Spell Weaver [Book 2 Complete]

Alex looked from left to right, noting the small bits of debris and crumbling rock around the cave. He did what he could to slow his breathing and think through the situation, but his heart rate spiked once again as he saw shadowy figures fill the cave's mouth.

He almost realized too late that the shapes were the mana spinners reentering the cave, not creatures of the Night.

“Sam, do what you can to keep stabilizing him. I’m going to try and block off the entrance and make sure we’re not being followed.”

“What about me?” Sarah asked, looking up from where she knelt next to Mark.

“Help Sam however you can. If we get attacked, I’ll need you, though,” he said while inspecting the entryway. It was tall and naturally narrow, plus the way that it angled hid it from casual inspection.

Jogging to the side of the space, he lifted several rocks, straining his enhanced muscles. He extended a thread of mana toward the spinners as they moved further into the cave and passed on instructions to begin helping him set up some discreet rituals.

With a grunt, he dropped a stone in the entrance and moved back to grab another. His step faltered as the mana spinner refused to set up rituals, and he almost kicked himself.

Of course… they can see mana.

He turned back to his friends. “We need to get you guys to the back of the cave. The less mana visible from your healing, the better.”

After a few minutes of shuffling, Sam sat at the back of the cave with Valtherion wrapped around his shoulders. On either side of him, Mark and Olivia lay still. Both of their tattered and injured forms were a testament to the struggles that they faced. Olivia’s body was as torn as her clothes; dried blood of her enemies mixed with her own, causing sections of her clothes to become stiff. Mark’s armor was dirty and dented, with part of his pant leg torn away by Sam to examine the wound. It left one leg bare, revealing the slowly extending tendrils of black poison.

He scanned them both again, hoping to see some new information from their System readouts. Nothing had changed about their status, Olivia was still level 36 and Mark still 29. It hurt his heart to see his friend’s level so low, knowing that he’d been attacked and poisoned by something so much higher level than he was.

Even with the tension of the current situation, Sam’s trait bloomed around him, and the beautiful, ethereal grass coated the area beneath their injured friends. He gave Alex a nod. I’ll keep trying with [Cure] and see if I can push against the poison and injuries.” Before closing his eyes, Sam even tried using his new CC breaking skill, mentioning that it talked about removing debuffs. Unfortunately, it didn’t remove the poison, so he focused on steadily cycling the healing skills between each of them.

The next quarter of an hour crawled by as Alex piled heavy debris in the cave’s chokepoint entrance. Even with his increased stats, he was sweating from the exertion in the humid atmosphere. When he was done, he stepped back and put his hands on his hips.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, noting the deep frown on his face.

He grunted. “It feels a bit silly to learn all of this magic and warding if the mana can be seen. Maybe it’s just a horrible coincidence that we happen to come to train in a Rift where everything seems to hunt and feast on mana.”

“I like mana,” Val chimed in, causing them both to chuckle.

“Maybe it’s a good thing?” She suggested, attempting to remain optimistic. “If you can make things work here, under leveled, watching out for us, and surrounded by things that see and track magic… everything else should seem easy, right?”

“Hmm.” He cocked his head. “That’s a pretty good way to think about it. This is all meant to be training after all,” he said, glancing at his friends at the back of the cave. “Just feels wrong to think about it like that while they’re both like this.”

“Sam will get them healed up. I have total faith in him.”

Alex nodded, looked around, and couldn’t find any additional debris to pile up. With nothing else to do other than wait for Sam’s results, they both moved a short distance away from the trio to give them space and sat with their backs against the wall.

Bracing his forearms on his knees, he pulled on his mana and began running through his mana shaping exercises in rapid succession. Not even a minute had gone by before Nox lifted his head and slowly got to his feet.

When he approached Alex and Sarah, he slowed in his exercises. “Nox?”

When the six-legged black panther stood in front of Alex, he let out a low growl. Its lips raised to reveal white teeth, and even with the odd stance he held because of his injuries, the huge beast was enough to make Alex pause.

“What?”

The growling continued, and Alex began to get a bit worried. Sarah glanced at him nervously.

Is he losing it without Olivia here to hold him back?

As the worry built and his pulse increased, he slowly let the mana in his hand dissipate and prepared to activate the barrier spell in his storage at a moment's notice. As soon as the mana fell away, Nox stopped growling. The beast blinked at him once, white eyes disappearing completely, before he turned and limped back to Olivia.

“Uh…” Alex and Sarah looked at each other. “I think he’s telling me to stop using my mana?”

“But you weren’t casting a spell?”

He shrugged while watching Nox curl up into a painful position near Olivia’s side. “I guess even doing the mana shaping exercises could give them something to sense?” He looked at Sam, worried for his safety. Valtherion watched Nox skeptically as he continued to infuse mana into Sam.

Scanning the room again, Alex let out a breath, looked at his hands, and shifted his position on the ground. “Well… this is really weird.”

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, her voice rising in pitch.

“Nothing’s wrong, I just have no idea what to do with myself.” He scratched his head as she quirked an eyebrow at him. “For months now I’ve been doing something with my mana every moment I’m awake… hell, even some times when I’m not awake.”

She gave him a smile and reached up to fix the messy state her hair had devolved to. “Well, take a second for yourself. There’s nothing else you can do to help right now, right?”

He shrugged. “I guess I could practice my sword forms.”

“Or,” she said, drawing the word out, “you could give your body and mind a little while to rest.”

“I can’t do it,” Sam said quietly. Both of them looked over and stood quickly when they saw his slumped form and the area of his trait shattered. “I just can’t do it, it’s no use. Val’s out of mana too, and the healing just isn’t taking.”

Alex crouched down in front of Sam and put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the problem? I’ve never seen your healing not work before.” Internally, Alex cursed and let his mind go into its fastest speed. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Sam wouldn’t be able to fix the problem.

“The problem? They both need too much healing. I can’t keep them both alive. Olivia is at least taking to the healing better, and I’m seeing progress… but Mark… It’s just like I’m sinking mana into him and it’s not taking.” Sam looked up at Alex with tears welling in his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, thinking through possible plans. “Okay, you’ve seen stuff like this at the hospital before, right? Maybe not this poison, but two people are in critical condition. What would you do there?”

The water building in his eyes spilled over, and his chin quivered, “I’d stop healing Mark and focus on Olivia… her body is receiving the healing, and there’s a chance she’d live through this. Mark doesn’t seem like he will.”

It felt like someone at punched Alex in the gut.

Stop healing Mark?

He looked at his best friend. The sickly black branches of poison were further up his leg now, reaching toward his hip. It extended far enough down that the lowest tendrils reached for his foot. “No… we can’t give up on him,” he said it more to himself than anyone else, but Sam took it as a bit of encouragement. He nodded and used his sleeve to quickly wipe his tears.

“I still have one mana potion. I’ll keep trying until I can’t.”

“Then what?” Sarah asked with wide eyes.

“Worst case scenario, we remove the poison…” Sam said, a cold sense of detachment rolling through his features as he removed the potion and drank it down. His movements came slower and smoother as he placed the empty vial in his pouch and rolled up his sleeves.

“You don’t mean–”

“It won’t come to that,” Alex interrupted her as a plan began to form in his mind. He scanned Mark again before asking Sam. He got almost an entire Status Screen on Mark now, considering that his Willpower was so low. He only cared about the top few lines.