I got to my feet immediately, paused the construction, and ran up the stairs behind Rick.

“Why would they call for me?” I asked as we went up.

“Ms. Anders left instructions that if anything happened, they were to consult with you immediately.” I was glad he was speaking to me. After his reaction to the skeleton killing the snake, I was afraid he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Although, I guess this was a special situation.

I made sure to retrieve my staff from my inventory before heading out, and then ran over to where the police officers were standing several meters in front of my tent. They had their helmets on and batons in hand, and were staring intently towards the forest. There were only four of them. I looked around quickly and saw the fifth officer jogging towards us from the carpark, carrying a large flashlight. Rick hung back as I went and stood next to the group and asked them what was going on.

One of the officers turned to look at me, taking in my staff and casual dress before replying. “You’re Dean?” she asked curtly. She was clearly not impressed by what she saw. She looked tough. She was probably in her late forties and what I could see of her face behind the helmet’s plastic guard was weathered and set in a firm expression. Even if she hadn’t been wearing full protective gear, I thought she would have been quite imposing. Decked out as she was, she definitely looked like someone I didn’t want to get on the bad side of.

“That’s me,” I replied simply, not reacting to her obvious displeasure.

“Thought you’d be older,” she mumbled. “Not sure why I have to report to you, but orders are orders.”

She pointed towards the forest. “Over there. Near the edge of the trees. There’s something just waiting there.”

Looking where she indicated, I couldn’t spot anything at first, even though the tree line was only about twenty meters away. Then I noticed a patch of shadows move. Focusing on that area, I could make out a shape within the darkness as it shifted slightly. It was low to the ground and came up to about knee height.

“Not sure how long it’s been there. It was walking around a little just before, which is the only reason we spotted it. The darkness hides it really well.”

Just then the officer with the torch reached us. He pointed it at the shadowy figure and tried to turn it on. Nothing happened. He hit the switch a few more times, a confused look on his face. Forgot about that. We were obviously still within reach of the energy leaking out from the dungeon. Thinking quickly, I said, “Sorry. We have some equipment running that’s probably messing with it. Just need to get out of its range.”

I took several steps forward, keeping an eye on the patch of shadows to make sure whatever was hidden there wasn’t going to come out and attack me. When I felt the boost provided by the dungeon leave me and the tiredness settle back in, I stopped. I resisted the urge to slump down, making use of my Determination skill to help me focus on ignoring my fatigue and stay standing straight. “Should be ok from here.” Feeling like I had a handle on the weaker state of my body, I deactivated the skill so I could more easily follow what was going on around me.

The officers moved up to join me, also keeping a wary eye on the dark patch hiding the creature. We were now closer to the forest than I felt comfortable with, but it was unavoidable. The officer tried the torch again, and this time it worked. He moved the light until it shone on the hidden form. We all exclaimed in shock at the sight of what was revealed. It was a koala, but it was all kinds of messed up.

Its gray fur was almost completely hidden by black patches that covered its entire body. There was also something wrong with its eyes. The orbs were an inky black that seemed to contain a dense, swirling black fog. There was no glint off them from the torch’s beam. Instead, they seemed to suck the brightness in. The strangest thing, though, was that the light seemed unable to completely banish the shadows shrouding the koala. It was almost as if they were seeping out of its body and misting around it.

We didn’t have long to take in its strange appearance, for just after the light hit the beast, its reaction shocked us more. Instead of running away from the glare, it opened its mouth and let out a loud shriek. It was exactly the same cry I’d heard earlier when I was returning from using the toilet. I wasn’t an expert on animal noises, but I was pretty sure koalas weren’t capable of making a sound like that. I took an involuntary step back, and unfortunately, the officer with the torch did too. The light went out as he reentered the mana-dense zone.

He cursed and quickly retook his position, fumbling for the switch. My heart was in my throat. The light had ruined our night vision, so we couldn’t make out even an outline of the koala anymore. I raised my staff in front of me for protection and hunched my shoulders, imagining it was about to leap on top of me. I breathed a sigh of relief as the torch came back on, showing us the koala in exactly the same spot, just watching us with its swirling, smoky black eyes.

I lowered my staff, feeling a little embarrassed by my reaction. “What on earth is wrong with that thing?!” someone muttered, sounding shaken.

The woman who’d initially spoken to me looked my way before turning her attention back to the koala. She seemed uncertain. “Well? We were told to listen to you. What should we do?

Me?! “Ahh, well, we definitely don’t want to let that thing get close to us.” I considered how to handle it. “Can you shoot it from here?” I finally suggested

“Seriously? It’s just a koala! It looks sick. We should get it some help,” one of the others protested.

It wasn’t close enough for me to analyze, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a koala anymore. At least, not entirely. Its warped appearance was extremely disturbing, but its behavior was even more concerning. The other animals infected by the Void hadn’t shown any restraint at all and simply attacked whatever they came across. This thing had apparently been sitting there watching us for a while. The question was, why?

“Look at it. That thing is beyond help,” I said. I analyzed the officer that had first spoken to me in order to get her name. I got the feeling she was in charge of the group, so I needed to convince her. The ability also gave me her rank. I had no idea of the hierarchy within the police force, but I was pretty sure my guess about her being the leader was right.

“Senior Sergeant Tully,” I said, looking at her. Her gaze snapped back to me as I addressed her. “Trust me. Getting near that animal would be extremely dangerous. Please put it down.” She looked at me intently, probably trying to figure out how I knew her name. I didn’t look away, and hoped my skill was working on her to make her listen to me.

“Alright,” she eventually said. She switched out her baton for her handgun and took several steps to get in front of us. Getting set, she fired off one shot at the koala. It hit the beast’s torso and knocked it back a few steps. I had never fired a gun before, so I didn’t know how hard it was to hit a target from about 15 meters away, but I was impressed by Officer Tully’s accuracy.

The sound of the bullet being discharged was louder than I could have imagined, and almost seemed to vibrate through my body. I winced and rubbed at my ears. Unsurprisingly, I could hear shouts coming from behind us. At least my hearing is still good. Everyone in the area would be drawn by the gunshot.

I didn’t have time to worry about that, though, as my attention was fixed entirely on the koala. With the torch still shining on it, we all watched as it stepped back to where it had been and shrieked at us again. It was probably my imagination, but the cry almost seemed to convey a sense of rage. Around where the bullet had struck it, the misting black tendrils coming off its body were thicker, as though drawn towards the injury.

Officer Tully fired off a second shot. This one struck the koala in the eye and again knocked it back. She lowered her gun, confident it was dead. I wasn’t so sure. Stay down, stay down, stay down, I frantically repeated to myself. The koala twitched, and then got back up. Its body was no longer entirely covered in shadows. Instead, they were all concentrated around where the two bullets had struck. Its missing eye socket was packed full of the dark, smoke-like substance. It let out another loud shriek. My eyes jumped to the impenetrable darkness of the forest behind it as an identical cry answered it from somewhere within. There’s another one?!

Officer Tully raised her gun again, but her hands were shaking. “What the hell is this thing?!”

“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. The bullets seemed to be having an effect on it, but it wasn’t clear how much. Its weird shadows were obviously helping it, but how long could they hold it together? I needed more information, and unfortunately, that meant getting within range for my Analyze ability to work.

“Stay here. I need to get a little closer,” I told them, keeping my eyes on the koala.

“Are you crazy?!” one of the officers blurted out. Tully shushed her. “Are you sure, Dean?”

I nodded. “Ok,” she said reluctantly. “Stay to the side. We’ll cover you.” She ordered the others to pull out their guns. “If it moves, bring it down.”

I held my staff tightly and stepped forward slowly, sliding my feet and making sure I could turn and run at a moment’s notice. I stayed off to the left of the group so they had a clear shot if necessary. The koala just stayed where it was, watching me with its one good eye. I kept trying to activate Analyze after every step, not wanting to get the tiniest bit closer than I had to. Finally, I succeeded.

Void Puppet – Koala

Level: 1

Health: 28 / 40

Void Energy: 19 / 50

This creature perished while infected by the Void. Upon death, it was reanimated by this energy and has now become one with the Void.

Oh, no! I thought miserably. I wasn’t sure what ‘one with the Void’ meant, but ‘reanimated’ was clear enough. I immediately started thinking about the implications, but Cax cut through my dark imaginings. “Later! One problem at a time. Look at its health and energy again.”

I looked at the red and grey bars that were now hovering over the koala’s head. As I watched, the grey bar went down a little and the red bar filled up by twice as much.

“It’s healing itself?!” I exclaimed, speaking out loud in my shock.

“What did you say?” Officer Tully called out. I ignored her and listened to Cax.

“It appears so. The black substance it is emitting from its body must be void energy. Look how it is concentrated around the wounds. It is healing them.”

I walked backwards towards the group, keeping an eye on the koala the whole time. It still hadn’t moved, and it made me worried. Why wasn’t it attacking or trying to conceal itself? When I reached the police, I finally looked away from the void puppet.

I saw that one of the officers had left the group and was busy keeping the members of Anita’s team that had stayed on-site away from us. A quick glance up at the entrance showed some camera crews also being kept back, too, by a police officer in regular uniform. They were filming everything, though. I just hoped the distance meant they couldn’t make out anything clearly.

“Whatever that black fog stuff is that’s around the wounds seems to be fixing it up,” I told the senior sergeant, not bothering to go into details. “Shoot it again.” I wanted to see how its resources were affected.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” she said quietly. She fired off another round that took it high in the shoulder. I was watching the representations of its health and energy closely and saw a large portion of its health disappear. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought that the shot did more damage than the first two, just by how much health it lost. It must be the void energy surrounding it, I realized. It protects it as well. But it was all concentrated around the wounds, so the third bullet did more damage. I didn’t have time to give it more thought as I saw its energy begin to drain away faster than before. Shortly after, its health began to rise.

“It’s working!” I told her excitedly. I knew she had no idea what I was talking about, but I didn’t care. “It won’t be able to out-heal the damage.” I was about to tell her to keep shooting until it stayed down, but Cax stopped me.

“If she kills it, you won’t get any experience and you won’t be able to loot it. You should finish it yourself.”

“I can’t exactly shoot a light dart with so many people watching,” I reminded him. “If those news cameras catch that…” Anita would kill me, and any chance at living a normal life would be gone. I could always attack it with my staff, but I didn’t want to get that close. Who knew what else the energy surrounding it was capable of?

The choice was taken out of my hands as the koala finally moved, turning and loping back into the forest. I was glad to see it wasn’t moving that fast, which meant its injuries were affecting it despite the healing it was receiving, but it was fast enough for Tully to miss as she fired off another shot. It was soon hidden behind the trees, and the frantically moving torchlight couldn’t spot it. The distance had severed the connection I’d made to it and its resource bars had vanished, meaning I couldn’t track it that way.

“It’s got to be dead, right?” one of the officers asked. “It will bleed out. It’s got to. No animal could live after taking three rounds. Especially one to the head!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I replied. We stood there just looking into the dark forest, the roving torch not showing us anything. The others were becoming restless, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Should we head in and try to find it? I mean, it was injured. Just a couple more shots should be enough to finish it off. I knew it was unwise to go in there while it was still dark, but I was worried. The koala was level 1. That meant these puppet things could actually level up. If it got away and had a chance to get stronger…

Rustling from within the forest made us all stand up straight. The officer holding the torch kept swinging it from left to right to try and spot what was making the noise, while the others raised their guns and stood ready. Something stepped out, but as the light focused on it, we could see it wasn’t the koala we’d been expecting.

It was a man. He was a young guy with short blonde hair that had black streaks through it. There were multiple black splotches visible on every part of him not covered by his clothes. He had the same strange, misting black aura surrounding him that the koala had had. If that wasn’t enough to indicate there was something wrong, the hole that had been ripped in his shirt and the blood that surrounded it was. We could see his stomach through the torn fabric, and it was completely covered with the roiling, dark energy. He looked at us and opened his mouth wide, letting out an identical cry to that of the koala.

We all took a step back, and the protests of the scientists trying to push their way past the officer for a closer look at what was going on died off immediately. There was absolute silence for a second before Tully broke it, confirming what I’d already guessed. “That’s…that’s the missing boy,” she stammered in confused horror.

Tim, or rather, the void-puppet version of Tim, just stood there, exactly like the koala had done.

“Shoot him!” I said quickly. Nobody fired. They were all looking at me like I was crazy, their fear-filled eyes almost seeming to say that I was a monster too. A koala was one thing, but I guess it was too much to expect them to shoot what they still likely considered to be a person. I didn’t have time to convince them. I hefted my staff and took a step towards the shell of a man.

Suddenly, the rustling noises came again, and six animals stepped out of the forest around Tim and stood together in a line. I stopped where I was. All of them showed obvious signs of being void puppets. There was a bush turkey with a concentration of energy around its head that I was sure had a grudge against Brad. Always absorb the bodies from now on, I noted to myself, trying to distract myself so I wouldn’t feel so scared.

“I think I may have misjudged the small dungeon’s reach,” Cax told me worriedly. “Perhaps, with such low levels of mana on this planet, the empowered pull of the dungeon is able to reach further than usual. That, or these monstrosities have keen senses.”

“It might be both, but actually, I think the koala called them here.” It had to be because of the dungeon, though. If the koala was the one that had attacked Brad and the one that I’d killed, and I was pretty sure it was, then it was probably close enough to feel the dungeon’s pull when it was reanimated. It had then summoned the others with its freaky shrieking. The fact it had the reasoning skills to bring in reinforcements, and the patience to actually wait for them to arrive, was deeply troubling. As though my thoughts attracted it, the koala emerged from the darkness to join the others. It still looked in bad shape, but it didn’t seem that bleeding out was a likely outcome.

For a second, both of our groups stood there, surveying the others. The officer who had been on crowd control rejoined the line. I wasn’t sure what to do, and the police were in the same boat. No amount of training could prepare you for something like this. Suddenly, without a sound, the void puppets began running towards us.

“Fire!” Tully roared out the command as she shot at the injured koala, hitting its torso and halting its charge. The other officers joined in, discharging their weapons. The sound was deafening, and it was all I could do not to drop my staff and cover my ears. I couldn’t stop myself from flinching repeatedly, though, as the guns went off beside me. Without time to coordinate, a couple of bullets struck the same targets. While it did help knock those animals back, it meant a couple of the puppets were unimpeded in their charge.

Unsurprisingly, Tim was one of them. I knew none of the others would be willing to harm him, so it was up to me. I couldn’t get to him without risking being hit by a bullet, so I had no choice but to use my magic. I kept my left hand low, palm open and facing towards the running man. Activating Determination for a boost, I felt everything around me come into sharp focus while at the same time seeming to slow down a little. I led the running figure, lined up my shot, and then fired a light dart from my left hand. I was hoping the angle it was coming from would make it go unnoticed in the commotion, and it could always be dismissed as a glitch if it showed up on any recordings.

The beam of concentrated light shot out and struck Tim’s chest, burning a hole in his shirt and penetrating slightly into his skin. The impact was actually strong enough to knock him to the side and spin him slightly. He recovered quickly, whipping back around and somehow locking onto me as the source of the magical attack. The char mark from my dart spell was invisible against the dark energy that flowed out of the wound to plug it up. He resumed running, this time directly towards me.

I swallowed nervously around the lump in my throat as I gripped my staff and got ready to meet his attack. I quickly noted that the koala was no longer moving, and another two animals were also still. Four animals were still up, and they were almost on top of the officers who were frantically trying to reload their weapons.

I didn’t have time to worry about them as Tim got within range. I swung my staff down quickly in a move I had memorized, aiming for his head. He swayed to the side without breaking stride, so my staff crashed down onto his shoulder instead. He stumbled but stayed on his feet and hurtled into me before I could recover from my attack. I fell back onto the ground with him on top, grunting as the wind was knocked out of me.

Instead of punching me, he just gripped my head in both hands. I could feel the void energy that surrounded him flowing against every part of my exposed skin. It felt like the cold mist spray that some places used on really hot days to cool down visitors, but without any moisture. The feeling intensified around his hands, until where he held me grew painfully cold.

“He’s consuming your health!” Cax shouted, alarmed. I could see my health disappearing slowly from the bar that had appeared in the corner of my vision.

I looked up at Tim’s face, scared. There was dried blood around his mouth, with some smeared across his cheeks. There was no white to his eyes, just complete darkness. The most terrifying thing, though, was the lack of expression on his face as he sucked the life from me. I brought my hands up and grabbed his head in the same way. Then, yelling in fear and defiance, I fired a light dart directly into the side of his head from my right palm. His grip loosened and the pain was reduced as a large portion of his shadowy aura flowed up to his head to deal with the wound. I fired another dart into the other side of his head from my left palm, and he let go of me completely and rolled away.

I crawled away from him and sprung to my feet, backing away and panting hard as I held my staff out in front of me. To my surprise, Tim stood up and ran, but not at me. He went back towards the forest. I stood there shocked for a second, unable to work out why he would retreat, before my brain kicked back into gear. I can’t let him get away. I started to run after him but stopped as someone’s screams finally got through to my battle-dazed mind. I was vaguely aware that it had been going on for a little while, but I’d been so focused on my own predicament that it hadn’t registered.

I looked to my right and saw one of the officers lying on his back and yelling in pain. Some kind of large lizard, about 2-meters long, had its mouth clamped tightly around his leg. It didn’t seem to be tearing into him, but I knew from my own experience that these void puppets’ siphoning attack was quite painful. It had felt like extreme cold, but it wasn’t caused by cold energy, so I wasn’t sure if my Elemental Resistance passive helped me ignore some of the pain. But I had a shirt and an improved constitution that definitely did help. This poor officer had none of my advantages at dealing with pain.

As far as I could tell, all the other animals were down, but so was another police officer. She was still moving, so I hoped she would be ok. The remaining three officers were beating on the lizard with their batons, but so far it wasn’t having any effect. I wondered why they didn’t just shoot the thing, but then realized they’d fallen back within the dead zone around the dungeon.

I glanced regretfully at Tim’s back as he fled into the forest, then ran over to help the police. I jabbed the metal-capped end of my staff as hard as I could into the back of what Analyze told me used to be a lace monitor. It seemed like a fancy name for an overgrown lizard. The magically infused material of my weapon, along with the enchantment for extra fire damage on it, was much more effective than the batons, and after several blows, the lizard released its grip in death. A rush of energy let me know I’d been rewarded with some experience for my efforts. Once the officer was freed from the animal, his pain-filled screams trailed off.

“Tully!” I said quickly. “Get them into the tent. I can help them in there.” A couple of news cameras were nearby, although the police officer who’d been keeping them away was in the process of ushering them back to the entrance. He’d probably run over to help us and the reporters had taken advantage of the opportunity to get in close. I needed privacy to heal the two injured officers.

I tried to pick up the screaming officer at my feet, but even with my improved strength, he was too heavy in all his gear for me to lift alone. One of his squad mates grabbed his legs, and together we carried him into the tent hiding my dungeon entrance. As soon as we were hidden by the fabric walls, I cast Heal on the injured man in my arms and had to drag him deeper in by myself as the officer carrying his legs dropped him with a startled curse.

“Go and help get your other friend in here!” I didn’t bother checking to see if he listened to me. Instead, I analyzed the man that had been attacked by the big lizard. I was concerned with what I saw. He was still infected even after being healed, and he also had a condition called ‘Drain’. My ability wasn’t able to give me information on it.

“You have it too,” Cax told me, concerned. Just then, a notification box flashed in the corner of my vision, trying to get my attention. “I held it back like you wanted, so you wouldn’t get distracted.”

I quickly opened it, hoping my interface could provide me with detailed information on the condition.

You have been afflicted with [Drain].

This is an ongoing ailment that steadily saps your health while also infecting you with void energy.

The infection cannot be cured while [Drain] remains.

[Drain] can only be removed by healing to full health.

That’s viciously effective! It ensured that once the target died, they would be able to be brought back as a void puppet. I still had plenty of health left, so I wasn’t worried. It was decreasing at a slower rate than the police officer’s, too, probably thanks to my improved, level-4 body.

He had a third of his health remaining, and although it was draining faster than mine, it wasn’t too quick. Probably about 1hp every 5 seconds. I didn’t think he was in any danger of dying. If I weren’t around to magically heal him, though… “Rick!” I shouted as loudly as I could. I hoped he was still nearby. If I were him, I would have bolted as soon as puppet-Tim appeared.

The other officers brought in their injured teammate at a run, dropping her as carefully as they could beside me. I was pleasantly surprised to see Rick enter hesitantly behind them. I crouched down and healed the woman immediately, and then analyzed her. She wasn’t afflicted by the same condition, and she wasn’t infected, but her health hadn’t been fully restored.

“Thoughts?”

“It might be a stacking affliction. The monitor had contact with the man for a long time. The affliction might need prolonged contact to administer and grows more powerful the longer the contact lasts. Tim didn’t have you for too long, which might also be why you are losing less health.” Cax didn’t sound positive, but I thought it was a pretty good theory. I’d find out later how the female officer was injured and see if it held up.

I stood up and called Rick over. He came towards me slowly, looking embarrassed for some reason. I frowned slightly in confusion.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help,” he said softly when he stood in front of me, looking at the ground.

I laughed tiredly. That’s what’s wrong with him?! “You’re still here, and that’s amazing,” I told him sincerely. He looked up at me, surprised. “I swear, if I couldn’t do what I can,” I was conscious of the many people around listening in to the conversation, so I kept it vague, “I would have bolted as soon as I saw the koala get its eye shot out and get back up.”

He seemed to get a bit of confidence back at my words and flashed me a small smile. Glad he was feeling better, I asked him, “Can you bring any of the scientists that are still around in here? And you should call Ms. Anders. Tell her that Ryan might not be as dead as he was. Someone needs to find out. Carefully.”

His smile disappeared. “I already called her,” he told me, “but I’ll make sure she gets the message immediately. I’ll send the scientists in.” He suddenly squinted at me. Leaning in close, he looked intently at my forehead. “The light’s not great in here, but it looks like you’ve got something on your skin. It looks like what was on the animals…” He stepped back quickly, scared. “It moved! It shifted!”

His reaction scared me until I realized it matched up to where Tim had held me. The area did still feel a little cold, but I’d thought it was just a lingering memory of the pain. It must be a mark of either the void infection or the Drain affliction. “It’s ok. I can heal it. There’s nothing to worry about.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he left to gather the scientists and warn Anita. I wanted to see for myself what kind of thing was on my head, but with no mirrors around, I’d have to settle for seeing it on someone else. I instructed the weary officers still on their feet to remove the protective gear around their comrades’ injuries. I deliberately ignored the shell-shocked looks they wore. That was for Anita to deal with.

Since I now knew the two officers weren’t in immediate danger, and I could see I had plenty of health remaining, I ran down to my dungeon room and started to send some mana into the construction. I needed to resume it before the one-hour break period ended. The last thing I wanted was for the whole thing to fall apart. At best, I would lose all the progress I’d made and have to start from scratch. At worst, the released energy would have a destructive effect and the entire 20-meter by 15-meter area would collapse and create a sinkhole. I stopped the flow of mana when I was down to just enough for a heal and went back up into the tent.

All the scientists had gathered, and the gear had been taken off the injured officers. After confirming the other three officers hadn’t been injured, I asked them to go and bring the dead animals into the tent. I’d heal them later just in case they were infected, but I couldn’t spare the mana now.

As they went to work, I filled the scientists in on the affliction and explained how it could be removed. I created a glowing orb and anchored it to the ceiling above us so we could see clearly, and then we all looked at the man’s leg. Based on the state of his gear, it appeared the lizard had clawed and bitten its way through to the flesh beneath and then sunk its teeth into his leg. I didn’t know if it was normal for such an animal to be able to rip apart the protective gear like that, or if it was due to added strength granted by the Void. Either way, we’d need some more effective protection moving forward.

The bite marks had disappeared due to the healing, but the area had a large black mark covering it. Rick had been right. It did seem to shift, like there was something inside it, but it was so slow it was easy to believe I was imagining it. The officer confirmed that it still felt cold for him, too. He also said there was still a little pain, but he assured us it was manageable.

“Alright,” I said, addressing the scientists. “If I’m not around to magically heal someone who gets this affliction, how can you heal them fully so it goes away?”

They looked at each other. “Actually, none of us are medical doctors,” one of the ladies said.

That’s a bit of bad luck. “Well, do what you can. I’m going to heal both of us soon, so this is your only chance to experiment.”

“You said your health is draining away slowly. Can’t you just top it off a little so the disease doesn’t go away? That will give us time to run proper tests.”

I gave the speaker a flat look. “No. I don’t know if having the affliction for a long time will create other problems, but I do know that the infection starts to mess with the mind and body after a while. I’m not willing to be a guinea pig to find out how long it takes. How about you?” I looked at the infected officer. He shook his head vehemently, looking worried. “There you go. The only reason I haven’t already healed us completely is because anything you can find out now might save lives in the future.”

They didn’t press the issue and instead got to work, not wasting time taking precautions once I reminded them that I could heal anyone who got infected. Someone went and retrieved some vials and took blood samples from the two officers and from me, although it was difficult to get the needle through my skin. I wanted to ask why they had that kind of equipment if none of them were medical doctors, but didn’t want to distract them since we were pressed for time.

I questioned the female officer. Apparently, a wombat had barreled into her, and she’d fallen hard. Something had snapped in her leg which was why she’d still been on the ground when I saw her. The wombat had then clawed through her pants and scratched up her thigh. Luckily, it had already been shot several times before reaching her, so the other officers had quickly finished it off before it could hurt her too badly. That seemed to support Cax’s theory. She had likely been infected, but the void-puppet wombat hadn’t had a chance to begin draining her. My Heal spell had then fixed her leg and removed the infection. I healed her one more time to return her to full health, and then she went to help gather the bodies, looking like she was in a daze the whole time. Anita was definitely not going to be happy about having to fix this mess.

The scientists reluctantly admitted they didn’t have anything on hand that could be used to fix us up, so I healed the infected police officer twice to get him back to perfect condition, grateful for the boost to my mana regeneration the dungeon was providing. Another Analyze confirmed he was clean of any trace of the Void, so I let him rejoin his squad mates. With a hurried thank-you, he eagerly fled outside. After what he’d been through, to then be poked and prodded, I could understand his desire to get away.

The scientists left with their samples, but not before I stressed they needed to come to me immediately if they began feeling any differently. In the future, we’d have to be more careful about how we handled infected people and animals, but I hadn’t wanted to give the infection any more time to move through us than I had to.

They also wanted to take some of the dead animals to study, but I wouldn’t let them. Until I knew for sure they weren’t going to be reanimated again, I wanted them in here. I knew I could just absorb them to remove the possible threat, but it was important to know if they could be brought back again by the Void. And if they did come back to life in here, I felt the risk was quite low. They had clearly come for the dungeon earlier. We’d just been in the way. I was pretty sure they would go straight down into the dungeon and leave everyone alone. My defenders should be able to handle them, especially if I aided them.

After all the animal corpses had been dragged into the tent, I asked the officers to sit outside and keep an eye on the forest until Anita arrived and could have them relieved. I reminded them, too, not to leave or have contact with anyone else until they were cleared. The strangeness of me giving these seasoned officers and scientists orders suddenly struck me, but even stranger was how they accepted them without any pushback.

I also told Rick I’d be fine alone and told him to take a well-earned break. Then, after replenishing my health pool and removing the afflictions, I turned my attention to the void-puppets. Only one was glowing, letting me know I could loot it. The monitor. Too bad Tim got away, I thought regretfully. Not only for the missed chance at loot, but also because of the danger he represented.

Looting the lizard, I felt my mana connect with the energy remaining on the corpse and then it transformed into a silver ring, shimmering into existence beside the body. I picked it up and analyzed it.

Silver Ring of Repelling

Emits a blast of air that knocks back the target.

Charges: 3 / 3

Charges replenish naturally over time and may also be manually refilled.

Very nice! I slipped it on my right ring finger and willed a little mana into it to resize it. I was lacking in defensive measures, so this was a great item for me.

“And it’s not flashy at all,” Cax added. “I’m familiar with an Air Affinity spell that does the same thing. There’s no visible component to the effect, so anyone watching won’t see what occurred, only the result. Given your desire to conceal your abilities, that should be useful.”

“Extremely!” I agreed. I looked at my right hand. I now had two rings. The new one and the bone ring that gave me an extra five points of health. I had never been into accessories before, but I thought they looked alright. “Is there a limit to how many rings I can wear?”

“You can have one on each finger with no problems. Two on the same finger can cause issues, so it’s best to avoid it.”

“Got it.” The thought of wearing ten rings made me cringe a little. I’d be too embarrassed to go outside. I was actually thinking about giving the bone ring to the scientists to run tests on. It was such a minor boost to my health. I could live without it, and they might be able to discover something useful.

While waiting for Anita to show up, I moved between the dungeon and the tent, keeping the construction going and maintaining a watch on the dead animals. I also made sure to heal all the officers just in case, so they would be able to leave as soon as Anita let them go.

After I finished healing them, Officer Tully grasped my hand in a firm shake, cupping it with her other hand.

“Thank you,” she told me gruffly. “I can’t get my mind around what happened tonight, but I do know that you saved my squad’s life. If you ever need any help, get in touch.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d be dead if you all hadn’t been there,” I protested, “but I appreciate the thought.” She squeezed my hand one more time before letting go, and I retreated back into the tent to carry on with my construction work and guard duties.

A short time later, I heard Anita’s voice outside the tent as she spoke with the five police officers. She’d gotten here sooner than I’d expected. I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans and ran through what I needed to tell her in my head.