“Ugh. My head.” He realized just how dry his mouth and throat were as he heard the crackling of his voice. As he looked around he realized he had no idea where he was. He seemed to be in a building laying on a bed, but that would mean that quite a bit of time had passed since he lost consciousness. Hazy memories of regaining and losing consciousness came back to him in fragments. He looked around hoping to find some water to drink, but he didn’t see anything. He moved to a sitting position so he could try to get up and find some water. As he went to stand up his leg almost gave out forcing him to sit back down. There was no way he had been unconscious long enough for his muscles to atrophy. Why did his leg feel like it couldn’t support him? He did a cursory examination of his body, but didn’t see anything that immediately concerned him. There didn’t appear to be a mirror so he could only look at the parts he could see. Not wanting to drift back to sleep he pushed himself back into the corner of the bed against the wall to help keep him propped in a seated position. In a few minutes he would try again to get up and find water. Apparently forcing himself to sit up wasn’t quite enough to prevent him from falling back asleep because the next thing he knew he was waking up again laying in the bed.

Clearly something bad had happened to him. He had never experienced or even heard of something like this happening. He just kept losing consciousness for unknown periods of time. Other than vaguely recalling some talking he also didn’t really remember seeing anyone when he woke up. A brief irritation flashed through him as he recalled wanting to get water and his leg pretty much giving up on him. At that moment he realized he couldn’t feel Joy at all. At that realization panic started to tear at him. Something terrible had happened. He was certain now that whatever was going on was much worse than he realized. His voice clearly didn’t seem to be capable of much at the moment so he grabbed what looked like an oddly shaped metal cup and banged it against another piece of metal laying beside the bed. Hoping the sound would bring whoever was caring for him. It seemed like he needed answers as quickly as possible. As he felt his heart feeling like it was going to beat its way out of his chest he tried to steady himself taking a few deep breaths.

The breaths brought a strange feeling with them as if he was breathing in more than air. It felt strange and made him a bit tingly. It also seemed to be helping to calm him so he focused taking slow deep breaths, and as he did so he could feel once again a strange tangibility to the air he was breathing in. Part of him was worried about what he was breathing in. Maybe there was a gas in the air and that was what kept knocking him out. That seemed silly to him though why would they keep him unconscious and not kill him. No, there was something else going on. As he continued to try and focus on his breathing his mind drifted, and focusing inside of him he saw something strange. When he tried to visualize his Qi he saw what appeared to be an apocalyptic nightmare. Where once he had seen a well there was now a desolate forest. It looked like his inner world he pictured had turned into a forest and then burned down. There were massive barren holes everywhere. As he imagined himself walking through the barren landscape he continued his breathing, and as he did so glowing rain started to fall from the sky. Most of which seemed to evaporate as it hit the ground sizzling away. It didn’t feel hot to him, but the water was evaporating immediately upon impact with the ground.

He let the image fade away as he came back to reality. There was clearly an importance to what he had seen, but what it meant exactly was beyond him at the moment. He started to open his eyes as reality reasserted itself, and he let out a rather high pitched scream as there was an old udan woman standing less than a foot away from him staring. After he got himself calmed down a bit he was about to give her a piece of his mind when she started laughing. “Hahaha, my oh my. Quite jumpy for one I am told is quite the impressive warrior. I have met many truans in my life, but I can’t say I have ever heard that noise come from one before. Was that some sort of poorly executed sonic attack?” She said the last with a straight face looking at him like he was a frog she wanted to dissect, and for a moment Wyatt wasn’t sure if she was joking. Her laughter a few seconds later had him narrowing his eyes at her. ‘I have been losing and regaining consciousness for how long? My survival was apparently not a sure thing for a while, and the first thing I am greeted with is an old woman making fun of me for being startled.’

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“You couldn’t have stood back a bit to watch me? Then you laugh at me for being freaked out to see someone so close to me when I open my eyes? I am pretty sure I almost died, and as you yourself noted apparently I am a hero so why don’t you show me some respect?” Before he could continue a slap sounded out. The woman had moved incredibly fast and slapped him across the face. “Being foolish and nearly getting yourself killed is rarely something worth celebrating. I know exactly how close you were to dying considering I am the one that has been keeping you alive. As far as laughing at you I am fairly certain if you were me you would have laughed. I am old and I have to get my enjoyment where I can.” At that point the woman just turned and walked out of the room. Wyatt wasn’t sure how to feel about the interaction. He didn’t handle the situation as well as he could have that was for certain, but he was irritated that his heroic journey was punctuated by vomiting, losing consciousness, girlish screams, and being made fun of. That was not how things were supposed to go.

A minute or two later the woman came back in with a pitcher, and a glass of water. It took way more self control than it should have not to try and grab the pitcher and chug from it. Seeing the water made him remember just how thirsty he was. His desire for water was warring with his anger for being laughed at. He wasn’t sure which was going to win even as he started talking. “May I please have some of that water?” Apparently his earlier words hadn’t been forgotten because in a very snippy tone the woman said “why else do you think I carried water in here?” Wyatt felt like this was a direct assault on his fraying patience, but he really wanted the water so he buckled down and didn’t say anything.

As he watched the woman pour water into the cup it seemed like time slowed way down. It felt like an hour passed by the time she had filled the cup. It took every ounce of his self restraint to avoid ripping from her hands. When she handed it over he was unable to stop himself from noisily slurping down the water. He held out the cup indicating a desire for more, and the woman filled the cup slowly once more, but this time as she did so she said “you should drink much slower this time or you will likely make yourself sick.” Even knowing she was right it was a much more difficult fight than he anticipated forcing himself to sip at the water. Even then he wasn’t sure he was successful as sipping every .5 seconds was probably not much better than chugging the entire thing. His musing about proper water drinking speed was interrupted a minute later when the woman spoke again. “So I think it’s time we have proper introductions and I tell you a bit about what has been happening since your ‘battle’.” She said the word battle with such obvious disdain that despite it really not being a big deal to him Wyatt still started to feel an irrational anger bubbling to the surface.