YM778.TV Chapter 45: Blind!
Ruby says "Oh, you\'re finally awake!"
Suddenly I feel a weight on my chest, Ruby is lying on top of me hugging me tightly and crying. I raise my right hand to stroke her hair.
"Shh, shh, it\'s okay. I\'m sorry for scaring you, I\'m back."
Ruby says, "You\'ve been sleeping for three days, I was so worried you\'d never wake up!"
I hold Ruby tenderly until the tears stop. As I hug her, I can\'t help but think that it was worth it to come back, that no matter the pain I suffer or the hate I have to face, that this is my world now and I\'m happy about it.
"You sound exhausted, did you stay awake the whole time I was asleep?"
Ruby says "Yes, I had to take care of you, you have a fever."
-It\'s okay now, I\'ll meditate and take care of it.
Ruby says "Umm, also, your leg where you were bitten has turned to stone, and it\'s slowly spreading."
"That\'s why it hurts so much and is so heavy, I\'ll see what I can do.
I mean that too. But you need to rest, you can join me in the inner world while you rest."
Ruby says, "Okay, I need to rest, but call me if anything goes wrong!"
"Yes, ma\'am!"
I smile in her direction before her weight disappears and I assume she has returned to the amulet. Slowly I stand up from the hammock, I have to balance on my right leg as the left one won\'t hold any weight.
I hop in the direction of my practice area, I have the layout of the camp firmly in my head and can almost see it as I walk through it. When I get there, I sit down and force my legs into meditation position, then quickly enter the inner world to see how bad things are.
The first thing I check are my eyes, the eyes themselves and the optic nerves are intact, but when I look outside I see a complex tangle of mana covering them. So it\'s a spell effect of some kind, annoying but it won\'t kill me, so I look at the rest of my body.
The fever is coming from my body trying to fight the poison. I can see it in my left leg, where I was bitten, and from there it is spreading through my veins. So the poison is in my blood and it is slowly spreading and turning me to stone. This is what will kill me if I can\'t stop it.
Before I start, I check the amulet on my chest and notice that Ruby is inside and sound asleep. I let her rest and go back to concentrating on my left leg. I concentrate on the blood in my leg and begin to trace and destroy the poison drop by drop.
It takes me a few hours to eradicate all the poison, that stops the spread but does nothing for the part of my leg that is already turned to stone. I try various things but can\'t figure out how to return the stone parts to flesh. I can only think of one way to fix my leg but I know it\'s going to hurt like hell.
So I pull out a black razor and grit my teeth, then cut my leg. I screamed through my teeth as the knife cut my leg, but I kept going until I cut all the stone off. It left a gaping hole in my leg, but the stone was gone, so I went back to meditating and concentrated all my healing energies on my leg. The wound slowly closed over the next hour or so.
⟨⟨-DING-⟩⟩.
-Congratulations, the skill Pain resistance has advanced to level 5!
√ Resist pain.
√ Level 5.
- You feel 50% less pain.
- Physical damage reduced by 5%.
Once the wound is sealed, I come out of meditation and fall to the ground face up, gasping and groaning in pain. The skill helps reduce the pain, but I can\'t wait to get to level ten. I hope not to feel any more pain at that point. Once the pain is gone, I get up and test my leg; it works perfectly and my fever is gone too.
Now all I have left are my eyes, but before that, I\'m hungry! I walk to where I keep my net and feel around before grabbing it. I walk to the river, it takes me several tries before I can cast the net.
I am completely blind. I can\'t see the fish, so I have to keep throwing it again and again I will finish before I get lucky and catch a couple of fish.
Cleaning and preparing them blind is not that difficult and I cook them quickly and devour them. After eating, I find the Armatite bar and channel all my mana into it, then climb into my hammock and sleep for ten hours.
When I wake up, I\'m relieved that I didn\'t have any dreams. I get up and stretch. I walk and sit in the practice area, then go into the inner world and call Ruby.
\'Ruby, are you awake?\'
Ruby says, \'Yes, Master, I\'m here.\'
"Well, I hope you\'re feeling better."
Ruby says, "Yes, I\'m not quite rested, but I feel much better now, did you need anything?"
"Yes, I want you to look into my eyes with me. This tangle is what\'s keeping me blind, I think. What would happen if I cut the strings?"
Ruby says, "Well, I can\'t be sure, but my best guess is that it would explode."
"Whew, no, I\'m not going to do that. So, my only option is to try to untangle that mess?"
Ruby says, "I think so. Unless you know a spell to dispel the mana, untangling it is probably the only other way to remove it."
"No, I don\'t know any spells like that, that\'s how it works!"
Ruby says "Do you want me to help you?"
"No, thanks. Go back to sleep for now. I may need your help later though."
Ruby says "Okay, be careful!"
I wait until I feel Ruby is asleep before I start studying the tangle of mana looking for a loose end to start at. To me it looks like a ball of wool after a kitten has been playing with it for a few hours. It takes me a while of searching before I finally find the end of the yarn I\'m looking for.
I mentally grab it and pull it through the first of many loops to free some more, as I slowly unravel the yarn I realize this will take me a long time. I manage to release a few inches of the thread when suddenly what I have released disappears and I feel a headache.
MP: 705/505
⟨⟨-DING-⟩⟩.
- Congratulations, you have acquired the magic skill Disenchant!
√ Disenchanting.
√ Level 1
- Intelligence +2 Physical +2 Mana +2 +10
- You can remove an enchantment and regain 10% of your mana.
\'I have more mana than my maximum? Is that why my head hurts?\'
So I recovered mana by unraveling the mana thread? This could be very useful! I quickly reach over and grab the Armatite bar and channel all my mana into it.
⟨⟨-DING-⟩⟩.
- Congratulations, the Channeling skill has advanced to level 4!
√ Channeling
√ Level 4
- Intelligence +4 Mana +40
- You have experience in channeling mana.
I wonder if this would work with all those enchanted weapons. If so, it could be an easy way to finish filling up the Armatite bar and also finish my mana streaks. I\'ll try it later when I can see again.
For now I go back to unraveling the mana mess because I really want to see again. For the next two days I continue to do so, and only stop when I have full mana to channel it into the Armatite bar and to get food when hunger interrupts my meditation.
⟨⟨-DING-⟩⟩.
- Congratulations, the Disenchant skill has advanced to level 2!
√ Disenchanting.
√ Level 2.
- Intelligence +4 Physical +4 Mana +20
- You can remove an enchantment and get 10% of your mana back.
At this point, I\'ve untapped about half of the blinding spell as far as I know. I wonder if all spells are this complex or if it\'s because it was the beast\'s ability. I just don\'t know enough about the magic of this world or the rules, I just keep blindly stumbling around trying things to see if they work.
Not having many options, I keep untangling the mana threads. It gets harder and harder as I get deeper into the tangle. Every time I release a section of thread, what\'s left tightens up as if the spell is resisting unraveling. At this point, I\'m not sure if I\'m going to be able to untangle it completely or what exactly will happen when I do.