Jack opened his eyes. The night sky was a blanket of black silk, pinholed with brilliant stars, so many millions more than he had ever seen, even in the wilderness of Earth. The Five Sisters, the moons of Ayrgard…

“Wait, five?” he spoke aloud.

The fifth moon was a deep umbral purple, smaller than the rest by half. Some inspiration stirred within him, and he understood both that the moon was barely visible against the bright night sky of the Empire’s territory, and that the fifth sister’s phases changed on a vastly slower scale than the other four.

A sparkling play of pale blue light scattered through the wispy clouds, like the gentlest lightning storm imaginable. He turned toward the source of that illumination, and like Erin, saw a mountainous tree rising above the horizon, half its titanic height obscured beyond his line of sight. The brilliant trailing lights wound across the surface of the world tree’s bark, and its branches stretched across the night sky, the most massive thing Jack had ever seen.

“You must be Ilani,” he smiled. “Which means I’m dreaming.”

“YES AND NO, JACKSON AVERY HOLT.”

He turned, slowly, to look behind him, where a brilliant golden eye the size of a football field stared out from a field of unfathomable darkness. The great serpent’s chin rested on the pale grass of the plains and the eye was less than a hundred feet away, occupying nearly the entire field of his vision.

“You’re smaller than I expected,” Jack grinned at the titanic serpent.

The scales around the vast golden eye crinkled, and a burst of wind exhaled from the serpent’s nostrils. He was pretty sure Ouroboros had laughed, if only a little.

“YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO SLUMBER WHILE THE NIGHT PERVADES AND EVOLVES YOUR FORM. WHEN YOU AWAKEN, YOU WILL BE FLESH OF MY FLESH, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD.”

“Why?” Jack’s eyes were hard in the pale light.

“IF YOUR FAITH IS LACKING, WHY DID YOU ACCEPT MY GIFT?”

“Because I have to be strong enough to protect them,” he finally looked away.

“AND THAT IS WHY THIS GIFT IS GIVEN TO YOU. BECAUSE YOU LOVE YOUR COMPANIONS AS I LOVE MY OWN.”

The eye shifted slightly, looking over Jack’s shoulder, at the great tree in the distance.

“What can I do?” a tear rolled down his cheek, then another.

“POWER IS THE ONLY TRUE SAFETY. SEEK STRENGTH, AND SEEK THE SEALS. SOME STILL KNOW MY FAITH. THEY WILL AID YOU, AND IN TURN, YOU WILL AID THEM. THE LONELY DESOLATION OF DAY MUST ALWAYS END, YIELDING TO THE COMFORT OF NIGHT.”

“One more question?” he winced.

The great serpent simply watched him expectantly.

“Why the undead? In my world, they’re evil. They consume everything, like locusts. If I’m the good guy, why do I have bad powers?” he flinched, waiting for the serpent’s anger.

“MIGHT IS NEITHER GOOD NOR EVIL. ONLY ACTION DEFINES YOUR PATH. A CORPSE FILLED WITH THE DARKNESS OF THE GRAVE IS A TOOL. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS. THE SOUL HAS NO FURTHER NEED OF BLOOD AND BONE. IF YOU WISH TO HONOR THE RISEN DEAD, MAKE GOOD USE OF THEIR FLESH, THEN RETURN THEM TO REST.”

“Does that mean I won’t have a soul when I wake up?” his voice wavered.

“YOU ARE NOT A CORPSE, AND A NIGHTWRAITH IS NOT A ZOMBIE.”

“I think I understand. Thank you for helping us,” his fear had withered, and resolve grew in its place.

“OUR TIME HERE IS AT AN END, JACKSON AVERY HOLT. GO, AND SHARE THE PEACE OF DARKNESS WITH THE WEARY. AS THE POWER OF NIGHT GROWS WITHIN YOU, SO SHALL OUR CONNECTION.”

Jack’s eyes snapped open. At least, he was pretty sure they were open. He cast Nighteye and was astonished as the spell used a quarter less mana than the last time he cast it. But he still couldn’t see. His vision was a field of murky gloom, absent of any detail. He patted his body, feeling his gambeson, belt, trousers, then raised his hands into the air, where the met resistance, like a silk sheet made of inky darkness. He ran his hands across the cocoon of shadow, then pulled at it and tried to tear it with his hands. It was as tough as woven kevlar, but as he struggled with the stygian chrysalis, he felt a prickling sensation that he had only started to equate with his Skills. He then remembered the strange skill from the Nightbringer list, “Shadowcraft”.

The moment he thought the Skill’s name, a surge of darkness welled up within him, and a small chunk of his Stamina vanished. He felt a chill travel from his heart to the tips of his fingers, and a swath of darkness curled out from his outstretched hands, strangely visible in the tenebrous oblivion. The tendril of shadow responded to his desire and lashed out, slicing open the chrysalis.

Daylight poured into the cocoon, which almost instantly began to evaporate into streams of Night-aspected mana.

The sun was a blazing conflagration, brilliant beyond anything he had experienced. He waited for his eyes to adjust, but relief never came. He pulled his blanket over his head, creating a makeshift hood, and as the sun was obscured, the discomfort slowly faded.

He cast about, and seeing a tree a few yards from the camp, he rose and walked to shade, where the scorching sensation of being driven down by the noon sun evaporated entirely.

“Hey Tex, how ya feelin?” Layla’s voice rang out from above him.

He pulled back the hood and looked up, into the branches of the tree.

“Holy shit! You look AWESOME!” she exclaimed, laughing as she dropped out of the tree.

“What? What do I look like?” he touched his cheeks, then his nose, feeling for changes, but it all felt like the same face.

However, as he pulled his hands back, he noticed they were a bloodless white, save for the nails, which were a thick black terminating in diminutive points. His skin was cool to the touch, a strange rhythmic drum of dark mana thrumming under his skin, and very faintly he could see the traces of black veins beneath the ghostly skin.

“You look like a specter, man. You’re ash white. Hair’s two-tone highlighted, white and black. Super cool. And your eyes are doing that pitch-black thing,” she grinned at him.

“Oh, I have my night vision spell going. Hang on,” he dismissed the spell.

The shadows deep within the shade of the tree seemed to grow as Nighteye faded, and even the hateful glare of the sun abated somewhat.

“Nope, sorry Jackson. Looks like you got the demon eyes for good,” she laughed. “I think they’re kinda sexy.”

He laughed, “I’m not your type, remember.”

“Meh. I said that so Erin wouldn’t be upset. I’d totally take a roll in the hay with you right now while they’re out hunting,” she paused while the shocked look bloomed on Jack’s face, then laughed. “Oh, you’re so easy. You’re my best friend’s guy, dork. Don’t get me wrong. You look like a sexy vampire, and part of me is curious to see if your business is still ‘tehn-outta-tehn’... but I wouldn’t do that to Erin.”

She pecked him on the cheek, then started to climb back into the tree.’

“Women. I’ll never get it,” he shook his head.

“It’s not hard, Jackson. Three effs. Feed em, fuck em, be faithful, in that order,” she winked at him.

As she finished her climb and laid in the crook of the tree’s branches, the oddity finally overcame the shock, “Why are you in that tree?”

“Same reason you’re in the shade, dork. Cause we’re monsters and the sun hates us,” she pulled a piece of fruit out of the folds of her dress and took a big bite, grinning at him as she did.

“Hey, can I have a bite of that?” an idea occurred to him.

“Sure,” she tossed it down.

He hesitated a moment, then plunged the thick-skinned fruit into his mouth and snapped his teeth shut.

The syrupy juice flowed across his tongue, its flavor somewhere between a sweet orange and a ripe peach, the tartness and sweetness melding and swimming across his tastebuds. He chewed a second time, the sensation of the vesicles popping and splashing eliciting a contented sigh.

“Still enjoy food, huh?” she chuckled.

“Yeah. I definitely didn’t lose my sense of taste or smell,” he sighed again as he took another bite. “Hey, how long was I out?”

“Bout a day and a half,” she absently replied.

“WHAT!?” he spit the fruit upward, where Layla leaned to the side, dodging the spray of juice and spit.

“Watch it, chucklehead. Yes, a day and a half. You sprouted that weird darkness cocoon over about an hour, then while it was night time, crazy shadows would crawl all over it. Gave me the heebie-jeebies,” she shook herself. “Then this morning, you started moving, and that thing popped like the biggest charcoal soap bubble ever.”

“Well… damn. Anything happen while I was out?” he scratched his head.

“Rory hit ten, picked up some stealth talent, I think. Erin sat by you almost the whole time. Not even sure she slept. They went to get meat because most of the trail rations are in your bag. They should be back… Oh hey, there they are,” she looked up to a ridge at north of the campsite.

The two worked their way down the ridge, dropping off the carcass of some beast just outside the ring of beds. Erin noticed the missing cocoon first, and cast about in a panic for a moment, till she spotted Jack shadowed beneath the tree. She burst into a run, covering the fifty feet in an instant, and Rory arrived shortly thereafter.

Her eyes were wide for a moment, then when she saw him wave the half-eaten fruit and smile, her worry melted, giving way to a mixture of relief and tenderness.

“Holy shit, your face!” Rory shouted.

The other three broke into hysterics, Jack falling against the tree and Erin sitting down abruptly, the anticipation and anxiety surrounding Jack’s transformation finally evaporating.

Erin recovered first, “I dunno. He kinda looks like a sexy vampire.”