I take a quick look around, some trees on my right, the building behind me, look like a big cube, more forest farther. And far away looks a little weird, I think I'm high up ? The ground is rock and dirt, so mountain ? Anyway, I got new magic powers !
As I'm reading my new abilities' description, I feel like my whole body freeze, some cold sweet cover my back. In the corner of my eye I can see a new System notification :
What ?
And then the pain, I feel like my body was torn in two as I've been sent flying through the air. I'm at least a meter above ground, tumbling, and catch a glimpse of what happen.
A bear happened, I can see it where I was standing, as big as an ambulance, his right claw covered in a red liquid, a second later I realized it must be blood.
Oh, shit. I'm bleeding a lot, I'm going to need to heal myself and start running as soon as I hit the ground.
Where is the ground gone ? I turn a bit and can see the cliff behind me, oh.
Shit.
My hearth is pounding and everything seems slow, A couple idea crosses my mind, I read about falls examples of peoples surviving terrible falls, and a lot more about how peoples don't survived them, damn, why did I love so much having villains throw from a cliff and never my heroes.
Everything in my new ability I guess, and as much as I can in warrior body
The ground is almost there, I try to put my leg under me, and then contact.
Falling is like really fast you know, one second the wind blow on my face, the next the sound of my broken legs echoes in the canyon like thunder. Apparently not enough because I feel my left arm explode in pain a second later.
I'm in so much pain, I can't fucking think.
- You need to stay conscious, you have to start your healing, I can't do it for you.
"Aaarrgh!" What is that voice I hear, I'm crying and moaning. I can't do anything.
- Focus just a second and you will be feeling better in no time.
I'm calling the mana, with the pain I forgot to keep the buffs actives, and send it flowing everywhere, I'm not really certain where it's needed, but I feel like every single one of my cells are in pain.
And I can feel my flesh trying to stitch herself, my bones moving under my skin. Ew. At least if I started to heal, I can go to sleep.
I have a memory that I come back to often, those night when I'm crying myself to sleep, or when I'm in one of the big hospital scanners and must stay perfectly still.
It's when I was twelve, I was at my friend Jeffrey house, in the basement. On the table was his GM screen, all the little figurines in position for the final fight of the campaign.
I can see the boss in the throne room, standing in front of his oversize barbie chair, his minions by his side. On the other side of the room our party, the orc barbarian of Tom, the halfling wizard of James, Billy the tripe wrencher the Minotaur rogue of Julie, and in the middle of the party my priest of Alseta, a changeling Kitsune.
I'm explaining to Jeffrey that I would probably have to stop participating in the Campaign, as my sickness is getting worse and social contact could become dangerous. That when my immune system was starting to break down.
I remember Jeffrey listening with attention, and after a thoughtful moment, he opens a cabinet behind him, and get a box of medical masks, antibacterial spay, and others.
"I don't know if it will be enough, but we will make sure that you are safe for as along as you want to play with us !"
I didn't though they'd follow through, remembering how my parent's efforts last for a whole two months before deciding that if I could make medical decision by myself I was in charge of my own health and should not put on them to be careful.
But the next week, and the week after that, they put the masks, they bought an air purifier for the basement, the figurines were cleaned with gel. I was able to finish the campaign, after vanquishing the bad guy, we put in place infrastructures and councils to make the country better and make sure a tyrant will never come back.
It was probably the happiest summer I got. Until my father told me we were moving to the other end of the country. A mutation he said, nothing he could do, even if my friends, my doctors, my therapist were all here. He didn't even try to hide the paperwork that much he had to fill to ask for the mutation. Again, a punishment for being me, but subtle enough for not bringing the attention of the socials services. Sometimes I really regret using them as a menace, but at eight I didn't though that much ahead.
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I try to push back the end of the summer, the tears, the goodbyes, to the back of my mind, and only remember the happy summer, the last happy summer, where I had friends and fun.
When I wake up I still feel terrible, I can't feel my legs, my side seems to be still open, and my arms is sending spike of pain across my all body.
My mana returned to normal, not finish friend, a little more work.
I think I wake up a few more times until I managed to stay awake more than a few seconds. I feel swore everywhere, but I can feel everything, and it seems I can move. Quick look at my interface seems to indicate I can do math while in a world of pains, or that I tried a lot more that I though.
I focus for a moment on the mana leaving my soul, diffusing slowly across my whole body, I can perceive where it's doing something and where it's just splashing. I can take part of the mana, and bring it to where it's useful. My control is not good enough and a lot of it is still getting wasted, but I can feel my last internal wounds and brittle bones fixing themselves a little faster.
- Are you awake ? You got me worried about a moment there.
"Yeah, me too, and of course it's night. How long was I out ?" My face is in the dirt, but I would see if the sun was shinning
- Not a clue, I perceive the world through you, but when you wake up sporadically I don't think I noticed another night, so less than a day I guess.
"Great, now I just need to find civilization, and be careful of ninja bears, the countryside of your world is nice Toriel."
- I'm not certain we are in the countryside honestly, that bear was a level 10 hunter bear, and if it's attacking humans that easily, it would have been hunted down long before it could be that level if there was any village or city around.
"Oh, I got beaten to a sliver from death by a beast that won't stand a chance if he was close to any civilization, great ego check"
- He has 7 levels on you, good chance he's going with strength as a bear, and he may have some ambush abilities, the fact you survived a direct blow is really impressive.
"I will make sure to brag when I find someone, I think my bones won't break under my weight, let get moving"
- There is a good chance he got a territory abilities or something, so I will recommend lying low while we understand a little more about where we are.
"I really don't want to get lower than where I'm laying right now"
I turn on my back, and my hairs are all sticky, so out for long enough for blood to dry, interesting.
It seems that I fell into some sort of canyon, vertical cliff on both side, 4 meters in the middle.
And there is a cavern a little farther. I start to rise, it will do for a hideout, but I should regain my magic point before I guess…
Reducing the amount of magic point send to unending soul is not as painful as I would have guessed, my regeneration probably doesn't reduce pain, good to know I guess. And my next trait I will definitely find something like that. It's something to read you can rebuild your body, it's another to feel it.
As soon as my magic point are back at 600, I'm entering the cavern, and it's relatively small, and luckily empty, with a little bit of moss on the back to sit on.
I should probably check my log, in case there is something useful.
"Neat, I guess I will be a little faster if the bear find me again. And one more point in Mana, which bring me to"
Attributes interface
"I think I will try to manage a bit more carefully my magic point regeneration and then go to sleep, and tomorrow I will go explore and hopefully find someone"
- OK, you tell me if you need help with the math or anything
"Thanks"
- I can see a lot of abilities you showed us talk about damage, but what does that mean for the Users ? Is there some sort of hit points you didn't talked about before ?
- Ah yes, I can understand the confusion. There is no hit point or that kind of things. The exact calculation of damages and there effect is taking into account thousands of variables. The simplest one is a calculation from the attack perspective, the amount of strength or value of the ability is the initial aspect, multiply it by any bonus the user can have. That value is then affected by the relative size of the attack and the target, where the target is hit, what kind of attack it is, what the target is resistant to. In practice, it mean someone with a lot of damage will, well, do a lot of damage. How theses damages would manifest is subject to the situation, a sword with a 100 damage will cut in half most peoples, while a fist with the same amount will push and probably pierce a squishy target. But if the fist hit the head of a man, he would definitely die, if it hit the leg of a horse, the leg will probably broke, but the horse would still have a lot of capabilities.
- Are you not afraid that it will complicated the balance of power between individual ?
- Yeah probably, but that's why there is Skills and personal abilities. That's a tight balance, but we think we managed to do it.
Press conference