Oliver wakes up with a gasp. In his dream, he remembers a young Asian girl waiting for the train to cross. When they made eye contact though, she exploded into a million shards of glass. Her scared expression sticks in his mind even after waking.
Next to him, Willow sleeps peacefully, turned on her side. He’s glad that he didn’t wake her up as well since she had a rougher time yesterday.
Sweat sticks to his skin, leaving the sheets damp and uncomfortable. Oliver grimaces and gently gets up from the bed.
Far in the distance, moonlight shines upon the weeping forest watched over by the Nimble Outpost. The faint glow of the trees’ crystalline sap contrasts with the pitch-black sky empty of stars.
Sitting by the window, Oliver observes the forest’s eerie beauty until his eyelids grow heavy again.
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Thermal returns to the hospital room with two mugs of warm water. He had to walk to the Hunter’s guild to borrow their kettle, but he required a task to distract himself from the anxiety of waiting for Elle to wake.
Serena stops her string game as he enters the room. Upon seeing him, she deflates, likely hoping to see the healer or the head alchemist.
He holds out one of the mugs. “This is for you.”
She takes the mug and sniffs its contents. “You got nothing stronger?”
“Nothing that the staff would permit you to consume here.” Thermal takes a seat not directly next to Serena. Despite waiting together after Elle’s hospitalisation, he is still not very familiar with her.
Serena takes a sip and makes a face. “Well, thanks anyways.” She holds the mug in her hands, lacking a place to set it down.
Next to her, Elle’s javelin remains propped next to a box containing a strange, heavy ball. He tried carrying the ball earlier, and his arms burned after a few minutes. Serena took it from him without a complaint, quiet the whole time.
He glances at Elle lying in the hospital bed. She looks pale but not in pain, her expression placid. It has been close to five hours after the healer’s procedures, yet she still has not stirred.
Guilt keeps him in this room. If he had not fed her that potion— no, if he had been a better leader during the mission, Elle would not be on death’s door.
Thermal stares at his clasped hands. Before this mission, he did not think highly of the uncontrolled sparks of magic that the occasional commoner waved around. He thought the sparks to be too unrefined to be useful. He has seen the power of true mages after all, their arts honed by study and research from other brilliant arcanists.
However, Serena proved to be far more capable than him today. She kept a surprisingly level head while he grew desperate to complete the mission. Her illusion magic saved them multiple times.
Thermal is a son of House Harrovel, and House Harrovel honours their debts. He clears his throat. “I want to apologise for my behaviour today. You are more skilled and aware in combat than I initially believed, so I am sorry for conflicting with you unnecessarily.”
“You’re apologising?” Serena looks sceptical for a moment before averting her gaze. “No, that’s unfair. I mean, thanks. But also, that’s not really the biggest problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not just that you thought less of me. You thought less of me because of how I talk and act like a someone poorer than you.”
Thermal frowns. “I see.” He ponders that for a moment. Can he honestly say that he’s met another commoner as capable as her? No, but he hasn’t interacted with many commoners for a long duration.
He glances back at Elle who still sleeps undisturbed by their discussion. She isn’t of noble birth or well-educated in the arcane arts either, yet she had sharp instincts during the mission.
Thermal sighs, “It seems like I still have much to learn.” However, he is an academic, so that thought does not bother him as it would his noble peers.
Serena does not continue the conversation. They sit in silence until visiting hours end.
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Elle wakes with a scream bubbling in her throat but manages to stop it from leaving. The soft sheets covering her sooth her nerves as she waits for her racing heart to slow.
It’s dark and quiet in the room. She can’t hear anything besides her own breathing and distant sounds of mechanical thrumming. Elle lets herself relax, knowing that she’s out of danger for the moment.
That last battle went exceptionally poorly. She remembers why she stuck to a hit-and-run style of fighting back on Earth, regretting that she let her aura drop to such risky levels. Even if her teammates had an argument during combat, she can’t blame her bad aura management on anyone but herself.
Elle blinks away her tears. If she had been alone, she surely would’ve died. This was the closest she’d been to death, even considering her time on Earth.
She gives herself a little longer to ride out a wave of fear and self-pity, drawing in deep breaths. As her heart rate settles, her mind turns towards her strange dream.
Elle is certain that she heard Equinox whisper to her. She can’t forget the deceptively gentle murmur backed by an undercurrent of power and confidence.
Who is Oliver Idowu? Judging by his name, she thinks that he’s from Earth like her or maybe from Nessaprine the third world. Does Equinox think she is on the wrong track by pursuing Van Nguyen?
On the other hand, this feels like bait. Maybe Equinox doesn’t want her to find Van because he has information to expose her true agenda.
Feeling the urge to pace, Elle sits up in her bed. As soon as she’s upright, her head swims with dizziness. Even with her aura back to its near-full amount, she still feels somewhat weak.
After waiting for her vision to stabilise, she pulls down her sleeve and looks at her left wrist. She pushes aura into her wrist, and the number ‘18.3’ glows on her skin like yesterday. Elle can’t say it with certainty, but she guesses that the number isn’t affected by her internal state.
She takes her time getting out of the bed, wincing as her bare feet touch the cold floor tiles. To her relief, Elle finds her possessions and usual clothing left by her bed. Realising that someone washed her clothes, she changes out of the hospital gown and goes to peek out of the room.
Pushing aside the curtains, she sees that the room has three other beds, each partitioned by curtains as well. Elle opens the room’s door and finds a hallway lit by electricity. No light pours through most of the other doors, so she guesses that it’s late at night.
“Oh dear, you really should not be up and walking about,” a woman dressed in a lab coat says as she walks towards Elle. Pink highlights adorn her curly, blonde hair, and Elle has to drag her attention away from her beauty. “I was just about to check up on you.”
“Oh, sorry about that.” Elle returns to her room and finds a light switch. With the room properly illuminated, she sits on the bed while the doctor settles into a nearby chair.
Setting her clipboard down on her lap, the woman clears her throat. “First things first, my name is Mirielle Dulani, and I’m one of the Alchemist guild masters. Normally I work on material experiments in the guild labs, but Healer Zilkor pulled me in for your case. I’m happy to see you awake and lucid. How are you feeling?”
Ah, so she isn’t a doctor in Earth’s sense of the word. Elle also remembers her name being mentioned as one of the forty aura users who created the Ice Shield according to the Temple’s archives. “I’m sort of groggy and weak. Even though my aura is almost all back, I’m getting dizzy from moving around.”
Mirielle nods. “Yes, that’s to be expected. You’ve been unconscious for about ten hours. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“My team was fighting some icekoons, and I got badly injured. I was given a health potion and then had an allergic reaction to it. Someone came to help us, and then everything went black.”
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She jots down a note. “So no memory gaps for you. That’s good! Were you previously aware of any allergies to medication?”
“No.” Elle frowns. She’s made it almost nineteen years without developing an allergy. Now she discovers that she has one of the most frustrating ones. “Did you find out which ingredient that I’m allergic to?”
Her face brightens. “A most interesting question! I’m glad you asked. It’s not a specific ingredient.”
Mirielle adjusts the clipboard on her lap before she begins. “As I mentioned, I’m one of the head alchemists in the guild, so the healers only request my help in the most serious and novel cases. When you arrived in the hospital, you had no aura, so the healers had to heal your wounds directly rather than feed your aura. Are you clear on the difference?”
Elle settles into a more comfortable position. “Would ‘feeding’ my aura involve increasing my aura levels so that I can heal more naturally?”
“That’s correct! It is the preferred method since bodies have many minute differences between them. If the created material does not match closely enough with the bodies’ preferences, then your body expends aura to fix it anyways. Fortunately, humans from all the worlds seem to be anatomically and chemically similar enough to not be a big issue. May I ask if you’re from a world that does not use magic?”
She blinks, hands tightening around her blankets in surprise. “Yeah, I hadn’t seen magic before coming here. Well, unless you consider aura to be magic.”
Mirielle smiles. “Another fascinating discussion to be had, but I rather stay on track for now. For medical reasons, it’ll be easier to say that you did not grow up in an area concentrated with magic. After healing your wounds and expelling the potion from your body, we assumed that you would recover naturally given enough nutrients and time for your aura to return.”
The alchemist clasps her hands together. “However, there were two intriguing features about your case. First, did you know that your aura capacity and regeneration rate is below average? Do you get hungry or more aggressive once your aura drops below a certain amount?”
Elle sighs, her suspicions confirmed. “I’m not surprised that it’s below average, but no, I don’t get the other low aura symptoms that people do.”
Mirielle scribbles something on her notes. “What about now with your aura back to near-full capacity?”
“No, I haven’t felt hungry ever since I’ve awoke my aura.”
“Feel exhausted? Sleepy?”
“Yes to those. I can feel just about everything except for hunger. Is that weird?”
The alchemist tilts her head. “Most people don’t feel hungry unless they’re low on aura. We theorised that aura protects us from the Hunger plague, so we would naturally lose that protection once it disappears. Your experience leads to an interesting branch from the common thought.”
Maybe it’s not aura itself that protects them? Elle keeps that line of thought to herself, already feeling too exposed in front of Mirielle. There’s too much about her own powers that she doesn’t fully understand, and she doesn’t want to give more information to a stranger. “This is all good to know, but how does this relate to my allergies?”
Mirielle sits back in the seat. “Sorry, I don’t usually work with patients, and I get overly invested in my tangents. I’ll cut to the chase. Although we removed the potion from your body, you were still in a poor condition. When your aura started returning though, your allergies flared up again. Thus, we deduced that you’re allergic to a type of magic rather than a physical ingredient.”
Elle raises her eyebrows. “What type of magic? I didn’t know aura could attack our own bodies.” She’s unsettled by her aura itself trying to kill her when it’s been integral to her survival this whole time.
“Blood magic.” Upon seeing Elle’s visible confusion, Mirielle puts up hand in a calming gesture. “Health potions restore a body’s physical form, so it applies its magical properties onto your body’s building blocks. Nothing nefarious, I assure you.”
“Do all health potions rely on blood magic?” Elle adds this mystery to an ever-growing pile of them.
“Most of them do for convenience. It’s not easy to create a general formula for people to consume without tapping into their bodies’ blueprints through magic. Unfortunately, the ones that don’t use it are very expensive, and there’s none sold in Vinayre. If you need healing, it’ll be best to either let your aura do it or find someone with healing powers.”
Elle nods, disappointed by the answer. She’s made it this far without potions, but it would’ve nice to have a safety net. “Thanks, that’s good to know. I want to avoid being exposed to blood magic in general, so what other ways do people use it?”
“A good question!” Mirielle takes a slip of paper from her clipboard and hands it to her. “I made a list of the uses that I can legally share with you. Please keep it safe or memorise it. Paper is very expensive nowadays.” She smiles playfully.
Elle accepts the paper with curiosity. Written in a tiny scrawl, it lists various categories of healing, ancestry-discovery, scrying, transmutation, and more.
The section on religious ceremonies catches her eye. While there’s no mention of the time goddess Eurimas, she sees another reference to the rituals performed in Cravallus’ honour on nights with full moons. It doesn’t give any details on the rituals themselves, but it advises her to avoid temples and other areas of high-mana concentration on those nights.
Fesper Bleck was a follower of Cravallus, so could he have been performing rituals on Mt. Aspirash? She recalls her eyes watering near the shrine and the story behind the mountain’s creation which makes it pretty magical. However, his team disappeared two days ago, and there was no full moon.
Mirielle continues, “If you are exposed to blood magic, I would recommend washing yourself as soon as possible. Most of it will linger on your skin and clothing, so that should reduce the severity of your symptoms. If possible, you should put on a mask or move to an open area to avoid inhaling it.”
“Is there any medication that I can take?”
The alchemist shakes her head. “Unfortunately, there’s currently no medicine in Vinayre which can affect people’s aura. Perhaps other cities have developed some, but I have yet to hear of them. If there’s a healer or specialised mage nearby, they might be able to neutralise the blood magic. That was how we treated your flareup.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. Is there anything I should do to recover faster now?”
“Ah yes, I had prepared a nutrition blend for you. It contains no traces of magic, and all the ingredients are the basic building blocks of your body. One moment please.” She leaves and returns with a flask full of cloudy, white liquid.
Elle accepts it with a sceptical look, peering into its contents. It doesn’t appear that much different from a protein shake. She takes a sip and finds it tolerable if a bit chalky.
While Elle drinks the blend, Mirielle adds, “I recommend resting for at least a day before trying to use your powers. Since it’s practically a blizzard outside, you probably won’t be able to continue your mission anyways until it dies down.”
“A blizzard?”
Mirielle walks over to the window and pulls aside a curtain. Through the glass, Elle can see snow falling from the sky in thick clumps. The alchemist says, “Because we have the Ice Shield, all the rain freezes, and we either get snow or hail. I would stay indoors when it starts hailing; it hurts like a bitch even with aura.”
“I see, thanks for the warning…” Elle stares at her sheets. She hasn’t thought about whether or not to continue with the mission yet.
“You’re welcome. I’ll let you get some more rest since it is the middle of the night. Visiting hours start at the ninth bell, so you may want to sleep as much as possible before your friends come. They were very worried about you.”
Elle blinks at the usage of ‘friends.’ “Thermal and Serena were worried?”
“If you’re talking about the mage and huntress, then yes. They stayed here until visitor hours ended.”
Elle glances at Anne Bowlin’ and Pointy placed next to an empty chair. She wasn’t able to return them to her inventory before she fell unconscious, so her teammates must have carried them back to Vinayre. Even after using so much aura for the fight, they carried back a sixteen pound ball for at least an hour.
Gratitude trickles into her heart, like a rock sending ripples across a pond.
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When morning arrives, Elle sits by the window, watching the snow fall. It’s more snow than she’s ever seen before in Vancouver, reaching past knee-height. The visibility is mostly poor, but the snow still can’t diminish the cheeriness of the brightly coloured apartments across the street.
Someone knocks at the door.
She turns in her chair. “You can come in.” Elle relaxes when Serena and Thermal enter the room wearing matching expressions of relief. “Oh, good morning. I’m glad you’re both doing well.”
Serena smiles, “You’re looking pretty good for someone who was half-dead yesterday.”
Thermal shakes his head, but he can’t hide the slight upturn of his lips. “Not exactly a compliment, but I will echo the sentiment. It is a relief to see you awake and well.”
“The healers here do great work. Wish I had more of those emergency flares.”
“Indeed.” His expression turns more serious. “I am here to apologise for my conduct yesterday. I failed to lead with the party’s best interests in mind, and I am sorry that you were hurt because of it. If you wish to part ways, then I will make sure you are still properly compensated.”
Serena averts her eyes for a moment, fiddling with her cloak. Then she directly meets Elle’s gaze. “I’m sorry too for picking fights when I shouldn’t have. Even though I yelled at Thermal for not telling us things, I wasn’t good at keeping the team updated during any of the fights either.”
Elle regards them both with critical eyes. Thanks to their bickering, she nearly ended up dead before she made any progress with her own mission. Both of them keep too much to themselves, and she doesn’t know enough about their pasts to understand their motives.
However, she remembers that in the tunnels, neither of them were willing to sacrifice people for their own gain. For all his reckless insistence on continuing the mission, Thermal never pressured them to join him and asked them to return to the surface. After declaring she’d leave them behind, Serena followed them to make sure they’d leave the tunnels alive.
People are complicated. Elle also has a hidden agenda to complete, but it doesn’t mean that she is secretly a terrible person. People are a mix of strengths and flaws.
How many people are willing to risk their lives to help a relative stranger? How many people are willing to throw others under a bus to achieve their own objectives?
Elle meets their gazes. “I accept your apologies. I’m also sorry for not communicating well during the mission which definitely added to our problems. If you’re still willing to continue with the mission, may I join you?”