My elbow immediately bounced off the plexiglass, my dad's planning becoming extremely irritating at that moment.
I looked around the study, trying to use this new Mind Sight to see into every crack and crevice in the room until I found it. A single key was propped up on the wall behind a considerably thick book on the shelf.
I marched straight over to it and pulled the book from the shelf, grabbing the key and marching back over to the cabinet.
Viv just stood there, staring at me the entire time as I slipped the key in and snapped it around in the lock.
Pulling the doors to the cabinet open, I couldn’t believe my eyes as I finally saw inside for the first time in my life.
There were four items in the main compartment, all of them shining to both my normal eyes and Mind Sight, completely overwhelming me with their light.
I snapped my eyes away and straight to Viv, “These items have got to be magical. My dad is going to have a lot of explaining to do when we find him”
“Did you see what they were? You blocked me from seeing them”
“No, not with all that light coming from them Viv”
“What light?”, she asked, finally coming over to look over my shoulder, “There’s no light in there, numnuts”
“Stop kidding around Viv, they’re blindingly bright”
“No Raz, they’re not. They just have a faint glow coming from them. Ones a book, ones a small dagger, ones just a flat disc of some metal and the others a monocle. There’s even an item description showing in the interface”.
I watched through my mind as she picked one of the items up and held it out to me.
Throwing my hesitation aside, I grabbed hold of the item and immediately felt a searing heat in my chest.
Battle-Healer Grimoire
Arcane Book
Category: Rare
Level Requirements: None
Do you wish to Soul Bind this item?
Yet another System prompt. These were going to get extremely annoying if they popped up every five minutes.
I mentally agreed to the question and the heat in my chest vanished, a thin strand of energy spearing out of the book and hitting the centre of my chest.
Half a moment later and another prompt flashed into my eyes.
Battle-Healer Grimoire
Arcane Book
Category: Rare
Level Requirements: None
Do you wish to Soul Bind this item?
Yet another System prompt. These were going to get extremely annoying if they popped up every five mintues.
I mentally agreed to the question and the heat in my chest vanished, a thin strand of energy spearing out of the book and hitting the centre of my chest.
Half a moment later and another prompt flashed into my eyes.
Battle-Healer Grimoire
Arcane Book
Category: Rare
Owner: Razael Blackwell
Soul-Bind Slots Left: 1
Opening the book to the first page, I saw my dad’s handwriting, my name in stark capitals at the top of the message.
RAZ.
I know you’ll have all sorts of thoughts running through your head right now. I know I did when I first Integrated, but you just need to follow my teachings. Gather knowledge and apply it as best you can. Let your intuition guide you, it’s a gift from your mother and it will serve you well.
Keep your friends close and do not hesitate to fight. You’ll need to do a lot of fighting to level in the early days of the Integration.
I’ll leave you as many messages as I can, but I can’t be certain of your path forwards as only you can forge it.
I love you, son.
“It’s just let me Soul Bind this book, and there’s a message from my Dad on the front page”
“And me this dagger, I bet the other two are for Mark and Lisa,” Viv shimmied around me to get a look at the book, “There was something very weird about your dad Raz, almost like he already knew this was going to happen”
“I know Viv. Nothing we can do about it though. Let’s take these in and see what happens with the others,”
Walking quickly back into the dining room, we saw Mark and Lisa had sat down, chairs pressed up, shoulders touching, Mark’s arm around her back.
“Guys, we’ve got something for you both”, said Viv, holding out the metal disc to Mark and the monocle to Lisa.
As Mark tried to touch the disc, a flash of light erupted from the item and a gash opened up on his arm, blood spurting out as he shouted, leaping out of the chair and scrambling backwards.
First Ability Activation: Enhanced Mind (Battle)
A strange prompt to appear now, but I immediately knew why. Mark being attacked by the item had met the criteria for activating my further enhanced ability.
Everything seemed to slow down, each second seeming to take longer than the one before it until everything was moving as though through thick syrup.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Taking a deep breath, I jumped forwards, grabbing hold of the energy in my core and pulling it into my hands.
A green haze surrounded them as I grabbed Mark’s arm.
Healing Touch - minor injury (3 Health, bleeding status, -1 Health per second) - Mana Cost: 2
I felt the energy whip out of my core and into my hands, momentarily forming a connection between me and Mark’s injury.
In a strange state, I watched with my mouth wide open as the gash on Mark’s arm went from stretching outwards, blood squirting, to completely closed in barely a second.
As the last of the wound sealed shut, only a faint pink line was left.
My perception snapping back to normal, I did the only sensible thing at a time like this.
I laughed.
Mark soon joined in.
The girls just stared at us, obviously thinking us completely mad, but I didn’t care. This was all we’d ever talked about. What we’d do if Magic was real, zombie apocalypse, rapid ice age.
In a moment, all of our wildest fantasies had come true.
*******
Once we’d finally settled down and sat back around the table, Mark with the monocle in his hand, Lisa with the metal disc that had immediately wrapped around her arm and become semi-translucent.
“We need to work out what we’re going to do. There’s obviously going to be some sort of logic to how this Magic works, we just need to figure it out,” I said, watching my friends as I mulled over what my dad had said.
Just as Lisa was about to speak, a thud echoed through the house, a low hum following it
“What on earth”, started Viv, before she was interrupted by the tv switching over to the security feed on its own.
Right outside the house were half a dozen of the most misshapen creatures I had ever seen.
Seeming to be a cross between a jackal and a Jack Russel, the creatures were walking hunched over, their front legs much longer than their back.
“Our first fight,” grinned Mark, his obvious excitement palpable.
“Not a chance,” Viv grimaced, "I’m not going outside to fight anything”
“We’ve got to Viv, how else do you think we’re going to Level up?”, Mark laughed, “In all the games and books, the heroes have to fight monsters to Level up. I’ll be the Tank, you and Lisa with those ranged Skills you said you’d got will be the Mages and Raz will be our resident Healer. I bet there’s some way of sharing experience between people fighting together”
“Okay. But I’m not going out first. You can”, smirked Viv, obviously thinking that Mark wouldn’t want to be the first out.
Oh how wrong she was.
Mark lurched up from the table and walked straight up to the garage door, turning around at the last second, “Coming then?”, he asked, pulling the door open and marching through.
I got up and followed, fully expecting the other two to come straight after. Mark quickly got to the only exit past the barriers and waited, tension clear across his shoulders as I tapped in the keycode, the sliding door opening and revealing a half-door hatch that we could use to get out.
Mark pushed the door open and marched outside, a half-step behind him, I followed.
Viv and Lisa were a couple of steps behind me but by the time they were out, one of the Jackals had noticed us and started shuffling forwards.
“When I look through the monocle, I see floating text above the creature, it’s saying it’s called a Jackal-Dog and it has 10 Health”
“That’s useful Mark, how much damage do you think you can all do?”
“I can imbue my fists with Mana and get 2 damage per hit. I’ll just be in super close, you’ll have to heal me”
“Me and Viv have a Mana Bolt that we can do 3 damage every 2 seconds, so as long as we all hit at once, we shouldn’t be fighting too long. You’ve just got to hit it twice in that length of time Mark”
“Let’s go then”, Mark howled, the Jackal-Dog flinching backwards from the sound as Mark rushed forwards, covering the fifteen feet between him and the creature in the space of a second.
Right before he impacted with the creature, he lifted his hands into a boxer’s stance and quick-stepped to the side of it, his fists glowing as he struck out.
Dumbfounded at his disregard for any other plan, I was rooted to the ground as he struck it on the side of its head.
His blow knocked it backwards a couple of steps, just enough for one of the girls’ Mana Bolts to sail over its head. The other hit it in the front leg.
Not giving up his advantage, Mark rocked forward and lashed out again, his second strike hitting on its snout. Reeling backwards, the beast finally bared its fangs at Mark, taking a single step forwards before being hit again.
“That nose punch flashed as a Critical Hit. It’s only got 1 Health left”, Mark screeched back at us, the adrenaline coursing through him exacerbating his already loud demeanour.
Finally coming to my senses, I started running forwards, fully knowing that when cornered and wounded was when animals were their most dangerous.
Heedless of the danger he was in, Mark took a step closer to it and lashed outwards again.
This time, his strike did not land, instead, the beast’s jaw wrapped around his forearm and tugged, completely throwing him off balance and bringing him to the ground. Knowing he’d need healing the second of the girls used another Mana Bolt, I pushed power into my hands, the green glow reappearing around them as I came up alongside him.
Two more flashes of light and a Mana Bolt hit the Jackal-Dog, throwing it off of Mark, clearly dead. The other sailed past the both of us and a strange yelp came from the Jackal-Dog that was coming around the corner of the house.
Laying my hands on Mark, the Mana cost prompt reappeared.
Healing Touch - minor injury (5 Health, light bleeding status, -0.1 Health per second) - Mana Cost: 3
In even less time than before, the puncture wounds on Mark’s arm vanished, not even leaving the faint mark from before this time.
“Cheers bud”, Mark laughed, already turning from me and running at the next Jackal-Dog, “Catch up, slowpokes, can’t get too separated from each other”
“We’re coming, you great oaf”, Viv shouted back, all of us rushing after Mark.
By the time the Jackal-Dog had fully come around the corner, Mark was less than a foot from it and he shot forwards again, bringing his body to a dead stop by punching the beast as hard as he could, the same glow around his fists as he laid into the beast.
Jumping atop it as it rolled over from his first strike, he hit it in the head several more times.
As we came within a couple of feet of Mark, who was beginning to rise, a shape slammed into Mark, both of them tumbling end over end.
One of the other Jackal-Dogs had run full-tilt into him and was now busy scratching at his exposed arms and head as quickly as it could. Every time he could, Mark would strike at the beast, but without the light shrouding his hands, it didn’t seem as though he was doing all that much damage.
Finally feeling as though we were in battle, I felt as my Enhanced Mind ability kicked in, again seeming to propel my perception of the world into a completely different space.
Kicking off the ground behind me, I shot forwards, green energy already crackling around my hands as I slapped one hand on Mark and the other straight into the Jackal-Dogs snout.
Healing Touch - minor injury (8 Health, bleeding status, -2 Health per second) - Mana Cost: 8
Secondary Skill Effect Discovered - Bleed Removal
Tertiary Skill Effect Discovered - Battle Touch
Bleed Removal: when Healing Touch heals bleeds greater than Health Recovery, increased Mana Cost applied
Battle Touch: when Healing Touch is used to heal an ally, at the same time as your other hand is on an enemy, you can shift the healed damage from your ally to the enemy for double the Mana cost
I swiped the notification out of the air and grabbed Mark under his arms, hauling him up and shoving him towards the girls a few feet behind him.
Spinning around to look at the now-dead Jackal-Dog, I could see it was covered in tens of lacerations, looking deeper on it than they had on Mark.
I spun back around and started running back to the hidden hatch, “Come on, we need more of a plan before we fight these things”, I shouted.
Getting to the hatch before the others, I quickly opened it and held it open as they all crossed the threshold, screaming at them to hurry as the rest of the Jackal-Dogs came barrelling towards us.
Just as I stepped over and slammed the hatch shut behind us, I heard the snarls and howls of the beasts as they slammed into where we had left.
Moving quickly through the garage, I slammed my hands on the table in frustration.
If I could have seen myself in that moment, I would have noticed the strange, black, oil-like glow coming from my eyes.