Slowly consciousness returned and Kai could once again move. Pain and fatigue returned with consciousness. His body was sore, his bones felt as if they were on fire and he was still inexplicably tired. Kai let out a groan as he sat up and looked around.
He found himself resting inside of his tent blankets having been tucked in around him. Slowly Kai got up and made his way out of the tent. It took a second for him to register the words he could hear someone saying.
“Hey Kai are you ok?” A large hand was resting on his shoulder and seemingly out of nowhere Tom was kneeling in front of Kai.
“I-I’m fine” Kai said a little dazedly.
Tom frowned down at him, clearly not convinced. “What’s wrong? What happened to you? We were all worried when all of a sudden you stopped saying anything and it only got worse when you collapsed.” Tom's voice was soft as he questioned Kai.
Kai ran his hand over the medallion taking a second to think. “Can I explain what happened later when everyone is out here?” Kai grimaced as he sat down on a log.
“That’s fine but what about your pain is there anything I can do?” Tom asked him, his voice thick with worry.
“I don’t feel any pain, just exhaustion. The worst of it is strange. It's not like anything I’ve ever experienced before. It almost feels like I’ve exhausted more than just my mind or body but something deeper. I don’t know how to properly explain it.”
Tom let out a relieved sigh, his body loosening up. “Can you tell if your mana pool is low?”
Kai closed his eyes and looked inwards. He did not travel to his pool, just looked at it like there was a window he could peer through. Looking in he could see the parched desert and in the center was a nearly drained oasis. Kai opened his eyes and looked up at Tom.
“Yeah, It’s completely empty.”
“Ok, that's good. What you are feeling is mana exhaustion, probably also some affinity exhaustion too. Though it seems that your pool is larger than average if it's affecting you this much. But you don’t have anything to worry about mana exhaustion itself won't hurt you.”
“Oh.” Kai paused for a second going over what Tom said before continuing. “Mana exhaustion seems pretty self explanatory but what is affinity exhaustion?”
“Hmm, how much do you know about magic?”
Kai thought over everything that he had been told so far. “Arthaya once told me that all magic follows its nature but I don’t really know what that means.”
“Then I will give you enough of the basics to understand what affinity exhaustion is and leave the other stuff to the real mages.” Tom said.
“What do you mean the real mages?” Kai asked him.
“I mean Thane and Nixie. Me and Sarah only use magic as a supplement to use in our rolls on the team. For example I use fire magic to enhance my damage. While Sarah mostly uses her wind magic to enhance her speed. Though we both have other utility spells.”
Tom held his hand out and spoke. “Light that flickers in the night. Candle flame.” A small fire formed hovering over Tom's hand lighting up their immediate surroundings while also giving off no heat.
“This is a simple utility spell that gives off light other than it and a few more utility spells. I only have 2 combat spells both of which are designed to be used with my sword. Because of my main weapon being a sword I am considered a warrior. But Thane and Nixie fight with magic making them mages. That is what makes them true mages.” As Tom spoke he took out some meat and started to cook it over the fire.
“Now let's see if I can remember how Nixie explained it to me. Mana is the energy of change and possibility it is what allows things to happen. If all of the mana in something was removed it would fall apart unable to keep its form. Well except for a few exceptions though those types of things are rare. Now this mana has one problem: it is undirected. It needs something to direct it. Now this is where affinities come in. They will direct that mana and allow it to act by affecting its nature. Because of this people are naturally born with different affinities like my fire affinity or Nixie’s water affinity. Affinity exhaustion happens when you change too much mana and your affinity can not keep up. Just like how your muscles will eventually get exhausted. Make sense?”
“Yeah I think so.” Kai said while thinking about the lightning that had sparked through his body, the blood that had roared through his veins and the fire that had burned in his chest. “What affinities are there and how do you know which ones you have?” Kai asked Tom.
“Hmm let’s see there’s 6 elemental affinities: fire, lightning, water, earth, wind and nature. The 3 body affinities blood, flesh and bone. Then the final 6 are metal, light, shadow, fate, mind and space. As for how to know what you have. Well there’s an item that we can get a hold of in town to test that for you. Any other questions?”
“Yes, what about the binding and death affinity?” Kai asked.
“I don’t know before meeting you I didn’t know those were affinities. Anything else”
Kai thought about it for a moment but in the end shook his head in a no. The food was finally starting to get done. As if in reaction his stomach let out a loud growl indicating just how hungry he was.
Tom laughed at the reaction of Kai’s stomach. “It's common enough for the usage of mana to also burn through energy. Especially for fire users like me, it's what allows me to eat just as much food as Bear without being as large as him. Lightning users also have a similar problem, maybe that’s your element.” With that Tom and Kai settled into a contented silence. It was only a couple hours later when the first person woke up.
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“Kai are you ok, what happened to you, I was so worried.” There was a whoosh of wind and Sarah was crouched down in front of Kai examining him. After seeing that he was in no visible danger or pain she calmed down and sat down next to him. “What happened? One moment you were just fine then the next you weren’t responding to anything. We were really worried about you.”
Kai reached under his shirt and pulled out the medallion, studying it for a moment before putting it away and looking back up at Sarah. “I’m fine for now at least can I explain when everyone else is awake?”
Sarah wrapped her arms around Kai and pulled him onto her lap. “Of course you can.” Sarah said gently. “You never have to tell us anything if you don’t want to.”
Over the next half hour everyone woke up. It was Nixie who woke up last and it was amusing how similar her reaction was to Sarah’s
“KAI! Are you hurt anywhere?” Nixie ran over water swirling around her hands ready to heal him.
“He’s fine Nixie, you have nothing to worry about. We have all already checked to make sure that he was safe.”
“How would you know if he’s ok you're not a healer? What if he has internal damage?” Nixie snapped at her husband before rushing over to Kai and checking to make sure he was ok. He could feel soothing water rushing through his body examining him head to toe before stopping.
Nixie stumbled back, her face having gone as white as a ghost, her voice trembling slightly. “K-kai what happened to your bones.” she seemed lost for a moment before pulling herself back together and looking at him with well masked fear in her eyes “Kai what happened to you. Your bones they are not normal. They feel like metal forged in the waters of death.”
Kai patted the spot next to where he was sitting on Sarah’s lap. “I’m fine, I told the others I wanted to wait till everyone was out here before telling them what happened.”
Nixie sat down and Kai told them what had happened. Explaining everything to them from the new spells he had learned to the mass of metal that now partially resided in his bones. There was only one thing left out. Kai didn’t tell them about the past life that he could now recall. Some part of him just wanted to keep that to himself. Finally he finished speaking and looked up to see how they would react to everything he had told them.
Tom set his hand on Kai’s shoulder. “You’ve had a hard life and suffered more than most people. But you must always remember that there is more to life than struggle. When we get to town I promise that we will make sure that you see that.”
Nixie wrapped her arms around Kai hugging him. “I promise that we will always be here with you.”
With that they packed up the camp and got ready to head out.
“Anything else we need to do before we leave?” Thane asked. Everyone shook their heads no except for Bear.
“Kai you're riding on my back and before you complain I can see that you're still tired now get over so we can leave.”
Kai got up about to argue that he was more than capable of walking on his own but the moment he was on his feet he stumbled almost falling over. Instead he nodded realizing that maybe he couldn’t walk on his own.
Bear and Tom helped him find a spot on Bear’s back that would both be stable enough and comfortable enough for the journey. “Ok we're ready over here.” Bear told Thane.
“OK then let's head out, we've got another 2ish days before we get to Emberwood.” with that they headed out. As they moved Thane spoke. “Kai I’m pretty sure that at least some people from Emberwood were able to feel what we felt and will come to investigate. If you don’t have any objections I want to tell most people that we found you alone in the woods. Your mom was killed by bandits while the two of you were moving here and you don’t have any other relatives. It is close enough to the truth to be easy to remember and believable enough that most people won’t question it. But there are some people that should be told the truth about what happened under that mountain. Though we don’t have to tell them too many details about what happened to you. And we won’t tell them if you don’t want us to.”
Kai thought about it for a minute before responding. “Why do you want to tell them and why wouldn’t we need to tell them the details about what happened to me?”
“This kind of thing while being far from common is common enough that there are procedures in place for when it happens. The victims are asked to give enough information that we know what’s going on but it is understood that this is something that is oftentimes very traumatic so anything more is generally left alone. As for who we want to tell. This is generally handled by the local hunters guild officials. That is who we wish to tell and while they will have to give a report on what happened. It will be kept a secret and very few people will be able to access the information.” Thane explained.
Kai nodded at this explanation. “Then that’s fine.”
With that they traveled in relative silence. During that time Kai focused on practicing enhancing his senses. This was what allowed him to hear the sets of feet running through the forest towards them.
“Stop, there's a group of something coming this way.” Kai focused on the group trying to determine how many there were. He blocked out everything else as his hearing increased further and further until he could also hear the clinking of armor. He was soon able to tell that there were 4 people. “4 people”
“Are you sure?” Thane asked him
“Yes I am.”
“And you're sure they’re people?”
“Yes I can hear armor.”
“Ok then they are probably the team sent out to find out what happened and are probably going to ask us if we know anything about it. We are going to tell them what we felt coming from the mountain and then it collapsed but we didn’t want to get too close just in case.” Everyone nodded acknowledging Thane’s orders and preparing themselves.
4 people stepped out of the woods 2 men in metal reinforced leather armor, a woman in light leather armor and a woman wearing a robe with a staff in her hand. One of the heavily armored men with a broad sword strapped to his back stepped forward.
“Hello Thane, how you guys doing?”
“We’re doing good. Are you investigating that strange feeling from a couple days ago?”
“Yup you know anything about it and what’s with the kid?” The man said, pointing at Kai.
“We don’t know much about what happened, we felt it and saw the mountain collapse. After that we decided that it would be better to leave it alone. As for Kai we found him in the woods. His mom was killed by bandits after leaving their home.”
The man let out a sigh. “Fucking bandits its a shame that we can’t help you get him safely to a city but we’ve gotta go check on this. Have a safe trip.” With that they left.
“Let's get going to. No point in sticking around.” Thane said and with that they set out.
Eventually they stopped for the night an hour before it got dark and the next morning left bright and early. It was the middle of the afternoon when the wall of a town came into view.
“Welcome to Emberwood Kai.” Bear said, his voice full of joy.