The enhancement blossomed forth slowly at first but building with intensity. Jack wondered for a brief moment if part of what he was seeing was influenced by the way that someone visualized themselves and their spellcasting. Everything that he was seeing with Dilacy seemed to be taking on an almost floral element.

While it was fascinating to see and experience, it was, at least for the moment, unimportant. Jack refocused his attention over to her external passageways. As the enhancement flowed forth to her internal passages he watched for the small extra wisps of energy.

He didn’t realize it but as he watched he started to hold his breath. Feeling nervous about whether Dilacy’s mana would have taken on the same trait that both his and Charise’s had. That of being anathema to the parasite. If it did that was at least one step less that he would need to be involved with. The only thing left to test at that point was if the doctors here could also do the operation itself. If they could that would mean that Jack wouldn’t have to do any more of them.

As the wisps of mana inched closer to the external passageways it felt like time was stretching. Going slower and slower, every heartbeat an eternity. A hammer upon an infinite anvil. Bit by excruciation bit they made their way, Jack’s anticipation and worry ramping up. Finally, the small pieces of mana made their way into the passages.

To Jack it was like the entire world had become still. He couldn’t help it, his worries bubbled over, no longer under control. “What if it didn’t work? What would they do if when the worlds mana was brought in it just made it a temporary reprieve? Sure, it was better then what the company had before, but he had promised them a cure. What were the restrictions in the contract again? Was he going to be stuck here for years slaving away to release people trapped by the system?”

As all these thoughts and more passed through Jack’s head there was a change. A small explosion occurred. It had worked! An enormous sense of relief flooded over Jack. As he watched more and more of the bits of mana flow into the crystalized passageways and burst, he winced slightly in sympathy. But for all the sympathy he felt he felt more satisfaction and accomplishment.

Twice! Twice now he had accomplished something that the heirs and researchers of one of the clans had deemed impossible. He, the lowly Jack that he was. The unwanted, the pitied and despised. He had proven that he as well as other jacks weren’t the useless refuse that society had deemed them as. They were as good as anyone else and could still achieve greatness. It might not be the same greatness that many who wished to emulate the agier pursued. But still greatness none the less.

At the same time, Dilacy let out an unhappy cry of pain. She had been warned that there was going to be some pain, but it was far more then she thought it would be. It was easily a seven or eight not just a five out of ten. It certainly wasn’t the worst pain she had ever felt but it was definitely up there.

Carlos who was sitting there, sill holding Dilcay’s hand, startled at both her cry as well as the sudden bone crushing grip that she had. “Gah! By the bloody pits! What happened? Dilacy are you okay?”

Jack opened his eyes at this point and let out the air that he had been holding in a deep sigh of relief. “It seems that the operation did indeed work. She is likely experiencing the small amount of pain that I spoke of.”

“Small amount of pain? Are you a lunatic? That’s agony! Not the worst, but fuck if it wasn’t bad.” Dilacy called out her body still smarting.

Dr. Trovihn attempted to calm her slightly with a possible explanation, “I suppose it’s different for everyone. There might even be someone we release in the future who doesn’t even notice. You are after all only the second person that has been freed in this manner.”

“So that’s it? I’m all done, and besides freed from what exactly? I was promised explanations.” Dilacy’s tone was grumpy and demanding.

“Of course!” Carlos nodded and bit his lip nervously. “So, I suppose I’ll get the hard thing out of the way first. It’s currently the 17th of Luminary. You’ve been here probably for almost two months. You vanished about halfway into Kiraner.”

Dilacy was aghast, there was no way that that could be true, “What? No that can’t be right! I got into a fight last night sure, but I could have sworn I didn’t get that hurt! It can’t be two months later! Two whole months! Oh shit, I can’t imagine how my parents are taking it. Or fuck! Wolven Freedom! They must be tearing themselves apart from guilt if this happened to me right after we parted ways!”

Jack broke in in an uncomfortable voice, “Well, your parents weren’t taking it great I can tell you that. They ended up hiring me to try and find you as all they were getting was a blank from diviners and the like.”

“Huh? Aren’t you a doctor? Why would they hire a doctor to find me?” Dilacy looked at him confusedly.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck as he explained, “Errr. Yeah. I’m not a doctor. I’m a private investigator. Or I was at least. Everything has been tossed into the air with this whole mess. But I assume I was your parents’ last hope. They were quite desperate by the time that they decided to take a chance with me. They probably are hating that choice at the moment.”

Dilacy just looked even more lost at his reply, “What?”

Jack shrugged “Oh well, I also ended up here for the last two months about. It was what? Probably about a week to two after you disappeared that I got bashed over the head and tossed in here.”

At this point Dilacy looked at Carlos, silently begging for this all to be a huge joke. A horribly mean one to be sure, but a joke none the less. Carlos just looked away, patting her hand gently.

Seeing this almost guilty response Dilacy started to get angry. She growled at him, “If you knew I was here, why didn’t you tell my parents! This is your family’s facility!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I didn’t know you were here!” Carlos objected loudly before he sighed out, “I mean, I learned you were here. Today. Before now, I honestly had no idea that you were being held here at all. I thought you were dead or taken like the rest of Wolven Freedom is.”

“The rest of Wolven Freedom is what?” Dilacy asked numbly.

Carlos didn’t know how to break it nicely so just took a deep breath and rushed everything out at one, “They are all dead, severely injured or missing. Those of us who had worked with them have been keeping an eye on the investigation into it but it hasn’t gotten too far. From what I was able to get the staves to tell me everything seems like you were all targeted for some reason. No definite leads on who or why though. It was thought maybe something from the last job we did so all of Golden Watchers have been interviewed a few times.”

Carlos paused for a moment before he turned to Jack, “Actually I think they might have been looking for you too. I don’t remember for sure but your disappearance coincided with the time that everything else happened. I think they have you down as a prime suspect. You know with your history and all.”

“Great.” Jack deadpanned sarcastically at the news, “That’s going to be fun. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. I get to go back to no home, and get pulled in to aggressive questioning by the staves. Joy.”

“Eh, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about it. I would think we should be able to get records of when you arrived and everything. We’ve been keeping them for each patient in the hopes that we would indeed discover a cure.” Dr. Trovihn assured Jack.

Jack let out a small sigh of relief, “Oh, well that’s one less worry. Thanks doc.”

“Not a problem.” The doctor nodded.

Dilacy broke in confused, “Wait? Cure? How do you cure comas?”

Dr. Trovihn was confused for a moment before he realized what Dilacy was thinking, “Huh? Oh, no, no not comas. That’s not what this facility was built to contain. We specialize in a specific multi-dimensional parasite. In fact, up until Mr. Bertrand here all we were doing was simply containing those infected.”

“I had a parasite? A multi-dimensional parasite? What does that even mean.” It almost seemed to Dilacy that everything that came out was more bewildering and distressing then the last.

Dr. Trovihn proceded to explain, “From what we have been able to glean over the last few decades it infects it’s hosts mana passageways. From there, it coverts the mana in the crystalized passages until they have become fully contaminated. At that point it no longer hides or goes slowly but instead converts the rest of the hosts mana, or at least almost all of their mana over into its own. It does seem to have some level of intelligence, considering the reaction to when Mr. Bertrand was freed.”

“Ummmm.” Dilacy thought about what was said and asked in a quiet voice, uncomfortable at the connotations, “So this means that I also had this parasite?”

Dr. Trovihn nodded, agreeing “Yes, it’s what the operation we did was for. It also is why your utilization of mana a few minutes ago was painful. Your own mana has taken on an anti-parasitical effect. Much like many of the immunity boosting spells help the body adapt to fight off diseases, it seems almost that becoming free of the parasite works in much the same way. Just for your mana rather than your blood. Now your body just needs to finish fighting off the rest of it.”

Dilacy digested that before something that was mentioned earlier suddenly occurred to her, “Wait, if he’s not a doctor, then why was he doing an operation?”

Madam Blue replied coldly, “He’s the one who figured out how to remove the parasite. Sometimes advances come from the strangest places. I know I certainly wouldn’t have expected someone considered to be a magical cripple to be the one to figure out how to flush out such a creature.”

“Wait, this guy really is a jack? Oh, that’s rich.” Carlos laughed surprised.

Jack sneered back toward him, “Yeah, and what of it? Keep it up and I’ll show you just what this Jack can do.”

At the same time Charise called out angrily, “Oi! I told Jay off earlier for starting shit, don’t think that means that you get to.”

As the three started to argue with each other, Dilacy shouted out. “SHUT UP! All of you just shut up! Here I am recovering from some kind of operation with horribly painful side effects or after effects, or whatever. Being told that my parents likely think I’m dead, that several of my friends in this city are dead or missing, and that I have been taken over by some kind of magical dimension, dimension, dimension bug or something. And you all decide that the best thing to do is start being fucking assholes to each other over my tied down body. What the fuck is wrong with you all? Predolar’s breath.”

A silence fell over the room. Dr. Trovihn nodded and spoke breaking it, “She’s right. If you lot are going to continue your fight from earlier, this really isn’t the place. If you have all this energy let’s be spending it doing something productive rather than this petty behavior. Okay?”

The two looked at each other, Jack’s sneer locked on his face. Glaring once more at Carlos he turned away, closed his eyes and let out a breath through clenched teeth. They were right of course; he had promised himself earlier that he would try working on his temper and mouth. He was old enough that he should be able to act better, he wasn’t a teen living on the streets anymore. It didn’t matter that Carlos just rubbed him the wrong way, he was better than that.

After centering himself Jack turned toward Dilacy and said, “I can’t be sure about it, but I had pointed your parents toward contacting Telipar Industries about the possibility of you being picked up by them. This was right before I disappeared myself while I was trying to figure out exactly what had happened to you. I had been able to establish that you had been changed or something by artifacts from the northern ruins but hadn’t yet found out how. I had a few suspects. This guy had been chief among them at the time. Now, however? I have no clue. For all I know someone else in Wolven Freedom pissed off somebody rich and powerful and you were more or less an incidental victim.” He jerked his thumb at Carlos as he said this.

Carlos looked at Jack in surprise, “How did you figure on them needing to contact Telipar Industries?”

“It’s where a lot of the data was pointing, if you knew where to look. There are only so many times something can be a coincidence before it really means something else. Add that to your family were the ones who opened that portal in the first place and well things seemed to fit.” Jack shrugged. “Wasn’t completely sure, but all the evidence was pointing this way. At least for where she wound up. I was still working on why it had happened, plus double checking my other work. I already pissed you off so I didn’t want to be seen as trying to antagonize your family.”

Carlos nodded thoughtfully. After a brief moment of thinking he turned to Madam Blue and asked, “Do you know if her parents were informed of her being held here?”

The director looked at him and said in a flat voice, “I am unsure. I generally am not involved with letting the families know. It should be in the records within the facility so I will have someone run and check. So. Otherwise, what would you say?”

“Looks good.” Carlos nodded before glancing sidelong at Jack as he asked “You can’t be serious though about the other thing though, right?”

Madam Blue’s expression didn’t change as she replied, “Completely serious sir. We have already stretched our side as far as it could go by this point.”