The golden-brown liquid landed on his tongue first, a burst of flavours as incredible as the first sight of colours in this world, more vibrant than you could think possible and pulsing with life. He could taste the energy in the mixture as it hit his taste buds. His lips felt the smooth, refreshing texture of the fluid as it passed over his lips. Soothing and cooling as it went, aches and pains that he didn’t know existed were smoothed away, and he was left feeling refreshed. He felt as if his very soul were mending. It was exhilarating and unbelievable, and satisfying at the same time.

 

The three liquids did not hit him as separate but rather as one luxuriant bath of healing. They all melded together until it worked on him as a seamless whole. Muscles he didn’t have repairing, bones that didn’t exist resealing and everything was a memory of what should be, reminding him of what he used to have and wished to have once again to feel whole. And then the fluid merged with his body’s flesh, and he felt whole. Not in the way that having a human body again would feel whole but by no means less. With a feeling of completeness, Aarav opened up his menus and saw the red, green and blue bars rushing to fill. Within ten seconds, he was fully healed. The feeling was euphoric, overwhelmingly so. It was too much, like every single addict receiving their drug of choice all at the same time and sitting in the high.

 

Ten seconds stretched to twenty, and then the feeling began to ebb. In its place, a dull aching began to form. A hollowness, a gaping maw of darkness which light had once filled, twenty went to thirty, and the darkness ebbed as well, the hollowness gradually closing to leave him back on level ground, breathing deeply and shaken. The hint of the feeling stayed with him, though. A new type of awareness and with it fear was this a new type of drug from this world. This was something that could become addictive and very quickly. Already Aarav could feel himself aching for that euphoric feeling again. His eyes clouded, and he sat in the sensation for a few seconds longer, melancholy taking over for a moment.

 

The Way Forward is…Forward says the only drug that has meaningful and lasting effects is the endorphin rush of hard work. Keep pushing, and you will succeed in everything you desire! Do not fail yourself and fall into old habits. This behaviour will only lead you down a road already travelled.

 

Aarav took in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. That was close. I almost lost myself to that. He shuddered again. Was that how it would feel every time he took a potion or three? If it was, he wasn’t sure it was better to just leave him to die. Getting addicted to this substance seemed like a real possibility, not just probable but almost inevitable. He eyed the three vials that were now empty in Haemish’s hands with apprehension, revulsion and naked desire. Oh god, no, no. NO! Come on, your better than this! That is not a rabbit hole you want to go down, not twice in two lives. There is no coming out after that. All that crap about replacing bad habits with good ones: you want your life to be that again!? Huh!

 

He knew that he was going off the deep end a little, but this little pep talk seemed to have done the trick. For now, his was okay. For good measure, he gave himself a couple of slaps that took off a couple of Health each. It also cleared his mind for what was to come next. His eyes cleared to see all of the people around him looking intently at him.

 

“Are you alright?” Haemish asked with concern. “Strictly speaking, we should not have done that. It was another test. We have never used these potions on anything that was not human, other species have different physiology, and so it could have had a detrimental effect. Are you experiencing anything unusual? Nausea, disorientation, pain or poisoning?” Thanks a lot, idiot professor. You're using me as a guinea pig already!

 

“No…” Aarav began shakily, voice growing steadier by the word. “I...I seem to be fine. Nothing untoward.”

 

“Good to know!” Taler responded this time and jotted down a few words on a piece of paper he held in front of him. What is this therapy? Aarav couldn’t suppress a sigh at this turn.

 

“So, are you done experimenting with me now, or is this something you’re going to keep doing non-stop?”

 

Haemish simply shrugged. That's a “no” on stopping experimentation, then. Aarav didn’t know what else to say or do, so the conversation fell into silence.

 

“Right…well, see you, Karlin! Thanks so much for the tip, and we should be back soon to revisit the forest and see what other treasures it might hold for us! You never know what you might find in the forest; keep your eyes peeled for anything else of value! I do appreciate your efforts in this!” Haemish court bowed to Karlin, then backed away with Aarav still in hand to get on his gryphon. The abrupt end to the conversation left Karlin a little off-kilter.

 

“R…right! See you later, Haemish. Marteen, say hello to Aurora and the little ones! C-come visit soon!” Martha and Enron came out behind Karlin to wave them off as the four riders prepared to leave. Apart from Haemish, none had dismounted. Taler would likely have stayed in the air if the gryphon could have Managed it.

 

The whole conversation and visit having lasted less than ten minutes, all four of them took off with Aarav in tow.

 

As they started to rise through the air again, Haemish turned to Aarav and asked, “Why does your interface use all sort of weird symbols?” he had to yell a little this time as they flew into the oncoming wind.

 

“What do you mean?” Aarav looked confused, “I can read it fine. They are not weird symbols. Not sure what you’re talking about.”

 

Haemish looked at him and frowned again. He seems to be doing that a lot recently. I wonder if he is just a miserable guy? “Hmm…okay, not to worry. I have never seen symbols like that, ever.” Then his face lit up, and he withdrew a paper from the saddlebag on his other side. Not where Aarav had been placed. “This is one of the symbols I saw.”

 

With that, he took the paper and a piece of what looked like a pencil but wider and blunter like it had a stick of charcoal for a centre. Primitives! With these writing implements, he drew a line straight down the left of the page, then from the middle of this line, he drew right almost the end of the page and then the third stroke from the end of this second line to the bottom of the page. The result was a sort of letter “h”, or it could have been the number 4 if held upside down.

 

“Okay, so what about it?” Aarav asked, after debating with himself about revealing that he knew the “symbol”, as he called it.

 

“Well…what is it?” Haemish asked as if it were the most obvious question in the world.

 

“I have no idea; you’re asking me things that I don’t understand. I barely understand my own body, and now you want to know what a random symbol means!?” Aarav put on a front of incredulity and outrage. It worked for that chubby guy, so why not for me.

 

“But…it’s your display! You have to understand it!” Haemish snorted and guffawed.

 

“I do understand it! But that is not a symbol I recognise! Anyway, are you expecting answers to magically appear out of the sky?” I need to learn about myself just as much as I need to keep the information from them.

 

“So…wait, there are symbols you do understand.”

 

“Uhh…yes, of course, I understand most symbols. I am talking to you, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes, well. You can speak a language without being able to read or write it. Do you recognise this symbol?”

 

He wrote what the “a” sound of Darfan was. “Yes, that is “a”, what about it?

 

As they sped away from Marteen’s family home and made their way up to cruising altitude, Aarav cursed. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? He closed his eyes and mentally opened his Mental Map. He could see the areas he had explored recently included the river, village and surrounding area where part of the chase had occurred. The group had been heading directly to the river at the outskirts of Flue when he had woken up and realised where they were. What was more curious, though, was that there was a short tail of explored space where he had never gone back.

 

At that point, the small tail of explored area was potentially his origin in this world. He had never paid it any mind before what with gaining consciousness fully, the Panther and then further checking, testing and understanding everything that had happened to him he had never thought about how things had started for him in this world. If he was not mistaken, then their current trajectory would take them very close to that point of origin. Aarav buzzed excitedly.

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