Since my return from the Sigil world, I had made great strides in my progression, in terms of skill and power. I had fought creatures out of nightmares, and people out of nightmares – my own, not in the least. And in all that time, amidst successes and failures as I wrung as much from my second life as I could, I had somehow forgotten how much electrocuting myself fucking hurt.
“Owww. W-w-why di-di-diiid I everrrthi-think thi-iss w-w-was a g-good idea...?”
My voice came out weak and quavering as my body quivered in shock at the power that had so recently blasted through me. It hurt – a lot.
“With reluctant curiosity, why did you do this to yourself, Hunter? While effective, it does not seem... optimal.”
I opened my right eye – my left eyelid was still twitching – and looked up at Reff as he bent over me, confusion writ across his face.
“...C-c-cun-n-n-ning plan.”
“Idiot plan is more like it. At least the frog is dead, or it’s alive. Can I borrow a sword? Faster than punching it to death.”
Hearing the apprentice’s plan, I quickly I went to sit up, and while it hurt and my muscles really did not want to cooperate, I managed it with barely a handful of expletives and groans.
“N-no! I want it for my Exemplar... help me up?”
I just about managed to get control of my voice again, though my continue continued to spasm and my skin felt raw and sunburned.
“With cautious hesitation, I do not think that is a good idea, Hunter. You seem to have injured yourself quite severely.”
I glanced behind Reff to see his sister limping out of the jungle, flanked by half a dozen sand puppets; I had not seen her during the fight, but it looked like she had been injured, and I was not sure how effective her specific abilities would have proven, vulnerable as they were to increased speed.
“It’s not the first time. I just... lost control. Having lightning flow through you is useful, but really hurts when it goes haywire.”
I heard Darina snort as Reff reluctantly helped me stand and I almost stuck my tongue out at her; I was a little sensitive about my choice of Focus – sure, it was great when it worked, but I was the only person I had met that could fry themselves with their own ability. Special is the word.
Glancing around, I saw blackened patches and lines around the area in which we had fought and I winced a little, realising that my lightning might have collateral damage at that level of output when not in a freakish, energy eating and cannibal infested forest. Reflecting on the damage, I was glad that neither Darina nor Riffa had been near – and that Reff was wearing such a great insulator at the time.
Now on my feet and leaning on Reff’s leg – which was honestly kind of awkward – I began limp my way over to the unconscious frog; it felt like sitting on an adult’s foot as a small child, or like having a walking stick the size of a small tree, my giant friend walked with me, though his steps were considerably smaller than my own.
After a couple of seconds of painful travel, I stood over our defeated foe. As I stood looking down at the black and neon purple frog, I watched as its legs twitched and my heart lurched a little at the thought of it waking up; not knowing how long I would have before it recovered, I lowered myself to the ground as gently as I could. There may have been swearing involved.
As I sat on the wet ground, Darina crouched low, looking me in the eye with what looked like concern. The tiny apprentice might still come off as abrasive at times, but I knew it was all in good fun, now. And I knew she valued the rest of us as friends.
“Are you ready to do this, Hunter? I have worked on those struck by lightning, and while you may be afforded some protection, as it is your own lightning, the internal damage may still be extensive.”
“... What doesn’t kill me makes me... well, not stronger; I'm not a saiyan... but I’ll recover.”
“A saiyan? I have never heard of these creatures. You say they grow stronger when injured? That seems like a useful power, especially for you, given how often you are injured. Perhaps you should leave the frog and search of one of these saiyans?”
I chuckled and shook my head, hoping there were not actually any saiyans about; I wouldn’t put it past this world, but I did not think that that would be remotely fair.
“I don’t think we’ll find any, even if we looked. I’ll just have to settle for the teleporting frog, or whatever it actually does.”
“In helpful correction, teleportation is impossible, Hunter. I believe this frog to be merely fast.”
I chose not to point out that I had said something about teleporting being impossible earlier, and had been shot down; there were more pressing matters.
“It wasn’t just speed, Reff. There was no sound or sensation of displaced air, like it was moving without moving. Does not knowing exactly what it does affect taking it as an Exemplar?”
“No - the integration can be guided by intent, but it cannot provide an ability it does not have. You could not absorb a dragon and gain the ability to transmute matter.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The risi siblings nodded in agreement with Darina and I rubbed at my bearded chin, looking back and forth between them, hesitating.
“Can you think of anything faster than this thing, however it does what it does?”
“In exhaustive recollection, I can recall no stories of any creature faster than this one appeared to be, however that does not preclude their existence.”
“The instant frog is probably the most naturally fast thing in the Sha Forest, at least. I hear their patterns expand as they grow stronger, so this one is probably quite young, and even so its speed was overwhelming. The force with which it struck was also disproportionate to its speed.”
I remembered Darina shooing into the air and had to agree with her – the frog might not hit as hard as a thundering ape but it was certainly no pushover when it came to dishing out slaps.
“Well, that’s that then, I guess. Better suck this thing down before it wakes up.”
Without waiting for my companions to say anything else, I quickly reached out and placed hand flat on the frog’s dark skin. The amphibian felt hot and slick, almost frictionless beneath my palm; I had expected it to be cold, and for a moment it made me hesitate, but I had had enough of hesitation. Lightning strikes do not procrastinate.
I reached for my Praxis and was a little surprised when it came reluctantly; blinking, I felt within myself and felt the power being refined faster than I had grown used to, as it were a heart pumping rapidly. It had not yet become accustomed to judging my energy usage, but I guessed I had drained a large chuck of it from my channels with that last blast and my Core was working to refill it. It was interesting, how the process changed between stages, but I knew that I would have time to consider that later; in that moment I had a frog to become one with, and reluctantly or not, when I called, my praxis came.
Pushing my praxis out into the Frog, I felt resistance for a moment before the strange emptiness within my second centre flared and the thread snapped within me, only to be reformed near instantly, but this time connected to that void. As the connection reformed, the filament of Praxis pushed past the slick amphibian skin and into the body; it felt strange to say the least to feel my energy flowing into another living creature, but I had little control over the process by that point. The thread of energy was searching for something even as the frog’s body was filling with my Praxis, so I sat frozen over the unconscious frog, a passenger within my own mind.
One thing held firm within my mind, and that was my intent – I wanted speed, as much as it could give me. I wanted to move and strike faster than could be defended against; I wanted to multiply my speed, not just add to it.
After several seconds, still focused on speed, I felt that tendril of power connect to something with a snap and all at once, I became truly aware of the instant frog; I could feel the aching muscles and burns, and I could feel its core now pulsing in time with my heartbeat, even as the beast’s flesh and bone became saturated with my draining Praxis. I knew the moment when it became an extension of me, when my energy fused with its own and there was a strange sense of duality, as if I occupied two places at once.
I was beginning to feel weak by then, my own body becoming starved of energy as I had pumped even more out of me to become one with my chosen Exemplar. After several more seconds, I felt my body empty; I felt fully mortal again, as frail and weak as the day I had first set foot upon this world. But it did not last - could not last – and in that same moment there was a flash of blue-white light and I felt the frog flow into me, now a construct of pure energy.
Turning my inner gaze towards my second centre, I watched as that energy construct flowing into the once-gap and stabilised, becoming a frog once more within me, though in a strange flash of lucidity, I did wonder why the frog sat in a lotus pose.
My inner eye gazed in wonder at my new Exemplar as lines of energy connected from the walls of my centre to the body of the energy frog, much like those that connected to my Focus. As the conduits snapped into position one by one, I considered how the experience was, while exhausting, far less painful than when I had formed my Focus.
And that is why you never tempt fate, because that is when the pain hit.
*
***
*
I woke up – again – and surprisingly I was not in pain.
Blinking up at the sky above the wide river, I sat up to find my friends together beside me, talking in low voices until I moved.
“You’re awake, good. I healed you while you were sleeping – you're welcome.”
I smiled over at Darina and gave her a thumbs-up, to which she rolled her eyes.
“Thank you, Darina. Feels much better; the whole electrocuting yourself is super inconvenient. The last time I was that bad, I’m pretty sure I was in shock or something. Climbed a giant tree with a bent axe.”
The apprentice looked like she was about to make another comment about my nonsense when Reff cut in with a glance between us.
“In mediatory interruption, you may feel drained for a few days, Hunter. Your Focus should have changed – has it?”
“Yeah, I definitely feel drained. Going to need to meditate, experience some Experience... And my Focus changes? I didn’t know that. Let me check...”
Once more I turned my gaze inwards, first to my second centre where I could see my Exemplar still at in a lotus pose; the frog was a series of glowing outlines, a hollow shape I could see through. I knew my next step was to fill it with Praxis, much as I had filled my Focus with Experience; I hoped it would be a shorter process than forming my Core had been, but it was still far too soon to gauge.
Next, I sank lower, to my original centre and to the solid ball of my Core with my Focus set it its middle. When I had first created my Focus, it had been an image of myself, with arcs of blue-white and violet-white arcs of lightning forming out of me, but as my friend had said, it had changed; the arms and legs of Focus – of the image of me were oddly blurred, with their actual location being wherever within the blur I happened to look, almost as if occupying more than one location. I did not know what it meant, but I was eager to find out.
“It has changed! I have no idea what it means though. Let’s test it!”
“You are in no condition to test anything, fool. You need to recover your Praxis... not that your Path will have a great impact on your abilities yet anyway.”
“Wow, you’re right, I’m on the Path now! Woo-actually, I really hope they don’t attack tonight. That would not be good.”
“With sudden clarity, you are correct, now is really a bad time to have set foot upon your path, expecting battle as we are...”
I looked at Riffa as she looked back at me, even as Reff let out a deep, ‘hmmm’. I had not been thinking clearly, obviously, when I had decided to absorb an Exemplar when we were literally looking for trouble.
“I... I’m going to meditate now. We can test tomorrow?”
“If we are not attacked in the night. It would be unfortunate if we had stayed, only to fail even to attempt our intent.”
I refused to look at Darina, knowing that she was glaring at me. It is not like any of them mentioned the exhaustion to me, or our situation.
Still, I said none of that, knowing it was my mistake at the heart of it all. I offered contrite smiles to my friends before closing my eyes to focus on the events of the last few days, making the Experience a part of me and really, really hoping that tonight was not the night.