Alar sat himself up at her words, this time unimpeded, and took in the small basement room. There were no windows, and the floor was made of worn stone. He had been lying atop a simple wooden bed with a feather mattress. Around him, crates and boxes sat stacked, sometimes as high as the ceiling, with other bags and items placed in haphazard piles throughout the room. It was clearly used as a storage area, with its use as a bedroom or sleeping space being only secondary.

He turned and placed his feet over the edge of the bed and onto the floor, weakness washing over him as he did, and looked towards Seren and Dain. Seren had shifted back a few steps, concern still in her eyes, but she did not object to his readjustment, instead seating herself on a small crate a few paces away.

Alar took them in for a moment, waiting for the weakness to pass, before nodding for her to continue.

"Alright," she said, studying him. "No levels. Weird, but okay." She hesitated, as if choosing her words carefully. "Levels are… how we measure progression. They show how much mana you can store, how refined it is, and how well you can use it to affect your forms. But they’re more than that. Your level determines your standing, your strength, and in the Empire, your status.

“Alright,” he said back, confused, “how do you get levels?”

“You don’t get them,” she said back, clearly struggling to explain something that came second nature to her, “you… gain them, you advance, you grow and refine your mana, and that increases your level.”

“Ok… then how do you do that?” Alar asked, still just as confused.

“You.. I mean you..” she looked over to Dain, clearly lacking the words to explain what she was trying to say.”

“You train. Practice. Fight. Push your mana and forms beyond their limits, and when you adapt, you grow stronger” Dain said, matter-of-factly.

“Alright,” Alar said back, thinking he understood. “And how are levels measured? How do you know what level you are?”

“You can feel someone’s level, sort of,” Seren answered, “but certain mages and administrators can measure your mana precisely and give an actual number. Most of the time though, it’s just more of a guess.”

Alar processed the information slowly. It felt strange, and foreign, to have so much boiled down to a number, but at the same time it made sense, and helped to explain much of what he had experienced so far.

“What level are you?” Alar asked.

"I'm 26," she said, a hint of pride in her voice. "Dain’s 29."

Alar frowned. That meant nothing to him. "And that’s… high?"

Dain snorted. "Not really. Stronger than most soldiers, but nowhere near the top."

"Most soldiers in the Empire don’t get much higher than the low 20s,” Seren explained. "The 20s are considered skilled, 30s are elite. After that, it gets harder, exponentially harder. Once you hit 40, you're either an officer, a noble, or someone else extremely important. And past 50?" She shook her head. "You are something else entirely.”

Alar let that sink in. The numbers didn’t just mark strength; they marked hierarchy.

"And the highest?"

"In the Empire? Level 60, maybe 70," Dain said. "Only the strongest, the Emanant, get to that."

"And what happens past 70?" Alar asked. He had no reference for any of this, and knew that he would have no way to distinguish at this point between any of these levels, much less higher ones, but he was curious nonetheless.

Seren hesitated. "...No one really knows. There are legends, but no one’s ever confirmed it. At least no one we’ve ever met."

Alar exhaled, trying to piece it all together. Conceptually, it made sense, at least partially, but there were still pieces that didn’t fit.

“And levels make you… stronger, too? Faster?” Alar asked, thinking of Renik and how he had effortlessly moved through the forest, barely winded, forcing Alar to push himself to his absolute limits just to avoid being left behind.

“A bit, yeah,” Dain said. “The more refined your mana is, the higher your level, the more your body adapts and grows. Something about it adjusting to handle the increased strain of denser mana.” He shrugged. “Or something like that.”

“And what do you mean by a bit?” Alar asked.

“Well, it’s all relative,” Seren cut in, “everyone gets a bit stronger, faster, can withstand more damage, things like that, as they level. But, unless you are bound to a Form, it is only minimal.”

“So if I bind to the form of running, I can move even faster?” Alar asked, thinking he was finally starting to catch on.

“Well… yeah, I guess…” Seren said back with hesitance, which made Alar immediately change his mind about having caught on.

“What am I missing?” Alar said back.

“I mean I guess you could bind to running as a form, but, I don’t think anyone ever would,” she responded.

“Why not? There has to be someone out there that wants to run faster, right?” he replied.

“Well then they would just bind to the form of speed,” she said, shrugging, “everything has a form” she picked up a small feather from the ground beneath her, that had clearly fallen out of the mattress Alar was seated on, “but you wouldn’t just bind to the feather if you wanted to fly.”

“People can fucking fly?!” Alar almost shouted back.

“Well, yeah, kind of… just, nevermind that for now, we are getting off track, okay?” she said back, smirking slightly as she did.

“Right, sorry” Alar replied, a bit quieter. “So, what level am I then?”

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His words hit the air like it was a wall, and Seren’s smirk was immediately replaced by a look of trepidation, as she appraised him for a second before turning to look at Dain, who was now twisting the toe of his leather boot into the stone floor anxiously as he glanced back at Seren, both clearly unaware of how to respond.

“I don’t really know, Alar” she said hesitantly.

Alar raised his eyebrows at her words, but didn’t say anything back, leaning his head forward slightly as he waited for her to continue.

“You don’t store any mana, at least none I can detect, and the mana that you circulate is just free mana, like the ambient mana that is no more dense than anywhere else,” she waved her hand over her head, gesturing at the air around her, “so… 0? Level 0, I guess?”

“Okay,” Alar said back, unperturbed, and not seeing an issue. “That’s fine right? Expected, probably? I mean I just landed on this planet maybe a day ago. We didn’t have mana back on Earth, so why wouldn’t I be Level 0?”

Seren again looked toward Dain, her brow furrowed. Dain looked back at her, squinting in thought as he did, like both were trying to find the words for an understanding they both shared.

“You shouldn’t, or I mean to say you can’t –“ Seren started to say before she was cut off.

“You just told us how you fought the Empiric official, how you and Renik killed her,” Dain cut in, finally able to formulate the right words, “She was shadow bound, by the sounds of it. If Renik hadn’t already told us the same thing before you woke up, we would have just assumed you were lying, or insane.”

“Okay…” Alar mumbled back, not sure how to respond.

“Then how you kept pace with him the entire way back, or at least most of the way, until you passed out,” Dain continued.

“That’s not possible.” Seren spoke up, “Or it shouldn’t be possible. You aren’t bound to any forms, and you have no level. It doesn’t make any sense. At first we thought you had found a way to hide your level, or that maybe leveling on your planet was different in some way, but you aren’t. You have no mana storage, no mana refinement, nothing.”

“Yeah, but you just said that people can use mana to get stronger, to get faster,” Alar responded, “I could feel the mana helping me do all those things, so maybe I just figured out how to bind to a Form on accident?”

“You didn’t. You’re unbound.” Seren answered, her voice still confused, but firm.

“How do you know?” Alar asked back.

“Binding to a form isn’t just something you do accidentally. There are rituals, tomes, and tons of other things that go into it. It doesn’t just happen.”

Alar sat back, his mind racing. As he tried to process the information presented to him, to rationalize it, he heard footsteps descending from above. Dain and Seren both heard it too, and turned to the door near the rear of the room as it opened. Renik emerged, and looked towards Alar, starting slightly as he did.

“Oh, he’s up already?” Renik said, his tone surprised.

Alar looked him over as he entered. He had changed, no longer wearing the patchwork pants and rough tunic of a laborer and now in leather and armor similar in style to Dain’s. He still had the same disheveled look to him as before, unkempt hair and a patchy beard, but his eyes had lost their docility and fear, and now had more of an edge to them, like he was back within his element.

“Yeah, for a few minutes now.” Seren responded.

“Good, because we need you,” he looked over at Dain as he spoke.

“Why, what happened?’ Dain moved towards him, his voice tense.

“The attack team thinks they could have been tailed, they can’t return to a safehouse before we ensure they don’t have anyone following,” Renik replied.

“Where?” was all Dain said back, walking immediately towards the door.

“Lower District, Valk has their exact location.”

Dain nodded to Renik as he told him, and shot up the stairs, not sparing a glance back towards Seren or Alar before leaving.

Renik, however, remained behind for a moment, turning to look at Seren.

“I have to leave, too, and Valk is going with Dain. You will need to keep the keystone,” he pulled a small rock out of his pocket, handing it to her as he spoke. It was oval shaped, smooth and grey, and looked like a rock you would pull out of any riverbed back on earth, but was covered in small markings that glowed a soft shimmering white.

“Where are you going?” she asked him, taking the stone as she did.

“Back to the village. I need to see if there is anything I can do, or anyone I can help,” his voice was softer as he spoke, pain evident in his tone.

“Oh, yes, of course. Good luck” she looked away as she said it, clearly embarrassed. Renik nodded solemnly as she did, before turning next to Alar.

“Seren here will take care of you until you recover enough to travel. Once you do, we will send a team to bring you across the border.” He gave Alar a faint smile as he spoke.

“The border?” Alar asked.

“Yes, to Tir’Andell,” he answered, “To Othwyn is too treacherous a trip, and the border too well fortified for even our best smugglers to cross easily, but the Cities of Tir’Andell are closer, and there is little war further south. They are also fairly welcoming to refugees.”

“Oh, alright,” was all Alar could say back. The influx of new information was hard to track at this rate, and he was still feeling extremely weak after waking.

Renik accepted this as an answer, inclining his head and turning back towards the stairs. Before he left though, he spoke back towards Alar, but did not turn to face him.

“And thank you, again, for everything back there,” he said. But before Alar could respond he was already stepping quickly up the stairs and out of the room.

Alar and Seren sat in silence for a long moment before she turned to him, the shuffling sounds from upstairs quieting as everyone had clearly left in a hurry. She was standing, having gotten up from her seat when Renik had entered, and she shifted towards the door.

“I have a few things I need to do upstairs. I will bring you down some new clothes and some food when I come back,” she said, before moving to leave.

“Wait,” Alar responded hurriedly, “what attack team? Why is Renik going back to the village? What is a keystone? What is Tir’Andell?” he had a dozen other questions too, as all of them came to his attention at once after his mind had apparently caught up to everything that was happening, but he stopped before adding more.

She paused mid-step and looked back at him. She hesitated; her posture uncertain as she looked him over. “I probably shouldn’t answer most of those questions, and you need to rest,” she responded, but didn’t move.

“Why shouldn’t you answer?” he asked back, “And I am fine.” He stood as he spoke, attempting to show her he was in good physical condition, but his knees dipped traitorously as he got up, causing Seren to step forward to catch him instinctively. He raised his hand towards her as she did, and stood fully, shaking off the weakness and facing her.

She pulled up slightly but did not step back, looking up at him as he stood, her gaze uneasy.

“You aren’t a member of the Accord,” she responded after a second, amber eyes trailing down as she examined him, her nose wrinkling as she did, “and you really need some new clothes.”

Alar’s face reddened slightly as he realized the state he was in. He had travelled for hours through the forest, sweating profusely while trying to keep up with Renik, before passing out on the forest floor. His grey flight suit was torn and filthy, and he could feel a layer of dirt had accumulated on his face and hands.

He stepped away and responded sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said, lowering his hand as he did and rubbing it on the side of his pants. He was about to leave it at that and allow her to go and accomplish whatever she needed to, but her last statement stuck out in his mind.

“Member of the Accord?” he asked, unable to help himself.

Seren looked back at him, nose unwrinkled but expression still tentative.

“Yeah, the Forsaken Accord,” she eventually responded, “that’s us, this group. The rebellion within the Dravash Empire.”

“And you all are who attacked the Empire when they captured me and the rest of my crew?” Alar asked.

“Yes, we did…” she was about to continue when she hesitated, “look, I really do need to go upstairs and make sure everything is secured, but since no one else is here, I don’t see anything wrong with you coming, too. I can try to answer as much as I can while I work,” she said.

Alar nodded in agreement, happy to join her if that meant not waiting longer for additional answers.

“If you’re sure you’re okay, that is” she added, still standing where she had moved to catch him a moment before.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, “lead the way.”

She paused for a second longer before nodding and turning away from him, moving towards the stairs.

“So, what do you want to know first?”