WWotWW - Chapter 39 - Consequences (Patreon)

“Did anyone get the number of that train?” I groaned as I levered myself into a seated position. Everything hurt, it felt like I’d just spent several hours boxing a grizzly bear before emptying my magic reserve into a super complicated ritual. I cracked an eye in an attempt to figure out what was going on, only to catch the briefest glimpse of the midday sun and immediately being struck with one of the worst migraines I’d ever had.

“Aahhhhh! Fricken… Owww…” I hissed, slamming my eyes closed again and lowering my head into my hand. “I regret everything.”

I felt a cool hand on my forehead. “I’m glad you’re awake. I was worried that between the miasma, your encounters with the zombies, and your fight with the spirit that you’d caught something dangerous. You were extremely pale, and sweating all night,” Clara said. “I tried to cast some healing spells on you, to help you recover, but every time I did your body seemed to reject them.”

“Not my body, my magic,” I grumbled. “I hate that it doesn’t play nice with traditional magic.” I raised a hand to shield my eyes before trying to crack an eye again. It still hurt, and my vision was blurry, but at least it was manageable. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Not as long as I thought you’d be,” she replied. “Only half a day. It’s about noon right now.”

“Really? And you didn’t have any problems with the miasma, or zombies?” I asked, glancing towards the edge of the clearing. The miasma was still pushing against the spiritual magic that had been placed around the little clearing, but it didn’t appear to have made any progress while I was out. I really shouldn’t have been surprised, it had probably been holding out for days, or even weeks before we showed up. Still, I couldn’t help but worry.

“Where are the girls, and the spirit?” I asked, wincing in pain as I turned back towards Clara. 

“They went to investigate one of the tribes main village sites, to see if they left any messages, or some sort of sign so we’d have an idea where to look for them next,” Clara replied.

“You let them go alone?!?” I exclaimed, snapping my head towards her. Of course, I regretted my action almost immediately, and had to close my eyes until I brought my hand up to shield them again. “That’s extremely irresponsible. Who’s going to protect them?”

“Look, I know it wasn’t the best idea, however we didn’t have that many options. I didn’t want to risk moving you in your current condition, and with those zombies wandering around we probably can’t stay here forever, so I decided that the smartest idea would be to send the girls ahead to look for clues while I stayed here to watch over you,” Clara explained.

“And how did you figure that?” I snapped. “We’re supposed to be protecting those two!”

“Well, Plays had a long discussion with the guardian last night, and while the miasma is slowly spreading across the valley, the west side is still fairly clear of its contamination. I considered having the girls watch over you, and going to investigate myself, but as you pointed out yesterday our horses, and therefore the spirit, can probably outrun anything that’s stalking through the Miasma, so it was better for me to stay here with you; If something managed to break through the perimeter at least I’d have a decent chance of dealing with it. The girls would be sitting ducks,” Clara explained.

“Well, I guess that’s true,” I muttered. “It probably would have been better to stick together, and wait until I recovered.”

“I didn’t have a clue what happened to you, how to help you, or when you’d recover,” Clara countered. “I thought that if we could figure out where Plays tribe went we might be able to get you some help.” She paused for a moment. “What did happen to you anyways? Do you know?”

“If I had to guess, some sort of magical backlash,” said, before leaning back and thinking about the previous night. “I tried treating my magic in the traditional way, and force it to follow my will. When I did it fought me; If I had kept that up I’m pretty sure it would have gone out of control, and caused a lot of damage.”

“So what did you do?” Clara asked.

“I changed tactics, tried to guide it instead of forcing it,” I replied. 

“You did what?!?” Clara exclaimed, shooting me a concerned look.

“I know, it wasn’t exactly a smart idea. When using traditional magic you need to maintain firm control otherwise it’ll run out of control, but considering how much trouble I was having, and my experiments over the last few days, I figured a lighter touch might work,” I said. “Luckily, I was right.”

“It was still irresponsible,” Clara said.

“Yeah, well, it was either that or risk letting the spirit get past me and maybe injure you or the girls,” I said. “It’s just too bad I waited so long before switching up my tactics. I strained my entire system just trying to keep my magic from lashing out and killing me.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Clara asked.

“I think so… I’ve suffered burn out before; Granted, the last time it happened was when I was an apprentice, but I remember the feeling, and this is very similar,” I said. “This is the same feeling, just a little more intense.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to move soon then?” she asked.

“Yeah, probably, but I doubt that I’ll be able to do anything beyond that. Everything hurts, my head is swimming, and I’m sure that if I tried to use my magic right now things would go catastrophically wrong,” I said. My stomach growled loud enough to echo around the clearing, so I placed a hand over it. “And on top of everything else I’m hungry!” 

“At least your sense of humour didn't suffer any damage,” Clara snorted. “There’s still some porridge from this morning’s breakfast, but I took it off the fire so it’s probably cold now. If you want I could heat it up again.”

“It’s fine, I’m hungry enough to eat it cold,” I replied. “I don’t suppose you brought any herbs that are good for pain relief, did you?” 

Clara shook her head. “Sorry, I only brought emergency medical supplies; Things required to stabilize someone while long enough for my magic to work. If I had known that your body would reject my magic like it did, I might have brought more.”

“Honestly, I know that I left that stuff to you, but I should have been responsible and picked up a few things that I might have needed myself. You have nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “Besides, I’ll survive, I’ll just have to suffer for a couple hours until I recover.” 

“Assuming the feedback didn’t do more damage than you expect,” Clara replied.

“Well, we’ll find out in a couple hours,” I muttered. My stomach grumbled again, so I looked over at her sheepishly. “Would you mind getting me some of that porridge now? I’d do it myself, but I’m still having a little trouble seeing straight.”

“No problem, give me a moment,” Clara replied. I watched her through my watery, blurry eyes as she wandered over to an indistinct pile of different colors, which I could only assume was her luggage, and a moment later there was the sound of a wood spoon clacking against metal.

When she got back and handed me a bowl it took me a couple seconds to find the spoon so I could shovel some of the cold gruel into my mouth. 

“So, what’s the plan now?” I asked after I finished a few mouthfuls. “Are we going to wait for the girls to come back? Do we ride out after them and rely upon your familiar to find them? How far away was the village site?”

“Plays said the village was a couple hours away by foot, so maybe an hour or two by horse. The girls left first thing this morning, and even if they wanted to spend several hours combing the area I imagine they’d come back before you fully recover. I gave Mary a modified ward which she could destroy, to alert me if they run into trouble, and she hasn’t cracked it yet, so as far as I know they’re still good, and on schedule.”

“I’d like to think that the spirit is strong enough to give the girls enough time to trigger the warning, but after what happened last night I’m not quite sure…” I said thoughtfully. “Speaking of which, did you find out what happened to cause that?”

“From what Plays said, it got that way after brawling with one of the corrupted creatures wandering around,” Clara explained. “And while I think I we lost something during the chain of translation, I got the impression that it wasn’t talking about one of those shambling zombies we’ve been fighting. It was something else.”

A shiver ran down my spine, and I turned towards the edge of the clearing to scan the treeline. It was kind of pointless, since I could barely make out the trees, never mind what was beyond them. Still, it made me feel better.

“There’s something else out there,” I muttered. “Wonderful. I can’t wait to find out what it is.”