TravelingDreamer

  In Calgary, I rented us a house oskirts of the city, close to the dire of Mount Rundle. We needed a while oh to finish the st tasks. Rue resumed his patrolling, delivering a daily “report” in the evening that left the three of us with a telepathic headache. He stopped being glued to the TV, at least.

  Setting up my workstation, I tio write a full at of my journey. For the first time, I felt the full impact of the stats. I always had an excellent memory, but not to the extent that I could remember exact versations, facial expressions, or every miail of an occurrenow I could like it happened an ho and years ago. It shocked me in the beginning, and I thought I might be imagining it and creating false ses in my mind—but no, I REMEMBERED EVERYTHING!

  “I thought you were doh the lists?” Mahya asked, her eyes curious as she g the puter s.

  “I am.”

  “So what are you writing?” she tiilting her head slightly.

  “Everything that happeo me since disc the Gate,” I expined, leaning ba my chair. “I want to warh so they get ready.”

  “ I read it?” she asked, leaning forward, looking eager.

  “Sure, when I’m done,” I said with a smile.

  Al approached me , his steps slow but deliberate. “Why did we never visit Ikea?” he asked, his brow furrowed, as if it had been on his mind for a while.

  I shrugged, gng at him. “I don’t know. We just didn’t.”

  “I’m going to visit Ikea and need money,” he said, nodding to himself, as though making an important decision.

  I gave him 3,000, then another 5,000, and then another 3,000. It looked like we had some visits to make, and Al looked smug. I would have suspected he did it on purpose to visit more drug dealers, but I heard him gush to Mahya about Ikea, so I gave him the be of the doubt and tinued writing.

  Mahya came to me again, her expression serious. “I need you to el Restore into the cars, bikes, ATV, a skis.”

  “It will kill them,” I pointed out, frowning as I stared at her, unsure if she really meant it.

  She gave me the look, her eyes narrowing. “I know.”

  I was utterly fused, my eyebrows knitting together. “Why are we killing our transportation?”

  “Remember the smart homes we saw in that news story, where all the systems went haywire?” she asked, her toient but firm. When I nodded, still unsure where this was going, she tinued, “I don’t want to risk something like that happening in a mana world. We know Restore fries eleid everythiric, but the physical parts stay intact without a problem.”

  “We need one jeep for everyday use,” I added, still trying to make sense of her request.

  “No problem, just kill the rest,” she said with a shrug, as if it were the simplest solution in the world.

  So, I eled Restore into all the vehicles. At first, I thought about keeping three jet skis for us and donating the rest, but Mahya wouldn’t hear of it. In the end, I had to “kill” a Grand Wagoneer (courtesy of the drug dealers) that only needed a small dose of Restore, and the sed-hand Wrahat needed a lot more. Mahya put her motorcycle back together—it didn’t need aoration—but I still flooded it with mana to kill it. Al’s bike and my ATV? Both met their untimely end. It took me a couple of days tee, and then I systematically “murdered” 12 jet skis.

  I expected Mahya to jump on the vehicles project after my aurder, but she surprised me. She stored all the vehicles, took out the balloon, and began embr it with gold wire. Every time she looked at me, I felt the o dust off my shoulders smugly. I got the evil eye every time, and she threateo make me join the project. I still felt the o dust my shoulders occasionally and immediately vacate the premises.

  ada is crazy about hockey, and they ied Al with the bug. Si was summer, there were no frozen kes, but that didn’t stop the adians. The city was full of skating rinks, and Al was in heaven. I was less in heaven wheook the rest of the moo buy hockey gear. From sticks ao pucks and skates in every size in triplicates or more.

  When I tried to pin about it, he reminded me about three and a half tons of coffee, and I had to admit defeat and drive two hours to visit some drug dealers. We had a busy night, my nerves wrote me a pier, and Al and Mahya were all smiles. He got more drugs, she got muns and ammo, and I got 37,000. I used to think about Mahya as a pyful, trouble-making imp, but tely, my impression of her shifted to a crazy, gun-toting maniac.

  While writing, so many memories came flooding back. The first time I met Rue—then Stretch—baby Sophia, meeting Lis for the first time. Our two years in London before resg Mahya, our journey around Europe, and all the crazy workshops. My first dungeon and the giant, terrifying snake. Meeting Al for the first time—Spirits, he was su ass back then. a, saying goodbye to Lis and those stinky rats. The house on the o with the balloon in the air, my show in SF, and that iing flight to Vegas. Sonak is still an idiot. Milking Vegas, the rescue, the insane robbery, and so much more.

  During my writing, I ughed, shed a few tears, facepalmed more times than I care to t, and shook my head in embarrassment, resignation, helplessness, and probably every other emotion uhe sun. It was quite the rollercoaster. paring myself now to who I was nine years ago, when Sophie died, it was like looking at two pletely different people. Back then, I was closed off, angry, and weighed down by grief. Now, I felt like I’d shed yers of myself that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying. Sure, I still had some work to do—I wasn’t delusional about that. I was self-aware enough to know I cked empathy for people I didn’t form a e with, and, if I did make that e, I teo get a little too gy. It’s a bang act I hadn’t quite mastered. But despite those fws, I could see I was a better version of myself, miles ahead of who I used to be.

  I felt lighter, like some weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Maybe it was the Vitality mental aspect that helped, or maybe it was just the progress I’d made emotionally aally over the years. Holy, I didn’t care what caused it. What mattered was that I enjoyed life so much more now. I ughed—a lot—and I had friends who I could do all kinds of crazy stuff with, things I never would’ve dared to try before. I let go of so much baggage I’d been dragging around like a twisted, hidden treasure locked deep inside me. My journey helped me shed all that, helped me leave the past where it belonged and actually start looking forward to the future.

  And the future? Well, the future looked pretty damn amazing.

  I felt like a phoenix that had been through the crucible, reborn in the fire, stronger and somehow more alive than ever before. That feeling was so powerful, it inspired me in ways I hadn’t expected. I ended up writing two songs to try and articute everything I was going through. Or, more accurately, I didn’t write them—they just burst out of me, fully formed, like they’d been waiting there all along, simmering uhe surfatil I was ready to let them out. And I evehe piano for the first time—I was that inspired.

  Phoenix’s Flight

  Verse 1: In the heart’s fe, where sorrows smolder, A phoenix stirs, its wings afme. The past, a pyre—memories grow colder, From ashes, hope igs game.

  Chorus: Rise from ashes, wings unfurled, Let go of pain, embrace the world. In fmes reborn, your spirit soars, Healed and whole, forevermore.

  Each tear shed fuels the fiery ast, Breaking s that bound despair. Embrace the fmes, their fiertent, To lift you high into the air.

  Rise from ashes, wings unfurled, Let go of pain, embrace the world. In fmes reborn, your spirit soars, Healed and whole, forevermore.

  Each tear shed fuels the fiery ast, Breaking s that bound despair. Embrace the fmes, their fiertent, To lift you high into the air.

  Verse 2: Embers of memory, fierd bright, Kindle anehoenix’s birth. From sm remnants, take your flight, Feathers abze, recim your worth.

  Chorus: Rise from ashes, wings unfurled, Let go of pain, embrace the world. In fmes reborn, your spirit soars, Healed and whole, forevermore.

  Each tear shed fuels the fiery ast, Breaking s that bound despair. Embrace the fmes, their fiertent, To lift you high into the air.

  Bridge: The pyre of heartache, oning, Now fuels ast, a celestial dance. In skies uncharted, find your blooming, A soul set free from circumstance.

  Verse 3: Embers fade, yet memories remain, A tapestry of ache and might. From smoky remnants, ce gaihe phoenix sings of dawn’s first light.

  Chorus: Rise from ashes, wings unfurled, Let go of pain, embrace the world. In fmes reborn, your spirit soars, Healed and whole, forevermore.

  Outro: In flight, you traew steltions, Each star a bea in the night. Wings whisper tales of transformations, As healing winds lift you to height.

  Wings of Rebirth

  Verse 1: In the caverns of my heart, ember-lit, I cradled memories like fragile gss, Each shard a testament to pain endured, A fractured mirror refleg my past.

  Chorus: I am the phoenix, rising from the pyre, Wings afme with hope, my spirit higher. In the alchemy of healing, I aspire, To rewrite my story, set my heart on fire.

  Verse 2: But the alchemist moon whispered secrets, How to transmute sorrow into gold, To weave new steltions from old wounds, And find so stories yet untold.

  Chorus: I am the phoenix, rising from the pyre, Wings afme with hope, my spirit higher. In the alchemy of healing, I aspire, To rewrite my story, set my heart on fire.

  Verse 3: So I stitched stardust into my veins, Painted gaxies upon my skin, For the universe is vast, and I am but A wanderer seeking where dreams begin.

  Chorus: I am the phoenix, rising from the pyre, Wings afme with hope, my spirit higher. In the alchemy of healing, I aspire, To rewrite my story, set my heart on fire.

  Verse 4: Now, I stand on the precipice of dawn, My scars no longer s but battle hymns, And as the sun kisses my broken edges, I leap—my phoenix heart abze, wings trimmed.

  Chorus: I am the phoenix, rising from the pyre, Wings afme with hope, my spirit higher. In the alchemy of healing, I aspire, To rewrite my story, set my heart on fire.

  Outro: For the past is but a vas, and I, An artist with colors yet untried, I’ll paint my tomorrows with hope’s brushstroke, A healing winds carry me skyward.

  It took me nearly two full months, w twelve to fifteen hours a day, but I finally finished my at. I printed one copy and ha to Mahya to read, along with all the pictures I’d taken throughout the journey. I heard her ughing her ass off more than once, and I had a sneaking suspi it wasn’t because of my witty writing, but more at my expense.

  In the evening of the first day she was reading my at, she came to me and asked, “If you had ricity, how would you use the enrger.”

  “Mirrors and the sun. Why?”

  She burst out ughing again and said, “Don’t you ever dare to protest the name Clueless. It fits you even more than John.”

  I just looked at her, perplexed and fused.

  She hit the bay head and said, “You have an Adaptable Light Ball.”

  I facepalmed. I was never getting rid of the Clueless moniker.

  While Mahya was reading, I went looking for a bookbinder. I had a lot of books without runes ic scripts that I could bind ieological” way. I found a big bookbinding servi Calgary and brought them all the books on A4 pages, held by rubber bands. They stared at me and stared even more when they saw the letters were like nothing they had ever seen.

  The clerk at the bookbinding service, a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard and kind eyes, looked at the pages with curiosity. “What is that?”

  “Fantasy books for Dungeons and Dragons.”

  He chuckled, his eyes kling at the ers. “Aren’t they supposed to have nice covers?”

  “When they will be published, sure. Right now, I’m looking for a pany that will buy them from me, but to do that, I hem bound.”

  The clerk nodded, giving me an encing smile. “Good luck, man.”

  They bound all my books, and I went looking for a bookbihat did traditional binding with glue and thread.

  I found somebody like that!

  I told her the same story I’d used at the other pce, but when I came back to collect the books, she fronted me, her expression a mix of curiosity and suspi. She ft-out refused to believe they were just fantasy props. “Every time I try to read them,” she said, her voice low and uneasy, “it feels like my eyes are sliding right off the text. And then the headaches... I’ve been having the stra dreams since I started w ohey’re not normal, are they?”

  Her words lingered, and it was clear she wasn’t going to drop it. I could see the mix of fear and fasation in her eyes, and I kly what was happening. The books weren’t just some props—they were part of the truth I had written, the actual story.

  I met her gaze and promised, “I’ll give you answers soon.” She didn’t realize it yet, but I had already written those answers in my at—the truth of everything that had happened. As I added her to my future mailing list, I knew she’d be among the first to learn what was really going on.

  Mahya was doh the reading, and we moved to the stage of my pn. I prepared a long list of addresses of every gover oh and of the main ma of every first responder force—like firefighters and paramedics, etc. We bought more A4 paper, sent the file to the printers, and also the three of us used the spell Copy Text to duplicate the stain and again. When Mahya would run out of mana, she would put copies in envelopes and write the addresses. It took us two weeks to finish the full list, but the envelopes were ready.

  While Mahya was almost doh the balloon, I searched for sites that alloerson to publish a story and preppers and survivalists’ sites through the i, social media, and various forums. I uploaded my story to all the writing sites but didn’t publish it yet. I kept it as a draft.

  Mahya was doh the balloon, and we went to a field to fill it with air until it floated. O , she sent Al ao make sure nobody was around. After we gave her the all-clear, she casually shot the balloon with a rifle!

  “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” I cried, staring at her in disbelief.

  She just ughed and poi the balloon. There wasn’t even a mark on it, let alone a hole. The thing looked pletely untouched. My jaw practically hit the ground. She cpped me on the back, still ughing.

  Then she handed me a bow and had me shoot arrows at it. Same result. Nothing. The balloon was still pristine. , we tried burning it with a torch, but it didn’t even singe. I had to admit; we had one hell of a balloon.

  After all that, she did something weird. For a sed, I felt foggy, and suddenly I became vihat we were starving and o go eat right away. Al enthusiastically agreed, aarted walking off without a sed thought.

  But Mahya’s ughter stopped us. “Close your eyes, boys, and give me your hands.”

  That didn’t make any sense, especially when we were clearly in desperate need of food. She actually grabbed our shoulders to stop us and pricked my finger.

  “Ouch! What the hell are you doing?” I snapped, getting more than a little annoyed.

  She did something, and just like that, my mind cleared. I remembered the balloon, and that we were supposed to be testing it. Also, I’d already eaten like an ho.

  “How did you do that?” I asked, still trying to my head around it.

  Mahya looked pretty pleased with herself. “Runes,” she said, pointing to a row of them on the balloon’s side. She listed them off—Bend Light, Memory, fusion, Obfuscation, Recall, Crity, Blood, Prote, Binding—and then poi the key ruhe one she used our blood on to cel the effect.

  “You’re amazing, you know that?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

  She grinned. “I’m a genius. Don’t you fet it!”

  “This is truly a remarkable feat,” Al chimed in, sounding genuinely impressed.

  Mahya gave us both a nod. “Thanks, boys.”

  After we were doh the balloon, we had a short deliberation oher to go or dey and came to an agreement to dey for a short while for workshops.

  Mahya had over 250, I had 199, and Al had 84. Since I was stog for two, it was less than it looked. We decided Mahya would start w on oo vert it to Magitech, and Al and I would attend workshops.

  Advanced Painting TeiquesCarving finnersGssblowing FualsWo: Building Your First ProjectLeather Crafting EssentialsMetalw and Bcksmithing: The Art of ShapialCreative Writing Workshop: Finding Your VoiceBookbinding: Traditional TeiquesWiasting and PairingArtisanal Cheese MakingGardening and Horticulture: Growing Your OwablesUrban Farming: Maximizing Small SpacesSustainable Living PracticesFitness and Personal Training: Getting StartedIntrodu to Ballroom DangFilm Produ aing BasicsGraphic Design EssentialsWeb Development: Building Your First WebsiteApp Development finnersSocial Media Marketing StrategiesPhoto Editing with PhotoshopInterior Design: Transf Your SpaceFashion Design: Sketgetology Basiail Art and Design TeiquesHair Styling 101Mindfulness and Stress MaPublic Speaking and unication SkillsLeadership and Ma Trairepreneurship: Starting Your Own BusinessFinancial Pnning and Iment StrategiesCareer Development awEnviroal servation: Proteg Natural ResourcesThe Basics of Rock ClimbingSurvival Skills and Wilderraining

  Attending workshops with Al felt like navigating a maze of tradis so severe that I half-expected someoo diagnose him with a split personality disorder. In public, he carried himself with a regal air that pletely vanished when it was just us. Still, beh that polished exterior, his knack for pig up new skills was undeniable—though he never missed a pin or hold his nose a little too high.

  Our first workshop, Advanced Painting Teiques, started with Al strolling in like he was walking into a ba, gng at the brushes and paints like they weren’t quite up to his standards. “Is this really the best they have?” he pined. But by the end of the session, he’d produced a beautiful su.

  We also tackled Carving finners, where he wrinkled his the sawdust. “This is... primitive,” he ented, but by the end, he carved a detailed lion’s head that caught everyone’s attention. I noticed a smile when the instructor praised his work.

  Gssblowing Fuals was bound to be iing. Al, clearly fasated by the molten gss, got a little too close and singed both his sleeve and hand. So I had to heal him discreetly.

  In Wo: Building Your First Project, Al couldn’t help but pin. “This is oners’ work,” he grumbled, but his beautifully carved wooden box said otherwise. He might’ve acted like he was above it, but the care he put into his work was obvious.

  As we attended more workshops—like Leather Crafting, Bcksmithing, and Creative Writing—Al’s pattern remaihe same: he pined, acted as if the work was beh him, but ended up excelling. His storytelling during the Creative Writing Workshop was where he really shined, spinning tales of daring princes and epic adventures. “I have e to realize that I possess an innate ability for storytelling,” he said early, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t just reting stories from his family’s archive.

  By the end of the workshops, Al had proven himself talented in areas ranging from Wiasting to Artisanal Cheese Making, though his pints opped. “This is not my calling,” he said while w on Web Development, yet there was no denying the satisfa on his face when things finally clicked.

  Despite his occasional arrogance, Al’s talent aermination were undeniable. He might’ve masked his insecurities with bravado, but watg him grow through these workshops roof that even a prince could learn a thing or two.

  Still, the experience left me feeling like I had whipsh. The minute we left the workshops, he reverted to the usual Al—overly formal nguage, but otherwise... normal. Not the arrogant prick he was in public. I started to suspect his pompous attitude might be a front for deeper self-esteem issues, but I didn’t have proof beyond what I saw during the workshops.

  By the time we were doh the workshops, Mahya still hadn’t fihe jeep, but there was no reason to dey anymore. We spent the st bit of money, and as I watched the UPS truck drive away, filled with envelopes taining my story, a strange mix of relief and ay hit me. I had poured months into writing everything down—every detail, every memory—and now I was sending it out into the world. The weight of it suddenly felt immense. I wasn’t just telling a story. I was warnih about dangers it had never imagined. Would they believe me? Would they prepare in time? Or would they dismiss it as fantasy and tinue on as if nothing had ged?

  I pressed ‘publish’ on all the sites where I had uploaded my story. It felt oddly anticlimactic after so much work, like there should’ve been some grand moment. But instead, I just sat there staring at the s for a long time.

  Mahya and Al helped me spread the word, posting on hundreds of forums, social media pages, and survivalist sites:

  This is not a fantasy!Verify the facts given iet ready to survive.The Gate Traveler—with a link to the story on Royal Road, or Scribble Hub.

  With the links shared and my story out there, I leaned bad let out a long breath. It was out of my hands now. The world would either take this seriously or they wouldn’t. A part of me hoped I wouldn’t o be proven right.

  I stored all the puters, wishing them well in my mind, as if they could somehow carry the weight of the warning. We packed up and drove to Mount Ru was te, the quiet darkness surrounding us as we parked. I eled Restore into the jeep, experieng the familiar feel as the magic seeped into it, then stored it away. One more thing was behind us.

  We stood there for a moment, just the three of us, looking at the Gate. The step of our journey awaited. I felt a swirl of emotioement, apprehension, and a strange sense of closure. Earth was behi least for now, but the unknown stretched out ahead. Even Mahya, though relut, stepped forward to touch the Gate ahe World Information. We were in this together.

  It was time for a new adventure.

  Those are pictures of us.

  I hope you believe me,

  John Rue

  Me and Rue

  Lis

  Mahya and Lyura

  Alfonsen Holerand Mirbit VII

  The Idiot, AKA Sonak Susil

  Rabban Vin Fish