B5 C20: Shifted

“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” Having been silently nominated as our spokesperson, I questioned the newly awakened grand magus as Verin lay at our feet. I’d summoned a mattress from my storage to make her more comfortable, but her face still contracted in pain, even while she was passed out.

Perhaps extra irritable from having his slumber interrupted, Sett scoffed at the question. “Of course I do. What do you take me for, a piddling novice? The cause of her symptoms should be quite obvious, even to you two. Have you never noticed the abnormal color of her skin, hair, and eyes?” He paused as if waiting for us to put it together on our own before recalling that he couldn’t be bothered. “The girl is mana shifted. Frost aspect.”

Mana shifted? Of course she was. I’d known that since well before we’d arrived in the dungeon. It wasn’t as if Verin had suddenly grown mana shifted overnight. Why would it suddenly matter now?

Much more straightforward, Cal opted to cut to the chase. “Forget the cause. Can you fix it or not?”

This, it appeared, was not quite the right question, as evidenced by the mana in the chamber suddenly growing heavy as it clamped down on us. An oppressive silence filled the air as I struggled to breathe, and the mana in my body became sluggish, struggling to activate the simplest of skills. A chained hand reached forth, coming to rest on Cal’s shoulder. Whether due to the surrounding suppressive mana or by her own choice, Cal remained fixed to her spot, not activating her Apex Shroud.

“I will not say that I find your attitude entirely unamusing, but I would like to remind you who you are speaking to, girl. My current state notwithstanding, it would do you well to recall that I am over quadruple your level, and I have been casting Master-ranked spells and slaughtering my way through my rivals centuries before you were ever born. While I am quite fond of this arrangement we’ve made, and it has already paid some dividends, that does not mean I will submit myself to being talked down to by a child. Fix your tone.”

Having said his piece, the grand magus released his hostile hold on the surrounding mana, the heavy feeling gone as suddenly as it had arrived. While Cal still had a defiant glare in her eyes, she swallowed whatever stubborn retort she likely wanted to make. When Sett was certain she wasn’t about to curse him out and earn herself another lesson, he at last chose to respond in a much more congenial manner.

“As to your original question, one does not normally try to ‘fix’ being mana shifted. It’s simply a way that some people are born. While it can be quite annoying in one’s youth, once you reach 50 Wisdom, it’s generally considered a boon. The girl’s frost magic will receive a considerable boost at that point, and most of the side effects will disappear.”

I could see it was taking Cal some effort not to call out how unhelpful that explanation was, so I opted to step in. “Why is she like this, then? She’s been mana shifted the entire time, and she’s never had any visible side effects.”

Sett shrugged, his chains noisily rattling. “In fairness, most people never do. Your average mana-shifted individual might not even notice it, and with more moderate cases, they’ll simply feel some discomfort while casting or absorbing mana. I’ve rarely seen such a strong shift in someone, and the frost aspect is known to be tougher on the body than most. Considering she’s some noble brat, I would have assumed she had a trinket to provide her with a constant supply of pure frost mana. This is what you’d expect without one.”

A trinket. Like… a ring? All at once, everything snapped into place. I’d assumed Verin had been slightly delirious when she’d started ranting about her ring before even addressing her missing arm, but now I wasn’t so sure. 

“And if… if that trinket was completely melted down and destroyed, what then? Are you able to make another one, by any chance?” Trying to appeal to Sett’s own interests, I reminded him of our situation. “It’s not like she can help us destroy collection sites if she’s like this, right?”

Despite my best attempts to be respectful, the grand magus scowled. “No, I can’t simply conjure a replacement out of midair. There are some tricks for managing her symptoms, but to fully replace what she lost, you would need some manner of frost-aspected treasure. One that holds a large amount of pure frost mana, or more likely, one that converts ambient mana into pure frost mana. Without that, you’re out of luck.”

If her ring was that important, I was shocked Verin didn’t have any backups, but belatedly, I realized that she probably did. Except, she would have kept them in her storage items. The storage items that were currently locked down and inaccessible while we were inside the pocket dimension.

Damn. We might actually be in trouble here.

Having finally found her voice again, Cal did her best to address the grand magus more respectfully this time. “I apologize for my earlier tone. You know more than us,” she admitted. “Would you be willing to tell us what you would do in our situation? She seemed to be in a lot of pain.”

Despite his own less-than-ideal state, Sett beamed at the princess. “Ah, so refreshing working with young ones. Look how quickly they learn.” The demon patted Cal on her head, further pleased when Cal bore it without lashing out at him. “For a long-term solution? One imagines you’d need to find the dungeon’s frost region. She should be fine there, and it’s the only place you’d likely find the frost-aspected treasure you need.”

With how many regions the dungeon held, that was possibly a very tall order. If we were lucky, we’d stumble upon it in a week. More likely, it could take months. More if it was at the very edges of the dungeon. Cal seemed to have much the same thoughts as she grimaced, although the grand magus wasn’t done yet.

“For shorter-term symptom management, it is slightly simpler. There are two things wrong with your companion. First, her mana core is furiously attempting to convert every drop of mana she absorbs into pure frost mana. Our systems are fine with a few impurities here and there, but her mana core refuses to settle for anything but perfect purity. It’s constantly refining and filtering her mana, massively overworking itself and putting a strain on her body and core. The solution here is to make her stop using mana.”

No way she’s going to go for that. Thinking back to Verin’s desperate attempts to activate her class skill, I couldn’t imagine she’d be willing to keep herself from using any mana at all.

Sett, as it so happened, seemed to come to much the same conclusion. Before I knew what he was doing, he crouched down and placed his hand over Verin’s stomach. A rush of mana pushed its way from his body into hers, the spellforms looking so wildly unfamiliar to me that I wasn’t even sure if they counted as actual spells.

“I do not particularly wish for you to come to me again in a few weeks begging me to heal an overstrained or broken mana core when she does not listen. I’ve just applied a seal to the girl’s soul. When she wakes, she will be unable to use any skills or spells that require mana.”

I paled, partly from the dramatic show of force. He could do that? Was this what a high-leveled soul mage was capable of?

More than that, though, I was thinking of what Verin’s reaction might be. Hell, what would mine have been? Cut off entirely from my magic? Sure, I could practice a few of my professions without it or do weapon drills, but that was about it. I’d have been devastated in her position, and I suspected Verin would be all the more so.

“Unfortunately, the seal will not fully mitigate her symptoms. With her stats and at her level, the body will passively use a small amount of mana to function. Her mana channels will be executing pure frost mana. Using lower purity mana isn’t likely to permanently damage her mana foundation -- at least not unless she does so for a few years -- but the lower the purity, the more painful it will be for her. The second step is to surround her with as much frost mana as you can. Her core will be able to purify it more fully than standard ambient mana.”

Much like he had back when creating my enchanting training aids, Sett conjured a number of metal disks, each of them containing an enchanting matrix. “Frost converters. Similar theory to the light converter in the enchantments I made for you to study, but these work automatically. They won’t work well outside, but if you place a few in her room, it should help with the worst of the pain.”

I accepted the disks, throwing them into my storage as I wondered if there was anything else we could do. As if reading my mind, Sett answered that exact question.

“I am afraid that is the best one can do in these circumstances, unless you believe she would wish me to place her into a coma. With my mental magic, I could simply shut her mind off until you find the frost region, though I’m aware that most do not enjoy having their mind messed with in any way.” Would that be better? Verin would go to sleep, we’d go out hunting for the frost region, and then she’d suddenly wake up with a cure right in front of her.

Maybe. I might in her position. But I think that’s her choice. We’d have to ask. Admittedly, we hadn’t asked permission to seal her mana, but Sett hadn’t offered us much of a choice in the first place.

Not waiting for us to come to a decision, Sett did his best to end the conversation there. “If there is anything else you require, speak now. I’ve already used quite a bit of mana, and it will take a frustratingly long time to build it back up again. I would like to rest.”

Much to my chagrin and Sett’s evident frustration, there were a few things I still needed from him. I only hoped I could make my requests without stretching his patience too thin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only a few hours later, Cal stood outside the cabin while I leaned against the doorway. We’d carried Verin back up and tucked her into bed, and the noble hadn’t stirred in the slightest the entire time. Since then, Cal and I had been planning.

In the end, the general outline of our plan didn’t take long at all. While neither of us were exactly elated with our path forward, we’d agreed there wasn’t much of a choice.

Until we got Verin the ice treasure she needed, at least one of us would need to take care of her. There were multiple reasons for that, but part of it revolved around her need to eat. After getting more details from the grand magus, it turned out that even if he put her into a coma, she’d still need to eat each day. Without us, how was she going to do that?

If I wanted to leave her by herself, I could give her some pre-cooked meals, but most of what I could make would quickly rot. A long while back, we’d built ourselves an underground freezer, but Verin’s magic was the main thing keeping it running, and now her mana was sealed.

It wasn’t 100% impossible. Perhaps she could go to Arbor on her own, for example. Ignoring the fact that she would be in serious pain once she left the bounds of Sett’s frost converters, she could get some plants from the king of the forest each month. Naturally, most edible plants would rot after a few days as well, but if she focused on shelf-stable foods like rice or lentils, she could get by. I could also leave her with some smoked or salted meat, and maybe some hardtack.

Water would be harder. I could dig and fill up some sort of pond or lake, maybe, but did the prairie’s lack of life apply to bacteria? I doubted it. Would the stagnant water eventually fill up with germs and diseases? With that being said, I could probably use Conjure Liquid to leave her with a bunch of watered-down moonshine, which would be safe to drink.

So yes. Technically, it was doable. She might end up a bit malnourished after subsisting off a diet of booze, dried meat, rice, and bread for long enough, but she could survive for quite some time that way.

Unfortunately, that fell a bit too close to cruel and unusual punishment for our tastes. Though a year in the dungeon had humbled her palate considerably, she’d spent her entire life with chefs at her beck and call, eating grand feasts full of expensive ingredients. Getting her to limit her meals to travel rations would be a hard sell.

And even if she did, then what? If Cal and I left her alone, what did that leave for Verin? Her mana would be sealed. No practicing magic. Certainly no hunting. With her having never placed points into her physical stats, she’d be nearly as weak as a level one without her magic. Unless she wanted to be in intense pain, she couldn’t even spend much time outside her room where we’d placed the frost converters.

She had no books to read. No TV to watch. Hell, her main hobby was drawing, and outside a few wooden boards, carving knives, and charcoal I’d given her, she didn’t have the materials to practice it.

How long would it take us to find the frost region? Months?

Months of sitting in the same room, in pain, with nothing to do and no one to talk to, drinking watery moonshine and bland travel rations. With no way to contact us while we were exploring, she wouldn’t even know if we were still alive or if we were never coming back.

 Arguably, it sounded like a fate worse than solitary confinement. Frankly, I didn’t think Verin would be able to take it, nor would either of us ask her to. The coma would be far preferable at that point, but as I’d said, even that would require one of us to take care of her.

We’d briefly considered asking her to go into a coma and let us take her with us. We could feed her and keep her safe as we went from region to region. As many problems as it would solve for us, we discarded the idea almost instantly. There was no way we’d be able to fully protect her if she was unconscious. Without her glacier active, she would have died from the jungle’s poison air, the fire region’s heat, the toxic mud clouds in the air region, and more besides.

Without a question, one of us had to stay behind.

From there, we had a few more options. I could take care of Verin until I grew my Spatial Magic enough to get us all out of the dungeon. Alternatively, one of us could try to destroy the remaining three collection sites on their own.

Both felt far-fetched and exceptionally long-term. Instead, the much simpler solution was to send one of us out on a mission to find the dungeon’s frost region.

It would be an epic journey. A solo mission spanning multiple regions. At any step, the dungeon could trap you within a region until you completed it, just as it had so many times before. The fights would be intense. The loot would be plentiful. The danger would be high. One way or another, it would spawn a story bards would fight to sing of.

Without a doubt, it was an adventure fit for a hero. For a Protagonist. 

And naturally, it wouldn’t be me who went on it.

I was undeniably the far better fit to stay behind and take care of Verin. Even if we didn’t take into account my superior cooking, my Conjure Water spell, and a dozen things besides, what would even happen if we stuck a sick, grumpy Verin with Cal for a few months? Hell, she might even prefer the solitary confinement at that point.

On the flip side, Cal’s Apex Shroud made her far better suited for scouting about without getting into trouble. The dungeon had shown it would punish us if we flew over entire regions or walked along their edges to avoid them, but that was it. As long as Cal walked directly through a region, she was free to use her Apex Shroud at full tilt, walking through the dungeon while perfectly invisible. 

Arguably, she’d be even safer than I would. More than that, she’d already gone on a bunch of solo scouting missions, and the one time she’d been trapped in a region by herself, she’d managed to clear it alone. 

Undoubtedly, she was the perfect person for the job. 

But once again, that didn’t mean we had to like it.

“You sure you don’t want to wait until she wakes up, at least? She might be pissed that you didn’t say goodbye.” The moment we settled on a course of action, Cal was already making preparations to leave. Not that there were many to make. Her sword was stored in her feathery ring, and she didn’t need to pack anything to eat, which meant she was traveling incredibly lightly to begin with.

Cal seemed to seriously consider the question, but only for a second. With an unreadable expression, she shook her head. “Nah. After she got done freaking out about her mana seal, she’d start arguing. Probably would yell at me. And I’d definitely yell back at her for being stupid and hiding her condition from us. And then she’d feel really guilty that I was hunting for a cure for her after she argued with me, and I’d feel really guilty for yelling at her.” Avoiding my gaze, Cal tensed up, and I could see her running through how the conversation would go in her head. “Not worth it. Better to leave now, without a fight.”

In the end, all I could do was shrug. If that’s what Cal wanted, I was hardly going to stop her. Removing Tal’ket’s summoning disk from my storage, I tossed it her way. I wasn’t sure how much use she’d get out of it, but undeniably, it would be more useful with her than with me.

Not one for long and sappy goodbyes, Cal immediately activated the disk, hopping on Tal’Ket’s back as soon as he arrived.

I watched the great bird fly into the distance, trying and failing to push away the sudden sense of loss I felt when it finally disappeared from view. No moody thoughts. Optimism. With any luck, I’d be seeing Cal again in no time.

So? What now?

~~~~~~~~~~~

In an intense bout of deja vu, I soon found myself spending most of my time holed up in Verin’s room, waiting for her to awaken. With how disconcerted she was bound to be once she discovered her mana seal, I wanted to be there when she woke up.

Sadly, it appeared that the combination of straining her mana core, along with receiving her soul seal, had done a number on her. When she didn’t show any signs of getting up on the first day, or the second day after that, I allowed myself to leave her room now and then. On the off chance she awoke while I wasn’t there, I left her an explanatory message carved into a wooden board, and I made sure to stick close to the cabin. Even outside, I was confident I’d hear her wake up if I was close enough.

In fairness, I was mostly content to sit by her side and practice some of my more stationary hobbies. Woodcarving, in particular, was a great sedentary activity, and if I made some rings and bangles, I could level up Jewelry Making, too.

There was one thing I wanted to test out that required a bit more space, though. Literally.

After Sett had placed his soul seal on Verin, most of our remaining conversation consisted of pestering him with specifics on Verin’s condition and the best way to find the dungeon’s frost region. There was another matter I’d wanted to bring up with him, but originally, I’d planned to leave it for another time, feeling too guilty to discuss anything other than Verin’s plight.

When the grand magus had made it exceptionally clear that we weren’t supposed to bug him for the next few months if we could help it, I reconsidered. If Cal failed to find the frost region, our best bet to cure Verin was for me to eventually teleport us out of the dungeon.

And to do that, I needed to level up my Spatial Magic even further.

Scrolling back through my notifications, I found the logical conclusion to that line of reasoning, courtesy of Sett.

You have learned a new spell!