Wild Era 2, Ch 35: Truth

Kelin arrived at the gates of Highmist an hour before dawn, appearing like a shadow at the border of the city.

He let the Shadow Walk spell fade from around him and flashed his badge as he walked through the gates. 

Now that he was back in the city, he no longer needed to concern himself with whether Verasun would try to ambush him ahead of time.

He heard the guards at the gate gossipping as he went through, making it clear that they recognized him, and as he walked through the streets, some of the vendors and others that were out early also recognized him and showed expressions of surprise, or they pointed and began to talk excitedly to their neighbors.

Even this early, it seemed everyone in the city was talking about the duel.

He didn’t let it disturb him as he walked toward the guild.

The Herald wouldn’t arrive for a few more hours, and he needed to talk to Sandren before the duel, so as he passed the front desk he gave Jesra a wave and headed for her office.

Her door was open, but when he saw her, her expression was stormy, her boots were on the table like usual as she leaned back in her chair and she was hurling silver darts at a board on the wall opposite.

They were all clustered around the bulls-eye.

“You,” she grumbled when she saw him, barely turning her head. “What’s the point of showing up now? You ignored all the help I tried to give you and ran off. Now there’s only a few hours left.”

“It probably does look like that,” Kelin agreed, not arguing the point. “I apologize. I came to explain.”

There’s no point in training now,” Sandren said, scowling as she glanced at him. “You’ll just exhaust yourself. Go do your own thing. Die if you want to.”

“That’s not the plan,” Kelin said, not letting her words bother him as he sat down on a chair across from her. “I am confident.”

“Why?” she asked bluntly, but she glanced at him. “He has...120 levels on you.”

 She frowned as the results of her analysis told her his new level, but then she shook her head. 

“So he has eight or nine times your attributes probably...even if not ten. It’s not like it will make much difference. At least you didn’t completely waste your time.”

“There’s much more going on than that,” Kelin said as a smile quirked at his lips. “Can you seal the room? I have some things to tell you.”

“Fine,” Sandren muttered, but she didn’t take her boots off the table or look at him straight on. A wave of mana surrounded the room and activated the guild wards.

Then she threw another dart at the wall, where it joined the others in the cluster at the center. It looked like she was making a new circle on the outside, one by one.

“I know you’re trying to help and trying to keep me alive,” Kelin said softly, “and I appreciate it more than you know. I haven’t told you everything about my inheritance or why I’m confident. I came here to share the rest.”

Sandren froze with her hand in the air, holding another dart. Then she looked over at him. 

“What do you mean?” she asked. Her tone was still flat, but there was a glimmer of hope in it.

Kelin had debated for a long time on how best to tell her. Reincarnation was unknown in the galaxy, as least as he’d done it, but there had always been legends.

“You know how I told you that I have some memories of my ancestor?” he asked, smiling slightly, choosing his words carefully. “I might have…understated it.”

“What do you mean?” Sandren’s interest sharpened as she looked at him more fully. There was also a hint of hope in her voice. “Understated it by how much?”

“I don’t have a few of them,” he replied. “I have all of them. Because I am him, reborn to try again.”

Then he took out the goblet that the Sovereign had given him and set it on the table.

“I also met the Sovereign of Silver Chaos. He gave me that.”

The golden goblet looked plain at first, with a simple and ancient style, but it drew the gaze and the longer you looked at it, the more depth it had, drawing your eyes toward it.

The gold surface gave way to silver stars that shone in the depths, surrounded by darkness, slowly swirling through the vastness of the Void. Other colors joined them, flowing eternally.

Sandren had glanced at the goblet to start, but as she had frozen to a standstill at his words and now she was staring at it, her eyes locked as if she had fallen into a trance.

All around her, silver stars began to shine from nothing, followed by trails of grey mist that seemed like it had come from the dawn of time. 

Runes and lights gleamed within, barely perceptible, but pulling attention toward them as if they held all the secrets of the birth and death of suns and the rise and fall of universes.

“I am Kelin Wildfire,” he said simply, “the Archmage of Souls, Lord of Wildfire, former Star-Ranked Adventurer, and Archduke of the Path. I was born on Irian over 5,000 years ago, 12 years after the Wild Era began.

“Four hundred years ago, I was killed by the Sovereign of Undeath, but an act of the Sovereign and my own magic preserved my soul to be reborn again. My memories awoke a few months ago, in that mine, just before we met. 

“Until then, I think I was being reborn in an endless cycle, until chance struck and brought them to the fore.

“Since then, I’ve been working to regain some of my old strength, but I am following a new path, in the hope of making this life stronger than the last, and so that I will not die again.”

He reached out to touch the edge of the goblet.

“I didn’t tell you at first since I wasn’t even sure what had happened, or at least all of the details, and I was trying to stay out of the sight of whoever had killed me, so I didn’t plan to tell anyone. 

“But when I Evolved, I met the Sovereign. He explained the missing points, as well as who my real enemy is, so I can be less paranoid about it. Now, I am not as worried about who I tell, although it still needs to be a secret, since Undeath’s followers are widespread.

“It is due to the sovereign’s command that I am a Knight of the Path again. It is lower than my old title, but I need to regain more strength before it can go higher.”

He paused and a brief smile appeared, before he pushed it away and returned to seriousness.

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you before, but until I had this goblet as proof, I’m not sure you would have even believed me. Even I barely believe it. But analyze the goblet, and you will understand.”

He was placing a great deal of trust in her view of that goblet. It was one of the few things he had that was likely to persuade her. 

He wasn’t even sure the Sovereign would allow her to see the Eternal mark on the goblet, but hopefully, it wouldn’t let him down.

“And if you still doubt after that,” he added as his smile grew wider, “then look at me again and I will show you Wildfire, my old Law. I still have it as a spell and as a Title. Perhaps the Path will also confirm it for me now, if you ask, since I’ve told you myself.”

With a thought, he altered Soul Shroud and allowed her to see his title as Lord of Wildfire, as well as the Former Titles of Archmage of Souls, Mage of Wild Souls, Archduke of the Path, and Star-Ranked Guild Adventurer that were next to it.

He hadn’t shown those titles to anyone in this life until now, but they were still recorded there, even if only he could usually see them.

Then he held out his hand and a sphere of Wildfire appeared, crackling with rainbow fury. The power of the soul energy contained inside leapt and sparked, flaring into streamers of red and yellow brilliance.

Then it spread across his body, looping around his arms and down his back as a cloak, and swirled around his temples.

Sandren seemed frozen as she stared at the goblet, her eyes distant, but when the spell appeared, she looked up and saw him, fully, for what was perhaps the first time.

Wildfire raged around him, but it was contained by his will, even as it blazed with life and cast strange flames on the walls in every direction.

“You...” Her words paused as she blinked and the mist around her from the goblet slowly began to dissipate.  

Then she came back fully to herself as she glared at him.

“You jerk!” she snapped, but it wasn’t with much force. “You should have told me ages ago! I thought I was robbing the cradle dating you! 

“Do you know how much I worried about that? Now you’re telling me you’re not a tenth of my age! You’re old enough to be my great great great grandfather!”

Kelin froze for a moment as he had to change his point of view. He supposed she had a point. But then he chuckled.

“That’s what you were the most worried about?” he said with a laugh. “It’s only a couple hundred years! It wouldn’t have mattered at all soon.”

Sandren reached across the table and swatted him on the arm. It was hard enough to sting, but clearly not serious. There was relief and concern mixed in her gaze.

She let out a slow breath as she looked back at the goblet.

“I don’t know if I would have believed you without this, it’s true,” she said eventually. “But I can see the Eternal quality to it. This is completely beyond me... I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She was silent as she shook her head. Her attention almost drifted away again as she studied the goblet.

Kelin could sense the force of will that held her in the present and only a few silver stars sparkled across the surface of the cup.

That was an effect he hadn’t expected, and he had to wonder if he’d been lost in staring at the cup himself when he studied it. 

He didn’t think he’d done that, so perhaps it was something the sovereign had added as a defense to keep others from seeing what was really there. 

Either way, it was working.

“I can sense the Sovereign’s power,” she said quietly as she pulled her hand back, “it’s very similar to the Path’s energy that infuses the guild’s higher orders.”

Then she looked up at him, studying the Wildfire in his hand and analyzing him as he’d suggested. It seemed the Path approved too, since it allowed her to see what was there.

“How did I not sense something before...” she said, shaking her head. “You were never like a twenty-something.” 

“Sorry,” Kelin said again, feeling a sense of relief. He was tempted to laugh, but he suppressed it with a smile. “The truth is more complicated than believing something else.”

Their conversation went back and forth for a while as she asked him a dozen questions and he answered them to the best of his ability. 

It was obvious that she had dozens more questions, including ones just about Irian and his past, but suddenly she stopped and stood up.

“Come with me,” she said urgently. “I just remembered something.”

He raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t seem to want to say what was on her mind. 

She dispelled the wards on the room and Kelin only had time to store the goblet away before she pulled him after her. 

They half-ran and half-walked through the guild as she headed toward the deeper halls.

Finally, they reached a storage hall located at the rear of the guild and she unlocked the door with a gesture.

It was a clean and dust-free room, with a number of objects stacked in boxes and scattered around, but most prominently were a series of portraits on one side.

Each of them was six feet tall and at least three feet wide, depicting figures that were reflected in Kelin’s memories, with many from long ago.

Sandren hurried over to the portraits and began rummaging through them. Her touch was swift, but gentle.

“There!” She quickly found the one she wanted and pulled it out. She hid the surface from his view as she brought it over.

She looked down at the portrait and then up at him. She frowned and shook her head, and then she flipped it around.

Kelin’s breath froze as he saw the image, but then he had to hold back a sigh.

He’d been wondering where his portrait had gone.

“Are you sure this is you?” Sandren asked as she looked down at it.

“It was,” he said quietly. “Once.”

His former self looked back at him from the image. It was a scene set in the Void, which had always been his preference.

He was standing in the darkness with his hand raised, looking out at a horde of enemies that had come through an open Chaos Gate. 

The gate shimmered in dark colors with a swirl of energy at the center. The artist had managed to capture something of the insane tumult of the gate, with fragments of what looked like broken stars and planets spinning inside.

It was the same image that had once been in many guild halls scattered across the galaxy, along with the other Star-Ranked adventurers.

It shouldn’t have come down at all, whether he’d died or not, so he had to wonder if the Sovereign had ordered it deliberately as a way to conceal the truth of his reincarnation.

Despite those thoughts, his attention wasn’t really on the rest of the painting. His eyes were locked on his image.

He had looked like a strong and lean man in his thirties, with elegant features that had an academic bent. His skin tone was bronzed and healthy, and his eyes were dark and mysterious with an intensity that blazed forward to regard the enemies in front of him. 

Everything about him shimmered with a touch of the rainbow flames that wrapped around his body, very similar to what he’d shown Sandren in her office, and streams of Wildfire stretched through the Void, reaching out for the enemies at the gate.

Behind him, there was a slight suggestion of rubble and flame from old destruction, marked by a few charred stones floating in the dark that were surrounded by the same wisps of rainbow flame.

His expression was stern and commanding as he looked forward, with barely any humor in it, and there was a strength in the line of his body and the set of his shoulders that said he would never move.

There was a streak of grey in his hair that had been there ever since a Soul Burn spell from an enemy nearly killed him, the same one that had set him on his path toward mastering soul magic so long ago.

No matter what he'd done, he'd never been able to get rid of it.

At the bottom of the painting was a legend that read, “Kelin Wildfire, Archmage of Souls and Star-Ranked Adventurer.”

“It’s been a while since I saw that,” he said with a bitter smile. “You know, when I first came here, I wondered where it had gone.”

“You look different now,” Sandren said as she compared him to the image. “Not as academic...a little younger, but in a good way. Maybe kinder now. 

“I’m not sure why these paintings were removed from the guild, but I remember them in my younger years, including this one. I always thought you were forbidding, but strong.”

She looked up at him.

“You have more muscles now,” she said with a smirk. “And you’re definitely more pleasant to the eye, not that you were bad before.”

“That’s what’s most important,” Kelin agreed, chuckling. “I’m glad you’re taking this well.”

“When I saw that goblet, time stretched out,” she said. “I had some time to think about things, or it felt like it. Then I realized that not much had changed. It’s just that there’s a lot more to your history than I thought.”

Kelin wasn’t sure if her view of things was that flexible or if the Sovereign was just helping him out by giving her a chance to process it, but either way, he would take it.

He hadn’t wanted to offend her or to lose her.

“But back to what’s important,” she added, “how are you going to survive this duel? I’m not as worried now, but it doesn’t seem like you’re your old self either. 

“You’re still only Level 132. Are you sure you don’t want me to kidnap you and teleport you away? The offer is still on the table.”

“Leave the duel to me,” Kelin said, smiling now. “Just don’t worry too much.”

Sandren frowned at him, but he just shook his head.

“Trust me,” he said. “I’ve thought it through.”

“You’d better not die,” she said, frowning as she folded her arms. “I feel like I just got the first bit of truth out of you. I’m waiting for the rest.”

“There will be time,” he said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Then he glanced down at the portrait. He’d been very proud of that image once, but now it was a distant past and it wouldn’t help him if it were on display.

“I suppose you should put that back,” he added. “Otherwise, it will be too easy for people to make a connection between some of my spells and that bit of history.”

“I think I’ll keep it,” Sandren said, shaking her head with a little grin. “I’ll put it on the wall in my room. Technically, it’ll still be in the guild. They can have it back when I leave.”

Kelin covered his face with his hand as he shook his head. He had a feeling she would come up with a lot more jokes about that image in the future. 

Sandren stored the image away as they headed back to her office, where she wanted to see the goblet again. 

They spent a while discussing random things as he told her more of his history. He was surprised to find out that now she knew who he really was, her attitude was even more relaxed than before. 

She had always been holding a bit of herself back, worried about his age or rank, but now that she knew he was older than her and he had an even higher rank in the guild, she had finally dismissed her worries.

Others might still wonder about the age difference, but the opinions of others were fleeting things and the Knight rank was enough by itself to shatter most of them.

His age didn’t matter much either, since age was mostly a matter of choice, especially in terms of outward appearance, at least once you reached a certain strength.

His current level wasn’t ideal, but it was something that was swiftly changing. Once he reached 200 or so, no one would even wonder if they saw them together.

Time passed as they chatted, and eventually Kelin got a notification from the Path. So did Sandren. The two of them looked up toward the unseen sky at the same time.

“The Herald is arriving,” he said quietly. 

He wasn’t sure who it would be, but every Herald was at least Level 600, which was strong enough to destroy the entire planet on a whim. 

The entire guild on Lareth would be turning out to meet him.

Everyone would be here at Highmist. It also meant that everyone of significance across the world would be here to witness the duel with Verasun. 

They wouldn’t have come for that normally, but with the Herald arriving, they had no choice.

It would be the beginning of many things.

“I’ve never met a Herald before,” Sandren said, looking nervous as she stared at the notification, but then she shook her head. “What are they like?”

“It’s hard to explain if you’ve never met a Silver Naga,” Kelin replied with a slight smile. “They’re lunatics, but in the best way, and absolutely loyal to the Sovereign. They always leave an impression, so I doubt you’ll forget it.”

At his height, he’d been on par with some of the Heralds, but there were still a few that had been mightier than him, and all of them had been worthy of respect.

The Path wasn’t saying who this one was, or if they would know who he had been in the past, so all he could do was be polite.

The stars were littered with the bones of the people who had been rude to the Silver Nagas, and even more of those who had dared to insult the Sovereign in their presence. 

Few dared any longer.

He held out his hand.

“Let’s go and meet him,” he said. “We don’t want to be the last ones there.”