He stood alone on the side of the road, watching the three adventurers limp away into the darkness. After a few minutes, they disappeared into the gloom. When they were gone, he simply watched the darkness for a time, having neither words nor thoughts. He stayed like that a while, then, with a massive sigh, he finally looked away.


    He didn''t regret anything. He had proven his strength, and he had saved them. Likewise, this wasn''t an unexpected outcome, really. He knew from the second he decided against killing them that their time together was limited. Mortals and monsters like him didn''t mix. There was never any world where it would have worked out between them. At best, they were a means to an end. At worst, they were a threat in the making.


    Still, he had enjoyed their company.


    Turning away from the direction they disappeared, he looked toward the remains of the battle. The trolls were incinerated. Hardly anything remained of them. The ground was charred, and thin sheets of obsidian covered the earth in patches. Several of the trees were still smoking, and most of the bushes had burned away. No grass or leaves had survived in a thirty-foot circle around where he had stood when he cast his spell. He smirked at everything he saw. He had tasted his former power, and it was delicious.


    Hearing a creaking in the woods, his entire body tensed. He whipped his head around, which made his head spin violently. Steadying himself, he searched the area. He couldn''t handle another fight right now. He hoped the spell he had pulled out of the void would make any other trolls in the area think twice about pursuing them, if there were any left. Luckily, the sound was only a bough of one tree scraping against another. He relaxed.


    And his muscles relaxing allowed him to feel how fatigued he actually was. He was completely spent. Searching around, he found a comfortable-looking stump just outside of the blackened ring of earth. Finding nothing better to rest on, he limped over to it and sat down. And, for a time, he did nothing much at all. He listened to the sounds of the forest. There were crickets and some sort of whooping bird deep in the trees. Without thinking, he tried to reach out with his senses, hoping he could find any lingering or lurking threats, but a wave of nausea washed over him. He gave up on the thought immediately and simply used his ears. He didn''t hear anything besides the sounds of forest.


    Using the calm to focus, he began to meditate. He cleared his head for some time before he focused inward. It took quite a bit longer to focus than usual, but slowly, he felt his consciousness descend into his spirit. He winced at what he felt. His spirit body was in tatters. He could feel mana leaking out of gaping holes in the tapestry of his soul. It wasn''t completely torn through, likely due to the blood he took from Shani, but his spirit felt as bad as his body did. He would have to avoid using any essence for some time.


    Before returning to his physical body, he searched for the sigil of the spell he cast in his fight against the troll. He found it at the very edge of his spirit. It was completely ruined. He likely had burned the spell out by casting it the way he did. Spells sigils could only handle so much, and despite being a sixth circle spell, his offering of his entire being to the magical construct must have stretched it to its limit. He felt its loss deeply. He had spent two years perfecting that spell. He had specifically designed it to burn away his enemies if he ever got ambushed.


    In truth, he was surprised he had been able to recover it from the darkness beyond his spirit at all. It was far beyond his current skills. He supposed that his willingness to die and the burning of his spirit had allowed him to push beyond his limits. Without Shani''s blood, he would have certainly died. Even with it, he was shocked he was in as good of shape as he was. He''d have to think on it later and figure out how. Since she was still alive, he couldn''t have drank that much of her essence, certainly not enough to be moving. But he was.


    He returned his senses to his body, and the crushing weight of fatigue hit him. Looking around, he felt the near-silence weigh upon him. He had always had minions and allies by his side. However, in this moment, all that was left was him.


    It was only him.


    As he thought, he unconsciously fiddled with the troll bone he had used to heal A-Nis. Looking down at it, he noticed he could feel a soft nagging sensation pulling at him from within it. It dawned on him that there was something left in the charred bone in his hand, something that hadn''t flowed into A-Nis. Gently reaching out with his senses, careful not to pull on too much mana, he could feel a small mote of black inside the bones. Gently, he coaxed it into his spirit. The act pushed him closer to unconsciousness, but he welcomed it in anyways. He had nothing left to lose.


    When the dark mote entered him, his stomach knotted. His scroll burned with black words.


    <hr>


    [You Are Strongest]: By dredging up forgotten abilities from your past life, you were able to defeat Graul the troll, a creature far stronger than you and absorbed his dark essence. In being willing to sacrifice everything, you have grown stronger.


    You learn the [Embrace of the Abyss] Shadowspawn talent.


    [Embrace of the Abyss] (Passive): Darkness and shadows strengthen you. When in darkness or shadow, you gain a moderate increase to your physical abilities equal to one rank of any enhancement, and existing enhancements grow one rank stronger. You also become more difficult to detect with both physical and magical senses as long as you’re in darkness, stacking with ranks of the [Stealth] enhancement.


    You reach level IX


    <hr>


    Taking everything he could from it, he let the bone drop from his fingers. It crumbled away when it hit the ground. Looking down at his arms, he saw that they were cracked and scarred above his bracers. Clear fluid wept from under them, but a quick attempt at pulling them off revealed that his skin had fused to the metal. Only then did he realize his ring was gone as well, with only a thin blister marking where it had rested on his finger. His pants had half burned away, and other than his boots, his outfit was gone.


    Feeling its loss deeply, he looked over toward where he had thrown his pack down before the battle, but all that was left of it were its metal buckles, the dagger Selene had left for him, his now scorched spell book, and a soot stain that used to be his pack.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    And clothes.


    The good ones from his vault.


    All of them.


    With a groan, he collapsed onto the grassy bank where he sat, willing himself to drift off to sleep. Sleep didn''t come. He lay there for some time, watching the clouds roll past overhead as dawn approached. A light breeze blew over him, carrying away the stench of ashes and smoke that hung in the air. He wanted nothing more than to fall asleep now, but his mind wouldn''t allow it. So instead, he sat there, listening to the wind and the insects and the birds, wishing his mind would empty.


    He wondered about what he would do next. Where was he going? What was he supposed to do? What did he want to do? He''d spent countless hours plotting revenge in his little coffin. He chuckled to himself as he remembered how frustrated he''d been in his little stone prison. He had gone over every single detail of his future return to the world over and over again. Seethed and gnashed like an impotent shadow at past slights. Plotted and planned his revenge again and again on the ones who put him in that sorry state, and against the ones who never came to assist him. Against everyone, really.


    But there was no revenge to be had. It had been five hundred years. If anyone was left, and that was a big if, they would have lived lifetimes. They would have seen the death of a past age and the birth of a new one. They would have experienced and seen much while he was locked away in the Depths, forgotten. Would the petty squabbles of a distant past even matter anymore? Did any of his peers and allies even still exist? Immortality didn''t mean they couldn''t be slain. And from what he learned, most were sealed away or forgotten. Perhaps they got to experience a taste of what he did in the end?


    He sighed. His throat rattled as he did. More than anything, he was exhausted. And he was weak. Barely could kill some trolls. He had no allies. No power. He was worse off now than he was when he first died. Worse even than being locked in his vault. At least then he knew how he fit into the world. He knew what the future would bring. Now he was lost.


    He was nothing.


    The tower''s light peeked out through the leaves of the trees, casting red-gold rays through the scattered clouds. Time had passed as he brooded, and the coolness of dawn burned away into the warmth of morning.


    Laying there, he let his mind wander as he waited for sleep to take him, and when it finally arrived, he embraced it eagerly.


    ***


    He awoke several hours later to the sounds of voices. He stirred and yawned. Sitting upright, he rubbed his sore muscles. Sleeping on the hard ground for days on end had taken its toll, leaving every one of his limbs stiff and protesting. While much of it had leaked through the holes in his spirit, his mana had regenerated somewhat while he slept, enough to cast his disguise, which thankfully used very little mana. The nausea returned, but he swallowed it down. As it did, he saw a mid-sized cart crest the gentle slope that the three adventurers had disappeared down.


    Driving the cart was a woman, maybe twenty five, with fair freckled skin and the clothes of a trader of moderate wealth covering her frame. Her long sandy blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. Two men sat on top of crates on the cart bed behind her. Both of the men looked similar enough to her that it was clear they were related. The men were laughing and chatting away as they drank what looked like ales from glass bottles, while the woman was looking in his direction.


    "Hey there!" One of the men shouted in Abad''s direction, "We heard you needed a ride!"


    "Yeah! Hop on!" called the other man slurred, waving his bottle at the warlock.


    The woman steered her oxen with skill, their movements perfectly controlled by their master. Abad stood up and waited for them to approach. A few moments later, the woman pulled the cart up and spoke to him. "Hey, are you Abad-Shai?"


    "The one and the same." Abad croaked.


    "My caravan ran into some travelers on the road a while back. They seemed pretty torn up, so we scooped them up. One of the elf girls was pretty insistent there was someone out here that needed to be picked up too, so I told them I''d take care of it since we were already on the way out here. You''re lucky too; we don''t come out this far often. The dwarf seemed grumpy about it, but I''m getting paid, so here I am. And by the looks of it, you''re not better off than them." The girl grinned. She had the wide smile, easy friendliness, and gleam in her eye of a shrewd trader.


    "I appreciate it." He gave silent thanks to Shani, who undoubtedly had been the one to extend this final olive branch to a poor sinner like him. The woman in the cart leaned over and opened the door to the cart''s driving bench. When she leaned over, Abad noticed a marking on her neck. A brand. It looked like a bird''s outstretched talons. It reminded him of the markings that used to be used by slave traders in his time. Like the brands he had burned onto others countless times. He wondered what it meant now.


    He reached up and grabbed the wooden cart''s siding, but he didn''t have the energy to pull himself up. Seeing him struggle, one of the two men jumped off the back of the cart and helped Abad climb up onto the wooden seat. When he was seated comfortably and the door was shut, the driver clucked her tongue, whistled sharply, and the cart jerked forward.


    After they had turned around, she introduced herself as Keila. The men were Rhys and Serus. They were all three siblings, with her being the eldest. The two men were twins. There was a comfortable rapport between the three, but the men seemed to constantly fuss and argue. One, Rhys, was more crass and outgoing. Serus was more serious and calm, if only barely. Abad chuckled at first over their antics, but after a while, their drunken bickering became grating. He''d get over it, though. Anything was better than walking right now.


    He made idle chitchat with them for a time, but eventually a comfortable silence fell on the group. One of the men had began snoring in the back, and the other was nodding off. The woman spoke after the second brother began snoring. "So, what happened back there? It looked like something went down on the road. We don''t usually see that sort of damage except from raiders, but raiders typically avoid the old kingdom roads. Too risky."


    Abad shrugged. He really didn''t want to talk about it, but he didn''t feel like he could keep quiet forever, especially since the woman had gone out of her way to retrieve him. "Some trolls attacked us on the road. Big, ugly things. Don''t remember much beyond that, except my magic went pretty haywire. Ended up burning everything up, but we survived."


    Keila sucked in her breath through clenched teeth. "Damn." She eyed him up and down, something passing behind them. "That''s some bad luck right there. Trolls aren''t too common around here."


    "Yeah." She didn''t seem too surprised by a troll attack. "Have you heard of other troll attacks in the area?"


    "Sometimes. We came from Wysten in the north, and there were some sightings out that way a few weeks ago. The guards had to fight off a lone scout, and some adventurers had a run in with a group of them a while later. Took one of them down, so the guards have been on alert ever since."


    Abad nodded. Even one troll would be tough for the average person.


    "I wonder if it was the same troupe. Those things can travel fast and far from what I hear." Rhys had awoken and was opening another bottle.


    "Who knows?" Abad looked back at the man. He was taking a long pull of the drink. "Mind if I have a drink? I''m parched."


    Rhys grinned broadly, reached into the crate he was sitting on, and handed him an unopened bottle. "To better days." He clinked Abad''s beer.


    "Hey, grab me one too." Serus yawned.


    "Coming right up!"


    Abad pulled the cork out, smelled the ale, and drank heartily.


    It was pretty good.