“Master, might I suggest a break?” Sashro was beginning to succumb to exhaustion. His master had expended all of his mana, but once his pool regenerated enough, another spell would get launched out toward one of the various targets. A second group of targets were brought out that numbered a small army.

“If you need to rest, then rest.” Christoph’s words, even as a dragonkin, were considerably kind. It came across in a deep voice from a mouth filled with sharpened teeth, but the tone was compassionate. “I thank you for your instruction.” He looked over his claws that were covered with minor burns, frostbite, acid burns, and some other damage—nothing too critical or deep. He smiled at the wounds that barely registered as pain. I used to get hurt a lot and only got a bit of wheat or meat for it. This would’ve killed me as a human, and I don’t even feel it! In fact, his back straightens with a crack as his arms fling out to flex, I feel great! “I can’t quit now!”

A thunderous laugh filled the arena. No one was permitted on the grounds but a few of the workers keeping to the back rooms beneath ground—summoned occasionally to replenish the ranks of dummies. A job better suited for his undead. He hasn’t even asked of those spells. Sashro bowed in appreciation of his master and began moving toward one of the edges of the arena. Over his head, a high column rose from one end of the stone walls to create a lofty box from which the King and his people may watch the shows.

“So driven.” Sashro reached into a portal of darkness and pulled out a jug with cooled water inside. He began pouring the liquid into a cup he retrieved from the same opening in space—a two-dimensional doorway into some arcane pocket. The sweat was dripping from his face and neck, rolling over the scarred flesh, after the exertion in such a warmed region of The Spire. “Incredible.” He smiled as he watched his master take the shortest possible breaks between the casting of spells. “I’ll have him up and running in no time. Back to the work at hand.” His exhaustion expressed in dry coughs after speaking.

This session continued for another hour or two while Sashro leaned against the wall and tried to relax. His mana had been spent and the hours tolled heavily on his bones. So he took to rest and watched his king with hopeful eyes.

Sashro had noticed a change in his master, but it wasn’t something to despise. There was still will behind those yellow eyes. There was power. There was a being worth putting his life on the line for… but now there was more behind those eyes. There was a sense of duty and compassion. Even in this short time, he’d realized things were not the same. Only one thing, quite noticeably so, was removed from his master.

Madness.

He’d felt the sword of his master at his throat—a familiar sign of aggression and position—yet, he saw how that rage retreated and was replaced with consideration and logic.

“Death is a strange thing.” He sipped from his cold water as he watched the dragonkin practice out on the sands. “Was he always this driven? Or did his alchemic spell work beyond our comprehension?” He tried to recall his master ever practicing so hard. The truth was, he never had. A mad smile of his own crept over his face, “Perhaps the cure to all ailments and death wiped clear the darkness of his mind. Focused, as he is now, dreams may yet live.”

The dragonkin known as Gohdin had been a gifted humanoid with a mind perfect for mastering spells. He was fascinated by the darkness, by death, and by the arcana that could prevent or cause it. Magic power had been all that the descendant of man and dragons could believe in—all he could give himself to. In time, this talent turned to obsession, and obsession to insanity.

“Frost Ray!” The dragonkin aimed an arm draped with a magical cloak. The claw was engulfed in a burst of white and blue energy.

SHHHHHHHHHHHHH. A hiss filled the air as the gust of frozen energy rushed from the wizard. After a moment, Sashro leaned in to examine the results, the clouds of frosty particles cleared to reveal a dummy completely entombed in ice.

“OH!” Sashro was overjoyed. He stood up, through the aching pain in his aged limbs, and began walking back toward his master. “Incredible!”

This time, it really was. After a day’s worth of practice, frostbitten flesh, and a drained vessel, the undead dragonkin exhaled quick breathes out of habit in his exertion. A dummy stood petrified in a block of ice that had jagged ends pointing off its back. There was roughly ten centimeters of ice between the open air and the trapped dummy—enough that almost any opponent would succumb to eternal darkness in moments. Their last worldly sight would be that of a refracted, blue and white crystal window to the reality they must leave behind.

“My lord, what incredible power!” Sashro was able to ignore the fiery jolts in his joints due to wonder. “I’ve never seen such a basic spell produce such results!” He moved toward the dummy and tapped on the ice. “Thick, too. Even the empire’s most powerful warriors would have trouble breaking something like this. Imagine if you caught them inside! Incredible!”

Sashro’s words of praise fell on partially deaf ears. Christoph was examining his claw which had lost a layer of flesh over the palm. It didn’t look mangled or decrepit, but Christoph knew it wasn’t how it should be. It’s not enough. This wasn’t the thought of a dragonkin experiencing the avarice of his breed. This was mankind’s need to succeed and dominate.

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It was, perhaps, the most terrifying aspect of this mixed creature.

There’s backlash still, but I can work on that. At least the spell works. The outward makes sense, but now I need to get the mana right. Christoph was imagining the difference in affects based on how he shot all the mana into it at once or if he trickled it into the spell. What might happen? He’d just been given the powers of a wizard, and it was already showing.

Where once he spent his time running through fields, hunting with his friends or father, or even just lying out in the sun… there was now the endless series of equations and philosophical outcomes of a magic caster crowned King of the Undead. The mind had shifted, and it felt right to Christoph. He didn’t know the answers, but his curiosity meant he’d strive to find them.

“What will be next, my Lord?” Sashro interrupted his thoughts.

Christoph looked up and huffed. “How long have we been practicing?”

“My Lord, I have practiced mere hours.” Christoph nodded while listening. “You have practiced for twenty hours.”

What?! Christoph couldn’t help but widen his eyes at the answer. I’ve been at it that long? He looked up but found neither sun nor moon. It was always dark in this place. Only the distance twinkle of imbedded gems or deposits lit the canvas of stone above. Lava the only true source of light, fed the ceiling with a sheen.

“That long, hm?” Christoph considered the lapse of time and looked toward his teacher. “What is the quickest way outside? I’d like some fresh air.”

“Of course, my Lord.” Sashro had never heard such a request from the dragonkin, but it was another chance for them to speak together. Sashro bowed his head.

“Tell the workers to keep the dummies in place. I will return later to continue.” He stood straight and looked over the field of dummies. I’ll learn to end a war on my own. Just how this guy would have, he clenched his own claw and watched the deadly nails press against his palm. Who knows who or how many I’ll have to fight.

This was a promise to himself. It was a fork in the road that he decided to wander; a stony path of debris and crimson mud winding about the hillside above a smoother, cleaner route. The human servant led his master through the arena’s more secretive doors and out toward the open world.

“Your favorite path, my Lord.” Sashro was overjoyed to be the one to walk this path with his master. It was a path they’d walked several times before, but this time he’d hoped his master’s forgotten memories would allow him to see it as if for the first time. Sashro awaited that moment.

Walking through a series of guarded doors, where insect-like creatures scurried into the shadows away from them, the two emerged on the southern gate overlooking the lands below. Two sets of doors had been placed, made of solid iron, between the outside world and the inner tunnels of The Spire. Christoph took a deep breath as that second series of doors opened with relatively quiet scrapes against the floor or ceiling.

Christoph didn’t look toward the insects that had opened the doors, the rocks that were expertly mined and chiseled down to a smooth surface, or even the designs of the doors. What he looked to, to the delight of Sashro, was the opened sky to the south. Christoph’s eyes adjusted to the midday light of a clear spring day.

A few clouds drifted lethargically by the mountain’s top. He felt if he reached out, one might come to his call. From this edge, there was a path that wrapped upward and to the left and downward to the right. These paths were wide and worn. He even had about ten meters from the edge of the doors to the side of the path where he could stand and peer out over the world below.

Strong winds blew up the side of the hills where he could feel the air separating the clothes from his flesh. It was refreshing. It was cooling yet warm in the light of the sun. And for all of this, Christoph felt an emptiness while looking out. It was like an ant realizing just how vast the world is beyond the hill he’d spent his life in. A fly realizing that some creatures live more than a few days. A young boy reliving the memories of a golden field of wheat brushing against his cheeks as he ran in the sunlight.

“It’s…” Christoph looked out and almost felt the need to cry. It was gorgeous. It was splendid in its rolling hills, in the fresh scent of nature wafting up the mountains, in the streams and rivers that carved the land with sustenance, and the jagged cliffs and edges of a mountain dwarfing the world below. “Amazing.”

His deep voice growled out against the vast sky that reached out before him. In the far distance, he could see the jagged maw of the distant mountain ranges that protected the Protharian Empire. This land, some piece of it, had been his home. I’ll be a good man, a good king, and I’ll protect all I can.

As Christoph gazed out over the lands, Sashro walked quietly to his side. They listened to the howling wind for a time before Sashro spoke. Peaceful sights of a land stretching out to the horizon kept the two hushed.

“What is next, Lord Gohdin?”

Staring out to the south, there was one place that Christoph’s mind had gone. It was what called to his heart. Every creature longs for that haven where once they travelled and called their home.

“Arcane Disguise.” Sashro glanced up to his master. Chistoph spoke with a serious tone as he watched the clouds soar over the lands. Recalling a spell he’d seen in his book, he continued, “I will need to learn it.”