The babu or skinless man as they are often called by those who do not know what they are demons of equivalent power to a well-trained warrior. They are soldiers, scouts and assassins for the abyssal armies. While not smart in wit they are skillful and clever in their assignments given by their greater kin. – Common Monsters

Adrian

Walking out of my room as the sun is setting in the windows of the house, I head to where I assume the trio will be. I can hear someone messing with the TV but that just turns out to be Abagail.

I hear the shower turn on at the other end of the house and can assume after getting closer that the trio are using it. I recognize the clothes strewn into the Hall and the door was left open.

I want to go join them but just close the door before they notice me. I’ll get a place ready for them to sleep. Or rather I’ll give them my room and sleep elsewhere, I’ll keep my promise to mom.

After some time, they finish and leave the shower, walking straight into the room I am sitting. K is wearing only a towel as her spare clothes are stored in the void cache and not the twins’ satchel of holding.

I pull out some of K’s clothes and pass them to her as I speak.

“You can spend the night in the room behind me. I have to take care of some stuff so don’t wait on me, and we need to talk in the morning.”

They are tired, I can see it but they want to wait for me. Even so they nod and go into my room. K drops the towel so I can see her as she puts on some clothes slowly but I ignore the tightening of my pants as I smile and walk to the bathroom. It is a mess of spilled water and scattered soap. They did not use the curtains for the shower, with a sigh I close the door behind me and then cause all the spilt water to turn to steam with Fire.

The open window let’s all the steam out and I start my own bath while thinking of what to do the next few days.

There are a lot of things that I need to do before too long:

1 I need to figure out just how the trio sees our relationship, something I should know about but would rather not talk about.

2 Get K or maybe Talia to start teaching me how to fight better.

3 Learn more about anatomy, souls and anything else that could help me get stronger in my magics.

4 Talk mom and my brothers into the idea of traveling towards Colorado.

5 Figure out why my little brothers were so good with the spear, something I know they have not seen before.

6 Do something about dragon-me taking over, so he can’t take control again.

7 Work on me-but-not-me’s Lycanthropy spirit something.

8 Get mom to fully accept some of the world’s changes.

9 Prepare rations and other supplies to get to at least KC.

10 Attempt to get transportation to move around faster, maybe the cars from the squatters?

11 Wrangle more power out of the Grey Dream tonight.

12 Help Bryan and the others fully recover from the fight with the demons.

13 Heal my dragon form.

14 Start learning more languages like this Necol mentioned in one of Damû’s books.

15 Get mom and my brothers to accept the relationship I have with the trio.

I’ll need to reorder these in priority later but for now this is enough to work on for the next few days. Out of the tub I realize that I did not grab a spare set of clothes from my room and contrary to my claims otherwise; I do not actually know where everything is in that 'ordered chaos', just the rough locations. Not enough to use Translocation Grasp.

I walk past my mom when I enter the room wearing only a towel to see that the trio had already fallen asleep, I quickly dress before my mom things anything is going on and leave. Though I do linger long enough to grab extra clothes to avoid unnecessary risk. After returning to the kitchen to get more food, I will need the biomass while healing the dragon body, mom walks up and takes a look at the rather large pile I plan on eating.

Neither of us say anything but she stays for a moment before going off to bed herself. I am not really tired due to the effects of void sustenance and need to get the healing done while no one is watching. Only about two thirds of the body is still around and I don’t want to make anyone worry. Seeing a heavily injured person in battle and in recovery are very different things.

After eating I climb up onto the roof so no one can look out the window and accidently see me before I shift to the dragon from. Pain floods my mind and I can feel blood being drained out of the many wounds that cover this body. I start the healing in the more heavily injured areas and work to stem the flow of my lifeblood onto the roof. I accelerate my metabolism to process the food I just gorged on and the pain begins to lessen ever so slowly.

Lacking the same amount of knowledge about my draconic anatomy as my human form, the healing takes longer and requires greater focus. It is several hours into the night before all the wounds are closed, though the scales take even longer to mend. In the end, I give up on them for tonight as I ran out of mass to use without cannibalizing other parts of the body.

So, I just curl up on the roof and drift to sleep, I should wake up before anyone else does anyways.

I open my eyes to the grey mists of the Grey Dream. I do not like it here because I cannot trust the spirits that run it. They are not my ally and have tried to get me killed, I do not know exactly what they want but it is not to be helpful like they are telling me.

Gain: Dragon Knight: Void 20 (+20SP, +50 EP, +1Attribute Point), Magus 14 (+20SP), Spear 2 (+2SP)

Mixed Kills: + 25EP

Partial Synchronization: +50EP

Demon Slain: +150 EP, +150SP,

Name: Adrian Ravnos

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Skills

Attributes +

Class

SP: 285

Traits

Magic

Languages

EP: 370

There is plenty of power being granted by the dream but it is almost all for dragon-me, not for actual me. I do not want to further empower him; he needs to become me not me become him. I need to get stronger before I let him get stronger again.

I’ll leave the EP for later once I feel strong enough to deal with a stronger dragon-me. I open up the screen for my magic.

320 Arcane Power 4

320Space 2

320 Planar 0

80 Fate 2

320 Life 3

320 Death 3

40 Mind 1

160 Soul 2

80 Primal 1

640 Time 3

40 Transmutation 2

10 Telekinesis 0

40 Fire 3

20 Lightning 2

20 Light 2

40 Darkness 3

I take an increase to Soul and the cost of further purchases on it quadruple. There is defiantly something about what I can do with that Sphere that will be a threat to them. I take an increase in Primal as well. I do not know much about that Sphere other than that it lets me feel when a backlash is building up.

Next I should deal with the attribute point.

Attribute Point: 1

STR 26

DEX 25

CON 28

INT 30

WIS 28

CHA 28

APR 28

HP: 851

Mana: 360

I put the point in charisma since that seems to be to the amount of mana I get. My comprehension is good, I just lack the time to use it. I need a faster track to power. I need strength and I need it quickly, the world is now too dangerous and I have too many factions seeking my death.

This is all I can get out of the Grey Dream, so I close my eyes and leave it. It is easy to leave here, the spirits help but I am not even fully here. Dragon-me and me-but-not-me do not act here though they know what I do. Reading my memory of it probably.

I open my eyes in dragon form. It is just a few minutes past dawn and I am unsure as to why I slept so long. Is it because I feel safer at home? Or perhaps the stress on my body from the healing needed more to be well rested?

It doesn’t matter, I have more important things to do that ponder that question. I’ll get food ready and then get K to teach me some combat skills. I should also talk to her and the twins about what mom said. I may be okay with possibly being more than just a boyfriend for them, but there is no way I am ready for much more than what I already consider us to be. In time, probably, they are mine and I don’t want them to leave me.

I give a mental strike at dragon-me for influencing my thoughts. They are not possessions, they are their own, even if they are my girlfriends.