Elga: Since you’re going to Sharlayan, I…! (jumps up and pecks him on the lips)
Zana’tan: !!!
Elga: mumbles I just… I don’t really know how to kiss…
Zana’tan: Want me to teach you?
Elga: Oh… Yeah…
The tavern at Revenant's Toll was unusually busy. There had been celebrations there before, but this time they were welcoming a newcomer - a minstrel. A modest yet somehow striking middle-aged man smiled and offered his songs for free. His lyrics and melodies touched a number of hearts that night.
Omhb'ra sat with some friends and listened to all the songs with the same warm, distant smile. Songs of battles, of friendship and love on the battlefield, of love for those left behind: at home or in the grave - were not for him.
He had seen all three city-states and was considered a reliable adventurer by the guilds. He met people who liked to fight by his side, who became his friends. They talked about their lifes, giving Omhb'ra new ideas about what to do with his life. For the first time he was thinking about owning a home — to buy an apartment in one of the cities. He wondered what it would feel like to have your own home. Another thing that crossed his mind was magic; back in the Empire, he was unable to use it. Gladiators were often tested for such things to prevent cheating. But now Lalafells of Uldah confirmed that he had enough aether to manipulate it with his will. So he began to learn black magic, an art developed long ago after the fall of the Allag Empire. As for the recruiter's request to learn Allagan summoning magic, he refused almost instinctively: those mages competed with scientists of the Empire for the title of the worst people ever.
"And now, let's play a game!" said Minstrel in his usual soft manner, but everyone heard him.
He suggested that the audience call out any line from a poem or another song, even a battle cry, whatever - and promised to use it in a new song. Some people were completely lost when he asked them, and muttered random phrases. Others wondered how many songs Minstrel knew, and he seemed to know them all. Finally it was Omhb'ra's turn to say his line. He looked into Minstrel's lilac eyes. The words awoke in his mind and he spoke them immediately, without thinking.
"Oh, how I wish
The soothing rain
To wash away
My endless pain"
For the first time that evening Minstrel had a flicker of surprise in his wise eyes. Before that, he started songs almost immediately. Here, he paused and turned it into a heartfelt hymn for lost comrades-in-arms. Omhb'ra listened calmly, without showing any emotion. Of course, Minstrel had made a mistake. This song was old even five thousand years ago. It was a gladiator's song of suffering battles and lonely death. They sang it before death fights. Sometimes they sang it in their barracks and rooms, all together, without seeing each other.
The melody was simple, the words natural. But it was also forgotten.
It's the conclusion to Omhb'ra's story. Whatever lies ahead, he will face it in the same way as he did when he awoke in the new world.
The team was known in Revenant’s Toll to return from their expeditions with nothing. A Lalafell conjurer led them, accompanied by a Miqo’te girl with a bow and a small but strong Hyuran girl who carried a spear. They were always looking for a fourth member to join their doomed quests. The man with the axe was new to the settlement but already famous. He had taken a weapon from a Gigas while barely armored and had faced a horde of angry toads alone. He had skill enough to join them. Maybe he hadn’t heard the rumors. They approached him.
Omhb’ra had heard, though. When he first arrived in Revenant’s Toll, he learned about Allagan tomes - flat, stone-like objects. They had become currency in this new world, especially poetry tomes, even though no one could read them. It amused him that if anyone could, they’d find mostly pages of erotic poetry celebrating every kind of relationship in the Allag Empire. Every kind, really. And some political satire with very few classics.
He asked around about those tomes and soon heard of the unlucky team. They always returned empty-handed but unharmed, which made Omhb’ra think they weren’t so unlucky after all. When they approached him, he agreed to join without hesitation. He asked only about splitting the loot, and they brightened at his easy yes. By then, he wore decent armor and carried the Gigas’s axe, so he wasn’t afraid.
The team’s problem quickly became clear. They didn’t know where to look. They dug through the goo between crystals and found nothing. They fought animals, Garlean patrols, and even Gigases but came up empty every time. Omhb’ra stayed quiet, watching them, until they finally rested under the wreck of a Garlean airship. They avoided his eyes, feeling guilty.
He wasn’t tired, so he stood and scanned the horizon. The Crystal Tower glowed in the distance, making him tense up, and on the other side, the fallen dome was rising from the mist of the lake. These didn't quite match the landmarks from the old capital, but still, they stirred something in him.
“I’ll check something,” he said calmly to the team. “Wait here.”
“Is it dangerous?” Wawacha asked, her voice tinged with concern.
“Shouldn’t be. If anything strange happens, I’ll run away.”
The leader hesitated but agreed. The area wasn’t considered dangerous, which was why they’d chosen to rest there.
Omhb’ra’s hunch paid off. Long ago, this had been a market. Not for tomes, but wandering vendors had sold them here among other things. He found a locker, the kind he’d known as a child, and opened it slowly, noisily. Inside, he found a container filled with tomes. The label was faded, but he could just make out the words “Your Dir… …reams.” No one would read it anyway, so it didn’t matter.
When he returned, he set the box in front of Wawacha and opened it. The team stared at him, their faces a mix of shock and disbelief.
“Where did you get that?” The Hyuran girl's voice was sharp with surprise.
“Just a lucky guess,” he said with a shrug. “It could be rubbish.”
“Are there more?” the Lalafell asked, her tone suspicious.
“Not unless you’ve got a hundred shovels,” Omhb’ra replied. He raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. “Search me if you want. My bag stayed with you.”
The Miqo’te girl was staring at him, not with disbelief but with something closer to admiration. He turned away to hide his smile. Even after all those changes, he still drew attention.
“How much do you want?” Wawacha asked with a grumpy huff. “You found it all yourself.”
“I wouldn’t have come here without you,” simply said Omhb’ra. “We agreed on the terms.”
And so, the curse of Wawacha’s team was lifted. Omhb’ra joined them a few more times, but he was often busy with other teams or his own affairs. He tried traveling alone, for the first time in his life - free in all meanings of this word.
The citizens of Revenant's Toll had their own peculiar warmth. Despite being consumed by their daily routines, they readily shared everything from clothing to knowledge, even splitting tasks and trading orders. Thieves did not last here. Simple warrior honesty governed this new world. Rowena, a trader, kept the money flowing. "Watch out for her," they told Ombra.
He joined the Adventurers' Guild and nodded through Slafborn's questions until the roegadyn asked about stealing, and then he said nothing at all. Following an unfamiliar custom, his name was written with an extra "H". That way, Ombra Grigia became Omhb'ra Ghrigia. The sound stayed the same.
None of this truly troubled Ombra. The newly-minted adventurer often sat in quiet corners, careful not to disturb the busy populace, and wrestled with an impossible thought: five thousand years had passed while he slumbered in that pod.
Five thousand damned years.
Three disasters had swept across the land while he slept, and one of them had woken both him and the Crystal Tower. Princess Orrina vanished from memory, and even the scholars who studied the ancient Allag Empire knew nothing of gladiators or their blood-soaked arenas.
None of it felt real.
His armor was weak, so he took easy work. Нe used the quiet time to think about all the years that had turned his present into ancient history. He might have stayed lost in thought forever, but the toads found him while he was hiding from a Garlean patrol. Some toads perished when they jumped from the cliff, but the survivors' hungry eyes fixed upon him as their next meal.
Back in the arena, battles with beasts had been fights to the death – his or theirs. Such spectacles drew crowds. Then the princess chose him and stopped his death matches. She wanted to keep her toy alive. She was kind, in her way.
Now there were no walls or crowds or clever traps, just Ombra and the toads fighting in the open air while his axe cut wide arcs through their ranks. Each blow from tongue and leg brought pain, and each swing of his weapon pulled him further from the past into the sharp reality of now.
The world of magic and machines had died while he slept, taking with it all the pampered comforts of his old life. Surprisingly, Ombra preferred it this way.
He walked back to Revenant's Toll. His axe intact but his armor in tatters. The Gigas, he had learned, were skilled weaponsmiths indeed.
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