"Probably not. We aren’t even sure if you can level yet, and level one isn’t a great place to start the Arena at,” I answered, not wanting to dash Maud’s hopes, but that request just didn’t seem realistic, let alone safe.
“Actually, our squad is still missing mbers. If Pryte can get her added on before we go, the potential for power leveling her and greatly benefiting our future performance is there,” Rabyn replied, countering my answer.
“What if she gets hurt, though? We can’t easily protect her through a whole level, and then she’s just wounded or worse,” I asked, pointing out my thoughts on the matter.
“Barring sothing like the Jesters, and I highly doubt they can throw that at us again, she can’t be really killed or even wounded that badly on the next two floors, Dave,” Rabyn answered. He was right. I had forgotten that part. I wasn’t sure if she’d earn any experience if she didn’t finish the floor, but there was no real risk in trying, was there?
“Oh yeah, sorry, my brain isn’t doing so great this morning. It is morning, right?” I asked, looking toward the window, realizing I had no idea what ti I had actually woken up at.
“It’s not, it’s late afternoon,” Glorp answered.
“Owwwwww,” Timon moaned loudly from the ground. “Remind never to listen to Elody again. My head almost feels like my first marriage over here.”
“Hopefully that ans l is about to join us in the world of the living,” Rabyn replied with zero concern for Timon’s pain evident in his voice. Honestly, I wasn’t that far off. How much of it was even real versus the usual show?
“I’ve been awake fer the last hour, just didn’t wanna move yet, but so ass had to go and kick ,” l replied, as he slowly floated off the ground, hanging just slightly off-kilter as he reached the center of the room.
“Stay still,” Cecile said as he started working on both of the newly awakened n. Neither sounded happy about their situation, but after a few minutes of tending to by the new paladin, both of them were complaining much less.
“So, just how bad is the situation?” l asked, his floating a bit more normalized than before.
“Depends, everyone is alive, and we have a new channeler,” Rabyn started to say.
Maud interrupted to announce her news with another happy shout. “It’s !”
“Yes, it’s her. The real question, though, is how Dave is doing. He hasn’t been using his orbs in the ways he used to, and I am growing concerned,” Rabyn finished, staring intently at . Damn, so he had noticed already. He was perceptive.
“Yeah, about that… Well, you know those nice special switches I built into my system to make it so I could actually channel without killing myself? Thanks to the soul ignition, I now have a bunch of new channels alongside them with zero switches. I have no way to currently control that flow,” I said, feeling the pressure on my chest increase sharply.
“Oh,” was all l said in response. It was a very loud silence as people looked between l and Elody for answers.
“Yes, well, you’re all incredibly lucky that I spent most of the ti that Dave was unconscious reading about soul mana and the implications of soul ignitions,” Elody said in response to the stares.
“Is there sothing I can do then?” I asked, looking at her hopefully.
“Maybe. The problem is, of course, that your core and the mana sockets attached to it are entirely unique as far as we know. The closest thing to it in existence is what we accidentally created in Maud here. But, I believe if you start training the channels, you’ll be able to work on contracting them to overlay the positions of your other existing ones. It’s possible that the gates you use for controlling your flows may begin to handle the new channels as well. I’m not sure how fast or how accurate they will be, though,” she explained. It was better than what I currently had going, at least. Could Corey help there?
“On the next floor, do we get to pick our layout of who goes with who if we have more than the minimum number of people?” I asked, debating what to do about that upcoming floor, considering my new problem and our lack of ti.
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“Yes, technically speaking, anyone can choose any path. It’s just that there are six paths that ya need ta get through. Why?” l asked, focusing intently on . Was he trying to scan again?
“I think that ans Maud is in and coming with . Between the two of us, we might make a single functional channeler by the ti we have to do this,” I said. It was the best idea I could think of, given the situation.
“Yes!” Maud yelled in the middle of literally jumping for joy. I hadn’t ever seen anyone actually do that before, and until this mont thought it was just a turn of phrase.
“As terrible of an idea as it is, I ain’t sure we really got another one. Well, the good news is that I mostly managed to sort all the orbs while y’all were fighting the orcs and got the last batch done while Dave was still unconscious. We should have a good selection for Maud and Glorp to find a class. I’ve got a feeling she counts as another mber of Sanquar’s faction,” l said, seemingly resigning himself to my idea.
“Where is Sanquar anyway? I haven’t seen him either of the tis I woke up,” I asked, looking around to make sure I hadn’t just sohow missed a large bird in the room.
“He’s in the bus, one of the mana orbs we found was a rejuvenation orb. He’s hoping it might help his core, but so far, every ti I’ve checked on him, there hasn’t been a change,” Cecile answered glumly, reminding we needed to figure out exactly how badly Sanquar’s core was broken and if there was any way we could help.
“I’ll talk to him. Should have sothing for my pounding head out there anyway,” Timon said, most of his usual humor gone as he left the house.
“Woah, I don’t feel so good,” Maud said, reaching out for John as she swayed on her feet.
“Yes, I imagine both you and Dave need a lot more rest. I think we’ve discussed enough for today. Most of us need to spend the day recovering more anyway. We can resu this talk tomorrow once Pryte is back,” Elody said.
“Good thinking,” l replied, his color shifting as his floating yet again drooped.
“Alright, you heard the lady. Glorp, Cecile, and Elicec help l and Rabyn back to the bus. Dad, you stay where you are. Alex has taken up residence in your office for now. I’m taking Maud back to bed. Elody, I assu you will find your own resting place again,” John said gently but firmly, his voice making it clear he wasn’t taking questions on his orders.
“I will, thank you,” she said as she forced herself to her feet. The exhaustion Maud had felt suddenly hit as well. While I could feel my energy building slowly, it apparently hadn’t been enough to sustain for long, either.
“Yeah, what Maud felt just hit too; back to sleep, I go,” I said, managing to get the words out before sleep rapidly overca again.
A loud boom woke up as I opened my eyes to the feeling of light shining onto my face. While as far as my perception was concerned no ti at all had passed, I could tell from my mana pool and the dulling of pain throughout my body that I had managed to sleep through the night. A loud hamring sound brought further out of my morning haze as I realized that the noise was what had actually awoken in the first place. It was coming from sowhere outside.
Getting off the couch for what felt like the first ti in days, which I realized was likely actual reality, I decided it best not to question how that had worked with certain bathroom needs, hoping it was just sothing magic-related. I opened the door and made my way outside in search of the hamring. I found Pryte, Glorp, several smaller versions of Glorp, and a man twice my size hamring away at a wall that hadn’t been there the last ti I was outside.
“I’m guessing the kids an you have good news, Pryte?” I called from across my front yard.
“Yes, I’ll fill you in on the details later, but suffice it to say for now that we have what we needed from my trip. I even found Trolke at a decent price, and that was mostly thanks to your well-tid alliance-making in the Arena,” Pryte answered. That explained the size of the man. Was he from the exact sa faction? I supposed those details weren’t overly important now. I could discuss that with Pryte later.
“What are we building first?” I asked, looking at the start of the structure.
“A bunk house. We will spread it out to actual rooms eventually, but for now we just desperately need more places for people to sleep. The bus is likely to be incredibly cramped tonight unless Trolke can get this livable in a day,” Pryte answered.
“It’s going to take a couple of days to get it done right. I need to plan out the future extensions to make sure this goes easy enough. At least the ground is solid. That saves so work. There’s also the question of the plumbing. How cold does it get here?” Trolke asked in an incredibly deep voice.
“Extrely,” I said, not entirely sure what his definition of extre cold might be.
“Hmm, I’ll examine how the current house is set up then and mirror so of that in the plans. But yes, I think I can have us all sowhere to bunk out in within a week. We’ll just have to make do with what space is available for now,” he replied, smiling as he resud swinging the hamr.
Debating whether or not soone has the right to exist is a futile gesture. At no point in the history of the known Spiral has any group ever gained their rights through rational debate. Your ti would be much better served punching the other person who is daring to argue against the cause of equality in the face rather than wasting a single extra iota of energy entertaining their argunts. Never let soone convince you a black eye isn’t an effective debate technique.
Why I Learned to Box by Glorinious Jole
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