Chapter 232, 1/2

Chapter 232, 1/2

Erick hated the smell of uncleaned battlefields. Of blood and mud and piss and shit. Of death. All of those smells now assaulted him, as he walked across the bloodied grasslands of floor 2, of the Glittering Depths. The scent brought to mind all the death Erick had seen in the wake of the Wizard of Anarchy, raising a mountain all the way to the Edge of the Script in the center of Quintlan, in the Fractured Citadels, where undead were as numerous as trees in an endless forest. Memories of eliminating Terror Peaks came to mind next, and of the millions dead in the Chelation War, where bodies weren’t able to be cleaned for days...

When had this ‘battle’ of the second floor even taken place? It smelled a lot worse than it should smell. Or had Erick ‘arrived’ at this battlefield on day 2 or 3 of the slaughter? Maybe even day 4.

Erick held his head high, and walked on. The bodies were getting less and less numerous as Erick and his band of rescued people got further away from the front lines. Erick had encountered several patrols of the red tabarded in the two hours they had walked away from the front lines, each one rather more deadly than the last, but he had rescued more than a few soldiers, including Kinder. Those rescues even helped rescue even more people, but mostly in a distracting sense; Erick did most of the damage. His rescues now numbered 47 semi-healthy people, and another 13 people on makeshift stretchers.

He was up to number 6 in the Rescue and Revenge questline. Every completion netted him another 500 mana regen, along with a small collections of metamonds and metirons. He had a very small hoard of loot at the moment, but all of it was useless without being transformed into proper, working tools.

Erick looked to the air, and said, “Status.”

- -

Ashes Woodfield (9 saves remaining)

MP per day: 8500

Meta-Irons: 1850, 0 in storage

Meta-Diamonds: 5/10, 0 in storage

Bracelet of [Self Rejuvenation], 97/100

Rod of the Lightning Guardian, 872/1000

Necklace of [Meditation], 47/50

Wand of [Drinking Food], 200/200

Belt of Many Functions, (depleted), (depleted), [Unsensible], 247/250

Shield (depleted), 211/250

Unused Meta-Irons: Staff of the Anti-Magus (BROKEN) 50/50, Wand (Empty) 5/5, Wand (Empty) 5/5, Bracelet (depleted) 5/5, Bracelet (depleted) 5/5, Breastplate (depleted) 250/250,

Unused Meta-Diamonds: [Murky], [Benediction], [Flaming Ooze], [Shadow Bolt], [Paper Control], [Memorize], [Minor Treat Wounds], [Force Shield], [Force Spike], [Health] x 7, [Basic Light] x5, [Basic Shadow], [Basic Stone] x2, [Basic Air] x2, [Basic Fire] x3, [Basic Water] x4, [Unknown] x18

- -

Erick didn’t actually carry all that. Kinder wore the breastplate and another of the soldiers carried almost all of the extra metamonds and metairons. Apparently that was ‘close enough’ to Erick carrying it that it still counted under his status.

A few of the people Erick had rescued even had meta-items of their own, and some of them had proven very useful in certain situations. There was one woman who called herself ‘Scout’, who had magic in that same vein as her namesake. A group of over 60 soldiers was not a quiet thing, even though most of them were trying to be quiet, so Erick had sent Scout ahead every so often to check the way forward, to ensure that they weren’t ambushed.

Scout once again appeared in the air ahead of Erick, about forty meters away, already walking Erick’s way. Air and Light and Shadow peeling away as she came closer. She bowed, unhurried, and then rose when Erick got close. She spoke in a monotone voice, “I detect no enemies ahead of us, sir.”

Erick was pretty sure that she was an NPC, because what he had asked her to do was look for enemies, people who needed help, and Marii’s hidden base. Several times now, Scout’s only response when returning had been that she had seen no enemies ahead of them. Erick asked, “Did you see Marii’s base?”

“I detect no enemies ahead of us, sir.”

Kinder spoke up, his voice rather like a normal person’s, “We might be close to Marii’s.”

Erick told Scout, “Go out and check for more enemies, then report back. Make sure we’re not ambushed. If you see Marii’s then report back and bring us there.”

The woman backed away and half-vanished, the world seeming to curl around her body, leaving her mostly invisible. Her supple shoes and lower legs were still visible when she moved too fast, which is what she did, her feet lifting off the ground as she almost floated away, hopping through the air. She took ten steps for every one anyone else would take.

Erick nodded to himself as he saw Scout vanish up the low hills. “That’s a good movement skill; trustworthy, even if it’s not foolproof. I prefer an entire Elemental Body, though.” He asked Kinder, “Are there Shaping spells here? I haven’t seen any yet.”

Kinder, who was probably from Greensoil and not an NPC at all, said, “Might have some Shaping magic inside those unknown gems you picked up, sir, but maybe not. Those are rare.”

“Do you know why some of those looted gems are unknown?”

“I’m surprised you can tell what any of them are at all, without [Identify].” Kinder plucked out a gem from his pocket, to hold it aloft. It shimmered blue and white and gold. “I have no idea what this one is. Gold is divine magic, right?”The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.

“Usually.” Erick shrugged. “White and blue means Light and Water, so maybe Healing Magic is my guess.”

Kinder put it back in his pocket, where he was keeping all other truly special-seeming ones that Erick had given him to hold. “Marii should have [Identify]. She’ll be able to tell us more.”

“So where is she?”

Kinder looked around, then directed his gaze up a distant, yet nearby hill, just to the right of their current direction. There was a rock at the top of that hill. “Architect Marii put stones like that around her location, so we’re close. Want to walk up to the top of that hill there and see if we can see?”

“Yes.”

Erick began walking that direction, and the caravan followed. When they got closer, Erick directed the caravan to stay in the lowlands, as he and Kinder ascended the hillside. Two minutes later, Erick stood at the top of a hill with a stone half buried near the top.

He saw their destination. Or at least he saw where their destination probably was. He also saw the entire plains spread out before him.

This was a vast, vast land of undulating hills and trees here and there. To the area that Kinder had called ‘fallward’, which was where the sunstar fell every evening, which was what Erick termed ‘west’ in his mind, lay the majority of the battlefield, and the resistance headquarters known as the Plains. Smoke rose from there, like someone had started prairie fires across half the horizon. To the north, or ‘moonwards’, where the actual moon of Insten sat in the sky, like an unmoving silver dot, lay the mountains. To the south, or ‘Riamways’, where Riam hung in the sky, lay the depleted lands of Insten and the actual frontlines of Insten’s war for independence.

Erick, Kinder, and the caravan had been headed ‘risewards’, or east, to get here, wherever ‘here’ was.

“There,” Kinder said, as he pointed. “Those hills. Marii’s base is hidden under Illusion Magic or whatever she does with the place. There are probably traps from Marii scattered all over there. Maybe Riam ambushes too; trying to stop people like us from reconnecting with known forces.”

Erick nodded. “Yeah. Probably.”

Kinder smiled, even though there was danger. “But the place doesn’t look on fire. Looks like it survived.”

Five hills over from their current location, a collection of six hills sat in a hexagon pattern. Each one of those hills had one very bent tree growing just off the side of the hilltop, which was odd, but not too odd. But each of the six hills were exactly the same, and every hill’s tree was turned a sixth of the way around on the hilltop, as though the hill had been copied, rotated a little, and set in a 6-hill grouping.

“Which hill is the correct one, Kinder?”

“All of them.” Kinder said, “And none of them. Whichever one the enemy is not at.”

A slow smile crept upon Erick’s face. “Oh? That’s interesting. Can you take down that defense with a simple numbers attack?”

Kinder frowned a little. “Not sure what that is, sir.”

“Putting a person on each possible hill, or attacking all hills at the same time.”

“Oh! ... I don’t know. Architect Marii has pretty good defenses, and I’ve heard stories of people sneaking up on all sides and one of them getting in to see Marii. But that’s okay, right? Means she’s split the enemy into six parts, and she can pick whichever one she wants to kill first.” Kinder said, “She’ll see us coming, sir. We can probably go up all at once and she’ll just let us in.”

“We’ll find out.”

Scout appeared out of the air nearby, before stepping closer enough to report, which she did. “I detect no enemies ahead of us, sir.”

Erick pointed toward the six hills that made up Marii’s defenses. “Go alert Marii. Tell her we’re coming in with refugees.”

Scout dashed off.

Ten minutes later, Erick stood at the base of the nearest illusionary hill, with his caravan of people behind him.

The air shimmered ahead, and light parted, revealing a collection of towers and walls with glittering metal roofs and floating gems above those roofs. The ground outside of Marii’s base was empty, save for Scout, who stood in the middle of the shimmering portal to safety.

Scout said, “Architect Marii is waiting.”

Find Architect Marii’s hidden location. 1/1

Erick told his caravan of people, “Inside. Double-time.”

For another five minutes, Erick stood outside of the protected space, making sure the others got into the protected area first. And then Erick went inside, and the shimmer of Illusion magics closed behind him. They hadn’t been assaulted at the last moment. Which was pretty good! Erick had expected an ambush.

Perhaps Marii and her people had actually already killed all ambush-capable forces? That’d be nice. Erick hadn’t seen much of Architect Marii’s place, but already he was interested in what he saw. The idea of scattering the position of a house over several locations was novel to him. Maybe he could even replicate the effect back on Veird, with his cloud castle. You could never have too many defenses, after all.

As Erick followed the caravan into Marii’s hill-spanning castle, he imagined that he would be spending some time here making some new mana-crystal-based magic, for mana crystals were excellent tools for making further magic.

Mana crystals weren’t used on Veird itself, but they were used inside Ar’Cosmos, and other Script-distant lands, like here in the Dark. Maybe some of it could even translate to Veird, so that he could use it in case he ever needed to go past the Edge again.

... Hopefully that would never happen again, but there was a lot of good to be had in preparing for Edge cases.

Erick chuckled to himself at his own joke, as the shimmer separating Marii’s hill from the rest of the world closed behind him.

From this angle, inside the shimmer, Erick looked out across the land, inspecting what he was seeing. Each of the six hills were maybe half a kilometer across at the top, with another half kilometer between them. Marii’s hill had her castle, of course, but the other tops of the other five hills looked like they were green pies, with a large helping of foggy ‘meringue’ on top. That airy, watery, foggy area was probably a major component of the illusion magics that made this place appear on whatever hill Marii decided to appear on... Or something like that.

He’d find out about all that later.

A gate into Marii’s castle held open in front, where soldiers stationed at this base scanned Erick’s rescued people with various magics, and guided refugees to tents and cots and other resting stations inside the castle. Other people started healing the refugees, while the soldiers Erick had gathered began to seamlessly mix into Marii’s forces.

Good.

Erick wouldn’t have to deal with all that organization.

Kinder stood just ahead, having waited for Erick, to say, “Marii will see us, now.”

- - - -

Inside a side room, off the main castle courtyard, Erick met with the woman in charge of this castle.

Marii was a short woman with flaming red hair and bright green eyes, and a rapid, no-nonsense way of speaking, “You’re the rescuer, then? Good. What do you need to kill all the Reds attacking us? Or are you going to coward out and go to the mountains like the rest of the bastards that came this way?”

Her words were spoken with half-inflections, as though she were stating words off of a script that she had never practiced for. She was clearly an NPC, and not really ‘there’, but Erick treated her as he would any person; with as much truth as he could.

“Gonna kill the reds here, so I need access to your mana chambers and I need help identifying the stuff I managed to take back and scavenge from the patrols.”

Marii breathed out a little, and her tone turned easier. “Good answer.” She retrieved a ring from her pocket, and held it out to Erick. The ring had a dull white gem. “Ring of [Identify].”

Erick took the ring—

Marii pointed with her now-free hand. “Mana chambers that way. Don’t break them. They’re all we have left from this location.”

“Meta-iron forging facilities?”

“Through the door next to the mana chambers. Those are hard to replace, too.”

“Do you know how to shape a new meta-iron from old meta-irons?”

“Yes. Melt down the scrap, pour it into a prepared mold. Take the iron out of the mold and clean it up. Runes and words if you want. Prime the iron with several meta-diamonds that you don’t give a shit about, but which are similar to the meta-iron that you want to eventually use, then you break that meta-diamond and start inserting the ones you care about. Test with [Identify] each time you add a new gem to make sure you’re doing it right. Wham bam, there’s your completed item. We done here?”

“... Sure. We’re done.”

Architect Marii walked away. She was busy, apparently.

Erick watched her go for a moment, then he went off to the mana chamber room.

- - - -

The mana chamber room held three different cubes like the ones Erick saw back at the arcanaeum, on floor 1, each of them three meters wide on all sides. A few tables sat opposite the mana chambers, ready with tools of all sorts and to hold whatever projects anyone might be working on. This was clearly a space where many different people could all work on their own projects at the same time.

Erick took up the entire space himself. After having the people he rescued, who held his loot, set out that loot from the R&R missions on the left-most table, Erick began sorting it as he desired, tapping his new Ring of [Identify] on everything, one by one.

Most of the metamonds were attack magics, like [Wind Cutter] and [Fireball]. Most of them, and especially [Fireball], had similar displays to what Erick would expect to find in a blue box from the Script, but different. Erick recalled the standard blue box for [Fireball].

- -

Fireball, instant, long range, 75 mana

Launch a quick ball of fire that explodes on contact, damaging a medium area for 50 + 2x WIL and igniting everything touched, dealing WIL damage per second for 10 seconds.

- -

But the floating text for the [Fireball] of the Glittering Depths read:

Fireball, instant, long range, 75 mana

Launch a quick ball of fire that explodes on contact, damaging a medium area for 100 damage and igniting everything touched, dealing 25 damage per second for 10 seconds.

Mana Density Multiplier: 50%

The damage of the [Fireball] of the Glittering Depths was flat, without any modifiers. Erick suspected it was based on a person with 25 Willpower. This told Erick a lot about a lot, but he’d organize those thoughts later.

That MDM number was concerning. A bunch of the stuff Erick used [Identify] on came back with that ‘Mana Density Multiplier’, but certainly not all. [Wind Cutter] was at 50%, just like [Fireball]. But [Water Bolt] was at 95%. [Stone Shot] didn’t have an MDM.

Didn’t take a genius to understand that every single spell that had a large area of effect component was hit hard by the Mana Density Multiplier. Spells that conjured some solid thing and then threw it, like [Stone Shot], weren’t affected at all.

All the spells inside Erick’s gear, surprisingly, didn’t have an MDM at all. He would have expected a few things, like [Self Rejuvenation] and his Lightning Rod to have that mana density drawback, since they were both buff or debuff spells and those things seemed like they would dissipate in the mana density disparity between his body and the dungeon (or an enemy’s body and the dungeon).

Erick had a quick think.

Spells were like balloons filled with just enough air to fill them out, and not to actually expand them at all. Depending on the environment a spell was cast into, that spell would act based on its environment. Perhaps the best notion of what was happening here, with this MDM entry, was what happened when you cast an air spell underwater, or when you cast a water spell (meant for underwater combat) above water. Or an air spell inside stone (but not really the other way around, since stone was rather non-compressible, in most scenarios.)

At high interior mana pressure as compared to outside space, a spell would either grow physically larger than expected and thus weaker, or fail altogether. At equalized mana pressure, a spell would act as expected, doing what you made it to do. At a high exterior mana pressure, a spell, once cast, would collapse inward, with a smaller area of effect, or fail, as the flows of intent and magic inside the spell could not move as they were made to move.

High exterior mana pressure existed in places like the tunnels near the Core of Veird, where mana flowed through the planet in flying rivers thick enough to see with the naked eye, where monsters roamed in order to naturally draw all that thick mana into their own grand rads. In there, spells didn’t so much fail due to mana pressure... So maybe not like there at all.

That was probably due to the Script, though.

Moving on.

Equalized mana pressure happened almost everywhere else on Veird.

Past the Edge of Veird, and also here, in the Glittering Depths, almost all spells had a higher interior mana pressure than the emptiness everywhere else. So spells like this [Fireball] metamond, which created an effect outside of a body... Had some sort of low multiplier?

Erick wasn’t sure exactly what this ‘multiplier’ meant. Was it a thing that area of effect spells had, to explain how they would act in this environment down here? Or was it a purposeful effect, imposed upon area spells by the dungeon?

... Erick was leaning on the idea that it was some sort of estimated behavior, a way to tell the user that it would have a ‘50% effect’ (whatever that meant) because dungeons were meant to be places of learning. If the dungeon was doing weird shit to your magic, making your magic act in strange ways that it would never act like anywhere else, then those dungeons were generally shit. Grand Dungeons, like these Glittering Depths... Sure, it had a Second Script, but it was meant to be a learning place, and it was a learning place, with lessons that could be learned and then taken outside the dungeon.

... And with that in mind, Erick suspected spells with a low MDM were highly affected by mana density, and spells with a high MDM were not affected at all; spells like [Stone Shot].

Stone Shot, instant, long range, 5 mana

A bolt of stone strikes where you aim.

But [Water Bolt] had a bit of MDM, because it was a ‘splash’.

Water Bolt, instant, long range, 5 mana

A highly distracting bolt of water unerringly splashes a target.

Mana Density Multiplier: 95%

Water was prone to shifts in density a little, so that 95% was understandable, but Water’s malleability was nothing like Fire and Air, while Stone was rock solid through most conjuring, simply because Stone was... Well. Stone.

Bracelet of [Hidden Wind], attuned artifact, 100/100

Step lively through the wind and the light. 1 mana per step.

Shield of [Reflection], unattuned artifact, 250/250

Reflect high-grade and lesser targeted spellwork.

Wand of [Rejuvenation], unattuned artifact, 100/100

For 5 mana, grant a touched target increased healing, condensing a week of recuperation to 10 minutes.

Erick passed his hand across his belt, saying, “This one is perhaps the most interesting.”

Belt of Many Functions, attuned artifact, 50/50, 50/50, 50/50

Blessed Memory, self, perfect buff, 1 mana per minute

Your mind is a palace.

Eternal Benediction, self, perfect buff, 1 mana per minute

Your body is a fortress.

Benediction of the Unseen, self, perfect buff, 1 mana per minute

Mana does not record your presence unless you desire it so.

Mana Density Multiplier: 75%

“I changed up almost everything about the belt. I added mental and physical benediction-class buffs, and I made the [Unsensible] a lot better. Still has that Density Multiplier stuff, though, since it exists partially outside the body. I imagine it’ll tick maybe 10 mana per minute in a full mana vacuum, but that’s still fine.” Erick looked at Kinder, adding, “You want me to make you any copies of any of this? That offer is only if you want to go out and hunt red tabards with me, though.”

Kinder’s mouth hung open as he read the floating text. He was at a loss for words long before Erick began explaining what he had made. It was only several seconds after Erick stopped talking, that Kinder exclaimed, “... HOW?!” And then he gushed, “The mana costs alone are crazy! You actually managed to do a true at-cost [Rejuvenation]?! And what you did to [Unsensible]. Fuck. That’s a lot better than—”

Kinder stopped talking as he realized he was saying too much.

Erick just smiled. “I’ve had a whole lot of practice with spellwork in all sorts of environments long before I came here, Kinder.”

“... Apparently, sir.”

Erick nodded, then asked, “Are you ready to drop this act and tell me why you chose to follow me into this dungeon? Who are you working for?”

With rote practice, Kinder said, “Not sure what that means, sir.” He added, “And I’m working for Insten, for freedom from our oppressors. Same as you.”

“... Sure. I’ll believe you for a while.” Erick began putting on some of the items he had created, starting with the belt. As the metal slipped around his waist Erick gasped at the sudden feeling of his senses heightening and his mind clearing. Once again, he was able to count Kinder’s individual eyelashes, and see all of his various microexpressions that very much separated the man from the NPCs elsewhere in Marii’s keep. The man was barely sweating, but he was still sweating. He was nervous, and well trained not to show it. As Erick felt his body rapidly acclimate to being stronger, and to the entire world feeling less oppressive in gravity, in general exhaustion, and all sorts of ways, Erick said, “Now that’s the good stuff.”

The shield and breastplate remained on the table, for they would be too bulky for what he needed to do next, but Erick put the Bracelet of [Hidden Wind] on his unoccupied wrist. Erick flicked power through the bracelet and the weight of the world seemed to lose its grip on him, as though Erick was airstepping with [Air Body]. Light and Shadow began to bend around him, fucking up his sight and turning the world into the reflection of a carnival mirror, but Erick just waited a moment, and the funhouse effect dimmed as the magic settled down. He could once again see where he was looking, as the magic began to recognize where he was looking and clear a path.

Erick moved his head around, and his clarity of sight lagged behind, but it caught up well enough.

He stepped backward—

And catapulted backward, smashing right into a wall and crashing to the ground, to land on his hands and end the [Hidden Steps] effect. He rose, with all the dignity of a man who had experienced a non-lethal, embarrassing spell malfunction. It was not the first time for Erick. “... That’ll take some practice.”

With wide eyes, and completely glossing over Erick’s malfunction, Kinder said, “You copied Scout’s magic.”

“Aye. Seemed simple enough to make.”

“She got that [Invisible Steps]— [Hidden Steps] is what it’s called. Not [Invisible Steps]. She got that bracelet from the Mountain for meritorious service. Cost them... I’m not sure what it cost them. But I know that those bracelets are near-impossible to get right. You can’t make them with a spell tome.”

Erick smiled again. “I’ve been making magic for a long time, Kinder.” Erick picked up the broken Staff of the Anti-Magus, saying, “And now I’m going to make a sniper metiron, use it to clear out this floor of the dungeon, and then come back here to play around with mana crystals.” He spoke to the air, “If the mana crystals made here still work on Veird, like I think they will, I might spend a good month here playing around with all these mana crystals.”

Words appeared.

Invalid command. Are you in need of special assistance, Ashes Woodfield? Transport to the entrance is just an ask away.

“Nope. Thanks though.” Erick hefted the half staff in his hands, and felt kinda good about the thrill of discovery he was about to embark upon. “Gonna make my own help.” He turned to Kinder, and said, “Tell me if I’m needed to repel an attack, or whatever.”

Kinder slammed his fist against his chest without missing a beat. “Before you do that, sir! We could use that wand of [Drinking Food] for the people, sir!”

“... Oh. Right.” Erick looked to the mana chambers. “I was in there for a while, wasn’t I?”

Kinder added, “And. Uh. Since you made a [Rejuvenation] wand... Few of our healers survived, but Architect Marii has some Healing Magics so we’re limping along, but we don’t got any proper priests with real healing, so we’re kinda hurting. A lot. Any additional healing would help.”

Erick felt a sudden stab of shame. “Right.” Erick put the broken staff back down and grabbed the two requested wands. First thing Erick did was attune the Wand of [Rejuvenation], bringing him up to 10/10 metamonds in use. Attuning took little more than a will-to-power and an empty metamond slot, but un-attuning took 10 minutes, so he couldn’t switch his loadout in combat, but outside of a battle it was easy enough to do that. He’d remove one or both of his utility wands later. For now, the Wand of [Rejuvenation] and the Wand of [Drinking Food] got used. “Let’s go feed and heal some people.”

Kinder almost glowed as a smile broke across his face. “Thank you, sir.”

- - - -

As soon as Erick saw the tired, dirty, hungry, and injured people he had left in the care of the Marii and her people, Erick realized he had fucked up. It didn’t matter if they were all NPCs, and they felt as much real pain as a slime could feel, it was still fucked up to leave them in that pain. Marii was currently kneeling beside a man on a blanket on the ground, trying to heal the man, her hands glowing cerulean blue. It wasn’t working so well. She was covered in blood and she had a bunch of assistants helping her, either with preparing people for healing later, or doing aftercare, but there were at least twenty people that needed healing, and nine of them were comatose. Added to that, there were a hundred other people in the courtyard, and undoubtedly more stuffed away in all parts of the castle. The place was packed before Erick had gotten here with his rescues, and now it was overflowing.

Everyone was getting in everyone’s ways.

Erick needed to take care of the people he already had rescued, if for no other ‘real’ reason than to make sure this place ran better than it currently was. Erick instantly roped Kinder into helping him, but Kinder seemed prepared for that even before Erick asked.

Soon, Erick had gone through the crowd, tapping the most injured people with [Rejuvenation], while Kinder got the kitchens up and running. After Erick was done in the courtyard, he went to those kitchens and held his Wand of [Drinking Food] over a large, self-heating black pot and began filling it up with lukewarm oatmeal, while Kinder got the bowls and spoons ready. Marii’s base was quite large and well defended, but it was meant for a crew of about 20 people. The pipes still carried water into the castle from somewhere, but the place had run out of food as soon as it started taking in refugees, which Erick guessed had started yesterday, and then continued on even after Erick had arrived several hours ago. Erick watched, right then, as the front doors to the courtyard opened and more refugees showed up and filed into the castle.

There were probably 500 or 600 people here, now.

And all of them seemed hungry.

The line to Erick’s food cauldron was thickening up, just like the oatmeal inside the cauldron itself. It actually began to look appetizing, too, once it wasn’t so liquidy. Erick didn’t have to organize anything. The soldiers got that done, while Kinder ladled them bowls. Erick had more mana in him than just for making oatmeal, though, so he tapped the people who passed by with a [Rejuvenation] from his other wand, to ensure everyone was in good, healthy order.

It was simple, good work, even if it was done inside a memory of a land long past, the people were rather more memories than real themselves, and Erick was cutting into his goals of playing around with mana crystals. There was always time to help people, and this way, Erick got a chance to see everyone in the castle.

Two hours later, as the last person passed through with a bowl, Erick offered a tap of [Rejuvenation], but the soldier shook their head. They explained that they had already been through the line three times.

When it was over, Erick happily said to Kinder, “I haven’t been able to do anything that simple and nice for people in a long time. I kinda miss it.”

Kinder side-eyed Erick. “But you do this all the time—? Ah. The healing is new.”

Erick chuckled. “I usually work on a much larger scale than this. It gets impersonal at that scale.”

“You must have hit your head pretty hard out there.”

“I probably did.” Erick stretched, popping his back, and then rolling his shoulders. He put his wands back into his back fannypack, and said, “Time to make a magical sniping staff and kill some memories of Riam.”

Kinder muttered to himself, “Weird coping mechanism, but alright.”

Erick almost tried to prove his sincerity of words with some hard evidence that the people here were not full people, that they were just facsimiles; Erick had seen every single person in the castle as they went through his food line, after all. The easiest ‘proof’ that no one here was real was that the people around here repeated the same words whenever you asked them questions.

A better proof lay in the souls of these NPCs. Every single person in this castle, except for Erick, had a soul as thin and barely-there as a slime. The dungeon had given these NPCs some complicated instructions, for sure. But they were still fake people.

Kinder had some sort of obfuscation on him that made his soul appear like all the rest of the NPCs. Marii had the same thing on her, too... Probably. Marii was much more of an NPC than Kinder. Erick had caught the red-head saying the exact same thing, word for word, to the people she healed more in-depth than Erick was able to heal, which she had continued to do the entire time Erick was making food.

Erick wasn’t going to say anything about souls and the nature of reality to anyone here, though, because that reminded him too much of what Melemizargo used to say about all the people of Veird, except for when he spoke of Erick, Rozeta, or Jane.

- - - -

Magic was weird outside of the Script, Erick thought to himself, as he entered the metiron workshop.

There was no true Mana Altering outside of the Script, for starters.

People were born with the mana they had, and they had to work hard to discover what they were good at, or figure out how to manually Mana Alter, which still wasn’t a pure sort of thing. But in the Script, the Skill Mana Altering allowed anyone to conjure whatever mana they were trying to conjure from the shared pool of Script mana that everyone contributed to.

Erick had long ago learned aura control, and singing to the mana to ‘flavor’ his own mana properly, but if he was casting, for instance, a plain [Water Bolt] or other basic Water spell from the Script, then the Script would give him Water mana for that spell. If he were to hum the tune of Elemental Water, what he was truly doing there was helping the mana, and thus the Script, to properly target Water mana to give him for that Water Magic.

Casting Water Magic on his own, through aura control and Benevolence and self-creation, was a lot more difficult. He could still manually Mana Alter, of course. Not only did Benevolence lend itself very well to becoming any Element Erick wanted it to become, but Erick was also rather good at manual magic.

And, of course, mana was possibility, and possibility can change if it is sufficiently primed to change.

That’s what the Glittering Depths was doing here with mana crystals.

Mana crystals, on their own, were very, very good at innately Mana Altering all the mana that passed through them. This was because mana crystals, much like Erick singing to the mana, caused a harmonic convergence in the nearby mana, which propagated a localized change in the nature of the mana that passed through or near the mana crystal.

So what happened here, with these metirons and metamonds, was that people pumped mana into their meta-irons, and the metiron would act as a conductor for the metamonds, allowing that mana to pass through that metamond, which was a mana crystal chock full of alterings, shapings, and the imbuing of intent, to create magic. That magic would then get conducted back through the metiron, and happen as it was directed to happen.

People were able to make mana do the same sort of things through other sorts of enchanted objects, like wands of [Fireball] on Veird, made with various Elemental Fire materials and spellwork, or like with Erick’s manalight-infused All Stat rings, which was a resonance of a different sort. That particular resonance between wavelength of light and Script-assigned colors caused a confluence of reactions in a soul which caused an empowerment of Stats. Even runed metals, as one would use in a runic web or other sorts of enchantments, were just words inscribed into metal so that the Script and mana itself could understand and then act upon those words. All of magic and enchanting were simply ways for people to communicate with the mana, and for the mana to respond back.

What this dungeon was doing with mana crystals was like... Higher order mana crystal magic.

Erick had some experience with mana crystals before, but not nearly enough. Here, in this dungeon, he was getting some rather good experience.

And so, Erick picked up the broken Staff of the Anti-Magus and rolled the meter-long length of silver metal in his hands. He inspected the tangle of wires and branch-like extensions at the top of the staff.

He considered Mana Altering, and he wondered what he wanted to make of this weapon, exactly. Through some clever combinations of the basic six types of metamonds he had found on the battlefields outside (or been rewarded for rescuing people), Erick could make literally any small magic he desired. He didn’t simply have access to Stone and Water, he also had Ooze when Stone and Water came together, and if he added in a twist of the right Intent, he had Elemental Tree.

He could even take some Elemental Healing, throw some proper Bloody intent at it, and make Elemental Blood, even though he had no Elemental Blood starter metamonds at all.

... Erick hummed at that thought.

Elemental Blood might be one of the best options for offensive use here, in the Glittering Depths, where most people didn’t have Health, since Health was the primary way in which Blood Magic was defended against. Any Blood Magic would probably rip through the NPC enemies out there like a knife through paper.

And Erick had Health, now, so he wouldn’t be vulnerable to his own weapon. All he needed to do was wear that Breastplate of [Health Regeneration] he had made earlier. That’d be 1000 Health right there, which was a lot for the average person to have.

And yet, as Erick set down the broken staff, and went over to the modeling wax, he considered the wider implications of creating a super-weapon inside this dungeon. He was rather sure that he could do exactly that, too; he could make a super weapon.

Here, in this dungeon, Erick could make an auto-killing magic that could shoot as fast as an automatic machine gun, firing auto-targeting [Blood Bolt]s that mowed down whole groups of people. Such a creation was what the dungeon wanted for the completion of floor 2, after all. A super weapon that could alter the course of war.

... Erick did not like killing people, even if they were ‘not real’.

He much preferred helping people.

Looking back on it, he was kinda appalled how easily he had devolved into killing those Riam soldiers, in the Rescue and Revenge quests. Usually he tried to talk down situations like this, but then again, usually he was far and away the most powerful person in... Well almost the whole world, actually. On Veird, he could force people to bend to his will, and ensure everyone came out the other side of those confrontations without getting messed up too much.

But here, at this lower power level, Erick had gone with the flow of the dungeon, and killed people he would have otherwise tried to ‘save’... Even though there is no saving any of these people.

They weren’t real. They couldn’t actually be saved.

People had tried to save NPCs they found in dungeons long before now. Usually what happened was a person had to physically drag their desired NPC out of a dungeon, because the NPC would never go willingly. The NPC would usually be screaming and fighting their captor the whole way, too, because they knew that absolute death awaited them if they stepped outside of a dungeon. Which is exactly what would happen in almost all cases. An unawakened NPC would break like shattered magic long before they reached the dungeon entrance.

But sometimes, some NPCs would wander to the dungeon entrance on their own, notice the barrier that their friends couldn’t even see, and then they would step through, and become a real person. If Erick weren’t so sure that Kinder was already a real person, pretending to be fake, then he would try to rescue the man from the Glittering Depths, or at least show him the front door.

He had done that a lot when he helped Destiny to liberate the Freelands and their slave dungeons, all those years ago.

Was this another one of those situations? Was the Glittering Depths a slave dungeon?

Probably not.

There was no real danger that Erick was killing real people, here. Any weapon he made would just get used against NPCs, which, while horrible, wasn’t all that bad.

But people and ideas and objects came out of dungeons all the time. Memories and possibilities in the mana turned from subjective Reality, to mundane factual reality. And in that case...

Erick looked down at the blocks of wax he was about to carve, and at the weapon he was about to make...

This weapon would be real.

As Erick considered what he was going to make, he knew for a fact that he could reproduce this weapon outside of the Glittering Depths, as soon as he figured out a way to make mana crystals on Veird.

He could always ‘tunnel’ out of the Glittering Depths into another dungeon somewhere nearby, like Kiri had done during her Worldly Path. She had gone into the Grand Dungeon at Freeland and come out at the Benevolence Grand Dungeon at Candlepoint. Erick could maybe do the same thing and bring an intact meta-weapon out onto Veird, or at least the mana crystals, which was the big thing.

Maybe. It might work that way.

Anyway!

Erick didn’t have [Metalshape] here in this dungeon, so he had to do this the long way.

He grabbed some bulk wax and some heated wands and sculpting tools, and began fashioning the general shape of the weapon he would make out of the broken ‘Staff of the Anti-Magus’. The base metal was already primed to cut through magical defenses, if Erick was understanding that wording correctly, so that was his starting position. All of that would probably vanish as soon as he turned the metal liquid, though.

So really, Erick could make anything he wanted...

Form follows function, and Erick had some functions he might be putting into this weapon already. Those functions weighed on Erick’s mind, and in his fanny pack. They had all been tests; little more than aura controlled mana, cycled down to crystal and imbued with perfect intent, even if the final product remained unknown, for now.

And that had worked out well, because Erick was very good at making magic, and this stuff was the most basic magic there was.

Long Bolt, instant, long range, 5 mana

A bolt unerringly strikes a distant target.

Targeted Insta-Bolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

Aim a bolt to unerringly and near-instantly strike a specific area on a target.

Bleeding Bolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

A bolt of blood unerringly strikes a target, causing the target to bleed.

Burrowing Bolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

A bolt of burrowing force unerringly strikes a target, inflicting deep damage

Decay Bolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

A bolt of spreading decay unerringly strikes a target, inflicting a spreading rot.

Explosion Bolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

A bolt of explosive force unerringly strikes a target, and detonates.

Multi-Bolt, instant, long range, 10 mana

A bolt of force homes onto a target, before splitting and inevitably striking multiple times.

All of them were created with the lowest power settings that Erick could manage; 2-to-5 mana for a delivery system and the rest of the spell cost for the desired effect. Separately, they were almost useless. On Veird, under the Script, not a single one of these spells would do more than 10 or 25 damage to a person. That [Bleeding Bolt] would probably hit for no actual damage at all, cause a bleed only if it hit a vulnerable area, and then prevent a body from naturally staunching that bleed for maybe ten seconds, at most. But together, and here in the dungeon where no one had any Health, this sort of combination would be devastating against a single target.

Which is exactly what Erick planned to use them for.

So Erick sculpted wax in the shape of a sniper staff.