Chapter 032

Joram felt wretched. Almost like back in the day when his sleep apnoea had been exceptionally bad, waking in the morning feeling like the local pro hockey team had decided to rough him up on the ice.

Except worse, because the feeling extended to his head and not just his body.

His head was all… shwoosh-y. Even moving his head with his eyes closed caused his head to spin, not unlike vertigo. He’d experienced such in the past when he’d been tremendously ill with a very high fever, or after that one blow to the head while working on a construction site….

That said, it sucked.

So, he lay as still as he could, taking measured breaths so that he wouldn’t move more than necessary.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, but eventually his head calmed down, no longer complaining about the most minor of movements. Heck, even thinking had been sketchy.

At length, he cracked an eye open, the promptly closed it again as even the “dim” illumination of his surroundings had felt like someone stabbed his eye.

… After another span of time, he got the courage to try again, this time only opening it enough so separate his eye lids by about one millimetre. It didn’t hurt near as much this time, which allowed him to slowly focus on, well, focussing his sight. He didn’t know why, but his [Touchsight] wasn’t working at the moment, which just now occurred to him. Perhaps the nostalgic feeling of being incredibly unwell had brought him, mentally, back in time causing him to forget things like [Touchsight]. Or that he could just use [Create Object] to make himself a pair of sunglasses….

But when he tried to reach for his psionic power, another spike of pain went through his head, this time taking him out for the count.

* * * * *

Avi opened her eyes wide when she realized that the protocol droid wasn’t just yanking her chain.

With a not insignificant effort of will, she calmed her nerves and proceeded through the checklist before pushing the button on the inside of the tank that activated the lift under her feet that brought her to a level with the top of the tank.

By the time the lift stopped, she’d managed to get a hang of her body enough to shakily descend the steps on the rolling ladder that the protocol droid was holding in place.

“Mistress, please robe yourself before exiting the cloning room,” it said, waving a hand towards a series of hooks on the wall that were loaded up with what looked like plush bath robes.

“No time!” She yelled back as she sped out of the room, hung a left that was assisted by her grabbing the door frame as she ran by, swinging her the ninety degrees needed to avoid running into the wall and to continue her run.

By the time she arrived in Joram’s room, she was too late.

He lay there, much how he’d done for the many months he’d laid in bed, but now had a slow trickle of blood coming from his right nostril.

Suppressing a moment of panic- curse having hormones now!- she made her way to his side and sent a [Delve] into him. It didn’t take long to find the burst blood vessel, then repair it. It took much longer for her to get over the fact that she’d been too late to greet him upon waking up.

She absently accepted the robe from the protocol droid, slipped it on, then sat down in her chair beside his bet.

And waited.

* * * * *

1344.10.09

Dear Matriarch Aneath,

I am happy to report that Joram has made progress today. He was able to regain consciousness, albeit for a short time. It should then not be long before he is able to be up and about, ready and able to cause trouble once again.

I will write again soon, detailing his recovery.

Cheers.

Tatia Aneath could have smacked that woman.

It was hard to articulate exactly why she felt that way, but she was sure that most of it stemmed from not being able to be there for Joram’s recovery herself. The need to rely on a mysterious outsider to take care of one of her own.

And a rude one at that.

It had been nearly seven months since she’d met that mysterious woman and, true to her word, she’d sent status updates on Joram every week.

Not that that had been much comfort to those waiting for him. Not that Tatia could really explain what was going on to anyone, especially since she, herself, didn’t really know much of anything.

Week after week, each letter could be reduced to “no change”. Nothing. She could do nothing but report that Joram was still alive to Tillia, Xixi, Zanth, and their families. Each took it a different way, from Tillia’s determination that all would be well to Xixi’s naïve hopefulness all the way to Zanth’s insistence that Joram was too strong to do something as silly as dying. The parents were another cup of soup though.

They slowly became numb to the news each week, probably thinking that Joram just might stay unconscious forever.

Not that Tatia could blame them. He’d been gone for almost a year and a half now. It was hard to keep up hope that someone would wake up after so long.

But now that some hope had been shone into her despair-darkened life, she was loath to share it with anyone else. What if it had just been a passing thing? Not a true awakening, but something like when someone speaks in their sleep while dreaming?

She decided to just keep telling the others that Joram was still “asleep”. It was better than raising their hopes for nothing, only to watch them get crushed if things should take a turn for the worst.

Tatia sighed, put the letter away, then went back to the paperwork that she really had no desire to do. At least it gave her something to do though.

* * * * *

????.??.??

This time Joram lay there, not moving, not thinking more than he dared. His head ached more than he could properly ignore, and his body felt the same.

After a few moments of laying there, he felt someone take his hand in theirs, squeezing it tightly.

Well, he thought it was like that, but he could really only go by how his fingers were mushed together, as the nerve-endings in his skin didn’t seem to be firing properly. Well, he thought that, but even his brain felt more than a little bit muddled.

“… …. …… ….. .. ….”

Well, guess the ears aren’t doing so well either, he thought sourly, trying very hard not to grimace because the movement of his hand had jostled him slightly, bringing back a bit of vertigo. At least that also seemed muted.

He was having… issues concentrating. Everything seemed to be hazy. As though his head was filled with wool, or a view obscured by heavy fog; the big things were there, just not in focus.

He was about to reach for his Network, but remembered just in time that it might not be a good idea, seeing as how the last time ended.

Huh, he thought as that thought came back to him. Had it just been the one time? He had the impression that it he had woken up more than just once before. But as he thought about it, the pain in his head increased to the point where he thought he might fall unconscious again, so he turned his thoughts to sugar and spice and everything nice, as it were.

Joram lay there, still as could be, just going with the motions of his chest as his body drew in a breath then let it out. In, out. In, out. He followed that rhythm for a while, or a long time, he didn’t know. But, it seemed to help.

Slowly, he began imagining his lungs expanding and contracting, picturing the blood flowing through his body, following it from his lungs as it went down the arteries, branching further and further until it reached the capillaries, where it then began its way back to the heart and lungs to begin the cycle all over again.

He didn’t know how many cycles his imagination went through, but he eventually found that his consciousness had begun following the cycle, allowing him to “see” the process in disturbing detail.

When he had that thought, though, he felt his world begin to tremble, the pain coming back. So, he concentrated on following his circulatory system, cycle after cycle.

That helped, but also allowed him to notice a few things.

For one, his body didn’t seem to have the standard veins, vessels, arteries, etc., that he was used to seeing. He’d spent quite some time scanning his body over and over again with M3 trying to get that scanner working, and was thus quite familiar with how he should “look”.

It wasn’t like his circulatory system had completely changed or anything, but it was… streamlined, if that made sense? A vein here that had been a bit too close to the surface had “sunk”. There, the capillaries were a bit more evenly spread out. The lining of all his vessels was… stronger. It seemed as though his blood pressure could spike without fear of a vessel bursting somewhere along the line. Not that that would be very healthy, as high blood pressure wasn’t something someone wanted.

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But as he followed blood on its way to his toes, then back around to his chest, then up to his brain, he realized that he could feel mana infusing every part of him. Not that that should have surprised him, but during his normal meditations, he didn’t often feel it as clearly as he did now.

There was also something else, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. He didn’t dwell, though, as that had a tendency to cause his migraine to return with a vengeance. So, he once again let his mind go with the flow, but this time it took him elsewhere.

Not that his mind left his body, as he was pretty sure that if he tried to use [Astral Traveller] or something, he’d be shot back into unconsciousness again. No, this time his mind wandered to Avi.

He wondered what she’d been up to. How long had he been like this? Was he causing her undue worry again? What would he do to make it up to her? Nevermind the rest of his family and friends.

And as he thought of them, his brain went to what he’d make each of them as an “I’m sorry I left for X amount of time, here’s something to help sooth that over” gift. Would Grammy like some medicinal pills? Or something else?

What about Xixi? Nah, she’d just insist on following me around for the foreseeable future, he thought with a grin. Zanth might want another sword if he’d been gone long enough. Tillia…. He wasn’t sure. He had pretty much everything that she needed. Maybe something for her family? Yeah, that would work.

Now, his parents…. Yeah, they’d likely insist that he stay with them until he was married…. Which would be on the sooner side of things if his mother had anything to do with it.

Hmmmm…

Wonder if I can use my eyes yet…? He thought, then gave a mental shrug and cracked an eye open.

It must have been night again, seeing as how the room was pretty dim and all. One thing that he noticed right of the hop was that the light didn’t send massive spikes of pain through his optic nerves all the way to his brain.

Good start, he thought, trying to see past his eyelashes. He’d, incidentally, opened his right eye, which gave him a view of what looked like a hospital room….

What?

With a supreme effort of will, he kept his eyes from opening all the way, trying to avoid a return of vertigo or anything. What he wasn’t so successful at was keeping his heartrate down, causing a machine beside his bed to beep a warning… beep, over and over again.

It sounds like the machines in a modern hospital, he thought, his mind getting increasingly agitated.

He slowly moved his eye, allowing him to see a bit more of the room. Tiled floor with what looked like linoleum, a track on the ceiling for the curtains to be drawn to give him some privacy if needed. A sink, counter, cupboards, another door that led to the bathroom, another leading to what he assumed was the rest of the building.

Was it really all just a damn coma dream?! He thought as he tried very hard to not hyperventilate, causing the machine at the side of his bed to start another series of beeps.

His mind whirled this way and that, not sure what to think. Had the past ten years or so of his life just been a dream? Was what he’d gone through just random firings of his brain, random memories and thoughts that had been stitched together to form a pleasant dream for him?

“…am…”

That caught his attention, his other eye popping open to see Avi sitting beside his bed, both hand clasped around his left hand. Then he noticed the other details.

The cupboards weren’t the standard hospital-type cupboards he was used to seeing back on Earth. These looked more like what you’d see in a sci-fi flick or show, made of what looked like formed plastic, or plasteel, or something. The doors had touch panels on the frame instead of the doors having handles. The health monitoring devices looked like something out of, well, the future. Lights blinking, displays showing in-depth views of his body, even a holographic display at the top of the thing.

And an R2 unit in the corner.

“…n … h… ..?” He noticed Avi’s lips moving, but it was hard to make anything out. He squinted, focussing on her lips, how her tongue moved. She seemed to get what he was trying to do, so she said what she’d said again. This time, he thought he got it.

He tried mouthing his reply, “No”, not even bothering to try out his vocal cords, and not just because he didn’t think they’d be working too good after such a long time, but because he wasn’t sure what the vibrations would do to his head.

As it was, even that little bit of motion brought a bit of pain with it, but was glad to see that she understood. So, she then went on to pantomime. She nodded her head in an exaggerated manner, then did one big blink. She then shook her head, then did two big blinks.

Yeah, he got it.

He blinked once, giving a feeble grin at the same time.

This was going to take a while.

* * * * *

Avi couldn’t express how glad she was that Joram was up and… well, just up. Well, awake anyway. He appeared to be in all sorts of pain, seeming to be only half with it. She was sure that something was wrong because he hadn’t immediately sent her an invitation to his Network.

Neither was he responding to her attempts at communicating through their normal telepathic channel. Was it because she was in a biological body of her own? Was that somehow hampering their connection?

No, she was almost certain that wasn’t the case.

Back to Joram. She’d been prepared since the first time he’d “awoken”, making sure that she had writing implements on hand in case there was something wrong. She wasn’t sure how she felt about her preparations, as she almost felt as though it had jinxed things. Not that she believed in superstitions or anything, being a V.I. and all, but she’d also gone through copious amounts of media, from books to tv shows to movies. So, yeah.

She began writing.

“Cultivation accident?”

Left eye blink. Right eye blink.

Is he having trouble with coordinating his intentional blinking? Avi thought, but then discarded that thought as she realized that it probably meant: “maybe”, or “I don’t know”.

“Can you use any psionic abilities?”

Blink-blink.

“Can you move?”

Left, right.

“Is there pain?”

Blink.

“Everywhere?”

….

* * * * *

After an extensive stint of variable winking, Joram found out that he’d been out of it for about a year and a half.

That had nearly caused him to exclaim in surprise, but he’d held himself back, managing to only raise his eyebrows in surprise. Which had caused a whole issue in and of itself. Migraine, vertigo, etc.. It was, all told, shitty.

He’d missed birthdays, his parents’ visit, not to mention everyone else. He also found out about Avi and Grammy meeting and wondered what was in store for him once he made it back.

He wasn’t sure how long it would take to figure out what had happened to him, not to mention fixing whatever this was that was causing all the issues. It felt like his blood had been replaced with nitroglycerin, all unstable and exploding in pain whenever disturbed.

He was starting on a theory, a hypothesis really. Avi had also told him about the weird energy emanating from him, something incredibly dangerous. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened before his convalescence, but he had the feeling that it revolved around his Knowledge Star and his Cores.

It might take a while to remember, not to mention being able to dive back into himself to see what had happened, or the aftermath of what had happened. For now, though, even thinking about doing so brough on a migraine, so he’d need to leave it alone for now.

In the meantime, Avi was furiously working on a program that would allow him to communicate with her with just his eyes and eyelids, something like what Stephen Hawking had used towards the end of his life. There would be a small camera that would track his eye and eyelid movements as he looked through a HUD in the form of a pair of glasses.

It was going to be a pain learning the ins and outs of the system, but at least he’d be able to communicate. Which was more than most others back on Earth could hope for. Like anyone who found themselves in the situation that he now found himself in, he didn’t realize how much he’d taken his body for granted; nevermind his mind. Being able to speak freely, to move around at all, was definitely a blessing. Then there was his mind.

He almost felt like he’d reverted to being a normal human, like he’d been before meeting Altaea. He couldn’t regulate his body like he’d done in the past, nor could he access his psionic abilities. Heck, from what he could tell- which wasn’t much-, he didn’t even have access to the many psionic/magic items he’d absorbed over the years. [Touchsight] was off, along with probably everything else.

Which sparked a thought. He looked over to the side, then the other, but didn’t find an I.V. bag or anything. He glanced down at his fingers, first one hand then another, but found nothing there. So, what was keeping him “fed”?

Avi seemed to notice his looking about, divining what that was about.

“Your skin is still too hard to get a needle in there for an I.V., while you’re aura is too messed up to be sure that a Ring of Sustenance would work, so I’ve just been pumping a highly nutritious fluid through a small tube every day,” she said, motioning to the sink where he finally noticed said apparatus.

Makes sense, he thought with a mental sigh, then his eyes widened. If he was taking in sustenance, then he’d need to dispel the waste. His eyes rolled down, trying to see through his bed sheets, wishing for all he was worth that he wasn’t in diapers again.

“Yup,” Avi replied, not bothering to even look at him to read his predictable mind. “It was messy at first, but I’ve got a system now.”

At least it’s Avi taking care of me… he thought, taking solace where he could. It would be quite the thing to live down if anyone else had been there, needing to do what she was doing.

He stopped there. No, that was wrong.

There was no shame in needing help, especially when you were literally unable to do it yourself. Avi had kept him alive. Had made sure that he’d been fed and- presumably- washed. She’d made sure that he’d survived. She’d been there with him the whole time.

He blinked away a bit of moisture that seemed to have been attracted to his eyeballs. Need to check on the humidity settings, he thought, not being honest with himself.

So, to distract himself from a whole flock of emotions that he wasn’t sure how to deal with, he began meditating.

Not to cultivate, nor to restore his psionic energy, but to just get a feel of himself. To really start interpreting what his body was telling him.

The first thing that came through was his sense of touch. It was incredibly heightened, making even these heavenly sheets feel like one-twenty grade sandpaper. That said, he was increasingly sure that it was more the fact that the down-like hairs that covered his forearms and shins was what was causing that feeling. For some reason, as each hair moved slightly, the feedback from his nerves was turned up to eleven, as it were.

He could also feel that he was almost completely naked under the sheets except for weird diaper Avi had him in. There was also a faint breeze in the room, likely from an air vent or something seeing as how the window had been closed when he’d looked around the room.

Next, Joram concentrated on the rhythm of his breathing, how it was moving his chest up and down ever so slightly. That didn’t seem to cause the sensory overload that everything else did when he moved any other part of his body. Could it be that his mind had already adapted to those movements? That was probably the case. If not, he didn’t see how he’d remained sane throughout this ordeal.

Well, maybe he could. It wasn’t anything special for the brain to just filter out sensory inputs while unconscious or sleeping. Like not waking yourself up when you were snoring. Annoying to everyone else but yourself.

Then, as lightly and gently as he could, he tried to sense the energy in his body, metaphorically cracking open an eyelid a hair to see what he could find.

Even that much gave him a headache, but that was already much better than the splitting migraine that came with a full dive.

Much like how you could only see vague shapes when you cracked open your eyelids a hair, so, too, was what he got from it. He could vaguely feel the mana in his body, and even a smidgeon of psionic energy. The weird thing was the unknown energy that was also there, almost like a fog that covered everything, obscuring everything that he hoped to “see”.

But one thing that was for sure, it was potent. As soon as his consciousness so much as brushed against that weird energy, he was catapulted out, head spinning.

It took a while for him to recover after that. So, while he regained his sense of balance and equilibrium after that extreme bout of vertigo, he concentrated on his hearing.

It still seemed like his ears were stuffed with cotton, everything was muffled and muted. Not like when, in the middle of the night, you tried to listen for any sound, an indication of an intruding mosquito or something, but were stymied by that annoying ringing in your ears, tinnitus, if he recalled correctly. What surprised him, but really shouldn’t have, was that he had not even a smidgeon of tinnitus. It was just… silent.

Well, muted, very muted. He couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat, nevermind his breathing. Was it because his brain had also filtered out sound to keep it from causing him pain? Or was there another reason? Was his hearing actually damaged? Completely cut off?

He suppressed a sigh, not wanting to go through another bout of nausea-induced vertigo.

Then he got to thinking.

His body was long used to psionic energy. Same with mana. So what exactly was this new potent energy that suffused his body? He remembered that an issue had arisen with his cultivation but was having trouble remembering exactly what it was.

Well, he had time, and he was particularly good at gnawing on a problem until he cracked it, or a tooth…. Well, he’d get there.

It just depended on how stubborn he could be….

Ha!