Anna

Clearing the nearby area after their battle took the team almost thirty minutes. Unable to stand, Anna decided to use that time to try and meditate. The system had said that she could spend Karma on new skills and she hoped that her life energy proved its namesake. It ended up taking most of the thirty minutes just to get the skill menu open through the pain.

Skills

Forest Companion (Novice IV):

Call a creature of the forest to aid you.

Thorn Whip (Novice III):

Summon and manipulate a vine from your body. Allows you to generate thorns at will.

Additional Skills Available:

Mend (Novice): 10 Karma

Instantly heal yourself or your allies for a minor amount.

Regenerate (Novice): 10 Karma

Slightly accelerate the natural healing of yourself or an ally.

Seed Shot (Novice): 10 Karma

Fire a small seed from your palm.

Thirty Karma for all three skills. Do I get more later, or is it just the five? Anna had thought she had nine Karma, adding her previous remainder and the amount she received after getting a passive and completing a Dharma, but was surprised to see another amount.

Karma: 22

Mulling it over, she assumed that combat must have given her Karma that she wasn’t aware of. Karma for murder. Stealing a glance sideways, she took note of the mutilated body of the archer she had killed. Don’t look away, you did this, own it. Her, or Helen, and you made your choice.

Focusing on her skills instead, Anna mentally selected Mend and Regenerate. A warm sensation spread from her chest and she froze as it occurred to her that she had forgotten about the damage to her soul. A few tense moments passed, but no pain seemed forthcoming.

She searched for any error alerts and finally pulled up the appropriate system message.

System Alert

Your soul has recovered from critical damage!

Your resilience has won the day, Karma increased by 5!

New skills gained!

Mend (Novice I)

Regenerate (Novice I)

That accounts for five of the additional Karma, but there’s still a gap. Also, it hasn’t even been twelve hours.

Looking at the image of her soul, Anna was relieved to see an intact vessel. Two new energy signatures joined her previous ones. The first was connected to her stomach, and the other ran up and down her spine. Before she could make use of them, however, she had to refill her mana core.

Pushing energy from her newly replenished soul into her core was much easier than expected. She simply created a vortex of energy around her heart, like one of her skills, and used it like a funnel directly into the core, which existed in both her physical and spiritual bodies. She watched her menu as her mana slowly ticked back to full.

Vitality: 40/60

Mana: 70/70

Stamina: 30/50

Next, she filled her stamina, but found the process a bit like shoving slime into a jar. She got it done in the end, but was sure that she’d most likely lost soul energy that she wouldn’t have if she had better control.

Setting the thought aside, Anna grabbed hold of the skill mark on her stomach and anchored it through her core. Feels like being bloated after a big meal. She first tried pushing the skill to heal her hip, but it dissipated as soon as it entered her wound. The mana cost was pretty small, so casting it again wouldn’t be an issue. The more surprising detail was that the spell ate up a decent chunk of her stamina as well.

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Vitality: 42/60

Mana: 65/70

Stamina: 35/50

Makes sense if that’s regenerate, the skill did say it boosted my natural healing. Mana starts the spell, and my body takes over from there.

Anna cast Mend next, this time, the skill responded exactly as she expected and rushed into her wound. It left the area feeling slightly numb and came with uncomfortable twitching as her skin kneaded itself back together. The skill also didn’t completely heal her, instead the damage to her bone was gone and a shallow scab now covered the surface. The hole in her thigh was still there, although the bleeding had thankfully stopped. The mana drain had also been massive, she noted.

Vitality: 53/60

Mana: 25/70

Stamina: 35/50

Recharging her mana core, she mentally pumped her arm when she saw that her soul was already full of energy again. Yeah, my passive is definitely overpowered. It’s really the little wins that make your day. Anna cast mend and regenerate an additional time and then topped off her mana and stamina.

When she finally awoke from her meditative haze she found Miranda, Helen, Greg, and Kelbyn sitting in a half circle around her. Helen had dark circles under her eyes and looked ready to keel over, Kelbyn was in a similar state. All four had expectant looks on their faces, almost saying, “You healed yourself, me next.”

“Meditate and focus on regaining your stamina while I heal y’all.” Anna told them. Once the last of them closed their eyes in meditation, she cast regenerate on Kelbyn, pushing the skill from her fingertips into his chest. She cast on the rest of them the same way, followed by a mend on Helen focusing the skill into the many deep bite marks on her torso. Then she closed her own eyes and meditated to restore her reserves. Once full, she repeated the process.

Regenerate stopped working on everyone but Greg after the first cast, so she assumed they had expended all of their stamina. Looks like I have to do most of the heavy lifting here.

During her next round of meditation, she found that she had three additional Karma, bringing the total to five. When she looked through her system menu, she only found a difference with her new skills.

Mend (Novice II)

Regenerate (Novice III)

She spent all five Karma on her stats, spending two each on Intelligence and Wisdom. The final point she used on Endurance, deciding that if she was going to be stabbed again, might as well get better at dealing with it.

Stats

Strength: 5

Endurance: 6

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom: 9

Fortitude: 5

Vitality: 78

Stamina: 60

Mana: 90

Anna paused to take in her new stats, irritation began creeping into her mind at the simple math she’d performed last time getting tossed out the window. At least I have a decent excuse to ignore it for now.

Having more mana than eighty mana meant that she could now cast mend twice and regenerate once before she had to meditate again, deciding to hold off on casting regenerate a second time. Who knows what sort of negative effects come with zeroing out your mana?

Several rounds of healing later, everyone was back on their feet. Some smaller cuts and bruises remained, but they all had refreshed casts of regenerate on them and the sun was beginning to set.

Kalvin and Hobbes had also meditated for a while, and then dragged the bodies of the ambushers into a line on the far end of the clearing. Most of the possessions of the dead were piled nearby, their rations and anything else that the duo found useful were taken. “Found out a neat trick while you were all out,” Kalvin said, holding out a stack of paper.

“Did they write something?” Anna asked.

“No lass, get out your paper and put some Ki into it.”

“Ki?”

“He means mana. The dwarves apparently don’t use it the same way we do. They use Ki instead of mana and stamina.” Helen stated, taking out a set of her own papers.

Anna followed suit and realized that it wasn’t a stack at all, it was actually one large folded page. She was able to unfold it five times into a large sheet. When she pushed mana into it, the page transformed into a map. She saw the river and camp they had come from, as well as another area a few inches below it. Most likely where we started. The path to the clearing they were currently in had also been drawn in. There were lines for topography, and even a small legend that contained familiar symbols.

“That is pretty neat, I’ll admit.” Helen said, her own sheet.

“Do you see a map? ‘Cause to me, your paper is still blank.” Anna replied.

“Only visible to you. For my next trick, I’ll blow your mind.” Kalvin said as he tapped one finger on Anna’s map.

A massive zone was revealed around them. The river ran along the entirety of the drawn area, creating a natural westerly border for their section of the forest. Thirty miles east, according to her scale, there was a mountain range extending far to the south. Several clearings, and even what looked like small villages appeared spotted throughout the area as well.

“Got this after taking the map of those bastards,” the dwarf continued, pointing over his shoulder towards the fallen, “after trying to use them, their maps turned to dust, and mine was revealed. Tested it out on Hobbes’ and found out we could share information.”

“If they had this information,” interrupted Greg, “that means Volas does too.”

“The hell does he have to do with this?”

“He and Salar were working together, they took Helen to draw me into an ambush. I guess Volas didn’t like the threat to his leadership. Thank you all for the help by the way, neither Helen nor I would be alive without you.”

This time it was Hobbes that spoke up, “It’s what any decent folk would do. There were ambushers that were never part of the original group though. Were they working together this whole time?”

“No,” responded Helen, “Salar didn’t seem to know them much better than we did. My best bet is that he or Volas finished their integration before the rest of us and they worked out some sort of deal with the other group. That’s why they let us leave, the two of them were probably trying to lead us to the other group eventually, so it wasn’t worth the risk of having any more of their people killed.”

“Sure, but why kill the gnomes? Also, what about the elves, did they get up and leave as part of the deal, or what?” Anna interjected. Receiving shrugs from the others, she continued, “Alright, let’s just leave the rest of the mystery for later. For now, we get back and kick Volas’ teeth in.”