A/N If you are enjoying the story please give a rating to it, Thank you!

 

Neil 

 

DING 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

 

 

The elation at seeing the blue boxes appear in my face was tempered by the absolute exhaustion I felt. This wasn’t the dirty feeling in my soul that I was starting to associate with mana shock, but just a regular kind of exhaustion, like I had just run a marathon and fought a flesh monster at the finish line. 

 

I was too tired to keep standing let alone raise my arms to swipe at the boxes in front of my face. Sinking down I landed hard on my ass breathing heavily. After reading through the boxes and taking a breather I managed to get both my breathing and heartbeat back to normal, then I was finally able to swipe at the air and dismiss the first two boxes. Two spells, a level in, mana sense, mana manipulation, water affinity and even bodily attunement.  Not bad for a single fight I mused when a voice called out getting my attention. 

 

“Are you alright?” Yallia said from beside me. When did she come over here? 

 

Taking a moment to make sure my voice was steady I answered. “I’m fine.” Slowly getting to my feet with her help I looked at her and asked. “Are you ok?” 

 

“I’m fine, it never even touched me.” She said with an easy air as she slowly let go of where she was gripping my arm. When she was satisfied I wasn’t going to topple over she began cleaning her knives with a strip of cloth she produced from one of her pockets. “We should get the hell out of here though, where there’s one there could easily be more.” 

 

Seeing her standing there looking relaxed and nonchalant I was overcome by a strong wave of shame. “I’m sorry about that.” 

 

Looking up from her knives Yallia just looked confused. “About what?” 

 

“The fight, I froze at the beginning. I could barely use my magic and then when I had a spell ready, I lost it when I saw the monster, then I just panicked and I lost my grip on my mana. If you hadn’t been here I’d probably be dead right now.” 

 

Putting her knives away Yallia walked up to me stopping to grab my bag first, swinging it on her back she continuing towards me. 

 

“You never told me what you did before you came here, and it’s alright you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I can guess that you never fought anything before coming here, is that right?” At my nod she continued. “You did well, you may have frozen a little at the beginning but you snapped out of it quickly and you were the one that managed to kill it. Without that spell at the end I’m not sure that I would have been able to kill it.” 

 

“Still I froze!” I almost shouted, when I realized that my voice had risen, I stopped and lowered it back to a normal speaking level. “If it weren’t for you both of us would have been killed.” 

 

Sighing Yallia looked at me, after a few moments of staring into my eyes she spoke again. “I remember my first fight. I was 12 years old and I was with my parents exploring some Human ruins in the middle of the Rallian Desert.  

 

My father and the guards were out exploring the ruins so it was just my mother and I in the camp when we were attacked by a small group of bandits. 

 

Between my parents my mother had always been the fighter so when they attacked she killed most of them without too much trouble, but the final bandit, he was tougher or maybe just a little bit luckier than the rest. 

 

 He rushed her and knocked her to the ground, they were wrestling and while my mother was making a good accounting of herself he was still bigger and stronger than her. I still remember how the bandit smelled, it was like he hadn’t bathed in years. It was so strong it made my eyes water.” Taking a breath she continued after a moment. 

 

“They had both dropped their weapons and his weapon wound up right in front of me. I should have picked it up and stabbed him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, I could barely even breath. I was completely frozen in fear. It wasn’t until he managed to get ahold of a knife and cut my mother that I was able to move. I ended up hitting him over the head with a frying pan, it was just enough of a distraction that my mother got the knife from him and killed him. When the fight was finally over, I just kept apologizing over and over again. I knew that if I hadn’t frozen, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. She told me the same thing I’m going to tell you now. It was your first fight and you froze; it happens. The important part is that when you needed to you got it together and you fought, not only that but you fought well. That spell you used at the end was an impressive piece of magic. The next time there's a fight you’ll do even better.” 

 

“Thank you Yallia.” I said feeling better. “Seeing a face looking at me freaked me out. The next time there’s a fight I’ll try to do better.” 

 

“If you can do the same as you did this time that should be enough. Are you ok to walk? I want to get these back to our camp as soon as we can, they are far too valuable for us to be carrying around.” 

 

“Yeah I’m alright I just need a second I’ve got a blue box in front of my face and I want to try something.” 

 

“Just the one? What did you get?” 

 

“There were a few but I closed most of them, I created two spells, Water Bullet and Water Whip, I also got a level in mana sense, mana manipulation, water affinity and even bodily attunement.” 

 

“I’m not sure exactly what that translates into in terms of practical uses, but it sounds impressive. I guess looking for a fight was a good idea after all.” 

 

“Yeah, now I’m going to try and find out what bodily attunement is.” Looking at the words bodily attunement in the box I asked. “What is it?” 

 

DING 

 

 

 

 

“You were right, Bodily Attunement is how much magic I can use before getting tired or Mana Shock. I really have to use my identify ability more often it's pretty useful.” 

 

Yallia who had been looking at the monster at this point looked at me. “Where I’m from bodily attunement has always been called Soul Strength, you should be able to improve it over time just by using your magic.” She said putting down one of the monster's arms. Looking up suddenly Yallia continued. “Don’t use your identifying power on this.” She said indicating the corpse. 

 

“Why not? Shouldn’t I learn as much about our enemies as possible?” 

 

“Most of the time yes, but I think there are some things people are happier no knowing, and that includes whoever these people used to be and whatever happened to them.” 

 

Looking at the twisted pile of limbs, flesh and what remained of the head with three faces on it I had to agree with Yallia. While I may need to learn about some of my enemies, I couldn’t imagine there was anything too important to learn about this thing. 

 

“Good call, let's just get the hell out of here. Head back to camp and drop of these maps.” 

 

Nodding Yallia agreed and the two of us made our way out of the Library. I offered to carry my pack but Yallia refused. 

 

“That was a lot of Magic you used just now and you can barely walk, I’ve got it. Do you think you can use any more spells today?” 

 

Concentrating I tried to get a feeling of my mana. “I think so, I’m not in any danger of mana shock, I just feel like I ran a marathon.” Smiling I looked at her. “It was pretty amazing though, I never thought I’d be able to do something like that.” 

 

“It was impressive, I’ve always been happy with my own affinities, but sometimes I do wish I had a little more offensive punch like my mother. She had a fire and wind affinity, very powerful in a fight if you knew what you were doing.” 

 

Approaching the entrance to the Library we checked the streets for any other threats, seeing none we continued towards the building that would lead us up to our camp. 

 

“Have you ever heard of a potion that can increase stamina?” 

 

“Yeah, I’ve used them before too. Very useful, do you have any?” 

 

“I managed to make a few, they're in my bag now. If I use one would I be able to use magic for longer without being exhausted?” 

 

“Yes, but it makes your souls less effective at purifying mana so you would be at greater risk for mana shock, even still a lot of mages will carry one just in case, but I don’t you recommend using one today. If you're that tired it would be best for us to rest for a time.” 

 

“I'm feeling a lot better now, maybe if we rest up and have something to eat we can do a little more exploring before the night eye potions wear off.” 

 

Our plan decided we picked up our pace towards the center of the city. I was about to go around the building when Yallia pointed to the back of the building.  

 

“Let’s take a look over here, it wouldn’t make sense for a building this central to have only one entrance.” 

 

As we approached the building, we saw that she was in fact correct, there was a set of double doors almost identical to the set on the other side of the building. Opening them we found ourselves on the main level behind the ugly statue in the center of the room. I really hadn’t done a very good job of searching this level if this set of doors was right here. I must have been so distracted by the city that I never really looked around here too well. 

 

Getting up to our camp was easy enough and everything was fortunately as we left it. I started cooking a quick lunch, using the last of my MRES while Yallia took the opportunity to look through the books and scrolls that we brought back with us.  

 

We hadn’t taken the time to examine them to thoroughly when we had found them, we just shoved anything with a map in it into our bags. In total we ended up with 8 scrolls and 4 books. There were almost certainly more but these were already heavy and carrying more than that would have proven too difficult so we stuck with what we had found for now. 

 

Setting the food in front of Yallia she was so engrossed with what she was seeing she barely noticed. 

 

“Find anything interesting?” 

 

“Yes, this city is much less isolated than I had thought. I can see a half a dozen points on this map that indicate other settlements. Most of them on this island but several on outlying islands, and even one in the middle of the ocean.  

 

I’ve never had access to a map this detailed before, I don’t think anyone has in the last two hundred years. If we can explore even half of these I couldn’t imagine the wealth of knowledge we would find.  

 

Even the knowledge that Humans were wiped out hundreds of years after we thought would be enough to make someone famous. Evidence that a Human population managed to ride out the fall at least for a time, it changes everything we thought we knew of the fall.” 

 

“According to Jax the Humans came here looking for something to save themselves and were destroyed by whatever they found here. If that’s true then whatever killed them might not have even been what caused the fall. It could have been a completely separate event.” 

 

“While that is possible I think it best if we assume that whatever caused the fall and whatever wiped out the Humans here were the same thing. If only because two separate forces that could destroy entire civilizations is too terrifying to consider.” 

 

“Fair enough, so unless I’m mistaken the timeline goes something like this. The fall starts, at some point someone in the Empire decides to set up a fallback position. They come to the Alatross islands meet the Lamia and recruit them for cheap labor. They make the small city on the summit as an emergency settlement, they then make the city down here as a more permanent shelter. They begin expanding from here into the surrounding area, either in search of resources that they needed to survive or just to spread out. Sometime later they find something here that destroys their city. Either the outlying villages and other settlements are destroyed as well, or they are simply not able to survive on their own and the people in them die out. After that the Lamia here are eventually forced off of the summit, and whatever is down there goes dormant until now. If it hadn’t I would have to imagine the Lamia in this area wouldn’t have been able to survive.” 

 

“Sounds about right. I really have no idea how the two of us can seal away something that managed to destroy an entire city of Humans.” Yallia said as she put down the books and started to poke at her food. 

 

“Yeah me neither.” I said finishing off my meal. “Our only real hope is that if it is in fact dormant and we haven’t woken it up yet. If that’s the case we may be able to collapse some tunnels on top of it. If it were buried here then that should do the trick.” 

 

“And if not?” 

 

“Then we pack up our shit and run like hell into the jungle. If we do it right and avoid being seen by the Lamia then they might never even know that we’ve left here and would hopefully just assume that we died down here. I still have enough ingredients that we can make half a dozen more stamina potions, that should be enough to get us miles away from the Lamia, and from what I’ve seen they are not exactly built for endurance.” 

 

For the first time since we had started this conversation Yallia started smiling. “I’m glad to hear your keeping our options open.” 

 

“Yeah, I’ve decided that I’m ok not fighting something that was able to wipe out an entire city of people who were probably a lot stronger than me. Speaking of options, I was wondering about your magic. Do you have any spells or anything a little more offensive? Or is it mostly just the illusions?” 

 

“Mostly the illusions, I do have some wind blades I can use but they aren’t very strong, I mostly use my air affinity to sense movement around me.” 

 

“You can do that? I’d love to learn how to do that sometime. But what about using lasers with your light affinity?’ I asked. 

 

“A what?” 

 

“A laser is a focused beam of light. If you get enough of it you can burn things or cut them.” 

 

“That’s not something I’ve ever heard of before.” Yallia said hesitantly. “Do you know how it works?” 

 

“Not the specifics. Do you have magnifying glasses? The round glass lenses that you can look through and things are bigger?” 

 

“Of course.” 

 

“You know how you can use them to focus the sun to a point and then use that point to start fires? Or burn things? I think it's sort of like that but much more powerful and strong enough to melt steel.” 

 

Yallia looked deep in thought as she slowly ate her lunch. She kept asking me questions about light that I unfortunately couldn’t answer. While I had done ok in high school, I had never really taken any physics classes and it wasn’t like I had more than a basic idea of how lasers actually functioned. Hopefully this would be enough to get her started, and if not, well it wasn’t like she was in a worse place than before. 

 

When she finally finished her lunch, we looked at each other. 

 

“We should have a few more hours left on our night eye potions and I don’t want to waste them. I think we should head back out to the city.” 

 

“Are you sure? If you get Mana Shock again it could lead to some nasty complications and a much longer recovery time.” 

 

“I’m sure. We don’t have enough resources for us to be sitting around here wasting time. I think we should head to the farmland on the outskirts of the city, we can see if there are any plants or anything that we can use. I also wouldn’t say no to some more practice with my magic if we find an easy fight.” 

 

“Alright, I would never say no to exploring a Human city. Tomorrow though I think we should take a look at the lower levels, try to get an idea of what it is that we’re dealing with.” 

 

“Sounds good to me.” 

 

With that we readied ourselves, gathered our supplies and weapons and headed down once more.