Alex

  After the meal, Grum had offered us rooms for the night. Troelsk had returned with news that Squidlen was on his way to a chaos port named Last Safe Harbor. In other times, I’d have likely commented on the name, but I didn’t currently have it in me.

  Some of the numbness had given way as the day wore on, though. The complete shell I thought I’d remain was wearing away. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. I was pretty sure that it was all that was really holding me together at the moment.

  What would Dad have done once the reality started to set in and outweigh the terror? He had likely tossed himself into something to hold a distraction, but he had had years of practice to refine that. As much as I loved him and even forgave him for what happened, I didn’t have the luxury of a decade of learning to ignore my soul-crushing problems before being thrown into even bigger ones.

  I at least knew something he must have done at some point, or at least close to it. And as Mel was still floating on one side of the common room, it seemed as good as any to bring it up. It wasn’t like sleep would come easy if it came at all, any time soon. So why waste the time on the pretense?

  “Mel, before we left, I asked Ivan for mana and class orbs he thought would be powerful. He instead had me grab everything in two drawers. When the fight happens, I want to be ready. So to that end, can you help me look through these and pick the strongest combinations?” I asked, a hint of pleading had escaped my lips with the words.

  “Of course. In fact, glad ya thought ahead enough ta grab these. Also, look, no one here, ‘sides maybe me knows just what yer going through. I ain’t gonna pretend what we faced was the same thing. Comparing losses is a fool’s errand. But I want ya ta know, no matter how much ya blame yerself, even if yer convinced it was entirely yer fault, it don’t matter. That won’t help us save the kid. What will is getting yer head screwed well enough ta think clearly the next time we fight ‘em,” Mel answered.

  Mel’s words surprisingly penetrated the haze. They hit at the core of everything I felt. Intellectually, I knew he was right, but emotionally, I wasn’t there yet. From a pure logic standpoint, walking through the world blaming myself, unable to focus on the events around me entirely, would put me at a huge disadvantage. It would hinder the only real tangible goal I had.

  But I was still human. I wasn’t just a creature of logic, no matter how often in my life I may have wanted otherwise. And currently the things I felt made me feel like I was barely able to breath. Mel’s words would have to be enough of a life preserver for now, while I worked to get a real grip on the emotions.

  I forced myself to put aside those thoughts for now and nodded at Mel, trying to display some semblance of gratitude. He just nodded back in his own odd bobbing way. Instead of further dwelling on the interaction and the hurricane inside myself, I produced all of the orbs from my System storage and set them carefully on the table in the center of the room.

  “Huh, this was really the best we had available? Nah, I suppose it makes sense, prolly had ta start figuring out builds fer the Reltleons after all,” Mel said, looking down at the orbs.

  There were a variety of colored mana orbs, a total of nineteen of them. I wasn’t sure which color meant which, but I did know they corresponded to their types somehow. It hadn’t been something I had been too interested in before. That was another mistake I was paying for. As for the class orbs, there were a dozen of them, and they all looked the same as far as I could tell.

  “Most of these are just deep scout Orc specialized classes that yer not gonna want. Sure, they’ve got a lot of experience dumped into them, but that makes the paths locked, ya’d still have to actually learn the class abilities, maybe if ya were a member of their faction with the bonuses that came with it would make it worth bothering. But ya ain’t so it certainly not how we’re playing this,” Mel said, pushing eight of the class orbs to the side.

  “And the others?” I asked, looking at what was left.

  “Well, first we’ve got a berserker and a blood singer orb. They’re both entirely viable choices, but I don’t think either of them fits ya very well. Plus these last two. They are the interesting ones. These had to have come from Reltleon stocks, unless some really weird shit happened while I was gone. Likely they’ve been sitting around awhile, as most people wouldn’t fully realize what they had here,” Mel said as he produced two cloud arms to examine the orbs closely.

  “This is just a generic scout class, which, in theory not the greatest, but it’s one of the classes that has a full multiclass path. This second orb is if ya go with it, and I think ya should, we’ll have to be a bit careful about. Luckily, we’re heading for a region that don’t give a shit about laws, so the thief class should be fine out there. It’s more of an issue fer when we get back,” Mel continued.

  “Okay, so you think I should use both then? How does that work?” As far as I knew, Dad and the others only had the single class.

  “The thief class is similar ta the scout in that they are both very basic, generic classes, but most of those tend ta come with a multiclass path. A few of them, like I said, have a full one. These two orbs happen ta both be ones with full paths. What that means is that there will be zero penalties ta using both, and if ya push the multiclass paths hard on both ‘em, yer likely to force a class evolution into something much more powerful,” Mel answered, his color shifting to a deep green as he set both orbs back on the table.

  I wasn’t sure. I felt like I was missing something here. “If this is such a powerful combination, why wouldn’t anyone be using these two orbs together already?”

  “That’s just it. It ain’t powerful. Well, at least it ain’t without a lot of work ta tailor it yerself. Most factions don’t like the idea of special little soldiers, far ta hard ta train properly. Sure, some of their lordlings are allowed ta go that path, but most ‘em just use some of their legacy classes then.” Mel picked up a couple of the mana orbs as he explained.

  “Okay. I think I’m getting it then. I get two classes for the price of one, at least as far as ability selection goes, and eventually I can combine them into something even better. Am I following?” I thought this had to be what he was getting at, and I could see the benefit. Though I questioned just what kind of class I could evolve them toward in my current mental state.

  “More or less, and good enough fer now. Next up, we’ve got the mana orbs. In this case, yer gonna only want one to focus on, and there are a couple of good choices, I think. This one is gonna be more about how you think yer gonna fight best.” Mel paused and held up four mana orbs, one in each arm.

  In his furthest left hand was a red orb, followed by a brownish grey one, then a light pink, and finally a green orb with streaks of red in it. I had no idea what any of them were. Despite that, there was something about the last one that held my eye.

  All of Mel’s hands closed except the one around the red orb. “This is a life orb, mostly gonna be healing magic. This is the least useful of the four, I think, but a lot of people like ta go down this route.”

  That hand closed and the one with the brownish grey orb opened. “This is a telepathy orb. It can be extremely powerful, but it takes the right kind of person ta be willing to push it ta that end. I don’t think yer the type, but if you want ta go that route, entirely yer choice.”

  I didn’t think I did either. I could understand why it would be so powerful, but the idea of altering someone’s mind against their will, even as angry as I was at the moment, felt deeply wrong. No, I wasn’t willing to go down that path.

  “If ya ain’t comfortable with the telepathy, the same will prolly be true here,” Mel said, closing one hand while opening another that held the light pink orb. “This is an enthrall orb. It’s similar ta telepathy, but a bit more specialized.”

  He was right. I didn’t want that either, but as he opened his final hand, again I felt myself drawn to what it contained. There was something about that orb that seemed to sing to me, breaking past some of the inner turmoil my mind currently faced.

  “This is a tropical rainforest mana orb. It’s one of the specialized terrain mana orbs. Usually, it combines a bit of life magic with some mana-draining capabilities ta fuel weather effects. I’ve also seen some people go down plant elemental paths with it. It can be pretty powerful in the right hands, and this is what I think would be best for ya,” Mel finished, holding out all four hands.

  I entirely agreed. I reached out and grabbed all three of the orbs he had suggested, and then I realized I again didn’t know what I was doing. What did I do with them now?

  As I went to ask, Mel spoke first. “Hold each up near yer heart, one at a time, and let yer core pull them in. Be a little forceful, but not ta much.”

  I did as he said. Each one slid into me. It felt like they were fitting into an opening I didn’t fully realize was there. I pulled up my menus and took a look through each of them, starting with the mana orb.

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  As I was only level eleven, I didn’t have any skill ranks yet to spend. That would be something I needed to change soon. All of these magical skills seemed incredibly useful, and some of them made me understand just what had pulled me toward this orb.

  Before I could exit out of the menu and move to my class menu, a new message flashed in front of my eyes.

  Neither of the quests had rewards listed. Was that normal? I would ask Mel once I finished examining the classes.

  One of the biggest questions within the medical science field that remains unanswered to this day is how precisely healing magic works. What I don’t mean by the question is what happens when a healing effect is applied to a subject. What I do mean is, on an underlying level, how does the act of healing work? I’m sure many people reading this are screaming at the book right now, something along the lines of ‘well obviously it accelerates the person’s own natural healing systems.’

  But that answer quickly falls apart under any real scrutiny. For example, if all the magic is doing is supercharging the patient, then how would it be possible to heal someone from something that has obliterated their own mechanisms to do so? There exist healers out there so powerful that they can put a person back together again from only a pile of ash, as long as they act before the soul has moved on.

  This is where the near-death state exists, and while I can certainly name it, as that’s what it has been called for hundreds of years, we still don’t know how it possibly works. What is the magic even grabbing onto in order to recreate the body? Is there some sort of imprint carried by the soul itself that allows for the building blocks of a person to be created? It would somewhat explain the much harder act of resurrection.

  What makes this all the stranger is that most magical effects either release a type of mana as they occur or alter the mana type to something else as they occur. Life magic does not seem to do that. Even the various things created with it to better work in healing a patient still show no signs of life mana at all. Instead, the mana seems to be an applied version of their own core energies. So then I posit to Spiral my theory. Life magic connects directly into the soul-core reaction itself, and that is what it boosts. Should that reaction have failed, but the soul is close enough for the magic to find it, it will then reignite the reaction, rebuilding the subject.

  Medicine, Healing, Life by Gerald Grall Skreel

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