Death is the counter part of life, it can perform the inverses of the feats of Life. It also touches upon some of the ideas of enthropy that lies under the sphere of Chaos. - Antonio Ravnos

Jason

I walk out of the tent, dammit why does that nerd get everything handed to him? In school the teachers never called him out on anything. The gangs never touched him either. No one should be friends with both groups. Now the world has gone to shit and he gets even more successful.

At the school it made sense, he had a gun and the midgets couldn’t beat that. It made sense to follow him, it was safer than Samantha and her friends. But how did he know to bring a gun that day? How did he know how to fight them?

He never did anything at school, no sports, no clubs, nothing. How can he know how to do so many things? And why did those three girls appear out of nowhere and just start following him around?

He’s crazy, and even his friends are crazy. That Bryan kid pulled a gun on me after that other nerd died when I told him to fuck off about cleaning up. Why should anyone care about some dead nerd from a poor family? Who does he think he is? I’m a doctor’s son, they are all poor nerds. I’m the one with a future not them.

I arrive at the training grounds, I have a sergeant to talk to . . .

I snuck away when they were all burring the other nerd. I found Thraen a noble of the Althaen and made a deal with him. Life was great, I was safe and wealthy these Althaen pay well for exotic slaves. I felt bad I couldn’t try all those girls that were following the nerds. I could have shown them what a real man is.

But no all of my hard work is now ruined, Adrian just walks into the Althaen’s home and now he is a noble. I had to sell people as slaves for my title. But he just gets one for free. This is all bullshit. I was on the football team; high school is my time to live it up. Its Friday, I’m supposed to be fucking a cheerleader or two tonight; but no, some of the best-looking girls I’ve ever seen are following some nerd around.

I would at least get to play with some of the girls I sold, but now Raenar is mad at me for not telling him which house Adrian is from. There are no nobles, how can Adrian be one? How can I convince him of that? Or at least that I did not know? I can still have the soldiers beat the shit out of Adrian under the excuse of training. They would probably have done it without me asking, but not for three whole hours. I smile at the thought, maybe he will die from the injuries.

I can’t count on it though, he has strange powers. Is what I saw him do in that tent the mana that Thraen said I would never have? I need to find some way to get that power, there has to be some way. But first, I will see the cooks. Raenar said that Adrian turned over all the food he had. . .

Adrian

I lose myself in feeling the space nearby, something touches me. Its shape is that of Bryan, my perception starts to shake. No, I am shaking? I am being shaken, lightly, discreetly. I return to my regular senses.

Harrold’s lecture is over, everyone is slowly getting up. I turn to Bryan he wants to ask a question. “I’ll tell you later. Lets get back to the bank. I’m stuck with the midnight watch here too.”

The four of us get up. As we leave the library the soldier that lead us here walks up and K translates whatever it is that he said.

“Where to?”

My stomach grumbles, why did I agree to handing over the food to Trían? No breakfast was delivered, and it is already two hours past noon. I need to know where the food is kept. I should have asked the trio if they knew a tracking spell. . .

“Food.”

K says something to the soldier and he begins to walk towards the middle of the palisade. Supplies are kept in the middle? Or is it just where they are distributed? Either way we arrive after a few minutes.

A few tables with soldiers eating, a line of both soldiers and people still alive who lived here before. Am I expected to cut in line with noble privilege again? The line is really long, I’ve only about five hours till dusk. I can’t wait or I’ll not get to sleep. I walk over to the front of the line and while some of the survivors frown at me nobody stops me.

I grab a few bowls of the slop a fat man was serving. A well dressed man runs up to me as I was sitting down among some of the other survivors. He says something in Althaen, a few others are rushing around the corner of a building carrying food trays. I look to K.

“He said that he could not possibly allow a noble to eat with from the slop pot. A meal has been prepared for us.”

Sounds weird, I’ve had to strong arm every concession out of the Althaen so far. I can’t trust this, luckily, I took someone else's meal already. The other survivors only seem to have one bowl each though.

“Tell him we already stole the meals of others so just give my meal to who I took it from.”

K smiles, I think she caught the same line of thought. The two talk in Althaen for a bit.

“He says he simply cannot do such a thing a noble’s meal must be given to a noble.”

“Tell him to eat it himself and give his meal to whoever’s meal I stole. If he still insists that we take it have him put it on the table. We are keeping the slop, so don’t let him think that he can take it back.”

The two talk again for about a minute before the well dressed man has some servants place the trays on the table. They then quickly leave. The nearby survivors are looking at the trays. One of the children reaches for an apple.

Her mother pulls her back from it, “we can’t they’ll beat brother and daddy if we take from people like him.”

I pick up the apple, the skin hasn’t been broken, it should be fine. I pass it to the little girl. “Your daughter can have it.”

The girl takes the apple with a smile. A man speaks up on my other side, “what think you’re a saint now for giving us some food. You’re a traitor, you must have sold yourself and others for their favor.”

“The Althaen don’t like me as much as you think. At least one of their houses wants me dead, some of this food is probably tainted.”

“Your lying they just kill those they don’t like.”

“They can’t I made them recognize me as a noble. If you can cast magic or beat somebody bad enough, the other houses won’t let who you offended openly kill you. I can use magic and set one of the nobles from the Suncahser family on fire.”

The survivors near me look at me in disbelief.

“The Althaen seem similar to noble houses in the dark ages. They’ll rally against a common foe but just want to supplant each other. I used that to get the houses that are not Sunchaser to accept me as a noble.”

Some of them are now whispering to each other, some seem to believe me others don’t.

“Some of this food is tainted but you are all welcome to it if you want it.”

I finish off my second bowl of slop.

“One bowl of this doesn’t seem enough anyways.”

Most of the survivors grab some of the food. I finish up my meal and look to see K already finished.

“Bryan, Abagail I’ll be back at the bank.”

I get up to leave and K follows. We walk back to the bank without being impeded. I only have a few hours before my watch. I hope they do not literally mean from dusk to dawn. I arrive to find the sisters writing on paper. It looks like they also organized whatever was in the bank vault.

“Get what sleep you can, I would like you to also help with my watch shift.”

K walks away and after saying something to the sisters goes into the room the three share. I enter the room I used yesterday. Now, should I rest now or borrow some stuff from Harrold first? I hope nobody is looking at his boxes right now.

I hold my hands out in front of me, and visualize the smallest chest with the red vials. I pull at it with Translocation Grasp. At first it doesn’t seem to want to move, but it still appears in my upturned hands. I smile, now to see what these are.

I can feel them calling to me, why? It didn’t seem that anyone else was being drawn to them. There are six vials, each about the size of a quarter of my palm. I pick one up, there doesn’t seem to be a label. There is also nothing else in or on the box. I sniff the bottle but can’t smell anything from it. Why do I want to drink this?

Is this a potion of some sort? Red is usually healing in games, except for when it is blue. I do have bruises and scrapes from the ‘sparing’ earlier. Well one way to find out. I open the stopper on the top. I raise it to my nose to smell, but I find myself drinking it instead.

I feel as if whatever it is in the vial is fire as it goes down my throat, it is painful but I feel better afterwards, better than I did before. I want to drink more. . . No, find out what it did first. This could be some sort of drug. I look at my injuries, there is no change in them.

The door to the room opens, K rushes in followed by the sisters.

“What did you just do?!”

“I drank something.”

“What.”

I pick up another of the vials, “this, I don’t know what it is.”

One of the sisters puts her hand out to take the vial. She has a hold of it but for some reason I don’t want to let it go. Is this really a drug? After a second I let go, she opens the vial. I should take it back and drink it, it’s my treasure. I resist the urge, I shouldn’t be like this.

I start to pick up another vial, K grabs the vial I passed over. She puts the stopper back on, my desire to drink it abates somewhat. I still want it though.

“This is raw dragon blood, you drank this?”

Raw dragon blood? You can’t drink that, it would kill you. Bathe in if for unbreakable skin or gain resistance to the element of the dragon maybe but not drink. It burned a bit going down, I should be dead. No, it was good for me I feel better after drinking it.

“Yes, now please give it back.”

“Are you going to drink it?”

“Yes, it felt good. It wants me to drink it.”

“You can’t drink this it will kill you.”

“I already drank some.”

“That can’t be right where did you get this?”

“One of Harrold’s boxes.”

I find myself holding another of the vials, I uncork it and drink it before they can stop me. It burns going down and I shake my head. I feel great, so what if this is dragon’s blood. Should I save some for later or drink it all now?

Something whispers within me to drink all I can now. Is it that me-but-not-me woman? The trio are shocked and rush to me, I smile. They see that I am fine and are confused. I pull the vial from Kythia’s grasp. She sniffs me as I do so. Why would she do that?

The twins look to her, “how do you feel” she asks.

“Good.”

She turns to the twins, they start talking, now’s my chance I drink another vial. They turn to me as I shake my head again. I feel a warmth in my belly, I feel sleepy. I would go to sleep but there are three more vials to drink.

“I think he will be fine. It’s not hurting him.”

I pull out another vial, they don’t try to stop me as I uncork it. I shake my head as it goes down again, then smile at them.

“I’m fine, just impulsive.”

They look at me for a moment before leaving. They close the door behind them as I drink the last two vials. I return the now empty chest to Harrold’s study. I hope there is more of this blood, maybe that old magister has some? My mind calms, though I lick my lips at the thought of more.