“The punishment is the choice?” I asked Ka… Kal… Kalika.

She nodded, “The punishment is knowing your responsibility and what it will cost you. If you take the first choice, eventually you will help the Darkons leave this world behind. The world will survive, weakened but alive, at least until the next invaders come. You shouldn’t live long enough for that though, it could be thousands of years. Of course, the next world is the one your soul comes from, and that world has no defense, the Darkons will drain it completely of life within a generation. They will have to, and then they will die.”

She shrugged, “That path is firm. You will become one of the most powerful sorcerers this world has ever seen, but sorcerers cannot stop the Darkon. Far more powerful elven sorcerers tried on the prior world, against much weaker Darkons, and failed.”

“What are Darkons?” I asked her.

She smiled, “They are your enemy. The ones you have been seeking. They are the ones that threaten both worlds, and are indirectly behind your presence here.”

“And the second choice?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have all the answers, but from what I understand, your current false link with your party will call the attention of the Darkons, because your new power is not balanced with their system. If you take the first choice, you will be linked into the system as other adventurers are, and that balance will be regained. If you choose the second and remain linked, the Darkons will destroy the locals as an inconvenience and, most likely, destroy the immortal’s mind to keep him from questioning them.”

“f you choose to try and save both worlds, success is not assured, little broken one. You might fail, and die, but you are not the chosen one. There are others that can try, that ARE trying as we speak, but they, too, might fail. All it offers is a chance.”

She chuckled a little, “Make your choice now, you have little time.”

What kind of choice was it? There was no choice. Yes, I wanted to become human, no I didn’t want to return to the current earth, but I was not going to be responsible for ending all life on Earth. That was insane, no matter what I get out of the bargain. No matter how poor the odds, I had to try and save my homeworld. Maybe there were others with the same goal, but that did not absolve me of the responsibility, if anything it made it worse.

I looked at her, trying to imagine her in a supervillain costume. It was pretty easy, actually, between the twisted choice and her lizardlike appearance, very different from my own, I might as well be deciding between the life of my new girlfriend or my sidekick. The concept of 'someone else's job' was all well and good when you were passing a dead animal on the road, but it didn't really apply if you were the only guy in the reactor control room and the meltdown alarms were going off.

“You know that This is not a choice, right?” I scowled.

She lifted an eyebrow, “I know it is not a choice for YOU, but for many others, it would be much more difficult. I take it that means you are sacrificing your assured future for the chance?”

I nodded, and tightened my aura, retracting the knotted essence and aspect bonds from the band. I felt bad about it, but I didn’t want to subject Cassie to the scrutiny that it could bring. At least my party was as well-equipped as I could make them right now. I knew that this woman could be lying, but she was far better informed than I was, and for the first time I had a name to put to my enemy.

Darkons.

Raphael Barbossa-

That little lizard guy had been completely right. He could still use some kind of daggers, but his claws were pretty amazing when he combined them with the fighting techniques his uncle had taught him as well as his own instincts.

This creature, for example, lay at his feet. It was similar to a displacer beast from that old roleplaying game, but instead of being a leopard, it was based on a huge canine, almost like a rottweiler with six legs and a pair of tentacles coming out of its neck.

With its displacement ability, it almost would have avoided pretty much every attack. It was level 12, and he was level 10, and it SHOULD have finished him off easily, but when the three had attacked, Cassie managed to distract two of them and dispatched them with Shiana’s help, and he was left with the third.

He had been expecting a trip back to respawn, but he’d manage to get a claw into its shoulder. His health was slowly ticking back up from the lashing its tentacles had given to his back when he dragged himself in close, but a clawed chokehold and then digging his teeth into its throat while his lower legs had sprung up and then straight-up disemboweled it had done staggering damage.

It was almost like hunting at home.

He had expected this game to be boring and had resigned himself to simply following his Abuelita's orders in playing it. After all, how could a VR technology game compare to the real thrill of hunting the Amazon jungles? Especially hunting the Northern technocrats and occasional chemistry opportunists that ventured into his family’s territory looking for new clients or a place to set up a lab.

Frankly, it was hard finding prey on Earth that didn’t need to be protected from extinction, But here, these creatures were more or less vermin. Shiana was tracking that little Bran fella, but Raphael was impressed by how quickly he had taken off, leaving them all behind. It could take days to track him down.

Abuelita’s take on what the spirits had been telling her was right, this world was not a game. He wasn’t a technology specialist, but even he could tell that the amount of detail and sheer feeling the coolsets supposedly provided was ridiculously beyond any sort of current technology. They were a thinly-veiled technological mask for what the coolsets provided, a method of astral projection to another world.

Raphael was not the best dimension strider, but the signs were obvious. His spirit was being projected here, just like the spirits of every other player, and temporarily housed in some kind of construct while these band things fed off their life energy. Whatever this world was, it had umbral strength far above that on earth, and the Earth spirits housed here were able to absorb and create incredible amounts of soul energy compared to back on earth.

Raphael wished he could get his real body into this world. It would be like constantly bathing in a wellspring of energy. And even the blood of this displacement monster he had just slain tasted delectably filled with energy. Perhaps someday one of the striders would be able to open a portal here, and all of the Kin could emigrate to this paradise world. Sure, daily survival was dangerous with all of the monsters and spellcasters, but the danger was exactly what made the place such a treasure and a pleasure, especially to the Kin.

This body was pleasant, if considerably weaker than his real one. And after the kobold’s tips, he had managed to drop its energy drain down to a trickle. Some of the energy techniques he was picking up here as he leveled up could probably be adapted to his real body. It was also nice to be in something resembling his battle form without sending every witness screaming in terror.

His real fighting abilities were serving him in good stead since seemingly every possible predator had been disturbed by Bran’s hormone-induced flight through the area. They kept getting attacked, and at this rate, this character should match Cassie and Shiana’s level soon. That and the food that the little fellow made was helping his regeneration perform at nearly normal values.

He could, of course, have easily tracked Bran simply by his scent trail, especially with all the incredible hormone release the poor kid was shedding, but that ability was not something his class or changechild race should be able to access yet. All he could do was occasionally help Shiana, who did have a tracking ability according to the system, to keep to the trail.

He wanted to get higher levels to unlock his natural abilities since the system was clearly designed for players who were actually human.

Kal whatever changed her entire attitude, looking at me coldly, even her voice changed, sounding less hollow. “Aen has given me my marching orders, and you as well, I imagine. Apparently whatever you said was enough for me not to end you, and for some reason she wants me to fix you.”

“Fix me?” I asked curiously, sitting back on my tail and trying to clean myself up. I was a muddy mess, even after her drenching, although it looked like all the scratches I had obtained during my little hormonal adventure had healed already. I was unbelievably sore, and after pulling my armor out of my soul space I realized why.

I was enormous. Not the 300-foot-tall I had imagined while hallucinating, but there was no way I was fitting inside the armor I pulled from my space. That also explained why my oversized shirt was so… short and not oversized anymore. The Swamp elf looked away while I tugged some fabric and leather scraps out of my inventory and improvised a breechclout, which was very definitely needed. Based on my armor’s relative size, I was close to 5 feet tall now. It would cost me an advantage in hiding and dodging, but I felt considerably more solid and imagined I could pack a vastly harder punch.

The shirt had expanded as well, or else I would have torn it apart, but my torso was a lot longer in comparison to my body than previously. Thank goodness for magical resizing, I guess. My head was considerably smaller in comparison to my body than previously, and my face slightly narrower, but based on my hand’s exploration I still looked like a kobold, just stretched out to more human-like proportions. Thank God I still had my tail, which was a little longer compared to my size previously. I had grown attached to my tail, and it was even more flexible and less stubby, stretching a good 4 feet behind my butt and still making a handy perch.

The young lady was almost my exact height, which was surprising. As much as I hated to admit it, I had gotten used to being shorter than everyone else. The worst part was, now that I was in a state to truly enjoy underboob, it was no longer on display from my point of view.

I stood up and started stretching, surprisingly easily. It hurt, of course, since a lot of the muscles were new, but all the work I had put into exercise and training in my smaller form apparently translated to a larger size, and I could see heavy musculature under my scales. When I joined the Navy I was close to this size, but this was a marked improvement over my previous build. I tensed my arms, seeing the muscles swell beneath my lightly-scaled skin, and was very grateful for the work I had done, it would make combat vastly more rewarding, and from what I understood there might be a lot of combat and pain in my future.

“You are badly broken.” She stated. “Your magic is twisted, and your foundation is badly damaged. Someone has been training you like a Mage, and we are going to have to break your energy like a badly-set broken limb so that it may regrow correctly.”

She sighed. “To do this, You are going to have to take an oath, as my acolyte. I am not ready for one yet, but Aen has made it very clear that I have this responsibility now. I am sort of wishing I had killed you now, but my goddess has made it very clear what she expects from me.”

Bran, this is very strange. There is a mana construct here, but it is not like the bands. It sort of resembles the pet bond, but if you accept it, it will be a real bond, not an illusionary one like we have been creating.

I could see the power of the oath she wanted me to take. It did not sparkle like the band-enforced connections, and it did not originate directly from her. Instead, it looked like the essence in the air formed it from elsewhere and connected her.

“You must swear that you will not act against the goddess Aen’s interests while you are my acolyte and that you will break this oath prior to such an action. Aen is the goddess of nature, birth, harvest, and plants. You do not need to worship her, and this oath demands that you obey my instructions as my follower until such time as it is broken.”

She continued, “In return, I, Kalikamastrinmakaveld, swear that I will try to train you to the best of my ability, and not to violate your morality or attempt to subvert your religious beliefs. You will have Aen’s support when acting in her interests, and I will not attempt to abuse your service. You may choose to cancel this bond, but if either of us betrays it we shall be known as oathbreakers and suffer divine penalties.”

This is a real oath, backed by deific power. She is a true druid, albeit a not very powerful one yet. I think when she was talking about choices, this is the second choice, although I am pretty sure that was not Kalikamastrinmakaveld speaking when she told you about your choices, but Aen herself speaking through her.

I nodded slowly, thinking this through. Mnemosyne was sent by Flame, who apparently had the same interests as I did, and had been incredibly helpful so far. She seemed to be in favor of this, and this was what I had come to the Winnowrill for. If she could help me become powerful enough to save both of my homes, I was not going to turn her down. I was a little rebellious at this point, but it seemed that the local powers were very much not in favor of working in the interests of the Darkons, So I should take advantage of the offer.

I finally nodded, and said, “I, Brantley Gallagher Winterborne, swear to obey your instructions as an acolyte until it becomes appropriate to cancel this oath or Kalikama… the swamp elf before me determines that my debt to her for my dishonor has been resolved and that during this time I will do my best to the extent of my knowledge not to work against Aen or her interests.”

I felt the essence around me sort of contract for a moment before the pressure disappeared, and then, surprisingly enough, The young woman smiled. “Call me Kalika,” she said.

“Bran,” I responded almost automatically. “Please explain to me what you mean by broken. I thought I was doing well.”

She shook her head. “No, you have been doing rather well for a mage, or rather poorly for a cultivator, but you are neither. I can see the energy whirling around your body like a set of planets around a sun, each planet distinctly flavored by an aspect. You have an energy network like a cultivator, but that network is static… Cultivators instinctively strive towards an energy flow pattern, and will instinctively create such a pattern even if it is not the most efficient possible unless they can train themselves in a better one. So tell me, how many aspects do you plan to have orbiting you?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, all of them, I guess? That depends on how many aspects there are.”

She smiled a little and pointed at a small bundle of wood set on the ground. It looked like I had interrupted her in the middle of setting up a camp or something, as she had a small pack on the ground and had set a fire out. “Show me your way of starting a fire with energy.”

She stepped back and for a moment I looked at her more closely. Her skin was more densely scaled than mine was, but her scales were thin and nearly translucent, She was a pale green, and she had no tail. I understood now why they called themselves Winnowrill elves and found the term Troglodyte or lizardfolk so offensive because they were not. Their legs were humanlike rather than birdlike as mine were, and in a semi-dark room, I doubted I would notice that she was not human without the scales and color as a giveaway. Instead of a crest like mine, She had a thick mane of dark brown hair, and her overall body was slender but still feminine, and clearly mammal without being overly lush like Bubbles or even Shiana.

Me? I don’t know what kobolds were categorized as. Clearly we were warm-blooded, and I had recently discovered that at maturity we had the sexual characteristics to match, but as far as I know, I had yet to meet another kobold, let alone a female. Did they lay eggs or give live birth? Were they more bird, more lizard, or more monkey? Were they like the platypus, that laid eggs yet was still technically mammalian? I was not terrifically interested, despite my newly awakened drives, because settling down to produce a new nest of literal monsters was about as far up my to-do list as sticking my hand in a blender, but the question was now a lot more than just academic.

I squatted next to the fire structure and inspected it. It was little more than a teepee of tinder shavings surrounded by small sticks, and I carefully ran a thread of frost through a [push] and [alter] knot, brushing my finger across the structure to ignite it.

Kalika nodded, “Not a terrible solution. Using what you know is par for the course for what you are, which is a channeler. The people that you were linked with, your party, will they find you without your party bond?”

I nodded, “Yes, you aren’t going to hurt them or drive them off, are you?”

Kalika laughed, “No. As banded, they will not be welcome among the Winnowrill, but they are not bounty hunters either. Despite what you may have heard, we dislike outsiders, we do not murder those who do not approach with intent to do us harm. Unlike the savages in Sindaenaway, we are civilized.”

She looked around at the rough beginnings of a camp. “Usually we are, anyway. I am on my adulthood quest, which means roughing it for a while. Aen sent me this way to intercept you. So tell me, how many aspects of essence do you think there are?”

I shook my head, “I honestly have no idea.”

She smiled, and I noted that the expression made her look far more appealing. “They are, to put it bluntly, limitless. Quintessence in its pure form can be tainted to gain any aspect you can imagine with will. It’s sort of like a pyramid. At the top, you have pure quintessence, the energy that fills the universe. Below that, you have the pure elements, such as physical energy, time, space, and matter. Below those, you have more and more aspected essence as it becomes more polluted.”

“At the very bottom, you have those who simply use aspects as they see them. An archer might use archery aspects or edge aspects, and call them rapid shots or penetrating arrows. A warrior might use aspects of battle to attract foes or defense to make themselves more difficult to harm, and a blacksmith might imbue specialty aspects to enchant weapons, or simply use aspects of metal to improve or refine or alter those metals.” She started setting up a lean-to, out of a simple tanned hide and two saplings.

“Most creatures have auras sort of similar to yours. They can use those abilities, but they are central to their existence and entirely internal. Those born with the gift of sorcery, however, do not have this wall between their internal energies and the external world. They can collect the more common aspects and project them outside of their own bodies, and at higher ability, they can convert less tainted essence into what they need for their spells. Their will makes the aspects more… rigid, and that is why most mages and even normal people wind up having a specialty. As they improve their specialty, it becomes easier to manipulate the essence into a particular form.”

She finished setting up her lean-to and spread a tarp under it, and then motioned for me to do the same. I started pulling out my bedding and setting it up, listening curiously to what she was saying as she worked. “Cultivators do things slightly different. They use aspects as they see them, but can purify more tainted aspects into higher forms of energy using their aura. So while mages turn energy into more solid forms, cultivators turn more solid essence into more energetic forms. That is why, while you can technically have mages or classes with very unusual and specialized forms, such as weapon masters who exclusively use edge essence or mages who can convert most types of mana into fuel for their fire mana.”

She shrugged a little and sat on her bedroll. “Cultivators can gain more and more essence of whatever pure element they specialize in, and can learn more efficient techniques for gathering that essence into their aura, as well as altering their aura to create various effects, They create schools and techniques and medicines that help them improve their ability to absorb, store, and use their particular element, and some talented cultivators can use more than one type of high aspect, such as fire and water, or earth and time.”

She stopped speaking for a moment and looked at me expectantly. “So, is that what the bands do? Are their classes basically the bands specializing their energy into different categories?”

She nodded, “Very close. That is what they do for native adventurers. For immortals, however, their primary purpose is to tap the enormous amount of pure quintessence they unleash, and turn a small amount of it to their class paths and maintaining their forms. Immortals, here, are merely projections of their spirit. That is why they can be so easily reassembled. True resurrection is nearly impossible unless you have a massive pool of quintessence to draw from, such as that of a Deity. Or an immortal.

I nodded, “That’s why the bonded can be resurrected with the immortals. Because there’s a huge supply of essence available to rebuild and reattach them to their bodies.”

Kalika nodded, “Exactly! It seems like all the energy and will that the locals use to advance themselves and improve their forms and families, in the case of immortals, is being diverted into whatever the Darkons are using it for. From what I understand, on the world your spirit hails from, time passes much more quickly?”

I nodded, and she continued, “Exactly. In your world, the potential energy of nearly a thousand years is compressed down into a single what… 80-year lifespan? The closest guess I can make is that nearly every human on your world is a channeler. They HAVE to be, compressing as much tainted quintessence as possible and converting it as best they can to exist in a universe where almost all Quintessence is already tainted. If someone from here were to visit your world, they would have to bring an enormous wellspring of life energy with them or be poisoned and die shortly from your world’s lack of quintessence.”

“So what is a channeler?” I asked her curiously.

She smiled a little, “Someone who converts and purifies vast amounts of tainted essence into more pure forms. At first, their will may only be enough to, say, turn frost aspect into simple cold, or to convert such a limited aspect into heat. Unlike cultivators, however, they do not need to reject the taint from their bodies to purify it, they simply need to alter it to a more energetic form. Once their will becomes strong enough, Channelers can break the bonds of ultimate stabilized essence itself, converting say, a boulder into pure Quintessence.”

“See what I mean by broken? You have coiled aspects about your core like a mage, instead of converting them to useable energy and learning to alter that energy into the aspects at need. You have an aura like a cultivator, but you have to penetrate that aura, wasting enormous amounts of energy, just to use those aspects outside of yourself.”

She shook her head, “being able to convert things to higher energy states does not mean better. A talented swordsman that has ventured far along his path could destroy a cultivator who has specialized in earth aspects, but while it would be difficult for an earth-element mage to destroy that same cultivator, it is much easier for even specialists mages to learn spells that only peripherally touch their aspect. A lightning mage could still kill a water cultivator with a lightning spell, even though the water cultivator might be nearly immune to all water damage effects normally. A cultivator that has reinforced his aura against lightning would resist their elemental magic easily, but even a lightning-specialized mage might have a force bolt or fireball that could still damage them.”

She sat down cross-legged, placing her hands on her buckskin-clad knees as she spoke.“There are very few true channelers on our world, and they are generally entities. While your world might be flush with channelers keeping it alive, here, only a few things can purify and alter mana into pure quintessence beyond the level that all living things create.”

“So how does that relate to the draconic language?” I asked curiously, adding more wood to the fire and realizing that cooking was likely to be my responsibility now. This acolyte thing felt a lot like an apprenticeship, and an apprentice does the work.

“Dragons, dungeons, and deities can all convert into pure quintessence like humans from your world can. That’s where druids come in. We are like mages, but the gift Druids get allows us to see and manipulate energies more effectively. We are better able to absorb pure energy from that given off by all living things and by certain deities, but the cost is that we are less able to use specialized mana. We are more energy manipulators, healers, and controllers of the elements and of living things with less will than we are fireball chuckers, sort of like priests only we do not necessarily need to receive our energy directly from a deity.”

“Is that why my… aspects, have a lot less effect on intelligent enemies?”

Kalika nodded, “Yes, creatures with will are much more resistant to higher-level aspects because it can respond to their will as easily as your own. That’s one of the reasons mages are so dangerous. By converting energy directly to a lower-level form, they can project it in a natural way that will users cannot easily resist. While fire element mana can be dangerous for its effects, without being tainted into becoming real fire it’s just energy.”

She smiled, “The draconic language is just another sentient-created tool for helping understand and manipulate reality and communicate concepts and emotions. Like every other language, it simply has an expanded vocabulary for dealing with other than the physical. Some terms are not relevant to dragons that do not exist in draconic, but are utterly essential in, say, Rhydian.” She chuckled a little and added, “It was created by dragons, who were channelers, just as you were. But good luck finding words for economics. Draconic doesn't change. If a dragon wants to discuss those concepts today, he would use Rhudian or some other language better suited to it.”

She laughed, “Dragon channelers who created their language were very much creatures of their environment. But certain concepts, like mathematics beyond addition and subtraction, were as foreign to them as a mating flight would be to you. Yes, they are masterful at addition and subtraction… a Dragon could tell at a glance if a single gold piece was missing from a pile the size of a house, but concepts more complex are just beyond their grasp. There are lots of things Dragons will never understand enough to even need a word for it. Agriculture, trade beyond the most simple of swaps, money, and even complex concepts of language are outside of their experience because they don’t need them. Hand a Dragon a nail and he can tell you exactly what it is made from, how pure the metal is its magical aspects, and the fact that a city contains millions of them, but it wouldn’t have the first clue as to what it was actually needed for or how it works, or even why humans seem to collect so many worthless, nearly valueless objects.”

She shook her head, “At any rate, there are things you are going to have to do to be less than utterly useless as a channeler, and ways you need to grow to protect yourself from the predators who will look at you and see your enormous potential as a resource to be tapped.”

“Predators?” I asked her worriedly.

She nodded slowly, “Yes. You may not realize this, but to every high-energy user that looks at you closely, you are like a delicious unprotected banquet just begging to be consumed. You are a channeler, and your spirit is one of the most valuable objects possible for the unethical to collect to increase their power to untold levels. Even the Darkons would slaughter all of Antowyn just to obtain your spirit, and if they can force it out of your body and into a more useful vessel like a soul gem, it's all the better.”