“Did you hear that?” Betsy whispered.

“The weyr swarm,” Jimmy responded with a grim expression on his face. “It sounds huge.”

For a moment, all five of them trudged along, heads slightly lowered. It was subconscious, a little remembrance for one of theirs. A new companion, only recently met and already lost.

“At least it was fast,” Ben finally said, without much conviction in his voice. “Better the weyrs than the gars, I think.”

“Why?” Sue just asked, and everyone knew that it wasn’t connected to Ben’s statement. It wasn’t asking about an explanation of why weyrs might be better than gars or vice versa. No, it was a general question, a philosophical one. Why indeed? Why was this new world so violent, so brutal? Not that earth didn’t have its share of atrocities, but this was a nice, remote little area in the US that hardly ever saw violence, beyond a brawl in a bar, or perhaps a hunting accident.

But there was no good answer.

Tom just grunted and shrugged his shoulders, before motioning the others to pick up their pace. They weren’t out of this. Not by a long shot. If the weyr swarm was moving this way, they were dead. Another gar patrol would do the trick as well. And then there were monsters prowling the night. They had to stay focused.

---------------------------------------------------

I only had mana left for another minute or so of midnight skin. And I needed to cover another hundred feet.

Too far to remain cautious. I needed to pick it up a notch.

I lengthened my stride, not worrying too much any longer about disturbing the weyrs. If I was inside the swarm by the time I’d run out of black mana, I was done for anyway. I just had to deal with whatever disturbances I caused when it came to it.

Every time I took another step, the crunching noise of my worn-out sneakers on the weyr and the squishing sound of their inerts being squeezed out of their cracked chitin armor made me wince. But, somehow, the weyrs seemed distracted - the way they had repositioned themselves, all of them turned toward where that freaky mutation took place, the complete lack of movement, apart from the quiet humming of their wings, which slowly rose in intensity.

And then their tails began to wiggle, rhythmically, first slowly, then ever faster, perfectly synchronized so that every pair of weyrs beat their tails against each other.

I hadn’t thought that things could get even freakier, but they did.

Was this a dance? Some mating ritual? Or a fucking magic ritual? My bet was on the last one because I could feel something in the air, a static tension that began to raise the hair on my arms and legs and caused my skin to tingle uncomfortably. Add to that the rhythmic sound of a million tails of chitin slapping against each other multiple times a second, and you got a nice background for a horror bug movie.

And it was loud, getting louder by the second, almost deafening already. If cicadas can get noisy, it wasn’t hard to see where this was going with a hundred thousand times the number of bugs. And each one of them huge.

Sometimes I am slow in understanding stuff, but this time the signs were pretty clear to me…

I was legging it.

I didn’t care any longer about the Midnight Skin or any other camouflage or protection. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.

Sprinting through a field covered in up to four inches of bugs, in the middle of the night, with only moonlight to illuminate the area was not high on my list of most-favorite things to do. It was just praying that I didn’t trip and faceplant into the bugs.

At least, the weyrs entirely and utterly ignored me. I was almost tempted to make a bushfire and just burn the whole lot of them while they were distracted, but I realized that I shouldn’t tempt fate. Also, the grass was kinda wet, so I didn’t think I’d have any luck with starting a fire anyway.

So I just sprinted as fast and as far as I could. Which admittedly was neither far nor fast. But at least I got some distance between myself and the freakish weyr swarm. Much too soon, I needed a breather, as my side was hurting like a bitch, and I was desperately gasping for air. I pushed on for another few steps, more stumbling than running before I leaned against the trunk of a tree to regain some strength.

Afraid of what I would see but not able to resist, I looked back at the weyr swarm, and the sight made my heart stand still for a second. Where I had been just a few seconds earlier, a giant milky-white dome had risen, completely engulfing the clearing and everything within. Lightning was arching through the cloudy atmosphere, and the smell of ozone was clearly noticeable even from where I was at.

The message was clear… I needed to get the fuck away from this.

Forcing my overtaxed muscles to move, I shuffled further away, trying to gain some distance.

How fucked up was that?

First, a giant tribe of gars with those ghastly reaver dogs as their pet hounds decided to camp out around Algonquin Mountain. Then a big-ass swarm of giant insects conducts magic rituals to create an uber bug, or perhaps more than one. Or maybe they summoned an insect god. What the fuck did I know?

This was just way over my head.

But at least I had just killed, directly or indirectly, about a hundred fifty thousand of the bugs. That felt pretty good, even though I’d hardly made a dent in their numbers. I wondered how much mana I had received from that…

But it wasn’t time yet to take stock of my personal gains. There was an opportunity for that later when I was somewhere safe. Or at least somewhere safer.

I stumbled on, prioritizing haste over stealth. Soon the clearing was entirely out of sight, as was the dome of pale light. Apart from the faint sheen visible from a distance. And, of course, the strobe light caused by the lightning, like a disco ball, that illuminated everything around me faintly multiple times each second.

Which didn’t make walking any easier.

But a few minutes later, the light suddenly stopped, and everything was doused in darkness and the soft silver light of the moon as if nothing had ever happened.

And it was quiet.

Quieter than when I had walked with the others – no breaking twigs, heavy breathing, muttered curses, or the squelching of soaked boots in the mud of the river bed.

Now… it was almost eerily silent. And open, exposed. The dungeon had been different. Worse in some ways, but also more confined. There were walls around me, hallways, apparent sources of danger. Predictable in some way. Here… it was nature, wild and raw.

I thought about stopping, but I didn’t feel safe. I needed a place to hide, perhaps a car or some random abandoned house somewhere. Something with walls that gave me, at least, the illusion of safety. A few years back, I had been backpacking in the wilderness a couple of times. Back then, it had felt exciting, a bit nervewracking too, but the worst my imagination had conjured back then was a black bear going through my backpack.

Now that was almost laughable. Who cared about a black bear? While I still wouldn’t necessarily wrestle with one, I’d chase it off quickly enough with a sword or some magic effect. No, now I was worried about mutated black bears, or gars, or giant spiders, and mega bugs. Things that wouldn’t care about the trail mix in my backpack, but instead were after me.

I definitely needed a place to hide in.

So I kept putting one foot in front of the other, making my way toward Lake Placid. Or at least I hoped that I was going there. Keeping track of directions in the darkness wasn’t exactly easy.

Eventually, the morning sun chased away the darkness, only to disappear in a dense fog that was covering the ground in a suffocating blanket. It dampened the sounds, which should have made me feel safer, but ended up doing just the opposite. I feared that any minute I might run into a gar-patrol without even knowing it, or the weyr swarm would descend on me like a vengeful god.

When I finally hit Lost Bridge Way, I was drenched in sweat and could barely move any longer. The constant worry and physical exertion had taken its toll.

So the sight of a campground with RVs was about the best view I could have hoped for. There weren’t any fancy campers, with the latest gadgets and whatnot… but reliable, traditional, American brands. Right at the edge to Lost Bridge Way was a Thor Freedom Elite, something my parents had used for a couple of years back when camping was still part of what they enjoyed doing.

With a pang, I remembered those days when we still had been a little happy family. Kind of happy. I had resented being dragged to all those activities with my parents… it just wasn’t very cool. But thinking back, I mostly had fond memories. Especially in hindsight, because the next four years, with me in the wheelchair, had been less kind to me. My parents had done their best. But the constant struggle, the self-blame, however stupid it was, and the disagreements on how to handle things had put some friction into their relationship. Something that hadn’t been the case earlier. Or at least I hadn’t been aware of it.

I missed my parents. And I hoped that they were coping well with my disappearance. Knowing my father, he would get drunk a few more times than usual. Perhaps start smoking again. He had done that for a few months after my accident. My mother… she might engage in some shopping therapy. And start helping at the community center, soup kitchens and such. Mostly to distract herself. Or to show god that he was wrong taking away her darling, that she deserved better.

She was weird like that.

She had done that the last time, right after it became clear that I was going to be disabled permanently.

I had told them that it had been my own fault, that I had been a bloody idiot, that there was nothing that they could have done differently. But I guess that is what being a parent is like… you can’t help it. Granted, there are good parents, and there are bad parents, some take the blame on themselves, others micromanage everything, and some… well, some just don’t take part in their children’s life. My parents hadn’t been like that.

After the accident, things had changed a bit. I think my parents couldn’t stand seeing me in the wheelchair. It made them think about their own failures, their shortcomings, or something. So they poured money at the problem - hired caretakers, send me on trips, got me back into college, and bought whatever support I needed there. And they even joined occasionally, like they were going to do in Lake Placid. But I had always felt that it was a bit more an alibi, something that allowed them to think that they were still really close to me, good parents, and all.

But despite my misgivings on how they had handled some things, I still loved them. And I wasn’t going to see them again.

Feeling sad, I trudged slowly toward the Thor Freedom Elite. I needed to rest and recover some mana, and that camper just looked perfect for that, despite the bittersweet memories it conjured. Some of the other RVs on the campground showed signs of struggle, with windows broken, doors or siding ripped out, and shredded clothing, but the Thor seemed to be untouched.

It turned out that the camper was locked, but one of the windows had been partially open, so it was easy enough to get inside. Some water had come in through the opening, soaking the small red curtain, with its little flower pattern and the ugly cream-colored seat next to it, but otherwise, the camper looked relatively clean and comfortable.

It was tidy, with only a few clothes here and there, and an unwashed coffee mug on the little table. Based on the less-than-fashionable cream and grey-colored garments, with their diamond pattern in red stitching, someone older had been living here and probably hadn’t made it through the transition. Pictures on the walls showed little children, perhaps their grandkids, and a brown-tinged wedding picture from the 40ies or 50ies, showing a short, pretty woman with a Bouffant hairstyle and a sharp-looking man with a military cut.

They looked like friendly people, and I felt terrible for just snooping through their stuff and making myself at home. But it was a decent place to stay, and I couldn’t afford running around, searching for another hour for another camper that was more suitable. For that matter… everything here had been owned by someone, had a story to tell about a sad fate.

And the fact was, no corpses, no stink of decaying and rotting flesh, no spoiled food, grimy floors, and beds was a win in my book. And the locked door was a big plus. Of course, monsters could make their way in through the windows or force their way through the metal siding of the walls if they were powerful enough… but that was just something I’d have to deal with if it was to happen.

Resting wasn’t optional after all, and this was about as good as it got in the middle of a damn hiking area.

I dragged myself to the queen bed at the rear, and almost immediately passed out on the unbelievably comfortable mattress.

A few hours later, I woke up, more well-rested than at any time in recent memory. Funny how a comfy bed and perceived, or imagined, safety, changed the quality of rest.

After munching on some trail mix and a couple of cans of beans and corn I had found inside the little kitchen cabinet of the trailer, I opened my character sheet to finally investigate my gains from the last couple of days.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Initiate 7

Title:

Mental Bastion; First Initiate; Army of One; Against the Mighty II; Transformer; Droghul’s Disciple

Strength:

7.5 [+1]

Intuitive Reasoning:

15

Mana

Free

Current

Potential

Agility:

8 [+1]

Complex Reasoning:

17

Silver

0

24

70

Speed:

6 [+1]

Emotional Intelligence:

9

Black

0

24

125

Dexterity:

7 [+1]

Perception:

14

Amber

0

24

81

Endurance:

9 [+2]

Spatial Awareness:

21

Red

7 [+7]

10

10

Vitality:

8.4 [+2]

Willpower:

21

Purple

11

0

0

Yellow

528 [+528]

0

0

Green

9 [+9]

0

0

Grey

5 [+5]

0

0

Blue

21

[+21]

0

0

Available characteristic points: 26

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 14 [+1]

Twilight Vision

Level 2 [+1]

Minor Healing

Level 10 [+1]

Shadow Skin

Level 5 [+1]

Shadow Sense

Level 1

Midnight Skin

Level 3 [+2]

Partial Incorporeality

Level 2

Aura of Droghul

Level 3 [+3]

Higrom’s Touch

Level 3 [+3]

Available spell points: 22

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 8

Mental Fortitude

Level 12

Multitasking

Level 6 [+2]

Internal Mana Manipulation

Level 8

Meditation

Level 6

External Mana Manipulation

Level 4 [+2]

Enhanced Mana Recovery

Level 2

Sword Fighting

Level 10

Available skill points: 10

That was a lot of stuff to take in…

First off, I had earned another title. Unable to restrain myself, I immediately focused on the name, trying to learn more about its impact.

Droghul’s Disciple: Not even an apprentice yet, you have suffered more than a thousand attacks in a single fight that should have killed you more than fifty times over, but you survived. Moreover, every creature attacking you has died, feeding your recovery. You are following in the footsteps of giants. From now on, every time you kill a creature, you gain a small part of its lifeforce to heal yourself.

Damn, that was awesome.

Just like my life-drain spell, but without being a spell. Well, not quite as good, as it didn’t do any damage, but it would either allow me to double-dip on the life-drain or focus on other things while still being able to slowly heal myself. And it wouldn’t kill my allies, which definitely was an advantage.

Of course, there was no mention of how much exactly I would gain for each kill, but any amount was better than none and would be hugely helpful in drawn-out fights. So now I only have to increase my endurance and vitality, get some type of real armor, and I’d be a tank.

Well, I needed to work on my offense as well, but still. I did have a huge number of stats points to spend once I had some rest and food, so I was sure that I could get myself a good deal more powerful in no time flat.

The only pity was that it was not particularly synergistic with my stealth skills.

But that only meant that I wasn’t going to be a one-trick pony for much longer. As much as I liked the idea of being the reaper from the shadows… there was something about running into melee and laying about with a sword or ax. Just a different type of adrenalin kick.

So how about the rest of the changes…?

The big one was the 528 yellow mana I had gained in addition to a smattering in other colors. That was a huge amount. At the same time… I had killed about forty or fifty thousand of the damn bugs and their queen. That translated into… well, about one mana for every one hundred weyrs, if the queen was perhaps worth twenty-eight mana. And that seemed like a pretty small amount given how dangerous they were. Certainly, I’d much rather face any day a single goblin than a swarm of one hundred weyrs.

But that reminded me of the time I had killed that vast number of goblins… or, before, several bats in a row. There seemed to be some type of algorithm that determined the amount of mana one was going to get from a kill…a combination of levels, compared to the monster, and… how many I had already killed? So, without a calculator or a computer, this was tough… but like one divided by the count that I had already killed? Or the natural logarithm of the number already killed? Something in between probably. The math was just beyond me in my head, or even on a piece of paper.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. It just meant that I couldn’t just go out and ‘farm’ goblins or weyrs to grind levels. Then again, 528 mana was already plenty of power leveling.

In fact, I needed to figure out what to do with the mana. It was tempting to hope for a yellow core at some point, and then just blast through the levels… but there was no guarantee that I was going to get that any time soon, and I really needed to increase my red mana count to at least equal the others. And, frankly, I just needed more mana that I could use in general, especially with mana intensive spells like the Aura of Droghul.

So as much as I wanted to hoard my mana, I had to make sure that I was going to survive first. And the more powerful I got, the faster I could harvest additional mana. A giant fireball into the middle of the weyr swarm might have killed fifty thousand in one go…

That last thought clinched it. Not that I had any fucking clue on how to cast a fireball. But I was sure I could figure it out with some practice, or perhaps some guidance from this Chad and his group. I wasn’t sure yet whether I was going to introduce myself to them, but that was something to decide later anyway.

For now… I decided to transform my yellow mana and the other extraneous colors into the types that I actually needed. At first, I had no idea how to actually do that. I mean, there is no magic keyword that I could shout, or at least I didn’t know of any. So it came down to trial and error. After a few unsuccessful tries, I finally figured out that all I had to do was visualize the particular mana type I wanted to transform and will it into a different kind.

It wasn’t quite as easy as that, as the visualization process proved to be somewhat involved, but eventually, I figured it out.

And now to the numbers… I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and scribbled down the math to see what I was working with.

I had a grand total of 574 floating mana. And now my transformer title was finally going to shine. At a rate of 5 to 1, I could get a total of 114 mana of any color I wanted. After incorporating the free-floating red mana, I’d be at seventeen red mana. Currently, my lowest mana count outside of red was silver mana at seventy. So, first, I needed to lift red mana to at least that level and then spread it evenly between those two. Seventy minus seventeen was fifty-three, which left me with additional sixty-one mana to distribute. Eleven each into silver and red mana, got them to the level of amber mana, at eighty-one, and I had another thirty-nine left. Split three ways, that was thirteen mana each.

That was looking good.

The only thing… I wanted more! That was the greedy little gamer inside of me.

Of course, the math was just that. I still needed to do it. And, to boot, I needed to recover all the mana that I had spent yesterday. One downside of having that much magical energy was that recovering it took longer and longer. I had no idea how someone with thousands of mana, if such a person existed, was even able to use that much without spending all their time sitting around meditating. But perhaps that was precisely what they were doing…

Even using enhanced mana recovery, I was sitting there for a long time, only taking a break in between to eat and piss and for a brief nap in the later afternoon. By the evening, I had finally gotten it all sorted out.

Of course, now the sun was slowly setting, and I wasn’t keen on taking another hike in the dark. Maybe I should have done all of this in Lake Placid instead? But there was no telling what kind of dangers I might have encountered on the road. And this little tin can of a camper felt good. Hot, yes, even stifling. But also secluded, safe. And after all these days and nights living it rough, I cherished the quiet time, the ability to finally sort things out, and figure where I was at.

Which reminded me… I still had that sack with the runes on it and those two rings. Now was as good a time as any to figure out what was up with those.

I pulled out the sack from the bottom of my backpack, and while I was at it also my last set of fresh clothes, ill-fitting as they were. Those weyr attacks had literally riddled my last shirt with holes, and everything was stiff with dried blood - the sheer quantity of blood that had soaked into those rags was mind-boggling.

The sack was obviously high quality, made out of a smooth, luxurious fabric that felt extremely tough, yet pleasingly warm and soft to the touch. Thoughtfully, I turned it over in my hands, studying the runes to see if I could gain any insights into what they were all about. Of course, without any success. It was just like a reading Chinese for me - a bunch of fancy symbols that meant diddly squat to me.

Shaking the sack didn’t provide any clue to content or magical features, and neither did weight. In fact, it felt light enough to be empty. But to be sure, I needed to check inside. The question was… should I put my hand in and see what was in there? Ordinarily, I would have said yes, I mean, why not? After all, it was a sack that had been used by someone, even if that someone had been a goblin. So it was unlikely to be trapped. But it was magical, and so I was a bit leery of risking my fingers.

In the end, I took a ladle, loosened the drawstrings, and poked the wooden handle into the opening of the sack.

Nothing happened. Like at all.

I don’t know what I had expected, but it was more than that.

I moved the handle around a bit, to the left, then right, poking for something in there, be that a trap or some items. But nothing.

And then I noticed that I had pushed the ladle in all the way, even though the sack was only about six or seven inches tall. And the handle of the dipper was surely longer than that. Just to be sure, I pulled out the wooden spoon and held it next to the sack.

And indeed, it was longer than the sack was tall.

What the fuck?

Unless… a bag of holding? I mean, every other fantasy story had one of those, sometimes as ordinary items, sometimes as unique magical artifacts. I had no idea what it would be here, but I also didn’t give a damn. Either way, a bag of holding would be pure, fucking, gold.

And if it was… how did it work? I mean, obviously some spatial magic, which I would really like to get my hands on. But, on a more practical level, how do you use one of those? Do you just toss stuff in?

The ladle had not been sucked in, so it wasn’t as if there was a cone of magic power that suddenly pulled stuff inside. Thank goodness, because then I would have been apprehensive about holding my hand above it.

So… did I have to push in items all the way and then let go?

No time like the present to try. I pushed the ladle in until the top of it was just barely visible, and then I let go. The wooden spoon just stood there, a tiny sliver of it visible above the opening of the sack.

Alright, so just releasing it would not make it disappear, at least as long as it wasn’t all the way in. And when I grabbed it, the ladle came out without any trouble, which was somewhat reassuring.

Next, I tried with putting my fingers inside just a tiny bit. I figured that if something was to happen to my fingertips, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, given my healing ability. But instead of searing pain or just the feel of the wooden ladle, the moment my fingers actually entered into the interior of the sack, I could suddenly feel an open space filled with… stuff. I couldn’t exactly see things, but somehow I was aware of things. It was as if I could just stretch my fingers, with only a thought, and touch everything that was inside the space, turn it, move it, and pull it.

With a feeling of wonder, I let my senses move through the space and inspect everything that was in there. The first thing I noticed was a pile of gold and silver coins, each shimmering in a pale light. There had to be a few hundred of them, based on a rough estimation. Curious, I tried to pull one of them toward me, and suddenly I could feel the edge of a hard metal coin dig into the palm of my hand.

With a small yelp of surprise, I let go of the ladle, closed my first, and pulled my hand out of the sack. And there it was, a coin with smooth, sharp edges, as if straight out of mint, shimmering with a dim light that was hard to make out in the waning daylight, but still noticeable.

When I looked closer with my Mana Vision, I could see a tiny blob of mana, circulating slowly inside of the coin, within a circle of runes that seemed to prevent the mana from dissipating. As I held the coin, I could almost feel the mana – a warm, potent energy just at the tips of my fingers. Curious to see what would happen, I pulled. And as I did so, the energy from the coin slowly flowed into my hand and melted together with the rest of my mana, only to leave a dull piece of metal in my hand, that almost felt flaky and ready to crumble.

That was incredible. A mana battery? Or perhaps truly valuable money that had extrinsic value in what really mattered in this new world – magical power? But who would put mana into a coin? That seemed… a huge sacrifice. Unless there was something that I did not know, which seemed a likely scenario. Or maybe this wasn’t ordinary money and, instead, a real and unique treasure…

My excitement abated a bit when I noticed that the mana I had received didn’t even register in my overall mana count. I was sure there had been an impact, but probably it was just too little to be noticeable. In which case, I might be better off holding on to the gold coins for now and see what they could be used for.

Putting the depleted coin to the side, I reached back into the sack to investigate what else I might be able to find in there.

First, I noticed a bunch of stones of various sizes and colors. After a moment of excitement, thinking that these might be gemstones or somesuch, I realized that they were just ordinary rocks one might find anywhere in the dungeon, or at least at one of the caved-in places.

There were also lots of random little knickknack things, like wooden toys, some rotten wooden planks, rusted kitchen utensils, and the odd few pieces of bat meat, mushrooms, and dungeon-fruits. Interestingly, all the edibles were in perfect condition, not spoiled at all, and the meat even was warm to the touch. So there was some preservation effect going on, which might turn out to be incredibly useful.

Beyond that… there really wasn’t all that much in there. A whole bunch of swords, spears, and daggers, all of them of inferior quality the way they looked like. Certainly not something that could compete with the weapons I currently possessed. But it might be useful for equipping people in Lake Placid. If the weapons of Sue and her group before taking the stuff from the dead gars were any indication, this kind of equipment was sorely needed.

Overall, I was a tad disappointed after the initial excitement. When I had realized what I was dealing with, I had hoped for a secret hoard of treasure, magical artifacts, or perhaps some books that could teach me how to do magic. Instead, I got a bunch of rubble, some crappy weapons, and, well, admittedly, there was a pile of coins with mana. So maybe that was still a pretty good haul.

And a bag of holding was seriously awesome no matter how you spun it.

I wondered how much I could fit in there… suddenly curious, I dumped everything out on the ground in front of the camper, went to the little pond next to the campground, and submerged the sack, waiting for it to fill up.

It ended up taking quite a while because the opening of the sack was only so wide, but finally, it was full. I then strolled over to a big plastic garbage bin, emptied it on the ground, and began to fill it with water. I estimated the bin to be about a cubic yard and managed to fill it about ten times… ten cubic yards or about 270 cubic feet.

That was some serious size, especially given that the space seemed to be flexible in its dimension, so I did not have to worry about fitting things neatly together. I could just dump stuff in there and not worry about it. And the weight was basically zero. Which was huge.

Suddenly conscious that I was standing around in the open, experimenting with water and a sack and not paying any attention at all to my surrounding, I quickly scuttled back to the camper and my weapons and threw everything that I wanted to keep from the pile of stuff back into the sack.

One last issue was… how about bigger items. Somehow, people in those books I had been reading had always been able to just throw things in there, like shields, armor, chairs, tables, and so forth. I eyed the small opening of the sack dubiously but decided to give it a shot. Using one of the camping chairs as the experimental object, I tried fitting it into the opening of the sack. One of the legs went in just fine, but I didn’t get much further than that.

No magic suction force. Nothing.

Just a good-ole camping chair awkwardly stuck on top of a sack.

Well, that wasn’t going anywhere. So as long as I wasn’t widening the opening to the sack, which, for sure, I wouldn’t risk doing, this was it.

I shrugged my shoulders and attached the sack tightly to my belt, before pulling out the two rings. They looked artsy, with their twisted metal shining brightly in the last rays of the evening sun. Runes were inserted in a continuous sequence, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. One looked remotely similar to one of the runes in the throne-room, but that was about it.

Not particularly helpful.

I traced the metal with my finger, hoping against reason that touching the metal would give me some insight, some idea on what kind of magic those rings had. Or course, nothing happened.

Should I slide it on?

What about cursed rings? Was there such a thing? So far, I had not encountered anything that I would have considered ‘good’ or ‘evil’ per se. Just like weapons weren’t evil… they were only tools, and what mattered was how you used them.

But, as usual, I had no fucking clue. After all, I had been at it for a bit more than a week… so I certainly wasn’t an expert on what was or wasn’t possible.

Perhaps the type of mana would give me some idea of its effects? I activated Mana Vision and saw that one of the rings was filled with grey mana, slowly circulating through the twisted bands comprising the ring. The other ring looked a lot more spectacular, with white, yellow, red, green, turquoise, purple, and black mana churning around each other with evident potency.

It was a beautiful sight, and it looked… somewhat familiar. I had seen this before, or rather something similar to this… The portal!

Which meant that this was… what? Some spatial magic? Speaking of, if this indeed was spatial magic, then the bag of holding had to have those mana types as well. Curious, I checked, and indeed, all the same mana types were present, with grey mana besides.

So it was a pretty safe bet that this ring was somehow connected to some dimensional effect. The only question was… what? If we excluded the possibility of a ring as a trap or bait, then it had to be something useful. So it wasn’t going to suck the owner into a dimensional trap or something. At least, I didn’t think it would… why go into all that trouble? There were easier ways to kill or capture someone.

So, if not that… then either it would open some dimensional space, or it would be some teleportation or portal type of effect. Since there was no grey mana, I bet on the latter.

Should I risk it?

I hesitated for a moment, studying the ring again, looking for any type of clue. I just didn’t think it would be something dangerous. But just in case, I used the same ladle as earlier, my new high-tech instrument for experimenting, and stuck the ring on the wooden handle. It just sat there, sliding up and down, as I shifted the angle of the handle. No searing flames, no splintering of the wood, or sudden disappearance of a portion of it.

There were times to be paranoid, but one could overdo it. Resolutely, I slid the ring onto my ring finger and waited for something to happen.

Alas, nothing changed at all. Interestingly, though, the ring fitted me perfectly, as if it had been custom designed for me.

So, what now? Perhaps I needed to provide intent? That seemed to be a common theme with mana. I looked around and decided to teleport just a few steps away onto the asphalt road – a clear open space, with nothing to kill me if I teleported into it.

I looked at the spot and willed myself to be there.

Nothing.

I could feel the mana in the ring brushing against the edge of my awareness. It was there, a featherlight touch. Not something I could take for myself, I was sure… but perhaps something I could nudge. Slightly jittery with excitement, I pushed the mana, and I could feel something move inside of the ring. There was a flow of power, a potency building.

And then, suddenly, the power contained in the metal band demanded release, demanded to be channeled.

The pressure was rising, a giant wave of wild, untamed force pushing to be formed, guided.

But despite the potency, it didn’t feel dangerous. It wasn’t threatening to overwhelm me, or subjugate me somehow. And I did not feel as if the next moment I was going to be sucked into a different dimension… it was more like feeling a giant machine with 5k horsepower at my command, ready to do my bidding. Unbridled power at my fingertips.

For a moment, I was lost on what to do next, but then I remembered about intent. I directed my gaze toward the spot on the road that I had made out previously and willed myself there. And suddenly, I felt everything become blurry to a split second, and the next instance, I was standing on top of the asphalt, just where I had wanted to go.

And I felt like shit - bile was rising in my throat, and I was retching uncontrollably as my body tried to adjust to the sudden shift in perspective and location.

It took me a full minute of heaving before my stomach finally calmed down.

But then I was sitting there, on the warm surface of the road, smiling at the incredible feeling of just having teleported my skinny ass from the camper onto a road that was at least ten yards away. Not exactly world-shattering as a distance, but oh the potential… If I could control that feeling of nausea, I could blink across a battlefield and just stab monsters out of nowhere, only to teleport away in an instant, deftly evading their retaliation.

Sighing, I realized that it just meant that I had to teleport often enough to desensitize myself… After a moment of hesitation, I set my sight on another patch of the road just a few yards off and focused my will on the ring.

Nothing.

What the fuck?

I took off the ring to inspect if anything had changed. At first, I didn’t notice anything - the runes were still there, and the metal had not been altered in any obvious way. But then I realized that the ring was utterly devoid of mana.

Well, so much for that plan of blinking around and backstabbing my opponents… the question now was how long the recharge would take. Or was it a one-time use? That would be seriously deflating.

I activated Mana Vision once more and carefully observed the ring and the mana streams around it. The chaotic fluctuations right around the metal made it hard to see details, but I got the impression that there was some mana trickling into the ring. So not all hope was lost. But at the glacial speed of mana recovery, and given the sheer quantity of mana needed to teleport, it would, likely, require several days of mana recovery at the very least.

Still, it was a remarkable artifact that could get me out of tight spots. But I’d have to put a lot of thought into when and where to use it.

Turning to the other ring, I narrowed my eyes in focus as I went through the runes and the mana churning inside. Grey mana… so something that had to do with stone or metal, perhaps. A shield of sorts? Or maybe a type of armor? Or perhaps it would transform into a blade? Or, maybe, it would give me a sense to feel metal? Or… the options were endless. I just had no good way of predicting the effect.

Just as before, I thought the chance was really high that it would be something beneficial. There was some risk, yes, but there was also a risk of not experimenting, not learning about the effect of magical items I possessed – they could well save my life if I knew what to do with them.

After doing another ladle test without any adverse effect, I slid on the ring without further second-guessing myself. I can’t claim that I wasn’t apprehensive. Tempting luck twice in a row sure did make me nervous. But I was still convinced that it was the right course of action.

The ring fitted my ring finger perfectly, even though it had seemed a lot bigger than even the teleportation ring. As before, nothing else happened. Only now did I realize that I had been holding my breath.

“Alright, Daniel, let’s do this,” I murmured and pushed the mana of the ring into the runes. And there it was again, the potency, the pressure of mana, waiting to be released. Much less pronounced than with the teleportation ring, but quite noticeable nonetheless.

One by one, I went through the applications I had thought about, trying to imprint my intent onto the mana to guide the release of the pent-up energy. The moment I thought about armor, about being physically protected, I felt a tingling sensation as energy rushed out of the ring.

Heart pounding, I waited for something to happen.

Alas, there was nothing. No armor popped up around me; no shield appeared in from of me… nada.

Confused, I poked the air around me, to see if there was perhaps a transparent screen or something, which was when I noticed that my skin had taken on a greyish tinge.

What the heck?

I held my hand in front of my eyes, studying the change that had overcome my skin. I wasn’t quite freaked out. Yet. Presumably, this was part of the effect of the ring… and it wasn’t going to be permanent.

Right?

With Mana Vision, I could see a current of grey mana course through my skin, seemingly changing the structure of it, or… well, something. I wasn’t entirely clear on what was going on there. But it was an active process, and it used mana. Which kind of relieved me, because that meant that once the mana ran out, it would stop and… well, that didn’t necessarily mean that it would revert back to what it was prior.

Shit.

Nothing I could do at this point, though. Experimentally, I poked my hand with my finger, and I could feel a surface that was much harder than normal skin, somewhat rough to the touch as if it was a sort of stone or coarse wood. Interestingly, it was still flexible, albeit less so. When I pressed harder with my finger, it did leave an indent, but a much smaller one than usual.

Eager to find out more, I drew my dagger and poked myself with it. To my amazement, the tip of the dagger did not manage to pierce the skin at all. At least not with the amount of pressure I was exerting.

So it gave me resistance to piercing. How about blunt damage?

I picked up a stone and hit my arm somewhat tentatively. Usually, that would have been enough to bruise me, but with the new skin, the effect was dampened significantly. In fact, I hardly noticed it. The energy clearly was still there - I could feel the hit. But somehow, the force dissipated along the skin of the arm rather than bruise the flesh inside.

I repeated the experiment with more power, and now I could feel some pain, so it wasn’t going to protect me against being hit by a sledgehammer… but at least it would reduce the effect, and it might serve me well against sling-shots, exploding shards, and other smaller projectiles with limited kinetic energy.

What if I pushed harder with the dagger? How much pressure could it take?

I put my arm on the ground, placed the dagger on top, and pushed. But even when using my full weight, or at least as much bodyweight as I could bring to bear given the awkward position, I could hardly pierce the skin. The tip went into the flesh, but just far enough to draw a little bit of blood, not more.

Right about then, roughly forty seconds into the effect, the tingling in my skin suddenly faded away, and slowly my skin turned back to its normal color.

I breathed a sigh of relief. While the magical effect was quite impressive, I didn’t fancy the idea of having gray skin for the rest of my life. The ring, it turned out, was devoid of mana by now and, just like the teleportation ring, slowly seemed to refill its energy storage by drawing from the ambient mana.

If I had grey mana… could I speed up the process? That was a good question. Of course, if I had grey mana, I might be able to duplicate the effect and not need a ring any longer. That said, it was always good to have some backup in case one ran out of mana.

Not that it mattered, since I didn’t have any grey mana. Or all the mana needed to refill the teleportation ring. I did have some of what was required for that, but I was leery of messing with the balance of mana, lest I destroyed something.

Patience was a virtue in this case. One that I had preciously little of, all too often.

Finally done with my experimentation, I returned to the camper to eat something. I needed to get into the habit of stuffing myself at every opportunity I got. Weighing 130 or 140 pounds at a height of six feet was severely underweight, and I just needed to get all the calories I could. Especially because I was planning to engage in some hardcore training, once I was back at Lake Placid. And there was the consideration of having the fat reserves to activate my healing ability…

The only problem was that I already began to dread my meals, even though I had been elated to get any food just a day ago. I mean, stuffing myself with corn was alright, I liked it cold almost as much as warm, but black beans, for instance, were kinda gross unless heated up.

Less than excited, I considered my options in addition to cans of corn and beans – Beef Ravioli, Cambell’s Chunky Grilled Chicken Pasta, or Dinty Moor Beef Stew. None of which sounded particularly appealing cold either.

If only I could make a fire… but I didn’t want to risk any smoke coming out from the campground. The smell of the food would be bad enough, but something I was willing to risk and couldn’t really prevent anyway, because cold or hot, animals and perhaps monsters were going to smell it. But smoke, that at least I could avoid.

I did have Higrom’s Touch, though… suddenly hopeful, I opened the can of beef stew, ripped off the labels on the outside, and put it on the little camp stove the previous owners had used. I then touched the can with my hand and pushed red mana into the metal until it began to take on a reddish sheen of superheated metal. And then I waited.

Soon enough, the water inside of the can began to simmer, releasing the enticing smell of a hearty stew, precisely what I needed at this point. A minute later, I had enough of waiting and began to stuff myself with the first lukewarm meal in ages.

Satisfyingly filled and feeling almost content despite the various ailments I was still suffering from, I laid down on the mattress and took another look at my stats sheet.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Initiate 9

Title:

Mental Bastion; First Initiate; Army of One; Against the Mighty II; Transformer; Droghul’s Disciple

Strength:

7.5

Intuitive Reasoning:

15

Mana

Free

Current

Potential

Agility:

8

Complex Reasoning:

17

Silver

0

94

94

Speed:

6

Emotional Intelligence:

9

Black

0

125

125

Dexterity:

7

Perception:

14

Amber

0

94

94

Endurance:

9

Spatial Awareness:

21

Red

0

94

94

Vitality:

8.4

Willpower:

21

Yellow

4

0

0

Available characteristic points: 30 [+4]

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 14

Twilight Vision

Level 2

Minor Healing

Level 10

Shadow Skin

Level 5

Shadow Sense

Level 1

Midnight Skin

Level 3

Partial Incorporeality

Level 2

Aura of Droghul

Level 3

Higrom’s Touch

Level 3

Available spell points: 26 [+4]

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 8

Mental Fortitude

Level 12

Multitasking

Level 6

Internal Mana Manipulation

Level 8

Meditation

Level 6

External Mana Manipulation

Level 4

Enhanced Mana Recovery

Level 2

Sword Fighting

Level 10

Available skill points: 10

Things were looking good. Real good.

Based on what Jimmy had told me, Initiate had ten levels in increments of ten mana. So one hundred mana was level ten and then another ten mana, perhaps, to get to Apprentice. Of course, that was assuming that it followed the same progression in terms of mana requirements. Jimmy hadn’t been sure about that because no one in Lake Placid had yet achieved getting to the Apprentice levels. I guessed that I’d find out soon enough.

Satisfied, I closed my eyes and soon drifted off into deep sleep.