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Street corner in the Eastern District, Cromswerth

10:55 AM, Tuesday, May 14th

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Arlo felt a surge of pain through his entire body with every step he took, he said before that his body felt like it was at the point of failure and it was being very vocal about it, but now it seemed to be furious that he wasn’t listening. He could feel his friends each side of him trying to help him down the street as they approached another street corner. Arlo tried to suppress the amount of groaning he was doing, both for his friend’s benefit along with trying to not draw too much attention to themselves.

“How you holding up?” Emily asked, seeing that he still looked to be in quite a bit of pain.

“Well the painkillers are making the soreness more bearable but my body is still screaming at me,” Arlo responded through shallow breaths before they crossed the road to continue on the street that they were on.

“Well I mean you just did the most taxing thing a mage can do the moment you awakened, I sure bet your body is screaming at you,” Bill chipped in jovially.

“You're telling me,” Arlo said, a small smile forming on his face, even though his body was screaming at him along with having the thought in the back of his mind that his life wouldn’t be the same again. The fact that he had just awakened and seemed to have pulled off the impossible brought a certain happiness with it, even if his body wasn’t agreeing with him at the moment.

Getting further down the street they took a right to go onto another street, where the one’s they had just come from were mostly residential buildings and apartments, this street had a variety of different shops, restaurants, and small businesses going along it. The smell of all sorts of local foods and seasonings were in the air, as well as the smell of people’s teas and coffees. Making their way down the street they could hear all the activity going on around them, able to see quite a few groups of the people from their college that came here after they evacuated, seemingly to try and distract themselves from the fact that they had just been in a life and death situation.

After passing by quite a few of the restaurants and stores, through the chatter of the street they could once again hear the sound of a bell that stores would have on their doors to indicate that it had just opened, “Hey, y’all ok over there?”

Turning to see who had just called out they stopped and turned around to see someone dressed in all white looking at them. He looked well-kempt, his jacket looking fancy almost to the point of flamboyant as a belt that had all sorts of pouches hanging from it hang from his waist, his hand still holding open the door to the store he just came out of, “Hey, seriously, y’all ok, you look like your barely standing over there, even worse than all the other people from that latest outbreak. Wanna come in for a moment?”

Both Emily and Bill looked at Arlo to see how he wanted to respond, Arlo on the other hand thought why not, they needed to find a place to think of a plan anyway, “Not really doing the best at the moment to be honest, I can barely walk and my body’s kinda screaming at me, so if you don’t mind that would be great.”

“Of course, come in, let’s see what we can do for ya, my name’s Murphy by the way,” Murphy responded, holding the door open for them as they made their way back and into the store. Inside was a relatively open space with all sorts of trinkets and items adorning the walls, all on their own little display stands, once they were all inside Murphy gestured for them to come into the backroom behind the counter. Following him in they could see multiple work benches, some with some half-finished items, others with some raw components and what looked to be a few ping-pong-sized faintly glowing orbs. Turning the corner he gestured at some chairs that were out the way at the side of the room, “Y’all can set him down over there.”

“Thanks,” Arlo muttered through the pain as Bill and Emily sat him down on the chair before sitting beside him.

“Hey, how are the painkillers kicking in by the way?” Emily asked, seeing that Arlo still seemed to be in quite a bit of pain when moving.

“They are making things better but they don’t really seem to be having that much of an effect overall,” Arlo responded.

“Wait a minute, if you were having this much of a problem, why didn’t y’all visit the healers that were with the rift relief force?” Murphy asked, trying to wrap his mind around what he was hearing. Emily and Bill turning to Arlo to see how much he wanted to tell him.

“Yeah… About that… something happened and we wanted to try coming up with a plan before things got out of hand,” Arlo answered, telling the truth but not wanting to give up too much.

“And what’s that then, if you don’t mind me asking, there are very few things that can happen that can get someone looking like that, at least for regular people,” Murphy questioned, trying to see how best he could help these kids.

“Yeah… about that, I might not be a regular person anymore,” Arlo admitted sheepishly.

Murphy paused for a moment before looking him over, “Anymore, as in you awakened?” He said giving a brief pause as Arlo nodded, “Just taking you at your word for a moment, then you have managed to use the most mana out of any newly awakened I have ever seen, did you awaken a few weeks ago and finally manage to figure out how to use enough to do something stupid with it?” he questioned, knowing that after newly awakened figure out how to use mana that they often go past their limits.

“Well… Hey Em? How long has it been since I first passed out?” Arlo asked Emily, not knowing when that happened.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Emily looked at her phone to check the time before looking back at him, “yeah, about 45 minutes, give or take, we didn’t really have time to check, did we?”

“Wait, you’re telling me that you only awakened three-quarters of an hour ago and have already depleted your reserve this much, how? It takes time for newly awakened to even start to be able to sense mana properly, let alone use it !” Murphy asked in sheer surprise.

“Yeah, it was kinda a life or death situation… and looking more towards the latter, and there’s this thing that I usually do when in a situation with no out like that, and err… I kinda just wanted it, really really hard,” Arlo said sheepishly before grimacing due to the continued pain.

Hearing this Murphy got up as a serious expression overtook his face, “I’ll be back in a moment, don’t go anywhere,” he said before going off into another side room, the sounds of something opening and some clinking could be heard as he seemed to be getting something. Coming back into the room he seemed to be holding a few vials of liquid and an empty bottle, putting them down on the table he poured one of the liquids into the bottle about halfway before setting it down and uncorking the other.

“Hey, Murphy sir… what you making over there?” Bill asked, who had previously been looking around and taking in all the details of around the workspace.

“What your friend has, or is suffering from rather,” Murphy said as he poured a splash of the second liquid into the bottle, “Is known as something called mana depletion,” he continued to say as he put the lid on the bottle and started giving it a good shake, “something most people don’t know is that everyone uses mana, even the non-awakened, it gets produced and used in our bodies in small amounts, this isn’t really a problem in those that aren’t awakened because they don’t have another way to use it,” he said, stopping to look at the contents of the bottle before adding some more of the first fluid he put in before starting to shake it again, “but for those that have awakened, they have to be careful, as there’s nothing stopping them from using up all the mana in their body, causing there not to be enough to maintain regular bodily function.”

Looking at the bottle once again he added some more of that first liquid before starting to swirl the bottle around, “ and in most cases newly awakened accidentally cause themselves mana depletion by not knowing their limits as they are getting the hang of using their mana, but if you use too much to quickly you can cause severe mana depletion, and that can be very dangerous, especially within the first few hours of awakening when your core hasn’t completely stabilised.”

Looking at the bottle one more time he looked over at Arlo before reaching out to pass it over, “Hey bud, how's the pressure feeling?”

“Worse than when I was across the hall from the rift, but he gave me his pendant of mana protection,” Arlo said, pointing at Bill, “So now it’s better, but it still feels like I'm underwater, almost. And err… what’s this exactly?” He asked, taking the bottle of mystery fluid.

“It’s a mana potion, usually if awakened need to recover a large amount of mana quickly they take one, but you just need some in you and your body won’t be able to onboard too much at the moment so just take sips of that, Alright?” Murphy explained.

Opening the bottle, Arlo took a small sip, it tasted kinda sweet with a slightly herbal note to it, but as soon as he swallowed he could feel as it went down him. As it went he could feel his throat and his headache slowly start to go away, able to feel as it dissipated into him by the sheer fact his body was screaming at him less. Feeling a bit better he slowly started to take another sip.

“So is he going to be alright after this?” Bill asked.

“Well it depends on if or how badly he damaged his core, or more to say if he ended up using too much of what was supposed to become his core, because if he ended up using too much he’ll no longer be able to replace the mana his body uses, but given that he’s already back up and running,” Murphy paused for a moment as he looked at Arlo, “Well maybe not running, but the fact that he woke back up on his own means that things shouldn’t be too bad, although he might struggle a bit getting back up to pace when he tries to develop his core in the future.”

Hearing that, both Bill and Emily looked over at Arlo, having a greater amount of appreciation of exactly how taxing the feat he performed in desperation actually was. Arlo was still trying to wrap his hand around this new information. Wait, used up what was supposed to become my core, but I think I used pretty much all of that energy! Man, I’m going to have to really think of a good plan on how to handle this, because being found out is one thing, but being found out and being unable to produce results is much much worse. Starting to think of the implications he started bouncing his leg as he tried to calm himself down.

“Hey, it’s alright, things will work themselves out eventually,” Emily said trying to reassure him.

“Yeah, whatever happens, we’ll have your back,” Bill stated with a smile on his face.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened for y’all to get this freaked out anyway?” Murphy asked, seeing as they were all seeming to react like something terrible has happened.

“Well…” Emily started before pausing, not knowing what she could say without giving to much away.

“Lets… let's just say that I didn’t awaken a primary affinity, and that the thing I did is very easy to tie back to it,” Arlo said slowly, trying to tell as little truth as possible to still be actually helpful while still being actually truthful.

Thinking for a moment, Murphy looked at them as he put together everything he knew so far, “ahh, so you’re worried that after people find out that your life is going to get pretty hectic, and by the sounds of it you awakened something pretty valuable?”

“Yeah… pretty much,” Arlo said softly, before taking another sip from the bottle, his body although still feeling a bit empty inside had at least stopped violently complaining at him.

“I get you, a few of the people I used to travel with had similar worries when they first awakened, being concerned about what would happen and being bossed around and such. Nice fellows honestly, you would probably get on well with them,” Murphy said, starting to reminisce.

“So were you part of one of those hunting parties?” Bill asked after hearing he used to travel about, being one of the things that Bill was interested in as the hunting parties usually became quite famous and wealthy.

“Nah, I went round with one of those travelling mage groups you hear about,” Murphy said with a soft chuckle at Bill's enthusiasm.

“You mean one of those secret groups of mages that roam the lands, only popping up rarely here and there, the ones where you don’t know where they are for months on end only to hear rumours of them turning up somewhere completely different?” Bill asked, his excitement still evident.

“Well I wouldn’t exactly call them secret, although they can be hard to track down at the best of times, it’s just that they don’t stick to established trade routes so people don’t commonly see them passing through. Thing is, they only really stop by settlements to get things they can’t make themselves or to sell any excess they get while travelling around,” Murphy explained, thinking back on his time with the group.

“Ohh, so they don’t mean to be, they just are, man that’s cool,” Bill said, stoked that he’s learning more about these mysterious groups from someone that used to be in one.

“Well of course you would be excited, wouldn’t you,” Emily said, letting out a small chuckle at how childlike Bill seemed to be being at the moment.

“So why did you stop going around with them?” Arlo asked, “Did you have a falling out or something? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Gods no,” Murphy shot back, “I’m still friends with them, they even come and stop by to catch up every time they pass through and resupply.”

“So then why did you stop travelling with them?” Arlo questioned, taking another sip from the bottle.

“Ah, when I got to my early thirties I decided I didn’t want to constantly be on the move anymore, and that I always had a love for making magic items and it’s kinda hard to make complex things when you're on the move half the time. I mean you can do it but it just becomes annoying to put up with.”, Murphy said with a smile,” Anyways, so I decided it would be better for me to just settle down somewhere quiet, or relatively so, and so I set up shop here. I still remain in touch with them, when they have service that is, but this arrangement seems to be the best for what I want to do with life.”

“So you are able to stay in contact with them, what are they like?” Arlo asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah, and they are really nice people actually, although they can come off as a bit intense,” Murphy answered, “Do you want to meet them?”

“Sure,” Arlo said, having some interest in meeting these friends of his.

“Good, because they should be dropping through rather soon,” Murphy said, looking at him plainly.