PoV: Snow Okiyama – Ion

  I exit one of the tunnels, coming across a clearing, full of people. There are zoof, scithians, sumeen, hiy’ht, wulven, and humans. Tents made of cloth, dried hides, sheets of mushroom, and even small stone huts are set up, powered by all kinds of abilities.

  The hum of magic is dense in the air, and I have to hold back on breaking a few of them, just to see what they’re about. Instead, I pick at scraps. Abilities that are already ending, picking up on the tiny pieces of them that are left as residue in the air.

  Inu and Thatch do what they’re best at, spreading out and engaging with people, talking and getting us info. Sylves approaches the most dangerous looking groups and offers them bits of our food as “insurance”. That girl is devious. I love it.

  I’m curious to see where that class will go. What other fae skills can she get? Looking at the well, we decide to rest for a day. By we, I mean Opal, who plops onto their back with a long sigh, and asks Dar for a blanket. The wulven proves with a snort, giving out a piece of fabric woven up by Amelie.

  Jess starts a campfire, and Richard begins cooking. There are other hiy’ht who approach her, chittering in tones that don’t translate via the system, but she waves them off. “Go,” she says calmly, quietly. “I’ve decided to stick with this hive.”

  For a moment, it looks like a fight will break out, but then, another hiy’ht waves a small claw, and the critter scampers back to their group. The insectoids tend to cluster together a little. Some kind of hive structure?

  Another wulven instantly challenges Dar, and he accepts, while Opal watches, sprawled out on the floor. Jess hums a tune to herself quietly, cleaning the flesh off of bits of chitin and monster claws, before handing them off to Bay.

  Our engineer already has a pair of slapdash goggles on her face, focused on a crafting project, preparing more traps to deploy. Apparently, her job is granting her quick assembly skills, and her class has some amount of special storage for them. So, in a way, she’s become a small walking armory.

  Norman sits in the corner. He doesn’t talk much, a little withdrawn, but he watches everyone intently. I notice his eyes flick to little letters all over the place. Has he gotten some kind of sense for it? Someone tries to approach me, and I knock on the stone beneath me. His eyes flick over, and he rasps out a small laugh, pulling me into [Unassuming].

  Instantly, most everyone loses interest in me, and I continue watching. Amelie tinkers with her wheelchair and her puppets, making sure they’re properly strung together and ready for action, while chatting with Sylves. I watch as Opal pulls the blanket tighter around themselves, trying to avoid chatting with an annoying kid. I watch as Dar throws another wulven to the floor and roars his triumph.

  All of it… brings a smile to my face.

  We’ve become a bit of a party, now. With roles and everything. Inu and Thatch talking with the others, gathering info about challenges, Norman and me slinking off into the corner, unnoticed. Bay tinkering, Jess and Richard making edible food from all the monster parts, Sylves causing trouble, Amelie politely turning down questions about her legs from strangers.

  There’s a harmony to it all.

  Someone stumbles out of the well, bloody. It’s a hiy’ht, their blue-green skin covered in cuts. Two arms are missing, both from the elbow down, and they’re passed out on the floor. I watch in curiosity as a groggy man stumbles over, picking up the body despite protests from the hive.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  More people go to placate the insectoids as the man kneels and pours his pathetic mana into a healing spell. He’s slow, unfocused, looks like he hasn’t slept in days, but it’s the best they have, apparently. Slowly, the wounds knit closed, to my surprise. I flick my senses against him. He’s so tired, he doesn’t even notice.

  [Healer, lv. 27]

  Ah, someone with an epitaph then. Perhaps one related to restoring others. I look more closely at his spells, trying to see what makes them different from mine. Sylves taps against the rock I sit on.

  She smiles, brightly, at me. “Hey Snow. Stop.”

  I tilt my head. “Huh?”

  “Stop looking so serious!” she chides, happily, floating near me. It’s not at all what she meant, and we both know it. I’d be annoyed if it was. But I get the request. “Sit with us. Relax a little.”

  That’s the actual bit she cares about. I breathe in for a long moment, feeling my heart thrum in my chest, the way my vessel presses into my sternum. It feels tight and hot, like I’m trying to push too much electricity through a too-small cable. Whenever I push mana into skills, it becomes easier, but I s’pose I can pause that if Sylves wants me to.

  Sighing gently, I get up from my comfy rock, and pull out a few of the chits we have. Tower coins, so lovely and smooth. I run my thumb across them, enjoying the sensation and letting it anchor me, as I sit on the floor with the group, and listen.

  The topics are… mundane.

  Inu talks nothing of what she heard of the well, but instead chats about school. Her style, her friends, how they might be doing. Jess smiles as she watches her daughter, that icy face crumbling slightly. Norman looks on with longing, as if he didn’t belong.

  I signal to Opal, and the enby smiles brightly, then nods once. They grab Norman’s arm and drag him into the circle around the fire with us. Thatch flashes him a look, then smiles brightly and nods once. Jess gives a small smile at that, too.

  Bay rambles to me about her creations as long as I let her, even though Sylves keeps trying to nudge her into highschool stories. I do learn that Thatch’s mom had a rather rebellious streak, running from home and living with a runaway fam for a while. That’s how she got her first tattoo, made with a sewing needle and crappy ink based on an internet recipe.

  It’s faded, but it’s a little glyph on her ribs, reminding her of that time. Sylves very quickly averts her eyes with a small screech and a blush when Bay lifted her shirt, and I quietly snicker at that. Everyone laughs, and Sylves joins in, too.

  An hour passes in quiet calm, until I feel that heat in my chest grow too uncomfortable and channel some mana into pointless exercises. They’re second nature by now, threading it through the maze until I come to the tricky part, or constructing tiny little exercises behind me.

  When another wounded person comes through the well, I’m almost grateful. The tired man walks over again, stumbling, but I get there before him. He looks at me, confused, when the wounds start to close up. There’s a few gasps, but I ignore them.

  I sigh contentedly as the energy leaves my vessel. The pressure disappears as half of my mana washes out of me and into the wulven’s body. I look to the tired healer. “Do you usually charge for this?” I ask.

  He nods. “Yea,” he says, voice dry and cracked, and he coughs. “Usually, we ask for a minor request. Or, if someone doesn’t have that, a couple of silver chits. Nothing big.”

  Smiling, I look at the person on wulven on the floor, poking her. “You heard him. A minor request. Ask for a refilling waterflask.”

  Finally, I shall get my hands on one to take apart. And for almost free, too!

  When I return with my prize, and instantly start taking it apart, pouring more mana into [Deconstruction], the others seemingly find it very amusing. I’m glad they can laugh.

  Slowly, second by second, we enjoy our triumph, even as it winds down. People start going to sleep. Opal and I share Dar as a pillow. Thatch hides away the painting materials he bought while covered in a thin blanket, his [Rage] keeping him warm. Inu just sleeps in full armor, unbothered. Jess and Richard stay close to the fire, and Norman wraps a blanket around himself, while Sylves floats on a cushion of wind, sleeping mid-air.

  One by one, they fall asleep. I take a breath, looking over the members of my party, and feeling… pleased. We’ve really come a long way.

  And tomorrow?

  Tomorrow that way leads up.