FMH: Everything ~ Thirty

Taylor scanned the area, noticing the strange faces that seemed to be forming in the blue mist in the distance. She took a deep breath to launch into a rapidly prepared discussion on how they should focus on their new challenge, then paused as the realization struck that lecturing her team would be a terrible idea. There was another factor that caused her to stop: that single lungful of air contained denser mana than she had to put up with nearly anywhere else she had visited in the multiverse. The Mage started coughing immediately, feeling as though she were drowning in the near-liquid air.

It was Zed of all people who came over and gave her a comforting pat on the back. He stayed next to her until she was able to catch her breath, settling into a box breathing pattern. “There you go! Smart, smart. All mana control starts with the breath, as it's the easiest to visualize. Four seconds in, hold for four seconds, four seconds out, hold empty for four seconds, repeat.”

She straightened her posture and pushed his hand away, although she did so gently out of consideration for his support. “Yes, Zed, we all know how to breathe. I think that we should focus our efforts on… on… where’s Luke?”

“Luke?” Zed lifted an eyebrow and showed her a half-cocked smile. “Do you really need to ask that? He left.”

“He left?” Taylor's fingers curled into fists as a tiny spark of fury coalesced in her chest. “How are we supposed to find him? How are we supposed to understand the dangers in this area, and most of all, what are we going to do about the army that is going to be sitting outside this portal for years of our subjective time?”

Zed held both of his hands up, showing that he wasn't the one at fault here. “Hey, yell at the big guy, not the affable Bard. As to finding him, that'll be easy. He moves in a straight line, or at least as straight as you can on a curved world like this. By the time we catch up to him, he'll be at the edge of Zone twenty, for sure.”

“Is everyone seeing those faces?” Andre called out, watching the horizon slightly nervously. “By the way, this isn't grass. I'm not sure what it is, but if I had to guess… it’s just mana shaped like grass. Trying to connect to the world, the earth, is like attempting to tap into a bolt of lightning.”

“The faces are the monsters of this Zone, and we should really leave.” Zed put his hands on his hips, threw his head back, and laughed loudly. Wiping his left eye, he looked at the others directly. That was when Taylor recognized that the Bard was on the verge of a full-fledged panic. “Laugh or cry, know what I mean? Gotta choose one; also, we should start running. This is fun! I've never been able to be a tour guide in a whole new world for someone else.”

It was easy enough to follow the Murderhobo’s tracks, as he had made no attempt at subtlety, destroying any foliage or monsters that crossed his path, either by accident or intentionally. Taylor tried to keep an eye on the strange abominations that she could see in the distance. Whenever she lost track of them for a moment then found them again, the creatures would suddenly be much closer but always trying to stay in her peripheral vision. Based on how fast the Bard was running, he knew something about these creatures that she did not.

At that moment, she decided that she was perfectly happy not knowing the capabilities of the creatures that were ever so slowly closing in on them.

As a Mage, everything about this world seemed simultaneously easier and far more difficult. The paradoxical nature was frustrating to her, but it was easy for her to trace her feelings and put them into clear thoughts. “Andre, let me know if you're experiencing anything different, but it seems to me that our bodies are rapidly drinking in the mana around us. I'm seeing large-scale distortions around all three of us. Less so on Zed for some reason, now that I think of it. It’s messing with my vision, but at the same time… I think my ability to accurately discern things in the distance is increasing?”

“Oh good, I thought that was just me! Good to know I'm not crazy.” Zed laughed wildly, though the sound was high-pitched and breathy, thanks to his dead sprint. “As far as I can tell, our bodies are practically starved for mana. You'll see what I mean after a few days of this, but that distortion goes away pretty quick. Think of it like being super dehydrated, then all of a sudden your body has access to as much water as it wants, and you don't need to drink it to bring it in. For happy feelings, what you should do is check out your mana regen right now.”

Deciding that she could handle all three actions: running, staying alert for monsters, and reading her status, Taylor let her curiosity get the better of her and pulled open her character sheet.

Cal Scan9

Level: 14

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 3,141 / 98,700 to level 15!

Maximum health: 163

Maximum mana: 486

Mana regen: 6.3 per second. 22 per second.

“What? Twenty-two per second?” Taylor nearly choked on her words and did trip on a thick tangle of grass. She easily rolled forward and into a standing position once more, the minor inconvenience hardly impacting her speed at all. “I knew that our environment affected our ability to regenerate mana, but I didn't realize it was this much! I thought there was a hard cap based on our Mind stats.”

“Everyone has thought that, forever. Because, in almost all circumstances, it's true.” Zed cheerfully acted as tour guide once more, though his eyes were far too wide, and his smile far too bright. “That’s because it has been true in literally all other circumstances, as far as we know! Also, if it's only at twenty-two right now, just wait until you've been here a while and your body is pumped full of the stuff. I think mana we have in our bodies is actually a result of biological breakdowns or is a waste energy produced by our cells. When you're fully saturated, your mana regeneration is going to be closing in on three figures.”

Andre voiced a question almost immediately, the academic in him apparently overriding his concern at the current situation. “Hold on there, Zed. You can't just say that we're simultaneously requiring mana and have it be a byproduct that is specifically a waste product. If that were the case-”

“Why not?” Zed challenged him directly.

That took the Druid aback. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why not? Why can't it be both a necessary resource and a waste product?” The Bard tapped his own gut. “Going back to the water analogy, we need water in order to fill our meat sacks, but it's also a waste product that exits us along with other filth. Maybe having really good Mana Channels, like we do, is like having really efficient kidneys. Kidneys keep our blood clean, but they also collect water and waste material to expel.”

“Theorizing is fun, totally,” Taylor interrupted before they could start an all out argument about meta-anatomy. “Zed, what do we need to do to fight off those faces that are getting closer?”

“Yeah, about that.” The Bard shrugged and let his smile shrink down to a weak grin. “I have no idea. Luke was so angry about being back here that he never bothered to stop and fight one of them, and on the way to the exit, we were rushing too much for him to give me a decent first-hand example on how to do it. Before I forget, he did tell me that using fire is a bad idea. Just in general, not against these particular monsters.”

“Why?” Without bothering to consider the ramifications about what she was about to do, Taylor casually activated Fingers of Flame and sent the deadly Spells at the strange faces closing in on them.

*Boom.*

All she could see was an enormous wall of flame exiting her left hand. After that, everything became hazy memories. She was tumbling through the air, knocked silly by the close proximity of the detonation. Someone was screaming, and her head hurt. Her arms and legs weren't listening to what she was telling them to do, but that was okay. Moving hurt, so the Mage stopped doing it.

She blinked and watched as the azure grass five feet below her face swayed gently back and forth. Rational thought started returning to her mind, and she realized that she was being carried. “An…dre?”

They slowed down for a moment but didn't stop. Moments later, their pace increased further, but now she could see the front of Zed's feet as he ran behind Andre to explain what had happened. “Hey there, you absolutely insane wizard! Good to see you’re alive.”

“Hate… you.” Taylor managed to clearly state.

That earned a chuckle, though it sounded strained. “Good news and bad news! The good news is that, congratulations! Your Fire Spell was enough to kill off the… I’m calling them banshees. The bad news is that you have fourth degree burns all over your upper body, and your left hand is charred to the point that I think it's not usable anymore. Pretty sure you're going to need to find a Healer when we get back.”

“What… happened?” Taylor rasped out at him, trying and failing not to panic about the state of her body.

Damage taken: 151! You're lightly burning.

Health remaining: 12. Seek immediate healing!

Damage dealt: 325 x222.

Potentia gained: 22,200. You have killed a type of creature unknown to the Hollow Kingdom! Update the records for a bonus? Yes / No.

“Fair enough, not sure how much you remember. So… some really smart guy told you that using fire was dangerous, and you reacted by immediately casting a fire Spell. Is that much still in your head? I think it's an important fact.”

Zed continued speaking quickly, no small part thanks to her snarling and trying to bend her fingers enough to point a single finger at him. “Right, right. Let's not be hasty! Not sure if this is true everywhere, but it appears that mana is flammable to a certain point, and it'll just continue burning until it hits the ground. Good news there, the atmosphere didn't light on fire and kill us all by sucking all breathable air out of the world. Not going to lie, I'm pretty sure that is possible here. Downside, the grass did start on fire, and we're being chased by a wildfire.”

“Nullify didn’t work? Luke can help. How… far?”

Zed couldn't help but laugh in disbelief at the words that needed to come out of his own mouth. “Yeah, I think you're really not going to like the answer to that. Luke has a pretty good head start on us. If his estimate was correct the last time we were here, crossing all of Zone eighteen and nineteen to catch him at the front of twenty will be something like… twenty-seven hundred miles?”

Andre swore harshly enough that the air turned blue. Taylor blinked slowly as she thought about that. Her mind was hazy, but she couldn't help but wheeze out a laugh. She thought that it was his swearing turning the air blue, but the air was already blue!

At first the Mage was expecting them to laugh, but she slowly realized that she hadn’t spoken the joke out loud. “I think… lungs are burning.”

The uncomfortable silence that followed seemed to last forever, but that might have been her lack of mental acuity. Taylor watched as a vine snapped out and grabbed Andre, then they were flying through the air, extremely long plants ‘walking’ them along the ground in enormous leaps. Andre’s ice-cold hand touched her forehead, and he looked into her eyes with great concern in his. “There's no way that we can wait for a healer. I'm sorry, Taylor, but I need to put you in a Lotus, if you're going to survive.”

In only a few seconds, flower petals were closing over her, and Taylor started to drift off. “I've always wanted you… to bring me… flowers.”

Then the Mage truly fell asleep, swaddled in the purest of flowers, hoping that, when she awoke, she wouldn't be a destroyed husk of a person. A small frown crossed her face as she realized that this might be the last time she fell asleep.

After that, her mind fell silent, with only the small movements of her labored breathing revealing that she was, in fact, alive.