CHAPTER 6: Restart

Veyne, getting acquainted with his new body, whips his pale green hair out of his eyes and walks around the room taking mental notes of all the material he has on hand. 

"Hmm, the air is getting thinner in here, I doubt I have even an hour left before I suffocate. I need to somehow blast the hard rock out of the entrance before then." 

Twenty minutes go by and he has laid out all the useful material he could find. One red crystal with essence of fire in it, the undead corpse of a beetle, the fang of a dire wolf, a vial of fruits and flowers that has rotted away, a craftsman's hammer, a broken cauldron, and his severed right arm. 

"It's definitely enough to do something but not blast through four meters of rock the size of the entrance…" 

Thirty more minutes pass as Veyne uses the dire wolf fang to finish etching a formula on the lab walls. With deepening breaths he says. 

"If I… take the fire starting gem and beetle corpse… and add them to the vial of rotten fruits which have been fermenting for a century. I can then crush the beetle and gem at the same time, the residual magic in the bug could activate the fire starter which should then ignite the alcohol in the bottle. It should be enough to elicit a bomb effect when re-exposed to air... The blast won't be strong enough to get through the entrance… But if I aim right I can use it to clear the rubble out from the fireplace chimney." 

Starting to feel light headed he places the three ingredients into the cauldron. Next, he starts plucking hairs from his head and tying them into a very small rope. Then comes tying that rope to the hammer and positioning the cauldron under the fireplace while the hammer is suspended above the vial, with the rope being held up by Veyne. 

"I've got one shot… if any one of the steps goes wrong or if there's not enough air in here I'm doomed." 

Holding on tight to the rope, Veyne readies himself to dive back as soon as he lets go. 

"3…2…1." 

KABOOM!! 

Dust and rubble fly out across the room as the cauldron directs the blast upwards. Large pieces of stone and dirt sink down and out of the chimney as a path is cleared. Veyne gets to his knees and brushes away the mound of dirt to see the clearing. Fresh air hits the back of his nose. Not skipping a beat he grabs his arm and uses it to shimmy his way up the chimney toward the surface. 

The sun between the tree beams down onto his face. The fresh forest fills his body with energising air. The forest is alive with sound. It had been a century since he last looked upon these trees. So much has changed and yet it still feels the same as back then. 

"Alright time to get to business!" 

Veyne walks around to where the entrance down to his lab used to be. It has been completely compacted with dirt and rock so it blends in with the rest of the grass around it. 

"With only one arm this will be a challenge. I think for now I'll make a temporary base above ground, just until I fix my arm." 

So with that he spent the next three days collecting stones and branches to make a little hovel, eating roots and berries as he did so. Once that was done he fashioned a three pronged spear out of a nearby branch. 

"Well it's no magic spear or one of my ultimate weapons. But it will do for now." 

Rather embarrassingly he struggles to catch and kill any of the animals around the forest. Being not so used to this weak body and the extra handicap of no right arm, he was getting nowhere quickly. 

The next day while foraging deeper into the woods to find proper vines and leaves to make clothing with, he stumbles across a large tree that towered over the others three times over. He grins and says. 

"No way! There's an elder tree this far south in the world?! Looks like my luck has finally turned around." 

Veyne takes note of where the tree is and runs back to his camp as fast as he could. 

As soon as he got back he laid out his skeletal arm and started to etch in small runes along the arm using the dire wolf fang to do so. Hours pass as he meticulously carved in the runes inch by inch. When he was done, he grabbed the arm, held the fang in his teeth and bolted back to the tree. 

Out of breath and exhausted, Veyne arrived back at the elder tree.

"The sap from this tree should have at least a small amount of magical essence in it. So if I take some and put it on the arm, it should hopefully absorb in that magical essence thanks to all the runes I carved." 

Hacking at the tree with the fang he managed to extrude just enough sap to cover every bit of bone. Waiting under the shade of the tree for the magic to infuse into the arm, Veyne notices the far off smell of a marsh. Deciding to get up and investigate, he hopes to find the carcasses of drowned beasts laying in the mud. He moves in for a better look. 

Much to his surprise atop the boggy marshlands sits a small village. About thirty huts on stilts are connected by rope bridges weaving back and forth like a spider's web. However his curiosity soon fades as he remembers his own village and how if he were to be discovered, it could lead to him being hunted down again. 

"I need to get some magic back as soon as possible. I wouldn't survive long if I was hunted again. My lab is only three kilometers west of here. Looks like I'll need to step up my progress." 

Running back to his arm, he is delighted to see the sap absorbed and a very faint glow coming from the runes. 

"No time like the present i guess. I was hoping to do this in a more sterile environment" 

Veyne sharpens the end of the arm against a rock. Next he grabs a clump of sap from the elder tree and a stick from the ground. Rubbing the sap on his shoulder nub, he puts the stick in his mouth and bites down. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he takes one deep breath. 

Veyne stabs the sharp end of his skeleton arm as hard as he can into his shoulder. Pain instantly radiating throughout his body. 

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!"

Using some vines he had collected earlier, he wraps them tight around his shoulder, securing it all together. 

"Compared to waking up in this body, the pain is nothing. It's also given me a nice idea of what I'm going to do to those damned divine council members."

Veyne slowly walks back to his campsite and rests until the wound is healed. One step closer to regaining his strength.