BXBX NOVEL Chapter 637 Imprisoned
Keng watched Ritsuka administer the blue potion to Olivia. Ritsuka had told him they called these blue potions 'Energy Potions.' They worked the same way the roes did. They gave the user Dark Matter back and lessened the Negative. Ritsuka fed her a healing potion, unsure if Manny would even heal someone who had threatened him.
"Done." Ritsuka announced. The bottles clinked together as Ritsuka turned around. "Check her out now." Keng lifted his hands and made the rectangle shape and peered into it at Olivia. The energy levels were better than before, but the amount of leftover Negative attached to her was still worrying. "It won't do everything a healer can do but it should give her some comfort."
The two moved back to their seats as Ritsuka sat the empty bottles next to him.
"What're you gonna do with those now?" Keng pointed at the bottles. "Hold them?"
"Mmm, once you take them out of their card state, they can't go back. We're left with dealing with the scraps." Ritsuka answered.
"Give 'em to me." Keng motioned. Ritsuka handed them off to him and watched as he summoned the Void Storage and stuck them in there.
"That's handy." Ritsuka commented. "You basically have one of those storage systems that's like millions of creds. How'd you even get access to that sort of thing? Daros? The Fox Spirits?"
"Yeah, basically." Keng nodded. "While I was training to heighten my Energy senses, I learned Fox runes and familiarized myself with the language more."
"I thought you already understood it."
"I do, but some words are hard to understand since it's English spoken words translated into Fox tongue."
"Ah the borrowing." Ritsuka nodded. Keng nodded along with them as they listened to Evan snort and shift in his spot. "Do you think we'll find Lee Seng?" Ritsuka looked over at Keng. Keng seemed relaxed at the mention of Lee Seng. Keng stared at the parallel wall, thinking for a bit before turning to Ritsuka.
"We should get out of this place first." Keng replied. He turned away as Ritsuka nodded.
"True."
"How long was I asleep?" A sleepy Liz asked, rubbing her eyes. She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position as she looked at the two boys.
"Two hours, ten minutes. Almost eleven minutes." Ritsuka answered. Liz rolled her eyes. Ritsuka had always given straight answers like that.
"Shouldn't we move?"
"We both thought an extended break for everyone would help. Plus, Olivia doesn't seem any better." Ritsuka looked over to her. Liz looked over and watched Olivia for a while. She simply nodded and looked over to the other side, noticing Manny was in a fetal position. The light near her moved, circling her a couple of times before moving towards Manny.
Keng watched the light flutter into a large wisp. It flew over to Manny and sat on his head. Manny lifted his hand to scratch the spot. The wisp fluttered away from the head and rested itself on Manny's head again. Keng sighed and stood up, stretching.
"What?" Ritsuka looked up at Keng. Keng moved over to Manny, Liz and Ritsuka's gaze following as the wisp fluttered up to its master and touched his ear. Keng sighed and nodded as the wisp flew back to Manny's head.
"Who knew you guys would be interested in his head too." Keng whispered. He lifted his hands, creating the rectangle as he looked through it. Tons of Earth runes appeared as Keng took it all in. Manny's head was heavily encased with runes with runes spreading all throughout his body. Keng sighed, lowering his hands.
'Earth runes… I'd have to study them to even understand what's happening but that won't help with removing them.' Keng clicked his tongue. Manny twitched, groaning as he began to stretch. Keng turned towards Evan. 'I only noticed a couple of runes that looked very familiar… But the only person who would use that rune is dead. It couldn't be, right?'
"Ugh." Manny groaned, sitting up. "What time is it?"
"Time for us to leave." Keng replied. He bent over and shook Evan awake. "Get up. We're leaving soon."
"Mmm, okay." A sleepy Evan answered.
"What about Olivia?" Ritsuka asked. "Didn't you say she was in bad condition?"
"What I saw. I'm not a doctor but I'd check her, Manny." Keng pointed.
"Olivia? You want me to check her after she almost killed me?" Manny yawned. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere near her."
"Better to help her than be stuck here with all of us."
Manny groaned and slowly stood up. His legs felt like butter and the lights, which were dim, were hurting his eyes.
"Can you lower those lights? My heads splitting." Manny groaned. Liz watched him with worried eyes as he sluggishly moved towards Olivia. Keng dimmed the lights even further and watched Manny struggle to kneel down.
"Here, let me help you." Liz quietly spoke. She was at his side in an instant, helping him down.
"I don't… I'm fine." Manny brushed her off. He lightly pushed Liz away and sighed as he lifted his hands above Olivia. Liz brushed her hair to the side and stood off to the side as Manny stared to heal Olivia. "Why're you even making me heal her? Am I some slave?"
"It's your job." Ritsuka commented. "We all have our jobs. You do your part, and we'll do ours."
"Such a great job, hm?" Manny casually commented. Ritsuka clicked his tongue as he started to get up. He started to say something when Keng hushed him.
"No more fighting." Keng told them. "This feels more like a prison than my predicament." He sighed and turned around to watch Evan yawn as he sat slumped over.
"Your predicament?" Evan asked. "This isn't as bad as whatever you're dealing with?"
"Not in the slightest." Keng sighed.
It took a while, but Olivia slowly woke up. She noticed Manny, tiredly, hovering over her as he healed her. The splitting headache in her head was still there, but something else was disappearing.
"You pushed yourself too hard." Manny spoke. "Your head burst a bit. Does it happen a lot?"
"No." Olivia looked away. "This is the first time… I-I thought you couldn't heal Negatives. Why is mine disappearing?"
"I've been practicing taking... away those effects." Manny's green light disappeared. His hand fell to his side as he slowly tried to stand. "Sucks too much outta me. I feel like I'm losing more DM now that I know how to do that." Liz moved over and hovered over Manny. He brushed her off and turned. "I didn't do that to help you. I just want out of here. Away from you all."
"Anyone need to do anything before we go?" Keng addressed the group. He didn't have much of a reserve left but it would be enough for him to leech off of enemies if they came across any.
"I think that's my line as leader." Manny tiredly spoke. "Let's go." He started to move forward when he tripped on nothing and began to stumble forward. He began to sail straight to the ground when Ritsuka caught him.
"Dude are you okay?" Ritsuka asked.
"Get away from me…" Manny weakly pushed him. Ritsuka propped him up as Liz came over and looked at him.
"You look like death." Liz gasped. "Are you sick?"
"I-I'm fine." Manny's arms shook as he tried to push himself away from Ritsuka.
"You're not fine." Liz stuck her hand up onto Manny's head. "You're burning up! What the hell happened? How could you get sick out of nowhere?"
"I… I—" Manny went slack as Ritsuka and Liz yelped. Ritsuka held Manny as Keng, Olivia and Evan came over.
"Is he okay?" Olivia asked.
"He was fine today, right?" Evan asked. Liz bit her lip as she checked his forehead, again.
"He's burning up. This is bad." Liz sighed. "What do we do? We don't have any medicine." The group began to talk as Keng lifted his hands up. He created the rectangle shape with his index and thumb fingers and watched as the runes lit up.
"He wasn't kidding…" Keng whispered, lowering his hands.
"Huh?" Ritsuka asked. "Kidding about what?"
"He…" Keng licked his lips. "Manny wasn't kidding when he said he'd die if he told us the truth. He accidentally spilled part of it and got sick just like that."
"What do we do? C-can we get out of here? You can blast through the rocks and get us out, right?" Liz turned and grasped Keng's hands. Her eyes shook as she tried to calm herself. "Tel-tell me there's something you can do. Anything!"
"I-I can do something but it's risky." Keng told them.
"What?" Evan asked.
"I can do what I did with Liz to him." Keng nodded at Manny. "I don't know how it's going to go since he has so many runes on him but—"
"Wait, he has runes on him?" Liz interrupted. "How? H-he—I've never seen a rune on his body. He may act like a fuccboi, but his body is a temple."
"There's seeing with your eyes, physically, and then seeing through the Energy. I just charged my hands to see it since I can usually see these things." Keng explained.
'Although I didn't hear it this whole time…'
"So, what's the plan?" Ritsuka asked. "Are you going to go in or should we find a way out?"
"Can you guys handle traversing this place without my help for a while?" Keng looked at the group as they looked at each other.