I was shown to Paul's chambers. A large war tent with two men at the opening standing guard. Once inside, I realized what the men were needed for. Mounds of emerald ore stood on top of one another in ways that didn't seem efficient or stable; with any more added or a sudden elemental shift, the whole stash would come crashing down. Why so much? And why out in the open? Why not tucked away in an inventory?

Then it hit me: Most of these high officials are people of the realm without the system's blessings. They didn't have that luxury. So they stored their valuables in the main officer's tent under watch day and night. These men lived in the physical world where everything was handled with one's hands and breath, not by staring off into space and communing with God's invisible interface.

Sitting in an ornate chair, more decorative than comfortable, I tried not to look at the glowing mounds of wealth that stood placidly at the back of the room.

How many villages, no, how many cities with the lofty lords could that buy? Hell, how many lives spent living the dream could that supply?

Alone in the tent, the space felt odd. A mountain of wealth was behind Paul, yet the man only looked towards me, his eyes beaming into my skull—as if not looking at me but past me, into me, searching for what lies beneath. A part of me squirmed the exact part that still held my soul's warren a secret, the part that wished not to be found out.

With a hand now running through his coarse hair, he revealed a weathered face run through with time but not with age. The man had to be around his mid-30s, no older…which would place him within my years. Losing those six years had taken me from 26 to 32 in a flash of lost time.

This man and I were contemporaries. A man like Paul, I would have once feared for his station and experience. It felt odd thinking of it like they did, and a part of me wanted to retreat into that shell. Thinking I was lesser than another man made the ordeal much more manageable.

But, I thought with a breath and a sigh, I knew I wasn't lesser. Burning on my back, even with the tightened sacred linen wraps I secured before leaving my tent, urged me forward. Even the Reaper noted this man as an enemy. Maybe not physically, but psychologically, I needed to strike him down. I needed to make him kneel to me.

This was the start of my real struggle. The battlefield and the boss room that awaited me did not scare me. Because I knew what I could do, I knew that I bounced back when pushed against the wall.

This man and his glare and his thoughts are what scares me. My insecurities pinned me down so that my foes could make quick work of me.

Not today, I thought.

Reaching into my warren, I filled myself with that primal power that always awaited me. Like a well without limit, it sat awaiting me to drink. And drink I did.

Feeling its power course through my body, naturally, I sat up straighter, a smile spreading across my face, a natural girn filling my body as I grew more and more confident by the second.

It was as if I tasted my lips to the sacred wine or the secret gardens under the silencing moon. That fairytale in which the elves celebrate events in the thousands of years with wine aged for longer than the lifespan of the oldest adventurers. They say that the wine makes you see life for what it is, for what you are, and for what you make of it. Reflecting off the night sky, you grasp the universe, which in turn grasps you.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I couldn't fathom the feeling and how that ritual must change one, but I reckoned that the taste of that wine under a perfect night sky must feel a little like this. Like coming to terms with the man you are now and surrendering to the truth of the man you must become.

Do we have a problem, Paul?

My words, like the first strike of a duel, went straight and true, finding their target and, by the look on Paul's unsuspecting face, catching him clean and stiff.

Stumbling for a position, he muttered a few words in a quick tumble.

What would make you think we did?

You stare daggers at me as if you can't trust me as far as you can through me, and looking at the way you stare at my blade, you know that isn't far.

On my back, the Reaper hummed with a hot power. As if acknowledging his entrance into this debate. Even in a battle of words, he wanted to be the victor; he wanted to be used to cause bloodshed, even if it would be figurative.

Peering tighter, his gaze became that of a man trying to spy a slight difference, a change in the setting that sent events down this forgone path. Not finding any, he went on.

You do things that scare me. The feats you're racking up are becoming beyond my understanding.

And what might those be? I replied, shifting a little in my seat, growing nervous about where the conversation was heading.

First, there were lies, stories told by drunken fools spouting that your crew came from beyond the storm wall, which was ludicrous, babble from sailors with more stories than truths, so I let it go.

Paul was now sitting relaxed, one hand on his mustache, twirling it nervously, as his other hand's fingers patted his desk in a rhythmic nature. Continuing, he said.

Next came something concrete. Jude told us of your battle. Stating that our scuffle was the aftermath of yours. The goblin lord you slayed, presumably to achieve that battle-ax that I can feel burning into my flesh like a globe of fire, were the defeated goblins fleeing for their lives. What a shame that a party meant to tackle never-before-seen content was almost whipped by the losers of another battle. This is where you began to pique my interest. Fine, you and your squad managed a miracle. But in this realm, miracles are as ordinary as an event. With so much happening, a miracle was bound to happen.

Stopping, Paul rummaged through a drawer and produced two pairs of ornate bone pipes that started straight and then curved in a horn-like manner as if ripped off the beast and hollowed it. Encrusted on their outside, strange runes glowed faintly.

Passing one, I took it without question. When a man like Paul passes you smoke, to deny it would be equivalent to spitting in his face and slapping his mother, if not worse.

Taking the pipe, I waited for him to produce a lighter, but instead, he took the pipe, held it to his mouth, and the runes began to glow a hot red that sprouted throughout the pipe. Then, as smoke came at the end, they died off into that dull gray pipe.

This was a gift from Jude. It is ridiculously expensive and against every pragmatic bone in my body, but it sure is nice.

Taking the pipe, I sent a spark of mana within it and held it to my mouth, inhaling gingerly, then blowing a set of rings from my mouth in a pattern of the savage lands.

With a raised eyebrow, Paul continued.

Well, then came the last, the figurative nail in the coffin, that damn mini boss you not only slayed but solo killed.

I wasn't alone. I blurted in between puffs of the pipe. Its taste was strong yet soft. The conflicting flavors are how you know it was not only good shit but expensive as well. Most of the shattered plain snuff was twigs and leaves with just a smidge of snuff stuffed in between the mass of lies sold to you by a man with a faster goodbye than his hellos. Quick to leave before you smoked the stuff and took your anger out on him. Intelligent men, I smiled as I was reminded of times I never thought I would reminisce about, let alone with a grin plastered on my face. But wasn't that the funny way life worked? Today's tragedy would be one day's comedy and vice versa, forever and always. For as long as the realm spins, the wheel of time goes with it, and the man tries to keep up, sane or mad alike, all we can do is try and latch on to the present like a river whose currents are always beyond our control.

You damn might as been alone. Those two royal assassin pups bit off a hell of a lot more than they could chew. Being from the city of silver sand does that to up-and-comers. They thought of themselves as big-bodies because they were some bodies back home. Well, shit doesn't translate, especially not when breaching into content as fresh as today.

Taking a drab, he watched me now with the eyes of a friend and not of a hawk. I guess that's what sharing good shit did to two men, especially two men who deserved the excellent shit from time to time.