Jack awoke to find himself yet again in a strange room. Unlike last time where he was clearly in an office this time his surroundings looked to be a hospital room. He was laid out on a bed with his clothes having been changed out for what seemed like a light purple hospital gown, though the fabric felt nicer than what he recalled.

Taking a moment to check his body over Jack didn’t see anything that looked out of place or injured but it was always best to be through. He pulled up his status screen to a cacophony of pain shooting through his body. He held back a silent scream of pain. That shouldn’t be happening! It seemed that whoever had knocked him out and brought him here had damaged his system node somehow. As far as he knew such a thing was impossible! Well, no matter, even if it was painful to do so he could still access his status screen and as he could even when he was a child he could endure anything. As was reflected in his constitution score on his status, which showed him as… perfectly average? That was odd. It seemed whatever damage his system node had sustained also affected some of its other characteristics along with the pain that calling on it caused.

Name:

Jack Bertrand

Race:

Human

Tier One

Class:

???

Health: 90/100

Mana: 19/20

Body

Mind

Power

8

Insight

16

Flexibility

11

Acuity

13

Constitution

10

Geniality

10

Goals:

Find out where you are.

Locate a source of mana to test mana passages.

Learn who attacked you.

Repair system node.

Jack shrugged he would have to work to fix whatever was causing this but for right now he would finish checking himself over and try to figure out just where he had been taken this time. It looked like he was fine physically other than whatever caused that pain. So next to check were his mana passages. A spellcaster body enhancer person like him with his lower aptitudes could never be too careful.

Going through his mantra as he always did Jack attempted to pull in some of the ambient mana and blinked in surprise. The mana levels here were like the restaurant had been after his scrying. Had someone recently used up all of the mana? Or perhaps this place had warding up to reduce mana contamination for patients. Either way there wasn’t really free-floating mana for him to pull in.

He could still do the other steps to check his passages however he would need to be mindful of his expenditure as with the lack of environmental mana he wouldn’t be able to replenish himself and he was not looking forward to experiencing that feeling of emptiness again. With that in mind Jack turned his attention to the second step of purification. Sensing his mana inside it appeared to be the normal light blue color that his mana always was. While everything seemed normal so far, he did not try utilization as he would not be able to replace the mana and with his energy reserves even the smallest expenditures was costly.

Having checked himself over and testing what he could Jack figured it would be a good idea to get started on his goals list. While the second and fourth goals couldn’t be accomplished where he was right now, he could at least work toward getting the first and third ones done. With that in mind he got up from the bed and started to move around the room.

The hospital theme became even more prevalent as he stood. The bed was secluded in the corner with only a privacy screen that wrapped around it. Stepping out of the bed section Jack saw the rest of the room contained a small table with two chairs, a combination bookcase cabinet with a few books on its shelves and two closed drawers as well as what looked like a receiving stone to listen to broadcasts in one corner. The whole room was a drab white with the only real coloration coming from Jacks outfit and some of the book covers.

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There were two doors in the room one right next to the curtain and one across the room. Testing the one next to the bed rewarded Jack with it opening into a small bathroom suite that held a shower and toilet. He left that door open and walked to check the one on the far wall only to find that door was locked from the outside. The door had a small window looking out into the hallway beyond, looking out it kept the same dull white theme that the room did, lit by light orbs inserted into the ceiling every few feet.

Jack worried that he had been brought to some kind of mental institution as he could think of no real reason that a normal hospital would lock the door from the outside. If that was the case he needed to get a lay of the land and figure out a potential escape route. Because, while he should be able to show his mental acuity and stability, he had heard that some asylums would ignore whatever the patient said. This was due to the staff having a bias of the patient having been committed and thus obviously insane, so, no matter what the patient would say it would be considered false. With that in mind Jack shook his head to clear out any extraneous thoughts and knocked loudly on the door to attract a staff’s attention.

When nobody responded to the noise he shrugged and decided he would try again every five to ten minutes until there was some answer. While he waited he took the time to look into the combined shelving and drawer cabinet. The bottom drawer contained what looked to be eight more of the outfits that he was currently wearing, obviously enough to allow for a change every day of the week along with an extra for laundry or in case of some kind of accident. The upper drawer on the other hand did not contain any type of clothing but rather an assortment of paper, blank journals, what looked to be some type of activity books, and writing utensils. The shelves on the other hand were stocked with an eclectic assortment of books. There were nonfiction books on various magical arts, magical theory, and history as well as more entertainment orient books like magical fiction and fantasy stories of worlds without magic. At the very least there was plenty of material to allow him to have something to do while he waited in-between his attempts to attract an employee’s attention.

Having finished his examination Jack pulled out some of the materials from the drawer along with a couple of the books that looked interesting and placed them over on the table. With that all that was left was to see just how long it would take to get someone’s attention.

In the end it took a bit longer then half an hour was Jacks best guess. He had repeated his knocking six times before someone came up to the door. The person that came was a slightly balding middle-aged man with a massive mustache wearing grey protective robes with red trimming.

Jack waved at the man and tried to speak only to find that no sound was coming out of his mouth. At first, he wondered if there was a sound suppressing ward on the room along with the mana suppression but that was dismissed when the robed man spoke. “Ah you’re awake! I’m sorry, if you just tried to say something I’m afraid I couldn’t hear you. Would you mind speaking louder please?”

Opening his mouth again Jack attempted to speak but for whatever reason while he could feel the air passing through his throat his vocal cords made no sound whatsoever. He looked quizzically at the employee of wherever this was and gestured at his throat in an attempt to ask them if something had been done to him.

It took the person in the hall a bit before they understood what Jack was trying to ask when they finally did they assured him. “No as far as I’m aware your throat hasn’t or hadn’t been damaged at all.”

Jack held up a finger before taking a moment to think before snapping a finger. Quickly turning around he grabbed some of the paper and a pencil that he had set on the table earlier. He hurriedly wrote down a greeting and some questions that he wanted to ask. As soon as he had everything written down he took it over to the door and slipped it underneath.

“Right let me take a look here” the man said as he bent down to pick up the paper. On it Jack had written.

Hello. I’m Jack Bertrand and you are? Could you please help tell me where we are and how I got here? The last thing that I can recall before waking up here was getting hit on the back of my head by something in an alleyway on the north end of Desval. What is going on? Also, it seems that I can’t controlling my vocal cords properly. I checked my body over when I woke up and didn’t see anything wrong so do you know why that is happening?

After a brief moment where the man read the writing a couple of times rubbing his chin. Looking up at Jack he replied. “Well Jack, you can call me Dr. Trovihn. You are in a specialized medical facility. I’m afraid that you are infected with an especially dangerous magical affliction. It has been known to cause some irrationality when it comes to interacting with other people, so we keep the doors secured like this to prevent problems. It’s always possible that whatever had caused your injury on the back of your neck could be responsible for your inability to talk.”

Jack listened intently to Dr. Trovihn and turned back to the table to write another message. After getting it written he passed it under the door just like he had before. The doctor picked it up and read the second message.

Ah, is that why there is a mana ward then? I attempted to check my mana passages earlier and felt the unnatural absence of mana in here. Is there anything I can do to speed up my recovery or anything? I was dealing with a rather time sensitive case of a missing person. So, I am more than happy to cooperate with what needs to done to help fix this problem.

“Indeed we have found this particular parasite seems to feed on mana so the only way to treat it that we have found so far is to restrict mana as best we can. We are of course looking for better methods but… well. Anyway, as you are now up and awake, if you are up for it we can run some tests. We did some preliminary work when you were admitted to make sure that we didn’t get a false positive. If you are as willing to work with us as you say then we will have several questions for you to answer. After that we will contact next of kin to let them know of your situation, and I’ll have to check with a couple of the others but we should hopefully be able to get most if not all of it done here today judging by how stable you seem to be.” The doctor rattled off in response to the note.

Jack gave an affirmative thumbs up to the doctor’s statement. If he could get whatever tests they needed done with then the sooner the better. When he considered Dr. Trovihn’s demeanor and use of the phrase getting things done today it was likely that he had been unconscious for at the very least the entire night. He hoped that whoever had brought him in had not examined his coat too closely or they could have found the contraband materials that he had been carrying in preparation for breaking into the association. If they had it was possible that whatever disease they thought he had caught would be the last of his worries. Though considering the fact that they were claiming he had some kind of disease he wondered why nothing was displayed on his status as an abnormal condition… though perhaps the disease that they spoke of was what was causing the problems with the system node.

Coming out of his thoughts Jack realized he had missed Dr. Trovihn saying something as he heard him say as he turned away “and like I said if you need anything just use the call function that I mentioned earlier and someone will be here as soon as they are available. We don’t have the biggest staff so it can sometimes be a wait. If it is an emergency pulse it repeatedly. Alright, I should be back fairly soon so please make yourself comfortable and if you have any further questions well you can ask once we have the tests finished.”

Cursing at himself as his inopportune lack of attention caused him to miss an apparently important bit of info Jack grumbled in silence, still no sound coming from him. The doctor’s last statement though was a good suggestion of what to do while he waited. Jack reached to his breast as if to pull something out of a pocket as he prepared to write down a list of questions and notes on the situation that he had found himself in. He stopped for a moment puzzled at his bodies action, why would taking notes have him reaching for his chest? Just as his status screen held his current goals he could of course take notes in it as well so why would he be acting as if to grab a physical object. It was truly strange. It seemed that the knock to his head certainly had some powerful consequences.

With that thought Jack grimaced as he again pulled his status screen up. He felt that same agony shoot through his body and saw his status showing another ten health and one mana missing from the action.