A sharp pain enflamed his chest, back, and spine as a cleverly disguised lump of construction material slammed into his and sent him reeling back, as though he were a plowed dirt pile. He gasped, in pain, as the blunt force trauma mostly got absorbed by his Warden-issued combat shirt. However, the shirt divested of hostile force-energy of the blows he encountered, he felt still a strong measure of pain upon each assault. Because of that, his body lay sprawled on the floor, like a fish out of water.

  Jiehong came upon him moments later and made short work of the Space-Filler, ending it with several practiced blows, though not before he accidentally wandered too close to the Unfun Gas and had to have Whiskey pull him from the brink.

  "Hold on, I will heal you again," Whiskey said, laying her hands upon their effected body parts.

  Feeling a healing warmth on his skin, his wounds passed from pained to better. "That's incredible healing, Whiskey. You have a talent for it," he said, though she had already moved on to healing Jiehong.

  "It is, I must admit. I never thought I would have healing talent. No one in my village taught me healing magic. Well, not true, I guess. They did teach me basic healing stuff, but nothing no one else learned before their tenth birthday," she said, concentrating on her healing task. "That's neither here nor there, though. Please, quiet while I heal!"

  Zan waited for Whiskey to finish healing his brother before talking to her again. "So, how did you get so good?" he asked.

  "Practice with the rebels, I guess. There were a lot of situations over there which required a healing hand. A rebel's favorite hobby is to explore 'fisticuffs with locals or guards,' especially if an amount of alcohol is involved. Sometimes, I did nothing but heal -- heal rebels, heal guards, if I had to, heal the random mother and child who needed an emergency healing in the night because her shetty husband hit them... gods. I'm happy to be out of that situation."

  Not knowing how to respond to a situation like that, he simply said, "I'm glad you are with us, too. We'll be a much better situation for you than, well, all that!"

  "You guys already have been -- though I still retain fond memories of my time with the rebels. It wasn't all drunken fights and abusive martials. But we should get onto the Fatal Graze over there, since they are still alive. Doing their thing," Whiskey said, changing the topic.

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  Testing his muscles, Jiehong stretched. "Yeah," Jie said. "I agree. Let's end it. Zan. How about we tag-team them? You on that side, me on the other, and we let the grenades rip. Then we can toss flaming trash to clear out the survivors."

  "Let's not do the grenades," he said. "Way too loud and the last time we used them against this fae-network. Plus, they resisted the impact well. I don't want to do that again just for the same result."

  "That's fine. Then how about... that 'Sweeping Fire' incantation you used before?" Jie said. "If you can teach me how you did that, we could do it both together and coat the grazes, gradually sending the fire deeper across the wall until the whole fungus burned."

  "I can teach you the basics of what I did, but I don't really know how I used Sweeping Fire. Just that I sort of built-up flame magic and then let is all out and continued to let it out long after I should've stopped. I don't have enough magic to use the incantation anyway. I could do a simple fire ball..."

  The group thought it over. Eventually, Jiehong said, "That's fine. Let's get it over with -- wait! You have those Rescue Kits in your satchel, right?"

  "I do... I guess. Why?" he asked, wondering what his brother was up to.

  "Because those kits have special pills which contain a residue of magic. Take them and we can clear out these Gazes together with Sweeping Flames."

  Taking a few heartbeats and then breathes to respond he said, with some reluctance, since he knew Jie seemed plucked upon his idea, "I don't like it. I don't think we should get accustomed to using weird artificial magic pills to get the job done. Let's just target them with simple flame spells."

  Jiehong groaned. "AND THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE USED FOR!" his brother yelled though more with emphasis instead of anger.

  Not knowing what he should say, Zan remained silent.

  Whiskey eventually intervened: "I have to take Jiehong's side on this one. It's not like those kits come with a ton of pills. I don't think there is any danger in us using them responsibly. I would normally agree with you, though, Zan. Because you're right. These pills are strange and new creations. We don't know how they could influence us long-term. Considering our needs today, however, and the fact the Slipstream is not out, we should use the pills. That is why we bought the kits, remember."

  Throwing his hands in the air in a mock display of giving up, he muttered a "Fine," and unlatched his satchel, pulling out the Rescue Kits and the pills. He grabbed a handful of the pills from the kits and placed the kits back into his satchel. He swallowed the pills with the very last bits of water -- hoping he would not get a parasite from it because he had gotten the water from a natural source -- and waited for them to take effect.

  "How long does it take?" he asked.

  Each of his teammates shrugged.

  'This is off to a good start -- taking experimental pills and no one knows a thing about them other than how 'helpful' they are. Wonderful...' he thought.

  "It won't be any more than a few minutes, I think, for the pills to do their work. How about another silly debate in the meantime? How about: 'Your take on automotron physical therapy?'"