After emerging from my Pocket, I settled in my tent for a stint of meditation and awoke to a burning sun and a cacophony of roars coming from the tents around me. A serenade of snores for my Doppelganger, hunched over a campfire and pot filled with a mountain man breakfast in the making.
“How do you feel?” I asked, pointing at the sun. To which he shrugged.
“Weak. But, look.” he- I, pointed to the distance with a hardly contained laugh. Being the same as him, I erupted in a similar fit after looking to the edge of our perimeter. Where a pair of knee-high shadow pups were snarling their cute little teeth at us.
“Now that’s adorable.” I chuckled.
“They’re so mad.” My clone laughed.
With upturned snouts and dirt kicked in our direction, Skoll and Hati retreated into the shadows. Leaving me and my clone rolling on the ground in unrestrained laughter.
Coincidentally, our antics served as an alarm clock for the others. Who ripped their tents open with scowls and curses that disappeared the moment scents of egg, potatoes, and meat wafted into their noses. While they went about their morning routines, I made small talk with my clone and helped in finishing breakfast and divvying out the portions. Then joined everyone for a hearty meal and a short discussion.
“So, we’re doing the thing today?” My Doppelganger nudged me with his elbow.
“Thing?” Roheisa perked up at once. “What thing.”
“Yeah,” I said through my food and gave him the go-ahead to explain in my stead.
“The book we gave you after we departed.”
“The one on mana manipulation?” Jaimess asked.
“The very one.” My clone nodded. “The main focus was the Mana Skin. But we think humans can infuse mana into their bodies as well. That’s what we wanna try today.” He jerked his thumb to the mountain behind us. “We’re pretty sure we won’t be able to get far using the technique. So we’ll go for as long as we can and take it easy until we recover.”
“You’re a real busybody. You know that?”
I fought back the temptation to roll my eyes as I turned to Roheisa. “I’m only trying to be as prepared as possible for the academy.”
“Feel free to do what you want. But we’re not waiting for you.” My clone finished.
“You can be a real jerk too!” She scoffed. “I never said it was a bad thing!”
“Then why say it at all?” My clone sighed, much to my amusement.
“Forgive him,” I recalled him before she could go off. “He becomes irritable in the sunlight.”
“And you don’t?”
“Not anymore.” I snorted. “Anyway. We have sixteen days until the deadline. So, we basically have all the time in the world to make our way to the summit.”
The rest of breakfast was spent in relative silence. Staring up at the huge mountain before us while our Doppelgangers packed away our tents. Afterward, Toril was eager to be the first to test my theory. Along with Lucia, who stood by his side. Lowered in a modified fighting stance just as he was. At more or less the same time, they started drawing the ambient mana around their bodies into a shroud of glimmering energy. And as the seconds passed, they began groaning and straining to pull the energy into their bodies. Reducing the shining blanket into a barely visible film of energy.
With my years of practicing with raw mana and the arcana flowing in my mana well, the process was magnitudes easier for me than it was for the two knights. Unlike me, they were straining themselves to keep the skill active while the others charged up. And the moment they were, Toril and Lucia kicked off the ground. Sending chunks of grass and dirt flying in their wake. While Toril quickly fell into a rhythmic stride, Lucia tripped after the first couple of steps and rolled to a comical landing twenty meters away from where she started. As did Jaimess, Roheisa, and Ed, who found themselves panicking in the face of their newly awakened superseded. Still, though, they caught up to trail behind Toril and I in no time at all, and only occasionally lost their footing during the three hours we spent leaping through the trees.
After a half-hour rest, we were on the move again. Walking at a brisk pace up a moderately steep slope of decaying leaves and stone outcroppings. While the others were still a bit weary, our supplies and most of our weapons were stashed in some form of dimensional storage, leaving us with little weight to carry besides that on our bodies. That lack of labor allowed us to keep a decent pace while soaking in the environment to our heart's content. While we kept our wits about us, we also admired the abundant flora and fauna and quickly started to point out the things we saw. Mostly birds, painted in every color one could think imaginable. But also an immense variety of insects and small mammals or reptiles one would expect to see in an alpine tropical region such as this. It was amazing even for me. Thus I couldn't begin to imagine how it was for the others, who spent their entire lives in the dreary winter of our homeland.
It took about five hours for something notable to happen. In that time we barely made it a fraction of the way to the summit and had seen or sensed all sorts of potentially dangerous creatures. But this presence, I couldn’t ignore. I noticed it first by smell. It carried with it, an acrid scent along with the stench of blood; faint, but it was there. It moved behind us in near silence. But I could still hear four digitigrade paws softly thumping against the ground to our rear as it stalked us. It was fairly massive, yet dense and thus perhaps no more than a meter in height. Most importantly, its heat denoted a warm-blooded animal. Mammalian.
Panthera.
‘Finally.’ I stopped in place, grinning wide. And as I turned about, the thumping grew louder, twigs snapped, and the birds fled a mere instant before a guttural roar bellowed through the jungle. Through the broken brush came a lion-sized panther, leaping through the air its jaws opened wide. Charging my fingers and my eye with Space-Time Magic, I waited for the beast to get in range and swipe with its paws before I touched it as gently as possible. Then I winked.
With a definite ‘Pop,’ the beast vanished and reappeared at the woodline it emerged from to slide to a grinding halt. Then it hesitated, evidently in confusion after somehow failing its ambush. Regardless, it soon after charged once again. Only this time, I opened my Pocket to allow a hulking figure to leap from the ground and land beside me with a dull thud. After making eye contact with the panther, Gero emitted an ear-splitting croak that rattled the very trees. Causing my companions to shudder while the panther nearly tripped mid-stride. After making its presence known, Gero opened its mouth wide and spat out its tongue- or stomach actually, but I digress. The organ, leathery black in texture and color, flew out towards the beast and smacked against its face hard enough to twist and entwine the panther’s body in frog guts before it was disappeared with a comical gulping sound.
After a quick look around, Gero noticed nothing else of interest and jumped up to drop down into a pool of shadow produced all on his own.
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“You better not eat that!” I yelled after him. Then turned to the others in the same breath. “I’ll be back.”
Jumping inside, I saw the panther attempting to swim through the darkness like the elephant was last night. Now, the latter was more or less docile. Relaxed in free fall and uncaring of the larger volumes of mana flowing within it.
‘Interesting.’ I smiled. “This is better than a life in the circus, huh?”
Undoubtedly hearing me, the elephant let out a deep bellow that echoed back and forth through my pocket.
“Alright then.” I patted his massive head. “I think I’ll call you Humphrey. And since I’m at it.” I turned to the panther. “You’ll be Tao.”
As it usually did, hindsight slapped me in the face the moment my words were spent. Luckily, however, naming them seemed to have no effect on their transition. So, with their times and conditions logged, I slipped through the Shadow Realm to rendezvous with my companions.
“I’m back.”
“Jeez!” Toril jumped before turning to me, horrified. “I’m never going to get used to that.” He groaned.
“So, how many does that make?”
“Eleven.” I grinned.
“Eleven!?” The princess squinted in suspicion. “I thought you had nine before?”
“I freed an elephant from the circus.” I nonchalantly shrugged.
“You didn’t!” Roheisa gasped.
Stepping forward, I placed my hand on her shoulder and gave her an implicant smile. “Sometimes you get kicked by a horse, these things happen.”
“W-what?”
“More importantly.” I pushed through her bemusement. “We made good time earlier. Three hours of mana infusion was a lot more than I expected.”
“It was... exhilarating.” Jaimess dreamily said.
“Sundown is just over three hours from now who’s up for another round?”
While Roheisa continued to point her dagger-like eyes at me, the others agreed to my suggestion and took to charging themselves and disappearing through the woods. Still, she followed. And still, she kept her scrutinizing gaze held in my direction until we slowed our pace to a walk and began looking for a place to make camp. It only disappeared when our plot was decided. Wherein we pitched in for the pot and dispersed to relax the hours away in our tents.
---
“Can I sit?”
Without averting my gaze, I gave Roheisa a nod and shifted against the tree to accommodate her.
She took her time to get seated and wound up sitting suspiciously close to me before she leaned in even closer to wave a steaming bowl of stew under my nose. “Here.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her, then went in for a bite. “And sorry for my…” I waved my spoon around as I attempted to find the word. “Brashness, earlier.”
“How unlike you.” She giggled. “But there’s no need to apologize. Your brashness is one of the things I like about you.”
‘Don’t make it weird.’ I mentally pleaded to her. But the narcissistic beast within had already been prodded awake. “One of the things?” I charmingly grinned.
"If you’re trying to embarrass me, you’ll have to try harder.” She laughed sarcastically. “But yes. You’re a genius, which gives you a pass for your eccentrics. And you’re kind.” She paused and winced as if she regretted what she just said. “In your own way.”
“Alright.” I raised my spoon in protest. “You’re making it weird.”
“I’m serious!” She nudged her shoulder against mine. “You claimed you were acting in self-interest, but you truly wanted to help those people.”
“Both are true.” I shrugged. “But, I don’t wish to help everyone just because.”
“Lie to yourself all you want.” She huffed. “But your ambitions say otherwise.”
Hearing those words, I froze. My mind went blank and when I came to, I found myself tapping my spoon on my chin. Softly saying. “My ambitions, huh?”
“I can tell that you’re serious.” She nodded. “About your guild and taking back Ulai. Only a kind soul would wish to burden themselves with such a task.”
“I’m not burdening myself.” I laughed. “I'm not the only one who saw the ways of this realm and made some pipe dream to change it into something better. Few have had the power, physical or otherwise to make it a reality. I am one of those few. Thus if I were to sit aside and let the realm continue to rot under such conditions, I’d be no better than the ones who created what we saw yesterday. That’s why I chose to uplift Hill Base and teach the students of Corvus Academy. Now, I have over seven hundred allies to support me while I’m gone. And I will one day have many legions standing behind me.”
“Normally that would imply a dangerous intent,” Roheisa said. “But, coming from you, I find myself deeply curious, if not eager to see how you’ll do it. In fact.” She huffed. “Almost everything about you makes me curious.”
“You’re making it weird again.”
“I want to join you.” She declared. “But on three conditions. I will only take orders from you. Lucia will only take orders from first you, and then me. And I will swear as your friend that I won’t betray you, but I won’t pledge my loyalty to you with mana. I’m not your subject.”
“That’s fine, but I have conditions as well,” I said.
“Alright.” She stiffened up. “Let’s hear them.
“First is that Lucia has to decide if she wants to follow me for herself,” I said. “Second, each of you must agree to keep any information I pass onto you to yourselves unless I say otherwise. If you accept those conditions, you have a deal.”
“I agree.” She held out her hand.
“Very well then.” I took her hand in mine and shook it firmly. “I’ll give you a Doppelganger later.”
“Okay.” She muttered, settled herself on the ground, and rested her head on my shoulder.
‘I’ll allow it.’ I sighed.
“I’ve noticed you look up at the stars a lot.”
“Yeah, there's not too many of them.” I snorted.
“My father read me stories about them when I was a little girl. We used to sit outside, like we’re doing now, and I’d listen to him talk about the Gods.”
“The Gods?” I turned to her.
“Mhmm.” She nodded. “According to him, that’s where the ascended gods and their lesser deities, demigods, and champions live. In vast realms far larger than the Mortal Plane. Where they can run free with their power.”
“I had to learn a bit about them.”
“That is the Zenith Cluster.” She pointed directly overhead to a pair of bright stars. “The big white one is the second brightest in the night sky and is the den of Bahamut. The Draconic God of Benevolence, Truth, Protection, and Justice. The blue one next to it is the Goddess of Humanity, Winter, Fertility, and Festivals, Yue. And the white one is Ein, the God of Knowledge, Lore, History, and wisdom.
“That one is the Fae Cluster.” She pointed to the southeast, above the glistening skyscape suspended over Ulai. “That blue-white star is the brightest. Where Faeyna, the Elven goddess of Fae, Magic, Art, and High Elves. The yellow one below it is Caelarin, the Elven God of Fertility, the Harvest, Nature, and surface elves. And the red one off to the side is Lilith, Goddess of Deception, Fate, Chaos, and Drow.”
“I heard she likes spiders.” I chuckled, then motioned for her to continue.
“The last one is the Wrath Cluster.” She pointed south, just above the region the sun bobbed in and out of every day- but not at its zenith. “All the stars are red, but the largest of them is Tiamat, Draconic Goddess of Malevolence, Lies, Cruelty, and Greed. Second-brightest is Sutark, God of War, Hatred, Vengeance, and Fury. Followed by Viltramas, God of Conquest, Power, Victory, and Campaigns. The two smaller ones are D’verrahh, Goddess of Insects, Poison, Acid, and Disease; and Zahir, God of Assassins, Anarchy, Rebels, and rogues.”
“So they live out there, huh.” I gasped in admiration.
“That sounds like wanderlust.”
“That’s because it is.” I turned to her with a snort. “Also, you forgot two. The God of Death, the Underworld, Souls, and Curses, Nergal. And the Goddess of Secrets, Undeath, The Shadow of Death, and the Shadow Realm, Grimm.”
“They aren’t present in the night sky.” Roheisa shook her head.
“Tch.”
“Didn’t think you’d be so frustrated.” She chuckled.
“I want to find those to more than any of the others,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I have to fight them.
“Anyway.” I rose before the questions came. “I’m gonna do a bit of scouting.”
“Okay.” She shook her shock aside and rose to her feet. “I’ll come with you.”
After separating ourselves from camp, we started down the path in companionable silence. Relative silence, as her footsteps stood out to me. To my eleven senses, her steps were like the thunderous quakes produced by a strolling giant. And my footsteps being silenced by my shadow seemed to only amplify her noise. Still, though, she was cautious. Squatting down with each step to gently place her feet as close to where mine passed as she could. After an hour passed, we began to think about turning around when we noticed the animals were far less abundant. Not even the bugs were chattering away. Yet a few broken twigs or snapping branches could be heard in the distance.
“Let’s investigate,” Roheisa whispered.
I had to admit, I was a bit intrigued by the sudden lack of life coupled with an absence of death. So I motioned for her to take point and stalked behind her. It didn’t take long thereafter for us to hear a loud, rhythmic beating echoing through the night. Followed by a manic howl that seemed to spread and multiply across the canopy. Just as I looked up, a hulking, furry figure dropped down to land behind us with a loud thump. Roheisa conjured a steel sword and twisted on her feet in the same motion, guard raised and ready to attack or parry at a moment's notice. Then she backpedaled.
“W- what in the Seventeen Hells is that!?”