Chapter 127, 1/2

Chapter 127, 1/2

While most of the tribe was spending the morning in bed and recovering from a night of drinking, those with other tasks and daily duties had been awake for a while. Those with children had even less free time, now that the tribe was in Treehome for Festival. Kids rushed through neighboring tribes, finding other kids to get into trouble with, and almost always finding ways to get out of doing their own chores.

But not this one, though that was only because his mother had caught him before he could sneak off to play with his new friends.

“Come on, now,” said the mother. “That dough isn’t going to knead itself!”

With his tiny fists just sitting upon the mass of brown dough, the boy sighed wistfully, as he gazed across the road. His new friends were already gone for the day. He muttered, “Stupid bread.” He looked to his mother, and started a new, old argument, “We can buy bread in—” And then something else caught his eye through the spaces in the canopy.

“We’re not buying bread when we can make it ourselves.” The mother said, “And besides. This bread is special bread. We put all that sugar in it, you—”

The kid interrupted, “Mommy? Is that an attack?”

The mother almost reprimanded her kid. But then his words sunk in. She glanced upward. She felt the blood drain from her face, and then she put on a happy mask, for she could not worry her child, though she was very much worried herself. She said, “Now don’t panic on me, but these are the drills we practice for. That is an attack up there. High level mage. It looks like Syllea’s spellwork, but I don’t know.” Her kid’s eyes went wide as she lifted up the little guy, heedless of the flour, accidentally tipping over the table in her haste to get to her child. Dough fell to the gravel floor of the campground. She wrapped him tight in her arms, and whispered, “We’re going to hunker down, and wait it out.” She yelled to the rest of the sleepy, vacationing tribe, “Attack on the—”

A piercing wail echoed through the trees. The mother covered one of her son’s ears, and pressed his head against her chest. He started to cry. She comforted him as best she could.

The entire campsite was awake in under a second. Mages reacted with [Ward]s. Warriors [Blink]ed into positions, either on top of the main caravan, or around the perimeter. Some people reacted slowly, but others made up for the difference. The mother held her son in one arm and grabbed another scared child up under the other arm. With two kids accounted for, she rushed for the main [Ward] next to the main caravan and took a spot with the other non-combatants.

And then the campground on the other side of the street exploded into glimmering light. The kids started to cry. The mother told them that everything would be okay, and that the archmages and Arbors would save them.

Stars glimmered overhead, falling faster, and faster; a sky full of diamonds, upended onto Treehome.

A warning blared out from the water tree in the center of the campground, talking of a cultist attack, while children huddled together, a neighbor roared out trying to find their son, a mage attempted a long-range [Dispel] against the falling stars, and dough sat on gravel, slowly rising.

- - - -

Some clerk announced, “Full Arbor defenses operational in one minute.”

Koropo was already speaking to a dozen people through [Telepathy], but he took the time to speak to Erick, saying, “Do whatever you can.”

Erick said, “Already on it,” as he summoned Ophiels to replace the ones he had lost.

- - - -

An Ophiel, stationed near the center of the sky over Treehome, and by a [Cascade Imaging] map, switched the map over to search for Omaz. He didn’t show; not yet. But he had been out there, for sure. Erick switched his attention to the falling stars.

A high-mana Ophiel lightstepped to the edge of the massive spell, right before most of them reached the smaller trees that loomed over the campsites and itinerant lands between the Arbor Districts. A few had already touched down, and Erick hoped that the people down there were safe, but he knew there had to be some casualties.

He cast a 36,000 mana [Grand Dispel] at the closest sparkling light drop. Dark magics impacted that drop, then spread like a shockwave of shadows and sound, popping thousands, tens of thousands, and then a full third of the [Starlight Fall] that had come to Treehome. The only reason Ophiel’s spell didn’t reach further, was because he wasn’t the only one combating the attack.

Two other casters in other parts of the sky released their own [Chaining Dispel]s, taking out another third of the [Starlight Fall]. Here and there, other mages cast smaller [Dispel]s, some which popped hundreds of falling sparkles, some which only destroyed a few. The spell was gone, and yet...

And yet, still, some of those countless falling stars made it through the countermagics. Trees had exploded. [Ward]s had popped. People had died.

Erick had zero time to spread blame, or to think he hadn’t done enough. He thought he had. But the propagation of his [Grand Dispel] was a lot slower than the fall of the stars. In less than ten seconds, the whole of that spell had fallen from the sky to the land, like a rain cloud releasing almost all of its rain, all at once.

The map in the center of Treehome briefly blinked blue on the other side of the city. Omaz had blipped into the sky. The sky over there turned to stars. And then Omaz left.

Erick was much faster with his [Grand Dispel] this time.

Ophiels moved with lightstepping brilliance, directly into the center of the swarm. A single 36,000 mana [Grand Dispel] pulsed into the sky, directly into the center of the falling stars. Theoretically, Ophiel could have spent half of that. [Grand Dispel] had a double modifier for the purposes of erasing a targeted magic. But Erick wasn’t going to take that chance.

The entire brilliant sky shimmered with stars, and then shadows ate them all from the inside out, spreading like a shockwave, turning explosive power into disjointed mana. Briefly, other shadowy [Dispel]s tried to strike the starfall, but Erick’s spell had already cleared the whole thing from the sky.

Erick was even faster with the third starfall. The spell had barely been in the sky for two seconds before an Ophiel was in the center of it all. This time, Erick could make a mistake, so he had Ophiel throw 18,000 mana at the sparkling sky. It was enough. The whole of the starfall vanished in a shadowy shockwave. That was good! Erick relaxed a fraction. He didn’t have many of these high-mana Ophiel’s left. He couldn’t throw out 36,000 mana [Grand Dispel]s all day long, and he needed to save his own mana for the important parts of the fight.

Ophiel responded to Omaz’s next appearance half a second before Erick even realized Omaz had appeared again.

Erick briefly looked upon Omaz. Omaz briefly looked upon Ophiel. Omaz had already lifted his arms to the sky. Less than a fraction of a second passed as Omaz filled the blue with sparkling stars. Almost instinctively, Erick queue’d up a [Harmonic Blood Ooze] for 3000 of his own mana and launched it at the man, while a separate high-mana Ophiel stepped into the air above and dispersed the stars from the sky. The first Ophiel, who had arrived on scene before Erick could think to send him, cast a [Ward Destruction] at the cultist, flashing power against Omaz’s skin, shattering whatever defensive [Ward] he had running.

As Omaz began to fall, and before another Script Second passed, the blood ooze wrapped around him, preventing his next cast. Erick watched as he bubbled with mana, but the blood ooze bubbled with shadows, canceling whatever Omaz had tried to do.

Time, which had seemed slow, sped up rapidly. Omaz fell through the sky. Other people blipped into the air. Some Special Forces people grabbed the man, locking Omaz down with even more spells while they arrested his fall, and arrested him, too. The blood ooze tried to carve into Omaz’s skin, but Omaz had Constitution, at least. That ooze couldn’t do much more than prevent him from casting.

Someone asked Erick to call off the ooze; they were having trouble attaching the drain collar to him because the ooze would attack whoever got close enough. Erick was pretty sure that the ooze was being a good boy and not attacking anyone, but the jailers seemed to be scared of the bloody spell, so Erick canceled it. Omaz was rapidly wrapped up in several other spells from other people and decked out with a whole suite of drain collars, one for each limb. He wasn’t going anywhere, and if it weren’t for the [Silence] spells cast upon him, Erick was sure that the man would have been yelling plenty of obscenities. He could read the man’s lips, after all. He was glad he didn’t have to listen to that as they took him away. He had more pressing concerns than the murdering Cultist, now that he had been dealt with.

- - - -

Erick sat up, and breathed. He turned to Koropo. The man had a smile on his face and was almost about to speak, but Erick said, “Syllea is Raging right now. She’s windstepping this way. I have an Ophiel on her, and she’s getting much faster with her windstepping, and I’m pretty sure she’s not just windstepping anymore. She’ll be here in ten minutes. What do you want to do?”

The stoic Witch Hunter, the Warchief of Treehome’s Special Forces, paled, briefly, and then he turned hard again. He narrowed his eyes, and said, “We do to her exactly what you did to Omaz.” He turned and stared across the room, his eyes quickly scanning the room, as he announced, “We will get Syllea under control before—”

A clerk interrupted. “[Grand Fireball]s reported near the commune. Twenty seconds ago.”

Koropo instantly ordered a woman standing by some viewing screens, “[Witness].”

The woman looked to the air, her eyes flickering ruby red. The [Viewing Screen]s near her shifted, and played back what had happened, right as the woman came back to herself, and said, “Someone attacked the commune as we were dealing with Omaz.”

“Stuff Omaz in the Hole and retask Team Takedown onto Syllea. Our priority is Syllea, IF she comes close to Treehome. The normal guard should be able to deal with the commune since they were waiting for it to explode anyway.” Koropo turned to Erick. “Where is she?” He immediately added, “Nevermind.” He looked to Poi. “He’s a Mind Mage, yeah? You’re conscripted. You already know who to talk to, so get it done. Coordinate with your Archmage.”

Erick was perfectly fine with that—

Which was likely why Poi said, “Of course.” A bevy of telepathic lines erupted from his head, as he added, “On it.” Poi spoke to Erick’s mind, sending, ‘You’re connected.’

Erick went back to Ophiel.

- - - -

Syllea had changed a great deal in the minute since Erick had left her to focus on Omaz. She was no longer flesh and blood, for one. No longer did she simply windstep across the sky. She was radiant and dark and flaming and frozen, all at the same time. She stepped through the trees of the deep Forest. Canopies, trunks, branches, and a great deal of wildlife, scattered at her undeniable passage, falling to the Forest floor as ash, or frozen shards, or melted slush, or to simply drift away as mist and gloom. Red, yet prismatic lightning gathered in her eyes and flickered across her airborne footfalls. She took a step and moved a hundred meters, causing the sound of thunder to soak into the dense Forest all around. Syllea was not being quiet, at all.

Her Rage didn’t present like Teressa’s Rage. Was Syllea still in there? Somewhere?

Poi’s voice came to him, his words much faster than if he were speaking, ‘Some orcols Rage differently than others. I am being told that Syllea’s Rage is documented. This controlled sort of Rage is normal for her, but her Rage will not end with killing her target. It never has. So try to get through to her, if you can. If you can’t, then Bayth is going to try. She has experience with this.’

Erick heard and understood.

He wrapped an Ophiel in [Pure Reflection Ward], and stepped him forward, into Syllea’s path.

Syllea flickered with prismatic lightning as she bounced off of Ophiel’s sunform, scattering all around, her entire body dispersing then coming back together on the other side of Ophiel like a sandcastle destroyed then instantly repaired. She didn’t even look back as she continued to step through the Forest, destroying everything in her path, except for Ophiel, apparently. Erick tried again.

This time, Ophiel formed a bowl that Syllea ran right into. Before she could disperse around again, Ophiel’s sunform became a sphere, trapping the archmage inside. Erick could barely believe that had worked.

Erick spoke fast, “We’ve captured your brother. Omaz is in custody—”

Syllea reconstituted into herself, inside of Ophiel, but she was still radiant and dark and a roil of elements. She pulsed with some sort of Force-based spell. It rebounded off of Ophiel’s inner reflective surface, crashing back into Syllea. She growled.

“—We have Omaz in custody,” Erick repeated, fruitlessly.

Syllea pulsed with another sort of magic, but Erick had been aiming a [Harmonic Counterspell] at her. 270 mana drained from Erick. A ripple of shadows destroyed whatever Syllea had attempted. She paused. She cocked her head, almost playfully, as she looked upon her prison made of light. She smiled, her lower fangs showing, her face looking ready to devour something. She cast again. Erick automatically counterspelled it again, but this time, it drained him dry. Over 5,500 mana, gone, just like that. He had bottomed out.

Erick came back to himself, briefly, feeling like he had been kicked by a horse. Blood trickled down from his nose. He reached for Ophiel’s connection and managed to get back to the fight right as Syllea did the same magic, and Ophiel tried the same [Harmonic Counterspell] before Erick could have him stop. Erick briefly recalled a warning from Quilatalap about using his [Harmonic Counterspell] against someone who knew what he was doing; Such a person would then use specially-made magic to trick him into wasting all of his mana to [Dispel] a worthless magic.

Erick adjusted his view to a different Ophiel in the area as the one around Syllea burst into nothing. Ophiel had tried to [Harmonic Counterspell] Syllea, too. That [Harmonic Counterspell] had cost that Ophiel his body.

Back in the conference room, Erick downed a mana potion he had already set aside for just such an occasion, then went right back to it.

‘Poi. I need a mana drainer on her. I’ll give them an opportunity. They need to take it.’

‘Understood.’ Poi added, ‘They’ll be ready in thirty seconds.’

‘I need enough time to regen, anyway.’

As Erick’s broken Mana Regen gradually ticked up, he gradually felt more and more nauseous, but he toughened through it. The edges of his soul flickered, breaking, but they were small breaks; barely noticeable. He could do this. He summoned enough Ophiel to bring him back to full, then had them buff themselves into reflective sunforms, and had them run [Hunter’s Instincts] and [Mana Sight]. He sent them in.

Syllea was ready this time. She saw Ophiel approach, and she smiled.

She touched the world, and the world responded. For a kilometer all around her, trees, each hundreds of meters tall, turned to ash, not even turning to fire, first. Ash wrapped around ash, a hundred columns of the stuff at the same time, turning denser, harder, then flashing over into something sparkling and sharp. Diamonds. A hundred swords, each fifty meters long, each made of sparking diamond. They twirled into the air, half of them surrounding Syllea like they were shields, the other half spinning around her like she was a blender.

The air whispered, “I can make diamonds, too.”

The sun beat down on the new clearing in the Forest, glittering off of a hundred diamond swords as those swords fell into the telekinetic control of the one who made them.

The first Ophiel cast a thousand point [Grand Dispel] right at Syllea, but the spell caught on a sword. Every single diamond sword briefly faltered. They did not disappear. They were not summoned constructs, but actual diamonds.

Syllea mumbled, “Do better.”

She reasserted her control over those diamond swords much faster than should have been possible. Another Ophiel cast another [Grand Dispel] at her, faltering her swords again. But she controlled them right away, reasserting her control much quicker than the first time. Erick ran through his Ophiel, one right after the other, each one casting a thousand mana [Grand Dispel], each hoping to strip away whatever control Syllea had over those swords. Some of the swords fell out of her power, but she maintained enough control over some of them to turn them into missiles, or cleaving edges, catching two of Erick’s Ophiel with what were obviously some sort of [Strike]s that also avoided the necessity of the Script Second.

Two Ophiel exploded, followed quickly by two more. An Ophiel threw a [Harmonic Blood Ooze] for 8000 mana at Syllea, before Syllea carved that Ophiel in two. Syllea tried to block the blob with a sword, but the red blob sailed through the sword and crashed into Syllea’s brightness.

The next [Grand Dispel] onto the swords brought a much larger falter than before, as the blood ooze soaked into Syllea’s prismatic form, bursting a single bit of shadow, before it went dormant again for another Script Second.

Syllea ripped one of her swords through her own body, scattering her form, but failing to dislodge the ooze—

No. Her body reformed well away from the blood ooze, dropping the offending bit of magic to the ground.

“Ha,” Syllea laughed, once, then went silent, as her swords swept through the sky.

Erick snapped out of it, too. Yoron? A Cultist? Shit. Yoron had helped to take down half of the people they had taken down yesterday. And at that thought, Erick had another. There were other Cultists in the room, but Poi hadn’t taken them out because they posed no immediate danger. Almost casually, Poi looked to Erick, blinking once, in a way that seemed on purpose. Erick put that out of his mind, for now.

He asked Bayth, “Syllea is partially down. Her mana has to be rather low. She’s still Raging, but it’s an easy thing to negate. You want to go in?”

“YES!” Bayth repeated, “Yes.”

Erick touched her arm with a bit of light and intent, as he said, “Don’t worry about the drop.”

Bayth barely had time to react to his words before Erick blipped her away, into the middle of the sky. With a glance toward the Ophiel Erick had on scene, he watched as the muscular woman landed on a mattress of soft light, right outside of Syllea’s cage. Red lightning glittered across the archmage’s skin and she tried to cast something, but her resulting spell was a simple thing of spherical ice and light that Ophiel easily contained and bounced right back at Syllea, knocking the woman back onto her butt. Bayth watched it happen then tried to defuse the situation with something funny, to which Syllea’s red glow switched to something less vibrant as she shot off another spell that Ophiel locked down; that one was at least a thousand mana, according to what Erick saw. Bayth yelled affront. Syllea frowned, her glow dimming. And then Bayth started talking, and Syllea’s Rage began to fracture.

Erick split his attention, taking a second to glance at his mana. He was barely half full. Had he really gone through that much mana taking care of Syllea? Or. No. His Regen was just that much shittier than usual. He didn’t feel that great, either.

Wordlessly, Poi said, ‘If you can spare some Ophiel to combat the larger spells in the city, they would appreciate that. I am sending you location data, now.’

Erick could spare some mana.

He wasn’t anywhere near top shape, though.

But he could also spare some Ophiel to combat the large-scale spells erupting in the west, around the commune, while he also tracked that antirhine missile, wherever it had landed... Oh! It had to be in the tree above, somehow. Those branches were broken up top but there was no ‘missing line’ in the manasphere down below—

Poi interrupted, ‘I know that is important, sir, but—’

Erick found the antirhine missile in the canopy. He briefly noted that the tip was an enchanted gem, and broken, while the stabilizing tail was a grand rad that looked more like the plume of a rocket flare than a normal grand rad. The tail was also broken. The length of the missile, the important part, was lead.

Erick had an Ophiel grab the missile by the tail, his Handy Aura destabilizing a little bit but not enough to matter, while a second Ophiel glimpsed at a section of the Forest nearby that was erased from the manasphere, which had likely been the result of concealing magics. The people who fired the missile had been looking for it too, but Erick got there first. He couldn’t find the attackers, but with their attack in his grip, Ophiel raced through the sky, holding the missile by its non-lead parts, as he came toward Treehome, trying to carry back the one clue Erick could find as to who had tried to kill Syllea. That bit wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of this dangerous moment, but it would be important later; of that, Erick was sure.

While that Ophiel was doing that, the others protected Syllea and a few lightstepped back to Treehome, then to the west, toward the commune but not yet there.

Right as Poi finished saying, ‘—but the commune guards need assistance, or a diffusing of the situation.’

‘On it!’ Erick sent, ‘Ophiels are now over— Holy shit.’

Arbor Home’s District was the closest one to the commune. Erick had briefly seen Home’s District on his excursions through the skies of the city. It had been a rather nice place filled with placid hills tiled with farmland all around, while a large, squat tree sat in the center of it. Arbor Home had reached half a kilometer into the sky while being almost just as wide, with a sparse green canopy that looked more like a roof rather than like leaves. She had been a barrel-shaped, home-shaped Arbor, surrounded by nice white-walled buildings with nice green roofs.

She was half gone. Fires burned in her upper half, exposing the labyrinth of tunnels and housing inside of her main body. The land around her was on fire. Fields burned in blues and greens and whites and reds.

Poi answered the question Erick had barely asked, ‘Yes. Rain would be good. Home is far from dead, but her main body is hurting.’

Erick responded with a few casts of [Control Weather] into the skies over Treehome and several consecutive casts of [Call Lightning] over the most on-fire parts of the city. Home wasn’t the only place burning. Wyrmrest was burning, too, though he had his canopy mostly extinguished by the time the rains started.

And then a great keening filled the skies over Treehome. Stars began to fall, once again.

Omaz had gotten free?!

Erick rapidly came back to himself, just in time to look up, and see the skylight fracture. Glass broke, as Wyrmrest, high above and still lightly on fire, broke. A thousand thousand stars attempted to crash into his canopy, and while most of them burst upon stars lurking in the manasphere, there were a million of them. A lot got through. Erick didn’t even have time to [Grand Dispel] any of the attack before it was almost over.

Smaller branches and massive leaves and person-sized starfruit began to fall; knocked loose by the attack from above.

One of the larger branches snapped as Void and Light broke it at its base. That branch had to be a kilometer long, and it had to weigh millions of tons. From this lower distance, it barely moved, but Erick could tell it had likely fallen hundreds of meters already. Erick only barely registered those facts, for Koropo was already yelling,

“We’re fine!” Warchief Koropo roared, “Wyrmrest can arrest that fall. It’ll take more than that to wound him.”

Almost disbelieving that the Arbor actually could do what Koropo said he could, Erick watched, as the star-filled Domain in the manasphere all around them turned into something denser. Stars seemed to rise out of nothing, soaring upward. Light flickered high above.

Erick flickered an Ophiel closer, and watched, as what was likely a [Gravity Ward] sized for the branch itself, took hold of the air around the falling branch. The ponderous weight fell a bit more, but soon slowed, and then reversed course, floating back into the sky. Back into position, to where the fractured stump of the limb’s base stuck out from Wyrmrest’s top like a mangled and half-missing finger. Wood flowed like water. The branch reattached. Falling starfruit turned to energy to soak into the Arbor himself. Star-filled mana pulsed out from Arbor Wyrmrest, stifling fires all around, repairing buildings, and healing many, many orcols who had been hurt by all the fighting. Wyrmrest did not heal everyone, though. Erick watched as a line of Cultists toward the east, or perhaps they were just opportunists, who were balanced against the defenders at a bank, were suddenly overrun by guards that could not be harmed. Heads rolled.

Erick came back to himself, as the rains began to fall. He sent a few Ophiel over to Arbor Home, to have them become radiant funnels to personally control the rain, to drown fires, to do for Arbor Home what she could not currently do herself.

The attack over there, led by Elder Atanaro-Home, who Erick had briefly seen, was done, too. Cultists, either dead or in chains, were locked into [Woodshape]d barrel-like containers with only their heads poking up from the wood. Most of those people were just dead, though.

With a thought, an Ophiel went to the map Erick had left in the center of the city. It was still searching for Omaz, and Erick expected many others to have used this map to track the man, for stars had been falling for a little while now, until they stopped. Erick didn’t worry about those starfalls, for other people were [Chain Dispel]ing those monstrous spells. But now, as he looked upon his map, he saw a problem. Omaz’s blue dot was there, but he was in the center of the commune.

And the commune was still fighting.

A ring of tall stone walls stood fractured around buildings that were just as broken, in a clearing in the Forest that was also broken, and on fire. Few shadeling orcols slunk around in the shadows, throwing high-powered spells at orcol mages flying high in the sky, and just out of range of most magics. But those were the outliers. Erick casually had an Ophiel throw a [Grand Dispel] at some of the fires in the area, extinguishing a good hundred meters of flickering flame, while he himself cast a [Grand Dispel] at a fireball larger than most that had lifted off of the ground and tried to hit the people flying high above. That [Grand Fireball] vanished in a puff of magic.

Most of the fight was not magical, though. Most of the shadelings were upright, full of shadows, and swinging around swords made of darkness. They fought against orcols who had been guarding the commune the last time Erick had seen this place. A battlefield had erupted since then. Lines in the mud had been drawn and guarded against, past the western wall of the commune, with healers in the backlines of both sides, throwing [Chaining Healing Word]s at the front-line fighters who clashed in the middle. Mud churned with blood and worse as warriors crashed against warriors, and death came to many.

With a casual [Harmonic Counterspell], Erick dismissed another house-sized fireball as it shot out of the shadows, before it could arc over the front line and strike at the guards on the other side of the battlefield. Four seconds later, while rain began to fall heavy, Erick dismissed a similar [Grand Fireball] from Treehome’s side.

Someone yelled from the shadeling side, their voice empowered over the roar of battle, “The Fire of the Age joins us! Push back the non-believers!”

That voice boomed with power. A shockwave passed through the rain, pressing it away as it passed over the battlefield. Shadows crawled over every person, making shadeling swords swing faster, and weighing down the feet and arms of the orcols on the other side.

Disgust and displeasure roared through Erick. These people were fighting their own, both sides egged on by their own emotions, sure, but those emotions were being played with by the Cult. Could they not see this? That guy who had called out about ‘non-believers’ was already dragged from his position and stabbed from five different directions by five different shadelings. Erick instantly saw that these ‘Cultists’ were mostly not. Maybe one or two of them were, but certainly not the whole.

Erick cast a thousand mana [Grand Dispel] at the shadeling side, ripping away that empowering magic, as his own voice boomed across the battlefield, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING! STOP FIGHTING!”

No one listened. If anything, the fighting intensified.

Erick punctuated his displeasure by absolutely filling the sky with lightning. Bright white flashes broke the heavens, and continued to break, in a coruscating, thunderous roar, much, much louder than anything going on down below. A flash of inspiration struck halfway through his display of power.

He displayed control, when he vibrated the lightning itself to thunder out, “Stop. Fighting. Now.”

Eardrums broke. Blood trickled out of eyes and ears and noses.

Surprising even himself, some of the people stepped back from the front line. Some shadelings fell to the ground, to the wet shadows, and pulled back. Some orcols retreated. Erick cast a shaped [Domain of Light] directly down through the center of the fighting, zig-zagging the eruption of saturated brilliance through the worst of the fighting, through the places where the shadelings had broken through, and across the places where the forces of Treehome had advanced into the commune.

Shadelings fell out of their shadows, forced to retreat or to take a hit. Guards found their [Strike]s of fire or lightning or ice flicker with nothing more than sparkled light.

Forces on both sides tried to [Dispel] the [Domain of Light], and they failed, completely. It would take another person with a competing Domain to take down that barrier, and no one Erick could see on this battlefield had such a thing.

Erick’s Ophiel floated into that separating gulf of Light, and spoke with his voice, “Here is the ultimatum: The Cultists who have committed crimes for the sake of harming this world or any other, are to be served up to the authorities. Every other shadeling who wishes a better life, who doesn’t want to stay and answer for the crimes of those who demanded you follow them into the maw of battle, you’re invited to Candlepoint.” He announced, “Make your way there on your own, right now, or await for my assistance, but certain criminals will not go unpunished. Omaz Wyrmrest! Answer for your crimes against your own people! You threw down starfalls against your own city, for gods’ sakes!”

Koropo’s voice railed through to Erick, forcing him to come back to his body, “What the fuck, Erick!”

The man almost loomed over him.

Erick got up from his seat, saying, “I’m solving your problem. Help me, or fail to do so, but the duties of your station have been successfully discharged for a long while, don’t you think? We did a lot of good work yesterday, and you could easily find another line of work if you wanted. Perhaps in Candlepoint?”

Koropo stared down at Erick, while Erick stared up at the Warchief and simultaneously put out a dozen different fires near Arbor Home, canceled a dozen other high-mana attacks from both sides of the dividing [Domain of Light] between the shadelings and their prison keepers, and kept a good dozen eyes on Omaz’s blue dot and on his person; Ophiel moved very fast when it was necessary.

Omaz was still in the center of the commune, in what looked to be a non-important building that was only half intact. He wasn’t moving. He was waiting.

But the shadelings in that battle were not waiting. Dozens moved all at the same time, turning to shadows, retreating to the commune and then beyond. The shadeling line broke, like a dam. They rushed away from the fight. Some went to Omaz’s space in the city, their retreat turning into a strategic repositioning. But only a few did that. Most disappeared past a broken curtain wall, into the Forest, sneaking away as they were always able to do, but never did for what was likely a myriad of reasons. Maybe that wall had anti-shadeling runes on it? Anti-[Shadowblend], for sure, and at least.

And then that curtain wall erupted in deep, frosted stone. Stone rose higher, and higher, as freezing fog rolled off of that burgeoning rock. Some had escaped already, but most of the fleeing shadelings raced back, away from the stone, back toward the commune. They were locked into the commune, encircled on all sides, with a barrier of Light and a war on one side, and that stone on the other. Erick flickered an Ophiel toward the icy stone and threw a [Grand Dispel] upon the biting cold of those erupted crags.

The cold briefly vanished, but then the crags shifted. Golems made of stone and ice lifted from the broken land. They did not attack, but they did reposition, taking a stance like a company of soldiers, each ten meters tall, their line of golems ten deep, waiting for their orders.

And then a smaller man made of stone stepped forward, directly into Erick’s view.

He waved, and in a pleasant voice, the rock man said, “Archmage Tenebrae wishes you to reconsider what you are doing, please!”

Okay. So.

ALL OF THIS...

All of this was a bigger problem than he had signed up for. A lot of power was coming out of the woodwork, and Erick needed to deal with it. After he dealt with other, certain things.

Erick, back in the conference room, said, “You or any of your team want a place in Candlepoint, you have it, Koropo, but I suspect Treehome needs you now, too, and I fear that I have overstepped some line in the sand.”

Koropo became the man he was when Erick first met him; hard edged and emotionless. He said, “Eri—”

Peron burst into the conference room, demanding, “Erick Flatt! You are under arrest!”

Instantly, several people stepped out of the stone, the air, the shadows, and even the light. Erick had noticed them before, but paid them no mind. There were more important things going on at that moment. And besides. He wasn’t defenseless, despite whatever thoughts might have been flowing through Peron’s mind, making him do whatever fool thing he was currently trying to do.

As soon as Peron yelled his first syllable, Erick transformed into his sunform, clipping Poi in the effect. Both of them watched as a [Curse of Locality] spilled across the dome of Erick’s light like a pitiful splash of gasoline on water. Another person cast a [Mana Drain Ward] onto Erick, while another cast a [Health Drain Ward]. Both spells turned to nothing more than expended mana when they touched upon Erick’s sunform. Erick expected nothing less, since even Shades had had trouble with his [Lodestar]. Anyone without a Domain would have trouble even touching him, unless he wanted it to happen.

Erick turned his gaze upon Peron, who had turned from angry to stoic, his face becoming a mask of indifference.

Peron said, “I knew it was too good to be true. You are a Cultist.”

Erick narrowed his eyes, and said, “You blind yourself, Chieftain.” He turned half of his attention back to the commune. His voice echoed over there, and inside the conference room, “My goals are nothing less than the eradication of actual dangers to this world, and the next. Your petty vendettas against outdated hatreds are but small problems for my goals. Problems that we can all overcome. I assure you, that there will be justice for the crimes committed in the past, and when that occurs, that will be the End of those issues. No more hate. No more subsequent persecution. We will have Peace. We will have integration. Prepare and act accordingly.” He gave a small, personal message to the rock man standing in front of his golem troops, “I need your blockade to end or I need to talk with Tenebrae.”

The rock man nodded, saying, “We eagerly await your arrival to discuss all of that.”

Erick fully turned his attention back to the conference room.

Peron glared at Erick’s words.

Koropo backed away, a single, slow, half step.

Everyone in the room, except for Poi, backed away. Poi stepped closer to Erick.

Erick turned his gaze toward the commune and then he lightstepped there in one flashing, radiant moment, with Poi at his side. The skylight above broke just a little bit more in his passing.