Chapter 29

Ben felt himself begin to come to consciousness. The pain was still there, but he decided to take that as a good thing. Pain meant he was still alive after all, and it had at least gotten weaker than when the alseer decided to try and make a meal of him, but he still didn’t want to move much at the moment.He felt the softness of a bed beneath him and opened his eyes a crack to look up at the ceiling. Something seemed familiar about it but he was still in a daze, it was hard to say for sure.

He turned his head to the side to try to see where he was, when he found himself in a room with an albino gorilla quietly reading a book in a chair beside him. No, not a gorilla, a yeti.

“Falk?” He quietly croaked out. His throat felt dry and it was hard to talk. How long had he been out?

His teacher's head jerked up when he heard his name and looked at Ben, before running to the door and yelling, “Sonya! Thera! He’s awake!” and rushing back to his bedside.

Ben could hear the sounds of footsteps hurrying down the halls before Sonya burst into the room. He thought it was strange, he was sure he had heard the sound of more than just one person, and apparently she had thought the same. When she found she had come in alone she marched back to the door, reached out, and dragged someone inside.

It took a moment for Ben's mind to work out what and who he was seeing. At first he thought he was seeing a statue of a member of Sonya's race. Skin that looked like it was made from genuine marble and solid gold eyes lacking whites or pupils, with hair running just below her shoulders to match, and a thin tail wrapped around their waist like a belt. He wasn’t originally able to put together what he was seeing, why would a statue be moving, or wearing fabric clothes for that matter? It took embarrassingly long for it to click for him before he looked into her eyes and spoke up.

“I’m glad to see you’re safe. Sorry about the cloak.”

She noticeably grimaced and ignored his apology, instead turning to the other two. “I told you he would be under my effects, I’ll go hide on the other side of the house for now.”

“Thera it’s perfectly natural for him to be concerned about you after what happened. Just wait here while we talk. Ben, honey? Do you know where you are?” Sonya asked, kneeling down to look into his eyes.

“Pretty sure this is your house right? I was brought here after my screll incident. Do you have any water?” He felt his throat rubbing against itself during that whole sentence.

She grabbed a glass and filled it from a pitcher that was sitting just outside of his field of view.

“Alright, you seem coherent enough. Can you tell us what happened?” She gently questioned as he sipped on his drink.

He went over the details he remembered in his mind before he started to talk. He explained how his god told them they were being followed while they walked by the river, how they had run through the woods, trying to get to some nearby adventurers but couldn’t make it in time so they had to try to hide. After that trying to enchant Thera's cloak but messing up somehow and destroying it, and the monster, the alseer seeming to know where Thera was as soon as it happened and charging at them. Finally, he spoke about his desperate attempt to scare it off by working himself into a panic before connecting with the beast.

“And after that I blacked out, but I’m alive which is pretty cool,” He said, trying to give a confident smile, though it probably turned out more like a grimace from his general discomfort.

Thera spoke up to the other two. “See! He knew it was going for me but he still stepped in and almost got himself killed. He’s obviously being influenced by me. I need to go.”

“Thera the boy isn’t being influenced by anything,” Falk told her. “Can you just talk to him?”

“Excuse me,” He spoke up. "What am I supposedly being influenced by?”

Thera shifted about uncomfortably while everyone looked at her, Falk and Sonya clearly not going to give the explanation for her. Finally she seemed to gather her resolve and spoke up. “Ben, I'm a halfbreed. Specifically half earth spirit and half succubus. My large mana and earth magic comes from my spirit heritage, but as for my succubus heritage… It gave me charm magic, and because of my large mana pool it’s significantly more effective than what a pure-blooded succubus would have. Without a resistance of at least 30 to it you’ll be taken in by its passive effects just by being around me, 40 if there’s any physical contact. Usually this magic would just make people like you more and want to be around you, maybe be more open to answering your requests too, but since I have so much mana, those effects can also leave people mentally unbalanced and lead to an unhealthy obsession with me.”

Ben had a lot of questions now that she was finally being open with him, but he decided to put most of them to the side and focus on the matter at hand. “Wait I don’t think I’m obsessed with you, but charm magic wasn’t even an option on my card? Is that some sort of unique magic or something?”

Sonya explained to him. “It’s a specialized form of magic, specifically dark magic.”

He was still not as clear-headed as he would have liked to be but he thought he saw where this was going. “Wait so my darkness resistance would apply, right?”

He saw nods from the two women before he turned to Falk and asked in a bit of an accusing tone. “And why didn’t you explain anything to your niece?”

He gave a bit of a shrug before telling him. “Etiquette. Unlike a certain human that barged into my shop one day, most people don’t openly share the entire details of their status with another, that's some very personal stuff after all and in the wrong hands could reveal things you might not want others to know. If someone decides to share their status with you, you keep it to yourself.”

Ben sighed. He was pretty sure he had been told the same thing at the church, but he hadn’t really cared. “Alright well can someone tell me where my card is? We can sort this out right now,” It seemed that he had been stripped down at some point and was only tastefully covered by a blanket. Even if one of the people around was the healer treating him he wasn’t going to go and bare-all at the moment.

Sonya went to a desk by the side of the room before taking it and handing it to him. He gave her his thanks before revealing the information on it and handing it to Thera.

She scanned it for only a second before reacting to something completely different to what he had been expecting.

“You're an apostle?” She basically yelled at him.

“What?” Both Falk and Sonya yelled as well before looking over Thera’s shoulder at his card. So much for good etiquette.

“Boy when in the infinite hells did you become an apostle to a god?”

“I became Myriads' apostle right after you accepted me as an apprentice, what's the big deal?”

“Ben discovering someone's apostle is about as surprising as learning someone you know is actually royalty. There's only a few thousand of them.” Sonya explained.

“Okay I see what you're saying, but by that logic shouldn’t the fact I’m one of the two hundred people that were summoned last year be more surprising?”

“You’re what?” Sonya yelled again, though this time it was only her at least so he tried to put the matter to the side.

“Okay why don’t we talk about how strange and unlikely I am later and get back to the matter at hand. Thera if you want to look at the rest later you can but for now just go to my resistances.”

She was still looking at him funny but did as she was asked and scrolled down to look at his resistances. As soon as she saw them she let out a small gasp. “There's no way,” She muttered. “How could one person have resistances this high for every affinity?” She looked up at him and stared him in the eyes. “Is your darkness resistance really 85?”