I place the two bottles roughly evenly spaced along the floor of the hall while making my way back towards Rav. The lights have a much more dramatic impact than I had anticipated, with just the two managing to return enough light that I could see normally instead of with the weird, high contrast images. Their light manages to just barely illuminate the entire first hallway. It should even be sufficient for people with normal, human Perception to be able to navigate safely. People tend to be pretty cagey about what their weaknesses are, and this game assigning a number to low stats magnifies that trend, if anything. There wasn’t much complaining before, to do so would be to admit inferiority. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if there was a noticeable increase in walking speed among a few of the residents, as a result of this. The light will be instrumental when the star disappears for the night. We can’t mount an effective defense with people bumbling around in the dark, especially with the traps. Plus, having backups to a fire is important, especially when dealing with enemies that hate light.

Marie, our resident structural craftswoman, had used her apparent command over materials to fashion sturdy crosswalks to make navigating the pit traps less dangerous. She apparently has a skill that lets her use Mana to manipulate materials and shape them how she wants. It takes a while and requires many breaks, but she can stretch rock as thin as paper or turn a tree into a house if she wants. Nate tasked her immediately with fortifying the entrance with as much wood and rock as we could muster. While it would be ideal if she could just close the doors for us and lock out any intruders for the night, we would probably suffocate. Any holes we made in the roof would probably have little effect and serve the double purpose of letting noise of our activity escape and potentially alerting the roving Carnine packs. Unfortunately, we have to defend the doors and leave them mostly open for the night. That doesn’t mean we can’t make them pay for every inch of ground they take.

I join Rav for the final hours of watch before night and survey our current fortifications. Nobody asked me how they should be laid out, so I assume Nate just decided. It isn’t bad, but it’s clear Nate doesn’t think outside the box much. For starters, there are no defenses on the ceiling. I don’t know what Nate saw while fighting the Shades last night, but what I saw was a group of highly mobile assassin type enemies. To me, that means that standard, waist-high, spiked barricades aren’t going to cut it. They’ll jump over, run up the cave wall, fling projectiles, whatever. There’s a lot of open space in the defences where small stones will be able to get through and harry defenders. There’s also no position of height for Lynn, our resident archer, or Rav to take advantage of their ranged abilities. They’ll have to shoot around the front lines, or be entirely exposed. I know we’re short on materials, but this can’t stand. It’s definitely too late for tonight, so tomorrow, assuming I’m still alive, I’m going to talk with Marie and see what we can do. We are at war, and currently, we are only alive through stealth. Hit and run tactics will work, up until they don’t, and then we die unless we have the fortifications to multiply our meagre strength to match that of an enemy a hundred times our number.

Just gotta make it through the night. Hey, I can also see about Tom turning my lieutenant pelt into something more useful. I had asked Marie earlier, but apparently her skills are explicitly designed for structure building. Anything she makes with her ‘material control’ offers no boosts, where it otherwise might have if handled by an actual armor craftsman. Tom is technically a blacksmith, but hopefully he can make it work anyway. If not, I guess I’ll end up with a really smelly blanket.

---

“I found that making a coction- err, applying moderate heat to some orange flowers, and subjecting them to mechanical force, like shaking, causes the liquid to give off a large amount of light. The tooltip estimates about a full day.”

~”Thank you again, my friend. The ‘Light’ spells I was using in the meantime require constant focus and Mana to maintain, making it hard to do anything else. I do not see a future for myself as a generator.” Rav’s ever present smile seems much more bright and sincere.

“Always glad to help. Oh… uh, I kinda messed up a bit with… Mana.”

His smile fades somewhat, moving from a confused expression to one of alarm.

~”Anthony what has happened? Are you hurt?”

“N- well, kind of, yeah. I was experimenting with alchemical ingredients without knowing what they did and… one of them gave Mana instantly on consumption.

Rav’s eyes widen further at this revelation. He looks beside himself with fear, and immediately grabs my arm, pulling me closer, eyes aflame with Mana.

~”Oh, my friend… Thank the heavens above you are alright. This damage is severe, but I can’t find any trace of the chaotic energy inside you. How did you manage to cleanse yourself?”

“Chaotic energy? You mean the Mana? Oh, I got… really lucky. Some of these traps, the pits, were covered by illusions, which were, in turn, powered by small Mana batteries like this.” I hold up one of the batteries for his inspection.

He carefully grasps it, turning it over in his hand.

~”This… is most fortuitous. I fear you would have likely perished if not for this stone capturing the Mana that ravaged your body. It almost looks as though your body healed rapidly and sealed it inside. The Mana channels in your body are… everywhere. I have never seen so many. But there is no beginning, no end. You received Mana through alchemy, but it had no way to leave, and you could not control it. I think the only reason you are still with us is because these batteries attract Mana more than the body or the air, so the Mana was forced through the walls of your Mana channels. I don’t see where this occurred, so I assume it also healed over. I would likely attribute it to your healing abilities.” He shakes his head, a mixture of concern and awe across his face.

~”If you could use these channels, your Mana pool would be incredible… but I fear even attempting to open a channel to the outside would prove life threatening. All others I’ve seen have at least one opening through which Mana can enter and escape, but…”

Mine are all closed.

Fuck.

~”I am deeply sorry, my friend. I cannot repair this damage. I cannot even begin to understand it, and I cannot allow myself to experiment even with your permission.”

A mournful sigh is all I can muster. “Of course. When it happened, the notification claimed I would need a ‘Village Healer’ or something in order to remove the effect. I took the liberty of warning everyone that the purple flowers should be considered poison if you don’t have a Mana pool. I doubt it would be as bad for anyone else if it was, as you say, my healing that trapped the Mana inside me, but I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel that. Would it have been that bad if you had tried?”

Rav shakes his head slowly. ~”No, I fear it would be quite the opposite. Now that your Mana channels have been revealed, it seems my fear for your safety was unwarranted. You would have been fine even under my untrained hand. The process gently opens gateways, making it unlikely you would heal them, even unconsciously. I apol-”

“It’s not your fault,” I interrupt, filled with a mix of regret and anger “the fault lies with neither of us. We were thinking of gambling with my life, and that would have been highly idiotic. We made the right choice… it just happened to be wrong.”

Rav takes his hand off my arm and places it on my shoulder, looking me in the eye. ~”We will fix this. Worry not.”

I manage a half hearted smile. “Yeah.”

I turn my attention outside, to the sky. The celestial rings are plainly visible against the backdrop of the sky. We don’t have long. It’s time.