The Mountain's Curse

Since the 2 guards and the escaped prisoners are both mages, healthy, and young, they don't take very long to reach the bottom of the mountain, compared to Tab's several hour long struggle up the path.

Once they reach the bottom, Tab leads them down a few animal paths, until they reach his now abandoned village.

Since there's no ambient mana in the air or ground, the 3 mages are dead tired by the time they reach the bottom. They can certainly refill their mana by eating, but the reason they ran out so fast is that there's no mana outside their bodies.

In a sense, mana behaves a bit like air, and your soul like a bottle. If there's more mana in the outside or inside of the bottle, there'll be pressure trying to equalize the difference.

To put it more simply, if there's more mana in the air than inside your mana pool, then your soul will VERY slowly absorb mana. It's not as fast as eating, so people don't really think about it often.

The problem is that when there's no mana in the air, your soul is basically a bottle full of air in a vacuum. The outside air will slowly pull the mana out of your mana pool.

Recognizing the problem, all 3 mages immediately get to the village, and Dee says, "Sorry to ask, since you're already helping us, but is there something we can eat? Our mana's running out." All 3 of them would prefer to keep the mana stones in their space bags intact for emergencies.

Tab has no idea what a "mana" is, but he does understand his guests are hungry. He'd feel guilty about looting one of his neighbor's houses, so he takes them to his own cottage. "I got some food in the baskets back at my house. You're welcome to it."

While the 3 strange guests go into his house and start eating, Tab shuffles over to the chief's house. Luckily, the map on the chief's wall wasn't deemed important enough to grab, so only he makes it back to his guests with the map only a few minutes later.

As Tab is off getting the map, the two guards look up at the houses and notes the tower and sword emblems on all the houses. "Why's the Brancotte symbol here? Is this place part of the empire?"

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Since the cottage only has 1 room in it, the 3 mages immediately notice the sleeping woman wrapped up in a mat on the other side of the floor. It's early spring outside, and the morning chill is still sharp. Well, at least the girl looks like she's warm.

"I thought you said everyone evacuated?" Dee asks their host as he walks in, all while looking at the sleeping woman with concern. The woman on the floor looks middle aged, and she has red hair with a few streaks of grey.

Tab fondly strokes the woman's hair and says, "This is my daughter. The curse got her some 30 years ago, back when she was about to get married at 17. She's been unconscious this whole time. It's rare for someone hit with the curse to live this long, but she's still dead in most of the villagers' minds. They didn't take her."

"Hmm…," Dee mumbles under her breath. 'What's this 'curse'? It's probably just a disease...'

She then looks to the side and sees the two former guards looking anxiously at the map Tab brought.

"We're on an island?!" one of them exclaims. He then looks up and wonders aloud, "If you're far enough away, it makes sense why these people may not be familiar with the empire. They've probably been here for generations."

"Plus," the other guard adds in a whisper (afraid he'll upset their host), "Since we saw the Brancotte symbol on the doors, maybe this island was a colony abandoned by the empire? I mean, this place has no ambient mana, so who would want to live here?"

While the 2 guards are mulling over their situation on the island, Dee is still staring at the cursed woman sleeping in a corner. "Hmm…," Dee mutters while the 2 guards are chowing down. "What kind of curse is it?"

"No one really knows why it happens," Tab answers, "They say there's something evil in the mountains that steals souls away. Sometimes, a strange, glowing circle will appear beneath a person's feet… then the next moment, they're knocked unconscious. They usually shrivel up and die a few minutes later, though sometimes they hang on longer."

One of the guards steps forward with interest now. "Can you draw what the glowing circle looks like?"

Tab seems surprised that these angelic guardians don't know about the curse. Shouldn't they, more than anyone else, know what caused all these misfortunes in the land?

Feeling more cautious now that he's come to doubt their identities again, Tab grabs a piece of charcoal and slowly draws on his wooden table. After he's done, the 3 mages look at the shape of 2 circles – one inside the other. Inside the larger circle is a single triangle.

"A soul gate!" one of the guards exclaims.

Finally, Dee and her 2 companions realize what's going on; they know why their host doesn't know anything about magic, as well as what the curse is.

Dee slaps her palm on her forehead and curses out, "You had me worried there, Mr. Tab. That's not a curse." Looking at the map Tab brought, as well as hearing about the 'curse', she and her two companions have figured a few things out…

…So the old man isn't crazy for not knowing what a mage is; he's legitimately never seen one before!

"W-what is it, then, if it's not a curse?" Tab asks cautiously.

"You saw us use strange powers, right?" she asks.

"Y-y-yeah…"

"So," she explains, "people who can use strange powers like us are called 'mages'. The power we use for this is called 'mana'. Humans who are becoming mages have glowing circles under their feet like how you described."

"…" Tab is so troubled hearing this that he can't even think of a question. So, he lets Dee continue on.

"When you become a mage, you need a lot of mana to fill your larger soul. A new mage gets this mana from the air, or through a magical object, or even from a more powerful mage. This land doesn't have any mana in the air, you have no mages, and no magical objects nearby… so…"

Tab doesn't really understand what's going on or what this lady is talking about; he just wants to know if his daughter can be cured. He gets weak in the knees from agitation, and he falls on the ground. "What happens if there's no mana!?" he barely suppresses a shout.

"They usually die." Seeing the pleading look on the old man's face, Dee feels pity in her heart. "Well," she adds, "since your daughter has been alive this long, that means she's been sitting in her soul realm all this time – refusing to open her soul gate. Anyway, since she's still alive, me and my companions can give her some mana."

Tab still seems to be unable to completely get rid of the idea of a curse. So, hearing that the problem isn't the glowing circles, but the lack of mana in the land, he chalks this absence up to the curse instead. He doesn't voice that aloud, though, since he's far more concerned about his daughter's potential revival than his curiosity about the curse.

So, Tab shifts his position and gets in a kneeling posture. With tears in his eyes, he coughs out a sob, "I don't care if you guys are monsters or demons. Please just make my daughter wake up!"

Thinking about this situation on the island, all the mages shiver. There have certainly been some cases of some poor villager who couldn't afford to keep a mana stone around his neck – just in case he becomes a mage suddenly. Those people are seriously injured. It's often described as 100 times more painful than giving birth to a 20-pound baby. It's so painful that many go mentally insane from the experience.

However, there's never been a case of someone dying from this – perhaps because there's at least SOME mana in the air.

Out here though, where there's no ambient mana? The experience is probably fatal.

The 3 mages in the room look down, and the two guards helmets off in respect for the dead. So many prospective mages killed before they're born, like a seed planted in barren soil.

Feeling it's a miracle someone was actually lucky enough to not try opening their Gate (and thus, survive), Dee and the 2 guards feel a strange emotion. If not for their gratitude for their host, they at least want to see a seed actually sprout, even in this wasted soil.

So, the 3 mages agree to help the unconscious woman.

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Once the table is cleared of all the food, Gabella (as they learned Tab's daughter is called) is placed on the flat surface.

"Huh," the blonde-haired guard notes, "This would be easier if we knew her Name. It's not easy to talk to someone while they're in their soul realm. Even if we pour mana in, the girl can't exit her soul realm unless she chooses to open her Gate. If she hasn't opened it all this time, then she might continue to sit there, even if we put mana in her soul realm."

"Hmm…," Dee mumbles loudly, as is her habit when thinking deeply, "I had a lot of very talented mages with me on Floor B33 for all those centuries, and we all shared our techniques with each other."

The two guards reel back in shock upon hearing this. Arcane arts are extremely precious, and it consists of closely guarded knowledge that's passed down from master to apprentice.

Sure, there are many strange techniques out there that only 1 or two people in the world know how to use; thus, most of these advanced spells never even see the light of day.

So, hearing that 35 highly advanced mages shared all their spells together… it's a little terrifying.

So, the 2 guards watch in anticipation as Dee summons her own shiny white soul gate on the floor and starts muttering under her breath.

Maybe it's PTSD from seeing his own daughter taken from him, but Tab jumps in fright seeing a glowing circle appear under Dee. He calms slightly after he notices that the sorceress is still standing after a few minutes, though her eyes are glazed over.

Seeing the worried look on the old man's face, one of the guards nudges him, "Dee is just unconscious too because she doing something in her soul realm. I don't know what she's doing, but she sounded confident."

The other guard sits down and closes his eyes. "The best we can do is wait…"