Luckborn

Otter took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He wasn't sure who—or what—that spirit had been, but the way it spoke shook him to his core. Its voice hadn't just been strange—it had carried weight, resonance, like something echoing through time and memory.

Finally getting himself under control, he turned to the others, his voice low but steady.

"Before we go any further," he said, "there's something I neglected to ask. Something that might help. Do any of you have an objective related to…" he waved his hand in a slow circle, "all this?"

The group exchanged glances.

Erin was the first to speak. "I do, but it's pretty basic." She tapped her wrisplay and held it up for them to see.

Current Objective: Follow Otter Bennett

"That's what mine says, too," said Milo, squinting at his own screen.

Levi raised his wrist. "Same here. We're all your loyal minions, apparently."

Jasper snorted. "That's funny. Mine says: Don't let Otter die a horrible death."

Otter's eyes went wide. "Wait, what?!"

Jasper grinned and turned his wrist to show the screen, which—unsurprisingly—read the same as the others'.

"Not funny," Otter muttered under his breath. Which only made Jasper chuckle.

But he wasn't done. "Alright. Has anybody checked their wrisplay compass?"

A brief flurry of motion as everyone toggled through their interface. Then the answers came back—almost in unison.

"They all point at you," said Liora.

Otter gave an exaggerated shrug. "Well, that's not as helpful as I'd hoped."

Levi wandered toward the edges of the chamber, trailing a hand along the smooth, dark walls. "So which way now? I don't see any exits. Think there's another secret door?"

Otter didn't answer immediately. He held up Emrys Gale's compass. "It points at the mirror. I think that's our way out."

Milo shuddered. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Me either," Erin added. "We just got a haunted message from it. Walking into it feels like tempting fate."

"Yeah," Otter said quietly. "But I think that's the idea." He didn't voice his concerns about Marcus somehow breaking through to them. He had no idea what powers and abilities the man had, but he was certain all mercy would have fled him by now.

He approached the mirror again. The others held back, watching in silence.

Otter reached out and pressed his palm to the surface. It was cold and smooth beneath his fingers. But it wasn't glass. It felt like water held in place, perfectly still—but when he pressed harder, it yielded, rippling slightly beneath his touch. Not glass. Not metal. Not stone.

A boundary.

"I think it's a portal," he said.

"Where do you think it goes?" Jasper asked.

Otter swallowed. There was something otherworldly about the mirror. And the fact that a spirit had just stepped out of it and spoken to him only added to that feeling. He didn't like where his thoughts were leading. He shivered. Why was he doing this? Everything about it screamed, "Run away!" but deep down, he believed there was something very important waiting at the end of this road. Forcing the panic aside, he said, "Somewhere…very different, I think."

Liora stepped forward and stood beside him. "Don't worry, Otter. We're right behind you."

The rest of the group joined them, lining up behind the mirror.

Otter took one last look at the compass, then glanced back at his friends. They nodded, one by one.

He took a breath and stepped through.

***

The War Room was nothing like the rest of Aurelia Palace. Here, function reigned over ornament. No tapestries or painted ceilings adorned the space—only stone walls reinforced with runic wards, a circular obsidian table, and a massive projection sphere floating at its center, displaying real-time data from across the realm.

Silas Blackwood stood at his place near the outer curve of the table. His coat, still damp from the morning's mist, hung on a hook behind him. His face was composed, but his fingers tapped once against the stone as the conversation unfolded.

Seven Overseers stood or sat around the table. Some were senior to him in age and authority, others were newly appointed but ambitious. All wore the embroidered badges of their station—Warcraft, Systems, Divine Mediation, and more.

At the head sat Overseer-General Kaelen Kor, a sharp-eyed woman with streaks of silver in her close-cropped hair and a voice honed to cut through procedure like a blade.

"We now have confirmed reports of coordinated Kaosborn attacks in four provinces," she said. "Two guild halls were overrun within a span of three days. One of them was fortified."

Overseer Brel, head of Adventurer Coordination, scowled. "They shouldn't be able to organize at this scale. This behavior—coordination, strategy—it's unprecedented in our lifetimes."

"But not in all lifetimes," Blackwood said quietly.

The room turned toward him. Kaelen nodded once, inviting him to continue.

"There are archived accounts," Blackwood said. "From the final years of the Kaos Wars. Scattered and incomplete. Reports of Kaosborn not just attacking, but planning. Staging false retreats. Laying traps. They acted as if they understood us."

"That hasn't happened in centuries," Brel objected.

"Correct," Blackwood replied. "Which suggests something is changing. Or returning."

A long silence followed. The projection sphere shifted to show maps with crimson-marked regions, growing slowly outward like spreading ink.

Overseer Kaelen folded her hands. "Do you believe this is the beginning of another war, Silas?"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I believe," Blackwood said slowly, "that we are no longer the only ones playing by the rules the System imposed. And if the Kaosborn are no longer bound to chaos—if they have found a way to mimic order—then we are facing something the System is not designed to manage."

Murmurs followed, some incredulous, some worried.

Janrel, Overseer of Divine Mediation, usually the most measured among them, leaned forward. "Are you suggesting that one of the gods has broken the Binding?"

"No," Blackwood said. "I don't think the gods are behind this. Not directly, anyway. But something is pulling strings below our notice. And if the rumors I've heard from certain regions are true…" He hesitated, just slightly. "Then it may already be too late to contain this quietly."

Kaelen studied him. "Have you found something we should know about?"

Blackwood met her eyes. While he trusted her, the others in the room were not so trustworthy. Everyone had their own agenda, and some would put a metaphorical dagger in his back without a second thought if it served them. He wondered how much Janrel already knew. While not a Divine Conduit himself, he met with the high priests of each religion regularly. For the time being, he decided, it would be best to keep Otter's quest under wraps. "No," he lied.

She narrowed her eyes but didn't question him. After a moment, she turned her attention to the others. "Then we shall focus on what we do know. We need new tactics and strategies. Orville, you and Brel gather your best strategists and come up with a plan. Janrel, we need more information. Push the boundary. Learn what you can. It may be time to consolidate the outlying regions."

Murmuring broke out as the Overseers began discussing amongst themselves.

Kaelen sat back. "Blackwood."

Silas made eye contact. A silent understanding passed between them.

"We need something…creative. I hope you come up with something good. Dismissed."

Blackwood lingered only a moment before gathering his coat.

Outside, the palace halls bustled with scribes and wardens, but his mind was already elsewhere—deep underground, beneath Ironside Keep, where a student stood at the edge of truth.

***

As Otter stepped through the strange fluid-like surface of the mirror, he was overwhelmed with sensations. Light warped around him, colors bleeding into diaphanous hues. Strange buzzing sounds blended with muted warbles, like being surrounded by thousands of bees while speaking underwater. His skin prickled, burned, and froze simultaneously. He registered all of these things in the space of a heartbeat before they vanished, and he found himself on the other side.

He blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. He was in a primary school room. Or something very reminiscent of one.

Wooden desks sat in crooked rows, some toppled, others half-rotted. A cracked chalkboard stretched across one wall, covered in scrawling script—but the writing blurred if he stared too long, like ink dissolving in water. Dark rafters framed the ceiling above, yet no visible light sources existed. Still, the room glowed faintly, as if illuminated by unseen eyes.

One by one, the others stumbled through after him. Milo coughed. Levi shook his head like a dog after a bath. Erin stared around with haunted eyes. "This looks like a schoolhouse," she said, "but… wrong."

Liora touched one of the desks. "It's solid. But it doesn't feel real."

Sage had gone still, eyes wide beneath her hood. "There's power here," she whispered. "It feels like night and silver and… secrets."

The walls pulsed gently, shadows at their edges writhing like smoke. There were no windows, yet the sense of depth beyond the walls was dizzying, as if the space went on forever in directions they couldn't perceive.

Otter took a slow step forward.

Something tugged at his memory. A line from Gale's journal—one he thought he'd understood, but now he realized it had layered meaning. He reached into his backpack and pulled it free, flipping quickly through the notched pages until he found the passage.

He read aloud. "Seek not in temples nor in vaults, for no stone chamber holds it. Seek not the written word, for no map shall guide thee." He met his companions' eyes one by one. "I thought that was about using the compass to find a path. But I think there might be more to it."

"What do you mean?" asked Jasper, his brow furrowed with concern.

"I don't think we're in the ruins anymore. In fact, I don't think we're anywhere near Aurelia. Milo, you would know more about this than me, but is it possible that we're on a different plane?"

Milo's eyes went wide, and he sucked in a breath, then studied their surroundings more closely. "Maybe. That's way beyond first-year stuff, but I've read about powerful Spell Lords traveling to other planes of existence."

Sage narrowed her eyes. "The Realm of Shadows. Altheris's domain." She moved toward the blackboard, her fingers hovering near the flickering words.

"They're not staying still," she said. "The writing… changes when you look away."

Otter came to her side. The words blurred, then reformed into something new.

Not all lessons are meant to be remembered. Some must be unlearned first.

"I don't like this," Milo said. "We don't know the rules here."

"No," Otter agreed, "but we're supposed to be here. The compass brought us, and we know Altheris was involved in Gale's project. It makes sense. What better place to hide a secret than in the Shadow Realm? We just have to keep going."

He glanced down. The needle pointed toward the back of the classroom—where a crooked doorway now stood open, though none of them had seen it before.

He walked toward it. "I think the real lesson starts now."

The door frame was warped, like it had been stretched, the wood worn smooth as bone. Beyond it lay only shadow.

But the compass needle held steady.

Otter swallowed once, glanced back at the others, then stepped across the threshold.

The air changed the instant he crossed. It grew thinner, charged with a kind of electric pressure. The corridor that unfolded before him was narrow and long, lit by no torches, yet still softly aglow. Its walls were made of the same strange, shadow stuff as the classroom, but here, silver tendrils pulsed and swam just beneath the surface like lightning trapped in stone.

The others filed in behind, weapons drawn now, eyes wary.

The hallway curved, bent and twisted, its geometry unnatural. There were too many right angles where there shouldn't be, corners that bent outward instead of in. They walked in tense silence, their footfalls muffled despite the hard floor beneath them.

Then, without transition, the corridor opened into a chamber.

It was vast, cathedral-like in shape. Rows of stone plinths stretched in perfect lines, and atop each sat a single object: books, masks, broken tools, rusted weapons, vials of colorless liquid. Some were ancient, some strangely modern. All of them pulsed with an odd, slow heartbeat of light.

At the far end stood a raised dais. And behind it, something waited.

The figure was immobile at first—a smudge of absolute darkness, vaguely humanoid, outlined in silver strokes like chalk lines etched into reality itself.

The compass in Otter's hand flared and tugged toward it.

He took a cautious step.

Then four sets of glowing red eyes opened in the shadows flanking the figure.

Otter froze. Images of the rift-hounds they'd fought in the Simulation flashed through his mind. They, too, had red eyes like that. But as he looked closer, he realized these were not the same creatures. Similar, but different. Then he remembered another lesson from Kaos Theory. Most Kaosborn were corrupted versions of already existing creatures. Were these beasts what the rift-hounds were based on? Otter felt a surge of curiosity drown out his fear.

The others fanned out behind him. Erin raised her bow. Jasper's sword rasped free of its sheath. Liora stepped sideways into a ready stance, one hand resting on her hilt. Sage's hand hovered near her pendant. Milo whispered a word, and spectral light gathered at his fingertips.

Then the shadowy figure unfolded—not with motion, but with revelation, as though an origami crane were being unraveled by unseen hands. Limbs extended. The silhouette gained height, its outline growing more substance.

Its voice followed—soft, deliberate, and so close it felt like it came from just behind their ears.

"We are the protectors of that which has been hidden."

The shadows at its feet thickened and coiled like fog. The eyes remained still. Watching.

"If you seek that which was unmade, you must pay the price."

A price? There was no way that could be good. If he didn't pay it, whatever it was, would these creatures attack? Only one way to find out. Otter stepped forward again, the compass glowing fiercely in his hand, then hesitated. The last spirit said he'd get one question. One answer. Was this the question he needed to ask? No. He rephrased his question in his head before speaking. "I need to know the price to proceed."

The figure tilted its head. A ripple passed through the chamber as it answered. "Not coin or blood. Not faith or possession. The cost is the self that binds you."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"To move forward, you must leave your past behind. But be warned, retreat will cost you blood."

Otter felt Jasper and Liora shift their stances, preparing for a fight. He couldn't believe they would stand beside him and do battle with whatever these shadow creatures were. He knew they would lose. Surely, they knew it, too.

He felt a surge of pride and knew he would do the same for them. If he had to leave his past behind to move forward, that was an easy answer. After all, that was why he had come here in the first place.

"I will pay the price."