Three days later, Erick had flooded the market for [Rejuvenation]s so much that the cost of that metamond dropped to 50,000 gold per creation. He had also fulfilled all of Iron Bandit’s initial orders, and broken in his workshop rather well.
It had been 14 hour days in the dungeon, and 8 hours outside, and it had been wonderful. It was perhaps the easiest political and managerial time Erick had ever had on Veird in recent years. Only his time in Spur had been this nice. This simple. This full of magical experimentation!
Erick hadn’t solved any of his problems at all. But it was fun!
Erick wanted to continue the trend. He also wanted to help people with the ridiculous amount of money he had made, though, so to that end, he called up Kinder and requested a meeting.
Kinder stood in his living room, saying, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your request for a meeting?”
“… Well that’s a weird way to speak, when all I wanted to do was ask if you’ve got time to talk.” Erick moved on, “I’ve got nearly 30 million gold here, and I want to use it to fund practically any good thing that anyone wants to do inside Utopia. Classrooms, buildings, art, whatever. I haven’t been to the arcanaeum because… Well I don’t want to.” Erick added, “But if they could use this money, then I’d give them some of it, too.”
Kinder looked at Erick for a moment—
And Erick realized. “Oh. You thought this was… For something important? Oh. Like very important.” Erick frowned. “What happened?”
“Nothing that someone who isn’t interested in demonic murders should care to involve themselves with.”
… Ah. That shit with the inquisitors the other day. That shit that Erick was specifically not getting involved in. Kinder hadn’t wanted Erick to be a vigilante, either. And now here he was talking about that stuff again.
Erick sighed. “There was another noble murder, and the inquisitors are blaming the Glittering Depths?”
“Incorrect. There was an attempted murder, and the inquisitors are blaming the Glittering Depths.”
“I told Greensoil I wasn’t going to get involved with that, but you want me involved? I thought you didn’t want me involved either.”
“It’s what I thought you were originally here for, and I did not imagine me asking you not to involve yourself would have actually worked at all, so I was prepared to let it happen and pick up the pieces afterward.” Kinder looked at Erick. “If I correctly understand the rumors about Benevolence dragons… I thought you were here outside of your own accord. Are you actually, truly here to play around with mana crystals? And for no other reason?”
“… Well I thought I was here to play with crystals. That was the goal.” Erick frowned. “Tell me where to get involved.”
“No. I need plausible deniability that will hold up under a truthstone, for my position in this world is rather tenuous. The previous Kinder was ousted from power because he failed to recognize all of the threats a dungeon master would face, and I will not end up like him… So now that I have done enough, for now, let us turn our attentions to your desire to donate.” Kinder said, “We’ll take all of the money you want to give us and see that it is spent wisely on the city.”
… Did Erick want to leave all of Kinder’s unsaid warnings uncommented?
Yes he did.
“I’d like to be able to give you half of it, and then have a full accounting for where the money went afterward. All the rest will likely be donated to Utopia when I leave, provided I know it will be used for the good of all and every individual.”
“Done.” Kinder bowed a little, then stepped back, saying, “Thank you for what you have done. The delvers are diving deeper than ever with all those healing bracelets. The Iron Bandits are going to celebrate passing floor 200, soon as they can beat the boss. You should see about joining them, shouldn’t you? … Or not. Not my place to pry.”
And then Kinder vanished into a swirl of darkness.
Erick stood in his living room for a moment longer, thinking.
Okay.
Well… Maybe he didn’t need to be ‘involved’, but he could certainly check out the town? See what was happening? Find out some stuff?
Sure.
As Erick raced outside of his house, he passed the [Illusionary Wall] that sat just inside his property. As he glanced back all he could see was the property wall, and a field of golden grains where his house lay. The illusions worked rather well!
Erick had not been able to make a self-casting magic out of mana crystals like he had hoped, so he had simply created an array of metirons and magics that he cast every time he went out, or came back home. It was honestly something of a hassle to do that every time, and to waste time attuning and unattuning metirons, and charging them with his mana, but it was nice to be able to hide his property from all out outside observers; to not worry about anyone accidentally seeing that he was a dragon except for the dungeon masters and otherwise.
He’d figure out auto-magical mana crystals eventually! It just hadn’t happened yet.
As he hurried down the road, invisibility-inducing wind swirling around his body as he stepped fast, Erick considered that he hadn’t actually been in town in the past three days. He hadn’t seen Rebecca, or anyone else, really, except for when they stuffed paperwork into his mailbox, outside his house, or when a trio of Iron Bandits came around to pick up all the new [Rejuvenation]s and other small spellworks Erick had made. He had been into town once, to drop off even more bracelets, but… Not much more than that.
Ah.
Oh. Shit. He had almost turned into a hermit, hadn’t he?
Well magic was awesome, and forging metal was fun. So it was no wonder he had lost himself to spellwork for a while. Quilatalap was rather busy these days, too, buried under his own pile of exciting new magics.
- - - -
Erick stepped into delver square, where the tower led to the dungeon entrance floor, and where hundreds of adventurers milled around between all the various shops at any one time. About fifty were outside at the moment, with more of them at the guildhall and many sitting out under the everpresent sun of the sixth floor. Nighttime didn’t exist here, which was doing all sorts of weird things to Erick’s rhythms, but he had been doing weird things to his rhythms for a while, and so the always-sun wasn’t that disturbing or different.
What was different was the fact that people didn’t crowd Erick, or run up to him, or treat him as anything more than just another guy… Admittedly, that was because Erick had already set up a system at the Iron Bandits magic shop for people to get into contact with him, and Erick wasn’t taking any weapon orders—
Two people saw him and smiled wide, as they held up their forearms and waved, showing off cerulean-jeweled bracelets. Erick smiled and gave them a nod. It was good to know people were using his spellwork down here.
Erick headed for the Iron Bandits’ magic shop, first.
The door jangled as Erick stepped through, into a land of display cases filled with silver metal and colored crystals. The two clerks working right now were Dowry and Chesti, which Erick was rather sure were not their real names, but a lot of people didn’t go by their real names down here, so these two women didn’t stand out too much with their odd names. Both were with customers right now—
Dowry noticed Erick right away, and profusely apologized to her customers and then she stood tall, and waved to Erick. “Ashes! Welcome! Is there something you need quick help with?”
The two people with Dowry looked like young delvers, without much silver on them. Could be they didn’t walk around with the real stuff, like Erick. Or they could be people from Utopia. They definitely recognized the name ‘Ashes’, though, and they stepped away, almost saying that they were going to move on—
But Erick said, “I’m just here to pick up the specialty orders, to see if there’s anything I want to do. It shouldn’t take long.”
Dowry happily stepped a few steps down the display case line, bent down, and retrieved a folder from behind the partition. “Right here!”
Erick took the folder and glanced at the insides. Some of what he read interested him, but he’d get to that later. “What sorts of stuff do you want more of in here? Anything in particular?”
Dowry said, “In the second half of that folder are some possible requests. Bracelets of [Hidden Wind] that allow each user to see each other are high on the list, and would be wonderful to let us push past 200. We’re experiencing some small problems with people not being able to see each other when they move, so it has caused some wipes, so if it is possible to fix that issue, we’d love to get that sort of stuff from you.” She delightfully added, “Otherwise, your Benedictions are proving themselves a hundred times over! Thank you, Ashes.”
Erick considered…
[Hidden Wind] was not an Illusion-based spell; not exactly. It was more subtle than that. It twisted shadows and light, and allowed a person to windstep. Certain spells could see through it like it was an illusion spell, though. Like [True Sight].
On Veird, the [True Sight] in the Script had a medium range, and only revealed stuff inside that medium range. If someone was a hundred meters away from a tunnel in a wall that was covered by an illusion, and they [True Sight]ed that area with the tunnel, they would not see that tunnel until they got closer. Of course, that was not the whole story with [True Sight], as the spell actually functioned inside one’s entire mana sensing range. If one’s mana sensing range was very long, or if one used special-made [True Sight] spells, like alongside a super long range [Witness], or from a Familiar like Ophiel, then [True Sight]’s range was pretty damned far.
But when there was no manasphere, then there was no [True Sight]. [True Sight] was not actually Scanning Magic, but it was darned close, and Scanning magic was incredibly intense in mana costs.
[True Sight] was theoretically possible here in the dungeon, but every dungeon floor of the Endless Depths had a 0% mana density, so [True Sight], which relied on having direct, manasphere-filled line-of-sight with a target, did not actually work, here in the Glittering Depths.
… How to fix this?
Erick’s eyebrows furrowed.
Could he ‘solve’ the range issues on [True Sight]? In a manaless environment?
At first glance, Erick would have to say ‘absolutely not’. [True Sight] didn’t work that way.
But if he solved that issue, then he could possibly extend the range of [True Sight] to infinity.
… But honestly, for this [Hidden Wind] team-combat issue, he could probably just add in a Benediction-class buff to improve the perception of everyone using [Hidden Wind], and let them each notice each other that way. Erick could already notice anyone inside a [Hidden Wind] or otherwise, and that was mostly due to his own buffed perception and the lingering effects of his Script-granted Perception. No need to go the complicated route of extending [True Sight] out to infinity.
… But what if he did make an infinite range [True Sight]? What could he see out there?
The only immediate thing that came to mind were the moons. One could already see worlds on those moons if they looked at the moons while Meditating. Maybe there were actual illusions to see up there, though; on Hell, and the Silver Star, and Celes.
Hmm.
And since one could see the ‘true nature’ of the afterlives on the moons while meditating… Was that a way to make [True Sight] work well at infinite range? Or were the meditation-induced sights on the moons already based on some sort of basic [True Sight]-esque action?
Or were those moon sights only visible due to the alteration of the self that occurred when meditating, which allowed one to see things that weren’t there, and the absence of a manasphere connecting the moons to Veird did not matter at all?
… Could he do a [Cascade Imaging] [True Sight]? Go the radio wave route?
“You know, it never even occurred to me to make a [Hidden Wind] that allowed easier visual communication between people who were also using [Hidden Wind].” Erick said, “The very idea of it… Has brought up a lot of questions for me, like how to make [True Sight] work without a manasphere, and the nature of how meditation allows us to gaze upon the moons to see the afterlives of demons and angels and the gentle peace between.”
Dowry was completely lost. “Uh! Good luck with that!”
The other woman working the counter, Chesti, was not as lost as Dowry, but she needed some guidance and all the customers in the store were now looking at Erick and Dowry. Chesti asked softly, “Not to pry, but how are [True Sight] and meditation related?”
Dowry admitted, “I have no idea how seeing our ancestors and [True Sight] are related, either.”
Erick grinned, and found himself perfectly fine with explaining, “Meditation leads to mana sensing which leads to [True Sight], but [True Sight] requires you to put yourself out there, which is why [True Sight] has a range of your mana sense range, while Meditation just changes yourself so that you can let the mana flow through you, to renew your well of power. [True Sight] is almost Scanning Magic; Meditation is ‘receptive magic’, though that isn’t a real thing and I just made it up, but the sentiment is true enough.” Erick said, “And so, making [True Sight] work inside the Glittering Depths, where there is no manasphere to put oneself into, is impossible.
“Maybe.
“I’ll have a solution to your viewing problem soon, but it likely won’t be what you’re expecting and there will be some rearrangement of [Hidden Wind] spellwork itself.” He looked at Dowry, “Or maybe a proper team will need to include some better body strengthening spellwork? So that they don’t need probably-impossible magics? How about a [Benediction of Sight]? You can just see people doing [Hidden Wind] if you do that.”
Dowry didn’t know a whole lot about how magic itself worked, but she had a great deal of personal experience dealing with the 10 metamond basic restrictions of the Glittering Depths. While other people were considering Erick’s words, Dowry easily said, “Including [Hidden Wind] in the top teams was already a stretch. There’s not a whole lot of space for people to make even more room in their power sets… So if you can make [Hidden Wind] better itself, that is the solution we would appreciate the most.”
Erick nodded. “Yeah. I figured. Okay. Well. I’ll think about all that.” He held up the folder of project ideas, adding, “Thanks!”
- - - -
Now that Erick thought about it for a little bit more…
Erick turned back around, and went back into the Iron Bandits’ magic shop.
Chesti spoke up first, “Uh! Welcome back, sir.”
“It occurs to me that someone probably already invented a way to [True Sight] through the manasphere, and if not here, then back on Veird, due to the Quiet War and people wanting to spy on Hell.” He asked, “Know anyone I should talk to about any of that?”
Chesti blinked a little, unsure what to—
Dowry spoke up, “There are rumors that Clarice has [True Sight] spellwork that works down here, but she’s a recluse who refuses to work with anyone. Maybe she’ll work with you, though?”
Chesti looked to Dowry, and said, “I don’t think those rumors are true.”
“Well they might be?” Dowry said. “I don’t know.”
Erick asked, “How does one fight illusions in the deeper parts of the Endless Delve, anyway? It just now occurs to me that illusions are probably exceedingly powerful down here.”
Chesti raised an eyebrow, while Dowry hummed a little.
And then Chesti said, “Rumors have it that Clarice got as strong as she did by having some sort of way to combat illusions. I don’t think it’s [True Sight], though. Most people mostly bumble around and try not to die to things lurking in the dark, and then fight back when things appear.”
Dowry spoke up, “Invisible wights are an undead enemy that appears on almost every undead floor past 60, and they’re just about the most deadly thing until you get to floor 130 and the invisible enemies start to appear on almost every floor. It’s actually a status that some enemies just have. Like. That’s what they are. [Invisible], all the time.”
“The best way to combat that is to be invisible yourself,” Chesti said, “And then never get caught.”
“That breaks down past 150, though,” Dowry countered. “Past that point the enemies start to be able to see through all forms of obfuscation magic. Bosses, for sure. Smaller enemies usually not, though, so [Hidden Wind] is still a very fantastic magic.”
Erick had a minor revelation at that small interaction.
Erick laughed. “It occurs to me that I’ve been making Bracelets of [Self Rejuvenation], but I have no idea what you guys actually go through down in the deeper floors. I should rectify that!”
Dowry spoke up, “You should come to the company house! You haven’t been yet, have you?”
“Just for a delivery… I think I will do that next, though. Thank you, Dowry. Chesti.”
Both women bowed.
Erick left and headed toward the Iron Bandits’ company house.
- - - -
The Iron Bandits were the largest delver company in the Glittering Depths, with 1 out of every 4 delvers being an Iron Bandit. Most of the former-NPCs of Utopia who wanted to delve were even a part of the Bandits. They had the largest apartment building just outside of town, while their company house inside town also reflected their power as a group, for it was almost a guildhouse all on its own, with a five story main structure and a good fifteen side structures all located in a very large city block.
The Iron Bandits compound sat three streets away from delver square, smack dab in the middle of one of the largest communities of Utopia, so there were people everywhere. Only a third of them looked to be Veirdians, while the rest looked like Utopians; Erick could tell based on the level of gear they had on. People who had made it through the five first floors of the dungeon all had really nice gear on, with special functions, from full suits of platemail to large chainlink cloaks and otherwise. The Utopians only had one or two pieces of gear.
The people at the doors recognized Erick right away, even though he had only been here once, and only to drop off an order of [Self Rejuvenation] bracelets. It had been an order of 50 bracelets though, and Erick saw that both front door guards now wore one of those bracelets.
Erick smiled as he asked them, “Those bracelets working well for you?”
“Yes sir!” said one of the guards. “Are you here to see anyone in particular? Let us find them for you, sir.”
Erick kept smiling. He called these people ‘guards’ in his mind, for that’s what they were, but perhaps ‘bouncer’ was more appropriate; they were here to ensure that only fellow Bandits got into the clubhouse. “I’m actually looking for whoever wants to tell me about what sorts of threats are faced down in the dungeon, to give me a better idea of what sorts of magics I could be focusing my creation efforts on.”
One guard looked to the other—
The first guy said, “I think Miss Fellhorn would want to be involved.”
The other guard said, “Can you come with me, sir? I’ll tell Miss Fellhorn you’re here, and we can… I’m not sure. Want to see the building? Have you been here much before?” He stepped inside the company house.
And Erick followed. The first guard bowed a little as Erick passed.
The second guard led Erick through a marble guildhouse, where people milled around on business of sorts, and tellers took requests from delvers or people looking to delve. The first room was the largest, and was practically a guildhouse on its own, with great big leaderboards and portraits of important people on those leaderboards.
The top delver team was, of course, plastered on the wall in big letters, because the top delver team of the entire dungeon was in the Iron Bandits. Their leader was a mountain of a man named Tom Dugout, while their team name was the ‘Iron Swords’, and though Erick didn’t recognize the names of most of the people on that deepest delving board, their caster was named Bob Woodvale, and Erick had seen that name elsewhere. Erick only had to look to the left to see that name in the expected second location.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Bob was on the Most Decorated board, along with Erick. Erick’s portrait was at the top of the Decoration board at 4200 Decoration, though. Bob was further down, at 3250. Clarice’s name wasn’t even on that board; just the words ‘Not Affiliated’, and her number of 3450.
“Would you like a tour?” repeated the second guard.
“I don’t really need that,” Erick said, “I’ll take a meeting office, though, and some paper and such for some note taking and ideas. I didn’t come into town today prepared to do this sort of meeting with Rebecca or any of this planning, but when I went to pick up your commission requests from the magic shop, I decided I needed to actually speak to delvers.” Erick chuckled. “So now I’m here.”
“Oh! Well then you might want to talk to the top team, too. Want me to inform— Oh! Mister Tom Dugout of the Iron Swords is in the building, at the gym. Miss Fellhorn would want to speak to you too, if you don’t mind that?” The man gestured to the hallway that led to the meeting rooms. “Four is open! I’ll find out where people are and have someone your way as soon as possible.”
Erick nodded. “That’ll do.”
Erick went to room four.
Not two minutes later, a very worried young woman came in, carrying papers and pens, saying she was there to deliver all of that and to take any refreshment requests. Erick thanked her, and said he’d take some of whatever she felt appropriate; he was probably going to be in the room a while. And then Erick started reading about commission requests.
The secretary returned quickly with tarts, small sandwiches, and various drinks both hot and cold, and set them to the side, before excusing herself again.
Erick munched on finger foods as he thought. And then he started writing down some preliminary ‘solutions’ to the problems posed by the commission requests. Most of them were simple complications of easily made items, where someone wanted a specific thing, but they didn’t know how to get there with the resources they had. In every case, those complications made the item creation a whole lot harder.
There was one simple request for a breastplate with as much Health as Erick can possibly stuff into it. The requester had managed to make armor with 15,000 Health, but they could go no higher.
For that one, Erick imagined they’d be happier to have a [Regenerating Health] breastplate, or similar, but maybe they’d want Health that was stronger. Perhaps some absolute damage reduction would do good there, and also work well for Erick, actually. He needed to recreate the absolute damage reduction he had on Veird, as a dragon, but which he had lost inside the Glittering Depths…
Lots of interesting little problems here!
- - - -
Rebecca knocked on the half-open door to the room as she pushed it open, smiling brightly as she said, “Welcome to the company house, Ashes. I was wondering if I needed to go out and invite you again.” She stepped into the room, and a man stepped in behind her. Rebecca said, “This is Tom Dugout, the center of our highest ranking delve team to speak with you, since we heard you want to know about what it’s like to delve deep in the depths? And about commissions?”
Tom was a brickhouse of a man. Here was another guy who Erick suspected might have been using a whole lot of [Alter Size] to be a lot bigger than a normal guy. He was still not nearly as big as even the smallest orcol. He certainly seemed smaller than he actually was, though, as he quietly gave a half bow, saying, “Sir.”
Erick stood, saying, “Hello, Tom. Nice to meet you. And yes, Rebecca. I’ve already got some ideas for these commissions, but I was suddenly aware that I have no idea what it’s like to delve in the deeper parts of this dungeon. Like this one:” He sat back down, and grabbed one of his workups for the over-15,000 Health commission. Nothing he had written down there would give anything away about himself, but he needed to know more before he went further. “Here we have a request for a breastplate with more than 15,000 Health. Which would be a better solution to this commission? Do you think some absolute damage reduction like the dragons have would work well, effectively making every point of Health go much, much further? Or some regenerating Health like in the Breastplate of [Regenerating Health]? Or maybe some general body buffing magic would work better? Health is a lot more than a simple shield before your body takes actual damage, after all. Or should I just try for as much Health as possible, as the commissioner originally requested?”
Tom took a moment to collect Erick’s barrage of questions—
But Rebecca got there first, near instantly asking, “You can make an absolute damage reduction magic?”
“Oh yes. It’s all about ethereal Force and overlaying the body. I’m sure I can do that.”
Rebecca said, “Then that’s the one we want.”
Erick smiled. “Do you know the commissioner?”
Tom looked at Rebecca. He wanted to know who the commissioner was, too.
Rebecca said, “They’re our number 4 team; the Easy Daggers.” And then she realized Tom was in the room, and rapidly added, “And I’m sure Tom would have another opinion to add. I would stick around too, if you would have me, Ashes. You are a delight and surprise whenever we talk, and I would talk more… But I don’t actually delve all that much. So I know I will not be as useful as Tom. And I’m currently busy. Some other time?”
“We’ll talk some other time, Rebecca. Thanks for bringing Tom.”
Rebecca gave a smirk, and a small bow, and then stepped away, saying, “Talk to you later, Ashes.”
“Please, Tom. Have a seat.” Erick sat down. “Do you have an opinion about this Health commission?”
Tom glanced backward, and then stuck his head out of the door a little, before he came back into the room and shut the door, whispering, “Miss Fellhorn is a very competent boss, but she is terrifying.”
Erick raised an eyebrow. “She is?”
And then Tom realized he was bad mouthing Rebecca. “Sorry. Please… Uh. It’s not my place to say. Could I start over again?”
“… I need to know if I should look out for myself here, Tom, and what you said was concerning.”
“I was being… Not truthful. Fellhorn is great. She’s just a very intense woman. Have you ever been around a person who can guess your every inner thought, and yet you knew they weren’t a mind mage? Fellhorn is like that. She’s been fantastic for the company and we wouldn’t be where we are without her, but she’s… I suppose I shouldn’t be prejudiced against her. It’s just terrifying how she could probably kick me out of this company, even though I’m a founder.” Tom furrowed his brows. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be speaking of her like that. She’s a good person, trying her best. We all are.”
“... Fair enough. I appreciate the warnings, though,” Erick said, moving on.
Tom nodded, quietly thankful that Erick let the conversation move on, and then he moved on, too. “The absolute damage reduction would be best… I think. I heard about it a few times and some enemies have it, but… Never had the option to use it myself. I’m not sure how that stuff works exactly.” He glanced at the door to the side of the room.
Erick saw the moment where Tom felt it odd that Rebecca had known about absolute damage reduction well enough to instantly ask for that, because yes; Erick’s absolute damage reduction option was the best option.
Erick explained, “Absolute damage reduction works simple on Veird; it prevents around 100 to 250 damage from every single attack. This comes into effect before things like [Defend]… You’re from Veird, aren’t you? Or are you native?”
“I’m from Veird, though I’m glad I don’t live there anymore.”
Tom said that with such easy conviction that it caused Erick to smile.
“You’re, what, 45? You know how it was before the Wizard, right? It’s not that bad out there these days, is it?”
“I was poor as shit out there and couldn’t do shit for magic, even though I was great at swords and shields. Good enough to almost become a Paladin of Atunir, too, but…” Tom moved on, “Now that I got other people making magic for me I’m getting pretty far in life.” Tom fell silent. He had briefly been outgoing there, but he was nervous about this meeting, and he knew his mouth was running away from him.
“… Well it’s certainly nice for me to share my spellwork with others, directly. I’ve got a good knack for this stuff, though I’m not so great with the martial stuff. You’re probably great at that, though, being on the top delve team.”
Tom gained a true smile. “You’re selling yourself short, Ashes. Top of the Decoration board and you ain’t been here a month! I’m glad you came in. Miss Fellhorn said we weren’t allowed to approach you on our own…” Tom dispelled whatever thoughts he had about Rebecca, and said, “I got lots of information about fighting, and lots of desires and reasons for all those desires. Wanna hear?”
“Yes, I do want to hear. Please speak upon an average set of monsters, the ‘bosses’ of the main floors, and whatever challenges you’re facing that must be overcome with spellwork— Ah! And I understand you’re on floor 200… Haven’t passed it while everyone else was looking elsewhere, have you?”
Tom smiled, and said, “We haven’t passed it yet; you’re one of the Bandits now, and you’re a part of our endless delve success, too!” And then he got a concerned look. “Uhh… You do feel like a part of the company, right? If you don’t then I need to fix that. Usually we go out drinking and partying and whoring with the new guys. It’s great fun if you want to come?”
Erick chuckled at Tom’s complete earnestness. “No thanks. I have a boyfriend out on Veird. I’m just here in Utopia to play around with metamonds and magic.”
“Oh okay! That’s great, too. If you change your mind I can bother you again some other day. We’re always going whoring and drinking; ain’t nothing better in life, if you ask me.”
Erick gently shook his head, unable to remove the small grin from his face.
Tom leaned forward, happily saying, “So! Monsters! There’s all sorts of shit down there in the deeper parts, and sometimes we have to reroll the floor if it proves to be too tough, or if we’ve tripped over some traps that cannot be smashed. Like there are floors that get flooded and we’re swimming under spiked ceilings, while decay eels try to bite our asses, and Bob desperately needs to switch out some of his utility gear to [Waterbreathing] blessing us. It’s tough to hold my breath for over 10 minutes while fighting and of course Walter’s lightning magic ain’t no good anymore. But we get it done, minimal injury, and then the water turns to acid. And that’s when we all realized it was acid the whole time, and all the Health in our gear is gone! So I’m there, my dick burning off just like everyone else’s —save for Irene, cause she ain’t got one— and everything’s getting hard to see, and...”
Erick recognized several things about Tom, as the muscular man spoke. He wasn’t book smart, and he didn’t know much about the creation of magic, but he was a good fighter, who cared deeply for his people, and who took care of his people as best he could. He had a Bracelet of [Hidden Wind] and a bunch of other high-end gear, all made for him by his teammate Bob, who was second highest on the Most Decorated list before Erick bumped him down to third. Erick kinda wondered why Bob wasn’t making more gear for everyone, and he even asked that.
Bob wasn’t an archmage, according to Tom, but he was from Songli, and he had almost become a Singer before he was kicked out for failing to pass the Singer tests for 5 years in a row. Singing magic didn’t work so well down here, but Bob was very good inside a mana chamber if he had some metamonds to start with. That was quite different from Erick, who was able to mana alter his mana into whatever he wanted.
Erick definitely had to speak to Bob after hearing he was a would-be Singer, though.
Tom smiled at that. “Bob’d love to see you! He’s always busy with his kids, though, so he ain’t never here.” He laughed. “We went whoring to this bordello like we always did, you see, and he met a girl, he fell in love with her, and they settled down and Atunir reversed her un-fecundity and now they got 3 kids! They’re all happy. Lot less time for delving, though.”
Erick grinned. “Good for them. So you were saying about the boss of floor 200?”
“RIGHT! So that bastard’s a right piece of work. I think it’s self-healing adamantium, but Bob and Irene thinks it’s holyite, but the time period is from the Old Cosmology, back when adamantium was white, right? RIGHT! So the monster is all white metal, but it can’t be holyite, and I know what it feels like to cleave holyite and this ain’t holyite, my guy…”
Erick listened for a while, all the while developing ideas for spellworks and writing down a few of those ideas, just so that any potential spies watching this meeting would see him taking those notes and think him less capable than he was. Erick’s mana senses were just as blocked on some people out there as their mana sense was blocked from viewing him, but they could still see his dent in the couch where he sat, and the papers in front of him. It wasn’t paranoia if people really were out to get you!
As Erick listened to Tom, he made some more plans for what he was going to do next. ‘Speak with Bob’ went high on the list, but he could do that some other day; it wasn’t necessary right now. He was certainly going to seek out Clarice Icewind, because, according to Tom, Clarice had solved the [True Sight] issue.
“Oh yeah. Don’t have the faintest idea of how she did it, but we partied with her years ago and she had the [True Sight] working even back then. Course she never told anyone about it, and now everyone believes you can’t do it. By Atunir’s tits, Bob hates Clarice for never sharing!” Tom laughed. “We tried to get her to come to the Bandits all the time, but you know how she is.”
“Huh.” Erick asked, “Ahh, no? I’m not sure how she is?”
“Well it’s the Riamite situation, ain’t it?— Oh! Sorry. You’re new! Right.” Tom shrugged. “We make a point to try and get everyone to join our Company, because we want to be the strongest and pull from the resources of everyone, to raise up everyone— You a Xoatist at all?”
“… Ah. No. Not really.”
“Eh! Rebecca is the biggest Xoatist around here, and most Riamites are. And we try to be inclusive, and so, we got Riamites in the Bandits… Means we have the most problems with the Riamites when they go bad, and the inquisitors have been up our asses ‘cause of that shit ever since then. Rebecca makes a point to take care of those guys, though, ever since they tried killing the dungeon masters and body snatched people from the inquisition in order to do some shit inside Greendale.” Tom frowned. “Damn red bastards. And we gave ‘em a chance, too! That’s what the Xoatists believe, right? But shit! We can’t all be Wizards, I guess; that dude’d probably have done better. Anyway; that’s why a lot of people are scared of Rebecca, but she’s good people… Anyway... were we talking about? Oh yeah! Clarice! She don’t want to be part of anything to do with the Riamites, so she won’t join with us, even though we tried to get her here every way we could think.”
That was a great deal of information.
Erick knew he needed to see Clarice now, and since it appeared that Tom would talk and talk and talk, Erick had to say, “Where is Clarice? I think I need to go have a talk with her about [True Sight].”
“Right! Sorry. I get off on tangents. Clarice has a house far, far down the main road. Bout ten times the distance to your house, I think? You’re pretty out there, but she’s all the way out there in the golden sea.” Tom rattled off, “There’s about five houses all on a small mountain belonging to a group home about halfway between Utopia and Clarice’s house. The road to Clarice’s house is hidden by some special magics so you won’t be able to see it, but you will be able to see the sign for it on the left; the dungeon won’t let her hide that for whatever reason.”
Erick nodded. “Thank you for your help today, Tom. I’ll see about getting you an absolute damage reduction metamond for you to try in your belt, but I’m gonna have to pass on remaking your armor for now; I don’t want to mess it up.”
“I got extras! I can send you a fullplate to enchant, if ya want?”
“... Ah. Well. Yes. I do want that, actually.”
Tom smiled friendly— And then he looked around at the empty food plates and drinks, which Erick had eaten about half of, while Tom had eaten the rest. He asked, “You got food at your place, right? We try to make sure people get food, but it doesn’t always happen like it should.”
Erick smiled. “I got food, Tom. Thank you.”
Tom was a good guy, as far as Erick could tell. Erick almost asked him why he had chosen to name his company ‘Iron Bandits’, which was still a terrible name, but that felt like an invasion, almost.
- - - -
As Erick exited the Iron Bandits company house, he considered his next move.
There were probably people on Veird who had solved the [True Sight]-through-a-vacuum conundrum, like Kirginatharp, and Erick would be asking him that later— Ah! But actually. Now that Erick was thinking about it, he wanted to bother Quilatalap with that question. Yes. That was a better idea.
Quilatalap probably needed a break from overwork!
He would go see Clarice Icewind first, though. She was here, and Quilatalap was far away.
- - - -
The run to Clarice’s property didn’t take too long.
Tom had been right; the place had been far, far away from Utopia, or anyone else living anywhere out here. All Erick could see in every direction was golden wheat under blue skies, the road leading back to Utopia, and one lonely street sign, sticking up from the side of that road.
There was no side path beyond that sign —just more golden grains— but the sign clearly read ‘Clarice Icewind’.
So Erick stepped into that wheat, and the wheat parted like an illusion disturbed, and soon, Erick was walking through not-wheat, like the golden sea was actually some sort of sea, rippling all around him—
Erick hit the edge of the path and hit actual golden wheat.
He angled back toward the hidden path. Finding his way through the illusions was not too difficult, and eventually he ran into an invisible wall, so he had definitely hit Clarice’s property. Erick’s land had the same sort of protections around it to keep out uninvited guests, and to prevent spying of all sorts. Erick’s mana sense did not end at the edge of the property, though. According to his senses, all the wheat he had walked through and all the wheat directly ahead was all real.
Erick had no idea how she had made such realistic illusions, but she had made them. Perhaps they were Elemental Mystical, or Fairy? Could be.
Erick knocked on the empty air.
And he waited.
And he knocked again, and again, and again. Slowly, methodically, patiently and hard. Knock, knock, knock—
The illusions shattered and a woman stood right in front of Erick, on the other side of the solid air. She wore a tunic and brown pants and had dirt on her gardening gloves, while rows of vegetables grew just inside the property line. Clarice’s house was almost exactly like Erick’s, but it had a whole bunch of nuances to it that showed someone had lived here for years and years, from the painted flowers curled around every door and window frame, to the stained glass in some windows, to the octahedral white stone mage tower that was also three stories tall. All the rest of the house was tan stone, just like Erick’s; the mage tower was clearly a secondary addition. Clarice seemed like she was doing okay for herself.
The woman herself looked to be about 35, with blonde hair done up in a bun, tan skin, and bright amber eyes.
She also looked rather furious.
“Fuck you! Go away, Ashes.”
Erick smiled, and said, “According to Atunir you’ve had a major [Witness] experience on the fifth floor. I’ve had a lot of my own experiences on the first and second floor, but Kinder asked me to skip to Utopia, so I missed out on what could have happened on the third, fourth, and fifth.”
For a moment, Clarice’s anger held out, and then she saw Erick’s sincerity, and her eyes went subtly wider. Anger mellowed. Doubt crept in. But she was interested in whatever Erick had to say.
Erick continued, “I couldn’t help but overhear that you stopped pushing deeper recently, though I admit I only heard all that through mana sense spying on everyone near me all the time, so maybe I got the story wrong.” Which was true, but it wasn’t like Erick was purposefully seeking out information on Clarice; she and her fall from first place was just the major topic around town. “Sorry if I killed your drive to delve, but since a bunch of other stuff came up recently, I decided to seek you out about that, to wish you further success, and to see if you’d be up for talking about other concerns of mine.”
Clarice had a scrambled expression, like she was unsure of everything right now, so she defaulted to her basic mode of operation, “I don’t like to talk to people in the Iron Bandits—” She figured herself out. She glared at Erick. “You’re not going to try and recruit me, are you?”
“Absolutely not. I only joined the Bandits because they were a quick way to get to experimenting with magic here in the Glittering Depths, and they were a quick way to help as many people as I could with [Rejuvenation]s. My real life is still out there on Veird, but I came here to play around with mana crystals, and then a bunch of stuff happened aside from that need. You can’t really make mana crystals at all on Veird, you know.”
Clarice took a metaphorical step back, and judged Erick again. “… You can’t really make mana crystals here in the Glittering Depths, either. The ones we make in the mana chambers are specifically internally infinite crystals, because that’s how the chambers make them. The ones you sometimes find down in the Endless Delve are actual mana crystals that expand outward just as much as they expand inward.”
Erick’s eyes went wide. “Do they actually automagically cast magic down there, too?!” He looked around her house. “Is that how you have these good illusions working even out there, in the path to your house?”
“… Please come in, Ashes. I’ll make some tea and we can talk for a while.”
Erick happily stepped onto Clarice’s property, saying, “I accept your invitation.”
Clarice frowned a little at Erick’s enthusiasm, and then she sighed, and walked toward her house, taking off her gardening gloves as she asked, “You've been to the arcanaeum in town yet?”
“There are a great many places I have not been to at all. I’ve only really been to the Bandits company house, and only twice. I actually felt I was at risk of becoming a hermit before I received an impetus today to pause my experiments and go meet other people, with you being one of those people.”
Clarice reached the door to her house, paused as she looked at Erick, and then she went inside.
Erick followed directly into the mudroom, which was another difference between Clarice’s house and his own. Erick kinda smiled at that space; he hadn’t been in a mudroom since his home back on Earth, all those years ago, where winter and snow required his house to have one, or else he and Jane would have tracked mud all over the place. There was no need for a mudroom on Veird, though, when [Cleanse] was right there in the Script.
“Shoes off.” Clarice hung up her gloves onto a hook by the door and then she kicked off her shoes. She gestured to some slippers by the door, saying, “You can use those,” as she stepped onto the clean floor of the house in her socks.
Erick did as requested, and then followed her into the house. “Are you from Songli?”
Songli had mudrooms. Not many other places did.
“I’m not answering that.” Clarice gestured to the dining table, saying, “Cookies if you want ‘em. They’re only a few days old. Sit down. I’ll be back with tea.”
Erick smirked as he sat down.
Clarice disappeared into the kitchen, and since the manasphere of her property was around 65% by Erick’s estimates, she did actually disappear; she was still right there, making tea. Or at least that’s what she looked to be doing, because the tea pot was moving, and some water and tea leaves were getting put in the proper places. Erick could mana sense the property now that he was inside, but Clarice had some obscuring magics on her person, just like Erick.
“So where do you want to start?” Clarice asked from the kitchen.
“How about with how you’re planning to murder me just because I came here to talk to you about your [Witness] experiences in the dungeon?”
Silence.
Erick could mana sense what Clarice wanted him to mana sense. He heard what Clarice wanted him to hear. But he recognized what was going on long before he got to this point.
As expected, but in an unexpected way, Clarice came out of her kitchen carrying what Erick would succinctly describe as a crystalline affront to geometry. Floating crystals made of displaced space hovered around a silver bar in her right hand, like she had stuck her hand into a kaleidoscopic part of reality and made it hers. All the rest of her was covered in silver armor, with a long cape. Erick hadn’t seen her put any of that on, nor had he seen it in the manasphere, or in the kitchen, but here she was primed for killing him.
Clarice calmly stated, “There are two ways this could go. You tell me of your experiences on the first and second floor. Or you die, and get sent back to the entrance floor, without any of your gear, which I will destroy in the process of killing you. It will be physically painless, but the loss of your gear will happen. It will be a punishment for whatever scheme you’re trying to do here and now.”
Erick almost wanted to grin, to try and disarm this situation with levity and quiet calm, but he felt that any of his usual response to being threatened with not-death would not be well received. So Erick calmly said, “In my first vision on the first floor, I stood upon a guard tower and saw the horrors of Riam slowly encroach on my city of Iben, for the Emptying had caused the farms furthest from Iben to fail, and now the nearby farms were failing, too. I made the decision to go join the resistance, to try and fight back against Riam’s aggression through whatever political and smaller interference I could manage.
“What found me, instead, was a grand adjudicator of Riam, known as Fyuri Riamiteer, who killed my best friend, Markie, his wife, Sofie, and then she turned Markie into a cannibal before releasing him upon me. And then she started her true reign of terror on the Ramblewood Arcanaeum and University. She started with a massacre of students, and rapidly moved on to executions of professors and otherwise.
“She moved on to killing Iben next.
“By that time I had long ingratiated myself into her circle. For a decade I had been able to use the information I gathered at her side to find the Resistance and then hide them from her. I pretended to love for ten years, while she acted like she loved me, too, but both of us were acting, and for very different reasons. Fyuri was incapable of love. Completely incapable.
“All the while I plotted against her, building power, until finally things progressed too far, and I acted. She was going to call down red lightning to try and destroy the very land of Iben itself, to turn it into mana for Riam to consume.
“In the dungeon, she was the shadowcat boss monster at RAU. In the memory, she was something similar. In both dungeon and vision I killed her with a white-lightning guard’s mace, and then made sure she stayed dead.” Erick’s voice was trembling with quiet rage there at the end, as something deep within threatened to overwhelm if he let it. But he wasn’t going to let it. Erick continued, “Floor two was a hundred years later.
“In the dungeon I made a very good bolter. In the memory, I made a super weapon and dedicated each kill to whatever good god might listen, in hopes they would come to Insten to help us throw off Riam, and restore Insten to its former glory. I don’t know if anything came of that prayer written in silver metal, but I do know that in both memory and dungeon I almost single-handedly cleared the entire battlefield of the plains. Scout helped.”
Clarice stood by the doorway to the kitchen, silently listening and watching Erick as he spoke. Displaced kaleidoscopic crystals slowly rotated around her hand. Her eyes were hard in the slits of her silver helmet. Her breath was shallow. Small facts added up here and there for her, but the primary thing Erick saw was that she lost the will to kill him. She believed that Erick was telling the truth. As soon as Erick mentioned the shadowcat, and Iben, and ‘Ramblewood Arcanaeum and University’, and finally the weapon of the gods…
That staff had done it for her. Erick didn’t have it with him, but everyone had seen it, and that included Clarice. Like a revelation in a dream, she believed.
Erick finished his story. He waited.
Clarice stated, “Rebecca is the shadowcat from the first floor.”
It was a punch to the gut.
“Oh.”
“And you’re the Summoner,” Clarice said, with reverence.
“… What?”