Chapter 5

  What is real? Not the shadows, but the light that casts them.

  -Plato, translated and paraphrased.

  I needed to pee. My bladder felt like it might burst at any second and I didn’t know how I hadn’t wet myself yet. The urge was beyond pressure and well into pain. I cracked open an eye and recognized my, Dean’s, bedroom ceiling. More memories gave me the location of the bathroom. Dean, I, had a small suite of rooms in the family compound two miles from the sawmill where I, Dean, had been crushed to death by an angry beast.

  I pulled myself up and out of my bed, my old self glad that I had an actual bed as opposed to the tatami sleeping mat I’d half expected. Up, walk, one foot in front of the other. I walked past a desk that held what looked like a modern tablet and memories filled in that it was, in fact, a tablet with access to a local data net. One item tucked away in my inventory popped into my mind as a communicator. Everything ran on mana and had been created with enchantments and spells, but it seemed to work similar to the Earth’s internet. Dean’s memory filled me in on the specific by the time I opened the bathroom door and found a very familiar set of items. Toilet, sink, shower, bathtub.

  While my bladder emptied its contents, I continued to integrate Dean’s memories with my own. Now that I, Dean, was sixteen spins old I didn’t need an external device to access the data net or communicate. On Earth I’d been a fifty-five-year-old man, a parent, and a grandparent. I’d maintained my physical health and fitness to a high degree for my entire life, but this new body reminded me I’d been a decade beyond my prime. Old me would not have been able to hold that much urine nor expel it with such ease. The toilet flushed itself as soon as I stepped to the sink to wash my hands.

  I turned the tap and shut it off, my eyes on the shower’s reflection in the mirror. I spent the next twenty minutes under a powerful jet of hot water. Soap, washcloth, shampoo, and more time to rinse. I emerged feeling much better. The clean spell seemed wildly useful and nice, but it did not compare to a full, hot shower.

  Back at the sink I discovered the mirror had an enchantment to keep it clear, no need to wipe the steam off. Dean’s, my, face could have been a cousin to my old face. This face did not need to shave, no evidence of a beard or mustache showed themselves. The sink held all the necessary implements, but memory, a disappointed memory, told me it wouldn’t be necessary. This face had little hair.

  I gave the features a closer look, smooth and pale olive skin, visible abs and the start of real muscles everywhere else, pronounced epicanthal slant to the eyes, a strong jaw any samurai would be proud of, proportional nose, perfectly straight and white teeth, topped off with blue eyes and short, messy bright red hair. I, Dean, was young and surprisingly handsome. My hair vigorously resisted any attempt to brush it into submission. I gave it a few more passes with the brush and Dean’s memory laughed, then suggested the effort would be futile. I left it in its natural state. I finished brushing my teeth, dried off completely, and wrapped a towel around my waist.

  I walked back into my bedroom just as the door to my adjoining sitting room opened. The healer’s apprentice, Róisín Iyasha, took one look at me in only a towel and her face turned almost as red as my hair.

  Róisín Iyasha- ROH-sheen, for your pronunciation pleasure. Apprentice healer. She’s sixteen spins, gremlin. Don’t be a perv. Although, your new hot little bod is also sixteen. This is an ethical dilemma. She’s totally into you, and she’s an Iyasha, so you don’t have to worry about her being a cousin. You’d make beautiful babies together. Go ahead, get your perv on.

  I blinked the text out of my interface and gave her a short bow over my cupped fist. Dean’s memories filled me in on the clan’s process for arraigned marriages, and he agreed Róisín would be a suitable candidate. He thought she was pretty, but he also knew his mother likely had another already lined up for him.

  “Healer,” I said. This was the first time I heard my voice. It surprised Dean’s memories, too. Deeper by an octave, smooth, and more masculine that he remembered.

  The deep red blush made it up to her ears now, and she spun to face away from me. “I-,” she stuttered. “Forgive my intrusion. My master sent me to check on you,” she said.

  “I seem to be well, thanks to you and your master. You have my thanks.” I bowed again, deeper, even though she couldn’t see me. I relied on Dean’s old memories to guide me through this awkward social interaction. I quickly equipped some clothes, a padded undershirt, an armored tunic and trousers, socks and boots, directly from inventory. Dean had been proud of this trick; he’d practiced it for a month before he had it down. Many people couldn’t do it.

  “Safe to turn around now, Róisín,” I said.

  She turned back to me, blush fading, and narrowed her eyes. I felt her use of an ability, probably a healer’s version of inspect, on me.

  “Your status is still corrupted,” she said. She walked over to me and her head came barely to my shoulder. I hadn’t realized but my new body must be tall. She pushed gently on my now shirted chest, “Sit.”

  I obeyed and sat down on the edge of my bed. That it was unmade tugged at the corner of my mind. Dean, I, was a bit of a neat freak. I felt another use of an ability from her and her face took on a confused expression.

  “Don’t move. I need to call my master to look at you.” Her face went from confused to distant, then back to focusing on me. “He’s on the way up.”

  Seconds later, he breezed through my outer door and into my bedroom. I stood and offered a bow.

  I held the bow while I spoke. “Healer Iyasha, thank you.”

  He grabbed my chin with one hand and lifted my face up to his level. I felt another, more powerful inspect, from him. He used it four more times, going over me head to toe, and finally released my face from his grip with a hmmmf.

  “Young Dean. I have some bad news for you, young man. Some good news, too. I think your status is just fine, but your injuries were so severe that they reset you.”

  “Reset me?” I asked, confused. Dean’s memories did not help clarify.

  “Yes. You’re back to level one and all of your stats are one. All the months of work you put in since your sixteenth birthday are gone. You’ll need to put in some work to get back to where you were. You’ve done it once, so the second time through should be a breeze!”

  My mother walked in behind the two healers just as he finished talking, concern writ large on her face. My mother was six hundred spins, a powerful and high ranked member of the clan, chief of operations for all clan business in the Caldrith Vale. She rushed over to me and pulled me up into another tight hug.

  I, again, returned the embrace with interest as Dean’s, my, emotions rose. My mother on Earth passed away when I was twenty.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Hi, mom,” I said.

  She pushed me back and held my shoulders. “Your voice.”

  Another person walked into my room. Dean’s memory tagged her as one of my older sisters.

  úna Oketani- OO-na is your older sister. Closest to you in age, but still a hundred spins your senior. She’s been your protector and friend for your, well, Dean’s… fuck, gremlin, why do you have to be so confusing. She’s Dead Dean’s sister, and she loves him. If she finds out you’ve stolen his body, it won’t go well for you.

  “That voice,” úna said, “I guess getting trampled by marns finally caused your balls to drop, little brother.” She stepped close to me, and I felt her use an inspect. “Crushed your skull and neck, along with most of the rest of you. Really is a miracle you survived that.” Her voice caught on the last word, and she pulled me into a hug. The Oketani clan, it seemed, were huggers. I didn’t object.

  “Hello, úna,” I said, “I kind of like this voice.”

  “It’s going to take a minute for us to adjust,” she said, then pretended to whisper. “The girls are going to love it.” I felt the healer’s apprentice blush again. She released me from the hug and looked me over with just her eyes. “I heard Healer Iyasha say your status isn’t corrupted, just reset.” She stepped back and turned to my mother. “When the healers allow, he can train with me. I’ll get him back up to speed in a few weeks.”

  A flood of information from Dean’s memory crashed into my head, information about leveling up, ranks, aspects, skills, races, guilds, clans, and a wildly complex political power structure. His memories held a surprising amount of detail. He’d spent a lot of time studying.

  Another piece of information floated to the surface of the flood. Dean’s sister úna, the sibling closest to him in age, iron ranked captain of the Dunhollow militia, head of clan security for the area, and an absolute battle maniac obsessed with training and action. I had seven older sisters, all of them in positions of authority and high ranked.

  My mother had a silver badge on her collar, marking her rank, and I knew my father held a gold rank. My father was the younger brother of the Landwarden of Caldrith Vale and I was his only son. Dean’s memory finally coughed up the fact that my family here was akin to royalty. I’d read enough eastern fantasy to know that I didn’t need to worry about the inevitable ‘young master’ encounter since I was, apparently, the young master here.

  I felt dizzy and quickly sat back down on the bed. Healer Iyasha put one hand on my head, and I felt a soothing warmth suffuse my entire body. He gave another hmmmf and messed up my already perfectly messy hair.

  “You need to eat. Take today easy, eat, rest, and you should be able to train.” He turned to face my mother and sister. “Make sure he eats at least three full meals today, gets some sleep tonight, and he’ll be fine in the morning as long as he stays away from angry marns. I’ll leave my apprentice here for a few days to monitor his recovery. If his status doesn’t normalize after a level or two, we’ll need to consult a soul healer.”

  My stomach chose that moment to betray my stoic calm. I let out a prolonged growl and gurgle into the silence. My sister laughed, and my mother may have smiled.

  My mother held out a hand to Healer Iyasha and passed him three plum sized mana cores. Dean’s memory filled in the information I needed to understand. A mana core, not to be confused with a beast core, was a unit of currency. A core holds one thousand mana. Dean would have counted three thousand mana as a large sum. It would take Dean three months to earn that much money working at the sawmill.

  More of Dean’s memories pushed into my mind, simple things, day-to-day life. His family all had a strong work ethic and a desire to not just succeed but excel. Dean knew his family had wealth, status, and privilege, and he also knew he had to start at the bottom and work his way through a career path. He had to prove himself to the clan. I felt overwhelmed. I felt grief for Dean and his death at such a young age. I felt a sense of obligation to his memory, and I felt the emotional bonds with his family. Once these memories fully integrated with my own, I knew that I’d mirror his attachments and that I would need to assume his obligations. With all of Dean’s memories, I felt as if I would become him to a degree. Whatever else happened in this new life I knew the Oketani clan would be my family.

  My mother, with the instincts any mother had for the wellbeing of her children, noticed my state and ushered everyone out of my rooms.

  “I’ll send some food up,” she said, one hand on my cheek as I sat. “I’ll let your father know you’re going to be fine. He’s worried. He will want to see you for himself, I’m sure. I must get back to the capital. You will follow the Healer Iyasha’s instructions to the letter. Eat, rest, eat some more, and try not to let your sister kill you tomorrow.” She let go of my face and messed my perpetually messy hair before she followed the rest out and downstairs.

  Five minutes later a person in an Oketani uniform, a white tunic with the Oketani crest in gold on the left shoulder, opened the door to my sitting room and set a huge tray of food on the table there. When the first smell hit me, my stomach notified the world of its emptiness and pulled me to the tray.

  Oisín Oketani- uh-SHEEN. A cook. Just a humble cook, gremlin. Or is he? Look at that name. He’s totally rocking a main character vibe with that name. The man can definitely cook. I smell that tray of deliciousness all the way over here. Have you ever heard of a food taster, gremlin? It’d be a shame if you needed one and didn’t have one, wouldn’t it?

  When I got closer, I saw a gold chef’s hat embroidered on the man’s other shoulder, and a silver pin in his collar.

  I gave him a bow. “Cook, thank you.”

  He gave me a silent nod and closed the door on his way out. A man of few, or in this case zero, words. I sat and tore into the food. Fifteen minutes later the entire tray sat empty. I’d practically licked the dishes clean. The food was excellent, but I was also starving, and I knew better than to judge food in this state. In my last life I’d been hungry occasionally, military survival training, forced fasting for some of the medical tests you need as you age. One particular episode where my pancreas became inflamed, and I had to not eat anything for four days. After that ordeal, the dry hospital turkey sandwich they gave me tasted like a Michelin star meal. The next meal from Cook Oisín would be more informative.

  I moved back into the bedroom and closed the inner door. I felt like I would be asleep in a few minutes if my head hit a pillow, so I sent my boots back into inventory and sat on the floor. I needed to meditate. A daily practice from my previous life it helped me process events, remain focused, and stay centered.

  I closed my eyes and drew in a breath, directed my breathing in a basic box pattern. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. When I started this practice many years ago, I’d initially thought it was a foolish waste of time. I did it because my wife did it. I took a visualization technique from a fantasy novel I’d read in my youth, and to humor my wife I’d visualized a single flame in my mind’s eye. Into that flame I pushed all conscious thought, all my worries, all of my concerns, until nothing remained in my awareness except the flame. My wife had to pinch my arm an hour later to break my focus. I became a meditation convert.

  Now the practice came easily to me. I distanced myself from the world, from my own mind, and sank into the flame. I let Dean’s full memories rush into and merge with my own. I needed the details of this world and his relationships to become my own. I pushed all my old life’s trauma, my loss, my death, into the flame. I let the flame consume it and let myself sink further into the void than I’d been in a long time.

  Next, I pushed the flame away. I let it fade into the distance and carry all my concerns with it. In the perfect stillness of the void, only the purest essence of myself remained. I didn’t know how long I stayed, an hour, a year, time didn’t register here. A small golden dot of light appeared on the bottom left of my field of view. It flashed slowly, like a cursor, waiting for input.

  I had no idea what this was or what to do with it. I thought words at it; I imagined typing things like help, or hello. The cursor just blinked slowly. Eventually, I thought the word ‘status’ at the cursor and that provoked a response.

  STATUS- corrupt status detected. Purge initiated.

  STATUS- error. Purge failed.

  STATUS- Command override. Apotheosis protocol initiated. Complete.

  STATUS- repair complete.

  STATUS:

  Name- Dean Oketani (Dean Kuroi)

  Rank- Copper

  Race- Human (Aetheri)

  Racial Aspect- Adaptive, (Apotheon)

  Title: Champion of Nythera

  Level- 1

  Mind- 1

  No aspects assigned

  Body- 1

  No aspects assigned

  Soul- 1

  Logos(meta, unique, divine)

  Skills:

  No skills detected

  My eyes snapped open, and the golden letters of my status hung in my vision for several seconds before they faded out. I stood and stumbled to my bed, half fell, and half collapsed into it. My mind shut down into sleep before my head made contact with the pillow.