A few minutes ago.

An everlasting, constantly fluttering pile of books arrived at the hallway. One where multiple eyes dropped ink on the blank pages, writing everything they saw. The book's mass expanded and contracted, breathing. Its eyes looked around incessantly, and moved in unison every time Alrai moved, keeping a tight check on him.

Under the illusory mass of books and eyes, was Velvet.

And, by reading Velvet's thoughts, he knew she liked his golden eyes... Until she compared them to a glass filled with two mage eyes that sold for 15000 auris (and yes, she spent too many seconds thinking on how much Dianthus' golden eyes would sell for).

Dianthus didn't know her name by word, he knew because of Alrai's thoughts.

Alrai. Thin black threads were nailed on his extremities, and pulled and released it's hold as he moved. Some threads even went under his throat, pulling at his vocal chords.

At the other end of the threads was the puppeteer. A wooden doll, dressed like a harlequin, with hollow sockets for eyes, and a smiling empty hole as mouth. It pulled Alrai's body strings with its long fingers. Two other small arms came from its chest, and those were the ones pulling words from Alrai's throat.

Dianthus looked to the plant to his side. At least it looked normal. It was not that Velvet and Alrai weren’t normal, it was just that, for him, that’s how every knowledge mage, and gambling mage looked.

He could make it so that those things were invisible to him, but it took constant effort, and anyway, he was already used to it.

The familiar sound of scraping announced Igern’s entrance. Dianthus tried to not get into his thoughts this time, but it was almost impossible, since Igern basically was shouting them.

Can’t you keep your thoughts to yourself? And those two are thinking about how nice your ass looks, really now?

Get some taste.

An inverted broken crown was on top of his head, and several weapons made of glass were stuck crossing his chest, letting Dianthus see part of his insides. He sometimes wondered if those organs were illusory or real. He had called Igern a porcupine a few times, but his companions took it as a comment on his personality.

Stopping Igern from leaving, he received some threatening thoughts back. Oh well, he could take him anytime, were he to try and act on them.

And then he ‘introduced’ him.

I can introduce myself. Dianthus thought, even when he made no intention to do so. He used a spell to stop seeing the mages’ auras, since, if they started speaking about him, he kind of needed to know where to look.

And he chose to look at Velvet, now that the eyes were no longer looking at him so intensely, noticing a small green light next to her. One that no one else noticed.

"Hey, wake up." He spoke in his mind. Dianthus didn't have a familiar, but he had something better. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he was confident that it was superior to any other option.

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"I don't sleep. What do you want?"

"That green light. On the girl."

Dianthus heard a 'Hm, lemme-' followed by a curse. He waited.

"That's Lothrigern's Beacon. Or mark, or curse, whatever you wanna use. Ahh, really now, of the most annoying f..." The voice cut itself.

“And who’s that?”

“... C’mon now, you learned that in class. One of the Big Names. And an ever bigger problem. I would tell you to keep away from that girl, but alas…”

“I am the Chosen One, and if I try to run away from fate’s shenanigans, the whole world would bend itself in strange ways to make me end up in an ‘unfortunate situation’.” Dianthus knew how fate worked, already accustomed to it.

He would not deal with Igern, the Queen, and a lot of problems if that wasn’t the case.

“Ngh, still, it’s Lothrigern. That girl has her days counted.”

“I’m I supposed to try to save her?”

“No, Lothrigern is vindictive. If you poke at him, he is going to respond. And he usually responds fast.”

“I am the Chosen One, I cannot get killed.”

“That’s stupid, you imbecile! You cannot get killed by things under fate’s control, but Lothrigern is outside that. And he has the highest Chosen One body count, so go poke at him only if you wanna add a number.”

“So, shouldn’t fate protect me from that meeting? Why am I finding someone related to him?”

“Yeah, that’s probably because I’m also here, so it’s my fault.” The voice didn’t look apologetic at that, and Dianthus wasn’t exactly worried about getting killed. He had escaped from very close calls to death, saved by coincidences ranging from ‘it has some sense’ to ‘it could only happen in a million years and only to one person’, so he was pretty confident in surviving.

He almost wanted to mess with Velvet, to see if Lothrigern actually harmed him. Dianthus didn’t really care about why Velvet was marked by Lothrigern. He was the Chosen One, the protagonist of the story, the-

“They are speaking to you, pay attention.”

He stopped pondering, looking at Velvet again, who asked something. He didn’t need to listen, just hearing Velvet’s thoughts told him about what she wanted.

“Oh, ask the Queen, she is also gatekeeping it from me.”

Of course, that pissed Igern off. More. Oh well.

“Imagine.” He told Alrai. He loved that word, it didn’t answer anything, but it was multiuse.

They chitchated for a while, until Ethra appeared. Dianthus stopped the spell, wanting to see which Paradigm he had.

An illusory armor made of broken mirror shards tied together with a red thread. Sharp nails made of small mirror pieces grew on Ethra’s body, and one was strangling his neck with force.

Pride, hm? Close to Igern. Seeing Velvet’s thoughts, he more or less understood their situation, mocking it.

Nereus entered soon. Dianthus had never really talked to him, but he recognized the three enormous dog heads that grew from his back.

One of them had curled horns, similar to a goat’s. Another had two mouths and three eyes, like the deformed lambs that sometimes were born in farms. The last one had no eyes, and it sniffed the air constantly. The three of them reacted to Igern, showing their teeth and growling.

Not that Igern could notice, since the only one that saw those things were Dianthus.

After smashing the containers, Gertine appeared, clad in a dress made of roots that grew on her own skin, twisting and turning on itself, producing a sweet smelling nectar from its owner’s blood.

Some flowers, dead and dried, hung from her body, moving slowly with Gertine’s movements. Some roots slid towards them, but stopped before touching anyone.

Dianthus always wondered how the mages would react if they saw what they were becoming. No, becoming wasn’t the word.

How would they react, if they could see how an Esca really looked.