“This feels amazing!”
The others also got to their feet.
“I feel like I need to go climb a mountain or something,” Jason said. He was too caught up in the sensation of power surging through him to notice the others giving him sympathetic looks.
“Yeah, well,” Gary said, “just give it a moment.”
“What for?” Jason asked. “Why are you all backing away?”
The light started to diminish, drawing back inside Jason’s body. As it did, he experienced a rising nausea, the sensation growing and growing as he resisted the urge to throw up. But he failed. He collapsed to his hands and knees, vomit spraying out of him. Red-brown pus started oozing from his pores, staining his clothes and coating his skin in oily filth. He kept vomiting and vomiting, bloody tears pouring from his eyes.
Finally, he fell unconscious, dropping into a pool of his own body fluids. A terrifying stench was coming off of him and the others backed even further away. Even in unconsciousness, pus and vomit fought their way free of his body. The others looked on until it finally subsided.
“That was a lot,” Gary said.
“I’ve done a lot of essence rituals,” Farrah said, “but I’ve never seen anyone purge that many impurities before.”
“What do you think he’s been eating?” Gary asked.
“He’s from another world, so there’s no telling,” Farrah said.
“Do you think we should have told him about this part?” Rufus asked.
“Not at all,” Gary said. “Did you see the look on his face? Completely worth it.”
“I kind of feel bad, though,” Rufus said.
“It isn’t like it would have been any different if he knew,” Farrah said. “We all went through it.”
“And he’s an outworlder,” Gary said. “He didn’t absorb his essences the same way we did. We couldn’t be sure this would happen.”
“Probably should have told him to strip down first, though,” Farrah said. “There’ll be no getting the stink out of those clothes.”
“Gary,” Rufus said, “at least go drag him out of his own filth.”
“You can do it, if you want,” Gary said. “I’m not going over there.”
“Farrah?” Rufus asked, but she shook her head.
“If you’re so concerned,” Farrah said, “then you go move him.”
Rufus looked over at Jason, splayed out in the stinking puddle.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
22
Apocalypse Stone
“I need a shower,” Jason said.
“You just had a shower,” Rufus said.
“I need another shower. The stink won’t go away.”
“Oh, we’re aware,” Farrah said.
After waking up Jason had been fed a stamina potion and pointed in the direction of one of the manor’s bathrooms. After washing away the gunk that had oozed out of the very pores of his skin, he had changed into fresh clothes.
“What was that stuff all over me?” Jason asked.
“We told you,” Farrah said. “Reaching iron rank made your body advance closer to a state of perfection, which included purging your body of impurities.”
“There is no way I was that impure.”
“It did seem like a lot,” Gary said, wrinkling his nose. “Maybe he should have another shower.”
“He still has awakening stones to use,” Rufus said, “and I want us out of here and on the trail by noon.”
Jason frowned as Rufus took out a pocket watch.
“You have noon in this world?”
They explained timekeeping in their world to Jason as they went back outside. To his surprise, it seemed exactly the same as in his own. He couldn’t be sure how close their hours, minutes and seconds hewed to the ones he knew without a clock from his own world, but they were at least close.
“It’s weird they’re the same,” Gary said.
“Suspiciously weird,” Jason said.
“What about the calendar?” Jason asked. “Is that the same too?”
The local calendar, as it turned out, was similar, but not the same. although not as close as the time. There were twelve months of thirty days, divided up into early, mid and late stages of each season. There were five additional days that didn’t count as days of the month for the solstices, the equinoxes and the new year, which was at the beginning of spring.
“It still seems strange that we keep time the exact same way across two worlds,” Jason said.
“Well, maybe someone from your world came here,” Gary said, “saw how we do it and took it back to yours.”
“Or someone brought our system here,” Jason said.
“Nah, that doesn’t sound right,” Gary said.
“Are you saying your world’s better than mine?” Jason asked.
“We have magic,” Gary said.
“We have internet porn,” Jason said.
“Will you two please stop?” Rufus asked. “Gary, go check on Anisa. Tell her she needs to finish up in the next couple of hours.”
Rufus, Farrah and Jason went back outside, the others giving Jason and his lingering smell some distance.
“Did something happen to you?” Jason asked the others.
“Like what?” Rufus asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jason said. “I’m getting a weird vibe from the two of you. From Gary as well. It feels… I’m not sure how to describe it. Dangerous, maybe?”
Rufus laughed.
“That feeling is our auras,” Rufus said. “Now that you’re iron rank, you can sense them. We’re both bronze rank, and not that far off silver, so we’re a lot more powerful than you. That’s the danger you’re sensing. You’ll soon learn to differentiate strength, and tell a monster from an essence user from a regular person.”
“So, it’s like a warning,” Jason said.
“Yes,” Farrah said, “but it isn’t completely reliable. Some monsters can hide their auras. People can too, if they have an aura power.”
They arrived back on the lawn outside, staying upwind of where all the Jason goo still lay in a puddle.
“You’ve already used an awakening stone, right?” Rufus asked. “Was it much different to using an essence?”
“It was easier,” Jason said. “You need a ritual for those as well, right?”
“You do,” Farrah said. “Well, not you, apparently, but everyone else. How many stones do you have?”
“Six,” Jason said.
“Good thing you can just use them, then,” Rufus said. “Going through a half-dozen rituals would take hours.”
“Wouldn’t be that bad,” Farrah said. “I’ve done a bunch of them, so I can knock them out fast.”
They sat down on the soft grass and Jason took out his awakening stones, laying them out in a row.
“They were using these as part of the sacrifice ritual?” Jason asked.
“Sometimes awakening stones get used as part of very powerful rituals,” Farrah explained. “Even essences, sometimes.”
“They did make an apocalypse monster,” Rufus said.
“Could that thing have really wiped out the world?” Jason said. “Not to say it wasn’t scary, but it didn’t seem up to the task of global annihilation.”
“They would have had to feed it for a long time before it became a genuine threat,” Farrah said. “They probably intended to keep it somewhere isolated and supply it with a steady stream of victims. Killing it as soon as it emerged was like smashing an egg before it could hatch into a dangerous animal.”
“Even if we hadn’t,” Rufus said, “there are people far stronger than us that could deal with it. Even if it became truly powerful, there are diamond rank adventurers out there.”
“Is that the highest rank?” Jason asked.
“It is,” Rufus said, “but you don’t see them very often.”
“Or at all, if you’re most people,” Farrah said. “I’ve only met one because of Mr Fancy Britches, here.”
“I don’t wear britches,” Rufus said.