Torrin felt himself floating. Once more he was in complete darkness, but this time he felt more aware. He could hear a voice softly ringing out around him. It sounded like... Singing?
"...When the bough breaks..."
'Who is singing...? Where am I?' This thought shook Torrin, making him remember the dark abyss after his death.
Torrin shot up, eyes wide and frantically searching from side to side.
"Ooh! Damn, boy, you nearly scared the life out of this poor old lady!" Grams exclaimed in surprise, her hand slightly extended towards the boy as if she had pulled it back quickly after being burned by something she'd touched.
Torrin saw Grams sitting beside the bed in her big chair like usual, looking around, he noticed he was once more in her hut, laying in the huge comfortable bed.
"Grams...?" Torrin asked in wonder, "Wha...What happened?"
Torrin's voice was rough with disuse, his throat parched as a dry desert.
"Oho, boy! Do you not remember? You were really something... Quite something there at the end..." Grams trailed off, a hint of reverence in her voice.
"Thirsty..." Was Torrin's response.
Grams handed the boy a bottle with a shimmering liquid, it was one of her special potions.
After he downed the potion he felt much better, as a soothing warmth traveled through his body. The potion made him feel so nice, his eyes drooped, and he fell back to sleep.
Grams reached out her hand and softly stroked the boy's hair, which had turned from sandy blonde into a dark black shade, as if it was absorbing light itself.
Torrin finally awoke fully some time later. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling above.
'Was I successful?' he wondered.
He closed his eyes and scanned his core. Instead of the pockmarked black or even a newly formed red-core, what he saw was a shining golden sphere, with intricate runes adorning its surface, slowly spinning in place. Pulling his attention closer, he found the core was made up of what looked like a lattice-work of crystals.
His mind flowed through his reforged pathways, scanning all the changes in his body. The muscles he'd developed during his months of training in the lab had actually gotten smaller, more dense. His blood flowed swiftly, his heart pumping with a strong, steady beat in his chest.
His Mana Pathways were now more than double the size they'd started out as, lined in gold. He was roused from his analysis by Grams clearing her throat.
Opening his eyes, he saw Grams sitting beside the bed with a soft smile on her face. Gone was her usual arrogance or playfulness, only a soft caring smile played on her wrinkled face.
Seeing her expression, Torrin thought she looked like a caring old grandma instead of the sadistic old witch she actually was.
"Hey, Grams... Been a while." he said simply, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"That it has, boy. That it has..." She replied somberly.
"What happened, Grams? After you appeared behind me on that hill? What was that place I went to?" He wanted answers to put the whole mess behind him.
"It was a pocket dimension, one that seems to have been used as a laboratory for cruel human testing... As I'm sure you discovered." Her voice made him nervous, it lacked the usual crazy tinge to it... It was too soft.
"Yeah, I gathered that much... But why..." His voice broke slightly, "Why did you leave me there for so long?" His eyes began to water.
Grams moved to the bed and embraced the boy as tears streamed down his face and he cried and cried with wracking sobs. Gone was the mature facade that begged for vengeance, all that remained was a young and lonely boy who was hurting.
"It's okay... Shh... It's okay now." She stroked the back of Torrin's head softly as he wept into her shoulder.
The build up of emotions in Torrin had reached a crescendo and there was nowhere else to bury them, he was full to the brim with the rage and stress and loss and loneliness that had been consuming him since he found himself in this world and the feelings burst forth from him in a stream of tears.
Torrin cried until his tears ran dry, he wept and Grams stayed by his side, a comforting presence in the storm of emotions. He felt drained by the outburst of emotions and Grams slowly lay him back on the pillows; He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Grams stood over the sleeping boy with a complicated expression on her face, shaking her head as she sat back in her chair and stared at the boy, conflicting thoughts raging through the old woman's mind.
Eventually, Torrin awoke once more. He stretched his body and found it felt strange. His body felt almost completely different from the one he'd become used to. He looked over to the empty space beside his bed, wondering where Grams was.
As if summoned by the thought, she walked into the bedroom with a heaping tray of food and a big grin on her face.
"Welcome back, boy. Hope you're hungry!" Grams exclaimed.
Torrin thought about it and found that he wasn't actually very hungry, but the food smelled wonderful, so he sat up and accepted the food gratefully.
"Thanks, Grams..." he trailed off awkwardly, remembering the scene of him breaking down.
"No worries, child. Enjoy the food and I'll try to explain what I know." She said, summoning her chair and sinking down into it with a contented sigh.
Grams summoned a screen of water that showed a beautiful woman with dark hair and pale skin sitting on a throne, head tilted and supported by her hand as if she were bored as she listened to the person before her. She explained to Torrin how she'd been checking in on his progress when he stumbled upon the portal.
"I was watching your adventure towards the mountain range, and decided that once you reached the area around the mountains I would come assist you, as that place can be treacherous. But you stumbled onto a pocket realm and when I saw this, I ported right over to make sure it was a safe place..." Her expression soured at these words.
"Little did I know it was an unstable portal and once you inadvertently entered it, I couldn't follow or else we would have both been trapped inside forever, or the realm may have collapsed fully, killing us both... So I made a decision... I decided I needed to seal the portal to stop it from collapsing and I made a formation to stabilize it."
Torrin nodded along, understanding now why she hadn't followed him. It didn't make him feel any better, but he understood.
"But why did you take so long to show up? I was in there for what felt like years and it was not a fun experience... To say the least." Torrin grimaced recalling his experience.
"The realm's time was dilated, meaning that time inside passed at a faster rate than the outside world. I've only been in one other such pocket realm... Anyways, out here about 11 months passed, but for you... It was closer to three years. And for that, I'm sorry, boy... I'm sorry I couldn't retrieve you sooner." Grams was in rare form today, her words and face conveying sincere worry and regret.
Torrin sighed, shaking his head, "It's not your fault, Grams... At least I know that you were looking out for me this entire time. Is that why you showed up at the trial?"
Grams smiled broadly, "Oho! Yes, boy. I was at that farce of a trial to make sure that no one took advantage of my apprentice. I also saw those thugs that tried ambushing you in that alleyway..." she trailed off with a brow raised in question.
Torrin winced, "Yeah... Not my greatest moment."
Grams laughed merrily, "Well, boy, better them than you I say!" she waved her hand dismissing the discussion, "Anyway, while you were gone I had a few meetings with the Queen of Lisson, trying to get her head out of her ass so she would be prepared for what's to come." She pointed to the screen, indicating said queen.
Torrin finished the food on his tray, trying to collect his thoughts, surprised at Grams use of such crass language talking about the queen.
"Speaking of that moron, here, look at this."
Grams handed Torrin what looked to be a flyer of some sort. He read it aloud.
"The Queen's Blade Tournament, a competition to become the next Queen's Blade, all ages welcome," He looked up to Grams with a raised brow, "You want me to waste time at some tournament? Don't we have better things to do? Like stop my old world from being destroyed?"
The old woman's wide grin cracked her face in half, "That's precisely why you will attend this tournament! While you were away, I was still at work trouncing that idiot's plans for world domination, and since then he has stopped attacking small villages. He's practically gone into hiding."
Torrin squinted his eyes at the woman, "Is that not... A good thing?"
She shook her head, "No, boy... If that man has stopped his probing attacks here, that means he's preparing something big, just as I told Little Lissy. Since he's hiding, we now have no information on what he's up to, at least before when he was harassing villages, we knew what to expect."
"Little Lissy?"
Grams began cackling, "Haha! The Queen, of course. Queen Wyma Lisson." She waved her hand as if it wasn't important.
Torrin's mouth was agape. 'She calls the queen a moron and "Little Lissy"? Just what kind of relationship do they have?!'
Seeing his expression Grams waved once more, "Not important now, boy. What is important is that I had her set up this tournament. If you remember, the thing that group wants the most is souls, to power the artifact. So we'll gather up as many people as possible with the tournament to draw them out!" She announced grandly, a confident smirk on her face.
Torrin took a moment to steady himself before he said what needed to be said.
"Grams... As much as I want to destroy that group... I'm not doing a damn thing you ask of me until I get some answers." His expression was hard as he stared directly into the woman's eyes.
Grams sighed, "Now's not the time boy, we've got work to do preparing you for the fight ahead."
"No, Grams. Now is exactly the time. I've done everything you've asked of me. I spent months in some stupid ass forest that it turns out was on a completely different continent than where you first found me." He squinted his eyes in accusation, "And I learned all your damned runes and survived that hellhole pocket realm for almost three years, completely alone!"
Grams opened her mouth to reply but Torrin pressed on, "I passed multiple trials in that hellhole, fighting off ghoulish shitbags as I traversed miles upon miles in darkness, even fighting myself in the end in some twisted imaginary dueling arena. I studied every bit of information I could about elements and a higher form of energy they were collecting and used it to form the stupid core that you theorized about."
Grams looked like a fish out of water as her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, not able to get a word in as Torrin's rant continued.
"And I did all this because YOU," he pointed at her, "refused to give me any information up front on what I was even supposed to be doing when you dropped me off in that stupid forest. Now. I've done everything you've asked of me and more, so I deserve answers!"
Torrin lay back on the bed, completely out of steam, staring at the ceiling, knowing that she would brush off his worries and continue telling him what to do like he was some sort of dog, only useful if he followed her commands, not important enough to deserve an actual explanation.
Grams sighed heavily, causing Torrin to roll over and look at her once more. She wore a sad expression on her face and was nodding to herself, eyes on the floor.
"You're right boy. This was all my fault." She looked up to Torrin once more, a weary expression lining her wrinkled face, "Ask your questions and I'll answer them. All of them. Truthfully. It's the least you deserve for the amazing feats you've accomplished."
Torrin stared at the old coot, wondering if he was really going to get answers. He rolled back to his back and stared at the ceiling, trying to get his thoughts in order. After a few minutes of contemplation, he sat up on the bed and turned to Grams, a determined look on his face.
"Who is this mysterious group you keep talking about? You refused to even tell me their name! Who are you? I don't even know YOUR name! Why was any of this necessary? Why does the group even want to take over my old world?" The questions came like a flood and Grams raised her hand to stop him.
"Okay, okay. I get it, boy. You're quite curious, and with good reason. Let's begin with who I am, as it is tied to the rest of your questions." She paused, taking a deep breath and raising her hands. Runes began to form around her hands and mana coalesced, following the instructions of the runes.
A screen formed once more, this one showed a young, beautiful woman with long auburn hair and light blue eyes, almost grey. She resembled Grams, but much younger.
"At the start of all of this mess, I was just a young, curious woman by the name of Balencia Bane." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "I was not born in this world, Zon, boy... I came from another world just like you, the planet I was born on was called Earth." The image panned out from the girl, going high in the sky, showing a vibrant green and blue planet floating through space.
"When I was young, I went to school to study what they called Astrophysics, more or less the application of math and science to understand the birth of the universe." The terms were mostly unfamiliar to Torrin, but he ignored that and watched the screen with rapt attention.
The screen was following a young Balencia as she walked around the campus of a sprawling school, it showed lessons she learned, math so complex it made his head spin, stars and planets were shown, his eyes were wide watching the images play out.
Grams paused as the scenes played, a small smile on her face as she watched the other side of the screen, a wistful look appeared as she remembered her former life. Torrin's eyes looked back to Grams with wonder and awe written across his face as he waited for the story to continue.
"What happened next, after studying this Astrophysics?" Torrin asked curiously.
"Well, I was given a full scholarship by a group called "Virtus", they claimed that I was a genius and would do great things in the future... If I had known then what I know now, been smart enough to decline their offer and run as far away as possible, maybe none of this bloodshed would have begun in the first place..." Sadness was written across Grams face in the slight upturn of her brows, the lowering of her lips.
"I graduated many years later with a Master's degree in Astrophysics and a minor in Biology. You see, it turns out the reason Virtus reached out to me and offered to pay for my schooling was not because of my intellect, but because I had a rare condition. In my day, only one in every hundred million people had it... They claimed maybe only a hundred people had it in a world of over 9 billion," Grams trailed off, gathering her thoughts.
A minute passed before she continued, "This condition wasn't life threatening or anything bad, it turned out. It was, they theorized, a left over from evolution or a rare mutation that rarely formed in some people. You would know it as a Mana System."
Torrin's eyebrows shot up, 'Only one in a hundred million?! 9 billion people? Why was it so rare to have a mana system in this Earth?' His curiosity was peaked, Grams was definitely far stranger than he could have guessed. She too was from another world.
"Why was it so rare to have a mana system in your old world? Were there not many mages?" Torrin asked, leaning forward, watching the screen as it changed with her words.
"Well, boy... On Earth, there was no mana." Torrin's mouth was agape again, "So, they didn't understand what use the mana system held."
"So how did you end up in Zon?" Torrin asked eagerly.
Grams smiled slightly as she continued, "You see, Earth didn't have mana, meaning there were no Mana Beasts. There were only regular animals--though many still dangerous--to contend with for growth. Humans dominated the entire world." The screen showed various animals and swept across the land, showing sprawling cities at night, bright lights covering everything, cars and technology that Torrin had no understanding of.
"And once humanity had conquered the planet, they naturally wanted more. They looked to the stars for answers of where to go next... This was the main focus of Virtus. Virtus had been analyzing a nearby planet, Mars." The screen showed a rust colored, desolate landscape.
"They theorized that humans once originated from Mars, but due to pollution or wars or some unforeseen disaster, the planet must have been destroyed, turned into the desolate landscape you see before you." She allowed Torrin time to watch as the screen showed violent images of wars and the power of a nuclear bomb going off.
"You see, just because we didn't have magic, didn't mean we had no destructive capabilities... Things such as you see before you, nuclear bombs, could wipe out entire cities, or even countries. An entire continent could be decimated in mere moments..."
Torrin's eyes were glued to the screen, baffled at the level of destruction that was caused even without magic. He looked up to Grams with a slightly scared look on his face.
She smiled softly to him, "Anyways, they believed Mars was the origin of humanity and many separate groups were also curious about Mars, wanting to claim it for humanity and turn it into a viable place to live. The population on Earth was too great, and we were running out of room for people to live..."
"In the year 2172, I graduated and Virtus picked me and five other people for a special space project. A manned mission to Mars. You see, they had sent many robots, drones, and rovers over the years to analyze the planet. Some other companies had already sent manned missions to begin the planet's reformation. But what Virtus found, that no one else seemed to, was a faint, strange energy that they couldn't comprehend..."
Grams looked at Torrin expectantly and he asked the expected question, "Mana?" She nodded.
"Yes, boy... They had detected mana... And we were sent to see what all the fuss was about."