Chương 49: Recovery

"He's awake!" Alex shouted. Aaron groaned and opened his eyes, only to squint at the blinding sun. His body felt heavy and weak.

"I was worried about you!" Alex said. Aaron rubbed his eyes. His arm was stiff. As his vision adjusted, he realised he was in a bed in one of the rooms in the farmhouse. The last thing he remembered was laying down on the decking outside the house after getting back from…. TIM! He thought. His relaxed mind went back to panic. Aaron tried to sit up, but the pain in his ribs reignited with a passion and forced him back into his back.

"Tim!" Aaron said in a gaspy winded voice.

"We need to get him back!"

"Woah, not so fast buddy." Alex pressed him down, pinning him in place.

"You took a real beating.". Aaron didn't care. He rolled onto his side and used his arms to push himself up into a seated position. It was excruciating! Alex put his hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Slow down, you've been resting a while." Aaron's heart sank, "how long?"

"A day and a half."

"A DAY AND A HALF!" Aaron shouted "We can't waste anymore time. Where's Paige? PAIGE!" He just remembered Paige getting hit in the back by the tiny shards of ice. He had no idea if she was ok and he wasn't conscious to heal her yesterday.

"She's fine! She had a bunch of superficial scratches, but she healed herself with some herbs." Aaron remembered that Paige was skilled with herbs. She made a herb paste which healed his wound when he was attacked back in the city. He meant to ask if it was the herbs or part of her Ectomancy. Aaron took a breath, feeling a little calmer.

"And Cuthbert?"

"Not in the best shape, but better than you." Aaron's magic must have helped him to heal faster. And his body was strengthened slightly through augmentation. Aaron sighed in relief, which triggered the stabbing pain in his ribs. He made a note not to breathe too deeply. At least not until he had healed himself. His stomach growled angrily. Alex stood and offered him a hand.

"Let's eat." Aaron took his hand and painfully pulled himself to his feet. He stumbled into the other room to find Giddeon, Paige and Godric sitting around a table with a shoddily drawn map of what looked like the farm. There were several coins on the map which presumably symbolised them. The one lone coin in the middle must have been Tim.

"Don't even say it," Giddeon snapped, "we ran because that mage and dog would have killed us. Fighting would have just got us killed. Don't bother complaining! You'd be dead if we didn't risk ourselves for you!" Aaron was taken aback by the sudden aggression, "I wasn't going to complain. Thank you for what you did for me. It means a lot," he said sincerely. Giddeon and Paige had saved him by attacking the dog, and it was about time they started working as a team.

They would need to if they were to be successful saving Tim. Giddeon raised one eyebrow then gave him a respectful nod before continuing to talk to Paige about the map. Godric passed Aaron a plate of ham sandwiches as he slowly lowered himself into a chair. Aaron chuckled. Why is it always ham, he thought.

"Is it ok? I can get you something else," Godric said. Aaron took a huge bite out of the sandwich, spilling crumbs down onto his lap.

"No, it's ok. Thank you." He sat and ate whilst the conversation in the kitchen continued.

"If we approach from the east, we enter at the closest point to the mine, therefore least likely to meet any resistance," Giddeon said.

"Agreed, but we would have to travel around the camp without being spotted. We know they send regular patrols," Paige argued.

"Well the alternative is the front gate. We can't fight them head on. They have elemental mages trained for battle. They are probably seasoned veterans. I am a master of Ectomancy, and whilst I have formidable skills, they are NOT built for combat," Giddeon explained.

"I saw you incinerate that dog," Aaron interjected, with his mouth full of bread.

"That was one dog, not a small army of trained fighters. They are stationed outside that mine and fighting anything that comes out of it. They have a lot of firepower," Giddeon said.

"We can start a fire to draw them away from the camp," Paige suggested, "that might give us enough time to sneak in." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"That might work, but I'll have to start them. You can't create fire spirits yet. You would have to approach without me. If you get into any trouble, you'll be on your own," Giddeon said.

"If you get me close enough, I can send the dogs into a frenzy," Aaron said.

"There's a lot of dogs in there. You don't have the power to control them all," Giddeon replied.

"I don't need to control them directly. I can influence them with my aura. I know what I'm doing now," Aaron explained. Giddeon and Paige looked at each other with half frowns and raised eyebrows.

"Okay, so we create chaos and sneak in. It's risky, but could work. If my intelligence is good, there will be some guards in the mine and more stationed around the artefact. Potentially some corrupted creatures too," Giddeon said.

"We will have the element of surprise. The people inside the mine will have no idea about the chaos in the camp," Paige said.

"But what if they do? Then what? We get trapped and killed? This isn't good enough," Giddeon replied.

"How badly do you want to get to that relic? And why is it so important to you? I know you're not just here to help Tim," Aaron asked.

"I have hunted undead for decades. Not the creatures created in areas corrupted by dragon fire. Real undead, raised by powerful magic. They were here long before the dragon came. In all these years, I met a master Necromancer once, and his magic was like nothing I've seen before. I was a captain and he drained the life out of my men before my eyes and then raised their corpses like puppets. I never felt magic like that before, until I met Tim.

This relic could be the key to destroying a powerful evil," Giddeon said. Paige looked just as intrigued as Aaron felt. He got the impression that Giddeon hadn't even shared this with his apprentice. Aaron read a mission log in Harrold's library which told of a similar story, and he suspected Giddeon was the captain who wrote the book. He didn't come across as a military man. He was too sly, and his morals were too loose. Although seeing all of your men die before your eyes could change someone like that.

The mission log contained a sun symbol. The same symbol on the coin and on the tomb, which covered the secret exit out of the city. Aaron wanted to ask, but hadn't found the right moment until now.

"Does this have something to do with the sun symbol?" Aaron asked. Giddeon's face went cold. For a moment Aaron thought he had asked too much and angered the man, but the expression soon settled on sadness as his eyes softened.

"It was the sigil of my battalion. In their honour, I use it as a mark of my war against the undead." Aaron sensed the anguish behind his eyes and got the impression that none of his troops were still alive.

"You're right Aaron, we need to get the relic," Giddeon said, intensely.

"Alright!" Paige said enthusiastically. She looked ready for a fight.

"Heal up. We will go when you've recovered your strength," Giddeon said. The words heal up gave him an unwelcome reminder of the pain stabbing through his torso. He coughed and braced himself with his arms. He could sense five broken ribs along his side. Thankfully none of them had pierced his lung, else he might not have survived the day. Aaron cast his Osteokinesis runes. It felt good to know them off by heart.

It was almost instinctive at this point, but it took a few heartbeats to complete the spell, unlike his innate spells, which were almost instant to cast. Aaron pulled his ribs into alignment and melded them back together. The sensation was unpleasant, but not painful. It felt like plunging into an icy lake. It was sudden and shocking, but at least it was brief. About half way through the spell, a sudden wave of fatigue fell over him, like a heavy blanket, and he couldn't continue the spell.

His mana had run out completely. The severity of the wound and the fact that the mana hound drained him for a few seconds must have made it too much for him in his weakened state. His flank ached still, but the pain was less sharp. He was definitely not in fighting shape. The silver lining was that Osteokinesis finally broke through to level five.

"Don't worry Aaron. You've taken a big hit. Rest today and complete it tomorrow. There's no point rushing it and making yourself worse," Paige said with a soft smile. She must have seen him struggling and realised he couldn't complete the spell. Aaron felt frustrated, but knew she was right. It would take the fight of his life to rescue Tim and get through the mine. He had to be at his best to stand a chance. He spent the rest of the day eating and napping.

After sleeping for almost two full days, he thought it would be plenty, but his body clearly needed it to recover. Paige and Giddeon spent the day outside sharpening their blades and sparring with each other. Giddeon had the ability to infuse his weapons with light. Unlike his green glowing dagger, he had a fine looking shortsword which glowed white as he touched it.

He didn't think Alex had any combat ability or useful spells for taking down a foe, but his lute and psychic magic would be invaluable in keeping Tim calm as they got closer to the relic. He might even be able to persuade the guards to turn a blind eye to them sneaking. Either way, he was beyond worrying about him using the lute for nefarious reasons and found himself beginning to trust the bard. Alex spent the day playing music and tuning and maintaining his lute.

The next day, Aaron tried Osteokinesis again, except he felt much more refreshed and powerful. He went over the repaired section of his ribs, sealing and reinforcing the breaks. Whilst he was using the spell, he went over all of his ribs and increased the strength and density of the bones. He figured that it would give him better protection from blunt force to his chest and back and protect his heart and lungs.

His medical knowledge was good, but Aaron felt that these insights were coming to him naturally from his Augmentation skill. As he levelled it up, he learned that it wasn't just improving his ability to augment his natural strengths, but it also worked with his True Sight and gave him knowledge about the consequences of making changes or even guiding him to the most effective parts of a body to reinforce. The party met around breakfast which was kindly provided by Godric.

Aaron hoped he wouldn't ask to join their fight. In fact, he wouldn't let him join even if he wanted to. The man had risked and given enough out of kindness already.

"I'm better and feel ready," Aaron said.

"Good, because it's a new moon tonight, meaning the camp will be at its darkest," Giddeon replied. They spent the day going over the plan of attack. They would go in the early hours of the morning when the night was at its darkest. Giddeon would use fire spirits to set the field ablaze in the west of the camp, drawing them out along the main road. Paige and Aaron would be in position in advance and use the forest to the south as cover to sneak as close as possible.

Once the fire was lit, Aaron needed to get as close as possible and send the dogs into a frenzy, creating an opening to free Tim and escape directly into the mine. The tricky bit would be getting Tim out. There's no way that all of the guards would leave their posts. They would also need to manage without Giddeon's help until he found another way to sneak into the mine. Aaron thought about the corrupted bats and the large humanoid creature. Someone had created it.

He hoped there wasn't another necromancer in the camp.