1 the shadow cloaked man

A teen was laying in a cave, alone with nothing but his own thoughts and the whistling of the wind blowing throughout the winding corridors and channels that made up most of the cave.

He was in the center of it, so two entrances blew a vortex of wind into the center of the room as he watched the dust devils twirl across the room.

He helped the dust devils form with some of his mana as he began to think of what to do.

'Should I just leave? It is quite tiresome confining myself to this... room? What should I even call this?' He thought before he winced and gripped his temple.

His head was pounding, racing with thoughts of how he even came to be there in the first place before something... odd... began to occur. The wind began to pick up drastically and formed a tornado right in front of his eyes!

A person wearing a dark tattered cloak was inside it, they were completely shrouded in a mist of darkness as the tornado calmed down and the mysterious being picked up the small dust devil that used to be the tornado and he blew it out like one would do with a candle.

His eyes were odd, the only sign of them was two neon purple rings that shined through the mist eerily as they glanced up at the confused teen.

He then approached the teen, noting that they were not yet an undead like most others and his unusual ice blue eyes and white blond hair was a trait that only a certain race in his world could ever poses.

"What... is your name?" The cloaked man asked him, although the teen was uncertain if he was a man or not now because of his unnaturally hollow voice.

"I-" the cloaked man then interjected "you cant remember anything, yes?" And the teen nodded.

The cloaked man then pulled out a futuristic looking black watch and put it in the teens hands. "This should help with that." The man said as the teen picked it up and began to observe it carefully.

It looked kind of like a normal leather strap if you ignored the giant metal plate that covered half of it and the functioning mechanical clock in the center of the plate. 'I wonder...' he thought in his head before he put it onto his left wrist.

An explosion of energy surged up his arm and left him dumbfounded as all his basic information came back to his memory.

"Warlin... I remember someone calling me Warlin." He mumbled as the man tilted his head and began to levitate sideways as he continued to tilt his head. He cast a spell on Warlin quickly and disappeared in another torrent of wind, giggling as he did so. This left Warlin very confused and dazed at his sudden exit, he had so many questions! But the man defiantly vanished before his eyes just as quickly as he arrived.

'I feel like I need to leave this place.' He thought as he got up and dusted his black pants and plain white shirt off.

He then walked over to one of the entrances, but got a bad feeling from it and hurried to the other one. He then began to walk through the twisting and turning corridors of the cave, filled with many interesting glowing crystals and brightly shining outcroppings of various metals and minerals he had never seen before.

He decided against touching anything and continued to stumble his way way to the real entrance of the cave one step at a time.

After about five minutes had passed, at least according to his new watch, he noticed the same pressure he felt from the other winding cave he decided not to go into and froze only to hear one more footstep after he stopped walking.

'What was that?! That definitely wasn't me so what was it! Could it be that weird man from before?' He thought as he tried to calm himself down and organize his thoughts properly.

He then realized that, whatever it was, it was most likely right behind the corner he just turned at. Now the only decision was either to see what it was, or run as far away from whatever it was as quickly as possible.

"Shoot! I need to know..." he began to curse himself aloud as his overwhelming curiosity won him over. He tried to make as little noise as possible and peeked at the monstrosity that was trailing him ever since he looked into the other cave.

His eyes widened as he realized that it noticed him and the grotesquely disproportioned wolf like creature that walked upright on two legs at the moment on its massive back paws. It suddenly slammed its front clawed paws to the ground, creating sparks as it began to charge Warlin with its mouth agape and its mouth wildly salivating like a starved, crazed beast.

Warlin proceeded to run like hell. He weaved through the caves with an unnaturally fast speed and the massive wolf thing had trouble keeping up with him, smashing through basically anything in its path so it could have a chance to catch up with him.

While this was happening, the cloaked man was watching the show through a holoscreen as another person like him carrying a axe began to watch with him.

"This one looks promising, being able to sense A341s bloodlust even without the HIVE to help him is quite remarkable for an unassimilated, and quite average person." The one with the axe said, it was a females voice, although it was just as contorted and unnatural as the man's.

He waved his hand and a tall thin wine glass popped into his hand before filling halfway with his favorite red wine. He chuckled before taking a sip of it.

"I told you, we need higher quality ones to test and not higher quantities of them to test. That would just be asking for failure!" He then squinted his eyes at the holoscreen and took another sip of wine.

"Oh, looks like he actually outrun it." The one with the axe said as she stretched and yawned.

"Wake me up when he gets out or something interesting happens." She yawned again after that and left the room, leaving the man alone to observe his new subject.

"I hope she doesn't get to attached to this one, that would be a disaster waiting to happen." The man thought aloud, sighing and moving the translucent viewing orb he cast on Warlin earlier when he made his swift escape earlier with a wave of his finger and continued to watch in surprise at what unfolded next as he continued to nervously take another sip of his wine, no longer putting up the charade of being confident for the other one who resided there with him.

His hand that held the glass was now trembling as he saw the subject dive for a crack deep in the corner of a wall.

"To each... his own..." he muttered as he calmed himself down and grabbed one of the smaller holoscreens and walked off into another room to watch the rest of Warlin's awe inducing struggle alone. Without the constant sound of the other ones snoring as she instantly fell asleep without changing into her night clothes... again.