Ryan tried to open his eyes, but eye gunk glued them shut. He groaned, intense hunger eating away at his insides. He didn’t feel any pain though, which reassured him. Remembering the healing he’d taken at the hands of the village healer, he imagined that whatever the man last night had given him was far stronger. He’d need to eat soon to ease the discomfort he felt. At least he was feeling discomfort, feeling anything at all. Whoever that man was, he had saved his life.

He felt the packed dirt of the track pressed against his face and the warmth of the sun on his back. Rolling over to his back, he heard and felt his clothes crackle with dried blood and sweat. His crusty eyes resisted his efforts to pry them open, but he succeeded and the intense mid-morning light flooded in.

Levering himself up, Ryan found himself in the exact spot in which he had passed out. The cubed corpses of the wolves already smelled and the pools of blood had congealed into a lumpy mess. Flies covered everything. His gorge rose, and he looked away to avoid remembering the mess of last night’s events.

His clothes were tattered. There was damage from the shadow wolf attacks, but there was also damage that appeared to come from catching them on low trees and underbrush, based on the streaks of color. There wasn’t anything salvageable about them.

Pulling the sleeve that was ravaged by the wolf aside, he examined his arm. Long silvery scars covered his arm where the wolf’s teeth had sliced it open. It looked like he had stuck his arm into a blender. He reached up to his neck, feeling around under his jaw and around his throat, and felt the same scars, but they felt more severe than those on his arm. He grimaced, but then took a second to relax and think back to last night. Scars were a small price to pay for near instant healing and continued life. Finally, he examined his leg. The scar from the older wound was barely visible.

He heard a faint humming coming from the tree line. Searching through the morning light along the shadowy border with the forest, he spotted the man who saved him last night. The ordinary looking guy lounged on his pack in the low grass, soaking up the morning sun, and hummed something to himself in a pleasant voice, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

He looked just that; ordinary. Based on how he handled the shadow wolves, he was powerful, but Ryan couldn’t guess how powerful. He was certainly more powerful than the village elder, who was supposed to be in the high Iron rank. His movement speed alone made the village elder look weak in comparison.

He’d have to get Mags to judge for him. Ryan tensed up, horrified. Mags. He scrambled to his feet and turned toward the village walls. They were so close to him and had gone unnoticed until now. He searched for a reference point along the walls and realized he was somewhere north of the southern gate and headed that direction.

Within minutes, he was through the gate and made his way along the main road to the village center. All around him were damaged buildings and occasional bodies. The closer he approached the center of the village, the worse the damage, and he started seeing bodies of the shadow wolves.

He left the cover of the buildings into the center of the village, heading straight for where he had seen Mags fighting for the villagers. There were many bodies, many injured by the wolves, but many more showed injuries from wooden shrapnel that must have come from the debris flung around by the tornado. He searched through the remains of the villagers, but didn’t see any sign of Mags.

He walked over to where the village head, Jensum, fought the shadow men, but the area was a devastated wreck. Nothing was recognizable as having once been part of the village, not even the collapsed buildings nearby. The epicenter of the shadow phenomenon was obvious; the area was clear of debris and the ground swept clear.

Giving up on finding Jensum, Ryan turned to continue searching for Mags and almost collided with his savior, who was standing right behind him. Ryan backpedaled to catch his balance and gave the man an annoyed look. He hadn’t heard the man approach, not even a scuff in the dirt from his boots. The man looked around at the devastation like he was part of a tour group seeing the local sights.

“There’s nobody alive here. I checked last night. There were a few farmers left out there, but everyone left is hustling their way to one of the nearby cities to get away from the new arrivals,” he said.

“Did you see a middle aged woman with long, iron-gray hair? She probably had a spear with her too,” Ryan asked.

“Yup, a lot of those around. I don’t know if any were the one you’re looking for,” the man said. He gazed into the sky, unconcern written all over his features.

What? A lot? Ryan considered that for a second and realized that the guy was right. A rural farming community probably did have a lot of people that would fit that description. The manner in which the man delivered the news, though, left much to be desired.

“Who were those shadow men? I’ve never heard about anything like them.” Ryan said.

“Like I said, new arrivals. They came through a Breach with their furry friends, a couple of days ago if I had to guess.”

Dissatisfied, Ryan continued to search among the wreckage for any sign of Mags. His companion followed listlessly, not paying particular attention to anything around him, content to follow.

Ryan gave up. There was no sign of her, which was reassuring, since it was possible she got away. There were plenty of dead shadow wolves around, so it stood to reason that there were survivors out there.

He turned to the man following and asked, “Where would the survivors go to get away from this mess?”

After a second of standing and staring at nothing in particular in the sky, the man jerked his eyes away and looked at Ryan with a winsome smile.

“They’ll head to Darna. Or Rild, but probably Darna. Rild is closer, but Darna is bigger and has more fighting people lazing about waiting for something to stab to show up.”

“What’s your name? You saved my life, but I don’t know your name?” Ryan asked.

“Oh, names. I guess names are important. These days people call me Flicker. You can call me that too, if it suits you.”

“Thank you, Flicker, for rescuing me when you did. I didn’t expect to survive that, and to have lived with only a bit of scarring to show for it and, well, I’ll probably never be able to repay you properly,” Ryan said.

For the first time that morning, Flicker appeared to focus his attention squarely onto Ryan. He straightened his posture and his eyes grew sharp and piercing. He emanated power and danger, the plain clothing and average appearance of the man doing nothing to blunt it.

Ryan’s heart pounded. Some visceral part of him wanted to get away from Flicker, but he fought it and cleared his mind. Ryan imagined that he looked at a great behemoth beneath the waves of the ocean, surfacing to survey its surroundings and take a quick breath of air. Before he knew it, Flicker had fallen back into a careless attitude, ordinary, and disconnected from the world around him.

“Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re an Offworlder. You’ll find that these things have a way of circling back around,” Flicker said.

Taken aback at the cryptic response and his involuntary reaction to his change in demeanor, Ryan asked, “Are Offworlders rare?”

“No. And yes. It depends on your perspective.” Flicker turned and walked away toward the southern gate, almost skipping, done with the conversation.

Ryan followed, irritated with Flicker’s non-answer. The visceral feeling he just went through prevented him from asking any follow up questions. It was irrational, but there it was. He needed time to think, to figure out where he would go next. He should head to Darna or Rild to look for Mags, but he was unsure what that would accomplish. If she was alive, she was more than capable of taking care of herself, and having him weighing her down wouldn’t help her. On the other hand, he felt that they had grown close over the last couple of years, and he wanted to reassure both himself and her he was alive and well.

One thing was certain; he needed to join a Guild. As far as he knew, they were the quickest, if not the easiest, way for him to become self sufficient. They would demand service in return, but he felt that it was a fair trade to work for a Guild in return for instruction and power. At least, that’s what he assumed would happen. He knew only a bit more about the Guilds than he did about Keys. He knew that they were the local powers, despite whatever government was in place.

Ryan trailed behind Flicker all the way back to the dismembered wolves in the middle of the packed track surrounding the wall. Flicker went off to retrieve his pack and sword, and Ryan looked around for his spear and spotted it lying off to the side in the grass. Retrieving his spear, he returned to the wolves and used the butt end of the shaft to shift the pieces of corpses around.

The first wolf didn’t reveal a Key, but Ryan uncovered a light golden orb nestled in the pile of meat and blood of the second wolf. He recognized it as a Body Key. He couldn’t work up any excitement at the find. Working through his gloomy thoughts, he considered the Key in front of him without reaching for it. The cost of finding the thing weighed on him too much. Is this what it took to get more powerful? Did he have to sacrifice everything he knew and valued?

He reached out and plucked the Key from the remains of the wolf. Flicker made his way through the grass back to the track. Ryan waved at him and showed him the Key.

“Are you going to take this?” Ryan asked, holding the Key out for Flicker to take if he desired.

Flicker shook his head and pointed at Ryan. Flicker hoisted the pack onto his back and looked at Ryan with a carefree smile.

“You need to do something about that aura of yours. If you keep waving it around, slapping everything in sight with it, some stabby guy will come along and deflate you with his sword,” Flicker said.

“I don’t know how. I don’t know anything. I used my first Key last night, and now that my friend is missing I don’t have anyone to help me.”

Flicker pulled his head out of the clouds long enough to give Ryan a surprised look. His smile disappeared, and he examined Ryan before nodding his head.

“Come with me and I’ll take you to Darna. I’ll show you a few tricks,” Flicker replied.

“Should I use this yet? I’m not sure I can handle another trip to that abyss and that being,” Ryan said, waving the Body Key at Flicker.

“That won’t happen again. Well, it might, but not because of a Key. Most of the time you’ll descend into the in-between when you are forced to awaken. That being said, that old meddler likes to have his fingers dipped in all kinds of pots. Keep your wits about you and if you see him again, you tell him Flicker holds grudges forever. Forever!” Flicker said, impassioned at the mention of the powerful being.

“Is he really the lost god of magic? Why is he called lost if it’s so common to see him?” Ryan asked.

“Bah! Lost, is it? A god is he? He’s a god all right, maybe even a god of magic, but he’s not my god. They call him lost because of politics. It’s always politics. Also, I guess he can’t form a body as long as the Keys are around. That’s his thing. He creates the Keys.”

Confused, Ryan shook his head and tried to wrap his head around that travesty of an explanation.

“If he’s not your god, who’s god is he?”

“He was a god of The Curators. All the gods were the gods of The Curators. They’re long gone, though, and they dumped their damn gods on us and now we’re stuck with them. Bunch of petty meddlers if you ask me.” With that, Flicker pirouetted like a dancer and started walking toward the river to the south.

“Wait, what should I use this Key on?” Ryan yelled, running to catch up.

“What do you have already?” Flicker replied, speeding up a bit to what Ryan felt was almost a jog, but to Flicker seemed to be a casual stroll.

Ryan hesitated, unsure if he should share his abilities with anybody. His deliberation only lasted a split second; Flicker had pulled him out of the jaws of death, literally.

“I have a Soul Key that gives me a sensing ability of the space around me.”

“You need movement then. You need to move to survive. Mobility is king. You gotta have some moves to keep the ladies interested.” Flicker danced a few steps to some unseen music and pantomimed holding an imaginary partner in his arms.

“Why not an offensive ability?” Ryan asked.

“Newbies die because they can’t get out of the way, not because they can’t damage the weak beasties out there. With two Keys and that pointy stick in your hands, you’ll already be strong enough from the attribute augments that come along with the Keys to go out and poke things for fame and money. And women. But you gotta able to move,” he finished in a singsong voice.

He punctuated his point by disappearing. He reappeared a few yards further along the path, his form so blurred that he was barely recognizable as a person. Flicker blurred in a circle, moving so fast that his afterimages appeared to be standing in a solid circle, stationary.

Ryan felt the ground vibrating. It vibrated so fast he couldn’t feel the individual beats so much as he felt them travel up his legs and into his spine. His eyes unable to open any wider, Ryan realized that the vibration was caused by Flicker’s feet hitting the ground.

Flicker reappeared in his previous position in front of Ryan as if nothing unusual had happened, Dust from his passing still hanging in the air.

Ryan almost tripped over his own feet in shock. Not only could he feel the vibrations through the ground, but he also felt them through the air. How fast did someone have to move for them to appear to stand still in multiple places at once? He thought back to his previous world, to how many frames per second a TV had to show to give the illusion of a continuous image. The man in front of him, who called himself Flicker, had just casually done something so incredible that Ryan couldn’t wrap his mind around it, except to say that the man’s name was accurate.

He reevaluated his estimate of Flicker’s power. Unless he was sorely mistaken, Flicker had to be incredibly powerful. What was a guy like that doing romping around in farming villages? Was it a coincidence that he had appeared in the village at the same time as the shadow men and their wolves?

Ryan regained his composure and looked at the Body Key in his hand. He didn’t have answers to these questions, and he wasn’t willing to try and interrogate Flicker, someone who had just casually demonstrated something so unbelievable. The choice of his ability, after that little demonstration, was obvious. He would choose a movement ability. Before he could activate the Key, Flicker interrupted him.

“Did you say space? As in the space around us, the void, the emptiness? You have an affinity for Space?”

“Yes, the Soul Key ability lets me sense stuff around me in a bubble, and understand the patterns between everything. I don’t know how to use it well, I just learned it. There is something else too. Like direction or speed or something.” Ryan said.

“Space, space, space.” Flicker sung the words. “And maybe some dimensionality. You’ll have plenty of time to practice. I’m going to show you a few tricks after all. Space affinity with some possible dimensionality flavor, I’ll be watching your career with interest. Offworlder and an affinity for Space! Perfect!.”

Flicker’s antics were contagious, and despite his misgivings about Flicker and the events of the previous night, Ryan found that he felt optimistic about finding Mags in Darna.

“How long will it take us to reach Darna?” Ryan asked.

“At this pace, it will take us about half a day, or 12 hours of straight walking,” Flicker replied.

Ryan’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, not because the distance was anything crazy, but because he realized that Flicker just showed that without the dead weight of Ryan, he could reach Darna in minutes, instead of hours.

“I’m sorry for holding you back. I know you could be there in a snap if you weren’t waiting for me,” Ryan said.

“Don’t you worry about it. Pure speed has its advantages, but it also has one huge disadvantage; if I’m always rushing around at top speed, then I miss the world in between. When I can take my time, I do. Otherwise I would be disconnected from everything.”

Mollified, Ryan settled in for the long walk ahead.