Slowly I dragged myself along the corridor, berating myself for my lack of foresight.

Why had I not healed myself, before engaging in my hack-a-thone of the mushrooms? Honestly, I had no idea. Probably my brain was getting addled from lack of sleep.

What had it been? Thirty-six hours without sleep? Forty-eight? Well, I had passed out a couple of times, and taken a cat nap here and there… but I was not sure how that counted. But either way, I felt like crap, and my thoughts moved even more sluggishly than my body.

Focusing on putting one foot in front of another, I tried to stifle the groans of pain and the urge to cough to clear my lungs from the soot I had breathed in. Where there was one giant monster cat, there surely could be more. Or worse creatures. With a shudder, I imagined all kinds of creeping, slithering nasties prowling through the dark hallways, in search of warm bodies to feast one.

Soon, I passed the intersection at which I had previously fought the goblins and kept on going straight, down the hallway I hadn’t yet explored at all. I briefly considered going up to the cave, but in my current state, barely able to move and with bleeding wounds all over, I was just going to be easy food for whatever crawlies would be up there.

No, I needed some type of remote room that would allow me to lay down and get some proper rest, heal myself, and explore some of the mysteries of magic.

Determined, I kept going.

The corridor stretched on, seemingly forever, but that was probably due to my snail-like pace. Eventually, the hallway ended at a closed door. Right before the door, a short corridor went off to the left to another entrance, almost identical to the one I was standing in front of.

Worried that it would lead to another room full of goblins, I peeked through the keyhole and listened for any noises.

Nothing.

The absence of noise or light did not mean, of course, that there was nothing, but given the proclivity of goblins to argue and fight, it made it at least likely that there were none. Even though, come to think about it, I almost preferred having a couple of goblins around, because that made it less probable that something truly nasty was there.

Shaking off that worrisome thought, I cautiously pulled the door open and stepped into a wide hallway that ended in a huge set of double doors on the left and went off into the darkness on my right. A tiny sliver of light was visible between the wings of the door, indicating that the room behind was brightly lit.

Another kitchen area? Given the width of the hallway I was in, and the massive set of doors I was facing, that seemed unlikely. No, this had to be something important.

And important meant potentially dangerous.

Readying my sword, I stealthily approached the doors to try and figure out what I was dealing with.

Alas, I got nothing - the gap between the doors allowed me to see that there was light, but that was about it. Since there was no keyhole either, I was out of luck.

For a moment, I considered going the other direction, following the long, dark hallway to wherever it might lead, but just the thought of another shadow cat jumping out of the dark and tearing me apart, made me shudder and turn my attention back to the door.

After trying, without much success, to hear or see anything else through the door, I finally decided to go for it – just standing around wasn’t going to get me anywhere after all. Gently, I took hold of one of the massive handles and pulled. Almost soundlessly, apart from a soft scraping noise, the heavy door started moving, and the gap widened incrementally, just enough to get a clear view of the room on the other side.

It was a massive chamber, with columns of black and white marble supporting the high-arching ceiling. The room was basked in bright, almost blinding light, coming from hundreds of light crystals set into a massive central chandelier and at least four smaller chandeliers off to the side. Partially destroyed murals, mosaics, rugs, and statues spoke of the former grandeur and luxury of the vast space but also left a taste of decay and abandonment lingering in the air. The musty smell of rotten wood, mold, and damp earth further added to that impression.

Since I could not see any creatures, I opened the doors further until I could squeeze my body through the gap. Heart thumping loudly in my chest, I cautiously proceeded along the wall, continually scanning the surrounding for any sign of movement. At least the blinding light made it a lot less likely that any of those shadow cats was going to be lurking about. Based on my observations during the fight, I assumed that they were light-sensitive and could only teleport, or shadow-walk, short distances, so a big room like this should provide a solid barrier against them.

I suspected that the first door I passed on my left was connecting to the little corridor I had noticed earlier. And there were worrisome signs that it was frequently used - whereas most of the floor was covered in broken pieces of furniture, stone chips and a thick layer of dust, there was a clear path leading straight from the little door to the massive double door at the other end of the large chamber.

Moving on quickly to get some distance between myself and the door, I made my way to the perpendicular wall and approached the first entrance on that side of the chamber.

The thick layer of dust was a good indication that no one had put a foot, or a paw for that matter, at this side of the big hall for a good long while.

Carefully, and sword at the ready, I pushed the door open, revealing a dark room about six yards wide and six or seven yards deep. In the middle of the room was an enormous, solid wood table, covered with scraps of papers that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be maps, depicting lands that I had never seen before. Along the opposite wall, I found a couple of chests that were filled with further maps and various pieces of stone, crystal, and metal, which I had no idea what they might be useful for. Beyond that, the room was empty.

Soon I moved on, driven by my urgent need to find a good resting spot. The map room might do in a pinch, but it was a bit too open for my taste.

The next chamber was also about six yards wide, but a couple of yards into the space, the ceiling had caved in, filling the floor from bottom to top with a massive pile of earth and stones. Water slowly dripped from the edge of the cracked ceiling, falling onto the formerly beautiful, but now cracked tiles on the floor.

On the left side, the pile of earth and stones did not quite reach the top of the room, leaving a narrow gap. Suddenly filled with renewed energy at the prospect of perhaps finally having found a safe hiding spot, I stepped closer, eyeing the loose mass of earth and stone critically. It seemed stable enough, but, of course, it was still somewhat risky.

But what wasn’t?

Basically, I could choose between the increased likelihood of discovery by some random creature and the chance of being buried in a cave-in. Since the dust everywhere showed that nothing had moved there for a very long time, I was hopeful that the rampart was stable enough for me to climb and perhaps hide behind. Given the same width of this room as compared to the previous room, there was a good chance that this one had the same overall dimensions, which probably meant that there was some open space on the other side of the pile of stones and dirt, perhaps even enough for me to stretch out and recover in peace and with a minimum amount of comfort. Well, if one could call resting on a damp tile floor comfort. But it was better than roasting on a spit over fire any day.

Before trying to climb up and squeeze my way through the tight opening, I quickly dashed, or rather hobbled out of the room once more and made sure to disturb the dust elsewhere in the grand chamber so that there was no clear trace leading to my hoped-for hiding spot.

Was I overly optimistic about the prospects of having found my hidey-hole? Maybe. But I did not want to get my shoes all dirty with earth and only then try and erase my tracks.

Once done, I dragged myself back into the room, and gingerly made my way up the loose pile of stones and earth. It took several steps for every yard because the pebbles kept on shifting under my foot, but eventually, I reached the top. The gap was narrower than it had looked, but with some wiggling, I made it through just fine. And on the other side… precisely what I had hoped for – an open space of about two by three yards, mostly free of stones apart from the few loose pieces that I was able to move away quickly enough.

With a sigh of relief, I sank to the ground, only to wince in pain from my many wounds. I was in pretty bad shape – my body was a solid mass of injuries, with blood soaking through the few scraps of singed clothes that I still had on, and massive blisters and weeping burns and abrasions covering all of the exposed skin.

Now that there was no more adrenalin to keep me going, and the overriding urgency had left to keep my shit together, hot and cold flashes raced through my body, causing me to shake uncontrollably as my body began to shut down.

Grimacing, I pulled forth my amber mana to sooth the worst of the wounds and help my body cope with the dangerous strain it was under.

A warm wave spread through my muscles, expanding out to the skin and taking the edge off the pain, just enough for me to breathe fully for the first time in what felt forever.

I needed more.

Desperate for additional relief, I checked my amber mana, and what I saw made me pause for a moment – whereas previously all my amber mana had been cycling lazily throughout my system, there now was a substantial quantity spread throughout my body, clustered in small clouds.

Where had all that come from?

And then it hit me… when the goblin had torched the whole mushroom forest, it had also scorched the mushrooms I had cut down before that, instantly killing them… which meant that I had at least gained a partial contribution to the kills. Given the number of mushrooms I had cut down, it seemed relatively little amber mana, but I was not about to complain at this point. After all, this additional mana might well save my ass.

Frantically, I got myself into a meditative frame of mind, hard as that was with everything that was going on. With utter focus and determination, I pulled the amber mana into my cycling mana, quickly increasing the intensity of the amber cycle almost by a factor of two.

Maybe an hour or two later, or perhaps just ten minutes, hard to say, I opened my eyes and slowly moved the newly available amber mana to the worst of my wounds. I could not see anything and did not dare to take out one of the glowing crystals for fear of the light potentially seeping out of my little hiding spot, but I felt that two of the bites on my chest from the tentacle panther and some of the burns were the most dangerous wounds, so they had to be healed first. Everything else could wait for the time being.

Of course, the amber mana was not quite enough to heal the wounds, but it alleviated the pain and the severity of the injuries sufficiently to be able to find a semi-relaxing position and drift off into a fitful sleep.

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I woke up with a start, momentarily panicked and disoriented when I could not see shit. But then I recalled what had happened, courtesy of the pain from my numerous wounds.

Sitting up, I emptied my gourd of water and chewed on the cold piece of giant bat-roast I had filched from the kitchen during my escape while considering my next step.

I still felt weak and feverish, with sharp stabs of pain shooting through my body whenever I made a wrong move. So healing was still the top item on the list. As part of that, I really wanted to figure out how to use my mana more efficiently. I couldn’t shake the feeling that what I was doing with my amber mana was wildly inefficient. There had to be more to it.

So how exactly did I use mana for all those abilities and effects, and how could I create new effects?

My experiment using the amber mana already had taught me that it was not enough to just pour mana into something. It needed some guidance, some structure, and, most importantly, some intent. Otherwise, it was like a simple outpouring of potential energy without any discernible impact.

I decided to retry my experiment with the amber mana from many hours earlier and heal one of the various wounds I had on my body. As my test object, I picked one of the bite wounds caused by the stupid cat and willed the amber mana to move there. As before, this did not achieve anything - the mana simply milled around the area and slowly diffused.

Instead, I now imagined my arm to be healed while putting the amber mana into the wound. After listening for any noise outside of my hiding spot, I carefully took out one of the noticeably dimmer light-crystals, which enabled me to see how the tissue slowly connected, and the wound gradually closed.

This was a success, but at an extremely high cost of mana. The mana was rushing into the wounds and accumulated at the edge of the deep bite-wound, slowly building up flesh and skin tissue, which rapidly consumed the amber mana in the process. I stopped the healing, before all the amber mana in my body was gone, to try one more variation.

What if instead of merely picturing the wound closed, I imagined in much more detail how the injury was going to be healed?

The bite was on my forearm, so I visualized the structure of the muscles along the radius and ulna bones and how the torn or ripped muscles should reconnect. Recalling those biology books on human anatomy, I envisioned the arteries and veins, ligaments, blood cells, and skin cells growing together, replenishing and healing.

I could feel the amber mana drain, but it was a lot slower than before. Yet the healing was an order of magnitude faster. I could see the wound rapidly closing, and after perhaps a minute, it was all gone, without even leaving a scar.

Since I had some amber mana left, I kept on going with a few of the other wounds, almost moaning in pleasure when the so treated wounds stopped shooting daggers of agony straight into my brain every few seconds.

So it was pretty obvious that the detail with which I could guide the mana, or, in other words, the depth of knowledge of injuries and human anatomy had a huge impact on the efficiency with which I could heal wounds. Which made me conclude that a learned medical doctor or a nurse would be a lot more powerful and effective with amber mana than someone like me, who only remembered some basic lessons from biology class in high school and the random tidbits of information one picks up here and there.

Once my amber mana was depleted, I tried using other mana for the same purpose, but without success, which supported the theory that mana had specific functions and could not be used for other things.

Settling down for a long and tedious healing process, I resigned myself to meditate to speed up the recovery of my amber mana.