Last Words chapter 45 (Patreon)

The day was a fairly busy one. With so much more information about how the mana body worked, I was in a hurry to push my people further along. To make sure they had the tools to grow, I spent seventy five hundred on buying ten mana fruits (pushing my purchase skill to level eight) and used my walkie to call one of my friends down for a pickup.

After sending nine of the fruits off for them to use, I ate one myself, and then proceeded to spend the next several hours going through my usual full body workout.

At the end of my exercise, I had officially bumped my mana capacity by another point two, and since I hadn’t used any mana from my generation, I had completely filled my pattern, leaving me ready and able to finally test out my new magical ability.

In order to help me with my test, I’d asked Bran to tag along as I made my way out of the Derkholme, heading towards the forest where I could both exercise my new pattern and introduce him to the rest of my group. I admit, I was kind of excited to see his reaction to use being from another world. At least Earth had the concept of the multiverse, I hadn’t heard anything in this world related to that idea, though admittedly I might just be in way too rural an area for it to have come up, I got the impression Derkholme wasn’t exactly the information capital of this world.

When we got further out of town, I decided to get started. “Alright, so…you know the limits of this pattern better than me. How exactly does it work?”

Bran snorted at that. “Five minutes,” he said with a laugh. “Gives you enhanced durability and enhanced recovery. The recovery is further increased in areas with denser nature mana, which this definitely counts as.”

“Alright,” I said, bouncing on my toes a bit as I loosened up my fists. “We’re going to do this nice and clean. I’ll use my hands, you’ll use a blunt weapon. Did you bring one like I asked?”

He rolled his wrist, and a small, thick looking wooden bat fell into his hands. “Iron core,” he said as he whipped it around a few times. “I’ll avoid the head. It’ll hurt, but it shouldn’t do too much real damage through the Barkskin. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

Nodding, I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and reaching into that inner space where the tree that symbolized my barkskin was growing. I was told that this would get easier with practice, and that I wouldn’t need to spend much time making it work in the future, but the delay the first few times was one of the major reasons Alexa had suggested I get some practice in.

As I triggered the ability, I felt a surge of heat flow through me. It was like my skin was flushing, but all over, and it just kept increasing, getting hotter as it went. When it reached a crescendo, the heat on my skin died down, but under that it was still working, repairing the leftover damage from my intense workout earlier.

One of the reasons I’d picked today for my workout was that I was planning to use my recovery surge to fix up some of the strain, and it felt like it was working pretty well. While the heat on my skin had gone, the remaining warmth in my muscles felt relaxing and rejuvenating, like I was soaking in a warm tub. I opened my eyes, taking in the silver grey, bark roughened tones of my skin as I stared down at my slightly unfamiliar hands.

“You ready?” asked Bran with a laugh. “We don’t exactly have a ton of time here. That’s going to wear off in five minutes.”

Laughing, I bounced another few times, firing off a few more jabs. I felt amazing. My Mana Body always worked a little smoother than my original form, and after the recent bump in capacity it was even more fluid, but with the Barkskin’s regeneration attribute, it was like I was operating at the absolute top of my game constantly.

“Get ready,” I told my friend with a bloodthirsty smile. “We’re starting.”

I darted forward, my fists lashing out in a few short, sharp punches. To my surprise, Bran was far from overwhelmed. My friend slipped out of the way of a jab, ducked a hook, and then hammered his club into my ribs as I hauled back for a haymaker.

It stung, but not much and not for long. The Barkskin absorbed most of the impact and the slight damage was healed in moments. I followed through on the haymaker, catching Bran in the shoulder as I predicted where he would dodge. He grunted, letting the impact push him away as he hopped clear of my followup punch.

“Well, someone has some training,” I said with a laugh. “You didn’t mention you could fight.”

He laughed. “I can’t,” he clarified. “You just have absolutely no combat experience. I can tell based on your fighting style. Looks like someone has been teaching you a bit, but you haven’t managed to internalize much of it.”

I shrugged. “You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “I’m still learning how to do all this. I mostly cheat with weapons, but that wouldn’t really do much good in this case, seeing as how you’re a friend and I’m trying to learn. Now, why don’t you quit shit talking and try to land a few more shots before this is over.”

Laughing, he surged forward, and his club lashed out with a series of short, sharp strikes. The pattern of attacks had changed entirely, and the new hits were unusually heavy for such short range attacks. It felt like he was chambering them and then snapping them off somehow, but I didn’t really know enough about stick fighting to track exactly how or how to get around it.

The next five minutes was…well, shitty. I kept getting smacked in the joints, because Bran had figured out that despite muting the pain and enhancing my regen, getting smacked in the elbow makes your elbow stop working for a second.

When the pattern finally faded and I called an end to the fight, I was still sore from the last whack to my knee, which hadn’t had time to heal. “Ok, ow,” I said tiredly, panting as I tried to recover from the battle a bit. “So, the recovery doesn’t actually restore stamina. It kind of feels like it while it’s happening, but I am exhausted. Holy shit.”

My body was completely drained. I felt like I was going to pass out for a second there, and I head to put my hands on my knees and breathe through my mouth to keep from falling on my ass. Bran ran over to help me up, pulling one of my arms around his shoulders. “Whoa there, careful. You going to be alright?”

I nodded tiredly. “Yeah, guess I just didn’t really consider where the energy for the regeneration came from. I assumed it would be part of the pattern, but it feels like Barkskin just kind of overdrafts my healing factor for a while.”

“I wasn’t aware of that,” he said grimly. “I’m sorry, I should have looked into it.”

Snorting, I waved him off. “It’s fine, man. I doubt anyone would willingly admit to a weakness like that. Chances are good everyone keeps quiet about it for that reason. Besides, the Mana Body enhances your physicality as it levels up. I’m guessing that it’ll stop being a problem after a few more points of mana.”

He hummed with interest. “That’s a good point. I don’t really know much about the vital energy increase that comes with the Mana Body. I know there are certain warriors who learn to use that to perform skills as opposed to pure mana.”

That was kind of fascinating, but not really important right now. “I’ll look into it,” I assured him. “For now we have bigger fish to fry. Namely, introducing you to the rest of my friends. I was planning to just drop you into the deep end without prep as a prank, but thinking it over that kind of seems like a dick move and a recipe for disaster, so I figure I can fill you in on the details as we walk.”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t seem too bothered by my hypothetical dickishness. “Well, thank you I suppose. What exactly am I supposed to be learning about?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain,” I said slowly. Come to think of it, he might not even have the mental framework to conceptualize other dimensions. Like, I got the concept because I’d spent my whole life having it drilled into my head, but without the concept of other realities or probably even PLANETS to use as a springboard, I wasn’t sure how to break it down.

After a few moments of thought though, I realized I didn’t NEED to do that. “So space magic is a thing, right?” I asked slowly as I considered how to phrase my explanation. He nodded, and I said, “Well, I came from the other side of a long distance spatial gate. A door to another place. It’s far away from here, far enough that no one you know has ever heard of it, and my friends and I are in control of the gate.”

He blinked, his eyes widening at the concept. “What?” He sputtered, utterly flabbergasted. “That’s…absurd. Do you know what kind of power magic at that scale would take? I’ve barely even HEARD of that kind of ability.” He seemed to freeze for a moment, his brain stalling as he tried to process. Eventually, after a minute or two of thought, he started to come around. “I suppose it kind of makes sense. You do act strange, and I knew you were a traveler. I guess I didn’t realize how far you’d come. You really have exclusive access to a Space Door?”

That last bit was said with emphasis that made me sure he’d heard of them before. I sighed in relief, glad I’d chosen an explanation that he could wrap his head around. Honestly it was true in every way that mattered. The scale of the distance and the dimensional shit weren’t really important in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, once we got the how out of the way, the rest of the questions came flooding in. Where was I from, what was it like, who had come with me, why were we here, every possible inquiry about an otherworlder without even needing to know we came from another world.

I laughed, answering his questions one by one, at least to the best of my ability. I told him about Boston, about Harvard, about my friends who he was about to meet. The why was sort of hard to explain, given the end of the world (and not this one), but a vague statement about us trying to find our fortune and gather resources put him at ease, and that was true too for as far as it went.

Of course, he’d eventually need to learn the rest of it, but I figured doing this in stages was the most reasonable strategy for introducing him to the whole concept of different realities. Once he got used to how weird we all were, we could tell him about Earth being another dimension, and it would barely move the needle.

By the time I finished filling him in, we had arrived at the rough camp we had set up outside the door. My friends saw us coming and had come out to greet me, and I grinned at the warm reception, happy to see everyone looking stronger and more vital after the fruits I’d sent. Escorting him over to the fire, I dropped down next to it, taking a deep breath of the campfire stroganoff they were making. Bran followed behind me, and I spooned him out a bowl, then we all settled in to discuss the future.