming shrapnel that caught on varied parts of the Palace, eliciting more flames from the stone.
The butler had been interrupted by the fight going on not a kilometer away, but he recaptured his lost composure and spoke over the battle, saying, “Welcome to the Palace, Archmage Erick Flatt. Your rooms are—”
A chaining explosion of fire on the side of the Palace turned to glowing ice, like ten meter wide flowers blooming, one after the other. The sudden spellwork cast booms of sound into the air. Automatons floated above the fight, then threw bolts of ice at both the woman in the air and at someone down below. The woman danced through the sky, evading fire and ice, and leaving a trail of shadow that spread and filled with motes of light. That light crashed down, like hundreds of Erick’s own [Shooting Star]s, racing into the ice and the fire below, destroying every single automaton, and much of the ice and fire.
The butler attempted to continue, “Your rooms are on the edge of the Palace, Archmage Flatt, away from our more excitable guests. Would you care to follow—”
Fallopolis spoke up, “I think Stardust is fighting Hollowsaur.”
“It’s not Hollowsaur.” Quilatalap said, “It’s Welodio.”
Erick had heard that name before. Killzone had said that if he ever met a white dragonkin who used fire magics, that he was to run the other way as fast as possible.
“That asshole showed up this year?” Fallopolis turned to Erick, saying, “I was hoping we’d meet him out in the city. He couldn’t not try to kill you, so you would have had to kill him back. You could take him.”
Erick frowned. “Killzone seemed to be of the opinion that I couldn’t take him.”
“You could.” Quilatalap said, “Especially since you’ve gained a Domain so in tune with your other magics.”
Erick changed the subject. “Who’s casting the ice?”
“Queen,” Fallopolis and Quilatalap said, at the same time.
Quilatalap added, “She can cast anything, but she prefers to match against her opponent’s magic in a perfect counter.”
Fallopolis said, “That’s actually glow-ice. Not ‘ice’. It subdues fire magics in its area of effect. Queen was a Prismatic Mage with every Greater Elemental Body before she came to us 160 years ago, and she’s been here in the Brightwater District ever since. She’s pretty far down on my list of Shades-who-need-to-die, but if you see an opportunity, you should take it, Erick. There’s not a single redeemable one in the whole crowd.”
Erick watched as ice and fire and stars battled for dominance.
When no one else spoke for a few moments, the butler spoke up, “Would you care to see your room, Archmage Flatt?”
An explosion of shadowflames rocked the sky, as an orcol in a kilt rocketed up from below to strike at the flying woman.
“My mistake.” Quilatalap said, “It’s Hollowsaur.”
Fallopolis smiled. “Stardust must have felt like poking him after his humiliating defeat by a single spell.” She looked to Erick, saying, “Not the preferred outcome, but it works well enough. Maybe they’ll kill each other, so good job.”
Stardust was the Shade of the Edge, if Erick remembered correctly. She lived in the Spire, and oversaw the space above Ar’Kendrithyst, near the upper atmosphere, at the edge of the Script. Last Erick heard, Stardust was gunning for the death of Spinner, the Shade of the Sky, over the rights to all of Ar’Kendrithyst’s airspace.
Spinner lived in the Aerie, and Hollowsaur and Undine had asked Erick to kill Spinner. But Spinner was friends with Skyhook, the Shade of the Breeze, and both of those Shades lived in the Aerie. Erick wouldn’t have been able to fight one without fighting the other.
So why was Stardust fighting Hollowsaur? With Erick’s rudimentary understanding of the situation, shouldn’t Hollowsaur be aligned with Stardust’s hatred of Spinner?
… It was likely more complicated than that.
Whatever the case, Stardust fought with Hollowsaur. Flames spread. And then another Shade appeared. A woman in rainbow clothing stepped out into the sky near the tiered Palace, but only hovered in the air near the buildings. She cast ice whenever fire spread, and used darkness to banish every glowing [Shooting Star] that got near the structures below. Must be Queen? She seemed focused on the defense of the Palace, above all else.
Erick tore his eyes away from the scene, asking, “Are Stardust and Hollowsaur actually going to kill each other?”
“Doubtful,” Quilatalap said.
“One can only hope!” Fallopolis said, “My grand-rads are on Stardust.”
Quilatalap said, “Hollowsaur is going to win. He has to; he’s running hard to restore face. Stardust will play off her attack as a simple test if she loses, but will kill him if she can.”
Fallopolis said, “His star is falling out of favor.” She smiled at her own pun, adding, “And Stardust is on the rise!”
Erick said to the butler, “I’d like to see my room.”
The butler bowed, saying, “Right this way.”