Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 102, 1/2

From high above, in the grey, cloudy sky, Erick watched through the eyes of his [Familiar], as the dark city and the surrounding land settled down, around the newest lake in the Crystal Forest. And it did settle down. The new depression in the land was slight, but it was there, and with a quick check, Erick found that it went out to at least fifty kilometers.

And then he got to work, in rapid and disorienting order, fixing the fallout of Melemizargo’s [City Shape].

He blipped drowning shadelings out of the water. Prevented a building full of injured people from collapsing into that water. Fished the dead out of the lake. Killed crystal mimics who saw past the crumbling walls of the city to the greenery of the Farms beyond, before they got too close or too enraged. Shored up the new coastline, so that Candlepoint didn’t crumble into the water. Recreated the city walls up to the lakeside, then did a smarter thing, maybe, and walled up the entire new lake with roughly made stone blocks, each five meters high.

And then there was a sudden infestation of bright purple snakes or eels or whatever the fuck they were, that decided to come up from the Underworld, to corrupt the new lake. When they reached the coast, they crawled onto the land, and began chasing people. They weren’t that dangerous on land, for they moved like earthworms, but they had rings of sharp teeth and they knew how to use them. Erick saved a few insensate shadelings from being an easy meal, but most people easily got away. Most people, except for those still in the water.

Erick honestly did not think he would ever have to worry about underwater combat, so he was less than prepared for the event. [Force Bolt]s fizzled before they struck. [Force Shrapnel], as an aura, slugged through the water, clipping worms-eels, turning the water wine-dark, but also not doing much at all. [Flying Striker], though it was flying sword and water was not air, worked well enough. The worm-eels weren’t monsters; Erick would have used [Withering] in that case.

Or maybe he wouldn’t have used [Withering]. Shadelings were in the water, helping to combat the eels. Slip, the Shade Captain of the Guard, was someone who prepared for underwater combat. What Erick couldn’t kill, he could, as he zipped through the water, untouched by all, turning worm-eels into mush with some sort of telekinetic power.

But the problem still poured up from below. That was an easy fix. With a [Prismatic Ward] in the way, water got through, but the carnivorous squiggles did not. They certainly blocked the other side, though.

Thousands and thousands of worm-eels layered on the other side of the [Prismatic Ward], pushed up from below by the power of the spring. All of those bodies would have made a seal, and thus built pressure until the dense water popped, so Erick fixed that with a heavy application of a spell, worked in a way he had never attempted before. Mana Altering for Lightning and Chain, and [Force Shrapnel]. It worked better than Erick would have thought possible.

Fulmination Aura, instant, medium range, 26 mana per second

Rip and tear at the constituent particles of reality with a chaining bolt of lightning that surrounds you, dealing 25 + WIL damage and paralyzing all so touched. Deals more damage the more targets there are.

Ophiel hovered in the center of the gushing spring, at the very center of the lake, down in the depths. He was well protected by a density in that passage that only he could traverse. Others were not so lucky. With gnashing teeth and writhing bodies, purple worm-eels crushed against the blockage, pushed and piled against one another by millions of liters of water, gushing up from the deep dark below.

Ophiel cast lightning into the water, in an unexpected way. A ring of bright white light coalesced into the water around Ophiel, in parts, at first, but those pieces of light quickly came together to form a halo five meters wide, horizontal, and perfectly smooth. It wasn’t smooth for long. Lightning arced from that halo, through the water, crackling down, a million fingers of power touching off from one purple worm-eel to the next. Purple worm-eels fried from the inside out, unable to take the strain of the underwater storm. Those that survived did not survive for long; their last moments of life were as paralyzed intruders, crushed against the bodies of their kin, and then fried by even more lightning.

Ophiel filled the water with a second, [Cleansing Aura]. Thick water spilled away from the other side of the [Prismatic Ward], trailing up, past Ophiel, with the inexorable pressure of the spring below. Burned worm-eels, too far broken to ever be considered bodies, turned to naught but a thickening of the water, to then dissipate into the lake above, as Ophiel continued to crash lightning down into the swarm.

Erick left Ophiel to that process. Inside the [Prismatic Ward], he could regenerate more than enough mana to keep up the spells, as needed. And he would need to. Even as Ophiel cleared out the first blockage, more purple worm-eels appeared, crushing up from the other side.

Erick’s thoughts trailed elsewhere, for now. For a more permanent solution, he would have to go down below and fix up the other end of the spring, like how Al had put bars and columns over Spur’s river inlet, deep under the city.

… Or maybe he could invent a permanent filtering [Particle Ward]? Or...

Maybe some other day, when people weren’t in mortal jeopardy...

Actually. He, and a few hundred other shadelings with the capability, had saved Candlepoint from further falling into the waves. A wall surrounded the new lake. People were wet, but okay.

Erick quickly went over the city. Was Candlepoint saved, again? Or was another disaster looming on the horizo—

… Some shadelings were grilling worm-eels on metal racks, with [Prestidigitation] fires flickering underneath the filleted animals. Some were already eating, like it was the first real meal they’d had in months. Maybe it was.

But tiny worms wriggled in the bodies of the uncooked larger worms, and the eyes of the shadelings were dusk dark, with barely a light inside. Erick asked them if they should be eating food that was obviously both under cooked and filled with living parasites, and they growled at him. Growled. Like they were animals.

Erick quickly got some other shadelings involved. Mainly Slip, the Captain of the Guard. Erick couldn’t take food away from starving people, but Slip and his guard had no issue. They saw the problem, and started solving it, by turning parasite-infested meat to ash. There was a fight. Erick let Slip handle the altercation, as he was already onto the next problem: destroying all the worm-eel bodies he could find that he had chopped up and left behind.

… Apparently! Chopping them up wasn’t enough! They still wriggled!

Their insides were especially wiggly.

Some of the worm-eels had gotten to the dead bodies. Those bodies were now filled with parasites.

“Shit,” Erick mumbled, through Ophiel, as he hovered over the now-writhing corpses.

With another Ophiel, he found Zaraanka, and Mephistopheles. Both of them were busy adjusting the whole city, again, what with the new lake and all. They had moved on, after Erick and Slip moved in on the worm-eel problem. Mephistopheles was by the farms. Zaraanka was by the coast, further shoring up the shore.

Erick told both of them, “The worm-eels had parasites and they are spreading among the bodies. There is no time to honor the dead like we should. If anyone wants to say some words, then come now.”

Mephistopheles stood in the ruins of an apartment building near the new lakeside, gently taking it down with ten other people. He lowered his hand, and a roof turned to sand, as he stepped backward, avoiding the fall. He looked to Ophiel, hovering above him, and said, “I’ll be there.” He called to his people, “We’re burning the bodies.”

Two women and one man collapsed to their knees at Mephistopheles’ words; crying. Others comforted the stricken, as tears flowed.

On another side of the city, where Zaraanka directed hundreds of women and took stock of a the supplies of the city, the woman in pink said, “Finally.” She tossed a pad of paper onto a pile of clothes she likely wanted Erick to [Mend], next to assortments of burned items and other fragments of life, then shouted to her people, “Break time!”

The women and men around Zaraanka seemed hollow, compared to most. They had been gathering supplies out of the city. Some of them still held those cloths or carpets or carried dirty mattresses on their backs, but at Zaraanka’s announcement, and at her directed walk down south, they dropped their loads and they followed. After a few steps, a few froze in their tracks, understanding what was happening, but others just walked along, numb to it all.

Ophiel was already in the south of the city, hovering over the bodies, using his new lightning spell to kill the most obvious parasitic worms—

The entire new lake was infested, wasn’t it? Shit. Intellectually, Erick had already understood this, but now that fact sunk in.

Lightning crashed from white halos, as multiple Ophiel flew across the corpses. The halos mostly stopped crashing when the parasites were dead, but Erick was not going to trust that. Besides, it was time to burn the bodies. Cleanup could be easier when there weren’t tens of thousands of corpses in the way—

Erick hated that he had that thought, but he had it, and then he moved on. The largest infestations of worm-eels were dead, so he cut the lightning, and pulled Ophiel back, so that others could come in.

People ghosted out of the shadows, to stand on the edge of the fields of the dead.

The disparity of dead to survived was nine to one.

A man stood over his whole dead family, a woman bawled on the edge of a parking lot of bodies. It was horror, and it was traumatic. Those who cried, cried loudly. But most had been through too much already. Most just stood, in temporary vigil, watching, witnessing. Erick had seen people like that before, both on Earth and on Veird. He had called these people here, numb, because that’s what he was used to seeing.

But he saw a deeper truth in some of their eyes. The bodies and death that laid before these people was merely another trauma in a long line of horrors. They had seen it all before. They had lived through it all before, too.

Or maybe that was Erick’s own [Hunter’s Instincts] coloring his view of the world, right now.

… He’d turn the skill off when it wasn’t necessary.

… Which was actually right now. Erick turned the skill off, and participated in the ceremony before him, as a silent observer, and a coordinator.

Mephistopheles wasted no time taking center stage. He was slightly faster than Zaraanka, who hid her scowl well, but not completely.

Mephistopheles stepped forward, into the field of bodies. He spoke to the sky, so that all could hear, “We consign the fallen to their fates. There but for the grace of Melemizargo, go us all.” He stared across the fields of flesh. He stepped back. “Light the fires. The worms are spreading.”

Erick aimed a spell at the overcast sky. The winds of Candlepoint slowly resumed their endless journey from north to south. The clouds would not dissipate for hours, but the smoke from the pyre would flow away from the city.

Ophiels descended from the sky, and fulfilled Mephistopheles’ command, lit bright white [Cleansing Flame]s across the field, turning bodies to thick air, revealing the worm-eels hidden in corpses. Purple threads writhed in the white fire, looking for something to eat.

Shadelings watched, as fires glowed and parasites struggled.

Erick went to Mephistopheles and Zaraanka. “The people should participate in this.”

Zaraaka took the lead faster than Mephistopheles, her voice rising above the roar of the flames, “Anyone with fire magics! Burn the field!”

A few instantly threw out fireballs or burning lines of light, exploding flames across the bodies, filling the clean burning fires with smoke that rose into the sky, black and ugly.

Erick asked Mephistopheles, “How should we remove the parasites in the lake?”

“I don’t know. Ask Slip.” Mephistopheles sneered, adding, “He probably knows.”

Erick did.

Slip was by the lake. He was watching the light show down below, at the very bottom of the blue. At Erick’s question, he turned to Ophiel and gave a complete answer, “We need Draught of the Violet Eel for the people. You’d find that at an alchemist. You might have to get some Underworld supplier. For the lake, we need mud flits. You could buy them over in the Wasteland. They’re all-purpose parasite cleaner fish. Your lightning is good, but those eels can burrow into the ground and gain a foothold here if we do not clean them out with a natural, permanent solution. So we need the mud flits. After a week, then we can add the normal three reservoir fish, in order to keep the lake healthy.” He looked a little ashamed, as he said, “I heard you had them in your lake at Spur.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

His eyes glowed vaguely brighter, as he smiled, saying, “Water lilies. Grasses. Lakeweeds of all sorts would be good. Trees. Bigger walls around the whole lake. But we can do all that later, and the people can help with the wall.” He looked down at the flashing lights at the bottom of the lake, saying, “You should run a pass through the whole lake with your lightning; kill off most of the eels that you can. When there aren’t any visible eels, we should be good for a large shipment of mud flits. We can probably take them tomorrow.”

In several places at once, and as he watched red and green and blue fires erupt across the white fires burning on the fields of the dead, he said, “Good man, Slip. Thank you. I’ll get that done.” He added, “I’ve also got meats and breads along with beer and wine coming in a few hours.” He spoke through another two Ophiels, to include Mephistopheles and Zaraanka in the conversation, as he added, “Food will arrive soon. Anything anyone can make from the Farms will be needed, but I’m also bringing fabrics and such. I’ll try to get more tomorrow. Make some lists of what you want.”

Mephistopheles nodded, as he watched the burning land.

Zaraanka burned the land, and shouted, “Thank the Darkness! Food!” She added, “I hope it’s good, Lord Flatt!”

“Me too,” Erick added, “You all deserve something better than what you’ve been dealt.”

Erick felt more than awful about everything that had happened to these people, but as some overheard his words spoken to the three people in charge, for now, and some of them smiled, he felt a bit better. Not much. But… It was a good feeling.

- - - -

Clouds hung in the sky over a city transformed by hardship. What was once home to a hundred thousand, made of close knit apartments, drenched in rainbow lights, and stuck in the middle of a sandy nowhere, was now a sparse land of scattered structures, a great lake many, many times the size of the city, and farmland stripped half bare by people too hungry and tired to cook the vegetables first. Some held on to their sanity. Most turned insensate after all the recent deaths. Some squirmed on the ground; victims of their need to eat, and parasite-filled eels being the closest food around.

Beings of light descended on the town, into squares and courtyards, into the land surrounding the dark Crystal in the center of the city. They came with gifts of actual food. Shredded meats grilled well and fast, set into stone containers. They had been [Cleanse]d out of sight of all eyes, before being delivered onto conjured tables, but no one needed to know that. Beer and wine came in on feathered wings. Cheeses descended to where farmers had gathered their corns and their potatoes and their rice, to prepare what they could for all comers.

Rods of [Treat Wounds] flowed through the town in grips made of light. Tiny vials of purple liquids carried on intent toward those suffering from eels. Not everyone took their medicine. Some had to be forced upon people who had no idea where they were, or what they were doing. Some fought. They did not fight very well. They all got their medicine, in the end. Soon enough, they also stopped struggling against the pain in their chests, and their guts, as the sources of those pains died inside of them. Vomit and other awful facts of life was a common aftermath. Erick simply released more [Mirage Slime]s into the city.

As the sun set over the lake, turning the sky red and gold, and Erick took a break to let the people of Candlepoint fire their own spells into the water, others ate and drank and talked quietly about what was next. What would happen, now that they had a human overseeing the town? Sure, Erick was an archmage, and the current focus of the Darkness, but what did that matter when Melemizargo discarded broken things and created new things, at his whim? Was their reprieve from the Well just a cruel joke? Was this all there was to life, now? A pittance of food from a man who was too soft to undertake the problems coming on the horizon? A man who couldn’t even get enough food to feed ten thousand survivors? Some of them hadn’t even gotten to the meat before it was all gone. And while beer and wine were good, they needed water, too.

Erick had wanted them to be self sufficient from day one, with his catered meal as more of a luxury treat than actual food. But then the farmers had to burn the fields closest to the lake, a third of the Farms actually fell into that lake, and the rice paddies had been filled with purple eels. And then much of the water in the city, as well as the entire rudimentary sewer system, had been infected with eels. Those damn eels had screwed over all of Erick’s planning.

So he improvised. And he probably did what most people might call ‘too much’.

He went to his kitchen, in Spur, and cooked some mashed potatoes. With magic to assist in its creation, Erick made some of the best mashed potatoes, ever. Swimming in butter, with enough cheese and heavy cream to make them the best damn thing anyone could ever taste, those mashed potatoes were carried on feathered wings out to the middle of nowhere, where those two kilograms of food became two thousand. After a thought, and a concern to logistics, Erick added another thousand kilos of mashed potatoes to the mix.

Solving the water problem was easy. Erick just made it rain into cisterns, that he created, on the eastern side of the city.

When the next shipment from the caterers was ready, it was the last, so Erick tripled it, keeping some of the better cuts behind in case he needed to send more, but still sending more than enough food for everyone to have seconds. Each singular bottle of wine became ten bottles of wine. Each barrel of beer became three barrels. Cheeses and breads would keep for longer than the meats, so Erick quadrupled down on those, sending a house-sized shipment of hard cheeses and more than enough bread to last a week.

As the people of Candlepoint ate, and drank, and ate some more, Erick conjured temporary beds in every house in the city, as well as stacking temporary mattresses in the Crystal Courtyard for anyone to take. [Conjure Item] got a workout, but this was not a spell to rely upon. Using conjured beds for a night was okay, and what adventurers usually did when they were out in the field, but tossing or turning, or even sitting down in a conjured bed, was sometimes all it took to disintegrate the conjuring back into the manasphere. And yet, still, people were overjoyed at the beds. Some called for [Cleanse] over themselves, which they got, as they grabbed a mattress and rushed through shadows, to find a spot to sleep in a darkened house, or building.

The sun set, pulling its light from the world, turning the sky into a vista of dark clouds and starlight. Three crescent moons hung over the horizon, casting pink, silver, and white glows into the rainbow dark city. The prismatic lights of previous structures still hung in the air, like ghosts floating where walls and alcoves and roofs no longer existed. A few people went around under the orders of others, or on their own recognizance, casting new lights onto new buildings, or [Dispel]ing the old.

The new lights were not uniform. They were gold, or green. White was popular, but so was yellow. One building had red on the outsides. Erick had no idea why someone would paint their building in red lights, since it looked a bit bloody, but as Zaraanka came around, and shouted at the casters that she wanted pink, Erick saw what was happening. Zaraanka was rebuilding her Pink House; her bordello.

Erick let it lie. The matron of the bordellos wanted to reopen her pink doors to the public, and Erick did not have the energy to countermand her right now.

But it was nice to see that people were putting up lights that they wanted to put up.

… Still. Maybe tomorrow, Erick would see about organizing Candlepoint’s architecture and sewer and all of those public parts of city life into something everyone could live with. But. Eh. He wasn’t going to be a tyrant. He was support. The people of Candlepoint could make their own decisions.

Women laughed as they drank bottles of wine. Men joked over meat and mashed potatoes. Orcols made houses sized for them, while dragonkin and incani conjured castles and apartments, and groups of all sorts played cards under moonlight. People laughed over copious food. Some discovered, the hard way, that the mattresses Erick conjured and gifted to the town were not suitable for all activities, but some simply found sleep. They rested, and would hopefully recover.

Some cried themselves to slumber.

Some cheered at a fortuitous roll of the dice, or downed another beer, or dealt more cards.

When a woman found a guitar in the rubble and brought it to Erick for [Mend], she started playing, while others sang. Other people brought out their violins, trumpets, drums. Songs filled the night, soon enough.

Celebrations caught on slowly, but built to new heights as Erick copied food and beer, and even a few of the instruments and decks of cards and other such small niceties. He did all of that out of sight, but he knew that someone must have seen what he had done. These people could literally meld with the shadows, after all.

And then it was time for more gifts, freely given. Fabrics piled into the Crystal Courtyard, all at once, at midnight.

A woman from Zaraanka’s pink house was not the first to spot the new gifts, but she was the first to rush the pile. Ophiel guarded it, though.

Erick gently said, “Free to take, but make something and gift it to someone else, too.”

A fast agreement saw the woman off with needles, threads, and a luxurious roll of orange cloth, suitable for blouses or dresses or anything nice. She cried a little as she left the courtyard; happy, mostly, but sad too. Others came quickly, got their gifts, and left with the same message of supporting one another.

Erick was under absolutely no illusions that once he gave the items away that what happened next was completely outside of his control. But that was okay. Hopefully no one would get into fights over resources. If they did, Erick would have to covertly [Duplicate] those resources and leave them lying around the town…

Not too often, though. If he did that, then people would notice the pattern, and exploit it.

Whatever was to come, would come later. In thirty minutes, every single roll of fabric, from the heavy duty browns to the luxurious whites to the gauziest rainbows, was gone. Secreted away into some stash somewhere, or openly displayed in small meetings where one person brought the loot and everyone got a share. Rolls of cloth were now in the hands of people who could use them. And that was good.

Somewhere in all of that, the fires from the bodies and the eels burned low, then out. The only people left in Candlepoint were the living.

The city looked safe, for now.

- - - -

Erick sat up from his chair, and stretched. He yawned. It was well past midnight. The sun would be up in a few hours.

Teressa read her book in her chair on the other side of the library, but at Erick’s movement, she looked up. “Done for the night?” she asked.

Erick yawned again, as he dismissed an Ophiel over at Candlepoint, and summoned another in front of him. That Ophiel twittered in happy violins, before taking his spot on Erick’s shoulder, as Erick stood up from his chair. He said, “Yes. Done for the night. More work tomorrow.” He added, “Thank you, very much, for running all those errands, by the way. As soon as Kiri gets back she can run them.”

Teressa set her book down, as she smirked. “Glad to help.” She said, “It makes me feel kinda nice to help some shadelings. I just hope you’re making the right choice.”

“The way I see it, there isn’t any other option. They’re desperate people who the world sees as evil. Shared suffering. Religious indoctrination… The Shades have laid an awful trap, and it will only be defused through careful and plentiful assistance. If these shadelings aren’t supported, they will become what people expect them to become.”

“I could see that.” Teressa said, “But there’s still a danger, here. I just don’t know where the danger is going to come from.”

“Probably from some interfering Shade. Or. Heck. Maybe some other city state, or nation?” Erick walked out of the room, saying, “Good night, Teressa. Thanks for looking after me.”

“Good night, sir.”

As Erick got ready for bed, with a nice hot shower and a bit of light reading, and one last look to Candlepoint —nothing was happening except for sleep and celebration— Erick tallied up the money he had spent today. The mud flits would be available for pickup tomorrow, from Oceanside, which was also where he had to go to get the potions against violet eels. That ended up being expensive. 50,000 gold, just to combat a citywide eel infection. But it was a price worth paying. The food ended up being 31,000 gold, and was a smash hit, along with his four thousand kilos of copied mashed taters. The food from the Farms of Candlepoint did not go nearly as far as Erick thought it would go. But that would get better. The beer and wine and cheese went much further than it would have without Erick’s copying. That would last for weeks, according to what he saw. Bread would last five days, at most, and maybe someone in Candlepoint could become a baker and start baking by then, but maybe not. The fabrics cost 28,000 gold

All in all, he had spent something like 200,000 gold.

Worth it.

- - - -

The sky rolled over. Starlit darkness turned to cloudy twilight.

A woman in rags woke with the dawn, as was her norm. She did not know when this had become her norm, but as that fleeting thought crossed her mind, she felt different than she had before. Something had happened… a day ago? Four hours ago? She took notice of her surroundings, for perhaps the first time in a long time.

She laid in the corner of a dark room, with a dozen other people, all huddled together for warmth, with limbs spread as they were wont. A part of her instantly rebelled at the feeling of strange flesh against her own. This much closeness was almost suffocating. The only saving grace of her circumstance was that the arm draped over her shoulder and the leg wrapped around her own, were clothed, and no one stunk.

There was a slight stink. People made scents. But mostly, everyone was clean.

She hadn’t done this ‘waking up in a pile’ thing since she was a hatchling—

She was a hatchling? No. She was not a hatchling. Where did that come from?

Memories flooded her mind, as she sat there in the warm press of bodies, of times long ago, in the caverns of the Underworld. She had been a person of some importance. A cavemaker? A river router? Something deep and needful. But her memory was unformed clay. Her ideas slipped from her thoughts like messy juveniles, unable to control their form so they ran around as naked snakes all the damn time—

She looked around herself again. Others were awake, just as she was. They looked at her—

She froze. Their eyes were not eyes. They were pits of shadow and light.

Shadelings. They were all shadelings. Everyone in the pile was a shadeling. But… They weren’t trying to kill her? Or maybe this was a deeper trick. She knew something of Shades, and they liked to play games. So she stuffed down her fear, as rote training took over—

Ah. She was capable of playing games. Yes. She knew how to be relaxed in the face of danger.

So while the shadelings were concerning, and their existence implied something awful, she put her cares of all that down, and found something more interesting to ponder, for something else had caught her eye. Something more important than shadelings. And as she gazed at it, her mind further crystallized.

The most important thing in the world was a brilliant green cloth that rested over her chest. Green, vibrant, shimmering slightly. She touched the fabric, and touched god. This simple cloth was a lifeline thrown to her, to drag her up from the darkness. She gripped that fabric like it was her entire world, because it was. She loved beautiful things. Beauty and art, and power. It was a great truth that a life lived in dim darkness was no life at all. This simple cloth, that was anything but simple, showed her that truth that she had almost forgotten.

She stared at the cloth as twilight morning drifted in from the windows, illuminating the brilliance of the fabric thrown across the press of bodies, with no regard to how expensive it must have been.

The woman gently dislodged the muscled arm over her shoulder. The man the arm belonged to grumbled, but just reoriented, and cuddled closer to the other man at his front.

She sat up, all the way.

Her eyes went wide as she looked around the room. Cloth of every color, worth hundreds of gold each, laid around the room, wrapped around people and pooled into piles, like someone had scattered wealth to children who had no idea what to do with such a thing but hoard it, imitating dragons.

The woman remembered something important. Her name.

Ava.

She was Ava, of the Jadescale tribe. Ava Jadescale. A second thought came just as fast as her name. She wasn’t hungry? For some reason, she remembered being hungry and desperate for a long time. Wandering in darkness, not knowing what to eat—

And she was naked! She had clothes, but what about her mask?! She had no mask! The shame of it all! And all these people, all around her! If they they saw her…

They had already seen her. Two shadelings were looking straight at her, right now.

For a rough second, Ava almost panicked. Then a calmer emotion took precedence. What was nudity in the face of all the clues piling up around her, that she was in the deep darkness? Recovering her mask was important. Making a new one was a distant desire. Survival was more important than anything. She was in the middle of a pile of shadelings, after all. That meant something seriously wrong was going on.

But the shadelings were sleeping. Mostly. Only a few out of dozens looked at her, or at each other. But no one moved. No one spoke. Some opened their eyes, just to close them ten seconds later.

Ava had time to sense her surroundings more.

She looked to her clothes, and saw them inadequate. They did not cover her hands. Glinting green scales dappled up her pale white skin, exposing her true nature as a shifter. The same scales likely tracked up her neck, and… Yup. She touched her neck, and the sides of her face, and felt the tiny scales that poked out whenever she was less than fully composed. This would not do. With a concentrated thought, and a tug on her natural magic, Ava pulled those scales inward.

Her body responded… differently than it should have, with sluggish means and then something that she had never experienced except for in the most dire of circumstances. She ran out of mana.

Sudden cold ripped through Ava’s body as her Mana bottomed out. She almost gasped at the sudden sensation, like falling into an icy lake. Her scales barely retreated. She almost laid back down in the pile; the warmth of others called to her. To sleep, to dream, to retreat from the fight. But she could not. She powered through the cold. After a minute, her thoughts became her own again, and she did not feel the call of sleep too deeply.

What in the Core was going on? She checked her Status—

Ava balked, loudly and worriedly. She was not a shadeling. None of that nonsense was correct. Level 1? What? What was this steaming pile of worm shit floating before her? Some sort of awful joke? A bad dream? She had just been level 0, too. She had just gained level 1 by bottoming out her mana.

She spoke, trying to voice her anger, but her voice cracked before she got out her first word, like she had not spoken in an age. Sounds escaped her mouth. They were almost words. Other sleepers woke at her sounds. That should have been worrying, but her voice was gone! Ava didn’t care about waking the monsters, for her voice was gone! She was level 1 again! She struggled to speak, panic tainting her throat, moaning louder—

“SHHH— Shut up!” said a man, sliding into the open door of the room. His eyes glowed like lightning behind a stormcloud, the brightest thing in the room, as he whisper-shouted at Ava, then to others, saying, “If you know you who are, get out of the pile, and get out!”

Five people, who were not already awake, lifted their heads at the interloper’s words. They began to grumble, waking others.

“… Shit,” said the man, who changed his tune as fast as he could, to something more musical. He began a small hum of peaceful notes, smoothly adding words to his calming refrain, “Iiiif you’re awaaaake, goooo on get oooout. If yoooou’re asleep then staaaay asleeeeep. Peeaceful dreeeams, doooo not wake. There’s nooothing to dooo, but recuuuperaaaate. Hmmm hm hmmm. Hmmm hm hmmm…” The man continued to hum and ‘sing’.

Ava stopped trying to work her voice; it wasn’t happening right now. Instead, she gazed across the space, staring at the people who remained awake. All of the moaning shadelings went back to sleep. The man visually picked out the shadelings who did not go back to sleep, jabbing his finger toward each and every one of them, including at Ava. He jerked his thumb toward the door.

Ava did not rush out of the room, to get out of the pile of bodies, as some did. Ava was not a hatchling, oblivious to what awaited them. She knew how this went. Shadelings served Shades, enacting all their horrors. She was a shadeling, according to her Status, and she was surrounded by other shadelings. Therefore, she would be expected to commit horrors. This was not a good situation, but what could she do? She was level 1; all of her usual power was gone. There was nothing to do except prepare for when there was something she could do to fight this fate.

She extricated herself from the pile, and from the elegant green cloth, to stand tall.

She almost faltered, as she felt the cold air rolling through the open door. She almost fell back into the press of warm bodies, to escape the coming fate. She did not want to be here. She did not want to enact the will of those great evils. She had never considered that shadelings might be real people, either. She had always been taught that they were soulless abominations, meant to instill fear of death in all who saw them, and emotional terror on a level few other torments could inflict.

And that was a whole new horror laid atop today’s tunnel of terrors. She had killed shadelings before. Had she been killing people?

How cruel. How awful the lies of civilization. How awful the Shades, to do this to people.

Ava shivered. But she walked forward. She would meet her fate, and crush or undermine it as best she could. They made a mistake when they raised her from the dead. She would see Ar’Kendrithyst fall from the inside—

Who was she kidding? She was kidding herself. They were going to break her. That’s what Shades did. They strove to break the world, and all the people therein. Ava had been a power in the before times, but even she knew not to mess with those dark archmages.

Ava did not cry, though that emotional need crawled through her head for a long moment. She held her head high, as she left the dark little room, and stepped out into the morning light.

… This was not Ar’Kendrithyst.

Where were the giant crystals? Everyone knew about the crystals. The city was supposed to be one of the wrought’s Geodes, wasn’t it? If Ava was being honest with herself, she was partially excited to see those looming towers of red-purple crystal. They were supposed to be beautiful. She thought back to the green fabric in the room behind her. The simple beauty in that cloth had made her think that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, if she could get to see beautiful sights.

That those sights might be covered in blood or decorated with entrails that she would have to clean up…

That was a distant thought, kept purposefully as far away from her mind as Ava could muster.

But this land was flat, with a grey sky overhead and a few dozen scattered black stone buildings here and there, with nothing more than basic roads connecting one place to another. Everything was dark, and dreary. And boxy. The lighting was even uncoordinated! Blues and reds and scattered rainbow lights hanging in the middle of nowhere? What was this aesthetic? Awful! That’s what it was. Ava was appalled in a whole new way.

Ava frowned as she looked across the land. She had heard that the Shades were architectural savants, just as much as they were monsters. That they crafted homes of soaring crystal and worked with solid light and liquid shadow, with airy towers and flying buttresses and cathedral windows. Everything they made was supposed to be a testament to their power; that they lived in creative marvels in a land constantly laid low by war and spells strong enough to prevent [Mend] from functioning. But this place was just some tiny, dark village in the middle of nowhere! There was no beauty to be had in this place!

… Where was she? The air was chilly, as it usually was in a desert, and as she expected it to be in the Crystal Forest, and the Dead City in the morning, but those clouds up there seemed rather out of place. It didn’t rain in that land of orange sand and crystal mimics, if that’s indeed where she was—

A door shut behind them, closing off the hole in the ground where Ava and the rest of them had woken.

“Listen up, people,” said the incani man who ushered them out of that small room.

The incani man was obviously not in a true position of authority. Just look at his clothes; clean and well made rags, but still just rags. And no shoes.

But…

Was he? An authority? Ava quickly revised her opinion when she caught the eyes of those seven people around her, the ones who had come out of the hovel with her. They were all grey eyed; barely cognizant of their surroundings. All of them shied away from Ava’s direct stare, as though hiding the shame of their gaze. But the man was not shy at all. The man who called for attention had the brightest, clearest eyes of the small group, and they bored into Ava’s own, as she stared at the man.

The man broke the stare, as he spoke to the group, “You all are awake. And I don’t mean today. I mean for the first time in a long time. Anyone have memories of walking, but not knowing where they were?”

Furtive looks among the gathered group answered the man’s questions more than any spoken words; the group remained silent. They remained gathered, for now. There was no obvious danger in their decrepit surroundings, except for maybe the people further out from this hovel hotel, on the streets looking their way, but otherwise going about their business. Some of the men and women who woke up with Ava shied away from the glancing gazes of the people down the street. Ava did not. She stared back, and the onlookers averted their eyes.

The man began to speak, and Ava turned to face him, as he said, “You all seem mostly here. Mostly awake. Good. So here’s a bit of help for you, that I never got. I had to wake up in a pile, just like you, but when I was pulled outside, I had my insides toyed with by a Shade—”

One of the men next to Ava collapsed at the mention of ‘Shade’. Others shied away from him. Ava almost collapsed, too, but she had locked her legs upright, and her eyes forward. She looked past the speaking man, and hid her fear well enough.

“There are no Shades here!” said the man. “Stop crying. You’re in the best situation you could be, considering that we’re all damned and given up for dead as Melemizargo’s play things.”

At the Dark Dragon’s mention, everyone went silent.

The man continued, “Yeah. You are awake. You know the danger. You know the horrors.” He stood a bit taller, trying to be regal, saying, “I don’t know if we’re going back to that. I don’t know what’s happening. Some of you might get more memories in the coming days. I ask that you pay forward the kindness I am giving you now, to those less fortunate than you, who are still drowning in darkness.

“We’re in the city of Candlepoint, located in the Crystal Forest, about a [Teleport] east from the Wall of the Wasteland. We had a Shade overlord, but some upstart archmage named Flatt, who invented the first new magics on Veird in 1200 years, somehow swindled this city out from under that Shade. I don’t know the whole story. Doubt anyone does. I’m just trying to survive.

“But that archmage has given us some good changes around here. And here’s where you come in.” He spoke clear, and concisely, saying, “If you can farm! Go to the north of Candlepoint, and find a farmer. Valok Greentalon is in charge there. He’s a redscale. If you’ve got nothing better to do, then get your [Grow], [Telekinesis], and [Watershape], and go farm. We need food. You need food. Don’t worry about rains in this desert. Archmage Flatt brings the rains; that’s what he invented. Rain magic. Your duty is to bring in the harvests.

“Slip is the captain of the guard. He’s the one who is rather dark, and bright eyed. You’ll find him at the Guardhouse, near the lake.

“And that’s another thing. We have a lake! It’s being cleaned of a violet eel infestation, so stay out of it for now. And that there is a major concern. We need help with the lake, and someone who knows how to make a proper sewer system. If you’re a Sewermaster, then thank Melemizargo! We need you most of all. We can shit in buckets for a while, but no one wants that.

“If you can sculpt stone, or you want to kill monsters to keep the town safe! Go find Zaraanka Checharin. She’s a human who likes to wear pink, who runs the Pink House. Zaraanka is also your go-to if you want to go kill Crystal Mimics and get your own rads to eat.

“That’s another thing. You’re a Shadeling. Now that you’re not wandering in the darkness, that means your rad has stabilized. To keep it that way, you need to consume a thousand mana a day. You can mostly consume your own. But you need refills, to keep your mana fresh. You get that by eating maybe 50 mana a day in rads. More is better. Less makes you feel less like yourself.” He stressed, “If you don’t, then you’ll turn monster—”

A woman, suddenly frantic as she heard herself called a monster, spat, “I’m not a monster!”

The man leveled his eyes at the woman. “You are. Feel your mana in your heart, and pour it inside, towards your core. This is how you eat your tail to survive. A dozen cycles per day is usually enough to keep your mind clear.”

The woman went silent; stunned. She did not seem to be looking at her chest, or looking inward, but others did.

Ava was one of them.

She had spent most of her mana, not minutes ago, but the little she had was more than enough to experiment with. As mana flowed within, a new sense that she had never possessed spun through her body, as she controlled her minor amount of mana to flow inside. It was a new feeling, filled with the cold of mana leaving her, but that cold blossomed into a warmth that expanded outward, refilling her body with mana, bringing feeling back to her fingers and toes. Ava ‘cycled’ her mana, for just a few more points. She almost smiled, but she did not. This was easier than completing the Class Ability Slot Quests. She could do this all day.

The man said, “You also level by doing this. Just as if you were spending mana on a skill.”

Ava gasped. She spoke, and nothing came out. She grabbed her throat.

The incani man looked to her—

An orcol woman, who also gasped, spoke up, right as Ava tried to figure out what was wrong with her throat, saying, “Does that mean there is no level 15 limit on casual growth?”

“Yes.” The man said, “You deduced that rather fast.” He said to the group, “But you’ll find your options limited, severely. We’re not in the Script. We’re monsters. Or something. You will naturally have [Shadowblend]—”

The orcol woman exclaimed, “The [Shadowalk] ability?!”

“Yes!” The incani man, slightly tired now, said, “Stop interrupting.” When no one said anything else, he continued, “You have [Shadowblend]. I suggest you learn how to use it. And there’s no [Teleport] for any of us. We are stuck here in Candlepoint, so banish all thoughts of escaping. You wouldn’t make it a kilometer outside the city walls.”

The orcol woman looked to the air, whispering to herself, “Shit. Not even [Blink]?”

“No spatial magic at all.” The man said, “And here’s the shit that we’re all in:

“Candlepoint, this city, is some sort of bridge between Melemizargo and the rest of civilization. The Dark God is trying to reconnect with the other powers of the world, or something. When the Shade was in charge of Candlepoint, shadelings died when they tried to defend themselves from the rest of the world’s cautious and violent individuals. We have had representatives from the Headmaster, to the Viridian King, and everyone else you can think of.

“Since Archmage Flatt got in charge… It’s been better. But still: We’ve got the support of ONE ARCHMAGE. ONE. Got that? You make trouble for him, or for others, or with anyone who might visit the town, then you make trouble for us all. Get with the program or you will be taken to some small hole where you will be put down like the monster you are.” He added, almost forlorn, “Like the monsters we all are.” He pointed down the street, to a large building with a domed roof. “That’s where I work. It’s the Courthouse of Candlepoint.” He pointed to himself. “I’m Faloin. I work for an incani in charge named Mephistopheles. He’s got big red horns; can’t miss him.” In a calmer voice, he asked, “And this is my second day of doing this: how was your introduction to Candlepoint?”

Two women looked ready to cry. One man still sat on the ground. Two others had various far off looks in their eyes. The orcol woman looked interested, for some reason.

Faloin looked to Ava, and pulled a rod of magic from his pocket, asking, “Can you speak?”

Ava tried again, and failed again. She shook her head.

He held up the rod, saying, “It’s a rod of [Treat Wounds], courtesy of Archmage Flatt.” He held it out, but took no steps toward Ava.

The message was clear. If Ava wanted to trust him, then she could, but he wasn’t forcing the rod, or his magic, upon her. Ava steeled herself, and stepped closer. Faloin tapped her with the glowing rod. In a flash of light blue magic, she felt something unwind in her throat. Or possibly grow back. Other tiny hurts along her entire body, from a crick in her neck to a pain in her foot, vanished. Her skin flushed as her scales, unorganized from their usual patterns, organized down the left and right sides of her body. She breathed.

She spoke with authority, “I am— was. I was a Sewermaster. I would like to be again. Do shadelings get [Stoneshape]?” As soon as the question left her mouth, she realized that she could have looked up the spell, herself. She also could have looked around her. No one made these buildings by hand. So she kept her eyes forward, on Faloin, betraying nothing with a turn of her face, or otherwise, and mentally searched the Script for [Stoneshape]. Yup, there it was.

“Do you have a name?”

She briefly considered a false name, but she said, “Ava.”

Faloin nodded, then said, “We can talk about that in a bit.” He spoke to the group, “That’s your introduction. Good luck, everyone.” He began walking northward.

… Was that it? Ava watched Faloin walk away.

Faloin turned, asking, “Coming, Ava No-last-name?”

Ah! Right. Ava hurried to follow, feeling better about everything, now that she had a moment to think. All in all, this was much better than what she had expected when she woke up in a pile of shadelings. After a moment’s hesitation, the orcol woman followed Ava.

The others…

One of the others stood up and walked away, in an undirected daze, their eyes pits of shadow; all light gone. The others fared better. They got up, they looked around with cloudy grey eyes—

Ava turned away, to focus on her own future, and to see the rest of the city as they walked past. The other newly raised shadelings would either fend for themselves, or drop back into darkness, on their own accord.