Chapter: Returning Home

Erik continued to use his basic heal on his damaged limbs. It wasn’t as comprehensive as the more advanced heal, but it allowed his body to heal faster.

He ate, researched and continued to heal.

Rugrat was testing out his own abilities with a grip strength trainer, whenever they stopped he would be out of the car, doing pushups or squats.

He didn’t have any weights, but his strength was increasing bit by bit. Say he did two hundred pushups on the first day, the second he could do two hundred and fifty, then three hundred, then four hundred, with no sign of slowing down. It became so easy he had to start doing handstand pushups.

While he trained his body, Erik researched and healed.

He was eating all the time, his green bar that represented stamina was already largely greyed out and he had to constantly eat to regain any sort of energy. Naps had become normal to him.

Erik chewed on jalapeno jerky as he sat back in his chair. “Huh.” Erik let out a thoughtful sigh. It looked as though he was not the only person who had tried to take a few things with him. Several people had tried different things.

Some had worked, some failed. There were the more normal measures and the ones that just sounded a little bit crazy

“I think I was overestimating my abilities,” Eric said as he ran a quick scan of his arm where he had done what he had thought to be his in-depth spell.

The more he looked, the more he was assured. There had been issues in the area before; he had grown over them, but as he was making more of the new materials for his arm, he was finding that it was cleaner, there wasn’t anything to be in his way.

“It would’ve been almost better if I started off from a stump than the formed nub that they gave me,” Erik muttered.

“What are you talking about?” Rugrat asked.

“I only have a basic heal spell. I can use it in one area or I can use it on a larger area. Consumption varies, but it basically just speeds up the healing process. Well, more accurately, it stimulates the tissues to form. Well, I guess I’ll find out when it comes to forming my hand,” Erik said.

“Okay, got some of that—you’ve got two spells and it can heal you,” Rugrat said.

Erik rubbed his head, a headache coming on.

“You okay?” Rugrat asked.

“Yeah, my brain just hurts.”

“Happens to me all the time,” Rugrat said.

Erik looked up at Rugrat with a raised eyebrow before snorting and shaking his head.

“Did you find out anything else?” Rugrat asked.

“I need to stab you,” Erik said.

“Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting,” Rugrat drawled.

“I can cast spells, but they haven’t been acknowledged by whatever system we have in our bodies. For the spells to be recognized, they need to be used on another person that is cursed. Now, most of the people that are cursed, are at the same event or place at sometime and they disappear at the same time. It looks like the curse targets an area, rather than a person, how we both got hit with it. Now we’re from the system, but everyone else isn’t I can heal people all day long and get nothing, but once I heal someone else then the system that allows us to see stats will give me a pop-up,” Erik said.

Alright, well no need to stab me, I’ve got a cut on my knuckles,” Rugrat held his hand out over to Erik.

“Heal,” Erik muttered under his breath, mana was drawn out of his body a faint magical circle appearing on his finger above Rugrat’s hand.

Erik frowned it was as if he couldn’t find Rugrat’s hand.

He put the finger with the magical circle on Rugrat’s cut. He saw the break in the skin, the tear through the muscle, the broken blood vessels and coagulating blood.

A glow appeared under the magical circle, feeling as the finger knitted itself together layer by layer.

Erik cancelled the spell, Rugrat was looking at his hand before quickly looking up.

He yanked the wheel they’d nearly come off the side of the road watching what Erik was doing.

“Well the light show is new,” Erik laughed as a screen appeared in his vision.

Minor Heal Wounds

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Novice

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Heal live matter

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Consumption of Mana based on area and effect

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Simple Organic Scan

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Novice

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See through organic materials (bodies)

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Consumption of Mana based on area of effect

Erik wrote down the information before dismissing them.

It wasn’t much information, but it confirmed some of his thoughts and created more questions.

“Did it work?” Rugrat asked.

“Yeah,” Erik said distractedly as he pulled up his character sheet.

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Name: Erik West

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Level: 0

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Race: Human

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Titles: From the Grave

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Strength: (Base 7) +0 (-3 due to injuries))

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40

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Agility: (Base 6) +0 (-4 due to injuries))

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10

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Stamina: (Base 9) +0 (-5 due to injuries))

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60

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Mana: (Base 2) +0

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20

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Mana Regeneration (Base 1) +0

0.95/s

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Stamina Regeneration: (Base 7) +0 (-6 due to injuries))

0.95/s

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He studied the sheet in more detail. There was nothing like someone’s Health points like there was in most Magic games that he had been part of.

One’s health couldn’t be easily broken down in numbers. They weren’t pixels, each system related to one another.

There was no such thing as charisma, or intelligence, those were innate abilities that relied on the actions of a person.

Nothing was given, everything had to be earned.

“Yoo-hoo, earth to Erik.” Rugrat waved his hand in front of Erik, trying to get his attention.

“Hey,” Erik said, jolted out of his reverie.

“We’re here,” Rugrat said as he turned off the engine and got out of the truck.

Erik looked out at the simple cabin. He liked his peace, so he’d bought the land for twenty acres and built a cabin on it.

He’d thought about just hanging out here, letting time pass him by, letting the world sort out its own troubles.

Now, he didn’t have that sort of time left. He and Rugrat had less than five days until they were summoned.

Erik looked at his left arm. He felt like some kind of twisted comic book character as he looked at his adult upper arm and elbow that slimmed down into a toddler sized arm and hand.

Erik couldn’t help but make grasping motions with the hand.

I’m a Trex!

Rugrat pulled out his chair, the noise making Erik clear his throat in embarrassment.

Rugrat and Erik worked together to get Erik into the chair, they’d gotten proficient as Rugrat helped him out at their motels, or when Erik needed to go to the washroom.

Rugrat didn’t make any jokes and while he didn’t say anything. Erik knew that Rugrat never would.

Rugrat rolled Erik towards the front door while muttering.

“Home sweet haunted fricking house.”

“Who has more supplies?” Erik asked.

“Who is crazier?” Rugrat didn’t miss a beat, making Erik temporarily unable to reply.

“That’s what I thought,” Rugrat said.

Erik looked around the home, there was a work shop off to the side all locked up, then the main house, it was a two story affair, simple and easy.

Erik took in a deep breath a feeling of melancholy filling him. It was his home, but it would be ripped away from him.

All of his plans, his potential future had been torn away by that improvised Explosive Device.

The two-week curse was the only thing that gave him hope. The more times he healed himself, the less mana and stamina he consumed and the more he was able to repair.

He knew that Rugrat was as confused and scared of what might come, hell they might die. Both of them didn’t know, they would however face it as they always had, side by side with a gun in their hand, watching the other’s back.