Unchosen Champion

“Are you really sure this is okay?” Charlie’s voice was carefully controlled, clearly a bit disconcerted with the situation she found herself in after she regained consciousness. She didn’t want to escalate any problems by raising her voice in a way that might cause surprise, though her urgent tone got the message across.

She had partially recovered after draining most of her mana with her ultimate attack, but she was still weakened, sounding groggy in addition to her obvious concern. She and Madison had decided to diagnose the impact of overloading mana as Mana Sickness, though the system hadn’t given it any designation. While only certain skills could push anyone beyond their limit, it seemed like a few specific classes were more susceptible. Perhaps it was due to those classes receiving skills that went beyond what a low level caster could handle.

Camila and Charlie probably wouldn’t be able to continue grinding for a day or two, at least not safely, after Charlie went all out with her abilities. If another emergency situation reared its head, they would be lacking too many of her skills to feel comfortable handling it, so they were putting a pause on the Primal Tracker Slayer quests. Coop was more disappointed that their grind was ending prematurely than they were.

After a pause, Coop answered her question from over his shoulder. “It’s fine. She knows we just wanted to fight the Primal Trackers. It was all a big misunderstanding.” Coop reassured her. He sounded confident to his own ear, but he was keeping a close eye on their new friend, just in case.

“But I don’t understand how we ended up doing all this.” Charlie waved one of her hands with confusion, the other one was tightly gripped on a makeshift saddle horn.

“He just walked up to it and had a little chat.” Camila explained with a chuckle, though she was almost 20 feet away and the sound she made was at least a little more nervous than amused. It was uncharacteristic compared to the image of perfect confidence Camila typically presented.

Coop went ahead and elaborated, waving his loot as he spoke like the pointer stick of a class lecturer. “Well, I tried to explain the whole situation with the assimilation, the Primal Constructs invading, and also with mana and the Eradication Protocol, and I think we both came to an understanding. We have a common enemy and it would be a decent idea to work together and even help each other.” Coop shrugged. “At least that’s what I understood. She isn’t very talkative.” He turned and looked at Charlie, who was sitting on the alligator’s back as they slowly walked down the center of the state road that led back to the city.

She looked absolutely terrified, but she held onto the ridge of scales to prevent herself from falling off. The gait of an alligator was slightly different than most animals used for transportation, with lots of side to side motion to compensate for the stubby legs.

“Okay, that’s crazy, but also why am I on her back?” Charlie nervously asked, trying to get to the root of the matter.

Coop scratched his ear as he started to explain. “I ended up telling her about professions and the extra stats they give. Which then led to inviting her to the civilization shard to see if she wanted to get one. All these animals are so strong, but for the most part they don’t have any interaction with settlements.” Coop continued. “And you’re on her back ‘cause I wanted to keep my hands free, just in case… well, you know.” Coop gestured to the gator with the tooth. The gator seemed to respond by releasing warm air with a heavy breath.

Charlie didn’t seem satisfied with his explanation, so she turned to her most reliable friend instead. “Camila? Why?” She desperately continued, pitch rising to cartoonish levels, not accepting that Camila would have abandoned her the same way.

“I, uh, wanted my hands free, too. You know, for the same reason.” Camila had to raise her voice a bit to be heard as she shifted closer to 25 feet away as she finished.