TASTKA POV
When I opened my eyes, I heard faint noise around me. It sounded like talking, but… distant and garbled. My vision was blurry, and I had to blink several times to clear it up, slowly focusing on the scene before me.
Vedas was resting with his back against his pack, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Fisk was next to him, carefully wrapping fresh bandages around the bright purple welts that coiled around Vedas’ lower leg. I knew those were infused with Vital mana, intended to keep body-rot away. A pile of half-rotted cloth sat nearby, and I wondered what that was.
Without thinking, I reached for my new sense to look at the bandages… only to get a swirling deluge of information, confused and chaotic. I blocked it off with a loud and pained gasp as the brief glimpse of mana flows sent a spike of pain through my head, right between and behind the eyes.
“She’s awake,” a voice cut in. The voice was soft, familiar… yet it still echoed faintly in my ears, leaving me with a vague disorientation. I realized I was laying sideways on something warm and soft, and started to push myself upright. My entire body ached, especially my tail and shoulder. Jumbled memories of the battle started to return – fleeting and chaotic, but blending together into something that began to be coherent.
“Careful,” another voice urged. Hands took my shoulders, slowing my ascent, and helping me to sit up straight. I blinked as my vision blurred, Fisk and Vedas doubling up before the image steadied and merged again.
Dashe. I knew that voice. He was holding me. And beside me… Solen. She had been holding me, letting me rest my head on her lap for something softer than the pack I usually used.
The memories came rushing back to me. The deer. The monster chasing them. Turning on us. Leaping. Me hitting the tree. A jumble of wild, distorted images.
“Wh–” I rasped, trying to speak. My tongue felt like a dry, stubborn worm reluctant to move in my mouth, resisting every effort to say anything. I blinked several times, clearing the blurriness that threatened to come back.
Someone thrust a water bag into my hands; guided the opening to my mouth. I swallowed, gulping it down with a sudden thirsty need, the cool liquid rushing through me as if bringing clarity and vitality all by itself. The pain ebbed almost immediately… but still lingered in the back of my mind.
“What happened?” I croaked softly. It was going to take more than a few swallows to get my voice back.
Fisk finished helping Vedas and lifted his eyes to stare at me, ears perked attentively. “We were hoping you could tell us. You did something to help us kill that thing, but we haven’t figured out what.”
“Shhh,” Dashe admonished Fisk. “She has the mind-fog. It will be a few days before she can think clearly. She may not even remember what happened.”
Mind-fog. That explained a lot. I’d heard of that, seen it happen to others of the clan. Head injuries could make elves confused, even lose memories. Sometimes forever, even. I felt a sudden fear at losing the ability to use any of my new powers, but forced myself to calm.
Judging by how injured the others still were, it couldn’t have been more than a day or two since the fight. A serious injury probably would have left me under for much longer. Aside from the headache and confusion, I felt bruised but well-rested. The gentle light in the sky and the lighter gradient at one end told me that this was still in the morning hours of twilight.
I tried to open my menu to check my status and health – then I shut it immediately, the numbers and letters ghosting in and out, shuffling around. The pulsing, painful pressure behind my eyes flared again, to fade once more when I dismissed my status.
Okay, don’t try to look at that yet.
“It hurts to look at my status,” I mumbled, leaning back. Solen caught me, providing a warmth to keep me steady. Dashe was carefully looking me over again, but I could tell he’d already tended my wounds when I was asleep. I didn’t see Eyssa or Duvad, but their packs were nearby, so I presumed they were scouting ahead.
Fisk squatted in front of me, his tail waving slowly. “What do you remember?” His voice was soft, concern held within it, yet his stare had an intensity that I couldn’t ignore.
One of my ears twitched in annoyance, but I held up a hand to forestall Dashe’s protests about the interrogation. “It’s fine, Dashe. I can talk now.” Then to Fisk I sighed, “I remember some things. Give me a little to see if I can make sense of them.”
Despite his glare at Fisk, I felt Dashe look at me as well, while Vedas silently perked his ears up. They were all curious… as they should be.
“I remember seeing the monster leaping, and the deer, and I could… sort of sense how they were doing that?” I gestured vaguely with my tail, and winced when that sent a jolt of pain through it. “It’s hard to explain. That’s been happening since the marsh, but I wasn’t sure what to think of it. Things only got strange after I hit my head.”
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Vedas finally spoke, quiet and solemn. “I saw you staring at it, then its leg just… twisted itself, and you fell over.” He took a breath. “But that leg jerking like that, when it did, let everyone else push it over the edge.”
“I saw that, just before everything went black,” I confirmed. “That was me, but I don’t know how I did it. It was like the mana bent into what I wanted it to do so easily. I just pictured what I wanted and it happened.”
Fisk twitched ears in acknowledgement. “Do you think you can do it again?” Of course. He’d want to know if I could repeat the trick on demand.
My ears drooped. “I don’t know. I can’t now, I know that. Even trying to use that sense makes my head hurt, and I think I need it to try again.” My eyes looked down and away. “Sorry, Fisk. I’ll try once I feel better, but I just don’t know how it happened.”
Fisk replied with a quiet grunt, but I knew that was just his response when he was thinking. He looked back to Dashe. “Are you sure she’ll be okay if we press on? I don’t want to stay here any longer, but I will if it’s too dangerous. We can’t keep carrying her.”
“Give her some food, let her rest a few more moments, and she can walk,” Dashe assured. “She’ll need to rest often, and cover her eyes with a shade. Bright light is often painful for a few days, even with the healing I’ve given her. Mind-fog is hard for me to treat.”
I rubbed at my temples, trying to massage away the low, faint aching in my head. Normally, I’d be confined to a shelter and resting for a few days, but that would be dangerous in an area like this. They’d already carried me well away from the site of the battle, but I could hear the river nearby.
I scoot away from Solen to sit next to her, instead of on her, and accepted some of our trail rations. They weren’t as good as what I normally prepared, but with me suffering from mind-fog, I couldn’t do that. So… dried meat it was.
“How is the vision?” Solen asked with a tiny quiver of concern. Her fingers touched my shoulder lightly, a gesture that puzzled me for a moment, before I realized she was more worried than the rest.
“I can’t focus on anything for long, but it isn’t blurry any more,” I replied honestly. I tore into the leathery jerky and had another drink of water to wash it down, then took a look at her. “Thanks. Everyone, I mean, but I hope I didn’t slow you down.”
Solen’s ears perked up so sharply she let out a little chuff of laughter. “You did, but I don’t think anyone minds.” She squeezed my shoulder, then let go, giving a reassuring pat with her tail… an action that startled me, with its intimacy. None of the others bat an eye at it. “This is the fastest any of us has increased our levels, ever. And it feels… good, to have done something nobody else has done.”
I looked around the camp, watching the others packing up to move. Their ears were all up, their tails swaying lazily. All signs of a good mood, and high spirits. Already days travel away from home – through dangerous areas, no less – they were still enjoying themselves.
All at once I remembered the voice in my head – my voice – that had warned me. I’d trusted it, and let them kill the monster, only helping them when I could have made it spasm to toss itself into the gorge. Was this why?
Was there a part of me that could see the future?
Eyssa and Duvad returned shortly after I finished eating, and we started moving right after. We were still following the river, but from just inside the trees, giving us more cover in case one of those creatures reappeared.
Fisk and Solen had come up with a plan for dealing with those monsters, but my current condition had us compromising. If Vedas and I had been in good health, we could have used the trees to travel, moving from branch to branch. With my mind-fog and Vedas limping on his leg, we had to instead just stick to the forest, where we could keep trees between us and any similar creatures, so long as we were wary of their tongues.
What surprised me was how quickly I started to feel better. We had to stop to rest three times during the day as we moved along, thanks to my body feeling sickly and unsteady, but by the time night was falling and I could remove the head wrap Dashe had made for me, the dizziness had faded. I dared to open my status again, for just a quick peek.
My vision started to swim even with just that look, so I closed it out before even looking at my other attributes. Another level of Soulkeeper, two more of Flux Speaker… and a new Provisional ability. Not to mention my Attributes were… higher than they should be. Nothing I hadn’t heard of before, but for my age they were high.
It hit me then that I hadn’t remembered any strange dreams last night, either. Was that a result of the injury? Would they even be able to explain anything?
For the first time, I found myself confronted with the idea that they wouldn’t come back… and it was terrifying.
Isolation
Discord, now! The problems seem to have been on Discord’s end.