Health: 373/650 (784)

As I come to the first thing I notice is that more than my shoulder hurts now, everything hurts. My shoulder feels like it’s on fire, and everywhere else has a blunted pain like I just got hit by a truck. Oh right, it was one better, I got buried by a rock slide. I feel out my limbs to see if anything still works, left arm, still buggered at the shoulder, right arm, working and movable but sore as hell, left leg, can’t move it and it feels pinned but probably not broken, right leg, definitely broken. I can probably heal it, but it’s going to take time. I listen out through the little holes between the rocks where light streams into my little earthen tomb. All I hear is eerie silence and the sound of my own heartbeat. Seems like everyone else got buried in the rock slide, hopefully crushed to death. I concentrate on healing my right leg, a light glow illuminates the chamber as the spell takes effect and I feel everything start to come back together. Problem is I can tell the leg isn't set right, and the spell won't heal it properly unless I realign it, something that is going to be extremely painful. I grit my teeth and reach down with my good arm, thankfully the leg is still free from the rocks. I try to use triage to ascertain how much I need to move it but as it turns out, the skill will only let me determine I have a broken leg, not where it’s broken and how bad…. Great. I shift the leg straight and hiss from the pain. I let go and keep the healing on, the leg putting out a sharp throbbing pain that slowly dulls out as the spell does its work. I keep it up for what feels like an eternity, but was probably only about two minutes. Once I feel the spell shift from direct healing to the general healing I know it’s done and shut it off. Just in time to, because I’ve got almost no mana and the empty feeling that comes with.

Health: 445/650 (784)

Mana: 94/2598 (3248)

I give my now repaired leg a few movements to make sure everything is working, then set about trying to push the rock off my left leg. I can feel it’s loose, but my one arm alone isn't enough to move it. I end up using my one good arm and my newly fixed leg in unison and finally get the rock to roll loose and away. As it rolls off light streams in the newly made hole, just large enough for me to fit through if shimmy my way out. I don’t have the room to turn around so I end up slowly inching my way out feet first until I am outside and have enough room to stand up. I look around, the mountain side looking so different yet almost unchanged. Rocks everywhere still, you wouldn’t even know there was a rock slide if it wasn’t for the thick dust hanging in the air like a mid winter morning fog and the fact I had seen the mountain side before this. Any semblance of a path upwards is gone, a long unsteady traversal over the rocks the only remaining way up. The silence still hangs in the air, I would have thought that the lizard could have taken on a rock slide, but apparently mother nature still wins all engagements, even in this world. Still I have to wonder why I can’t hear the fish lady either. She can fly, so she should have been able to avoid all the rocks by taking to the air. I’m a little surprised I didn’t have her drop on my head while I was crawling out from under the rocks now that I think about it.

Well, I don’t see any problem with this. The dust, while irritating to my eyes and lungs, creates great cover against anyone else coming, and I know they called reinforcements. With the current group out of the way I should be able to make my way out the mountain, even with the sorry state of my arm. My left arm is still bleeding a bit and I can’t move it. I only healed it a bit before that whole fiasco happened. I’m reluctant to do a patch job heal because I know from experience regeneration is long and expensive. Since it’s just painful and not life threatening I’ll leave it as is until I get enough mana back to fix it up properly.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I turn uphill and sigh, it has been a long day, and as much as I want to just plop down and give up I have to use my current advantages before they disappear. I start making my way up the rocks once more, careful not to bump my bad arm as it dangles limply at my side. I’m slowly making progress for a bit until a sound behind me gives me pause. It sounds like someone yelling.

“Draaazen! Drazen can you hear me!? Say something!”

Well, I guess the fish lady survived after all, and she’s just too busy looking for her boyfriend to bother with me. Not that I’m going to complain, I keep my pace steady and continue up the mountain. This continues for a few more minutes until a loud bang, followed by the sound of rocks crashing to the ground coupled with an enraged scream cuts through the silence in the air.

“RAHHHHHH! I’m going to kill that fucking monster!”

And fuck me lizard man isn’t dead yet. Of course he isn't, it wouldn't be that easy. I pick up my pace, dangling arm be damned. Slowly but surely I make my way further up the mountain, the sound of the cursing lizard getting more distant until I can’t make out words anymore, only incoherent screaming. Eventually the dust starts to thin out, and after an hour of climbing it’s clear enough for me to see most of the wider world around the mountain again. The airship is overhead, having somehow silently glided its way over while my sight was obscured. Thankfully, it currently is turned away from me, and I don’t see any landings or windows on its stern which could be used to spot me from, only its massive engines. Idiots turned away from where I was headed. Probably think I either died in the rock slide or turned back because of injury, jokes on them, I’m still climbing. Strangely, Drazin's screams haven't been getting any closer, still loud as hell, but far off. I guess he took some damage from the slide too, but unlike me he can’t heal it straight away.

I turn back round and look up the mountain, only a few hundred more feet and I’m over the top. My mana is about half full now too, it might be enough to fully heal my shoulder, or at least get very close. I take a seat on a decent looking rock, then focus on filling the missing flesh on my shoulder. I only get about a minute of healing with my current reserves, but it’s enough to make a considerable bit of progress. I can’t move the arm yet, but I can actually feel it again, and the pain radiating from the rest of the arm is counteracting the lessening of pain from the partially repaired shoulder. One more good run of healing ought to finish it, I should have waited for full mana instead of risking it becoming a closed wound so to speak, one that the healing spell won’t affect any longer. Still I haven’t really sealed it off so to speak, only left it half way fixed instead of fully broken. I’ll have to keep an eye on it and see where this goes, I don’t want to have to use regeneration to fix it because it will take a lot more mana and time. But I guess the good news is the worst case scenario is me still keeping my arm.

I stand back up and continue my trek, slowly but surely I approach the top. Finally I make it to my goal, standing on the top of the mountain, albeit the lowest point of the top. It’s still a small achievement with the crazy that took place below, and it looks like those crazy bastards finally lost track of me as the cherry on top. All around me I can see the world, on the other side of the mountain is a valley, ranging in width between five and seven miles wide and covered with forest much like the one I just came from. The valley stretches as far as my eyes can see off to the left and the right, straight across is another mountain, this one’s lowest point twice as tall as the highest peak of my current climb, probably close to two and a half miles. Behind me is forest as far as the eye can see, the town I came from sitting smack in the middle and sticking out from the rest of the surroundings like a sore thumb.

I take a deep breath and exhale, then set my sights upon my next objective. Now that I’ve gone up I need to make it back down the other side. This side looks more treacherous, with a couple of sheer cliffs and much steeper slopes than its counterpart. At least getting down is a hell of a lot easier than getting up.