Felix breached the surface and.... immediately fell to the ground, clawing at his eyes in pain and agony.
"AAAAAAGH MY EYES IT'S SO BRIGHT, IT BURNS!!!!" he screamed. The earth mage escort smacked his own head, and restrained Felix to prevent him from hurting himself. He pulled a dark strip of cloth out of his pocket and wrapped it tightly around his eyes. He then cast a simple darkness spell known as Dark Pall over Felix's eyes. Both of these combined was enough to make existing in the light manageable for Felix again, if barely, and he still needed to keep his eyelids shut.
"First time, kid?" He asked, looking at Felix with pity.
Felix didn't respond, on account of being too busy sobbing on the ground.
"Sorry about that kid. To tell you the truth, that's kind of a rite of passage every earth mage goes through. You need to learn spells to mitigate the light sensitivity issue following prolonged periods under the earth, where it's really dark." The earth mage said, continuing to look at Felix like he was a pitiful dog.
Felix didn't respond. He was too busy micro-managing how open his eyes were in order to slowly wean them off of the darkness and hopefully make them a little bit more adjusted.
"I'll give you 5 minutes, and then we gotta head back." The earth mage said gruffly.
Felix treated those 5 minutes like they were made of the most precious platinum and diamonds, but ultimately there wasn't much he could do to speed along the recovery process. So, after his time was up, the earth mage helped him to his feet, and slowly walked poor Felix back to the nearby fort. The doormen let them in, and it was a little bit better inside of the fort, since it had a ceiling, but it just brought down the pressure enough on Felix's eyes so that it was no longer actively painful when he had his eyes closed, under the blindfold, and with the Dark Pall spell active further blocking out light.
"Come on kid, quit exaggerating. I know it's rough but it can't be THAT bad." The earth mage said, in a tone which suggested he thought Felix was being theatrical.
"I-I'm sorry, my eyes must just be really sensitive." Felix said, rather confused himself. The earth mage sighed and dropped the issue, and led him to the in-fort hospital. Eventually, they made it to reception.
"Hey Chastity. Intel unit wants this guy on hold. He's from environmental engineering team, and he's got severe malnutrition and he was underground for a long time, so he has severe light sensitivity too. Need him fixed up." the earth mage said, presumably to the nurse or receptionist.
"Couldn't have at least washed him first? He looks like a particularly sorry dirt patch." a new voice said.
"Sorry, I don't know water spells! Anyway, he's your issue now, have fun!" The earth mage said, and Felix vaguely sensed him leave. The nurse in front of him sighed.
"Come with me." she said, as she grabbed Felix's hand firmly. After a while of walking, Felix felt the texture of the floor change into hard tile.
"Strip." The nurse told him. Felix glumly stripped off his clothes, which at this point were covered in so much dirt and clay that it felt like they could be used for planting. He was then walked over to a different room. He heard the sound of water, and the nurse placed his hands on the side of a tub.
"Get in there yourself. The sooner you scrub yourself clean, the sooner you can eat." the nurse said. Felix was thus reminded of his stomach, which his eyes had distracted him from. He had hit the point of being "starving" a week ago already. Frankly, he was half considering whether the tub was edible at this point. Therefore, he quickly got in the tub, dunked himself to make sure he was fully wet, and began scrubbing himself with a piece of cloth the nurse handed him very vigorously. She handed him some soap, and he cleaned himself with it so quickly and aggressively, you would think that the dirt on him was actually fire, which could only be removed by soap. With his strenuous efforts, he was clean in about ten minutes.
"That'll do. Be very careful getting out of the tub, you can't see, and you don't want to be starving, lightburned, AND have a broken leg, now do you?" The nurse warned him. Felix thus got out of the tub slowly. He was handed some basic hempen clothes, and the nurse grabbed his hand, and led him to a room, with a bed, and she instructed him to lay in it. He did so, drooling.
A moment later, he could smell food. The nurse brought him a tray with meat and rice, and Felix wolfed it down with gusto. "This is the best food I've ever eaten." Felix sobbed between mouthfuls. It wasn't even seasoned, but he was so hungry that it basically tasted like the cook was the god-king of gourmet, blessed by the angels with a holy skillet.
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"Please some more, I'm begging you!" Felix cried out. His bowl was taken away, and a minute or so later, was brought back. Felix swiftly devoured that bowl as well. "More!" he cried.
"Now now, any more than that and you'll upset your stomach. You lay right there and give yourself some time to work with what you've already eaten." The nurse chided him.
"I don't know nurse Chastity, it's pretty great seeing someone enjoy my cooking so much." a familiar voice said proudly. Felix racked his brain for a second.
"Alexander?" He asked, surprised.
"That's me." Came the reply. "What happened to you Felix? You're all skin and bones, and when you came in here, I thought you were an overgrown potato with how you looked! If we stuck you next to a beggar you would have made them look like they belonged to the Royal House!" Alexander said, laughing.
"It's a long story." Felix said simply.
"One which I would quite like to hear." Came a new, third voice. "Nurse, now that he's been cleaned and polished and fed, do you suppose he's well enough just for me to speak to him?" the voice asked.
"If that's all you're going to do then all right. But don't take all day, I need to treat him for light sensitivity, and he needs bedrest to recover from not having eaten in about a week and a half." the nurse said. A few seconds passed, and Felix heard the door close, after some feet shuffling. "So." The new voice said. "Felix, right? Environmental engineering team?" he asked.
"Well, that depends, who's asking?" Felix asked. The voice chuckled in response.
"Good call, I hadn't identified myself. My name is Lecter, I'm with the Intel Unit. I'm going to need you to tell me what happened, because last we saw you, it looked like you had tried to desert." Lecter told him coldly.
Felix shook his head in response. "No, Sir. While I was out on the flank doing my assigned job working on the trenches, I thought I got attacked. I saw a bunch of rogue demons appear between myself and the fort, and so I ran away, shooting spells at them all the while as I ran. Eventually I figured out they were just an illusion made by a light mage, but... by then I was already too far away from the defenses for anyone to help me, Sir." Felix explained.
"A light mage demon lured you out and you survived? How?" Lecter asked him.
"Well, Sir, he was toying with me for a while. He spent a long time laughing at me and playing the fool. I didn't know a lot of spells, so I couldn't hurt him at all. Eventually, though, I had the idea to use Mold Earth and Pitfall together at the same time, spamming them as much as I could, to burrow through the earth quickly. It was my only out at the time, Sir. But he was was an earth and light mage, so he was able to follow me underground." Felix recounted.
"You escaped a demon earth mage underground with only Mold Earth and Pitfall? That's even more unbelievable, son." Lecter said in a disbelieving tone.
"I know, but, I got lucky. There was a massive chasm a couple of miles down, apparently. The demon mage forced me to either drop in the chasm, or take an earth spike to the chest, Sir. I picked to jump down into the chasm." Felix responded.
"And you survived a fall into a chasm so deep the demon earth mage didn't bother chasing you into it?" Lecter asked him incredulously.
"Well, sir, at the bottom was a river. It was just the right depth that I didn't get hurt, and I was able to spring off the riverbed, Sir." Felix said, trying to remain deferential.
"Go on." Lecter told him.
"Well, not much else to say sir. I managed to find a ledge which helped me to get out of the river, and then I slowly dug my way back to the surface using Mold Earth, Sir." Felix said.
"Am I really supposed to believe you were that lucky, kid?" Lecter asked him exasperatedly.
"I-I don't know what else to tell you, Sir. That's what happened." Felix said, stammering. He heard a cold laugh in return.
"Well, I don't believe you Felix. So I'm afraid I'm gonna have to soul search you. Direct orders from my boss." Lecter said coldly. Felix suddenly felt his arms and legs bound to the bed, and he felt Lecter's hand being placed on his chest, followed by a tingly feeling. He recalled what Arboro told him, and he focused all of his thoughts on his fight with the demon mage, the river below the earth, and the more than week of digging he had to do. He didn't dare to resist, and after a few moments, the tingling feeling disappeared.
"Huh. Guess you were telling the truth. You're one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?" Lecter told him. Felix nodded in response.
"One more thing... Erm... be honest with me on this one... do you like crossdressing? Fancy yourself a lady sometimes, lad?" Lecter asked him in a strange tone.
"P-pardon me?" Felix asked, completely bewildered by the sudden change in the conversation.
"Well, it's just that... you're a guy, right? Your soul is really weird. Your Yang spirit looks like a beaten up dog, while your Yin spirit is the most powerful and majestic Yin spirit I've ever seen in my whole life. I've never seen someone with a lesser spirit more powerful than their primary spirit. If you were a girl, I'd ask you to marry me based on your Yin spirit alone." Lecter continued, using the same strange tone.
Felix gaped his mouth openly, quite unsure how to respond. Eventually, he stammered out that no, he was quite certain of being male, and he had no hobbies like crossdressing. He heard Lecter leave, and Felix turned his attention to his spell space... where he found Arboro rolling on the floor in laughter.
"Arboro what the hell!" Felix said angrily. Arboro continued laughing for a bit, tears in her eyes, and eventually she addressed him.
"What? It got him off your case didn't it? He was so weirded out by your soul that he stopped investigating you." she said, still chuckling. Felix realized she was right, and he was too tired to care any more. At least he got through the whole ordeal and he was back with the rest of humanity in good standing.
He went to sleep, extremely tired now that the food was properly being digested.