I'm gone. Or at least, the me I'm used to being is gone. But that much is expected. After eating that lele fruit, I would expect to lose almost an entire day. Now however, my usual self is gone, but I still exist as Maven, sitting nice and safe in his burrow. It's kind of... anti-climatic, somehow. All of that, now I'm just sitting here, as Maven.
The real question is: will I ever wake up again? With wounds like those, I have no way of telling. The water didn't even break my fall like I thought it would, so that will just make it worse. And then I ended up fainting in the river, so I might just drown, wounded or not. But I have no way of telling, cut off from my body like this. What if I never wake up? What if my body is just... dead? In some distant canyon on a far off battlefield. Can I just keep living as Maven?
I mean, even if I'm me and he's him, we are still both each other... sort of. It's kind of hard to tell where the boundary between us lies. Especially when, like now, my entire conscious mind is in him. I'm not even uncomfortable in here. Unlike me, Maven has a really nice, pleasant life with lots of happy family members in his burrow. He's probably even going to have some babies soon, there's this other hobin from a nearby burrow he's been courting, and his efforts have been extremely effective ever since he's changed. Female hobins love male hobins that are really big and have lots of food after all.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now at least, I'm Maven, and there's nothing much I can do about that. I scratch at my ear a little, straightening my fur on habit while continuing to think. The question still stands. Do I want to be Maven? Upsides: a simple, happy, successful life. Downsides: Not being me. And losing everything I've done up to now.
Isn't that also a good thing? I was a horrible monster that sacrificed other lives for the sake of my own. Wouldn't it be a good thing to let my misdeeds fade with time? Like everything I put Emily through.
Emily... My heart aches as soon as I think about her. She told me to survive. She told me to come back so she could give me her answer. Can I really just... leave her like that? Never getting to hear her answer, whether she decides to accept or reject me... The thought makes me sick.
Somehow, I've already decided. Despite all of the pain and suffering I've gone through, and everything I'm sure to go through in the future, I can't just leave Emily, waiting for me when I'm never coming back. It's too hard to even imagine doing something like that to her. So I turn. I have no idea if my body could survive those injuries. I have to go and do everything I can. The burrow exit is right there, but before I go... I look back to the few hobins failing to sneakily look at me. I suppose I, or Maven in this case, is acting strangely. Everyone else is asleep already.
I chirp at them and they all come out. It's weird, communication between hobins. They don't have a real words like humans do, but they make all sorts of chirping and squeaking, and sometimes these weird clucking sounds to convey various things to each other. The three here have definitely been the most intelligent ones so far, who have helped Maven with scouting, and were the fastest to learn tree climbing, despite the limited speech hampering his ability to explain well.
'Do you want to help?' I squeak at them. They all chirp back that they will, so I head up and out of the burrow. We all start running. Maven already knows the directions outside of his burrow, so we head north. As we go, the others are trying to ask where we are going. They're worried about how dark it is too. We make it a surprisingly far way before they start to get skittish, and my vague attempts to try and explain 'going to help a friend' meet with little success.
We all stop briefly under a leafy bush while I think. I don't have any idea what we might encounter out there, having them along could definitely help. But they just aren't smart enough as they are now. Well that's simple, I can just make them like Maven and then they'll get it. It's not something I can really explain to them though, especially with their lack of speech and intelligence.
The best I can do is squeak out something like, 'Do you want to be like me?' They all agree immediately. They definitely have been trying to be like Maven, so I'm not surprised. Well, that settles it. I go over to one, touching it, and reaching down to its mana well. Maven definitely has a harder time with such a small amount of mana compared to me, but I manage it. When I did this with Maven, I just dumped a bunch of my mana into his well until it worked. I don't think he has enough for that. So for now...
As I think about it, I reach down to the surface. I can feel the difference, the boundary where the well begins. It's just like those stones in that regard. I don't have the mana to waste, or absolute mana to use this time, so I try the best thing I can think of, and quickly plunge down, right into the center. This is where that stone was embedded in the monster, so...
It's quick to get to the bottom, the hobin's well is like a puddle. I touch the bottom, feeling along the structure. This too is like those stones, but much smaller. My guess was right, and I find the core, or whatever it's called, very quickly. There, I can feel where the stiff structure of the well wraps around a small piece of mana. Of course, this one feels colorless, just like the rest of this hobin's colorless mana. If it's anything like how that fire stone had fire mana embedded in it, then I feel like I should be able to change the well's mana type by changing that one piece. Wait, didn't that one also have some light mana in it?
I shake the stray thought away. I don't have the time, every moment I spend in its mana well, more of mine dissolves away. For now I'll try changing that piece. But how? Let's start simple. Reaching up to the structure, I just kind of... hit it with my mana. Unsurprisingly, that doesn't work. How about something with a little more finesse? Instead of just hitting the outside, I try to push my mana inside. Oddly enough, the previously hard surface of the well kind of just moves aside as I try to burrow through. Once inside, I tug at the hobin's colorless mana, but it doesn't budge, completely held in place by the structure of the well around it. So instead I change it by swirling my own colorless mana around it. I feel them mix and it converts easily enough.
The change occurs immediately. It's like I can feel the whole well spinning, or grinding, or something. It's an inexplicable feeling that's hard to describe. While it fights to right itself, it feels like there's a battle between the hobin's colorless mana in the well, and the well's new desire to be filled with my mana instead.
It finally strikes me. This is like the reverse of when I dumped my mana into Maven's well. By overflowing it with mine, I forced the well to change. Now this one is full of the hobin's mana, while the well is trying to force the change. To break the stalemate, I just dump some of my mana in to help, and it immediately overcomes the hobin's mana. Within moments, the well forces it all to convert into my own colorless mana. All that's left to do is pull out the hobin's colorless still floating around inside of its body, convert it, then put it back.
It didn't take long to work through that, but I'm on a time limit. I have no idea how long my body may or may not survive for, given its state at the end of that battle. I could already be long dead and just not know it. Maybe the lele fruit didn't even work, and the enemy rail unit simply finished me off. I shake away those thoughts. I have to try, for Emily's sake, and we still have a long journey ahead to reach the battlefield. So I quickly go through the other two hobins and change them too. Now that I know the method, it's actually really easy. It doesn't even take any mana since anything I lose to the hobin's well ends up getting converted back in the end anyway.
With three new allies who finally, happily, understand the changes Maven has been through, we all set off once more. Huh, it seems that they've been trying to wrap their tiny minds around Maven's change for a while actually.
As everyone runs together, I go through and try to pick out some names for them. The smallest one will be Soma. The larger one will be Baan. And the female has much more fluffy fur than the males do, so... Kiara.
They may just be names that I made up on the spot, but they seem to fit well enough. As we all go, I realize that this experience is even weirder than anything before. Inhabiting an entire group of hobins, I can actually see multiple views of multiple beings that are all essentially me.
I shake away the weird thoughts that come from all of this and just let the hobins do their thing and run. They're well accustomed to the forest, so they can travel very quickly. But at their size, and over the distance, will they really be alright? We walked all day to reach the battlefield. Hobins are even smaller than I am, will they be able to reach it soon enough? Only one way to find out.
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As it turns out, hobins are good at sprints, but not the best for running over long distances. They all try to pace themselves, but end up tired by the time they approach the north end of the forest. They're forced to slow to a walk to conserve energy while they recover. They reach the outskirts of the forest, where the brush thins out, and take a short break to climb up into the trees and eat a little fruit. They'll need the energy to get all the way there, and none of us have any idea if there's anything between here and there for them to eat. Once sated and ready for the hard part of the journey, they all set out. But something feels off. They all spread out, ducking, but there isn't much area to take cover here. A rechit stalks slowly from between the trees. They don't normally hunt this late though!
Wait, this is a good thing, isn't it? It can definitely help! It launches at Kiara, fangs bared, but the other three hobins do something the rechit surely doesn't expect, and tackle it. We pull the mana out of the rechit to knock it out, then I convert its mana well into mine too. It stands back up as I get a feel for the larger animal. Huh, a young male rechit. Since they don't normally hunt at night, I'll name him... Night? Well, that name's a failure. Can't get them all right on the first try... While I keep thinking on it, the hobins climb up onto his back. They're nice and light, so it doesn't bother him any.
With our group up to five members, we set out, leaving the forest behind. I direct the rechit to keep going north for a bit so it doesn't cross too close to the city, before turning toward the northern road. We'll need to use the bridge to cross the river. While he keeps running, I take a few more stabs at names, trying to find one that sticks. Aabrams, Krys, Lindel... Something that sounds like rechit? I can't think of any names that sound like that though.
The rechit can cover ground much faster than the smaller hobins. He reaches the bridge before I know it. After crossing over, we just keep heading north. The tall grass wasn't too much of a bother on the walk out, but the rechit is shorter than I am, so the grass reaches to its chest and is sort of difficult to run through. But he just keeps bounding at a steady pace.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
How about Brom? That name seems to fit the rechit well enough. So Brom it is. With Brom's help, we make much better time crossing the northern plains than when we were walking. It cuts the length of the trip down a lot, but the moon keeps rising higher and higher in the sky as he runs. Eventually, we suddenly switch directions when Brom begins to pick up the scent of blood. All I can think of are the rail units. They must be returning from the battle.
We circle around, staying in the shallow valleys between the hills for a while, until the scent begins to fade and I think they've passed by.
It's a little while longer, with the moon already approaching the center of the sky, before we finally start to see the grass receding. Given all of the small animal's short height, their view distance is even shorter than mine. So everyone works together to throw Soma up into the air to get a look around. The hobins end up falling all over the ground in the attempt, but they toss him pretty high up. He manages to spot the large rock I left my metals at earlier before falling back into the waiting hobins below. Now that we've found the metal ingots, we go collect them, because of course they're going to be useful later, they always are. We also grab the bandages I dropped with them.
The hobins do their best to hold onto the heavy metal ingots and bandage rolls while riding on Brom's back, and Brom is much more weighed down with all of the metal added to his burden. But now that we have metal, I just convert some fire and earth mana for Brom. As expected, they're already useful.
As we cross the last of the distance, we finally have a chance to survey the aftermath of the battle. There aren't many, but we do spot a few rail unit corpses far across the field. Then we stop at a familiar spot, right as we're entering the battlefield. Well, not so familiar anymore, but there's no way to miss it. At the site of a massive crater that definitely wasn't there before, we find a number of dead rail units around the outer edges. Their bodies scattered, torn up parts strewn across the ground with splatters of blood still pooling around them, a few birds picking at the bodies. Even at this distance, Brom can pick out the smell of the gore.
The bodies are still very fresh, good to eat for regular predators, though the scavengers will move in eventually as they decompose further.
I forcibly shake away the gruesome thoughts of the rechit and absolutely forbid him from eating any of the corpses.
But then my attention is drawn to one spot that's different than the rest of the crater. Over toward the left side of the crater, there is a... cliff? Since it's in the direction we're going, we circle around the crater toward the cliff. It's like there is little path of stone leading out, where the ground used to be before that Meteora spell destroyed everything. Only this one bit of land remains.
Then I see why. Out at the end of the path, 8C lies dead. It must have used the last of its mana trying to protect itself. It did an incredible job too, seeing this much of the terrain untouched by a Meteora spell...
Unsure how stable the thin stone path is, I have Soma go since he's the lightest. I have to get to the canyon, but I can't just go past without at least checking. But when I touch its body, both the temperature and the lack of mana inside tell me that yes, the rail unit is definitely dead. Judging by the general lack of injuries, it does look like it died from running out of mana. I say a silent thanks, and continue on quickly. Since I didn't see 3F, maybe it survived.
Actually, that enemy rail unit didn't have any mana when I touched it, did it? The thought only occurs to me a bit later, as Brom continues to close in on the canyon. I don't get it. It was definitely alive, definitely awake, so... I can't think of any explanation for it. Even the other monster I touched had mana inside it. I'll just keep that in the back of my mind for now.
We enter the canyon, where the ground slopes downward sharply, steep cliffs rising up on either side. The way this battlefield is, my best guess is a rail unit created it with one of the most powerful armaments, like that massive crater. But which one would create a huge cut deep into the landscape like this? None of the ones that come to mind would do something like this.
After descending down into the canyon, we reach the bottom where it mostly flattens out, the river flowing down the center. Looking back, it seems to cut into the rock at the bottom of the slope down into the canyon, maybe flowing into an area somewhere underground. We keep going. I'm getting nervous as we approach. I don't have any idea what state my body may be in, whether alive or dead. Between those horrible injuries, and the healing spell, I don't know how much of it might have been healed, and how much damage would still be left. Could I really have survived?
It's not long until I find out. Soon, I spot it just up ahead, white hair glowing bright in the moonlight at the edge of the river. My own body.
Brom dashes across the last of the distance to my body, skidding to a stop. It looks like the current of the river pushed me up onto a low spot, my hair blown out of the bun I was wearing at some point. It covers my entire back, so I can't get a good look at myself yet. Brom quickly drags me up out of the shallow water while the hobins work to turn me over.
The gruesome sight makes them all flinch back. Of the wounds, some have healed, but there are still so many cuts, slashes, and broken bones sticking out, we're all astonished to see my chest still rising and falling in small, rapid breaths. Blood still runs out of many open wounds. I've been in this state for how long already? I should have bled out a long time ago. The only possible explanation is 3F's healing spell. Still, there's no way it's active anymore, it's been way too long. So I'm probably a hair's breadth from dying of blood loss.
Everyone gets to work quickly. We pull my hair aside and strip off my clothes to see the rest of the damage. As expected, it's just as bad. Maven gently traces over my ribs, confirming that at least they set before the healing spell wore off. That should have mostly saved my vital organs at least. But I have to deal with the blood loss, as quickly as possible. The first thing we do is push any broken bones back into place, cringing at the horrifying sounds they make when they snap back into their correct positions.
Next, the couple rolls of bandages get wrapped around my arms and legs, which are still bleeding freely. The hobins are dexterous enough for all that, but Brom's paws aren't enough like hands to do delicate work, so I have him pull out all of the mana I was using.
I'm surprised to find a lot less than before. When I investigate, I find it slowly leaking away. It's still mostly numbed from the lele fruit, so it's only slowly floating away. Would it have gone even faster otherwise? Does that happen from such extensive, life threatening injuries? I don't know, but I do my best to help. I rapidly convert earth and fire mana to get my body's healing going and keep my heart pumping what little blood I have left.
But there's only so much I can do. Even with the earth mana to help promote healing, it still takes time. It's not like the rail units that can use their powers to heal any injuries instantly. All I can do is push and pull, washing the earth mana through my body over and over again while it gets to work. Even the bandages only do so much good. I do my best to bind the injuries and apply pressure to reduce the bleeding, but most of my bandages were destroyed earlier, I only have enough to bandage the serious injuries. Well, they're all serious injuries. Covered head to toe in deep, bloody gashes like this, I just can't treat them all.
Bit by bit, my blood continues to leak away, slowly soaking into the bandages and the ground beneath me. There must be more I can do, right? Something, anything to increase my chances just a little bit.
The very first thing is water. Everything in the body works better with water. The hobins scoop tiny pawfuls of water into my mouth, my body swallowing even while unconscious. They do it slowly, little bits spread out continuously so I don't choke.
I furiously wrack my brain for answers while the hobins and rechit keep up the treatment. The rail unit armaments are powered by mana, and they can heal injuries instantly. Is there any way I can replicate an effect like that? Anything at all? But no matter how hard I think about it, no solution presents itself. Those armaments were given to us by The God of War and Destruction. Do I really think I could make something like that myself? I hardly even know anything about mana or how it works. How could I even imagine producing something like that?
But I refuse to just give up. I'll just do whatever I can do. If I don't know something, my only option is to try to learn it. I have Maven pull more mana from my well, filling me with more, fresh mana to replace the bits that are slowly leaking away as my pulse slowly, but surely be fading away. I have Maven take everything he can hold, and run with everything he has, back out of the canyon. He runs back over to the crater as fast as his legs will carry him, and crosses the bridge to perch, panting heavily, next to 8C.
Please, please help me, just one more time, I pray silently. I touch 8C and dive inside once more. The space inside of it feels weak and small, even smaller than before. When I pay attention, it's shrinking, bit by bit. This space, I guess it collapses once the living thing it is inside dies. With what little time I have, I go to 8Cs mana well.
But what I find is... something else. Where its well should be, I find a giant rock. When I dive down, I find what seems like it should be the spot for the well, but the stone has completely buried itself inside. Is that what the manastones do to us? I don't have time to ponder it. If the manastones are anything like those stones I saw before, I should be able to reach inside. Pressing against it, I once more imagine pushing through the solid stone, and burrow into another space inside.
But it's different. It doesn't feel like a mana well and doesn't forcibly convert my mana. However, the space seems to be shrinking quickly. Moving fast, I dive into the depths of the manastone. I don't know where the core is, but there's so much more inside of here than those stones that it doesn't take long to find something. I hit a solid piece of structure and wrap around it, my mana flailing and swaying as I command it with rapid, desperate movement. I spread out over the structure, finding all of the nearby embedded pieces of mana I can. But... there are just all sorts of different ones, without any recognizable patterns between them.
Fire, lightning, earth, water, air, light, dark, and even a bunch of others I don't recognize, all mixed together, with seemingly infinite numbers of connections between them. This is the work of a god. Forget trying to copy something it can do, I can't even wrap my head around how it works! And this is only the manastone! Where is the divine gear? Is there even a way for me to try examining it? It's not a stone like this, so what would I even do if I found it?
Banging my head into another impassible roadblock, I have to pull back. The space is rapidly collapsing. Drawing back to Maven, I slam his tiny paw into the rock beneath him. I'm sorry, 8C. I don't have the time. I'm not smart enough. I don't know enough. I couldn't make use of this opportunity you gave me, even in death.
Maven begins to run back to the canyon, while I turn my attention back to the others, still working on treating me. I've almost completely filled my body with earth mana and the constant flow is greatly helping my healing, but it's just not enough. No matter how much I speed it up, it's still far too slow to outpace the ongoing bleeding. My only chance is to get my body to heal enough to stop the bleeding before I die.
Keeping the mana flowing, keeping everything working, and healing, is exhausting, so everyone takes turns, letting the others rest every time they are too tired to continue. As time goes on and more of the mana leaks away, I have to keep replacing it. And as my pulse keeps weakening, I'm forced to put in increasingly more fire mana to keep it pumping.
It comes down to my own lack of knowledge and skill. This is all I'm capable of.
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