LIGHTNOVELONLINE 311 – Swift Recovery
“Well that was fa-” she began, trying to sit up, only for the numerous battle-mended breaks in her ribcage to remind her of their presence; that was not to mention the still-healing wounds of being dismembered and having her heart cut open. Despite that, she still sat up just fine, remarking, “Oh, yep, sure feels like it was too fast a recovery to be true.”
Though her exhaustion quickly faded, wrenching hunger was left behind, a tacit demand for more concrete nutrition to repair and replace that which was lost. She curiously traced her fingers along the seam where the bottom of her neck attached to the rest of her body, wondering if the surface looked as metallic as it felt. A question to be asked later - Zel instead looked to the governor and asked: “Mind bringing me up to speed on the situation while I, ah… Drink my breakfast? Our location, known casualties, the works - it’s not as if I’ll have much else to do anytime soon.”
The Older Estoras just nodded, pulling up a chair, with Sig just casually leaving the tent while Jorfr walked out as well, though much more purposefully. The Governor had explained that they were only about a day’s travel from Willowdale, and that, despite the magnitude of the second battle, the vast bulk of the casualties had been suffered during the initial defense of Williowdale and the march to Ubul’s Tomb.
“It seems the soldiers have collectively decided to call the conflict the Blue Moon War,” said the governor, toking from his cigar. A moment later, Jorfr returned with two mess kits, each full of piping-hot stew. Despite Makhus’s concerned protests, the norseman crossed the tent in three of his massive steps and handed one of the mess kits into Zel’s waiting hand. Not even bothering with the spoon, she took a long gulp of the scaldingly hot goulash, swallowing chunks of meat and potato whole. This, too, reminded her of her injuries, Ubul having cut through her stomach when he had disemboweled her, but a little pain was less irritating than real, demanding hunger, perhaps because unlike pain, it was a sensation she hadn’t felt all that much.
“You cannot heal such wounds with only elixir,” said the norseman to the alchemist, who threw his arms up in exasperation.
“I know that! Didn’t you consider that getting FUCKING DISEMBOWELED might interfere with one’s ability to digest-” Makhus snapped back.
Zel quieted him down, chuckle-coughing as she reminded him that, “I would kn-gh- know if that were the ckh- the case. Total body awareness, remember?”
“That’s-” he turned around, only to narrow his eyes, lean in, and half-whisper, “I’ll be honest, I didn’t think it was that literal. I was about to start injecting nutrient slurry directly into your bloodstream like you were some half-mummified monk.”
The way she felt, injuries aside, could best be described as what a storm cloud feels after a storm, not unlike the satisfying tension in her muscles after a strenuous workout. Without so much as a breath of Fog, she raised her left hand, and with a thought, thick arcs of lightning slithered down her fingers, arcing off into empty space in favor of jumping between her fingers, as would have been their natural inclination.
“Ah, yes, that reminds me,” Estoras piped up again. “As you might’ve expected, the Living Storm has dispersed…”
He went on to further elucidate the general situation for a short bit longer, catching Zel up on the overall losses, especially those suffered by the Statues. As it turned out, to absolutely no surprise, Ozmir was perfectly fine, and had rejoined the convoy some day and a half into the return trip. Over the course of his explanation, Zel increasingly felt the presence of others gathering outside the tent, not mentioning it until it became glaringly obvious.
Something untoward churned in her guts, her intestines physically shifting around slightly as her body worked to rearrange them back into a proper configuration. Without saying a word, she turned upon her cot and slowly rose to her feet, only now realizing that she’d been striped down to her underwear. While the scar where her head had been reattached was nearly straight, both the reattachment points of her right arm and her leg jagged and grisly-looking, even with the seams gleaming metallic and near perfectly clean at the join.
“What’s wrong?” Zef asked, getting up herself while the others looked on.
Zelsys asked: “...Where’s the latrine?”
Though she rather enjoyed the cheers and hollers she was met with as she slowly walked through the camp, barefoot, having only put on her trousers, Zelsys beelined straight to the aforementioned latrine. The rather infrequent business of waste elimination dealt with, she returned to her tent, finding the governor just about leaving as she returned.
“We can speak more on what comes next later,” he said to her, “I’ve a few resolutions to draft before we get back to town.”
“Plan on replacing the lost statues with automata and new tankmen?” she asked jokingly, but the way the governor squinted at that made it clear he considered the suggestion in earnest.
“I’ll… Remember that,” Estoras gestured with his cigar, before he turned on a heel and walked off.
Zel spent the better part of the rest of the day resting in the company of what may as well have been her family, eating a squad’s worth of food in the process, discussing plans for the near and far future, until, inevitably words turned to the diminished state of her cleaver. She was confident it would just grow back to its original shape in time, especially given the tremendous power she felt to be present within it, but… A gut feeling made her wish to seek the counsel of someone more experienced with arcane weapons. Fortunately, the very woodsman who had built the storm shelters and who had held watch over Ubul’s Tomb was also obsessed with weaponcrafting to a near pathological degree, and he found his way to them mere minutes after Zel asked an errand boy to find someone of the sort.
