The sounds of talking rushed to him as his eyes slowly opened, the act of opening his eyes seems harder like moving through thick wades of mud. He opens his eyes in half to see a white ceiling though he doesn't feel something attached in his left arm nor his right arm.
Which is weird considering their is usually an IV drip for every patient in an hospital as far as he knows, that's assuming he was in an ordinary hospital. The lights and the runes carved in his bed certainly made obvious glaring sign.
His bag was put in the side but was a bit out of reach, which assured him as at least he could see a few talismans there where most of which were used up from the fight. He can see that his right arm was pretty bandaged up and he felt thirsty at the moment.
He slowly tried to position himself to a sitting position but his legs and back throbbed the attempt was made.
"You look like shit", a voice from beside resounded, he slowly moved maneuvered his neck to look at the person, only to find a floating disembodied body of a woman. Well though from the looks of thing, she was pretty cut up along the neck.
"My eyes are up above here" the ghost thing replied.
"Do I look like the pinnacle of health? If so I would have been up and moving" he said
The ghost with cuts seemed to be frowning above him where he could certainly see her, it seems of to be the originated of a local specie of Aswang. While does think that Aswangs would certainly have been provoked but with now he couldn't think that she would attack in a hospital setting after all.
In his defense, he though considering how the talismans he carried would work much better, as it was pointless carrying salt as he had superior equipment when carrying around and though the effort in creation of it is quite costly but the paper is quite cheap so it balances it out.
Are Aswangs like this though? The twitching of her eyebrows seemed more of better looking at an expression as if a human exasperated with something. Though he is not sure whether if that it is common among that type of ghosts though.
"No, salt does work for an extent. But why would answer such question" the Aswang looked at him as if he was stupid.
Mapulon does get the point of the Aswang, wouldn't want an mage himself to know the particularities of the weaknesses of a specie that isn't that well-known.
He yawns as his drowsiness surfaces once again, only faintly hearing the grumblings of the aswang as it loses it's current conversation partner.
'Well, that's her fault for being snippy. One point for Mapulon, zero for ghost #1' were his last thoughts
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Trix sighs as she spots the duo who were responsible for an incident, three months ago. From the reports of the local residents and non-humans, they do wreck up quite a powerful duo and they are prone at collateral damage especially the western witch.
And she wasn't so sure of what the western witch and the unknown non-human specie duo was doing here, well, if she were to rely mostly on reputation to handle the situation assuming that she was going to confront the western witch.
"If, only if things would go that smoothly" Trix mutters to herself as she adjusts her own hat and her focus along with it.
Regardless of what words were exchanged or what the collateral damage of the unforeseen battle that may sprung from it, she just hoped that she would be self-conscious enough that she would hold-
She shook her head off those thoughts, as further speculation won't do her any good. Walking towards the room, Mapulon was in, she bumped into a person.
"Watch your step!" a voice to the right informs her hastily. It seems quite grumpy to the extent
She looks to the figure, or rather woman as she adjusts as to the sudden displacement by the rush by said woman. "Sorry about that," she says so despite not the person causing the commotion itself.
The woman merely nodded to that albeit grumpily, which from the short exchange they had earlier either it was just the natural state of the woman or either she was just in particularly bad mood.
Either way, the initially little mood that she was having with the current incident that took place earlier took most of it and along with little bits of energetic energy with it.
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Mapulon moves slowly in his bed and attempt to flex his muscles so to remove the numbness of his body of sitting down or lying down for a bit long time.
"Your actually awake this time, not just a living zombie" he hears a voice in his right, it was a voice that was irritated and he knew why that was. Well he can't blame himself as unleashing that much of mana in short amount of time would do that to you.
It was the type of ghost that was popular, yet despite that there wasn't anything concrete as the term Aswang, could be interpreted differently in different parts of the Philippines as with their own culture.
"The injury took a greater toll against me was greater than I had anticipated" he says towards the Aswang.
The Aswang just looks at him as if Mapulon said something weird or out of turn. He doesn't get the weird expression of the ghost, so he simply shrugged as if to say "It was desperate times, and most of my arsenal were applicable during that time?" he hoped that that was enough to explain the situation as he didn't think he would share stories with stranger, and a non-human one at that would be a good idea
The Aswang simply just sighs at the non-reaction of the strange human and Mapulon simply looked at the ghost as to judge what she was thinking about whether about the severity of the question or how his answers were complete yet vague enough that she wouldn't get any conclusion in that.
As with the Aswang's irritation on full display and with his vulnerability, he wouldn't dare to try to aggravate her further when he could simply distract her to avoid future conflicts, so instead he began talking about certain details about the research on the dog monsters.
"I mean from the glimpses I looked at the details found on one of the alchemist research papers, it was summoning that was eerily similar to a demon summoning that my mentor told me about during that one time" he tells the Aswang,
The Aswang seemed to have finally noticed the distraction, looked at him an expression similar towards slight curiosity as it seems that he least was attempting to talk though from the forced smile and the nods it might be because she wasn't interested in the talk.
And that frown was getting a bit tighter as she seemed to move slightly, though he doesn't know about that as a knock in the door distracts him from that.
"Are you decent?" the person that knocked asked,
"Yes?" he replied with distinct wariness coloring most of his voice.
He took the bag and felt the talismans in his bag, this was not went unnoticed by the ghost as with the raising of an eyebrow.
Mapulon felt like he wanted to fill the silence that was created by his abrupt movement and all but he couldn't find it himself to do so, so instead of that. He opened his bag and searched his bag for a phone.
It would have taken him a bit longer when he felt something vibrate and he took it, looking at the phone itself. It was in working condition and though it was cracked but that was only the protective glass itself, otherwise the rest of it was fine.
Speaking of phones, it seemed there has been quite messages and miscalls that he didn't read over the the past days that he wasn't awoke that moment.
Scrolling to the message section, he could see messages asking if he was okay mostly from father or from his mentor. It was not that many and though he didn't received that many messages from his friend that much.
Though that must be probably because they were more of acquaintances in reality as they didn't actually messaged or talked to either in person in video about themselves, and talking about group outputs aren't exactly what he call an appropriate setting of getting know someone either.
So, with that Mapulon ended up surfing in the internet which was surprise to himself as he asked the Aswang, which from the time he was looking at the messages introduced herself to himself as, "Janiel".
He remembered chucking at the name, as just by name alone, you could feel the Filipino in the name alone. Janiel just looked at him with an eyebrow risen but went back to a book that she hadn't noticed wasn't there earlier.
So, he went back to surfing the internet and went searching for a good book to read. As when he tried to move the arm and felt that it still hurt but the pain is still there, he could estimate that he might be be able to get outside of the hospital which might be a least 8 hours from now on.
And it certainly was a good estimation as a physician checked on him saying, "Most of the injuries that were seen that healed would taken weeks that a normal human to heal"
He pointedly look at the ghost who was currently reading a book at the moment.
"whether I'd be as inheritance from a non-human or as side-effect as someone wielding forces of nature that remain up to you to whom you tell of your nature"
Mapulon despite knowing that it was not an regular hospital was a bit shocked to the fast assessment of the physician but the rest was not much considering he talked with person nearby who was certainly not a human as with the separated body thing that Aswangs were commonly known for.
Before the physician, he handed two trays that was labelled as lunch. "Sorry, forgot about this, but there aren't that many people free and there has been many patients with sever burns that require urgency" the physician gave Mapulon an apologetic smile for that.
With the arrival of the food, it made Mapulon hungry. So, he ate the food which was something that didn't need words to say as food was good despite being in a hospital and the hours passes by as he read a book in his phone and would talk for a bit with Janiel when he found something interesting.
Despite how awkward it may seem to others, Mapulon and Janiel weren't bothered by it.
A few hours later he was discharged and went to the billing station and prepared a few orbs of mana that Mapulon prepared earlier as because insistence of his master truly as it was used as emergency cache of cash.
He found that there was a line to it and when it was his turn, the cashier who looked and him and said as she eyed the orbs of mana and said, "Your billing has been already paid for by a woman that called herself Trix".
The people who were looking at him curiously as it was with newcomers who found themselves in an hospital, seemed to have picked up more curiously as the mention of that name suddenly the interest seemed more greater than before.
"Who are you, Trix?" Mapulon thought as he hurriedly started fast walking out of the hospital as the stares made him a uncomfortable and unto the crowds.
He then proceeded to think about the possibilities of how the creatures were able to enter a place as warded as heavy as village was capable of with guards on it, rather than think of why Trix, an unknown person that may or may have reputation in this place and an unknown alchemist with capabilities that he doesn't know other than the rod that she carried as a foci.
He shivered from those thoughts and focused harder on solving the current incident.