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Travelling Awakened camp
12:43 PM, Tuesday, May 14th
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Following Zack along with Edan to one of the central tents, Arlo picked up some stew that seemed to have different bits of vegetables and meat in it, that he could only assume to have come from one of the beasts around here. His cloak of normalcy allowing him to stand to the side relatively undisturbed by others as he ate. Arlo could see all the dynamics between everyone present, some having a laugh with others, others teasing or annoying each other but it all seemed to be in good taste, these dynamics being something that he had rarely been able to take part in before.
As he took his first bite he could taste that his stew had a unique flavour to it, having a sort of sweetness to it, but contrasted by the taste and the texture of the individual ingrediants. One thing making him pause for a moment, being that after taking his first few bites in quick succession, he could feel a sudden rise in the amount of that off feeling that he had been feeling since earlier.
Paying attention more closely to his body, he could feel that pressure that felt off rising by at least a order of magnitude from what it was before with one bite alone. That pressure still feeling foreign to him, that feeling not having gone away since taking the mana potion earlier, almost like his body felt kinda swollen with something it didn’t recognise. Arlo decided to let the feeling even out across his body before he took another bite, figuring that this might be normal, able to feel as the pressure rose drastically once again before evening out across his body .
After a few more bites, he deliberated for a while as to whether to continue eating or to ask someone else about it. With the level of off his body was feeling and the amount of pressure his body seemed to be under, he eventually decided on the latter. Looking around he managed to spot Zack messing around with Edan, after a moment or two more of hesitation he eventually decided to walk over, making sure not to get in the way of anyone or drop his stew as he did so.
“Hey Zack,” Arlo spoke up causing Zack to jump a little as he realised Arlo was now right beside him, “ Hey err… the pressure that’s in this seems to be quite high, I mean I’ve only had a few bites and my body is starting to feel uncomfortable with it, having that same off feeling I’ve had since Murphy’s.”
It took Zack a few moments to process what Arlo had said and another good few to process what he actually meant, looking at him strangely before responding, “Wait, you mean the mana that’s in it? And what do you mean that off feeling since Murphy’s?” Zack asked confused, what Arlo said not making much sense to him.
“Well if that’s what it is then sure. But after Murphy gave me that diluted mana potion earlier, there’s been that pressure and oddness that its been giving off. Murphy said that feeling would go away when my core claimed it, but it still felt that way before I started eating this and the mana that’s in the food has only added to that, and by a lot more than just the mana potion,” Arlo replied honestly, trying to get across what he was feeling.
Taking a moment to think about it Zack muttered, thinking things over out loud, “Well that shouldn’t be the case, your core should be taking that up no problem, and what? It’s been like an hour or two since Murphy’s, your core should have completely claimed the mana within about ten to fifteen minutes.”
“You know what,” Zack spoke up so Arlo could actually hear him clearly, “ After this I’ll go and find Nancy and see if she can figure out what’s happening with you. But for now just take off your pendant for a moment, let the mana find the equilibrium it wants, and don’t worry, although the aether levels around here are kinda high, the mana in the food is more dense so it’ll go out rather than in. And then you can put it back on again once it feels more comfortable.”
“Oh and also,” Zack said, remembering something else that could help, before putting his hand over Arlo’s stew. A few moments later his stew starting to glow as light brown wisps of something came out and dispersed into the surroundings, “Just removed the excess mana in that for you.”
“Oh, thanks,” Arlo said, slightly surprised at how easily his problem was solved. Remembering a few moments later the other thing that Zack just said, reaching under the cloak he got hold of the pendant before taking it off, able to immediately fell how that pressure that was at the surface of his skin wanted to escape. The pressure reduced by a fair bit before it stopped trying to flow out of him, that feeling of offness still higher than when he drank the mana potion but a lot more comfortable to deal with than it was a few minutes ago. Putting the pendant on after the pressure stopped decreasing a few moments later, the pressure coming from the other awakened around here being a lot higher then just the surroundings, “yeah, that definitely feels a lot better.”
Zack and Edan who watched him let out the mana held in by the pendant of mana protection looked at him funny as he did so, Zack speaking up first, “Ok, I don’t know what’s going on inside you, but that wasn’t normal.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Arlo replied, looking slightly puzzled at him, not knowing why any of what just happened wouldn’t be normal.
“Yeah, it’s just where the mana came out, “Edan responed also looking kinda confused, “usualy when most people release their mana it’s most dense or more intense around where your core is, but yours came out with uniform density across your entire body.”
“Is that not supposed to happen?” Arlo asked, still not quite understanding why that would be a point of concern.
“No,” Zack replied quickly, “your core should naturally be taking mana in, creating a pressure differential so that the density of mana in your core is much higher than not, although seeing that, it does explain what you were saying quite a bit. If your core wasn’t taking up any of the mana in the rest of your body then you would be feeling it’s presence a lot more then your suppost to, and if it’s not taking it in then it isn’t exactly claiming it either.”
“Oh,” Arlo said suddenly realising those implications, “ And I’m guessing that that’s a very bad thing?”
“Not overly so, we just need to figure out why, like I said after we all have lunch I’ll go and find Nancy so she can have a look at you,” Zack explained, trying to make sure Arlo doesn’t panic about it to much.
“So why do we need to find her for that?” Arlo asked curiously.
“Why? Because she has a psychic affinity, regular awakened can’t sense other people’s core’s directly only the mana that they contain, because her affinity has stuff to do with the mind, soul and the conection between them she’ll be a lot more help then anyone else in figuring this out,” Zack explained further.
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“Wait, so your group actually has someone with a psychic affinity with them, I didn’t really expect to see any of them this soon after awakening,” Arlo said slightly in shock that this group had someone with an affinity almost as rare as his.
“Yeah, one of the original members of the group, she doesn’t look it though,” Edan said with a slight chuckle at Arlo’s reaction, “She looks like she’s both 30 and 60 at the same time, you don’t really notice her going around camp along, she also reckons herself to be a bit of a practical joker.”
“Don’t say that, she might hear you and get you next,” Zack said jovially, “Anyways, enjoy your stew before it gets cold.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Arlo said before going back to eating his stew, it still tasting very good but seemed to have lost some of it’s vibrancy and sweet flavours. Arlo once again looking over and watching as the people in the camp seemed to be going about their life as usual as he continued to eat, sure that if he took off the cloak he would have a lot more people interested in the ‘new guy in camp’.
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Branch office of the Ministry of the Awakened, Cromswerth
4:15 PM, Tuesday, May 14th
Rift Event Investigator, Judy POV
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Walking into the conference room Judy could see Quite a few of the big shots in this branch of the Ministry of the Awakened, people who she was quite familiar with by now as she met them after every rift that occurred in the town walls. Taking her seat as usual she looked over to Jordan, the relief force commander, as he was getting ready to present on the events that happened earlier today. Looking down at the other end of the table Judy could see the Branch Director, an older-looking woman in a loose-fitting business casual that was befitting of the High mage herself. She could see all of the other department directors within the Ministry, along with other directors of major organisations that partner with the Ministry that also play a key role in defence of settlements, idle chatter audible as they were all getting themselves situated.
After everyone had settled down, the lights dimmed as Jordan began to present the events that transpired, “Hello everyone, I thank you all for being here, I know you may be particularly curious about the anomaly that was reported with this outbreak but we’ll save that until last. Alright?”
Hearing his opening statement the room broke out in quiet whispers as those who wanted to ask quietly agreed and those who weren’t previously aware of this ‘anomaly’ were curious about what it was that happened that required it to be mentioned at the start of the debrief. After a few more moments everything quieted down again allowing Jordan to continue.
“At 10:15 AM the spatial anomaly detectors picked up an increasing level of distortion in the vicinity of the Eastern branch of the Cromswerth higher education institute, at 10:16 AM the rift opened and established itself thirty seconds later, during that time we was able to confirm that it was an enhanced level rift that formed. The evacuation from the campus started almost immediately, the closest team of relief force personnel managed to get there three minutes later, with backup arriving 2 minutes after. When we arrived on scene there were already a few Awakened individuals preventing the advance of the firehounds that had come out of the rift. Due to the rift location, monster type and civilians present our main focuses were the safety of the citizens and the closure of the rift as fast as possible.” Jordan initially explained, getting silent nods from everyone else in the conference room.
“After most of the beasts were taken care of we split into two teams, the advance team took care of the remaining beasts as the guard team set up temporary shelters to start helping the injured. At 10:25 all beasts that came through the rift were terminated and we employed an Advanced level flow damper to stop flow through the rift causing it to destabilise for 20 minutes until it collapsed completely. After the beasts were dealt with we called in a Rift Event Investigator, Judy in this case who confirmed the events that took place as well as the final death toll of 786,” Jordan continued to explain, all those that were in the room having looks of shock and sorrow on their faces as that is one of the highest death tolls the town had had in the past 20 years, triggering another round of murmuring before quieting down again.
“Yes, that’s the 3rd deadliest outbreak that we have had in the past twenty years, along with producing 231 injured, leaving 463 survivors that were initially in the close vicinity of the outbreak,” Jordan said before leaving the board open for any questions about the event before moving onto the last issue that he was going to flag.
“So why did you send out a request to see if any space mages had come through?” The director of records asked, curious about the communication that they received after it had been passed up the chain earlier. The unprompted mention of a space mage in the area sparked both confused and curious muttering throughout the room.
“Yes, that,” Jordan said before looking over at Judy, “Judy, do you want to explain as you were the one that encountered this first?”
“Sure,” Judy said, getting up from her chair and walking over to the front of the room, Jordan moving to stand off to the side, “So you all know me, I’m the Rift Events Investigator that was called to investigate the aftermath of today's events and I’ll just get straight into it, as you all will know by now I was the one that created the advanced version of the aura event reconstruction spell that gives it certain advantages over others, like being able to use different filters and tags to augment my visualisations of the mana trails that get left behind. One of the things I do as standard is to set all the trails so that if they cross out of the boundary to automatically get marked as a survivor, and any that I mark off as deceased meaning that after I’m done with my investigation I can ensure that everyone had been accounted for,” Everyone nodded along, waiting to hear what this anomaly actually was.
“But after I did my round-up there were three trails remaining, so finding where they led to they I found that these three individuals were trapped in a coridoor between two packs of firehounds before being teleported out when the hounds were within only meters of them,” Judy explained, when everyone heard that teleportation magic was involved the room filled with noise as everyone had their own curiosities and questions that they wanted answered, the branch director releasing her aura for a moment causing everyone to quiet down, letting Judy continue.
“The reason why this was flagged rather than just being left as it was other than the ministry being angry at whatever mage it was for not helping out more, was that of the three individuals that got teleported only two of them came out the other side, with no indication of the third individual's death or reappearance or so it seemed at first,” she said, the room going quiet as everyone waited to hear what changed, “After I reported the teleportation and missing individual to Jordan, he sent out a request to the records department to see if a space mage or their affiliated organisation reported that they were in town. Which the answer we received was that there weren’t any. The other thing we did was ask around to see if anyone else saw what happened as the spell only picks up on mana. After asking around if anyone saw what happened, one of the relief force personnel said that there were three individuals in the area of the destination of the teleportation spell.”
“He said that they stayed there for about half an hour with two being conscious and alert with the other being unconscious, having disappeared the last time he checked, upon being asked why the unconscious individual wasn’t moved to one of the recovery tents stated ‘that the two people with them said that the individual would most likely prefer not to wake up crowded by other people, because he doesn’t deal with crowded places very well’, so he gave them advice on what to lookout for and periodically checked on them. The individuals were later identified as Bill Raymond, Arlo Whitewood, and Emily Miller by a shop attendant who saw them walking past and leaving the scene. They said that Arlo seemed to be half carried by the other two and expressed sympathy for how much he seemed to be struggling. Since then we have tried to find him to get him checked and get some tests done since whatever has happened to him has left him with no reserves of mana at all in order to maintain regular bodily function, not leaving any trail whatsoever,” She said, pausing so they could take everything in.
“All attempts to reach out to him have as of yet proved ineffective and after reaching out to his family we’ve received news that he hasn’t yet returned home, although the individuals that were identified with him earlier had passed by expressing condolences to his family and that they disappeared although they are hopeful that they are alive. Those two individuals that have been found to be his friends have subsequently been brought in for questioning as we speak to try and locate him, being told of the health risks to him, the last I heard before coming into the meeting was that the individuals corroborated that although they did leave the scene with him but that they no longer know where he is, and that to being told the health risks that they both answered that they knew that he would be fine, one of them letting slip that they knew that because he drank a diluted mana potion,” Judy explained, saying what they had found so far.
“So if no new information is gotten from them shortly they will be let go. Otherwise I recommend putting out a search team for him after more information has been gathered, and him being marked as a subject of interest by the ministry, since in lue of new evidence we suspect that the teleportation spell was linked to him in one way or another.” Judy concluded, the room staying silent for a moment before murmurs started about what this all meant for those present.
Eventually the Branch director spoke up, “That is quite the anomaly, I myself would be rather fascinated to find out what comes from this, consider your recommendations granted. And information about the specifics of this anomaly isn’t to be shared outside of the ministry, I don’t want others finding or harassing him or those that he knows to try and get information from them, understood?” To which everyone in the room accepted, nodded in understanding.