"Well," Charlie stroked his whiskers and said, "I'd normally ask you to display these skills but I've heard a lot about them over the past year, particularly the last few months. I'm sure I'll have even more to go on when I see the recording of your fight against Divine Bumblefuck."

Lone nodded. "Fair. By the way, why do some people call him Divine Bumble? The idiot triplets did that."

"Ahaha, idiot triplets... Well, his official title given by the Divine Council is Divine Bramble. He hates the council and thus changed it without their consent. He's far too powerful for them to actually stop him though they have officially stated that using his chosen Divine title is a punishable offence for fellow Divines. Few respect his wishes over the council's," Charlie explained.

Lone nodded again. "That makes sense. Thanks for shedding a light on that. So... now what?"

"Now is the moment where I politely ask you to detail how many more unique skills you have and if you don't mind describing them for me as well," Charlie said with a toothy but friendly smile.

"I have 3 more and 2 additional unique skill slots I've yet to consume. Mental Destruction lets me kill anything with only a thought so long as it isn't more than 3-ranks stronger than me, above that threshold it does permanent damage to the soul but doesn't kill. It's how I crippled Divine Rend in a mere moment," Lone explained nonchalantly.

'This is great. I can just explain what a lot of people already know and get knowledge on how to potentially help Soph, Sophie and Rachel. Well, fingers crossed he ain't speaking out of his arse. If he's playing me then he won't live to regret it. One day, I'll kill him if he's toyed with my feelings for my lover and my friend,' Lone thought a bit coldly before he moved onto the next explanation.

"Dimensional Storage is pretty simple. It lets me store anything not living, even souls, in a sub-space of some sort. I don't really understand it and it clearly isn't as protected as The Summoning Room is if he can steal my money from it," Lone said as he balled up his fist and pointed his thumb at Bradros.

The Grey Elf just grinned in response.

"It can stop time on stuff that enters it. Dunno how that affects the souls stored inside, but hey, it is what it is. The restriction, as already stated, is that it can't store anything living. It's just an infinite capacity item bag with a splash of time magic, more or less," Lone said with a shrug.

"The next skill is called True Contracting Magic. It lets me create various tiers of contracts with my blood which are unbreakable. I've even contracted a Primal with one of these babies. They're powerful," Lone claimed. "As for restrictions, I guess it needing my blood can be seen as a negative since a lengthy contract would drain any normal man dry if they couldn't draw as much blood as they want and store it safely in a separate unique skill like I can. I also need the consent of the other person signing the contract and it needs to be fair, so in certain situations, it's fairly useless."

Charlie furrowed his brow. "You said you had 2 additional unique skills which you had yet to choose?"

Lone nodded. "That's right. I'm saving one and the other I'm considering using to help Soph and Sophie."

"I see." Charlie rubbed the tuft of fur that was growing off of the overhang that was his chin before he said, "We very well may have a serious offer for you that might interest you, but not now, I'm afraid. We have a lot of stuff to prepare for in the coming years. In truth, this meeting was to sound out your true personality and, of course, to learn exactly what unique skills you own."

Lone frowned. "You aren't going to tell me about Participants?"

"I can if you want. We don't honestly know too much though ourselves and some things are better left unspoken until we know you better, or, more accurately, until I know I can trust you," Charlie said.

"That's fine. You've got me curious. It'd be pretty rude to not at least fill me in on a few details," Lone said.

Charlie nodded. "That's more than fair. You and Soph, or Sophie, or both, I'm not quite sure if they identify as one person or not, haha, well, you're all Participants chosen by these 'true gods' to participate in a 'grand game'. Snow here is also a Participant. Frappy's original owner was one too until he was murdered. He did manage to transfer some of his power to the frog, turning him into what he is today though, but that's a different story."

Snow's frown deepened but she didn't open her mouth. She wasn't going to be cleaning toilets for a month even if she did want to protest at Charlie for revealing so much so early.

The bipedal rat sighed. "I suppose I should also mention that I was once a participant myself."

Lone raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Her and you both? So she has a bunch of unique skills too and so do you?"

"Yes and no," Charlie answered. "Snow does, indeed, have multiple unique skills. 10, just as you and Soph do. I, on the other hand, have only 1 left. I used to have 7. My memories of the 'grand game' were stolen from me, presumably by the gods. I don't know how I survived or why they erased my memory. I was somehow able to retain my unique skills but I felt them... disappearing over time, slowly slipping from my grasp. I spent years researching how to give them to others. 6 of the people sat around you possess a skill I once called my own."

"That's... a lot to take in," Lone spoke honestly.

Charlie smiled wrily. "Isn't it? I have a theory that the current 8 Ancients - now 7 - were all participants of the last 'grand game', but I have no proof. I do know that Participants always appear in pairs. You and Soph then Snow and Frappy's original owner. I have no idea why but I'm sure that in my generation there were 8 of us made up out of 4 pairs. I've yet to find traces of this generation's other 2 pairs, sadly."

Lone frowned as he tapped his elbow in thought. "How do you know? How can you be certain?"

"I can't, Lone. I just... feel it. It's one of those things that just feels right to you. Like an instinct. I've tried to tease the topic out a few of my fellow Ancients in the past, you know? Even Ythmagobla before he became hellbent on consuming a world tree's soul. Not a single one of them knew what I was talking about," Charlie claimed with a sorrowful shake of his head.

He wore a wistful expression on his face and then said, "I think I somehow preserved some fraction of my soul or memories or something else. I will be honest, Lone. I have sought you out to further my own goals, specifically, to learn what I can of the gods and the game they forced me to participate in so many ages ago..."

"Well, honesty is a virtue and all that," Lone commented. "I have no clue if you're spoken a word of truth but you've certainly given me something to work off of. If this is it for today then I assume you'll contact me again at some point?"

Charlie nodded. "Now that Frappy had used his tadpole to transport you, it can track you whenever it needs to. There are cases where the tracking is rendered useless, but yes, in the future, I shall have him invite you to more meetings, most of which will not centre around you. Is that an arrangement you're fine with?"

Lone nodded. "Yeah, sounds cool. Well, so long as I get the rewards you promised."

The High Elf snorted. "You can tell he is younger than a century. Such crass greed."

Charlie sighed. "Well, at least we all know who's on toilet cleaning duty now. Frappy needed a break."

Despair washed over Grul'halla's expression while nothing but satisfaction clouded Lone's.

"How interesting," Eolande said as she hovered next to Lone. "There are hundreds and hundreds of illusions all interwoven together. Whoever made this is far more skilled than I am at creating illusions and having them interact with each other seamlessly."

Lone frowned as he looked at the seemingly normal marsh in front of the two of them. "Can you get us through?"

Eolande nodded. "Oh, absolutely. They're better and making and linking them but I've yet to meet anyone more skilled at breaking illusions than myself, even at The Academy. Do you want me to? I'd assumed you'd first want to bathe in the visions and dreams to farm some levels, as you always love to do..."

"It's kind of urgent but you make a good point..." Lone stroked his chin then sighed. "Give me 10-minutes then snap me out of it if I haven't done so myself by then."

"Yes, yes, I am yours to command, Hus-... Lone," Eolande answered then cursed herself inwardly for her slip-up.

Trying to ignore the sudden bitterness and sadness radiating from Eolande, Lone stepped forward right into the illusions.

Thankfully, nothing fantastical happened and nor were the illusions designed to trick the mind into breaking down or forcing the victim to experience some sort of critical organ failure, both very real possibilities that Lone did not want to deal with right now.

To his eyes and to his mind, he didn't appear to be in an illusion of any sort. He could see Eolande just staring at him with that upset but still coy expression of hers as she floated behind him.

"So it's mimicking the entire swamp? That's boring but makes sense. He did say she doesn't like visitors so a realistic illusion seems like the wisest choice to ward anyone off. I wonder what the extra illusions are for though?" Lone thought aloud. "Wouldn't one big one be enough?"

Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Illusion Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 2.

Heeeh... So Golden Grimjarl doesn't mix well with Friludian Foothooves? Drat. I really thought that'd work.

Well, no bother. I have a few more theories to get this Young Again Potion to stop making me older instead of younger.

I swear, I need to do what the stupid time boy did and set up a big old academy. So few true experts of alchemy still exist these days. If anyone's going to do anything about that, it'll probably have to be me. It always has to be me.

Now, where did I leave my mortared Elder Vampire Ashes?

Huh? What's this? Someone's found my marsh again... I swear, how do people keep stumbling across this place? It's on a bloody island over a thousand miles away from the continent!

... Maybe the council is actually right that fate is an actual thing? I mean, sure, fate magic exists, but so does time magic. If you can't change the past or the future with time magic then why would it exist?

Same question but reversed for fate magic. I'm convinced we should change fate magic's name to cosmic manipulation magic, skill titles be damned.

Ah, drat. I got distracted. So, who is it this time? Oh? What's this? A Golden Foxkin? Those are rare. I wonder if the clan is still where it used to be? I haven't seen one of his kind in, oh, look at that. I've forgotten how long ago it's been since I last saw a Golden Foxkin.

Now you though, strange child-sized fairy thing, I have no idea what you are. Are you evil? Please be evil. I would so love to turn you into a pile of ingredients. Well, assuming you aren't the last of your kind.

Can't be finding miracle ingredients and ruining the only method of producing them, now can I?

Oh, they're talking. Lovely. Context. Everyone loves context.

She can see my illusions? Well, that's mildly impressive. She can even identify how skilled I am. You're no longer a potential supply of ingredients. Congratulations are in order!

... You think you can break my illusions? Looks like child-sized fairy is back on the menu, boys!

Huh. So you just... willingly walk into an illusion then start talking to yourself? I mean, you have a perfectly good mind to use and you never know when unwanted listeners are, well, listening. Just look at me. I'm listening right now and I'd put money on me being unwanted.

Wait. This is my marsh. He's unwanted, not me. What's he saying anyway? Why the extra illusions? That's obvious.

"The extra illusions are to perfectly mimic the fauna of my marsh. It really sells this as a marsh instead of as a fake island made entirely out of magic."

Why is he looking at me? Oh. Oh no. I replied on instinct at his well-placed question. Damn it. Why do you do this to yourself? Well, may as well ask a question back.

"Who's 'he'? Did someone send you here?"