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Cromswerth Higher Education Institute Eastern Branch, Cromswerth
11:10 AM, Tuesday, May 14th
Rift Events Investigator POV
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Arriving at the scene of the latest outbreak, Judy looked at her old campus, now burned to the ground. She could see the temporary shelters that had been set up in the surrounding areas, filled with injured and other relief force workers. The smell of smoke and the fumes of things that were never meant to be burned still holding a presence in the air.
Going over to one of the temporary shelters, one that had a blue flag above it she went in, “Hey, how many injured do we have?”
Jordan, the relief force commander spoke up, “We have approximately 300 injured one way or another, either from 1st, 2nd, or 3rd-degree burns, smoke inhalation, the firehounds themselves as well as from where parts of building collapsed and some unfortunate few that got trampled.”
“And how many confirmed dead?” Judy asked professionally, although with a bit of sorrow in her voice, that question always being the hardest to ask but a necessary one.
“We are currently dealing with the remains of over 200 people, and those are the ones that we could move and get put into body bags, there’s hundreds more that are unmoveable due to the state of the building,” Jordan answered with a similar sombre tone.
“Guess I better get to it then,” Judy said, going outside the shelter before starting to cast a spell. Drawing mana from her core she started to lay out a magic circle filled with a complex network of runes and circles. After spending a good few minutes on it she finally let her mana fill the circle, a flash of light shone out before the defuse aura trails that were permeating into the surrounding sharpened significantly, able to distinguish each and every path and how long it had been there.
Getting out her clicker, she did a walk around of the premises, recording every time a trail from a human came to an end, able to see the release of whatever meagre stores of mana that normal people have in their chests. Going around the outside she counted 163 deaths alone. To make life easier for herself, she set the mana trails of those that had crossed out of the boundary she had set around the campus to a transparent blue in her spell and those that she had already counted to a transparent red.
Casting a much simpler spell, she quickly created a magic circle within a few seconds that protected her from heat and falling debris. She entered what was left of the building, counting each release at the end of a trail as she went along, marking off every mana trail that she had counted. By the time she counted all those on the first floor the toll had gone up to 675. Going up to the second level, or what was left of it she counted all those on the second and third floor, being careful where she stepped. She saw a few trails going through the air from the main building to the burned building next door but she discounted those for now, she would find where they led to when she cleared the other building.
Going back down the stairs and out of the primary building on campus she had counted 786 so far, heading over to the next building she saw Jordan walking over, “How many so far?”
Looking at her counter, she replied, “786 so far, just going over to check the other building now.”
Getting an understanding nod from Jordan she went to the next building to see if there were any more people that needed to be accounted for, circling the remains of the art building she could see that all the mana trails that were either going in or out of the building were either already transparent red or transparent blue, with most being the latter. The reasoning being that if everyone that went in had either already been counted or left the premises and there were no more white trails, then that meant that there was no more that needed to be counted and that all survivors had been accounted for.
After making sure that there were no more white trails that led in from the first floor she turned her attention to the three trails that she identified earlier, looking up into the air where the walkway once was but had subsequently succumbed to fire damage. Seeing that those trails were the only ones unaccounted for she went in the nearest entrance to her, making her way to the second floor and over to where that walkway once connected to.
Looking around she could see the scorched lockers and blackened roof, this building seeming to have been through less of a beating than the main one. Getting to the corridor she could see the now busted-down doors that would have once been connected to the walkway, along with the 3 mana trails she noticed earlier. Following the mana trails down the stairs she could see as they led down the corridor before all coming to an abrupt stop right after they turned the corner, that after turning herself seeing led straight to an open exit.
Being confused for a moment she quickly turned off the filter to only show human mana trails and replaced it with the by time filter, adjusting it until the point she saw the trails head coming down the stairs, before waiting at where they disappeared for a few moments, noting that one of them was surrounded by the protections of a basic mana protection enchantment, as well as an elevated level of ambient Ather in the air. Before multiple trails belonging to the firehounds appeared at the exit as another set of similar trails came down the stairwell they previously used. She watched as the trails of the firehounds that were in front of the exit rapidly approached to within three meters of these individuals before a sudden release of purple energy, a hallmark of space aligned mana, something that her spell picked up as a teleportation spell a few moments later. Looking out the end of the corridor she saw a similar release of purple in an alley at the end of the opposing street, with only two trails continuing out the other side.
Seeing this she left the building looking around for a moment to find Jordan, walking up to him she called out, “Hey Jordan, something came up that probably needs your attention.”
Hearing this Jordan quickly looked over, “Oh hey Judy, what’s up? Got the final toll?”
“Yeah, the final toll was 786,” Judy replied, looking at her counter, “The problem is we have one unaccounted for?
“What do you mean unaccounted for?” Jordan asked, confused about what she meant, as she had never reported anyone unaccounted for before.
“Well it seems that three people were escaping together crossing from the main building to the secondary building, a teleportation spell was cast on them to escape a pack of rapidly approaching firehounds, and only two continued out the other side in an alley down that way,” Jude said gesturing over to a street around the corner, “and there are no indications of death or the missing person’s trail continuing elsewhere.”
“Were any of them awakened at all?” Jordan asked, trying to make sense of this.
“No, all of their trails were consistent with mana trails emitted by non-awakened,” Judy responded.
“Strange, I’ll have people ask around to see if anyone saw anything, in the meantime I’ll send something off to ask if there were any space mages in the area that could have cast that spell. Either way, put everything you can into your report and we’ll flag this issue when the case gets reviewed.” Jordan stated, before walking off to continue with his duties.
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Over the woods outside Cromswerth
11:40 AM, Tuesday, May 14th
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Feeling the wind go past him as he moved, Arlo could feel a rush going through his body, the excitement, the adrenaline, the acceleration all culminating into a thrilling experience that he had never come across before. Seeing the look on Arlo’s face Zack smirked slightly, being reminded of the same thrill he has every time he flies, that others seem to lose as it becomes commonplace for them.
“So, Kid, Your name? What is it?” Jasper asked, not having forgotten that they still needed the name of this kid they were bringing with them, the sound surprisingly clear despite the wind going past as they continued to speed up, going higher into the air getting a good view of the forest and road that they were once on below.
“Oh, Arlo, my name’s Arlo,” Arlo responded looking over at Jasper before looking back down to the ground below, able to get an aerial view of the town and its surroundings. He could see all the streets and the top of buildings, the clear belt around the town, the forests off to the east and the large area of farmland off the west. The mountaintops that were visible only visible from up on top of town walls now revealing a vast mountain range that was still partly left under the horizon that led all the way up and down the west of them. This sight, one of vast stretches of scenery from somewhere otherwise impossible to get to was something he could have only dreamed of previously.
“Well then Arlo, there ain’t no turning back now, hope you're ready for it?” Jasper stated, positioning his body in a way that made him get closer to him.
“Hey Zack, just curious, what did you mean by he said he wanted to make it as hard as possible to find out who he is, shouldn’t they already be able to tell,” Edan asked curiously, Zack’s wording hanging a bit on his mind.
“Said he hadn’t been to the Ministry yet,” Zack said, causing the others to look at Arlo with a shocked confusion.
“How long did you say he’s been awakened for again?” Jasper asked Zack trying to clear up some confusion.
“Has to have been a long while, I mean I just advanced to the Crystalised stage and even I would still be afraid to face them,” Harper chimed in, not able to imagine anything otherwise.
“That’s the best part, I didn’t,” Zack teased, “Anyway kid, you want to tell them?”
“Well…” Arlo said awkwardly as the emphasis was placed on him once again to explain the unlikely set of events that led to him being where he is now.
“He is awakened, right?” Jasper said, glaring at Zack for potentially onboarding a non-awakened, Edan looking at Arlo with increasing respect and awe as Harper looked over baffled, starting to believe that potentially this was Zack’s latest prank.
“Well… if you asked me that question a few hours ago the answer would have been no,” Arlo said like he had been caught doing something wrong and was trying to word himself carefully to not get in trouble. His answer causing both Edan and Harper to look at him with disbelief.
“He what !” Jasper shouted at Zack.
“That’s the same reaction Murphy had,” Zack said with a bit of laughter, “Murphy was already treating him for severe mana depletion when I came in.”
Hearing that Jasper turned to look at Arlo as if he were some sort of headless chicken. Edan and Harper looking at him like he was a mysterious entity that had replaced who they thought this person actually was.
“So the saving his friends from multiple packs of firehounds, that was fake, right?” Edan asked, trying to make sense of what he knew about this person they had picked up.
“No, that’s true, or according to the two people that were there with him, one of them even yelled at me to tell me off after I asked if he finally learned enough to do something silly with his mana,” Zack said with a small chuckle, “ ‘it was cool, one moment you have a firehound pouncing at you in a burning building and the next thing you know your not going to die,’ the other one put it.”
“So you’re saying… that he… just now?” Edan said, struggling to piece everything together.
“So err… what did you do exactly?” Harper asked, drifting over to him with curiosity as they continued to move.
“Well there’s this thing I do, it helps me calm down a bit when in really overwhelming situations. Anyways, I just kinda wanted that really really… really hard, thought I was gonna faint for a moment because of the pressure building up next to my heart, and then next thing I knew something happened, I feinted, then woke up on the ground next to my friends feeling realllly empty inside,” Arlo said, awkwardly recounting his version of events to people that been awakened way longer than him. The others looking at him with shocked curiosity.
“You, you didn’t tell me that bit,” Zack said in shock, enough for everyone to momentarily drop slightly.
“Steady now,” Jasper called out feeling the sudden drop, “So you’re saying that this kid, cast a spell through direct intent impartation AS he awakened,” He said loudly, voicing his surprise out loud to no one in particular.
“And on multiple people,” Harper said, her mind not able to get around that part as that is something she still struggles with.
“And successfully at that,” Edan added, “Wait, what was it that you actually did again?”
“I don’t exactly know and I would prefer not to answer that,” Arlo said, still being a bit conscious about giving the fact that he teleported away to other people, “But err… what is direct intent impartation?”
“And he doesn’t even know what it is?” Jasper said in exasperation, “Don’t they even teach non-awakened basic magic theory?”
“Don’t worry, it is basically just wanting a very specific, well-thought-out thing, hard enough at the mana you give it until it either works or it took too long, along with getting a killer headache if you fail for too long. It’s generally a lot harder and more inefficient than using magic circles, but you take what you can get I suppose,” Edan whispered to him.
“Oh, gotcha,” Arlo whispered back, “So yeah, so I haven’t been to the Ministry, and they don’t know I exist. Or not yet at least but I'm sure they’ll figure it out at some point.”
“So you went to school today a normal person then all this happened? Man this must be a wild day for you,” Harper chipped in, that thought just occurring to her.
“Yeah, it has kinda been a lot, and it’s not even noon,” Arlo replied causing a chuckle from Harper.
“I guess I’ll ask you again later to see how much worse it got,” She said with a smile before floating away a bit.
Looking down again Arlo could see that all that was below him were trees, the thick canopies that undoubtedly had countless monsters and other regular animals underneath, looking around he could see what looked to be at least 3 more active rifts, spread out over the terrain from one horizon to the other. And it was only now that Arlo could appreciate exactly how high up they were, so much so that individual trees and clear patches only looked like textures on a distant object. Turning his head he could see behind him that the clearbelt and the town he grew up in was already far off in the distance and only continuing to get smaller.
“Hey, watch it,” Arlo heard as he turned back around to see Zack grabbing his arm, “the spell only propels you in one prominent direction and limits airflow to within a reasonable level around us, your body still acts as a sail if you aren't streamline, that’s how everyone else is able to float around so effortlessly. So make sure not to drift to far away from me, ok?”
“Oh, ok,” Arlo said, kinda worried that he messed something up already. Looking off into the distance Arlo could start the see the base of the mountain range in front of them. A view that not many people, or at least nowadays had probably seen. He couldn’t help but take in the sight, vast fields of rolling tree tops going all the way over the mountains where more mountain tops kept coming into view as they kept getting higher and higher.
“So how long till we get to wherever your group is?” Arlo asked after taking in the view for a good while.
“Well it took us a good half hour to get to Cromswerth on the way there, so should be about the same back,” Zack said, floating about moving around everyone else, seemingly playing a sort of game of tag with Harper and Edan as they floated about, trying not to get tagged by the others.
“Hey Arlo, why don’t you join us, this is your first time flying, right? Why not go for a spin?” Harper asked, seeing that Arlo didn’t have anything to do.
“Yeah, you should join us, air tag is fun,” Edan said, trying to convince him to join them.
Getting a tad curious about their offer, Arlo leaned up a bit causing him to gain altitude more than they were already as he leaned more towards the right in order to get close, where they had been leaving some space between them before as to not accidentally bump into him, “So err… what are the rules?”
“Well basically,” Edan said before floating over to him and touching his arm, “You’re it,” he said before leaning back hard, floated away quickly before stabilising himself again.
“Oh, so you're just going to pin it on the new guy are you?” Arlo asked with a small smirk forming.
“Yeah,” Edan responded,” and watta’ you going to do about it?”
To that provocation, Arlo leaned towards him and the others only for them to have already split apart by the time he got there, changing directions in order to go after Zack and Edan given they went in roughly the same direction. After a while of trying to tag one of the others he eventually got Harper when she got in too close behind him when he leaned back hard after seeming to be going all in for Edan, Arlo having a smile plastered on his face when he finally managed to tag someone, “tag, you’re it.”
Finally not being it anymore Arlo immediately changed course away from Harper as she floated there for a moment shocked at what just happened before getting her game face back on, “ oh you’re in for it now,” she declare going straight for Arlo.
Seeing Harper going after him Arlo tried to lead her towards the others, eventually getting her to change targets. Eventually, Harper managed to get Edan, who got Arlo again, who managed to get Zack this time before being passed back to Harper again, with things going on like this for quite a while.
“Hey Zack,” Jasper called out, the only person who seemed not to be playing games all this time, “Got visual on camp, 2 o'clock, 5 kilometres out.”
Hearing that everyone stopped what they were doing for a minute as they looked at Jasper before looking over to where Jasper said, long over in that direction there seemed to be a clearing, Arlo would say it looked small but he knew how high up he was so didn’t even have an estimate for how large the space was. The clearing seemed to be surrounded by a stretch of trees that had gaps in the canopy, tents or other seemingly temporary structures seemed to litter the clearing with what seemed to be some sort of order to them, not that he knew what that was.
“Oh, yeah,” Zack said, seeing that they seemed to be going rather south from where the camp actually was, slowly he changed course so that they were all heading towards it, “Good catch.”
“And that’s why I say not to get distracted while you’re flying,” Jasper replied, seeming fed up with how many times he’s said that.
“See, told you it would be fun, and it also gives you something to do so it doesn’t seem so long,” Edan replied.
“You ready to meet the others, kid?” Zack asked, turning to look at Arlo for a moment.
“Well not really, but what happens happens,” Arlo replied, his time on the trip there making him feel closer and accepted by these people. He still had the thought of Emily and Bill, and his Family that he had just left behind in the back of his mind, but at least up until now he felt accepted by these people for just who he was. So although he was still nervous about meeting an entire cohort of Awakened, he at least felt like this group of them would have his back.