The woman opened her status easily enough and Joe glanced at it, but noticed nothing unusual. Oh! Garnedell’s curse! He turned his gaze back at the status while trying to remember what he’d seen on Garnedell’s status in regards to his curse. Was it on the … where was it? Maybe it was the current job page? Not the main one?

“Can you press here?” Joe asked, glancing up at the woman and pointing to the current job page.

The woman seemed a bit surprised, but did so, and when her status page changed, both the guard and the woman jumped a little in surprise, a soft curse coming from the guard’s lips. Joe couldn’t keep the smile from his lips but still focused, studying her page carefully. He found nothing. Was it? No… couldn’t be here… the job name and experience line would be in the way, so then…

“Please press here,” Joe asked once again, guiding her to return to her main status tab.

Her general status reappeared and he looked at it carefully. The guard still helped the woman, but was now also pulling up her own status and poking at her status screen in random places. Joe ignored it but then frowned and quickly pointed out the tabs for the guard, stabbing her screen in the different locations of her tabs before returning to look at the mana infected woman’s screen. He stared at it carefully with a soft frown.

It was… right here, right? Under the physical resistances, right? Between the stats and the magical resistances… then… There was some kind of … icon, left side but still under… Joe’s thoughts struggled as he dug deep, trying to remember the details but then sighed as he dismissed his thoughts. Nothing… there isn’t anything, so it doesn’t matter… unless… Joe blinked as he fell deep into thought. I didn’t see Kilniara’s location with magic map or party locate until I pushed it… some kind of magical… invisibility at play… is there something similar? Something…

Joe’s thoughts stilled and grew sharp as his eyes bored into the girl’s status page, the entire focus of both his thoughts and sight on the location where a status condition should appear. His thoughts flexed, easier than it had been outside, now having experienced it before. The world seemed to swell away from him in a bubble around him as he somehow… pushed… something.

His bubble swelled around him in a full three sixty sphere, but somehow he knew he could shape it as well, and immediately focused his… intent? My will? What… donno… something… He focused the entirety of it onto the singular point of the girl’s status. The sphere around him condensed, much more quickly and easily than before, pulling back into a small radius around him that really only encompassed him. But the front, where he was looking at the status, sharpened to a singular point, directly on the status, his sphere at the front half of his body reshaping more into a blunt cone.

The point of the cone seemed to sharpen into an infinitesimal point. He held that point about an inch or so from the status screen then used it something like a laser scalpel. He drew in his will to punch into the status when he abruptly stopped himself with a cold sweat. OK… magically screwing with another’s status screen… good or bad idea… dangerous or… Maybe don’t think of punching a hole in it…? But then…

Joe’s breathing spiked a bit, and paused, considering for a moment before he brought up his own status and very cautiously began scraping at his status in a similar location. He grew harsher and harsher, but nothing happened, and he began to frown. Bad idea… or useless… but I don’t really have a bad… status… I’ve got a blessings screen, so it shows my foreign status there… but… If… man, it would be nice if there was a Curses tab, then I’d be sure of…

Joe cut off and raised an eyebrow when he saw another tab morph into being on his status, the tab forming in between his current job and available jobs tabs, pushing everything to the right slightly. Joe took a deep breath at that then calmed. Right… another thing on the ‘figure out what all is going on’ list! But WHY! Why split current jobs and available jobs! Just… Why not next to the blessings… that makes sense! Joe waited, expectantly hoping for a response but nothing happened and he frowned. Such BS! Joe wanted to take the time to really explore this, but decided he had other things that were a bit more time sensitive so turned to the curses tab instead, pointing it out to the young woman.

“Please press here.”

She did so and Joe nodded, now staring at a completely empty and useless page. He frowned, sighing a bit before preparing to continue. Well… at least I’m certain where to shove my magic at! But… what’s really… hmm… how ‘bout focusing on showing me data… that seems, yeah… let’s do that.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

His mental meanderings had dulled his laser scalpel and even the entire shape of the … whatever… he was doing, and he quickly reshaped and sharpened it, bringing it to bear on the curses tab the woman now had open. As he moved his sphere cone thingy, he noticed the mana interacting with the barrier shell in strange ways and he glanced over at it. Ooh… that’s… cool, the mana is hitting some kind of… barrier? No… more like a membrane… its mana permeable, but it is doing some really strange dancing through that membrane… or… maybe illusion… some kind of light distortion? That’s really cool… wonder if… no! Focus, idiot… get the information.

So… what do I do with the laser… poke it… burn… scrape? Is this a bit like… intent thing… I want something… and I want to reveal it… then… reveal… soak it… what am I trying to do here? What do I want to do? Poke a hole and ‘peer’ through it to secret info… that’s a good metaphor for what I want… but seems… damaging… so… how about… uh…oh! Lemon juice on paper then uh… wait… was it lemon juice that made the m… no! Right… heat the lemon juice to see it… so… what… soak my … laser pokey thingy into her curse screen… or should I do it in her? Then… heat… bah!

Joe’s thoughts swirled through multiple possibilities before he looked up at the young woman, “I’m going to try something, but please… please tell me quickly if you feel something wrong or unusual. Anything… anything at all, even if it feels good or strange, tell me quickly.”

She stared at him before nodding, her despair fading slightly with his comments, “I will endure, eccentric.”

Joe quickly shook his head and rejected her statement, “Don’t endure… at least not yet. I need to know if you… notice things, so I can be careful but also know if something is changing.”

She nodded quickly at that once again, but this time more positively, even smiling softly, “Yes, eccentric.”

Joe nodded and turned back to her screen before looking at her. Then… wait… the data… the information is in her… SHE has it… so… am I looking at the right place? Do I need to connect something… to her status… Right… three options… poke with my pokey thingy… soak… and well… I guess four options… do both those things to her and her status. So… let’s… we’ll do the status first… and soaking first.

Joe’s spherical cone moved forward slowly, coming closer to the status screen. He aimed the glowing point towards the status screen where he figured something would be shown and slowly pressed it into the status screen. He made sure to focus on revelation, appearing, or revealing; any other similar concept. As he pressed it there, the woman began to pant and he looked over at her.

“Are you OK?”

She nodded, “I am OK, eccentric.”

Joe narrowed his eyes, “But you feel something?”

“No… yes? Maybe… I am uncertain, eccentric.”

Joe moved his sphere cone point thingy away and looked up at her, “Is it gone now?”

She looked at him and then paused, uncertainty obvious in her response, “I… don’t know. I don’t think so, but maybe?”

Joe stared at her, watching her face carefully as he shifted his sphere cone point in and out of contact with her status. Her face remained unchanged for the few times he did it and he nodded before turning away.

“OK. But please tell me quickly if you feel something, OK?”

“Yes, eccentric.”

Joe returned to his efforts and once again pressed his half sphere half cone point first into the girl’s status where he thought the first curse should show up. His point entered and nothing happened, even after several moments. Joe frowned and then concentrated, attempting to add power to the point itself. With that effort, the point of his cone didn’t change in size, but it did begin to glow. The glow grew in brilliance and soon Joe found himself squinting, although squinting seemed to do nothing. He closed his eyes completely at that, then huffed in surprise when he realized his eye lids were doing nothing. Somehow… psychosomatic… not real light… maybe?

He opened his eyes carefully, still squinting, but stared at the point for a few moments before looking away and closing his eyes. He grunted in frustration when he did that because he noticed he still wanted to squint. Right… if it’s something else… some… weird thing…

He opened his eyes while turning completely away and still felt the desire to squint. Joe found the whole situation odd. Then… He turned back and looked at the point once again, cautiously, before quickly dropping the intensity and then closing his eyes, taking the time to look away as well, just to be certain. Huh… so… not real light… no blind spots… my eyes aren’t ‘seeing’ physical light… seeing something else then… but… really? How!? This is just…

Joe opened his eyes back up, his curiosity having derailed him but when he did look back at the girl’s status, he saw a wavering fuzz on her curses tab, right where he’d pushed his point. Is it… Right… test time!

Joe ramped up his point’s intensity once again but this time pressed the point into the bottom right corner, a location he was sure would return nothing. Unless… she’s got like… thirty or forty curses? That… would be bad!

The intensity proved overwhelming again, but Joe kept his focus this time and attempted to keep the amount of power and time the same. After the right amount of time had passed, or as best as he could guess, he pulled his point back and dropped it back to normal. He stared carefully, but the window showed nothing, sitting there without any deformity. Maybe… a good sign?

He tried again, this time increasing the power while also focusing on what he wanted, chanting mentally. Show me. Show me. Let the information through. Let it flow! Come on, tell me! No hiding. His thoughts meandered but held the same purpose and after some time Joe removed his point and powered it down again. Once again, the status page wavered in that area only, a hazy fog or mirage like agitation over something Joe couldn’t make out. Joe frowned. He tried again, adding more power and duration, but as before, nothing really showed up. The first one had been a hint, but now, no matter what he did, all he got back was a hazy image that was unchanging. Several more attempts came with the same result and he sat back.