Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 213, 1/2 - Jane

‘Thanks, Poi. Talk to you later.’

And then Jane signed off.

For a good minute after the morning communication with her father, and then a few minutes with Poi to hear about what else might be happening, Jane simply sat back in her chair, feeling some kinda way. She had spoken with her father multiple times during the ‘war’ with the Sovereign Cities, and he had told her to stay away because, for the longest time, her father had suspected that the royalty of the Cities were specifically looking for Jane in order to use her as a bargaining chip against him…

Jane and her team had laid semi-low because of that suspicion.

But now, the war was over, and the truth of it all was revealed, as much as a truth involving several worldly powers could be revealed. According to first reports, the Cities had gone to war with her father in order to solve the supremacy of their royalty once and for all. The war had not started off that way, of course, and the only one able to give an honest accounting of that reason was Queen ‘Crissi Benev’ Pearl, for that was why she had gone to war…

Oh, sure, there were hundreds of smaller powers working in earnest to kill Erick, but...

King Killtree was probably the most die hard warmonger among them; the man had truly wanted to kill ‘The Dark Wizard’ and rip apart Candlepoint, and all of that. Apparently, the king of Killtree had been embarrassed that Erick had cleared out the ballooning spider horde last year, and that had snowballed into people taking pot shots at him, both in the propaganda plays of the city squares and in the form of assassination attempts, so, in order to ‘regain his honor’, Killtree had needed to take a hard-line stance against the Wizard. This then snowballed further and further. King Killtree’s reasons for war were as simple as a man who had to double down and then double down, again and again, or else he would be swallowed by his own nobility.

King Charme, like Queen Pearl, had gone to war because he saw the opportunity to kill all of the other royals and claim supremacy of the Cities. The Cities had been going to war for exactly these sorts of reasons, over and over and over again, since hundreds of years ago, but only when large events came along did the royals actually go to war, and here now, with Erick, was a big reason to break out the big war. If any of Charme’s various assassination attempts against the other royals would have panned out, then he would have sued for peace, but then Erick proved himself as completely unwilling to accept the kind of peace that the royals would have accepted, and so, at the very end of the war, Charme had planted some explosive, soul-killing disease magic in King Killtree and King North Curio Sook. He likely planted the same Disease Magic in the other royals, but those other royals had managed to purge that magic, or something. Solving every part of this particular war would be the work of Knowledge Mages for the next few years.

King North Curio Sook had gone to war in order to inflict as much damage on South Curio as he could. According to the nobility of the North, Sook and other members of the Crushing Depth’s style had had plans to roll the ocean up and over South Curio’s harbors, crushing South Curio. But when Erick and Kromolok and all of Erick’s allies had ended that first polite battle with a decisive win, and then began the actual war, Sook had abandoned those plans against South Curio. No one was really sure what part North Curio played in the greater reasons for the war, but perhaps they were simply swept up in the whole thing, without any real control over what happened once the ball started rolling. And yet they still had control, and they still chose to go to war.

South Curio was in a boat very similar to North Curio, with a few major changes.

King South Curio Xaro had recovered fast during the change-up from polite war to real war, for when Erick had taken out the onlookers at that polite battle he had also taken out many of the people who were guiding South Curio to real war. South Curio had been an absolute political mess, apparently, and the only reason they had gone to war was because anti-Wizard sentiment was popular in the Cities, and much of the nobility was using that propaganda to control their people and distract them from real problems in their own part of the world. And so, South Curio’s nobility had been fully mobilized by promises of power from various organizations, like the Church of Original War, and refugee children from Terror Peaks, and the Book Burners.

Erick suspected that the Dragon Stalkers were also involved in South Curio (and all the other Cities) somehow, but they had never actually shown themselves during the war, so maybe they had escaped or pulled their support once the war got up and running in earnest. Whatever had happened in South Curio was a combination of land-grabbing maneuvers (as the cities usually tried to do to each other) and deep plots that would likely take years to untangle. Whatever had happened to the Dragon Stalkers in the war was currently being worked out between Kirginatharp and the Dragon Stalkers at Oceanside, too, and Erick wasn’t privy to that talk quite yet.

And then there was the final Sovereign City, Pearl, led by a Queen who was somehow still in charge after the war, who had entered into the war with the express purpose of uniting the Cities behind a single power; her own. Queen Pearl had therefore ‘won’, sort of.

Jane didn’t know how to feel about all that.

Her father had mixed opinions, too.

But ignoring the fallout of the war, and the reasons for the war for a minute...

Jane had a lot of mixed opinions about the use of Soul Magic to solve a war. [Reincarnation]ing and Empathying all of the nobles of a society in order to turn them into better people was an idea that her father had toyed with a few times, but Jane had never thought that he would have actually gone through with it. Murder was cleaner, ethically, for Jane.... People had been murdering others for a long time in order to solve problems. Once a person was gone, they could no longer directly influence events. This was slightly less true here on Veird, where some specific people could turn into angels, or demons, or undead, and reclaim their influence…

So perhaps murder wasn’t the best solution to war? Well, the humans and incani had been fighting each other for a long time, and they had been using soul-twisting powers to make sure their enemies stayed down once they were put down…

But maybe the Cities would be better off for this war? Maybe this Soul Magic had been a good thing?

All of this was very confusing for Jane in a way she was not used to being confused. Even Poi had been confused. The two of them had spoken for a little bit on all of that, but they’d likely have more talks on that later.

Once, months and months ago, back in the land of Songli when Erick, Jane, Teressa, and Poi were all walking to Eralis and pretending to be different people, they had been attacked by bandits; ransomers who would capture people and then try to sell them back to whoever wanted them. Those people had been face stealers with mana drain collars on them, and they had tried to capture ‘Ezekiel’, ‘Julia’, ‘Tiffany’, and ‘Paul’. Those bandits had lost, and Jane and her family had won, and afterward…

Jane didn’t remember it all so well, but Poi certainly had, and he had even added in more information for Jane that Jane had never known until then. His experience of that event had been slightly different, after all.

- -

Erick said, “Silverite said that soul magic is a slippery slope. Best not to fall down that path this early. Let the gods judge them.”

“No,” Jane said.

Erick startled, and looked to his daughter.

Jane stared at her father, then at everyone else. “You’re all overthinking this. The options are to kill them, or to make them better people. There’s no reason to think that changing who they are is a bad thing.” Jane stared at her father, saying, “Do it, and don’t look back. Or, if you need to have a line you won’t cross, then only do this to those people who personally try to murder you, which every one of these people tried and failed to do.” She stressed to her father, to Poi, to Teressa, and, it seemed, to the very mana itself, “This is not a dark moment; don’t make it one. This is righting a small part of the world into something better.”

Poi cut in, “The problem is not here. The problem is in escalation. When does the solution not become soul-control, once soul-control is on the menu? It’s the same problem of [Mind Control]. When does the evil action that’s used for good become just another evil action?”

Teressa sighed, unhappy that Poi was making decisions for the group, but she said nothing; she had already said it all.

Jane said, “I already said when: when they come after us directly and they could obviously use some empathy. Besides! We’ll never see these people again, either way, but if they’re Blessed, then they might do some good after doing all the bad they’ve done. Do you see those collars? You don’t even need to tell me that they’ve done wrong! I can see it already.”

“You have this concept of Free Will.” Poi said, “You understand the need for this. Why is this a hard concept for you?”

Jane said, “Because we had jails to lock up the bad guys. Not everyone should be free, but since there’s no jails here, except for jails of the mind, then we should use these ‘jails of the mind’ against those who deserve such treatment.”

Poi went dead silent, trying not to give away anything, for he had no idea how to tell Jane everything that was wrong with what she had just said, or how the problem was much more nuanced than Jane’s imprecise language had allowed for.

Jails of Mind Control had been tried before, and though it worked, it was also horrible and led to the destruction of the Mind Mages via a wave of political opposition, and also faltered control causing criminals to rise up against them all. The Mind Mages almost all died because of that.

But by contrast, soul control did work. It worked very, very well, for all Forgotten Campaigns were partially soul-control campaigns. And yet, Poi knew he should not say as much, for while soul control and mind control were different, and one worked while the other did not…

That was not a conversation he was willing to have. Both options were horrible.

Teressa looked on, deciding not to be a part of the conversation anymore.

A minute passed.

Erick said, “I’ve decided.”

Poi looked to Erick, and was thankful that Erick had decided on the only way to make any of this ethical at all.

Teressa simply crossed her arms.

Jane asked, “What are we doing?”

“In what is likely stupid, but the only way to be sure: I’m giving them a choice.”

- -

Those bandits had chosen death.

And Jane’s thoughts on Soul Magic and death had changed a lot. Poi had experienced a similar shift.

And so, today’s conversation with Poi had gone a lot differently.

- -

‘So Mind Control is terrible because it makes people go crazy, but Soul Control works?’ Jane sent, still disbelieving all of that.

‘It’s rather more nuanced than that, but according to what I’ve been studying of soul control, and of what yout father has shared with me, his Empathying works perhaps the best way that Soul Control can possibly work; just a small, cascading effect that points a person in a general direction. No real ‘control’. No real mutilation. A simple, true Blessing that allows people to connect better to others. I haven’t actually been allowed on the field of battle, though, so everything I have heard about it has been through daily communications with your father, and through the Mind Mages.’

‘You’re a lot more open about this stuff than you used to be, Poi. It’s weird.’

‘We’re in weird territory, Jane, and you need to know ‘this stuff’ as much as I need to know this stuff. Everything is changing, and it’ll be an age before anything settles down.’

‘I still can’t believe that dad is shacking up with Quilatalap, the Archlich of Necromancy Itself.’ Jane, exasperated, added, ‘And now he’s the king of a million-plus people! Holy fuck, Poi. Gods… And all that Blessing… I think… I think killing is cleaner, even with all the ways that people don’t actually die when they are killed.’

‘I’m more comfortable with keeping people alive and changing them through Soul Magic for exactly that reason; people don’t always die when they are killed. Changing the soul is the only way to be sure that a killing hasn’t delayed the problem for another day— But this is a conversation I should not have with you; there is propriety to consider.’

Jane almost laughed. ‘At least you’re actually telling what’s really happening at home, Poi; Dad sugar-coats everything.’

‘Yes; this is why I try to keep you in the loop, but we have passed that specific point right now.’

- -

And now, Jane sat there, thinking.

It didn’t take her long to come to her own personal conclusion; that killing all the worst nobles would have been cleaner. By miring himself in Soul Magics, her father had… mired himself in Soul Magics. It just wasn’t clean. Jane couldn’t really articulate herself very well, to Poi, to her father, or even to herself.

But killing was cleaner. Death was still a very large barrier for a soul to overcome. Most could not. Most people who became angels or demons were not the same people they were in life, at all.

And so, destruction was better than uncertain change, for allowing those who have deeply wronged others to retain power over those people who they had wronged—

That was it.

Jane was mad that Queen Pearl had ‘won’.

No matter what else her father had done, Erick should not have allowed Crissi Benev back into power. No way, no how. The Sovereign Cities needed the head of the snake on a pike, and it needed to be Crissi’s…

And yet.

Perhaps that would happen? Eventually? Erick had put Crissi back into power, but Crissi still had enemies the world over, and especially over in the incani/demonic Wasteland Kingdoms. Crissi was very much angel-aligned, after all, and to hear her father talk of the aftermath of the war was to hear a litany of assassination attempts against the self-named ‘Blessed Nobility’.

… That name ‘Blessed Nobility’ irked Jane, too, and by a lot.

But all of that was outside of Jane’s influence, or capability to influence. She didn’t want to be involved in the politics of House Benevolence at all. She wanted to run missions; boardrooms and meetings and actual decisions were not what she cared for in life. So she shook her head and dispelled her concerns over the politics of it all. Daylight was figuratively burning, or at least it was burning about a thousand kilometers up, at the Surface.

Jane and her team were still in the Underworld. They had spent the last week doing ‘side quests’, walking down the Main Roads of the Underworld between semi-major settlements far below the Crystal Forest, circling this area called the Slanted Roads but not actually going there, burning time because all of them had agreed that Jane was probably a target of the Sovereign Cities. It pissed Jane off that she ‘needed to be protected’, but she saw the value in not giving her father a headache by trying to join his war.

And so, they wandered, solving problems.

Ages and ages ago those major settlements had been much closer together, and nearer to where the Geode Kendrithyst used to be, but now those major settlements were scattered to the depths. A thousand years after Kendrithyst raised to the Surface, those settlements were also more like cities themselves.

They were currently in a city called Downhere, which was close to a major Upways that eventually led to the Hole in the desert north of Spur. As Jane got up off her chair and went into the hallway of their rented suite, she glanced out the picture window of the rental, and saw Downhere in all its glory.

Much like all the cities of the Underworld, Downhere needed extensive protections against the threats down here, and it needed certain architecture in order to accomplish those protections. The entire city of Downhere looked almost like a normal city at first glance. Streets, buildings, markets and towers of various sizes. But this was only the bottomside of ‘The Rock’. Gravity was rather subjective when it came to the Underworld, for when you got a big enough rock, that rock floated and every surface of that rock was ‘down’, Downhere was actually a slate rock with a topside and a bottomside, both filled with streets and buildings, and the whole thing floated. Downhere was almost like Enduring Forge, with the whole thing floating in the middle of a massive, kilometers-wide cavern, air-gapped from the rest of the Underworld. There were no chains keeping this place centered in the cavern, but there were a lot of continually-cast magics that locked it in place, and ensured that gravity worked how it was ‘supposed to work’.

A lot of people in Downhere were very excited for the [Renew]-based Node magic that Jane’s father had created recently at House Benevolence, for it would solve a lot of maintenance issues, but Jane nor any other member of their team had been able to actually connect with the rulers of Downhere in order to make that happen. Not when there was a war going on with House Benevolence and the Sovereign Cities.

But eventually Downhere would get those sorts of Node magics, Jane was sure, and then they could probably fix up this city properly, and actually expand the borders, or something. Of course, that could be a problem, for if they stopped teaching the newer generations how to cast magic properly, then Downhere could face a collapse-situation eventually, once all the older generation died out and the magics lapsed… or something.

Jane muttered to herself, “But maybe that won’t happen...” and then she turned the corner, and saw Ravan, the Mind Mage who formed the communications-hub of this party. Jane said, “You heard the conversation; Looks like we’re good to go home! I’m ready when you are.”

Ravan was a silverscale dragonkin with scales more the color of smoke. She nodded, then got up off her chair, new tendrils of thought spilling away from her. “Then we shall begin the journey to the Surface as soon as everyone is back. It is a shame we never found your sword, and that you failed to gain a Domain, but I am glad for all the good we have done otherwise.”

Jane shrugged. “I’m close. I’ll figure it out later.”

“These things take time; not simply familiarity with magic. It would be a miracle for you to understand your Domain before you were 35, but it would have been nice.”

Jane smiled softly. “Yeah. It would have been.”

After a nod, the middle-aged dragonkin woman asked, “Do you wish to show before the Feast, to take part in it? Or afterward? Because if afterward, we could pass through the Slanted Roads and take care of a good ten undead infestations we heard about before they become truly impassable.”

Jane’s fragile smile faltered. “We wouldn’t have gotten into nearly as many side quests without you around, and so I am very grateful for your presence. It’s been a joy, Ravan, but it’s time to get back home… Before the Feast.”

“Yes; There is no telling what might happen this year.” Ravan added, “But we could always go out on more journeys afterward. There’s always more people that need saving.”

Jane’s smile returned in full force. “You’re not tired of this? Of roaming everywhere?”

“If I didn’t like this sort of life I wouldn’t have signed up for it, and it’s a rare thing indeed to be able to journey with people who can get the job done without complaint and with minimal danger. Though I do wonder if we have too many heavy hitters on our team. Usually, splitting up all this power is better so that more jobs can be done at the same time.” Ravan said, “If I have one real complaint about this team, it is that we are too strong physically; we don’t have an archmage with us, and none of us are really learning anything new in that magical direction either. All the knowledge we do have could be better shared with rookie adventurers.”

Jane joked, “Hizogard and Danaro are certainly learning a lot from each other.”

“Bah!” Ravan tried not to smirk, but Jane had gotten her good. “Those two are only learning carnal matters; nothing important at all!”

The front door to the rooms opened and Sitnakov walked in, joining the conversation like he had been here the whole time, saying, “We could still hit the Slanted Roads without losing too much time, and going up against against soul magic monsters is about the only thing we haven’t done yet.”

Jane looked up the large black orcol wrought, having almost asked him where he was to be able to listen in like that, but she had long ago learned that Sitnakov’s mana sensing range was at least 200 meters. He could have been all the way on the topside of Downhere and still listened in. “I’m more than willing to tackle the Slanted Roads, but do want to be there for the Feast.”

Sitnakov’s face held concern. “You should not ask to be involved in that, Jane.”

“… Maybe not for the 3 days at midnight, but for everything else, yes.”

Sitnakov frowned. “Gods above— Well I’m not going to try and change your mind, but I’m not going to the Feast at all, so if we’re headed back before then, then I’m going to pass through to Stratagold and prepare for possible war on the homefront. We might even ask for your father to close all the Gates before the night falls.”

Ravan stood straighter. “You’re not going to be at Candlepoint for the Feast, Prince Sitnakov?”

“No. If my duty here is ended, then duty drags me onward. Perhaps we can reconnect after the Triumph of Light provided nothing serious happens between now and then, but I must prepare for the waves of monsters that usually happen after the Feast.”

“But that didn’t happen this year?” Jane asked. “It was part of the treaties.”

“The unsaid, unsigned, unknowable treaties that we only rely on the Dark not to mess with? Those ones?” Sitnakov asked, sarcastically. And then he added, “The Dark is going to ask something strange of your father at this Feast and your father might not agree, or maybe he’ll talk the Dark down to some lesser show. Who knows! I try not to even guess anymore. Either way, the world might change again, and we must be ready.”

Ravan was stoic in the face of sudden facts just laid out there.

Jane felt a little lost as she said, “Well… those are... a lot of good points.”

Ravan asked, “Do we have time to kill the largest of the undead at the Slanted Roads? I would have us attempt that, if we can. A full purge is likely out of the question, but clearing the main blockade might be possible.”

Sitnakov shrugged. “Send out a call to Hizogard, Danaro, and Lyrical. Get them here fast enough and we might have time, though we will need to go in blazing quick, and with soul monsters that could be bad. That whole place is constantly falling apart, too, so we might run into a real blockade and need to find another path.”

Ravan began contacting the others, saying, “If it is too dense of a problem we can clear a path and escape through the opening, like the caravaneers. That will be good enough.”

- - - -

Jane stood to the side of their [Sneaky Traveling Platform], as Danaro guided the spell through the right-of-center part of the tunnel, deep in the dark. A bunch of Danaro’s spells had fun little names like that, and Jane appreciated that about the man; that, and his incredibly powerful healing and Blood Magic. Ravan had complained about their team not having a real archmage, but Danaro had a ton of utility, and that was useful enough.

This version of Danaro’s Platform spell was a translucent Force spell that surrounded the Platform, providing active camouflage and various anti-Sight magics, as well as a speedy vehicle with which to travel the open parts of the Underworld. The inside of the sphere was vaguely illuminated, but the outside world was completely dark in a lot of places, so the team sometimes ran into unexpected obstructions and the Platform popped, sending everyone tumbling.

This was not a safe way to travel the dark. But it was fast! And they could recover if they ran into something, while also being able to talk as much as they wanted to this way. Currently, that talking was a bit of an argument.

Danaro, who was incani, and who had also been shadeling for a brief time, said, “Look, Hizogard. I am not saying that I don’t think the King’s response to the war was unfounded, but I am saying that he should have just killed them all and been done with it. Like Jane said; murder is cleaner. Our King could keep killing as necessary until the Cities changed, and that would have been good enough.”

Jane frowned a little. “Maybe I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

Hizogard, the former half-dragon, now human, from Ar’Cosmos, exclaimed, “But the Cities never change! That’s what I’m saying. They’ve been killed a thousand times over and they never grow back right. The Cities are not some tree that could be pruned into something better. They are Propagating Decay; an anomaly of all that is wrong with the world. Now I hate soul mutilation as much as the next man, but if anyone deserved it the Cities certainly did. They needed this sort of change. Maybe they might actually change this time.”

Sitnakov was staying out of the conversation, and Jane could guess why. Before today, Jane would have guessed that Sitnakov was staying out of it because he didn’t like arguing; he never joined in these spirited discussions unless it was ‘how to best kill a monster’. But now, Jane knew he stayed out of this topic —which was pretty close to ‘how to best kill a kingdom’— because Sitnakov had participated in Forgotten Campaigns before, and he knew that Soul Magic worked to change people a lot better than anything else available. He had even participated in Forgotten Campaigns against Ar’Cosmos.

Which had added a whole new layer to this conversation that Jane had not been fully aware of until after the conversation started. Jane was certainly fully aware of that layer now, though.

Danaro said, “Yes. And the Cities might change to be true angel lovers. That’s the danger with all these humans everywhere.”

And that right there was yet another trap-filled aspect to this conversation that Jane had unintentionally triggered.

Their team had been getting along so well, but now…

A lot of old hates were surfacing.

And Jane was so very, very sorry that she raised this topic at all.

Hizogard gave Danaro a Look, saying, “That better have not been a jab at me.”

“Bah! It wasn’t a jab and you know it,” Danaro said, returning Hizogard’s Look.

Lyrical, their former half-dragon, now orcol, from Ar’Cosmos, said, “I’m sure our King knows what he’s doing, and Hizogard is right; the Cities needed a major shakeup to change. I also do not appreciate the massive use of Soul Magic, but… I’m not sure exactly how bad it was back before Hizogard went into [Stasis], but the Cities of today are mudholes that spawn murderers and thieves all the time.”

In a heavily sarcastic but-not-sarcastic-at-all sort of way, Hizogard said, “The only thing I’ll miss about that place is that I won’t be able to walk into a city square, know that I’ll get mugged and attempted-murdered, and be fully within my rights to kill a fucker that needs killing.”

Jane’s eyes went wide, and she was not the only one.

Danaro gasped. “Hizogard!”

“What!” the man said. “Nothing wrong with taking out the trash.”

Lyrical said, “If there was one thing the Cities were good for, it was knowing that killing any of the nobility there was doing the world a service. Though I tried not to kill the muggers. They’re just products of their culture, Hizogard.”

“Bah! Products of their culture my ass.” Hizogard said, “If all the bad people make a culture that makes more bad people, then the whole thing needs to be killed so that others can bring about something better.”

“Tactical killing is better,” Lyrical said.

Everyone looked at Lyrical and Hizogard.

In a semi-deadly sort of way, Sitnakov asked, “Did you kill commoners for the fun of it? Or did you have a plan?”

Hizogard glared at the big black man. “I was entrusted with a duty to root out a branch of the Dragon Stalkers and I went to one of their known bars and pretended to be a dragon in bad disguise. It worked very, very well, and every single person I murdered fully deserved it.”

“… Ah,” Sitnakov said, then he pulled back out of the conversation.

Danaro looked a little chastised. “The Stalkers are… hmm.” He went silent.

Lyrical spoke up, “I did two Speaking tours in Killtree, pretending to be a human and to find out who was targeting the nests of some dragons of House Carnage. It was some people from the Adventurer’s Guild who thought that the gem-like eggs of a freshly laid nest were real gems, so they’d been thieving them. I executed those people. Couldn’t do that more than twice though, not with my half-dragonness progressing every time I was outside Ar’Cosmos.”

Hizogard nodded. “That’s how mine progressed, too.”

Jane connected a few dots. Besides the stark reminder that every single person in this party had done horrible things before… Lyrical, the orcol (previously half-dragon), and Hizogard, the human (also previously a half-dragon)…

Jane asked, “You both took Familiar Forms from people you killed?”

“They were already dead.” “Yes, and I’d do it again.”

Jane had some complicated thoughts on that. Murder in the name of securing your state was one thing, but taking someone’s Familiar Form was face stealing, and that was crossing a line. It seemed that Sitnakov had a few odd feelings of his own, according to his mess of facial features and body language; he was mostly opaque to Jane, though. Danaro wore his disgust as concern, though.

Ravan was the only one to not participate in this discussion, because she knew what she was about, and she wanted nothing to do with anything that was not helping other people…

Which made Jane ask, “Do you have an opinion, Ravan?”

“I do,” Ravan said, uncharacteristically strongly. As everyone turned to her with mild surprise, Ravan said, “I feel you should all stop talking about shit that does not matter. We’ve been very good about staying away from these topics while we’ve been down here, and we should return to that arrangement.

“We’re in a new world, and this new world is being made by a Wizard Dragon King who is allied with all the gods and all the powers of this world, including the Darkness. We are in a new age. Old hates, old terrors, and old scars do not need to be reopened. What needs to happen is healing, and since everyone here already knows another major truth besides Danaro, I’m going to just tell him that Soul Magic is what makes this world work at all. Make of that what you will, Danaro. Perhaps with enough mulling over it you will eventually come to the right— Ah. You got it. Yes.”

Danaro, wide eyed, looked to Sitnakov, saying, “Oh. Soul control and Forgotten Campaigns.”

Wait? Did he not know about that? The only one? Well… Okay then.

It seemed everyone was suddenly on the same page, then, and everyone was looking at Sitnakov, for his response.

Sitnakov sighed. “We do what we must for the integrity of this world, and yes, Soul Control magics have been used before, and extensively. Erick’s particular brand of magic is rather subtle, and therefore probably fine. We’re keeping an eye on it, though.”

Danaro shut his mouth, falling deep in thought as he locked his eyes forward, gazing into the dark of the Underworld as he flew the Platform forward. Hizogard smirked, but he did not revel in that ‘win’, because he was from Ar’Cosmos, and this team with a wrought in it was new for him, and in that moment, he was likely thinking about all his old hates of everything not-Ar’Cosmos. Probably. Jane wasn’t sure; she wasn’t empathic like her father. Lyrical was having a complicated set of emotions, too… Probably—

Lyrical brightened in a completely false-hope sort of way, holding up her strummer strapped to her left hand, asking, “Anyone want to hear a flying song?” She began to flick her fingers on the strummer, eliciting music from the air. “Ohh~ There once was a Platform flying~ flying high~ flying~ flying high~…”

Ah.

So back to ignoring the dragon in the room, Jane supposed.

She was sorry she ever brought up the subject of the Cities War.

… Even Jane had to admit that Lyrical’s song was eventually a catchy little tune. Eventually, her quiet singing did a lot to disperse the tension of the argument, and when everyone else started joining in on the singing, it got actually-enjoyable.

After that first song, but before the next one, Jane said, “I really have appreciated your songs, Lyrical. But I think I like the story ballads better than the marching songs.”

Lyrical smiled brightly, strumming her strummer with a rapid, hard flick, accentuating her words,

“Have you heard the story of the Ribbonriver Runner? It’s a tale best-told with a tiny travel strummer! And look, oh~ here now, on my hand! It's one of those best hummers! Now listen lass to this tale told true. It starts at the end of summer…”

- - - -

Lyrical’s stories never ceased to amaze Jane. The woman could sing and dance and play her strummer all the while using magic to put images into the air about whatever story she was spinning. But even discounting all that, her stories always took exactly as much time as they needed to take. As Lyrical’s song of the Ribbonriver Runner ended, she had long enough to add a minor epilogue about how the Runner’s kid went out to the Ribbonriver just like his father, before the story ended, and their own team was a minute away from the Slanted Roads.

They had not met a single monster on the way here, which was pretty damned strange, but eminently possible.

Jane and the whole team watched as the Main Road leading away from Downhere ended, like a tunnel of darkness giving way to an endless void. Donaro slowed their Platform and they glided forward to the lip of the Main Road. They stopped.

All the space beyond was a grand cavern, larger than Ar’Kendrithyst, by far.

The Slanted Roads was a catastrophe zone of continental-sized slate shelves, all broken and scattered atop each other, with many of them laying at the bottom of the cavern, so far, far below, and many of them at the top, so far, far, above. A few haphazard angles of stone were near-vertical inside the cavern, lodged between various broken bits of world here and there, but the space was simply too deep, and vaguely too dark, to see much more than that; the atmosphere, and the Elemental Gloom and Shadow, got in the way.

The distance a person could see through clear air was rather hard to judge accurately back on Earth, with sight lines often less than 50 miles deep, but here on Veird the sight lines could go on for a thousand kilometers or more. The Slanted Roads was one of those spaces on a good day and though it was a good day, Jane could still not see the other side.

Jane marveled. “Holy shit. I didn’t think it would look… So big.”

Hizogard scrunched his eyebrows a bit; he wasn’t impressed. “There’s a reason we didn’t come here before now, right? I mean. We’re right below Ar’Kendrithyst, right?”

Sitnakov smiled as he asked, “Because it’s a trash heap half the size of Glaquin?”

“I’m rather sure I didn’t come through here; I think I would have remembered it if I had,” Jane said. “But maybe we should have checked this place anyway? Gods. This is worse than I had imagined.”

The Main Roads wound all around the Underworld like ten thousand rings of empty cavern space, spaced rather evenly within the globe, save for where Geodes and plumbing diverted those rings. The Side Roads connected the Main Roads together, like staircases, but sometimes more natural up-down caverns. This space that would become the Slanted Roads were supposed to be a living space for the refugees of the Old Cosmology, with the Geode Kendrithyst in the center of this space, but then Melemizargo broke the Underworld. But Ar’Kendrithyst was only about 150 kilometers across.

So there was a discrepancy.

Sitnakov spoke from personal experience, “These here Slanted Roads exist both because Melemizargo captured Kendrithyst and ripped it up from the Underworld, all the way to the Surface, and due to the year-long war that happened before that fateful date, about 900 years ago. Millions died. It was a nightmare.”

Silence.

Jane asked, “About how deep are we?”

“About 800 kilometers below?” Sitnakov guessed. “We’re a bit below where Kendrithyst used to be, I think.”

“I guess monsters are the problem for why no one builds down here,” Jane said, “But this looks like good space? Someone should be using it?”

Sitnako shrugged.

“There’s a lot of good space down here,” Hizogard said, looking up to Sitnakov, trying to build a bridge of cooperation as he added, “But I’m guessing this one is all filled with some of the worst sorts of monsters in the Underworld in a constantly shifting biome that has nothing that anyone wants at all?”

Sitnakov shrugged.

“The biome here rarely shifts; it could be built upon. But the problem is monsters, yes.” Ravan said, “Even still, this is the fastest multi-level trade route through these lands. The Surface areas are all crunched down together, but down here the Slanted Roads are about a thousand kilometer wide, 1,500 kilometer deep hole. If you can navigate this land then you can cut off a lot of travel time. Otherwise you have to go around, and that can add multiple days and even weeks to a normal caravan trip.”

Sitnakov said, “Everything that this area used to be has been rerouted. The waterways, the airways, the manaways. Everything. There’s many safer ways to trade through the Underworld than through this disaster zone.” He smiled. “And subsequently, because only the brave or foolish or strapped for time come through here, this disaster zone is consistently one of the more dangerous places in the Underworld.”

Danaro scoffed. “You say that about everywhere we go.”

Sitnakov nodded. “Most places down here are equivalently dangerous, but in different ways.” He pointed toward one of the larger lights on the broken continental shelves ahead. “That’s our target, yeah Ravan?”

“Correct,” Ravan said, “That largest light in the center of the Slanted Roads marks the largest ephemewights congregation of this land, but every single one of those larger lights marks another congregation. We could spend a week here, killing them all, and make this land much, much safer for all possible travelers. But we can’t; we’re on a schedule. Therefore, we will attempt to clear the main problem and then take a rather straight path up toward the Main Road that leads to the Side Road that leads to the Hole. People come by and clear the main congregation all the time but it comes back rather fast all the time, too, and those who fail to clear it will end up a member of the chorus, constantly wailing their final death throes into the Slanted Roads alongside all the rest who have died down here in ages past.”

Danaro waved Ravan off, saying, “Whatever it is, I am sure our meat shields here will kill it good and well. So let’s get ready?”

“Descend to Main Road floor,” Ravan said, “Standard killing formation. It’ll be about an hour flight toward the center. Be prepared to lose magical capabilities when engaging the ephemewights, but be prepared for all the other normal monsters that live in the gloom down here to attack us long before we get to the actual threat. Those ephemewights require proper [Reflection]s in order to survive their attacks and to withstand their choral [Dispel]s. Anything you wish to add, Prince Sitnakov?”

As the Platform settled down onto the lip of the Main Road below, Sitnakov smashed his adamantium fists together, happily saying, “Nope! That’s it! Reflections if you got ‘em! Be prepared to lose external magics anyway— Oh! And melee does nothing, they learn from the deaths of their neighbors, and they swarm if they sense weakness. We might need to retreat after fifteen minutes because they might become immune to everything we can do. The order in which we’ll likely become useless is Hizogard first, for Force Swords are one magic and they’re probably already immune to Force due to that being a rather common magic.”

“I’ll stay back on defense,” Hizogard said.

Sitnakov nodded, continuing, “Lyrical will become useless next, due to Thunder being mostly physical anyway.”

“Buffing you and Jane then,” Lyrical said.

Sitnakov nodded. “And then I’ll lose effectiveness, and then Jane. Jane will likely be able to outlast us all with her Prismatic style.”

Everyone but Ravan looked at Sitnakov. Ravan kept her eyes on the vast, twinkling space ahead.

“Really?” Jane asked, “Even with you all having Domains?”

Sitnakov smiled. “Domains are what will allow Hizogard and Lyrical and I to fight this battle at all, because the ephemewights will simply become immune to our normal damages after we kill a single one, and they’ll be striking back with cooperative cast anti-magics and thunder-based attacks the whole time we engage— Oh. Lyrical can countersong.”

Lyrical looked unsure. “I can certainly do some countersongs. But what do you mean anti-magics? Like a Void Song?”

“… Somewhat like that,” Sitnakov said, after thinking for a moment. “Pretty sure it’s a Shadow Song.”

Lyrical remained unsure. “I suggest we engage as little as we can, to begin.”

Agreements all around.

Ravan said, “Ignore the light in the center. It’s a trap. The real center of each swarm is always inside the last surviving member of a congregation, and that monster will likely flee if the swarm is destroyed enough. That monster will attempt to join another swarm. We likely will not be able to find nor kill it before that happens. The goal is to kill the main congregation as much as we can, and force it to break apart. Doing this much will save many lives, and it will have to be enough.”

Sitnakov lifted into the air on tidings of black wind, saying, “So we work our way in from the outside, pull back, and repeat ten times!” He shrugged. “But we’ll likely have to move on. These things are dangerous the larger they get, and that central one is maximum size.”

Ravan stepped into the air upon near-invisible [Telekinesis], her full body armor covering her and her very large backpack completely. She linked the group together, sending, ‘Clear as much as we can in ten minutes. Pull back. Go again. And then we leave; straight past and up to the north-northwest at a 2:15 am angle.’

Everyone was now wearing their full armor, or otherwise. Danaro and Ravan, being back-line support, both had very large backpacks incorporated into their [Conjure Armor], while Sitnakov and Hizogard were completely unencumbered. Lyrical had a medium-sized backpack.

Jane was her usual blue-tarantula form. It felt wonderful to shed her human form and finally be bigger than every single other person in her team. She was ten meters wide and four meters tall, and also floating on shadows. The only thing that made her obviously-not-a-monster was a specialty summoned armor that covered her thorax and brightly proclaimed in big white letters on top and bottom, ‘I’M A PERSON, TOO!’.

It would have been funny, but there had been incidents.

And now was not a time to hold back, so Jane was a spider. As she took to the air, flying behind her team, Jane was both sad that they were so close to the end of their adventure, and hopeful that they could get back to this some other time. But a part of Ravan’s earlier words had stuck with Jane; this was an overpowered team, and the world would be better off if every single person here split off into a new team, to guide the young into higher echelons of power.

The 400 kilometer flight over to the ephemewights would take a short while, so Jane had some time to think about what came next. Did she want to reform this overpowered team, after the Feast? Provided the Feast went well and there wasn’t some sort of world-ending—

A falseDark opened its maw in the air to the left, like an abyssal anglerfish with a million gently-glowing white teeth spearing up and down from a 200 meter wide maw that led straight into a gloomy death. A thousand tendrils of gloom lanced out from that deep pit of a mouth, into the sky, mostly trying to capture and eat Jane since she was the biggest target of the group.

The team instantly reconfigured their flying formation. Jane went Prismatic. Sitnakov went Full Storm. Hizogard billowed with cutting edges, slicing apart every tendril that went for himself, Lyrical, Danaro, and Ravan. Lyrical waited, poised to face a secondary threat if it should show, or to back up any of the others. Danaro waited, poised to heal if needed, but it shouldn’t be needed. Ravan coordinated.

The falseDark died mostly to Sitnakov, the gloom-based monster becoming a scattering of barely-there flesh that vanished into the otherwise clear air. Jane went after and cleaned up the second, smaller falseDark, lying in wait for the first one to finish.

The group resumed their flight toward the lights of the central, most major ephemewight congregation; the most visible and therefore most dangerous threat in the area. Things didn’t draw attention to themselves down here unless they could do so without being targeted by a thousand other threats.

A moment after the group resumed flight, Danaro sent, ‘It would be stupid to say that I’m almost not scared of those falseDarks anymore, so I will not say that.’

A few chuckles filled the probably-not-empty air.