The humanity in my eyes began to fade, replaced by something colder. The color bled from them until all that remained was a reflective silver. I could see through space and time. Around obstacles and barriers. Into the people of this world and know not only their thoughts but everything they felt. A million timelines running through me all at once, and within each life a fracture point. A place where the pain became too much to bear. I collapsed to one knee, and tried to contain my breath from breaking into hysterical heaving. Gripping my heart, I looked up at Tema, who seemed reverent now, watching on as my energy transformed. The strands of glass in my magic now unfolding into a flood of color that now filled every part of me.

  "I don't want this" I whimpered.

  "I was supposed to die..."

  A colored tear drop swelled in my eyes, but I refused to let it fall.

  I recoiled from the idea of godhood, just as I had done with the sensing stone, and with the dragon form spell I pulled my magic back into myself.

  "I won't allow it..."

  "I don't deserve this kind of power"

  "I am not the right man"

  My mana channels opened like great chasms and swallowed back what had spewed forth. All of my muscles contracted as I struggled to contain the force of it.

  And then in a flash, all the world was gone.

  A thousand reaching hands clawed at my ethereal body, each of them hungry for my magical blood. She gazed down upon me with kindness and sorrow in her rainbow colored eyes.

  "I believe in who you are" she whispered.

  Her porcelain hand reached out and touched mine. She smiled and a warmth filled my heart.

  "I can't be a god, I just... I can't" I whimpered.

  She moved with a softness that shifted like the early morning light.

  "Follow your own path" she nodded with a tear in her eye.

  I couldn't help but feel as if I had misunderstood something, but her heart was too pure to tell me what it was.

  "I will be with you" she whispered as I fell through darkness and away from her reaching hand.

  I tumbled until I eventually fell and hit something hard.

  "Gah!" I cried out as I snapped awake and reached for a stone jutting into my back.

  "What the... Ouch!"

  The world had returned, I saw around me the same glade as I woke in before, and as I rushed to the precipice beyond I saw Bonnieville and Candlehall. The mountains were no longer soaring in the sky. I looked down to the trees below and felt the same instinct to jump and that magic would ease my fall.

  I sneered.

  "I won't"

  It took me a good part of the day to climb down and make my way to Bonnieville.

  "Ye gods, one of the big folk!" a half sized man with a well chewed pipe yelled out.

  He didn't recognize me as we went through the same song and dance as before. And as he welcomed me into his house I couldn't help but notice the flowers drooping by the windowsills. It was then I realized that I hadn't just returned to this world, I had stepped back in time. I looked to my reflection in the cooking pot my chummy host brought out, and saw that I had color in my eyes.

  "What is it?" the little man asked.

  "It's nothing, I guess I'm just glad I've got a second chance, to just be normal this time"

  "Ye really did take a wallop didn't ye?" he said as he scratched his beard.

  "Ha, I guess I did..."

  "Well, I shouldn't be asking this on account of your injury and all, but being a big folk, I don't suppose you can help us out?"

  "I'm no fighter" I replied.

  "Oh, sure sure, but Bonnieville is in a spot of trouble you see, and all the folk here would be mighty grateful for some support, with all the monsters about"

  Fear struck like an arrow through my heart. As much as I wanted to help, I could not walk that path. I also knew that the people of the city would not be coming to help the Bonnie folk.

  "I'm not..." I said before he cut me off.

  "Don't bother yourself about it, just..." he leaned on one of the chairs to steady himself, "Damn, this cursed luck!"

  His expression was more painful to me now than it was the first time, now that I understood. I knew I had the power to help, but that was too slippery a road to walk, so I could not.

  I began to reach out to comfort him, and then stopped myself. I didn't have the right. I turned away and struggled to swallow down the boiling desire to help.

  "You are very generous" I smiled softly, "And I appreciate your help, but I should go"

  "Oh yes, well, right then" he straightened himself and prepared to wave me off, "If I can ask one favor, if you head to Candlehall can you check with the guild for us"

  I turned back, "I'm sorry, but I can't"

  "R-right..." he stammered as I walked off down the path.

  As I made my way into the city it was later than last time, the stalls were all packed up and gone from the market. I looked around wondering where to go and decided to go to the guild.

  Few mercenaries were there now, just that one notable dwarf gazing at the cat on the windowsill.

  I walked up to the receptionist, "I don't have any money, or clothes other than this cloth, but can you help me figure something out?"

  She paused for a moment before she let out a frown, "Are you part of the guild?"

  "No"

  "Well, we do have a few bunks for new starts, so if you were..." she said as she tapped a signup card.

  I sighed and then smiled.

  I looked to my side as I filled it out and saw a familiar pair of eyes at counter height staring me down.

  "Hrmm" the dwarf grumbled as he chewed on a thought.

  "What?" I asked.

  "So you are a new start, yeah?" he nodded to himself, appreciating a revelation he was about to have.

  I spied on him for a moment but then continued filling out my card. The receptionist smiled and slid me a little rectangular strip of tin, "Here is your badge"

  I traced my fingers down the serial number pressed into it, "What is it for?"

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  "We track what everyone does in the guild, it helps us manage resources, and anticipate how quickly quests will be fulfilled"

  "Ah, and are there any quests for new starts?" I asked.

  "We have some" she nodded, "They will be on the lowest part of the board over there"

  I strode past the muttering dwarf and scanned the boards, finding the lowest ranked quest I could.

  "Dig till dusk. Two coins. Tools provided"

  "I suppose that is descriptive enough" I grumbled as I took a knife from the board and used it to leave a mark in the corner.

  "That digging quest, where do I go?" I turned and asked the receptionist.

  "Where all diggers go, the mines"

  The dwarf coughed and spluttered as if he found something amusing and disturbing at the same time.

  "You don't want to be doing that one son, just a fair warning to ya"

  "Why not?"

  "Good for dwarves, but you've got weak little noodle arms, they won't pay you half if you can't work all the way from dawn to dusk"

  "Well, it isn't like I have much of a choice, I need some clothes and I can't live on air alone"

  "True enough" he nodded, "true enough"

  I walked up to the receptionist and asked where I could bunk.

  "Wait up son" the dwarf said as I headed down the hall.

  "I might have a better job for ya"

  "Yeah and what is that?"

  ...

  "C'mon now, you got to be faster than that!" the dwarf yelled out as he ran down yet another alley.

  "This is impossible!" I cried out between breaths.

  "They are just quick is all"

  The clamber of trash and the skittering of little paws lay up further ahead as the tenacious little dwarf dived into a pile of it. I ran up beside him, and realized I had never properly introduced myself. As I offered him my hand I asked.

  "Well, my stone song name is Zeb'dahar Ekvela Dorashta Na Vel Behoov Deaurella. But you can call me Zeb"

  "Are all stone song names that long?" I asked as he brushed himself off.

  "You joking? Mine is short. It's a song my boy, some go on for hours. Bah, but you humans would never understand"

  "Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a name though, something to call you by, something short"

  "You think a name's only purpose is that?" he laughed, "No, no, no... A name is who you are"

  "I guess I'd never really thought about it like that"

  "And what do I call you then?"

  "I wonder if there is a song I know that captures it?" I muttered as I scratched my jaw.

  "Don't mock me now! Dwarf culture isn't something to make little of"

  "No, no, I'm just inspired is all. It sounds like fun to name yourself after a song"

  "You are talking like you don't even know your own name"

  "I suppose I don't really have one"

  "Nameless are ya? Never heard that one before"

  "I think I have an idea on a stone song that might capture it, it isn't a song though, it's a story"

  "Aye?" Zeb turned his head curiously as we peered down another alley, "Ah, there is another one, let me circle around to the other side".

  I nodded, knowing my story could wait until we had accomplished what we were really here for.

  "Ha ha har" Zeb gloated at the other side of the alley, "You are cornered now, there is no where to go!"

  The cat meowed and looked around uncertain of where to go. I tried my best to not look threatening and invite him over, but Zeb's slow but certain approach had the little guy on edge.

  "C'mon now, just stay right there" Zeb whispered under his beard hairs.

  The cat turned and then turned again before it pounced straight up. Its claws gripped into the stone wall and with a thrust it leapt again to the other side, and then up again until it cleared the roof.

  "Well I'll be" Zeb looked up in awe.

  "Frustrating or not, you have to hand it to them, it isn't in their nature to want to be caught"

  "Suppose not" Zeb said as he blinked sweat away from one eye, "So have at it then, what do I call ya?"

  "Ah, that. Well there is an old story, about a man who had wax wings, he tried to fly over the ocean but as he did he flew too close to the sun, so he fell"

  "That's an unusual story isn't it? He one of those brainy wizards I suppose?"

  "No, it's not a real story, just a fable. About power, and how sometimes when we try to achieve something we think is impossible, we try to do more than we ought to,"

  "Bah, nothing wrong with a powerful arm when their is silver in the vein" Zeb answered.

  "I don't think that is true" I said with a scar in my voice, "Sometimes it's better to not have power at all"

  "That how you ended up with your noodle arms?"

  I laughed, "No, I am just saying that, in the pursuit of doing something good, it can change us, make us desperate enough to do something we shouldn't..."

  Zeb blinked at me, "You mean like hitting a man with the haft of your axe, because he sung a poem to a pretty dwarven lass?"

  "You did that?" I scratched at my neck as we rounded another turn in the mazework of alleyways.

  "Too many times, I don't like poets, it ain't never a fair fight when a lass is involved"

  "I'll try to avoid poems when a girl is about then" I smiled.

  "Come on, stop dawdling, what do I call you then?"

  "Well the name of the man in the story is Icarus, but in Etruscan he is known as Vikare. So I guess, Vika for short"

  "Vika, hmm, alright then"

  ...

  Claw marks streaked across both of our faces, but Zeb's cheeks were filled with a rosy glow as we entered the tavern with a little fluff ball tucked under his arm.

  The waitress pushed a bowl of grey with a side of bread in front of me. Zeb nodded with a smile, "Well earned".

  "Thanks for this" I said as I began to swallow it down tearing off pieces of bread and in the end drinking what was left in the bowl.

  As I finished I felt a strange weight in my arms. I lowered it down to the table.

  "Something wrong?" Zeb asked.

  My eyes rang with a hollow chime of dread. I could sense a well chewed pipe in my mouth slip and fall. Screams echoed out, as small figures rushed to their houses in a world half built of shadows and streaks of light. My heart started beating in my chest, each thud carrying with it the sharp sting of fear. Roars of monsters beyond the walls.

  I tried to stand but only managed to push my chair out from under me and fell.

  I heaved in panic as my eyes were somewhere else than the tavern floor.

  I was seeing through the eyes of the halfling that had given me his bed cloth.

  I felt the scratch thud against the door he had his back to, trying to bar it closed. The wood rattled and then thumped hard against his back, almost tossing him free. He scrambled and pulled to him whatever he could to bear the force.

  "Lady Dia, please, deliver us from this. Bless us with fortune just one more time"

  "You right Vika?" Zeb asked as I clutched at my heart.

  "Bonnieville" I whispered to myself, "I'm sorry, I have to go!".

  I rushed out of the tavern into the night. Running through the streets and then out into the roads beyond.

  Every elevated heart beat, every growl that tremored in the halfling's ears, I felt them all. I knew I had the power to soar through the sky, to leap over the forests, to even tear Bonnieville into the sky and bring forth winds that would shake the monsters off. But a vision of me stared back with silver eyes.

  "Just, hold on!"