Chapter 137 (2/2)

When he placed the first point into it, to his surprise, a fuzzy notification appeared in front of him. Apparently it was a good thing that he had waited to take more of the potion.

Warning! Selecting Watcher: 0/??? Will result in the loss of the ????? Path. These paths are mutually exclusive. Do you wish to continue?

Randidly hesitated for a small moment and then clicked no. If they were mutually exclusive...and with a lame name like Watcher…. Perhaps it would be more fun to gamble on the random one? It would likely have a similar PP requirement.

So Randidly backed out, chose the all ????’s path, and selected yes at the notification. Only to be faced with another notification.

Warning! There has been an error in the establishment of the ????? path. Certain prerequisites have been lost. Development of a related path is possible. Warning, if you continue with insufficient fuel, death or other side effects may result. Do you wish to continue?

After taking a deep breath, Randidly reached within himself, finding those slender threads of Aether. He could see how they spawned from that strange source held in his chest, growing thicker by the day. The source, too, seemed somewhat larger, pulsing with its sickly light. It burned and frothed, then frosted and cracked, flowing into every corner of him. His body was lousy with the stuff.

Grinning, Randidly clicked yes.

Processing…

Against his will, Randidly’s body shuddered and twisted. The Aether in his chest began to burn hot. The feeling in his fingers and toes quickly disappeared, and blackness slowly consumed the edges of his vision. The walls of the small room began to swim, and Randidly suddenly felt a pang in his stomach.

Perhaps he had just made a terrible mistake.

In the next moment, the energy in his chest froze solid, and he couldn’t breath, and his fingers began to dance and twitch, filled with a fiery energy. He growled huskily, the only noise he could force out of his seized chest. The energy within him began to pulse, not unseizing inside of him, but moving with a rhythm. Slowly, that rhythm aligned with Randidly’s heartbeat.

Without counting them, Randidly felt the heartbeats slip past, until the thrum of blood and energy in his body drove his heartrate and blood pressure up to the point he could feel the pounding in his eyes, and he felt like his eyeballs would explode outward.

But his chest slowly defrosted, and the pressure faded away, but simultaneously grew louder, thundering in his ears.

Failure, matching pair not found. Expanding database parameters….

In his stomach, the Aether began to twist and swirl, forming slowly into a cyclone. It pulled and pulled, and although he had always heard it referred to as an Aether Spring within him, he had never really understood what that meant. But now, as the Aether surged upwards, exploding out to fill his entire body, he knew.

All this time, although he had drawn some of the Aether, most of it had flowed into him and found no avenue to spread. It didn’t radiate out of his skin, but could only travel through the connections he made. Some of that Aether was lucky enough to flow along to Thron and Arbor, and other amounts went to Sam, Alana, Annie, and Mrs. Hamilton, but that was still a fraction of the potential the Aether Spring possessed.

After all, it was enough to support an entire village.

So it had gathered, deep within him, settling into a strange reservoir, packing itself tighter and tighter, forming a denser and denser mass of energy, waiting it for it to be summoned. And now that Randidly beckoned even slightly, it all rose, exploding to his aid.

It began to burn, partially of heat, partially of cold, and Randidly wanted to scream, such was the grinding, vicious pain caused by the energy inside of him. But all of his muscles seized again and he was stuck. Without moving, with a certain fatality to his mindset, he waited in his traitorous body, as the energy pulsed louder and louder. The veins in his arm stood out like bulging worms, and he saw them twitch as the energy pulsed.

Failure. No matching pair can be found. Recalculating…

The energy moved again, cracking and scattering, syphoned off somewhere. Randidly took a breath, gasping. Although his physical condition had improved, he still needed to breath.

...Well, eventually for sure, but the time he could hold his breath might be pretty impressive now…

Warning, anomaly detected. System warning-

The most recent notification appeared and disappeared, just as fast as Randidly could read it. Then he began to doubt himself, because his vision was still vibrating at the edges…

Then Randidly froze, because he felt something very distinct, and very strange. He felt hands, inside of him. They were soft, and the fingers were long, reaching slowly inside of him and gathering up the strands of wild Aether, moving them and weaving them. Each finger acted with the utmost dexterity, holding various strands in place while the hands moved. Their was a grace to its actions that made Randidly shake his head in wonder.

Or at least he would have, had the Aether allowed him to move.

As this process was going on, the hairs on Randidly’s body stood straight up, but he couldn’t turn his attention away as the hands continued to work on the Aether within him. Although it wasn’t something Randidly currently understood… it made him wonder.

What were these hands doing? And obviously, more importantly… where had they come from?