Another Litrpg: Prologue (Patreon)

This is a Hobby. Please help make corrections where you see fit, suggestions are greatly welcome, and plot holes being pointed out will always be appreciated. Enjoy at your own peril. Also, title suggestions will be amazing as I still have none.

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“Did you make the list?”

“Nope.”

“What of you, Dave?”

“Nope.”

“Muhammad?”

Muhammad took a swig of his coke. He upturned its contents and drank straight from the bottle in unsubtle gulps. Everyone waited for a few seconds before he dropped the bottle back on the table. He turned to Zac.

“Nope.”

Zac’s initial panic was settling now. There was something about knowing he wasn’t the only one that had failed that left him less worried. If he failed with his team, then he could reapply for the test. At least he hoped so.

“You worry too much, Zac,” Ishtaaq said from where he sat on the couch watching the news. “And don’t mind the others. The list isn’t out yet. I spoke to the sergeant and he said it won’t be out until tomorrow, so don’t let it get to you.”

Ishtaaq returned his attention to the news where a young man was talking about weather conditions currently taking a turn for the worse in one of the African countries. Apparently, Ghana was having something of a tsunami crisis, which was odd. From what Ishtaaq knew, west African countries rarely suffered such natural disasters in such large scales. There was also the talk of how the president had requested for aid from the United States just two days ago.

Ishtaaq found himself hoping it was just nature deciding to spice things up and start going rampant in places where it normally wouldn’t. Because if that was not the case, he worried for what the possible alternative was.

Calm down, Ishtaaq, he told himself as the screen switched to a video of the clouds in Ghana. If it was something else, dad would’ve called. He takes his readings and measurements very serious.

“You know what Laylo asked me today?” Dave said from the mini bar in their room. He was an Arabian with enough American blood flowing in his veins to give him the proper look of both countries. Apparently, his grandfather had chosen to marry an American woman and his mother had married an American man.

“Let me guess,” Zac answered. “It had something to do with Ishtaaq.”

Dave chuckled. “Of course it did. Whenever anyone asks questions about us it’s usually about Ishy over there.”

Ishtaaq barely held back the frown that crossed his face. He hated the nickname, not because it was horrible, but because it brought up memories of his childhood he’d been doing his best to ignore. Usually, being called by the name would’ve led to a lot of words but not when it came to Dave.

Ishtaaq always warned people away from the name. His ex-girlfriend had broken up with him because he had been so adamant about her not calling him by it. Most people would say it was a petty reason for breaking up with him, and most people did, but most people didn’t understand that it was not. It was difficult to date a person who got unreasonably moody each time you called them by a pet name that didn’t seem like a big deal.

As for the reason he allowed Dave call him by the name, it was quite simple. Dave wasn’t special to him, at least no more special than any of the other guys in the room. Dave was simply stubborn, and large. Ishtaaq was tall but Dave was massive. And in the military, among the privates, when words were no longer enough, such issues often came to blows.

Ishtaaq knew what the outcome of coming to blows with Dave would be. So he ignored the man whenever he used the name.

“What did Laylo want to know?” Muhammed pressed, always happy to know anything.

“The meaning of Ishtaaq,” Dave answered.

As if on a chosen timer, all of them turned to look at Ishtaaq. Ishtaaq didn’t have to turn to know this. This wasn’t the first time the meaning of his name had come up, or how strange the name was had come up.

“I’m not giving you an answer today either,” he told them without taking his eyes off the news.

“C’mon,” Zac pleaded. “We’ve been rooming together for a year now. At least tell us where the name’s from. You and your brothers all have weird names… no offence.”

Ishtaaq shrugged. “None taken.”

He couldn’t blame them. Ever since moving to America as a child, it had been one of the many things his family had needed to deal with. He had an older brother, the first in the family. He had an older sister who was the second child born to the family, and a younger brother who was the fourth child. The oldest was named Braltic, his sister was Nenali, and his younger brother was Isdant.

Once upon a time they’d asked their father why he hadn’t changed their names when they had moved. It hadn’t been a question born of discomfort or displeasure, merely one of curiosity. Their father’s response had been simple.

“The world identifies us all by the names we are given and have accepted,” he’d said. “Changing it now will only serve to weaken your identity.”

Ishtaaq’s parents were religious in an odd way. They did not believe in God or Allah or Vrishna or Buddha or any of the popular religions that filled the world. Instead, they believed in the will of the world. It was a bit of an off-shoot of their people’s beliefs. But while their people acknowledged the existence of a will of the world, they believed in gods of their own.

“Wait, what the hell was that?”

Dave’s voice had enough panic in it to draw Ishtaaq’s attention.

“What was what?” Ishtaaq asked, turning his head to look at Dave.

He found Dave wide-eyed and confused. His usual confident expression that tended to border on the banks of cocky looked pale.

“That’s the news, right?” he asked, stepping away from the mini bar and walking up to Ishtaaq’s seat. “Right?”

“It is,” Ishtaaq answered. His words were slow, inquisitive.

“Then what the hell was that?”

Ishtaaq returned his attention to the news. It was displayed on a wide television. “What was what?”

Dave walked up to the television and touched an empty spot with his finger. There was nothing but tarred road and littered paper carried by winds blown once upon a time.

“There,” he said. “Someone was just standing there.”

Zac and Muhammed exchanged a look.

“Well, maybe they moved,” Zac said.

“Yea, Dave,” Muhammed supported. “People do it all the time.”

“He didn’t move,” Dave refuted with a terrified certainty. Ishtaaq could hear the terror in his voice. Dave had seen something he thought was never supposed to happen.

So Ishtaaq fixed his complete attention on the news. He didn’t look at the spot Dave had his finger on. He took in the entire events happening on the news. The young man delivering the news. The extremely scant number of people that walked in the background. Three at the most. He listened to the news being delivered and gave it his undivided attention.

“There have also been strange reports of weird things happening since the storm,” the young man was saying in a shaky tone, most likely the result of the cold that often came with such storms. “There have been reports of eyes in the storm. Some even claim it is the return of Chthulu. Yesterday I was speaking with a young man who claimed the gods of his people were angry and were punishing the country for going astray and forgetting to worship their gods…”

Ishtaaq’s room was silent now. Everyone waited for whatever Dave had seen to repeat itself. When it did, there was no mistaking it.

“… We have an interview scheduled with the president in a few minutes where we will be asking him what measures he has chosen to take in order to ensure the safety of his citizens. Be it the wrath of the gods or extinct mythical creatures come to life, the citizens of this country need a way to weather the st—”

The reporter burst into a cloud of black dust. The camera trembled. A pop, like a muffled gunshot filled the news and the camera simply dropped.

Ishtaaq’s jaw clenched. Zac squealed in a voice that was far from manly. Dave’s terrified face squeezed into a frown.

“They’re bringing CGI into the news channels now,” Muhammed scoffed. “I always say we keep these things the way they are: real and factual. There’s no—”

“Be quiet, M,” Dave said immediately. “That’s not CGI. The news doesn’t use that level of CGI.”

“Yeah,” Ishtaaq agreed, rising from his seat. His actions were purposeful enough that Dave noticed it.

“What’s wrong, Ishtaaq?” Dave asked.

Ishtaaq said nothing at first. Instead, he walked around his chair. He did not rush, but he moved quickly. He went behind the bar and picked his phone from where it was charging. He unplugged it and held it in both hands.

“Thirty percent,” he said, noting the battery life.

“Ishtaaq,” Zac said in a shaky voice. “You’re scaring me.”

On the news, a pair of legs were running past the camera as chaos spread on the channel. The pair of legs burst into dust that was carried by the wind.

“What’s happening?” Dave asked no one in particular as he stepped away from the television.

“I need to call my dad,” Ishtaaq said to no one as he tapped away at his phone screen. Normally, he would go for his dad’s number through the contacts but typing it now seemed a lot faster as he imputed the numbers. “The rest of you, I need you to think about being here and nothing else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Muhammed asked. “Shouldn’t we go outside and see what’s happening? For all we know it might only be happening in Ghana.”

“Don’t go anywhere,” Ishtaaq reiterated. “Stay here. Think only of being here. If you get the urge to go somewhere else, anywhere else, fight it. Think only of staying here.”

Dave stepped up to Ishtaaq. “You’re scaring us, dude.”

Ishtaaq shook his head. “That was not the plan,” he said, unable to add any reassurance to his voice. He needed them to listen and obey. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as calm as he looked. He wasn’t calm enough to help them stay calm. He hoped their military training sufficed to help them follow orders even now.

The response he got from the other end of his phone was far from assuring.

“The number you’re trying to call is on another call at the moment, please hold on or call back later,” the automated voice informed him.

Ishtaaq frowned. Isdant must have called dad first. I’ll try mom.

Even as his fingers tapped in his mother’s number, he didn’t have any hope that he’d be able to reach her. She was almost always on the phone with his sister, Nenali. Still, hoping against hope, he dialed the call button.

“The number you’re trying to call is on another call at the moment, please—”

He cancelled the call without hesitation. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he turned to the others. Dave had a determined look on his face. Zac was already trembling. It was expected, the boy had always been terrified of everything. According to him, it was the reason his father had sent him to military school, so that he could ‘grow a spine’ apparently.

“Ishtaaq,” Muhammed said. “What’s happening?”

Ishtaaq almost laughed. His father had often told them that this was how it went. In times of panic, people looked to people in positions of authority. When such a person did not exist, they looked to those who were the calmest; those who seemed to know what to do.

“A lot of things are—”

Ishtaaq’s words seized in his throat and he staggered forward. Dave caught him before he fell and moved him to one of the bar stools. Ishtaaq took the help quietly.

It’s already happening, he thought. It’s affecting me first because I don’t belong.

Everything was going just as his parents had said it would when it happened. He could already feel himself fraying at the ends, coming loose like a sheet with loose seams.

Ishtaaq turned to the person he felt would have the most trouble in the group; he turned to the person he felt would go first.

“Listen to me, Zac,” he said, placing a hand on Zac’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, the first thing you must remember is never to panic. No matter what, remain calm.”

“How can you ask me to remain calm?” Zac asked, doing the one thing Ishtaaq had just asked him not to do: panicking.

“You played a lot of dungeons and dragons as a kid, right?”

“R…right.”

“Good. Then you’ll have no problem in the beginning,” Ishtaaq said. He always hoped Zac’s loyalty to the game would be a boon to him. “Now, what you’re going to—”

“What does people disappearing on Tv have to do with nerd games,” Muhammed interrupted.

“Not now, M,” Ishtaaq snapped. “This shit started in Ghana so it’ll be a while before we’re affected but it won’t be too long. I need to get Zac ready.”

“Ready for what?!”

Ishtaaq shook his head in frustration. His father hadn’t prepared him for this. In truth, his father hadn’t prepared him for what to do when leading a group. Braltic had always been the leadership type, and their father had worked to their strengths. Braltic was the one who would’ve known how to control the chaos and pandemonium. Ishtaaq was more of a solo survivor, he knew how to take care of himself but not others.

“The longer you can hold on to this place,” he continued, looking at Zac but addressing everyone. “The higher your chances of starting out strong.”

A ruckus slowly erupted outside. Noise and ramblings flittered in through their window. People were calling out to each other, asking questions in incomprehensible shouts. People were panicking. It drew everyone’s attention.

“Listen to me,” Ishtaaq insisted, shaking Zac by the shoulders to retain his attention. “All those games you’ve been playing. You know the ones where you level up and choose classes—”

“And go on quests?”

“Well, maybe not the quests,” Ishtaaq said. He paused, feeling his skin waver. The world was pulling him away, unraveling him. He grit his teeth, holding himself in place, willing himself to remain there in the room.

“Ishtaaq…”

Ishtaaq turned to Muhammed, pulled by the panic in Muhammed’s voice. When he met Muhammed’s gaze, Muhammed pointed at him with shaky hands.

“What’s wrong with your clothes?”

Ishtaaq looked down at his arm. His sleeves were evaporating slowly, turning to rising dust. In response, he grit his teeth and focused on himself.

Stay here, this is where you are, his mind repeated the thought like a mantra. Stay here, this is where you are.

He could not afford to go now. Not before he was done putting the others through. If he was being pulled now, it meant the others still had enough time. The moment his body solidified, his sleeves returning to their natural state, he turned to Dave.

“Dave, I need you to go to my room. Get the knives in my drawer.”

Dave moved without hesitation. He darted through the small hallway that led to their three rooms and into Ishtaaq’s room. As he departed, Muhammed continued to stare at Ishtaaq. It was as if he expected Ishtaaq to turn into dust at any moment, terrified he would miss it yet horrified at the very thought.

Ishtaaq gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m not going anywhere, M. Not yet. I’ve got to get you guys ready first.”

“Ready for what?!” Muhammed hissed. “What the hell is going on?!”

His eyes were wide with terror. Ishtaaq wasn’t sure how to deal with it. In training, their commanding officers had told them that panic had no place on the battlefield. He had always assumed his friends had learnt that lesson.

A battlefield has blood and gore and gunshots, Ishtaaq reminded himself. That’s what we were being prepared for. People turning into dust is a different thing.

He turned to Zac. He was still trembling. His lips quivered as if he was about to cry. Zac had always had a timid mind. He was the smallest of all of them. Even in group exercises, they treated him as the youngest, made sure they motivated him enough to help him pass. Now Ishtaaq worried for him. Would Zac really survive once this was done.

“Ishtaaq,” Zac cried, his panic increasing. “ISHTAAQ! I don’t want to die.”

“You’re not going to…” Ishtaaq’s words trailed off as he looked past Zac to Muhammed. “DAVE!” he roared. “I need that knife. NOW!”

“Dungeons and dragons, Zac,” he said quickly, releasing his hold on Zac. “Dungeons and dragons. Never forget.” He moved away from Zac and grabbed Muhammed by both shoulders.

“Listen to me, M,” he said hurriedly. “I miscalculated.”

“Oh god, no,” Muhammed panicked as his left eye turned to rising smoke. “Oh no, please no.”

“You’ll be alright. You’ll fall asleep and you’ll wake up. When you do—” Ishtaaq’s words were cut off as pain ran up his chest as if someone had put a needle through his heart. He steadied himself with his hands on Muhammed’s shoulders. The world was working harder to dispel him.

“What’s wrong?” Muhammed asked.

At the same time, Dave ran into the room. “I’ve got the knives. And why do you have standard issued military knives in your drawer? Sergeant Putowski said we weren’t supposed to take them out of the armory.”

“Give one to Zac and give me one for M,” Ishtaaq commanded, ignoring his question.

Luckily, Dave obeyed. Ishtaaq took the knife from him and placed it against Muhammed’s chest.

“When you wake up, stay alive,” he told him. “Trust no one. Got it?”

“I don’t wanna die, Ish,” Muhammed begged, tears running down his face as he watched his sleeves rise into black dust. “I don’t want to die.”

“And you won’t. Just remember, trust no one. And if you feel like you’re about to make a really big decision, don’t make it. I repeat, don’t make it.”

“Ish.”

“M, what did I just say?” Ishtaaq demanded, his voice harsh.

“Don’t make any big decisions,” Muhammed sobbed. His shirt was gone and his upper body was scattering with it. “And don’t trust any—”

He burst into smoke.

Zac screamed an ear piercing shriek.

“Shit,” Ishtaaq swore. He’d miscalculated, he’d assumed Zac would be the first to go since he was timid. He’d mistaken his timidity for a lack of a strong will and sense of self. Whether he had been wrong or not was neither here nor there. It seemed Muhammed had possessed a weaker sense of self.

He turned to Dave. “You heard everything I told him, right?”

“Trust no one and make no important decisions,” Dave repeated quickly, offering Ishtaaq another knife.

Ishtaaq took it. “Thank you.”

Zac remained screaming.

“Hold onto the knife,” Ishtaaq told Dave as he turned to Zac. At least Zac held on tightly to his knife. “Good. Hold on to it like your life depends on it,” Ishtaaq told him. “You’ll need all the weapons you can—”

Something shattered in the background in a loud smash and both of them turned. They found Dave holding the shattered remains of a simple wooden chair in his hand.

“Dude, I liked that chair,” Ishtaaq complained.

“Really?” Dave snapped. “Who gives a fuck about a stupid chair. You just said we’ll need all the—For fuck sakes.”

Dave’s body was already dispersing. The black vest he wore was the first to go, revealing his large torso.

“What else do I need to know, Ishtaaq?!” Dave asked, the little panic that slipped into his voice was a sign of his restraint. He was normally better at concealing such emotions.

Ishtaaq wondered how Zac was outlasting the others. By all accounts he was supposed to be the first of all of them to go. Outside, chaos had become pandemonium. He could hear people shouting and screaming. He could hear people giving orders and more people defying them.

“ISHTAAQ!”

Ishtaaq turned to Dave. “You’ll be fine. Don’t make any decision that you feel deep in your soul is important. And we meet back here in three days. After a week I’ll be heading out and you guys can decide if you want to come with me.”

Dave nodded once before he burst into smoke. The leg of the wooden chair fell to the ground in a clattering noise.

“So much for that,” Ishtaaq said. “At least the knife went with him.”

He turned back to Zac. “I guess you outlasted them all,” he said in a poor attempt to lighten his friend’s mood.

It failed.

“I really don’t want to die, Ishtaaq,” Zac sobbed. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“No one’s dying, Zac,” Ishtaaq assured him. Not yet.

“But how are you still here? How are you so calm?”

A string of gunshots rang outside. Someone had pulled the trigger of a machine gun. In the chaos of noises outside, Ishtaaq couldn’t discern the make of whatever weapon had been fired.

“Ishtaaq?”

He turned to Zac with the most assuring smile he could muster. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just stubborn, that’s all.”

“Not that. It’s happening to you again.”

Ishtaaq’s shirt was evaporating. Half of it was already smoke, rising about him. It was as though he was in a cloud of black smoke.

You’re here, he told himself. This is where you are. You do not need to go anywhere.

The chant sufficed to halt the evaporation but it did not reverse it. Ishtaaq stood in half a shirt and half a singlet. His chest was covered in translucent black smoke.

He looked down at it and shrugged. “That will have to do for now.”

He looked up at Zac. “Remember,” he told him. “Survive and meet here in three suns.”

“What’s three suns?” Zac asked, confused.

Ishtaaq frowned at himself. He was falling back to old phrases. It was not a good sign.

“Three days,” he explained. “Meet here in three days.”

Zac nodded as his hair slowly turned into smoke.

“I don’t want to die,” Zac muttered.

To Ishtaaq’s surprise, Zac’s hair settled back, reversing into their normal wiry strands of curled ginger. That was odd. Certainly Zac couldn’t stay here forever. Ishtaaq was beginning to think he hadn’t just been wrong about Zac but had been horribly wrong. Zac might’ve been timid and arguably weak, but his sense of self seemed exceedingly strong.

He smiled at the realization. Perhaps he would not have to worry about Zac too much.

The air around the room suddenly plummeted. It thinned to the point that breathing became difficult. Ishtaaq frowned at this while Zac started hyperventilating.

It seemed their time was up. They couldn’t keep resisting. His father had told him about this part. He could only ground himself for so long. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to live. The air wasn’t actually thinning, his lungs were merely growing incapable of filtering the air since the air itself was changing.

He’d been making Zac keep himself grounded to the room. Now, he had to do the opposite. He only hoped Zac would be as good at it as he was at this.

“Alright, Zac,” he said.

There was a loud pop behind them, followed by the thudding sound of something falling. Both of them looked in its direction and found a man lying on the ground, dropped out of thin air.

Ishtaaq ignored him.

“Alright, Zac. New request. I need you to think of leaving this place.”

“What?!”

“Don’t think of going home. Just think of living here. Your body’ll do all the work.”

“I don’t want to disappear, Ishtaaq.”

“I promise you’ll be fine. Just close your eyes and think of walking out of that door. You’ll be fine. You have my word.”

Zac stared at Ishtaaq with rheumy eyes, snot had since gathered at his nostrils. “Promise?”

Ishtaaq nodded. “Promise. Just let go.”

The words had barely left his lips when Zac burst into smoke.

“Good,” he muttered to himself. Now that he was alone there were things he needed to do before he let go.

Holding out this long was certain to have benefits, if he was to believe his parents. According to them, holding out was quite literally resisting the will of the world. Well, not literally. His parents might believe the will of the world was some kind of sentient entity but Ishtaaq liked to think of it as the simple concept of mother nature. Resisting was like standing within a tornado and resisting its pull.

He went back into his room, ignoring the broken chair and the unconscious man on the floor. He passed Muhammed’s room as he moved, more of his clothes turning into wisps of smoke. It was getting harder to breathe but he did not let it stall him.

The others had knives to keep them company, and that was supposed to prove sufficient to survive. But he was not his friends. A knife was not sufficient for him. His friends needed to survive but that was far beneath his own plans. The reason he hadn’t told them more was because he didn’t want them getting themselves killed.

He, however, was not here to survive. He had other plans. He was certain the same could be said for his brothers and sister. Their parents would most likely hunker down or assist those around them during the events. If he knew them well enough, he was certain they had what was required not to be moved at all. They told him and his siblings that they would have to give in to the will of the world eventually, but Ishtaaq suspected that it was not the case. There was most likely something his parents didn’t want them to try by defying till the end. As adventurous as he was, he wasn’t the disobedient child. Neither was he stupid. When someone like his parents tell a person how to react when the world was waking up, it was best to listen.

Inside his room, Ishtaaq went to his closet. An array of clothes hanged neatly met him when he opened it. He cleared them from view with a swipe of his arm and reached for the back of the closet. He moved his hand over the surface slowly until he found what he was looking for. There was a small indentation on the surface. A catch. He slipped his finger into it and slid it open. His fingers shattered from the action, bursting into wisps of smoke that dangled about his now fingerless hand.

Ishtaaq frowned and added his second hand to the mix. It didn’t shatter when he slid the false compartment open.

“Thank you, sergeant Flem,” he muttered as he stared at a handgun and four cartridges.

He’d purchased them from some shifty back alley thug a few months ago when he’d joined this section of the army.

“As dad always says,” he muttered as he took the cartridges first and shoved them into his pockets. “Never stay anywhere without a handy gun.”

Ishtaaq left his room with a gun in hand and pockets full of a total of three cartridges. He turned and made his way into the bathroom. It was a room of its own. It wasn’t too massive as to be extravagant but it was large enough with white tiled walls and floor. It was the bathroom he and the others had all shared.

He stood in front of the vanity mirror there and stared at himself. Grey eyes and black hair stared back. He had a small scar on one cheek, a mishap from playing too much as a child. He dropped his gun on the toilet sink and ran his one good hand through his hair. He would miss the color. He’d been dying it for so long that he’d almost forgotten what it really looked like.

“I guess I’ll see it again when I wake up.”

He took a deep breath, prepared himself for what he would do next. The air was thin and the action felt like a mistake. It felt as though he had lost more air than he had gained from it. And it hurt.

“Alright, Ishtaaq. Dad always said this day was going to come, and here it is. You know what you’ve got to do. You’re not like your brothers. Or Nenali. You’re different, so your path is different. You’re Ishtaaq. Unbound. If you stay up long enough, the world will show you. C’mon. Just a little longer.”

He stayed staring at the mirror. He couldn’t say how long he was there. One of his legs exploded in a burst of smoke and he slipped. The only thing that kept him from falling was his hands. He held on to the toilet sink with one good hand and another that had nothing but smoke where fingers should’ve been.

“C’mon,” he muttered, unable to reverse the effect. “Just a little longer.”

He heard the sink groan under his weight. In the mirror, he watched his shoulders slowly begin to evaporate. Around him, there was nothing but silence. The chaos of shouts and gun fire that had filled the world outside the house had died out. It was all he needed to know that most of the people, if not everyone, were gone.

He had lasted very long. There was an odd part of him that felt lonely in the silence as his body gave out on him. When he lost his second leg, he was happy to know all the cartridges in his pockets had turned to smoke as well.

He fell and hit the ground loudly. He groaned at the pain from the impact but kept the gun firmly clutched in his hand. It would be stupid to have all the ammunitions he wanted and have no gun.

The rest of his body was slowly evaporating like smoke from a dowsed flame when he finally saw what he had been waiting for.

Anomaly Detected.

Irregular Entity Discovered.

Ishtaaq waited but nothing else came up.

“That can’t be all,” he muttered. “C’mon, there’s more. There’s got to be.”

As if listening to him, a new set of words came up.

              You have unlocked traits. You have new traits. Due to qualities displayed over time you
                                                                     have gained additional traits.

                                                   Trait: [Healthy], [Intelligent], [Unbound], [Unfocused],

                                                                                      Skill: […]

Ishtaaq stared at the words in the air. The three dots next to ‘skill’ didn’t bother him. There was no one on earth right now who had a skill. Skills, he knew, came with awakening. There were entire cultures built around the awakened, people capable of magic of various kinds built to various degrees. He was more interested in the trait [Unbound]. He’s father had told him he would have it, but he had been skeptical. It was a unique trait, even back in his homeland. Not many ever got it upon awakening. It was a trait that allowed a person to better map out the path they wanted to take. It was supposed to give them better control over… well, everything that had to do with their growth.

“I guess I’ve held out long enough,” Ishtaaq smirked. “I wonder how the others are doing.”

His older brother was likely going to have a trait that had to do with leadership. As for his sister, he couldn’t even begin to guess. But something told him she would be amazing at magic. Skills would not be her problem. Most of what she would get would be magical. As for his younger brother…

He almost laughed at the absence of thoughts. It was almost saddening to realize he wasn’t attentive enough when it came to his younger brother to speculate on what his development would be like.

I’ll have to change that when we meet, he thought as he felt himself grow drowsy. He didn’t like the drowsiness. He had really been hoping to possess enough mental will to stay awake through the entire process.

It seemed that would not be the case.

As sleep took him, another thought flickered in his mind.

If you meet again…

A new set of words appeared in front of him as he slipped into unconsciousness.

                                                             Anomaly detected.

                                                              Intruder detected.

                                                             Identifying Intruder.

                                            Identifying… Identifying… Identifying…

                                                              Intruder Identified.

                                                 Ishtaaq Bloodborn [Outworlder]

                                                                Species: [Human]

      Trait: [Healthy], [Intelligent], [Unbound], [Unfocused], [Otherworlder], [Intruder]

                                                                     Skill: […]

Ishtaaq vanished in a burst of dark smoke and a sly smirk.