I stare at my status screen, feeling shocked at the amount of Energy that was taken. I’d guessed it might be the case when I saw the messages, but hoped that I was wrong. Sure enough, when I look at my status screen, I can see that there’s fifty percent less Energy towards the next level. After having reached more than two-thirds of the way to the next level after the chickens and wolvezard, my Energy has taken a nose-dive down to the bottom again.

STATUS SCREEN

Name: Markus Wolf

Race: Human

Class: Tamer

Level: 0

Energy to next level: 7%

Energy absorption rate: 11u/hr

Energy towards debt: 0%

Intelligence

6

Mana: 60/60

Wisdom

3

Mana regeneration rate: 75u/hr

Willpower

15+3 (+20%)

Health regeneration rate: 18u/hr

Constitution

5

Health: 45/45

Strength

6

Stamina: 30/30

Dexterity

4

Stamina regeneration rate: 40u/hr

Class skills

Dominate – Beginner 1

Tame – Beginner 1

Non-Class skills

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Lay-on-hands – Beginner 9

With less than ten percent Energy gathered towards my next level, I’m almost back to square one. Then again, I notice that the Energy I’m absorbing every hour has increased to eleven units, so it’s not all bad. Still, I wonder why such a great chunk of my Energy was taken – is it because I’m so much weaker, and probably lower level, than Kalanthia? Or is it because I was in a weak position, needing what Kalanthia was offering more than she needed what I was offering? Or is there another reason? Once more, it’s a question I have no answer to, so I just divert my mind onto other topics.

Primarily among which: what do I need to do to get my new shelter ready for the night? Well, I have bedding, but it would be nice to have some sort of cushioning – the leaves worked pretty well the night before last and last night wasn’t too bad in the burrow, but this is a solid rock floor. Then, I want to create a fireplace, but that will take a bit longer as I need to find clay somewhere – probably by the river, I’d imagine. I’ve still got some cooked food in my Inventory, so no immediate rush for that.

Of course, I’m going to want to make this more homey in other ways – I can imagine shelves with items on, hanging plants and animal sinew to dry out for other crafts, maybe even stretching a hide on a frame to make leather. The downside of that last one is, of course, the smell… Ah well, will deal with that when I get to it. For now, it seems like my immediate need is to sort out a bed of some sort. I don’t really feel like going out looking for that bracken stuff I was using before, so I decide to just make a nest from what I already have in my Inventory.

Pulling out my backpack and suitcase, I rifle through them both looking for warm, soft clothing. I didn’t bring a blanket – which feels like a major oversight now – but I did bring a whole load of T-shirts, jumpers, trousers, even a dressing gown. Arranging a whole load of clothes on the floor with my dressing gown wrapped around them, I make a reasonably soft, somewhat lumpy bed. Using the same jacket for cover that I’ve been sleeping under the last few nights and I figure I’ve got something for at least the night, maybe longer.

Now that I have a proper shelter, I’ll actually be able to do more than just create things for survival, though those things come first, of course, and top of the list is levelling up. But that’s for tomorrow-me to think about. For now, I have something else to think about: my sight.

I haven’t yet tried Lay-on-hands, and that seems like a bit of an oversight. I chuckle darkly at the unintentional pun. Anyway, I haven’t tried my healing spell, and though I’m doubtful, I figure that I might as well give it a go.

Casting Lay-on-hands, I feel the tingle run through me. Unlike every time I’ve done it before, the tingle doesn’t focus on any particular area or areas – it just runs up and down my body as if looking for an injury before fading. I know before I open my eyes from where I unconsciously closed them that it hasn’t worked. Sure enough, my left side is still dark, and if I close my right eye, I can’t see anything.

Damn. I feel like there’s a lead balloon inside me, dragging down on my stomach. I was really hoping that that would solve my problems. Then I have a thought – what if I focus in on the eye specifically? Historically, undirected Lay-on-hands have offered a low-level healing over the whole of the body whereas directed healing has always done a better level of healing, though in a more concentrated area.

With hope rising in my heart, despite knowing it’s still a bit of a long-shot, I try casting Lay-on-hands while concentrating on my injured eye. I feel a tingle in the area...then it fades. Opening my eyes proves once more that it’s been a useless attempt.

I slump back on my ‘bed’. So this is it, is it? I’m going to be half-blind for goodness knows how long? At least until I get to Nicholas’ world, possibly beyond, especially if it turns out that healing gets more and more difficult the longer it’s been since the injury, which it probably does…

It’s depressing, and more, it’s worrying. It’s hard enough to survive with two intact eyes and full peripheral vision: how am I going to make it without even full sight?

Despite my worries, I’m tired. I don’t care that it’s still light outside: I’m going to sleep. Closing my eyes, I prepare to do just that. However, just as I’m drifting off, my relaxed brain shoves an idea at me which wakes me up properly again.

The second time I tried Lay-on-hands it was different from the first time. The first time, it was like the spell couldn’t detect an injury. The second time, there was definitely more reaction. What if the spell simply didn’t have enough time to do what it needed to do? Time – or mana.

It’s a bit of a leap – so far I’ve been able to partially control the amount of mana I use, but I’ve never used more than ten units, and the time has never exceeded a few seconds. How am I going to overcome that block?

It takes a good few tries to extend the amount of mana used to more than ten units, and I only really do it by accident. Instead of just mentally saying ‘Lay on hands’, I instead focus more on my mana bar, imagining it draining down and the blue indication in my vision vanishing into my body, and from there into my eye. That first time, I’m too distracted by my mana bar actually seeming to obey me that I don’t focus on my eye and the energy instead runs all the way around my body. More than a tingle, this time It’s almost like an electric shock. A small one, not really painful, but definitely more present than what I’m used to. It also uses a good half of my mana in one go so I have to take some time to recover after that.

I use the time it takes me to regenerate to think through my approach. I wonder whether it would be useful to try to think about how the eye functions. I figure it probably can’t hurt unless it distracts me from concentrating on moving the mana from my bar to my eye.

I’m no doctor, or optician, so my knowledge of the eye is rather limited to what I learned at school. I know that light enters through a lens which is what allows us to focus on near and far objects. Then it passes through the pupil which is a hole surrounded by muscles – the iris. Or maybe it goes through the pupil first and then hits the lens? I don’t remember.

Then the light hits the back of the eye...upside down? I’m pretty sure that images being upside down is a thing that the brain has to deal with. Then there’s the optical nerve at the back of the eye which goes to the brain, and a whole load of blood vessels which keep the eye healthy. Oh, and other liquids and so on which keep the eye as ball-shaped rather than flat. Ew.

Once my mana regenerates, I cast Lay-on-hands again, but this time really concentrate on drawing blue from my mana bar and imagining it flowing from my hands – as I seem to automatically imagine my hands being the access point for the mana, though I know that doesn’t make much sense – up to my eye. There, I try to trap it temporarily.

It’s hard and I almost lose control of the energy a few times when my eye starts burning and spasming in pain. It’s like I’ve stuck an electrical rod in my eye and it’s on pulse. As soon as I feel like there’s no more mana to draw, I immediately start trying to think about how the eye functions, while stopping the energy from escaping at the same time. How, I can’t explain. It’s a feeling, an instinct more than anything visible or tangible. As realistic as holding lightning in your hands, but somehow I know that something’s happening, even though all logic would say it should be impossible.

I don’t know if it’s working, I only know that it hurts. But I don’t dare stop because what if it is working? What if I stop and find that I’ve regained half my vision? Because knowing how painful this process is, I can’t see myself daring to restart it, especially if there’s a risk that I could go backwards and lose what I’ve gained. Right now, there’s nothing to lose – if I fail, I’m no worse off.

So I don’t stop. I keep concentrating on my eye until it feels like it’s already melted in its socket, that if I were to open my eyelid, there’d be nothing there but an empty hole. I keep concentrating even as my brain aches from the fierceness of my focus. I keep concentrating even as the pulses of energy become weaker and weaker, then die completely. Even then, I don’t dare stop concentrating until every hint of anything mystical has vanished.

Only then do I dare relax. But I don’t open my eyes. After what I’ve just been through, I think that finding out I failed would be too much for me right now. I keep my eyes closed, trying to summon up the courage to find out for sure one way or the other. And as I do that, my exhaustion creeps up on me and I lose the ability to make a choice.

.