Changing the kind of mana took more energy than he was expecting. Standing up, he moved back to where the Asian woman was treating Omari. She had wrapped his stump and had stopped the bleeding mostly. Omari looked devastated in several ways. His eyes were downtrodden, and his entire energy was deeply unsettled.
Losing his arm was the worst part. He had started finding the others annoying, but they didn't deserve to be killed, much less in such a helpless way. It was incredibly frustrating to the point where Jaycee felt the frustration fully, despite not caring much for those people. They were people who he could've saved and felt like he did save.
All that work to try and get people to live with his plan and they all die at the end in the cheapest, and frustrating way possible. Jaycee hissed when his robe touched the large chunk missing from his forearm. The robe was ripped in many places now and seemed more like a cloth that covered his day clothes beneath. He smelled heavily of blood and sweat.
The healer rushed to his side and began to run her hands over his injuries. Expecting her hands to hurt like hell, he flinched. Instead, her hands felt like icy hot and reduced the pain he was feeling considerably. She slowly traced her hands across his hands which were bright red and actively forming blisters. He considered using a healing potion but decided not to.
The pain was bearable and who knew when he would need a potion. After a few minutes of her draining her mana trying to heal the bad injuries, she ran out. She sat back exhausted but seemingly content. Jaycee's arm was fully scabbed over which was a weird look seeing as the injury was about half his forearm, but he guessed he would heal to be as good as new with this new system. His hands were still pretty much unusable, except to pick up his wand.
It was starting to get dark outside, and he didn't want to be in this room right now. But he also didn't exactly want to go walking around outside with the group he was with. They were all still injured and with his health being less than 40% he didn't want to risk anything. He would just have to try and find them someplace to rest. But something was weird. The weird energy he felt was still there, although it had momentarily disappeared when the beasts started attacking them. As the trio walked outside, they were greeted by a group of people.
"Are you folks okay?" A woman shouted. She stepped forward from the group of people. She had straight black hair and a big smile, as well as an ornate looking bow strapped to her back.
Jaycees' eyes narrowed. The weird energy stopped buzzing. "We're fine. You're the first other people we've met. Other than our former group that is." Jaycee decided to take the role of leader here. Omari was still deeply troubled and wasn't much of a talker anyway.
"Oh, I see. We've come upon others but not in such a small group. We came because we heard a ruckus." The woman said. Immediately, Jaycee noticed a large number of daggers on one of the light warriors. That was interesting, seeing as how every single light warrior he had seen only came with 2 daggers. And giving them a thorough look, he saw a few similar situations.
They were missing a few people from the 15 Jaycee assumed each group contained initially. Doing the math, he realized the extra gear he was seeing on them didn't equal the amount of people missing from their group. His eyes narrowed. "My name is Angela. Can we help any of you?" She spoke.
"No thanks, we're just gonna go on our way." Jaycee flashed a fake smile before turning to leave.
"Hey hey wait. You guys are injured, let us feed you for the night and crash in this fort you came from. Judging from all these tracks I'd say you had a pretty big battle." She said. Jaycee considered it for a second. How likely were they going to survive out there, and how likely is this lady as well as her group, going to kill them.
He decided this needed his group's approval, "What do you think?" Jaycee whispered. He gathered the two others together so they could be somewhat secretive.
Omari shrugged. "I do not trust them, but I do not feel right putting all the work on you to take care of me." He said, wiggling his stump to show his point.
Jaycee winced, "There's probably a way for you to get your arm back through the system. You aren't done yet." He said.
Omari nodded and smiled. "I'd rather sit here for at least a little and rest now that there's other people here." The Asian woman who had not spoken a word yet just shrugged. In his mind Jaycee had started calling her Lady so he could address her easier in his head.
He hadn't seen any healers at work, but he assumed she already knew these weird ritualistic-like healing techniques that she had. He bet she came from a culture where healing was a real thing that she might've done. But there was no way of knowing. "Alright I guess we'll just have to kill them." He whispered while glancing over at the group.
One of the archers jumped at hearing his words and quickly whispered to Angela. "Eavesdropping on our conversation isn't conducive to a friendship like you're describing." Jaycee said as he clapped his hands smiling. He walked toward the group and said, "We'll chill with you guys for the night."
Angela had quickly apologized and claimed she didn't know the archer would be overhearing him. In reality he had watched the archer relay the woman information throughout the conversation, from beginning to end. The only reason they could hear them was because of the high perception stat that comes with the archer class.
In the end, Jaycee feigned agitation at being listened to. The whole building had been completely trashed by the beasts. He realized he had forgotten to take all the perfectly good gear on his former groupmates' bodies. It was pretty quickly cleaned up by this new group. He saw a man look at his wand with jealousy and felt annoyed.
Angela had tried to coerce him into giving up his wand for some potions, but found Jaycee to be a less-than-ideal trading partner. They had to clear small areas to sleep in. Omari ended up sleeping directly next to Jaycee. They both agreed they should stay close and seeing as Lady did nothing but follow them she slept right next to Jaycee. Jaycee however, lay wide awake, his eyes closed though. He had slowed his breathing as well to make sure he looked like he was sleeping. Him and Omari had talked earlier about their new levels and abilities.
They had also talked about what would happen tonight. Everyone would go to sleep and Jaycee and Omari would take turns staying awake. Jaycee took the first shift and ended up analyzing all of his new things from the battle earlier. He had gotten to level 6 in his class and was level 3 in his race. Many things came with that. An explosion in power and strength being one of them. He also was able to choose a new skill for his class reaching level 5. He ended up choosing a skill called
'Skill gained Red: Basic Mana Stealth '
He had also found out that there are ranks to skills. Grey seemed to be the lowest with red being just above that. He didn't know any more. The others had tried to talk to them but it mostly ended in weird, uncomfortable conversations.
The energy in the camp was off. He didn't like the vibes the people were exerting. But as he lay there he began to hear rustling, and a lot of it. It was quiet, but he had pumped his free points into his perception stat making it only barely behind his highest stat, which was intelligence. He could hear their whispers.
Slowly and with his eyes completely closed, he woke up Omari who barely stirred as he awoke. Omaris' face was solemn and serious. They had talked earlier about the plan and there was no room for error.
They had enough time to heal completely with Lady's help and had fully recovered their resources. Jaycee hadn't recovered his stamina much, but he didn't use the resource much anyway. Jaycee listened to their footsteps and whispers and knew it was time. Suddenly all the rustling and whispering stopped. With his eyes still closed he shouted. "NOW!"