The key in woman form stared blankly at him for a moment before laughing softly, "If I were to go about it the way you imagine, it might, truly. If I had such a thought in mind, I would have approached you a little differently. No, out of respect and difference to your friendship with my maker, your qualities as a person and my own desires, we"ll use a less traditional approach."

Looking greatly relieved but a little disappointed, Rithus said, "Then please explain because I am thoroughly confused."

The Danann Key smiled and said, "In a moment, I"ll ask you to close your eyes and lower your spiritual resistance so as not to cause you pain or discomfort. Before that, I need you to move a small amount of the spiritual bloodline you acquired from the dragon souls that merged with your shadow during the "night of terrors", to the appropriate place. Since you are a man full grown with a child of his own, I doubt I need to explain things any clearer.

"And yes, before you ask or explain, I am very well aware of the real nature of that bloodline. It"s tolerance of "s.p.a.ce" and affinity with "spirit" is why it"s needed. Its lack of substance and weakened ability to express itself in all other areas makes it more appealing, not less."

For all the build-up to the actual moment, a brief cold touch to a sensitive place and it was done. Taking Rithus" contribution and fashioning one of her own, she sent what would form the core of Orison"s new physical vessel down the line of his stretched out innards.

Rithus shook his head. "I don"t understand. Even the shadow in my bones is having difficulty grasping the reason behind your choices."

The woman shaped key smiled with a slight hint of wickedness. "That would be because my choices weren"t made from the standpoint of logic but desire. Nor am I an existence bound by the viewpoint of life as you understand it."

Moving to stand a little too close for Rithus" comfort she looked up into his eyes and said, "It pleases me to confuse you but before you consider me cruel, I"ll give you a reason you can accept. Amoril erased some things and added others when it merged with all of its echoes. Orison lost his fate and physical origin here. He needed an anchor to fully justify his existence or he would struggle to cross the divide between the lower dimensions and here. In other words, real parents. Thankfully, erasing and rewriting events is a costly privilege only lower dimensional wills possess. Once Amoril became fully realized, the will lost that ability but it"s power to suppress outsiders and enforce its laws of existence have become much stronger."

Rithus" face grew flushed as he shyly asked, "You and I are Orison"s parents?"

She said, "How you chose to interpret your relationship with my maker is up to you but I am not his mother. A remnant inside of a secret tomb and a generous dash of miasma together serve as legacy and womb, symbolically at least. Besides, did you not once indulge in the fantasy of Orison being a son you could could watch over and teach things to?"

Rithus grew angry until mortified self-loathing caused him to turn away from her so he could get his emotions under control.

The key said sadly, "The simple dreams we had when we were simple beings are the best of us. It was wrong of me to expose such a thing so bluntly but... It"s a part of my nature to be drawn to and grant such desires when it"s within my ability to do so. If... If I didn"t have a desire of my own to seek and more time to nurture feelings, I wouldn"t have minded pursuing a more... traditional approach to what I"ve done with you. I find you to be a good man."

Rithus turned to face her. Seeing the woman"s shy demeanor after hearing her flattering confession stirred something within himself that he hadn"t felt for a long time.

He admitted, "I find that to be a pleasant thought."

Under the ambiguous atmosphere, the Danann Key suddenly recalled enough of the woman she had been to find looking at the physical proof of how pleasant he found such a thought to be more than she could bear as she turned away herself. Rithus came to a sudden realization of his own. Looking down, he quickly packed away the equipment she had left out. Once he was decent, Rithus tried to find the right words that would convey all of his complex thoughts and feelings about her and the situation they were in but when he looked up, she was gone.

Over the next few days, the Danann Key indulged in some self wish fulfillment. Pretending to be some kind of messenger from the afterlife, she told Cray about Keita"s crush on him but after discovering where his heart lay, helped him reunite with the obsidian elf girl he had tried to forget but couldn"t. A little wistfully heartbroken, she came up with another, far more radical idea for her self reinvention. In retrospect, giving birth to herself with her old flame and then having him raise her was pretty crazy and not very effective anyway.

Settling for lesser wishes, she dug up Hammy"s remains and infused them into the catch tank of an ancient, magical elven portable toilet before gifting it to the Cantrip Clan. Disguising herself as "Spook", she kidnapped and nearly scared Mellow and Hefty to death before taking them to a small pit filled with gold and gems she had plundered from old elven ruins. After "swimming" in it for awhile, she let them take as much as they could carry before splitting it up into gift portions for people she met and liked.

For a few months, she indulged in a slew of heartwarming, insane and terrifying acts of personal gratification while she waited to make sure Orison"s insides would make it back to him safely. Ending it on a calm note, after explaining what she was offering and wanting, she spent a week in platonic affection with Rithus that still ended on a less than platonic note despite both of them knowing it was a bad idea. Unable to convince her to stay, Rithus swore to find her as she disappeared. Her heart clenched in excitement at the prospect of such a chase and swore to be his if he could. Neither of them knew if they could keep such a promise but both were willing to try.

Using all but a small amount of the remaining miasma as fuel and protection, the Danann Key crossed boundary after boundary in search of a way to make her own desire a reality without betraying her directives or her maker"s needs. Whatever the enigmatic and elusive thing she was searching for, she seemed to have found it in an expansive plane with a mult.i.tude of sub planes. It was a place rife with magic, power and possibility. Natives who possessed the potential to cross the divide to the highest of material existences were born a handful a generation. It was here that she intended to reinvent herself and be reborn.

***

Orison scrambled over and through the bits and pieces of himself that didn"t get reabsorbed as he pounded his way through the crystalline sh.e.l.l. Retching and coughing up a foul tasting jelly, Orison cast presto multiple times on himself.

In a hoa.r.s.e voice, he croaked, "What kind of broken gold finger, Mary Sue bullsh*t was I forced to witness!? Pulling us up to the mid dimensions wasn"t a good thing for us but jet-packing yourself to the very limits of said mid dimensions was honky-dory?"

Pelenel"s voice cut over his tirade. "You just emerged. Your emotions are going to be unbalanced and you still need to recover. For the next few days, you"re going to need to stuff yourself and drink a great deal of fluids to complete your transition or you could end up with defects that would be undesirable."

Honing in on his distant kin, Orison was about to rant at Pelenel until he saw a box filled with a variety of delicacies that made all of his focus fall on it. Reaching out a slender and emaciated arm, he took the box and nearly choked himself to death trying to get its contents into himself even just a little faster.

Halfway through his fourth gla.s.s of water and third serving of food, Orison asked, "Where"s Gan?"

Pelenel said, "He"s exploring the edges of the Shadow Region. He should be returning in a couple of days. Don"t worry overmuch. Ivan and Emris" older brother are with him. That rabbit fellow is as well but I get the impression that he"s more comedy relief than anything else... It"s better that others not see you until you are fully yourself."

Orison snorted. "Some kind of relief, I"m sure... Wait, why would it be better for no one to see me? What do I look like?"

Looking at him blandly, Pelenel said, "You look like a sickly, desiccated, reanimated cadaver. If you"d like to have nightmares about it later, I could hand you a mirror?"

Orison blanched. "No, that"s alright... What happened while I was incubating or whatever the h.e.l.l you want to call it?"

Pelenel said, "Danny thought that you had lost control of the chrism he had given you and were mutating into something that they would have to destroy but Gan wanted a second opinion. Vaguely remembering that we shared kinship, your friend asked if there was a chance that I could illuminate your situation. Fortunately, I could but I must admit to some confusion.

"Your reawakening was the most harrowing one I have ever seen. Whether it was my own or the two others I had witnessed, we shed a few layers of ourselves and took a few days. You regrew yourself from the very beginning and took nearly four weeks to awaken. I fear if I was not here to add some vitality to you, you may not have completed your metamorphosis and died of exhaustion."

That was the last thing Orison heard as he slipped into trance. The next few days were more of the same. He"d wake long enough to eat, drink and take care of a few physical needs before slipping back into trance.

By the time that Gan returned, Pelenel no longer saw a need to stay and begged off to return to his own tasks. To thank his distant kinsman for his care, Orison gave Pelenel a few trinkets from the care package his conduit had managed to collect for him as she ran around the first week of her insane holiday.

With a friendly face he could confide in, Orison laughed and cried out what he had witnessed of his key"s story in half amused impotent fury. He finished by dumping out the crate of sentimental junk she had deigned to send him. Gently setting aside a handkerchief wrapped stack of baked goods made by Droya and violently flinging a pair of women"s undergarments to a corner of the room before setting them on fire, Orison let Gan pick out a few things too.

Running over to stamp the underwear out, Gan said, "I don"t know what the garment ever did to you but the ventilation in here isn"t so good."

Orison muttered, "Venito probably thought it would be quite the touching gift... She drunk the tea. It was her choice but she"s dead to me. End of story."

Gan looked at Orison in confusion, so he added, "Venito"s going away party, Lyra and I... To be fair, no one knows and none save herself would have ever known if my conduit wasn"t sensitive to dead elves and their creations, that includes offspring. It also includes those who are only part elf."

Seeing that Gan was about to try and console him, Orison staved the scout off with a raised hand. "There"s nothing to grieve or consider. I"m angry but I"ll get over it. It"ll probably be awhile before we make it back there. h.e.l.l, she might be dead before then, maybe even of old age. Who the f*** knows?"

More to distract the young mage than out of any genuine interest, Gan asked, "What was that like, the thing you just went through?"

Orison stalled mentally before he said, "It"s like being made new. Everything that happened before it seems like another life that happened a long time ago or like it happened to someone else that you can relate to. It"s all dull around the edges. Only the brightest parts feel relevant."

Sounding a bit insecure, Gan asked, "Which parts still feel... bright?"

Orison gave Gan a lopsided smile and said, "Your parts, mom"s... Rithus and Duran may not be as bright but they"re there. Morrel, may his soul find peace and a better life, Venito and a few others feel distant but close if that makes sense."

Smiling mischievously, Gan said, "So Rithus is your old man now, huh?"

Orison rolled his eyes, "If it didn"t matter to Rithus, it wouldn"t matter to me at all. Time changes a lot of things. By the time we meet up again, it might not even BE a thing. What does bother me is that he"s in love with the girl that possessed my conduit. If he ever does manage to catch up to her, maybe she"ll have made it workable... One thing"s for sure. The Danann Key"s going to get a good scrubbing down before I let it sit in my hand again."

Gan looked at Orison, trying hard to hold it in before he burst into hysterical laughter. "I can see why."

The next few days, Orison finished his recovery. At first, the ravenous appet.i.te slacked off as his need for rest decreased back to normal ranges. Then he started feeling strong, began having to actively practice containing his glamour to keep it from spilling out. Lastly, he felt final touches filling in.

There was a subtle presence of maturity and defining masculinity that he hadn"t possessed before. There was also a subtle sense that his body was merely a projection of what was truly important. Its maintenance and improvement was merely adding another layer of protection over what really mattered, like a good coat or a thick pair of socks. That feeling disturbed the young mage. Maybe it was the lingering sentiments of the original Orison but he found comfort in still being able to recognize a familiar feature or two in the mirror, even if that person was enhanced and moderately altered.

During his recovery, Orison had discussed what his plans were. He was a little upset that his main goal of solving the thousand year old mystery between Danny and the dead woman in Construct Three had been thwarted. But like much else that had happened before his rebirth, it was a worn and tired kind of emotion. Getting what he came for, the man had "stepped" out.

Orison could intuit that he, Ivan and Gan had enough "fuel" for a step baptism but they all needed some kind of moment to act as a catalyst, a spark to ignite it. The best place that he could think of to do that was Construct One which was located under Shadow Keep"s adjoining city. Interestingly enough, people knew it was there but only degree three and under spiritual cla.s.ses could get in and it was considered suicide.

For the odd summoner or necromancer that had the guts to enter, they either never came back out or were seriously soul faded. Oddly enough, those qualified to enter could bring up to three companions but those that failed to come out themselves also doomed their allies as well. The soul faded ones had a shoddy record of companion survival also but some did emerge and their stories were the reason Construct One rarely had any visitors.

After taking one more day to acclimate himself with his body and understand what all had changed. Orison was ready to go. After a night of drinking and rabble rousing with Theo and Emris" older brother Arazmus, so was Gan. Once a surprise addition of Rose had been announced after Theo bailed, Ivan was more than ready to go.

Having an aside moment with Gan, Orison said, "What the h.e.l.l is going on? I didn"t have a problem with Theo because he was your buddy but Duran and Rithus both got the creepy crawlies around Rose."

Gan sighed and said, "Your word is law on who stays and goes, Little Boss, but reconsider. She actually did you a solid why you were... whatever that was."

Brows furrowed, Orison said, "I"m all ears."

The scout explained how she had been friends with Emris" wife so when the Wards became royalty, they extended their authority to grant Rose Chosen status. Everyone knew that she was a little stab happy but it came in handy when she volunteered to infiltrate Sek and find out who was behind the stubborn refusal to let Orison off despite being on friendly terms with three royal families. After successfully getting the list of Sek royalty behind it, almost dying in the process, she returned to Emris with it and the problem was finally laid to rest. It seemed that Orison actually owed her a favor.

On the day of the meetup, Orison looked for a moment to have a private word with the Draconos woman. "Why do you want to come on this trip? More than one person has advised against it. Even Theo didn"t come because he said if he survived his mother would kill him."

Rose smiled and said, "I have a pet theory. I think you cracked Fortune"s construct but didn"t claim it. Since I saved my second training for necromancer, I thought I could take what you don"t want."

Orison shook his head, "What does an a.s.sa.s.sin, er, striker and a necromancer even make?"

Rose replied demurely, "Nothing but it seems like it should, just like your choices do. I only get three active years anyway. I"m taking a gamble. Look, I"ll even play nice with Ivan and be a well behaved party member the whole time as long as I don"t think you"re trying to get me killed."

Since activating spirit sight didn"t cause him physical sight issues anymore, Orison didn"t notice how brightly his eyes blazed or their brief narrowing to serpentine slits as he warned, "See that you do. If I have reason to believe some harm came to one of mine because of your actions, the things I"ll do to you will make devils weep."

Seeing a light tremble shoot through her, he felt satisfied that he"d made the impression he desired until he caught a faint sent of arousal. That satisfaction turned into the beginnings of a tension headache. With the understanding of just how differently the woman was mentally wired, he whispered a quick warning to Ivan not to push Rose too far with the flirting and hoped for the best.