With a wordless groan of pain and despair, TJ dropped Stanton to the ground beside the latest tree to be sacrificed. He knew that the tree wouldn’t actually die or anything from Stanton’s magic, but TJ did feel a slight compassion for another living being that gave up comfort and a part of their health for Stanton’s continued survival. Despite any feelings of commiseration or understanding though, TJ lacked the energy to take another step forward to another plant.
This was the fifth stop they’d made since the mountain lion’s attack. The first time, TJ had made it a full fifteen minutes before taking a nearly ten minute break. He’d had enough energy at that time to wonder where any cars would be. This particular stretch of highway didn’t have a ton of people on it, but there would have been someone here, in this stretch of road, in the space they’d traveled already. No such vehicles appeared, though, and as he resumed his journey, he was too exhausted to wonder any longer. They’d both only gotten more and more exhausted as he’d continued his painful trek. Stanton was recovering markedly, and his stomach stopped leaking blood all over after the second stop, though the movement pained him and split his scabbing wounds. TJ had only managed a bit over ten minutes of walking the second leg, and Stanton’s MP had only recovered by five in the time between. It was hardly enough to heal himself a large amount, but he was convinced that the newest Druid level was very close. With that hope driving him, TJ didn’t hesitate for too long before resuming their journey.
Again and again, he walked until his shuddering legs proved to be too much for him to continue. Each time he stumbled to a new tree, Stanton would exhaust himself to force healing into his body, but the results grew less and less impressive with each stop. With less MP to work with, there was much less that he could do, but now, on the fifth stop, Stanton groaned but stood tall. His shirt remained stained with his blood, and TJ could see the puckered scars that patterned the old man’s stomach under the ribbons of torn shirt and jacket. That he hadn’t bled to death on the highway in the middle of nowhere was a miracle, and now the old man, though not healthy or whole by any stretch of imagination, was on his feet. TJ dropped the backpacks to the pavement of the highway and gestured for Stanton to get whatever he wanted out of them as the exhausted younger man stood as tall as he could while holding both his hands behind his head and breathing deeply.
Stanton stumbled over to the backpacks, where he pulled a water bottle from his pack and drank deeply from it before ripping a can of corn out of as well, stabbing it open with three swipes of his knife, and drinking the corn kernels that spilled out. He acted like a starving savage, his entire focus on devouring as much corn as fast as possible. The water it had been suspended in dribbled out of the corner of his mouth and through his stubble to soak his collar. Stanton didn’t seem to care. He merely continued devouring the food as TJ walked forward to stand nearby. Too tired to stay on his feet, he activated Divine Transformation and laid down while keeping his eyes and nose peeled for anything’s approach.
Maybe a minute later, Stanton finished his “meal” and looked at TJ, who laid coiled in the middle of the road while his eyes felt heavier and heavier.
“You done?” TJ asked.
“For now.” Stanton replied. “I’m hungrier than a bear in the spring, but I better move before I eat anything else.”
“Fine by me. Can you carry your pack or should I take it for now?”
“Better you, for now. Maybe in an hour or so I can heal myself enough to carry my own gear. Sorry.”
“It’s better that you’re still alive. Taking another backpack is nothing compared to carrying you the next four miles.”
“Probably closer to five.”
“... Shit.” TJ quietly cursed as he shifted back to his human form. Before grabbing their gear, he idly massaged his feet for a minute while looking around. There hadn’t been any pukwudgies, coyotes, snakes, or even lizards in the past nearly two hours, and he was feeling antsy. Even so, nothing appeared, and TJ strapped his pack on and adjusted Stanton’s to sit on his stomach instead of his back. Then, with his feet aching but not injured, thanks to his massive Vitality, Endurance, and Toughness attributes, TJ resumed walking onward.
With Stanton walking, they couldn’t go as fast as TJ had managed when carrying everything and everyone, but they made much more consistent progress as they continued walking for half an hour. Every five minutes or so, TJ had turned to ask if Stanton wanted to stop, but after the second question, Stanton had shot him a death glare so potent that TJ’d stopped asking any questions entirely.
At the thirty minute mark, though, Stanton’s face had gone pale and, with sweat pouring down his face, he’d requested a stop. TJ activated Divine Transformation as he went first to the nearest tree, scoping out any potential threats, but seeing nothing. There was no scent or indication of any potentially threatening creature being nearby, so TJ gestured for Stanton to approach. Now cleared to approach, the old man didn’t hesitate to lean against the tree and begin to take some of its vitality for his own.
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TJ kept an eye on the surroundings and the other on Stanton. Though he was a stubborn, tough old man who had magic on his side, he wasn’t recovering as quickly as TJ had expected. For the first time in horse, his mind was clear enough to think to ask the System a question. In a hushed whisper, he did as much.
“It’s been this long, about 2 hours, and Stanton hasn’t recovered as much as I’d expect. Why?”
The System will not provide specific information regarding another Participant’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, divine, or other wellbeing. If you have any questions for another Participant, you must ask them or acquire a Skill that would allow you to access that information in some other way.
He fought not to roll his eyes. “What kinds of conditions or afflictions are there that might impede the natural recovery of a Participant? Does HP recovery change if someone’s currently hurt?”
Common Afflictions such as Crippled, Maimed, Septic, Cursed, Poisoned, and Blighted, as well as more uncommon Afflictions and most Afflictions causing constant HP drain serve to slow or even cease entirely the natural HP recovery offered by the Vitality attribute. Certain severe injuries will also cause an individual to suffer from any number of multiple common Afflictions.
TJ felt a surge of gratitude that he’d never even feared getting any of those more exotic sounding Afflictions, much less suffered from them. Also, a part of him mentally thanked Stanton for the idea that his wounds might go septic, since that was a common enough occurrence for it to merit its own “common Affliction” title.
“What Afflictions do you have right now? You’re not healing as fast as I feel like you should.”
Stanton stayed silent for a time, but TJ didn’t ask again. If the injured old goat needed some silence to continue healing himself, TJ wouldn’t continue interrupting it. Two or so minutes later, Stanton finally replied as he easily rose to his feet.
“Called it ‘maiming’, localized to the intestines. You don’t want to know exactly what it did, but it kept me from healing anywhere near as much as I should.”
“You’re looking great now, though. You finally level up in Druid?”
A grunt. “We should be able to make it pretty fast now.”
“Sure hope so.” TJ replied as he gratefully kicked Stanton’s backpack over to the now healthy older man.
“Now listen here.” Stanton protested, his eyes ablaze. “I packed that special, and there’s good stuff in there. If you break it because you’re being lazy, you won’t need to worry about any damned goblins or ghouls or whatever else. I’ll kill you first!”
The angry rant continued, but TJ didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he stepped forward and settled his own pack more comfortably around his back while looking for any movement in the forest. After all, it’d been long enough without seeing anything that it was almost worse that there wasn’t anything ambushing them right now. That would at least reduce the tension. Disregarding whatever he wanted, though, only the rustling trees and the grumpy man’s grumbles answered his nervous observations of the world surrounding them. Stanton didn’t take long to prepare himself and set off at a quick walk towards their destination.
As they continued to walk down the mountainous highway and around one of the dozens of bends in the road, Stanton perked up and pointed. “That there is Pine.”
Looking over the precipitous drop at the edge of the road, TJ was the town. Several thousand homes, at most, with the single “main” road crossing through being the highway itself. No stoplights in sight, and TJ imagined there wouldn’t be one either.
“Straight shot there through the forest.” Stanton mused. “Probably cut half a mile off our journey to go through the trees instead of on the road.”
“And you’d get stabbed again.” TJ gaped at the foolish man. “Are you stupid or something? We can see them coming on the road, and we’ve still got an hour and a half before sunset begins to be a problem.”
Stanton chuckled. “It was a test, I guess. Just seeing if you were gonna rush.”
“No, that’d be stupid. You do have enough MP to refill Suzie at this point, but that’ll probably be all we’ve got until we get to town. In the trees, you’ll be more a liability than you are on the road with wide open shots.”
“I get it. Drop it.”
TJ shook his head and continued walking onward. Even at this brisk walk to preserve Stanton’s feet, they’d make the couple of miles left in an hour at most, getting into town just before the beginning of sunset. Nothing to do but to continue their path. With their goal in sight, TJ couldn’t help but feel a pit in his stomach begin to form with each step. Surely they couldn’t reach their goal without any additional roadblocks. TJ wasn’t sure if it was worse if he thought that nothing would happen or something terrible would. On the one hand, the universe seemed to enjoy kicking people in the balls when they thought that everything was going to be alright. On the other, it also seemed to love making your worst fears come true. Like your wife dying and leaving you a single father in a job you hate. For example.
With a force of effort, TJ wrenched these thoughts from his mind and instead thought about and observed what was around them. The wind wasn’t as loud, though TJ felt that it was still excited to have someone to talk to. How he thought that he could understand the intent of the wind was beyond him, but he could turn into a snake, maybe he could understand the damned wind.
And just when he felt like he could understand the wind, it whispered to him that there was something in front of them. Something bad. TJ stretched out his awareness, trying to understand whatever it was that it was saying to him, but he couldn’t place it. He looked out, and saw nothing. Nothing but the faint shimmers of pukwudgies. Dozens of them. With coyotes. And more coming from their flanks in the forest.