“Don’t speak Doti. It’s gonna be alright. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

…Sharthu could never tame me!...

…For I alone stand victorious!...

I,

Jerome!

What?! That didn’t sound right. Jerome looked from the blade to Hedon only to see his own face with inhuman red glowing eyes staring back at him. This…doppelganger was giving off a malevolent aura so oppressive that Jerome found himself paralyzed and shaking like a leaf in a storm.

Blood sprayed out of Doti’s neck as his head was severed and fell to the ground.

“You killed me,” Doti’s head spoke on the ground. “You killed us all!”

“No!” Jerome shouted himself out of his nightmare.

His heart was racing a mile away and his straw mat and blanket were soaked with his sweat. Jerome sighed. He took a few breaths to calm himself and got up to get ready for the day.

~~~

“You said it took you only a few hours. Why is mine taking so long?” Jerome asked.

He’d been trying to extend his senses for two days now but nothing seemed to work. They had tried using fear: taking him to the mountains north of the Royal Estate where Rihal stalked him like a predator.

“Maybe something’s interfering with your senses,” Rihal said in contemplation.

“Something like what?” Jerome asked, resting on his stick.

“I don’t know.”

The training hall became eerily silent for a while as Jerome observed his master for clues.

“If you know something, Rihal, you should tell me.” He knew there were things that were being hidden from him.

“You know, I am called ‘uncle’ by kids your age. You should show some respect too,” Rihal said. His voice sounded stern.

Jerome clenched his jaw in anger, unwilling to call him anything other than what he always had. He ignored the fact that Rihal had used the word, ‘kid’ to address him. But still, he wondered.

How did we get here? How did we grow so far apart? He knew the answers to those questions. And he knew he couldn’t blame Rihal for long. But he wanted to. He wanted to hold on to the pain, to the anger. Right now the pain was the only thing he knew; the anger, the only thing keeping him going.

“Hmph,” he humphed in defiance.

Rihal scrunched his brows in disappointment, his piercing gaze never leaving him. Jerome refused to look at him. He couldn’t win a staring contest with a Spirit Realm expert. And if he looked, he’d see that disappointment in his master’s eyes.

“Not happening...besides it’ll sound cringey coming from my mouth,” Jerome said.

“And you know that, how?”

“Are you gonna tell me what you know or not?” Jerome asked.

“Call me uncle and I’ll tell you.”

“In your dreams,” Jerome muttered.

“I heard that.”

“...course you did.”

Rihal chuckled. Jerome could hear the sadness in his voice, though. One moment, Rihal was five paces away, the next he brought down his knuckles on Jerome’s head with a loud knock.

“Show some respect to your elders,” Rihal said.

“...sorry,” he muttered as he rubbed the top of his head furiously. He deserved that. But Rihal also deserved every bit of his anger.

“You want to lash out at me, Jerome, I understand. But don’t forget I’m your master. Remember: respect, order, and discipline.”

Jerome nodded with a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it this time. Rihal gave him a curt nod at that.

“Now, how were you able to calm your anger during Pilgrims’ Keep?” Rihal asked, going back to their subject of discussion.

The mind-calming stone! Jerome almost blurted out. “What do you know about my anger?” he asked suspiciously. This was something he had been dying to know but had no answer to.

“Oh, I know a lot. A lot more than you can imagine about your ‘episode’,” Rihal walked up to the crab and sat down on one of its legs. “If you want to know why you were uncontrollably angry during Pilgrims’ Keep, you’ll have to tell me how you were able to control that anger.”

“You go first, then,” Jerome stated, plopping down on the floor before Rihal.

“You’re descended from a line of people with…emotional…control issues.”

Jerome got up. Slowly and carefully. And started limping away.

“Where are you going?” Rihal asked, surprised.

“If you’re gonna insult my intelligence, Uncle Rihal, I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say.”

“Did you have to say it that way?” Rihal said. “I am telling the truth, though. Have you been having nightmares?”

Jerome stopped and turned to his master. “Go on,” he said, giving Rihal a piercing look.

“You’ve been seeing people in these nightmares,” Rihal said, sounding mysterious.

Jerome turned around again, readying himself to leave. “You’ve got three breaths to prove you’re telling the truth. I’m not buying any of that crap.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Rihal sighed. “These people you see, they all become disciples of the Royal family.”

Jerome whipped around so fast he stumbled and fell but Rihal was there to catch him before he hit the ground.

“I picked up a stone…in Pilgrims’ Keep,” Jerome started. “It helped me suppress my anger. More times than I can count. The stone was like any other stone you’d find anywhere. It called out to me, like a beacon.”

“Was?” Rihal asked. He had caught that.

“Mm. Was,” Jerome acknowledged with a sigh. “It was crushed… during the fight with Hedon and his goons.”

“According to the So—our sources, when you fell into Blade’s Edge canyon, you were covered in some kind of earth attribute artifact,” Rihal said. “It turned you into a statue and your vitality receded as though you died.”

Jerome was dumbfounded. But the stone was destroyed! Crushed underneath me during the fight! But maybe it’s not destroyed. What if it merged with my body just like Suzie!

“Your blood must have seeped into it,” Rihal continued thoughtfully, not noticing as realization dawned on him, “bonding it to you without your knowledge. But that doesn’t explain how you were able to turn into—”

“Rihal, thank you for the tip. I’ve got to head back now!” Jerome took off, limping back to his room.

“Thanks again...Uncle Rihal!” he shouted from afar.

Rihal almost burst out laughing. That did sound cringey coming from Jerome.

~~~

Jerome immersed his senses into his body, the moment he got to his room, searching for the mind-calming stone or whatever it had evolved into. Suzie didn’t remain the same after it was absorbed into his body. He discovered this during his training with Rihal.

The gauntlets had become a part of him and though they retained a part of their characteristics, they were not the same as before. They just flowed with his blood, as though a part of it, yet not. Try as he may, he couldn’t find the mind-calming stone. But he noticed for some reason, a yearning inside him.

Something inside him — he didn’t know what — was yearning for…something. He immersed himself in the feeling, letting it guide him to its source. Jerome felt a cool wind blowing in his direction. The smell of a forest. The sound of leaves blowing in the cold wind. Cold? It smelled like… Autumn?

He opened his eyes and his jaw dropped. His surroundings had changed. He looked around. He was no longer sitting cross-legged in his room but standing in a forest. All around him was the beauty of Fall. Leaves in every hue of brown and red floated to the ground with the grace of tiny boats riding the airwaves to land.

Beautiful, was the first thought that came to him. “I’ve been here before…is this a memory?” he muttered to himself. But he couldn’t quite remember.

He walked forward and was startled. No pain. Jerome looked down at himself. His body was healed. He was wearing black leather armor and the boots he wore to the slums… to Blade’s Edge Canyon. He touched his body but he didn’t feel smaller. What the hell is going on?

“Hello!” he called out but no one answered. He decided to walk to the end of the copse of trees in his line of sight. One moment he took a step. The next, he found himself at the very point he wanted to walk to. Jerome took a deep breath to calm a heart that never beat. What… the fuck?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he looked down and touched his chest where his heart should be. No heartbeat.

Does this mean I’m dead? No. Not a chance. “Not a chance!” He screamed to the sky in fury. His voice echoed loudly throughout the forest raising up a storm. The clouds above swirled and darkened as his anger was kindled!

Surprised at the sudden change, he decided to find shelter. The moment his anger subsided, the weather calmed. What the hell is this place? he thought. “No, I can’t be dead. This is a little too strange.”

He sat down in a meditative stance and took deep breaths to calm himself, immersing himself in his consciousness once again. Sensation came back. Pain and weakness. Jerome coughed loudly as his back hit the floor of his room. He raised his hand to eye level and sighed.

He was back in his real body. The weak body. Somehow he missed the fake one.

That can’t be qualified as a body, right?… Strange. The strangest thing he had ever experienced. His eyes felt heavy and sleep soon took him in moments.

~~~

From the shadows, two people emerged, covered from head to boots in black leather.

“Is he gonna be okay?” one of them asked.

The other examined Jerome with her perception, scanning his body and core to check for abnormalities.

“He’ll be fine, ‘father walrus’. No need to bother your head. Baby walrus’ nose doesn’t need to go in the snow,” she said, her voice filled with mirth. “His vitality remains the same as is — too weak and unable to heal his body properly. And we cannot help him, else his channels burn up and be completely destroyed. How have you been keeping him alive? By all accounts he should be dead.”

The first turned his head away in embarrassment. “How come you know about the ‘walrus’ joke?”

“The walls have ears, ‘father walrus’,” she said with a light-hearted laugh and blended with the shadows. She was gone in an instant.

‘Father walrus’ stared at Jerome for a while. He was tempted to lift him off the ground and onto the bed, but the Nediti did not leave traces of their existence; they came like they were always there, and left like they never were. He too merged with the shadows and was gone.

~~~

Jerome dreamed that night — a lucid dream. He stood in the middle of a forest with falling leaves, red and brown, facing with more clarity, a life he’d dreamed of before.

Three stands in front of a dark mountain. He’s drawn to its peak by a promise of power. His heart yearns for this power with excitement that borders on madness. Three climbs the mountain to its peak. He hovers atop the mountain roaring in pain and anguish as his body is destroyed and remade.

Darkness spreads over all of Vorthe. Many lose their minds to it as their souls are harvested like wheat from a field. Out of the darkness springs forth a malevolent aura, a millennia of hunger rages in its wake, eating through the mental defenses of the inhabitants of Vorthe.

Three massacres his way through the night. He has no goal, no direction, only need. The need to feed. Transformed into an abomination of the night, he flees the sun and embraces the dark. He hears a voice from afar. The voice which precedes his end and instincts as old as time, come to life.

They urge him to do one thing alone. Flee!

A golden sword blazes before his eyes…

“Freeze.” Jerome willed the scene to freeze in front of him. He observed the person who vanquished the monster that Three had become. The very same face that he saw when he had the nightmare during Pilgrims’ Keep, stared back at him. It was identical to his, but also more.

“This cannot be me,” he muttered.

The man had his face, true, and also, his countenance. But he was older by a bit, regal and felt… ancient, in a way he had never seen before. He stepped forward on dry leaves crunching beneath his boots, ready to test a theory.

“Reverse,” he said with a gesture of his hand. The scene reversed like a video.

Slowly, he thought and it heeded his will. Jerome nodded, understanding dawning on him. When he was here the first time, he got angry and the whole place reacted to his anger. He should have taken the cue then. This place was under his control — sort of.

The forest of trees remained in the ever-constant season of Fall. Leaves drifted to the ground adding to the millions there before. The scene from his nightmare hovered a few feet above ground surrounded by darkness that reached for this Plane — like fingers extended.

This Plane, Jerome thought. He waved a hand and the nightmare dissipated. This should be a sort of a different ‘Plane of Existence’. The realization shook him to his core!

Jerome touched his heart again just to check. There was no heartbeat just as he’d expected. He took a deep breath and decided to learn more about this place and how he got here.