“Here, eat up.” Kain said. He passed a chunk of meat to Luna. He used one of the cups they had taken as a way to hold the meat, and Luna wasted no time in eating. He went back to stirring the pot. Luckily, the building had a tank of water in one of the rooms and there were plenty of pews to burn. “You alright?” he asked her. He made a small bed for her to lie in out of a bit of grey cloth, and she looked almost indistinguishable from the pile with her cloak on.

“I’m alright.” she insisted. Her insistence did not stop her from devouring the contents of the cup.

“... Fine, but I am still going to look for something to help you.” he declared. He plunged his mind into the amulet and began to search through the tens of thousands of books it held. ‘History of Ether Studies… Harlagun Cycle… Tales of Monsters and Demons… Here we go, Emergency Survival Imbuements.’ He pulled the book out, and examined it. It was the size of a book on the small side, being about 6 inches long. He assumed the reason for the book’s small size was due to its nature as a survival guide that most would carry on their person. It had a plain black cover with bright purple letters spelling out the title of the book. There was no author, subtitle, or other words anywhere on the covers. He opened the book to find the table of contents staring at him. There were a multitude of sections, all containing a host of devices or imbuements to help in survival situations.

He navigated his way to the ‘Health and Healing’ section and looked for an imbuement he could use in that situation. “Alright, here’s one.” he muttered. “Do you want to hear it, or do you just want to rest?” he asked.

“Can you read it to me? It’ll help when I can actually make imbuements and whatnot.” she said.

Kain nodded. “This one is something called a ‘wellness pill.’ It… oh! I should have thought of that!” he exclaimed.

“Hmm? What is it?” she asked.

“Alright, here’s the summary: ‘A wellness pill is a digestible item with imbuements focused around bettering the one ingesting it. The goal is not to feed types of Ether into each other, but is to pack as much of a type of Ether into an item as possible and let that Ether spread throughout the subject’s body. The creation progress is incredibly simple, but creating the wrong type of imbuement is lethal. You must have a clear image of what process of the body you want to bolster, because bolstering the wrong body process could be, at worst, lethal. Once a clear process is found, you need an item that is digestible. The item could be food, grass, or any other organic, as long as it is digestible.’ It’s now showing a diagram.” he said, showing Luna the picture. He turned it back around and looked at the page-sized diagram that showed a shard of wood with the entire thing being filled with ‘wellness’ Ether. “I could have figured this out on my own, but it does tell us that the Duvalid were able to eat wood.” he remarked.

Luna, on the other hand, was looking at him with a furrowed brow. “Hmm… why can’t we just fill our bodies with whatever Ether we need manually?” she questioned. “It seems like a bit of a roundabout solution.” she concluded. Kain went wide-eyed at that statement.

Her words sparked an understanding in Kain. “You’re right… The only reason they needed this stuff was because they were unable to use instinct or sigil casting. Hmm… now that I think about it, the other book used the word ‘imbedding’ casting, while this one used the word ‘imbuement.’ That’s one more mystery, but either way, this is good! Here, let me try this.” he said. He reached his hand over her back and began to shape his Ether above it. He imbued his Ether with a concept of ‘general healing’ and pushed it into her body. Though the cloak was in the way, he was able to effortlessly push his Ether past it and cycle it through her body. Her body instinctively resisted at first, but relaxed soon enough. By that point, her back had developed a bruised lump, but it was quickly beaten back by the Ether. Despite the relative tameness of the injury, it took a long while to mostly heal, and Luna was ravenously hungry after the ordeal. Luckily, Kain had not eaten much of the chitin covered monkey that he had boiled, so she was able to eat her fill. “Don’t worry, if you want more, I grabbed the other 3 that were in there.” he reassured.

Shaking her head, she lied down once again. “No, I’m fine. I just need a bit of a break to relax.” she insisted. “Though, now that I think about it, do you think that what you did with your Ether, cycling it through my body, would be considered intimate in some culture or another?” she asked.

He looked at her with a deadpan expression. “You’re not my type.” he said flatly.

“And neither you’re mine.” she replied. “But do you think that it would be intimate?” she asked again.

“Maybe… It honestly depends on how a culture views Ether. In some african cultures, it was said that women not wearing anything to cover their torso was normal, but that was very much not the case in many other cultures. It just goes to show how different people can look at the same body part and think different things. I suppose Ether is an exception, but I would say that it seems as intimate as breathing the same air as a lover, so it could be seen that way.” he concluded.

“I have no idea what you just went on about, but here’s what I got: it depends.” she concluded.

“... Yes… it depends,” he said with a sigh. “Once we go back to Earth, you’ll see what I mean.”

She laid her head down on the stacked cloth. “Hey, brother?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can we read the computer thing after we wake up? I’m kind of tired right now.” she mentioned.

He chuckled a bit and rubbed her head. “Yeah, we can wait. When I read the Ether Manipulations Essentials book, you seemed to fall asleep quickly. Do you want me to read that to you while you fall asleep?” he asked. She nodded and closed her eyes, so he took out the book in question and flipped to chapter 2. “‘Ether is a fundamental force in our universe that cannot be compared to any other. It has parts that are similar to every other type of energy, and yet has aspects that are entirely unique to it. Like heat, it spreads to its surroundings. Like kinetic energy and potential energy, it is easy to change its state of being. And unlike any other, it responds to the thoughts and whims of all beings. This, however, is a study more suited to philosophers than scientists. Despite that, the property of Ether to change in accordance with the wishes of a being is a truly fascinating one. If we were to watch the stages of Ether in its use in an imbuement, it would look like this: The Ether would start its journey from the hearts of Du and Ti battling. From there, it would wander the world, moving by being pushed or pulled by either the creation of new Ether or the condensing and spending of Ether in spells and enchantments. Eventually, however, it would find its way into a Duvalid’s workshop. Our forger would be condensing their Ether into imbeddings. These imbeddings would spend the Ether of our forger, so they would need to constantly replenish their internal supply through absorption. At this point, our ancient Ether particle will be absorbed into the body of our forger. What this does is so far shrouded in mystery, but what is known is that, by absorbing the particle, it puts that particle under the control of our forger. Once that process is completed, the particle waits in the forger's body, ready to be used. At some point, the forger will imbed something with that specific Ether particle, along with other particles to properly convert the type of energy, and be shaped into an imbedding for the forger or others to use.’” he read aloud. Kain looked toward Luna and saw her figure breathing calmly and sleeping soundly. He closed the book gently and put it back into the amulet. Lying next to her, he fell asleep.

*=====*

“So, can we look at it now?” Kain asked. They had just woken up and had already eaten their breakfast, so they could do whatever they wanted. They had taken the computer from the store the day before and he really wanted to poke around it and see what was written in it.

“Yep! I’m ready!” Luna replied. She was doing much better after sleeping most of the soreness off, but still had small aches in her back, so they decided to take a rest day for the time being. Kain had searched around the area, but found no beasts or monsters lurking about. He even left a bit of monkey meat out as bait and waited for something to try to eat it. The thing that emerged was a being that looked like a small rat with shorter teeth. It crawled up to the meat, sniffed it, grabbed it, then ran like it was running for its life. Neither had any idea why it was so panicked, but both agreed that they would be mostly safe in the forest area.

“Alright, here it is.” he declared, pulling the blue box out from his amulet. Without further ado, he turned the box on and typed in the password at Luna’s direction. After the password was inputted, the screen he had seen the day before showed.

[1. Inventory]

[2. Current Procedures]

[3. Orders]

[4. To-do’s (Custom)]

[5. Messages (3)]

They had already discussed before about what they would look at first, which was the messages option. Pressing 5 on the keyboard, the blue text abruptly changed to lines of strange symbols, which were soon blurred to reveal their meaning to the two.

[1. From Gerald Conners: New Shipment Expected]

[2. From May Sencan: Next Visit?]

[3. From Dubai Department of Defense: Evacuation Order Enacted]

Kain went wide-eyed for a moment before laughing. “What’re the odds that this place is named Dubai? That’s hilarious!” he laughed. At Luna’s head-tilt, he elaborated. “Ah, Dubai is a rich city on Earth. Never been myself and probably never will. I hate the heat.” he explained.

She nodded. “Well, that one looks like the most ominous message.” she concluded, pointing at the third message. “Let’s check that one out!” she decided. Kain agreed, so he clicked the 3 button on the keyboard.

[From Dubai Department of Defense: Evacuation Order Enacted]

[This is an automated message. If you are reading this, then the Dubai Department of Defense is unable to protect you. It is highly suggested that you leave as soon as possible. Please return any property of the City State of Dubai before evacuation and we hope you enjoyed your stay in Dubai.]

They sat there in brooding thoughts after the message ended. “Well, that was ominous.” Kain said. “Whatever happened here, it happened so quickly that there was no time to escape. Either that, or there’s something else that we’re missing.” he concluded.

“Agreed. It’s either the…” she shuddered for a moment. “Monsters… Or it’s something entirely separate from that. Either way, we should keep digging into this thing.” Luna proposed. Kain nodded, and they clicked the second message that the computer received.

*=====*

Just so you guys know, I’m going to be rewriting the first 5 or so chapters of this web novel. It won't have any effect on new chapters, but the rewrites will not be entirely consistent upload-wise. Also, yeah, it was prompted by Deneb’s review. I was always a bit unhappy with the first chapters, especially after I found my style, but I thought that it would be fine. Turns out that I was wrong. So, if you make it here Deneb, thanks for the review.