We Can Be Heroes ...?

11

Jova acted as though nothing had happened, yet a bar appeared above her head, like the skeletons, and two, wide, slivers of black reduced the red. It didn't stop Jova in the least as she raised her axe, driving it toward the ground, not at the skeletons. As it hit, the ground shook, a rumbling sound resonating around them all and several skeletons before Jova became thrown backward, their red bars becoming more black.

"Jova!" Shion began to run toward the twin, ready to lay a healing hand upon her, but saw that both Mila and Dave also had large, black bands on the bars above her head. "Gods help me."

She remembered the feeling of sending out the ring of healing energy, raising her hand, Shion concentrated. In an instant, the rolling, pulsing ring of magic expanded from her palm and, as it touched Jova and Mila, the edges of black began to reduce. Dave, however, stood too far out of the reach of the healing ring. He crouched again, consumed by hazy shadows, the red bar above his head looking dangerously thin.

Shion felt, not exhausted, but more spent than she had expected. Thoughts of the others mentioning replenishing her magic came to her and she aimed her staff toward the nearest skeleton as it clicked and clacked, rising once again to its feet. As the ribbon of magic struck the creature, its red bar became entirely black and it collapsed into a pile of inert bones and Shion felt the replenishment of her magic.

Dave reappeared behind another skeleton. One more strike, Shion imagined, could turn his bar completely black and then she expected he would suffer a similar fate to the skeletons. Her ring of healing couldn't reach him and neither could she rush forward through the remaining skeletons to lay her hands upon him. In desperation, she took a chance.

Instead of thinking of sending out a ring of healing, Shion concentrated on only Dave. Her attack upon the skeleton had not filled her pool of magic, she could sense that, but she had to try. Holding out her hand, palm facing Dave, she furrowed her brow, thinking only of healing him, of reaching out, through the skeletons. An invisible, magic hand that would touch him, to heal him, to bring him back from the brink of death.

A single bolt of magical energy erupted from her palm, passing by every skeleton, and Shion prayed she hadn't made a foolish mistake. The magic struck Dave and the almost fully black bar regained a great deal of red, over half-way back to full. With a wink and a knife-point salute to his forehead, Dave crouched again, mostly disappearing.

Again Shion felt as though she had no magic left to her as another skeleton reached out toward her, sword falling toward her head. She stumbled back, shooting the ribbon of magic toward it, draining the creature and filling herself with magic. The bar turned black and, with its momentum, the skeleton fell atop Shion, becoming nothing but unmoving, dust-covered bones. She coughed and spat to the side, scrambling to get back to her feet, half-blinded by the ancient dust from the creature, only to find the others had achieved victory as she sat upon the ground.

Her breath came in rapid, aching gasps as she turned this way and that, aiming her Papa's staff everywhere. When she felt certain no other skeletons remained, she collapsed to her knees, the staff falling from her hand fading back into whatever dark realm it occupied until she recalled it once again. All around her, she could see the bones of the fallen, several giving off a pulsing yellow glow.

Before she could even begin to relax, she heard a triumphant sound of trumpets in the air and she spun her head in all directions, searching for what that sound may mean. More skeletons marching their way? An army of the undead come to tear their lives from them? She almost reached behind her back for the staff, stopped only by the open-mouthed stares of the adventurers.

"Di' she jus' level up?" Dave looked toward Mila and Jova, but they could only shake their heads as they stared at her. "I thin' she jus' levelled up."

"Shion? Pull up your menu." Jova crouched before her, swiping up her hand to demonstrate. She meant for Shion to summon her parchment. "I'm just going to hold your arm to see what it says, okay?"