TravelingDreamer
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B6—Chapter 11: Third Traveler Saved—Yep, It’s a Pattern Now
🕑 Added 2025-03-30 14:18:23 +0000 UTC“So, do you know why they grabbed you?” I asked Mahya telepathically once I stopped calling her various damsels in distress.
“No clue. I arrived at the information broker and saw the bots. Next thing I know, I’m waking up with you there. I didn’t even feel a prick or anything. I have no idea how they drugged me.”
Her tone was more annoyed than scared, but underneath, something jittered, like she was still trying to make sense of it.
"You didn't feel any danger from your Perception?"
"This whole place makes me feel weird. Even while circling mana, it sucks it out of me and gives me the shivers. I might have felt something, but it got lost in the noise," she said in a subdued tone.
“I suggest we go grab Al and Rue and cross over to Zindor. This place is too dangerous.”
“I thought your gut told you to check the marker.”
“It did, and I will. But first, I want all of us safe and Rue free to move. Then I’ll check it out.”
“I’m not letting you go alone," she said, and I could practically hear her scowling.
“Don’t forget who rescued who.”
She sighed, loud enough that it echoed across the corridor. “That’s why I won’t let you go alone. Together, we have a better chance.”
I paused, weighing her words. “Yeah, okay. I see your point. Still, I want us to cross over first.”
She didn’t say anything. I took it as an agreement.
Al wasn’t in the café. We hurried to the room, only to find the door wide open. My house still sat unfolded against the wall, with Rue and Al inside.
Al looked rough. Most of his clothes were singed, with scorched patches covering his jacket and sleeves. Rue paced anxiously around him, snuffling at his side and nosing his arm. When that didn’t get a reaction, he tried licking Al’s cheek. Al flinched and turned his head away, clearly not in the mood for doggy kisses.
We dropped our invisibility. I moved in fast, checking him with a quick Diagnose. Lingering damage clung to some of the tissue—deep bruising, burns, minor tears—but nothing life-threatening. As I watched, a few of the worst spots repaired themselves.
Al caught my wrist mid-check. “I am fine. I drank potions. Let them do their job, and I will let you know if I need more healing.”
“What happened?” Mahya asked.
“I saw robots heading toward this room, so I followed them. They opened the door. I used the lightning spell to disable them and stored them.”
A noise outside made me stiffen. Quick footsteps—metal on stone. I slipped to the entrance and glanced out.
Five white bots. They didn’t last long. I pulled them into Storage and shut the door.
Back inside, I clapped to get their attention. “Everybody, turn invisible, engage Stealth, and we’re getting out of here. I’m sure my house would love to munch on another round of bots, but I don’t feel like sticking around for it.”
This time, Zindor had a heat wave with high humidity and still air. The ground was still a bit soft from the rain, but all that water had risen into the air and turned it into soup. Breathing was hard. All these wild shifts in weather were driving my body crazy. If I kept bouncing between the poles, heat waves, temperate climates, and sudden downpours, I was pretty sure my body would eventually file a formal complaint, probably demanding compensation and a permanent vacation.
We spent a full day in Zindor. Rue took off the moment we arrived, bounding into the surrounding forest with his tongue lolling and tail wagging like a banner. It didn’t take long before he stirred up a few clusters of snakes—because, of course, those scaly jerks were everywhere. His offended yelps and dramatic pouncing echoed through the trees while I kept an eye on him in case he needed help. He didn’t.
The next morning, we were getting ready to head toward the Gate when Rue made his displeasure known.
He blocked my path with his whole body, planting his feet like a living wall. “Rue go with John. Rue protect John. Rue is bestest protector and very dangerous. Rue can protect John the bestest.” His ears were up, tail stiff, eyes locked on me with full heroic determination.
I scratched behind his ear, right in the spot that always made his back leg twitch. “I know, buddy. But that place is different. It’ll be easier for us to navigate the corridors and return quickly.”
He shook his head with enough force to send his ears flapping. “NO! Rue need protect John. Rue can fly fast and not be in danger.”
His tone was edging toward desperate now, but I shook my head. “You won’t be able to fly. That place drains mana like a sponge. You’ll burn out fast.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight hug. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Just remember, the time skip is on this side. It’ll feel longer here than for us. Don’t freak out if we don’t come back right away.”
Rue leaned into me, his head settling heavily on my shoulder. A soft snuffle of breath warmed my neck as he said, “Rue not like John go alone. John always say we are team. Team protect.”
He was still stubborn, but the tension in his shoulders told me he was starting to accept it. Reluctantly.
I just held him close, ruffling his thick fur until he finally let out a long sigh and gave my cheek a big, wet lick. He still shot me a betrayed stink eye, full of wounded pride, but at least he stopped arguing.
When we reached the elevator that led to the floor with the marker, it was immediately clear we’d run into the same issue I’d had with the trams. It was another giant sphere—transparent like glass but made of metal—only this one was even bigger, maybe thirty meters across. The problem? It was standing-room only and already packed to capacity. We hung back at the edge of the crowd, careful to stay on the periphery so no one accidentally bumped into us and blew our cover. By the time it came back up, even more people had gathered. As soon as the doors opened, they all surged forward and packed themselves in like sardines.
“Grab me,” I sent to both of them.
They didn’t argue. Each one grabbed a shoulder, and I wrapped my arms around their waists. We shot through the opening just before it closed, gliding up under the ceiling.
“Hold tight and get ready,” I warned.
“For what?” Mahya asked.
Right then, the sphere dropped like a rock, and we slammed into the ceiling with a satisfying splat. Al let out a squeaky grunt, more out of surprise than pain, and a few people below glanced up, puzzled.
“Shh!” I hissed, barely holding back a laugh.
The stop was so abrupt I nearly crashed into the people below, but managed to keep us airborne. When it dropped again, Al stayed silent, though he was still stiff as a board. On the next stop—our stop—I was ready, and it went a little better. Well, almost. I waited for the crowd to finish disembarking and nearly missed our chance. The doors started closing, and I had to shoot out fast. But hey, all's well that ends well. We made it out, and the doors didn’t squish us. Barely.
A couple of corridors from the marker, I felt the Traveler. Something about them felt off, muted, like their presence had been dampened. Mahya and Al stayed quiet.
“You feel them?” I asked.
“Who?” they both replied.
“The Traveler.”
“No,” Al said.
“Not yet,” Mahya added.
After another corridor, both of them felt the Traveler.
“They feel strange,” Mahya commented.
I hummed in agreement, uneasy.
We stopped in front of a large, locked metal door. One of them gave it a knock. Nothing.
A nudge came from the system. It wasn’t life-or-death urgent, but firm and insistent.
“We need to open it,” I said.
“It would be rude,” Al said.
“No. Something’s wrong. We need to open it. Trust me on this one.”
“It’s locked or barred from the inside,” Mahya said. “Mana didn’t do anything.”
“Are you sure?” Al asked. “I feel uncomfortable breaking into a Traveler’s domain.”
“Positive,” I said. “We need to get through somehow.”
I studied the door, running through options in my head, when Mahya spoke again. “I fried the hall camera. Do whatever you need.”
I pulled out a sword, coated the edge in mana, and got to work. The metal was thick, and it took time, but eventually, I cut a hole wide enough for us to pass through if we stooped.
Inside, it looked like a workshop. Tools lay scattered across worktables, some neatly arranged, others abandoned mid-use. Strange, unrecognizable devices cluttered the room: half-finished constructs, exposed wires, and closed screens.
At the back, a heavy door blocked the way forward. Locked, of course. I didn’t waste time. Another round with the sword, edge coated in mana, and the door gave way with a reluctant groan.
Beyond it, the space opened into a set of modest living quarters. A small living room sat in the middle, simple but functional, with two doors on opposite sides. I turned left, following the pull, the familiar feeling of a Traveler.
Inside the room, a man lay on the bed, eyes shut, limbs still. He had lightly tanned skin and tousled brown hair. He looked thin, almost hollowed out, his skin a dull gray under the brown. There was no sign of injury, no bruises or blood. Just stillness. I rushed to his side and cast Diagnose. His body… it wasn’t just weak—it was a husk. Not from lack of food or water, but from something deeper. Mana. It was like the spark of life had been drained from him.
I gently pulled back one of his eyelids. His pupil was black—completely black. No iris, no color, just void. I’d seen this before.
Mahya’s eyes looked like this when I saved her.
His body was completely empty. No mana flowed through him. No energy. Nothing. He’d been drained to the point where his essential functions had shut down.
I cast Five Healing Touch in succession. His body twitched—just a slight jerk—but his eyes stayed shut. I continued to cast and monitor his condition.
Minutes dragged by. My mana ticked lower, the drain slow but steady. After more than half an hour, with my reserves dipping below two thousand, his eyes finally fluttered open.
They still lacked that signature Traveler glow, but the color was there now—blue. Not Mahya’s bright hue, but a darker shade, deep and muted. I exhaled, the tension in my chest easing. He was stabilizing.
His gaze moved slowly between the three of us, still hazy, as he tried to make sense of the scene. He shifted, trying to sit up, and I stepped in to help, supporting him under the arms as he struggled upright.
“How did you survive it?” were the first words out of his mouth.
We stared at him blankly.
“Survive what?” Mahya asked, frowning.
“Nami.”
Mahya stiffened like she’d been struck. Her face lost color, and an icy shiver seemed to ripple through her entire body.
I turned toward her. “Why the reaction?”
Her voice came out quieter than usual, almost hollow. “There’s a Gate to Nami here?”
The Traveler nodded slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. “It’s the only Gate that leads here. If you didn’t come from Nami… then where did you come from?”
“Zindor,” Al said, his tone cautious.
“What’s Nami?” I asked.
Mahya’s breath hitched. Her arms had crossed over her chest, and she was rubbing her upper arms as if she were cold. A visible tremor ran through her.
“The most horrible place in the cosmos,” she said softly.
“That bad?” I asked.
Both she and the Traveler nodded in grim unison.
“It’s not just very high mana,” she said. Her voice was tight and strained, as if she were forcing the words out through a clenched throat. “It’s… wrong. The entire world is like a broken mirror of a shattered reality. Floating fragments of land just drifting in the void. Sometimes they rotate, sometimes they crash into each other, sometimes they vanish. And the worst part? It all shifts. Constantly. Without warning.”
She looked at me, her eyes distant now. Haunted.
“One second, you’re standing on solid ground; the next, it’s gone. The chunk disappears and becomes void. New pieces emerge like someone is rolling dice.” She paused, pressing a hand to her chest. “And the mana there? It’s so dense you can’t breathe right. Your lungs fight for every breath, like trying to inhale soup. Your whole body tingles, almost burns, like it’s stuck between casting a spell and being cast as one.”
“And if the ground disappears… it’s not just a drop. You don’t fall—you shift. You end up somewhere else entirely. A completely different place on the Map. No transition, no warning. Just blink, and the world’s different.”
“No people. No animals. But something’s there. You feel it. Watching. Moving. I don’t know if they’re hostile, but they’re… present. Like the shadows themselves are breathing.”
She swallowed hard, then continued, her words tumbling out faster, raw now.
“And nothing stays what it is. Plants turn into creatures and lunge at you, then melt into rocks. Those rocks grow roots and strangle you, then sprout wings and flap away. The ground yawns open with rows of teeth, then liquefies into a river, then cracks into dust that spouts lava. Fire rains up from the sky. Lightning bolts loop in circles and chase each other like predators. I saw a tree burst into flame, turn to glass, shatter, then grow itself backward from the shards.”
“You can’t trust anything. Your senses lie to you. Up becomes down, and then disappears. The terrain morphs while you’re walking on it. You try to anchor your thoughts, but the mana... the mana hums through your bones and eats at your clarity. It feels alive. Hungry.”
She clenched her hands into fists, still trembling. “I saw the Gate. I almost made it. Twice. But it blinked out, like it had never existed, and the whole fragment collapsed. I lived minute to minute, thinking I’d die the next.”
No one spoke for a while. The silence heavy.
Nami sounded like a nightmare born from a fever dream and too much mana.
Al cleared his throat. “Why did you go there?”
Both the Traveler and Mahya started speaking at the same time. She caught herself and gave him a small nod, letting him go first.
He rubbed a hand down his face and shuddered. “Too much confidence and way too little common sense.”
Mahya gave a tired chuckle and nodded. “In my case, it was boredom. And definitely not enough common sense.”
Al straightened and gave a shallow bow. “I am Alfonsen Holerand Mirbit the Seventh. Alchemist, warrior, and mage.”
Mahya shook her head, like trying to fling off lingering memories. “I am Mahya, Mahya Num. Bladesinger, Wood Artisan, and Magicaneer.”
This ritual always felt a little weird to me, but when in Rome... I gave a half-bow. “John Rue. Healer, Bard, and Wizard.”
Mahya kicked my leg.
“What?”
“You forgot something.”
“Oh—right. And merchant.”
The Traveler shifted, trying to sit up straighter, but I placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re fine. Take it easy.”
He gave me a strange look, then nodded. “I am Malith Drex Var. Stone Mage, Enchanter, Pathfinder, and Theorist of Threads.”
“What is a Theorist of Threads?” Al asked, beating me to the question by a second.
Malith gave a faint smile. “A Theorist of Threads is a class focused on the observation, analysis, and—on rare occasions—manipulation of the social, historical, and metaphysical threads that bind civilizations together.”
Mahya raised an eyebrow. Al frowned. I stared at him.
Malith continued, his eyes now distant. "We study the intangible structures that underpin societal formation—power, belief systems, inherited trauma, and the rituals that hold meaning across generations. We track the echoes of forgotten decisions and how they ripple through time to shape current behavior. There are always traces, hidden in old texts and ruins, if you know where to look.”
He glanced at us, perhaps checking to see if we were still following. I was. Barely.
“Our magic isn’t flashy. It’s accumulative. Predictive. Sometimes persuasive. Given enough data, we can forecast cultural collapse. Or trigger unity in fractured groups by amplifying dormant shared beliefs.”
He gave a weak shrug. “We pull on threads. Not to unravel the fabric, but to see what moves when we do.”
“Sounds fascinating,” I said.
He smiled faintly. “It is. I’ve always been fascinated by societal structures, especially on worlds with wildly diverse cultures that don’t seem to share a common thread, even when they should. That curiosity is what led me to the class.”
His eyes were losing their color, fading from deep blue to something duller, washed out. The color drained from his face, too, leaving his skin pale and almost gray.
“How do you feel?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Deteriorating again,” he muttered, voice thin.
“We need to get you to the Gate,” I said, moving closer. “You need to regenerate—fully and fast.”
He stiffened, then curled in on himself, arms wrapped tightly around his chest. A tremble started in his shoulders and spread. He shook his head, at first small, then growing more frantic. “No. No. No. I’m not going back there.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder and cast Healing Touch again. Once. Twice. Feeding him mana. “Relax. We’re not taking you to Nami. Remember, we came from Zindor. There’s another Gate here.”
He stared at us. “It wasn’t there before.”
“Probably because no one used it before us. But how come you didn’t feel it?” Mahya asked.
“Where is it?”
“Three floors up,” I said.
He winced. “I don’t go there if I can help it. It’s the cyborg production facility. My ID’s conjured, so I didn’t want to risk being flagged.”
“But the Gate is there,” Al said, frowning.
“Yes, but it wasn’t on the Map before. How was I supposed to know?” Malith snapped, glaring at him.
I patted his shoulder gently. “Relax. Don’t get overexcited—you’re not there yet. We need to get you to the Gate fast. Do you have enough mana to use invisibility?”
He shook his head slowly and apologetically.
I let out a sigh.
“It’s not a problem,” Mahya said. “We can go visible. It’s not like there were guards around the Gate or anything.”
“And if they recognize you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ll stay invisible,” she said with a shrug. “You walk around me so no one bumps into me.”
“On the elevator?” Al asked, giving her a long, skeptical look.
She hummed thoughtfully. “Okay, new plan—you and Malith stay visible. John will fly me while we’re invisible.”
Malith’s eyes snapped to me, his eyebrows practically trying to escape his forehead. “Fly?”
I nodded.
“Elemental Wizard?”
Another nod.
He sighed. “I am so envious at this moment.”
Mahya laughed. “Yeah, wizards are great. Crazy and weird at times, but great.”
Mahya’s plan worked, and we successfully escorted Malith through the Gate to Zindor without incident. We couldn’t speak to him—he didn’t have the Telepathy skill—and chatting among ourselves felt rude, so the trek was quiet. When we finally crossed over, he dropped to his knees and wept.
The system sent me a wave of approval. Once again, I got that same feeling. As if someone was patting my head and telling me I was a good boy. This time, I managed not to snicker.
Comments
Angela Roberts
John is related to those who run the system, has to be.
