Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 134, 1/2

One thing to know about Veird was that it was rather large. Much larger than Earth. The mountains were twice to four times the size of Earth’s. The distance from the land to the sky was, first of all, measurable, which was a difficult concept to grasp at first because the atmosphere of Earth was a nebulous 50-800 kilometers from bottom to top, depending on who you asked. On Veird, the atmosphere above the surface was an average depth of somewhere between 90 to 110 kilometers, depending on the landscape, and ended at the Edge of the Script. The oceans of Veird were a whole different existence than the oceans of Earth, altogether. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean was 4 kilometers, but the oceans of Veird often had large parts of them that simply continued down into the Underworld, and then all the way to the Core. The Underworld of Veird to the Core, both of which had no equivalent on Earth as far as Erick knew, was 6000 kilometers deep.

The singular surface continent of Glaquin, which was the smallest surface continent, and the only one that Erick had been on, was the size of several Asias.

In most parts of Veird the trees were all normal, Earth-sized. But in some places, when they wanted to be, the trees were pretty damn big.

From his position on the southern deployment zone of the Castle, Erick looked down upon a land of green trees. None reached up this high, of course, but ‘this high’ was actually two kilometers above the surface. The surface, and the path to the start of the Green Labyrinth, started two kilometers down, past a dense canopy, which was itself, almost like a second ‘surface’. In some places, the branches and leaves were so thick that they provided places for various animals to stand upon. In one spot, just down there, actually, the canopy gave one orangutan-like animal a good vantage for him to throw his crap.

Those tiny turd missiles actually managed to reach the [Air Shield] surrounding Tenebrae’s Estate. They didn’t do anything, but still! What a throw! At least two hundred meters, or more. Erick watched, as the furry thing was joined by another furry thing. The second furry thing brought rocks. A third furry thing brought a boulder.

The boulder hit the [Air Shield], too, but it broke up into sand and whipped away on the wind.

“What are you looking…” Tenebrae frowned at Erick, then pointed at the animals. “You’re not going to kill them?”

More and more six-armed furry animals climbed out of the canopy. They hooted with grey annoyance, but Erick only heard them when a rock or pebble clipped the [Air Shield] and briefly allowed their calls to enter the Estate. They were loud.

“This is going to sound stupid, I’m sure. But they’re animals…” Erick asked, “Aren’t they harmless?”

“You’re right! Those were stupid words!” Tenebrae said, “They aren’t getting those rocks from the canopy. They’re making them. Only the young ones throw feces. The other ones conjure stone. Elder Furred Rockers are actually a threat— Speak of the Darkness. There’s one now. Ha! Pests.”

Tenebrae lifted his hand and pointed, right as the rockers hooted very loudly and all of them scattered, giving the new arrival their space. A giant orange thing lifted through the trees. It was easily the size of a house. Arms unfurled, like a lotus blooming, revealing a slightly-larger rocker at their center, with each of its many arms holding a javelin of stone.

Tenebrae shot a marble-sized stone of his own that ripped through the air, supersonic, then passed through a hole in the [Air Shield] that only appeared at that moment, letting out the stone and letting in the sudden hooting cheers of the smaller rockers. Tenebrae’s marble impacted the elder rocker’s head, cracking the air with a sudden spack. Javelins dropped from the elder’s arms. It screamed, then raced back down, into the safety of the Green.

All of the smaller rockers scattered when their big brother was defeated.

Tenebrae said, “Their monstrous cousins are probably around here somewhere, so they’re going to be a problem, but this is the easiest place to enter, so we’re going in here. Use whatever spells or Domains you have until I say so, then we will be going in under stealth.” He added, “And those Rockers are harmless, unless you’re weaker than them. Then they’ll eat you up. Animals kill and eat people, too, you know.”

Without another word, Tenebrae stepped off of the side of the Castle walls.

He dropped like a stone. A pair of Rockys followed, also dropping like stones. The [Air Shield] opened, briefly, as they passed. Tenebrae fell right through one of the less-dense parts of the canopy, and the canopy swished out of the way of his passing, then closed right back up. The Rockys just crashed through, breaking branches.

Jane giggled as she stepped past Erick and dropped off the edge. The [Air Shield] opened at her passing. She didn’t transform into shadows until she got too close to the canopy for comfort. Teressa followed; a smile upon her face, and hard grey [Conjure Armor] on her body. She crashed through everything, and she seemed to enjoy it, too.

“Nothing to worry about at this point.” Poi said, “The only one who hasn’t spent most of their life doing this sort of stuff is you.”

“Right right.” Erick turned into his sunform. “This is probably just War Fatigue, isn’t it.”

“Yup. We’ve all dealt with it, too. If you need to talk to someone, I could help, or I could find someone else for you to talk with. The Mind Mages have gone to Candlepoint, and though not many are partaking of their services, some are.”

Erick nodded as he held Poi in his sunform, and then stepped off of the Castle walls. He descended in a controlled manner like a fast boulder, through the [Air Shield] and then into the canopy, brushing aside thick branches as he moved. Leaves swung back overhead as he passed. Shadows swallowed them.

Ophiels swarmed, providing eyes in every direction and Sights of all kinds. The mana and blood and souls of creatures glowed, like Erick had stepped into a blacklight rave.

Small glowing animals huddled against branches that wound like roadways through a tangle of green that supported a million swarming insects and those that lived solitary lives, both flying and not, each of them a slightly different brightness and color, while larger animals were like great, singular glows that preyed upon all the rest and were preyed upon in turn.

Erick and Poi descended faster now. These trees were massive, after all. At any sort of slow rate it’d take ten minutes to reach the bottom. Erick moved smaller branches out of the way as he and Poi passed, racing toward the bottom, avoiding the larger beasts in the trees—

And then, they were out of the main canopy. The topmost layer of Green was up there, and they were in the trunk-space, where smaller roadways of branches snaked through here and there, but mostly, it was just up-and-down trunks, each the width of houses. Here is where the real monsters roamed.

Far to the left, an Ophiel spied the beginnings of a spiderweb similar to the ones that laid across the Weaver’s Quarters in Ar’Kendrithyst. A mother spider was curled around a tree trunk, looking like a bulge of brown bark half-again the size of the tree she clung to. Her eight eyes seemed to shift toward Ophiel, but Ophiel kept himself well out of reach. As Ophiel moved around, he saw a horror in the spider’s web; the carcasses of countless red-furred rockers, and other, desiccated things.

To the right, the trees had been damaged by large slashes in groups of threes. Some large, 3-clawed monster had marked its territory, here. Mushrooms sprouted in the slashes, like brown shelves, the same color as the trees themselves.

Erick and Poi continued down, down, into the darkness, for the light of the canopy was far, far above, and the brightest thing in this whole place was Erick, and all of his Ophiel; a central sunform surrounded by smaller scouting planetoids.

After a minute of descent Erick and Poi reached everyone else. The party stood upon loamy land covered in soft moss. Most of it was stable, but there was a lot of deadfall in some of that green Forest floor. Jane and Teressa stood upon part of a fallen tree, partially reclaimed by the Forest. Tenebrae and his Rockys stood upon the mossy ground. The old archmage looked peeved.

Tenebrae said, “Took you long enough! And turn off the lightshow and use your actual eyes without Meditation. You’re missing all the beauty of the land!”

Jane smiled, as if in anticipation. Teressa grinned, as she turned her eyes outward.

… Erick did not turn off his sunform, but he did retract it to the middle of his back. Each Ophiel retracted their own sunforms down into tiny dots in their centers. The light of their temporary solar system vanished as Erick used his own, normal sight, to see. He even lost track of the manasphere, when he let Meditation drop.

The Forest was dark and full of unseen terrors. It was almost worse than the eyes and the flows of the manasphere.

And then a million small things happened all across all of Erick’s vision.

The Forest came alive.

Ferns unfurled with bioluminescence, glowing green and teal. Fireflies flickered reds and oranges. Small blue-glowing animals darted into the darkness, attacking other pink-glowing animals.

Jane giggled.

Erick went, “Huh.”

It was pretty, for sure, but Erick had already seen this when he used all of his Sight spells in the canopy above. It was kinda nice to see it without magical aids, though.

Teressa said, “A Forest-Crowned Stag came through here a day or two ago.”

“Hours ago, I bet.” Tenebrae said, “Okay. That’s enough of that. Turn your Ophiels back on, but not yourself. With any luck, the monsters we find will attack the [Familiar]s first.”

Erick rapidly had Ophiel pop back into full sunforms. The glowing Forest vanished, hidden, as Ophiels moved out into the darkness, dispelling much of the oppressive gloom. They would let them know of encroaching monsters or animals that were too dumb to know to run the other way.

Tenebrae pointed south, saying, “That way. About a thirty minute walk because we have to approach it on foot or it won’t appear. Mana senses active. Watch where you step. Not all of this land is land; a lot of it is deadfall.”

A Rocky jogged forward, taking point. Teressa went next. Poi, Erick, and Tenebrae went somewhat together, as they were the mages of the group, while Jane and the second Rocky took rearguard.

Poi offered, “Shall I connect us?”

Tenebrae hummed, then said, “Voices won’t attract anything. Yelling might… Yeah. Connect us.”

‘Connected,’ Poi sent to all of them.

Tenebrae sent, ‘The path I plotted to the Gate should be empty of any real dangers, but I suppose there’s no harm in correct protocol.’

The Forest floor was a land of darkness and depth and the calls of animals and monsters, seeking mates or declaring their territory. It was more than a little scary; if Erick had been here without all of his people… He would have never gone to a place like this. Erick felt sweat drip down his neck. As he walked forward he felt as though he was walking through some amalgamation of the Jungle in Ar’Kendrithyst, and also the towers of the Dead City, but hyped up to a whole new level of danger. At least the Dead City had lights everywhere and relatively known terrors. Can’t have shadows without light, after all.

And then there was the fact that Ar’Kendrithyst and the Forest both spat new and unknown monsters out all the time, but the monsters that came out of the Dead City were mostly able to see and gauge the power level of any particular person-sized morsel walking through their territory. The monsters of the Forest…

They saw a thing, and they wanted to eat that thing.

Tenebrae’s prediction of an ‘empty path to the Gate’ turned out to be nothing more than fiction.

Three minutes into their journey, a monster appeared.

Twenty meters up, and to the right, out of sight of the party but not out of sight of an Ophiel, a trio of curved claws curled around one side of a house-wide tree trunk, followed by another that curled around on the other side. Some massive creature was gripping the trees, and coming closer.

Erick was suddenly terrified, but he had dealt with monsters before.

Poi stiffened—

Right as Erick sent, ‘Monster or something, ahead and up twenty meters up; claws surrounding a tree trunk—’ Erick moved that Ophiel around to get a better look. A smashing trio of claws, their points held together by the monster beyond, crashed into Ophiel’s expanded sunform. Ophiel gave a surprised guitar twang as he spun away from the attack and gazed upon the attacker. ‘— a giant fucking…? Twenty-limbed very-furry moss-covered… sloth?’

Everyone had paused their forward walk.

‘Ah.’ Tenebrae said, ‘Kill it, Erick. Extreme force. It can—’

Several quick lightsteps by Ophiel later, and Erick had the thing surrounded.

It was a sloth of epic proportions with a face four meters wide and eyes as dark as the darkness all around. Greenery grew upon its deep fur, like shag carpets and green garlands. Twenty arms, maybe more, supported it as it hung in the middle-tree layer. Whoever designed the monsters around here must have loved the many-arm approach!

(A more rational part of Erick’s mind connected the Rockers he had met earlier with the Sloth he met now; the rockers were animals, but this was a monster, with a monstrous form.)

The Forest up ahead, where the monster was approaching from, briefly turned into daylight, as several Ophiel each unleashed [Luminous Beam]s. Meter-wide flood lights of deadly light impacted the beast, spilling away from it as it reacted, trying to protect itself with its arms while it simultaneously attacked the tiny Ophiels. Ophiels dodged; easily. The monster flailed. Lights as though from a pulsar rapidly burned through the monster’s resistance, cutting it to bits. Bony arms dropped to the deadfalls below, like so much meat. The rest of the burned and severed monster dropped from the tree trunks, crashing into the mossy loam. Ophiels tracked the falling monster to the ground, [Luminous Beam] trained on the monster’s core, ensuring that the beast was very dead.

Tenebrae softly continued, ‘— It can attack the Castle and maybe injure someone.’

Nervous laughter escaped Erick’s lips. He shut that down as soon as he recognized what he was doing. A notification appeared for ‘Lesser Armed Sloth’. It wasn’t a high level. Maybe 52.

As the heat of the moment died, the large gouges from from stray [Luminous Beam]s caught fire. Those fires did not last long. Erick watched as the trees themselves seemed to flex in the manasphere. Divots and damage repaired; living wood flowing back into normal positions.

Tenebrae started walking again, faster than before, sending, ‘The meat and the kill and the light, for sure, will attract larger monsters. We will hurry and avoid all of that.’

Rockys, Erick, everyone, picked up the walk again, but this time it was almost a jog.

Ten minutes later, there was a giant lizard that seemed like Tyrannosaurus Rex’s larger, uglier cousin, but with arms. Long arms, with large claws. Only two arms on this one, though!

Tenebrae killed it with a stone bullet through the head while it roared and charged. His tiny bullet splattered brains and blood over a good twenty meter space behind the beast. And then he shot it again, and again, because T-Rex’s cousin felt like regrowing its head, its chest, and then its head, again. Its head flopped on its broken neck, and then it used its arms to hold its head in place while the neck fully regrew.

It roared again.

“This is ridiculous…” Tenebrae mumbled. “Why is that here?”

And then he cast again, and the ground swallowed the wannabe-threat.

There might have been a roar, but it came from the other side of several hundred tons of rock. The roar cut out soon enough.

‘There we go. Dead.’ Tenebrae exclaimed, ‘And what the damn! An Armed Sloth I can understand; rockers live around here and the Worldly Path is a causality fucker. But that lizard was thirty biomes from his home!’

Twenty minutes later, Erick and everyone else was still on high alert for something else to jump out at them.

Nothing did.

There were a lot of bugs, and a lot of smaller animals eating those bugs and each other. The cool Forest remained dark in the distance, but here, around every Ophiel, lay pools of light that drove back some of the fear coiling in Erick’s guts.

Tenebrae suddenly said, “We—

Erick startled.

“—’re here!”

Erick breathed out. Nothing to worry about! It was just Tenebrae speaking aloud for the first time in a while and causing a minor, unable-to-be-stopped panic. No worries!

Erick looked around. He wasn’t the only one who had a sudden bout of panic. Poi, wide-eyed, breathed out hard through his nose. Jane whipped around toward the sound. Only Teressa was cool as a cucumber on ice; Erick was glad to see one of them was.

The Rockys seemed to know what was going on, though. No panic there, at all.

Jane sent, ‘Where is here?’

Tenebrae gestured forward, to a path between the trees which was the same as all the other paths between the trees. He sent, ‘Look at those two trees, there, to the left and the right. Tell me what you see.’

Erick looked— Oh.

To the left and the right of a flat bit of mossy ground, same as all the rest, were two trees, each slightly wider than a house, same as all the rest, each stretching up into the dark above, like all the rest. But the tree on the right had this rather picturesque root that stretched out from the trunk and buried into the ground, just like all the other trees all around. And the tree on the left had the very same root, except mirrored. As Erick glanced across both trees, he matched up parts that were the same on both trees, except opposite. The same knots, but flipped. The same moss patches, but flipped. The trees were mirrors of each other. The same tree, but flipped.

With a small wonder in her voice, Jane said, ‘Same tree, but duplicated.’

‘Mirrored, is the more precise term. Duplication is slightly different.’ Tenebrae said, ‘This is one of the smaller, stable entrances to the Green Labyrinth.’

‘This is the entrance?’ Erick complained, ‘But you said the entrance was a Gate?’

Tenebrae smirked. ‘This is a Gate. It’s just broken as all fuck! It’s attached to the trees, and if you want to investigate this Gate, then you will do so later, and on your own time.’

Okay… Well. Fair enough.

Erick didn’t see the Gate, exactly, but—

Oh. There was a slight bit of fading—

‘Pay attention, now!’ Tenebrae continued, ‘This is a stable entrance to the Green Labyrinth. One where the larger monsters inside cannot get past. If we find any monster of size large or above, we will not kill it. We will stall it, and we will run. We might be able to kill medium-sized ones without alerting the Vision and needing to run, but we’ll try not to kill medium sized monsters, either. Smaller ones are fair game, unless there are more than five. Then, we run. If we get ten kilometers in, I will count that as a successful first day. The real Gates that actually look like Gates are all a hundred kilometers in.

‘This journey is where stealth becomes necessary, where Domains will provoke the Vision’s ire, and Elemental Bodies are subdued. Sight spells are your friends. Cast your long term magics now.’ He added, ‘And the only reason I am being so accommodating to allow this entire thing to happen in the first place, is that most of you have proven yourself as Ar’Kendrithyst-capable. Except for you, Erick.’ He looked at Erick, his voice turning disappointed, ‘You just blasted through everything, didn’t you? No stealth at all.’

‘That is completely correct!’ Erick said, with a bit of pride, even if it wasn’t what Tenebrae wanted out of him. ‘There was also a lot of purposefully flying out in the open; the opposite of stealth!’

Tenebrae snorted, then asked, ‘Can you make your Ophiel invisible without [Invisibility]? The Labyrinth is sensitive to that spell.’

With a thought, each Ophiel turned their lightforms to infrared. They vanished from sight, though the air did turn a tiny bit warmer.

‘And make them small, too.’

… They were already head-sized, but they could go smaller. At a thought, each Ophiel turned to parakeet-sized. They twittered in anxious guitar thrums, their songs becoming just a part of the background cacophony of the living Forest.

Tenebrae pointed at the [Scry] eye hanging over Erick’s shoulder. ‘That won’t work once we get deeper, just so you know. The Labyrinth shouldn’t react to that, or to [Telepathy], but [Scry] fails once we get far enough.’

The [Scry] eye bobbed in affirmation.

Tenebrae watched it happen, then sent, ‘Is Yggdrasil a part of this group-think?’

‘He understands what I think about almost all the time.’ Erick looked to Poi, and guessed, ‘Yes?’

Poi clarified, ‘He is not, but he understands Erick rather well.’

Tenebrae narrowed his eyes at the [Scry] orb, then looked away, toward the entrance to the Labyrinth. ‘Okay. Here we go. Domains off. Cast your long-term spells.’

Erick cast an [Animadversion] onto his left arm. The silver spell took hold above his robed arm like a twisted bit of metal. Thorny mirror-like vines briefly appeared, before slipping back into the spell. Every Ophiel equipped themselves with their own [Animadversion]s while four of them each cast small, meter-wide [Prismatic Ward]s, onto stones, and then picked up those stones. They’d be using those Restful spaces to regenerate their mana and to defend themselves, and others, if necessary.

Jane summoned a rather normal-looking sword of only a meter length. Teressa summoned a massive mace. The Rockys both summoned one-handed shields, leaving their other hand unoccupied. Poi and Tenebrae did nothing; they had already cast their long-term spells, their [Personal Ward]s, earlier that morning.

Tenebrae said, ‘Don’t get seen. Don’t strain your Elemental Body to reach too far. Don’t cast spells of more than 50 mana; and that’s after your various reductions. Spells or Abilities that you have Favored to be below this limit should be fine. No splashy spells either! None of that [Luminous Beam] shit; don’t care how much it costs you. The Green Labyrinth will sense if too much mana moves inside its Domain. Use your Mana Sense to find the way out if we get lost! Remember! Go away from the pull of mana to leave the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth always pulls mana toward its center. Running against the flow will get you out. Don’t try to go through the canopy or the floor or the trees. You will be seen. You will be attacked. Depending on the severity of those attacks it could go very badly, for we will NOT fully engage with the Vision. We will die if we do.

‘The first few kilometers are easy. Don’t get confused if nothing looks different.

‘Let’s go.’

Rocky stepped through the space between the trees. Teressa followed.

Then everyone else came through.

Ophiel spread himself out, keeping his selves aloft on [Greater Lightwalk], while dragging along spheres of dense air in order to keep his mana high. He would switch the rocks holding the [Prismatic Ward]s around, as needed.

Erick followed Tenebrae through the space between the trees, his mana sense active, trying to see more of what he was already seeing.

Mana always flowed. Normally mana flowed with the wind, with the water, with all natural movement, as though it was just a touch behind and ahead of the movement of the natural world. But between the twinned trees, mana flowed inward, against the wind.

‘Huh.’ Teressa said, ‘That’s odd.’

‘Odd flow,’ Erick agreed, as he followed Teressa.

Tenebrae kept up behind both of them as he sent, ‘You should work more on your magic, Teressa. You have achieved a skill that many never do. All you need is proper aura control.’

With a smile, Teressa sent, ‘I can only cast what I can because of the rings I have. I’m no mage.’

‘You could be.’ Tenebrae sent, ‘Anyone can be a proper mage if they know the way and have a few of the basic starter skills. Discipline, Concentration, Clarity, Meditation. You have those. You could be a mage.’

Teressa gave a non-committal grunt.

And they walked.

Ophiel kept watch over them all with [Greater Lightwalk] turning him to heat and shifting much of his vision into something resembling [Heat Sight], though Erick had yet to find such a spell available for him in the Open Script. Between all of his bodies, the feathered [Familiar] kept every Sight spell active, and his eyes trained on the darkness, and on the path ahead. He would be the first to know if something was out there.

They walked.

Not a single person in the group made any sounds. Everyone had some sort of [Muffle] effect; either [Silent Movement], or in the case of the Rockys, Erick, Jane, Teressa, they had [Hunter’s Instincts]. The party walked between the trees, giving each of them a wide berth, in case something hid on the other side, or just above, waiting for something to come close enough to grab and eat.

But nothing materialized out of the gloom. Nothing descended from the canopy high, high above. Nothing came up from the loamy ground, or out from under the many deadfalls or the mushroom piles or from out of the very air itself. Nothing appeared from behind the curve of any tree.

And they walked.

As they walked, Erick felt his [Greater Lightwalk] become something less. His natural control over the surrounding light grew weaker. Ophiel experienced the same thing, but for him it was a greater problem. He could no longer fly through the darkness, supplying his own light. So he started to walk on the ground. Four of him took position on the shoulders of each of Erick’s people, and Erick himself.

‘Dad.’ Jane said, ‘I don’t need the hanger-on.’

‘I didn’t put him there. He likes you.’ And that was true.

Tenebrae smiled, then he looked away, into the darkness, struggling to see something in the distance. It was an act, though. There was nothing out there. Tenebrae was looking away because of some emotions bubbling forth.

And they walked.

All in all… It turned out to be a nice walk, even if it was in almost complete darkness.

Twenty minutes later, a Red-Ferned Armed Sloth appeared. It was not a Lesser one, for there was no way a beast of that size could compare to the one that Erick had killed earlier. Red talons wrapped around trees far ahead as the beast held itself a good twenty meters above the Forest floor, like some cross between a spider of a hundred arms and what should have been an herbivore, but obviously wasn’t. Not with those teeth! Erick’s stomach and heart flip flopped in his chest as the back end of the beast failed to come into view. The beast’s torso and so many more arms just continued into the dark beyond, like the head of the monster was simply the first car in a train made of red fur and ferns and arms.

It moved without making a sound. Somehow, there had been no hints of its arrival. The Vision was empty of threats, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

Tenebrae saw the complication a bare moment after Erick. While Erick was currently feeling something between satisfaction that the enemy had finally appeared, and worry because it was a damned huge monster, the older archmage sent out, ‘Retreat. Quiet as you can.’

Erick turned around—

‘This way, idiots!’ Tenebrae rushed to the right—

Erick blinked his mana sense back on; somehow, he had lost that sense, briefly.

The mana flowed to the left.

Erick had gotten turned around, somehow. He wasn’t the only one. Everyone seemed to move in a slightly different direction for a bare second, but then Tenebrae’s instructions snapped them all in one direction. They moved right, against the flow, toward the exit.

In the distance, the massive sloth moved with a ponderance, possibly not having seen—

Red arms, almost black in the darkness, slipped around the intervening trees. The beast flowed toward the party, like a tram moving through the skyline of Chicago. The dark eyes of the main body stared in Erick’s direction, focused on him, like two abyssal pools. Red glittered inside an open maw. A sparkling darkness lanced forward, aimed directly at Erick.

Teressa deflected the dark lance of stone, barely changing its trajectory. The attack shunked two meters into the soft loam to the side. Ten meters of the stone spear were still visible.

Ah. Would Animadversion have worked against that? Erick did not know, and he wasn’t eager to find out. The weakness of reflective magics were that they did not completely work on physical objects, and that [Stone Lance] certainly looked partially physical! Maybe it wasn’t fully summoned stone? The monster could have picked up stone from the ground and shaped it with—

Focus.

You’re being chased by a monster, Erick.

Focus.

They ran, just like Tenebrae demanded of them. Erick threw out a few dozen [Quick Wall]s into the air behind him, in front of the beast. The exit was far away, but they were running rather fast.

And then, somehow, there were two Red-Ferned Armed Sloths. One behind them, crashing into [Force Wall]s and breaking through them with great effort, while another descended from above; a long spider crawling down from the treetops, high, high above.

Stone lances rocketed forward. An Ophiel stepped into the way of one aimed for Jane. Jane sidestepped the attack. The attack struck Ophiel’s thorny shield.

The lance broke into shards as it also bounced backward with a small explosion of reflective power. Red stone shards sprayed into the eyes of the oncoming sloth. The sloth did not even flinch.

No more experiments!

Erick threw out more [Quick Wall]s, blocking the one from above. It worked, for a very generous definition of ‘worked’. The monster crashed through the panes of Force, but was stopped as the [Quick Wall]s piled up faster than the monster could break them.

The party raced away.

The two sloths roared, tiny and ineffectual and far behind them.

And then the sloths were gone. Suddenly. Without warning. The darkness of the Vision turned into normal darkness of the land under the canopy of the Forest. Tenebrae ran for twenty more seconds before he stopped.

None of them were out of breath, at all. A Rocky did throw several blinks of [Healing Word] at Tenebrae, though. Tenebrae stood taller, and then he sighed.

‘Are they invisible?’ Teressa openly wondered. ‘Should we keep running?’

‘Did we pass out of the side of the Vision?’ Jane guessed, ‘But we didn’t pass through the trees we went through to go inside? Are we just… somewhere in the Forest, now?’

Tenebrae breathed again, then sent, ‘They are not invisible. They’re the lesser guardians of the Vision so they’re stuck inside. We just raced toward the nearest edge and exited the Vision, and that edge is in a lot of places. So, yes; we are somewhere in the Forest. Probably not too far from where we started.’

A Rocky pointed in a direction.

Tenebrae nodded, then pointed in the same direction. ‘The Castle is thirty kilometers distant. The Vision will be on high-alert for the rest of the day. This day is sunk. We were found out too early to get very far. Disappointing, but not that bad. Anyone have any idea what could have set it off? I didn’t see anyone break any of my rules and we approached it in the correct manner… I can only conclude that it was Erick’s Worldly Path, but that feels wrong to me.’ He said, ‘Let us have this discussion inside the Castle.’

He blipped away, followed by his Rockys.

Erick turned on his [Lodestar], and enveloped his people. One step later, and he was above the canopy. A few more lightsteps, and they were back at the Castle. Palodia greeted them and then set to making more than just a sandwich for herself for her lunch. She didn’t expect them back till dinner.

Over a quick lunch, they discussed the failure of their first expedition.

Tenebrae said, “I saw [Quick Wall]s. What’s your mana cost for those? With your bonuses?”

“Three.”

Tenebrae narrowed his eyes. And then he relaxed, and hummed. “Three… Is rather low. The sudden hundred of them likely helped to cause the Vision to [Duplicate] the Sloth, but even the first one went directly for you…”

Erick asked, “Should I not have used those [Quick Wall]s?”

Tenebrae waved him off. “I was going to throw up some [Stone Wall]s if you hadn't done that. The run was fucked as soon as the Sloth went after us.”

Jane suggested, “Every Ophiel and me and my dad were all running a Greater Elemental Body? Could that have caused it?”

Tenebrae waved that away, too, saying, “That shouldn’t have done anything. The [Familiar]s were running it at 10 mana per second, but that’s fine. I’ve taken whole squads of Rockys in there, and they were all running [Greater Air Body] or otherwise. Forty Rockys! The Vision shouldn’t care about constant, low-level mana expenditure. It never has before.”

“Something has it spooked,” Teressa offered.

Tenebrae breathed in deep. “Ah…” And then he frowned. “Maybe. If it was spooked… Maybe.” He said, “The problem is that what we saw we should not have seen until a few hundred kilometers into the Vision, or if we killed some random roaming monster on the edge, and then continued to do so against every monster that we saw. Then we would have gotten a response like that, and not before. And then, the Vision copied the sloth right on top of us! Both of those were very large responses… Too large. I don’t believe that this was a Worldly Path problem, but it either is a Worldly Path problem, in which case this is doomed to failure, or something has the Green Labyrinth spooked, or… Something else.” He shrugged. “I expected failure right away, but not that sort of failure. We’ll try again tomorrow.” He rounded on Erick, his eyes narrowed, but his voice even, “You didn’t have a Domain running, did you?”

“Nope.” Erick asked him, “Did you?”

“I did not. Odd.” Tenebrae frowned. Then he shook his head. “Anyway! The Castle’s full defenses and obfuscation magics are active now that we’re done for the day, and we’re ten kilometers above the Forest. We shouldn’t be attacked, but if we are, we’ll be fine. Don’t [Teleport] away. You won’t be able to get back without the proper telepathic codes and I’m not giving you those. Just read a book, or something. Make some more magic.”

- - - -

Back in the room, Erick received a ping from Jane, which included Poi and Teressa in the group-think.

She asked, ‘Should we be worried about Tenebrae trying something? Or is this Worldly Path shenanigans?’

‘I don’t know about the second one,’ Erick said, ‘But if Tenebrae is trying something, I don’t think he’s even aware that he is trying something. As to what ‘things’ could be ‘tried’, I have no idea about those, either.’

‘Delay tactics.’ Teressa offered.

Jane frowned.

Erick reflected on that idea, then sent, ‘Okay. That’s plausible. What for, though?’ He added, ‘And besides that, I didn’t see any Vision-tripping magics come from him or from anyone else.’

Jane sent, ‘Could have had a Rocky come in when we were kilometers from the start point. That third Rocky could have alerted the Vision.’

‘While plausible, I won’t start second-guessing Tenebrae.’ Erick sent, ‘He’s been awful, but also informative. If the Rockys did that then they did it on their own.’

‘Okay…’ Jane sent, ‘I agree. So. Maybe it’s not Tenebrae at all. How much have you paid attention to the Rockys?’

Teressa sent, ‘They’re omnipresent, but otherwise compliant to Tenebrae. They wouldn’t do something without his consent, would they?’

A thought clicked.

‘Ah.’ Erick said, ‘I told Tenebrae that if he went with us, there was a high chance of him dying. A Rocky was there to hear that.’

Teressa and Jane paused as they digested that information.

‘Eh. Don’t worry about it.’ Erick sent, ‘If we get chased out again then we will have to change tactics. Other than that, Tenebrae believed himself when he said that the unexpected monsters were not because of the Worldly Path. So this is either a Worldly Path thing, or a Rocky thing. Or some outside force.’

‘Or just bad luck,’ Poi sent, deciding to join the conversation.

‘Or just bad luck,’ Erick agreed, then he asked, ‘Anyone able to talk to the Rockys? Aside from a few early talks, I think they’re avoiding me.’

‘I talked to a pair of them once, but they’re avoiding me, for sure,’ Jane sent.

Teressa sent, ‘And me.’

‘And me,’ Poi sent.

- - - -

Dinner was great. It was hamburgers with lettuce, onions, and the red tomatoes that Erick had made in response to the purple tomatoes in the marketplaces of Spur. Piles of thin-cut fried fries sat in a large basket in the center, while everyone had a strawberry milkshake. It was absolutely decadent. It reminded Erick of home in a way that he hadn’t known in a long time. The food truly was perfect.

Erick took his third bite of the burger, and had to stop to wipe away a small tear. Tenebrae watched him, silently, as Erick swallowed his food and said, “This is really good.”

Jane sipped her milkshake from a waxed paper straw. She had needed to wipe away several tears already.

Tenebrae nodded, but did not comment, though a smile did briefly appear behind the hidden cover of his white beard. He ate his hamburger with a knife and fork in the same way that Poi ate his, and though Erick wanted to call them out on their sacrilege, he did not.

Teressa ate her four burgers like they were sliders. Two bites! Gone.

Erick commented, “Even got the straws, too.”

Tenebrae said, “They use straws for cold drinks over in the Wasteland.”

“Ha! Yet another reason to visit that place,” Erick said, “So many places to see! It’s kinda nice. Did you ever go on the Worldly Path?”

“Tried it.” Tenebrae cut another bite of burger off, saying, “Didn’t care for it. I experienced a choice that wasn’t a choice at all, and I chose to abandon the Path.”

“How far did you get?”

“Several steps past the start, a few more toward the end.” Tenebrae said, “You’re only on your… What? Third step out of… how many?”

“At least a dozen.” He asked, “Do you think it would rile up the monsters if I sent an Ophiel into the Vision?”

“You can try. You won’t get far. Your connection to Ophiel will vanish after several kilometers.” Tenebrae seemed to struggle with something for a moment, then he said, “If you wish to enact your own series of experiments on the Vision, without damaging it, then you can do so. Don’t kill too many monsters. If you alert anything as big as that Armed Sloth then you will set us back another day. Whatever you feel like doing, I tell you now that the only way to actually proceed in there is to go in your own body and to be as stealthy as possible.”

Erick smiled. And then he went back to enjoying his hamburger.

- - - -

Seven Ophiel fell off of the side of the Castle, while the sun set in the west, bathing the Forest in menacing oranges, and the east was filled with darkness. The moons rose on the horizon, as Ophiel knifed through the sky, aiming for breaks in the Forest below. He did not lightstep, for there was no light to step upon; he just descended. The canopy proved no barrier. Ophiels slipped through leaves.

The sounds of the Forest echoed across the dangerous land, soaking into the leaves, giving credence to the idea that some hungry thing was around every corner. Monkeys howled. Birds squawked. Bugs buzzed. The canopy was as alive as things hunted in the darkening twilight.

Smaller things lived high in the trees, hoping that the larger things could not get them on the fragile branches. They died instead to other smaller things, like ants, spiders, and carnivorous birds.

Larger things hunted in the deeper canopy, feeding off of each other and whatever fell from above, or wandered too far into the dark.

Ophiel dodged grasping arms. Monsters or animals, Erick wasn’t quite sure, reached out to catch the glowing thing that passed beside their hiding holes. One grasping hand was too fast, but Ophiel was untouchable, liquid light. A roar of frustration followed the escaping Ophiel down through the tangled branches.

Ophiel passed straight through spider webs like falling rain, his glowing bodies catching on the dark eyes of the spiders of those webs. The spiders just watched Ophiel pass, not bothering to move because Ophiel had not disturbed their webs.

A cat, or a jaguar, or maybe it was a frog, leapt, and caught an Ophiel in its maw. Erick checked for a rad; the rad was there. This was a monster. That Ophiel burrowed through the frog-cat with a carving of [Force Shrapnel] made extra sharp. Ophiel left the scene of the attempted eating; a body remained behind for scavengers to find.

Erick had all of them switch to their infrared, invisible forms; he had not expected any trouble at all to get to this point, but maybe he should have.

And then Ophiel was past the canopy.

Ophiel spied larger monsters hanging on the sides of trees. Another spider. Another web.

Something moved far below, like the darkened space in sight that happened whenever Erick had seen a bright flash and experienced a temporary light blindness; the monster was both glowing, and the exact opposite. It moved away from Ophiel’s path; there was no bother.

Somewhat invisible, Ophiel descended to the Forest Floor.

Erick’s Perception and Intelligence, and several Ophiel floating around everywhere with eyes in every direction, helped him to find the path he had traveled earlier in the day.

Three minutes later, Ophiel came to the Twin Trees. Each Ophiel cast an [Animadversion] for themselves, which a few wore like hats, a few wore like a buckler either on their left or right side, and one wore like it was a platform to float upon. Each Ophiel was only as large as a hand; Erick thought they looked very cute. He almost asked if Jane wanted to see one, but she was busy with gridwork.

Erick focused on the mission.

One by one, Ophiels used their lightforms to give themselves a semblance of legs.

… The Ophiel with the ‘platform’ buckler turned his shield into a ‘backpack’ buckler.

And then they walked inside.

They walked, and walked, and wal—

Erick felt his connection grow faint. He had an Ophiel hoof it to the entrance, which was…

That way! Still directly behind them. They were only a kilometer in; they hadn’t gotten turned around too bad, yet. Once that Ophiel was back beside the Twins, the others moved forward. A second Ophiel was left behind after two kilometers in, creating a connecting bridge to the rest. That Ophiel hunkered down in the moss, holding his buckler over him and retreating to his smallest form, closing the [Animadversion] over himself like he was closing the hatch in a submarine.

Two more kilometers later, a third Ophiel did the same.

Erick constantly checked the direction and the flow of mana to ensure that his Ophiel were moving forward, all the time, and that to look backward was to truly gaze back toward the entrance.

Erick reached the end of his Ophiel. 14 kilometers in. That’s as far as he had gotten. He could have used the ones around him in the Castle, but that seemed like a mistake.

Back in the Labyrinth, and for every single Ophiel therein, nothing appeared out of the gloom. Nothing attacked. Erick had kept his Ophiel as small and as dim as possible. They peeked out from their hiding spots occasionally, seeing if they could see anything, but there was nothing in the Vision save for darkness and house-sized tree trunks, covered in moss.

Okay. Time for tests! Here’s the big one.

Erick had one of the forward-most Ophiel enact his [Lodestar].

Briefly, the world flickered, as the forward-most Ophiel expanded out into a tiny sunform, barely half a meter across. His twisted silver buckler hovered in the air behind him.

The mana of the Green Labyrinth churned with sudden intent.

No one blinked, for Erick was seeing through [Scry], and Ophiel had a hundred tiny eyes trained upon the world beyond. But still, something appeared that wasn’t there before, without warning, without sound.

A flickering fire. It was green around the edges, with a white core, and pink accents. That fire shifted into a solid sphere that twisted around to reveal a pupil made of darkness. Another eye opened three meters from the first. And then came a smile, wide and bright as a crescent moon, stretching beneath the inquisitive eyes.

Erick wondered, briefly, if he had made a mistake.

The smile vanished. The eyes closed.

Three Armed Sloths descended on that Ophiel, like three trains converging onto a point. Arms and massive claws came out and crashed into Ophiel’s sunform, battering him around like he was a soccer ball. His silver buckler became a full-body snowflake-like wrapping, with dozens of thorns directed outward. Red claws broke as they tried to break Ophiel’s sunform, and only managed to hit [Animadversion]. Arms with broken claws retreated, only to be replaced by countless more claws and the addition of another Armed Sloth.

Erick expected Ophiel to break. Ophiel whined in flute sounds, expecting himself to break, too.

But that didn’t happen.

[Animadversion]. [Greater Lightwalk]. [Lodestar]. These were enough for simple melee attacks, and to negate most magics.

Ten minutes passed; the attacks never stopped.

Claws broke upon Ophiel’s [Animadversion]. [Stone Lance]s turned into reflected shrapnel. One [Stone Lance] actually fully reflected, hitting an Armed Sloth in the face but breaking at the contact.

Without warning the Armed Sloths retreated into the gloom, vanishing from sight and every Sight that Erick tried. The fiery smile didn’t return. The eyes did not appear. The world seemed to still. Moments became minutes.

Erick called out, “Hello? Are you t—”

Gloom vanished. The mossy Forest floor wheeled underneath Ophiel, like the world’s fastest moving tram. Without moving, Ophiel was suddenly far ahead of where he had been.

Erick briefly saw a Gate standing in the middle of a clearing. It was a bright silver metal, with each of its four sides maybe a meter thick, while the whole thing was rather blocky. He guessed it was about ten meters tall and maybe that much wide, while it sat upon a platform that was double that size. A small ramp of the same silver metal arced into the active magic in the center of the Gate.

The Gate was active.

The sun shone on the other side.

There was a city. People. Waterfalls. Buildings made of airy levels of carved stone. A market.

Someone in guard-armor yelled at the direction of the Gate, while other guards ran toward the Gate, and the people beyond suddenly stared at the Gate. Some ran away.

Erick lost his connection to Ophiel.

He sat up on his chair.

Thirty seconds later, he went to find Tenebrae.