{Jim:Hows your bath?}

  Oh, hey Jim, haven't heard from you in a while. And yes, this bath is very nice. I happened to have the coin necessary to install a hot tub in this area of cool darkness. I love the feeling of darkness on my scales, but a hot tub is a hot tub. I need to be in human form to appreciate it though. My scales naturally are quite insulating, and my heat resistance only adds to that. suppressing it along with being in human form makes it better though.

  {Jim: Smart, for you. You haven't heard from me because you have a god whispering over your shoulder. There is little opportunity to be a helper when you have someone like that at your back.}

  Makes sense. Wait, what do you mean, “for me”?

  Jim goes silent. That jerk.

  “Why does your face look so sour now?” Evelyn asks. She looks over to me from her spot on the hot tub, wearing a black bathing suit she had bought a few hours earlier with her mother.

  “Its nothing. Wait, how can you see me?”

  “Night vision. I can see your face, just not the colors. No light means no color.”

  “True. Why did you want to come down here?”

  “Well, I like the dark, and you also bought a hot tub. I wanted to go in the hot tub, you know?” She fidgets with her hands a little. I can't see the color of her face, but I imagine it sliding into the infrared spectrum. Maybe I should try to upgrade my night vision…

  {Would you like to evolve ‘Night vision(Medium)Uncommon’ to True sight(High)Epic’? Cost:10500 essence}

  Haven't seen one of those in a while. The system offers me new skills every once in a while when I want something. It Even offers damn good deals too. The thing is that if I upgraded this skill, it would count as one of my skill purchases for this tier. I can only purchased 4 this tier. Well, 3 now, since I bought the skill that fused with “second chance”. Skills evolve naturally when requirements are met, like certain stats going so high or getting a title or using the skill a certain way or fusing it with another skill or- you get the point. However, there was something aftermath had told me that gave me pause.

  “It is better to have 5 skills that work well together, instead of 50 that don't work together at all. Choose your skills and mutations with everything you already have at the front of your mind.”

  I need to choose skills that work with what I already have. And does this work with what I already have? Yes it does! How much essence do I have… Wow, I gain essence quickly at tier 2. I have 12,405 already. I've only been down here for 5 hours! Come to think of it, hey Jim, what's the maximum essence I can hold?

  {Jim:58,000. 1000 per level, plus another 1000 at level 1. You are at level 57.}

  Got it. That's actually more than I hoped for. What do you think about true sight?

  {Jim: You have the skill: Insight(Low)uncommon, and the mutation: Void seer eyes(B), which synergize well together. Night vision(Medium)Uncommon also synergizes with these. True sight allows you to recognize and see past illusions more easily, as well as allowing you to see color in the dark, and to more easily notice tiny details. It is not a bad choice by any metric.}

  Now you just sound like some car salesman trying to convince me to buy some used porsche. Wait, what's a porsche… Nevermind. You have a good point, and I say let's buy it!

  {Skill evolved: Night vision(Medium)Uncommon to True sight(High)Epic}

  Nice. Wait… why do my eyes hurt? Theyre starting to burn! AUGH, DAMMIT!

  “Abhor, are you ok?!” Evelyn springs up from her seat and splashes over to me as I cover my eyes and make some unholy noises in my pain. I double over, just barely not falling into the water.

  {Extreme Synergy detected. Skill: True sight(High)Epic, Skill:Insight(Low)Uncommon, and Mutation:Void seer eyes(B) are fusing.}

  Evelyn helps me up and I sit at the side of the tub, groaning. Why?! Why in Aftermaths name is this so bloods PAINFUL?!

  “Abhor!” Evelyn shakes me. Snowly, ever so slowly, the pain recedes. I remove my hands, and open my eyes. Evelyn gasps. I create an illusionary mirror to look at myself, and grin. Deep, ethereal purple eyes with specks of pink and black like an infinite starscape.

  {Skill fusion successful: You have gained skill: Eye of the forbidden(High)Epic+}

  {Mutation evolved: Void seer eyes(B) to Abyssal eyes(A)}

  “Now these are some good eyes.” My grin widens.

  “Are you ok?” Evelyn asks, coming to sit up beside me.

  “Yeah, though mutations are still the worst.” I say, smiling.

  “Oh, thats good.” She smiles back. “You had me worried for a second. You chose to mutate now though?” Her smile turns a little bit annoyed. “Do that when I'm not around next time, ok? I don't want to see you screaming in pain every time I take a dip in darkness.” I chuckle and nod.

  “Eye eye, boss.” My grin widens.

  “That- I-... Good pun.” She finally concedes. I start laughing. I feel like I've won the lottery with a friend like her.

  <{(0)}>

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Making my way to Aftermath was a lot easier then before. My void seer eyes gave me a great mana sight, but my new eyes make me feel like a shark smelling blood. Aftermath is like a blazing star of mana. From my position in the sky, far above the ground with the sloth named Evelyn around my neck, its hard to miss.

  “Found him.” I say, curling my wings in against my sides to fall. Even if Evelyn fell off my back she wouldn't die. Fall damage doesn't really concern anyone with a durability over 40. And with my durability I could dive straight down into the dirt and sustain barely a nosebleed. Not that I intend to divebomb the concrete of the city below. No, I'm aiming for the eastern courtyard closest to the tree. It's a damn big courtyard too. As I fly overhead I see humans, elves, dwarves, and dragons all sparring with each other. It looks like some sort of capture the flag match, but every single person is levels 19-21. Aftermath is watching on a pedestal at the edge of the warzone, watching with that unreadable expression. It's not really possible to read the expression of a skeleton, who would have guessed?

  “Welcome, timeling.” Aftermath nods to me as I land beside him, then turns back to the match. Evelyn slides off my back and sits down in a fluffy chair Aftermath conjures for her.

  “My money is on red.” I comment, watching the chaos. Quite organized chaos, in actuality. There are 2 clear leaders as well, and they are using real weapons. The red team's leader is a woman with long blonde hair tied in a ponytail, a thin frame, and a loud voice. Her team has more healers than the other team, but they have less close ranged troops. She is quite organized with her team, and it is clear that she is well versed in battle tactics. On the blue team, a beefy young man with short black hair and a rough voice is commanding his troops while roughing up the battlefield at their side. Their sides tactic are far more brutal at first glance. Red seems to be doing well with magic and arrows bolstering their few front troops, while blue is using a large number of troops to overwhelm red.

  “I myself am betting on blue.” Aftermath nods, a gleam in his green wisps of eyes.

  “Why's that?” I ask curiously. A dragoness on the blue team rams into a dragon on the red team, grappling and blasting healing breath at her allies while slashing at her opponents wings.

  “Look more closely at the troops. What do you see?” He points to both teams with one bony claw.

  “Oh. Blue team is missing a few members… there.” I spot the missing group in the blue team, 3 of them, invisible with illusion magic and reaching for the flag. Then the flag vanishes to everyone else along with the rogue blue members. The read team leader notices and panics, ordering the mages to cast sight spells on everyone and having everyone run in all directions. Controlled chaos to hopefully have someone sam into the invisible people on accident. The tactic fails.

  “Blue team wins!” Aftermath's voice booms out through the courtyard and every single individual freezes. On the blue team, beside the blue flag, a red flag has been slammed into the dirt, and 3 lanky elves are revealed, grinning. Everyone on blue team begins to cheer. All of red team slumps in defeat. The leaders of each team move to the center of the courtyard. They shake hands. Aftermath leaps off the platform, landing in front of them. Both of them yelp in surprise. I just shadow warp behind Aftermath silently, watching from behind him.

  “Well done Bertram. You drew their attention with a brutal frontal assault and slid invisible members to grab the flag.” The man, Bertram, visibly puffs up in pride as Aftermath speaks, though the tier suppression seems to be getting at them a bit. Aftermath then turns to the woman. All the earlier fire is gone under his gaze, and she looks about as meek as a puddle as she shrinks under his gaze.

  “Oh, calm down, Ysolda. You did quite well. Against anyone else you would have won this game. However, you did not prepare for every situation. Next time, I recommend obtaining individuals with eye mutations, skills, or illusion magic on your side.” Aftermath Raises his head up and looks over every member of both teams, who had lines up in 2 lines behind their leaders. “This was a good exercise. We will do this again in 2 weeks. And I will have 2 individuals as vice leaders assigned to you both.” Aftermath turns to me. I swear his eyes are grinning at me. “Now, Abhor. You and your brother ar going to have a little fun. Take your pick. Who's team will you join?” I blink in surprise, stepping forward towards them. I stop beside Aftermath and look down at the 2 humans. The humans stare at me with trepidation, confusion, and a hint of hunger. Makes sense, I'm a higher level than everyone here. If Snowstorm is going to join, though… I think that Snowstorm would better work with the beefcake on the left. This Ysolda works with more straightforward tactics. Plus, Bertram couldn’t sneak invisible foes past me even if he wanted to.

  “This is going to be fun.” I grin up at Aftermath. “I'll go with blondy.” Ysolda blinks in surprise.

  “Me?” She looks left and right, as if searching for a hidden camera. “Why me? I lost.”

  “I think I would work better with you. Oh, and Aftermath, what are the rules? If you shoved me and Snowstorm in, it would just be a battle between the 2 of us.”

  “I agree. So I will restrain you both to your stats when you were level 49.” Bertram visibly sighs in relieve when he says that.

  “Hey, Ysolda, right?” I turn to Ysolda. She flinches, but nods.

  “Um… yes.”

  “I need to have a chat with my friend, then we should strategize.” I find myself suddenly incredibly invested in this. I needed something to take my mind off of dying, so this is a welcome surprise.

  <{(0)}>

  “What is it you wanted to talk about?” Aftermath asks. We are both still in the courtyard, though it is empty save for us and Evelyn, who is fiddling some sort of holographic device. It looks like a cube, but I think it has a few extra sides that make it impossible. Some sort of 4D rubik's cube.

  “It's something going on in my head.” I say, scratching the back of my neck.

  “You know things you shouldn’t know. You make connections to things you've never seen before.” I freeze up, staring at him in shock.

  “How-”

  “I know for 2 reasons. The first reason, I can not tell you. You are still too young, too low a tier to know.”

  “Okay… and the second?” I ask, curious, but not wanting to push my luck.

  “Your brother came to me with the same problem while you were gone. It's been happening to you your whole life I assume?”

  “Yeah. I only told Darkness once and he never had a good answer for me. He just told me that I likely had these memories and thought processes for a reason, and that if I live long enough I'll find out.”

  “A wise one. He was always one of the smarter ones.”

  “You knew about him before?” I ask curiously. This might give me some insight into Aftermaths connection with my life. It's obvious he has some sort of connection, but I don’t know what it is.

  “I did, yes. Originally, there were supposed to be 3 guardians for the two of you.” He explains. “Since you have reached tier 2, you are privy to more information. When you were not yet hatched, 10 individuals were sent to find your eggs. Your birth wasn't normal, but I won't reveal in what way. No dragon being born is considered biologically normal. Your egg was found in the infinite cave deep below the earth. The home of the dusktails. They call the continent sized cave “Amisathica”. It is the home of the Temple of Darkness. Your egg was found by the temple and given to Darkness. His parents, the head priest and saint of the temple, had truly horrible naming ability. You could even call it… abhorrent.”

  “No.” I say flatly. “Never try to make a pun again.”

  Aftermath laughed for a good minute before continuing.

  “Fair enough. Where were we… oh yes, your egg. Well, you egg was given to their son, your Darkness. He Brought you to the spire to hatch. The second egg was found in Frindolane, the tundras and icy planes to the far north. There rests the Temple of ice. Smokewind went to get it. Her innate high temperature helped her a lot. Even so, she barely managed to get the egg and get out of there. The northern portal helped her a lot.”

  “The northern portal? Whats- oh, I remember that! A portal connecting the most northern and southern points in the world together. Created by the previous god of space with the help of the god of temperatures and the god of the weather to help manipulate the climates more easily.”

  “Correct. It is also used for transportation. Unlike how the poles in other planets work, the south pole is the hottest place in the world, the vast mountains of magma the Lavaflows live in coming a close second. She got to the spire before even Darkness.” Now there is a pause. aftermath seems to be thinking something over. “Have either of them told you about a third egg?” aftermath eventually asks me.

  “They told me there was supposed to be another, but it was lost.” I say, shrugging helplessly. “That's all I know.”

  “Well, did they tell you who was supposed to retrieve this egg?” Aftermath looks down at me, his emotions even more unreadable then usual.

  “They… didn't…” I hesitantly say. “Where are you going with this?”

  “You were supposed to have another brother. Another guardian. She went to the Lavaflows and retrieved the egg. But she never returned.”

  “Who?” I ask. I can't bring my eyes away from the god infront of me.

  “Her name was Aquis.”