hapter 9: Urgency vs Agency
Just past mid day, the trio of Sophia, Typhus and Nocturne decided to wait until the next morning to embark on a trek through the tall red grass to try to make it to the city on the horizon. In the meanwhile Typhus had suggested hunting and trying to grow their XP or even heading back into the cave to find more high level monsters since both he and Nocturne had leveled immediately upon killing the ghoul. That and video game logic has held up to this point, so he wanted to at least test it. Sophia had been against the idea heavily until realizing her options were either to be left alone in this hellscape or join them.
"So then it's agreed!" Typhus said, a bit too cheery for the tasks ahead of them. Climbing out of the camp quickly to not give time for prolonged disapproval, he noticed something was left in front of the exit.
A basket with dried meats, cheese, fruits, and even a 5 gallon jug of water that looked similar to the ones on earth but it was square and made of wood. It reminded Typhus of a barrel mixed with a crate that lacked a top plane of wood. On the ground beside it was a black boot that had a purple skull painted on the center. "What the…", Typhus thought he had whispered it but Sophia perked up seeing the confusion on his face and tried pushing him out of the way to get a look. Resulting in nothing more than Typhus hurrying up the built into the dirt ladder.
"That book is… So pretty…", her face skewed as she rose from the hole in the ground, it looked like her eyes would bulge out her skull as she focused her attention heavily on the book. Typhus thought she was insane considering there was literally life sustaining meals next to it making him shake his head as he handed her the book to inspect. "First the boots, now the book, you should be more aware of priorities-", ending the sentence with a loud crunch from an apple within the care package. "Oh my god that is so good." Typhus said as the juice from the fruit exploded with each bite.
Sophia had not spoken while Typhus held a small personal feast, taking a full minute just staring into the cover before opening the first page to see words scrambled over the inner cover with a single one being legible, 'Necropolise VOL 1'. "Necropolise? What does?-" moments after speaking the words the purple skull lit up brighter than the daylight before a large circle expanded from below Sophia with purple glyphs and seemingly magical scripts all over it for a meter in every direction.
"What did you do?!" Typhus yelled with fruit still in his mouth from shock. "I'm not sure?! It doesn't hurt, I don't feel any different? But it's taking my 'mana' to do, what should I do?". As she spoke the glyphs started twisting into each other like a rope being braided before combining into a larger circle beneath her feet.
Walking through the circle Typhus grabbed the top of the book, a familiar pull of death mana invaded his hand. Typhus couldn't see the magic being applied from the spellbook, but he could 'feel' the amount of mana that the book wanted and it was… Bottomless. Lifting the book out of her reach then throwing it across the forest floor left the purple glyphs cracking and separating, unmaking themselves in real time.
"Sorry! I don't know how the light show happened, all I said was the word on the inside of the book cover." Sophia held eyes like someone who spilled black ink on someone else's homework. "No it's okay, check your menu, did you get anything from that? I think it was a spell.". Taking charge of the conversation since Typhus hadn't seen a spell from the third person it came as a surprise to him as well. "Strength 5… Blah, blah… death affinity… No, I don't see anything new. Why?" She held a raised eyebrow with a surprising amount of intensity in her glare.
"Well, so far, every time I've cast a spell it's given me the name and description after doing it myself at least once, though I haven't really tested them, yet." Crossing his arms, Typhus had wanted to explore the cave in part, to try out flamethrower again. Sophia looked like he had just offered a starving animal comfort. "Tests?!" She said as enthusiastically as Typhus did earlier about exploring the cave.
Typhus stood in front of Sophia with his arm raised, his middle finger pointing at the cliff face he had climbed down the day before. They stayed away from the cave entrance by a kilometer or so but Sophia had nearly begged him to show her [Flamethrower] in action.
"Ready?" Sophia asked from behind him. "As I'll ever be." Orange runes filled his vision for a much shorter time then before as the familiar flames erupted from his palm.
For the second time today Sophia's eyes were locked on with unyielding focus. Rhythmic fluctuations of light gave the near dark environment a slight strobing effect. Upon making contact with the solid rock, the flames expanded rapidly in all directions. Sophia had seen movies of a dress spinning from top down, the flames imitated the movements across the flat surface. Occasionally a small wisp of light would break free from the central torrent of flame. Yelling to be heard above the roar of the spell, Typhus spoke, "stay back! This is the part that sucks…"
Sophia ducked behind the tree line, still sneaking a look at the destruction made manifest. She watched as Typhus closed his eyes and strained his arm. Spiraling away from the rock the flame swung around like a boomerang reconnecting with his arm. As the two ends of flame touched, his arm blew back and Typhus took a pause.
"F-f-fuck, that hurt sooo much worse this time. Pain is inevitable though I suppose." He said to Sophia who had ran from the trees to check on him. Inspecting him as a patient she noted he had third degree burns from his wrist to shoulder. Her mind raced as she knew how serious an injury like this would be in terms of leaving tomorrow and surviving this whole situation. "If you knew this would happen why would you do that?!" Typhus shot her a look of annoyance before collecting himself.
"Because for one. You need to learn how mana translates to the physical, for two, I NEED to learn how to stop my spells without it literally blowing up in my face. And lastly, because [Dark Regeneration] will heal it relatively quickly. It just will hurt like a bitch for a few hours." He said through semi gritted teeth. "That's… True." Was all Sophia could muster as she walked with Typhus back to the tiger trap den.
Could he have just told her from the start what mana was without showing her? Yes. He knew that, but he didn't know how deep the well ran, he didn't know if someone could magically split the atom of a molecule, he didn't know if Sophia was mentally competent when he first mentioned it. He knew she had to see the consequences of 'not knowing better', if she had any chance of studying it safely.
They both were trying to get along, for more reasons then just pleasantries. Their lives were on the line, their sanity was constantly in question, and pain was proving to be unavoidable. If either of them were injured, or disabled, even temporarily incapacitated the other held their life. That is what convinced Typhus to teach her what he had found out since arriving at the lake of horror.
With the sun setting they crawled into the tiger trap, nocturne turning over the massive log that served as the door to the campsite. "Now that we are sealed in until morning, let's talk mana." Sophia took the lead of the conversation. "What does it feel like when you are manipulating mana?"
Nursing his arm that was now healing in real time, likely thanks to the level up Typhus answered.
"The best way I think I could put it is, it feels like when I used to meditate and 'feel' a weird electricity? No it was almost fluid… Energy! It feels like energy itself but your mind dictates where it should and shouldn't be." He sat proudly on his side of the floor while woman and skeleton held similar blank stares.
"Typhus?" Sophia asked deadpan.
"Yesssssss" Typhus responded sarcastically.
"A quantum supercomputer could calculate for a thousand years and not even approach the amount of sense that didn't make", Sophia said holding the bridge of her nose clearly frustrated at the subpar explanation.
"It's kind of hard to explain, oh! I have an idea, come here.", he ran to Nocturne and held one his hands open. "Nocturne constantly has death mana seeping through his bones, I'm not sure if it's due to the affinity but feel his hand". Her eyes went wide and her breathing quickened at the idea of touching a skeleton. A monster. "No, no. I think-" her hand was brought to the metacarpal section of it's wrist and it felt like she had just shocked herself on a metal railing as a surge of 'energy' slipped into her finger tips. It was like a mixture of a sugar rush and a caffeine high but located only from the touching fingers to around her elbow.
"That is… Paranormal" she spoke slowly as if in true awe of the power coursing through her.all at once the connection was severed by Typhus moving her hand away from the source. "Did you feel it?"
For another hour or two, Sophia was given rough explanations and hard to decipher advice about what Typhus had theorized about mana since arriving. She hadn't thought too deeply about it until now but he had allegedly killed dozens of skeletons with a sword. Wondering about his martial prowess had almost made her ask him to be her trainer. Remembering how he handled burning himself for an example made her reconsider the idea almost instantly.
As the two laid down staring at the stars between the gaps in foliage above them, Typhus turned his head to look at the ex statue. She had tears streaming down her face but she made no audible sounds of sadness.
He said nothing, just observing the pain written behind the salty expression of displeasure. The environment was carnivorous, the native creatures were unnatural, and the company was a lot. Mentally he swore to see this through to the end, a promise he never spoke aloud.
Closing his eyes finally he felt a rustling of the leaves above the hideout disturbing Typhus awake, he hadn't meant to fall asleep during his night watch shift but his body betrayed him.
Hearing the same noise again but closer activated his full attention bringing him quickly and silently to his feet. Soft leaves crunching in the dim red glow of the moons.
He scanned the area and saw Sophia still sleeping soundly and no sign of Nocturne near them raising his blood pressure considerably.
No
A long stretch of moonlight illuminated a purple skull staring directly at Typhus, at first thinking it was Nocturne, until turning back around and seeing rows of black glyphs crawling over the face of the skull. Moving in random directions and patterns the skeleton said nothing as it looked from Typhus to Sophia.
'Wait. Let me explain, this both is and isn't the skeleton you call 'Nocturne' I am just here to warn you, and you need listen to me, NOW!'
Telepathically the voice reverberated in his mind as the now turned guttural and loud.