Gabe squatted down matching Jean’s eye level. “You’re too weak to be here. Are you from Chang Do?”
Blinking away his confusion, Jean straightened himself a little to give himself a little more space from the strangely close man. “Did you fall from the sky? People aren’t supposed to fall from the sky and be ok.”
“Supposed to!” Gabe exclaimed with a laugh, “I suppose people aren’t supposed to fall from the sky, but supposing that I already did, does make it so, so supposing doesn’t make it so though, so I suppose that I am supposed to because it’s already so.” He paused for dramatic effect for an awkwardly long time before saying, “you think so?”
Gabe continued right as Jean was about to say something else. “So, are you a weak spy?” Gabe breathed in a huge nose full around Jean. “You’ve only got three Essences? You’re a weird one.” Standing, Gabe reached a hand down in front of Jean. “You coming?”
Jean was so caught off guard that he grabbed the man’s hand. “Where to, Boss?”
Smiling, Gabe took the hand pulling Jean up. “Gabe, good to make your acquaintance.” Without a second thought, Gabe grabbed Jean like he was a princess and jumped 20 feet into the air while a pole flew underneath the pair. Gabe landed on it and started to ride it through the trees, then above.
To Jean, this was the most undignified moment of his life. He was getting whiplash because of the back-and-forth motion that Gabe was flying, and worse, it seemed like he was a football tucked into this dude's arms.
The reality of being brought into a magic world was already setting into Jean’s mind, but this situation was outright strange. It would have been better if Jean was thrown, caught, or rolled to whatever destination. The jostling was so extreme that when Jean tried to talk he bit his tongue twice in succession. He had no idea where he was going, or who he was with, but on the bright side, the powerful dude riding his magical-RipStik staff was the perfect distraction from the terror that he experienced only an hour earlier.
Gabe’s speed kept climbing to the point where Jean’s face felt like a flag in the wind, whipping back and forth. Right before Jean was about to pass out, Gabe started to slow down and stopped the ripping motion. Jean tested opening his eyes just as the wind slowed enough to not hurt his face. Gabe only then realized that his passenger was thrashed by the ride, with all of his exposed skin a bright pink color.
“Oh, hey sorry about that kid. Want to trade damage with me?” Gabe asked with a smile.
“What does that mean?” Jean said, worrying he meant that he wanted to trade blows with him.
“I have an ability to exchange damage.” Gabe said, “It’s the closest thing to healing I can do for you, but it should work great for you!”
“Yeah, but I’ve got a few injuries. Are you sure that’s ok?” Jean said knowing, how much pain he was in.
“Of course, no biggy. It’s just normal damage, it won’t do much to me” He said while activating an ability.
They both started to glow while each other's glowing visage slammed into the other. Jean felt instant relief from everything: his shoulder, his left hand, his hunger, his scratches from the fall over the corpses. And with Jean’s relief, he looked to thank Gabe.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Holy fire from on high!” Gabe screamed, “How were you even alive!? How did you get hit with transcendent magic? And what in the world is this?” Lifting his left hand, his skin was gone, revealing a twisted mockery of a hand.
“Wooooowa,” Gabe kept going, “it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok.” Relief started to cover his face as his natural healing fixed all the damage.
“I’m so sorry! I thought you could see how badly I was hurt.” Jean felt awful for causing this guy’s pain.
“No sweat kiddo, my recovery attribute is just about at gold rank, so I’m totally fine! HAHAHA”
“Really though, I’m grateful. I have been in pain and exhausted since the moment I got here yesterday. I feel like I can actually think, now.” Jean said, “By the way, what’s that?”
Jean pointed down towards a large dome of cloud stuffs on the side of the mountain. Jean widened his eyes as he realized that they had gone all the way to the mountains that he saw only the peaks of in the far distance. It had to be at least 70 miles away, which was traveled in five minutes.
“That’s our destination, lad. The City in the Sky.” Gabe replied.
“But it’s not in the sky,” Jean leaked out before realizing that he was still being carried by a strange man who could drop him and kill him at any time. Though that wasn’t seeming very likely.
“That is correct! I’ve been trying to change its name for years, boyo. I’m rallying for either, softy town, or the fluff kingdom. You’ll understand soon enough.” Gabe paused for a second. “By the way, sonny, do you know how to retract your aura? It is a little bit… uh… invasive.”
“No, I only got my aura abilities about an hour ago. Sorry. I don’t even know what an aura is really. Besides, like, chakra surrounding me.”
“Chakra huh? That must be a fluke in your translation ability. No worries. I’ll take you to a high tower first. It might feel like a prison, but it’ll be ok.” Gabe said cheerfully.
“Prison, what?” Jean splurged out.
“You’ll be fine, don’t stress. I’ll even hook you up with some mountain grub.” Gabe started to accelerate down to the cloud dome.
After hearing the mention of food Jean thought that prison might be nice, considering there was food and no dead people thinking he was the food.
The plummet was not painful, largely because his wounds had been healed. It seemed like Gabe just let them fall while pushing forward a bit, and slowing down slightly. There was a short moment of panic when Gabe didn’t slow down when heading into the cloud. But after a short spurt of blindness in the cloud, they entered a bright city set into the side of the mountain. There were several layers to the city. From an above view, Jean was able to see what looked like brick apartment complexes on the bottom level, markets with winding streets on the second, and fancy houses and gardens on the third and fourth levels, though all of them were under the massive shadow of a castle made of cloud. It was larger than the rest of the city combined, with sprawling towers, dozens of floors without windows, and plenty of gravity-defying walkways to additional floating buildings sprinkled around the top of the cloud dome.
“Pretty cool, right? That one right there is going to be your prison cell.” He pointed at an upward angle toward a cluster of buildings that were built into the semi-transparent dome top. “I’ll drop you off, and then get your food. It might take a minute though. You’re safe here.”
Gabe’s confidence was a comfort to Jean. Someone saying, “you’re safe,” while carrying you in their arms hundreds of feet above a city might feel iffy to some, but taking away his injuries brought Jean a long way to trusting him. Even if he was a Shaolin monk version of an indie-loving surfer dude who studied the mystical power of stones. Jean felt like Gabe was a softy at heart.
“You don’t have a master's degree in healing stones, do you?” Jean asked with a smirk.
“Well, my master does have some healing stones. Want me to heat them up for you?” Gabe asked while raising an eyebrow.
“Umm, no thanks,” Jean replied.
As they neared some buildings, Gabe said, “Follow along.” Before whipping around a building extremely fast and throwing Jean into a cell, the door was slammed by a stationary guard, with the cloud building door closing with a muffled thud.
“And you stay in there you dirty criminal you!” Gabe said from the other side of the door.
Hearing a bit of banter going on between Gabe and the guard, Jean felt the ground and wall he was thrown into. It was a perfect balance of softness and firmness. He was thrown very hard into the room but didn’t feel the thing.
Now, once again alone, Jean started to think of the Essence of Terror.