The morning arrived as it normally did; without explosions of any kind.

It was Erick’s preferred way to start the day.

No explosions, some nice coffee, and a nice danish. Though they weren’t called danishes here on Veird. They were simply called pastries, and the one sitting half-eaten on Erick’s plate had been made by Kiri some time ago, and then kept preserved and cold in the pantry for a while. They were a variation of tarip fruit pastries, and though they were not Erick’s preferred type of fruit, they had to be eaten, since they had been made. ‘Going to the market’ would be a big deal these days so they were living off their stockpile for a while. The tarip fruit in these ones had been cut into centimeter cubes, and then cooked with some other stuff to produce a cherry-like flavor. They were actually pretty good. Erick liked the hard white sugar icing, too.

And so, he sat there, on his little breakfast porch, watching the sunrise over Candlepoint in the distance, while he enjoyed breakfast. He also enjoyed watching the Gate to Stratagold in the north, and the wrought build their base in front of the Gate. It was a temporary, blocky structure for now, acting as little more than barracks and an adjacent office building, along with assorted other spaces, but it would serve. It was probably too big, though.

The building itself was fine, and of rather normal size, if actually a bit small, but Stratagold had thrown up a small wall around their entire compound. That wall stretched for about 500 meters square, taking up a lot of land north west of the first Gate.

That plotting coincided —somewhat— with the direction that Alfonin had gestured toward last night, and the wardlight structures that Erick had put up just before that, but Erick did not expect Stratagold to take four adjacent plots for themselves…

But! Eh. Whatever.

Erick still wasn’t sure how to best plan for a Gate Network, anyway.

Maybe an outlet to a different land every 500 meters? And then that land could have an embassy in the adjacent north-west 500 meter square plot? Like in a line from west to east, and facing north? That was sort of what he had going on right now.

He could do it differently, though.

A few soldiers had gone back and forth through the [Gate] (and looked amazed at everything for a good minute before they got to work) but no one else had transferred through. There were wrought guards positioned on both sides to prevent unauthorized transfers… Erick suspected that those guards were just tax collectors, or something. They had a small station set up near the Gate for just such collection purposes, unless Erick’s Sight was deceiving him, and it probably wasn’t.

Each wrought that passed through put a gold coin in the box, though, so that was nice.

Theoretically, people could go through if they wanted, but no one was. Which was fine.

This meant that Erick had some time to solve some future problems before those problems arrived.

He already saw one issue that he wanted to circumvent. In that moment Erick decided he needed at least 2 Gates, maybe 4, from each land. Arrival, Departure, and perhaps a split between cargo and people transportation. So four Gates. It wouldn’t do to have everyone coming through the same way, after all. Cargo would need to be checked and Scanned for monsters and contraband, not to mention the driver giving a truthstone-verified pledge of how much cargo they were hauling and the taxes they expected to pay (or however it actually ended up working out), which would be a minor hassle. People would require a different sort of Scanning and checking. Perhaps from a Sin Seeker? Truthstones all around, though.

All eminently solvable problems.

Erick smiled.

This was going to be fun.

Erick turned, saying, “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Poi walked onto the balcony carrying his own pastry and coffee. “Care to Shape up a schedule? For the future?” He sat down. “I’ve been looking up successful rules of rulers, and there is a lot on the subject, but one of the common things is to have a certain kind of schedule.”

Ahhh. It was time for king shit already, was it?

Fair enough.

Erick managed to hold on to his good mood for a moment longer than normal in the face of this particular topic, which helped him to settle back down and secure his thoughts. This was his life, now. He needed to do it right. And since Poi was obviously teasing him, as well as trying to set him on a good path…

Erick breathed deep, glanced outward at the rising sun, and then decided to tease Poi right back.

“You want to be the Evil Adviser Behind The Throne? Second in command?”

Poi smirked. “I can’t. Not allowed. Mind Mage protocols.”

“… That’s awfully convenient for you,” Erick said, scowling.

“I’ll happily be your Perfectly Proper Mind Mage Advisor, though.”

Erick paused for a second. Had Poi just made a joke? He had, hadn’t he. Poi had also accepted the position. Erick laughed, loud and free, then said, “You shouldn’t have to Class Change unless you want to.”

Poi nodded. “So about that daily schedule.”

“Okay. Okay. So… I suppose I would like an overview of what happened while I slept, and what crises I must now solve.”

“Nothing happened while you slept, and there are no crises to be solved.”

Erick gave Poi a Look.

Poi smiled faintly, then said, “All of the initial news of Candlepoint has gone far and wide, and mostly, people are worried. The deeper halls of power are the deeper halls of power, and thus not under my purview, but I can tell you of certain public events that have happened.

“Before that, though, I feel you should consider hiring a proper Knowledge Mage out of whatever Elites the Headmaster sends your way, or however you come across one that you like. You need a proper Knowledge Mage; someone with a memory as good as yours, a deep understanding of the political landscape of the entire world, and who would want to work for a known Wizard. You probably could have gotten a very, very good Knowledge Mage prior to that revelation, but now… I imagine the pickings are either slim, or not people you want to actually deal with.” Poi said, “I’d give you more advice, but I can’t tell you everything that I know, because most of what I know comes from my own Mind Mage Network.” A bit more seriously, “So maybe you should look for a different second-in-command.”

Erick gazed outward.

After a moment, Erick said, “I’ll pick out a Knowledge Mage from Kirginatharp’s Elites… if he has one. And I guess I should actually find a second-in-command then… Eventually.”

Poi nodded, then continued, “Mostly, people are waiting to see what happens next. Those who know of Wizards beyond the horror stories, and who would actually do anything against any apparent Wizard, have already been defanged. The wrought. Oceanside. Rozeta’s paladins. The paladins of all the gods, actually; not a single god has you on their ‘shit list’, as you would put it. And then there’s the dragons, too. Allies instead of enemies. You did that. You disarmed your main opponents before any war could even start.

“So now, as far as I know, the rest of the world is waiting to see what happens next.” With a face purposefully made emotionless, Poi added, “I can tell you that the Dragon Stalkers are gearing up to take the place of those who would usually fight a Wizard, specifically because you have allied with Ar’Cosmos. On that news front, and so it doesn’t become an unexpected problem or surprise later, Melemizargo resurrected my sister, Rizala. She is currently a shadeling working under Farix. She is a Mind Mage as well. We have spoken, and as far as I can tell she is Rizala, but… I do not want to talk about it. It won’t let it affect my work.”

Erick’s heart went out to Poi as Poi stared out at the horizon the whole while, not willing to look Erick’s way. He dearly did want to talk about it, but not right now. Maybe later.

Poi frowned a bit more.

It took Erick a long moment to move on, for a thousand thoughts flitted through his mind. How old was Rizala? They had been twins, but Rizala had been killed when Poi was young, and Erick didn’t know the exact timeline, so if Rizala was young, then that meant that Melemizargo had held on to her soul for a long while. But if she was older, then that meant she had been used and abused as a shadeling in Ar’Kendrithyst for maybe as much as a decade and a half.

Poi sighed.

Erick tried to move on, but he couldn’t. Not that fast. He said, “When you want to solve that problem; to get your sister out, or whatever you want. Let me know.”

Poi didn’t breathe for a moment, but then he relaxed, and continued, “The… The Angels and the Demons haven’t done anything overly large, and there haven’t been any conspicuous summonings anywhere in the Crystal Forest… Though the only verifiable source of information we have on that comes from Spur. Spur is still sharing information with us, which is useful.

“Various archmages are reported to have left their usual haunts, while many sightings confirm the Sight of at least Syllea on Oceanside. Tenebrae has been suspiciously silent, but I know he is still alive; that’s all, though.” Poi said, “Gossip and news like that is better handled by a Knowledge Mage.”

Erick moved the conversation along, asking, “I know there aren’t any newspapers on Veird like how I’m used to seeing them, with like, forty pages of small true stories and the like. But there are some papers out there, aren’t there? Quality ones? With current events, and such?”

Poi nodded. “Oceanside’s weekly paper is popular. That’s mostly about stuff happening around Oceanside, though. Smaller yet popular world events section, but since that part of that paper caused two wars over the course of two decades, a few centuries ago, that part of that paper got gutted. There’s a very popular paper in the Pearl Kingdom, called The Irisheet, though those are more weekly fictions than proper news sources. The kinds of papers that you wish to read would probably best come from Knowledge Mages. They’re a loosely affiliated group that shares stories, and some of them produce weekly reports and person-reports for specific individuals. Highly truthful and knowledgeable Knowledge Mages are as sought after as free grand rads on a market street. That’s how people who want to know current events get their knowledge.”

Erick sighed. “That whole profession has always struck me as odd. Professional gossip mongers. But... Jane’s used them before and they steered her right. I suppose I should look to hiring one or ten.” Erick thought. “Is there in one already in Candlepoint?”

“I do not know.”

Erick didn’t believe that for a second.

Poi elaborated. “And see. This is why you need a Knowledge Mage; someone who can talk about that, because there was no way for me to know these things outside of my Mental Magic.”

“Fine fine fine.” Erick said, “I’ll put it on the to-do list. ‘Get a Knowledge Mage’. How does that Class even work?”

Poi smiled a little, then said, “Their power is mostly in the [Identify] spell, like in an Identinomicon, though they take it to an internalized extreme not seen in any other use of that magic. A good Knowledge Mage functions almost as the Sliding System we saw in Enduring Forge, but they’re deeply reliant on how much they already know. Mostly, though, they just have really, really good ways to organize and call up their own memories.”

“Huh. I would have thought the Mind Mages would have cornered the market on that… But I guess your codes demand you not do this.”

Poi nodded. “We have some Mind Mage Knowledge Mages and they are very good at their chosen profession, but they’re also not in the public Sight at all.”

Erick asked,“Got any news from that O’Lark guy? Or from Mage Bank?”

“I know as much as you; the information has gotten out there but nothing has been done yet.” Poi said, “Usually, the world moves a lot slower than how fast you’ve been moving.”

“Most of the world isn’t expecting the world to come down on them like an avalanche of [Force Bomb]s, either.”

“I agree.” Poi said, “And so, having a schedule would do well in allowing you to see to your lands and people, and to ensure that things are being done properly. I’ve literally never done this before, either, Erick, so I’m lost, too. But we can figure it out.

“I know what Silverite does every morning, though, and her system works out well. She first has a secretary —Hera, you met her— brief her of the larger events of the night, which we have already done, and then she checks in with her various appointed powers, like Mog, Zago, and Killzone. The Wayfarer’s and the sewers and the nobles and merchants are a second class of checks, which are usually in the form of mail she looks at every morning. This leads to mornings of talking and smaller events, as needed. Then she oversees judicial concerns that approach her level of necessary oversight in the afternoon. Pretty simple, really.”

Erick felt a weight drop from his shoulders as he listened.

He had no idea why he thought this would be one crisis after another, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? It all sounded pretty simple when Poi put it like that.

“So in the morning… I’ll do magic in the morning, and [Gate] construction, and other physical works. In the afternoon, I’ll deal with letters and such from around the world— Actually. Other way around? Yes. Other way around… But.” He asked, “I’m thinking I need to make a building for House Benevolence. Somewhere for mail to get to, and for people to see me in person. That needs to happen first.”

“And it has to have a proper throne room.” Poi said, “Candlepoint’s throne room was nice, but it could have been better.”

Erick rolled his eyes. “I want to make Candlepoint’s everything nicer, eventually.” He began conjuring lightwards of various buildings, saying, “As for House Benevolence. We’ve seen a lot of different building styles, yet I’m most fond of what we saw in Songli. The large, hollow-mountain style. I even made that one for Clan Red Ledger myself, and so…”

Erick conjured ideas and houses, which were more like mountains. Poi spoke of necessary personnel, and of expansions and security. Erick moved around the lightsculpture, trying to fit everything in, and in a coherent way. They spoke for a while, enjoying reheated pastries and architectural design as the sun fully rose over Candlepoint.

And there were no explosions anywhere that Erick could see.

It was a great way to start the day.

And then the morning got a whole lot better as Jane, Kiri, and Teressa showed up on the porch, bringing with them a full breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and sausage. Erick had a second, much better meal, along with more nice coffee, as he continued to conjure lightsculptures of a theoretical House Benevolence.

Everyone had some suggestions.

It was a lovely conversation, and Erick was glad to have it—

And then Erick saw some wiry, green-metal old-human man wrought rush through the [Gate] from Stratagold, followed by some exasperated possible-assistants. None of them were soldiers. The old guy was the first person to come through the Gate not ‘dressed’ in uniform armor made of their own metal selves; he was dressed in a loose green metal toga that hung off of him like a bedsheet two sizes too large. His apprentices (they had to be apprentices?) were a male incani and a female incani who wore themselves like they were wearing normal clothes; tunics and pants of nice quality.

The old man got twenty meters out of the Gate, stared at everything around him, and then collapsed to his knees. His apprentices rapidly caught up and started fussing over the old guy, while the old man smiled brightly and shoved his hands forward and up, raising his voice to the sky, “Thank Rozeta for this gifted opportunity! I will make this land unforgettable!”

Ah.

Architect O’Lark? Probably.

Poi’s voice brought Erick back to the moment, saying, “Prince Sitnakov wishes to inform you that Architect O’Lark has appeared. He suggests that you appear and do something before the old man starts building castles.”

Erick smiled, then stood up. “Breakfast is over, anyway. Tell him we’ll be there in a minute. Kiri, you’re probably going to help O’Lark build some stuff, if you want.”

Everyone began to move fast, but Kiri was the only one who flickered away in a flash of light to reappear in her room, to frantically get dressed for the day. Erick was only marginally slower at taking a [Gate] to his own room.

- - - -

The Gate District, which is what Erick tentatively decided to call the land upon which the Gate Network was to be built, was bustling with activity. It had only been three minutes since O’Lark landed here on the Surface, but he was already drawing a crowd from all the wrought soldiers at the nearby barracks.

The ancient copper man shook his wiry arms at the Gate he had just left, bringing to mind a sweeping gesture of pain and pleasure, calling out, “Oh! It will be magnificent!” He collapsed to his knees for the second time, overcome with emotions again as he exclaimed, “I will make a monument to the ages! A testament to civil engineering and proper workflow!”

… Which was kinda odd to hear, but it made Erick feel like he had clearly made the right choice in accepting Alfonin’s suggestion of architect.

The wrought soldiers completely ignored the old copper man as they saw Erick, turning all of their attentions to the Wizard in the area. O’Lark’s assistants saw the shift in Sight and then they saw Erick. They both briefly froze. And then they unfroze and tried to get O’Lark to also realize that the client was here, but O’Lark wasn’t having it.

“Let me be, boy!” O’Lark slapped his hands on the strong grip of a bright copper incani man. He didn’t want to be hauled to his feet, but he was, and probably as gently as the assistant could manage. “Let me have my moment! I never get enough of these!”

Sitnakov came out of the bunker—

O’Lark instantly locked eyes on Sitnakov and deflated. “Aw, fucks. He’s here? Of course he is. Alfonin said something like that.” O’Lark’s assistant said some more small words, repeating his message about the presence of the client, and then O’Lark whipped around and eyed Erick. “Ah! You! Wizard!”

Erick had not stopped walking forward this whole time, but at about ten meters away, being loudly called a ‘Wizard’ caused him to pause. And then he resumed walking forward, saying, “Yes. Me Wizard. I assume you’re O’Lark?”

O’Lark stepped forward to get closer to Erick, but his assistant (or keeper?) had a firm grip on O’Lark’s upper arm. O’Lark took offense at this, and slapped the guy’s hand several times rather quickly, causing the assistant to let him go. The assistant was scared, but O’Lark was either fearless, or uncaring. Probably both. O’Lark closed the distance with Erick, pointed an arm at Sitnakov who was still walking this way, and announced, “I will not be held responsible for that mad man destroying these lands, but I can ensure that they have deep mana signatures, which, while it will not mitigate that man’s penchant for destruction, it will allow for an easier repair when all the battles are over.” He stepped back, waving his arms wide, saying, “There’s no real way to prevent crazy warriors from going through walls if they really want to go through walls, but I can ensure that the walls can be put back easily enough!”

Erick already liked the guy, but he approved of O’Lark even more at that statement. Sitnakov aside, Erick expected this place to take a beating at least once or twice, and so having it be easily repairable was a big plus.

“Reasonable all around.” Erick asked, “How do you do that, though? Ensure that the building can come back even though Extreme Light bombardments and other such manasphere destructive magics?”

O’Lark smiled wide, utterly relieved. “Ahhh! This is going to be good. No stupid introductions. No stupid talking. Just real questions! But to answer the question! The answer is quite simple! You make a runic model of the building and you protect that model! The physical building can break and shatter, but as long as you got that model you can [Mend] the real thing back to full with little actual work!”

“… I get the feeling that this sort of magic is a massive security issue.”

“It very much is!” O’Lark said, “You gotta keep the model super safe or else someone can find it and do awful things to the model, which will propagate to the physical building if [Mend]ing magic should be applied. It’s modeling magic! My own invention! It’s derivative of Doll Magic, which itself isn’t a real magic, but Book Magic is useful for many things, and a lot of things can be considered a ‘book’ since the underlying nature of that Element is to instruct. So from that viewpoint you take the Book and you make it into a model and then you got a model which can remake the real thing!”

Erick took a moment to think about all of that new information.

He said, “Nope. Let’s do a normal place, and I can repair it as needed. I can’t have a liability like that around.”

“Sure! That's fine too.” O’Lark instantly leaned in a little, eyeing Erick as a starving man would look upon a feast. “Where are we going to start? Where shall I [Strike] to lay the first brushstroke upon this masterpiece of the ages?”

“… I will talk with your assistant over pricing and such—” O’Lark almost objected, and had in fact got out a few words into that objection, but Erick barreled on, saying, “—because I am going to pay you. My assistant Kiri, here, will be helping with as much of the actual construction as you deem fit. She’s the one that built this foundation under our feet, and her [Familiar], Sunny, lets her do the work of at least 10 people.”

Kiri came forward a step and bowed, while her little couatl did the same and flickered through several colors as she did.

“You didn’t make the foundation, Wizard?” O’Lark narrowed his eyes at Erick, then looked to Kiri. His appraisal was quick and marginally positive, then he turned back to Erick. “I had heard that you were good with building creation. That clan mountain you made in Songli was nothing special architecturally, but the Shaping was well done. It appears your apprentice is also accomplished, but I had expected to work directly with you.”

“Do you think I want to make this whole place out of eternal stonewood, or something?”

“I had assumed that you had some sort of specialized material that you were going to use that no one else could Shape. Something very robust! Like the Songli clan mountains! Is this not true?”

“Let me ask you a question in turn: Will people feel safer in this land if they know the resident Wizard could Shape it around them, and they could do nothing, or would they feel safer if they could Shape the buildings themselves, as an emergency measure.” When O’Lark had to stop and think, narrowing his eyes at the ground and then turning his eyes left and right, Erick continued, “I was going to put everything made here under Stone Denial spellwork. It’ll be weak to attackers with a Stone-based Domain, but it’ll allow people to Shape their own housing while the Denials are turned off, which can be done without much hassle.”

O’Lark frowned a little, then complained, “I won’t be able to use good materials, then.”

Erick said, “The work I wish from you is for overall planning and future-problem-proofing through the structures laid down today, or soon enough. I do not expect you to Shape all the land here, or much of it at all. I need plans for Gate organization. To that end, I’m probably going to give all the major Gate locations a 500 meter square plot of land, and four Gates. The four Gates will be split between people and product, and coming or going.” Erick said, “As a basic start, I’m envisioning a north-south-east-west gridwork city, with normal, wide roads separating every 500 meter square plot. Smaller roads as needed. The main thing, though, is that there will be several special Gate Roads, much, much wider than the normal roads and mostly going east to west. Those Gate Roads will have the four portals, and those lands where the portals are from will be situated directly next to their Gates, in order to control their own lands to collect taxes and such, of which half will go to me. I will be responsible for the integrity of the Network, and the security of this land, on this side. Partnered lands will be responsible for the land on their side, except for the parts which are homes for Yggdrasil.”

O’Lark studied Erick while his assistants recorded Erick’s wants, and then O’Lark turned his attentions sideways to look at the land all around them.

Erick waited.

Stitnakov and everyone else also waited.

“Utilitarian, eh? I suppose there’s beauty in that.” O’Lark turned back to Erick. “What’s your heraldry? Got any yet?”

“Nope.” Erick said, “We’re going rather fast right now. I’m trying to set up and prove this as a good thing before all the world decides I’m an evil which must be crushed.”

“This world is full of fools.” O’Lark waved a skinny arm, saying, “Eh! You’ll be fine. Maybe an assassin or two but you can handle that, I’m sure. I’ll be back with plans for approval. Tomorrow or whenever—” With sudden intensity, he asked, “Do you have a sewermaster? Which school of dungeoneering are they from?” He twirled around and glanced east. “Shadeling sewermaster over there, right? Or former shadeling?” He turned back, awaiting an answer— And then he demanded to know, “You’re making a Clan Mountain for yourself, too, are you not! Do you have that planned?!”

The man was intense. Erick almost chuckled.

But instead, Erick calmly said, “I plan on making a House Benevolence, yes. That building will be made of eternal stonetree. You and I will likely need to have a much larger conversation about needs when it comes to making that particular building, but I could use your expertise—”

“Do you have a theme?!”

“Worldwide unity through peace and prosperity.”

The words had tumbled out of Erick’s mouth without much thought, but they were true, and so Erick left them out there, without clarification.

O’Lark reeled back in deep thought, breathing deeply and with his sight drifting upward, as though he were seeing something that wasn’t there. And then he looked away, silently watching the land.

A moment passed in more silence.

One of the man’s assistants, an incani woman wrought, carefully spoke, “Pardon. The questions. Sewermaster? Dungeoneering school?”

Erick glanced at O’Lark, who seemed to be having a moment, and then he answered the assistant, “No sewermaster yet, or any lead on one. I could ask Ava back at Candlepoint, but this land is too big for one sewermaster, and so I will need to get more. If you have the suggestions then I have the ears to listen.”

The woman bowed a fraction, quick and done, then said, “I will be sure to inform Architect O’Lark when he is able to listen once again.”

The male incani wrought assistant asked, “We have other clarification questions, if you are willing to answer.”

O’Lark was very much out of it, staring off into space, moving his hands left and right, making angles with his thumbs and forefingers as he squinted off into the distance, slowly turning around the whole time as though he stood atop a turntable.

Erick answered the other assistant, “Ask.”

The man bowed, then asked, “Can Gates move without breaking the spellwork inside?”

“Nope. That breaks the magic.”

The man got out a small notepad and wrote down Erick’s answer, as he asked, “What happens when someone is in the middle of the [Gate] during a break?”

“They appear on the side in which they started walking through.”

“No worries about bisecting problems?” The man said, “The Architect was worried he would have to account for that.”

“There shouldn’t be any problems there.” Erick could read many of the questions on the pad through his mana sense, so he began, “I’ll just answer the rest, okay? 50 meters max diameter. Average 5. No passenger limit. No weight limit. Focus on throughput and security. Standardization is desired between all structures. I plan on inviting the Wayfarer’s Guild to this land for some ‘last mile’ deliveries, so they’ll likely get land somewhere adjacent to Gate Road but I haven’t actually spoken to them yet. The Adventurer’s Guild can be far away from the Gates. Banks will need to be accounted for like the Wayfarer’s— I’ll just leave some property clear for them, too...”

Erick answered the man’s written questions, and more besides, while O’Lark studied the land, making shapes with his hands… Possibly in the shapes of buildings here and there? Erick felt that guess was correct, but he didn’t actually know.

The female assistant was also watching O’Lark, but she was waiting for him to need her. Erick got the impression that it was hard for people to keep up with the skinny copper man.

Quietly, Sitnakov asked the woman assistant, “Do you have questions for the outpost and the barracks?”

The woman winced as though something bad had happened.

O’Lark instantly came out of his fugue and shouted at the prince, “It’s FUCKING BARRACKS! No art at all!” And then he started stomping toward the temporary barracks, shouting, “You want me to make barracks? I can make you barracks! I can make barracks in my sleep!”

The two assistants each took deep breaths.

The woman ran after O’Lark first.

The male assistant briefly bowed to Erick, then rose, saying, “We shall have your plans ready as soon as possible. Perhaps two or three days. I imagine the Architect desires to showcase his talents and general ideas through the reconstruction of Stratagold’s properties. If you have any concerns over what you should see, please inform us at your leisure, but sooner is better than later.”

“Sure thing.” Erick said, “My first concern is that I don’t want you fortifying for war. Safety is appreciated and desired, but I want this land to be inviting and friendly.”

The man deeply bowed, then rose again. “Understood. I will convey your desires to the Architect. He enjoyed meeting you, Archmage Flatt, though he is rather more enamored with the work and with the idea of people living inside his work, than with the people themselves. Please excuse his brusqueness.”

Erick smiled. “I imagine you end up saying things like that all the time. Tell him I enjoyed the meeting too. I look forward to the plans for this land...” Erick gazed past the man, to watch as soldiers and otherwise began evacuating the building. Stone crashed inside, like the falling of a brick wall. Didn’t sound like a load-bearing crash, though. “Don’t do any construction outside of Stratagold’s lands without my approval.”

The man said, “Your will be done, Archmage Flatt. Please excuse me.”

Then the man retreated from Erick, and then turned and ran into the barracks.

Crashing noises blasted from inside the barracks, washing across the land like minor booms, almost drowning out O’Lark as the old man ranted over how everything was wrong and it needed to be redone. Erick wasn’t wholly sure, but based on O’Lark moving a few walls at a time (or whatever he was doing in there) instead of just tearing down the whole building with a single spell, then he probably wasn’t an archmage, or even a very accomplished Stone Mage. He had to have some sort of strong magical power, so maybe he was truly skilled at [Mend] and this ‘modeling magic’ he spoke of, as opposed to skill in stonework. Or perhaps he was just architecturally skilled, and without much power of his own? It was possible.

Sitnakov stood by watching the architect work, not saying anything either.

Erick asked him, “Do you need to be in there?”

Sitnakov spoke without turning, “No, and it’s better if I’m not.”

“What do you know of him?”

“O’Lark the Architect has built many forward bases and houses and everything else you can imagine, for thousands upon thousands of clients. Most of it ends up broken due to battle with the Darkness, but through some creative magic, most of it is easily repairable. Sometimes some unforeseen monster appears and truly breaks a location, but that’s rare. As for the man himself, he is practically impossible to work with, because he’s rather famous for being one of the few artisans to last as long as he has without being a Heavy, or an archmage. Usually people like him get targeted and murdered as soon as they start to get famous.”

“… Ah.” Erick held a question that he likely didn’t want to know the answer to, but he had to know anyway. “The Shade of Assassination? The current one, I mean.”

Sitnakov frowned, then glanced to Erick, saying, “A few of the previous ones. If your Goldie has done any recent murders under our aegis then I don’t know of it. That fae has, though.”

The brief pleasure of meeting O’Lark vanished as Erick felt a familiar weight descend upon him; the weight of responsibility.

He said, “That’s why I want to make this place open and friendly. Perhaps some differences can be solved so that stuff like that never happens again. Though, since we’re airing grievances, I feel the need to stick up for my allies, and say that there’s been a lot of death on all sides, so dragging up the past is only going to degrade everything I’m trying to build here. I’m not saying to forget or forgive those grievances, for that only leads to getting hurt in the same ways again, but I am saying to work around that pain as much as you can.”

Sitnakov looked like he had expected all of that, which he probably had. “This is all happening too fast, Erick. Can I ask you to not invite other lands here until at least a month has passed?”

“… A reasonable request in normal times, but these are not normal times. If I don’t prove myself a stabilizing force, then someone will try something deadly.”

“That’s going to happen anyway.” Sitnakov said, “Nothing you can do will be able to stop that, but if you want to prove your stability to the level-headed people out there, then you’ve got to prove yourself stable. Your city emptied of practically everyone who could leave. You have no staff. No building for that staff. No paper shapers working on mundane shit. Nothing normal at all. Right now you look like a crazy Wizard trying to enact some sort of large scale magic as fast as you possibly can, and it’s— It’s making Stratagold look bad.” Sitnakov had maintained much of his composure as he listed deep, deep problems, but then his composure cracked. “And like, FUCK THEM, but your actions are actually making Ar’Cosmos look more bad, which I didn’t even think was possible.” He finally turned to Erick, and plainly said, “This looks like a Shade plot— And everyone is telling me it’s not! But I know what it looks like, and I suspect you do too.”

Erick felt a chill at those words.

Not just because of their content, but because Sitnakov had deeply meant every word, and he had had no idea how Erick was going to receive his warning. Would Erick believe him? Would he discount him? Was he wrong? Would Erick ever believe any of the warnings he would ever give, or had he forever ruined a deeply important political relationship before he ever had a chance to know how important that relationship would become? Yet again, Sitnakov had fucked up something that someone else would have been better equipped to handle.

For a long moment, nothing was said, because there was too much to be said and not enough patience or time to hold all that meaning.

For his own part, Erick wanted to drag the conversation all the way back to the beginning, and ask Sitnakov why he approached Erick as he had in the Core. Maybe if he actually aired that grievance, maybe move past it. But it was probably a bad idea—

Before Erick could overthink it, he decided to barrel on ahead, and ask that question.

“Why did you attack me like that in the Core, Sitnakov?”

Sitnakov froze. Were they actually doing this, right now? Yeah, he guessed they were. Sitnakov spoke a truth like it should have been the most obvious thing in the world, “Because I wanted to know who you were.”

“And fighting was the best way?”

Sitnakov scowled. “You’re the one who blasted his way through everything to get to the Core instead of talking through any normal channels at all. My response— Stratagold’s response was perfectly normal.” Sitnakov frowned. “Besides! I thought you might be fun to fight, and then we’d fight, and then I’d drag you back to Stratagold and buy you a beer. Obviously, that did not happen.”

“Maybe if I knew that being an ally and also a Wizard was possible before now, then this could have gone some other way. Of course I thought you were coming to murder me.”

Sitnakov scoffed. “Yeah. Well. Allying with Wizards hasn’t historically worked out for us, so we don’t advertise that sort of thing.”

“You’re speaking like open alliances were ever an option at all. We never would have gotten to this point if I showed up as an untempered Wizard on your door. You would have wanted me to be under your thumb the second you found out. So yeah. I had to hide. And yes, I thought you were coming in for the kill back there.”

“… Yeah. Well… You’re probably right.” Sitnakov sighed, then said, “Look. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean for that thing in the Core to happen like it did. Won’t happen again.”

“I accept the apology,” Erick said, rather fast.

Sitnakov stood a bit surprised.

Erick added, “I already accepted your apology the last time, too, and now we’re here, and I’m moving past the ‘could have happeneds’.” Erick moved right along, saying, “Your warning about appearing as a Shade plot is heard loud and clear. The only things I actually need to do right now is get some staff for a House I have yet to build, and then to get all the usual Guilds to come to this Gate District, or to Candlepoint itself. I won’t go opening [Gate]s all across the world for a year, or however long it takes for people to accept that this is happening. Slowing down is fine.”

“Thank the gods,” Sitnakov said softly, fully relieved and without a hint of sarcasm. For all his faults, the man had never been anything less than honest with Erick, and that counted for a lot. For a moment, Sitnakov just stood there, every part of him relaxing, as though he was coming down from an unexpected battle. And perhaps he was. “Thank you for believing me.”

“Of course I believe you, and your warning.” Erick said, “But just one Gate isn’t enough. You heard my proposal to O’Lark, yes. So does Stratagold want four Gates? One each for people coming and going, and product coming and going? I feel like having a full example of a proper Gate Network node is important, and one Gate per one land was never going to be enough.”

Sitnakov frowned a little, as though he were back swimming in the uncomfortable depths of politics and talking, then lost that emotion and shrugged. “I know my father wishes to have more Gates, and we’ve talked about getting at least four of them… Yeah. We’ll take four.”

Erick grinned. “Glad to hear it. Do you have any idea when the first people will come through.”

“No. No idea. We’ve already got trading partners here on the Surface, and a lot of people had prepared to shift their usual routes if you actually managed to pull off this [Gate] thing, but they’re holding onto their [Force Platform]s now that you've announced yourself as a Wizard. Maybe in a month or two some normal trade might actually come through.” Sitnakov shrugged again. “But this makes a connection to Ar’Kendrithyst much easier, and plans there are proceeding as expected. Even if there isn’t much trade you’ll probably get a lot of diplomats and such coming through here, from every single Geode out there and more besides. Everyone wants to turn Ar’Kendrithyst back into a true land of light so that the Darkness can’t vacillate toward insanity and take it back in a storm of pique.”

In that moment, Erick made a mental check to hold off on offering to plant Yggdrasil at the former Brightwater. Such a thought had been on the back burner, but now, Erick wanted people to come through here and see that this land was good, and so if the diplomats of the wrought were going to come through here, then Erick would welcome them with open arms, and send them on their way, back out of his influence.

But while they were here, those wrought diplomats and such will briefly be living alongside dragons and the people of Ar’Cosmos, and shadelings, and even Shades, for Goldie was probably around here somewhere. Hopefully, Erick could maintain peace, and with that peace, there would come actual healing. Not this year, no. But eventually.

Eventually.

… And Sitnakov’s ideas of proper meeting protocol gave him an idea to speed that process up.

Erick asked, “You want an arena space, for sparring? Some place to have some rules and some fights that don’t end in too much bloodshed?”

Sitnakov brightened—

And then he instantly tempered himself. “Not yet. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“It’d be hard to trust all the various people coming here to have a good, clean fight; I agree. But I can put up various defenses. You’d be able to break those defenses, of course, but I’m sure that if everyone abides by a good, clean fight, then that is what we will have.”

Sitnakov leveled a look at Erick. “You know that’s fucking weird, right? Reading me like that, without any Mind Magic at all?”

“So I’ve been told.” Erick moved along, saying, “My daughter is a great fighter, and I’m pretty sure she would like to fight you.” Erick glanced backward to Jane, showing that he was visibly paying attention to her, though he had already been doing so all this while. Jane’s eyes were wide at her father’s look, and then she nodded experimentally; that was good, for she wanted a fight, too. And then Erick saw Teressa see Jane, and Erick, and realize what was being offered. She wanted in, too. Erick happily turned back to Sitnakov, who was currently a bit flustered and excited, and yet wary. Erick said, “Jane and Teressa would like to fight. Could be fun! I, however, am not up for that sort of thing.”

Brightly, yet with decorum, Sitnakov tried to play it cool as he said, “Yeah. That could be fun. Maybe I will take an arena space… A small one—”

All this while, there had been construction going on with the wrought lands. Stone crashed inside the barracks, and inside the offices. O’Lark went from building to building, ranting about the placement of doors and the flow of rooms, and the lack of windows. He did have some magical ability, and he used that to tear out the most egregious of offenses, such as single-load bearing walls, which, if torn down, would collapse the entire floor above.

This had happened several times already.

But now there was a problem with the roof of the barracks, which had been angled improperly for rain, and which had no gutters or any water removal systems at all.

Erick watched as several things rapidly happened. O’Lark tore out a support structure on the top floor. The roof began to collapse. O’Lark shouted about how he was right, and see? It was collapsing exactly as he predicted. And then his assistants grabbed the old green copper man and pulled him out of the collapsing debris, and right out a window.

The assistants gradually floated back down to the ground, holding a ranting and vindicated O’Lark, while the barracks and the office building began to fully collapse in a chain reaction of upper floors crashing downward.

It was a quick collapse, all together, taking about 20-ish seconds to complete. A large cloud of dust billowed outward at the destruction, partially occluding sight. Erick [Airshape]d the dust away before it reached his party, while the wrought caught in the cloud, near the collapse, didn’t seem to care at all about the dust at all. There wasn’t much to care about, anyway; this wasn’t a modern high rise like in New York City, or anything like that. It was a trio of small buildings, each between three and four stories tall, made just yesterday, and wholly made of stone.

Before O’Lark’s assistants had even set him back on the ground, outside of the collapse, the old man was already happily shouting, “And now we can build it right!” And then he was back on the ground, and he looked at the ground. “OH! Where’s that apprentice promised to me! She does good work and I want her here!”

Sitnakov stopped Erick from speaking up, saying to Erick, “Your apprentice doesn’t need to get involved if you don’t want to, for we have a Stone Mage. They can build it back to O’Lark’s specifications.”

Erick raised his head a little, then glanced toward Kiri. “You want to go?”

Kiri was torn. Loyalty to her teacher, or the chance to meet some important people? She’d probably be meeting important people either way, but if she stuck by Erick, then she might learn some magic, too. And yet, if she went with O’Lark, then she might learn building techniques from a master.

Erick added, “I’m probably going to be in meetings the rest of the day. No magic.”

Kiri decided, “I shall assist Architect O’Lark.”

And then she went.

Sitnakov snorted.

“Let him know I need an Interfaith Church, too,” Erick said.

Kiri briefly turned and waved in acknowledgment as she continued on toward O’Lark, while Sunny fluttered in the air here and there, flicking different colors. One rainbow Sunny descended onto Kiri’s shoulders, and wrapped around her neck, briefly flickering dark, blood red—

Paranoia.

Or true fears.

Erick’s chest felt tight as his heart beat hard. For one still moment, he couldn’t breathe.

Erick saw that red [Familiar] and imagined Kiri’s head being snapped off by some invisible assassin. He kept it together, though, rapidly reviewing his memories and checking the recent manasphere, and yes, Kiri’s Sunny had turned red, but nothing untoward had happened. This wasn’t some sort of attack, nor was this a marker of something yet to come.

With his emotions crushed down so far only Poi could pick up on them, Erick casually asked Jane, “Could you stay with her? Make sure you both stay safe? I really am going to be in meetings all the rest of the day, if I can help it.”

Jane glanced up at Sitnakov briefly, before nodding, saying, “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

Erick calmed himself, still trying to get the idea of Kiri’s head snapping away out of his mind, as he went to work on preventing a different sort of problem, “If you two decide to spar later, use a spotter. No injuries, please. But stay with Kiri while she’s working.”

Jane said, “Yeah sure, dad. I get it.”

And she did, actually.

Sitnakov was a bit slower on the uptake.

Sitnakov smiled wide. “I’m sure we can find some time to have a friendly match—” And then he paused and deflated. “Ah. But fun should come later.” He said to Erick, “I do desire to be an actual guard for you while we’re in this period of turmoil. I said that before but I had nearly forgotten. May I join you in your meetings?”

Jane waved to her father as she walked toward Kiri, saying, “See you later, dad.”

“See you later.” Erick looked to Sitnakov, adding, “Let’s go talk to Candlepoint, then.”

Sitnakov stood tall, and nodded.

Without further ado, Erick opened a lightning portal to the main street of Candlepoint, and led the way. Sitnakov, Teressa, and Poi followed.

During the transition, Teressa whispered to Sitnakov, “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I look forward to the chance to also punch your face, whenever I can.”

Sitnakov chuckled as he stepped through the portal. “Now that’s a much more normal way to make friends!” He said to Teressa, “I heard you were a good Prognosticator, so maybe your tiny arms might actually be able to reach me!”

Teressa’s arms were anything but tiny.

“Oh! They can reach alright!”

Erick did not understand that at all—

Well. No. He could understand that. Jane and Teressa were battle junkies, but they both wanted to punch Sitnakov in the face, at least, for what he had done to him. Erick was touched by that. But they held no illusions on actually being able to win in a fight against the prince.

Mostly, though, they were battle junkies. All of them.

But they were at Candlepoint now and Poi leveled a Look at the two of them. The orcol-shaped man and the actual orcol woman both grinned at the small sapphire man, showing off their large lower fangs, and then said no more.

Within a minute Erick found himself in another meeting.

- - - -

In the large meeting room at the top of city hall, the cloudy sky lay beyond a cloudy quartz dome overhead, while Erick sat on one side of a familiar large black table. Mephistopheles sat on the other side. Erick suspected that many of his future interactions with Mephistopheles would also take place in this room.

Some paperwork sat between them, while a few secretaries stood to the sides, waiting for the chance to prove themselves by grabbing more paperwork, or refilling the tea and cookies that had been set in the center of the table. Pleasantries had been exchanged and some setup had been had, but not much more than some preliminary questions and answers.

But it was long enough for the door to burst open and for Justine to enter the room.

She had been running, quick as she could down the street, and now she was here. She composed herself and let the door shut on its own behind her.

Erick nodded to the white incani woman, saying, “Welcome. Nothing special has happened yet. Just an informational session.”

“… Ah.” Justine froze in confusion, then she glanced to Mephistopheles. The red incani shadeling just smirked a little. Not knowing what to do with the lack of animosity she had expected, Justine turned back to Erick and did a little bow, saying, “Archmage,” then she took a seat one over from Mephistopheles—

Justine suddenly saw the absolutely black adamantium wrought standing near the wall, behind Erick. Justine’s eyes went wide. She froze solid. Sitnakov certainly did blend in well with the black stone of the room, so that sort of reaction was slightly expected.

Erick explained, “Second Prince Sitnakov Stratagold will be one of my temporary guards for a while, until things settle down.”

Justine briefly stopped breathing at the mention of ‘Prince’ and ‘Stratagold’.

And Mephistopheles loved every second of it, though he wasn’t gauche enough to openly revel in her discomfort.

Erick brought the conversation back to topic, saying, “I will start over. As we were discussing: You have gained insight into what I want this land to be, as of the conversation we had last night. Now, I want to know what you want this land to be. Specifically, how you see the details happening. For instance, what rights can an average citizen expect by living here in Candlepoint? Can they worship whoever they want? Are there limits? We can’t just take the usual Interfaith Church doctrine and incorporate it here at Candlepoint, for Melemizargo is not included in that doctrine.

“What do we do when a Cultist, or anyone else, does something untoward, like playing around making monsters? Or with souls? I’m already playing around with souls, so such a law against such ‘necromancy’ would already apply to me, and while the usual thing is to make an exception for people like me, I am not happy with that idea. So maybe we need some sort of path for people to practice necromancy? This ties into the larger question of how we treat visiting elites or scions of industry, or nobles, or otherwise, versus how we treat normal people.

“What do taxes look like? Are they based on profit, or on gross? Where do the lines of taxation lie, and what do they look like?

“That sort of thing.” Erick asked, “Basically: how do you see life working here in Candlepoint?”

Justine briefly resembled any rookie facing down their first charging wyrm. Erick was coming at her hard and fast, but they were rather normal questions; the only thing abnormal about this scenario was the power imbalance in the room.

Mephistopheles had a little schadenfreude at Justine’s reaction, for he had faced these very same questions, though they hadn’t gotten too far into that discussion before Justine showed. Erick imagined that he would have to say the same thing to Ava, Slip, Zaraanka, and Valok, when they showed up. If they showed. Zaraanka was currently in her mansion, standing by a window, staring at the lake and having a minor crisis. Valok was seated in his living room, while the messenger knocked on the door again and relayed the message to come to City Hall, again. Slip was actively on his way, but he wasn’t in any great hurry to leave the docks where his boat was tied up, and where his guards were cleaning fish he had caught.

Ava had just left her sewerhouse; she was on her way to city hall. She would be here in about fifteen minutes.

Justine thawed, composed herself, and said, “I was expecting to fall in line with whatever decisions you made, majesty, with a starting point of everything being more or less how it is everywhere else. Your own designs on magical education will be nonstandard, and the actual construction of the town will be odd as well, but mostly… An Interfaith Church with allowances for the Cult, which means stripping out about half of the dogma of the usual system.

“I had assumed that you would be locking down most magical education and casting with more Denial spellwork, but if you are willing to teach others, then whatever you decide is best.

“I assumed that elites would be given preferential treatment in all regards, from a complete immunity from commoner-level execution and the requiring of a trial, to lower taxes and such.

“As for taxes, I had assumed anywhere between 50% and 25% of gross product from every single resident or business will be given to city hall, which is then divided up how you, the king, sees fit to divide... Which is rather normal.” Justine added, “Though our economy is currently in complete shambles— Ah. Well. I say ‘economy’ but I mean… We’re basically all the way back to subsistence life. I have made plans to work with Valok and the farmers to shift around some food production in order to compensate, but we’re barely better than we were after Last Shadow’s Feast, nearly 8 months ago. I would expect a similar time table to reestablish ourselves once again.”

It seemed Justine was able to work past or get over most of her fears, and once she got going, she was able to talk almost normally. It was nice. Most of her answers were nice, too; reasonable, and in line with what much of the rest of the world did with regard to religious organization and money and laws versus the elites in any given society. But she had fallen into many of the same traps that Mephistopheles had fallen into, and while Mephistopheles did not enjoy when Erick had countermanded his own thoughts, he was rather joyful as he waited for Erick to give the same sort of talking to Justine.

… Erick didn’t think he had said anything too untoward, but he also kept forgetting that he was their king, and that power disparity was yet another disparity separating him from everyone else.

With similar wording that he had given Mephistopheles, Erick said to Justine, “Here are some things I want to change. With regard to laws versus elites versus commoners, I want a level field between all people. This is not to say that I want all elites treated like commoners, and for justice to be dispensed based on the bare [Witness] of a crime, but for a judge to hear every case made against anyone as though they were elites. No capital crime will be punished before a judge has heard the case, and for a proper Witnesser and Sin Seeker to be on hand.

“Lesser crimes, such as theft of small goods, will require either community service to return to the fold of the city, or some other sort of punishment. We will not be confiscating people’s homes for thefts committed, even if those people stole and hoarded in their house.” Erick had not been surprised to hear that some shadelings had stolen in order to get by, but he had been surprised to hear that the punishment in some cases was to take their home. Now for that part, Erick had gotten a bit mad at Mephistopheles. Erick continued, “Since we can’t exile anyone, we will be trying to help these people return to normalcy, and we will be using a benevolent hand to do so.

“And with regard to taxes, I want to try something different.” Erick explained, “Instead of having a flat 50% income tax, I was thinking that if you make under a thousand gold, or if your business makes under a thousand gold based on person employed, then you are taxed nothing, but if you make over a thousand gold, then you are taxed 25% of everything above that first thousand gold.” This was not the ‘double tax’ that Erick had expected when he first heard of the idea from Mephistopheles, but rather, a person could be themselves or part of a business, and thus that business would be required to pay tax based on the number of employees they had, while the employees paid no tax at all. There were a lot of nuances to that, for sure, but it was not a double tax at all. “The idea of this minimum taxable income level is to ensure that commoners are able to keep their gold and use it as they see fit, but everyone else still pays. This should, in theory, contribute to a lot of economic growth, by taking the pressures off of the lowest of the citizenry, while also not being that large of a change to how things actually work.” Erick said, “In addition, I and every other elite will be taxed the same 25% rate as everyone else.

“As for the church; yes, there will have to be changes to normal Interfaith doctrine. I imagine that you would be the one best to hash out those changes.” Erick said, “Mostly, I just want everyone to get along as best they can.”

Justine had very little idea of where to even begin with her rebuttals.

Mephistopheles said, “The part about the thousand gold starting point for taxes will ensure we gain a lot of commoners, but the same taxes for elites will be a hard medicine to swallow. They are usually taxed less, or even paid by the city for their work they do in supporting the city.”

Justine looked to Mephistopheles, and said, “Taxing elites is also rather normal. It happens all the time in the Crystal Forest and in the Underworld.”

“This is true,” Mephistopheles said, “But where I’m from and how we’ve been doing it is that this tax money usually goes to the elites; it is not taken from them. This is how we’ve been keeping your various interests afloat, and how Zaraanka has managed to maintain and grow her now-demolished businesses.”

Erick said, “We can still subsidize businesses into growth, but I would like to open our lending opportunities to everyone, as they apparently do in Spur and a few other places.” Banks were mostly for extensive trade without needing to actually shove physical money around, but Erick had been a bit surprised to discover that cities usually subsidized their citizens. Banks were mostly repositories of money with very little individual lending power, though they did lend money at the kingdom-level and at the archmage-level, so that was why Erick had mixed up a few facts of how life worked here on Veird. Erick said, “Elites might get better rates for our lending, but I want everyone to have opportunity. Paying the guard and clerks will remain as it has been, but if there isn’t enough money in the system to pay people as they should be paid, then I can contribute more. I would expect the same out of any top earners here in Candlepoint.”

Mephistopheles chuckled. “Full progressive, eh?”

“More than most places, yes,” Erick said. “But not as progressive as I could make it. All of these things will have to take a while to implement, and will likely cause waves, but I feel that they will be the best for all in the coming years—”

Ava knocked on the door, and then she opened it. The sewermaster of Candlepoint came inside, bowed to Erick, then said, “Pardon for the lateness.”

She seemed a lot more relaxed than last time, which was good.

“No need to apologize at all.” Erick said, “I’m the one that keeps calling you all up at all hours of the day. I’ll hope to have a normal meeting sometime every week after things are stable, but for now the meetings will come as they are required.”

Ava took her seat, and got into it right away, asking, “Have you decided on a form of address that you will accept? I feel odd trying to match Mephistopheles’ attempts to suss out your approval.”

Erick flinched, and it showed.

Behind Erick, Teressa mouthed, “The Apparent King.”

Luckily, Teressa was wearing her full face helmet, so… Well. At least a few people saw through that mask. Sitnakov jerked a little, then glanced at Teressa. Teressa just smiled, her stance not betraying any sort of emotion beyond ‘I am here and I am tough; woe betide all who cross me’. Poi snorted. Teressa glanced at him and he gave a small shake of his head.

Erick ignored the overwhelming embarrassment assaulting him from multiple fronts, and said, “People are tossing around a few ideas. I’m still not sure about any of them.”

Ava nodded, saying, “Then I’ll just keep saying—” Ava almost leapt out of her chair, shouting, “OH HOLY fuck! Who is—!” But she maintained. She calmed, her voice falling to a whisper as she said, “Fuck.”

Ava had just noticed Sitnakov.

Erick said, “Ava Jadescale, sewermaster, this is Second Prince Sitnakov Stratagold, otherwise known as the Adamantium Wind. He’ll be one of my guards for a while, until things start to settle down.” He began the same way he had with Justine, saying, “So, as we were discussing: As of last night you gained insight into what I want this land to be, but now, I want to know what you want this land to be. For instance…”

Ava made most of the same assumptions Justine and Mephistopheles had made.

Erick presented his own theories of how things should work.

Ava, unlike Justine, knew exactly where to start rebutting Erick. “This minimum tax level is nothing revolutionary, though I get the feeling that you think it is.”

Mephistopheles and Justine had matching looks of consternation.

But Erick was delighted. “Oh? It’s not?”

“Back in my time one of the larger Underworld cities by the name of Absolock… And a few sister cities, too.” Ava waved a hand, saying, “It’s a long history that probably goes too deep to be useful information, but they were a very large city and so they had a great deal of time to develop their tax rules. It was rather routine for them to waive taxes on hunting lodges set up on monster tunnels, and in any various industries that they wished to support. In my long years overseeing my former home’s sewers, Absolock once developed a dearth of monster hunters, so they dropped taxes on anyone who was willing to sign up with the tunnel crawlers, or whatever it was they called their monster extermination teams. It worked well for them. Lots of signups. Lots of growth. Of course, when they got too many tunnel crawlers over the course of ten years they put those taxes back, and then the city guards found some bureaucrats without heads the following month.” Ava shrugged. “Eh. Nuances. The system of dropping taxes on sectors of the city which you wish to foster growth is established to work.

“I am not sure how you arrived at a thousand gold minimum per year, though. I would expect more like 5,000 per year. This is the Crystal Forest and once Mage Bank and its rad exchange arrives, even the lowliest of adventuring types will hit that thousand gold income in less than four months.”

Erick sat back in his chair and grinned, happy to know that his ideas already had established credit here on Verid. As for the other two people at the table, Ava’s words seemed to trigger recognition in Mephistopheles and Justine.

Justine asked anyone who could answer, “I think they have programs like that in Greensoil, too? I’m rather sure they do, though I do not know the details.”

Mephistopheles said, “They do, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. The tax codes over there are mostly variations of 25% of gross income, but really they’re whatever the local tax man says they are. A lot of people are taxed twice or even three times in a lot of the places over there. Dragonkin and all other non-humans are especially vulnerable to getting taxed several times. I don’t expect us to have those specific problems here, and we’re also still small enough to use truthstones and a few clerks to do the whole thing.” He added, “When everything settles down and we actually have an economy once again.”

Erick nodded. “It may be early to decide something like this; you are correct. But we can still talk about it.” He said to Ava, “I expect adventurers to hit the minimum range rather fast. A thousand gold was a starting point, meant to allow for city-bound people to not have to feel like they need to go out and risk their lives against monsters to bring in enough money to pay the tax man. If there are better numbers, let us discuss them.” To all of them, he said, “We don’t have to agree on anything said here today, but the citizens of Candlepoint seem to be getting on alright, and nothing is on fire, so now is the time for me to get to know the people who are running… My kingdom.”

It had hurt Erick to call this land ‘his’, but while others noticed, they said nothing about it.

The conversations continued, delving deep into topics like interest rates (yes, and how much, or no, and why) and loan approvals (you usually don’t loan to people who will skip town, and how to judge if a person might do that), and even zoning (by district, or by race, or should there be zoning at all).

Slip eventually showed.

The Guard Captain of Candlepoint spotted Sitnakov right away. And then he ignored the giant adamantium wrought, and sat down at the table, looking not scared at all. If anything, his eyes brightened a fraction whiter, though Erick had already thought them pure pools of white light.

Erick asked Slip the same questions.

And Slip gave a rather concise answer, “I really don’t care about all that stuff. And I shouldn’t, either. My job, as I see it, is to enforce the peace, and to a lesser extent, the will of city hall and our king. Please tell me if I’m doing a bad job, but other than that… Everything is going as good as it can, so I got no complaints, or ideas on what needs changing.”

Erick paused. And then he chuckled. “I think you’re doing great, Slip. People on the street like you, and they bring you their problems, and then you solve those problems. The city is clean and orderly. Your guard is professional and competent. But do you have Witnesser’s and Sin Seekers? Do you want them? I might need to go hire some… or something.”

Slip waved him off. “No need. I’m a Sin Seeker and I got [Witness] and all that stuff.” Slip shrugged. “I can handle pretty much all of Candlepoint’s problems— Ah. I thought of something. I don’t think my guards should be taxed on the pay they receive from the city. I would like for that to stop.”

He was a Sin Seeker? And capable of [Witness]?

Huh! Good to know!

Erick felt very good about Slip. He said, “I did not know you were both a Sin Seeker and capable of [Witness]. That’s… That’s great, Slip. Glad to have you here. As for your request, I will see to it that the guard is not taxed on the pay they receive.” He looked to Mephistopheles, saying, “Right?”

Mephistopheles went, “Ah. Sure.” And then he made a note of it on the paper in front of him, saying “That’s doable… And done. No more taxes on the guard.”

Slip smiled, asking, “Is that all, then? Today looks like a great day to fish, and I’m sure everything will work out fine without me here.”

“Uh?” Erick decided, “Sure. Thanks for coming in. Have fun fishing.”

“Thanks!” Slip stood up from his chair, happily saying, “I always do, King Erick.”

And with that, Slip took his leave.

Erick briefly watched Slip leave the room and the doors close behind him, then Erick turned back to everyone else, saying, “That was a welcome bit of news. I didn’t know that about him.”

From their looks, Justine and Ava didn’t know that about Slip, either.

Mephistopheles knew, though. He said, “Slip likes to keep all of his capabilities secret unless they need to be known. That’s probably the most he’s ever said about himself in a setting as public as this one, even with King Flatt’s Privacy Magic scattered around outside.”

Justine confessed, “I still think he’s a Shade in hiding.”

“Everyone does.” Mephistopheles said, “It helps keep people in line a lot easier than if he were just a normal shadeling.”

Ava rolled her eyes at that. She thought Slip was a Shade, too.

The conversation continued.

- - - -

Zaraanka and Valok never showed.

When the meeting was over Erick had gained a great deal more insight into Mephistopheles, Justine, Slip, and Ava. He hoped they had gained some insight into him, as well, beyond the ‘wildly powerful Wizard’ stuff that people were saying out there in Candlepoint.

A lot of people out there were saying a lot of things.

And Erick saw a great deal of those interactions through his Ophiel.

- - - -

Over in the Gate District, colorful couatls flitted here and there, moving stone at the behest of a pale green wrought architect that knew exactly how he wanted his stonework made, where he wanted it placed, and how it all needed to fit together. A young greenscale worked as fast as she could, which was about ten times faster than the old wrought expected her to move. The skinny man was thrilled for the speed of creation, at seeing the inner workings of his mind come into existence nearly as fast as he could envision it all. The young woman was thrilled, too, for she was learning more about building with [Stoneshape] than she had ever learned before.

Nearby, a brunette young woman watched, waiting for the trick, for the assassin to appear.

In a small [Fairy Stronghold] near the Gate, a feathered [Familiar] also watched.

- - - -

A disheartened redscale man sat alone in his living room, in the dark. The only sources of light were from the half-covered window, and the gentle white glows of his eyes. An unopened bottle of hard liquor sat beside him on a small table. He stared at nothing in particular, half facing the door. The last runner from city hall had just left, after informing the man that the meeting with King Flatt was over, and that Mephistopheles did not approve of Valok missing that meeting.

The redscale man’s glare lingered on the door.

In an unseen, unsensed, unknown box on the redscale man’s roof, Ophiel waited for something to happen.

Valok waited for something to happen, too. A knife in the dark. A bomb blipping into the room, or the stone all around him turning into spikes and shrapnel. He had already died once to something like that.

It would probably happen again.

- - - -

A human woman of ruddy complexion and wearing a bright pink dress stood beside a window three stories up from the ground floor. Yggdrasil’s lake lay beyond that window, same as always; deep and blue and dark, for the sky was overcast with clouds and the sun was nowhere to be seen.

But the horizon was filled with light. The World Tree, growing and glowing, resembled a distant mountain alight with green fire.

Zaraanka sipped from a tumbler as she stared at nothing, her luminescent white eyes fixed on that bright point on the horizon, but not really looking at Yggdrasil at all. Behind her the house was in shambles. There were clear signs of several guest rooms being cleared out in some last minute haste. Scorch marks filled one hallway. Large rents in the stone filled the main foyer. A servant, carrying a few bags filled with all their stuff, paused as she saw the rents, like she was seeing a problem that was no longer her problem. And then that servant walked out of the front door of the house, leaving for some other part of the city.

And the pink woman was alone again, though she had already been alone for over a day. She was not used to being alone.

She poured herself another drink, hoping that things would make sense again if she got deep enough into that bottle. She didn’t care at all about anything right now, but she could maintain, at least until things eventually started to make sense again. How long would it take this time? A month? Two months?

She could do that.

But not right now.

Not… Not right now.

Ophiel settled down inside his small [Fairy Stronghold], nestled in the crook of the roof overhead. He watched, and ensured that Zaraanka wasn’t actually alone. Because someone was going to die tonight.

Erick knew it in his bones, in his blood, inside the Benevolence of his soul. Someone was going to die. Or, at least, there would be an attempt.

Maybe he could prevent it with some foresight, though.

- - - -

The temporary church, with its spire of white and with a silver star on top, had seen better days. It was not broken, but it had been remade rather recently, for some of the walls were still marked with imprecise Shapings. Justine returned to the church, to her new home, only ten minutes after the meeting with Erick was over. After talking to some fellow acolytes she started praying to Koyabez. Erick’s sense of her vanished when she did that, which was something he had not expected, but there it was.

The sewerhouse, adorned with many of the diamonds Erick had given Ava, was looking fine. Ava returned about half an hour after the meeting. She was living alone, but she had two apprentices living down the hall, so she wasn’t really alone. The apprentices had dinner waiting for her.

City hall, all black stone and clear, whitish quartz, was unmarred by the troubles of the rest of the city. Mephistopheles lived in a room behind his office, but he did not return there after the meeting. He went on to have even more meetings with clerks and judges and guards and paper pushers (or paper shapers, as Sitnakov called them). There weren’t many of any of those kinds of people left, but he still had a staff of about 17 people, and they had work to do. As for Mephistopheles himself, he went back to his office and began reading some dense tomes on city building, published by the Arcanaeum Consortium. He was deep into the books on rules for elites, but tax books sat nearby, waiting to be read.

Each place was a strategic asset.

Each person who ran that asset had a small [Fairy Stronghold] and an Ophiel to watch over that asset, and that person, and others nearby. Several fake images of Ophiel flew around the city, making their presentable count look like seven to nine, to any observer who might be counting.

For there were certainly people watching.

- - - -

High atop Yggdrasil, inside his rainbow crown at the very roof of his body, a cascading orb of light sent out radio waves in all directions. White mist formed out of the air below that [Cascade Imaging], mapping out the nearest 2,000 kilometers. Anyone looking this way could probably see the Imaging, if they were close, and if they knew what they were looking for, but the rainbows up there were rather thick and they obscured well enough against any casual observer.

Ophiel watched as the map populated, Imaging for ‘people’.

There were hits at Candlepoint, and at the Gate District…

And elsewhere, in the deep desert all around.

- - - -

“Am I being paranoid?” Erick asked Poi and Teressa.

Sitnakov was there too, but while he was included in the conversation, Erick didn’t ask him.

The sun was setting behind the clouds to the west. The wrought part of the Gate District, just a half a kilometer away, looked like a cross between an airport with its organized avenues leading from future Gate sites, a warehouse district able to temporarily hold goods, a modern hotel for obvious usage, and sleek offices to center the whole thing into a cohesive masterpiece. O’Lark could only have known what three of those four things were, but the open airport-style for the Gates was rather self explanatory and evident, at least for Erick and probably for Jane, too. But Veird had nothing like airports at all. O’Lark was obviously a visionary, and he had decided that the wrought lands needed to be able to support a lot of throughput. Erick truly approved.

But he did not approve of what he was seeing in the Imaging above Yggdrasil. Erick had taken that Imaging and reproduced it in wardlights here, upon the orange stone outside of the wrought district.

Blue dots surrounded these lands, most of them within one [Teleport] distance from Candlepoint, or otherwise, but there were a few more set up two [Teleport]s away.

Poi mirrored Erick’s frown as he looked down at the lightsculpture. “How many of them are established?”

Teressa was furious, but she was trying not to show that emotion. No one else in their little four man group was nearly as mad as her, so she held her anger in, only saying, “I don’t understand how anyone can think they should come here and start shit. Setting up bases this close is an act of war.”

“I agree,” Erick said, “I don’t understand it either. I certainly did not expect people to set up within [Teleport] range; that they would be that stupidly aggressive. But at the same time, one should never underestimate what fear can make a person do.” He added, “For instance, I didn’t even think to do this Imaging until now. Kinda dumb of me, there.”

Teressa lost a fraction of her anger.

Erick turned back to the lightsculpture of the map, trying to decide what to do.

Sitnakov sighed. “You want to take care of these problems?”

With eyebrows raised, Erick looked up at the big man. “Uh? I did not expect such an offer.”

Sitnakov explained, “I don’t know who they are, but Statagold has made its stance clear, and that an attack on you is an attack on us. I’ll go knock some heads if that’s what it takes to get whoever that is to be less aggressive.”

Erick felt a flush of contentment at that earnest expression of solidarity, but he said, “No. I should do this, and I’m going to do this. Just…” Erick looked around, at the wrought soldiers moving stuff back into their barracks, at the people of Candlepoint trying to pick up the pieces of broken lives, and at one of the more egregious emplacements of intruders, about 550 kilometers to the north, in the middle of nowhere. He turned back toward Sitnakov. “What would you tell them?”

Sitnakov said, “Not sure. Have to see them first. Probably start off on how you went through an inquiry and came out with an alliance, and that still holds. All the Wizard, dragon, and fae stuff is nuance we’re still working through. But this is a Gate Network, and we’re willing to bend if others are willing to bend.” He added, “Whatever I say is gonna be better than you blowing these people away; that would just vindicate whoever that is and make them even more willing to do whatever it is they’re doing.”

Erick looked to Teressa, to ask her to Sight the future.

Teressa’s eyes were already glittering with faint grey light as she looked up and out, seeing past her own sight, but she still present enough to say, “It’s like seeing idiots walk into Ar’Kendrithyst and think that because they got a Class last week and Fallopolis was nice to them that they’re suddenly veterans ready to take on the world.”

Erick almost made a joke that he wasn’t comfortable being compared to the Shades like that, but he let that go. Now was not a time for jokes.

Teressa came back to the moment, blinking a bit as she looked down at Erick. “I don’t see anything bad happening right now. That could change.”

Erick nodded, and decided, “Basic preparation, then.” He turned to Sitnakov. “Please see to your own people. I’m going to head back to Yggdrasil while I deal with this from afar.” While Sitnakov eyed Erick, not sure if he liked where he was going with this, Erick turned to Poi, saying, “Please get Kiri and Jane back home.”

Poi sent tendrils of thought out into the manasphere.

Sitnakov asked, “What are you going to tell them?”

“Well… There’s a lot of them, so probably not much at all.” Erick glanced around the Gate District. “And I need to prepare some, anyway. Do you want an hour or two, Sinakov?”

The large man shrugged. “Your choice. We’ve been battle-ready since before you opened the [Gate] to Stratagold and we’ll be battle-ready for at least two weeks more. We’ll switch out some people well before that usual fatigue creeps in, though.”

“I’ll take an hour, then.”

Kiri came walking out of the wrought buildings with Jane at her side, both of them looking worried. There was a bit of talk, but soon enough Erick was back at Yggdrasil and preparing for the worst.

He was also preparing for the best.

The first thing he needed was some paper.

Soon enough, several Ophel went out, wrapped in spiky silver shields and sunforms made of lighting, holding onto packages most important. With flashing light that resembled lightning, they stepped out into the twilight, into the Crystal Forest, headed to parts barely known.

- - - -

Erick, as three Ophiel, descended upon the largest of the problematic places just north of the Gate District, around half a blip away. It was his first target, and it was almost a settlement, though from the surface you couldn’t tell. The half-rock, half-sand land was marked with a simple rock spike that you might find anywhere in the more stony parts of the forest. It could have been just another remnant of a Stone-based battle from either last week, or sometime in the last hundred years. Hard to know.

But it was a lie.

Erick couldn’t see it, and he couldn’t mana sense it, but it was there, and absolutely covered in [Ward]s of all kinds. The Imaging had the base at a sprawling three kilometers wide, with at least a hundred people. Erick really had to study the Imaging back at Yggdrasil to pull out those numbers, since the distance covered versus resolution made it tough to understand just how big this place was at first glance.

But it was big.

And it was just below the surface.

Erick had Ophiel lay out the welcome mat of [Prismatic Lullaby Aura] and [Spatial Denial Aura], while he used his own [Physical Domain] in order to shut down any possible [Telepathy] or other spellwork. It was complete overkill, but as Jane had sometimes said, there was no such thing as overkill. Ophiel’s range was more than enough to cover everything down there, up to at least a kilometer deep, while his own range was three times that much. Erick didn’t think the whole complex was more than twenty meters deep, though.

With a flick of his [Physical Domain], Erick spoke,

“Greetings, neighbors! It’s a beautiful sunset! Come on out and see!”

Nothing instantly happened. Erick didn’t feel anyone test his Domain.

This meant that these were probably just soldiers or spies of some sort; disposable by the powers that put them here. … Or maybe they were here of their own volition? For their own ends? Could be, could be. Erick wasn’t discounting anything right now, and his mind was running a thousand miles a second.

But as nothing continued to happen, and ten seconds turned to thirty, Erick decided that he had too much to do to wait around for them to respond. So with a flick of [Physical Domain], Erick began putting pressure on all the spellwork layered across the complex.

Bubbles of multicolored power, showing that this land was hidden by the hands of multiple mages, began to pop here and there. The most protective layers went first, since they absorbed Erick’s power to save the more delicate illusions from breaking, as they were designed to do. This meant that these people were trained well, either through rote instruction, or through trial and error.

It was nothing Erick had not seen before, but it did put these people in the top quarter of those who he had tangled with; on the level of the tougher Terror Peaks people he had killed.

But still, within seconds the true base stood revealed.

Several buildings recessed into the stone. Walkways between them. There were no signs of damage, for it all looked rather well put together. That jut of stone turned out to be a guard tower, where they could watch and see who might be approaching—

Guards stood on that tower, looking calm, though they were anything but that. They were fucking terrified. Erick could not place them into any known structure, for they actually looked more like adventurers than guards, with all their mismatched conjured armor and other accessories. One of them was a human woman, with pink armor and nothing else; a caster of some sort who was not able to cast because Erick was locking that down. The other was a human man in red armor with a real sword in a scabbard at his side and a real shield on his back. The shield had a large depiction of a dice on it.

Which was strange.

Gamblers?

Was Gambler a Class? Yes. Gambler was a Class, now that Erick thought of it.

Erick recalled Jane talking about that once, saying it was nothing how she imagined it to be, for it was a Class based on making all your attacks deal less normal damage, but with much higher Critical damage. Normal Crits did 10 times damage, but a Gamble could do upwards of 20 times damage with a hit to the head. Good for assassins, but the Assassin Class was generally preferred there for its sneaky capabilities. Gamblers were pretty bad against monsters, for it was usually quite easy to strip the Health from a monster through one or two Crits with a good melee weapon, and Criticals didn’t matter much for doing actual damage. Even driving a sword through a monster’s brain sometimes wasn’t enough to kill it, so the loss of the protective shield of Health wasn’t all that much of a big deal to monsters.

Jane had imagined a Gambler to be a Class that messed with Fate, but Fate was rather locked tight by the Script. If Fate weren’t so locked up, then perhaps Gambler would function more as Jane envisioned; a Class to introduce Fate into combat.

There was one good reason to take the Gamble Class, though. A proper Gambler could use their signature Class Ability of shifting Critical damage and apply it to themselves. A good Gambler would take half Health damage from almost every single attack out there, as long as they protected their heads. One good hit to the head and boom! There went all of their Health. But that could be protected against.

As an aside, Erick recalled how Ophiel was actually Critical immune, seeing as he was a construct of mana.

Erick’s overactive mind went on to search for other memories to help him understand what he was seeing, but he had none, not until he descended to the center of the base. There, he mana sensed more of the interiors. There were humans of all sorts, while the sign of the dice was here and there. The dice were simple white things with pips on the sides.

Some of the buildings had six sided dice on the outside of the doors. Some had other numbered dice on their doors. Erick imagined there was an organization there, with pip numbers 2 through 6 being for some sort of personal organization, while the one-pip dice was at the door of the main, central building. That one-pip place had officers and, more importantly, maps.

Maps with plans of attack.

There was a map of Yggdrasil’s lake and the surrounding lands, updated to today, set to the side. Erick was glad to learn that that map did not look like a very important map, but it was present. These people were looking at Candlepoint and making notes in real time. But they didn’t seem to be gearing up to attack.

Most of the maps were for other places, and by those maps, Erick instantly knew what he was looking at.

He knew these people.

There was a detailed map with little miniatures placed atop it, showing off plans of attack for assaulting a peninsula, the dozen of smaller cities therein, and a capital city named Charme. There was a very detailed map of the twin cities of North Curio and South Curio, and the river delta which separated them. Offhandedly, there was a general map of a city called Pearl, sitting on an eastern coast, and the dozens of settlements and villages stretching up and down that coast. And then there was a map of Killtree, a city at the very northern edge of those lands, which protected all the other lands from the monster hordes of the Forest to the north.

Erick had once saved Killtree from a ballooning spider horde. Jane had had a Unicorn Hunt there.

There were more than a few red Xs on all of those maps, which could have meant anything.

There were also humans everywhere inside the compound. At least 75. While some of them were trying to cast or prepare themselves for the end, some of them were preparing to talk.

A man in red armor stood flanked by a woman in roughspun yellow clothes and a man who wore similarly roughspun clothes, but also a helmet that more resembled a fishbowl than anything actually protective. The guy in red looked to be the only one who had managed to have his [Conjure Armor] on when Erick came calling, which was lucky for him. His companions didn’t look ready for anything more than planning, though the fishbowl guy’s hat had to be real glass, or something like that.

Several seconds had passed since Erick had dispelled the protections around this land. Red guy had rushed outside, but so far he had only managed to get halfway up the stairs to the roof of the main building before Erick’s Ophiel landed.

Erick Shaped an image of himself with some of his features obscured by feathers, and he waited. It was a similar image to the ones Erick had used before in tense situations like this. The red man calmly finished walking up the stairs, followed by his people. He moved to stand a few meters in front of ‘Erick’.

“Hello,” Erick said. “You’re the Dicers, I presume? From the Sovereign Cities. The rebels who’ve been killing the nobility.”

“… We are.”

It had taken the man a second to admit the truth. The guy had no idea how this meeting was going to go, but he was expecting it to devolve into a summary execution. Execution was not off the menu, not now that Erick had seen that these people truly were the murderous people he had heard about almost six months ago. Were they after him, too, for some reason?

Perhaps.

But then the man frowned a little, looking more sad that it had come to this than anything else. He was not ready for this conversation at all.

The man tried, “I am at a loss. I did not expect this meeting to be on these terms.”

Erick could have said a lot of things to that response. Like, ‘You know I can search for people and find them, right?’ Or, ‘Did you expect to have a knife at my throat before you showed yourselves?’. Those words would have led to misunderstanding, though.

So instead, Erick said, “I’m going to cut through a lot of the trepidation here, and lay out a few facts—”

The red man and his flankers prepared for the end.

“— as I know them. You’ve been killing a lot of people in order to kill the nobles of your nations. Those nobles currently control Registrar access in order to first have people sign soldier contracts before they are allowed to Matriculate, or something like that. These contracted people are then required to go to war with each other in order for the nobles to gain more land. Or something. The details escape me and I have not cared to pay attention yet, for I have a lot of problems of my own, and the last time I was there I saw people living in wooden huts. In a main city, Killtree, there were people living in wooden huts, and most of those huts did not even have fully enclosed walls.” Erick said, “Guards on tall stone structures, overseeing slums everywhere. Anyone who gets [Stoneshape] and tries to make a home of stone is executed by roaming bands of soldiers, along with their entire settlement.

“My daughter had an attempt on her life and a theft attempt within one hour of showing up for the annual unicorn hunt,” Erick said, “When it came time to end the hunt for the Queen Unicorn had finally been found, my daughter and her team were offered nobility if they pulled it the kill, and then it was go time.

“That unicorn turned out to be an Ancient.

“The Queen Unicorn was not supposed to be an Ancient.

“So this was either kill attempt number 2, and the nobility of the Sovereign Cities is very corrupt and deadly and therefore they deserve to die. Or they are stupid, weak people, trying to do their best and failing at all parts of the process of governance.” Erick said, “But what you’re doing isn’t going to change anything unless you kill all of the bad people and gain support of the citizenry, and you make some proper changes to how the world works over there. Killing innocents in the crossfire is not a good look for you.” Erick watched as hopeful and worried emotions began to well up inside every single person there on that rooftop, and nearby. Erick wasn’t done yet, though. He said, “Now you know my general thoughts on your whole situation. I’ve got more than a few other ground dwellers to suss out of these sandy lands, but you were the largest group, so I started with you. So! With as few words as possible,” Erick commanded, “Tell me why you are sitting on my doorstep.”

Looking like his day of execution had turned into a stay of execution, the red man said, “The Sovereign Cities need to change and since words do not work, we will resort to violence. We are ashamed of the few civilian deaths we have caused, but those stories are blown way out of proportion; mostly, we kill other soldiers, as one does in a war. We would like your help removing the nobility from power and taking back our kingdoms for our people. We had come here to eventually approach you directly, and professionally, seeking your assistance as an archmage, but ever since your announcement of Wizardry we have been split on what to do.” He gestured to the ground. “As for this base and the size of it… It just sort of happened. We move around a lot.”

Erick asked, “How do you feel about me being a Wizard?”

Around 25 or thirty listeners were tentatively fine with Wizardry. Most people had an instant, visceral dislike; tension in the shoulders, sweats. One guy pissed himself a little as he tried to press into the stone wall at his back and failed completely; he probably had [Stone Body] and he was trying to escape, but that was Denied.

The red man spoke for them all as he said, “It would take a Wizard to fix the Cities, and we would like your help.”

A non-answer, but fine enough for the situation.

“Okay.” Erick had Ophiel hand over a multi-page form. As the red man took the paperwork and seemed bewildered and joyful in equal measure (a sentiment shared by most other people inside the compound), Erick said, “I don’t like how they operate over there, but I’m not going to remove your nobility from power. I’ve got too many problems of my own and I expect to have a war on my hands sooner rather than later. If there is something else I can help you with, then maybe we can talk. Fill that out and deliver it to my temporary business in the Gate District. I put up a new building while we were talking.” He added, “And move to another base.”

“We will evacuate at once!” The red man turned to his people, yelling, “Pack up! We’re out of here!”

Erick departed, pulling his various auras away as he did so.

Their base started evacuating the instant Erick’s Denials pulled away.

- - - -

In tens and twos, in fives and fours, and in three separate cases of a single person, hiding out in the sands and under the stone, Erick secured the one-[Teleport] distance from Candlepoint. Aside from that first encounter with the Dicers of the Sovereign Cities, almost everyone else was either someone from Candlepoint who had made an adventuring base out in the sands in order to better hunt mimics, or other monsters. Shadelings didn’t have [Teleport], but most of the people of Candlepoint were former shadelings, and while their shadeling partners couldn’t, they could purchase that spell from the Open Script.

For those people Erick simply met them, and then moved on. Most of those adventurers spoke of being from Zaraanka’s nascent Adventurer’s Guild, though that sort of thing had yet to be ratified by the powers of the actual Adventurer’s Guild.

There was one human who had a collection of animal bodies, mostly shadowolves, and a lot of necromantic tomes in his hiding hole. He was not from Candlepoint, but he was trying to replicate the [Reincarnation] magics that 1 out of every 4 people in Candlepoint had gone through. Erick did not spend too long with that guy, but his secret operation looked rather clean. So Erick moved on, not doing anything against him, nor giving him any paperwork.

The necromancer was apparently a butcher at the cattle ranch, working under Daetroi, so Erick would probably see the guy again.

There were a few groups that were observers from other nations, though. Now those were trickier to solve. There were a few observers from the Wasteland Kingdoms, a few from Greensoil. Treehome had a pair of orcols spying on Erick. Portal had a few humans set to spying.

All of those people got various paperworks, asking if they needed any archmage assistance, and if they did, to fill out the various boxes and deliver the completed form to the temporary ‘Offices of Erick Flatt’. It was a rather passive aggressive response to their own aggressive responses of placing bases right next to Erick’s lands. Passive aggression seemed fine for now.

No obvious assassins appeared at any point in the excursion. So that was good.

- - - -

Erick pulled back to himself, saying, “And that’s that, for now.”

Kiri sat up from her own chair, pulling back as well. She blinked a bit, saying, “False alarms are good, though that building you’ve made is bad. O’Lark is already yelling at me to change it.”

Erick smiled, feeling relieved at the switch to an easy topic, saying, “I’ll change the building tomorrow. It’s really only a place to stick some completed paperwork, anyway.”

As Kiri finally felt safe enough to let the tension pass, she sighed, they giggled, returning to how she had been before this whole ‘there are people under the sand out there’ debacle. “The building is fine. The giant glowing ‘MAIL FOR ERICK FLATT GOES HERE’ in rotating words is the problem.”

“Eh. I’ll fix that tomorrow, too.”

He’d also do some more searching tomorrow, for while he saw no obvious problems tonight, that was probably only because he caught everyone who wasn’t actively paying attention to the city, or to Yggdrasil. That [Cascade Imaging] above the big guy was still visible, if you really looked for it. He had tried casting [Cascade Imaging] inside a [Fairy Stronghold], to hide the fact that he was Imaging, but that search had turned up nothing and no one.

… Maybe he’d make a new kind of [Cascade Imaging] tomorrow. One with higher fidelity and able to search for concepts, perhaps, like ‘the color red’ or ‘flowing water’, while simultaneously invisible to onlookers. He’d have to think on that particular magic.

But for tonight, Jane had made dinner while everyone else was on sand investigation.

It was a great meal.

And there were no explosions.