Side Effects
1571 Words
When Lilly awoke, it was not pleasant. Her eyelids were half stuck together, her throat was dry and sore, her head throbbed and her muscles felt stiff and worn out.
The worse part was that when she forced herself up, she was almost totally disarmed and in a white cotton night-gown. Her ‘glasses’ had been left on the fancy bedside. She grabbed them and did a quick self-check.
[ Name: Lilly Grayson (Fenn)
Level 13
Profession: Alchemist.
Tags: [Daughter of gods] [Prodigy] [Inheritor of Alkahest] [Apprentice Alchemist] [Budding Beauty] [Soulbound] [Supersonic] [Leader] [Heretic (Subjective)]
STR: 12 (135) AGL: 18 (130) CON: 10(127) INT: 240 MP: 100/4200 HP: 100/750.
Status: Extreme fatigue. Magic depletion. Channelling sickness. Physique erosion. Dehydrated. Starving.
Skill Assist: Public Speaking, Commanding Presence, Multitasking, EX Courage, Artisan craftsmanship…[Focus to expand list]
EXP assist: De-activated for user safety post physical trauma.
Possessions: Akasha interface device. Nightclothes ]
Yesterday had been harrowing. Every time she’d felt too fatigued to continue, she’d skim some of the excess magic out of the transmutations going on to replenish her stamina. She’d had so many skill assists active, for so long her body had barely felt like her own. The AKS girls had long warned her that overuse could bring about so called ‘dissociative disorders’, without a strong will it was easy to find ones own consciousness adrift in the echoed minds, a boat rudderless in uncharted waters-
Lilly screwed up her eyes and deactivated all the assists she didn’t need. In moments she felt much better, mentally at least. She was less, but at least what was there, was mostly herself. Her inner thoughts stopped sounding like a playwright.
After waiting for what felt like an age she could take it no more and stumbled out of bed.
It was night, but the halls of the house she’d woken up in were well lit. She wandered- until she finally caught sight of a maid wheeling a dining cart.
“Water, please.”
The maid had no water with her, but had Lilly sit on the bottom of the dining cart while she wheeled it along. The sound of conversation grew louder, until finally she pulled the cart through a pair of double doors into a sumptuous dining room.
Lilly felt herself get picked up under the armpits and hoisted aloft.
“I found this wandering around the corridors.” She set Lilly at an empty seat and poured her a glass of water from the jug on the table.
“I’ll be back with an extra plate for the little miss in a moment.”
The words barely registered for Lilly who began gulping down the cool, lemon-tinged liquid.
“You should be resting!”
“Ahh.. Fel, I’m too hungry and too thirsty!” Lilly stood up on her seat and poured herself another glass.
“I guess you never ate or drank anything while I was with you.” Fel glanced helplessly around the table. The distinguished guests there included the head of the Alchemists, who had been unstuck from the wall after the tower was reactivated.
When Lilly finished her second glass, she too looked around the table. She vaguely recognised the people who’d been present at the guild.
“How long has it been?”
“Just a few hours. I am Mayor Dence and this is my home.” The mayor stood, giving a half bow.
When Lilly looked at him, it was with a little confusion- Dence looked more like a woodcutter, or a bear stuffed into a formal outfit than a portly mayor.
“Thanks for having me.” She tapped her glasses and gasped, “Twelve percent recovery! Alkahest’s tower is incredible! Hrm. All new parts helped, plus we’re super local to it.” She nodded to herself “Makes sense that it’d do at least that much.”
A wizened old wizard (Lilly could tell from the pointed hat) gave a gentle cough.
“Perhaps we should start with some introductions. We’re all rather, curious, as to who you are.”
Lilly struggled with where to start, before giving up and reactivating some of the speaking skill assists. Knowledge and confidence flowed through her-
“I don’t know honestly. I was Lilly Fenn, but I might be Lilly Grayson. A ghost named Alkahest started teaching me alchemy, but like the blockhead that he is-” (Wallace drew breath to shout, only to receive a sucker punch from Darsh in the next seat over) “He left faster than a deadbeat dad running from responsibilities… ahem, rather I should say after finding out how close to destruction the world is, he left without a yes no or maybe. I didn’t want to sit on my hands and hope that things would turn out okay, so I’m communicating with some creations he left behind. With their help, I can get the machines that keep everyone alive functioning again. Everyone with me so far?”
“How close did we come?” Darsh asked, glaring at the coughing and spluttering Wallace.
“Let me check…. Theoretically, the emergency system that was keeping the city region stable could only function for fifteen weeks at the very outside limit. So subtract the time since rifts started appearing and you’ll get an answer. Apparently if the URS- that is, the uninterrupted reality supply, had run dry, the backlash from normalisation would’ve caused an explosive shockwave with enough force to be clearly audible up to twelve thousand miles away. Levy please, make them stop, I don’t need to hear the details. I know facts are important, just please-“
Lilly yanked off her glasses and realised everyone was staring at her.
“I needed a time out. They can be loud.”
“Ahem” Bishop Torag was diplomatic, “You seem burdened by many things my child.”
“I do not wish to trouble one so obviously tired, but for safeties sake I must ask. Do we need to take further action?” Byron’s question made Lilly visibly twitch.
“I don’t… ugh. A moment.” Lilly put her glasses back on, “… Sixteen hours from now, people should avoid moving around the regions between a hundred and sixty and a hundred and seventy... miles from the city. Apart from that minor earth tremors may occur when the URS cuts out when reality normalises- and that’s it!”
Lilly tore off the glasses and looked as if she’d slam them on the table, before calming down and gently placing them in front of her.
The others had been deep in discussion and dined only lightly in the last few hours- as the immediate crisis had passed, all but Fel and the Mayor excused themselves in turn.
Each had their own organisation to think about and their own part of the aftermath to deal with.
Lilly ate heartily and once she was content, chatted with the mayor and Fel about innocent topics. Neither commented about how she chose to hold her glasses in her hand rather than put them back on when escorted to bed by a maid.
Alone with Fel, Dence nearly collapsed.
“What a day. I wish I was young again.”
“Oh please. You’ll live.”
“You were kinder then too.”
“That’s your imagination.”
“Are you going to follow her?”
“Yeah. She seems fun. The crew I was with is ready to spread their own wings now.”
“And do they know that?”
“They will~ it is a shame though.”
“You? Regretting something? I can hardly believe it.”
“I always wanted to peek in on Thane when he was bathing. I’m sure that lizard dude is huge.”
“…. No. That’s not you. You are regretting something, but it’s not… Ah. If you travel with that girl, nobody will be cooking for you.” Dence squinted at Fel’s inscrutably smug face- which went flat as he struck right to the truth.
“How?”
“If you wanted to perve, you would have. Besides, you stayed with them for two years, that’s a long fling by your standards. Am I wrong?”
“Tch. You know me too well.”
“All jokes aside, giving up Ablation Alchemy…”
“People are going to be pissed, yeah. I know. By now, even if I couldn’t tell she was being truthful, I’d be sold. The Alchemists spent who yonks poking and prodding at that tower- she had it running inside of a day. That’s not luck.”
“I’m afraid that her life will be targeted.”
“You’re not wrong. I won’t promise anything I can’t keep, but I will try, at least.”
The two old friends let out the same weary sigh, and without another word, left to find their own beds.
- Writer
