For some reason the cold air of the morning does not affect me while I am flying. For once there is a cloud in the sky and a few patches of fog obscure the ground. So I enjoy doing lazy circles in the sky waiting for the morning sun to banish shadows and mists on the ground.
Again I have been stupid. Why did I go into melee combat with a monster without engaging [Giant Form of the Ancestors]? Even if I figured too much mana consumption I could have used [Cornucopia]. Am I subconciously keeping as many aces as possible in my sleeves? Or have I been told that my abilities are not fitting together so often that I heed that more than they actually do play together? Or have I just formed bad habits as a civilian draftee? I will need to sit down and plan one day soon.
What is that? Zora is joining me.
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Dean Tuckell is pacing. A night having been spent tossing and turning does not leave his eyes red thanks to closing in on bronze rank in his recovery attribute, but it does not improve his mood.
DT: Rupert, is at least the tea coming along?
RP: Sorry, I just started the kettle. I couldn’t find the heating stone.
Aristocrats and big city adventurers might live on spirit coins in the field, but under his command people would not eat money for convinience. Besides, that stuff tasted like substances best not mentioned in polite company. Although, of course, the presumably polite part of his present company would not understand anything he mentioned, be it politely worded or prone to make a seaman blush. That is exactly the main source of his difficulties.
DT: The rest of breakfast?
RP: As I said, I am using the heating stone for tea. I’ll fry the eggs while the tea is brewing.
He blesses his iron 6 rank and the mentality of a Geller, to whom inherent rank overrules aristocratic rank every time. It lets him make an aristocrat practice proper field cooking.
DT: Olutha, how far have language lessons gone?
OL: They can count to twenty and know a few nouns. For some reason they insist on learning the script at the same time.
DT: No way to tell them why we need to leave?
OL: Nope, no way
DT: Just great
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We are soaring together.
Z: We have traded for potions and we have company.
P: What?
Z: A few minutes after you left somebody went into our camp. They were watching us.
P: That is surprising and troubling. Who is it?
Z: Who are they. She has had two friends. That we know of.
P: Did they say what they want?
Z: Probably. We cannot tell. We have no language in common.
P: Wonderful. How did you trade?
Z: We showed them the potion and put monster cores on the ground.
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P: Good news. Let’s land. We need to revive everybody as soon as possible.
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RP: Where is she going?
DT: Watch the eggs!
OL: The mantis-scorpion man has returned. He is circling above this camp.
RP: We can hope that they sent him away because he knows a language somebody else knows.
OL: I wouldn’t count on it. Look at them. These people are from a place very, very far away.
DT: Unfortunately that is highly plausible.
RP: The eggs are done.
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We are landing and Zora calls everybody together.
PN: Let’s start with the children, then my mother and the researcher last.
Z: I agree. Children in sequence of age?
KN: Yes, the oldest first.
It takes half an hour and Zora had to be held back, but Stjepan is back with us. We’ve agreed to wait for Karolína to check him to the best of her abilities before going on.
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OL: What were they doing?
DT: The boy definitely came out of his storage space and he had no aura.
RP: At least we now know why they needed health potions so badly. That means he has more of them in storage.
OL: Yes, it does. But that means that he is raising the dead. Are you sure he is iron rank?
DT: Yes
RP: Yes
OL: Then they have made a breakthrough. Maybe in potions? Something that makes you dead and not dead at the same time?
RP: That has a sound I do not like. What is his confluence?
DT: Not Undeath. I sensed it once. His essences are unusual. Have you ever heard of a place with different essences?
OL: No.
RP: No.
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L: So you were met with an instantly hostile reception in the village you visited.
P: Yep. They tried to shoot me in the back, as a matter of fact.
L: Racists, I am going to assume.
P: That the only other man of my race be a criminal to be shot on sight is too unlikely to consider.
Z: Sure, you two have it worse than everybody else.
L: Yeah sure, we are ready to go on, Captess Bleigh.
We bring back Karolína’s and Pavol’s son Adam. Stjepan is still not awake. We must assume that he’ll sleep the rest of the day. As we ought to join our, well, guests in posting watches during the night, this is not as bad as it may sound to a parent.
L: Is it just me or are our visitors getting nervous?
Z: Let them. I want my daughter back.
P: I would be happier if we clearly outnumbered them.
Z: If wishes could fly, we … OK, yes, I get it. Still, can we go on?
P: Do you want our medic to be in top form?
Z: Yes, we can wait a few minutes more.
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RP: We could just pack very visibly in order to obviously leave. They’ll follow.
DT: With unconcious children around? In fact, they may be happy to see us go. They have no clue about our intentions.
RP: We can hope that the bandits are preemptively already running from the Gellers.
They all stop and look away, now that one of them has straight up said what they all had been thinking.
RP: They may have just lost the second skimmer, too.
OL: No. Say it like it is. The3uma is not Misandra. That woman was born to pilot skimmers. She does know what can happen if you get a sand elemental sucked into your engine. If they are not back by now, it is due to enemy action.
DT: They may have been taken hostage.
RP: No way.
OL: Dean, you are not an aristocrat. If a Geller dies in the field, that is the fate of adventurers. But taking one of them hostage, that would amount to declaring war on House Geller. You’d get the Time Witch in a foul mood coming for you. She is gold rank now.
Another round of glum silence.
Dean starts pacing again.
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We have Natalija back. Zora lets me cradle her, while she is holding her son. Have we saved Earth? Maybe. There is no way for us to verify that claim. These children are alive and one of them is warm in my lower pair of arms. Whatever happens now is in a certain sense only an addition. I am no longer a complete failure.
This is turning into a catastrophe. We have used both healing powers. I have triggered a decontamination multiple times. We have used a potion. We have been doing CPR for an hour. We tried putting her back into my storage space. It failed the second time, after we had a single heart beat. Her heart just won’t keep beating. Karolína has intubated her, so we have Zora pumping on the bag. Karolína is now even trying in situ cordial stimulation.
OL: What are these barbarians doing? They have cut her open!
DT: Stand back, they are trying to save her. Desperately and failing.
Karolína stumbles back. Her hands are bloody up to the elbows. The ground is littered with used syringes. Her husband catches her and leads her away.
P: I am teleporting to the lake. We will need more water.
Zora is just sitting there.