I put myself into a partial meditative state, so that I could react normally and still rest. I could tell the two energies inside of me were still out of sync with each other, and that was why I was so vulnerable. I could temporarily reinforce my body with Presence and make myself more durable and stronger for a short time; but, that wouldn't solve my problem. What I needed to do was work on getting myself in tune, just like I had tuned the mana crystal for Diofra.
Why can't my body be that easy to fix? I asked myself. Why did the goddess send me here while I was so weak? That was a question I could probably easily answer after the incident at the capital with the giant crack. She wanted me weak, so that I would have to readily accept help from her and the others.
It didn't make sense in any other capacity. Even though my job was to lead from the front, in my current state, it was very dangerous for me to do so. The conflicting conditions would definitely cause me to create a desperate need for help. If we had arrived as a group, I was pretty sure with the goddess' charm and the emissaries' group dynamic, I would have become a pliable tool for her to use.
That made me smile, because that had definitely not been how things had worked out. Being sent to the elves had put me on such a significantly different path from the others, that just the thought of willingly putting myself under the goddess' care, turned my stomach. That could be just the magical burns talking, though. I tried not to laugh at intentionally hurting myself like I had, because it was a stupid thing to do. At least it was only pain and I wasn't bleeding mana from an open wound like the last time.
What had surprised me was Afyne trying to share her mana with me. It was both touching and amazing. I had touched her with Presence a couple of times and I had seen her mana reserve was focused around her heart. It was pretty strong, considering she hadn't had any training, and I hoped that the expert I had the info for would be able to read her, too. I had thought about getting an opinion in the capital, then all hell had broken loose and I forgot about it. I didn't get angry at myself over it, though. I wasn't sure if getting her potential skills read would be beneficial for her or not, so it wasn't a high priority for me at the moment. Of course, once I thought that, I knew that it was a mistake.
I took myself out of the meditative state and used Presence to reestablish the connection between us. Afyne caught her breath for only a moment and then her mana responded to me. I kissed the top of her head and let my energy flow over her and she didn't fight the feeling and let it wash over her. She knew I would never hurt her and she trusted me, so I decided to trust her even more than I already had. She was only six years younger than me, despite being a little over half my height, and I needed to keep treating her the same way that Emari had treated me.
Like an adult.
It was essential for Afyne's emotional growth, just as it was for mine. To be fair, I was emotionally older than my body at the time; but, it still made me feel really good to be treated that way, even though everyone else had treated me like a child, and I figured that was why. She was the only one to see me as a person and I wanted to give that gift to Afyne. Almost as if she heard my thoughts, she spoke.
“I love you.” Afyne admitted with a whisper, and deep blush came to her face as her mana surged and swirled and tried to mix with the Presence I had covered her with. I knew what she was trying to do, so I eased my mana into the Presence and relaxed the restrictions on its interactions, which let her energy mix with mine. Her mana flared as the energies intermingled and she didn't let it distract her from controlling the horse. That made me even more proud of her than I was for her trying to do a completely untrained technique for combining energy.
“I love you, too.” I said and kissed the top of her head again. “Since we've got some time before we stop to eat, I think I'll start teaching you about what we're doing.”
“R-really?” Afyne looked up at me briefly and then back at the road. “You're going to teach me?”
“You might hurt yourself if you keep offering your mana up like that without proper training.” I said, and I felt her stiffen up a little and her mana receded a little. “I wasn't admonishing you. I was just warning you to be careful.”
Afyne relaxed and her mana flared again.
“Okay, let me walk you through the basics.” I said, and started to talk.
I told her everything my parents had told me about the Presence when I was a child, and Afyne listened with rapt attention. She guided the horse like she was on automatic pilot and I told her that on this world, mana could be substituted for Presence in my explanations. She had been surprised by this revelation at first, then we stopped to eat and our energy sharing ended. As we had a nice picnic and ate some of the restaurant food, Afyne stayed quiet. I assumed because she was thinking about everything I had told her and she was trying to make sense out of it all.
I was quite happy to be wrong about that conclusion.
“You're unique.” Afyne said after we had cleared everything up and mounted the horses again. “You didn't gain your sharing ability when you came here. You've been able to share energy for years.” She said and took the horse up to a good trotting speed. “That's why the goddess chose you to be the hero! It's so you could empower her people to do her real work!”
“You know, I think you're right.” I said, proud of her deductions.
“They actually weakened you by forcing you to use mana.” Afyne said, and I heard the anger in her voice. “You spent all your life with Presence and developed all your techniques with it, then you got saddled with an energy that you had no experience with and tossed here as a second thought!”
“Saddled, huh?” I asked with a grin.
Afyne looked up at me and grinned back. “She tried to wrangle a wild stallion and hobbled it with mana.” She said and looked back to the road.
“Oh, my god!” Imiryl exclaimed and we all came to a stop. “Hunter! You're hobbled!”
“Afyne just said...”
“No, you don't understand.” Imiryl said and moved her horse over to mine. “When Allirynn and I were at the castle preparing to come to you with the message, the tailor there made me this wonderful outfit.”
I glanced down at it and back at her face. “It looks really nice. I'm sorry I didn't say that before.”
“I'm not fishing for compliments.” Imiryl said. “The woman who colored it and made it change from ugly brown mismatched leather to look like ice and fire combined, claimed she was hobbled.”
“I don't understand.”
“She said she was born with it and it made her terribly clumsy.” Imiryl said. “It couldn't be healed or removed, or fixed in any way, because it was a part of her. She couldn't take two steps without tripping over her own feet.”
“What are you saying?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“You've been magically hobbled.” Allirynn chimed in.
“Yes!” Imiryl said. “Don't you see? Your mana has been intentionally set at odds with your Presence, so that you will have difficulty with it!” She exclaimed. “Can you guess where that won't be much of a problem for you?”
“Ah, dammit.” I said and sighed.
“Don't worry.” Afyne said and pat my arms that were wrapped around her waist. “We won't let them keep you after they heal you.” She said and I could hear the determination in her voice. “You're our leader now. They can't steal you from us.”
I was a little surprised that everyone nodded in agreement. “Hey, I...”
“You don't get a vote.” Maylia said with a smile. “Let's hurry up to the next spot and then we can take bets on how long it will take them to get there.”
I laughed. “All right. Let's go.”
With a set goal in mind, we took off at nearly full speed, just to see if we could get there before Kara and the others.
*
Going to a spot on a map that was almost in the same direction as Hunter, meant that the distance between the two trails, in comparison to the size of an entire kingdom, ended up being fairly far apart direction-wise. On paper, the path to the second crack didn't look like it was far from the path of the first; but in reality, it was close to fifty miles away and on a separate angle.
The Emissaries of Light didn't complain about that, because it meant that they could safely pass the first crack and not have to worry about meeting Hunter's group before they were ready. Not that they weren't ready, they just assumed he wouldn't want to encounter them again so soon.
Josh finished the children's book on mana crystals twice, just like Jessica had, and he was just as surprised as she had been at the contents. The rhymes had hurt his brain the first time he read it through, so the second time, he automatically substituted corresponding words that meant the same thing. It wasn't half as annoying to read without the rhymes.
“How can we not know about things like this?” Josh asked and handed the book to Evangeline.
“Josh, we have no experience with this world, outside of just showing up here and then we auto-learned what our abilities were after a few days.” Jessica said. “We've had no other information, except for the books we've read.”
“Which now includes a children's book.” Josh said. “I can't even say it was a waste of time, not after learning about the inherent spell focus that the mana crystals contain.”
“So, you got it!” Jessica said, excitedly.
“Yes, I understood.” Josh said. “Give me the prize of another book.”
Jessica smirked at him and pulled out a box and opened the cloth to see that it was her mana crystal with a little bit of mana in it. He took her hand and she filled it with mana, then she wrapped it up and put it back in the bag, then pulled it out again.
“You just filled that.” Josh said as Jessica opened the box and the cloth to reveal the crystal was empty. “Don't tell me putting it in a bag of holding drains it!”
Jessica laughed. “Of course not. This one is blank.”
“Blank?” Josh asked. “I thought...”
“Just sing the rhyme on page eight and cover it in your mana.” Jessica said and handed him the crystal.
“S-s-sing?” Josh stared at the crystal with wide eyes, and she laughed again.
“In your head.” Jessica said and tapped her own temple. “You need to attune the crystal to your mana.”
“Oh! Okay.” Josh said and Evangeline turned the book to the right page and he mouthed the words as he silently read them off the page. Mana started to glow from his hands and covered the five inch wide crystal, and he kept mouthing the words for almost ten minutes. When the glow faded, he felt a jolt from the crystal and almost dropped it.
“It felt like it bit me!” Josh said, and she nodded.
“That means it's ready.” Jessica said. “Start adding mana to it.”
“But...”
“Trust me.”
“It'll drain me.” Josh said.
“I doubt it, not with your wellspring.” Jessica reassured him. “Plus, it's still your mana. The crystal lets you stockpile it so you can cast stronger and more powerful spells, or several normal power spells, or even a lot of weak powered spells.”
“All right.” Josh said and started to pour his mana into the crystal. “If we get there before we're supposed to and I have to summon the Goddess early and can't, it's you're fault.”
“Are you sure you read the book?” Jessica asked and smiled. “You can use the mana crystal instead and let your own mana recover.”
“I've never done that before.” Josh said.
“Neither did I, until I cast the crack locator spell with it.” Jessica said. “It emptied mine and the viewing bubble was five feet across.”
“By yourself?” Josh asked, surprised. It usually took his intervention to expand the bubble past its normal one foot size.
“I even zoomed in and out without having to add more mana to the spell.” Jessica said, proudly.
“If that's true, then... maybe...” Josh stopped talking and thought about what it would mean.
“You might still fall unconscious when the Goddess appears; but, you should still have your personal mana afterwards and shouldn't have to wait for it to recover.” Jessica said. “Maybe.”
Josh chuckled. “I don't know if it's the initial drain or if it's a result of the Goddess' appearance.” He said. “I guess we'll find out soon enough.”
“According to the driver, we should be there by tonight.” Kara said. “Which is a lot sooner than we thought we would be there.”
“We might get there before Hunter!” Jessica said excitedly.
“You're really stuck on him, aren't you?” Steven asked.
“You've seen him, haven't you?” Jessica asked, and Steven shrugged. “He now physically looks like I thought he did on the inside.” She said with a beaming smile. “A heart of gold reflected in real life.”
“Heart of gold?” Josh laughed. “You're delusional.”
“Hey, it's not everyone that would admit that they were okay with killing bad people.”
“You mean people.” Josh said.
“Nope.” Jessica said with aplomb. “Every single one he killed was a bad person. Not one was innocent or didn't deserve to be killed.”
“What about the ones...” Kara started to say.
“They killed his love.” Jessica said and looked right into her eyes. “If someone had killed Ullir in front of you, wouldn't you have killed them? Not in revenge. In retribution.”
Kara opened her mouth to respond, then she remembered her first encounter with Hunter on this planet... and that was exactly what she had done. She had not defended herself and allowed his killer to die. That it was actually her and it was Hunter who had done the deed, was of little consequence. She willingly met her fate for his mistake, and she sighed.
“I knew you would understand.” Jessica said and reached out to take her hand. Kara didn't pull away like she thought she would, and Jessica gave her hand a squeeze and let it go. She didn't want to push her luck and try to make Kara see the error of her ways, not so soon. It would take months, if not years, for Jessica to break through Kara's mental programming and to get a real emotional response from her.
“Josh, how is the crystal charging coming along?” Jessica asked, and he held up the half-charged crystal. “You really suck at channelling mana for yourself.”
Steven laughed and Evangeline covered her mouth to hide her smile.
“Can you help me?” Josh asked.
“Maybe.” Jessica said and put her hands on his and on the crystal. She felt the slow trickle of mana from Josh into the crystal, and she understood the problem. “Josh, you need to look at it like... like... it's a gun. You need to load the ammunition before you can fire it.”
Josh looked at her for a moment in confusion, and then he got it. He stopped his grin from overwhelming his face and poured his mana into the crystal. It was filled only a few minutes later and he sat back and stared at the slightly glowing crystal.
“That was neat.” Josh said.
“I told you it was!” Jessica said. “How are you mana-wise?”
“I'm only down about half.” Josh said and let the grin spread across his face.
“Show-off.” Jessica said, and he laughed.
The driver of the carriage knocked on the front of the carriage to get their attention.“We're coming up to the right place on that map.”
“All right, people. Get ready.” Kara said and readied her sword, as did Steven. Jessica was ready with her instant fireball spells and Josh stored his mana crystal and started to chant a sleep spell. The carriage came to a stop and the Emissaries of Light jumped out, ready for battle, and they were met with... gazelles. Hundreds of gazelles. Kara looked around for any monster-like beasts and didn't see any of them.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Kara asked the driver, and he pointed at the map and then at the spot in the middle of the herd. There was a thicket of trees and Kara couldn't doubt that it was the right place.
“How do we tell if these are the beasts from the crack?” Jessica asked.
“You ask them.” A man's voice said from off to the side and well within the herd. “Hey, are you guys evil beasts?”
An outrageous cacophony of squeals and animal yells filled the air and the man laughed.
“I'm pretty sure that was a no.” The man said.
“Who are you?”
“I own these drackalopes.” The man said. “They love whatever that green stuff is that comes out of that thicket, and I can't get them away from the thing.”
The emissaries exchanged looks and didn't know what to say.
“Oh, here comes another one.” The man said, and the thicket pushed open and a huge tree-like thing covered in moss stepped out. In less than a second, the gazelles had converged on the thing and stripped it completely. It let out a forlorn howl of pain and died almost immediately.
“So, are you adventurers going to help me or what?” The man asked, and Steven started to laugh. The other emissaries joined in a moment later.