CHAPTER 13 - CALM MOMENT
The surgery totally sucked.
I’d always looked forward to my first chance to help in a surgery. I envisioned myself standing there beside some expert physician, handing him the tools of the trade and helping with some part of the procedure or another. In my imagination the scene was always sterile, cold, and calm.
The reality of saving Kat was nothing like that. She remained unconscious throughout it all, which was the biggest blessing. We didn’t have an operating room, or proper lighting, or proper tools, or medications, or… It just wasn’t a good time.
About the only fascinating part was watching Virgil use his powers. After we took off Kat’s lower leg, he touched the wound left with both hands, a white glow spreading from him to the injury. As I watched, the wound knitted itself together, the skin stretching to meet itself and close the injury. The glow stopped before the wound fully healed, but I’d just watched a week of healing happen in seconds.
“Holy shit, that was epic,” I said.
Virgil chuckled. “Thanks. Takes it out of me, though.”
He slumped back against the wall, looking exhausted. His eyelids drooped.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yup. Magic has a price, though, and mine means I need a nap after. Your friend will be okay now. There’s still some venom in her, but her body is stronger now, and she’ll handle it. You should get some rest yourself.”
“Thanks for helping her,” I told him.
“It’s what we do, right?” Virgil replied.
“Yeah.”
I wandered off, finding a quiet corner where I could at last have a few minutes of peace. It felt like it had been days since all this started, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours. I glanced at my watch to see what time it was, but it was as dead as every other piece of electronics.
Thinking back, I tried to estimate based on the sunset. It was maybe seven in the evening, or eight? Class was at two, so five or six hours. Such a short period of time for everything in my life to go upside down.
I pulled the watch off and was about to throw it against the wall in frustration when I thought better of it. It was a nice Apple Watch, and if everything went back to normal tomorrow I’d feel pretty stupid if I smashed it. I figured the odds of things suddenly reverting weren’t high, but they couldn’t have been worse than this mess kicking off in the first place, right? I fastened the watch back to my wrist.
Then I remembered the crystals. I pulled them out and examined the inner settings where I’d embedded the ones powering my magic. It was time to figure this shit out.
Magical Stones
Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 2) - Control Undead
Point 2: Clear Stone (Tier 1) - Agility
Point 3: X
Point 4: X
Point 5: X
Spare Stones
Black x6
Clear x3
First thing I wanted to do was identify those nine unknown stones. I picked one of the black ones up, careful to keep what I was doing to myself. I had a feeling that these crystals were going to be super important in the days to come. Currency? Power? They represented something, that much was sure. And Dad always taught me to not flash expensive stuff in front of strangers.
I couldn’t just absorb them, because I didn’t have any empty spots. I wondered if I could empty one back out again? First, I envisioned the stone settings, then I reached out with mental fingers toward the black stone, carefully trying to pull it free from its setting. As I suspected, it didn’t move. There was a shimmer from the second setting every time I envisioned pulling at the black stone.
Having a tier two stone allowed me to have a second stone. It wasn’t going to let me take out the tier two without taking out the other one first. At least, that’s what I hoped it meant. I reached out with imaginary fingers to the clear stone, hoping it would move.
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It did. It popped out, first in my mind’s eye, then into the fingers of my right hand. That was something! Now I had a way to test the stones. I carefully set the agility stone aside and picked up one of the unknown clear ones. This time, it sank quickly into my skin, and I immediately felt stronger. A strength stone! That might be really helpful. Alfred could use it right away; it would bump his stone up to tier two.
I had this vision of some sort of trading post where we could all exchange crystals. Then we’d go win more of them, come back, and swap until we all had the ones we needed. It was a great plan. I just didn’t think humans were going to work that way. Maybe I’d be wrong this time and human nature would be set aside for the duration of the emergency, but I doubted it.
Taking out the strength crystal was easy, now that I knew what I was doing. I popped it back out and tested another one, which gave me a boost in willpower, and then the final clear one, which was for stamina. I sucked in a breath as soon as I felt my endurance and health improve. Kat already had a stamina stone, but she could sure use another one about now. A second stone would boost hers to tier two. It would certainly help her healing.
I set that one aside to give to her once I was finished with my testing. There were still six black crystals unidentified, and I wanted to know what they all did before I lost the chance. Calm moments seemed few and far between, and I wanted to take as much advantage of this one as I could.
One by one, I checked each black stone and then removed it. I was in luck, and then some! There were two additional Control Undead stones. I slotted one, and then the second, which merged together to form a new tier two, and then almost instantly merged with the other tier two to give me my first tier three stone.
I could control more undead now. Four smaller ones like my zombies, or two bigger ones. I hadn’t seen anything bigger and meaner than the zombies and was sort of hoping I wouldn’t. The fact that my power let me control tier two undead implied the existence of tier two undead—and probably tier three, four, and… It didn’t bear thinking about for too long.
Merging the stones into a tier three opened the third point for me, which means I’d be able to use a third power of some sort. I quickly checked the other black stones to see what else I had. One was Nightvision, which might have been useful a short while before. Hell, with no flashlights or other lights, it might be one of the most useful powers I’d seen. With it slotted, the dim candlelight was enough that the whole room seemed bright as noon.
The other three stones were likewise useful. One was an Animate Dead spell that was the same as what Carver had been able to cast. Thinking about him made me wonder if he was okay. He’d ridden off into the city on an undead horse, which probably made him one of the fastest things out there. But he was still alone, and new dangers seemed to be popping up everywhere. I hoped he would be all right.
Then I also had an Augment Undead spell and a Heal Undead spell. Both of those seemed especially useful. The former would boost an existing undead, making it more combat effective. The second one would heal their injuries. I thought of Rosie right away, his head and neck so badly savaged. Both of my zombies had taken a serious beating, but now I could fix at least some of that. I worried that healing might take a lot of my personal energy, like it did for Virgil, so I’d need to be cautious about using it. Just having the ability to heal my minions in a pinch was awesome, though.
I slotted the Agility back in. Simple as it was, that stone had probably already saved my life at least twice. I didn’t want to be without it. Then I popped in the Augment spell. Since I didn’t know how badly healing would wear me out, it made more sense to slot the buff rather than the heal, at least in the short term.
Not any stranger to computer games, it was clear to me that I was well on my way to ‘pet class’ sorts of powers. I had a control power, a buff, and a heal. Put those together and it wasn’t a bad way to go. For the time being, it was definitely the best combination of available powers.
After I put the remaining crystals back safely in my pocket, I examined what I had.
Magical Stones
Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 3) - Control Undead
Point 2: Clear Stone (Tier 1) - Agility
Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 1) - Augment Undead
Point 4: X
Point 5: X
Spare Stones
Black: Nightvision, Heal Undead, Animate Dead
Clear: Strength, Will, Stamina
The stamina crystal, however, was about to be donated. Kat needed this one more than me. I palmed it as I stood up and returned to her side.
Kat was still unconscious, but she looked less pale than she had before. Her face wasn’t covered with sweat. If anything, she looked downright peaceful. I hoped she’d wake soon. With luck, the extra stamina stone would help. I laid my hand over hers, and the stone I held sank instantly into her hand.
Was that a little more pink in her cheeks already? In the dim light, it was probably more wishful thinking than anything else, but I hoped ranking up her stone would give her stamina enough of a boost that she’d heal faster. It wasn’t going to give her back her leg, but the sooner she kicked out the rest of the venom, the better.
A loud bang from outside made me jump. Further back in the room, people muttered, but Lords held a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. I kept low, but since I was at the very front of the building I could peer out through the windows there.
Outside was about as dark as night could be. I reached into myself and removed the buff spell, then plugged in the Nightvision spell again. Instantly the outdoors was more like dusk. That was a whole lot better!
What I saw out there wasn’t, though. We had a parade of goblins wandering through the lot. The bang was one of them bashing a car hood with his club. I’d run into these guys before. While the zombies were pretty stupid, the goblins showed some serious cunning. They weren’t going to win a Nobel, but they were definitely smart enough to see the flickering candle flame through the windows.