“Daaaaad, we’ve gotta go!” she said, shaking him with her tiny hands.
He looked over at his daughter, then at his second daughter who was also trying to wake him up. Both looked concerned for some reason, which confused him.
Why were they so panicked?
“I’ll be up in a bit,” he said, taking one of each of their hands in one of his own. “I just need to rest a bit more,” he said, letting his eyes close again.
“But daddy, it’s super important!” his youngest said, her blue/green hazel eyes so worried that he could feel it even with his own eyes closed.
“Yeah, dad. Get up so you don’t get in trouble,” his eldest said seriously, which once again got his attention.
“And what, pray tell, would get me into trouble?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.
“You’ll die,” she said, but this time her voice wasn’t hers, shocking him enough to make him pull away as his bedroom started to darken, his daughters fading. Even though the sudden change in her voice had scared him, it scared him even more to watch his daughters fade away.
Desperately, he reached out to try to take hold of them in an attempt to keep them with him, but just as they were fading away, his memories came rushing back, punching him in the heart so hard that he fell over.
Joram…
He ignored the strange voice as tears leaked down the sides of his head. He hadn’t dreamt of them like that for a long time.
‘Joram…’
“…” he tried to speak, but found that his throat was both very dry and very constricted.
‘You need to concentrate on [Natural Healing],’ Avi said gently, though with more urgency than he thought a VI should have in their voice.
He mentally nodded, too weak to even move his head. He was cold, too cold. Which didn’t make any sense to him until he remembered being stabbed in the pelvis. Then the coldness made sense, as well as his weakness and light-headedness. Was he really bleeding-out?
‘Yes, please hurry,’ Avi said from his side.
He idly noted that she was kneeling next to him, her hands on her lap as she leaned over slightly to regard him. He noticed that her wavy hair had somehow managed to fall just-so to frame her face perfectly. The sapphire blue at the roots somehow gleamed in the darkness. Well, the blue, but also the amethyst that it faded to mid-length, as well as the ruby red the amethyst faded into at the ends. Each solid colour accounted for about one-fifth of her hair colour, while the other two-fifths were transitions between those colours. It was really quite stunning.
‘Concentrate,’ Avi chided him, though not as sternly as he thought she might have.
Joram closed his eyes and… felt around for [Natural Healing], not quite sure how to find it. Which, really, didn’t make too much sense to him, as he’d easily found [Entangling Ectoplasm], [Ectoplasmic Creation], and [Crystal Shard] while practicing with Avi earlier….
He grunted as he forced his thumb and index finger to pinch his side, bringing clarity with the pain.
There, he thought, finding the archive left to him. Soon enough, he’d pulled up the Power and was going over it when Avi spoke again.
‘Hurry,’ was all she said, but the urgency in her voice sobered him. He didn’t have time to mess around trying to understand the Power as well as he wanted to before using it on himself.
Sure, there were many allegories of people using things that they didn’t understand, usually resulting in horrible consequences all around. That said, the consequence of him not using the Power was his death. That kind of put things into perspective for him.
So, he began to concentrate like how Avi had taught him, but also how Altaea had taught him by ingraining the knowledge into his head with the Crystal Mind he’d assimilated. But it was hard, harder than trying to dodge all of those wooden balls that Avi had thrown at him during his “training”. His concentration kept slipping, his mind wandering.
‘Concentrate, Joram,’ he heard Avi say, but was thrown off by how eerily similar she’d sounded to Alec Guinness there.
Maybe that was the point? Try to encourage him in a way that she knew would distract him? But also, at the same time, ignite his geek side? Well, it worked.
Something… clicked in his head, and [Natural Healing] was suddenly there at the front of his mind, more solid than even [Crystal Shard] had been in his mind when he’d manifested it during practice. Instinctively, he knew how to augment the Power, pushing in as many Power Points as possible before he felt himself grow weaker in a different sense. One that he also just knew meant that he was tapped out, PP-wise.
It didn’t matter though, so he released the Power and felt it rush through his body. But that wasn’t quite right. No, it felt as though every part of him was affected by the Power at the same time. Every cell felt the effects, though the injured parts of his body seemed to get the lion’s share of the healing. It was a very odd feeling, one probably heightened by his ability to manipulate his body at the cellular level. He could sense the Power stimulating the cells around the wounds, while at the same time it worked to stop his blood from leaking out of those same wounds.
All that damage, and that nicked artery in his pelvis, the external iliac artery, closed up within a couple of seconds, not even showing so much as a blemish where the damage had been done. When he opened his eyes, slid his blood-soaked pants down a bit to have a look, he found that his senses hadn’t lied to him. Under all that blood, not a sign could be seen, or felt, that he’d been wounded.
He checked his HP, and found it to be good.
HP: 28/28
Then he looked at his PP, and frowned.
PP: 4/38
It wasn’t until he looked at the box under it that he realized that things were indeed different than the tabletop RPGs he’d played in the past. Instead of needing to rest each night to replenish his PP, he’d get… wait. He’d already gone over that.
Joram shook his head, still feeling out of sorts. His mind still felt foggy, stuffed full of wool, as it were. His thoughts weren’t as focussed as he was used to having them be.
‘That’s a combination of low Power Point pool as well as blood loss,’ Avi piped in, startling him more than a bit.
“Ah, yeah, blood loss,” Joram said, looking down again at the disturbingly large pool of blood on the floor. One that he was currently sitting in.
Seemingly reading his mind, Avi spoke again.
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‘You can use [Cleanse] when you’ve regenerated enough power to manifest it,’ she said, also looking at the gore spattered on the door and wall beside her.
Joram nodded at that, then a thought occurred to him.
“Wait, can’t you help with that? You know, manifesting [Cleanse] for me?”
‘No.’
“Why not?” he asked, a little irked.
‘I can only help in emergency situations,’ she replied. ‘Besides, I still use your same power pool to manifest whatever Power I use.’
“But didn’t you use [Telekinesis] while helping me train?”
‘I did,’ she said, nodding. ‘Training to help you survive is considered an emergency situation.’
Joram just stared at her for a bit more before sighing. He had no idea what she was really about, nor what her game was. For as much as he knew about Altaea, he knew nothing about Avi. Sure, he’d “known” that Altaea had made holocrons before in that galaxy far, far away. But a stand-alone VI, that he strongly suspected of being an AI, no matter her assertions, well, that was new.
He watched as his PP ticked up over a few minutes, and when it was comfortably over two-thirds full, he searched his mind for [Cleanse]. It didn’t feel like it took as long as it had for [Natural Healing], but then again, his mind had cleared up considerably as his PPs returned. So, he took a couple more minutes to get a feel for the Power.
It was simply one of the most complicated things he’d yet seen. But, at the same time, one of the simplest things. He shook his head, then continued to go over it, piece by piece, until he was comfortable with it. Without any fanfare, he manifested [Cleanse].
He then watched as the spattered blood, bone, and grey matter seemed to break apart into motes of light, each of those breaking down further until he couldn’t see them anymore. After a couple of seconds, the hallway and wall were clear of not only the aforementioned gore, as well as what had been on him, but also the goblin bodies… which threw him for a loop.
“That was unexpected,” he said, nodding to where the bodies had lain.
‘Indeed,’ Avi said, a slight frown on her face as she also seemed to be considering the matter at hand. Or, in this case, the missing matter.
Joram shrugged, chalking it up to the weirdness of being on another planet, likely in another universe entirely, all governed by some sort of all-powerful, almost all-knowing System. System interference? System assistance? System chicanery? System shenanigans? System fu-
‘They seem to have been mana-constructs of some sort,’ Avi said, snapping him out of his tangent. ‘Almost like an [Astral Construct], but once living beings.’
That definitely caught his attention. He’d read more than a few manga/manhwa/manhua/stories over the years that depicted “monsters” as just amalgamations of mana that would break apart after their “deaths”. So, either [Cleanse] was much more potent than he thought it was, or the System had helped him clean things up. Which, to him, didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t special, so the System helping him with stuff didn’t jive with him.
Joram looked back at the once gore covered door and sighed.
He looked back to where Avi was standing beside that same door, then sighed again. He’d been quite… angry at the intrusion into his little mind-office earlier. He now realized that it had been to save his life, but just knowing that she could intrude there whenever she wanted… irked him. Well, if he was being honest with himself, it downright angered him. So, instead of just sitting on that, letting it stew and fester away, he spoke.
“Avi?”
‘Yes, Joram?’
“I know that you entered my… mind office to warn me. But, could you only enter there when warning me of danger, or if I invite you to?” He asked, the usual butterflies swarming about his stomach as he “confronted” someone. He idly wondered if he’d ever get over that.
‘Yes,’ Avi said simply.
Joram blinked at that, not quite sure he’d expected that. Though, for sure, his nerves had been preparing for anything but that.
“OK. Thank you,” he finished lamely, then looked down at himself again in an effort to end the conversation by breaking eye contact.
It seemed to work, as Avi didn’t say anything else about the subject, leaving him to his thoughts.
And to the realization that he’d need new clothing. Then another thought occurred to him, so he searched for what he needed in his head, finding [Repair] shortly after. He grinned. Sure, it was the dumbed-down version of [Reconstruction], but he didn’t need anything extreme, or fancy. Just to close some holes in his clothing.
Once again, he took a few minutes to familiarize himself with the Power before manifesting it, concentrating on the damage to his clothing as he did. He was then treated to the sight of his clothes pulling themselves back together again. Then, as he watched, the threads re-knit themselves, all in the space of about two seconds or so. It was amazingly fast, and he suspected that he’d never get tired of watching the process. Well, not for a very long time, anyway.
“Avi? Altaea mentioned that she’d spent some time with… the Prime version of myself,” he said, note quite sure he liked thinking that there was another version of himself out there, let alone one designated at Prime.
‘Yes.’
“Does that mean that, like I would want to do, that he, or I, made new Powers that aren’t in the books, as it were?” He asked, not quite able to formulate his thoughts the way he’d have liked them, let alone express them.
‘Yes.’
Joram nearly sighed, but knew that given everything in what he’d asked, it was ultimately a yes or no question. He left it at that, because he could just search the database himself.
So, he did just that. Moments later, he found what he had been looking for: [Delve]. He smiled, knowing that that one Power would help him with so many other things, like the Creation Powers, as well as the Fabricate-type powers. If he was able to understand the molecular structure of an item, it would catapult his ability to Create things, as well as to just make things with available resources. Heck, if he eventually got good enough with [Delve], then he might eventually be able to get the resolution of [Delve] down to the atomic level.
And when that happened, he might even be able to make the fictional alloy he’d “invented” back in grade 10. It was a silly thing, bordering on downright stupid, but he really couldn’t help himself. He then wondered if the alloy would be anything like what he’d intended, or it would truly be a dud.
He shrugged, then proceeded to familiarize himself with [Delve]. Ten minutes later, he had a headache.
“Why?” he asked, his head pounding.
‘I suspect that, even though you effectively have a master-level manifester’s ability, you haven’t gone through the mental training needed to process the information that [Delve] provides,’ Avi posited from where she “sat” at the table.
Joram just nodded fractionally. Even that movement was uncomfortable, so he just held as still as possible as he looked at the broken patio door. Well, it was a full door, but still one of those doors that was fifty-percent glass. The whole centre of it had been one huge pane of glass, one that was now laying in shards on the floor.
Then he mentally kicked himself for having gotten so distracted. Leaving the door as it was, wasn’t an option. So, he got up, grit his teeth, and made his way to the storage hallway. Once there, he found a few spare doors, all of the solid, interior variety, then just about kicked himself again. He then went to his storage room, the one included in the apartment itself, opened a bit, retrieved his tape measure, then went back to the broken door.
A few measurements later, he was back in the storage hallway, frowning. The only one that came close to fitting was about four centimetres too tall. Well, that would just take a few moments to fix, so he grabbed the door and headed back inside his apartment just as Avi spoke.
‘You have another visitor,’ she said, getting his attention. He briefly wondered if more goblins had made their way in, but stopped as he saw the new “visitor”.
It was easy, seeing as how they held a torch, which lit up the living room/kitchen area pretty well. And not a torch/flashlight, but an honest-to-goodness stick with a flaming top on it. As for his new visitor, he frowned. Then questioned his sanity. For, standing just eight or so metres away, was a person straight out of an anime convention.
The young man looked like your stereotypical adventurer. Well-used leather armour, overlarge backpack, a belt full of pouches, along with straps and clips criss-crossing his body. Not only that, but he had a quiver of arrows on his right hip, a short-ish sword on his left hip, while his short bow was strapped to his backpack. Presumably in a way that allowed for easy retrieval, but he couldn’t really see from where he was standing.
But that wasn’t why he was questioning reality. Though, to be fair to the fellow, Joram really shouldn’t have questioned reality given that he was in an entirely different reality from the one that he’d grown up in.
No, it was the fact that the fiery red-headed youth had two distinct features that threw him off. The first, and most obvious given his angle, were the youth’s ears. Large, furred, ears that came out from the side of the boy’s head, pointing straight up. Large fox ears.
The second feature only came into view every few seconds, as his tail was swishing back and forth slowly. A rather poofy tail at that. Both anatomical oddities were the same fiery red as his short yet shaggy hair, but both were tipped in pure white fur.
Joram was stunned as he watched the young man slowly examine, with his eyes, his stuff laying on the table. Sure, Joram didn’t think that there was anything particularly interesting there, but then he was once again reminded that he was in another world! Things like a printer, tablet, monitor, power bar, and a laptop, not to mention the stack of A4 paper beside the printer, would probably be seen as exotic, at the very least, to a resident of the world he now found himself in.
Joram quickly contemplated a few things, not the least of which was if the young man would prove to be hostile or not, before shrugging and just going with it.
“Uh, hi,” Joram said, waving his free hand at the, youth who looked like he’d just filled his pants when he heard Joram’s voice. “Can I get you something to drink?”