Chapter 179: Breather
“So… do we just like, leave Snow there?” Opal asks, pointing at me in the dirt. It must’ve been only about fifteen minutes of me being passed out. Every single bone in my body hurts. Every single muscle hurts. I can feel bruises all over me.
Sylves, very gently, pokes me, and when I let out a groan, she gasps. “Oh, I think Snow’s awake! Wowa, you sure lost a lot of blood, there. Are you alright?”
Very, very slowly, I manage to give a single thumbs up. My entire body protests in pain. I think I can hear my bones grinding against each other. It’s like someone filled all my joints up with chalk powder. Everything feels stiff and horrible.
Inu kneels next to me, inspecting me with a small frown. “You really have to stop working yourself to death,” she says.
I open my mouth to reply, only for more blood to pool against Kuro, who greedily drinks it up. Which would be disturbing, if it didn’t also leave me clean and dry. Which, like, entirely worth it. It does, however, stop me from replying.
Sighing softly, Thatch flips me around, now that I’m no longer at risk of choking on my own blood. His touch is careful and gentle, as if he’s afraid he’ll hurt me in my fragile state. And my bones do feel a little like glass.
However, in those fifteen minutes, I’ve regenerated what is about a quarter of my previous maximum mana. And right now, it’s not even scratching the surface of what I can hold. I smile, and am glad for the mask hiding my grimace of bloody teeth. I take a moment to drink some water from my refilling phial, rinsing my mouth, and swallowing some.
Then, finally, I speak. “My insides are a bit of a mess,” I admit. “But it was worth it.”
Inu stares at me, full of suspicion. “Uh-huh. Was it now?” she asks.
I nod, confidently. “Yes. I’m now good to go until my mana crosses a thousand.”
“What did you even do?” she asks.
“Completely reforge my vessel,” I reply, taking another sip.
Trey raises a hand, as if nervous to ask a question. I turn to him, and he flinches for a second. I blink in confusion, then frown and wipe the dried blood from around my eyes. “Sorry for scaring you,” I say. “You wanted to ask something?”
He nods, bravely, then wagers. “What does reforging your vessel mean?”
Smiling softly, I answer. “It means I broke it, then filled the gaps with mana, alloyed that mana into my vessel’s walls until it was saturated, heated it by boiling my blood, pressed against it from the inside with my own mana, expanded it, mended the new cracks, and then restored it to proper thickness by alloying more mana with it.”
“What?” Isabelle tries.
Trey, however, looks horrified. “You cracked your vessel?!” he asks, scared. “Why would you do that?”
Oh right. That had kept him bedridden for the last couple years of his life. “I fixed it for you, didn’t I? So I can fix it for myself even easier,” I reply.
At that, he freezed, then nods. “Did… your experience with mine help?” he asks.
“Yep,” I say simply. “It helped a lot. Thank you, Trey.”
For a bit, his lips open and close. Anna looks at me with suspicion, probably thinking I must’ve been less than charitable. The truth is, I did learn some things, but nothing that big. It was more helpful for my job, rather than my class, really. But that’s fine. I don’t need them to worship me.
I helped them because it was the right thing to do. It cost me almost nothing, and it gave them a lot. That’s why they’re along, too. I get a small benefit, they get a big one. Why not bring them?
Ignoring those troublesome things, I close my eyes and focus. “Jean, could you heal me some more?” I ask. “My mana is still low.”
This is true. My mana is low. It’s also about thrice as much mana as the boy has, total. But it’s the truth. Sylves does give me a smirk, and Thatch rolls his eyes at me - both of them can tell, after all. But neither says something as the kid approaches me.
Healing mana pours over me, and through me. There’s a lot still to be learned from his skill, and I’ve grown a lot better at dissecting them. So, I watch.
[Annexation 5 > 6]
Without too much trouble, his entire spell-pattern is locked into my archive and memory. Since it acts inside of me, it’s easier to observe, and I don’t even have to do the invasive thing we tried last time. Annexation is just a far more powerful skill.
Breathing in relief as Jean’s spell washes over me, I smile. “Thanks,” I tell him.
The boy looks at me for a long, quiet moment. Then, he just nods. “It’s okay. We’re friends.”
“Are we?” I ask, tilting my head.
Jean gives me a smug grin in the way only kids can. “I decided it. You’re my friend, Snow.”
What a brave kid. I shrug, then sigh softly. “I can’t stop you from liking me, I suppose.”
That’s only half a lie. I could, of course, but then again, it’s not a problem for people to like me. It’s a problem when they have unfair expectations of me, and right now, I don’t think Jean has those. He expects me to help him if it costs me nothing, and I’m fine with that, really.
I did save him, after all. In a way. In a selfish way. Obviously I only did so to set up a healing scam and run Raven for all they’re worth. Surely.
A soft sigh leaves my lips, as everyone else lays down in the safe room. Opal steps towards the water, stepping slightly into it. They don’t take off their boots, though. In fact, they hardly ever do so. Opal is firmly in the camp of people who hate being seen.
Sylves is the opposite. Getting her to wear shoes is harder than the opposite. She, for her part, smiles at me. “I’m glad you’re healthy, Snow,” she says. A moment later, she floats into the air. “Now that I’ve confirmed this truth-” the magic in her words makes me heal just a hint faster, “I will enjoy my time at this beach.”
Then she drifts away on a gust of wind, leaving me laying in the sand, bleeding and dirty. I smile happily, dragging myself up and leaning against the tree. “How were the coconuts?” I ask. “I didn’t taste much other than my own blood.”
“Delicious,” Thatch provides helpfully. “I’m looking forward to the next. I feel more solid.”
I nod at his words. That feeling is one I have, too. Despite everything, despite how ragged my body is, I can feel it too. My vessel is strong, right now. But even more than that, my entire body feels just a bit better than it ever did.
If I were fully healed, I’d stretch. But with my muscles still in shambles, I decide it’s a bad idea, and instead just settle for enjoying the sensation. I can feel that it even made pain a little easier to endure, all the little stings bothering me less than before.
Maybe, since my “base” has been upgraded, the injuries are just a little less “significant” in comparison? How strange. I’m curious how they work, and I wish I’d taken a better look. But, then again, the tower would have penalized me, probably. I sigh softly at that, and call up a specific line of my status.
Floor: 5 (Downpour) - 1
The second number is new. It’s there because I’ve climbed up one floor in monoliths, total. Minor monoliths have ten floors. Every single number there implies an improvement to the basic capabilities of myself.
I sigh softly, then close my eyes, letting the sun warm it, feeling the sand against my fingers. Some is stuck to my face, but I make Kuro brush it off, keeping me clean from all my mistakes. The dry blood flakes away, the sand falls off, and I brush my clothes clean.
For a few minutes, I simply enjoy the feeling of the sun, and watch my friends fool around in the water and the sand. It’s beautiful. Hearing them laugh, seeing them smile, seeing the way they feel safe. I smile, happily, and breathe it in.
Bofoy sits down next to me. They don’t say anything, just sit. Their eyes drift over the entrance, over their own hands, over the portals to the next floors. But they don’t speak, and I appreciate that.
Eventually, I heal myself. Eventually, Richard sets up a small campfire and a cooking pot. We sit at the campfire, the fake sky in the safe room turning to dusk. We cook dried vegetables, making a soup from them. We roast things that are decidedly not-quite-marshmallows. It’s calm, and it’s nice.
And then, after a while, it comes to an end.
I lay on my bedroll on the sand, staring at an open sky, one hand underneath my head, the other on my ribcage. I feel my heart beat under it. They way mana flows through me. My own breath going in and out. I let myself feel alive.
Then I close my eyes and fall asleep.
- - -
What wakes me up should, reasonably, have been the sun. It isn’t. I open my eyes, to find Inu there, crouched next to me. Her dark hair tickles my nose, and my eyes flutter open. Hers meet mine, and I tilt my head.
She brings up her hands into my field of view, signing. “You. Want. Die?” And, going along, she mouths the words. “Do you wanna die?”
I tilt my head a bit more, then shake it. “No.” I sign and subvocalize.
Inu stares at me for a long moment, then smiles. It’s brighter than the sun ever could have been. Then she nods. “Good,” she signs, her lips moving in tandem. Then, she keeps staring at me, for a few moments.
Very gently, I bring my hand up, and brush her hair out of my face. She snickers at that, struggling to hold back a laugh. I reach out, and boop her nose, then slowly rise from my bedroll. She quickly signs, then reaches for my hand. “Walk.” She raises her eyebrows to indicate it being a question.
With a short nod, I take her offered hand, and walk. Along the beach. It’s lucky my right arm is missing - since she holds my left, she’s closer to the beach. My shoes stay delightfully dry, while Inu’s pants soak, just a bit. Not that she seems to mind.
For a long while, we just walk. Inu hums to herself, watching the sun rise over the horizon, and when we turn around, we stop holding hands. Mainly because she’s still closer to the ocean, and I lack an arm on my other side. Inu will forgive me, I’m sure.
During the walk, I don’t use mana. When we come back, Sylves is the only one up. She floats up as we come closer, and waves. Then, two quick blasts of air smack Opal and Thatch in the face - completely harmless, but waking the both of them up. They stir, then look at Sylves, and Opal just about opens their mouth when the fairy lays a finger on her lips.
Instantly, they all fall quiet. Their eyes turn to me and Inu, and Opal grins happily. Thatch smiles. Sylves hovers down from her position in the air, and her mana turns off. For a long, shared moment, we’re almost mundane. We sign to each other, speaking with gestures. Sylves and I have to improvise a lot, and sometimes mouth words multiple times to get their meaning across, but we make it work.
And they gift me, perhaps, the most beautiful hour in recent memory.
It’s so, so wonderfully quiet.
Until, of course, the others stir. When the sun fully crests the horizon, the day begins in earnest. We all stop our self-imposed limiters. I cast a healing spell with half my current mana pool, and it washes over me like a tidal wave. It feels a bit like drinking a whole palette of energy drinks. My heart flutters for a moment.
Then, the jitters rapidly fade, and my flesh knits itself together. The remaining pains from my little experiment vanish. I breathe in, and out. Then I inspect the portals.
The left one, leading to a beach much like this one - except with monsters coming from the seas. The middle, portraying a fully submerged shipwreck. And finally, to the right, more salt. Salt flats, in fact, with ravines where water once flowed.
To me, the choice seems pretty obvious. I can’t breathe underwater - yet - and neither can any of the others. And the salt flats just seem worse, especially if we’re being chased. Time seems to work a little wonky in the safe-rooms, but I’m sure we won’t be on our own for forever.
So, the beach it is. A simple, straightforward level.