Chapter 19: Safe Houses and Dangerous Friends

“Where...going?”

Cecilia kept moving, ignoring the startled looks and the shouts from the direction of the mage’s house. Her one look back had showed a trickle of smoke reaching for the sky. Hopefully it would distract any pursuers, because Cecilia actually had no idea where she was going. Mynet was slung over her shoulder, clearly suffering from some sort of drug or poison. And yet, he still had the ability to mumble the worst question.

“I don’t—” she pushed through a couple of loiterers, took a breath. “The palace,” she decided in that moment. “The Viscount probably has...doctors or something? Right? You’ve got to have some sort of worker’s comp, and we’ve got to tell her—”

Mynet’s hands tried to grab her skin, skittered bluntly on stone. “No. No...palace.”

“What?” She skidded to a halt. “Then where?” Mynet’s breathing was harsh and weak against her back. He said nothing and she thought he might have passed out. Or worse, might be dying. She made a frustrated noise. “I’ve got to get you some help.”

“Home. Have...antidotes. Treatments.” His voice was breathy but she could feel the effort he was putting in to try and sound firm.

“Fuck.” People were staring and a couple were starting to look around as if hoping a guard was going to show up. Someone was going to feel moved to take a stand and ask her what was going on. “Where, Mynet?”

His hand groped up her back, twisting and flailing until he could rest his hand on the back of her neck. “Here,” he croaked.

She staggered as a whole map unfurled in her head, a picture of startling clarity. At the same time, something tugged at the core of her body. To the side, one man opened his mouth. “Uh, is that man well—”

Cecilia took off running again, the question becoming a startled shout behind her before it just blended into the general hubbub. This time, she didn’t stop running until she reached a narrow house in a part of the city she’d never seen before. If she had to name the vibe, she’d land somewhere on ‘lower end middle class’; the small buildings scrunched tightly together and everything well cared for but losing the war of entropy nonetheless evoking familiar memories of childhood, even though the actual house designs were unusual. The ‘tug’ was leading her to the front door of one of the shabby little houses; no enchantments here, but the front door had a sturdy looking lock on it. “Mynet, where’s your key?”

No response. And this time, his breathing was uneven enough that she didn’t think she was going to get one. Maybe never again if she didn’t figure something out. She looked up and down the street; it was quieter here than in the commercial parts of the city, but there were still a few people loitering on steps and walking down the street. She cursed under her breath, then put her free shoulder against the door, and rammed it, one hand on the handle as if the door had just become stuck.

The wood splintered and she felt something crack inside. She pushed harder, ramming the wood until it gave way and they almost tumbled inside. Cecilia slammed the door behind them. It...slowly began to swing back open, a hole where the handle used to be. She realized she was still holding the handle, now liberated from the door. She tossed it to one side, then grabbed the first piece of furniture she saw—a heavy little table—and dragged it over to keep the door closed.

The house was narrow, dimly lit, and smelled mostly of dust. It didn’t look like a place where someone lived, for all that it was nicer than the single room that she and the other two were sharing. She unslung Mynet and propped him against the wall. “Hey. We’re here at your place. I need you to wake up and tell me where these antidotes are.”

Silence. His head lolled on his neck; his skin was swollen and, when she touched it, she could feel the heat it radiated. She tried again, louder. “Mynet! Wake up!” Nothing. She shook him, the back of his head banging against the wall hard enough to make her wince in sympathy.

He shuddered and his eyes fluttered open, dazed and dimly green. He said something, mumbled it so indistinctly that she couldn’t make out a single word.

Cecilia grabbed his chin and peered into his eyes; the pupils were tiny, barely even there. “Mynet. Stay with me. Antidote. Where. Is. It?” She was doing that thing she hated, her voice going loud and slow as if she was speaking to someone too dumb to understand her. The kind of thing some people tended to throw at anyone who spoke English with an accent. But in this case, she genuinely wasn’t sure how much of her words were getting through. “Mynet!”

“Floor...board.” He lifted a trembling hand and pointed into the main room. “R-right front leg. Blue...chair.”

She dragged him into the room and looked around. It was barely decorated; the blue chair was the only chair. Cecilia dumped him in it, and went to her knees, feeling around the leg she mentioned. Her thumb pressed on a board. It wobbled. She resisted the urge to punch through the floorboards and instead felt around until she could pry up a section of boards. The ends looked freshly cut. She noted it even as she reached for what was inside.

A small cloth pouch filled with things that clinked glassily, a supply of cash—silver and even gold—and...a series of small, easily concealable knives. Cecilia froze. “Jesus, Mynet. I feel like I should be finding a bunch of passports in five different names in here.” She pulled open the pouch to find little glass vials filled with a straw-colored liquid. “Are you a spy or a drug dealer?”

He pawed vaguely towards the vials. None of them were labeled, but they all seemed to be the same thing. “Do not OD on me, man,” she muttered, even as she tugged out the stopper on the first one she grabbed. She poured the liquid down Mynet’s throat and he was still conscious enough to swallow on his own, at least. “Do you need two?” she said, once it was down. She reached for another vial.

Mynet made a gurgling noise and pushed her hand away. “Guess that’s a no, then.” She put everything back, covering the hideyhole with its protective panels once again. Mynet appeared unchanged, except his eyes had closed again. Cecilia licked her lips. Anxiety and disappointment made her pace the wooden floor before the chair. “It’s a fantasy world. You’re supposed to take the antidote and just get better. Maybe a little song plays in the air or there’s a message: status effect cleared. Something like that. This fucking sucks.”

Mynet opened his eyes, bleary and unfocused. Then his mouth. She froze, waiting to catch whatever he had to say. Instead, he flopped forward and vomited on the floor between his feet. Cecilia screamed and jumped out the way of the mess. Then moved closer and held his hair as he heaved again and again. Eventually, there was nothing else that could come up and Mynet was just wheezing painfully. “Oh man. C’mon. Here we go. You’ve got a bed somewhere. Probably.” She picked him up, gently, and went looking.

There was a bed. And a bedroom, even, a tiny little room with nothing but a wardrobe, a basin set in one corner, and said bed, and never had Cecilia resented this world’s apparent lack of pillows than looking at that sad little mattress with its single blanket. She laid Mynet out on his side, facing the edge of the bed. Cecilia dragged the basin over, having unfortunately been in the world long enough to realize exactly what it was intended for. But it was clean and at least...if he needed something, it was there.

Stolen novel; please report.

At a loss, she perched herself on the very edge of the bed, one hand on his shoulder, keeping him on his side. Silent, Cecilia waited.

Mynet shivered under her touch. There were more dry heaves, and he broke out into a sweat. It was a strange, sour sweat that tried to stick to her stone skin when she tried to wipe his forehead. She desperately wished that magical communication was a thing. Maybe Cantor could identify what he’d been hit with. Maybe Shin knew enough about poisons and things to reassure her that she hadn’t just made everything worse.

But they weren’t there. Cecilia was. She left him only briefly, to search the house for a source of water. She found a tiny bathroom, and exhaled in relief to find that the basin hadn’t been emptied. The water was filmy and lukewarm, but it didn’t look too unclean. She tore a strip from her shirt, and returned with the water. She dipped the cloth in the water and slowly wiped his exposed skin clear of the sticky sweat. As she cleaned his hairline, she paused.

Parts of Mynet’s scalp were black. It was impossible to see from a distance, covered by his thick hair, but from up close, she could see what looked like designs or tattoos of some sort, narrow and looping, on the skin. She tried to trace the pattern, but it didn’t seem to be letters, and she kept losing the shape of it. She leaned in closer.

He turned, grabbing her wrist with a sudden, powerful move. He locked his eyes on her, the green no longer unfocused. “Stop.”

Cecilia wasn’t as afraid as she might have considered being under other circumstances. His fingers were trembling against her skin. She couldn’t suppress the smirk. “Or you’ll have to kill me?”

Mynet swallowed, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Stop,” he said again, but it had lost all its power. His grip loosened, and the hand flopped limply to his chest.

She stared at him, then sat back and patted his hand. “Alright. Keep your secrets, Mynet. We’ve all got ‘em. Just don’t die on me. You haven’t even paid us yet.” When that got no reaction, she realized that on whatever spectrum he’d been riding between consciousness and unconsciousness, he was currently on the latter end. She sighed and added, more quietly, “Also, don’t die because I’ve never been there when someone died, when a friend or a family member has died especially, and I really don’t want to do that now.”

His breathing had settled into a deep, more even rhythm. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but it even looked as if the swelling of his skin was receding. With nothing else to do, Cecilia sat on the edge of the bed and prepared to wait.

[Level Up! Stat Points to Distribute. Skill Points to Distribute. Choose one (1) Technique!]

Baffled, Cecilia began to giggle.

Level 6. She had a feeling Cantor would lose his mind over this one. With a Unique class, he could only give her minimal guidance on what, actually, created a level up for her. Making friends, trusting people with her secrets, and now, saving friends from very angry mages all seemed to be candidates for it, but she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe she really was the embodiment of Friendship is Magic, and should probably be grateful she hadn’t ended up with a cutey mark or a tail.

Considering what had just happened, though, she figured this was as good a time as any to spend her points. She had six points to distribute this time, just as with her first level. She briefly reviewed her current stats:

[Might: 15]

[Grace: 11]

[Endurance: 15]

[Intellect: 12]

[Perception: 10]

[Soul: 11]

She was tempted to dump everything into Might and call it a day. Punching things really hard was working out pretty well for her. But her encounter with Janna suggested that might not be the case for long. Experience suggested she was going to need something to help counter mages and, as much as it saddened her, just a bigger punch might not do it.

Even so, she dropped two points into it. She was rapidly growing to discover that she enjoyed punching things as a method of problem solving. Maybe she wasn’t going to be a one-trick pony, but a strong Triple Strike still made a damn good opening trick. Before distributing the other four, she looked back over her Skills and Techniques to see what had opened for her. Under Primal Golem, nothing much had changed: she still had Golem Endurance, Morph Limb, and Fluid Attributes waiting for her. Fluid Attributes was tempting: it would let her keep pumping Might, while also giving her some flexibility when she needed it.

The Elemental skill tree had opened further when she’d chosen Fists of the Forge: the new skill there was Reforged and Reborn. She called up the explanation. It allowed her to make substantial changes to the physical reality of her body...so long as she had the proper materials and time to be ‘reborn’. A shudder ran through her. She could see the use of it, but the thought of twisting her body even more off of ‘true’ evoked a kind of atavistic horror in her.

Could I use it to become more human, rather than less? Maybe. She could at least give herself the right shape. If she had materials. And time. More, she didn’t see how it would be much help in the near future. Mudbody, another skill, she dismissed for much the same reason. A sticky, gooey, malleable form might be useful, but the thought of actually using it made her sick to whatever passed for her stomach.

She shied away from the Golem trees for the moment. It was just too much; everything there seemed to be about changing her. She had barely even gotten used to the her that existed now. Changing wasn’t a priority. Soul of Vengeance still had Soul Marking, and when she’d taken Awakened Eye for a boost to her Perception last level, it had revealed a more interesting skill: Tracker. That was nearly useless without Soul Marking, but once she had marked a soul, Tracker let her focus on one soul at a time and actually follow the route the person had taken. For once, the Soul of Inquiry tree was less interesting: the skills there were Greater Translation, which was just a passive boost to understanding all forms of language and not just the most ‘common’ language that everyone seemed to speak, and Lucid Dreaming. Which was exactly what it sounded like; she’d gain the ability to recognize she was dreaming, shape her dreams, and even practice certain actions in her dreams to gain proficiency. It wasn’t useless, and if they were going to make a Door of Smoke, Cecilia was willing to bet that she would need that skill to do anything useful there.

But, much like Reforged and Reborn, it felt like a ‘later’ purchase. Right now, as creepy as she still found Soul Marking...she had to admit that it felt like something that would be immediately useful. She flexed her will, and the skill lit up green. At her present Perception, she could mark two souls. She immediately reached out and touched Mynet’s head. “Bink,” she whispered to herself, because there wasn’t actually a sound when she set that mark, but she felt in her soul that there should be. A new skill unveiled itself: Marked Target. It allowed her to do bonus ‘soul damage’ to anyone she’d marked. She winced. “Sorry, Mynet. Feeling a bit weird about that one, now.”

She considered removing the mark. Then thought about the tattoos in his hair and the tiny, sharp little knives he was hiding under his floor. She left it the way it was. Instead, she took Tracking. If nothing else, it’d be helpful after this for keeping her little trio together. Or at least knowing where they were. Tracking revealed another two skills: Find Weakness and Eye for the Otherworld. Both made Cecilia’s mouth water. The first boosted the Analysis skill, letting it identify banes and weak spots on targets of her level or below. The second gave her a passive boost to Perception, while also giving her an ‘awareness’ of objects or people heavily influenced by other worlds. She wasn’t quite certain what that meant, specifically, but she was willing to bet it’d help her find Doors.

That just left her Technique and the last stat points. She put all four points into Perception. The world sharpened around her, small noises becoming more distinct and easier to pinpoint, while colors popped. She could also now mark three souls. She qualified for several Techniques, now. It seemed the higher her stats went, the more those opened up. The two that called to her most were Disarming Attack and Stunning Blow. Both used a small amount of mana to give her punches the ability to, well, disarm and stun her opponents.

But was that leaning too hard into the one trick? She also now qualified for Flame Bolt, which would give her a ranged attack—unsurprisingly, a projectile that did fire damage. A weirder possibility was Arcane Aura. It was also exclusive to her Ensouled Golem class. It allowed her to activate a shield on her skin which was charged by consuming magic that touched her. The voice explained that it would only nullify a pure energy spell like Arcane Bolt; solid projectiles would retain their velocity and power. But even so, she was tough and if the shield strengthened her even further...she went ahead and chose it. It never hurt to have a surprise up your sleeve when dealing with magic.

With that, the voice of levels and the glowing text all faded into the back of her head. Sixth level was, from what Cantor had explained, finally getting into ‘professional’ territory. And with her boosted stat and skill points, she was probably the equivalent of an eighth level person with a common class.

Would it be enough to get her and her friends out of whatever was going on in Can Gallos?

She studied the sleeping Mynet, and wondered.