(TPOR) Chapter 141: Pink Before Daisy (Patreon)

Zed sat down with thoughts running through his mind. He would be worried if any of them were actually important. Regardless, they continued to flow, countless and merry as if important in their own right.

Beside him Oliver sat as well.

“You think she’s going to be alright?” he asked Ash.

They were seated in a different room now, taken from the training area as well as the viewing area. Only three of them were in the room, housed quietly and patient. In the room just beside them Chris was receiving treatment for severe mana burns, at least that was what Trevor, the resident doctor for the Olympians called it. It seemed Zed’s rune had carried a high concentration of fire mana which was abnormal even for one cast from a rune.

Oliver and Ash sat opposite Zed and he could feel her eyes on him, questioning, suspicious. He wasn’t entirely sure where it was coming from.

“Ash,” Oliver pressed.

“I don’t know,” Ash answered, finally turning to him. “She’s strong. She always has been. I’m sure she’ll make it.”

“The potions didn’t work, Ash,” Oliver reminded her. “I haven’t seen an injury that a potion couldn’t heal.”

He sounded very worried. It did much to raise a touch of guilt within Zed. He reminded himself that this hadn’t been the intention. This much damage had not been the plan. That final rune had gone the wrong way. He hadn’t thought that the rune would interpret the space between him and her at that point as a confined space.

If he was being honest, he couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about what had happened. He had spent the brief period between when Daniel had rushed her from the training room and into the hospital section trying to feel bad about it, blame himself, but he couldn’t. Was it The Berserker’s sense of battle that left him this way or was this simply who he was? He liked to think the former was the case. Sadly, he couldn’t confirm it.

“Zed?”

Zed looked up. Oliver was looking at him with worried eyes. Zed smiled weakly at him. It was designed to be reassuring, kind. He wasn’t exactly sure how it came out because Oliver’s worry didn’t wan.

“Zed,” Oliver repeated. “How are you holding up?”

Seeing that his smile accomplished nothing, Zed shrugged. “I guess I am,” he answered.

Oliver’s lips pressed in a worried line. “You don’t look fine.”

“You look lost in thoughts,” Ash said, her voice small.

“I am,” Zed confirmed.

“It’s not your fault,” Oliver said. The words were so sudden, so reassuring that Zed’s mouth opened and no response came. Ash, however, turned a shocked look at her brother. Oliver noticed it and shrugged defensively. “What? It’s not. She was going at him as hard as he was going at her. And she’s a Rukh,” he gestured at Zed, “and he’s still just a Beta.”

Whatever had been going through Ash’s mind died out, evident on the softening of her expression. She was like a child who had just realized they were being petulant.

“So,” Oliver said returning his attention to Zed, “don’t let it eat you up. She’ll be fine.”

Zed nodded, the action half-hearted. He stopped midway through the second nod, met Oliver’s eyes, hesitant.

“I’m beginning to think…”

Oliver met his gaze, looked at him expectantly even as his words trailed off. Ash looked attentive as well, hanging on his words. Zed scratched the back of his neck nervously and tried again.

“I know she’s in there fighting for her life because of something I did,” he said, his words slow but his tone uncertain. “but all I can think about is why croissants are pronounced as cwason instead of croissant. Does that make me a bad person?”

Oliver stared at him with blank eyes, clearly unable to comprehend the direction the conversation had taken.

Zed took it as an answer, nodded and leaned back against his seat. Perhaps it did make him a bad person. If it did, then that was simply what it was. He was done trying to make himself feel some form of guilt for Chris’ current situation. She had thrown as much magic at him as he had at her. Stronger magic, he had thought at the time.

But had she really? He couldn’t shake the knowledge of that one spell she had cast without chanting any spellform. It had been powerful, or he assumed it was. Why else would his notifications have no name for it. It left him with questions, wondering what exactly Chris specialized in.

He frowned at the thought. Different possibilities were still going through his mind when the door opened. It let in a brighter light of white than the one they sat in. A head peeked into their room. The person’s face was round and he looked at them with wide eyes. His hair was a bright blue, cut short on the left side and left to grow out on the rest of his head. Zed wasn’t sure how old the man was but he looked too much like a boy.

“You can come see her now,” Trevor, the resident doctor said. He paused, uncertain, before adding: “If you want.”

“How are her injuries?” Oliver asked, getting up almost immediately, worry etched into his face like the carvings on a statue.

“They seem to be quite severe,” Trevor said professionally. “Naturally, a simple mana potion would suffice. Since they are designed to serve as supplementary mana of a specific aspect—in this case, life mana—they usually serve to bolster the attributes related to the specific potion. In this case your friend was given a health potion with supplements the life mana acting within her system. Unfortunately, from what I could gather, it didn’t work as intended with her.”

“Why?” Oliver asked.

At this point all three of them were standing. Ash stood very close to Oliver, her hands hugging herself. Zed noted this because she had been doing it since they’d left the training area.

“Well,” Trevor scratched his head, the part that was shaved.

“Is her body rejecting it?”

Ash looked at Oliver with a flat expression.

“What?” he protested. “It’s possible. People reject blood all the time.”

“Organs, too,” Zed said. Everyone turned to him and he shrugged. “They do.”

“Anyway,” Trevor said, returning the attention to him. “While there are cases of people rejecting potions, it only happens in instances where the potions aren’t pure. Usually poorly diluted or not concentrated enough or some failed anticipation or the other. Bottom line is that the VHF potions are a hundred percent effective. You can’t get better potions anywhere… at least on this continent. If we’re talking about the Asians that’s some xianxian shit right…” his words trailed of, silenced as if he had just realized something.

“Anyway,” Trevor said, returning the attention to him. “While there are cases of people rejecting potions, it only happens in instances where the potions aren’t pure. Usually poorly diluted or not concentrated enough or some failed anticipation or the other. Bottom line is that the VHF potions are a hundred percent effective. You can’t get better potions anywhere… at least on this continent. If we’re talking about the Asians that’s some xianxian shit right…” his words trailed of, silenced as if he had just realized. “Anyway,” he went on, changing the subject poorly, “there have only been two instances where the VHF potion, specifically the health potion has proven impotent.”

“Which are?” Ash asked.

“Raw mana poisoning,” Trevor raised a finger with a grimace, “and death mana.”

Everyone paused. the air grew stale with tension. Zed had heard a little about what had happened with Big Man Desolate during the expedition. He had learnt of the fear of death mages which was even greater than the fear of blood mages. Apparently, a death mage could kill another mage with as little as a touch. It sounded far-fetched to him, but it was magic. Anything always seemed possible.

“Oh,” Trevor added, raising a third finger. “Then there’s when a mage has been afflicted with a really high level of concentrated mana.”

“Would a focused explosion from a fire rune count?” Oliver asked.

Trevor thought about it for a moment. He made a sound somewhere between a hum and a snore, it was weird enough to puzzle Zed. After a while he shrugged.

“I guess that could work,” he conceded finally. “But that would mean the mage needs to have quite the mana reserves to pull such a thing of.”

Everyone turned to Zed.

“What?” he protested. “I know runes take a lot more mana than normal spellforms but that doesn’t mean I’ve got that much… does it?”

“You kinda do have a lot of mana,” Ash said, voice oddly nervous. Zed wasn’t sure what the nervousness was all about but assured himself he would have to find out later on. He had no idea why she would be nervous around him.

Zed looked at Trevor instead. Despite his boyish looks, he looked like he would know more on the subject, at least way more than Oliver and Ash.

Maybe it’s the lab coat, he thought. Just something about a person in a lab coat.

Clearly reading his expression, Trevor shrugged. “Don’t know you enough to tell.” He leaned forward and sniffed the air between them. “Judging from your aura I’d say you’ve got quite the mana pool.”

“You can tell how much mana I have from my aura?”

“Yes… and no.”

Zed squinted at him. “You don’t sound very confident, Trigger.”

A confused line formed on Trevor’s forehead. “It’s Trevor.”

Zed nodded but didn’t correct himself.

Trevor waited a second longer, noted he would be getting no response on the correction of his name, and continued. “Manaology is not entirely a science.”

“Can we just take a moment to appreciate how lazy that name is?”

“Zed,” Oliver chided. “Let the man finish.”

Zed nodded. “Yea… sorry.”

“Doesn’t seem very fair,” Trevor said. “He gets an apology for you interrupting me but I don’t get one for you saying my name wrong?”

“Wait,” Zed paused, feigning puzzlement. “Your name’s not Tyrone?”

Trevor held up the breast pocket of his lab coat where his name was written in clear black ink.

Zed leaned in to look at it. “If everything here is top notch and high tech, couldn’t the name have come with the coat or something? It’s kinda odd having all this high tech stuff but writing your name on your coat with marker, don’t you think?”

Trevor looked down and away, muttering under his breath. “I told them I needed…”

The rest of his words were lost in intelligibility.

“Don’t worry, Tron,” Zed assured him. “I understand. Budget cuts. Still, sorry I got your name wrong. I’ll do my best not to make such a mistake again.”

Trevor turned to Oliver. “He’s always like this, isn’t he?”

Oliver nodded. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright,” Trevor said. “As I was saying manaology isn’t a hard science. It’s more of a soft science. You see, your aura is thick, so thick that its as strong as your friend’s over here,” he told Zed, gesturing to Oliver. “But not entirely.”

“So,” Zed interrupted him, “what you’re trying to say is my aura feels like a Rukh mage’s aura?”

“Well, yeah,” Trevor shrugged. “But, like I said, not entirely. More like what it would be when your friend’s really suppressing his aura. That’s my best guess. If I’m present when next you unleash your aura, I’ll be able to gauge it best. How about you—”

“No!” Ash cut him off, panicked. She had a strong hand on Zed’s arm. A vice grip so strong her veins popped on the back of her hand. “I don’t think it would be a good idea throwing auras around when there are ill people in there.” she nodded towards the hospital.

“I don’t see a problem with it. She’s a rukh rank mage, trust me, they’re tough. I doubt you can do much to her with your aura as a Beta mage… no offense.”

Zed cocked his head to the side, puzzled. Trevor was… polite. Almost cautious. Also, Ash’s hold wasn’t painful at all. He could feel her effort going into the grip, powerful and firm. But she might as well just be holding him firmly. It was perhaps testament to his strength aptitude. More importantly, though, was Trevor. Zed’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He leaned forward and sniffed the air between them, a clear imitation of Trevor’s earlier action.

He caught a whiff of it then, not necessarily a whiff, more of a feeling. It was like cobwebs settling on his skin if the feel of them was not disturbing. It was more the weight than the sensation. Trevor leaned away from him, a sheepish smile on his face.

Zed made an expression of positive surprise.

“Color me pink and call me Daisy,” he said with a smile.

“Do you have any pink dye, Dr. Trevor?” Oliver asked with a straight face. “I’d like to fulfil the wish of Daisy over here.”

Zed chuckled amiably. “Pink before Daisy, Ollie. An auburn Daisy’s just,” he shivered visibly. “Well, I wouldn’t want to see an auburn Daisy. On that note,” he returned his attention to Trevor. “How’s an Olympian still an Awakened?”