I whistled. Even though it hurt to breathe and I couldn't see and the girls were crying all over me, I couldn't help but laugh. It came out as a raspy, broken, wet thing, but laugh I did.
The girls tried to complain, but I shushed them mentally. Vespera had already forced me to down the strongest potion we had, while my new Vitality was stabilizing my condition.
I was going to be fine. Mostly. Eventually.
Since I could not speak with my actual voice, I used telepathy.
I kinda want to say that what we did was dumb, stupid, and never to be done again. That we need to learn the fucking lesson and stop underestimating enemies. But…
Vespera looked at me. "Spacer boy, I know what you wanna say. I don't think you should say it. A certain angel might—"
Elyra touched me in what little parts of my skin had managed to heal and did not hurt. "We gained a lot, that much is true, but I do not want to hear from you that, should you be able to choose to gamble odds like these beforehand, you would do it."
I was about to speak, but she cut me off.
"If you do happen to say it, even in jest, then I will tickle you while you are still hurting."
Message loud and clear, I told her.
"And Vespera," she said, hands on her hips and face stern. "No manufacturing these situations so that they happen on 'accident' either. We are in no rush to increase our power, even though I do not deny that I feel excited about choosing our next skills."
The demon nodded. "Of course, silly angel. Who do you take me for?"
"Vespera the troublemaker, that is who."
I tried to laugh, coughed, and drew the ire of both demon and angel. Damn. The potion was taking its sweet time, wasn't it?
I did not like being hurt. Not because of the pain, but because it united the demon and angel in a single shared goal. To make me pay. How dare I get hurt? They were fun when they bickered, but they were scary when they joined forces against me like this.
Anyway, I told them. We can't deny that this is a massive powerup. Not only that, but we have a new way to gather energy that's much more efficient than just consuming cores.
Elyra looked at me. She was amused by something, but she wasn't sharing what through the bond. She watched me struggle to find a comfortable position with all the bruises and blistered skin, and tried her best to suppress a laugh. When she saw me looking, her face morphed from laughter to stern nurse, staring me down with sharp eyes.
Vespera was as confused as I was, which only made Elyra even more amused. She knew something we didn't.
"It makes me wonder, though," the angel said, pensive. She was still hiding whatever thing she found so funny about all this, but at least she wasn't trying to kill me for even thinking about putting us into more danger. "What difference is there between when the System consumes a core and what we just did? The core crumbled into dust and the System took its magic in both cases."
Now it was Vespera's turn to have some fun. "Ah, you see, little angel," she began, drawing out the words to enjoy the angel's confusion. She folded quickly, though, because a certain someone wasn't in the mood for this. "There is a simple yet crucial difference. This time the monster in question was alive. And, look around, do you see any trace of its body?"
Huh, interesting. Matter-magic equivalence? I wanted to hum, but I only did it in my mind, because my vocal chords weren't collaborating. I didn't think of that.
"It will make replicating the feat rather difficult," the angel said. "Provided that we manage to merge our magics again."
"Shouldn't be hard," Vespera said with a shrug.
"I am pretty sure it will be," Elyra countered. She turned to me. "Sol, how are you feeling?"
I can… see you again now. It's all blurry, but I won't be blind forever.
"Good," she said sternly. "And the rest of your body?"
"Especially the—"
"Vespera!"
I felt her eyes on me. Linking up with her, I saw myself from the outside. I was naked, covered in angry red blisters, oozing blood from some wounds, and purple bruises were slowly spreading across my whole body where the bones had snapped. Everywhere she looked, there were signs of damage, and the potion's effect had ran out. I was now in potion sickness.
Yeah, I don't think I'm walking any time soon.
Elyra shrugged. "I suppose, since there is no other thing you can think of, that we will have to carry you back to the dryad. It is the only logical thing to do. Vespera, build a sling."
"But—"
"No complaints. Unless you have thought of a better option?"
"Got it, got it, the demon said. I was only about to ask if you knew how to build a sling with sticks and stones."
"Ah. I am keeping an eye on Sol, of course. But I suppose he can link up with you and guide you?
I rejected the idea immediately.
"Why not?" she asked, pouting.
You're way too horny all the time. I wouldn't be able to concentrate.
"Fake news," she whined, but did not object.
It took a while but eventually we figured out how to build a very uncomfortable sling, and I was carried all the way back to the dryad.
"Ouch," I rasped. My voice was back, sort of.
We had stopped close to the big tree. Night was falling, but there were still people out and about in the general area, which was rather beginner friendly despite the presence of the instant death trap. I supposed it didn't pose much danger to anyone unless they walked right into the trigger zone for the riddle, something that was well known among workers.
It also meant that we needed to wait, hidden in the bushes. It wasn't Vespera's preferred approach, but even she recognized that perhaps now wasn't the moment to argue with Elyra.
Since we had to wait, we reckoned it was finally time to do something that's been on our minds since the fight.
"Let's go over the skills!" the demon said, almost whooping with joy.
Elyra quickly reminded her that there were people around.
"What shall we start with?" I asked. It was going to be back to telepathy after this, because even just speaking this one sentence hurt.
"Let's start with the boring ones. The general skills," the demon offered. "If that's alright with her eminence Elyra the trash pand—ow! You pinched me!"
"No trash talking."
"I trash panda'd, I did not trash talk—oww!"
"Go on ahead, Sol. I agree with Vespera, let us do the general one first."
She was amused again. Huh. I wondered why.
1 General Skill point available.
General Skills available:
Kinetic Dampening
Navigational Ping
Environmental Harmonization
"Navigational ping." Elyra said.
"No, um," Vespera began, timidly. "No debate no nothing?"
"Navigational. Ping."
The demon swallowed. "Alright. She's mad. It's on you, Sol. And don't send amusement through the bond! You are the cause of this! You turned the angel into a demoness!"
"Nope," I said. "We all share the blame. We were playing around with the bond—"
"You could say that we were touching ourselves." This time it was I who glared at Vespera. "Sorry, continue."
"We were playing around and we were overconfident in the outdated information from the map!"
Elyra sighed, sitting down beside me. She hugged her knees. "That is not what I am mad about, Sol. I understand that we are inexperienced, and this was an important lesson. I am mad that we gained so much power! For being so reckless!"
Emotions battled inside of her. She was still thinking about that funny thing, but now she was also feeling guilty about it? She was still not telling, though.
"I get a feeling that this is how the world works," I said somberly. "We must make sure it doesn't get to our heads."
"I agree." We looked at Vespera. She scoffed. "What? I agree. What's so strange about that?"
Elyra wiped a lone tear that had managed to form at the corner of her right eye. Looking up, she met Vespera's red eyes and a surge of tenderness welled up inside her. "Come here," she said.
The demon sat beside her, and she took her hand.
"I am sorry. I was being hard on you for no reason. And on Sol."
"Then you could—" I began.
"I'm still not telling. Figure it out or tough it out."
I hummed.
"Vespera, as I was saying. I apologize."
"Nonsense," the demon said. Leaning in, she licked Elyra's nose before quickly moving out of range. "We share feelings, remember?" she told the now shocked angel. "I know your true feelings. You're quite cute. Anyway. Pick the ping, spacer boy. I wanna see it in action."
I did, and we immediately tested it. The feeling was strange, like I was being asked where I wanted the ping to happen, provided it was near me. I chose to ping the area behind us, where the forest was deeper, and then things got even stranger.
"This is weird," Vespera said. "You feel it too, right? It's like, that feeling when you are in a dark room and you can't see anything, but you know where things are so you can walk around them without stubbing your toe on a chair? It's like that."
She summed it up rather nicely. "I didn't think you could feel it too. You can't use my other skills," I said.
Elyra did not agree. They could not activate the skill unless they hopped over and I let them take control. But the information, well, we were already sharing that.
The ping died, but the sensation lingered.
"There is a small squirrel thirty-four meters in that direction," Elyra said, eyes almost glazed over, pointing somewhere in the bushes.
"I see it," I said. "It's hopping towards us. And it's stopped now."
"It's going back from where it came," Vespera said. "Out of range now."
We blinked almost at the same time, all of us returning to the here and now. The data from the ping was still lingering, but it was losing resolution. Less than a minute later, it was so blurry as to be almost useless, but the skill was once again usable.
We did some more tests. The skill used mana, but not a lot, and it revealed an area of roughly fifty meters in radius. We could cast it some distance away from us, but not so far that we weren't inside the sphere. Still, it gave a lot of range.
I grinned. "Well, that solves one of our problems," I said. "No more getting jumped."
Elyra's eyes narrowed. "Sure, let us grow dependent on a skill to avoid being ambushed, Sol Nightguard. I am certain it will not backfire. Already, you two are forgetting important things! I dare not imagine what might happen later."
There it was again. She was mad at me and Vespera for something. And she wasn't telling what.
I stammered. "Of course not. I wasn't even thinking about that!"
"You really have no idea, do you?" She shook her head. "I cannot believe neither of you remember that we have a healing skill that we can pick from the Class Skills."
Shit. I had completely forgotten. She laughed almost hysterically.
"She's dangerous, Sol," Vespera whispered in my mind.
"I know," I shot back. Then out loud: "You could have told me!"
"Apologies. It must have slipped my mind…"
"Unbelievable," Vespera muttered. "Elyra…"
She blinked. My vision was blurry, but I was already linked to both of them to make up for my damaged eyes. I saw the demon's field of view blur, and through Elyra I saw tears in her eyes.
"I…" she sniffled. "I… I am so proud of you! You're always so submissive and needy in bed, I thought you would never be capable of things such as this!"
"I did nothing," she said coldly. Beneath her icy facade, however, I could tell that she was enjoying this immensely. She was also doing her best to prevent the tips of her ears from flushing red at what Vespera just said.
Ah well. She had a point, I guess.
"Come on, Sol. I think you suffered enough. You can pick the healing skill."