This gag must be getting old by now, so I’m going to make it brief. For the umpteenth time I came to after having either got in over my head, or fucked something up so royally that I nearly met god — and I’m not referring to any of the Helsan gods. I guess bleeding from my nose, mouth, and eyes was cause for concern, since upon awakening I found myself being frantically tended to by both Brom and Sanon.
Opening my eyes, I grunted before finding my ability to speak. “What’d I miss?” I rasped.
Brom very quickly raised his voice at me upon noticing my consciousness. “What’d you miss?! Boy I ought to wring your neck after trying something like that! You gave the whole caravan a scare! Sanon here has a better understanding of what exactly it is that you did though, so I’ll let her give you a proper scolding.”
Sanon sighed. “You are correct in that I understand it better, Brom sir. But I do not believe he needs to be scolded so much as he needs to be corrected before he hurts himself or someone else in the future.”
Brom raised a brow at this. “That so? I don’t necessarily agree with your assertion there, but if that’s what you think is best here then so be it. My point stands though — he shouldn’t be endangering himself or others, and if I find that he did so again, he will be dropped off at the nearest town.”
“Hey- hey guys? I’m right here you know…” I piped up.
“Shut up!” both Brom and Sanon nearly shouted.
Brom sighed while moving to get up and off the wagon. “I’ll give you two some space then. We’re already too far behind schedule because of this, so I’ll be back soon for us to start moving.”
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After Brom left, we were silent for a few minutes before I found the courage to speak up.
“Sooo what exactly was it that I did wrong? Did I discharge?” I probed.
Sanon held her hand flat while tilting it side to side in a ‘so-so’ motion. “Ehh… it’s similar. The spell you cast was much too complex for you to cast it without runes.”
…
Hang on. Didn’t Jasko mention something like that before?
Why yes he did past me! He sure did!
Sanon continued, seemingly knowledgeable on the topic. “When you cast a spell, it puts strain on your body and mind. The more complex the spell, the more resources it takes before you begin to harm yourself — this is what runes are for. Their usage is twofold. The first is to take some of the strain from the caster, while the second is to make casting complex spells more convenient and safe.” she explained at length.
“So was it discharge or…?” I trailed off, still not having my original question answered.
Sanon picked this up, and quickly shook her head. “Not in the conventional sense, no. Discharge occurs when a caster loses control of their mana for one or more reasons. No, what happened to you is called overstress. You put far too much stress on your body to compensate for the spell, hence all the bleeding and loss of senses. Those are the symptoms you experienced, right?”
I nodded, eyes wide in realization. “Yeah… I think I might have experienced this before actually… it would definitely explain a lot…”
Is that why my acceleration spell did that? Did I make it too complex?? Hmm… this requires more testing!
Sanon blinked. “Just how many times has this happened to you?!”
“Oh- well I think overstress has only happened twice counting today-”
“That was two days ago. You’ve been out for two days Max.” Sanon cut me off.
Shit.
“Shit. Uhh haha anyways… it’s only happened twice so far. I think I’ve discharged or depressurized at least five times since I arrived here though, maybe more.” I said.
Sanon’s translucent hairs nearly lost their color. “How in the hells are you even alive? Most people would have died by now!”
I hadn’t really considered if that was the norm, so this was a slight surprise to me.
“Are discharges normally deadly? The mentor that I had briefly told me that the first one I had was really severe. I had assumed that less severe ones were pretty survivable.” I reasoned.
“Well, weak discharges don’t normally kill, but most of the time they’re pretty strong. A person’s first discharge is typically weak. The ones that kill, however, are usually caused by negligence or stupidity.” she responded.
This filled in some information about casting that I had been missing. Knowing that spell complexity had an effect on me made it all so much clearer. I mentally scolded myself for having completely forgotten what Jasko had told me. It was on the same night we prepared to fight the sandworm that he mentioned it.
I had even noticed before that casting the penetration and shield spells on Stabby left me feeling less winded than if I had cast them by hand. The lower strain also explained why the two fledgelings were able to wail on the worm with their spells so easily, as fruitless as their efforts were.
To be honest, I probably should have inferred this. Though I suppose that even after everything I’ve been through as of writing this book, I’m still not infallible. The events to come will make that very clear, dear readers.
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Five days. I had been on this trip for five days, and I had already nearly died. Technically it was only two days, since it was on the second day that I had done the deed. I would say that I couldn’t catch a break but let’s be real here — a lot of this was my fault.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The biome that we were passing through had remained the same for the past two days, apparently. The trees were certainly large, similar in size to a redwood, though not quite as tall. The trees in question were very much adapted for a tropical environment, with large fanning leaves that draped down from all sides of the tree. They were similar to the trees that I had seen back in Tokal, but with a much higher density of leaves. A moss-like plant appeared to be covering both the lower parts of the trunks in addition to the ground upon which we traveled. The road we were on was less traveled, and as such had a layer of grass growing atop it where the moss hadn’t reached.
The most common of the trees had a number of flowers adorning them, bright reds and oranges. Their petals were speckled black, with very large, visible reproductive parts.
Safe to assume that pollination is as important here as it is on Earth then. Does Helsa have a bee analog? Maybe something with those not-birds with the weird scale/hair combination I saw back in the desert?
Lo and behold, just after that thought had passed, I found myself spotting all sorts of life! There were insect-like creatures that flitted about the place, though many of them were distinctly larger than their Earthly counterparts. I saw something that vaguely looked like a dragonfly if it were several magnitudes larger, with only two small reduced sets of legs and very large wings. The legs almost looked like they were vestigial, though their function was revealed to still exist when it landed near me.
The chihuahua-sized creature seemed to hold its body tight to the floor of the wagon, its large compound eyes seemed to have some spark of intelligence to them, though not like a human. I would say that it felt similar to staring down a dolphin or something similar.
Upon closer, yet cautious inspection so as not to be bitten, I found that it was breathing! The small insect-like creature seemed to be panting! This didn’t last long though, as it quickly finished resting before taking off with a low whir.
So these ones have lungs! Or at least something similar, since it was visibly breathing.
I soon spotted one of the bird-like creatures that I saw in the desert, though it seemed a bit different. This one was clinging to one of the trees, stuffing its face into one of the flowers. When the head emerged, I saw that it indeed had a face full of yellow-orange pollen. The small thing seemed satisfied, or at least something close to satisfied. It made a sort of chirp as it retracted its long, slender tongue back into its… snout? It began climbing around the tree in search of another flower to gorge itself upon before flying off to a different tree. The tail of the creature was long, with some flat feather-like hairs growing from the tip. The hairs of the creature were a dull brown, with green speckling the wider hairs. The creature possessed membranous wings tipped in sharp claws clearly intended for climbing, while its head was adorned with long triangular ears, not dissimilar to those of a fox.
To say that I was enamored by the life here would be an understatement. It sparked an interest in a potential future project, one that as of writing I still have not finished, and likely will never finish. I’m not a biologist, and to take on the task of cataloging the life of Helsa is best left to a professional. Even so, this didn’t stop me from gawking at everything I saw like a small child at the zoo.
My overall demeanor had not gone unnoticed either. Sanon had been staring at me the whole time, occasionally snickering to herself when I would make a noise at something new. She had stifled a laugh to keep the dragonfly thing from flying away too early while I observed it.
“Is something funny?” I asked, giving her the side eye.
Sanon only snickered more upon hearing this. “Yes Max. You’re like a young apprentice seeing the forge for the first time.”
I cocked my head. “Uhh… is it that strange? None of these creatures exist on Earth. I mean- I guess the one that landed on the wagon has something similar on Earth, but most of these creatures are completely new to me! It’s a whole different world!”
This prompted a long discussion about Earth and the life that inhabits it. Sanon was once again very eager to hear about such a topic considering that she had been rather sheltered along with the rest of her people.
I tried to start at the beginning, but I quickly realized I was talking on a timescale so large that her pseudo-tribal mind could barely comprehend it — and no offense to her at all. She’s plenty intelligent, but I’m essentially explaining the lore of a long running book series to a person that barely knows what a book is. The foundational knowledge simply wasn’t there. Realizing this after seeing her vacant stare, I opted to simply compare common animals from Earth.
I started with simple things, like the fact that animals as large as sandworms simply did not exist, save for maybe the blue whale… she did not know what a sandworm was. Upon learning this, I strongly considered interrogating Brom on just what he had neglected to inform her of, since the caravan had come from the south and crossed through the entire fucking desert.
After enlightening her on the existence of sandworms, and subsequently calming her down after she had realized just where she had crossed through — that being sandworm territory — I had finally been able to talk about life on Earth. I once again restated that animals aren’t nearly as large as the megafauna that seemed to be plentiful on Helsa, according to several of the people I’d spoken with so far. I introduced her to man’s best friend, which she had compared to falden — that weird dog-bird thing that Nailah had mentioned a while ago.
I then gave a brief description of cats, which she had compared to the Arlynx. This confused me, since the ones we had encountered were more like wolves to me. She corrected this, stating that in her homeland, there lives a type of arlynx that is apparently very similar in behavior to cats. They like to hide in the snow and ambush prey, and some of them have been domesticated, similar to falden. The domestic ones are known to knock things off of high surfaces, so I was willing to accept the comparison.
I went on to describe other species, but she eventually asked about other races aside from humans. When I mentioned that only humans called Earth home, she was quite shocked. I explained that there used to be sister species that called Earth home alongside Homo sapiens, but when I mentioned their extinctions, things became difficult. Fortunately she became more reasonable when I mentioned that these events happened well before civilization had ever formed. This brought on a whole other slew of questions that would result in me learning of the existence of a god of civilization.
The headache only got worse when I explained that gods as she knew them also did not exist on Earth. By this point the conversation had turned to the topic of religion, which while not necessarily my expertise, I did possess enough understanding of it to provide a relatively unbiased opinion. Earth religion is a rather touchy subject among certain individuals as I write this though, so I am going to omit such a topic for my own safety.
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Our conversation lasted well into the night when we stopped moving. We had set up camp near a river this time. It seemed to be flowing down from the nearby gentle mountain slope that the road we had been following was situated on. A number of us descended the slope to be closer to the river when we set up camp, Sanon and I included. I had brought with me Stabby and the tent that I had received in Dilanja. Best to have protection in case of any unsavory visitors.
I must say, displays like what I saw at this river are quite rare on Earth. If I remember correctly, then only a certain species of plankton are able to produce such light shows. The river was lit up with a deep indigo glow that seemed to shift with the flow of the water. Particles of mana — according to Sanon — drifted up into the air from the water as they shifted in the wind. I inquired to her why it was doing that, but it was not a question she had the answer to.
I approached the river to get a closer look at the water. The glow seemed to increase in intensity further up the mountain slope. Wherever this river’s source was, I conjectured it must have been very rich in mana for the water itself to be glowing like this. I made sure to not disturb the water too much, for fear of making the river itself go into discharge. Whether or not that would actually happen, I did not know — but I was not keen to find out.
However, my attention was quickly torn from the river when I heard a rather loud boom emanate from a distance away, back at the main river camp. I rushed back over to see what the issue was, only to find one of the caravan elves on the ground, her feathers and face scorched beyond recognition. She was still conscious it seemed, though she was almost certainly in some pretty severe shock.