Illuminaria [LitRPG Fantasy Healer Adventure]

47 - Hex Marks the Spot

With the overwhelming recollections of his encounter with Murrcee still lingering through much of his thoughts, Joe found himself sitting on the edge of the fountain. Mercy Suku was holding his hands in her small, scaled ones. Her saurian features radiated a motherly concern for his dazed state. When she noticed his moment of awareness, the priestess dipped her head into his eyeline and asked, "So what did you think of her?"

"I … I … I don't know if I have words for it," Joe stammered, still trying to bring the atrium into focus. It was as if he had been standing in the middle of a huge open plain a second ago, only to be teleported into an itty-bitty closet. Everything seemed so small, and his eyes couldn't find a middle distance to focus on.

He slipped a hand free and swiped it across his face, finding his palm came away wet. It took him a second to realize that in addition to the tears he had shed in Murrcee's presence, the air was thick and humid. While the heavy presence of the goddess faded from Joe's perception, it was replaced by that anticipatory feeling he usually got before an approaching storm.

Suku's voice aimed at someone nearby. '"We need to get this poor boy some more food and likely something stronger to sip."

"Be happy to, my lady," Runkbadok's deep voice rumbled. As the figure walked to the food table, Joe focused enough to see him standing up tall. The mass on his back was completely gone; his spine was straight. He looked like a new man. The green and brown zebra-like stripes joyfully undulated across his skin.

"It worked! Runk is healed," Joe crooned. "That is so awesome. I could never have …"

"Not never, but it is true your healing was not well suited for his racial nature," Suku replied, patting his arm. "I'm so glad you came and found me to help him. He was always such a good young man. I missed his visits when life took him from Fort Coral for so many years. I didn't even know he was back. I think he didn't want me to see his infirmity, though that was foolish of him. Murrcee was happy to repay the kindness he had shown me and the love he had put into our shrine."

They sat in silence while Joe tried to regain his internal equilibrium. He was still spinning inside. He had thought meeting Hawking was what he could expect from interactions with the gods.

'Boy, was I wrong about that,' his brain bemoaned.

The afternoon waxed into evening. At some point, Suku left him. He was never alone, even though he was only partially aware of them. As the neighbors started to depart, the fog that had been his thoughts finally cleared. He looked over to see it was Mahq and Mojo sitting next to him. Somehow, he knew that the boy had been there with him for quite a while.

"Joe is back," Mahq announced to no one in particular. After making his declaration, the young druid stood and walked away before Joe could work out that he wanted to thank the young druid for looking out for him.

The shug-monkey was happy to get the extra attention. He climbed into Joe's lap and leaned heavily against his chest while Joe ruffled his fingers through the black fur on his back.

He was hungry, but the thought of getting up and grabbing some of the remaining banquet was still too much for his overstretched psyche. He was both too exhilarated and too exhausted in a way [Efferous Endurance] would be unable to fix. Mojo's presence helped, but it was not quite enough. Still sitting on the fountain, he reached out to the other great entity he knew: one far more relatable and one that might understand what he had just experienced.

'You really are totally different from the gods, aren't you, Hawking?'

'The story I got from Corra Loigen mentioned that the gods found you and Arwan while you two were building the worlds. That means you didn't create the gods, right?'

'So your second attempt is a Divine plane? Or is it planes since it has both Heavens and Hells?'

'Then there is the Feylands that Arwan made, and you just mentioned the Spirit Plane. What else is there?' Joe wondered to Hawkings. His still semi-befuddled head was happy to latch onto a lesson instead of continuing to spin out after meeting Murrcee.

'I don't think I'm ready for cosmic-level encounters. That was too much.'

'Good to hear, but I'm not feeling too sure about anything at the moment. Meeting Murrcee was not at all what I expected.'

Joe's thoughts stopped cold. As he considered that simple statement, his world finally grounded again, untangling his spinning head from the wonders of the divine. That basic truth steadied him in the now. He focused on that idea; the world was just the same as it always had been. It was just his perspective that had been knocked out of whack.

He became fully aware of the warm pup in his lap. The pre-storm air around him was filled with the voices of people and the burble of the fountain behind him. The crazy churning in his head quieted as the wildness, who had been silent during his malaise, rumbled in his chest.

'You know what, Bud? It really does. Thanks.'

Two hours later, Joe and Mojo were jogging away from the city under heavy gray skies. The air around them felt charged and thick with the expectant storm. Even though Joe's thoughts would still get lost for a second regarding his encounter with Murrcee, he wanted to finish the assignment Myllo had given him on time. While the demon summoning had put an end to his efforts going through the material Vexor had pulled for him, he was already almost positive the big piece of the puzzle wasn't going to be in those pages.

Every time Joe stumbled across a reference to the Courts of the Fey in the homunculus-gathered documents, the Mark of Death on his arm felt like it was poking him to get his attention. Added to that fact was another pair of clues: the wards were fey-made, and the dissembling was powered by Annwn. All together, that made a damn good argument that this whole issue was linked to the Feylands.

There was one person Joe knew who would almost surely know the answer, Corran Loigen. Even if this ward and ziggurat were from before the founding of Fort Coral, the fey remembered all their past lives. Corran should be able to tell him something about it. If it turned out to be some big fey secret, which Joe was beginning to think was the case, since it was being shrouded in the forgetful aura, Joe could always burn the favor the old knight owed him. He had hoped to use the favor to grab some ancient fey trait with [Anyone] next time he leveled, but this might be more important.

The coming storm could be just the opportunity the bestial ghouls needed to cross the plains, which is what clinched Joe's decision to make the trip out to the farmstead before the tempest struck. Getting that information before a possible breakout was one reason for the trek, but he also wanted to see if Padu and Mister Loigen wanted to shelter in the city or if they needed any help bunkering their home.

At first, Mojo was able to stay even or even ahead of Joe, but soon after clearing the city walls, his short legs began to lag. Even though [Effereous Endurance] was more effective on the little critter than it was on a person, the spell couldn't compensate for the vast difference in their stride length for very long. [Morphic Form] tweaked Joe's anatomy just enough to make his legs perfect for running. What felt like a casual jog to him was as fast as a sprint for most folks.

Thankfully, there was still plenty enough monkey left in Mojo to allow him to easily perch on Joe's shoulder as he ran. The little man's canine back claws found the edge of his leather pauldron to hook onto, while his hands and long tail held tight.

They made better time once he was aboard until they crossed out of the warded area around the city. What Joe at first thought was just a milestone, he now recognized as a ward post. The moment they passed the yard-tall standing stone, a hard gust of wind tried to shove Joe over. Joe used [Steadfast] to anchor his footing just as a second windy shove hit him from the other side.

By his ear, Joe heard Mojo hiss at the sky, his head swiveling to track something Joe couldn't see. Though it was pretty clear after a second that it was more like somethings, instead of a single unseen target. Through the empathic connection they shared, Joe could feel hostility flowing from his companion.

Sensing Joe's confusion, the shug monkey placed the side of his head against Joe's. He felt their bond deepen, and suddenly, he too could see faint objects flitting through the sky. The longer they stayed temple to temple, the clearer the strange forms became. They were air spirits or storm spirits; Hah'roo would know for sure which. Regardless, these were not the gossipy winds that his galeling friend spoke so fondly of. These dark elementals looked like the melding of translucent eels and squids. They had sharp teeth, cold, luminous eyes, and trailed smoky tendrils behind their amorphous bodies.

With his focus on the sky, Joe wasn't watching his footing, and he stepped down on something that crunched under the sole of his boot. He looked down to see that he had stepped on the corpse of a bird. The tern was not alone. All around Joe were dozens of twisted avian bodies: both songbirds and seabirds. Joe scanned the skies and watched as the flight of a fleeing gull stopped short. It was too far away for Joe to make out the wind spirit, but it was clearly there. A second later, the seabird's wings were wrenched into an awful angle, and it plummeted from the sky.

Only one bird was able to challenge the vicious elementals. A mighty seahawk, with wings longer than Joe's arms, screamed in fury far overhead. Its shrieks drove away the attackers, utilizing a sound-based monster skill, or Talent, as their skills were called. Its claws also seemed to be effective. Joe watched it rake through unseen forms, and where they struck, Joe could just catch wisps of darkness spray from something in the air.

Rooted with [Steadfast] against the occasional shove from the wind spirits, Joe stood and watched, captivated by the aerial battle over his head. Then something big hit the mighty raptor, big enough that he could see its dark shape even two hundred feet below them. Through Mojo's gifted senses, Joe watched the churning eel-like elemental crash into the seahawk. The bird spun and slashed out with its claws, but missed. The wind spirit moved in ways that defied physics, hammering the avian hunter again and again while avoiding its counterstrikes.

Joe knew the seahawk was doomed, and a helpless fury filled his gut. They were too far above him for any of his spells to reach. If only he had taken [Vulture's Beak Mark], then if they dropped a bit closer, he could hex the shit out of the elemental. Joe still had two open points. He could take it. Then he would just need them to fly a bit closer … or did he?

Joe summoned his [Casting Claw] at the very edge of his range. Using it as his casting focus, he fired the vulture curse out of the paw at the swirling, murky mass attacking the seahawk. He missed his first shot by a mile, but Joe had plenty of stamina. He shot again and again, rapid-fire unloading hexes, only taking care not to hit the raptor. Somewhere around his twentieth cast, he finally nailed the spirit. Suddenly, thanks to the mark, Joe knew exactly where the ghostly gusting elemental was in the sky. Even though the hexes didn't stack, he shot it again, easily connecting now that it was marked.

The stormy spirit was pissed and moved toward Joe. It barely closed a tenth of the distance before it was raked by the seahawk's scream and talons. Distracted and weakened, the tables were turned. The malicious entity floundered under the attacks by the great bird, bursting apart after a few seconds.

Once free of the worst threat, the sky hunter must have decided to surrender the sky to the gathering gusts. It wheeled about and winged away, heading towards Mount Serabuck. It screamed once more as it soared off. This shrill note had a different timber than its battlecry. It felt like a thank you.

Smiling, Joe got his feet moving once more, following the seahawk west toward where Corran and Padu lived in the shadow of the towering mountain.