Mortal Magic: Broken
Mana Sickness

“This is worse than it looks. He is not just sick; he is dying from mana sickness. He can’t absorb any mana to help his body heal and it looks like his body is deteriorating as we speak”. Somehow the darkness started going away and I was able to hear voices and feel through touch again. Someone was talking but I was too tired to give meaning to the words now. It was a woman, young, with a gentle and low voice like a wind chime. The words kept coming in the same voice, tainted with worry and anxiety but I could only focus on the voice alone and not the content.

“Is there nothing you can do”? Another voice came, this one closer. It was more gruff and definitely male, and familiar. I sensed fear in this second voice and the mere sound of it was unnerving me, getting me on edge. The first person sighed loudly and I felt cold hands barely the size of mine touching my chest and feeling for something. I wanted to push the hand away from my chest but I knew that I had no control over my body yet. But after the initial sock from the cold touch the hands warmed up and it actually felt peaceful and good, like a comforting touch.

“He needs mana to pass through him again if he is to recover. I can keep healing him but sooner or later my powers will not be enough to heal him faster than he is dying”. The concern in the first voice was evident in each word. It was something more than just the concern someone has for a stranger. It was something pure and innocent in its own way, something that made my mind go blank. “Then he might be as good as dead. He can’t absorb mana. From what he told me he never could. He produces his own just as easily as he draws breath but he can’t absorb the mana around him”.

I heard a gasp coming from the woman that must’ve been standing very close to me and my heart jumped as the hands that had somehow traveled to my abdomen left me. I felt an emptiness right then like something important had left me and I knew not why. My mind was playing tricks on me for sure, and it was frustrating. Then one hand came to my forehead and brushed down to my right cheek and my neck. I was confused as to why my body was getting warmer and warmer as the hand was exploring my body. Not the kind of warmth from the sun or a fire that kept you warm. It was more like a burning sensation all over my body, not painful or uncomfortable, but relaxing at first and then overwhelming.

“There might be a way. If I can heal him and pass mana inside his body at the same time then he might have a chance. But I will need your help. There is a shop in the village that sells something I need. It is a potion that helps with mana sickness. It helps the sick recover faster since it provides them with a small reserve of mana to draw upon. It is not much so he won’t reject it but he will need it the moment he wakes up and frequently after until he is able to produce his own as you say”. I heard the sound of coins hitting together inside a pouch and then the conversation continued. “It’s located at the other side of the village. You will recognize it from a sign with three glass vials with contents in red, blue and green. Bring me five and don’t worry about doing it fast. This will take long enough for you to go to Redgard if you had to”.

I heard footsteps getting farther from me, fast, and after a few moments the sound was gone. Then the woman sighed and I felt a hand cupping my face and sending shivers through my skin and all over my body. “Where did I get myself into? This was never supposed to happen like this”. The woman’s voice was laced with a certain layer of sadness but I could also detect happiness in it. It was confusing me to feel all these feelings and being affected so much without reason. The hands kept exploring me but now they were more intimate and demanding, feeling every inch of my upper body and then moving to my arms and back.

The touch was making me kind of sleepy or dizzy but I was unable to lose myself to the dream world. I was starting to breathe faster and the way the hands kept rubbing me was torture but it was also satisfying and it was driving me crazy. My muscles tensed and hardened, I was losing my sanity and the burning intensified on my lower half and my clothes were feeling too tight for some reason. And then I heard a low humming. It was not random as I thought at first; the person was humming a certain melody. And that same melody was somehow forcing me to relax, forcing the suggestion on my mind to follow with a gentle warm light that seemed to be enveloping me.

Were it not for the fact that I hadn’t lost my mind completely yet I would not have realized that the hands were doing something to me while massaging my hardened muscles. I sensed some kind of power slipping through my skin from the woman’s, and spreading through me slowly. The amount of energy spreading through me was very small, barely recognizable and completely unknown to me for the most part. It was something completely new to me and somehow familiar. I didn’t know how long I was like this, but minutes later or possibly hours, enough energy was gathered inside me for me to be able to recognize it easily like it was my mana. After that most of my muscles started to relax but I was still uncomfortable in the rest of my clothes.

Soon the energy started pulsing inside me in the rhythm of my pounding heart and I found myself gasping for breath. I arched my back and opened my eyes and mouth to try and get as much air in my lungs as I could when someone put his hand on my back and raised me as another hand brought a vial filled with a blue substance to my open mouth. The vial was tilted to my mouth and the blue mist-like substance dropped inside and run down my throat. I felt nothing as the last remnants of it left the vial and then I realized that I felt normal. Before, when Yuto and I were still on the road I struggled to create mana and I had almost none, now I had more than enough inside me and I assumed it was from the vial.

Slightly disorientated and dizzy as I was my head hang back as I familiarized myself with the rest of my senses. The arm that was holding me up put me back down gently and I saw Yuto’s worried face when I felt my back touching something soft. I was lying on a mattress, probably a bed from what I could tell and I was in a house. The last thing I remember was that I my condition worsened after I fired the projection to the small animal and everything after that was a blur.

I had to say that being able to move and feel again was good after all this time that I was burning inside. And I still felt that way even though it was not as intense as before. I felt sore all over but I tried to sit up slowly and Yuto helped me to do so. That’s when I realized that my chest was naked and my boots were off. I still wore the leather pants and even though the belt was looser than I tied it I still felt somewhat constricted, and then came the self-conscious part. I brought my left hand to my face and I felt it getting warmer as I blushed. My reaction earned me a loud laugh from Yuto and a pat on the shoulder and I couldn’t have been more embarrassed before. This man had serious privacy issues.

Shaking his head he turned around with a grin plastered on his face grabbed a cup and gave it to me before he winked. I paid no mind to that as I took the cup and realized how thirsty and hungry I was. As much as I wanted to gulp down the water I had to go slowly as I could barely swallow and it hurt like hell to do so. After I took a few sips I gave it back before I started coughing from the sudden passage of the water through my throat. This time though it didn’t subside on its own. I felt the same hands that were all over my upper body before gently grabbing my neck and then I heard a voice. “Healing Light”. Those two words were the only thing she said with that low and wonderful voice before warmth spurred from her hands and eased the pain and stopped the cough.

I was still recovering from that episode and panting when the hands slid from my neck and left me. I turned around with curiosity and worry at the same time to see a young woman, most likely close to my age smiling at me. She was as tall as me with skin lighter than my own light brown. Her hair reached her waist and was light blond to the point that they reminded you of silver here where the light was sparse and the moment my eyes found her face her gaze drew mine. She had eyes blue as the morning sky but then I saw the slight green hazel mixed that reminded me of a certain coast when I was very little before I was abandoned. Her eyes were the color that the water donned when the sun illuminated the corals under the water and gave it that mostly blue but slightly green color. My favorite color ever since I can remember.

I was sure that I was staring at her when I heard Yuto clear his throat and I was thrown back to reality from my memories. I took her appearance in making sure to refrain from her eyes that had captured mine. She had a fairly medium build, not slim like all these women I was used to seeing in the arena, just enough to make her look attractive. Her clothes were clinging to her skin as she was slightly sweaty and the clothes themselves fit her like a glove. She was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with the top button open and a brown leather vest on top of it with a pair of tight fitting gauze pants that ended after her knees. Her whole physic was something else. Her arms indicated some sort of workout as the sleeves were hugging her not so slender arms. Her chest was stretching her shirt and vest and her belly was flat. Her legs muscled yet still elegant that added to the curves of her body. And there was her face that I was so afraid to look at. Her wide forehead smooth as the rest of her body, her small nose and prominent cheekbones in that oval shape with those slightly full lips turned upwards in a smile.

I tore my eyes away from her and asked the first thing that came to my mind, and hopefully it was something relevant. “Where are we”? The question was directed mostly to Yuto as he was the one who brought me here by logic but the woman was sure to be more knowledgeable in the matter. As soon as the words flew out of my mouth though I cringed as I sounded terrible, like I hadn’t spoken in days or drank anything. “You are in Brickbourne, more specifically in my home. Your friend carried you here in the middle of the night and was asking the villagers for a physician when I heard him. I am the sole physician here due to the nature of my magic and because I can heal anything I don’t usually keep people in beds. You are the first one I actually had to keep close, you were almost dead by the time we brought you here and I had to work until the sun rose before you started getting better”. Her explanation was something that I was unable to comprehend. There was not enough time to bring me here. We were too far away from the village and no one can carry someone for that long and run so fast. But somehow he did bring me here and I was partially conscious of it. I remember hearing him asking about the physician at some point and then I remember the girl’s voice as she said something about mana sickness. But the one thing I remember clearly was what she did to me. I pushed those last thoughts to the back of my mind before my face turned red again and focused on the rest.

“What is mana sickness”? My question took them by surprise as I must have been unconscious the whole time and this was something they said before I woke up. Looking at me with surprise in her eyes and a slight blush on her cheeks the girl answered. “Mana sickness is an illness of your core. The hearts of magi act as a core that can feel and manipulate mana to use magic; it is also what gives everyone their unique magic abilities. There are times when the core stops functioning properly and the magi can’t absorb the mana that is essential for their existence. Without mana running through your core you die even if you are the healthiest person on Ea”.

While she talked I distracted myself by taking in my surroundings as well. I was in a small room mostly empty except for the bed that I was sitting on, a wooden nightstand near it, a wardrobe right on the opposite wall and a simple desk right under the only window on the wall on the right of the bed. The whole scenery gave the impression that the room wasn’t used normally and I smelled the lingering scent of dust in the air.

“I healed your internal wounds the moment we put you in the bed and removed your shirt and then I kept on doing the same thing while I passed some of the mana I absorbed through the air into your core. When you had enough your body tensed and resumed functioning properly and we gave you a mana potion to provide you with the necessary mana you need. It will take a few days for your core to start functioning independently and that is where the mana potions come in. you need to take two every day until you can produce your own mana again. Don’t worry they are on me”.

I couldn’t help but feel guilty for all of this. I should have said something when Yuto asked me if I was okay so many times before. And now I had become a burden to someone else too. And the worst thing was that I had no way of repaying her. “I don’t have money to give you for all this”. Instinctively I averted my eyes from her dropped my head as the same feeling from my first weeks in the village came back to me. It felt wrong to ask for something and not have anything to give back as payment or at least thanks.

She let out a giggle and I tried not to look but my curiosity got the better of me. “Don’t worry I don’t charge for this. I work at the baker’s place so it’s not necessary and when the healing requires materials I always pay for them myself”. With that she turned and went for the door leaving me alone with a Yuto that was grinning like a fool all this time and I didn’t even realize it. “What”?

Laughing loud enough for the whole village to hear he steadied himself as to not fall on the edge of the bed. “Nothing, I was just thinking about something. By the way, you should know that you were already like that when I returned with the potions and she was treating you. And she was blushing like there was no tomorrow”. My eyes widened at his words and the meaning they held. I tried not to visualize what he said but when I did I felt like I was going to die from embarrassment. And he was enjoying it and making fun of me at the same time.

“You are so dead once I can use magic again”. I knew it was an empty threat and so did he so he dismissed my words and shook his head still smiling and catching his breath. “Yeah right, don’t worry about it. Just take some rest you need it more than you think”. Finally regaining his cool and collected composure he made for the door before I stopped him with the question I have been dying to ask. “Did you really carry me all the way here? You realize the distance was too great and you could die if you pushed too much right”?

Stopping in his tracks he remained still for a moment before answering. “Don’t worry about it alright? I have myself to worry about me, so you just focus on resting before we set out to replace him. You need it more than me. Rest and I will gather as much information as I can by the time you fully recover”.