078, 1/2

Erick woke and it was still dark outside. Ophiel trilled at being disturbed, asking in his own way if it was time to get up already. After blinking in the dark for a few moments, Erick decided that yes, it was time to get up already. He felt pretty good, and there was stuff to do, like organizing his stuff for the return to Spur, and figuring out [Cascade Imaging] a bit more.

So he got up.

He went to the bathroom, shut the door, and flicked open the shutter around the light orb, over the bathroom mirror. Ophiel complained in flutes at being locked on the other side of the door as he usually did, but he quieted down soon enough. Erick shucked his clothes as he prepared to hop into the shower. [Cleanse] was good enough to fall asleep with, but he had forgotten to take a bath last night, and there was no better way to wake up than to a hot shower—

He saw himself in the mirror. He paused.

Life on Veird, walking everywhere, or blipping somewhere to then walk more, or sparring with various people as he trained in his magic, had been good for Erick. His 48 year old dad bod had looked the best it had ever looked. He imagined that if he had gone to the bathhouses in Spur, that were still open even after water season because of his extra rain, he would only feel half as inadequate these days. Orcols were still way too damn beautiful for Erick’s Vitality to ignore, but at least he was not the ugliest duckling in town.

But something had changed last night. It was probably Rozeta’s Recovery.

Erick saw his body, first, because how could he not. There were muscles on his arms and chest and shoulders and ass, like he was 25 again. He had never been big like some of those guys at the gym when he was 20, but he had certainly been attractive. His long trail of satisfied lovers could attest to that.

And then there was his face! It was like he was wearing makeup, but better, because he wasn’t. The bags under his eyes were gone, and the loose skin of his neck had tightened, and the creases on his forehead and his laugh lines had vanished. He looked 30, maybe? 35? He was still 48, but he certainly didn’t feel 48, and he didn’t look his age, at all. Except for the grey in his hair. That was still there.

As he was staring at himself, he realized that his eyes were better, too.

Erick had never needed glasses, though he was starting to squint sometimes. But apparently that was a thing of the past, too. Even without using [Hunter’s Instincts] he could count the hairs on his eyelashes, without leaning into the mirror to get a better look.

He activated [Hunter’s Instincts] and suddenly the world felt malleable, like he could reach out and touch Reality to break it, or save it. Muscles corded down his forearms as he made a tight fist. It was hard to make a fist first thing in the morning, but as he continued to force a fist, his strength came to him. Bones seemed to creak, then settle, as his fist tightened hard, his body fully waking to the day. He smiled, as he glanced at his HP. It didn’t drop from full even with [Hunter’s Instincts] demands.

Erick smiled. He stretched his arms up—

Oh. A strange feeling twinged through his shoulders and back, and then it was gone. It was like he pulled a muscle, but that uncomfortable feeling passed almost immediately. He stretched his arms forward again, and his body moved fluidly, like it did when he was much younger.

He stretched again, this time down, to touch his toes. The same pulling sensation came, then went, as he settled into his new position. He wrapped his fingertips around his toes. He bent further down, to put his palms flat on the ground, without bending his knees or lifting his feet. Whatever stretching sensation passed through his groin, and his calves, and his back, felt like a small sigh as his body seemed to say, ‘I guess we’re doing this now’, and promptly obeyed his wishes. The taut feelings in his muscles relaxed.

He stayed like that for a moment, just pressing against the ground with the palms of his hands, while his legs were perfectly straight. His body didn’t seem to mind its odd position.

On a lark, he put his weight on his hands, and did something he hadn’t been able to do in 25 years. He slowly, but easily, lifted his legs off of the ground, careful to avoid the walls of the bathroom, and did a handstand like it was nothing at all. He swayed from one hand to the other, then transferred over to one hand, supporting all his weight on one palm. He had never been able to do that before. He had tried, a lot, when he was younger, and he had even tried on the sands of the arena a few times before he gave up, but he had never been able to do a single handstand, until now. And it was easy, too!

Blood rushed through his body as he laughed at the floor.

With all the grace of a gymnast, Erick methodically lowered his feet to the ground. Blood rushed around his body, filling out other, more sensitive locations, as he stood up straight and smiled at the mirror. Vitality was amazing, for sure. He smiled. He poked at his muscles. They seemed real enough, and he was able to cast magic and bring up his Status, so this wasn’t a dream. Or if it was, it was a really well done dream.

He mentally poked Poi, ‘Hey, Poi. Are you awake?’

Poi grogged back, ‘Yes.’ He rapidly asked, ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Probably.’ Erick cast a [Cleanse], blowing away a tiny bit of thick air from his body and the room, as he began to put his nightclothes back on. ‘Something weird happened to me and I want your opinion. Fair warning: I do not look like I looked when I went to bed.’

‘… I guess it’s time to get up, then.’

‘It’s practically morning anyway!’

Erick exited the bathroom, to stand on the balcony that wrapped around the second floor. Poi opened his door, and saw Erick. Both of them were in their nightclothes, though Poi liked to sleep shirtless. Erick smiled, while Poi stared. Poi frowned. Erick smiled wider, then laughed.

Poi said, “You…” He thought. He said, “You got Immune to Health Fatigue, somehow, didn’t you?”

Erick frowned. “How did you know! Dammit! Is it really that easy to be young again?!”

“No. It is not. And you’re not young again.” Poi asked, “When in all the hells and heavens did you switch your Scion— You didn’t switch your Scion at all, did you.” He frowned again, saying, “This was one of the abilities you got, wasn’t it. Is this permanent?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” Erick smiled wide as he thumbed backward, saying, “I just did a handstand in the bathroom. One handed!”

Poi sighed out, as he turned around and walked into his room, muttering, “Guarding an older man was so much easier. Shit.”

Erick laughed.

Rats opened his door on the third floor and came to the banister, yelling, “Don’t you know what time— Oh.” He looked down at Erick. “So I wasn’t hearing things. That’s strange. But good. You didn’t switch your Scion but you got Immune to Health Fatigue, didn’t you.”

Erick smiled, saying, “It’s pretty great!”

Rats said, “You should wear some heavier clothing so no one can tell.”

Erick balked. “All the lines on my face are gone, too!”

“Are they?” Rats said, “Oh. I guess so. Maybe? You don’t look that much different to me.”

Erick balked, again.

While Rats dismissed Erick’s looks, Kiri came out of her room on the third floor. Her room was above Erick’s, so she moved around a bit to the north, to look down from that banister. She came into view, and paused.

Erick waved.

Kiri said, “Shit.” She deflated a bit, saying, “You got Immune to Health Fatigue. My gods, what were the options you gave up?”

Poi walked out of his room, still putting on his uniform jacket, saying, “This is why I told you not to say anything, sir.”

Kiri threw her hand out, exclaiming to Poi, “Anyone with any adventurer training at all would know what he got by looking at him! You all did, right away!” She put her hands on the banister, daring Poi to say otherwise.

Poi just frowned.

Erick chuckled a little, feeling his body move in ways he hadn’t felt in years. Mostly, there was a lot more weight in his upper body. He wished he could have kept going to the gym, back on Earth, but he slowed down like everyone did when they got to his age. Now, it was like he never missed a day.

Without someone to tell her to stop, Kiri continued, “It was the Recovery option, wasn’t it? No. Wait. It could have been Resilience.”

Poi said, “This is why I said not to say anything, sir.” He added, “If this Fatigue Immunity thing going on with you is anything like normal Fatigue Immunity, you’re likely to age at half-rate, too.”

Erick felt his heart pump hard, and the feeling that simple action gave him was one of adrenaline, instead of a half-realized thought wondering if he was having a heart attack, or not. After he sorted that emotion, he asked, “Half-rate?”

Teressa hummed from the balcony beside her door; she had come out when Erick wasn’t looking. She looked down to Erick, and said, “Congratulations.”

Rats said, “Congrats.” He added, “And I worked a 20 hour shift. Are we going back to Spur today?”

“Not till the afternoon, at least,” Erick decided, just then.

Rats said, “Thank the gods. I’m going back to bed.” He went back into his room and shut the door.

Teressa smiled, and said, “If we’re up, we’re up. I’ll start breakfast.” She walked to the stairs downward, saying, “You must be hungry, sir.”

Erick felt his stomach rumble as a primal need for food overtook all of his desires. He declared, “Yes. Oh wow. Very hungry.” He muttered, half to himself, “When did that happen.”

Teressa chuckled as she walked down the stairs to the kitchen.

 

– – – –

 

Teressa did most of the work of making breakfast by beginning with bread, but Erick helped by washing and chopping a good dozen potatoes. Poi got an early start on telepathically talking to whoever he usually talked to; he sat on the couch, drinking coftea, radiating varying numbers of intent-filled lines into the manasphere. Kiri, for her part, pored over a meter wide red book on [Identify]. It was the same one Erick had started to read last night.

Teressa placed the kneaded dough into an oiled bowl, and said, “I once knew a guy who switched his Scion to Vitality later in life. He was 80 years old and done with the adventuring life, but he wanted to see if he could actually do the switching quest.”

Erick listened as he boiled potatoes in a heat ward, to get them ready for oven frying faster. “Oh?”

She smiled as she said, “It took him a year without a Scion, but he managed to do it. He came back to the village…” She frowned. She faltered. She put on a happy face, saying, “For a little while, everyone thought he was his son.” Her smile seemed to turn genuine. “He played a lot of tricks on a lot of people for about a week, before everyone decided to play a trick back on him, and declare him legally dead. We had a funeral and everything, but he turned that around on us when he gave a speech about himself.”

Erick chuckled, saying, “Sounds like a fun guy.”

Teressa grabbed sausages from the cold box, smiling faintly as she said, “He was.”

Moments passed. The scent of grilled sausages soon filled the air with spicy, meaty flavors.

And Erick was feeling a little weird. No one seemed to care that he had undergone a massive physical shift. Or. Maybe it wasn’t that massive? According to Teressa, his own experience was the normal experience for those who acquired Fatigue Immunity later in life, just like him… So… Maybe this wasn’t a big deal?

Erick asked, “Does anything special happen when you have stacking Immune to Health Fatigue? Or Mana Exhaustion, for that matter?”

Teressa said, “No idea. Professor Rue Downs might know.”

Kiri spoke up, “Four times normal life span for stacking Fatigue Immunity. Constant low-grade [Treat Wounds].”

In a quick emotional sense, Erick felt the floor drop from under him. Four times normal life span? Constant [Treat Wounds]? What?

“Where’d you hear that?” Teressa asked.

Kiri paused. “I’m not sure where.”

Teressa said, “You might be right about the life span thing, but that [Treat Wounds] effect comes from having a high Health Regeneration somewhere in the 5000 range. It’s often conflated with Immunity, but they’re not the same. A lot of orcols will spec into Vitality just enough to break that threshold and get that effect, since we’re naturally pretty close.” She added, “Like me.”

Kiri frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Completely sure.”

“Well…” Kiri said, “Good to know. I’m pretty sure about the life span times-four thing, though. That’s well documented— Oh.” Kiri paused. She said, “I read about that in a book on the nuances of Vitality. It was written by an orcol, now that I think about it.”

Teressa smiled.

Kiri said, “I have no idea what stacking Mana Exhaustion Immunity would mean.” She paused. She eyed Erick a little, glancing down, but she returned to her book as she said, “Probably nothing, now that I think about it.”

Erick slowly came back to himself, listening to Kiri and Teressa talk. He noticed steam billowed up from below. He looked down. The potatoes were boiling. He quickly poked one with a knife on hand, then seeing they were soft, he took the boiling chunks of potatoes out of the [Heat Ward]. He drained the water in the sink. More steam filled the air.

He turned back to the room, holding the potatoes. He said, “You’re probably right about the mental Stats, Kiri. They don’t make you smarter, after all.”

“Of course they don’t.” Kiri said, “The Script was created to stop the abuses of the Old Wizards. If the mental Stats made you smarter, then that would just make mages that much more dangerous.”

Erick smiled. Everything was nominally stacked against mages, but he was having a pretty good go at being a mage, wasn’t he?

He took his potatoes and added oil, salt, and pepper. Then he shook them up a bit, just enough to break up the outermost layer but not enough to break them apart. It was a technique that gave them a nice outer layer which would fry up well in the oven.

He turned back to the room, and said, “I could see that being true, about not wanting to make mages strong again.” He asked Poi, “No intelligence enhancing spells out of the Mind Mages?”

Without missing a beat, Poi looked up from his concentration of telepathic lines, and said, “There are no intelligence enhancing spells. There are no temporary buff spells.”

Teressa huffed out a laugh, adding, “There are, but they’re Mind Mage only, and they can’t share for whatever unknown reason.”

Poi frowned, repeating, “There are no temporary buff spells.”

Kiri said, “I was told that they do more harm than good and that they’re especially bad if you don’t have that telepathic knack, but I honestly don’t know.”

Poi sighed, repeating, “There are no temporary buff spells.”

“Are you sure, Poi?” Erick said, smiling, teasing. “I’m getting a lot of conflicting information, here.”

Poi let out a long suffering sigh, and gave no further response.

 

– – – –

 

Breakfast was wonderful. Erick did not eat as much as Teressa, but he was a close second. They finished their meals just as the sun began to rise on the eastern side of the house. The yard and the ocean to the west were still dark with night.

 

– – – –

 

The day started surreal and it only got weirder. When Erick moved, he felt more secure in his movements. When he gauged walking through a door, he hit his larger shoulders. When he bent over to pick up a twenty kilo tome at the bottom of the crate, he just did it, without a strain in his back or any difficulty at all.

Over the years, he had picked up a lot of nuances to how he moved to make sure that he didn’t hurt himself. A lot of those nuances went away when he fell to Veird, as he began to get a new feeling for how his body worked here, and as he learned how to enchant huge Strength Stat accessories. But he still didn’t ever get on his knees to look into the back of a bottom cupboard, and he didn’t sit down on the ground because getting up was still not the easiest thing in the world. Vitality did a lot, but it didn’t save him from age. Hocnihai even died of old age, not too long ago.

And yet, as the morning dawned, Erick had taken to the front yard with loose pants, a plan, and nothing else. Now, hours later and in the sun, he was still playing around in the yard, doing gymnastics, testing how far he could push himself.

Handstands, hand walking, cartwheels, leaps and tucks and turns, Erick played around with his new, old body. He had been in rather good shape when he was 22, but this, right here, was something else. His muscles tensed as he told them to, they held his weight as he wanted. He wasn’t secure in his movements, but the falls to the ground and the demands on his Health to support his very strenuous activities were not harsh demands. Meditation’s Rest state was more than enough regenerated Health to cover for his missteps, when he landed on his face, or when he landed wrong on an arm, or a foot.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

When he was happy with his base movements, he [Conjure Item]ed boxes and walls and hoops and rails to test himself some more. Soon, he turned on [Hunter’s Instincts], and the Health drain was barely noticeable past his natural regeneration.

With [Hunter’s Instincts], the entire world seemed full of influences and directions. The way the leaves curled with the wind, the way the grass held the dirt secure enough to support his weight a little extra, so that he could push off the ground a little harder. Erick knew, suddenly, the best way to move to get from one space to another, to hop through a hoop and to curl his body as he fell to the ground on the other side. He moved with grace from barefoot toes to his bare hands as he twirled across the lawn and over temporary obstacles. There were no missteps this time. His body did exactly as he wanted, and when he overextended, his body made up for his mistakes with a stretch and an adjustment to its new capabilities. He recognized each time his body stretched, too, because each time his Health dropped a few hundred points.

If his new Health Regeneration wasn’t so high, that might have concerned him, but his regeneration was that high, so it didn’t. If he had tried to do some of those movements out in the field, without Rozeta’s Recovery, he knew he would have injured himself. Maybe even pulled a muscle or sprained something bad enough that he wouldn’t be able to walk or bend like that again until an application of [Treat Wounds].

Introducing himself to the extra Elites the Headmaster had set out around his house was something of a tense moment, for he wasn’t sure if they would think him an intruder, but they had seen him inside the house, making breakfast. They had listened in. And though that was both creepy and a massive invasion of privacy, and Erick was not comfortable with that at all, he knew he would soon be out of here and back in Spur, so he let it slide. He told them off a little, but just enough so they knew he wasn’t happy, just to set a boundary. Should he have done that? Probably not. They were just doing their jobs. But he tried to be diplomatic about it, so he put that out of his mind, and went on with his day.

As the sun spilled warm light across the lawn of Windy Manor, Erick walked around on his hands and laughed, as sweat dripped down his body and Ophiel trilled in the air nearby. He was still a 48 year old man, but magic could do a lot with a 48 year old body. For not the first time, Erick was really happy he chose to focus on Focus.

 

– – – –

 

Sweat dripped down Erick’s chest onto the torn up grassy lawn, as the sun beat down from above. His hands tightened around the white staff in his hands. He set his feet into position on the loam; one in front, the other behind. He took aim. [Hunter’s Instinct]s flared. He launched forward, staff aimed at Kiri.

Kiri’s eyes flared with the activation of [Evasive Stance] as she deflected the blow and sidestepped with absolute grace, like Erick was moving in slow motion and she was as agile as air. She countered with an obvious strike to his exposed side, but Erick rolled away, out of range.

Halfway through the roll he [Blink]ed to Kiri’s back, hoping for an opening, using his continued momentum to swing his staff at her shoulder.

She turned and smacked his hand. His staff went flying but he caught it with [Telekinesis] and whipped it back around to Kiri’s other side. She blipped green, out of the way. She reappeared and smacked him on the thigh before he could bring the staff up to deflect the blow, but he managed to get his staff back up in time to intercept her next strike. His blow cracked and broke Kiri’s green staff. He took aim at her stomach.

Kiri huffed out fire as she demanded her body to move faster, to twist, to avoid the worst of Erick’s incoming strike. He almost managed to land a hit, but Kiri blipped again. She reappeared with another green staff in her hands. She struck him on the back. His skin flashed bright white as he went sprawling forward, face planting into the dirt.

Erick tucked and rolled—

“I’m done!” Kiri said.

Erick was already on his feet, already aiming for Kiri with his staff, ready to [Blink] again, but he stopped. He breathed hard, laughing as he said, “I still haven’t sent you flying!”

Kiri breathed out fire as she dropped her green staff into the ambient mana. She winced as she held her hands, and her wrists. “I think I almost broke something.”

With a thought, Erick bade Ophiel to drop down from the air above, to touch Kiri with the rod of [Treat Wounds] the [Familiar] had been holding since Erick and Kiri started sparring. As a white glow transferred from the rod, to Kiri’s shoulder, she relaxed.

She touched the rings on her fingers, saying, “Even with these Stats, it’s still tough to counter a hit from that kind of power.”

Erick smirked, disbelieving. “You have to have more Strength than me.”

“I would have thought us the same, yesterday, but I’m still training my body to be able to use all of these extra Stats, while your recovery gave you a shortcut.” Kiri said, “Almost everyone has a mental limit on the amount of Strength they can actually utilize so they don’t damage their body in the process of doing something that they really shouldn’t even try.” She breathed out fire, huffing out heat where others would sweat.