The day dawned with a gloomy haze covering the sky, and remnants of a near-constant, small rain, settled into puddles on street corners, which reflected the green, gold, red, and white lights of the season. A cold wind blew across the Forest, and into Treeho, casting a chill into the air, but doing nothing to hinder the festivities. So people were still partying, but most of those awake this early morning were either bakers waiting for their bread to rise, or revelers on their way ho after a night of parties and fun.
- - - -
The gloom was there, outside his windows as Erick laid in bed. He briefly woke when he thought he heard soone, but that turned out to be nothing but the wind. He closed his eyes, and drifted back to sleep. No need to get up, yet.
- - - -
Erick stood on the porch in the gloomy sunshine, smoking a blunt of blueweed and feeling good, with a warmth spreading through his body, and his belly full of a delicious breakfast.
The sun had risen hours ago, but no one in the suite, besides Jane, had risen until the doorbell rang. Jane had ordered room service, again. A pair of bellhops and their delivered goods almost tried to enter the room when she opened the door, but she stopped them before silver-dod plates and bowls went tumbling. This was how Erick woke to the scents of an already-cooked breakfast. Sweet rolls. Sausages. Syrup and pancakes. Eggs and breakfast tea. Mushrooms and so sort of oatal-like soup, both of which weren't all that bad at all. Erick had never had mushrooms for breakfast, and he had quite liked it.
As he leaned against the balcony, watching the Forest to the north, Erick roughly planned his day. There was much room for adjustnt, after the main event was done.
Soon enough, Poi ca and said, "Syllea is ready, if you are."
"Oh? Already?" Erick looked to Teressa, who was cleaning up breakfast, and who had stopped the second Poi ntioned Syllea. Erick asked, "Are you going out today?"
Everyone else within earshot found sothing else to do.
Teressa waffled for a mont, before saying, "No. Tomorrow, though… I'll go out there tomorrow." She glanced toward Kiri and Jane, saying, "We might sign up for a Celebration Hunt tonight."
Jane whipped around, smiling, "You want to Hunt? Great! Yes! Let's do that." Jane instantly locked eyes with Kiri.
"Ehhhh…" Kiri shut the book she was reading, then said, "Well… Yeah. Okay. Let's do a Hunt."
"Yay!" Jane said, with enthusiasm.
Erick smirked, then tuned to Poi. "Then I'm ready. Where to?"
"Her house. The backyard."
- - - -
In the light of day, even as gloomy as it was, Wyrmrest was the most impressive Arbor of Treeho, by far. From high above, he looked like a normal enough tree among a field of grass, with knotty, dense roots that twisted and turned and covered a space twice as much as himself. But if you were anywhere close enough to judge his true size, you would see that those knotty roots were actually normal-sized houses, stacked and nestled among each other in numbers that defied easy counting. You would see the grass that surrounded him was just the normal trees between the Arbor and the rest of Treeho. You would see that his trunk was a few hundred ters wide, which went well with his two kiloter height, to support a canopy that was almost as wide as the tangled houses below.
Erick, with Poi at his side, stepped onto the light a few hundred ters above Syllea's house. He gazed up, briefly, to see the underside of Wyrmrest; to see the Starfruit glowing among those green leaves like tiny motes of light from afar. Those Starfruit were each the size of a person, but no one could tell that from down on the ground.
Erick turned his attentions back down to the 'ground'.
Wyrmrest's primary district was a maze. Bridges connected upper parts together. Stairs ran up and down everywhere. People worked and played and lived inside Wyrmrest himself, and Archmage Syllea was no exception.
… She was a slight exception. Her house was on the top floor of the knots down below, right next to Wyrmrest himself.
Erick saw his target, and stepped down onto a bit of wooden land behind Syllea's house. The space was an off-kilter, sowhat square dip and rise of wood, of about 20 ters to a side, with three sides belonging to Syllea's house, each of which had either glass windows or a glass door, and the final side being Wyrmrest's main trunk. The Arbor of the district nad after himself, lood like a cliff, high above.
Syllea opened the glass door, saying, "Hey, Erick!"
"Hello." Erick smiled. "Woke up later than usual and had a nice brunch. Thanks for the help in securing that room; it's been great."
Syllea stepped outside. "I'm glad you like it." She got right to it, by saying, "So I was thinking of your dilemma regarding anonymity, Elental rcy, and your desire to subdue a target rather than kill them. I have a question though: What sort of people are you considering to use these spells against?"
Bayth stepped out of the house, next, silently holding a pair of chairs. She set them beside the door and sat in one, as she gestured to Poi and the other. Poi nodded, and sat down next to Bayth.
Erick looked around, at the clear air, and the lack of spells in the air, aside from the starfield that was Wyrmrest's Domain. He asked, "Can we talk openly?"
"Oh yeah." Syllea waved him off. "Wyrmrest has control over much that happens this close to him. Sound and mana sense only goes as far as he wants it."
Erick blinked on his mana sense, and sure enough, his sight ended at the walls of this outdoor space. So Erick answered Syllea's question, "I just want to be generally unidentified around others. But… specifically…" Erick paused. Ah. This was more difficult than he had expected. He tried, "There was this one guy—" His throat closed. Speaking was impossible. He felt both embarrassed and furious at himself for one brief mont, but then he breathed. He looked away. When he turned back, he spoke through the feeling of a stone sitting on his neck, "Specifically, there was this one guy who put [Neck Bombs] into the bodies of children."
Syllea tensed, but said nothing. Erick practically saw as Syllea reassessed her future questions, but he also saw that she was willing to listen to what Erick said next.
Erick was thankful for that. He continued, "He put bombs in the necks of kids in order to keep his power over the nearby populace. I… I got lucky. I managed sothing that I don't want to repeat." He lost most of the pain in his chest as he realized that Syllea needed to know sothing. "The guy had a Charisma Stat. When you put two of the New Stats into a person, there's a reaction. That reaction tore the guy apart. His soul turned broken as it collapsed inward— It didn't kill him and I'm not sorry I did that to him. He deserved every bit of what he got. But… He could have had triggers on those kids… I got lucky, in that mont those triggers didn't trigger. But before I did what I did to the man, two of those kids were blown up as a warning to ."
Syllea seed to relax, in that way that a person does when the horrible thing they expected to happen, happened.
Erick said, "That's why I need sothing to put soone down and keep them down, without killing them. I'm fully convinced that if I just killed the guy, every single one of those kids and many of the people they were near would have died as a direct result of my action."
"I had heard about you committing so sort of action against a guy… But I had not heard it quite like that." She stood a bit straighter, stared Erick in his eyes, and said, "What happened was fine."
Erick almost objected.
Syllea shook her head, and spoke with conviction. "Erick. You and I are the type of people who need to make the hard decisions when it cos to people's lives. I know you understand this, for you killed that Charisma guy and only had two bits of collateral damage—"
Erick felt his face shift toward disgust.
"—and yes, calling the deaths of two children 'collateral damage' is harsh, but life is harsh." Syllea said, "And that doesn't matter right now. What matters is shutting soone like that Charisma person down so they can't trigger whatever spells they might have waiting for a 'go' signal. This is best achieved with Mind Magic, but I'm not a Mind Mage, and you don't want to get burdened by those people, anyway." She quickly turned to Poi, saying, "No offense."
Poi just bowed his head, ever so slightly, indicating that no offense was taken.
She turned back to Erick, asking, "Unless you want to go that route? Choosing that path ans you aren't allowed to participate in normal life. You would beco a hermit. No one would know who you are after you beca a full mber of the Mind Mages, because you would remove yourself from their mories. There are archmages that do this, but I only know of them because I've been allowed to know that they exist."
Erick had a lot of thoughts about what Syllea had just divulged. His first one was that he had not expected to hear that from her, but that he really should have; she had been at this archmage-thing for a lot longer than him. His second and third thoughts made him glance toward Poi.
Poi openly lied, making no effort to cover that fact, "Those people don't exist."
"Of course they don't," Syllea allowed the lie, saying, "I must have been mistaken."
"That's not an option for , anyway," Erick said.
"Good news, then, because a Mind Mage's [Sleep] is sowhat duplicated with Elental rcy. Or, rather, it's more like if you compound enough False Damage onto a person they usually go unconscious." Syllea said, "A Mind Mage's [Over Mind] is the perfect counter to triggered spells, though. Just so you know, you cannot duplicate that outside of that branch of magic."
"… [Over Mind]?"
Syllea rambled off, "It's a spell that wraps the target in a false cocoon of 'everything is okay', cutting that target off from all spells they have cast. It doesn't disrupt more spells or more connections from being ford, but it's good for an opening spell in order to go for a quick and less painful take-down. If you want the perfect solution to your problem of taking down a person who has planted bombs, [Over Mind] is it, but learning how to do that spell requires you to fully commit to being a Mind Mage. Which you won't do." Syllea said, "But now you know what the perfect solution is, which I always try to know before I make my own imperfect solutions."
"How do you know of that spell?" Erick asked, for he had certainly never heard of much Mind Mage magic beyond the simple ones, like [Sleep] and [Sense Emotion], and the dangerous ones, like [Dominate]. He briefly wondered if Poi had any of those, but he doubted Poi would tell him, which was probably for the best.
Syllea said, "The only reason I can imagine that you don't know more about various Mind Magics is that you haven't yet pursued that particular discipline. Either that, or it could be that you've only been at this archmage stuff for less than a year. It wasn't till five years in that I t the Mind Mages." She shrugged. "And even then, they just told how to identify and defend against so of the more dangerous mind altering spells. Have they not formally approached you, yet?"
"Have they?" Erick asked Poi.
"Not yet, sir." Poi added, "You're too high profile."
"Ah." Syllea said, "That makes sense. I might be an accredited archmage, but only a few people ever achieve the level of notoriety you've achieved. Which brings us back to the current problem. I'm probably a bit more knowledgeable about your spells than most, but every single new mage out there knows about [Call Lightning], Ophiel, and [Withering]. So you need a new way to fight, to be more low-profile."
Erick nodded. "That's the long and the short of it."
Syllea asked, "Correct if I'm wrong, but you're all about large spells and vast effects. Do you have any short range spells at all?"
"I do, but I barely use them. Being in lee is… I'm not good at that."
"That's fine. I'm rather poor at lee, too." Syllea said, "But I can fake it well enough with a few buff spells. Do you want to do the lee-thing?"
"… No."
"Mid-range mage, then." Syllea said, "Much easier to acclimate to. Much easier to fit in with all the other mages the world over." Syllea paused. She asked, "Did you ever do the normal 'adventurer mage' thing? From what I heard, you just stayed in Spur, mostly. Except when you ca out to Oceanside that one ti."
"That is correct. Oh— I did go on a wyrm hunt once. That was… That was dangerous and I was not truly prepared for that, but it worked out well enough."
Syllea nodded, then said, "Okay. So you're… pretty new to the kind of fighting that most people will do in their lifetis."
"I have taken redial adventuring courses at a Guildhouse, as well as done the equivalent of three months of sparring every single day… But I haven't done that in a while. And it wasn't continuous sparring… or very good sparring."
Syllea's face seed to light up. "That's all good! That makes a lot more confident in helping you."
"I can do the mid-range mage-thing, even though I don't have much experience with it." Erick said, "I really am just looking for spells to appear to be like another person when I'm in a low-recognition environnt."
"I can skip almost everything I was going to say and go right to the magic, then." Syllea said, "I'm going to ask a few questions. Tell the first thing that cos to your mind."
"Okay." Erick wondered where she was going with this, but it seed fun. "Sure."
"Fire."
Erick recoiled. "Too much lingering pain."
Syllea tilted her head. "Lightning."
"I can do that already."
"Stone."
"You can hit soone with stone and not kill them?"
Syllea smiled. "Holy."
"Too angelic."
"Ice."
"… Uncomfortable?"
Syllea nodded. "Chaos."
"Uh. What does that an, though?"
"Order."
"The idea is interesting, but what does that an?"
"Blood."
"Illegal, but useful."
"Ooze."
"Dangerous, but useful." Erick considered his [Harmonic Blood Ooze] spell. "Very useful."
"Decay."
"Lingering pain. Do not like."
With a slight joy in her eyes, Syllea said, "Wind."
"I like flying."
Syllea paused, a smirk on her face. After a mont of thinking, she asked, "What if I told you that you can make painless Decay magic?"
"… I am intrigued. But it's too slow, isn't it?"
"Yes. Decay is slow. But a well made rciful Decay would be a 'container' spell; sothing you cast on soone in order to keep them down." Syllea said, "Most mid-range mages have a handful of spells that they use all the ti; sowhere between four to ten. Not counting all the utility spells, of course. We can make three spells today, or maybe just get started on them. First, you need to be able to use rcy… Which is a problem for so, but likely not for you. Now…" Slightly intrigued, but withholding judgnt, Syllea held out a hand, palm up, and said, "I've heard that you can hear the mana?"
A prominence of thick air, like a mirage, bent the light around Syllea's hand as the sound of reaching out and touching the world combined with so other, subdued sound. Erick readily identified [Force Bolt]. The second part must have been Mana Altering for rcy. It was kinda hard to understand, but it was definitely the sound of sothing held back.
Erick said, "I hear [Force Bolt] and rcy, I'm guessing. Never played around with rcy before. I have read about it in that book you told to get. Esoteric Elents. That's a good book, by the way. Really helped along in more than a few ways." While he spoke, he had the Ophiel on his shoulder listen, tease out the [Force Bolt] from Syllea's mana, and focus on the other sound present.
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Soon, Ophiel sang a song of restraint; muted, and yet full, like background noise turned into a flat surface. Like the stripping of defenses, and a laying low of the opposition. A knife that would never fall all the way. Erick had not heard the full sound of rcy at first, but he did once Ophiel had sussed it out from the whole.
Erick continued, "And Ophiel helps with the more difficult sounds."
Ophiel stopped singing rcy, and instead trilled in violins.
Syllea smiled. She lifted her left hand toward the center of the open space. A burst of mana conjured a block of crystal from the ground that quickly grew to the size of an orcol. She said, "There's a target."
Erick combined Ophiel's song with his own power, and cast.
A bolt of gold-flecked white slamd into the crystal. A blue box appeared.
rcy Bolt, instant, long range, 10 mana.
A bolt of rcy inexorably strikes a target for 15 WIL.
Erick frowned a little.
Syllea said, "That one looked good. What were the numbers?"
Erick showed her the box, saying, "rcy elent. Inexorable. 15 plus Willpower."
Syllea read the box, her eyes briefly going wide before she settled with a slight smile on her lips. She said, "That's pretty great for your first ti." A bit more serious, she asked, "Do you have experience with Ethereal? And Blood Magic, for the multi-Variable costs?"
And there was the source of Erick's current frown. "I do have experience with those." He said, "I was trying all of that… But… I only got inexorable."
"I do have [True Sight], Erick. Don't worry too much about getting any of this all right now." With kindness, Syllea said, "That you were able to do this much with the current damage to your soul shows a lot of talent and skill. Just don't try for anything beyond tier two until your soul is better."
Erick looked away as he felt a flush of sothing nice inside of his chest. Syllea was a great person. This was why she was the 'darling of the Wyrmrest Tribe', as Teressa had once called her. Syllea was actually 45, though, which was pretty close to his own 48. Erick had found that out when—
Erick banished those thoughts, and said, "It is true that I don't feel so great, but I don't need strict bed rest yet. Thank you for your concern, though. But back to the magic:" He asked, "[True Sight]?"
Syllea rattled off, "[Witness], [Blood Sight], [Soul Sight], [Mana Sight], and [Future Sight]. You can achieve all of those through accomplishnts with mana sense and various personal shifts in perception. All of those are base tier spells you have to buy. You have to buy [True Sight], too. Can't make any of those yourself, or Remake Quest them —I've tried— so I hope you have points saved up."
"I do." Erick said, "I just need to work on [Witness] and [Future Sight], then."
"Good." Syllea said, "I almost fucked myself out of that one, but eventually Bayth and I and a few others managed to secure so high-level kills inside a particularly nasty Twisted Vision of the Forest. [True Sight] was my goal with those latest levels, and that cost has never been better spent."
"What is a Twisted Vision of the Forest? I've heard that twice now."
"They're high-level monsters that are more environntal hazards than actual monsters, but make no mistake; they're one of the most deadly things in the Forest. Twisted Visions cultivate monsters like the Arbors cultivate civilization." Syllea said, "We'll probably see at least one when we go out into the Forest to find Gates. You'll know one of them is near when you see a bunch of the exact sa monster. And I an exact."
"… Oh. That doesn't sound good."
"They never are. You'll find Twisted Visions in Deep Forests all over Veird, but the ones up here like to take in wyrms and spawn hundreds of copies. I usually deal with about three wyrm-spawners every year."
And that was another topic that Erick wanted to broach with another archmage, and Syllea was right here. So.
Erick asked, "How valid and good would it be to cast rolling monster-killing spells? Super large? Wipes out a good ten-kiloters of monsters as it lasts hours, or more? Covers thousands of kiloters before it ends?" He clarified, "I an: Why don't more archmages do this? Or— Why don't we all do more of this?" He added, "I really wanted to ask this of a Poison Archmage down in the Wasteland about organizing widespread monster kills when I saw her during the clearing of the mimics out of the Wasteland, but she didn't seem to want to talk. I think her na was Orenza. She had this Decay magic that covered a diater of at least 25 kiloters." Erick said, "Her and Peatrice Shallowhamr, their Stone Archmage, would be a great addition to any plan to clear the Crystal Forest of Crystal Mimics. You said you wanted to talk about that, back at Oceanside, right?"
"Orenza is about as caustic as her magic, so that doesn't surprise ." Syllea frowned a little, and said, "When I was younger, I, too, wished to be able to unleash my monster-only variant [Starlight Fall] upon the lands outside of Treeho. To clear out hundreds of kiloters of land. To free us of the monsters. But every ti we do that, it ans that the others who live here will never grow stronger. They will never know of the actual dangers out there in the Forest." She stated, "And we orcols are a people who cannot afford to grow complacent."
"Fair enough. But… Not everyone is an orcol. Not everyone can regrow their heads."
Syllea said, "They do widespread monster control in the Greensoil Republic. The archmages there— They're not real archmages. Every single one of them purchases their way to that rank. Anyway. The archmages there all have [Weaken Monsters]. It's a massive spell of suppression, turning every monster in a hundred square kiloters into sothing weaker than it was before." She said, "All this does is ensure that their people never know personal strength."
Erick was getting real close to saying that Syllea's words sounds strangely close to lemizargo's. But that would be extrely rude. So he said, "But this wouldn't be weakening the monsters and allowing them to go berserk when the spell lapses. I an actually killing them."
"Sa problems. One day, you won't be around, Erick." Syllea said, "And the exact sa thing will happen on those days that you're not there to support your people, that happens in the Greensoil Republic when [Weaken Monsters] lapses, and a monster goes berserk and kills a dozen people before it's stopped— By yet another person who actually fights the monsters, I might add. The farrs and the rchants of that place know nothing of monsters, and it shows in their dependency on [Weaken Monsters]."
"… That's fair, too."
Syllea said, "But with all that said, the Crystal Forest is a blight upon the world that needs to eventually be culled and reseeded with actual green growth. I have absolutely nothing against rolling magics through that land, killing everything that lives, and then reseeding the whole place afterward." She added, "And now that the Shades are dead, maybe we could look into that decade-long plan."
Erick's face broke into a wide smile. "Sounds good to ."
And then another thought occurred. Would turning the Crystal Forest into a real forest be a good thing, if it beca a forest like the Forest surrounding Treeho?
It was sothing to think about, anyway.
"Anyway!" Syllea said, "I think you should try for so Air-based workings. Here are so spells I've already made, that you might like to make yourself." She popped out a few boxes.
Wind Cutter, instant, dium range, 10 mana
Ten wide bands of sharp wind slice forward, each dealing 25 WIL
May cause suffocation.
Air Decay, instant, dium range, 50 mana
The air around a dium-sized target begins to rot, dealing WIL per second.
High chance to suffocate the target.
Triple Air Bomb, instant, long range, 150 mana
Launch a quick ball of air that explodes on contact, dealing 50 2x WIL damage in a dium area, and then again, and again.
May cause suffocation.
Syllea popped out a few more blue boxes, saying, "And here's so more ideas."
rciful Purge, instant, dium range, 500 mana
Inflict ongoing 5x WIL False Damage to a dium-sized target. Lasts 1 minute.
rciful Ooze, instant, dium range, 50 mana
Summon a rciful Ooze under your command that will trap and stifle a target, dealing False Damage for 1 minute.
rciful Ooze Mothertree, instant, long range, 2500 mana
Summon an ethereal rciful Ooze Mothertree under your control. The Mothertree constantly and consistently spawns and shoots inexorable rciful Oozes at designated targets. Lasts 1 minute.
Attacks which destroy the Mothertree will release all rciful Oozes at once.
Erick read those boxes, and saw a few good ways to proceed.
"This [rciful Purge] is nice." He said, "[rciful Ooze Mothertree] seems pretty amazing, too."
"The first is a [Force Bolt] strung through Blood Magic for the multiplier and then switched over to rcy. Blood and rcy are closely related, so this works rather well, but maybe don't try that one till your soul heals." Syllea said, "I mostly use [rciful Ooze] when I need to subjugate a lot of people. Haven't killed soone with that one, yet! The base spell is [Force Bolt] then Mana Altered for Ooze and rcy. To get the Mothertree, you have to Alter again for Tree. You can throw in so Blood Magic, too, if you want higher multipliers on that one, but I found that high multipliers on Oozes tend to be too deadly to use for subjugation." She stressed, "But while rcy is good for not-killing people, if you use it against monsters you're asking for a bad ti. Monsters don't really care about Health, headaches make them mad, and monsters like wyrms will not even care at all about your rcy."
"I have a question about suffocation." Erick asked, "Is that as deadly as I think it is?"
"Suffocation is the weaker version of asphyxiation." Syllea said, "Certain spells have a way of getting into the body more than others. Air is one of these. Most living things breathe the sa way, via sacs of blood in the lungs, and when you use Air spells you have a tendency to rip up those tender sacs inside the lungs. Suffocation is one of the ways Elental damage can get through the natural shielding of Health and Shield, but it's a very superficial thing. Like how cold slows, and lightning paralyzes. In the case of Air Magic, we're talking about how pressure waves propagate around corners.
"The only ti you're going to actually kill a person with low-grade Air magic is when they take your spell head-on, breathing in the whole ti." She added, "Birds and other hardy beasts also aren't affected much by Air Magic's generalized 'chance to suffocate'. Mostly, an Air spell will just inflict a bit of extra damage and stagger a person when they realize they can't breathe, but it usually goes away based on the duration of the spell." She hastily added, "All of this only works against stuff that breathes based on lung physiology, anyway."
Erick frowned a little at the viciousness of suffocating soone with a spell. But this was life on Veird, wasn't it?
And yet… There was still sothing distasteful about denying sothing the ability to breathe. Sure, Erick had killed monsters by ripping out all their water, or frying them, or blasting them, but to make them suffocate? To make them suffer?
No.
Or maybe… He could at least try it out on so monsters, right?
And that gave him another idea.
"What about poison that puts things to sleep?"
"Alchemy can do this…" Syllea said, "I don't do alchemy. Or much Decay magic, for that matter. Those two go hand-in-hand quite often. Here's your problem with a [Sleepy Cloud]— It wouldn't be called that, since you aren't using the [Sleep] spell, for without using the [Sleep] spell, you'd have to make a different magic for different people. There's flowers in Nelboor, Wild Calm Roses, that puts orcols to sleep, but does nothing against anyone else. There's calming tea made from Townhouse Tree roots that knocks out humans, but does nothing to anyone else. This is the problem with weaponizing sleeping poison; it might not work on the person you're using it against."
Erick considered generalized anesthesia, and filed that idea away under 'possible Particle Magic'. Syllea wasn't well versed in alchemy, so maybe she just didn't know? That was possible. It was also possible that anesthesia just didn't work on Veird how he thought it could work.
… He could still try to make Diethyl Ether, anyway.
What was that again? Ah! Right! (C2 H5)2 O.
Ohh. Intelligence was kinda scary. When did he even read about that? Huh.
Syllea raised an eyebrow at Erick's trailing words. "Are you thinking of manually putting the brain into a sleep-state?"
Well now he was. "I am." But where to even begin? There was the hypothalamus and the pineal gland that controlled latonin… Which was another thing Erick could see about recreating with Particle Magic. But as for controlling the brain directly? Erick decided, "I don't know enough to ss with that and I'm not willing to experint."
Syllea smiled. "I would have been surprised if you did. I've read old books about people committing atrocities in order to create spells like [Induce Rest] to get around the Mind Mage control over [Sleep]. But in the end, almost all of those people have just found out how to make [Sleep], and then the Mind Mages move in and that knowledge is taken from them."
Erick almost asked her if she had a problem with Mind Mages, but he left that door closed, as he asked, "Got any suggestions for keeping a low profile? I feel I am likely missing so rather obvious things."
"You are," Syllea said, with a smirk. "You should look into so permanent alchemical or Blood Magic options to change the color of your eyes to sothing less white-white-black. Maybe change your hair, too. Don't do any temporary spells; those just light up for anyone with a Sight to see. Your eyes are one of the most noticeable things about you, so fix that and you should be good. That, and your clothes, I suppose. Those are definitely the robes of a well-off man. Put on so shabbier shoes. I have a whole room for outfits for undercover work and that's usually enough, as long as I don't draw the attention of anyone who would know for . I hardly ever use the eye dyes, but they're decent." She added, "You also need to find or think of a way to hide Ophiel, but you already knew that. Other than those few things, you should be good for walking anonymously through most human towns." She shrugged. "Or you could try your hand at what sort of Polymorph you might have? Do you feel like you'd rather be so other race than human? If so, and since you've lived in Spur for a while, perhaps you have a different form just sitting there, waiting to be found."
"I'll go with the alchemical dyes." He glanced to Poi. "I can probably find soone to sell that stuff back ho."
Poi nodded.
Erick turned back to Syllea, saying, "Thank you for this. I still haven't gotten around to making any buff spells, but I might need to make so of those, too."
"Don't go wandering back ho, yet." Syllea said, "We still haven't gotten the basics of what we just talked about, and you shouldn't try to make a buff in your condition, or any difficult spells. But if you make so less-than-ideal mid-range spells, then I'll at least know you know what you're doing." She rapidly added, "Not that I don't think you don't know what you're doing! Ah. That ca out wrong."
Erick smiled at Syllea's unexpected, small contrition. "I've only been at this for a year. I'm completely sure that I only have the barest idea that I know what I'm doing."
"You do seem to be doing alright for yourself, but there's always more." With a conspiratorial eye, Syllea asked, "Have you ever experinted with Elental Destruction?"
Erick paused. "I have. It's useful for creating specific counterspells. I was warned away from using it in actual spells, though."
"Oh, drat. Here I was hoping to let you in on a big secret." Syllea added, "And yeah. You don't want to make actual Destruction spells. On the spectrum between Order and Chaos, Destruction is wildly chaotic. I lost limbs and otherwise on five separate occasions before I finally decided that I was done with Destruction."
Erick smiled, and asked, "Have you tried experinting with [Healing Word]?"
"Bah. That damn thing." Syllea asked, "You talking about the [Quick Spell]?"
"Yes!" Delighted, but tempered by Syllea's reaction, Erick asked, "But it seems you dislike it?"
"The problem with [Quick Spell] is that it naturally decreases the power of the resulting spell by a factor between 10 to 5, while multiplying costs to sowhere between the original spell's cost, to three tis the original cost." Syllea said, "[Quick Spell] is a very hard spell to get right. How good is yours?"
Erick showed her, asking, "About that good?"
Syllea dismissed the spell box, saying, "Not a good way to judge. Did you make a spell from it?"
Erick showed her [Quick Wall], saying, "A tenth as good as the original."
"Rip it up and try again." She added, "Working magic with a damaged soul is difficult. Maybe wait on that one, too."
While Erick mourned his failure to correctly make [Quick Spell], he was glad to finally get confirmation that he had screwed up. With a ntal tug he ripped [Quick Spell] apart, feeling sothing shift in his soul…
Two things shifted.
Erick winced, as [Quick Wall] broke, too. A cascading failure. That was new. Erick had heard of what would happen if he ever tore apart a 'building block' spell, and now he finally got to experience it for himself. It wasn't as bad as creating new magic, though, and it certainly wasn't as bad as an Error.
Syllea still noticed. She asked, "Did you make a lot of magic with that one?"
"Just [Quick Wall]."
Syllea humd. She said, "Maybe… Maybe you should try for an Air Elent spell, so that I can see that you've got it, and then we stop here. A mage doesn't normally get cascading Deletion Fatigue like that unless they destroy the basis of a large branch of their magic. Ten spells or more."
"That's…" Erick felt sothing like heartburn in his chest, and then it was gone. "We can stop after another spell. That sounds like a good idea."
Syllea held out her hand, channeling an airy [Force Bolt], saying, "Here. This is [Air Bolt]."
Erick listened, but Ophiel teased out the sound of 'air' better than he could at the mont. With a concentrated Mana Altering and a mixing of possibility, Erick cast at the summoned crystal, five ters away. A bolt of swirling white air struck the crystal with a blast of wind, and a blue box appeared.
Air Bolt, instant, long range, 10 mana.
A bolt of air inexorably strikes a target for 15 WIL. May cause suffocation.
Erick flashed the box toward Syllea, saying, "I know I ssed that up a little, but it's close enough. Thank you." He winced.
Syllea looked down at Erick, and frowned. "Yeah… We're stopping here. When you're feeling better, Alter for Air, then Shape as needed, as with all Esoteric Elents. The specific Elent Shape spells, like [Airshape], work better than the generalized Mana Shaping, but working with the more Esoteric Elents, like Lightning, requires specialized Elent Shaping that you need to make yourself. You could probably make a very good [Lightning Shape] if you tried. But you don't need those specific Shapings quite yet, and you probably shouldn't try too hard for them, either."
"Heard and understood." Erick felt another odd thing flex inside of himself, and also not. "Ow— Okay. That was a weird stitch in my side."
With kindness, Syllea asked, "What did you do to yourself?"
"Oh… A lot of things." Erick stood up straight and tried to stand strong, but a triplicate stitch ran up his right side. He bent over as nausea rolled through his chest. The nausea vanished, quick as it ca. He stood up; a bit less straight this ti, but more or less okay. "I'm fine." He breathed hard, then said, "Okay! Yes. We can cut this early. I think I need a nap again."
"How about so tea?" Syllea said, "Have you tried Soul Palm Balm tea? I have so. It should help your soul better than sleep. It's pretty rare, but I know so people."
That was the stuff Jane got in the Headmaster's hospital. She only got a few doses of it to get her out of the worst of her Dragon Essence sickness, for Soul Palm Balm was supposed to be incredibly expensive. Erick said, "No thank you, I couldn't possibly impose more than I already have—"
"You aren't imposing!" Syllea said, with perhaps a bit too much fervor. She paused. She looked away and walked toward her house, saying, "They take the sap of the tree and pack it into little cubes. You have to do a special preparation, which I can show you, and then you can take a decagram with you." She stopped and turned around at the doorway, saying, "I insist."
"… That would be great." Erick decided, "I would appreciate that."
He followed her into her house, while Bayth and Poi followed him.
Within a minute, Erick had a nice little paper package of cubed tree sap, with each cube glowing with faint flickering embers. It reminded him of the broken Shroud around his own soul.
Syllea sent him off, saying, "I'm going to get you so better blueweed, too. Soone will deliver it to your room." She added, "Get so rest, Erick."
Erick felt a warmth of kindness bloom in his chest. He said, "Thank you, Syllea. I will."
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