The feeling of being watched had reached its peak the last few days, and then when Vaunce was practicing his technique and making some adjustments to make it better; he found a book placed on his forge in the hideout. He looked around for anyone else in the hideout but hadn’t found anyone. He even went as far as to message the group to see if anyone had put it there to creep him out or prank him. He decided to douse the forge for the moment and look at the book that had suddenly appeared. It unsettled him greatly, but when he looked at the book title it was replaced by curiosity. The book’s title was complete gibberish to him, it looked to be another language completely and he couldn’t understand it at all. Opening the book to the first page, he saw a diagram showing a rune that was supposed to be traced in the air; or so he thought it looked like at least.

Pushing mana into his finger he began to trace the rune in the air, nothing happened as he thought it would. He tried again, focusing harder this time. Failing a few different times, he sighed in annoyance. Mulling it over, he looked at the book and could see a single rune he recognized somewhat hidden amongst the decoration of the book. Void. He decided to try again, this time using void mana. Tracing the rune in the air with void mana, he felt a connection start to form.

As he finished his entire vision went black, causing him to jump up rapidly from his chair, and then losing his balance and falling over. Laying on the ground and waiting for it to be over, he eventually gained his sight back. Getting up he saw a purple-blackish haze over everything. Looking around in curiosity about what was happening, he saw a group of ethereal animals staring at him in the corner. Taking a step back in surprise, Vaunce saw that none of them moved toward him. Inspecting them closer, he saw that there was a cat, a raven or crow, a few different types of dogs, and a creepy looking spider that was staring at him with all of its unblinking eyes. He shuddered at the gaze of the spider, but none of them seemed to be hostile towards him. Grabbing the book he saw he could now read the title. It read “The basics of Void aligned mana: for idiots”. Staring at it in disbelief, he opened the book and began to read.

“Firstly, welcome to the society. This society is dedicated to preserving knowledge about void attributed mana, as well as other ‘forbidden’ types of mana. We also take it upon ourselves to connect members that share these rare types of mana so that they may learn from each other and grow.”

Flipping to the diagram he had seen on the opening page, he saw it was titled “Rune of understanding, Void variant”. Vaunce now understood why he was able to read the language that he understood intuitively was called “The language of the Void” or “Voidic” for short, but that didn’t explain what all these animals were doing watching him, or how he was able to see this different purple energy. He flipped to the next section, hoping for some answers to the questions he had.

“After you have completed the ‘Rune of understanding’ you will be able to read ‘Voidic’ and see the ‘Void Overlay’ as we have named it. It is the purple-blackish energy you should see that mimics everything else you see. It will take a while to get used to it, but eventually you will be able to fine tune it so that you only see as much as you want to be able to see. It is not dangerous, but please do not try to reach out and touch any of the creatures you see. You will be able to tame a few of them eventually but until you have completed the first few stages in your void mage apprenticeship, please do not do anything.”

Vaunce paused. He hadn’t been accepted to train at the mages tower like his brother had been. Why was this book saying that he had been? Pushing aside all questions he had for the moment he continued reading.

“You are probably very confused by all this information. That is fine and completely normal at a time like this. So let us start properly from the beginning. Void mana is a rare alignment that only occasionally appears randomly in a few different familial bloodlines. Yours is one of those, although they haven’t had a void mage appear in quite a long time. The void mages or rather the void aligned originally had four major families, but they weren’t keen on accepting the ruling family. So they were hunted down until finally only your family remains somewhat complete, but even they are in hiding.”

Confused, Vaunce read the last line over again. He wasn’t sure what the book meant. His family wasn’t in hiding as far as he knew and it wasn’t like he was adopted, was he? Looking back at the book he determined he would ask his father when he got home and continued reading.

“This Void overlay was created as a means to talk to others without interference of the empire or kingdoms, and as a way to automatically translate Voidic and see the void messengers and beasts. It functions similarly to a speaker or a speaker-watch and allows you to message others across it and lets you send physical things through it as well once you tame a void beast to turn it into a messenger for you, or have someone else send things for you; That is less desirable but there are those that will do it for payment. Once you have learned some of the overlay manipulation spells, you will be able to access these functions or possibly make some functions of your own.”

Flipping to the next page, Vaunce saw a few spell shapes to add functions to his overlay. Internet, Messaging other void overlay users, and a few others, he marveled at it and started working on the ones he thought would be useful in his day to day life. Several hours passed as it took a few tries for each one. The map one took 20 tries and almost 2 hours for him to finally be able to successfully get it to work. It slightly disappointed him as he realized it only filled out the areas he had been to after he got it working, so currently it only showed the hideout. Glancing at the time he had added, he blanched. It was almost an hour past the time he was supposed to be home. Rushing to put everything away, Vaunce ran home.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Opening his front door as quietly as he could, Vaunce saw his father sitting in the front room. Glancing up, he waved to the seat across from him. Gulping, Vaunce sat down and started to type something out before his father waved his hands around and Vaunce stopped typing. He felt the air around them change slightly, vibrating with mana. He looked at his father in slight confusion. He had never seen his father use mana before, so this was different and he noticed his fathers posture was strained.

“I notice that you’ve opened the void overlay, that’s good. Don’t tell anyone about it for now, we will have to work on getting you a void beast but for now we will have to work on changing your understanding of the world as it is currently”

Vaunce froze in shock. His father could speak? He could actually speak like the orators? His mind was in complete shambles. He didn’t know what was happening and his mind felt like it was in a bog, slowed down to a complete stop. Unbidden, he realized he had not slept in almost a day. His mind felt tired and he just nodded at his father, who had begun laughing and showed him a piece of paper with a weird symbol on it.

Ding

Friend added

He saw the Friends list update with his fathers name and saw the option to call or message besides it. He refocused on his dad, blinking the overlay away. Seeing the stare, his dad laughed again.

“Go to bed kid, we will have a proper talk tomorrow. Don’t go to your apprenticeship tomorrow, I'll send a note to Master Randall.”

Walking to his bedroom, Vaunce felt his entire mind in chaos as he replayed the entire scenario in his head. It took awhile to fall asleep, something Clara was glad for since it meant more petting and purring on her part.

Waking up to the sun peeking through the windows, Vaunce groaned. He was feeling suffocated about his situation the more he thought about it. Starting to slightly panic as he realized it was more than just a feeling, he opened his eyes and saw Clara sleeping peacefully on his neck. Pushing her off and gasping in air, he wondered if she ever had remorse for trying to kill him in his sleep. Deciding probably not, he got up and changed into his off-day clothes he frequently wore.

As he walked out into the kitchen, his father waved him into his study before shutting the door behind him. He walked over to Clara, who had snuck in behind Vaunce, and picked her up and placed her on the outside before reclosing the study door. Placing his arm on Vaunce, he felt emptiness. Like the world was devoid of any color, any life, like he was trudging through a dream and suddenly there was nothing else besides darkness. Then falling was all there was. Falling until there was ground under his feet. Letting go, Vaunce stumbled for a few seconds trying to get his feet under him until he just sat down and let the vertigo settle. Hearing laughter, Vaunce looked up and saw his father laughing with a few people he didn’t recognize. After unsuccessfully trying to stand up for a few minutes, he managed to climb to his feet and walked over to stand beside his father.

“Ah he has finally arrived” exclaimed his father before bursting into laughter.

“Oh stop Wes” one of the women standing nearby rolled her eyes “we both know the first void warp makes people feel like shit” glancing at vaunce, she reached out and patted him on the head “don't listen to that asshole, you did better than he did the first time” she glanced around conspiratorial “Ol’ wes here actually pissed himself the first time” she whispered just loud enough for everyone gathered to hear.

“Hey I did NOT” his father half shouted at her “God Fuck off Cass”

Laughter burst from around the room, Vaunce glanced up and saw ‘Cass’ wink at him before she walked off into another room with everyone else now that the show was over. Grumbling, Vaunce’s father waved for him to follow and together they walked into a nearby room. Settling into what looked like an office with a window, Vaunce’s father closed the door and sat down opposite Vaunce.

“Okay kid, first thing you need to know is that void mages don’t have scarring in the throat that prevents us from talking. You can talk too, but we need to get you used to it slowly or else you might actually hurt your throat.” pausing for a moment to make sure Vaunce was listening, he continued “Second thing is this place is called ‘The Stronghold’, it was built by past void mages to act as a sort of haven when the empire started to purge us and any knowledge about void mana.”

Vaunce stared intently at his father, absorbing everything he was talking about. He started to type out a message on his speaker-watch when his father stopped him.

“No speaker-watch, the empire has lightning mages that watch the lightning overlay”

Confused, Vaunce looked at him and with some waving managed to ask what he meant

“The lightning overlay is what powers the speakers. It is like the void overlay except lightning aligned. The speakers allow anyone to access it without having to use the lightning rune of understanding. But if a lightning mage has used the rune of understanding, with some focusing they can spy on other people using the lighting overlay. Normally people would see them spying on them, but if they don't have access to the lightning overlay then they won't see them. It’s like how you couldn't see the void messengers watching you” his father explained.

Vaunce realized there were a lot of things he didn’t know about the world and determined that he would learn as much as he could. He had a lot of questions but couldn’t ask them since he couldn’t use his speaker-watch to display them. He was starting to feel overwhelmed about everything, and realized his mind was starting to just blank out. He held up his hand to prevent his dad from talking while he sorted out his thoughts.

Okay what the fuck. What the fuck is going on. What the fuck, why can dad speak, what the fuck is up with those owls in the room, what the fuck is this all. Is this a dream?

Hearing the door shut again, his head snapped up to see his dad walk back in with some paper and a pencil to write with. Handing them to him, his dad motioned him to write his questions.

“This will have to work until we can get you to talk”

Vaunce started writing “What the fuck is going on?” was the first thing he wrote

Seeing it, his dad started laughing “You don’t start small do you? Okay well let’s start small with us. Our family is Human, and we have always been void mages. Currently we are the only two void mages in our family, as well as the only two full humans” pausing he looked at Vaunce.

Vaunce looked confused about what was just said, so his dad continued.

“I didn’t misspeak, only humans can wield void aligned mana. Humans cannot wield other types of mana however. We are the only two humans in the entirety of Burklies”