59 – Water Witch
Andy took a deep, shaky breath and read through the notifications:
***Congratulations! You’ve slain a hostile survivor and gained a level in your Pyroglyph Invoker class. As a result, you’ve earned an Improvement Point.***
***Andy, your struggle against another skilled spear fighter has helped you put your knowledge into practice. Continue down this path to seek insights into greater strategies.***
***Andy, your use of the spear, combined with the strategic employment of your Umbral Reaper and Pyroglyph Invoker abilities, has continued to pull those two classes toward an uncommon merger. Continue to explore those connections in order to realize that potential.***
Reading the messages, Andy wondered about his improvement points, and the status line danced across his vision: Improvement Points: 3. He needed to spend those, but first, he wanted to get back to the settlement and see if anyone had anything he could put on the damn acid burns all over his arms and legs. Limping, he stepped forward and stooped to pick up the reptilian spearman’s weapon.
He'd wondered if the short spear would be hollow and filled with acid, but it was a solid piece of wood with a pronged, stainless spearhead. Was it a javelin? The guy had never tried to throw it, but it sure didn’t feel like a standard spear to Andy. It didn’t fit in with any of his System-given spear training.
Andy’s mind drifted as he walked, his thoughts blurring into a haze of pain-tinged recollections of his fight. It was clear to him that things were changing rapidly in the world. That reptilian fighter had been an order of magnitude more dangerous than goblins or overgrown javelina. He’d worked magic and been a clever, quick fighter. Had he once been human? Was he like Lena, Raya, and Jace, the cambion people whose very nature had been changed by the mana? He had to be, Andy supposed. It wasn’t like the System had opened portals to other worlds yet.
“If we can trust the messages,” he muttered. For all he knew, the System was doing all sorts of things behind the scenes. Where was it written that it had to announce everything it was going to do? Even so, Andy felt like the spearman had been a mutated human. He’d spoken English, and he’d been wearing clothes. Overall, he was less changed than the goblins or other mutated things Andy had encountered since integration day.
While he walked, limping and wincing, Andy thought about what would happen that night. Something had been bothering him in the back of his mind, and he’d worked his way around it, but he hadn’t faced it head-on. It all boiled down to the fact that he didn’t know for a fact that Oscar was bad. He had Shawna’s opinion, but Andy had felt like Oscar was being genuine. Shawna called Oscar a good actor because she’d seen his behavior with Brooks, but what if he’d been acting then?
The reason he couldn’t let it go was that if Oscar turned out to be legit, he’d be leading Brooks up into the foothills toward a trap that wouldn’t be there—a trap that Andy was supposed to set. On the other hand, if he were lying, then, yeah, he’d probably bring Brooks right to the settlement. The safe bet was to stay at the settlement and prepare for an attack. It would sure screw Oscar over, though, if he’d been telling Andy the truth.
As he stepped onto the gravel road and laid his eyes on the mesa that protected the trailer park, Andy found himself wishing he could be in two places at once. He really didn’t have enough people ready to fight, though. He needed everyone at the settlement to defend against a possible attack. If he took ten or twenty fighters out in case Oscar led Brooks to the “trap,” then the settlement would be too easy to assault.
“Too bad phones don’t work…” he muttered, imagining how nice it would be if the settlement could call for help if Brooks attacked. The thought made him try to imagine magical means to call for help, and then he realized he already had one: his traps. If his traps went off, his mana would come back; he’d feel it. Even so, it would be a risk. Could he and his fighters get back in time to help?
He pictured the kids in the trailer park while Brooks and forty or fifty raiders stormed the plateau. It was enough to settle the argument for him; it would be nice to have his cake and eat it, too, but he couldn’t risk everyone like that. He was going to go with Shawna’s assessment of Oscar. He’d stay and defend the park. If Oscar was legit, and he led Brooks out to a trap that wasn’t there, then he’d have to do some fast talking. That was better than losing the settlement in the other scenario.
Andy heard something rustling in the brush to the side of the road, and he stood up straight, staring at the sound. If some scavenger or predator was stalking him and the horse, his best hope was to dissuade it by looking threatening. He wished his “notable distinctions” could be activated, but he just had to trust that they were always passively working. He had the Mark of the Predator; hopefully, it would intimidate whatever was out there.
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Either the rustling wasn’t a predator, or his posturing did the trick; Andy reached the base of the mesa without incident. “Okay, buddy, are you gonna be okay going up this trail?” The trail was wide enough, but he didn’t know enough about horses to know if it was too much to ask. Still, he started up, tugging on the horse’s lead, and it kept walking, though he thought he detected a little hesitation at first. By the time they rounded the first switchback, though, the horse was walking up the trail as though it was perfectly natural.
Andy looked at his arm, wincing. The burns looked terrible. He could see red, raw flesh in the holes, and some were already beginning to fill with oozing pus. The pain was a haze pressing down on him, and he was struggling to form complete thoughts. “Come on,” he grunted. “You’re almost there, and you have nine damn vitality!” That had to count for something, he hoped.
He still had Lucy’s healing compress on his chest, and the idea of her putting something similar on all of his burns was both comforting and mortifying. He had to have three dozen burns. Yes, he wanted the relief, but no, he didn’t want to make her spend the whole morning hunting down aloe or prickly pear—besides, she was sleeping.
He rounded the final turn and climbed the last rise, laying eyes on the gate. It took him a moment to realize the white-haired man standing there was Mr. Howell, the patriarch of the family with the cambions. Andy waved listlessly, lifting the horse’s lead and then letting it fall.
“That you, Andy? I was about to raise the alarm! You found a horse?”
Andy didn’t respond right away; he didn’t have the energy to yell. He walked the rest of the way from the trail to the gate, then he said, “Found it out in the desert. I think it needs some attention.”
“Damn, Andy! I think you do, too! Is that blood?”
“I got sprayed with acid or something like it.” Andy walked through the gate, pushing the horse’s lead toward Howell. “Can you see if one of the healers has something for these burns? Some salve, maybe?” He walked over to a lawn chair Bernice had set near the gate for whoever was on duty and collapsed into it with a wince and a heavy sigh. “I’ll watch the gate.”
“Just a minute, Andy!” Paul took the horse and started down the lane, calling for his son, “Jace!”
Andy lost track of him as other people walked nearby, and he heard snippets of conversation. People were talking about all manner of things—washing clothes, cooking, monsters, and even the war and the System. It was almost fascinating how the coming of the System had changed social dynamics so suddenly and so thoroughly. Most of the people he saw walking by would have been shut in their trailers, scrolling on their phones a few days ago. Well, that or they’d have been at work or school, he supposed.
“Andy?” a familiar voice asked. He turned to see Bea, the grandmotherly Water Witch. Paul Howell was just behind her, looking concerned as he hooked his thumb in his leather belt and leaned on his walking staff.
“Hey, Bea. I got myself a little messed up, I guess.” Andy felt almost like he’d just gone to the dentist. His tongue was fat and swollen, and everything seemed a little off. Colors were too washed out, and he swore he smelled something sweet in the air. His ears were ringing, and when Bea said something more and leaned close, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead, he couldn’t make out the words.
He blinked his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear whatever was blocking his hearing, but the movement sent the world spinning, and suddenly it felt like he was falling into a deep hole. He felt hot gravel under his shirt and on his neck, and when he put his arms down, the warm stones felt briefly good against he wounds on his flesh, but then they started to sting. He lifted them, blinking at the sun, wondering where the hole had gone.
“Lie still now, Andy,” Bea was saying, and then he felt something wonderfully cool and soothing on his arm and the back of his hand. With that sensation came a bit of mental clarity, and he realized he was lying on his back on the gravel beside the trailer park’s central lane. Paul was standing nearby, and Bea was leaning over him, drizzling something from a green-tinted glass bottle onto his arms. “I bet that feels good, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice soft and full of patience.
“Um,” Andy licked his lips. “Yeah.”
The cool, soothing sensation hit his left thigh. “You’re lucky I spent the morning putting my spells on some more healing water. It removes toxins and accelerates healing. I think it was the poison that was making you feel so bad, though.”
She wasn’t wrong. Andy’s senses were recovering rapidly as she drizzled the water over his wounds. She’d already covered one leg and was moving to the other. “Dang, Bea. That’s some great magic. You made that this morning? You’ve been busy…” He trailed off, groaning with relief as the cool liquid calmed the fiery pain in his right knee.
“Always been an early riser. Doesn’t matter how late I stay up. I don’t think I slept more than an hour, to be honest, and I knew better than to lie there tossing and turning. No, I got me up, filled up some bottles from the spring, and started laying out my blessings.”
“Blessings?”
“That’s what my spells are called. Well, the ones that do nice things. The other kind are called curses.”
Andy pushed himself to a sitting position, feeling much better already. To his mortification, he realized a dozen people had gathered around. Blinking against the glare of the sun, he looked at Bea again. She didn’t look as old as he remembered. She had white hair, though, and plenty of wrinkles in her weathered skin. “What level are you, Bea?”
Her brown eyes shone, and they crinkled at the corners as she smiled, shaking her head. “Just reached level nine last night, Andy. Why?”
“I’m just impressed, that’s all. Thank you, by the way. I feel much better.”
Her smile spread, showing him white teeth with three silver caps. “I bet you do! That was my newest blessing!”
“Well, it’s amazing.”
She straightened, stretching her back with a groan, and Paul hurried over, offering Andy a hand. “Come on, Andy. Let’s get you on your feet.”
Andy took his hand, stood, and, feeling the weight of so much attention, turned to regard all the faces peering his way. Someone in the back of the crowd asked, “Are you good, Andy?”
He smiled, shrugging as he examined his arms—the wounds were all scabbed over, and he could even see some pink new flesh around the edges. “I’m all right, everyone. I got in a fight with a guy who sprayed acid on me.” He glanced at Bea. She smiled slightly, looking into the blue sky, as she turned her wrists left and right, like she was listening to a rhythm only she could hear. “I think it was poison, too. Bea fixed me up, though.” Andy clapped his hands lightly, his smile widening as the rest of the crowd joined in, clapping and cheering. “Thank you, Bea!”
“Oh, Andy!” Bea laughed, turning her face toward the front gate to hide a blush.
Andy let her off the hook, turning back to the crowd. “Okay, everyone. Gimme a few minutes to change my clothes and stuff. We’ll have a meeting at the dog park in a couple of hours.” He stooped to pick up his spears and the saddlebag, and then he started walking. Nobody objected.