I stand there for a while, waiting for the system to work its magic. Emily and Jessica do their best to make me comfortable, but they both do it in their own way. While Jessica talks to fill the silence, Emily pulls a stolen — technically looted — sleeping bag out of her inventory. She unrolls it and places it under my head, then she posts herself by my side, one hand on her bow and the other one grasping my own.
My body is spent and the healing is slowed down significantly, from the natural 10% of total health per minute down to a measly 1%. Though, honestly, it’s a miracle I’m still healing at all.
Carter cauterized the majority of the cuts and gashes, and the system doesn’t touch those. It mends the internal injuries first, then it moves to whatever Carter missed. The pain retreats slowly, so God damned slowly, losing its edge and turning dull.
I have a long line of symbols next to my name, each one representing an active buff or debuff. They’re little glowing circles that hold icons inside, and the color of the circle is a quick way to tell what they do. The cyan ones are buffs, the orange ones are debuffs. I go through them one by one, trying to understand what exactly happened. I should’ve died back there.
The first couple are the buffs Mom cast on all of us. Not much came of them, at least not for me, though the experience boost is nice to have regardless. The next is Flock of Martyrs, one of the buffs from Karen. The Matriarch’s Truce timed out at some point while I was in that rage state, which is a good thing. If it was still on, Carter couldn’t have saved me from bleeding out.
Flock of Martyrs times out just as I stare at the symbol. A lump forms in my throat. Poor Karen. Poor James.
I try not to think about it. Not now, not yet. I move on down the line of symbols to keep my mind busy. The next buff is also from Karen, and it’s one I don’t recognize. She didn’t bring this one up during our discussion, but as I focus on it and read the details, I figure out why.
Status Effect: Final Embrace.
Description: The Matriarch has fallen. Her Final Embrace fills you with power.
Effects: Upon the death of the Matriarch, a single target will gain the following benefits: +50% to all base attributes. Immunity to external mental effects and influences. Immunity to the unconscious debuff.
Duration: 15 minutes (8 minutes, 17 seconds left).
She didn’t bring it up because she didn’t expect to die. But she did, and somehow, she still had the presence of mind to cast that on me. It’s why I didn’t pass out at any point, and it contributed greatly to keeping me alive.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, and try to swallow the lump in my throat that threatens to block my airways. Only three more symbols are left to examine. One is another healing boost from Luna licking my wounds, Jessica did say the giant puppy’s saliva has that effect. I’m not sure it’s doing anything right now, but it’s the thought that counts.
The last two are debuffs.
Status Effect: Exhausted.
Description: Whether through buffs, boosters, or other sources of enhancement, you pushed your body past its natural limits. But you overextended yourself, and now you need to rest.
Effects: -80% to all attributes. You may not benefit from attribute altering effects while under this debuff.
Duration: 1 hour (55 minutes, 6 seconds left).
Status Effect: Healing Fatigue.
Description: You have healed a great amount in a short period of time. Your body is drained and requires sustenance.
Effects: natural healing rate is reduced to 1% of total health per minute.
Duration: N/A (seek sustenance to clear this effect).
Those are nasty, and I’m lucky they didn’t kick in mid-fight. I go through the notification history folder as well, excluding all of the kill notifications. I find more instances of buffs, most of them from Derek. He kept Iron Skin active on me pretty much throughout and I didn’t even notice. There’s one more notification in the mix that I didn’t catch during the battle, and it’s a strange one.
Emilia Faust - Level 18 Arrow Conductor has cast Song of Regrowth.
I focus on it, but since it’s already gone, the system doesn’t provide additional details. Still, I figure it’s yet another healing booster of some sort. I’m reminded once again how little I actually know about my new companion. I thought she was an archer of some sort at first, but she has song type skills? Isn’t that a bard thing?
But then again, her class isn’t called archer. It’s called Arrow Conductor, and the meaning hits me. I at first assumed it had to do with how she controls the arrows in flight, and that’s part of it for sure. But there’s more to it, she conducts her arrows like an orchestra. I couldn’t hear any music back there, but then again, I couldn’t hear period.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I decide it’s not worth pursuing right now. There’s only one more worthwhile notification to check out, so I do that instead.
Local event update: Monster Siege #1.
A wave boss has fallen.
The credit for the kill goes to Jack Harrington.
The minions under the wave boss’s command are in disarray. Wave 2 out of 3 has ended. Prepare for the final wave.
I close out everything I can, clearing the interface of clutter. Emily is still by my side, watching me like a hawk. I stare back at her, still unsure what to make of her appearance. At first I thought elf, but now that I get a better look, I’m thinking druid. Or, at the very least, something nature or fauna themed.
Her ears are the same, with their elongated, crooked tips, but the antler nubs seem ever so slightly longer than a few days ago. Her shoulder length hair also shows some changes, going pure white at the roots near her scalp.
She finally notices what I’m staring at, so she pulls the tracksuit jacket off and replaces it with another one that still has its hood. I idly wonder how many more she has left as she pulls the hood over her head.
Jessica moves away at some point, going through the monster corpses. She digs through the piles, searching for something.
I know what that is, and I don’t try to stop her. I was thinking about it too, but I don’t know how to handle it. Is there even anything left of Karen to bring back? How will James react to seeing his mother’s body in that state? Still, it’s better than having the teenager out here, doing the digging himself.
“Water,” I say eventually.
Emily complies. She undoes the cap on the bottle Pops left her, lifts my head, and puts the bottle to my lips. I take a long sip and slosh it around in my mouth, but all I can taste is blood and skunk breath.
I still drink the whole thing.
Some hundred feet away, Jessica finds what she’s looking for. To our surprise and revulsion, the system lets her take what’s left of Karen’s body into her inventory. She tries to joke about it, saying how it’s a good thing. How she doesn’t have a body bag and James would freak out if he received his mother’s remains in a plastic hand bag.
Emily makes a face at the jokes, but I squeeze her hand and shake my head.
“Jessica doesn’t mean what she’s saying, don’t think less of her for it,” I whisper. “She’s still in shock. Let her cope how she can.”
I can tell that Emily doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t have to. She just has to drop it.
Jessica returns by our side and goes to pet Luna, still droning on. Her words don’t make any sense, and her speech unwinds ever so slowly into sobs. She starts to cry and buries her face in the puppy’s thick fur.
Emily and I share a look, but neither one says anything. We just stand there and let Jessica cry her heart out.
----------------------------------------
Jessica stops on her own after a few minutes. It’s not enough, I can tell, but she bottles what remains of her shock for later. She’ll work through it when it’s all done, we all will. We’ll all unpack the trauma, we’ll cry behind closed doors where no one will see us, but for now, we have to keep the masks on.
We have to be brave and strong because no one else will do it for us.
I hate how I have to move back to business, but it’s necessary. We talk a bit about system mechanics, though it’s mostly me doing the talking. The main issue right now is that, while I’m healing, it’s nowhere near as good as before. Not just in terms of speed, but in terms of quality as well. Bones don’t mend right and feel brittle. What little blood still seeps out of me is too viscous and dark. Patches of skin regrow to cover wounds, but the muscles beneath don’t fill out properly.
It’s that stupid Healing Fatigue debuff, though that’s only half true. The system enhances my body, but said body can’t spawn new matter out of nothing. It needs to work with what it has, paying for the healing with calories. Problem is that I’m tapped dry.
Emily feeds me the can that Pops left us, which turns out to be beef chili. Jessica happens to have some more water on her, so she gives me that as well. It works, but it’s not enough.
“What about the monsters?” Jessica proposes. “Carter’s flames cooked some of them pretty thoroughly, they might be good to eat.”
Emily doesn’t like the idea if her disgusted expression is anything to go by, but I figure it’s worth a shot. Jessica goes off to search, finds one of the boar monsters, and she pulls out a knife to cut into it. She carves a few chunks of meat she deems cooked enough and tries a bite herself.
“It’s good!” She yells.
She doesn’t suffer any ill effects, so she brings me a few generous pounds of boar meat. I try a bite, and she’s right. Even though the meat hasn’t been cooked properly, it tastes like bliss. Gamey, a bit chewy, but sweet and savory. And, most importantly, filling. I gorge myself while Jessica goes to get more for herself and Emily.
Even eating is different under the system. My stomach shouldn’t be able to hold this much food, but it’s like the stuff just vanishes as soon as it’s down my throat. I absently note how that’s bad news. We’ve needed to eat more and more this past week to keep up, burning through the supplies we got from the store owners. Us fighters, few as we are, have been consistently out-eating the much bigger pool of non combatants.
Good thing, then, that the world is full of oversized monsters for us to hunt. Funny how that works itself out.
I don’t comment on it, keeping that little observation to myself for now. Just another thing to circle back to later. Jessica and Emily eat as well, and soon enough, my Healing Fatigue goes away. My natural healing rate shoots back up to 10% and then some, as I gain the additional 5% from being covered in Luna’s drool.
It’s like the puppy can sense whenever the buff is about to run out, and she licks me again to reapply it. I laugh and scratch her behind the ears, but the sound feels so foreign coming out of my mouth that I’m taken aback. The mask nearly slips off, and I’m tempted to let it.
But I don’t. This isn’t the time or the place. It needs to happen and it needs to happen soon, but not yet. Not here and now.
We wait a few more minutes for my health to top up, which takes longer than expected. While the Healing Fatigue is gone, I still have the Exhausted debuff. That lowers all of my attributes by a significant amount, and the healing seems to work based off of my current constitution, not my base. It’s a small detail, but one that makes a world of difference. It means that anything that affects my constitution also affects my healing, not just things like healing boosters.
Yet another thing to delve deeper into later.
We wait a few more minutes, just to be safe, and then we get moving. Emily and Jessica help me to my feet despite my insistence that I’m good, and it smacks me how readily they can see right through me.
I’m not good. My body is healed, sure, but my mind…that’s not okay. And it won’t be, not for a long time to come. None of us will be. Still, I tell myself that there’s nothing I can do about it. That my energy is better spent on immediate survival right now. And so we walk back to the safe zone, side by side, with pangs of phantom pain coursing through my now healed body.