The wizard was several unexpected things at once: not a wizard, first of all, nor a man. Corbin had expected an old guy in robes. Nope, no robes either.

The warlock, however, was a female fae.

“I don’t know how a warlock is different from a wizard,” he told her.

“A warlock? Oh, they’re magic-users who didn’t have what it took to be wizards, and they were cool with getting the rest of the power and knowledge from a pact with a being of limitless evil.”

He had known that. His D&D knowledge should’ve picked that up. One part of him was so glad pieces of his memory had come back, and he was especially glad most of the memories he’d gotten were about how to survive in this new situation, as much as he’d like information on the girl he’d only glimpsed. At least the stat blocks, the classes and species, the abilities and card mechanics were all useful. He didn’t have advanced knowledge of spreadsheets and databases or all the NBA all stars dating back to 1991 or something.

Warlock.

“And this is the person we’re here to rescue,” she said quietly after a few silent moments of contemplation.

“Correct.”

She swore again. This tiefling had at least three different versions of the word ‘cunt’, and a number of the prisoners in the wagon perked up at the tirade.

“This deal keeps looking worse and worse the longer we’re in Densmeer.”

“After we rescue this person we can just head for a different place.”

She considered this, and finally decided against it. “Now we have to figure out what’s going on there. Get you transformed and stop it. I have to imagine you’ll be more helpful as a… human.”

“Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Every time you think the word ‘human’ you shudder with revulsion.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I guess,” he said. “I was just curious.”

“I fell in love with one,” she told him after a few moments.

“Oh.”

And apparently that was enough of an explanation for her, because she didn’t elaborate. It didn’t work out, clearly. Or the one she fell in love with died… not quite the same but maybe equally as devastating.

Instead she let him watch, and wonder, and plan. Time passed, the sun kept sinking, and for a short time, they had the wizards out front providing light for the army to move. They had seeds or sand or something, and spread it out over the road so the mounted ones (on their billigs and with their peacock bison things) wouldn’t break an ankle in a pothole. After all nine of the wizards did this, they’d advanced perhaps another mile or so, when the commander called a halt and got them to set up a quick series of cookfires, a handful of tents, and a perimeter.

The fae warlock was the only fae Corbin had seen with reddish hair. It seemed to seethe and writhe like the coals in a campfire when they were still ridiculously hot, but when the flames were beginning to recede. She was watching the camp with her hair over one eye, but it was clear she had a close eye on them, looking for a moment when the wagon guard would get careless and walk too close. That coiled look.

“Go tell her your name is Kyessy and you’re here to rescue her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“And she’ll say aren’t you supposed to be taller?”

“Stop.”

“And then you mime taking off a helmet. Wait… I think he takes off the helmet first and then says it. Crap.”

“What are you–“

“I’m trying to remember my life before this, okay! Give me a minute, sheesh.”

Kyessy tapped the woman with the slightly orange-tinted skin on the shoulder, and the two of them had a very complicated conversation that didn’t use words or telepathy, as far as Corbin could tell. Kyessy’s face twitched a few times, and her eyes shot up towards to lock on Corbin. The warlock’s eyes also fell on Corbin. She raised her eyebrows a bit and glanced down toward the soldier with the keys, a dwarf. She then glanced at the wizards.

“The cloak isn’t working.

“I’ll handle the distraction,” he said, and took flight.

He activated Mimicry once he was just outside the perimeter. Kyessy’s harsh cadence barked out of the darkness. “You. Are. Not. Welcome.”

He couldn’t tell if the guards were alerted by any dumb video game noise or an exclamation point above their heads, but from the sudden hush that came over a pair of them, rage Kyessy had succeeded. He took off and threw out another one.

“YOU. ARE. NOT. WELCOME.”

“The wizards!” Kyessy shouted into his mind.

He made a beeline for the central tent, where a cry had gone up and people were groggily reacting to the alarm bell. Some were stuffed full of food, others were dropping food where they sat, but all of them had hiked all day and were exhausted. That would help. He landed on the top of the command tent, used Versatility to switch up his Perception and Charm, and let out a Terrifying Aura.

“CAW!” he roared, and the dripping croak of a thousand ravens reverberated around the camp atop a wobbling bass.

The effect was immediate, and most importantly, it hit the wizards hard. They either didn’t have good saves against the aura, or they had Charm as a dump stat and couldn’t handle the effect. They tripped over their wizard robes, dropped their focuses or staves or wands in a few cases, and one of them smashed face first into a wagon. That one had knocked himself out. He used Versatility again, switched up his new Charm with his Strength, and landed on the soldier with the keys Kyessy had identified. He wrenched the keys away from the man and tossed them up to the waiting hand of the warlock. A moment later he shot forward toward one of the wizards who had himself together. With both Unerring Aim and Fireburst Arrow, he took the young man with the horrible goatee high in the chest and singed all the hair off his head. His hood erupted in flame even as it fell back away from his face to reveal a half-human half-fae now bright red and hairless.

You have dealt the Fellwroth Army Caster 28 damage!

You have taken 4 damage from the impact.

“Booyah!” he went to say, except it came out as, “Cawr!”

The red bar overtop the wizard’s head drained down by about a third, which wasn’t enough for Corbin’s taste, but apparently got through the wizard’s sense of duty and bravado. He scrambled off, shrieking and dunked his head in a bucket of pig slop.

By the time Corbin turned back, the gate of the prison wagon was open, the warlock had stepped out, and her hands were already covered in flames of problematic colors. Had he not traded out his Perception, he might have noticed the purple eye that stood out on her forehead, and licked flames around her reddish hair like a circlet or crown. The twin fires mostly burned purple, but had sickly greenish bits, where a regular fire might lick up in dull red away from its yellow-white center. More purply plus greeny flames were erupting around the feet of the men, the places where the wagon wheels touched the earth, and around all the tents. In moments, hideous fire spread up

“Get those griffins!” he shouted.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Kyessy returned savagely.

Screeches followed, far in the distance, of birds twice the size of horses. It struck him that griffins were earth creatures, of a sort. Mythical creatures out of Greek and Roman myth, he thought, and it was strange that they should happen to be on the cards of this other world. Then he remembered nothing made much sense, and just went with it. The sooner he could get used to this, the better.

A cascade of window pop-ups appeared in his vision while men screamed and died, beginning with You have defeated common billig! And following with some xp. After that, You have defeated Fellwroth soldier x28! You have defeated Fellwroth soldier x19! And moving on from there with the wizards, the pack beasts, the rangers, the commander, the commander’s aides, and finally the civilians… the AI was pretty reproachful at the last one, as if he was responsible for snuffing out each of the cooks and washerwomen. It was so much he couldn’t handle it all. However, the little exclamation point appeared that let him know he’d gained a level.

Just kidding, he’d gone from level 6 to level 10.

“Did you just go up in level?” he asked Kyessy quietly.

“No, why?”

“No reason.”

It had to be because he engaged all of them with his abilities. He was almost entirely sure this was a table-top RPG rule from multiple Sword & Sorcery style games: you participated and put yourself in danger, you got XP just like the person who did the killing.

He immediately jumped into his SPECIAL attribute array, threw two points into Perception, two points into Intelligence, and two into Agility. The other four he put into Luck, and marveled that it was now at 20. The game didn’t even warn him about a maximum score, like with Strength, Endurance or Charm. Ha! He could end up with a Luck of a million thousandy jillion.

After that, he got another skill point for 8th level, and another ability upgrade for 10th. For the skill he decided to continue being the spotter, so he chose Survey, and that went double for his ability. He figured he ought to upgrade True Sight, which bizarrely went to True Sight Rank 2 (dumb) instead of being like Diamond Sight or Unwavering Sight. He pecked at the ability to make a hundred percent sure he knew what he was getting.

True Sight includes the ability to see through all non-magical attempts to hide, all illusions lower than the character’s level, and all traps and hidden doors in dungeons. At level 2, you gain the ability to see and differentiate magical auras, and on Perception success, use aura residues to track casters.

Note: High concentrations of magical energies, multiple casters, or the natural flow of magic in the area may hamper this ability.

Terrifying Aura was good, but the next upgrade of Terrifying Aura (Terrifying Aura Level 2: lame) only gave him ‘increased effectiveness’ which didn’t sound like a decent boost at all. Mimicry Level 2 sounded all right, giving him the ability to throw his voice and extend his speech to two whole sentences.

It was difficult, seeing as he was responsible for breaking Kyessy out of issues with his other abilities as well, but in this case he decided: if he kept his eyes open better, they’d prevent issues like this going forward. True Sight Level 2 it was.

The effect of this upgraded True Sight was immediate: auras popped to life all around him. Kyessy had an aura; the warlock had an aura. The soldiers and wizards, even the dead ones, all had auras.

All of them were fiery style glowy things radiating off the body, but after that, most were easy to distinguish from one another. Kyessy’s was green threaded through with red, lapping off her body like flames, occasionally sparking this way and that or curling into shapes that almost could’ve been recognizable as something. At times the shape radiating around her head seemed wolf-like, other times sort of bear-like, and once he was sure he saw the shadow of a croc’s mouth extending off her head.

This warlock’s, by contrast, was a swirling purplish black, but threads of red and gold surged thorugh it like capillaries. Or like chains, squeezing into her aura wherever they wrapped around behind her body. Rather than radiating out or popping like little fireworks like Kyessy’s, hers dripped and spattered on the ground… it was also much, much bigger than Kyessy’s.

After that, most of the soldiers barely had anything, but mostly white with hints of blue when anything could be seen coming off them.

And his surreal, trippy reverie was cut alarmingly short by several griffins slamming down to earth. One of them caught a wizard who was preparing to cast a spell in Kyessy’s direction, and thankfully Corbin was spared the horror of seeing what came next by the huge feathered wings.

A split second later, Kyessy and the warlock were mounted, and launching themselves up into the sky. Corbin spared one look back at the conflagration that had once been an army unit, and watched as their auras retreated into their dead bodies. Then, again, their spirits rose up and stared at the fleeing trio of griffins, only now their spirits were definitely aura colored, flowing and coruscating with shifting colors.

“Insanity,” he said, to himself as it turned out. Kyessy and their rescue were already gone.

The griffins mostly saved them from the army respawning back where they’d slept, just about ten miles further in. They laughed off a handful of feeble fireballs and lightning strikes from the wizards, who couldn’t have had much in the way of MP saved up for offense after all those miles of lighting the road.

They landed a scant half hour later, just outside of Densmeer. The griffins unwound into great big bands of blue and green energy, shrieking up into the sky with their eagle faces. Then they were gone.

The warlock didn’t pay them a second look, but instead turned on her heel and started toward the town.

“Ahem,” Corbin said.

“I’m starving, and I require both a hot bath and a fresh set of clothes,” she called over her shoulder. “Either come along and talk, or talk later.”

“So she can talk,” he said.

Kyessy folded her arms over her chest and snorted.

Corbin followed after, and settled on a nearby tree limb. “You can understand me, yes?” He was pretty sure spellcasters could have familiars, like rangers, so even without the card she wouldn’t simply think of him as a chatty, ugly earth bird.

She didn’t bother stopping. “Of course.”

“A thank you might be nice.”

She threw back her head and cackled at the sky. It wasn’t something he’d seen a fae do, and it leant her a feeling of instability. “Oh, that’s rich. I’m sure they couldn’t possibly have gotten to you and your pet ranger back there before her griffins got near. Yes, wow, thank you so much for saving my life! The two of you valiantly and competently executed a masterful rescue plan, without a flaw or hitch. I’m in your debt, you… what in the nine hells are you, out of curiosity?”

“I’m from the other world. Call me Corbin.”

That got a bit of pause out of her. She seemed ready to stop and begin asking questions, but then cocked her head and listened. A sharp nod later, and she was back on the move.

“Don’t care!”

“I need you to turn me back into a human!”

“What in all the gods’ names would you want to turn into a human?”

“I… that doesn’t matter! I used to be a human, and I’ll be a human again.”

She’d reached the city walls, presented herself as Serrell, and the guards seemed to know who she was, because they hauled open the city gates at once. Even though it was just before dawn, the town was already awake. She shouldered past another pair of guards and was soon in the middle of a throng. The explosion of competing auras made Corbin stop short and squint against the painful oversaturation. Orange, mint green, white and gold all fuzzed together, and each individual had something going on. He tried to turn the ability off for a few moments, and by then the warlock had blended into the background.

He’d lost her. He’d lost the only lead he had on getting back to his normal self, the thing he’d spent an entire week fighting towards, the reason why he’d nearly been killed, the reason why he’d abandoned Priscilla. Gone.

“She won’t get far,” Kyessy reassured him. “She’s headed to the tavern.”

“We have to know where she sleeps,” he said.

“That sounds super creepy.”