“What about me?” “What about you?”

"If you're a mage, raise your hand!" Revrho ordered, jumping onto a table in the barracks and raising his own hand.

Ten hands went up.

“You ten, come here; I’m going to teach all of you a spell!” Revrho brandished the page Vazove gave him and quickly explained how to cast the spell once they seemed to get it. Revrho looked out at everyone else wilting away in the cafeteria. "Listen up, everyone! We will form eleven units, one mage per unit. You ten!" Revrho yelled, motioning the mages towards the nearby wall. "Line up over there! Everyone else, grab your rifles, and we'll need at least five riflemen and one officer, commissioned or non-commissioned, per group. GET GOING ALREADY!" Revrho roared and jumped from the table. "Listen up! Listen up! Mages, if you cast the spell and see more than five hundred, write the number on their forearm and send them to me. Liquidate the rest! Understood?" Revrho yelled to a round of nodding heads. There was an air of exhilaration about having a mission!

Not five minutes later, the eleven squads were on the move, heading towards the concrete apartment complexes where the captives were being held.

General Vazove pushed the empty bowl away as he resumed writing. Hours rolled by as Vazove was in the final leg of his sprint, a sprint that had lasted for the past three months, during which Vazove got a total of thirty hours of sleep.

Living like this had taken a brutal toll on the general; he couldn’t even walk to his own door without a cane. But the body mattered only so much to a scholar and mage.

"Finally!" Vazove cried out. Everything that needed to be written was. “Ahhh-” Vazove sank into his chair, sleep nearly smothering him. 'I should find Revrho.' Vazove thought, closing the magnum opus he had just finished.

Vazove stretched out his hand, grabbing his ivory-topped walking stick, a personal gift from Caesar Leviticus; with its aid, Vazove walked across his office to the coat rack to put on a fine felt coat and fur hat which he had last worn half a year ago.

Once Vazove was fully dressed, he picked up a handful of gold and silver trinkets and, of course, his masterpiece. Fully expecting a winter blizzard outside.

Vazove froze; he was totally unprepared for the vibrant green grass, summer breeze, and raging inferno all hitting his frail body all at once.

General Vazove coughed as he leaned against the wall, slipping off his fur hat and coat. Vazove looked around before he started to hobble towards a large gathering; soldiers stood guard around the perimeter, beast folk, and demons inside, looking scared.

"Would you, fine men, happen to know where Captain Revrho is?" Vazove asked the two soldiers who turned towards him.

After a confused salute, one of them pointed Vazove towards Revrho. "Good job, boys," Vazove said as he fiddled around in his pocket and handed over a gold coin to each of them before walking off.

Revrho saluted the lumbering Vazove. “I’ll-I’m going to Building S.” Vazove paused as Revrho lowered his hand. “Bring them over there.” Vazove motioned at everyone present. “I hope the coalition doesn't see that smoke,” Vazove joked under his breath as he turned to look at the column of smoke rising from the archive.

“It will be done, sir.” Revrho followed Vazove with his eyes.

Vazove collapsed into a chair right after making his way to Building S’s basement. Vazove's hand shook as he swallowed a handful of pills. ‘I just need another hour,’ Vazove breathed unevenly.

After the pills had cleared Vazove’s mind, he cast the Spee spell on himself. ‘1780.’ Vazove went pale as he read that number.

“Sir. Everyone is here.” Revrho saluted

"Your arm. What's your Spee?" Vazove asked hoarsely. Revrho extended his arm. “Forty.” Vazove breathed out,

“What is Spee, sir?” Revrho asked, clasping his arms behind his back.

“It’s,” Vazove wiggled his finger around, “Imagine if you could- put a value? Number on being-” Vazove stumbled over his words in a daze. “It’s the most beautiful thing that the mind of man has ever created,” Vazove concluded as he tried to get up. Revrho lent him a hand, pulling Vazove to his feet.

“I need six thousand,” Vazove whispered as he started walking,

"Six thousand of what?" Revrho inquired, following close behind Vazove.

“Oh-” Vazove said, lifting the book to his forehead, “- I need six thousand Spee; I need the sum of Spee to be exactly six thousand, not one more or less. I also need fifty people with more than 1780 Spee.”

“Why fifty people with 1780 Spee?” Revrho asked,

“I’m going to escape from this world.”

“What about me?”

“What about you?” Vazove looked over to Revrho with a blank look,

“I want to come with you, sir!” Revrho begged with a spark in his eyes,

Vazove let out a raspy sigh. “Sure. Bring fifty more people with more than forty Spee.”

Revrho acted as if possessed. Nine people whose Spee added to exactly six thousand, Revrho had to rush back out to find more prisoners to make the count exactly six thousand. Over another thirty minutes, he found fifty people with more than 1780 Spee and another fifty with more than forty Spee. Before rushing everyone into the sterile basement.

Vazove first had the nine with exactly six thousand Spee brought into a small room; a guard held each prisoner in place on the outline of a circle; Vazove stood in the middle, his masterpiece resting on the palm of his hand.

Vazove let go of his walking stick as he started chanting, “-glam po-” The soldier’s hands flew off the prisoners as if made of molten lead; they rushed to the walls of the room as the air grew a radiant blue, and not a moment later all nine of the prisoners collapsed where they stood.

The book in Vazove’s hands rose above him, dissolving into dust which blanketed Vazove for a brief moment before being absorbed into Vazove.

“Help me.” Vazove's legs were shaking.

“Yes, sir.” Revrho jumped over the prisoner's corpses to hold Vazove up. Another soldier handed Vazove his walking stick.

“That was- beautiful,” the soldier said in awe.

“What happened to your book?” Revrho asked as Vazove limped out of the room,

“Engraved into my soul… along with all my memories.” Vazove didn’t waste a second as he walked down the corridor to a set of double doors behind which was a massive half-domed room. “You found fifty people with more than 1780 Spee?” Vazove asked skeptically

“Yes, sir.”

“And fifty more with more than forty?"

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring those in first.” Vazove wandered towards two circles which had been painted into the center of the room. Around these two circles were fifty previously drawn boxes. “The fifty prisoners should stand on the green boxes, and Revrho, you should-” Vazove paused, looking at the two circles, one red and one orange.

“Where should I stand?” Revrho asked with pristine posture as he approached the frozen Vazove,

“I’m pretty sure you should stand on the-” Vazove started before pausing to search his soul; he definitely wrote this down somewhere: ‘The person on the orange jumps, while the person on the red chants the activation. If the red circle is empty, the person on the orange performs the chant instead.’ “I’ll stand on the red circle, and you should stand on the orange,” Vazove said, standing on top of the red box.

Revrho tried to keep the discomfort from his face as he stood in the tiny orange circle, barely big enough to fit his feet side by side. After a short chant, fifty-one people vanished, leaving behind fifty wide-eyed soldiers and Vazove. A whirlpool of guilt began swirling in Vazove’s heart as he ordered the men to bring in the other fifty prisoners as he stepped onto the orange box with unease,

“Yes, sir?” a soldier asked, having seen Vazove motion him over,

“Boy-” Vazove started, trying to find the right words, “-listen, once I jump… promise me to burn my office…”

“I will, sir.” The soldier hung onto every word Vazove said,

“Uhh… In the main office there’s a vault with gold… There are around ten thousand bars; take as much as you can… and tell everyone else before fleeing for the hills.” The soldier's eyes bulged out as he silently nodded. “Good man.” Vazove slapped the boy. “Farewell.” Vazove nodded before he started chanting.

Twenty seconds later, fifty prisoners and Vazove were gone.

There was darkness, almost the perfect place for Vazove to fall into an endless slumber. Vazove fought tooth and nail until he managed to crack his eyes open to see light. Vazove had been reborn, but where?