109: Recovery

The first thing I felt was pain. I couldn’t move, but my body was in agony. It felt like everywhere was burning from the inside.

At the same time, I couldn’t move, this felt eerily familiar to what I had experienced before — but with far more pain.

As I opened my eyes, on my back staring up at the roof, I was clearly not in the kitchen anymore, and I could barely focus on anything as my eyes watered from the pain I was in, I was sure I was on a bed of some kind right now.

In a way that was somewhat of a relief, but it also meant I was in worse shape than I had expected, I tried to wrack my brain for where I went wrong; I was sure that I purified the dish, and even if I hadn’t I didn’t use any dangerous ingredients in there, the salt sure, but I had used that since, and when purified it was fine, then there was perhaps the honey?

But even that had been used and was fine when purified, I attempted to think of the buffs for the Eel, but when I did the pain through my body intensified — any thought of checking it was erased as I cried out in pain.

When I woke up again, it was to two green eyes peering down at me from above.

I tried to say something but nothing came out, I still couldn’t move, the pain was still there, like liquid fire surging through my veins back and forth, I really wanted to let Lily know I was okay — well as okay as I could be in the situation — but nothing came out.

This was definitely the same as last time. I was sure of it. Hari was going to kill me, but desperately, I tried to search my memories for how I fixed it last time.

I used an ability, right? Arcane Foraging, because my mana was overloaded.

Lily had moved away now, so I was back to staring at the roof, but I attempted to activate Arcane Foraging.

Pain.

Pain unlike anything I had felt before.

The fire that had been running through my body before was now everywhere all at once — pure agony.

“Trevor?” Liane’s voice woke me up.

“Open your mouth, I need you to swallow this for me,” she said as I felt the touch of glass on my lips before a cold feeling started running down my throat and then for just a moment it felt like the fire in my veins was muted.

It didn’t last long; as it came back with a vengeance, my eyes began to water again, but I saw the unmistakable face of concern on Liane.

“In good news Trev, we have the wagon ready!” she said, now sitting next to the bed.

I wanted to say something — to get the details, anything — but I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move…

“It’s really cool, there is a spot for three barrels to sit, and along the edge there is a large cutting board that folds down, in a pinch you could sit three or four people in there, and despite Hari not being a large fan of it initially, he’s come around, even going as far as to add two runes to it, one for repairs and one for durability,” Liane explained, looking over at me now and then to see if I was still awake.

There was a long pause. “I don’t know what you ate Trev, Lily wouldn’t let us touch it, but I swear if you had dragon before I did, I’ll never forgive you.”

I saw the smirk on her face, knowing she was joking — but it seemed it wasn’t just the two of us in the room as the smirk fell.

“I’m kidding Lily, I’m kidding. I wouldn’t touch the dragon meat,” Liane said.

I didn’t know where Lily was. I couldn’t move my head — I hope she didn’t cause too much trouble when I collapsed.

“You know this is the longest you’ve been awake. I think you’ve been unconscious for nearly a week now. And you’d never believe the rumours that are flying around about it all.”

I could practically hear the mirth in her voice as she said it.

“The main one is people believe that idiot who muscled you in the line tried to have you killed, and it backfired — and now Lily is hunting him! That one gained so much traction he even left town!” Liane chuckled.

There was movement I heard just at the far end of the bed.

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“It’s fine Lily, it’s not true. He’s an egotistical moron, but he didn’t hurt Trevor,” Liane said.

“The other main rumour is that you died, and the aura everyone felt was Lily expressing sorrow and anger at that death.”

That sounded like a good opportunity to lie low again — but that thought was dashed just a second later as she continued.

“Anyone with half a brain would see that’s not true though, you’ve had healers and doctors running in and out of here all week, half of them leaving traumatised, the other half wondering how you managed it — or more so, how you’re still alive.”

“Before I leave you to rest, I’m going to pick up some winter clothes for you, when I asked Crisplet if you had brought any, I got a no, and we may end up leaving sooner rather than later so we don’t get trapped in the snow, but don’t worry, we’ll work it all out, rest now.”

And with that, she got up; I heard the door close as she left the room.

Before I fell asleep, I once again saw Lily’s eyes over my face looking into my own.

Was she checking on me?