Ar'Kendrithyst

Events proceeded rapidly after her father vanished from sight, but Jane still had to live through those events.

Darabella yelled about how the Beginning Pad simply wasn’t capable of not linking with the Destination Pad. Yarlinnia collapsed to the ground, holding onto the wall so that she didn’t collapse all the way. Visions of Implications of this happening in her house crossed her face like dark thoughts. She was in deep shit, and she knew it. Nirzir started crying like the little girl that she was as she finally realized that Erick was actually gone, which caused tears to fall from Teressa’s eyes, too.

Jane wiped away hot tears of her own, thinking, perhaps unkindly, that if this was what it was like to deal with the death of a loved one, then she was glad she only had the one. She was already exhausted. She wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a day. But that was only her first reaction. Not one second after that feeling came, it went, and Jane resolved herself to emotional strength…

Minutes passed with Darabella yelling about how this wasn’t possible and Yarlinnia saying the same and Nirzir demanding answers and Jane being numb to it all—

And then Jane realized that being sad was probably premature. Sure, Ophiel had collapsed and ‘died’ rather spectacularly, and in a way Jane had never seen before. But...

Jane asked Poi, “Is Yggdrasil still out there?”

While staring at the Teleport Pad that had taken Erick away, Poi said, “Yes.” All eyes in the room locked to him, as everyone suddenly went silent and hopeful. Poi elaborated, “Yggdrasil is still at both Candlepoint and Holorulo, but he’s as dim as a normal tree and the rainbow crown is almost completely gone.”

Jane’s chest tightened. “What does that mean?”

“We’re not sure. We’ve asked the Arbors of Treehome, but they are currently without consensus. They haven’t had enough time to understand what just happened.” Poi turned away from the Teleport Pad, to look at Jane, and then glance at everyone else. “News is spreading very, very fast, with many people having noticed that something massive and unknown shifted in the future of the world the very second Erick willingly stepped on that pad. This is how Redarrow thought to contact me, and how that conversation started. There is absolutely no covering up that this happened.” He looked to Yarlinnia, who had recovered some of her noble bearing. “So before anything gets too out of hand, and to prevent future problems for you, Scion Yarlinnina, and for the rest of us, I’m asking for everyone here to allow for a Mind Mage recording of the mind and memories of the last three hours, for all future investigatory purposes. Does anyone here have a problem with this?”

It had been three hours already? Jane frowned at herself— No. it had only been fifteen minutes since Erick vanished.

Ah.

She was probably in a bit of shock. Ah. Yeah. She was. She was sitting down in a provided chair. When did that happen? Anyway. Poi was calling for a recording all the time so far, starting at when they entered House Whitesteel’s property. Yeah. That made sense.

Yarlinna said, “I consent. I had nothing to do with this, and neither did House Whitesteel—”

Darabella yelled, “It’s the same people who killed Goliro! It has to be!”

“Please,” Yarlinnia whispered, but apparently not loud enough for Darabella to hear.

Darabella accused, “The Pads worked as they should have all this time until now! But now they didn’t? When they’re meters apart? Impossible! Someone was involved in shifting the magic, and—”

“Darabella!” Yarlinnia yelled. “Please. Not right now.”

Nirzir demanded, “What do you think is going to happen now, Poi? What is going to happen here? Will there be an investigation?”

Yarlinnia paled. Darabella’s hope soared.

Poi spoke with authority, saying, “There are many people who are allied to Archmage Flatt, and they will be coming down on this land and this house like a storming archmage— Which is oddly appropriate.” He continued, “Whatever these Teleporting Pads are doing will be investigated a lot more than they have been before. I advise everyone here to keep their emotions in check, and to only speak the truth.”

Jane suddenly realized the depths of what her father had done; this was a worldwide problem, now.

Teressa, who had been silent this whole time, stared hateful daggers at Yarlinnia and Darabella, but she remained silent.

Nirzir looked at the Teleporting Pads and obviously ran some ideas about them through her head. She seemed to readily come to the conclusion that she should take advantage of the situation for Clan Void Song, and take the pads for herself, but then she stared a bit more, frowned, and looked away from the pads. Jane wasn’t entirely sure what she was seeing in Nirzir, but she guessed that the young girl had changed her mind about something.

Darabella looked as though she gazed upon a sunrise for the first time in a long time.

Yarlinna resolved herself. She said, “House Whitesteel has nothing to hide and neither does Enduring Forge. We will not allow foreign powers to infiltrate our land, but diplomatic inquiries are acceptable, as is a Mind Mage certified memory of the last few hours. We planted no traps for the Archmage, and I would like the rest of the world to know this, now.”

Poi nodded. “Then you consent to a Scan?”

“I do.” Yarlinnia stepped toward Poi, saying, “I consent.”

Poi began scanning Yarlinnia. Teressa was next because she wanted to get it over with before people started showing. This proved to be prescient of her, for people did start to show right away, and everyone was interrupting Poi’s scans to get him to talk to them.

For a moment there, as strangers yelled and demanded and questioned, Jane imagined that Erick was truly dead.

… She didn’t believe it, though, and she told the strangers as much.

But.

… No. He was alive. He had to be.

- - - -

People stood outside of the tower rooms, waiting for Jane, Teressa, Poi, and Nirzir, by the time Jane and everyone else made it back to that space. Those people gestured to the [Prismatic Ward]s wrapping up the area, and spoke of how they couldn’t exist with her father dead. None of those people knew that [Prismatic Ward] was a Permanent spell, and Jane didn’t feel like correcting their erroneous thoughts.

She cleaned up her living space and packed away everything that she needed to pack away, while Teressa, Poi, and Nirzir did the same with their own living spaces.

There was a sudden concern halfway through packing.

Jane met with Nirzir in the workshop room.

Nirzir said, “I want all of it. The record players, the runic webs, the sparse notes. All of it. Even the rusted staff of [Grand Fireball]s. I will pay a handsome sum for these items.”

“Take them, Nirzir; they’re a gift.” Jane glanced to the staff, and thought that her father could have done better; he could have splurged for rustless steel. Yesterday, the staff looked fine, but today it looked more like a metal spike that someone had left at the bottom of a swift-moving river for a century. It was rusted and pitted and looked like it would break under the slightest touch. Jane said, “I don’t want this shit, and he’ll be back.”

Nirzir stared for a moment, then she nodded. “Thank you for your gifts. Songli will always remain open to you and to Erick. When he returns… Make sure to send word?” Her voice almost broke as she asked, “Please?”

Jane nodded, saying, “I will tell you if he shows up.”

“… Dead or alive, Jane.” Nirzir said, “I have to know.”

Jane froze. After a moment she gave a small nod, then said, “Good luck with this rune stuff.”

Nirzir bowed a little.

Jane returned the gesture.

Time seemed to move swiftly. Soon, they were packed, and some porters from Void Song had come to help Nirzir take her new toys away. Jane was thankful that Poi and Teressa didn’t seem to care that Erick’s work was being taken from them. They were rather hopeful that he was coming back, too.

As they exited the Watcher’s Roost, the [Prismatic Ward]s remained.

Which was rather concerning, but not for the reasons that other people found them concerning. A lot of people had odd ideas about her father’s magic, but it had been a few hours by now, and if he was alive then he would probably go to ground and make a safe space for himself, and in such a case, he only had access to eleven [Prismatic Ward]s; one for each Ophiel, and one for himself.

As he cast Ophiel’s [Prismatic Ward]s, the oldest ones got taken down, first.

And so, even though there were only seven [Prismatic Ward]s around this tower, it had been at least half a day since he vanished. If Erick were alive he should be recasting more [Prismatic Ward]s somewhere else, thus automatically removing the [Prismatic Ward]s from this area.

… He could be limiting himself to 3 [Prismatic Ward]s to keep people thinking he was dead— Or more realistically, to ensure that the four of them had a safe place to be while he was gone. That first option didn’t sound like her father, but the second one did. He could be purposefully not taking these ones down just to keep Jane safe; she could see that.

But even so! Her father would know that Jane and them would move back to Spur soon enough, so if the [Prismatic Ward]s around the Watcher’s Roost started vanishing on their own (because Erick would surely need them, right?) then he was alive.

But then, as they were getting ready to leave and Poi gave some parting words to Arakag, the mayor of Enduring Forge, the plan to watch the [Prismatic Ward]s was ripped away.

Some assholes in the gathered crowd, which Jane later discovered were from the Church of Storm and Thunder, having noticed that Erick was gone and every one of his party members was leaving, decided that they personally needed to investigate his rooms. Their goddess Sininindi had given them a Quest to discover Erick’s whereabouts, and so, the high-ranking cleric and several of his friends all cast [Ward Destruction]s, popping every single [Prismatic Ward].

Jane would have gone apocalyptic—

Except that Poi had stopped her, avoiding an international incident.

Time seemed to flow unceasingly toward the future, toward a moment when Jane would find out her father was dead, and Jane was lost in the flow.

Soon enough, it came out that the clerics had gained Enduring Forge’s blessing to cast their spells. Everyone wanted inside Erick’s rooms, for maybe there was a clue about what the man had been thinking when he decided to try his luck with untested Spatial magic.

While Jane was still simmering in the background, almost insensate, with Teressa’s hand on her shoulder, Poi managed to tell everyone exactly how much they had managed to fuck up by breaking the [Prismatic Ward]s, and he had managed to do it without screaming. Jane wouldn’t have been able to manage that, at all. Once the depth of the collective idiocy had been revealed there was a lot of shame to go around, but there was nothing more to be done about any of it.

Jane put that anger behind her.

Jane, Teressa, Nirzir, and Poi left Enduring Forge without further fanfare. Once they were on the Surface, in the Northern Tribulations where the snow fell fast and layered everything in ice, they bade a quick farewell to Nirzir. There were platitudes about ‘always being welcome in Eralis’ and ‘You could visit Spur if you want’, and while Jane tried to remain polite, and Nirzir was as pleasant as she’d been this whole time they had traveled together, there was no mistaking that there was a class divide between them. Not only was Nirzir a princess, she was also a near-archmage, and Jane had no problem believing that the young girl would cross that final bridge to tier 8 and tier 9 spellwork in the coming months. Jane was still having difficulty combining tier 5 spellwork, and though gridwork had helped, it could not make up for pure talent.

They lived in different circles, and Jane was only able to step foot into Nirzir’s because of her father bridging gaps. And now that time was over.

Jane shared some of those thoughts with Nirzir, and it looked to hurt the girl deeply, but it was true, and so Jane said it. Nirzir wiped away a frozen tear as she blipped away in a shattering of violet light, leaving the rest of them there on that mountainside, under the heavy snow.

“Just us three, then,” Jane said, her voice half-stolen by the wind. She held out her hands, “You’ll have to excuse the blipping; I’m not good at lightwalking. It’s the lack of a Domain.”

“You’re not the only one bad at spells, Jane.” Teressa took a hand, saying, “Your father is abnormal, and so is Nirzir.”

Poi silently took the other hand. Jane could tell he had words to share, but he held them back for now. Jane was in no mood to hear them, anyway.

It would be twenty [Teleport]s to get them all the way back to Spur, but that was only if they went in a straight line, and they couldn’t go in a straight line. That was fine, though. Jane began blipping west, landing them on mountainsides and frozen tundras that she had already passed by when she was working with the Elites at Oceanside, helping people the world over.

And just like that, she let her thoughts move to more pleasant places. She had gained a lot of personal strength on this trip, and that was nice. Her power would be enough to get all three of them to where they needed to go without stressing her resources.