This feeling is odd. The feeling of safety. Here I sit in my giant, magically reinforced cavern hidden underneath a river with a loyal slave (which I don’t want but who won’t leave) and nothing in here that wants to kill me. Which is a good thing because my bare veins and bones are exposed on my left arm, with the flesh peeled back at this exact moment. The sounds of gagging behind me were not helping my concentration. The only reason Reeanth isn’t actually trying to stop me is due to my Flesh Sorcery keeping everything kosher.
In the past five hours of exploration and minor experimentation, I have learned that the production of mana is a two-fold process for me, but a one-way flow for Reeanth. Let’s start with the similarities. Mana can be absorbed. Both Reeanth and I can slowly absorb mana, and with meditation and practice, can make ourselves absorb it faster. We breathe in the lion’s share of magic, and our pores do their part as well, and even hair seems to partake.
The main difference between us is that I actually produce it on a detectable level as well. It took me a while to figure this out, too. After meditating for two hours, I was able to get my body to completely stop absorbing mana from the area around me, and as I finally stopped the inflow, I was able to see the now pronounced outflow.
Every cell did it.
It looked to be a new byproduct of my very cells. Each red blood cell produced a teeny mote of mana, and my bones and organs stored a bunch of it while producing some as well. My heart was the big one as it constantly beat like a drum, producing mana and managing the flow thereof throughout my entire body. My brain didn’t produce much mana, but it looked to be chock full of mana in a working-storage sense. Mana was mainly stored in my bones but it was put to work supercharging the marrow to produce mana-holding and mana-producing blood cells.
The brain and spinal column quickly fill with as much mana as they can hold, and then slowly release it to the rest of the body over time. When I consciously use magic, that release becomes much quicker. But there was one part of all of this that puzzled me. I had a theory, but I actually couldn’t prove it. I can see how magic is used and stored and circulated throughout my body, but without the intake of magic from the air, my body still produced a lot more magic than it should.
From what I can tell, my body seems to have an intangible field, a second inner skin that produces mana itself. If I had viable money at this point in time, I’d bet that it was my soul. Of all the Sorceries to choose from I didn’t pick Soul Sorcery, which means I can’t confirm what I think. But this field, this soul-skin, produces magical energy, making me a net-producer of magic.
If I can test and master this, this soul-skin, then maybe I could beef this thing up. I could be my own mana-generator!
Gungnir sighed. [Boss! Of course you have a soul. It’s called soul magic, and you beef it up by eating other souls or by living for a really long time. Souls age like fine wine and good whiskey.]
Gungnir’s mental voice suddenly brought me back to reality. Damn orb, it’s like having two voices in my head.
[Tell me that’s something you’ve learned about from Rath’s brain,] I sent back through our mental link. [And anything else too.]
[Uh, some things, but this one is easy as it’s what dragons obsess over. This is why they eat everything, and target Sorcerors specifically. You have to have a powerful soul to do that kind of magic, and eating those that do is like steroids for your soul.]
Steroids huh? [So, how do I work it out naturally? I’m not down with steroids. They give you performance issues down the road, and a weird kind of sagging.]
[Oh, easy. Do Sorcery. Experiment. Meditate. Try to understand exactly what it is that you’re doing when you do it. Sorcery comes with instincts. Your job is to make those instincts truly your own.]
[Hey, how long have I been out of it? Feels like I’ve been meditating on this for about half an hour.]
[Dude, try seven hours.]
[That would explain the incredible pins and needles in my legs.]
I’m so glad that nobody was there to witness my clownish attempts at getting up. Flesh Sorcery aside, the body still needs blood flow. After five minutes of massaging my calves and whining like a little bitch, I stumbled down the tunnel to the other hideout and then outside to do my business.
[By the way, Reeanth is out there somewhere too. She got tired of staring at you and left.]
Finishing my business is a lot harder when someone is in your head talking to you. All I wanted to do was pee. In order to relax, I started trying to work out in my head how to further my body-enhancing research. If melding different materials didn’t work, then enchanting or adding runes may be the next experiment.
“OH MY GAWD! DIS SHIT IS AWWWESOOOOOME!”
The southern frat-boy shout almost made me zip up the most delicate part of me. Wildly looking around while finishing my business is not a recipe for efficiency.
“My lord! Run! Lunatics!”
In the few precious seconds I had, I managed to finally put everything away and turn to see Reeanth pelting down the forest path between the giant trees. I couldn’t really believe what was chasing her.
“COME ON BACK NOW YA GIANT HOSSIE!”
“RICKY LIKES’EM BIG!”
Several four-wheelers with thick, southern boys dressed up in crappy Mad-Max body armor waving poorly constructed weapons and a few firearms were hot on her trail. Yup, my eyes did not deceive me. There were Bud-Lites strapped to their fronts like hand grenades. As they flew towards me at forty-miles an hour, my irritation at having my me-time disturbed stretched out and turned all the dirt in front of me into a wide pool of deep quicksand.
“Jump!” I yelled to Reeanth as the growing edge of quicksand reached her. With a carefully executed long jump that would have made our Olympic judges’ jaws drop, Reeanth landed ten feet behind me. The first hooligan and his four-wheeler tried to slow down but instead skidded into the quicksand as his buddies swerved to the side.
“RICKY!” Yelled the biggest guy behind him. He had on a metal helmet with stag horns sautered on top of it and a Lowe’s wood cutting ax strapped to his back. “You ok Ricky?! If you die, can I have your beer?”
“Shut your fool mouth, idjit! Ain’t nobody touchin’ my beer!” Ricky yelled from his sinking ride. Thinking quickly, he pulled a Bud-Lite off of his makeshift bandolier and began chugging it.
“Don’t waste it if yur gonna die!” A whiny feminine voice rang out. The burly man hopped off his four-wheeler, and stepped to the side pulling a length of extension cord out of his pack.
“Shut it Sally. Let the man have a beer in his last moments,” He grumbled as he began winding to throw the end to Ricky. “It’s what I’d do if I was stuck in that mess.”
“Billy, if it’s his last moments, how come yous bout to throw him a line?”
“To get the beer dummy!” The last person to speak was a man so skinny that beanpoles idolized him.
“I wasn’t askin’ you Tommy. You done drank all yours, so you ain’t gettin none of this.”
As I live and breathe. Hicks. True blue hicks. I really couldn’t believe it. I got family like this, but I hadn’t seen them in years. Time to put the accent I outgrew back to good use.
“Howdy. How come y’all are chasin’ my woman?”
All four of them stopped and seemed to notice me for the first time as I stepped out of the dappled shadows. They looked around at each other and counted, and then realized that I wasn’t one of them. I flexed my will to make the quicksand stop sinking Billy and his four-wheeler.
“That’s yur woman?” Billy asked as he popped open another beer. “And what the hell is a fine alien woman such as herself doin with a nerd like you?”
“Do not insult my lord!” Reeanth spoke earnestly. “This magnificent Sorcerer could wipe you out with a wave of his hand. Know your place.”
“Welp.” Billy burped. He yanked on his stuck leg before continuing. “As far as I’ve seens it, this here is the United States of America, where you can kiss my fine ass. Besides, ain’t no government man around to enforce the law, so it’s my law. We’re in the US of Billy right now!”
I chuckled. “Billy, you love your four-wheeler, don’t ya?”
“Hell yeah, built this purty mama with my own two hands, and not one moment of that was sober.”
“Well, I’m the one who sank it. But I can give it back to you if you maybe exercise some of them manners yur daddy whipped into ya.”
His drunken eyes narrowed. “Whaddya mean, you sank it.” He said, drawing out the syllables.
“He means magic, you insipid fool!” Reeanth barked. “My lord is a powerful Sorcerer! His will rules all before you! This entire forest would eat you alive if he willed it.”
“How the hell can she’uh speak English anyhow?”
“Magic!” Reeanth snapped, her oversized fist slamming into a nearby sapling and smashing it to bits. Splinters exploded outwards from the impact.
From attacking me to singing my praises. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the new Reeanth, although it’s clear her temper is still intact. I shook my head and let out a breath.
“Ignore her,” I said. “What I’m telling you is that you can have it back if you’re nice.”
“Prove it!” Sally said, taking off her helmet, her blond hair falling down around her shoulders. “And we’ll be real nice if you got beer.” All of their faces lit up at that.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I don’t have beer, but I do have some food I’m willing to share. But, you’ll have to share your stories with us.” I held my hands out with palms up to show my willingness to negotiate.
“Fine, I ‘pologize for my rudeness. I let my excitement get away from me. That lady you got is mighty fine, nice gams and all.” Billy said with a slight leer.
I figured that was the best I’d get outta them. I used the quicksand to push the four-wheeler and its occupant to the edge and then pulled back the quicksand from the vehicle so that there was nothing to gum it up. Banishing the water from the sludge turned the quicksand back to plain dirt.
“Reeanth, go get our guests some food and water and we’ll have a nice chat in my home.”
She turned and stalked back towards my bolthole, muttering dark things under her breath.
“Now, lady and gentlemen, if y’all wouldn’t mind parking your vehicles right over there,” I gestured to the clear area to the right of the World Tree. “My name is Ben and if y’all will follow me inside, we’ll get ya cleaned up and fed.”
The easy display of magic did more for their behavior than anything else I would have thought of. They quietly followed me inside and their mouths dropped open as I conjured stone chairs for them to sit in at a stone table that I magically grew from the ground beneath us.
I had shown Reeanth a while ago how to use the runed hot-plate I made a long time ago and she used it to heat up cans of soup for our guests. I also conjured cups of stone and filled them with conjured water, which made them look at me as if I were some kind of terrible genie. I was rather enjoying myself, wowing the people with my abilities. I wonder if this is how stage magicians must have felt back in the day.
“Did you really just pour water from your finger?” Sally asked.
“What are ya, Jesus, but in reverse?” Billy piled on.
“Naw, the good Lawd made wine, which is why He was good!” Commented the big man whose name I hadn’t caught yet.
“Amen.” Chimed Tommy.
“Yes, I did Sally,” I said, conjuring a small ball of water and making it hover over my palm. “It’s just water, but it is magic. It’s what I wished for in the beginning. What did y’all wish for?”
“Muscles.” The big man looked right at me as he rumbled.
“Like an idiot, cause you already done had plenty of’em,” Sally said, swatting him on the arm. The large man didn’t take his eyes off of me. “Come on now Jimmy, shoulda wished for brains to round you off nicely.”
“Well, what did you wish for, Sally?” I asked, gently fishing for information. “I hope it was somethin’ good.”
“This dumb bitch wished to change!” Billy howled with laughter, slapping the table and cracking open another beer from his vest. “Now, she can change her hair color and make her nails any color she wants, cause that’s so damn useful.”
“Quiet down now y’all.” Tommy said. “That was a better wish than mine. I wanted to work with machines better cause I’m a mechanic and have been since I was little. And then these damn Ripples done took away all the machines and replaced them with critters! The only things we got left are the cars in the garage I used to work on and the guns we got holed up. Sometimes though, it looks like the metal kinda bends when I want it to. And my gas don’t work unless I magic with it.”
“That’s the beer dummy,” Jimmy said. “You’re just seeing things again.”
“Well what’d you get, Jimmy?” I said, trying to keep the conversation going.
“Nothing man, I was passed out drunk when it happened way back.” He answered. “But, I swear I can smell liquor a mile away, and beer, two miles!”
“Now who’s talkin’ shit.” Tommy laughed. “You’re always smelling it cause you’re always drinking it!”
I tried not to shake my head in disbelief. [It’s like herding cats.] “So where are y’all from? And how’ve you been surviving since the first Ripple?” I forged on, trying to keep a semblance of direction in the conversation.
“Well, we were all drinkin’ in Tommy’s garage, where he was fixing up our four-wheelers so we could go on out when the damn thing hit,'' Sally answered, leaning back. “We’ve been holed up there ever since, using good ol’ Southern-gumption to survive. Most of them beasties are pretty tasty if you cook’em right. Which is why Billy ain’t never cookin’ no more.”
“Hey, beer soaked chicken is delicious, so why would beer soaked monster be any different?” Billy burped.
“Because we fry the chicken in beer batter, and we ain’t had no batter cause Tommy ain’t got no girl to cook for him, duh.”
Reeanth pulled me away as an argument erupted between the four of them. “My lord, are their mental faculties compromised? Are yours? You sound like them as well!”
I snickered. “Calm down. I grew up in North Carolina. I got rid of my accent when I moved up to Virginia because Northern Virginia is not like the rest of the state. It’s the city part that looks down on its bottom half.” I answered her with one ear turned towards the argument, which went from the right way to cook a monster to the best tasting monsters. “Besides, it doesn’t matter, southerners are good people, and loyalty is their strong suit. And they’ll die for you if you have fried chicken and biscuits. Trust me. I’d do the same.”
Reeanth smirked. “Then we need to secure fried chicken and biscuits, my lord. You need serfs to do the menial labor.”
“Damn it Reeanth, I’m not a noble, we’re not in the Dark Ages, and nobody is a serf!” I angrily whispered. “That’s not how any of this works. Besides, I think all of them have magic of some kind.”
“Them? Impossible!” She looked affronted, as if magic wouldn’t deign to grace the lives of our guests.
“What? Don’t tell me you didn’t catch that with your enhanced intellect?” I teased. “Sally, the blonde, can change her appearance, which means she might be able to shape-shift with practice. Although, maybe only in minor ways. Tommy, the mechanic, probably has some kind of techno-Sorcery and maybe metal Sorcery. The big dude got more muscles, so maybe he’ll be fantastically strong. And Billy, poor Billy, he got an enhanced sense of smell. The fact that they still have beer and are chugging it the way they are either means that they keep finding it due to Billy, or they had an impressive stockpile when the Ripples came.”
“Astute, my lord.” Reeanth said as she stood up straight. She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t parse. “I did not put those clues together.”
“It’s just a hunch, but we’ll see where it goes,” I replied. “Besides, we have to figure these people out. Southerners are either the nicest people on the planet and would give you the shirt off their back, or they are literally the worst people you’ll ever meet. There’s no in-between.”
“I’ll get my ax, my lord.”
“You will not. You will be a good hostess and make sure that they eat until they are full. If they need to be taken care of, I’ll do it myself. Am I clear?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Sheesh. She may be from an advanced civilization, but she sure has some backwards mannerisms.
We walked back in with a pitcher of water and more heated canned soup. “I apologize, but this is the only kind of food we have,” I said to my guests. “But I do have plenty of it. If y’all come back and visit again, I’ll treat you to a slow cooked deer. The whitetail around these parts is huge, so piggin’ out in the future is an option.”
“Wooweee, I can’t wait!” Billy whooped. He winked at me before lightly tapping a beer in his bandolier. “Maybe we’ll bring some beer and get Sally drunk for ya.”
“‘Scuse me?” She said, flicking her hair. “I don’t do that no more, highschool is over.”
Big Jimmy laughed deep and low. “You did that two nights ago.”
“Shut it, muscles!” She said, gritting her teeth. “Or no more for you!”
“My lord doesn’t need the . . .”
My glare cut Reeanth off. “What she means to say,” I cut in, “is that that’s not necessary. We’ll have ourselves a cookout and relax. And if y’all need some shelter for the last Ripple, then I’d be happy to offer it to you.”
“Another one? Shit, we don’t have enough beer for another one.” Tommy said. He turned to me to clarify, “We get plastered every time one of the Ripples comes through, cause we were sure as shit drunk during the first one. Tradition now.”
“You know what . . ” I said, rubbing my scruff. “So was I. At least for the first one. Maybe that’s why we didn’t get picked up by the Conglomerate or the Centauri.”
“The who’s and the what’s?” Sally interjected.
“Genetically advanced humans and the Orion Conglomerate, which is composed of many alien lifeforms for the purpose of commerce and profit,” Reeanth clarified. “That’s the reason most of humanity is not on this planet.”
My four guests looked at her blankly. Reeanth slowly pronounced her next words. “Hu-man-ity was ab-ducted. Taken by aliens.”
“Holy cow, you kiddin’ me?” Billy freaked, setting his beer down. “I always thought my uncle was crazy, talkin ‘bout them butt probin’ little green men.”
“Ok! That’s enough!” I cut back in, “The little green men is probably not true, but the alien part is real. Look at Reeanth, she is human, but her genetics were magically enhanced, or fixed to what they should have been back when humanity had magic. Apparently we’re all supposed to be way taller and more muscular. But what you said was more interesting. Y’all were drunk when the Ripple came?”
“As a skunk,” Tommy answered. “Why? That’s not new though.”
“No, no. The only people I’ve talked to about the first day itself are sitting right here. Everyone else I didn’t even think to ask. Reeanth,” I said, turning to our resident alien, “did y’all do some kind of brain scan to sort us, or to know who to pick up?”
“Absolutely. As far as we knew, every human was scanned, cataloged and rescued,” she said, her voice full of pride.
“So, how come it missed us?” Sally said, her eyes narrowing.
“Probably because we were drunk,” I guessed, my eyes pointing at the beer hanging from their vests. “There’s a good chance that we got missed because of our altered states of mind, we didn’t register as sober functioning adults.”
“What other parameters did you search for during the initial scan?” I asked, turning to Reeanth, "And how the hell did you miss something that simple?"
“All healthy men and women of all ages, and all those with mental disabilities. Such things are easy for our genetic recombinator treatments to fix. Besides, we Centauri do not use mind-altering drugs of any kind. It hinders our performance on the battlefield.”
“What about those with bacterial infections, or people who were unconscious during that time?”
“The Conglomerate picked them up for testing. The Centauri only wanted those that were easy to fix with the standard genetic package that all Centauri citizens are entitled to. We need soldiers, and this agreement was made several millennia ago. Those missing limbs or with severe infections were not picked up. The genetic treatments do not fix those issues.”
“What about those with altered states of mind, such as us? We were drunk when it happened. My fiancée was drunk too. Does that mean stoners or people who were high on some kind of mind-altering drug were missed?”
“It’s possible,” Reeanth said, looking a little uneasy. “The scanning techno-ritual isn’t perfect. But it did manage to categorize over 98% of humanity for pickup.”
Sally stood up suddenly and screeched. “Oh my god! That means Vegas is still full of people!”
Reeanth gulped. “I’m sorry,” she said sadly. “All major population centers were scanned for extraction, but the city known as Las Vegas is no more. It was instantly bombed when we noticed a Hive Queen infiltrant there.”
“A what?”
Petulance and boredom flowed through the mental link. I put my head in my hands and sighed. “Fine. Come on out,” I said, and then mentally ordered, [But behave!]
“Woohoo!” Gungnir rejoiced. “My turn!”
My most powerful weapon floated over and landed in the center of the table to become the futuristic, magical version of a disco ball projector. Light coalesced in its crystal core and refracted out to show our guests what the Hive looked like in all of its various forms, as Gungnir’s voice artificially deepened and narrated like David Attenborough. I sat back and enjoyed the show as this doesn’t happen often. Movies didn’t weather the apocalypse too well.
“It’s like Star Trek!” Billy said, his entire face in awe.
“Dummy, Star Wars had the holograms.” Tommy corrected.
“I thought that wuz Stargate?” Sally chimed in.
Reeanth whispered in my ear, “My lord, I’m not sure that this is a good idea. We don’t know anything about these people.”
“What would you have me do?” I whispered back after looking at the four guests who were enraptured by Gungnir spinning what it called, ‘The New Order’. “These are good people, tried and true Americans that managed to survive this long. I could make them some epic gear or try and enchant what they have to be powerful, and they could thrive here. And if they survived, there’s a good chance other people did too.”
“I thought you didn’t want to take care of people my lord, or at least that’s what your paraclete said.”
“I don’t, but these four probably will do all right on their own. See where I’m going with this yet?” I had my eyebrows raised and everything, trying to communicate with this dense woman without actually saying the words.
I have my own self-imposed responsibilities, which means I don’t want to leave my area if I don’t have to. Powering up and properly equipping four people with somewhat complementing magics could be a godsend if handled properly. The mechanic could hopefully make anything they need if I conjured metal for him, and Jimmy ‘Muscles’ could function as their tank if he had armor, and Billy could be their scout if he learned to shut up, while Sally - well, we need to see about Sally. I’d bet she has the most combat potential out of all of them, but that depends on her temperament and exactly how much she can ‘change’.
I turned my attention back to the demonstration.
“That true, or are ya pullin’ my leg?” Billy asked, frowning at the orb as it cut off the light show.
“That’s some serious shit right there.” Jimmy rumbled.
“Yes it’s true.” Gungnir answered. “I’m a magical floating orb that put on an epic holographic movie for you bumpkins. I have no reason to lie.”
Billy burped. “Awesome! We totally get to kick some zombie ass!”
“I don’t have enough supplies to make zombie weapons,” Tommy cut in. “Y’all ain’t seen the Dead Walkin’ show? Or was it the Walkin’ Dead? We need axes and leather armor and baseball bats and all kinds of shit.”
Jimmy sat there staring at his plate sized hands. “Not sure I wanna fight zombies. Your dick don’t work if you get bit by one, right? Cuz zombies don’t need to fuck, so if we turn into one, no sex.”
“Hey, hey, knock it off. Relax.” Gungnir attempted to soothe their fears. “Weren’t you listening? It’s gonna take a long ass time for them to get down here. The only thing you gotta worry about is giant creatures and mish-mashed monsters. Oh, and other people too, we’ve met some not-so-nice teenagers with a peeved deity. But that’s besides the point.”
“That’s enough outta you,” I interjected, putting my hand on Gungnir and silencing him. “I would like to invite all of you to stay for the night. I have some beds and mattresses stored away from before the Ripples messed everything up, and in the morning I’ll get a couple things ready for ya. There’s one Ripple left, and I don’t have a good feeling about it.”