Erick had no idea why it was called an ‘embassy’, since ‘embassy’ implied a place that allowed an above-the-board connection to a foreign power, and these ‘embassies’ were all from other kingdoms in the Greensoil Republic. Granted, the Republic was very large, and all the various kingdoms inside the Republic were sort-of like foreign powers, but not really. Not since the unification of the Republic hundreds of years ago, under the Viridian Throne. Candlepoint had a real embassy to the south, along with a bunch of other places, like Stratagold and Oceanside. That Odaali had an embassy as well… Just didn’t sit well with Erick.
It was a cultural thing, Erick supposed. A holdover from before the Republic was the Republic.
The Odaali Embassy in Greendale was a palatial, white-walled extravagance of a business-center-within-a-city, located northwest of the heart of Greendale, between a residential district filled with truly nice homes, and a business district filled with tall buildings and various eateries. The white walls of the embassy reminded Erick of the white walls of Odaali; those tall edifices of power that were one of the main reasons that it had been targeted by the Halls of the Dead for their daydropper experiment. The walls of the actual city had allowed the carbon dioxide buildup to rise to suddenly lethal levels, but those walls had been changed since then, to allow heavy atmosphere to slide out of the walls, to prevent suffocation by carbon dioxide bombing. All of the actual walled cities of Greensoil, the main kingdom cities, had been adjusted in the same ways.
The walls of this ‘embassy’ had vents in them, too, which were guarded by quite a lot of spellwork and hidden from direct sight, at the bottom of decorative pillar carvings and other decorative reliefs. Those vents were security issues that didn’t used to exist, but now they did, because the theoretical alternative was worse. No one was getting into the embassy through those holes in security, though, for those guarding spells were labeled as ‘lethal’ and protected by the node network.
The entire land of Greendale, from the overly-protected ‘embassies’ to the open streets and sewers and sky, was filled with invisible spellwork that kept all sorts of potential problems to a minimum. Without a Domain, being here was like being in Songli, where the Void Song kept magic to a minimum, and order above all.
Erick didn’t feel much of a strain for he had Domains of all kinds. Poi looked uncomfortable, though, but that was probably due more toward having to keep up his [Don’t Know Me] aura all this time. The ‘embassy’ and the streets were rather busy, with carts and carriages and lots of people rushing to and fro, all over the place. Poi had actually needed to walk behind Erick for a little while to avoid all the humans from running into him.
Because it was all humans here, this close to the city center.
Erick said, “We’ll drop the act inside as soon as we find someone to tell.”
Poi smiled a little. “Thank you.”
As Erick joined the traffic heading into the ‘embassy’, he said, “You were okay with trying the subterfuge-thing for a little while, with a caveat that we’d drop it if it proved necessary. But what part proved necessary?”
‘Everything,’ Poi sent.
Poi looked at the guards standing in the recess of the walls, on both sides of the gate. The guards wore white armor and had a professional look to them, but they mostly pretended to pay attention to the crowds; the spellwork people had to walk through to get into the ‘embassy’ would alert them if anything truly awful was getting through, like spells ready to be exploded as soon as they got inside. There were too many variables to exploit in such a system for any sort of generalized scan to be foolproof, and Erick and Poi were exploiting some of those vulnerabilities right now.
But just like they were noticed at the pub-carriage station, they were noticed here by the absence of a manasphere imprint. This was, unfortunately, necessary.
If Erick hadn’t been erasing his presence, then they would have been noticed for his Elemental Illusion-based [Illusionary Soul] [Personal Ward], that hid his core from anyone’s casual mana sense. The security here was almost as modern as the security over at Candlepoint, which was expected, because Candlepoint had exported a lot of its security measures to other nations, along with the node network and Gate Network. But what was different was that the security here was a great deal more hands-on.
They didn’t need to do that back in Candlepoint.
Back in Candlepoint, almost anything could be undone if it needed to be undone, because Erick could get personally involved, or, in a few cases, Quilatalap could do something. The Church of Phagar stepped in when necessary, too, and for everything else, they had Benevolence guiding the hands of the upper echelons of the guard, to ensure nothing bad happened in the first place. Some people called that tyranny, but the average person just got a normal life, without needing to worry about existential threats all the time.
All they had in Greensoil was actual tyranny; actual people on the ground, investigating every possible problem and keeping tabs on every possible person of power, at all times. Most of the time they tried to be nice about their tyranny, but things could always turn bad fast.
A woman guard in a professional dress stepped away from the side of the building inside the embassy, smiling professionally and motioning for Erick to come with her. She was calm and easygoing, for the moment, for there was a crowd, and no one wanted to make a scene.
Poi sent an entire information packet, because there wasn’t time enough to actually talk, ‘Their security is heightened for a lot of reasons. Some people are thinking about the Storm Prophecy over in Storm’s Edge as the reason for extra shifts, but no one in our current area knows exactly why they’ve been asked to go on high alert. Some think that something is going to happen in two days at Shadow’s Feast. Those inquisitors back at the station were on us like that because of Destiny’s direct actions, yes, but also because they’ve been waiting for something to happen, and they were expecting Quiet War events because there’s been a recent rash of demonic killings inside the city.’
Erick stepped toward the woman guard, outwardly projecting calm, but inside, he was not. He sent a quick message back to Poi, ‘Are you breaking Mind Mage information protocols?’
Poi sent another information packet between one step and the next, ‘Yes, because people have been tracking us in the sky and on the ground ever since we started asking around about Denutha Odaari. You stepped into something big here, Erick, and the only reason you haven’t been assaulted by an elite team is because I have been telling people that you’re cleared for duty from Candlepoint. We’re well past this incognito thing you wished to do. No one knows who you are right now, but I can’t stop them forever. Sorry about that; I know you wanted to be unseen.’
Erick hadn’t felt any menace coming from the guards he had noticed trailing them…
Ah.
This reminded Erick of a talk with Kirginatharp a while ago. To Kirginatharp, the world seemed even smaller these days than it usually did. You couldn’t go anywhere and just be someone new. That was a sentiment shared by many immortals the world over.
Erick finally got within a step of the woman guard with the polite smile—
She gestured to the side, toward a door into a building that was lightly [Ward]ed. “Could you join me inside for a small discussion, sir?”
Erick went right in, saying, “Sure thing.”
Poi slipped in behind Erick, doing his best not to be noticed until he needed to be noticed.
The woman paused for a moment at Erick’s easy acquiescence, her smile almost faltering, but then she perked up and followed Erick inside. Then she closed the door behind her. Erick walked down a short hallway, into a larger, very solid room, with a closed door leading off into the deeper parts of the embassy.
This room could be turned into a deathtrap if needed, but Erick wasn’t worried.
The woman acted unworried, too, as she pleasantly stepped into the room with Erick and shut the door behind her. There was a click. The woman said, “While it is legal to walk around purposefully disturbing the manasphere so that you cannot be [Witness]ed, it is a bad look for a foreigner. Especially one who asks around the courthouse about a known demon sympathizer. The only reason that you haven’t been detained before now is because you decided to walk right into our trap, and because the Mind Mages are telling us to leave you alone. But the Mind Mages are a foreign power, too. So why don’t you tell us who you are, and if we don’t like your answers, we’ll get some better answers out of you under some light jail time.”
Erick decided to say, “Apologies, miss. My visit here has gotten away from me in a way I did not expect.” Erick said, “I’m here from Candlepoint to see to it that Denutha Odaari gets her day in court, or gets executed, or gets transformed through [Reincarnation] and a [Blessing of Empathy], because Atunir has requested something to finally happen in that regard. She’s fine with whatever outcome, but she wants the outcome done, because she wants to close that Kill and Exterminate Quest she issued over a decade ago. That can be the public answer, if you wish it to be. I have a better answer for more private locations.”
The woman listened, her breath slowing down as the gravity of the situation took hold. This strange man standing before her didn’t appear to be a malcontent, and he had a truly good reason for being here, if his story was true. She wasn’t ready to believe just like that, though. To her credit, the woman did not balk, and she did not call Erick a liar right then and there, though he could tell she wanted to. Instead, she asked, “Do you have proof?”
“A lot, yes.” Erick said, “But I ask you: how big of an event do you want this to be? Candlepoint is willing to let this be quiet, or loud, depending on how much I reveal to you and yours.”
“… If you could remain here, please. Someone will be with you shortly.”
- - - -
Erick and Poi waited five minutes before someone showed.
The man wore white robes, and had a weasel on his shoulder. He seemed about as polite as the woman who had come before, as he laid out, “I hear you’re a liaison from Candlepoint, here about getting The Traitor’s court case up and running. If that is true, then you’re about to wake up a nightmare that we’ve been wishing to put into the grave for a long time, so we might be able to be friends. If that is a lie, then the best case scenario is we kick you out of Greendale rather violently. I’m Heron Bellwood; one of the archmages here at Odaali Embassy. You gotta appease me first before I can let you see anyone in charge.”
Erick nodded. “Shall you do the Privacy spellwork, or should I?”
“I’ll do that,” Heron said, and suddenly the room was cut off from the rest of the world. “Good enough?”
“Sure,” Erick said, transforming into the Apparent King, with his crown of black horns. Ophiel revealed himself on Erick’s shoulder, and Poi pulled back his Unknowing. For further proof, Erick put a small [Gate] in the air to the side of the room, that linked to the other side of the room. “Again, I apologize for coming into this situation like this. Apparently you can’t go traipsing around incognito in the heart of Greendale. Who knew!”
Heron’s eyes were wide as moons as he was suddenly unsure of his entire life. The weasel on his shoulder had a much more instinctual reaction; the little guy gave a tiny screech and then dashed into Heron’s robes, trying to hide.
Erick let the man have a moment.
Heron glanced at Poi, and then back to Erick. “… I’m not sure what to make of this, other than to say that… Uh. Yes. I suppose… It’s time for the Ambassador to hear of this— And then… Eventually others.”
“Cyril too, I suspect?” Erick asked. “I haven’t seen him in years. I didn’t know that Odaali was actually aiming for Denutha’s head, either, or else I would have approached this situation differently. Sorry about getting your security team so wound up. If there is some way for me to make it up to you, please let me know.”
Heron rapidly said, “No trouble! No trouble! Whatever you want to do is—” Heron felt he had a fantastic idea, so he offered, “If you want to keep this ‘Ashes’ persona, it might be a good thing.” He rapidly explained, “We want The Traitor to die, but we also want to know all of her reasons for becoming a traitor and aligning with the Halls of the Dead and with the Incani Menace, but the crown won’t allow us to get her into a courtroom so we can truly expose her evil to the world. We don’t want a summary execution, or for her to be hidden away for the rest of her life. We want justice… But if The Wizard gets involved then it’ll be a summary execution or… Whatever you wanted.” Heron added, “Actually. We would prefer that The Wizard wasn’t involved at all, but I’m not sure how to otherwise get anything moving on the Odaari case.”
Erick nodded, as he transformed back into Ashes. “I understand; you don’t want foreign powers acting inside your jurisdictions. This was also my reasoning for coming in disguise, until I got here, to this point.”
Heron was gradually becoming a nervous wreck as he began to truly realize that he was standing in the same room as the Apparent King. With a practiced sort of ease that was breaking as the moments ticked on, Heron said, “Yes, yes. Thank you for understanding— but of course you understand. That’s what they all say about you— Ah! I’m blabbering. Ah. I shouldn’t have said—” Heron shut himself up.
Sweat began to pour.
Erick calmly asked, “So who would I talk to about getting Denutha Odaari’s trial up and running?”
Heron blanked for a moment, the surreality of the situation finally getting to him. And then his anxiety passed. He was the archmage of the Odaali Embassy, and he knew how to talk to nobles, and so he did just that, but with some changes. “I can put in a word for you with command, back in Odaali proper. I assume that King Cyril Odaali will wish to speak with you personally. It might take some time to get all the paperwork lined up to issue another demand to the Viridian Throne to get that trial started, but you should speak to Odaali about this.” And then he bowed almost all the way to the floor, saying, “I will ensure that you have no more trouble as ‘Ashes Woodfield’ while you are here.”
Heron paused, halfway bowed, as he looked through the [Gate], and saw his own back.
Erick dismissed the [Gate]s hanging to the sides of the room, saying, “That’s acceptable.”
Heron snapped to attention then tried to relax as he dismissed the Privacy all around. He almost said something, but other people were watching from outside the space, and he wasn’t quite sure how to play this off without sounding compromised. Heron decided to say, “Looks like we need to kick this concern up the chain of command.”
And then he left as fast as he could, running right into the other guards who were watching now that the Privacy was down. Rapid [Telepathy] passed between them, with disbelief and distrust briefly flashing on the faces of the others, but as Heron sent to them, they started to believe whatever it was he was sending them. Erick wasn’t privy to those specific conversations for all the people here had necklaces on that obscured their throats with Privacy spellwork, to prevent spying on their words.
‘Well they’re going to be a while,’ Erick sent to Poi, ‘And I get the impression that you’re going to trigger that clause about leaving early.’
‘… I never really like lying, and this feels like lying to me. I will stick around, though, because when you go into that dungeon someone has to be ready to move in and tell you to come out in case of emergency. But I would rather not do this subterfuge at all; not when there’s the Storm Prophecy happening.’
‘House Benevolence is riled up more than I know, eh?’
‘Not more than you know, but more than you’re willing to personally placate.’ Poi sent, ‘22.5 million people are expected to need to move in the next 4 to 6 months, and House Benevolence is working overtime to try and figure out the nature of the Prophesied Storm.’
‘Ah… I’m sure we’ll figure it out.’
‘You already know what it will be; It’s Yggdrasil, and his unsealing. It has to be.’
Erick shook his head. ‘If that is the problem then the ‘storm’ would happen in a lot of places besides the Archipelago. Yggdrasil is planted on the far western end, at New Towery, but if he were the cause of the ‘storm’, then there would be similar ‘storms’ prophesied here at Candlepoint, and Stratagold, and elsewhere. The ‘storm’ is not Yggdrasil.’
‘… Hopefully.’
Now it was Erick’s turn to give Poi a Look. ‘I know you don’t like adventure a whole lot, and this land is rather tense and racist, and you don’t want to walk around Unnoticeable all the time. Plenty of reasons for you to not want to be here and I didn’t expect any of that, and that’s my fault. I expected us to walk up, and for me to talk to some people and reveal myself, and then for us to go off to the dungeon, and yes, that is happening… But I get it, Poi. I can have Ophiel wait outside the dungeon if you need to get me a message.’
Poi banished his tension as much as he could. ‘Nope. You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m staying. I might even join you on the first floor of the Gem Dungeon. And besides that, Odaali is a lot better than Greendale; it’ll be a lot better over there.’
Erick felt a bubble of mirth rising within. ‘Good. Glad to have you aboard.’ Erick turned his attention back to the guards mana sensing them through the walls, and to Heron, currently lambasting a pair of coworkers who looked —by their clothes— to be just as important as the archmage. ‘Looks like their argument is finally settling down.’
‘I’ll stay Unknowable until we get to Odaali.’
‘I like that better than [Don’t Know Me]. ‘Unknowable’.’
‘The skill has many names. Who’s to know which one is more correct?’
Erick chuckled at that—
And then he prepared to speak to whoever it was Heron was bringing with him, back to the room.
Events proceeded rather rapidly from there.
- - - -
“And you’re sure that this is only a request for Odaari to stand trial?” King Cyril of Odaali asked, for the second time.
Yetta Wheat, the Champion of Atunir asked, “It’s not about the Storm Prophecy?”
Erick said, “I even checked the Benevolent Sky five minutes ago, before I got here. The sky is clear; nothing is happening in Greensoil. There is no need to be worried about anything. This is why I came as ‘Ashes’; and not as myself. If something was truly wrong, then I would tell you.”
Yetta looked to Poi, asking, “Is that true?”
As Erick chuckled, taken aback by Yetta’s need to verify through multiple sources—
Poi easily said, “As far as we understand, Atunir wants the Kill and Exterminate Quest to be closed. However that happens is fine with her. I’ll be staying here to help with those needs, as the contact between Odaali and House Benevolence, and as a personal show of the force of this demand without Erick needing to be involved himself. Erick will be occupied elsewhere.”
Erick and Poi had decided that on their own not too long ago, and both of them were happy with that arrangement. Poi didn’t want to go die in the dungeon, and Erick didn’t want to see that happen. Erick was rather certain that he could protect himself from anything that a dungeon could throw at him, but he was less sure about protecting others.
“That is what Atunir has told me, too… I just needed to hear it from the Wizard on scene, too.” Yetta solidified her stance. “We will be glad to have you here, Poi; the kids love you.”
The four of them were in a Private space off to the side of Odaali Castle’s throne room. The sun was beginning to set over the high white walls of Kingdom Odaali outside, but there were no windows in this Private space to allow such a sight. It had taken Erick a little while to get to this meeting, and caused ‘Ashes’ true nature to be revealed to a few people in charge over at the Odaali Embassy in Greendale, but they had told Erick that they would keep his alternate persona in confidence. A lot more people knew about him visiting Odaali itself, however, because Erick was currently the Apparent King, and this was now an official meeting of nations.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The Viridian Throne would probably get involved later, but for now, this was simply House Benevolence interacting with Odaali.
Yetta and Cyril were both rather nervous and cautious at the beginning of this meeting, but Erick knew them both rather well, and he had even been a guest at their wedding, years ago. Cyril was no longer the crown prince, of blonde hair and pale, skinny features, who had been the Warder at Yetta’s side when they challenged Ar’Kendrithyst, to kill Shade Planter. He was thicker, for his current duties were much more political than of an adventuring nature. Yetta was still a strong woman of dark skin and heavy braids, who worked with swords and shields every day that she wasn’t harvesting fields. Her eyes were still filled with the same bright yellow flames of divine fire, too.
Erick knew both of them well. He had only really visited once before, to see Yetta’s twin children crawl across the floor, and eat a celebratory meal with their little family, as an honored guest, but he checked in on them with Ophiel every now and then. From what Erick could not help but mana sense, Yetta was again pregnant with twins.
Cyril sighed a little, and then laughed. “Then this is good news, yes?”
“As good of news as you being pregnant again, Yetta.” Erick said, “Congratulations.”
Cyril smiled brightly—
Yetta’s cheeks heated a little, and then she put on a frown and tried to be serious with Erick, “Atunir has always told me that she wants this Denutha problem solved, however it can be solved, but the Viridian Throne always runs us around, never giving proper respect to the lives that were lost in the Daydropper disaster. Why has she involved you, though? That was never part of her guidance to me.”
Erick said, “I want something from her, and she wants to help me, so she’s giving me some minor tasks, and this is one of them. The other one is to go into the Gem Dungeon and check out the place as a normal delver, to check out her ideas for a Second Script.” He looked to Poi. “We might be going into at least the first floor together, after I check out the place myself, but Poi will be staying here as a representative of House Benevolence, for the Odaari case.”
Poi nodded.
Yetta’s shoulders relaxed. “Ahh. I see.”
Cyril turned almost jubilant. “That’s perfect, then! I’ll file a formal grievance and you can sign that paperwork, and maybe in two weeks we can even have a court date. They’re not going to do anything until the Feast is over and the Triumph of Light is one big vacation for everyone, but after that...” He smiled, saying, “Now, with you pressuring them, they might actually do something.”
Erick was only really confused about one thing, about this whole process so far, and so he said, “Last time this came up, Greendale tried to curry favor with me by offering me Denutha’s head, but I turned them down, saying she should have her day in court and be done with it one way or another. I never checked up on that, and never had the inclination to revisit this issue at all. But if you two had needed help to make this happen, then you could have asked me.”
Cyril smiled a little, his voice tainted with the barest bit of sarcasm as he said, “The Viridian King expressly told us not to get you involved with Odaari, for according to Grand King Darundi Raivo, this whole Odaari situation was his to command and control, and all that nonsense. But since you came to us, that’s different.”
Yetta was eager to move the conversation along, since nothing was exploding and nothing was happening right now, so she said, “That’s all for the paper shapers to figure out now, and I’m hungry.” She asked Erick and Poi, “Have you two eaten yet? We were about to sit down to dinner.” She said to Erick, “And the kids would love for Ophiel to play with them. Ritta asked for a stuffed Ophiel doll last Triumph and she got several.”
Ophiel perked up on Erick’s shoulder, turning to him with all of his eyes. “I play?”
Erick chuckled. “Go find Ritta and Trudy. We’re staying for dinner.”
Ophiel zipped away—
And Cyril said, “Excellent! Not to get too far into business with the day already done, and my pregnant wife needing to eat, but I heard your apprentice, Kiri, is trying to get her family out of some debts here, or something to that effect? Do you wish for me to step in with that?”
“I’ll let Kiri know the option is open, but she’s trying not to rely on my political power right now.” Erick looked to Poi as he said, “Poi would be able to help with that, though?”
Poi nodded.
Erick repeated, “Poi can help with that.”
Yetta smiled as she looked upon Poi, her eyes turning slightly predatory in a distant, golden sort of way. “Now Poi. Have you found a woman to settle down with, yet? You might have a Wizard willing to [Reincarnation] you younger whenever you want, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect your duty to the future.”
Erick smirked; he had almost forgotten that Yetta was all about Field and Fertility back when she was pregnant the first time.
Poi just paled a little, humming noncommittal as his sapphire scales turned ever so slightly less shiny.
Yetta grinned as she said, “You’ll be here for a while. Maybe someone might catch your eyes?”
“Maybe I might join Erick on two floors of that Gem Dungeon.”
Cyril laughed, slapping Poi on the back, saying, “You might find someone you like here in Odaali!” And then he added, “Gods, it was probably awful being in Greendale, wasn’t it.”
Poi softly smiled. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Well maybe they’re better than I remember them being,” Cyril said, as the four of them walked toward the dining hall. “I have several non-human members of the court here at Odaali, and they all tell me horrible things about quite a few different nobles in Greendale. And I get told horrible things by those different nobles about my choice of courtiers all the time. It’s all kinda tense around here at the moment, but when is that ever not true. It’s probably part of why the Viridian King doesn’t want Odaali involved with its own justice against Odaari.”
Yetta grinned in a happy, vengeful sort of way, as she said, “But now that House Benevolence is involved, we’ll get our day in court, and so will Denutha.”
“She was my aunt, you know?” Cyril said, “And she helped to kill her own countrymen.”
Erick said, “Tell me about her; who she was before all that Daydropper and Halls of the Dead.”
Cyril breathed deep. As they entered the dining hall a nearby butler stepped out of the nearby kitchen space, into the room. Cyril looked to the man, and nodded. Soon, the butler was back in the kitchen and telling everyone there not to panic, but The Wizard was here for dinner. There was a little bit of a panic anyway, but soon enough, people came out of the kitchen carrying appetizers and drinks.
As Cyril sat down on his chair at the head of the table, a woman delivered him a drink at that exact moment. That server was a dragonkin maid of red scales and wearing a nice dress, and she delivered more drinks to everyone else at the table, quick and as professionally as she could.
Cyril began, “Aunt Denutha Odaari might have been my aunt, but mostly she was a branch family member who most people thought of as ‘aunty’. She was always a difficult sort of woman who liked her plants more than she liked her family, which was much more than she liked the Odaalis, probably because she was always something of a revolutionary… Which is what she ended up doing. Hard to say where her hatred started, but I remember several incidents involving plants and my father’s penchant for Fire Magics, which resulted in her desire to make her ‘babies’ fireproof...” His voice trailed away as he looked to the door to the private wing of the castle. “And that might be enough of that discussion for now, if you would oblige.”
Erick nodded—
The door to the private spaces of the castle opened and the laughter of children and Ophiel filled the air, along with a pair of nannies that looked upon their charges with calm joy. The rambunctious kids rapidly joined the dinner table, and they didn’t care at all about Erick or Poi or even their mom and dad, but they did want Ophiel to try out all the desserts that the Cooks knew how to make.
Soon, purpleberry and blueberry and red tarts exploded under Ophiel’s feathery ministrations, as everyone else ate, and little Ritta and Trudy laughed like only 3 year old children could.
- - - -
In the morning, Erick was introduced to a woman who would become the side of the prosecution against Denutha Odaari; an older human woman by the name of Ilulia Whitefield who was the royal barrister for many of Odaali’s legal cases. Ilulia spoke at length about the problems of Denutha Odaari, and of the issues with getting a court date. Eventually Erick signed some paperwork, solidifying his stance that he would be weighing in on this matter, and that he wanted a court date for Denutha Odaari to discuss her side of the events that led to the Daydropper, and the deaths of a third of Odaali’s people over a decade ago.
At the end of the meeting, Ilulia said, “It was a pleasure to speak with you, Wizard Flatt, but now I must disappoint both of us, for though Wizards work fast, the law is slow with this sort of thing. In addition, the Feast is happening tomorrow night and then there’s the Triumph, so we won’t get anywhere for at least 15 days, unless the Viridian King decides to weigh in himself, and he might, but we believe he will [Force Wall] us as much as he can. I ask you to allow the law to work as it is wont.”
Erick chuckled. “I won’t be doing any vigilantism here on Greensoil.”
Relieved, Ilulia turned a fraction toward Poi, saying, “Then if it is alright with you, I would begin some of the smaller workings with Mister Fulisade here. We’ve got lots to do.”
Poi nodded.
Erick asked Poi, “If you’re sure you don’t want to do the dungeon?”
Poi happily said, “I’m not dying today, thank you. Maybe when you’ve had your fun and you know how it works, I might join you.” He looked to Ilulia, asking, “Where shall we begin?”
Erick said, “Then if you will excuse me, I have a dungeon to check.”
Ilulia bowed deeply. Poi waved.
And Erick stepped through a [Gate], into Benevolence Itself.
After a quick change of clothes and a check on the sky (nothing new) he stepped through another [Gate], onto a Platform hovering over Greensoil, about 2900 kilometers northeast-east from Odaali. An invisible Ophiel floated close behind, and then took his place on ‘Ashes’s’ shoulder.
Erick asked him, “Do you want to be visible? You can if you can take another form.”
Ophiel wiggled his body; a ‘no’. He liked himself, and he could be invisible for a lot longer than this. He was very good at hiding.
Erick patted him, and then flew the Platform forward.
- - - -
The Gem Dungeon was one of the less popular Grand Dungeons of the world, but it was still a Grand Dungeon, and was still treated as such.
It was a compound, foremost, and like the Pit down in Storm’s Edge it had some monster roads leading to it, but this was Greensoil, and the only monsters coming into the dungeon from the outside were random slimes, or gremlins, or monsterized cats. The Gem Dungeon didn’t need massive monster roads to funnel any monsters. The Gem Dungeon just left some disguised side entrances open all across the nearby land, and monsters generally fell into those holes, trying to follow the mana.
The Gem Dungeon itself was one central building that looked like a diamond-encrusted castle, surrounded by several satellite structures. A pub-carriage rail line on the southern side of the compound led all the way past the farmlands of Greendale, past the horizon to the south, where anyone who wanted to could step through the Dungeon Guildhouse inside Greendale and come out over here. It was a bit of a trip, but it wasn’t a bad trip at all. Most people came in that way every morning, but a lot of out-of-towners took their own transport, flying into the place on Platforms, to land at the Platform Station on the north east side of the main building.
One just had to stay above the Denials blanketing the land until you got to the dungeon itself, or else you might find yourself falling out of the sky.
As the wind whipped past Erick’s face, he stood firm on his Platform, guiding the soft-blue colored Force construct onto the public landing zone. A small team of delvers left on their own Platform, but aside from them, it was just Erick and a sleepy dungeon guide. The guide was currently slumped over his desk, where the hallway to the main structure joined with the Platform Station that Erick had just landed on.
At Erick’s approach the man woke up.
Erick tried being personable, “They must work you hard around here.”
The man blinked a few times. “Ah. Who are—” He rapidly turned professional, as if he realized he shouldn’t be sleeping in public, or something to that effect. “Welcome to the Gem Dungeon. How can I help you?” And then he looked ‘Ashes’ over, and came back unsure of everything. “Are you here to delve?”
“I am here to delve,” Erick responded, though he certainly didn’t look it.
No weapons and no armor, but his clothes were of a rather solid make.
The guide nodded, almost forlornly. “Ahh… You know you won’t get rich here, right? Literally none of the things that work in there will work out here. The Gem Dungeon, also known as the Glittering Depths, and Ironcrystal, is a Second Script dungeon. It’s about learning new magics under a different Script; not about making people rich.”
“I’m aware of some of that, but not much of it at all. None of the specifics. I’m still interested.”
The guide perked up. “Well okay then. Uhh…” He got up off his chair, saying, “I’m Guide Blacksmith. A pleasure to meet you…?”
“Ashes Woodfield.”
“Mister Woodfield, then.” Blacksmith walked down the hallway, saying, “Follow me, please.”
Erick followed.
Blacksmith led him out of the Platform Station, to the grounds surrounding the main building.
The central structure of the Gem Dungeon was a collection of iron-colored crystal, shaped mostly into a castle. A lot of people were sitting or standing around, talking to each other about monsters and about spellwork, and though Erick wanted to listen, every little thing he heard made him want to go inside the Gem Dungeon even more.
He let Blacksmith say what he wanted to say, though. Hearing someone actually explain what was going on would be better than listening to everyone talk about random things.
Blacksmith began, “The main entrance is right in there, and you’ll find delvers all over the place. We’ve got leaderboards inside for depth distance and more besides, which you’ll get to see when you go in there, but before you go, I’m a dungeon guide—” He tapped the pin affixed to his coat; it was a Dungeon Guild badge, but nicer. Not every place had guides, but this place did. “—And I can almost fulfill the role of a Registrar of the Script; not in function, but in information. Any questions you have. Any concerns about how anything works. I can tell you all of that. But I know most people don’t like to listen to lengthy explanations so I’ll leave it for you to come to me or any of my fellows if you wish to know how everything works. We’re a lot more open than Registrars of Rozeta, here at the Gem Dungeon.”
Erick was already looking around the entire compound, and every question he had he could mostly figure out from context and from the small words spoken about this or that, here or there. The largest clue that this place was not normal, was that almost everyone here wore ‘ironcrystal’ bracelets, or necklaces, or belts, and all of them had differently-colored gems socketed into those ironcrystal items.
The richer-looking teams with their nice clothes and their healthy faces, and their small laughs over beer or breakfast, served at a cafeteria to the side, even had staffs of ironcrystal, or wands. One particularly impressive woman who was probably a Juggernaut based on her muscles had a full chainmail tunic made of ironcrystal that shimmered upon her upper body like a layer of diamonds in the sun. A large shield held on her back, with three large hunks of red crystal embedded in the front, like someone had temporarily made the crystal malleable and then shoved the red crystals into it.
Ashes asked the Guide, “A small overview would be good, if you could.”
Blacksmith smiled. “I would love to.” And then he held up his hand, and began to lightshape images as he spoke. The first image was of an ironcrystal hunk. “This stuff you see all around us is a simple blend of iron and carbon, and this is what happens to it when it is exposed to the real world. It’s called ‘ironcrystal’ over here. But.” The ironcrystal image shifted, like an ice cube melting in zero gravity, the lump of crystal turned into a sphere of shimmering iron. “But this is its true form, inside the dungeon. It’s called meta-iron, but most people call it metiron. This is what you use to interface with spellwork. Find a hunk inside and shape it into a form you want, like a wand or a bracelet, depending on the spellwork you want to put inside, and then use. Armor makes for good defensive constructions, weapons make for good offensive constructions.
“The metiron will naturally absorb mana from you at rather fixed rates depending on your own production of mana, which is augmented by however much natural mana you produce while inside the dungeon. We don’t have access to your Script self, though, so we estimate your production through trials inside, which is how you increase your mana production to then stick that mana into the metirons.
“To use that mana, you have to find or make a spell into an item called a meta-diamond, and then you have to stick the meta-diamond, which most people call metamonds, into the metiron, and then you can use that spell, based upon the amount of mana that the metiron is able to absorb into itself.
“The bigger the hunk of metiron, the larger your well.
“Now to get spells themselves, you have to complete challenges inside the dungeon, and you can either be rewarded with a very basic metamond, based on how you completed the challenge, or you can make your own spells using a spell creation tome. Most people opt for the tomes, because the tomes teach you how to cast higher-powered magic, and if you can manage to cast that spell yourself in one of the specialty rooms provided to you by the tome itself, then you can make that spell into a spell gem, and take it with you outside of the creation room.
“Now that might seem complicated and different from spellwork here on Veird, but it’s really not.
“This whole thing is designed to show people how to make magic in low-mana environments; other worlds, or even space itself.
“In places like that, you would have a mana-collector and then a spellwork-activator, which is already sort of what happens with the Script right now. But this would be a way to do all of that without the Script. Even the part where people make their own magic in the tome-room would be possible outside of the Script, on new worlds where mana was thin; all you’d need to do was make a room of antirhine and dense metals or other sorts of specialty spellwork to up the concentration of mana inside that room, and then you could use that denser magic to manually make new ‘spell gems’.
“We prefer the official term of ‘metamonds’, though. Not spell gems.
“This whole system is basically a simplified form of the Script, by a great deal.” Blacksmith closed his hand and ended the minor lightshow, finishing with, “And we look forward to what spells you make and what you can do in a world with a whole lot less magic than the one we have here.”
Erick was enthralled.
With a slight excitement in his voice, Erick asked, “Where did the idea for this dungeon come from? It’s a lot different than the other ones I’ve visited.”
Blacksmith lit with calm joy. “That’s a good question! No one ever asks the good questions. It actually came from when The Wizard fought Anarchy and went out into space beyond the Script. Some guys got to thinking about how to work with that horror show of no-mana he told the world about, and now we’re here.”
Erick nodded slowly. He had been afraid of that, but also very excited. “So it’s going to be like stepping into space?”
That supreme emptiness. The Lack of Everything. The pain.
Erick shuddered.
Blacksmith noticed. “Not as bad as I heard from the story. Cores don’t explode inside the Gem Dungeon from the mana pressure. Otherwise all the monsters would die! Can’t have that.”
… Erick hadn’t ‘exploded’ back then, but it had been a near thing. Sometimes stories got exaggerated in the retelling, so he let it slide. Besides, he wasn’t The Wizard right now. He was simply ‘Ashes’. It wouldn’t make sense to truly ask all the suddenly important questions he had about how this place worked at all. He loved magic, and he had to know the Rules of this place, and how it all worked entirely, and if it really was a good approximation of what a no-mana world would actually be like, but he wasn’t going to go break his cover this soon, and definitely not by asking too-perfect of questions.
Yggdrasil needed to exist in 0-mana space when he got older, or at least his seeds did—
Erick had a lot of sudden questions.
The place was safe enough to delve on the regular, as evident by all the people standing around, getting ready for the day of delving, and by those constantly walking in and out of the main building. And it had monsters inside. So Erick wasn’t worried about his own core fracturing.
All Erick really wanted to do right now was to get inside that dungeon, and see what Atunir and some humans of Greensoil thought of, when they thought of 0-mana space.
Rather more like low-mana, though. Not in a true vacuum.
Erick asked Blacksmith, “Any words of advice before I head inside?”
“Lots! You’re a great listener.” Blacksmith happily said, “But I won’t hold you up with too much of an explanation. The dungeon is free to delve for anyone who shows up, as all Grand Dungeons need to be to retain that designation. There are lines and such in other places, but not here, and that’s because nothing that you do inside the Glittering Depths translates out here at all. All the ironcrystal you see on the people out here? All of that is just to show off how far they’ve gotten inside, and nothing more, since it’s useless iron-diamond when outside of the dungeon. Only the stuff that you actually earn will turn back into metiron inside the dungeon, though, so don’t think about breaking off a bit of the castle to make your first levels go faster. There’s a reason we have a castle made of the stuff, and that’s to deter would-be thieves by showing them how little it's all worth.
“And that’s another thing: Some of the people here have fake ironcrystal, trying to make themselves look stronger than they are. But it's a small community and those sorts of lies get called out fast.
“The metiron and metamonds you get inside the dungeon are yours and yours alone. No one can take them from you and use them themselves, but they can be destroyed, so take care of them.
“And that’s it! —Well. I could talk a lot longer, but you should try out a delve. All of the spells you have active will remain that way, but they’ll erode when you get deeper, and everything except the meta-casting system is blocked once you step into the real parts of the dungeon. The first floor is more like a tutorial, where everything feels mostly normal; there’s not even a mana-pressure gradient on the first floor. There is an actual tutorial, though, if you feel like it. From there, it’s as deep as you want to go, with Script-assistance failing completely at floor 5, where the real learning ‘outside of the Script’ truly starts.” Blacksmith added, “And that’s where the gold starts growing, too. Everything a person needs to survive exists on the upper floors, of course, but actual money is to be made on floor 5 and below.”
“… I thought you couldn’t make a living here?”
With a happy voice, Blacksmith said, “Most people barely make it past the second floor. I have a good feeling that you might actually go all the way, though, for that thought came to me in a dream right before you appeared, and I trust those sorts of visions.”
Erick paused. “… A vision, eh?”
“Atunir smiles upon the Glittering Depths, delver, and we are ever in her service, even in our dreams.” Blacksmith gave one final, “Good luck!” and then he walked back toward the tunnel leading toward the Platform Station.
“Well then...” Erick said to himself, as he turned and gazed upon the grey crystal castle, rising up from the bare stone ground. For a long moment he stared at the grey crystal edifice. And then he put one foot in front of the other. As he neared the open gates to the main courtyard and spied the black portal hovering, unprotected in the center of the castle, Erick felt as if he was floating. “Time to learn some magic ‘outside of the Script’, eh? That could be fun.”
Actually, now that Erick had heard about what the Gem Dungeon was truly trying to accomplish…
Magic outside of the Script, like what he had supposedly done to drag him and Jane here to Veird, eh?
Well that sort of experimentation sounded… Really awesome.