Chapter 48: Chapter: 49 Gavriel’s Story

Something tickling my nose woke me up. I squinted at the sun shining through my bedroom window. I looked down at tangled blue hair nestled against my chest. I felt Ahri’s slow rhythmic breathing and her warm skin against my own.

Don't tell me we finally did it and I forgot all about it?

I stroked her hair and pushed it out of my face. Ahri stretched and her breasts pushed up against me. I felt something stirring beneath my blanket. 

I kissed her forehead and felt her fingers running up my leg and over my hip bone. She giggled and rolled onto her back and looked up into my eyes.

“You’re happy to see me,” she said and smiled mischievously.

“Did you sneak into my bed again?” I asked.

Ahri pouted and covered her face with the blanket so only her eyes were peeking out.

“I can't sleep alone anymore,” she moaned. “I have bad dreams.”

“That same one where your teeth are falling out?”

She shook her head and said, “This one was worse. You were leaving me and I was trying to call you but you wouldn't look at me.”

“It's just a dream,” I said. 

Even since Gavriel had revealed that Ahri could be lying and manipulating me I had started to distance myself from her. I’d tried to act natural but it was clear that Ahri had figured out that something was off and was now trying to win me over again. 

I hated that I had become so cynical. I wish that I could believe that she liked me and that she wanted to wake up in bed next to me. But every time I looked at her all I could think of was one of those hairy angler fish. The ones with the light hanging above their heads and with those large teeth. Ahri was luring me in with all her beauty and charm but all I could think about were those teeth and the day when they finally shut and devoured me.

Her eyes twinkled in the morning light and she purred, “Do you want to cuddle?” 

I knew I was supposed to kiss her at that moment. I’d seen enough romance movies and pornos to know that it would lead to caressing her body and kissing her neck all the way down between her breasts and to her stomach. We’d make love and it would be amazing or possibly really quick and awkward afterwards. 

But either way- I couldn't do it. I’d lost her or maybe she’d never been mine. Whatever it was it felt like a part of my soul had been taken from me and there was nothing I could do to get it back. 

A part of my mind told me that I should just have my way with her and forget about my feelings. But my time in Umbra had shown me that I was a hopeless romantic. It wasn't just the ses that I cared about. I wanted the whole package. I wanted to be passionately in love. Romeo and Juliet style, except for the dying part. But all I had now was a confused erection and a hole in my heart.

Ahri’s fingers ran up my thigh and I pushed her away- harder than I’d intended.

“Sorry Ahri, your timing is terrible. I’m already running late for my training with the Guild Master. He’ll skin me alive and wear me as a raincoat if I'm late.”

She bit her lower lip and nodded silently and then she rolled onto her side with her back towards me.

“He’s been keeping you all to himself,” she said softly. “When are you going to have time for… us.”

I slung my legs out of bed and pulled on a shirt. 

“The Master says I'm not ready for a mission yet. He said I should be getting my first guild quest really soon and then we’ll be able to get our hands on those rare cards.”

“The quest will probably be killing sewer rats,” she said.

“I'm sure it's a bit more than that.”

“I wouldn't count on it,” she said and I could tell she was trying to sound light hearted. “These guilds are obsessed with giving their new recruits the shittest jobs. If there were poop monsters living in toilets they would order you to kill a hundred of them.”

---

My routine for the last week was to wake up early. Eat breakfast which my newest summon, Basil the Ratkin, made. He was a surprisingly good cook. After breakfast I jogged to the Mages Guild and climbed the castle spire to a private dueling arena right at the top. Gavriel would be waiting for me there and we’d begin training. He wasn't teaching me combat or spellcraft or even history. My training was simple. He was teaching me how to break into a person’s mind. 

The problem was that people had walls around their minds and the best way to get past these defenses was by distracting your opponent and then striking when they were off balance.

“We are going to try something different today,” Gavriel said.

He tossed a quarterstaff at me which I caught and spun in my hands like an expert drum majorette.

“Defend yourself,” he said.

I raised the staff just as his own quarterstaff slammed down on it, sending out a loud thwacking sound that echoed off the arena walls.

He spun and kicked me in the stomach and as he did images of Ahri and I in bed together flashed through my mind.

Gavriel snorted and said, “When I told you to get inside of her that's not what I meant.”

“Really Master, this isn't helping.”

“You need to distract me,” he said. “Press the attack and when I'm forced to focus my whole mind on defending myself it leaves me open to a mind attack. That's the moment to use Heroic Insight but put all of your power into it and press into my mind. As you do so, form a question about what you want to see.”

“What kind of question?”

“Well when I looked into your mind,” said Gavriel. “I asked what you didn't want me to see.”

“Sounds simple,” I said and I surged forward and attacked with a flurry of pointed jabs aiming at a different target each time. Gavril spun his staff and blocked attack after another with minimal effort.

I stepped in closer and delivered a full force overhead attack which Gavriel parried. Without missing a beat, I followed up with what looked like the same overhead attack. I stared Gavriel in the eye and then instead of attacking I sidestepped out of the way of his counterattack and struck at his extended right leg. 

He blocked the attack at the last moment, I saw my opening and I forced my will onto his mind.

* Heroic Immersion Activated

I poured all my power into the mind probe and instead of seeing an interface with stats I caught a glimpse of Gavriel as a child sitting in an Earth classroom. He was gazing out of a window watching people flying outside.

Suddenly the vision disappeared and it felt like an elastic band had snapped and slammed into my head. My vision blurred and my head spun.

“That's disorientating,” I said.

“Yes,” said the Master. “You are seeing all these things in a fraction of a second. What you are really doing is forcing me to relive that moment and then seeing that moment through my eyes.” 

“You can see what I'm seeing?”

Gavriel nodded.

“But how is that possible?” I asked. “You were on Earth but there were people flying.”

He smiled and said, “Let's just say I had an unusual childhood. I was one of the Elder Gods experiments on Earth. You know that they brought beings from multiple worlds into Umbra to create their perfect world.” 

“Ahri told me about that.”

He nodded and said, “That's when Karf the Elder God had an idea- It's never a good thing when gods have ideas- Kalf wanted to see what would happen if a human was raised to believe that they could fly.” 

“Why?”

“Well, as you know there is no fly spell in this world. The magical beasts and birds that fly do it with wings not with magic. Karf suspected that humans, whose brains held so much untapped potential, could do incredible things if they only believed. This power was meant to be nurtured and developed and then added to the pool of powers the elder gods had already collected for the spell card type magic they were creating.”

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“Did it work?” I asked.

“Do you want to hear the rest of my story?”

I nodded.

“Then stop interrupting me.”

Gavriel gathered his thoughts and then when he was ready he cleared his throat and continued, “I was raised in a testing facility where all the lectures could fly.” 

“But I thought you said--”

“Just listen, Talasin. They couldn't actually fly but with the magic of smoke, mirrors and hidden wires they actually got me to believe that they could fly. They told me everyone could fly, including me. They would strap me into bed at night- they said I floated when I slept. I was raised with this indoctrination all the way to the age of 7. The problem was that no matter what I did I couldn't make myself fly.” 

“So what happened?”

Gavriel glared at me and I quickly fell silent.

“Well, I got the bright idea to jump off of the testing facility building. I thought that maybe if I got some height I could soar down like a parachute.” 

“And did you?”

“No, but that's how I ended up in this world and for my trouble I was awarded the Fearless Fool ability. The experiment was a failure and the Elder God left me to my own devices. As you can imagine, I was 7 years old, so my own devices meant being captured by raiders and sold as a slave.”

He stopped speaking for a moment so I could process what he was saying. It all sounded too messed up to be true… but then again my own story sounded just as crazy.

“How do you remember so much from your past life?” I asked. “Didn't your memories start to fade when you arrived here?” 

“When I arrived I quickly realized that I had already forgotten my name. It became obvious to me that I could lose all my memories. So, I stole a few pages and a pen from the lord of the manor and wrote down my story. Even though the memory of my past life faded, the memory of the words I’d written and read to myself each night remain to this day.”

Why didn't I think of that?

“So what happened to you after that?”

“If you want to know then try and take the memories from me.”

Gavriel struck but I was ready for it. I held the staff with one hand and blocked the attack. With my other hand I drew a spell card and cast Mold Earth and the ground erupted beneath him. Hands made of sand reached up to grab hold of him but Gavriel slammed his staff into the sand and leapt into the air. That tiny moment of distraction gave me the chance to pierce into his mind.

* Heroic Immersion Activated

Two boys were fighting with wooden swords behind an old barn. They moved with incredible speed, blocking and attacking with such grace and precision that it looked like they were performing a well rehearsed dance. 

Gavriel pushed me out of the vision and I stumbled away from him.

“Your brother?” I asked.

“Stavos was closer than a brother,” he said. “I worked for a family as a yard slave for five years. I made a poor slave. I hated my masters and I got into fights constantly. It wasn't all bad though, that was where I met Stavos.” 

“Every day Stavos and I trained with swords we’d fashioned out of bamboo. He was calm and reserved and it showed in his sword fighting. But I was wild and strong. We dueled every day and I won most of them but I also got us into trouble most of the time. We dreamt of joining the Crimson Guards, the elite swordsmen of the king and traveling the world.”

 

Gavriel dropped into a low stance and spun as he did so. His leg shot out in a tornado kick that began low and rose as he sprung up again. His kick tripped me and then hit me again as I fell backwards.

I laid in the sand groaning and holding my chest.

As Gavriel stood over me I grabbed hold of both of his legs and assaulted his mind.

* Heroic Immersion Activated

 

The third vision was of a nobleman. He got out of a carriage and gave Gavriel and Stavos a copper coin each and then he asked them where he could find their owner. The vision ended suddenly as Gavriel twisted free and propelled himself into the air. 

He landed gracefully and continued his story as if nothing had happened.

“That young nobleman had watched our duel,” Gavriel said. “That night he approached our owner with an offer. I was the better swordsman but he bought Stavos instead and took him back with him to the capital. It was as if I had lost everything once again. I was all alone and I was jealous of Stavos and that jealousy fueled me to continue my training. I trained before sunrise and then I went to work and after that I trained again.” 

“On my sixteenth birthday I woke early. I took my birthday binding card before my slave masters found it and I fled the village. I made my way all the way to the capital and there I found my old friend. The young lord had chopped off both of Stavos’s thumbs so he could not wield the sword anymore. The lord had not hired Stavos as a guard but as his lover.” 

“I snuck into the lord's mansion and drove my sword through his throat as he slept and then I took Stavos with me and we fled the city. Stavos was not the same person I remembered. His eyes bore scars that I could never heal and one day a few weeks later I woke up and found my dearest friend hanging from the ceiling boards.”

“With no one to take my revenge on, I became a wild man. I roamed the land killing those who stood in my way and binding every powerful spell I could get my hands on. But that all changed the day I bound the World Stone.”

Gavriel stopped talking and looked at me questioningly when it became clear that I had nothing to say he continued.

“It is this stone that the harbingers seek,” he said. “They would burn this city to the ground to find it. It is the final key needed to open the rifts between worlds.”

“And Ahri wants this stone?” I asked. 

He didn't have to answer. I already knew what he would say.

“What happened to you after you found the stone?” I asked. “You said you’d met Ahri before, long ago.”

“Yes,” he said. “At that time Umbra was at war. The Elder Gods versus the 100 Companions. My discovery of the World Stone brought that war right to my doorstep.”

“It was then that the Companions found me. They were the 100 most powerful mages in Umbra. Ahri was amongst them, she was still human, this was before her sister’s murder and her ascencion. The Companions had one desire. To rid the world of the Elder Gods and they needed me to achieve that.” 

“I joined them of course. An elder god had brought me into this world. I thought that if I could inflict even the slightest portion of the pain I felt back onto that god then I could die happy.”

“I was the one that led the Companions into the final battle. I used the World Stone to open a portal to each god's home world. The Companions bound the Elder Gods powers and cast them from Umbra and returned them to their own home worlds.” 

Gavriel stopped talking and walked to the side of the arena and gazed down at the sprawling city spread out all around the Mages Guild. Fireplaces were being lit and plums of smoke rose out of chimneys as people began waking up and going to work. 

“They tried to set me up as the king of the new gods,” he finally said and his voice sounded far off as if in a dream. “But I refused and took the World Stone and left.”

“Did you ever regret not staying?” I asked.

“If I’d stayed, maybe I could have changed things,” he said. “But I have never regretted it.”

“What did you do when you left?” I asked.

“Well, the years passed, the World Stone prolonged my life and the new gods searched for me. I disappeared and without the Hero’s Insight ability nobody knew who I was. I lived alone for many years. I would have remained hidden but the final battle is approaching once again and this time we will need the aid of all the races if we are to survive.”

Gavriel looked at me and said, “Now you know my story. What will you do with it?”

---

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