“We are going to war.”

  Pausing his woodcarving, the Elder turned to Alois. He furrowed his eyes which were nearly concealed by his thick pale eyebrows. He stroked his waterfall-like beard thoughtfully and shook his head. He responds to the slender human before him.

  “Who is coming with you?”

  “My son.”

  His voice quavered with determination upon uttering these two words. Stoffel, the half-dwarf, peered at the Elder behind Alois’s figure. The Elder shook his head.

  “He is a kid. I will not condone him being exposed to bloodshed.”

  “It is a civil war, Elder. This will decide Italica’s fate, along with yours and mine.”

  “A human conflict. Does the kid wish so?”

  “Y-yes… Yes, Elder,” his voice grew with determination, echoing his father. The Elder sighed and shook his head in shame.

  “Alois. Don’t ruin him.”

  “I will never. I promise you, he will emerge as a man.”

  “Or a stout dwarf,” The Elder added. “ We will see, then. You have my blessing.”

  Alois dragged his son into a grateful bow and left the underground garden. The Elder paused, basked in the life-giving sunlight from the heavens, and then returned to his small statue of a honey badger. He shook the sense of foreboding away.

  “Your mother had already gone inside, unfortunately. You have picked quite a terrible time to come,” the guard said. He blocked Alois with his battleaxe, preventing him from going into the mysterious tunnels of yore.

  “Please, Jaoeg, just one last word,” Alois begged.

  The guard shakes his head. He gives the tearful Alois a little leatherbound journal.

  “She did want you to have this. The arts of Wild Shape. Her family secret.”

  Alois looked painfully into the black hole. He handed Stoffel the journal.

  “Keep it safe,” he instructed grimly.

  “Pass it along!”

  The instructor shrilled at the grimy recruits. Alois carefully searched for his son in the mud. The nearby Captain Jones placed his huge hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Your son is… quite small among his peers, I noticed-”

  “So?” Alois snapped.

  Jones backed away, arms raised.

  “My dear Captain, I’m simply proposing an alternative to fighting on the front lines. How about your son stay behind as a surgeon? He has quite the fascination for the arts of healing, after all. A pure and honorable art.”

  “He will fight among the bravest men on the front lines.”

  Jones paused. Alois lighted up when he saw Stoffel's small but wide figure, his dwarven blood making his physique a significant contrast with the others. Then, his emotion dimmed as quickly as it had risen when he saw Stoffel was one of the slowest. Jones stepped forward with another suggestion.

  “You see, he simply can’t fight a fair battle. How about he trains as a field medic, saving countless lives under the rain of arrows and the walls of blades?”

  Alois considered this proposal.

  “Very well. Who will he train under?”

  Captain Jones slapped his breastplate confidently. Alois sighed.

  “Very well,” he repeated.

  Stoffel was the last recruit to finish the circuit.

  “A druid medic, huh? That’s so cool!” Tessa exclaimed.

  Stoffel enthusiastically nodded. He smiled warmly and stood up, his height barely meeting hers.

  “You can count on me, ol’ reliable, to get you patched up!”

  The recruits around him cheered. They were in a wagon, traveling to the front lines. A series of battles had begun in Seashine Village. The rebels had a far advantage over the Royalists, and they were being imported into the city to grow the rebels’ strength and completely kick them out. They were promised they would see minimal fighting. The wagon was a coop of excited young soldiers, including Tessa, one of the four girls in the battalion. She was innocent and warm, instantly becoming popular with her fellow recruits.

  “I can already smell the sea air!”

  “I heard they will build a city on Seashine after the war!”

  “A city? For real?”

  “Anyone thinks they can kill three Roys?”

  Stoffel’s grin faded away as he was once again pushed back by the boys struggling to get Tessa’s attention. She pushes them and moves next to him.

  “You’re going to see combat early?”

  “Yep! They said they can always use more medics and stuff, so-”

  “SO COOL!” Tessa yelped.

  She squirmed in her seat.

  “Tell us what it’s like, deal?”

  “Of course!”

  Alois trodded to the wagon on his horse. The recruits instantly became silent. He cast his strict gaze over the rookies and continued along. Stoffel swore his eyes lingered on him and Tessa.

  “Hell.”

  The young soldier groaned as Stoffel hurried to treat him. He quickly assessed the situation: an arrow to the thigh.

  “Hurts like hell?”

  “Everything is hell,” the youth whispered. He screamed as Stoffel pulled out the arrow shaft and began bandaging his wounds with cloth. An arrow whizzed by.

  “My bad! The arrowhead is barbed, I will carry you to the surgeon!”

  The soldier panted and fell unconscious. Stoffel winced as another soldier beside him exploded from a fireball. The Royalists had just revealed their secret weapon. They brought the Archmages of Royalty. Stoffel picked the soldier up, harnessing his dwarven strength, and hurried past the various barricades and soldiers, to the circle of life in the distance, where a surgeon was working miracles.

  “How did it go!?” Tessa and the recruits shouted excitedly as Stoffel came back in the night. He raised his arms for pause.

  “Hell.”

  The barracks exploded with curiosity. A plethora of further questions were flung at Stoffel’s tired face, but one eventually prevailed as the most important.

  “What do you mean as hell?”

  “Everything was hell,” Stoffel echoed emptily. He clamored onto his bunk and fell asleep instantly. The barracks stayed up for hours, discussing Stoffel’s response and the orders for them to go into action tomorrow morning.

  “These are Spectralroots,” the surgeon said, holding a flask with a dark liquid.

  Under the orders of his father, Stoffel was to learn alchemy which, combined with his magic and skill, would work wonders on the front lines.

  Stoffel tore his gaze from the wounded weasel outside the tent and turned back to the surgeon, who continued.

  “Known for their necromantic properties. No, don’t give me that look. This is no stereotypical Dark Art. You simply mix these with a handful of herbs such as rosemary, hightails, and lizard leaf, and it will give the power to restore the beating of one’s heart. If done correctly and the ingredients are pure, it will also massively boost one’s arcana proficiencies. Valuable concoctions, Stoffel. Are you listening?”

  The surgeon carefully sealed the flask and looked at Stoffel closely. He jumped and turned back. The weasel was dead.

  “Sir… there’s a dead weasel outside,” he whispered.

  The surgeon went out and carried it onto the lab table.

  “An arrow… it died slowly and painfully.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Stoffel winced as his memories of battle came flooding back.

  “Feed the potion to its mouth. Make sure to use every last drop.”

  Stoffel obeyed. At once, the weasel’s eyes fluttered open, revealing a set of terrified pupils. It frantically tore away. The surgeon and Stoffel watched it melt into the foliage. At last, the surgeon sighed and returned to their lesson.

  “It really is hell.”

  Tessa whispered, the wound of a firebolt visibly present on the place on her chest where her heart was. Stoffel clutched her, ignorant of other moaning soldiers lying around him, tears freely flowing from his eyes to Tessa’s increasingly stiff body. He scrambled in his bag for the potions the surgeon had given him. She laughed as her cherished memories with her comrades came flashing across her eyes.

  “Close your eyes,” Stoffel whispered. “You feel sleepy, right?” Tessa shook her head, unwilling to relinquish her ever-so-distant thoughts.

  Stoffel shook the bottle at her.

  “Please! You just have to let go, and everything will be good…”

  “I don’t wanna,” Tessa complained, her slideshow finally scrolling to the time in training. Stoffel’s clean, stout face clipped with his present, grime-covered, teary appearance. “I feel surprisingly energetic… that’s good, right, Stoffel? Don’t them doctors always become happy when I say I’m alright?”

  “You are not! Please- you need to sleep!”

  Tessa smiled as her dying brain pulled up a thought of her parents forcing her to stay in bed.

  “If I had listened, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

  “What are you-”

  Stoffel did not know how to respond. Tessa drooped, her eyes finally losing their spark. Stoffel frantically tried to feed her the concoction.

  Please… please- PLEASE!

  “You there! We need a medic over here!” A man shouted in the distance. A pang of guilt attacked Stoffel in the heart. He neglected other brave soldiers. His hands shook and the flask trembled, spilling the live-saving potion over Tessa’s peaceful features.

  “Hurry up! What are you doing? Medic! Medic!” the man shouted with increasing desperation. Stoffel hesitated and finally paused when Tessa showed no signs of rejuvenation. Tears now a waterfall, he stood up and hurried to treat the alive in need.

  “Let’s have a talk, Captain to healer, superior to subordinate.”

  Alois crossed his fingers.

  “Father to son,” he added.

  “Been a while,” Stoffel said emptily.

  Alois nodded. On his table, a map of Seashine was laid out, piles of figurines and paper laid over it. A little wooden statue of a honey badger was situated in a corner. Alois picked it up and showed it to Stoffel, who studied it emotionlessly.

  “The Elder sent this. Honey badgers have thick skins, enough to protect themselves, and sharp claws, which can be used against their enemies. If you can translate that into an army, then… it will be the ideal fighting force.”

  “How is Mother?”

  “Anyway, um, I just want to ask you - since you live with the soldiers, not me, - how are the men doing?”

  “They are depressed and traumatized.”

  “...Understandable.”

  “But they wish to keep fighting, sir.”

  “That’s excellent. Tomorrow we will attempt a final charge. I wanted to just… check on the men, and see how you are doing, you know?”

  “Will that be all?” Stoffel did not return Alois’s brief empathy.

  “That… will be all.”

  Something snapped.

  “Men! Today we will drive the Royalists away! Once, and for all!”

  Thousands of soldiers cheered, Stoffel the exception.

  “The gravestones of our fallen peers, the rivers of blood that had been sacrificed, and the spirits of the hundreds of our friends - are they for nothing!”

  “No, sir!”

  Stoffel’s mind turned to Tessa’s new granite gravestone. He insisted it is granite instead of dull limestone using his privilege of being the Captain’s son, an ability he rarely used. Alois continued.

  “What’s a couple of paper-loving, religion-worshipping, white-bearded old men gonna do? What’s a crushed, haggard army gonna do? The countless hecatombs of war, the great heroics of battle, and the sacred mission every one of us had contributed to, will be remembered forever to be the stuff of legends! Who is with me!”

  The riled-up soldiers cheered again.

  “I will lead! Charge!”

  “Retreat! Retreat!”

  Alois commanded as fireballs exploded across the battlefield. The Royalists had reinforcements, armored knights who seemed to have supernatural powers. Alois’s men were thoroughly disassembled and dissolved in a matter of minutes.

  Stoffel ran frantically, pulling to the end of his strength wounded to safety. Save yourself, what are some more deaths going to do? He shook the terrible thought off. The voice continued, the day is lost. Save yourself for once, will you?

  He ran, leaving a still-breathing soldier in the mud. He raised his hands, then slowly lowered them, accepting his fate. Stoffel bolted, then paused as he saw Alois fighting two knights. A flash shot across the battlefield, and Alois covered his eyes, seemingly blinded. The knights struck him in the leg, sending him kneeling. Stoffel couldn’t watch. He tore his eyes off the proceeding sight and dashed into the wrecked town. He eventually stumbled into a burning tavern. He crawled into the basement for refuge, where a wall lined with barrels of alcohol provided sustenance for him through the next month.

  He eventually traveled away from the ruins as Lenny, an alcoholic, starving, and depressed vagrant. He always had a large flask full of beer with him, the same flask he tried to use to bring back Tessa. He had ditched his old life in the mud after he came across the ruins of the rebels’ camp. He filed through some papers and read that mysterious armored men slaughtered his dwarven relatives. Resolved to discover who these men were, he began a journey north.

  He traveled beyond the Kingdom of Italica into the northern continents, the Realm of Ruin. He was told that mysteries and specters of the deceased dominated these lands by many travelers. He grew a startling fascination with the stars and constellations, something he also does not understand. He would spend many sleepless nights simply communicating with the heavens above.

  At the edge of the Realm of Ruin, he was attacked by a heatwave. Suffering severe whiplash, he gathered many indigents to mix into a concoction that would help him survive the ordeal. He failed, but he did manage to mix the Spectralroot potion he was all too familiar with. Having no use for it, he thought of another way.

  Wild Shape, the secret passed from his mother. He had never attempted it but kept the journal with him all this time. He quickly gazed across the pages and memorized the basics. Drinking the potion, he hoped it would help boost his chances of Wild Shaping.

  But what will he morph into?

  A honey badger. Its thick skins. Its resilience. It was neverending courage that symbolized so many things in his life. Desperately, he transformed.

  A success. He survived the heatwave.

  A failure. He could not return to his form. He had overdone it.

  Traveling back to Seashine, now rebuilt into Seashine City, he began life as a honey badger, scavenging amongst human garbage. His life had hit rock bottom. The skies were permanently dark, something he assumed to be caused by his honey-badger eyes.

  One day, as he was digging in a dirt ditch for a smelly banana, he was interrupted by a small voice.

  “Hullo! Can you understand me?”

  Lenny paused. Slowly, he turned around, expecting a human, but facing him was a mongoose, colored peculiarly black-and-white in a pattern. Lenny nodded. The mongoose sighed in relief.

  “Finally! Someone like me!”

  He threw himself into an embrace with him. Confused and clueless about how to react, Lenny gently patted him on the back. The mongoose broke away and jumped around excitedly.

  “I’m Rikki Tikki Tavi! A bit foreign,” he said sheepishly, “but it was the name I liked. Rolls off quite glamorously.”

  “It… does set you apart.”

  Lenny spoke with immense effort, having not adjusted to a honey badger’s vocal cords.

  “Say again?”

  “It sets you apart.”

  “Bingo!”

  The mongoose jumped up and down like a slinky. He sped around Lenny and lay on the ground, chest heaving for breath. He poked his head at Lenny.

  “Let’s be friends!”

  “Alright.”

  Rikki was instantly vocal against Lenny’s alcoholism. Eventually, he managed to convince him to stop drinking. He had a kind human provide food for him every day, and the human was also glad to feed Lenny. Lenny teared up upon tasting real food for the first time in months.

  One day, three armored men came stumbling across Lenny and Rikki’s little hideout. They grabbed Rikki and Lenny slowly woke up as they bickered.

  “Getoff me!”

  “This mongoose talks! Can mongooses talk?”

  “No! This has to be an Otherworld creature.”

  “I said, gets your hands-”

  “Then what’s the holdup? Orders, we clean Seashine of the Otherworld. Is it not?”

  “Alright then.”

  The sharp sound of a blade. Lenny rushed out, screaming at the top of his lungs as he witnessed one human cut open Rikki’s chest, spilling his intestines(also curiously black-and-white) onto the earth. Rikki’s screaming was instantly snuffed.

  At that moment, Lenny’s sense of morality and humanity disappeared. He hurled a hex at one of the knights, binding him with vines, and charged at the other two with a scimitar. A metal boot slammed into his skull, knocking him out.

  “Where am I?”

  Lenny asked. He was bound to a chair, tied up by a seemingly invisible rope. He looked around. He was in a room filled with warm lights and rainbow reflections created by the various glass decorations on the walls. A silhouette of a tall, slender man stands up, his back in the sunlight. His voice was comfortably smooth.

  “Italica City.”

  “The… capital?”

  “That is right, Lenny.”

  “Who are you? How did you…”

  “Know your name, Lenny? An ability called memory link, my friend. I am Lucius, the Captain of Shadow’s Edge, an organization of Gifteds who can wield powerful abilities to fight against the Otherworld.”

  “The Otherworld?”

  “Right. Your friend the mongoose was an Otherworld creature. You didn’t know? These creatures are sinister, they feed on people to live. You are a Gifted, my friend. That is why you could see him in the first place.”

  “He was innocent!”

  “Hey, my men didn’t kill your friend. Starmetal Valley did.”

  “Starmetal.... Valley?”

  “Our rival organization. They don’t have the same morals as us. They killed your father, Alois. They liquidated your dwarven cousins. They killed your friend.”

  Lenny’s teeth grinded together in rage. Lucius laughed.

  “Will you join us in our effort to put a stop to their crimes? You will be the one to topple Starmetal Valley, I can see it…”

  Without thinking twice, Lenny replied, “Yes!”

  “Excellent.”

  Lucius picked up a scimitar and its sheath. He turned it around in the sunlight, a sharp glint off its blade.

  “Unfortunately, they took your weapon. This blade has never seen blood. Forged by my brother, a master blacksmith, it’s made of Starmetal. The strongest material we know of. Hopefully, this is enough to make up for your loss.”

  “I don’t want Starmetal crap.”

  “My friend, I am talking about the mineral of meteors. May its name, whatever it will be, always remind you of something… dear.”

  Lenny nodded and took the scimitar from Lucius. He examined it closely, noting its subtle cerulean sparkle and the heaviness of the material.

  “Rikki Tikki Tavi,” he whispered to the weapon.

  “What is that?”

  “This blade will claim many lives,” Lenny announced, sheathing it.

  “Let us meet your soon-to-be party members, then. Shall we get started?”