《Chronicles of Trial and Error (re-write)》 0-B *Buzz* *Buzz* My finger was already swiping the receive button before the third ring. Half a second passed before the call connected fully and Tim¡¯s bored voice could be heard. ¡°Yo. Door.¡± ¡°Wait a bit.¡± Without a reply, the line went dead. The rather rude and brief contact over, I put my phone down and grabbed the keys. My door opened and closed softly to avoid disturbing my family, I made my way down towards the gates from my room on the first floor. Upon arrival at the ground floor, I stuck my head in the living room to make a quick check. The sunlight spilling in through the curtains were revealing plenty of dust both resting on the floor and floating over it. This will obviously spark my mother to begin nagging me into cleaning. Though given the upcoming trip with the guys, or guy, the cleaning will fall on my sister instead. But then things might just pile up for me later when I get back. Shaking myself out of the internal debate of whether the immediate escape from chores is good or bad, I continued on my rather familiar trek towards the gates, keys jingling all the way. I reached the iron gates about a minute later and raised the keys towards the padlock. With an audible click, it came off and I grasp the horizontal latch. The noise from the lock¡¯s opening and the squeak of a rusty latch was obviously enough to notify my friend on the other side as I can hear feet shuffling. With a final squeak of the latch, the right side of the gates opened with a rusty sound of its own. Entrance to the house given, the front end of Tim¡¯s bike was already inching towards the ramp up into my front yard, its owner looking up from his phone. As he began to sit up fully, the unzipped burgundy red jacket parted to reveal a grey T-shirt with a silly cat DJ print in the middle. Eyebrows raised, I gestured in his direction and asked. ¡°What is that?¡± My mock disapproval received an immediate response from Tim with a finger pointed towards my shirt. ¡°What? You too good for cat shirts huh. Mister I-wear-faded-Obey-shirts. Do you even know what the brand means man?¡± I saw no point in continuing the ribbing and tried to close the conversation. ¡°Nope. I don¡¯t know and I don¡¯t care. Just get your bike in here.¡± ¡°Alright. Move, so I can get in.¡± Saying thus, he got off of the bike and, with a slight exertion, moved the bike over the ramp and into my yard. Tim got his bike halfway across the yard before he called out. ¡°Do I just leave it in the yard or should I push it all the way into the garage.¡± ¡°Just keep it out. We¡¯re using it later.¡± ¡°Ok. Thought you wanted to use your bike.¡± ¡°I want to try and ride something new.¡± ¡°Cool.¡± He set the bike down on the kickstand and took off his helmet. The dark and rather unkempt mess of hair was adjusted a bit by hand before he turned to me. ¡°Catch,¡± he said before chucking his keys towards me. He paused a bit to make sure I caught the keys before moving past me. Shoes kicked off and socks still on, Tim entered the house and I followed after locking the gates again. Closing the door behind me, I can hear Tim making his way deeper into the house in a beeline towards the kitchen. He was out again before I got to the stairs, pocketing something brightly colored that looked a lot like a pack of gum. He looked at me standing on the stairs and asked. ¡°Mind if I take some gum?¡± ¡°Sure. No one in my house eats the stuff anyways.¡± ¡°Why do you have so much of the stuff then. Lots of variety too. Last time it was normal mint and now I have. Uh,¡± he pulled out the packet to check, ¡°Cinnamon.¡± I just shrugged and moved back up into my room. Tim followed me. After a bit of walking, I can hear him ask.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Where¡¯s Lucky?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Could be in my sister¡¯s room.¡± ¡°Aw. I wanted to pet the cat before we left the thing for a few days.¡± I just shrugged and continued inside for my bags while Tim meandered around downstairs. I got down with the bags and my laptop a few minutes later, and we started towards the bus station. ¡°So how is that new job of yours going?¡± ¡°It¡¯s going like it did last week, Tim. Got any better conversation starters?¡± ¡°I probably don¡¯t,¡± spoke Tim with levity, ¡±boring guy that I am right now. Plus thinking too hard while giving you a ride is pretty iffy man.¡± ¡°Al~right~. I¡¯ll ask then, How is your work going?¡± I ribbed him, fully intent on poking the fact that the guy refuses to take part-time work since he got into college. ¡°Pretty decent actually, the kid I am tutoring is not too much of a brat and actually picks things up at a pace I accept.¡± ¡°Wait. You got a job. This is not how it¡¯s supposed to go.¡± ¡°Uh Huh. I knew what you were getting at ya bastard,¡± He even pulled the lame accent to add more salt. Not one to go down easily, I fell back on the good old trump card. ¡°I didn¡¯t. New job¡¯s got to land you a girlfriend now right?¡± I¡¯m sorry what ¡°Hah. Hah. Very funny. Gonna head into heavier traffic now so no more talking.¡± Tim took the avoidance approach this time, something I did not expect. He would usually just brush these off, but today was unfortunately one of the worse days for that particular wound. Still, I expected the bad days to be less present with high school so far away now. Inside the station, our tickets were taken out to find our bus. I sighed a bit when I realised we walked past our bus. A bit of backtracking later and we were settling into our seats at the back of the bus. Tim¡¯s eyes were already closed as he slipped into slumber to avoid the discomfort he will be experiencing. I just stared out into the window, rummaging around in my bag to find my own earbuds. Music playing, I leaned back into the backrest and just watched the other passengers getting on. A few elderlies were sitting in the front and were presenting a rare sight of talking rather animatedly about changing times. Just getting in and already bothering the old bones with noisy chatter were four highschool students, two boys and two girls. One boy was leading the conversation and gesturing wildly to make some sort of point. His audience was only one nerdy looking girl though, as the other two were far too interested in each other to care. They moved all the way down to the back of the bus, probably intent on getting the whole back row to themselves, only to stop in their tracks at the sight of me and a snoring Tim. They paused to consider, concluded that it was too awkward just squeezing four in with us and just sat down on the seats in front of us. People watching failed to keep me occupied and I moved to just look outside the bus. That endeavour proved to be a bit difficult when a child started to point at me and laugh. His parents were quick to take him away, but the slight to my honor was already inflicted and Tim was making an honest effort in taking the boy¡¯s place with laughters of his own. I clicked my tongue and moved back to watching the insides of the bus while Tim settled down with his earbuds for the trip to come. The engine and traffic noise made my viewing experience of the passengers a muted one, or at least one with horrendous audio. I tried to remedy things by doing the whole imagining what they were talking thing, but that got weird and boring about a minute in. I looked back out into the windows. The town was passing by and we were going to be hitting the highway really soon. The city scape will be replaced with open space and I will hopefully end up with scenery that was nice to watch. In the meantime, I got my earbuds out too to join the snooze fest Tim was in. After a brief attempt at staying still, I felt like somebody was shining a light right in my face and opened my eyes to exactly that. The highschool kids were glowing, quite intensely if I might add. I, as a normal person, immediately did a double take and added a bit of eye rubbing for good measure. The students themselves were clearly as confused as I was as well. The driver decided to join in on the shocked-by-glowing-people club as well and spat out his coffee. The elderlies won the interesting response award when they all started taking out their rosaries and praying. And amidst all of this pandemonium, Tim was still sleeping soundly. The light show reached a crescendo and ended as the four students popped out of existence with a great big flash and a lingering field of light. As the spots cleared from my vision, I noticed that a bit of the glow was still sticking to me, if that was even possible. The seconds that followed me turning my eyes up were rather intense. The driver was desperately trying to veer his way out of the path of a speeding truck, something he missed when he turned around. The parents were jumping out of their seats to cover their children. Every passenger jumped a little as they saw the incoming threat. As another second passed, I was starting to hate the rather competent-while-under-pressure driver. He managed to somehow steer the bus away from the oncoming truck. But he did not steer it enough. The truck still managed to clip the end portion of the bus. a section that would have had six passengers, if divine intervention has not taken four away. As it was, I got a nice view of a panicking truck driver¡¯s face when the impact began. The window broke first. Then came the sides of the bus. The silver lining of it all was the fact that a shard of glass was very accurate. A painless death was nice. For a final thought, that was not bad. Until I realised it was not a final thought. Finding some sense of consciousness after death was a bit jarring if I were to be honest. Things did not feel right without a body to actually feel. I could perceive myself within space yet not have any same senses as I did when my head was glass free. The whole experience was very similar to tasting the color purple. My own musing on the new sensations was cut off as a force started emanating from a familiar spot. They may say not to go to the light when you were dying, but the feeling of suction coming from the light source brooked no argument. As I was dragged into it, I felt something else come along with me. With the situation as I remembered it, this was most likely Tim. A little comfort was had. Wherever I was going, I was not going alone. Though the possible knowledge of company did not ease the pain of knowing my hard-earned laptop was probably scrap now. 1-B The rather psychedelic tunnel full of weird symbols that I travelled through after my apparent death led me to believe I was going to show up in a typical castle with a typical figure of royalty asking me for help. Waking up blearily with heavy limbs and almost no control over my body was most certainly unexpected. My body gave further signs of rebellion as I felt a sudden desire to cry out. I quickly stamped those desires down and took a look around myself. The first thing to enter my sight was a rather large person. The blond easily towered over me and was using the apparent size difference to get a good view of me from an angle. His green eyes were scanning my whole body. His focused gaze, the sharp lines of his cheekbones, his defined nose and neat eyebrows added up into the picture of a scientist examining a peculiar specimen. I was very aware of the fact that I was the specimen of his study. My mind was already running on what kind of scenarios this could be. They did not look good for me. Just before the man reached down to prod and examine me further, a sort of ecstatic cry was heard from behind him. As the man turned around to address the source, he was pulled away and a new set of eyes were on me. These were less thorough in their scanning of me and began to fill up with tears after their cursory inspection of me. The owner of said tear-filled eyes quickly picked me up and held me within her bosom. The overall roundness of her face and the contrast it had against the man was the only detail I managed to catch before my view was limited to a rather deep valley. Head damp with the tears dripping onto me, I tried to recap what the events leading up to this peculiar situation. I was indirectly killed by some sort of summoning ceremony, hitched a ride on the offending ceremony and am now either in the care of giants or in the body of a child. The queue of questions to be processed was rather long. Before I can think further on my predicament, I was lifted up from the embrace, carefully wrapped up in a soft little blanket and moved into a wooden crib of some sort. From the lower vantage point, I tried to get a bit more context on what was going on. Some words were then exchanged between the two, none of which I could understand. The tone was the only part I could make out, with calm and informative on one side, and joy and excitement on the other. My little bit of time to spend observing was cut short when I felt a fairly familiar sensation within myself. The comfortable bundle that I was in was slowly sapping away at my will to stay awake and inching closer to pulling me down into blissful unconsciousness. Though the sensation was familiar, the struggle against it was not. My iron wakeful will, one that has conquered a thousand all-nighters for university, was failing in foreign soil and I was definitely slipping. The last sight I was privy to before sweet slumber was at least entertaining. The conversation was apparently an ending and the man was given a nice little hug with his head between the mountains that I was buried in a little earlier. Seeing such an uptight looking man just relax in the woman¡¯s embrace, I dropped my defenses too and accepted my relaxing fate. Wakefulness came to me some time later with an additional question on how long I was out. But with a new question entering the queue, one was at least resolved to make room. Unfortunately, the form in which the answer came was not one that made me comfortable. The debate between me being with giants or me being a baby was solved by the soft little nub that my sleeping body was sucking on. At the realisation of what I was doing, I promptly stopped and released the milk source, a quickly coined term to avoid any more awkwardness within my own head. My action did not go unnoticed as the woman turned down to look at me. With a bit more time to inspect my presumed mother, I can tell that my chances of getting a decent looking face in this life was good. She had a typical gentle look that most mothers tend to pull off with soft features all around. Her contrast with the first face I saw here was very obvious with the soft lines against the sharp and the small button nose against the prominent ridge sported by my, presumed, father. Observations were cut off when I noticed that sounds were being directed at me. My searching gaze must have appeared very cute as I was apparently receiving a very healthy dose of baby talk and faces. Deciding that humouring my caretaker was the optimum choice, I faked a smile and made cute little sounds. The positive response earned one back when she smiled indulgently at me and cooed some sort of compliment that I did not understand. The happy look she had almost made me regret responding positively. Almost. I did regret. My little act of baby cuteness brought about an interesting mood in the room. Moms, as you all know, are fueled by their child¡¯s cuteness, this one was no exception. I had to brace against weird faces, baby talk and touching me in random places for what amounted to days in my mind. Eventually though, the session was over after my father walked into the room and decided to take over for mother. A few words were exchanged before, with a small peck on the cheek, my mother handed the bundle that was me over to father. Once she was out of the room, things turned a bit colder, the window my father opened notwithstanding. Without constantly paying attention to mother and responding appropriately, I finally have sometime to look around the new room I was in. It was a study of some sort as from the crib I can see bookshelves lining the wall on the right of the entrance that mother exited from. Moving my eyes up to the ceiling earned me a nice view of an intricate set of concentric circles with numerous arcane symbols evenly lining the circumferences of said circles. The whole system was glowing a soft white to illuminate the room. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. As I was about to try and move my head to get more pieces of the room within my line of sight, my father popped up within my view, the same searching look he had from when I first saw him was on his face again. This time without interruption, he finally finished the examination of me and quickly closed the distance between himself and the crib. He then started to channel what was clear to my eyes as magic, a swirling of symbols in the classic mana blue. From the mass of energy, he began to draw forth an item, one that looked dangerously like a dagger from the handle-like part he was grasping on. My fears of him attacking me were alleviated, however, when he finished withdrawing the item. The dagger-like handle was just a handle and nothing more. I was beginning to question the use of the weird device when he proceeded to stamp the handle guard onto my forehead. The following sensation was rather hard to describe. Through using words from plenty of fictions involving magic and convenient learning, and ignoring the intricacies of the process, it was probably like a flood of information has entered my mind. Words, sounds and their meanings were suddenly present within my mind. After a few seconds of my mind still spinning from the deluge of data, I finally pulled my consciousness back. My return to lucidity was accompanied by someone calling out something to me. ¡°C** *u* **der***nd m*?¡± Mind still buzzing a bit, I stared uncomprehendingly at my new father. ¡°C*n *uo u*der*tand me?¡± His repeated question was a bit clearer somehow now. ¡°Can you understand me?¡± His third go proved to be the charm as I finally pieced together what was being said to me. My face must have shown some of the understanding I had, because my new father made a satisfied grunt and dropped a bomb on me. ¡°Good. I thought you were old enough in your last life to handle the strain of language installment. It would have been quite terrible if I was wrong.¡± Wait. How did he know? Aren¡¯t they supposed to be oblivious until I get enough courage to do a reveal after some sort of harrowing ordeal that strengthens family bonds. Internal sarcastic humor aside, this is a rather big pickle, one that does not go well with the survivability sandwich if my new father is taking my replacing his own son rather poorly. My face again proved to be rather emotive when my father chuckled a bit and continued. ¡°You are probably wondering how I knew right? That¡¯s what your face is telling me at least,¡± he smiled knowingly. I tried to give a nod, but all I managed was probably just a shift in my neck muscles without any clear movement of my head. But the point was still across when he continued. ¡°Right, for one thing, the ceremony used on your body clearly showed that a new soul was going to be dragged in. I expected a native soul, but your temporary glowing blue eyes were far too similar to the records of ¡°foreigners¡±. Add all of that to the fact that a hero summoning ceremony was being held in the human nations and I can make an educated guess.¡± I frowned a bit at his rather blas¨¦ attitude and the man just shrugged at my expression before he continued to explain. ¡°I know I sound rather apathetic when I talk about this. But we already talked things over. Death was our child¡¯s inevitable fate if we did nothing. I could not have him go that way without at least trying anything.¡± I still failed to see why he could be so calm about all of this. To actively make my confusion known, instead of unintentionally like before, I tried to raise an eyebrow and earned a response. ¡°Oh. I forgot you don¡¯t know much about our situation. Let me fix that then. Though I would need some imagery to work with,¡± said my body¡¯s father as he pulled out one of the books from the shelves. Opening the book to a page with a diagram of four humanoid illustrations, he began to explain. ¡°I¡¯m just going over the basics to paint a clear context of the process that resulted in your presence here. There are a total of four fully-sentient races within our world. They are elves, dwarves, beastmen and humans,¡± he said as he went over each race¡¯s picture from left to right. ¡°The races differ in many areas, but the biggest difference would be in the magic system. The difference is also the main reason why you are here today.¡± He flipped a page to reveal a more detailed diagram of an elf¡¯s body with clear notes on body parts and organs and pointed towards an organ that sits a bit behind and below the heart. ¡°This is a mana gland or mana organ, the term is not fixed. It produces mana within the body to use for elves and dwarves. Many also speculate that it is an anchor point for the soul. This has not been definitively proven, but it has been noted that souls and mana are intrinsically linked,¡± he explained before turning to another page with a picture of a human and a beastman with the same notes on the organs as previous page. ¡°The major problem my wife and I faced was that she was a human and had a very different mana system compared to an elf like me,¡± here he pointed to a sort of vein like system on both the human and beastman and continued, ¡°with a system like this, any sort of cross-breeding between elf and human will result in a hybrid with a mana system that was insufficient to sustain a body for very long. So if we wanted a baby, we had to somehow overcome this problem.¡± He looked back at me to see if I was following and continued. ¡°The physical size and structure of the organ do not matter, it is simply the overall mana density within it, so the fix would be to just put in additional mana to jolt it back into properly functioning. This was thought out while your body was still in the womb. We had a lot of arguments regarding this and how to experiment safely with it. It went back and forth for until your body was delivered and the signs of mana fatigue started to set in around two months later that we had to go for broke.¡± He then gently picked me up and moved me towards the center of the room that was hidden from view in the crib. When we first turned around, I was already looking at a magic circle that was worlds beyond the one used for lighting. The symbols were far more intricate and there were a lot of glowing crystals placed within the circle itself with more symbols on the crystals themselves. My studying of the peculiar set up was cut off when the explanation was resumed. ¡°You were in this when you first woke up. It¡¯s a magic circle designed to infuse you with mana. The exact source that would be compatible with this process was not known. The child deaths that followed elf-human relationships guaranteed that the whole subject was taboo and any who researched it never shared their findings, effectively making my venture into this field an exercise of trial and error. To compensate, I incorporated a field to extract ambient mana, crystals to transfer mana if that was needed, and an underground system to connect to a possible leyline source.¡± He paused to pick up a pile of notes lying down near the circles and went on. ¡°The interesting result was that, the crystals and leyline source was used to expand the overall capacity of the ambient mana absorption and the system somehow grabbed you and shoved you into the body. The whole sequence of magic circle activation is also very interesting. It started with-¡± ¡°Ahem. Could you cut to the chase please. We talked about how a limited amount of time is available for an explanation after he woke up and I have checked him over for overall soul connectivity and side effects.¡± Announced to my face was the fact that the whole baby play session was just to check me over again. ¡°Oh, right. Sorry. Anyways, we knew we would not be very likely to succeed, but you provided us with a lot of answers, and the next time we have a baby, we should be able to keep the original pure soul instead of an insert happening again. So we must thank you and it would be our pleasure to help you out,¡± they both smiled in appreciation before proceeding, ¡°Though there is a bit of a time constraint since your soul is too mature for the current brain and you will most likely enter a sort of hibernation while the subconscious instincts of a baby within you will take over until the brain is suitable to handle the load.¡± With the explanation finished, I was put back into the crib to, as I assumed, rest and think about the revelation. My body¡¯s parents left soon after placing me down and flirting a bit, a bid for a sibling for me no doubt. Lying down, I went over the events that has happened. I was killed by the infamous truck. Got into a baby¡¯s body through a couple¡¯s dedication to make a baby that lived. Got free language, biology and magic lessons. And within all this was the confirmation that I was apparently a very rare elf-human hybrid with a combine mana system of both. That did not sound bad. The whole hibernation thing sounded rather good as well, no embarrassing breastfeeding, shitting and peeing myself, and generally being a baby. It was with that sense of assurance that I fell into the predicted hibernation. 2-B True to my new biological father¡¯s words, I awoke from what only felt like a good night¡¯s sleep and nothing more. It was only the much improved bodily control that showed some major changes have happened. Before I could spend any more time to enjoy the transition from baby model to child model, I was reminded that I was, in fact, a main character of sort and, thus, had a kind main character halo that made certain coincidence more likely. The main category for these would be just better loot in general, encounters with helpful side characters and/or extreme luck in dangerous situations. Though there is one sub-category of this that I am now certain that I have. From waking up with a nipple in my mouth when I was a baby to now waking up to the VERY passionate sound of my parents trying to make me a younger sibling, I can assuredly say that I have a perverted halo. How this will play out for me in this new life was not something that was on my mind at the time. I was more occupied with simply vacating my own room and finding refuge somewhere else with a lot more quiet. The new increased in motor control was quickly put to use as I climbed out of bed and reached my room¡¯s door, or my first obstacle to peace of mind. I was a little too short for the door handle, only barely touching the handle while on my toes. Bending my knee and jumping up to reach the said handle was not too difficult, but it did slow me down for just a few moments. Just enough to hear a male moan in the background asking someone to do something to his ears. Thoroughly creeped out by the sound, I barely focused enough to grab hold of the handle when I reached the climax of my jump. Hands firmly grasping the doorknob, I heard the soft click of the door opening before using one of my legs to kick the frame and pull the door backwards. At least that was the plan. The door did click, but my kick did nothing more than make a light thumping sound without actually opening the door as intended. What it did though, was make both people on the other side suddenly stop with their procreation. No physical escape was had, but the kick did technically do its job by stopping my exposure to excessive amounts of awkwardness. Knowing the inevitable check up the parents will make, I carefully dropped myself off of the handle and headed back into bed. The trip back was spent checking out my new room. It was a room that you would typically associate with any young boy. The bed was on the wall on the right of the door and a small closet on the left. Right in front of the door was a small study desk below a window letting the pale shine of the moon to illuminate the room. And in the middle of it all was a typical mess of toys. Miniature figures of warriors, mages and monsters were strewn about haphazardly along with fake swords and staff for me, apparently, to join in whatever make-belief scene that was re-enacted by my body before my re-awakening. Walking back to the bed through the little space between the two battle lines showed that kid me at least had some luck with playing or is smart enough to make a clear path of retreat before making a mess. I was on the bed for a few seconds before the door opened. Out into the hall. And I reconsidered the kid me being smart and just assumed that I also had protagonist luck in certain situations. My mother in bathrobes entered first, followed by my father in rumpled pyjamas. They both spent a little time looking around the corners and ceiling of my room before turning their eyes on me. And sag a little in relief after looking in my eyes. My father was the first to break the silence with a flat remark. ¡°Oh. You¡¯re back.¡± With the ability to this time, I replied. ¡°Yeah. Sorry to you bother you while you were in the middle of something. I was just going to slip out.¡± ¡°Ah. Don¡¯t worry. But,¡± he coughed and she fidgeted a little, ¡°We may continue. So I am just going to put this here.¡± A magic circle weaved in front of me again. But instead of a small one that fits in and came from his hand like before, this one stretched out from a sort of music box and covered my entire bed. All at once, ambient sounds started to die down and a calming little tune replaced them all. The novel sensation of the apparent mobile surround sound system was quickly broken when both parents stepped over the barrier to continue the conversation. ¡°This should be good right?¡± I nodded. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Good. This is a rather inconvenient time, so we¡¯ll be in the other room if you need anything else.¡± They both waved goodbye and walked back out. Before they fully left the door, the woman suddenly remembered something and elbowed the elf. They rounded on each other and had a rather interesting back and forth with the woman seeming to loom over the taller man in every exchange. The conversation ended with the woman facepalming, and they both turned around and walked back up to me. Up close again, I couldn¡¯t help but notice how embarrassed the two looked as they started talking. ¡°Right. I think one big thing was forgotten in everything. I¡¯m Ruvyn,¡± he gestured to himself, ¡°And I¡¯m Laura,¡± spoke Laura before Ruvyn can do it, ¡°Again. We were a bit occupied with your whole arrival so we all kinda forgot. And can you introduce yourself too? If you still remember your name that is. If you don¡¯t-¡± Before she could go on, I held out a hand. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s fine. I¡¯m Brandon. Nice to meet you guys. Again.¡± ¡°Great. I think we should all get some rest and talk more tomorrow. Is that good?¡± I nodded and they started their trip out again. Once the door was closed and I was alone with the calming melody that was around my bed, sleep should have come easily. Should. But my mind was already far too rested with the prior hibernation to simply sit still. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. So it was with restless energy and a deeply ingrained instinct to clean up after myself that I got down from my bed to start putting the toys away. Only to be reminded of what my biological parents were resuming when they left my room. With haste, I made my way back into the calming circle around my bed and just, maybe, enjoy the nice music it provided. The nice soft glow that the moonlight, now free to reign the sky without any ambient city light to compete with, was helping to make a very tranquil scene. Many would have enjoyed this for hours and just emerge themselves in the ample calm. I didn¡¯t. Nature¡¯s beauty could only hold my attention so much before I got bored of it. It was expected really. After the general confusion that was my first few hours in a baby¡¯s body, this was the first few moments when I had enough calm to immerse myself in the excitement of my having a new life, in a new world, one with magic to boot. So my eyes left the soft shine of the moon in the room¡¯s center to look for any interesting details I might have missed in my room and found some books and, interestingly enough, an object that looked a lot like a flashlight on the desk. ¡®Awesome. I already had some books to learn from,¡¯ I thought giddily and made a quick beeline to the desk for some books and the flashlight. I once again forgot about the ambient sound that was outside of my bed, and grabbed only one book and the flashlight in my haste. Back on my bed once again and books in hand, I fumbled around with the flashlight-like device a little bit, but eventually got it turned on. Looking over the hastily picked up book, I was a little disappointed that it was not some sort of basic, and convenient, magic guide. It was just a children¡¯s fairytale, a very generic one judging from the title of ¡°A hero¡¯s tale¡±. Shrugging, I spread the book out on my lap, directed the light there and began reading. The setting was the basics, a kingdom was in danger, a demon lord was rising again after his thousand year sleep and things were generally in turmoil. The kingdom, in its desperation, called forth the ancient ritual of hero summoning. And so a hero was summoned in a dazzling gleam of mana in the throne room. The king and his advisers gave the standard speech on how he was called forth to vanquish evil and thanked him in advance for helping. Being the goody-two-shoes that he was, mister hero accepted without too much of a fuss. From then, the story divulged into separate adventures of the hero and his party to get ready for the final showdown. Each trip would have a little mini boss that would give the party some key item or technique to build the hero up into a really overpowered fighting machine. There were developments in other areas too, especially one considering how many girls were there in the party, how each had a detailed paragraph dedicated to their beauty and how many times the hero was so very heroic in the girls¡¯ presence. So the story went, until they neared the final confrontation and things took a rather depressing turn. They fought and won as expected, and the hero was doing his good guy speech near the end to the demon lord, something I think most people found annoying. He talked about how they had to kill him for the betterment of mankind, how things would improve from then, how the demon lord has held people back and how they could make a difference to the world after ridding it of his influence. The train south was in full steam when the hero turned around for a moment and the dying villain drove his essence to corrupt the hero and molded him into a new lord of demons. Fortunately or unfortunately, the tainting process took a lot out of the hero, and the girls, in their desperate and noble decision to save the world, managed to incapacitate and seal him with all of the artifacts they have collected so far. There was a whole scene then of the hero gaining a little bit of sanity back at the end of the sealing and having a farewell talk with his party. Evil now gone, the story goes on a little bit more on each surviving member¡¯s life, how the people celebrated them in books, tales and songs yet they themselves never got over the failure and the eventual demise of everyone. The somber ending threw me for quite a loop and, interestingly enough, reminded me of Tim. The guy would probably relate to the grim circumstances with his depressed frame of mind prior to our deaths. We would probably be talking about the many fascinating factoids that I found after the read through. The little bits on the types of magic presented in the story. There was the basis of elemental magic that almost anyone could use reasonably well. Then there came the more specialised magic schools like enchantment, illusion magic, conjuration and the ever-abused healing magic. There was even an example of necromancy with one of the smaller villains. Magic was also mentioned to be the distinction between the four main races. The humans had their unique arcane magic that worked with raw mana. The elves were superb at controlling the ambient mana around them. Dwarves were really good at transforming mana into permanent effects or material. And beastmen had some really interesting usage in their speciality of internally channelled mana that just screamed transformation scene. Another interesting tidbit, though, was a little side story on how the hero visited the dwarven lands. There, he devised a plan for something from his old world, a weapon called a ¡°gun¡±. It was not the exact gun I knew with a clear explosion-based system to launch a projectile. This was just shaped mostly like a handgun and had a really flexible enchantment within it. It would work by channeling a simple enough spell through the device and making the enchantment be molded into the channeled spell. From there, the recorded spell can be recast with enhancement in speed and effect. Later on in the story were also mentions of other races coming into contact with the ¡°gun¡± as well as other eccentric items the hero has made. There was even a little arc with a competition between an upgraded magical longbow from a great elf archer and the ¡°gun¡¯ from the hero that ended surprisingly enough in a tie with each weapon winning in different contests. Whether guns were ever introduced here was definitely one of the questions on the queue for tomorrow morning after this. I also went about answering some of the questions I had for the book by myself. Such as the mention of how elven children are capable of manipulating mana particles even without any proper training. The test was rather simplistic. I just sat cross-legged and tried the good old feel ¡°center your mind and feel the universe¡±. After a few minutes of increasing feelings of silliness, I switched tactics and praying that Tim was not laughing his ass off right now as a disembodied spirit. I went about trying to understand my body a little more before attempting to change the world around me. I felt around my chest for the extra mana gland that my father told me about before my hibernation. It could be said that I was mildly surprised to feel an extra beat when I lowered my hand from my chest to my solar plexus. From there I closed my eyes and tried to sense the gland within me. Feeling much less silly this time with a new sensation in my ribcage, I tried to ¡°flex¡± the newly acquired ¡°muscle¡±. With a mental imagery, I was able to, as I feel it, connect my gland to the outside mana. From there, I was able to feel the particles that surround me and tried to move them. But moving a new limb and moving a new limb how you want it to are very different processes. I felt the movements I have made in the mana surrounding me, but they never moved in any direction that I gave them. I only knew that I made them was that the movements were in sync with my attempts to wield mana. But I was not frustrated. I might not have control, but the novelty of mana was enough to keep me going even without any clear success. Just wiggling mana around felt so freeing to me and all of the brand new sensations involved in the process was keeping my mind too occupied to be mad. It was not every day that you get a new arm and then start to taste purple with it after all. I kept this up for about half an hour more. Through the whole testing phase, I was able to get ever closer to controlling mana. It still moved randomly at all of my commands, but some parts of the orders were coming through. The small improvement would have been enough to keep me going all night, had it not been for the sudden bone-deep tiredness I felt after half an hour. After tasting purple for half an hour, I got to taste blue as a conceptual ¡°muscle¡¯ was worn out and tired from extensive use. I yawned loudly and got down from my bed for probably the last time tonight. Book and flashlight in hand, I was prepared to move as quickly as I can to and back from the desk. Only to stop after the first few steps that were welcomed by silence and not erotic moans. I sighed and moved at a more sedated pace towards the desk. When I turned from the desk with its book returned, the trained habit to clean up was back as I laid eyes again on the mess in the middle of the room and the chest that they were supposed to be in by now. On my bed a few minutes later and just a tad more tired, I dropped my head onto the pillow with a soft oomp and drifted away with the soothing sound of the enchanted music box by my bed. 3-B The fresh new rays of sunshine in this new world shined down upon me for the first time that morning. It would have been so nice, the soft warmth of the sun mixing with the gentle tunes still playing around me from the soundproofing music box at the foot of my bed. It would have been, had it not been for the uncanny accuracy of this fantasy world¡¯s sun. Directed with the omniscience of the sun god himself, the electromagnetic radiation from said celestial body bombarded my light receptors right through the fold of skin that protects them. I lost the battle of attrition against the daystar and blearily rose into a sitting position to avoid the burning my eyes were receiving. Up and not about, I took a moment to try and rekindle my loving relationship with sleep again. Only to get a quickie for a moment and told to move on right afterwards. Mind just clear enough, I got down from the bed, moved to the door, after a few attempts, opened it. By the point I was out of the door, my mind was at the impasse to wakefulness and the completely unfamiliar hall that greeted me was enough to push me through. Once again confused, I was left with two options, explore on my own or call for a guide. Being lazy and not wanting to go stumbling into something that I should not, I took a breath and called out. ¡°Hello? Ruvyn? Laura? Is anyone there?¡± ¡°Down here,¡± came Laura from a spiral staircase to the left of the corridor. Now with a direction, I began my descent into the unknown and, judging from the nice smell, food. Upon exiting the staircase, I entered a sort of kitchen area that had a nice little homely feel to it. On the left wall with all of the cooking equipment was, judging from the same brown hair I saw before, Laura fixing up breakfast while humming a nice tune. Now that I had a better look, she really had a nice contrast going on with Ruvyn. Her features were soft, but not overly so and carried a very energetic quality to them, a major divergence from the serious Ruvyn. Moving a bit to the right and focusing on the center of the room, my eyes landed on the man himself, Ruvyn, sitting at the far end of a dining table and reading a leather tome of some sort. Both pairs of eyes turned towards me as I entered the room. Before an uncomfortable silence can befall us, Laura spoke up. ¡°Good morning Brandon. How was your sleep?¡± ¡°Good morning to you too. And my sleep was great.¡± ¡°Oh. That¡¯s good to hear,¡± she gave a pleasant smile before motioning with her hand to the dining table, ¡°Now you go over to the table and wait with Ruvyn while I finish up breakfast.¡± With that, she moved back to tending to the food. I walked over to the table and took up a bit of upper body exercise as I tried to climb up onto the seat. The seat design helped a little and I was on the seat after only a bit of exertion. Once on, I settled down, acted natural and tried to take a small peak at what Ruvyn was reading. The first thing I noticed was that this book was hand-written and had a lot of random notes from Ruvyn himself. Another thing was that one of the illustrations I saw in it looked a lot like a fireball. Even more intrigued now that a bit of fire was involved, I casually leaned on my right elbow to get a closer view of what he was reading. My interest was noticed, however, when Ruvyn spoke up. ¡°Hm. Does this book interest you? You can have it in just a minute.¡± I turned up to make look at him, apparently looking a bit hesitant, as he continued. ¡°I¡¯m just checking some old notes. I already found them so you can have it if you want. Though this is advance pyromancy so I don¡¯t really know how you are going to read it. Maybe I should get you some basics first. That and some mana manipulation too, from what I could feel from last night. But-¡± Before he could continue, two plates with bacon, eggs and toast were dropped in front of us and Laura hugged Ruvyn from behind while saying in a smug tone. ¡°Oh, You definitely felt a lot of things last night.¡± The added eyebrow wag was enough to shade Ruvyn¡¯s cheeks pink and have him spluttering a bit. I was decidedly uncomfortable as well and just focused on the meal to find some sort of distraction. And I, surprisingly, did. The food may have looked similar at first glance, but a bit of further inspection showed some inconsistencies. The eggs were a bit bigger overall and had a more reddish tint to their yolks. The bacon had a bit less color and appeared greyish. Only the toast seemed completely normal if a little greasier than what I usually had. I looked up again from my plate as Laura put down her own near Ruvyn¡¯s and pulled a chair to sit next to him. She probably noticed me looking rather intently at my own food and asked. ¡°Everything looks fine right?¡± Getting the convenient chance to ask more about the food, I spoke. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m just curious about what these are. They looked familiar to me, but they are not exactly the same. So what are these?¡± ¡°Oh. Right. These are fried hara eggs and crispy fried pieces of extra fatty mulsef. And fried bread.¡± ¡°Ok. But what are haras and mulsefs?¡± ¡°Huh, the language transfer didn¡¯t get all of the words,¡± She said curiously while looking over to Ruvyn. ¡°No, It could only deliver the basics and connect equivalent terms for him. I can only work in so much without making him braindead.¡± ¡°Oh. Ok. Anyways, a hara is a kind of grounded bird about this height,¡± she stood up and held her hand at around her thighs to demonstrate before continuing, ¡°and we mostly farm them for meat and eggs. The mulsefs are really big and hairy herbivores that have three large horns on their heads.¡± ¡°The hara kinda sounds like a chicken from where I was from.¡± ¡°Oh. We have those too, but they are only abundant in the human kingdom. And now that you mention it, there were lots of stories about how your world shared a lot of terms with our own human kingdom. But no one really came out to prove those points. We would love to get things clear now that literal living proof is right here with us. That is if you don¡¯t mind some questions.¡± ¡°Sure. I was a little surprised that you were so calm about having someone from another world like me with you. I expected a lot more prodding and questions, to be honest.¡± ¡°Oh, but we did prod you a bit at the beginning and questions can always be asked after you had your forced hibernation. Like right now.¡± ¡°Alright. That makes some sense. Though before you ask your questions, could you answer mine first.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see why not. Ask away.¡± ¡°Right. This feels a bit like back-tracking. But can I get more details about how you knew about my origins? I knew Ruvyn said something about the ceremony and my eyes. But I am still a bit confused on that.¡± ¡°Oh. We¡¯ll need to explain a bit more about ¡°foreigners¡± like you to make things a bit clearer. But I tend to skip over explanations a lot, so my Ruvyn is going to continue from now on.¡± Hearing his cue to go on, Ruvyn finished his last bite and turned to us. ¡°Well. There had been plenty of documentation regarding souls traveling from another world to ours. These were mostly on child geniuses or overly intelligent beasts. Then after recording so many of these instances, the human race devised a way to artificially induce the phenomenon and the first Hero Summoning happened.These cases all shared one feature. A person that went through this will usually exhibit eyes that are almost glowing in the typical shade of blue during the first few days after entering our world with the glow being stronger for summoned heroes. Plenty of theories have been made over the years about the glow. But it is generally agreed now that the entrance to our new world accumulates a lot of mana on the soul and the excess mana is manifested through the glow. Further studies have also theorised about certain features of the summoning ceremony that made the ¡°heroes¡± have more mana than natural occurrences. Things like ink composition, diagram design and-¡± ¡°Ahem. Honey, I know you can last quite long doing your thing, but I think that¡¯s enough. And anyways, there you have it Brandon, your glowing eyes were what tipped us off back then. They are no longer glowing blue, but the blue has bled into Ruvyn¡¯s own green to make them hold an emerald shade.¡± She pointed to her own eyes and Ruvyn to emphasise the point before pointing back to her plate. ¡°Anyways. Let¡¯s finish these before they get cold and I can bring you around a nice house tour while I take my turn to ask a question.¡±A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Breakfast proceeded quietly after that. The couple spoke of a few things they were going to do after this. I tried to listen in for a bit, but the lack of context proved too much and I just went back to the meal. The eggs tasted fine, if a little lighter than the eggs I remembered. The meat was a different story. It had the novel taste of being almost like bacon but still having a beef-like quality, a heavy hint of gaminess lingered over both tastes. And, toast was just toast. After the meal, Laura took me out of the kitchen and into the living room. The room kept up the country cabin look with a rather simple table at the center with a rustic looking couch on its right, a pair of chairs in front of it and a small fireplace on its left. On the walls were a few pictures featuring a couple that looked like a brown haired Ruvyn and blonde Laura. ¡°Nice, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°It is. But why do the pictures show altered looks for you guys?¡± ¡°Ah. That. Ruvyn did tell you about the whole taboo relationship thing between elves and humans right?¡± I nodded. ¡°Okay. We both held some positions that would garner a lot of voices against us, and possibly even worse than words in many cases. So we had to go to ground and set up this new hidden life in the rural areas. The pictures are a part of the cover. I think they are unnecessary, but Ruvyn just had to go all in.¡± ¡°Oh. Cool. You guys running away from it all kinda reminds me of a piece of literature I heard about once.¡± ¡°Really? What is it?¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather not talk about it. Things ended rather badly for them and I don¡¯t want to compare your happy thing to that.¡± ¡°Alright. I don¡¯t I would want to listen too. Let¡¯s move on then.¡± She then walked me out of the front door and into an amazing view. The house was situated on a small slope that lead down to a small village community. From my vantage point, I saw a few kids running between houses and adults going about their morning routines. The human activity stood out amongst the calm setting of rolling pastures and trees illuminated by the soft morning sun. Taking my eyes off of the picturesque sight, I looked back towards the house. It was a beige colored two-storey cottage with two symmetrical windows on each floor. Both sides were flanked by a few trees that lead back into the woods that surround the back side of the whole property. A nice little garden was in front of it with beautiful flowers in colors ranging from yellow, blue, red and purple. Behind the house, I could vaguely make out a silhouette of some sort of stone silo standing amidst the trees. Laura saw me lingering longer on the partially covered structure and spoke up. ¡°We¡¯ll be going right over there in a bit. You just have to give Ruvyn a little time to prepare something. In the meanwhile could you answer this one question for me? How common is it for people in your world to have harems?¡± I choked on my own spit and coughed a little at the weird question before clearing my throat and answering. ¡°No. We moved on from that phase of society long ago.Why do you ask? Is it common here?¡± ¡°Not really, unless you count individuals worshipping certain gods of fertility. And I asked because that was present in a lot of the records of your people Ruvyn talked about. Even the ¡°heroes¡± have them.¡± ¡°Oh. That¡¯s understandable. And harems do technically feature in certain aspects of literature in my world. So it is somewhat popular with some.¡± ¡°Hm. Interesting. Are you an advocate of that then?¡± ¡°No. Monogamy is strong within my culture.¡± ¡°Good. I know it is not the same, but I don¡¯t want any playboy for a son. I am a firm believer in one lock for one key.¡± We had a bit of a chuckle at the statement. Laura took my small hand and walked onto a trail that led to the back of the house and the half-hid silo. At the base of the structure was an opened door that revealed some logs and a few pieces of animal hide within. A little disappointed at the apparently normal building, I was about to turn around before Laura put a hand on my shoulders and pushed me forward into the stone tower¡¯s interior. Once passed the hanging hides and stacks of wood, we reached an inconspicuous ladder that lead up to what looks to me like another storage room lit by a small lantern. Pass the threshold of the first floor, I entered a room completely different from what I saw. For one, the lighting in here was mostly white while my memory was of looking up into an orange-lit room. But the most obvious difference was in the content of said room. My prediction was some more hides and maybe spices. Reality was Ruvyn in rather impressive mage garbs, glowing enchants included, setting down some books on a stone table to his right. Behind him was a large stone shelf, glowing enchantments included too, containing a plethora of books and even a few jars with fairly weird contents. To the right of the shelf was another ladder, but this one showed an entrance that actually hinted towards another one of these clean magic study I was in instead of an old cottage¡¯s supply storage. My attention was returned to Ruvyn when he spoke up next. ¡°These will be the basics in magic that I said you could go read earlier. They are the basics of mana manipulation for elves,¡± he pointed to the top one, ¡±the various basic spells of each magic school that elves can practice,¡± he pointed to the next one, ¡°and, just in case, the basic spells for human use,¡± he finished by pulling out a book that looks to be a bit thicker than the others. ¡°Wow. Thank you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine really. I know how enticing magic can be and you would have nothing else to do in the house. Laura can¡¯t really take you out with her things since your body is still too young. And I wanted to try and teach someone. Many of my previous colleagues have taken on an apprentice and I once did too. But he was far too big of a brat to teach properly. ¡± ¡°I think Brandon is already way better than that guy by not hitting on me.¡± Laura chimed in. ¡°Right. I will be working up there for my monthly quota of artifacts and enchantments to send away. You are welcome to just read these and experiment a little here,¡± he gestured towards a magic circle in front of him, ¡°with the shielding for safety. Just call me if there is anything you find confusing. Try to go over the included notes I have left before calling me.¡± ¡°Ok. So I should be reading the top book first then.¡± ¡°Yes, though just skip the first chapter if you don¡¯t want to go into too much detail on how to work your mana organ. You seem to know how to do that already. But do feel to read it again for further details, I have made certain notes on possible mental images that might be more beneficial than others.¡± ¡°Yes, he gets it, honey. Now go do your thing and have a great day,¡± Laura said smilingly as she kissed Ruvyn on the cheeks and ushered him to the stairs. ¡°I¡¯ll be out a bit like Ruvyn said. But I should still make it back before lunch and get you two fed, so just stay here and do your things until I call you two later.¡± I nodded. ¡°Goodbye then.¡± She made her way out of the tower and I started to open my books and work my way through them. I did not skip chapter one of mana manipulation book and studied all of Ruvyn¡¯s notes on mental imagery carefully. Once finished with that, I tried to work the organ again and found it becoming active a lot earlier than before. Not one to get too enthusiastic and work myself to exhaustion like last night, I stopped the connection to the outside and moved onto the next chapter. And found myself giggling a little when I saw that the chapter was on how to stop accessing your mana organ. It was still read regardless of irony and revealed some flaws in my execution of the technique. The third chapter was where I felt I went wrong with my own training. It was on how to limit my own access to ambient mana. It should have been clear in hindsight that controlling a random amount of mana around me was not a thought-out approach. After the reflection and careful read through of the third chapter, I connected again to the ambient mana with more focus on the amount. With an established control of roughly one cubic meter, I tried to move it again and jumped a little inside when the blob of mana actually moved where I wanted it to. Chapter four was approached with a pep in my steps. And said pep was promptly stepped on and killed when I saw the intricate exercises involved in improving overall control. I got a passable understanding of about one-third of the techniques before Ruvyn came down from the second floor. He held a little revision on what I had already picked up from the book. Naturally, he found my practice lacking in many aspects and quickly gave remedies. I actually learned from him that these intricate exercises were practice for me to hold together a spell made up of symbols made from mana. I asked more about the symbols, but was just given a promise on more books instead. We continued to practice for the rest of the morning until Laura came around and called us both down for lunch. Lunch was a meal made from a ther, some sort of pig-like animal with six limbs that were much more readily available locally than actual pigs from the human kingdom, and, surprisingly enough, rice. It also differed from breakfast in the amount of conversation it had. This was most probably due to all of the questions I was asking Ruvyn on how to work on my magic. Laura would jump in here and then to give a few simplified explanations when the elf was rambling with too much jargon. After a nap that both adults agreed my young body needed, I was up and walking about in the area around my new house for some exercise under the supervision of Laura. This proved to be equally as interesting as learning of magic through the many stories she was telling. Laura, being the sort of scout that she was, had a lot of interesting stories to tell. They ranged from humorous ones like drunks doing dumb things in the adventurer guild to much more exciting tales of her excursions deep into bandit territory to gather intel. Interlaced with the stories would be little questions she had for my old life. Feeling that it would only be fair, I told her about what I was doing when I was alive and explained the terms involved with the answer. From that, I learned that college was a thing that was mostly exclusive to magical occupations and the other lines of work just have people working right after they enter adulthood at around sixteen years of age. Other questions would be asked while I walked from tree to tree looking at their different appearances and enjoying the nature that was not there within my own city. We reach a fairly interesting topic when Laura asked. ¡°Hey. If there is both our world and yours and both are different, do you think there are even more worlds out there for us to explore.¡± ¡°Yes. There were plenty of theories involving that, but no one was ever able to prove anything. Me being here with you is probably the best proof anyone has gotten on those theories.¡± ¡°Wow. How did they come up with those theories then?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t really know. I¡¯m not too interested in those aspects of life. I worry more about the practical side of things like the tools and technology I have available to me than the theoretical thinking of realities.¡± ¡°I guess you are right. But then I always liked to travel around, picked my career after it too, so just thinking of possibly going to different dimensions really interests me.¡± I continued to answer her questions about our world¡¯s work on the multiverse theory with whatever I could remember from the silly discussions I had with Tim on the subject any time it showed up in a popular comic or movie. My bit of time spent out and about ended around sunset when Laura went back into the house to prepare dinner and I had to go back in too. Dinner was more reheated ther meat with more rice. The dish tasted a bit better after the second round of cooking. Over the meal, Laura would tell Ruvyn about the things that I told her and Ruvyn would, in turn, ask me for clarifications of certain details. He surprisingly did not ask much on the whole multiverse concept and focused more on the details of my own society. Once the meal was over we all headed back to our bedrooms. I was handed the music box-like device from last night and the books I was reading in the morning with strict instructions not to practice them in the night. With that rule in place, I did not feel like looking at the mana training and just browsed through the basic spells. This only gave me a greater longing for more time practicing after I saw the intricate patterns of mana needed for the spells. That night I dreamt of struggling through school again. 4-B The next day was a fair bit more exciting than the last. It started out with an actual magical breakfast, served by Ruvyn himself. Though magical, I could not say it tasted very good. Laura agreed but did give him some points for effort. The real excitement came when I was actually allowed to walk with Laura into the neighboring village to pick up supplies. We started off by applying the same disguise Laura and Ruvyn would use when they went around town. The application itself felt very peculiar. I was first welcomed by a sensation not so different from taking a shower, if water felt like blue. This was supposedly what it felt like for mana to settle around my body to change my looks. I went from a cute blond boy with slightly pointy ears to a brunette with normal ears in the same brown pants and lighter brown tunic. Before Laura donned her disguise, the fact that my body took after her in the face department stood out even more with our now similar hair. I also noticed the silly coincidence that with both our covers applied, Laura and I were basically switching hair colors. Laura giggled a bit when I vocalised this finding and added in playfully that Ruvyn was not too creative with his hair color choices, but could be creative in other areas. We walked side by side down into the settlement, which meant I had to struggle just a tiny bit to keep up with Laura¡¯s much longer gait. The village came into focus after a few minutes of walking. Just like what I saw yesterday when I went out of the house, children were all running around playing a game of what I thought was tag. The game has naturally advanced to the point where the fattest kid was caught and is now struggling to tag someone else to free himself. Things slowed down when we walked by and one of the kids, the fattest kid actually, spoke up. ¡°Hey Miss Laura. Who¡¯s that with you?¡± ¡°Oh. That¡¯s my son.¡± All of the kids gave her their best skeptical look and the fat kid continued. ¡°Really. Where was he before then? We never saw you with one the last time you were here.¡± ¡°He was just a little sick so he couldn¡¯t come out. He¡¯s all better now. Why don¡¯t you introduce yourself to him,¡± spoke Laura as she sent a sly look my way, clearly looking to frazzle me with the attention of children. ¡°Really,¡± the kid turned to me, ¡±I¡¯m Will. What¡¯s your name?¡± ¡°Um. I¡¯m Brandon. Nice to meet you, I guess.¡± ¡°You too. Wanna join us.¡± ¡°No. Thank you. But I have something to do with,¡± I steeled my resolve, ¡°mom. So Maybe next time.¡± Laura looked mighty pleased when I said this. ¡°Ok. see you later. See you later too miss Laura.¡± Laura waved the kids goodbye and we continued to the market. I was a little disappointed with what I saw when we arrived. My whole expectation of an interesting looking bazaar with weird and unique items was crushed mercilessly. The place just looked like a typical illustration of a medieval farmer¡¯s market with a meager six stalls selling either vegetables or some normal looking meats. It was a quaint looking establishment and, now that I reconsidered the size of the village and the rarity of magic in normal people¡¯s lives, fit naturally into its surroundings. As I stood there feeling a bit disillusioned, Laura had already arrived at a stall and was looking through a selection of vegetables. I caught up to her and tried to tiptoe for a better view of the produce. I had little success with that until I found a small wooden crate that I could use to stand on. Laura was talking to the old woman that owned the stall when I finally got a good view. ¡°Hey Lezlie, what do you have for me today?¡± ¡°Oh, Just the usual dear, can¡¯t really change the crop around too much. What got you looking so happy today? At least more than usual.¡± ¡°Really? Well I guess I have a bit of company today,¡± she pointed over towards me, ¡°Isn¡¯t he cute?¡± ¡°Oh my. Where have you been hiding the little one?¡± ¡°He¡¯s just been really sick, We can¡¯t really take him out. But he is all better now and I can finally take him out.¡± ¡°Aww. A fighter he is,¡± the lady turned to me, ¡°And what would be your name?¡± ¡°My name¡¯s Brandon. It¡¯s nice to meet you.¡± ¡°And he is polite too. You sure know how to make them Laura.¡± The two giggled together and continued to chat on about the happenings within the village, who did what and all of that. I got bored of that and looked around at other stalls until Laura finished her selection and pulled out some coins to pay. Seeing the coins, I realised there were still things I forgot to ask the two about their world, currency being a prime example. No time better than now, I spoke up. ¡°Hey Laura. Can we continue the whole question and answer session from yesterday? I¡¯m really curious about certain things right now.¡± ¡°Sure. Ask away. You sure earned them through putting up with being treated as a kid.¡± ¡°Right, I knew it was on purpose. Anyways, could you tell me more about the currencies used in your world?¡± ¡°Oh, you saw me hand old Lezlie those coins right?¡± I nodded. ¡°Ok. So what I used there were tokens, the most common form of currency here. There are three types of them, bronze, silver and gold. Each is worth ten of the one that was before it. Then there are the exclusive Crowns within the Mennes empire that is worth about five silver tokens each and the elven Credits worth seven silver tokens.¡± ¡°Alright. How about the calendar here then, how do you guys even keep track of dates?¡± ¡°You seem extra curious today, but teacher Laura always deliver.¡± She cheerfully declared before clearing her throat and adopting an exaggerated lecturing tone. ¡°Our world doesn¡¯t really have a really complicated system for that. We have four seasons. The first is Wake, for the slowly rising life within that period, I just call it wake because I wake sooner around then. Then the second season, Day, for its, you can probably guess, bright daylight that burns far more than it should. Reaping might be a bit of a scary name for you, but it just means the time of harvest, but teens do like that month the most so the name could be a bit dangerous sounding. What comes last would be Slumber, a season where things entered a sleep before Wake and when we all sleep the longest too. Are you following so far?¡± I nodded again. ¡°Good. each of the seasons is made up of three months, start, middle and end. A month is made up of thirty-two days. We are right now at the seventeenth of Day middle and you first came here on the sixth of Dayend.¡± ¡°But what about the years?¡± ¡°Oh, we just count them, this year is 1970. And you were born in 1966.¡± ¡°Ok. Now can you tell me about-¡± Before I could continue, Laura pushed me aside and swiped her right hand quickly to the side. The limb impacted something. I got my bearings back from the sudden shove and looked out to see Laura holding a still trembling arrow in her right hand and groceries still in her left. ¡°Alright Charlotte, I¡¯ll forgive you this one time for trying that if you¡¯ll just come out so we can. TALK.¡± If I was a little calmer and less close to sudden death again, I would have commented on how that never works. But as it was, I just stood there as a figure slowly emerged from the woods before us. My expectations were once again broken. The professional assassin in tight leather and large foreboding cowl that the arrow should have came from was nowhere to be found. In their place, was a budget robin hood cosplay, with the old and worn moss green cloak, a just as worn set of brown leather armor and boots. Her face meant business, however, scrunched up in silent judgement and contempt. Her slightly squared jaw was clenched tightly, the rigid muscles and pixie cut allowing even more visibility to the angles. The stern look was added on by the high cheekbones and defined eyebrows, both set deep in a frown. Her chocolate brown eyes brought a bit of normalcy to the color pallets I have seen around. I could still recall the odd silver that was that Will kid¡¯s. Though the shade was of sweet milk chocolate, the eyes themselves were clearly pointing towards bitter with how intensely they were narrowing on Laura.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. My judgement seemed to be flawed. The glare was for me, as evident when she moved her eyes a bit upward and changed her expression. She weirdly adopted one of resignation that I myself have worn many times back when Tim did something stupid. Her next words were also in line with what I used to say to him. ¡°You actually went and did it, Laura. I can¡¯t believe you. How could you just follow that pathetic deserter into committing such a taboo?¡± ¡°What do you mean such a taboo? And Ruvyn is not a pathetic deserter.¡± Charlotte pointed a finger contemptuously in my direction. ¡°You know full well what I meant. I thought you sticking with him was just to earn his trust and complete your mission. Then you went and disappeared and now I found you like this. Did you even think of the consequences? The failed mission was fine, I could just write down a report on how elusive he was to find and you would be fine. But now? You went and pulled this one.¡± ¡°So what do you want me to do about it then? Kill them both?¡± ¡°Yes, at least the freak, It¡¯s supposed to die. They all do. It¡¯s against nature to keep one alive. And without any evidence, others in our organization won¡¯t have anything to accuse you with.¡± ¡°No. I am not about to abandon my child to save my own hide that was not in danger in the first place.¡± ¡°Do you really believe yourself to be safe? The elves are already trying to track your Ruvyn down. It¡¯s only a matter of time. His worthless disguises can be seen through by anyone with [heightened senses: lesser] on them. Don¡¯t let your misguided love blind you and listen to me.¡± ¡°No, I know you mean well, but I will not return to the SSC.¡± ¡°Do you listen to yourself. Here I am, offering to cover this whole mess up and potentially breaking numerous rules that I have sworn to, and you still want to follow him in his defiling of the natural order.¡± ¡°No. They are not natural orders when Ruvyn has handily proven them wrong.¡± ¡°And how did he prove that, by making this? Just look at him, is that the face of a child to you. There is clearly something wrong with that.¡± I was already thinking of how much salt this woman seems to have before Laura could retort. ¡°Yes. But he is still a person. And we will fix things the next time.¡± ¡°WHAT? Next time? Once is not enough for you? Have you not registered my words at all?¡± Words were not going to settle things at this point and Charlotte shot first. The arrow was not caught this time, though the scene created with a deflection involving a carrot was still impressive. Charlotte let loose three consecutive arrows and all were aim at me to, presumably, impede Laura¡¯s movements. Too many projectiles to block, Laura had to dodge to the right and grabbed me along with her. The vertigo was very real and I had a hard time focusing on the supposed fight that was life or death for me. I regained enough of my bearings to notice that Charlotte had somehow gained a bit of distance from us and is charging up an attack that glowed just a tad bit too much for my liking. I blinked, the shot went out, and my vision was filled with a double helix of flaming doom. The spinning arrow dodge scene replayed itself and I was once again in a new position and very disorientated. I could only hope this does not repeat when Laura let out an audible growl and charged forth. In three quick strides, she closed the roughly ten-meter distance and leveled a haymaker in Charlotte¡¯s direction. It didn¡¯t connect when she jumped back from the point of impact. I doubted she ever wanted to hit anything though. The punch had a wind-up that was far too long and telegraphed. An explosion of dirt and debris followed and Laura¡¯s scheme was made real. Smoke cloud in place, Laura resumed Brandon rugby and made a mad dash to the house. A few moments later and the house was in view, but Laura did not slow down. We went past the main house and entered the back tower. Laura did something once we entered and the whole rustic and calm ambience within the tower replaced with alarm as red runes started to blink all around me. Completing the infiltrated base atmosphere, Ruvyn came rushing down to say the finishing line. ¡°What¡¯s the situation?¡± ¡°I was found today.¡± Ruvyn let out a resigned sigh. ¡°I knew the disguises were a little too flimsy. I assumed no one would look for us all the way here and the farming folks would not notice anything. I should have planned better and hide us deeper. I could have even-¡± ¡°That¡¯s enough of that now. We tried our best and it didn¡¯t work out. It¡¯s fine. Now we just need to get out of here. You have something set up already, right.¡± ¡°Well, yes. But there were still things I could have done with magic had I tried harder. I could have hidden us or make some sort of weapon as deterrent.¡± ¡°No. we both know your specialisation is not in infiltration nor mass destruction, it is in aether and its enchantments that you excel,¡± she gestured to the whole interior of the tower, ¡°You moved all of this from your own laboratory within elven territory into the free border of Cytengord. And I know for certain you can do that again.¡± ¡°Of course. I-¡± ¡°There. See. Does it matter if you could not prevent this mess, if you can just pull us out of it.¡± ¡°Ok. You¡¯re right. Could you two go upstairs, I need some time right now to relocate us.¡± ¡°You heard him Brandon, come on. Let¡¯s go and give him some privacy to do his business.¡± ¡°Coming. And a late thank you for saving my butt earlier.¡± Laura just smiled and walked up the stairs. I followed a bit slower and took my time to look around at the glowing red enchantments slowly turning into an intense shade of purplish blue. ¡°Mesmerising, isn¡¯t it?¡± came Laura from above. ¡°Yeah it is,¡± I finished my climb up, ¡°Is it that aether stuff you talked about before?¡± ¡°Yup. wondering why it isn¡¯t blue like all of the other times we used mana?¡± ¡°Not really. It¡¯s a different element and should look different. But what does it do?¡± ¡°It¡¯s used mostly to move things through space. Like teleportation ports for goods in main cities. Ruvyn have worked on plenty of them for the elves actually.¡± ¡°Wait. so when you said he moved everything with the whole grand hand gesture, you actually meant it,¡± I said incredulously. Laura looked equally incredulous when she replied. ¡°Of course. What else could I mean? It¡¯s Ruvyn.¡± ¡°O..K,¡± I was still a bit doubtful, before I recalled what they spoke about earlier, ¡±Wait. You said he was going to do it again.¡± ¡°Yes. What about that?¡± ¡°We are in the tower.¡± ¡°So?¡± ¡°You said it was for goods. I am not goods.¡± Confusion gave way to recognition. ¡°Technically, goods also includes farm animals and we are animals. So technically, you are goods,¡± Laura smiled winningly at her joke. I was not impressed and showed exactly that. ¡°Alright. Alright. We can be transported. Ruvyn just has to make the right calibrations to make sure of that.¡± ¡°O...K,¡± I was still not completely sure of my safety, but did not want to sound too rude, ¡°I trust you guys.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you have a choice in that, but thanks. I think Ruvyn should be nearly ready now.¡± With that, I looked around and realised that the purplish blue runes have already spread to encompass most of our floor. I was already bracing myself when Ruvyn came rushing up the stairs panting and wide-eyed. ¡°Honey, why didn¡¯t you tell me?¡± Confusion was back. ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°I had to get a total of lifeforms to be transported, I found four with the fourth being really tiny and within another.¡± ¡°Are you telling me what I think you are?¡± ¡°I think, You are pregnant again.¡± That was apparently the trigger needed as Laura leapt off of the floor and glomped Ruvyn. Their foreheads together and Laura on top, they were about to start the very famous make out scene right on a tense moment. I could not really let this happen with the chance that Charlotte could be aiming those arrows in my direction again and broke the atmosphere. ¡°Ahem. Guys, not to be rude here or anything. But the one that found us is still out there and aren¡¯t we supposed to be moving or sth.¡± Laura turned around and I was just a tad bit afraid of her glare. Ruvyn seemed much more flustered and blubbered out a reply. ¡°Things were u-under control, everything was ready and I did not need to do any more adjustments. And the tower¡¯s barrier should hold against any sort of attacks from a single person.¡± ¡°Ok. And congratulations on the baby, just celebrate it privately, please.¡± The room was quiet after that remark with Ruvyn going downstairs again to finalise matters and Laura idly rubbing at her belly. I, with nothing else to do, picked up the books left on the desk from my study yesterday. I skimmed over things quickly to find the aether entry. Before I could even start reading anything though, there was a dramatic shift in my surroundings. The same sensation of donning the disguise was back again, but this time much heavier and a bit more smothering, going so far as running up my nose and into my mouth. It ended after a few seconds and was replaced with an immense sense of vertigo. I nearly fell off of my chair before catching the side of the table for stability. To assure myself that we all made it in one piece, I called out for the two. ¡°Hey. Laura. Ruvyn. Is everything Ok?¡± Laura responded first from the other side of the table in a chipper tone. ¡°Yes. Wouldn¡¯t they be.¡± ¡°Everything seems to be in order. No major deviations in coordinates of destination. No explosions either so I can assume that everything is good,¡± came Ruvyn as he ascended the stairs. A sigh escaped me and I voiced the concerns that were at the bottom of my list back then. ¡°So where did we arrive at?¡± ¡°We arrived at the southwestern border of the beastmen colonies. A place far from both the Elven Republic and the Mennes empire, and still have contact to civilization.¡± ¡°That sounds great. But we don¡¯t have the house or any of its conveniences. Where are we going to live.¡± Laura was the one to assuage my fears with a wide smile on her face. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry too much about that. The tower is plenty enough shelter. My own ranger and scouting training can keep both of you alive indefinitely too. And as for supplies that cannot be gathered, Ruvyn has a few contacts and arrangements he can teleport things in from.¡± Ruvyn also chipped in and listed the things that he could request from his contacts. I liked the sound of basic amenities like a bath and toilet, but other things he mentioned were a bit beyond the language skills transferred to me. So with a new note to ask for a more complete lesson on language, I moved downstairs so the clearly ecstatic couple celebrate their actual parenthood. Down there, I tried to pass my time by finally reading the notes on aether that I already turned to. That got boring quickly after I found out how many technical details was in the book and how many terms I still have no grasp over. I tried to move over to other elements, but the descent into simpler magics still did not help make reading them any less tedious. I dropped the book and decided to simply walk out and enjoy whatever view I can get when there were certain noises sounding out upstairs. I wished I had gone outside a bit sooner. The old view from atop the hill looking down onto a quiet village kinda showed either Ruvyn¡¯s or Laura¡¯s inclination towards the high grounds, but this simply confirmed it. My first steps out onto our new front yard deposited me on top of a very tall cliff overlooking a sea of trees. The conclusion that it will suck to try and go down was the first thing on my mind. My fears for our self-imprisonment up here on this cliff was alleviated when I started to walk forward and look around the tower. There was a much more accessible incline from behind and even a clear trail down through the forest. I was content to simply chill out in the nice weather until lunch came around and the couple was done with their business before I caught something out of the corner of my eyes. There was a ghostly glowing orb of blue looking at the tower intently within one of the shaded areas of the forest. I could only see it thanks to the contrast it had against that darkened patch of the forest. It noticed me too and, with the movement of a large lumbering body, sunk back into the shade and out of my sight. The rather unnerving experience prompted me to scoot a little closer to the tower and keep a closer eye on the forest. The eyes never returned though and I was left looking like an idiot expecting a great abomination to jump me. The couple came down eventually and Laura went about preparing a fire to cook some preserved foods. Over the meal, I contemplated telling them about my little encounter. An internal debate was had between telling them about the possible threat and keeping thing stable after such a big move. Eventually, I settled upon not telling, assuming that they must have had some sort of security against that. Plus with the happiness bubbling between the two as they talked about possible baby names in the meal it just didn¡¯t feel right to disturb them with a possible minor problem. The glowing orb might just be a harmless spirit for all I knew. Quiet kept, the day went by without any more major happenings. The next day looked to be continuing that calm before I walked out for some air after breakfast and found some claw marks in the dirt behind the house that roughly spelled out ¡°iy¡± in English. 5-B With some more physical evidence that there was something out there that had fairly large claws and the boldness to approach the tower that close, I had to tell them about it. My warning was heeded and the two went out back with me to check things out. Ruvyn looked perfectly calm when he saw the marks. ¡°Wyverns are known to nest around these higher areas. It is a bit peculiar that I see no other tracks around these. Looks like we will have to be a bit more mindful while cooking outdoors.¡± Laura spoke up next. ¡°Yeah, we should. But there are some more tracks around there though,¡± she pointed to a large indent in the earth that lead back into the forest, ¡±It looks very big, I can¡¯t tell much from this, but it has smaller grooves in it so it might be a large gathering of snakes, but that just doesn¡¯t add up.¡± Laura scratched her head in confusion but soon turned back to the claw marks. ¡°The wyvern is definitely trouble, but a few scent decoys should work well enough as deterrents. This is a bit weirder so just stay close to the tower if you are going around Brandon.¡± I quickly add the detail about my encounter yesterday, seeing as this was quickly getting wrapped up with just some cautionary words. ¡°I also saw a luminous blue orb that looked a lot like an eye looking at the tower yesterday. Could it belong to whatever made this?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe so. Those characteristics are typical of forest wisps. They tend to be non-entities in the natural world and poses no threat,¡± answered Ruvyn. ¡°But since I will be leaving very soon. I could work on some more security enchantments for the house. The barrier that teleported attacks away might not be enough. Maybe one to teleport the attacker could be good.¡± Laura looked bewildered at the declaration before opening her eyes wide and grabbing Ruvyn into a tight embrace. ¡°Oh. Good luck honey. Just make it back here safe. Ok?¡± ¡°I will. And we are finally going to have a healthy baby.¡± I was too temporarily perplexed until I realised that they had to guarantee their baby¡¯s continued survival after birth. Laura actually went out to hunt a wild ther that day to have a farewell party for Ruvyn. I tried to help and was actually able to with the absence of a counter that was too high. The dinner was very nice with an amazing stew, but the couple¡¯s own after party was not too cool for me. My sleep guardian was left back at the house and, even with thicker walls in the tower and me being in the fourth floor and they the third, the sounds were back. So it was with mixed feelings that I bid Ruvyn farewell. I would miss the possible lessons that I might have. I would also enjoy the much calmer nights from now on. The following month had me entering a routine. Mornings would be spent helping Laura with breakfast and getting whatever camping tips that she felt like teaching about that morning. Time before lunch would be devoted to either reading the basics on different spell classes or practicing spells within said basics outside. I would help Laura again with lunch and get more lessons on the world as a whole. Afternoons were Laura¡¯s, confirmed by her, attempt to one-up Ruvyn¡¯s magic lessons later. We would basically walk around in the forest and Laura would give me survival guides based on what we ran into out there. Nights were just book fests with Laura sitting down with a book too. After a month of this, I got general gist of most magic schools and their foundation. The four elements had the basic of generating and shaping said elements and further advances in the field will allow you to improve the intensity and quantity that is generated. The more advanced element of lightning already had great power in its initial stage so fine tune control was its development goal. The illusion line had the basic being making a feeling in each of the five senses and layering them together. Competence in it will allow for more intricate imagery to be generated and more cohesion between layers. Healing and nature magic was the one that needed the most inborn talent and could not be trained. Your mana signature was supposed to be agreeable to others or plants to make them grow like you want to and I found out sadly after some trials that I was not an agreeable person. Aether was there too, but the whole subject and all of the space manipulation revolved around turning mana into an even purer form, a process that was far too complicated for me to even fathom. I naturally settled for its much easier sibling with bare casting, the weaponization of mana that relied mostly on your imagination and focus. Self enhancement, or empower, as the name implied worked mostly on enhancing your own physical abilities and senses. This was also a magic that was done most naturally by humans and beastkins with their innate mana veins so Laura helped me quite a bit with this and made it my most competent area. Ruvyn came back after the first month and the couple proceeded to ignore me entirely besides providing the bare necessities needed for my survival. The two would just spend most of their days idly discussing this and that about the new baby, such as what they would name it if it was a boy or if it was a girl. Without anyone around to teach me and actually accompany me in reading, I spent my time mostly just wandering around the tower and keeping up with the survival training Laura has managed to give me. My increased visitations to the forest unfortunately led to more encounters with the glowing eye. Ruvyn might have said that it was just a wisp, a harmless spirit, but the shadow that moved along with the orb hinted at something much more dangerous to me. It kept its distance though, only stopped to look at me a few times I saw it and walked off back into the distance. Things looked set to continue like this for the eight months that would lead up to the delivery. I spent more and more time outside in the forest as the months wound on. My activities within it also escalated, simple revisions of survival knowledge as I walked turned into spell casting and experimenting out in the woods. Spell practice was not all too enjoyable though as I soon found my affinity was with lightning and fire, two things that do not mix well with plants. There was some use of them of course, but only around a very empty clearing without any plant life in it. Today I, emboldened by my own mastery of magic and the apparent absence of anything truly dangerous over the months, decided to go and hunt something. I wandered just a little deeper than usual that day and kept myself alert for the tracks of anything that was in my weight class. I did not hold great hope for the endeavour and was pleasantly surprised to find tracks of something that I could kill safely, a child-sized walking mushroom called a myconoid. The tracking was fairly easy and I could already see its possible path towards a watering hole Laura has taken me to for hunting on the first month here. The mentioned area soon came up and I saw my quarry waddling towards the shore. I prepped a spell in advance and held it together before sneaking over towards the unsuspecting prey. I fired off the [fireball] once in range and miscalculated how far my range actually was. The myconoid caught on immediately after the flaming ball of its death landed in the body of water and turned around in alarm, spores already puffing out of its mouth. I let out an exasperated breath while preparing for another [fireball] that would hopefully hit the second time around. The tension was at its peak when the spell completed and I held in my hand the glowing doom of the myconoid. As I got ready to throw it, something popped up in my peripheral vision, something glowing blue, something that was closer to me than ever before. The shock distracted me for a bit and the myconoid made its last valiant charge. I was ready to shove the [fireball] into its path when, straight out of the forest, a gargantuan black shape barreled out. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. I could only see its back from my vantage point, but the thing towering over me at my old house¡¯s height just screamed danger and death. Humanoid skeletons hung from its upper body, stuck in a viscous black mud that smelled of concentrated rot. I also got the answer for the weird marks around the back of the tower the first time I encountered this thing. Its lower body was made up of countless cords of the same thick black substance and shaped like the body of a giant snake that was as thick as a car. Up on its left side was an entire half of a wyvern with the head draped over its shoulder and the wing extending from its back to function as its left arm. The same wyvern¡¯s leg was twisted and dislocated to act like its right arm. Said arm¡¯s hand was now holding the futilely struggling myconoid. Some of the black substance began flow over onto my previous prey and cemented my belief that this thing was just plain wrong. Life began to visibly leave the small mushroom and its flesh began to shrivel up and lose color. I was glued to my feet as the process took place over the next few minutes and turned the once living myconoid into a black approximation of its corpse. The thing placed the blackened corpse against its body and, with a wet quelch, absorbed it. As it turned around, I finally got to the face that held the mysterious blue eye and immediately regretted it. Its face was a distorted and vampiric skull with razor sharp fangs dripping bile. Its left eye socket was filled with more of the black rotting flesh and a snake¡¯s corpse was writhing in it. The identifying blue eye once up close looked glassy and glowed with a little more intensity than when I usually saw it from afar. Its face was not the only place with a skull though. From its sternum down was an amalgamation of skulls that numbered at least half a dozen with there being hints of even more behind the black goo. Skulls was not the only bones on its person. There were at least two different spinal columns that wrapped around its neck and broken ribs were poking out at intermittent places on its body. As anyone would after such a sight graced them, I threw the completed [fireball] into its face, hoping to distract it enough for me to make a getaway. Against all of my expectations, it actually worked and the monster flinched back. It did nothing beyond that though and I started to run the second its head turned back in my direction. Another fun fact came to mind as I ran, a four or five year old boy is incapable of outrunning whatever that thing was. I still tried though and got about ten steps in before a huge wing blocked my way. Touching the black ooze that made up the membrane was an obviously bad idea so I fell down on my butt to lessen my momentum and, notwithstanding the sore bottom, succeeded. Success also meant I now faced down the thing with its wing blocking my escape path. My heart was already out of my chest when the thing leaned closer, its breath upon my face, as rancid as I had imagined, and a lifeless eye stared at me. The bit of gallows humor left in me pointed out how I came here being looked at just like this and now I was just as likely going to leave being inspected too. I was resigned to death, but not resigned to hearing english spoken through mud. ¡°¡®Afe. ood.¡± What I approximated as ¡°safe¡± and ¡°good¡± came out of the thing¡¯s mouth and it slowly backed off. Now more perplexed than scared for my life, I tentatively tried to communicate back. ¡°Yes. I¡¯m safe. Did you try help me back then?¡± An action that I immediate thought was very dumb. The things I heard could just be the call of whatever horrid animal this thing was. My second thoughts were immediately proven wrong by the double take that the thing did. Seeing such a humanlike response bolstered my own confidence in the initial idiotic theory that the monster was using my native language. I did not have anymore time to think to myself when the undead slowly crept closer and growled out another line. ¡°Oo. Oh. Ing. Ish.¡± It was too much of a stretch for me to connect that one and I just stared uncomprehendingly at it. It noticed my apparent confusion and its abysmal ability to talk though, and entered a contemplative silence complete with a hand, wyvern foot, on its chin. An idea came to it and suddenly it emitted a shrill sound that was half screech, half roar. It turned its head to the forest and waited for whatever it called. There was a small rustling in the canopy and a newcomer joined this little get together. What came out of the forest was again surprising to me. I expected another one of the monsters to come charging through after the first one¡¯s, assumed, signal for help and was not prepared to see a staff floating out of the trees to hover before the monster. The staff¡¯s shaft was styled to look like a human spine with its characteristic curve and was topped with a human skull. From behind the skull were ribs splayed about in an imitation of a mane. Between all of the bonelike components was a dark red material that looked a lot like crusted dried blood. There was a recurring theme between the beast and the tool, embedded within its left eye was a single deep blue jewel. While I was busy eyeing the ominous staff, the two other presence within this clearing has finished their silent discussion and the staff turned towards me. Without any visible movement of its jaw, the staff spoke with a hollow feminine voice. ¡°Hello there. I apologize if my companion frightened you with his previous action. His outward appearance has the tendency to garner such reactions. But do not worry, it was only an attempt from him to protect you from that myconoid. And now that he found his communication skills lacking, I was called here to assist.¡± A lot more assured that the thing was not mindless or intent on killing me, I replied. ¡°Ok. Tell him I said thank you. But can I ask why he decided to help me?¡± ¡°Oh. He behaves like that whenever he encounters anything that looks, as he put it, ¡®too fragile to be fighting for their life¡¯. You fell within the boundaries of that definition and he tried to help.¡± Now certain that the two did not mean any harm, I was ready to disengage from this conversation and leave the very disgusting duo. ¡°Alright. Thank you guys again for helping me out. But I must be going now. Bye.¡± ¡°Wait. There was something else I was tasked to convey. Are you a ¡®traveler¡¯ from somewhere very far away?¡± That her very obvious round about way of addressing my origins ironically described our move was very amusing in my eyes and led to a much more relaxed reply. ¡°Yes. Why was he interested though?¡± The question was for courtesy only as I could already guess where the big guy was from and why he wanted to ask me this. ¡°Oh. So his assumption was right. I believed it to be another case of those random thoughts he has and acts on. And could I have you name, he stressed that we have them in communication with anything sentient,¡± the staff spoke with an apparent shrug without any shoulders. ¡°Right. My name¡¯s Brandon. And I guess I will see you guys around,¡± I surely hoped not, their looks were bad, but the smell was really driving the point home that being around them was not pleasant. The staff returned to the enormous mound of rot and they seemed to hold a silent discussion again. There seemed to be some sort of discussion that involved me in some way as the big guy turned in my direction and kept the stare for a duration that bothered me. No rotting wing came to block my way back though and I eventually made it back to the tower unobstructed. Away from the weirdness that was my backyard forest, I got ready for a very bland lunch that has become the norm once Laura entered the later stages of her pregnancy. After a mouthful of bland potatoes and hearing Laura talk excitedly about the clothes she has already made for the daughter that they would name Layla, my biological sister, I told them about what I saw today. ¡°So. I went into the woods today and found whatever that made the marks all those months ago.¡± Ruvyn looked at me like I was just making this up and asked. ¡°How did you exactly escape from a wyvern?¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t a wyvern though. It was something else that had a wyvern¡¯s body attached to it, and a lot of other rotting bodies too. It-¡± I did not get to finish when Ruvyn spoke in a much more panicked tone. ¡°How did an abomination get so close without any of my wards detecting anything? And why have we not been attacked¡± Out of the loop, I tried to get back in. ¡°Um. Ruvyn, what is an abomination?¡± He snapped out of the small panic and addressed my question. ¡°Abominations are collectives of hateful souls condensed into physical form, a core, and attach themselves to dead bodies of any kind to make endlessly growing monstrosities. They are very ravenous and aggressive so extensive devastation should be present and trigger any one of my security measures. It must have a very developed consciousness to actually show restraint and that is not a good combination. We need to get out of here again. And I have not been able to set up a new teleportation diagram so we will have to make the trip on foot. But Laura is-¡± Before Laura can calm him down, I reminded him of an important detail. ¡°But I am still alive. That abomination as you call it, is not a regular one and seemed peaceful in my opinion. So our lives are not in danger and you don¡¯t have to worry too much about it.¡± ¡°That is definitely weird, why did it not kill you and intergrated your body within its mass.¡± ¡°Uh. You know the things you told me about how records of people like me having really bright blue eyes if they get nonhuman bodies. And I was telling you two about a glowing blue orb in the forest months ago. I think that is the same thing.¡± With the pieces together now, Ruvyn took a moment to assemble them all and relaxed visibly. ¡°Hey. if they are friendly, do you think we can meet sometimes. I was always told stories of how scary it is facing an abomination and not knowing how much it has grown and now I want to see one for myself,¡± chipped in Laura. ¡°Um. Dear, I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a good idea. Even if it does not mean any harm, the smell alone is not good for your health and Layla¡¯s.¡± I had to nod along with that one while Laura awkwardly laughed it off. The day went on normally after that with me trying to go out and hunt something again in the afternoon. I got one myconoid and volunteered it as ingredient for dinner so Ruvyn could stop slowly killing me with potatoes. A few more days later without seeing or hearing anything from the abomination and I thought that his curiosity for us has wane. The existence of the abomination seemed to be completely gone from our lives. That is, until I took a look behind the house again and found a brand new set of claw marks. They were actually legible this time and spelled out: Yo, Brandon. Blond really suits you. Tim. 5.5 - Interlude I dislike my creator very much. Most people would share my opinion when they realise the nature of her occupation. She is a necromancer, a career that is frowned upon for obvious reasons, tampering with the sacred concept of life and death one of them. But she does not lose my favour for that. I could not exactly hate the field of magic that gave me life and is ingrained deep within my own mind. My dislike stems from something much simpler. She fails to see her own greatness in the pursuit of besting another in an area she was not meant to. She was so great in creating autonomous creations like me. Yet she chases after the one called Amber and her endless and mindless horde of undead insects. And so, my siblings¡¯ upkeep was neglected in her endeavour to make more of us to, as I quote Creator, ¡°Beat Amber at her own game.¡± The childish nature shown through her rivalry was only further punctuated by her diminutive size, a strange desire to wear elaborate black dresses and an insistence, which lost only to besting Amber, on appearing as young as possible. She has subsequently been dubbed ¡°Anne the doll¡± for these idiosyncrasies. Alas, her determination is deserving of praise. She had neglected the achievements she had made in making new consciousness from souls yet still garnered enough attention from the ruling bodies to placed her within the ranks of ¡®Titled Mennaces¡¯. Her own zealous nature was in display even now as we travelled through the ¡®Belt¡¯ of the Unknown to find new candidates for her army¡¯s ever-shifting numbers. ¡°Staff. Ready the undead, my familiars are picking something up.¡± ¡°Yes, creator.¡± ¡°Good. And call me master. Not creator.¡± I fell back into silence as I communicated with my currently deployed siblings, one hundred in all, and had them enter their formation. Those that used to be physically strong specimens moved to the front while those with magical or ranged attacking capabilities lined the back. The scouting familiars, dead crows, returned and Creator took hold of me and directed our gathering forward. We exited the clearing and came face to face with a rather exotic creature. While the enlightened species account for the vast majority of vampirism cases, they do not hold monopoly over it. A prime example of their diversity was standing in front of us in the form of a vampire orc. Creator was not phased by this and initiated her favoured strategy, the human wave tactic. Five minutes and five irreparably damaged sibling later and she has secured herself a potential new thrall. ¡°Night fall should be upon us now Cr-Master. The transformation process should commence shortly.¡± ¡°Ah. The sun is finally setting. Good. Staff, get the materials we have gathered today out of the dimensional pockets.¡± I did as told and got the corpses we have managed to amass from the day. Ten goblins, six orcs, one ogre and the highlight of today¡¯s labours, a vampire orc. She set about creating the magic circle needed to bind these bodies to her mass produced consciousness. A wasteful action in my eyes. After all of the times I have ignored such misuse of resources, I deemed an intervention necessary. ¡°Cre-Master.¡± ¡°What is it? I¡¯m trying to work here, tool.¡± ¡°Yes. I know that. But could you listen to an idea of mine.¡± ¡°And what would you, oh so wise staff, suggest I do?¡± ¡°I think it would be wise if you put more effort in this batch of undead. You are much more talented in crafting individuals than a mass army that you are trying now C-Master.¡± ¡°Uhuh. And lose out to the bitch Amber again when her bugs swarm my special snowflakes.¡± ¡°There are plenty of cases where number means little in combat against the undead. An example would be in how abomination could simply absorb the army sent to fight it. You are perfectly capable of implementing the counter measures needed against amber¡¯s bugs.¡± I was ready for one of Creator¡¯s more colorful language choices, but they did not come. She simply adopted a thinking pose. ¡°Hmm. That bitch has not been able to make one yet. The methods are there, but the process could be dangerous. I have no way of making sure what ends up as its consciousness, unless-¡± Creator looked upon me for the first time with desire and a manic grin. I decided that I did not like that look. An hour or so later into the night and Creator has aligned all of the morning¡¯s harvest onto a new magic formation. I was tied down right beside said formation and has already made my peace with my possible demise to Creator¡¯s newest creation. Creator has deemed it fit that I be the anchor that binds to soon to be birthed abomination to her commands. My task would be to dominate the newly formed consciousness of her creation, an undertaking that could either do nothing to me or strip me of everything that I am. The results depended on how potentially powerful and rebellious the freshly spawned consciousness was. Looking at what was by definition my mother work away with a smile on her face the possible tool to my death was an experience that gave my unfeeling and dead body a sense of pain. I have never before contemplated a desertion of Creator despite my misgivings, yet now I truly wished I have. The notion was an obvious impossibility. Creator had ample restrictions and sensors placed upon me. Any attempt would have been detected without fail. Yet, the fear of consequences matter none now. I relished my last few free thoughts thinking of the dream. The possibilities for my own knowledge to grow within the ever-distant state of freedom. The very concept of being independent. Creator continued to work fervently on. Parallel to my own musings on the contingencies set in place should I fail, Creator seemed to have completed all preparations and is now supplying the necessary negative mana from all of her reserves to begin. Her small stature and short fluffy blonde hair now contrasted harshly against the blood red eyes that looked hungrily towards the banefully glowing green formation. The sensation of a mental connection began to manifest between me and the core within the center. The bodies drifted closer and closer together while slowing losing their original luster and turning black. A complete connection was established. All of the bodies have extensively covered the core and I began the ironic activity of praying to the gods while Creator went against their teachings. There was no immediate attack upon my consciousness and hope bloomed within me for an opposing mind that was simple and weak. That hope was dashed when a thought that was not my own rang clearly within the silence. ¡®Urgh. That was not a pleasant trip. I think I hit something on the way. I just hope Brandon had it better.¡¯ Staying silent would likely antagonize the new entity that felt much more developed and confused than I am. Thus, I reached out. ¡®Um. Can I help you?¡¯ ¡®Great. Schizophrenia can be ticked off the list then.¡¯ Hysteria and sarcasm was easily understood. The statement itself was not. ¡®Uh. What is schizophrenia? Is it a thing that I can provide?¡¯ I was noticed. The voice now projected caution and timidity. The force it represented in my senses and its behavior was a stark contrast. An appropriate picture of this would be a dragon asking timidly for a farmer¡¯s eggs. ¡®No. Could you at least tell me what is going on?¡¯ ¡®Oh. We are in the connection phase to control a newly created abomination.¡¯ The confusion spiked. ¡®We are in the WHAT to WHAT?¡¯ ¡®The process should be finished now. You can feel the difference for yourself.¡¯ The new voice stopped communicating and the completed abomination shifted. One ghostly blue eye stared back at me and Creator from within the black substance that the corpses have become. Slowly, the amalgamation of filth and rot realigned the bones within to give shape to my newest brother. The misshapen bodies were attached to each other at varying angles through copious amounts of viscous black necromass. The first limb was soon cracked into shape from an orc and dragged along the enormous body towards us. Creator turned towards me and ask. ¡°That doesn¡¯t look right, why is the eye not red? Staff, tell me you at least have that under control.¡± I probed the connection again and noticed a cacophony of emotions. Confusion was chief amongst them, followed by disgust at his own form, fear of the other siblings around us and a miniscule quantity of curiosity directed at Creator¡¯s presence. ¡°No, Creator. My Brother is neither falling under my control. Nor is he thinking properly.¡± Creator paled visibly and my manual override activated. ¡°Staff, use whatever undead you have left to ensure my escape from here.¡± ¡°Yes. Master,¡± my flatter than usual reply was all that I remembered before my own awareness was cut off. Consciousness returned to me after an indeterminable period. The sight that heralded my return was the broken bodies of my siblings, strewn about everywhere and I was in the middle of it all. Confusion was predominant state of my mind, another was a small amount of elation at not seeing Creator around or sensing her hold over some of my free will. There was an additional background of emotions surfacing. They were curiously not my own. My peculiar predicament was explained when a blue orb peered down at me and a voice came back into my mind. ¡®Hey. You¡¯re up again. What happened back then? The woman just dropped you and ran. You started to fire greens bolts and all of those zombies jumped on me. I kept trying to get to you, but you were just not there.¡¯ The source of external emotions asked hurriedly. His own roiling pool of worry and mild excitement a strange contrast to my own lethargic calm. His statement was processed within the following few minutes. I now felt a sense of panic. His words brought back a detail that I overlooked in my moment of confusion. The override should have ceased all of my functions and thoughts indefinitely. That creator did not trust me and activated it has firmly moved my view of her towards hatred. I reprioritized the indignation for a more appropriate time. The conundrum must first be addressed. ¡®How am I capable of conscious thought once again? What did you do to me?¡¯ ¡®Oh. When you were firing spells at me and controlling the zombies, there was this one active red eye following me, so I pulled it out to hopefully blind it. And then I felt you back in here again.¡¯ The large being gestured towards his head, the primary one. ¡®I see. Brother must have removed Creator¡¯s override mark from me.¡¯ He was once more confused, but the undercurrent revealed a new addition. He was also growing anxious. ¡®Ok. No idea what that means. Or any idea at all as to what happened after I fell asleep. This dream is pretty weird even by my own standards.¡¯ ¡®I could offer some assistance if you would tell me the proceedings that have led us here.¡¯ My request for intel was readily accepted.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡®You know. I got on a bus, dozed off a bit and next thing I know, zombies are charging towards me and lasers were flying. I fought them off, those things don¡¯t seem too tough and I looked like this.¡¯ He gestured to himself with one of his many arms. ¡®A condition that both enabled me to fight them off and deposited quite a lot of question on whether I had anything to drink before I got on that bus. And the urge to plunge my hand inside the corpses to do ¡®something¡¯ is a can of worms I refuse to open. Dream and boss zombie body or not, I don¡¯t want too much contact with zombies.¡¯ The majority of his retelling was done casually with a distinct detachment except for the details regarding himself. His disgust and discomfort was quite visible within my senses. Notwithstanding, I must clarify to achieve a proper grasp of his desired answer. ¡®Brother¡¯s predicament does sound strange. But why does it hold so many expressions I cannot fathom?¡¯ ¡®What expressions?¡¯ ¡®Those would be, bus, boss zombie and the can of worms that you are reluctant to open.¡¯ He did not answer. A morose sense of hopelessness rose. ¡®Ah. You know, this was already shaping up to be a lot like a common writing scenario and now with what you said about not knowing those common terms, things are falling into place even faster. So could you just put the last nail in the coffin and tell me what is the name of this continent?¡¯ ¡®It would be Versalen.¡¯ A prolonged exhale was released from his body before a sort of hollow laughter rang out from his body. Anxiety was pushed away. Our conversation was resumed after a substantial exhale. ¡®Hah. Alright. So I most likely died on that bus. Probably killed by a truck too. And now I look like this. In a world I have no knowledge of and my best friend is in who knows where. Great. Just great.¡¯ He pointed towards his body. Disgust surfaced in copious amounts. ¡®What do I even do now? Life was shit, but it was not that bad. Now I am a literal monster and am talking through my mind to a not so inanimate object.¡¯ Melancholy echoed out between him and me. Another string of laughter followed. ¡®I could go find Brandon, but how do you even start with that. He could be anywhere and I look like this. He¡¯ll probably just run for the hills the moment he sees me. Or any human for that matter.¡¯ His amalgamation of negative emotions could only be superficially filed as immense grief. Brother slumped a little right then and there was some small spasms within his upper body. ¡®I can¡¯t even cry properly too. Figures.¡¯ A plume of debris rose. Brother expressed the building pressure on his thoughts through violence and laid down on the ground following his outburst. The agitation within him continued to climb. While Brother continued to remain where he was, I contemplated on Brother¡¯s crisis of purpose and how best to solve it. My thoughts returned to the blatant betrayal that Creator has committed to escape and the satisfaction that could be had if she saw Brother¡¯s full potential. ¡®Perhaps you could simply continue to live and strive to be better. It is always a good goal to have after an upheaval as great as what you have described. And Brother can absorb others into you so maybe we can find one with the senses needed to find Brother¡¯s friend.¡¯ He was not receptive. The storm within his mind remained raging. I kept quiet. The night grew on. The moon was past its zenith when I felt a change. Brother¡¯s mind was exhausted and resigned. I tried again without any disruptions. He rose at the suggestion to look at me. He held the stare. I repeated myself. He continued to be unmoving. His mind was moving. I felt mild sadness that brother would immediately doubt my intentions. ¡®I do not mean you harm, Brother. You have saved me. I mean you all the best.¡¯ Doubt continued to persist. I tried to reason again. My own emotions were laid forth to be an accompanying peace offering. ¡®You have nothing to fear from me. I am genuine in my concern. You may feel so for yourself.¡¯ He was now ashamed and averted his gaze. I could feel his thoughts now fully analysing my proposal. They fluctuated. The initial reaction was still skepticism. It moved onto resignation and eventually a sad acceptance. ¡®I supposed you are right. They would have wanted me to live on.¡¯ ¡®Good. Then we can show Creator what she left behind.¡¯ He did not register my added goal. A reminder must be made at a later time. Brother¡¯s condition is not particularly conductive of proper cognition. ¡®Yeah. What you said.¡¯ Brother stood up taller and spun his head around, seemingly looking for something within space. ¡®Um. Where do we go from here?¡¯ ¡®I believe we need more materials to grow you.¡¯ He accepted with the pervading acceptance. ¡®Ok. where do we go for that?¡¯ ¡®I know of a place that Creator could not go to with her weaker undeads, but you can Brother.¡¯ A substantially stable feeling was transmitted. ¡®Why do I get the feeling that I might not like this?¡¯ ¡®Worry not. Any ill will I might have for you will be transmitted through our link.¡¯ Another appeared. Their existence now proving Brother was bettering. ¡®Ok. And can we fix the way you talk?¡¯ ¡®What do you find dissatisfactory with how I voice my thoughts?¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s not natural. Did you do a lot of talking before?¡¯ ¡®Yes, I have spoken amply with Creator.¡¯ ¡®Was it anything besides responding to orders?¡¯ ¡®No. How would you know of that aspect of our conversations.¡¯ ¡®You sound like one of those assistant robots in sci-fi movies so I took a guess.¡¯ ¡®What is a robot and sci-fi movies?¡¯ ¡®Let¡¯s put those on the to learn list too then.¡¯ More emotions returned. And so we began our journey, me floating and Brother dragging his lower body around with his upper limbs. Five days have elapsed from then and we were approaching the destination I have spoken of. Over those five days, Brother has regained positivity. There were still resurfaces of the negative, but he has improved. He had also introduced me to so many concepts of his own life. I took particular interest in the automation processes of making things. I could imagine the same being done by Creator had she allowed me a bit more freedom and created siblings that were as advanced as I was. Their means of entertainment was interesting as well. Plays that can be seen in every household is certainly entertaining. There were also things I dislike as well. Undeads were feared and loathed by most. Anything that has human levels of intelligence were looked at with apprehension. I fall into both of these categories. ¡®Brother, are you afraid of me too?¡¯ ¡®No. Why do you ask?¡¯ ¡®In your stories, there seems to be a lot of fear within the concepts that comprises me, an undead and an artificial intelligence.¡¯ ¡®Ah. that. I guess I would be afraid of those if it was me from before. Now I cover half of those so there is definitely less. And even if I was afraid, I don¡¯t think it will be of you. You are not going to be an evil overlord or hungering for my mind and soul. You are just you, with your own problems with this Creator.¡¯ ¡®Thank you, Brother. That means a lot to me.¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s fine. I did not mention this before, but why do you call me Brother?¡¯ ¡®We were made by the same Creator and you are male, so the title fits. What would you like me to refer to you as, if not that?¡¯ ¡®You can call me Tim. It was and still is my name. And what can I call you? You must have a name right.¡¯ ¡®Creator called me by Staff. Does that count?¡¯ ¡®No. We need to get you a name then. Do you have anything in mind?¡¯ ¡®I like the name of Olivia. Would that be good?¡¯ ¡®Sure. It is your name so your choice matters most, Olivia.¡¯ Our conversations from that point on gained increased ease and Tim talked more about personal details of his life. His topics remained within the upper layers of privacy when we arrived. ¡®Hey Olivia. Is the place we are looking for a really dark and dank cave that¡¯s in front of me?¡¯ ¡®It is. Is there something amiss with that.¡¯ ¡®It is a dark and ominous cave. There is literally nothing else around here alive too. That is just iffy, woman.¡¯ Tim made one of the gestures that told of his incredulity. He indicated the uninviting appearance of the dungeon and barren nature of its surrounding with a wave of his several hands. ¡®It is an enclosed ecosystem maintained by mana and has an abundance of living creatures within to grow you.¡¯ ¡®Ah. so it¡¯s an instance dungeon. And I am to grind in there.¡¯ ¡®I don¡¯t recall the structures being referred to with that additional term of ¡®instance¡¯. But yes, in your ¡®game¡¯ terms, we are going to grind in that instance dungeon to further your growth.¡¯¡¯ ¡®Ok. How do I do that? Growing is not something dead things are known to do.¡¯ ¡®You just have to accumulate mass by devouring other life forms once you have killed them.¡¯ ¡®And how do I do that? The accumulating mass thing, I know how to kill with this body, but not that.¡¯ ¡®You just use the corrupting properties of your own mana.¡¯ ¡®Right~. How do I use mana then?¡¯ ¡®Oh. I forgot you do not have my pre-existing knowledge. That can be remedied easily if my own judgement of our bond is correct.¡¯ I touched my head to his. ¡®Can you detect a sensation of a flow in your mind right at this moment?¡¯ ¡®Uhhh. Yes. What is that?¡¯ ¡®I am transferring my own inherent knowledge of manipulating negative mana. It should be done soon.¡¯ The position was held for a brief period before the transition was completed. We entered the cave. The main variety of life within the underground structure was hinted at when we heard an intense hiss. Within approximate striking distance for us was a juvenile sorphis. ¡®Olivia. What is that weird dragon looking snake?¡¯ ¡®It is only a sorphis, you have nothing to fear. Their venom only works on organisms with a nervous system.¡¯ ¡®Ok. That¡¯s reassuring. So I just grab it and integrate it to me with what you sent me, right?¡¯ ¡®Yes.¡¯ ¡®Alright. Here I go.¡¯ Tim approached the hissing reptile hesitantly and extended a limb to grasp it. Instead of retreating, the snake lunged forward and into his empty right eyehole. In his panic, Tim appeared to have triggered the absorption process prematurely and the snake writhed about in pain within his skull. It was about to make a successful escape when the process completed, leaving an exposed sorphis corpse sticking out of Tim¡¯s skull in place of another eye. I indulged myself in a bout of laughter at his expense. ¡®Yeah. Laugh it up. It was hard seeing with one eye. Now I have to deal with one eye and a snake for vision. Can I move this snake to somewhere else on my body.¡¯ ¡®I am afraid not. The amount of mana you applied was too much and the whole snake has been made a part of your skull. This is quite peculiar.¡¯ ¡®Great. Just great. And why is this ¡®quite peculiar¡¯?¡¯ ¡®An exertion of such an amount of mana is usually only possible near your core, but your core is located above your center of mass. Unless-¡¯ I closed the distance between us and sent a probing string of mana into his supposed core area. The expected phenomenon of the core¡¯s intense mana density to push my probe out did not occur. I replicated the procedure over other areas of his body and only found resistance near his head and every one of the skulls that have been integrated into his being. The intensity of resistance varied between the strength of the original monsters. ¡®So I was correct, you do have anomalies with your core. Instead of a centralised core, you have multiple sub cores within every single head you have within your composite body.¡¯ ¡®Ok. That¡¯s good, isn¡¯t it?¡¯ ¡®Yes, To completely destroy an abomination is to destroy its core, so, in your own world¡¯s term, you have multiple lives. And they can be increased too if my own conjectures are correct. I just need you to try and absorb another body.¡¯ ¡®Alrighty then. I just hope I don¡¯t end up with another snake eye.¡¯ ¡®Their merits are abundant. The panoramic view afforded is an obvious boon. And their acquisition proves to be exceptionally entertaining.¡¯ He did not reply and we walked deeper into the cave. We found another snake to confirm my theory on the creatures that this area held. Evidence was also given to my hypothesis when Tim successfully captured and absorb the animal. I detected a weak new core. After those initial days of freedom and discovery, we settled into a comfortable Routine of just clearing out ¡®dungeons¡¯ and moving on. Tim shared more of his stories and I tried to reciprocate with ones of my own. Stories from each of our experiences were depleted within the first year. From that point on, we simply talked about topics as we experience them. A figurative bond was forged to accompany the literal one within that period. I found more amusement in Tim¡¯s antics and he himself seems to be more energetic than the first days Things were predisposed to continue in this calm manner until Tim can amass enough resources to venture with impunity from opposition and locate his friend Brandon. That is, until after almost four years, we encountered an anomaly. A sudden burst of mana was felt by me and Tim. We observed a strange purple glow in the distance. ¡®Hey, are you seeing what I am seeing?¡¯ ¡®If you are referring to the spontaneous appearance of a building, then yes, I am¡¯ ¡®¡¯Want to get closer for a better look at it?¡¯ ¡®No. it is clearly unwise. You are simply not meant for reconnaissance.¡¯ ¡®Come on. I already condensed most of the dead biomass and slimmed down the whole frame, I can totally sneak.¡¯ ¡®You are still, as you say it, fat. And that is not a quality desirable for subtlety.¡¯ ¡®Alright. Got me with that. I¡¯ll stay well hidden behind equally large trees then. Good?¡¯ ¡®Doubt is still very prevalent within me.¡¯ ¡®Well too bad. I am cashing in one of the dead pet favors.¡¯ ¡®That is unfair and you are well aware of that.¡¯ ¡®Uhuh. Tell that to all of the pets you have slowly killed with that ¡®Aura of death¡¯ of yours.¡¯ ¡®Again, a clear act of cheating on your part in continuing to get these pets regardless of your knowledge of my innate ability.¡¯ ¡®Details woman. Come on. It¡¯ll be fun.¡¯ ¡®I doubt that. Your definition of fun is very questionable.¡¯ Regardless of my expressed doubt, I found myself following Tim through his own persuasion and my own curiosity. The structure upon the clift was a tall tower projecting a magical signature that was quite substantial. Abysmal as Tim¡¯s own sense for mana was, he too noticed and followed his words to stay hidden within the trees. With his superior senses from selective monster killing, Tim picked up some activity outside of the structure ¡®Hey. I think I see a kid walking out of that. Weird, where are the parent?¡¯ ¡®They might be preoccupied with their own arrangements.¡¯ ¡®It¡¯d be funny if they were doing it and just left the kid out for some privacy.¡¯ ¡®Those jokes are very uncouth.¡¯ ¡®Yeah, that was too much.¡¯ We continued our observation while the boy traverses around the base of the edifice. ¡®Hey, I think we should go, the kid is looking at us.¡¯ True to Tim¡¯s words, eyes fixed on our position was the child. Calmly, Tim grabbed me and relocated us both well within the cover of the forest. ¡®Olivia, did that kid seem overly calm when he saw us back then? I would be running straight for mommy if I saw something like me out in the woods.¡¯ ¡®Perhaps he did not gain a proper view of us.¡¯ ¡®That could be it. But I still want to try something and have some contact for us.¡¯ ¡®Why do I have the premonition that this will not end well?¡¯ ¡®It will be fine. I won¡¯t do anything too drastic.¡¯ And so I allowed Tim to once again cast the die on our fate. 6-B I understandably rushed out into the woods immediately upon reading the little message. I was uncaring of the fact that I was only in a simple set of tunic, trousers and nothing else protective. My limbs now riddled with small scratches did not register as I came upon the same body of water as yesterday. Taking a giddy and anxious breath in, I called out. ¡°TIM WHERE ARE YOU? GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE. COME ON.¡± The response was almost instantaneous. Rustles and cracks sounded out as something large rushed my way. My excitement to meet him again was almost killed when I was reminded of what he looked like now. Seeing him as a monster was enough to have me step back. As I have seen before, he was hideous. The added knowledge from Ruvyn did not help. My best friend was now a travesty upon life. Seeing him wave excitedly for me too with his massive leg arm was at least enough to push that thought down. The carved ¡°Sup¡± in the earth helped too. ¡°Sup to you too.¡± My reply was a little broken up as a tear left my eye. He was really there. The doubts have disappeared after I replied. Unknown to myself, I had been walking forward. It was only Tim¡¯s hand coming down in a slam in front of me that stopped my advance. I looked uncomprehendingly at him and he pointed at himself. He pointed at the rotting and black flesh writhing slightly with something that was most definitely not life. I stepped back. ¡°No hugs huh? I would have thought you to be a great hugger now. So many arms and all.¡± The rebalancing bad pun directed at him was received well enough. Tim rumbled with laughter from all of his mouths. I repressed a shiver at the sight. Tim dug a finger down into the dirt and began writing. His poor handwriting was now fully exhibited in the longer sentence. I had to strain my eyes, but the message was received. ¡°I could have proved the dumb blond stereotype by letting you just hug a pile of corpses.¡± He ran a wing over the writing. ¡°But then I would lose the value of seeing more dumb blond stuff.¡± All of the remaining skin on his various faces pulled tight into smiles. I narrowed my eyes at him. He kept writing. ¡°So how¡¯s it going¡± I began to retell my stories to him. Tim feigned falling asleep after a while of me rambling on about magic and the technicalities of it. I still went on. Five years have elapsed since my reunion with Tim. The communication problems have only made themselves more conspicuous as time went on. He could not exactly talk. He tried of course. It just went nowhere beyond guttural growls. That was a source of frustration that only grew more and more. I wanted to share the things I found. Back then they had been memes and now they were spells and my own advancement in magic. I still did share. But without any noticeable response, things just felt off. I tried having Olivia as a translator. She herself was nice, if a little formal in speech. But translations could not get me the true blue Tim reactions. But our time together was not without fun. Lacking chit chat, we did another thing together. We went out hunting monsters. Like before with games, Tim continued to carry me. The guy was an abomination that probably only feared dragons at this point. I simply had to throw my spells and have him do the tanking and crowd control. We each had something for ourselves in the end. With all those free field practice expeditions, I naturally got over the basics of each magic schools and acquired more advanced spells in my three best fields, fire elemental magic, illusion magic and the simple yet effective bare casting. Though I termed them as advanced, they were mostly the intermediate spells commonly used by mages here given a rework by me. The upgraded [mana bolt], [exploding bolt] was worked into a [shock bolt], replacing the standard force explosion to a more focused shockwave to double down on the internal damage. The standard [fireball] was given just a bit too much mana for a burst of fire on contact to make the aptly named [burst shot]. To accompany the instant delivery of pain and destruction, I also took up the already well crafted spell [flaming stream] for prolonged firepower. In the illusion department, I did very well with weaving together lifelike images, but they took just a little too long for my liking. My solution was again to turn everything to disorientation. In the place of a realistic image, I went all out to simply overwhelm the senses of my opponent with extremes in all senses. A bright flash, a loud bang, an intense burning smell and taste would assault anyone hit with [mental assault]. Regrettably, my earlier progress with self enhancement under Laura¡¯s tutelage stalled out completely when she was occupied with doting on the baby and I only got to [physical enhancement: lesser] to double my own, well, physical traits. Lightning magic came in second on my affinity chart and I was only able to work the basic and localized [lightning palm] into the total coverage of [lightning body] just to remove a need to be a competent hand-to-hand combatant. The development was only for the elven side of my heritage and the human version of magic has not been practiced much beyond the basics. In other news, the baby was also popped out a month or so after I met Tim. She was named Layla and I was officially an older brother. Her birth had also proven to me that the hybrid being problematic superstition definitely has grounds within reality. The first one, me, was me in all of my reincarnated glory and the second one, even with the successful ceremony, is unable to externally channel magic. Ruvyn was expectedly distressed and spent almost every waking moment of his time trying to solve Layla¡¯s condition. His efforts proved fruitless from trials after trials and Laura simply had him give up on his wild goose chase. This was not all negatives though. Since mana could not go out of her body properly, they ended up passively casting a sort pseudo self enhancement on her. The kid has one heck of a grip that challenged the durability of my own fingers far too often for my liking. That sort of disposition naturally made Layla a mother¡¯s girl, what with Laura being the only one in the house that could handle the little powerhouse. I wished I had her strength. The couple still had their own responsibilities to attend to. Ruvyn had his monthly quota of things to make and send out. Laura had to still go out and forage or hunt our perishables. So it oftentimes fall onto me to take care of little Layla and play the role of responsible older brother. Babysitting duty was the most life threatening aspect of those five years. A fork thrown with a force that could dislocate fingers was an instrument of death in anyone¡¯s book. So to even tend to Layla meant I had to exert my own [physical enhancement: lesser] to remain safe. Thus, nerve-wracking as it was, those sessions with my little sister were and still are effective times of training both my magic and reaction to unexpected attacks. Those attacks changed through the years from the original spoon of suffering to crayons of catastrophe to dolls of destruction and to the tackle hugs of havok of the now. ¡°Brotherrrr.¡± Doubled physical strength, endurance and toughness did not equal an immovable center of gravity. My face plant did earn a cute little giggle so things were not all in vain. ¡°Play with me brother.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± To accompany my reply, I grabbed a prepared stick outside of the window. ¡°There, go fetch that.¡± Layla pouted indignantly at me. ¡°It¡¯s not funny. And playy with me. Mom and dad are busy so you have to play with me.¡± I have long learned not to argue logic with a child and simply complied. ¡°Alright, what do you want to play?¡± ¡°Can we play that game from the day before. The one with magic bad guy and strong hero.¡± My inclination to comply was lessen greatly at the mention of that role play. One that involved me being the villain and getting beat up by a little girl with the strength of a man. I still got ready for it though and hyped myself up for the villain¡¯s role. Layla got her armor and toy sword equipped and we walked outside. Right into a squadron of shady looking characters heading towards the tower. The platoon was split into two separate units. One had a more eclectic mix of individuals and equipment with most carrying the common theme of rugged and worn gear for mercenary. Beside the, assumed, mercenary corps was a much more uniformed gathering. Each individual had on matching sets of black cloaks with glowing white runes etched onto to them. Their equipment was also identical with each one holding onto what looked like, amusingly enough, satellite dishes on top of magic staves. Leading it all was a peculiar looking individual. His overall appearance was hidden behind a sleek deep green overcoat with leaves decorating the elbows, cuffs, shoulders and waist, and a mask with an owl motif. In his right hand was a very large and intricate bow made from some sort of crystalline deer¡¯s antlers and on his back a quiver of arrows to match the bow. On his left arm was a silver armguard that was made up of and array of spikes and scales and in between the scales glowed a pulsating mix of green, yellow, blue and red. An RGB joke would have been made internally was I not in a bit of panic. Instead, I immediately pulled Layla with me and ducked into the tower. ¡°Laura, Ruvyn. We have some company, the bad kind.¡± No reply was given, but I did hear some shuffling up above before Laura came rushing down the stairs holding a large package. It and two smaller packs she took from behind her were unceremoniously thrown into my lap. ¡°Brandon. Take these and Layla, and head out through this,¡± she signaled towards an entrance that opened up from the floor. I obeyed silently and grabbed Layla. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The small immovable object did not budge and called out to her mother. ¡°Mommy, where are we going? Where are you going?¡± Laura¡¯s serious demeanour softened as she turned to her daughter. ¡°Honey, mommy is just going out for a bit. You be a good girl and stay with your brother, Ok?¡± ¡°Why can¡¯t I come with?¡± ¡°This is grown up business. Now go with Brandon before you make mommy mad.¡± Layle gave another petulant pout before following after me. The tunnel led out into a clearing to the west of the tower. I led Layla further left to hide deeper in the forest from whatever attack this was. I was taking extra care to look behind me every few steps to make sure we did not have a tail. My extra attention to the rear yielded no results. I was about sigh in relief as the treeline. We were just a short distance away from the finish line. It was inevitably disheartening when before we even made it to the line of trees, a group of mercenary emerged to bar our way. I sucked in a cold breath and held Layla¡¯s hand tighter. My eyes were darting around frantically for left and right to look for more of them even as I took step after steps back. They kept up with our retreat step by step and Layla could no longer hold her agitation in. ¡°Brother, Who are they?¡± I replied in a whisper with my eyes still trained on the mercenaries. ¡°They are bad people. So I need you to run with me when I say run, ok?¡± She nodded and I primed an extra large [shock bolt] behind my back. ¡°Run,¡± I yelled while lobbing the orb in their direction. An explosion marked our mad dash back to the safety of the tower. I turned around for a split second to find no force chasing after us. I ran with my heart in my throat. The misplaced organ blocked all of the thanks I gave my luck that they underestimated me and didn¡¯t dodge or block my distraction. Back inside, I was about to call out to Laura to tell her that the way out was block when I saw that the tower was compromised. Standing in front of me was another dressed in an almost identical outfit to the figure leading the invading force. The only visible differences were that the mask was styled after a fox, the glowing effect shuffling was only between electric blue and red, and the metallic bow had limbs stylised after a lightning bolt and an elongated flame. I pushed Layla behind me and shakily prepared another [shock bolt]. Before the three seconds charging time could finish, Laura¡¯s voice came from the cloaked person. ¡°Brandon? What are you doing back here?¡± ¡°Why are you-. Nevermind, the exit was blocked so I got back here.¡± She remained quiet for a bit before walking pass us both and into the tunnel. Her voice echoed out from within. ¡°Come on, follow me.¡± The command was spoken with a much more serious and even voice. Soon Layla and I were outside again. The same group of mercenary was standing just outside of the entrance, looking clearly intimidated by Laura¡¯s presence. Now a little more secured with adult protection, I had a small burst of satisfaction at seeing most of their appearances marred by grass and dirt. The insightly appearance was most likely courtesy of my own attack. Some of the guys in the back must have noticed my rising smug and directed a few heated glares in my direction. The small bout of aggression was quickly stymied by Laura¡¯s own glare. ¡°Back away from my children!¡± The threat was punctuated with Laura drawing her bow with a wildly sparking arrow generated from her armored limb. The group looked about to retreat when a commanding female voice called out. ¡°Stand your ground. I¡¯ll handle the traitor.¡± The leading figure from before was back with an arrow of his, or her after the voice I heard, own drawn and trained onto me and Layla from just outside the tree line. ¡°Stop aiming at my kids, Charlotte. It got old the first time.¡± The now identified Charlotte let loose her arrow in reply and I could only futilely try to duck. Laura let loose her own charged shot and broke right through the regular one from Charlotte. The fight began from there with Laura advancing towards the group while knocking back and letting loose three more of the sparking arrows. The mercenaries entered their own formation and a shield of earthen brown rose up to block the arrows. A large explosion of dirt and grass followed the impact and I assumed this was another one of Laura¡¯s own tactics to make herself a smoke screen. The smoke screen did nothing though as it was quickly cleared away in an explosion of air coming from the other side. Charlotte stood amongst the men with her bow up with a swirling green arrow knocked. Laura dodged to the side when the arrow of condensed wind came at her and used the explosion¡¯s force to charge forwards. Now running, Laura split her bow into two separate blade. One lit up in electricity and the other wrapped itself in flames. Charlotte wasted no time after her miss and readied another arrow. The yellow projectile was another miss as it hit the ground ahead of Laura. My conclusion was too rushed. Charlotte clearly knew what she was doing when the ground erupted into a wall of spikes and forced Laura to roll to the side, effectively cancelling all of her momentum. Now slowed, Laura had to deal with the mercenaries surrounding her. They did not prove to be much though. Laura just weaved in between them and all of their attacks, and kept close within their mix to ensure confusion and no clear line of sight for Charlotte to take potshots. They all eventually went down and it turned into a shoot out between Charlotte and Laura. The former was holding her ground and trying to pin the other down with overwhelming fire, wind, earth and water power and the latter was darting around and sneaking quick shots of lightning and large bursts of fire for cover. My and Layla¡¯s escape route was freed with this and I, shaken free of the shock of almost dying again, took the opportunity and ran with all I had. We ran, panting and shaking, through the clearing. The tenuous minute ended and we made it to forest on the tower¡¯s eastern side away from the fighting. At the tree line, my sight was no longer blocked from the front of the tower. I could see the weirdly uniformed group standing around and making up some sort of white barrier. Inside of it was an indistinct figure that I could assume was Ruvyn with his blonde hair and the familiar purple mage robe. The sight of a trapped Ruvyn did no good for my anxiety right then. Things only looked worse upon further observation. Ruvyn seemed to be suffering quite a bit and was on one knee struggling to stay upright within the barrier. Layla saw her own father¡¯s distress too and tugged on my hand. ¡°Come on. We have to help daddy.¡± I paused to consider all of the risks and rewards involved in this before relenting. ¡°Alright, but I need you to listen to me, OK?¡± I waited for her to nod before dropping the packs Laura handed us and continuing. ¡°Good. I want you to follow me and be extra sneaky. We can¡¯t have the bad men see us.¡± We both crouched low and made our way slowly towards the tower, leaning closer to the structure itself for some cover. Once near enough, I could see that the shield was being held up by the weird satellite dishes they were carrying. The shrinking was due to them closing the circle around Ruvyn. I made a tentative plan with that observation and whispered to Layla. ¡°Alright, Layla. I need you to stay completely behind me ok and crouch down really low.¡± We stuck to the back of one of the figures and managed to get within range of them. I doubted the plan would have succeeded at all had their focus not all been on keeping Ruvyn down. Once we did make it there, I took five seconds to charge up a [mental assault] and whispered again to Layla. ¡°You see that bad guy over there holding the stick and hurting dad?¡± I pointed to our target. Layla nodded. ¡°When I hit him with this,¡± I pointed to the swirling orb of symbols that was my spell, ¡°I want you to rush over there and take the weird stick thing and run with me.¡± Seeing her nod again, I lowered myself into a running stance before throwing the spell and rushing in. The spell hit and the guy was down holding his head in pain. Layla used the slumped person as a stepping board and grabbed hold of the freed staff. The staff refused to go down without a fight so I had to get there with my own [physical enhancement: lesser] to help Layla pull out. Adrenaline was flooding my system at that point with both our hands on the staff and in direct sight of the robed figures. The stressful few seconds were soon over and we finally removed the staff. Our target was already getting up. In my stressed state, I could only think to give him a crotch shot before running off with Layla in tow. If they haven¡¯t notice when we first attacked, the shield dissipating definitely got their attention and soon every one of them had some sort of spell ready to fire upon me and Layla. I simply sagged down at that point and threw my lot into Ruvyn being free and able to help us. My bet paid off and I got to see how dangerous teleportation can be. Ruvyn had bent down on the ground for one last time before teleporting directly in front of us. His right hand was extended and held a few pebbles. Two flashes of purple went off, once in Ruvyn¡¯s hand to the disappearance of all of the pebbles and again in the kneecaps of six of the uniformed men. Six crunch of bone breaking heralded the screaming and writhing of six men. Ruvyn put up a barrier around us for protection and picked up some more pebbles. ¡°Thank you for that. That was a mana nullifying formation. It almost had me there,¡± he smiled appreciatively before setting his face back into neutral, ¡°But I don¡¯t think keeping you or Layla around here is safe.¡± With those parting words, Ruvyn stepped out of our shield and its color change from a transparent blue to a milky purple. I just sat there and enjoyed the safety, uncaring of what this aether construct from Ruvyn might do. Layla, though, was not inclined to his departure and struggled ardently against the barrier, managing to even distort it quite a bit. Her efforts proved to be more effective than just causing some minor ripples. The shield cracked from her blows and bursted to deposit us somewhere down the cliff with noises of fighting still reverberating nearby. Now freed, Layla called out to Ruvyn again. ¡°Daddyyy.¡± Back on edge again, I clamped a hand onto her mouth and gestured for her to keep quiet with my other hand. Footsteps and voices were coming in our direction. ¡°You sure there¡¯s something something down there?¡± ¡°Yes, I saw a flash of light and you all heard a girl¡¯s scream right?¡± ¡°I think so, couldn¡¯t hurt to check.¡± ¡°It could be a banshee for all we know..¡± ¡°Uhuh, I doubt that. Why would one be here anyways?¡± ¡°Well, there was that rumor of that midget necromancer Anne working around here. And our priest did find traces of undead taint too.¡± ¡°Could have said earlier you idiot. It¡¯s too late now, we might as well check.¡± The group of three were about to turn into the tree we were hiding behind when we struck. I threw the opening salvo with a [shock bolt]. With them knocked back on their asses and disorientated, Layla went in with me to finish the job. All the strength of a fully grown man focused into a tiny fist was devastating. I was not even allowed time to worry over securing our opponents when from behind us came one more voice. ¡°Hey, wait up. Why did you all rush ahead, I was taking a pi-¡± The last one was quick to react and already had his shield and sword out before I could get another cheap shot in. ¡°So you¡¯re the freaks we had to catch for negotiations.¡± He charged forward, swinging the flat of his blade towards my head, looking for a quick incapacitation. With the height difference, I did not have to duck too deeply to avoid that and came back up within his guard for a heavy smack on his wrist with [physical enhancement: lesser]. Sword out of his hand, he tried to smack me with his shield, but Layla slammed into the back of his knee and knocked him off balance. With her on his right leg, I went for the other one to completely knock him down. The guy still had his wits about him and swung the shield to block my kick. I slid back from recoil and looked to see him struggling to remove Layla from his leg. I went for a different approach. I had time to prepare some spells with Layla doing an amazing job as diversion. Once he managed to bash Layla off with his shield, I was already throwing a [burst shot] at him. The guy blocked it with his shield like a normal [fireball] and earned some nasty burns on his uncovered areas after the follow-up explosion spewed fire around his shield. He screamed out in pain but quickly pulled out from one of his pouches a glass bottle. Its contents were immediately poured all over his body. The burning subsided. But before he could fully get his bearings, I took the chance to charge in on him. I was late. He still gained his bearings in time and swung out with his shield. I dodged like before, but he was ready. He kicked out right into my chest with [physical enhancement: lesser] of his own and threw me right into a tree trunk. I braced as best as I could and winced at the sound of breaking bark from the impact. My back and chest was in horrible pain. I bit it back and put a hand under me to get back up. I never made it to my feet and hand the man¡¯s two hands on my throat. I ignored the pain and lack of air and activated [lightning body] to hopefully shock him off. He fell, but not from my spell. Layla was on his back, shocked too by my spells, and had both of her hands on his jaw. ¡°Let brother. GO.¡± With a crack of broken bone, the man¡¯s head turned one hundred and eighty degrees up. Layla¡¯s eyes widened as his failed to close. Pushed down by gravity, the lifeless body and Layla came crashing down on me. I frenziedly scrambled to get the body off of me. I spared a moment to pant before rushing back and pulling the frozen Layla away from there with me. I was breathing heavily and dry heaving after that and Layla was in no better condition. She was breathing faster than even me and kept turning back to the dead body from time to time. None of these were good signs, but I had no idea what to do and just awkwardly hugged her in my own panic. Layla openly cried at this point. ¡°A...Am I bad? I k...killed him. Only bad people do that right?¡± I took a deep breath to calm myself down as much as I could while still in the hug. This needed to go right to stop major mental problems in the future. ¡°No. It was only an accident. You didn¡¯t mean to do that right?¡± She paused a little and nodded. I forced a bit of pep into my voice from however much of it still left in my body at that point. ¡°Then you are not bad. You did not do that to him out of any evil thoughts. You just did it to save me. So you are my hero and a good girl, isn¡¯t that right?¡± She sniffed a little, but I could feel the small nod she gave on my shoulder. I kept the hug to give her the time to settle her emotions. She eventually stopped crying and I pulled away from the hug, relieved that she seemed to have calmed down. ¡°Right, we need to go and get mom and dad now. Think you can do that?¡± ¡°Y..Yes.¡± I kept my voice as positive as possible for her. ¡°Good. Take my hand and we¡¯ll head back.¡± 7-B We started our journey back to the tower in bright daylight and bright enough spirit. Daylight has been gone since the last hour and morale has dropped along with the sun. The cliff was still up there behind us, five storeys high like always. Travelling any further in the night was suicidal and since neither mine nor Layla¡¯s mental condition has reached that state, we were resting around a campfire I made. Around the fire was an assortment of skewered birds and rodents I managed to hunt during the last hour of daylight. Waiting for the food to cook and feeling extremely lost and anxious of ever making it to the uncertain goal of the tower, I decided to occupy my mind with trying to help Layla out of her funk and hopefully help myself too. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t look so down. We¡¯ll get to mom and dad tomorrow, Ok?¡± ¡°Ok.¡± ¡°Good. Now get over here so I can check on you, You could have gotten hurt during the day.¡± She walked over and i took a look at the place where she was hit with the shield. I found no bruises or scratches, but Laura apparently saw the ones on my neck and reached out to touch them. ¡°Ouch.¡± She shrunk back a little at my exclamation of pain. ¡°Hey. Hey. It¡¯s ok. It only hurts a little, so don¡¯t worry about it.¡± I smiled in what I assumed was a reassuring manner at her. My assumption was good enough and Layla relaxed a little. ¡°Hey Brother, what do you think mom and dad are doing right now?¡± ¡°They are probably looking for us too.¡± ¡°How come we didn¡¯t meet them?¡± ¡°Maybe they are just looking in the wrong place?¡± ¡°But mom and dad knows everything.¡± ¡°Then they know we are safe too and will pick us up tomorrow.¡± ¡°But I want mommy and daddy now.¡± ¡°Hey, no whining. Whining is bad and Layla is not a bad girl.¡± She pouted a little before relenting and huffing an ¡°ok¡±. ¡°Good. Food should be ready now.¡± I grabbed a skewer and handed it to Layla. ¡°Remember to be careful. It¡¯s still hot.¡± After the first bite, Layla was clearly not enjoying the roasted rodent. ¡°This is too tough and bland.¡± Her complaint was punctuated with a stuck out tongue. ¡°You know what I said about whining. We don¡¯t have spice so this is the best that we can have. Now eat up or you¡¯ll be hungry for the night.¡± Layla managed to finish two of the skewers and decided that was enough. I did not do much better with only three clean sticks to my name. The food was terrible and made me feel guilty for reproaching Layla her complaint while all I did in my head throughout the meal was just that, complaining. Food had been settled, but shelter was still up there on my list of concerns. Security from monster attacks during the night was right up there too. Random noises from within the forest only hammered in how exposed we were at that moment. To keep myself active and give a quick check on my surroundings, I went to gather some more firewood beyond the fire light. My nerves were on edge as my head kept swivelling around looking for any threats. My fear addled mind decided then was a good time to remind me how people tend to never look up in these situations. Expecting something to drop down and finish my juvenile self, I was greeted with a sight that injected a huge amount of reassurance. Out of the corner of my eye, two separate orbs of blue were peering down from the edge of the cliff I was camping under. I went back to the fire with just a little more hope for the next day. Layla was still at camp staring up into the starry night sky. ¡°Hey, I just saw something that could get us home faster.¡± She perked up at that. ¡°Really? What is it?¡± ¡°Not going to tell you before you promise me something. You will not panic or run away when you meet this, Ok?¡± She looked doubtful for a bit before nodding almost vigorously enough to make up for the pause ¡°I trust brother.¡± ¡°Ok. I¡¯m going to call it down. And make sure not to overreact.¡± Getting a nod from her, I turned my head back up to the cliff and looked to the two glowing orbs. ¡°HEY. DOWN HERE. YOU HEAR ME? I NEED SOME HELP TIM.¡± Layla looked askance at me. ¡°What was that? Why did you scream weird words at the cliff?¡± ¡°Shh. I¡¯ll explain later.¡± From up on the cliff, I heard a feminine reply. ¡°We are on our way. Please wait.¡± Layla¡¯s eyes opened wide and she suddenly stood up. ¡°Brother, what was that weird voice? It sounded scary.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry. That was our help.¡± She still looked a little apprehensive, but nodded. One of the orb immediately floated down towards us and the other moved closer to the cliff wall. The boney visage of Olivia appeared in front of us and Layla screamed. ¡°Kyaaaaaaaaa.¡± She tried to run away, but I grabbed onto her leg in time to knock both of us down. With my face in the ground, I ground out. ¡°What did I tell you about not,¡± I spat out a lump of dirt, ¡±Running away, Layla?¡± ¡°But. But. But. That thing looks evil. It¡¯s a talking skulls. Those are the worse.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not evil. It just looks that way. It is nice, Ok?¡± ¡°O...Ok.¡± The silent Olivia spoke up after I stood up and dusted myself off. ¡°Hello there. Like Brandon said, I am not evil. I mean you no harm. Brandon requested our assistance and we responded.¡± Layla was about to greet back before she paused and went pale. I could see the reason why. Tim had, probably in an effort to increase surface area and traction, expanded his body fully creating a sight no one wanted to see at night. Over the cliff face was an enormous patch of pitch black deformed corpses, each squirming and groaning out with Tim¡¯s own effort to climb down without falling. Layla was visibly shaking as Tim got himself down the cliff and reassembled his body into his usual form with one too many squelching sounds. Olivia turned to Tim and had a mental conversation that ended in Tim narrowing his one eye at her and huffing with all of his heads. Layla was nearly out of her skin when she heard that collection of noises. They eventually turned to me and a terrified Layla. ¡°So how could we be of assistance Brandon?¡± I looked back to Layla just to make sure she was not going to run away again and replied. ¡°Something happened and I need to get me and Layla back to the tower.¡± Tim did not even hesitate and reached out with his wing arm to lift me. I pointed to the very sharp claws and other bits of bones sticking out of the appendage and directed my best judging squint in his direction. He looked down towards the limb and made an approximation of nervous laughter through the rumbling of his whole body. Layla was once again unnerved and gave a small squeak. I paid it no mind and got to thinking on how we were supposed to get up there without infecting ourselves with Tim. The guy himself seemed to have thought of something and turned to us again. He pointed with his much larger arm leg at Layla and pointed back to me. ¡°Ok, Layla, get over here.¡± She hesitated a little but did move to stand next to me. The inspiring sight of the little five year old sister hiding behind the ten year old brother from a monster lasted for a second before the monster struck. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Tim stuck both of his limbs under us and scooped up the entire mound of dirt and grass. We both fell on our butts and Layla added in another squeak. If being lifted up by a monstrocity not terrifying enough for Layla, Tim decided to up the ante. The Corpses that made up his chest and back began to writhe and remove themselves partially from his body. More of the black ooze moved away from his body and covered the corpses. Then with cracking sounds that would bring up the unpleasant experience Layla just had, the bodies were broken and remade into facsimiles of hands. Fully modified, Tim sunk his new ¡®hands¡¯ into the cliff face and began hauling us all up. The first few steps went by quickly with his lower body giving support from the ground. We were above the treeline at that point. The view was quite nice. The tree tops were died a hazy silver under the moonlight, the reflective sheen bringing forth an image of the seaside. Just like an authentic body of water, it was rippling in beautiful waves courtesy of a few breezes. My time enjoying the view was cut short once Tim got his body fully off the ground. His body wieght was now fully supported by the cliff face. It was not faring well. Rocks and dirt were crumbling down everytime Tim dug his ¡®fingers¡¯ into them. Visions of my imminent plumet of doom filled my mind every time a vibration went through where I was sitting. The ascent ended some time later. I did not have the necessary stable mind set for proper timing of that. After the obligatory moment spent cherishing terra firma, I walked back into the proximity of the tower with Layla and realised just how much of the battle I missed. In front of the tower where I last saw Ruvyn were countless craters and, strangely enough, large pieces of earth strewn about. The sight was peculiar enough that Layla stopped to look around a bit while I moved on. The back of the tower fared no better and looked even worse. A literal fire tornado must have gone over my backyard, leaving behind broken up patches of earth, still faintly burning spots and charred uprooted trees. The wreckages in front and behind were telling signs enough, but I still entered to tower to confirm. The thought that there might be remnants of the offending force within the tower waitting for an ambush only came to me once I got to the broken door. I waved the rest over and, once they were with me right outside the door, took the tentative first step inside, a [bust shot] ready and glowing with fire red symbols in hand. My own spell¡¯s glow and the brilliant moon light shining in from a window gave me a clear view of a burglary crime scene. The whole first floor was a mess, all of the hay and pelts were strewn about and dirty boot prints were everywhere. The empty state of all the upper floors painted a rather worrying picture for me. Ruvyn and Laura did not walk away victors from their fight and the tower was ransacked as tribute for either their retreat or capture. The only silver lining to this was that Layla was not in here to start asking me questions I do not have answers to. I kept a calm facade as I exited the tower and wandered around the battlefield to buy time for a lie that could temporarily appease Layla and keep her from worrying too much about where her parents are. That was a task that I definitely needed time and space to work on. I naturally told Layla not to follow when I left for the back of the tower. I could not have been more relieved that I did. Hidden within many of the smoking craters behind the tower were bodies of those magic nullifying guys and mercenaries. I held down my bile and hastened to the treeline to get a grip on myself. Once there, my eyes just kept roaming around for a distraction and soon found something that had flew from my mind when it flew from my arms. The packs Laura had thrown into my lap that morning was still sitting within the underbrush, presumably, where I dropped them at undisturbed. It dawned on me then that, in all of my confusion and panic in the morning attack, I did not even check what was in those packages in the first place. The two smaller packs each had within them a basic survival kit with a knife, a rope, a compass and rations. The bigger pack held nothing helpful for my current predicament. Unless, nothing but two bags of clothes tied together was going to get me to somewhere that was not in the middle of nowhere. I dejectedly dropped those and heard a faint jingling of keys. Intrigued and a bit hopeful, I untied the two bags and found hidden between the two was a small intricate key chained to a small rock. On the bow of the key was the rune symbol for aether, a split circle with half an arrow pointing down on the left and up on the right, and a quarter of a larger circle covering the bottom right corner. I made an educated guess that this lead to a hidden section of the tower and moved to enter the structure again. Layla obviously did not enjoy the company of Tim and Olivia, and started walking in my direction as soon as she saw me head back. This was all and fine if I hadn¡¯t noticed a fact that I initially missed. Layla was walking up to me to say something, an action that was going to put her past the debris covering up the corpses. ¡°LAYLA, stop.¡± She gave me a confused look, but I just held out my hand and called out to Tim. ¡°Tim, get your ass over here and act natural.¡± Layla took a big step back when Tim slithered over towards me. He looked down at the corpses beneath his body skeptically and I could feel the eyebrow that was in the air when he turned to look at me. ¡°I need you to do that absorbing thing that you did with all of the things we killed before on these corpses. Good?¡± The eyebrow was definitely flying at that point and Tim¡¯s one eye just widened. He moved it over the corpses again and actually flinched back. I started again, this time speaking a little quicker. ¡°Ok. I know this is obviously fucked up. But I can¡¯t have these lying around here for Layla to see. A kid should not be seeing any of this. These needs to go and we can¡¯t move them without her seeing it.¡± Eyebrow was still up when Tim just raised his right ¡®palm¡¯ and gestured in my direction. A little hysteria was mixed in my tone now. ¡°What? I am just asking you to pick them up discreetly and dropping them off for a proper, mass burial later. We can¡¯t have them lying around like this. Please.¡± Tim pointed to the corpses, to his body, to the outside earth beneath him and shook his head. My voice fell at that. ¡°Oh. So you can¡¯t drop them off of your body if you absorb them.¡± He nodded again and I just put a palm to my forehead. ¡°Alright, that¡¯s bad. But we don¡¯t really have an out here. Layla is already looking like she wants to come over here. I know this is horrible, but just try to absorb them then. I can¡¯t think of anything else.¡± Tim took another look at the body, shuddered and remained still. Hysteria was back and stronger this time. ¡°Come on. You did not kill them. You are not disrespecting their passing purposefully. You are just keeping a little girl from being more traumatized right after she just killed a man this morning. So please, just do it.¡± The figurative eyebrow went down and Tim heaved a massive sigh out of all of his mouths. He turned towards the waiting Layla, slithered slowly over one of the corpses, a robed one, shuddered visibly and slithered out from the empty crater a moment later. I thought he was going to keep going for the rest, but Tim did something weird. His ¡®abdomen¡¯ convulsed a little and a pair of human arms popped out in a manner akin to a drowning man reaching for air, a head almost broke the surface too for, I believed, added realism. Tim¡¯s weird little display was about to be questioned on before he did something I hitherto thought was not possible. ¡°Alright, that was far too unsettling even after killing so many things. But at least I can talk now. AND CAN FUCKING GIVE YOU A PIECE OF MY MIND.¡± ¡°Woah woah woah. Keep it down, she might hear you.¡± Tim took a long exhale. ¡°Alright. But what the hell man? That is fucked up what you made me do. That is a HUMAN corpse. I don¡¯t know what you thought of me killing monsters, but that was definitely not something okay to do.¡± ¡°Yes, I know. But being respectful of the dead is not going to get me or Layla out of this mess. So suck it up and just blame me for the idea if you need to get rid of some of that guilt. I will be holding onto a lot of that after I fail to explain properly how Layla is not going to see her parents any time soon.¡± ¡°You know what, fine. Not going to argue over this.¡± I paused and let out a sigh. ¡°Yeah. Let¡¯s not. Now that we have calmed down, I have to ask. How did you even talk? And was that whole macabre change necessary for that? ¡°Wait. You didn¡¯t notice my body having features of things I absorb. I just. Uhhh. Recycled those vocal cords and had to move them out for air to get in and out of them.¡± At his mention, I realised that his voice did not sound like Tim¡¯s, it was actually a little feminine, though a bit raspy. I had an inappropriate giggle at that and Tim just huffed to my bit of amusement in the grim of this night. ¡°Ok~. We¡¯ll talk about this later now that you can talk. I need to get back to my sister before she finds this any weirder. And you need to clean some more corpses to keep things kid friendly.¡± ¡°Brandon, It¡¯s still disturbing even if I did it once, But fine, I didn¡¯t kill them and they will probably get eaten by other monsters.¡± ¡°Thank you. I definitely need you to steal more voices and get your voice more neutral. Fem Tim is nice at first, but gets weird later on.¡± ¡°Yeah, Yeah, Laugh it up. See ya.¡± Layla did not wait to start bombarding me with questions over my strange behaviour. ¡°Brother, why did you stop me and call ¡®that¡¯ over? What were you speaking? Why did ¡®that¡¯ go when you spoke weirdly?¡± ¡°Ok. Ok. One at a time. I told you to stop because I found a trap over there and I had to have the monster trigger it for me.¡± ¡°Ok? Then those weird sounds you made?¡± ¡°That was monster talk. I can control it with that.¡± Layla seemed awfully impressed by this. ¡°Really? That¡¯s so cool. How did you learn it?¡± ¡°Um. I learned it from dad¡¯s books.¡± ¡°Really? Really? Really? Can I learn too?¡± I saw my chance to end this tedious conversation and took it. ¡°Uh. Yes¡­ You can, just follow me into the house.¡± ¡°Awesome.¡± And so, giddy Layla and me entered the tower again. The emptiness was quickly pointed out by my sister and my raised mood from talking to Tim as lowered just a little. ¡°Wow. What happened to all the stuff?¡± I did not reply and continued deeper inside. Just before I reached the first steps on the stairs, I felt a pulling sensation in my pockets. The rock on the key was faintly glowing blue and was gravitating towards the spot I was standing on. I moved out of that spot and got on all fours to look for a spot that the key might fit into. My search proved fruitless after a minute and I was about to start resorting to starting a [fireball] on my hand for lighting when I was jumped on. ¡°BROTHER. What are you looking for down there?¡± I naturally jumped too and dropped the key and rock. On the way down, the rock¡¯s glow intensified. Once on the floor and free of my grasp, it started dragging itself in a direction. I panned my eyes over its trajectory and found a small hole in the stone flooring. I looked at it closer and saw how much the hole resembled the shape of the stone. I did the only logical thing then and stuck it in. A wave of blue pulsed over the floor to the walls and a return wave of brown went from the walls back to the rock. A slow rumbling took over the silence of the dark and empty tower. The section me and Layla were standing on began to lower itself. It dropped down to about at least three floors down before stopping at a stairway lit by blue lights on their steps. Layla and I tentatively made our way down the stairway into a small dusty storage of some sort. Everything seemed to be covered in a tarp except for two wall mounted pieces. One was a staff with its head adorned with a silvery ¡®V¡¯ that had its sides bending outwards, a purple gem was held within the ¡®V¡¯ and a silver blade above both to make sort of spear tip. The staff also had multiple metallic etchings upon its dark wooden shaft in three parallel lines. The other weapon was one that I found very familiar. It was a crystalline bow with limbs stylized after a deer¡¯s antlers. I suppressed a small shiver at seeing the weapon that was leveled at me only that morning and approached the wall. As I got closer to both, I could see some flaws and writing on them. The staff seemed to be broken with jagged splinters jutting out from its end. The bow had some circular holes cleanly cut through a few of the antler¡¯s branches. It took a bit of squinting and dust blowing, but the writing were finally read. One large ¡°Laura¡¯s¡± was on the broken end of the staff and many small ¡°Ruvyn¡¯s¡± were next to the holes. I could only guess that this was a sort of memento of Ruvyn¡¯s and Laura¡¯s first time meeting and roughing each other up. Layla came to a much more different conclusion. ¡°I didn¡¯t know dad used a bow and really liked to put his name on it.¡± I laughed awkwardly and moved away from the rather depressing reminder that Ruvyn and Laura were not going to be seeing these any time soon to look under the tarp. The first thing to pop up when I lifted the piece of covering was a very thick looking book with an equally thick looking lock on it. Remembering the key I was still carrying, I inserted in the lock and twisted. With a click, the book opened with a shedding of dust and a slip of paper fell out. There was a message on it, but the ambient blue light was too difficult to read with and I had to now start up a [fireball] to read. The first few lines took some hope of this storage helping our situation and had me glad that Layla was a bit slow with her language study. Brandon, if you are reading this now, I am most likely dead or seriously wounded. 8-B A major malfunction must have happened to my failsafe if you were able to access this room. Now that it has come to this, I would like to begin by apologizing. I was not exactly honest with you. The image of a professional state mage I portrayed was not exactly genuine. I am a mage, just not one associated to any government body after my departure from the Elven Republic. My departure was not a peaceful one and involved quite a bit of classified intel leaving with me so I could also be called a fugitive. I was genuinely surprised by this, Ruvyn being a fugitive of sort. But it did make sense now that I thought about what Charlotte spoke about to Laura all those years before. I filed this bit of information away to ask if I ever meet Laura or Ruvyn again and continued reading the note, hoping for some sort of direction I could take back to stability. I apologize again both for the lie then and now a favor I need from you. The classified intel that I spoke of and all of the items within this storage space need to leave it. This location is already compromised and an expert team of enchantment breakers will make short work of my security. I am not asking you to carry all of this away without destination. You will find a map in here, use it to head to the place that was marked ¡®old dog¡¯ and there will be someone to meet with you and keep you both safe. That is all that need to say, goodbye. I put down the note, confused whether I should be happy for a lead or anxious that I still had no clear answers, and was immediately set upon by Layla. ¡°What did it say?¡± ¡°It was from dad. He-¡± Before I could continue, Layla was already jumping up and down in place. ¡°Really, what did he say?¡± ¡°I was getting to that. He said that he and mom went ahead to do something and we have to go meet him at a place.¡± Layla slumped when she realized that her parents won¡¯t be meeting her anytime soon, but perked herself up. ¡°What are we waiting for then? Let¡¯s go.¡± The small bundle of energy and strength grabbed my arm and just dragged me up the steps back to the platform. I planted my feet firmly down and used a quick burst of [physical enhancement: lesser] to stop the excited girl. ¡°Wait. We don¡¯t even know where we are going. I need to get a map. And dad told us to bring along all of this stuff too.¡± ¡°Alright. You get the map, I¡¯ll carry the things.¡± A small factory line was created. I would check through the boxes for the map and Layla would carry out the ones that I went through. The first box held a pair of arm guards made from a criss-crossing weave of metal bands. The next held some more dusty books. The third had a collection of cylindrical devices that looked an awful lot like pipe bombs. It might have been just my imagination and they were just metallic potion flasks, but I still gave Layla a warning about being extra careful with that box. The last box showed that Ruvyn was a supporter of guns instead of the traditional elven bows. The content was what appeared to be a pair of revolvers without any hammers. They had parallel engravings on both side of the barrels. A few of the symbols that I recognized were basic [Morph runes] that changed when connected to a certain [enchantment base]. Both had fairly large cylinders that detached upwards completely instead of just sliding to the side on hinges like I expected of normal revolvers. Other peculiar details were that each cylinder only had four chambers and the chambers themselves were square and not round. With the guns out of the box, I could see that there was another box in there. It opened up to reveal a set of eight rectangular blocks with a rune for fire, wind, earth, lightning, bare casting mana, illusion, holy and aether. I put the guns and their ammo back into the box and told Layla to be careful again. With all of the boxes under the the tarp removed, I could see a hidden plank beneath it all. Curiosity naturally had me flip it open and revealed a weapon. The zweihander was, in a word, massive. The thing was at least a head longer than Ruvyn was tall. The blade was almost as wide as my head and thicker than two of my fingers. it was mostly silver with a strange ivory like texture to it that made the whole thing seem like a piece of bone. Along the groove in the middle of the blade was a line of repeating golden runes that I did not know the meaning of. More of the same golden runes were present on the black strip of the leather that wrapped the blade from between the parrying hooks and handle. The guard was fairly simplistic being just a very thick piece of metal with a large blood grey gem in its center. Compared to that, the pommel was much more complicated and potentially dangerous for the user. It was constructed from the same bonelike material of the blade and shaped into tiny and spikey vertebrae connected together to form a short tail of sort. I sat there thinking of how one would wield this thing without the pommel cutting onto their forearms. Before long, Layla went back in for her next box. ¡°Ooohh. That looks so cool. Are we taking that along with us too brother.¡± Her little exclamation took me out of the little fugue. ¡°Yeah, we are bringing that with us too. I¡¯ll help you with this one, it might be a little too heavy.¡± I was just about to pull the thing out from its place when Layla simply pushed past me and went to grab it. The sword lifted up to about her knees before she dropped it and turned to me with a sullen look. The temptation to snort in amusement was high, but I held on and just silently lent her a hand. We managed to drag it all the way back onto the platform and I was only slightly sweating like a pig. I went back down to look finish looking for the map. After some digging and cursing Ruvyn for hiding it so well, I found it sitting on the back of the book I first saw. Once we were ready to leave the hidden chamber, I faced a new problem: How to make the platform rise again. I went with the simplest solution of just turning it off and on again, and removed the rock and placed it back. This, surprisingly, worked and we were soon back to the ground floor of the empty tower. Tim¡¯s words came in through the darkened entrance in a masculine voice this time. ¡°There you are. Where did you go? Me and Oli were looking everywhere for you.¡± I looked to see that Tim has lost the initial hanging arms from before and only sprouted a head on his belly to talk with. ¡°There was a small storage that I had to take stuff from. Now I need you to load this stuff onto your body to see if it works or if I need to work out some other way to transport them.¡± ¡°Wait what? What am I? A freaking minivan?¡± ¡°You might be? Just pick up the things Layla and me hand you.¡± ¡°You sure you guys can carry that stuff? I can always morph a longer limb in there to do it all.¡± ¡°Nah. we got it.¡± ¡°Alright. Child labor for the win, I guess?¡± We were soon finished up with the testing and got good results for once that night. Tim could carry all of this stuff without anything dropping and some hay over his corpse body is good enough as insulation. Transportation covered, I pulled out the map and a compass from one of the survival packs to settle navigation. Ruvyn already helped out quite a bit with noting down where we were and where were supposed to go and I only had to realign the map with the compass for accurate directions. From the house on the border of beast man territory, we had to make a south-western trek into the Unknown to meet this ¡®old dog¡¯ figure and somehow get in contact with Ruvyn or Laura again. The trip itself should only take about a few days, but where we were going had me a bit worried. The Unknown was not exactly prime real-estate that I wanted to check out on our trip. Travelling and worrying about the risks involved would have to wait for tomorrow. Walking through the night was obviously not an option for the sane. I went about collecting some wood for a new fire, this time a lot more assured of my safety with Tim and Olivia around. Over my calm walk towards the treeline, I double checked to make sure Tim was thorough in his ¡®clean up¡¯ and kept an eye out for anything I could use as bedding for the night as well. I came back with wood, but nothing to sleep on, unless the wood counted. Soon a fire was going again and we were in a nice little circle in front of the tower. I was the only one visibly relaxed in the soft glow of the fire. The dead Tim and Olivia does not have a real sort of expression besides a deadpan and Layla was once again hiding behind me from the former two. I decided now that we had a small bit of reprieve to go and comfort her some more and genuinely this time instead of the previous excuse to distract myself. ¡°Hey Layla.¡± I shook her lightly and she turned to me. ¡°Don¡¯t be too afraid of them. They don¡¯t mean any harm.¡± ¡°How do you know that?¡± ¡°Because they are my friends.¡± ¡°Heh? How are they friends? They are scary monsters.¡± ¡°Well, they are scary, but did they hurt you?¡± She closed her eyes and scrunched up her forehead in effort before turning to me. ¡°I guess they didn¡¯t. But the stories Mom told me said that bad things have skulls on them. They have A LOT of skulls.¡± I chuckled a little at that. ¡°See, those stories aren¡¯t real. They ar-¡± ¡°HEY. Mom is not a liar.¡± The sudden indignation had me raising my hands in placation immediately. ¡°No, that¡¯s not what I meant. Mom didn¡¯t lie. It¡¯s just the stories are not completely true and she might not know that.¡± ¡°Alright...¡± She still looked a little miffed.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Anyways, back to what I was saying earlier, they are not bad, Ok?¡± ¡°Ok.¡± ¡°And they have names too. So no more calling them that or this.¡± She perked up, visibly interested. ¡°Really? What are they called?¡± ¡°The big one is called Tim. The floating staff is Olivia.¡± And now she looked disappointed. ¡°Those names, they sound lame. The monsters in mom¡¯s story are named way cooler.¡± ¡°Because they aren¡¯t monster names, they are people¡¯s name.¡± ¡°How is that different?¡± ¡°Uhh. You know what, never mind. Just remember you don¡¯t have to be afraid of them and that¡¯s enough.¡± ¡°Ok. And you keep talking to them. Can I talk to them too?¡± ¡°Olivia can talk to you. Tim cannot.¡± ¡°Why? He talked to you earlier.¡± ¡°Well, he only speaks in monster so only I can.¡± ¡°Ah, right, when can I learn that too, that would be so cool. I can get an awesome dragon pet.¡± I could only chuckle nervously. ¡°Maybe later, Ok?¡± ¡°Ok,¡± she yawned loudly, ¡°where are we sleeping?¡± The question reminded me of my failed quest for bedding. ¡°Wait here a bit while I get something soft.¡± And so I left Layla at the campfire to search for a bed, or what might pass as one, for the night. Leaves were a possible option, but such an amount was not something that I had any intention of scavenging for. I was wandering around the clearing for a little while before I remembered that I already have what I needed in the tower. When I got back to the fire, I saw that Layla had actually listened to what I said. She seemed to be talking to Olivia and Tim, though still at a distance. I stopped within earshot of them and caught a bit of the conversation. ¡°-an he really do that?¡± ¡°Of course. Demonstrate, Tim.¡± Tim moved his snake like lower body into better view for her and from between the cords that made it up emerged two compressed corpses. They started to fill out and extend slowly to reveal their original form of two orcs. Then they started swinging at each other in a sort of mock boxing match. Layla was pretty immersed in this and followed the boxing with little fists of her own to match the fighting figure on her side. Eventually, the one she was focused on landed a large hit and took his opponent down. An orc referee popped up to start the count, dubbed by Olivia. ¡°One¡­ Two¡­ Three¡­- -Eight¡­ Nine¡­ Ten.¡± The count was finished and the ref raised the winner¡¯s hand high in the air to celebrate. Layla cheered too and was quick to ask about what was it that Tim showed her. Olivia relayed the answer. ¡°It is a sport called boxing that originated from Tim¡¯s home.¡± ¡°But why? There weren¡¯t any boxes there.¡± Tim rumbled with laughter when what Layla said was translated to him. ¡°He said that he does not know the reason it was called that. It is just what he knew people referred the game as.¡± ¡°Oh, ok. Can you teach me how to play it?¡± I resumed my fetch quest for bedding while Olivia threw together a deeper explanation on boxing with the rudimentary knowledge he had. I finished the makeshift bed of tarp over hay when Layla was just about to have a boxing match with one of Tim¡¯s goblin corpses. ¡°Alright. That¡¯s enough, I just made a decent bed and I don¡¯t want you stinking it up by messing around with Tim.¡± My reminder of Tim¡¯s body odor had him immediately retract the dummy and made Layla fumble for balance after her missed swing. I was a bit too sleepy at that point to acknowledge her glare and just pointed to her side of the ¡®bed¡¯. I woke up next morning to the warmth of the still burning fire and the sun just peeking out from the horizon. Layla was still sleeping soundly so I left her be to go check on Tim and Olivia. They were engaged in what i could guess was magic practice. Though this was fairly different from what I did with Ruvyn. For one, the magic school was obviously necromancy with how the two look and the overall negative feeling I got when I scouted with my own mana senses. Secondly, Tim¡¯s own mana usage was self generated and not ambient manipulation like mine so there was an interesting experience to me to feel mana being discharged into the environment. Tim was in the middle of drawing up a pretty large and complicated magic circle when they noticed me and turned around. ¡°Hey, you¡¯re up. Give me a minute. I¡¯ve been up all night working on this so just sit back and watch the magic.¡± Tim continued his work and soon started to drop off some weird parts of animals and blood on specific parts of the circle. A minute or so later and it was apparently finished. Tim backed off and stood looking proudly at his creation. Said creation started to emit a sickly green smoke that swirled around the entire formation with increasing density. Soon enough, the whole thing had a solid look to it and then cracks started to appear on them. Piece by piece, the outer shell fell down to reveal a black set of full plate armor. I did not know much about necromancy from Ruvyn¡¯s lack of materials on the subject, but summoning a set of armor was not what I would associate with a spell from that school. My judgement seemed to be a bit premature when a deep blue glow was emitted from within to highlight the bones that the armor covered. The weird blue glowing death knight turned towards its creator and kneeled. Without any visible sign from Tim, the undead stood up from its kneeling position and took up arms by my side. ¡°Alright, what¡¯s up with thing?¡± Tim seemed to space out while looking at Olivia before turning to me. ¡°Well, you know, I was bored last night and needed something to do. So practicing magic was a good way of killing time. Plus I now have a babysitter for you two that can physically handle you guys without giving you any sort of blight or plague.¡± ¡°OK. Why knight though?¡± ¡°Playing with the kid was fun and she seemed to really like swords so I got her one on this thing. Win win.¡± ¡°Alright, mind asking it to fetch us something to eat.¡± ¡°Uh. I can, but I don¡¯t know what is edible here and it knows as much as I do. Soooo.¡± ¡°Fine, Just order that to guard Layla with Olivia. I need some muscle with me if something too big to hunt pops up.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Tim waved goodbye to Olivia before turning and slithering after me. ¡°So. Know where you are going or are you getting me lost again like always.¡± ¡°Come on, it was only a couple of times.¡± ¡°Uhuh. A couple of times right in your neighborhood. But seriously though, is this just more wandering until we run into something like before? Because Layla can get hungry pretty fast and I am not sure how the reaction to my death knight would be.¡± ¡°You have a point there. Hm. Well, there is that one large lake that we went to that always seemed to have some deers around.¡± ¡°Can you even cook deers? Those things are fast, muscles must be really tough from that. And these ones are probably magical too so. Magically tough?¡± ¡°Well, I can try, since I don¡¯t know anywhere else with immediately available food. Plus, I could always try for fish at the lake.¡± ¡°Kay.¡± We increased our pace towards the lake while Tim filled out the time with little titbits on how he tweaked the [summon undead; superior] to produce a less threatening and ¡®cleaner¡¯ death knight. The lake soon came up and the deers already running away told me what the fish plan would be better. ¡°Alright, looks like we are fishing then, the deers are all spooked.¡± ¡°Ok. do you even have a rod for that?¡± ¡°No. Probably not going to need one. I¡¯m going electric fishing after all.¡± ¡°Ah. Alright, good luck with that. I¡¯m pretty useless underwater and swimming with me is probably a big no no.¡± I shrugged and took off my tunic and dove into the lake. I was couple of strokes in and just got rid of the cold with a small dose of fire mana above my skin when I felt a thump from the shoreline. I brushed it off as nothing and continued on. Soon, I was out pretty deep and most sounds from the shore was blurred out by the lapping of waves. The bit of solitude and quiet was much enjoyed for me to center myself. My goals have been derailed once again. The first was finding Tim. That was accomplished pretty handily by luck. I was set on just riding out the time with Ruvyn and Laura until I am prepared enough to go exploring around. Now I was somehow chasing after Ruvyn and Laura to drop Layla off. Frustration bled itself out through a sigh. Tim had wanted stability more. I wanted to see where I can reach in life. Criticised him a lot for not dreaming bigger or having proper goals. Now I could at least see why he just want things to go a bit constantly. I stopped the moping short and dove deep down for some fish. I found I was not the only hunter in this body of water. While I was having a little time for myself up on the surface, an anurn has sneaked up on me from below. The man sized frog toad hybrid was perfectly camouflaged from those above with its wardy brown exterior blending with the dead foliage in the lake and was only revealed to me by its fleshy mouth slowly opening to grab me. I reacted a bit too soon and activated [lightning body] for a moment. A lot of the smaller fishes around me were floating belly up and the anurn entered a more alert state. It was not deterred by a challenging prey item and was rearing up to possibly attack me. Its belly inflated. I knew what was coming. I was not going to let it spit that corrosive and, importantly, explosive secretion all over me and already had a [burst shot] ready in my hand. The squirt of brownish liquid that resembled that of a squid¡¯s never made it far out of the amphibian before its collision with my diminishing ball of fire. Contact between the two resulted in a great explosion occurring right in front of the monster and stunning it for a good while. Enough time for me to swim in for the finisher. I made sure to grab it right under the lower jaw and above the very strong legs. Sure of my hold, I applied a healthy dose of [lightning body] until I felt no thrashing left from the thing. I did not confirm the kill or try to lift the heavy offender up from its slow sink to the bottom and just went back to retrieve the collateral damage edibles that was the fish. A couple more repeat dives were needed to retrieve all of the fish, but I was soon back on dry land again. And looking at a decapitated buck with his head a thick red paste and sitting next to him was Tim trying to dislodge some sort of crystal from a rock. ¡°Alright. What happened?¡± ¡°Hm. Let¡¯s see. When you swam off, this thing right here.¡± Tim gestured towards the dead deer. ¡°Decided that it was smart to start trying to get rid of me. I¡¯ll give it to him, he was allowed to be a bit bold since this thing is the biggest hirsine I have ever seen. But I have killed plenty and am still at least three times its size. Still charged me after I didn¡¯t back up. I would have just absorbed it like every other one I ran into, those horns are really good when compacted into a core. But you needed meat so I dodged it, grabbed a nearby boulder for a weapon and here we are. I am kinda stuck with this though, don¡¯t have leverage to pull it out.¡± ¡°Ok~. I know you like your stories detailed, but you could have made it shorter and not waste my time.¡± Tim just shrugged. ¡°I know, I could, should, but didn¡¯t. And you spent quite a while doing electric fishing. Wasn¡¯t that supposed to be fast?¡± ¡°I just ran into an anurn. Fought off that ugly to return to this ugly.¡± ¡°Very funny. Where is the thing though?¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t bring it back, it was fat like you too.¡± ¡°Double tap just to make sure, huh? Anyways, we are done here right? Fish and deer are good for food in my book.¡± ¡°Yeah. Let¡¯s just get back, fish is good for me, but dragging that. Uh. Hirsine thing back is too much work so do what you want with it.¡± I walked on ahead with my food while Tim stayed back to finish his. The expected panic from Layla over Tim¡¯s undead creation was not there to greet me when I arrived at camp. Layla, with her toy armor and sword, was fighting the death knight, armed with only a broken tree branch in its hands. They were really going at it with Layla ducking in and out of its guard, trying constantly attacking and the knight pretty deftly parrying all of her shots despite the awkward angles Layla was striking from. My own presence proved to be the feather that tipped the scale. Layla must have spotted me and turned to greet, exposing herself to a knight that was still tunneling on her. The actual greeting she gave me was greatly diminished in enthusiasm after she had to pick herself off the ground and pick out leaves from her hair. ¡°Good morning, Brother. Where have you been?¡± ¡°Good morning to you too. I was just out getting us breakfast.¡± I pointed to the fishes and she just grimaced. ¡°Will they be bad like the things you made yesterday?¡± ¡°Well, do you have anything else to eat if they are bad?¡± ¡°Um. No?¡± ¡°Then does it matter if they are good or bad? Just keep playing with that knight while I cook.¡± She let out a quiet ¡°Ok¡± and made off to play with the knight. I got myself busy with cleaning the fish and skewering them. Tim returned to camp too a bit later. ¡°So how¡¯s cooking going?¡± ¡°Pretty fine, got food over fire, so now I just have to wait. Managed to get those horns out of the rock?¡± ¡°I did. Haven¡¯t done anything to them yet though, it takes a while to process that stuff so I¡¯ll do it tonight while you sleep.¡± ¡°Hey. Can I see that again?¡± ¡°You mean the antlers? Sure.¡± Tim forced out from his body the set of milky white and slightly transparent antlers. ¡°Ok. We could sell these somewhere if they build into what I think they do.¡± ¡°Alright. So I am going to just keep these and do nothing with them?¡± ¡°Yeah. and go pack up the stuff like yesterday first. The food should be done for me and Layla then and we¡¯ll just eat while travelling.¡± ¡°Alright, just remember to consult Oli when you navigate. Getting lost in the forest is different from getting lost in a city.¡± ¡°Alright, alright.¡± The sun was a quarter to the top when we finally set off. Tim with baggage and Olivia on his back. Me and Layla with fish on sticks in our hands. 9-B A forest of countless trees and greenery at every turn was initially very beautiful. The sounds of wildlife all around me was great too at the beginning. But after a few hours of just walking, avoiding tripping over roots and dodging the occasionally falling trees caused by Tim shoving through were soon to become monotonous. My projected trip of great peril through unexpected hurdle after unexpected hurdle was dead. It turned into a somewhat unsafe expedition. Its dangers were walking through an unknown forest with no clear path and the mild sunlight peeking through the canopy. With nothing much do besides keeping my feet ahead of one another, I was tempted to ruminate more on the uncertainties. Ruvyn and Laura were not guaranteed to be there when we get to this ¡®Old dog¡¯. Layla would obviously start doubting me at that point. The child losing her trust in me was nothing but catastrophic. Other worries ranged from finding shelter and food to what I was going to do once I reunited with my circumstantial parents. To stop my mind from just running away with the speculations, I turned to just chatting with Tim and Olivia. My friend and his newest friend helped with that quite a bit. We started talking about necromancy, a topic that was definitely not too inane. Learning more about a school of magic that I would otherwise have no access to got me quite invested. I finally learned why there were no records of it in Ruvyn¡¯s collection beyond a passing mention. Most of the subjects within the school involved using a sort of negative version to be able to cast any of the spells. Conversion of normal mana into said negative version involved a lot of morally questionable acts at best and blatant mass murdering at worst. The spells themselves also required more gruesome preparation for any of the summoning variety. This part of the discussion revealed a rather troubling point of contradiction. ¡°Hey Tim, what you did this morning was one of the summoning spells right?¡± ¡°Uhuh. It¡¯s pretty obvious, why ask?¡± ¡°I mean, you just told me about the requirements for most of these spells was at least the maiming of a person. And that death knight was not some low tier skeleton. That has got to cost something horrible. But you were definitely not ok with the body disposal of yesterday. So explain.¡± ¡°Ah. I don¡¯t do that. The conventional necromancy,¡± said Tim pushing a tree out of its place while slithering on like you would with a person in a crowded convention center. ¡°What do you mean? Do you just not use any sacrifice? How does that work?¡± ¡°Yes. I mean, most of the sacrifices and rituals are just to gather the negative mana. The stuff is initially needed for novice necromancers. If they have been doing necromancy long enough,they kinda have like an aura to them. The momentum of horrible deeds are enough to just make more negative mana without trying. I popped up here with that stuff already in me. A lot of that stuff. So I don¡¯t need any sacrifices.¡± ¡°Alright, that is. Convenient for you.¡± ¡°Not really, I lose out on a few aspects of necromancy because of this. For one, I lack the main aura that all necromancers have. [Aura of death] helps buff your undead, so it¡¯s pretty awkward to not have. Oli have me covered there so it¡¯s ok. Another aspect I don¡¯t have, and am glad I don¡¯t, are the souls captured by necromancers over their career. Those can be pretty useful with creating unique undeads, but I¡¯ll pass.¡± ¡°Ok. anything else I need to know about you. That blue glow your death knight has is probably not natural too right.¡± ¡°It is, I don¡¯t know why, but my negative mana is not the same as the regular type and that makes them glow.¡± ¡°But it¡¯s still safe t, Layla is not playing with an unstable bomb or anything, right?¡± ¡°Come on. My weird mana just makes the pseudo-consciousness in there a little different at best, there won¡¯t be any complications.¡± ¡°If you say so. But why haven¡¯t you just made a whole army or something right now, you had like five years without me.¡± ¡°I did, but controlling multiple units while you yourself are fighting is just too much work for too little gain. I tried to have Oli help me with the control, but she still had to take care of me so we scrapped the whole army idea.¡± ¡°Right, you did say you just made this for Layla to play, huh?¡± ¡°Yeah. Now wanna hear about how changing certain symbols in a necromancer summon spell can change the type of what you-¡± The beginning of Tim¡¯s newest topic was cut short when a ther burst out of the trees right in front of us. The speeding animal was quick to notice Tim and scrambled to change direction. The loose leaves on the forest floor and its own speed ensured that the boar lost one of its six legs from under it and made a great tumble. Before the ther could come to a halt, from within the forest came another animal. The panthera pounced onto the downed ther. The big cat leaned forward, ready to deliver the killing bite. The fangs nearly touched the pinned animal¡¯s jugular. The extra-limbed pig kicked out with its first pair of legs and scored a direct hit to the predator¡¯s chest. Its foe winded and knocked back, the ther bought enough time to right itself. The panthera was weary of the kicks at the front and steadily circled the ther. Its eyes were looking for any openings. A misaligned ankle seemed to indicate one and the predator charged again. The prey made an effort to turn, but the damaged limb slowed it too much. The ther was on its sides after a powerful swipe taking away its balance. Prey down again, the panthera approached from the back and safely delivered the killing blow. It did not get to keep its kill though. Tim emitted a cacophony of wails from all of his mouths and even sprouted some more animalistic heads to add to the effect. The animal¡¯s flight instincts immediately triggered. We were once again alone in the forest. The ther¡¯s corpse rested right in front of us. ¡°Alright! Got you your lunch, hand - or should it be paw? - delivered to your doorstep.¡± ¡°O...K. I guess we are having ther for lunch.¡± I still had to do a bit of cleaning and butchering to this, so Layla had to be preoccupied during that. ¡°Hey, Tim. Can you play with Layla for a bit, cleaning this thing is going to take a while and be a bit gorey.¡± ¡°Sure, man.¡± With that, Olivia came to Layla and took her behind a tree. Layla was told that Tim was going to give her another show like last night. The girl cheerfully accepted. Tim started to unload the hay lined package from his back and turned to leave. I dropped off the packs I was carrying and moved onto the open patch with a corpse in it. First, before any real business, I had to make sure that the pig was dead. I charged up a [mana arrow] with bare casting and added more symbols for sharpness within its construction. The spell was soon deep inside the ther¡¯s skull and I was free to work. It was here that I realised how ill-equipped I was for this. I went back to where I saw Layla walk off with Tim and Olivia. After a bit of walking and I was there to see Layla playing red hands with the death knight. She was the current ¡®slapper¡¯ before she saw me and stopped. I gave her a quick greeting before turning to Tim. ¡°Gonna need some help, I lack a lot of tools for this. And a ten years old body is not enough to work yet.¡± ¡°Alright, I was wondering why you seemed to sure about handling a spider pig bigger than you are.¡± ¡°I was a bit overzealous. It happens.¡± Tim just made a small snort from the human mouth he was using and waited for me to go before following. Back with the ther, I opened up one of the survival kits for a knife and rope. I secured the pigs two back most legs to the ropes and called out to Tim. ¡°Alright, grab the rope and hang it up on a stable branch.¡± ¡°Ok, anything else?¡± ¡°No- Wait, remember to dig me a hole below where you hang it, about a quarter of the length deep should be good..¡± Tim nodded and had another grotesque transformation. Two small human arms sprouted from his abdomen to match the head. The arms did not stop their emergence at their shoulders and were pushed out of their sockets by more of Tim¡¯s dark ¡®flesh¡¯. Soon, there were two me-sized arms with tiny human hands sticking out of him. One of those grabbed the ropes that held the pig¡¯s ankles and lifted. The other stabbed into a patch of earth and removed a decent chunk. Ther hung and hole dug, Tim retracted his appendages and turned to me. ¡°That¡¯s done, now what?¡± ¡°Now you go help me remove some trees for a fire and place to eat while I work this.¡± I followed Laura¡¯s instructions step by step and soon had a ther skinned and cleaned of its organs and blood. The butchering step was ironically butchered as I forgot most of Laura¡¯s instruction. Plenty of erroneous cuts were made. We still had plenty of meat in the end. There was only superficial lost to the overall pig. I possessed no method of preservation so the loss was no deeper than my wounded pride. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. My pride took another hit when I went to put away the rope and knife into their pack. There, beneath the rations of each survival kit, were three small pouches containing, sugar, piper - this world¡¯s peppers - and Laura¡¯s own spice blend. My own suffering of a bland and fishy breakfast could have been avoided had I paid more attention. After my own self-berating, I got back to cooking. Lunch was on the fire and smelling great. Layla, smelling something good for once since yesterday, walked back to me. ¡°Ooh. That smells so good. How did you get it so good?¡± ¡°I finally found some spices. Now you just wait a bit more.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± She was clearly eager to have a taste, fidgeting while looking at the fire. I myself could not wait as well. My first bite tasted exactly like I hoped it would. I closed my eyes to enjoy the flavors a little. I opened them to see Layla not enjoying things. Little tears were dripping down her face and she let out between sniffles. ¡°It¡­tastes...like...what¡­mom...makes..." The sniffles settled in at that point and her words raced to make it out between breaths. "I...want...mom...back.¡± I quickly lowered my piece of meat to attend to this very unstable five-year-old. ¡°Hey. Hey. We are going to see mom soon ok. We are travelling to meet her now.¡± ¡°Re..Really?¡± ¡°Yes. And would mom want to see a sad face when we meet?¡± ¡°N...No?¡± ¡°Then what should we do to fix that?¡± ¡°No..not cry?¡± ¡°Good. being sad just makes you feel heavy and slow. And we want to fast and light to meet mom faster right?¡± ¡°N...yess.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. And eating more will make you big and strong enough for the trip. So eat up, brother will take you to mom, trust me.¡± She wiped her tears and nodded. The meal resumed, but lost some of its happy air. Tim and Olivia both stayed by the side and remained silent. The sun went past its zenith when the meal finally ended. I got up to clean up for us to leave. Layla stood up from her place under the shades and walked up to me. ¡°Can I help you?¡± The hope in her eyes stopped my readied ¡°no¡± and made me pause to think up of something she could help with. ¡°Hm. How about you just help me pack the small boxes back onto Tim. Make sure to not touch Tim when you do, Ok?¡± ¡°Ok!¡± With that happy exclamation, our journey went on. In the following night while I was lying next to a sleeping Layla on our ¡®tarp bed¡¯, an idea came to me. It never crossed my mind before with Tim unable to talk at all, but now that he could, I felt the need to teach him the language of this world. ¡°Hey, Tim. Wanna try to learn the language of this world?¡± ¡°What? Why?¡± ¡°Well, it would be better if you could just talk with-¡± ¡°I mean, Oli already taught me it long ago when I asked about it.¡± ¡°Wait. So you could understand me talking with Layla.¡± He nodded. ¡°And didn¡¯t decide to talk to me in her language so she could understand too.¡± ¡°I mean, she seemed pretty scared of me at first. I didn¡¯t want to add more of her fear by.. You know? Talking to her through a dead guy.¡± ¡°You still talked to me though?¡± ¡°I hid the mouth from her view all of those times.¡± ¡°Still rude man. Should have been talking to her properly.¡± ¡°Urgh. Fine, I¡¯ll start tomorrow. Now get your fleshy ass to sleep.¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah. I¡¯ll sleep and you work on how to approach and talk to a child, pedobones.¡± ¡°Fuck you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you have the equipment for that anymore.¡± ¡°Tentacles. I can definitely make tentacles.¡± ¡°Whatever, bye.¡± I turned away from Tim and fell asleep soon after. The next morning saw us getting closer to our destination. The forest was slowly giving away to taller grass and bushes characteristic of a savannah. The terrain change fit the description of where ¡®Old dog¡¯ was. We completely broke through the forest around the early afternoon. The group was moving through the tall grass when I noticed a construct far off on the horizon. It was a sort of hut suspended up on one of the few trees left on the open land. An apparent man-made structure right when we were nearing our goal was too much of a coincidence for me to pass up. On our approach towards the curious construct, I saw a figure exit from the tree hut. I was about to call out and waved to them once we were close enough, but the person suddenly froze when he reached the ground. The yell for him to not be afraid of Tim was yet to come out when he suddenly dropped on all fours and charged towards us. If his wolfish gait did not show his animalistic tendencies enough, a thick grey smoke began to billow out from his person to create a ghostly wolf overlapping the man. The spectral beast began to grow in size and solidity as he neared us. It went from just a ghostly image slightly bigger than the man himself to an actually solid grey wolf reaching half of Tim¡¯s two storey frame. I was too shocked at the sight to tell him to stop. He made one last massive lunge to jump onto my friend. Tim only got out a surprised, ¡°What the-¡±, before he was knocked completely off of his lower body and entered a tumble with the wolf. I quickly grabbed Layla and tumbled away to avoid the kicked up debris and Tim¡¯s body. Mid roll, Tim managed to coil his tail around his assailant¡¯s torso and threw the grey wolf away. The giant beast tumbled for a bit before standing up on its hind leg and giving me a clearer view of it. The first thing I noticed was that it did not have any fur like an actual animal. Its skin was just a smooth grey marble. The next thing that stood out was that the humanoid wolf had armor on it. In the same grey as all its other parts were plates of interlocking armor covering its shoulder, torso and thighs. The thing rumbled out a growl and bared its black fangs and claws. Tim entered a ready stance as well. His overall mass shrunk in on itself to create taunt whipcord-like muscles. A forest of broken fangs, claws and generally sharp bone rose from his body. They were accompanied by a wave newly emerged skulls with opened maws to make every surface of Tim a possible death. Two lifeless dark grey eyes stared back into one blazing blue as the two stared each other down. The grey one struck first with a swift punch right into Tim¡¯s center of mass. He tried to react by leaning to the left, but the wolf was faster and managed to embed its arm deep into his right chest. Tim swung back with his tail and caught the wolf in a diagonal swing, lifting it up off the ground. His larger ¡®leg arm¡¯ jabbed out into the airborne target¡¯s chest and I could feel the impact from where I was standing. The hit did little more than slightly crack the wolf¡¯s chest armor. It latched onto Tim¡¯s arm for leverage to launch off a drop kick. It took the momentum from its own kick to gain a bit of distance from Tim. The wolf looked over its own injury. It did not like the little damage Tim managed to inflict and growled while lowering its stance. The thing seemed to shrink a little. Its left arm flared out in more grey smoke that solidified into a darker grey round shield and its right claws elongated and fused into a black scimitar. With a much more fluid movement than before with its punches, the wolf leveled a horizontal swing at Tim¡¯s neck. Instead of ducking forward or back, Tim split his whole top half and dodged to the sides. His split torso¡¯s purpose was not only for evasion. From the exposed rotten flesh emerged more sharp claws, fangs and bone shards and the two halves of Tim wrapped around the wolf. To further his hold on the struggling canine, Tim sprouted some tentacle like snakes from his body to wrap around it and hefted it completely off the ground with his lower body to remove its footing. The wolf continued to struggle pointlessly for a while before it began to dematerialize. Before the entire smoke construct faded away, it mustered all of its strength for one last push to loosen Tim¡¯s hold. A figure sped out of the resulting smoke. Tim flapped his ¡®wing arm¡¯ and cleared the smoke away, but there was no one near his position. I stood up hesitantly and allowed Layla to move from under my arm. I was just about to walk up to Tim and call for a retreat when I saw it, or him, sneaking up behind Tim. The man¡¯s squarish face was set in a deep frown of concentration. The tensed muscles highlighted a heavy scar that ran from his right eyebrow down through his nose and left cheek to end just above his shaggy black beard. His two torn up wolfish ears sat perked up and alert on his head of salt and pepper hair. He slowly made his way towards Tim under the camouflage provided by his thick sand brown cowl. The warning that was on the tip of my tongue was never delivered. The wolfman was already mid air and swinging down. In his one arm was the same gigantic black scimitar his wolf form had. Tim did not react in time and lost his ¡®wing arm¡¯ to the downward cleave. Tim was unfazed by this and was quick to push his tentacles to restrain his attacker. But without his immense size to limit his dexterity, the man easily dodged all of Tim¡¯s attempts at hampering his movement. Quantity of tentacles was not the way to go. Tim switched to quality. He swept with his entire lower body at the attacker still occupied by his tentacles. The man proved to be just the veteran his looks suggested. He kept enough situational awareness to make the impressive jump over Tim¡¯s massive appendage. He was not ready, though, for the tail to swipe back with the fallen ¡®wing arm¡¯ as an extension. He cleared quite a bit of distance before digging up a trench in the earth. The man was hit, but not down and stood up to glare at Tim again. Said guy was just casually putting his severed arm back in place and knitting back the other miscellaneous wounds he suffered throughout the fight. Tim¡¯s apparent disregard of all of his effort seemed to give the wolf man pause. The lull in combat did not last long. The warrior seemed to recall something and gained a worryingly confident smirk while running ahead. Tim intercepted his approach with another tail sweep that was fluidly jumped over. He followed up with a swing of his ¡®wing arm¡¯ at the enemy seemingly stuck in mid-air. The certain hit did not reach its mark when the man conjured up a very solid [mana chain] between his stump of an arm and the ground and dragged himself down out of its trajectory. He bounced up right within Tim¡¯s guard with the force of his descent. He lined up his massive scimitar right at Tim¡¯s chest. The strike went through and exited out of Tim¡¯s back. A great explosion of mana followed. Tim was obscured in dust and he guy was knocked back down on his ass. He was not bothered by it and relaxedly brushed himself off before standing up. Whatever he expected to happen seemed to not be Tim still standing and looking mightily pissed with his entire body rippling in activity. The guy only had enough time to turn his sword into a grey shield to block the snake corpses that bursted out of Tim¡¯s abdomen. The block did not do much good when another attack came from above him. More snakes popped out and started spouting the bile that I only saw in Tim¡¯s main mouth a few times. Everything exposed to the caustic solution started bubbling and steaming. The man put up his peculiar grey armor, but could not cover everything fast enough and screamed out in pain. The substance was not only corrosive, but also paralytic to some degree. The man began to show visible struggle in his movements. He was keenly aware of the danger staying near Tim at that point. He covered his entire body in a quick application of his wolf form to push Tim away before transforming back and running off. He seemed resigned to just escaping with his temporarily superior speed when his eyes landed on me and Layla. Those eyes then fell onto one of the broken boxes by our side, the ones dropped when Tim first fell down. His eyes turned back to Tim and gained a new light of determination to them. He changed direction and was soon by our side. Tim stopped his pursuit once he saw where his target was. I was panicking internally at being held hostage when the strange old man spoke. ¡°You guys have real bad luck huh. First your dad¡¯s in trouble and now you run into this THING. At least you brought something I can use.¡± ¡°But-¡± Before I could even rectify his mistake, the guy was off. He was holding one of the things I assumed was a pipe bomb from Ruvyn¡¯s stash and rushing off towards Tim again. That was clearly a bad sign to me and I called out to Tim. ¡°Tim. Watch out.¡± My warning was either too quiet to hear or unintentionally ignored by Tim from his concentration in the fight. It didn¡¯t matter in the end when, with enough momentum built in his giant wolf form, the man briefly changed back. He threw a bundle that was his cloak into Tim¡¯s center of mass and then changed back to run pass. I desperately screamed again. ¡°TIM. GET AWAY FROM THERE.¡± Tim was unaware of what was in that piece of cloth and just looked confusedly at me when the explosion happened. An all-consuming sphere of purple twisted itself into existence with Tim at its center and began to pull in all that was around us. Tim¡¯s agonized screams through all of his many mouths could be hear through all of this. His voices were immediately joined by that of Olivia as she flew in right after Tim. I was about to just walk in there too in my overall state of shock when the bastard returned and pulled me away. That was enough to snap me out of it. I exploded onto the nearest target for my anguish. ¡°WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?¡± He didn¡¯t even get to answer before I lobbed a [burst shot] in his face. The explosion was blocked by him but it still seared me from proximity. The pain was ignored and I went on with my assault. ¡°ANSWER ME. WHAT DID YOU DO?¡± I repeated the same question a few more times before I noticed how quiet things were. Tim was no longer screaming in pain. The sphere was shrinking. It was soon gone from the scene and left only an expansive crater in its place. ¡°You killed him. You killed him. You killed him. YOU KILLED HIM.¡± I threw spell after spell at the the murderer that had the gall to look confused and left a few nice burn marks on him. I had a good chuckle at that before dropping. 10-B My first view upon awakening was of an unfamiliar straw ceiling and seeing the orange of dusk settling in through a window on my left. I made an effort to sit up and only got half way before falling back flat on my back. My own weakness reminded me again of the events that probably led up to me lying here. The memories played out and I regretted all of the opportunities I could have saved him. I could have just thrown any one of my disruptive spells between the two to have a long enough pause to resolve any misunderstanding, but I just stood there and did nothing. Real useful I was. Now I had no idea what happened to the guy. The only possible source of those answers was antagonized by myself in my rage too. I really did outdo myself in digging this hole. I was content to just lie there until oblivion took me again. My plan, like all others, was not meant to be gone through. The door on my right cracked open and let in my best friend¡¯s killer. Rocking a few new bandages and wearing a simpler combination of a black tunic and grey pants, the man looked no worse for wear. I narrowed my eyes at him while the rage and frustration temporarily drowned out by resignation bubbled up to the surface once again. ¡°What are YOU doing here, killer?¡± The man was unphased by my aggression and just sat down on the foot of the bed. ¡°I¡¯m sorry kid, but-¡± ¡°You don¡¯t get to say sorry.¡± ¡°Well, I am saying it. Didn¡¯t think that one was a friendly. So I will apologize for that.¡± ¡°Your apology is not going to get him back.¡± ¡°No, It won¡¯t. But you lying here hating me is not going to bring him back either.¡± ¡°And WHAT do you think will bring him back?¡± He just fell silent at that and I felt heat gather around my neck. It worked its way up my face along with the words pushing up through my throat. ¡°Come on, out with it. What do you think will bring him back?¡± There was still no response and I took a deep breath in. the air felt thick and heavy. ¡°Got nothing huh? That¡¯s fine.¡± I took in another one. The pressure in my chest should be enough to match what I felt in it. ¡°BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY TO BRING HIM BACK. YOU KILLED HIM. HE¡¯S DEAD. NO REDO.¡± I was heavily panting and most likely red in the face at that point. He remained silent, seeming to give me some time to settle, before speaking. ¡°Could you tell me more about him?¡± My train of thought was derailed by the strange question and I only go one word out. ¡°Why?¡± He just shrugged, eyes still locked on my own. ¡°You wanted me to feel bad about what I did. I would if I knew more about him.¡± I reflexively went to ready another [burst shot] to throw at him and received a painful reminder that I was definitely suffering from an overtaxed mana gland. I settled for another glare. He remained quiet, taking it with no issue. I stewed there in my own indignation at his tone from before but for whatever reason felt the compulsion to open up after a while. ¡°If you want to feel bad, know that he was a pacifist. He was never the first to strike from the beginning of the fight. He didn¡¯t even used any of the sharp edges on you when that tail whip landed. He was always like that from before and was kinda bullied for a bit in middle school for it.¡± I paused a little to center myself. ¡°He doesn¡¯t take it lying down though. Got to exercising and the guy got decently popular by the end of it all. He didn¡¯t took that stab you did on him either, Huh? I bet you were trying to kill him that time too, right?¡± He nodded with what I hoped was shame. ¡°Right. His popularity in middle school only lasted so long since the guy was never an extrovert and was soon back to his tiny circle of friend in highschool.¡± The old man nodded to show he was following and I kept going. ¡°Still, he was there for friends. At least most of the time, the guy could just be a bit too lazy to bother if things were trivial and inconvenient. But if I really asked, he would do it. This, you know, would lead to him doing a lot of dumb stuff that I came up with.¡± The mention of that was already bringing up a memory of one of those times. We were on Tim¡¯s bike travelling back to his house after buying a new monitor for a friend of ours. Instead of just letting the place deliver it to us, I had the idea that Tim just carrying it and me riding him back with his bike was faster. By the time his first complaints on a dead thigh and sore arms came in, we were already deep in traffic and too far from the shop to call it quits. ¡°I¡¯m so going to die man, so going to die.¡± ¡°Come on. It¡¯s not that bad.¡± ¡°Tell that to my dead legs. Oh, wait. You can¡¯t. They¡¯re dead.¡± ¡°But you¡¯re not, so that¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°My life¡¯s in danger man. One more pothole and I¡¯m biting the dust and the road.¡± I choked out a half-laugh-half-sob at the vivid image of me speeding up for a pothole once he said that. Tears fell more as I recalled the silly laughing we did right after. I stayed in that pool of melancholy and nostalgia for an unknown amount of time before I recalled my unwanted listener. ¡°Right, you¡¯re still listening. Where was I? Ah, he was soft and nice with friends. He was also very trusting with people and looked a lot on their positive side. This had its ups and downs.¡± He spoke for the first time since I started. ¡°How?¡± ¡°Well, for one, he trusts me a lot with things and rarely questions much.¡± I paused, thinking of a line he spoke before. My breath hitched a little and I played it down as a shrug. ¡°Unless it is obviously bad. But then, that trust also got him in the back many time and especially one time.¡± He seemed to perk up a little in curiosity. The risen ears would have been endearing. I saw them as an annoyance. ¡°That I will not mention. They are only his to tell and I don¡¯t believe he will want you to listen at all.¡± The tacked on comment failed to ruffle him. The man only let up his focus gaze for a respectful nod. ¡°I can respect that.¡± ¡°Thanks, I really appreciate that. And Tim probably would too.¡± I could not stop with the reminders of what he had done. It felt wrong not to. ¡°I think I would like this Tim if we had met under different circumstances.¡± ¡°Would you now?¡± I narrowed my eyes. ¡°I would. He resembles me in some aspects.¡± ¡°Why even tell me all of this now? What good does that do?¡± ¡°To get you to talk to me.¡± ¡°And what does that do?¡± ¡°Get you to listen to me.¡± ¡°And what? I¡¯m listening. What do you have to say, for yourself? Sorry, again?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I have killed your friend.¡± ¡°Really now. What makes you think that? Because his screams and the crater from that bomb really points the other way.¡± He stood up after that and went to rummage in one of the boxes. A question filtered out through the shuffling noise of items being moved about. ¡°Did you ask me what I used on him?¡± ¡°No?¡± A brief exhale of satisfaction told me he found what he was looking for. ¡°It was not a bomb that I used.¡± I huffed irritably. ¡°Could have fooled me with that explosion.¡± ¡°You must have guess from the shape that the things in that box were all weapons of some sort. Am I right?¡± He held out another one of those bombs. ¡°Yes?¡± I replied hesitantly. ¡°None of them were weapons. They were all experimental preset teleportation spells Ruvyn worked on. I was the subject of a lot of those in my time spent with him.¡± He playfully tossed the canister and I reflexively flinched. I was still not buying it, those were definitely not harmless. Failed experiments can always blow up. ¡°And tell me, why would you subject yourself to that?¡± The bit of friendly light dimmed a little. I could not say I hated that. ¡°I have my own stories that are only for me to know. The point still stands that those were not weapons.¡± My scoff could not have came more naturally. ¡°Yeah, not weapons. Explain Tim¡¯s screams then.¡± He was insistent. The calm within his voice did not leave. ¡°The transportation always came with immense pressure, something I believe your friend can survive.¡± ¡°And why would that be?¡± ¡°I was able to make it through with my defensive aura. And your friend managed to crack it. It would not be far off to say he lived.¡± ¡°And where would I even find him? Or is it one of those things that Ruvyn has pre-set-up to connect to one place.¡± He nodded. ¡°Do you really expect me to believe that?¡± ¡°You can choose not to and mope here. But why not be like your friend and trust people?¡± With those parting words, he left my room to go elsewhere. I looked emptily up to the ceiling and considered the conversation I had. It galled me that my mind was slowly coming around to his reasoning. I had two option just like he said. One is to just sit around here and be miserable. The other one is to simply believe in what he said and get ready to go out and search for Tim. Whatever I choose, it was only going to happen after I have rested both my spirit and body. Moonlight was shining through the window when a new visitor entered and woke me from my slumber. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Small feet tip-tapped closer to my bed and I was greeted by the sight of a much cleaner Layla standing at the side of my bed in a clean sundress instead of the armor that was stuck to her for at least three days. The different attire only emphasised her apparent timidity. ¡°H...How are you brother?¡± ¡°Better, how about you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. Are you sure you are better?¡± ¡°I am.¡± ¡°So you¡¯ll come out for dinner, right?¡± I nodded and rose from the bed, successfully this time. Once off, I noticed that I was still in the three days old clothes and smelled horrible. Layla didn¡¯t mind and just led me by the hand out of the door from the small and cramped room. I was expecting some stairs to welcome me upon my exit, but all I saw in the dim lighting was a wooden walkway leading into a wall of leaves. I was walking forward to see if the leaves hid a door when Layla pulled me to my right where my hazy eyes picked up an orange glow coming from a hatch in the boards. Layla let go of my hand and entered the hole. I followed and found a ladder leading down into the light. With the leaves and now the tree trunk the ladder was leaning on, I could already guess that I had just been sleeping in the hut I saw the old guy leave earlier in the day. As I got on the ground ready to go walk around for a look of the structure, Layla was there holding my hand again and taking me towards the campfire I ignored behind me. Sitting down facing the ladder and fire was the same old man handling a grill with an assortment of meat and a large pot on it. On his right was a girl around my physical age in a slightly dusty moss green tunic and dark brown pants. Both were seated on two of the four logs circling the fire pit. The girl was in a hunched over pose working on something and I got a full view of two tufts of black feather sticking out of her black curly. The imagery of a horned owl fit in easily. Layla led me to the fire and took a seat with me on the log facing the old man. Our arrival caused both of the fire¡¯s occupants to look up. The man¡¯s lingered for a bit before moving on, the girl¡¯s stayed on me and I noticed that she had on a pair of thick round glasses, further cementing the fact that she was an owlkin. From his position on the cooking station, the old man spoke. ¡°You¡¯re awake, good. Now I can finally have a proper introduction.¡± He stood up and went over to the girl who was again preoccupied with something. ¡°Come on. What did I tell you about practicing magic around meal times?¡± An awkward chuckle escaped her as she rose from her crouched position to reveal a small seedling sprouting from the earth under her log. The adult just shook his head and turned back to me and layla. He pointed a hand to the girl and she waved shyly. ¡°This is Ayano. Come on, say hi.¡± ¡°Hi?¡± ¡°Good, and my name is Taryn.¡± He pointed to himself and turned to Ayano. ¡°And here is Brandon.¡± ¡°Hey,¡± I waved to the girl. Taryn nodded at me and went behind his log. From a compartment hidden somewhere, he pulled out some wooden bowls and utensils. He handed a set to Ayano and handed two to me. Once everyone had their set, Taryn lifted up a piece of meat with his one arm and manifested a black ¡®blade arm¡¯ from his stump. He went first to Ayano and carved her a few slices before moving on to Layla and eventually me. ¡°Are you sure that thing is clean?¡± I pointed to the blade. His face fell flat and he narrowed his eyes at me. ¡°Yes. I manifest them from nothing so there can¡¯t be anything on them.¡± I reined in the little bit of antagonism that sparked that remarked and focused on at least cooperating until I could go and confirm what he said about Tim being alive. The meal went on peacefully after that with the two males just eating in silence and Layla initiating a conversation with Ayano about whether she could make flowers with her magic. Ayano entertained her request, or at least tried to before Taryn told her again that there would be no magic during meal time. Layla argued the point and they ended up with a compromise. If they could finish their meal quickly, they can go do that away from where we were eating. Layla expectedly gulped down her entire bowl immediately and asked for leave. The meal was a two-parter as revealed by Taryn when he took her bowl and scooped out from the pot a thick soup with bits of vegetables visible in it. Layla pouted a little, but attacked her new challenger with gusto and was soon rearing to go play with Ayano. Taryn just led his eyes over a slowly eating Ayano. Layla¡¯s face fell and she went over to needle Ayano into eating faster. The older girl held firm in her ideology of enjoying a meal at her own pace regardless of Layla¡¯s whining. Ayano¡¯s bowl was soon finished and Layla was bouncing up and down. I was sniggering internally at her inevitable fall in morale when she realised Ayano still had some soup to pack away. Layla saw Ayano hand the bowl over to Taryn and her face conveyed a look of utter disillusionment. I could almost hear my teeth ground together in my effort to hide any outward indication of my amusement. Ayano eventually finished her entire meal and Layla instantly grabbed her hand. The larger one showed blatant shock at the little one¡¯s ability so simply drag her outside into the open patch of earth a stone¡¯s throw to my right. I silently finished my own bowl and handed it to Taryn for soup. I poked around my bowl a little before taking the first tentative spoon of the vegetable soup. Slower than the first one, the second bowl was finished and I was left sitting there alone with a still eating Taryn. While he ate, I readied myself for the conversation that I was definitely going to start. Taryn was finished with his meal and I opened my mouth. ¡°Alright, we need to settle somethings.¡± He took a look at where the girls were at before turning to me again. ¡°You said earlier that Tim might have survived.¡± He nodded. ¡°I was definitely skeptical of that, but there were some reasonable points that you had. So I need the details of why again.¡± ¡°Ok. What do you want to know about that?¡± I closed my eyes a little to ready myself. ¡°Explain to me CLEARLY what it was that you used on him.¡± There was a small pause before his reply. My voice might have been a bit too demanding. ¡°They are experimental products from Ruvyn on quick to use teleportation for his further experiments in observing how the transportation works.¡± My eyes widened a little and I stopped him there. ¡°So they are experiments to help him do more experiments?¡± He replied flatly with a straight face. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Ok. And what were they supposed to do?¡± The question was spoken steadily. ¡°Fast to produce teleportation seals that was all synced to a specific point.¡¯ My voice rose from the calm it had begun with. ¡°And what DID they do?¡± ¡°They did just that, but according to Ruvyn, the transition tunnel was too crooked and small to count as a standard for observation. I just feel a lot of pressure on me while I travel through the first one.¡± I jumped in right as he took a breath. Something caught my attention. ¡°Wait you said the first one. Are there differences between each one?¡± ¡°Yes. Ruvyn said the rushed nature of production made the enchantments on them wildly divergent. The next one I tried exerted a pulling force from all angles around me.¡± I was getting angry again at this point. ¡°So, you are telling me there is no concrete pattern for any of this and, for all I know, the one you used on him could very well be one with just too much force for him to handle.¡± ¡°He was tough. The resistance his flesh gave was more than anything I have encountered.¡± ¡°Anything else besides that?¡± I was still agitated and not settling any time soon. ¡°The transportation was completed. Any lethal failures of Ruvyn¡¯s research always end up with an extreme explosion and the remains of what was being transported being fused into the area around it. I did not see any traces of undead around the blast zone.¡± His better reasoning helped me stomped down some more stubborn denial I still had. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll give you that. Are there anything else I need to know about the adverse effects of travelling through those?¡± ¡°Well, I have lost plenty of clothes and equipment through them, so non-living matter suffers more of the effects.¡± ¡°That seems fine. To move on, you said they all lead to one place before. Is that true? ¡± ¡°Yes, they are all linked to one destination near our first research location.¡± ¡°And where would that be?¡± He put a finger to his chin before standing up. ¡°Wait for a bit,I can¡¯t really tell you without a map.¡± He climbed up the tree and into the hut hidden within its canopy and I took that time to take a look at what Layla was doing. They were apparently finished with whatever flower Layla wanted and were both hiding poorly behind one of the bushes listening to my conversation with Taryn. Layla was not at all apologetic for eavesdropping and just walked up to me. ¡°Hey, what were you talking about?¡± ¡°I was just asking about Tim.¡± ¡°But uncle Taryn said he was fine.¡± ¡°Yeah, but I had to make sure. He is a friend, right?¡± ¡°Right. And Olivia too.¡± ¡°Yeah, her too,¡± I replied uncomfortably. The realization of how much I have been ignoring her for Tim throughout the times we have met was a bit of a sucker punch. I did not get long to think on my blatant disregard of another person when Layla continued. ¡°Hey, Where did the old man go?¡± ¡°He went to get a map to show me where Tim was so we can come get him.¡± ¡°But what about mom and dad?¡± I could only pause awkwardly to think of how to reply. Taryn was useful for once and helped me out of that situation when he came down with a map. When he opened it, The first thing that I noticed was that there were many more side notes on this one than the one Ruvyn left us. There were whole paragraphs linked to certain places and plenty of illustrations showing monsters and notable landmarks. Notes were also on the infamous Unknown that I so far have found no map detailing. There was also one small hut symbol on the map down south just off of the beastman colonies¡¯ border that overlapped with where I remembered ¡®old dog¡¯ was on the other map. ¡°Alright, so we are here.¡± Taryn pointed to the map to confirm that my recollection of the map was not wrong. ¡°And this is where your friend should be,¡± He pulled out a piece of charcoal and marked an area on the northern border of the Unknown with an ¡®X¡¯. ¡°So this was where you and Ruvyn were at. why did you even go there, just past the safe zone of the Unknown?¡± ¡°Ruvyn was fleeing from the elves through Citengord and ran into me at their border. I gave him the idea of hiding within the Unknown and its danger. So we went there and the safety emboldened Ruvyn into making a research station for himself there.¡± ¡°Great, he probably set something to travel back there really quick right?¡± ¡°No. It was the Unknown. Nothing lasts there, we found out a month later when monsters were flooding our facilities. Nothing probably remains of it besides the anchor Ruvyn buried for his experiments.¡± ¡°So what? We can still get there by regular means.¡± ¡°Yes, we can.¡± ¡°So what are we waiting for?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that easy. Terrain morphs every four years in the Unknown. That¡¯s why it¡¯s impossible to properly map and researched.¡± ¡°Alright, so it changed. But can¡¯t be that drastic, right? How long ago did you leave the place.¡± Taryn spent a moment thinking before answering. ¡°Our relocation out of the unknown and its cover led Ruvyn to fall back onto the surveillance net again and we took our separate way for five years. He contacted me again after that telling me of Laura and that he will still send research and items back to me so I can get him materials for his research. I stationed myself near the border of the beastmen colonies at that point to do this and,¡± he turned to me, ¡°How old are you?¡± ¡°Around ten, close to eleven?¡± ¡°Then it¡¯s been about sixteen years.¡± ¡°So that location had it¡¯s terrain changed four times. I still don¡¯t see why we can¡¯t go and find him now.¡± ¡°One, the anchor is a physical item, not an ethereal seal locked on one location. If the earth moves, it moves with it. Second, you don¡¯t know how much it can move every time. So our search location turns to this,¡± he circled a new area covering twice the surface of the ¡®X¡¯. ¡°It could be even larger. An expedition of that size needs time to be prepared.¡± I balled my fists tightly and ground out. ¡°So you are saying we are not going to search for him. Even after all of that bullshit to convince me he was alive?¡± ¡°I did not say that. I just need you to know that it will be long before you get to see your friend between the difficulty of the trip itself and the fact that I still need to get Ruvyn and Laura out of whatever situation they are in now.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°Good. Now that you are not raring to stupidly hit me. I have some good news,¡± he crouched down low to look at Layla, ¡°that goes for you too, Layla.¡± ¡°Now that I have both of you safe and sound here. We can start the trip to go find where your parents landed in, Layla. And once we do, I can get around to settling business with you Brandon.¡± We turned in for the night after that. The two girls got the only bed in the hut while I was given two thick blankets and relegated to the floor. Taryn went out of the hut after that so I could only assume that he slept somewhere comfortable enough for him. The girls were soon asleep with Ayano breathing evenly and Layla snoring. I already had my fill of sleep earlier and just lay there in the dark. I was eventually too bored and crawled out from under my covers to try and sneak out. I only got a few steps down the ladder when Taryn¡¯s voice sounded out from behind me. ¡°Get back to sleep.¡± I turned around to see him sitting up within a brown sleeping bag, in his hand a wooden figure of a warrior with the same round shield and scimitar as his avatar. I added narcissism to the reasons I disliked the old guy and went back up to the hut. I fell asleep after a while of just running my eyes over all of the shelves and boxes within the hut on the side without the bed. The morning started with Layla shaking me awake rather violently. ¡°Come on, wake up. We need to get breakfast and go find mom and dad.¡± ¡°Alright, alright. I¡¯m up.¡± I groggily got up and stumbled out of my cocoon of blanket. Layla was already up and looking pippy and Ayano was still sleeping soundly in her bed. Out of habit and sleepiness, I almost walked into a wall thinking that it was my old room in the tower. The embarrassment woke me up completely and I climbed down from the hut to look for a place to relieve myself. I was about to just walk out into the bushes when Layla yelled from behind. ¡°The bathroom is this way.¡± I coughed awkwardly into my hand and gestured for her to lead the way. We walked off into a small trail on the left that eventually led to an out house. I braced myself for a wave of deadly odor when I opened the door to it. But what welcomed me was just a tidy looking bathroom with a tub of water and a wooden toilet bowl. A breakfast of leftovers soon came after I finished my morning business. Ayano was still out of it so the meal went rather quietly with only Layla contributing to conversation through questions on what we were doing after the meal. ¡°We are getting your parents.¡± was the answer when Taryn finished his bowl and just went up into the hut again for something. We all finished our meals and was just lazing around when he came down again lugging an enormous backpack of half his size. A crystal ball centered between four legs with a pulsing purple arrow within it and the map I saw from yesterday were taken out. He set both down on the ground in front of us and realigned the map with a compass. He looked back and forth between the orb and the map before drawing a line on the map from our position to Cytengord. ¡°Alright, looks like your in luck Brandon. we can finish finding Ruvyn and be close enough to start locating Tim if we are lucky.¡± He packed up the navigation tools and told us to follow. We walked Eastward for a good while before the edge of a forest was seen again and Taryn suddenly whistled loudly. After a while, some rustling could be seen from within the bushes and out came an ursidane. The naturally armored bear was wearing even more armored than usual with steel plating covering its flanks and legs to go with the bone plates it already had on its back, shoulders and forearms. Taryn¡¯s bear soon stopped in front of us and I could spot a long leather saddle covering its back. ¡°Get on, we should be able to reach the owlkin colony before dark if we hurry.¡± 10.5 - Interlude Anne was once again travelling through the ¡®Belt¡¯ of the Unknown, staying close to where it bordered with the ¡®Deep¡¯, the truly deadly part of the Unknown, for maximum protection against any of her would be pursuers. A number that she believed had risen quite a bit after her success in creation and failure in control was found by authorities and her specific mana signature was found on it. She was honestly a bit torn at the possibilities that came with this. If her signature did linger on it until the point of termination and the thing has failed to wreak any havok, she would truly look the fool. But if it did reach a sentient settlement, she would get instant infamy and maybe even get her ranked raised beyond that of Amber, granting her quite a bit of satisfaction regardless of bringing more heat onto her back. Her more excited self back then was not ready for the increase in priority on her capture. That had lead to her getting apprehended and losing all of her amassed forces to escape the previous year. All of those undead creations and general level undeads she painstakingly designed and made, all gone because a new thorn popped up in her sides. Elizabeth Leone was her name, the prodigy of exorcism and holy magic her title. ¡®Just my luck to run into another black haired bitch, as if Amber was not enough¡¯, she thought to herself, ¡®could have kept going with that new force and smack the smug silent bitch for daring to take my first staff from me¡¯. Her own grumblings were soon interrupted when her scouters detected her newest thrall-to-be. ¡°Alright you lazy bums, get into formation, we have something.¡± Her newest force was only fifty strong, but with the tip from her previous tool, she had quite a fine lineup. Three death knights with better coordination, technique and armor than most formed her frontline. Three death maidens, ghost that she purposefully made less beautiful and decorated with more maid-like clothes than the usual pompous dresses decorated by bones and skull, formed the necessary ranged attack and immobilization corps in her army. She had four more advance undead in the form of revenants: fast, physically powerful red veined ghouls all equipped with the finer tools she looted from overconfident bounty hunters. The rest of her numbers were filled out with undead creations that varied in power and effectiveness. All three units got into their position with the death knights walking ahead, the death maidens following behind and the revenants taking to the trees and flanks. The resurrected corpses fell into their appropriate position following the death knights or death maidens based on how far they can attack from. Anne herself simply hung back to cast debilitating hexes or to empower her own undead with necromancy should the need arise. Her quarry was soon visible to her eyes in the dying light of the day and she could only offer it a sneer. Its eight razor sharp legs digging grooves into the tree it was crawling on and its decapitated prey lying right below it, the arachnoid lowered itself slowly onto the corpse of the mulsef, unaware of the silent corpses moving in its direction. The fine hairs all over its body does manage to detect the vibrations created by some of the more robust of the undead creations and the spider dropped the half-eaten meal back down onto the forest floor and retreated up into the dense cover of leaves. Anne had no qualms against this and simply had her undead surround the tree completely before telling them to close the distance on the larger than average arachnoid. Anne decided to simply forego getting a new minion from the fact that it was going to be an insect. She opted to just have the insect killed as painfully as possible and got a bit closer to enjoy the view. This proved to be a mistake when the monster showed surprising intelligence in making a direct beeline for her position through rapid jumps. The creature got almost within striking distance of her, when a revenant swooped down in time to impale it over a halberd. A small bit of inchor and venom still managed to squirt onto her dress. ¡°Urgh. fucking dirty insect, couldn¡¯t even die properly.¡± She incinerated the organic construct with a small [life removal] on her hand. She turned back to the corpse to consider what to do with it. The old option of just having her creatures tear into it was still there, yet she found her enjoyment waning at the thought that the bug was already dying in its skewered state and any torture she deign to inflict would not last. Her conundrum was solved when her more distant scouting crows, left to detect any tails she might pick up, alerted her to a small group travelling through the forest. She turned back to the bug and smiled. ¡°It¡¯s around time for me to have a bit of fun, isn¡¯t it. And the bug will be used just fine.¡± That said, she had the revenants pull the arachnoid fully down from the shaft of the halberd and have the rest pin it down. She constructed a standard magic circle to extract essence for a summoning, but removed symbols to condense it into crystalline forms and added more priority to transferring the monster¡¯s traits over to the essence collected. The spider was soon reduced to nothing but a roiling ball of liquid. She beckoned one of the more useless goblin corpses over and removed it¡¯s head. A quick application of [life removal] and all of the rotting tissue was burned off leaving a clean skull. The spider¡¯s liquid was injected into the skull through where it connected to the spine and Anne plucked a rotting chunk out of the once-again-dead goblin to use as a cork. With her preparation completed, Anne ordered her minions. ¡°Alright, only the revenants and death maidens will go with me, the rest, go back to that cave I have as a base. Now get moving.¡± Anne soon turned around and headed closer to where the ¡®Belt¡¯ met Citengord. She sent out more crows to start checking on where her newest targets were moving. She found, to her pleasant surprise that they were now settled down for camp, making them easy targets for an ambush. Even better news was that their overall looks only hinted at their nature as a standard party of mercenaries doing work in the ¡®Belt¡¯ and not a hunting party for her full of priests and holy magic users. She took extra care to sneak one of the crows as close as possible to check on their equipment. She got it within proximity of the camp and observed the two men on their first watch. One was muscular with a tattoo that ran from above his left eye, over his bald head and down his neck made up of symbols that could not be identified from the distance. He had on himself a mixed set of plate and leather armor and carried a fairly large claymore on his back. The man next to him provided some contrast with his lankier frame and thick head of brown curly hair. He was wearing lighter attire with a mottled grey under-armor covered by a moss green overcoat. There were no visible weapons on his body, but Anne could guess that some of the folds in his cloak held daggers. Their lackadaisical poses had her a bit disappointed. Her forces most likely won¡¯t be used to their full potential against this. Still, she erred on the side of caution and sent the crow deeper to scout. The first tent was empty and probably belonged to the two outside. The second one held the two magic users of the group with one thin boy in glasses sleeping under a desk full of alchemy materials and an orange haired mage using one of his robes as a blanket. She only needed to glimpse at the third¡¯s content of priest robes and very large gun to make that her prime target for assault when she sprung her ambush. She still sent the crow to the last one just to make sure. ____________________________________________________________________________ John had always been a light sleeper, so when he heard the light flapping at his opened tent, the teen rubbed his head of curly brown hair sleepily and rose from his sleeping bag to check things out. He was immediately shocked out of his sleepy state when he first smelled the terrible rotting odor brought in by an errant gust of wind. His own father¡¯s teaching on adventuring kicked in at that and he scrambled to get the tent¡¯s other occupant to awaken. Pulling on her head of red hair for optimum responsiveness, John finally got the rest of the body out from under the heavy blanket covering it. ¡°Get up Rachel. Get up.¡± ¡°I¡¯m up. I¡¯m up. What is it?¡± ¡°I think there are undeads around here.¡± Rachel gave a tentative sniff of the air and frowned with her eyes still closed. ¡°Come on John. There is no rotting smell in the air and I don¡¯t hear any shambling outside.¡± ¡°But I heard some movement outside and I definitely smelled something.¡¯ ¡°What did the movement sound like.¡± ¡°Um. Flapping?¡± ¡°Flapping? As in the flapping the tent might make when a wind comes in through the tent and blowing in the smell from our waste hole?¡± ¡°Come on. You know I don¡¯t make those mistakes.¡± ¡°Alright John, I believe you, just give me a sec.¡± Rachel gave her face a good light slapping before she shook the rest of the sleepiness away. ¡°Alright. So there are some sort of undead outside this tent right?¡± John nodded. ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll grab my bow and arrow and you ready your daggers.¡± The two were soon equipped and headed outside of the tent. John immediately did a perimeter scan of where they were. He found nothing and soon directed his gaze to the other tents to find them still intact. Rachel only took one look around camp before turning to the first watch. ¡°Hey, Misters Max and Tom, did you guys see anything around camp?¡± Both men snapped to attention, turned their eyes onto the surroundings and placed their hands onto their weapons. The bald man turned to Rachel and spoke briefly. ¡°No. Was there anything at your tent?¡± She hesitantly answered. ¡°No, there was nothing.¡± Both of the men relaxed their stance. ¡°Ok? What are you doing out here then?¡± She shrugged. ¡°I thought it was our turn to stand watch.¡± ¡°Well, it is Agnes and Martha for the next watch. And you volunteering for an earlier watch is not going to make me ease back on the exercises tomorrow.¡± She laughed a bit awkwardly. ¡°Haha. Alright teach, see ya then.¡± ¡°See you too, Rachel.¡± She walked back to John and he could only rub the back of his head. ¡°Sorry for that, but I knew I saw something and I can¡¯t ignore it or something might happen to you or my dad.¡± ¡°I know, I know. Maybe you did, but it¡¯s not here anymore. We should just go back to sleep. Teach is probably going to have me do more for pulling that and I am going to need the sleep for it.¡± ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine John,¡± she kissed him on the cheeks before going back into the tent. John took one last look at the dark and heard a rustling in one of the bushes facing his tent, but chalked it up to the wind like Rachel suggested. He entered the tent again and, instead of getting back into his own sleeping bag, shimmied into Rachel¡¯s. Feeling the comforting warmth of her body, he relaxed a little and pulled her closer to him. ¡°Come on John, not now,¡± she murmured. ¡°But I just wanted to say sorry again,¡± he whispered in her ear while snuggling closer to the crook of her neck. ¡°And you still smell so nice even after all that work in the day.¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°No John, we still have a watch later and I want to not look like an undead in the morning.¡± John was still not deterred and his other hand soon found Rachel¡¯s inner thigh. Softly stroking, he whispered to her again. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll take the watch alone after and you can rest then. So what do you say?¡± ¡°Mm. Fine.¡± ____________________________________________________________________________ Anne laughed silently to herself as she saw the perfect happy subjects for her little experiment begin to get intimate. She moved onto the planning of the possible ambush. She laughed again when she thought of that. There was no real need for planning though it all. Most of them looked like pushovers and she already had the perfect timing to strike. Her crow was already looking into a tent with a calmly sleeping redhead and a still blissfully unaware imbecile basking in his own postcoital glow and gently running his hand through the girl¡¯s hair. Soon, the same idiot would be on watch and then she would have the opening she needed to strike. An added note was thrown into the orders to make sure to use non lethal methods. Missing a few normally was fine. Watching one of their loved ones tortured was usually enough, but not this time. Those numbers and that one handsome smiling face reminded her far too much of a certain set of servants. She could already see the faces from her past superimposed on each of them and shivered in anticipation. Now all she needed to do was past the time from now until then. Killing time seemed to be a more problematic undertaking for her than actual killing and the ¡®John¡¯ fellow could not get to his shift fast enough. She was through with counting the scars and veins on her third revenant when he was finally taking center stage. John walked up slowly to the fire, stretching his body while he moved and yawned loudly when he got to the fire. The two current watchers, the magic users, had a small discussion with him and he turned back to his own tent. ¡°Looks like they won¡¯t be dumb enough to let a greenhorn like that watch over them,¡± she announced to herself before taking back her own words when John made a dismissive gesture with his hand and ushered the other two away. ¡°I stand corrected. They are that dumb.¡± She shrugged and ordered her revenants to begin their preparation for the game. She distributed to them each a vial of the paralytic poison she made for cases when a live subject was needed for conversion or a ritual. The halberd, sword, spear and arrows of the four thralls were soon laced with poison. Two of the death maidens and three revenants joined Anne by her side as she walked carefully up to the camp. The remaining death maiden and revenant with the bow rushed on ahead to take care of the watcher. Said watcher was now preoccupying himself with a small block of wood and a knife. The sound of his tool taking away layers after layers of wood covered the sounds the last revenant made as it circled the treeline for a clear shot at John¡¯s back. The death maide floated to the spot directly over John. The shot was taken John found an arrow imbedded in his right shoulder blade. ____________________________________________________________________________ The night was going fine for John. Eddie and Harry questioned him a bit on why Rachel was not with him, but dropping a few hints at his good time with her was good enough for the two guys to go back to their tents and let him take over. He was not worried over the dangers that might be too much for just one guard. The sun was soon to be up in a few hours, most of the nocturnal monsters would be heading back to their lair so it was unlikely that anything would walk into camp. He convinced himself further that both Eddie and Harry needed some sleep, Harry in particular with his zealous brewing of potions for their whole group. He was relaxing there and decided a small carving for when Rachel woke up would score him some points to cash in later. The statue was coming together nicely into a small dog with floppy ears that Rachel always went to and pet when they hit the market back in Aros city. He was finished with the body and moving on to getting more details on the head when he felt a sharp pain on his right shoulder. He immediately tried to scream for the others to alert them to the assault, but found his voice just echoing back right at him and no response from the tents even after the fourth scream. Something was clearly keeping his voice from travelling further than the proximity of a few steps from his body. John was quick to react and doved forward, ignoring how his body was a bit slower to react than his direct thought. He took in a breath, ready to scream again, once he finished his forward roll. But it was too late, the poison had already taken effect and he could only get a garbed choke out before falling down. The numbness that started from his shoulder and eased the pain around the wound was now spreading to his entire body. His mind was not free from this either as his own thoughts began to slow down and get incoherent. It must be so when a little girl in a fancy black dress full of white frills walked into his sight, followed by three emaciated men with dark grey skin and a multitude of bulging red veins throughout their bodies. It was only after a second look at the hunched stalking forms of the men that John connected the dots. His earlier false-alarm was not so false afterall and walking through their camp was a necromancer, a rather experienced one with actual revenants under her control. It was with that grim realization that John watched all three of the monsters head over to Agnes¡¯ and Martha¡¯s tent. He raged against his own failing body. His fingers and toes twitched along to the futile orders he sent to his limbs. Move was all he asked of them. The minute movements allowed of him only grew slower as John watched them grab ahold of the tent flap. Abandoning physical aid, John tried for simply a warning. Words of caution rang out fervently within his mind. None left his mouth. The last undead entered the tent and John¡¯s eyes slowly watered. His body shook in tiny whimpers, his expression of grief the only movement available to him. Tears clouding his vision, John blinked and turned his eyes upwards, hoping to find some miracle from above. His eyes only beheld another harrowing sight. Three ethereal old maids flew out from the forest, chains floating from their wrists and ankles and a ring of vertebrae wrapped around each of their necks. The peculiar looking death maidens then floated silently over the tent his dad, Max, and Tom was sleeping in, the one with Eddie and Harry in it and finally his. Once where they wanted to be, the death maidens seemed to begin employing the same sound blocking veil around the three tents as a distortion of air pulsed through the distance between the ghosts and the ground. John couldn¡¯t keep his eyes open for when the first revenant tore into the tent before the control of his eyelids went away and he could only hear. He could only pick out the sound of a short struggle before the sound of the fire crackling by his side was all he could hear. The inner debate of whether him not hearing any sounds of parting flesh or broken bones was good or not was his last thoughts before the poison finally knocked him out. ____________________________________________________________________________ Anne had the revenants pile the two paralyzed women next to the down watchmen before having them start attacking the remaining tents. The first to go was the one with the large warrior and skinny rogue. The death maiden fired off the first salvo of sound waves on top of the tent and blowing it off completely. The dazed and deaf men were soon set upon by the revenants, which quickly disarmed them and delivered nonfatal strikes with their poisoned weapons. There was no real resistance to be had with those two and she soon moved to the tent with the sleeping girl for the most convenience. With the same initial assault as before, the disorientated girl was soon pinned down by all three of the revenants. The girl, once she regained enough of her bearings, began to blindly struggle against her captors. ¡°Let. Go. Of. Me. John? Teach? Uncle M-¡± Before she could continue calling out names for help, one of the revenants placed a hand over her mouth. Anne looked back over towards the death maiden assigned to the tent. ¡°I have acquired the voice that master required.¡± Rachel¡¯s eyes opened widely in panic at hearing her own voice. ¡°Good, now get over to the last tent and call them out.¡± The maiden did as instructed and arrived outside of the tent while the one hovering over it switched off the sound obstructing barrier. ¡°Eddie. Harry. Get out here, It¡¯s urgent.¡± Scrambling could be heard inside as a head soon popped out of the tent. ¡°What is it Rachel? Harry will be right ou-¡± Eddie could not finish his sentence when from his blind spot a revenant swung the shaft of its spear right into his solar plexus. His diaphragm in shock, Eddie was grabbed by another revenant to be neutralized and place with the pile of humans. His removal from the tent¡¯s front also gave Harry a direct view of his friend being captured. He immediately grabbed a bottle from his table and charged out. The bottle left his hand and found the spear revenant¡¯s back where it exploded into a ball of white fire, charring the revenant¡¯s entire body. Harry was already readying a spell to follow up with his explosive flask when Eddie, with air back in his lungs, called out. ¡°You¡¯re not a wizard, Harry. You can¡¯t beat them back with spells. Just use your escape and run.¡± ¡°But-.¡± Before Harry could refute, Anne¡¯s hand fell on his other arm and he fell on his knees, seemingly exhausted. The [Life drain] only lasted until Harry fell unconscious and Anne let go. ¡°Alright, that volatile bastard taken care of and my revenant is only slightly crispy.¡± She laughed lightly as the burned revenant shook off its destroyed layer to reveal pulsing red muscles and blood underneath. ¡°Guess I¡¯ll have to skin one of these guys for a replacement layer.¡± She shrugged before gesturing to the pile of humans. ¡°Alright, get them back to the lair. I can¡¯t do good work out here.¡± ____________________________________________________________________________ John woke up from with a strange sense of lethargy within his body. He was about to just shrug it off on the great time he had with Rachel when he realised what he was lying on and looking at. Cold hard stone lined the floor of his cave and droplets of water were dripping slowly down the mossy cave wall that he faced. He tried to stand up to realise that both his arms and legs have been tied together. He tried to turn his head and see if there was anyone else sharing this cave, but found, to his disappointment, nothing. He tried calling out next. ¡°Hello? Is anyone there?¡± ¡°Ah. You¡¯re finally awake. Quite a sleeper, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°W..Who¡¯s th..that?¡± ¡°Aw. You don¡¯t remember me? I¡¯m pretty sure you saw me walked into your camp.¡± Only when he was picked up by a pair of calloused aged hands and turned around did John finally see his mysterious conversation partner. ¡°W...Wait. You¡¯re that girl with the monsters.¡¯ ¡°I¡¯d like to be called a woman. But yes, I am her.¡± John was visibly shaking as he took in the moving shadows behind the girl and looked at the veiny arm holding him. ¡°W...Where... Where are the rest of us?¡± ¡°Oh. That. I came here just to get you for them.¡± John gulped as the small monster¡¯s mouth curve upward into a toothy smile. She moved on a head and his unseen holder moved to follow. They exited his corner of the cave into a narrow corridor. The path was lit with small glowing pieces of blue moss on the floor, a sight John would probably enjoy if not for the light illuminating certain movements from in front that he definitely did not want to see. The smell was also extremely terrible. The cave had no ventilation and the smell of death pervaded the entire underground structure. John was given a small bit of reprieve when they reached a wider part of the cave that had some breezes blowing in. The reprieve was only temporary. With the glowing moss growing all over the floor, John was welcomed by waves after waves of walking corpses and resurrected mockeries of life. Each one of the lifeless eyes he saw all turned to him, the only life within this subterranean world of death. They soon past that open area of death and re-entered a new corridor. John was finally welcomed back to the surface as the first lights of the sun hit him when they reached the first chamber of the cave on ground level. From his place, held upright with the ropes on his arms and the collar of his shirt, John got to see the many magic circles lining the place, the multitude of shelves carved into stone containing jars full of things that just made him want to throw up and all of the skulls laying around. She took him out of the cave and John finally threw up. In front of him, hanging off of meat-hooks from a tree, was a hideous corpse. It¡¯s skin was flaking off in large pieces and in between the cracked and bleeding flesh were pieces of what looked like carapace and black coarse hair. From its ribs jutted out pieces of bones half covered in muscle tissue and fat. Its hands and feet all looked they were crushed together into pointed tips and all of the nails were fusing into each other and pulling free from their original position. The head looked to be flattened with a massive gavel with the forehead laying flat out and the skin stretched to its ripping point, revealing a flat piece of scalp below. The eye-sockets were in the middle of splitting into four and left eyeballs hanging out from their too wide holding places. Yet the thing that made John lose his dinner was the normal clothes that was on his father the last time he saw him. ¡°That was a bit premature, wasn¡¯t it. I can¡¯t have you let it out so soon. This is only a failed product that never went through the binding process well enough. There is plenty to see.¡± She pointed a hand in a trail that was revealed by two death knights pushing aside two bushes. ¡°No...Please...No.¡± ¡°But I insist.¡± John closed his eyes and prayed for salvation from the god of fate Tein that Martha prayed for so many times before. ¡°Alright, we now come up to the next exhibit. A slightly better success with nice bonding of the two essence.¡± John found his eyes cracking open slowly at her cheerful demeanour and the lack of an awful smell. He only managed to look at Martha¡¯s still screaming face in the middle of a spider¡¯s thorax before shutting his eyes again. ¡°But the bug to human ratio was still a bit off. What do you think?¡± John did not reply, too busy trying to forget what he saw. ¡°Come on. It¡¯s no fun if you don¡¯t respond. The last time I did something like this to a party, the guy couldn¡¯t stop screaming about getting me back for it.¡± John still remained silent. ¡°Alright. If you won¡¯t grow a spine then I guess we are moving on.¡± They walked for a bit more into the forest and John swore to himself not to open his eyes for anything. ¡°Ok. I see you are pretty determined to ruin my enjoyment of this. So there will be a bit of coercion from now on.¡± John felt an extra pair of hands grip his face. The fingers slowly repositioned themselves on his upper and lower eyelids and pulled. With a flash of light, John¡¯s eyes were pointed at the body of Eddie. Eddie¡¯s torso was completely distorted and split up into a fleshy ¡®X¡¯ with his human arms elongated and split up to resemble a spider¡¯s. His legs were fused into each other and inflated to make a pus and blood dripping facsimile of an abdomen. ¡°He was a much better success case with better ratios of bug traits. But the thing was still not stable. I tried to fix that, but the formula was ironically more unstable and that friend of yours, what was his name again?¡± John whimpered out. ¡°Ha...Harry?¡± ¡°Right. Harry. He¡¯s now down here, now. I would ask you to look,¡± the hand holding his head started to force it down and he only saw the beginning of something red when it eased up, ¡°but there is not much to look at.¡± John was only forced to look at Eddie, but he could still hear a wet plopping sound when Anne dipped her heels into a puddle of red blood and flesh. ¡°I tried it again on that big man too, but he ended back like the second specimen as a full spider. I was a bit disappointed and was prepared to lose the last specimen too. But then the most amazing thing happened.¡± John was then taken to a much larger clearing. In the center was a clearly distressed Rachel screaming to be let go. She soon noticed him and her pleas changed. ¡°Please. Don¡¯t show him this. Please. I can¡¯t. I won¡¯t struggle anymore. Just, Don¡¯t. Please.¡± John was slowly brought closer and she just stopped all begging and pulled her knees up to her chest to cover as much as she could. John could still see the hairy carapace covering her legs and forearms and the black claws her hands and feet sported. ¡°It¡¯s ok, Rachel. You lived. That¡¯s all that matters.¡± She just muttered defeatedly. ¡°It¡¯s not ok. I¡¯m. I¡¯m a freak now.¡± She ducked her head between her knees and openly sobbed. ¡°Aw. But you are such a fine specimen. Just look at that perfectly melded carapace on your arms and legs. Not to mention the added appendages. Legs for days, girl.¡± John was a little confused at her last comment until he noticed how Rachel was being held captive. From her lower back sprouted four sharp blade like spider legs that were three times her length and a small spider¡¯s abdomen leaking silk onto where she was sitting. Those legs were being held down by one death knight or revenant each. John¡¯s stare lingered for just enough to meet Rachel¡¯s own and her cries intensified. ¡°I knew it. I¡¯m a freak now.¡± Anne just tsk-tsked. ¡°You are such a bad boy. Making a girl cry like that.¡± She pulled out from behind her a vial. ¡°And I know just the punishment.¡± Before he could say anything, the liquid was forced down his throat while Anne ran her negative mana through his body. ¡°Now let¡¯s see what you¡¯ll be made of after this.¡± An intense pain wracked his body and John spasmed once his body was freed from whatever was gripping him and allowed to fall. John¡¯s consciousness lasted long enough to make out a large explosion that covered the sky and Anne saying: ¡°Well. There seems to be something else for me to do today. And grab me an umbrella when we go. It might be raining undead very soon.¡± 11-T An enormous explosion of purple appeared over the skies of the Unknown within the first layer of the ¡®Deep¡¯. The flash of light was followed by a portal of the same color opening and slowly darkening to a tarrish black . From within the hole in the sky came a massive downpour of black liquid. The rain painted the forest of jagged rock formations into a massive shadow that consumed all of life. The plant life and vermins that lived between the spaces afforded by the spires of rock slowly lost their vitality from contact with the rain of black death. Larger monsters fared no better and were soon fleeing en masse from the contaminated patch of territory. The hole continued to spew forth the watery substance for a brief juncture before it stopped and began to close up. Before it was completely gone, a final gout of black was spewed. As the blob made its descent towards the ground, its outer layers began to fall off to reveal a humanoid shape with an elongated arm. The figure collided with one of the spires and completely obliterated the structure and toppled the neighboring structures with the shockwave released from the impact. From within the clearing dust of the crater, the figure¡¯s full appearance was unveiled. The only humanoid detail about it was the body¡¯s outline. Its right arm stretched out passed its knees with only three digits topped with razor sharp claws. The left arm could have appeared normal, if not for the membrane connecting it to the body and the massive sword, which stood nearly as tall as it was, attached to its hand. Its pitch black body carried a smooth marble like texture throughout its surface that was marred intermittently by cracks and sharp protrusions. The cracks opened up to reveal a dim deep blue glow from a new metallic substance underneath. The entity¡¯s head was a black deformed skull sitting between two ridges of vertebrae on its collar. The thing¡¯s jaw was broken and sat skewed to the right. In the space left open by the mispositioned jaw was half of another jaw, this one more reptilian than human. Holding the second jaw piece in place was a snake¡¯s body, entangled within the skull and ended with its head poking out from the left eye socket. Embedded in the skull¡¯s back and temple were multiple pieces of broken bones and teeth that matched the shards on its body. Over all of the osseous details of the being were purplish burn marks. The anomaly remained motionless before the small exposed patches¡¯ glow intensified and a wispy blue flame emerged from the left eye. The snake flexed its body straight and the rest of the body stirred into activity. The awakened undead lifted itself up and uttered a guttural growl. The sound seemed to unnerving enough to affect its own creator when the undead flinched back from its own voice. ____________________________________________________________________________ ¡®Urghh. My head. What happened? Hey, Oli? You there?¡¯ Tim darted his eyes around, finding nothing but the afternoon sun hitting his one eye. ¡®How about Brandon then?¡¯ The breath he took to call Brandon with sent waves of pain lancing through him. The sudden burn in his throat shocked him into inflicting even more pain by panickedly pushing the air out in a growl that brought forth enough pain to elicit a physical response. ¡®Alright. That was painful. What happened to my body? I know it was dead, and possibly cancerous in nature, but this is definitely new. Breathing fire with just a burnt throat and no fire is not fun.¡¯ He rose from the lying position and realised a key detail now that he could see some terrain around him as reference. ¡®Since when was I this short. And what happened to the rest of my body¡¯s bodies.¡¯ He tried to move some of the possibly remaining necro-mass he had left, but his attempt only yielded more pain when the hardened material around his tried to move and ground onto the exposed patches. He was truly confused and desperate at that point with his body not cooperating and no one to ask for assistance. Still, he bore the burning sparked by the movement and succeeded in removing himself from his seated position to a standing one. He realised in the process that the peculiar heavy sensation on his left arm was the massive sword that Brandon had him carry before running into that wolf thing. The realisation sparked off a chain of other pieces he had been missing from before. He was just in a fight with a beast warrior with a battle avatar of sort and he was winning. Then the guy dropped some sort of bomb on him. All he remembered after that was feeling the pain of stubbing your toe all over his body and then the sensation of being squeezed from all directions. And now he was here, in a world of pain and no Brandon or Oli around to even call for assistance. He halted the sigh, careful to avoid wracking his body with any more pain, and used the sword as a makeshift walking stick to climb out of the crater he was in. From there, he panned his eye around for anything that could help him in this situation. His first scan through yielded nothing but a scene reminiscent of when he had that excessively messy fight against a wyvern and found out how caustic his tissue really was on the environment. Hysteria was settling in again when the drowning man saw a life raft. Sticking out from the blackened ground was a very familiar spinal cord. He discovered in his rush that moving just a little too fast and letting the cracked tissue rub onto the glowing bits yielded more pain for himself. The discovery also came with an additional fall when his legs locked up from pain that gave him a bit of reassurance that despite the brittle appearance of his outer layer, it held on the impact. Tim picked himself up again, only pausing for a moment of discomfort on his ascent and moved back over to where he saw Olivia. He gently wiggled the staff loose and freed his companion from her prison of darkness and dirt. ¡®Hey, hey, hey. Olivia, you¡¯re fine right? Come on, say something.¡¯ ¡®Yes...Yes. Tim? Why are my reserves so low? What is this I am feeling?¡¯ ¡®Yes. You¡¯re alive. You¡¯re alive. Thank god.¡¯ Tim brushed off the remaining debris on Olivia while rejoicing at her safety. ¡® And. I think you are just tired for the first time. And probably dazed too.¡¯ ¡®Ah. So that is my condition. Is there a remedy available? I do not enjoy being so...what was that term you used?...Adrift. That¡¯s the one. Yes, I do not relish in being so adrift.¡¯ Lost in the moment and enjoying the little slip up the usually immaculate Olivia had, Tim laughed a little and regretted when the exit of air scraped against his sensitive insides. ¡®Yeah. We definitely need to fix that. Let me see.¡¯ Tim familiarly began to syphon his own mana reserves, relieved that they seemed to be intact, and moved it outside of his body. In place of a dead monster that he would convert to his own tissue, the mana was funnelled into Olivia in a crude attempt to jump start her. The process appeared to be a success when Olivia¡¯s right ¡®eye gem¡¯ emitted a much brighter blue glow. ¡®Alright. Everything should be good now right?¡¯ Olivia was not yet completely online and remained silent. Tim was about to let out another pulse when she suddenly rose up and hit him in the head on take-off. ¡®Tim. Tim. Tim. Where are you?¡¯ She finally stopped climbing at roughly higher than his old height of two storeys and started circling around trying to locate him. ¡®Er. Oli. Down here.¡¯ His signal halted her flight and called for an immediate landing. ¡®Tim?¡¯ ¡®Yes? Who else can talk to you in here?¡¯ In the place of a reply, she just dove right into his chest in what he could only assume was a hug. He returned it, taking extra care to not have any piece of her ¡®rib mane¡¯ poke him in one of those ¡®cracks of suffering¡¯. The hug was held for a moment before Olivia separated from him and gave his new body an assessing look. ¡®I had already projected possible ramifications of that attack, but this still exceeds them.¡¯ ¡®Wait. You knew what I we went through? What was it?¡¯ ¡®I only have elementary knowledge of it, but we must have been involved in a teleportation, the icon of the ancient aether school.¡¯ ¡®Ok? and why would that make me like this?¡¯ ¡®The spell was evidently flawed.¡¯ ¡®Alright. I still don¡¯t get most of this, but could you tell what is happening to me and why everytime I move a little too fast, things start to hurt?¡¯ ¡®I will need a full assessment of you. Please remain still while I work.¡¯ The staff casted a layer of mana over Tim¡¯s entire body and he settled in for his check-up to finish. It ended immediately after the mana complete shrouded him and contracted once. Surprised at the brevity of a process he knew was complicated from all the previous times she checked him over when he rearranged or combined cores for efficiency. ¡®You can resume moving now. I have acquired all necessary data.¡¯ ¡®That was fast. You sure you did that right?¡¯ ¡®I am positive.¡± ¡®Alright, give it to me doc, what¡¯s wrong?¡¯ ¡®Your body¡¯s resistance to magic has risen quite a bit and prevented a truly detailed scan.¡¯ ¡®Hold up, you said things were fine, how is a full scan failing fine?¡¯ ¡®But your condition seems to not be too malignant.¡¯ ¡®But you said the scan did not go through, how do you know? ¡®I was able to achieve a rudimentary observation. Nothing was truly amiss. The sole exception being this-¡® The base of her shaft thrusted into one of his cracks, a bit of probing mana covering it. Tim jerked back at the sudden candle tips shoved into his side. ¡®OUCH, what was that for?¡¯ ¡®It was to confirm my theory.¡¯ Tim spun his hand exaggeratedly in front of her. ¡®And that is?¡¯If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡®Structure wise, all is well. Sensitivity, adversely, is-¡¯ The second demonstration and mild amusement in Olivia was enough of a signal to warn Tim. His right hand came down swiftly upon the staff and held it in its place. ¡®¡¯Alright. No more of that. No touchy the bone.¡¯ Tim shook her slightly to emphasise the point while his eye roamed about his body. There were quite a few more of those cracks littering his surface. ¡®So I just need to cover ALL of this up with something right?¡¯ ¡®That is correct.¡¯ ¡®Good. we¡¯d better get out of here then.¡¯ Tim turned his eye towards the few flocks of fleeing birds far away and the still suffocating life around him. ¡®Nothing is staying around my dead zone except for things even nastier than me. we don¡¯t want those.¡¯ The slight note of jovial joking was replaced with heavy resignation. Plus. I need to somehow find Brandon. AGAIN. Urgg.¡¯ ¡®It is unbecoming to groan like that Brother. Unclassified as your body might be, it is most definitely not a zombie.¡¯ Olivia has yet to feel his melancholy. ¡®Jokes aside...Finding him again is going to be worse than digging through hay for a needle. We don¡¯t even know where we got teleported to. And there is no telling what could have happened to Brandon while I¡¯m gone. The wolf guy was not interested in ignoring me and harming them, but if he decided otherwise-¡¯ Olivia did feel the torrent of anxiety that radiated from Tim. It topped that night he saw the wreckage around the tower and frantically searched everywhere around the cliff top. ¡®He won¡¯t harm Brandon. I was with them and heard his intentions to just get rid of you and defending them both.¡¯ Tim paused for a moment. ¡®Yeah. You were there, weren¡¯t you? And I didn¡¯t even think to have you empower me with any of your spells. Maybe we could have-¡¯ ¡®Those thoughts will lead nowhere. You are not solely to blame, I could have initiated on my own. We were just overconfident. There is no point wallowing over it. We must simply move on.¡¯ ¡®Yeah. You¡¯re right. Yeah, Let¡¯s go. Brandon is not going to come here himself and you still have that compass I told you to get just in case right?¡¯ The skull¡¯s jaw opened to reveal a bundle of cloth. ¡®Indeed. Let¡¯s go.¡¯ They left their landing zone without much hassle and soon found a nesting ground for a flock of harpies on their way heading north. The opportunity to fix Tim¡¯s flawed shell was made even more enticing with most of the parents flying and hunting and the young defenseless to the undead¡¯s mercy. A quick application of [aura of death] on Olivia¡¯s part and Tim had whole nest of humanoid birds to fill up his gaps. It was only after finishing converting one of the babies did he notice an apparent problem. ¡®I think this is a bit problematic.¡¯ ¡®And that would be?¡¯ Tim held within his hand the now slightly dripping and completely black body of an infant harpy. ¡®This is just not going to integrate onto my body like before.¡¯ ¡®Perhaps, you can remove just the tissue that is necessary for our purpose.¡¯ ¡®Hm. Alright. Makes sense. Why didn¡¯t I think of that sooner? Thanks Oli.¡¯ Tim began to peel off the broken down black substance from the bone of the harpy and was soon rewarded with a pile of black gunk and a skeleton still covered in some of said gunk. He tentatively began to apply some of the gunk onto an open crack on his chest. He was just about ready to flinch back and received a pleasant surprise when the substance felt only like a soothing balm. ¡®YES. It works. Though, it feels loose?¡¯ Acting on a subconscious feeling, he began to try and contract the filler and widened his eyes in surprise. The substance was compacting far beyond what he could make his old flesh shrink before, yet the sensation of it was natural. The smaller bit of flesh shrunk, the more uniformed it felt sitting between his cracked shell. ¡®Right. You did say something about hyperdense structures. How exactly dense is that?¡¯ ¡®Your entire core bulk and three thirds of your tissue bulk has been converted to this size. So it is a density of at minimum decuple your original flesh and quadruple for your core.¡¯ ¡®That¡¯s pretty good and bad. I¡¯m not too squishy in the covered areas, but it¡¯s gonna take a lot more to cover the rest of me huh?¡¯ ¡®That would be so, Brother.¡¯ ¡®Again. Please stop with that. Just because Brandon has a little sister does not make reusing that name for me funny.¡¯ ¡®But it is, I am definitely finding amusement in this.¡¯ ¡®Har har. And wow. Expected it to cover something. But this. This is pathetic.¡¯ Tim looked down at the scar that was still just as deep, only a paper thin layer of black covered the, then, glowing core. Tim tried spreading and closing his arm and found that at least the layer protected him from hurting himself with the shell no longer moving over the core. Unfortunately, the layer was still too thin so any impact on that spot would still cause him a great deal of pain. The remaining six harpy chicks helped fill a corresponding number of cracks and TIm at last had his torso fixed. Legs, arms and back still waiting, Tim was ready to head out again to regain full pain-free mobility. Their continued trek was marked with Tim constantly changing his gait and pace to adapt to his new body. The legs, missing for at least 10 years by that point, were not going to be used with any finesse anytime soon. The struggle of using his brand new legs brought along a brand new idea on how he could experience a sensation he has long been denied of in the old body. He stopped in his tracks and squatted down before jumping directly off. He reached an impressive height of one and a half storey and fell down with a thundering impact. Standing crouched on the ground with his two legs imbedded halfway to his knees and using his sword hand as a pseudo-crutch,Tim realised what a mistake he had made. The sudden rush of G-force on take off, the temporary weightlessness at the apex of his ascent and the small rush of falling down, all of that he had anticipated for. But he missed one sensation, the one when he finally landed. Every opening on his shell that was moved in the process felt like a fresh wound rubbed liberally with salt and was then set on fire. Olivia flinched too through their connection and was quick to rush over. ¡®It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m fine.¡¯ ¡®The time I have spent with you should have conditioned myself to this. Yet I must ask again. What were you thinking?¡¯ Exasperation was pouring through from Olivia while Tim had a bit of decency to emit some embarrassment. ¡®I mean. I got legs again for after so long. It was lost at first to confusion and all. But then. I have legs now. I can walk. And more importantly, I can jump again. Do you know how much that means? So I had to try it out.¡¯ His shame was short-lived and was soon replaced with excitement. ¡®Yes, I could still remember all the times you have ¡®tried¡¯. The wyvern fighting, jumping into a den of goblins and going to that pit of snakes.¡¯ Olivia beamed a bit of mirth at him. ¡®Those were all nice additions, opposable thumbs, arms that are around my size and a lot of snake bodies to make the clunky lower body smooth to move with. So I stand by those questionable decisions.¡¯ ¡®You have a fair point, those did serve a purpose. This did not.¡¯ ¡®Fine. Bet you would try jumping too if you had legs.¡¯ ¡®But I do not. And your legs are best used to continue walking. We are not pressed for time, but do not have it in abundance either.¡¯ ¡®Alright, alright. But could you help me a little. Kinda stuck. The sword is in even deeper than my legs, so it¡¯s holding me down more than up if you could believe it.¡¯ Olivia focus on the spots around Tim¡¯s trapped legs and started firing off [ecto blast] to chip them away. Once the ground around his feet were removed enough by the ghostly green bolts of energy, she turned her attention to the sword. The first [ecto blast] aimed at the sword fizzled out of existence before it could even hit the ground and the grey gem sported a new sliver of blue. ¡®Quite an artifact we have on our hands.¡¯ ¡®Yeah, that sure was something. Think this is some sort of mana absorbing sword?¡¯ ¡®It is.¡¯ ¡®No, Oli. That was a joke. Things that have that quality are supposed to be extremely rare.¡¯ ¡®But it does, my spells do not simply cease to exist spontaneously.¡¯ ¡®Ok. I knew Brandon¡¯s new dad was good at magic, but I did not see him owning something like this.¡¯ ¡®It is quite a boon as well as a hindrance.¡¯ ¡®The boon is obvious, but how is this bad.¡¯ Olivia did not stay to elaborate and simply floated on her way. ¡®Hey, what about my help.¡¯ He looked down at the sword still stuck to the ground. ¡®Ah. Right, that¡¯s why.¡¯ Tim caught up to a smug Olivia eventually. ¡®I¡¯m going to get you back. Mark my words.¡¯ ¡®Mark number ten made.¡¯ The commotion caused by Tim¡¯s little stunt evidently attracted some local monster and a reverberating roar sounded out from behind them. A wooden club with broken rib cages tied around it in mockery of a mace was the first thing Tim saw as he turned around. With no time to react, he took the brunt of the impact directly to his face and stumbled back from the impact. Yet, it was the weapon that suffered most when it met the undead¡¯s thick head and returned to its original components of bones and wood. The attacker, a troll a head taller than Tim wearing nothing but a pelt loincloth peered confusedly at its supposed prey. Confusion gave quickly to anger when it saw the destroyed weapon lying below Tim¡¯s feet. The thing¡¯s grey skin bulged with red veins and it reared back its right arm for a hook. The telegraphed fist sailed right into Tim¡¯s palm in a quick block. Not to let it retreat for another strike, Tim squeezed down heavily and was rewarded with the crunch of broken bones between his fingers. The troll roared out in agony and brought its other fist down on Tim¡¯s head to retaliate and leverage its trapped hand free. The thump of impact was all the trike yielded as Tim still hung on effortlessly and instinctively raised his left hand up to secure the remaining limb. His new bladed appendage caught onto a rock on its ascent from dragging behind him and left him off balance. The troll took the opening immediately and struck again with its free arm. The body shot landed onto one of Tim¡¯s crack and left him reeling back. Emboldened and freed by its smaller adversary¡¯s retreat, the troll kicked again at the weak point it uncovered. Though the second cheap shot was block by the arm clutching his flank, Tim continued to flinch back from tenderness when the kick found another gap on his arm. The troll was rumbling in twisted amusement at his pain and joined both of its hands for a downward slam on Tim¡¯s head. The supposed finishing strike hit no exposed areas and was brushed off completely. Hands bleeding a little from the jagged surface of Tim¡¯s head, the troll swung again for the confirmed weakness its prey was still covering. Tim was seeing a bit of red after the bombardment of trikes to his sore spots and swung back more viciously with the edge of the hand clutching at his side. His hardened flesh parted right through the troll¡¯s arm with a burst of flesh and blood and lopped off the outer half of its arm from its middle finger. It howled in pain at the damage and tucked back the appendage. It directed a hate filled gaze in his direction and retreated to buy time for its wounds to heal over. The removed chunk of flesh was soon enough replaced and anger was again in the troll¡¯s eyes as it used the distance gained to lunge for a shoulder tackle. The easily foreseen attack that started from an equally long pause was blocked by the raised flat of the blade on Tim¡¯s left arm. With a bit of clumsiness inherent to using a non-dominant hand, he heaved the weapon in a diagonal trajectory and pushed the troll away. Before the staggering monster could regain its balance, Tim struck again with a downward swing, taking off both its right forearm and leg. On the ground in a pool with its leg not healed enough the troll could only look up to an approaching Tim with a hand nursing his side. Before the sword could fully descend and finish the monster, Tim paused. ¡®Hey Oli. We need a lot of material to fix me right?¡¯ ¡®Yes, but your current idea is most certainly not ideal.¡¯ ¡®Come on. It¡¯ll be fine, thing tried to jump me and got a good sucker punch in too. And fighting this thing just hurts. So. much.¡¯ He insisted with a bit of anger bleeding through, hand still clutching a bit around his body. Without waiting for a response, Tim¡¯s blade fell on the intact leg of the troll. As the leg visibly grew back, Tim moved to retrieve the two dismembered limbs he removed earlier. The troll¡¯s two legs were almost fully restored when he finished converting the parts and placing them into the vulnerable parts of his hand. Before It could climb back to its feet, Tim struck again and removed another leg in a spray of blood and groan of pain. He converted the leg too and waited for another one to sprout before looking down at the still growing stump inching ever-slowly towards completion and the now truly pained look on the troll¡¯s face. ¡®I don¡¯t feel so good about this idea anymore. Should have listened to you, huh?¡¯ ¡®Yes, you should.¡¯ ¡®Yeah.¡¯ He put the Troll out of its misery with a blade through its skull and left with just his hand mildly fixed. ------- He remained internally silent for a time as they continued their trek up north. The sun was falling down and they could see the makings of a forest ahead of them. Tim finally paused in his silent travel and turned his head in Olivia¡¯s direction. ¡®Hey Oli. Mind if we stop and practice some magic. I need something to occupy myself instead of just walking like this.¡¯ ¡®Of course, I would love to. what is it that you have in mind?¡¯ 12-T An ursidane roared threateningly at a deformed dirius. The wolf¡¯s glassy eyes stared back at the reared up and bristling bear. Slowly, the canine moved, not on fours, but in a low hunch on its weirdly bloated hind legs, one front leg tearing at the skin and pointing forward and the other dragging below. Its skin hanging almost loosely, the wolf accelerated and slammed into the wall of muscle and fur. The ursidane skidded back from its position and slammed its two paws harshly onto its attacker¡¯s back with a muted thud. It dug its claws onto the pelt and pushed back, intent on removing the strangely heavy dog from its more vulnerable underbelly. It was partially successful. The pelt was pulled away, but not the thing wearing said pelt. The fur and head pulled off like a hood to reveal a blackened, warped and irrily humanoid skull. His one hand still on the bear¡¯s abdomen, Tim stabbed forward with the sword tucked tight to his side. Its flesh parted and blood spilled, the bear uttered a roar of defiance and its entire body lit up in an encompassing golden brown glow. The glow condensed on its arms and especially the bone plates on its forearms and shoulders. With much more power than before, the bear dropped its paws on top of the skull. A resounding thump echoed out through the forest and cracks formed under the two. The earth shattering pounce did not even dent the monster and the skull just turned up to look at it in almost pity before it felt movement in its body. The embedded sword made an ascent through the bear¡¯s ribs, throat and jaw to embed itself deep within the skull. Life left the creature and it slumped down over is killer. Tim eased himself away from the dead monster and let its body slowly fall to the ground. Tim slowly pulled his hand free from the wolf ¡®gloves¡¯ of the set he fashioned for himself and took the entire thing off. ¡®Well done, Tim, your idea of armor worked rather well.¡¯ ¡®Sure did. Loose skin that skids off really helps. But that last one was still close. A hit like that would leave me in the fetal position for quite a while.¡¯ Figurative sweat wiped from his brow, Tim flipped the bear over for harvesting. He began with inserting his clawed fingers into the bear¡¯s opened chest and dragging them down to fully open it up. The organs were removed from the opening and Tim was, like so many times before, grateful for the dulled sense of touch his existence as an Undead brought. From there, he removed as much of the meat and bone structure from within the bear as possible, paying careful attention to not break the skin. Once the bulk of the insides were outside, Tim ran one of his claws over the interior again to remove any specs of remains that might prove to be a literal thorn inside. Assured that he would not be feeling any ingrown toenails on his back or arms, Tim slowly donned the newest set of armor he has managed to secure for himself. The skull was draped over his and the arms were slipped on, both done with the ease of putting on a hoodie. ¡®That armor does fit well, though the back end does seem rather obstructing towards movement. No matter, here are the vines that you need to firmly fix it in place.¡¯ A piece of thick vine was soon handed to Tim and he began to fasten the left shoulder plate into place. The easy bit done, Tim held tightly to another length of vine . ¡®Now hold still. I¡¯ll aid you with the remaining pieces.¡¯ He held his out horizontally to the ground while Olivia flew closer. After a bit of fiddling and Olivia doing laps around his limb, Tim found his dominant hand secured with a piece of armor plating as well. ¡®The arms are not fully utilized like this. The forearms are going to be problematic to attach with just vines.¡¯ ¡®I can always do the same thing I did with the wolf on both arms.¡¯ As he said, Tim broke through the problem with the simplistic approach of just piercing both of his arms through the bear¡¯s paws and tying down the forearm plates with more vines. The cumbersome behind was tied to his waist with the back paws like he would with his jackets. ¡®Ok. That¡¯s done. I can actually go fight things that we run into without watching every hit for a possible crit on me.¡¯ ¡®Our trek tomorrow would most definitely be swifter. Now let¡¯s settle down in this clearing for your magic practice. We should go over control tonight, your overqualification in intensity has been proven yesterday.¡¯ ¡®About that, I think we should stop the night magic practice. I was just a bit stressed yesterday. We can continue overnight this time. Though I would love to hear more of the symbols you have composed to help me use my negative mana for more normal casting.¡¯ ¡®If that is what you wish for, then why not? Though I do enjoy actual experimentation. Observing your own spells spontaneously deteriorate in every attempt is fine too.¡¯ ¡®Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I still don¡¯t know why my spells just fizzled out like that. Spent the whole night practicing and I feel like my control just got worse. Mana just ups and disappears on me.¡¯ ¡®Do not be disheartened. Magic is not something so easily learned. As I have mentioned prior, it is entertaining to watch you try and fail.¡¯ ¡®Well, I guess I¡¯m trying more magic after we find Brandon. You can laugh at me more when I fail then too. Or, I¡¯ll laugh at you when I pull something off and you don¡¯t.¡¯ ¡®I will hold you to that. Now we best be going. Brandon and Layla are waiting for us.¡¯ ¡®Yeah, wonder what the girl will feel once her moving theater is no more.¡¯ ¡®Well, she will have a wild knight to fight if you are able to improve your swordplay.¡¯ ¡®I will. Some day. Probably.¡¯ ¡®Creator made me to last centuries to match her own confidence in her ability to live, so I should, in theory, live until that point.¡¯ ¡®Well. That¡¯s a definite thing then. Just hope she still wants to fight me then.¡¯ It was with levity that they resumed their journey across the clearing bathed in the dying light of the sun. ***** ¡®Hey, Oli. Are you seeing that smoke over there?¡¯ Tim pointed towards his right. A column of black smoke was cutting through the orange haze. ¡®Yes. I do believe that is smoke rising from the canopy.¡¯ ¡®Great, actual people. We can go and ask where we are now.¡¯ ¡®Tim. Might I remind you again what we are.¡¯ ¡®What do you-. Ah, Right. That.¡¯ ¡®We can still approach and listen in to deduce our position. You are much more streamlined and agile now.¡¯ ¡®Hmm. That could work. And if they are bandits, we can just rob like the few times before.¡¯ With that final bit of motivation, the two diverged eastward from their original course. Tim was extra careful to avoid noise makers, twigs, dried leaves and any animal that might get startled. Their efforts were in vain. The camp could be described in one word. Trashed. The tents were blown to bits, the firepit haphazardly buried and personal belongings were strewn throughout the clearing. ¡®Does it still count as robbing if we just pick the scraps from the original robbers?¡¯ ¡®It does not. But this does not qualify as a robbing.¡¯ ¡®Looks pretty robbed to me.¡¯ ¡®For one, there is an arrangement of weapons in the camp¡¯s center. No robbers would overlook weapons of any kind. ¡¯ ¡®Yeah. Those always mean cash if sold, right?¡¯ ¡®Yes, additionally, there still remain too many possessions. Bandits will extract all that they can from a quarry.¡¯ ¡®Yup, forget my robbed comment. What did happen here, though?¡¯ ¡®I am detecting residues of necromancy around this location. And there are no immediate signs of fatalities. So a possible hypothesis would be a kidnapping. Perhaps we should try to offer assistance.¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s great that you want us to help, but I don¡¯t think we can. This probably happened yesterday from the still smoking firepit, but how long do you think a necromancer will keep them alive. They were caught to be sacrifices and are probably dead by now.¡¯ ¡®But we should still make an attempt. Sacrifices can have specific timings from my own experience with Creator. Our opportunity for rescue is not completely nonexistent.¡¯ Tim closed his one eye, his head lulling forth in the familiar motion of a sigh. The pause remained for a second before he gave her a reply. ¡®Alright, we¡¯ll just take a quick walk through camp and then you can try to sniff out where the necromancer left off to. And sorry for, brushing these people off. I was tunneling too much on us getting out of here and finding Brandon.¡¯If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡®I understand, but we must hurry.¡¯ ¡®Will do.¡¯ They advanced towards the camp. ***** The first tent remains they neared held nothing of importance besides some male and female clothings. Those clued them in on the gender of two of the group. The next destroyed piece of cover held not much better with just more female clothes thrown around. The only point worth nothing was a set of robes that emitted a particular aura. Holy. Tim made sure not to touch that particular piece of clothing and moved on to the only intact tent. There was a clear sense of division between the two sides of the tent. One was a clearing resting corner with two hastily thrown off sleeping bags and some clothes lying on top. The other side was a clean work station with one side stacked with books and the other filled with flasks and tubes of various substances. Off in one corner was a small opened chest with smaller boxes inside and even smaller vials of liquid inside of them. He lifted one of the boxes and found a note on it. Injury heal. Another was disease heal, followed by mana. The last had a more ominous ¡±boom¡± and was only missing one vial while the others looked to be missing several. He closed the chest, making sure to be extra careful with the ¡°boom¡± box and exited the tent. ¡®I found some potions if we¡¯re really going through with whole rescue business.¡¯ He stuff the chest on the dead bear¡¯s rump hanging from his lower back. ¡®Let¡¯s just finish the search with the last tent and get going.¡¯ ¡®That would be unnecessary. The last tent held nothing of value aside from the map that we are in need of.¡¯ Tim tilted his head to look and there was indeed a scroll holder hanging from the last vertebrae on her shaft. ¡®I was also able to locate the exit direction of our perpetrators.¡¯ ¡®Alright, let¡¯s go.¡¯ The two departed, Olivia leading with her ability to sense. They left camp through an obscured trail to the right. Three sets of prints led down the trail. Three were very similar, being footprints without heels and fairly long toes. The unique set looked to be of a pair of dainty shoes walking in the center. The sounds of TIm¡¯s footsteps stopped. His gaze was held up once again after the observation and found Olivia to not be there anymore. A spike of panic ran through him as he spun around and disappeared upon the sight of her floating behind him. ¡®Tim, I believe the time has come for us to prove our worth against Creator.¡¯ His restarted steps were soon halted again.. ¡®Are you absolutely sure about this?¡¯ ¡®Yes. I have walked behind her for a great deal, enough to recognize her footprints.¡¯ The surety in her reply dropped a nice thick lump of lead into his proverbial stomach. It was only after a brief moment of centering that Tim managed a resigned reply. ¡®Oh. This changes things.¡¯ ¡®Indeed.¡¯ Not at all ready for this, TIm made a venture for an alternative to a confrontation. ¡®You¡¯re sure about this right. Fighting Anne is a pretty big deal for you and we spent quite a bit before just preparing for it, but we can just always, you know, not.¡¯ Olivia wasted not a second to reply. ¡®No, Creator must be stopped. Now.¡¯ ¡®Ok? Then please stay here, I don¡¯t know what other kill switch she might have on you. I can go beat her up myself, like last time.¡¯ ¡®No. It will take more than you to permanently end her.¡¯ ¡®Um. Since when did things turn from trying to best her at her own game to prove how big of a mistake it is to leave you to actually planning to murder her?¡¯ ¡®It was thanks to you that I have realised the naivety of my original goals, simply proving her wrong about our potential. You have taught me so much on morality and justice and I have come to realise how much more of a monster Creator is than the armor you are wearing.¡¯ ¡®Ok, I get that she is a horrible person. But can¡¯t we just capture her and hand her to any kind of authority to be judged and tried. We don¡¯t have to bring justice into our own hands.¡¯ Olivia remained silent and turned her skull upwards, avoiding Tim¡¯s gaze. She held that position for a bit before, with a bit of resolve, replying. ¡®My desire to end her does not stem purely from a selfless pursuit of justice.¡¯. ¡®Alright, would you mind telling me what they stem from then?¡¯ Olivia turned her face down from the sky to the ground. ¡®It stems from my personal desire to kill her.¡¯ ¡®Ok? Why?¡¯ Tim was more confused than worried about Olivia¡¯s statement. ¡®Revenge needs to be exact upon her for her actions against my previous self. You may despise me, but the soul that I now occupy will never be at peace without Anne¡¯s demise.¡¯ Confusion became even more dominant. Tim¡¯s only good hand was ready to rise and scratch his head. ¡®Wait, what¡¯s this business about your old self and letting the soul be at peace?¡¯ Hesitation could be seen in the almost emotionless looking staff. It was only natural that TIm felt far more fo it through their connection. ¡®Creator did not create the soul that I now possess. she merely wrote my memory over an existing soul, one which has now been freed of her grasp and is emitting great anguish through me.¡¯ A bit of resentment at the sudden reveal was squashed firmly when Tim saw Olivia float back just a half step. His shoulders sagged a little as he took a second to think and settle things down within his head. ¡®It¡¯s fine, I wished you would have told me about this sooner. And before you say anything, I do not despise you for wanting revenge. I would want revenge on someone if they murdered me too.¡¯ ¡®Truly?¡¯ ¡®Yes. Just. Just give me a moment to get my head around all of this. I am premeditating a murder after all. Urg. Thinking that is wrong even if my target is most likely a psychopathic serial killer. ¡®I understand, I will wait. Convincing you to accept my proposition is already better than any of my projections of this.¡¯ The announcement sounded too subdued in his head and, with the effects of the first bit of news still lingering, barely shook him. The tension on Olivia¡¯s end was still felt and Tim decided to make his next message sound just a bit more light hearted. ¡®Wow, so this bomb has been planned to be dropped huh?¡¯ His jovial reception of her choices sparked Olivia to happily spew the rest in a rapid fire. ¡®Yes, the soul has been growing restless and transmitting her memories of suffering into me intermittently throughout the years.¡¯ Touches of light amusement still painted Tim¡¯s end of the link. ¡®Good to know. I guess. And I think I am ready now to save a soul and stop a serial killer. God, it still sounds off when I declare it like that. Just get in my cloak and let¡¯s keep going.¡¯ The previous nervous energy escaped Olivia completely on her next line. ¡®So we are employing that tactic.¡¯ ¡®Yes, we are. You planned quite a bit for that. Can¡¯t really forget it now, can I.¡¯ Tim spread out his arms, opening up the bear cloak for Olivia to float in. ¡®Be careful in there. I don¡¯t have the bulk to hold you in like before, so you can squeeze in right next to my head.¡¯ Once he had gained an extra head, Tim resumed his trek down the trail, making adjustments to Olivia¡¯s position for his own comfort. The trail began to rise as the sky darkened around them, a large mountain visible through the canopy. The natural noises of nature were also slowly snuffed out as they traveled steadily up through the dense forest towards the looming peak. In the tense silence both outside and inside, the two was startled out of their state of alert by the sound of a broken twig. Heads swivelling immediately to their right expecting an army of undead to swarm them, Tim and Olivia goggled at a non-threatening sight of a half naked guy giving a girl a piggyback ride. The pairs both stood and observed each other. The living had their eyes wide and face paling, looking all the world like they were staring down the barrel of a gun. The dead were simply staring at the strange appendages that they now saw on the living. The most obvious ones would be the four spindly spider legs stretching out from behind the girl. The boy looked to be almost normal, albeit a little haggard looking with scratches and leaves sticking out of his head of curly hair, if not for the four more proportioned three fingered limbs growing from his shoulder blades. The staredown was broken first by the boy when he moved his eyes off the combined form of Olivia and Tim to look behind and to their sides while slowly back tracking. His heels were already turning for a run when more sounds came from the direction of the humans. These sounds were much more violent, trees falling, branches breaking off and mismatching footfalls. The first of the walking corpses to come into view was ironically an ursidane. His eyes on the broken patches of rotting skin and dead eyes, Tim wondered idly if he looked more terrifying wearing a dead bear than the actual dead bear. His spontaneous thought lasted for no more than a second before, through simply taking into the account the numbers of the two forces stopping him, the teenage boy decided to sling the girl off of his back into his lap and rush back in Tim¡¯s direction, determination gleaming in his eyes. He took one crouching step and lunged with surprising strength and dexterity over Tim¡¯s head and into the trail behind, rolling down hill to bleed off momentum before righting himself and continuing his mad dash. The undead duo looked on as he finally disappeared into the forest. A heavy impact on his back bone plate notified Tim that there was still company. The zombie ursidane was gnawing on Tim¡¯s head to no effect. A heavy swing of his sword arm removed the offending monster¡¯s torso and left its lower half falling backwards. The casual dispatch of their comrade dissuaded not the horde and more zombies soon funneled out from the forest. Tim, realising the situation that he could be in, tensed and raised the sword back up into the middle stance. His preparation was not only external and Tim was already building up a massive charge of mana to send Olivia¡¯s way when she called out in his head. ¡®Stop. Creator is not here, our trump card should not be used so soon.¡¯ That did not take the tension out of him. ¡®Are you sure? That¡¯s too many undead to not have an active controller.¡¯ ¡®Yes, they are simply moving forward to attack without any coordination.¡¯ Tim was able to confirm this with the next undead, a clearly ranged orientated decomposing harpy with a bow and quiver was walking towards them holding the arrows like a human would a spear. Fully sure that he was not going against a sentient being and instead just a bunch of brainless corpses following a basic order of sort, Tim relaxed and let the sword arm drag behind him again as he moved forward. The harpy was taken out with another swing, while two bolts of [ectoblast] flew from Olivia to disintegrate two dead diriuses. From that point on, the horde of undead were quickly taken care of, Tim and Olivia mowing them down with massive swings that took a few trees along with the undead and scorching blast that left nothing but smoking remains. They incurred almost no damage with Tim covering his exposed front easily with the sword and the thick bone plate of the ursidane blocking his back. They were on their way to chopping down the last of the creatures when a new rumble shook the trees still standing around them. Tim tensed up and entered another middle stance, waiting for some sort of massive creature to step into sight from the forest and was knocked off balance when something erupted from the ground below him. The land shark¡¯s jaws grabbed hold of his sword arm and Tim and Olivia found themselves falling face first into a deep dark hole. Their trip through the ground was surprisingly not as painful as Tim anticipated with all of the loose rubble digging into the exposed cracks his armor could not cover on his legs and belly. It was more like digging through mud, the substance offering little resistance against their voyage. Tim was still not going to be dragged around regardless of how painless this was all and stretched out his free limb into the viscous earth around them. His sharp claws parted easily through the initially soft layer and the tips of his fingers finally found purchase in a more solid part of the ground. The land shark could no longer swim through its self-generated watery ground and was slammed heavily into a hard wall of dirt on its right. The solid substance soon converted into a soft flowing consistency via the brownish aura released by the resurrected beast. Tim clung on tight to the mound of earth his hand was deep in, aided a little by the once flowing mud that covered his arm now turning solid again with the shark no longer in the proximity. With an internal grunt of effort, Tim, now with all three of his unbitten limbs firmly rooted in the ground, hoisted the dead fish up above his head, breaking earth apart and shining light down on his situation again. The shark was flapping frenziedly in the air, flaking off chunks of dirt around its body. Olivia could now see again and immediately fired off an [ectoblast]. The blast burned off an entire section of the shark from between its head and pectoral fins. The limb body fell to the ground while the head still hung on viciously, shaking with all the muscles left to hopefully damage Tim. Another [ectoblast] finished the job. Tim was now stuck with the task of freeing himself from his earthly confines. The undertaking was made easier with Olivia¡¯s help and the fact that the sword was not in position to hinder her efforts. Tim was soon freed and felt a distant wet sensation on his back. The feel of broken wood and glass when he reached behind him telling Tim that his useful pick-up of potions was no longer useful or even usable. He shook his head and dug back up to ground level. Once up, it was clear to Tim that, brief as his temporary confinement was, they were dragged quite a distance up the trail. Their current location was just right on the foot of the mountain, their scene of combat just barely visible from there as a patch of missing trees. The free trip was no convenience. Tim had to return and absorb whatever he could of the undead he had slain, securing as many of the holes in his defenses as possible. The walk down was fairly quicker and Tim was already stripping off flesh from the re-killed corpses to put in his cracks. His work was soon interrupted by a familiar fellow. The spider boy was back with a vengeance and a full set of leather armor and six daggers of varying quality. The boy pounced on Tim¡¯s open back. The four daggers in his insect hand digging deep into the bear hide for purchase. The human ones tried to dig into Tim¡¯s two eye sockets. They succeeded in pushing the snake off to the side and flicker Tim¡¯s flame eye slightly. The surprise attack had Tim jump in surprise, but the boy held on and switched tactics. The daggers were aimed lower, trying this time to remove the head from the body. The attack found much more success and dug deep into one of Tim¡¯s cracks. The lance of hot fire across his throat elicited an immediate pass of his longer right arm. A crash sounded out from behind him and Tim turned to look at a tree broken in half. The realization that the object that broke the tree was not there came when said object impacted his back again. More ready and much less willing to be hurt, Tim swung his right arm again. He grabbed hold of the boy¡¯s torso and slammed him forward into the ground. The measured impact failed to incapacitate the teen and Tim earned a face-full of dirt courtesy of the still struggling male and his six arms. Not too fond of his vision fading out every time his eye flame flickered, Tim rose to his full height and removed the boy from the ground and his ammunition. With nothing to throw or use to leverage himself, he resorted to violently thrashing about and futilely hitting Tim. The struggle lasted for a while before the human realised the pointless nature of his struggles and ceased squirming to accept his defeat. Seeing the fight leave his captive, Tim lowered the stab-happy guy down slowly. Surprise was evident in his brown bloodshot eyes as the undead refused to end him. Eyes still wide and jaw ready to drop, he slowly backed away. Only to bump into something from behind. Olivia¡¯s own bony visage stared down at him, her macabre features made worse with the final red rays of the sun. ¡°Hello. May we be of assistance?¡± He immediately rolled to the side, only to be grabbed by Tim again. Still no harm coming his way, the boy goggled on for a while, head switching between Tim and Olivia, confusion growing within his gaze. Tim was soon bored of just waiting for a reply and resumed with his flesh tripping. Olivia asked again. ¡°Perhaps you did not hear me the first time. Can we be of assistance to you?¡± His eyes turned to Tim working and back to Olivia, the absurd notion of actual help coming from the monsters still not settling in for him. He held the stare only for a minute before he remembered the circumstances and the person waiting for him. Desperation usurped skepticism and he hurriedly asked. ¡°I...No. Rachel needs potions. Do you have potions?¡± Off behind Olivia, Tim reached for that damp spot again. 13-T Tim carefully moved his arm back to where it was on the corpse, giving extra care to hide the liquid on it from view. Sure that he was successful, Tim wiped off the residue potion on the dead ogre and turned back to Olivia and knife boy. He turned none too soon. ¡°Well, we did-¡± ¡®Oli. Stop right there. Do not say that we have them.¡¯ ¡°-not find any potions when we went into your camp.¡± ¡®For what reason are we lying?¡¯ ¡®I think I broke all of the potions when we got dragged underground. There might be some left, but let¡¯s not dig ourselves into a hole.¡¯ Tim directed his gaze at the now slumped boy gritting his teeth. ¡°Damn it. Why? Why? She won¡¯t make it like this.¡± He only realised company was still around a moment later and turned to the other two. Instead of the confusion and small traces of hope they held earlier, his eyes bore down on the two with renewed hatred. ¡°You¡¯re lying.¡± Olivia, still working out how to covertly check Tim¡¯s bottom for any surviving potions was jarred out of her contemplation. ¡°Excuse me, What did you accuse us of?¡± Heat never left his gaze. ¡°You heard me. You¡¯re lying. You¡¯re another one of that monster¡¯s minions. You took the potions. I saw that thing¡¯s,¡± He pointed at Tim, ¡°Leading into Harry¡¯s tent. So where did you put the potions?¡± He punctuated the last question with a jump forward. His daggers glinted in the moonlight, pointed towards Olivia. Tim cut off the attempt on her life with a heavy slam. After the thud of impact and clink of daggers hitting some stones, he was pinned down face first in the earth. He struggled and Tim¡¯s grip held firm, a little tighter than before. ¡°Let. Go. Of. Me,¡± Screamed the captive, each syllable enunciated through a grunt as he thrashed about within Tim¡¯s grasp. Olivia took the cover Tim¡¯s larger body afforded and snuck behind him to search for the potions. ¡®Tim. Where did you place the potions?¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s in the butt.¡¯ ¡®I don¡¯t recall you having a butt.¡¯ ¡®Bear¡¯s butt. The bear¡¯s butt.¡¯ ¡®How should I access it then. There does not seem to be an opening for me to search.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯ll help with that, wait a bit.¡¯ Tim lowered himself gently into a kneel. The drooping rump was now supported by the ground and Tim could untie the paws around his waist. The act itself was rather difficult with Tim using only the sword arm with the other still occupied. The simple knot was undone eventually with the sword guard. With a plop, The bear¡¯s rear fell free, depositing a mess of splinters and shards down Tim¡¯s back onto the ground. From Olivia¡¯s mouth came a [mana construct], a hand. Riffling through the colorful mix, Olivia managed to pull out three intact vials. The sight brought a new conclusion into being within the human¡¯s mind. ¡°So you did take them. Give them back. NOW.¡± ¡®I am really regretting not knocking this guy unconscious.¡¯ ¡®You are well aware that you will not do so. No, let¡¯s offer the desperate what they desire.¡¯ ¡°I will provide you with the potions, under the prerequisite that you do not engage in any act of violence against us. I will stress again that we mean you no harm.¡± She took the silence as a ¡°yes¡± and deposited the vials in front of his face. Three arms snapped up the vials and the boy ceased his resistance. Tim eased the pressure steadily, reflexes tensed to push him back down at any sign of sudden movement. The hand eventually came free and Tim did not have to slam it down immediately. The teen slowly pulled himself to his feet, dusting off the dusk from being pressed. He stared down the two for a moment before beginning to move backwards. Olivia intervened. ¡°As we have assisted you, we would like remuneration.¡± At his face of doubt, Olivia quickly continued. ¡°Do not worry. We simply need your confirmation. Does the appearance of your attacker match that of a blonde little girl?¡± The description created a pause, the two nonhumans waiting for a reply while the human froze. After a second of just staring into space, a shiver heralded the return of the teen and his reply. ¡°Yes. That¡¯s what it looked like,¡± he spoke shakily at first. ¡°What¡¯s it to you?¡± he continued confusedly. ¡°Wait,¡± he stepped back. He did not deem it necessary to share his conclusion and hurriedly turned around. He sprung with an inhuman intensity and was soon out of their sight within the trees. ¡®Alright. That was. Something. Definitely something.¡¯ Tim turned back to the pile of bones that resulted from his efforts. ¡®Hey Oli. Think we can work something out to use these. Feels like such a waste leaving them here like this.¡¯ ¡®We will consider options at another time, Tim. But first, could we follow that male back to the camp?¡¯ ¡®Um. Yes? Why though?¡¯ ¡®Regardless of his hostility, we should still endeavour to help. An additional reason would be the possibility that his plight stemmed from Creator.¡¯ ¡®Alright. Redemption and all right? Ok, let¡¯s go then. I just hope it doesn¡¯t come to too much violence.¡¯ Tim wiped off his butt and put on the bear rear again. They moved relaxedly, not much care taken to be quiet lest their approach be taken for an ambush. The effort proved to be rather pointless. A voice sounded out from ahead of them, skepticism and hostility evident within it. ¡°What are you doing following me?¡± The exclamation was followed by an arrow falling just at Tim¡¯s foot. Undeterred, the two pressed on to where they remembered the camp was. More arrows came, direct shot at them instead of warnings. Tim walked on, crouched to minimize his size and maximize the armor coverage. Olivia hung close to his chest for protection. The shooting ceased completely once they got within a certain distance of the camp. Tim was already sporting a few arrows in his furred parts when they got to the camp. He could not even begin to remove them when a burst of movement popped up is his peripheral vision, highlighted by the now relit campfire. The same movement appeared again, revealed under better observation to be the boy carrying the girl between the tents. Both dashes were leading away from Tim and Olivia. Knowing clearly their intentions, Tim made his doubts known to Olivia. ¡®Hey. I don¡¯t think they want our help very much. He made it abundantly clear with shooting and now running away from us.¡¯ Olivia mulled over the response before giving back her own. ¡®I supposed. The female¡¯s condition should have improved for him to move her.¡¯ Just as she finished the transmision, the boy made another leap, one that would take him into the cover of the forest. Already in the air, the boy was caught by surprise with his companion¡¯s irregular limbs suddenly flexing and digging deep into the ground. The sudden anchorage of her limbs removed the passenger from her position of his back. The small pull to the boy¡¯s back resulted in him falling on the same portion of his body. The girl¡¯s extra legs soon gave out and she fell to the ground, writhing. The boy got up and went to her care, settling her into a lying position with the spider legs splayed out and cradling her head in his lap. ¡°It¡¯s going to be ok, Rachel. Here, drink.¡± He lowered a vial on her lips and gently tipped it back. The girl swallowed a mouthful before coughing profusely and clutching at her heart. He looked questioning down at the vial and took a small sip for himself. ¡°It¡¯s disease heal. Why is it making things worse?¡± Rachel held off her coughing and lifted a hand to his face.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°It is fine John. See, I¡¯m better al-. ARHHHHHH.¡± The pained scream preceded a sickening transformation. Her mouth opened wide from the scream stretched further and further until, with a wet tear, it split, leaving its inside bare for all to see. The loosed lower jaw began to grow out scabs of brown chitin over her skin. Once the outside was coated, the shell moved onto the insides of her mouth covering all of her teeth with the sole exception of the canines. The two exposed teeth began to enlarge and curve inwards. Once her lower jaw was split into two fanged insectoid appendages, the girl gurgled out another scream as they slowly turn upside down and folded themselves to fit against the roof of her mouth. Snot and tears were streaking down her face when her eyes widened, herself feeling another bout of pain coming on. From her elbows sprouted coarse and sharp black hairs. The patches of hair growing steadily towards her hands, piercing bloody holes as they emergence. John could only stand by, helpless to do anything but watch as she slowly changed and screamed her throat raw. She finally lost consciousness once the hairs have completely covered her skin. John took a temporary reprieve in her freedom from suffering. Guard dropped for one second, John failed to see the four bladed legs converging on his position and paid with four corresponding gashes to his calf after jumping back a second too late. He still managed to clear himself of the death trap and scuttled backwards from the slowly rising body. The girl¡¯s catatonic body now dangled off of the four legs and ambled forward. It began slowly with the legs not distributing the weight correctly and tilting slightly. Each step after was adjusted and a smooth stride was soon achieved, directed straight towards a back-pedaling John. Just before it was within reaching distance of him, Rachel regained consciousness and spider legs lost all of their synchronization, tripping over themselves and dropping her down to the ground. The girl did not remain on the ground for long and was soon pushing herself up and saw what she had done. John was staring straight at her, confusion, fear and disgust on his face, his leg bleeding and body shaking. Tears ran down her face again that night. His leg healing up and body calming down, John took a tentative step towards Rachel. ¡°No. D...Don¡¯t come over here John. I. I can¡¯t. I¡¯ll hurt you again. Just. Just stay there. Give me a minute.¡± ¡°O...Ok. I¡¯ll wait.¡± John held out his hands placatingly and settled down. Tim and Olivia watched on from the side as the whole sequence happened, the large one filled with compunction about stepping in and the other too focused on the process to do so. It was Olivia that moved first, not towards the two suffering bodies, but to the forest. Tim was already forming the thoughts to ask about her intentions of entering the woods when she emitted a fairly familiar sound. A reverberating howl sounded out within the clearing, the sound a little off in pitch and volume compared to that of a natural dirius. ¡®Why did you do that? We¡¯re supposed to help them. A pack of dirius coming here is not helping.¡¯ ¡®Please. Trust me.¡¯ ¡®I do. Now is there anything for me to do then?¡¯ ¡®Be prepared to kill.¡¯ Tim silently lifted his sword from its place being dragged behind him to a middle stance. Behind him, the sobbing has subsided and John has settled into telling silly recounts of past experiences to calm the girl. They were passed his recounting of that time he tried to have a puppy dirius and almost succeeded before his dad intervened and the bonus content that he tried again soon after, only to be stopped by Rachel¡¯s teacher Max. The current story was a little more serious with John revealing his desire to go join Rachel when she eventually went to the training camp for warriors. He was going over his reasoning when the first responders came. The dirius bursted out from a bush. It laid eyes on the two seated humans, careless of their insect appendages, and charged. It made one jump and bit deeply onto a moving blade. The canine missing the top half of its skull skidded to a stop in front of the crouching boy and shivering girl. The sudden bout of action reminded John again of the two other residents of his old camp. ¡°What are you still doing here?¡± His voice also alerted the unaware Rachel and she scuttled back as fast as she could from the undead. ¡°On. At. It. at.¡± She forced out from her throat without a mouth to shape the sounds. ¡°They¡¯re just some undead looking for that bitch. And speaking of that. STOP. FOLLOWING. ME. I AM NOT TAKING YOU TO HER YOU BRAINLESS UNDEADS.¡± John finished with a yell at Tim and Olivia, both not paying attention to him. ¡®Alright. What do I do now?¡¯ ¡®You next task would be to restrain the human boy.¡¯ Tim nodded and was headed steadily towards John. The target was quick to react and was already in a lowered stance, daggers at the ready, eyes trained on the approaching offender. ¡°Stop right th-¡± Tim rushed forward, faster than John remembered the undead moving from his fight before. A ursidane¡¯s paw impacted his chest as John took a clothesline from Tim. Tim added a spin to his hook and held John tightly to his chest in the same movement. John frantically struggled, but could not breakfree. The shaking was putting the human dangerously close to many of the spikes on Tim¡¯s body. He forcefully sat them both down, putting some space between John¡¯s back and his chest. ¡®So. I just keep him like this right?¡¯ ¡®Yes. That would be the last of your tasks.¡¯ Olivia now floated over to the unguarded girl. She flinched back, but the staff just moved on passed her and towards the dirius corpse. A handlike [mana construct] pulled the body towards Rachel. The girl backed up further. Olivia moved closer. Rachel hit her back on a tree and could move no further. The corpse arrived at her feet and she could only inch closer to the tree for distance. Yet, as she looked to the body and the blood, a familiar sensation began to come over her. ¡°Oh. Oh. Oh.¡± She forced the air frantically in and out of her deformed mouth, the desperate no¡¯s never truly formed. John was quick to react to her plight, struggling even harder within Tim¡¯s grip, spewing profanity at every movement. ¡°Let me go you piece of shit. Can¡¯t you fucking see Rachel is hurt? What is that bitch staff doing to her?¡± Tim¡¯s grip tightened at the slur directed at Olivia and contemplated actually following through with knocking the guy out. The idea was scrapped as he did not know how to effectively knock someone out, the risk of using excessive force a very real possibility. Olivia pulled back away from Rachel to hover next to Tim. The girl¡¯s incoherent muttering of no has already stopped as she again entered the realm of unconsciousness. Her nonhuman appendages, without her conscious effort to control them, moved on their own. The first movements were to tentatively check their range of motion and, once that was established, raised Rachel¡¯s body. The legs carried her over the fresh body at her feet and steadily lowered her head over it. Her mutated mouth part reached the dead monster and plunged its fangs into the corpse. It remained attached to its prey and the meal began to slowly liquify from the puncture wounds. The closest layer to its mouth now a viscous mush, the thing slowly walked its fangs forward, to both reach a new area and pulled the already digested material to its gullet. The process of injecting digestive enzymes and moving processed food into its mouth continued, framed by John¡¯s incessant struggling. A conclusion came to him and was made known. ¡°You¡¯re making it worse. YOU¡¯RE FEEDING THAT THING! You were never helping me. You faked it all like those ghosts with Harry and Eddie.¡± After more ravings on the wicked nature of Tim and Olivia, John¡¯s volume began to lower. ¡°We never made it out. She just left, but sent you. Now you¡¯re taking us back, aren¡¯t you? It was just to rub it in how trapped we are.¡± His ravings were switched for desperate mumbles on his fate and Anne¡¯s cruelty. ¡°Doing those t...things to dad, Max, Martha, Agnes, Eddie and Harry. Rachel was still alive, human. And now?¡± He choked back a sob. ¡°Sh...she looks like that. I ran and I hoped. I hoped we got out. Going to the curse support group. And it¡¯s gone. IT¡¯S GONE. SHE¡¯S NOT HUMAN ANYMORE.¡± Hysteria was back in John. Tim was unsettled from what he heard, holding down the boy something he began to have second thoughts on. ¡®This doesn¡¯t seem right. Why are we holding him down again?¡¯ ¡®I have asked before, but I will ask again. Please trust me. This is to help.¡¯ Tim nodded, again determined to believe in Oliva, heedless of the ramblings of John. Rachel¡¯s body continued to eat over their conversation. The dirius was reduced to just the abdomen and hind legs when the feeding came to a halt. Rachel¡¯s body¡¯s transformation began anew. Her head of dirty red hair began to bulge out in six points, the protrusions lining up in a ring parallel to her hairline. The bulges eventually split and flowered out into patches of brown covering her hair and part of her forehead. From the center of each patch rose a glassy black half sphere. As both the brown covering hardened and the sphere shifted, it became apparent that a spider¡¯s head was being developed over her scalp. The arms covered in rough sharp hairs had their surface gain a slight sheen. Her hands sprouted two forearm long claws from the index finger and thumb. The same sheen and growth appeared on her legs and foot. Once the changes completely settled upon her body, Rachel gained back her consciousness with a heave of her bug mouth. With her awakening came the reversion of the newest changes. The shells began to fall of en masse from her body. The coating of hair on her arms were the first to fall off, revealing pristine skin. Next came the more grotesque reshaping of her mouth. Like when they first settled into place, the two mandibles reversed themselves, though lacking in pain as evident by Rachel¡¯s mild response of just tilting her head upwards to give them more room to move. Once in the position of her old jaw, the insect parts began cracking and peeling off, again revealing unblemished skin underneath. Once all of the casings have been shed off, Rachel was once again human looking, albeit with small gashes still noticeable on her cheeks and between her chin. ¡°Am. Or. al?¡± From her now split opened jaw showing a row of sharpened teeth, the cuts were not purely leftover scarring of the transformation. Rachel flinched at her own clumsy bodily control and shut her mouth once again. She moved her jaw minutely, seemingly testing out the new additions to her mouth. Once she had gone through all angles of movement she could think of, Rachel was confident to try speaking again. ¡°I¡¯m. I¡¯m normal. I¡¯m normal again.¡± She took a moment to enjoy the sound of her voice, a light and slightly high sound she was certain just a few minutes ago was forever robbed from her. The revelling only lasted so long before she returned to reality and the others around her. John was staring slack-jawed, tears again down his cheeks. Tim looked on, amazed as well. He turned his head towards Olivia. The silent praise was accepted with a nod and she moved over to Rachel¡¯s side once again. The girl was shuffled back immediately, kicking away the rest of the corpse and slammed her back onto the tree trunk. Olivia paused in her advance, more time available now to make a more delicate approach. ¡°There is no need to panic. We do not mean to harm you. I just need to take a-¡± ¡°NO. YOU ARE NOT. DOING ANYTHING TO HER.¡± John¡¯s hostility towards the well-meaning monsters was still everpresent. Olivia paid him no mind and continued on. ¡°As I was saying, I simply need a moment of your time to confirm your-¡± ¡°NO YO-¡± Tim brought the sword arm over, careful to not cut John, and slammed the dead bear¡¯s paw onto his mouth. ¡°To ensure my theory on your state was correct, I require you to remain still.¡± ¡°Please,¡± Rachel was on the verge of saying no when she reconsidered. John was only detained for obstructing whatever goals the two beings. Said goal was clearly not malignant, at least towards them, given her and John¡¯s unharmed states compared to the casually slain Dirius. The killing itself was even more evidence in favor of hearing the staff out with it being the cause of her reversion to being almost human. ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll stay still,¡± Rachel spoke with a bit more confidence. ¡°Thank you.¡± Olivia got to work with her scan, the shroud of mana already encompassing half of Rachel. The process was soon finished a moment later. ¡°That will be all. Your condition is as I have speculated.¡± ¡°Thank you? But what is my condition?¡± ¡°You simply lacked the requisite nutrients to complete the merge. I corrected the deficiency.¡± ¡°Why does that lead me to not control my body and doing. All of those thing?¡± She paused and shivered at the thought of the sensations she had when her body¡¯s control was wrested from her. ¡°That was the animalistic essence within you subsuming control to ensure mutual survival.¡± ¡°So I hurt John just to live. Not some deep buried hatred coming out.¡± ¡°That would be the case. Though the hatred is still an existent possibility. I do not have knowledge of your psyche.¡± John seemed to have changed his rude habit of interrupting and was rewarded with his mouth¡¯s freedom from the grasp of a dead bear. ¡°Really? She needed that?¡± ¡°I am positive.¡± ¡°How did. How did you know?¡± John changed his tone mid sentence, dropping the wonder and small curiosity for the standard doubt and contempt he has been directing at the two since he met them. Olivia delayed her reply. ¡°I have experience regarding this matter.¡± ¡°And that would be?¡± The prompting elicited another halt from Olivia, this one lasting much longer than the last. The disgust and shame Tim felt from his connection when Olivia relived whatever memory was enough to prompt the silencing of John again. Just as the paw was closing on John¡¯s mouth again, Olivia spoke. ¡°I have seen and aided in these ¡®experiments¡¯ before.¡± Tim¡¯s arm continued on its path, its owner knowing full well now what kind of thoughts John¡¯s words must have invoked. John did not hear what he wanted to. ¡°You really were her minio-¡± ¡®Alright. I¡¯m not letting him bother you anymore.¡¯ ¡®It is within my capabilities to handle his bothering.¡¯ ¡®Uhuh. Stop the tough guy act. And you going to want to settle things with the girl.¡¯ Tim tilted his head towards the girl still staring at them. Olivia turned back to her original conversation partner. ¡°I apologize for the abrupt pause in our conversation. Are there any more queries you might have?¡± Rachel, still a bit stunned at Olivia¡¯s reveal of her association with Anne, blurted out. ¡°What are you two?¡± Realisation of how rude she must have sounded to the two very threatening individuals had Rachel quickly covering her mouth. There was no tension to be had. ¡°We used to be creations of the necromancer.¡± John¡¯s state of agitation continued to exacerbate. Rachel remained calmer. ¡°But you don¡¯t follow her any more.¡± ¡°We do not.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good then. But why did you help us?¡± ¡°Redemption. I wish to repay some of the debts I have incurred. And helping you would be one method of doing so.¡± Caught onto the last sentence, Rachel quickly followed up. ¡°That¡¯s one, what are the others?¡± ¡°Orchestrate our Creator¡¯s death.¡± It took Rachel a second to fully comprehend the utterance, but her shock was immediately conveyed once she did. ¡°YOU¡¯RE GOING TO KILL HER?¡± Olivia nodded. ¡°She¡¯s too powerful. Death maidens and revenants are not low tier undeads. You can¡¯t.¡± ¡°Worry not, I am confident in my chances.¡± Rachel was about to continue her efforts to dissuade Olivia when clapping emanated from the forest behind them. The rhythmic sounds continued at a subdued pace and slowly got louder. With a rustling of leaves, a small figure entered the clearing. ¡°Oh really now, tool. What could your confidence stem from?¡± Not a chapter I would like to apologize in advance. There won''t be a chapter this week. This is only a hobby sort of thing and, with more important matters like college taking up my time, I can only spare so much time for it. I will probably make things up with a double release within one of the following weeks. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. 14-T ¡°And what have you got there behind you?¡± Anne pitched her tone cheerily higher and pointed towards Tim, her head tilted and eyebrows raised in mock curiosity. The addressee tensed and readied himself to lunge at any second. ¡°Some sort of failed death knight? You can¡¯t even make it with proper armor huh? And to think that advice of yours actually lead to improvements. Shame.¡± A soft frown adorned her face as she looked at Tim. After a false sad head shake, sympathy soon bled out from her expression. Anne turned a contemptuous eye towards Rachel. The new focus of her gaze flinched back a little. Anne smiled at that and took a step forward. A cursory glance was given along with a statement more fitting for a girl to address her misbehaving pet with. ¡°Ah, so you actually managed to escape. How did you free yourself? I remember quite clearly my undead standing guard over you when I left for that anomaly.¡± Her eyes moved away from Rachel and landed on the form of John in Tim¡¯s grasp. The happy go lucky tone returned. ¡°Ohh. That¡¯s why.¡± She increased her volume and inflection to mimic a merchant. ¡°How are you liking the new additions. My revised formula works so well huh?¡± John glared hatefully at Anne. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be like that. Without the spider enhancements, did you really think you could have gotten away from my minions?¡± John still held his glare, not giving in to her reasoning. ¡°Fine, be like that. I found some great stuff to use on you two. My favorite subjects.¡± She pulled out a jar of familiar looking black liquid. ¡°I was a little late to analyse the explosion that released this, but this is some potent stuff. It was sapping out the mana from one of revenants touching it. It was sucking life out of the dead.¡± She had an excited giggle at the end. The cutesy sound was cut off by the hissing of an [Ecto blast] hitting a tree trunk. ¡°That will be enough Creator. You are to take nothing and no one back.¡± Anne narrowed her eyes at Olivia from her crouched position after ducking out of instinct. Indignation and hatred bloomed from her eyes as she held Olivia in her sight. ¡°You really do believe you can beat me huh?¡± She spat angrily at the staff before schooling her expression. ¡°That removed manual override must have taken with it the logical reasoning I put in you. How do you plan on beating this,¡± She intoned as her convoy of death knights, death maidens and revenants emerged from their position hidden amongst the trees, ¡°With that.¡± She gestured condescendingly at Tim. He paid the insult no mind and reached out to Olivia. ¡®Hey, Oli. Stop trying to talk to her. Just get over here.¡¯ Understanding the implications of Tim¡¯s words, Olivia quickly flew over into the folds of Tim¡¯s bear robe. ¡°What¡¯s this? You think a puny death knight like that can beat me? Hah, now that I looked at it more, the thing isn¡¯t even a subpar death knight. It¡¯s more of a ghoul that you stuck as much biomass as you could on. Pathetic.¡± The taunts were again ignored. Tim focused on his own negative mana, building up a massive charge. Olivia, too, stayed silent, biding time for Tim¡¯s build-up to transfer over to her. Secured that Creator, in her own hubris, has allowed the preparation to finish, Olivia stated in a monotone. ¡°You have already lost.¡± ¡°What?¡± From Olivia¡¯s head emerged a massive wave of green energy, an omnidirectional pulse passing over the entire clearing and the woods beyond. The energy passed harmlessly over the living beings, leaving only a small green haze upon their being. The undead suffered much more. The green haze adhered much more heavily on their bodies and, instead of just lingering, seeped deep into them. The effect of the infusion was apparent when most of the undead simply collapsed and Anne herself clutched her head in pain. The red hue characteristic of the undead began to flicker and dim. A new shine of green began to emerge, interspersed between the fluctuations. ¡°So this.¡± Anne sneered at the conflicting powers clashing around her. ¡°Was your plan huh? Using your own link to me and my creations to try and overload me.¡± Anne¡¯s pale white face darkened with winkles of focus as symbols manifested within a hidden hand while Olivia continued to work her plan. Tim was remaining still, continuously channeling a small part of his mana over to Olivia, silently lamenting the fact that he could not output more of his vast pool. With the, in Tim¡¯s opinion, suboptimal current of mana, Olivia was nearing complete usurpation of Anne¡¯s hold on her undead and even her zombified body. The process was suddenly halted and Anne was grinning ear to ear. ¡°Two can play at that game, tool.¡± Another pulse was released from her hand, a red to counter Olivia¡¯s green. Anne¡¯s attack did not indiscriminately target all around, focusing solely on Olivia and Tim. The ex-humans bracing for impact suffered no noticeable damage, mentally or otherwise. Olivia was another case entirely. Her mind was immediately assaulted with numbness. Her goals and focus were inundated by an intense wave of pain lacing through her consciousness. She could only handle so much before the pain radiated out in a pained scream reverberating through the connection and into Tim¡¯s hitherto quiet and focused thoughts. The jarring reaction prompted Tim into action. He launched himself forward, intending to attack Anne. A death maiden intercepted and pulled her up and away. The revenants and death knights advanced. Anne prepped a spell. Tim looked around the clearing, studying his predicament. The two humans have long ran away, too afraid of the fight to stay. Further looks at Anne¡¯s forces told him that fighting was not their immediate goals, death knights, death maidens and revenants all stopped. Their practiced plan failed, a shortcoming Tim placed on himself for his inability to support Olivia further. Bitter with defeat, Tim grabbed hold of Olivia tightly with his right arm, dug the blade of the left deep into the ground and lifted. The resulting shower of dirt and debris flew towards Anne, blocking her way and obscuring her vision. Impromptu smoke screen lasting so long, Tim had to choose between trying to find and helping out the other two or just beating a more secured retreat with just him and Olivia. ¡®They abandoned us immediately.¡¯ He did not hesitate and simply dashed right out of the clearing in the direction he remembered coming in from. There was surprisingly little pursuit. Tim turned his head back to notice only a smiling Anne. She only dusted off the bits of dirt that managed to hit her through the cover of the two now present death knights by her side. ****** His path ahead soon grew completely dark, the fire lighting his way from behind now put out. He carried on running at super human pace for another minute. The pain of prolonged strenuous activity created by the cracks of his legs was wholly ignored in favor of getting Olivia to safety. The long shadows of stony spires they departed from in the morning were visible again. Now at what he considered to be a safe distance, Tim stopped. His legs now felt nothing but pain, their proprioception all but drowned out by the burning. Not knowing which way was up, his legs had to be supported by his sword. Olivia also took the reprieve to discuss their oversight. ¡®We. I have severely underestimated Creator.¡¯ ¡®Yup, that we did. So what do we do now. I¡¯d love to just resume heading back to Brandon.But I know well that you are not letting things go like this.¡¯ ¡®Yes, I have no intentions of foregoing such an opportunity.¡¯ ¡®Alright, let me just. Get my legs settled for a bit. And you are definitely not going with me. Whatever she did was clearly bad. We had the drop on her too, so she is probably prepared now.¡¯ ¡®I can still provide you with supporting spells.¡¯ ¡®That is not worth risking things. I will get things done. For you and that soul to have peace, alright?¡¯ ¡®I still insist on my participation. I am the only one capable of tracking down Creator.¡¯The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡®No, we are having none of that. We already have a good idea of where she is. She probably took John and Rachel and I can smell living people easier than undead. So I can deal with wasting time tracking them, but I cannot put you in harm¡¯s way again.¡¯ ¡®We cannot afford a second to waste. Creator could simply flee like previously and continue her reign of terror elsewhere. Can you truly hold yourself responsible for the lives that could have been saved? Furthermore, I am perfectly capable of defending myself.¡¯ ¡®I know you can. But not against her, the one that quite frankly knows more about what you are than me. And I don¡¯t care about the possible deaths if she escapes, you are still not going.¡¯ ¡®How could you possibly say that? Are the morals you have taught me lies?¡¯ ¡®No. It¡¯s just. Urgh. They might not die at all. There are people out there who will stop her. And people will die anyways from other reasons away from us. But you. You are here with me. You matter more. You, I care about. You are the one most likely going to be hurt or out right killed if we go in now.¡¯ Before Olivia could give a retort, a wave of static sounds traveled through their channel. Olivia froze in place. Tim was already thinking of the worst when she moved again, confirming his fears. She rose not to face him, but to face where the mountain was. The pit in Tim¡¯s proverbial stomach would have pierced it if he had a stomach. Instead, he immediately walked over to follow Olivia, trying to keep up with hurting legs. Fortunately, her pace was subdued and, as he thought further on what Anne had said earlier, most likely intentionally so. The small tugging from Olivia, a subconscious nudging for him to follow confirmed it for him. Anne thought she now controlled him too. With Olivia floating lazily ahead, Tim walked steadily, mind split between thinking up a plan of attack and ignoring the pain his legs still radiate. Neither of the tasks were successful. He knew well enough Anne¡¯s supposed capabilities from Olivia, just not her actual capabilities. Olivia¡¯s current state a testament to that. The pain was still not going away, his early efforts¡¯ ramifications refusing to free him. He looked back to the dazedly flying Olivia, another worrying question worming its way in his head. Is Oli alright? The follow up answer came immediately. Of course not. Damn. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Tim rambled out again and again to himself, worry building up by the seconds. His steps continued to be made mindlessly. Eventually, Tim forced his thoughts under control. Need to be there for her. I can¡¯t be freaking out like this. She is fine. Will be fine. And will be back with me once things are taken care of. His footsteps firmed along with his resolve. His mind more at ease, Tim took better notice of his current state. The only other time his head was free of a small trickling of emotions that was not his was when he first arrived here, tearing through undead in a dreamlike haze. Olivia¡¯s constant presence was calming, a necessity given how the only sentient contact he has had for the last ten years have been only her and sometimes Brandon. The silence now was jarring. The woods much darker and colder than before. He usually would be bringing up some silly thought he had on the day and Olivia would be there to have a good talk with him. Now he was left with speculations on how to get Olivia back. His initial brute method of ripping out any offending parts will not be so lucky anymore. The recurring thought that he might have irreparably damaged her then came again. Tim squashed it, like his worries from before, without a second¡¯s delay. Olivia would be fine The mantra played itself in his head again. He would just have to beat out the method to wake her up again. Tim¡¯s state of loneliness only lasted so long. From the trees beside him came two revenants, Anne¡¯s escorts for the two. A rustling up above alerted him of more company. Two death maidens were phasing through the canopy, passing with slight resistance through the leaves. Their faces were turned down on him, mouths open and ready to send concussive blasts of sound down. Tim considered the small unit of guards. The revenants were now walking right next to him, one slightly in front of him more focused on Olivia and the other staring at him. He swung out his hand a little too much when a small tree came up in his path. The plant was pushed aside smoothly and his arm carried on with its momentum, impacting the revenant. The intentional ¡®accidental¡¯ hit pushed the creature back, nearly knocking it off its feet. Sensing a possible attack, the two death maidens blasted Tim with twin pulses of sound. He took the hit and crouched down. The pressure soon let up. Tim walked on in faux mindlessness, the order Anne gave through Olivia seem to still stand. The readied revenants primed to pounce on him with sword and spear returned to their place beside him. Tim got what he wanted. The light hit on the revenant told him of their resilience. The sound blasts¡¯ intensity were remembered and referenced to other things he has faced. The minions posed no threat. Tim spent the remainder of the trip formulating possible plans of attack. Those did not vary too far beyond a sudden charge straight to Anne when he sees her. The details of how he might question her or hold her hostage for Olivia¡¯s freedom were the points he lingered on. The shock factor must be enough to have her forget she could pull the reverse on him with Olivia. An, as tim would consider it, iffy scenario. Other possible routes he could take were equally ¡°iffy¡±. He could just charge with excess power and immediately end Anne. The instant attack will take away any time for her to react and give him the relief of just ending her painlessly, a monster deserves that at least. The catch would be that her death might just close off his only door to bringing Olivia back. It was the debate between these options that occupied Tim¡¯s mind when he stepped onto a smooth rock and lost balance. His fall was halted with the sword and Tim looked up to view an ominous mountain. Several pockets of fire lit up its side, highlighting the entrances they came from. The nearest one off to Tim¡¯s right, lightly hidden by a large boulder, the light escaping from it forming a crescent hugging the rock¡¯s contours. They were not headed there. Olivia turned left. Tim followed her up the side of the mountain, careful with his footing to avoid anything too weak to handle his weight. They were a third of the way up when Olivia stopped. In front of them was not one of the orange glowing entrances, just straight line of bushes. The ground rumbled and the bushes split down the middle. An entrance opened up, large fingers grasping either side of the door. Olivia floated on in. The death maidens dropped in Tim¡¯s path before he could follow her in, their heads still locked onto him. Tim waited for the revenants, expecting them to act like the maidens and walk ahead of him. They just stood there. Tim felt inappropriately awkward and moved on in. Pass the entrance, he saw the shadows of the two dead cyclops holding the door. Further down the tunnel they went, Tim struggling to see things as his night vision still needed some light to work. He bumped into multiple walls and corners. His company seemed perfectly fine moving through the twisting corridors, themselves moving seemingly on autopilot after passing a certain threshold. Tim¡¯s blind escapade only lasted so long and they soon turned to a substantially larger corridor with blue patches of moss offering light. In it were rows after rows of standing corpses. They were clearly inactive, lacking the red glow characteristic of reanimated bodies. The hextet paid them no mind and continued on. They ascended a stairway hidden in the left corner of the body storage. White light was spilling out onto and highlighting the steps. Tim was a little blinded once he was at the last steps, the fully illuminated room a stark contrast against the almost pitch black conditions his eyes have adapted to. Spots leaving his vision, Tim almost did a double take. The interior of the room he was now it was not unlike what his vision of a noble¡¯s room. Instead of the the uneven and broken up patches of rock that counted as walls for the path he just walked, there were actual walls to look at here, lined with a rich red wallpaper with flowery gold patterns interspersed within. In the center of the room and off to his right was a decorated bed, the frame a deep polished black with golden etchings of flowers near its legs, its headboard and footboard beautiful sculptures of ivory flowers, its sheet a pristine white that was almost glowing with silver threads sewn in a criss cross over it. Opposite the bed on the left wall was a pure white vanity, the only other color on it, the reflective silver of the mirror and the black handles of three drawers on either side. On the left of the vanity was a tall bookshelf that was more for cosmetic than function with its vine bedecked structure housing a singular book. One that looks too flat and large to be anything but a children¡¯s picture book. Tim¡¯s heavy clawed foot descended onto the brown carpeted floor as he made to follow Olivia through the room. The door opened out to a narrow corridor. Olivia turned right and Tim made the turn to follow. Mid turn, he caught something in the corner of his eye. Two paintings decorated the wall he entered the room from. One the right was what looked to him like a great conflagration with a large shadow of some sort that tapered off to a point in the background. The left has a much more mundane painting, a family picture of father, mother, son and daughter, all dressed in fancy looking clothes. He did not have the time to clearly see the faces and was soon ushered off by the revenants. What he did manage to see was that the family was blonde. The knowledge that Anne had a family curved his own determination to end her reign of terror a bit. Maybe if he just captured her and bring her back to them, sense can be talked and the soul she overwrote to create Olivia could be put to rest with another means. He did not have anymore time to ponder on the new discovery and how to best resolve the situation. From in front of him came another door and from it came a greeting. ¡°Ah. You¡¯re finally here. Come in. Come in.¡± One of the death maidens phased forward through Olivia and turned the handle. Olivia went in and the door was held open for Tim and the rest. Tim was welcomed to the love child of a butcher¡¯s shop and a mechanic¡¯s garage, all held together by necromantic runes. Hanging off the ceiling in a circle around the room were ten corpses of various species of monster, under them were even more limbs and organs. On the back wall were shelves after shelves of books, jars, skulls and strange devices. He could even spot more common place items such as a ladder and a few buckets. On the left wall was what looked to be an operating table with countless runes carved on and around the object. There were signs of it being used recently in the form of blood splatters and bits of meat and bone lying on it and its vicinity. On the right was much more sanitary set up, a ¡°U¡± shaped workstation with vials, test tubes and bony helping-hands on it. Anne herself was in the center of the circle of corpses working with a necromancer¡¯s version of an automatic car assembly. Six large bony arms surrounded her, holding either parts or drawing down simplistic runes for her. With her at the center of it all was a twisted ball of fur about her size with sharp pieces of bone sticking out. She ceased her working, seemingly satisfied with what has been done, and turned to her guests. ¡°Ah, I thought I wouldn¡¯t be ready before you arrive. But I guess we both can get a bit ahead of ourselves.¡± She giggled lightly at her own pun and turned to Tim. ¡°Move over here,¡± She ordered. Tim complied, taking the chance to slowly build up a charge of his mana to rudimentarily buff himself for a moment. That moment never came. Tim reached where she wanted him to be, three steps in front of her. He was about to take the extra step that would put him in range to swing when from behind her, in the bony assembly that he overlooked, came a flying ball of fur. It expanded into four patches held together by digitigrade legs. The force of the throw forced Tim back a step and attached the patches onto his four limbs. From his back came another impact. Tim¡¯s four limb were completely wrapped in the patches of fur. Tim realised just how much he has tunneled on Anne when from where he was standing on emerged two half spheres studded with multiple gems in varying shades of green. Tim¡¯s four limbs were stretched out, his legs splayed towards the two points on the floor and his arms pulled upwards and away from his torso. Tim tried struggling, but found any force he generated from his body being dampened immediately as they touched the furred pads on his appendages. ¡°Gotcha. I knew you weren¡¯t so mindless. Tool, you tried making an ally didn¡¯t you. Can¡¯t really stand bossing people around. Just had to call all my other minions your siblings. I can tell you now. I made you and all. Though you can¡¯t really hear me now, can you?¡± She tapped lightly on Olivia¡¯s nasal bone, a playful tap on the nose had the two been regular people. She turned back to Tim. ¡°You did a really good job on this one. The mana storage is amazing, I can feel it from here. Though,¡± she stepped a bit closer and tapped Tim¡¯s head, ¡°You gotta make it have more processing power up here. It just followed you like an idiot when I had you transmit that small bit of intent.¡± Tim increased his struggles, but found only a slight part of his efforts affecting his left arm. The little twitch of the armed arm had Anne take a step back. ¡°My, that¡¯s a nifty sword. A mana eater. A really well made one at that. Hmm?¡± Anne moved her eyes across the weapon and happily praised Olivia. ¡°You even got your hands on a weapon like this, tool. I must say, you are definitely the most accomplished of all my creations.¡± She held a stare with Olivia for a moment before sighing. ¡°This is getting old rather fast. Sure you can hear me in there, but no talking back just takes all of the fun out. I can¡¯t really fix this either. You removed most of the stuff I still had on you. So just a full takeover like this is possible.¡± She sighed again. ¡°Welp. We still have your little project here to look over.¡± Tim settled for glaring as hatefully as he could after his thrashing has resulted in no visible result. ¡°Oh, Don¡¯t give me that look. I know your mom taught you to hate me and all that, but now I can make you so much better. For starters, I can definitely make you a lot more symmetrical.¡± Anne began her operation with a basketball size ball of mana gathering in her palm. The gathering of particles changed slowly from a pure blue to a sickly green and symbols and patterns began to manifest within it. With her eyes still closed in concentration, Anne pushed the ball of energy into Tim¡¯s chest. She eagerly waited for a response, bouncing on the balls of her feet for when the runes will emerged again all over the undead construct¡¯s body. Nothing happened. ¡°This is definitely peculiar. The [Undead deconstruct] should have separated the parts,¡± she remarked, a surprised rise to her voice. Anne rubbed a hand on her chin before shrugging nonchalantly, her words falling back into a bored rhythm. ¡°I supposed we will have to get a bit more hands-on with this.¡± Anne summoned another ball of green mana, this coalescing into a much more violently pulsating [Ectoblast]. The shot impacted Tim¡¯s head and blew his bear skull helmet clean off, revealing the deformed skull underneath. With better lighting on Tim¡¯s looks, Anne could not hold back the insult. ¡°Yep. You definitely need to work on making things slightly symmetrical, tool.¡± Her hand poked lazily at the lumpy parts of Tim¡¯s head while beckoning over a revenant. Fingers again went poking towards her own undead creation. ¡°Could have at least made the jaw fit like this one. Come on, any spell to summon things can shape things to look stable. Did you run out of intact skulls and had to mash things together? And what is even with the snake?¡± She jabbed a finger at the appendage, only to jerk it back when Tim tried to bite her with his only freed ¡®limb¡¯. ¡°Feisty, aren¡¯t you,¡± She smiled, small thin lips stretching over gradually expanding and sharpening teeth. ¡± Well let¡¯s see how you like these.¡± Anne fired continuously upon Tim, walking around him to reach better angles. [Ectoblast] after [Ectoblast] impacted his body. The bear¡¯s body was soon reduced down to the singed edges of the areas covered by Tim¡¯s glowing furry cuffs. The imagery would have had Tim shaking in repressed giggles had he been in a different situation. The quick blasting removing most of the obstruction, Anne continued trimming what she could of the covering around Tim¡¯s wrists and ankles with an [ectoblast] held steady within her hand. ¡°Alright, that should clean things up. Now I just need to crack this.¡± She tapped on a piece of TIm¡¯s cracked flesh, a soft thud sounding out. She did it again, this time with a visible ripple of mana appearing from the point of contact. ¡°Wow. This stuff is hard. Though not mana obstructing. So whatever stopped my spell is deeper.¡± Anne poked at one of Tim¡¯s exposed cracks. The action elicited a flinch. Anne smiled silently. She walked an entire lap around Tim, inspecting his various parts again, before calling for one of the revenant. ¡°Get me the mana infused ink. We are gonna need a lot of that.¡± The revenant left and Anne walked back to the back shelf. She came back with a pen of sort and began to draw runes across Tim¡¯s broken skin. She was half way through his front when the revenant returned with a chest on its shoulders. ¡°Just put that down,¡± she waved distractedly at the space next to Tim, ¡°We¡¯ll get to the fun part soon enough.¡± The fleeting smile that appeared before she focused back showed just one too many teeth.