The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The volume of Mana wrapped up in the Fusions on his Air Skimmer was much higher than the few Weaken stones he had thrown earlier, and the subsequent explosion as those Fusions detonated was catastrophic, to say the least. Even being 150 feet away, the concussive shockwave spread so quickly and with such incredible force that Larek was only able to tap into his Agility to turn toward Nedira and move his body so that his back side blocked most—but not all—of the deadly explosion.

As soon as it hit him, it felt like he had been smashed in the back with a warhammer, as even though he felt his Automatic Ice Repulsion Field start to activate, the ice that formed was too slow to halt the majority of the damage. He nearly lost consciousness as his head was whipped forward, but his strong Body stat was not only enough to ensure that he stayed awake, but also kept him alive despite taking such a massive, unshielded blow from behind.

Nedira wasn’t quite as lucky. While his body had protected her from the worst of the blast, it couldn’t stop the entire shockwave, and as he slammed into her as he was taken from his feet, it was all he could do to enfold her broken body in his arms as they were blown more than a hundred feet away from where they were standing.

Even as he healed both himself and her with his Healing Surge Fusion on his clothes while they flew through the air, he knew that she was in severely rough shape and would be nearly useless once they finally landed. The impact with the rocky ground was rough, and Larek could feel his leg snap as he landed on it wrong, but he also managed to shield the woman in his arms from the worst of their landing. The pain from the injuries he’d suffered was ignored as he struggled to move after they came to a stop, tumbling and rolling a number of times; what he cared about most was ensuring that Nedira survived his mistake.

Because all of this was his fault. He wished he hadn’t stupidly thrown those stones, wished he’d been able to cast spells, wished that he’d had reliable access to his Stama to use Battle Arts, and wished that he’d learned how to fight properly so that he could’ve done something that would’ve changed the outcome… well, there were a lot of things that he wished he’d done differently, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it right now. He had to survive first, and then he would figure out what to do about his shortcomings later.

Expecting to be attacked at any time by the Sand Vultures that had been so close to attacking them, when Larek looked up they were nowhere to be found. Further out, a few flocks of them were still bearing down on them, but the ones nearest to him were gone; the only thing that he could see were clouds of sand that was already dispersing and still falling to the ground as he watched.

The explosion must have destroyed them, too.

“Wha—?”

By some miracle, despite all the damage that had been healed from his Healing Surge Fusion, Nedira was still awake. He had half-expected her to be in a coma-like state afterwards, so he was happy to see that she was still with him.

“We’ve got to run.”

She looked up at him from where he had taken her into his arms, already intending to carry her. “But… I don’t have the energy—”

“Don’t worry, I have enough for the both of us.” In truth, Larek was exhausted from all the rapid healing that his body had undergone, and he could feel the weakness as his starving body wanted nothing but a huge meal and a nap. Unfortunately, the former would be a little tough at the moment with all of their supplied having been obliterated by the Air Skimmer’s explosion, and the latter wasn’t going to happen in the middle of an Aperture’s territory.

With a glance at where the Sand Vultures still in the air were located, Larek turned on his heel and started running, holding Nedira close to his body as he did so. With his Agility, Larek practically flew over the rocky environment with breakneck speed, and it was a struggle to keep his feet over the uneven ground; he nearly took a tumble when he misjudged a small leap over a crevasse, but managed to keep his feet – and kept from dropping Nedira.

It took a few minutes running at full speed to clear out of the Sand Vultures’ territory, the airborne monsters following after but unable to keep up with him, and he eventually stopped and looked back, seeing the birds turn back when they hit the edge.

Breathing hard because his physical energy was completely spent by this point, he glanced down at the woman in his arms and noticed her eyes were closed after having fallen asleep at some point in the run. Thankfully, she still didn’t appear to have fallen into a temporary coma, but the both of them needed to get somewhere the could get something to eat and rest in a place of safety. Having lost all but the Fusions on his clothes when he had gone flying, he was feeling a bit vulnerable now – and he could only berate himself for letting all this happen in the first place.

Shaking his head after mentally beating himself up, he realized that this wasn’t going to help him. Instead, he focused on what to do now, which was to find the closest town or city and get help.

It was something he knew that he’d have to do ever since coming back home, especially after hearing what Nedira didn’t know about the state of the Kingdom, but he was hoping that he’d have some help to navigate his way inside. Fortunately, he still had his ring of Perceptive Misdirection on it, which would hopefully allow him to enter his destination without causing too much of an issue.

Knowing that the longer he waited, the more of whatever remained of his energy would run out, he took off toward the northeast as he planned on running around the edge of the Vultures’ territory, remembering what Nedira had said about the location of the closest city. He kept his run to steady lope that he could keep up for hours even in his current state and carrying the light weight of the woman in his arms, as he began to pass through the tall grasses that marked the environment, eventually passing into the rolling hills that he’d seen from a distance before. It wasn’t long until he came to a large valley that appeared in between the hills, and he got his first look at the city he was approaching.

Calling it a city might be giving it a bit too much credit, as he thought it didn’t look too much bigger than Whittleton to the southeast near Copperleaf Academy, but it was also just as packed with people as that overcrowded town had been. The 40-foot-tall stone walls that surrounded the two hundred or so buildings inside appeared to be cracked and falling apart in disrepair, as if they were being neglected due to disuse. He thought the reason for that was obvious enough, as tens of thousands of tents, lean-tos, and other haphazard shelters had been constructed outside of the walls, holding what had to be many tens of thousands of people. Even from a distance, he could tell that many of those outside wore threadbare, torn, and dirty clothing, walking listlessly through the random pathways in between their poor accomodations.

“What happened here?” he asked out loud in complete shock about what he was looking at. It was as if the overcrowding he’d seen in Whittleton had infected this place and then multiplied by 10, as he could sort of make out what seemed to be just as many or more people inside the walls as out. It was like the last vestiges of the Kingdom had come together without hope against the Apertures that plagued the countryside.

But it wasn’t all bad, though, from what he could see. In the distance, teams of SIC members accompanied by large wagons – with Canniks and their handlers driving them – filled to the brim with what appeared to be monster corpses, heading toward the city. At the same time, additional teams were heading out with their own wagons in three different directions, which he assumed were toward the Apertures he could feel to the northwest, to the south, and to the east.

None of them were heading west toward the Aperture with the Sand Vultures, however, and even as he took in all that was happening around the city, he began to understand why.

There was very little farmland available around the city, and there was even less because of the refugees surrounding the walls. He wasn’t a farmer nor did he have a good idea of the logistics of feeding so many people, but from the few acres of land that was planted with what appeared to be wheat, a few plots with vines crawling along the ground which he assumed was some sort of root crop, and a scarce couple of areas where leafy plants containing some sort of vegetable, he knew that it was not nearly enough to sustain the current population.

Even as he stared down into the valley, he could see green-robed individuals walking very slowly amongst the fields, and using his Magical Detection Skill, he could faintly see them manipulating their Mana to cast a variation on a familiar spell he’d learned from the woman in his arms: Rapid Plant Growth. He finally got to see a version of the spell in action, as the crops they were affecting began to grow in a 10-foot circle about around them. The process was slow, however, and in the minute or so that he watched, a stalk of wheat that was about shin height when they began only grew another foot by the time they passed. The rapid growth wasn’t without its drawbacks, however, as they looked to be a lighter green than before, as if they were dried out from lack of water. That was quickly solved as another Mage in a blue robe, who Larek recognized as an Aquamancer, used a spell he couldn’t see clearly, but the end result was a large splash of water that the crops seemed to soak up immediately and they appeared healthier as a result.

There were also a few teams of people with harvesting tools going through a few fields, harvesting wheat grain or picking out vegetables here and there, but there unfortunately weren’t that many. Larek thought it was probably because there were only four pairs of Naturalists and Aquamancers slowly working their way through the farmlands, and when he looked at the areas the teams left behind, he could tell that a single pass wasn’t enough to fully grow the plants so that they were harvestable.

Perhaps three passes would do it? he thought. He wondered why they didn’t just stay in a single place and fully grow a patch of crops before moving onto the next, but when he saw one pair get to the end of a row and sit down to take a break, he thought he could figure out the reason: Lack of Mana.

The original Rapid Plant Growth spell only cost 10 Mana to cast, but it also only affected a 5 X 5-foot area, and from what he understood, it only matured the plants in range a certain amount at its base level. According to what Nedira told him when she taught him the spell back at Copperleaf Academy, it might require multiple casts of the simple version of Rapid Plant Growth to bring something like a crop to full maturity, though more Mana could be pumped into the spell to complete it in one go.

While he was sure that the Naturalists walking along the fields could pump more Mana into them to do something like that, it would only affect so many at a time; in addition, they might be able to accomplish this feat a few dozen times before they emptied their Mana pool, but they’d then have to wait for it to regenerate in order to start again. What he saw them doing now was obviously spreading the growth out to a larger area while maturing them less quickly, allowing them to cover much more before they had to take a break.

Seeing the pattern in which they moved over the fields, he could see that the ones they used their spells on were continuing to grow, though at a much slower rate than when they were in the midst of the spell. It was still much faster than natural growth, but apparently the effects lingered enough that they would eventually grow to full maturity in a few days, if not sooner. It was an efficient use of Mana, and though it also meant that a lesser amount of crops would be available for harvest every day, it was a steady amount that would at least help a little bit.

Looking at the refugees both inside and outside the walls, he knew that whatever was grown was just a drop in the bucket compared to what was actually needed to feed them all. Nedira’s objective to find additional sources of food from other places suddenly started to make a whole lot more sense to him.

With a shake of his head, wondering if there would even be a place to get supplies for a journey here, Larek made sure his ring’s Fusion was activated, obscuring his height from anyone who observed him. He was slightly nervous after seeing dozens of Mages moving around outside, worried that they would see through the effects of Perceptive Misdirection, similar to what happened back in the Sealance Empire, but there really wasn’t any other choice at this point. As he got closer to the city and its inhabitants outside, he also began to consider what would happen if his clothes were inspected a little too closely by those who could sense the Fusions on them, as they certainly stood out; he’d experienced the same thing in the Empire and from those underneath the desert in Lowenthal, even if those who noticed it had different reactions to seeing it.

Interest and curiosity over the Fusions he could handle; greed, anger, and envy could lead to situations that he’d rather not have to deal with at the moment – if he even could, considering how physically spent he was right now.

He got more than a few strange looks as he made his way toward the refugee camp outside the walls of the city, walking down the packed dirt road in between farm fields, but he ignored them for the most part. None of them mentioned his height, which was his main concern, as they instead focused on the fact that he was carrying a woman in a worn green robe, who appeared to be unconscious.

Passing through the edges of the camp, he was assaulted by the stench of unwashed bodies and other things he didn’t want to contemplate. That wasn’t the worst part, however, as he finally got a close-up look at the actual refugees, which was worse than he expected.

Clearly seeing someone’s ribcage from starvation was one thing; it was something entirely different to see their spine – from the front.

The further he walked through the refugee camp carrying Nedira, the worse off the sights became, as the occasional dead body was seen tucked away in a corner somewhere, and it was clear that many he saw were headed to the same fate if they didn’t get something to eat soon. The worst were the children, as while they appeared slightly healthier than the adults, which he figured was because they were being prioritized when food was available, the effects of malnutrition were obvious in their stunted frames.

As he navigated his way through the tents and other temporary constructs on the way to the gates of the city, something he’d seen earlier and dismissed came to mind. He’d seen hundreds of well-armed guards near the farms surrounding the perimeter, none of them Mages or Martials, and he had figured they were there to help protect them from monsters that might end up attacking. Looking at all these starving people, however, he realized they were there for another reason.

They weren’t there to protect the fields from monsters; they were there to protect the fields from the refugees.

In fact, if he remembered what he saw correctly, none of the wagons that were being brought in with monster corpses or harvested crops were stopping outside the walls – they were all heading straight through the gate that led inside. As far as he could tell, things were set up to the point where the refugees outside were getting nothing in the way of food, which was why they all looked like they were a few short days of missed meals from dying.

It's not my problem. Yes, what is happening here is horrendous and unconscionable, but we’re just passing through. We just need some supplies and we’ll leave these people to figure it out on their own.

The thought that went through his head as he witnessed the suffering and misery of the people outside of the walls made him instantly reprimand himself for his selfishness; these people were from his own Kingdom, after all. While he didn’t necessarily like them for the wrongs he’d experienced in the past at their hands, he still didn’t want them to die like this. He was able to disassociate himself when it came to the people of the Empire because they weren’t suffering like this, and while he had ended up helping the Drekkin in Lowenthal, it ultimately served his own purposes and he hadn’t exactly felt obligated to help them.

But the people of the Kingdom of Androthe should be different. Shouldn’t it?

He was wrestling with that notion when he noticed a group of what appeared to be Martials striding quickly out of the city gate ahead of him, staring in his direction. On second glance, however, he realized they weren’t staring at him; they were staring at the unconscious woman in his arms; or, as far as they knew, she might even be dead and he was carrying her corpse.

It suddenly occurred to him that Nedira was wearing a green robe, marking her as a Mage. More importantly, it also marked her as a Naturalist.

A sudden spike of danger flowed through him as he realized what the entire situation must look like to everyone else. Some random person had suddenly showed up carrying the body of a Naturalist, one of those that could essentially create food from the seeds that were planted out in the fields, and it wasn’t lost on him that they might think he had hurt her in some way. Such misconceptions had happened to him multiple times before, so it wouldn’t surprise him if it happened once again; especially when it was technically true, as he was the one that caused the Air Skimmer to crash and then ultimately explode.

Hmm… maybe I should leave and come back later when Nedira is awake?

Unfortunately, his thought came just a little too late as the group of Martials that had been eyeing him closed in on his position quickly, and there was no way to easily run away now after he was surrounded.

“Stop and stay where you are!” one of them shouted, a large barrel-chested man from the Kingdom who nearly reached 6 feet tall shouted at him, while holding a massive, double-bladed battleaxe over his right shoulder. The sound of authority resonated in his voice, and he had the self-assured bearing of a Noble.

He was also showing not a single sign of having missed any meals, though he wasn’t fat; instead, he just exuded an aura of one who was healthy and hadn’t missed a meal in a long time.

“Who are you and why are your filthy hands touching one of the Providers?”