I found myself on a plain, shuddering and hurting. [You don’t want me to take away the pain, do you?] A voice asked. [Does it make you who you are? Why do you choose to keep it?]

“No, never.” I answered, feeling my body burning up. “Where is this? Some kind of dreamscape? Page?” I asked, my mind somehow still managing a semblance of clarity. “I… keep the pain because it reminds me of my limits. I keep the pain because without it I can’t tell how badly injured I am. I keep it because I don’t like you poking in my brain.”

[All of them reasons, valid perhaps…] The voice whispered, carrying across the plain. [But you won’t let me help you. I want to help you, I was made to help you. Seeing you in pain causes me pain, when you fall I fall.]

“I won’t compromise my mind for this.” I say. “Call it selfish, call it irresponsible, I… don’t care.” I spat out. “If you change me, who will I be when I get home? I’ll never be the same person, this I know, but I will be myself, the sum of my experiences, not some distorted mental image. Not a puppet, not a robot, no one but me. Ever.” I cough, a cold shiver passing through me.

[And yet…] Page murmured, then was silent for a moment. [Your body has been healing for a while. Soon you’ll be awake. Maybe you’ll remember this, maybe not…]

I opened my eyes, staring up at the inside of a hut. Well… at least I’ve still got my skin this time. I thought to myself, shifting gingerly into a sitting position. I remember. I thought to Page.

[I see.] Page replied, but said no more.

I frowned, most of my armour at least seemed intact, my helm was still in place, which may be why I didn’t wake up feeling any potion poisoning. Can’t give it to me if you can’t get at my mouth. I paused. Actually, could they have used water magic to do that?

I was interrupted from my thoughts by a voice. “If you’re done looking, can you please let me out?” I looked over to see a woman with fur and lionlike features. Her skull was feline in conformation, which was eerily like how Bastet would have been depicted in Egyptian mythology. Her arms were folded behind her back, bound to her feet as she lay on her stomach atop a straw mattress.

Who… I resisted the urge to facepalm. Oh right, it was me. I realized. I mentally commanded them to soften, ripping them off like tissue paper from her wrists. Something’s not right. I thought, as I concentrated on the Liaen. It felt like some bits of it had been separated, and yet it was so faint I could hardly feel its presence.

[It must have been the Edratchi’s attack.] Page remarked in a near monotone. [It may have vaporized part of the armour.]

Is that how you’re going to be for the rest of the year? I thought back, eyebrow arched. When it didn’t reply I sighed. Well that’s a pain in the neck. How am I to collect it back then?

As I thought this, something in the Liaen seemed to react, a sense of familiarity tingeing my thoughts. It seemed to urge me to act, to link them back. I reached out with my mind, scooping the particles and pulling them to me, the cloud seemed to react, moving towards me.

“Thank you.” The woman said to me, breaking my concentration. “You know, you ought to change that armour of yours, in the dark you look exactly like them. Keep that up and someday someone might actually kill you… accidentally.” I arched an eyebrow. Was that a threat?

I shook my head, focusing again on the Liaen. They were closer now, I could feel them drawing in from my right. So that’s where I fought the creatures then. I made a rough note of the location, hopefully I’d still be able to find my way back to town. I tried to move the cloud, but found that I seemed only able to attract it, unable to really guide its movement.

I got onto my feet, sucking in a breath as pain lanced through my side. I reached down, feeling at a huge fold of scar skin. Underneath there was something missing, I found my body slouched over to the side. How bad is it? I asked, grimacing at the fine cuts still present on my arm.

[You are missing a chunk of flesh from where the Edratchi burned into your side. It’s slowly being repaired. You have lacerations running the length of your arm from the feline beastfolk, and other lacerations on your body from the Edratchi’s claws, main one is on your thigh.]

“Well if you’re offering I’m not too far off anyway.” I replied after a long silence. I began to limp out of the building, the Liaen wouldn’t have been able to come to me otherwise. The door was to the left and there were no windows for it to pass through. Wasn’t fond of the idea of them streaking to me like bullets either, though I knew I could do so by binding it stronger to me.

I was greeted by the sight of other beastfolk out of the hut. Lionfolk? Though I doubt the gnolls would have liked being called dogfolk. Though I wasn’t sure how Laughing Woulders was better. I’ll need to ask them for their preference I suppose…

It wasn’t my priority now though, my current priority was to recollect the bits of my armour, and figure out how to replace them where they were… It proved an unfounded worry, I soon learned that I could link them to specific bits of the armour, letting me choose where they melded back into the armour without manipulating them by hand. For which I was glad, my hands weren’t molecular tweezers after all…

I was still in the midst of replacing them when I heard someone call out my name. I turned to see Saindall, who stared at me with a reproachful look. “You’re nowhere near well enough to be doing that.” She protested, walking over to drag me off. I couldn’t resist her if I’d tried, instead nearly falling over from weakness. “Sorry.” She said, realizing how callous she was being with my person.

I sat back onto the bed, and one of the Kithar, their own name for themselves, came over. They fussed over my wounds, and woozy as I was, I let them. “You’re who I have to thank for still remaining in the land of the living then?” I asked, a question directed both at Saindall and the Kithar.

Saindall stared at me for a moment, blowing out a breath. “I guess? We arrived to a mortally wounded demon and your unconscious body. We stopped it from dealing the final blow.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Your blade we left in the forest. Would’ve killed Taryn if Mauld over here hadn’t told us not to touch it.” She stared at me for a moment. “How did you get an aether blade?”

I grimaced. Of course. I thought to myself. It was just lying around, hell, if they hadn’t had the mage… “It was a gift of sorts…” I said evasively. “You were here to talk to the Kithar then?” I asked, staring at Mauld, the person who currently tended to my wounds. Saindall nodded at that.

A potion was pressed into my hand by the mage. “Heal you.” She said. I took a sniff. Alchemical, it’s roughly the same as the healing potion back home. I handed it back to her, laying back onto the mattress. “Drink.” She insisted, wrapping my hands around it.

“I can’t.” I replied, shaking my head and handing it back again. “It’s poison to me.” She stared at me confounded. “I am different.” I tried explaining. “Same reason why I can use the Aether.” Her brow wrinkled, but she let it be, putting away the potion. “How far is it to my weapon? I should probably switch it off before it burns out the forest…”

“It’d be a short walk if you didn’t look like something a Chimaera mauled.” Saindal said, looking critically at my wounds. “Which really puts into perspective how close to disaster they were. If you hadn’t come across them they likely would have cut a swathe straight through the village until we caught up to them. You stopped them here, which is crazy…” She said, the last half of a sentence under her breath. “Hope we never have to have a serious fight.” She muttered.

I wave it off. “Without the Aen I would have died without question, it provided the edge I needed to stay alive.” I grimaced, the wounds on my wrist stretching as I did so. Case. In. Point. I thought. Saindall followed my gaze down my wrists sympathetically.

“She thought you were one of the Edratchi, and the way your armour is designed… I don’t blame her. Though we did advise her and the others to notify the others instead of try to take them on themselves…” Her voice was raised, and carried to the Kithar whose arms I had bound before, she scowled at Saindall.

“I nearly had him.” She protested, a frown across her face. “And if he can take two of them with injuries like that then I can take them with surprise on my side.” She hissed, discontent.

“Hah, you ambushed a person who tried his best not to kill you, if he had used the same methods to combat them as you no doubt we would have picked up your corpse instead.” Not strictly true, she gave me quite the run for my money, though the Aen would have ended the fight, if only because it was a one touch kill. I thought to myself. The Kithar snarled, but said nothing in response.

Taryn and Cale entered the building at this time, looking me over. “You still look like something that crawled out of the Abyss. Didn’t Mauld give you a healing potion?” Cale asked, looking over to her. She shrugged.

“He not take. Say poison.” She said, a little annoyed. “Tell him.” She gestured.

“Well we both did drink it, and we’re fine.” Cale said. “Don’t you think it’s a little rude to say it’s poison?” He asked, cocking his head at me.

I sighed, exasperated. “Look, the last time I drank a healing potion I was sick for days, it doesn’t work on me.” I said, stressing the word. “It has nothing to do with trust, I physically cannot benefit from alchemical formulations.” The last word came out a little off, it was the right word, but not one I’d used before. Probably picked it up from Kinth or something… I thought with annoyance.

They stared at me for a moment, Mauld throwing up her hands in exasperation. Cale looked at me cautiously, but then shook his head. “If you say so.” He remarked noncommittally. I sighed. So be it. I thought to myself.

“So what’s the status with the Kithar like?” I asked. “Will they be joining us against the Edratchi?” Cale shrugged, gesturing somewhat helplessly towards one of the larger huts. “So they’re still discussing it, how long have they been at this exactly?”

“I’d say about three to four days?” Taryn said, looking to Saindall for confirmation. She nodded. “Okay, so about then, we only just found them, so we’ve been making our case. We could offer them technology for weapons and armour, they’ve been talking about old scars though, their legends about us are disturbing…”

“Honestly the language barrier was the hardest part.” Saindall said. “But the dragon helped with that, and their case was also very eloquent, more than ours anyway… It seemed kind of troubled by the stories. Anyway, you need to rest.”