Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick woke and the world was as he left it. The sky was clear. The white city nearby was completely uninhabited. The waters far, far below had a pod of whales swimming around the large arches of Yggdrasil’s surface-breaching roots.

He crushed his panic down and away.

“Good day, Father,” Yggdrasil said. “Nothing happened while you slept.”

Ophiel chirped in agreement as he fluttered down from the headrest of the bed, onto Erick’s chest like a playful cat. Erick patted the little guy, saying, “Good morning, Ophiel.” He looked up and smiled. “Good morning, Yggdrasil.” He got up, saying, “Let’s go find some breakfast. Yggdrasil? I’m going to the city right over there. You want to [Scry] me? I’ll be back soon.”

Yggdrasil’s branches creaked a bit while his leaves shimmered to dim green. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll be right over there.” Erick dressed himself as he said, “Be back soon, too. I want to experiment with a runic web, and I want you to help with that, but I need to find some supplies first.”

“… Okay.”

Erick smiled brightly, feeling a flush of warmth all over. He had hoped that Yggdrasil would be better after some time together, and that proved to be true. After the talk of yesterday, Erick had worried that he had erred, deeply, in how he interacted with his largest summon. Leaving Jane behind with the sitters while he had gone to work had been tough, but necessary, but Jane didn’t have the capability to simply [Teleport Other] him, to keep him near her at all times. Life would have been very different if that had been a possibility.

Raising Yggdrasil right was going to be tough, and happen a lot sooner than he expected it to happen. But…

Erick absolutely loved the idea of having another ‘kid’. Ophiel was great, but it’d be a hundred years before he turned barely sentient, and longer still till he was sapient. Yggdrasil, though, was already there. And since Yggdrasil was going to live forever, that was another impetus to look into [Immortality], because maybe Jane could find her own way to that spellwork, too—

Oh.

Wait.

Jane would simply [Polymorph] her way to immortality, wouldn’t she? She already had her solution to the problem of death. Erick was the one lagging behind.

With a small laugh at realizing what he should have realized a long time ago, Erick stepped off of Yggdrasil’s branch, into the light, feeling supremely giddy. He might need to resume his search for [Immortality] after this Worldly Path, for the future was looking bright! Unfathomably bright, indeed.

- - - -

Erick found the king’s dining hall in the center of the white castle. The walls were gilded wood. The ceiling was a fresco of a long lost universe. Candles flickered and orbs of light held in the air above, while down below, a thousand different foods were laid out, eternally waiting for people who were long gone. This whole land was a mausoleum to a forgotten place and time…

But the food still tasted great. Copies of the food, anyway. Erick wasn’t about to eat the originals.

Plates of gold and silver and platinum hovered all around him as he filled them up with breads and meats and vegetables. Glazed maybe-ham. Not-pheasant under glass. Racks of sorta-lamb. Asparagus-adjacents in lots of butter, with not-broccoli pilaf. Sugary gels that resembled slimes, with ‘cores’ of candy. Drinks that fizzed and gravies that shimmered like white gold.

Erick copied some of the fine white-pearl jewelry he saw, too, alongside their precious metal inserts. He even found some odd metals he couldn’t name, in the shapes of replica artifacts with surely large significance. When he was done, Erick and Ophiel escaped the white palace with enough loot to make a seasoned adventuring team blush with envy, and enough food to feed maybe two hungry orcols. But he hadn’t stolen a single thing.

He also didn’t erase the manasphere in his passing, either.

Let the incoming wrought see exactly what he had done to their holy land; let them see he had taken nothing and everything. He was kinda excited, wondering what their reaction would be. Maybe they would focus more on [Renew] upturning every single magic school the world over, or how Yggdrasil was planted in the Core, or how Rozeta had probably talked to them all and told them to behave.

Erick took a glance at the wizard’s tower, but he left that alone, again. That place was much less a priority once Erick understood the language, and realized that none of it would be useful for him. Magic simply did not work on Veird like how it used to work back in the Old Cosmology.

He also didn’t want to go there because of its obvious connections to Wizards, but he would probably have to… Soon. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow.

Thoughts about magic held heavy in his mind as he inspected his loot, back atop Yggdrasil’s upper branches. Of particular note was a massive white metal and many-jeweled scepter. It was shaped like something a king would use to show they were the boss, and according to some of the paintings that littered the white palace, that was exactly its purpose. The king used this scepter in place of a crown— Well. Not this scepter. This scepter was a copy of the original that Erick left untouched, in the throne room. That original —which was also copy of the original scepter that was lost to the Old Cosmology— remained laid across the throne, like it was set there to prevent people from sitting on that massive white metal chair. The throne remained behind, though this copied scepter came with him.

Erick suspected that the throne and this scepter were made out of the same materials, anyway, so this was fine. Whatever this scepter was made out of weighed in at thirty kilos of solidness. The rainbow of gems that inlaid its surface probably weighed less than a quarter kilo. If not for those gems, it could probably serve as a good mace.

Erick swung it around a few times, testing weight and balance, as he told Yggdrasil and Ophiel, “I could make it into some sort of unbreakable weapon with some [Flying Striker Rune]s, but honestly, I’m thinking I should make it some sort of [Undertow Renew] scepter. Something that could be stuck into a central node of a runic web and—” Erick stopped.

He stared at nothing as a large thought suddenly dominated his mind.

Erick whispered, “I don’t know the runes for [Renew].” After a moment, he added, “I don’t know the runes for [Undertow], either.” Erick set down the scepter and then he set down himself, laying down on Yggdrasil’s bark, spread eagle and staring upward.

After a moment, Yggdrasil asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking.”

“… Talk to me?”

Erick gladly did so, “Ancient Script is very precise, but it’s also specifically made to rhyme. I had been doing all my major spell creation in Ecks, while sometimes adding in English words as needed. I did my [Renew] creation in Ancient Script, too, except I used the English word for [Renew] because both Ecks and Ancient Script don’t have a great word for that concept, and because I had to create a new concept. That’s what I did when I spoke that spell into existence. I created a concept and attached specific moldable meaning to that concept. I created magic.” Erick breathed. He said, “But I’m not sure what that means for making runework for [Renew], because I don’t know how that translation works. Do I simply write [Renew] into platinum and—” Erick stopped himself. He got back up to his feet, saying, “I’ll have to experiment. I was going to, anyway. Might as well start now.”

He went over to some of the loot he gathered and studied the coins, the rings and the broaches, the bars of precious metals and even the white scepter, once again. And then he dismissed all of that and went to his backpack. He grabbed the sliver of the platinum he had taken from that elemental, which he knew to be pure, and then he started copying it.

Yggdrasil asked, “How would you make the runes for something you don’t understand?”

Erick paused a bit. That was a very coherent thought coming out of Yggdrasil— Ah. Yggdrasil was parroting Erick’s own question back at him to try and understand the question himself.

Erick started talking while he worked, [Duplicate]ing slivers of platinum till he had a good ball of them, then [Metalshape]ing them together, then copying that ball. “I have no idea, Yggdrasil. I’m going to try a few things that might work out, but they probably won’t. My first idea is to write down [Renew] in English, and hope to the gods that doesn’t work, because ‘[Renew]’ in English doesn’t fit with any existing rune structure.

“The second idea is to try and combine some of the words I used in the spell’s creation to make a new word. That’s how most of Ancient Script is, with most high-concept words being mashes of smaller words. It’s like how the Mandarin word for ‘computer’ is ‘lightning brain’ in English, but as one word, or how the Ecks word for ‘book shelf’ would be ‘knowledge repository’ in English. In this way, [Call Lightning] became its own set of runes using Ancient Script notation, so I can only guess that [Renew] will follow the same example.

“Third idea is to try creating my own rune for [Renew]. Probably won’t work, because the Script makes the runes, and [Call Lightning] didn’t get its own rune. But then again, I made the spell, and the Script solidified it to work with the rest of its magic, so maybe it’s special.

“The fourth idea is probably the only thing that would work, though.” Erick said, “I’m going to have to get Darabella or someone else with Greater Shifting Runes to lay down some testing runes in some adamantium, and I’m gonna have to constantly infuse those runes with [Renew] until the true runes for [Renew] appear to me.”

Erick was slightly straining now under the weight of his cubic meter block of platinum. While it was under [Metalshape], it was pretty much weightless, but as he let that spellwork relax…

Without his [Lodestar] supporting the strength of his [Greater Lightwalk], his telekinetic hold upon the metal would have already fractured, for a single cubic meter of platinum had to weigh in at something like 21 metric tons. And it was definitely that heavy. Erick slowly set down the cubic meter of white gold and relaxed as Yggdrasil took all of the weight, effortlessly. Something about that surprised even Erick, though it truly shouldn’t have. Yggdrasil’s main component to his body was eternal stonewood, and thus he was much lighter and stronger than normal wood, or even concrete, but he still had to weigh as much as a small mountain.

With a scoop of Shaping power, Erick took some platinum off the top of the block. Since he had copied the metal inside his [Prismatic Ward], it was perfectly primed to accept runes and other magics. It was Prismsteel, as Grosgrena called it. Useful for multi-elemental spellwork. Super rare, too, because [Prismatic Ward] was also rare, so the uses of this particular metal were not well known to most people.

But Enduring Forge’s books on prismsteel were exhaustive. Though Erick had not read most of them, he had read enough to know that prismsteel was good enough for almost all applications.

He smiled as he cast a [Particle Vacuum] into the air, and a [Condense Platinum] into the center of that. It didn’t take long for that space to empty of contaminants. At that point he stuck the platinum clump into the space and had an Ophiel turn on a low-grade [Incandescent Aura], heating up his clump of platinum, but keeping it below the melting point. As long as a phase change didn’t occur, the magic remained inside the metal; the prismsteel remained prismsteel.

With the red hot platinum, Erick began smashing his clump of metal with all of his force, deforming it with an aching groan. Heat and vacuum and smashing light removed small impurities like so much sparking char, though the prismatic platinum remained in the center, completely at peace with its location.

Squeezing and smashing, Erick gradually began to work out the kinks and interior spherical oddities that had slipped into the metal’s structure when he used [Metalshape]. He probably should have done this before he ended up with a cubic meter of platinum, but it had grown so fast, and oh well.

Soon, his prismsteel was at the pliable stage, and that was good enough. Erick worked his light into the center of the metal and expanded outward, forming a bubble of platinum first, and then physically pushing and prodding it into a tetrahedron, ensuring that every strut and every corner was solid, and secure.

It was the start of a minor runic web; a testing space to see how runes flowed magic from one point to another. Erick had made a few of these days ago— over 33 days ago, actually. But those ones had been made out of normal steel, and were not very durable, or conducive to magic. He hadn’t wanted to display his [Duplicate] in front of anyone up there, either, but down here? Eh. Fuck it.

Ophiel turned off his [Incandescent Aura]. Erick surrounded the wireframe runic web with hard light, and canceled the vacuum. Gradually, he relaxed his hold on the atmosphere, letting air back into the space, onto the platinum. With a gentle touch of [Frozen Mist Aura], the platinum gradually cooled enough to touch, and Erick fully released his lightgrip. Each corner of the prototyping runic web held a flat space to carve runes, but other than that, it was nothing special.

Erick copied the runic web a few times. He set those copies aside and grabbed his adamantium knife out of his bag. With a deep breath and a bit of focus, light streamed into his knife and Erick got to work, inscribing the runes for lightward upon three of the four corners. This first web was just a tester to ensure he had done everything right, after all.

When he was done, he imbued the metal with a lightward—

And, working exactly like it should, Erick’s 10 mana lightward, which produced an effective 200 mana spell, soaked into the platinum web and spread out to three of the four tetrahedron points like liquid illumination. Light clung to prismsteel, which acted almost like a fluorescent bulb, but since the fourth node of the web wasn’t runed the light barely extended up the paths toward that fourth point. Other than that, the light spread rather evenly. It was kinda hard to tell in the full light of the Outer Core, but Erick guesstimated that his 200 mana lightward had been split into thirds.

Erick went ahead and runed ‘lightward’ into the fourth node.

As soon as he finished carving the final slash, imbuing the final bit of meaning into his runes, the runic web dimmed to half strength and the number of lit runic paths doubled, from three, to six. The entire tetrahedron of platinum bars and nodes was lit with a cloying lightward.

“Perfect.” Erick held up the lit runic web, eyeing it for any defects at all. He found none. “Looks good.”

Yggdrasil asked, “What did you do?”

Erick smiled, and then happily explained as he picked up another runic web, and went through the whole process again, explaining it to Yggdrasil as he did.

His next runic web was different.

‘Lightward’ went to a single node, but on the other three nodes Erick tried three different ideas for [Renew]. One node gained ‘[Renew]’, written in English; putting that word into the metal felt weird, and he probably did it wrong, but this was all an experiment and there was nothing to do for the weirdness of it all but try. The second node gained ‘mold mana to spell’, which was about the direct translation of what [Renew] meant, but it was not at all as elegant a rune series as some spells. [Force Bolt] was literally two singular runes, ‘force’ and ‘bolt’, and both of those runes were deeply ingrained into the Script as their own individual glyphs. Carving that second node felt all sorts of wrong, though, so it was probably a failure, too.

The third runic attempt was one of Erick’s own creation, combining and overlapping the simple rune for ‘[Rejuvenation]’, which was the most basic Healing Magic rune, and the rune for ‘mana’. It ended up as a circle with a wave in the center, which also felt all sorts of wrong, but it certainly looked nice and thematic.

None of them worked.

Erick imbued a lightward into that rune, and then he held his hand against each [Renew] attempt, trying to will [Renew] into the metal exactly how he knew it should go, but each time he ended up with a handful of white rain, and the runic web remained unimbued. The lightward didn’t get stronger, at all. The English ‘[Renew]’ failed utterly, but the other two weren’t any better.

He frowned.

“Ah. Well.” Erick guessed, “I’m fluent in Ancient Script, but I certainly don’t use it all the time. Maybe the word I want is already in there, somewhere, and I just haven’t heard it? Maybe I simply haven’t come across the concept yet.” He looked up at Yggdrasil. “Want to call up Poi again? I need to ask him to find me something.”

“Okay.”

Erick nodded, and dove back into Yggdrasil’s consciousness. The world became an ephemeral ocean and flames once again, but with two ghostly pathways leading out from this land of unchanging day. Erick went with Yggdrasil down the correct path—

He hit a block.

Erick had no idea what he was looking at, so he pulled back. Once again sitting on Yggdrasil’s branches, Erick steadied himself, and tried to get through to Poi again. This time he paid special attention to the pathway—

He hit a grate; not a true block. It was hard to understand the grate for what it was, for the land was as solid as the sky and nothing stayed in one place for long at all. Even Yggdrasil’s pathway shifted left and right, appearing and vanishing out of this surrealist landscape like a road in the desert that only appeared when the wind blew away the dunes. And yet, even that imagery wasn’t true, for Yggdrasil had no trouble at all navigating this land, like some great whale of a thousand tails, hovering above and behind Erick, free to swim or fly or crawl as he desired.

Erick only had the one path ahead of him, and the dunes blocked his travel.

With the mental approximation of a frown, and the ethereal idea of grabbing hold of a shovel, Erick stuck his hands into the sand to clear them away—

He came back to himself to see his hands broken, with bone poking out of flesh and blood highlighting and hiding his new wounds. Pain had yet to manifest, but it came on quick enough. Calmly, Erick used his sunform to move his hands back into something approximating their original shape, and he cast [Greater Treat Wounds]. Wounds began to close—

A blue box appeared.