It was quite staggering to me. For it to work that easily?

I say it worked, but what I heard, or rather what I felt was not a sentence, not a word really, it was an image. A thought.

It was similar to the time I first tried to connect with Iloa, not knowing what I was dealing with.

I saw… myself?

Yes… it was me, but unlike me.

I was not made out of stone, still fleshy as was a long time ago, and definitely not like he has ever seen me. Still with my arm intact, completely normal.

I was still in my clothes from the MIRE, not torn by the explosion, sporting a lazy smile, just walking… somewhere.

I couldn’t recall why, but the image seemed very familiar… Like I remembered that scene.

Yes… I did remember it.

It was about an hour before the explosion that started all of this. I was walking to the large building… I was on my way to work.

A flash.

Scene changed. Now I was lying with my back to the wall, arm missing. Another familiar scene, when everything went wrong.

Another flash.

I was now gone, now there was just an empty room

It changed again.

A familiar forest, ruins of the MIRE.

From there, there was a flood of images that caught me so off guard that I barely was able to contain myself without betraying the fact that I was prodding around his head.

But none of those images belonged to me.

I’ve seen them before. But they were not mine.

Or not mine yet.

That was overwhelming.

And not only for me.

I assume that he saw the exact same thing as me, because he suddenly staggered and almost fell over.

That proved to be problematic.

-AH! Damn you, monster…!

He yelped, trying to calm himself down, but he was not able to.

For was looking with a worried expression at the scene, not understanding what exactly was going on.

-What are you…

-STOP MESSING WITH MY HEAD!

As he shouted the words, he staggered towards one of the walls and leaned on it, dropping on one knee. One of my arms, that he was still holding up till this point, dropped on the floor.

-I don’t know what…

But that was pointless.

-I WARNED YOU!

And he tossed the whole bottle from Eise on the floor, breaking it on my arm.

The effect was immediate and almost expected at this point.

As the substance spilled on the crystal, it started melting.

I braced myself, not sure if that would affect me, and good thing that I did. I would’ve fallen like a log on the ground if not for that.

The wave of pain hit me immediately after, sending me to the floor. I managed to just drop onto my knees and closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable next step.

But before that happened, I realized that I was not the only one who got hit with the wave of pain.

Both For and Goldie were now also on the ground, Goldie now completely prone and rolling away from the broken glass. For on the other hand tried to somehow keep her composure, but was failing miserably, moaning in pain.

Nevertheless, she was being muffled by screams coming from Goldie. I am not sure if he was screaming in pain, or just plainly screaming at me like a second before. Probably a mix of both.

Then the images hit me.

This time they were more understandable than before. They were still scattered and chaotic, but the first ones were easily recognizable, so it was not that hard to process what I was seeing.

Of course, it started with the Red Edge. Or rather the room in the Edge where we were all in. Multiple points of vision, like before. Mine, For’s, Goldies, even ILMA’s and overall from the outside perspective: I saw us scattered on the floor,

The last vision, from the wider perspective, hung on for the longest time, and I was able to see that my arm was now completely gone: the acid made quick work through it. I didn’t see much more before the perspective shifted again.

I was in another familiar place: it was the capital. I was sitting on a wooden bench, staring at the wall, in some empty and dark room. It was not just me… there were about ten or even more people with me… all staring absent-mindedly towards the wall. I couldn’t see the faces, the perspective started shifting again.

It was strange. I flipped through a bunch of the people sitting with me in that same room, then raced somewhere else.

Another familiar place.

This was not the one I expected to see.

It was that small island where I found myself after teleporting from Melle’s house.

I was alone, sitting on the rock, near the water, looking towards the entrance to the cave. I could still see the slab that we inspected before that had that strange spell written on it. Broken.

In this vision, pain was intensified. Like, before I was constantly feeling the echo of my pain and probably also the same one from the perspective of the person that I was looking through, but most of the time both were indistinguishable. Or rather just were overshadowed by my own pain.

In this case though, the pain was stronger. To the point where I was not able to tell which one, mine or that other person was in worse shape.

I think they also felt that, because they staggered suddenly and almost fell face first into the water. Thanks to that, I was able to see the face of the one who I was currently seeing through.

It was Axelrod.

That was some good information, but it was not what caught my attention. It was the fact that as soon as he stared into the water, his face contorted in pain, the whole image started shifting.

I thought I was just changing perspective, the vision becoming blurry, but nope. The only thing that changed was the face I saw in the water.

It was Odar Erf. Hell, if I didn’t know before, it would’ve been a shock, see him turn like this, but that was not the end of it. As soon as his face turned to Odar, it got blurry again and turned into someone else, that one I did not recognize.

I felt myself moan in pain, or rather I felt Odar-Axelrod moan, just for the face to get blurry again.

This time I recognized the face instantly.

It was Mike.

I had my suspicions before. But never I would’ve thought that I would see his face so soon and in such circumstances.

What am I talking about, “in such circumstances”? I never expected to see it at all!

Sure, both I and Iloa already had some ideas, but to see his face mold like that? That had some… implications.

For example, was that really Mike?

And I don’t mean that in some metaphorical sense, I am as straight as it is: since we already knew about Odar and his ability, couldn’t that just mean that it was him wearing his face?

That was definitely a possible scenario, and not the one that I had the luxury of contemplating for long, because the vision continued.

Or rather it snapped and moved to another one.

Sadly, none of the other ones seemed remotely useful: just as I left Axelrod’s head, the images started getting more blurry and hectic again. Everything got a lot faster and with a lot less detail. Or maybe more, but I just wasn’t able to contain and process all of it in such a short span of time.

I don’t know how long it took, but I finally came to my senses. I was lying on the floor, next to still unconscious For and Goldie.

We were lying there, scattered just as we fell down. Next to us, still sitting as we left him, was Kon, or rather ILMA in the body of Kon. Apparently the visions didn’t bother her much, if she got those, that is.

I groaned and attempted to raise myself from the floor, knowing very well that it’s going to be a chore without the ability to use my arms…

But that’s where I was surprised: my arms were back in their rightful place.

I say were back, but it was clear that they didn’t just get reattached to me magically: they regrew. I could tell, because they were definitely of a different shade, more clear than my body. Almost glasslike.

I am not sure if that was there before, but my chest also changed a bit, and got more… rough, I want to say?

And not only that.

I noticed that the area where I was lying just a moment before was similar, too: the shine of the red stone was replaced by a rugged rock, spreading around me…

No wait, it did not originate from me, it only ended in the spot where I was. It started from Goldie, or rather next to him, where my arm and the spilled liquid was.

Speaking of, both of them were completely gone by now, the only thing remaining was said stain on the rock and some shards of glass scattered on the floor.

Sitting up, I tried out my new appendages, feeling for any differences.

Everything seemed in order, or, well, as much in order as it could be. My arms were still a bit rough and imprecise, just as you’d expect from a piece of stone, but this time it felt like they got a bit more agile…

It was strange. After not having them for a while, I’d expect the exact opposite: having another piece of rock added to my body would make me feel more heavy.

Also, I feel like regrowing them had to cost me a lot of mana, wouldn’t that make me doubly sluggish?

I decided to not overthink the situation much and instead to focus on the problem at hand: the two unconscious people on the ground.

Or, well, one. I couldn’t care less about Goldie after what he just pulled. I mean, I was fine and even better than before. And I managed to get some information about Axelrod. But I still had to deal with him and For.

First things first though, to stand up.

It was harder than it sounds. While I was feeling fine, my body was apparently not.

To my annoyance, and contradicting my previous observation about my arms, the rest of my body was as heavy as usual, maybe even more.

If I was to guess, it was because most of my mana was gone: since the majority of it went to my arms, I had trouble standing up.

I did manage to stand up and sit myself down on the bench next to Kon.

Right. Kon.

Or rather ILMA.

She was completely unphased by the whole ordeal that just took place in front of her face. Not like I expected for her to react in any way. She has been passive for a while now. Probably a good thing.

-ILMA, you with me?

-Standby mode active.

-That means yes.

I sighed.

-I assume you saw what I did? Or, I mean, ILMA, did you get a vision just now?

-Negative. Last experienced surge of information dates on: twelve hours ago. Contact has been forcefully terminated.

-How many hours? Damn.

So we’ve been out like this for a good while. That was somewhat worrying.

Not for me per se, I would be most likely fine even if I was to lay like this for a week, but those two…

They already have been through a lot, and now experiencing that kind of anomaly and not waking up for that long of a time…

Wait, hold on a second. I was preoccupied with the time and at first did not notice what she just said to me. Contact terminated?

-Contact terminated? Did you do that yourself, ILMA?

-Affirmative. Data flow has been deemed redundant and a request has been made to terminate contact.

That was… confusing to say the least.

-Request? What do you mean by “request” ILMA?

-Data flow has been recognized as coming from a verified source. The message to the source has been sent to stop the transfer. Request has not received any response and the contact has been terminated manually to preserve memory.

A lot of things in that response of hers were to be questioned.

Like, what the hell does she mean by verified source?

The only sources of data she should consider “verified” were supposed to originate from the MIRE, or at least a similar institution.

We didn’t really have contact with any of those, but she had access to the external networks, so the ruleset had been set in case she needed to get the data from there…

How the hell did she get the data now, in this place?

I mean, it was possible that she considered me a verified source… or anyone else from the MIRE… I guess it was possible…

-ILMA, what was the verified source you spoke about?

-Verified sources include MIRE database and current employees of the MIRE.

Yeah, that seemed about right. So she just considered the vision as data from me, Axelrod and everyone else.

I guess that was mostly cleared up.

I couldn’t really continue that talk with a clear conscience, because the two of my… well, one of my companions and Goldie, were still lying on the floor unconscious.

-ILMA, any ideas on how to wake them up?

-Vital signs of entity For and Caleb Moi are unstable. Recommended action: forced mana restoration.

Shit, she was right.

Distracted by everything I didn’t notice how their mana flames were now weaker, the weakest I have ever seen in a person, really. Even if I were to compare them to the people that were the pawns of those plant-creatures, I wanna say that they were comparable.

-A mana-deficiency induced coma… - I sighed, standing up. - I assume we can’t just pour some of your or my mana into them, ILMA?

-Negative. Mana values for entity Mor and entity ILMA are too low.

I gave her a curious look. In my eyes, she didn’t really look weak. Honestly, she was still as strong as Kon was when I last saw him in person today, maybe a tiny bit less.

Also, I was feeling fine too. Definitely not on the edge of fainting, as it sounded from her explanation…

But she couldn’t be mistaken, could she…?

No, she was better than me. That meant…

-ILMA, how much mana do we need to get them up, or, well, to at least get For up?

-Value cannot be determined. A relative unit is necessary.

Right. All the time we were working with mana, we never really figured out how to quantify it. We always were just going with our “feel”, and since everyone was used to those kinds of methods, we never really thought about trying to create a “unit of mana” or something.

Not like it was really possible and useful. After all, the mana needed to do something was always dependent on the person casting a spell, or whatever else the mana was supposed to be used on. Sure, we used percentages in infusion, or degrees, but that’s not really a way to do this…

-Right… so I need to get something from Eise’s storage…

Even mentioning that I realized that it was going to be annoying. To grab something from there and get back here… can’t I just get those two there instead?

Actually that was a good idea…

-ILMA, carry For and follow behind me.

-Understood.

I was worried for a second, after all she was still in Kon’s body and he was not the strongest one, but apparently it was enough. Or it was just that she was not very heavy, really. Her frame wasn’t really different from a human, be it elf or, well, not really, thanks to Jack…

I on the other hand felt like I was going to have a bit more issue with carrying Goldie.

At first I was thinking of just ditching him here and locking the door, but having him somewhere out of my sight only would make me more anxious.

If that was not enough, he was still wearing his golden armor.

I groaned and decided to bite the bullet and do it, even if I would have to drag him behind us. I didn’t really care and he had to be at least as resilient as his brother, so he would be fine. Not like it mattered, really.

But, to my surprise, I was easily able to lift him up and hoist him on my shoulder.

That surprised me so much that I swung his body too enthusiastically, loudly hitting the wall with his armor.

-Shit!

That was… strange. I never thought I would have that much raw physical strength, especially after having a hard time standing up just not so long ago.

Last time when I actually had to use my muscles, or the stone equivalent of them, I definitely had a bit of a problem with that.

Did that mean that I finally was getting used to this body? Or was it growing more powerful?

Or was it just the new hands that were stronger than before?

If I was to guess, it was a combination of all the above.

At least that was one positive thing about this situation.

-Okay. Let’s move, ILMA.

And we slowly made our way towards the other end of the castle.