The Traveler actually has a few titles that are all different versions of the same deity. He is also known as Herald, Messenger, and Visitor. He is the Althean God of communication and hospitality. Prayed to by those visiting foreign lands and those who have guests in their land. He has no permanent temples but many portable shrines whose clergy give aid to travelers and those who grant them shelter, but also cursing both bad guests and hosts.

Bryan

The night was dark, damp and cold preventing me from resting well; though I still managed to get more sleep than during the march the Althaen forced. None of the werewolves said a word to us in the afternoon after Adrian left with Ria and that other woman. I can’t remember her name at the moment but she and her kin scare me.

Analais seems the least dangerous out of the four but that can’t be true. The alpha male in a wolf pack is the strongest so he must be stronger than Adrian. Then there is that Dannair, Dannaeri, Danny. I have no idea what she is or why she is now with us. She seems terrified and confused unlike everyone else here but she refuses to talk to anyone at the moment so rather than get roped into Abagail's anger over Adrian’s more recent actions I am trying to get a better hold on my mana by casting light over and over again while slightly changing how I am shaping the mana.

Less mana makes it dimmer, while more makes it brighter but in the last hour or two I’ve found more to it than just that. The speed and force of the circulating mana can and will change the color of the light. I can’t seem to figure out how to get a specific color or any shape manipulation before my meager reserves run out though.

“You’re doing that wrong” Danny says causing everyone to look at her.

“Doing what wrong?” I reply surprised.

“You should form a compression funnel into a regulator to get a steady color of light rather than constant manual manipulation.”

“A what?”

“This” she says before raising her right hand just before a ball of steady blue light appears over her palm.

“That doesn’t show us anything” Abagail says.

The girl seems to revise something before she says, “sorry I forgot humans can’t see mana.”

“You can see mana?” Abagail, Ragnan and myself ask simultaneously.

“It isn’t uncommon for dragons to develop some sort of manasight. In fact, almost every mage of sufficient power will have some form of manasense” Kylana says.

“What? Why didn’t anyone mention that when I started?” I ask.

“Whoever brought you to this world didn’t think you were worth it. You didn’t show enough raw talent for your age. We’re you brought as part of a mass summoning or a smaller one?”

“There were around a hundred.”

“A mass summoning then. The Church of the Holy One is still going for quantity over quality then.”

“What?” Abagail asks confused.

“There are an infinite number of ways that conjuration can be altered. I don’t know much of that school myself but imbuing a conjured or increasing the number of conjured things are the two most common methods to improve a basic conjuration” Kylana answers.

“What is your specialty then?” I ask.

“Evocation.”

“Could you teach us?”

“No.”

“Why? You’re teaching Adrian and we have more mana talent than he does” Abagail interjects.

“If you had the more innate magical power than a dragon, you would not be here. And even if that were true, you are not of the pack” Kylana says.

“Adrian isn’t a werewolf either but you’re teaching him.”

I groan into my palm as I rub my nose at just how dumb what she just said is. At the same time, all of the werewolves glare at her and say some variation of Kylana's words. “My daughter allowed him to take her as his mate. He and any in their den are part of the pack but neither of you are” being the exact wording Kylana spoke.

Neither Abagail or I say anything for a moment, but just as the werewolves are about to go back to whatever conversation that they were having I ask, “is there anything you would consider teaching me?”

Kylana frowns before the other adult woman says something in their strange tongue. Kylana rolls her eyes at the other lycantrope before asking me “why do you want to learn?”

“From the moment we arrived, Adrian did everything possible to protect us. To keep us safe and have what we needed.

I don’t want to be nothing but a burden. I want to be able to actually help” I answer.

Kylana and the other adult female walk closer to me, looking at me for a moment before they begin talking in their strange tongue with the two males. Then before I even notice that they had stopped talking I am tackled to the ground by the young teenage male.

I let out a yell of pain as he bites down on my shoulder. I try to push him off but fail, the shorter, younger boy is stronger than he looks. I can hear Abagail scream as she rushes over to me. Yet just as she arrives the boy stands up and spits my blood out onto the ground. He steps back and wipes the blood running down his face and seems to be swearing in his strange language.

“If you go insane we’ll put you down, if you survive the change you will be of the Pack. Then, you might be taught” one of the females say but I don’t catch which one as I panic to stop my bleeding.

“Why did you just bite him?” another voice I recognize asks.

“He wanted to be stronger, to not stay a weakling surviving on your power” a female voice says before a male voice interrupts, “Ragnan, you went too deep. He's bleeding out."

An instant later the throbbing pain of the cut and chill of my draining blood pauses. The chill begins to dissipate as the pain grows stronger. I let out a grunt as something touches me the pain of my injury rapidly dims to nothing. I feel exhausted but open my eyes to see surrounded in dark spots Adrian’s face and eyes that can no longer mark him as human.

The slitted reptilian eyes may still have the same light that I know is my friend but how inhuman they look bothers me. Another sign of just how much he has changed to survive in this world. How much of his humanity he's lost in the months we’ve been here. How he barely looks like himself anymore. Taller, with a strong athletic build compared to the scrawny thinness he had before. How he holds himself ready to fight rather than relaxing.

He’s done everything he can while I’m still struggling with the basics of mana. I can barely hold my own against a grunt soldier while Adrian can blast them to bits with lightning or tear then apart with his bare hands.

“Do you want me to heal the lycanthropy as well?” Adrian asks.

“What?” I ask.

“You just got bit by a werewolf. I healed the physical damage but there is lycanthropy in your blood right now. Do you want me to remove it too?”

I pause for a moment, not sure what to say. That women, Kylana hinted that she might teach me if I survive and adapt to being a werewolf but I don’t want to turn into a mindless killing machine under the moon. But is that assumption correct?

“What will it do to me?” I ask.

“Increased physical attributes, additional power based on the phase of the moon, becoming more difficult to damage, vulnerability to silver, an alternate ego that can and will hijack control of your body under the full moon, shapeshifting, heightened senses, forced schizophrenia, heightened hormone levels, preferring to have rarer or raw meat, and as you’ll be an afflicted lycanthrope it may cause physical degeneration when you’re older.”

I pause for a moment, only a few of those bad and if those I’ve seen far are anything to go by then only the last is the one I have to worry about. And that only matters if I manage to live long enough. . .

“No, leave it.”

“Why?” he asks.

I pause for a moment, my guilt about what’s happened while we’ve been in this world no doubt showing on my face before I answer, “I don’t want to stay weak. It’ll make me stronger” then maybe I can actually pull my own weight.

I expect him to say something, anything to try and talk me out of it but he just nods before two book appear in his hands. “If you change your mind, let me know before the full moon. You should also read these.”

“That’s it, you’re just going to let him be infected with werewolfism?” Abagail asks angrily at Adrian as I fail to read the titles on the books

“Why not, it’s his decision and lycanthropy does make someone stronger if they can handle the increased instincts and make peace with their beast.”

“But he'll be a monster!”

“His choice.”

“Just because you went and threw away your humanity for your delusions of being a dragon doesn’t mean Bryan should become a werewolf.”

“Abagail, they aren’t delusions” Adrian says as his voice deepens, his skin turning to scales, horns growing close to where his ears were, tail and wings extending from his back side. “I am a dragon” he states just as he finishes becoming a black winged lizard larger than a Clydesdale.

Danny looks absolutely terrified of him while Ria hugs his tail as it circles around her and Kythia. For an instant I wonder just why Adrian kept Danny after rescuing her but right now it doesn’t matter.

“Abagail stop, it’s my decision to make. Adrian, I can’t read these books” I say interrupting before Abagail can once more lose at 'poking the bear'.

While shifting back to human form, Adrian says, “they’re in orcish. You’ll have to buy the language from the Architect's System.”

“You can do that?” I ask as Abagail says something I don’t catch.

“Yes, but learning on your own is better for most things. You get a deeper understanding rather than having to focus on the imbued knowledge for full comprehension.”

“What are the books about?”

“It’d be better if you read the titles yourself.”

I sigh and nod, wondering if I’ll even have the ability to get the needed language. I then watch as Adrian. Passes out item after item to the other people in our strange group, each one appearing out of nowhere.

As soon as everyone has what they asked for, Analais says, “Adrian, Kythia take up the rear guard. Kylana, Alana we’re leading the front.”

No one else says anything though I look at Abagail to see an angry scowl as we begin to walk northeast, to get around Daerth before we will turn southeast to get on or perhaps go parallel to the road.

It is several hours into the night by the time we actually stop for the night. Abagail having long since turned into a mindless zombie from fatigue, immediately collapses while I seriously consider doing the same.

Several of the werewolves look at her with frowns as they mutter something that has to be derogatory towards her stamina before they begin to ignore her once more. Ria let’s herself down from Adrian’s back before running over to Kythia as she and her mother begin to carve up a deer that Analais somehow managed to hunt down without allowing us to slow one bit.

“The food will be ready in about half an hour” Adrian answers my unspoken question before he pulls a book out of the air.

“Where did you manage to hide all this stuff without anyone noticing?” I ask while taking off and rubbing my own feet.

“Not sure, but it’s somewhere in the gap between planes.”

“Translocation Grasp let’s you do that?”

“No, it’s a dragon power.”

“How did you manage to do that with holes in your flow of mana?” Danny asks.

“What?” Adrian asks confused.

“Your mana, it had gaps in it. How did you keep it from blowing up?”

“Gaps? What gaps?”

The two of them begin to talk in another strange tongue and I wonder just how many has Adrian learned.