Beginner's Luck: Liminal 6

In a dazed confusion the Librarian slowly walked to the manic boy. When he stood over him, he lifted his mask and rubbed his eyes. Fluke paused his laughter trying to catch his breath and opened his eyes to see the man with a look of confusion on his face.

"Oh Hey! Librarian! I am starving! Please tell me you have some food and water because I have absolutely no energy left in me, I don't think I can even stand." Fluke took some more heaving breaths while simultaneously wiping away sweat and tears of laughter. His arms trembled, and his hands shook with a slight tremor from exhaustion. His clothes were soaked through with sweat and some splotches of blood. At the sight of the blood, the Librarian bent down to examine the boy.

"Are you hurt? Did the tree hit you?" He prodded the boy's arms and legs looking for a source of injury. Fluke just grinned and shook his head.

"Nope! But seriously, I need help standing up." With his mentor's help, Fluke shakily stood and gingerly walked over to the cart. Letting out a sigh of relief, the boy sat, closing his eyes in the shade, feeling the cool forest air wash over his body. The Librarian squinted down at each of the boy's hands.

"Your hands are covered in blood. Let me see them."

Fluke lifted his hands palm up and looked at them, shrugged and then showed both hands to the older man. Looking over them carefully, there were no wounds to be found, only dried blood. With a quizzical look on his face, the older man looked up at the boy who now had a mischievous grin stretched across his face. Staring at each other for a moment, the boy started laughing again.

"Okay boy... I give. Tell me how this is possible." The man started unpacking the supplies he brought with, and Fluke began devouring food, not caring about all the dried blood and sweat. The pace at which he ate made the older man worry he would choke, but after a few moments of consuming as many calories as he could, the boy finally let out a satisfied sigh.

"So... Last night I had a dream, only it wasn't a dream. I was in a place called the Liminal. And in my dream, I learned of something called 'resonance', from Parche." Fluke began trying to pick at some jerky wedged in his teeth, but after tasting his own blood and sweat, decided to pour some water on his hands.

"Who's Parche?" The Librarian was trying to keep up but felt like he was failing.

"He's a talking white rabbit... Anyways Parche showed me how to use a Lingot of light I got from killing the Derboul. Which allowed me to enhance my resonance." Fluke paused his explanation, using his tongue to try and guide his fingers to more venison stuck in his teeth.

"A white rabbit enhanced your residents with light?" Confusion growing in the man's voice.

"Yeah! A snow-white bunny rabbit! Well, he didn't enhance it, I did on accident, but now I am really glad I put all of those points into resonance. Because this resonance stuff helped me heal my wounds and chop down that tree!"

The Librarian just sat there for a moment trying to decipher the inane rambling he just heard. Fluke was about to continue when the Librarian lifted his hand to pause him.

"Hang on. May I observe your ability when you activate it?" The older man lowered his mask back across his face, the book emblem lit up on his mask, and a magical book appeared beside him, with a puff of magical smoke.

"Uhm sure? Why are you activating your emblem?" Fluke lowered his mask, and a moment later the eye emblem lit up.

"I have the ability to copy other skills for a short time. Perhaps I can see what you see and understand what is going on better." A magical quill appeared and began slowly writing the words:

Fluke - Insight

At first the words were written in simple text format, then the quill stopped and hovered in place, as if it was waiting for Fluke to do something. Shrugging, Fluke began to cycle through his menus, and examining things around him. As he did, the quill began to embellish the lettering into a more lavish font. Fluke examined the tree that he had cut down and walked over to it slowly noticing something that had caught his eye. Near the base of the tree in the wild grass was a faint shimmer of light. Bending down he picked up a shining lingot that could not have been bigger than a grain of rice. In his masks interface, the question popped up:

"Consume energy? Yes/No"

Fluke didn't use the energy, instead he walked back to the Librarian who was watching him intently. The magic quill beside him feverishly worked to enhance the letters on the page. Fluke offered the lingot to the Librarian.

"Use my ability and see if you can imbue this on your mask. It's what I did." The boy placed the lingot onto the outstretched hand before him.

"I can't see anything in my hand. You say there's something there?" Peering down at his own palm, the Librarian moved his hand around expecting something to appear. The quill disappeared, and the Librarian spoke again,

"Fluke!"

With the command given, the Librarian again looked down at his palm holding the Lingot, and recoiled back slightly with surprise.

"There's a small shard in my hand! But... my mask is saying that I cannot imbue it. The message says, "Error. Mask capabilities at maximum capacity." The Librarian offered the lingot back, which Fluke took and consumed for himself.

"So those shards help you... chop down trees?" The Librarian was leaning sideways now looking at the tree behind Fluke.

"Uhm not exactly... Oh I know! Use your quill again I'll show you more." Standing in a relaxed stance Fluke began concentrating on accessing his resonant energy. It easily came returned to him and distributed itself across his body, which surprised and excited Fluke. The amount of shimmering energy was now outlining his body about 7 cm away from his skin.

"This is getting so much easier with each attempt!" Fluke looked up at the Librarian who was nodding slowly, his magic book and quill working beside him.

"This was something that my master taught me Fluke. He had called it, aura. It was what I was going to train you on, so that when you sleep your body can recover. I also used this before my battle with the Outsiders yesterday... But I couldn't see it before now. So, you are able to use it when you are awake?" The Librarian sat down cross legged on the stump and began to breath slowly and evenly. Fluke watched as the energy began to shimmer around the man, but it appeared only as whisps of steam that evaporated slowly away from his skin. The chaotic resonance did not hold form like Fluke's, and it seemed to be unstable.

The Librarian looked down at his body and said only one word,

"Interesting."