So what if I put another point into perception? Would it continue to be fueled by that one meal that I had eaten? That was useful information to have, so I could plan the timing of my point expenditures as efficiently as possible. The sheer quantity of points I possessed made that a necessity unless I wanted to sit around and twiddle my thumbs most of the time.

But should I really do it? That itch…

Fuck it. I just needed to man up and get through it. Itch or not… it was a useful skill, presumably, and no matter what, there would be discomfort. Even just working out was painful. Not that I wouldn’t prefer that type of pain any day over the godawful itch from changing perception.

Shrugging my shoulders, I invested another point. And immediately, the headache and the itch doubled in intensity.

I lost all reason and was just hanging over the side of the armchair, groaning, and barely coherent. And the whole process wasn’t exactly short either. It went on and on, seemingly forever.

At some point, I felt a cool hand on my forehead, but I was so out of it that I couldn’t even open my eyes. Thank goodness that I had not tried this in the dungeon. Even a single rat could have killed me during an episode like that.

I heard voices, somewhat muffled as if coming through a thick layer of cotton. And then someone lifted me up and carried me like a baby somewhere slightly cooler and dark. And I forced myself to relax as much as I could.

I woke up lying on a soft mattress in a standard if somewhat nicer hotel room. There was the queen-sized bed, beige-colored walls, the usual assortment of furniture, and the obligatory flatscreen TV as the centerpiece of the room.

My hand shot down to the belt, checking for the bag of holding, my rings, and the weapons - everything was still with me, which made me breathe a sigh of relief.

So far, so good.

With a groan, I lifted myself out of bed and walked toward the heavy, dark red curtains, next to the now-defunct air conditioner. I immediately realized that I noticed… details, small things that I would not have paid attention to before – the stain on the duvet cover, likely some blood, the hole in the carpet, where someone had dropped a cigarette at some point, the botched carpenter-job with the baseboards, leaving an ugly opening in the corner instead of a smooth finish. And more.

It was eerie, comparable to switching from a low-resolution video to high definition.

But in real life.

The stream of new sensory information almost overwhelmed me for a moment, but then, like flipping a switch, my brain adjusted to the new reality.

This was fucking ridiculous. And all the result of a meager two additional points in perception, slightly more than a ten percent improvement. For a moment, I wondered what would happen if I dumped another five or ten points into perception. I’d be like a walking detector.

The changes also made me excited about the implications for my fighting abilities. After all, melee combat is a lot about spatial awareness and anticipating opponents. And while I possessed the former in spades, the latter had been lacking.

What looks like lightning reflexes in fencers and duelists, was mostly just their superior ability to read their adversary. Small twitches in muscles, subtle changes in the footwork, angle, and positioning all could possibly give away the next move. And this might enable a perceptive fighter to lean back instead of jump out of the way of a weapon, duck a few inches, rather than drop to the floor – all of which would allow that person to overcome a physically much more impressive opponent.

Not that two additional points in perception would make me an Olympic-ranked fighter. But if my increased ability to notice details in my surroundings was any indication, it was going to make a difference.

Outside, it was dark, but it felt as if the sun had just set - there was still that faint illumination on the horizon that indicated that it hadn’t been long. Which meant that I had been out of it for a couple of hours, perhaps. Not great, but also not terrible. Something to keep an eye on, though, and definitely not a process I should be starting in dangerous surroundings. Unless I could get somehow used to the process… but I didn’t have high hopes for that.

What about nourishment?

Based on a rough estimation, most, if not all, of the energy needed for the transformation had come from the food I had taken in previously. Of course, I couldn’t know for sure, since I could not exactly see the amount of food that was left in the stomach or my intestines. Still, the rumbling and slight discomfort of an empty stomach gave a strong indication that my fairly substantial meal was already fully used up. Coupled with no apparent loss in my scant muscle mass… I thought it was a useful benchmark, at least.

The view outside also confirmed that I was still in the same hotel. The only question remaining was who had taken me to bed. That sounded so weird. Like a baby. But I guess I had been pretty helpless. Was it a random Samaritan? My bet was on Ben and company.

Gingerly, and still slightly freaked out about the change in perception, I made my way outside of the room and into the archetypical hotel hallway – long, dark, carpet covered corridors just without the usual illumination.

There was some faint noise coming from the room right across, the door barely visible in the sliver of light coming from the darkening sky. After a moment of hesitation, I decided to knock. It was a surreal feeling to be so… civilized. Instinctively, my hands had reached for my sword and dagger, preparing myself for an ambush, a fight to the death, or at the very least, a tense stand-off. But there was nothing to be really afraid of here. This was the US. And a few days weren’t going to change things that much. Unless it was the bikers, but that would be plain weird.

I had to chuckle at the image of Lil’Pope carrying me like a baby, and Cobra tucking me into the bed.

But any remaining worry I might have had was alleviated when I heard the unmistakable sound of Sue’s chipper voice.

“Come in!”

Since the electronic lock had stopped working, I was able to simply push the door open and step into the room. Instead of the usual arrangement with two queen-sized or one king-sized bed, there was a nice open space, with a few armchairs and some tables. And there they were, all five of them, Ben, Sue, Betsy, Jimmy, and Tom.

“There he is!” Ben shouted happily while Sue ran over and hugged me.

For a moment, I was stunned, didn’t know how to react.

“Relax, Daniel,” Sue laughed while stepping back. “It was only a hug. I am not going to bite you or anything.”

“I, … sorry, I am not really used t-“

Luckily, the others stepped in, clapping me on the shoulders and shaking my hands, which allowed me to just move on from my somewhat weird reaction without having to explain things.

It felt strange to be in the middle of a pile of people, all clapping my shoulders, smiling at me, and generally being all too close for comfort. It wasn’t that I was afraid of physical contact, but… I just wasn’t used to it any longer, at least not in a friendship-like way. There had been plenty of physical contact with my caretakers, but that wasn’t… personal. Not really, anyway. It had been business, with the sole exception of Annie, who I had formed a much closer connection to.

But soon enough, everyone calmed down and sat back into their comfortable armchairs.

“So, Daniel, tell us, what happened after we left you?” Ben asked. “I’m going to be honest; I didn’t think we would see you again.”

“Well, it is much less impressive than you might think,” I said, playing down my experience. “You already know my ability to hide, and that worked pretty well against the weyrs. I was a tad worried that their primary sense was something other than visual, but, obviously, it wasn’t.”

“So that was it?” Ben asked incredulously. “That easy?”

Soon the others peppered me with questions, trying to find our more. I spun a little story that was close enough to the truth but left out that I had killed close to fifty thousand bugs and the weyr queen. I figured that revealing those little tidbits would cause lots of unwanted questions about my abilities. Instead, I told them that I had used the weyr swarm to kill the gars, and, more importantly, the reaver dogs, and then had been hiding from the bugs until I could get away.

But it wasn’t just me talking. Ben also told me, with more or less helpful comments by the others, about their harrowing experience, making their own getaway. They had run into a small group of gars and the occasional monster on the way, barely escaping with their lives a few times.

“So, you leveled up?” Ben asked after we had settled into a comfortable silence.

“What makes you think so?” I responded, somewhat surprised by the question.

“When we came in, you seemed to be in the middle of a point adjustment process… good thing we knew about the usual effect of such things, otherwise we might have freaked out finding you completely out of it,” Jimmy replied.

“So that is normal?” I asked. “It was the worst!”

“Well, normal… everyone is different as far as we know,” Jimmy explained. “There is also a significant difference between changing mental stats and physical stats. Mental stats are much more uncomfortable, from what I heard, but changing physical stats is incomparably more taxing physically.”

“Just out of curiosity, what did you change?”

For a moment, I almost panicked. I felt cornered. Why would he ask me that? It felt kind of intrusive. But then I chided myself for getting too paranoid. These were nice people, and there wasn’t really any big secret about what kind of skills I might have changed. Especially because it was already quite obvious, that I had leveled up and used points to change some of my underlying stats.

“I increased perception,” I responded after a short moment.

“Perception?” Sue burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me, Daniel? You need to work on your physical stats, not some fancy perception bullshit. I mean, look at you, all skin and bones!”

“Well, it is actually really useful,” I began to say, trying to defend myself. Before I could continue, Jimmy jumped in and said: “Don’t worry, Daniel. I don’t think there is a right or wrong here. I can see where Sue is coming from, but she apparently forgot,” he glanced at her with a frown, “that you expect to make a physical recovery rather quickly, and then it makes perfect sense to hold off on spending points on physical stats. If anything, the concern might be that you are spending it on mental stats, even though, arguably, the physical stats give you the greatest edge for surviving.”

“Speaking off,” he continued after giving me a quizzical look, “you seem already in much better physical shape than just a couple of days ago.”

“He is right,” Sue shouted. “Oh my god, how did I not see it before? Daniel, you are almost bursting out of your clothes with all your muscles!”

And then she started laughing in her pearly, silvery voice until tears were streaming down her cheeks and she had to hold her hurting stomach.

And even though it wasn’t particularly funny, everybody just had to laugh along at her antics, and how hilarious she apparently thought her statement had been.

The rest of the evening, we spent talking about some of our experiences, sharing stories of bloody fights and tight spots we had found ourselves in. I was sure that they embellished a lot, but so did I. There was some bragging here and there, but mostly it was just a fun little story-night among friends. And the more time I spent with them, the more I actually felt like there might be a budding friendship.

And then Ben pulled out a guitar and started playing some popular tunes, while Betsy accompanied him softly with the lyrics in a beautiful alto. The rest of us just sat there, listening, while the light from the candles slowly diminished, as one after another burned down to the last tiny bit of wick and then flickered out.

As the shadows lengthened and became deeper, I let my mind drift, more relaxed than in a very long time. There was something about the soft music, the warm, if faint light provided by the scant few remaining candles and the company of people that just were… normal, nice people. There was a sense of belonging, of community. And even if it was only for those few hours, I cherished the feeling.

I wanted this moment to last longer, for us to be shielded against the outside world, hidden in a pocket of darkness, somewhere. Protected from the dangers of this new world, the struggle, suffering, and strife it would bring.

There was energy in the surrounding, everywhere. I had been aware of that since I had started using Mana Vision. But now I could feel it as well. A dark current of power that was flowing around us. Some of it was just a faint resonance, like a whisper echoing through a long tunnel. But some of it was right there, almost at my fingertips. It felt… malleable. Not mine, but something I could nudge, shape to my will. And it was growing stronger, as the candlelight became less steady, less bright.

The shadows around us beckoned me. They almost seemed to dance around me, playfully, only to withdraw the moment I tried to touch, or even just look at them. Like a skittish animal, playful, yet afraid.

I reached out, trying to grasp the shadows, feel their substance, their nature. But there was nothing there, just a faint memory of the potency that resided in the momentary darkness that danced all around us.

But then Ben stopped playing the guitar. The sudden silence felt jarring.

“Guys, what is this?” Ben whispered softly.

Tom, who hadn’t said much all evening, slowly got up from his comfortable armchair and grabbed a little ax from the small table next to him. “Let’s get into the hallway. Jimmy, can you tell us anything about this?”

Jimmy stared apprehensively at the churning shadows that had formed a sort of dome around us. Every few seconds, wisps of darkness were shooting out of the mass of shadows, almost playfully, only to fade away a moment later.

“No clue,” Jimmy responded. “But it somehow doesn’t feel dangerous… Look, it moves away when I approach.”

“Uhm, sorry, guys, I think that might have been me,” I said after a moment of hesitation. I couldn’t tell how I knew or why I felt that way, but somehow I was sure that those shadows were connected to me, to my wishes and desires. “Not sure what is going on… but I feel like… fuck, I have no idea how to describe this. There is like… a connection, a bond?”

As the others stared at me, I slowly petered out with my hopeless attempt at explaining what was going on. But rather than incomprehension, my gaze met incredulity.