“Ethan, will you calm down already,” Eric calls to me as I storm into my room.
“What happened?” Yelvun asked, confused as I barged past him.
“He’s angry and confused right now,” James states.
After slamming and locking my door, Eric kept knocking on the door demanding I let him in, however, after an hour he gave up and left. Deciding to see if Yra’s busy I begin to meditate causing the shadows around me to envelop my body and mind.
“Ethan, I see you’ve found out the truth,” Yra states, “You must be angry and annoyed, however, I have some training for you to do, furthermore, I want you to think on the skills you’ve learned from your personal experience and how that relates to the 6 blessing elements.”
“What?” I ask entirely confused.
“Enough questions, Ethan, are you ready to begin the next step in your training?” Yra asked, however, it seemed to be more of a statement.
“I guess so,” I reply scratching my head in confusion.
“I want you to control your shadow’s movements,” Yra instructs, “Imagine your shadow as yourself and make it take move.”
I nod as several braziers light up with an ethereal midnight blue glow illuminating the area, revealing what looks to be some sort of throne room made entirely of pitch black marble that seems to ooze shadows, a crimson red carpet runs from the grand elder wood doors to the mithril throne that seems to radiate in the soft blue light of the flames.
“Wow, this place is beautiful,” I gasp stunned at the beauty of the room.
“Thank you, I’m happy you like it,” Yra’s words seem to carry a sadness as she looks around throne room, “But let’s start training.”
I sit on the floor crossing my legs and placing my clenched fists together with the knuckles touching as I start to imagine my shadow moving, however, while I meditate on my shadow flashes of images of my childhood pour into my head. As I sat meditating, a candle that had been burning since I started says three and a half hours have gone by, my cheeks stained with the dried tears of joy, anger, and sadness, thinking that my efforts have gone to waste I feel my shadow start to pull away from my body. Opening my eyes, I see my own shadow sat in front of me causing me to smile, raising my hand out to touch the shadow causing it to mimic my movements until our fingers touch.
“So you’ve managed to make it move with you,” Yra states as she remains sitting on the throne, “Next I want you to merge with your shadow and allow it to be one with you.”
As I ponder how to merge with my shadow I decide to see if I could spar with my own shadow, standing with my shadow I turn and walk 5 paces away from it, watching as my shadow walks the opposite way to me. I turned back around to face my shadow and I draw my daggers; my shadow draws his own with me, however, before I can even make the first move my shadow charges forward unleashing a flurry of strikes taking me completely by surprise, blocking all the strikes with my own flurry the sounds of metal hitting metal rings out echoing off the marble walls, Yra watching closely.
“Well it’s not what I wanted you to do but you’ve learned how to infuse part of your mind into the shadow to give it instructions,” Yra chuckles as I finish blocking all the attacks.
“I don’t know how to do what you asked Yra,” I say panting for breath.
“Imagine your shadow is clothing,” Yra explains after giving it some thought, “as with clothes you put them on one at a time so start with covering parts of your body one at a time it’ll take you a while to master so relax, time moves differently here.”
I look to Yra as I nod confused by her comment, however, deciding to ignore it for now I move towards my shadow as it mimics me I sit and meditate focusing solely on coating my left arm with my shadow, furthermore, I decided that while I meditated, I would reflect a little more on the news of my real family. As I start to come out of my meditated state having accepted the news of my family and realigned with my goals, I glance to my arm as I see it distorted, like it’s made of smoke, I smile as I stand and it’s then that I release my entire body has been surrounded by my shadow as it clings to me like a second skin.
“Congratulations, Ethan, you seemed to have mastered both Shadow Possession and Shadow Cloak,” Yra states smiling happily with herself.
Skill Gained: Shadow Possession Level 10/10
Skill Gained: Shadow Cloak Level 10/10
Skill Mastered: Shadow Cloak
Skill Mastered: Shadow Possession
I smile as I get the notification alerting me that I’ve mastered two new skills, when suddenly my stomach growls loudly.
“Guess I’m off Yra,” I wave my goodbyes.
As I exit the Shadow glade, I make my way downstairs to see Yelvun talking with Vulmer Magikan and Queen Rosella in the kitchen luckily for me they haven’t seen me, deciding not to get into it with them right now, I sneak towards the door only to stop in my tracks as I hear some shocking news.
“It’s been three months since he vanished are you certain he didn’t leave a note?” Rosella says saddened.
“He didn’t his bed wasn’t even touched and his equipment and bag wasn’t in the room,” I hear James say, “You don’t think it had something to do with the meeting, where he learned the truth.”
“I hope not, but we must fear the worse.” Vulmer states as he strokes his white beard, “Prince Alexi hasn’t returned from his search to the north yet, and Master Eric will be returning tomorrow from the south.”
As I remain frozen in shock that it’s been three months instead of a few hours, once I gain my composure back I stumble and knock over the hat stand the metal ringing off the wooden floor alerting everyone in the kitchen. As they run out to where I am.
“ETHAN!?!?!,” They all yell in surprise.
“Hey,” As I mutter my greeting the queen grabs me and hugs me tight.
“We thought we lost you,” She says hugging me tightly causing me to tense up, “What was you thinking of running away for three months.”
“Run away? I didn’t, I was in my room the whole time meditating and training in Yra’s shadow glade?” I say confused.
“Ethan, you wasn’t in your room, you wasn’t even in the city,” James states, “It doesn’t matter now, you’re back and I can sense you’ve gained new powers and abilities, Master Vulmer can you summon the prince back to the city for me please.”
“Of course, I assume you’ll be contacting Master Eric?” Vulmer queries.
As James nods, I look around confused as my stomach growls loudly again causing us all to start laughing a bit.
“Well, let’s sit down and eat,” Yelvun states.
We all nod our agreement to eat as he heads to the kitchen and starts to cook up a meal for us all, once we’ve all taken our seats at the table James and Vulmer bring me up to date on what’s happened the past three months. As I take notes I learned that the king had departed for the western border to fight back against the Llianin, which are a race of Dragonkin that live in the mountain kingdom of Acleon, furthermore, I learned of the kings war on the eastern border with the elves of Liththyr, so far though the king has ignored the Dwarven kingdom of Efrar, due to a fragile if near non-existent peace treaty. After we finished eating Yelvun and James took me out to the adventurers guild to sign up and get the extra benefits that are bestowed on people who have a blessing, of which include, a living place in the adventurers district, access to the guild trainers of all different classes, access to the guild bank and guild inner sanctum, and discounts on equipment in guild affiliated shops in all countries.
“Ethan, now that we have you signed up with the guild hall, did you want to pick a sub-class to learn?” Yelvun says.
“You can have up to three sub-classes, I have the Chef, Enchanter, and Scribe sub-classes,” James states
“And I’ve got two sub-classes, Alchemist, and Tailor,” Yelvun says smiling, “Having the Chef sub-class just makes cooking easier with monster dropped meat such as wolf meat, dragon meat and goblin meat for instances.”
“Ah okay,” I say thinking about what sub-classes would suit me, “I think I’ll go with Scribe, Chef and Blacksmithing sub-classes, is that okay?”
“Sound’s perfect for your skills and primary and secondary class,” James states, “I can teach you everything you need about the Scribe and Chef sub-classes, and Eric can teach you about the Blacksmithing sub-class.”
I nod my understanding while smiling; I ask “what do we do now?”
“If we head back to the house I’ll start to teach you Scribing while we wait for Eric and Prince Alexi to return,” James says as we make our way home.