That afternoon developed into a pattern of unpleasantness as it continued on. Isabella would practice making her lifeflame, and basically just make it hover in thin air for as long as she could, and then every so often she would come over and hug me. At first, the feel of her warm chest pressing tightly against my back would make me smile. For several seconds, it was nothing but bliss as she pressed herself against my back and hugged me with her arms around my sides. But, then the warm sunburn feeling starting spreading where her hands were around me.

Blissful, wondrous feeling of a beautiful woman’s bosoms against my back; burning heat which scorched like a deep sunburn in my front. Gah! I didn’t know If I was in Heaven, Hell, or somewhere stuck between the two! I just hope all this doesn’t lead to me getting some sort of mental trauma! “Hello ma’am! Yes ma’am! Spank me harder ma’am! Harder! Oooooohhhh the pain feels sooo good….”

Dear mother, if I ever get broken like that, please come and beat some proper sense back into your boy.

Thankfully, I can say that I wasn’t having any issues differentiating between the two feelings at the moment. First, there was a moment of warm bliss. Then there were several long moments of annoying ache and pain as she stole my life. And then, as if you pay for the process, a few more moments of bliss until Isabella finally let go of me and went back over to practice again.

In between these moments of bliss, ache, bliss, I focused on gathering as many quills as I could out of the remaining dog-rats that afternoon. Honestly, I’m fairly certain that my skill was high enough now that I could successfully harvest the skin to the point where the fur would be suitable for leatherworking, except it’d already been too long since the kill for it to be viable now.

The meat on these dog-rats was rancid and the smell was getting rather ripe and pungent – not that I noticed much since I still had a damaged sense of smell for a while longer – but I could tell it was bothering Isabella by the way she sniffled each time she came up behind and hugged me. The odor had to be getting to her quite a bit, and I was glad when I finally finished with the last dog-rat around four o’clock.

Having finally finished my immediate goal, I went over and plopped back into the chair for a bit to rest. My health wasn’t down very far, as the time it took for her to use her energy while practicing was enough for me to recover still, but my mind was drained. It’s hard to describe the dread and trepidation a person feels when they know pain is coming for them, but they had to endure it anyway. I think I was growing an understanding a little better of how someone who has to give themselves shots of insulin or something multiple times a day felt. You know the pain of the needle is coming. It’s always just waiting, and it’ll be coming soon again. Always present, always almost here or else it was just here. But, it’s still something you had to endure.

While I was sitting back in the chair with my eyes closed, Isabella came over and wiggled herself down onto my lap. Reflexively I wrapped my arms around her as she nuzzled into my arms and wrapped her arms around me. I suppose I should be grateful; at least this time my chest could get a small break from the ache that it’d been experiencing all day long.

It was strange, Isabella still sniffled lightly into my neck for a few moments while getting herself comfortable. I guess the stink of the dog-rats decaying and all had to have settled on me where I’d been there so long working with it. I’ll have to take me another bath in a few hours, I guess.

Soon, that warm burn of ache started to seep into my back where her hands were, and just as the feeling was starting to get rather intense – when I’d already learned to associate with ‘she’s almost done’ – when suddenly I heard one of those resounding “Dum Da Dum Da Dum” trumpet sounds! Startled, I jerked forwards and opened my eyes and my head thumped soundly into Isabella’s . There was a flash of bright light from behind me, it felt like electricity shot completely up my back and and out my torso, and with a loud “BANG!”, Isabella and I were blown apart.

I was knocked backwards in the chair from the force of the sudden blast, and upended with the whole chair tilting and crashing into the floor with a bang. Steam rolled off my chest and around my sides from behind me, and I had a massive ache all over while I just sat there and stared up at the ceiling while blinking stupidly.

“Drake! DRAKE! Oh my gosh!” Isabella came bounding around the side of the chair and bent over to check on me. “Are you OK?” I could hear the concern in her voice, but all I could do is blink and stare dumbfounded. Blue electricity rippled up her hair, around her body, and was arcing out all around her. Her long, gorgeous chrome-silver hair was standing straight out, as if she’d been exposed to the world’s strongest Van de Graaff Generator, and as she leaned over closer to me, bolts of warm blue current leaped from her and danced across my body.

“Are you OK?” she repeated, and slowly I nodded.

“I think so. And you?” I asked.

“Stats,” I pulled up my status and while looking at it I saw another popup notification still hovering to my side. Figuring it could wait a moment, I checked on my life and was shocked to see that my HP had went down to almost 50! From starting at 116, and subtracting the 20 points or so that she had already drained, that one sudden burst had grabbed almost 50 points of life at once from me!

I was in shock! But, I suppose Isabella was more shocked than me at the moment. Ha ha.... I guess if we can’t take a moment to laugh at ourselves when we’re in such a situation, things must be very bad. Since I could still crack poor jokes to myself, things couldn’t be that bad in all honesty. Right?

“Are you OK?” I stressed the ‘you’ to try and get Isabella to notice what was going on around her a little more. It’s nice that she was all concerned about me, but she was the one arcing blue bolts of static from her body!

She blinked at me a few times, then looked at herself and said, “I feel fine,” but she sounded puzzled. “Give me a moment… Stats! Skills! Effects! Advantages! “ She called out several system commands and then started scanning over what they read.

“Oh no…” Her voice trailed off and she sounded worried.

“What?” I asked concernedly.

“I’m under an effect called ‘Mana Overload’. There’s a timer counting down, and it’s only got a few minutes on it. What should I do?!”

“Oh shit! That doesn’t sound good!” Kicking and rolling, I rolled out of the chair where it laid back on the ground, and pushed myself up off the ground. Without pausing for a break, I grabbed her up and tossed her over my shoulder and dashed for the door. My own injuries would just have to wait! With a countdown ticking, and a status like ‘Mana Overload’, I just had to assume that she was going to explode or something like an overcharged battery!

Throwing open the door, “What’s your mana and life?”, I dashed outside without pausing for a breath and started rushing towards the goblin’s room at the end of the hallway.

“My.. y… yy..yy.. lifffffee… iss..ss… fiiiii…iiii…nne!” Isabella was having trouble yelling her figures to me while bouncing up and down over my shoulder while I madly dashed down the hallway. “Man… nann.. aahh… is… hiii….iiii….iii!”

I think what she was saying was her life was fine, but her mana was high. Quickly I rounded the corner at the goblin’s room and was startled to see that the giant rat champion’s corpse was gone! But, not having time to worry about that right now, I bounded up the steps three at a time and rushed outside. Skidding to a stop, I flipped Isabella from over my shoulders and into my arms.

“Quick! Use some magic!” She was battered and bruised a little from the rough handling, but she seemed to instantly understand the situation and began tossing blue balls of fire one after another up into the sky. I didn’t know the amount of time left on the counter, so I could only try and count the lifeflames that she expelled one after another. One ball. Two. Three! I’d never seen her throw magic so quickly! Normally she needed several minutes between casts, but here she was throwing them one right after the other. Four! Five! Fizzle! Fizzle! Six!

WHOOSHH!!

Blue flame erupted from Isabella and flung me across the rooftop where I tumbled head over heels several times before ending up face down and ass up on the floor. Moaning lightly, I staggered to sit up and looked over just in time to see Isabella crumple down to the ground like a puppet that had just had its strings severed.

Groaning, I was too sore to get up and walk at the moment, I crawled over to where she lay crumpled in a heap. Gingerly and fearing the worst, I felt for a pulse and was relieved to find one. Gently, I pulled her up into my arms and I held her tight against my chest. Feeling her breath against my neck, I closed my eyes and let the darkness roll over me.

It was a light drizzle that awoke me hours later. The sun had set and Isabella was still snuggled tightly in my arms. She was shivering lightly, and I was too. It was a cold rain that was falling, and we were both drenched already. I had no clue how long we’d been laid there while the rain gently fell like tears upon us. Slowly I eased up and scooped Isabella up in my arms and I carried her princess style back towards the steps going down.

“Stats,” I mumbled to myself, and was surprised to see that I was fully recovered. I was hurt so badly that I’d passed out after the explosion in the room and then the second explosion on the roof, but I was fine now. Since I recovered twenty life an hour, that means at least five or six hours had passed.

Carrying her down the steps, I was once again shocked to see that the giant rat corpse was gone. I’m not even certain if I could drag that thing off; which is why I’d left it where it was and had worked as hard as possible with the other corpses to get my skill up. I was going to try and come back and harvest whatever I could from the beast once I’d skilled up as much as possible, but now its body was gone.

There was a streak of blood smear along the stairs that wasn’t there before, and I was shocked to notice that the quills were still here and scattered across the floor haphazardly. I was going to have to come back and investigate the scene better later, but for now my first concern was getting Isabella back to the safety of the lounge.

Slowly, so as to not wake her, I cautiously made my way down the hall with Isabella in my arms. I was grateful that whatever had carried off or dismembered the rat’s corpse earlier was nowhere around. When I finally got to the lounge, I let out a deep sigh of relief and hooked the door with the corner of my foot and kicked it close. Gently I eased over to the center of the room and gingerly I laid Isabella down on the first couch there.

After I was certain that she was settled, and looked safe, I finally bent down and uprighted the chair I was in earlier and then I plopped myself down into it. Glancing up, I saw that the time was now slightly past midnight. That means we’d been outside for almost eight hours!

I was grateful to be back in the room, and happy that Isabella seemed OK for now, but I was worried about her still not waking. I sat in the chair and simply watched her breathe for several hours, and it wasn’t until I was convinced that she was returning to her normal shade of white, that my mind finally cleared enough for me to check the window that I’d seen popped up to the side earlier.

Congratulations, you gained a new skill: Physical Endurance (1)!

Ahhhhhh…

My mind went blank.

I’d acquired a new skill. It was my skill that made me jerk and head butt her. This whole damn mess was my fault. Disgusted and angry with myself, I stomped over and picked up the metal rod that I hadn’t used for days, and I eased over to the door. Gently opening it and going out into the hall, I was careful to ease the door shut behind me.

With a glare of self-anger in my eyes, I tapped the metal rod in my hands and started up the hallway and away from the stairs and teacher’s lounge. To be honest, I’m not certain what I was thinking, or even if I was thinking anything. I simply wanted to beat the shit out of something, and I knew that whatever the something was that had dragged off the giant rat was, it had went this way.

Down the hallway I walked, not even bothering to look left and right into the classrooms to the side of me. I went all the way to end of the hall and turned left down the hallway at the intersection there. Another few moments of recklessly seething forward, I finally saw IT.

IT looked like nothing more than an oversized blob of semi-transparent jello and it was slowly squashing it’s massive form down the hall away from us. The thing was so wide, it covered from wall to wall and from ceiling to floor, and I couldn’t see how thick it was. Not even caring, I let out a roar of guilty rage and charged the thing and started beating it wildly with my club.

SPLAT! SPLOP! SLOOP! Each hit tore chunks of jello off of it and splattered across the wall. I was screaming and swinging and it was splatting and I was yelling like an idiot, letting out all my frustration. To be honest, I don’t even know what all I was screaming and yelling about. I just know once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I was letting it all out.

At least, up until the point when the blob rolled over top of me. It sloshed itself all around me, and I flipped and tumbled inside it like a fruit inside a dropped piece of jello bouncing across the floor. I tried to scream, but acrid liquid poured down my throat. My skin burned and blistered, and my health slowly faded bit by bit. I couldn’t get a grip on anything to push or pull on, and I couldn’t swim out of the thing as every time I tried it just pulled me back into it. The next several moments were torment, until a familiar message popped up again.

You have been slain!

Ahhhhhh…

Dammit! Somehow that didn’t help me feel any better at all!