"So... after you left, my dad got in contact with them, and instead of fighting them, he got their help to 'reset' his class?" Ryan asked, but Joe looked at him awkwardly.
"Listen, kid... I've got no idea. It's not like Hayden and I spoke a ton about that stuff after I left. He actively stopped me from getting involved again, actually," Joe explained. He seemed genuinely sorry for not being able to help him out more. But instead, he leaned over his desk and grabbed a small piece of paper, writing down what seemed to be a phone number. "But if you want to learn more, call this guy. He's part of a group we got a lot of help from back in the day. Well, it's been a while since I've heard from him, but I doubt he kicked the bucket."
"Right," Ryan looked at the note, sure to remember the phone number. Though, just in case, he still took a quick picture of it. But now, there was something else that Ryan had to take care of. His mind was completely scrambled because he didn't expect something like this to come from a date he didn't even know he would have when he woke up this morning. There was a lot that he had to process and figure out, and now, he at least knew a place to come back to where he could ask about things that Runar either refused to tell him, or maybe didn't even know about himself.
"In that case, let's move on to the reason why I'm actually here," he said, standing up from the desk. "Do you have a place that your curse coalesces around?"
Joe sighed, pulling up his shirt. Right there on his chest were cracks. They were focused around a single point. Like when a window shattered but stayed intact, and all the cracks moved out from that single impact point. The cracks themselves were pitch black grooves, like there was really some kind of darkness behind there.
"Whenever I use too much mana, the cracks widen. I'm a little worried I'll fully shatter at some point," Joe laughed. "I mean, they look like cracks in an egg, right? What kind of abomination would hatch out of a me-shaped egg, ey?"
Though Joe laughed loudly, Ryan was more focused on the actual effects of the curse. He wasn't exactly sure of these specific symptoms, but he had heard about something similar when working with Rose. She told him about a case where a small drake ended up in her care. Due to a curse, cracks started appearing on its body, but those ones just kept growing and growing. The drake was also bleeding from those cracks, but the ones on Joe seemed a bit more supernatural than that.
"Hm. Do you mind if I..? I think proximity might help Tiar."
"... Tiar?" Joe asked, raising a brow. Ryan smiled and held up his left hand.
"Them. They're a symbiote. Long story short, I had a lump of corruption stuck in my chest for a while. It was stopped from fully coming in, but the only ways to purge it were surgery or a symbiote. I was lucky enough to find this little one," Ryan explained, smiling down at his hand. "I'm not sure if you know about it, but the family owns this place outside of town. An old amusement park that had-"
"-turned into a dungeon? I'm familiar." Joe grimaced angrily. "That place was annoying as hell. Not to ruin your whole image of the family even more, but-"
"The Aglecards were the ones that actually created the dungeon to figure out what happened there beforehand, I know. Turns out that it's the place where corruption started. I won't go into details, but I closed the dungeon, and in the process, got my hands on a few useful abilities. One of them lives on through Tiar, which is the ability to cure corruption."
Joe laughed loudly. "Well, fuck, alright. Guess I underestimated you. You didn't seem that high-levelled. If you closed that place, you must be at least in the thirties, fourties?"
"Right now, I'm level 16."
"... Seriously? Well, shit. Anyway, good to know you can really get rid of that stuff. And you think that ability works on other curses, too?"
"Mhm." Ryan nodded. Both him and Joe were aware of the fact that Joe didn't react to the information that the dungeon was where corruption started. He already knew. There were things that he wasn't openly willing to reveal, either, then. At least, not yet. Ryan should try to get in his good graces.
He slowly touched his fingertips to Joe's skin, and asked Tiar to get started. That message earlier said that they weren't able to fully control curses like this yet, but it should work to some degree. Just a little bit was fine. It would prove that it was possible, and that he could help others as well. That he could help so, so many more people and animals in this world.
Tendrils extended out from Ryan's fingertips and covered Joe's skin. They ran along the edges of those cracks, and seemed to be practically pushing them back together. Not a lot, but they became just that tiny bit thinner and shorter. Those minuscule hair-thick cracks were practically invisible now.
"Oh, wow!" A spark of light filled Joe's eyes, though it disappeared slowly a moment later. It didn't seem to have been absorbed this time. Or rather, this wasn't a response because a skill was activated, but just because Joe could naturally tell that something had happened to his body. A sudden jolt of mana coursed through him and felt just that much more intense, like that first initial breath after your nose cleared up. However, a few moments later, Joe grimaced in pain. The cracks opened back up. Not as much as before, but mostly.
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More than half of the already tiny progress that Ryan had made was erased, but the rest, at least for the time being, was still there.
"It looks like this is as far as we can go this time around. I'll let you know if the ability grows stronger, but until then, just keep not using mana," Ryan explained. He really wondered if there was something he could do to help Tiar out. It seemed to be a process where mana was manipulated finely... Tiar, on their own, didn't have a lot of mana. Rather, they shared what Ryan possessed. So if the quality of his mana went up, would that improve the effect of this new ability, too?
Maybe Ryan should try going for Morgana's trial the next time he entered the door. If he were to end up choosing to go back into the door, of course. He was still considering it. Luckily, he had until the weekend to decide.
Joe laughed loudly, jumping up to pat Ryan on the shoulder. "I'll be damned! You're full of surprises, kid!"
Ryan smiled lightly. "Thanks. Uhm... anyway, I think I should probably head back out. I kind of just left Jade's place so she could have some time with her grandmother. I should at least talk to her and see if we need to take Belle back."
"Belle?"
"Jade's roommate's pet gryphon. Long story, don't worry about it," Ryan replied, looking down at his watch. "I'll come back if I have any more questions, alright? If something weird happens with your curse after this, please call me. I gave my number to the barkeeper earlier, but I can-"
"No worries, I'll get it from him. Just go back to your girlfriend for now, yeah?" Joe laughed, and Ryan smiled awkwardly.
"We're not... whatever, don't worry about it. Thanks," Ryan said with a smile and turned away. Joe brought him back out the front of the bar, where practically everyone was staring at him. Including the Sons of Ursa, of course.
Marco was standing and waiting next to the front door, and immediately stepped up to Ryan once he walked out.
"So, uh... you're that kind of bigshot, huh?" Marco said awkwardly. "You know, about before, I-"
"Calm down, I'm seriously not mad about that." Ryan looked down at his phone to see if he had gotten any messages from Jade. Didn't seem like it, so things should be fine. "Sorry for just going a bit wild in there, though."
He pulled up the groupchat with Modak and Silvia, quickly letting them know that he had a bunch of new things to fill them in on.
They seemed incredibly curious, though since Ryan wasn't specific enough, they seemed to have gotten the wrong idea.
Silvia
Oh~?
Wasn't that just your first date? You've already got stuff to fill us in on?
Modak
For a guy that wasn't interested in dating literally last week, that's pretty fast
Congrats, though!
Just be sure not to rush into anything
Silvia
Shut uuuup Modak, not all of us need to throw ever-increasingly vague hints at each other for half a year before getting the guts to ask out their crush
Modak
... I thought I was being pretty straightforward, actually
Silvia
sdjkfhsdjhfhsd
sure, sure
You
Guys, that's not what I'm talking about
Though things aren't going bad, I guess?
It's weird, it wasn't exactly a 'date'
I'm in the Rapids right now
Silvia
??????
Huh???
Modak
Ditto
Huh?
You
That's why I said I've got a ton to fill you guys in on. It's really complicated
Tiar has a new ability, meaning we can cure corruption without the copper flowers now
Seems to work on other types of curses as well
We went to the rapids because Jade's grandmother was infected with corruption
Then I got into a bar fight
And then I met my dad's old aide?? He told me a bunch of shit that I didn't know before now
Need your guys' help to sort through all that
Also, do you guys think we can adopt a gryphon? Jade's roommate has one and she's so fucking cute I will literally die if I go another day without the floof
Silvia
?????????????
Modak
Couldn't have said it better myself
Aren't Kindly and the Forge elemental enough for now?
Though I guess they don't exactly have that 'floof'
But they didn't even move in yet
Silvia
Okay first, you know that's not what I meant
That sounds like a lot all at once, are you okay?
You just came out of the trial yesterday, please don't overdo yourself
Second, Modak, I swear to god if you take a gryphon cub we don't even have yet away from me I'm going to strangle you
or get Yanna to break up with you, your choice
Modak
...
I never said no, I was just surprised
Gryphons are cute
You
I'll talk to Jade now and see if I need to drop her off at her place
if you can, stay up so we can talk about this later? shouldn't take too long until I'm home
Ryan pushed his phone back into his pocket. Apparently they were getting a gryphon now. Neat.
Marco brought Ryan back to the house where Jade's family lived, and he sat down on the steps in front of the building. Marco headed out for now, though the two of them decided they would stay in contact.
With a smile, Ryan texted Jade, telling her that he was waiting downstairs.
But before even a few seconds could pass, the building's front door was pulled wide open, and Jade practically jumped down the steps.
Ryan held out his hands and nervously caught her before she tripped and fell, but was taken aback when Jade gave him a tight hug.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you! Seriously, you have no idea how much this means to me!" Jade cried out with tears in her eyes
Patting her back, Ryan smiled. "I'm glad."