The island was greener than Serenity had expected. He wasn’t certain why he’d expected a desert island; his father hadn’t described it at all. Perhaps that was the reason.
It was closer to a jungle than anything else for about half of the island, maybe two-thirds. A good bit of the rest was beach or rocks, but there were some areas that were open enough for a helicopter to land safely. Beyond its physical characteristics, however, the island had one huge feature that didn’t surprise Serenity at all: a giant ley line nexus. The nexus was, as expected, centered in the area protected from the helicopter. Serenity had to deduce the location of the nexus based on the ley lines, but if he had his angles right, it was centered almost exactly at the location of the structure in the distance.
Oliver showed Serenity and Blaze where he’d left Lex and Bethany, then they searched the portions of the island that were likely places to find traces of them if they’d emerged from the wind wall and somehow not been able to call for a pickup. Serenity hadn’t expected to find anything, and was impatient about the time spent on it, but he knew that he’d really regret it if he didn’t search and they were out there. Wherever they were, he had to assume that two extra hours wouldn’t make an appreciable difference.
An alarm broke the relative quiet and Oliver Davis sighed. “It’s time. Are you certain you want to be dropped off where I left your parents? I won’t be able to come get you without refueling.”
Serenity nodded, then remembered that Oliver wasn’t looking at him. “Yes, please.”
“You’re certain you won’t lose contact? I know you said you wouldn’t, but I don’t want to leave someone else out here without a way to call for help.” Oliver trailed off. He’d tried to talk Serenity out of staying on the island several times, but Serenity wasn’t about to let that stop him. Not when his parents were missing.
“Quite certain.” Serenity grinned a little. “I won’t lose contact. I can call you from anywhere on the planet. Yes, even dead areas.”
A normal cell or wifi connection was much cheaper, so he’d use that where possible. Unfortunately, a proper cell connection required cell towers and Aide hadn’t yet managed to incorporate sat-phone capability, but the Voice’s network was a great fallback. Technically, it was probably possible to block the signal, but as long as he paid the Etherium, he could use the Voice’s network to reach Oliver through Aki.
Oliver brought the helicopter down to a clearing close to where the winds picked up. “Be careful and call when you need a pickup. Just remember how long it takes to get out here if it’s after we’ve left.”
Serenity smiled at the repeated warning. “I told you, we’re planning to take a different way off the island; the way I think my parents already took. We’ll be fine; thanks for the time.”
“Thank me by not dying,” was Oliver’s only response to that.
Serenity chuckled and hopped out of the helicopter, followed more carefully by Blaze.
Blaze watched the helicopter climb into the sky. “Such a strange thing. It does not seem like it should be able to fly without magic, yet it has none.” He shook his head then looked over at Serenity. “You said you had a plan for getting through the wall?”
Serenity nodded. “I have several options. The standard one is to crack the spell. I doubt I can break it, not if it’s reinforced with ley line power, but I can probably bypass it temporarily. The easy way is to try to just walk past it. If that works, I’ll probably have to provide armor for you again.”
Technically, he’d never tested if he could use his Ghost in the System title for someone else, but there was an excellent chance it was possible. The real question was how much of Blaze he’d have to cover; if Blaze had to be completely enclosed, Serenity might have some issues. Anything short of a suit that required breathing apparatus, displays, and a headset should be doable, but Serenity wasn’t confident he could manage the full thing. Especially the breathing part.
There was a third way that he hadn’t mentioned that was common: simply overcome the protection. In this case, that probably meant forcing his way past the wind. There was a very good chance he could manage that here as long as he tried in a ley line. While the defense was ley line powered, Serenity was far higher Tier than the planet. That made a huge difference, and was probably what he’d try if he was ignored and Blaze wasn’t, even inside armor.
Serenity wasn’t going to try any option except for walking through the barrier here, however. This spot wasn’t in a ley line, which meant he was far weaker than normal. His mana was low and didn’t recharge if he used it; worse, he was tired all the time and seemed actually physically weaker, as if his missing mana hurt his body as well. That was all too possible; this was the first real time he’d spent outside the higher mana level of Aki’s dungeon since he returned to Earth.
“Because of course you can.” Blaze sounded amused. “Let’s see if you can before you start planning that armor.”
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“Too late,” Serenity admitted. He’d been planning it for at least that past hour, with Aide’s help. “I haven’t tried to make it yet, though.”
Blaze grinned, shook his head, and waved Serenity forward. “I should have known. Go ahead.”
Serenity shrugged. He felt like he was missing something obvious, but that wasn’t really that unusual. He stepped forward; the first step was fine, as were the next three, but on the fifth he started feeling some wind around himself. Another few steps proved that it wasn’t random wind; it quickly increased to a steady wind fron directly in front of him, trying to push him away from the building in the distance. The winds weren’t ignoring him as he’d more than half expected. Strange.
There was no point in continuing; he wasn’t going to try to push through here, especially not with Blaze. Serenity turned around and headed back towards Blaze only to find that his friend was seated near where he’d started, laughing his ass off. “What’s so funny?”
Each time Blaze started to wind down, he took another look at Serenity and started laughing again. After the third time, it was really obvious that Blaze was laughing at Serenity.
Serenity had to remind himself that this was a good thing. It meant Blaze was comfortable enough around him to not always be watching his behavior and actions; with as self-contained as Blaze normally was, he’d have to relax a lot to laugh like that. It didn’t make being laughed at any more pleasant, but it did help defuse Serenity’s anger. “It’s not that funny.”
“Hah … yes, it is. Look at yourself…” Blaze was clearly short of breath even before he dissolved into another fit of giggles.
Serenity looked down. All he could see was dust on his clothes, nothing that should be that funny. He ran a hand through his hair and felt something. He was quickly able to pick out three leaves and a twig; the more he ran his fingers through his hair, the more debris he found had been left behind by the wind. That had to be what Blaze was laughing about.
It took a few minutes for Blaze to recover; he didn’t stop occasionally laughing until Serenity gave up and pulled a comb out of his Rift and fixed his hair. Without a mirror, it wasn’t exactly styled, but it was at least enough to get the twigs out and get Blaze to stop laughing.
He didn’t even usually notice the fact that his Rift actually cost mana; it was lower than his normal regeneration. With his mana not regenerating, Serenity definitely noticed it. He also noticed the fact that his lowered mana made him feel even weaker, almost ill. He dismissed the Rift as quickly as he could.
It turned out that there was a leaf actually impaled on one of Serenity’s horns. He didn’t understand how that managed to get there, even with the high wind, but there it was. When he found it, he finally understood Blaze’s continued smirks, even if he didn’t quite understand why Blaze refused to mention it.
Serenity almost collapsed with relief when they finally made it to the ley line. It was a long walk to a spot where a ley line crossed the windy barrier. A long, steep walk with several detours. Serenity wished they’d been able to get a better landing spot, but that wasn’t where Lex picked; he’d chosen the spot for helicopter access to the barrier and the building, not a ley line. Getting to the building from the ley line was also going to suck.
It would be better than the walk he’d just had, though.
“Sit there and rest,” Blaze ordered Serenity. All of his humor had vanished more than an hour earlier when he became aware of just how weak Serenity felt. He pointed at a small boulder that was more or less the right height for a seat. “You need to recover.”
“I’m fine now,” Serenity argued. “I’ve just been low on mana. It’s recovering now.” Even in a ley line, it was slower than his normal regeneration, but not that much slower. He’d be fine as long as he gave it time.
“Sit down and let me check you out. I’d have stopped for a rest earlier, but it wouldn’t have helped.” Blaze didn’t do anything but look disapproving, but somehow that was worse than if he’d yelled. There were times that Serenity hated just how good a healer Blaze was and this was one of them; he clearly considered Serenity to be a patient of his and that meant he wasn’t going to let Serenity get away with pushing harder than Blaze felt was reasonable.
Serenity sighed and sat down on the boulder. Sometimes it was faster to just not argue.
Sitting down did feel nice. Serenity hadn’t realized just how tired he was after three hours of difficult walking; he leaned over and fell asleep on the sun-warmed rock.
Serenity woke to find Blaze seated on a nearby rock. A small tent was pitched nearby, probably the one Blaze carried in his pack, and a small campfire burned in front of it. Blaze had clearly worked while Serenity slept.
According to Aide, he’d slept for nearly five hours; the Sun was starting to set, though it wouldn’t actually be down for at least another hour. He felt much, much better than he had before the nap, but that didn’t make him feel any better for the lost time. “Why did you let me sleep so long?”
Blaze shrugged. “You needed it. Now that you’re awake, you can figure out how to bypass the barrier. That’ll take some time, but it’ll be faster if you’re taking care of yourself.” Blaze shook his head. “Why didn’t you mention that mana deprivation was so bad for you? I’ve never seen anyone react to it so quickly or strongly.”
Serenity shrugged. “Not sure what you mean. If I run out of mana, I pass out, but I recover pretty quickly.”
Blaze shook his head. “I should know better than to ask a mercenary why he doesn’t tell his healer everything. You really have no idea what’s going on when you get low on mana, do you?”
What was Blaze talking about?
Blaze laughed softly. “That expression says everything. You really don’t have a clue. I think I see what’s happening; if you run out of mana, your body literally eats itself to make more. Since you use mana in your healing, it gets worse faster and faster. You can spend some time outside on Earth, but limit it to no more than a few hours and make sure you spend longer than that resting in a high-magic area afterwards. You may think you’re fully recovered, but you aren’t.”