Screaming bounced off the walls of the cave as the woman broke free from her stone shell. Frozen mid sprint she tried to continue her stride, making her knee buckle like a baby deer learning to walk as she fell forward with a thud onto the dirt floor. Panicked, she flipped on her back then crawled backwards spreading dust in all directions for a meter before her head abruptly slammed into the stone wall. Shaking her dirty blonde hair, falling around her face as she looked up to see a purple skeleton staring straight down with a curved neck like a confused dog.
"NO PLEASE NO!" She wailed through sobs with heaving shoulders. The voice sounded like it was normally fairly high pitched but the octaves dropped due to shock. Her glasses flew off her face from the force of her shaking. Strings of the ghouls adhesive hung from her arms and dirtied her clothes. Surprised at the spectacle of his theory working he was later than usual to respond.
In a rushed hushed tone, "It's okay" Typhus said, moving between the woman and the undead, he brought a finger to his lips forgetting it was pitch black without nearby mana crystals, if he wasn't basically hugging Nocturne.
Walking forward in a crouch, "shhh, shhhplease stop, we don't know what else is in here" Typhus opened his hand and dropped his weapon before he tried lowering himself to her as she guarded her face against Nocturne's questioning posture.
'Is it okay?'
"Damn man, she looks to be alright" Typhus answered the skeleton out loud this time forgetting the woman wasn't 'in' on the mental communications.
'To be fair you don't know I'm a man' Nocturne retorted mentally.
"Touché"
'Hmmmm' Nocturne said in Typhus' mind while crossing his arms bringing the crystal closer to the black sword. When the crystal had been further away the blade was camouflaged by the darkness by the crystal's purple hue. She was moving her fright opened eyes back and forth from human to skeleton until locking in with lazer focus towards the skeletons sword causing her to point with an agape mouth. If Typhus had a chance to actually calm the woman it passed the moment her eyes locked onto the weapon his skeleton held.
"Fuck"
'Fuck'
The man and monster mentally high fived at being so synergized as the woman's face contorted in horror. Truly, Typhus was a paragon in a room of paladins.
Fear surpassed her need for action, making her cover her head and lay in a fetal position mumbling to herself through sobs mentioning things about how her manager would find her. Exhaustion got the better of her within 30 seconds of shock, causing her to pass out, the woman stayed unmoving with steady breathing.
Loud screeching sounded out from an unknown distance deeper into the cave startling Typhus while Nocturne brandished his sword stepping between his creator and the noise.
Steeling his nerves Typhus turned to Nocturne, "Time to go".
'Yep'
Clenching his mostly healed fist which stung like it was sunburnt at this point rather than the debilitating injury it had been when his own flames engulfed his arm. Scooping the immobile woman up in his arms, the smell of rotten fruit assaulted him from the ghoul adhesive causing him to gag. Mentally noting that [Dark Regeneration] had already healed his burnt hand back to a usable state in a astonishingly fast time for mana cost.
Shaking the untimely thought off he ran with the skinny woman over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Bursting from the cave entrance with the sun directly in his eyes. Meaning it was late into the afternoon looking back at the east facing wall causing a large amount of concern about the wolves catching the scent of blood on the wind. Not regretting the decision and enthusiastic from the idea of having another pair of hands made this rescue almost a nonnegotiable. Due to the amount of time he spent playing detective, however night was almost upon them. With impatience, Typhus turned around to watch the purple light from the crystal Nocturne held take a painfully long time crossing the last 15 meters of the cave.
"Can you do me a favor and cut down a tree?" He half asked, half commanded his skeleton 'running' towards them in the dark of the cave.
'Right away, Creator' the voice shook, more than scratched as it answered.
Without breaking stride Nocturne bumbled as fast as they could resembling a skip more than a run but it was faster than it had walked, right past the two humans towards the wood line. Gently placing the trauma ridden woman ,Typhus started to inspect her. She had been laid on her back breathing deeply but with a slight gurgle of fluid on her exhales.
Seeing her in the 'golden hour' sun for the first time she was stunning, her face reminded him of what he imagined the Greek god Athena would look like in mortal form.
She wore a purple knit sweater, a white blouse with a collar rising from beneath the fuzz of the sweater. Tight grey sweatpants led to odd looking knee high, white dyed leather boots that seemed like a mix between an exotic dancer and fly fishing boots.
Mesmerized Typhus was distracted by the surprising appearance for only a moment when the woman coughed twice violently which sent an eruption of blood pouring out of her mouth and nose. Squinting while moving closer, "I'm a fucking idiot" Typhus said while the reality of the situation smacked him looking at the nearly unmoving body.
Luckily, he had gone to a medics course during his time in the military and had been trained to apply battlefield trauma aid. Irritated at himself being immature, which could cost someone their life, Typhus took deep breaths as he remembered.
The female sergeant had a green colored mannequin with only the upper body in front of her in a leather jacket and black t-shirt. 'First, we remove any obstacles in order to performing any life saving procedures. Or any which could make it too difficult to see bodily fluids, indicating a life threatening injury outside the wire.'
She took a pair of scissors that reminded Typhus of a bird beak, it was a weird looking thing Which normally had less... Creative naming, but analogies helped him to retain training. Deftly and practiced the Sergeant cut the black shirt in under a second, pulling the shirt into the scissors instead of trying to cut every centimeter. On the mannequin, a bullet wound to the chest and one to the throat… 'Once an injury is identified what do we do? That's right we check for any exit wounds or shrapnel in the wound, good'. She flipped it over before confirming if the chest shot had an exit wound.
Opening his eyes, Typhus possesses the knowledge he needed, and hopefully, the talent to perform. Grabbing hold of her purple sweater, he ripped it in half to reveal the white blouse was stained a deep red, under the lowest rib but only slightly. Flowing and expanding with a light pink wetness at the edges of the stain in her shirt growing outward quickly. Ripping the shirt, buttons flung in every direction. Pulling her up by her arm onto her side, he moved his hand on her back, between her clothes and skin to her back confirming no exit wounds.
Not finding any extra wounds he could focus singularly on her frontal cuts and abrasions. Warm blood was flowing from her the side of stomach which housed the organs just right of the abdominal muscles adding to the pressure, Typhus bit her cloth shirt tearing off fabric before applying heavy pressure to the gory wound. "Fuck fuck fuck" Typhus needed to be in two places at once to save her. Looking into the cave he knew the sound from the cave or the other predators in the area, were likely on its way but he didn't have a choice, "Nocturne!" He yelled loud enough that the echo would carry too deep into the tunnel as well as into the alien wood line.
Cracks of broken branches and toppling of smaller trees could be heard behind him getting closer. Whipping his head around, Typhus saw flowers that looked strangely close to the same as they did on earth. He smiled and shook his head before turning to the sky, "really?! Now I'm lucky? Nocturne, please grab the flowers on those branches there, the ones that look like they have yellow noodles coming out of it, QUICKLY please"
Witch hazel. A flower used for a variety of things back on earth, mainly skin care. But Typhus came from a family of botanists, if he knew about anything it was plants. Within a minute Nocturne handed off the witch hazel, when crushed and applied the dust slowed the bleed enough for the wound to clot. Cleaning off the blood around the wound he saw large purple varicose veins spreading from her chest.
Death mana? Why is it spreading? Is this what happens when you don't have an affinity and I try to heal someone? Why did witch hazel stop the bleeding then? Energy exploded at his fingertips feeling like a shot of adrenaline making him nearly roll his eyes back.
"Oh… shit."
[Dark Regeneration] activated on instinct from a surplus of mana gain, as the witch hazel was overflowing with death mana. He hadn't thought the plants would have an affinity themselves but saying the name out loud. He just had to open his stupid fucking mouth about his luck turning didn't he?
The veins pulsed while turning neon purple as they expanded like a fungus. Wait… he mentally chastised himself but to be fair he had supernatural powers for less than a day.
Dumping half his mana he super charged [Sacrificial Healing]. His hands had a white yellow sheen coming from them as he placed them onto the minimally bleeding wound. Vibrant hues of color swirled together until becoming a light yellow glow covering his hands, blood continued flowing while his resources slowly dwindled. He poured more and more mana into the spell but nothing changed except the purple veins pulsed slightly dimmer for the duration of his spell.
"Fine then. I'll just use you instead" His eyebrows were knit in frustration knowing the woman did not have much longer. Holding the bandage in his left hand he made a gambit of a guess. He balled the bloodied bandage up and pushed it gently into the wound, using his mana he poked and prodded around the wound, guiding the energy the same as he had while urging death mana the night before. After a small amount of trial and error his mana connected with its kin death affinity. As if an anchor caught on a coral reef his mana 'strings' would plant themselves on any of its fellow death mana allowing him to pull the mana out and into the white cloth bandage covering the wound, slowly changing the color from a wine red to dark purple as the blood mixed with the mana.
Typhus's eyes widened in surprise as the death mana moved with sudden and surprising ease, but not towards his bandage. Instead, it traveled up towards her head, Typhus pulled back with incredible resistance since he was using mana to 'invade'. Determined to not allow this woman to become a victim to their environment after all they had been through already. Abruptly his mana cut off like something had severed the connection entirely, attempt after attempt of reconnecting to the death mana network established were unsuccessful causing a cascade of growth from the black purple tendrils beneath her skin. Not able to do anything but watch as the purple veins moved like snakes to her neck then into her head. Punching the ground Typhus fairly assumed his patient was dead under his watch.
"FUCK" he yelled at the world at around him. He even debated settling the score with the things in the cave before he noticed a purple glow coming from the woman. The long sections of hair that framed her face changed color from a blonde to a dark purple in a matter of seconds.
Without hesitation he spammed [Sacrificial Healing] with what was left of his mana, watching as the wound closed almost immediately when the death mana was relocated.
*Ding*
[Mage has increased to level 4]
She stayed unmoving but her breathing came easier without the rattle of liquid. Typhus was sweating from exerting his will over mana that wasn't his after discovering the resource literally a day ago.
Orange and yellow clashed with blue in the sky overhead, he had 2 hours at most before it was night based on the position of the sun.
For the next 2 hours Typhus and Nocturne would dig out a 3 diameter hole with a depth of 2 meters. Meanwhile, watching each others backs feeling under constant threat from yelling earlier, and the abundant scent of blood in the wild. With a depth of 2 meters, Nocturne did 98% of the work using their unreal strength to push a tree deep into the dirt and use it as a shovel. Having created a modified tiger trap they used felled trees to make a roof for them that allowed small beams of moonlight to hit the soil floor under the foliage. Normally he would have a fire burning to detour predators but for some reason Typhus felt it would attract them here.
While they coordinated and labored Typhus had time to think about the last few days. So many questions, and theories. He needed to get something to write with and something to write on as soon as possible. To make a bestiary at the minimum, but he also felt a 'Book of the Arcane' would also be useful. Unless he was a special case, which he doubted given how unfair his and this woman's placement were. Seemingly, picking [Mage] wasn't enough to turn someone into a mana manipulator. He didn't start with ANY spells unlocked, and he doubted any other mage did. If something did happen to him, Typhus would want the rest of humanity to at least know how he unlocked his affinities, spells, thinking on it more elevated his stress about getting the information down.
[Flamethrower], [Dark Regeneration], [Sacrificial Healing], the [Templar] title, strange silver sword of skeleton one shots, how ghouls transform, at least the working theory, and plants having affinities. All of these things were vital information for anyone with an unlucky 'spawn point' with literal monsters. While Typhus knew he was relatively secure, he wasn't gifted. So he was sure other people could make connections to and with mana but not the majority, making a 'guide' priceless.
Typhus would need to survive long enough to share the knowledge anyways, he certainly would have died without his spells or Nocturne. That is what he viewed as the main hurdle for progress to the average person. Walking into your first fight with [Flamethrower] at the ready was a lot different then preparing with a dagger and a prayer, especially without any actual fighting experience.
Maybe he was being biased but he couldn't see any other people he knew outside the military surviving his opening night of tactical undead. He had plans and hopefully a pair of extra hands as he stared at the woman who looked a bit worse for wear.
The comfy looking sweater covered her upper body but he had to remove the blouse since it was drenched in blood. Her pants were also demolished, clearly made for high end gym goers not a life or death situation, leaving a large gash over her calf. Using that line of reasoning as his moral compass he cleaned her up as best he could, Typhus removed his [Dark Robe] before dressing his fellow 'unlucky spawn' in the most respectful way he could.. When she was covered he put her sweater back over her and left her to rest.
Breathing out his worries, Typhus sat on the moist soil with a squish and felt his lower body get wet after soaking through his own sweatpants. "Yep" was all he could say at this point. Exhausted didn't even begin to cover how he felt but he climbed onto Nocturne's shoulders breaking off tree branches and leaves from the roof above them to make a warm dry bed above the wet soil.
Placing the woman in one corner he slept on the opposing side of the hole with Nocturne standing guard in the center looking up while the moonlight bathed his bony figure. He looked heroic in the pale moonlight like a knight who steadfastly waited for their regent. With that thought his eyes closed themselves and he drifted to sleep.