The illusory versions of the celebrated Enochian Enclave members were kneeling with their backs facing our way. I’m not sure if everyone perceived the illusion from the same angle, or if it was a three dimensional one with relative positioning. Basically I don’t know who I’m looking for exactly, but thankfully the city appears to be guiding us towards the town’s outskirts, where it’s less populated, and we might find an empty home to set up camp. Leaving the hustle and bustle of the deeper city proper has the added benefit of suddenly reminding me I have extremely loud, painful tinnitus. Well, the reminder isn’t the benefit. The quiet is the benefit. Thankfully the quieter the area around me, the less my tinnitus acts up.
This looks like an empty dwelling at just off of ground level, with only a slight ramp to enter it. The four of us file in as Teuila parks the nearly-empty carriage outside. The inside is extremely cozy. It's warm and comforting in a familiar way. The ramp is a nice touch too. That’ll be nice for Percival, so he doesn’t need to wait for us to lift him up steps or anything. I wonder if there’s a way to secure a home, to sort of claim it in a way that affords privacy, and perhaps protection of people or belongings. As if in answer to my thoughts, a bark door materializes in the entryway to our temporary home.
Teuila whistles before exclaiming, “Fancy!”
Dawn plays along with Teuila’s wonder, “Got that right Boss.”
Approaching the bark door, it removes itself for me as I near it. I’m a bit stunned honestly. Persistent, responsive enchantments? Yet the forest isn’t awash in overpowering aura glows of various spell schools or anything. Is there a difference between things that are naturally, inherently magical, and magic that is used or conjured? I scratch my head momentarily as I’m lost in thought, standing in our doorway.
Dawn teases, “Hey Rej, y’make a better door than a window pal, and you’re even a bad one of those. You’re letting the warm air out.”
A smile plays across the left half of my face as I loose a wry chuckle. I roll my eyes and shake my head towards Dawn while laughing. She’s not exactly wrong though. I move out of our doorway, and the door re-materializes.
Teuila asks, “Percy, do you want to, or need to sleep in the bed? No? Okay, cool. Dawny, great news, bed’s big enough for the three of us!”
Dawn blushes and scratches the back of her head while avoiding eye contact. She mutters with mild sarcasm, “Yeah, yay, great news. Sure.”
Oof. Teuila looks put out, hurt even. I cross the room to embrace her quickly. I begin to flash Dawn a mildly upset look when I realize Dawn is hugging herself shyly, and trembling.
I query, “Dawn? What’s wrong?”
Dawn mutters, “’s’nothin’, dun worry ‘bout it. Sleepover party, s’fine. Good even.”
I exchange a worried glance with Teuila. My-Wings nods, so I free her from my hug to approach Dawn. I give Dawn plenty of space, but make my presence known while she avoids looking at either of us.
I ask again, “Dawn. Seriously. We’re you’re friends. What’s wrong?”
Dawn gulps and frowns as she tries to spell it out, “Rej, I. I just realized. Boss and you, you’re so tight, total lovebirds. And, and, and. Shid Rej. I’ve been hogging her for over a week. I’m sorry Boss. I’m sorry Rej. It didn’t really hit me til just now when Boss talked about all three of us. Musta been eating you two up with me coming between you like that. Firsts and thirds I’ve been a jackanapes.”
I frown as I ask, “Dawn, would you prefer I hug you or smack you right now?”
Dawn’s response is pure confusion, “The hell Rej, what?”
I let myself smile and drop a single breathy chortle as Dawn finally meets my gaze. I ask again, “Dawn. You get that we care about you, tremendously, right? We all know that, that this whole situation is extremely unique. Extenuating circumstances. So, no need to beat yourself up over things. Okay? Now, do you want a hug or a smack to drive the point home?”
Dawn blushes, despite her curse stopping her vital functions. She meets my gaze as a smile creeps across her face, “Well shid Rej. I know Boss is stronger than you, but I’ve seen you standing on a dragon’s head that you cut off. No way in hell I want a hit from either one of you. A hug it is pal.”
We both laugh for a moment at the absurdity of our strengths and encounters. I stand firmly with my arms outstretched, allowing Dawn to enter my hug at her own leisure, to remain in it at whatever length she’s comfortable with. We stand in an embrace that seems too long for someone as uncomfortable with physical contact as Dawn, when I realize she’s got a death grip on me. Her senses have fled her again. She’s got the density sense, and probably the internal proprioception of her muscles meeting resistance as she squeezes me. Anyone else, I’d be stroking their back and attempting to coo comforting noises. Dawn couldn’t feel or hear either, and doesn’t desire either one when her senses are available.
Dawn coughs as she releases her death grip on my torso, and she takes several steps back. I cock my head to the right at a curious angle as I try to meet Dawn’s gaze with a single raised eyebrow. She avoids my gaze momentarily, but when she relents, she fearfully nods. The sadness and pain etched deep into the expression upon her face are a torment to even bear witness to. The agony that Dawn must be going through as her curse nears its end is almost unimaginable.
Teuila hops over and hugs Dawn, stating, “Hey Dawny, Air is right. We l-, we care about you. We’re your friends. You can tell us when you’re sad or hurt or uncomfortable. That’s the only way real friendships stay strong and last long. You talk things out, or through. Sorry if I, um, like, any boundaries or borders or anything. You’d tell me, right?”
Dawn half chuckles while wearing a sad smile as she answers, “Y-yeah, yeah I’d tell you Boss. It’s all good. I can’t imagine you, you, um, crossing lines. You too Rej. You’ve been nothing but great pal, especially since that night. I, I’m really glad I got to meet you two before this curse took me out.”
The fatalism in Dawn’s closing statement hits me like a ton of bricks. An icy dagger edges its way into my heart, then explodes into hellish fragments of frost that seek to encase and grip my beating life-blood. Dawn’s sure I’m going to fail her. Teuila feels like we haven’t had any true, solid leads. My own self doubt worms its way around my subconscious, gnawing its way in to every other thought, intruding where it isn’t wanted. I, I can’t fail her. That can’t be how our friendship ends. It just can’t.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I gulp back a sob I didn’t realize I’d been fighting as I state, “I’m, I’m going to go find that Jar person. The path the city provided says the destination is relatively close. I’m. I. I don’t want the curse to take you out Dawn. I’m going to ask them anything and everything that I can. You coming along might help if they have any knowledge that might apply after seeing your curse situation. You don’t have to though. Same to you Te. You could stay, maybe even study some books of your own. I was glancing through the books we got, and there’s a couple I think you should have.”
Teuila raises an eyebrow as she queries, “How so Air?”
I flash a smile her way before explaining, “I noticed that they’re enchanted, like the language comprehension book. And, now that I can understand the runes of the enchantment, I know sort of what they do.”
I attempt to summarize my findings, “They’d act a bit like the danger wraps, guiding your muscles or cluing your vision in to striking weak points in your target, things like that. Two of them basically enhance a fighting style that specializes in a single weapon. Another one gives you an almost supernatural ability to redirect missiles back towards their senders. Like, catching slings and arrows and stuff. Not, you know, high explosive self-propelled rockets. Though, knowing you, you could probably do that too.”
Teuila snorts in laughter at my final statement. She then makes grabby-hands motions, indicating I should hand over the enchanted manuals. I hand over Cabra's Articles, an ancient compendium bound in stained glass plates similar to the spellbook, only without the handprint lock. I have to warn Teuila though, the enchantment basically temporarily depowers all other magic on the reader while the book is open and near.
Fishing around in the hyperdimensional haversack, I also dig out Ziri’s Manuscripts, another tome bound in stained glass, though its pages are linen, and the ink is a very suspicious reddish brown. I’m almost certain it’s written in blood. That could be any scribe’s idea of a joke though, using chicken-blood in an inkwell or something. I hand this one to Teuila as well, and she stacks the tomes together to hug them to her chest.
Another one that I fish out, I can see the enchantment on it, but haven’t been able to open it. It’s only bound in leather, but the buckle seems to be magically sealed. Neither the unlocking spell nor the floating magical hand were able to open it either. Something on its cover indicates something along the lines of earth, soil, or stone. Maybe crust. Ground perhaps? Ugh, it’s like having machine translation sitting in front of my eyeballs giving me random guesses as to which particular meaning a rune has in a given context.
Teuila asks, “So how do they work? Also don’t be mean, I know how to read books, obviously. Airhead.”
I bite my lips as I struggle to fight back a smile and laughter. I was totally going to tease Teuila snarkily about how book reading works. I cough through a snorted laugh as I struggle to respond, “Koff, ahem, yes, well, that’s pretty much all there is to it. You have to sort of read and digest basically all the words on all the pages, even if they’re in gibberish orders. As you do, you might be able to feel runes trying to work their way into your mind or muscles.”
I pause a moment to gaze up-leftwards in thought before surmising, “I’m not quite sure if it’ll be different for physical enchantments like the ones in those books. It might be a physical magical enhancement. Or it could be all mental, like the book teaching you a martial art magically.”
Teuila sends my mind into a massive blue screen of death, “When I’m finished, I’ll show you what I’ve learned. I’ll be all, ‘There is no spoon. I know kung fu.’”
I blink rapidly at Teuila as she simply grins madly at me while hugging the tomes. She’s excited for a new experience. But, but she just made a direct reference to Fakeworld, Earth media, pop culture. She’s never, I mean, I’m pretty sure never, so-directly implied in any way she might have Fakeworld memories. If anything, she’d actively deny it and question my wellbeing.
Before I can form an appropriate question, Teuila quietly shouts, “Let’s get a move-on punks, no time to dillydally. Except you Percy. Do you want me to carry you along? You’re just going to chill here and get to know the home? Okeydokey, sure Purse. Catch you later!”
My jaw hangs slightly slack and my index finger wags in a vaguely pointing manner as Teuila rushes off. Does she even know where the path is? She said her aura sight doesn’t work the same here as it did on Can’Z’aas. Can she see the tiny glow trail? In mere moments, Teuila is back in the doorway, rubbing the back of her head as she avoids eye contact in embarrassment. I bite my lips as I try to stifle a chuckle. I end up snorting and choking on my own saliva for my troubles. Compared to the usual choking though, this time it’s an incredibly weird sensation. That seems to be because the air-purifying neck-chain immediately frees my lungs from any extra sticking moisture.
Te asks from behind a face full of chagrin, “So, Airhead, which way to the Eenookie buddies?”
I snort laughter as I respond, “Pft. Haha. Te. The Enochian Enclave is, haha. It’s over that way. You know what nookie means, that was so bad, hah.”
Teuila blows a raspberry my way as she jokes, “I have no idea what you’re on about Airhead. Nyeh.”
Even Dawn starts to laugh at our antics as she asks, “You two are really made for each other aren’t you? Shid Boss, Rej. Just watching you two be in-love is entertaining.”
Teuila goes bright-red and immediately turns away to hide her face as she mumbles, “Y-yeah. I do. We are. Words. You, you know that, my Airhead. S-sorry I can’t say it all the time.”
Dawn catches on, “Oh, oh hell Boss, sorry. But, uh, it’s all aces whatever you two feel or say about each other. I think. Right Rej?”
My jaw hangs slack as I cock my head at an angle to stare at Dawn. What did she say? Somehow that feels familiar. Aces meaning alright, solid, good, well-done, correct. My familiarity feels like another memory from Fakeworld, Earth. Not attached to any person or location or event, as usual. But it almost feels like it should be attached to events. Like there are events waiting for me to dream them up, where aces is used as a positive turn of phrase, rather than a now-dead friend’s name. Dawn flicks her eyebrows at me, prompting me to respond. Oh, right.
I nod as I return from being lost in thought. I assert in hushed tones, “Of course. It’s okay Teuila. I sort of have an idea that might give us our telepathic bond back too, but it also might literally saw one or both of our hearts or brains in half. So uh, hadn’t really mentioned it yet til I could figure out more.”
Teuila’s excitement rises and falls exceedingly quickly in response to my conjecture about our telepathic bond. I could feel a twist in the mana when I attempted to cast the same version of the same spell on Dippy after casting it on Dawn. That same sort of twist cut into my heart like razorwire when I tethered my energy to Teuila to provide her Valkyrie evolution for days on end dealing with the beaver’s tunnel complex for the first time. I’m almost positive I had internal bleeding by the end of it.
I offer, “I’ll try to flip through the other books after I get this most basic spell down. I’m really hoping it doesn’t take me a day per rune. I.” My words catch in my throat as I glance at Dawn. I’m positive she doesn’t have thirty eight days left for me to finish learning this spell, followed by mastering a soul-oriented spell if one lies within these tomes. She has at most a month, based on the rate of decay of her soul, as long as it stays steady, and doesn’t pick up another burst of speed again.
I’m terribly wary that the curse’s progress will resume accelerating again soon. I’m not sure what caused it to plateau at its current speed, but I’m grateful for the extra time with Dawn, before crisis hour. I inhale a ragged breath, barely holding back a sob as I gulp back saliva while blinking away the beginnings of tears.