Jack was sitting at a table in the cafeteria eating his second bowl of noodles, the unique but familiar flavours growing on him. He had already modified his vortex to get his amplification down to the level they had agreed on for Plan C. It was around the 25% mark, Turrel and Monty had both agreed that was about right for where it would be possible to damage the testing machine and still impressive but not enough to draw too much attention. He trusted their judgement but hoped they hadn't miscalculated anything.

  He heard the door open and turned his head to see Monty and Turrel leading in another person. He did his best not to stare and tried hard to remember what Turrel had called these people… Voth, that was what he called them. He wasn’t sure how to refer to the person yet. They were shorter than Monty and Turrel, around his original height or maybe shorter at 169cm.

  As they approached Jack took in their whole appearance, accepting he was pretty close to the mark when he had compared the description to the stories of Cthulhu. They had a large hairless head, contoured almost as if there was no skull and flesh was directly covering a brain. Where a beard or mouth may have been instead a large collection of tentacles curled down. There was no nose on the person, instead directly below their eyes, which were strangely goatlike vertical slits set into a red pupil the mass of tentacles began.

  Don’t stare at the tentacle beard. No hands, no handshake. Be polite.

  Jack stood up and fought his reflex to thrust his hand out and introduce himself, instead waiting until they came to him and letting Turrel take the lead for introductions.

  “Thul, this is Jack. Jack, this is Thul. He is the official here to observe your retest.” Turrel said.

  Thul? Really? There's no way Jack thought to himself. He tried to remember if there was anything else he was forgetting but opted for a respectful nod.

  “Nice to meet you, Thul.” Jack said.

  The voice that sounded from the person in front of him was nothing like what he had expected. Instead of a wet muffled voice, a deep resonating sound passed through his tentacles as they danced with the vibrations.

  “Thank you, it is nice to meet you as well, Jack. I hate to be rude but how soon would you be ready to take your test?” Thul said. Other than the tentacles on his face, no other part of his body moved, not even his eyes as they stared intently at Jack.

  Jack looked over Thul's shoulder to try to catch Turrel’s eye, catching a nod of the man's head as he nodded himself.

  “Sure we can start now I guess. I am feeling a lot better. You sure this one won't blow up on me?” Jack said.

  Thul stared at Jack for a moment, ignoring the comment as he turned and moved out of the room. Monty shook his head and Turrel had a pained expression on his face. Jack tried, honestly he did but, how long could they expect him to last?

  Jack took one last glance at his bowl of noodles before sighing and following the others. As he watched Thul move he once again felt that strange sense of uneasiness. Something about the way he seemed to flow through the room was off-putting, as if his upper body remained perfectly still while his legs moved.

  “How did you find Lord Montarg's vessel, Jack? Very impressive, yes?” Thul said out of the blue as they were walking towards the testing facility.

  “Umm I didn’t get to see much, the whole giant space ship thing is just very impressive in general. We barely made it to our moon so not much comparison there.” Jack said.

  There was a strange sound that came from Thul. It sounded like it might have been a laugh but was almost cough-like.

  “Jack. I am a busy man, I have already talked with Lord Montarg and Caretaker Turrel. I will cut to the chase as I honestly do not care for subterfuge. Something is obviously going on here. If I didn’t expect it before arriving I do after talking with these two. While his reasoning and justification was sound I do not believe Lord Montarg’s interest in you is solely for the stated reasons. Still I do not care. In the grand scheme of things, you are an inconvenience, arriving as early as you have. If Lord Montarg wants to take you off our hands and oversee your education and training, great.” Thul’s deep voice resonated as he walked. He didn’t look at anyone but there was shock evident on Monty's face as he was called out.

  “Envoy Thul, I assure you my intentions are exactly as stated.” Monty interjected.

  Thul did not stop moving or even turn in their direction. Jack did make note of the title that Monty used however and realised this might be more than a simple “Official”.

  “Lord Montarg, Your skills lie on the battlefields of the rifts, not the politics of government. Regardless, sponsoring young Jack here is doing us a favour and so whatever your reason may be, it does not matter. We have protocols and procedures in place, I am here to ensure they are followed. I will be the impartial party to oversee the result and appropriately assess any abnormalities. No more discussion is needed.” Thul said.

  Turrel seemed to turn a shade paler and Monty’s shoulder slumped but neither of them spoke up again. Jack really wanted to speak up, there was a lot of talk that he wasn’t sure he had been informed of. It all seemed like something he should have a say in, while he had probably already agreed to it with Monty on his ship it felt off.

  He had to admit he didn’t like the way Thul referred to him as an inconvenience but he did appreciate that he cut to the point. All the beating around the bush and cover discussion wasn’t something he was looking forward to.

  They continued on in silence, eventually reaching the facility and the testing chamber where a new torture device was waiting. Jack sighed loudly and approached the machine.

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  “So do I just strap in now?” Jack asked.

  Thul nodded and walked over to the control panel on the side, Monty and Turrel looked on. This was it really, the moment of truth. Here he would either pass the test if their practice worked, or he would be outed as some sort of super amplifier and be ‘appropriately assessed’. He went back and laid down on the bed of the test machine. Third time’s the charm, he thought to himself.

  He sighed as he prepared himself mentally for the next few hours of his life. He had been told repeatedly by both of his mentors, he had to make sure he did not give any hint of his familiarity with using mana in his system.

  They had both been worried that whoever was sent out to oversee the test might have a trait similar to Monty, that allowed them to view mana flowing inside another person. By the looks on their faces they assumed that ‘Envoy Thul’ had that trait.

  He wouldn't be able to hide that his pathways were already etched if he was being observed closely but Turrel said the results on the device would not be able to tell. He just had to hope that Thul was more interested in the machine screen than he was in Jack.

  The test started, and out the corner of his eye he could see Thul. He was staring directly at Jack, completely ignoring the results on the screen.

  The test went on, bursts of mana assaulted his body and time passed. Jack could start to feel the frequency of the mana hitting him begin to approach the one that he was now very familiar with.

  He tried his best to remain still, keeping his posture the same as it had been for the entire test.

  As the last frequency left him, he knew the next one was Life mana. All he could do is hope that he had set the shape of his vortex correctly.

  Too compressed and he would amplify too much. Too stretched and they wouldn't be able to justify the machine being destroyed.

  He was hit with the mana, and then felt the flush of warm sunlight flow across his body, racing through his pathways. The amplification felt right where they wanted it, and then it was pulled out on the other side of his body.

  The test continued.

  Now he was finally experiencing frequencies he had never felt before and with his enhanced senses he was able to take guesses at the element of some. What he felt may have been fire, popped up at some point but he did not feel the same resonance that he did with life mana. A little disappointed when the test ended he finally sat up.

  Thul was still staring directly at Jack, seemingly not having moved during the entire half day testing sequence. He turned to look at Monty then Turrel and slowly back at Jack.

  “That is an impressive body, Jack. I have a feeling that if I were to do an audit of the emergency kit there may be a key piece of it missing.” His head turned to Turrel. “I will have to mention in my report that it was provided to Lord Montarg as part of his compensation for taking on Jack’s training. We will of course have to charge the cost of the missing orb to you Lord Montarg, I hope that is alright.”

  Turrel's face was not very good at hiding his emotions and he went from shock, to fear to relief in the space of a few seconds.

  “That is entirely fair.” Monty replied.

  Thul turned to Jack again. As Jack looked at a face that resembled a monster from mythology, he felt a sense of fear, he felt like prey. Thul’s red vertical slitted eyes pierced his and his spine tingled, almost triggering his fight or flight response.

  “Jack.” His deep voice resonated out.

  “I will be keeping an eye on you I think. There is something intriguing here and for some reason, against my better judgement, I want to see it play out.” He turned to Monty. “Lord Montarg, there will be a slight amendment to our agreement. Jack may go into your care as we discussed, I am even willing to sign off on the allocation of Turrel to your crew for the duration of Jack’s tutelage. However I will be personally reviewing his progress every six months.”

  Thul stopped talking and no one said anything. The silence stretched on, Jack again wasn't sure if it was simply because of the way all Voth were but there was no movement or emotion to be seen on his face.

  “It has been agreed to. Now I must go. Jack, I look forward to seeing your progress in the near future.” Thul said and then he immediately left, seemingly heading towards the transporter room.

  The three men stared at each other, none of them speaking for a long time after Thul had left.

  “So, that went better than expected, right?” Jack asked.

  Monty laughed, and Turrel’s expression remained as shocked as it had been the entire time.

  “You have no idea. Jack, that was one of the most influential people in all the inducted universes. He is one of ten Envoys to the Origin. He is terrifying. I have no idea what just happened or why but… I think everything worked out.” Turrel said, shaking himself out of his shock.

  Jack nodded, heading over to grab both of them by the shoulders.

  “That guy was scary, but he seemed pretty straightforward. Monty could have taken him though, right?” Jack said.

  “Hahah… no Jack, not even close. I am powerful sure, that man is on another level. As far as the gap between you and myself is, there is that much again at least between the two of us.” Monty laughed and put his arm around Jack.

  “But the good news is I guess you can get all settled on the ship now and we can get back to training. Sorry if it was a bit out of the blue but we took the chance to ask to make it all official when he arrived. Unlike most of the other officials he has the authority to make the decision directly.” Monty said as they started to leave the training facility.

  “I guess that is good news, and Turrel is coming with us as well. Does that make you like my personal tutor? That's fun.” Jack said, slightly nudging Turrel who still seemed to be processing everything.

  “Ohh ahh yes. That does seem to be the case for now. I am a little shocked, I wasn’t expecting to be leaving with the two of you.” Turrel said.

  “Well I got my way somehow, I will make it a permanent thing in the future but having you tied to Jack for now will have to do.” Monty said, reaching around to pat Turrel on the shoulder. “You have one week to give Jack some fundamentals training. Power won't be an issue so let's focus on shape and purpose.” Monty smiled at both of them.

  “After that I am taking you both to a rift I have been eyeing off for a while. I want to see if Jack’s body modification is as big of a deal as I think and we need to get you to Tier 4 for that second trait. No, you heard Envoy Thul. I'm in charge of Jack and you are here with him. No complaints.” Monty said .

  “Okay okay, but just quickly Monty” Jack asked.

  “Yes Jack” Monty said.

  “I am not dragging that mattress back to your ship. I am going to need you to get me a new one ok.” Jack said with a laugh.

  As they kept walking and joking back and forth, his mind did wander a little. He wondered about rifts and what that experience might be like. He tried not to linger on the feeling he got from Thul and knowing he would see the man again in a few months. Instead he joked and laughed and daydreamed as he thought about getting stronger and fireballs.