A woman guarded by two soldiers stood on the other side of the door, with Poi and Burhendurur standing a few meters away, down the hall.
Darundi rose from his couch, saying, “Odaari has finally arrived, so this is where I depart. It was good to see you, Erick.”
Erick rose from his seat, saying, “It was good to see you again, Darundi.”
The door opened.
Darundi departed first.
Denutha Odaari was bowing inside the hallway as the Viridian King Raivo walked past, and then she rose and stepped into the room. She bowed again, saying, “Greetings, Wizard Flatt.”
She rose. She looked like Cyril had described; white hair in a braided bun, older, perhaps 65, and with a soft vivacity to her crystal-green gaze. She was fully present in the moment, for she knew she would be asked to speak her mind.
Odaari had been waiting for some moment like this for over a decade.
Her guards rapidly cleared away the parts of the refreshments that Erick and Darundi had eaten, and reorganized all of it to Erick’s side of the table. Denutha wasn’t to have any of it? Well sure. She was technically a prisoner and wanted for crimes against the world for her part in the creation of the Daydropper, so some denial of luxury was to be expected; or at least that’s the read Erick got off of her, as he watched her stand there.
For a moment, that’s all Erick did. Poi and Burhendurur walked into the room and stood behind Erick’s couch while Erick studied Odaari…
She looked on edge, but also at peace.
Erick gestured to the other couch, and said, “Please have a seat, Miss Odaari.”
Denutha Odaari complied. Her guards took up a position to Odaari’s side of the room, their backs to the wall.
Erick said, “I would like to hear your story, please. All that you feel is relevant.”
Odaari breathed in, something loosening in her shoulders and in her heart, as she began, “I first met with the Halls of the Dead 43 years ago, in my mid 20s, a little over two decades after the civil wars of the Lori Dukedom and Opalice Empire fractured the incani lands into the Wasteland Kingdoms...”
The Viridian King had been right; Odaari’s story was the story of a disenfranchised noble, who went to other powers to get ahead in life. She had started small with the Halls of the Dead, and transitioned to real horrors once it became apparent exactly how beneficial such an arrangement was for her. With the Halls of the Dead, Odaari had killed a cousin who was in the process of ousting her from an inheritance, and then it slowly spiraled from there over the next few decades.
The Daydropper was her lowest point, and something she had been tinkering around with for years, until Particle Magic came along and she finally understood what she hadn’t understood before.
And now, Odaari was honestly sorry for what she had done, and what she had made. She made a few excuses, from how her branch family of the Odaali’s and how the Odaali’s themselves had treated her, disdaining her Plant Magic as useless, but she recognized how the Wasteland and the Halls of the Dead had taken advantage of that weakness of her character.
Erick let her spill her heart out.
And at the end of it, he said, “Thank you for your history, Odaari.” He continued, “Atunir has made it clear to me that if you were to accept a [Reincarnation] and Blessing, that she would consider your crime absolved. She’s fine with you dying, too. She just wants the Kill and Exterminate Quest done.” As Odaari had a tumultuous moment of horror, relief, and acceptance at all of that, Erick continued, “But Odaali wants to hear your full story, as well, and so I have sided with them to allow you to speak your full story to them, unencumbered by the Viridian Throne, or House Benevolence. But what do you want to happen?”
The guards behind Odaari looked a bit harder at Odaari, and at Erick, as he asked that question.
Odaari softly said, “I want justice to be done, however it needs to be done.”
“… Hmm.” Erick sat back on his couch. “What are you up to nowadays, Odaari?”
Odaari took a moment to orient to the new question, then she said, “Teaching theoretical Plant Magic along with possible applications of various medical and alchemical plants to various fields of expertise… Improved gardening techniques and such.”
Erick said, “If you ask for help, I will give it to you. I will take you out of here.”
“… I wish for justice, not for assistance in running from justice.”
“Okay then.” Erick stood. “It was good to finally meet you.”
Odaari rose and then bowed.
Erick left with Poi and Burhendurur through a [Gate].
- - - -
In a private room, Erick asked, “She was holding back a lot.”
“Yes, she was,” said Poi, the Mind Mage with all those rules to follow.
That raised Erick’s eyebrows.
Burhendurur eyed Poi too, then he said, “She had been practicing that story for a decade. Perhaps even she believes it, now.”
“She does not believe her lies,” said Poi. “She has a story, but not one she can share at this time.”
Erick and Burhendurur both raised eyebrows at Poi
Erick asked, “… You’re breaking protocol again.”
“Not fully, but there are a great many things that I feel need to be discussed, because…” Poi’s facade broke and his anger came out of hiding, as he said, “Because that place is a decaypool of… Of a lot.”
Burhendurur chuckled. “They were giving me the evil eye the whole time, too! Ah. It was almost fun, in a certain way.” He pulled out a folder filled with paper from his robes, saying, “I read the report. Have you gotten any more information out of the day? I think Greendale has an extremism problem, and someone tried to solve it with murder and now it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”
Poi sarcastically said, “Historically, if the murder of nobility has not solved your nobility problem, then you aren’t doing enough of it.”
Erick stared at Poi as Burhendurur handed him the report.
Poi shrugged.
Erick chuckled nervously.
Burhendurur smiled wide, saying, “Where is Kiri? She would love to hear this.”
“Let’s not do that,” Erick instantly said. “Kiri is doing really well about not wanting to murder all the humans in charge over there, and I’d like to keep it that way.” He rapidly looked through the report, speed reading as fast as he could. In a short while Erick had caught up to Burhendurur and Poi. “So I’m pretty sure that Greensoil is going to go through a period of extremism, like you say, Burhendurur, but I’m rather sure it’s not going to happen right now. Maybe not for months. This looks like a long-term setup, not a short term gain. Looks like Greensoil knew exactly who the killers would be targeting once the killing started, too, so they posted Inquisitors near those people, but still the killers got through. I’m going to send you a packet of my own information, Poi. Please pull it apart.”
Poi nodded.
Erick sent a packet with all the information of his time spent with Darundi, and a whole bunch of other stuff besides, mostly to do with the dungeon. And then Poi helped Burhendurur pick apart that same packet in a more organized manner.
Burhendurur sighed. “Greensoil has always had an extremism problem, but it’s rare that this problem reaches the higher levels of governance like it has here, in these demonic murders. This whole Riamite problem… That’s new… This is a lot, Erick. We could speak on it for hours, and we should, but the main problem I’m having right now is that you are going back in there, as Ashes. Darundi will therefore know where you are. He might be planning on doing something to you in the Glittering Depths— Yes yes. A [Far Bolt] if there ever was one. But perhaps the real danger is that he knows that whenever Ashes is in existence, that the Crystal Forest is without its Wizard. This is a large security threat.”
Erick said, “Yes. But counterpoint: I’m there, investigating his mess for him, which is wildly out of character for them, which means that they intend to do a run around on Candlepoint, or that they truly do want help, but they don’t want the Wizard to be visibly helping them.”
Poi said, “It’s both.”
Erick suddenly sighed a little, as Burhendurur’s eyebrows went up. Erick said, “Then you both are formally charged with ensuring nothing happens here at home, while I go and stop some Riamites taking over a small part of Greensoil and eventually summoning an Evil God.”
“Holy gods, Erick,” Burhendurur whispered, “Is that really what the Riamites want?”
“The fictional ones. The real ones want other things… And this might not even be them doing this.”
Burhendurur frowned a little as he thought.
Poi had a similar expression.
Erick moved on, “As for where I will start my investigation: The only things that stick out to me are the first death of Lady Waters, and how that one Farfield girl had been spared. I’m going to go check those out with that Wess Clover Inquisitor, and then I’m going back into the Glittering Depths to poke around for answers down there… Or maybe I’ll go the other way around. Not sure right now.”
Poi spoke up, “Before you do that, a few days out here would be prudent. Kiri is backed up rather fiercely and she won’t tell you about it.”
“… Oh. Well yes. Of course I’ll help her.”
Burhendurur added, “There are also a few small things in Enforcement which could use your oversight, and I wish to have a much larger talk with you about these meta-artifacts, and how they can translate into this world.”
Erick smiled at that. “They’re really quite interesting, aren’t they! The ability to continually cast a buffing spell is perhaps their most interesting aspect, and the fact that they don’t seem to wear out through mana expenditure.”
For a moment, Erick flicked on the full extent of his All-Seeing Eye, and witnessed the true forms of his closest friend, and also his Overseer of Enforcement. He had already used the amulet to look at both of them before, but now they were alone.
Poi was a tangle of sky-blue tendrils, wrapped around his brain and all throughout his body, and also extending out of his head like they always did. He was a Mind Mage, through and through.
Burhendurur was a Death Dragon in incani form, looking like a brilliant white skeleton with exposed organs and muscle meat made of blackened and grey scales.
All around Erick, in every shadow, stood the Darkness of Melemizargo, though his white eyes weren’t fully present until Erick looked their way. Erick turned his attentions to other things, though, simply because he wasn’t calling on Melemizargo right now at all, and there were other things to look at anyway, like his throne, sitting over there on that white dais.
That throne was a crown of light in simple white stone, its metaphysical impression much, much larger than it had any right to be, and yet, when Erick looked again, that metaphysical impression was no bigger than the throne itself, which was just a simple stone throne sized for a 2 meter tall person.
The edge of the throne room was a relief of trees layered with colored lights, but metaphysically, it was a forest stretching deep into white mist, into Benevolence itself, and scattered with a thousand holes into other parts of the world. All of that was a magic far beyond what this room actually was, for all the Gate Network was outside, in the Gate District, but this room was probably a good enough symbol of the power of the Gate Network itself that it appeared that way, anyway.
Erick relaxed his control over the All-Seeing Eye and took the trinket off his neck, saying, “Try this out, will you, Poi?”
“Nope,” Poi said, as he looked to Burhendurur. “Give it to him.”
Erick smiled a little, as Burhendurur’s eyes went wide. Erick handed it to him, saying, “Then you try it.”
Burhendurur caught the necklace as it fell into his hand, the dark scaled thing glittering a little white at his touch. For a moment, Burhendurur just looked at it, then he began, “I read about the meta-artifacts in the report. But how do you actually—”
Burhendurur’s eyes went wide as he gasped—
And then he let go of the necklace, stepping away fast.
The necklace just hovered there, surprising everyone, looking like a white light surrounded by eyelids, and a slowly jangling weightless chain.
“That’s it?” Erick asked, “Care to try again, Burhendurur?”
“No thank you. You look too much like Melemizargo when I use that thing... But I can see how it would be useful. I applaud your newfound power, my king.” Burhendurur collected himself, then said, “But to get back to important current events. I really do need you to do a few things for the kingdom…”
Erick put the necklace back on, and listened for a while.
And then he got to work.
- - - -
“Kiri,” Erick said after dinner, after pulling the young woman aside. “You need to hire more people.”
Erick had spent roughly 130 hours in the last three days sorting smaller problems that had backed up here and there, and then he spent the last hour deciding how he actually wanted to help Kiri, going forward. Right now the two of them were in Erick’s office near his throne room, and both of them were sitting beside the window in an informal way. Erick had tried to make this as informal as possible.
But Kiri had gone almost rigid with worry as soon as Erick had asked her to sit down with him. Sunny, her couatl-shaped [Familiar], turned to a darker shade of green and wrapped protectively around Kiri’s neck, all the while glaring at Erick. Kiri had thought that she was going to be demoted, or removed from power, or any number of horrible things, but Erick was never going to do that; he had nixed that possibility rather fast when he planned for this meeting.
Kiri took Erick’s proclamation rather well, all things considered.
“… I will hire more people?” Kiri said, though it was more like a question. Rapidly, she added, “I didn’t think I could?”
“You’re the Gatemaster now, Kiri, and I am not going to take that away from you. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear that you could hire and train as many people as you want.” Erick said, “Pull from the departments you need to pull from. Make the Office of the Overseer of Gate Expansion as big as you need it to be and rely on Burhendurur and Mox more. Enforcement could have cleared up several of the Crystal Forest, new city problems I had to deal with, while the Office of the Exterior could have done more for the social problems I had to clear up, but the simple fact is that this job is untenable for anyone without Time Magic. It is unfair for you, and other people, to have to work this job without that ability. And so, we adjust.”
Kiri went still, taking the reprimand with aplomb. “Heard and Understood.”
Erick smiled. “Good. Here.” Erick handed her the All-Seeing Eye, saying, “I’m going to make another one of these for myself, but you can have this one. It will help you see through every falsehood out there, but be warned; looking too deep can lead to the depths looking back.”
Kiri eyed the black amulet, with its glowing white sphere in the center. And then she took it into her claws, saying, “Well that’s rather ominous—” She stopped suddenly, her eyes going wide, her heart racing hard as her talons gripped the amulet hard. If she would have had skin, perhaps she would have been sweating, but she had emerald scales. A tiny splash of white fire escaped Kiri’s mouth as she stared at Erick, and whispered, “Oh.”
Erick smiled. “I’m proud of you for not throwing it away. It’s an All-Seeing Eye I made in the Glittering Depths. It should let you see through anything and everything, and it should also let you [True Sight] across mana voids, like the one in space. I didn’t see anything out there when I used it… Except for the moons, I suppose. They look a whole lot better with actual buildings on them and people walking around— Angels, demons, and lesser parishioners, anyway. Meditation-based viewing of those lands is less than nothing compared to using this trinket.”
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Kiri’s eyes were wide long before Erick started explaining, as she looked at all of him, seeing whatever the amulet was showing her. From how Burhendurur had reacted, it was probably scary, but Erick hadn’t been able to use it to view himself, so Erick wasn’t exactly sure what she was seeing. As Erick finished his explanation, Kiri’s eyes calmed, and she looked down at the amulet in her hands. “How did you make it? Exactly?”
“I learned a whole lot in that Gem Dungeon, but that thing is basically Wizardry, so it’s hard to explain how I made it. We can talk about all that after we talk about a reorganization of the Office of Gate Expansion.”
Kiri thrust her hand forward, saying, “I can’t take this now. Not until you’ve made a second one.”
Erick raised an eyebrow. He didn’t argue, though. He just took back the amulet, thinking that this was probably easier for him, anyway. He would have needed to evade the Inquisitors and sneak into the dungeon in order to get back to his house down there, to make another one of these, and the Inquisitors were already down there in the dungeon anyway, so that sneaking likely would have been impossible. The All-Seeing Eye had only been in his possession for less than a handful of real-time days, but already it felt like an invaluable tool…
But at the same time, Erick didn’t want to add this functionality to himself, because if he did, then everything would always look like an impressionist painting filled with too much meaning and unreality. Right now, he could moderate his connection to the amulet rather well, but perhaps if he made a Class Ability out of this thing…? Maybe that would work.
He could moderate his Class Abilities rather well, but that was due to the Script helping him.
That was a lot to think about, actually.
So Erick just put on the necklace and tucked the eye back under his robes, saying, “Where would you like to start with the reorganization?”
“Let’s get Zolan.”
Erick smiled. “Great start.”
It took them 3 real hours to come up with a good plan of action that would eventually completely remove the necessity of [Hasted Shelter] from the current Gatemaster. This action would cause a lot more people besides just the Viridian King to find out that Erick wasn’t at the helm of House Benevolence these days, so that was a bit ahead of schedule, but it needed to be done.
Zolan did clarify that, “If anyone asks, this is a trial run for long term solutions to needing less Time Magic in House Benevolence, due to a rise in complaints to meetings going too long. It is not because Erick isn’t here all the time.”
Erick laughed at that. “Are people still complaining about extra-long days?”
“Always and forever.”
- - - -
In the next day, a great many people got promotions in House Benevolence, and a great many more jobs opened up in the lower levels.
And Kiri got a staff that she trusted.
Erick also heard from Odaali that their appeal for a true telling of Odaari’s story was denied, and Odaali was going to appeal to the High Court of Nobles; the only force that could actually overturn Greendale’s decree. That was going to take months, though. Erick wished them luck.
Privately, Erick decided he would cut through all that bullshit and just repentance Odaari himself, after he dealt with these demonic murders. Odaari would keep for that long, but whatever was going on in the depths of the Gem Dungeon would not.
- - - -
One thing to do before he went back to the dungeon, though.
In a room in a secured location in the mountains northeast of Candlepoint, Erick stood before a large circle of pale-red metal that Jane had seen once and called a ‘stargate’. It was more like a ‘moongate’, though, because it connected to one moon in particular, or rather, it connected to Hell, which was also a moon, but also a permeable layer of reality here on Veird that existed everywhere, like all the other Elements.
No demon actually lived on the other side of this particular unpowered portal, though. Quilatalap had once explained it to Erick like how demons lived on Hell, but they could send avatars here to Veird whenever someone summoned them. It took real power and desecration of all that was Exalted and Angelic to make a true connection from Hell to Veird; to bring forth a demon-spawning demon, which was usually called a Breach Demon, like the one the Halls of the Dead had summoned during the Daydropper incident.
The same sort of setup, but in reverse, was necessary to summon an angel, but Erick wasn’t interested in angels right now.
Erick cast spellwork into the circular portal and brimstone fire flashed across the metal and the space between like an explosion of black and gold and burning red, ephemeral and heavy with Elemental Vile. The room turned into an inferno that sapped the heat from Erick’s body just as much as it threatened to burn away absolutely everything in the room. But it wasn’t that bad. Sure, the floor melted and the ceiling dripped a little, and imps popped out of that melt and bright darkness like parasite cockroaches, but the spellwork Erick had layered across the many rooms beyond this one would prevent anything from escaping this hellish ritual—
And then the ritual connected, and the fire of the room turned gold, burning away everything and leaving nothing but solid ground, walls, and ceiling in its wake. Gold foil spun down on the corners of the room, forming expensive moulding that traced patterns on the walls and ceiling. The floor transformed into gold and white tile.
The portal swirled with gold, becoming a vertical pool of the divine that rippled red.
A demonic woman stepped into the portal. Her skin was magenta, her dress radiant red, and her horns formed a broken halo that stretched high above her, like a crescent moon with her at the bottom. She smiled, showing white fangs while her eyes sparkled like solid rubies, as she placed her taloned hands together, and bowed. Wings of fire gently spread down and out; subservient.
She was Erick’s personal connection to Demon King Dinnamoth, and her name was Lynkari.
Lynkari rose, saying, “Greetings, Wizard Flatt. To whom does the Demon King owe this absolute pleasure?”
“To whomever is committing demonic murders in Greendale, and unleashing imps from demon-turned human souls.”
Lynkari knew that she would not have been called upon outside of something important, but she did not hide the fact that she was so very, very relieved. She breathed deep the Hell-tainted, yet still-real air, as her shoulders relaxed, and her tense wings of flame transformed into body-draping red robes, open at the front, showing off her ample assets on purpose.
She was incredibly beautiful, which was yet another of Hell’s temptations.
“Greendale asked this four times already, that we know of. We have attempted to locate those turned souls, but we have had no luck in that matter. Hell might not look like it, but our little moon is as vast as Veird and the architecture of it is more nuanced than Fairie. New, non-contracted souls end up in any millions of unclaimed lands. The dangers and horrors that live there usually rip those souls to shreds and then continue doing that, feeding on their pain until the new soul becomes a true denizen of Hell and is able to fight back.” Lynkari said, “That’s what we think happened to those people. But. We will ask around again and this time, since it’s you asking, we might get different answers.” She asked, “Do you want to form a contract? It’d be the easiest way to ensure you remained yourself should the worst happen.”
“I do not. Thanks for looking into this.”
Erick didn’t begrudge Lynkari her attempt at seduction, or her attempt at converting Erick to a demon; literally every demon wanted Erick to make a contract with them, but Lynkari at least took ‘no’ as an answer. She was better than the last three demon contacts Erick had had for the upper echelons of Hell, and Erick didn’t get along fully with Dinnamoth himself, so that guy never showed up unless it was a real emergency.
Lynkari bowed once again as she stepped backward through the portal, silently leaving.
Gold divinity rushed away, Vile power flashing through the world as it vanished from sight.
And Erick once again stood in a nondescript secured location, in front of a circular vertical ring of pinkish hellite, a good five meters across. The gold filigree and mouldings of the room had vanished. Some of the room was melted, though, so Erick got to fixing that.
“So that was a dead-end,” Erick said to himself, as he Shaped stone. “Still had to cross the t’s and dot the i’s, though.”
- - - -
Erick was once again Ashes, and this time he didn’t fly into the Glittering Depths compound on a Platform. He just popped through a [Gate], directly into the courtyard, where people had once again gathered around and acted like they usually did, getting ready to go down into the dungeon. But then ‘Ashes’ had appeared, through a white-lightning [Gate], followed fast by Ophiel, who made himself very apparent, and who fluffed up into his large form before settling on top of the surface dungeon guildhall. Ophiel turned completely invisible at that point, fading from sight.
The little guy had done a great job of distracting everyone.
‘Ashes’ was already through the black [Gate], golden staff in his hands and all his other metamonds on his body where they should be, as he raced into the dungeon proper. The giant spider overlooking the entrance had barely had time to glance his way.
Erick paid no attention to everyone else on the dirt road leading to the hills. He just hoofed it, fast, into the darkness—
- - - -
—And now he was in a white tutorial room.
“… Well okay then,” Erick said, putting his hands on his hips. “What’s up, dungeon?”
One moment please, Ashes Woodfield. A dungeon master will be with you shortly.
Even before Erick finished reading that sentence the air opened up ahead and out stepped Kinder, looking much the same as the last time Erick had seen him, but wearier. Run down.
Kinder said, “You’re somehow working with the Inquisitors now, and you also have a direct line to the Wizard. I would like to formally request that you do what you have to do down here, and then you go out of the dungeon and find the people who are actually causing these noble murders. Because they’re not here. We’ve checked already.”
“Okay. I just need a list of every Riamite who has ever been dragged out of their floor, and I’ll go investigate that.”
“… There is no such list. We don’t keep tabs on those who escape the floors, but we do catch 95% of them.”
Erick nodded, fully expecting this, for it had been in the report. “I believe you, but now you understand why I cannot agree to your request.”
Kinder frowned. “I suspect I’ll be quintupling the investigations we’ve already done.”
“Probably.” Erick smiled, saying, “So let’s go see those investigations!”
“Before we get there,” Kinder looked to the air beside him, saying, “You evaded him out there, but he’s here as well.”
Wess Clover looked the same as the last time Erick had seen him; impartial and calm, with skin the color of dark wood and close-cropped hair. His green armor gleamed. “Greetings, Ashes. I hope that I don’t have to track you down again like this, or else I will need to report these sorts of purposeful evasions to the Throne.” He frowned a little, adding, “I will already have to report that the Wizard dropped you off here for the express purpose of evading us.”
“And I will report to the Wizard that your King agreed that I would be unencumbered in the dungeon, and yet here you stand, encumbering me.”
Wess said nothing.
“… Go ahead and do what you have to do, and I will do the same, Wess.” Erick had been looking the man over, and he saw some odd things about him that weren’t there the last time Erick had seen him, in the courtyard ambush. “So you’ve got a full set of metamonds, then.”
“I’ve been here for over a year, ever since the last Inquisitor oversight for this dungeon was face-eaten by Riamites, along with the majority of others.”
Erick listened, and then he asked Kinder, “Do you have a list of everyone who has made a meta-artifact real? Can the dungeon check that?”
“No, we do not, and the dungeon cannot check that. We barely have a census, and new Riamites are coming out of the dungeon all the time, brought here through people taking the backroads to the other floors.” Kinder explained, “The Glittering Depths is massive, occupying the dungeon space for all of the nearest few hundred kilometers around Greendale, and even further than that in a few places, all in order to prevent the random creation of more dungeons anywhere near the capital. You saw the first and second floors. We have multiple copies of those floors, and the other 3. And that’s not even counting the Eternal Depths, which can get weird and deep. The most we can do is track someone when they start, and once they fall off that track, we lose them until we can find them again and assign them a tracker.”
Erick had read about all that in the reports that Darundi had given him. The Glittering Depths was perhaps one of the most important and never-seen areas of Greensoil, and yet it was full of holes large enough for killers to hide within, thanks to the backroads. Grand Dungeons were like that a lot, really; too much space in them, while also being too hard to fully police. But there was an established solution to that problem.
Erick asked, “Have you considered letting the monsters roam in the deeper Dark? To clear out those hiding holes in the backroads with absolute death? Quilatalap does that in the Grand Benevolence Dungeon. That’s what Wizard Destiny and the Life Binder do for the Freelands Grand Dungeon. I had assumed that’s what you all did here.”
Kinder frowned.
And Wess answered, “The Viridian Throne wishes to—”
He didn’t even have to finish what he was saying before Erick realized what had happened.
“— leave the backroads open for safety concerns, since people do get back there every once in a while, and the protections of the regular dungeon do not extend to the deeper backroads.”
“Well that’s a damned lie,” Erick said. “Darundi uses those backroads for his own gains, doesn’t he? Somehow, someway… I bet this whole thing is just a backroads problem of people moving into his territory unopposed— OH! That’s how the demon killers have gotten into and out of all those noble houses, isn’t it! And the backroads are left open so that the Throne can make metamonds down here! That’s what all of this is; the Viridian Throne tried to make a Dark powerbase for themselves, and some parasite roaches moved in, and you can’t get them out.”
Erick almost sighed as he figured it all out right then and there, and as the expressions of Kinder and Wess all but confirmed his wild theory.
Kinder said nothing.
Wess showed no surprise at all as he came right out and said, “Yes. That is exactly correct. We have been trying and barely succeeding in making metamonds into real artifacts for a long while, and some infiltrators now exist in the backroads with our meta-artifact workshops. Shall we get on with the investigation, now?”
Erick said, “We’re going to be exploring a lot of the backsides of this dungeon; I can see it now. So I have two requirements, first. I want to see that workshop, and I want another person to come along with us.”
Wess frowned a little. “Who?”
Kinder spoke up, “Before that, I would like to introduce you to some eyes-in-the-sky that will be overwatching your paths down here.”
Erick paused. “… Well sure? Who?”
- - - -
George could not believe it as Ashes walked through the door to the control room. He leapt out of his chair and smiled, saying, “Welcome, Ashes! I saw you when you first found that [Murky] in the dungeon! Diving into the waters with those eels is something I never would have done—”
Quince was there, saying, “Pardon my over-enthusiastic coworker.” He bowed.
And then George realized he should have bowed, too, so he did that, but he couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. Even Inquisitor Wess being there wasn’t a real damper on the moment. Ashes was directly tied to the Wizard! How cool was that! And holy shit that spellwork he had unleashed at the dungeon entrance! The Inquisitors seemed a lot less terrifying after that beatdown, and that was great.
Ashes said, “Hello. Nice to meet you two. I understand you’re going to be our oversight?”
George instantly heard that wary tone. He rushed to say, “It’s not like that, I swear. We don’t spy on everyone and we certainly don’t talk to anyone about any of that— Well. Except for the Inquisitors... by law...”
For yet another time in his life, George realized he was talking too much.
Quince tried to save him, saying, “The dungeon is an unknowable box in certain ways, made that way by the holy communion of Atunir and the decree of the Dark. We can track people when we’re focused on them, but finding them once they’ve taken a wrong turn is exceedingly difficult. We don’t spy in houses when people are present in them, either.”
Ashes asked, “And in the backroads? How does your Sight extend back there?”
George gasped a little, as he looked from Wess to Kinder, and then back to Ashes. “… I suppose the Wizard’s people work fast in knowing all there is to know, eh?”
Quince actually answered the question, saying, “We can monitor you and an area about forty meters around you, but if you move too fast then we’ll lose you in the backroads. Calling on the dungeon will let us find you again.”
Ashes asked, “What about making metamonds in the backroads? That doesn’t alert you here?”
“Not at all,” Quince said.
Ashes asked, “How viable would it be to flood the backroads with monsters? To flush out whoever is hiding in them?”
George looked to Kinder. Quince looked to Kinder.
Kinder said nothing.
Wess answered, “There are a lot of people in the backroads besides the killers. And the killers might not even be in the backroads. That’s just one option. They could be in Utopia. They could be living among the monster levels, and thus releasing the monsters would do nothing. They could be moving through Endless Delve zones and hopping through realities to constantly evade. They might even be living inside Greendale, hiding out, or [Gate]ing in from other lands to kill as they please.”
“You’re pretty sure they’re in the backroads, though, right?” Ashes asked.
Wess said nothing.
“The backroads are the least trackable places, so they might be there.” Kinder said, “Even Utopia is more trackable than the backroads.”
Ashes said to George and Quince, “It was nice to meet you, too. Hope you don’t see anything that terrifies you too much.”
Wess said, “I would like to move on.”
Ashes walked away, saying small words to Kinder, as Kinder followed and Wess accompanied them, until all three of them had walked through the door and the door shut behind.
George waited two moments before he allowed his giggling to erupt and turn into a laugh. “That guy has The Wizard on [Telepathy]! And an Ophiel delivered him here! Did you see those Domains, Quince?!”
Quince scowled, like the sourlemon he was, “Everyone saw those damned Domains, George. You’re too excited for this… This is terrifying, and we’re going to have Inquisitors watching over us while we work, and if there really are people in the backroads then… Then they can probably get in here.”
“Phbbbt!” George exclaimed, “It’s a short [True Resurrection] to the green fields for us if we die here—”
“We could be dragged to the backroads, idiot. True Death.”
George waved a hand. “I’m not worried. We’ve got House Benevolence here now. Ashes is going to cut through everything down there and come out with dead demons in his claws.”
Quince was a lot less certain.
- - - -
In the middle of what looked like a field of golden wheat, Erick knocked on the air, and the air thumped. There was no answer right away. Wess, standing beside Erick, gave no signs of irritation or otherwise, for he had already voiced his concerns with Erick’s choice of accompaniment, and then left it at that.
Erick knocked on the air again, saying, “I know you’re in there! I can see you from here!”
The air cleared. Golden wheat vanished. A house and a garden stood revealed on the other side of a low, tumbled-stone barrier that marked the property ahead.
Clarice glared, “What do you want?”
“I want to know if you told Rebecca her name yet.”
“You’re a day over our agreement!” Clarice spat. “… I should have. I have not.”
“Good. In that case: We’re going into the backroads to hunt the demonic killer, and I fully expect us to end up in some dangerous places in the Dark. Probably floor 5, or other floors like it. Want to do some exploring with us?”
Clarice focused with laser intensity. “If we end up on floor 5 you’re going to [Witness] the past, yes?”
“I’m rather sure that I’m on some destined, Benevolent Path right now, so probably.” Erick added, “It might even work with two extra people there, too.”
“Then yes; I want to go. Give me a minute and I’ll get my gear.”