108 Bug

Irade

May 16 1:00 pm BT – 11:00 am UT, Somewhere In The Tian Shan Mountain Range, China

The bed was warm and soft. Irade felt as if she was sinking into the middle, drowning in plush heat.

Wait. Bed?

Instantly, Irade got up, throwing the covers off, knife in hand. She surveyed the room, unable to make sense of what she was seeing for a few seconds.

She was in a cozy, colorful room, with so much in it that she didn't really know where to start. Her bed was in the corner, and had a bunch of folded sitting and prayer mats at the foot of the bed. Beside her was a small, wooden bedside table with a bedside lamp and a digital clock reading 11:00 am.

She blinked, her eyes drawn to the colorful etles patterns hung up on the walls.

And then she remembered what happened.

She had walked, screaming in the rain, back to the house. Her left arm had fallen off somewhere, but she couldn't remember. Her body had been screaming at her to stop, to just fall, to just rest. She could feel her mind trying to pull her down into the sweet, dark embrace of sleep.

Even the HUD was flashing warning signs, the annoying little exclamation point at the corner pulsing incessently.

But she couldn't. She needed to heal.

That was the only thought in her mind.

She needed to use [Heal].

She didn't really remember why, or on who. All she knew was that she had gotten this Skill for a reason, and she needed to get back to the house to use it.

She forced her body to move, slipping and aching in the rain, until she reached the house. She burst through the door.

She remembered hearing someone saying something, but it was all noise in the background. Irade needed to heal. She used the HUD to find the person with the lowest health, but everyone here was pretty much full.

And then, she was in a different room. Someone lead her here, she knew that, but she didn't remember who or how. And in front of her was a man with very low health. Instinctively, Irade reached out, and activated [Heal].

Heal heal heal heal heal heal heal heal...

After that, Irade had no idea what happened. She was pretty sure she passed out. She didn't even remember if the Skill worked or not.

"Did you sleep well?" a certain voice growled.

Irade blinked, then looked down to find Black Wind, looking up from a curled up position. Had he been there this entire time?

No. That didn't matter right now.

Irade tried to throw off her covers, but was suddenly hit by a wave of fatigue. Her muscles were aching, her arm and legs screaming at her not to move.

But that wasn't all.

Slowly, the pain died down. Irade could feel her breath returning to her, slowly. Her vision was blurry, and she could feel something wet running down her cheeks; at some point, it seemed she had started crying. Not that she remembered. She had been too occupied with the pain.

Irade stayed like that, her head in her knees, panting, until the pain had lessened to a small, aching throb.

"You overexerted yourself," said Black Wind. "Badly this time."

Finally, Irade looked up, and put her hand on her chest, over where the pain had been. It was only then that she realized that the pain had been coming from her 'core.' The place were all her magic was gathered up.

"You've damaged your core," Black Wind continued. "You took in too much magic, and destabilized your weird core."

"Thanks," Irade managed to choke out, in Chinese. She shook her head, then said the same thing again in Uyghur.

"I didn't notice."

Black Wind simply snorted.

"This happened because your core was too weak," said Black Wind. "At least, that's what it seems like to me. If you absorb any more magic, your core is likely to break"

"Core...break?" Irade said. She really needed to increase her vocabulary.

"Normally, absorbing more magic would simply make your core stronger," explained Black Wind.

"But as I said, your core is weird. From what I can see, it works more like a spell than a core. Overcharging it with magic has made it react like a curse; strengthening it while also making it brittle."

Irade simply stared at Black Wind. He sighed.

"I don't know what is going on with your core," he stated. "All I know is that it is acting strangely. It is highly likely using magic is now impossible for you."

Irade blinked.

Using magic...impossible?

Immediately, she activated [Flight]. For a moment, the Skill seemed to stall. Then, thankfully, she felt the spell flow through naturally, lifting herself up for a little.

"Seems I was worried about nothing," Black Wind growled, watching her as she landed back on the bed softly.

At that moment, the door opened. Käwsär's mother walked in, holding a tray of food. Irade could smell it as soon as the door opened; the warm, hearty scent of a meaty broth, seasoned with some sort of vegetables. Her mouth instantly watered as Käwsär's mother smiled at her, setting the tray in front of her.

"I heard you getting up," she said, taking out a spoon from her apron and placing it on the tray. "I thought you might be hungry."

Irade eyed the chunks of meat and vegetables in the broth greedily, but held herself back. She looked up at the smiling woman.

"Is...his father..."

"Doing a lot better, thanks to your help," she said warmly. "We were very worried for a while there. That bite wasn't something I had seen before."

Irade nodded. At the same time, her stomach growled. Her face burned as Käwsär's mother chuckled.

"I'll let you eat for now," she said, walking towards the door. "You don't need to get up if you don't feel like it. But if you do, we'd love to have you in the dining room later."

Irade nodded her thanks, and Käwsär's mother left. As soon as she was gone, she started eating noisily. She didn't try wolf it down like before; she was worried it might spill, after all.

Once she was done, she put aside the tray of food, and opened up the HUD.

Sure enough, that incessantly blinking exclamation point was still there. When was the last time she had seen that? When she first got the HUD? She couldn't remember.

Had it really been that long since she had gotten this HUD? So much had happened, and yet it felt like she had barely scratched the surface of any of it.

Who gave it to her?

Why did they give it to her?

What did they want from her?

From the looks of things, the way they had given her the [Heal] Skill in the last fight, it looked like they were just trying to help her.

In fact, if Irade thought about it, wasn't that all the HUD had done? Tried to help her?

It had warned her not to go into the gorge, and yet she had. It had helped her gain experience and power, even despite everything she did.

Why had she been so angry and mistrustful of the HUD?

Irade frowned as she thought back to who she was back then.

Right. It was when it had told her to look into her past. With that one mission, with the letters her mother and father had written to each other.

She had been so angry to find out all that out.

But why?

The answer came surprisingly easily: because it meant that everything that her classmates told her about her were true. That her parents were separatists. That she was an outcast. That she didn't belong.

But was that what the HUD was trying to tell her?

Normally, story missions started out with a villain or a set goal, and the player would just complete that objective, no twists. But some missions had twists, revealing something else about the characters and setting.

Not that Irade usually paid attention to all that. She was always more interested in gameplay than lore.

But maybe that was what the HUD was trying to do? That it was trying to get her to look into her past, so that she could find that it wasn't actually something bad?

That maybe, her parents weren't traitors?

...

But after everything Irade had gone through with the Chinese government in the past few months...

What did she fear more? That her parents were separatists? Or that they had actually been good, Chinese citizens?

Irade shook her head. No point in thinking about that now. This was the whole reason she was going back to Kashgar; so that she could find out what kind of life she had lived, and to see what kind of people her parents had been.

As for the HUD...

Irade acknowledged that her suspicion had come from a place of bad faith. That said, she didn't forget that time it called her a coward.

The system had an agenda. It seemed to align with Irade's wishes right now, but in the future who knows what it would want her to do?

Better to keep cautious. But maybe...it was still okay to use its power.

At least, until she could use magic properly. Without the HUD. Now that she had Black Wind, that should be possible.

With that rationalization in her mind, Irade opened up the blinking exclamation point. She read the message slowly, taking in the information.

Slowly, a shiver began to creep up her spine.

[Requirements: Met!]

[New Mission!]

[Mission: The King Of The Mountain!]

[Description: The King of the Mountain has noticed *Arabic script*! He plans to attack her, and her companions in one week!]

[Objective: Destroy the King or Negotiate with him before he destroys you!]

Irade turned to face the wall. She knew, from the geography of the house, that upwards from here would be the mountain.

If the King of the Mountain existed, that would mean that he would be in that direction. She had remembered feeling of someone watching her after she had killed that...stalling woman. She remembered afterwards, while she was battling and sensing magic, that she could feel that presence as well.

She closed her eyes, and activated [Sense Magic].

[ERROR!]

Irade blinked in surprise. She tried again, but all that appeared was the same message.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Why was she shaking? This was nothing to get worried about. This was fine. Sure, nothing like this had ever happened before. Well, except for that time that her arm had gotten ripped off, but she was fine now. This was fine. She would be fine.

Irade tried to sense magic without her skill, doing it the way Black Wind had taught her, but all she could feel was the magic inside her.

The broken, erratic magic, that moved erratically, like water through clogged pipes, forcing itself through a core that wasn't functioning properly.

Irade opened her eyes. She stared at her knees, her mind completely blank.

"Black Wind," she said finally, switching to the more comfortable Chinese as the panic slowly rose in her chest. She turned to face the wolf.

"I think I've lost the ability to sense magic."