Cadryn Chapter 2 Scene 9

Cadryn slowly follows the path that is opening up to him. The temperature begins to rise the deeper he goes. At a certain point it suddenly turns cool. The flux becomes harder to grasp—like it’s being braided with something older. The artifact’s pulse sharpens, pointing him toward a widening chamber ahead.

He enters a vast hollow lit by no source, yet gently illuminated; the stone here feels aware. In the center: a shape half-buried in the floor—maybe a root, maybe a relic, maybe a boundary fence between worlds. Cadryn hears muffled voices again, clearer this time; one seems to speak a word he almost understands. The artifact reacts violently—fear, warning, or recognition—forcing Cadryn to steady himself. A faint pressure presses from above: Cian or the warriors trying to break through again, but something here holds them back. Cadryn reaches toward the central shape—flux recoils, then folds around his hand, allowing him to touch it. The moment he does, a flash of memory-not-memory surges through him: Earth’s awakening began before he ever arrived. Cadryn realizes the secret place isn’t showing him the past—it is choosing him.

Cadryn Chapter 2 Scene 8

Cadryn begins walking to the far end of the cavern, and as he does the space slowly changes. The space in front of him smooths out and begins to slope ever so slightly downward. Realizing there is no way out that he could see, and not quite trusting the flux to cooperate if he tries a complex incantation to port himself out he continues on with the direction that is being laid out for him. The path continues revealing itself only with each step Cadryn takes.

The cavern narrows into a tunnel. The stone in the tunnel moves slightly in and out, giving the appearance of breathing. He does not scare easily, a gift from the Overlord he wryly thinks to himself, but he does find it unnerving just a bit. As he entered the tunnel the flux started behaving strangely, more so than it had.

And then voices, muffled, memories that aren’t his. He encounters a mark or symbol etched into the stone, older than any magic he knows; the artifact reacts with a pulse of recognition, or fear.

A sudden tremor hints that Cian—or something worse—is probing the boundary from the outside. Cadryn looks back, briefly contemplating to turn and face the danger, but then turns back and takes another step, the way behind him begins to close up with each step he takes.

Stepping forward, he senses he is nearing the threshold of a revelation about this world and why it is changing

Cadryn Chapter 2 Scene 7

Cadryn turned around in a full circle. He is standing in the middle of a large cavern. The walls, the floor, everything, seems to be slowly moving, as if it is adjusting him. A thought briefly crosses his mind that it is recognizing him. He can still sense the flux, touch it, but all traces of Cian and the two warriors are gone. In fact everything is gone. Cadryn has never felt so alone in his life.

The artifact, he wishes he had a name for it, continues to throb. He pulls it out of his pocket and studies it. It looks old, millennia old. The shape is vaguely human. He directs a thread of flux into it and it appears to come alive. He sets it on a ledge and directs a powerful beam of flux into it and the earth beneath him moves. It is a deep groaning sound like the planet itself is rolling over in its bed. Cadryn picks up the object and feels for what its purpose is. He can almost sense a directional pull emanating from it. Almost.

Wind rushes past him, like someone, or something massive breathing. The walls begin to soften and smooth out. Roots retract. The rumbling finally stops. Cadryn trys again to center himself and embrace flux. It feels different here. It is not benign, neutral like on his world. Here it is less obedient, more primal, and more powerful. Flowing like a river trying to find its course.

A presence stirs in the deep. Not a being—more like an attention. It does not reveal itself, but it notices him.

Cadryn gets an impression; ancient magic, covenants made. The impression is too fleeting. He didn’t get enough of it to make sense. The artifact he realizes seems to reacts fearfully or protectively. Cadryn realizes it is not merely guiding him, but hiding him from something.

The realm begins to shift again—an approaching tremor from somewhere behind, maybe Cian’s attempt to breach the barrier, maybe something older responding to Cadryn’s crossing. Cadryn must move deeper, though he has no idea where “deeper” is. The realm seems to open a path only when he commits to stepping.

Cadryn Chapter 2 Scene 6

Cadryn stopped and first centered himself, and then embracing Flux he reached out fully touched the artifact. The artifact responded immediately with amazing force. Cadryn sensed sentience, like a living entity had been startled awake

The entire bookshop rippled slightly, like someone was shaking out a towel. The hair on the back of everyone head stood on end. It made Cadryns skin crawl. The warriors feel it too and it causes them to hesitate.

Cadryn feels the sweet embrace of the flux, and something more, something older, something massive, something awakening and remembering. Cadryn feels this but has no control over it. His only choice is to let it flow.

The artifact reveals intelligence. It pulls towards the crack in the back wall that just materialized. It is an exit, the exit for him and it wasn’t there moments ago. As he draws nearer the flux, seemingly of its own accord begins to part and spread the crack into an opening he can walk thru.

He slips toward it as the two warriors surge forward at last, blades drawn, flux-nets widening. Cian warns them to hold back—something in the room is wrong—but his voice is thinner than usual. The flux is still trying to reshape him, tugging at his form like wet clay resisting the sculptor.

The artifact pulses again. The books that Cadryn animated earlier begin to twitch. Not fully alive, but reacting to the same call he feels. Cadryn steps into the crack in the wall, and instantly the world bends.

It isn’t a portal. It’s more like stepping into a memory of Earth—roots, stone, and distant thunder layered into one impossible space. The artifact glows faintly. He feels as though he’s been pulled beneath the skin of the world itself.

Behind him, Cian lunges past the two warriors, determined to reach the portal before it closes, but the moment his hand crosses the threshold the ancient force rejects him. Not violently—just a firm, absolute denial. Cadryn sees the shock in Cian’s distorted form.

The portal closes. Cadryn is alone in this strange, interior realm of Earth. He is standing in a cavern-like hollow where the air hums with a low, ancient vibration. The artifact’s pulse syncs with the ground, and in that small shared rhythm he senses the truth:

He has stepped into a place Earth kept hidden even from the Overlord.

Cadryn Chapter 1 Scene 5

Cadryn moved silently toward the back of the shop, paying more attention to the books. A few changed titles before his eyes, and then more. ‘It’s like they’re alive’, he thought to himself. And it hit him. ‘It is!’ Just then he was distracted by the bell on the shop door ringing. He glanced from between the stacks. Two warriors moving with a fluidity and grace that belied their destructive power. No Cian. Cadryn took a breath and reached out to touch the flux, preparing himself for the impending conflict.

The moment he touched the flux the item in his pocket first began to warm, and then to pulse, for all the world Cadryn thought it felt like a heartbeat. Looking at it and studying it would have to wait though.

The shop, or the flux, Cadryn was no longer sure which, tightened like the string on a bow that had been fully drawn. The creaking stopped and everything became absolutely silent. It felt like the whole shop was listening.

A whisper of motion in the front as one of the warriors testing the aisles. Cadryn whispered an incantation and one of the books withdrew from the shelf, momentarily hovered as it changed into a dozen knives. As they flew towards the front they turned into feathers and floated harmlessly to the ground. Cadryn still sensed two life forms, and in that moment a sliver of doubt slipped in.

Cadryn focused his attention on the artifact which had come alive the moment he whispered a incantation. Its pulse was synching with the chaotic currents of the flux that continued to mutate. ‘What is altering this’, he thought to himself. A whisper in his mind, one he had come to trust over the years, ‘not what. Who.’ One thing was clear though, this thing wasn’t inert. It was feeding on the disturbance, or perhaps worse, guiding it. It occurs to Cadryn it’s attuned to something outside the shop. Something old. Something newly awake.

Pressure in the shop changed as Cian stepped into the shop at last. Again though there was more than Cian. Cadryn risked a glance towards the front and his eyebrows raise as he glances askance. Yes, the flux bends around him instead of parting, but his very nature was becoming fluid, like it was trying to change his form but had not quite figured out how.

The artifact responds violently. A single bright throb in Cadryn’s pocket—almost a warning. The two warriors advance deeper between the shelves. Cian stays near the door, holding the flux like a net.

It’s time to leave. As Cadryn silently heads towards the back he senses a narrow opening, but the flux has gathered in front of it, like it was alive with a will of its own, and it was waiting, for him.

He must choose: face Cian now, attempt the back exit and risk whatever the artifact is calling toward… or use the growing pulse in his pocket as a catalyst for something he doesn’t yet understand.

Cadryn quickly made a decision. It was, he thinks, his only choice. He reaches with his hand toward the artifact, feeling it vibrate with a rhythm older than the flux he knows. He now realizes it is something Earth has always been hiding. And he reaches out to it.

Cadryn Chapter 1 Scene 4

— Outline

Cadryn slips deeper into the narrow corridors of the bookshop, weaving between tall shelves that creak faintly as though listening. Titles catch his eye as he walks. One jumps out at him. “Basic Flux Incantations.” He does a double take but keeps on walking. This is no time to loiter. He attempts to muffle his presence within the flux, but the act feels clumsy—Earth’s altered magic resists his hand, moving with a different rhythm than he remembers.

He pauses, testing the currents. The flux coils strangely around the building, warping in ways that make no intuitive sense. It behaves more like a living organism than an elemental field—breathing, responding, curling away from him in faint ripples. Something in the world is watching, though he cannot yet tell whether it is hostile or merely curious.

Cian’s presence strengthens beyond the front door, precise and predatory. Rather than panic, Cadryn studies the flux signature again. Threads in it are wrong—familiar, yet threaded with a sharpness that never belonged to Cian. It hints that the hunter has changed… or that something on Earth is changing him.

Cadryn moves toward the back of the shop, where Art’s hidden reading room once sat. The passage feels off. Books he remembers are gone. Sitting on a table are pieces of pottery. Artifacts? He can feel the flux flow into and out of them. No time to spend. He reaches out and grabs one putting it in his pocket. A shelf that should lead to a cramped alcove now feels deeper, as though the architecture itself has subtly rearranged. Earth has always been mundane, but now its physical spaces bend in ways too precise to be accidental.

He reaches the back of the shop and discovers a faint residue of flux—old, human, mismatched with anything he recalls from this world. Someone here has touched magic. Recently. Perhaps more than one person. The more he studies the residue, the more he suspects that Earth’s flux isn’t merely different—it has been awakened.

The hunter’s aura sharpens again. Cadryn realizes he has only moments. He considers using the back exit, but the flux behind the building churns with an even stranger turbulence, like a storm forming in miniature.

The shop seems to press closer around him, urging him toward something unseen. He senses a choice forming: slip into the altered flux and risk its unknown rules, remain and confront Cian, or attempt to flee into a world that no longer behaves predictably.

Cadryn draws in a slow breath, weighing these paths, and acknowledging for the first time that Earth may no longer be the safe refuge he believed it to be—but rather the first place where the deeper truth of the flux will reveal itself.

Cadryn Chapter 1 Scene 3

Cadryn turned to walk down the street wanting nothing more than to blend in with the crowd. Immediately though, he notices a multitude of differences. Had things changed that much since he had been here last? Things felt sped up just a bit, and a bit brighter, people moved past him not giving him a second glance, which on the one hand was good but he clearly was not dressed like anyone else. Someone should have reacted, and the sidewalk felt different, like it resented him walking on it. All of this was subtle but taken together it was something he couldn’t overlook.

Nevertheless he tried. He matched his pace to the crowd, moving with them, just trying to be one with the humanity of this planet. Each step makes him more comfortable but also distances him from the arcane instincts of his world.

As he walks he senses ripples in the fabric of the flux of this world. He knows they are from the Overlords elite that are tracking him. The disturbance in the flux is strange though. Too much disturbance, and not enough definition. If he didn’t know better he would say… But no. He felt he was jumping to conclusions. Better to wait and see how this develops. Still the flux itself seemed different, something that shouldn’t be possible.

Cadyn realized he needed to stop before this carried him away. Immediately he turns and heads back the way he came. He sees Art Brown’s Bookshop and feels compelled to go inside. Things were getting more and more curious.

He opens the door and enters. The smell of old books greets him. This is comforting because it reminds him of his own library on his world. Again though, things are subtly different. Books have been rearranged, something Art would never have done. He moves deeper into the store and becomes hidden in the stacks and narrow aisles.

He feels another disturbance in the flux. This one is closer, faint still, but distinct. A smile, not at all friendly, crosses his face. He recognizes the signature. It is Cian, a tracker, The tracker. The Overlords Pet tracker. How very clever of the Overlord to select him. Who better to track him than Cian. He whispers to himself, “Ah dear Cian, There will be no delight in taking your life, but make no mistake, kill you I will.”

Cian is closer than he realized. Things were moving too fast. His escape plans need to be modified and he must do something to lose his pursuers.

He turns to leave and stops and pauses amidst the musty stacks of old books, trying to understand why Earth’s flux behaves like a stranger, and why this world—once familiar—now feels as though it is humming with something hidden just beneath its skin.

Cadryn: Chapter 1 Scene 2

Still in Manhattan but up in the 120s was an abandoned building. It had been condemned and was slated for demolition to make room for a luxury hirise. It was yet another step in the gentrification of the city that had been underway for some time now. This building though was only six stories tall, and as we have said it was abandoned. In the top floor in the back facing the alley was a large room. It was here that the air appeared to thicken momentarily and then twelve men simply began to materialize. Long moments pass giving the impression that something was not as it should have been. One of the men, Aidan who was himself a High Mage, touched the flux and drew a complex figure in the air in front of him. The figure begins to mutate and Aidan scowled, muttering something under his breath and rapidly picks at the figure in the air forcing it back in shape. The other men watch, clearly concerned. They all know what happens to them if this can’t be fixed. Aidan breathed a sigh of relief as their forms solidify.

In addition to Aidan, the group is made up of ten warriors. They are all highly trained. The best of the best. There are in addition two trackers, Cian and Conor. Trackers are from another race, but are mostly human in appearance. They have a natural ability to utilize the flux to enhance their sense to location of anyone they have met.

“The flux appears to be unstable or tainted with some kind of anomaly on this world,” Aidan said. “Use incantation only when absolutely necessary. All other forms of offense are approved. Is that clear?” Cian and Conor swore under their breath. Aidan looked directly at the two and they both simply nodded their heads, with no trace of emotion crossing their faces. Their jobs on this world just became even more challenging.

Aidan turned his attention to the group. “Does anyone have a read on the target?” Everyone looked back at the two trackers “I’m picking up something very faint”, Cian replied. “It could be him, but the I am feeling a whole lot more than I should. This is like nothing I have ever felt before.”

Aidan seemed to ignore anything other than that the target had been located. “Cian, take five men and track this life form down. Connor, start from the south end and work towards the center. We should meet somewhere in mid town. I want to have eyes on this one by dusk.”

The men in the abandoned building, look at each other and nod and begin walking down the stairs and out into the street. They move with precision and confidence. It seems clear they are highly trained. Turning onto a busy street they blend in with the crowds of pedestrians. No one gives them a second glance which is interesting because their attire is quite remarkable. People seem somehow focused on not noticing them.

Cadryn: Chapter 1 Scene 1

In a back alley somewhere in mid town Manhattan, a cold breeze stirred the loose detritus that is a part of every cities alley ways. All became calm, a portal opened and a Cadryn stepped through. He stood for a moment, calmly waiting. He had the look of intelligence, and power, and clearly he was not of this world. Noted the rain lightly falling. The sounds of automobiles, horns, and sirens, carried to him from the street. A large dumpster was directly across from him. It was next to a door with a faded sign overhead that read “Art Brown’s Used Books”, and that made him relax and feel a measure of confidence. He had been in Art’s shop before. The smells in the alley were familiar, almost, but there was something he couldn’t place that didn’t belong. It was odd, but he didn’t give it another thought. He was alone, and that was what mattered for now. He moved back into the darkest part of the alley. This was going to work out. He had taken the time to dress in nondescript clothing from his world leaving anything that identified him as a High Sorcerer behind. This was dangerous, he knew, but necessary. There were things that could enhance his spells making him near invincible. These same things would also serve as a homing beacon for the Overlord and his agents. It was what it was. He knew the risks. He would have to get more appropriate attire soon.

Breathing in to calm himself, he touched the flux, the source of all magic in every world. It was softer on this world, but it was still strong enough for his use. It had the effect too of quickly dissipating traces of his magic. He hoped it would give him an edge in staying ahead of the Overlord. He whispered a simple incantation, to strengthen his concealment spell he had cast just before coming here. Energy flowed around him and of its own accord began to mutate from concealment into something chaotic. Curious, he thought as he quickly modified the incantation and brought it under control. This was new, and this was disturbing. It introduced a new element into his plans. He could deal with it, he said to himself, couldn’t he? There was no time to worry.

And then it happened. It was faint but unmistakable. There was a disturbance in the flux on this world, it felt like a dozen stones dropped into a pond all at once, each one plopping distinctly. They had the unmistakeable taint of the dark overlord. Not him, but his Agents, no doubt the elite ones. He was surprised they had followed him so quickly.

Cadryn grabbed his satchel throwing it over his shoulder and began to walk towards the street. As he walks his presence in this world solidifies with each step as does a sense of unease he can’t quite shake. The realm he left behind begins to fades away. He has time, but not much. The sun was past its zenith and he wanted to completely disappear in this world before nightfall.

Time

My one main thought for the last year has been, when I retire I am not going to work anymore. Coworkers would ask, “So what are you going to do when you retire,” and I would reply, “Not come to work.” I really hadn’t given it much more thought than that. Partly, this was because I have never had a shortage of things that interest me to keep me busy. I have been between jobs several times in my career and have never had a problem keeping busy. This time is different.

The main reason is because I am sharing the experience this time with my type A wife. She is hard wired to always be busy. I, as you might guess, have no problem sitting down when the work is done and doing nothing, perhaps even taking a nap. To quote a line from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, “I’m not wasting time, it’s only your limited culture point of view that makes it seem so.” She looks over at me in such times though, and I have to admit here I don’t know quite what she is thinking and that’s probably all for the best, but there is a not so subtle change in her aura, and I instinctively know she is wishing something like, “I wish he would get up off his skinny little @## and do something productive.”

This retirement thing is still new for both of us and we both realize there is not enough to keep us both busy. We will figure this out, and it will take time. Until then things may be a little uncomfortable for both of us, and I’m okay with that. Really.