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Chapter 10: Wraiths part 1

This chapter might be lacking. I didn't know what to write.

"This one is from Grey's point of view," The Librarian started, "You are all going to have plenty of questions, I'm sure." He finished, and the video started playing.

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Living with this constant fear of being unable to protect my loved ones...I had nearly forgotten what that felt like. In Alacrya, my battles had been entirely distant, separate, from my friends and family. It was only ever my own life on the line, or at worst, the lives of strangers and people who I had, for most of my unintentional stay there, seen as enemies.

Now, as I God Stepped from Varay's side, I couldn't stop considering the potential death toll of a full-scale assault on Vildorial. The people here were tired and afraid, the Lances only recently recuperated from very nearly dying, and our most powerful warriors, mages like Curtis and Kathyln and the Twin Horns, could not stand against even retainers, much less Scythes.

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"How does he know the Lances?" Varay asked. There was slight confusion in her tone.

"I'm an ally to Dicathen." Grey said simply before going on. "I made acquaintances with the Lances because of it."

"I see." Varay nodded.

"And what about us? How do you know about the Twin Horns?" Helen spoke up next.

"Your group was a good fighting force." Grey shrugged.

He wasn't even sure if they were all alive at the time he went through the portal after the Victoriad, but in the war they had helped a lot.

"Are we all going to ignore that part about his 'unintentional' stay in Alacrya?" Bairon asked.

"You aren't from Alacrya, that much is clear. So you are from Dicathen, but I've never heard the name Grey anywhere before." Bairon was suspicious of his identity now.

"I'm from Dicathen, but I was raised in isolation. At some point during the war, Alacryans took me and I ended up in Alacrya." Grey dismissed it, but people like Caera and Bairon didn't believe that.

His excuse didn't make much sense to them.

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Another God Step took me from the edge of the city down two levels to where a series of arched gates opened into a long, straight tunnel wide enough for thirty dwarves to march abreast.

A miasma of brutal, animalistic killing intent was radiating from the portal room ahead, purposefully projected to loudly announce their presence. I ignited Realmheart, and five distinct mana signatures became clear, each burning with the sickly intensity I'd come to understand as the corrupted deviant mana used by the Vritra.

Hesitating, I looked over my shoulder up to the highest level, where my sister and mother were sheltered with a thousand dwarven nobles. The Royal Palace was much too close.

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"How can he use realmheart? That shouldn't be possible for somebody like him." Windsom spoke up.

"You'll learn later." Grey shrugged. He didn't really feel like dealing with his bullshit right now.

"So those five mana signatures were a squad of my wraiths, yes?" Agrona asked, a slight smirk on his face.

"Yup." The Librarian said with a nod. "You sent the Wraiths to exterminate Grey and the Dicathians, if I remember correctly."

"And how is it that this Grey can use realmheart?" Kezess posed the same question windsom did.