Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Chapter 25: Recovery

Location: Solar System; Earth; Former City of Brisbane; Magicon Facility

While relaxing, I take in the room I just entered. It’s on the smaller side, about ten meters long and wide. A small computer station is to my left and looks more or less intact. I hope there’s more data for Maja to find. On the right is lots of dust with a few metal pieces. I guess this once was a shelf or a closet?

Anyway, what weirds me out is the big piece of metal right in the center of the room. It’s completely intact and looks like it would fit a person lying down. Is there someone inside? That would be awesome. A survivor from 11,000 years back. But they would be dead without power.

Wait power, how did those panels work here in the building? There’s clearly no electrical power left after 11,000 years. And the robots! How did they get their power? Then it hits me. Magic! The oven commercial even mentioned something like a magical power grid in a house. And who would definitely have something like that? Right, the company that produces 80% of the whole system’s Magitech.

But those robots… Magicon refused to weaponize Magitech… They are armed, my leg can confirm that… Must be another company. Speaking of my leg, it starts hurting again. Ugh, I have to take a look at it.

My spacewalker suit is thoroughly ruined. The left leg is completely unrecognizable with the sealant foam having hardened around it. The whole upper front is blackened and right at my chest, where the lightning spell impacted, are even a few cracks. I’m lucky I had the outer suit, otherwise, the robots probably would have killed me.

Sighing, I start to peel myself out of the spacewalker suit. It’s easier said than done while sitting on the ground. The top part is easy, but the legs are way harder. Not only does my leg hurt, but the foam restricts its movement. Finally, I’m out! I throw the suit to the side and take another look at my leg. The foam completely surrounds my lower leg. I wince, the pain gets stronger and stronger.

Before I remove the foam, I reach for my backpack, which I set down beside me earlier. After pulling it back to me, I quickly take out its contents. Battery, cable, tablet… all stuff I don’t need. Where is it? There! I knew I packed a medkit.

The medkit is a nondescript box from the outside, but the inside is a bit fancier. Luckily, I don’t have to fix myself with a few bandages. I open the box and take out a small syringe filled with a clear liquid. Painkiller! That’s what I need right now. Without hesitation, I hit my left thigh with the syringe and press the top to empty it into my thigh.

The relief is immediate. I let out a deep sigh, before taking out the next device out of the medkit. The mediwand should be enough to heal my leg back up. It was kinda funny when I first saw one of them back on the Solano. They do look exactly like magic wands out of the movies, just a bit thicker – hence the name mediwand.

The black wand features a surgical laser cutter at the tip, that can cut open the skin and if needed cauterize damaged blood vessels. A second setting lowers the intensity of the laser and allows the light beam to mold the skin back together. The back contains a small compartment of medical nanites, that can repair missing pieces of skin or even small parts of the flesh beneath. Unfortunately, those are a one-time use per mediwand, then they have to be refilled.

That’s my last resort solution, as I only have found one mediwand in the yacht. What I’m planning to do is use some clamps out of the wand's side compartment to push the skin together and then use the second function of the laser cutter to mend it back together.

To avoid scarring, there is another side compartment that contains a plaster that is soaked with an anti-scarring solution and has to remain on the wound for another day. The others on the Solano said those plasters itch like hell, but the result is worth the day of itching.

With the mediwand in my hand, I bend forward and start removing the foam. The laser cutter comes in handy and before long, I cut the foam down to the shipsuit beneath. Now let’s hope it’s not too bad.

As expected, the shipsuit is ruined too and so I use the mediwand to cut the skintight suit at the knee. Then I carefully cut it open along my shin. Once the whole lower leg part is parted, I take a deep breath and flip it open.

Luckily the painkiller works! Blood starts flowing out immediately. It’s way worse than I expected. A good chunk of my calf is missing. That’s not fixed by clamping it together. Time for plan B. I flip the mediwand around and hold the backend against the wound. A chime indicates the release of the nanites, and they immediately start to work.

It's crazy, I can literally see my calf grow back! Fifteen minutes later, my leg looks as good as new and I don’t even need to use the itching plaster. Then a drop of grey goo falls to the ground – the spent nanites. I probe my leg with a finger but don’t feel any difference, so I decide to try to stand up. An idea, I immediately regret, as I’m instantly feeling dizzy from standing up.

Right, blood loss… I should probably rest a bit first. “Maja, can you wake me up if anything happens? I think I need to rest a bit.”

“Sure thing, but don’t take too long, I want to check out the capsule.” With Maja’s confirmation for standing guard, I quickly sit back down, use my backpack as a pillow, and am asleep in seconds.

Hours later, I wake up with a splitting headache. Dang it, the aftereffects from that super painkiller are a living hell! At least my head is the only thing that hurts. I slowly sit up and look at my leg. If I told someone that half my calf was missing a few hours ago, they would laugh at my face. The only thing left of the injury is my ruined shipsuit and the blood on the floor.

Well, at least nobody can see me here walking around with ruined clothes. A quick conversation with Maja confirms what I already expected: nothing happened during the six hours I was asleep. It feels like I’ve slept for far longer, I feel completely refreshed and full of energy besides the headache. But that also starts to recede.

My growling stomach shakes me out of my thoughts. Right, I should eat… My body did a lot of work to replace all that blood. Unfortunately, I don’t have a kitchen down here, so survival rations have to do. As most of it is already outside, I just take my backpack and flip it over so that the rest falls out and builds a small pile.

Let’s see… yeah, that’s the one. Chicken flavor… I hope it tastes like the real thing. I rip off the top and grimace at the sight of what’s inside. Brown mush pressed together into a bar… And that’s chicken? It looks like someone has already eaten it. My stomach rumbles again and I shrug. I don’t have a choice. After taking a small bite, I’m pleasantly surprised. It actually tastes like chicken, and it’s not bad at all!

After eating my meal and gulping down a whole bottle of water, I decide that it’s finally time to check out the mysterious capsule in the middle of the room. I walk over and put my hand at it, it feels cold and completely smooth. I can’t even feel a seam… How does it open? Even after fully circling the thing I’m at a loss. There ain’t a thing to interact with it. I even try pushing in my magic, but still, there is no reaction.

If I wasn’t in an underground facility of the biggest tech company on Earth and now probably the whole galaxy, I’d be inclined to think that this is just a fancy bench to sit down on. But that can’t be it… Why would something like this be behind a vault door in an underground room?

“Can you detect any outgoing signals?” I ask Maja, but she declines.

“No, there’s nothing… not even when you touch it or lay your tablet down on it. Maybe we should check out the computer station first?”

“Yeah, let’s do that, maybe we are lucky.” I try to keep my frustration down, but it’s hard. I’m trapped in here. There’s no other exit and the vault door is certainly guarded by the robots. And to make things worse, my suit of protection is too far gone. With only my half-intact shipsuit beneath, they’ll kill me with the first shot. My only hope is that capsule and hopefully there is a Magicon employee inside who can shut down security.

I arrive at the computer station, and it does look halfway intact. I’m lucky again hopefully, but what is it with computer stations that last so long… Everything else has become dust, but every computer I find still works. The only answer I can think of is magic. Well anyway, never look a gift horse in the mouth!

Repeating the whole process for a third time, I have the computer prepared with cables, battery, and tablet in less than ten minutes. Time to turn it on! I press the start button and to my excitement, that computer turns on too. “Alright, Maja it’s your turn again. I’m going to repack my backpack.”

With that, I turn around to do exactly that. That task is quickly completed, as the only bigger contents of the backpack are the battery, which is currently in use, and the medkit. The other things are only small parts and are quickly packed up.

As I don’t have anything else to do, I grab the ruined spacewalker suit and the my energy blade and begin cutting out intact pieces of reinforced material.

As for why I’m doing it? Even if the suit is done for, its materials are way more sturdy than my shipsuit, so I figured I somehow try to fasten those pieces to my body later if I have to try to fight my way free of that room.

Maja is really struggling this time… When I finish with cutting, she says, she still needs more time. With a shrug, I lay the materials and cutting tools next to the backpack and walk through the room. I guess now is the time to inspect the last section here.

That being the pile of dust and metal located at the wall opposite the computer station. I walk over there and part the dust with my shoe. A bad idea! The dust immediately starts flying around and I end up sneezing nonstop. I’m an idiot. After going back to my backpack, I return with the still intact helmet of the spacewalker suit and put it on. It forms a seal around my neck and the emergency oxygen tank in the helmet allows me to keep breathing.

Now back to the pile of dust. When I first moved it around, I saw something weird. So this time I squat down and use my hands. There! A silver-colored ball made out of a strange metal. It’s about lime-sized and the outside is decorated with a weird pattern of lines. What is this thing? At least it looks durable. Just like the capsule in the room, the 11,000 years didn’t leave a single mark on the ball.

I decide to leave the ball for now and lay it down on top of the capsule, then continue parting dust. I find a second ball, that looks identical to the first, but that’s it, everything else is just dust.

As Maja still isn’t finished, I go back to the capsule and lay the second ball next to the first. Then I’m just standing next to the capsule and try to think of a way to open it.

Shrugging, I decide to test magic again. Maybe it needs more? I guess the people working here weren’t just Novices… So maybe emptying my whole core will work? I put my hands on top of the capsule, close my eyes, and concentrate.

Emitting magic without a spell is hard. I didn’t even know that was a thing before I met with another Space Mage on a station while the Solano was being loaded up. He gave me the tip, to emit a bit of my leftover power to the environment after a longer jump. He said that this reduces the exhaustion after such a long jump because we Mages have a better recovery rate if we are in an environment that is stimulated by magic corresponding to our class. I still think it weird that we can create that stimulated environment by ourselves and still profit from it, but it does indeed work. Magic stuff…

Anyway, I move the magic to my hands, and with a bit of mental effort, I will it outside. This time I don’t stop after just a little bit, but give it my all. First, I think everything is the same and I’m about to stop and return to the computer to wait for Maja. Then something does happen!

My magic power doesn’t dissipate into the environment. Instead, it gets sucked in by the two balls lying next to my hands. Holy smokes! What are those things? Then something even more unbelievable happens. After entering the balls, the magic power starts coming out again, but it feels different. That’s not Space magic anymore! Then realization hits me like a truck.

Those are power converters! Does that mean I can use other magic besides Space? Holy cow, if that’s true, everything’s going to change. I can…

*Click*

The sound interrupts me, and my eyes move down to the capsule again. There is a seam now and it starts to open! The other magic activated it!