Chapter 241, 1/2

Chapter 241, 1/2

“This is all such a terrible idea and I shouldn’t make a repro, because I’m rather damned sure that I don’t want to be here at all,” Poi exclaimed, “Because Holy Gods Above, this is such a terrible idea.” Poi stared at Erick and Erick 2, and said, “But the world needs me to stand up, and so I will stand up.”

Erick had left the slime dungeon a few hours ago and immediately asked for Poi to join them, to discuss adding his repro to the dungeon, to help combat the possible memetic-angle to the Sundering search. Poi’s initial answer had been a resounding, ‘Yes, but,’ with a lot of rather prudent words about ultimate goals and otherwise, and that he’d need to meet ‘Erick 2’ before he made any real decision.

Then there were a bunch of concerned words about Erick’s mental state. No one should be subject to the sorts of stresses that Erick was now subject to, and the Sundering Search should not happen, but reality was not very kind to Wizards, it seemed.

And now they were here, in the slime dungeon, in the ‘house at Spur’, with Poi, Erick, and Erick 2 sitting in the kitchen. Poi had walked into the house not 2 minutes ago. There had been no ‘hello’s or ‘how are you, Erick 2’s, because Poi was Poi, and Erick was Erick, even though one of the Ericks was actually Erick 2. Almost instantly he had delivered his penultimate decree on the subject of a Poi-repro.

Erick 2 said, “But there’s more to it than that.”

And Poi nodded. “There’s a recent trend among Mind Mage dungeon masters going around Nelboor that I want to try. You put me to sleep, then you apply the slime, then you keep us both asleep until the repro is fully developed, and whoever wakes up as whoever is who they are from then on. Since your [Sleep]-like spell works well enough as [Sleep], we can do it this way; otherwise we’d need another Mind Mage to help with this, but we don’t have one of those.

“This is a way for us to see each other without the other’s thoughts influencing ours before we’re ready.

“But also: Neither me nor ‘Poi 2’ are going to become other people. We’ll go a step beyond the dual-[Sleep] set up, and do a [Hive Mind] meld. Whoever is the original will go back to Spur— Sorry. Candlepoint...” Poi looked at the house again. And then he focused. “The original will go back, and the repro will stay, and we’ll do a little [Hive Mind] magic so that we’re both the same person from now on. But we won’t physically meet each other at all.”

Erick went, “Ah?”

“You can do that?” Erick 2 asked.

“You can’t. I can... Theoretically. I know the magic, but I haven’t actually done this yet. [Hive Mind] is a spell that we use for cooperative casting but it sort of fell out of popularity with the rise of [Renew]. I still learned the proper way to do cooperative casting, because it’s the proper way to do that sort of thing.” Poi added, “[Hive Mind] will also be useful for keeping everyone in House Benevolence apprised of this situation.”

Erick 2 asked, “Well then? Should we do this?”

Erick could tell that Erick 2 was going too fast, and on purpose, but he could hardly blame the guy. He wanted his friend to be here with him in this trying time. That was why Erick wanted Poi here to begin with, but now that Poi was here, Erick saw that Erick 2 needed him a lot more than Erick did.

Poi leveled an easy glare at Erick 2, saying, “You and my repro are going to talk a lot when this is over. And you need a proper name. I suggest something culturally significant, possibly meaning peaceful and good, so that when the Dark tries to twist you to his ways, your very name will remind you of who and what you are, Erick. Not ‘Erick 2’.”

Erick watched as Erick 2’s breath hitched.

Erick 2 wiped away an unruly tear, saying, “I’m glad you’re here, Poi.”

Poi nodded. “I am, too.”

Erick suggested, “Halcyon?”

Poi said nothing.

Erick 2 eventually said. “... That’s too ‘in the past’.”

“Oh!” Erick suggested, “Solomon.”

As soon as Erick said the name, he knew it was going to be the one. There was just too much meaning attached to it to not be perfect. ‘King of Peace and Wisdom’. It even had ‘Sol’ in the name.

“I kinda like that one... I really like that one.” Erick 2 smiled, and said, “Okay. I guess I’ll be ‘Solomon’, then. It even has ‘Sol’ in the name.”

Erick smiled, saying, “Nice to meet you, Solomon.”

Solomon chuckled. “I even look like an aged king now.”

Poi breathed deep, then said, “Glad to solve that problem. Now let’s get me a repro and we can figure out solving all the rest of the problems to come, for both my repro and Solomon won’t be tied too hard to the dungeon as soon as there are 2 masters here.” Poi looked at Solomon, and said, “Because you’re not a hermit, and I don’t want you to become one, either.”

Solomon smiled wide. “Thank you, Poi.”

Poi breathed deep, and then walked off toward Erick’s— Toward Solomon’s mage tower. Erick and Solomon followed. Poi plucked a crystal-sealed dungeon master slime from the asteroid belt, and then walked back down the hall to his room, carrying the softly-developing slime in his blue-scaled hands.

Soon, Solomon laid Poi 2 down on a [Duplicate] of Poi’s bed, inside Poi 2’s room, while Original Poi was already asleep on ‘his’ bed, for he had put himself to [Sleep].

Erick stood back beside Solomon, and asked, “Want to try for a [Hive Mind]? We might be able to swing it with some Wizardry.”

“No,” Solomon said. “I am... Really glad to have Poi here, though.”

“Me, too. He made a lot of things rather clear back there.”

Solomon nodded. “I think my thoughts on the function of this dungeon have matured, too. We can’t make any effective changes to the Rules and thus the space for another week, but when we can, I’m thinking that instead of having Jane explore the Dark by making repros and breaking cores all over the world, we instead make some Well-like [Scry Mirror]s in here, that allow us to [Scry] the entire Dark, and maybe even walk in the Dark.” He added, “It’d probably take some Wizardry to make that happen, but we can figure that out, and maybe, through that, we can figure out exactly why you’re not able to become a Full Wizard.”

Erick smiled as he said, “Sounds like the wisdom of Solomon to me. Are you going to be conjuring demons next?”

Solomon laughed. “I could!” And then he paused. “... No. Not demons. But a...”

Solomon frowned a little, his eyes glancing toward Ophiel, where before he had dutifully not looked at his former [Familiar] at all. Erick wasn’t going to say anything about that, but the only one who hadn’t noticed Solomon’s tension at not looking upon Ophiel was Ophiel, who had been quiet until then.

But now Ophiel asked, “What goes?”

Solomon smiled, and said, “Nothing, Ophiel.”

Ophiel nodded on Erick’s shoulder and returned to just observing the world. Most of his attention was out with the slimes on the dungeon floor, anyway, as he had moved in another of his bodies to take a slime form, and to play with the slimes while his father and Solomon talked about stuff. Ophiel often checked out of these sorts of small talks, so what he was doing now was nothing special. Except Erick could see how Ophiel’s distance was hurting Solomon.

Solomon saw Erick see him. So Solomon shrugged, tried to put on a smile, and said, “Maybe, when he separates... Can you bring him here? Or one of him, maybe—” He shook his head, looking away as he mumbled, “No. Wait. Forget I said that.”

Erick instantly said, “Ophiel. You wanted slime-time, right?”

Solomon’s breath hitched—

As Ophiel focused all of his attention on Erick, asking, “Slime time?!”

Erick said, “Why don’t you play slime time with Solomon here?”

Ophiel flickered, eyes opening all across him, as he took in Solomon and declared, “Slime time!”

“Solomon slime time!” Solomon said, as he turned into a light slime.

Erick’s repro was a slime as brilliant as a minor sun, shimmering with white iridescence, as he activated his Sun Form at minimal power. Solomon bounced away, putting a whole lot of effort into looking like a slime and acting like a slime, except when he turned to light and just flickered through the window.

Ophiel followed instantly, trilling in jubilant violin sounds and then making a whole lot of clatter as he broke the window going through it. He paused to fix the window, and then he kept right on going, bounding after Solomon, up through the dark hole in the ceiling of the cavern, onto the dungeon floor.

Erick watched Ophiel play with Solomon, and felt great about that.

It kinda reminded Erick of how a child would play with a family member that they had forgotten about, all distant and worried, but willing to try. And then Ophiel got into the groove, bouncing after Solomon trying to give chase as a slime, both of them winding up all the slimes all around as they played among the fountains and pools. Something like unfamiliar recognition took hold inside Ophiel after just a minute of play.

They recognized Solomon as Erick, but not as Erick at all, both Ophiel out there squeaking in unsure guitar and agitated flute sounds, before erupting in triumphant violin sounds. And then the chase began for real, as Ophiel tried to understand what he was seeing.

Another Ophiel popped into the room with Erick, having lightstepped here to check on him, before going back out to the dungeon floor to play with the bright light slime that really looked like Erick’s slime form. All three Ophiel seemed to be having a lot of fun with Solomon, even if they knew something was up, and they didn’t quite understand.

As Erick watched them play, he wondered...

If Quilatalap didn’t want to be a secondary father to Ophiel, Solomon was another good choice. He obviously wanted the job of ‘father’... Except.

“Maybe I’d call Solomon an ‘uncle’. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea that I’ve married my repro.” Erick shivered as he recalled some stories which had appeared in newspapers and Knowledge Mage briefings across the world. Erick was already the talk of the world over, from what restaurants he ate at, to where he got clothes, and even his pooping habits. That last story was a particularly odd one to read about. Erick did not want to be subject to any sort of incestuous public ridicule. Erick shivered again. After that passed, and as he watched Solomon play with Ophiel, bounding up and down slides and splashing water, and playing with the other slimes who decided to play, Erick decided, “Solomon would be a fantastic uncle, though.”

- - - -

Erick watched over Poi and Poi while the first one slept and the second one was still making himself into a person.

Solomon spent two hours playing with Ophiel and exploring all of the first floor with him in the process. Erick tagged along through Ophiel’s eyes occasionally. There wasn’t a whole lot to explore up there, as the entire floor was basically a kiddie water park, but it was still important to do that exploration.

There was not a single dangerous spot for any slime to be in that entire land, and there weren’t any moving parts anywhere on the entire floor, for all the water features were cleaned and set into motion through basic [Ward]s set here and there in the deeper parts of the water park. There were no underground levels that could trap anyone, and the largest drop from one height to the next was less than a meter. Any drops above a meter always had water pools at the bottom, and the slimes —and Ophiel— loved rolling over those drops and plopping into the water.

The only ominous part of the entire floor was the Dark, located all around.

A tall rink rimmed the dungeon, separating the parts where slimes played freely under prismatic lights, and the desolate black beyond. That black oozed and pulsed here and there, like vertical waters misted over with gloom. It churned occasionally, as though great beasts swam just beyond the veil.

The slimes knew nothing of the danger just beyond the dungeon, for the rink around the land was ten meters tall in most places, and twice that thick. That rink served as a white stone beach, where most of the golems were located, each of them looking like simple egg-shaped stones 2 meters tall.

Erick suspected that those golems would unfurl into threatening things if any unapproved existence came near them at all. He was proven right soon enough. When Ophiel and Solomon went by, the white eggs did unfurl a little bit, but then they went right back to being egg-shaped and Ophiel and Solomon went back down into the dungeon floor. There were a few egg-shaped stones here and there on the dungeon floor, too, but, according to the dungeon status sheet, there were only 500 of them, and from what Erick was seeing that 500 number was likely correct. Over a hundred square kilometers of white stone land, they were few and far between, with most of them on the walls.

Erick tried not to watch Solomon play slime-time with Ophiel too much, for both of them were having a blast, and Erick did not intrude. But he couldn’t help but watch now and then.

When Solomon came back inside the house, smiling and tired and human-shaped, with Ophiel on his shoulder, Erick decided to just tell him.

“I want you to be Ophiel’s uncle,” Erick said.

“Yes,” Solomon replied instantly, a tight, worried, relieved, and joyful expression rapidly passing across his face, and onto the rest of him—

Ophiel chirped and flitted from Solomon’s shoulder to Erick’s asking, “What uncle?”

“Solomon here is like my brother, Ophiel,” Erick said.

“No no! He repro!” Ophiel said, “I know.”

Solomon chuckled.

“Yes, Ophiel; Solomon is my repro, but that means he’s also exactly like me. So he can be like your uncle. You can always come here and look to him for help with anything, okay?”

Ophiel flitted off of Erick’s shoulder and landed on Solomon’s. He looked Solomon in the eyes with all of his own eyes, saying, “You other-father.”

Solomon smiled. “No no. ‘Uncle’. Don’t want people thinking I’m romantically involved with Erick.”

Erick chuckled a little bit in embarrassment.

Ophiel would get it right eventually.

But for now, Erick sat down with Solomon and they spoke of magics to come, of Dark Mirrors to be made at the edge of the dungeon space, and of changes to the dungeon itself in order to solidify it against potential Primal Lightning, or Evil gods, or whatever might appear. While they did that, they watched Poi 2 gradually and inexorably become a copy of Poi 1.

- - - -

Poi and Poi 2 woke up together under Erick and Solomon’s watch.

The original looked to the repro, and the repro looked to the original.

Poi 2 said, “Well shit.”

Poi 1 said, “At least we know this style of waking up together lessens the mental trauma.”

“Of course, we already knew it would work—”

“—but thinking and experiencing are different.” Poi 1 got out of bed, saying to Erick, “Transport back to Candlepoint, please.”

“Is that it?” Erick asked, too many things happening too fast. What about acclimation? What about some time spent together? What about propriety and acknowledging what a big deal this was? “What about [Hive Mind]?”

“Already active,” Poi 2 said, also getting out of bed. “You can stop calling me ‘Poi 2’, by the way.”

Poi 1 and Poi 2 spoke in alternating words.

“We’re—” “—The—” “—Same—” “—Person—” “—In—” “—Most—” “—Ways.” “The—” “—Only—” “—Way—” “—We’re—” “—Different—” “—Is—” “—In—” “—Dungeon—” “—Control.”

“Please call—”

“—Us both Poi.”

One Poi walked out of the room, eager to be separate, while the other remained behind, looking stoic and ready to work.

It was still very weird.

After dinner the extra Janes all disavowed their dungeon master status. Prismatic mist spilled out from their bodies. That mist flowed into the air, and then vanished, while Poi and Solomon proclaimed that they were once again the only dungeon masters in the group. The status screen of the dungeon said as much, too.

The extra Janes were very eager to leave, to start delving in the canyon to get their base mana production up. Why were they so eager? A bunch of reasons. Erick didn’t think about all those reasons. The girls left.

Solomon tagged along.

And then it was just Poi and Erick in the house again.

Erick sipped his after dinner tea, while Poi did the same.

Erick whispered, “Holy shit this is gonna be an experience.”

Poi nodded, then said, “Not to break Mind Mage protocol too much, but everyone here is way too tense around everyone else. You’re all worried about how the other feels and if they’ll be disappointed in you, but you all actually feel the same way; It’s just a lot of love, Erick.”

“If she loves me, then why doesn’t she want to be near me?”

“She’s worried about eliciting any form of disappointment from you at all, for if you show disappointment, that means that you cannot connect to her how she wants you to connect, because if you were connecting how she wanted that connection, then you would be automatically be proud of her— And yes, I know you are proud of her, Erick, and she knows that you are proud of her, too.” Poi said, “But she’s hyper-sensitized. If you show her that you’re always proud of her, then she’ll think it’s fake; that you’re putting on the ‘parent persona’ in order not to harm her emotionally. If you show disappointment, then you just don’t understand her. There is literally no winning that sort of ‘fight’, because it’s not a fight. It’s just a parent-child relationship that is growing apart, because it’s normal for children to want to have their own lives away from their parents, but you two are a special case, because Jane literally will never, ever, ever, be able to get out from under your light. She knows that, and you know that, too.”

Erick stared out at nothing as he listened to truths he already knew.

“You’re a good father, Erick,” Poi said. “Jane turned out well.”

Erick smiled softly. “Yeah she did.” He sighed, banished his worried thoughts, and said, “I’m thinking I should make a few more All-Seeing Eyes, but I need the proper environment for that. Would you mind me stepping out for an hour or two? I think I need to go to the Well to ask a question about Wizardry.”

Poi smiled softly. “I’m fine here, Erick.”

“Are you really, though? You talked about Solomon becoming a hermit down here, but I don’t want you to be alone, either.” Erick rapidly added, “I’ll leave Ophiel here.”

Poi chuckled. “I am more connected to the rest of the world than you are. I might physically look alone, but I am not alone at all. It’s much more important for Solomon to get out there than it is for me, which is about 40% of the reason I decided to do this repro thing anyway.”

“... Okay. Well. I know Solomon appreciates you being here, and I do, too. He certainly was in a darned hurry to get out of here, wasn’t he.”

Poi smirked. “He was.”

Erick thought. “... You know... Could we restructure this dungeon in order to grant connected-dungeon-masters base mana production, from the killing of slimes in the dungeon? So that none of them need to actually leave to kill things if they don’t want to? Take the base production of dead slimes and apply them to the masters?” Ophiel twittered in concerned noises on Erick’s shoulder, and Erick frowned at himself. “Ahh... I don’t want to kill any of the slimes, though. I suppose. I like that the slimes are just... living up there.”

Poi focused on some thought tendrils trailing out of his mind. “Hold on one second.” Poi stared at the air for a moment, concentrating... “This is more difficult than Solomon made it look— There we go.”

A black screen with white lettering appeared.

- -

Slime manifestations (Daily): 19,300

Slime deaths (Daily): 18,900

Ooze deaths (Daily): 16

Other deaths (Daily): ~0

- - -

“Takes a bit to figure out how to make a new screen from scratch. Anyway.” Poi said, “The guardians are very good at killing the oozes that naturally appear, but oozes eat the slimes every now and then. From what I’m seeing there also appears to be a lot of natural death; this is a mature dungeon, and slimes do just die from flopping too hard sometimes. Theoretically, you wouldn’t need to kill slimes in order to take their mana regen for yourself at all; you could simply take advantage of all that natural death.

“But.

“Like how farmers can’t gain experience from monster cows they raise on the Surface, masters cannot gain mana from their own dungeon; it’s an in-built limit to the system. Even if we made big monsters that were actually worth mana production, then we wouldn’t get mana production from killing them.”

Erick said, “And then there’s that whole ‘challenges that grant base mana creation have to be challenges’.”

Poi smiled. “I’m pretty sure that a Wizard could break all of those limitations, but this change to normal operations is not a switch that can be flipped; the switch must first be created.”

Erick’s mind wandered in thought, and then he glanced at his empty wrist, where his gold staff no longer was. “Solomon should be able to overcome whatever challenges exist in the other dungeons, but I’m not sure if the staff will actually count as his.”

Poi shrugged. “You’ve been awake for about 3 days straight now. Are you going to continue that?”

Erick chuckled. “Ahhh... I probably should sleep... Later. I’ll sleep later.”

Poi nodded, then said, “Another switch that I feel you could easily add would be a switch to change that timer; to allow the creation of new Rules faster than the 8 day delay demands.”

- - - -

As Erick flew through the sky, taking the long way to get to the Well amid Ascendant City, he had a lot of thoughts about a lot of things.

Poi had thrown him for a heavy loop.

Primary among Erick’s thoughts was the desire to figure out what action he could take right now, and in the coming days, which could set this Sundering search on a good path to success. There had been a lot of talk about a bunch of various directions they could go, and Jane was already doing all of what she had originally wanted to do, but that was Jane, and Erick... Erick had different ‘needs’.

Did he actually want to resurrect every single person lost in the Darkness?

To ‘go back in time’, like Poi suggested, and pull every single dead person to this present and make them into new people? Even putting aside the idea of ‘can I actually do this’, such an action would have a catastrophic effect on all godly domains, would it not? Dead souls went to the gods they worshiped or cared about, in order to become one with that god and with all others who had gone to that god before. Resurrecting people from the past would disrupt that, right?

Added to that, this whole way that ‘divine power’ worked, reminded Erick of dungeon cores, but different. Dungeon cores had been purposefully built not to allow their masters to gain power, but gods gained power from people who worshiped them, no matter how that worship took place. Could cores be Wizarded to do exactly what they had been created to not do, and bring power from the dying inhabitants directly to their dungeon masters, as gods did with people born on Veird?

But beyond that...

Erick felt like he was facing choice-paralysis.

And yet, he needed to make choices, because the only thing worse than making a bad choice when facing a crisis, like this Sundering search, was making no choice at all.

Usually it was a lot easier for him to see the path forward, but everything had gotten cloudy lately.

As Erick flew across the crystal-tower sky, and watched shadelings down below go about their days, Erick was very glad that Poi had chosen to make a repro, and that they were [Hive Mind]ed together. Talking to ‘Other Poi’ was just like talking to Poi, because it was talking to Poi.

And Poi had a lot of good ideas, and he had already brought some crucial artifacts to the table. Erick wasn’t sure how all those Mind Magic artifacts would work out, but he was pretty sure that all three of those Wizard-level artifacts would be absolutely necessary going forward. Especially that anti-anti-meme shackle.

As Erick stepped down onto white stone, in front of the archway to the Well, he was not on any real visible ‘path’, but his thoughts on the next steps began to crystallize. He was beginning to know his direction forward again, besides just putting one foot in front of the other. He still did that too, of course, as he continued forward, beyond the archway under the Throne of Melemizargo, to enter the dungeon with the Well. Erick had come here to ask a question, and as he stood inside that grand space, Erick felt that he actually knew what he would be doing next.

He’d be doing Wizardry, of course, but with a twist.

First, he’d be trying to figure out what Wizardry was, exactly. And through that, maybe everything else would flow easier, because there was no way that in the entire Old Cosmology other Wizards hadn’t faced the same sort of trouble Erick was facing right now with becoming a True Wizard.

Erick stood upon white stone, under a black roof. The black pool rested undisturbed by anything or anyone, beyond a gold line in the ground, and then beyond even more white stone and the barest lip in the white floor. Erick stepped forward, past that gold line.

Erick filled his voice with purpose, as he asked, “In the entirety of the Old Cosmology, someone must have made a manaminer that helped with ascension to True Wizardry. How can I add that functionality to my slime dungeon, in order to guide me to becoming a True Wizard?”

Erick’s voice was a low rumble that set the water to rippling. His voice flowed over the Well, and the Well flickered with even more ripples here and there that rapidly expanded and then flattened, like Erick’s voice had touched off hidden things in the Dark, and those Dark things had turned the water to flat ice, to glass.

Opaque black water became a Dark Mirror.

A land appeared beyond that mirror. A land where the land curled up instead of out and down out of sight. Oceans rose in the distance, and all the world was inverted. A blue sphere hung in the center of the sky.

The view shifted to a land of white buildings on a green peninsula, where islands grew beyond that peninsula. The first island held a palace. The second island held a slightly smaller tower. The third held a temple that was smaller yet. The fourth island was half-buried under ocean waves.

The image focused on that tower, on that second island.

It was the Grand Wizard’s Tower in the Core of Veird, where Erick had spent a while on his Worldly Path. It was where he had first learned of what Wizardry could really do. It was where he had made [Renew]. It was also where Erick had gained his Second Status, under the Script, and Rozeta’s kill switch had been implanted into him, so that if he should ever go rogue that she could end him with a thought, or at the very least extract him from the Script entirely. Neither Erick or Rozeta ever fully spoke on what that ‘kill switch’ was, exactly, because neither of them truly wished to threaten the other, or even give the appearance of threatening—

The image changed.

The Core vanished in the sky. The world unfurled; continents and oceans no longer stretched up. A horizon formed, becoming real, and flat. The sky unfurled in radiance and illumination from a billion distant suns, and the empty Grand Tower changed.

Where once there was nothing but memory, now there were people. Humans and angels. There went a centaur-thing, cantering alongside a winged woman. A small squad of bird people flocked overhead, setting down onto the top of the tower alongside other lunch-goers. A mass of tentacles served ice-cream-like treats to several very small blue people, and then the blue people went back to their small group under the sun, to discuss advanced mathematics, or whatever those squiggles meant on those very large books. Out in front, among the gardens and the walls, a white dragon walked the grounds, breathing fire at an invasive vine. That vine was growing over the statues of famous Wizards, but the vine was also a cultivated sort; the dragon was just keeping it contained to its planter boxes.

A 2 meter tall god in gold and white walked alongside a person that was both a 2 meter tall floating cyan crystal and a heart-like structure in the center of that cyan crystal. They spoke of something, as they walked into the tower—

Erick suddenly looked back toward the dragon.

It was a white dragon. Long and sinuous. And it looked young. The horns were very slightly different, but...

“Is that Rozeta?” Erick whispered to himself.

The Well heard him anyway.

The Well surged upward, flowing all around Erick in a mesmerizing display of Darkness—

- - - -

Rozeta whipped around inside the Core, her eyes scanning the world. All she saw was Blue and Everything, and while a lot of particulars were exactly where they should have been, a few things were... Out of place. Moving weirdly.

Not on the Surface, or near the Geodes, but...

Rozeta pulled her eyesight inward. The Core was fine. Ten thousand pop-ups of problems appeared every minute and she was putting them down even faster, making right what people had mishandled, but other than that, the Core was fine. The Primal Lightning monitors were silent, as they had been for the last 1450 years, except for when Erick had made Benevolence and the pure visual similarity had triggered those warnings...

Everything was fine...

Right?

Rozeta looked to the sandbox part of the Script that held Erick’s connection, and yes, he had added another repro to that connection, but that was expected, and her and her father had already discussed that. Rozeta wasn’t sure how she felt about the name ‘Solomon’, for it felt too Significant, but it wasn’t nearly as Significant as ‘Yggdrasil’ had been, which was probably more of a matter of four gods putting Yggdrasil together...

So what had made her feel—

... A [Scrying] feeling? Is that what she was feeling? What the fuck? No. That couldn’t be right. No one could [Scry] on her, and especially not here. And yet, Rozeta knew the feeling of being [Scry]ed upon, for recognizing when one was being [Scry]ed was a skill that she had learned to develop so very long... ago...

Rozeta narrowed her eyes on reality.

Another alarm went off, right before Rozteta knew it would.

“What the fuck are you doing now, Erick.”

- - - -

The Darkness faded, and Erick was not where he should have been.

The sky held a blue sphere the size of a large moon. Clouds layered between the ocean ahead, and that sphere above.

The ocean was definitely curving upward, along with the coast line, and the continents in the distance, only disappearing from sight when the pure volume of atmosphere between here and there became too much for light to pass through unobstructed.

Erick turned to his right.

Rozeta, in her white wrought human form, tersely said, “Welcome back to the Core, Erick. What brings you by?”

“Strangely enough, the search for Wizardry solutions.” Erick said, “I was thinking of making a dungeon that would help with the ascent to True Wizardry, and so I asked the Well how to theoretically go about that.” Erick turned around and looked up at the Grand Wizard Tower of the Old Cosmology, which reminded him a whole bunch of House Benevolence or the towers of Oceanside, or the tower at Archmage’s Rest by Stratagold. This one remained completely devoid of all inhabitants, though. “The Well showed me this place as it used to be, back in the Old Cosmology. It also showed me either a young-you, or a relative, for the horns were very similar but not exactly the same. Whoever it was, she was tending to overgrowing vines over all those statues of Old Wizards.”

Rozeta’s lips were a thin line. “... I see.”

Erick waited.

“She was my mother. Her name was Liliandroza and she was more than a gardener, but that is what she loved, and so that is what she did.” Rozeta turned and walked up the beach, saying, “Let’s have this talk inside.”

Ophiel chirped on Erick’s shoulder as Erick followed Rozeta up the beach, into the Grand Wizard’s Tower. Only one Ophiel had come with Erick, so he began summoning the rest, bringing him back up to 10. Those other Ophiel began spreading out, as Erick walked alongside Rozeta, down a path toward the tower ahead, where the double doors sat open and inviting.