Interlude: Survivors 603

If there was one positive thing to be said about the life she had lived, it was that contact with children, especially teenagers, had been fairly limited. Sure, there had been some who joined the gym she had run with her husband, but her husband had dealt with them and even if she had been forced to step up, there’d been interesting options for punishment if they were being stupid. Or, in other words, if they were being teenagers, she considered the two concepts synonymous. Sadly, she couldn’t send Kevin to perform callisthenics for a few hours, hoping that the sweat he’d shed would wash off the stupid, it sadly never worked like that. But back when they’d been running the gym, she at least had been able to try.

Looking at Kevin, she could only shake her head in disbelief, still trying to wrap her head around the foolishness the silly child had concocted now and failing, it was simply too stupid. Who’d think that exploring the lake inhabited by some strange, tentacle-vine monstrosity was a good idea? Especially without backup and with some magical ability he barely understood? Just thinking about his actions, she felt a headache set in and that his stupidity had cost them their easy source of fresh water made matters so much worse. She could guide people across almost any terrain and was able to facilitate survival in almost any situation but losing access to effectively unlimited drinkable water was a harsh blow, greatly limiting their options.

Granted, by the looks of it, Kevin himself knew that he had done something stupid, the fact that he had strange plant-like growth sprouting amongst his hair was not something anyone could easily dismiss. Teenagers were always so anxious about their hair, even dear Samantha had been like that, so proud of her long hair and almost excessively careful in regards to everything to do with it. Sure, it had looked quite good but that didn’t change the sheer impracticality of hair hanging down to a person’s hips.

“Do you have an idea what has changed with you beyond the obvious?” Oliver asked, having tried his best to figure out the changes to their Water Mage earlier, only to come up fairly short. Granted, that might be because his original medical training had been in the military, with a focus on the obvious injuries that came with combat and not whatever this was, but he had been trying to get a grip on the strange new world they were now living in. While it was fascinating to realise how the old herbal remedies and homemade cures had changed into something as effective or, in many cases, far more effective than anything he had worked with before, that didn’t help when it came to figuring out this.

As far as he could perceive, Kevin had changed in a way he couldn’t even begin to describe. To his senses, the boy had more in common with the grass he was lying on and the plants nearby than he had with Wu Chenhua and himself. The changes went far beyond the obvious surface alterations, the slightly changed skin tone and texture, some decreased muscle mass, increased height and the weird growths in his hair but those deeper changes weren’t anything he could make heads or tails of. Hell, the boy might even grow an actual tail and Oliver had no idea what to do about it, or with it. Hopefully, the boy had a better understanding of his altered body or they would have to trundle onwards and hope nothing too problematic came with the changes.

“Well, I got a notification that my race changed and I’m now an Aquandros, a creature of water and nature, whatever that means. The notification had a small blurb, telling me that their nature was generally benevolent but they were protectors of lakes and waterways, so make of that what you will,” Kevin shrugged, obviously trying to put on a brave face despite feeling anything but.

All four of his companions exchanged some knowing glances, they had all seen enough of the world to catch the fib but at the same time, they were all aware that bringing attention to it wouldn’t help while they were in the group. At the same time, it was also obvious that chiding the boy for his foolishness in approaching the lake and getting dragged into this strange situation wouldn’t help, either. It might make them feel better but it could easily destroy the last vestiges of confidence the boy had left and leave him a quivering mess. Still, they needed information, so the boy would have to talk.

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“Can you tell us what exactly happened? We only know that you went to the lake and something strange happened to you before we found you on the shore, later. Beyond that, we have no real idea,” Mrs Wu prodded, her voice gentle but laced with enough steel to make answering mandatory.

“I’ve been trying to immerse myself in Nature, in the Astral River. It’s so fascinating, I can feel the world move around me, even if everything is still, I can sense things but I don’t yet understand what and in this case, I could feel something strangely similar to myself, inviting me and calling out to me. So, I let myself drift through the Astral and even when I returned to my body, the call remained. And then I followed that call, without even thinking about it,” Kevin flushed, looking quite embarrassed at the way he had been caught.

“It was almost as if I was in a trance, and even now, if I try to remember, my head feels fuzzy, as if it’s filled with wool and cotton,” he shook his head, apparently trying to get rid of whatever was in there, “It's blurry but I remember reaching the lake and putting a hand into the water, I remember something touching my hand and looking back, I realise how creepy the sensation should have been but even now, thinking about the vines that wrapped around my hand, I feel no more repulsed than I’d feel if somebody shook my hand,” as Kevin admitted that, he started to shiver, his body rocking forward and backwards as his breathing sped up and panic started to set in.

Without further conversation between the adults of the group, they dispersed. Oliver remained with Kevin, trying to keep him from spiralling into a complete panic attack, using exercises taught to him to work with soldiers after combat to keep the teenager grounded. Realising that, Oliver felt himself soften up just a little, realising that Kevin was just a teenager at the end of the day and he, himself, had done some dumb shit at that age, only that Kevin didn’t have the luxury he had back then. Sadly, the realisation didn’t make things better, as Oliver didn’t have the ability to give Kevin a safe environment to do the rest of his maturing, he could only do his best to help the kid mature before he got himself killed.

Though, even with all the maturity in the world, he wasn’t sure what that strange call Kevin had described might have been. The Astral River, as the Pale Lady had described it, seemed to be incredibly weird in the first place, so who knew what had happened to the boy? Thinking back, there were countless folk tales of spirits luring people into the river to drown, maybe there was more to those tales than one would expect. Or maybe as one would hope, as expecting the unexpected had become the norm since the world stopped making sense.

“I wanna try and see if my skills still work,” Kevin declared once the panic faded. Oliver was torn for a moment, realising that the idea could very well stem from a desire to prove that he remained useful, despite the change he had undergone. Maybe to prove it to Oliver and the group, maybe to prove it to himself, Oliver couldn’t be certain. But he could be certain that it could backfire horribly, especially if that proof didn’t manifest, it might push the boy to do something ill-advised.

“Take it easy, you’ve undergone some tremendous trauma. One step at a time, or you might stumble,” Oliver gently warned him, trying to soften the possible impact of failure but, sadly, there was no real way to stop Kevin from acting as he deemed necessary.

Watching, as the boy placed one hand on the ground, Oliver wondered what would happen next, only for a spout of water to erupt from the ground, just a few metres in front of Kevin. The volume of water wasn’t too amazing, nothing that Kevin hadn’t been able to conjure before he had changed, but there was quite a bit of force behind it, the water shooting high into the sky.

“It still works,” Kevin whispered, his voice barely carrying over to Oliver who let out a soft, inaudible, sigh of relief. Hopefully, the teenager would overcome this strange change, maybe even thrive with it.