Heavy. I felt heavy, as I trudged up the hillside. The trees were sparse here, but since the ground was rocky, the underbrush didn’t grow to fill the empty spaces. Much of the hillside was open to the air.

I gave myself a good slap. “Come on, Ollie. Let it go.” My cheek stung, but the slap woke me from my funk.

Yes, I’d just had to fight for my life. Yes, the monsters looked like kids. But neither of those two facts should’ve surprised me. The world had turkeys who shot heat beams for gods’ sake. I needed to calm the frick down and get business done. If I wanted arrows, I needed fletching. I wouldn’t confront the turkeys. I wouldn’t risk myself. But I’d do what was necessary.

The sky was clear, and I didn’t see any movement on the hillside. The footing was slippery with pebbles, so I went from outcropping to outcropping to minimize the noise of stones rolling downhill. The area was dotted with boulders too. I avoided them in case they weren’t as stable as they looked.

About halfway up, I spotted a couple of turkey feathers, the brown ones. The pebbles around them were disturbed, like they’d been shoved around. There was a smear of blood leading uphill, but the ground made it too hard to see any tracks. There was only the blood trail for direction. Not that I planned to go chasing whatever it was. I just had a vested interest in cataloging the predators in the area.

The trail suddenly turning hot, I grabbed the feathers and took a different track to cut across the hillside, back toward the glen. If I found more feathers along the way, fantastic. If not, I’d be on my way home. It’d been a messed-up day, and I didn’t want to push my luck.

I was halfway across the hillside when a cool breeze rustled my hair. It was a hot and humid day, which made me wonder where the cool air came from. I spotted a small rocky entrance leading into the hill above me. It was just big enough to squeeze through. I hiked up for a closer look and didn’t hear or smell anything out of place.

I poked my head inside. The entrance opened into a small space, about two feet by three, with a tunnel sloping down on the other side. My body blocked most of the light, but enough slipped past me to illuminate the walls: limestone. The rest, including the tunnel, was shrouded in darkness.

The breeze indicated a cave system. How deep it did it go?

“The answer’s nothing to do with me.” I pulled my head clear, made sure I had my feathers, and got out of there. Only to slip on the loose pebbles. I fell and slid. There was a crack, and my stomach sank at the thought I might’ve broken a bone.

No pain. I felt my head and neck. They were fine. My back was okay too. So were my arms and hands, except for some abrasion.

A dab of blood soaked into the cloth covering my right thigh. The stiletto’s sheath cracked, and the blade's point went into the fleshy part of my leg and came out again two inches away, just like a needle through cloth.

There was muscle tissue in between, so I wouldn’t bleed to death. The stiletto was filthy though from being used on the Little Horror. There was a real danger of infection. I’d cleaned the blade with dirt, but it wouldn’t be enough. Not with the kind of day I’d been having.

“Frick. Just seriously, frick.”

When Alex was born, Helen made me promise to stop cursing. I’d had a filthy mouth, and she didn’t want a bad role model for our new baby. It was hard at first, but became second nature over time. Days like this though… they surely tested my resolve.

And so my shirt finally met its end. The day was long coming, given the number of rips and tears. I finished the job by tearing the sleeves off to use them as bandages. The rest I’d turn into a bag once I got back to the glen.

I pulled the stiletto out of my leg and immediately wrapped the wound, the cloth dyeing red with blood. I’d gained a point of mana and qi from resting after the fight, and I infused them into the wound. Hopefully, they’d jump start the healing process and head off an infection.

Conditions Bleeding (*), Infection (*)

I decided to hurry back to the glen. The boosted recovery rate there should help. Strangely, I didn’t feel any pain until I was on my way. Prior to that, the skin around the wound was numb.

I recalled that the worms’ spikes had an anesthetic effect. Maybe it was still active? I’d think about that later, assuming I survived the next few days. Which was a real worry--I hadn’t seen Ikfael since the day before yesterday. I might be on my own until she came back.

###

As I feared, Ikfael was nowhere to be found. I called for her, but the glen was empty. The bandages were soaked through and bright red, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

I drank some water, washed my face, and flopped on my back to wait.

An hour later, there was still no sign of the otter, and my stomach rumbled. I needed to eat, but first, I couldn't let the wound fester. I dragged myself to the pool and cut away the bandage. What a bloody mess. Literally. It looked like a giant vampire sank their fangs into my leg.

I washed the wound and hoped the pool's water was clean enough to wash the wound. Afterward, my shirt sacrificed more of itself to make bandages. (I kept the old bandages to boil and wash them later.)

I hobbled over to the refrigerator to cut a couple of steaks from the deer’s shoulder. They warmed up while I got the fire started. Crouching made the pain worse, so my leg jutted to the side as I struck the flint and pyrite. It took a couple of minutes of sparks flying everywhere but the tinder before one finally hit where it was supposed to. Thankfully, I kept a stack of materials ready. I didn’t have to go far for kindling and logs.

The food helped, but it was hard to enjoy while in pain. I had the crazy idea to test the stiletto’s anesthetic properties.

I held the spike over the fire to disinfect it, and once it was cool, slid it under the new bandage, careful not to puncture myself again. The pain eased, but not enough. I enchanted the stiletto with qi and nature mana, and only then did the pain disappear completely. I breathed easier with it gone. Nice.

My mind ticked over as I stared at the fire. They were nothing-thoughts, wandering here and there. Wondering how the anesthetic worked. What I could’ve done better in the fight against the Little Horrors. How the spear felt as it squelched through the sister. Ways I could improve my form drawing the bow under pressure.

After half an hour, I realized my thigh was still numb. The enchantment lasted longer than expected. It only lasted a minute per mana point on my other weapons. I drew the second stiletto to examine it, but there was nothing special to see: faint striations in the surface and a bit of muck I missed when cleaning it.

I infused the stiletto with a point of mana, and while I didn’t see any changes, my skin numbed where it touched the blade. The addition of a point of qi strengthened the blade, and I sensed the network of old meridians inside. I felt the qi move through these etched patterns.

I gasped and clutched the stiletto. There was a symbol in the pattern--a line with four branches! The rune for Nature Magic! It was larger than the rest. Like a transistor in a circuit board, the rest of the pattern flowed away from it.

After a minute, the infused qi was used up, and the pattern disappeared. The numbing effect continued though. The pattern was still there, still powered by the infused mana. I just couldn’t see it anymore.

I added another point of qi, and the pattern reemerged. I added a point of nature mana and saw a brief shimmer as the pattern absorbed the energy. I added a point of pure mana and saw it drawn to the rune for Nature Magic. There, it was absorbed and fed into the rest of the pattern.

The thrill of discovery ran through me. Pure mana was converted into nature mana by the rune, and it was fed into the rest of pattern to create a magical effect. Effectively, they were two runes working in conjunction, with the second rune being more complicated than the first.

In the middle was squiggle leading into two loop-the-loops. There were lines and angles of various widths and degrees, all of them in three dimensions. I forgot about the stiletto under the bandage and nearly stabbed myself when I shifted positions for a closer look.

I had another realization, and was up and hobble-running to the refrigerator. The Antler was too cold to handle directly, so I wrapped it in what was left of my shirt.

Mana 0/15 Qi 0/11

Gah. I was out. I tried to sense the mana flow with the Antler without qi help, but the flow was too faint. There was nothing to do but wait for my qi to recover.

Or was there? I lay down (carefully), closed my eyes, and steadied my breathing. I felt my heart beat (a little fast) and the chilly wave of air pouring off of the exposed Antler. I turned my attention inside to the qi circulating through my body, swirling around my dantian. All nice and lovely, steadily and surely.

I applied my mind to the flow of qi. The qi resisted at first, but I pushed it to go faster; adding pressure to the pump. The experience reminded me of meditating during the thunderstorm.

After half an hour, I regained a point of qi AND mana. Meditation doubled the recovery rate for both. A smile leaked out across my face. Even in the middle of a terrible day, good things happened.

Enchanting the Antler revealed a rune of three wavy lines connected to another complicated pattern. Again, the qi only lasted for a minute. When it faded, the pattern did too.

I spent the rest of the day meditating to recover qi and mana. And when they did, I infused them into the Antler and stiletto. My goal was simple but hard: to memorize the runes inside them.

Ikfael didn’t show up for her portion of the meat. Not that afternoon, nor in the evening. She must’ve been traveling again. A part of me worried at how long she’d be away, so I distracted myself with this latest discovery.

I stayed up late studying and memorizing.