Pain. Lots of it. The conversion rate on his own pain and emotions wasn’t great. He wasn’t sure if it was some sort of origination loop issue, although that would make sense. Or maybe this version of him didn’t generate a lot of excess pain or emotion because he’d been eating it since he was a fetus. Or perhaps it was something else entirely. The point was that although total regeneration off of his own pain and emotions was theoretically possible it was very slow, so he’d never relied on it if he could help it.

From what he could tell his body was close to shattered. None of his limbs would do much more than twitch, and it was agonizing to turn his head. Something was wrong with his neck, or his back. Or both. That probably wasn’t good.

One eye wouldn’t open, and it was hard to focus with the other. Internal pain was also still high. It hurt to breathe, and not just because his jaw was broken and his teeth were missing. His heart was laboring, and his gut felt like he was trying to digest broken glass. It was hard to focus too. Probably something was wrong with his brain.

That should have been the end of it, but now that he was conscious energy was flowing in from an external source. He couldn’t look around for it, but his attacker was somewhere nearby, and pumping out a lot of emotion. Gloe was regenerating, and that allowed for moments of clarity.

So...time to go old school. He hadn’t seriously used this technique in years, but he had periodically checked to see if he had access to it. There was an odd sense of rippling disorientation as his senses went offline, and then there was nothing. No pain, no sense perception, nothing except his thoughts and memories.

It was the state he’d found himself in when he’d first reincarnated. When he’d reflected it made a certain amount of sense. When he’d first died those…bastards…at the bazaar must have done something to allow his soul to house his mind. Otherwise how could he have retained his memories? He had an entirely new brain now, one that had been partially shaped by his existing knowledge so that it could be retained.

At the bazaar some sort of…temporal distortion…or something had allowed him to draw on his dying body for a prolonged period, so that he could maintain his senses. That was no longer possible once he first reincarnated. His fetal body had to develop for a long time before it could fully house his consciousness, but he had still been deeply connected to it. At first he’d floated in this void, his new body capable only of perceiving touch, vibrations and the constant pain of regenerating back from mostly dead. Over time the sensations had increased. Hearing had been a welcome return, even if mostly all he’d heard was mother.

Even after he’d been born he’d still been partially detached. As an infant he had access to all five senses, but his brand new brain had needed time to make sense of the new data. His mind knew what needed to be done so it wasn’t as if he was starting from scratch, but his brain still took time to conform. As best he could tell it took well over a year for the process to advance to the point where his entire mind could be housed, and even then the brain’s operations were sluggish, to the point where he would often detach to process things.

If his ability was reliant on sense perceptions (like most) his ability to detach would have been little more than a novelty. He presumed all the sojourners and reavers could do the same, there simply was no reason to. While detached there was no sense of time, so you could drift endlessly if you weren’t careful. In addition your body went limp as you fell unconscious, so if you weren’t already prone you could injure yourself.

However, Gloe’s primary ability by default simply operated in a radius around his body, and pain and emotion were inherently non-material phenomena. There was no specific need for any immediate connection to the physical world. From the very beginning in this world Gloe had utilized this, trying to alleviate his mother’s suffering. He hadn’t been powerful enough for that, but he’d grown since then.

So it was time to take a chance. Detaching, he worked rationally through the problem. He decided the heart was the lynch-pin, and as he resurfaced in the physical world he directed all regeneration there. After a time he felt the pain in his chest change, so he repeated the process and refocused on the lungs. One by one he worked through each of his internal organs.

Each time he paused for a period, allowing the regeneration to spread back out in order to keep everything else under control. Doing so allowed him to find several problem spots as the pain rapidly spiked. He diverted to get those under control, then continued the process. It seemed to be working. Each repair he made reduced the power drain, allowing the general regeneration to more rapidly work on everything else. This might work, if he had enough time.

Once his spine was repaired he was able to carefully look around with his working eye. His clothes had been ripped to shreds, his magic gear had been taken, and he was in overall rough shape. On the other hand someone had taken the time to put a crude dressing where his right hand used to be, so apparently he was wanted alive, at least for now.

He was lying on the ground, somewhat near a fire. It had burned down over time, but it still cast sufficient light to allow him to get a halfway decent look at his attacker. Frankly, it was pretty irritating.

It was a wolfman. Straight up a no shit werewolf movie wolfman. Obviously he was extremely physically powerful. Fast, strong, enduring, with the senses of a wild animal. He was pumping out an incredible amount of negative emotions too, but that was doubly working out. Not only was Gloe using those to heal, but since he was draining them off wolfman seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. If he was always this upset it might have been a minute since his last night’s decent sleep. This might just work.

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Gloe continued to partially heal his major injuries, one after another. He wasn’t trying to reach full health, just something that would allow him to move again. The moon was low in the sky by the time he was ready, but he managed to get there before wolfman woke up. His right arm was still sprained, but without a hand on the end of it he wasn’t overly concerned. Quietly he got up and approached the fire. The wolfman didn’t stir, even when he carefully pulled a brand free. His path lit, he snuck off into the darkness.

Naturally he didn’t make it all that far. Once he was out of range it was to be expected that the wolfman’s emotions would cause him to have a nightmare, which would eventually jolt him to at least partial awareness. Then his enhanced senses would inform him that something was off, and he would awaken. Once he realized his captive was gone his senses would allow him to easily track the fugitive, and his tremendous speed would make catching up a snap. Expecting to escape would be stupid, given that he hadn’t been able to do so even while at full strength and in possession of magical items.

In fact, when wolfman came crashing into the clearing Gloe wasn’t trying to escape at all. He’d built his own little fire and was nonchalantly sitting at it warming himself. This seemed to infuriate wolfman even further. “Don’t care what they want! You’re dead fucker!”

“I really don’t understand what I’m doing that so extremely pisses these guys off” Gloe muttered to himself. Then he dropped the contents of his left hand in the fire. The amalgamation of plant matter flared up rapidly and emitted a disproportionate amount of smoke and a truly horrendous smell. Gloe retched, and would have emptied his stomach if he hadn’t lost the contents during his beating.

The effect was far worse on wolfman. Given his much more acute senses the olfactory assault was overwhelming. He desperately fled, his screeches of agony echoing into the night. “Never found a use for that before, but I’m glad I spent so much time experimenting with everything I could find.” Gloe smiled.

...

Wolfman’s distress bought him a little time. Gloe had already figured out how to efficiently capitalize if his gambit succeeded. He ran, raiding as many of his own caches as possible. First on the list was one where he had saved old, deteriorating equipment. That got him worn but still functional squirrel boots and a hat. That gave him some speed and assisted with navigation. In rapid succession he hit where he had food, rope and materials. He rigged a net into a makeshift pack and hit the road, or in this case, the canopy.

On the way out he made one last stop, making a quick search of the site of his brutal beating. He was able to find his axe there. Wolfman had mostly shattered the handle, but the head still had some magic in it, and it was a different type than the couple of knives he had been able to retrieve. Better than nothing.

No more time. He headed north at full speed, his mind racing. Fleeing had failed previously, and he had been faster and healthier at the time. His olfactory ambush had succeeded though, so obviously wolfman wasn’t invulnerable. That tactic probably wouldn’t work again, but at least in principle he should be able to take advantage of his new knowledge of his foe to find something that would.

What did he know about wolfman? Strong, fast, brutal. If he followed the stereotype he’d be tough with high regenerative abilities. Keen senses. Was he smart? Immaterial, he was angry. Really, really angry. There should be a way to use that.

As long as he didn’t siphon that emotion off. Gloe smiled wryly to himself. He was going to have to exercise some restraint if he wanted this to work, no matter how badly he needed the energy. With that in mind he slowed slightly, looking for something to work with.

...

Wolfman was coming. Gloe drained off just enough energy to try to track his progress, but he didn’t want to abate swirling emotions any more than necessary. And they were tumultuous. Wolfman was extremely upset.

“Why do they keep send emotionally unstable adolescents after us?”

“That’s sort of their schtick, isn’t it?” he answered himself.

“But why? What does it gain anyone?”

“I mean part of it is obvious. Even if they’re sojourners or reavers, teenagers are just easier to manipulate, right?”

“Okay, yeah, that explains the aristocrats and such. I guess. But what about the gods?”

“Insufficient data.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

“Hey, if we don’t know, we don’t know.”

“You don’t have to be a prick about it.”

“Nah, but it’s kinda fun, isn’t it?”

“For you maybe. Shut up, he’s getting close.”

If he got the timing wrong on this he almost certainly wouldn’t survive to try again. It was oddly exhilarating in a way. He grinned, trying to gauge the rate of approach in his head. …now.

He dashed off to one side, dropping down a level with each leap. He could hear wolfman now, in close pursuit. He had maybe thirty seconds buffer when he reached ground level. Close. Far too close. If…no time to worry about it.

A massive bulk loomed in front of him. He struck out at it with his broken axe, then flipped up over it and ran with all his might. Wolfman was in the middle of a similar jump. Then the ripperphant woke up. It was a lone bull. They tended to be a bit surly. Waking them up in the middle of the night didn’t tend to improve their disposition, and they held a grudge.

Gloe had never dared mess with one, because he’d seen a ripperphant chase an impudent hydra tiger for an hour before messily smearing it all over the landscape. There was a very good chance this was going to end badly for him. Unless…

The ripperphant, even half-asleep, roared at the tiny wound it had incurred and lashed out in all directions. Wolfman was caught in mid-air and sent hurtling away, finally slamming to a halt against a tree. It apparently didn’t do too much lasting damage, because he quickly scrambled free. If he’d conducted a temporary retreat Gloe would have been toast. Ripperphants weren’t stupid, and this one would quickly catch on to exactly what had woken it up. But he didn’t.

Rage was swirling around him almost palpably, and getting sent flying only made him angrier. He’d never seen a ripperphant before, but he knew his own strength. Wolfman rushed forward to erase his ignominious flight.

His opening strike was impressive, scoring deep and drawing blood, but ripperphants weren’t lightweights. The damage merely woke the bull all the way up. His first thought was that he’d found the lowly being that dared to attack him. His vision narrowed until all he saw was wolfman, and he launched a counter-attack.

Ripperphants were huge, intimidating creatures. They looked tough and strong, but their looks actually understated their actual abilities. They were also incredibly fast for their size, and fairly intelligent for a monster. Wolfman only barely managed to avoid being bisected by a slashing blow, sustaining significant damage even still.

He roared, slipping in for another strike. The ripperphant roared and launched his own counter-attack. Gloe chuckled softly to himself as he fled for his life.