Chapter 2:

Where am I?

"Ugh…" is the only thing I can mutter out of my bruised lungs. But I do get a response.

"Ah, so you've finally come to. I can't believe you survived that crash," some blurry girl with a British accent and dark brown hair comments. "Oh, wait… darn. He's out again."

I black out.

Some time after, I awaken, this time without the blur of visual fatigue. I try to sit straight up. A large pain hits me like a punch to the chest. My ribs are supposedly broken.

"How long will it take me to recover? 6 weeks? Well, I guess I'll just lay on this bed."

I look over my right shoulder towards the wall. There are framed and professional drawings of anime all over the wall. I look to the left. Again, all anime.

"Who drew all this? Where am I? An artist's studio?"

There is a door on the far side of the right wall. A thought shot into my head saying "You must escape!" But I counter my thought "I'm in no condition to do that!" Knowing I'm stuck here, I observe my surroundings with a little more detail. This room is completely empty, besides the drawings and bed. The floor is covered in dust, and the wooden walls and floor appear to be darkened spruce. The rafters are pretty high up, indicating an elevated ceiling.

Wait a minute… In a health class 3 years ago, my class quickly reviewed the skeletal system. I was given the ribs as a subject to present via presentation, and I found out on the Internet that though extremely painful, you can still shuffle about with broken ribs. That seems like the good and only idea.

I roll over to the right edge of the bed and cautiously lower my bare feet to the dusty wood. My blood seeps through the bandages on my leg and runs to the floor. I notice 2 paths of footprints leading from the door to the bed.

"Hmmm… I'll follow that."

I oblige. I stumble to the wall, using it as leverage, not putting too much pressure on my torso. It's still harrowing. I reach my hand to the door handle, but I soon find out it's not what is seems to be. It disappears before me. A little weirded out, I push the door open instead. My ears strain against the door's loud creaking. A long hall stretches before me. Along it are mannequins covered in shimmering robes, and paintings of old and probably important people too. Suddenly, a swift wind flows up the hallway towards me, making a whoosh sound. I wonder how that could happen, since the only thing open is the room I just left. Interrupting my thoughts, a large hand claps hard onto my shoulder.

"Ha! Where do you think you're going?" a man's low voice bellows into my ear.

"Woah my god!" I yell and jump forward away from him, turning on a dime. This strange man is wearing a robe that's identical to the ones on the mannequins, though brown. I can't see his face: he's wearing a low hood where shadows conceal his face. All I can see is his mouth. Because I moved too fast, pain strikes and I'm rendered to lean against a mannequin. "Who the hell are you?"

He takes a big stride towards me. "I am Lothuldan, the chief dark mage. Don't you remember me?"

"Get away from me... Where am I... What is this place... Why am I here?" the pain and confusion over exhaust me, and I collapse.

I regain consciousness in a different room this time, and I'm not alone. The same brunette with the British accent is here. She's wearing a long black robe with thick gray lines that run up the arms, splitting direction to the hood and the rest of the body. It's sleeves surprisingly extend only to the forearms. Clasped to her wrists are plated and fingerless gloves that bear symbols of a crest of flame, a lightning bolt, a gale of wind, and what appears to be a patch of sparkles on the dorsum. Each engraving luminates with corresponding colors {red for fire, green for wind, etc.). There's a necklace around her neck, and it's glowing with an orange aura. A flicker of light by her ear indicates that she is also wearing earrings. The fine boots retain silver shinguards.

There is another guy here. He is wearing a leather cuirass with a red and spiked pauldron on the right shoulder. The huge greaves are larger-than-life, and his gauntlets appear to be silver. Though he looks ready for a battle, he wears no head apparel, besides a black headband. The dirty blonde hair he has is spiked.

"Heh, odd outfits," I comment.

"Yeah, you're to judge. Aren't you the new recruit? Well you shouldn't be helping us in any time soon without aid. I'm Myron, and this is Riahn," the blonde person reaches for a handshake, but realizes I'm bleeding out and pulls away. "Never mind. I'll fix that."

Myron reaches towards a small pouch on his side, and when he does, a menu with 6 rows pops up in front of his face. With his other hand, he taps an item named Catharsis. A large steel staff with a blue gem the size of a fist that crowns the top shimmers into view and solidifies. He snatches it out of the air, looks me in the eye, then raises the staff straight up and says "Catharsis!"

I start to glow like a light bulb, resulting in the huge gashes on my legs, arms, and forehead to fold over then cease to exist, and the few broken bones I have are now mended. I raise my arms in front of me to witness a small cut close up then vanish.

"Woah!" I exclaim, looking at the palms of my hands, once again noticing the blue bar. "Was that magic? I have to say, that was pretty sick!"

"It seems you have had enough experience with magic to actually know what it is," Myron notices, "I'm surprised. Most of everyone would feint."

"Oh no, not through actual experience. Anyway, I've been wondering: What the heck is this meter?"

"Oh, this?" He pulls off a gauntlet and points at the full bar. "This is the indicator of how much mana, a sort of "cost" for spells, you contain. It it absorbed through a special ore, but this resource is rapidly running low."

"But wouldn't the 'mana' be sorta depleted?

"You've got a knack for these kind of things. If you prefer to not use mana, you may use specific spell tomes or staves, but at the cost of a slot in the limited inventory and a durability point. If you'd like to use mana, you must memorize the same word, but from several other languages, then chant those words in monotone. No inventory cost."

"Seems simple. After all, I'm used to dreams exactly like this."

"What? A dream? No no no no no no, this is no dream. Would you feel pain and not wake up? You're ribs were fractured a minute or two ago."

"So what am I supposed to believe? That magic is real?" As I say this, I sit up and cross my legs.

"Yes."

"And what did you mean by 'new recruit'? Am I being drafted or something? This is crazy…"

"I wouldn't say 'drafted,' but you are the newest mage at Winterlyn."

"Winterlyn?"

"Ok, you are asking WAY too many questions for me to keep up, so I'll go through everything in one fell swoop. Yes, we are in Winterlyn, the lowest of the low in mage capitals. In your dimension, you call this place Greenland. Why would you name this place 'Green'land? It's is so freakin' cold… whatever. Yes, I said another dimension. As I said earlier, the mana resource is getting scarcer and scarcer, and as one would expect, war could break out due to unfair distribution. Well, that is what is happening at this moment, between us, Mecohm and Iceacre. Mecohm is in an island in the Caribbean, while Iceacre is in Antarctica. There are other mage citadels, but they don't even consider using mana, using physical tomes and such. No one wants war, so we try to decide who should go down to using only tomes and staves. But… negotiation is not of the essence, so expect random attacks." Myron takes a deep breath in. "Pheew! Is that good enough? That is the hardest part to new mages!"

"Uh… I guess? So do you expect me to help out in this war?" I stutter in shock.

"That is why you're here," Riahn speaks up for the first time.

I look towards her and respond "I can't do that in a regular sweater and pants. May I use one of those sweet robes in the hallway?"

"Which hall? This is a castle!"

"The one where that weird guy grabbed me! His name was… um..."

"Let me guess: Lothuldan?"

"Yeah! Does he do that often?"

"Of course he does. He is the chief dark mage here, and he loves pranks."

"He said something else too… I think it was 'Don't you remember me?' What does that mean? It's not like I've been here before, right?"

Myron, realizing I've found something out, leans over and whispers something into Riahn's ear, resulting in her gasping and whispering back. They both glance towards me and say at the same time:

"Of course not."