James quickly told Dom and Callum what had happened on their way to the workshops and everything that had happened since.

Midway through, May woke up and joined them at the table, opting to sit on top of it instead of getting a chair.

She and Dana began discussing their various approaches to magic, and May was stunned to hear about Dana's progress.

James finished his story and by the end, Dom was more than a little pissed.

"So after all this time, you give me nothing besides a few crappy spears?! What the hell have you been doing in here James?!"

Callum grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him back, and stopping him from swinging at James.

"Your designs were worthless! What kind of crappy, sexually deprived nerdy bullshit was That?! I can't make That, no-one can make that! I did my best you asshole!"

Dom took this much worse than James expected. He grabbed the club that Callum had brought with him and swung at James' head. James barely managed to avoid it, and rolled backwards off his chair. Dana stood up and pointed at Dom, making him halt.

"Try that again, and I will break you."

The darkness of her voice was enough to make Callum hesitate, which was enough time for Dom to try and swing again.

But Dana caught the metal of the club in her hand and squeezed in till it was bent out of shape. She then tugged it out of his hands, pulling him over the workbench, and threw it across the room towards their giant lizard corpse.

Activating mana body infusion for even that short time had almost completely drained Dana, and she was helpless to stop Dom from scrabbling over to where James was picking himself up.

Callum was taking action though, as he grabbed one of the spears on the large workbench, and rushed in front of Dom, pointing the spear at him.

Dom had the common sense to stop, but the rage on his face was still there.

"I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing man, but this isn't you. Stop."

Callum's words didn't seem to get through to Dom though, as Dom began to circle him.

Callum sighed and looked sad as he neatly flipped the spear in his hands, and swung the blunt end of it at Dom's head.

Not expecting the move, Dom took it at full force and was knocked out cold.

-18hp

Callum was instantly panicking before he calmed down.

"Shit, he didn't have much more health than that after the explosion and the bite

... The bite!"

Callum grabbed Dom's leg where he had been bitten, but the wound seemed clean enough and was almost healed. Frowning, Callum moved up to Dom's forehead and touched it lightly.

"James, you can use analyze on him? I think the lizard bite had an effect on him."

James had been about to help Dana stand again, as she was sitting weakly against the workbench.

But this was more important. Dom had been acting so differently, it made sense if he got sick from the lizard bite.

Analyze

Dominique Fernandez:

Level: -

Health: 8/46

Status effects: darkened mind (13:14), unconscious (25:17)

"Darkened mind. It's his status effect. He must have gotten it from that lizard bite."

Callum pondered this for a moment.

"Makes sense. The lizard that bit him was coloured really dark, so it must have had some darkness affinity. What does darkened mind do anyway?"

Curious himself, James mentally pushed the words and was surprised when nothing showed up.

"I don't know, it won't let me learn about it."

"What do you even mean you cant learn about it. You went to its description right?"

"If you mean pushing it with my mind, something that usually explains stuff to me, then yeah."

"Well, we kinda knew what it did already, makes him more aggressive, and angry

Like all his dark desires became much more important to him."

"Tch. Makes sense why he wanted that stupid, impossible exhibitionist armour then."

Callum perked up surprisingly quickly at that.

"Was it all badass armour for the guys and bikinis for the women?"

James looked at Callum, fear and anger spreading across his face.

"You aren't like him too are you? I can't make that stuff."

Callum laughed a little and shook his head.

" You actually probably could with an occupation. Just ask for like blacksmith, or armourer maybe. I don't know exactly how you get occupations, but May seemed to do it easily enough."

"Huh. Sure... I would like to be a blacksmith... please?"

Occupation requested.

Required knowledge to unlock (Y)

Interfering features (Y)

Calculating...

James jumped at the sudden lines that appeared in front of him.

"Did it say calculating for you?"

"No. What the hell did you do? What's it calculating?"

"No idea. The job I can get maybe?"

The calculating screen remained in the corner of his vision and made no indication of progress, so he decided to dismiss it and focus on finishing his weapons. With Callum and Dana's help, he might even make some basic armour.