Gob, Leőn and Kylie made their way back down to the hexagonal room where they had first met the Master. He was there waiting for them.
"Did you find the White Orc?" asked Leőn, "He seemed angry. We're concerned for him."
"I ssee." said the old rat, "He iss fortunate to have a sswarm like you. You are powerful together. You could be more powerful sstill. I ssee thiss."
"But did you s-see him?" asked Leőn.
"Leőn!" said Kylie.
The Master didn't seem to notice the Elf's jibe.
"The Orc hass gone to undertake a great trial of sself realissation. I have no doubt he will emerge victoriouss and powerful. I ssee thiss."
"wy yoo say we can be mor powaful togeva?" asked Gob.
"Ahh!" answered the rat, "I ssee ssome asspects in all of your sstats that may be trained to help you advance, a sstronger sswarm. A death-sslayer sswarm."
"How do you know what our stats look like?" asked Leőn skeptically.
"I ssee..." said the Master.
"I should have s-seen that one coming." said Leőn rolling his eyes.
"Leőn!" said Kylie again.
"If you would let me, I would sshow you ssome things that would assisst you." he finished.
"For example?" challenged Leőn, rudely.
The rat stared at him long and hard with his blind eyes.
"I cannot help you if you ressisst me, Elf."
"Ok," said Leőn, holding up his hands placating, "I'm listening."
The rat held out his hand. Leőn's eyes closed.
"wot dey doin?" Gob asked Kylie.
"I think the Master of Splinters has an insight power, to be able to assess stats and determine a progression path. Did you see how many ratmen are in this swarm, and how advanced they are with their skills? It would be interesting to see how well they fight! I suspect they're all quite high level, and probably progressed there rapidly. Ratmen have shorter lifespans than most archetypes so it's unusual to see them at a very high level. I think maybe he and Leőn are sharing a connection... maybe some kind of stat check?"
"You have been working on an ethereal magic power I ssee... you can influence the mindss of thosse around you... and you are accomplisshed... very accomplisshed in your Sshadow alignment movement sskills...."
The rat lowered his hand and Leőn opened his eyes. The look on Leőn's face was far different to the skeptical, even rude expression he had worn before.
"I ssee... the likely next sstep for you Leőn, would be... to fuse your sshadow attack... with your perssuassion... I ssee... a way for you to... ssuggesst... to your opponent that you are ssomewhere you are not... and that you are not... ssomewhere that you are."
Leőn's face creased for a moment as he tried to decipher what the rat was suggesting. Then his face lit up.
"Yes!" he exclaimed, "That's exactly it! That's what's been nagging at me for months now! Sure, it's helpful to be able to convince people of something, but why would a Warrior care for that? It could be an excellent political skill, or perfect for a swindler. But a Warrior doesn't have a lot of use for it... But that! That works! I can do that! I think I can do it now!" he stepped forward, to the middle of the room, excitedly.
"Kylie! Gob!" the Elf exclaimed glancing around the hexagonal chamber wildly, "I want you to point at me Ok? Wherever you think I am, just point."
Gob pointed at him.
Kylie, with a confused look on her face, looked at Gob and then also pointed at him.
"Now, where am I?" he asked.
He was still standing where he had been before.
All of a sudden though, out of the corner of Gob's eye, he thought he saw a flicker on the other side of the room. He glanced over at it. The shadows were moving.
It was a strange sensation, because although there was nothing very unusual about a shadow moving, it was usually obvious as to why. But that wasn't the case. The room was dim, and still. No one was moving around, no candles were flickering. There was something very odd about seeing a shadow moving seemingly off its own accord.
"What was that?" said Kylie, noticing too.
Gob glanced back at Leőn, who was smiling devilishly, but was clearly deep in concentration trying to focus on something.
The Elf flickered as if he had disappeared for an instant and then immediately reappeared.
That was a very unusual thing to see.
The moment he flickered, Gob thought the shadow that had moved on the other side of the room had taken some kind of shape, but it only lasted for a moment, before Leőn loudly let out a breath he must have been holding, and his shoulders slumped.
"That wasn't as easy in reality as it was in my mind." he said to the rat.
"I ssee." said the Master of Splinters, "Do it again. Relax. You were too tense. Just let it feel like it feels whenever you use any of your current skills."
Leőn gave him a look. It seemed like he was about to argue, but he caught himself, and instead he took a deep breath, looked at Gob and Kylie, and said with determination, "Point at me."
Gob still was anyway. Kylie had stopped, so she pointed at him again.
Leon breathed out fully, then breathed in deeply again, closed his eyes and visibly relaxed himself.
Suddenly he was on the other side of the room.
It wasn't a shadow flickering this time. The Elf was actually there, just standing as Gob had just seen him, with his eyes closed in concentration, but somewhere else.
Gob moved his arm to point at the other Leőn. He didn't know really what the Elf was aiming to do, he was already good at moving almost instantly around the battlefield, and Gob figured that's just what he'd done; used his shadow movement to slide across the room quicker than he could detect. Kylie hesitated a moment longer looking across at the Elf's new location with a confused look on her face. She didn't seem as convinced or ready to accept the elf's new position as Gob. She looked back at where he had been, then shrugged and moved her arm to point at him too.
Gob felt a tap on his shoulder and jumped, looking to his left, still pointing it Leőn across the room to his right.
Leőn's voice suddenly sounded directly in his ear, “You legitimately, can't see me, can you troll?”
"wer ar yoo?" said Gob. He was looking to his left, then to his right, then back to his left.
"Careful with all that had shaking you'll get dizzy!" said the disembodied voice now between Gob and Kylie who was hovering next to him.
“Leőn?” said Kylie, “Seriously, where are you?”
“I'm right next to you!” he laughed. It was an exhilarated, triumphant laugh, and all of a sudden, he was right next her. Right in her face.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The Leőn they were both still pointing at across the room wasn't there anymore.
“I did it!” he exclaimed looking at the Master of Splinters, then back to Gob and Kylie, "You saw me over there?"
They both nodded.
"I was never there! I was right here next to you!"
"dat iz weerd. and kin of creepee." said Gob.
"That's phenomenal." said Kylie almost in a whisper, looking like she was still struggling to come to terms with it.
"I ssee," said the Master of Splinters, "in your future there iss a reality where both you and your ethereal sself might alsso interact with your opponent. It may be that you can not only convince them to ssee you ssomewhere elsse, but even to accept an attack from ssomewhere elsse. That may be your epiphany, and it may not even be very far away. I ssuggest you train on thiss consstantly in thiss place, while there are plenty of sshadows for you to usse and plenty of the sswarm to assist you with your training."
"Leőn, that was incredible, and at the same time deeply disturbing." said Kylie, still looking at him and back at the place he had looked like he was, "I couldn't tell the difference. I really couldn't. I was convinced it was you across the room, and I legitimately could not see you right next to me. I feel like my own eyes and my own mind... lied to me. Don't use this skill on me ever again, it's too... too..."
“too much elfs." said Gob, finishing her sentence for her, “da ony fing mor anoyin dan a elf, iz too elfs.”
"Ha!" said Leőn excitedly, “Wait till there's 3 or 4 of me! The Ratman before us truly is a Master." Leőn turned to him with a bow, "Please accept my apologies for my prior rudeness, Master of Splinters. What you have shown me I will value for the rest of my long life."
“I ssee everybody for who they can be Leőn. Your doubt and sskepticissm iss only a sshield you put up to defend yoursself from being sseen clearly. It iss the ssame reason you align with the sshadows. You sshould think on thiss, for a day might come where choossing to be sseen or unsseen may determine the fate of thosse around you. Your friend Garthûn facess the same battle, though his sshield is anger rather than arrogance.”
Leőn said nothing more, but bowed his head again in respect. The Master of Splinters turned to Kylie. He looked towards her long and hard, as he had with Leőn.
After a pause, she nodded and closed her eyes.
Gob watched her carefully.
After a short pause, Kylie gasped, and started to cry. It wasn't a frightened cry, but started as a small outpouring of pent up emotion that welled up until the floodgates burst and she she let go in a great torrent of heaving tears.
She cried for a long time before the tears started to subside.
The Master of Splinters spoke first, "I ssee two sseparate thingss Kylie. I know what you are, but of all the beingss I have met in my life, you are the most difficult to ssee clearly. I ssee the living, and I ssee the undead. You are neither, or at least not in the ssame way. I ssense a great deal of fear in you, Kylie. I don't think you know what you are either, and I ssee that you are holding yoursself... in between two sseparate realitiess. I ssee that part of you iss waiting to return to ssomething you know iss already gone, while the other part dreamss of embracing the fullness of the opportunity you have been given: that you are a fae, and it is your ssecond chance at life, and now you can only live as a fae, and that you are not alive as a human any longer. But you don't want to accept what you know to be true. And sso, you live in between. And for a long while, you didn't have a choice anyway, because you were bound to ssomeone who pulled you out of the void and chosse thiss path for you... but even now that you are free of him, sstill you cling to that ssame path, becausse you don't know what you would be if you had to choosse a path for yoursself. But even while you were bound, you, quite literally, played with fire! The insstant the old bond wass broken, you revelled in your freedom and you were exhilarated by changing your colour. It was the beginning of a journey... but you are terrified of the idea that you might need to change ssomething more, ssomething that goes beyond the ssurface colour. I don't ssense anything about your character, the real you, that sshould be aligned with Bright magic. But I ssense much about you that sshould be aligned with the Arcane, the ancient, the mysstic, and the fire elemental. Realignment iss a very difficult and long journey of the Ssoul, but you have already taken that hardest ssteps and all that would remain is for you to turn to the troll sstanding next to you and ask him to usse a power he already possesses: a point of feeling to complete the process. If you want it."
Kylie wept again, long and deeply.
Gob reached up and gently took her in the palm of his hand. He'd never actually held her before, except the day he caught her fall after her battle with the Chenoo on the icy mountain pass, and then only to lay her down safely. This time he drew her, sobbing, to his chest, protectively.
“do yoo wan me to re-aline yoo kylz?” he whispered awkwardly.
She nodded.
-1feeling
“Aaah–” she cried out suddenly.
Gob glanced up at the Master of Splinters
“There Is Mental, Physsical and Sspiritual pain in a realignment. It will pass." he said.
Eventually, her crying calmed.
In a small sniffly voice she said, "I really need to get Princess Ilae to teach me that cleaning spell,
“There she is!” said Leon
Gob grinned and pointed at Leon, “at leest i don smel lik a flowa lik dat wun."
Kylie flew up out of his hand, and across to the middle of the room.
She glowed ruby red, as usual, but as he hovered there, she raised her arms out sideways. She started to pulse between a bright ruby red and a deep, dark, blood red. Flames started to lick around her outstretched arms and as she moved her arms around herself in a circular motion, the flames followed, drawing arcs around her. She pushed the flames out, and pulled them back. She threw them across the room and retracted them. With a flick of her wrist she spun a powerful red tornado of flame that had streaks of both the ruby and the blood running through it around its perimeter, but burned white hot in the middle.
The flames flared in Gob's darksight temporarily binding him, but when she dispelled them, something more than the lifeless purple she had registered in his visual field previously shone out from her. It was like she had lit a fire within herself, and now she was radiating the same life signature as Leőn and the old rat.
"yoo iz glowin kylz!" he called excitedly.
"It looks like your fire magic has reached another level, faerie, well done." said Leőn sincerely, "An Arcane alignment compliments you, strangely, perfectly!"
The old rat looked at her, and a small smile even touched the edges of his mouth, "It's not just another Level, the fae has become truly alive!"
She flew to Gob and hovered in the air in front of him, "I have you to thank Gob, as much as the Master."
"iz ok kylz i stil haz mor feelin pointz. i don mind trans-ferin wun to yoo." he said.
"It's not just that Gob. Do you remember one of the first things you ever did to me?"
"umm... do yoo meen dat tim wen i ate yoo?" he asked sheepishly.
"You ate her?" the Master of Splinters exclaimed.
"Trolls are the worst." said Leőn.
"i hasn eeten yoo yet elf, but don giv mi a reeson to try it." Gob shot back.
"No!" she laughed, "Not that. But just after that. You told me my voice was going to make you puke."
"You ate her, then told her that her voice wass going to make you vomit?" gasped the Master of Splinters, "Trollss really are the worsst."
"What is your obsession with puking anyway?" Leőn asked.
"My point," said Kylie, "is that ever since I met you, you've always not just accepted me unconditionally as I am, but actually given me no option but to be fundamentally me. There's no pretending around you Gob..."
"That's because he's about as subtle as stubbing your toe on a rock." sighed Leőn.
"...and I'll always be so thankful to you for it." she smiled fondly at him, and turned to the rat. "Leőn was right, you are truly a Master with a gift of insight. Thankyou Master of Splinters. I have never felt so alive. In this world, or the other."
The Master turned to Gob, but just as he did there was a loud,
RUFF! RUFF-RUFF! GRRRRRRRRRR....
and the warning shouts and commotion of the sswarm downstairs.
SHREE! SHREE!
SSWARM:FORM:DEFENSSE
"We're under attack!" said Leőn running immediately for the staircase.
The Master said calmly to Gob, "I would like to sspeak with you too Gob, but I ssee that your friend, the Orc has returned. We sshould go downstairss and greet him."
"dat sound mor lik a dog dan da wite orc." said Gob, "i don lik dogs."
"Dogs aren't the same as werewolf hybrids Gob," said Kylie reassuringly.
"dey sound da sam to mi" said Gob with a scowl.
"We sshall ssoon ssee..." said the old rat turning to the stairs.
Gob and Kylie arrived at the bottom of the stairs just on time to see the sswarm fanned out in a defensive formation across the width of the tunnel ready to face the beast they could hear approaching. They all knew what lurked down that tunnel, and if the White Orc had gone down there and the deathhound was returning, it could only mean one thing.
SSWARM:READYYY!
The big black rat was screeching to the ratmen, packed together in the cavern.
GGGGGRRRRRRR.... Ruf!
HOLD!
This time it was the White Orc's voice that boomed around the cavern.
Three gigantic box-like dogs heads emerged from the tunnel, drooling and growling with lips pulled back from it's barred teeth. The monster was huge, with a shiny jet black coat of short fur over rippling muscle, and it looked around the cavern warily.
But sitting up behind the creatures central head was a figure that caused everyone who saw him to stop what they were doing and stare in awe.
It was the imposing, even Majestic, figure of a very strong and very powerful White Orc.
The General had returned, victorious. And from the look of him, he was now ready and raring for battle.