Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 160, 1/2

In the illuminated yurt, where Erick, Poi, Nirzir, Jane, and Teressa stood or sat, there was silence.

And then Poi said, “There’s not much to tell, but I will explain.”

Erick almost told Poi to forget it, for lingering anger still percolated in the back of his brain, and he truly didn’t care to hear the Mind Mage’s justifications for not helping when they could. But maybe he needed to hear those justifications.

Erick already knew the broad strokes, and he could guess at the rest. What probably happened, was that the Mind Mages tried to help suss out the various problems everywhere, but people didn’t believe that they could do what they said, and then when the Mind Mages proved themselves, they were corrupted by interior or exterior forces, which likely led to a civil war, and also to the people of the world coming down on them. Shades were likely involved.

Except, now that he was thinking about it, Erick doubted that it was that simple.

The Mind Mages were a part of the Forgotten Campaigns, after all, and those were massive purges of certain peoples of Veird in order to rid the world of something too damaging to let exist. Those tragedies were not fully the Mind Mages’ faults, though, for the gods and the wrought were also involved. A great many people were likely involved in purging knowledge of Atomic Magic (for example) out of the civilizations of Veird.

That was just Erick’s educated guess, though.

So, the reason Erick did not stop Poi was, perhaps, that it would be nice to know the actual, true history of the Mind Mages. If the Mind Mages were capable of telling people their true history, anyway. They likely had forces out there that compelled them to speak lies all the time, and possibly to believe their own lies, too. Would Poi just spout lies at him? Lies that he didn’t even know were lies, himself?

Ah. Erick’s anger wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Best hear some more lies, then.

Poi paused, eyeing Erick a little, then said, “Perhaps we could shelve this conversation until after all these major events have calmed down.”

Erick said, “I would prefer to have it out, now, for I need to know why these problems can’t be solved by the people capable of solving these problems.”

Teressa glanced between Erick and Poi, seeming unsure who to stick up for. Jane looked at her father like she was slightly mad. Nirzir spoke to someone else through [Telepathy] about whatever it was she was doing, or maybe she just had an open connection; her eyes were very much focused on Erick at the moment, and she looked both frightened and intrigued.

The yurt continued to trundle along, without anyone paying too much attention to the path ahead; the land was flat and the grass was level, so this was fine.

Erick sat down. Everyone else took their seats.

After a long moment of silence, Poi began, “The story of why Mind Mages don’t openly involve themselves in the world begins at the beginning, in 195 Post Sundering on the continent of Quintlan. This was about 55 years before the Fall of Quintlan, which started around 250 PS, and continued all the way to 350 PS, when it is widely regarded that the oozes became too much to fight.

“It was upon this stage that the first Mind Mage, and his entire school of magic, was created through the direct Wizardry of Melemizargo.”

Jane, Teressa, and Nirzir jolted; they didn’t know this.

Erick had only just now guessed that Melemizargo had been involved. Those Shades and their Dark God got everywhere, after all. They were responsible for practically all of Veird’s woes.

Erick asked, “Should we have a Privacy up for this?”

“Unnecessary.” Poi said, “This is a story that anyone would know if they went looking. It has simply taken you this long to ask this question.”

So Poi was being a bit flippant. That was fine. Erick saw that the guy was obviously uncomfortable with this new scrutiny. Erick had never wanted to intrude upon Poi’s privacy before, or upon the Mind Mages, so he had mostly stayed away. He had never expected this sort of conversation to happen, either, but here it was, and here they were, and so, Erick had to know why life was more dangerous than it had to be.

Perhaps Melemizargo was to blame, again. Perhaps the Shades vowed to kill the Mind Mages whenever they stepped out of the shadows. But that seemed too simplistic.

The Mind Mages were intensely insular, by choice. They did supply truthstones to everyone who wanted one, though, and they had avenues of communication open between them and everyone in power the world over. But they never did anything proactive. In both a good and bad way, and in a way that likely had nothing to do with the Shades at all, the Mind Mages had a strict moral code that prevented them from telling people’s secrets to the world.

And yet…

Erick amended his earlier ideas about the reluctance of Mind Mages to include the idea that the Mind Mages were the way they were, because if people knew their Dark history, they would be judged for it. So, in that way, Erick couldn’t blame them for their reluctance.

But if anyone could find out this story, like Poi suggested, then that meant that the Mind Mages were beyond their beginnings, and that they held onto those beginnings only to show how far they had come. Or maybe they had asked for a Forgotten Campaign on their behalf, and they had been denied?

Whatever the case, Erick nodded, and waited for Poi to continue.

Poi, meanwhile, heard every single one of Erick’s thoughts, though he did not act like it.

It was tough being a Mind Mage, wasn’t it?

Poi continued, “The first Mind Mage was a Shade. That Shade went on to create a thousand lesser Mind Mages, and since Shade plots were what they were, within three years the world was one week away from annihilation, though they never knew it. Shadowy forces had infiltrated or gotten emotionally close to every single power that upheld the world, either through passive thought reading, or [Mind Control].

“But before Melemizargo could topple the world, a flaw in his magics would ruin his plan.

“Mind Mages hear the thoughts of others. These days, we have training to withstand those thoughts, but back then, we had none. Every single infiltrator had been altered by the people they had infiltrated, either through mental bleed, emotional bleed, or just plain kindness changing a person. Those people became the first Dissenters, though they did not call themselves that until the end of those first three years.

“In the beginning, these Dissenters were not willing to rebel, and they hadn’t even coalesced into a coherent group. Most were able to play along; able to infiltrate and corrupt as they were commanded. Some… Were not. Those few who saw what they were doing stepped out into the open. They tried to formally ask the Mind Mage Shade to stop his plans.

“They were killed for their kindness, or else they suffered worse fates than that.

“The Shade kept his plans. The years ticked by. Problems grew, but went unsolved, for while Melemizargo pressured his Shade to work harder, the Shade could only try to work better, and that disparity was easy to exploit. And so, when it finally came time to attack our assignments the world over, and plunge Veird into absolute chaos, the Dissenters turned on their Shade creator, and on every single other Mind Mage who wanted to keep to Melemizargo’s plans.

“Melemizargo, of course, remained untouchable.

“It was bloody. It was quick. It was over.

“The Dissenters, who were now just Mind Mages, stepped out of the shadows. The civil war had culled the population to a third. 330 Dissenters of Shadow had survived. A few Shadow Operatives had survived, too, but they didn't matter till later.

“It was into this state of affairs that the Dissenters succeeded in joining with the rest of society.” Poi briefly gazed up and away. As he turned back to Erick, his voice changed into someone else’s, but barely, “We were successful with our integration into civilization. This was because we were already highly placed in many different governments the world over, and we had made them aware of what was happening. There were some difficulties, of course, but once the extent of our abilities became known and we started actively helping to cull the world of shadowy forces, using methods that no one else ever had access to… Well. That is untrue. The immortals of the world knew what we were capable of, for there were other names for our kind back in the Old Cosmology. We existed before Veird; before the Sundering.

“Those are unimportant details, though.

“What was important is that we were a known quantity that no one knew about until then. Using our power, we tore through almost all of Melemizargo’s power, reducing him to a handful of Shades that could only exist in the darkest parts of the Underworld.

“Fifty years passed like a dreamless sleep.

“In the year 260, Post Sundering, Veird seemed more stable than ever before. The Shades were beaten and the Light was here to stay. You understand: This was before the Rise of Ar’Kendrithyst in the year 503, when the spread of the Crystal Mimics and easy [Polymorph] potions became a pox upon us all. The nearer tragedy of the Fall of Quintlan was still 90 years away, in 350 PS, though as I will tell you: we were already into the first years of the gradual Fall. We just didn’t know it yet.

“The population of the world was at 15 billion people, and for the first time in a long time, it was climbing.

“Many, many Mind Mages had kids by then. And those kids had kids.

“Someone invented the truthstones, and though they were used in small business dealings first, their power proved invaluable to judicial systems the world over. [Witness] had long since been invented, of course, but in those early years, when no one knew how to circumvent the truthstones, having one on hand went a long way toward knowing if a Sin Seeker had to be called in for further investigation, or not.

“More and more decades passed. By 300 PS, over a hundred years since the creation of the first Mind Mage, Quintlan was in the middle of the Fall, though the population of the world, overall, was at 21 billion and still climbing. We were still rather short of the original number of survivors to make it to Veird, before the Death of all Halves, and before the Rage Wars, but we were getting there.

“It was in that fifth generation, and in some places, sixth, that we knew we were in the middle of a disastrous failure.

“Our strict self-appointed rules against using Mind Magic to influence the people of the world began to falter around the second generation, and even more around the third. By now, there was full blown abuse in the noble houses of Quintlan, and in other places the world over. Our Mind Magic had also been spreading into the rest of the world through the Script for the last 100 years. [Sense Emotion]. [Calm]. [Sleep]. On the surface, they were all perfectly fine spells to allow into the populace, but in edge cases, there were problems.

“Monsters were always a problem; that had never stopped. The stresses of mortal danger put systemic stresses on everyone, and so some Mind Mages thought to solve these problems by Controlling people to erase their traumas. This ended up with people committing even more traumas, and not even knowing how damaged they were until they had unhealable psychotic breaks.

“And yet, Melemizargo’s Shades attacked here and there, though each scheme was easily seen through by the Mind Mages. Mostly, Mind Mages were bastions of power and safety. We healed the damaged minds of those who needed such healing, and we discovered the criminals and double agents hidden among us.

“But then, there was a fracture.

“Quintlan was already having trouble with [Create Food and Water], but then it got a whole lot worse. The nobles exacerbated the problem by hiring Mind Mages to track down commoners who could use the spell well, and then those unscrupulous Mind Mages mentally controlled those commoners into only working their magic for the nobles. Though, of course, those situations were both not that simple at all, and truly simple, once you got down to it.

“We know enough to not get involved in that sort of thing anymore. But back then, our children didn’t know, and our families were tied up in the various powers of the world, so we had to defend them; we had to defend ourselves.

“It was here, that many history books diverge. Some call the Tragedy of Quintlan the work of the Mind Mages. Some call it the work of [Create Food and Water]. Some say that with the systematic culling of monsters and the safety provided to the common person, that the people in charge weren’t busy enough with fighting for their lives on a daily basis that they had to invent fights with each other, and so they did. Some attribute the deaths of billions of people to a million small factors that worked in concert to tear away everything built in Quintlan.

“And then the wars of nobility started, and everything went to shit.

“The Mind Mages went to war, again, exactly how you wish for us to go to war these days, except not all of us were on the same side. There were even a few Shadow Operative Mind Mages still around, still working for Melemizargo and the Shades, for our purge had not been nearly as complete as we thought it had been. Those Shadow Operatives were even beginning to release the first Mental Monsters into the cities of Quintlan. The Puppet Minds. The Spinal Spiders.

“War came, and we saw through face stealers. We found Hunters. We found dragons. We found mental monsters, and some of us even made mental monsters to counteract the other mental monsters out there. Book Slippers. And others. Obviously, these were mistakes.

“Then came escalation. The world turned against us, for the Shadow Operatives were in full control of propaganda machines the world over, and we did not want to utilize even more Mind Magic to wrest control away from them, for that would surely result in widespread psychotic breaks.

“So the vast majority of us went into hiding.

“Wars rocked Quintlan, and yet the Tragedy of Quintlan was not contained to that continent alone. There were wars in the Underworld. Nergal and Nelboor and Glaquin. Billions died, and the Mind Mages fractured into a thousand smaller groups, each helping their own people to fight against all the rest as best they could.

“Many years later, when Quintlan was dead and only oozes prowled the land, many Mind Mages still had yet to learn our lesson of exposing the thoughts of the people around us.

“It always starts the same way, too. A call to compassion for those around us. We see problems that we can solve, so we should! Obviously, we should expose the hidden people before they can strike at others. This is all well and good.

“This tactic lasts ten years, and then the next generation in power realizes that they can do so much more ‘good’. It always goes the same, though the scale is sometimes smaller, or larger, it always looks the same.

“A Mind Mage tries to solve the world, and thus, when they see problems, they decide upon obvious solutions.

“What does the local buying-selling market look like? Oh! I should exploit this for more funds for this great project over here.

“What’s going on with the rulers? Oh! The king is cheating on his wife, and endangering the kingdom with a war of succession! Let’s Control that problem away.

“Which noble among all the rest is using blackmail and bribery in order to prosper? Oh! Roughly 90% of them! Well let’s stop that right now. So what if one or two of them die from psychosis-induced brain damage. It’s for the greater good.

“Where is the nearest dragon, and what does that dragon know about magic? Oh! They know everything? Let’s take all of that for ourselves, and also the dragon’s hoard, for we can do a lot of good with that gold. But first: How can we get two dragons to meet out in the open, elsewhere, so that we can loot both of their hoards while they are gone? So what if thousands die in the crossfire! They were always going to die anyway, for the local lord was going to use them in a war of his own making. So, hey! We just prevented a war, too.

“All of these are categorically, morally, awful things to do.

“None of these examples are exaggerations.

“And yet, in the moment, they all seemed like perfectly reasonable steps to take. It isn’t till one is way down on the road to darkness that they realize the road they are on. For even if you have a good reason, it’s never as good as you think it is.

“All sapient life and decisions must be respected, for no other reason than it is the right thing to do, and leads to a better world for all.

“And so, we have implemented a line that we do not cross.

“That line is ‘is someone in mortal danger at this moment, and if I speak up, can I stop this immediate danger?’ It is a simple line, and it is easy to keep. It is not fraught with morality. It requires no individual choice, which is often wrong. Even if you, yourself, have perfect morality, and are able to make every judgment call with exacting precision, the person who comes next may not be as good as you.

“And besides that: people are not the sum of their thoughts, or their actions, or their person. Sometimes a face stealer becomes a better king than the previous king. Many times, a Wizard becomes a beacon of civilization. Almost always, a dragon meets another dragon, and both are so good at their disguise that no one starts a fight. Almost every adventurer kills a hundred thousand more monsters than they kill people.

“We have no moral authority to judge people for what they think, or what they do, and neither do you, for even more important than the discussions of morality, there is one truth that we have found more true than most: Violence begets violence. And so, we can only help when violence is what we are up against. This is the line that we keep. We stop the violence of mental monsters, and the violence of rogue Mind Mages, and the violence that happens directly around us, in our presence.” The entity speaking through Poi said, “Ask no more of us, for we have given a lot already.”

For a brief moment, the only noise in the yurt was the sound of wheels turning, and the gentle mooing of distant cows.

Poi spoke, “There are history books that you have not read, that I have. There are memories of historical events that I have experienced from a first-person perspective, that you have not experienced. I know the danger of thinking that I can change the world by revealing the thoughts of those around me.” He stared at Erick, and said, “Apocalypse is what lies on the other side of that door, so it is a door that we keep firmly shut.”

Erick said, “Okay.” That Mind Mage story was not the whole story, but it was enough of one to make the whole of their hidden society make a bit more sense. Erick said, “I can respect that line that you will not cross. I take it that the face stealers and otherwise know of this line, and they purposefully stay your hand by working around you?”

“Not only them, but many people.” Poi said, “If you saw any play in any theater with a Mind Mage character in the cast, then you would know that everyone knows how to get around us, and so we try not to advertise who we are.”

“… And that’s the true reason for your peoples’ reluctance to stand in the open.”

“Correct.”

“So. Just to be clear.” Erick asked, “You won’t help find face stealers.”

“I’m all for the persecution and ending of face stealers and Hunters and all those types, but I cannot step past that line, Erick. I will, however, scan people who agree to be scanned, as I have done before, and as I will do again. But I won’t ever be proactive about this.” Poi said, “People deserve the privacy of their own minds, and I will not take that from them.”

“… Okay.” Erick felt some of his anger flow away. The Mind Mages were never going to help with this sort of thing, and he knew that already, but hearing the reasons helped to chip away at some of his anger. He asked, “So what do you think will happen when I Bless all of these Knives of the Night into Empathy, or with the dragon Ordoonarati when we get to Ooloraptoor?”

“What!” Jane asked, “You found the dragon?!”

At the same time Nirzir rapidly asked, “You’re Blessing all of the Knives of the Night!?”

Teressa just breathed out, not really prepared for such a quick shift of topic.

Poi suggested, “How about you tell us all of what has happened, recently?”

Erick looked around at the exasperated faces of his people, and said, “Yeah. I should do that, I suppose. So apparently ‘Master’ Daizing of the Knives of the Night is having all his people—”

Erick glanced over to the star dais he had installed upon the far off mountain. There was another person waiting for their Blessing standing upon the symbol of Koyabez. The person looked to be out of resources, too, for there were no more twisting white glows flowing off of them, to be sucked up into the [Undertow Star] hanging above.

Erick whipped his Crystal Star through the light and Blessed the man.

Erick had never really left himself, as he continued saying, “—come to a certain place to the north, where I have a Star Draining them, so that I can Bless them and…”

He spoke. They listened.

And then they started talking.

“Explain this,” and, “What about that,” and, “I didn’t understand this.”

Erick felt better as the conversation meandered through retellings and clarifications. He wasn’t exactly sharing his burden with others, for the power to make a choice here was still his, but it felt nice to listen to other people talk about problems that were essentially his problems.

Jane said, “I think you should Bless the people who show up at the altar, and also accept Daizing’s help in finding all the others who won’t allow themselves to be Blessed. At that point, something else has to be done, though. This is too much for you.”

Teressa and Nirzir looked at Jane a little bit funny, for what she had said was pretty ‘classically evil’ according to the tale Poi had told them. Erick did not share this look, though. He wasn’t going to stop doing good himself, just because whoever came next would fail to live up to his ethical standards.

And then Poi surprised everyone by saying, “I agree with Jane.”

Erick eyed the man.

Teressa went, “Uhhh…” She glanced at Poi, saying, “But mind control is evil. Isn’t soul control the same? Isn’t that the whole reason why you don’t [Mind Control] people into being better people? You just said that.”

“[Mind Control] is Evil, but [Mind Control] is not soul shifting,” Poi said, “I have recently learned that when you shift the soul, the mind follows, but when you shift the mind, the soul rebels, and this leads to the psychotic breaks that are normally associated with [Mind Control] failures. From a purely utilitarian point of view, [Mind Control] is more evil than soul shifting because [Mind Control] never lasts and it causes long term damage. When done correctly, soul shifting causes long term changes that propagate into the mind, and change a person from within. It is still evil to change a person through soul shifting, but… It’s not that bad, because it can be fixed.”

Erick said, “Ah. Yeah. You mentioned psychosis earlier. But that’s a real problem with Mind Magic, then?”

“It can be. Usually, it’s not, but all magic possesses the capability for harm.” Poi said, “You can heal almost all the damage caused by both Soul and Mind Magic with more applications of the same, too, so it’s not that bad. But in a utilitarian morality sense, Soul Magic actually causes less potential harm than Mind Magic.”

Teressa shivered. “Let’s not talk about utilitarian morality, okay? Some things should not be reduced to their effects. Both Mind Magic and Soul Magic are inherently evil when used against people.”

Poi said, “I agree, Teressa, but there is room for therapeutic applications of both.”

Teressa frowned, hummed, then said, “Yeah. I guess.”

Nirzir, who hadn’t spoken much at all and mostly listened, had focused on a different part of the conversation. She said, “Clan Void Song is willing to help end the sects of Nelboor.” As everyone turned to the young girl she almost recoiled from the sudden pressure, but she puffed out her chest, and with false bravado, said, “We have the manpower to accomplish this task, and can even take over this responsibility, if you wish.”

Teressa said, “Now that is something that should not be done. No offense to the clans, of course.”

Nirzir deflated, frowning a little. “Some offense taken?”

Teressa winced, as though she realized that she had accidentally taken a large overstep. She looked to Poi, saying, “Help me out, here.”

Poi frowned at her, then said, “What Teressa means to say is that what Erick is doing is a spiritual cleansing.” He looked to Erick, saying, “And I agree with Teressa. This is what you are doing, Erick, even if you don’t see it right now. This is too important to put in the hands of mortals, with mortal concerns, like Empire. You need godly help for this.”

Erick… let that thought sit for a moment. Poi and Teressa were probably right.

Nirzir frowned a bit more, saying, “We’re responsible mortals.”

“I think Void Song would be fine to help. But!” Jane said, “Koyabez’s churches were destroyed. He could use some new priests, right?”

Erick immediately said, “Oh. Uh. No. There’s a lot of merit in this general idea of enlisting help with this shitstorm, but I feel that asking for what you are suggesting, Jane, is a bad idea.” Erick said, “I truly don’t think Koyabez would want soul shifted people as priests. Especially if they’re former priests of Melemizargo and also cultists… which is redundant to say, now that I think of it. Anyway: It’s a bad look. But perhaps he’d have some priests willing to guide these people into… better walks of life? That’s what the churches of Koyabez do, sometimes. When people are exiled, they can sometimes go to Koyabez for redemption, or something. I’m not too sure how that works, though.”

Jane nodded. “That’s probably a better idea; yes. But whatever happens, you don’t have to be involved in all of it. You’re already stretched thin and you don’t need more responsibilities.”

“Yes, yes. I agree—” Erick had an idea. “So Candlepoint exists, too, and they’ve already taken in cultists. Would it be a bad idea to have all these people go to Candlepoint?”

Teressa frowned. Jane frowned. Nirzir was already frowning. It seemed no one liked that idea.

Erick said, “Candlepoint is the land of reincarnation and second chances.” He added, “Or, it was… but not officially? Though actually saying the words… I like that idea. Candlepoint could be a land of second chances? Perhaps. It already is, anyway.”

Jane said, “You’d need to get more priests of other deities to show up, before you could call it that.”

“That’s a good point, too,” Erick said.

“No other deities have joined Candlepoint.” Poi said, “And besides that: We shouldn’t go back to Glaquin until you’re off this Worldly Path.”

“Just putting ideas out there for now, Poi.” Erick said, “But now that I’ve met the dragon that attacked me, and as long as the truce we made holds, it might not be long till we’re out of here.”

Nirzir asked, “You’re not going to kill the dragon? Even after knowing that he mutilates the souls of people to get what he wants?”

No one looked to Nirzir except for Erick; everyone else just ignored her rather childish words. They had more faith in Erick than the young princess from Void Song.

“I will not act against Ordoonarati unless he breaks the truce, for I will not be the aggressor. And yet, I fully expect him to break this truce when I help the people of Ooloraptoor to kill or Bless every single face stealer and Hunter in this society.” Erick said, “But if that doesn’t happen, then I might participate in a debate or two, just to cement some ties with Pale Cow, and only because I feel like it. Other than those two possible events, I think the next few days will be rather calm and we might be moving on to the next location rather quickly.

“Perhaps we can visit the Adamantine Smiths of Underworld Nelboor? Their head offices are in the Northern Chasm Region of the North Tribulation Mountains, and I am sure those people have some interesting metals with which to make various enchanted objects. We were already going there for a nice weapon for Jane, but I could use some various metals myself to use in the possible enchanting of a Gate.” He looked around, “And if anyone else wants a weapon or armor or whatever, we could get some? You still like that old armor, Poi? Teressa? You want a new weapon?”

Poi smiled a little. “I like this armor, yes. But I would like some new armor, even more.”

Teressa said, “I need a backup weapon. That Radiant Nacreous Weaver ripped right through my Force spells.”

Jane nodded, torn halfway between the prospect of a new sword and concern for her father.

Erick told her, “I’m fine, Jane. It’s just getting to me. This is all big stuff, you know?”

“I do know that.” Jane said, “But… I could use a sword. Thanks for remembering.”

Erick teased, “We’ll get you the biggest, most gaudiest gold and electrum katana that Veird has to offer.”

Jane breathed out through her nose.

“Anywhere you want to go, Nirzir?” Erick asked, “You’re a part of this party, too.”

Nirzir froze and blushed, then she shook her head, saying, “I don’t need weapons— No wait! If we’re really going to the Adamantine Smiths, then I need to use this opportunity to think of something I would want. They’re world class Smiths and… If it wasn’t you going there, I don’t think they’d let you into their mountain.”

Erick smiled. “Aw. Drat. I wanted to go incognito.”

“That’s a five year waiting list.” Nirzir said, “Maybe more.”

“Maybe we could still go incognito, and then we could look for some down-on-their-luck Smith who just needs one good break to rise up, to become an Adamantine Smith! I could be that break.” Erick asked, “How does that sound?”

Teressa offered, “Ya know, boss, if you want to do the ‘old mysterious man bit’ you’re about a hundred years too young for that.”

“So what you’re saying is that I need some beard and hair growth tonics, and some bleach.”

Jane smiled as she said, “Let’s go as ourselves, get some weapons, and then move on. Perhaps we won’t get stuck in local politics this time.”

Erick barked a sudden laugh, and for a good three seconds, he was the only one laughing. But soon, Teressa chuckled, and Poi smirked. Nirzir smiled politely

And then Nirzir exclaimed, “Oh! I just remembered: I think they have a tournament going on this time of year. Some lucky warrior usually wins themselves an artifact-class flying sword.”

Jane stared, wide-eyed at Nirzir, her mouth dropping open into the largest smile Erick had seen on his daughter in a long time. She called out, “Tournament Arc!”

“What?” Erick asked.

Jane explained, “It’s when a whole bunch of people fight each other for prizes and fun! Blood sports!”

Erick went, “Oh. Uh. That sounds… Not fun.”

“What!” Jane said, “Heathen!”

Teressa and Poi burst out a laugh, to which Nirzir, Jane, and Erick, all asked, “What?”

Poi explained, “To call you a ‘heathen’— Okay. I have to start at the beginning. There was this play that—”

“It’s a cultural thing.” Teressa said, “For a daughter to call her father a heathen always marks the point in the story that the daughter— Well. It varies by story.”

“It’s a meme, Jane,” Poi said.

“… I don’t think I like being out of the loop on memes,” Jane said.

Erick laughed, “You must be getting old.”

The conversation moved on.

The five of them spoke of lighter topics, and Jane made coffee for everyone. Nirzir made cold chicken sandwiches, with lots of mayo and onion, while Teressa kept a casual eye on their surroundings as she told a story about an old man who traveled the world with seven couatl [Familiar]s. It was a lighthearted tale of jokes and cultural references that Erick picked up from context, but of which he knew nothing about until that moment. It was still a nice story.

Nirzir, Jane, and Teressa were treating Erick with soft gloves, and he was not blind to this. It made him feel embarrassed, but it also made him feel nice. Poi needed some fragile handling, too, but only because Erick had made the man feel precarious about his position in Erick’s life, and Erick had not meant to do that to him.

Poi had always been there for him, and when Erick had lost his calm amid all the events of the last two days, he had taken out his anger on Poi, and that had been wrong. The Mind Mages had always had a clear line that they were never willing to cross. Erick truly shouldn’t have been surprised, or angry at where they placed that line.

If Erick, himself, had demanded that the Mind Mage’s lines be moved forward a step, then down the line, someone else would demand their limits move one more step further. It was a slippery slope, and at the same time, it was also the slippery slope fallacy. Killing face stealers and Hunters seemed like a no-brainer to Erick, and yet, even the Mind Mages had ideas of redemption in their modus operandi. And so, Erick wasn’t going to argue with a thousand year old institution about their limits, when the Mind Mages had only managed to survive the rest of the world because they kept strict limits.

(And he valued the idea of redemption, too, he supposed.)

As the hours ticked on and nothing happened except for the Blessing of cultists, Erick had time to reflect on his own lines in the sand.

He decided that he would always fight against people who came after him, or the people around him. Lethal violence was still on the table, but Erick was powerful enough that non-lethal means were a valid option.

Helping people who asked for help seemed like a good limit, too; that’s what a lot of other archmages did. Tenebrae operated in this manner. The ‘bar to entry’ for gaining Tenebrae’s help was, firstly, money, which showed a commitment to whatever problem a petitioner wanted. Secondly, the petitioner needed to actually find the cantankerous old archmage, which showed a certain amount of competency on the part of the petitioner.

Erick decided he didn’t like the bars to entry that Tenebrae set.

To get hold of the Headmaster, all one needed to do was show up at Oceanside and fill out paperwork, and then the Headmaster would choose to see a petitioner, or not. Erick was already operating on this sort of system, and it seemed like a good one. For now.

Anyway.

Ending evil when Erick saw evil seemed like something he definitely needed to keep doing. There were problems with that commitment, what with ‘evil’ being nebulous and not always apparent, but Erick didn’t want to think of those morality problems right now, because there was a larger problem with these ideas.

That problem, was this: Once you see one person dying on the street due to hunger, if you look close enough, somewhere a warlord is withholding food, and answering that problem required assassination, and then you’ve got a whole new settlement under your control, or a bunch of angry people, who were rightfully upset that their leader was just murdered…

Okay. So Erick had fallen right down that slippery slope, hadn’t he.

Anyway.

Limits.

Erick had thought he already had some good ones. ‘Don’t make any more world-threatening magic’ and ‘Don’t…

Hmm.

Oh.

He only had that one limit, didn’t he? He was a killer, now. A mass murderer, actually. Ah. Shit.

Ah.

Erick set that trauma aside and vowed to deal with it another day. He thought, instead, about how Poi had made himself really vulnerable today. He also thought about the person who had spoken through Poi. What was all that about? Or was that whole ‘other speaker’ just Poi accessing shared memories? Or was there a dragon on the other side of the Mind Mages? The Headmaster often spoke through his Elites. Did other dragons do that, too? Erick hadn’t seen it happen, but… Perhaps they did?

Or. No. The much more reasonable explanation was that the Headmaster had some Mind Magic of his own. The Headmaster did have ties to the Mind Mages; this much Erick had been told, and he had seen for himself.

Anyway, Erick would apologize to Poi for his harsh thoughts with some nice armor, and a verbal apology when they weren’t out in the open. Yes; this would do.