Venna left a little while later, Oz’s emotions muddy and confused. He’d enjoyed hearing how much people had appreciated his father’s passion for inventive murder. Still, the thoughts about the poisoning and whatever conspiracy he was wrapped up in had left him spiralling.

  He’d tried to drown out the thoughts by hanging around with Angie and getting used to the new accommodations. He tidied up as he let the one-woman academic debate wash over him. That had worked for a while, but over time even his normally unshakeable sense of self began to wobble at just how many questions and clarifications he had to ask for. Angie kindly answered every question, explaining everything from thaumaturgic exchange to sustainable dungeonomics.

  He’d called it a night, as the weight of the last couple of days dragged at his eyelids. Only, once in bed, to find himself staring at the ceiling.

  That first night in the dorms was rough. It wasn’t just the unfamiliar scent of the bedding, or the occasional sound of shifting stone as Noxarcer tried to discreetly change the length of the banisters. Oz was exhausted and yet held hostage by endless thoughts.

  Not least that he was annoyed by how well he got along with Venna. Talking with her about his dad had been a rare pleasure. He could hardly remember the last time he'd talked to someone who'd known his father, not the hollow shell he'd become.

  It also revealed that they both had a similar attitude to handling issues, as many stories involved copious amounts of violence. He'd even volunteered some of his own experiences.

  He slept fitfully, chased by dreams of the world of glass and steel, haunted by reflections that showed a face that wasn’t his own. When he awoke for what had to be the tenth time and spotted the first rays of dawn bleeding through the curtain he gave up on sleep. Existential dread about his position in the world wasn’t a very Oz thought. Or rather it was, but he tended to drown it out.

  Beside him on the floor Chops stirred and blinked at him blearily. In the dark they both slipped out of the house and headed out into the woods. He didn’t have to wander far until he found a river, which to his great joy held some nice pieces of flint.

  Finding some other rocks were perfect for some makeshift tools, he started to work on knapping a blade. That always calmed him down, his mind focusing wholly on the routine that was as old as time. A heritage shared by most every thinking being, it didn’t matter if you were dwarf, kobold, or giant, there was a time where all you had was rocks and all that kept you alive was something sharp.

  Oz would begrudgingly admit that he got spiritual when he crafted. It was the only time his mind tended to be clear enough to process. With that clarity he could feel the Other watching, could sense that it wasn’t a separate entity, but it was like it was part of him that had a new perspective, a new insight.

  The Other was a nuisance, and it was a boon. Oz couldn’t deny it had helped, and it did seem to understand his class in a way that Oz just didn’t click with. Its hunger for knowledge would no doubt be a benefit, but it still felt different to him. He couldn’t quite accept it, not that he should, but calling it the Other felt dismissive. With the clarity of thought only accessed in these moments of meditation Oz found himself imagining what might have happened if their roles were switched, if his soul was stuck as a whisper in the mind of another.

  What would it be like to be a soul in a body you didn’t own?

  Oz visualised it, using runes as his touchpoint, as the piece of flint quickly broke down into a vaguely leaf-shaped blade. His enhanced Physique, Deftness and Awareness took a little getting used to, but he quickly adapted and revelled in the added control.

  The suitability of something to hold a rune was defined by three factors. Ownership, Unity and Sympathy.

  Ownership wasn’t just buying something, it was being connected to it. A knife you bought for some gold scrap would never take as much power as a knife you earned through hours of work. A beautifully crafted knife given as a gift would never hold the power of a blade you made yourself.

  If the other soul had taken over Oz’s body would it own it? Could it connect with the power within? Would the Other have been left awake but stuck in a body that felt like an ill-fitting suit.

  The next factor, Unity, was important. It was easier to connect runes between a single item, or at least items that were identical. Runes could affect multiple plates of armour if the armour was made by the same smith, from the same iron stock, but on a mismatched set of armour it would never take.

  Would the Other ever have Unity with his body, or would it creak and scrape like battered armour rubbing over itself?

  The final factor was Sympathy. No matter how powerful a scribe, anyone carving a rune of sharpness on a spoon would struggle to get the power to take. If successful it did make for a mean ice-cream scoop though.

  Did Oz have Sympathy for the Other?

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The blade took shape quickly. The flint was a thousand times easier to shape than the chunks of volcanic rock that littered Greywater. His enhanced attributes smoothed over any issues as he pondered that last question. He marvelled as the added strength made the stone as easy to shape as butter. If anything it was easier. Butter would be a slippery bastard and you’d never get an edge on it.

  Oz wondered how it would be to have dregs of your will and consciousness treated like an invader. Would their mind loathe his impulse to fight as he did the Other’s wandering eyes? Would it call him the Thug?

  The little chips of stone hit his jacket, what little scratches they caused being absorbed into the beaten leather. The pile on the ground slowly grew as the rock slowly turned from a piece of broken stone to a leaf-shaped blade.

  The Other didn’t have a name. Oz had tried to dig for it through the instincts and memories, but they had shied away from his touch. What was left held on to its identity lest it get burned away by the torch of his attention.

  Oz was uncomfortable with the sense of loss that he felt in failing to find a name that even his bullish desire to not give in to ‘emotions’ couldn’t stamp out. There was something profound about losing a name, only to have your memory called something like the ‘Other’. It was like calling a person ‘It’ to their face, removing their very personhood.

  Oz held up the blade and grunted. It was about ready for the next step.

  [Crafted flint blade, experience granted.]

  The Other gushed at the note that popped up in their view. Oz grunted. He was pretty certain this wasn’t how the Weave worked for most people. Still, his feelings of unease were trampled over by a jig of merry excitement and achievement from the Other. That only added to Oz’s guilt. It was nice to be excited by this, by seeing this text, by being in this world and making what Oz had to admit was a somewhat substandard blade.

  It made Oz feel itchy.

  Oz had spent so long just focused on getting out of Greywater he’d become numb to it all. Having a voice that reminded him that this was incredible, that he was on a path that promised to take him somewhere fresh, somewhere better than that grim little town was what he needed right now.

  As he pulled out his rune scribe, the short diamond-hard stylus with which he’d carve the runes, he could sense the impatience, the wonder. The Other had that same spark the first time he’d watched his father carving runes. Feelings that he’d not felt in so long and yet now burned in his chest. The only reason he knew they weren’t fully his emotions was because he carved runes every day. He knew how he usually felt. If not for that he’d be happy to let them be Oz thoughts. He preferred the version of Oz who was this excited about runes.

  Oz couldn’t help but enjoy that sense of wonder, the feeling of awe that came with creating magic for the first time.

  Oz began to etch out a Trinity. Given runes like being in groups of prime numbers, and a ‘trinity’ of three runes was always a solid start to any project. This particular Trinity was a classic. It was one he’d long mastered. Runes of durability, sharpness and force formed a Trinity known as the Blade. It was the first Trinity he’d learned. And thanks to the other soul crafting it was far from dull. It wasn’t a chore. It was as thrilling as the first time.

  Runes were shapes. Without understanding, that was all they would be. As a rune was carved one had to visualise what each rune symbolised. Oz recalled the images of scalpels cutting, the process of sharpening a knife on a whetstone, of seeing a falling hair sliced by its weight alone. He remembered the sensation of cutting through paper, the noise it made, the sensation of parting something with the precise application of force.

  As he did so his mind filled with questions he’d asked long ago. Why did runes care about prime numbers. What exactly did a force rune do. Why did the runes care if he’d made the blade or not. He had answers for these, but suddenly they weren’t enough. That enthusiasm that had led him to learn runes for days on end, not as a chore, not as a way to earn some extra cash by fixing things around town, but because runes were amazing. They were Oz thoughts, but delivered by the influence of the Other.

  Oz finished the first rune and paused. He took a deep breath, and then fixed his eyes on the knife as he set about marking out the rune for durability.

  "I can’t keep calling you the Other."

  "But I don’t like calling you something else. I can’t call you Jeremy or something. Naming you isn’t right, you had your own name."

  The rune slowly took shape. In his mind he pictured rocks in a river, of anvils ringing undamaged under endless hammer blows, of his own father holding out against impossible odds. His grip nearly slipped and Oz took a breath. As his scribe danced over the symbol, etching his will deeper into the stone, passing over the rune again and again, the channels in the stone became deeper with each pass.

  "You’re me now. Calling you Jeremy or something is the work of a madman. I can’t go round thinking ‘that’s just Jeremy’."

  "And I can’t ignore you’re something else. You aren’t me, you’re not from here. But you don’t deserve to be called ‘The Other’. Slag this, I’m crap at naming things. I barely even came up with Chops, and I can’t imagine him with another name." The familiar’s only reaction to his name was to nuzzle closer to Oz as he lay next to him on the ground.

  "Any suggestions?" Oz asked, putting voice to the thought, even if it was only a way to focus the parts of his mind not lost in the runes. Losing himself in the work let his mind wander, seek through the options, and as the runes completed and he looked at the completed blade he grinned.

  [Scribed Rune Blade. ‘Blade Trinity’, experience granted.]

  The notification was a nice bonus, but the real win was the name that slotted into place as the gush of excitement came flooding through from that other part of himself.

  There was plenty about it Oz didn’t like, but there was plenty about Oz that he was pretty suspicious of. Yet the parts that fit, the parts of that mind that clicked, the gears meshing and elevating him beyond the angry Ozren who’d spent the last few years headbutting his problems.

  Oz felt it was a fitting title for the bundle of impulses and memories that couldn’t wait to test out exactly what the knife could manage.

  The mind was both him, and not him. Both Oz and Other.

  And so it was that Oz dedicated this first knife he’d made with his class, to the Ozzer.