Jay went from lying on cold stone to standing bolt upright, cursing, in a single movement. “That asshole. That absolute asshole. Both of them. All of them!” His hands clenched around the hilt of the Crystalband’s sword form that he was somehow still holding.

  It fit his mindset, though. The raw, coursing fury from his realization under the Mushkhushshu’s scouring hadn’t abated over the course of however long he’d been unconscious. He kept yelling, hurling every insult he could think of or combine at Kalras and the mysterious figure in charge of the Up Top, until his throat began to feel raw.

  “No.” He swept the window aside before it had even fully formed. “You don’t get to talk. You don’t get to give me any more commands. You don’t get to add on to the mission you already assigned to me under duress!”

  He dismissed it again. “Do you have hearing problems? I said you don’t get to talk. Aren’t you some god? Or was the afterlife schtick just an excuse to turn me into your slave? To put your magic in my brain?”

  “And then you throw me here! With a Class that will kill me unless I do exactly what you want! What the hell is up with that! That’s not a choice! That’s a death sentence!”

  That second one appeared when he rejected the fourth black box, the one that made his name resonate, and wouldn’t go away. Jay guessed he’d have to get rid of the curse before it would let itself vanish. He knew curses could be broken, but not how and not how quickly. He had no desire to be mute just to keep living in his anger.

  He rolled his hand, trying to convey the most disdainful “keep talking” feeling of his gesturing life.

  Jay took his time reading the black and gold window’s message. It still annoyed him that he’d been forced onto this path and hadn’t even been allowed the free will to know it. The smug confidence that oozed off the words about not being wrong, about him being part of a plan, rankled even more.

  But he was in it already. It was already ticking down his health – which had regenerated fully while he was unconscious for some reason, along with his Divinity – with probably increases coming in how much it took from him. There really wasn’t anything he could do, no magical undo button that would send him back to his life on Earth before he died. No way out except forward, as the saying went.

  Clearing the message supplied one more simple window telling him that the muting curse had ended. He dismissed it immediately. That had just been a dick move.

  To make his feelings on the matter explicit without risking another silencing, he thrust both fists in the air and slowly, overly dramatically, flipped the bird to whoever and whatever might be watching from on high. Just because he was too far in to quit didn’t mean he had to cooperate quietly.

  *

  Once he was sure everyone who mattered had gotten the message, Jay put his hands down and took a few deep breaths. He’d had his stress relief, he’d gotten his anger out. For now, at least, he had more to worry about.

  Especially the fact that he once again seemed to be alone. In a giant ruined city straight out of an adventure novel that he had no idea how to leave. He thought he could feel his familiar – having a familiar at all was an insane concept for him to consider without the mental effect making him pliable – but couldn’t feel specifically where the giant snake was except that he was somewhere in one direction.

  So Jay started heading that way, winding around buildings when they got in the way and ducking through half-collapsed alleys where they were available. As he walked, he tried to puzzle out how long the Mushkhushshu’s administrations had kept him unconscious. He needed to know how much time he had lost.

  On one hand, it didn’t feel like it had been that long. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if he could trust that feeling at all. There was no way his perception of time was even vaguely accurate while he was passed out. Jay realized he had no idea if his perception of time had been accurate at any point on Halea even. That was disconcerting; he’d always had a decent grasp on the passage of time.

  He gave up on trying to estimate the time. He didn’t even know what time of day it was anymore. Or what day it was. Or what calendar they used. Would it have killed the afterlife middle management to put a little bit more detail into that binder? It had looked thick enough, but most of it had been fluff; foods with no flavor profiles, types of magic with no elaboration, and names with no context. It was like reading one of his students’ essays in his first life. One where the student in question hadn’t read the material and was leaning on as much surface level cramming as possible to boost the page count.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  The memory stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t a unique memory, he knew that, but it was so vivid, like it had just happened yesterday. Had the removal of whatever controlling magic had been in place improved his memory? Jay ran through a few more memories. Perfect recall, each time: the excruciating pain of a broken collarbone in high school, the panic of his flashlight going out on the solo caving expedition he’d forgotten to bring spare batteries, the thrill of visiting an indoor skydiving range for the first time for his tenth birthday.

  They were all as sharp as the day they’d happened. He hoped they wouldn’t stay that way. Between twenty-eight years of memories to sort through like they were new, one continuous memory of sitting in some field of ghosts for at least that long again, and all the embarrassing things he’d done since his resurrection, he had a lot of things in a head that wasn’t nearly large enough to fit them all.

  At least something good came of all that, he thought. Another window springing to life cut off his next thought.

  There was no way 20 Motes at once was normal, but Jay wasn’t going to complain as long as he was benefiting from it. He opened all the descriptions of the abilities. [Invoke Plague] did exactly what it sounded like it did, and [Lay at Peace] made sense as a way to dismiss his undead or to work against another [Necromancer]. He barely gave those spells a look beyond confirming what they could do before he dismissed them to move onto the others. Neither was what he was looking for, though the first one he might be interested in going back to eventually, if possible.

  Interestingly, one of the options he was looking at had another effect attached, the description of which he had to bring up separately.

  He’d have to think carefully about what to choose.

  But not right then. Not right there. Jay dismissed the notifications and picked the pace back up from the dead stop he’d come to, jogging toward where he felt the Agen-Seps. The closer he got, the more he had to move around rubble and collapsed walls. He was leaving the edge of the city behind. Something about the fact that things were more intact toward the edges seemed odd to him, but he couldn’t have put into words where that feeling was coming from.

  The deterioration continued the further he went and he stopped having to work his way through alleys as much, finding it easier and quicker to just hoist himself over the remains of a wall. There was gravel and grit scattered everywhere, making every step crunch and crackle. Occasionally a rock shard would shoot out from under his foot and clatter against the nearest obstacle.

  After a few more minutes of moving, Jay worked his way around the largest pile of dust and rubble yet – it was more of the former than the latter, with only a few larger white chunks of stone still present among the pile of pulverization, but they were there – and into what seemed to be an open ring of absolute destruction. There had clearly been buildings here once. Not only was it the center of a decent sized city, there were similar piles of stone and stone dust to the one he’d just clambered around built up in various areas. Anywhere it seemed like one could have possibly built up, it had.

  The center of the ring was marked by a giant chunk of obsidian, one end pointed like it had thrust up from underground and then settled on its side. It glowed from within, a bright color that he couldn’t quite put a name to. It looked like it was shifting, as if whatever the light was, there were two sources of it. One half was a green color, dimmer than Jay’s own powers had created but still vibrant. The other was scarlet, just on the orange side of red and far brighter than its counterpart. The colors swirled, mixing and shifting, within the obsidian before projecting out of the top just far enough to shower the Agen-Seps in light.

  His scales sparkled, but the shimmering light wasn’t either of the colors that were playing over him. Jay didn’t have a name for that color either, other than potentially shimmer, since that’s what it did. The spirit’s head was raised as the light soaked into him as if he was basking in it. Behind him, somehow seeming a statue of pure darkness, was the Mushkhushshu. With a knife – that probably would have been a sword to someone Jay’s size – to his familiar’s throat.

  It was mid-word when Jay showed up, and if it hadn’t been for the briefly spellbinding effect of the lights, he’d have tried to interrupt. That short pause gave him the seconds needed to catch up on at least a little bit of the situation and to realize that this was something he didn’t want to interrupt.

  Even if he didn’t understand exactly what was happening.

  “– and with this blade, I raise you to our ranks.” The black-bladed knife touched one of the Agen-Seps’s shoulder joints and the light intensified there. “I have seen your spirit and with this blade, I name you a dragon in truth.” It lowered the weapon again until it touched the other shoulder. The light grew stronger there as well. “I have seen your devotion and with this blade, I free you from the bonds of your previous form.”

  Every light grew brighter at once, both in the stone and across the spirit’s body. Things began to writhe within the Agen-Seps, as if there were ropes coiling and uncoiling beneath his scales.

  “Your metamorphosis is complete. You are a dragon. Rise from your pedestal and name yourself.”

  The roiling beneath the Agen-Seps’s scales grew stronger. His head sank; his body curled into a ball. Then, all at once, the lights died. And in the darkness, barely visible, his wings spread.

  “I name myself Agensyx. I name myself a dragon of spirits. I name myself a dragon of divinity.” The familiar bond thrummed and the Agen-Seps – Agensyx, now? – looked directly at Jay. “I name myself the familiar of Jay Carter, despite these changes.” His voice had taken on an extra resonance, though that could have just been because he was speaking out loud instead of in Jay’s head for once.

  The Mushkhushshu rumbled. It didn’t sound pleased at that last part, but it didn’t object verbally. When it spoke, the only thing it said was “It is time for you to go.”

  They both objected, Agensyx on the grounds that he should have time to get used to his new body and Jay on the grounds that he wasn’t sure the mind control’s effects were entirely gone yet. They were equally ignored. The Mushkhushshu simply repeated its admonishment to leave.

  With no other options, they left.

  *

  Three days of travel later, Jay spotted the first sign of a town from Agensyx’s back. The town they’d been trying to get to for nearly a week at this point, counting the time they’d lost in Olras Os. It was as simple as a lean-to by a game trail, briefly seen as his newly draconic familiar ran past, but it was more sign of living, breathing civilization than he’d found so far in his time in this world.

  As evening approached, they began to smell the smoke of whatever town it was. Once the sun set, they could see the light through the woods, even if only barely. Using those thin flickers of light, they walked some extra distance, meeting up with the small river that fed into the town.

  “To hide that we are technically coming from the Blight,” Agensyx explained.

  In the morning, the town was waiting.