Adamant Blood

Andria stared at spreadsheets and graphs and quarterly reports and she saw a way toward a better world.

“We’re investing in #15, #19, #75, and— Oh. Especially this one. #126; Warding Wares in Denver. They have good infrastructure to expand and I liked their proposal for ‘soft walls’,” Andria said.

“And what are those?” Derek asked, confused. “Soft walls?”

Andria was inside Eliot’s factory, and Eliot’s computer system was amazing. It could find anything anywhere, and thanks to the help of some hired AIs from Memphi, she could actually sort through the real information and the fake information. All these companies liked to inflate what they could and did do, but the public numbers didn’t lie.

Each of these companies had a foothold in a system that was supported worldwide, but which was rapidly being turned insular thanks to Okuana’s heavy stance against the System Reset Quest. Aluatha had issued emergency economic reforms thanks to that evil tree’s evil nonsense, and Andria was getting in on the ground floor.

Andria told Derek, “Soft walls are irrigation systems that extend Castellan power beyond the walls of a city, mostly along established routes, allowing Castellan to shut off monster spawns far beyond a normal range. They’re practically useless for that application, though. What they mainly allow is for early detection of monsters outside of Castellan space, and that is what I want them to innovate upon. They’re called ‘soft walls’ because it’s sort of like Okuana’s Green Death Ecology of putting necromantic constructs everywhere to eat up the monster spawning capability and to kill other monster spawns as they appear.”

“Ahhh…” Derek said, “And with Okuana becoming an openly hostile power, we’re going to need that extra detection.”

“Yes,” Andria said, diving into her numbers, feeling them out, barely aware of her surroundings at all. But she did mumble to Derek, “I wish it wouldn’t happen like this, but we must prepare.”

Derek commented, “Doomo visited Verdant Citadel today.”

Andria ripped out of her spreadsheets. “He did what?! Is he that much of a traitor?!”

Derek grinned. “He said he went there to prevent a war. Did he work toward that? Who knows!”

Andria paused, and then she gave voice to her thoughts, saying, “There is a certain weight of history behind the current political climate. 80 years of peace and prosperity is a lot to break all at once, and it might be easy to go back to it… But, no. This status quo is going to break, in small ways first and then in much larger ways, and the war will start before the break is fully done.”

“Maybe we can just be hostile powers,” Derek said, hoping for something better than what was coming down the line. “We don’t have to go to war.”

“Dominant is against the System Reset Quest and he especially doesn’t want other Empires around. He suffers Aluatha because he must, but everything else? He’s going to kill every nascent empire in the crib. There is no Reset Quest with Dominant still alive; the Fates even said so.”

Derek winced. “Every day… Every day I wonder if I did the right thing, telling people about what the Fates said to me.”

Andria shrugged. “Like most big things, you don’t know what was the right thing until many years later. I’m only guessing at this Prosperity thing, you know. I’m probably going to guess wrong about 25% of the time.” She added, “But it’s better to know the rules and lose the game than to play the game without knowing the rules at all.”

Derek looked away, saying, “I think I really hate war, Andria.”

“Monsters are a normal horror, but war is a man-made horror, and that makes it all the worse,” Andria said, as she dove back into her spreadsheets.

Some time passed.

Derek asked, “Care to run a Prosperity check?”

“Ehhhhh… Sure.”

Andria spared a moment to feel down below, into the sewers of the settlement.

When Andria touched down in the settlement 2 weeks ago she instantly felt the slimes in the sewers, and in a few homes, and in the deeper parts of the city, in some caverns, and then far away, kilometers and kilometers away, nestled into the nooks and crannies of a thousand different places. It had been overwhelming in a brief sort of way, but she had acclimated fast, and now every slime in 500 kilometers was at the back of her mind… Except for the slimes directly controlled by others. About 4 people in the settlement had a Slime Tamer Skill, and Andria knew exactly where those people were based on the hollows in her Manipulation.

If she focused, she could reach very, very far…

Her awareness slipped into a slime that was moving through some muck, and though Andria had an instinctive reaction to dislike what was happening at that moment, she also had the slime’s reaction, which was to mosey on along like it always did, eating muck when it found muck, and then making more of itself. Slimes everywhere were slipping up on walls and down on other walls, getting into trouble here and there, and—

A few slimes were heavily agitated near the eastern wall, maybe…

Andria had a think, triangulating, and also sensing the world with her Prosperity. The slimes expanded her range exponentially, and with a minute of concentration, and also tapping away from the spreadsheet in front of her, to see a map of the settlement, Andria tapped on the intersection of Davis Drive and Tiamia Terrace, north-east-ish of the Noble District. It was about 200 meters away from the wall.

“There,” Andria said, “There’s a dip in Prosperity coming from there, and the slimes don’t like whatever is below the city.”

“Moving in on it,” Derek said, meaning that another Derek, elsewhere, was moving. This one stayed beside Andria, and asked, “Is it an intruder or mechanical sort of disturbance?”

“It’s not a cleaner disturbance… Probably not much of anything, actually. But the slimes are disturbed and hateful and there’s like… a generator there, right?” Andria tapped on the screen, but it wouldn’t get any better. “Ah. Right. This is an open console. I need private clearance to see what’s there.”

76-28AB, also known as Abs, one of the AIs Andria had hired for general information digesting tasks, stuck his awareness into one of the other screens. A mechanical face appeared on the screen, saying, “If you wish us to vacate for security reasons, we can.”

76-29ZU, also known as Zuu, stuck his electronic face out of a different screen. He stayed silent, though; his brother, Abs, was the talkative one.

Andria said, “No need. It doesn’t rise to the level of actual concern. Just a spot of non-Prosperity.” Such spots were getting easier to notice, these days, especially when she could see things from multiple angles. Andria added, “Whatever it is is probably fine.”

Derek said, “Actually… I’m there now and also poking at some systems in Castle North. It looks like some spiders got into the city and made a nest in the sewers.”

“Dangerous spiders?”

“Probably not… And yeah. I jumped down the hole into the nest and Union is keeping them at bay… aaaand dead. Not a dangerous infestation but it is rather extensive and they killed me very fast when they saw I wasn’t trying to kill them. I’m corralling the area and calling it a Rank 4 quest, but only because they’re hidden so well. I put it on the chore list.” Derek added, “I recommended a team with Fire Powers.”

Andria nodded and went back to work, muttering, “Wonder why Eliot didn’t spot it.”

- -

“Ugh,” Eliot said, an alert in his field of view. “No, those are not dangerous spiders— Well… They are, but…” He tapped away at an invisible screen a whole lot faster than his fingers actually moved. A few alerts changed priority, and Eliot saw Derek’s name pop up as the filing person… Eliot paused. He turned to Derek who was standing in the back of the meeting, and said, “Those are a natural occurrence of webweave spiders. A team of people are coming in to safely move them into a warehouse in two days.”

Derek asked, “Then why weren’t they listed as such?”

“No idea,” Eliot said, turning back to the meeting. “Probably a glitch.”

It was a weekly meeting of the powers of the settlement, which was currently 15 people, from Aurora Valen, the General, to Bert Ironclad, the guard captain, to Reeni Thumb, ancient witch and leader of the farms of the settlement, to many others. The room was full, and though most people would not be speaking today, some were, and had been.

Aurora hadn’t stopped talking, but she had glared lightly at Eliot. “We also have House Charkolo coming to the settlement. They’re specialized in factory output, with a great deal of family that has the Machinist Skill. I expect Eliot, Rylan, and Eveline to meet with them about incorporating them into the operations of the settlement…”

- -

Sally stood on the balcony of Eliot’s factory, looking out at the building going up right beside them. She was worried. She picked up her phone and called Eliot.

“What’s up?” Eliot asked.

“Do you know them at all? These Charkolos?”

“Not at all! But I’m under orders to incorporate them, and I’m doing so. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”

Sally frowned. “Don’t change the subject… but yes.”

“Excellent— Oh! You’re at the factory? Go say ‘hi!’. I think… yes. Harako Charkolo is the scion of House Charkolo, and he’s at his factory, putting it up right now. It's gonna be a fertilizer plant for the farms.”

Sally was truly worried at the mention of fertilizer. “The fuck, Eliot? Explosives? They’re too close. It’s barely 100 meters between the properties.”

“Non-explosive fertilizer, or at least as non-explosive as they can make it. It’s for mass food production for the farms. The Charkolos are putting up wards, so the smell and the danger won’t be much at all.”

“Wards, meaning we can’t see inside?”

“Or smell it, either!” Eliot said, way too cheerfully.

Sally took a moment, then said, “So Tartu is going to be in there all the time? He is buying farm stuff, right?”

“Probably not the majority buyer, but he is going to be a major buyer. Him and Reeni; settlement funds, you know. Reeni is going over it with a heavy hand, so it’ll be fine, Sally.”

Sally did breathe out a little at that. Relief. She said, “Okay. Good to know. Dinner tonight, for sure, and I’ll wear that blue dress.”

Eliot happily said, “I love that dress. See you tonight.”

“See you.”

Sally hung up, and then she frowned and leaned on the railing, watching the building next door spring up from the ground, or rather from the thousands of small drones crawling all over the place and welding stuff into the proper formation. The drones carried iron, they welded walls, they filled insulation, and they built floors. It wasn’t nearly as clean as Eliot’s Man-made Manipulation, but it was still neat to look at.

Sally liked watching people build things. She didn’t know that about herself until recently, but it was true. It was probably why she saw something special in Eliot.

It felt good to see things being made instead of destroyed.

- -

Tartu pushed his hands into the fresh soil of the farmlands of the settlement and he felt the dream of life in the dark, black loam.

Tartu had literally never thought about soil as a portal to the Darklight, and yet… it was obvious now that Tartu was here, now that he had a proper teacher. He hadn’t really considered that Reeni was a witch as wellas the Agriculture and Resource Management Leader. She was practically the main ARM of the settlement, and though Tartu had never considered the power in that simple acronym, he was more than aware of it now.

The soil of the settlement was the arm that brought the bounty of the world into this place, into Aluatha.

“You see it,” Reeni said, standing to the side.

Tartu opened his eyes and he said, “Yes.” He looked down at the black soil. “It’s the Dream, right there in the dirt. Quiet, for now, but easily woken. I just need a seed.”

“Wake it up without using a seed.”

“… What?”

“The dream is more myriad than biology allows, so enact your will to bring an untenable dream into reality.”

Tartu wasn’t sure about what she was saying, exactly, but…

Tartu dreamed of a tree with flowers for leaves, that drank in the color of the auroras directly, and that made the night brighter in its presence. It was a variation of the Illuminated species of tree, without any leaves at all, which was a rather untenable situation for a plant to be in—

The dream coalesced into the soil and then burst forth like the opening of a third eye.

Something that wasn’tsuddenly became.

Tartu fed power into the blossom, tying it into his farmlands through the shared dream of his creations, nestling the roots through the dreamlands and into the roots of the others… but the others rejected the plant. It was a parasite to them. It gave nothing and took everything.

So the new tree became a short, stunted thing about 3 meters tall with reaching, clawing branches frozen mid-swipe. Its branch tips were made of shimmering singular petals that started off wide and narrowed to bloody tips, like they were claws.

The ‘flowers’ still glowed, though, so…

“Success?” Tartu asked.

“You tried to tie it into your Farm and the Farm rejected it,” Reeni said, peering at the tree with careful eyes. She leaned in, and the tree took a very slow swipe at her, so she leaned back. “Yes. Parasitical. Any decent Farm would have rejected it, out of hand.” Reeni told Tartu, “This realized dream was a mistake, but there is still knowledge to be had here, and I see you have been working hard on your Farm.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Tartu had never been a slacker, so he didn’t appreciate the insinuation that he had been slacking at all, but this was all very different from the normal magic he used to do. Everything with witchery was all about setting the stage and then acting upon the stage that you built. Tartu didn't even have a stage until he got Farmer, though he didn’t realize that until beginning these brief lessons with Reeni.

And now the lesson was over...

Reeni turned away from Tartu and the tree, saying, “Burn it and return it to the dream.”

A leaf fell through Tartu’s vision.

Reeni was gone.

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Tartu turned back to the tree. It had been a failure… But even in failure there was the opportunity to succeed at something else.

It was time for some real fun with magic.

Concentrating, tying into his Farm, Tartu cast a series of Domains in the air, linking them to each other, like laying down Sigaldry bricks in formation. It was so much harder than working in the dream, because the dream smoothed over mistakes. Reality was not nearly as kind. Tartu had to undo several mistakes here and there, redo the Domains correctly, and every individual Domains was each filled with power enough to drain Tartu dry on a good day, a year ago, but now they were each individual contributions from individual plants, each capable of producing several such Domains in a day. No longer was Tartu bound by his own mana production. Now, he had a whole forest at his command!

And by his command, Tartu made a flamethrower.

It wasn’t a full Binding, but it was close! Tartu didn’t need to do anything except create interfaces for heat and light and direction. No need to create protections against self-immolation. No need for movement, or tracking, or any interface at all.

Just pure power, given the barest of directions and self-preservation so as to keep the hovering sphere of mirage-like Domains intact and pointed properly—

It clicked.

Power built at the edge of the near-invisible sphere, the atmosphere turning chilly, the sunshine dimming, as power collected and funneled—

A spark became a flame which became a roar of fire that billowed onto the roots of the tree and climbed up the branches. Flames caught easily on the wood, because Tartu had built the spell to cause exactly that kind of catching.

Over the next 5 minutes the tree Tartu had wrought from dreams became ash in steaming, dead soil. Even the roots, deep as they might have been, were charcoal and dust below the surface.

The flamethrowing spell continued to spew flames, and it could have gone for a long while, too, but Tartu didn’t want to drain his Farm, so he shoved an interrupting Domain through the sphere of collected power and the whole thing cracked along pre-formed directions. The faux-Binding didn’t do anything nearly so destructive as detonate, like Bindings sometimes did when they were broken. It just fizzled out, splashing some heat and light in this and that direction.

And then it was done.

Tartu had made a Binding outside of his body, and the Binding did exactly what it needed to do. Later, he would figure out more complicated Bindings. Maybe active spells that he could control in this or that way. But for now, this was enough.

Tartu pushed a Domain of farmland renewal into the soil, to occupy the space left by the burned tree. Ash rapidly became nutrients. Little green shoots started to grow at the edges. In a few hours the refreshing Domain would break, leaving behind healthy soil, ready to be used again by whatever happened to grow here.

But the tree was gone.

Tartu muttered to himself, “Won’t be that easy to get rid of Dominant.”

But Tartu could dream.

At least Aluatha wasn’t giving a shit about Dominant’s attempt at clawing back the mana flowers that Tartu and Andria had found in Kabberjaw. If this had been a year ago, in a simpler world, if Tartu had showed up with Okuana’s ‘prized secret mana crystal vines’, then Aluatha would have quietly made the international incident go away by telling Tartu he couldn’t do it and then censuring him if he tried. But now? In thisworld? The world of the System Reset Quest and a Godking Dominant that wanted to kill every Inheritor and prevent the Reset from happening?

Aluatha wanted Tartu to authorize mass distribution of those mana crystal vines… Or at least they would, as soon as the attempts at diplomacy with Dominant fell through.

Tartu was 99% sure that Aluatha was using Tartu’s mana crystal vines as more leverage against the coming war, telling Dominant that if he didn’t get on board with the System Reset then he was courting obsolescence. Seemed kinda foolish to Tartu for a bunch of reasons…

But Aluatha still had to try diplomacy.

Many people wouldn’t/couldn’t write off all of the good that had come from semi-open borders and from international cooperation, and it wouldn’t be until someone high-up got assassinated by the other side, until the rhetoric had a chance to really get going after that fact, that the population could be made to see the enemy at the door.

Tartu thought that rather foolish, but then again the people of this world only ever saw the documentary and the escape from Okuana footage aired later. They weren’t there. They didn’t feelthe hate coming off of Dominant, the utter disregard for anyone below him… But maybe some people did know.

The older people; the ones who had been around from before the Reveal.

The older generations, the immortals still hanging around, were ready to go back to war against Okuana… Except…

Except, if they failed.

If Aluatha lost the war.

Because people were already talking about how Aluatha was going to lose if they didn’t have their dragons. Okuana still had their dryads, after all. And so, Aluatha needed its dragons back. And so… A few big names in the noble houses were thrilled about Addavein’s current ‘look’.

Tartu frowned, walking out of the Farms back into the settlement proper, muttering, “A world where dragons ruled us all won’t be much different from a tyrannical tree. Gods… Verdago. They just can’t see the problems with accepting draconic help, can they?” Tartu frowned, adding, “Even if that dragon does look human right now.”

And yet, Tartu couldn’t help but think back to the original argument against dragons, how they simply couldn’t act in humanity’s best interests because humanity was so much smaller than them, so how could a dragon, or a tree, ever understand a human?

So was Addavein, who was now human-sized, ‘fine’?

Addavein didn’t want to rule anyone, anyway. Addashield had a long history of forgoing real power. Addavein only wanted to participate in civilization, and also… in the Hero/Villain Program.

Tartu frowned as he walked. As he got onto the tram, as he thought. As he talked to people and put on a face as they found him on the streets and swamped him with questions, Tartu considered the Addavein problem. Tartu fielded the questions from the people that he could, and then he invoked a series of Domains that he rarely got to use, enveloping himself in a bubble and flying off fast to get away from the crowds, and still, he thought about that damned human-sized dragon.

Because Addavein had put in a request to join the HVP, and he had requested Tartu’s team.

And so, the HVP had summarily grounded Tartu, telling him that he and Shawn and Lenny were 100% barred from doing anything at all. Because, if Tartu couldn’t work in the HVP, then neither could Addavein.

Tartu kinda hated the HVP right now because of that.

“Maybe I can have a villain arc,” Tartu muttered to himself, as he walked down the roads of Mage Society.

- -

“Ugh, Grandma!” Isoko said, over the phone. “I want to do something, but Noel and Crystal Tower are already telling us we’re doing too much.” She lamented, “And they completely shot down my ‘college show’ idea, too.”

Aeri Kanno, AKA Wandering Sage, AKA Grandma, simply said, “And the landscape is too hot right now; I agree. But you still have to do something, Isoko. Make a blog, for gods’ sakes! You do not have to commit to such a small role for a long time, but it’d be good for you to do something to keep in the public eye andaway from Mark. Everyone is way too focused on Mark and Addavein and even that Tartu boy, and you’re being overshadowed.”

Isoko usually loved talking with Grandma. Currently, she was laying in the sun and drinking a margarita made from some fruits the cousins had brought up from Crytalis, when they came visiting a few days ago. Isoko had had a great time showing off for Joey and Pedro when the royals had taken Mark away for meetings behind closed doors. The cousins were fun, even if they were guards and an obvious threat from the royals to Isoko that they had her family on lockdown. Isoko didn’t think her cousins thought of it that way, and Walaria didn’t think of it that way on the surface (according to Mark) but Isoko still saw what she saw. Grandma was usually a lot of fun, too, but right now Isoko was seeing a lot of nervousness… Hmm.

Isoko straight up asked, “Grandma? What’s going on? Because if Crystal Tower and HVP are telling me that they’re not sanctioning shows right now, and you’re telling me to go out on my own…” Isoko’s stomach fell as she considered what this might be. “Oh Freyala… They’re dumping me, aren’t they.”

A beat.

More silence—

“Grandma!” Isoko spat.

“Yes,” Grandma said, like she was pulling a tooth. “They’re likely blackballing all of you. This is too hot. Too real. Considering Memphi and now this… Yes. You’re likely getting ‘non-hireable’. That’s the official industry term, though to call any part of this ‘official’ is getting ahead of ourselves. So do something about it, girl! I know you still want this, and I want this for you. So do something small. Something that won’t blow up in anyone’s faces at all! Get away from Mark to do it, too!”

Isoko felt ice in her chest, pain in her heart, and a shadow crawling across her vision. She had worked so hard for this! How could they possibly dump her? Just because… Just because everything Mark touched turned too large.

It felt like razors were in her throat as Isoko asked, “Do I need to fly solo?”

With a warm voice, Grandma said, “If you want to keep in the Program, keep making movies, then you might need to do that. Or, you could do smaller things, and show off how life is still the same, but different, and maybe have some nice programs with guests every now and then. You’re all still kids and… and you shouldn’t be in a war.” Her voice cracked. She managed to get out, “I’m worried, Isoko. This is all… it’s all too big.”

Isoko had literally never heard Grandma, The Wandering Sage, be anything less than a total badass. Even in her private life she was a force to be reckoned with. But now she was… Oh goddess. Isoko heard soft sobbing on the other side of the line. Tears welled and Isoko sat up on her lounger, breathing heavily, quietly saying, “It’ll be okay, Grandma. There are… There are lots of people trying to prevent the war, and… and everything else that comes with it.”

Mark was hardly home, in meeting after meeting, giving pep talks and giving away adamantium as requested, and saying how the demons were still impossible to kill. So far, Okuana and Aluatha were agreeing with that.

Andria was prepping Aluatha for self-sufficiency, as much as one person could possibly prepare, and using a lot of Mark and Addavein’s money to do so.

Eliot was in meetings every day and then coming out with lists of things to build and Derek running all over the place making purchases and shipments happen.

Sally was practically a nervous wreck, trying to monitor everything around her.

Tartu was delving into deeper magics than Isoko had a basis to understand.

And Isoko…

Isoko was sitting here? Drinking a margarita? What the fuck was she doing?

“Oh goddess,” Isoko muttered, feeling horrible.

She was just trying to get a normal moment for herself, but her plans for the future were falling apart in so many different ways. What was she doing to stop the war? Or rather… to make it happen? Mark wanted it to happen. Tartu thought it was inevitable. Sally was prepped for war and Eliot was, too. Andria was obviously expecting the war to happen.

What was Isoko doing to prep?

Should she be working right now?

Oh goddess, she should, shouldn’t she.

Isoko felt like her heart was breaking as she lamented, “I wanted to be a movie star, Grandma.”

“I know, dear,” Grandma consoled.

“I’m not leaving the team,” Isoko said, words choking her airways.

Grandma said nothing; she had said more than enough.

Isoko breathed, and then laughed to keep from crying. She wiped away a tear, asking, “How is Crystal Tower taking this, for real? Because as far as I know… I thought we were good, Grandma?”

“It’s hush hush right now, but you go ahead and act like it’s not. You tell Mark and whoever that war is a bad idea! You talk like superheroes, and stop talking like paladins! Paladins die. Superheroes live! Crystal Tower has no idea how to deal with all of this, so they’re not; they’re not dealing with it. They’re doing what they always do when it comes to politics. They’re stepping aside. You have to step with them if you want to stay with them.”

“But it’s not ‘politics’, Grandma. It’s literally the fate of the Two Worlds!”

“I’m not being dismissive when I say it’s politics. I’m being truthful. The Crystal Tower allows and expects— Villains especially! They expect people to play up the politics on screen, to tell people the options. But… The options here are hellish, Isoko. What are we supposed to do? One side is us making the world better, everyone working together to do it. The other side is the status quo, led by an empire with a history of killing everyone they don’t like, and who just assassinated the people we thought they were protecting since they could not protect themselves and… Why did Dominant kill the Fates?”

Grandma might have been officially barred from participating in the HVP, but she was still a hero/villain in good standing with Crystal Tower. It was times like this, when she straddled all possible spheres of influence, that Isoko didn’t know if she was speaking to her grandmother, or to the Wandering Sage, the retired supervillain of 10 years ago.

Maybe Isoko could convince the Crystal Tower to stick with them, though, if she explained enough.

Isoko tried, “Dominant killed the Fates because they failed to kill Mark, and thus Mark was put on a path toward Inheriting Xerkona.” And then Isoko added, “And those seem like perfectly good sides for this conflict to have, Grandma! One side is everyone who ever lived free, who made their own choices, who sees a better world, and the other side are the sticks in the mud— Literally! Dominant is a tree! We’re gonna burn that fucking tree, Grandma—” Isoko might have just have had a flash of inspiration. She said, “There are a bunch of displaced dragons in Kabberjaw that want an empire. Maybe Okuana would be good for them. I hear dragonfire is really good at burning things!”

Grandma’s stern voice returned as she said, “Isoko Kanno! You get a damned blog and review food and nail polish, dammit! Don’t be talking like this! I love you. Be safe. Come home for Christmas, bring all of your friends, and never go back to Daihoon ever again.”

Click.

Isoko shuddered, breathing hard for a moment, hands shaking.

She had never spoken like that to her family before, let alone Grandma.

Isoko shivered in the sunlight.

- -

Aeri Kanno hunched over, sobbing, tears falling freely, her phone falling to the tatami mat. She left it there as she cried.

- - - -

In the middle of a flat, open land of brush and barely any water, Goofy Goblin sat down onto a rock, across from Grax. Grax did not look like himself, as he looked up at Goofy. He had a third eye on his forehead, and his green skin was red.

He still seemed like the goblin who had tried to be a father to Goofy.

Grax smiled a little, but he did not show teeth. “You are looking good, son.”

“You are a tool of the demons. You have become a horror.”

“True,” Grax said, not denying it at all. “I’m still a terrible person, but you can learn a lot from terrible people. I hope to teach you something very special, son. Something from a land I had completely forgotten about. And maybe you can find Mark and teach him in turn.”

Grax’s third eye barely opened when he mentioned ‘Mark’, but it didn’t see Mark, so it closed again.

Goofy frowned… And then he merely eyed Grax. “The demon… It doesn’t care unless heis around?”

“Not just him, but I can’t tell you about that.”

Goofy waited.

Grax did not elaborate.

Goofy frowned again, asking, “So it’s true? We’re elves?”

“Yes. We are. Cursed by that damned Barky, who I had also forgotten about. We’re elves.” Grax pulled out a golden rock and set it onto a solid-light table between them, saying, “This is orichalcum. Pick it up. I want to teach you how to make a house and this will be your first brick.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons: I want you to usurp Wongod, because he is dangerous for our people. He has forgotten who he truly is. Perhaps, if he is killed enough, he will remember, or at least he’ll stop being a problem. If your house is strong enough by then, perhaps you can absorb the Green and become a new home for our scattered tribe. The second reason is simpler: I expect you to share this knowledge with Mark. He’ll need it, too, and he won’t ever accept it from me.”

Grax’s third eye opened, and it stayed open, regarding Goofy for a long moment… and then it closed.

Goofy looked back to his father’s red eyes.

After several minutes of thinking, Goofy asked, “Where do we start?”