The first ritual was mostly familiar, it was a more complete version of the voice activated ritual with a delay. The only difference was that this version sent a burst of mana after the delay. He couldn’t think of a situation where that would be useful.

The next ritual in the packet would be great for when he went out hunting. It grew a small rock enclosure that could be used as a shelter at night. It might be a bit wasteful to use a mana stone every night, but Hugo could afford it.

The final ritual in the packet took up eight pages. It was a high level ritual that required a mana core. It took Hugo some time to figure out what it did. At first he thought it was instructions on how to create an advanced golem. The creation would look like a real person which was impressive, but Hugo thought that was a bit wasteful. Life mages could create golems without spending a king’s ransom.

Then he read the final page. It detailed a final step in the process with complicated jargon. If he was understanding it correctly, it allowed someone to move their soul over to the new body. If that was true, it would be mind blowing. The possibilities. Old rich people would pay literally anything to get a new young body. No wonder the government wanted to restrict these types of rituals.

Hugo lay back on his bed and thought about the implications. Old and powerful people being given a second lease on life, maybe living forever if this ritual worked more than once. That probably wasn’t possible, there would be a bunch of immortals running around if it were true.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that this ritual must not work. It was too groundbreaking and fantastical. If it was real, the government would never let it out of their sight. A random commissioner for the army wouldn’t be able to get his hands on a working ritual of this magnitude.

Considerably less freaked out, Hugo got up and went about his day. He spent the next few weeks just relaxing and spending his money like water. Good food, interesting company, fun activities. He went to the casino a few more times, but grew bored of it.

He made sure to practice the rituals and runes he knew. Knowledge was the only thing he could take with him. That and his extra stats. He was really curious what his wisdom stat would be next go around.

When it was the middle of the seventh month, Hugo was hit on again. It was an occurrence that happened every so often, regardless of what he wore or where he was. He hated it. He wanted the attention of beautiful women, not men with poor impulse control. He really missed his own body. It wasn’t perfect, but it was his. He was tired of being a woman.

Slowly, he had an idea come to him that he couldn’t ignore. The ritual with the golem might be able to help him out. The final page was all about redirecting a soul to the correct body. It even had circuits that directed the soul. Maybe he could talk to Alexandru about possibly fixing the ritual so he could get back into his own body.

It was a bit illogical to try and change something now so that something different would happen in the past, but then again, time travel was illogical in the first place. He was going to try. Besides, Hugo remembered runes on the ritual circle Alexandru made. Maybe he was pacted with the Acomarians too and he could teach Hugo something.

Either way, he packed up and left for Tallinn. The train was going southwest around the wheel, and one more stop after this was his hometown of Reval. Maybe he would visit after he talked to Alexandru. He dropped off his bags and armor at a hotel near the train station. It wasn’t as nice as the Gilded Lily, but Hugo didn’t plan on staying long.

Ideally, they would be leaving for the mountain top soon. Less ideally, he would be here just long enough to learn some Acomarian rituals.

It didn’t take long to find Alexandru. His ridiculous robes were easy to spot from a distance. The man must visit this restaurant all the time. At least this time he didn’t have a bunch of spies trying to pry secrets out of him. He was sitting alone, looking a bit depressed actually.

“Hello Alexandru, glad to see you. Can I join you?” Hugo said.

Alexandru looked up and up, eventually saying, “Do I know you?”

“Forgotten me already? How many riese do you send back in time with your ritual?” Hugo said with a smile.

A dim spark of recognition flashed across Alexandru’s eyes, “Oh, yeah. I just wasn’t expecting you here. Please sit.”

Hugo sat down at the outdoor table. He had to be careful with the chair, it had been made for humans. There weren’t very many nox or riese in town.

“You know, you cost me a lot of business this year. I have had several people willing to pay for my ritual expertise up on shimmer mountain, but your note made me wary of interacting with anyone interested in my theories.”

Hugo reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. He flipped it over to Alexandru and said, “Consider that my apology.” Hugo continued with an explanation of Deva and their spies. Alexandru seemed mollified by the money and the explanation. Hugo then explained how he had been body hopping, and the nodes going dark as he jumped back in time.

“Which brings me to my request for you today. I wanted to ask you. Do you think we can do anything today that would affect how the ritual works?” Hugo said, dreading the answer.

“Of course we can,” Alexandru quickly said.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s not the ritual six months ago that is sending you back in time, it’s the current one. The massive amounts of shimmer in the air trigger a sympathetic connection to the shimmer powering my ritual on the mountain top. If you want to affect the ritual, you just need to go up there and make some changes,” Alexandru said and took a sip of his drink.

“So we can make sure I go back into my own body next time?” Hugo said excitedly.

“Maybe, I am not sure. I don’t really understand a lot of the ritual, I put together lots of different components over the years. Maybe if I had a few days to work on it, we might be able to give you a better chance of getting the body you want,” Alexandru said.

“Are you pacted with the Acomarians? Maybe I can help, that’s who I choose too,” Hugo said.

“You aren’t really supposed to talk about that, you know. Your pact is a very personal thing,” Alexandru said, “I don’t want to talk about it ever again, but I will tell you my primary pact is with Hephestus. I won’t tell you who my other pacts are with for obvious reasons.”

“Alright, either way, I still want to try,” Hugo took out fifty gold and poured it onto the table as he said, “I am hiring you and a team of mountain guides to take me up to the circle and at least look at the ritual. We won’t change anything if we aren’t sure that we will be effective.”

Alexandru picked up the gold and said, “This isn’t enough.”

“Fifty gold isn’t enough?” Hugo said, shocked.

“It’s probably more money than I have ever seen in one place, let alone owned,” Alexandru said as the last of it disappeared into his robes. He continued, “You are giving me all of this because it’s play money to you. You plan on doing this year over again, so none of this will matter. I need more than money I can’t ever spend.”

Hugo hadn’t thought of it that way. From Alexandru's perspective, this conversation will never have happened. Hugo said, “How am I supposed to pay you then? A promise that I will pay you fifty gold again after I time travel?”

“No, you might not get as lucky your next go around, I need something better,” Alexandru said.

Hugo frowned. He would totally make this money again next time around. Still, he got what Alexandru was driving at. “Alright. I travel through the mountain every time I travel back in time. How about I tell you what I have seen inside, and what I have learned about its purpose?”

Alexandru leaned forward and hungrily said, “Yes! And you will tell me it all again when you see me in the past.”

“Of course,” Hugo said. He explained what he had learned about the Acomarian ritual inside the mountain, and what it looked like. He made a few guesses about what phase two might be. Alexandru and Hugo talked late into the night, going over every little detail several times.

Two days later, they were headed towards shimmer mountain. The round trip train ticket for the group of them cost the rest of the money Hugo had. He didn’t care. Like Alexandru said, it was play money at this point.

Accompanying them were three more mountain guides. Hugo had asked for the brothers Fermi and Feynman to accompany them. He knew them to be good people, and he wanted to talk runes with them on the trip. The final member of the group was a woman named Roxana. She was a competent barrier mage, and the powerhouse of the group.

Climbing the mountain didn’t take as long as his first trip up. Since everyone was soulmarked, they didn’t have to keep a mundane pace. To no one’s surprise, Alexandru was the slowest one of the group. It wasn’t just that he had the lowest physicality of everyone, he kept flinching back as monsters attacked.

Roxana did the majority of the monster killing as they went up the mountain, with Fermi and Feynman providing close up support with their runed spears. As they jogged up the mountain, Hugo enjoyed discussing armor design with the two runists.

The first night in the stronghold, Hugo batted his eyes at the brothers and asked them to teach him something. They said it would take too long to teach him a new rune. They taught him something better. It was a way to spread the effects of a single rune over a group of objects. They used something called affinity to get one rune to spread its effects over several items of armor. Their armor only had one durability rune, but the whole set was durable.

Hugo was ecstatic to learn the process. Not just because it would improve his armor. He could also use it for the disregard rune. It would give him the ability to quickly make a full outfit of clothes that would be great for sneaking into places.

His good mood was well and thoroughly smashed when they arrived at the top of the mountain. As Alexandru was sweeping off the ritual, Hugo made a startling discovery.

“There should be four nodes glowing, I only see three,” Hugo said.

Alexandru shrugged, “There aren’t supposed to be any active nodes. I designed it to lose power after the initial soulmarking so people wouldn’t keep getting sent back in time. I guess it’s finally working.”

“Those active nodes are what have been sending me back in time. I need them. Are they going to keep randomly disappearing?”

“How should I know?” Alexandru said.

Hugo threw his hands up, “Because it’s your ritual!”

“This is a ritual dedicated to three different gods, powered by a machine older than the wheel. Of course I don’t understand every little part of it,” Alexandru fired back.

Roxane spoke up, “I am sure you can still fix it though, right?”

“Well, I mean,” Alexandru said as he peered at the ritual, “I usually just slap things together and see how it works. I am going to have to add a bunch of stuff and... it’ll probably work.” After a few moments, Alexandru laughed to himself and said, “Whoops, I forgot that was there. Ok, not so confident anymore.”

Hugo handed over the soul directing part of the ritual he had gotten from the commissioner. "This should help you with your confidence. It's a method for moving the soul around."

"Sorry, I can't use this. I don't understand it at all," Alexandru said and tossed the paper down. He continued to study the ritual. In a voice just barely loud enough for Hugo to hear, Alexandru said, "What the heck is that thing?"

Pacing back and forth, Hugo started to panic a bit. A wyvern flew up to the plateau, Hugo made an enormous blue mace and smacked it out of the air in frustration. He screamed into the sky. Hugo regretted coming here with Alexandru. He should have known better to trust someone that he knew for a fact made mistakes. He should have gotten ahold of a better ritualist from the get go.

“That’s it. We are leaving right now. Don’t touch the ritual, Alexandru. I don’t want you to mess it up and doom us all,” Hugo growled out.

Hugo was furious all the way down the mountain. That man had gotten his hopes up, and now it looked like he was going to have to give up entirely. With the nodes losing power, he couldn’t count on trying again. He needed to go blow up a shimmer substation and restart right away.

It didn’t matter which of the three bodies he ended up in next time. His next life was going to be his permanent body. It would be his last chance to save the wheel.