Of course, before he set off, there was just one more thing he wanted to do. He couldn’t test Second Wind properly yet: not only did he not want to use his hail mary for no reason, but he actually couldn’t activate it until his HP or SP were below 50%. However, that wasn’t the only new ability he now had which needed testing.
While he was reluctant to use mana when he had no idea how long it would take for him to regenerate it – if the -80% penalty was any judge, too long – he didn’t think that trying out a magic spell in the middle of battle for the first time was a good idea. So he bit the bullet and resigned himself to wasting his first cast.
Now, how do I activate this? he wondered, feeling Leo’s attention sharpen.
I hope this ‘spell’ is worth the risk and pain it took to absorb it, the lion groused at him. I don’t appreciate the danger you unilaterally risked with our body. Dominic suddenly felt a bit bad, though wasn’t sure he’d have done any differently even if he’d thought about it. After all, magic! But he understood Leo being a bit disgruntled.
If I’m considering making a change which could kill us, I’ll get your thoughts on it first, alright? Dominic replied soothingly. Assuming I have the time to ask you, that is, he added. After all, he would probably be risking his – their – lives regularly when getting into fights, but he wouldn’t have time to check whether Leo was OK with whatever risky strategy he’d just thought of. Though, he supposed he could ask the lion about his thoughts before getting into the fight.
It’s a start, Leo replied, still a bit grumpy. Now get on with it – let’s see what all the fuss is about.
Are you in some sort of rush? asked Dominic with a little amusement. The lion sent him a growl of impatience.
You know what I want. Quickly do this and then let’s go hunting so we can grow a magnificent mane.
Alright, alright, Dominic replied, more than a little amused now. Still, that matched with his own desires, so he wasn’t going to argue.
Turning back to the task, Dominic wondered how to initiate the spell. Since there hadn’t been any instructions about it, he guessed that it would have to be fairly simple.
Lightning Discharge? he tried, his mental voice sounding more uncertain than he’d wanted it to be. Fortunately, it appeared to be that easy, as something immediately happened. Not what he’d expected, though.
He hadn’t been sure what he had been expecting, actually, though he had hoped that he wouldn’t have some sort of distracting messages flashing up before him. This…wasn’t that.
Instead, it seemed like time had stopped for a moment. The breeze which had been making his fur shift a little was gone, the sounds of birds and air movement in the savannah now silent. Even his heartbeat, so familiar to him that he ignored it most of the time, was paused.
No, not completely paused. Slowed. There were sounds, he realised, but they were much lower and longer, like the sound waves had been stretched out. And he was still breathing, but very, very slowly.
And then the moment ended. Time resumed as normal, the sounds meeting his ears so much louder than they had seemed before, his heartbeat seeming to pound heavily in his ears. He was suddenly more aware of the breeze ruffling his fur slightly, and the scents which met his nose.
His sight, however, was a little busy. In front of him, semi-transparent, hung a slowly turning 3D line diagram of a lion. My body, I guess, he theorised, realising that he could make it turn faster or slower by focussing on it. The whole body was dark except for a white glow around the ends of his paws and in his mouth. My weapons?
When he concentrated on his claws, he got the sense of being able to direct some mana to them, presumably to create the lightning effect. For the sake of testing, he tried concentrating on his teeth. He felt the same sense of being able to send mana their way as he’d felt with his claws.
Doing my teeth wouldn’t be much good, though, he decided. I can’t see them. Returning his focus to his claws, he tried directing a single unit of mana to coat his right forepaw. It felt…clingy. Like a single unit didn’t want to move on its own, but instead wanted to come with all of its friends. Didn’t realise magic would be like a load of teenage school girls, he remarked wryly to himself. If it ends up being as giggly as them, I’m going to give spells a hard pass.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Looking at the wire diagram, the claws on his right forepaw were glowing a little brighter than the ones on his other paws so he thought he’d succeeded, though might have ended up directing a few more than two mana points to the cause.
Now, how do I withdraw from this? he wondered. There was no x in the corner to press, and his attempt to say ‘exit’ didn’t work. Since I had to focus on my claws to put the mana into them, maybe I need to focus on something else to get out of this space? He tried focussing on the image being minimised; that didn’t work. He tried focussing on seeing his claws in reality, but that just made his attention just narrow back down to looking at his claws and getting the option to add more mana.
In the end, he hit upon the solution by accident – simply willing the display to disappear. He would have thought that focussing on it being minimised would be sufficiently similar to wanting it to disappear, but apparently not…. Without the wire image cluttering up his vision now, he looked at his claws.
There was little difference between his left and right forepaws, though his right set of claws looked a little brighter when he extended them. Leaning down towards them, he sniffed. There was the faintest hint of a smell Dominic recognised as ozone, but it was truly faint. This attack wouldn’t be strong for sure, but that was what he’d intended.
Dominic tried to use the discharge on the rocks around him, but apparently they didn’t count as an opponent. Wondering whether he’d just be walking around with an electrical charge on his claws for a while, he was disappointed when his claws went back to normal only a short time afterwards. Clearly, this wasn’t something he could prepare long in advance.
A check of his status panel revealed that he’d accidentally used three mana points instead of the one he’d wanted. It also revealed that the mana points hadn’t been returned to his pool, proving the ability to be a ‘use it or lose it’ type.
Out of interest, Dominic decided to try to repeat the process, but be as quick as possible: he wasn’t going to be able to take as much time in the middle of a fight as he just had. And if he couldn’t prepare the spell ahead of time, he’d have to do it in the middle of the fight.
Lightning Discharge, he said again mentally. This time, instead of marvelling at time almost seeming to stop, he quickly focussed on his claw, attempting to put a single mana point into it. This time, he was more prepared for the clinginess of the mana, and thought he’d managed to reduce the number of extra points which had come along for the ride.
In the end, he’d been quick enough that time had only just resumed its normal speed when he dismissed the image from his sight.
Interesting, he mused. So there’s some sort of slowing mechanism to help me quickly set up my spell. As long as I don’t take too long over it, I shouldn’t end up with any interruption to my fight. Though was it actually a ‘slowing’ mechanism? It would seem too overpowered if his ability could somehow slow time for everything around him.
No, it seems more likely that it instead speeds up my perceptions or processing or something. That would make more sense, anyway. Especially since both Brain and Nervous System had been factors in the spell absorption.
He was pleased to note when he consulted his status screen that he had only used two mana points that time. It still left him down a third in two miniscule attacks which wouldn’t have caused much damage even if they’d made contact with an opponent. Overall, it was pretty underwhelming.
But Dominic wouldn’t let himself be discouraged: once the mana to damage ratio improved, his impact would literally multiply. Plus, since the penalty to his mana heart was ‘non-permanent’, once he managed to remove that, he’d have a lot more mana to play with. His co-passenger was a bit of a dampener, though.
That’s it? That’s what we almost died for? Leo didn’t sound at all impressed.
We didn’t ‘almost die’ for it, Dominic argued. It was only a 7% chance of that.
Your little squiggles are meaningless; it felt like we had a whole lot of light-which-bites inside us.
You mean ‘fire’? Dominic asked, bemused.
Yes, it felt like we had ‘fire’ inside us and trying to kill us, Leo agreed.
Well, I can’t really argue with that, the former-human replied after a moment, lifting one paw to scratch at his head, only to realise when it got there that a lion’s paw isn’t really suited to that gesture. Anyway, this is just the beginning, I promise. But, nevermind that, he continued hastily before the back-seat driver could complain any more. How about we go hunting?
The wave of agreement from Leo’s side of things made the lion’s opinion very clear.
Emerging from the tunnel was a cautious affair. Leo didn’t know whether anything had spotted his position and then decided to ambush the ambusher, hiding somewhere above the entrance.
A bit like when he’d learned to walk in this body, Leo offered him a number of memories and instincts. Following them, Dominic first breathed deeply through his mouth, the smells passing over a special area which offered him much more information about their sources than he’d have thought himself capable of detecting. With Leo’s help, he was actually able to decipher a fair number.
There was the faint hint of hyena, but nothing fresh. It was perhaps the same pack which had attacked him, maybe coming back later to see if he was still there. When they hadn’t found him, they must have given up without entering the tunnel since there was no trace of them in the tunnel itself.
The wind was dry and hot, and carried with it all sorts of smells of vegetation and animals, some familiar, and some not. Wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, wild dogs, even the carrion smell of vultures. Kangaroos – he knew what they smelled like now.
There were also a fair number of things he didn’t recognise, and he couldn’t tell from here whether they were dangerous or not. He guessed he’d have to find that out from experience – hopefully not a fatal one.
Then the wind shifted slightly and he detected something that sent a frisson of anticipation through him. If he’d been capable of grinning, he would have.
Perfect, he growled.