“It could be worse,” I mumbled. Actually, the black helmet floating in front of me looked quite good. I had sculpted the metal into a wolf’s head with a wild mane that had lots and lots of sharp, hair-like protrusions. It was badass! A nightmare to clean, but badass. I had to be more confident about what I could do.

“Overconfidence is our biggest weakness, Wolf. We need to be more circumspect! If we go in thinking we’re so much better than everyone, it’ll only get us killed.”

“You’re just scared, Tamie. Paranoid. I could deal with this situation in a day.”

“Deal with it? You mean you could ruin it in a day.”

This was all in my head, of course, so I couldn’t really ruin the helmet. It looked badass because deep down, that was how I wanted it to look. All in the mind of the beholder! I touched the wolf’s snout to flatten it, shaping the metal like soft clay. I kept the mane but fashioned a joker’s grin and a beaky nose onto the helmet. Not good; it resembled an old hag at first glance. I shrank the nose down and made the skin smoother so that the overall impression was of a younger person. Almost like a false-faced me.

“No. We ain’t gonna lie to them, Lee. Those mortals are barely more than dust in the wind, sure, but lying to anyone tarnishes our honor. I won’t stand for it.”

“I agree with Wolf. I don’t care about our honor or whatever, but I also think it’s a bad idea.”

“Fine. Do any of you have a better idea, then?”

These masks were fanciful ideas, but perhaps it would be better to design something that actually protected my head. I could do pretty spectacular things with a medieval-style helmet too. I could make it so that certain parts of it were constantly animated! Perhaps a dragon helmet with shifting scales? If the scales were really small, that might be quite challenging to do. Hmm, but those weren’t very practical ideas either. Oh, well.

“Well, Roland? Do you have any suggestions?”

I lowered my dragon helmet and looked up at Wolf as he towered over me, his glowing green eyes boring into me. His face resembled mine, but he had a thick beard and shaggy hair. His body looked completely different, though. He was me on steroids, with bulging muscles and a bodybuilder’s stance.

Back when I named him Wolf, he decided that I needed a new name as well. Calling me Randel wasn’t good enough for him, since all of us together was supposed to be Randel. So who was I? Which name fit me the most? After much debate, the shades decided to name me after the only person whose name I did not want to carry. Roland. My dead brother. The person I had once aspired to be.

It was a cruel joke and at first, I hated Wolf for it. But he had been calling me Roland so much that by now the word kinda lost its emotional punch.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” I said, turning aside.

“Roland, Roland,” Wolf shook his mane disapprovingly. “Stop playing coy and own up to your thoughts.”

The dreamscape changed into a lush green forest with shadows lurking beneath the trees. Tamie and Lee stopped bickering and looked over at me and Wolf. The shadows of the forest deepened around us. It was eerily quiet.

“Just read my mind if you’re so curious,” I said, willing a campfire into existence. The flames that sprung up scared the shadows away. I sat down on a moldy log by the fire.

“It’s better if you articulate them clearly,” Wolf said, sitting down on the opposite side of the fire. “Tell us what’s on your mind, Roland.”

I shivered, and so I willed the fire to burn hotter. It didn’t help much. Tamie and Lee sat down on either side of me, keeping equal distances around the campfire. Three pairs of expectant green eyes watched me.

“Fine,” I said. “If you really want to hear me say this—honestly, I’ve grown tired of your constant disagreements. I know that sharing the same body with other shades is a new experience for you, but you’re awful at this. You argue about the same things over and over as if we have an eternity to decide who’s right or wrong. It’s exhausting to even listen to.”

I looked at the shades one by one, gauging their reaction. Wolf had a rather wolfish grin on his face; he enjoyed nudging me out of my shell. Tamie wore her usual pensive frown, though this time I noticed that she had put on some light makeup. I had no idea whether that held any meaning or significance, but I found it curious. Lee, on the other hand, wore a disinterested expression. He looked fragile and old, yet if it came to a physical fight I imagined that he would beat Tamie and Wolf any time of the day.

“You’re a strange one, Roland,” Wolf said.

“He’s just sulking,” Tamie said. “He’s like a big child.”

“No,” Wolf said. “A child would throw a tantrum. Ryder did so when I was bound to him. He fought tooth and nail against me. It drove us insane. We were enemies within one mind, and the only way to unite was to break ourselves on each other. And so we did! We reforged ourselves as the sword. We became honor. We became glorious!”

“And this, right here, is why we do not trust you,” Lee said. “You come from an unhinged host. You still carry his madness.”

“But you, Roland, are different,” Wolf went on. “You’re so, so, so disappointingly different. You don’t break. You bend.”

There it was again. Disappointing. He was using that word because he knew it unsettled me. Pushing me to retort, perhaps? I stared into the flames. They were swirling and churning and lashing out with all the heat they had. I wished I could feel that way too. Instead, I just felt hollow. I blinked, and the flames went out. They left behind a single trail of smoke.

“Let’s play a game,” I said. “I ask questions and you answer them.”

“What a creative game,” Tamie said, her frown deepening. “As expected from our pet mortal.”

I matched her frown with one of my own. Was it just my imagination, or were the shades more sarcastic lately? It was almost as if—

“—shades are molded by their hosts,” Lee said. “We’ve explained this already, Roland. The longer we reside in your mind, the more of your personality we’ll appropriate.”

“No way,” I said, pressing a hand to my heart. “Are you implying that I’m a sarcastic person?”

None of them laughed.

“Tough crowd,” I said. “Whatever. Can we get back to the game?”

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“I don’t know,” Tamie said. “Can we?”

My face twitched. This was it. One more sarcastic comment and I was going to do something violent. Like conjuring a table and flipping it over, or creating something expensive but fragile and smashing it against the ground. That would show them.

“Sure, Tamie, I get it,” I said, huffing. “I’m a difficult person to live with. I reap what I sow. Yadda yadda. You don’t need to rub it in so much. Shall we get back to the game?”

The scenery around us changed. The ground beneath me turned to stone and our forest camp shot upward, parting the trees and reaching for the clear blue sky as an enormous wall beneath us exploded into existence. My stomach dropped from the sudden acceleration and I clung to the trunk I was sitting on for support—until we stopped.

We were sitting on a circular wall, much like Fortram’s. I could see two more walls, one on either side of us, which divided the forest into concentric rings. The trees down below seemed to be shuffling in the same direction, like a tide of broccoli on a windy day. Yes, the broccoli looked exactly like trees.

By now, I was used to these sudden changes in the landscape. The shades liked to come up with these absurd ideas and watch my reactions. Sometimes I would offer suggestions on how to make these scenes look better or more interesting—and even if I didn’t offer these things, they could glean it from my mind. Creativity couldn’t exactly be taught, but the shades appreciated my insights. They were weird like that.

“Stop distracting me,” I said, conjuring a fog over the fields of broccoli to hide them. “Here is my first question: what’s our next move?”

This was usually how their arguments started. What to do next?

“We need to deal with the Black Moon,” Wolf said. “We need to chop the gang’s head off. We need to kill Yorg.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s our biggest threat,” Tamie said. “He’s influential in the underworld. We need to eliminate him if we want to keep the city.”

“Why?”

“If we don’t act and allow him to scheme, we’ll lose,” Lee said. “Simple as that. The last time he moved against us, it almost cost us the Dungeon.”

“Okay,” I said. “But why is keeping the Dungeon and the city important?”

“Is this your game?” Tamie said, sighing. “Asking all the whys? I know where you’re leading this. Why are we doing this? Why do we need Fortram so much? Why do we want to show everyone that we’re not to be messed with? Why can’t we just live a quiet, unassuming life? That’s the life you want, isn’t it?”

“Eh, maybe. But that’s not what I was getting at. My point is that you lack perspective.”

The shades narrowed their eyes at me in sync. It looked oddly creepy.

“Explain,” they said at once.

“You want revenge, and you think that becoming powerful will get you closer to the Inspectors. I disagree. Honestly, I think that’s rather shortsighted for a bunch of ancient ghosts like you guys.”

“You think—”

“I think you’re getting too caught up in the minor details. Who cares what we do with Yorg’s Black Moon gang? It’s not getting you any closer to your revenge.”

“Oh, but it does,” Tamie said. “Perhaps you are the shortsighted one, Roland. We’ll solidify our power in this city. Once that’s done, we’ll move to another city. Then another, and another, until we rule the entire region. We are going to be so influential that—”

“—we will eventually claim the throne of the Terran Empire,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Emperor Sharidan is getting old and you think we have a chance to take his place. Look, I like your ambition but we can barely hold this one city together. Do you honestly believe that our sorry ass has any chance of ever touching that throne? You’re out of your mind.”

“Tell you what,” Lee said, “since you clearly don’t believe in yourself, it’s up to us to do it for you.”

He snapped his fingers and cold wind swirled around us. It tore into the fog on either side of the wall—no, it wasn’t a wall anymore. We were sitting on the top of a large pyramid. I watched the fog dissipate, revealing hundreds of thousands of people down below, bowing, worshipping, stretching their hands out toward us. The masses extended as far as my eyes could see. They were chanting something, but the chorus of the voices was dulled by the distance between us. A tide of people, and yet they felt tiny and insignificant. They were only there to elevate us higher.

“This is awful,” I said, turning back to the shades. “If this is your ultimate goal, it sucks.”

“This is only a tool,” Lee said. “We know that the Emperor is in direct contact with the gods of this planet; the Inspectors can’t just allow someone as powerful as him to do whatever he pleases. They need their human contacts in this world. This is our ticket to them. This is the road of vengeance.”

“You sound sure, but I have my doubts.”

“Game of Ascension,” Wolf said. “That’s the name of this game that the Inspectors force us to play. Ascending to a place of power is literally how you join them.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “And you know this … how?”

Wolf shrugged. “After completing his first Quest, Ryder was also allowed to ask a question. He didn’t waste it on something stupid like asking the Inspector whether she enjoyed her job.”

Huh. Well, that actually made sense.

“Good,” I said, stroking my chin. “My master plan is coming along nicely. Now we know what the goal of this game is and we know that our Inspector enjoys her vocation.”

“We can read your thoughts,” Tamie said, completely deadpan. “There’s no master plan.”

“I like to improvise.”

“Sure you do,” Lee said, standing up. “But do you understand our goal, Roland? This is the journey we have to take.”

He turned to look down on the masses of people, an ornate staff appearing in his hand and a billowing cloak setting on his shoulders. He looked very much how I imagined I would look by the time I took the throne. Old and shriveled.

“This journey seems way too long and tiring to me,” I said, standing up too. The people below were splitting in two, leaving a winding path toward our pyramid. “I know that a few decades is nothing to shades like you, but I’m not so patient—and my days are limited. Is this truly what you want to achieve in my lifetime? Ascend and take revenge? I know one thing that you want even more than this: freedom.”

“It’s impossible to be completely free,” Lee said, adjusting the crown on his head. “It’s all about trading one shackle for another. We’ve accepted this long ago.”

I glanced at Tamie and Wolf for support, but they remained silent. They agreed with Lee. I didn’t.

“I’m not talking about complete freedom,” I said. “Just—well, just more freedom than this. Is it really worth living my life for a single moment of revenge? I can occasionally be vengeful, but I don’t have that kind of … resoluteness.”

“Don’t worry,” Wolf said, stepping next to me. “We do. That’s why we’re in charge here.”

I sighed. “I’m not going to change your mind, am I?”

“Not likely,” Tamie said at the same time as Lee said, “you already did.”

The shades glared at each other.

“Technically,” Lee said, “the longer we reside in a host the more alike to them we become. We usually change hosts before long, which isn’t possible in our current disposition. Roland is bound to gradually change us.”

“Our unique circumstance is precisely what prevents us to become identical to Roland,” Tamie shot back. “Just look at us, Lee. Do we seem similar? Our host isn’t Roland, but Soul Eater. It makes a difference.”

“Soul Eater is part of him,” Lee said. “We are part of him. We are all pieces of Randel.”

I stayed quiet and made myself small, letting the two of them argue. If Lee was right, it would change things. Perhaps they would become more agreeable over time. If they all became like me—

“You sure have lots of confidence, Roland,” Wolf interrupted my thoughts. He was grinning down at me. “What makes you think we’ll become like you? I find it more likely that you will become like us.”

I gulped. Yeah, that was a possibility I didn’t want to consider. For a moment I wondered why I had to look up at Wolf, but then I realized that I had literally made myself small. I quickly willed myself to grow back to my usual height. Tamie and Lee were still arguing with each other—exactly where we started from. A new cycle of madness.

I reignited the campfire and slumped down next to it. Wolf sat down on the opposite side, clearly pleased with himself. The clouds cast dark shadows all around us, but I willed the fire to burn hotter. The flames kept the shadows at bay. They always did.

“Well, Roland?” Wolf asked. “Do you have any suggestions?”

I considered that for a moment.

“I do, actually.”

Tamie and Lee stopped arguing.

“I will take the road of vengeance with you,” I said, “but I’m afraid that I’m terribly lazy. It’s such a long journey that I’d rather take a shortcut.”

Wolf nodded. “And how are we going to do that?”

“It works better if it stays in my head,” I said, waving my hands in a hopefully mysterious manner. “You do your thing, and I do mine. If you read it out of my mind, it isn’t going to work.”

Three pairs of unblinking green eyes bore into me.

“I—uh, I’d like to ask a favor though,” I said, chewing on my lips nervously. “But I don’t think you’ll object to this one. You might like it, even.”

“Out with it, Roland.”

“I want you to find another shade,” I said. “I want a fourth shade to join us.”