Chương 66: [Home]

The chime sounded and five pairs of eyes went glassy.

"Oh," Luka said.

"That's useful."

"What is it?" Rika asked.

"Communications tab," Sam said, eyes still darting as he read.

"Shows everyone in town. Names, locations, you can send a message to anyone nearby. Like a text."

"A what?"

"A written message," Parmo said.

"Delivered instantly. Back home we used phones for it." Phil was already scrolling through it.

"Makes sense it unlocked now. This would have been great earlier. Nobody could get word to the off-duty guards fast enough when the goblins came. Someone had to physically run for them."

"The system's been watching," Leo said.

"Same as everything else."

"There's a search function as well," Sam added.

"You can pull up anyone in town by name. Mike's going to love this."

"It'll change how the watch rotations work, when your people are trained enough to join the guard," Shai said, leaning in slightly.

"Right now the guards rely on runners and the clocks in their houses. Some of them are still struggling with getting the time right. If your people can send a message the moment they see movement—""No more fifteen-minute gaps between spotting something and the rest of us knowing about it," Leo agreed. Phil had gone quiet. He wasn't following the conversation anymore, just reading, his brow pulled together.

"There's something else on here," he said.

"What?" Parmo asked.

"An icon. Separate from the directory." He paused, his expression shifting.

"Mana insufficient. Requires eighty-five percent. I'm at forty-six."

"What does it do?" Rika asked. Phil clicked past the warning and kept reading. Nobody rushed him.

"Right," he said.

"So. The directory is just for people in town. This is different." He looked up, his gaze moving between the lads.

"It says you can contact anyone. Doesn't matter where they are. You think of them, picture their face, and it finds them. Message goes straight into their thoughts. They hear it like a voice in their head." The room went silent.

"Anyone," Sam said.

"Anyone you can picture clearly enough." Phil set his mug down.

"Length scales off your mana pool. Right now it's short, but it looks like it gets longer as the well grows. It costs eighty-five percent of what I have at maximum mana currently. I reckon as our max goes up, we'll be able to send longer ones or eventually send multiple short ones." Parmo did the math quietly.

"So after a fight, forget it."

"Forget it," Phil said.

"Full mana pool or close to it. I wonder if the normal messages work the same way?"

"We can test that easily enough," said Sam.

"Here." He pulled up the directory, found Phil, and sent 'Dickhead'.

"You get that?"

"Yeah, fuck you." He laughed.

"It felt like a vibration. Nothing weird or uncomfortable. A little like when you feel your phone vibrate in your pockets but like in my head. I checked and the Comms tab was blinking. There's a box with our conversation. It's pretty much a messaging app."

"My mana didn't move. Must just be long range comms that use our own mana. Maybe the UI are all linked and there's some internal capacity for messages or something." Leo looked at his own tab, then at the group.

"I think we should wait until we're at a hundred percent. I know it says eighty-five, but I'm not risking a burnout or whatever happens when you bottom out completely. It's only an extra fifteen percent. This is important but not hurting ourselves is as well. We need to survive long enough to see them all again..." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I agree," Sam said.

"We let the wells fill properly. We're going to need our heads clear for what we say anyway."

"If I hear a voice in my head," Parmo said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, "my first thought isn't going to be that my missing dad is alive. I'm going to think I've finally cracked. We have to consider how this is going to look on the other end."

"He's right," Luka said.

"My mum... she's probably barely holding it together. If she starts hearing things, she'll think she's having a breakdown. She might not even listen to what the voice is saying." Parmo stared at the coffee table, his jaw set.

"We can't just send them individually. We need to make it impossible to ignore."

"We should coordinate," Sam said.

"I'll message Tony. He knows everyone, and he's the one most likely to keep his head. I'll tell him exactly what happened—as much as I can fit—and I'll give him the names. I'll tell him to contact Jake, Luka's mum, Phil's mum, and Parmo's brother." Leo nodded.

"Tony was supposed to be at the pub with us that night. If he didn't have plans already, he'd be sitting right here with us. He knows everyone's families. His oldest is Olly's mate so they'll have each other numbers. He can ask to speak to Olly."

"I'll tell him to set up a group chat," Sam added.

"Tell him to get everyone who gets a message into one place so they can confirm it with each other. I'm using my message on him to set the whole thing up; I'll get to my mum later when I've topped up again. Once they all start talking and realize they've heard the same thing at the same time, they'll know it's real."

"I'll tell Jake to expect a call from him," Leo said.

"It's a solid link."

"It's going to be short," Phil said, checking his screen.

"We need to tell them more is coming, but the messages have to stay brief for now because of the mana. If it just cuts off mid-sentence, they'll panic." Luka glanced at the three from Stonehall.

"The rest of the town... they've all got this unlock too, haven't they? There are people here who haven't touched magic. They won't even have the eighty-five percent needed to send anything."

"It's going to spike the training," Leo said.

"As soon as word gets out that you can talk to home if your mana is high enough, every person in Monkhaven is going to be attempting that first unlock. Magic will be less a choice and more a requirement." The wait for the bars to top up didn't feel like a chore. For the first time in a month, the group felt lighter. Sam sat at the table with his notebook, but he wasn't just drafting; he was reminiscing.

"Tony's going to be the best and worst person for this," Sam said, a smirk playing on his face.

"The man lives to wind people up. He's got this way of getting under your skin, just enough to not be able to tell if he's taking the piss or not, until you're ready to snap. Then he drops a shite joke and you just shake your head while everyone else laughs at you."

"He loves it," Leo laughed.

"It's all fun and games until you're the target. But he's solid. When he needs to be serious or get a job done he does it, no questions asked."

"Better him than Chris," Phil added, leaning back.

"God, imagine Chris getting a message in his head. He'd probably just think the weed was getting to him." Luka snorted.

"He's a smart guy but he's something else when he's had a smoke. You'll say something, and three minutes later he'll reply. It's like his brain lags or something. Sometimes he'll be quiet while people are taking the piss, then he'll come back with something so weird or brutal it levels the room. Remember when he called Phil a tugboat. What the fuck was that even about?"

"Remember the seagull?" Parmo asked, shaking his head. Leo groaned, leaning forward.

"Oh god, the seagull." He looked over at Shai and Rika, who were watching with tilted heads, trying to follow the slang.

"We were walking down the street, and Chris—who was fucking baked at this point—stops and points down an alley. He says, 'I know that guy.' We all look, thinking he's seen a mate. It's a seagull. Just a regular bird, standing on a bin."

"We asked him what the hell he was on about," Phil jumped in, grinning.

"And he just looks at us, dead serious, and says: 'That's Lamp Street McBoose.' That was it. I couldn't breathe. I was on the floor for ten minutes. My ribs actually hurt the next day." The room erupted. Even Torren was smiling, and Rika was giggling despite clearly having no idea about half of what was just said.

"You miss them," Shai said quietly when the laughter died down.

"Every day," Leo said. He checked his UI. The blue bar was finally touching the edge of the box.

"But today we get to tell them. And maybe later, when we're stronger, we'll get to hear them back. This feels like Level One of something bigger." The mood shifted, the lads ready to send their messages.

"I'm at a hundred," Phil said.

"Me too," Sam followed. Leo sat back, bringing up the text box. He didn't waste any more time. He typed the message for Jake, picturing his son's face. Jake. It's Dad. I'm alive and safe. This is real. Tony is getting a message too and he's going to call Olly. Take the call. We're all okay. I love you both so much. Stay strong. More soon.

"On three," Leo said.

"One. Two. Three." The drain was a physical punch. It felt like his very essence was being yanked through a straw. Leo's head snapped back as his mana hit fifteen percent, the mana sickness hitting him instantly. Beside him, Parmo was white-knuckling the arms of his chair, and Phil was doubled over, gasping for breath. It was the largest use of mana in one go any of them had used so far. None of them complained. The physical cost was a bargain.

The text box in Leo's vision flickered once, then turned a solid, steady green. [MESSAGE DELIVERED: RECIPIENT - JAKE] Leo let out a long, ragged breath and wiped a bead of cold sweat from his forehead. He looked at Sam, who was wearing a weak but triumphant grin.

"It's gone," Leo whispered.

"Aye," Sam rasped.

"Tony's got work to do."