Mana Channeling can be separated into Arcane and Divine. Divine magic goes further into gaining help from the gods beyond use of the Aether. Divine casters call upon god(s), or other similar beings like spirits, to aid them in shaping the connection to the Aether and powering their spells and either serve them in the mortal realm, or hold unusual favor, in some fashion. Arcane magic is everything else, and there are many subdivisions: Elementalism, Schools of Magic, Sorcery, Melodious and Mysticism are the five most prominent versions of Arcane magic.
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Kythia
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The young male who clearly aided us with a strange magic stands before us. The strangely shaped metal wand lowered, a sign he is willing to talk rather than fight. He is tall for one not of the packs, roughly my own height with dark hair and an odd shade of brown in his eyes. He does not have the muscles of a warrior but has the stature to become one if he needed to.
Strange words come from his mouth, not a tongue I have ever heard.
“I am Talia, who are you?” Talia asks as she lowers her sword.
The young man says another phrase in his strange tongue but none of us understand it. He is however not attacking us, so we may get the shelter that Talia had hoped for even if it cost the lives of the last of her servants.
“I don’t think this man is hostile” I say to the elven twins.
“He is clearly a mage of some sort, the strange wand he used early created small but effective injuries from a distance and that Fan of Flames confirms it” responds Talia.
“He is dressed as the other natives we have seen” Lysan states.
"Do we have any means to communicate with him?" Talia asks.
“I have enough mana for a translation spell, but I won’t have anything left afterwards.”
“Do it, target the man so we can all hear him” responds Talia.
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Adrian
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I lower the pistol and keep a small distance away from the three. Making sure not to be in a hostile stance but readied to defend myself if need be as I ask, “who are you? Are you friend or foe?”
“Amin naa talia ya naa lle?” answers one of the shorter two holding a thin blade at her side in a similar fashion as much own.
“I don’t speak your language” I state while lowering my weapon further.
The three lower their own weapons further as they quickly speak to one another. A moment later they each pull off their helmets, revealing vibrant red hair on the shorter two and white? No, silver hair on the taller. One of the shorter two places her small mace on a hook of the belt around her waist and lifts up a necklace with a depiction of a tree surrounded by other plants and steps towards me.
I notice her oddly red orange eyes and pointed ears as she speaks again in a language that I do not understand, this time though it has a cadence to it. A flow like she is reciting something rather than trying to talk to me. Her necklace glows a soft blue green before she speaks again in the tongue the other red haired girl spoke but this time I somehow understand.
“My name is Lysan, can you understand me?”
“I can, I suppose you’re not going to get in a fight with me then? How is it I can understand you? Magic?”
“Only if you give us good reason to, I am Kythia. Talia is the one who greeted you at the end of our fight against the tainted. And yes it is magic that let’s you understand us. Are you not a mage yourself?” answers the tallest of the three. Silver hair and golden eyes, colors that shouldn’t exist on humans but she look human in every other way.
“I am Adrian, and yes but your magic seems different than mine. You are not from Earth. I guess you are from the same place as these orcs?”
The three of them all grab their weapons. “Retract you insult or die” they say in unison. Shit.
“I mean no offense, neither you nor they or even anything that has happened in the last half a day should be here. I just want to piece together what is happening. These creatures never walked this world as far as I know” I quickly say and they move back to their previous positions before I continue to speak.
“Anyway, how about we move into the building behind me, and turn off these lights; the light will draw more to us at night and we can talk inside.”
I turn around and begin to walk to the entrance of the store, after I take a few steps I turn back as the three had not begun to follow. “Are you coming?”
“Are you offering hospitality?” asks the tallest of the three, what was her name? It started with a k, Kithix? No, that’s not it. At least the other two had names that are easier to remember.
“Sure, some food and a place to sleep for the night. You’ll have to help with the watch shifts though.”
The three of them look at each other for a moment before nodding to each other. They then speak in unison once more. “We graciously accept you offer of hospitality Lord Adrian.”
They then start to follow behind me to the entrance of Outdoor World. Well, they come from somewhere with a feudalist or nobility system.
“How long will the spell that is allowing us to communicate last?” I ask as we all walk to the entrance.
“The duration is about an hour for me” answers Talia? No, Talia has the sword. Lysan was the one with a mace rather than a blade.
“Do any of you know why these creatures are rampaging?”
“They are demon tainted. They always are trying to kill anything that is not them. How do you not know this?” answers Talia.
“I’ve never seen or heard of one actually existing before today” I respond as we pass through the front entrance, flipping off the exterior lights.
Bryan interrupts the conversation, “how do you understand them? If they are friendly Tomas is going to freak out when he sees them. Friendlies?”
I point at Lysan, “yes. She cast some form of magic. I’ll be able to understand them for about an hour.”
“As much as I want to talk, its past midnight and I don’t want to be too tired if another attack happens in the morning, it’s your watch” Bryan says before turning away and walking towards the sleeping bags.
Abagail adds in “I’ll lay out some more sleeping bags before resting, Tomas will probably come bother you once he finishes checking the camping section for any stragglers.”
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I nod and Abagail then turns around and heads towards the camping section. I turn off the exterior and most of the interior lights before I lead the trio to the food court and turn on one of the grills I didn’t spill goblin guts all over. As the grill heats up I start to drag the goblin bodies away from the food; a difficult talk for only having one hand at the moment. I need to get someone to set my arm so I can try healing it.
“This does not seem to be a home. Is this a market place of some sort?” asks Karen? No still not the right name.
“It’s a store, I don’t own it but I think the owner will have died from these attacks. Will meat and bread be an acceptable meal for the three of you?” I ask
“The twins would prefer more bread and vegetables but they’ll have to deal with it.”
“What spell did that wand of yours use to injure the tainted?” asks Lysan.
“What wand?” I ask confused, I didn’t use any sort of wand.
“The metal thing you kept pointing at the tainted.”
“That’s a weapon not a wand, there is no magic to it.”
“No, that has to have magic. There is no way for it to be just a weapon.”
“There is no magic to the weapon itself, how can I explain it? Think of it as a smaller crossbow that shoots tiny bolts faster than sound.”
“I don’t believe you. Only magic could do something like that.”
“I show you three how tomorrow then. Can any of you help me with my arm?”
“I’m a healer, but I’m out of mana and am not strong enough to mend bone.”
Mana? So they are using a different type of magic. She says it like it’s a resource, definitely not how I do magic but close to fantasy stuff I’ve read. Can I even use it?
“No I mean to set the bones in place. I don’t want to heal them crooked.”
Kaitlyn, no that wasn’t it either, walks over to me and says “I can set the bone, but you can heal broken bones? How then did these tainted manage to hurt you?”
“I don’t actually know if I can repair my bones. Also, I only know enough to heal myself, I don’t know how to heal others.”
She spends the next few minutes setting my arm. I then start focusing on fixing the damage, the pain slowly increases in my arm as the nerves begin to respond again. After about five minutes the pain subsides and I can freely move my arm again.
“Looks like it worked.” I begin to cook a few burgers, I put four on the grill as I feel famished myself. A side effect of self-healing? I have been just accelerating the regenerative process the body naturally goes through, so probably.
“How did you do that without a chant or foci?” asks Lysan.
“Those just make magic easier, I think they just help you focus and less likely to botch.”
“But healing can only be done by the gods, and they demand you present their symbol to do so.”
“Why, could a mage not draw positive energy and transplant it into the injured? Or how about transmutation to seal a wound and shape body back to its proper condition? You could also invert blood magic to turn mana to life force and then inject it.”
Katherin, nope that wasn’t it either, looks at me with great interest. “Explain the blood magic one further, transmutation fades over time and calling positive energy lacks a place to call it from unless you are calling upon the gods or are an Elementalist.”
“I only know the theory behind most magic so I can’t demonstrate. But the idea behind blood magic is to draw life force out of blood and then convert that to mana. While just running the conversion process backwards probably will not work there should be a way to get that working. I assume that a necromancer could figure out the how as they specialize in manipulating life and death, then replace the mana to negative energy conversion in something like Negative Energy Burst with this mana to life force and it should then heal.”
“Your idea seems solid if one could invert blood magic. You say you don’t know blood magic so how did you heal yourself?”
“Accelerating the natural healing process.” The patties on the grill need flipped, I do so as we continue. “Do any of you know why you are now here?”
The three look at each other before Lysan speaks up. “All we know is that we arrived here after a mana wave from a really powerful spell passed over us. It must have been some sort of mass teleport. . .”
“When did you arrive here?” I ask interrupting. Could they be related to the goblins that rampaged through my school? No, they were fighting goblinoids when I found them.
“Just after dusk, is that important?”
“Maybe, but please continue.”
“After arriving in this strange land we rushed towards the nearest group of tainted. We saw that this place was a city and didn’t want to get confused as part of those that were killing the people of this place.”
“You keep referencing these tainted, what do you mean by that?”
“The tainted are those who have either inherited the demonic taint from their ancestors, or have accepted the demons into themselves.”
“And what does the taint do?”
“It twists and mutates the mind and body of the infected. The green skinned orcs outside are an example of one of the things that the taint can twist a man into. Though they are the result of offspring of their tainted ancestor. They have no humanity, they are no longer people but monsters.”
“And this demonic influence comes from a different world than your own?”
“Yes, centuries ago three of the kingdoms of our world fought to rule over each other. It became a war of annihilation, all three of them turned to demonology to survive and strike against each other. In the end the demons had tainted the rulers of all three kingdoms turning them into puppets. Their puppets manipulated all three kingdoms into performing the same ritual, a sacrifice of most of their bodies and souls to possession to smite and destroy any who were not of their nation.
With this, the demons had invaded, being hired to consume the world as they wished. The tainted reproduce and grow faster than those who are not.”
“I’m guessing there was not much left of civilization.”
“There wasn’t, the strong rule as dictators, and each day the hordes of the tainted grow as our own weaken.”
I assemble some burgers with the now cooked meat before passing one to each of the girls. “I suppose that is most of what you know is going on?”
“That is all that we are sure of” answers Talia.
At this point I hear a gunshot, I get up and run over to the camping section. I see Abagail holding a pistol standing near a still bleeding goblin corpse. Tomas is covered in blood, I rush to see to his wounds pulling the corpse of the goblin off him.
“He’s dead. I found him with his throat cut, bleeding out” Bryan answers the question I wanted to know.
A check his pulse, nothing. He isn’t breathing and it looks like someone sawed at his neck. Tears form in my eyes. Why, did this have to happen. I can ignore the death of those I don’t know, those I don’t care to know. Why is it that my friend had to die? After a few moments, I hear another gunshot, Abagail is still in sight. Bryan must be looking for any more sneaking bastards.
Whatever, he can handle any stragglers left. How can I see to Tomas’s burial? Cry and think, that is what my watch will be tonight. The trio of guests, walks over, Kyle, no still wrong, speaks something but I wasn’t paying much attention.
I wipe the still falling tears from my face before I say "my friend just died, I’m no longer in the mood to talk. You can choose any sleeping bag to use for the night.”
“Sleeping bag?”
“The bulky cloth tube things.”
They leave, and I return to my solemn sitting. Bryan and Abagail sat nearby for a while before drifting off to sleep. Damn this bullshit, all fun and games till my friend dies over it.
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Bryan
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After finishing the sweep for goblins that cost my friend his life, I lay awake in the sleeping bag. Every time I close my eyes I see Tomas, in his last moments bleeding out. Terrified of dying, but neither of us able to do anything to stop it. And when it isn’t Tomas’s death I see the injuries Adrian takes and the pain he tries to hide both from me and himself.
I need power, I don’t want to see another die because I couldn’t stop it. Tears fall from my face as I keep them hidden from everyone else. I feel someone rubbing my back but I do nothing, my friend died because I am not strong enough, because I can’t do much more than point and shoot a gun.
I need to be stronger, even now Adrian is protecting us. Saying nothing of the injuries he took in this battle or the price he paid to recover. He lost weight, became thinner and weaker but alive even as the holes in his shirt say he took hits that should have stopped him if not killed him.
There must be something I can do to get the strength to stand up and help. I can’t let my friends continue to die.
Eventually, I drift off to a dreamless grey expanse. A dream that means nothing before it ends and a nightmare begins. I watch Tomas die again but he is in my arms instead.
“Why?” is on his lips but he can’t say the words himself. I just cry with my dead friend in my arms. Nothing, there is nothing I can do as I currently am.
The dream repeats over and over with minor changes until I bolt upright at the break of dawn as the sun’s light reaches me.
Abagail stands at the railing and I can only curse my restless sleep as I get up. There is nothing to do about it though as I know I won’t get any more sleep.
“Can you take over the watch? I’ll prepare some of the food that is still good” Abagail asks and I nod, but hesitate before saying something else.
“I’ll start moving the corpses outside and into a pile. I’ll still be able to see if anything is coming while I do so.”
She nods and I go walk over to the guests Adrian welcomed, I hope to get some of their help since they are up.