Hugo stood at the top of the tower stairs with his hands up. He looked at the three uniformed nox. They weren’t shimmer corps or sentinels. They were wearing robes similar to the ones he had worn when he was a nox apprentice. A few things clicked in his head.

“Grandmaster Langa isn’t missing. I just saw him. He sent me here to get some things. That’s his ship. How would I have the key to the ship if he hadn’t sent me on an errand?” Hugo said and held up the magical key to the airship.

The three of them looked at each other. Hugo guessed that they were the ritual grandmaster’s apprentices. They must have been looking for him when he didn’t return to Paarl. The fact that Hugo was flying around in the grandmaster’s airship was very suspicious. Hugo was trying to frame the same facts as proof that everything was fine.

“You just saw him?” the nox on the left said.

Hugo sighed and said, “Yes, I just saw him. He is on top of shimmer mountain. He sent me on a few errands to pick up things for the ritual he is working on. He is very excited and focused on this weird ritual. He won’t stop working on it, and sent me to get supplies for the ritual.”

“But, it’s been two weeks...” the nox on the left said.

Hugo shrugged, “He is passionate. He keeps talking about the ritual. You guys are his apprentices, right? I recognize the robes. Doesn’t he ever get sucked into a ritual project like this?”

The three of them looked at each other in confusion. The one in the center shrugged with his upper arms. Evidently, the grandmaster did get like this sometimes. Hugo smiled at the lucky guess. They weren’t lowering their weapons though.

“Look, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just come along with me. I have to return to the ritual circle on top of shimmer mountain before morning. We can’t sit here and talk about it all night. You know how he gets when he is mad,” Hugo said.

The center nox lowered his shimmer caster and said, “Alright, fine. We will go with you. But no funny business.”

Hugo put down his hands and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

He shouldered past them and unlocked the airship. He tossed his bag down near the other mana cores. He figured that he would have a better chance of overpowering them after they let their guards down. An idea occurred to him as he watched them file onto the ship.

“Hold on. We are running low on mana crystals. I don’t want to bring on too much weight. I think one of you three should stay. Take a train back to Paarl, tell them that the grandmaster is fine,” Hugo said.

They didn’t look as convinced with this lie. Hugo continued, “Look, this is going to take a few more days. Someone needs to take care of the grandmaster’s complex while he is gone. Aren’t one of you his senior apprentice? I can’t believe he didn’t leave one of you in charge. I would guess he would be upset if the ritual work stopped while he was gone.”

This time they agreed with him. The center nox gave a few instructions to the other two and got back off the airship. Hugo waved to him as he flew away. One down, two to go.

The problem was that they were both soulmarked. They would be stronger and faster than mundanes. Being nox, they might even have two domains. Now that he thought about it, he decided to figure it out.

“Do either of you have the light domain? The grandmaster said he wanted one. I imagine you have the ritual domain, but I know nox can have two,” Hugo said as he flew towards the mountain.

The taller nox scoffed and said, “That would leave us unbalanced. No upstanding nox would do that. I have the ritual and runic domains. My junior here only has the one domain.”

The other nox scowled at him but said nothing. Hugo nodded and turned back towards flying. Happily, he noticed that they had lowered their shimmer casters and set down their spears. Now he just had to get them to drop the casters as well.

In short order, they arrived at their destination. Hugo stopped and hovered about forty feet above the mountain top. He walked over and opened up the door. He looked back and said, “Can you guys help bring in the boxes there?”

They just stared at him like he was crazy.

“Oh, come on. Of course the base is invisible. We don’t want to fight monsters all day. This way we only have to kill the perceptive ones,” Hugo said. Then he yelled out the door, “Sebastian, give us a ramp, will you?” A few moments later he solidified a ramp from the airship. It stretched out fifteen feet and ended midair. He was proud of himself for remembering to include railings.

They continued to stare out the door. The airship slowly floated up and down slightly. Hugo had remembered to anchor the ramp to the ground below. It stayed steady, helping the illusion that there was an invisible base in front of them. Hugo said, “If you think invisibility is impressive, just wait until you see what’s inside.”

Hugo grabbed one of the smaller lead lined boxes and walked up the ramp. Before he got to the end he turned back and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

The nox finally seemed to believe him, and set down their casters. They each took a longer box and followed him. Hugo turned back towards the end of the ramp and continued walking. He gave himself tiny mana platforms to walk on and turned around. Once both of them were standing on Hugo’s ramp, he recycled it.

The pair of nox screamed as they fell through the air, four stories to the ground. Hugo frowned. He was tired of doing this to good people. One of them died instantly when the box he had been holding hit him in the head. The box had broken on impact, spilling three mana cores onto the ground. The other nox had a broken leg, but his chest and head were protected by a glowing red shield. Hugo hopped down a series of barrier platforms, slowly making his way down to the ground level. Without a word, he took off the broken lid of the box and sliced down on the shielded nox. The lead lining dissipated the protection and the nox was dead shortly afterwards.

Hugo morosely gathered up the mana cores and placed them near the secondary ritual circle. There were only seven of them. It took him a minute to remember the eighth was up on the airship. He had forgotten about it because the disregard rune on his bag. The effect should be gone now.

He climbed a set of blue stairs up to the airship and landed it nearby. He was able to find his backpack and placed the final mana core with the others. Then he got out the Acomarian ritual about inserting a soul into a golem. He skipped over the parts of the ritual detailing how to create an acceptable golem and how to prepare it for soul habitation. Only the last page included how to direct the soul to your chosen vessel. He read over it again, and reviewed his notes from when he talked to Grandmaster Langa about it.

He started working by inscribing ritual circuits into the stone. It was slow work, even with his considerable mana pool. It took him a few hours, but he finally had everything done, with the soul pointing at his own node. He remembered just which one was his, having seen his dead body laying on it several times over by now.

Next, he placed the eight mana cores on the ritual nodes, one after another. According to the grandmaster, this would act as a very expensive sacrifice in his ritual. The only thing left was to use oblate.

He hesitated.

This was it. His last time to go back. His last do over. From here on out, it would be his own body and permanent consequences. He decided to double check everything after a little break.

He sighed and went to the edge of the plateau. There was a speck in the distance. Hugo frowned. He hadn’t had the time to fabricate a new crossbow. The wyvern or roc or whatever was flying this way would be a hassle to kill without a ranged weapon. Hugo stared at it and came to a horrible realization. It was an airship. They had found him.

Hugo didn’t have any time left. He had no idea who was on the airship, and had to assume that they could overpower him. He needed to complete the ritual and race down to a shimmer processing plant. He didn’t have any time to waste.

Hurrying over to the ritual circle, Hugo stood in the middle and reviewed everything one last time. This should reactivate all eight ritual nodes and direct him back to his own body. With fingers crossed, Hugo touched his additions to the ritual and pushed mana into oblate.

It took eighty points of mana before anything happened. Then the mana cores melted into the ritual nodes. The mana slowly poured through the conduits, making the whole ritual glow. Hugo kept glancing towards the horizon, he still needed to get to a shimmer station after this.

A low pitched hum started up. Hugo heard and felt it coming from the ritual. It grew brighter and brighter. He put his hand up. A flash of light shot up, enveloping him.

Hugo’s soul was ripped out of his body and it traveled through the mountain and ritual below him. Then he bounced back up. Instead of reappearing at the ritual circle, he hovered in limbo. A bright white washed out everything.

He floated motionless in a white expanse. He looked around everywhere, but there was nothing there. He could hear voices in the distance. They were faint enough that he could only hear occasional echoes.

“... again.

... ... enough. Let’s

... ... no, no. ... ...

... disciple ...

... body? ...

... last time ...

Agreed ...

...

Hugo awoke without pain. He looked around to see that he was laying on the secondary ritual circle. Judging by all the people around him, he must have succeeded in traveling back in time once more. In fact, it looked like there was an unintended consequence of activating all of the ritual nodes.

Everyone was alive. Marion was sitting on the ground, staring off into space. Florin was sitting on the ground groaning in pain. Cristain was standing nearby hovering near his employer. Lina was just getting up, her parents grinning ear to ear behind her. Xhosa was already near his parents, exchanging traditional nox bows. Even the two teenagers he had never met were hugging each other with smiles on their faces. A smile grew on Hugo’s face too.

“Where did you come from?” Alexandru said.

Hugo looked up to see that Alexandru was talking to him. Hugo said, “What do you mean? You know me. I just paid you to be here.” From the ritualist’s perspective they had just met, but he should know him at least.

“No, you didn’t,” Alexandru said and looked around, “Were you invisible or something?”

Hugo stood up and looked around with him, “What are you talking ...” Hugo trailed off, forgetting about Alexandru.

Hugo was looking at something his brain refused to process. He shook his head and looked again. It was still there. There was a strange boy talking to Marion. Hugo said, “Who are you?”

The boy looked back to him and said, “I’m Hugo, who are you?”

Hugo stepped back, “I’m ... I’m... You.”

The boy in Hugo’s body tilted his head and said, “Huh? Your name is Yue?”

Hugo put his hands to his head and said, “No. I’m Hugo. Hugo Rebane. Did you time travel too?”

The boy stepped back and said, “Time travel? What, no, that’s impossible. I’m Hugo Rebane, not you. What is going on? What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know,” Hugo said as he looked down at his hands. What was going on? Whose body was he in now? Everyone was alive again. He couldn’t be in their bodies. His hands looked like his own, but now that he was looking for it, he saw he was a little taller than he should be. He looked to Alexandru for answers, but the man had already teleported away.

He pulled up his stat screen.

Hugo Ersatz [Domainless]

Strength 10

Dexterity 10

Resilience 10

Regeneration 10

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 10

Charisma 10

Perception 10

Rank 0

0/100 Points

Health 10/10

Mana 2/2

Skills:

Ersatz? What kind of name was that? And why were his stats so low? He had gone through six lives to build up stats, and now they were all back down to the baseline? It was also weird that his stats were all exactly ten.

That was just a distraction from the real question. Who was the real Hugo, him or this other guy? The Acomarian screen had changed his last name. That wasn’t a good sign. He turned to the boy and asked him a question only he would know the answer to, “When you were twelve, you had a cubbyhole underneath your bed. No one else knew about it. What did you keep in there?”

“My rock collection. Wait. How did you know about that?” the guy said.

Hugo didn’t answer. He ran his hands through his hair. It was long and black. Not the brown he was born with. All the facts came to one conclusion. Something had gone wrong in the ritual and he wasn't in his own body. That guy was the real Hugo Rebane.

The adjustments he had made to the ritual must have messed things up. It brought everyone’s soul back into their own bodies. Even Hugo’s. Whoever he was, he wasn’t the same boy that climbed this mountain. He was a magical construct or something. Wait. That was it.

He had modified Alexandru’s ritual with an Acomarian ritual for golems. He must have messed something up and created a golem for his consciousness. He looked down at his hands. A very convincing and lifelike golem.

No, that wasn’t right either. Golems didn’t have soul cores, the ritual he used mentioned golems couldn’t use mana. Did he even have a soul? He clenched and unclenched his fists. This was all so overwhelming.