The Fool 32

The dhampir seemed slightly downtrodden but Orison told him that he could stick with the staying crew if he wanted to. The offer seemed to surprise the man for some reason but Stefen calmed down noticeably after realizing he wouldn't be left flapping in the wind. It dawned on the young mage that the dhampir had pretty much lost his only, admittedly sh*tty, place to belong in the world.

While the young mage prepared Dustin to reach out into the great beyond to connect with his family, he hashed out his personal thoughts over Stefen. For as long as the dhampir had been around, most of his time had been spent as a tightly controlled thrall and spare body for his father. The man had a wealth of classical education, both magical and mundane, but gave off a slightly immature air when he allowed his true personality through the social mask.

Had there been a single undead crony within Stefen's circle capable of looking past the vague sense of despise that the 'differently living' had for those with 'life' within them, the dhampir wouldn't have ever looked past them for somewhere else to belong. Underneath the composed facade was a fragile and unstable creature, a deeply damaged and traumatized person. The young mage wasn't quite sure his 'kid glove' mode was delicate enough long term to deal with the powder keg of potential issues the man represented. But until the dhampir gave him a reason to, he wasn't willing to push the guy out to fend for himself either.

Focusing back in, Orison said, "Alright, my man. The key's dropping power fast. Tell me some good news."

Dustin looked surprised and a little excited. "My son's still alive!... One of them anyway. That's where I want to go."

There wasn't much opportunity or really a need for the man to draw out any goodbyes. So, after making sure he had a good grip hold on his sister and cousin, they shot off in a eye searing column of light. Not willing to take chances with the health of sight that already suffered in the dark due to inner illumination, Orison footed the bill for a gold speck healing.

Ignoring the dour, slightly miserable look the dhampir revealed for a moment, he turned to the dragon blooded man. "Hey, if you wander out of the field's boundary, you won't be able to get back in. If you want to leave, that's fine but I figured I should say something."

Surprised, he said, "How are we supposed to get food and water? There isn't a decent cavern for us to hibernate in here either."

The young mage took a moment to put a few things together and handed him a small pack. "There's a good week of emergency rations in there along with some gold and gems. As far as water, I threw a couple bottles in there. Is that enough to stop the jitters you have for a few minutes?"

The dragon blooded man's purple eyes were fixated on his tiny new horde and had stopped listening sometime after the modestly sized backpack had been opened.

The young mage sighed and muttered, "Works for me."

Walking over to the brooding dhampir, Orison said, "I don't know if you heard but-"

"Yes, I know. The border of this field has no ingress," Stefen said.

The young mage nodded and added, "That and you are free to go whenever you want but you're free to stay as well... Thanks for being patient. I have your share of loot from our adventure. You may not have had to do much but that doesn't mean anything. It was good knowing we had a person on backup plan."

Stefen opened up the triangular storage device to find a share of coins, gems and rations as well. There was also a necklace that had a thumb sized, pear cut emerald appearing jewel with bright flecks of crimson imperfections inside.

He let the dhampir look over it for a moment and said, "There would have been more of a share for you but trading for that was a bit high budget and I didn't have a lot of time to price and compare. It reduces damage from energy based attacks. And once a day, it can produce an elixir that heals and grants some bonuses to physical performance.

"It's certainly not the magical item on most's wish list since the drink it produces is essentially human blood in composition. It was originally meant to serve as a humbling reminder to the hero that bore it, the sacrifices of those that came before. But, for you at least, even that serves a good purpose."

The young mage thought to himself, "And if you ever fully 'dark thirty', vamp out or it gets stolen by a blood drinking evil prick, it'll burn out the guts of the drinker like an extra strength, three day delayed holy water. I don't know how the effect gets held back like that but I at least know the why. It goes from painfully crippling to most likely lethal with three doses to anything other than something beyond a certain power level or holy water tolerant kind of evil."

The dhampir was speechless. Not in the mood for a touching, emotional moment with a near stranger that wasn't a kindhearted woman, the young mage quickly moved on.

Tossing another storage device to Cray, he said, "There's a couple of things in there I think you can appreciate but be careful with the trainer that's in there. I have a sneaking suspicion that Heath might have been one of the mystery comprehension receivers from the last overload of broke open trainers and its not so great for the brain to be hit with another one so soon, if that's the case.

"Let's give him a month or so to be on the safe side and then we can give it to him. There's only so much broken language I can take before I'm going to get frustrated and he's eight. I don't want some of his best learning years to be spent on things he should already know."

Looking around, he was slightly surprised to see that Daniel had taken off with the mystery woman from Osomo. He had expected to receive a thank you or some form of gratitude for his efforts but he took it with a grain of salt. After all, Daniel was a working man who had what seemed to be a pretty strict boss.

Looking at the relatively small selection of people remaining, he wasn't particularly happy or disappointed. He was a little irritated that Osomo hadn't seemed particularly capable of filling a custom ordered person to fill the roll of 'holy tank' paladin for him. It wasn't so much a needful thing but he had thought it would be an interesting chance to pull someone from the Osomo vault that would have made future travels a bit easier. Absentmindedly, he wondered if it was the request for a recently deceased person with most of their soul shell in tact that had made it hard to fill or if it had been ignored outright.

Pushing the thought aside, he pilfered through his own triangle of goodies to see if there was anything else missing. There was. Nearly half the medicine didn't make the cut and though most of the common supplies were there, the portable 'maker' machine wasn't present as well. What DID make it was the 'blue print' matrix crystal that held the complex models for foodstuffs, simple tools and basic structures. It was an essential component of the 'maker' machine but it wasn't horribly enlightening or even that interesting of an object for study itself.

Suddenly something he hadn't thought of when speed burning through his citizen credits, surfaced. He wasn't a full, true-blue First Family member. He had likely hit some invisible permission walls and that made him suddenly feel a great deal happier about what he had managed to accomplish despite that.

As uncomfortable as he was with the idea of putting stuff into his space that he planned on holding long term, he felt even more uncomfortable carrying around priceless valuables, particularly the medicine. With bated breath, he placed all but the mundane supplies and storage device within in his space. The matrix crystal sunk right through the calm top layer, right into the 'heart of chaos' where his soul resided.

He became incredibly nervous, waiting for the huge blow of malicious consequence to come. For endless eternal seconds, he wondered if he would pass out, die, be brainwashed into a First Family soldier or some other form of dire retribution for shoving unknown objects into his space but nothing happened. He let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and let out a nerve releasing chuckle of relief.

He thought, "Dear Bob, thank you! Seems like even Greater Reality cut me some slack on this one. Either that or my stupid mistakes rewards card finally collected enough hole punches that I got one for free. Still, the matrix might have been all but useless but I might have found some way to access it models wi-"

The young mage's thoughts were cut off as his mind's eye was filled with an overwhelming amount of pictures, diagrams and composition lists.

"The damn thing stuck to the fake spark I made while I was a derpy undead! Did I just win the lucky idiot's lottery today!?" the young mage thought with a creepy grin.

Stefen, who had been standing nearby, said, "Apologies on interrupting whatever... imaginings that you might be relishing but we still have a need in urgency of addressing."

Orison deactivated the interface screen and focused on the dhampir. "And what, pray tell, might that be?"

Catching the positive, nearly chipper mood behind the slight mockery, Stefen smirked and said, "Shelter. I know not how long this barrier and its milding of season's harshness will last. However, I have noted that it does not fully blockade the chillness and wind nor the drift of snowflakes in the air."

Sobering up from his temporary rare moment of 'happy' surprise, Orison went to speak with Cray in a private aside. But before that happened, he had to deal with the archer's unexpected nudity while the man was looking himself over.

Sighing, the young mage said, "First of all, congratulations on no longer being a patchwork of different skin tones. Secondly, you don't have to deactivate your whole suit to put a ring on. It's capable of being deactivated in segments."

Suddenly embarrassed, Cray reactivated his suit and said, "I ain't never seen you do it. It's always been all or nothing for you."

Clearing his throat, the young mage said, "Well, now you know. Anywhooo... How's the cabin coming along?"

While he checked, the archer said, "Is it that time of day again?... It's actually getting there. A few more days should do it, I guess. Not going to make any promises on the exact. It ain't like there's a sign on the front porch telling me when it's going to happen."

The young mage said, "As long as it's less than two weeks, we should be alright unless some angry boss monster Gawdzilla stomps the barrier. In the meantime..."

Orison brought up the largest of the simple structure models in the matrix and used the stone in the surrounding area as materials for a half cylinder barracks style shelter. With a few gold specks and a rush of essence, the young mage held concentration for the half minute it needed to complete. A few things made themselves known but he needed to wait until after the structure was complete to address them.

While the barracks was completing, magic from the world was rejected. The whole thing had been powered from the fake spark and it hadn't been a small amount. Charging a spark was a colossal pain but doable over time. He wasn't immediately concerned because he reasoned that he could simply make a new fake spark instead. But then he realized, he had forgotten how. Knowledge of all of the stripped models from an Osomo spark were absent from both mental and spiritual memory.

It seemed there had been a slight trap hidden in the matrix crystal or the physical reset when transported from the ancient floating city. Whatever the cause, Orison's sparse intimate knowledge of Osomo's inner workings was no longer existent. He couldn't even relearn the interface model engraved onto the fake spark because it had been internalized by the matrix crystal and forcefully removing it would break the frailly bonded motes it was made of, destroying the engraving in the process.

Cray looked at Orison in awe and said, ���You can do that anytime you want?"

Sighing, the young mage said, "For a hot second, I thought I could. Turns out, if I'm not careful, this and a whole lot more won't be able to be made unless I take the time to learn their composition the good old fashioned way. If I baby the ability and keep it to only when I absolutely need to, it'll be alright."

A few more creations of comfort amenities within and the young mage understood more about the neat but limited new ability that he found himself possessing. Over a long period of time, the fake spark could passively recharge. Or a good deal faster, if he was focusing on the task. Using it for construction took a lot from the spark and a bit more golden essence than the standard speck assisted spell. Fashioning some food from pure spirit essence and a gold speck or two, not so much but enough to cumulatively lose more than what was easy to replace.

Once everyone was settled in and had everything that they needed, the young mage confided in Cray, "Just when I thought I had a fairly nice way to exercise all that conjuration and transmuting know-how to pretty much permanently avoid ever having to 'rough it' again, I get slammed with harsh reality. At least I had the presence of mind to get some supplies on the 'just in case'."

Smirking, Cray said, "Yeah? I think I hear the last living cricket of the year playing 'My Heart Bleeds For You' on his tiny little leg fiddle."

Orison said, "You do know you would have it better right along with me?"

The archer shrugged. "Half the joy in the world is made when somebody gets something they need. When you've got everything that you need with no real effort, there goes half the joy. That's what Ma used to say... I know half the joy I get from hunting and fishing is when I bring back what I got to some smiling faces. Whose gonna smile for me if they can order up what they like with a please and thank you?"

Frowning, the young mage said, "I really hate how much sense that makes. So, I'm going to ignore I heard it until I can deal with that malevolent little pearl of wisdom... For the record, a little instant gratification's pretty nice too."

Cray fired back, "Til you get used to it and then it ain't nothing but expected. That is, until you can't have it no more. Then you're just miserable and hateful doing what everyone else has to do to have it."

Orison looked at him sharply, "Alright. You're asking for a brain twister... How much hardship is enough hardship? After all, it makes you tougher but can also break you... How much is too little? Who gets to decide? Try not to think about it. Try not to think about the proper amount of hardship a person should or shouldn't endure as hard as you can."

The archer nodded, whipped out a pair of wooden dice he'd carved and taught the dragon blooded man how to play dice. Half an hour later, Cray was swapping stories with Stefen while Orison caught himself weighing the pros and cons of certain types of hardships. He learned a valuable lesson. Telling people not to think about a visual might work on almost everyone but only the worriers have trouble not thinking about ideas they're told not to think about.

Over the next couple of days, the group got to know one another better. The dragon blooded man settled on a name after a good deal of debate and they found a pleasant surprise on Heath. Stefen ended up becoming very happy about the second.

"So, why did you settle on Edos?" Cray asked the dragon blooded man.

He replied, "Because it's funny."

"Most people don't like to have funny names. I don't really see why you'd think it's a funny name, though," Orison said.

Edos replied, "Oh, it's not really. Except sometimes it's funny to think about people calling me that when I'm not listening really close."

Stefen asked the obvious to spare everyone else, "Why is it funny then?"

Purple eyes shining eerily, he said, "Eat us. Eat us... Hey, eat us! Hehe."

Somewhat nervously, Cray asked, "Have you thought about eating us?"

Edos shook his head slowly and then stopped to nod hesitantly. "I wouldn't unless I was hungry and you were already dead because I like you. The food you give me now tastes a lot better than the already dead people and the wild, ugly people that don't clean themselves very well."

Orison shrugged and said, "If we're still friends, you're starving and I'm dead with no real hope of being saved, you have my permission to eat me."

Everyone looked at him with varying degrees of shock, surprise or curiosity. "What? Waste not, want not. If my useless carcass can save a friend's life, I'd be happy to know that I could help a buddy out one last time."

Stefen and Edos seemed to be touched by the sentiment but the involuntary visuals were a bit too much for Cray.