-eader, pack-leader, wake up!

  I rise from the darkness to the sound of a familiar voice rattling around my head. I blink, the world when I’ve opened my eyes not much different from when they had been closed.

  Pack-leader, Bastet sounds relieved. Are you well? I blink again, a little owlishly. What happened?

  My recent memories take a little bit of time to filter back in, but when they do, I sit bolt upright. Hissing in discomfort, I become aware that my whole body is aching. Throbbing, more like. I try to determine what’s causing the pain, but my answer is inconclusive. From what my magic is telling me, it seems like it’s everything.

  “Ow,” I groan, trying to send magic to at least reduce the pain, but not really knowing where to even start. “I’m fine,” I say belatedly to Bastet, realising that I never answered her question. At least, I hope I’m telling her the truth. My voice is surprisingly croaky.

  What happened?

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” I mutter more to myself than her. I sigh. “I was testing something. Hopefully it’s worked and has been worth the effort.” Then something occurs to me. “Why were you so concerned?” OK, it’s obviously been a number of hours, but they’re used to me meditating for long periods of time.

  You have been unreachable for three dawns and four dusks, Bastet informs me. I stare at her, my jaw muscles going slack in shock. Three and a half days? Am I understanding that right?

  How am I alive? I’m pretty sure that humans are supposed to die after three days without water. Or at least be in a very bad state. I mean, I’m ravenous and parched, but otherwise fine.

  “Three days?” I ask, more disbelieving than actually questioning, automatically reaching for my canteen from my Inventory to quench my thirst. It’s amazing how good water tastes when you’re parched.

  Yes. And then some time ago but during the same dark period, you suddenly started moving, and then collapsed completely. We all felt a shift a few beats ago and pain from your side of our connection. We were worried.

  Sure enough, it is ‘we’, I realise, as I look around. All of my Bound are present, encircling me. Although I can only see the most vague silhouettes in the darkness, I sense their presence and feel their worry through the Bonds. Even the kiinas actually appear a little concerned – clearly the sparring we’ve been doing together is helping build an actual bond between us. That or Persephone is worried about not having a safe place to have her eggs and Hades is mimicking her.

  Anyway, that’s beside the very important point: that somehow I’ve completely skipped three days without knowing it. Maybe when I replenished my health points after using it as fuel to repair my soul – or, at least, that’s what I hope I was doing – I undid the damage not having any water or food would have been doing to me? That’s the only thing I can think of for why I wouldn’t be half or fully dead at this point. Or my Constitution being at twenty points means that I’m more able to undergo starvation and dehydration. That’s possible too.

  I suddenly realise that I’m actually inside my alcove rather than sitting outside where I remember starting all of this. It’s a bit of a squash with everyone inside, the kiinas in particular taking up a lot of space. Though, their concern apparently soothed by me being awake and talking, they soon leave without a word.

  We moved you in when you started changing colour, River says, my question clearly going over the Bond. The Great Predator said that when humans change colour, it is an indication that something is wrong. Though I thought that was only when you turned blue, not red? he asks, his relief giving way to curiosity.

  I can’t help but laugh a little.

  “I turned blue before because I wasn’t getting enough air. I probably turned red because I was in the sun for too long.” Then I consider for a moment. “I turn green when I feel sick, too, and can go white for a number of reasons – fear, shock, blood loss, illness.” River eyes me carefully.

  I thought you did not use colour to communicate like we do. I laugh again, the convulsive movement making my aching worse. I stop quickly.

  “It’s not voluntary! It’s just how my body reacts.” Speaking of my body, I really need to check out what’s happened to it. “Thanks for your concern, everyone, but I promise I’m OK. I just need to eat, drink and check out the changes.”

  The rest of my Bound apparently take that as their cue to settle back down to sleep, it apparently being somewhere in the middle of the night. River doesn’t move, though. I lean forwards to rekindle the fire, surprised to find that there are still glowing embers present rather than it being completely cold as I would expect from three days of no attention.

  “Did you look after the fire?” I ask a few minutes later. Having put some more fuel on and blown it a bit, the flames are now starting to grow and lick at the sticks.

  Yes, master, the lizard-man confirms. I know you do not like it going out fully.

  “Thank you,” I tell him gratefully. I would have otherwise had to go without any real light – possible, but not preferable.

  Pulling out a pot of pre-boiled water, I swig at it thirstily. When I’ve soothed my parched throat, I pull out a handful of cooked meat, not even caring about the taste as I devour it. Piece after piece disappears down my gullet until finally I start to feel a little less like my stomach is trying to affix itself to my spine.

  “Why don’t you sleep?” I ask River in between my slower bites.

  I was curious about what you were doing, he answers. If you would care to tell me, of course, he hastily adds.

  “I don’t mind. Just, let me check what’s actually happened. I was…experimenting,” I hesitate to say. ‘Flying by the seat of my pants’ is probably more accurate, but doesn’t sound as good.

  Pulling up my status screen, I stare at the changes. Wow.

  So many things have happened… I say to myself.

  The first, and most important, is that I was not wrong – what I was doing in that different space was healing my soul. I have finally got rid of that reduction to my health regeneration – and probably to my effective Willpower too.

  However, the rest of it…. I decide to switch to my messages, hoping that they will enlighten me to all the differences. Like how, suddenly, I have half again the health units that I used to have, and a five percent multiplier to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Willpower. Not to mention the single Skill which has now gained Master rank.

  The first message that came up was actually about Dominate. I hadn’t realised when I quickly scanned through my status – too distracted by the percentages and health and Master ranked Skill – but my Class Skill has now ranked up to Initiate.

  Well, that will make organisation significantly easier, I think to myself as I read the first effect. My Bound have seemed to manage to make hunting and so on work through body-language, but being able to communicate as they do with me but with each other will be so much simpler.

  The other effect is also welcome, even though it doesn’t seem to offer me much more than I was able to do by staring into my reflection and casting Dominate. Though perhaps that method is risky in some way, or being able to access my ‘soul-space’ without using Dominate has benefits.

  Either way, it’s a nice improvement, and a welcome one, but nothing to explain the crazy things I saw on my status screen.

  I pull up the next message, another rank up as it turns out.

  My eyebrows rise higher and higher as I read the information about each new level. Like most of the Skill evolutions, it’s nothing terribly new. In a way, I’ve done each of those types of meditation before. But this is concretising it, offering paths to grow and officially stating the benefits and limitations of each.

  It also seems like there are two metrics going on here – practice with each single level, and advancing the Skill as a whole and the Energy absorption with it. At least, that’s what I’ve interpreted – I gain more Energy in each of the levels when I increase my overall level in the Skill. However, my ease and ability to use each of the levels seems to improve if I practise them individually.

  Though, I may be wrong about that. I’ll have to find out when I use them.

  Honestly, it’s a pretty awesome upgrade. Not only have I now got a type of meditation which I’ll be able to do when moving slowly – and which offers the potential of being able to always use it if I practise it sufficiently – but I have a level of Meditation which, if my assumptions are correct, at my current rank of Journeyman four, offers me up to two hundred and eighty percent more Energy absorption. My current basic rate is forty units per hour, which means that in Deep Meditation, I could be earning up to a hundred and fifty two units per hour. Suddenly, level fourteen doesn’t seem so far away.

  Pulling myself out of my daydream of once more steam-rolling through the levels, I remind myself that there are other things to look at.

  And when I open the next message, I realise that it’s a doozy.

  here!