Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick sat still for a moment, there in his chair in the library. He thought about what had happened. He had seen some bad situations in his day, but his visit to Candlepoint had affected him in some deep kinda way.

… He would likely ask himself if everything he had seen was a part of some sort of agenda for a long, long time to come. But for now, he would do what his heart told him to do.

He looked over to Poi, and thought at the man.

Poi said, “If they’re less desperate, then they’ll likely be less willing to follow whatever evil voice rises up in their midst. That place is rife for some unkind influence to take control of the entire place, and they’re already all loyal to the Shades.”

“Yeah… That’s what I thought, too.” Erick asked, “What did Kiri manage to find?”

“She’s off looking after your other request, now.” Poi said, “You’re not going to find much, though. Widespread rad collection is the bane of most archmages.”

“That’s what I heard, too.” Erick asked, “What is a rad, Poi?”

“A collection of mana.” Poi shrugged. “Don’t know what else to say.”

“I’m probably going to have to attach some sort of collection spell to [Domain of the Withering Slime]. But that would make it a tier 5.” Erick turned his attention inward as he glanced at his Status. He only had 7 points available. “I need to invent a few more Basic Spells to get that option, though.” He added, “Or I could try to get above tier 6. My [Endless Plasma Wrap] is only tier 6, and that’s the highest I have… Creating a tier 7, 8, and 9, would be 21 more points. Or I could reinvent some Basic Spells… I wonder how [Force Bolt] came to be...”

Erick thought for a moment longer, and then he acted. Six Ophiels popped out of the air at Erick’s discretion. He sent one of them blipping into his gardening room, to pick up a box of Erick Beans and a container of rice, ready for planting—

He paused. He asked Poi, “Is there going to be a problem with giving food aid to the shadelings of Candlepoint?”

Poi said, “Yes. Not from me, though. Even if their suffering is a ploy, allowing people to suffer is still wrong.”

“… Will it be a problem I can’t handle?”

“No idea, sir.” Poi said, “I have no idea how this is going to play out, but I won’t go there in person, and you should never go, either. No one you care about should ever have any contact with a shadeling, and you should treat this as playing along with their ploy, for now, with the full intention of backstabbing them when they show who they are.”

Erick sighed, “Yeah...”

With a mental push, Erick sent his Ophiel and their stash of seeds out into an unimportant part of the Crystal Forest, a mere 570 kilometers away to the south east. The sky was full dark, with stars twinkling above. The moons washed the land in silver. He sat back in his chair again, as he guided his [Familiar]s to first hover high into the sky, and then light up that part of the desert with bright, full spectrum spotlights.

Crystal Mimics on the ground immediately noticed the lights. They jerked active for a few small moments, but they quickly resumed their attempts at hiding in plain sight when nothing else happened.

Next, came a [Cascade Imaging] set up in the middle of the Erick’s future project. He let that run, searching for ‘people’, hoping he would find none. And then he went to work, clearing out the mimics and working over the land.

What took Erick a good hour to make was a basic garden of three rings. It was perfectly circular and about a kilometer across, with a tall, outer wall, five meters high and a meter wide. The next section of the garden was a portion of land filled with stone spikes, that beans would vine upon. The center of the circular garden was a flat, clay and loam basin that would soon be growing rice.

This land wasn’t the best for growing anything. The plants Erick planned to grow would likely start dying as soon as Erick stopped supporting the area. But by that time, something else would likely happen, and maybe the shadelings wouldn’t need this project. Or maybe he could make something closer to them, and they could harvest what he grew for them, instead of him doing the whole job.

Eh. It’s not like it would be a hard job. He had a lot of tricks up his sleeve to help him grow what he wanted to grow. It was just beans and rice, after all. He could even use that spell he made a long while ago, [Gravity Strainer].