The remaining half of the journey to the room where Jack thought he could get ahold of an artifact was a painful and harrowing experience. The path he travelled was littered with broken projectiles. He had been lucky enough to not get directly hit by any of them, but he had gotten clipped by a few. The worst of which was a hit that caused a nasty gash on his ribcage along with having likely broken his left arm. It had happened in the small stretch of hallway right before they had reached the room that Jack had been thinking of.
The knowledge that they were almost to their destination had been a relief to Jack which caused him to relax. That was not a good choice when a maniac was throwing deadly objects at him. He managed to twist his torso out of the way just in time for his heart and lung not to be crushed bust still got clipped by it. It only cut him rather than killing him outright. Jack forced himself forward smashing the spot that would unlock the door even as his body no longer wanted to respond.
He yanked the door open and dove through just as another twisted doorknob slammed behind him. Looking around frantically Jack saw one of the lamps in the corner that he knew was connected to whatever powered the entire facility. Without pause Jack flung himself over the bed to where the lamp was sitting. Smearing it in blood as he did.
With one hand on the foot of the lamp, hiding the rest of himself behind the bed Jack frantically attempted to pull mana from the artifact into himself. Choosing to Ignore the fragility of his flesh and limits of just how much it could hold. He knew if he kept on as he was there was a good chance his life expectancy would be much shorter than it normally would be. Then again dying tended to cut life short as well and much faster than dealing with the aftereffects of his poor choices would.
The strong dense yellow mana that powered the facility flooded into Jack who in turn pushed it straight into his mana passages. He needed to do something that would use the power as quickly as it came in. As his mind began to become overwhelmed in the deluge of energy the only thing that he could think of was the last concept that had become part of him. The one that had pushed him over the edge toward insanity. Where he had needed to solidify just who he was so that he wouldn’t descend into madness. The concept of Stillness.
It felt almost like a silent gong went off, spreading a shockwave of mana in its wake. A shockwave that as it passed everything around it froze in place as if taken out of time. As the stillness spread there was an exclamation of shock from the doorway. The sound of the woman’s voice caught Jack’s attention. He didn’t need to make everything stop, he just needed to make her, and her companion, stop. Jack stood and looked toward the doorway focusing his mind as much as he could to channel the torrent of mana down to a single point rather then in the massive aura that he was currently producing.
Bit by bit the aura condensed and the figure in front of Jack slowed. Causing him to start breathing easier as her movements halted mere inches away from. Immediately after she froze Jack had to fling himself sideways to avoid the projectile that she had thrown from the doorway. It seemed that as soon as the effect was no longer applied, the knob continued on as if it had never been stopped. Taking a few deep breaths as he stood back up Jack reached out and touched the ladies outstretched hand. It felt like touching a statue. Solid and ungiving. No matter how hard he pressed there was no response from her flesh. His wonderment ended as the mana flooding his body reminded him of its presence with a sudden burst of agony. His flesh felt as if it was tearing apart from within while molten magma flowed in his mana passages. He couldn’t sustain the magic for much longer and if he let it go right now the only thing awaiting him was a crushed skull as soon as the woman was freed.
Jack’s mind raced through the possibilities. Thinking to himself sarcastically that it would be too easy if he could just smack her over the head while frozen like she was. Sadly, judging by how she seemed unaffected by his touch as well the fact that the doorknob had maintained its momentum even while it was stopped suggested that doing so would be of no use. Looking about for anything at all to get him out of his predicament Jack’s eyes landed on the lamp he was clutching in his hand. He couldn’t hit her while she was stuck but if he timed it correctly… He could move to confuse her and hit her right as she came out of it.
With that idea in mind Jack painfully clambered up onto the bed where he could still hold onto the lamp while getting ready. As soon as he was in as good of a position as he could be Jack yanked the lamp up so he could swing it at her head and let the spell drop.
There was a flurry of activity when the spell finished. The woman lunged toward where Jack had just been only to be hit right in the face by the lamp. Her head snapped back so fiercely that Jack was sure she was dead. Slowly with his body barely functioning he inched his way over to her afraid that she was pretending and simply waiting for him to get close enough so she could kill him.
Several uncomfortable minutes ticked by before Jack felt that it was safe enough to approach her. Gently crawling over the bed to where she was sprawled out on the floor he leaned down and felt her pulse. She was still alive! Even through his dampened emotions Jack felt a little sick at how her neck had bent when he had hit her but luckily, or perhaps unluckily, it seemed that she had survived.
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After standing there for a few moments staring in amazement at just how resilient she was Jack couldn’t help himself. He had to know. As best as he could he lowered himself down to sit next to her. Once there he placed one hand on her abdomen, the other on her head and closed his eyes.
Sinking into himself Jack saw the soft glowing white of his mana. Grimacing at bit he started to slowly move small tendrils of his mana down his passages to his hands. As it reached his fingertips, he could feel the mana of the woman. It was depleted. Clearly, she had used almost everything up either during the chase, or more terrifyingly some time ago. Jack slowly sunk his mana down into her body to get a better sense of her mana signature. His mind interpreted what he was feeling into a small sphere of blue energy. Guttering like a candle about to be extinguished. It was the same exact shade that his own mana had become when he had been under the system’s thrall.
Jack stared at the energy. He knew that when he was infected there was a small fragment of who he was, the truth of his existence, that remained even when the rest of him was subsumed. He had thought that the little core of self that had existed was from his survival of not purifying mana properly before. This was a chance that he could see if that theory was true.
As Gently as he possibly could Jack sent his mana forward to probe the small amount of remaining mana in her body. As soon as the two manas connected Jack felt her mana try to attack his own. This surprised him for a moment as generally unless someone had an absolute hatred of another their mana would not react in such a manner, and considering that he had never met this woman before today it threw him for a loop. It hit him after second, the mana that she had, had been converted into that of the Great System, and the Great System had declared him a mortal enemy.
Opening himself up to allow the mana striking his to flow into him, Jack stared deep into the oncoming energy searching for anything other than the constant blue of the system. More and more of the nearly empty energy reserves left in her body and flowed into Jack as he searched. Bit by bit the mana vanishing as his investigation became almost frantic. Unsure if he was hoping that he was correct and he was special, or that he was wrong and that somehow these people could be saved so they weren’t condemned to just living their lives as puppets for a multiplanar entity.
Jack’s examination kept turning up nothing. Just more of the corrupted mana. Finally in the last tiniest sliver of mana, right before her energy and life would gutter out, there was a miniscule fragment of something that was a different color and feel. Jack stopped letting any of the mana flow into him, uncomfortably bloated as his body struggled to deal with a drastic overabundance of mana for the second time in a short time span. Examining the spark as best he could, he tried to create a shell around his mana that matched it.
Jack sent mana through the shell that he had created in order to change it into as close an approximation to the fragment as he could manage. Taking the result, he pushed it into the woman’s body softly and slowly so as not to snuff out the spark. As the energy streamed from his body into hers, he could see that small spark start to get larger. However, as it grew the remnants of the blue mana that hadn’t been absorbed immediately started to convert the spark into the corrupted mana. It wasn’t fast but if left as it was, then soon enough the woman would once again be nothing more than a puppet.
Sending more mana back into the body and watching as closely as he could. Jack tried to determine just how quickly each aspect changed. How fast the spark grew and how quickly it was converted over into the system’s mana. Luckily it looked like the spark grew quicker than it was converted. At least while Jack was supplying mana.
Jack kept pumping mana in while trying to figure out how to deal with the problem as both aspects grew. When the answer finally came to him, he felt like slapping himself. The answer was so simple, that perhaps that was why he had overlooked it at first. All he needed to do was absorb the blue mana and convert it in his body like he while trying to see if there was anything left of whoever she had used to be. He just needed to do everything at the same time. It was the essentials of spellcasting with the only difference being that instead of casting a spell he would supplying the mana to someone else.
Jack’s mind began to grow hazy as pain once again began to overwhelm him. He shook his head. He might be in terrible pain but if he didn’t keep it together it was likely both he and the lady would die. He spat some blood out to the side and gritted his teeth. He was better than that.
His body aching and passages filled to bursting Jack continued to absorb and convert the mana from within the woman’s body. Anywhere that he felt that blue tint even the slightest speck was brought back into his body to be converted to his mana, then changed to match what remained of the woman’s natural essence and sent back into her. Over and over again. Repeating the process what seemed like an endless number of times. Until at last, it was done. When no matter how thoroughly Jack searched, he could not find any of the blue mana of the system hidden inside of her. To be certain he had even repurified a good portion of the spark just in case.
Exhaustion hit Jack and he let the woman go laughing harshly. Here he was having to run for his life as two people tried to murder him and his solution was to try to fix one of his pursuers while the other had wandered off to agier knew where. As Jack slumped over barely holding on to consciousness a loud blaring went off as the building alarms were triggered. Perhaps a guard had discovered the open rooms or someone had run into the other person he had released. Either way Jack’s current exploration of the facility was over. Hopefully he could make it back to his room before it was discovered that he was also out and about.