Neil

Jerking awake with a start I was surprised to find that I had already lurched to my feet and was looking around in a daze. The adrenaline that was coursing through my veins was enough to wake me instantly and I was looking around me for threats before I had even made it to my feet.

Eyes scanning left and right I looked for swaying tentacles, snarling maws, or faces with too many eyes and mouths, I saw none of that.

Instead I saw that I was in a large wooden hut with a dirt floor. It was sparsely furnished with a low table off to the side, some shelves against the walls and a small fire pit was in the middle with a large clay pot sitting in it. There were openings in the walls that were acting like windows, the windows had hides in them which were currently pinned to the side allowing light, a slight breeze and the sound of laughter into the hut.

Taking a deep shuddering breath I checked all of the corners again to make sure that I really was alone, seeing nothing I bent over and rested my hands on my knees taking deep breathes, swaying slightly I put my hand down to steady myself.

My heart was racing and I couldn’t seem to get air into my lungs fast enough no matter how quickly I was breathing, before I could get my heart under control my entire body started shaking and my vision turned blurry. I tried to stay on my feet but the shakes got so bad that I eventually fell down with a soft thump. It took at least 10 minutes for the shaking to stop and when it did, I realized that I must have been crying because my face was wet.

Wiping my face clean as best I could I found I actually felt a pretty good at the moment, although I was happy that no one was here to see it. Hopefully this wouldn’t become a habit of mine. Flying to my feet every morning and freaking out afterwards would be a terrible way to start every day.

Standing up I stretched and found my body actually felt pretty good except for a pain in my lower back. Kicking at my sleeping bag I found a hard-lump underneath it. I must have found the one rock in this entire place and fallen asleep on it.

Looking through the hut again I took note of my tent still in its bag in the corner just how I gave it to Shassala. On the table looked to be some of my clothing folded neatly.

Walking over I looked through the small pile. There were three of what could charitable be called shirts, but it would be more accurate to say they were just rags by now. They looked to have been cleaned recently as they were still a little damp. Some of the blood had been washed away from my favorite button-down shirt, my blue t-shirt was no longer sticky, and my grey t-shirt was actually grey now and not tie die gunk, even my jeans were looking better. I would have to find some new clothes at some point though. These wouldn’t last too much longer.

Pulling on my jeans and a shirt just as Shassala’s mother entered the hut, we looked at each other. She and Shassala shared a lot of features. A similar lean body type, the same hair color and nose shape. In a few more years Shassala would probably look almost exactly like her mother. Yallia and I had barely talked to Nialla, her husband Gand or their other children the night before. They had fed us some dried fish and potato stew and then I was so exhausted I all but collapsed.

“Good morning.” Niala said after a few moments where we looked at each other. “I was starting to think you were never going to wake up. Are you well?” She asked approaching me looking at my face with a curious expression.

“I’m fine, just a little hungry.”

I could tell from her expression that she didn’t believe me but I couldn’t guess why. Approaching me she took a small cloth and waterskin from her belt. Wetting the cloth she wiped at my face and I realized too late that I must have left dirty streaks on my face.

Jumping a little as the cool cloth wiped over my face she didn’t comment on the remains of my tears and simply cleaned me. Once she was done she backed up on her tail increasing her height and I was forced to look up at her.

“I saved you some fish, why don’t you have a seat at the table and I’ll bring you one.” She said leaving the hut. With nothing else to do and realizing I was in fact starving I sat down at the table, returning a few moments later with a small fish on a skewer Nialla handed it to me..

Hesitantly biting into the fish skewer a smoky salty flavor filled my mouth. Shutting my eyes I savored the taste for a moment. I had never cared for fish, but after a diet of MRE’s and whatever plants I could scrounge together the salted fish tasted amazing. If it weren’t for the bones I probably would have shoved the entire thing into my mouth, as it was I was left holding some fish bones and a wooden stick all too quickly.

“That was amazing, thank you.” I said looking up.

“There are a few more outside if your still hungry, help yourself.” She said busying herself over the pot. “If you want to clean up there is a small area down river that we use.”

Thanking her I left the hut and looked around. The hut was in a small clearing away from most of the other Lamias houses. There were a dozen more fish being smoked over an open fire, clothes hung from a line near the river, and some tools were scattered nearby. Yallia was facing away from me standing in between two small Lamia. They were looking down at something and doing something with there hands. Ignoring them for now I helped myself to a few fish, sat down in front of the fire to enjoy the smell of smoke, the feeling of the sun on my face and I began eating. Biting into the largest fish watched Yallia and the children, I could see now that they were doing something with a net and the children were talking Yallias ear off, despite the fact they she obviously couldn’t understand them. Although to my surprise she was actually responding with one word answers to them occasionally.

Finishing my third fish I leaned back and felt tension I didn’t even realized I had start to fade and even my lower back started to feel better.

Opening my eyes I stood up and stretched up on my tip toes feeling my back pop in a few place. Yallia must have heard me as she turned around and looked at me. Our eyes met and I saw she looked exhausted.

Deciding that Yallia looked to be entertaining the children well enough on her own I waved goodbye with a smile and walked towards the tree line and a small path that led along the river. Despite my bath the other day I was still feeling pretty dirty. The combination of sliding down the mountain, sweating in my sleep, and my crying fit this morning had left me with a large amount of dirt and grime on my skin.

Walking down river a few hundred steps I found the bathing area Niala had mentioned. Taking off my clothes I folded them carefully on the shore and then I gingerly walked into the water. It was a good thing I was used to bathing in freezing cold water because the river was fed directly from the runoff of the mountains surrounding us and it was easily as cold as the portal water.

Wading in slowly I stopped just before my junk got in and tried to prepare myself for what I was about to do to myself.

“Don’t be a baby and get in!” A voice called from the shore as a slightly soggy shirt thwapped into the back of my head. Taking the soggy garment off my head I looked at the shore and saw Yallia standing there glaring at me unconcerned with the fact that I was now holding her shirt. “Was that funny? Abandoning me like that?”

“What? The children? You looked like you were enjoying yourself.” I said with a grin throwing her shirt back to her.

Yallia looked upset but her expression softened as she looked at me and I started to worry about more evidence of my freak out this morning being on my face.

Turning away from her I dove into the water gasping as the frigid water covered my head. Keeping myself submerged I tried to relax into the water, but something about the cold, dark water around me reminded me of my nightmare and the water felt more claustrophobic than comforting.

Standing fast enough that water flew off my hair into the air I started to take deep gulps of air as I felt my heart hammering in my chest and shivers that had nothing to do with the cold river start to rack my body.

Hands on my knees I tried to get myself under control and after a half a minute I managed to stop shaking and my breath slowed, my heart was still pounding, but it was slowing as well.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

By the time I started to feel normal I realized that Yallia was beside me with her arms slung over my shoulder, and she was rubbing my back.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

Feeling embarrassed, but not entirely certain why I straightened up and tried to think of something to say to distract her. Not wanting to lie I floundered for a moment before just speaking. “I’m fine, just a little cold and tired I guess.”

I could tell from her facial expression that she didn’t believe me for a second.

“You're not from one of those cultures that thinks admitting you need help is a sign of weakness is it?”

“Uhh, what do you mean?”

“Some cultures believe that showing signs of needing help is equal to showing signs of weakness.” Yallia said still rubbing my back.

“Well it is, isn’t it? If I was strong enough then I wouldn’t need help.”

Yallias expression didn’t change much, but her lips crooked just enough that I could tell she now thought I was an idiot. “Neil in the last, how long have you been here? A week? Two? You’ve been plucked from your home, possibly never to return, almost killed a dozen times, and fought and killed monsters out of some people's worst nightmares. Do you really think that someone who did all that is week? It’s normal to have some problems after going through that much trauma. If you didn’t I wouldn’t trust you because it would mean you were some kind of sociopath.”

Turning away from her I took a deep breath and tried to get my thoughts in a row. “I know, I know. It’s just knowing something is true and still doing it is tough.”

Looking up the river I tried to get my thoughts in order but I wasn’t having much luck. Partially because of how overwhelming everything had been, and how cold the water was.

Deciding to focus on the one problem I knew I could fix I started scrubbing at myself trying to get myself as clean as possible as I heard Yallia make her way through the water behind me.

“This will go faster if we help each other.” Yallia said just before her hands started scrubbing at my back. “I don’t suppose you have any more soap.”

“It fell out of my bag coming down the mountain.”

Rather than answer I felt Yallia redouble her efforts as she worked her way down my back.

“What did you do to yourself here?” She asked poking my lower back. “You’ve got a pretty bad bruise here.”

“Really? It was a bit sore this morning but it's fine now. It might have been from falling down the mountain and I think I slept on a rock last night.”

“You might want to get a healing potion from the Lamia, it’s not very big but it looks pretty painful.”

For a few minutes the two of us scrubbed me in silence before she spoke again.

“All done, turn around.” She said as she physically turned me around. I had a second to marvel at how strong she was as she manhandled me around to face her, but the thought died as I got a look at her.

Water was dripping down her front and goose bumps were covering her skin in a way that made it hard to focus on whatever I had been about to say. Her ears were twitching slowly in a way that made me think she was concerned about me. “I know we haven't known each other for very long, but if you need someone to talk to about anything I want you to know that you can come to me, alright?”

Before I could stop it my mind went back to the underground city, the portal there, and the garbled message I had received after I saw it. “There is one thing actually. When I got my water affinity it was from the water rift, and when I saw that other rift, well I got another affinity.” I could see that she had questions but was holding herself back from asking them so I could speak. “It’s not any affinity you mentioned, and the message I got from Gaia was just gibberish so I’m not really sure what it is. I got a splitting headache when I saw it though. It felt like my head was going to crack open.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like this. Of course we really don’t have that many firsthand accounts of what humans could do or how they did it. Most of what we have is anecdotal and was written from oral histories years after the fall. Have you tried to use it? Or have you noticed any problems when using your water affinity”

“I didn’t even see anything the other day, if I had though I probably wouldn’t have used it. Nothing good can come from a portal like that, I also didn’t notice any problems the other day when I was using my water affinity. But I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling about it. Does that sound crazy to you?”

“Having seen the monsters that were down there, no that does not sound strange.” She said leaning back.

Throughout all of this I had been so focused on our conversation that I had stopped thinking about how cold we were, but a stiff breeze which caused me to start shivering brought us both back.

“Turn around I’ll clean you and let's get out of this water before we freeze to death.”

Yallia did so and began to scrub at her front in a way that made me certain she was removing as much skin as dirt. A little more gently I wet her back and began rubbing at her, removing the dirt that was stuck to her. After spending a few minutes making sure that her back was cleaned as well as I could get it without soap she turned around.

“I want to thank you for speaking with me Neil. I know that it must have been hard for you, so thank you for trusting me. There’s one more thing though, I’d like for you to practice your water magic for me.”

"Why? There weren’t any problems with it yesterday.” I said feeling uncomfortable for a reason I couldn’t place.

“Yesterday we were in a bit of a rush, and with the fight you may not have noticed any problems, I think it’s a good idea to make sure that nothing has changed with your water magic. It’s better to find out now, than in the middle a fight, right?”

Seeing her point I nodded and took a breath.

Yallia left the river and watched me from the shore. Focusing I drew upon my Mana collecting it in my hands, next I focused on my water affinity. Feeling it at the edge of my perception same as always there was so sign of any new affinity, in fact as far as I could tell nothing had changed with my magic.

Drawing on more and more of the water affinity I changed my Mana into water itself and shaped it into a something the size of a beach ball. When I the ball was fully formed I slowly began changing its shape, turning it into a spear, then a waving arm before dropping it into the river. Rather than let go of the magic completely I stopped creating water from my mana and instead spread my mana and affinity around me in taking control of the river itself.

Letting most of the water pass by me I brought a small amount of the current under my control every second, before long I had hundreds of liters under my control. Solidifying the water under my feet as best I could I slowly raised myself up on a small platform of water. Shivering in the breeze I soon found myself standing on the river with a half a dozen water tendrils surrounding me.

Concentrating I started to sway them side to side finding fine control difficult with so many of them, so I instead focused on large movements.

A smile started to creep onto my face after a moment, honest to god magic! That was when I smelt it. The smell of decay and death, of rotting flesh in a left to marinate in the sun. Forcing myself to concentrate on the Magic I tried to focus on my spell, but a moment later I felt it, something inside of my water affinity, hiding amongst it, entering my magic and my very soul. Now that I knew what to look for it was easy to see. It had started slowly, barely a trickle so I didn’t notice it, but over time more and more of it started to mix in with my water affinity.

The realization caused enough of a shock that I lost control of my magic and I fell into the river landing hard on the sandy river bank.

Yallia was clapping on the shore for some reason but she stopped when I turned towards her.

“Did you smell it? Did you feel it?” I half yelled; half gasped out.

“What? Smell what?” Sputtering Yallia said looked at me with concern in her eyes. “What happened?”

“It was there! Something was there!” I shouted panic creeping into my voice. “I could feel it there! It was hidden in my water affinity! I can still feel it.” I said as a slightly oily feeling seemed to coat my magic.

“Calm down Neil, what are you talking about" She said grabbing my shoulders and steadying me. “Now once more, what happened?”

Taking a deep breath I tried to calm myself. “It was fine at first, I was using more magic than I ever had before, it was so easy to control, and then, something else was in the affinity. It started small, barely anything, but then there was more of it.”

“Alright, alright.” Yallia said comforting me.

Getting out of the water I quickly started to put my pants on not caring about the water that still clung to me.

“Did it hurt at all? Or were you about to lose control of your magic?” Yallia asked from beside me as she got dressed as well.

Breathing deeply I felt the panic I had felt start to fade a little. “Yeah I could control it, actually it seemed easier to control. But when I felt it,” I hesitated at a loss for words. “I haven't had magic for very long, so I can’t say what's normal, or right. But this felt wrong, dirty, tainted, just not right.”

“Hold on turn around.” She said as she grabbed my shoulders and turned me. “Your bruise, it's gotten bigger, earlier it was the size of my thumb, it's almost double that now.”

“What?” I asked twisting around. I shouldn’t have bothered, no matter how I twisted I couldn’t see it. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Feeling like I was about to throw up I looked at Yallia for reassurance but saw none.

“Let’s get dressed.” She said simply.

Realizing I was shivering from fear as much as the cold river I started to pull on the rest of my clothes clothes, idly what happened to my towel. Was I going to turn into one of those things under the mountain? Lose my humanity until I was nothing but a monster?

“Neil.” Yallia said stopping buttoning her shirt. “You could leave you know.”

“What?”

“My guides won’t be back for a few weeks, but you might be able to make it over the peeks yourself, or you could head to the coast, go around the mountains and try to get to civilization that way.”

“Why?” I asked. It was a vague question, but Yallia understood what I was asking. Why bother.

“I’m not sure what’s happening to you, but I think using magic will make it worse, and if you stay here you will almost certainly have to use magic again. If you left you might not need to, and you might even find a way to heal it.”

Thinking about what was happening to me and the messages I had already received from Gaia I considered what to do. “I think, the answers to my problem could be right here. When I was given a quest to go down into the city part of the rewards was resistance to taint. I wasn’t sure what that meant at the time, but it's probably this.”

Yallia looked as serious as I had ever seen her. “If you're sure, then thank you. If you need anything then I want you to ask, alright?” Yallia said and before I knew it her hands were on my shoulders and we were extremely close.

“The Elders wish to see you now!”

Both of our heads snapped to the side to see the blonde Lamia from the night before standing at the tree line glaring at the two of us. What was her name again? Tyler? Tilia? Oh right Talass. I was about to respond but she turned around, held her body low to the ground so that it looked like she was practically touching the ground and slithered into the forest without waiting for us to respond. The way her tail was swishing as she left I thought she looked like a rattle snake that was pissed off.

“What did we do to her?” I asked Yallia who had backed up a few paces from me.

“What did you do to her you mean. That glare was at you not me, what did she say?”

“The elders want to talk to us, we probably shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

Getting the rest of our clothes felt fairly awkward for me although Yallia didn’t seem to notice as she finished buttoning her shirt. Was I misinterpreting things with her? Was she actually interested? She said nothing should happen between us and I agreed, so maybe what I was taking as signs of interest were just her being polite or how she normally behaved.

Next time we were alone I’d just ask, she’d probably be annoyed if I didn’t.

Soggy, and afraid I followed Yallia through the forest towards the elders.