“Archano-Tech – A small mistake and BOOM!”

John was by far the slowest of the bunch and the last to arrive at the shed. The door had been damaged by the shockwave of the explosion and hung wide open at a single hinge. He stormed by the miraculously unharmed arcane fuse box and down the stairs.

The workshop was a scene from a war movie. The metal box the Jimmie had used to store his suit was bent open like the rolled-up lid of a tuna can, the edges broken under the **** of the explosion that had swept through the workshop. All the metal scrap that had been lying around had been pushed to the walls leaving the workshop largely empty in the middle.

John couldn’t help but remember the conversation between Victoria and Jimmie about two weeks back. At the time Jimmie had been very confident about his skills to handle the machine but the destruction in front of him made John ask himself if that kind of attitude could even be allowed when tinkering with something that dangerous.

He searched for Jimmie but that was unnecessary. Travolta had long since spotted him and was in the process of heaving the destructed remains of his suit from Jimmie. He must have worked at it until the last moment when the thing suddenly exploded in his face. Weirdly enough there was no fire or ash or anything even pointing that an explosion had happened aside from the chaos, John could guess however than an arcane explosion didn’t follow the rules of a normal one. The cursing Guild Leader threw the remains of the suit aside like it was nothing more than a toy.

“Jimmie, hey!” Travolta shook Jimmie by the shoulder. The mechanic didn’t react. Rave hid her mouth behind her left hand as she stared at the scene in a worried fashion and it was easily understandable why. Small pieces of metal, turned into shrapnel’s by the explosion, stuck out of Jimmie’s chest and he bled profusely from a wound at the head. Travolta took his pulse and grunted in a mildly eased fashion. “He is alive, well there is still hope then.” He groaned and picked him up. The **** body laid on his back like a sack of potatoes Travolta jogged for the exit. “We need to get him out of here.” He shouted. His intention was pretty clear: Gaia restored everybody to a somewhat healthy state when they left the Illusion Barrier.

“But how?” John asked as he followed. “He is ****, he can’t leave on his own.” Best John could think about was tearing down the whole barrier but that was akin to burning down their home. Travolta must have understood that as well but unlike John he had another option. “I break him the fuck out.” He screamed and ran full throttle at the gap in the rusty fence that surrounded the arcade and where the exit was located.

Rave had easily destroyed his barrier but this one was professionally made so when Travolta reached the edge he didn’t break right through but instead almost came to a halt as the **** that separated the Protected Space from reality pushed against him. Travolta however didn’t give a single fuck about the forces of reality and continued to slowly put his foot down. A scream of determination as he leaned in. Cracks went through the air as he, centimetre by centimetre, moved forwards. The cracks spread in sudden jumps, like a frozen lake when somebody repeatedly jumps on it, until finally Travolta broke through and left a one-way hole into reality.

The trio followed him the traditional way and were greeted outside by the sight of Travolta putting down Jimmie in the dark alleyway. The mechanic was indeed healed of his wounds, the blood on his shirt and head even had vanished although his clothes still remained tattered. However he still looked pale from the blood loss and even though Travolta was shaking him he refused to wake up.

“What is going on?” Victoria chose that moment to suddenly show up. In her usual outfit, guitar case over her shoulder she joined the group as they worriedly stared down on Jimmie. She seemed heavily bothered by the events even looking at the rest of them with surprised eyes. “The workshop exploded.” Travolta growled, “We got him out of there so that healed his wounds but he still is ****.”

John used Observe in the vain hope that it might reveal something.

It was indeed a vain hope.

“Fucking dammit.” Travolta cursed. “If only I had some more of that stuff.” “Stuff?” Rave asked. “Some weird ass elixir that the Bloodfallen gave me when I joined them. It’s the reason I am this much stronger.” He must have been referring to the blood of Thana. Was he unaware what that was or simply not willing to tell them? Or was John completely misguided and it was just the name of an alchemical tincture? Either way this wasn’t the time. Victoria seemed to disagree. “And you are sure you have nothing of that stuff left? It sounds like it could help him.”

“Yes, I have nothing more of what they gave me.” Travolta narrowed his eyes at her and stared for a second but didn’t speak up about it. “Anyway as much as I hate it we must call the Apothecary.” “On it.” Rave said and pulled out her Smartphone.

It only took a short conversation where Rave told them where they were before she put down the phone again. “They will be here in 10 minutes with an Ambulance.” John looked at her with some confusion. “It’s not like we can pay for the teleportation service.” She explained like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The ambulance arrived and took away Jimmie like it was the most natural thing in the world. Travolta got into the ambulance as well as there was only room for one other person he promised them to call once he knew what was going on.

The call came later that evening. John was with Rave, who had called her dad earlier to inform him about what happened and ask if he had any clue what was going on. He had and when Travolta called it turned out to be exactly what Regan had guessed: Arcane Poisoning.

In order to be able to use Archano-Tech the way Jimmie did one needed to take in amount of Arcane energy as well. This was no problem for somebody who had the potential to be a Fateweaver but when the Arcane inside somebody’s bloodstream got messed with in an abrupt or otherwise disruptive way, let’s say when an Archano-Tech machine that you worked with daily suddenly exploded in your face, that could lead to some nasty side-effects which Gaia didn’t heal as they fell under the Body Modification category.

“They don’t know for how long exactly but it seems Jimmie is out cold for around a week. He will survive though.” Travolta said at the other end of the call. “It is very weird though….” “What is?” Rave asked. Travolta grumbled his answer into the phone, “Jimmie didn’t fuck up once in two years. Not ONCE.” “Everyone has a bad day, Travolta.” Rave said, “Nothing unusual about it.” “Perhaps…I will still look into this.” With that he hung up.

“Well, all of this was too good to last.” Rave said and took her phone from the table. She had put it on speaker so that John could listen too. “Well, we should try to enjoy the rest of the evening, Jimmie is mostly fine.”