I felt my body swaying from side to side and my mind screamed at me with a piercing pain. On the next downward sway, my stomach joined the protest and expelled its meager contents out of my mouth and up my nose in a disgusting display of dismay.

The swaying stopped immediately and I heard a chorus of angry buzzing swarm me. Attempting to lever myself up - why was I upside down - I found my arms too weak to obey me. I felt myself positioned upright which created a disco of sparks behind my eyes and the pounding of my heart cavorting across my brain. After that faded from an all-consuming nightmare, the buzzing solidified into comprehensible words.

“...give me the cloth. They’re going to choke on that soon and it’ll be worse. I need Engli to …”

Maybe Samir was saying that. I didn’t know, but I felt a cloth roughly swipe out my nostrils and mouth, for which I was both grateful and embarrassed. What the actual fuck had happened to me!?

On the heels of that thought, the muggy air of the swamp triggered the realization that I knew it was muggy because of its proximity to bodies of water and that we were in a low-lying area subject to high levels of rainfall and humidity. This pain was not worth knowing. The factoids continued rolling by unbidden in a patchwork of esoteric knowledge and random tidbits that Mav had collected and sent my way in his decades of experiences with swamps.

Feeling a rare burst of anger, I seized control of my body, opened my eyes - and promptly slammed them shut again. I felt the whimper crawl out of my throat and the anger flee from the searing pain the light had brought. The whole right side of my skull increased its palpitations to an alarming degree and I felt a chill roll down my body. Desperate to make it stop, I reached out and feebly gripped whoever was holding me upright. With intense concentration, I pushed back the pain to focus on hearing.

“...just hang on elf. Engli’s on a cooldown and you keep spewing back up the potions. If you need to focus on something you can…”

Giving no fucks about focusing on something other than this all-encompassing pain, I stopped listening. Facades be damned, I needed to end this pain now before my brain boiled and worse shit happened. Going by memory since using my interface felt like a primed minefield, I grabbed the first healing skill I thought of and triggered it.

“Airmed’s Cerate.”

I felt whoever was holding me let go and rapidly scoot back as the ointment appeared and formed over my body. I felt all my senses were immediately muffled as I flopped unsupported to the ground. The pain slowly receded to manageable levels as the smell of lard, honey and lavender wrapped around me. Slowly releasing the tension from my muscles I groaned with relief as the shell cracked and started falling off me. I would be digging pieces of wax out of my clothes for the foreseeable future. Worth it.

Cracking open an eye I was met by the hot breath of Night hovering over my face. She looked like she was trying to hide what I had just done while simultaneously realizing how futile it was. I meekly patted her closest body part, a paw, and smiled resignedly at her.

Firmly pushing Night to the side, Kiaralongh’s face appeared in my view with a stern tell me right now look.

“Hey, hi. Sorry I vomited on someone.” That seemed like an appropriate response.

“What was that skill? I didn’t know level zero rangers had complex healing skills in their builds. Enlighten us.” Apparently, Kiaralongh didn’t think it was an appropriate response.

Pivoting my eyes, and only my eyes, down, I found the glint of steel to go with the scent of weapon oil I had caught. Aimed at my throat based on the angle. Well, that escalated fast. My roving eyes quickly picked out the rest of the party encircling me with a mix of surprise, curiosity and hostility in their body language. I mean, sure, usually ‘innocent folks’ bilking a party would let them clear a dungeon and then rob them blind, but that wasn’t my modus operandi!

Feeling a prick in my skin from the knife at my neck, my eyes snapped back to Kiaralongh. “The skill is Airmed’s Cerate, novice level, and as you saw it covers the caster in a paste that absorbs all injuries and soothes them. At novice level it has a thirty-day cooldown.” I shifted slightly as the root digging into my back let me know staying in this position would create another need for healing or at least a nice stretching session I bet I didn’t have time for.

Kiaralongh took that as an opportunity to plant their knee in my gut and apply their considerable weight to it. “You didn’t respond to the second part. How do you have that skill? Only pinnacles bring random skills forward, and you don’t strike me as someone pathing with an actual goal or purpose. Explain.”

I was secretly frustrated that my facade continued to crumble, but preferred to keep the remaining pieces of fragile trust with the party than preserve it. “Yeah, no clue. Valen and Night keep telling me to roll with it and ‘it will all be explained in good time,’ etc, etc. I can do some shit, can’t do other simple things. It’s a random spinning wheel of ‘Surprise!’ Can you get off my bladder, I gotta pee fierce now.”

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Levering herself up, Kiaralongh narrowed her eyes in contemplation.

Samir weighed in helpfully and sauntered away from my rumpled form, “I can disable or off them both if need be, Ki.”

Chad, not one to be left out of sharing opinions, imparted to Kiaralongh that, “I haven’t trusted them this entire time. If they have these skills they should stop wasting Engli’s charges of healing. They get injured more than a training dummy at the adventure’s guild, and I haven’t seen a useful contribution to date. I say we kick them out after the miniboss and finish the dungeon without them.” Arms crossed and pompous air in place, Chad’s head swiveled for Mavrich’s thoughts.

Reev cut in as Mavrich seemed to swell with indignation. “Now look, it’s clearly a misunderstanding. Shad has been contributing quietly the whole time, and Night has also been doing her fair share. The elf is clearly inexperienced with groups, causing some of this friction. I, for one, have plenty of things I’m not running around telling y’all about my build. And I won’t be the only one, eh?” Reev’s meaningful glance had more weapons lowering and shoulders relaxing.

“Fair enough. I won’t apologize for being suspicious, Shad. We’ve had two back-to-back revelations of you holding unexplainable or over-leveled skills. I will need some assurances that you aren’t an Overseer plant in our group or planning on stealing from us.” Kiaralongh resheathed her dagger and glanced over at Engli. “Please clean the rest of your vomit off of Engli so we can continue to the miniboss. We’ll be there in half a glass. I will think on what assurances we can gain reasonably by then.”

Rolling over and then upright, I sidled past the dryad to do as she bid. I quietly jumped up and down in place to shake more of the cerate out of my clothes and then went to my pack still strapped to Rakshasa. I turned and headed Engli’s way after pulling out my canteen, Night’s steak and an older shirt I could use as a rag.

“Sorry for vomiting on you Engli,” was my whispered words as I carefully knocked free the repulsive remains from his tawny fur. The last bits fell free and I dried off the evidence with the cleanest corner of my shirt I could find. I held up the steak to him as a peace offering.

“It’s fine. I don’t want Night’s gator steak. You just unlocked a 5+ skill as a level zero, there are bound to be consequences. But also gains. I’m glad to be able to speak with you directly more easily.”

Hearing Engli’s amused and scholarly voice echo through my head froze me in place. We weren't maintaining eye contact for a telepathic bridge. This was not the skill I had unlocked. C’mon!

“You aren’t the only one full of surprises, Shad. This one is from my end, not yours. I can talk to whomever I wish at whatever distance I want to without maintaining eye contact. I am both an empath and a telepath. It’s less of a strain if the recipient has mind skills in the level 5 build range. I usually just don’t bother. You seem to be receiving a hard enough time from my friends that I am taking pity on you. You’re welcome.”

I laughed to myself as my limbs loosened up again. A cheeky lion. Who knew. Spontaneously grabbing Engli’s head, I kissed him on the nose and smiled into his eyes. “Thanks buddy,” were my parting words as I stood back and assessed where the hell we were.

I cleared my face of any emotion as I noticed Mavrich approaching me stiffly. “Hey, big guy. Sorry I keep keeling over on ya. I guarantee it is not intentional.” Night joined me and leaned into my hip supportively as he came to a stop in front of me.

He just stood there. Silent. Tall. Brooding.

Throat cleared, I tried again. “So, uhm, we’re nearly to the miniboss. Will we be using the standard formation to approach it?”

One of his brow ridges raised meaningfully at me. His arms crossed over his chest, and his foot started tapping impatiently. “What did I tell you last time?”

“Last time? Last time, uhm.” I wracked my brain for what he was seeking. Anger coalesced as some memories came to the surface, perhaps not the ones he alluded to. “You said I may be disorientated, for half a glass! I was out for two glasses by my count and was being attacked by my brain! What the fuck man! And you said you were a zero too! How did a zero give another zero a 5+ skill!!!”

Startled at my outburst, Mav answered instinctually. “Because I’m not just a zero. I reset my class. I was a level ten before, and have a lot of general skills that didn’t get wiped with the reset.”

I spluttered, “How is that even possible! Why would you do that?” I started pacing in frustration.

He reached over and laid his large hand on my shoulder and leaned down so our eyes were level, effectively halting me in my tracks. “I’m immortal Shad. I can reset everything as often as I wish. As to why, I won’t discuss it. Now stop deflecting.” He paused and let out a deep breath.

“I said you needed to level and that I was going to help you. I have helped you. And now you owe me ten herbs by the end of the floor. Regardless, I came over here to make sure you were ok. What I told you last time was that I cared about your growth. So, are you ok?” He straightened back up and I realized the stillness was him holding back emotions.

Deflated, I shook my head in the negative. “Nah, but I’ll be fine.” I leaned into Night and pasted a grin on my face. I also belatedly handed her the steak I had so carefully procured for her.

“Ok, well you have a few more seconds to wallow and then you need to arm up. Samir saved you a lot of critters to grind for experience.” He stood companionably by me while I just chilled out for a few moments. The swamp view of reeds, mangrove trees and bug swarms dancing about the thick air was not really relaxing, so my respite was really short. I belatedly pieced together that the whole party was together and that a lot had happened in those two glasses I was out.

Shaking it off, I checked that Stabby was loose enough for a quick draw, my quiver was full and my bow string ready. I looked over at Mavrich, patted Night affectionately and drew myself out of my relaxed poise. “Let’s finish this and get off this damn floor, eh?”