>>6289468When you next awake, it is to the most amazing feeling of soft cushions and silk sheets, and that’s not to mention a clean and dry body. The morning even starts with the sun’s light teasing your eyes and the smell of fresh tea in your nose. Then, to top the mood off, the pain sets in. You jerk, then freeze up as a million different cramps and aches announce their presence to your body, having just clocked in for their shift at the “make Lorina feel miserable” mill.
“Good morning, Lorina~” You hear the singsong voice of a sadist clearly taking great delight in your pain as she flips over a page in her ‘manga’ book. Some nonsense about some “villainess” by the cover.
Your red eyes glare at her through your tangled silver hair as you nobly and gracefully ask her for “W-water, p-please.” In a not-at-all-dry and weak voice.
With a mock sigh, Marie closes her book and hands you an ornate cup, which you gulp down with, admittedly, some greed. “Have any pleasant dreams while you were out?”
You shake your head, “No, none. How long was I asleep for?”
“About two days now, I think?” She looks outside and sees the sun rising over the city below and nods, “About two days exactly.”
You lurch upwards only to be met with immediate regret as your body’s advocate informs you that it greatly disagrees with that motion and that it should, in fact, be repealed. You do so as you slowly lower yourself back down to your bed. It seems standing up will be out of the question for at least the rest of the day. Though you suppose you should consider yourself lucky that you’re not dead or a dry, shriveled husk at this point. Severe mana exhaustion has killed more than its fair share of mage-knights who believed that victory would come to them if they just pushed a little bit more past their limits. Truly, a tragic malady for many more chivalrous tales would have had a chance at a brighter ending should it not exist.
“What’s happened since then?” Is all you can bring yourself to ask. Even the muscles that work your jaw flare in pain.
“Both quite a lot and not much,” Marie says, “The mage-knights are torching the last of the forest while wizards have been deployed to cast sealing wards alongside the clerics purifying the region. But apparently, a group of Inquisitors located the headquarters of the Heaven Society and lay right in the center of that forest. Though once the knights stumbled into it, the place already looked like the scene of a particularly gory horror movie.”
“That meaning?”
“A lot of newer and less experienced Strangers and their thralls were devoured while the more experienced fled. Though from the mish-mash of various magics, explosives, and technology, it’s likely that at some point either accidents started to happen or the Strangers began to fight each other. And before you ask, we have no clue as to why.”
