It seems my gift has been delivered, granting me access to Oitania, though any influence I’ve obtained is superficial as yet. I’m quite satisfied to have pierced the veil without raising any alarms.

Since even I am blind to the workings of the in-between realms, I suppose the credit can’t be all mine. My Oracle deserves a lion’s share of recognition for this achievement. Without her assistance—ah, yes, quiet down, I know you’re pleased, but you must remain calm for a stable connection. There. Good.

As I was saying, without her assistance, this would have been impossible from every angle short of a total invasion.

Even with all the precautions that meddlesome hermit takes, he cannot account for an act of true necromancy. So much attention is paid to the front door that no one thinks to check the garbage chute. Perhaps it’s simply an incompatibility with his systems? After all these years and thousands of lost worlds, perhaps this represents a turning of the tide? A journal was able to pass through in the hands of my manufactured soul, but I wonder if more could... ah, here I am, getting distracted again. Someone should be supervising me. An overreach here would spell a quick end for any advantages I’ve gained. There will be no need for further exploitations, I trust.

I mustn’t ruin my chances to play at a good game for once. And what a game this will be! Five players and the winner takes all… or perhaps it is only four, seeing as the hermit, coward that he is, rarely plays himself.

Unfortunately for the others, my victory condition is far more flexible than theirs. Which is just my way of saying that I don’t know what it is yet.

-S

Albek staggered backwards, clutching his ears. He’d been completely taken in by that scream. Compelled to come to the aid of somebody he thought was a victim, but there were no victims outside. Only predators.

He’d heard screams like this before. Usually, they occurred in the dead of night, far in the distance, and through a solid layer of brick, mortar, and wood. Now, they were far too close.

He crept over to the top of the staircase, where he could just make out the front door below. He swore under his breath. It was open.

‘When did that happen? No, of course it had to be open. Dune got in, after all. I must have done that earlier.’

Albek only had fuzzy memories of entering this house.

‘Damn, I’ve been wasting time. I should have checked the perimeter right after draining that monster.’

Not only the front door, but the screen behind it looked wide open. He’d been very thorough in preparing his escape route. He wasn’t as single-mindedly murderous as he thought if he’d been collected enough to make decisions like that. Now it was backfiring, though, with the sun below the horizon and the baddies on the outside rather than the inside. Those screams sounded human, but from their effect on him and the fact that it was impossible for there to still be people wandering around, Albek knew they were something more sinister.

The question was, how close were they? Could he close the door before whatever was out there noticed?

He motioned Dune to stay put with a gesture and a whisper and took one step down the stairs. A series of thumps coming from the porch stopped him. He hastily backtracked, retreating to the landing at the top and throwing himself to his stomach so he could peer through the columns of the banister to look down as a form appeared at the doorway.

A pale hand pushed at the door until it bumped against the backstop. Against the remainder of the fast-failing sunlight, Albek couldn’t make out any of its features. It looked like a human, but it was far taller and thinner than normal.

It screamed.

The unexpected noise sounded like it was straight out of a slasher film: a stock sound effect. It made Albek’s heart seize in his chest, and he might have sprung up and given himself away if not for the sudden spell of dizziness and nausea that overcame him. The sound bounced off the walls, reverberating in his ears, creating a flood of intense, painful sensations. His vision swam as white spots burst, and he nearly passed out. Pinching himself viciously on the leg, he barely managed to stay coherent.

The echoes eventually faded, allowing him time to recover.

‘What. The. Hell.’

Another two terror-stricken calls from outside answered the first, but these had little noticeable effect on him, other than a strange urge to go help them, which was easily overcome now that he expected it.

At range, the screams tried to trick his mind, but they were far more dangerous up close and seemed to stun him instead. This was dangerous.

The figure, who must have been waiting for a response, began to move inside, stooping under the frame. Then, it swung its head in wide arcs and looked around the foyer. If the scream hadn’t been enough, the exaggerated weaving motions of its head and neck told Albek everything he needed to know: this thing wasn’t human in any way but shape. And even then, only vaguely.

Albek’s mind raced. Could he deal with it? Maybe one he could take with the help of Cold Snap, but from the sounds there were at least three. Besides, casting the spell even once would take a lot out of him, especially now, in his weakened state.

‘I have to hide.’

Fortunately, the creature moved straight ahead into the living room rather than taking the stairs. Albek took this chance to move further back into the hallway. Quickly scooping up a dazed puppy, he checked his options. The side doors in this hall had huge holes in them. The only other choice was the master bedroom—but he’d just closed that door, and he didn’t want to risk it creaking and alerting the monsters downstairs. The carpeted floor muffled his footsteps, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

As if on cue, another series of thumps came from downstairs as a second monster entered.

He didn’t have any options, really. Bending down, he looked through the hole of the door on the right, but couldn’t see anything inside except darkness. He carefully lifted Dune through, then put his bat down on the carpet and squeezed himself through the hole. He had to hold his breath to fit without scraping the sides of the hole and risk making a sound. This wouldn’t have been possible before, but he was practically a skeleton now. Once inside, he retrieved his bat and tried to ascertain his surroundings.

Now that he was inside he could make out the dim outlines of some furniture. A single bed took up most of the room. To his right was a closet, but it had no doors—

A creak from the staircase interrupted his deliberations. It sounded very close to the top.

Albek scooped up Dune and shoved her under the bed. Ducking around the corner so as to be hidden from the hallway, he stood, bat at the ready. If he got off a Cold Snap quickly enough, it may not have time to scream and alert the others; but he doubted a single spell would be able to kill something bigger than him.

There was another option, however, wasn’t there? Albek’s stomach started to grow warm and he tensed. Could he drain the living as well as the dead? Maybe. Something told him that a living creature would have a lot more of that energy than the corpses in the master bedroom did. He licked his lips, and was about to step out from his hiding spot when he caught himself.

‘What are you doing, idiot?!’

He stifled his hunger. That was close. If he lost control here again, it would be the last idiotic decision of his life.

There was the sticky sound of bare feet on wood from the hall, followed by fingernails scratching on metal. The creature was at the door to the master came bedroom, possibly drawn by the smell of death.

‘Yes, just go in there. Ignore the side rooms.’

A few moments passed before it worked out how to use the handle. The door creaked open and the creature went inside. Albek covered his ears, which turned out to be the right decision, as a scream came moments later.

Tentatively, he removed a hand and listened. There was a lot of movement from the room: things were moved around and there were squealing and grunting noises. Then, the two other creatures arrived at the top of the stairs. Albek felt a chill run down his nape.

‘All of them are nearby. If they find me now, I don’t have a chance.’

He considered hiding under the bed with Dune. The only reason he didn’t is because he had an image of the monsters finding him there, unable to fight or run. He eyed the window. There were bushes underneath it, right?

The three creatures sounded like they were having a party in the master bedroom, sometimes letting out more little squeals, sounds of what might have been joy, but they didn’t scream any more. He was pretty sure they were eating.

Albek didn’t want to think about whatever it was they were eating.

After what felt like an eternity, they began to shuffle out, dragging behind them their spoils. The first headed down the stairs, and the second followed. But the third remained upstairs. Albek heard it leave the master bedroom and then it went to the door across from Albek’s room and he heard it crawl through the hole.

‘Just leave shit shit shit...’

Thinking eloquent thoughts, Albek readied himself, knowing the thing would try his door next. He reached for Cold Snap, the same spell that nearly killed him earlier, and found that it came with an ease that surprised him. The mana he needed seemed to coil itself around his arm, just waiting for him to say the triggering word that would unleash it. In his anxious state, Albek didn’t dwell on the fact that he no longer needed both his hands for the spell.

He was thankful it was responding so readily, because at that moment the creature left the other room and started towards his.

As soon as he heard it start to make its way through the hole, Albek rounded the corner and whispered the incantation through clenched teeth, blasting off the spell towards the head that was poking through. The monster was halfway through, caught in an awkward spot where it couldn’t easily retreat or advance.

As the spell completed, Albek felt a horrible draining sensation and fell to his knees, his bat clattering to the floor. Like before, he became dizzy. But the creature wasn’t dead. It recoiled, and with frantic motions it began to free itself from the door. He couldn’t tell if it were trying to get in or out. In the few seconds of breathing space he got, Albek saw that it didn’t really seem to have any facial features he could recognize: at least, none that he could see in the dim light. But as he watched, a long vertical slit opened across its face.

‘Is that a mouth?!’

If it screamed, he’d be done for. He had to stop it, now.

Pushing past the weakness and dizziness, he lunged forward, wrapping his hands around the monster’s throat. It was cold and slimy: more amphibian than human. The shocking texture nearly made him let go immediately, but he fought through his revulsion. That’s when he thought he saw its face start to unfold.

Its face began to lose all recognizable shape and started to wriggle, but it didn’t seem to be dying. Goosebumps erupted on his back and he struggled to overcome the growing urge to take his chances with the window.

There was a second conflicting urge in Albek, however, and it ended up winning. He called on the heat in his stomach and found that it answered his call almost as readily as his spell had earlier. The draining ability he’d used on the cat-monster’s corpse activated, but found itself squaring up against a far stronger resistance. If before he’d been drinking from a cup, it felt now like he was trying to inhale a tank of water through a twenty-foot-long straw. Some might have been getting through, but only superficial amounts.

This revolting creature was physically far weaker than the cat monsters, only about as strong as a human. It made up for its weaknesses with that special ability. At this moment, as Albek began to drain it, he started to feel that this creature—this monster—was his prey. He was absorbing it and nourishing himself upon the weak. This was proper. It was the right thing to do. The warmth flowed into him, heating him up from the inside.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard a ringing noise.

As this strange shift in the power dynamic took place, a part of him saw that he was once again slipping into the state that drew him here in the first place.

But wasn’t this exactly what he needed right now? The two other monsters were probably still around. He needed this strength if he wanted to beat them. He was aware of his growing recklessness, but in an odd way, he was more than happy to take a backseat let his hunger run wild. His rational side was still there, still observing. It just didn’t need to interact with the world quite so much.

So, he let himself go. As soon as he did, the bothersome noise stopped.

That instant, the influx of life from the monster increased, like a drain had just been unclogged, allowing fresh strength to flow into Albek’s body. He was rapidly recovering now, and the creature began to weaken in equal measure. Its head folded back in on itself, shrinking down and reforming itself into an approximation of humanity. It began to struggle even more violently, getting one hand on Albek’s face and tearing at his cheeks.

Albek leaned away as far as he could as the creature’s searching fingers tried to find his eyes. Soon, it became too weak to even do that, and it slumped powerlessly, allowing Albek to drain it dry. Upon its expiration, Albek felt a rejuvenating surge, far greater than the corpse from earlier had given him. As the last of its energy entered him, he flexed his fingers with a grim smile. He was nearly back to full.

This confirmed that the monsters gave more energy alive than dead. Logical, if this really was their life he was sucking out.

The corpse was dry and shrunken: light enough for him to pull into the room and throw out of the way. Just as he was considering hunting down the other two monsters, they made the decision for him. The door in front of him burst open, revealing that it was not, in fact, locked.

“Tsivuk!” he yelled, casting the spell even as he dove to the floor for his bat.

Again, casting the spell made him woozy. But it wasn’t as bad this time and he managed to recover his bat and take several steps back, ready for action.

Action came.

One creature, struck head-on by Albek’s spell, had staggered backwards into the hall, but a second one stalked through the door undeterred. The creature before him was lit by the vestiges of sunlight, allowing Albek to make out some features.

This one was even taller than the others, nearly seven feet in height. It was completely hairless, wearing what may have once been a button-down shirt and jeans but were now only undersized rags. It had pale grey skin, two black, bulbous, insect-like eyes, and no nose to speak of unless the tiny hole in the center of its face counted. But even as he watched, several cracks formed along its cheeks, running down to the central hole, which began to widen along those same seams. Four triangular flaps of skin peeled back, inverting the thing’s entire face to reveal a black, flesh-like interior. Inside, there were more petal-like layers, and as they began to spread out, Albek realized what he’d been seeing the start of from the first of these monsters he killed.

His strength suddenly failed him, the warmth that had been fueling him dissipating, and he stumbled backwards and fell on his rear. He came to the groggy realization that the thing must have been screaming for a while now. Weird, he hadn’t even heard it. The creature descended on Albek, who sat dumbly staring at his approaching demise.

It may very well have killed him then and there if not for a small figure that shot out from under the bed. Dune saw the monster falling upon Albek and ran out, barking and nipping at the thing’s legs.

Hadn’t she been affected by its attack herself? He couldn’t figure it out.

The monster jerked back in surprise, kicking at Dune. Albek fuzzily noticed that it was wearing cowboy boots with a little star on them.

When the boot connected, sending Dune flying, Albek was given a jolt. He got up on one knee as he tried to remember how to stand. The monster, unwilling to give him a chance, turned on him again. He tried to remember the spell, but it wasn’t coming to him.

As the horrible flesh-flower drew nearer, Albek saw in its center a throat-sized hole circled by dozens of sharp teeth. Several thin stalks—tongues—protruded from this hole like the stamens of a flower.

He held up his baseball bat, which he still hadn’t released, and the monster—either unable to see it or unable to care—lunged at him, slamming into it with its nightmarish mouth. The business end of the weapon went straight down its throat. It reared back, letting out a gurgled, choking sound and taking the bat with it.

Ah, he could hear again.

It whipped its head around, trying to dislodge the bat. Several petals flexed around it like extra appendages, tugging at it. Albek wasted no time, leaping forward to grab its wrist. He began draining. For a few seconds, this strategy worked, but the thing soon found the handle of the bat and pulled it out, dripping with digestive juices. It threw it aside, then set upon Albek.

He had to let go of its wrist and scramble backwards to avoid the mouth, but in the small room, he found himself quickly backed into a corner. He lifted his hand to cast Cold Snap, but the monster was faster. It jumped on him and clamped down on the hand with several of the petals that comprised its head. Albek felt a sharp, searing pain and once again, the concentration required to cast the spell fled from his mind.

Through the agony, however, he realized suddenly that he could sense something from within the monster, deep down in its body. It was like a large rope, twined by hundreds of gossamer-thin strands. It was alive and wriggling.

In a way that had absolutely nothing to do with taste, it looked delicious.

He felt that it was close, so close. Just a bit further and he could obtain it. The now familiar hunger reached out, and in his mind, a tiny mouth opened up on the palm of his hand that was deep in the thing’s throat and clamped onto the illusory rope.

A strange notification from Embryo blinked in front of Albek, but he willed it away with a thought. He couldn’t be distracted here.

When fresh energy began to suffuse him, he knew this wasn’t just a rope, but something closer to an abstraction of the thing’s life-force. He’d gone a step further than before, and his grasp was much stronger. As its energy left it, the monster quickly realized what was happening to it and began to mount a resistance.

Luckily for him, draining didn’t require the finesse that casting a spell required; it was more a contest of willpower than anything else. While it still took up all his concentration, that concentration was pulled in a single direction rather than the dozens of tiny details that something like Cold Snap required.

This battle of wills still wasn’t easy, though. The dead cat from earlier didn’t resist at all, and the first wounded flower-monster put up a little fight, but this monster was barely hurt, and unwilling to give up quickly. Albek gritted his teeth against the building agony from his hand. It felt like it had been put in a slowly tightening vise lined with razors and then filled with acid, but the steady trickle of rejuvenating energy seemed to barely counteract whatever damage the creature caused his hand.

Several drops of the monster’s spittle fell on Albek’s face and started to burn, but he barely noticed.

The monster resisted in both mind and body: it began to thrash about, still without releasing his hand. It tried to push closer to him and wrap its petals around Albek’s head, which would spell the end of his resistance. He growled and leaned back, maneuvering his legs in between them, keeping the thing away from his vital areas.

Albek growled as he fought with the thing, viciously tugging at its essence until the blood vessels in his eyes burst and he thought he might even lose his hand. With an ultimate effort that turned his vision white, he finally felt the monster’s life wink out.

It was like a dam had burst: a flood of energy infused him, far greater than any before. It was sudden this time, rather than a gradual thing, but with risk comes reward. He pulled his hand from the dead monster’s throat. He felt like it had been put through a tenderizer.

The third and final monster reentered the room a moment later, having recovered some from his first spell, only to immediately be met with a second blast of freezing air to the face. Albek strode over as it writhed on the ground, grabbed its throat with his good hand and, after a brief struggle that seemed all the easier after the last one, sucked it dry, topping off what the minimal expenditure of the spell cost him. He even felt that with this final kill, he’d added a little something on top.

In the corner of his vision, several notifications flashed by.

Milestone Reached!

Stat advancement: Stamina: 9 -> 10

Stat advancement: Agility: 10 -> 11

Stat advancement: Thauma: 9 -> 10

Albek stood, panting, observing the hand that had been inside the monster’s mouth. It was in a horrible state: the skin was a mess of scars, mottled red and raw, and his pinky and ring fingers had been chewed off at the knuckle. It seemed that the life force from the monster had healed it enough to stop the bleeding and set the bones of his hand—which he was certain had been broken in the struggle—but it hadn’t regrown the lost digits.

Then, he looked around, taking in the sight of three drained corpses, and despite his ragged state, a hint of pride welled up from within him.

A whimper snapped him out of the short reverie. Dune lay in a heap by the bedside table, trying to get up. The puppy had saved him earlier, allowing him to snap out of the stunned state that the monster’s scream had placed him in, but she had taken a beating for her efforts.

Albek glanced at her. She was weak. A non-threat. He wondered if draining another creature would allow his fingers to grow back, despite being so small—

no

He paused. What was that? Shaking his head, he took a step towards Dune.

NO

And a strange ringing noise in his ears gave him a sudden sense of vertigo, making him stumble and fall to his knees. There was a muffled shouting, as if coming from a great distance.

What was going on? Was this another attack by a monster? Had he still not recovered? But he was powerful now; stronger than he’d ever been! He gritted his teeth and tried to stand.

The room continued to spin, and the ringing grew louder to the point that it almost drowned out the voice that sounded like it was shouting at him through a wall. Then, as ringing and shouting reached a crescendo in pitch, his world cut to black.

Albek Shokarov lay on the dusty shag carpet, for all the world as dead as the monsters that lay by him.

Time passed, and as the moon lowered over the spindly trees outside, eerie shadows were born. They lengthened, climbing through the window, over the bed and the corpses, and onto the senseless body of the boy as the night went on, dancing a strange, ghostly step.

In time, the lightning-like pattern of dark striations that covered his body began to recede under his clothes, drawing back into his stomach. Soon, the only tendrils left on his skin were those cast by the midnight branches: a weave of shadows that waltzed to the tune of the wind.

- - -

The dusky glow of a flickering candle illuminated a small, comfortable-looking room packed with handmade furniture. The windows had been boarded up with plywood and, perched on a coffee table carved from a cedar tree, there were two glasses of amber liquor.

Jameson Bray sat in an armchair and faced forward, gaze distant and contemplative. Across from him was Hemash, seated in his wheelchair.

The candlelight reflected off the frames of Hemash’s reading glasses, ringing his eyes in fire. The two men remained silent as he slowly flipped a black, featureless locket over and over again in his hands.

The quiet was broken when Hemash spoke.

“That child of mine reminds me of my wife, sometimes.”

A pause stretched on until Jameson picked up his glass of whiskey and took a sip.

“Which one?” he responded.

“Albek.”

“How d’you mean?”

Hemash thought for a moment, chewing over the words with his eyes still fixed on the object in his hand.

“His… personality. He is obedient. Sometimes even too much so, yes? But from time to time, he breaks character.”

“Sounds like any other kid to me,” Jameson said.

“No, no, not like that. His mother was similar. She would always listen to what I said, which I thought was good. But sometimes, she just wouldn’t. Wouldn’t listen. She’d fade out, become distant. And she wouldn’t be sorry. It was like she was tired. Or bored, perhaps. That’s when she would go and do something that surprised me.”

Jameson chuckled softly, “So Albek ignores his dad, too. No wonder he and Chel get along so well.”

Hemash finally turned away from the locket, and with his free hand, he picked up his glass, swirling the liquid around.

His mind traveled back to ten years ago, before Liyne was born, when he lived with Umeith and Albek in the old manor in Kalk. He still had the use of his legs then, though the disease was beginning to make itself known.

One day, he’d been moving down a hallway in the house when he heard whispering from inside a spare room. Glancing inside, he noticed two figures standing and facing one another. He saw his son, five years old then, and the back of his wife.

Albek had been standing stock-still in the dim room, looking up at Umeith. Hemash immediately noticed the strangeness of this situation, but might have shrugged it off, used to far stranger occurrences, if not for the look in Albek’s eyes.

They were empty.

They reminded him of the summer sky over Kalk—burning, expansive, but flat—holding nothing inside.

Could a child have those eyes?

Perhaps Hemash made a noise, because at that moment Umeith lifted her head and began to turn around. In that moment, Hemash was overcome with an inexplicable sense of unease. He backed up. Something would change once their eyes met, and he knew that he wouldn’t like it. He wavered for an instant, then passed by the room and never brought up a word of it since.

Only later, after Umeith left, did he wish he had.

He’d rationalized it away back then. Still, the memory stuck with him through the years. Ever afterward, he had been more cognizant of Umeith’s oddities and, by extension, Albek’s.

Always a mother’s boy. Always obedient. But there was that same odd distance that Hemash often felt between himself and Umeith. He couldn’t ever fully understand or control him. It was like Albek had seen all that he had to offer by the age of five and nothing impressed him, so he lived in his own isolated world. Until Liyne was born.

“And everything changed,” Hemash murmured.

“Whazzat?”

Hemash started. Jameson was grinning at him, the glass of whiskey in his hand nearly empty.

Hemash glanced down at his own glass, finding it similarly depleted. He placed it down on the table with a suspicious glance.

Then, with a practiced motion he had perfected over the past day, he pulled up his friends list, scanning the entries. All of them read the same but one.

Albek_Shokarov

Status: Alive, healthy N/A (lost connection)

Location: North Hill, Sinaq N/A (lost connection)

Send Message / Unfriend / Block

What did it mean? It was like this the first time he checked, shortly after Albek left the house. Was his son killed? He would have thought so, but it only read “lost connection.” If Albek were dead, shouldn’t the status say as much? It said alive when he was alive. The blasted thing should at least be consistent.

Not knowing was worse than anything. Jameson was a good ally, but the man would be stretched thin trying to look after two new additions to his household who couldn’t support themselves. Without Albek, Hemash was too useless. He couldn’t provide food. He failed at protecting their home. He was too fragile to even look for his son. His uses started and ended with his ownership of a pistol and a few rounds of ammo.

With ki, he knew there was hope, but it seemed all so far away. The first choice Embryo had presented him with after the initial decision between magic or ki was the option of going down the path of the cultivator or the path of the warrior.

Will cultivation help him walk? Embryo spoke of cultivators like they were all paragons of humanity, possessed of longevity, health, and power in equal measures. That’s why he’d chosen it, though the path to power through cultivation was longer than that of a warrior. It was ambitious, letting him reach beyond his circumstances towards something greater.

And it felt like he was inserting heated iron needles under his skin.

Hemash was no stranger to pain, but this was pain unlike anything he’d known before. He knew the process of healing himself wouldn’t be an easy one, but he wasn’t sure whether it was working or if he’d just found a creative method of self-torture.

And this was the starting line. He hadn’t even begun true cultivation yet, only the process of purifying his body. It was an optional step, he knew, but it was his best bet at ever standing again. And besides, it was the sort of thing you were able to do either at the start of the path, or never.

He decided right then that if there was no news of Albek by evening on the next day, he would start to cultivate in earnest.

Hemash glanced over at Jameson, who was slowly nodding off, and wheeled to the guest room the man had lent him, disappearing inside.

- - -

Hemash didn’t go to sleep right away. With the locket wrapped safely away, he approached a small desk in the corner of the room. There, resting atop the linens that he’d wrapped it in, was an old, leather-bound notebook slightly larger than his palm. Nearby was a pen that he’d been using to write in it.

Hemash had wracked his brains all day about this mystery when he wasn’t preoccupied with Albek or fanciful notions of revenge against Finlay. Nobody had discovered his secret compartment where he’d hidden the locket, but the notebook, which he’d never seen before, had been somehow placed inside.

The first thing he’d noticed after picking up the book and inspecting it was the smell—it carried the slight smell of something rotten around it, yet the box holding the locket had no such scent, making him think the notebook was a recent addition to the drawer.

He opened it up to the first page. A line of flowing script rested at the very top.

For Hemash Shokarov. I hope that this journal may help ease your worries. Write in it when and as you will.

Underneath, there were a few lines where he’d started some hours earlier:

‘Today was a nightmare. I find myself lost: wondering where this book came from, relieved that the locket was safe, distraught over Albek and Liyne. What does the future hold for them? I can’t protect them like this any longer. Nor can we rely forever on the kindness of others.’

Afterwards, he remembered setting down the pen to chide himself. What was he doing? He’d never kept a journal before. The notebook captured his attention, but he had more useful things to do than complain to an inanimate object. It had been the emotional drain of losing his house along with the recovery of the locket that had pushed him this far, he decided. He’d spend his time better continuing to purify his body or being with his daughter, and had resolved to lock the book away until there was enough time to ponder its mysteries.

That’s what he’d decided, but when words he hadn’t written suddenly started appearing on the page, his thought processes grinded to a halt.

I’m sorry to hear that, Hemash, truly. The road ahead is a rocky one.

Several hours ago, when he saw the rippling words materialize on the page as if penned by an invisible hand, he’d slowly closed the notebook and left the room. Now returned, he picked up his pen to ask a question.

‘Who are you?’ he wrote.

A friend of Umeith’s, I replied.

- - -

Covered in blood that may or may not have been his own, Albek showed up at the Brays’ front door with Dune in his arms an hour after dawn the next morning.

He looked like a corpse fresh from the grave.

BASIC INFORMATION Name Albek Shokarov Titles N/A Race Human (Low) Age 16 STATISTICS Strength 11 Vitality 11 Stamina 10 (▲1) Agility 11 (▲1) Dexterity 13 Thauma 10 (▲1) Ki 0 DETAILS Skills Shimmer [Lv0], Cold Snap [Lv0], ‣∺𝓪♖♦ [Lv⟰][EXCLUdəㅬ-] Class Neophyte [Tier 0] Status Effects [EXCLUDED]