Protector

“Be careful and don’t destroy anything,” Nuala says as she leads us inside of her home. With a flick of her tail, she lights up small bundles of green mould that’ve been placed in small metal baskets along the wall. Some glow green, others purple, and together they provide enough light to brighten the cosy little home.

The frames of more advanced lighting systems are hung along the wall, but they're aged and broken. Crystal lights are fogged over, shattered, or shining with a spark so dull that I can hardly even consider it a light at all.

The furniture is as old and discoloured as I’d expected. Great care has been taken to keep it all functional but the people living here clearly weren’t capable of replacing or rebuilding anything. The floor has been worn down into a gully through the middle from countless heavy steps, closet doors have worn away at the edges where hands have pulled them open hundreds of thousands of times, and the wooden chairs have ass marks worn into them from the passage of many cheeks.

Nuala sits on the large bed that fills one side of the little room, the furs laid over one another are clearly newer than most everything else in the room. Small holes in the ground indicate the posts of a bed that has long since been removed, probably broken beyond repair.

“Sooo…” I say, reaching out for the big fluffy tails. They pull out of my reach before I can touch even a hair. “Tch.”

“You say you wish to negotiate.” She says, “I don’t quite get why you are interested in my fur, but if that’s what you want in return I want a guarantee that you won’t take the boy.”

“Deal!” I shout, flopping on the bed and running my hands over her soft fluffy fur. She twitches uncomfortably away from my touch, but doesn’t flee, instead nervously laughing in victory.

“Krya!” Adler cries, “You can’t… seriously?! We need to bring the boy back to his family. He can’t stay here.”

“Then convince the boy to go back home.” I tell her, “He had a reason for coming out here, and I’m not about to force him to do anything. You won’t complain if the boy wants to go back?” I ask Nuala.

Nuala leers at us cautiously.

“You cannot coerce him nor force him by any other means. If he wishes to leave, he’s always been free to do so.” Nuala says, shifting around until she’s found a position where she’s comfortable. The large wound on her back leg is exposed as she lies with it facing up into the air.

All along her thigh the fur has been peeled and the muscle is violently ripped out, chunks missing. I can see some of the bone beneath, but I don’t think that’s broken at least.

“Why isn’t it bleeding?” I ask, looking over the wound and trying to figure out if there’s something I can do to help.

“Barrier magic.” She says, waving one of her four tails. “I’ve used it to stop the bleeding. So long as I don’t die, I should heal. I’d rather you worry over the child instead.”

Adler is already over by the boy’s side, wrapping up his wound with some bandages that I didn’t know she had. She seems surprisingly Skilled as she works. His injuries clearly aren’t nearly as bad as Nuala’s.

I get back to running my hands through her thick, black fur as I think.

“You don’t have anything like a healing potion around?” I ask.

“Doubtful.” She says with an awkward sounding laugh, “I don’t know everything that’s buried in here, but I doubt there’s anything so precious that has lasted. You may dig around as you please so long as you are careful not to break anything.”

Begrudgingly I get up from the fluffy, fluffy fox, and start looking through the draws and chests littered about the room. The first one that I look through is filled with old white robes of some sort; they seem ceremonial and could work as bandages for the big fox if I find nothing better.

“How long have you been living here?” Eshya asks, running her finger over a long table. It’s clean and polished, but there are thousands of small marks made from many, many years of use.

“Only a few decades.” She says, “My mother lived here before me, and her mother before her, but they’ve since taken other duties and now this one is mine. To your question, I don’t know exactly for how long this shrine has been lived in.”

“Do you get many visitors?” I ask, uncovering an old collection of bottles. Most are discoloured from whatever ancient potions they once held, but I don’t think anything good will come about from licking the magical stains.

“I’m a ‘beast’, no?” She replies, “I’m not supposed to be found. It’s too unsafe. For all of us. I just hunt the dangerous beasts that come too near to the village.”

“The foxen town?” I ask, a little off put at her calling it a village considering the size of it. “You’re here to protect them?”

She turns a sharp eye toward me, the creatures in the glowing gold depths threatening to drown me as she gathers herself.

“They’re distant family. The Unified States may have altered their minds, culture, and bodies, but they are still family. So, I’ll defend them as only a beast can.” She replies.

“The Unified States aren’t able to protect them?” Adler asks, genuinely concerned as she finishes tending to the boy’s wounds.

“I know of at least one that wouldn’t have lived if left to wait for help from your Unified States.” She hisses, wrapping a tail around the boy who’s quietly staying by her side.

“And it’s not like the Unified States have always been here, protecting this world and its people.” She bemoans, as I continue sorting through the junk.

“What happened before?” Vii asks.

“Before the Unified States declared this a special planet for their hunting and training? We had to defend this world ourselves.” She says, “It was impossible to play by the rules dictated by the Unified States, and still protect those we cared about. Or so my mother has told me.

“We broke the rules to protect those who would follow them. To be the beasts that defend civilisation.” She licks at her wounded leg.

“It shouldn’t be this way,” Adler grumbles, “You should be safe here. Is the Unified States really so weak that we can’t protect our own people?”

“Either that, or they chose to leave us suffer.” Nuala says, “Beasts roamed this world unchallenged, entire villages disappeared overnight. When matters deteriorated to the point where we feared the utter demise of our people, my ancestors made an oath to defend this world from chaos. An oath that my blood and I hold to this day.”

“The old gods.” The kid says looking up at her in awe renewed, “I always knew you really still existed.”

“Yes, but… we’re not what we once were.” She laments, “No longer do we have the support of the people. Now we’re hunted in our own homes and shrines.”

“Can’t you just return to civilisation?” Adler asks, “As intelligent as you are, you’d be accepted.”

“… Some others have. This life is… lonely, and difficult. I don’t even know how many others remain. It’s been so long since I’ve met anyone…”

The boy looks up at the ‘divine’ fox sadly but is clearly hesitant to get any nearer. The reverential overwhelming him shows that he sees more in her than I do. He completely overlooks the soft and fluffy fur, poor boy. Instead, he sees a goddess and I suspect that he’s ready to let her chomp off an arm whenever she wants. Not that she’ll take him up on it.

I tear through another of the chests buried deep in the room and discover a collection of tomes; large leatherbound books that glow bright with powerful magic. I’ve not seen anything that glows quite as bright as these books since I got my mana sense, they’re at least as bright as Red’s daggers were when I thought they were freaking space lasers.

Though the mana seems tightly bound, and as I continue watching, none of it leaks out. A quick glance back towards Vii and Eshya confirms that I can’t see clearly into them right now, yet I could see the mana flowing into spells when Adler casts, or in Nuala’s tails even now.

Will I see more clearly inside others mana forms when my mana senses further develop? Either way, that’s a problem for tomorrows me.

Whatever these magical times are, they’ve survived the purges of time more than admirably. I pull out one at the end of a row and bring it over to the others, who are busy talking.

“What are these?” I ask, holding it out towards them. “It seems powerful.”

“I… I’m not sure. Something left by those who tended this place before my time,” Nuala says. “Some powerful, magical artifact?”

“You really haven’t dug through these before?” I ask her in disbelief.

She slowly lifts up her large paws, waving them slowly just so that I get the picture.

“These aren’t suited to fiddling with such silly boxes.” She says, “I’ve heard from grandmother that we used to have attendants, but…”

“Ah, sorry.” I say, “Does anyone know what these are?”

“May I?” Alder asks, waving for the book. She flips through the pages carefully, looking them over one by one. Though my mana senses are dull, even I can see that the pages are all different, infused with mana tightly bound and shaped differently on each page.

The script that I see with my real eyes is dizzying; circles, and circuits, and shapes unfamiliar. Characters, which might be a part of a language or just a little caricature that someone decided to scribble in the middle of the page. A little mouse inside a leaking circle above a shining crystal, surrounded and run through by a dozen lines and shapes that pain my eyes and mind.

“Crystalised mana…” Adler says, running her hand down each page slowly, they look like they’re made from some form of leather sheets rather than paper.

“This is a spell tome. These are not common within the Unified States, they’re an inefficient use of resources but…”

“What does it do?” I ask, “Is it a magical tool like your necklace?”

“It’s similar, but different. Each of these pages contains a fully realized spell, with a flick of the wrist you can cast powerful magic using only a flicker of mana. Each of these pages uses more mana than can be found in most mana potions, and is made from leather of powerful beasts, scripted with mana dense ink, and infused with magics that… while not master level, are still the products of expert mages in their realm of study.”

“Wait, so there’s hundreds of spells just stored in those pages ready to fly?” I ask, staring at the flipping pages.

“Yes…” Adler says, her eyes moving quickly over the pages, and through the spells stored there.

I glance back over towards Nuala to gauge her reaction, but she just looks down at her own paws again.

“Not much good for me, but perhaps when the child grows up… I’ll not have you taking off with them.” She glares at us as if we’ve suddenly turned into thieves.

“I don’t think we’d be able to sneak them past Freid.” I say, looking through the chest again. The books all glow with such magic power that I know he’d take notice the moment we’re in sight. He doesn’t even trust us with real weapons, he wouldn’t let us walk out with something like this.

“Is there a healing spell in there?” I ask, looking through the different tomes hoping to figure something out, even as blurred as my mana senses are.

“Healing… I haven’t seen any, but with a collection this size…” Adler says, flipping through the pages a little faster now.

“I’ll help.” Eshya says patting my shoulder, “I can see a little more clearly than you.”

She joins me by my side, picking up a tome and flicking through the pages quickly, barely giving each one a glance.

“Me too, me too.” Vii says, popping over to help.

“Careful not to accidentally cast any of the spells.” Adler says, “Else we’ll probably all die. These are some nasty magics.”

I move the tomes around, unable to tell fire from water, and gravity from healing. My hands move instead to the one book that doesn’t have the same power radiating from it. Inside, I find much of the same script, but I can feel no magic in it and the pages are made of thick grainy paper instead of the leathers of the other tomes.

There’s some script on the side of the page, describing the different parts of the drawn spells and what they do. It seems as though the circular circuits are written with the purpose of better containing a shadow magic spell. First, an infusion mage needs to cast a ‘capture magic’ spell into the ink circuits, and if it holds, a shadow mage needs to cast an applicable spell into the circuit using sufficient mana to fill the page, not so much that it overburdens the material.

There are descriptions for each type of magic and the different quirks to capturing them, as well as how to refine the leathers and inks needed in the production of such a tome. The author seems unhappy with the results, apparently used to superior work, but the book has been written assuming that the reader is an amateur and is very easy to follow.

“Do you think I could do this same thing with bullets?” I ask, looking down at the pages, “Or arrows I suppose would make more sense for you.”

“Similar methods are used among stronger warriors. I would strongly advise you use those methods over this, as this is just wasteful.” Adler says, “Here, this would likely work, but we still need something to replace the missing flesh.”

“Take my flesh!” The young boy insists, but after a moment of looking at the overeager boy, everyone chooses to ignore him.

“Do you have food anywhere?” Adler asks, “Preferably the muscles and flesh of a beast.”

“Perhaps we should save the magic.” Nuala says, “I’ll heal in time.”

“You can’t fight as you are.” Eshya says, “Did you defeat that beast that you fought out there?”

“I forced it to retreat…” She says, a little too uncertainly.

“If it comes back, could you fight it as you are?” Eshya persists.

“There is smoked meat.” Nuala says with a defeated sigh, “Take what you need.”

“I’ll get it.” Vii says, hoping over to a closed door and hopping inside.

“Will it work?” I ask, “Isn’t healing magic really complicated? How can a stored spell manage to work at all?”

“By making up for the lack of direction with overwhelming mana. It is extremely wasteful, but likely works.” She says, clearly unhappy about the tomes, “We could heal a hundred injuries of this size with the mana in this spell, but instead most of the mana is going to be wasted.”

“It seems pretty useful to me.” I say, staring at the page over her shoulder, “It sounds like just what I’ve been after. Maybe there’s a photocopier somewhere in here…”

“Take even a page from these books and they’ll be confiscated before we get back to the academy.” She informs me, as Vii reappears with a moderately sized carcass hanging over her arm.

“Where do I put it?” Vii asks, hopping awkwardly by the side of the fox’s wounded leg.

“Heal the boy as well,” Nuala says, “His injuries need not leave a permanent scar.

“Together,” Adler says, “This spell is easily capable of a group healing. Anyone else injured? Let’s minimize this waste.”

“Oh, I’ll get in on that then.” I say, “My legs are bit… broken? Bruised? Can’t really be sure without an x-ray, and I doubt I’ll find one hiding in one of these boxes.”

“Stop with the nonsense and stand with the injured.” Adler says with a sigh. “And you should tell your team sooner when you’re injured.”

“Sorry, it’s just there was so much going on.”

“Like petting Nuala?” Adler sighs, “No one else? Good.”

Vii and Eshya stand over to the side watching, as they discuss something quietly between themselves. They smile at me when they notice that I’m looking their way. They must be talking about me.

“And, just like so~!” Adler sings, as she flicks her finger over the page with the healing spell. The magic passes through the leather, disintegrating it as the mana unfolds and flows into action.

I watch carefully as thousands of golden threads of mana fill the air around me. Even though I try to keep track of what’s happening, they weave through everything and heal us before I can understand what’s going on with the mana.

~Skill developed

~Mana sense

The meat that was used as a material base has been eaten through by the spell, and in return all of us are free of injury. Even the fur on Nuala’s leg has regenerated to a degree, though not fully.

“Such a waste of mana.” Adler sighs yet again, “Though I suppose I can see the value in it when away from a healer...”

“I need to get me a library full of them.” I say, hopping up to look over the ashen remains of the page that disintegrated in the process of using the spell. Adler carefully brushes the dust from the tome before closing it up.

“Now, it’s time to talk about the child.” Adler says turning the subject, “Why is it that you don’t want to return to your family?”

He nervously messes with the bandaging wrapping his, now healed, leg. He tries to look away, but Nuala runs a tail along his back encouragingly and he stands up straighter.

“I want to live here, with divine Nuala.” He says hesitantly, “I don’t want to go back. Please don’t make me go back.”

“It’s dangerous to live out here.” Adler insists, “You’ll be regarded as a beast, you won’t be able to go back home.”

“This is my home now.” He insists, “I’m not going back!”

“There was an old man—your grandfather perhaps?­—he was asking for you, worried about you.” Adler says more softly.

“No.” The boy says lowering his head, unable to face us. “I won’t go back.”

“You can tell them.” Nuala prompts, “I’ll make sure they don’t cause trouble for you.”

The boy nods, quietly before speaking up again.

“He’s not the same.” The boy starts, “Pop was always looking after me, he was nice for a long time, but lately… he started getting confused, then angry. When he got angry, he hit me.”

“Can’t someone in town help you?” Adler asks, “You don’t need to go this far.”

“They know.” The boy says, “They all know, but they didn’t stop it. I’m not going back!”

Adler nods quietly, and I can see a thousand thoughts swirling behind her eyes. Her tall white ears flicker about with movement detailing every thought bouncing around inside her head.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” I ask the kid, who nods vigorously.

“I want to stay here.” He says, “I’ll grow up strong, and one day I’ll make everything better again. I’ll tell all the villages that Nuala and the divines are good, and we should respect them properly.”

“You’ll fail.” Adler says, her words weak but desperate, “You’ll fail and get hurt.”

“I’ll get hurt anyway.” He says, bravely standing up to her.

“Kyra,” Adler turns to me desperately trying to find the right words.

“Let him make his own mistakes.” I say, “Let him live his life. I can’t really judge, considering the path that I’m on.”

Adler bites her lip and marches outside. She’ll need some time to think, I just hope that she’ll come to a good conclusion.

“She’ll be alright?” Nuala asks.

“Either that, or we’re in trouble.” I reply, diving into her side, “Now, more fluffy time.”

“Must you?” She grumps but doesn’t move.

“We made a deal.” I insist, rubbing my face in her soft, fluffy, black fur. Her tails curve around and rub my back quite nicely. I’d love something like this on my bed, and on the floor in the dorms, and literally everywhere.

“What was that you were saying about names earlier?” I ask, “Something about them being worthless?”

“Do you see my mouth?” She asks in return with a barking laugh, “Could it make the sounds that you hear when I speak to you? No. Likely not. You have some imitation sound instead, likely one completely unlike what my name actually is. If you insist on changing a person’s name in your mind, you can force such a change and the person will never know it even when you call them such to their face.”

“That’s… I don’t like that.” I realize, looking over to Vii and Eshya. Does that mean that they aren’t their real names?

“You needn’t worry about your friends, so long as they introduced themselves first, and you have an understanding of the sounds that should form their names. The translation device will first hear and store their real names properly.” She sighs.

“Still… I think I’d like to hear what they’re really saying. What their languages sound like.” I say, hearing their voices as they discuss one thing or another together. Something about Vii’s feathers, maybe?

“Unfortunately, there are few means to alter these devices, even more when they’ve been implanted. Though, perhaps you could…”

“Perhaps, what?”

“The devices work on mana, as all enchanted things. Altering it would be an incredible challenge, but perhaps, for you, removing it would be possible.”

“Maybe, but that’s not much good unless I can replace it with a better translator.” I say, hugging her fluffy tail. The brown threaded one.

“What’s with these?” I ask, pointing out the brown threading. From this close, I can see that it’s hair, just not the same as the rest of the hair on her.

“Hmmm?” She hums thoughtfully, more relaxed now with her injuries healed. “Something to channel magic through. It’s a thing I was taught by my mother, weaving the mana dense hair of a beast into one of my tails can assist in gaining a magic breakthrough related to the species I’ve stolen the hair from. After a breakthrough, it assists in casting that form of magic.”

“Yet another thing I’ve never heard of. Magic really isn’t some simple one-dimensional thing, is it?” I reply, sighing as I realize how many years it will be before I fully understand what magic is, and how to best use it.

“You’re still young, there are many years ahead.” She says, running her tail down my back, “Give it time.”

“I’m not that patient.” I reply, “There’s too much that I need to do.”

“Don’t die, and you’ll have all the time in the world.” She says, looking thoughtful.

I wonder if that sounds better in her own mind…

She freezes, her eyes perking up as she looks toward the door of the cave.

“What is it?”

“Shhh.” She hushes me closing her eyes and listening, “Oh no…”

“What?”

“You need to run,” She says, getting to her feet and running for the door, “Gather together and run. Protect the boy!”

“Vii, Eshya! I think we’ve got a fight!” I shout, glancing down at the tomes. “You two thinking what I’m thinking?”

Eshya hefts one of the large books, and Vii smiles nervously.

“I think I’d prefer my sword.” Eshya says, as she pulls out her wooden stick.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 545 units

~Mana distribution:

Skin: 24/24%

Muscle: 12/12%

Mind: 22/22%

Cardiovascular: 11/11%

Misc.: 10/10%

Efficiency: 79/79%

~Skills:

-Mana sense

-Mana drain touch

-Mana skin

-Mana shield.

-Mana surge strike

-Mana surge kick

-Grapple

-Flame burst

-Fireball

-Infused delayed casting

-Harsh petting

-Chaos dance

-Multi-mind messenger