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Mark did two things at the same time. First, he went about making several more 'True Spellbreakers', which was probably not a name that was going to stick, but it was what he was calling them right now. With the diagram for Extended Protect in his soulhouse it was easy to form more adamantium into more spheres. Of course, you couldn't make magic items while using magic or magic items, so Mark took off the first True Spellbreaker.

Mark slightly worried that he'd forget things after removing the sparkling diamond-like orb, but though the Witches' Welcome nibbled at his skin and that eldritch thing was still out there, his Clean House ritual in his soul continued, strong as ever. The Witches' Welcome couldn't touch him anymore. Mark got the distinct impression he could lower his defenses against the Welcome, but he was not doing that right now.

If someone tried to ambush him and kill him right now, when he wasn't protected by the Welcome, then Mark would like to see them try. He was very angry, and he had no direction to shove that anger. So if a willing target appeared? Fantastic! So with the Witches' Welcome trying and failing to reach him, Mark got more mithril from Andria to make more breakers. She was interested in what he was doing, but Mark lied through omission when he spoke of making more True Spellbreakers.

Andria stared at Mark, easily seeing through his lack of explanation for what it was, saying, "I mean… Yeah. I guess… Is that all that's happening, though, Mark? Because Addavein is all active and moving around a lot right now, and it makes me nervous when powerful people move around too fast. The Prosperity is weird right now."

"… How is the Prosperity 'weird'?"" You threw off the Welcome, so… That was apparently a big part of the greater Prosperity I was seeing in the last week, and especially with all the people I've been supporting through Blackleaf—" Andria cut her words short, directly asking, "Is something wrong?"" I mean… Yes, Andria. Something is wrong. But it's okay." Andria stared at Mark for a moment… and then she manifested a good 50 kilos of mithril in ingots beside his workstation, and said, "Okay." She did not mean 'okay'.

She meant 'You better tell me, later'. Mark said, "I'll tell you later." Andria hummed, satisfied for now, then she left. Mark had enough orichalcum in his baggage to finish his first round of True Spellbreakers, so he didn't need to put in an order to David just yet. He still texted David though, asking David for an extra large replacement, and sooner than expected. If David could come to the Winter Ball, that would be great. David called Mark back."

Freyala wants some of whatever you're making," David told Mark, over the phone.

"And she tells you not to tell me about them."

"… Oh, okay. I mean… Yeah. I'll talk to her later? Through Lola?"" Yes. I'll be there with your extra orichalcum tomorrow." Mark went back to crafting and doing the second thing he had been doing all the while. Spying. Andria had noticed Addavein moving around a lot, but so had Mark. Mark felt out everyone in the house, everyone in the property, and he wondered, exactly, who was affected by the antimeme he had stumbled upon, and how affected they were.

And so, Mark saw that Addavein was talking to everyone, checking on them, asking them questions about this or that. Mark was not privy to those specific conversations, but he could tell they were happening. When Addavein was done, he'd go back to Eliot, sitting in a meditation room in the middle bottom of the house, who had gone from deeply embarrassed to downright worried, and Addavein would tell Eliot about something.

And then Eliot would flex the Castellan around the house and something shadowy would appear here or there, usually around a person, and then vanish outward, flickered away by an amber-colored vector. Mark assumed there was amber fire involved as well, but all of that happened far out of his sight. Mark assumed that Eliot was getting some deep lessons on eldritch threats that weren't covered at Citadel Hearthswell in Mexico City.

Or maybe Addavein was directly manipulating Eliot's Castellan and merely prompting Eliot to get certain things started. Mark had no idea. He was busy. Mark got through 6 spheres, not nearly enough for everyone but about as many as he set out to make, when Tulo Khava, Rylan Drakemore, Tartu and his father Rekaro, and Sally, all started having conversations in the middle of the house.

Andria got drawn in and then vectors got angry, probably because Andria shared her Prosperity concerns with everyone else, and then Sally walked right over to Mark's room and slammed open the door." Who is attacking us, and why aren't you talking?" Sally demanded, standing a good 2 meters tall and ready for battle. All she needed was actual armor and weaponry, instead of the dress she was going to wear to tonight's pre-party, and the purse that was going to accent her wardrobe.

Mark picked up one of the completed orbs and tossed it to her, saying, "Here. See if anything happens." Sally caught it… And then she put the adamantium necklace part of the True Spellbreaker over her head. Behind her, Rylan and Tulo both tried to stop her, worried that Mark was making cursed items. But they were too slow and Sally wouldn't have let them stop her anyway.

The True Spellbreaker flickered to diamond life between Sally's ample breasts, which she had surely pumped up for the party tonight and which Mark hadn't noticed until then. The artifact seemed to work well, and strongly, the Witches' Welcome cracking and breaking and then falling away. It was like all the dream was a floating, rotating prism, aligning everyone inside of its control with Aluathan interests, but Sally stood in a fracture in the prism.

She suddenly became invisible to Mark's Unionsense, too, which was completely unexpected, but perhaps it should have been fully expected. Also surprisingly, nothing else flowed away from her. No ephemeral shadows. No antimemes… or at least none that Mark could see with his dreamsight. Mark went, "Huh." Maybe Eliot had already removed the eldritch antimemes, thanks to Addavein's guidance. Sally paused, looking at her arms, at her body, and she said, "Doesn't seem cursed to me."" You stepped out of the Welcome!"

Rylan exclaimed.

"That makes it cursed! The Welcome is what makes this whole Ball so safe!" Sally looked to Rylan, gauging him rapidly, and saying, "Yeah, I heard that complaint the first time, but I think the Welcome is making you say that."" It doesn't work that way," Rylan calmly said, though he was anything but calm. He took a breath and told Mark and Sally, "This is dangerous. Addavein being immune to the Welcome is one thing. He's going to be assassinated for sure and he can handle it…

And maybe you can, too, Mark, but you cannot put one of those on anyone you care about here. They're too strong, and wearing one makes you a target— AND! And, not just for assassination, but also for theft. Because anyone could steal one of those and the Welcome would not stop them." Tulo stood with Rylan, saying, "They're too strong of artifacts. They will get stolen." Mark said, "I can see the danger. Sally is immune to my Union right now. These things are a double-edged sword."

Sally didn't know that until Mark said so. She looked at the diamond sphere between her breasts, and then she took it off and handed it back to Mark, saying, "Immune, huh?" Mark took the True Spellbreaker back, wondering a lot in that moment, as the Welcome crashed back down onto Sally and she didn't even notice. Rylan and Tulo breathed sighs of relief." I don't feel different?" Sally asked.

"Maybe a bit… lighter?"" Nothing different at all?" Mark asked. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon." Nope?" Mark frowned a little… and then he said, "Admittedly, the problem I was trying to solve with the creation of these appears to be a small problem. Addavein had lots of issues, though, so maybe that… set me off?" Mark glanced outward to find Addavein through Unionsense.

The guy was downstairs with Eliot, focusing on the walls, his vector tensing alongside Eliot's as Eliot worked some Castellan magic. They were still at it. Mark said to Sally, "I think Eliot was already doing everything that really needed to be done, so he's simply embarrassed rather than worried." Sally hummed, then said, "Maybe…" She said to the experts in their fields, "Try it on for a moment. It's not cursed."

Rylan and Tulo both instantly thought that was a horrific idea, the Welcome rushing around them and through them… and now Mark wanted to make them wear one for at least a minute. Nothing had spilled off of Sally except for the Welcome, which was still freaky to Mark, but maybe she wasn't being targeted, or she hadn't ever been exposed to any sort of memetic, eldritch threats. Perhaps her Retribution kept her safe.

Mark had a habit of Unioning with Corruption and Purity quite often, so maybe some sort of corruption had gotten into him and just stayed there, but Sally rejected everything… Oh. Maybe the Waterpeople curse/antimeme/whatever had come in normally, but Sally's previous Chosen System had helped her out. She was still pretty close to Drakarok even after she got True Retribution instead of the Chosen System version… Ohhhh. Fuck.

The real Powers of the Pantheon were much, much stronger than their Chosen System hand-me-downs, but they were also vulnerable to corruption… except for Sally and Retribution? Or Castellan? Or… Why was Eliot embarrassed? Actually. Mark didn't know enough about this to make any calls about the Chosen System versus real Powers, or any of that. Meanwhile, Rylan strongly said, "They're untested magical items of an incredibly strong nature that separates you from everything else. They are inherently dangerous."

Mark cut that argument short, saying, "I'm not going to force you two to use one, but you should at least investigate one. They're all the same." He floated one toward Rylan, the adamantium chain opened for his grip.

"Here." … Rylan pulled a pair of tongs from his pants, because a good smith was never without a way to hold something potentially dangerous, and he grabbed the offering by the necklace, saying, "Don't put any of them on until we've had a chance to look at it with appropriate gear."" Sure," Mark said, not agreeing to that at all, and then he swept up the unused adamantium from his creations and opened a coin into his reservoir.

Adamantium funneled into the center of the coin and Mark reabsorbed the coin into the flesh of his forearm, saying, "The mithril and orichalcum I've gathered can just hang out for a while." Rylan and Tulo judged Mark for a moment… and then they were excited to play with a potentially cursed object. They got going. When Mark was alone with Sally, Mark asked, "Does Retribution protect you against eldritch entities?" Sally winced, then she said, "Not really. But also yes. You had one that affected you?"" Yeah.

I would have thought it impossible, what with the high PL." Sally looked almost like she wanted to say something… And then she said, "Do you know what affected you?"" I'm almost afraid to talk about it. I think it got me through one of the books that Quark copied for Walaira's magic studies, meaning it was there before the trip to Endless Daihoon… or maybe not. I don't know. I have no idea when I was actually infected. The timeline is iffy, but I do know what triggers a re-infection. It's clear now, though."" Hmm…

How is the timeline 'iffy'? Specifically, I mean." … Mark decided that this particular Pandora's Box was one he should open, right now. So Mark said, "The symptom that I can prove exists was an inability to connect to System Prime out here, on Daihoon. I suspect the issue would persist on Earth, too. But I could connect just fine in the Elven Lands. When we came back through Okuana is when that symptom started. Cleaning house cleared that up. And now, I can get System Help from System Prime when I call for it."

Because Mark knew that would excite Sally and everyone else in auditory range, and before Sally's eyes got too wide and her mouth started working, Mark rapidly finished with, "But I reinfect myself whenever I look at a hologram of one of Walaria's books, or think about the space between a specific thing. So I'm continually rejecting all of that right now." Sally had been about to say something, but she pulled back, because Mark's eyes went to the side.

Mark tracked something in the dream, like a ripple in reality, as it tried to touch Mark. It moved right through him, not touching him at all. And then it was gone. Mark looked up, into Sally's eyes, and said, "It just went by." Suddenly Addavein was by the door, having moved with speed magics and then promptly commanding, "Quiet! No talking about those things, now! That's a bad one." Mark almost said 'okay'—" Nope! I mean it! Stop talking. It's still there.

It won't go away until you stay away from the issue for at least hours. Maybe longer. You've probably thrown it off hundreds of times, but it comes back because it's waiting and it only looks innocent. It could do anything at all! It's probably dormant and waiting." Sally glared at Addavein, who was actually a little shorter than him right now, and she said, "You knew about this shit!" Addavein simply said, "I have no defense to mount against this accusation, except that I should have known but I did not.

I blame the rebirth. They probably got me when I was too young to remember to defend myself. I had been colonized by thousands of real parasites in the time I spent kaiju-sized, so why not have thousands of eldritch ones, too! Maybe, if the old dragon houses of healing were still active, I would have known about it, but they're not, and so I was infected, too. That's a whole field of study that has mostly gone out of fashion, by the way, now that dragons aren't part of normal life."

And then, because he was using this opportunity to apologize to Mark, Addavein added, "I'm working on it, and I am sorry. Can I have one of those breakers?" Mark easily handed one over, saying, "Could I keep my own eldritch parasite around, tempting it back with words, so you can dissect it and figure out if it's the same one, all the time? Or something deeper?" Mark added, "And there's no need to apologize. This is not your fault." Sally huffed, still thinking that this was Addavein's fault somehow.

Addavein took the orb and clutched it tightly, closing his eyes and sighing a little as the Welcome broke away from him even more, and as a few circling shadows broke in diamond light. Addavein opened his eyes and said, "I am fighting off at least 3 persistent threats right now. Give me a few hours to dissect these…" Addavein paused, and then he made a decision, saying, "You can probably start dissecting it yourself.

If the threat comes back when you think of a certain word and if it came in on a holographic book, then it's something in the manasphere itself. Something untethered to a real object. Thus: it's a bad one. Have Eliot print out the book without looking at the contents. I will read it and if it goes after me, then I'll know more." That was not going to happen, though. Knock, knock! An echoing knock on wood vibrated through the entire Green House.

Walaria stood at the front door, and her voice carried through the entire Green House as though she was right in the other room, "Greetings. I am here to speak with Mark Careed about System Prime. Personal threats can be discussed as well, but I can already tell you what that one is. I await you in the garden." Sally frowned, saying, "Is it time for the yearly sudden and inevitable betrayal?"" She wouldn't betray you like this," Addavein said, practically scoffing at Sally.

"She'll give you warnings and then more warnings and then take actual action." Sally frowned even more, simply saying, "Doomo."" Doomo is not Walaria," Addavein said, walking away, hand clutching the True Spellbreaker. Mark grabbed a few of the other spellbreakers and started walking, too— Sally was right beside him, saying, "Don't tell me not to come! I'll stand outside of the meeting, though."

Mark was about to tell her not to come, for it was going to be a whole lot of stuff at once and most of it probably personal, but she had already accounted for that. Mark felt a twitch of mirth at that, and he said, "Thank you, Sally." Sally nodded strongly, her breasts heaving in her dress. And so Mark had to say, "Did you really make your tits bigger?" Sally grinned.

"About 3 days ago."" I didn't notice." Sally snorted." How's the thing with Uva going?" Sally grinned, and it looked beautiful on her. She said, "It's going okay."