Chapter 209, 1/2

Chapter 209, 1/2

Before Erick knew it there was a single week left till the end of the year, then came Shadow’s Feast, and then the week-long Triumph of Light celebration afterward. He had not actually been planning much for any of that, but now that the hour was near, just like with last year and Last Shadow’s Feast, Erick got a wake-up-call telling him it was time to prepare.

That call had come in the form of a letter from a person Erick hadn’t thought about at all in recent months.

While sitting at his desk, Erick read the letter again.

- -

Dearest Fire of the Age, Erick Flatt, Wizard and Dragon of Benevolence,

GREETINGS!

It has been a whole year since I saw you directly! And yes, that does mean that I have been spying sometimes, as a concerned citizen of the world sometimes does when Wizards start walking around openly and honestly. You should know that I still have your fun little [Blessing of Minor Truth] active. I am looking forward to telling you all about what I’ve been doing this last year when I next see you in person! For we will be meeting again for this year’s Shadow’s Feast, will we not? Surely we will!

Since you are hosting the Feast this time.

I look forward to your opening song to the Dark, for My God has mentioned that once or twice or a hundred times— it is how it is with ancient gods and finding something they truly look forward to, you know.

But after that opening magics, there will have to be planned festivities and honors and such and such! I cannot wait to see what you come up with, for it is your year to plan and produce the whole thing! Goldie and Quilatalap are there to help you if you need help, and surely you will, but I will be showing up a day before the event and I suspect all the rest of us will be showing up a day before, too! They’ve all got triumphs to share with you, themselves, but I’ve kept tabs on them, so I can share a little bit right now.

Lapis, Shade of Enchantment. Ensuring the Quiet War remains as silent as it can be.

Farix, Shade of Education. Ensuring the safety and prosperity of the Brightwater refugees.

Treant, Shade of Forest. Cultivating the wild spaces to reduce danger and increase life.

Queen, Shade of Empire. Bringing Songli back from devastation, and more.

Hollowsaur, Shade of Life. Dismantling and reforming problematic species into beneficial things.

And of course you know of Goldie, Shade of Counter-Assassination.

And then there is me!

I look forward to seeing you again, Erick.

-Love, Fallopolis, Shade of Civilization, Culler of Corruption

- -

Erick looked up from his desk at the person who had given him the letter. “So... Goldie? Got any ideas for the party?”

Goldie stood on the other side of Erick’s desk, wearing her customary black leathers, with her customary black plank of a sword hovering at her back. She was at rest-stance, though that was rather normal. She was always as prim and proper as could be when she was around Erick in any sort of official capacity, and this was one of those times.

Instead of confirming that Erick would, in fact, be accepting the duty of hosting Shadow’s Feast himself, Goldie easily rattled off, “It will take place in the main tower of House Benevolence. You will cast your Time Magic in a large enough way to envelop this entire space, which will require you to make something new. Over the course of 1 night, we should have at least 48 hours of time in which to lay out all the accomplishments of everyone.

“The only people present from your side should be those you deem worthy of telling their exploits to others, and who you trust to hear the exploits of everyone else, and who you do not mind learning certain secrets that you have kept hidden for a long time. I have suggestions on that front, but I would not feel comfortable clouding your judgments with those personnel suggestions, so I will not give those.

“You will supply dishes and drink enough for everyone to consume to their core’s content—”

She stopped.

Because Fairy Moon stepped out of the open air to the side. The not-young-woman-at-all wore her usual pink and green dress, with a white corset. Her heterochromatic pink and green eyes sparkled, as she smiled, asking, “I wish to be welcomed for this feast.”

... It seemed things were moving fast in his life again.

Erick considered Fairy Moon’s request/order, and paused in his response so that Fairy Moon knew that he was truly considering it. The fae gained a small smile.

And then Erick asked, “Can I talk you out of this request?”

Fairy Moon frowned. “You could, but you could also not. Ask instead for agreements of secrecy sealed, and gain gifts of Ar’Cosmos catering and care instead.”

Goldie said nothing. She gave a light look at Fairy Moon, but Erick could tell nothing of how she felt— Ah. Goldie had shifted to shadow a small amount, and was perfectly controlling her countenance...

And with that particular thought, Erick gained some insight into his first of several open-ended requests.

Erick leveled at Fairy Moon, “You and whoever you bring will see things they were never meant to see. Things which could destroy the world if they got out. Therefore, you will remain silent about the secrets you spy— And you will stop infecting everything with your Fae Magic. And! These words are not to be lawyered out of. They are general wishes of goodwill desired from you, about all things. The closer you adhere to the spirit of this sentencing, then the better off I will be, and you will be, and all of everything we are doing here will go better, and what you are doing in Ar’Cosmos, will be better. You will be as a perfect guest. You will not influence anything in any untoward manner, unless that untowardness is required for the good of all of everyone.” He added, “And you’ll bring food and drink of all sorts, and... At most one or three more guests who will agree to the same.”

Fairy Moon listened to all of Erick’s words, and then instantly said, “I agree.”

Erick looked at her.

Fairy Moon smiled a little bit. “I agree! What more do you want?”

Erick said, “There’s going to be a small amount of my great big secrets revealed, even though I don’t want them revealed. The Shades already know them, but as far as I can tell they didn’t tell anyone, so the only real problem here is you and whoever you bring.”

Erick was talking about a lot of secrets, but the major ones were his possession of [Duplicate] and also that his real form looked like a small Melemizargo—

... His real form? What the fuck was that thought?

Erick ignored that thought for now.

“I can cast some compelling curses to keep your secrets as secure as the secrets of Ar’Cosmos, so that you will be able to announce those secrets to your people at the party, and then retract those secrets at the end.” Fairy Moon smiled, saying, “I would maintain those mysteries myself, but I am also great at keeping confidence when charged with that call. It would be as though the party happened in a dream for all other people.”

Goldie spoke up, “There will be none of that at the party. Melemizargo is about open honesty, and that secrets once given cannot be taken. If you cannot trust someone not to spill your secrets, Lord Flatt, then you should forbid them from the festivities.” Goldie winced a bit there at the end, for she was speaking in alliteration. With bright white eyes, she glared at Fairy Moon. “Do not.”

Fairy Moon almost responded—

But Erick made his words final as he spoke, “We will not be doing fae seals on the party. If you cannot trust your plus-1, 2, or 3, then you cannot bring them. If I cannot trust you, then...” Erick simply looked at Fairy Moon. “I want to trust you. Don’t screw this up. Don’t let others screw this up, either. You are an ally to me, so act like it more, please.”

Fairy Moon simply nodded. “I am aware I am in-the-hole with you. I will make it up to you this Shadow’s Feast, and you will know me for who I wish to be. I will ensure Bright Smile is on her best behavior, too, for she will be my plus-1, and there will be no others.”

“... Okay. That’s fine. I look forward to hearing the truth of what is going on in Ar’Cosmos in a friendly manner and from Bright Smile herself. Also, I do not appreciate you listening in to conversations that were clearly not about you. I did not say your name at all. You were not invited into this conversation.”

Fairy Moon smiled a little, and then vanished, her voice trailing away on the air, “See you soon!”

Erick ignored Fairy Moon, who was probably still in the room with them, and turned to Goldie. “As you were saying?”

Goldie turned away from where Fairy Moon was, then said, “Guest list. Guest quarters. Guest food and drink and comfort and security. Slotted time for the Shades to speak— Fairy Moon. Leave please.”

Something ephemeral left the room.

Erick held up a hand and flashed a Privacy through the space, dismissing it as soon as it was cast, using it as a manasphere cleanser. And then he flicked a [Cleanse] through the space to be sure. Thick air spilled away from Goldie and from all the rest of the space, but not that much, really.

Erick asked Goldie. “Do you have an idea of why she was here like that? This usually doesn’t happen.”

Goldie said, “Worried over the end of the year. Everyone is. Everyone has called last year’s festivities ‘Last Shadow’s Feast’ and we allowed it and encouraged it, but it was never going to be the ‘Last Shadow’s Feast’, for ‘Shadow’s Feast’ has happened every single year for a million years. The nature of that party changed in the New Cosmology, but since the Culling of our Clergy, it is Melemizargo’s hope that the Feast is back to being what it used to be... hopefully.”

“Yeah... Figured it was something like that.” Erick said, “So let’s change the name, then. Start something new.”

Goldie paused, her eyes going a little wide. “Uhh.” And then she recovered. “There are metaphysical reasons it is called ‘Shadow’s Feast’, because it is an honoring to the Dark, yet in such a way that existence can survive that honoring. People cannot survive honoring the Dark directly. So we gift a feast and the Dark takes what He desires, as one does for dragons and gods.”

“How about ‘Shadow’s Triumph’? Less of a connotation of devouring the world. More of an idea of spreading and honoring?” Erick said, “It aligns with the same sort of ideas of the Triumph of Light, too, and this way there is parity on both sides. Maybe the Triumph of Light can change into something less ‘anti-Shadow’ and ‘anti-Dark’ as well. But that’s not up to me. That’s an entire world changing their thoughts.”

Goldie went, “Uhh... You could try it— How about Shadow’s Festival? It’s almost the same?”

Erick nodded. He would try that, too. He could workshop a bunch of names, actually.

“Anyway.” Goldie continued, “There should be time for each Shade to speak, to tell you how they have tried to make the world better. Then there’s the public orgy event, which is always popular but we never got to last time. I believe you spoke about missing the last one because the whole event sort of... fell apart there. But you can certainly make that happen this year. Then there are non-Shade talks that should happen. Quilatalap will be expected to speak on something; he can do whatever he wants though, as he usually does— Ah! Exhibits are necessary and good. Since we’ll have at least two days of a party— more are better— then there should be multiple small parties lined up. You need to do the opening ceremony with the song that Melemizargo desires, then I suggest a party in the beginning, a day of exhibits and speeches, another party which is probably the orgy. Sleep. Another party, more speeches. End of day dismissal.” Goldie said, “Those are my suggestions.”

“... No orgy this year, either. Save it for your own time, or for personal inclinations during the event.”

Goldie nodded.

Erick asked, “Any guest list suggestions?”

“Less is more, in this case. You and a date or three. More dates is a good thing. All the Shades get a plus-1... Maybe 25 people, total? 30? None of your overseers... Except maybe Zolan? Mox, too; she’s incredibly good at her job. They’ll be expected to give small exhibits, at least. Probably no speeches.”

Erick had some ideas about all of that. He rapidly decided, “Those two can probably take the night off for a party. Everyone else will be on high alert. Will you be an assistant coordinator for me? Not sure what that will entail, but I’ll figure it out.”

Goldie stood fractionally straighter. “Absolutely.”

“Good. Then...” Erick said, “Then I’ll put everyone on alert and you can tell me when the other Shades all get here. I’ll greet them, and they can shuffle off into their rooms in the Shade tower...” Erick stood up. “I need to make some new magics.”

Goldie bowed, and then she straightened and vanished.

- - - -

Once Erick was back in his warehouse, and probably alone, he sat down on the ground and had a minor panic.

He was going to host the Shades for a Shadows Feast.

This was really happening. Erick had hoped that Melemizargo would have forgotten about the Feast and no one would ever mention it again, but holy shit. Of course that wasn’t going to happen. Like Goldie had said, this party had been happening every year since the dawn of the Old Cosmology.

And now here he was, expected to host Shades...

Okay.

Erick forced himself to stop panicking, and he was mostly successful.

Erick got up and got to work. First thing he needed to do was combine [Hasted Shelter] with [Renew], making an expandable hasted space, like he had with [Fairy Stronghold]. Easy enough. This was actually a spell Erick had been thinking about a lot, since a lot of dragons were way too large to fit inside his single Shelter, but he had never really had a need to make a larger magic, since, as a dragon, Erick’s range and size of every spell had gotten rather large. He could easily fill a 40-by-40-by-40 meter spherical-ish cube with a single [Hasted Shelter], if he wanted. Too bad the House was a lot larger than that.

And there was no way a Feast could ever fit in a single 40-meter-cubed space.

Erick shook himself out a little, shaking his hands and rolling his shoulders. He did a few small pushups to get the blood flowing, and then he stood and centered himself, briefly closing his eyes.

He opened his eyes.

With a few quick commands, Erick had a few Ophiel surround him. He handed out spellwork to all of them, rapidly bringing a new song to a crescendo of [Renew]ed and expandable Time Magic, and then he cast. A very similar Hasted area filled the space around Erick, but it was different in all the ways that mattered.

And then he opened a [Gate] to the Yggdrasil over at Songli.

The night was deep in this part of the world, but Yggdrasil was full of light. Erick glanced down at the world below, at the lake waters, and at the Wanzhi River that ran north to south, to the west of the lake. Yggdrasil’s roots, like white dragons, had buried into the lake, cropping up here and there as illuminated white arches, and in and out of the ground, almost like exposed stitching, crashing into the lakeside and expanding far into the river. This location had been rather large for Yggdrasil, back when Erick had originally planted him, but Yggdrasil had ‘outgrown the flowerpot’ sometime in the last few months. House Benevolence and Songli had been in talks to create a Gate Network for a while now, but ever since Erick had decided against marrying Nirzir, those talks had gone rather frosty.

The expansion to the Network should have gone down... there... somewhere.

Erick saw no good place for the Network to go, though. Everything was stitched with glowing white roots. If talks ever properly resumed with Songli, the expansion to the Network would probably have to go... Over at Holorulo? On the horizon over there?

Erick gazed across the world, to the west, and saw the clan mountains of Holorulo. They stood in light, almost like Yggdrasil stumps, ringing the central ceremonial city between them all. Erick cast his gaze further, seeing through Ophiel, looking upon the ancestral homes of High Clan Devouring Nightmare, where the former-Scion, now-Patriarch of Devouring Nightmare, Hangzi... was probably not there right now.

Hangzi was probably doing work somewhere, or something.

Erick should be doing work, too.

Erick had half a mind to search out Patriarch Hangzi Devouring Nightmare, and also Matriarch Lingxing Void Song, and also Matriarch Tipanri Severing Crescent, to get them all in a room together and actually fix this problem; to get them their Gate Network expansion. That would be incredibly rude, though.

Eh.

Whatever.

Erick had enough plots on his plate. Let this one take years to happen if it had to.

Erick turned his attention back to Yggdrasil.

He floated into Yggdrasil’s crown, to where he stood above a part of Yggdrasil’s branches that had a particularly fluffy looking patch of moss covering. With a twitch of thought, he pinged Yggdrasil attention. “Yggdrasil? You see me?”

An iridescent eye popped into the air beside Erick. “Hello father! What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to try something. Keep an eye out, okay? I might fall down onto this moss, but it shouldn’t be any worse than that.”

“Okay!”

And then Erick cast the Special Function of his [Gate]—

A blue box appeared bigger than anything, an ERROR message, but the size was simply Erick’s imagination because something spun inside of him, attempting to rip him open from the inside out. Everything went dim as horrible wrenching pain ripped at his insides and—

And then the pain flashed and vanished.

Erick came to, on his knees, on the moss. He coughed up glowing red blood that splattered across Yggdrasil’s mossy surface, sprouting little red mushrooms everywhere it landed. Something was caught in his throat, so Erick hocked up blood and bile. He spat out even more blood, and one shard of his own core.

Erick paused.

Yup. That white, glowing shard of something gem-like had been a part of his core.

—had been a part of his core.

He didn’t feel that bad, but upon seeing that shard he looked inside of himself.

Panic went up, and then down. It was just a surface crack through the whole thing, mangled arteries that were already healing, and a heart that was already pumping blood back where blood should be pumped. His lungs had taken some damage and there were other shards of core inside his body...

But he could fix that.

Erick went back home to his warehouse in Candlepoint’s Yggdrasil and sat down on the floor. He started to accrete like he did every morning, but this time there was a lot of damage to heal through, and shards of core to reattach. It took about half an hour to repair the damage, using a combination of [Renew] and accretion.

He did not realize until he was fully healed how absolutely shitty he had actually felt when his core was that damaged. He had been kidding himself before; tricking his mind into not feeling the pain. Or maybe... It just wasn’t that painful, until it was gone, and then it was like looking back at something he was glad was over.

But anyway. Now he breathed easy.

And then he said, “Fucking hell that had hurt!”

Maybe his opinion of ‘it won’t hurt much’ was different from Rozeta’s.

But... He was never in any danger of death... He supposed.

Erick decided that he could wait to make multiple cores before he tried that again. It was time to plan for a party, anyway; Erick had already planned out the magic, but there was a lot more organization to do than that. He summoned a chalkboard and began a rough sketch of the plan.

Ten minutes later, he was mostly done making a plan, because, even though he had so much other shit to deal with he was expected to put on a party for Melemizargo. Which. Fine. Let’s do this right, and such. Keep the alliances going and all that...

With some basic planning done, it was time to do more than that.

Erick went to see Quilatalap.

- - - -

Quilatalap’s Library was impressive.

Most of it was hidden behind a great many illusions. Erick had to walk a certain path to be admitted to the main library, which also caused him to go out of Sight of almost everyone as soon as he got halfway down that path. It was similar to the way that Kydyr had hidden his own [Fairy House], but different, for they were still on Veird inside Quilatalap’s ‘[Library Space]’.

Erick needed to ask Quilatalap how he did this, exactly. It was one of his many new questions for the big guy—

Ah. Fuck. Stop with those sorts of thoughts, Erick. Quilatalap was just a guy who had a rather easy time making connections with others. He didn’t actually mean anything when he asked you out on a date.

It wasn’t a date!

It was just dinner!

Okay.

Stuff those thoughts away...

Erick walked down a hallway of books that were all trash. Daily distributions from popular copper-coin publications. Old editions of various Arcanaeum Consortium classroom publications that everyone and their grandfather had likely read in their Introduction to Force Magic class. All of those had been positioned here specifically to discourage people from looking deeper. And then Erick crossed a threshold. In big black letters over an archway made of bones and monster skulls, which looked like sapient skulls (but which were not, according to Quilatalap) the actual entrance to the library read:

‘VENTURE FORTH, THOSE WHO VALUE KNOWLEDGE MORE THAN THEIR LIVES’.

Erick had a lot of thoughts on that proclamation.

Part of him was all like ‘oh, okay, Quilatalap doesn’t want odd people to poke around; this is fine’. The other part of Erick was not happy with such dangerous proclamations being present in his kingdom, for any reason whatsoever. And yet, Erick was fine with it, for Quilatalap was simply protecting himself.

Quilatalap was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

... And Erick really wanted to have dinner with the guy, but he hadn’t found a good time to finalize those plans... Or to talk about the warning Quilatalap had posted outside his library. Or to talk about all the magic he wanted to talk about.

Erick had kinda found himself in the last few days, simply wanting to be around Quilatalap. They had talked a lot about a bunch of topics, and yet neither of them had brought up that promised ‘date’—

An orcol skeleton came walking around the corner with its arms outstretched, fires in its eyes, and a dead-to-the-world incani in its grip. The man was not actually dead, but he was missing his left arm up to his bicep. It looked like he put his arm into an explosion of some sort.

Erick had seen something like this happen twice before, though, so he wasn’t too worried; Quilatalap was removing someone from his library. Erick merely stepped to the side and let the skeleton walk the guy out of the library. The injuries were new, though. A repeat offender?

Erick couldn’t tell; the guy looked different—

Suddenly narrowing his eyes, Erick watched as the unconscious man and his skeleton escort vanished around the corner. If that man had face-stolen someone else’s body to come here... Erick needed to talk to Quilatalap about that, too.

With his libido now firmly annihilated, Erick walked below the archway, into the library proper, his mana sense collapsing with each step forward. Soon, Erick could only see what he could actually see, and a bit through the shelves upon shelves of books. He walked below skeletal birds, who watched everyone who came and went, and then he passed into the main room.

It would be a fantastic library one day. Many, many eternal stonewood shelves (Quilatalap knew that spell himself) stretched up multiple stories into the air. Rows upon rows. Depths upon depths. But as for actual books, there were only a few scattered around here and there. They were all books on magic. Almost all of them were from the Arcanaeum Consortium catalog, of which Quilatalap had managed to acquire about 40%. The rest of that whole entire catalog was on backorder. Soon, Erick would have a copy of Oceanside’s public library here, at House Benevolence, and he kinda loved that entire idea.

What had arrived so far came in by the Platform-full. On the east side of the library, Quilatalap was still unboxing those books and setting them out on the shelves. Erick found the ancient archlich setting a nice set of books on Force Magic out on the shelves.

“Hello, Erick!” Quilatalap said. “Come to inspect the library?”

“It’s looking great, but that’s not why I’m here.” Erick thumbed backward. “That guy was missing most of an arm?”

“And he’ll find a healer to get it back for him. Maybe next time he’ll think before he pesters me for answers to something I have told him I cannot tell him.” Quilatalap didn’t say those words with any rancor at all; he was merely explaining what had happened.

“Was he a face stealer?”

Quilatalap jerked a little. He finished putting away a book, and then he turned to Erick. “I don’t think so? Though I will probably get one or two of those in here eventually.”

With conviction, Erick said, “Feel free to murder those who murder others in order to take their Familiar Forms.”

“Ehhh... I try not to murder anyone these days, Erick. Maiming? Sure. I could relinquish those types to Burhendurur, though?”

Erick blinked. “Uh. Yes. That’s a better idea. Uh...” He looked back toward the entrance, then he turned back to Quilatalap. “I just got a bad feeling about that guy?”

“He’s... Probably not harmless.” Quilatalap glanced up, then turned back to Erick. “There. The guy is being handed over to Enforcement now.”

A flush of relief passed through Erick. “Thank you.”

Quilatalap smiled a little, asking, “So why are you here? Just that? Or are we going to the Saucery tonight? I keep waiting for you to set a date, but it appears I might need to do that myself.”

Erick’s heart thumped. “Uh. Yes. Tonight? Tonight. Yes. I’ll. Uh. I’ll pick you up here at 7?”

Quilatalap smiled wide. “Sounds good to me!”

Erick smiled a little bit, too. And then he nodded, and turned—

He turned back. He had come here to ask about preparations for ‘Shadow’s Triumph’—

He turned back around and kept walking out.

Getting a date set was much more productive.

They could talk about the party on their date.

He paused—

He had come here to ask about accretion. Not just the party. Erick needed to know what Quilatalap knew about making multiple cores. Erick could ask some other dragons, too, but multiple opinions were good.

— he kept walking; they could talk about that on their date, too.

Behind him, Quilatalap grinned and went back to stocking the shelves.