Located down one of the many hallways past the atrium in the center of the house, the entrance to the Benevolence research tower was one of House Benevolence’s more active areas. A good eleven people were already present, this early in the morning, including Tasar, who appeared in a flicker of black-green magic just down the way.
“Good morning,” Tasar said, walking closer.
“Morning,” Erick said, smiling—
Ah. A while ago, Erick had promised Tasar that he would tell her how to make a [Familiar] with their own mana pool. Now that he knew how that actually worked, he wondered if Tasar would actually want to know. Erick had made both Ophiel and Yggdrasil through rituals, knowing and planning on the fact that both would eventually become real. Since they would ‘eventually become real’, they had a theoretical mana pool waiting for them in the future, and so, Erick had Established that they could access that future mana right now.
Mana was rather full of possibilities like that.
But Erick doubted that Tasar would actually want to make something that she knew would become real.
Back when Erick had told the royalty of Stratagold that he was immortal, Tasar had taken Erick aside and tried to give him some good advice about his [Familiar]s, and Ophiel in particular. Now that he was immortal, he would watch Ophiel grow into a real person, and chances were that Ophiel would be both the first and the last of his kind, and that he would be mortal. [Familiar]s rarely turned into real, thriving species. Eventually, Erick would lose a child that he had watched grow into a very, very old man, and there was nothing that he could do to stop that.
Tasar had done that exact thing once before. Once was more than enough. Never again would she make a summon that would become a real person.
But now, Erick had [Reincarnation], so even if Ophiel’s form didn’t function long term, he had a solution to that problem, too.
—still smiling, still greeting Tasar, Erick asked, “Do you want to learn how to make a summon that has their own mana, Tasar?”
Tasar’s eyes went wide, and yes, she did.
But Erick continued, “Thanks to Phagar I think I know why my summons have mana.” His smile waned, and he said, “If you want to know, I can tell you and then help you make one yourself, but it will be difficult for you. It’s nothing untoward, but it is a choice; one that I know you have already said no to.”
Tasar’s sudden joy gutted like a fire turned to ice. Eventually, she thawed a little, deciding, “I would like to know the choices, either way.”
“We’ll talk later.”
Tasar gave a small nod. Behind Erick, Kiri’s eyeridges were high on her head. She wanted to know what was going on. He would tell her, too; probably both of them together, actually. Teressa had a mild curiosity, but she could take or leave a whole conversation about [Familiar]s and not really care one way or the other.
Erick turned back to the research tower.
Beyond a large archway made of angular, Art Deco-like lightning reliefs, lay what was essentially a bunch of individual laboratories as one would encounter in any proper Mage Guild the world over; spaces for people to experiment with small scale magics. The main room ahead was a large-ish gathering space, like a courtyard with multiple levels ringing an open center. On those levels were bunches of doors leading off to other areas. Some rooms behind those doors were larger than others. Some doors led to library rooms and office spaces, though there wasn’t much in any of those right now. The whole tower had an empty sort of feeling to it, much like the rest of House Benevolence, even though there were people here and working hard already.
A different tower held the Office of Magic. Over there was where Aisha held all the experiments with turning iron into a viable magical metal. Tasar had helped a bit with that, since she was the one who had invented [Condense Oxygen] and helped turn that into a cure for Wrought Rot, but there was a long way to go to solving that problem, and the Gemslicers, the ones who actually made the cure for Wrought Rot, were not talking to Erick.
But all that magical iron stuff was for another day.
Today was a day of working on Benevolence, and others were already here.
As soon as Erick stepped into this space one of the doors on the second floor swung open. Aisha stood on the other side, along with three others.
With an excited, happy tone, Aisha gripped the railing and called out, “Are you finally coming to experiment?”
“I am!” Erick walked forward, saying, “I’m finally out of pressing crises, though there are still longer term crises, of course.”
Aisha smiled. “Of course! Come on up! We might have finally gotten the elemental condenser truly work—”
A small explosion popped behind Aisha, briefly backlighting her and the other three with multicolor lightning. As the lightning dissipated, a riot of plant life sprawled out of the room like the sudden appearance of a jungle made of vines and ferns and bamboo.
Erick’s heart briefly beat hard, but the feeling passed. Nothing had happened.
Just a minor Benevolence explosion.
Aisha groaned in disappointment. Her employees had various other disappointed looks upon their faces. From inside the room, Erick heard someone yell about how it was all working just fine. As Erick walked forward, another person yelled back about how it obviously wasn't fine, you fucking fairy fucker, and this was probably all a plot by Ar’Cosmos to fuck over everything they were trying to make.
Aisha scowled at that voice, yelling back, “We wouldn’t even have the elemental condenser if it weren’t for them!”
Someone inside complained that they still didn’t have the condenser, because Ar’Cosmos was fucking it all up!
Erick sighed as he walked up the stairs. Aisha was already inside, clearing away plants with [Blight], radiating blackening magic into the air and dissolving every single plant in the area. Erick had seen this explosive outcome happen five times already, and this sixth time was no different. Luckily, [Blight] didn’t affect eternal stonewood, so this spell was the best way to get rid of unwanted plant growth. As Erick stepped into sight of the room, he watched as Aisha began flowing [Cleanse] out into the space, evaporating brown and black gunk into so much thick air.
As the goop evaporated it revealed two loudly yelling people standing next to the single table in the room. Erick ignored the small fight for Aisha was already on it, separating the iron wrought human man from the red-skinned orcol man; Raim and Clavog, from Stratagold and Ar’Cosmos respectively. They had been the arguing pair from before. They always argued, because both of them were very good at their fields of elemental magical study, but they had been raised in very different environments. Clavog knew all about how magic was supposed to work. Raim knew all about how magic actually worked.
Or at least that was their usual refrain.
On the table was the source of their arguments and their current project; an elemental condenser. It was a series of multicolor-metal parallel tubes going up and down, looking a little bit like a pipe organ, or a bunch of meter-long crayons in a bundle. Those metal pipes led to a collection plate in the base of the machine. The inside of every single pipe, each made of a different magical metal, were fully inscribed with runes.
The machine drew in air, filtered mana inside that air, and condensed that mana into a solid crystal atop the collection plate. And it worked fine inside Ar’Cosmos. Inside that fairy land, this machine was how Fairy Moon had created a mana crystal, which she then had turned into a counting crystal so Erick could monitor his Stat growth when he was first accreting.
But it did not work well inside this Script-filled normal space.
It did not work well.
Erick asked, “Still not working well?” He mana sensed over to the main condenser room, then came back, saying, “The others seem to be working… Minimally.”
Aisha said, “The others are still condensing what they are able to condense, but—”
Raim and Clavog finally realized that Erick was in the room with them.
Clavog instantly said, “This rusting shite tried turning up the volume!”
Raim rounded Clavog, saying, “It should have worked, dragon fucker!”
Erick stared at the offenders, saying, “Switch the machine back to minimal power, and do it right.”
Clavog pulled back his anger, trying to stuff it away into a void as he breathed long and slow. And then he resumed breathing normally. Raim did much the same.
Clavog turned to Raim, saying, “We’ll go slower.”
Raim scowled, then realized he was scowling and tried to shut that off. Through gritted teeth, he mumbled, “Slower, then.”
“Anyway!” Erick released his own displeasure as best he could and turned to Aisha, saying, “So yes. I have some time today to see how all this Benevolence research is going—” He turned back toward the elemental condenser, adding, “—and it seems to have hit a snag?”
Aisha walked forward, saying, “The main problem we’re having is the same problem we’ve always had with working new elements; there just isn’t enough of Benevolence to go around.”
Now that was a bit disturbing, actually.
And for multiple reasons.
Erick frowned a little, saying, “Even considering my mana production is still mostly in the Script, I’m always casting magic, and the Gates are right there, doing the same. I’ve been putting Benevolence-flavored mana into the manasphere for two months now and we’re at the epicenter of that output. Hullbreaker was putting out measurable amounts of Elemental Pirate all across the entire Letri Ocean after only 6 months.” He studied the elemental condenser, saying, “This thing should be able to condense more than it has.”
Raim exclaimed, “Exactly! That’s why I tried to turn it up!”
Clavog frowned at the smaller man.
Erick added, “But it obviously can’t. So why?”
Clavog furrowed his brows, slightly miffed, as he said, “Because this machine does not work well outside of Ar’Cosmos, as I have said multiple times to everyone—” He cut himself off. He continued, “That it is working at all means that there is Elemental Benevolence to be had, but— Even with the Hullbreaker example, we had thousands of these machines all over the Letri ocean looking for him. Any variations in production at all gave us a good idea of where to find the Wizard, but those machines were still attuned to minimal output. The machine cannot be improved, for the Script ties it down and prevents it from working properly!”
The elemental condenser was beyond Erick’s skill, but he hadn’t really tried to improve upon the design, either. He had no time for such a thing, and besides, his people here were already on the job. They had even managed to make some magic out of Benevolence.
Every single person in this room had made at least one Benevolence spell in the past month, since Erick had gotten House Benevolence up and running. Some of them had even managed to make small enchantments using those spells. A wand of [Benevolence Jolt]. A rod of [Benevolence Bomb]. A [Detect Benevolence] pair of goggles. Erick had copies of those spells from his subjects, and he had even found time to make versions of his own. There were obvious problems, though, because the spells other people made were very different from Erick’s own versions.
Benevolence Jolt, instant, long range, 55 mana
A bolt of benevolence strikes a target for
Benevolence Bomb, instant, long range, 502 mana
Launch a quick ball of benevolence that explodes on contact in a medium area for <2x WIL effect>.
Detect Benevolence, instant, medium range, 55 mana
Detect ongoing benevolence effects.
Benevolence Jolt, instant, long range, 7 mana
An ethereal bolt of benevolence inexorably strikes a target for <5x WIL effect>.
Benevolence Bomb, instant, long range, 73 mana
Launch a super quick ethereal missile of benevolence that explodes on contact in a large area, causing <10x WIL effect>.
Detect Benevolence, instant, medium range, 16 mana
Detect ongoing benevolence effects.
Whatever Erick was doing with Benevolence was so much further from what other people were doing with Benevolence, that when the facts of created spells were laid out in little blue boxes it was easy to see which ones belonged to Erick, and which ones had been made by everyone else. Even leaving the mana costs aside, that part of ‘
Only one person had managed to get that second half of the ‘benevolence descriptor’ inside her spell box. That honor went to Aisha, but only because Erick had been working with her at the time to get her to make the spell. When Erick wasn’t present, no one else had managed to make the same magic.
And thus, the Benevolence research tower went back to square one, to reevaluate everything and see where they could improve their understanding of Benevolence.
Or maybe get a shortcut.
So, people talked to people.
Eventually, Mox and Aisha and Burhendurur spoke of old fights, and old Wizards, and Mox asked how Ar’Cosmos had managed to find Hullbreaker almost always before they had. That fact was one of her lingering questions about that time, and two days later Burhendurur, after talking with Erick, decided to let that secret out of the bag.
That conversation had led to this elemental condenser being here, today. This thing was supposed to be able to condense a particular element out of the air, making ‘essence chips’ of the chosen element, which could then be used to grant oneself the elemental body of the chosen element, or allow oneself to cast magic with those elements. And so, these chips were how anyone could ‘be in the room with Erick’ whenever they needed. Eventually, if production increased, a proper enchanter might be able to take those chips and make a suit of elemental armor out of them, allowing someone to actually gain that Elemental Body for themselves. With that Elemental Body in hand, they could then experiment with Benevolence to their heart’s content.
(Or, they could go the [Polymorph] route, and eat all those chips. This necessitated the creation of a benevolence slime, though, so that the user of that Familiar Form could actually eat and digest those chips, but the Benevolence dungeon was still on the drawing boards.)
There were problems with this condenser plan, though. Elemental condensers worked great in Ar’Cosmos. People there regularly used these machines in order to gather essence without going through the problems of making a dungeon and gathering essence through harvesting slimes. These essence condensers saved a lot of space in that way.
But they barely worked on Veird.
But, importantly, they did work! A little.
And so they tried using these machines. It was not working well. The volume produced by the machine was barely worth noting. A single chip of pure Benevolence a day, about the size of a gold coin, was about the same amount of Light Essence produced by a single light slime over its maturation cycle of 50 days.
They had about 10 of these machines working in the other rooms and they were getting a measurable amount of Benevolence Essence, but it had not been enough. A dungeon, working properly, would get the user the proper Elemental Body within a single day of slime production. So far, with their meager production, these people had made small, imperfect enchantments and small, imperfect spellwork.
It wasn’t enough.
Erick decided he would go visit the dungeon after this meeting, or however long this took, and try to make a Benevolence version of his [Kaleidoscopic Radiance]. It would probably be the only way to actually get that dungeon up and running, and to really give House Benevolence true access to its namesake.
Yes. That is what he would do later.
For now, he turned his thoughts back to the moment.
Ashia said, “This is the 15th confirmation in a long line of confirmations that undirected Benevolence causes plant growth, which is pretty great!” She glared at the two men who had been arguing, “That could have turned out very badly if your anger had caused that Benevolence to snap black. We still don’t know what actually causes that to happen.”
Raim shook his head, not believing Aisha’s warning. “It doesn’t snap black unless in the presence of an actual hostile force.”
Or if Erick decided it should, but he did not say that.
Clavog rolled his eyes, saying, “And you’re claiming not to be hostile! Preposterous!”
Erick interrupted the impending argument, saying, “Anyway! How are the prognostication efforts going?”
The iron man and the red orcol went silent.
Aisha said, “The talismans we’ve been able to make out of Benevolence Essence still allow me to glimpse the wall of problems coming in a hundred years, but not much more than that.”
Erick still hadn’t shown her inside his Gate Space yet, but then and there, he decided he would change that today, too.
Erick nodded, then began, “So we’re still at a bottleneck for actual Elemental Benevolence, and while we broadly know the larger applications, we still don’t know exactly what it does in smaller scenarios. So pick two people, Aisha, and we’re going into the Gate Space right now. You can see what the wall looks like for yourself.”
Aisha’s eyes went wide, and she wasn’t the only one. Instantly, everyone in the room was on an anticipatory edge. They all desperately wanted what Erick had just offered, but that just wasn’t going to happen. This was the first time he was actually offering to show them that space. Eventually, his Gate Space would be public access, for that was how he had constructed it to be, but not right now. Not until he knew the vulnerabilities of his Gate Space.
There was no way to really find that out, though, without inviting some people inside, and today was the day to invite some people inside.
Erick looked to Teressa, Kiri, and Tasar, saying, “And you’re all coming, too.”
Teressa seemed to relax with a quiet approval. She was ready to see the wall, too. Kiri was ready as well; Erick had not done much magic work with her in the last two months, and she absolutely wanted to see the Gate Space. He probably could have shown both of them the Gate Space long before now, but there just hadn’t been time. And now, there was time.
Tasar was the only real odd woman out, who was included just because she was here, but Erick felt he could trust her with this vulnerability.
He was pretty sure he could trust every single person in this room.
But only two of Aisha’s employees could join them.
Aisha made some rapid decisions, saying, “Raim. Clavog. Are you ready?”
The previously-fighting men were very ready.
Erick opened a [Gate] to the side of the room. Instead of sky or land or water appearing beyond the ring of lightning, it was a world of iridescent white, where a floating platform of white stone held a fountain burbling in the center, and a fractionally-sized Yggdrasil grew in the distance. A gentle breeze flowed out from the Gate Space and the elemental condenser, which had been reset to its lowest possible setting, began to chime and echo with the sound of Benevolence. Elemental Benevolence began to gather on the collection plate like growing bundles of sparks slowly settling down into a solid mass. Everyone in the room noticed this, of course, for the condenser chimed and tinkled as it worked.
But Erick was not leaving his Gate Space open and thus vulnerable to others while he wasn’t directly present. So he led the way into Benevolence and his people followed, some excited, some wary.
The Gate Space had changed a lot since its creation, but only in matters of size.
The floating white platform was the same columnar basalt design as before, except now it was a hundred meters across and some of the hexagonal stones had been replaced with dirt. Ferns and vines and sometimes small mushrooms grew from those loamy spaces, and especially where the fountain overflowed, pouring water into a channel in the platform, to flow out into space, to attach to Yggdrasil in the distance.
Yggdrasil looked like himself, but much smaller.
That fountain in the center was about twice as large as before. The outer rim was several meters in diameter, supporting a pool of water a good three meters deep. The stones that rose in the center supported a minor waterfall that fell into that pool, while a gentle pyre held in the air above that waterfall. That warm fiery space was shaped like the [Renew] rune, and the same runic design repeated everywhere inside the space, if one looked close enough.
Everyone was looking very closely at everything they could.
He was sure that soon enough, someone would recognize the spark of darkness that held in the very center of the land, inside the base of the waterfall. To Erick, it looked like an abyss and an open window into a certain dragon’s domain. That Dark dragon might actually gaze back, if he felt like it, but Erick didn’t look too closely, and Melemizargo was wherever he wanted to be, anyway.
Erick turned outward, to gaze upon the sky, away from Yggdrasil.
“Feels like the sky is about a kilometer away, or maybe only 850 meters.” Erick said, “It’s still growing at a steady rate. I have no idea why you can’t materialize more Benevolence outside.” And before Raim or Clavog actually spoke and suggested he leave a [Gate] open inside the condensing room, Erick added, “And I’m not leaving an opening to my Gate Space open when I’m not around. Speaking of which. Now that you are all inside—” With a flick of intent, Erick closed the opening. “—You can’t see the sky with the [Gate] open.”
His people briefly lost composure as he closed the [Gate], and they all realized that they were trapped in here, but then they all realized in their own, quick ways, that Erick wasn’t going to harm them. Kiri and Teressa recovered the quickest. Tasar and Aisha were a bit slower, but fast enough. Raim and Clavog didn’t recover until the sky started to shift. A gentle sound of distant thunder rumbled across the Gate Space as a flicker of brighter lightning created shadows upon the endless horizon.
Not a single person said a word as they all stared at the beyond.
Lightning flashed, and began to do more than that.
What appeared out of the heavens was exactly the same as the last time Erick had looked, only a few days ago. Lightning tangled upon itself and produced at least 47 dark spots that appeared in the distance. Some of those spots moved and joined with others, before coming back apart to become their own separate thing, so there might have been more than that, or maybe a few less. It had taken Erick a good hour of observation to actually understand that there were at least 47 problems on the horizon, so he doubted that anyone here was actually getting the full numerically-defined experience that he had, but that was fine.
Erick had no idea what any of the tangles actually meant, except for the one that was Bright Smile. Contrary to his first impression of that Carnage Dragon, Erick no longer believed that she was a danger to everyone, or at least not a conventional danger. It was quite realistic to assume that Bright Smile would go on to conquer the Fairy World and raise everyone under her ideals, and that could be a problem…
But that was a problem for later.
“As you can see,” Erick began explaining, “The web of tangles is all rather distant, and if you really look, you can see that almost all of them happen around the hundred year mark. It’s like a spider web that is deep at a specific layer, and not thick anywhere else. But if you look over there—” Erick pointed to a closer tangle. “—That one is about the only tangle that is closer than the hundred year wall. I’d estimate that one at 40 years out, but it’s moved deeper and shallower several times.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“None of these tangles are set. All of them move.
“In the beginning, Patriarch Xangu and the Red Dot Dragon were right up in front, almost at the very edge of the platform. Those were immediate problems. Those did not move; they just got closer and more solid, while that hundred year wall shifts every time I look at it.” Erick said, “I’m just guessing that that is a hundred years away, by the way, because that is the thing that makes the most sense. But it could be some other confluence. Whatever the case, it’s rather distant, and we’ll all still be around to fix it when it does happen.” Erick finished with, “So take a look around and do whatever you have to do for a while. Maybe half an hour?”
His people looked away from him, and focused on the sky.
Aisha stared, her eyes wide and flickering with iridescent magic of her own. Teressa stared at the sky, too, her eyes filled with grey light. Both of them were doing some sort of [Future Sight] or possibly [Witness]. Both of them were much more capable with prognostication than Erick, too, so maybe they would see more than he had seen.
Clavog and Raim began talking in small voices to each other, their previous anger completely forgotten as they tried to understand everything else around them. They spoke of the small [Renew] runes in the stone underfoot, and ringing the fountain, and in the paired mushrooms that grew from the soil like curving horns to barely touch at the tips, but with one tip enfolding the other. The mushrooms themselves grew in the shape of [Renew]. This land was weird. Much weirder than Ar’Cosmos.
And so, Erick let them explore.
Kiri and Tasar’s enthusiasm faded after a few minutes, their expressions both going softer, and more worrisome. Both of them looked a little lost.
Erick would get to Tasar soon enough, but first he went to Kiri, asking, “What’s up? What are you feeling?”
Kiri startled at Erick’s voice, and then she calmed. She was on the edge of a choice which had been building for a while now, and though she didn’t know how to best say it, she decided to simply get on with it. “I want to learn Spatial Magics.”
Erick’s heart had briefly pumped hard as he suddenly worried about what Kiri could possibly want, and why it had been such a difficulty for her to tell him until now, but Spatial Magics? That was a lot better than his worst possible fears!
Tasar had a different reaction, though. She whipped her head around to stare at Kiri, and then she glanced to Erick.
Erick was already smiling. “Of course—” And then he realized the depth of what Kiri was asking. “I mean... Spatial Magic is dangerous, but we’re past the initial deals I made with the Wayfarer’s Guild to not let anyone else know what they told me, and you have Sunny to brute force a lot of that experimentation.” Erick smiled again, saying, “I was expecting to eventually tell you all about all that stuff, so of course! Yes.”
“And then I want to walk the Worldly Path with you at the end of it.”
Tasar gasped.
Erick was only capable of uttering a rather unbalanced, “Uh?”
“Not for years more.” Kiri said, “But eventually.”
Erick recovered. “I mean. Yes— You know what that entails.”
“I can barely guess at everything that it entails...” Kiri turned to face the sky of lightning. “But I need to do more than I am—” She stopped speaking as she suddenly realized that they weren’t alone here in Erick’s Gate Space, and that they never were. Sheepishly, she whispered, “Talk later?”
Erick nodded. And then he prepared to hear Tasar’s naysaying.
Tasar stated, “I believe it would be a bad idea to allow anyone else to walk the Worldly Path at this moment in time.”
Erick turned to her. “I agree, and I am glad that Kiri has said that she would wait a few years. Hopefully this delay coincides with my own desire to not do too many things all at once.” Erick looked to Kiri.
Kiri nodded her head a little. “Yes. I can wait… But I want to do more than I am…” Her voice trailed off.
She left a lot unsaid. Like how she was bored, as Jane and Sitnakov had been bored. She was still young and powerful and needed to do something useful and Erick wasn’t giving her nearly enough to do, or spending nearly enough time teaching her lately. At the same time, she knew Erick had been busy, and that this was good work being done here, so she didn’t complain too loudly at all. In fact, this much right here was the most she had said on the subject in the last two months since they moved to Candlepoint.
“I want you to work with Mox to start expanding the lakeside to about a hundred kilometers out from the actual lake. I want to start bringing the real forest back to the crystal forest, and it’s time to start doing that.” Erick asked, “What do you say?”
Kiri stammered, “Ye— Yes! Of course!”
“Good. And also...” Erick turned back to Tasar. “Could you teach Kiri all there is to know of Spatial Magic? In return, I will tell you how to make a [Familiar] that has their own mana, and if you cannot do it on your own, I will do the same Wizardry I did for Kiri and Sizzi, for you.”
Tasar stood a bit straighter. “Uh.”
Kiri was barely able to hide her joy under a veneer of professionalism.
Tasar’s thoughts solidified. She looked at Erick, her black and green metal eyes narrowed slightly. “So it was Wizardry?”
“Unintentional, and, as I said before, you probably won’t like what actually happened there.” Erick shrugged. “It’s nothing untoward, but you, personally, will have a problem with it.”
“… I’ll do it.” Tasar said, “If you allow me to walk the full Worldly Path with Miss Flamecrash when she decides to actually walk it.” She looked to Kiri. “Which won’t be for at least ten years at the absolute earliest.”
Erick was fine with that. He looked to Kiri.
Kiri nodded vigorously, saying, “Absolutely!”
Erick smiled gently. “Good. This is good. You two can talk a bit. I’m going to see what those two are up to.”
Erick walked away, leaving Kiri and Tasar to talk with each other. It was awkward for them, but they would get over it soon enough.
Erick looked to Aisha, Teressa, Raim, and Clavog. The four of them had barely paid any attention at all to the discussion between Kiri, Tasar, and Erick; they were fully focused on the lightning sky, either watching it through eyes of magic, or in deep discussion with each other over what they were seeing.
Erick chose to approach the two men, since they were actually able to talk. “What are you two seeing?”
Raim included Erick in the conversation with Clavog, saying, “We were discussing the various reasons why Benevolence might not be showing up on Veird, and I am of the opinion that you are keeping it all here, under your control. Perhaps we are too close to the center.” He added, “It is well known that Hullbreaker’s base of operations was superbly hidden from elemental detection magics, but perhaps it wasn’t so much hidden, as it was under his direct control when he was nearby. The condensers are meant to work with mana, after all; not magic.”
A good theory. Erick was glad of Raim’s expertise. But...
Clavog didn’t agree. “While my colleague’s ideas have merit, Hullbreaker did not have a Gate Space. He did have tight control over his Element, though, for it was only the stuff outside of his control that we were able to pick up on. I feel the answer to our lack of Benevolence is less the need for you to loosen up, my king, but instead to spread around more life. Look at these mushrooms! Benevolence has a clear connection to plants, and so, if you used Benevolence to sprout a bunch of life out there, perhaps this would be the best way to start spreading the growth of this Element.” Clavog said, “Plant life creates mana, too, after all.”
Raim said, “Of course the real problem is that you’re still connected to the Script, and all your mana production goes to the Core.”
Clavog nodded a little, wanting to see what Erick had to say about that.
Erick said, “That’s not going to change.”
Raim and Clavog both looked like they had lost an opportunity.
Clavog recovered, saying, “Eh. Making Benevolence plants will spur the growth of more Benevolence faster than most other methods, even if that mana is scrubbed inside the Core and distributed to whoever casts Benevolence spells.”
Raim said, “We’re pretty sure that every person you [Reincarnation]ed produces something close to Benevolence. It’s slow growth, but it’s steady growth. Probably for the best. We can’t stress the condensers any more than we already are.”
Clavog stood straight with surprise as he looked down at Raim, saying, “I did not expect you to say what I’ve been saying all along.”
Raim scowled a little as he shook his head. “Sometimes you have good ideas. Not always. But sometimes.”
Clavog laughed a little, saying, “And sometimes you have good ideas too, or at least you do when you finally accept that my ideas are for the best! Maybe—”
For a brief, shining moment, everything had been fine.
And then lightning crashed out of the sky, pouring into the eyes of Teressa and Aisha, into their souls like a river becoming tiny streams full of absolute power. And it was not stopping. Erick felt frozen in time as he watched it happen, like he was witnessing something important. Neither Teressa or Aisha looked in pain. Neither looked in distress. But only a fraction of a second had passed—
“Oh!” Teressa exclaimed, lightning still flashing through her eyes and out of her body to strike the platform at her feet, ferns and mushrooms and grasses erupting all around her boots. She wasn’t in pain at all, though her voice was deep with realized power. “It’s a war past the opening of worlds.”
Lightning conducted through Aisha, impacting the platform and spreading life all around her, too, as she spoke, “A war inside the mana.”
Teressa said, “An opening of [Gate]s.”
“A clashing outside of control.”
“It starts with the death of a god. The change of a goddess. An elevation outside of control.” Teressa said, “And it has markers long before that larger war.”
Aisha pointed at a clump of black lightning. “That one is a child born in light and raised on tales of darkness, who wishes control but who has no right to the power he wields. We will find him born in the winter of 1516, 79 years from now, in a village in the lands of the new Empress of Nelboor. He will be one of the few marked by Benevolence, and he must be killed to prevent a war.”
Teressa pointed to a clump of shadows. “That one is a boy who will become a man who wields [Small Spark] and [Metalshape] like a Wizard. He will be born in the metropolis of Candlepoint in 35 years. He will bring forth a new era in runework and computerization, and he will show us the way into every New World henceforth. He must be raised right.”
Aisha pointed to a different clump of lightning. “A woman who is a child, born into a Fairy World and raised under the depredations of dragons, she assassinates hope in the year 1535, a year before Yggdrasil matures. Her assassination of three heads of households causes a chain reaction that envelopes this world and the next. She must be murdered after her husband and child are consumed by a dragon.”
Teressa turned her sight left, and said, “That one is a dragon queen who turns her Fairy World into a land of honor. She is already known, and she must be supported. Her wars will end many lives but it is better than the alternative.”
The two prognosticators spoke, and the tableau of lightning changed.
Instead of an airy, unknown thing, it became an orderly set of knowns.
Over fifteen shadowy spots simply evaporated. Several condensed, becoming smaller and more manageable. Erick recognized the one that was Bright Smile long before Teressa pointed that one out, but now Bright Smile’s tangle was solid. Now, Erick was pretty sure he knew which way that dragon’s Benevolence marker fell. Bright Smile was an asset, but also a weight; a force for immense change that would be both bloody, and organized.
Teressa had pointed out two hopes that must be nourished.
Aisha had pointed out two weights that must be cast into the abyss.
And that was it. The moment was done.
Lightning retreated back into the sky, pulling away from Teressa and Aisha, leaving them ragged. Blood wept from Teressa’s empty eye sockets and poured from holes in her skin. Spots of blackened metal sparked upon Aisha. Teressa collapsed, but Aisha froze like a rusted automaton no longer able to move on her own.
Erick immediately evacuated Teressa to Oceanside’s hospital.
Aisha went to Stratagold, under Tasar’s quick care.
- - - -
Fifteen minutes of panic.
Half an hour of waiting.
An hour more of tests and then finally, confirmation that Teressa was okay, for now.
She was not okay. She might not ever be okay. But she was stable. Through the walls, Erick could see her soul and he knew there had been a change. Lightning had ripped through her body, leaving her damaged all throughout, but even while the doctors were healing her, all of that damage was healing at an accelerated rate. It almost looked like the damage from a [Soul Burn], but even that spell wasn’t this easy to heal from. Whatever the case, Teressa was healing rapidly, on her own. All the doctors could do was to administer the healing magics that they could.
More slight relief came when Aisha was able to report, on her own, that she was already recovering, physically, though the Inquisition wanted to talk to him when next he was able. She would be recovering at Stratagold for a day, though, and she would not be able to return to duty for a few days. Erick told her that was fine, and that he wished her a speedy recovery.
Apparently, her [Future Sight] had been transformed into [Benevolent Sight], which…
Was a thing.
‘It says ‘See the benevolent future’,’ Aisha sent, ‘Not much more than that. Sorry I cannot tell you more for that is all I know, as well.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Aisha. Worry about yourself. Get well soon.’
A soft warmth flowed through their connection. ‘I wish Teressa a speedy recovery, too.’
Their connection ended, and Erick continued to watch over Teressa while the soul specialist doctor continued to apply spells to the large woman.
Teressa was much worse off than Aisha.
Kirginatharp showed up half an hour later and did his own magic on Teressa. It was an easy meeting, politically; Erick had gotten over much of his anxiety around Kirginatharp, and the Headmaster had done the same for the Wizard of Candlepoint. It had been a hard meeting, emotionally.
When he was done inspecting the damage, Kirginatharp walked into the waiting room with Erick, Poi, and Kiri. He said, “Her soul is rearranging into something else. I don’t feel that any of this damage is permanent at all, though what comes out of this, I know not. Aisha seems to have gained [Benevolence Sight]. I imagine Miss Rednail’s change will be much more severe.”
Erick breathed deep, feeling a wave of anxiety come and then go. He was already focused on Teressa with his mana sense. Kirginatharp’s theory might prove to be true. Teressa’s soul was already stabilized, and fully inside her body, though she was still unconscious.
Kirginatharp continued, “I understand that both of them saw the deep future inside your Gate Space.”
Though the severity of the topic was massive, Erick easily answered, “That is what appeared to happen. Aisha and Teressa both plucked at the web of problems in a hundred years and made some predictions. You want a report? You’ll have it soon enough. I find it difficult to believe some of the things they said, for they were precise— Well. As precise as you can be with prognostication.” Erick wasn’t worried about the uncertain future, though. “It’s all happening multiple decades from now, anyway.”
Kirginatharp was not relieved. “Since it seems to be tentatively proven that you can very accurately predict certain specific end-of-the-world scenarios, I would ask that you don’t let the minor danger of exposing others to your Benevolence deter you from continuing to do so.”
Rage came to Erick like a sudden storm—
He shut that down. Erick ignored the pain of the moment. He took a deep breath, and said, “Whatever happens next time will happen under much better preparation.”
Kirginatharp studied Erick for a moment, then nodded. “It is a shame we could not meet again under better circumstances. Now if you will excuse me, I believe the doctor is waking Miss Rednail up—”
Erick redirected his mana senses toward Teressa. She was waking up.
“—And I expect you wish to talk with her, and with the doctor. I would speak with you about more [Reincarnation]s for other suitable people, and your desired recompense, but it need not happen now.” Kirginatharp gave a small nod, and stepped away. “Good day, Erick.”
Erick instantly rushed into the room with Teressa. Poi and Kiri followed close behind. The doctor stood to the side, waiting to speak, but he held his tongue for the moment.
Groggily, Teressa looked around. Her emerald eyes were different, now; a bit more white than before. But she still had eyes. The doctors weren’t sure if they would be able to bring those back, but they had.
She spotted Erick right away, and chuckled, saying, “I fell down on the job, Boss. Sorry.”
Erick let the tears flow, saying, “Ahhh… Don’t worry about it, Teressa.” He grabbed her hand. She was a bit cold. “You gave me something of a scare, there.”
“I saw everything, Erick.” They were such small words, but as Teressa spoke, the world seemed to pause. “It’s all fuzzy now, but I saw it all, and it was wonderful.”
Erick just smiled. “We can talk about all that later.” He sighed. “Gods. You gave me quite a scare!”
“You already said that.” Teressa gripped Erick’s hand, and then let go. “I’m fine, Boss.” She looked around. “How long was I out? And we’re at Oceanside now?”
Poi said, “It’s been about four hours.”
“You were like a lightning conductor in there,” Kiri said, “Just pulling down a storm into your eyes. Can you still see?”
Teressa blinked a bit, then said, “Yeah. Look— I— You didn’t need to bring me all the way here.” She swung her feet off the bed and got up, saying, “I’m perfectly fine.”
Erick had a minor panic, but the doctor didn’t say anything, and Teressa was moving fine. He didn’t stop her.
Teressa twisted her torso left and right, then touched her nose with her left pointer finger, and then did the same with her right pointer finger. “All fine. Can’t keep a good Juggernaut down!” She asked the doctor, “I’m good, right?”
The presiding soul doctor took a step forward. “You are not fine. I have no idea of the nature of your particular ailment, but though your soul looks fine right now, your soul is in turmoil. It is settling into a new configuration. This is the sort of damage one sees when a person breaks a tier 9 spell, or when someone suffers from prolonged [Soul Burn] torture. Something has happened to you.” He included Erick as he spoke to Teressa, “I was one of the inspectors for Wizard Flatt’s [Reincarnation], and you, Miss Rednail, might want to get your affairs in order in case you need to go down that path. When your soul settles, you might not be able to naturally expel rads, or you might feel your entire perspective on a beloved hobby is gone, or you might have a new hobby that you never before considered. Or you might simply wake up in the middle of the night and decide that everyone around you needs to die. You could lose control of your Rage.”
Teressa did not look worried, and that worried everyone else.
The doctor noticed this too, but he simply continued, “Those are all outside possibilities considering the nature of your magical accident, or at least what I was allowed to know of it. Either way; bed rest till the settling is done, [Reincarnation] if the settling proves disastrous. You are lucky to still have a soul at all, considering what you looked like when you came in here. I venture to say that if your accident had happened to anyone with less Health or without Constitution, then they would have simply perished.” He said to Erick, “[Reincarnation] is a miracle. I hope you use it on more people. Miss Rednail is free to go at your convenience, but keep an eye on her. A very close eye. Good day.”
And then he walked out of the room. The doctor was incredibly uneasy around Erick, and so he had been perhaps curt, but he said everything that Erick needed to know.
Erick called out to him, “Thank you, doctor!” But the doctor kept walking. Erick kept the worry out of his voice as he happily turned back to Teressa, saying, “You heard the man! Bed rest for a week!”
Teressa scowled. “My soul looks fine. I’m looking at it right now.”
“It did not look fine.” Erick said, “You can take it easy for a while. Read a new book series, or something. That’s an order.”
Teressa laughed once, then sarcastically asked, “But who is going to cook? You haven’t cooked in two weeks.”
“I make breakfast sometimes! But you’re right. It’s past time I hired people to do that.” Erick said, “Or at least filled in some of the restaurants in the House. Got any suggestions?”
“Not really,” Kiri mumbled.
Teressa shrugged.
Poi instantly said, “A fish place.”
Erick smiled. “Sure— Oh! How about one of those world class Cooks from Songli?”
Teressa didn’t look too thrilled about that. But then she brightened. “If you can get one like that woman that worked for Tenebrae, then yes.”
“I remember that. She made a really good burger and strawberry milkshake.” Erick opened a [Gate] back to their home on Yggdrasil’s boughs, saying, “Maybe I could see if ‘Meat! Bread! Cheese!’ wants to open a place in the House? I miss them, too.”
“Sure! I could go for the—” Teressa paused as she blinked at the air. “Ah. Those are weird.” She pulled some blue boxes out of the air and handed them off.
Caution!
You have mutated one of your spells in an unknown and potentially dangerous way!
If this was unintentional please see a Registrar or pray to Rozeta to have this change undone. Such a repairing will cost 1 point, or the completion of a Quest.
If someone else did this to you without your consent, please see a Registrar or pray to Rozeta to have this change undone. Such a repairing might be free.
This is your changed spell:
Future Sight X, variable cast time, variable range, 25 mana
See the future.
This spell has become:
Benevolent Future Sight X, variable cast time, variable range, 25 mana + variable cost
See the benevolent future.
Teressa said, “I think this means my soul is now actually settled.”
Erick glanced at the boxes, and at Teressa’s soul. It did seem more solid right now. Indistinguishable from anyone else’s normal soul, actually. He said, “Aisha’s [Future Sight] was changed the same way. We didn’t know what was going to happen to you, though. We were worried… And you don’t seem to be worried at all?” Erick frowned, saying the words that he was a bit worried to actually say, “You’re… completely fine?”
Teressa shrugged and walked forward, through the [Gate] back home, a faint smile upon her lips as she said, “I’m not worried about anything, actually. Not even worried that my eyes are different. I saw the future, and I know it’ll turn out well.”
A disturbing proclamation?
Or perhaps something good happening for once?
The fact was, that Erick wasn’t ready to relax at all, but after one very large accident, Teressa’s usual solid demeanor had softened to a peace-time ease. That simply shouldn’t happen. He glanced at Kiri, and Poi; both of them were worried the same as him.
The three of them followed Teressa back to the house, and Erick closed the [Gate] behind them.
- - - -
“No, you’re right. I did not see absolutely everything,” Aisha said, finally conceding the point that they wanted to hear. She was currently confined to bed rest, sitting in the bowl of crystal that would be her home for the next day while the healers came and went. It was all so very annoying. They didn’t believe her Sight! So she strongly reiterated, “I only saw every single major danger’s threat vector, where those dangers will start, and what they will look like. I even saw which world will be the next world! It’ll be Yoril! And it will be completely different from Veird in every way we think of as ‘normal’.”
Silence stretched, for Aisha had said everything she could say, and multiple times, too.
Kromolok was not convinced.
Riivo wanted to believe, but he was skeptical.
Tasar was present, in order to provide a separate witness. She withheld her judgment.
Queen Strelkova and King Alfonin were split; they would listen to their advisors and make some decisions afterward.
No one else was present in this small meeting room, in a tower in the White Palace at the center of Stratagold.
Strelkova broke the silence, asking, “Could Erick have made her see these things?”
The Queen of Stratagold was not asking Aisha, so Aisha did not answer.
“Highly doubtful,” Kromolok said, “Erick would have needed to see them himself and he has no knowledge of all of what Aisha Sighted. No; Erick made his [Gate] with the idea of letting it solve apocalyptic threats on its own, and so, I think this was our first real interaction with the [Gate] itself.”
Riivo nodded. “I agree with this assessment.”
Kromolok nodded, and then continued, “The nature of the Sights seen, though, and the fact that the sky changed, means that Aisha only saw one possible—”
Aisha frowned.
Kromolok stressed, “You only saw one possible future, Aisha. There is no way that anything you saw was set in adamantium, especially with our stance on Wizards shifting, and Erick being Erick, and all the Crystal Forest transforming into livable land within 40 years. Chaos is everywhere, and though you peered through that Chaos, Chaos is still Chaos.”
Riivo shook his head a little, saying, “Benevolence could be gathering problematic situations into nodes of change. It could be solidifying parts of the future into known unknowns. Transforming Chaos into Order.”
Kromolok shook his head, saying, “Benevolence is not Fate, ordinating events and ensuring those outcomes happen. Benevolence could, however, be ordinating events and ensuring that other people can see them and stop them, for Erick has already proven able to change the futures he sees through Benevolence. He executed that dragon and that patriarch, and those dangers dissipated. Simply by viewing the Benevolence Sky, Aisha changed those futures, too. If there is a fundamental difference between Fate and Benevolence, it is this: Fate makes odd things cascade in monumental ways, Benevolence lets you see when odd things will happen in order to stop or change those things.” Kromolok added, “Adding to that, Riivo, you have chosen to ignore the other half of what was Witnessed. Aisha merely saw all the bad, but Teressa saw all the good.”
“Teressa saw the possible good,” Riivo said, “She could be mistaken as well, and we won’t get the chance to officially interrogate her at all.”
More silence.
Aisha saw the question Alfonin would ask long before he actually asked it. And then—
Alfonin asked, “Are we okay with a deterministic future?”
It was a large question. One Aisha was still thinking of even as the King of Stratagold spoke those words. It was a question the wrought had answered on behalf of Veird and all of existence many times already:
No.
Clearly, no.
The future was meant to be held in the hands of mortals, and not in the hands of the gods, or the mana, or Wizards, or anyone or anything else.
Fate was Sealed in a blue box, buried deep in the Script. It leaked sometimes, but it was still mostly Sealed, and that was for the good of all. There were two others that were fully Sealed and Banned, and even Aisha had no idea of what those Elements had been; only that they had existed, and now they were gone. Gone from the world, gone from memory, gone from the mana.
Aisha was lost, though, for history had taught her which response was the most correct. She knew, based on historical fact and lived history and example after example, that the correct answer to Alfonin’s question was ‘no’. And yet...
Aisha answered, “Yes.”
Kromolok, Tasar, Riivo, Alfonin, and Strelkova looked to her.
Aisha said, “Benevolence is not Fate. Benevolence specifically allows for us to see the problems coming and then stop them. That’s how Erick made it. That is how it works. That is how I know that it works, fully and completely. But even with that knowing, the future still shifts. I saw the sky transform as I named the tangles. Most vanished. Some moved. Some were so… So complicated that I don’t fully remember all of them, but there was one...
“I saw it so clearly, and yet still through a fog.” Aisha felt herself pull away from her body, as her eyes lit with lightning. She viewed the room from outside herself, and then she went further. “I saw the trajectory of Benevolence itself.
“All of Erick’s Gate Space was itself a tangle; the [Small Spark] that would set the entire machine of the universe into motion. A twisting ocean of lightning. Everything connected to everything else, and Benevolence as that connection. It was a dark and bright thing. Good and Evil. Weal and woe. It was the start of other Gate Spaces made in other Elements. It was the start of everything, and it was so…” Like a great pit opening up, with void expanding everywhere, Aisha spoke, “Death and destruction, everywhere. Worlds vanishing in blinks.” The void turned around, and Aisha spoke from on high, “Worlds carved out of nothing and life given room to grow. The return of evil gods and galactic threats.
“The return of the Old Cosmology, but in a new shape, and in a new body.
“A [Reincarnation].
“I was briefly a goddess at that moment, watching it all unfold from my tiny body, far, far in the past… In the present.” Aisha’s eyes faded as she came back to herself, to a room filled with wide-eyed royalty, and powers-that-be. “And then it was gone. I saw so much more than what I remember. If Teressa had anything near the same experience, then… Then…” Aisha felt light, as though all her weights were lifted, and all the world would be fine, if only she could do what needed to be done, when it needed to be done. “I’m sure she’s feeling the same thing I am right now. Like everything makes sense, and nothing can go too wrong.”
More silence.
Strelkova quietly said, “You did not respond like that in our first questioning.”
Aisha nodded. “Benevolence tangles as it wonts to provide the best possible outcome for all. I am okay with being a conduit for this sort of change.”
Kromolok asked, “And you’re okay with seeing worlds break under apocalypse after apocalypse?”
Aisha was not okay with that at all, but she said, “I can handle the Sight of it all, if you can help with prevention.”
More silence.
And then Kromolok answered, “Some determinism is fine.”
Rozeta stepped into the room. She looked happy. “I agree.”