Siphon (A Touch of Power Book 1)
Page 22
23%
Insight
Intermediate 3
38%
Intimidate
Beginner 9
26%
Life Magic
Beginner 8
23%
Light Armor
Beginner 2
50%
Light Magic
Intermediate 5
43%
Lightning Magic
Beginner 5
6%
Mathematics
Beginner 6
80%
Mental Fortitude
Intermediate 2
54%
Metal Magic
Beginner 4
65%
Modeling
Beginner 6
3%
Nature Magic
Beginner 4
48%
Navigation
Beginner 9
40%
Perception
Intermediate 4
51%
Perseverance
Intermediate 2
28%
Persuasion
Intermediate 3
56%
Running
Beginner 4
5%
Sense Motive
Intermediate 1
79%
Singing
Beginner 3
33%
Sleight of Hand
Beginner 10
79%
Small Blades
Beginner 6
3%
Speed Reading
Intermediate 6
57%
Stealth
Beginner 4
50%
Tailoring
Beginner 4
93%
Unarmed Combat
Beginner 3
90%
Walking
Intermediate 5
63%
Water Magic
Intermediate 3
7%
Wind Magic
Beginner 6
48%
Oh. No wonder she was in pain. Appraisal, deception, diplomacy, persuasion, sense motive, and water magic had all passed the barrier into intermediate. That wasn’t mentioning the fact that she’d learned seven new magics, six of which were at levels 4-9 that she’d siphoned, as well as three new craft skills.
It all made sense; everything on that list was stuff she’d siphoned from people who were really good at it, except for deception, but she figured she’d been deceiving everyone about her ability and why she touched them so often that it was going up naturally on its own.
No, the one that stuck out to her like a sore thumb was her only beginner 1 skill, compulsion magic. As far as she knew, she’d never compelled anyone to do anything with magic. Persuaded them, sure. She’d done lots of that, as evidenced by how high that skill was getting. But she hadn’t siphoned it from anyone, and she didn’t know when she used it. Puzzled, she started paying attention to the quiet conversation Mike and Kaylee were having.
“She’s lucky you found her when you did. Much longer and she might not have made it.”
Kaylee’s response was almost too quiet for her to hear. “It wasn’t luck. I heard her call me.”
“Call you?” Mike’s voice was curious.
“She was screaming for help. It was brief, but I swear I heard it.”
Jade spluttered on her juice a little bit, then quickly calmed down when they came over asking if she was okay.
“I’m good, thanks.” Her voice was slowly recovering, and they switched her over from juice to some beef flavored broth thing, intermixed with some sort of creamy oatmeal. Jessica was still feeding her, considering she still couldn’t lift her arms.
Silently, she came to the conclusion, maybe I did compel her after all… Of all the magics she’d read about, there had been uncommonly little information on blood, compulsion, special, spiritual, and summoning. She had finally figured out why. Not only was it rare, but it could also be very, very dangerous.
Wordlessly, she added compulsion magic to her list of things she wasn’t planning to tell anyone she could do. It was an ever-growing list…
No wonder her deception and bluff kept going up like crazy.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Accounting
It was almost an hour later before she finally felt well enough to get up. She’d started feeding herself about half an hour after help had arrived, and the aching pain had gradually diminished. She’d had Jessica bring in a bucket of water, though she hadn’t told her what it was for. When she eventually felt full and stopped eating, Mike sent the girls out of the room. He sat down beside her, regarding her sternly. “Do you realize how close you came to dying?”
Jade stared at her hands, silently wringing them before she finally peeked up, meeting his eyes as she nodded. “I do. It won’t happen again. I’m aware of what went wrong, and I’ll take precautions against it in the future. Thank you for your help though. I don’t think I’d have made it if you hadn’t come so quickly.”
He sighed, realizing she wasn’t really deterred, just more cautious. “You’re welcome. Just be careful. I know you want to get stronger quickly, but you have time. You have your whole life in front of you here.”
She stared at him blankly for a moment. Now she was doing it too! Still, she had to think about it. Yesterday had been awesome, but it had made her wary. She should probably slow down. What she’d done the previous two nights had ended without a problem, so she’d just scale back to that again. She’d just been too excited after meeting all those professors. Finally, she nodded. “I really will be more careful. I’m not a huge fan of almost-dying.” Even though technically, she’d been living in that state for most of her life. Which, she supposed, made her an authority on not liking it.
Seeming appeased, Mike patted her on the shoulder and ordered, “Very good. Take care of yourself, you hear? And you should probably go downstairs soon. Several fairly important people were arriving when I did, and they’ve been waiting very patiently downstairs for you.” She nodded and he left, instructing Jessica to wait outside in case she needed help.
Using the bucket of water, she quickly magicked it to get herself clean. She had been covered in cold sweat from the pain, so cleaning off felt heavenly. She quickly got dressed, plaiting her hair into a side braid that had been dubbed the Katniss braid by most of her generation. Opening the door, she saw a noticeably relieved Jessica. She smiled warily and began, “Thanks for your help. I’m good now though; I just overdid it.”
Jessica shook her head, saying softly, “You almost died.”
Jade sighed. “Yeah, but it was just a stupid mistake on my part. It won’t happen again.”
Jessica pursed her lips. “See that it doesn’t! You were so pale, and you were barely breathing. It was worse than when you first arrived!” Jade winced. Okay, so that was pretty bad. Jessica was hovering over her like a mother hen as she walked down the stairs, only for her to stop dead when she saw a full common room. There seemed to be two separated groups. One consisted of curious students who’d stuck around for the drama and whom she’d never spoken to.
Disliking that she’d become a public spectacle, she stared at that half of the room and asked sardonically, one brow raised, “What? You people don’t have somewhere better to be right now? Shoo. I’m not your entertainment.” Okay, so she probably could have phrased that more politely, but she didn’t like being on display and she’d just almost died. They took one look at her menacing smirk, flashed over to the other half of the room, who were displaying some glares upon realizing that they were there out of curiosity and not concern, and then they hastily started beating a quick retreat. There were only about ten of them, and they quickly dispersed.
Which of course, left her with the other half of the room. Now that the others were gone, she was faced with the full wrath of friends who’d been worried for her. The full group included Raphael, Kaylee, Will; to her surprise,
Jackson, Adam, and Evan were there as well, with a conspicuously missing Britney. She at least understood why they were there. They probably hadn’t left for the day yet when Kaylee found her. What she couldn’t explain was why Camille, Tisha, Eric, Stephen, Lucas, and even Damian were there. All she was missing were Sharon, Tina, Elisa, and Jarom. Otherwise, most of the people she’d spent any amount of time with for her first three days here were gathered in one room.
And yet, they all had one other thing in common right now: they were glaring bloody murder at the girl who’d almost died. She smiled lightly, and trying to break the tense silence, shrugged and chirped as she held her hands out placatingly, “Surprise! I’m alive!”
Unsurprisingly, the first one who broke her indignant glare was Tisha, who bounced over and threw her arms around Jade. “Oh my gosh, I’ll kill you if you ever do that to us again!”
Jade laughed, hugging her back as she quipped, “Doesn’t killing me defeat the purpose?”
“Don’t you sass me!” Tisha pouted back.
Camille pulled Tisha off of Jade before she could smother her with affection and was observing Jade judiciously. Finally, she nodded in satisfaction and proclaimed, “Good, you do look better. Now sit down and tell us what actually happened.” She squeezed Jade’s arm, a surprised spark flitting across her face when she felt a little toned muscle. It wasn’t much, but she had finally normalized, and was even making her way towards slim, but fit. Her bust had also grown another size, much to her satisfaction.
Camille literally stood over her until she sat down, at which point Kaylee brought her MORE food. Well, she supplied everyone else with some as they sat down around her as well, but still. Jade absently played with the food in front of her, trying to figure out the best way to try and explain. She glanced around at those who were supporting her, but her eyes lingered on Jackson, Adam, and Evan.
Jackson noticed her gaze, and he stopped Adam and Evan from sitting down. He walked over, patting Jade lightly on the shoulder as he remarked, “I’m glad you’re doing better, but we have a few things to take care of, so we’ll just be heading out. We’ll see you later?”
She nodded and smiled gratefully. “Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day!” Jackson nodded and smiled, then led the baffled duo out with him. Everyone seemed to have realized that what she was about to say was something she didn’t want shared around, and seemed a little gratified that they’d been included. She felt a little bad chasing Jackson off now, but that could always be remedied later.
Eventually, she spoke softly. “You all know I’m a traveler, and I’ve been given the gift called accelerated growth. What you don’t know is that I have some control over it. I can choose to accelerate certain skills I’ve come into contact with. The process, as you might have guessed, is somewhat painful and requires a lot of energy, so I’ve been choosing to do it at night so that when I pass out from pain, it’s in my own bed.”
She paused, scanning those around her and trying to gauge their reactions, but no one said anything. Finally, she smiled and shrugged. “Last night, I sort of bit off more than I could chew because it gave me a bunch of new options to learn. So I kinda chose to learn all of them.” She stared guiltily at her plate, and then realizing that she had room in her stomach and began to eat, since that was the extent of what she was planning to explain.
Kaylee marveled in awe, “Good heavens, I put it in front of you because I didn’t want to leave you out, but I never actually thought you could fit anything more in you…”
Jade smiled ruefully at her. “As you saw this morning, it’s the side effect of my learning. I have an insanely high metabolism because my body is burning through energy in order to change and grow. Basically, I tried to learn too much and didn’t have the energy to support it, but my body was still trying to change and thus was draining me without really having anything left to drain.”
She heard Stephen mutter darkly, “I was right, you do need a keeper.” Jade winced and glared at him.
“I do not need a keeper. I just...didn’t know my limits yet. I do now, and therefore won’t make the same mistake. I’m FINE. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” She held up her now slightly-muscled arm. “Besides. Look, I’m better than fine, I’ve got muscles!”
Almost everyone laughed at this. It was Eric who asked curiously, “So what exactly did you learn that overloaded you so much?”
She pondered for a moment, then started ticking them off on her fingers. “Dark, earth, fire, illusion, life, lightning, nature, and metal magic. Plus glasscraft, herbology, and tailoring.” She decided to lump dark and metal magic in there, even though she’d learned them the day before. It made it seem more dramatic, plus they’d never seen her use it yet, so hey. Less suspicion on her? Maybe? Judging by their incredulous stares, maybe not.
Eric was one of the few people who seemed to keep his cool, having been surprised by her several days in a row now. “So you’re telling us you learned how to do eight magics and three professions...in a single night.”
Jade smiled. “Technically, yes. But it’s not like I’ve had the chance to try any of them, and I’m not quite sure how all of them work. It’s more like once I figure out how they do work, it’s much, much easier for me because it’s already on my list. Does that make sense?”
There were a few nods from around the table, and she sighed in relief. Tisha looked a little confused, then seemed to have a light bulb moment as she blurted, “Oh, I get it! It’s like how we don’t get any skills on our list until we’re ten, but everything we learn helps our stats, and then when we get the actual skills, it’s easier to get past the first levels. Right?”
“What the what?” Jade gawked at Tisha, then at the other people around the table. “You’re telling me you guys didn’t get any skills until after you were ten?” Various nods confirmed her statement. She studied them curiously, then asked again, “Do any of you have walking or eating as skills?”
Will outright laughed while everyone else was watching him with perplexion and shaking their heads. “Hah, eating and walking as skills! That’s a great joke! Who needs to have a skill to learn to eat or walk?” He just kept laughing and laughing, not noticing that Jade was now giving him a death glare and everyone else was silent. When he finally noticed, his laughter died pretty immediately as he asked in astonishment, “No, seriously? You have…?” Miffed, Jade decided to ignore him and went back to eating what was on her plate. He belatedly seemed to remember that she’d said she couldn’t walk in her world, and he apologized, “Jade, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking…”
“Obviously.” She muttered darkly. With a sigh, she smiled at him because he looked really, really sorry and she couldn’t handle the feeling that she’d just kicked a puppy. “Don’t worry about it. I already knew I was different.”
“But in a good way.” Stephen chose that moment to interject. Jade just smiled a little helplessly at him. How was different good? She had just wanted to be normal...
Speaking of, how had they all magically appeared here so quickly? Unable to come up with a good explanation, she decided it was easier just to ask. “By the way, not that I’m not grateful for your concern, but don’t you all have better things to be doing? How did you even know something was wrong with me in the first place?”
“Well, most of us were at the library getting ready when that boy came tearing in to inform Stephen that Will had made a spectacle of himself by practically dragging Doctor Mike to The Green Dragon. Will doesn’t get worked up about much, so we figured it was important and decided to come investigate, and then we found you looking all dead and everyone kinda freaked out.” It was Tisha who answered, apparently a little thoughtlessly from the dirty glances thrown her way after she finished speaking.
Jade was grateful at the moment for her loose lips, though in the future she made a mental note to be careful what she said around Tisha. Still, her explanation illuminated a couple of things for Jade. First, Eric, Stephen, C
amille, Tisha, Lucas, and Damian had all been preparing something at the library. She guessed, given the dirty looks, it had something to do with her new study room there.
Second, Stephen had a group of people who reported to him about unusual things. She upgraded him from rogue ninja to spymaster in her mental inventory of everyone. Third, Will had personally run to fetch a healer when he found out something was wrong, which was definitely out of the ordinary and kinda sweet. Fourth, everyone had freaked out that she almost died, which granted, she could have guessed given their reactions upon seeing her in decent health once more.
She could feel the warm fuzzies tingling in her heart. She hadn’t known them long, but they’d shown her kindness and given her their friendship and concern. She felt her eyes starting to water and quickly took a drink, tilting her head up to the light as she did so to try and blink away the potential tears before anyone noticed.
Putting her drink down, she smiled deeply and murmured as she made eye contact with each of them, “Thank you, for everything.” She glimpsed at least one other person discreetly dab at their eyes, and she decided to lighten the mood.
“Still, the day must go on! I know I was supposed to meet Eric and Damian at the library, but what are the rest of you doing today?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Cursive
“We’ve been doing some research at the library. Lucas and Stephen were kindly helping us out.” Camille interjected with a smile. Her expression was guileless, as if she hadn’t told a bold-faced lie. Jade just let it be, grinning.
“I see. Well, If you’re all ready, why don’t we take a trip over to the library then? I think I’m going to take it easy for the rest of the morning, so some research and reading sounds lovely.” She smiled at Damian and Eric, “After, of course, we get the contract done.”