The Warrior is one of the lesser gods, worshiped by soldiers and generals. While he does have clergy all of the are expected to train as fighters first and priests second. This lead him to have the largest percentage of knights and paladins among his clergy and it is not unheard of for a cleric of the Warrior to be unable to cast more than the most basic of healing or blessings. He is however accepted by many of the non-humans of Althrá.

Randy Ravnos

I feel sick and disgusted with those I once thought of as kin and teachers as I ride my bike home from the most recent meeting between the Counsel of Archimagi and myself. Like every meeting in the last three months, I was once more called in as a consultant for the search of my own son.

While they have continued to do the self-appointed duty of the family, it has taken second priority to finding my son. But not for his safety though; no, it is because he is the only new true Ravnos that the family has managed to produce. They want him back to sire another generation and an experiment into how to recover the power lost over the centuries.

Parking my bike, I enter my house to find the twins missing, likely off doing some task for those that can still be called Archimagi, and my wife crying her heart out as she prays. My heart aches to see her like this but I stand and wait for her to finish up after noticing my entry.

If I could I would rip apart the fabric of reality and reweave it into a paradise for her, to fix everything that makes her sad but I can’t. Even if I threw away my existence to the backlash of the subsequent paradox, it would not work.

No more than a minute passes before she finishes with tears still streaming down her cheeks and she looks over to me in hope only to have it crushed again as our son is not in the room. Then she asks, “did you find anything?”

I am about to open my mouth to tell her that I’ve gotten more people looking, broadening the search area but as I look into the light of my wife’s eye the lies stop before they reach my tongue. Her hope and faith are starting to dim and I just can’t do it. I can’t tell her the lies about what has been found when I’ve already learned that he is not anywhere on the Earth weeks ago.

Instead, I hold out my hand and say “Kathrine, I need to show you something.”

She jumps up and runs over to me, thinking that I must have our son waiting just outside the door in a surprise but as soon as she holds my hand I do what I haven’t done in more than a lifetime. Something that will alarm Geldath to my recovery but it is time I tell my wife everything. In a blink of an eye, I throw all of my power into folding and bridging space and the two of us teleport.

Kathrine panics for a moment finding herself in another building, one that houses my true search for Adrian rather than the lies given to Geldath or those she had been told earlier. Maps of not just cities, countries and continents but also planets, star systems and even planes line the walls with all but a few covered in notes on how my son is not there in any point close to the present.

“My angel,” I whisper in her ear before continuing at a regular volume as I guide her into a chair, “there is something about my family that you need to know before you can understand what I’ve learned about what happened to Adrian.”

She nods and I continue, “the Ravnos family is something similar to mages. We can manipulate the world around us. . .”

I don’t mention how my family has stolen the lives of their decedents, including the bodies of our other two sons or exactly what their plans are for Adrian. Today, I only tell of the existence of our magic and what I have learned about the location of our son.

She handles it both better and worse than I expected. Upset that everyone in the family but she knew and was hiding it, confused as to how to fit being married to a ‘wizard’ and having sons who are the same will fit with her faith and glad to be told so much of what I’ve found. Not once as I explain does she stop and ask a question until I have stopped for the nearly a full minute.

I can almost see her mind turning as she discards the first two issues for the last. She walks along my poor but mostly accurate drawings of the planes within a few connections to our own before pointing to the one that is closest and asks “why is this one marked as not having Adrian? You didn’t mention anything about it.”

I look at the location before saying, “a barrier was set to bar any contact with it.”

“Did you check it?”

“It won’t need maintenance for another century. There’s no point in checking.”

“Why was it barred?”

“Idiots who wouldn’t stop consorting with demons were banished to there.”

“Check the barrier.”

“There’s no reason to.”

“Is there another reason why Adrian couldn’t be there?”

“No . . .”

“Then make sure that barrier is there” she says slowly.

“Fine, if it will help I’ll check it even though I already know the answer” I say before altering the chalk lines around the focus circle I’ve had to use to bridge the gap between planes.

It only takes a few minutes and as soon as I’m done I wave my wife to come to the crystal sheet and say, “this won’t work if the barrier is intact but if it isn’t we’ll see something.”

With that I throw every once of power I can into bridging the gap between two planes. Creating a hair thin channel across the void to see what is on the other side. An instant passes before my reach extends to where the barrier should be, only I don’t slam into it as I expected. In fact, I don’t hit anything at all before the crystal of my viewing glass flickers with light.

For just short of a second, a city of white stone fills the blue-green of the crystal. Hundreds of humans and beings close to being human walk around in what could be passed off as an idealized version of the medieval ages. Then something cuts my channel.

I stare at the now missing image, the barrier is down and has been for some time for me not to encounter any of it. . .

“Bring it back. I wasn’t able to check all of it for our boy” Kathrine says hurriedly.

I turn back to the runes I used as foci. Something cut me off, it wasn’t Ravnos magic and no hedge wizard left on Earth has the power to even fathom what I’m doing right now. . . The ones who could were all banished there and are still there then. They sensed and cut off my divination.

The barrier is down and they retain the ability to do interplanar magic. They could be responsible. Adrian might have been stolen away to their world. . .

“Kathrine, I have a lot of work to do. That’s an entire world to search. I need you to calm down and help me clear all of the chalk on the floor” I say and she looks back at me with a fire in her eyes. One of determination and hope.

She doesn’t even say a word about me being wrong about the barrier either. For a moment I consider telling the others that the barrier is down. No, I can’t risk them finding him first. Only if he is not there will I tell them.

Adrian

As I exit the false hunter's lodge, Ria enters the clearing followed by Bryan and Abagail. The draconian female whose name is too long for me, I think I’ll call her Danny, exits closely behind me and is followed by K and the rest of the Bloodclaw.

Abagail glances at the newest addition and her proximity to me, and her state of being, and back to me before frowning. She is no doubt already judging me to be cheating on Ria and K. Why did I hang out with her again?

Bryan, she likes Bryan and tended to join in our games. We never had issues like this during those. How can I solve this or at least not have to deal with it myself? Wait, this would be a domestic thing so K will want to be in charge of it. Though she did drive her to run away so maybe I shouldn’t leave it to her.

Rather than deal with having to correct her, I turn to Analais and ask, “where do you think we should go?”

“We would like to request aid in getting back to our home” Talia states in a formal request.

“We’ll be heading east then. We will also have to stop by Daerth to get provisions and supplies since the land to the east is not likely to have enough game to sustain us. Unless we raid others on the road” Analais states and the werewolves nod in acceptance.

Somehow the idea of just taking what I need from other travelers does not seem to bother me as much as it should. I know it is wrong but either from how the other me was a thief for months or just me being a dragon, I don’t feel a need to avoid it but rather the hassles those actions would bring.

“Do we need to worry about being found?” I ask not waiting to deal with being hunted down by too many at once. I can deal with them, but not without cost and it will likely be easier to avoid them than slaughter my way across the country.

“Kylana, Alana and myself have been to Daerth to trade before. The guards would recognize us. They may not have any orders about us though.”

“Would they also recognize anyone else?” I ask Ria causing her tails to wag a bit faster.

“Yes but you look different enough that it won’t be immediately noticed and I can do this” she answers before her ears flatten and she wraps her tail around herself. A moment later both disappear from sight leaving her looking slightly different. A little wider than before with her curves not quite as prominent but appearing human in every way.

“You’re not going into the city alone with Adrian” K almost growls at Ria.

To which she after walking up to Kythia and tries and fails at getting her into a hug as she whispers “we can have personal time with our mate away from your mother.”

“I’d rather be without you too.”

I don’t say anything to the two of them and instead pull them both into my arms as I say, “we’ll get what we need. Aside from some food is there anything else we need?”

“Clothing and shelter” Bryan answers.

“Arrows, a pair of bows, and knives” Talia adds.

“You can use the coins I gave you to hold onto” Kylana says though I was already planning on doing just that.

K glares at Ria who ignores it in favor of wrapping my left arm over her shoulders.

“Why do you get to go while we have to stay with them?” Abagail asks.

“Because the guards will soon be looking for any survivors of their attack and while I look similar to whatever description they have of us, I do not match it. Someone who knows me may recognize me but I don’t exactly match the description of 'tall thin male with dark brown hair and hazel eyes'.

My hair appears to be black to human perception and my eyes don’t fit that at all anymore. Close but wrong and since this is natural and not a disguise, no spell is going to reveal my appearance as a fake.”

“It still sounds like an excuse to leave us behind.”

“No, the only one I plan on doing that with right now is Danny” I say while pointing to the draconian female.

“My name is Dannaerithalis” the draconian female says irritated.

“Dannaerithalis, is too long to say every time I mention you so it’s Danny now, unless you have a better nickname” I say mildly amused by how upset she is over this. It probably has something to do with draconic pride.

She then turns to Ria and Kythia and says, “you’re the females in charge of him. Don’t let him act. . .”

She doesn’t get to finish as a, albeit weak, ball of foxfire hits her face followed by a slap from Kythia, both of them silent. Kythia then whispers something in a low voice to Danny though I don’t catch it as Abagail shouts something about not treating people poorly but I ignore her. Danny is something between pet and food right now, at least in her role. I still need to figure out just how me eating sentient beings for food is going to work out morally now that I’ve talked to one that hasn’t tried to kill me.

None of us respond to Abagail. Instead I turn to Kylana and ask, “could you watch them for me?”

“Of course” she answers with a smile and with that I turn to Ria and say, “lead the way. We'll stop to change on the way.”