The world had gone to shit. And all that those old farts in that meeting room could think of was how to protect themselves. How to let other people do the work for them.
And it was hard to figure out what exactly he was supposed to do in situations like this. His boss was a good guy, but he was also kind of a pushover, and immediately let everyone else walk all over him just now. It was only because Sam ended up talking to the other employees at Calibur that some kind of order was set up, and that they had groups helping others clear this ridiculous quest. If he hadn't done that, nothing would have happened yet.
'Is that why I got that constellation following me around? Ashton said I shouldn't engage with it too much,' Sam thought, slightly scratching his beard. He usually cleans up and trims it every single day, but he wasn't able to do it last night. It felt... weird.
Sam felt smelly, dirty, and unkempt, though realistically, he was probably one of the few people here that were still well put together. Especially the folk that came here to take refuge were looking extremely rough.
"... Would things have been different if Ashton hadn't warned me..?"
He would like to think that he would have adjusted fast, but... during that initial wave of monsters, if he hadn't pulled everyone back from the windows and stayed quiet, things might have gotten pretty fucking bad.
He climbed up the stairs to the rooftop. There were a ton of things that he wanted to ask Ashton, but it was hard to figure out what to ask without referencing that place, 'Lumia'. Apparently, he could talk about it if he was vague, but vagueness wasn't what Sam wanted to know. Either way, whether or not Ashton could give him answers, he was the key to surviving all of this. Sam just had to do what he said, and things would probably go alright. And of course, he was Sam's best friend. He trusted Ashton with his life anyway.
With a smile, he stepped onto the rooftop, excited to keep talking to Ashton about what was going on, but when he actually laid eyes on his friend... he didn't quite know what to think.
Ashton was butt naked, wrapping himself in bandages.
"Oh! Already done with the meeting?" he asked with a smile, simply continuing on as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The people that Sam had asked to stick around up here to watch the surrounding were doing an extremely thorough job at looking into the distance, rather than at Ashton.
"Dude, what are you doing?" Sam asked, taking off his jacket. As he rushed over, he pressed it onto Ashton's shoulders.
"Ouch!" Ashton flinched away, "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm treating myself. I got pretty damn hurt last night, and lesser potions are more effective when applied directly to the wound."
"Okay sure, but why are you doing it-" Sam started, looking around to see if anyone was watching, before stopping himself. He pulled the jacket away again, looking his friend up and down, "Did you just say you got hurt?"
It didn't take long for Sam to see what Ashton was talking about, either. He had wrapped up his shoulders already, but he had cuts at the edges of his stomach and all over his legs, not to mention the scratches on his back. The individual wounds didn't seem like the worst thing in the world, mostly surface level scratches or cuts that you could get while cooking, but the sheer volume made them a serious danger.
"It's nothing big, I can handle a bit of pain," Ashton said, simply continuing on to treat himself. He held the plastic bottle with the opaque red liquid in it up to a gauze, soaking it in the potion a little, before pressing it onto one of the more serious wounds, "Plus, I had undine's help to clean up all my wounds, too. They weren't really looking too good, and I might have a bit of a fever, but it's not a biggie."
"Not a- Ashton, how did this even happen?"
"Oh, okay, so, there was this hobgoblin in market street, leading a small camp of... thirty or so goblins? Maybe forty, I don't remember. But yeah, I fought all of them and got stabbed a couple of times, but overall I think I'm doing pretty okay. And with this potion, my wounds should be healed overnight. There might be some light scarring, though."
Sam stared at his friend, who just casually continued treating himself like it wasn't anything special. It felt like a mass of iron was sitting in his stomach.
"... Need any help?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah, could you take a look at my back? I can't quite tell where everything is back there."
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Of course, Sam did as he was asked, and wordlessly so. He helped Ashton wrap himself up, and then just watched his friend get dressed again.
And then, Ashton sat back down at the table and started rolling himself another cigarette.
"Are you... okay? Are you not in any pain?" Sam wondered, though that question felt immediately and instantly ridiculous. Obviously it would hurt, there was no way it wouldn't. But Ashton's reply didn't help alleviate that weight of concern at all.
"Well, it hurts, but it's nothing I can't handle," he pointed out, grabbing a small, dried leaf and crumbling it into the cigarette. Sam looked down at it, and back at Ashton.
He scoffed a bit, "What are you doing? You know that's not healthy, right? You can't just smoke everything."
"Technically you can, if the fire is hot enough," Ashton replied with a laugh, "If you use the right materials and breathe in enough magic as you do, you can get similar effects to potions through these, plus a whole bunch of other ones. Though, for now, it's just a good way to get a grasp on what the materials you're working with can do. I had a good guess for what the plants I gathered earlier could do, but I wanted to double-check it."
Sam took a look at the small piles of different plants that Ashton had gathered around him. They didn't look particularly special. Different flower petals, grasses, and just a big green rolled up leaf. There even seemed to be some basil there.
"How could these be useful?" Mostly, Sam was nervous about what kind of stuff Ashton had just put all over his body onto his open wounds.
He looked up and quickly grabbed a bit of the ground-up, dried rose petals, "Well, lots of plants have medicinal purposes, and these are super similar to ones I knew from... before. Let's take roses. From what I can tell, they have anti-inflammatory qualities, calm the heartbeat, and even helped my mana flow a bit better. Basil is antibacterial to some degree, and so is this grass that I picked out. Since I let my wounds fester all night and day until now, I needed to make sure that I got that kind of relief from my potion. For pain relief, I used some peppermint, and though it's not the strongest effect in the world, as long as it can help relax my tense muscles, it's good enough," Ashton grabbed the large, rolled-up leaf, the tentacle of the blue moondew, "But this here is the most important part. It's stock-full of magic, more so than any of these other plants, and it can help speed up wound healing, which is why I used this as the centre of the potion this time. I supported that with some Micckri- wait, no, sorry, on the sign it said... uh, yarrow? It's so similar that I got confused, sorry. Anyway, I put it all together and managed to make a potion. It's not all that powerful yet, mostly because these plants are low in mana, but still."
Sam stared at Ashton, "Right, about that... magic and mana, that stuff is just real now?"
With a clenched fist, Ashton nodded, "Yes. Annoyingly enough. It's being funnelled into this world, specifically through focus-points called 'mana-wells'. Most dry up pretty fast, within a few hours or a couple days, but others can stick around for weeks or months at a time. More powerful monsters are placed there, 'boss monsters'. Later on, some of them will have dungeons form around them."
"Okay, wait, sorry, this is all just... a lot, can you give me a second?" Sam grabbed his bag that he brought up here with him, and then took out a notebook and a pen, quickly starting to take notes on what Ashton was saying.
"And mana wasn't a thing at all before? Or otherwise, I figure we would have been able to make 'potions' that can heal people overnight before?"
"Right, exactly. This world didn't have the capacity for mana until now, very few do before the system comes along. And while mana is very powerful, both us and nature can accept it very easily. You must also have plenty of mana flowing inside of you already. Actually, there's this neat trick you can do with the wisp, one of of my other summons. I'll try it out later."
Though Sam seemed excited at first, the mention of the summons startled him. He had been thinking about this the entire meeting, "I'm sorry for asking so many questions right now, but... aren't you doing the... you know... exact same thing?" he whispered, but Ashton sighed, shaking his head.
"No need to whisper, constellations can 'hear' you anyway," he explained, "It's fine to be vague, as long as you're not specific, it'll be fine."
At the end of the day, Ashton's knowledge of summoning magic was already suspicious enough, to the point where just making vague references to his past was fine. The main thing he wanted to prevent was turning himself into 'that thing's summon' in the eyes of the constellations. He spent far too long being attached to them, and refused to let that happen anymore. Only once he was powerful enough to stand on his own could he reveal that full past.
But... Of course, Sam's concerns were understandable, "No. I touched on it before, but the contracts that I make basically just call out to the being I wish to contract, and if they're happy to oblige, they'll come and join me. Just as I can, they can cancel the contract at any time they wish, and they can even unsummon themselves if they feel like they've stuck around in my vessel for too long. Though, I'll try to do that myself before they get bothered by it," Ashton explained, "There are cases like the Backpacker, though, beings that prefer being in one's vessel at almost all times during the terms of their contract. Or constructs, that are basically conceptual egos that I'm giving a body, so if they're not with me at all times, they're kind of... stuck. But either way, they're just as much in control as I am. They can refuse all of my requests as well, obviously."
He looked into his vessel with a smile, looking the summons that he currently had with him, as well as the space occupied by the contracts that he had formed. Right now, the wisp was the only one that wasn't summoned, while the others stuck around.
"Oh. So... they're more like your coworkers?"
"Kind of, I guess? That's how I'm used to it, at least," he pointed out. He was one of them for a while, after all, so the only experience he had with summons was having them be on equal footing, anyway, "But if you don't mind me asking, what's that 'community' thing you mentioned before?"
Sam raised his brows, remembering that Ashton didn't have his phone, "Right, sorry. At the start of the first quest, we all got this message."
He turned his screen around, and Ashton quickly read through it. It was short, but clear. It wasn't a text, but a pop-up screen that didn't seem to want to close.
This was new. This wasn't a thing in Lumia at all.
Advanced Notice - The Community will open on June 23rd at 10:00 Local Time
[Currently Available Milestones]
[+1 Chapter | 10 Reviews | 6/10]
[+1 Chapter | 25 Ratings | 51/75]
[+1 Chapter | 100 Favourites | 83/100]
[+2 Chapters | 1000 Followers | 399/1000]
[Current [Bonus Chapters] in queue... [3 Chapters]]
! There, you will find 15 Chapters ahead of Schedule!