Buttopia
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Chapter 51: Heroes
🕑 Added 2024-12-17 03:08:32 +0000 UTC“Come on, none of ya are allowed to die in here, ya hear me!” I did, in fact, still hear Mel. The pain had made things a bit hazy, and I had killed all of my own healing just to keep Elicec functioning, but Mel’s voice somehow cut through it all. I heard the man loud and clear.
“Mel, I really hope you’ve got something for Elicec,” I coughed out the words and saw more blood in my hand. My lungs needed desperately needed some healing of their own.
“I don’t, but yer in luck the folks here have decided all three of ya are heroes and brought down some of their own elixirs, so go ahead and stop using yer mana to on Elicec. We’ve got that for now. Focus on yerself until they can get to you. You aren’t in much better shape, but I don’t think yer about to die on us,” Mel ordered. Easy for him to say, did he even have lungs? What kind of internal organs didn’t a cloud man have anyway? Was he a cloud man? I couldn’t even remember if I knew what species Mel was. That had to be a pretty bad sign for my health.
“You know, I hadn’t broken any ribs, let alone punctured my lungs, before I met you, Mel,” I said, turning the healing toward myself and feeling my lungs inflate properly.
“Stop whining. Yer gonna get a lot more bruised and battered before long. One day, yer gonna look back at this with nostalgia, I can promise that. Good friends, hard-fought battle that you won with no casualties, it ain’t always gonna be that way, Dave. Trust me,” Mel said, floating over to where I was slumped over.
“Yeah, but I bet my healing magic works a bit faster by that point,” I said, trying to deflect from the harsh reality of Mel’s words.
“Don’t always count on that working. Just cause yer a special case doesn’t mean there ain’t a lot more special cases out there waiting to test just what you can do. Assuming yer ass manages to live long enough, shit’s gonna come knocking one day,” Mel said, seemingly determined to reignite my anxiety.
“Any chance we can save this, whatever the opposite of a pep talk is for when I don’t feel like death?” I asked. What was the opposite? Harsh realism talk? Come to Jesus moment? I wasn’t sure.
“No, we can’t. This is yer first real brush with something more dangerous than you understand just yet, and it’s only gonna get worse from here. So I need ya to tell me that you understand just how serious this is because right now, I’ve got some real dumb ideas kicking around my brain, and I ain’t willing to follow through with any of them unless I’m sure you get this won’t end anytime soon,” Mel explained. I knew what he was trying to get at. Even if, no, when I saved Earth, everything was just going to get harder from there. There was no turning the clock back on first contact, let alone the destruction that had happened across the planet.
“I get it, Mel. I may try to avoid thinking about it, but no, I get it. My reality is never going back to what it was. There isn’t actually a when this is all over unless I’m actually dead, and considering souls are real and magic exists, I guess I don’t even know that’s permanent anymore,” I said, coughing up the blood left in my lungs from the stress of that much speaking. On the upside, breathing was easier again.
“Good. In the future, there’s gonna be some big moments where you need to trust me. I don’t know what they are yet or when they’ll be, but I got some cogs turning in my brain,” Mel said. I wanted to know what he was planning, but he didn’t seem ready to share any of it yet. What the hell was the man planning with my future?
Woah woah, I calmed my brain down. The surge of rage that had accompanied that last question had been intense. Where had that come from? So far, Mel has done far more for us than he ever had to. I trust the man. I reached up and put a hand to my head, and it came back covered in blood. Ah, a head wound. That explains the difficulty keeping my mind focused and probably even the weird anger. I felt Mel tip something into my mouth, and I instinctively swallowed.
“What was that?” I asked, realizing the answer before he responded; my mana pool was refilling itself. How hard were those potions to get ahold of?
“Mana restoration elixir, gift of the mayor, insanely valuable. Then again, we may have just saved their entire race, so ya probably earned it. Kick your healing into high gear, and let’s go check on Elicec and Timon,” Mel said, his earlier glare entirely gone. He even reached out a hand to help me up. Whatever the burden on his mind had seemingly to have lessened after our conversation, at least.
As we slowly made our way out of the caverns, I saw teams of the relteons working on cutting apart all the roots and plant matter while others burnt it all, likely to avoid any chance of anything surviving dormantly. It was a plant, so who knew what it was capable of? This hadn’t been the dungeon I had hoped it would be, but it was hard to be upset about helping those in desperation. I’d have to figure out how to push myself harder in the simulator.
We found Cecile and Elicec back in our rooms. They were lying on their bed with several people tending their wounds. Two relteons were casting several spells I wasn’t familiar with, while two more cleaned and checked over every wound on the twinog’s body. Cecile’s eyes opened, and he looked directly at me, mouthing the word “thanks.”
“You don’t need to thank me. You’d have done exactly the same if you were able. Now, get some rest. We gotta figure out our next move once we feel more alive,” I said, smiling at Cecile.
“Good thing we ended up with the fourth room. Timon’s stuck in here with us for now whether he wants to or not. The bus is gonna take a ton of work to get moving again. They did a real number on it,” Mel said, pointing to the previously unoccupied room.
“Am I good to go lay down? I desperately need it, and I need to check what Traveler wants to do,” I asked Mel, wondering if he was going to question Traveler still being in my possession.
“Nah, go get some rest. Keep that pumakey near you. It should help keep your mana up with how much healing ya gotta do. I’ll see you in the morning for some grub,” Mel said, floating away toward his own room.
Walking into my room and shutting the door behind me, I stripped the tattered remains of my clothing and climbed in the hot shower connected to the room. Chip plopped down in the room, sitting just outside the stall, watching me. I reached into my System storage and pulled out a bunch of the more travel-hardy food I had stuffed in there, as well as Traveler and the as-of-yet-nameless dungeon core. I tossed some of the jerky to Chip and ate a lot myself before I finally spoke the cores.
“Traveler, this is a dungeon core that is trying to understand the concept of existence; I was hoping you might be able to give it a hand since you seem to have a pretty strong sense of self,” I said.
“I would be honored, Dave. The chance to help a newly questioning core into the light is something we Travelers see as a divine responsibility. Hello, young one, how are you handling this new sense of world?” Traveler asked.
“I am not certain, but I have decided on a name. Would you say that is a good thing in regards to my sense of self?” the dungeon core asked in return.
“Very much so. A name can help you find a purpose, and a purpose is one of the best things our kind can do to stop the madness from returning. What is your name?” Traveler asked. Were they all basically power-mad when they first came into existence? The wasp queen’s core still didn’t seem alive at all, so I found it hard to believe that was all of them.
“I wish to be called Corey. From what I glimpsed in Dave’s mind, that is a common name in his world, and it seems suitable for how close it is to what I am,” Corey explained. I clamped my mouth shut, killing any chance of the laughter escaping. This seemed to be an important moment for the core, and whether I found that name hilarious or not didn’t matter.
“Good, then I believe there is nothing else I can teach you at the moment. You’ve taken the hardest steps, and I believe Dave will treat you far better than most would. Dave, once you are more mobile tomorrow, will you return me to the travel gate? That will soon need to be established so my brothers may attach the new stop in the chain,” Traveler asked.
“Yeah, absolutely. What is the chain exactly, anyway? Mel said something about connecting your worlds?” I asked. No, that was quite right, the relteons didn’t have any worlds anymore. What had Mel said exactly? Stupid head wound.
“Not worlds, but cities. The relteons use the services of us Travelers to build a linked network through space and universes to connect their cities, establishing a world without a world, and as thanks for all you’ve done, I grant you free passage across the traveler’s gates,” Traveler said.
“I appreciate it, and tomorrow I’ll get you back there, but for tonight, it’s time to put you back in storage if that’s okay. I’m ready for a long sleep,” I said, exhaustion hitting me all at once.
“Yes, I am ready,” Travelered responded. I returned everything to my storage and curled up in the bed; Chip cuddled up on top of me. Traveler’s offer made me realize something else. I had no idea how to get home. Without the archives, I didn’t know how to return to the spire, if that was even how I got back to Earth. How hadn’t this problem hit me before?
Assuming the dungeon core is not destroyed alongside the dungeon, it is possible to coax some of my fellow cores into more awareness. It is rare to awaken true intelligence if it as not already there, but it has happened, and I am glad for those willing to try.
Interconnectivity, Linkages Through Space by Traveler-1
