After watching Lord Walker charge the kobald lines and subsequently run right past them, Academian Quincy found himself thoroughly confused. Judging by the waves of disbelief echoing across the connection he shared with the other evaluators, he wasn’t the only one who was having trouble understanding what he was seeing.

Without any conceivable grander purpose, Lord Walker continued deeper into the enemy force, seemingly immune to any and all damage he was recieving. If he didn’t know better, Academian Quincy would have thought Lord Walker was a level 80 melee combat specialist with centuries of experience on the battlefield.

“I don’t understand… if he’s capable of creating an essence shield strong enough to counter their blades, then why is he bothering to try and dodge them?” asked Scholar Idrius.

The question hung in the air, unanswerable and perplexing.

Hovering above the battlefield, they watched Lord Walker move through the kobald defenses like a thief escaping justice. He ducked and dodged blades by the dozens, lashing out left and right with his sword, leaving bleeding and screaming kobalds in his wake. Yet, they also saw kobald swords bouncing off his essence shield, spearheads deflecting off his limbs, and on more than a dozen occasions… arrows harmlessly hammering into his back.

“Is he… I don’t know… trying to trick them or something?” Scholar Vaxas asked, his normally silent personality overcome by his confusion.

Even from where they were above the battlefield, they could hear Lord Walker’s laugh echoing across the encampment, enraging the nearby kobalds into a frenzy.

Academian Quincy had no idea what the enigmatic young lord was doing. While it was true that he was causing some damage to the kobald forces, his tactics were inefficient to the point of insanity. On one hand, if Lord Walker knew that his essence shield was that powerful, then he could have just stood in place and cut them down by the hundreds. But, if he didn’t, and he was actually charging into their lines expecting to survive with his evasion techniques… then he honestly didn’t know what to think.

Perhaps Scholar Vaxas was right, maybe it was all some elaborate ploy to keep the kobalds off balance. It was after all rather obvious what effect Lord Walker’s antics were having on the kobalds. They were abandoning their positions and chasing after him in droves.

‘Maybe that is his goal?’ Academian Quincy wondered.

Inexplicably, the young lord abruptly changed tactics. Out of nowhere, he jumped up onto one of the kobald buildings and ducked under a giant tower shield. Academian Quincy and the other evaluators couldn’t help but hold their breaths in shock at the sheer audacity Lord Walker was displaying.

As expected, now that he was out in the open and static, several artillery positions opened fire on him. Whoever was controlling the kobald forces had predictably been monitoring the situation and had now decided to take action.

“He’s casting something…” noted Scholar Yarbarrow.

“I don’t recognize the spell,” replied Scholar Mortem.

“It might be that personal artillery spell he used before, the same one that he used during the portal incident. He used it earlier in this battle too I think. I wasn’t ready at the time, but this time I was able to catch it. I can confirm that he’s pulling in soul remnants to power it. The local resonance levels are falling… or at least I think they are,” observed Scholar Vaxas added hesitantly.

Glancing over at Scholar Vaxas, Academian Quincy frowned at the man with distaste. Unsurprisingly, Scholar Vaxas was playing with the obscure spell he’d found in one of the Royal Academy’s databases. According to him, the spell was intended to monitor soul remanent levels in the ether before the application of some very illegal necromatic rituals. While not technically against the law, Academian Quincy was not happy to see the overly curious man messing with something so controversial.

Academian Quincy’s attention was pulled back to the battle below him by the sound of Lord Walker’s spell going off. Turning his attention to where it was headed, he raised one eyebrow in surprise when he saw the spell impact against the siege wyrm. ‘Well, THAT’S not going to do anything,’ he thought to himself in shock.

But, he was then immediately proven wrong when the siege wyrm let out a bowel-shaking roar before charging toward Lord Walker in a rage. Staring in confusion at the sight of the siege wyrm’s disproportionate reaction, Academian Quincy missed the moment when the kobald’s spells landed on Lord Walker’s position.

Whipping his head back toward the explosion, he was surprised to see the level of destruction the kobalds had committed against their own forces. Dead kobalds littered the ground while the building itself had fallen into ruins.

“Well, let’s go collect his body and then get him resuscitated. I’m looking forward to hearing what he -” Academian Quincy started to say before trailing off.

From the rubble, Lord Walker emerged with a grin and began cutting down any kobald lucky enough to still be alive. He was able to see the exact moment Lord Walker realized the siege wyrm was bearing down on his position. The grin on Lord Walker’s face transformed into a wide smile, his white teeth contrasting harshly with the soot and dust covering his face.

Feeling an uncomfortable chill down his spine, Academian Quincy couldn’t stop himself from shivering at the wicked laugh erupting from the little lord down below.

Like an arrow being loosed from a bow, Lord Walker shot off into the encampment in the exact opposite direction from the siege wyrm’s approach.

“I got it! That’s what he was doing with the soul remnants! He was overpowering the spell form to pull in enough essence so that it would overcome the siege wyrm’s localized essence field. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t know enough about essence fields yet. His plan would have worked if he had time to infuse more power into the spell,” Scholar Vaxas said confidently.

Frowning again at his boundary-pushing colleague, Academian Quincy hissed, “Does it LOOK like Lord Walker was unhappy with the result? Whatever his plan is, I doubt that was the extent of it.”

“Dear gods in all the heavens above… Would you look at that,” whispered Scholar Mortem.

Turning to look at what Scholar Mortem was pointing at, Academian Quincy felt his jaw drop at the sight of the siege wyrm absolutely wrecking the pursuit force of kobalds chasing after the young lord.

“Do you think he planned that?” asked Scholar Yarbarrow in awe.

—--

It took longer than Nero thought it would to make his way through the weird foglike dust cloud. But, eventually, he started seeing some partially complete ruins and moderately intact corpses. Even with his mind still in a bit of a daze, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the sight of so many dead enemies.

“I should look into contacting a GM to see if I can start getting experience off my kill count,” he muttered to himself sarcastically.

As he got further away from the detonation site, he felt his essence field begin working again. Although not able to see them, he could sense humans moving around, collecting corpses and loot.

Emerging from the dust-like cloud, he walked over to the first group he saw and said, “Hey there. Do any of you know where Cathleen Averett is?”

As one, the group looked up from what they were doing. Surprised, two of the battle-weary soldiers dropped the kobald corpse they were holding. The remaining troops all stood up straight and snapped to attention, staring at Nero in shock.

Before he could tell them to chill out, one of the troops stepped forward to greet him. Nero wasn’t sure, but he thought he recognized the man from the brief interviews he’d had with his wackos.

“My lord, are you injured? Do you need healing?” the possible wacko asked quickly, his concern overly evident in his expression.

Frowning up at the man, Nero replied, “Um… Yeah, I’m good. You can go back to looting and whatnot. But, can you point me in the direction of Cathleen? I’m sure she’s just itching to tear me a new one for running off.”

The man didn’t respond immediately, his concern for his lord’s safety struggling against his desire to answer the question.

Pointing off in the distance, he said, “She and the command staff are over that way, my lord. But, are you sure you don’t want me to help you over to the healers?”

Nero looked down at his grubby and ruined armor and replied, “Nah, I’m fine. This is mostly kobald blood. I’ll get some water and clean up in a bit.”

Considering how ‘off’ the ether felt, Nero didn’t want to chance a spell before talking to Nick. For all he knew, there was some magical rule that he’d be violating if he did. With his luck, he’d probably end up accidentally creating a portal or one of those essence nodes. The last thing he needed right now was another enemy to fight. While fun and exciting, he was currently more interested in a shower and a nap.

Rather than prolonging the awkward conversation, Nero turned on his heel and began walking away. Over his shoulder, he shouted, “Thanks for the directions. Keep up the good work! Soldiers like you are a credit to the unifo-... I mean… a credit to Dorchester! Yup… you guys are the real heroes!”

Nero cringed at his poor attempt at politicking. ‘I’m really gonna have to update my bullshit,’ he reminded himself.

Luckily he was distracted by more and more human troops appearing as he made his way out of the dust cloud. Every time someone noticed him, they dropped what they were doing and saluted him. Many of them he could tell weren’t soldiers, as their attempts looked both awkward and kinda stupid. But, he still responded with a fist to his chest and a smile, as there was no point in being a dick about it.

What did confuse him a little was how his presence seemed to suck the happiness out of them. One second they were smiling and congratulating each other on their victory, and the next they were looking at him like they were at a funeral.

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Was Cathleen or someone else injured? Or dead? Upping his pace, he quickly moved through the crowd, his heart beginning to race with worry.

Moving past a wagon filled with kobald corpses, he saw a large group of people circled around something. Figuring that they all looked like important assholes doing nothing while everyone else worked for a living, he assumed they were the ‘command staff’ that the possible wacko had told him to look out for.

Walking up, he was about to reach out and tap one of them on the arm to ask about Cathleen. Before he could though, the entire group turned around to look at him.

Only a few paces away, Nero froze in place, uncomfortable with so many people staring at him. Right when he was about to say something, the crowd was shoved aside by a stern-looking Cathleen followed by the contrastingly large Captain Angleton. While Cathleen looked like she always did… mildly annoyed and somewhat disapproving, the captain was wearing what looked like a smile… but that couldn’t be right. Captain Angleton didn’t smile.

Before Nero could think too much about that, he noticed that right alongside them was the former assassin guy Mark with a weird smile on his face… or maybe his name was Mike, Marty, or Mickey… Nero couldn’t remember. Either way, the approaching group was rounded out with an overly excited Nick.

The range of emotions on everyone’s faces was enough to exacerbate Nero’s migraine. Awkwardly raising his hand in greeting, he politely gave them a half-wave and said hurriedly, “Hello there. Good fight, huh? Crazy about those siege wyrms. But, hey, it all worked out… right? Well… not for everyone under the upper floors that fell down on them, but everyone else seems OK. So, that’s one in the win column. Were the healers able to save any of those poor bastards? I know that -”

The group stood around Nero in a half circle, each of them glaring at him in their own way. The former assassin and the captain looked at him with wide smiles and a hint of an emotion Nero couldn’t begin to identify. Nick looked like he was ready to jump out of his shoes and begin questioning him. But Cathleen… sweet Cathleen… the look on her face was enough for Nero to keep talking, hoping to stumble across the correct words that could diffuse her, thereby preventing her from exploding all over him.

“Enough! Before anything else, why haven’t you healed yourself?” Cathleen demanded.

Nero gulped a little… his mouth dry from talking so quickly. “Um… because I’m not injured?” he replied hesitantly.

The smiles on the former assassin whose name he couldn’t remember and Captain Angleton faded away. Cathleen’s penetrating eyes seemed to stare into his soul, while Nick stifled a laugh.

Nero looked over at his friend and offered him a shrug before urging him with his eyes to explain what the hell was going on.

Nick’s smile was closer to a smirk when he stepped forward and said, “It’s good to see you’re alright Nero. But, you might want to take a look at yourself in a mirror.”

Nero didn’t have a chance to respond before Nick stamped some spell into the ether and created a shimmering 6 ft tall mirror. Reflexively looking over at himself, Nero watched as his reflection’s jaw dropped in surprise at what it was seeing.

His normally lush silver hair now looked wan and dull. The dust, ash, and blood aside, he could tell that his hair had lost a great deal of its shine. His cheeks were now sunken and corpse-like. Heavy bags hung under his eyes while his abnormally pale skin showed blue web-like veins around his ocular socket. Nor longer red and healthy, his lips were now almost violet. And finally, his entire face was covered in streaks of dried blood.

His shoulders and chest looked like his brain had leaked out of his ears while his chin and mouth were covered in what must have come out of his nose. Even the outer and inner edges of his eyes had streaks of dried blood running down his face.

Unconsciously stepping forward, Nero raised his hands to his face and delicately probed his features. “What the fuck,” he mumbled over and over again incoherently.

While Nick was still smiling, his voice sounded quite gentle as he asked, “How do you feel, Nero?”

Looking at Nick through the reflection, Nero replied, “I had no idea I looked like this. I feel fine… or at least I thought I did. Now though, my stomach is all in a knot and the headache I’ve been ignoring is starting to hurt again.”

While everyone kept a respectful distance, Nick walked slowly up to Nero and put his hand on his shoulder. Nero watched as the man cast some medical-type spell that he kinda sorta recognized by the familiarity it shared with some of the spells he knew.

“Just as I thought,” he said decisively, before removing his hand and stepping away. “You’ve overtaxed your body to an absurd degree.”

Nero turned back to the mirror to take another look at himself before looking at Nick’s reflection and glaring. The unmasked demand for a better explanation was made very clear with his expression.

Nick chuckled and added in a low voice, “Based on your ‘unique’ background, I have a few guesses as to how this happened, but I think we might want to discuss it under some privacy spells. That is unless you want half of Dorchester hearing about it.”

Grimacing, Nero kept his mouth shut.

Unfortunately, that brief explanation wasn’t enough for Captain Angleton, whoever the former assassin was, and Cathleen.

“Will Lord Walker be able to recover?” asked the captain quickly, the poorly hidden panic in his voice causing his voice to slightly shake.

“If you need to make a pilgrimage to one of the stronger cities, we’re with you, my lord! You just say the word!” declared the guy who is most likely named Marty.

Nero looked over at the two in confusion while Cathleen stepped forward and nearly hissed, “Now isn’t the time for this!” Turning to Nick, she demanded, “Is he in any immediate danger? Can he be debriefed?”

Nick’s grin didn’t falter a bit under their combined gaze. “Oh, he’s fine. Or at least I think he is. You can’t expect him to do what he did without consequences, but I don’t think it will be anything permanent. Nero is… a unique case… yes, that’s a good way to look at it. He’s a unique, and this is just an expression of that. He’ll need some rest and some food, but he should be good for a few more hours before he needs to lie down.”

Suddenly comprehending what ‘debriefing’ might entail, Nero looked over at Nick like the man had just broken his favorite coffee mug. ‘Why Nick? What did I ever do to you?’ he wondered impotently.

Cathleen nodded once quickly, accepting what Nick said at face value. Turning around she barked, “You! Get some food and water together and meet us at the central command tent.”

Spinning back to Nero, she said, “Our presence has been ‘requested’ by command at our earliest convenience. We can stall, but I don’t see the point. You’ve already stolen half their penal forces and the good captain here has practically defected. Unique or not, after the display you just put on, I’d rather not push Dorchester's command any further than they already have been.”

Nero looked both confused and a little insulted at her outrageous insinuations. Meanwhile, Captain Angleton looked offended and the former assassin dude looked, for lack of a better word, ‘proud’ for some reason.

After dismissing his mirror spell, Nick put his arm around Nero and led him off after Cathleen. Nero didn’t object, as he honestly didn’t have enough brain power available to object. There was just too much confusing information needing to be digested floating around up there. Between his pounding headache, his currently hazy attention span, and his concern for whatever the hell happened to him physically, Nero felt like he was in a daze.

Out of nowhere, Nero felt a connection attempt poking at his mind coming from Nick. Looking over at the man, Nero accepted the connection and stifled a wince at the mental pain it caused.

“What is it?” he asked with a grimace.

Frowning down at him in concern, Nick asked, “Are you capable of maintaining a connection right now? How bad is it?”

Nero rolled his eyes and replied, “I’m fine enough. Seriously. What’s up?”

Nick kindly took Nero at his word and replied, “I wanted to give you a little heads up about what you’re going through. Also a few words of warning about what you might find when you enter the command tent.”

Feeling a pit in his stomach, Nero asked, “How bad is it really? I didn’t actually fuck up and turn myself into an undead or something did I? I swear I didn’t do anything with the soul stuff, and there really wasn’t any personality or even any actual souls involved in the type of casting I did.”

Nick quickly replied, “No, you’re not undead or anything like that. Well, not really. I suppose in a way you COULD be considered an undead. But that’s only when you consi-”

Interrupting him before he could go off on a tangent, Nero pleaded, “Nick… I’m begging you, please just tell me what’s going on,”

Nick paused for a second to gather his thoughts before saying, “Alright. It’s like this. You know how you ‘appropriated’ the body you are currently using?”

Nero nodded, a little concerned over where Nick might be going with this.

“Well, when your soul took over, it began changing the body to better fit your identity. Remember, we talked about this?” asked Nick, knowing that Nero rarely paid attention to what he didn’t want to.

Nero once again nodded before replying, “Yeah, and?”

Finally getting to the point, Nick replied, “By overtaxing the amount of essence your body can channel, you essentially were burning out and killing the host body you are currently using. Your existence is very much like a possession, but much more stable. In order to stabilize your condition, you’re going to need to infuse some stars into your body stats to compensate for your abnormal casting ability. Remember, it’s all connected, body mind, and soul. While most people tend to skew toward a particular direction, you’re always going to be a little different. What your levels show and what you are actually capable of are never going to be the same thing. In the short term, this means that you’ll need to hold off on any larger spells and should focus on getting some food and rest in order to give your physical body time to recover.”

As Nero pondered over what Nick had just said, he felt his friend cast a cleaning spell that washed over him like a wave. Looking down, Nero saw the grime, dirt, and blood flake off him as if he were one of those fancy rugs being beaten with a bat.

“You may not look your best right now, but your combat capabilities aren’t all that affected. Just be careful not to melt the brain you are currently using. If my conjecture is correct, you may not find a suitable replacement body anytime soon,” Nick advised wryly.

While intellectually Nero understood what Nick was saying, that didn’t mean the reminder that this wasn’t actually his body was enough to give him the mouth sweats.

‘Ironic really. I’m suffering physical effects in my body from the realization that this isn’t my body. Freaky,’ Nero thought to himself.

Mentally retreating from the conversation for a moment, Nero looked around to see where he was being led. All around him, he could see uniformed soldiers wearing Dorchester tabards going about their business. He didn’t know how far away it was they were going, but he figured he might as well take advantage of the opportunity to grill Nick on what was coming.

“Alright, so I’m a body-jumping freak who needs to let his body recover. I can ironically live with that. Now, what’s this about a warning you wanted to give me concerning the meeting I’m about to have?” he asked.

Nick replied quickly, probably expecting the subject to change. “The amount of damage you did as a singular caster is unprecedented in an area like Dorchester. You probably felt the effect you had on the ether after what you did. If you recall, a similar occurrence during the Dorchen Rebellion was caused by Populators overtaxing the available ether and disrupting the local essence flows. While not at the same level, what you did probably reminded them of that. While I doubt anyone still living in Dorchester was around to see it, the event hasn’t been forgotten. You need to emphasize that you are not nearly powerful enough to affect the local essence flows and that what you did was merely a clever use of applied spell form manipulation based on your limited magical studies. You don’t have to report your spell if you don’t want to, but I’m guessing that if you do you’ll probably end up with another royal award.”

Nero felt like he was pummeled with the amount of information Nick was doling out like candy. So many thoughts were racing through his brain that he felt like it might literally melt out of his ears.

Rubbing his temples, Nero replied, “OK. Nick, I’m cutting the connection now. I’m gonna need a minute to process all this.”

Nick didn’t use the connection to reply, instead, he patted Nero’s shoulder and said out loud, “Understandable. Take your time.” before cutting the connection.

Nero gratefully nodded to his friend with a wan smile before staring down at the ground and letting his mind wander. Absently watching his feet as he continued to walk, Nero thought to himself, ‘Next time… I need to remember not to use spells that are big enough to warrant meetings. Instead, I’ll draw out the fights as long as possible and hope whoever is in charge ends up dying before being able to bitch me out.’

Satisfied with his updated action plan, Nero let his mind chew on the fact that he was currently walking around in what could be charitably referred to as a pre or almost-dead body.

‘Eh, I’m sure it will work out fine,’ he reassured himself.