I wake up when Caedi comes to check my wound.

She really is a beauty though I’m not normally so into blondes. She's reserved, maybe even shy, and I find I like her hair. It looks soft and shiny, a honey color, closer to brown than gold or yellow, cut just past her shoulders, which are broad, or maybe just seem so. I mean, Hypa’s a human, but slender. Caedi, as voluptuous as she is, does more to remind me that I’m tiny now. A gnome. I’m fucking two feet, nine inches tall. No longer human, which is all so strange. 

Caedi smiles and pulls the sheet down to check my scar, which looks the same as it did before. I see her close her eyes and hold a hand over it without touching, presumably to check the energy flow through the area. Then she replaces the sheet.

She says, “Have you sensed any improvement?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m pretty sure with it the way it is I couldn’t even summon my chi. I didn’t want to risk trying.”

Caedi says, “That might be a good idea until we know what we’re dealing with. We don’t get too many monks through here. There aren’t any academies or schools nearby, I don’t think, or we would ask.”

“Or maybe there are monks around but they don’t get stabbed through the middle,” says Wendy from her chair by my side. She’s got her nose in a book.

I swat her knee. “Don’t be mean to me. I’m injured.”

The big blonde healer is blushing for some reason. She says, “Hypa is really good at this. Healing. You’re in good hands.” Then she turns and leaves.

“She’s so nice,” says Wendy.

“What’s that you’re reading?”

“Hypa said it was left by the last monk they had here. Unfortunately, her wounds were too severe and she died. It’s her journal. She has some other books. Want me to get you one?”

“I can get it myself.”

“I know you feel like you can,” says Wendy. “But Hypa told you to stay in bed except to go to the bathroom until we figure out your energy flow problem. She doesn’t know what it is, why it is, or what it’s doing to you. Neither do I, and neither do you.”

I decide I’ll take a look myself. I close my eyes and concentrate. Energy flows through a body along the same routes as our blood, which only makes sense since it’s blood that carries oxygen and nutrients throughout. Our energy, like our blood, is concentrated mostly in the head, torso, and groin along with places like the lungs, and the stomach. A monk is trained to affect our energy’s flow. Right now, there’s some kind of blockage where the spear injured me. It’s causing a kind of dam in my flow of chi that’s interfering with my ability to control it. I can still move and fight, only just as well as a normal person could with my level of martial training. None of my abilities, all of which are enhanced by chi, would work as well. For example, with my Acrobatics skill I could manage a back flip. Acrobatics enhanced by chi would let me run up a wall, do a back flip, and then push off the ceiling for an attack.

“I see a kind of dark… darkness where the spear went in,” I tell Wendy. “It feels… ropy? Striated?”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“You should leave that alone, Mark.” Then she says, “Have you checked your notifications?” asks Wendy.

“No, I —.” But then, once I think about it, a small green exclamation point appears flashing in my peripheral vision, off in the upper right-hand corner. When I notice it, it expands.

 

 

Congratulations on surviving the tutorial!
You have been awarded 1 character point.

 

 

“What tutorial?” I say.

“I think that was the fight with those assholes.”

“That was the tutorial?”

“I can’t think of anything else it could’ve been. Oh, and I have a recommendation for where you should spend it.”

One point wasn’t going to add to any of my current skills. I had planned on saving it, probably to add another point of chi eventually. Which, of course, I can’t use right now.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Well, based on what I’m reading?” Wendy holds up the tattered leather journal. “Meditation is a lot more useful than it seemed when we were looking at it with Ms. Armstrong.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, it quiets the mind and focuses it, yes, but it can also help direct healing energies as well as, kind of, dip into the subconscious a little. Like, when you’re dreaming sometimes, and you think of something that solves a problem or clears up some confusion for you in the real world? You’ve done that, right? Well, I remember my psychology professor telling us that the subconscious works on problems while we sleep, right? Meditation can do that too.”

“Meditation?”

“Yep,” Wendy’s nodding. “I already put my point there. Plus,” she holds up the book. “Master Percella says that Meditation is a prerequisite for lots of other skills we can get later.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m reading about that now. Just trust me.”

I do. I put my point in Meditation, purchasing the skill right then.

“Healing energies, huh?” I say.

“Yep.”

I try it. Meditation is a Wisdom plus Perception roll added to whatever my rank is in the skill, which is one. That’s seven dice for me. It would be the same for Wendy, if I remember right, though our scores are reversed with my Wisdom a four and Perception a two and hers the other way around. I’m curious, so I keep my notifications on.

 

 

You are attempting to achieve a meditative state. Due to previous training in the area and your only recent purchase of the skill, difficulty is set at seven. Do you wish to attempt Meditation?
NOTE: Failure now will result in increasing difficulty the next time this skill is attempted.

 

 

“What the hell?” I say out loud.

Wendy looks up from her book.

More text appears.

 

 

Meditation is a basic skill for monks. Before now it was a skill you lacked, and this can be best explained by earlier failures in your backstory to learn it. The system has decided this would most likely cause a psychological reluctance or mental block to attempt it again. There would be an expectation of failure based on previous experience, raising the difficulty.

Do you wish to attempt Meditation?

 

 

Okay, so seven dice is pretty good, I should be able to manage even with the difficulty. I send a mental affirmation.

 

 

You have rolled five successes! You are now in a deep meditative state.

 

 

I feel perfectly at ease. I know I should normally be seated in the lotus position but, since I’m injured, this is acceptable. I feel less worried, less anxious, less proud. I feel… even.

The energy flowing through me, and failing to, is easier to sense now. There’s something very wrong about all of it. Something unnatural. It is most like a knot. Something has made a tight, pulsing bowtie in the chi flow through my midsection.

I push some energy at it, trying to force it through like you can sometimes do water through a kink in a hose to straighten it out.

It hurts.

I let the pain roll through me. It’s just pain. It’s not even physical. Not really. Phantom pain can’t do anything to me but hurt.

I decide to try to pull on the energy trapped in the knot, a little like pulling on a stubborn hump of shoelace once entropy’s had its way with it, trying to tease a little bit of slack out of it, so it can be untied.

I push again, a little lighter this time. It still hurts but its only pain.

I pull and push, push and pull, like you do with knots. All you’ve got to do is out-stubborn the damn thing.

I can’t feel any difference in the knot, even after multiple attempts. I'm not sure how many. I may as well have been yelling at it.

I hear a voice.

I hear it again.

“Mark?”

There it is again.

“Mark!” It’s Wendy.

I blink over at her. The light has changed in the room. “What time is it?” I ask.

“You’ve been out for hours,” she tells me. “It’s late in the afternoon.”

I was? It really didn’t feel that long, but there’s another clue. I’m hungry when I wasn’t before.

“Did I miss lunch?”

Wendy grins. “You had lunch, dufus.”

I did?

When I tell Wendy about the knot, she leaves to go get Hypa.

 

 

“I can detect no further damage,” Hypa says after she examines me. “The knot, as you call it, is unchanged. I would caution you against further attempts to force it to… untie. The excess energy has nowhere to go. If you had been less careful....”

I have a vivid image of my stomach exploding all over the room. “Noted,” I say.

Hypa smiles. “I have no doubt that it’s merely a matter of time,” she says. “And rest.” She looks at Wendy. “And loving care.”

Wendy snorts. “You up for some ‘loving care,’ sexy?”

I’m appalled but Hypa laughs, her eyes sparkling. “Not yet,” she says. “Not until we know more. You promised.”

Wendy shrugs.

Hypa says, “You’re monks. You are all about energy and the body. To sort his… knot, we must be careful or we risk doing more harm, possibly catastrophic in its degree. So,” she looks at me. “Meditation and rest should accelerate your healing dramatically. Continue to do that.” She looks at Wendy and says, “And no sex.”

“What if I choose to fly solo?” asks Wendy, smirking.

Hypa laughs. “It would be kinder to do so in the privy, out of his view, but I’ll leave that to you,” she says and, still grinning, leaves.

“I like her,” says Wendy.

“Well, you’re bi.”

“I am indeed.”

“Oh, so it’s like that.”

“I might put her on my list, yeah.”

“Well, I might just put her on mine.”

Wendy laughs. “I’m pretty sure she was already on yours,” she says, her tone teasing. “And Caedi too.”

“I can’t tell if you’re flirting with me or them or all of us, you minx.”

“I’m just gonna keep you guessing.”

I look over at her. “What’s with you?” I ask. “I mean, this isn’t totally out of character but —.”

“It’s this book,” says Wendy with a sigh. “It’s a journal, yes, but it’s also kind of a manual, I think. I need to read it some more, okay? And then I’ll tell you about it. In the meantime —.”

“Yeah, yeah. Rest,” I say. “And meditate. And heal. Yeah, yeah. Next time, you get hurt. See how you like it.”

But she’s back in the book and absently pats me on the shoulder.

I sigh. I close my eyes. The difficulty for Meditation has gone back to normal and I slip back under, breathing, being, staring at the knot.

 

 

Wendy’s shaking me. She says, “I want you to try something. I’m pretty sure it’ll work for you. It worked for me and oh my gosh.”

“What?” I say, blinking. It’s dark outside. I’ve been meditating for hours again. The knot hasn’t changed.

There’s a couple of meals growing cold on the side tables. Dinner. I see that Wendy hasn’t touched hers either. I find I’m really hungry but I’m even more curious.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask.

“Meditate.”

“I was just meditating!”

“I know. Try not to go as far under though. I want you to be able to hear my voice, okay?” says Wendy. She’s being very intense.

“Okay,” I say. “The difficulty is a little higher for that, but I’ll try. Gimme a sec.”

I roll three successes, which is just enough, and down I go, back to meditation land.

I hear Wendy’s voice. “Sense your energy,” she says. “Don’t pull on that knot or anything. Just feel all of it.”

I do so. I give a slight nod. I can’t do much more than that in such a state.

“Now,” Wendy says. “Try to gather your chi. Avoid the knot, okay? Gather from around it. Past it. Below it and above it, if you can. We’re not going to use any of it, so you should be able to. Like you’re taking a big breath but not exhaling.”

It’s tricky and slow but I manage. This is not how monks are supposed to do it. We gather it up quick and then apply it. Holding it like this is really weird. And kinda tingly.

I nod.

“Whew,” says Wendy. “That took forever. Okay, you can still hear me?”

I nod.

“Good. Okay. Now, we’re going to take your chi and push it all into your chest. Just imagine it forming into a ball. Direct the flow into itself, into a shining golden sphere. Let your breathing help.”

That’s easy to do. I wonder if everybody’s chi looks golden to them. It feels so strange doing it this way because chi is normally everywhere in the body. All of mine, aside from what’s tied up in my knot, is now sitting in my chest as a swirling golden ball a little smaller than my head.

“Okay, my ball was too big when I did it,” says Wendy. “About the size of a bowling ball, right? Well, it needs to be smaller. Push it in. Condense it. Get it about the size of a softball.”

I want to know what the fuck we’re doing. Was all this in that master’s journal? Instead, in the meditative state all I can do is nod.

“You did it already?”

I twitch my head to the side.

“Oh. Okay. Nod when you’re ready.”

At first, I’m not sure how to do it. I can direct the flow a bit and after some experimentation I see the chi sinking down into its own center somehow, but it’s so slow. Then I imagine my hands there, kind of kneading it into itself and the ball shrinks faster.

Finally, I’m able to nod.

“Okay,” says Wendy. “Now we’re going to push this ball down to your belly. We’re going to take our time and not allow it to go anywhere near the knot, okay? I didn’t check with Hypa or anything, Mark, but I’m pretty sure this part could be dangerous. The chi is going to want to flow through the channels it’s used to. I think it’s going to want to go through the knot rather than around it. That much concentrated energy?”

But she doesn’t answer the question. She doesn’t have to. Boom and yuck.

Why are we doing this if it’s so dangerous? What the hell, Wendy?

But it’s Wendy, so I nod.

I push the ball down my left side. As I do so, I notice a pull to the right, toward the wound and the knot. I decide not to fight it, not entirely. Instead, what I’m going to do is use the pull to kind of slingshot the ball around, accelerating it down into my lower abdomen, like spaceships in movies can use the gravity of the moon to pull themselves around. What movie was that? Apollo 13?

So, I don’t end up pushing so much as guiding, which is a lot like how monks are trained when throwing an opponent. We use their momentum against them. The idea helps me and it works. When I get it down past my belly button though, the damn thing wants to roll back up to the knot and kill me.

I nod.

“It wants to roll back up, doesn't it?”

I nod.

“Shit. Okay. Better hurry then,” she says. “Which is bad because this next part is weird. Ready?”

I nod.

“Okay, Mark. Uh, push that big ball of light straight into your dick and, um, go with it.”

That nearly knocks me out of my trance.

“Don’t think,” she says. “Do it.”

It’s Wendy.

Fighting against the pull from the knot, I push my chi into my nether regions. The tingling is not kidding around anymore. I’m rock hard. The light has changed to a golden red, like a sunrise.

I hear Wendy giggle. Then she clears her throat. “Okay, good. Very good,” she says. “Okay, now two things. One, just be turned on. Just be that way, okay? And two, enjoy it, absorb it. Sex and orgasm will happen eventually, sure, but until then be at peace. Don’t wait for release. There is no such thing as release. There is only possibility which is always there and what we call release is merely a series of interruptions in the constant of that possibility.”

Her words are soothing. There’s a little heat there in her voice, yep, but just the right amount. And I’m pretty sure they aren’t her words either, but those of a dead master.

Something within me shifts.

Chi is flowing through its golden channels, staggering and stuttering around the knot, which has loosened, but it grows rosy and then golden red as it all flows down to the most demanding and yet peaceful boner of my life.

Oh my God my life is so weird.