“Yesterday was really good,” Erick said, as he fixed his hair in the mirror. He turned back to Quilatalap. “Aside from the weirdness after the song.”

Quilatalap paused for a moment, thinking. It was a very deep thought, and more than likely it was a series of deep thoughts that tangled up inside of the big man, and then got more tangled with every passing moment. Erick could see the distress on Quilatalap’s face as he came to a conclusion, but struggled with how to express that conclusion.

Erick waited. He considered giving Quilatalap another opening to take, to allow him to express his feelings, but no. Erick had given the guy enough openings. For now. He had been waiting for Quilatalap to say his words for several hours, ever since the song ended, and dinner came and went, and the two of them went to bed in the same bed—

Quilatalap blurted, “You’re everything that the Clergy has been looking for ever since the Sundering.”

“… Ah. That’s what you didn’t want to say last night, wasn’t it?”

“I needed some time to think; yes.” Quilatalap seemed like he was lining up all his thoughts to hit Erick all at once with all of them, which was likely exactly what was happening. And then Quilatalap looked away, and began speaking, gesturing with his hands as he said, “Because it was weird. Overly so. I keep imagining that you picked out a song from your childhood that fit the situation, but it fit the situation too well. And now you’re here, a Paradox Wizard, with Benevolence lightning as your major power which looks an awful lot like Primal Lightning. Last night you even spoke of that dyson swarm thing...

“The scale you spoke of got me thinking of the scale of the Old Cosmology.

“It used to be said that there were uncountable worlds in the Old Cosmology. But real estimates put the number of worlds at something like a billion billion, give or take several million trillion. The distances between worlds was like from here to the sun, which is—

“… It’s not as much as there is in your one home galaxy, to hear you tell it— And yes. I know you were just giving estimates when you told me those numbers, but...

“I don’t have to do any actual math at all to know that this New Cosmology is on a whole different scale than the Old Cosmology.

“Which means the New Cosmology is larger than the Old Cosmology, and by a lot. Whether that ‘a lot’ is on the order of hundreds of times over, or a trillion trillion times over…

“Was the Old Cosmology just a dyson sphere? A particularly advanced sphere? Several hundred thousand dyson spheres? In some spiral arm of some ‘milky way’ somewhere?

“But. No. That’s impossible, right? Everything I’ve seen tells me that this is impossible, but functionally, does it matter? I’m not sure I know what the Old Cosmology really was anymore, only that it did exist, and then it stopped existing due to Primal Lightning creating Yawning Voids…

“Which, looking at it another way…

“A lightning-like force creating mana drains, like the Undertow Effect.”

Silence stretched.

And Erick felt a twinge of panic.

Quilatalap continued, “Are you Xoat? Or are you the cause of, and end to, the Old Cosmology, as well as the creation of this New Cosmology? For us, anyway? Did the Old Cosmology even exist? Or did you will it into existence? But no. That makes no sense either. The Old Cosmology existed, for sure.

“So is the problem I’m having… Is it a soul problem?

“Is the nature of the soul something that, when destroyed in one universe, is reborn in another?

“This is a very uncomfortable thought for me, personally.

“I’ve been doing necromancy for a very long time, and I thought that souls do not go to different universes. When a soul finally fully passes on or is ripped apart, or moves into the realms of the gods, the end-process is to become natural mana. It doesn’t go anywhere else. It remains here, or wherever ‘here’ might be, even after it passes the point of easy reconstitution. The gods’ realms are here, just on the other side of creation, just like Ar’Cosmos is, but more. So the souls might transpose into another slice of reality, but they’re still here. They’re still in the mana. Even souls that go on to godly realms still have expressed mana into the world before their soul deaths.

“You can take mana and turn it back into soulstuff, and if you’re very skilled, you can sometimes do some high-tier summoning and bring back something that might look and partially acts and partially remembers the life of its origin-soul.

“So Xoat’s original form, which was the Entire Old Cosmology if you believe in that tale, which I always have, would have been the Entire Old Cosmology. Xoat was still there in the Old Cosmology this whole time!

“And let me tell you this, Erick.

“Back in the Old Cosmology, people had been trying to summon Xoat for as long as there had been people capable of that Ultimate Necromancy. He was the first Wizard Upon Which All The Rest Was Built. The idea that someone had actually done the impossible and brought Xoat back to life was one of the theories behind the Sundering, but such a magic was impossible to work, because—

“Well there was this old tale, about how a lich had taken one of the original worlds —theorized, not actually known— and then transformed that entire plane of several billion people and lands a thousand times the size of Veird, into a person. That ‘person’ rapidly became an insane god which then promptly died due to internal stresses. The lich escaped that death and then went on to try again. A council of Wizards stopped the lich the third time he tried it— It’s a long story which doesn’t need to be repeated in full to understand that the creature that the lich created was not Xoat. Both times, the proto-god was composed of all the lifeforms that it was made of. It wasn’t till the Wizard council transformed a barren world, made of equal elemental parts, into a living thing, that the lich’s magic proved, once and for all, that one could not summon Xoat; that elemental confluence of a barren rock that the Wizards had raised turned into a primordial elemental which had no—

“Long story short: Thanks to those experiments and a hundred thousand smaller proofs, we know that any part of the Old Cosmology, when turned into life, would revert to thought-patterns and soul-patterns reminiscent of the chronologically-nearest lifeform that created the mana that composed that matter.

“If you take a life, kill it, use that body to make a new life, kill it, then use that second body to try and [Resurrection] the first body, it doesn’t work. That particular experiment is very, very involved, but that was the gist of it all—

“Anyway!

“The Sundering happened, and all the Old Cosmology fell through the Yawning Void, into this New Cosmology…

“Would that old experiment to summon Xoat actually work, now that the Old Cosmology was back to being… Not the Cosmology? Now that all existence had been scrubbed from that land?

“Completely possible! Maybe. Maybe the Old Cosmology collapsed enough to allow such a thing!

“Possible, and yet astronomically large odds against such a happenstance.

“And let me tell you that I have gained a large appreciation for that term since your dyson sphere idea. ‘Astronomically large’. Experience in one’s Status only goes to-the-21, but the size of the volume of the sphere of the Veird system goes a lot higher.

“Xoat’s soul somehow falling to some unknown world in this New Cosmology, and then coming together into a whole? Absolutely unbelievable.

“And yet…

“We have the [Reincarnation] spell, which you made, which takes the smallest part of a person’s true soul and remakes them from that smallest part.

“But why did such a thing not happen here? On Veird?

“Or maybe such a thing could only happen outside of Veird, where the Script does not control the mana?

“And so, maybe that is why you were born on Earth, and that it took 1500 years for that to happen. And maybe… Maybe the reason you have your lightning is because the Sundering left an impossible mark on you, too, just as it did for everyone else who survived the Sundering. Maybe that mark survived even though your own [Reincarnation].” Quilatalap finally got all of his words out, his hands calming down as he finally looked to Erick, saying, “And now, you came back to Veird. You came back here as soon as you could, but with your daughter, taking the only part of the New Cosmology you cared about back to the Dark, to here, to what remained of yourself.”

Erick took all that in, watching as Quilatalap made connections that Erick had never made, which the large man then placed in the best possible light. There were so many different ways Quilatalap could have gone with the ‘your lightning looks like Primal Lightning’ idea, and yet, he chose the best one; a version of events that Erick hadn’t even considered.

Quilatalap’s whole splurge of words brought out a lot of uncomfortable maybe-truths, though.

Erick had wondered, with Establishment magic, exactly how deadly he could get with pasts and futures, and thanks to Rozeta asking him why his lightning looked like Primal Lightning, Erick had considered if he could have somehow caused the Sundering. Somehow. Erick, of course, rejected all those ideas, because it made absolutely no sense why he would ever want to cause something as horrible as the Sundering…

But if Quilatalap was right, and if Erick truly was the reincarnation of Xoat, and that the Sundering had left a mark on him, too…

That made a whole lot more sense.

That Erick would try to turn the thing that hurt him into a source of strength made sense… Sort of. A lot more sense than Erick wanting to somehow Paradox the Sundering into happening, anyway. But then again, mana and fae and planars had freely traveled within the Old Cosmology and other universes, so…

Maybe Xoat’s soul had fallen to this New Cosmology just recently, and only now, being reborn, did ‘Xoat’ call to the largest source of mana in the universe, and thus drag himself and his new daughter back to his ‘former home’. Maybe in that calling he had killed the Old Cosmology.

Because after all, what was a mere 1450 years of difference when it came to Paradox magic, and time travel…

And, more than that, even considering this idea, Erick had the distinct impression that he wouldn’t have wanted to be around for post-Sundering Veird. But 1450 years later? Arriving in a somewhat stable time?

… The answer to that was uncomfortable, but it was uncomfortable in the way that Erick could easily tell himself that he would rather have been alive in the 2000’s on Earth, than the -2000’s.

… Would Erick ever want to have caused the Sundering 1450 years ago? In order to bring about the events of today? To make his whole life on Veird, and the life he was planning for in the far, far future?

The future where he made a universe filled with mana and possibilities, where he brought life and hope to his whole ‘New’ Cosmology? Because that’s what it meant to bring mana and [Cleanse] and Healing Magic and eventual immortality to everyone in this new universe. Erick would even bring that power to the alien civilizations that he had never met, but which he would likely meet in the future. Maybe he could even bring all those things back to Earth, eventually, if Earth didn’t blow up before he got there.

… Could Erick have Established the Sundering, killing the uncountable masses, to bring power to even more uncountable masses?

Erick wanted to say ‘No! Absolutely not!’

But the darker parts of his mind looked back to when he was back on Earth, and facing an early grave due to cancer. He had already outlived his own parents, and he was sure that he was going to die of cancer while Jane was living it up at the CIA, committing international crimes on behalf of the United States.

Could he have done something horrible…

Could Erick have done the unimaginable, there in that car ride, in that liminal space where he was raising his daughter, and sending her off, while he died at home, having outlived his time on Earth?

Erick wanted to say that he was better than that awful decision, but if he had always been a Wizard, and if he had accidentally brought them to Veird anyway, if that was truly his fault, then…

Quilatalap looked down at Erick, his eyes worried, his entire self struggling with a crisis of faith, and trying to find the proper explanation for it all. Perhaps searching for an explanation was a fool’s errand, though.

Erick looked up at the beautiful man, saying, “I like your interpretation of events better than the alternatives, but I’m pretty sure that the whole idea of me being Xoat and all that other stuff is all just coincidence. I was raised in a society where lightning was the strongest natural power; our entire world ran on electricity. That’s probably all that connection is.” He shrugged. “And lightning is neat. I made [Call Lightning] long before I learned any particulars of Primal Lightning and the Sundering, and that Undertow and Yawning Void idea is half-assed at best. Drains are some of the best non-violent ways to take down people, but the Sundering was the exact opposite of non-violent.”

For a long moment Quilatalap just looked at Erick. And then he asked/said, “You want to ignore it all, then. All the connections. All the parallels. All the meaning.”

“Absolutely,” Erick said, with perhaps too much force. “What does it change in the end how it happened, Quilatalap?” Erick let some of his fears out, “Either I’m Xoat and it happened as you say it happened, or I’m Xoat, and I caused the Sundering in order to bring you all here for some unfathomable reason, or I’m some random Wizard who was fleeing a myriad death and who wanted to prevent all death, forever more, and thus I came here to Veird where I could do exactly that. And now we have Benevolence and [Reincarnation] and my desire to open new worlds, and make everything better with this newfound power of mine.”

“… Or maybe all of those are true, and it is your right as Xoat to do anything you wish to do with your own body.”

“Even if I were Xoat it would be very wrong of me to be able to do anything I wanted with my own self, especially if other people were using it. And besides! According to your story with the billions-dead-worlds, Xoat wasn’t even conscious. How could he do anything at all? He couldn’t. Not on his own, and certainly not with a whole lot of help, either.”

“Leaving aside the consciousness factor...” Quilatalap gave Erick a Look, saying, “We’ve had the abortion debate before, Erick, when we talked about stuff happening on Earth and I talked about stuff happening on Veird 1450 years ago. I know your true feelings on this.”

“… That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“A difference of scale, yes. It’s different.”

“Let me ask you this, then: Will you eventually return to your idea of going incognito among the people? Will you abdicate your throne once House Benevolence establishes itself?”

“… I will go incognito eventually. Not for a very long time, though. Why?”

“Because while most of the stories about Xoat were how he died and the universe happened, some of those stories are about how Xoat walked among us, doing good things from the shadows, never knowing who he was and yet still doing good all the time.”

“... I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I would prefer not to be laden with all these ideas of what could have happened, because all these theories are impossible to prove anyway. All they do is get in the way of real work. And this is putting way too much weight on stuff that doesn’t matter, because I would absolutely never cause a Sundering! I made Benevolence so that a Sundering never happens again!”

Erick’s words were probably too heated.

But Quilatalap took Erick’s anger in stride, calmly saying, “Because the Sundering marked your soul as much as it marked all of us that remain, and all of us those who came afterward. Even after taking 1450 years to come back together, you still did, and then you came back here to Veird to make Benevolence, to prevent all further Sunderings in this entire New Cosmology.”

With a voice filled with quiet bargaining, Erick said, “Reasons and cause and effect literally do not matter, Quilatalap. I’m just a guy, who has a bit of power, who is using that power to do some good. That’s all.”

Quilatalap looked at Erick for a little while.

And Erick waited.

Quilatalap likely had a thousand more thoughts flitting through his mind, but Erick could not and did not want to unravel them all. So he waited, as Quilatalap had a crisis of faith, of purpose, and of the present.

All too soon, Quilatalap stood up a fraction straighter.

Erick waited some more.

“… Well. Okay.” With an air of brightness, Quilatalap said, “Okay! Well. Then let’s ignore all that circumstantial evidence, because what happened before is simply what happened before, and without any hard evidence this way or that, focusing too much on what could have happened might blind us to what actually happened. And besides that, it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Erick felt his heart swell with love, and then he tempered that right back with rationality. Rapidly, Erick ended up in some equilibrium space that veered toward hope, and other nice things, such as a continued relationship with Quilatalap, while he desperately ignored the possible hero/miracle/crisis happening with the big green man right now. Quilatalap seemed to be forcing himself to ignore all of those uncomfortable things, too.

Which was good.

With a calm smile, Erick asked, “Ready for some presentations?”

“I’ll need to make my own. You can go on ahead.”

“… You don’t have to? We’ve already talked about what you’ve done this last year?”

“Sure, but none of the rest know, and I’m rather sure your overseers are still wary of me. A presentation could put their worries to rest.”

“… Okay. Sure?”

Quilatalap smirked. “I’ll catch up with you.”

“… Sure,” Erick said, not sure what else he could possibly say in such a situation.

- - - -

Erick walked alone down the hallway of his private section of the House, for Quilatalap had split off and gone downstairs, to the atrium, to set up in one of the rooms set aside for the presentations. That was probably for the best, for Quilatalap’s thought process regarding Xoat, Erick, the Sundering, and Benevolence, had shaken Erick.

But any more thoughts spent on all of that would be a distraction. He was the host of the Feast and he had work to do.

Ophiels fluttered all around the House, showing Erick found that nothing was on fire, and all the people of the House were doing their respective jobs and keeping their heads down, either setting out food or clearing away small messes or cooking in the kitchens. The guests were partaking of the Feast, or setting up presentations, or… Hmm. Flirting with the staff. Erick saw Farix flirt with Cooky Donny, but Lapis was at Farix’s side with a quick elbow and a quiet word, and Farix excused himself. Donny excused himself from that situation a second later, once he felt safe enough to do so. The big guy went around a corner and paused, taking a deep breath, before moving on.

Erick moved on, too.

A quick count of people showed that there were a lot more people here than Erick had counted yesterday. The Shade Tower, of which only Goldie was a member until a few days ago, had been transformed from white eternal stonewood and basic niceness, into a fantastically high-class building filled with luxury, and also a secondary section filled with servant-level niceness. In one half of the building there were black carpets running down hallways, four poster beds, and black vases and sculptures of the Dark Dragon on plinths. The other half of Shade Tower was the same normal white flooring and nice lights that Erick had put up months ago. But there were also servants. Some were ghostly, courtesy of Quilatalap, but there were also a lot of real people down there.

Lot of people who had not been there yesterday.

Shadelings of all sorts, from human to orcol to harpy to incani and dragonkin. They all seemed past their initial fugue-state, too, so they weren’t just mindless automatons, but real people. There were also normal people, too. Maybe about 25 people total, all of whom were involved in cooking, or cleaning, or [Fabricate]ing clothes… [Making clothes? Yup. Clothes for parties? Probably.

Whatever they were doing was probably fine.

None of the Shades were in residence. Every room given to the Shades was unoccupied, with unseen servants in the process of making up the beds, or completely empty, for the Shades therein had vacated hours ago, or never stayed there at all. Treant’s room looked completely untouched, which was normal for that orcol Shade. He was staying in his grove he had made out of House Benevolence’s southern garden space. A quick look out there showed that the southern gardens were also empty, though the place where Treant had rooted himself for the night had been heavily disturbed, with a void in the dirt where he would have been planted.

Most of the Shades were in the atrium, with only Treant missing… Somewhere.

He’d turn up eventually.

The Cooks and staff seemed to be fine, down there in their rooms located right outside of the atrium, and inside the kitchens already cooking. Breakfast was being served to Queen and Goldie and Hollowsaur now, all of whom sat at the same central table where they had all eaten dinner last night. The three of them seemed to be having a small conversation, which Erick would likely join later if their conversation held past breakfast. A few people had already set up their presentations, and a few presentation spaces were empty. Fairy Moon and Bright Smile were at the presentation rooms located on the second ring of the atrium, beside all the rest, setting up that presentation themselves, with the help of one more.

Volaro was at Ar’Cosmos’s presentation space, talking to them about all that was happening in that space, while a human woman and an incani man cast lightwards into the air, showcasing some sort of presentation about trade, or something. Ar’Cosmos had somehow snuck extra people into the Feast, too, even though Erick had not seen any such people come out of Fairy Moon’s Springtime [Gate] last night. Volaro’s presence was a bit disturbing, though.

Erick almost lightstepped there to interrupt that conversation, to find out what was going on, but he’d discover all of that soon enough.

For now, everything looked okay.

All the various forces of the Feast were located in their own parts of the House, but they all mingled in the atrium in the center. The Shades had their tower. The Cooks and staff had all the lower ring level of the atrium, and all the housing outside of that ring. Ar’Cosmos had Ar’Cosmos’s tower, which was empty of people.

And the people of House Benevolence itself were located here, higher in the central tower, across from the part which held all the office space, at Erick’s part of the House. While he had his rooms closer to the north, Zolan had his rooms to the south, along with a bunch of guest rooms that remained mostly empty. Aisha and Volaro were in two of those guest rooms, and while Volaro was downstairs already, Aisha and Zolan were in Zolan’s common rooms, awake and talking.

Having taken 30 seconds to confirm that the House was not on fire and everyone was getting along, or at least they weren’t killing each other, Erick went to go see his Castellan and his Overseer of Magic. Both Zolan and Aisha looked up in Erick’s direction before he even got to the door, with Zolan looking apprehensive and Aisha telling Erick to come on in, while Erick was in the process of knocking.

- - - -

The Wizard walked into the room.

And Zolan stood strong. A thousand thoughts had been reorganizing in Zolan’s head ever since last night, when Zolan witnessed a horror beyond his imagination. Everything that had come before paled in comparison to the pile of coincidences that slapped him across the face and then stabbed him in the heart a few times, just to be sure that he got the message.

Erick was the reincarnation of Xoat.

Or.

Erick was sent here by Xoat.

Or.

It was all coincidence, and Erick was the same person Zolan had known for the last half a year, and which he had heard of ever since the planar man fell to Veird with his daughter.

… Or maybe there was something else going on, and attempting to assign meaning to all the piled up coincidences was merely Zolan’s way of coping with reality. Zolan had spoken at length with Aisha about all of this, but while he was leaning toward the ‘Xoat is involved somehow’ sort of explanation, they had barely touched the surface of everything that they had seen and heard since the Feast had started. Mostly, Aisha had been shooting down every conspiratorial thought in Zolan’s head, in a way that Zolan had not experienced in well over a hundred years, like Aisha was a teacher and Zolan was a student seeing connections that weren’t there. Which was rather true, in this scenario. Aisha had been a Knowledge Mage for a lot longer than Zolan, and she didn’t need to regain all of her Book Magic after going through a [Reincarnation] like Zolan had.

Aisha did confess that she was worried, too, but she trusted Erick in a way that was hard to put into words.

This led to another deep conversation about trust and their king…

And then the conversation had warped back toward Xoat conspiracies.

Zolan was mainly struck by how much Erick did not look like how Zolan had expected Xoat to look… Not that ZOlan ever expected to need to imagine what Xoat looked like in the first place. But Zolan had seen illustrations of that First Wizard. He had heard all the big stories.

But Erick was Erick.

A bit of a goofy smile. A bit of a ‘hidden-power’ sort of look. Ophiel, sitting on his shoulder, was perhaps the only part of Erick which showed off his power. Even when Zolan was in a meeting with the guy, it wasn’t until deep into any of those conversations that Zolan could truly see that Erick deserved to be in those conversations; he certainly never acted powerful or meaningful or deadly. He was not accustomed to the trappings of power, like Kirginatharp, or King Alfonin, or any other ruler of this world.

He was simply Erick.

Sure, in the beginning of this job, Zolan had a bit of reverence for the man. Erick had just come out as a Wizard, and he had brought [Gate] and [Reincarnation] to the world, but now, months had passed, and Zolan dealt with all of Erick’s crazy new magics each and every day…

Zolan’s Knowledge Magic was fully running right now, giving him ample time to assess the situations around him, and so, Erick had yet to walk fully into the room. In that moment Zolan decided that action was better than words right now.

Erick greeted them, and Zolan had said a greeting back, and Aisha said something similar, but pleasantries were unnecessary.

Before the conversation went on past the ‘good mornings’, Zolan asked, “We need a goal for this Feast, sir. I know we spoke of a general goal of ‘no deaths and no ruination’, but we must have some specifics now, and before we rejoin the Feast.”

Aisha briefly looked to Zolan, then she turned back to Erick. “With the reveal of [Duplicate] and that song, a more solid idea for the outcome of this Feast would be prudent.”

Zolan asked, “What is the goal here? What does the world look like when this Feast is over, and what sort of dangers are we to be expected to handle?”

Erick smiled softly, then said, “My goal is that the House looks the same after this Feast is over, as it did before, with nothing changing in the way of short term goals or long term goals. The Greater Candlepoint Area will continue to expand. The Gate Network will expand to Songli, and the Local Area Gate Networks of the Highlands and the Crystal Forest will happen. Trade will occur, and we’ll see that our small parts of the world becomes better than they used to be, and steadily, that change will sweep forward, brought forth by the hands of others who join the cause.”

Zolan and Aisha both got concerned looks.

Zolan spoke his mind, “I ask you not to allow the Shades to live here at this House. Goldie is bad enough. We cannot contain the rest.”

“Of course,” Erick said, “If they have contact with anyone past today, I will ask that they contact me, directly, and don’t involve you or our House at all. After several decades of good behavior and whatnot, that might change.” With a look that could be called forlorn, Erick added, “And I hope they do not press that issue.”

Aisha said, “They will.”

Erick said, “Then I will simply press back.”

Aisha stressed, “Queen is going to involve herself with House Benevolence through our connection to Songli. Lapis is going to want to involve herself through a connection in the Wastelands. Farix is going to come at us through education. I’m not too worried about Fallopolis, Treant, or Hollowsaur, but the other three are going to want to be here in some shape, and Goldie is already here, which already sets a precedent.”

Erick nodded. “I understand and expect all that. I fully expect to get some tertiary connections going with all of them, too, for keep in mind that we must be able to work with everyone, or else they will simply go somewhere else and involve themselves in our business in some indirect way. I would prefer the direct approach.”

“We would be better served with distancing ourselves from the Dark, sir,” Zolan said, “There were too many witnesses to your song to hide it, and so we shall not be doing that, but as your castellan, I must stress that to involve ourselves with the Clergy of the Dark…” Zolan had trouble putting all his thoughts into words, for he knew he only had a short amount of time with Erick, at this critical juncture. Shadow’s Feast was not often a time of great change, but this year, like last, looked to be one of those times of great change. So Zolan simply said, “It does not matter whatever they tell you, and however changed they show themselves to be. They are still Shades. They cannot be allowed to taint this House more than they already have.”

Aisha stood firm. “I agree with Zolan’s assessment. I would add more words, but they are unnecessary; we’ve got a Feast to attend and problems to mitigate.”

For a moment, Erick stood there, watching the world, and also Zolan and Aisha. Erick asked the two of them, “Are you two good? Emotionally, I mean.”

Zolan said, “I am of solid mind, body, and soul. I can handle this, sir, or I would not have volunteered. I must admit that the depth of this year’s Feast is something that I had not expected, but I have a great deal of hope that the issues the Shades have caused, which we uncover here, tonight, will be much more solvable with all of our combined perspectives, instead of with the minimal intelligence we usually get for these sorts of things.”

Aisha softly declared, “As we do every year, we of Rozeta’s faithful will respond with appropriate countermeasures to the dangers we didn’t know existed until after the Shades created them. That doesn’t mean that we should assist them with their Dark work in some sort of effort to mitigate that Dark work. They will twist that assistance into something evil.”

Zolan glanced at Aisha, surprised that she would speak that far against House Benevolence’s stated goal of ensuring some sort of peace between all sides.

Erick stood strong, saying, “The Shades and Melemizargo are not going away, so mitigation is our only viable response. I ask you to see this Feast less as a chance to harm the Shades further, and more as a chance to ensure that their power causes less harm, and more good. I assure you both, though, that I will not be inviting any Shades to live here. I understand that danger full well.”

Aisha seemed mollified slightly. She nodded.

Zolan felt slightly less worried, too.

He was still terrified of what he had seen and heard ten hours ago, when Erick called the Darkness a friend. But that was then. And here, now, with Erick seeming the same as he always was…

Last night was still terrifying.

But Zolan could deal with terrifying. Comparatively, only getting one spell every 20 seconds, thanks to the time differential of the Feast Barrier, was much more worrying. But Zolan had his aura control, and more importantly, he still believed that Erick was still on his and Aisha’s side. They had a Wizard willing to save them if anything went horrible, and they might have even had an archlich willing to bring them back from the dead, if the… Well not ‘the worst’. Death was not the worst thing that could happen around Shades. But it was still a big worry.

Zolan had still never imagined that Erick would speak for the Dark, though. But that’s what it meant to be a living treaty between all people. Zolan admonished himself; the extent that Erick was cozy with the Dark should not have surprised him. A treaty never would have been forged otherwise.

Feeling much better, Zolan had a few more words with Erick and with Aisha as the three of them made their way into the main part of the House, down to the atrium for breakfast…

And a whole lot more.

- - - -

Erick left Zolan and Aisha to walk by themselves down to the buffet. They’d be fine together. Volaro should have been with them, but that Carnage dragon orcol was over talking to Bright Smile, on the other side of the atrium, at Queen’s presentation. They had moved on from Ar’Cosmos’s presentation, talking about this and that and they were probably going to visit the other presentations, too. That kind of pissed Erick off. Volaro should should have been with Aisha and Zolan; they were all overseers of House Benevolence, after all. But Volaro had gone off on his own…

Erick wasn’t going to micromanage them that much, he decided. He’d just mentally mark down everything that happened and if it proved to be a problem, then some people would get talked to afterward, and it was kinda ridiculous to expect Volaro, the Carnage Dragon, to not have a lot of remaining loyalties with Ar’Cosmos. For now, nothing was on fire and no one was screaming, so everything was copacetic.

With his eyes on the first presentation, which was simply the closest presentation, Erick walked over to an empty space on the second floor of the atrium which had been filled by a Shade; by Lapis, the Shade of Enchantment. Last year Lapis had showcased how she and a few other Shades, mainly Treant, had taken people from around the world and turned them into Stat trees, using the color of their souls and a bit of Melemizargo’s Wizardry to make them into reinforcing fruits, or New-Stat-granting fruits. Back then, Treant had forced an Intelligence fruit, an apple, upon Erick, and in the Intelligence fugue that had followed, Erick had given himself all the other New Stats because it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Lapis’s work this following year, after having been Blessed with Empathy, looked to be centered upon the Wasteland Kingdoms and against the Converter Angel. As Erick stepped into that converted business space, with tens of information-filled lightwards and maps and all sorts plotted out with names and places and purposes, Erick wondered, before he read any of it in depth, if he was going to need to deal with some big Quiet War fallout from Candlepoint’s geographically nearest neighbors. The Wall of the Wasteland Kingdoms was only 250 kilometers away, after all.

… Obviously Erick would be dealing with fallout from the Kingdoms over all of Lapis’s actions, but the exact nature of that interaction would be for the future to tell, and Erick couldn’t ask Lapis herself about it right now. Lapis was not in the room.

There was, however, an older incani man of pale red skin and bushy white beard.

The man saw Erick and stepped closer, and then he bowed, and rose, saying, “Welcome, Wizard Flatt. How may I be of service?”

“Greetings. First, who are you, and then, what’s all this.”

Without missing a moment, the older man said, “I am Harriz Greysteel, a retired First Knight of the Kingdoms, a defender of the realms of incani. My current home is the Kingdom of West Bank. King Artotz Rashi is my lord, and I believe you have met Princess Weilux, through her contact and trade with your merchant Zaraanka Checharin.

“I used to oversee the training of recruits for our standing armies but in my advanced age I have moved on to a political post, primarily dealing with potentially catastrophic Quiet War events of all kinds, mostly of a defensive nature. I am here because Shade Lapis has been assisting our nation with the eradication of the Converter Angel Curse and other angelic operations inside of our Kingdoms for the past year, alongside Caizoa of the Black Star. That is the quick version; the larger version is written here in this presentation.”

Erick had a lot of sudden dislike for the man, based on his profession of ‘defender of the realms of incani’, which meant Harriz was deep in the Quiet War, and probably the Forever War, too. But he had come in here expecting something like that, and the man was calm and professional, with no visible anger or apparent desire to influence Erick one way or another. And yes, Erick did know of Weilux and Zaraanka.

Erick said, “I have met Weilux once, in passing, and then once more in an actual meeting, but my castellan is the one who has actually met with her in any real fashion. Based on what I’m seeing here I’ll probably have to make some time to actually attend some of those Wasteland Kingdom meetings soon, though, if all the world calms down enough to let me. Are you capable of speaking on behalf of your people with regard to getting a Gate system setup?”

Harriz relaxed a fraction, his shoulders loosening and his breath evening out. He was glad to broach the topic of Gates. “I am. If possible, we’d be interested in getting a Local Area Gate Network up and running directly inside the Kingdoms. Since we are so close to Yggdrasil, would it be possible to do this? To have Gates in our Kingdoms, directly?”

“In a few months Yggdrasil can certainly do that. Standard rates apply. I won’t be partial to any Quiet War shit, but I am more than willing to support the Kingdoms with a LAGN. Details to be worked out later. I imagine that you’d want to start trading with Songli, too, considering they’re not a part of the Quiet War, and with Stratagold, of course. For those shipments you’d have to go through Candlepoint, along with every other sort of world-wide trade.” Erick gestured to the presentation, asking, “So what has Lapis been doing in the Kingdoms, or rather… What have the Kingdoms been doing? Is there a difference?”

The conversation was moving fast, and Harriz kept up well.

“A great difference, but it started off as Shade Lapis working undercover to root out all the influences of the Angels.” Harriz gestured to the first part of the presentation, on the left side of the room near the door, saying, “She came to us under the guise of a Soul Mage to assist with Seeing and diagnosing the angelic taint, working closely with Black Star Caizoa, though only Caizoa knew that Shade Lapis was a Shade at the time...”

Harriz explained the events of the past year, and Erick listened. There were a hundred details to remember, most of which might not have been true, but the general shape of Lapis’s time in the Wasteland Kingdoms was easy enough to see.

After Last Shadow’s Feast, Caizoa went searching for angel-afflictions with her Black Star of Koyabez. She found many afflicted people, all rather quickly. One of those afflicted people was Princess Dinabez of West Bank, fourth in line to the throne (Princess Weilux was second in line to the throne, Erick recalled). But Caizoa had no way to deal with those afflictions, which was when Lapis stepped forward, under the guise of an unknown incani Soul Mage.

What followed was a lot of tension between Lapis’s persona, Caizoa knowing who Lapis was anyway and choosing not to out her, the rapid purifying of many people’s souls of the angel taint, and a whole bunch of inter-Wasteland incidents, once the depth of the Converter Angel’s infection became truly known. Erick had been there, with Ophiel, for some of that, back when he was keeping tabs on that development. But once the initial problems got contained by Caizoa, and King Rashi’s powerbase was no longer being undermined by angelic interests, Erick was able to step away, and Caizoa was able to go on her crusade against the angel infection on her own (With Lapis helping in the background). Which is exactly what Caizoa did. Since the Black Star could find targets anywhere in the world, and Caizoa used that capability to find every single angel-infected person the world over.

All the while Erick had been walking the Worldly Path, the reason he didn’t see many angel-infected people was because Caizoa and the Kingdoms were ripping those infected people out of their lives, fixing them, and then putting them back. Even in the angel-aligned places of the world like the Greensoil Republic, and the Sovereign City of Pearl, Caizoa and her people went to work, extricating people from their lives, cleansing them, and then returning them. There were many, many different plots against the Wasteland Kingdoms that Caizoa and King Rashi uncovered and foiled, and many almost-wars that happened due to how they chose to solve that issue. Soon enough, due to their actions, the angels were in full retreat. The Converter Angel had retreated to the moon Celes.

But the only reason Caizoa and the Kingdoms were able to fight back against that taint was due to that Soul Mage, at the beginning; Lapis made this counter offensive possible.

It didn’t happen every time Lapis helped remove the angelic taint from someone important, but many times, Lapis got a plus-1 to her ‘Repent Sinner!’ quest, issued by the confluence of Rozeta and Erick’s own [Blessing of Empathy]. That Quest required her to repent for 101 years, and do 1001 good deeds. It was not an exact Quest, though, since only a few soul-cleanings got her a plus-1.

When Lapis tried to save people, on purpose, for the needs of the Quest, the Quest did not update. When she saved someone because they needed saving, she got a Quest update. Though this was not a sure thing, though. Infuriatingly, the Quest did not seem to have any set parameters at all, which made Lapis think that the Quest was personally overseen by Rozeta, or more likely Koyabez, though all of that was simple conjecture, without any evidence in any particular direction.

The depth of the angelic infection within a person also had something to do with the Quest update, but so did the social and organizational position of the person who had been infected. A deep infection in a random person sometimes gave completion, while a light infection in the general of an army always gave completion, but a light infection in a random person usually gave nothing, while a light infection in a high ranking soldier usually gave something. Knock-on effects had an outsized, completely unpredictable role in the nature of Quest completion, too. One random person in a managerial position and a very weak infection in Eidolon’s shipping district gave Lapis a point, even though she expected nothing.

Lapis was currently sitting at 278-out-of-1001 good deeds done. Tomorrow, if things held how she expected them to hold, then she would get a 1-out-of-101 years marker, too.

Because of the ousting of the angels, the many knock on effects, and Caizoa’s strict unwillingness to progress the Quiet War when she clearly had the capability to do so (Erick felt this was due to the Black Star telling her not to do more, otherwise it would kill her, though he did not voice this objection), the Wasteland was currently experiencing a near-renaissance of ease of life, and international relations. Retired First Knight Harriz did not use that term ‘renaissance’, but from the various Kingdoms suddenly not needing to worry about invasion, to instead be able to devote resources to building and expanding, and enjoying life, ‘renaissance’ was close enough to being true that that’s what Erick mentally called it.

And then the presentation was over, and Shade Lapis stepped out of the shadows, adding, “Though your own actions have likely caused much more stability than my own, Wizard Flatt.”

Erick turned a pleasant attention to the dark skinned, androgynous woman. “Don’t sell yourself short, Lapis. I’ve been waiting for the Converter Angel to cross paths with me for a long time so that I may eliminate that lingering threat, but it looks like you’ve pressured that turmoil back to their moon.”

Lapis allowed herself a small grin. “A complete cessation of the Quiet War will never happen, but through our efforts we can make it as quiet as possible.”

“Hopefully.” Erick asked, “What are your plans going forward?”

“If I were to interact more with the demonic side of the Forever War I would be working on their side of the Quiet War, so I will not be doing that. After some final touches to ensure nothing will fall apart in my absence, I plan on leaving to the Underworld, to assist with ensuring the viability of long term enchantments on various failing states.” Lapis said, “One of my final acts of repentance in the Wasteland Kingdoms was to bring Harriz Greysteel here to the Feast, to make this introduction between you and the incani Kingdom of West Bank.”

Erick gave a tiny nod to the man who he had spoken with for the last half an hour, saying to Lapis, “Seems like a decent fellow; I’m sure we’ll talk more later.”

Harriz had stepped away from the conversation as soon as Lapis had shown, but at being included, he did a small bow in acknowledgment of being heard, and then he stepped away from the conversation again.

And then Erick turned back to Lapis, asking, “How did you find my daughter’s sword? What was your purpose in giving it to her like that?”

Erick had gone into this conversation wanting to keep certain parts of his life separate from the rest, but now that Lapis was finally in front of him, he could not help himself. The words just came out. While he kept the implied danger out of his voice, he still made the implicit threat, even though he tried not to.

Lapis understood the threat.

Which was probably why she had kept herself away from Erick until after her presentation was over.

Without worry at all, Lapis said, “The Well of Souls that existed inside the crystal tower of Brightwater, where Melemizargo’s Heart lay beating, cannot be destroyed, for attempting to destroy that location is like attempting to destroy the low parts of a valley, where rainwater gathers. When the Soul Slime captured that instantiation of the Dark Heart, the Well moved to a new location. I was drawn to that new location by the Dark, and there, I found your daughter’s sword in the small, black waves at the edge. This was two months ago. I still had work to do at the Kingdoms and I was not about to hand the sword off to anyone else, and so, I waited till I would see your daughter again. I suspected that meeting would happen here, since we were already talking about you hosting the Feast all the way back then.

“And so, I delivered the sword to your daughter in a public location so that there would be no subterfuge happening. The Prince destroyed it, though. If he had not, and if she would have accepted my offer to enchant it for her, I would have made it an artifact worthy of her power. Or probably just soulbound it, if that is what your daughter wanted instead, so that she could never lose it again.”

All rather innocuous.

Mostly.

“Soulbound items are those things that came out of Candlepoint the year before last? There’s no trick to them, to cause the shadeling curse, is there, like there is with the New Stats?”

“Attempting to breach the 1 soulbound item limitation would cause problems varying from soul-sickness to gradual soul-death, but other than that, there were no side effects of that particular magic. Outside of specific, difficult, unknown, and purposeful magics, beyond simply using another soulbound stone, breaching that 1-soulbound limit is impossible. If your daughter would have chosen for me to soulbind her sword to her then I would have done so and also warned her of this issue.”

Erick wanted to say that Lapis, the Soul Mage, getting anywhere near Jane and Jane’s soul was a recipe for Lapis’s extermination.

But Jane would absolutely hate him for that; for taking away her agency, for lording his power over her situation, for any number of reasons, all of which Jane would be right to feel. This fact was the only thing that held him back from threatening Lapis more directly.

… And yet, it was his right as Jane’s father to tell people off and to keep her safe.

Luckily, Lapis seemed to understand the threat without it needing to be said.

So, Erick said, “I’d like to know more about soulbinding, but some other time. Based on what I see here and your interest in continuing to assist people in new venues in the Underworld, I’m interested in providing fallback options for you when you’re down there. Possibly even direct assistance with your endeavors, whatever they might be. I will not be accepting any Shades here at the House, but in several years we might be able to work closer. Do you have an idea for how this assistance would happen?”

Lapis’s bright white eyes went wide. “I… Uh. Yes.” She had not expected Erick to approve of anything she had done so now she was floundering. But she was a Shade, and she got herself under control nearly instantly. “I appreciate the offer, Wizard Flatt. I am already purchasing materials through New Brightwater, though, so I am fulfilled at the moment and for the near future. If you wish to contribute to my work then a Gate to New Brightwater would be welcome.”

That suggestion was probably the most reasonable thing that Lapis could have made.

Erick had no trouble saying, “I’ll see about that, though I have yet to see Farix’s presentation and a Gate to New Brightwater is contingent on that meeting.”

Lapis bowed her head.

Erick moved on to the next presentation.

- - - -

Or at least he would have moved on to the next presentation, but apparently Lapis had been the only person who was fully ready for him.

So Erick sat down for breakfast with someone who he had never sat down with before; a ‘general’ of the Quiet War, First Knight Harriz Greysteel. The older man contented himself with a cup of really good breakfast tea, for he had already eaten, while Erick had a cheese pastry and coffee, opting for something light this morning. The two of them sat off-center of the food court floor, well away from anyone else, but fully visible to everyone in the area, which was on purpose.

“I must admit, Wizard Flatt,” Harriz said, his hands placed both stoically and nervously around his teacup, “I am surprised you decided to accept my and the Wasteland’s overtures so quickly, what with your reluctance to treat with us prior to today.”

Erick sipped his coffee. Then he said, “Unfortunately the Quiet War is a fact of life with the Kingdoms and I do not wish to be involved in that utter shitshow. Based on your wording, you assume there was more to my reluctance than that?”

Harriz lost all of his nervousness when Erick called his entire career a ‘shitshow’. He stared Erick in the eyes, saying, “The angels are an unparalleled menace to this world and all other worlds to come. They must be purged from existence, for they can never change; that is their curse, their boon, and they would spell the doom for all of us, were it not for the demons pushing back against their unchanging ways.”

“They would say the same about you. Honestly, with how much destruction both sides get up to, Kirginatharp has the right idea; destroy both moons. There’s absolutely no reason for this fight to have continued to go on like it has, except for all the inertia of the Forever War.”

Erick was being purposefully antagonistic. He wanted to see how Harriz would react. Would he bring up the fact that the Old Demons were all dead, and all the people on Hell were incani, and that the angels were enacting an ancient war, and that was the start of this Quiet War? Or would he bring up something else? Would he just get mad?

Harriz remained completely unfazed.

Perhaps he might have even gained a measure of true steel to him, to go alongside his last name of Greysteel.

“The Forever War is contained to the moons. If the moons were destroyed, then a Hell or a Celes would form here, on Veird. Yes, both sides would lose immensely, but the base nature of Elemental Vile and Elemental Exalted would remain, and those two opposing deep sources of afterlife would quickly resume the intake of souls, reforming the whole problem but in a less organized way.” Harriz said, “Those moons up there are little more than dirt and Elemental Vile or Exalted, and they would come back soon enough.”

… An interesting idea, and one that Erick had never heard before. Admittedly he tried to stay out of the Quiet War, except when it was actively stopping the war and researching the reasons behind the war, and learning what Elemental Vile, Exalted, Demonic, and Angelic actually did. He had never heard of this ‘source of afterlife’ angle to the Forever War, though. Nor had he heard of this ‘ability to come back’ of the moons before.

Erick said, “There is still something good to be said for destroying intractable enemies who spill their wars off on to all the rest of us, even if that only shoves the problem to a hundred years in the future. I would prefer to never hear another thing about angels or demons or their war, though, so do you think that there is a way to actually solve the war?”

“… An impossible task. The best we can do is mitigate the touch of the war upon our world.”

“Perhaps. But if there were a way to stop both wars without causing untold horrors in the result, I would do that. Very few people deserve angels or demons calling for their deaths, and no one deserves the generational perpetuation of endless cycles of violence. If you have a way to break those cycles, I would hear them. This is the main reason why I invited you to dine with me for breakfast.”

Harriz gazed upon Erick, his mind whirring with thoughts. After a moment he found something specific inside those thoughts, and said, “I will have to think on this. I have nothing for you at the moment that is not a counter-offensive or defensive territory capture, and I doubt that you would wish to hear of those.”

“Perhaps something more specific is in order: I would like to talk about the Kingdoms and the Sovereign City of Pearl, in particular. You all share a mountain range, and a long history of killing and otherwise. I recently conquered Pearl, and changed all their nobility to be less violent, alongside installing some dragons into power. I’d like to know, specifically, the feasibility of common trade between your nations, instead of the trading of lives in a long history of ‘counter offensives’ and ‘defensive territory captures’ that are not nearly as pleasant as those phrases would suggest.”

Harriz was prepared for this specific conversation, apparently, for he spoke rather easily, “Impossible as of right now. We would rather our Gate systems be completely disentangled from them, with the only place to meet somewhere in Candlepoint, under a [Zone of Peace] and other such magics. We are most looking forward to trade with Songli, and Stratagold, and so if any trade between us and the Cities happen, it will likely happen through those intermediaries.”

“Acceptable. So tell me more about the Shades you have had in the Wastelands. I heard you had one before you worked with Lapis. A man who was like an uncle to Caizoa; Anopix.”

Harriz looked confident as he said, “Shade Anopix had been a silent benefactor for the Kingdoms for the last fifty years, until Last Shadow’s Feast, helping us to fight back against the Greensoil Republic the entire time. He came to us back when the Kingdoms were known as the Lori Dukedom, and the Opalice Empire was growing and burning the whole place down. Anopix was instrumental in bringing about a new equilibrium, helping us to eliminate the Greensoil-backed Opalice Empire. He was a Shade, and he was terrible in his wrath. As a dragonkin he was perhaps even more angry with Greensoil than most incani, due to the Greensoil Republic’s treatment of anyone who is not human as lower than human. The incani they simply kill, but the dragonkin? That entire society helps all humans, but never anyone else, engendering a specific, deep hate in the non-humans.

“Anopix had charity work all over the Kingdoms, from orphanages to farming collectives; many different interests in rebuilding the nation after the collapse of the Empire and of the Dukedom into the Kingdoms. He even had some remaining family, which is where Black Star Caizoa came from, along with every single member of Caizoa’s group. He was the one who sent them into Ar’Kendrithyst to take the Trial of the Dark, to recover the Black Star to use it against the Angels, since we needed that artifact to uncover the depth of the angel infection within our own lands, and within the lands outside of the Kingdoms.

“I understand he was murdered by Tania Webwalker long before the rest of the killing happened.” Harriz asked, “Do you have any idea why that happened?”

It was a schooled question, and to any outsider, they would have seen the man’s question as a simple thing. But there was a lot going on in that simple inquiry. Some unknown intrigue between Tania and Anopix; two dead people, a year gone.

Something connected Harriz and Anopix, too; unknown.

Some intrigue between the Wasteland Kingdoms and the Greensoil Republic.

While Erick was thinking of all that, he remembered that Anopix was responsible for the birth of the Halls of the Dead; the people who had created the daydropper which carbon-dioxide’d Odaali, killing many people in that city. The Halls of the Dead had also almost summoned a Breach Demon last year, and they would have, except Erick had stopped that.

… This talk was a rather dangerous thing, posing as something innocuous.

Erick said, “I try not to get involved in the Quiet War, but I understand why you ask this; it doesn’t make much sense that Tania, with her plans to eradicate all humans, would want to kill Anopix, a man who was already firmly on the side of the demons. Do you have any idea why that happened?”

Harriz frowned a little. “Nothing beyond the fact that Anopix was a good Shade, and all the rest were not. I was hoping you would have a satisfying reason.”

… It seemed like Harriz believed what he said; that he had come to Erick asking about Anopix because he genuinely wanted to know why. But according to what Erick had heard last year, and if Harriz was actually connected to Caizoa and the rest of all that organization, as he claimed and as he had already proven to be, based on the presentation he had given on behalf of Lapis...

Erick knew why Tania had killed Anopix.

He decided to tell Harriz.

“Tania killed Anopix because Anopix saw the opportunity to turn Caizoa and her group against me; to have whoever got the Black Star add one more name to the list of humans who needed to die.” Erick said, “And so, since I was still under Melemizargo’s anti-kill orders, Tania killed Anopix.”

“That cannot be the real answer!” Harriz instantly said, his voice raised in well-worn anger. “You’re not even human and you were bargained to kill the Converter Angel!”

Erick couldn’t help but smile softly, though he did school that expression away as soon as he felt it creeping upon his face. “Didn’t make much sense to me, either, but the Shades are all tainted by Melemizargo’s insanity. Are you sure that Anopix wasn’t a little weirder than he should have been?”

Harriz’s demeanor crashed, though he managed to salvage enough of himself to remain in the conversation, as he said, “Thank you for answering my questions, Wizard Flatt.” And then he regained full control of himself. “Is there anything else I can answer for you?”

The man was getting punched from every angle, and was able to keep right up. It seemed like he was a good guy to know… Which was why Lapis had brought him here, of course.

Erick said, “I want to help the Wasteland become something more than ‘the Wasteland’, either through assistance or trade or whatever. I don’t want to support a land just to see them get into That Old War with the Greensoil Republic, or with the other human lands out there.” Erick asked, “Is there a way to ensure that the Kingdoms only fight defensive wars? Or hopefully no wars at all? My own tentative idea is for the lure of progress and trade to eventually outweigh the possible boons of a successful war, though that will be a long time coming.”

Harriz’s eyes went fractionally wider. “I don’t know the feasibility of trade impacting the Quiet War in any meaningful way, but…”

They spoke for a little while, the conversation meandering here and there.

Erick gained an appreciation for Harriz, as a person. The guy was deep in the Quiet War, for sure, and he had been for a long time. But he seemed to only partake in the War in order to protect his people, or, at least, that’s what it seemed like. Harriz spoke of all of the defensive actions he had taken with regard to defending against Greensoil, and all of the failed counter-attacks against Greensoil that he wished would have not happened, like with the Halls of the Dead and the Daydropper. Those sorts of things only caused more war down the line.

He was much easier to talk to than Lapis, for sure.

Erick was rather sure that if he had been forced to talk to Lapis for more than ten minutes, that the conversation would have gone off the rails somewhere. Harriz was a welcome go-between.

It wasn’t until after Erick had left that conversation, to go on to the next presentation, that he wondered if accepting Harriz as the person to talk to, instead of Lapis herself, was a bad move. Did it show weakness of character? That his relevancy could be mitigated by putting a new face between himself and a Shade? Or was Lapis simply making a professional connection between Erick and the Wasteland? Or was Lapis just protecting herself from Erick’s wrath?

The real truth likely involved a little bit of every suspected thing.

And also Erick’s own paranoia; couldn’t forget that.

- - - -

Erick stepped into a cleared office-like space, located on the second ring of the atrium.

The presentation space was almost completely empty.

White eternal stonewood walls. Lights in the ceiling. Bare floors.

A single crude lightpainting on the right side of the room.

A simple message written in scrawled shadows; ‘I did nothing this year. I await your judgment.’

Erick frowned a little. This was Treant’s ‘presentation’, and he was having troubles, apparently. Perhaps he was even having trouble seeing the good that he had done, as good? Erick knew that Treant had killed countless monsters around Treehome, quite a few of which were the insidious, horrible kind, like unicorns hunting on the edges of society and wyrms gorging themselves on people and even more small horrors, that got everywhere and did every horrible thing they could. Treant had moved on, though, when Treehome continued to tell him to go away. He had moved on to solving an intractable problem of the world, but Erick had no idea what Treant had done, though he did know what someone else had done, alongside Treant

Erick decided to go next door, and see what Hollowsaur had done, in Hollowsaur and Treant’s joint venture in Quintland. Hollowsaur seemed more than willing to give credit to the bark-skinned orcol who was his contemporary, with a quarter of that presentation all about what they had been working on together, but apparently Treant thought he was worthless.

Hmm.

- - - -

Last year at Last Shadow’s Feast, Hollowsaur had been a loincloth-wearing orcol man who had dark green skin that was knobbly with ritual scars. When the fighting had started, Priestess had detonated some sort of conflagration ‘Red Dot’ish magic, and splashed the Temple District into glass, catching Hollowsaur in the effect, along with a bunch of other people. This had not been good for Hollowsaur’s existence. Erick had found the skeletonized Shade trapped in a splash of glass, whereupon Erick had offered the man help in the form of the first [Blessing of Empathy], and some Healing Magic.

From there, Hollowsaur had seen the error of his ways, and he had rushed over to the minotaurs who he had cursed with horrible fates and monstrous natures in order to fix those ugly, hunched and evil-inclined people. Through Hollowsaur, the minotaurs had become a bronzed skin, orcol-like people.

Erick hadn’t seen the man past that.

Hollowsaur, and many of his goblin friends who oversaw Hollowsaur’s domain in the Jungle, had vanished. But Hollowsaur was back for the Feast, and so was one of the goblins. That goblin stood in the back of the room, wearing nice clothes and seated behind a small desk. That small green guy looked like a businessman of some sort, though Erick might have been mistaking his role; if the goblin was important then Erick would likely hear from him, too.

But the Shade of Life, as he was calling himself these days, stood in the center of his presentation space, looking like a well-to-do chieftain of some rich grasslander clan. Hollowsaur wore furred leathers with chainmail inserts that looked more like a half-robe crossed with a suit. And he wore it well, but not because he was an orcol, though that part of him could not be denied. No. The change that made him look good was in the man’s face.

He looked happy.

Last year Hollowsaur had been a furious man, constantly fighting with everyone, needing to kill all who opposed him. But here he was, looking joyful.

Erick looked up at the man. “You look almost fulfilled, Hollowsaur.”

“I am!” Hollowsaur smiled almost as brightly as his glowing white eyes. “The oozes of Quintlan have been and will continue to be an intractable problem for many years to come, but I think Treant and I might be able to make a real difference in that land through careful monstery and forestry. And we already have even more allies than I thought we would! A few weeks ago, Zenipeq of Frostflower crashed out of the sky into our hidden encampment, telling us that she would participate in our cleansing of Quintlan, declaring her full support for our actions! We are grateful for the ice dragon’s inclusion, Erick; she will be a great help.”

Erick smiled softly. “Glad to hear it. With any luck, we’ll have a Gate connecting to Frostflower soon enough; perhaps as early as next month. Once that happens we’ll be able to trade and support the cleansing of Quintlan more easily, though I would ask that you use some fronts to purchase goods. Perhaps just buy stuff in Frostflower. I won’t support you directly, but I will allow tertiary support to happen. I believe Lapis is going to go through Farix and New Brightwater; you can do the same as it suits you.”

Hollowsaur grinned. “I will do that, then! So!” He waved a hand at the presentation space. “Shall I go over what we’ve tried, and what has failed?”

“I would love that. I have not had much experience with Quintlan and its oozes, though. Can you start with why you call the problem intractable?”

“Of course! That’s over here, in these images. The problem of oozes on Quintlan is one of a thousand vectors, each of which reinforce the rest. The problem is not, as many postulate, only because of the elusive ‘dungeon-creating ooze’, which is more of a classification of ooze type than any specific ooze. The entire idea of a dungeon maker is a false idea, for the real problem lies in how oozes are constantly at war with each other, scouring the world, and then remaking that conquered territory into nests for their element, which in turn pushes out all other forms of life…”

Erick listened and learned of oozes. Most of this stuff he had heard offhandedly before, but he was not aware of the nesting capabilities of stronger and purer mana-type oozes. Fire oozes became inferno oozes which then burned away mountainsides, melting stone into magma and creating deep holes in the ground where fire slimes were birthed, and then gradually grew into oozes.

Stone oozes formed the bedrock of the whole ecosystem over there, though, and it was these oozes which people called ‘dungeon makers’, for they bored holes into the world and made nests which gave birth to stone slimes. When those nests began gathering too much mana, because they always did, this caused the transformation of stone slimes into stone oozes, or, which happened a lot more often, some other type of ooze infiltrated and consumed the slimes therein. And thus, that invader slime turned the stone nest into whatever element the invader happened to be.

There were a great many ancient, 1200-year-old labyrinthine dungeons all over Quintlan which were originally the sewers of old cities, or the dungeons of old cities from before the Fall, but almost every single one had been taken over by oozes long, long ago. Those original underground spaces had been expanded over and over again, collapsing the ground above or expanding deep below. When they went too deep, though, something from the Underworld usually ended up fighting the oozes for dominance, locking the two sides into something of a semi-permanent war state.

Sometimes some oozes, like the rare stonework ooze or wooden ooze, actually built cities or city-like structures with their secretions on the Surface, not going underground at all. These advanced-intelligence slimes would make houses or hovels, or even wooden shacks in the woods, and then lie in wait for animals or adventurers or whatnot to come into those places, looking for shelter or treasure. This was just one of the reasons that Quintlan killed so many people. No one walking in that land could ever be sure of what they were walking into, because sometimes oozes built places like a person would, and all oozes were ambush predators by nature.

Adding to all that, oozes preyed upon other oozes in a vast web of interconnectedness that was impossible to actually break, because oozes were omnivores capable of eating other oozes, and they would fill any niche missing in any ecosystem, as they had in Quintlan.

“They don’t like plants, but they’ll eat anything else.” Hollowsaur said, “Fungi, mold, anything that isn’t plantfiber. The wooden ooze doesn’t even eat wood; it will shape wood into planks and build houses out of that wood, and some joining slime. And so…” He gestured to the actual presentation, saying, “We’re working on plant-based solutions to the ooze problem…”

What followed next was talk of spreading plants that consumed oozes in a myriad of ways, and which Erick had been concerned about ever since he stepped into the room. Plants were one of the few ways that a person could create propagating magic, and Hollowsaur and Treant had come up with a lot of plant-based solutions to the ooze problem of Quintlan.

Lichens that invaded soft bodies and grew moss everywhere. Most people could shake off this mossification, but oozes could not.

Vinewolves, like shadowolves but made of vines, which spread with spores injected into oozes, using the ooze body as part of its life cycle.

A variation on the deathsoul shroom that infected oozes, eventually killing the ooze and becoming a tower of spore-spreading shroom, which then infected even more oozes. Each tower would collect the primitive souls of oozes and use those souls to defend itself, and seek out more ooze sustenance.

All of those ideas seemed really bad to Erick.

But then there were other horrors, including an idea about the creation of another type of ooze which would out-compete all the other oozes, eating them all and then making more of themselves, but which could not spread through eating its own kind. That ooze-ooze would be able to eat anything except ooze-oozes.

At the end of it, Hollowsaur stood proud.

And Erick calmly asked, “So what happens when any of these solutions run out of control? When an ooze-ooze gains the ability to eat other ooze-oozes?”

Hollowsaur neatly said, “Then they’ll eat their young, and the problem will become self-solving.”

“… Oh.” Erick narrowed his eyes and looked across the presentation again. “What’s your solution for when the vinewolf turns different?”

“It becomes a normal part of the ecology. The vinewolf’s main form of reproduction involves sporification of watery, rad-occupied bodies, though, so it’s rather incapable of infecting normal, non-monster life; that rad inside the host is how it makes more of itself. The oozesoul shroom is similar, and yes, it could infect a person, if that person was unhealthy, but in all normal ways it should only be able to truly infect something with a rad inside. The lichen only grows when the host does not move, and every living thing normally moves a lot, except for oozes, when they get into ambush mode. Everything here is just tentative, though; Treant and I have spent most of the year trying to understand the whole problem from the ground up, asking experts about how they would solve the problem, but the two of us already are experts in the field of forestry and monstery, so we’re covering our—”

“It’s an intractable problem,” Treant said.

Treant had walked into the room around when Hollowsaur mentioned the man not five seconds ago. The Shade of the Forest, as he was calling himself these days, was a massive orcol with brown, bark-like skin, who wore little more than a furred kilt/loincloth, and a joyless expression.

Hollowsaur said, “It’s not intractable. We can fix it, Treant.”

“Every solution you have created is either a terror unleashed upon the world, or not strong enough. Oozes are too variable; they will simply evolve away from every solution you have.” Treant looked to Erick, and knelt upon the ground. He was eye-level with Erick now. “I submit myself for your judgment, Wizard Flatt. I have no idea where to go, and the Dark will not tell me what to do.” And then he put his head on the ground, kowtowing.

Erick frowned.

Hollowsaur frowned, too, rapidly saying, “We have a plan to clean Quintlan, Treant. This will work.”

“I’d rather be a tree in the middle of nowhere, with no thoughts in my head. I have never felt what other people felt until my Blessing, and I wish I could forget it all, but the Dark will not let me, and the plan for Quintlan will be a failure that I cannot participate in how you want me to, Hollowsaur. We’ll end up solving the problem for a decade, and then either the problem will mutate, or Death Throne will decide to go on a crusade against the living now that they’re not fighting oozes for territory all the time.” Treant did not lift his face at all as he continued to speak to the ground, “We will end up like Queen and Goldie; we will have attempted to do something good, only to fail and doom millions in that failure.”

Erick had some sudden mixed feelings. Here was Treant, a formerly unrepentant murderer, kneeling, but not in repentance; in defeat. It fell wrong in too many ways to label.

Some small thing inside of Erick snapped, and so did his voice, “Get the fuck up off the floor, Treant. Right fucking now.”

Hollowsaur’s eyes went wide. He almost stepped back, but he stopped himself.

Treant froze.

Erick allowed Treant a moment.

And Treant unfroze. He raised his face. Tears of light raced down his visage, rolling down his chest to fall onto the floor, leaving streaks of soot in their wake. He stared at Erick with false anger, for if being sad was not allowed, then maybe fury would allow him to survive this tribulation. His attempt at hate was mediocre though, and he knew it.

Erick said to the two of them, “Plants survive in Quintlan. Animals and monsters do, too. Since I am sure that oozes will eventually mutate past your ideas, which I believe is what Treant means about this all being unworkable, then I ask if you have considered altering the life that is already there? Instead of making new possible problems? No need for new ooze types, or new deathsoul shroom variants, or anything that could spread so fast that it would trigger a Kill And Exterminate Quest, like we had for the Daydroppers. I know there are primal frost owls that eat oozes, so why not make more birds to eat more oozes? Birds can get away from the ground-based monsters, after all, and they won’t spiral out of control as fast as a plant or otherwise can spiral.” He added, “Or, the real solution could be systematically using a spell like [Landshape], or similar, to transform the entire surface of Quintlan into a new Surface one piece at a time; drive out all the oozes from their hiding spots and remake the entire continent into a new image. That’s what we had to do here to clear out the crystal mimics, and it’s what we’ll continue to do to keep clearing out the mimics.”

Treant said, “We tried remaking the continent but we were driven away by idiots who didn’t see the good we were doing.”

Hollowsaur said to Treant, “With Zenipeq’s involvement that might not happen again.”

Still kneeling and unable to make himself rise further, Treant sighed, “It won’t work.”

Hollowsaur suddenly glared, but he saw Erick looking at him, and he forced that emotion away. Erick could tell that the man was exasperated with Treant, and he had no idea how to fix the situation.

… Briefly, in a surreal sort of way, because here he was mediating a collaboration between Shades, Erick felt himself step out of himself, to assess this situation from an outsider’s perspective. Here was Hollowsaur, a man who regularly worked with people and animals and every living thing on Veird, trying to adapt everything he was to a new life. Before his Blessing, the Shade had taken adventurers who assailed his place in the Jungle of Ar’Kendrithyst, looking for magical animal parts, and turned those people into amalgamations of cow and magical effect. In this way, Hollowsaur made even more magical animal parts. He had probably even carved up one of those unfortunate people and sent their magical meat to Last Shadow’s Feast, and then served this meat at the party, where Erick had partaken, unknowingly. Calling Hollowsaur an ‘asshole’ was like calling the Chelation War ‘a little spat between nations’.

But make no mistake; Hollowsaur was an asshole of the worst sort.

Or at least he used to be.

Maybe he still was an asshole in some major way that [Blessing of Empathy] could not fix.

Treant was just as bad, except his nature was to sit in his garden and do nothing almost all the time, until someone invaded, looking for magical plants. And then Treant would do what he needed to do to murder the invader as swiftly as possible. People got mulched. Bones got turned into fertilizer. Souls went on their way, wherever they wanted to go. Treant probably did some soul torture and transformation, too, just like Hollowsaur, for he helped to make those Stat Fruits, but as far as Erick knew, he did not do the horrible things that Hollowsaur had done to people.

Treant did not glorify in torture. Treant was a simple misanthrope who sometimes took people and turned them into plants. He himself was a plant, though, appearing as a tree in the center of his garden unless threatened. So his tortures seemed… Less bad than Hollowsaur’s.

Or at least that’s how they used to be.

These days Hollowsaur was working with lots of others in order to make the world better, or at least he was trying.

And Treant had no idea how the fuck to do anything at all. Sure, he had the instincts to help people, to connect with others. [Blessing of Empathy] had done that. But Treant’s first act of contrition after Last Shadow’s Feast had been to go to Treehome and start killing monsters and piling them up around the orcol lands, begging for forgiveness from the Arbors.

Just the other day, Treant had tried to speak to Yggdrasil and beg for forgiveness from him, too, but Yggdrasil did not know Treant, and told him as much, telling him to go away. All the other Arbors had told Yggdrasil to tell Treant to go away, too.

Both Hollowsaur and Treant had some overlap in their areas of power, in the wild spaces of the world, with Hollowsaur dealing with fauna, and Treant dealing with flora…

Which gave Erick an idea.

Erick asked, “There’s Fangorl, god of the wilds, right? Have you two tried speaking with their clergy? An interfaith action might help sort some of your problems before they become problems.”

Hollowsaur raised an eyebrow.

Treant scowled, getting to his feet, saying, “I will not.”

Hollowsaur glanced at Treant, and then asked Erick, “Do you have experience with Fangorl’s druids? Unless I am mistaken, you didn’t use them for your own retaking of the Crystal Forest.”

“I’m not bringing back the wilds to the Crystal Forest. I’m bringing civilization to the Crystal Forest. Less Quintlan or Nergal, more Greensoil or Nelboor or Wastelands.” Erick gestured to Hollowsaur’s presentation, saying, “You, however, are talking about the wilds. You also have a lot of decent work here, but you really could involve more people in your actions, like how Lapis did with the Converter Angel problem.”

“By the Dark,” Treant muttered, “I fucking hate people.”

And then Treant shadowstepped away, to be somewhere else; anywhere else at all.

Hollowsaur looked to Erick, saying, “He’ll come around.”

Erick looked up at the tall orcol Shade. “I can see you’re adjusting poorly, too. All this work here was the product of two months, frantically done in order to show that you’ve been doing something besides acclimating—”

Hollowsaur’s eyes went wide as his breath hitched. Panic gripped him, but he maintained most of his exterior calm.

“—which is fine.” Erick said, “You’re adjusting. He’s adjusting. Time is changing and nothing is how it usually is, and you and Treant have been doing the same things for hundreds of years. It would be insane for anyone to expect every Shade to become different people overnight, even if you have been soul-changed into a different path in life. Just this last week I transformed over 25,000 people into new people, and with those sorts of numbers I see that some people are easily able to become someone new, and others have a lot of trouble. Most people have a lot of trouble. Based on some generalities, it seems that the more powerful people with many connections to others which they formed based on that power, now have a difficult time realizing who they have become.

“Which is fine.

“You’ve got a hundred years left to figure out how you want to make Veird more stable, to prepare us all for the future, and to repent for your deeds. Treant has the right idea about taking some time. Don’t go off half-prepared like Queen and Goldie did, with the Chelation War and 4 million dead. Take your time, Hollowsaur. When I see Treant again I’ll tell him the same.”

Hollowsaur calmed, fractionally. After a moment of hard staring, he simply nodded.

Erick left, pretending not to see the glowing tears gathering in Hollowsaur’s eyes, the pure relief on his face at being found out that he hadn’t done anything at all, and the goblin in the back of the room slowly walk over to Hollowsaur and reach his hand up to hold Hollowsaur’s. Hollowsaur squeezed back.

- - - -

Farix’s presentation was simple.

It was about New Brightwater; all the people he helped save, all his assistance given to the stabilization of that city state, all the people who grew in power and prestige under his aegis. He spoke of the governing system he set up, and of the trade agreements he forged with the rest of the world. The trade that he secured with Spur through the cooperative half-defeat of the soul ooze was only part of that new trade network he got up and running—

“Well. Me and my people,” Farix said, gesturing back to the city personnel map. “It wasn’t my single effort that made New Brightwater possible. Your man Poi’s sister, Rizala, had occupied my assistant guard position until she went over to you and she was instrumental in a lot of that rebuilding. We’re hurting a bit with her gone, but the captain and the council and the merchants and the arcanaeum staff are all doing well enough together— Ah! You remember Professor Illipine Grouser? The one who was forced to plant those osteobombs inside those people who tried to kill you?”

Sudden anger.

“I very much remember the Charisma gangster and the kids he held hostage with bombs. I also remember how Poriti Rollini killed those kids, when I wouldn’t lay down everything and submit to him. I recall how he would have killed all of Grouser’s family had I not intervened,” Erick said, keeping his voice carefully even. And then he inclined his head toward the mugshot-like personnel list. “I see that Grouser is over that part of his life, and that he is now a part of your new arcanaeum. I see that the Rollini family has become one of the major members of the merchant cabal.”

“All correct. Anyway!” Farix happily said, “Grouser and the other rescued academics have almost recovered our arcanaeum capability back to where it used to be; a near-full recovery! The Rollini family is doing well now, too, now that Poriti is dead and his mother Karine is back in control. That whole mess was a bad guy put in charge of a tense situation, under a culture of horror and oppression, made that way by us Shades. And so, I have been doing my part to ensure that the society of New Brightwater is not at all like how it used to be. Of course, I do think that certain parts of our culture are better than the ones currently out there in the rest of the world. This is particularly true when it comes to arcanaeum learning.”

As Erick had done many times in his life, he made yet another choice to be understanding and forgiving in the hope that in doing so, tomorrow would be a better day. It was only in times like this, though, when his choice to be that way truly stood out to him as a conscious thing. “I have an arcanaeum that is creating a new type of arcanaeum-level curriculum. Do you have an interest in participating in that in some way? It will have to be a participation in the way of books given and ideas shared, and nothing so direct as the supply of a professor, or even the presence of Shades in any classroom at all… But I would like to know what the Clergy believes qualifies as good teaching.”

Looking surprised, relieved, and then quietly joyful, Farix said, “I’ve already heard that you plan to allow New Brightwater to openly trade with Candlepoint through our agreements with Spur, in a roundabout sort of way. Maybe even a direct Gate if this meeting goes well!”

Erick had been prepared to tie Candlepoint more overtly to the Shades for multiple reasons, even if the rest of the world saw this as a bad thing. Chief among those reasons was the fact that one could not repent if there were no avenues for repentance. But also, so that he lay down some mitigating agreements, to hopefully preempt whatever horrible thing the Shades were all hiding from him.

Because he was not stupid.

Whatever these presentations held? Lapis’s endeavors with removing the Converter Angel’s taint. Hollowsaur’s bare attempt at cleansing Quintlan. Treant’s desire to do something good, but his inability to actually do anything at all. These were real presentations which held no lies, but they were also not the whole story.

And so, Erick said, “If this Feast turns out well then I look forward to approving some merchants from New Brightwater for trade in Candlepoint. A Gate is not off the table.”

Farix smiled calmly. He understood Erick’s entire statement, subtext and all, and he also pretended like this Shadow’s Feast was going to go perfectly fine.

He knew something was up, though.

Either Fairy Moon, or Queen, or Fallopolis, or Lapis, or literally anyone else here at this party…

Someone was up to something untoward. Maybe even Farix himself was guilty of this? Erick had no idea what that ‘something’ could be, but if Farix knew, then he was doing a damned good job of pretending not to know anything specific. He certainly understood Erick’s worries, though. He wanted that Gate to Candlepoint, and those trade agreements; he needed those agreements.

It seemed Erick had kicked the nest exactly right.

Only time would tell what crawled out of the nest, though.

- - - -

Erick could have gone to see Queen’s or Fairy Moon’s or even Quilatalap’s presentation, which might all have been more important than this next one. Maybe he should have checked up on Zolan’s presentation, which was all about the Gate District and the progress of Candlepoint over the last year, or really the last third of a year, after Erick finished the Worldly Path and founded House Benevolence.

But this presentation was either as unimportant as Treant’s, or the most important thing to happen at this Feast.

Erick stood in a mostly empty room, save for its single occupant.

Fallopolis smiled brightly, saying, “HellooooOOoooOOo, Erick Flatt! I have a presentation, but it’s only available after you see everyone else’s.” With an excited tone, she asked, “Shall we see what Queen’s been up to?” Fallopolis walked right past Erick, merrily saying, “Or maybe Ar’Cosmos! Or how about your man Zolan’s presentation? So many options!”

Erick frowned at her.

Fallopolis tapped the open doorway to the room, saying, “Come on now! Let us see Quilatalap’s presentation!” With eyebrows raised high. “Or is that a private show?”

Erick saw the deflection.

He was having none of it.

“Putting aside how I dislike you opting to put yourself above the etiquette of participating like a normal person... I have a few personal questions for you, Fallopolis.” Without waiting for the Shade to answer one way or another, Erick asked, “Are you a Mind Mage?”

“… Nope!” Fallopolis eyed Erick, asking, “Wh—”

“Are you capable of mental magic in any way?”

“… Of course.” Turning reluctantly serious, Fallopolis added, “I am glad to report that you have not been mentally mutilated since last we spoke, and I’ve been checking. Keeping a safe eye on you. Even that fairy didn’t fuck you over too badly, though you should probably speak to a therapist, like your man Poi suggests every other week.”

Without missing a beat, Erick said, “As soon as the trauma actually stops I might do that.” He asked, “So do you know what I know, without me needing to tell you?”

Erick had many different things that he wished to speak about, with the frizzy-haired Shade. One of those topics stood out to him now.

Back in the Core, Rozeta had spoken of other Wizards to come before Erick, whom Rozeta had tried to help. Erick was not the first Wizard to try and make the world a better place, after all, and he was certainly not the first Wizard that the gods had tried to bend into their ticket to a true New Cosmology; into a hope and fulfillment that stretched across the stars, and which was proof against a Sundering.

One of those Wizards was Fallopolis’s mother, though that woman never got very far along Rozeta’s desired path.

That Wizard had started out as something good, though she rapidly progressed from Rozeta’s assistance in becoming a Wizard, to doing small acts of terror and disgrace. And then she stepped far over the line. She went to war, and then she won that war through Paradoxing her way to victory. If it was only that, then steps likely would have been taken to bring her back into the fold. But Fallopolis’s mother went a step beyond that war Wizardry. She won her war, and she also stole the mana generation of every single person she ‘killed’ in that war, making it her own.

This was taboo.

The combination of it all triggered a Forgotten Campaign, forcing Rozeta into erasing the woman, her accomplishments, and her horrors from the world.

That Forgotten Campaign somehow missed Fallopolis, though; the Wizard’s daughter.

Erick had a lot of thoughts on all that, and he left those thoughts unguarded, though he had never learned how to guard his thoughts anyway. His Domain still held around himself, but from his understanding of Mind Magic, his ‘mind slime’ hung out there all the time for anyone to read, and maybe control; even extensive mental practice for decades couldn’t change that fact. Eventually, by becoming a full Wizard, Erick would become immune to people affecting his mind slime, but for now, he was not immune to Mind Mage, and his thoughts were out there.

Fallopolis seemed not to notice any of those thoughts, though, but she did gain a small edge to her voice as she simply said, “No. I do not know what you are thinking, Erick. I am not a Mind Mage. I don’t use the little mental power I’ve developed without due cause, and I have not been given due cause in this case.”

The [Blessing of Minor Truth] that bound them remained silent; no little buzz in Erick’s soul to indicate a minor lie, no spark to indicate a true lie. Fallopolis was either telling the full truth, or she had subverted the blessing.

So Erick decided to lay it out there, “Last Feast, you told me that the forces of this world had killed your mother in a Forgotten Campaign, and you have been trying to find out why for a very long time. What they did to your mother is why you joined the Clergy in the first place. I have been given some of this information as a peace offering to hand off to you, in the hopes that it will be accepted as such. Will you accept this peace offering?”

Fallopolis was silent and staring, her breath even, her shoulders rigid. Her grip on her staff was tight, her knuckles turning white. She said nothing.

… Erick said, “You once said that you could never forgive them for what they did, but considering the world we live in now, and the world we’re trying to build, could you move past that hate? That is what I’m really asking for. Not forgiveness. Not reconciliation. You can keep your hate, as well, if you must. But I would ask you to move past it all.”

With a perfectly straight face, Fallopolis said, “I moved beyond that trauma a long time ago—”

Buzz. Lie.

“—so there’s no need to bring any of it up again—”

Buzz. Lie.

“— and besides, there’s probably nothing you know that I don’t already know.”

Buzz. Lie.

“… Tell you what I’m going to do.” Erick held out his hand and an Ophiel lightstepped into the space, holding onto a large brown envelope that held a smaller envelope inside. That smaller letter was wrapped in a Privacy. Fallopolis could easily break that seal and read that letter right now, if she wished, but she did not. It had taken Erick about three seconds to make the item, and he had done so in the seconds following Fallopolis’s denial of the olive branch. He still held that branch out to Fallopolis, though. “I’ve written down the full account of the story, straight from Rozeta, in black ink. In blue, I have written down my own interpretations of the events, which may or may not be correct. This is yours to do with as you want. So far, this story is only between Rozeta, me, and maybe you, if you accept this letter. I have not told anyone else, and I don’t think this letter has been compromised in the full 30 seconds of its existence.”

Erick continued to hold the letter out to Fallopolis.

And Fallopolis stared at the brown envelope and its bit of hidden insides. Her eyes were focused, her expression stone. And then suddenly she spoke, “I have changed my mind about accompanying you to the other presentations,” while also snatching up the letter.

The Shade of Civilization vanished in a step of shadows.

… Erick moved on.

- - - -

Queen stood resplendent in the center of her presentation space, looking like a prismatic incani bodybuilder queen. Her iridescent white crown of horns suited her well, as did her soft, pale violet skin, though the deep sadness kept on the other side of her thoughts was rather apparent for all with the Sight to see. Erick saw that sadness easily as one could see the sun on a clear day.

“Hello, Queen. Glad to see you again.”

“Greetings, Wizard Flatt. Would you care to speak of the rebuild of Songli? Or of my disastrous handling of Terror Peaks?”

She was not being flippant. She was fully ready to receive judgment; to die for her crimes of 4 million dead. But the outcome of the Chelation war was not entirely her fault. It wasn’t just her that had increased the power of Terror Peaks, and gathered allies to that side, all in an effort to cull the chaff from the Highlands and simultaneously force Songli to kill every single hurdle to Songli becoming a true empire. Goldie had helped. Terror Peaks, themselves, had pulled 95% of that weight, though.

Erick had heard a great deal of that story from Goldie, and it did not need to be repeated here.

So Erick simply said, “I judge you guilty of the crime of warmongering, but I was the one who walked the Worldly Path, and neither of us are the ones who actually went to war. Terror Peaks is to blame for what happened back then, for what they did of their own volition. But besides all that, you are trying to make up for what you did, correct?”

“Absolutely.”

Erick nodded, saying, “I’m probably going to accidentally kill millions, too, either through some integral system I create being corrupted, or someone using my knowledge to do something evil— though that already happened with Odaali and the Daydropper… I can only hope that when the good I have tried to do goes bad, that I am allowed to make up for it afterward.” He stared hard, saying, “Though trying to increase the size of a war so that the outcome of that war is more favorable is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard of and you will not be doing anything like that ever again!”

Queen absorbed the reprimand with poise; though some tears did fall from her eyes, she did not break down.

Erick calmed himself after his minor tirade.

Moments passed in near-silence.

Eventually, Queen recovered herself fully. She basked in those words like a woman given reprieve from execution, which is sort of exactly what happened. But Erick wouldn’t have been the one to execute her. Fallopolis probably would have done that. Or maybe someone else? Who really knew about these things. Killing Shades was dangerous, though, and not just because of the actual danger of such an action.

Erick certainly wouldn’t be killing any Shades unless there was a clear and present need to do so, because to do that would be to reopen hostilities with the Dark. In a strange way, this year was the exact opposite of last year. Back then he had wanted to kill all Shades, but now, he wanted this treaty to work, and that meant reforming Melemizargo’s Clergy.

… Erick turned away from Queen and looked to one of the intricate lightpaintings on the walls. It was a map of Eralis, the southernmost major city of the Highlands. This particular map was color coded with territories marked out and labeled and with all those areas sorted out on other lightpaintings. Each of those sortings held explanations of the major forces therein and how they influenced the other forces of Eralis, through trade, movement of people, and anything else of note in those areas.

There were other maps for Alaralti and Holorulo, and for the areas surrounding those other two major cities of the Highlands.

Clan Void Song, Clan Severing Crescent, Clan Devouring Nightmare…

All the High Clans and all their major members were listed and spoken of, but only a few of those people had little black numbers by their names, indicating that Queen was in talks with them (according to the key to the side). Those numbers were listed on other lightpaintings, showing exactly what Queen was in talks about, and how successful those talks were.

Erick calmly asked, “So what’s going on here?”

Queen rapidly began, “I began with Eralis...”

Over the course of three hours, Erick understood the whole of Queen’s efforts. Mostly, she was vetting what she was seeing, and then trying to get people to meet each other, so that those people could come to their own prosperous conclusions. She spoke directly to scions of noble houses, to tell them that some puppet minds had taken hold of one of the hamlets on the edge of their territory. She told authorities in Alaralti how their main northern farms were currently experiencing banditry from an ousted clan, and how that ousted clan were just kids trying to make a living post-war. She helped healers find work, and broken families find assistance organizations.

She was also ensuring that people knew what she was doing. No more letters on pillows. No more subterfuge. She was placing herself as an empire builder and she was not doing it from the shadows—

Well.

She was hiding herself enough so that the many, many different forces of Songli did not try to murder her in response to her being a Shade, and also for her responsibly for the Chelation War. So there was some physical disconnect between herself and the people she tried to help. But those were basic protections, and more than once she had met directly with a few clans, only to have the High Clans show up and try to speak with her, which she did.

“I must confess, Wizard Flatt,” Queen said, at the end of the presentation and because she could no longer hold it in, “I might be responsible for Songli Juggernaut’ing their Gate agreements with you. It was completely unintentional, but I had to ensure that people knew what I was doing this time, and some people assumed that I was working for you already, due to… Goldie and I... I will not have a repeat of the Chelation War… Where I…” She had started off strong, but then her voice trailed away.

Queen was not the same person she was last year; that brash, powerful woman who controlled the Feast and then watched it all fall apart, who then joined with Tania and went to war with all the other Shades. She was not the same person who had [Prismatic Bomb]ed Erick while he slept. She was not on ‘the other side’ anymore, and she was repentant.

Erick was 99% sure of that.

“It was good talking with you, Queen, but time can truly judge your actions. Hopefully your decisions turn out well.”

Queen’s voice was small, yet even, “I hope so, too.”