The armored dwarf’s speed so was fast that it took Nero’s brain a few seconds to register what had happened. From out of nowhere, the dwarf launched himself forward with a leap, brandishing his axe and infusing it with enough essence to overload Nero’s senses. He came down with an overhead chop that somehow made his axe-head look like it was the size of a shipping container in the ether. It no doubt would have killed him, ruining the perfectly good body he’d just wasted a ridiculous amount of essence building from scratch out of nothing. Well, it would have, if it weren’t for the Populators that is.

  Nero wasn’t sure which one of them did it, but one of them summoned a shield directly in front of him. However, referring to it as a shield was like someone saying they have a dog when they actually have a chihuahua… inaccurate and misleading. Regardless, whatever type of shield it was, to Nero’s senses it looked like a solid plate of essence that warped the ether strongly enough to separate material reality into two sides. One which he was currently on, and another one with the irate dwarf. The resulting collision was enough to shatter the surrounding essence flows, causing the reality around him to buckle.

  Nero’s perpetual state of middling confusion due to the unfamiliar world in which he’d found himself was much worse than usual after what he’d just been through. Having absorbed the background knowledge along with the potential of countless inanimate objects along with multiple kobald lives hadn’t been an easy thing to wrap his head around. Yet, he had, or at least he’d thought he had.

  But, he’d also just magically rebuilt his body from scratch. A feat he hadn’t known was even possible. Or he might have, because when he’d done it, the process seemed somewhat familiar… a bit… kind of. Although, he could be wrong, as the entire experience was already becoming fuzzy when he thought about it.

  In short, he was confused. Consequently, his perception of reality was currently hanging on by a thread. Between how odd it felt to have his entire personality magically reinforced and arriving to find himself surrounded by pissed off looking armor clad dwarves and what he easily recognized as a team of Populators, both of whom had shown up out of nowhere, Nero’s sense of reality was more or less fluid at the moment.

  So, when his somewhat snarky request for pants was answered by the dwarf in front of him NOT with pants, but instead with what could only be described by an apocalypse-level overhead axe coming down on him like a bunker buster, he reacted in the only way he could… he laughed.

  As the essence flows struggled to realign themselves, the material plane slowly came back into focus around him. Nero hadn’t moved, hadn’t flinched, hadn’t done anything other than laugh. He laughed so hard that his side ached. For just a moment, he honestly wondered if he’d finally lost it.

  But all too soon, the pressing weight of the essence fields around him brought him out of his daze, and he slowly pulled himself together. As his laughter petered out, he began paying attention to what the dwarves and Populators were arguing about.

  “... taking him back to the capital for analysis. This is Oglivarchian soil. The matter of jurisdiction is not up for debate,” the short somewhat alien-looking Populator in the front stated firmly.

  Arranged behind the Populator facing the dwarves were the rest of his team, each one shining like beacons of power in the ether. While across from them, the dwarves replied in kind by backing their leader. Nero wasn’t surprised to see that it was the one who had just tried to split him like a log of wood.

  “Are ye mad! Ye can’t be believin’ the thing is still human! Whatever happened to the lad that used to be yer subject obviously changed him into something else. It’ll be a kindness to kill it before his clan has to see him like this,” the dwarf argued hatefully.

  Another Populator took a step forward to join the conversation. The obviously feminine shape of her armor made her gender painfully clear. Rather than conform to the more armored look of the others, the liquid silver armor she was wearing looked like it had been painted on by very lucky armorsmiths back in the capital.

  “You don’t know that. You can’t know that. All we know is that whoever this is, they have the same spiritual signature as Lord Walker. It may be him. Or, it might not be. Either way, testing needs to be done in a controlled environment to determine what or who they are,” she stated emotionlessly.

  Nero realized, of course, that they were talking about him. However considering the fact that he was still naked, still sitting down, and not to mention still on a pile of kobald corpses, he was having trouble summoning up the requisite gravitas he’d need to feel comfortable injecting himself into their debate. Part of him still wasn’t even sure all of this was actually happening, despite how absolutely ‘real’ everything felt.

  While they continued their argument, Nero was instead more interested in what was going on with the ether.

  He could see one of the dwarves near the back of their cohort doing something to essence flows. On the opposite side, near the back of the Populators, one of them looked like he was doing the same. Neither of them were outwardly showing any signs of casting, waving their hands, or creating spell forms, but Nero was sure they were both doing something. He just had no idea what.

  While he could see waves of change emanating off their essence fields, reinforcing the essence flows while reinforcing each other in an ever-expanding sphere of influence, he had no idea what technique or spell they were using to do it. As they worked, the essence became calmer and smoother, more like what he was used to seeing when he looked at the ether. It was like they were repairing the flows that had been disturbed by their leaders’ actions. But, they were also somehow speeding up the process of the soul stuff in the ether breaking down all around them.

  While Nero had appropriated a lot of the foreign essence for his own use when he’d been casting, he hadn’t actually absorbed all that much of it when compared to how much had come through after the portal had closed. He could still see large areas of instability in the ether where the foreign essence was currently staking its claim.

  Granted, he’d expected the world to eventually digest it. But whatever the dwarf and Populator were doing, it was drastically speeding up the process. And the result of their efforts was plain to see. The essence flows were not just calming down, they were becoming stronger. He could even see the reflection of what they were doing affecting the material plane around him.

  The air itself seemed more real, the shadows sharper, even the spectrum of light coming off of the ball of ether floating above them grew more realistic as they continued to do whatever it was they were doing. He could even see the walls in the distance beginning to look more solid. There was an overwhelming sense of solidity spreading out all around him as they worked. Nero couldn’t help but wonder if this was what all of the ether in Dorchester would eventually feel like after the density shift completed what it had been doing to the region.

  What made the entire thing so unreal was that nobody seemed to be acknowledging what the dwarf and Populator were up to. Instead, the two groups continued to debate his fate as if that was the only thing in the world that mattered.

  Opposite him on the other side of the dwarves and Populators, Nero noticed the Wackos of house Walker all watching patiently as the powerhouses had their little tiff. Nero was able to lock eyes with Cathleen who was standing well away from the excitement, and he gave into the urge to give her a little wave. Seeing her eyebrows rise in shock at his audacity was almost enough to send him back into a giggle fit. Yet, something about knowing she was there also made him calm down and attempt to think rationally.

  ‘Why are they all standing so far away?’ he wondered.

  Deciding that it was time to start dealing with the issues in front of him, he realized he first needed to address the issue of pants. And while he had no idea where his trusty bag that had his spare armor currently was, he could still feel his access to his personal space. But, after trying and failing to reach into it, he was forced to try and remember the anchoring spell he’d used to create the damned thing in the first place. With a little finnagling, he’d hopefully be able to find a way to get it working again. Even though he could still sense the connection, for some reason, it was pathetically strained and too weak to be of any use.

  One of the dwarves shouted, “It’s casting!”

  All at once, the debate ended, and both groups snapped into battle stances brandishing their weapons at him like he’d grown a second head.

  Nero paused what he was doing to look at them in surprise, waiting to see if they would obliterate him from the face of existence just for trying to hide his junk.

  Seeing as they were waiting to see what he would do, he coughed lightly into his hand to clear his throat before explaining, “I’m just trying to reconnect with my personal space. You know… for pants. Since none of you were kind enough to find me some, I figured I’d just handle it myself.”

  One of the Populators asked with a cold voice, “You can no longer access your personal space?”

  Hearing the accusation in the Populator's tone, Nero replied quickly, “No. That’s not what I said. I can still feel it. It’s a dimension attached to my soul so I still have a connection to it. It’s just that the connection is currently a little frayed. I just gotta reinforce it a bit.”

  Right before he resumed his spell, he asked sarcastically, “If that’s alright with all of you, of course?”

  The somewhat androgynous Populator in charge of their team replied for all of them, “Go on.”

  Nero wasn’t entirely sure what they were all waiting for, but clearly they were waiting for something. Not bothering to worry about it, he began carving the spell form from memory. It had been a pain in the ass to cast back when he’d first learned it, and it was even more problematic now that he needed to alter it on the fly into something that would still utilize his current connection rather than building a new one, but he eventually managed to somehow make it work. Luckily for him, the spell form hadn’t needed to be pretty, it only needed to snap together. After all, the dimension itself was already in place, he just needed to kick-start his connection to it.

  Smiling in victory, he muttered, “Noice.”

  The moment he felt the connection reestablished itself, waves of something began to rush down from his soul into the dimensional space. Watching closely, he could see the edges of the little room expanding into the distance, more than doubling its size and somewhat altering how it felt when he looked at it.

  ‘Well, that’s convenient, and in no way something I need to worry about,’ he thought to himself before putting it on his ever-expanding list of topics he eventually planned to look into.

  With a flourish, he pulled out a spare pair of pants he’d acquired from somewhere he couldn’t remember. Holding them off to the side, he grimaced while looking down between his legs at the kobald corpse he was still using as a stool.

  Awkwardly stumbling to his feet while trying to keep his clean pants from getting soiled by touching any of the bodies, Nero looked over at the still battle-ready dwarves and Populators asking, “Do you all mind backing up a bit? I don’t want to interfere with your… whatever this is… but I’d really like to climb down now.”

  Inwardly chuckling at the sight of all the Populators and dwarves exchanging conspiratorial glances with each other, Nero waited for them all to slowly back up. From where he was, it was almost surreal to watch them stepping back, which then caused all the wackos who were 10 or 20 feet away from them to step back as well. It was like he’d just caused an entire crowd of people to all take a few steps back in a coordinated retreat from his awesomeness.

  Shaking his head at how weird his life had become, Nero slowly stepped down from the pile of dead kobalds and cast a quick cleaning spell. Watching everyone tensing and flinching as if he were about to unleash some all-powerful world-ending attack had him rolling his eyes in amusement.

  “You can all go about your business. I’m just getting dressed. I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said with a dismissive wave as he began pulling on his pants.

  Nero had never had the opportunity or need to get dressed in front of a crowd of people, but all the time he’d spent in the communal showers of the military had served him well in preparation for this moment. Instead of being ashamed or awkward in the face of so many people staring at him, he just put up with it and focused on pulling out a shirt, some robes, and socks along with a pair of comfortable shoes. Unfortunately, he realized too late that he’d forgotten to put on a pair of underwear first and was currently going commando. Rather than look like an idiot by taking his pants back off to address that little issue, Nero instead did the smart thing by pretending that it had been intentional and finished getting dressed.

  Finally looking like a noble, he cast one more cleaning spell just to be sure. But even then, he still felt like he was covered in kobald slime. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a shower.

  To settle himself, he took a good five seconds to remember how awesome the shower was back at his estate before congratulating himself on having an estate in the first place. When he was done, he shook off the distraction of how amazing his life was. He was finally feeling ready and more like himself.

  Turning to the dwarves and Populators who’d spent the entire time just watching him, he said, “Alright, so if you’re all done arguing amongst yourselves about what you’re going to do with me, I’d like to speak to my lawyer.”

  Suddenly paling at the thought that he might not actually have a lawyer, he looked past them to Cathleen in the distance and shouted, “I do have a lawyer, right? House Walker must have hired a few by now, haven’t they?”

  Seeing as Cathleen was just staring at him, not responding, he added, “OK. If not a lawyer, then call Vera. I’m sure she’ll know how to get in contact with one.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Put on the spot, Cathleen slowly approached from behind the Populators, her entire body language showing nothing but subservience to both parties.

  When she was within a few feet from them, but still somewhat far away from Nero, she said loudly, “My lord, these are Populators. I don’t believe a lawbringer will be able to help you.”

  Nodding in understanding, Nero looked over at the shiny statues of awesomeness and said, “Right. Laws onto themselves, are they? Then I guess I’ll just have to defend myself.”

  Straightening his shoulders, he said in a clear and firm voice, “Then as the legally appointed Lord of House Walker, I’d like to respectfully request a reading of the charges!”

  Fed up with the situation, the dwarf in charge of his contingent shouted at the Populators, “What ‘charges’? What’s this thing talkin’ about?”

  One of the Populators helpfully replied, “I believe he is under the impression that this is a field tribunal. Technically this is still a battlefield, even though the battle itself has ended.”

  The Populator in charge didn’t bother to acknowledge either the dwarf or the Populator who’d spoken, instead choosing to speak directly to Nero. “You’re claiming that you are Lord Nero Walker, head of House Walker?”

  Nero nodded, trying to look every bit the entitled asshole that he expected a lord in his position would be. “Yes, that’s right. I believe you were all discussing what to do with me. Therefore, I believe I have the right to be included in this… debate,” he finished with a somewhat awkward wave as if he wasn’t sure what to call what they were doing.

  The Populators behind the one in charge all exchanged looks with each other, most likely having an internal discussion over some private connection they’d set up. However, the one in front continued to stare at Nero with its blank silver faceplate, unmoving and implacable. Like a statue.

  “Do you have any proof that you are actually Lord Walker?” the sliver-clad Populator asked.

  Nero immediately replied, “Do you have any proof that I’m not?”

  The lead dwarf stepped forward angrily, “We all saw ye arrive! An extra-planar manifestation if I ever saw one! No doubt in me mind. Whether ye be a skinwalker, a revenant, or something else… ye clearly ain’t no human!”

  Nero put his fists on his hips and demanded, “Prove it!”

  The dwarf hefted his axe and replied, “When I kill ye, ye’ll not leave a corpse. That’ll be proof enough for me.”

  Unconsciously gulping at the feeling of the dwarf’s presence in the ether, Nero turned to the Populators and asked, “I formally request to be taken to the Research Center for testing. They have records of my spiritual signature and body scans. They can confirm my identity.”

  One of the dwarfs behind the one in charge whispered something to the leader that Nero couldn’t hear. Almost immediately, all the dwarfs began angrily muttering at each other.

  The Populator in charge stood silently, seemingly perfectly happy to wait for the dwarves to finish discussing things amongst themselves.

  The dwarf near the rear, the one who’d been fixing the ether, broke away from the argument and took a step forward. Leaning forward on his impressive staff, his glare felt like it was boring a whole straight through Nero’s soul.

  “If yer the Lord Walker who participated in this battle. Then yer the one who closed the portal. Show us how ye did it, demonstrate the spell or technique ye used, and we’ll stand aside and let the humans over there in the pretty armor deal with ye how they want,” he stated in a loud but clear tone, ending the argument behind him as the dwarves all waited for Nero’s response.

  Nero frowned in confusion before replying, “OK. I think I can do that… but I don’t see another portal around that I can close for you. Can you, like, open one for me or something?”

  The lead Populator practically leaped out of their armored boots to step forward and object. “There will be no portals opened here! The ambient essence flows have already been strained enough. Whether Lord Walker is capable of disrupting an active anchor is immaterial to the matter at hand. We’ll be taking Lord Walker to the closest Center Research facility for testing immediately. As a noble and lord of an Oglivarchian house, he has the right to prove his identity when questioned by any arm of the kingdom. He has made his decision and has submitted himself over to our authority.”

  The dwarves all bristled at the Populator's tone while the dwarven leader stepped forward hefting his axe in front of him. “Ye’ll not be taking him anywhere. Not until we get our answers!”

  Nero wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was almost positive this was no longer about whether or not he was who he said he was. He was 90% sure they all believed that he was who he said he was, and now they were interested in something else. He just had no idea what that could be.

  However, before he could try and regain control of the situation, both sides took a hop back and once again readied themselves for battle. Rather than feel threatened, Nero immediately noticed they were neither focusing on him nor each other and were instead focused squarely on a space a few feet off to his left.

  Turning his head to see what they were looking at, Nero noticed an odd disturbance in the essence flows. Recognizing it for what it was, Nero began chuckling as a golden flash of light revealed Archmage Jennings teleporting in and stealing the show like a boss.

  Unfortunately, the look on the man’s face caused Nero’s chuckle to die in his throat. The archmage's presence in the ether spread out like a weight over the entire area, veritably smothering everyone with his metaphysical might. And he was glaring at Nero like he’d shown up in a van to take his daughter to the prom.

  With a wave of his hand, another flash of golden light erupted at his feet, revealing a corpse Nero immediately recognized, his former body.

  His voice cold as ice, Archmage Jennings demanded, “Explain.”

  Completely ignoring Jennings’ demand for answers, Nero shouted, “My bag!”

  Rushing over, Nero began looting his corpse. While it was a little weird to see his own face covered in kobald parts, multiple tunnels worth of grime and dust, and blood dripping from his eyes and ears, Nero wasn’t all that thrown by the sight. By now, he’d seen much worse and experienced far weirder things than something like this. It didn’t even occur to him how his actions must have looked to all those who were watching him.

  Halfway through pulling off his bag, Nero paused and thought about the implications of Jennings having brought his body. Dropping the strap, he stood up and pointed at Jennings in accusation while yelling, “You! You’re the asshole who stole my body!”

  Jennings was caught off guard by Nero returning his demand for information with what looked like righteous indignation, especially while having his essence completely suppressed by Jennings’ overpowering presence. Instead of finding a thoroughly intimidated young man, he found himself stepping back while leaning away from a finger being angrily wagged in front of his face like a knife.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to return to the material plane without a body?!? I had to waste tons of soul stuff to build a new one from scratch! You’re just lucky that there was still a connection leading back to where I left it or I’d have been screwed. I could have ended up anywhere! That’s if I could have even made it back at all. You know what? You’re a shitty mentor. I had to rely on one half-assed lesson I barely remembered from you about enchanting stuff. What kind of moron steals their apprentice's only way back from wherever it is that I was. I could have effectively died… like for real. Who knows how long I would have floated around looking for another body if I couldn’t build myself another one! And that’s after just barely surviving having my identity overwritten by a rock!” Nero shouted while trying to poke Jennings in the chest with his finger.

  Turning away abruptly, Nero began pacing while throwing up his hands and shouting, “And the cost! Don’t even get me started about the cost! With the amount of potential, or whatever you nerds call it, that I had pumping through me… I could have made a sword or something. Or maybe finally gotten started on my portable tower,” he griped before pausing to slap his forehead at a new thought.

  “Levels! I forgot to check what happened to my level!” he shouted before suddenly going silent and staring off into the distance as if he’d completely forgotten he was currently in the middle of a rant.

  Nero stood there muttering to himself with a somewhat confused expression on his face. “So, ten levels on the dot? That’s weird. Maybe that was the most I could hold on to if I wanted to keep the same form. Or at least a similar form based on my old one. No, that doesn’t make sense. Coincidence maybe? If so, that’s bullshit. Might be though, I do have some spare growth waiting around for my next level. And why the hell did everything get dumped into Confluence? Did I do that on purpose and I just don’t remember? Wait, did my soul put another star into my pillar? I gotta figure out a way to stop my soul from doing stuff without my permission. Or at least figure out a way to remember doing it.”

  Then he noticed the various updated levels of stat stress. Throwing his hands up into the air, he shouted, “What the fuck! Where did all my gains go? Did I have to revert to a save file or something? Did the fucking world cache me?!?”

  Dropping his hand to his hips, he went back to muttering to himself. “50’s gotta be some kind of level stress ceiling. Although I’m positive I’ve had higher than that before. But, I almost killed myself by allowing it to get that high… didn’t I? I did. I’m sure of it. Maybe my soul is learning or something? Is that what pillars are? And why didn’t my harmony go up? I need to start writing this shit down somewhere…”

  Archmage Jennings’ voice was loud enough to shake the entire chamber. “Nero! What in all the hells below and heavens above happened to you?!?”

  Snapping out of his ruminations, Nero staggered backward from the sound of Jennings’ yelling at him.

  Looking over at the man in confusion, Nero’s expression suddenly soured into an angry grimace.

  Stomping back over toward the man while completely ignoring the waves of intimidation rolling off of his presence in the ether, Nero glared at Jennings and replied, “What happened to me? What HAPPENED to me? Haven’t you been listening? Some asshole, namely YOU, stole my body and I had to build a new one out of essence I may or may not have pilfered from the kobald’s home plane. Have you ever had to overwrite the essence of a paving stone with your own or risk your soul becoming corrupted? I have, and it's a pain in the ass. And boring… so… so fucking boring. But after having my entire existence threatened by a metaphysical identity crisis, I had to waste most of what I’d gained surviving that shit show rebuilding my body. All so that I could have something to slip back into on the material plane to come back here and spend time with my attentive and protective mentor. And that my friend… is your fault. So? Hmmm? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Having finished his formal accusation, Nero placed his fists on his hips and glared at the man like he was the female lead in a rom-com expecting to hear the heartfelt third-act apology of the male lead who’d finally realized that it was all his fault and that he never should have done whatever the dumbass plot of the movie demanded he did… and maybe… hopefully… receive some spellbooks or something to symbolize that Jennings had learned his lesson.