Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick unfurled his wings over a battlefield he had seen in passing, days ago. Or maybe a year ago.

The first time he had seen it was when he was so deep underground that he was on the other side of Fenrir, standing under a true sunny sky. And then he had seen it from ten thousand other perspectives here and there.

Now, he was here, where he had seen himself, wings unfurled wide. He could probably hit 30 kilometers long if he wanted, but he was building a Present here, not shredding this land into countless smaller pieces of infinity, all separate from each other. He was merely 15 kilometers long.

As Erick stood here, knowing that he was watching himself from so many different angles, Erick kinda imagined himself as the needle pulling a thread through countless different Presents. If he had been a different sort of person, perhaps like Lionshard in Margleknot, with his brand of fateweaving magic, then maybe that would have actually been the form this unstructured Wizardry would have taken. But he wasn’t like Lionshard. Erick was just playing it by ear, moving where he needed to move to stand in step with the Pantheon and the fae in order to help the gods do what gods have always done; Decide which reality is the main one.

That decision was being done with violence right now.

The land was Greensoil, but different.

The city was Greendale, the capital, but not really Greendale at all.

This was a Nexus Point upon which most of the counterattack against Plan Surround and Consume was focused, for this was where a major twist in time had taken place, splitting this version of reality from the Godpact.

In this land, Atunir had erupted from the Glimmering Depths from the north of Greendale, Red towers spreading like wheat that had become calcified red/white tumor-spires all across the land. The castles of Greendale were rife with spikes of the stuff, all of them weirdly angled and filled with breathing holes and funnels, while all the land between those spikes was patrolled by demons. The spikes were not natural at all. They were part of a vast ritual. The demons were not Old Demons, but rather incani-based demons.

Those demons had grabbed people and then shoved them against the red/white spikes, and then the spikes had grown around them, trapping them.

The spikes were all deathsoul shrooms, taken in a weird, demonic direction, and instead of trapping just souls, they trapped the entire person and forced them to sing, amplifying their voices through the funnels in their throats. Or rather, what could be considered their throats. The person under that spike, stacked up against other people, did not look like people anymore. In addition to the body twisting, Erick suspected there was also some sort of soul mutation effect going on to make it pleasurable for the people to sing, and with each other, because instead of being some horrific sound…

It was a rather hauntingly beautiful symphony. Organized. Deep and powerful. It called people to join the song, and that is what happened to this land. The people joined the song willingly, unless they were incani, and then they became demons here on Veird.

Erick suspected that the Breach Demon responsible was one of the bigger spikes, but it was hard to tell.

The entire human capital of Greendale and every other major city of Greensoil, from Riski to Kendry to Tower Town and beyond, had become a coordinated song to a Demonic, Red Atunir. There weren’t many song spikes out in the countryside, where entire villages only numbered in the 10s, or 50s. From those places smaller song spikes rose into the sky, singing hymns to a Red Atunir.

In Greendale, the spikes were the size of skyscrapers.

Champion Yetta from Godpact Veird stood opposed to the demonic version of her childhood friend, Allan Trow, who was the Champion for Red Atunir in this version of this world.

On Godpact Veird, Allan had taken on the Curse of the Shadeling back during the Daydropper incident, because Fallopolis wasn’t about to let a Shade be murdered without having a replacement lined up, and that was their ‘tax’ for entry into Ar’Kendrithyst to begin their divine Quest. Allan had died in that fight with Planter in the Godpact world.

He had not died in this world, and it seemed he had become a demon. Perhaps he had become the Breach Demon? He certainly seemed to be in a position of power that he could be mistaken for one, and it would be just like the Shades to do such a thing to Greensoil… or at least it used to be that way.

Champion Yetta was here because Godpact Atunir was focused here, to combat the horrors of this land that most threatened to twist her into Red.

Red Champion Allan was here because this is where he had been, working his world, even after it had been taken by Nothanganathor and dropped here on Fenrir.

It had been 13 minutes since Erick and the Pantheon and the fae of Veird had called the sun/moons into full being, and then quelled the Whirlpool and crushed Fenrir’s Scheme. It had been 10 minutes since Erick and Solomon and others had restored general gravity and air containment to Fenrir, along with a host of other things necessary for life.

It had probably been 18 or so seconds since Yetta had found herself drawn here, to combat the Red Breach Demon of Atunir, in the grand gardens of the palace of Greendale.

The largest songspike of them all twisted up from the ruins of the palace. It was a skyscraper of red and white that tapered to a point. Pulsing red veins led into sound funnels that dotted the entire structure. It sort of looked like a unicorn horn, but with enough holes in it to make a trypophobia sufferer convulse from the horror of it all.

And then there were the holes at the bottom of the spire that spawned eggs that then hatched into baby demons. That would be the Fertility aspect of this Red Atunir, holding onto the shoulders of Allan like a red/gold aura.

Red Champion Allan was a demon with digitigrade legs and wings made of grappling veins. He wore nothing, and his legs and arms were red with blood, or with Malevolence. Probably both. He clung to the side of the large songspike sticking up from the palace. A second ago, Yetta had appeared and thrown a beam of golden light at him, piercing through his heart and the songspike behind him, but he was doing fine. The hole in his chest was healing.

Yetta had been surprised at herself for attacking that fast.

Allan had been too surprised at Yetta’s appearance to do anything but gape at her.

Yetta stood upon the ground, a few hundred meters from Allan. She was resplendent in golden armor, her dark skin shining with golden radiance. Shield in one hand, sword in the other, her face was a mixture of hate, surprise, homesickness, sickness, revulsion, and complete need to annihilate the horror she saw grasping onto the side of the large song spikes.

Erick saw her almost want to apologize to Allan for striking him, in some sort of shock-based impetus, but she pulled that emotion back and let all the other ones happen instead.

There was some sort of divine clash happening in the air, here in Red Atunir’s stronghold. It was important for both of them to resolve this themselves. But when necessary, Erick would step in on the side of Godpact Atunir.

Erick watched.

Yetta had been dragged here without warning at all. She had reoriented as fast as she could, and now she screamed, “ALLAN! WHAT THE FUCK!”

Her voice was a wash of gold across the land. Veins withered in the garden and fruits made of meat popped like so many blood balloons. Golden wheat spread where Yetta stood, and the mockery-garden decayed into a field of gold.

The Red Song faltered.

Allan’s voice was a mumble in the sudden silence, “But you died. Everyone di— oh.” He calmed. He realized something. He said, “Ah. Another test. Of course.” He regained composure. He said, “I do wish Atunir would tell me about these things before she sends Quests my way.” He detached from the side of the songspike and fell to the tumbled bricks of the ruin below, landing like a crash of metal, his body much stronger than it appeared to be. He broke rubble as he walked down the rubble, toward Yetta. “You even brought the Evil Dark with you, huh? I suppose there was no time to warn me, but I’m getting lots of warnings right now.” He pointed at Erick in the sky. “Is Melemizargo going to interfere?”

“That’s not the Dark, you… you.” Yetta had had some harsh words in her mind, and almost on her tongue, but then she calmed, and said, “You’re a puppet who knows nothing, and I need to put you down.”

“Ha! ‘That’s not the Dark’ she says. Yetta. I know what the Dark looks like, and I was a Shade for a while. You know what the Dark looks like, and you fought them with me. Everyone knows what the Dark looks like. And that’s the Dark.”

“You know nothing at all. That’s Erick.”

Allan laughed, not stopping his walk down to level ground at all. “That bubbling archmage? What kinda nightmare did you crawl out of!”

Yetta’s dark eyes turned to brilliant gold. Her voice doubled upon itself. “Godpact.”

Allan froze for a moment. And then he kept walking. “… Ah.” His voice turned harder. “This was the one I have been prepared for.” He doubled in size and grew an extra pair of arms. The veins in his back wrapped around his body, forming hard red armor, and then a sword in each arm. “I will end my Goddess’s nightmares andthe Dark in which she drowns.”

“And I’m telling you, that’s not Melemizargo.” Yetta’s voice doubled. “I am not drowning in the Dark.”

Ah, Erick thought, as Yetta clashed with Allan, swords severing, feet and stances treating the world as a suggestion and not as actually necessary for footing. I know what is happening here.

One sword blocked four at the same time in a way that made no realistic sense at all. One slash cut through a shield and the arm holding it, but the broken shield and the arm holding it flowed back onto Yetta, and she blocked another two sword strikes and one kick at the same time.

Atunir had been stuck in that small existence for so long. During that time she had been the only one who ever almost ‘went Dark’.

People still talked about that time she almost fell; about the Fall of Quintlan a full thousand years later, as though it were current events. It appeared Atunir still harbored doubts that anything was real. She even thought that Erick might be some incarnation of Melemizargo.

Erick’s draconic form certainly didn’t help.

There had only ever been one black, winged dragon on Veird before Erick showed up and got a dragon form that also had wings, and was black. Dragon horns were rather solidly unique to every individual, too. Melemizargo had 6 horns, like a crown, and Erick had the same.

Back when Erick had first revealed his dragon form, a lot of people had directly asked him if he was Melemizargo. The conspiracy theorists of Veird had mostly calmed down since then, but they were right back at it in the last several days, now that Erick had displayed true time travel magics. ‘If he is jumping through time, he might actually be Melemizargo! We’ve never seen his humanoid form, right? It might be true!’

Erick wasn’t Melemizargo, though, anymore than he was Phagar.

Allan cut off Yetta’s head with a flashing Red sword, rending through golden armor with a horrible screech, but Yetta’s head and body went spinning away to land back together and her armor repaired.

Allan pulled back, bleeding from the massive separation of flesh that Yetta had delivered into his chest in turn for taking that neck wound. He laughed darkly, clutching his chest with one hand while his other three switched up weapons, two swords becoming two shields and his final swords simply vanishing. The veins of his armor held his wound together as his body healed under Red glows.

Yetta taunted, “You finally going to get serious, old friend?”

Allan chuckled horribly, coughing twice. “Damned Dark Regenerator. I had soul-poison on my swords but you just don’t give a fuck about that, do you. All the world is poisoned. All the world is dying. Even the Script is shit these days. Not a single damned blue box at all. How are you able to still heal that well?”

“The world isn’t poisoned at all, Allan. You’re the one that died in the real world. You’re the one drowning in evil, here in this mockery made to pit friend against friend and inflict pain upon us both.” Yetta asked, “What color is the divine light of Atunir, Allan?”

“Gold,” Allan said, with a disbelieving smirk, as though he didn’t see his own Red aura, as if he didn’t see the Red in the spires all around him, and in the blood on the ground. What did he see everywhere? Gold? Perhaps. Allan sneered, “What color is your light, Nightmare?”

“The color of wheat, ripe and ready for harvest. The color of prosperity, building upon generations and generations. The color of Gold,” Yetta said, and it was the most true thing in the universe at that moment.

Allan stared at Yetta.

And then his vision went Red as he screamed, “DIE DIE DIE!” and he began using his real strength, throwing around disks of black/red force that carved through the air like sawblades, ripping up the world around them. Allan had never been a swordsman. He had always been a Battle Mage, specializing in ‘Sawblade Magic’.

“That’s more like it, Allan,” Yetta whispered to herself.

The blades came for her, carving through her body, but her body reformed from those wounds like gelatin splashing away and then reforming from that splash. She only raised her sword to stop the worst of the blades, her sword sparking with White Benevolence, shattering the Red out of this and that sawblade, and then shattering the sawblade itself. Everywhere she stepped, wheat poured out of the ground, golden and radiant.

Allan retreated, blood pouring from his eyes, the Red flowing out. He almost stumbled on the ruins behind him, but two more legs slashed out of his digitigrade legs, allowing him to spider climb backward. He retreated up the songspike. He never stopped throwing sawblades. Left and right they flew, curving hard and in some cases boomeranging back for a followup attack.

Yetta stepped into the air, upon golden platforms that only existed where she walked, and every sawblade that touched her did less and less.

She advanced, and Allan retreated.

Red Sparks flashed in the ruins of the palace, and in the city. Several songspires broke apart into bone and flesh and flowing Red blood, mangled bodies forming demonic constructs that aimed toward the battle between Champions.

That was when Erick chose to get involved.

Erick blasted the larger ‘demons’ apart with beams of Benevolence. Smaller demons tried to get to the fight, but Erick rained [Benevolence Bolts] upon all of them, popping those demons like overripe zits.

Yetta said to Allan, “See? That is not Melemizargo.”

“It’s a trick! Melemizargo is the God of Magic! He could do Light Magic if he wanted!”

“You still don’t See.” Yetta shook her head. She stood ten meters from Allan, her in the air upon golden radiance, and him clutching to a tower of bone and song made of people. “That’s not Light Magic, old friend. It was magic which you never got to see in your world. It was magic from the Wizard of Benevolence, cast by the Wizard of Benevolence, by Erick Flatt. He has gifted that magic to many others, and I am one of those people. Allow me to end your nightmare, Allan, and through you, the Red Goddess you champion will know that the nightmare is over.”

Allan breathed hard. He held his shields between him and Yetta, while his two extra hands held spinning black/red disks. He stared, and his eyes flickered Red, his lips snarl—

A gold and white flash passed through reality, forming a plane of separation where Yetta had swung her sword. Allan’s magic failed. His Red armor crumbled. His blackened legs calcified along with his body, as he clutched onto the songspire at his back.

The song died.

The spire began to slide apart, broken and dead, behind Allan’s stiffening body. Red sparks gathered where she had cut Allan in two, from the right side of his head all the way through his left hip. As the spire crashed to the ground behind Allan, Allan backed up, onto the harshly-angled surface of the spire, Red Sparks still trying to hold him together.

The monster hiding inside the main song spire was already dead. It was not a Breach Demon. Allan was the Breach Demon, but that time was coming to a close.

Yetta stood tall as she stepped closer, to stand above him. “We won in Ar’Kendrithyst, and later, against the Daydropper. Erick helped. Crashed an iceberg into the Daydropper Queen. Tenebrae was there for levels, just as we plotted with him. You never saw that. You died fighting Planter, giving it your all so that we would live.”

Allan’s breath hitched. “I… I gave it everything?”

“You did.”

Tears flowed. “And you all lived?”

“No. But we won. You died. Dorthy and Basil, too. Cyril and I lived. We were rescued.”

Allan chuckled, his voice breaking hard. “I would have called you a liar if you would have said you had all lived.”

“I ended up marrying Cyril Odaali. Have some kids now. They would have loved you, as you were, before whatever happened here.”

“Ha.” Allan said, and the Red began to clear from him, replaced with gold. His extra limbs broke, and he held on as color returned to his body. He looked almost human, though he was not human at all. “I had the chance to use the big spells on Planter… the ones I wasn’t sure would kill me or not. And I didn’t. I didn’t take that shot. We lost. The Shades captured us and killed Planter for us. They did this big ritual… I ended up twisted into an incani by Melemizargo and then let go… And then stuff happened. Breach Demon.” He looked across the city. “… These weren’t incani, were they.”

“Some of them. I’m not sure what they were, really. A nightmare, whatever it was.”

Allan breathed out, “Probably some nightmare.”

Allan began to fade into a golden light and the world pulsed. A Red tint in the air began to fade away, pushed away by gold and white, leaving the brightness of white moons overhead, shining down on a Greendale that was still demonic.

Allan vanished.

Yetta looked up at Erick. Golden tears streamed down her face. “I can’t… I can’t do it anymore. Can I get a portal back to a quarantine space?” She looked away, rubbing her face, muttering, “Wherever that is—” She paused and muttered, “Oh. It’s there.”

She was in communication with Atunir right now, so yeah, she was getting information from outside sources. Erick opened a portal right beside her and she stepped through, back to a moon about 3 moons from Veird. It was a quarantine space that Past Erick was still setting up, but it was good enough for Yetta.

Yetta had arrived here to do battle with Red Atunir’s Champion with nothing but a mission and no time for any of it, and yet she had done well.

Erick had been prepared to burn all of this version of Greensoil to burning white-hot ground, to eradicate the demon and trapped-soul problem, but the ego-death of the Red Atunir had done the necessary killing for him. The song that had filled the air was now gone, and the people trapped in those spires had died when Yetta had swung her sword.

This abomination of Greensoil had been culled.

Some of the details had been different from the last time Erick had seen it, but now that he was here, and now that Godpact Atunir was in full power, the world got a little bit more stable. This was the good outcome.

Erick moved on.

- - - -

Fenrir didn’t have any specific nodes of control. The encirclement of the sun/moons around Fenrir didn’t have any specific nodes of control, either. That room with the blue sphere at the Northern Spellsurge Mountains of Veird was more like a general overview of the encirclement now that it had done its job. Every planet out there, stacked upon Fenrir’s surface like distant pearls reaching into the sky, was its own secured location.

It was the same general idea that Solomon had used when creating Fenrir, but updated. Version 2.

Fenrir was the original version, and apparently it had some exploitable parts that had allowed parts of the dyson sphere to be turnedinto control nodes. Erick was rather sure that Nothanganathor had imported some side-slice, multiversal-derived parts of Fenrir in order to pull out one section and replace it with a section that could be exploited, but he had no way to know that for sure. Not right now.

Erick floated inside Fenrir, in the part that faced the sun.

Everything was blasted wasteland and dead ocean full of horrors, and the sky was a Red wash, the sun turned Malevolent. Nothanganathor was not there, but he had left behind lots of toys that had turned the sun into a Malevolence-generator.

The Malevolence from the sun twisted into 6 offshoots, like beams of Red Lightning, each Jupiter in thickness, traveling faster than the speed of light and softer than a feather’s touch to siphon into massive collections of collectors on the inside surface of Fenrir. Those collecting areas were like a forest of black Christmas trees that sparked with Red, taking that Red into itself and then flooding that Red out into Fenrir, to overload and take over the systems that Solomon had created when he had made Fenrir.

Nothanganathor had replaced a vast number of 100-kilometer-wide hexagon-shaped worldplates with the same worldplates, but with those christmas-tree collectors.

Looking at the whole collector array from the side…

It kinda looked like glowing red rain falling on a black forest.

The five other collector stations equidistant around Fenrir’s interior were all sorts of fucked up, with the sun/moons of the [Seeds of Atunir] having plunged through those spaces and destroyed those collectors. The sun still spilled Malevolence out into Fenrir, though, so there were 5 spots on Fenrir that were more like holes in the world, with Red fountaining outward. Erick had already fixed (or more like his past selves would in the future fix up) those spaces so that they would heal themselves in due course. Solomon helped (or more like he would help) a lot with that.

But this collector space had defenders. Automatic defenders, but still defenders.

The other spaces probably had the same system this one had, but the Crushing Ritual had broken those other lands. Erick suspected, based on a certain kind of absence in the space above this collector zone, and based on how half the collector zone was underwater and that which was above water had giant gouges in the adamantium…

The black christmas forest had gaps in it that looked like giant tendrils had been there, and then removed. Those tendrils had grown into Fenrir itself, but then they had been pulled away, and a little violently, too—

Ah.

That’s what Erick was looking for. White wood. A broken root.

Everbless had been here.

He was gone now, of course. What remained was a land of horrors that hurt to look at. Literal horrors, that literally hurt to look at, too. Erick tilted his head a little, and allowed the horrors in the space to appear to him, and what he saw was several worlds of Janes and everyone he ever knew and loved, from Quilatalap to Poi to Teressa and Teressa’s daughter, crucified and spiked upon black needles and caught between crushing, growing, black branches. It was a cacophony of horror.

It was real, too. In a multiversal, infinite sense, it was real. It was a manufactured horror, meant to keep away anyone who dared approach. It was effective, because in this space, Erick saw that they all died no matter what he did, because their very lives had been tied into the collector array. When Erick backed away, the screams stopped. When Erick advanced, the screams were enough to fill several worlds.

Erick tilted his perceptions backward, flying away, and the cries of everyone he ever knew faded as the pain stopped for them, and they themselves faded away, to Elsewhere. They were still there, though, just beyond a veil of Wizardry and Malevolence, tuned to keeping that collector array active against all odds.

A gold haze hung in the air around the collector zone, like the protective embrace of the entire Pantheon. Erick held in that protected space, deciding how he wanted to proceed. He had seen this space before now, and he knew what he had done before…

He had tried to rescue the people down there, and that Erick had been drawn into a killing field where even more horrors assaulted him.

Erick quelled his heart and took aim.

A million Janes appeared out of Elsewhere, asking not to be killed.

Erick wondered what the gods saw when they looked upon this space.

Perhaps it was better not to know.

Erick obliterated the collector array in a wash of dragonfire filled with [Metalshape] and Benevolence that scoured Fenrir’s black forest clean, killing every multiversal person to exist in that space. They screamed at him. They hated him. He obliterated them all anyway. The fire spread and spread and consumed every black tree, boiling oceans and erasing the dead.

A dome of Godpact gold divinity swept into the space, further obliterating it from even the memory of this land, carving a Jupiter-sized hole in the surface of Fenrir. Briefly, the soft Red Lightning/light from the sun had an exit, into the lands beyond Fenrir, but then a sun-moon appeared in that hole, sliding in from outside, glowing radiant white, full of Benevolence. Similar moons appeared at every other hole in Fenrir where a collector array had been. They blocked the Red fountaining into Fenrir from the sun… And that was it?

The last time Erick had looked here, Erick had watched himself die. He had pushed that problem away when it turned out to be the wrong course of action, and then he saw this battle end in the Godpact’s favor somehow. He had just secured that win…

But he had kinda expected the sun-moons blocking the Jupiter-sized holes in Fenrir to shine some light upon the sun and erase the Malevolence inside of it. That’s what had happened last time, after all.

But the moons were just floating there, blocking the way out. When were they going to—

This book was originally published on NovelFire. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Ah. I’m the one that turns the sun. Right.”

Erick got going.

- - - -

Erick hovered in front of the Red sun.

It had been yellow/white the last time Erick had been here, a slice of Infinity away, when Nothanganathor had been curled around the whole thing like a dragon guarding its hoard. He had been here on this sun, too, of course, but he was gone and that long bastard had done something to this sun and now it generated Malevolence.

Welp!

Erick could break that production.

Probably.

First test.

“I knew I would eventually use this thing,” Erick said, bringing out a shiny golden disk from his personal space.

Cascadio, a sun god that Erick had met in Margleknot, had given Erick the golden disk to help Erick project into the Waiting Room and pull people out of that space. The disk was barely a mote of light compared to the radiance of the Malevolent Sun, but it shined ever more brightly as Erick shrunk down to person-sized, and held the token in front of him, in front of the sun. Cascadio was a god with trillions of followers all across the Fractal Cosmology, so there was no chance that whatever was happening here would affect him at all…

Well. If this led to something bad, then Erick would simply deal with it. Honestly though, he wasn’t sure how to clean an entire sun of Malevolence, or clear out whatever bad things Nothanganathor had left planted for Erick to find. That’s why Erick hadn’t even tried to blast the sun or anything like that.

Cascadio was a great guy, and there was no way that a god wouldn’t jump at the chance to be installed inside a space where trillions of more people would soon be living. All of the Pantheon-gods were already super excited about that very same prospect.

Erick spoke through the token of the sun god, to the god himself, “Cascadio, the Radiant Sun! I invite you to this land to see if you would get along with the current Pantheon, here in this space without a sun god.”

Cascadio was suddenly there, and not there at all. “Nothanganathor just spent a great deal of favors on my behalf in Margleknot, and I am taking them. I ask you now, Erick, to meet with Nothanganathor as a person, and there will be no violence. There will be a small conversation. He will escape to a side slice of infinity, and you will let him. You can pursue afterward.” Cascadio added, “Or you can ignore this deal and proceed on your own. I hope, if you do proceed on your own, that you invite me back in less dire times.”

Erick sighed.

Typical. All around typical, too. At least Cascadio had offered Erick the option of not doing this sort of deal at all, and ignoring this whole plan he had set up with him. So maybe not that typical at all.

Erick asked, “How many favors did he spend?”

“Hundreds. He threatened to spend them on behalf of my enemies if I did not try to get you to have some words with him.”

“Your enemies? … And yet you still suggest that I ignore this deal?”

Very much not typical. Gods thought of their followers most of all… But Erick suspected that by inviting Cascadio into this space where the risk and reward were both enormous, more of the gods were present in this dealing. He was able to make actual choices. He was able to allow mortals to have a say.

“Nothanganathor is desperate and a desperate Nothanganathor is not something I wish to unleash on anyone. Word is getting around that he Sundered the Painted Cosmology. I am unsure how long his various favors will remain useful, and he feels the same, but his favors still carry weight, for now. He is spending them like a dying man spends prayers.”

Erick stared at the sun, at the boiling, Red surface. It was like watching colored, illuminated water boil. Crackling solar flares brushed against Erick, against his aura of Benevolence, and vanished like steam in a blizzard.

Erick made a decision. “I’ll go talk to him for a moment of ceasefire.”

He expected the sun itself to be a trap, but the second Erick started floating toward it, a hole opened up in the Red. Erick turned back into a dragon.

… Another trap? Certainly not an obvious one, if it was a trap. Erick floated into the hole and flicked his tail at the liquid nuclear surface of the sun. Nuclear fire spilled outward and then fell back down to the surface. Nothing else happened.

Erick kept expecting a trap, but he floated down the hole and the absolute inferno of the sun turned cooler. Calmer. Erick slipped into an open space underneath the mantle of the sun that held a small moon that was solid white, and a little iridescent.

It was a pearl of Benevolence the size of a small moon.

Erick had no idea what was going on with it, but there was no more tunnel beyond the pearl. Erick imagined that the whole thing was some sort of bomb disguised as Benevolence, but it sported a little house on the other side of it, away from the tunnel leading out of the sun. A Red tree the size of a normal tree grew to the side of the house, overlooking a 1-story flat that would not have been out of place anywhere on Veird, or even on Earth.

A picnic table sat out front, and Nothanganathor sat at the picnic table. Or at least an avatar of him did.

He had a tea set and some chocolate chip cookies set out.

Erick turned human-shaped and stepped down to the pearl and to the other side of the table. “A ceasefire meeting.”

“You have accepted my offer, and I accept the temporary meeting we are having here. Let no one disturb us, and let neither of us be taken from our bases of power by the words or actions committed in this place.”

Erick frowned a little. “There wasn’t any Wizardry in that.”

“Of course not. To solidify the statement would be taken as an act of aggression against you, and so I chose to leave the statement open, which is also a sort of aggression, but an unavoidable one.” Nothanganathor said, “Want any tea or cookies?”

Gods, he pissed Erick off.

“Absolutely not. Say what you want to say, and then we will get back to war.”

Make a single threat, and I will stop this farce right now.

Make a threat.

Just do it.

Erick wanted the man to say something vicious. Anything at all, and then he could give up this farce.

Nothanganathor said, “I have realized a few things in the last few days since you returned from your trip across the universe, since you became a fae. Mainly, that I am going to win, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that. So I’m not fighting anymore. Witness my benevolence.”

Nothanganathor knew of his win.

Shit.

He waved a hand, and some mechanisms somewhere clicked.

The Red of the surrounding sun dissipated under nuclear fire, and the red light of this under-mantle place became white and yellow. The Benevolence pearl they stood upon flickered. White lightning flashed from the edge of the pearl, heading into the sun, impacting the solar wall and then traveling further, further, further, into the core. Reality clicked and the pearl underfoot became something like a manaminer, or maybe it was a controller of some sort. Either way the white lightning that struck through the mantle of the sun had continued onward, into the very core of the sun, which was a manaminer.

A screen popped up next to Erick.