Galen Vesa

*Khareen.*

Erta mocked me, parroting the sounds my lips made.

*What a fast, slithering tongue you have there, human. *

*Khareen… *

She looped her tongue around the name adding smooching sounds to it and burst out into laughter. Well, at least her mood improved. I on my part focused on following those mercenaries.

Turning round and round we climbed the spiral stairway of red brick and sandstone steps. Here and there, signs of a recent fight were embedded into the wall or the steps. At some point we had to vault over a corpse fused with the stairs. I’m still wondering whether I want to know what did that to a grown man.

“Try that again and you’ll be scratching your butt with a stump!”

Dosie hissed behind me, her claws tightly locked around the wrist of the man that followed her.

“Joreb, better listen to her,”

Leon, the walking mountain of meat and iron stopped and turned towards us.

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to break your arms and legs, then leave you for the undead. It’s neither place nor time for fooling around.”

His words brought such deep silence that I could hear the crackling of our torch. The rest of the stairs we traveled without as much as a word and without any further incidents.

Somewhere between the surface and first sublevel, a suspicious tingle started spreading from my chest towards my extremities. Somehow, I knew the source of this sensation.

Erta, your magic. What are you doing?

*You can feel it? *

Yes, it is quite unpleasant. Bordering on painful. Please stop it.

*So, only that much, a? What a useless human. *

Why, thank you. I try my best. What’s going on?

*The good news is, we can use magic. Self-enchants are fine. Since the beginning of our climb, I have been casting charms upon your body without you noticing. I had to stop when the one behind you began to take notice. *

Now that she mentioned it, my body felt kind of lighter.

*Also I believe you should be fine with using artifacts as they draw most of the mana out of the air. *

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

*The bad news is your inability to project mana outside of your body. Since you are a traveler coming from a world where using mana became forgotten, you have no prior experience in dealing with mana flow. Your body treats it as something unnatural and the most basic response to that is pain. *

Wait for I second. You mean that I can trip over my own feet, fall on a stone, smash out all my teeth and I won’t feel a thing but when I try to cast the smallest of spells I may die of pain?

*If you allow me the use of your own words, yes, you have issues. *

Groovy. Or whatever. Logic say’s it’s bad. Can we do anything about it?

*Practice. *

“You! What are you doing?”

Suddenly I had a dagger pressed against my throat while a brutal hand pulled my head away by my hairs. I found the feline eyes staring at me and replied.

“Nothing. I am not doing anything. My mana is unstable, and I have countless spells put upon my body to contain it. Whatever it is you can feel, I am not doing it or to be more precise, I have no control over it.”

A wise man said the sum of half-truths makes a whole lie. Unless it comes from my lips. Then it doesn’t really matter. I could probably bypass any lie detector. My body just didn’t work the way those machines expected it to work. Some doctors considered it a medical marvel that my body worked at all.

Whether I convinced her or not, I could not tell. Reading ferru feelings and expressions, went onto a long list of natural, social skills I lacked.

After a long and meaningful sniff at my neck, she removed the dagger and pushed me forward.

On the ground floor, we picked up two more people, apparently guarding the barricaded entrance.

“Where’s Carl?”

Leon seemed troubled.

“Up top, keeping an eye on the roof. Come, you need to see this.”

A man in an armor resembling that of a samurai, ushered us onto another staircase. We continued up, climbing the tower that sat atop the dungeon I was kept in, bolting behind us every door we passed.

*Something’s not right.*

Nothing’s been right ever since I was a kid. Could you be a little bit more specific?

*You remember the eerie vibe you got as we crossed the bridge? It got worse. Abruptly. Whatever is keeping this place in check, started failing. We better hurry…*

“Leon, this place is… dying.”

Dosie hugged herself, her ears were plastered against her head and her arms kept shaking.

“No shit? A dying city full of undead?”

Joreb spat out some phlegm then took a long gulp from a silver flask. From what it smelled like, he could’ve been drinking turpentine. Nasty stuff. Leaves your mouth dry.

*Why do you even know how turpentine taste like?*

Don’t ask and I won’t tell. By the way, it’s a poison.

*Galen, what did I say about your sense of humor? *

That I lack one? Or something along those lines.

“Leon? About time! You must see this! Come, look!”

As we reached the top floor, Carl, the last member of this merry company called upon their leader.

The room we entered stretched well over the circumference of the staircase we climbed and could comfortably hold a moderately sized squad. The walls were bare, riddled with those fancy, thin windows you can find on old European fortress. Leon walked over to one and gazed beyond.

As he did not move, nor spoke for a moment, we all gravitated towards one or the other window.

“Is that, natural?”

I spoke out loud and earned myself several stares Erta classified as unfavorable.

“I mean, as much as the undead are concerned, do they do that or…”

“No.”

Leon unbuckled his shield and dropped his mace then sat underneath the wall.

“Well, this complicates things. You checked the other side?”

The man I identified as Yerga went from window to window.

“It’s all the same everywhere. Started right about when we got into the tower.”

All around us. Everywhere my enchanted eyes could see, dead ones stood and faced in the same direction.