Item: Luni’s Grateful Arrow.

  Do you want to use this item?

  Note: Using Luni’s Grateful Arrow will provide information about your encounter with Luni to Arcana, as well as provide Arcana with a personal message from Luni herself. Arcana may decide herself if any of this is worth her time or any rewards.

  Theo looked sleepily at the message, rereading it again just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. He couldn’t find any reason not to use it. It wasn’t like he had any wish to scorn the goddess, after all. None of this was at all expected when Theo decided to actually send Arcana’s greeting to the moon, but now it seemed he had become the lowly messenger of gods. It wasn’t like it cost him anything, and it was probably likely Arcana already knew, so the reverse was probably true; she definitely wouldn’t like to miss the personal message.

  ‘Yes.’ he thought at the prompt asking if he wanted to use the thing. The prompt disappeared, yet the arrow of moonlight remained. It started humming gently, more like a battery from home than anything supposed to be humming. Then the arrow shot forth, planting its sharp tip into Theo’s chest, completely hassle free.

  It didn’t hurt so much as it surprised him, but there was no way he could react faster than the arrow piercing the very air towards him. While there was no pain, he reflexively grunted as the arrow stuck itself deep inside him. The fletching of pure light was all that protruded from his chest.

  “What the fuck?” Wen gasped as she must’ve woken from the divine events occurring just inches away from her, then she stared wide-eyed at the arrow through her friend’s chest.

  The arrow ignored her, as did Theo, then a pillar of blue light shot out from the rear of the arrow and blasted into the dark night sky above. Tears formed about a hundred metres up, forming an umbrella of cracks from nothing. The beam of light ended right there, possibly going somewhere else entirely through the fabric of the universe itself. After Theo’s eyes had gotten more or less used to the bright light, he saw the cracks undulate ever so slightly, resembling veins more than solid breaks.

  He wasn’t sure why he checked, except maybe the slightly familiar sensation of his mana being spent, but he eyed the remaining mana of his Boon. It was rapidly decreasing. It had already hit thirty-two. Twenty-six. Eighteen.

  A minute had passed and Wen wasn’t the only one having woken up to find the divine pillar shaking the very heavens above Sigil Lake. No one dared move closer. They just openly gaped at the fantastical sight. The exception was Wen, who was already there, and her frightened eyes shifted between Theo’s own horrified expression and the hole in the sky cut from the pillar of light emanating from him.

  Seven.

  As the Boon’s lingering mana reached zero moments later, Theo’s body then started to burn in a wholly unfamiliar way. It was like his veins had caught on fire and his skin was being burnt from the inside and out. His heart threatened to melt under the fiery heat of his internal workings, yet despite all this sudden pain, Theo recognised the sensation blazing through his veins, or rather, his mana channels. It was the first time his own mana network was being used directly, and there was so much power flowing through it that he wasn’t sure it was prepared for such a torrent of mana.

  He figured his ears glowing was far from the biggest issue, especially when he saw his own skin glow somewhat similarly to the cracks in the sky above. The minuscule lines that poked their light through his dermis also wriggled slightly as his muscles contracted, showing they were organic in origin much like his veins. They were separate however.

  Mana rushed out of him, tearing up his internal workings as his body struggled to even contain the river forced out through the arrow in his chest. Was it converting his mana into its light somehow? Since the Boon was gone, the message likely pending until things had settled down, he checked his own stats again to find his personal mana value sinking prodigiously.

  Health: 100% | Mana: 36/51 | Stamina: 100%

  Mana: 31/51

  Mana: 29/51

  It stopped there, the light dimming but not disappearing.

  “What’s happenin’?” Wen shouted, her voice wounded with worry.

  Theo was too busy eyeing the message from his System that had popped up.

  Divine data transfer incomplete.

  Source: Designation: Luni

  Target: Designation: Arcana

  Transfer progress: 72%

  Status: Halted due to shortage of mana. Remaining data packets: 1 (of 2). Packet remaining: Personal message to Arcana. Request for overdraw submitted.

  Insufficient mana to finalise Divine data transfer. Do you accept an overdraw of mana? Please note that an overdraw will convert physical and vital energy to mana. This process is crude and wasteful, but may prove sufficient.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Theo felt the connection diminish by the second. He understood the message to mean that Luni’s message to Arcana was divided into two parts, namely her interaction with Theo and the personal message the arrow had alluded to earlier. Theo realised he wasn’t a messenger at all! He was a communications relay which used his own mana as a power source. A divine comms relay. This was pretty mana intensive stuff, and all his remaining points from the Boon had already been spent.

  Theo was offered a choice; stop the transmission now with a bit more than half of his mana remaining within him, or spend it all and risk his own physical body to send the last message. He had been warned that the process to convert his ‘physical and vital’ energy to mana was crude, but it hadn’t mentioned how crude. He called upon his calculation skill to help him make sense of all the data he’d managed to collect.

  He had approximately 75 mana in his boon remaining as far he figured. He added that number together with the mana that had already been drawn from his own network, which was 22. A cost of 97 mana for 72% progress. The stressful situation wasn’t the optimal place for mental arithmetic and Wen wasn’t helping matters, but that wasn’t her fault. She cared for him. He’d have to thank her and apologise to her later.

  One percent of progress cost roughly 1.35 mana. He had 29 to spare, which should take him all the way to roughly 93%. He needed seven more progress points, costing him an overdraw of… 9.5 mana, give or take. Surely that wouldn’t cost him too much, right?

  Then again, did he really need to deliver the second message? Arcana had asked him to say ‘hey’, and he’d done so. Wasn’t that enough? Would he even be rewarded for any of this? Couldn’t gods be fickle? Arcana sure seemed like the fickle kind when he met her the first time.

  ‘Yes’, he accepted. The thought was nothing but impulse. He wasn’t sure if he even meant it, though the prompt vanished and didn’t let him change his mind.

  Again his veins started burning and his teeth clenched as he groaned painfully. The pillar of light grew brighter once more and the heavens rumbled.

  Mana: 23/51

  Mana: 15/51

  Mana: 1/51

  It hit zero. What Theo previously thought was burning pain was just a light brushstroke of colour on a backdrop of white. When he saw his Health and Stamina start dropping substantially, however, said backdrop was filled with black from pouring buckets of paint. He was sure he fainted more than once, but each time the very pain that sent his consciousness away was the same thing that leashed it and pulled it back around. Then, it was all over.

  Health: 55% | Mana: 0/51 | Stamina: 10%

  The next thing Theo saw was her. She smiled warmly. Her face was so close. She was pretty. She’d done something to her hair. Her cheeks were more vibrant and her eyes had a slight glow to them, though they were a stormy sea of colour, ever changing and never still.

  “Arcana,” Theo breathed.

  “Hi, Theo,” she said warmly. “Thank you for saying hi to H-... to Luni for me. It truly means the world to me. Figuratively speaking, of course,” she then grinned.

  “You could’ve mentioned she was the moon,” Theo argued, wincing as his mouth moved too much for his banging head to cope with.

  “I could, but where’s the fun in that? And… Thanks for going the extra mile. I hope it didn’t hurt too bad.”

  “You’re oddly gentle compared to last time,” he then said with a half-smile. Really, his body couldn’t give it any more effort than that, or it felt like it would explode.

  Theo eyed their surroundings, finding Arcana’s face close to his and the same wispy haze as last time surrounding them. The hall was gone, reverted back to the cloudy mist it had started as last time.

  “Well, you caught me off-guard back then. Besides, you just sent me a message from Luni. I haven’t been able to talk to her since… Since this all started.”

  “Wen, uh, a friend of mine, told me a story about you two. It ended with you two being swallowed by darkness and forced to serve as gods here. Though the darkness allowed you to embrace each other. Is that true, and wouldn’t you be able to talk?”

  “I heard. Thank her for the beautiful retelling, by the way. There’s a lot missing there, but regarding me and my wife, it was mostly accurate, I guess. Our magic is forever embraced, and we feel each others’ presence every second of every day, and it's a beautiful feeling. But that’s all. It’s a feeling. We can’t communicate directly. I know he did it for us so we wouldn’t be alone, but it’s equally as much a curse as it is a gift. If he could’ve changed it, he would have, but… Luni was always the clever one. She just used my world’s rules against itself and gave you a reward that could contact me.”

  Arcana smiled as her eyes trailed away into remembrance.

  “She was thankful. I think she was really happy when I passed on your greeting.”

  “She was. She also thinks you remind her of him. We were all inseparable… mostly.”

  “Who’s him?” Theo asked with a calm voice. She’d been talking about ‘him’ last time as well. Did he make this place? Was he the darkness that consumed them?

  “Nice try,” Arcana laughed. “I just wanted to thank you in person. Your friends are worried about you. You gave them quite a show. I sure hope no one else down there noticed the sky catching fire right above a newly founded town that even the Queen of Ercheat has no recollection of allowing to exist. Bye, Theo,” she then said with a devilish and teasing tone. She waved him goodbye and his eyes suddenly opened, finding Wen, Willam and Julie hovering over him beneath a repaired sky.

  The air smelled of ozone as if a bolt of lightning had struck right where he was lying. The moon glowed its normal blue, brighter than most stars in the dark night sky. Theo’s body still ached all over and a quick glance at his stats reminded him of why. It hadn’t lowered any more, but it sure as hell hadn’t increased, either. His System flashed with several messages and warnings, but he ignored them for now. He wanted to sleep.

  “Theo! You alright?” Wen asked, leaning over him to eye him closer. Her golden hair caressed his cheek playfully, which itched somewhat.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he said after considering the question. “Just… a bit winded.”

  “What the hell was all that? Willam said the moon exploded or somethin’! Then I see that arrow in you blasting light into the sky!”

  Theo cleared his throat, finding it rather dry after everything. If he had any mana left he would’ve created some water above him and drank what hit his open mouth.

  “Yeah,” his raspy voice managed. “Seems right.”

  “Theo, answer me, dammit-”

  Theo fell asleep.