PART II - DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN

As Reynard ducked from view, Pixyl started to stir.

“Hi,” Callie whispered as she locked eyes with her friend.

“You’re okay?” Pixyl gasped in a returned whisper as she sat up.

“Bad headache, but yeah.”

Saying nothing, Pixyl squirmed up Callie’s body, wrapping her arms around the little Gnome’s neck. “I was worried! Don’t do that ever again!”

Callie returned the hug, being careful not to bump the Pixie’s wings. “I got the same lecture from Tasi, too.”

It took an awkward long moment before Pixyl sat up, brushing her hands under her eyes. “Good. That was stupid of you!” she said, her tone turning from worry to a lecture of her own.

“Are you crying?” Callie asked.

“Just … Just happy you’re g-g-going to be …” Pixyl looked away, seeming embarrassed.

“Good, you’re awake, too,” Tasi said, walking back into the makeshift alcove and interrupting the Pixie. “Would you please go now?” she sternly said to Pixyl, pointing out the door. “I need to give her an exam and you’re just in the way. She should be able to go within a half-hour.”

Looking once again at Callie, Pixyl nodded slowly. “I’ll wait for you outside.” Carefully, she climbed over Callie and dropped lightly to the floor. “Do you need anything?”

“She’ll be fine, Pixyl,” Tasi said exasperatedly. She made a shooing motion. “Go get your lunch. She’s still going to be here for a little while.”

“Go,” Callie added with a laugh. “Get some food. I’ll find you later. Maybe we can still do our hike.”

Skeptically, Pixyl backed away with the slightest of glares towards Tasi, giving Callie a final hesitant wave goodbye before she turned and left. Callie watched her friend go, feeling warm all over knowing how much Pixyl cared, and relishing their close friendship. She could really get used to this having-a-sister thing.

“Here, drink this.”

Callie grudgingly accepted the vial filled with a cloudy white liquid. She knew that it would taste absolutely awful without even opening it. “What is it?” she asked, making a face to Tasi.

“It’s for your headache.”

WIth a groan of dread and anticipation, Callie removed the stopper and tossed it back. As expected, it was just awful, tasting a lot like wet bricks left to mildew in a dark cave for several weeks. To Tasi’s credit, it did drive the headache away in short order, but Callie was still unsure if it was worth it.

“What do you know about mana drain, or mana exhaustion? They are basically the same thing.” Tasi asked, sitting down in the seat that Reynard had formerly occupied.

“Just what Reynard warned us, and from when Tazrok overdid it in the shower the other day. The general advice was ‘don't do it’ or you end up really messed up.”

“You know the end result at least.” Tasi leaned back making a thinking expression. “I’m not an academic. I’m a Combat Healer, which means my job is to make bleeding things stop bleeding and otherwise plug holes in people. I don’t know much about magical or mana theory, so you’ll have to forgive me glossing over what I am sure are important details.

“Okay,” Callie said, slightly repositioning herself upright with the blanket, leaning back against the bunk’s headboard. “Tell me what you can.”

“The worse your mana exhaustion is, the worse the effects. As I mentioned, it can quite literally turn your brain into goo, which makes for a rather unpleasant rest of your short life.”

“Eww,” Callie said, making a face.

“Here, I’ll explain it to you as it was explained to me decades ago.” Tasi drew an imaginary vertical line from her eye level down towards the floor. “Imagine this is your level of mana exhaustion. Normally, it would be completely full to the top, so no drain.” She held her hand at the top of the imaginary line.

Callie worked to sit up even further, following along with Tasi’s pantomime. “Okay.”

“If you run out of mana, and you keep casting, you start to be increasingly affected.” The Fairy gestured towards roughly the three-quarters mark. “If you only drain this far down, you’ll generally be fine in a few hours, maybe a day at most. If we give you a Rejuvenation potion, it will clear everything up. Maybe two if you’re close to the bottom of this zone. This is where most recruits here end up when they overdo it, so a potion and a good fifteen to thirty minutes of rest is enough to get them back on their feet.”

“Okay. I’m pretty sure I did that the first day of training. Bad headache, no strength. Reynard gave me a purple potion.”

Tasi nodded. “I’m sure that was the case. It happens to most of the mana-using recruits during this first week as they are still learning their new skills. Easy to address, though: Drink the potion, rest a bit, and you’re fine.”

“I take it mine was a lot worse, this time?”

Tasi gestured to the imaginary mana meter again, pointing from the mid-point to the three-quarters mark. “If you end up in this zone and you don’t receive Rejuvenation potions quickly, you do serious damage to the mana control pathways in your brain. Your mana capabilities no longer work at all, and the damage cannot be healed except with intense ritual healing, or time and natural healing. This could last days or even weeks, if bad enough.” She gestured just above the midpoint mark, maybe at sixty percent, “This is about where you were.”

“Whoa,” Callie gasped. “So, I wouldn’t be able to use any of my skills for days or even longer?”

“Your Dodge would work, as that uses Stamina, but nothing that uses mana would function. This includes your Darkvision and Gnomish hearing. We call people in this state the Mana-Dead.” Tasi glared and let that hang in the air for a long moment. “If we hadn’t aided you quickly, we probably would have had to send you away for ritual healing, as we don’t have any Ritualists here.”

“That really would have sucked,” Callie finally said, really not having the right words. “You said I needed multiple potions to fix me, then?”

Tasi nodded. “Thankfully, one of the Shaman recruits was there admiring your destructive handiwork, one of the Goblins, and popped off a Rejuvenation spell. She’s newly Bronze this morning, so it was her first time casting it, but she did an amazing job on the spell despite the pressure and inexperience with it. She gave you enough time until your potion sickness wore off and Xera was able to dump a purple one down your throat. It took five more over the next hour until you were out of danger.”

Callie was horrified and also grateful to Lhawni for casting her spell, and made a mental note to thank her as soon as she could. Just imagining trying to survive in this new world without any of her skills, or even her mana-reliant traits, was horrifying. “What would happen if you go lower?”

Pointing to the next quarter-section of the imaginary line, Tasi said, “Here, no number of potions are going to fix the damage, no matter how quickly you get them. You’ll end up Mana-Dead, at least for several weeks, maybe months or up to a year. Ritual healing? Maybe it would speed your recovery up by half, but you’re going to be manaless for quite a while.”

“And I’m guessing even lower is where the brain goo happens, right?”

Nodding, Tasi pointed to the bottom of the line. “Here, you are taking physical brain damage. It can’t be healed; it can’t be recovered from. Your brain becomes increasingly liquified. Very few survive, and those that do often wish they hadn’t. They face a lifetime of pain, confusion, crippling mobility issues and worse things than you can possibly imagine. Most people want to be euthanized should that ever happen to them.”

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“That’s awful,” Callie gasped. “It’s that bad?”

Tasi nodded. “It’s a miserable existence. I’ve made it clear to all my friends to put me down should I ever end up in this state. Every single person I know has the same request.”

Callie remembered the final years of her grandmother being alive. She was immobile, incontinent, with an ever-worsening dementia. In the few moments she was lucid, she’d make it known she wanted things to end, but it wasn’t an option in Illinois. She suffered, and when she finally passed following a major stroke, the whole family felt guilty for seeing it partly as a blessing.

Tasi caught Callie’s eyes and stared hard. “So, I’m going to say it one more time. Please listen carefully to what I tell you. Don’t ever do that again!”

Callie nodded quickly in absolute understanding, but still trying to come to grips with how close she’d come to really hurting herself. It was that damn mysterious multiplier that came from the Effect Layering perk. She needed to understand a lot better how to safely use the multiple skills, and where those lines had to be drawn. She’d done several three-effect shots, so those seemed safe. Maybe a four might be doable, but she would try again only if she had full mana and maximum casting efficiency with the skills being used. She’d have to tread carefully and make sure it was under the watchful eye of someone like Reynard or Tasi. Even imagining trying something with five effects was right out.

“Alright,” Tasi said with a smile. “Lesson over. Let me do a quick physical exam. If that doesn’t show any lasting effects, I’ll send you on your way in a little while with your instructions. Sit up if you would.” The Healer left her chair, motioning for Callie to rise.

Feeling a little woozy, Callie did so, dropping the blanket to expose her chest when Tasi motioned her to. Outside of the remnants of her headache and a general sense of exhaustion, she didn’t really feel any different, despite knowing how close she really came to shorting out her entire magic system.

Tasi pulled out the diagnostic stone from her pocket and ran it over Callie’s body, primarily focusing on her chest and particularly her head. With Tasi making a lot of vaguely disconcerting ‘umm hmm’ type noises, Callie began to grow worried that something might be wrong.

“Just a couple more things, and I’ll be done. Then you can rest for a bit before you go.” Tasi used a reflex hammer to test knees and elbows, along with Callie’s wrists. Everything seemed to be fine, or at least everything seemed to jerk and twitch as expected.

“This is going to hurt a bit,” Tasi warned, pulling out a magnification lens with a tiny, glowing magical light on it.

“Oh fun,” Callie replied sarcastically.

Using one hand, Tasi held Callie’s eye open while looking deep into it with the lighted lens. The brightness was agonizing and quickly overpowered the anti-headache potion from earlier. After an endless few seconds, Tasi repeated the exam with her other eye.

“Good. No sign of residual bleeding. You might have a vague sense of something floating in your vision for a day or two. Those are just blood clot remnants and will dissolve in time. Come back if they don’t or get too numerous to see well.” Tasi gestured back towards the pillow. “Close your eyes and lie down. You can cover up.”

Callie did so, pulling the blanket tight to her neck again, and heard the sound of water lightly splashing. “Hold this over your eyes for a while,” Tasi ordered, handing Callie a damp cloth once again. The headache was back with a vengeance from the bright light and there were actual tears from the pain intermingling with the new wetness on Callie’s face.

“Rest for a bit longer and I’ll give you another pain potion as soon as it’s safe to, then you can get dressed and go.”

Nodding, Callie said, “Thanks again. I’m sorry to be such a bother.” Tasi responded with a somewhat patronizing ‘there there’ pat on Callie’s shoulder, before walking off.

As she lay there, Callie suddenly felt bad. She was supposed to meet with Fizzlebek and Pama for a mid-morning ‘second breakfast’ and tea. Unfortunately, the morning was now completely shot. Fizzlebek had been excited to show her some contraption he had been working on, something about a ‘thought-controlled mechanized Golem’, whatever the heck that was. Callie had also told Pama that she was really interested in Culinar magic, and the elder Gnome seemed eager to show her a few spells as a demonstration, while they dutifully tested the results, of course. Plus there had been the promise of treats for the afternoon hike to the lookout rock, too. Maybe they could try again later in the week?

While she waited, the cool water being surprisingly helpful at easing the pain in her eyes, Callie soon found herself semi-dozing. Not really asleep, but trying to wall off the remnants of pain in her head and eyes by relaxing, counting some numbers, and doing some breathing exercises. Her thoughts drifted back to all that happened that morning, at least what she could remember. From the ethereal conversation with her Symbiote and its Bronze Tier gift to her, to her post-reveal collapse in the garden and rescue by her friends and Jaelarn. The excitement of her new skills and the discovery of her unique melded ones. Turrets. Layers. Accidentally shooting Koda and his big grin forgiving her for doing it. Exploding the target with a Piercing Burst shot, and nuking the entire range from orbit with a Rain of Explosions. She counted herself so lucky to have all these friends and all the support of both them and the camp personnel.

“Something funny, recruit?” Tasi asked as she stepped into the alcove again. Callie could now easily recognize the voice. “You have a smile on your face.”

“Just thinking back through the day,” Callie said, looking towards the Fairy, even though the wet cloth still covered her eyes. “My new melded skills for one. But also how grateful I am to everyone for helping and worrying for me. The other recruits. Reynard. You, too. I had no close friends back home, Tasi, or at least I haven’t for a few years. This is a foreign feeling to me, in a way. It’s a good feeling, though.”

“Mana exhaustion foolishness aside, your new melded skills sound fascinating, and I look forward to you realizing their full potential. I’ve always said that the Gnome Tinker trait was underappreciated by many, and seeing it applied to a new class I think proves that. Reynard is absolutely astounded by them.”

Callie chuffed in laughter. “Back home I wasn’t an engineer or a scientist or an academic. I just liked numbers and knew how to do real basic construction and repairs. Tinker is opening up strange things for me, but I’m eager to see where it leads.”

“Alright,” Tasi finally said after a pause. “Take that off your face. I have a couple things for you and then I’ll send you on your way. Go slow, be careful of the light.”

Slowly Callie peeled the damp rag off, her eyes adjusting to the light but still in pain from Tasi’s examination. The Healer was holding out another cloudy white pain potion.

Squinting slightly from the light, Callie accepted the foul-tasting elixir and grudgingly drank it down. As expected … mildewed bricks again. At least the pain subsided quickly.

“A couple things for you, then, before you go,” Tasi said. She held out two purple Rejuvenation potions. “Take one of these just before dinner, and the second when you go to bed. That will make sure you’re completely healed by tomorrow morning. If you’re going to be out and about, put them in your bunkhouse so you don’t lose or break them.”

Callie accepted the two vials. “Thanks, I think. Why do they need to taste so awful?”

“Because it makes people less likely to want to use them. As a result, maybe silly Gnomes don’t do things like burn out their mana and turn their brain to goo,” Tasi answered with a laugh. Then she shrugged, “Honestly, I have no idea. If someone could figure out a solution to that, they’d be hailed as a hero across the land.”

With a sigh, Callie asked, “Anything else?”

“No mana usage until tomorrow morning. No skills, no perks. Give your head a chance to rest.”

“What about Darkvision or my ears? I can’t really control either well,” Callie asked, a little worried about their instinctive nature. “They just sort of happen, although I guess I can turn the Darkvision back off.”

“Those are fine. They don’t actually use mana, it just needs to be present in your body. Don’t activate your Resist Fear if you can help it, though.”

Callie blew out her cheeks in relief. “What else?”

“Just avoid anything strenuous. You mentioned maybe going on a hike. You wouldn’t know, but it’s been raining periodically most of the morning, so you may not want to. If you do, take your time and don’t push yourself. It’ll just cause your headache to come back. Avoid alcohol for the rest of the day, too. Mostly, just relax. Otherwise, you’re free to get dressed and go.

Tasi ducked out of the alcove, leaving Callie alone to get situated. After getting dressed in her fresh clothing, Callie picked up a neatly tied bundle that was the dirty clothes she was wearing when she was brought in. She’d drop it at the bunkhouse and the Brownies would whisk everything away at some point to wash them, returning the whole set neatly folded and smelling fresh. She hadn’t seen any of the little Fae except for that first morning, and found it amazing how organized they kept everything. Dirty clothes were always returned perfectly cleaned, even of blood. Any holes or tears were either mended, or the garment replaced - she never could tell which. All cogs in a fascinating machine working behind the scenes.

“Thanks, Tasi,” Callie called out as she started for the door.

“Any time. Stay safe,” the Healer called back, before adding, “and don’t use any of your skills, dammit!”

Emerging from the tent, the sun was shining, but only for the moment. There was a light drizzle still in the air as sporadic dark clouds moved across the sky, promising the periodic showers would continue. The sun was still warm though, and Callie bathed in it, her eyes closed and face wearing a contented smile.

“Callie!” came the eager voice of Jesca as she sprang from another close-by tent. Behind her emerged the worried faces of Lena, Xin, and all the rest of Ogre House, including Pixyl, who apparently had not gone to get lunch. Behind them, Lhawni peeked through the tent flap, with Ambria peeking out above her, and Koda’s grinning bear face above the Faun’s.

“Hi everyone,” Callie said with a wave. She added a panicked “I’m okay! Really!” just as Jesca charged and scooped her up off the ground, spinning her in a gigantic hug.

“I was so worried! We all were! You had it really bad and the Healer said you could have been Mana-Dead for a long time, but apparently…” Jesca started to babble.

Gasping slightly from the constricting hug, Callie interrupted, squeaking out a quick “I’m okay, but I do need to breathe to stay that way!”

“Oh, sorry,” Jesca said sheepishly, realizing the situation and quickly setting the Gnome down.

Callie was about to once again tell everyone she was going to be fine, and that they hadn’t needed to wait for her, but she paused. She looked into the faces of her relieved friends, and started to choke up. “You all mean so much to me,” she barely managed to croak out, before she rushed into a group hug, her friends inside the tent joining.