Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 110, 1/2 + map of Ar'Kendrithyst

Dressed in good clothes, but wrapped in his white [Conjure Armor], Erick’s booted feet sunk ever so slightly into the sands of the Crystal Forest. To the left and the right were shadows, deep and threatening, but they did not reach him, for the light of the sun and the Dead City stretched out through the Crack, to light the way forward, into danger, into the dragon’s maw. Wind flowed through the red and purple break in the wall, shredding on crystal, whistling a tune of desolation.

A woman stood in the Crack, waiting for Erick to acknowledge her, or whatever it was she was waiting for.

Wild, white hair. Tanned skin. Shimmering black clothes, that were almost like a tuxedo. Shade Fallopolis held a spike of Kendrithyst in her left hand, as she called out a welcome, her bright white eyes shining even brighter as she Named Erick like he was a phenomenon, instead of a person. A ‘Fire of the Age’. There was surely to be more such Naming as the spectacle of Shadow’s Feast played out over the next ten days, but Erick was reasonably prepared.

The Feast would be ten days for Erick, but for the rest of the world, it would be 12 hours. He had no idea what would happen during most of it, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. If he truly was ‘Untouchable’ (yet another Name), then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Fallopolis lowered her staff, and said, “There are some rules.”

Erick already knew this. He countered, “I have to be inside the city before the party starts. The sun is about to set, and you are blocking the way.”

She scrunched her face into a delightful, old-woman smile, saying, “All true! And yet, I will continue to block your way until such time as I decide to let you into my home.”

“Please be quick with your rules, then.”

Fallopolis nodded, then said, “First, I demand some chocolate, then some flowers, and only then, will we walk together to the Spire, and to the Palace District.”

“… Are you to be my plus-1?”

“We will have a day to figure that out as the journey is just as important as the destination. But for now: I want to be your Plus-1.” Fallopolis twilled her free hand through the air, adding a bit of whimsy to her voice, as she added, “You may pick another at the party; there is no rule against indulging in a healthy sexual appetite.”

Skipping right over the idea that he would want to bed a murderer like her, Erick said, “Then I have my own rules.” Not bothering to wait for a confirmation of his ability to request his own rules, he demanded, “There will be no anger over the littlest things, no torturing of innocents or people with lesser power than you in my presence or to my knowledge, and none of that cursing nonsense that I heard you committed against Allan, and that I am sure you have committed against many others.”

Fallopolis had almost said something when Erick demanded his own set of rules, but when he barreled right over her attempt to speak, she merely pursed her lips in surprise. Then came a coy smile. “You’re a man after my own heart. I accept.”

With a series of thoughts, Erick directed three spare Ophiel to blip to three different locations, whereupon he gathered bluebell stalks, purple flarefire flowers, and sweetred rushes. The three flower stalks grew in a few different places in Spur, from the Garden and used as a spice, to the Adventurer’s District, to inside flowerbeds his new noble neighbors had constructed then filled. Erick had taken notice of them all in his various walks through the city, for they were each beautiful, smelled lovely, and all reminded him of snapdragons, with their hundred tiny flowers radiating from thick stalks. They would make a fine bouquet.

Those cuttings landed in Erick’s quick Handy Aura grasp. While another Ophiel began copying some chocolate bars and cakes out of the tray of desserts for the party, Erick turned the flowers into a proper arrangement.

Not ten seconds after Fallopolis’s agreement, Erick still stood five meters from the woman, but he was no longer empty-handed. One held a splash of red, violet, and blue flowers, wrapped in a bit of conjured twine, while the other hand held a stone box, full of chocolate items. With a final touch, Erick cast a [Cooling Ward] upon the inside of the box.

Fallopolis smiled the whole while. She let go of the kendrithyst staff to let it float to her side, as she held her hands forward, making grasping motions with both. She teased, “You have to give them to me, Erick. I won’t take anything from you.”

Erick breathed deep, and saw the final edge of the sun threaten to vanish beyond the curve of the crystal metropolis, beyond the Crack. He stepped forward, crossing into the Crack proper, edging below the overhang of the wall above. Now one meter from Fallopolis, he looked the woman in her white eyes…

… And handed her the chocolate and flowers.

She took them, squealing a little, as she backed up, then rushed down the sands, playfully racing down the red skyroad that led further into the city, calling out, “Get all the way in, or the Barrier Magic will kill you!”

Erick looked left and right, and saw something in the red-purple Crack. There waited a glittering darkness, deeper than the shadows that were already there, prowling the crystal corridor.

Fallopolis, now down upon the red skyroad leading further into the city, and all the way out of the Crack, called out, “I’m not joking! Dying to your own foolishness is something we will not prevent.”

Erick stepped forward—

A bar of void-dark blackness, stretched behind him, and through a suddenly-dispersed Ophiel, covering the outermost shell of the wall of Ar’Kendrithyst. Erick rapidly pulled his clothes and food and bags inward, out of the way, and he, too, raced down the sands, spilling into the city. And then another bar appeared, crossing the first, like someone was weaving threads across the entrance—

Shadow Spiders, moving faster than the eye could see, but Ophiel had a hundred eyes, and some of them were still outside the Crack. They watched as spiders leapt the Crack, and continued on along the wall, spreading dark threads as they passed.

Erick stepped onto the red skyroad, and kept moving forward. His Ophiel followed, safe, but the ones outside were slashed in half, as they tried to pass through where there were no threads, only to have a spider impact them like they weren’t even there.

Void-dark threads expanded, soaking together—

Erick rushed into the city, proper, resummoning the few Ophiel he had lost. And then he noticed Fallopolis grinning at him. He was on a collision course with the Shade. With an ungainly shift to the left, Erick avoided the unwanted interaction. His Ophiel flowed forward around him, providing eyes in every direction.

Centering himself and standing less awkwardly, Erick looked to the Shade. The Shade smirked, as her flowers and box of chocolates hovered to one side, and her crystal staff hovered on the other. She lifted a finger, and as Erick’s heart suddenly pumped hard, she angled her finger further upward.

With Ophiel, he looked in every direction. He never took his eyes off the Shade.

In fact, he should not have been on a collision course with her, at all. She had moved into his way. But, whatever. She was playing power games, and Erick would have to let her. Erick focused in every direction, with all of his Ophiels’ eyes.

Down, were shadows, crawling in the glowing, purple kendrithyst. Behind him was the crystal-side of the wall, heading off into the distance. To the left, was the Crack, which was now completely filled with shadows. From one second to the next, the shadows shifted. The Crack vanished, as red-purple kendrithyst rapidly filled in the break, turning the red skyroad under them into a simple avenue that ended in a T intersection, with one part heading directly into the city, to Forward Base, the northern part heading down on a descending road that may or may not have led to Fallopolis’s ‘home’, and the southern part traveling along the inside of the wall, like a ledge hugging a crystal mountain.

Erick briefly regarded the city on his right as he also looked skyward, following Fallopolis’s finger.

Ar’Kendrithyst was as beautiful as it was deadly. Spires of glowing red-purple crystal reached into the dark sky, while millions of stars lit the night. It was an impossible sight; one that he didn’t see with his own eyes, but Ophiel’s didn’t suffer from mortal problems such as light blindness.

And then the sky changed.

What appeared in the sky were not the three moons of Veird.

They were planets.

What once was black expanse, gave space over to a bright green and blue orb. Continents of unfamiliar shapes appeared as Darkness retreated. Erick couldn’t see it with his own eyes, but with a few Ophiels turning themselves into little more than an organization of giant eyes and tiny wings, Erick saw a lot.

Cities on coasts. Floating mountain ranges skipping over deserts. Whale pods swimming in oceans.

And then Erick realized he was not looking at a planet. It was shaped like an orb, yes, but those oceans were too deep to be real, their depths too visible to be anything but an artistic creation, while the continents floated over the waters, and the waters floated over the land. It was a place kept in harmony with itself, and though there was a passing resemblance to a normal planet like the one Erick grew up on, the physics of this illusion in the sky were completely alien.

Its physics were like Veird, but taken to the next magnitude of crazy. Exposed Underworlds. Oceans floating over surface continents—

The darkness above pulled further back, revealing another ‘planet’ like the first, but with land made of light and oceans made of fire. It was like looking at the sun, up close, but very much not.

Another orb appeared. Ice and wind.

Another orb. It was a city. That was all Erick could tell. Buildings and waterways and very few green spaces, but mostly buildings. Spires of metal. The shimmer of glass. Lights everywhere. Those lights set the city aglow, making it appear as an illuminated Jackson Pollock painting.

More cities appeared, each shaped without regard for the physical universe Erick grew up knowing, and believing to be the only shape that reality could take. None of the later ones to appear were as large as the first to appear, but appear they did, filling in the black space above.

Erick glanced to Fallopolis, as she snapped a piece of chocolate off of a bar and had a bite. She smirked at Erick, and returned her attention to the sky, seeming to enjoy the spectacle of it all.

The sky shifted again.

A flow took hold of the universe above. A liquid drama. A density that moved, but barred no sight, and impeded no light. Erick recognized the sight immediately. He had seen paintings and read stories, but he had never seen a true representation of what the Mana Ocean actually was. And now he had.

The Mana Ocean appeared in the sky and Erick felt that if he wanted to, he could step into the air, and swim to the city planet, float to the world of light, plunge into the depths of the water and stone world to seek a new existence untouched by mortal hands. But it was an illusion. It had to be.

Erick blinked, and the grip of an unknown magic broke. He looked up again, and saw the same sights, but he knew them for facsimile. Why would he want to go exploring any of that? He liked living in Spur. He wasn’t an adventurer, like Jane.

He turned to Fallopolis. Somehow, he had taken his real eyes off of the Shade, and turned his sight toward the illusions above. A flush of adrenaline raced through his chest.

Fallopolis stared at the sky, too, with a dejected look about her. And then the moment passed. She was a Shade again, with bright white eyes. She turned to regard Erick with a cold countenance. She said, “It’s an illusion to give us a taste of what we’re trying to achieve. Some choose to lose themselves in this one week a year, staring at the sky and what could be, but never coming out into the open, otherwise.”

Erick felt like arguing against the implication that Shades were hermits, and so he did, “And you’re going to tell me that these ‘hidden ones’ are more the style of true Shades? That they’re not the megalomaniac killers who are the front of your whole Kendrithyst city operation, that you do this to better hide your cult’s true intent? That they’re good guys?” He sarcastically asked, “What do they do? Give money to charity?”

Fallopolis smiled wide, and then wider. When Erick was done with his mini-rant, she said, “Completely wrong! They’re all irredeemable killers and altogether awful people. Not a single one of them deserves power, but they all have it anyway. Even those hidden Shades just have hidden operations, inciting horror and pain the world over, all in an attempt to bring down the Script—” She pointed upward. “—And to bring that back.”

“You, too?”

“Of course!” She said, “I usually work to kill other Shades and take their stuff, though. That’s my shtick.”

“I’ve heard that before. Tell me: how is that supposed to work?”

“Usually, I end up turning someone’s project on their head, and they solidify their weaknesses. Or, I win, and take what they worked to achieve. Outside of the City, this means I kill a hundred people here, end a family line there. Or backstab a colleague just as they’re about to realize some important goal, and then I take their stuff.” She shrugged. “That’s the rare event. Most of us stick to Kendrithyst, consolidating our resources and planting prizes for those with the power to take them. To that end, the most common thing I do is to lead a team of adventurers into a project inside Kendrithyst, and have them either die or do my dirty work for me. Fun times!”

Erick had a hard time keeping his emotions in check. He wanted to rage against Fallopolis’s casual disregard for others. He wanted to harm her for her confessed crimes. But he calmed himself, and asked, “Have you ever considered that people are valuable resources, and working with civilization instead of toppling it is a much more prudent goal?”

With a wide smile, same as before, and highly reminiscent of a teacher instructing a student who understands everything the teacher says, she said, “We already work with civilization, Erick. That is what we do. We make people better than they were before by killing those that don’t deserve to live.” She added, “You would kill the killers, and the corrupt, and the dangerous, but that’s just a variation on the various Shades out there who kills those of every type who fail to live up to their potential, be their crimes those of uselessness, stupidity, or even volatility. If they survive, then they’re not what we thought they were; they’re qualified to live. You and I, and us, we just have different lines in the tunnels between acceptable and non.”

All anger fled, to be replaced with a coldness, and a certainty.

Even if Fallopolis’s words were true, which Erick did not believe for a second, Fallopolis was acting up for someone. There were no [Scry] orbs hanging around them, but Erick didn’t believe that meant no one was watching.

Fallopolis was acting up for someone.

For him, to convince him of her lies? To convince him of some other thing?

For someone else, to convince them of her own intentions?

Probably the latter.

Or maybe both. Or neither.

Erick had no real base to draw upon when it came to Fallopolis. He had spoken to Killzone for a while, about every Shade there was, and about what to expect going into this Shadow’s Feast. Jane had spoken of her own time inside Ar’Kendrithyst, as well. Everyone knew a little bit about Ar’Kendrithyst, and Erick had heard a lot over the last year. One of the things everyone agreed upon was that the Shades were dangerous truth tellers, who spoke in candied half-truths and believable perspectives, as much as they could. They only lied when they respected the person they were talking to.

Killzone had told Erick that the Shades he would meet might tell the truth in the beginning, but the lies would come out soon enough. Right now, Fallopolis was likely trying to manipulate him with a partial truth.

With a gleam in her glowing white eyes, Fallopolis asked, “You’re not going to refute me?”

“I know perfectly well where my line lies, but I’ve seen people with nothing become better than who they were before. Lost souls high on drugs to get away from their lives, or behind bars and waiting for a judge to sentence them to life in prison. Rape victims too depressed to move on with their lives. They needed help, and I gave them that help, and sometimes I failed, but sometimes I succeeded and the world was a bit better for it.” Erick demanded, “What good is the harm you do when life itself is more than harmful enough to temper or break the people living it?”

“You overestimate our impact.”

“Monsters kill people.” He said, “You tempt people to your city to test them, and kill those who fail. Those who succeed gain items you release into the world with the intent to cause damage long after they’ve left your power, like the Sword Staff, or other artifacts.”

“You release artifacts into the world, too.”

“Don’t even try to equate the two. It is a disingenuous argument.”

“Your Particle Magic killed Odaali, Erick, for you just opened the door, exactly like any good Fire of the Age, or Shade. And then people were people. Your argument is the disingenuous one.” Fallopolis said, “If anyone should be fielding this question, it should be Rozeta, for we Shades have been trying to destroy the inequality of the Script and all the empowerments you seem to detest, for a long, long time.”

Erick almost retorted, but a strange shadow appeared on the glowing red road, not a hundred meters away. He turned a few more Ophiel eyes toward the blot in the red brightness. Fallopolis noticed.

She waved an arm wide, saying, “And here’s the bag boy! You took your sweet time.”

The blot moved forward and stopped ten meters away. It stepped up from the ground, resolving into a thin human man, with a wrinkled face and greying hair. The first noticeable thing about him were his clothes, for Fallopolis wore the same thing, but Fallopolis’ outfit was downright shabby, compared to his. And then Erick noticed his long arms and legs, as though he had been stretched, more than slightly.

The man regarded Erick with eyes that were grey pits of light. “My Queen wishes to welcome you to Kendrithyst.” Two more blots appeared behind the man. They stepped up to reveal younger, shorter butlers, or whatever they were. The first man asked, “If you would be so kind, would you please allow this one to take your bags? They will be ready for you at the Palace.”

“… No thank you.”

The butler looked ready to sigh, but instead, he turned to Fallopolis.

Erick turned to Fallopolis, too.

Fallopolis frowned at everyone, then said to Erick, “You’re going to be attacked before you reach the Palace. Best give him most of your things unless you would prefer to arrive at the Palace without dessert. Queen will not like it if you don’t bring her what she asked for.”

Erick had a refusal on the tip of his tongue, but this was not something he was willing to upset someone over. So instead, he asked Fallopolis, “Can I trust you at your overt words?”

Fallopolis stood up a bit straighter, as she blushed. “Ooh?” She put a hand to the side of her face, as if in thought. “Well.” She lowered her hand. Unsure, “I guess? Yes.” With a triumphant nod, she decided, “You can trust everything I say to be true, from here on out.”

Erick asked, “Are these really porters for Queen? They’re wearing your outfit.”

“Ha!” With a sly smile, she said, “Yes. They truly are her porters. Whatever you give them will go right to Queen, while you and I must take the longer, walking route.” She chided, “And apparently I need to take a slightly longer route than you!” She tugged at her outfit, saying, “I’ll have you know that this was my outfit first.” She gestured at the butlers, adding, “They look like that because they are a power play by the Queen, who takes every opportunity she can to shame me.”

Erick acknowledged the powerful monster in human guise, then turned to the others monsters in human guise, and floated his luggage-carrying Ophiel forward. With a few easy set-downs, Erick laid down most of his clothes and his glass-covered dessert tray. He kept one bag back, for it held his essentials; a few miscellaneous items, a jug of water he could [Duplicate], a few food items, and a few chocolate bars, just in case he needed a back-up dessert.

Erick had studied a map of Ar’Kendrithyst before he came. He knew the Palace District laid to the far south of the Dead City, over a hundred and twenty kilometers away. Past the Spire, where the Shades ruled the Dead city, and past Umber Street, where Bulgan rose to power. Past the Garden, which Treant took from Planter when Champion Yetta came and killed him. Past the Armory and three different lakes and a hundred other smaller places Erick had heard of from his daughter, or from Killzone.

For there would be no blipping to the party.

Because, though Erick barely noticed the tingling against his skin, it was there. Either Fallopolis or someone else had deployed their Blessing, disallowing all Spatial magic. It hadn’t been active in the beginning, but it was active after the wall closed…

Erick asked Fallopolis, “Is that your Blessing?”

“Nope!” She smirked, saying, “That’s part of the preparations for the Feast.” With her kendrithyst staff, she pointed to the sky. “If you can guess which plane I designed, then I’ll reward you with something special!” She turned shadowy, saying, “Be right back, gotta change!”

Fallopolis vanished from sight.

Erick turned his full attention to the butlers. They had picked up the luggage he had given them, but they had yet to leave. They were just sort of… waiting. Perhaps for Erick to say something? So he said, “Thank you for taking my things to the Palace. I look forward to meeting Queen.”

The lead one spoke, “Queen welcomes you to Kendrithyst, and to Shadow’s Feast.”

His words said, the butler and his entourage dropped into the red road, all at the same time. Their three shadowy blots zipped away, faster than Erick could track them, but not too fast for his Ophiel. They passed beyond sight when they got half a kilometer down the road, and turned right into a crystal tower, to vanish down into the depths.

And Erick was alone.

Maybe.

He took the time to gaze upon the city, again, since it was beautiful, and this was a calm moment.

Glowing red spires of crystal turned purple in the edges and down below, while the crystal skyroad ahead of him was a bit more muted in its brilliance. And now that he looked, he saw that different spires were different shades of red; the road was actually crimson. A real good color for Strength Stat enchantments, actually. There were shadows crawling inside every glowing tower and every crystal structure, but that was par for the course, for Ar’Kendrithyst. Nothing too unusual, there. The gentle undulation of the shadows reminded Erick of crashing ocean waves, or maybe ink swirling in water, or maybe… He wasn’t quite sure.

Erick stepped a little to the side of the red road underfoot, and looked down.

A glowing purple abyss stared back.

Erick turned on [Greater Lightwalk]—

And experienced a slowness he had never known. The spell activated over the course of a second; his skin turning fractionally brighter as he extended a tendril outward. Ah. So Killzone had been right. He had warned Erick of this possibility. Oh well. He could deal with limited spellcasting, due to a time-magic interacting with the global cooldown of the Script.

Erick experimented with his [Greater Lightwalk] tendril, moving the tendril around perfectly fine. No time-based shenanigans, there. But when he went to cast another spell, a [Force Bolt] this time, targeted onto the road ahead and too low-powered to actually do anything, the spell didn’t activate. It wasn’t an Error, or anything like that. These were the normal limitations of the Script.

The global cooldown prevented the casting of more than one spell every second, and while the 12 hours of Shadow’s Feast passed normally for everyone outside of Ar’Kendrithyst, inside the Dead City, it would take 10 days to pass those 12 hours. Meaning 240 hours inside the city. Meaning 20 seconds per single spell cast.

Luckily Erick had 10 Ophiel, each able to cast their own spell, once every 20 seconds.

… But they’d spend most of those global cooldowns just keeping themselves afloat with their [Airshape].

Erick glanced to his [Familiar]s. He thought. With a moment’s introspection, he decided that he was going to run [Greater Lightwalk] all the time, just keeping it on the periphery of his understanding, and not actually becoming a lightform being himself. He’d also run his [Handy Aura] the second he was able to cast again, which was coming up… now.

He turned on his [Flight of a Thousand Hands]—

With a dawning realization, and as he was tucking in his Handy Aura and his light tendrils, he understood that those butlers had likely been waiting for their global cooldowns to reset, and not to hear Erick speak, or anything like that. Shadelings still had Script access, after all. Mystery solved? Had Erick accidentally made a fool of himself?

Whatever the case, his next action was to have an Ophiel expend themselves to cast a [Prismatic Ward] on his luggage; casting the movable-option version of the Solid [Ward]. When Erick’s cooldown came back so he could recast that [Familiar]...

His Ophiel were going to run into problems with the global cooldown, weren’t they? He had never really paid attention to it before, but they used [Airshape] all the time; sometimes more than every 20 seconds. They would each need a different way to fly.

… Would there be mana problems, too? Was Erick’s regeneration cut in 20, as well?

Checking his Status, which took a few moments to actually manifest, Erick watched his mana regenerate as he expected it to regenerate. He was not that separated from the Script; the only thing he was truly separated from, in this fast-time space, was access to the Script. Mana regeneration and other Stat-derived powers were aspects of the Script, but either the Script was more robust than Erick imagined, or maybe this ‘cooldown limitation’ was just one of the ways to ensure Time Magic never got out of hand.

Jane had spoken of not being able to reach the Script when she was time-locked by Melemizargo, all those months ago. Perhaps, what she had actually experienced, was not a denial of Script access, but the very same limitation Erick was experiencing right now.

… Whatever the case, Erick opted to solve Ophiel’s flying problems now, while he had time. With a thought, he switched them all over to Handy Aura flight. They naturally regenerated 1 mana every two seconds, but that spell cost 1 mana per second, so they’d have to dip into the Restful, dense air every now and then. This was fine, for [Flight of a Thousand Hands] was good for both aerial movement and fighting off smaller beasties. Erick could have one of them, the one holding up the bag, actually, run [Greater Lightwalk], for that one would always be in the Restful air, and thus able to support the much larger 10 mana per second of [Greater Lightwalk], and also be able to better protect the bag. So he did just that.

Ahhh, planning.

It’d all go to shit soon enough, but it was best to be prepared if possible.

A spark of darkness drew Erick’s attention, just as the spark resolved into Fallopolis. The Shade wore a black dress with poofy shoulders and a cascade of fabric down the body, almost like a flamenco dancer’s outfit, but softer. It matched the style of her grey hair.

Erick asked, “Are you limited by the global cooldown, too?”

There was no harm in asking this question, to Erick’s knowledge. Fallopolis likely knew every single nuance to the spell currently locking down Ar’Kendrithyst. She would know that his own casting was somewhat limited.

She cackled once, then said, “Nope!” She pointed to the left. A bolt of shadow ripped out of her body like a tsunami packed into a football. It soared across the city to impact a red tower and splinter the crystal. Fallopolis waited a beat, then pointed to the right, sending another [Black Bolt] into the side of a different tower. She said, “You’d need to abandon the Script to be able to do the same thing with your [Greater Lightwalk].”

Erick could not stop the slight frown that pulled at his face.

He pointed at the same distant tower, and flexed his [Greater Lightwalk]. He threw out a tiny, completely normal-sized [Force Bolt]. The tower was too far away to hit, so the spell vanished before it got there, but that was fine. He might not be able to recreate spells beyond Basic Tier, but he could certainly do that much. He wasn’t a complete rube.

Fallopolis smirked as she gestured down the red road with her crystal staff, saying, “Come! We must journey on foot to the Feast, so we will have lots of time to talk of the inadequacies of the Script, and to dodge or fight the trials and tribulations arrayed against us.”

Erick did not follow close, but he did follow to her side, leaving a good three meters distance between them. He asked, “Is your plan to distract me or protect me from attacks?”

“If anything, you will have distracted me when I am attacked. You are Untouchable. Directly, anyway.” Fallopolis shrugged, as she casually said, “But then again, there’s no predicting crazy, and these insane priests of Melemizargo are as noodle-noggined as brainsnakes.”

“… Okay.”

“You’ll want to prepare for collateral damage.” Fallopolis declared to the Dead City, “Won’t be my fault if he gets hurt!”

Erick stared out at the bright, crystal city, with spires reaching high and towers extending too far deep to see where they ended. Fallopolis was obviously speaking to someone, but the shadows in the glowing stones didn’t respond. No one responded.

So when was the first problem going to appear?

They silently walked down the road to Forward Base for a little while. The plot of crystal allotted to Spur’s Army loomed in the distance; a darker tower than the rest. It was supposed to be empty right now, and it certainly looked the part. No sentries standing atop the battlements. No soldiers stationed at the end of the road—

Fallopolis turned to the left, to the south, to stand on the edge of the red road, and then she walked off the road. She did not fall. She just kept walking, as though she was standing atop an invisible road. But she wasn’t truly ‘walking’ either. With every step she took, she moved double the distance as normal. It wasn’t three seconds before she pulled at least a dozen meters ahead.

After a moment of introspection, Erick followed, flying along on his Handy Aura, easily catching up.

Fallopolis noticed. She frowned at him, then looked to his dangling feet. “No flying!” She said it without malice, but there was an edge to her voice. “Walk with [Greater Lightwalk].” She gestured to the sky around her, the bright red crystals, and the glowing purple depths. “Is there not enough light to your liking?”

Erick returned her frown, and stepped onto the light. He almost stumbled, trying to match her stretched-out speed, but Erick got the hang of it after a few tries. With radiance splashing under every footfall, his Handy Aura pulled back to his back, and his balance secured, Erick said, “I did not expect you to take the ‘walking’ part seriously.”

“Serious as cancer!”

“Thank Rozeta for [Cleanse].”

He said it as a reflex, panicked for a brief moment, then decided it was okay. Because Fallopolis laughed.

“Ha!” Fallopolis said, “She didn’t make [Cleanse]! [Cleanse] has been around for more than a million years and cast a million different ways, long before the Script came along and locked it down to a press of intent and a brush of mana.”

“… Believable.” Erick asked, “But so what? It’s here, and I’ve used it because of her implementation of the Script, and I’m happy for it.”

Fallopolis questioned, “Happy to suffer the yoke of another?”

“Freedom is a lie kids and fools tell themselves is possible so they don’t have to labor under the harsh realities all around us. To live in a city, to love and be loved, to peacefully exist with others? These require sacrifices of freedom that I am all too happy to accept.” Erick said, “And besides that, there is always someone more powerful than you, for even if you’re at the top, you are still beholden to the mob, and I am not going to become a hermit.”

Fallopolis went, “Hrm.”

Fallopolis said no more, and Erick didn’t either.

They just walked, for a while.

- - - -

This was all too fuckin’ weird. Here he was, strolling through the sky next to a true monster. Though she might walk with a slight smile and a happy look upon the world, and though she might seem like a kindly grandmother, she was a monster. No doubt about that.

Jane had shown him telepathic images of the people Fallopolis had turned into musical instruments, and of the monster ‘cake’ she had set out for Champion Yetta and the rest of her party. Jane showed him pictures of her time rescuing people from the Arena, who Fallopolis had dumped into death games, and when they succeeded, she harassed them all the way through the city, all the way back to the Crack, and outside. It was awful, what she had done to all of those people…

Those people who had invaded her home?

No no. That was being too generous to Fallopolis. But...

With that thought, Erick just had to ask. But maybe a more generalized question, rather than a specific one. It might reveal more.

“Why do you harm people who come to Ar’Kendrithyst?” Erick clarified, “Why play the villain, and ply with treasure, if the goal is to make the world stronger?”

Fallopolis lost some of the happy pep to her walk, as she said, “Fair warning: Don’t use that name around other Priests of Melemizargo.”

“Fair enough.”

She looked to him with eyes made of light, then turned her attention back to the empty ‘road’ ahead, saying, “We devoted sons, daughters, and otherwise of the Dark Dragon… We appreciate power. We cultivate cunning. We love losers who turn everything around, and upend the world for their own gain, or for the lives and love of others. But if you think we’re the greatest danger this world faces, you don’t know anything.” She pointed all around at the pristine crystal towers, saying, “If we were the biggest bads on the planet, then they would all come to kill us all, bringing this city low, for even a collection of couatls will band together to strike at strangers. Now, it is true that we have been Big Bad Problems every now and again. We’re only mortal, Erick. But for every time one of us has managed to convince the rest to go to war, and thus made targets of ourselves, there was someone else out there that has done worse.”

“And those people should feel shame for their actions, too.”

She asked, “Want to become a Shade and teach them that they should feel shame?”

“What about the people in Champion Yetta’s incursion into Kendrithyst? Why did you turn those people under your power into musical instruments?”

She nodded, then began, “The Champion was coming to kill Planter; this was unavoidable. By planting those Daydroppers and putting himself on Atunir’s Kill and Exterminate Quest, he had overstepped his bounds as a good Shade. To make a long story short, he had gone insane or succumbed to his monstrous nature, or whatever you want to call it. And thus, he had to die.

“A Full Meeting determined our collective response to our fallen member.

“We decided to assist every adventurer who came to kill him.

“There were more than a few attempts to use the new influx of young power to kill off some of our own. I stood firmly in this camp as I often do, and I will make no apology for trying to kill unfit Shades.

“But then you sent Yetta after us, and everything changed. We had another Full Meeting. We could not assist a divinely appointed soldier unless we thoroughly tested them first, and took at least one or two of them for ourselves.

“Halfway through this meeting, Melemizargo got involved. There were too many of his pieces in play for him not to. You had given Yetta the quest to kill Planter, and Jane was already in the city, killing and culling weakness like a good girl. Champion Tania Webwalker usually remains silent during Full Meetings, but she spoke. My usual desire to see the weak culled from our ranks was met with unusual furor from Tania.

“This set the tone for Yetta’s incursion.

“From there, a lot of boring things happened, but I cleared my part of the city of adventurers, and waited.” She looked to Erick, asking, “And you know what I saw when I saw Yetta?” She returned her sight forward, and answered herself, “I saw a scared girl, on the precipice of horror, flying forward for she knew no other way. So when Yetta and them decided to go along with the Army’s suggestion to rescue the people we cleared out of the city in preparation for Yetta’s arrival, I waited. When they came my way, I rapidly mutilated the adventurers and turned my guardwolf into a cake, in order to prepare them for what they would find at Planter’s Garden and elsewhere in Kendrithyst.” She added, “Others had more horrible dungeons planned out because some of them are more horrible people than I, but if Yetta decided to forgo my dungeon then my intention was always to let the poor people go.”

Erick took a moment to understand what Fallopolis had revealed.

It sounded like it was all perfectly reasonable, but that only showed how insidious it was.

He asked, “Why did you have a Daydropper in your dungeon?”

“Because Planter gifted one to each of us. Left the green vine right in some of our own bedrooms, he did. None of us touched them, though. We didn’t want to get caught up in his insane ideas.” Fallopolis said, “Not a single person made it to the Daydropper room in any of those dungeons, because we killed each planting before either Yetta’s team or anyone else got anywhere near the wretched thing.”

Erick almost had another question, but a shadow to the left of their path caught Ophiel’s eyes.

Fallopolis flinched just after Ophiel, and then she reacted.

She caught a ten-meter long spike of red crystal in the space above her upturned hand. The spike had come from the crystal tower to the left, breaking off from the whole to impact the Shade, who just stood there, not three meters from Erick. A second passed. The spike could not reach her. It sparked and cracked and strained to push through her casual show of telekinetic power—

With her other hand, gripping her kendrithyst staff, she caught three more spikes that launched up from below. Another second had passed, by that point. While Erick was rapidly switching between deciding to help, or to let it all play out, the Shade looked almost bored by her attempts to defend herself.

Erick almost launched a few spells at the monster, as it revealed itself.

The upper twenty meters of a nearby crystal tower, the whole bright, red thing, broke, revealing itself as a cross between a spider with a hundred too-long legs, and a crystal elemental. It had been camouflaged as the top of the kendrithyst tower, but now the true top of the tower was visible below the beast, gripped by thirty crystal legs. When the elemental was hidden, there was not a single part of the monster that gave away its true nature. Even now, it still looked mostly like kendrithyst.

Animated kendrithyst that filled up a lofty space the size of Erick’s wizard tower; a monster that moved too silently to be believable. Not a single one of the crashing, suspending crystals that made up its body, made a single noise.

It certainly made noise when Fallopolis ripped it apart, though.

With narrowed eyes and a casual disdain for the world, the Shade ripped the legs off of the crystal creature, five, seven, a dozen limbs at a time. Those legs crashed through the abyss below, sparking and breaking and… oozing? What?

Within a handful of seconds, Fallopolis had de-limbed the ambush predator in a shower of crystal chips, and splashes of glowing red light. In a few moments more, she had torn the monster down to a core; a piece of red kendrithyst with a bright white light inside. She turned her hand, and the red outside of the core broke, splashing more red liquid light into the world like an egg cracking, then falling away to reveal a grand rad as bright as any Erick had ever seen. The jewel floated to the Shade, becoming a drop of light that touched her chest and sunk into her body, carving a tiny hole in her black, ruffled dress, but leaving behind bloodless, unmarred skin.

Erick had either directed an Ophiel to turn on his [Cleanse Aura], or Ophiel had done that himself. Either way, misted red ‘blood’ did not reach Erick; it turned to thick air before that could happen.

Fallopolis turned to Erick, and smiled, saying, “You didn’t react except to back up a step, and activate your [Cleanse Aura]. Why was that?”

“… I am not sure. Didn’t feel right when it was your kill?” Erick frowned at himself. That answer was not honest, but he didn’t feel like explaining any further.

“They’re just monsters, Erick.” Fallopolis said, “You can kill them, you know. You might even get some Participation next time. Get some nice levels!”

Erick looked to the red splashes dripping down the kendrithyst tower. He asked “That wasn’t a golem?”

“Not at all.” She gestured to the bloody tower behind her. “That was a Kendrithyst Mimic. The true adult form of the Crystal Mimic. They’re rather… rare...” She adopted a frown, and put a finger to her lips as if thinking some deep thought. She turned and viewed the tower. “Why did it attack me, though? They never come out against Shades.” She stood straight, asking herself, “Or maybe they always come out against Shades?” She turned to Erick, saying, “Hard to keep the facts straight, sometimes. Ol’ Melly-mel might be gettin' better, but some of us were stuck with his lack-of-sane for a long time. Still!” She admonished, “Best not freeze up like that again, Erick. Throw out a spell or two next time! But now... Where we were? I think you were asking me something about Daydroppers or mutilating people or somesuch minutiae.”

And with that curt dismissal of all of Erick’s concerns for morality, and decency, and maybe a little bit because of the power Fallopolis had just displayed, Erick had a thought. Who was he, to think that he could change the Shades? Maybe, if he were the same person he was a year ago, he would give that pursuit a bare modicum of effort, but knowing what he knew now… The Shades did not deserve that chance. So he switched topics.

“What other monsters do you think we will encounter?”

“I’m sure there’ll be something for you to murder soon enough.” She gestured to the Ophiel that was still running the [Cleanse Aura]. “Bring ‘em in for a landing, will ye? I got red in my hair.”

… She looked clean, but Erick moved the [Cleansing Aura] Ophiel toward Fallopolis.

The [Cleanse Aura] clipped the Shade, then enveloped her, as a practical explosion of thick air blasted away from Fallopolis, like she was the starting point for a fog bank, or the heat mirage of a fire tornado. Fallopolis luxuriated in the breeze, smiling faintly. Erick just watched, wondering what the fuck was being [Cleanse]d. In three seconds, the purifying storm became a trickle. The Shade looked slightly younger, maybe. She smiled. She giggled.

She whipped around, and continued south, her footsteps making dark flashes as she walked in the air.

Erick reluctantly followed, his own footsteps spilling light into the brilliant city.

He chanced, “So? Monsters?”

“Right!” Fallopolis began, “There’s the Kendrithyst Mimics, course. Can’t never spot them till they move. Luckily, your Ophiels’ got some phenomenal sight training. Clued me in before I got skewered. Then there’s the shadowolves, but they’re negligible. Shadow krakens, shadow beasts? They’re bigger and a little bit of fun, but you probably won’t see a shadow-aligned monster out tonight— You know. ‘Cept for Shades.” She glanced at Erick and smiled wider, then turned forward again and continued, “And then there’s the giants. We should see a few of them now or then. Mostly just some weak ones my compatriots are looking to cull from their flocks… Probably… But Kendrithyst is a lot of empty space, so meeting the monsters you might expect to meet can be rather difficult sometimes. Then there the swordwings! Those are new. Skyhook created those from tiny razorwings, and then loosed them in the city about four months back…”

Fallopolis spoke of monsters known, and unknown, as the two of them walked across crystal chasms, ever south. The Palace District was about 120 kilometers distant; Erick wasn’t quite sure, since they wouldn’t be flying directly there. They were moving double-time, though, so maybe they’d actually make it to the party in under 24 hours. But their direction...

Their direction could be a problem, as the Swamp was thirty kilometers south of the Crack, and directly in their path. The Witch lived in that land of curses, poison, and dark waters. Killzone had shown Erick a map, and given him a dozen pathing options, but all of them went around the Swamp. Erick did not really want to go that way...

But Fallopolis spoke on, not giving him a chance to talk.

It was probably on purpose.

She did have a lot to say about monsters, though. Erick could almost believe that she truly did tell people what they needed to know to survive and thrive in Ar’Kendrithyst. Almost.