Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 173, 1/2

The fight hadn’t started yet.

Erick was strangely calm. He hadn’t fought against a man like Sitnakov before; either against one of the strongest warriors on the planet, or against a wrought of any skill at all. It made Erick think of Killzone, and wonder if the orcol-shaped Sitnakov was anything like the orcol-shaped general of Spur’s Army. Maybe only superficially? Killzone used his fists, but Sitnakov used two straight swords, so there was a difference there, but maybe not much of one.

Sitnakov vanished, followed rapidly by Tasar and Kromolok, Erick’s [True Sight] and other methods failed to pierce whatever spellwork the three wrought used to hide, but according to the Imaging by Yggdrasil they were still there. Tasar was likely still laid out on the ground, mostly healed but not quite. Kromolok was likely still leaning over the downed Summoner—

The rocky ground where Sitnakov had been suddenly cratered, as though a massive weight launched into the air. In that same second, Tasar and Kromolok blipped away, but they were already [Super Invisible], or whatever fucking spell they had each cast, so Erick didn’t see them go.

The Imaging beside Erick followed the three combatants as they blipped in unison toward Erick’s location; toward Yggdrasil.

Erick took a moment to shift the Imaging to ‘wrought’, as he said to Yggdrasil, “I want you to lightly use [Physical Domain] but only on the wrought or the wrought’s spellwork, when they come into range. Use the map to find them if you can’t see them. Use the [Physical Domain] like I showed you; like you saw me use against Nirzir’s spellwork, to erase that spellwork. Don’t actually pressure any of them with the [Domain], okay? Only vibrate them, or the world around them. No killing; not yet.”

“Okay!” Yggdrasil said, brightly happy.

The air suddenly shifted as a deep power began to thrum the world—

“Pull back a bit, Yggdrasil. Normalize yourself. Amplify and Harmonize only the targets. Keep your Domain away from the land.”

The air shifted again, becoming calmer. Erick watched with Ophiel as Yggdrasil flickered Harmonize and Amplify in pockets of air all around himself. Pockets of vibration appeared next to pockets of stillness, as waves down below blew against the wind and bubbles formed underwater here and there. Yggdrasil’s power extended a dozen kilometers in every direction, skipping over the Wizard’s Tower and the rest of the nearby coastal kingdom, but he pulled his power back from those locations, too, ensuring that his destruction would only affect what he wanted to affect.

If he managed to help at all, then that was fine—

In three short seconds, Erick watched as Yggdrasil rapidly learned how to wield his power, forming a dozen rings and a hundred small pockets of vibrating space all around, prismatic light flickering back and forth inside those pocket spaces like controlled shockwaves. It would be a while till they turned into magenta explosions, but it would happen soon enough, for sure.

Erick let his small joy at Yggdrasil’s first success flow through their bond. “Good job, Yggdrasil. You’re getting the hang of it. When the wrought show, throw some explosions at them, but don’t go for the kill.”

“I understand, Father!”

Erick said, “I’m going to use you to cast this spell, now, okay?” He waited a bare second, feeling for Yggdrasil’s easily given reins, and then he cast a star into the sky.

The blue heavens turned dark, and then exploded in bright white light as radiance washed out across the blue ocean. An Abyss of Extreme Light swelled inside the darkness above Yggdrasil’s rainbow crown, growing fast to overwhelming proportions, unleashing tendrils of twisting shadow all across the land. Erick couldn’t see it himself up there, above Yggdrasil’s upper branches, but the [Undertow Star]’s power cast shadows even into the brightness of this central space.

Erick used Yggdrasil to cast another spell, filling the nearest ten kilometers with [Spatial Denial].

All the while, Erick resummoned his Ophiels, preparing for the confrontation, wondering just how far he had to go against these people to get them to stop, and if he needed to follow up today’s murders with genocide—

And wasn’t that a sobering thought! And yet! Sitnakov had threatened Jane, and Spur, and Poi, Kiri, Teressa! He had threatened all of them and more besides. Erick was ready for extreme solutions if necessary. He probably wouldn’t create his ‘kill everything’ spell… Probably.

Erick prepared himself with [Lodestar] and [Greater Lightwalk] as he stared down at the [Cascade Imaging] hovering in the air, just beyond Yggdrasil’s trunk. With resignation, he lightsteped into the air a hundred meters away from his sleeping space, to stand on the light, and wait.

Sitnakov was 50 kilometers away, over atop the ocean. Kromolok and Tasar were beside each other, about a kilometer away from Sitnakov. Erick couldn’t see them with his eyes, or with any of his other senses, even though he should have been able to at that range…

With another thought, Erick erased his own Imaging and had Yggdrasil cast another Imaging into the sky, using the big guy’s massive size multiplier to create something that was almost a new spell, but not quite. Below the [Undertow Star], directly inside Yggdrasil’s upper canopy, another star formed. The spells did not interfere with each other, thankfully.

A fog rolled in, lifting off from the ocean and inundating Yggdrasil’s entire kilometers-wide body and twenty kilometers in every direction beyond. This was a big [Cascade Imaging]. It would take a while to populate, but it was a 1-for-1 map overlaid atop Yggdrasil, and it should give rather precise targeting of the wrought when any of them showed in the space.

Barely 30 seconds had passed since hostilities seemed inevitable.

Erick wondered how long he would have to wait—

A blue rush appeared in the foggy air next to Erick, inside Yggdrasil’s airspace, coming in from Erick’s back right like a cosmically-fast blur. With half a thought, Erick designated the wroughts as ‘enemies’ and the Star above weaved a tendril of shadow through the space, aiming at the blue blur. Those shadows seemed to move in slow motion against the blue blur, like a ponderous giant moving against a speedy gnat. The gnat almost reached Erick but Erick lightstepped away, through the closest shadow tendril, hoping to draw the invisible Sitnakov into the Drain and Extreme Light.

But the blue blur continued on through where Erick had been, never appearing to any Sight, only half-seen by the glowing fog all around, moving fast through the mist to get away from the ponderous [Undertow Star]—

A blue blur appeared in the fog right behind Erick. He barely had time to move, but he did. Another step through another shadow tendril took him out of harm’s way.

Where Erick had been, the blue blur half-materialized like something out of a fevered dream, arms swinging non-visible swords that sliced the air, filling the world with crashing, sonic booms. The blue blur vanished back into the glowing mist all around, moving fast to stay away from the crawling tendrils of [Undertow Star]. The shockwaves surely would have propagated far, but Yggdrasil saw the problem and locked those destructive waves down with Normalize.

Erick could have sworn he heard a ‘tsk’ out there in the glowing mists.

A moment of nothing passed, and Erick found himself thinking. If Sitnakov was attacking like this, it meant that either he discounted Erick’s power, or he had failed to [Strike] properly, or he wasn’t aiming for a kill. Erick discounted the third option right away. The first two meant that he should aim to kill, too… Unless he could overpower the man and force him to submit in a way that would last? Was such a thing pos—

This would require soul fuckery, probably. Was he willing to do that? Yes. He wa—

The Crystal Star felt suddenly heavy upon his chest—

“Yes, yes; no soul fuckery,” Erick complained at the thing. “I suppose we’ll cut off all his limbs again and lock him down. I can do that, too.”

The Crystal Star went inert.

While Erick spoke, nothing had tried to attack him again, which was odd. Erick had expected—

Sitnakov’s voice carried on the wind, “You can still surrender. We’ll have to strip [Duplicate] out of you, but that’s fine, right?”

“How about I strip off the arm I gave you? Eh? How about that?”Erick said, “And a punitive tax on both of your legs, as well!”

Erick watched his surroundings, but he also watched the sky. The mist all around Yggdrasil began to fade as [Cascade Imaging] worked overtime to clear the air. As vision increased, Erick could see great columns of twisting shadow chasing a rapidly moving and rapidly resolving blue blur about a kilometer away. Yggdrasil worked overtime, too, opening up pockets of flashing purple space into the blue blur’s path. Neither shadow nor explosion seemed able to reach the man, who danced around every obstacle and even through several, blasting right through every bit of spellwork that Yggdrasil managed to make hit, dissipating magenta vibrations like so many scattered explosions.

Yggdrasil seemed to be a lot better about hitting the man than [Undertow Star]. Erick was surprised at the pace of Yggdrasil’s learning, but shouldn’t have been; the big guy learned quickly, even if his speech was still odd. [Undertow Star] underperformed, though. That spell wasn’t exactly sentient so all it could do was chase the target with tendrils of shadow. It couldn’t aim where Sitnakov was going to be, and so Sitnakov took great advantage of this weakness.

Erick almost wanted to solve that weakness, but the spell already had ‘Summon the Undertow Star! All are the same; all are different.’ as its first line of spell description. If Erick increased the tier anymore, it might actually turn sentient, and that seemed like a bad idea.

Anyway.

Yggdrasil was doing very, very well. Erick was thoroughly impressed. It didn’t take the big guy long to figure out that he needed to ‘prime’ his magenta explosions before shoving them at Sitnakov, and so he was doing that, a thousand times over, all across the land. Growing magenta explosions hung around Yggdrasil like Christmas decorations, and when they were ready, Yggdrasil funneled those explosions directly into Sitnakov’s path, through tightly-controlled branch-sized tunnels of Harmonize/Amplify—

The blue blur appeared behind Erick again, throwing out a [Tether] instead of attacking.

Erick batted the [Tether] away with his sunform, feeling the weight of a supremely-honed Domain working overtime to connect; he almost failed. Direct confrontations with the man were not advised, apparently. Erick lightstepped away, directly across the path of a shadow tendril. He barely got a glance at Sitnakov before the man stepped away again. In that brief moment of contact the [Cascade Imaging] above revealed him as a blue, wispy hologram, with a mean smile.

Reminded Erick of Bulgan, actually.

That almost sent Erick over the edge into ‘kill right now’ territory, but he stopped himself. There would be no pulling back once he murdered a prince of Stratagold.

Erick called out as Sitnakov ran away, “I’m going to start using [Luminous Beam], soon! This is your last warning to stop this nonsen—!”

“Father. It hurts.” Yggdrasil said, “Left. Right.”

Concern flooded Erick as he rapidly looked around, using Ophiel to see—

Tasar held in the skies over the deeper ocean. The green adamantium archmage held her staff aloft, and the world around her transformed into a glittering expanse of tiny, bright lights, like an orange-yellow sunrise captured in a land of dew drops.

Each drop of whatever suddenly shimmered in sync, spreading—

In the other direction, over the coast, Kromolok stood over the beach and radiated waves of power into the air, like Erick’s own [Physical Domain] but vastly different. Those waves expanded and expanded, each one radiating further than the one before. He had likely been channeling his Domain aura for the last thirty seconds, but it was already a kilometer wide and growing fast, pressing up against Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] with each larger wave like an industrial wood chipper, gradually eating away at what Yggdrasil could not protect—

And then Tasar’s summons had glittered enough. A thousand packets of power streamed in every single direction, but the ones directly between Tasar and Yggdrasil reached the edge of his Domain much sooner than all the rest, crumpling the [Physical Domain] inward with great, vanishing explosions of Void, each glittering summon taking out massive swaths of power, causing a collapse of Domain.

Every part of Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] suffered damage as the collapsing Domain forced him to compensate from opposite directions at the same time. All of his control weakened, throwing off his careful pursuit of Sitnakov, sending magenta shockwaves wild.

Good news, Tasar’s summons hit the twisting shadows of the [Undertow Star] before they could reach Yggdrasil’s canopy, and were promptly erased by the Extreme Light Star. Bad news, the Star vanished; it had used all of itself to extinguish all of the remaining glitters, ending Tasar’s attack.

But Tasar began to glitter again, gearing up for the next salvo.

Sitnakov attempted another sideways attack, coming in at Erick’s upper left back.

The man was practically a blue ghost now, and he was also obviously itching to get a [Luminous Beam] to the face, which is exactly why Erick didn’t do that. Instead, he had seven Ophiel each cast their own spells at Sitnakov, near simultaneously but in order of most-to-least probable to work, while the others held in wait with [Harmonic Counterspell], but only after Sitnakov tried his [Tether]. Which he did.

Erick barely dodged the [Tether], slipping Sitnakov’s power up as Erick went down.

And in that moment, Ophiel cast.

[Air Breaker]. [Prismatic Breaker]. [Ward Destruction]. [Grand Dispel] for 7,500 mana. Another [Grand Dispel] for the same. [Force Breaker]. [Fulmination Aura].

[Air Breaker] was useless; the spell struck an absolute Domain, which made sense but Erick still had to try. [Prismatic Breaker] met the same resistance. [Ward Destruction] caught on something; Erick wasn’t sure what. [Grand Dispel] ripped away something else; again, no idea what. The second [Grand Dispel] ripped away Sitnakov’s [Super Invisibility], making him appear as a being of black wind. [Force Breaker] touched on something, breaking one of the man’s swords, but not the other.

[Fulmination Aura] skittered across the revealed man, but briefly, as Sitnakov’s eye went wide. The man had an [Air Domain] of some sort, as well as [Greater Air Body]. The guy had some sort of reflection active, too. Lightning skittered across his black metal body and did nothing.

Sitnakov tried to airstep away, though, and that’s when the [Harmonic Counterspell]s struck. It didn’t work completely for the man was thick with Domain, but the spell did stagger the man barely enough as he tried to get away. Erick had cast another [Undertow Star] into the sky, through Yggdrasil, just as [Fulmination Aura] started to reflect.

A new Star in the sky licked through Sitnakov’s body, twisting Mana and Health out of the man with a tiny, almost invisible Drain. Sitnakov had some sort of massive damage mitigation multiplier to be able to tank [Undertow Star] like that. Or else his Domain was simply that strong. It wasn’t a lot, but it could be the turn of the tide.

Erick was honestly surprised that any of his spells were working at all.

And yet, Erick knew that if he won…

Whatever. He would win and then sort out the fallout after this was over.

With a guiding hand, he propped up Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain], linking deep with his largest [Familiar] to show him how it was done. Soon, massive tunnels of magenta shockwaves were rippling around the entirety of Yggdrasil like his rainbow crown, but larger, and more violent.

Erick sent those larger shockwaves at Tasar’s continued [Void Bird Summoning], or whatever it was she was doing. It was enough to obliterate much of her incoming power, but she was already weak from her run in with Melemizargo. Perhaps she was pulling her punches, though? Perhaps. Highly likely, even.

Kromolok was very much pulling his punches. His [Shredding Domain], or whatever it was, allowed him to get closer but he couldn’t keep on the pressure and he faltered, falling back.

And Erick discovered a fun fact about Yggdrasil that he should have realized earlier. Yggdrasil covered a large area and had a massive size multiplier, so anything under his branches was close enough to be considered ‘close range’, opening up quite a few fighting options.

Sitnakov might have dodged with kilometer-wide airsteps, but he was still within range since Erick could target anywhere within all of Yggdrasil’s branches like it was the spell’s origin point; he could cast three kilometers away from himself if he wanted, and he did, multiple times. Just small spells, mainly. Things to trip up Sitnakov.

A [Force Wall] here, directly at his shins. More [Grand Dispel]s to strip away more defenses.

Ophiel harassed the man with lightning and otherwise.

Erick opened up with a sudden, unexpected [Luminous Beam] cast in the very air directly in front of Sitnakov and aimed at the man’s feet. The result wasn’t as impressive as Erick hoped. Sitnakov retained his feet. They didn’t even look singed. But Erick had done damage, for sure. Maybe not much damage?

Erick called out to the man, “You’re a tough little shit, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a danger to the world!”

This was a war of attrition.

Tasar was out of it, though. Erick’s pressure with a magenta [Physical Domain] explosion had caused another internal break of some sort and Kromolok had taken her far away, down the coast. The Mind Mage was at her side, healing her again. Both of them were out of the fight, and Sitnakov didn’t even notice. Or perhaps he had?

Granted, Sitnakov was very, very busy at the moment. This was a war of attrition, sure, but Sitnakov was on a timer. Even with fantastic spell and ability efficiency, and the Stats to back up a lot of Regeneration, he was under the effects of [Undertow Star] and Yggdrasil was back to throwing more magenta explosions at Sitnakov. Yggdrasil had learned from Erick’s use of his power, and his skill at striking Sitnakov had tripled.

And yet... Maybe Sitnakov was on a timer?

He managed to escape the Star’s shadowy tendrils quite often, but he wasn’t fully evading them anymore. They clipped him now and again, drawing off more power in the form of white light out of Sitnakov’s black body.

Tasar was certainly on a timer; black blood seeped from all of her half-healed wounds as she lay on the sands of the beach, barely cognizant of her surroundings while Kromolok healed her as best he could. Tasar’s staff was gone, and so was all the extra adamantium that Erick had given to them. Erick wasn’t about to let them die, though, so he broke off some Ophiel from harassing Sitnakov to copy some more adamantium knives. He dropped those knives on the beach next to Tasar and Kromolok. The white wrought gave a worried ‘thanks’ before grabbing the adamantium and stringing it into Tasar’s wounds, healing the woman as best he could.

Erick checked his own mana and saw that he was fine; he was already pacing himself. He summoned Ophiel when they got low, and had Ophiel resummon all his own smaller defenses before sending him back out there to harass Sitnakov.

Sitnakov had started off strong but he was pacing himself now. Running through the sky, tanking magenta explosions, halfway-dodging shadow tendrils, he searched for openings, letting Erick’s spells take their toll and not caring too much. Erick’s spells might have injured him, but they had not done nearly enough. Sitnakov seemed to be enjoying this, like he was waiting for the perfect opening.

Which was exactly what he was doing.

Erick called out, “If you’re waiting for me to deploy my Domain wide enough for you to crack it, you should know that won’t happen. I had to walk through Domain-wielding monsters to get here, too. I know not to leave myself vulnerable like that.”

Sitnakov chuckled as he burst through another magenta explosion, his voice carrying on the wind, “With this level of power no wonder it took you so long to get down here!” He laughed. “How did you get past the guardians with this weakness? How did you evade our patrols? How did you kill even a single monster?”

“It took me three days and a thousand kilometers to get into this land.”

“What the fuck!” Sitnakov laughed. “Lies? Now, of all times! After we started off so well!”

He was obviously trying to bait Erick into making some sort of mistake.

Erick chose to taunt, instead, “Should have taken you at least four more days, but then Melemizargo had to help you! You had to accept the Darkness’s help! What sort of weak shit is that?”

Sitnakov stopped laughing. He never stopped racing around Yggdrasil’s boughs, evading spellwork as it came for him—

He flashed through the air, appearing directly at Erick’s front, already slashing.

Erick lightstepped away, saying, “I was having some very good talks with Rozeta but then you had to ruin my communion, slaging slagger.” He called out, “Ever think there was a reason Melemizargo suddenly decided to chase you in here, dumbshit!”

Sitnakov frowned, rapidly dodging everything with sudden expert control, weaving in and out and around all attacks, disappearing—

He reappeared in the sky ten kilometers away, across the ocean, standing still.

Only the barest bit of Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] could reach that far, so Erick had the big guy pull back, solidifying the spheres and rings of magenta explosions into even stronger power in case Sitnakov resumed his attack.

Erick spoke first, his voice booming across the ocean, “Apologize, or I’ll start blasting for real.”

Sitnakov frowned. His voice carried on the wind, “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“You’re a fucking asshole who needs a good slap upside the head and a few more punches after that, but no! How could I?” Erick said, “This fight doesn’t end with you. A win here means Stratagold would descend upon me and mine and I do not feel like going on a one-man genocide spree! Not again!”

“Abyss confound it— You’re like my slagging brother.” Sitnakov sighed. “I suppose there’s not going to be any true fight on either side since Stratagold wishes to recruit more than it wishes to destroy, and you apparently can’t handle a bit of banter to truly rile up the fighting spirit.”

Several things clicked.

Erick was incredulous, “You only fight for the sake of fighting?”

“Of course! What other —” Sitnakov scowled. “This speech would have been a lot easier with me standing over your crushed body, but I wasn’t gonna actually kill you or yours. You need some damned therapy, Flatt, but I suppose you do live on the Surface.” With his own incredulity, Sitnakov called out, “This is why we don’t deal with the surface, by the way! Everyone up there is fucked in the head!”

Erick almost [Luminous Beam]ed Sitnakov dead on, from ten directions at once—

He pulled back, and kept to yelling instead, “Don’t FUCKING banter about killing my family or my people!”

Sitnakov scowled as he spat, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“I KNOW YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!” Only very slightly softer, Erick added, “And Rozeta told me that she told you guys not to kill me, which indicates that murder was a very real possibility.”

Sitnakov scoffed. “She told Kromolok not to kill you, but you won him over when you started revealing key abilities to save our lives.”

Erick glanced over toward the beach with the white wrought and the archmage. Kromolok was still leaning over Tasar, feeding strings of adamantium into her bleeding body.

Sitnakov called out, “All I ever wanted was a real fight but now Kromolok is telling me to pull back— Hey! Ya wanna know who the real asshole is? It’s him! High Inquisitor Head Priest Kromolok. He’s the one who would have actually killed you.” Sitnakov said, “You don’t know about me, but you know of the Forgotten Campaigns, yeah? He leads them. He’s the one you gotta watch out for.”

“All I know is that all of you are suspect.” Erick yelled, “You say the people on the Surface are fucked in the head, but what the fuck is your problem?”

Sitnakov smiled. “I guess I wasn’t born right.”

“… Am I supposed to know what that means?”

Sitnakov’s smile dropped. “Yes you slagging well should. It’s my saying. I’ve had plays made about me and—” He added, “I kill Ancients all the time! I spent a lot of time dragging Bards around behind me, too, ensuring that everyone knows who protects this damned world from these damned monsters.” He happily added, “I even managed to wound Melemizargo once! Sliced him across an eye, I did!”

And now, Erick was mad for completely new, old reasons. “Where were you when I was looking for people to go after Ar’Kendrithyst and kill all the Shades!”

“Look.” Sitnakov’s serious voice carried across the kilometers of air, “I’m a battleforged, but I ain’t a stupid battleforged. You walked into danger and lucked out. That’s all there was to that.”

Erick lost his words. They were out there, somewhere, but he couldn’t find them. Was this guy for real? Was he playing up a persona? Were his reasons for attacking truly ‘to have a good fight’?

Erick finally settled on, “… Are you a bit stupid?”

Sitnakov frowned, then he spoke with authority once again, “I had hoped to have you at my mercy ensuring that I could offer you a hand in friendship without there being this sort of distrust, because both of us would know who is on top. But apparently doing so would require methods that neither of us wish to utilize at this moment. And so, as you have said yourself: Even if you win, this fight doesn’t end here. So choose. Either Kromolok and the Mind Mages, or me and the Adamantium of Stratagold.”

Erick scoffed. “What about Tasar’s offer?”

“She’s throwing in with me, which you would have found out later after I had crushed you into friendly compliance.”

“Fuck you. I’m not getting mind wiped and I’m not having you at my backside, ever.”

Sitnakov smirked. “You have abandoned the easy path.” He took an airy step and was suddenly by the beach, near Kromolok and Tasar. The Inquisitor was still healing the Summoner, but Tasar looked a lot better. Her eyes were open now, and glaring at the large man. Sitnakov stood above them both, and spoke across the ocean at Erick, “Now comes the hard sell.”

Kromolok sighed and tied off his healing of Tasar. Then he stood up and faced Yggdrasil and Erick in the far distance. His voice carried on the air, “Sitnakov should have given you the softer sell but in his eagerness to test himself against you, he overrepresented his option; he would not actually go after you or yours, Archmage Flatt. His was supposed to be the reasonable option. Seeing what I see now, you likely would have picked him if he had been less forceful—” Kromolok frowned a bit, then continued, “I would prefer not to threaten, or to have relations deteriorate any further. You already know where we would go from here if you look to endanger the world.”

“Yes. Forgotten Campaigns, or subtle assassinations in the night.” Erick said, “I gotta say that I didn’t expect quite this reaction from you people. I expected a lot more talk and a lot less attempted murder. And I’m still not hearing any apologies!”

Sitnakov scoffed, again. “Why should we apologize! You’re the one that invaded our holy land!”

“It’s not holy land.” Erick said, “Rozeta called it a warehouse for resources to keep on hand in case of emergency. Nothing more; nothing less. Besides! There are memorials here! You can’t have memorials without people to see and honor them. You’re—”

“Let us not talk of religion for we do not have the same Sight to see the same things.” Kromolok said, “I would prefer not to fight anymore in this sacred land. Our people have set up another space for Yggdrasil outside of Stratagold. Could we reconvene there? We can hold off on further discussions until you are ensconced inside Yggdrasil once again, outside of this land.”

Erick wanted to scoff again, but Kromolok seemed sincere. So Erick met his words with a sincerity of his own, “You threatened me and mine physically and then tried to fight when the threats didn’t work, all in order to force me to capitulate to your demands. This is the wrong way to attempt diplomacy. Your actions show a complete disregard for others, bordering on psychopathy. Especially Sitnakov over there. If there is to ever be any sort of actual cooperation here, you will go away, and come again tomorrow after we’ve all had time to cool down, and you’ve had time to properly heal.”

Kromolok instantly said, “Accepted. We’ll meet again tomorrow, Archmage Flatt.”

Sitnakov shouted, “What! No! We—”

Kromolok rounded on Sitnakov, but the effect was diminished since Kromolok was a meter shorter and at least an eighth of the weight of the larger man. Sitnakov still managed to look a bit scared as Kromolok told him, “We are done for today. We’re all hurt. If you fight him now, you fight on your own. You are smarter than this, Prince Sitnakov, so be smarter.” He turned to Tasar, who was still sprawled out on the ground but not bleeding anymore, saying, “Tell him.”

Tasar struggled to lean up, to get on her elbows, breathing hard the whole way. With strain in her face and all of her still-healing body, she looked toward Yggdrasil, saying, “I’m not lining up with Sitnakov. We can complete your Path with a different Wizard, but it might take years to find one. Melemizargo could get impatient before that happens.”

Sitnakov glared at everyone, but mostly at Tasar. He said, “You strain an opportunity which could be yours.”

Tasar spoke to Sitnakov, and also toward Yggdrasil, “Which is why I suggest an amendment, Sitnakov. You give us a year to find another Wizard, and if we can’t, then Erick promises to reevaluate at that time.”

Sitnakov declared, “No. Even another—”

“Shut the fuck up, Sitnakov,” Erick’s voice boomed across the waters. “All of you, go away. Come again tomorrow, or maybe even the next day. I don’t give a shit. But I’m not talking with any of you right now. Scram.”

Kromolok nodded, saying, “We’ll relocate to the horizon so you can keep an eye on us and we can keep an eye on you.” He pointed. “There, at that green city.” And then he grabbed Tasar and in a blip of white light, they were gone; he had taken the extra adamantium and his bit of aluminum with him.

Sitnakov remained on the beach. He narrowed his eyes in the direction of the green city, on an island in the far distance, almost invisible near the curve of the blue Inner Core. Then he turned back toward Erick, saying, “You—” He twisted off his words, then started again, “Gain the Sight to see: You are in the wrong here, Archmage Flatt…”

For a moment, Sitnakov looked as if he would say something else but then he decided silence was the better part of valor. He turned and vanished in a black blur, racing toward the green city in the distance, where Kromolok and Tasar had already gone.

For a long, lonely moment, Erick just breathed, letting his anger flow away as much as it could, like pus from an infected wound.

And then Erick restocked his defenses, put up a few more, and watched through Ophiel as the three wrought went about some very animated and completely silent discussions over in their city of emerald green crystal towers. Ophiel wasn’t near the wrought, but he was close enough to see from a distance, and that was good enough. While Erick did that he began practicing with Yggdrasil and his use of his [Physical Domain].

He stopped practicing after he saw Tasar punch Sitnakov in the nuts.

Erick learned a few more secrets in that instant. Apparently, wrought had genitals in the appropriate locations even though they made their skin look like clothes, and when punched, the results were appropriate to expectations. Also, as Sitnakov slowly slumped to his knees, Erick realized he was not fully defended all the time, which boded well for future confrontations. All he needed to do to fight the man was to assassinate him when he least expected it.

Simple.

In addition to that, while Erick had initially seen the three wrought as a united front but divided in their specifics, he now saw them as people with very different desires; different enough to throw massive rifts into an otherwise orderly trio.

Could have all been for show, though. But… Probably not.

Maybe their next encounter would go better.

Erick left an Ophiel stationed near, but not too near the crystal tower with the wrought trio. There was a reason the wrought had chosen this land to hole up. Based on the architecture of the place, this land had to have been specifically created for wrought. The emerald towers, the sky bridges, the waterfall and aqueducts all reminded Erick of the crystal tower apartments and communal spaces he had uncovered inside Ar’Kendrithyst, after he blasted away the shadows with a [Domain of Light]. From a few kilometers away, Erick watched as he wanted, listening in to what they decided to let him hear, gradually losing his anger as the wrought went through some… Stuff. Erick wasn’t sure, exactly, what was happening, but it was quite apparent that Tasar, Kromolok, and Sitnakov were rather high strung at the moment. He had some theories on that, but he chose to withhold judgment until tomorrow, until they had a chance to calm down and… Well. Erick would wait and see, and go from there.

But, for the sake of organizing his mind, Erick thought through what he was looking at. His impression was that Sitnakov had been deeply physically wounded by Melemizargo, leading to a deep emotional wound. The same held true for both Tasar and Kromolok, but to a lesser degree. In the wake of those wounds they had lashed out, with Sitnakov leading the way as a Prince of Stratagold and his people following his lead.

And with that thought a bit more of Erick’s anger flowed away.

- - - -

Inside one [Sealed Privacy Ward] out of hundreds scattered all around Yggdrasil’s branches, Erick hid, moving around occasionally and taking small naps here and there while keeping eyes and Imaging on the wrought. None of them had moved much in the last twelve hours. None of them had made moves to do anything but stand around and talk or yell at each other. Eventually, after Kromolok had healed them all, and after they had said their explosive words at each other, they had crashed and took turns sleeping.

Erick had never actually seen a wrought sleep before. Theoretically, he knew they did, but the subject had never really come up before, so he almost panicked when Tasar laid down in a large bathtub-like depression in a room and turned to liquid. But the ‘bed’ was placed in a room like a bed would have been, and no one else panicked when Tasar liquefied, and she had even loudly yelled at Sitnakov announcing that she was ‘going to sleep for a while’, and ‘Learn to slagging relax!’ along with other colorful swears that Erick had not heard before.

Soon, only Kromolok was awake. The High Inquisitor sat on an emerald bench and gazed at the world, his solid white eyes a bit unfocused, though it was hard to tell.

Erick turned to his own needs; he switched location three more times, through three different [Sealed Privacy Ward]s all around Yggdrasil’s branches, and then he stilled, and he tried to figure out what was wrong with him. He was angry, of course, and for good reason too. But… Things had almost gone very wrong back there. Luckily, he had pulled back from actually killing Sitnakov when he did, and thankfully they had chosen to leave, because Erick had been so very, very close to fucking up. For the last few hours he had been uncommonly angry, and while it seemed normal at the time, his anger wasn’t going away. If anything, it was compounding.

He needed to figure out if his newfound anger was a component of his new existence as a protean, for Wizardly Core reasons, or if he was angry for correct reasons. When it came to the Shades, Erick had been angry for the correct reasons, for sure. The wrought were a power on par with the Shades, but fully opposed to the Shades, so it was both right and wrong to approach them as some fundamentally unassailable force where fighting was necessary to save one’s own life, or the life of others, but not in any other situation. One didn’t just go to war with the whole world; not until the world went to war with oneself, first. And the wrought hadn’t gone to war with Erick; not yet, anyway.

But was this correct thinking?

As far as Erick knew, the wrought only came out of the Geodes for the specific reasons of ‘saving the world from specific disasters’. This was both grand of them, and deeply selfish. And yet, they were immortal, and immortals did not like mixing with mortals, for the pure reason that mortals aged and died and there was very little solution to that problem. So the immortal wrought only impinged upon the rest of civilization when problems arose.

And Erick had made himself a problem?

Yeah. He had. Maybe.

AND YET! THEY HADN’T SEEN ANYTHING YET!

… Erick was still furious. Okay. Thinking through his anger wasn’t working.

Maybe Sitnakov would come in with an apology—

No, no.

Erick tried to think about something else entirely, to see if his anger would go away.

Okay. The Headmaster? … Ehhh… The Headmaster had fucked and continued to fuck over the entire world with lessons in magic which weren’t true at all, and which actively hurt a lot of people. Gridwork and runes were two very specific things that should be taught to everyone so that—

Erick had to stop himself for he felt his blood spike and his fingernails leave deep half-moons in his palms. He uncurled his hand. His fingernails were the same size as before. He almost expected them to be sharper, but he had picked ‘protean’, not ‘werewolf’. His skin was unnaturally tough, too, so even with claws he probably couldn’t cut himself that easily.

… And his anger remained, even after he managed to pull himself away from thinking of Kirginatharp.

It was undirected—

Erick switched over to his Other Self, and watched as his soul vanished and a tiny fragment of brightness appeared beside his heart, like it had always been there. This monstrous form was fucked up in so many ways. The ethereal arteries and veins connecting this ‘second heart’ to the rest of him were strange. What did they do? He had never noticed them in monsters before now. He had never seen their like inside people, either.

But the reason to switch over to this Other Self was to try cycling his mana for a bit, to see if his anger went away. Rozeta had warned him about how forgoing cycling would have consequences, and shadelings got angry and violent when they didn’t eat more rads, so there might be something happening there.

And he couldn’t forget that his Other Self had started out from a place of anger.

But he didn’t have any rads. Luckily, Erick had already invented the solution to this problem. He took hold of his [Renew] and cast. White light erupted from his right hand in a sparkle of radiance, but then Erick shoved that radiance into his chest, and began pouring mana into himself.

Relief washed through him.

It was like being starved for food, and then eating a wonderful meal. Tiredness eroded under bouncy mana. Vigor filled his body. He'd had massages that had felt less relaxing. And his rad grew. Every single mana that found its way into Erick’s rad melded with that rad, adding facets to that central part of him, expanding the borders of it like he was growing a crystal. With a mere addition of 10 mana, his malformed marble-sized core became something stronger, transforming from the 5 mana rads that one found in slimes, into the more usual 10 mana rads that existed inside most monsters. His core had become a diamond-like marquis-cut marble.

He continued pouring mana into himself, into his core, and his mind wandered under the relaxation.

A question arose. Did he want to keep calling them cores? Or rads? Both were more regional dialect names for the thing inside his chest than any ‘True Name’ for the gem that now held his soul. He kinda preferred the simplicity of ‘core’, but then again, Wizards had ‘cores’. Erick didn’t want to out himself as a Wizard yet by calling his ‘core’ a ‘core’, so ‘rad’ was probably better, at least in that such a name could throw people off of his—

His mana bottomed out, violently shaking him out of his ruminations.

As Erick stood there on Yggdrasil’s branch, hidden from most views, he sighed. His anger was gone, so that was a plus. He had also gained several hundred Experience, both from leveling [Renew] and from ‘eating’ his own mana, so that was great’. He was now level 4, too, and he had 8 points to spend—

He rapidly went through some thoughts about the future, and how he wanted to spend his points. One decision came to him rather quickly. This form didn’t have a Scion, and so, Erick wanted Scion of Balance. To get that, every Stat had to be at 25. This meant he’d have to spend 100 points to get all of his now-lowered Stats up to 25 each… Or maybe he only needed to level the original 4 Stats to 25? Intelligence and otherwise could stay at 10.

He’d try that first, since that only required 40 points. Which meant level 20, for Erick would not be able to gain any extra points in this form.

With a bit of Wizardry he might even be able to get Scion of Balance in his Main Form, which was overall better than Scion of Focus in his specific case since he already had Immune to Health Fatigue from his Blessing from Rozeta, and his Boon of Recovery added his Health Regen and his Mana Regen together, giving the same amount of Regeneration to both…

Ah.

Wait.

“Ah. Dammit.” Erick felt his anger rise, but then fall back to sleep like a teenager failing to wake early on a weekend. “I should have asked Rozeta about stacking Immune to Mana Exhaustion.’

Eh… He was still going to go for Scion of Balance—

Oh yeah. ‘Immune to Health Fatigue’s ability to double his lifespan was also useless because he was immortal in his Other Form.

There were just so many little nuances to this most recent body horror, and so many more to come, because eventually he would start manually working on his own body, changing which parts of the Script affected him, and which he chose to leave behind. It wasn’t a ‘power spike’, as Jane had joked one time. But it was certainly an optimization.

Ahhh… And all the anger was gone; replaced with melancholy, for Jane would love this sort of optimization problem, for sure. ‘Which parts to keep, and which to discard’! Too bad he wouldn’t be able to tell her about this until the absolute last possible second, and probably only after other people started spreading the word, and then the world would come for him...

Erick transformed back into his Main Form and laid down on Yggdrasil’s bark, thinking about how everything was different. So much, and yet so little had happened in the last several hours. And so much was going to continue happening for the foreseeable future.

A trip to Oceanside, for one.

And then a trip to Ar’Cosmos.

Or maybe Oceanside was the final stop? Kirginatharp probably had all the answers to [Gate], too; he just chose not to share them with Erick for obvious reasons. Perhaps he was going to ask Erick to go to Ar’Cosmos and hunt down dragons for him…

Or maybe Erick would need to hunt down whoever [Duplicate]d that soul spear; whoever supplied Terror Peaks with all their extra tools to enable their conquest of Songli. How was that counter-Hunt going, anyway? Erick had no idea. He had stayed away from that, too—

Another thought.

When referencing Apogee, Rozeta had said that she couldn’t talk about other people or their paths through life, but then when talking about Fallopolis’ mother, Rozeta spoke rather openly. No names or dates or any other specifics, but the map of Fallopolis’ mother’s life was rather well laid out for Erick to see, and to try to understand.

… There were so, so many things that Erick still wanted to ask Rozeta. But not today, apparently. Not when other people were inside the Core with them. A flicker of anger returned, but Erick was of sound mind and body, and he kept his anger in check.

Erick stared at the white boughs of Yggdrasil and his bright green leaves for a while, and then his stomach got hungry for actual food. Feeding his core had been like eating a meal, but apparently that didn’t translate between forms. If Jane was here she would have commented how he probably just needed to eat even more mana in his Other Form, and he could forgo food entirely. And, if Teressa was here, she would have mentioned how that didn’t make any sense at all.

The fact remained that he was hungry.

He sent Ophiel skipping around to pick up something delicious from the white city, and soon, Erick was enjoying a meal taken from some noble’s house; a large steak, copiously buttered vegetables, and some mashed whiteroot. He preferred his own potatoes, but whiteroot had a certain almost-nice firmness when cooked that potatoes lacked. It was different, for sure, but that didn’t make it bad.

- - - -

After dinner and after all his defenses were back up, and while he stared across the land at these new interlopers… Erick realized that Yggdrasil had yet to speak like he usually did. The big guy hadn’t said a word since warning that he was in danger from multiple directions. Had the battle shaken him? It might have.

Erick softly asked, “Yggdrasil? Are you okay?”

“… I fail.”

Erick’s heart sank. With seriousness in his voice, he said, “Yggdrasil. You did very well today. You were wonderful. Without you, they would have won. They would have done whatever they wanted to me.”

“But I not stop them! They hurt me and you. I fail.”

“They were stronger than us, this is true. This is not a failing. Sometimes people are stronger than you, or I. In this case, it’s probably better that neither of us won.” Erick said, “But you don’t have to worry about that right now. You were doing so well the entire fight. Was that the first time you tried to fight anyone? Or anything?”

“… I fight fishes. Scare them away. No kill because you said no kill.”

“And you were so good with that, Yggdrasil!” Erick put on a smile, saying, “When I handed off the [Physical Domain] to you, you started blasting exactly as well as I could have but even better because you helped me to survive Sitnakov. I do apologize for not realizing that Kromolok and Tasar were attacking from both sides. I should have been more attentive about that.”

“I did good?”

“Yes you did.” Erick said, “And Ophiel did good, too.”

Ophiel chirped here and there among the boughs of Yggdrasil.

Yggdrasil said, “They were tough. Metal tougher than flesh.”

“Yes, it is, Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “Metal is much tougher than flesh.”

Yggdrasil’s glowing white bark and bright fiery leaves shimmered a bit brighter, as he said, “I did good.” And then he dimmed. “But problem still here?”

“This is true.” Erick said, “Sitnakov and Kromolok seem like the problems, but Tasar is a wildcard. I’m not sure what she’s about. But what is most telling is that there’re only three of them. The wrought have whole armies that would make any city look small. They chose to send these people instead of a larger force, and that meant something. This is something I plan to talk about tomorrow when we all talk.”

“… We lose against big army.”

“Yes, we would have lost.” Erick said, “You did very, very well Yggdrasil, but against an entire society of immortals we would have lost. You and I both have a lot of power, but choosing not to fight the full war is sometimes the smarter decision.”

Yggdrasil’s glow returned to normal levels as he went silent. He was probably thinking, as he often did.

Erick did a few nonessential things here and there, like cleaning up his area to get ready to go and reading some of his books, guessing that he wasn’t going to be allowed to keep them. But mostly, he just watched for danger.

- - - -

Erick woke when Ophiel squawked at him and Yggdrasil swayed a bit, groaning all the branches all around and sending wild flashes of light through the bark and the canopy. In a flashing second, Erick was back on his feet and fully aware of the Imaging hanging in the air in front of him.

The wrought were on the move.

[Personal Ward], cast not too long ago, so that’s fine... Probably didn’t matter though since they had [Ward Destruction]. Sunform active… But Sitnakov was a Domain piercer, for sure. The second Erick tried to actually go head-to-head against Sitnakov he would likely lose.

… Actually, going over his whole repertoire, and according to what he saw yesterday with Sitnakov brushing off all of his attacks, Erick didn’t see anything that great to use against the large black wrought. Would [Call Lightning] work? Maybe. It was a physical attack against a magical defense, and those were usually pretty effective. And yet, Erick didn’t want to kill the man. Not yet, anyway.

At least he wasn’t so angry right now. He had eaten his [Renew] for a few thousand more mana here and there before he settled down for a larger sleep. He also cycled his mana for a few thousand more Experience, gaining lots of levels in his Other Self and settling his anger down quite a bit. He still hadn’t used any points to buy anything in that Other Form, but he would, later, when he was in a more stable location. Right now, he was in the middle of battle, and this wasn’t the time to be learning new, complicated ways to exist.

Anyway!

Erick left his various [Sealed Privacy Ward]s everywhere, and began some other, final preparations, one of which was to have three small gift baskets of mana-soaked copied metals, one for each of the incoming wrought, with an extra large basket of knives for Sitnakov. It was a small gesture of kindness, and maybe they would take it as such, or maybe they would throw it back in Erick’s face and they could all be done with this charade of polite society.

… Hmm. Erick checked himself. He was not mad. He was merely thinking clearly.

Good.

Hopefully the wrought were similarly better, and ready to talk without making ultimatums. Maybe they could even move to friendly territory because Erick wanted to ask about how Kromolok and Sitnakov were able to move adamantium around as they did; the stuff was supposed to be immutable after casting, but apparently wrought broke that rule. They kinda had to, of course, since some of them were made of adamantium, but it would be nice to know if this ability to manipulate forged adamantium was due to a specific ability, or a spell, or whatever.

… He also kinda wondered what would happen to the body of a wrought if they died. Tasar and Sitnakov were both in the process of turning into goop before Erick gave Kromolok fresh adamantium. Maybe the act of consuming metal turned that metal into something different than what it was, making it useless for further metalwork or enchanting purposes? Or maybe the dead bodies of wrought were the best material for enchanting?

Erick didn’t know, and he had never read anything about dead wrought in all his reading. This seemed by design, now that he thought of it.

Maybe he would get some hands-on experience, though, and soon.