Archmage Jennings stood off to the side of the city lord’s reception party outside the gate. He was close enough to indicate his support, but not so close as to be considered one of her retinue. While dwarves as a species usually ignored political nuances, he was sure they would understand what he was implying.

  Sending out a quick scry, he confirmed that the Battleborns should soon be arriving.

  After sighing in annoyance at circumstances having forced him to be here, he turned his head to the arriving Grandmaster of the local order of Knights. He raised his eyebrows to demonstrate his surprise at him choosing to make an appearance. While he’d, in fact, noticed him coming from the moment he entered the district, it was much easier to prompt the answer to the question of what he was doing here by pretending he hadn’t.

  The towering Grandmaster walked up calmly to take his place beside the archmage, his entire presence like a fixed point of essence in the ether that forced the surrounding essence flows to move around him.

  “I see you’ve decided to make your presence known as well,” Grandmaster Lancel noted before staring off into the distance toward the arriving dwarves.

  ‘So he’s here to intimidate the dwarves into behaving, and assumes the same for me,’ thought Jennings.

  Rather than explain to the man that he was only here because as acting court mage he was ‘required’ to be, Jennings merely hummed in acknowledgment.

  Jennings could feel the Grandmaster turning his head to look down at him as he asked, “Do you not find it strange that the capital hasn’t deployed the Populators to greet them? Isn’t that what normally happens when Battleborns visit cities near the dwarven mountains?”

  The archmage couldn’t stop himself from scoffing while gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. “They’re over there. Presumably, they’re only here to make sure the dwarves don’t level the city with their ‘help’.”

  Surprised, the Grandmaster looked behind him, glancing around in confusion.

  “I don’t sense them… How are they hiding their presence so completely? The ether here still isn’t dense enough to allow for full invisibility,” he asked while frowning in concentration and straining his senses.

  Archmage Jennings rolled his eyes and replied, “Of course there is! But that’s not what they’re doing. They’ve just currently slipped over to an adjacent dimension so they won’t be detected by the dwarven rune mages among the Battleborns.”

  Opening his eyes wide in shock, Grandmaster Lancel replied, “Are they mad?!? Planar travel will aid in destabilizing the region and increase the speed at which the enemy's plan will come to fruition!”

  Fully turning his head to stare up at the large meathead, the archmage replied icily, “No. It won’t. And what they’re doing isn’t planar travel! It’s…” pausing midsentence, he took a deep breath and calmed himself. “Just…. Just stand there and look intimidating. Leave the higher level magics to those who are capable of understanding them.”

  Well used to the archmage’s prickly personality, the grandmaster went silent while grunting in what could charitably called an acknowledgment of Jenning’s point.

  They stood in silence for a few minutes, waiting for the dwarves to arrive. Both of them passed the time by watching the nervous council of leadership whispering to each other in panic around the city lord in amusement.

  Unconsciously straightening up upon their arrival, Archmage Jennings watched as the dwarves sprinted down the outer city’s main road like boars charging toward their victims.

  Slamming to a stop in the middle of the street, the armor-clad dwarves made quite the sight in their rune-forged armors. Each of them was wielding weapons that blazed in the ether like veritable beacons of essence. Jennings couldn’t help but be impressed, like always, by the dwarves' ability to enchant anything and everything with their runes. While not nearly as powerful as the magic system he preferred to use, he was able to see the advantages in how they chose to do things.

  While the city lord began her greeting, the dwarves walked right by her as if she were less than inconsequential.

  “Yer that archmage we were told is too stubborn to handle this himself,” the dwarf in front offered as a greeting. Before Jennings could respond, the dwarf turned to the grandmaster and added, “But who’re you? Ye look like ye can handle yerself. Why haven’t ye handled this?”

  Glaring at the dwarves, Jennings replied icily, “You know that our laws prohibit the strong from interfering with the paths of those below them. Pretending ignorance won’t absolve you of the consequences of your choices.”

  As the dwarves remained staring up at the grandmaster, ignoring Jennings completely, the grandmaster replied, “I am the leader of the local chapter of the Knights of Oglivarch. While I may not be legally able to take direct action in the case of local threats like these kobalds, I am more than able to defend this city from outside forces that choose to make themselves known.”

  The dwarves all burst out into laughter, as they were all at least five to ten levels stronger than he was. That being said, they appeared to appreciate his subtle threat as courage in the face of certain death was something they could understand.

  “Well said, laddie. And while I’d enjoy putting ye in yer place, we’ve got a mission to get done. So, if ye’ll all step out of the way, we’ll be on our way. We mean no harm to yer city, and we’ll be out of yer beards in no time,” he said while grinning from ear to ear.

  Archmage Jennings wasn’t used to being ignored. He knew they were likely well aware that he alone could kill them all without breaking a sweat, even with how thin the ether here was. Likely their casual disregard for him was due to him being a mage rather than a warrior.

  “There is no need for you to concern yourselves. We’ll handle the kobalds in good time. If the local forces cannot stop the anchoring ritual from activating, we have forces in place who will handle it. You and your city will not be in any danger of being planarly displaced,” Jennings stated emphatically.

  Frowning in annoyance, the dwarf in charge replied, “There is no point in waiting. Too much could go wrong. Best to handle it now before they manage to connect the planes.”

  Jennings, not caring in the least for the dwarves' position, replied, “I assure you, we’ll handle it. Should the portal open, which at the earliest should still be a few hours from now, it would take at least a week before the connection spreads far enough to be an actual danger to anyone. There will be plenty of time for the local forces to dispatch their army to close it.”

  Right as the surly dwarf was about to offer his counterpoint, everyone near the gate went silent and turned toward the mountain hovering over the city behind them.

  The ether around them roiled in shock as the essence flows constricted. Even from where they were, they could feel the foreign essence reaching out and gripping the entire area.

  The dwarf broke the silence by scoffing loudly and barking, “Oi, ye were sayin’?”

  Archmage Jennings could feel his face turning red in embarrassment. He couldn’t help but lament the inconvenient timing of the kobald’s success.

  “Yes, well, even with the anchor in place, it will still be at least a week before there is any threat to your city,” he stated as firmly as he could while knowing that he sounded somewhat sheepish.

  The dwarven leader turned his head, offering his subordinates a nod before turning back to Jennings and growling out his reply, “Ye humans are always so hells be damned bent on letting things play out that ye end up killing yerselves by the city load. There is a time te let the young learn to handle things themselves, but there’s also a time when ye need to step forward and defend them. We’ll not let yer stupid human politics get in the way of protectin’ our new city. Ye, can come along if ye want, but we’re closing that portal and finishing this. If ye want to stop us, ye should probably change out of yer fancy robes first and find yerself an axe,” pausing to look at Archmage Jennings’ robes with disdain, he added, “I’d recommend some armor too, ye look like a merchant.”

  Without another word, the entire dwarven contingent disappeared. There was no flash of essence, no tremble in the ether… they were just… gone.

  The very moment after they’d vanished, the archmage realized what had happened. One of them must be an incredibly accomplished rune mage who’d successfully cast a shielded localized teleport spell. What was impressive was that they’d managed to do it without him noticing. Hiding runes like that required wrapping them in the essence flows manually, a feat which was theoretically possible but practically very unlikely. Even more impressive was the fact that the rune mage must have taken advantage of the open gate to thread their teleport path through the city’s streets all the way to the mountain while the dwarf in charge had been talking.

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  While he was considering the mechanics of how the dwarves had accomplished their escape, he felt the Populators who were watching from their dimension disappear, likely chasing after the dwarves toward the mountain.

  He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of Grandmaster Lancel asking, “Was that teleportation? I didn’t feel anything. How’d they do that? I was under the impression that local teleportation like that was impossible by any unauthorized -”

  Sighing audibly at the clueless meathead beside him, the archmage ignored him and teleported back to the Tower of Magic to watch how this all ended up playing out. His only consolation was that the emergency teleport spell he’d linked to Lord Walker in the case of his death was still active. Whatever happened, he needed that stupid planar anomaly wrapped in a human to survive this disaster intact.

  —--

  Things were going well… or more accurately about as well as they could go considering the circumstances.

  Nero was chewing through the smaller memories at an ever-increasing rate. The amount of stuff he was incorporating was insane. Small plants that had been trying to force their way up to the sky between the paving stone cracks, clusters of fungi of indeterminate size, something that resembled an intricately handmade pocket watch which for some reason didn’t tell time but instead predicted the weather… so many random idententies. One by one he infused them with his essence and unapologetically overwrote them.

  The process quickly became as predictable as it was annoying, and after a while, he stopped bothering to reconnect with his body between sessions. It was simply too inefficient, not to mention bothersome.

  After every infusion/absorption Nero felt his body becoming harder and harder to fit into. It was like his center no longer fit. He eventually felt like he was trying to shove too many shirts into his laundry bag.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t recognize that it was a problem. The issue was that he currently didn’t have any idea what to do about it. So, he did was he always did and temporarily decided to ignore the problem.

  For the time being, he was more concerned about the omnipresent sense of pressure that was still bearing down on him from the cloud of memories and potential surrounding him like a crowd of angry petitioners demanding his time. He’d always been better at dealing with the problems in front of him than worrying about those that weren’t immediately threatening him.

  So, he continued with what he was doing.

  On and on it went. A poorly made shin guard that had been smithed by a kobald named D’karr who had been running late for dinner when he’d made it, the first sword made by a young blacksmith which had been deemed acceptable by his mentor, a snack made from grains and some kind of sugar equivalent which had been hidden away in a pouch by one of the soldiers waiting for their turn at the portal, and countless stips of metal which served as currency. All of it quickly blended together into a tapestry of memories that Nero couldn’t actually recall experiencing.

  For him, it was like suddenly having the knowledge that he’d gained from watching documentaries on a subject without ever remembering watching them. Which, in many ways, was exactly how he felt about most of the documentaries he’d seen back home.

  He’d experienced Shark Week like everyone else at some point. But while he could remember that sharks' teeth were able to be regrown and that they had to keep swimming in order to keep breathing, he couldn’t remember the actual episode where he’d heard them talking about it. It was all just random knowledge that was just… there. Sure, there were flashes of experiences to go along with the knowledge, but he didn’t feel all that connected to them.

  Were anybody to actually ask him about the life cycle of the plants he’d experienced, he’d be able to talk about how they stretched out their roots while expanding toward the sun. What he couldn’t do was name the odd things they wanted from the ground, like nitrates or whatever else they needed to survive. He wouldn’t even know what the plant itself was called. All he would be able to do was chat away about the plants wanting stuff and struggling to live. There was a bit of empathy involved about what they’d gone through, but that was it. He didn’t feel particularly strongly about them or even cared all that much that they’d existed.

  It was all just background experience that floated around in the back of his metaphysical noggin’.

  Luckily, he never seemed to get ‘full’. In fact, the task continued to get easier the more memories he absorbed. After the first ten… or maybe ten hundred… he was pulling them in and taking them over before he even realized he was doing it. It had become almost a reflex at this point.

  Sadly, he eventually ran out of the smaller, less dense, memories and was forced to begin confronting the larger ones.

  The experience of absorbing his first kobald ended up snapping him out of his trance.

  Rather than moving on to the next one, he stopped his frantic soul-hopping, pausing in reflection after what he’d just gone through. It hadn’t been nearly as hard as he thought it would be. However, it was jarring to the point of having him bobbing around as a ball of center like a ten-pound sack of gelatin that had just been slapped.

  ‘OK… that was just weird,’ he thought to himself as he mentally checked himself out for after-effects.

  The experience of taking over and absorbing the potential from a sentient being was drastically different than what he’d experienced with the objects he’d absorbed before. Where random stuff felt like he’d been watching a documentary, taking over a kobald felt like he’d participated in a play.

  Well, not exactly, as he couldn’t recall anything about actually ‘being’ a kobald, but he was able to recall what it felt to play one on TV. The things about the kobald’s life that he could relate to seemed to be highlighted in his recollections without the specifics to go along with them. Rather than providing a new perspective, it was more like he’d reinforced himself by grabbing on to the strength of feelings that the kobald had about whatever it was that they’d used to care about.

  Nero found the entire experience more than a little unsettling.

  Thinking about it logically, he could see how it had happened. What he was doing was overwriting their personality and being and replacing it with his own. There were bound to be some things that he’d had in common with the kobald’s mental imprint. Since the memory of the kobald had no chance to influence him, anywhere that Nero found similarities with his own wasn’t overwritten and instead was reinforced.

  When trying to wrap his head around the concept, he recalled a half-watched lecture on waves where some nerd in a bowtie had gone on and on about resonating waveforms.

  ‘It’s probably more similar to a person arriving at a convention center for whatever crap they were into and hearing a ton of other dorks agreeing with them. Afterward, they inevitably end up coming to the mistaken conclusion that they’re not as weird as they thought they were since everyone around them is just as big a nerd as they are,’ he noted to himself before shaking off the inner sense of validation that was permeating his very being.

  Glancing around at the still massive cloud of memories hanging around him, he reminded himself to keep it together before pulling out another kobald memory and getting to work.

  He had no idea how long it took him, but as time passed, the cloud of kobald memories began to shrink. Every one of them was different. And each one of them provided him glimpses of their otherworldly lives and perspectives while serving as a mental backdrop, somehow making him sure that he was and always had been… ‘right’.

  Whatever he believed was correct, and however he saw the world, his opinion was in every sense of the word, the truth.

  If Nero weren’t who he was, and had never experienced the insanity of Reddit, he’d probably end up walking out of this experience thinking that he was the most sane person ever to have existed in any world in the multi/omni-verse. He’d go about proclaiming to one and all that he knew everything and anyone who disagreed with him was an idiot. People would probably end up killing him just to shut him up.

  However, if he were honest with himself, he had to admit that it was equally likely that no one would even notice the difference… which somewhat soured the judgemental image of the imagined self he was building in his head.

  That being said, he’d grown up believing that nothing was true, and at best, a person could only be a little bit more ‘right’ than anyone else. The important thing was pretending that you were and even more importantly SOUNDING like you were. So, while it was nice on many levels to feel like his sense of identity was being validated, he recognized the trap for what it was and didn’t allow himself to get too caught up in it.

  When he finally took over the last kobald memory in his soulscape, he was left feeling more like himself than ever. For better or worse.

  Looking around his soulscape, he was surprised to see the changes that had occurred. Gone was the path under his feet, along with the mountain in the distance. All that was left was the forest and its shadows. Instead of there being a feeling of infinite possibilities and adventure, all he could feel was a pervasive sense of infinity and the surety that he was completely lost. He was no longer moving through the forest on his way to some ultimate goal, instead, he was just some guy in the woods who had no idea where he was.

  Turning away from the oppressive sight of the infinite forest around him, he stared down at the nearly faded body that he used to inhabit. As nothing more than a floating ball of fully realized potential, he wondered for a moment whether it was worth even trying to go back. Being a self-assured ball of utterly pure wisdom and awesomeness felt great. He didn’t immediately see a need to go back and experience any more life. He was also sure that he’d eventually find a way out of here… probably.

  Glancing at the scary forest around him, he would have frowned in confusion if he still had eyebrows.

  ‘Am I really considering just giving up and calling this as far as I will go? No body, no life. No more experiences… this will be all that I will ever be. Granted, I’m perfect… but I could be… perfecter… more perfect?’ he thought to himself while returning his attention to his body.

  He could see that the connection was almost gone. It felt like it led to something that was familiar, but no longer right for him. It was like he was a happily married middle-aged accountant looking at his yearbook photo which he’d come across while cleaning out the garage. He simply wasn’t that guy anymore.

  Recognizing the problem, Nero thought he just might need to infuse some of his new essence into it. He’d probably gained more than a few levels and therefore saved up plenty of stars of potential. Now more than ever, he understood that the stars were there to shape the vessels at the direction of his soul. All it would take was using some stars to reinforce the connection he had with his body and mind so that his soul would be in harmony with his presence on the material plane.

  ‘Easy peasy,’ he told himself.

  Reaching out with his little tendrils of potential, he took hold of the connection and reached out with his identity… and found nothing.

  His identity panel was gone. His connection with the world was gone. He was cut off. Completely on his own.

  ‘Well… shit,’ he thought to himself before wondering how he was going to tackle this new and totally unavoidable problem that he in no way should have seen coming and had definitely not made worse by ignoring.