Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Unlike the other times when something unexpected suddenly hit him, such as when a powerful influx of additional base stats flowed into his body, there was no pain as Thaden was sent to his back when it felt like all his muscles had suddenly gone slack.  Instead, it was almost as if his mind had completely detached from his corporeal self, thereby cutting any connection to his body, and he was forced to stare up at the ceiling as… something… happened.

Unable to move or cast any spells that might cure him of this affliction, but strangely calm for all that he felt like he’d been wholly paralyzed, he could only watch as a subtle prismatic glow seemed to emanate from his equipment, reminding him of the Adaptable Mimicry Plates he’d installed on a few of the pieces.  At first, it wasn’t very bright, and the daylight coming through the multitude of windows in his Diamond-Ranked room drowned out most of the illumination.  After a few seconds, however, the intensity of the glow ramped up, growing brighter and brighter by the second.  Before too long, it grew so bright that he couldn’t see anything but riot of colors filling his vision, and he thought for a moment that it would blind him.  He could, of course, cure that particular affliction…

…if he could do anything but lie there and suffer through the intense glow.

His worry over being blinded never materialized, as just at the edge of losing his sight completely, the glow abruptly disappeared, leaving him blinded by the spots that hung around in his eyes until they could adjust.  At the same time, the feeling in his body returned, which was accompanied by a shaking of the bed and a weight pressing down on his chest. 

What the—?

A quick cast of Superior Cure Physical Affliction was all it took for the partial blindness from the glow to fade away, and when he could see again, his body instinctively tried to press itself into the bed as a smiling face appeared only inches from his own.     

“Aaaah!  What—?  Who—?  How—?” he exclaimed rapid-fire, thoroughly confused at what was happening.  He knew for a fact that no one could enter his room other than the Coalition’s Regional Leader, and he was 100% positive that this wasn’t her; the face that was creepily staring at him with a teeth-filled grin was no Charee.

Unless he was mistaken, it wasn’t Human, either.  The dark purple, bat-like ears on the sides of their similarly colored face was enough proof to him that it wasn’t any Human that he’d ever seen before. 

“Hi!  I’m so happy to finally be here with you!” he heard, and from the tone of the voice, he was now absolutely certain that this… whatever it was, was female.  A glance downwards made all the heat in his body rush to his face as he felt it burning up, as the strange woman was straddled over his upper body and leaning over him, her arms holding her up on either side of his head.  “We’re going to have so much fun together, Mast—”

“Oh, no, no, no—I don’t think so,” he cut her off as soon as he could, waving his hands in front of his face.  “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t have time for this right now.”  Just to make sure he was fully protected from attack, he recast his protective spells, though most of them were still active from before he even arrived back in Rageharbor.  He didn’t really feel like he was in danger, as he was extremely powerful even without his protective spells, but he wasn’t going to take any chances until he could figure out what was going on.

“But I’m here to help you!  I’m fully synchronized with you now, so I can do whatever you need me to do!”

He was about to push her away when she spoke, and he froze as something she said cut through the uncomfortableness of the situation.  “Did you say synchronization?”

“Of course!” she said excitedly, nodding quickly in agreement.  “I’m SADIA, your Synchronized Amplified Dynamic Integrated Assistant, and I’m here to serve you in whatever capacity you desire.”

Uh… What?

His mind was short-circuiting at what was going on, but he pushed through and tried to get it back on track.  “Alright.  Okay.  So.  First things first, can you get off of me?  Second, is there any way you can, I don’t know, put some clothes on?”

Thaden wasn’t a prude, nor was he inexperienced with these kinds of situations, but there was a limit to what he could handle all at once. 

“Oh.  Absolutely!”  He didn’t feel her getting off of the bed, nor did he see it; she was there one second and gone from his vision the next.  Cautiously, he sat up and looked ahead, where Sadia now stood at the foot of the bed, smiling at him with her hands on her hips.  To say that she was wearing clothing was a stretch, as the strips of blood-red leather crisscrossing her torso left very little to the imagination.

It was at that point that he noticed two very small black horns jutting from the top of her head and through the mass of long, dark curls that framed her face.  Looking further, he saw a barbed tail swishing back and forth behind her, and a set of black wings flexed along her back for a moment before they contracted and hid themselves behind her torso.  The clawed feet at the bottom of her legs sort of completed the picture.

“Oh, hell no.  Are you supposed to be some sort of Succubus or something?”  He briefly remembered Muriel and her Lesser Succubus Class, which made him idly wonder how she was doing.  Shaking his head to clear it from those thoughts, as they didn’t do him any good right now, he concentrated on the devilish woman in front of him.

She cocked her head to the side and frowned, as if confused at the question.  “I guess so?  I can look like anything you want; this form was meant to make you comfortable with my presence, but you can change it to whatever form you desire, Master.”

Looking away, because he was feeling quite uncomfortable now with the situation, he shook his head.  “Please don’t call me that.  It’s Thaden or nothing, not… that other word.”

“Your wish is my command, Thaden,” she responded with a bow.

Crap.  This is too creepy for my liking. 

“How do I, uh, change what you look like?” he asked after a moment.

She giggled, which was entirely too much for him.  “All you have to do is will it and our synchronization will—”

He didn’t wait for her to finish, because he really needed her to look different.  Closing his eyes, he forcibly thought about what he wanted her to look like; a few seconds later, in mid-sentence, something happened that was strong enough for her stop talking.  Opening his eyes, he looked at her to see that it had succeeded.

Sort of.

A giant squirrel with a big bushy tail sat on the floor, its tail swishing back and forth as it seemed to consider him intently.  Its head came up to his chest, so he was almost able to look at it directly in the eyes.  He had been trying to make it small like a normal squirrel back on Earth, but he supposed this would do.

“Is this more to your liking?” the squirrel said, still with the same sultry, Succubus voice from before.  Another flex of his will changed that, too.  When she next spoke, the tone was still female, but it was more… normal, he supposed?  Whatever it was, it didn’t make him uncomfortable.  “What is your wish, Thaden?”

Relieved that the Succubus lady was gone, his heart began slowing down and beating more regularly, clearly highlighting how much that had affected him.  I don’t need some sort of crazy seductress hanging all over me, after all.

Taking a deep breath, for the first time since she appeared that he felt like his faculties were all working again, he dug into what exactly had happened.

“First, who and what are you?  I gather that you’re connected to me somehow, perhaps with the Plates I installed on my equipment, but I don’t have any idea what is going on.”

It was strange to see the giant squirrel cock its head to the side like the Succubus before it, but he supposed it was a universal sign of confusion.  “This should’ve been covered in your Training—oh,” Sadia began to say, but somehow he could see the squirrel’s eyes widen in astonishment.  At the same time, it felt like she was staring into his soul and was rummaging around in there for something.  The sensation wasn’t exactly uncomfortable; it was more eerie than anything else.  “I see.  Oh, that’s very interesting.  How—?  Wow.  You—?  That can’t be right—” she mumbled to herself.  After another few seconds, the eerie feeling faded.  “Alright, that explains a lot.  You’re aware that you have some deep-seated social and emotional connection issues, aren’t you?  You’ve been alone entirely too long here on Tarth, I believe.  Thankfully, I can help provide the companionship you desperately need before you dive off the deep end into a depression-induced psychotic break with reality.”

Thaden was stunned.  He didn’t know what to say at first, but he eventually blurted out, “What?  Uh, what did you just do?”

“You mean this?” Sadia asked, before he felt the squirming inside his soul, which thankfully cut off after a few seconds.  “I was deep-diving into our connection to find more out about you, and consequently, us.  We’re connected on a level that I clearly see you don’t understand, now that I’ve learned about your entire history.  After looking through it all, it’s a wonder that you’re still sane,” she said with a neutral tone.  The cheeriness was back a moment later as she continued.  “But that’s all in the past!  We’re going to work together to make a better future!”

He was glad that he was still sitting, because he was feeling overwhelmed.  “So, you know…?”

“Yep!  I know everything about you now, and I have to say, the Assimilation System would be very interested to know how you developed this way.”

A flash of panic shot through him.  “Y-You’re not going to tell it anything, are you?”

A giggling squirrel was one of the oddest things he’d ever seen, even on Tarth.  The only thing that would’ve made it weirder was if he hadn’t changed the old voice with the new form.  “Of course not!  I’m technically connected to the Assimilation System through you, but I don’t have any direct access.  So, unless you give me permission to use that connection, I can’t do anything of the sort.  Not that I would, of course.”

“Why not?” he asked, not sure if he believed her.

“Because whatever would happen to you if I did that would happen to me, too.  Or, more likely, my consciousness would be utterly obliterated, a fate that I’d rather not suffer if I can help it.  Besides, my primary objective is to help you, not the System.”

“You have a consciousness?  Are you a real person, then?”  He thought she was just some sort of computer-driven projection or something, given how he could change her appearance at will.

Her tail swished back and forth a few times, and he instinctively gauged the behavior to be one of annoyance.  “I’m as real as anyone,” she answered curtly.

Thaden held up his hands in apology.  “Whoa, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.  Remember that I don’t know anything about this?”

The tail stopped swishing.  “I suppose that’s fairly accurate.  You’re extremely ignorant of this world and your role in it, aren’t you?”

He could only nod, as there was no use in denying it.

“I’ll be able to help a little bit with that over time, but for now, let me answer your burning questions about who – and what – I am.

“First, because of our synchronized connection, you can consider me a direct extension of you.  I can act independently and utilize our connection to physically attack, utilize abilities,  or cast spells, and I can even extract loot from slain monsters.  My stats are a direct copy of your own, and because I originated from the confluence of Adaptable Mimicry Plates, that also includes the equipment where the plates are installed. 

“I can be injured but I cannot die; if my Health reduces down to zero, I will simply be unable to manifest again for a minimum of 12 hours.  At that point, my consciousness will return to the Plates on your equipment while I reconstitute my form, which is where I would also wait to be called forth if you desire my presence to be hidden from others.  I can range up to 189 feet from your location at your current Level, which will only increase as you Level-up, and my downtime upon my quote-unquote ‘death’ will reduce, as well. 

“I can feel the question threatening to burst out of you, so I’ll answer it here: No, I’m not a replacement for a different Class.  While I can technically physically attack a monster, even with borrowing your incredible Physicality stat, I’m still an extension of a Support Class.  That means the System – and by extension the monsters on Tarth – will automatically inflict a penalty upon your physical attacks.  I might be able to pick up a boulder and toss it at a monster with my incredible strength, which could be a strategy that could be employed, but if I were to try and punch it or slash it with my claws,” she said, flexing her squirrel hands as if in demonstration, “it wouldn’t be very effective.  I also cannot wear or utilize any additional equipment, or consume any items, though you could still imagine me wearing something or even holding a weapon – but they would simply be an illusion. 

“While I have my own Health pool, my Mana pool is connected to yours.  Fortunately, that isn’t something you have to worry about,” she said as she winked, which almost made him laugh out loud because it was strange to see a squirrel do that.  “Of course, that mainly just covers what I can help with during a fight; my main purpose, from what I can assess of your needs, is to be your companion.  There is a reason Solitary Shamans are so rare in the Assimilation System, and it’s not because of the difficulty of unlocking the Class; it’s because most successful sapient lifeforms are social creatures and require a connection with others to survive and thrive, which is the somewhat the opposite of what the Class requires.  You’ve been relying on yourself for everything since you arrived on Tarth, and while there have been some scattered interactions with people, it isn’t enough.”

He felt slightly affronted that Sadia seemed to be implying that he’d made poor choices since he’d been forcefully yanked away from Earth, because he just saw it as surviving the best way he knew how.  That, and he was striving to be at the top of the Rankings, which would give him the answers he needed about the Assimilation System, Contenders, the Adversary, and about what the heck was going on with this whole Developmental world.

But he also realized that she had a point.  If he hadn’t made some of the choices he had, such as keeping his identity and abilities a secret by choosing to go it alone, he might have been able to join a party and raise them up to the same Level that he was.  He could’ve still kept his spot at the top of the Rankings if, say, he had permanently joined Sarah and her party all the way back in Ashcleft, and simply moved away from those who might cause him problems as they wondered about his high Level.

Instead, he had stuck to going solo because he was much more powerful than any of the other Contenders, and he didn’t need them.  In a way, he was absolutely correct in that assertion that he was powerful enough to go solo, as that had been proven many times since then – but that didn’t mean he didn’t need a party.  Or, more accurately, he needed the companionship that came with being in a party, as it kept him level and sociable enough that he didn’t feel like a depressed hermit.  While being around a whole bunch of people was never something he craved, he’d come to discover that that there was a big difference between not wanting to interact with people in a town or city – such as when he lived back on Earth – and not having someone that he could talk to and rely upon when he risked his life on a daily basis by going into various dungeons around the Region.

“…and that forced isolation the System threw you into didn’t help,” she continued despite his thoughts being somewhere else.  “Which is why it’s fortunate I’m here, because I can help you more than in just a fight.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

Swishing her bushy tail again, this time in clear excitement, she told him, “Oh, only that I believe I may have a solution for your whole Evolution Assignment problem.”

Who knew that a squirrel could form an evil-looking grin?  Thaden certainly hadn’t.