Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3)

by Brian Wilkerson

  For the duration of the three-day wait, Ponix arranged for them to have free rein to wander as long as they stayed out of trouble. Meza and his crowd didn’t like it, but Ponix told him it was an opportunity to prove that elves were more civilized than humans were. After all, killing diplomats and violating sacred hospitality was something that only the fragile and short-lived mongrels did. This made them even more upset, and they reluctantly agreed.

  Annala showed them all around as their tour guide, talking about places and their history. She also provided embarrassing-yet-harmless tidbits for Isuna to put in his newspaper. He acted affronted at the assumption that his newspaper was solely anti-elf propaganda, but wrote them down nonetheless.

  On the third day of Nolien’s mutation, Nunnal called his friends and family to the lab. The unicorn that was his mutated form was still in the gravity pit, and paced restlessly. Its horn sparked, its head shook, and it snorted in frustration.

  “Our final test is the path to Nolien’s cure,” she explained. “In our experience, there is at least one person that the victim relates to on a deep emotional level and it is this person who can pull them back to sapience. Once we determine if that person is here, we will use this device to connect to their mind.”

  Nunnal held up a plaster white helmet that had a microphone hanging out near the mouth and sea blue crystals affixed on its surface.

  “At that point, Nolien should respond. The process is technical, but the short of it is that the voice will guide him through mist and into the light. Who wants to go first?”

  All present raised their hands.

  “Don’t you want to know if there’s a safer method?”

  “We assume that you would tell us the safest method first,” Kurami said.

  “Oh! Did you hear that, Meza?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I did. I’m standing right next to you.”

  “There is, in fact, a method that doesn’t involve jumping into a pit with a monster, but it is not any less dangerous.”

  “What is it?” Mebalos asked.

  “It’s a journey to the center of his mind where you will piece together Nolien’s personality and memory. You will do this one piece at a time, by hand, and without getting lost, eaten, or violated. Not even elves can bounce back easily from something like that.”

  They conversed with each other and Kurami announced their decision.

  “We will take the first one.”

  “Okay, why don’t you go first? As his parents, your emotional bond should be exceptional.”

  Mebalos and Kurami readied their staves and dropped into the pit. They called to their son and the unicorn regarded them curiously. They talked of their past together; studying healing, games played, trips to other countries, hugs after school, bedtime stories, and other things. They approached cautiously but casually. The monster eyed them with suspicion but didn’t attack. When they stepped into arm’s reach, it gored Mebalos.

  The man grimaced and cast a field of force to push them away from each other. Then Kurami tried a stern lecture approach, but it zapped her before she finished. It slipped past her barrier and caused her momentary paralysis. Her husband prevented the beast from pressing its advantage and held it at bay with a paralysis spell of his own. By the time he healed himself and his wife dispelled herself, the unicorn did likewise. The two adults flanked the creature and leveled their staves.

  “SLOTH!”

  A transparent web of energy engulfed the Heleti Unicorn and its movements dropped to a crawl. Kurami stepped in its path, grabbed its face, and looked it straight in the eyes. Inside them, she found only savagery.

  “Sweetie, it’s me, Mommy. Please say you recognize me!”

  It tried to bite her head off.

  The minutes passed and the only thing that changed was the humans becoming increasingly frantic. No matter what they tried, their first-born child did nothing but attack them.

  “I’m taking you out,” Nunnal said.

  “NO! WE’RE MAKING PROGRESS!” Mebalos shouted.

  “If you die, elven technology cannot bring you back. G-Guy, reverse the polarity of the graviton.”

  “Yes, Director.”

  A field of intense gravity forced the unicorn to its knees while a field of light gravity levitated the humans above the pit.

  “ABYSS TAKE YOU, DAGGER EARS! I ALMOST HAD HIM!” Mebalos shouted. “DISENGAGE THIS RIGHT NOW!”

  Kurami didn’t say a word in protest. Her face was a stoic mask. It was marred only by a single tear.

  They were levitated away from the pit and into the company of elves, who gave them blankets and tended to their injuries. At the same time, they administered something to help them relax. Mebalos laughed at their attempts to sedate him. Without a word or gesture, he both cured his own injuries and nullified their spells. Kurami did likewise but didn’t feel a need to make a show of it. Instead, she quietly watched their daughter take her turn.

  Hailey jumped into the pit with her hunting outfit and staff. She dodged the unicorn’s attacks while reminiscing about their lives as Heleti siblings. The chores at the family hospital, studying at the Holy Wiol School for Healers, and pranking their baby brother Dosh were the subjects of her appeals. By the end of it, her dress was ruined with pus, gunk, and her own blood. When Nunnal ordered her removed for her own safety, all she could say was, “I thought we had a better relationship than that.”

  She hugged herself and then Tiza gave her one.

  Eric jumped in and assumed his true form. This bout was less an “I Know You’re In There Somewhere Fight” than it was a “Let’s You And Him Fight,” as there was more fighting than talking. At the end of it, Eric was sitting on him and holding his head down in a way that he couldn’t use his horn. Nunnal extracted him because he looked like he was enjoying himself too much. He was then smacked by the entire Heleti family and Tiza.

  Tiza herself was last. She felt the stares of everyone as she approached the gravity pit. She was their last chance. If she couldn’t connect to him, then Nolien could be gone forever. Their only other option was something still more dangerous. She jumped in.

  As the unicorn turned to face her, she unstrapped the gauntlet on her left arm and tossed it aside. She dodged a spell and a charge only to draw her dagger across her bare arm, along the lines of her old scar. When she finally went on the attack, it was to shove this scar into its face.

  “You’ll remember this, Tenderfoot. The first battle wound you ever cured on Team Four.”

  The unicorn stopped and smelled.

  “So much blood and so much death; so many people eaten alive. You couldn’t forget that if you mutated a hundred times. It’s burned into your memory just like it is in mine.”

  She reached out with her other hand and stroked its neck.

  “If you can remember that, then you can remember me. The one that fought with you and demanded that you leave this scar so I could show it off.”

  Something clicked in the monster’s head and its horn stopped sparking. Instead, it lowered its head to nuzzle her. Tiza threw both arms around his neck.

  “I knew you would.”

  To prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the boy inside the unicorn remembered her, she gestured for him to sit so she could mount him. They walked in a circle around the gravity pit. The elves and humans gathered all clapped, even Meza.

  “OUTSTANDING!”

  Nunnal jumped in with the helmet and the unicorn snarled at her. Tiza patted his head and he calmed down enough for her to dismount and accept the helmet. She put it on and spoke again, this time with the approach of the others. The monster stood and listened. The helmet shimmered and a line of light emerged from her eyes. It connected to those of the unicorn. At first, this light was pure white, but then it took on a reddish hue, and settled on pink. Eventually, the Heleti Unicorn shook its head, glanced down at its hooves, and neighed in shock. It tripped over its own legs and fell over.

  Tiza rushed to its side, car
essed its flank, and spoke soothingly to it. It neighed urgently as if trying to speak but unable to make the correct sounds. Nunnal snapped her fingers and a virtual keyboard appeared near its head.

  “What is your name?” Tiza asked.

  The unicorn poked keys one at a time with its horn until it spelled out, “Nolien Heleti.”

  Jubilation broke out among the humans. The elves simply high-fived each other for another job well done. All the while, the unicorn continued to spell out names.

  “Nolien Yani, Second Duke of Heleti, Big Brother, Lucky First Born, Dragon’s Lair Healer, the Obvious Runaway, Ward of Wiol, and Tenderfoot.”

  Chapter 15 No One Knows What the Future Holds, Except Wiol

  The family of Nolien gathered around the unicorn answering to that name and hugged him without fear. It took him a minute to recognize them because his mind had to recover the lost information. Then he nuzzled them in turn.

  They asked him questions to assure themselves that his sapience had truly returned and he typed them all on the virtual keyboard. He didn’t miss a single one. After the first three, he typed something that was not a response.

  “One moment, please.”

  He bowed his head and his body began to tremble. Then it began to shift. First, his legs shrank and refitted, and his hooves separated into toenails. Then his arms followed the same process, growing fingers. In the process, his new/old limbs could no longer support his body and he fell on his belly, which shifted into something hairless and much smaller. He pushed himself back on his butt and his head shrank and morphed into something more like a sphere than a cuboid. Only his horn remained from his previous shape.

  He opened his mouth and spoke gibberish. His family was seized by fear of a relapse, but as the seconds passed, his sounds became more distinct until they became words. However, the words were garbled and thus he still spoke nonsense. Little by little, the correct order emerged and intelligible sentences formed.

  “Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Good, it’s working now.” Nolien shook himself. “That was a most intriguing sensation. I expected it to be painful, but it was more like shaping putty.” He looked up to his teammate and asked, “Eric, is this what you feel like?”

  “It’s more like inflating and deflating.”

  “How did you do that?” Nunnal asked in all seriousness.

  It took until now for the elves to recover from the shock of the sight. A non-elf shapeshifting was thought to be impossible. When the Ataidar branch of the ICDMM reported that it happened with Kallen, they said it was blasphemous. When they repeated their claim with Eric, they brushed it off as a Trickster’s Choice rarity. Now, it had happened a third time. It had happened right before their eyes and to someone not at all affiliated with The Trickster or Lady Chaos. They had to accept it as truth. Now they had to find out why.

  “Some time ago, I asked Eric to explain it, but I can’t remember what it was. Something about unity with the universe and tacos. No, not tacos. I have a craving for tacos.” His eyes drifted to one of Nunnal’s aides. “You look like a taco.” His eyes became a blank red. “May I please eat you?”

  “Fascinating!” Nunnal exclaimed. “A polite monster.”

  Someone tossed a lab coat into the pit and Nolien watched it float to the ground. He charged his horn in case it attacked and watched for sudden movements. Then Tiza picked it up and handed it to him. He continued staring at it.

  “Put it on.”

  “Why do I….Oh, I remember this. It’s body shame, or is it body modesty? The condition of nakedness in one person can cause feelings of discomfort in others and is supposed to cause in oneself. Presumably, it was my brief time as a monster, or more precisely the monsanity that I was afflicted with, that has removed this in me because, as this room is fairly warm, I see no reason to ‘put it on.’”

  “Do it, Tenderfoot!”

  He shrugged. “If you insist….How do I do that? Never mind. I can figure it out.” He slid his arms into the holes and asked, “What’s that thing over there?”

  He walked to the edge of the pit and attempted to climb out, only to slide down. He tried again to the same result. He lay on his stomach and pondered. While he pondered, he narrated the direction of his train of thought.

  “I was a human; no, I’m a monster. No, that is still incorrect. I’m a human becoming a monster becoming a demon. I could have used my new abilities to climb or otherwise bypass the rim, but I was mutated because of a political thing. The political thing is…more complicated than finding food and reproducing and is not so straightforward. Let’s see what I remember.”

  He closed his eyes and remained still for minutes on end. No one wanted to interrupt him for fearing of breaking his memory or causing a relapse or some other problem. Not even the elves knew what to expect from a human recovering from mana mutation because each case was different. An hour and more passed. Nolien’s stomach growled and he opened his eyes. He pointed at Hailey and said, “You owe me a piece of cake.”

  “What?”

  “On Dosh’s fifth birthday party, you stole my piece of cake. When I told you to give it back, you threw it in my face. Humans are supposed to reconcile disputes peacefully, perhaps with blood money, instead of spilling each other’s blood. You never made it up to me, ergo, you owe me a piece of cake. I’m hungry. Give me cake now.”

  “He’ll be like this for a while,” Kallen said. “I was like this and so was Eric. Once his mind has time to reboot and re-configure, he’ll be back to more or less normal.”

  “I wonder if my sense of modesty will return,” Nolien thought out loud. “I remember telling Hailey on a number of occasions to cover up, but those were odd occasions because she normally has a great deal of respect for herself.”

  “Those were hunts!” Hailey insisted, red-cheeked. “A monster ripped my clothes because I was careless or outnumbered.”

  “You still owe me a piece of cake.”

  “How long will this take?” Hailey asked.

  “Mine, I’m told, took days, but Eric was more or less fine within hours.”

  The group spent that time performing tests on Nolien and they were in greater number and in more detail than Eric’s were at the ICDMM. This was not because the elves knew what they were looking for but because they had more time on their hands with which to devise tests and the technology to measure more factors. However, none of them were physical. Nunnal had already gathered enough data of that variety. These tests were all mental and they split between memory and personality; what he remembered about his former life and how he reacted with that knowledge and how much the former influenced the latter.

  “It’s an intriguing way to view the world,” Nolien explained to Nunnal. “There’s a voice at the back of my mind talking about threats and food and reproduction. It’s like a broken record and what’s that you’re eating?”

  “Me?” Bealir asked.

  “Yeah, it smells good and I am hungry. I haven’t eaten in days and, if you don’t mind my saying so, you look tasty. Do you mind if I bite your arm off?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Oh shame.” His eyes became a blank red slate. “I wanted to do this peacefully.”

  “Tenderfoot, no!”

  At once, his eyes returned to human. “Why not?”

  “Because he helped you.”

  “‘Help’? Hmm…That’s…oh yes, that’s reciprocity. Humans do it as a survival mechanism, but I recall myself doing it out of ‘duty’ and ‘chivalry’ and ‘to prove myself.’”

  “How do you feel about those things now?”

  “Detached. Overall, I feel drowsy and far away. It’s like that one time my siblings and I…No. I’m not supposed to say that. I promised Hailey I wouldn’t. It’s my duty as a Heleti to keep my promises. Hey, that was familiar!”

  Tiza smiled fondly and leaned into his side.

  “This is not familiar, but welcome.”

  After the memory and personality tests
, his parents engaged him in a wide-ranging pop test about healing arts. It took the form of a duel between the three of them. Nolien’s horn reacted automatically to threats by canceling spells in midair and instantly dispelling them on himself. He himself didn't have to do anything. Nunnal determined this to be his personal knowledge mixing with his monster reflexes and instinct. With practice, she said he could learn to switch its function on and off, and use it as a replacement for his staff.

  At the word “replacement,” Nolien flew into a rage. He returned to full unicorn form and attacked Nunnal, demanding that she return his original staff. She shut him down with a localized gravity spell. All she had to do was snap her fingers and his body weighed one ton. He ignored the pressure and fired every manner of status element spell at her from his horn.

  Tiza rushed to him to rub his flank and whisper his nickname in his ear. He instantly calmed down. Then Eric and Kallen did their part by showing him how to retrieve his staff. Just like them, it was now part of his soul. By clapping his hands together, he could pull it out as easily as he could mana bolts. Returning to human form (and receiving a new lab coat), he set about performing the feat himself. His staff emerged from his palm and he wept at the sight of it.

  “This technically means I’m dual-wielding. I wonder if Raki has any tips for me.”

  When he grew hungry, he refrained from eating others in the room. Although he asked, he never acted on it if the person refused and so Nunnal judged the first two occasions to be a fluke born of close proximity to his rebirth. When lunchtime finally came, he ate his appetizer with atrocious table manners (which Tiza noted were common in the Dragon’s Lair) but by the time dessert came, he ate neatly with knife and fork (which Kurami noted was enforced at home).