[i]Hunt for Answers[/i]

Kaldora trotted along beside the beast they had captured, content to let Zouyu’s energetic stream of consciousness wash over her until all at once is slowed to a halt. At first she thought the young man had been struck by melancholy upon his own mention of his master Yaoishi and was about to offer him words of reassurance when her nose picked up the scent of blood. She glanced in the direction of the smell just in time to see Zouyu sliding limply off of the side of his massive furry mount. 

[color=Crimson]“Oh dear. That isn't good”[/color] Kaldora said, the shock of his sudden collapse muting here response so much that it took a moment for the rest of the hunt to catch onto what had happened. It was only when Zouyu came close to being trampled by an oblivious hunter's mount a few heartbeats later that Kaldora shook off her surprise with a cry of [color=Crimson]“Zouyu!”[/color] and she leapt off her horse to rushed to the were-tiger’s side.

Around her spooked horses and equally spooked vampires ground the expedition to a halt as half of its members turned inward to try and figure out what was going on while the other half drew weapons or looked warily outwards for unseen threats. Arthanar pushed himself through this mess on horseback to the center of the incident, where he found Kaldora kneeling down beside the limp form of Zouyu holding two fingers to his neck.

[color=Crimson]“Still alive”[/color] she was saying with a sigh of relief before looking up at the shocked Arthanar. The two locked their worried gazes and then both of them began shouting orders at their compatriots.

With only a little additional prompting Arthanar got the troops forming first into a defensive perimeter and then, once it was clear that nothing was going to attack them, sent some out hunting for possible snipers or assassins. Meanwhile Kaldora moved the fallen druid beneath the shade of a tree, where she was joined by two vampires, male and female who had secondary levels in dark priest and herbalist respectively. They where the best Kaldora had on hand when it came to healers for non beasts, but even then they weren't great. The dark priest focused mainly on healing undead like themselves, while the herbalist was there to cure status ailments inflicted by beasts and both were utterly stumped by Zouyu‘s condition.

The initial examination revealed he had no physical wounds which when combination with the scouts' failure to find any trace of anyone or anything hostile in the surrounding area ruled out the source of his collapse being an attack. The beast itself was inspected as a possible culprit, but suspicions that its fur might be poisonous were also quickly discovered to be unfounded. 

“It is quite the conundrum” the Harbalist, who wore a witches hat on top of the sun shielding cloak and veils that all the vampires were draped in, stated. She sat beside Zouyu, who had been laid beneath a tree and atop a picnic blanket with his head rested upon Kaldora’s lap. The two vampiresses where examining a hovering low quality stats screen that the herbalist had summoned that was normally used to track allies' statuses in combat, but was currently being used as part of the medical examination. 

“I’ve never seen this ailment before,” the herbalist explained to the beast mistress as she pointed to a small icon shaped like a grey star with a stylized downwards pointing dagger overlaid slightly off center on it. It was listed alongside a few others including one they recognized as unconsciousness and several others that they did not but had found present on everyone else they had examined by the spell as part of the investigation. 

[color=Crimson]“Whatever it was it's done a number on the poor dear”[/color] Kaldora replied as she gently stroked Zouyu’s hair, her tone conversational with only a touch of worry remaining. After the Dark priest had done what he could to restore his physical condition and they were fairly sure Zouyu had been stabilized, his sizable healthpool was gradually ticking up from the low it had dipped too, but he still hadn't woken up. 

“Whatever it was, its completely drained his mana pool” the herbalist noted as she pointed towards a bar that should have been brimming with blue, but was instead entirely empty.

[color=Crimson]“You missed his performance, but Zouyu certainly must have used quite a bit of mana when he trapped the beast over there. But I don't think it would have been enough to drain him entirely.”[/color] 

“Well his MP is rather low for someone with MAG. ATK as their main attack stat.” the harbalist commented conversationally. As the pair tried to suss out what was wrong the rest of the party had set up a temporary camp around them. Arthanar had posted guards and sent out messengers to the foraging party who would now be coming to them instead of the other way around.

While the herbalist was in the midst of theorizing about the atmosphere of this new world being slightly poisonous to the living from their home realm Zouyu‘s mp suddenly started ticking up.

[color=Crimson]“Ah that’s good yes? Something must have changed to make that happen!”[/color] Kaldra said excitedly before the pair scrutinized the stats screen, which showed no change in status other than the very gradual filling mana bar.

“That makes no sense!” The herbalist exclaimed in frustration “Nothing Changed! If the statuses are all the same then it should have been ticking up all this time! SO why wasn't it?”

Kaldoa stared at the hovering screen for a few long moments before suggesting that [color=Crimson]“Perhaps it was then and the monitoring screen is broken? It was ticking up but we couldn't see it for some reason?”[/color]

“Want? No that’s not how magic works… or at least not how it did. hmm” the herbalist replied first with indignation and then with thoughtfulness before turning to Kaldora and, after getting her permission, casting the same stat viewing spell on her once again.

[color=Crimson]“Oh well now that is most certainly less than it used to be. I assure you that I could cast twice as many spells more spells than that bar seems to indicate.”[/color] Kaldora said after she cast a spell and noted how it dropped the bar by twice as much as it would have before they arrived in the new world. [color=Crimson]“It’s a shame this screen doesn't give exact details or we could compare numbers rather than just looking at valueless bars and icons"[/color] she noted.

“We'd need a dedicated healer class to get that I’m afraid” the herbalist apologized before she launched into a bout of theorizing,“So. Your guess was probably right. There’s now... Negative mana? Unsafe mana? We used to be able to use the whole bar without adverse effects and so maybe the bar still shows that? And the rest of it is negative and has adverse effects when used up?”

She paused there for a moment before deciding that “there's only one way to find out I guess?” before she stood up, cast [view status] on herself and began throwing around low level druid spells.

[color=Crimson]“Do be careful,''[/color] Kaldora said as thorn bushes and medicinal plants sprouted around the herbalist [color=Crimson]“It won't do to have two people knocked out if overuse of mana if that is the issue."[/color] 

The heabalist nodded as she used up the last of her mana bar. When she did both of them glanced over at the screen and to the herbalist delight the grey star had appeared on her screen, only it was tagged with a small red chevron instead of the dagger Zouyu  had been displaying. Then she cast a few more times and watched as a second chevron appeared below the first, and then a third joined it after a couple more spells. 

[color=Crimson]“That's quite enough darling, any more and you run the risk of ending up like poor Zouyu here."[/color]

After a moment's hesitation the herbalist agreed and rejoined Kladora on the picnic blanket. By the time Zouyu stirred back to consciousness a few minutes later the rest of the hunt had arrived with their captured herd of Gorgonbulls and the herbalist was oscillating wildly between complaining about the headache she’d given herself and telling anyone and everyone about their new discovery.

[color=Crimson]“Welcome back."[/color] Kladora greeted the were-tiger as he awoke in her lap [color=Crimson]“You over exerted yourself just a little it seems and knocked yourself out in the process. I’m so glad your awake. How do you feel?"[/color]