The combination of healing so many children and then getting to talk about his favorite discovery on Nephesh left Tilly feeling giddy. Amelia’s smile had ratcheted up to an uncomfortable level as Tilly described his fortuitous encounter in the forest and his discovered uses for the unknown magical tree. Her encouraging smile becoming something manic by the time she took out the tome to add his discovery to the Codex.
Tilly’s eyes widened as he watched the book expand in size as she pulled it from her pocket. The cover was embossed with golden leaves and vines. Arcane symbols faintly shown on the surface of the material which was a cross between leather and bark.
“And you are sure that your herb lore skill gave it no other uses?” Amelia asked at the end of the explanation, reluctantly jotting down his entry into the Plane-Spanning magical codex. It turns out her name would be marked next to the entry for every other owner of a Codex to see as long as the magic of the book accepted it as valid. At the last flourish of her reed pen, the page she was on flashed and her words gained the golden sheen to match the others. Her eyes lost focus, and as she pulled up her status screen, her face lighting up in surprise, then chagrin.
“It seems that this entry was enough to finally get me to level 33…”. she muttered reluctantly.
“Awesome! Glad to help!” Tilly responded happily, looking down at the page in wonder as the Codex magically generated a simple sketch of the tree and its known uses. He completely missed the coloration in Amelia's cheeks as the final line generated for the whole community of Alchemists and Herbologists to see.
-Discovery inputted by Amelia Cooper, Botanist Surveyor.
Tilly looked up in almost childlike wonder as she closed the book quickly and shoved it back into a pocket. She didn't even look down as the book shrank to size and fit into the small opening. It was full on, Hogwarts-level magic, and Tilly was tired of pretending that this kind of stuff was normal.
“I know we have a lot to do, but I have to ask. What is up with your jacket?”
Her eyes refocused from working on her private screens as she assigned her new stat points, “Well, this was a gift from some dear friends. When I came to Nephesh, I was deposited on the Grey Steppe, and they were having a lot of problems with an invasive species of plant from a certain irresponsible neighbor. A lot of my early work was in figuring out how to combat this incursion. Through that, I fell in with the Caravans, and I was able to help them out of a very tight situation with an Endless Locust Swarm event that appears every thousand years or so. They were generous enough to give me this as a reward, and it has been invaluable in my work collecting and propagating plantlife from many different biomes.” She answered, her eyes taking a far-off look as she pulled on memories from a previous season of life. One filled with travel and adventure.
As she spoke, Tilly tried to gauge her age but was unable to get a clear read, she had an air of maturity about her but showed no wrinkles or gray hair. Without thinking he blurted out his next question while the Minotauress assistant busily arranged the children and prepared the shop to be cleared out.
“You said you have been here for decades, but you look like you are in your late thirties... Do we stop aging when we get here?” He asked, excited to finally get some answers from someone who could understand just how crazy all of this was. In response to his question, she unconsciously moved some of her hair out of her face, and straightened out her jacket,
“Well, when I arrived I was in my mid-thirties, and I have been here for around 20 years. From what I understand leveling slows the aging process, and as long as you keep doing it, you don't age very much at all. At some point, I think you reach a kind of immortality, but it is well north of level 100. If you will excuse me, I need to grab a few more things from the back before we head to the temple.” she said before abruptly turning and heading toward the back door.
Tilly nodded, oblivious to the emotion implied by her actions. He was far too busy thinking through the possibility of barely aging for a hundred years. He had already noticed that he no longer felt any of the aches and pains that had settled into his body after a lifetime of abuse. Plus, as he leveled he continued to get faster and stronger. He wondered how old he looked to the others... but it was hard to tell when it was your own face. He also had yet to see a mirror in his travels and thinking of his appearance caused him to take a surreptitious sniff of his underarm. He hadn't had a chance to bathe in days.
A focused sniff made apparent what his nose blindness had kept hidden from him.
He was ripe.
Something flew at him from his periphery and his new reflexes didn’t save him from being hit in the face by another cloth sack of herbs that emitted a pleasant fragrance. He did manage to catch it on the way down from its initial impact and looked up to find the minotauress watching him from behind a display.
“Rub that one wherever you deem appropriate, it will help. I don’t think anyone else will say anything, but my kind has a very good sense of smell, and… well just do us all a favor.” She said, looking back down at the goods she was packing. Thankfully most of the children were still out from their ordeal, but Tilly did hear a snickering laugh that sounded distinctly like a certain gnomish boy from behind him.
He refused to look at anyone as he reached under his leathers and rubbed the sewn sack on his underarms like deodorant mumbling to himself, “Sorry if I've been a little busy trying to keep everyone alive.”
Then Amelia returned from the back with something that looked like a fanny pack, full to bursting.
“I see you don't have much in the way of equipment, I used to wear this before I got my jacket. It has minor weight reduction and expansion enchantments in it, as well as a durability charm. I have loaded it up with some of the basics. It should attach to your leather pants and still benefit from the overhang of your jacket.” She said looking up from stuffing the last items into the magical storage space. Tilly quickly pulled his arm out from under his jacket and hid it behind his back.
Amelia handed him the magical storage item and then looked over at her assistant,
“Heras, thank you for looking after the children. For those that don't have a group to return to, can you make sure they make it to the lapin rally point near the Hub tomorrow?”
“On my honor Mistress, we will be there.” She responded patting her maul happily, an eager smile plastered on her bovine face. Tilly wasn’t sure what about the next day's events made her smile, but he was glad someone was having a good time.
“Well, if I'm going to heal the whole city, we better get started huh?” He said, trying to be friendly, but somehow coming across as awkward. His words caused Amelia to rub her eyes and he remembered her statement about not sleeping for several days. He figured things like that would be more and more possible as his Stats increased, but he couldn't imagine her being particularly high in Endurance as a Botanist Surveyor.
“Yes, we will do everything we can before tomorrow evening and pray that the enemy does not arrive before then. I hope you are ready Mr. Tillman, I don't think you will gain any experience from this work, and you will be bottoming out your Mana quite frequently over the next 24 hours. I will do all I can, but…it will not be pleasant. Some of my accelerants have some difficult side effects.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
At her words Tilly’s expression firmed, resolving into something much harder than he typically showed in social settings.
“Ma’am, at this point, we are talking about saving lives. I will do whatever it takes to help these people and I won't stop until we are down to the wire.” He followed up his words by strapping the small pack on the back of his belt line under his jacket, finding that it fit just like she said it would. Hopefully, it would last longer than his last piece of storage equipment.
'Three cheers for a fantasy fanny pack!'
Amelia took on a considering look as she processed his reply, “You know Mr. Tillman, I have met three other humans in my time on this Plane, and they have each proved to be repulsive or unbelievably selfish. Forgive me for my initial reaction, I just expected more of the same power-hungry mania I have found in our kind once we arrive here.” She said, putting her hands on her hips and letting some appreciation bleed into her tone.
Tilly took a moment to bask in the acknowledgment of his choices so far, feeling a thrum in his veins that was becoming more familiar. Even with everything going on, he felt good. Better than he had in a long time. Subtle waves of pleasure throbbed up from his side and he unconsciously adjusted his jacket to cover the scar that no one else could see. He was willing to admit that he had always been drawn to the idea of rescuing people and no small part of that was the attention he would occasionally get for his acts of service. Anyone who pretended otherwise wasn't being honest with themselves.
“Thanks for saying that, but I'm nobody perfect.” He demurred, managing to school his smile. His response seemed to strike an unpleasant chord in Amelia and as she heard it, she winced and looked away,
“None of us are Mr. Tillman... Our kind doesn't get sent here for being perfect.” She muttered darkly before straightening up, her face returning to the business-like expression he was beginning to associate with her coping mechanism for stress.
“You are, of course, right. If we are going to make any difference, we might as well start sooner rather than later, how is your mana?”
“Almost refilled…” Tilly answered, struggling with whether or not to follow up on her last statement before deciding that it really wasn't his business, and it would be selfish to ask any more questions considering the time crunch.
“Good. Let us be on our way. Heras, I will see you tomorrow, fate willing.” She called, moving towards the door and grabbing a cloak that hung on a peg there. Tilly followed suit, drawing up his hood around his features and closing the front of the cloak for as much privacy as he could get in the late afternoon sun.
“Bye Kids,” Tilly said turning and waving at the few children that were awake. The first little girl he had healed looked back up at him silently but after a moment gave him a wave and a brave smile. He could tell she felt better, even if she wasn't sure exactly what had happened to her over the last few hours. Her smile and the thought of what she had endured and would still endure before the week was over dampened some of Tilly’s good humor. The rush of saving people felt a little more shallow in the context of the little girl and her struggles. He may have cured her ailment, but did she even have a family to go back to? He realized that her best-case outcome for the next few weeks was a life of hunger and makeshift shelter.
He followed Amelia out the door, and couldn't help but grow introspective. The siren song of the pleasurable feeling radiating in the background of his mind dulled.
'What was he trying to prove and who was he trying to prove it to? Why had he really left Hiro's protection?'
Amelia lost herself in the crowd of people struggling through different stages of grief and hopelessness and Tilly had an easy enough time keeping up with her brisk pace. He had a much more difficult time working through the complicated emotions the little girl's smile had brought to the surface. He tried to pin down the doubts he was feeling, but it was difficult. It felt like he kept getting lost in a fog of apathy. He knew something was nagging at him, but a louder internal voice urged him to keep moving and not worry about it.
Why wonder about all this? Just do what you do, Run in, Save as many as you can, and Get out. That's what heroes do.
Tilly was a simple guy and spending time in self-reflection was not something he had given much time to. That little girl's smile had touched on deeper questions than he was prepared to answer. Was what he was doing even going to make a difference? Was Hiro right? Was this all for his own vanity?
He loved helping people. He always had. Seeing someone with an obvious problem and getting to solve it right then and there had always done it for him. It was the complicated problems he dreaded. The ones he felt powerless to solve that had always lodged in his brain like splinters.
House fire? Easy. Put the wet stuff on the red stuff. Simple as that.
A homeless schizophrenic man who had the police called on him because he kept rubbing his bloody hand on a gas station window? No clue how to help.
For some reason, those sorts of situations had hooked into his mind and never left. That man hadn't wanted to go to the hospital and refused to listen to the police when they asked him to stop his manic vandalism. He wouldn't even listen to Tilly and the other medics as they tried to put bandages on his injury. The man had screamed and smirked as he waved his bloody hand around. In the end, he had been arrested, not because it was what was best for him, but because there were no other options.
Those were the calls that had stuck with Tilly through the years. He had found himself more and more frustrated and jaded by the state of the world and the ones left in the margins, who wouldn’t or couldn’t get help. His daughter's fight with cancer had almost been icing on the cake after 10 years in the department. Negative emotions and memories started to well up from deep in his chest as his thoughts started to spiral. The fog of cheerful apathy started to thin.
'Just do what you can to help people. Make a difference. Don't worry about all of this other stuff.'
His simple driving directive seemed more and more shallow as he thought about it. It had defined his past life and apparently, he had barely broken even on the ‘cosmic scale’. Just like before, he was shoving down everything too big to handle, pushing forward from one emergency to the next. Unprocessed emotions from his past failures and his current circumstances built in intensity beneath his chest, and suddenly, amid his downward spiral, he noticed the fire in his chest had roared to life in response to something...
He stopped walking, all of his attention taken by the conflict raging in his torso between the positive apathetic fog and his fiery emotional response to the unnatural suppression of his internal environment. The apathy promised relief from the pain, pushing with a subtle throbbing pleasure that had been emanating from his side almost nonstop since he had awoken. It urged him to keep going, keep moving. Don't stop. Don't think.
The girl's smile and the feelings it had touched had awakened his internal flame. The thing that had been building in him since his first hours on Nephesh that he had come to associate with the source of his burgeoning magical powers. This was the place that had been augmented by the Blue Flame on the altar. The magic that he pulled on to purify each of the children.
Now that he was paying more attention, he could feel it actively trying to consume the pleasurable influence of Seed in his side.
At some point, Amelia noticed that she had lost her companion, and looped back around to find him standing still with his eyes closed. An expression of intense concentration on his face.
“Johnathan. Are you ok?” She said, some concern entering her tone, even as she looked around to make sure they weren't garnering too much attention. Fortunately for them, the surrounding refugees were good camouflage when it came to losing attachment to time and place.
Tilly’s eyes flew open as he returned to the present. He looked around abashedly and collected himself before whispering, “The last few days have been a lot… I'm good, I promise... I can explain later.”
She watched him for a moment more, searching for any further signs of instability before nodding and taking him at his word, “Very well, the temple is a few blocks away. You can't miss it. The steps and street in front of it are crowded with the worst cases in the city.”
Knowing that he was so close to the people who needed his help, grounded Tilly, but this time he made sure not to lose track of the feeling of conflict that was raging in his torso. He wasn't going to let that go again. He opened his stat sheet and grabbed the title he had almost forgotten about and mentally put a tracker up under his Health and Mana.
Corruption’s influence: 14%
“I'm ready. Let's make the most of whatever time we have left.” Tilly responded. Amelia nodded firmly not noticing the grim turn Tilly's tone had taken. She turned back and began to move through the crowd again. Tilly followed her hiding his tightly clenched fists in the sleeves of his robe. His newly realized emotions simmered under the surface of his granite will.