Free Otherlife Dreams: The Selfless Hero Trilogy by William D. Arand Page B

thought together. He became nothing more than a shrieking fear flying through the void. Then it ended as quickly as it had come.
    “The fuck is wrong with you. Let go of me, damn it,” Hannah declared angrily. Spinning around she broke his grip on her clothes and shoved at him.
    “Please tell me that whatever the fuck you wanted to do, worked. Because I swear if that was some strange need of yours to get close…” Hannah said dangerously.
    Blinking a few times he focused on her face. While the vertigo was gone he was left with a vague feeling of deja vu.
    Looking to the game console he read over the log. Nothing suspicious lurked in the log and everything there was benign. There was no massive update patch, the world hadn’t gone gray, and the only person who felt it was him.
    Focus Runner, focus. Check your medical log later. It’s probably stress.
    Closing his system windows he shook off the vestiges of the strange feeling. Pulling open the party window he was elated to see it’d worked. Looking to Hannah he gave her a bright smile.
    “It worked, though I must say I’m surprised it says your name rather than Thief in the Party window. Whatever. Ok, tell me if you can see me when I Stealth.”
    Without waiting for her to respond, he activated Stealth and moved to the left. Sure enough her eyes tracked him even as he moved, though she seemed at a loss for words.
    “Oh? Seems you don’t even need to respond if you just watch me like that. Fantastic. Outside of a really awesome game of Marco Polo, I think not being able to see each other would not have worked out very well,” Runner said happily.
    “Kind of? You, you’re there, yes. I can see you. Which I shouldn’t be able to do, but I can. Bu, but it’s like I can see…well, that I can see through you. Like you’re made out of fog, or a ghost. A misty version of you.”
    “Mist? Oh. I’m opaque? Kinda see through? Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. Though, not sure what you expected to see, do you just notice people as they come out of Stealth? As if they were standing there the whole time? Like they walked up to you but didn’t? That seems even more weird.”
    Runner worked his way through the new party options as he spoke. Casually he turned the group loot options on and changed the item rolls to uncommon or higher.
    “It sounds strange when you put it like that, but yes. In fact, everything is a little strange right now. Really fucking strange actually. My head feels heavy,” Hannah complained, her lips pressed into a thin line.
    Pushing his Analyze ability into an active state, he confirmed quickly that there were no status ailments troubling her. Then he cast Cleanse on her anyways on the off chance it was a hidden status effect. Runner cocked his head to the side with a smile as the soft azure light faded from around her.
    “Better? Head a bit more clear, hopefully? I didn’t see any status ailments, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any, only that I couldn’t see any.”
    “A little? Maybe? Thank you. I’m fine,” she replied quietly. It was clear she was still in duress, but Runner wouldn’t press. “I’m fine” usually translated to “I don’t want to talk about it” when it came to women. Not being anything to her afforded him the luxury to take it at face value.
    “Alright then, the battle plan, ready for it?” Runner asked, looking directly at Hannah. Nodding her head to signal she was indeed ready he continued. “There’s only two of them, at opposite ends of the stables. They’re fairly alert, so we’ll need to be swift. I’ll attack the first one after I hit him with a Distract. It’s extremely unlikely I’ll drop him in one, but I figure you should be able to drop him with your own Backstab attack. Now that I think about it-”
    Runner stopped and came in close to Hannah and dropped Stealth. Resting his hands on the pommels of her short swords he called up his Enchant functions. She leaned back from him, but