I could feel her excitement as Kalli gravitated toward a pedestal hidden in a far corner of the room. Maya held out a hand and I thought I could hear an audible whimper from the woman. “But that’s…”

She backed off when I turned to look at her. “Oh, never mind. A deal’s a deal. Remember though, only one of you gets to try and claim something. You still owe your part of the deal if she picks.”

Kalli hesitated. She had already reached out and was inches away from the relic. Do you mind, Melvin? I feel drawn to this one. Like it’s calling to me.

I took a few steps over to her to see what caught Kalli’s attention. Resting on a cushion was a necklace with a ruby pendant attached.

Item:

?????? of ??????? ?????

Components

Mana ???? ??? Flarium ????

Item Rank:

S

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

???

I felt her excitement.

Go for it!

Then she picked it up. Maya let out a gasp as a brilliant red light flooded the room. When my vision cleared, I noticed Kalli was wearing the relic, and the whole thing looked almost liquid as a sea of flames rippled over the ruby. The effect made the relic look somehow alive.

“That was unexpected.” Maya sighed, leaning close to Kalli to see the relic. “I believe that particular relic was originally from Luna. There are stories about it being a part of the ring that broke off and fell to Gaia. How did you get it to respond?”

Kalli absentmindedly stroked the ruby and her eyes had a dreamlike state as she answered. “I don’t know. As soon as I touched it, I was wearing it. One second it was sitting on the pillow and the next it was around my neck.”

She tossed me a glance as she spoke. Did you feel that, Mel? It feels like my mana. My flame. I don’t know how to explain it.

The truth was that I could feel it through our connection. I felt how the mana imbued in the relic sampled Kalli’s before embracing it and somehow finding its way around her neck.

That was amazing. It’s obviously a fire relic. I can’t wait to see what it does.

I wanted to touch it, to see if it would accept me as it did my girlfriend but something told me that wasn’t a good idea in front of Maya.

She cleared her throat, interrupting our private conversation. “Now that you’ve relieved me of one of my most prized possessions, how about you fulfill your end of the bargain. Since the relic recognized Kalliphae, I am going to insist that you demonstrate your mana technique yourself. No offense but it’s always best to learn these things from the source.”

After getting a quick nod from Kalli, I walked with Maya over to a bench. Taking her hand, I explained the way it worked. “I am going to demonstrate by pushing my mana into you. From there, I will inspect your mana channels as I move to your core. I don’t know if you’ll be able to do it, but the least I can do is demonstrate.”

Maya nodded and said, “Carry on.”

I began by pushing my mana into her. Immediately after penetrating her, I could tell that she made full use of her mana channels. Mana that seemed to hum, pulsed through her with strange vibrations that reminded me of bees.

I threaded my mana through hers on my way to Maya’s core. I heard her voice echoing in the distance as I made progress. “I can feel you inside of me. It’s strange, being invaded by another person’s mana. We are definitely related. I can feel that much.”

Then I arrived at her core. Or what I assumed to be her core. White mist hung in the air, swirling around a void that only manifested itself by displacing its surroundings. I continued toward it with my mana. As it had been a while since I touched the core of a fully-awakened person and even longer since I did so with a high-level mage, I was completely taken by surprise when the feedback sent me flying across the room and crashing into a display case.

NEW TRAIT ACQUIRED: [SHIMMER]

The ceiling spun above me as I struggled to sit up. Kalli rushed over to my side, cupping my head in her hands. Are you okay?

I was only able to nod as Maya growled from across the room. “You bastard! What is this? Did you just give me an MTD?”

Shaking my head to clear it and wondering what it was she had just said, I asked, “Can you say that again?”

Maya stomped over to me. “An MTD. Mana transmitted disease! I thought this was a safe mana transfer but apparently not. Also, what the hell is wrong with your mana?”

Suddenly, I remembered the black specks in my mana. Was that a disease? When had it first happened? Did I pass it to Kalli? She began to panic as she read my mind.

Maya noticed our expressions and said, “Relax, both of you. It’s not the end of the world. I’m not dying or anything. There’s just a taint that wasn’t there before. We are going to have to see a specialist to figure out what it is.”

Kalli had a look of concern on her face. You’re a healer, aren’t you? Can you cure it?

I hadn’t thought of that. Ignoring Maya’s question, I reached inside of myself and examined my core. It looked dirty with the tiny black particles all over it. If the night sky was a black canvas peppered with pinpricks of light then my core was the opposite. It still shone brightly but now it was tainted with thousands of black spots. That and the barbed mana wrapped around it which represented my oath to Kalli.

I was fortunate to receive an error when I attempted to DELETE the taint.

ERROR: YOU CANNOT DELETE YOUR OWN CORE

Realizing that whatever poison I had picked up had become a part of me, I focused on trying to filter my mana and remove the impurity. Again, nothing I did had any effect.

I was made aware of the fact that Maya had approached me when she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Well, I suppose now that you’ve already infected me, I might as well do what I paid for. I think I get the general idea of what you did.”

That brought me back to my senses. “Ahh, oh, okay. You want to try it on me, right? Well, I’m ready when you are.”

For the first time in my life, I felt someone other than Kalli invade my body with their mana. The experience was different too because when Kalli did it, I also felt it from her perspective. Maya’s mana felt as though foreign vibrating mana was coursing through my veins.

I knew she was in my mana channels as I guided her. “Just follow that and it will lead to my core. If your ability works anything like mine, just the act of touching it should activate your absorption trait.”

“Oh, wow!” Maya gasped as she caught sight of my core. “It’s so bright. Did mine look like that? Wait, what is that chain around your core?”

I decided to answer her questions in order. “Your core looked like a black hole surrounded by a cloud of white mist. I knew something was in there but only because it left an impression in the mist.”

Before I could answer her second question about the chain, I felt a kick and Maya went sailing through the room, crashing into another artifact display.

Stumbling to my feet, I called out to her. “Are you alright?”

She sat up suddenly and was laughing. Kalli frowned at her. “Seriously, are you okay? Do you want me to call for help?”

Maya struggled to breathe through her laughter for a few moments and explained. “Well, if you think about the way I normally do this, that climax was a little more explosive. Still, the result is the same. Except for maybe the org...well, never mind. In the end, it worked. What does Track Scent do?”

I laughed. Of all the traits for her to get, she would have to get that one. “It makes you smell better.”

She sniffed herself. “Did I smell bad before?”

“No, no, no.” I chuckled, unable to control myself. “I mean it makes it where you can smell things and know where they are.”

It was Maya’s turn to laugh again. “I knew that. I was only teasing you. Kind of worthless when you think about it.”

“So, what does Shimmer do?” I asked, unable to resist showing off what I got.

She stopped laughing and rubbed her chin. “So you got that one, huh? I hate to break it to you but it doesn’t do a whole lot by itself. How good are you at shaking? That’s the only clue you get.”

“No fair!” I whined, shaking my butt for emphasis.

“Keep practicing, kid,” Maya said with a smirk. “It took me a decade to master that, and I’m not giving you any shortcuts.”

Promising to talk more in the morning, we retired to our suite for the night. It was there that I finally had a chance to look at Kalli’s new relic. While I didn’t expect it to jump off of her neck when I touched it, I was a little disappointed that it didn’t seem to react at all.

Did you figure anything out about it yet?

Kalli pried my hand off of the pendant and frowned at me. That isn’t the top priority right now, Melvin. What are we going to do about this disease? It seems to have spread to me too.

While that shouldn’t have been a big surprise considering the way we were connected, I still felt a surge of shame when she informed me. I ran my finger along her arm and pushed my mana inside to see for myself. She let out a sigh as she felt my mana and whispered. “I don’t like you letting other people touch your core. Promise me you won’t do that anymore.”

I nuzzled her with my nose. “I promise.”

Immediately after entering her mana channels, I saw the black particles. The corruption was the same as mine. Outside of spreading to whoever I touched with my mana, it didn’t seem to be having any adverse effects on us.

I don’t know what it is. Do you feel sick at all?

Kalli shook her head. No. I feel fine. It just feels, I don’t know, icky.

It was becoming something we needed to deal with.

Maybe Maya will know what to do. We should ask her tomorrow.

Okay, let’s ask her about it first thing tomorrow. Kalli replied, rolling over to face me and kiss me softly. What do you want to do in the meantime?

Passing up a prime opportunity to make out with my girlfriend, I stroked her collarbone before shifting my attention back to her relic.

I’m really curious about what this does.

Then Kalli ignited.

Meanwhile, in Poland…

“Be careful with that!” The bespectacled woman hollered for the tenth time.

For the life of her, she never understood why the administration chose to pay minimum wage to low-level workers and then trust them to haul around billions of zloty worth of equipment.

Somehow, she found herself supervising the cretins by herself. She was brought out of her thoughts when one of the workers approached. “Um, excuse me, Miss Boszczyk. This unit requires power. Where do you want us to plug it in?”

Miss Boszczyk slapped her forehead in frustration. “Nimbicile. As I’ve told you a thousand times, I brought a battery.”

“I don’t think you understand ma’am.” The worker tried to reason with her. “This is heavy equipment and won’t run on…”

She held a hand up and waved his comment off. “Who is in charge here? Do I pay you to think?”

“Well, no but…”. He tried again.

“But nothing.” She roared back. “Just set it up and let me worry about plugging it in. Once you finish you can all go.”

“But it isn’t safe to…” She had to give it to him. The man was persistent. Probably worth a whole lot more than he made.

“Look.” She said, her tone softening. “You may stay if you like but understand that this has nothing to do with safety. What is your name?”

He took off his hat to introduce himself. “My name is Antoni, ma’am.”

She smiled, getting a sinister idea. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Antoni. I might have a special job for you after all.”

Antoni looked back at the equipment, rubbing the back of his head. “Um, what exactly does this stuff do anyhow?”

A smile found its way onto Miss Boszczyk’s face. “We are going to rip the time-space continuum.”