Melody of Mana

When I awoke I found a familiar figure sitting in the chair beside my bed.

"Eleanor?"

"Hello dear, I thought you'd like to see a friendly face when you woke."

I wouldn't exactly call our relationship friendly, but we did have some form of understanding. We'd also spent a good amount of time together, so of those here she might well know me best. I looked her over, then gazed around me. The hospital was still a it busy, but the worst of it had passed. It was now night, the windows showing a deep blackness outside.

"Well, yesterday was..." As I thought about it I tried moving, noting that my wounds were gone. My armor also seemed to have been taken off and put beside my bed.

"Quite bad as I understand. As for your wounds, one of the priests saw to them while you were sleeping."

"Yeah, do you know about one of the boys in our group, Ethbert? He was looking quite bad."

"My understanding is that everyone in your unit survived. Not something that could be said for everyone. That said, I'd like you to tell me what all happened if you could." Eleanor seemed slightly more calm than usual, as if worried for me.

I recounted the tale. How it had all started normally; then how we'd been hit with that explosion. The good work from everyone that had brought us to somewhere with cover. When I got to the part with the fight with the crazy woman I saw Eleanor's eyebrows raise. Then I finished, told her how we'd been brought here and I passed out.

"I won't hide this from you dear. The woman who attacked you, everyone wants her. I don't expect you to know too much, but if you think of anything... The Shield wants her, the Kingdom wants her, everyone. In her attacks she's been indiscriminate, children, priests, non-combatants, commoners, and nobles..."

"I understand. Wait attacks? As in plural?" I saw Eleanor flinch at my question.

"The authorities have been trying to keep it quiet, but over the past few months there have been... quite a few in the capital and surrounding cities."

"How have I not heard of this? Why do you think it's the same person?"

"Because dear you've been at the academy, where information is easy to control. As for your second question, I don't know, but all of them are... big, loud, and tend to cause rampant destruction. I don't know all the details, since much is being hushed up, but I know it's been quite bad."

"Okay, is there anything else?" I was already exhausted, and I'd just woken up.

"Several things. The first is that you will need to talk to someone about all of this." At my quirked eyebrow she explained. "Alana, not for the first time someone tried to kill you. You were horridly injured, and saw others in the same state. Perhaps you feel fine now, but that's not something that's going to last forever. You need someone who can listen to you when you need to get that out."

I... well, I'd not had any experience with that from my last life, but I knew that it could cause problems. Even now I was pretty much ardently refusing anything that took me underground after all the pain that that had caused me. Though that felt more like stubborn superstitiousness than anything else.

"I have a couple of people I'll seek if I need it."

The older woman gave me a rather tired look. "Very well, there are also a few other people who want to speak with you. Are you up for that?"

I nodded and she went to go find whoever it was. I had a few minutes to myself while she did. It was nice, calm, I could just stare at the ceiling and let myself relax.

There was a knock, and the door opened before I could say anything. I found myself staring at a man in formal attire. "Good evening Alana, I've a few questions if you don't mind."

The man was one of the investigators assigned to this case. He asked for the same general breakdown that I'd given Eleanor, along with asking if I'd recognized anything. That one I did have to respond to.

"Mmm, a few years back there was an attack involving lightning that I saw the edges of. It would have been... four years ago? The day of the entrance exams to the academy. I saw some of the explosions that day and they felt very similar to the ones that hit us today. That's why I got everyone down, I'd seen those from far off before and knew they were bad."

"Interesting, did you see the source at that time?"

"No." I shook my head. While I didn't go too deep into it, I was sure his report would eventually reach those who knew just how close I'd been to the previously mentioned attacks. Letting them know that whoever did this was the same as who attacked the prince at that time could be helpful.

"Alright, if you think of anything else, please let me know."

"Yes sir."

A bit after he left Professor Endel came by. It was hard to read his mood. I knew he was probably less than thrilled by the fact that his attacker had gotten away, but he'd also survived the experience. He moved to pick up the armor that was sitting near me, looking deeply at its damage. One of his hands ran over the places where the lightning had struck me.

"It's hard to believe that you survived this." There was a scorch mark that went through the entire chest piece, in one side and out the other. "Did you know we recently changed some of the standard warding on our student armors?"

"No I didn't."

"We did. That madwoman who hit us isn't working alone. In the last couple months there have been... too many incidents where we've been hit, many involving those lightning bombs. Dean Lorrae thought it was just a matter of time before someone attacked our students. Needless to say, neither of us thought that our pupils would be in danger at that location. It's highly managed, even warded to keep things in and out."

"How bad was it?"

"Our academy lost six, which is almost unheard of. The knight apprentices... well, we did offer to change theirs as well, but they refused. I imagine that they'll ask us to now. They lost twelve."

Six out of a class of only fifty was certainly significant. Even losing one would be a big deal, but that many in that violent of an incident. It would shake our class deeply.

"That many from the knights? One of ours took a bad hit, but the other nearly remained standing."

"Ah, I met him. His armor was his own, not loaned. His defense is also rather thick." He sighed. "That aside, I'd like to personally thank you. If your group hadn't intervened I very well might have died back there. The lot of you did an excellent job in a situation that was well beyond you."

"Not going to ask me to recount everything that happened to you?"

"I'm sure you've gotten enough of that already and will get more in the future. Your classmates will be curious. As for telling me about things... Alana, many soldiers have issues after they've seen battle. Of them many are both older, and better prepared than you students were. I'll tell you as I've told all your classmates that I've spoken to already. If you need anything, do come and see me."

"You're the second person today who's wanted to have that conversation with me."

He chuckled, a kind of rough, tired sound. "Good, I'm glad that you have someone who cares about you. Now, you lot are getting tomorrow off of classes to rest up, then we'll be seeing you all back, bright and early."

With that he left me, taking the destroyed armor. I was a bit surprised that we were getting anything with how hard the students were driven, but I supposed that it was probably a good idea to get a bit of time to organize our thoughts anyway.

Since I didn't feel at all tired I opted to do a bit of looking through my core. This incident had proven to me that sooner or later I would need to make my own defensive gear, and I was betting that there were hints in there. The issue of finding them would be my first challenge of course, but once I had we could dive into that.

There were indeed a number of things within the 'guide' and 'help' menus relating to making defenses. Sadly they were much further along than I'd yet managed to get, and quite a bit more difficult. They were also strewn about with the large amount of jargon that whoever wrote these seemed absolutely in love with.

Finding those sections and doing a once over while pretending to sleep took a good part of my night. I did come out a few times to check on the world at large and after a fair bit of work found that the sky was quickly brightening.

I stood up and stretched. At some point in the night someone, my guess was Eleanor, had left me a rather simple dress at my bedside. Which was nice, because my current clothes were a bit... rough, and would decidedly attract attention if I walked around in them. After changing I poked around a bit to see what all was going on. I personally planned on going back to the Academy today regardless of how everyone else felt about it. There were some other things I needed to do as well though.

As I poked around I found Eleanor, who now looked exhausted, talking to one of the priestesses. She waved me over as I looked her way.

"I'm glad you found the dress. We've got a few headed back to the Academy in just a bit."

"Thank you for letting me borrow it, but if it's alright I would like to run some errands. It'll give me a good chance to clear my head too."

She seemed a bit concerned, but seemed to realize that if she said no I was just going to go back out anyway. "Very well, but be careful."

I nodded and headed out, my uniform tied in a small bundle. I'd walked the lower parts of the city a near endless number of times, and as I began I found myself taking my normal route from the Temple District straight to The Sky. That seemed as good a place as any to start, particularly if I wanted to unwind a bit.

The Starlit Sky was as it had always been. At this time in the morning that was rather slow. Sadly Lucien wasn't there today, as he'd had some business elsewhere, but I left him a message that I'd stopped by and said hello, and wished him well. After that I chatted to some of the regulars and staff that I knew, and had a good breakfast. The food wasn't as high quality as we got at the school, but it was homey, and rather nostalgic.

After that I opted to take a walk through the market. It was early spring and the perfect time for seeing what fresh things were being brought in. There were early fruits and fresh meats. I saw a ton of the handiwork people did over winter being sold, small woven, knitted, and the like pieces of varying quality. There was even a bit of carved art and small jewelry for sale, not that I needed any.

As I passed by the edge of the district, through the area where more industrial things were sold a man unloading a small cart tripped and spilled the contents of the sack he'd been carrying. Small white crystalline stones scattered everywhere.

"Sorry miss," he said as they spilled almost atop my feet.

"It's fine. What are those anyway?"

I didn't recognize the word he used at first, but he told me they were used for a few things. Mostly they were used by tanners or dyers, after being ground into powder. I nodded, it was clearly alum then, though I'd never seen it as anything except powder, and then mostly for pickling. I began to let my mind wander as I turned to leave, alum was such a weird word. It sounded almost like aluminum or 'alu-mini-um' as the Brits seemed determined to pronounce it. I stopped and turned... could that be because it came from...

"Actually, sir, could I buy a bit of that?"