I woke up underwater, which was a decidedly strange experience. Not unpleasant, exactly, just irregular, and extremely quiet. Now that I was awake, I just lied there under the water, thinking for a bit. I felt a strange sense of catharsis, after what happened last night. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in so much stress, and now that I had confronted it, I felt a sort of relief that I didn’t even know I needed. The extreme agony from last night felt far away, and I was prepared to take on the day.

I rose out of the water and watched as the droplets ran off of my body, leaving me almost completely dry. I used a towel to pat off the few remaining bits of water and found some fresh underwear and athletic shorts to put on. I struggled through dressing, going one clawed foot at a time, and carefully put on my top as to avoid my wings.

I still had a lot of work to get done this week if I wanted to go out and hunt by myself, and first up was getting my other magic skills to the max level. As much as contact with that rope hurt, whatever it did leave me feeling much more powerful and sure of myself, not to mention that my physical form was now streamlined for flight and in-air movement in a way that I didn’t fully understand at this moment.

First up, I wanted to find something for breakfast. After that, I would be testing my flight out with a lap or two around downtown. I knew I should probably try and hop back into the grind, but I thought that a nice flight around the city would help to clear my head. I grabbed my watch, seeing that it was still pretty early in the morning, and the sun had just risen. With my mind on some food, I headed out of my bedroom and into the living room.

Surprisingly enough, though it was fairly early in the morning, the living room was still occupied. Cindy was awake in the kitchen and was just now starting to make a pot of coffee. As soon as I saw her, I knew that something was off. I’d known her long enough that I could pick up on subtle shifts in body language, and something was bothering her.

Gently, I asked, “Morning, Cindy. Did you sleep well?”

Starting the coffee pot, she turned and answered, “No, not particularly. I’ve already been up for hours. Its… strange. Something is different today, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

I felt the same way. There was something seriously off with me, and if Cindy was feeling it as well, I’m sure it was not simply my imagination.

“I had a really rough night as well. I woke up twice, and obviously I’m awake now, way earlier than I want to be. I feel strange too. Not physically, exactly, but… something’s off.”

I grabbed a cup of coffee and joined Cindy at the kitchen table. Steph, Kaitlyn, and the boy had moved into the apartment upstairs, so we had a living room again, and didn’t need to worry about waking anyone up with our conversation.

Cindy had a look in her eyes like she was looking somewhere far away.

Curious, I asked, “So what’s up? It looks like you’re thinking about something. What’s on your mind?”

She looked at me, and after a pause, responded, “Last night, I started thinking about what we did at the bandit’s encampment. Do you think… we might have gone too far? I have… so much blood on my hands Victoria. I must have killed more than fifty people… and only now, it's sinking in. I woke up this morning, looked in the mirror, and… I wasn’t myself. I like the way I look, but… I am so different now… and today I miss the way things were. When everything was simple, and I didn’t have to worry about tomorrow.”

It was a very familiar sentiment to what I was going through as well. My hands were not clean. They were stained red, and last night I had a very similar realization. That was… an interesting coincidence. I would need to talk with someone else to test my theories. Something happening once was strange, twice was a coincidence, but three times was a pattern.

“Cindy, I understand completely. We all did what we thought we had to do at the time. Things are different now. The past is there for us to remember, and for us to try and do better the next time.

I strongly doubt that we will ever go back to the way things were before all of the waves started, and that sucks. It does, also, present some pretty crazy opportunities as well. You can use magic Cindy. You can fly! Things might be different now, but that doesn’t necessarily make them bad. I think I’m going to go on a flight after breakfast. Want to come with?”

She smiled at me, and I could tell a weight was removed from her shoulders.

Standing up, she asked, “Do you want some scrambled eggs? I was about to make breakfast when you walked in.”

“Cindy, there’s no way the eggs we had in our fridge are still good.”

She chuckled, “The Garcia’s know a family living in the neighborhood a few blocks down that have chickens. They offered to trade some of my ward papers for regular deliveries. We have a carton of fresh eggs in the fridge right now, not to mention tons of vegetables courtesy of Taylor.”

Ah, a return to civilization was at hand. The power was back on for two days, and we already had fresh groceries. I believe today marked two weeks since the first wave happened. A quick check of my status and I saw I was correct, as officially I was now 14 days old.

As Cindy cooked, we had had some idle conversation, which was a nice change of pace. She asked about my skills and abilities and what was changing, and what I was working on. Her skills and levels had stagnated after the rescue attempt, but she was still working on upgrading her magic to two circle spells when she had the time. When I told her about my aerokinesis disappearing and the strange dream, she was fascinated.

Turning away from the finished scrambled eggs, she commented, “I do have some analytic spells prepared. If you want, I could cast one on you to help see what’s happened to you. It might give you some idea of what’s going on inside your body.”

Nodding, I said, “I appreciate it. Let’s do it after we eat.”

We ate the eggs pretty quickly, and it was a nice change of pace away from my normal meal of leftovers or granola bars for breakfast. After I washed both of our plates, Cindy directed me to stand in a large open space away from most of the furniture in the room, just in case something strange happened. I did as she asked, and she stood in front of me, about ten feet away.

“Alright Victoria. This spell is designed to detect flows of magic within the space it is cast. I often use it to help me guide the ambient magic from the atmosphere into my core and to help me understand what is happening within my body. This should give you some idea of what effect that strange dream had on you, aside from the physical transformation.”

After I nodded to signal that I was ready, Cindy began to cast her magic. Stretching out her hands, a runic circle appeared between them and quickly developed a second ring. After the second ring appeared, a soft blue light began to glow on the ground beneath me, in a perfect circle about five feet in diameter. I waited patiently as the spell continued. Cindy had her eyes closed as she cast the spell, but after a few seconds her eyes shot open. She looked at me and cocked her head in confusion. The light slowly faded as the spell was released.

She opened her mouth to start talking but almost immediately paused. I started to ask her a question, but she raised a finger, making me freeze. I could tell she was deep in thought. Turning, Cindy went into the kitchen and grabbed a note pad out of a kitchen drawer, and immediately started scribbling on it.

Following her, I looked over her shoulder as she wrote.

 

“Cindy, so… what does all of that mean?”

She looked at me, and her mouth scrunched up in one corner as she thought. Eventually, she seemed to have formulated a response, and she calmly stated, “Vic, your body is incredibly strange, and makes no sense whatsoever.”

Well that wasn’t helpful at all.

“What is THAT supposed to mean?”

Gesturing to her paper, she drew two stick figures, one with fairy wings and a little crown, and the other with horns and bird wings. It was pretty easy to see what she was getting at. Above them both, she drew a big cloud.

Pointing at the cloud, she explained,” Vic, this is what I call the aetherstream. It’s a natural well of magic that runs through the world, collecting ambient magic attuned to different elements. The aetherstream is generated by things in the world, be they plants, animals, or monsters. Monsters in particular, as they generate the most mana. I figured that out by watching the Garcia’s actually. They output fire and illusion mana passively, and it’s very helpful to me.

Magic races tap into the aetherstream and absorb the ambient mana it gives off to fill our internal stores. Then, we output that mana using our internal spell circles, creating magic effects. I can siphon close to 600 ambient mana every hour by forcing a connection to the aetherstreams attuned to fire and illusion, the ones closest to my race. In places with lots of fire, or lots of illusion, that connection becomes easier to force, giving me higher regeneration.”

As she talked, she drew a line straight down from the cloud to a small spell circle in her stick figure’s chest. Then she turned to me.

“You, Vic, are a monster. You generate mana from the aether in your body and output it to the world. If I was a storm mage, you would be my best friend, and just being near you would give me a mana regeneration buff.

But monsters DO NOT tap into the aetherstream. You contribute to it, making it stronger. It’s like an ecosystem. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. You, Vic, are somehow hotwired to the aetherstream of air. From my initial probing, it looks like you can’t access it, but the connection exists. What’s more, there are not one, but FIVE different connections to it throughout your body. One to each of your crystal cores.

It’s like you are an incomplete hybrid, Vic. The reason for the pain you felt yesterday is that your body is not meant to absorb aether like it’s doing right now. I don’t know what’s happening to you, and I have no idea what it would do in the long run.”

As she said it, she drew five lines from the cloud to my little stick figure. I couldn’t help but think that it looked like a puppet on strings. Not a very happy thought.

I turned to her in concern. “What do I do, Cindy? You have practiced this magic stuff. You know a bunch about what’s going on and how the world works. Hell, you’ve only been at it for two weeks, and look how far you’ve come. What do I do?”

Shaking her head, she reluctantly stated, “I’m sorry Vic. I have no idea. I don’t think you’re in any danger, and you seem stable, but I really can’t help you. At least, not right now.”

Well shit. I knew something strange was going on after that horrible dream last night. I sighed, loud and long.

“Well, I guess there’s no sense in worrying about it for now. I can’t change it, and I can only keep going. You still up for that flight?”

She smiled and nodded, asking, “Can you wait for five minutes? I’d like to tie up my hair, and change clothes.”

Five minutes later, on the dot, we were ready to go. Cindy returned wearing some jeans and a white blouse. I had managed to find my phone in my room and charged it up last night, so I placed it into a fanny pack. In it, I also had a pocketknife and a little bit of paracord. Never hurts to be too prepared.

We left through the window, flying up high above the buildings. Cindy had no height limit, to begin with, and mine had been removed, so we kept soaring up and up until we had reached around 500 feet. The city sprawled all around us from up here, and looking out, we could see the beautiful endless expanse of wilderness that started just outside of town. As we flew, the only sounds I could hear were the rushing air and the quiet hum of Cindy’s insect wings keeping her aloft. We flew counterclockwise, moving in a long circle around the whole city.

Now that I was flying, I could feel the difference in my body and wings. Moving was easy, and I could perform aerobatic flips and corkscrews by just twisting my feathers. Before, my wings functioned almost like a sail, catching air I generated and propelling me along. Flapping used to have practically no effect beyond a cosmetic one. Now, I could feel the little eddies beneath my wings as if each feather was a sensory organ. My wings expanded and contracted, catching more air as I extended them out, actually producing lift without me even using my levitation ability. I could still hover in place, but I could also glide and soar around, doing things the old-fashioned way that birds had been doing for millennia. Cindy flew fairly straight but considering my speed advantage over her, I was doing flips and twirls midair, literally flying circles around her. I was laughing, she was laughing, and I could practically feel the tension drain from my shoulders. I hadn’t done anything to just have fun in quite some time.

Our circuit around the city was blissfully uneventful. Looking down, I saw a few cars moving here and there, people going out to shops or their work to try and start to pick up the pieces of their lives. With the power back on in the city, local television would be up sooner or later, and the news and local radio stations could start broadcasting again. Local banks could start to reopen, and people could get paid. It was honestly an amazing sight, watching people start to get back their lives just two weeks after this chaos began.

After about 30 minutes, I found myself overlooking the part of town where we had fought the gems. Looking over at Cindy, her eyes were trained on the ground as well. I spotted the street where the motel was, and I was overcome by bad memories. Looking beneath me, I saw a few cars driving about, going from place to place in the older part of town. Even through the destruction we wrought, the city was just starting to go about business as usual.

Turning a bit further to the south, I headed deeper into the bad part of town. I wanted to take a glance at the junkyard, just in case. I didn’t think the boss monster could leave, but I knew that the orc packs moved around the area of the encampment before I took them out, and I wanted to see if any wolves had started roaming during the day.

Sure enough, several miles from the junkyard, I saw a collection of dark shapes slowly creeping down a street. I tucked in my wings, and swooped down in a nosedive, getting closer to see what was up, with Cindy hot on my tail. At about 100 feet up, I could finally get a good glance at the wolves. There were six in total. Each one was between four and five feet tall, and between seven and nine feet long.

 

They moved down the street at a measured pace, and ahead of them lied their quarry. A car with two flat tires, crashed into a telephone pole. Judging by the smoke coming from the engine, it seemed recent too. All along the right side of the car were scratch marks. It looks like the wolves were starting to get smart. It seemed like a good time to test my new wind spell.

Turning to Cindy, I barked out, “You check on the car and anyone inside. I'll deal with the wolves.”

She quickly nodded and adjusted her course to the wrecked vehicle and its occupants. I swooped down, landing right behind the wolves. Luckily for me dogs couldn’t look up, so I was, for all intents and purposes, invisible to them at this height. I landed behind them while using electrokinesis to create some loud crackling noises that were sure to draw the pack’s attention.

Sure enough, they turned towards me. And luckily, I had just the spell to deal with a large group like this. The wolves looked at me. Their black coats were ragged and patchy and they were filthy with blood, their brown eyes darting about frantically. It made sense that they were called frenzy wolves. There was nothing majestic or beautiful about these beasts. Seeing their new prey in front of them, they did the standard wolf action, and moved to surround. They seemed to know that I was going to be a hard target to take down.

All six of them were evenly spread in a circle, and they started taking turns moving forward and nipping at me, trying to get me to overextend or dodge incorrectly so that they could gang up and bring me down. I immediately started charging my wind attack, beginning to condense the air. It was strange though. It was stupidly easy to do, unlike anything I had felt before. When I had prepared the ring to the density that I had been capable of yesterday, I realized that I could keep condensing it further. I kept going for a bit, and eventually started pumping my mana into it as well, keeping track of the bar. Wind mana was flowing extremely quickly into the spell, and I felt the ring reach critical mass just after I had expended 35 mana. Exactly half of what I had been able to do before.

To set up the attack, I held onto the spell, keeping it at bay as I dodged. The wolf directly behind me moved forwards, trying to bite my wing, but I feinted back out of the way. Immediately after, the highest-level wolf moved forward, trying to get my throat as I dodged. I swayed to the right this time, spinning past it. Soon, I was directly to the side of the highest-level wolf, and the rest of the pack was behind me in a semi-circle. That was when I unleashed the spell.

If it had been a pneumatic cannon before, it was now like an air tank exploding. The blast of air was extremely loud, echoing off of the houses around me, and shattering their windows when the shockwave hit. The blade sliced through the wolf in front of me, cleaving it almost entirely in two. Because of the air blast, the blood all flew away from me, splattering on the street around 25 feet in front of me. The wolves behind me didn’t fare much better. They were not kitted out for defense as the wind blade tore through them like they weren’t even there. It seemed more potent the closer I was, as they had only been crippled, not killed. One by one, I walked over them, plunging my claws into their throats leaving them dead on the ground. As they died, I waited for the damage numbers to rise from their bodies. The whole encounter lasted around forty seconds.

404 Error; Damage numbers not available. For assistance please contact your local pantheon representative.

Alright, why not.