Magic illness. One could say the entire realm was sick. But whereas humans could not tell what was draining it of mana, they knew magic illness very well.
How to explain it to my bedridden master? He needed rest. He wanted to know. I tried my best.
Say magic was a bird, flying straight. It could ebb and flow, rise and fall a bit. If it soared too high, the sun would burn it. That was mana saturation. If it flew too low, it would crash. That was mana drain. What the bird wanted was a steady flight inbetween.
Magic illness was soaring and crashing and soaring and crashing again, repeatedly.
A raging storm for mana that could not settle anymore.
My master was in no state to hear any of this. I had just emptied the bucket by the window, came back in time to have him use it once more. The teenager was feverish, listless and shivering. He kept coughing. Blotches of skin turning stone-hard and gray.
Trying to heal that with magic, at my level, was begging to make it worse.
So all I could do was watch him squirm, bring him water and wash the skin. In short, useless.
Whenever the worst of it passed, if not delirious my master would berate me. And rightly so. Each time he did I would clutch my necklace and call for help. Not really. More like praying.
"I want to go home..." He moaned between his coughs.
It had started to rain. There was no cloud yet droplets formed all the same and drizzled over the submerged city. Hills quiet, their antique ruins vanishing behind the drenched foliages.
The human's mana had fed this town. His body still overflowed and now, in a kind of resonance, the weather had turned sick as well.
Well die! The whole realm could choke for all I cared!
But not him.
"Golem..."
Most monsters had taken refuge underwater. Not that parasite. The giant mushroom seemed to thrive under that rain. Its stems attached to the white towers, around my master's mansion, almost forming a wall. Branching over the water in bridges to the neihboring hills.
"Golem..." Its raspy voice insisted. "There is too much mana... I can't absorb it..."
Clay golems knew how to chuckle. But I had not even the strength to do that. I was pacing in the hallway, aimless.
"The human needs to leave..."
"I will have heard everything..." I mocked. My voice was simmering. "Is the meal not to your taste? Should I serve him less spiced? The last human struggles to breathe and you worry about your stomach. Well, enjoy, parasite."
All I could do was check the cellar again. The room where my master had appeared. The circles were gone. I had tried to trace them again, to redo the alloy, in vain.
And with that, the last link to humanity was gone.
"There is too much mana..." The parasite would not stop. "You are affected too..."
"Who cares?!" I yelled, at my wit's end.
"Outside... the human will heal... but bring him back... I need mana... so bring him back..."
I was done listening to its lies.
Back up and to my master's room, only to find him holding on to the door. How did the human leave his bed? He could barely stand! I caught him before he collapsed, tried to carry him back in. He resisted me.
"Let me go!" His voice was weak, strangled. "Let me!"
"You need to rest."
"Listen to me!"
I froze. That scream had exhausted what strength he had found to struggle all the way there. All he could do now was mutter to let him out.
It had to have been the mushroom. That monster had taken advantage of my master's sickness to whisper the idea. But human words were absolute and I had to admit, the bed offered no promise of recovery.
So I picked the human in my arms, carried him downstairs and into the garden where he moaned for the boat. I obeyed. I carried him the best I could down the hill's stairs and on the moored ship. Let him lay inside the small cabin.
That cabin was filled with a mess of artifacts.
So I went back in. Collected what items and relics were left in the mansion and brought them to the ship in two trips. My master agonized on the berth.
"Bring him back..." The parasite called. "Promise you will... bring the human back..."
I said no such thing, untied the ropes, pushed the hulls off the stairs and back in the city's submerged valleys.
Some hills barely rose above the water, with waves often washing over their flat surface. Others still had a terrace of height towering above the ship's crossed masts. Few were submerged, with only some roof and towers still dry.
With no better direction, I pulled on the ropes, steered the ship toward Alpaap's mountain top. Soon we left the ruins behind.
The lake expanded past the city, getting shallower and dirtier. We passed Alpaap, the ship dwarved by its massive slope. Then the lake turned into a shore, followed by scarce puddles, followed by the dry desert of the realm.
I had no aim nor direction. Straight ahead. Only the distance mattered.
Only stone ridges remained that the sails, following the tenuous flows of magic, naturally avoided. The two hulls were sliding silently on rocks and turning the ground into a thin sandy grain that trailed behind.
Back in the cabin to help my master, then out to empty the bucket overboard.
Scratching from under the deck.
There was something moving under the wooden boards. I walked back to the centerline and watched the words being carved from the other side.
Human. I am Veleter. Come back to Bayankam. I will wait.
An all too familiar message that meant a caparace was hiding somewhere. A bit of searching and yes, there was now a hatch hidden seamlessly on the deck. I had barely opened it that the insect came out, its shield-like chitin shell glistening in the wet air.
That vermin. It presented no threat but how to get rid of it without damaging the ship?
"Get lost. Out with you." I tried to push it.
Even for its size it was mighty agile. The insect ran around me, still on the deck, without any hostility. It was now between me and the cabin, which made me nervous.
But that thing would not move.
Then, it shook itself and ran on the cabin's side to hang there.
"Oh no you don't!" I approached to dislodged it.
And as I tried I noticed it, far behind in the horizon where the ruins of Shiranu had long disappeared, a moving object.
Hard to tell what it was: only its own trail of dust or sand revealed its presence. Without a doubt it was not only moving but trailing us. A monster? What kind of monster was mad enough to risk the mana-deprived plains just to follow its prey?
At that distance the vibrations were useless, but the ship had plenty of artifacts onboard. At least two probably helped with seeing farther.
Nothing in what I had brought about, so I checked in the cabin where my the human reeled under his illness. Powerless.
Anyway, I had a spyglass!
Out and ready to check, only to see the pursuer gone. Yet when looking with my new find I could feel the invisible presence afar, relentless.
Only one thing to do. To the ropes and steering, slowly at first then in a harder curve to try and lose it through the ridges. There realistically was little hope of achieving that given the magical trail my master exhuded but I had to try.
My master started to call. The teenager was panicking on the berth, struggling.
"Help! Get them off!"
I came to calm him, noticed the gray patches of skin gone. He was better? His breath was short, sporadic. He was trying to remove his clothes.
The seals. His tunic had the seals to keep his mana in. A lot of good that had done.
I clenched my fists, then calmed down and, after another moment of hesitation, removed the upper half. Just that let him breathe again.
"Are you feeling better?" I asked.
he found the strength to push me away. "Back off!"
I got up and, tunic in hand, walked out of the cabin. No trace of the caparace around. I sat against the wall, the door to my left. My master's breath had fully stabilized.
He was able to sit, to check himself. Some more coughing but otherwise the worst seemed gone.
"What happened?" My master asked. "I'm back on the ship?"
"You tried to contact humans and failed. The summoning circles are gone. The discharge made you ill. You asked to get back on your ship."
The young human tried to get up, got dizzy and fell back on the berth, his arm on the forehead.
"And what are you doing here?"
"Someone needed to steer the ship. I will go now."
Up and toward the edge. a simple leap would rid my master of me.
"What the hell are you doing?!" He had burst out of the cabin, only to fall dizzy again and hold against the wall. "Who told you to jump!"
And before I could answer, his eyes had gone wide.
"Are you kidding me, you are still in this state?!"
"What state?"
"You are a wreck! There are literal holes in your body! Don't tell me you can't repair yourself?!"
"I had no time, you needed help."
I actually had plenty of time, back at the mansion. I just could not be bothered.
"Well do something! It looks like you'll fall apart!"
"I'm afraid that would force you to stop this ship until I have gathered..."
"Then stop the ship!"
The two thin, sandy sails that formed a circular roof over the boat folded back, leaving a clear blue sky, a slight drizzle and slowing the ship down to a crawl.
I jumped off and walked on the side. Rocks flowing into my feet at my slow pace. My master had laid himself down on the deck.
"And remove the moss! And I don't know, I'm not your mom!"
"I am sorry for your loss." I answered.
He didn't understand at first, then remembered the magic circles. His one hope to go back eclipsed before his eyes. He chuckled.
"It's not like Earth is gone! I'll find another way..."
Awkward silence after that.
"Eh." He broke it. "So, I'm sorry for abandoning you."
"Why? It was the thing to do. As soon as you'll have recovered... You have proven to be more than capable to handle the realm alone."
"Oh for crying out loud! Stop it! I get it, you don't care, but I do!" He got interrupted by another coughing fit. "If you wanted to kill me you could have done it already! So don't make me say it and just stay with me, geez! Do you know anything about how humans work?!"
I stopped. The ship slowly sailed forth without me and my master, noticing it, tried to react but struggled to get back up. No matter. With just a touch of my fingers I made the ropes move and immobilize the whole craft.
"No. I don't."
I had just realized that.
"Humans to me are perfect beings, strong and wise, who ruled the realm in peace and wealth. When mana dried up, they salvaged what they could and escaped. They left their creations behind. Their cities. Their riches. Their tools. Is that not the human thing to do? To abandon the burden and thrive? Just throw away the shovel that encumbers you."
He let a moment of migraine pass, breathed and looked at the sky.
"Yeah. Leaving the deadweight behind, that's definitely us. Eh, do you want to go there?"
"Where?" He better not mean Bayankam.
"To Earth!"