111 Unusual Feelings

\tProfessor Kal sat cross-legged atop the rickety wooden chair located in the center of the dim basement. He was staring intently at a large, wooly spider trekking across the far earthen wall. As his eyes followed the hand-sized arachnid, his mind wondered off into another direction entirely.

\tAfter his heated argument with the First Princess, he had tried to negotiate a proper fee for his handling of the monster that threatened her city, but quickly found that she had become quite… exhausted from their little tiff. Realizing that perhaps now wasn't the best time, Professor Kal agreed to hold the talks at a later date and opened up a Warp Gate to send the two women back to the Royal Palace. He had been there once before when they had initially entered the city, so it was no trouble at all for him to teleport them to the welcoming hall, which he was sure caused quite a commotion.

\tNow, all alone, except for Trist, who was gnawing on a femur from a skeleton he had summoned, and his still unconscious protégé laying in a pile of dirt, he finally had some time to think. Things were starting to become slightly more complicated. Which, in and of itself was far from a bad development, in fact, he had wanted there to be some changes in this 'new' age he had found himself in, something that would spur on its stagnant development.

\tWhat he had not bargained for was he, himself, to change. Regaining a few of his memories helped him to better understand his own past, where he had come from before beginning his new life, from a time where he still drew breath. But with new memories trickling into his mind, he couldn't help but feel that his current self was being 'corrupted' by his past.

What are we but the outcomes of our past experiences? They are what makes us who we are. Like red hot iron being pulled out of a burning crucible, we are brought into this world wailing and formless, waiting to be struck by the hammer that is life. As the days, months, years go by, the hammer strikes true, changing us, shaping us into something… someone unique.

Professor Kal had, in reality, lived two separate and unique lives. The first was his human life. He had a mother and a father, friends, colleagues… he was loved by many, and he himself loved a few. Then he died. Not by some dreadful illness that slowly sapped his health, nor was it old age, causing his body to slowly wither away as he watched, helplessly. He had died by his own hand, drinking a forbidden potion while performing a taboo ritual. That was the end of his first life, but the beginning of his second.

For two-thousand years, he forged new memories, experienced countless trials, and overcame untold tribulations. He had seen firsthand the many miracles this plane had to offer, he had also born witness to unspeakable atrocities, some committed by his very hands. He was a wholly different being than the one he had been before.

What he was experiencing now, sitting alone in the dim and musty basement, were the memories assaulting his mind, forcing it to change shape, threatening to bend it so much that it could shatter at any given moment. He let out a deep, shaky breath, feeling some of his pent-up anxiousness leaving his body along with it. Looking down, he realized that he had clenched his fists so hard that his nails had bitten deep into his palms, a thin trickle of crimson flowing between his white knuckles.

"Damnit." He cursed under his breath, for the first time in centuries, he was at a loss on what to do.

Shaking his head, he stood up from his wooden chair, deciding that the best thing to do for now was to simply move forward. There were many things that he had to sort out, and he couldn't waste his time down in the basement, sulking like a maiden betrayed by the handsome stable-boy.

With a swift kick, Professor Kal attempted to rouse Ryan from his slumber. The boy had been unconscious for quite a while, Professor Kal was beginning to think that he had suffered some trauma to his brain, although he did suspect that the boy's organ was damaged from birth. With a snort, Ryan flinched from the strike to his ribs, his eyes fluttering as his limbs sluggishly moved about like a blind man feeling for a wall that wasn't there.

"Get up, you comatose twat. If you lay about in the dirt anymore than you already have, mushrooms are liable to sprout up from your arse." Professor Kal spat as he kicked Ryan in the ribs once more.

Slowly, but surely, Ryan came to. At first, he was rather confused as to where he was. The last thing that he recalled was tumbling down the inside of the large crater located in the center of the plaza. Then he remembered the pain, the pain of his leg cracking in two as he plummeted down the steep slope. He bolted up to a seated position, grabbing his leg with both hands as he looked around in confusion.

"I've already patched you up." Professor Kal said from right next to him, "You really should be more careful, I won't always be around to prevent you from killing yourself."

Hearing the familiar voice caused the memories from before to flash across his mind. The horrible, towering monster, the withered husks with black pits for eyes, the insect like monstrosities that tore the knights apart as if they were wet paper... Professor Kal's flesh turning to ash as he chanted that mysterious arcane spell.

"You're dead!" Ryan shouted out in a panic as he scrambled to his feet.

"It seems we're going to have to work on your manners."

"I saw you die! When you were casting that spell, your body, it… disintegrated." Ryan started out shouting, but his words petered out into a quiet mutter. "But then, then you were at the bottom of that hole.... You were still… dead."

"As you can clearly see, I am very much alive." Professor Kal said with a grandiose flair, spreading his arms wide.

"Does that mean… Am I… dead?" Ryan mumbled to himself, completely ignoring the Professor's over the top theatrics. "If I'm here with you, then that means... this is… this… is hell."

A sour look came over Professor Kal's unshaven face as he glared at his comedic student. "Boy, you really are an idiot."

"If we're not dead, then what did I see? I saw what the spell did to you. Then afterwards, in that crater, what was that?" Ryan asked, still clearly confused.

Nodding his head, Professor Kal explained everything to his student. "Do you remember that potion I gave you before entering the plaza?"

"Uh… yeah, I do." Ryan answered.

"Well, some of the side effects are hallucinations, along with extreme fatigue, incontinence, brittle bones, and gout. There're a few others as well, nothing you need worry about though."

In all honesty, there were no side effects to the potion that he had given to him. It was just easier to have him think that he had imagined the ghastly spectacle that is his true self. Professor Kal crossed the room and began to rummage through one of the chests sitting on the hard-packed ground while he waited for his words to sink into the boy's dense head.

Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, Ryan milled around, still in a daze. "Wait, what's gout?"

Stopping his search, Professor Kal turned to the boy, "Out of all of that, that's your only question?"

\tShrugging his shoulders, Ryan casually dismissed the Professor's astonishment, "I've never heard of it before. Hey, what's with your face?"

Now that his head had become much less muddled after waking from his unconscious state, Ryan was able to see that the Professor he had been following for some time now looked completely different than before. Still, his reaction to the sudden change in appearance was much more subdued than what the Princess's was. This might have had something to do with how many strange things seem to happen around the Professor, and how desensitized he had become to them.

"Do you like it? If you want, I can mold your face into something a little less… homely."

"Laura likes my face just fine"

Very grateful for how naïve his student was at times, Professor Kal turned back to the chest to continue his search, "That's a match I'll never understand… Ah, here it is!"

Pulling out a small bag, Professor Kal turned back to Ryan with a triumphant look on his face. The bag was made of leather and was only a little large than Ryan's fist, it had a plain piece of twine stitched through the top as a pull string to cinch it tight. Opening up the top of the bag, Professor Kal reached in, his arm up to his elbow disappearing inside.

When his arm came out, a simple black robe was trailing from the end of it. "Alright, I'll get changed, then we can go upstairs and wait for the rest of the merry band of idiots to return."

…..

"Are you certain they're ok?" Ryan asked again as he paced restlessly back and forth within the foyer of the inn. "Why'd she even leave? She should have known how dangerous it was outside."

As Ryan mumbled to himself, Professor Kal fingered at a potted plant sitting in the corner of the room. It was a tall flowering tree maybe three-feet tall, and its little branches reached out nearly two-feet from its arm sized trunk. The half-dozen or so flowers adorning the tree were bright yellow and gave off a pleasing scent that reminded him of citrus.

"Hey, where'd this plant come from? I don't remember it being here when I bought the place." He asked, turning to the very worried Ryan.

Ryan stopped his pacing and looked over at the plant in question, "I don't know. Laura decorated the place. If you'd been here at all to help, you would have known that."

As Professor Kal grumbled in reply, the bell above the entryway jingled sharply, indicating someone's arrival. Ryan whipped around expectantly, hoping to see Laura alive and well. Instead, he was greeted with a disheveled looking Professor Treffle, and a gore covered Marissa trailing closely behind.

Slumping his shoulders, Ryan couldn't help but issue a dejected sigh, "Oh, it's just you."

Professor Treffle glared at the young man, "Disrespectful little cretin. Where's Mage Kalcifer?"

With the insult from the Professor rolling off of him like water on a duck, Ryan pointed to an overly handsome man standing in the corner that was waving and wearing a dumb smile on his face.

"Right… and I'm a dancing bugbear." She said sardonically as she eyed the man waving at her, "Hurry up and fetch him, and get the others as well,"

"They're not here." Professor Kal said as he made his way toward them, "They ran off just like you did."

"What!? But why?" Sarah asked, her eyes focusing on Professor Kal's face. "It's a mad house out there, and who are you by the way?"

"It's me." He replied, smiling, "I'm quite dashing, aren't I?"

Professor Treffle narrowed her eyes at the man, instantly suspicious of him. "Prove it."

"Always the prudent one, aren't you?"

Not saying anything in reply, she waited for him to satisfy her request. Marissa, still standing behind her watched intently, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

"Haaaa, fine." He said before lifting his hand up to his face, concealing it from view. As he slowly moved his hand, his face began to roil, as if there was boiling water just beneath his skin. In only a few seconds, his appearance had changed back to what it was before.

"Why would you change your appearance?" She asked, more annoyed than anything, "You didn't do something stupid, did you?"

As his face began to bubble once more, changing back to his handsome visage, Professor Kal shrugged his shoulders. "No, nothing like that. This is what I've always looked like, it's just I've hidden it behind an illusion. When I was off fighting the monster, I had to use a vast amount of mana and wasn't able to sustain the spell that hid my intimidatingly great looks."

In truth, he could have just used his old appearance to avoid the repeated questioning, but for reasons unknown, doing so made him feel… uncomfortable.

"Whatever." She sighed, rolling her eyes. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still just a pig in the end."

"I'm pleased to see that you're just as prickly as ever, my dear Professor Treffle."

"It's only been about a day, you're the only one's that changed in that time."

A serious look spread across his face, replacing the jovial one that occupied it just a moment before. "There is more truth to that than you know. Now, the others should be back at any moment, as long as they hadn't encountered any unforeseen circumstances on their way back."

"How do you know for certain?" Professor Treffle asked, unconvinced, "Anything could have happened to them out there, it's like everyone's gone mad, although, the army has started to move."

The worried look on Ryan's face only intensified as he listened to Professor Treffle's assessment, his face blanching as he hurriedly opened the window to peer outside. The section of the city where the inn was located was some distance away from the more populous sections. So, the amount of turmoil outside was negligible at best. Also, with the dungeon in such close proximity as well, meant that there was a large number of adventurers nearby, dissuading any miscreants nearby from causing any trouble.

Outside, the many tents set up around their property were still there, campfires burning brightly in the fading sunlight. The tents' inhabitants were all on guard, many were patrolling the grounds in pairs, seeming like they had all banded together in order to protect their patrons who were residing in the inn.

The foyer was empty at the moment, only housing their group as they waited for the others, but the rest of the inn was still bustling with activity. Even though the rest of the city seemed to have fallen into a state of wonton panic and strife, the inn remained safe due to the multitude of guards camping outside. This allowed for a fairly relaxed atmosphere to remain within its walls, the employees only hired the day before busily running about.

"Way to go." Professor Kal said, motioning to Ryan that was sitting in the windowsill, "You're going to give him an ulcer."

"Professor." Ryan said in a weak voice, "It's getting dark out…"

"Oh gods…" Professor Kal moaned, "Fine, I'll go get them. Everybody, stay… HERE." He punctuated his sentence by pointing to the ground in an exaggerated manner.

Using his hand like a sharp blade, he cut the air next to him, creating a long, jagged tear. Shimmering red light shined through the cut in space, dancing on the wooden floor like light reflecting off of a body of water. Without hesitation, Professor Kal widened the tear in space with both hands, creating an electrically charged crackling noise in the process and making it large enough for him to step through. Just as the last bit of the Professor disappeared into the shimmering void, it collapsed in on itself with a subdued 'pop', leaving everyone in the room dumbfounded by what they had just seen.