“Father, let me down. You know me, I’m your son,” Hugo said. He carefully didn’t say his name was Florin, because the light mage would know that was a lie.

Sebastian didn’t move. He still held Hugo by his neck up against the wall. It didn’t really hurt Hugo that much, his resilience was high enough to make it merely unpleasant. Sebastian said, “What are you? Shapeshifter? Selkie? Tanuki? What have you done to my son?”

Milana said, “Dad, let him down. It’s Florin, can’t you see?” She tentatively touched his shoulder as she talked. Ana-Marie had gotten up too, but she didn’t say anything.

“Father, please. This is ridiculous. You are scaring me,” Hugo said honestly, “Shapeshifters aren’t real. Come on. You can see my Acomarian screen, right? What does it say my name is?”

Sebastian’s eyes flashed yellow again and he looked right above Hugo’s head. He seemed unsure after he saw what his domain told him. He relaxed his grip a bit but didn’t let go. “Something is off,” Sebastian said and looked at Milana and Ana-Marie, “He has strange magics swirling around him and he is acting different.”

“I’m me,” Hugo said, “Let me go and we can talk this out.”

“You have seen it, haven’t you? He has been strange lately, hasn’t he?” Sebastian said as he ignored Hugo.

Hugo looked at Ana-Marie with pleading eyes. She said, “Yes. He has been acting strangely. He rarely leaves the house anymore. None of his friends have seen him for a month. He hasn’t gotten drunk once. The maids have told me he stopped ... they told me he is acting differently.”

Swearing internally, Hugo realized that Ana-Marie must have had the same suspicions, she just hadn’t said anything about it to him. Hugo growled and said, “So what? I try to be better and you guys think something is wrong? Damn.” He pushed Sebastian’s arm to the side and stepped away from the wall.

“You two were there, but did you realize what happened in the ritual? People died. Right in front of me. I got soulmarked by sucking up their life energy. That changed me, alright? It made me rethink my priorities. Maybe it messed with my head a bit, I don’t remember some things. And maybe that crazy ritual messed with my magic a bit and that is what you are seeing,” Hugo said.

“That isn’t the whole truth, is it?” Sebastian said.

“Uhg,” Hugo said and threw up his arms, “I am done with this. I am going to my room. Let Mage Polina know I am not practicing today.”

He stomped up the stairs, trying to act like the petulant child they were expecting. It must have worked because they didn’t try to stop him. When he got to his room, he slammed the door shut and flopped on the bed. He shook from the adrenaline dump. That had been close.

The Baden family was a suspicious bunch. He had been in two other families at this point, and neither of them were half as distrustful as this one. His father had thrown him up against the wall just because of something he had seen in Hugo’s core. His mother had a list of things she found suspicious ready at the drop of a hat.

This wasn’t over.

He needed to come up with something to handle their suspicions. He felt like his explanation earlier would have worked with his other families, but not this one. Perhaps the best plan would simply be to limit his interaction with them. The more he stayed away from them, the less they could judge his actions. Apparently his staying at home a lot was already suspicious.

While he lay there, he tried to come up with ideas on what to do if he couldn’t convince them. It was tough. Anything he did would have lasting consequences. He couldn’t just start over again if things went badly.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He probably had the ability to travel back in time if he blew up a shimmer vein today. There had been two active nodes on the mountain, they probably weren’t out of power just yet. They would be by the end of the year, but not yet today.

He shook his head. He needed to focus on this life. He had gotten too used to having a second chance. He needed to take things seriously and get things right.

After another hour or so of thinking, he had come up with a plan. He was going to stay here just long enough to learn what he could from Mage Polina, then he was going to leave. He would tell his family he wanted to learn from the best golem makers. He would do that, in addition to working with the sentinels. If he had minimal contact with his family, eventually they would lose their suspicions and get used to the new him. It had the added benefit of him not needing to be a farmer. It was just a small adjustment of his plan.

The next few days were strained to say the least. Hugo was ready to run at the drop of a hat. He packed himself a go bag and tucked it under his bed. He minimalized his contact with his family and focused on his life mage studies. He slowly got better at healing and manipulating his health points. He didn’t like the looks his family was giving him, and refused to engage with them much.

A few times, one of his family members tried to reminisce with him. They talked about fond memories from childhood. Hugo could tell they were still suspicious of him. He didn’t bother trying to pretend to know what they were talking about. He just acted like he was still mad at them for suspecting he was a shapeshifter.

The day before his pretend harvesting trip with friends, there was a knock on his bedroom door. That was unusual enough that Hugo made sure he was presentable and ready before he answered the door. He was glad he did. There was a whole welcoming committee there.

His father and mother stood to one side, and on the other side was a trio of nox. Based on their dress, it was a nox grandmaster and his guards. Hugo’s mind started racing. What was this all about? The colors on the grandmaster’s robes indicated he had the ritual domain.

Hugo ignore his parents and turned to the nox. He bowed and gave the proper nox greeting to the grandmaster and said, “To what do I owe the pleasure, grandmaster?”

Ana-Marie pointed at Hugo and said, “That. See that? He shouldn’t know how to do that.”

“What is this all about?” Hugo said.

“He is here to help you, Florin,” Ana-Marie said, “He can fix you. A ritual can heal your soul and get you back to the way you were.”

The grandmaster spoke up and said, “I didn’t promise anything, I said I would try.”

Hugo backed up and said, “Whoa. I don’t need fixing. There is nothing wrong with me. You guys are just over reacting to me trying to be a better person. You should be happy, not trying to fix me with whatever this is.” Hugo waved his hands at the nox.

The grandmaster took out a pair of spectacles and put them on his face. “I think I can see what you are talking about, Lord Sebastian. I am not sure you are right about everything, but this is enough for me to investigate.”

“No. You aren’t going to investigate anything,” Hugo said and reached for the door, “There is nothing wrong with me.”

He attempted to slam the door, but one of the guard nox stepped forward to block him. The nox must be a formation mage because Hugo couldn’t overpower him. The nox said, “I am afraid we must insist. Don’t worry. We only have your best interests at heart. Please cooperate.”

Hugo gave up on the door and backed away, “I have a feeling that we disagree on what my best interests are.” He glanced back to the window. He had made sure it was unlocked in case he needed to flee. This was the worst case scenario. He double checked that everything was in place underneath his sleeves.

“Esihle, please subdue him before he does anything rash,” the grandmaster said.

The other nox stepped into the room. Hugo wasn’t going to stick around to find out why they wanted him subdued. He turned and raced towards the window. He heard sounds behind him, they were running after him.

Just before he reached the window, he stumbled and fell. He glanced down just as the pain hit. He had a hole in his calf. His father had drilled a hole through his calf. The jerk. He scrambled for the window as he pushed health points into the wound.

Before he could get the window all the way open, Esihle reached him and sprayed something in his face. Hugo involuntarily took a breath in surprise. He fumbled and slumped down by the window. His eyes grew heavy and he passed out.

...

Hugo slowly came back to awareness. He kept his eyes shut as he tried to figure out where he was. It was dark, there was a droning sound in the background. He felt something on his wrists. It was the disturbingly familiar lead cuffs. He had found himself in magic blocking cuffs way too often. At least this time he could do something about it.

He cracked his eyes open to see if anyone was watching him. There were a few people standing in front of him, but they were facing the other way. He couldn’t see much, but he recognized the window in front of them. Now the droning sound made sense. They were on an airship.

Carefully, so no one could hear him move, Hugo pulled out the lock picks he had stuffed up his sleeve. He was glad no one had found them when he was unconscious. It was one thing in his favor.

As he worked on the cuffs, he berated himself for not going all out in his room earlier. He probably could have escaped if he had thrown up some barriers and dropped bombs. He hadn’t been in the right mindset to burn bridges at the time. Now he was. His parents work working with a grandmaster ritualist to “fix” their son. There was a chance that the ritualist would be successful in swapping out the souls. Hugo couldn’t let that happen.

“How much longer?” Ana-Marie asked.

“Perhaps a half hour,” a nox said, “I apologize for the wait, but it is necessary. I need to see the ritual you described. It matters who it is dedicated to and if it is still powered up.”

Escape plan time. Hugo couldn’t let them get to their destination. He was going to take the cuffs off and toss out a tiny bomb. He didn’t need to kill anyone, just surprise them. Then he could jump out the window. They were probably high up in the air so he needed to think of a way to get to the ground safely. A rope probably wouldn’t work. He couldn't chance them cutting it.

He had made an enormous barrier construct last life. Maybe he could make a bird construct this time. One big enough to support his weight.

That would get him out of the room, but what would he do after that? He couldn’t run from them forever. Escaping from the airship like that would guarantee that they would chase him. It would be admitting guilt. They would chase him wherever he went, and probably get the shimmer corps and sentinels to help them. If he wanted to escape, he would have to kill everyone. Since he had a conscience, he couldn't leave them dead. He was just going to have to start over.

The nox brought up a good point though, Hugo didn’t know if the ritual was still powered up. If all of the ritual nodes were dim, Hugo wouldn’t be able to travel back in time again. It would probably mean that the ritualist wouldn’t be able to swap souls either. Hugo decided to wait until he saw the ritual circle before he made his move.

He still unlocked the cuffs. He wanted to keep his options open. At the faint click of the unlocking cuffs, Sebastian turned around. Hugo closed his eyes and pretended to still be asleep.

“Florin is awake now,” Sebastian said.

Hugo cursed that man’s perception and sat up, “Where are you taking me?”

“Back to where this all started,” Sebastian said.

Hugo scowled and kept his arms behind himself. He was going to pretend to still be cuffed until it was time to act. He said, “You can’t fix me because I am not broken. When you figure that out, I expect an apology from everyone here. And a cake.”

No one responded.

The rest of the trip was quiet. The airship hovered over the plateau of shimmer mountain. Using the ship’s weapon’s they killed the few monsters that were hanging out there. There was plenty of room to land afterwards. The main ritual was a great landing spot for their airship. The secondary circle wasn’t far. One of the guards tried to escort him, but Hugo wouldn’t let him touch him. It still looked like the cuffs were closed, but he didn’t want anyone looking too close.

The grandmaster directed the guards to sweep off the ritual and he took the time to study everything. Hugo noticed that there were still two ritual nodes active. That meant that Hugo could travel back in time. He slipped his hands out of the cuffs and started preparing.

Before he was ready, the grandmaster said, “This is a fascinating ritual. It is a mish mash of three different rituals dedicated to different gods. It shouldn’t work, but obviously it did. Or well, I guess it didn’t. It is clear something is wrong with Florin. The glasses of Anubis showed substantial changes in his soul. I need to be sure of what magics control his body. That will help me determine whether an exorcism or mind healing is needed. Let me get my tools from the ship. This will take some time.”

Interesting. Hugo was really curious what his soul looked like. He couldn’t wait to find out though. He was fairly sure that the grandmaster would decide that an exorcism would be needed, and they would kill him. The time to act was now.

With one hand, Hugo hurled the lead cuffs towards Sebastian. With the other, he threw out a trio of his mithril/titanium bombs. He recycled the barriers around them just as they arrived at their targets, his mother and a nox.

Hugo immediately created a barrier in front of himself. He was glad that he did. Even before the lead cuffs got to Sebastian, a spear of light was already heading his way. The barrier shattered and a small hole appeared in Hugo’s calf. The man was predicable. Powerful too. That had been one of his best barriers. He created two more barriers in their place.

The cuffs hit Sebastian and cut out his follow up shot. Hugo tossed a pair of bombs his way. The light mage was the most dangerous one up here.

Sebastian was able to shrug off the cuffs and shoot both bombs before they hit him. Unfortunately for him, that just exposed the metals to the air and made them ignite. The man was blasted back, dead in moments.

Hugo turned in time to get knocked off his feet. The formation nox had tackled him, coming up behind the shields Hugo had made. He felt a dagger pierce his shoulder and lung. Hugo grabbed an arm and tossed him off his back.

The nox mage landed on his feet and ran back at Hugo. Too slow. Hugo had already created a suit of blue armor. The nox might be magically strong, but his dagger couldn’t pierce Hugo's armor. Hugo solidified a sword next and brought it down with all of his strength. He hadn’t gotten the edge right, so it bludgeoned more than cut. Either way, the nox was dead.

The alchemist nox had survived the bombs Hugo had thrown his way earlier and was limping away. Hugo didn’t need any complications. A trio of explosions later and the only other living person on the mountain was the ritual nox.

Hugo saw him standing, frozen in shock. The grandmaster was halfway to the airship, but hadn’t expected Hugo’s brutal attack. Before he could come to his senses, Hugo solidified a cage around him.

Grateful for the extra health points available, Hugo healed himself as fast as possible. He coughed up blood for a minute, and his shoulder and leg still hurt, but he wasn’t going to die anymore.

He stalked over to the ritualist and said, “I have some questions for you.”