The others fetched out bronze spirit coins while Jason sipped at his water, laying back on the warm rock.
“You don’t need water?” Jason asked Gary. The enormous leonid was covered in fur, which can’t have been pleasant in the desert heat.
“Gary’s people require a lot more exertion than the rest of us to get tired,” Rufus said. “Another one of his racial gifts.”
“Also, when you have a full set of essences, you don’t need to eat or drink anymore,” Gary said. “You can, of course, but it’s just for pleasure.”
“To actually sustain ourselves,” Rufus said, “we need a concentrated source of raw magic.”
He held up the spirit coin he was holding.
“There are various ways to get it,” he continued, “but spirit coins are the easiest, by far.”
“You’re lucky I even had that water,” Farrah said, “because we don’t need it. I just like to be prepared.”
“If you’re using coins,” Jason said, “what about the after-effects? Using those coins knocked it right out of me.”
Rufus popped the spirit coin into his mouth.
“It’s about not going over your limit,” Rufus said. “We’re bronze-rank adventurers, so a bronze coin will sustain us without stressing our bodies.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Jason said.
“What, bronze rank?” Gary asked.
“Also, adventurer,” Jason said. “Is that where you guys hang around in a tavern until someone hires you to kill forty gnolls in a dungeon?”
“What’s a gnoll?” Gary asked.
“And why would there be forty of them in a dungeon?” Farrah added. “Is gnoll a kind of criminal?”
“There’s an organisation,” Rufus said, forestalling more unhelpful questions. “It’s called the Adventure Society. They give out jobs to people like us, mostly to deal with monsters that are threatening towns, villages or whatever.”
“But sometimes to investigate a cult full of bloodthirsty cannibals,” Gary added.
“As for bronze rank,” Rufus said, “that’s related to your essence powers. Once you have all four essences, you become iron rank, and you can work your way up from there. Bronze is one rank above iron, but you can worry about that later. Reaching iron rank will fundamentally change you. Make you powerful.”
“Not that powerful,” Farrah said. “Not straight away. But you become partially resistant to attacks that don’t have any magic behind them. You live on magic instead of food and water.”
“But my world doesn’t have any magic,” Jason said. “Doesn’t that mean if I became iron rank or whatever and then go back to my home, I’d eventually run out of coins and starve?”
“You can get by on food and water,” Farrah said. “It just takes more of it, depending on how powerful you are. Some foods are better than others. Meat, sugar, anything with magical ingredients, obviously.”
Jason was relieved. He could handle living on protein bars and cake. Would he be immune to getting fat?
“We owe you for getting us out of that mess,” Rufus said. “We’ll help you find a full set of essences.”
“Well, I do have a couple of extras,” Jason said. “On top of the one I used, already.”
“Where did you get those?” Gary asked. “I thought you only arrived in this world today.”
“I did,” Jason said. “I just kind of… came across them.”
Rufus raised a sceptical eyebrow.
“You just came across them?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “You know, here and there.”
“I can do an essence ritual for you,” Farrah said. “Not before we find Anisa, of course. Who did the ritual for your first essence?”
Farrah’s suggestion prompted some of the ritual magic knowledge in Jason’s mind the skill book had put there. Remembering something he never learned in the first place was an odd sensation, like déjà vu. The new knowledge in his head told him that an essence ritual was required for a person to absorb an essence. Except, he knew from experience that wasn’t always true.
“I didn’t actually use a ritual,” Jason said. “I just kind of absorbed it. I think it was part of the same power that lets me speak all the languages.”
“What was that like?” Gary asked. “Just straight-up absorbing it?”
“Strenuous,” Jason said. “I passed out.”
“Can I watch when you do the next one?” Farrah asked. She was looking at Jason like a scientist at a lab rat.
“It wouldn’t hurt to have someone watching out for you,” Rufus said. “We at least owe you that much.”
“I haven’t even decided what I want to do,” Jason said. “I’ve been too busy trying to not die.”
“What’s to think about?” Gary asked. “Who doesn’t want power?”
“Hey look,” Farrah said, pointing out ahead of them. “I can see it.”
As they crested a rise they could see, in the distance, a strange patch of green in the middle of the desert.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” Rufus said.
“I don’t think I can,” Jason said. Under the harsh desert sun, he was sweating buckets, his skin tingling with the promise of sunburn.
“Farrah, get him another bottle of water,” Rufus said. “Gary, are you alright to carry him?”
“Wait, carry me?” Jason said. “That doesn’t sound very dignified.”
The others turned to look at him and he looked down at himself. The filthy skin and clothes; the stains from blood, muck and sweat. The ridiculous shirt. Then there was the smell that all the sweating had turned from bad to egregious.
“Never mind,” he said.
16
Rescue Party
Rufus, Farrah and Gary raced across the desert, feet pounding into the dry earth. Rufus had told Jason they would be running at a sustainable pace. Their unflagging momentum confirmed his words, but they were moving at a pace that, in Jason’s world, would be the equal of world-class sprinters.
Jason had little time to think about such things as they stormed over the rough ground at ten metres a second. He was draped over Gary’s back like a cloak, legs flailing as he desperately clenched his arms around the tree trunk Gary used as a neck. Any concerns over dignity quickly went out the window. His only objective became not getting thrown off.
The edge of the estate grounds was startlingly apparent; a green line of grass and trees cut across the barren browns and yellows of the desert. Like stepping into a different world, a single step took them from scorched air and unyielding earth to cool grass and a welcoming breeze.
They slowed down and stopped just across the line. Rufus and Farrah crouched, hands on knees, panting heavily while Jason poured off Gary’s back to form a puddle on the ground. He groaned miserably as Gary looked down at him.
“You’ve built up quite a sweat for a guy who didn’t do any running,” Gary chuckled. Despite all his fur, body mass and having carried Jason, he wasn’t even breathing heavily like Rufus and Farrah. He looked as comfortable as if he’d been lounging at a pool, rather than sprinting through the desert. Jason, sweating enough for both of them, raised his head to retort.
“Brshrglkrk.”
He didn’t care that his mouth was too dry for vowels, only regretting the energy he had expended to lift his head. He was happy to let it drop back onto the soft grass.
Farrah once again pulled her magic chest out of the ground. Retrieving a handful of potion vials, she handed one each to Rufus and Gary.
“Stamina potions,” she said.
“I’m fine,” Gary said. Rufus knocked his back without hesitation.
“I think he needs one more than any of us,” Farrah said, looking at Jason. “Too bad, really.”
“He has water,” Rufus said.
Jason pushed his unwilling body into a sitting position and pulled a bottle from his inventory. He started chugging it thirstily.
“Life is hard, outworlder,” Rufus said without sympathy. “And you, my friend, are soft. If you want to get by in this world, you’ll need to toughen up.”