Jack awoke to a wet feeling covering his face. It seemed that whoever had grabbed him earlier put some kind of compress on him while he was out of it. Opening his eyes and taking the cloth from his face Jack felt the light hit his eyes and gouge straight into his brain. Slamming his eyes closed, he choked back a groan of agony only letting the smallest of whimpers out. He really needed to work on sticking to his body’s limits. Only a couple days after recovering from near death and he almost killed himself yet again.
After taking a few deep breaths to steady himself Jack covered his eyes and slowly cracked them open letting himself adjust bit by bit. After a few minutes he felt stable enough to look around and see where he was. He took his hand from his face while being careful to not look at any light sources Jack glanced around. He was sitting in the chair of a small cramped office. There was a light breeze coming from a fan above him helping to stifle his headache.
After taking his bearings Jack shifted slightly in the seat and regretted it immediately. The slight change in posture brought forth just how sore his body was from the mana and life being dragged out of him earlier. It felt like he was just one massive bruise. Taking another large breath Jack forced himself to sit up fully. This wouldn’t stop him, he could Endure it, even if it was uncomfortable.
As he sat there, he tried to recall everything that he had learned from the scrying. However, the state of his body kept distracting him, making it impossible to think straight. Grimacing he wrote down what he could in his notebook. Scowling at his handwriting that was so shaky it was barely legible Jack forced himself to continue. He didn’t trust himself to not forget something. Better to struggle through reading terrible handwriting later then to forget a possibly important detail. Even the smallest things could sometimes be what snapped the whole puzzle into place.
It took Jack a good while to get everything put to paper, between the pain and lack of bodily control he had to stop and start numerous times. Eventually he finished and put his journal away, he would try to make sense of it later, for now he would thank whoever put him in here and get back to the office and rest some. He still had that meetup with Lalinda later this evening and needed to be functional enough for that as well as his nightwork after.
With his body shaking almost uncontrollably Jack forced himself to rise from the chair. As he did the cloth that had acted as a compress fell from his lap along with a couple other items that clattered to the floor. Looking down Jack saw that they were the items that he had brought along for the scrying spell. Swallowing a grunt of pain he lowered himself to the floor and wrapped everything back up in the now damp cloth. He stuffed the cloth into his pocket, grabbed the corner of the desk and heaved himself back onto his feet.
As the room briefly spun Jack closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. As he reached inside of himself to run mana through his body to enhance his balance, he realized that mana was part of his problem. Or rather lack of mana was. Even though he had known that his reaction was due to having the mana ripped out of him by the spell he hadn’t thought at all about absorbing and purifying mana to restore his body’s natural reserves. He could kick himself for his foolishness.
Jack chanted, or at least attempted to chant his standard mantra of absorb, purify, utilize that he would do when using magic. His head was so fuzzy however that he struggled with even getting his body to start bringing in mana from the surroundings. It was almost as if there was a lack of mana in the area.
He giggled at that silly idea as he became lightheaded from the several failed attempts to draw in mana. Shaking himself slightly he made his way out the door of the office and found himself in the bustling kitchen of Dovers Tasty Treats.
“Hey the slumbering prince awakens!” One of the chefs lightheartedly jeered as Jack come out of the room. This elicited a smattering of laughter form the other workers as they kept on with their jobs.
Jack smacked his lips and tried to speak, his body not quite responding. He swallowed roughly and tried again this time getting some words out. “Where is the manager? Sorry I never did ask her name.”
All around him in the noisy kitchen nobody responded to Jacks query, not even the chef who had made fun of Jack’s arrival. She had already turned back to the stove in front of her. It seemed to Jack that speaking too quietly was really becoming a trend for him. Jack swallowed again, the spittle feeling rough in his throat before he asked his question again louder.
When nobody responded again he grumbled under his breath in annoyance and walked over to the nearest person. They seemed to almost be in their own world as they washed dishes and set them out to be used again. Coming up behind them Jack tapped them on the shoulder causing them to jerk in startlement. “Hey sorry to bother you. Would you mind telling me where the manager is? I just want to say thanks.”
“Fuck me. You’re a quiet one aren’t you.” The dishwasher said clutching his chest. “She’s out doing front of the house today. One of the wait staff called out. Give it a minute and either she will be popping in or you can ask one of the waiters or waitresses to grab her for you.”
Jack thanked him and found an out of the way spot to wait by the entrance to the dining room. He did not have to wait too long before one of the wait staff made their way into the kitchen with another order. He waited for her to tell the kitchen the order and stepped in to catch their attention before they could leave the room. “Excuse me, when you go back out there could you let the manager know that I woke up? Thanks.”
She gave him a strange look before letting out a drawled “Sure.” With that she grabbed a couple of plates ready to go out and left the kitchen.
Jack went back to his spot and leaned against the wall to wait. Some time went by before the door opened again it was the same waitress as last time. After giving the chefs another order, she glanced around, spotted Jack and walked over to him. “Hey Sandy said she’ll be free to talk in about twenty minutes here. You are free to hang out in the office if you want.” Message delivered she went back into the main room.
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Slowly making his way back over to the office Jack absentmindedly tried to pull up the time letting out a grunt of pain as his body reminded him that he currently lacked any mana. With how he was currently doing he would have to visit a mana dense area in order to restore himself properly. He paused for a moment, that was actually a fantastic idea. From what he remembered there was a public park in the northern part of the city that was filled with specialty flowers that needed a huge amount of mana to stay healthy. It was one of the previous Mayor’s pet projects to make a tourist attraction. It worked somewhat, enough that they kept the thing going year after year even with how low the natural mana flow in the city was. As he was thinking about where to go next, he finally got back in the office and decided that sitting back down was probably for the best.
A short while later the door open up and in walked the manager. “Hey thanks for bringing me in and getting me situated Miss…?” Jack called out to her a moment after she entered.
“Sandra, my name is Sandra. Oh, of course it was no problem. Even if you are a disgusting pervert exorcist, I would never just leave someone lying in the alley like that.” She smiled thinly at Jack with her statement. “Besides now that I’ve seen your trick I know for certain now that I won’t be paying for your exorcism services.” She continued on still not having accepted his numerous protestations about not being part of whatever group had been bothering her regularly.
“Look, Miss Sandra, I don’t know how many times I need to say this but I am not a part of whatever group you think I am. I don’t deal in ghosts or exorcisms, not unless my current job calls for it.” He tried to calmly explain again. “What I did was a scrying spell on a customer that you had last week that has gone missing. I’ll be honest I was hoping that it would have shown me more then it did but I’ll make do. I don’t know if they are alive or dead at this point and if they were a scrying spell and a sprit sustaining itself on local mana are very different.”
“Uh huh” came a disbelieving tone.
It was at that point that Jack gave up caring at all. It was obvious that either she believed him and just found it entertaining to continue to pull his leg or she was one of the most blockheaded people that he ever had the misfortune to come across. Either way it didn’t really affect him long term, as after having done the scrying there was no other real reason for him to be at the establishment. With that running through his mind Jack stood up and simply stated “Thank you. I really do appreciate you letting me do the scrying as well as letting me rest here afterwards. I will get out of you and your staff’s way and be on mine. Thanks again, I hope you have a wonderful day, and those exorcists or whatever leave you alone here on out.”
With that Jack headed out the door through the kitchen and out the back into the alley behind the restaurant. As he stepped out of the building he heard a voice behind him say “No problem, I hope you do find the girl here. No joking around.” Followed by the sound of the door closing. With a slight grumble under his breath about people taking a joke way to far he headed out to the streets proper. He would need to ask for directions but it shouldn’t be too hard to get to the park he wanted to. Glancing up once he was out on the street, he could tell that it was early afternoon by this point. It seemed that he had been out for almost half the day from his lack of attention. Better then the last time he did something stupid on this case at least. Not that that spoke much considering it was only five days into the case and he had almost killed himself twice at this point.
Trying to get his mind off his recent foolishness Jack asked a few of the passerby for directions to the park and with a general idea of where to go started making his way. Luckily it wasn’t to far from where he was, only about a fifteen to twenty minute walk away and the weather was almost balmy feeling compared to the cold of the last few days.
After a brisk stroll Jack had made it to the park, looking at the sign it was Tregir Park named after that same mayor that had come up with the idea in the first place. Jack wondered for a moment if the whole reason that they had wanted to make the park in the first place had more to do with having a permanent monument to themselves rather then the tourist attraction for the city that they had sold it as. He shrugged after a moment as either way it didn’t truly matter in the end, the result was the same and he was benefitting from it.
He wandered into the park proper he had a few hours to spare and with the pace of the last few days it would help him to slow down a little and rest up. Taking a break in such a scenic location would help him relax both his body and mind and he needed to take advantage of the chance.
The first thing that stood out to Jack was the sudden temperature difference as soon as he passed the fencing of the park. It went from the cold brisk of a winter day to what felt like the warmth of a late spring or early autumn afternoon. He hadn’t thought of it before but it made sense that if they were going to have flowers from all over that they likely needed to have specific environments for them as well. He took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers in bloom.
The next hour Jack simply walked the breadth of the park taking time to look at and read about all the various flowers collected here. There were more here than he had ever had even thought existed. Several of the plaques mentioned facts about some of them that talked about their more mana intensive relatives that could only be found or survive in specific regions and how any domestication of those strains was still ongoing. It did surprise him a bit when he found a plaque in the very middle of the park talking about the motivations of the mayor and why they had made it in the first place. It turned out that the reason the mayor had worked so hard on getting the park up and going was because their son who passed away from an illness when young had loved flowers more then anything else. The entire park was their way of honoring their son and other children stolen away too soon. Looking at the information Jack felt a twisted knot of emotion inside of him. Jealousy, rage, sadness, envy, but also a warmth and pride that there were parents out there that cared for children this much.
After dealing with the storm of emotions that awoke in him Jack went to find a good spot to meditate and get himself back into proper shape mana wise. It was the reason he had come to the park in the first place after all. He decided to set himself down on a bench near the flowers that to him had the best scent. He closed his eyes and started working through his mantra like he had before. Absorb, purify, utilize. This time unlike back in Dovers Tasty Treats there was plenty of free-floating mana that answered his call. Slowly and steadily, Jack got himself stabilized and filled back up to how he should be. After a couple of hours, he opened his eyes ready to face the world again. Casting the spell to see the time, Jack let out a small smile. Just in time it seemed. If he left now he would be right on time for seeing Lalinda.