Leith watched the Psychomancy teacher warily as she stepped up for her demonstration. He had heard some rather unpleasant stories about Psychomancers as he grew up. While he was living with Rehm, he had heard of a rogue Psychomancer who forced a child to kill her family from one of Rehm's customers. Luckily, the Psychomancer was caught and the last that Leith had heard, the Psychomancer was in Shimmerstone awaiting his verdict. 

The Psychomancer, Satori, called for a toast, and while Leith didn't have any of his juice left, since it had been quite suddenly deposited on his head, he raised his cup and pretended to take a drink.

And in that moment, he experienced the power of a Psychomancer. 

Leith relived his childhood, yet something was different. He made friends when he was young. Throughout all the games he played, all the fun he had with his friends, something felt wrong. Leith tried his hardest to figure out what the problem was, but in time, he gave up on it. He and his friends were approached by a man that looked like a living shadow. Wrongness radiated off the man, and when the shadows lifted from his face, revealing skin the colour of bone and eyes as red as blood. Leith's friends ran away from the vampire, but Leith stood frozen in fear. The man rushed up to Leith, and everything went black.

When his consciousness returned to him, Leith witnessed his mother run through by a sword. The next few moments went by quickly. His father was dead, and his friends were the culprits. They believed him to be a vampire. Leith shook his head. That wasn't true! He wasn't a vampire. He was just born looking like one. His anger rose as he looked at who he thought were friends. He had explained this several times when they were younger. When they, in their childish belief, thought him to be a vampire and-wait! Leith paused. He made friends when he was younger and they never attacked him out of fear, yet Leith also remembered these same friends chasing him away whenever he tried to interact with them. His reverie was shattered when pain exploded from the middle of his back. The pain forced its way towards his chest, causing him to look down. The tip of a sword was peeking out from beneath his sternum. As he struggled to breathe, he collapsed and came under assault by his friends. Time seemed to have no meaning, and after what seemed like an eternity, the beating stopped, and he was taken somewhere and chained to a wall. 

After a while, Leith heard footsteps. He could feel the blood drain from his face as two men walked into the room. He had hoped to never see these men again. While one of the men looked uncomfortable, the other had a wicked smile on his face. His eyes were shining with excitement as he unrolled an old-looking leather sleeve. There were various metal instruments on the sleeve, and all of them looked like they were designed to inflict pain. 

They were.

After what seemed like hours of pain, the men started to stack firewood underneath Leith. With a smile, one of the men grabbed at torch off one of the sconces while the other doused the wood in a foul-smelling liquid.. He walked over to Leith and whispered in his ear.

"Let's try this one more time," he said as he tossed the torch onto the pile of wood.

Leith's cup slipped from his hand and fell to the floor, making a dull clanking noise as it made contact. His heart was thumping against his chest, and he felt like he was going to pass out. He was soaked in sweat. More-so than when the buzzing in his head turned to shrieking. There were various screams and shouts from around the room. After taking a glance around the room, Leith saw that many people were pale, and some had even passed out. He looked at Ssarak, who was making his way over to the table before the demonstration started, just in time to see a small, plant-like creature grab onto him. Leith chuckled lightly and turned towards the doors. He needed to get away from the dining hall for a while. After another glance around the room, Leith figured that it would be at least a little while before the next demo started. 

When he was out of the dining hall, he walked towards the wall opposite of the doors and leaned on it. The wall cooled his hand and forehead. With a sigh, Leith turned around, slid down the wall and closed his eyes to think about what had just transpired.

The buzzing in his head started to grow louder, which caused Leith to open his eyes. The man dressed in black was leaning against the opposite wall several feet away from him, with his head in his hands. Leith really wanted to know what caused the buzzing in his head to get louder whenever this guy got close, but he thought that it really wouldn't be a good time to see. Instead, Leith sighed loud enough for the man to hear, and spoke

"Well, [i]that[/i] was an interesting demonstration, wasn't it?" he asked dryly.