South Bancroft wasn’t far, so rather than getting in my car I booked it on foot.
With Karl’s stats added to my own, I was faster than anyone on Earth before Reintegration started, and I could keep it up for an unreasonable amount of time as well.
A few minutes and half a dozen blocks later, I slowed, scanning the street numbers carefully until– there.
I quickly crossed the street and tried to enter the house, but the door was locked. Frustrated and in a panic, I kicked the obstacle in, snapping it clean off its hinges and cracking the door frame.
I heard muffled sobbing a short distance away, and steps coming towards me, and something resonated in my spirit.
It wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just Karl. It was both of us.
We were angry.
My body and clothing caught flame, burning the air with dragon fire while protected fully from the heat by my barrier.
A man stepped out of an adjacent hallway, and we advanced on him.
“Hey man, I don’t know who you think you are, but– urgk!” I– we– lifted the man off his feet and examined him as he flailed against our unyielding grip, helplessly trying to pull it away from his throat and get some breathing room, fearful as all insects should be.
He was blonde with brown eyes, totally average build for a man of his totally average height. A few small tattoos littered his face, a rose here and a pair of birds there– things that my brain overanalyzed as things people would find “soft” and “interesting,” rather than intimidating or a red flag.
He reeked of alcohol, with small, fresh stains marking his white shirt and brown jacket.
We’d seen enough, and promptly threw the jerk– worthless meat– aside.
I made my way into the hallway and stopped at a door, behind which Olive was quietly sobbing. I quickly rapped on the door to make my presence known.
“Olive, I’m here. Are you alright?”
There was a pitiful gasp from the other side of the door. “Is he gone?” Her voice quivered.
“Not yet. Do you want me to make him go away?”
It was quiet for a long moment. “Yes,” she answered in a whisper.
I turned back to the sack of trash I’d put aside and cracked my knuckles. It was just starting to recover, and threw a bolt of some kind of purple energy at me, but it fizzled against my scaled barrier, and then I was– we were– upon him.
Fire. Blood. A dragon’s vindictive glee.
Soon, there was a pile of bloodsoaked ashes on the ground.
Avatar Reinforceme–
Avatar Reinforcement leveled, but I completely ignored it kept my focus on Olive.
Most of my Mana was drained from all the fire we’d put out, but Karl and I had done as was asked of us– we’d removed the problem.
Karl continued to rage within the confines of my mind, reaching out to devour the Echo of the monster we’d just slain to fully scrub its influence from the world.
“Olive? Are you alright?” I crouched on the other side of the doorway, listening to her quiet sobbing.
It took a second before she was composed enough to answer, but I could afford to be patient.
She sniffled a bit before talking, her voice coming out slightly nasally and shaking wildly. “Jean’s gone now?”
“Yeah, he’s gone. He won’t bother you anymore.”
I heard her blow her nose. “Thank you.”
I itched to ask questions, but I shoved that aside. “I’m sure you’re tired. Do you wanna stay here? I can take you back to my place if you’d feel safer.”
I gave her a moment to think, and then she slowly opened the door and stepped out. I inspected her in spite of her averted gaze, and felt my blood boil as I noticed multiple bruises.
“I’ll go with you,” Olive whispered.
I gave her a quick nod and gestured that she follow me. Part of me wanted to comfort her, but I wasn’t sure what would help. My response would have been physical contact– give her a hug, tell her she was safe, that sort of thing, but it might’ve done more harm than good.
I kept my pace slow and grabbed a blanket off her couch as I stepped out into the evening air, pausing to wrap it around her while doing my best to keep some distance.
I continued to walk slowly and silently back to my home while keeping an eye on her to make sure she was following. It took much longer than the way to her house had been, but that was to be expected. I had time, and she needed some of it right now.
I idly wondered how many people had faced situations similar to these since the end had begun. How many people had lost it and taken it out on the people who loved them? How many people had been hurt or died because of the extreme reactions of the ones they trusted?
Eventually we got back to my home, and I guided Olive to my aunt’s old room. It was a bit dusty, but much more comfortable than the guest room.
“Can I get you something? Food, water?”
My question received no response, even after a few minutes of waiting, so I moved to leave the room, but that elicited a vocal burst of fear, and my feet were suddenly grounded.
Shrugging, I pulled a chair to one of the walls and got comfortable, figuring that I’d need to spend a few minutes waiting for her to fall asleep before I could head to my own room.
Before I knew it, though, I’d entered the world of dreams.
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My wings spread wide across my realm, an odd feeling of paternal protectiveness spreading across my being. It was all so very small. From where my broad wings stretched into the endless void, the pair of worlds within my domain that could host life seemed almost like toys. Compared to the sun shining along the back of my world-sized wings, it truly felt as though I could reach out and pluck the planets from the sky and use them as game marbles.
Even though I could wreak total destruction upon this entire system in a mere instant, it seemed so… important. And, perhaps some of that was due to one tiny egg sequestered deep within a cave on the nearer of the two worlds.
It was so, so delicate, and yet nothing in the multiverse could have mattered more to me.
These worlds were more than just places. No, these were the kingdom I would one day gift to Xinasinfixois. This was where Xina’s wings would first spread and claim the sky– where, one day, she would accidentally torch her first kingdom and set off a war, like I had done in my own youth.
I chuckled gently.
She wasn’t even born yet, but my spirit burned with love for my charge. Finally, I understood what all the other Ancient Dragons had spoken about– truly, there was no greater joy than parenthood.
I brushed my mind against that of Jinasinglith, who was currently wrapped warmly around the soon-to-be hatchling. As an Ancient Dragon, it was nearly impossible for me to perform the standard duties that a dragon tasked with the care of an egg would be, but the standard procedure was for one parent to act as a mighty guardian and protector, and for them to select another to serve as the primary caretaker for the newly-hatched drakeling.
I was to be a defender and a role model– Jinsingli would serve as Xina’s primary helper and provider to help her one day reach her greatest potential.
For all my might and all my years, I knew one thing more than I’d ever known anything: I would do anything for my dear Xina.
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I gasped as I awoke, shaking off the strange dream.
My eyes darted around at my unfamiliar surroundings, though I relaxed as I realized I was just in my aunt’s room. I panicked once more, though, when I realized that Olive was nowhere to be seen.
Panicking, I started racing through the house to find any signs of her. Following a trail of smoke that caused me to momentary flip out, I found her in the kitchen. With an apron. Cooking bacon from the freezer.
Olive’s eyes met mine with fear, but she relaxed at the same time that I did, realizing that there was nothing to be worried about.
“Sorry if I woke you,” she apologized, seeming much better than she’d been the previous night, “Breakfast is almost ready.”
I cautiously approached the counter and sat facing her. “Are you… okay?”
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She flinched, and I instantly regretted my words. She froze for a second, blinking rapidly, then continued moving, opening my fridge and cracking open some eggs, which she expertly cooked over-medium.
“Sorry if you don’t like your eggs like this,” she spoke, seemingly ignoring my question. “This is all I know how to do other than scrambled.”
She threw some seasonings on, then dished them onto two plates, similarly pulling the bacon off the pan she’d been grilling it in and setting it on another plate with a paper towel over it.
Olive moved gracefully towards me and set a plate of eggs and the bacon in front of me before bringing her own plate over and handing me a set of utensils.
“To answer your question,” she belatedly replied after shoving a bite of egg in her mouth, “No. But I’m trying to ignore that and I hope you will too.”
I tried to look anywhere other than at her face, found a convenient distraction, and started stuffing my face, only realizing halfway through that I hadn’t thanked her.
I gave her a guilty smile, my face full of food. “Thanks?”
She laughed, but there was no heart in it. “You’re welcome.”
I kept eating, staying silent for the remainder of the meal, even though her eyes were locked on me the whole time I ate. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I wasn’t about to ask her to stop.
“Seriously.” I ran my tongue along my teeth, making sure every scrap of egg and bacon found its way into my stomach. “Nobody’s cooked for me in a while, and that was great.”
Olive smirked. “I figured, what with all those frozen meals in there. Thought you might want something a bit nicer.”
I nodded, then started thinking. “Oh, uh… I’m going to be out for most of the day. Is that alright? Would you like me to drop you off at the library?”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “Why? More monster hunting?” She seemed skeptical.
“Something like that, yeah.” I wondered for a second if I should tell her about my quest, but decided against it. I didn’t know her that well, and it wasn’t even a certainty that she’d stick around long enough to need the information. “Just trying to get stronger, do my best to survive and all that.”
“Oh.” Her posture relaxed. “You’ve got one of those Roles that make you fight. That’s bad luck, I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “I mean, it’s been doing well for me so far. What’d you get?”
“It’s just about reading. Nothing too special. The main Skill makes me read faster, got it to level three and now it actually slows things down a bit while I think. The other one helps me find things.”
Feeling a bit pressured, I offered up my own information. “My Skills were originally set around the theme of being a sort of medium. Get information from dead people, get these ghost things called Echoes from them, and use those in different ways. I upgraded my Skills a bit and now…” I trailed off, thinking of how best to explain what I could do. “Well, I’ve got one main Echo that I use for everything, and I can make him stronger which makes me stronger as a byproduct. Also, because of what that Echo was in life, I get some minor fire abilities. For the most part, that’s limited to just setting things I touch on fire, though.”
Olive stared at me blankly.
Admittedly, it didn’t sound very fair now that I thought about it. Without Karl I wouldn’t be nearly as strong as I currently was, but I’d started with an extra level of Attribute scaling in the form of Eidolon’s Embrace, then gained another with Ghastly Banquet, and gotten yet another with the upgrade to Devouring Phantasm. Admittedly, a lot of that bonus power came from leveling my abilities more than Olive had, but the sheer number of things I had going for me wasn’t exactly fair.
Your initial Skill choice synergized with your plans, your actions showed the system how you wished to use them, and your further choices in Skill Upgrades proved to it that you were going to use them to fight whether it liked it or not. All Roles are given combat capabilities if you wish to lean into them, even those of Olive. Slowing time to think in the middle of combat is powerful, Kenny. You may not need it because you have me, but that was all you truly “lucked into.” The rest was a natural consequence of your choices.
Still, I responded to Karl nonverbally, her Primary Skill’s base effect seems completely useless for fighting, and her Secondary also seems pretty ineffectual.
Your Primary does nothing but facilitate your other abilities, Karl argued, And being able to find things is better than you might expect. She might be able to use that to find monsters in her surroundings, and it may evolve to let her spot weak points, break through stealth abilities, or maybe even read portions of others’ statuses.
Feeling simultaneously proven wrong and vindicated, I leaned back in my seat a bit and met Olive’s eye.
“You know, you’re a pretty odd guy,” she said between bites of her food.
“Uh, thank you?” I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Was it an insult or a compliment?
“It really seemed like you were having a whole conversation with yourself there,” she commented with a smirk. “I can see why you went the combat route, though. Your Skills seem much more geared for it, even if you’re ‘just a medium.’”
I smiled back, then realized. “Oh, by the way, probably don’t go in the backyard if you can avoid it? I’m growing some plants in there and there’s uhh…” My brain froze as I tried to find a way to not sound like a serial killer. “Sorry, I kind of bury bodies back there? Monster bodies. Well–” I winced– ”Yeah, monster bodies. It’s part of my Passive. The garden basically handles itself, but you might see me out back digging a hole or something. Probably just… try to avoid investigating back there, alright?”
Well that was convincing, Karl voice with a scoff, If you were trying to make yourself sound suspicious, I think you succeeded.
Contrary to Karl’s words, though, Olive readily agreed. “Sure, it’s the least I can do.”
I clapped my hands together and rubbed them. “I’m gonna go get ready for the day, you should do the same if you’re wanting to go work at the library today. You can use the bathroom attached to my aunt’s bedroom, I think there’s towels in one of the drawers, and her clothes might be a bit big on you but I think you’ll fit well enough.”
She stared off into the distance. “I think I’m fine for now. Thank you, though.”
“Alright, your choice.” I shrugged and went to take a shower.
Kenny, Karl spoke in a serious voice, I know I give you a bit of a hard time here and there, but you’ve been doing well.
I was briefly stunned.
“Thank you? Where’s this sudden vote of confidence coming from?” I muttered quietly enough that Olive wouldn’t be able to hear. Explaining the existence of Karl and that my Echoes could be intelligent would be a bit overwhelming at the moment.
Like I told you earlier, your choices and behaviors are what has led to your– or, rather, our current prowess and potential. I may not be the original Karlisifixois, just a copy of what he once was, but I’ve come to terms with that. The power that you borrow from me? In truth, it is all simply your own. Another sort of man may have forgone interacting with me entirely, but you treated me with respect and honor. You saw past my bloodlust and sought to make a deal with me– right after I puppetted your body into slaying two of your own race. In short, Kenny, I find that you are a good man, not just in deed but in heart.
I paused for a second, trying to think of a response as I threw together some clothes so I wouldn’t have to walk out of the bathroom with just a towel on in front of Olive.
“I’m not sure I agree with you, Karl.” I frowned, thinking of my own actions. “I haven’t been doing quite as much as I could be. Heck, back at the grocery store I took my time with gathering supplies before going back to those people who’d already been through so much. I don’t think a good person would act like that. I’ve consistently done less than I could be doing. I should be spending more time roaming the streets to make sure defenceless families aren’t getting slaughtered by goblins. I should have invited those homeless people to stay at my home.” I shook my head. “I feel like someone who’s really a good person would be doing more.”
Karl chuckled. Kenny, that thought process right there? That’s part of what makes you qualify as a good human.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
In my experience, both mortals and dragons alike have different bars for what they consider “just” or “good.” The simplest way to find where they lie on the scale is by their own behaviors and their bar for what a good person is. You have consistently done what you could in the moment to help others. Offering Olive your number in case she ran into danger? Good. Clearing out monsters you find in public places, and intentionally seeking out more each and every day? Good. In spite of that, you claim that you are not a good person. That is a demonstration of your humility more than anything– another trait that is common among good people.
“Most of that was done selfishly, though,” I argued. “I get Echoes and Skill levels from those monsters, and for all you know I was just trying to give a cute girl my phone number.”
I am literally inside your spirit and mind, my companion reminded me. Personal gain may be one of your motivators, but it’s not the only one. If you truly only wished to survive, you would create a shelter in the middle of nowhere, hunt daily to add to your Echo Garden, and build up defenses against the greater threats you know approach. Instead, you’ve committed yourself to a quest that will bring you to safety, then force you to enter the most dangerous warzone this realm has ever seen in order to save as many lives as you can.
“Interesting points, but unfortunately I still disagree,” I rebutted as I stripped and stepped into the hot water of my shower.
That is fine. You will come to know yourself someday. Karl seemed smug, but not in the normal proud, self-assured way. It was a mix between the feeling of an impending “I told you so” and fatherly pride.
I pushed the feelings away and pulled up my status.
Name: Kenny Bert
Race: Human (Earth)
Role: Speaker for the Dead
Strength: 5 (+24)
Mana: 18 (+30)
Dexterity: 5 (+9)
Mana Recovery: 16 (+16)
Connection: 6 (Karl)
Passives: Human Versatility, Echo Garden
Skills: Devouring Phantasm (Lv. 6), Avatar Reinforcement (Lv. 7)
Quests: Reintegration (7%), Impossible Task (4/9) (0/1)
“Huh, would you look at that, our Connection went up.”
Curious. Was that part of Avatar Reinforcement’s level up?
“Uhh, let me check.” I opened a log of my notifications and found that, yes, Connection was included in the update. “Yeah, plus three Mana Regen, plus one Attribute Point, and plus one Connection with you specifically. It’s probably connected to my Skills, then. Devouring Phantasm probably improves my Connection based on gaining Skill levels using Echoes. If it’s at a flat rate, then we’ll see that number steadily improve over time.”
Marvelous. I felt Karl peering intently at my Attributes. It appears that it does, indeed, apply to the boost you receive from Avatar Reinforcement. Seventy percent of my own Attributes rounded down would be one point lower on both Strength and Mana.
I grinned. “Good to know. Just another endlessly growing multiplier for us.”
Karl rolled his eyes. At least, that’s what it felt like. Kind of hard to do things like that when you’re a disembodied ghost. I seriously doubt that you can place points into our Connection, so it’s not quite as unbalanced as it would otherwise be. Still, once Avatar Reinforcement reaches its maximum level, Connection may allow us to add another bonus on top of that, if that’s how it functions. If not, it’ll simply improve all our other capabilities.
I gave a quick nod and then refocused on getting ready, quickly toweling off and throwing on jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket. I put a fresh mag in the deagle and strapped on the sheathes for my katars, then stepped back out into the living room.
Olive was… sweeping. Part of me was confused, another part was embarrassed at how messy I’d gotten the place, and the final bit was telling the others to shut up.
“Hey, Olive, do you know how to handle a gun?”
The girl in question glanced up and saw the weapon in my hand. “Yeah, my dad spent a lot of time at the gun range back home and I went with him every so often.”
I carefully approached and handed her the gun. “Be careful with this thing,” I warned. “Keep the safety off and aim it at a wall or something.”
“I know,” she said with a smirk. “Thank you. Are you sure you don’t need this?”
I gave her a nod. “Yeah, I should be able to handle most things without too much worry. Please keep yourself safe while I’m gone.”
“I will.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a warm smile. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“You too, Kenny.”
I left her to clean her heart out.