Ar'Kendrithyst

The Crystal Forest disappeared with one more white blip, as Erick reappeared on the flat orange land of the Human District, a hundred feet from his house. Teressa let go of his hand, hefting a three-foot long tarp-covered object in her other arm; the giant yellow grand-rad they had gotten from the eyebeam wyrm. She carried almost every camping supply they had brought with them in her massive backpack, but Erick was still weighed down. His own pack had been rearranged to contain everything that was headed toward the Adventurer’s Guildhouse; it was quite heavy, with hundreds of gold wrapped up tight so as not to jangle, and lots of minor magical items that someone might be able to recharge.

A sapphire blue blip revealed Rats and Poi, twenty feet away.

Teressa walked toward the house, laden with the grand-rad and camping supplies. After Poi transferred his own pack to Rats, Rats followed her, carrying his and Poi’s packs toward the house.

Rats turned around, waving. “See you later.”

Teressa gave a small wave behind her, as she too walked into the house.

Poi stepped toward Erick. “To the Adventurer’s Guildhouse?”

Erick breathed in the air of Spur. It smelled like stone and wind, and dry; it smelled like home. Erick smiled, then said, “Yup.”

“I should warn you, that the Champion did her battle with Planter yesterday. You will probably be expected to hand off whatever treasure you agreed to make either today or tomorrow.”

“Really? That soon? Good.” Erick smiled, checking the Kill and Exterminate Quest, and yup, Planter’s name was gone. “How’d it go?”

Streamers of intent connected Poi to other people, as he said, “I’m just getting the updates now—” He paused. He said, “They had… quite a lot of difficulty. Three of them died. And hundreds of others.” He added, “It was quite bad. Jane would want to talk to you about that, and about what comes next.”

Erick felt a sudden chill. He lost his smile. The weight of his pack seemed heavier, filled as it was with the possessions of the dead. Erick said, “Let’s get this stuff to the guildhouse for the Fund, first.”

Poi nodded.

- - - -

Quite a lot of people walked through the Adventurer’s District from one location to the next, from lunch to armorer, or alchemist to home. So many people, all of them walking in so many different directions. There was a slowdown of traffic into the Adventurer’s Guildhouse ancient forest land, but Erick eventually made it to the front door, through the crowds inside, to step up to the teller behind the counter.

Paril was on duty today; the tealscale dragonkin who registered Erick for his adventuring badge.

“Hello there, Archmage Flatt.” Paril asked, “Did your hunt go well?”

“Yes.” Erick pulled out the generic paper for the quest, filled out with details of the hunt, then slid it across the marble divide, under the metal bars, saying, “Eyebeam wyrm, singular grand rad, meter long.” The truthstone behind the counter, at Paril’s side, glowed green. Her eyes went a little wide as Erick said, “I have 17 guildbadges to turn in, and this loot to place into the Fund.” Erick unslung the pack from his back—

Paril said, “Please do not take those out here. We do not deal in treasure or the acceptance of lost badges at this window.” She put on a cheerful face, asking, “Eyebeam wyrm? Was it yellow?”

Erick put his backpack back on, saying, “Yes. Bright yellow.”

Paril frowned as she pulled out a small folder from behind the counter and set it in front of herself. She opened it, revealing perfectly realistic drawings of various monsters; most of them looking like wyrms, but some of them were not. The only ones Erick understood, as Paril flipped through papers revealing other body horrors like the wyrm, was a red dog-like monster and a blue bat-like maybe-snake, before Paril flipped over to the yellow eyebeam wyrm. She laid the paper in front of Erick, asking, “Is this the monster you killed?”

The image was mostly the same. Maybe there were slight differences. Maybe not?

Poi said, “Yes. That’s the one.”

“That’s the one,” Erick agreed.

The truthstone glowed green for Poi, but pale pink for Erick.

Paril looked at Erick.

“I’m not exactly sure. It probably is.”

Poi said, “It is.”

Green for Poi, and now green for Erick, too; that was good enough for Paril. “This update to the known monsters of the Crystal Forest came through yesterday.” Paril said, touching the folder of monsters. “A few people in Vindin are going to be very happy that you killed that wyrm. As for yourself: you are now 500 gold richer,” Paril moved the sheet of paper with the yellow wyrm on it to the side. “Quite a bit more than the 250 gold for a 4 star wyrm. Your yellow wyrm was 5 stars, but it should have been 6, if you recovered seventeen badges. Unfortunately, you can blame this lack of 6 stars on Vindin; they’re notoriously stingy with properly identifying threats. And because of that, unfortunately, we only pay out on the difficulty set forth on the quest, not what you may have actually encountered.” She said, “Your own badge, please. How would you like to be paid? If you want gold, it will take a day.”

She spoke so professionally about death and danger, that she unnerved Erick. But, he reflected, this was the world he lived in. He was going to hunt more wyrms, for sure. Just to prevent more tragedy like this.

Erick handed over his badge, saying, “Put four hundred of the gold into the Fund, and the rest into direct deposit. Where should I take this stuff? Which is also for the Fund.”

Paril smiled, taking his badge and quickly filling out her paperwork, writing upon Erick’s paper and the paper of the yellow wyrm, saying, “Thank you very much, Archmage Flatt, for your dedication to the cause. I’d get someone to escort you to deposit your loot, but Mog is standing right behind you; I think she wants to take over from here.” She handed him back his badge.

Erick took his badge and turned around, smiling. Mog was as muscular and beautiful as Erick remembered, in her usual brown leathers with teal accents; her Guildmaster outfit. People at other windows eyed Mog, but kept on with their own business. Mog was not smiling.

Mog said, “Hey. Come with me.” She turned to Poi. “You’re aware he has tails on him, aren’t you?”

Long-suffering Poi, said, “Yes, Guildmaster. All of them are keeping their distance.”

Erick froze. Then he lied, “I’m aware as well.”

Mog looked to Erick, smirking. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“… Yeah. I was never good at it.”

Mog said, “Come on; this way.”

- - - -

In a private room beside the receptionist area, on a smaller table covered in soft green fabric, Erick set out the seventeen badges they had retrieved from the body of the yellow wyrm. A blue-skinned incani woman named Owlin took down the numbers on the badges, touching each badge reverentially as she did, while Erick set out the rest of the loot they had retrieved on a larger, dented table, that looked used to this sort of thing. Mog watched the whole ordeal. When Owlin was done with the badges and began moving onto the loot, she thanked Erick for his donations. Erick left before they finished counting it all up; he didn’t need to know how much it was.

With his pack now empty, Mog took Erick up to a private booth on the third floor, away from prying eyes, and bought him a drink.

“Congratulations on the kill. I read up on the yellow wyrm.” Mog sipped her beer, saying, “That should have been classified as a 6 star threat. How’d you kill it?”

“From very far away and with as little danger to myself as possible.” Erick said, “I’m going to keep killing wyrms when I can, and probably the same way.” He asked, “Do you have any other mindless targets that need to not be a problem anymore?”

Mog’s face did several happy things. She smiled, her eyes lit up. She sighed, and then, with a slight tilt and running a hand through her short black hair, she said, “You know just what to say to a girl, don’t you?” She dropped her hand to the table, her lower fangs flashing a little, as she added, “I have lots of targets like that, yes.”

She was beautiful.

Back on Earth, the solution to this situation was painfully obvious, but this was not Earth.

“Sooo?” Erick added a bit of his own flirt, enough that anyone looking would have trouble identifying it as a flirt, as he asked, “What happens next?”

Mog laughed a sigh, saying, “Unfortunately, while I like such an open ended question from you, work comes first: I’ve had a chance to talk to Yetta; she’ll tell you what she wants from you. Her attack on Ar’Kendrithyst went about as well as could be expected. Three of them died; Yetta and the only living prince of Odaali survived. They only survived because of your daughter. In total, ten Shades are dead. Melemizargo was summoned at the end of it all, but as insane gods sometimes do, all he did was leave.” She said, “The adventuring community is booming; much too large to be safe for any of us. So I urge you, when people come to you and speak of killing Shades, asking you to give them a quest, too, listen to the horror stories people rescued from the Dead City will tell you, and keep in mind that poking a wyrms' nest sometimes drops treasure, but it usually just drops wyrms.”

Erick felt an anger rise, subtle but furious. He calmed himself before saying, “We should kill them all.”

Mog smiled softly, saying, “Again. I urge you to understand, from many more sources than just I, that to do this would be to invite destruction upon us all. The remaining Shades are the most powerful ones of the Dead City, and they’re changing everything inside of their walls. They’re conquering and absorbing the lairs of their former comrades, expanding their powers, growing even stronger than they were before.”

Erick stared at Mog. For such a tall muscular woman, she appeared unusually soft right now. Erick breathed, then said, “You’re right. I don’t have any idea of what happened in there. Or what would happen, if we got more agressive."

Mog relaxed. “Thank you.” She sat a bit straighter, and said, “As for killing this yellow wyrm, you’re cleared for 6 star quests, now. I do have more targets for you; mindless disasters that need to die that no one can really get near. But you have a promise to keep with Yetta about Odaali, do you not?”

Erick said, "I do.”

Mog nodded, then waterfall’ed the rest of her beer. She smiled as she stood up, setting the empty beer mug on the table, saying, “I’ll have a list when you get back, dear Archmage.” She added, “You should probably [Teleport] home. We have some uninvited guests into our conversation that need a lesson in civility.” She cracked her knuckles, then vanished in a colorless splash of air.

A loud BOOM rocked the side of the guildhouse. The entire front room went quiet for a brief moment, before people started rushing for the front door, talking loudly, asking about what happened.

Erick immediately turned to Poi, “What the fuck, Poi? We were being followed?”

Poi stared at Erick. “You’re being followed ninety percent of the time you’re out and about on the town, sir. I would have told Guildmaster Mog to ignore them, but it is not my place. She might know more about those specific people than I.” He added, “And you do lie horribly. You would have given away that we were being followed, and thus deny me the opportunity to vet our stalkers as zero-threat. Which I did.”

“… I would like to know when we’re being followed, from now on. I can keep a straight face.”

“Very well, sir.”

“How are you vetting them, anyway?”

Poi said, “It’s a combination of [Scry], [Ultrasight], [Identify], and a few other abilities, such as [Sense Intent].”

Erick hummed.

Poi said, “And just so you’re aware, it is hard to defend you when you lie to me. So please, in the future, refrain from lying to any of Teressa, Rats, or I, about things such as you getting much more than 1% Participation from a monster kill—”

Erick winced.

“—Because Phagar is a perfectly acceptable god to worship. Considering your history and personal accomplishments, it would be completely normal for him to accept your kills as necessary and prudent, and to even award you full Participation.”

“… Oh?”

Poi frowned a little. “You’ve been getting full Participation for a while, haven’t you?”

“… Yes. I just… I didn’t want to look weird. You’ve already complained about that.”

“That's not a problem. What is odd —but still not a problem— is that you got a fake kill box.” Poi said, “But I’m not going to ask after that, or any other casual oddities. What is a problem, is that casual lies could start a trend which could lead to something terrible happening because of conflicting information. I would never lie to you, sir; it would irrevocably damage my credibility as a resource for your protection, and for the protection of Spur’s own future. I would hope for the same from you, for much the same reason.”

Erick smiled, softly. “Heard loud and clear, Poi. Sorry.”

Poi simply nodded.

Jane’s voice cut into Erick’s mind, ‘Hey! Dad! I heard you’re back. Let’s meet at the house. Yetta and I want to talk.’

‘See you there.’ Erick briefly turned on [Perfect Hearing], listening to the growing argument outside. He asked Poi, “Who were our followers, anyway?”

“Business men from Portal, who I distracted by informing the nearby guard, but who appear to be painfully pushy.” Poi listened to the air, over the noise of the guildhouse. “Very pushy.”

Erick instantly said, “We’re [Teleport]ing home.”

- - - -

Erick and Poi blipped onto the orange stone outside of his house.

Jane stood at the front door, wearing her normal around-town clothes. Her shoes from Earth, pants and an airy tunic; perfect for the desert weather of Spur. Her hair was pulled back into a clip, and she was smiling. They both walked toward each other, and met in a hug. Erick held his daughter; she was warm and healthy, and most importantly: she was okay.

Erick softly said, “I heard a little about what happened, but not nearly enough.”

Jane laughed into Erick’s shoulder, saying, “We’ve got a lot to talk about.” She pulled away.

Erick let her go, saying, “Did you get a chance to test the harmony between two Force spells? I’m working on the pieces for [Tracker’s Instincts] to work my way up to [Hunter’s Instincts] using this method.”

Jane smiled wide, saying, “That’s a very good ability to have, dad; I use it all the time. But I haven’t done much tier work. We’ve got a lot to talk about until Yetta and Cyril get here later.” She walked to the house, saying, “Let’s go inside.”

- - - -

Jane made good coftea; roasting the leaves just right, filling the kitchen with that wonderful caramalized bitter coffee scent. Erick had missed her coftea. He had missed her. They’d only been fifteen miles apart for a month, and they talked almost every day, but it was still difficult knowing that she was in danger all the time and there was nothing that he could do to help her.

Finding out about the harmonies possible between different magics was something he felt could be very important to her success; to her ability to fight the monsters and survive on Veird. But she brushed him off twice now, redirecting the conversation in some other direction, or cutting off conversation entirely. She likely had a very good reason for this, and she seemed to be gearing up for an involved and troubling talk, if her meandering and quiet words around the kitchen were any indication.

Jane cut up cheese and bread on the kitchen counter, while Erick sipped coftea, sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the chop-chop-chop of the knife meeting the cutting board, waiting for Jane to start talking. She almost started a few times, her mouth opening, but she stopped; her words didn’t seem to want to come out.

So, Erick started, “Hunting for wyrms is pretty nice; until you meet the ones that can cut through a [Force Wall] with their thousand [Force Beam]s. I ended up killing it with a swarm of [Conjure Force Elemental]s. I still got a long ways to level all the parts necessary for [Tracker’s Instincts], but the first trial of my new insight with the harmonies of magic is going to be a [Familiar] spell. When I get all of that together, I think I’ll hunt as many wyrms as I can.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“We found seventeen adventurer badges inside the wyrm we killed; so they’re yet another monster that needs to die.”

Jane listened, but kept her mouth tightly closed. She brought the cheese platter to the table and set it between Erick and herself, as she sat down.

Erick waited for her to speak, but she didn’t.

Jane only ever got like this one other time; when she told Erick that she got accepted to her CIA internship, and that she was going forward with her plan to become an international special agent. Her telling him she was joining Spur’s Army was easier for her than this.

Erick was starting to worry, but he shoved that emotion down hard so it wouldn't consume his every thought.

He continued, “Do I need to put up anti-spying measures for this?”

Jane froze. She slowly nodded.

Erick flashed out a pair of [Ward]s to cut off the kitchen from the rest of the spying world; one [Visual Distortion Ward], transforming everything outside of the kitchen into a Picasso painting seen through terrible TV reception, the other a [Sound Distortion Ward], making the rest of the world a static-filled void. Poi, Teressa, and Rats were already elsewhere; they had vacated the area to give Jane and Erick some privacy.

Erick started, “We should be safe now—”

Jane blurted out, “The Shades used your quest, and the Champion’s Kill and Exterminate Quest, to cull their own; they killed eight Shades, I killed one. When Yetta and her team killed Planter, the Shades trapped her, Cyril, Basil, and Dorthy, into a giant statue in order to summon Melemizargo from the Underworld. Allan had already given his life to kill Planter. I ended up talking to Melemizargo, directly, as a spider. There was a very tense conversation for me, but for the Dark Dragon, I think he thought he was teaching a child about magic. He sang a song of [Shadowalk], vibrating the manasphere, and I sang with him, transforming my [Shadowalk] into [Greater Shadowalk].” Jane handed Erick the box for [Greater Shadowalk].