Time Flies When You're In a Coma
When Loran returned to his senses it was the dead of night. All of the shelters around him were filled with sleeping players, and two bowls filled with water and assorted dried meats were sitting next to him.
'So how long was that?'
Using the remaining duration of his [CONCUSSION] as a clock, Loran realized that he had just spent the last twelve hours in complete sensory deprivation.
'That wasn't so bad,' he thought, pleasantly surprised. 'I must have taken a nap at some point though, it definitely felt like only a few minutes.'
He was glad that he came to at night. With his senses being more sensitive after several hours of disuse the duller stimulus of the village at night was less jarring than when he resurfaced in the training field earlier, even with having spent longer in the void this time.
The taste of the meat and water was surprisingly good, and after a moment he realized that it was Calix's seasoned jerky. The taste was a bit stronger thanks to his reactivated tastebuds, but it was still delicious compared to what he had been expecting.
Washing his meal down with the rest of his water, Loran returned to a sleeping position and went back into the void.
~~~~~
The next time Loran resurfaced it was a little before noon. The village seemed quiet, which Loran assumed meant that the hunting parties had gone out today.
'If things are this peaceful right now, maybe I can stretch my legs a little...' Then Loran started to sit up and felt as though the ground had suddenly started spinning. 'Nopenopenope, bad idea. God damn concussions suck.'
Moving more slowly, Loran sat in front of his shelter as he started eating the meat and water left for him.
"O-oh, you're awake."
Loran turned his head to see Calix carrying a pair of bowls identical to the ones in his hands, save for the fact that hers were full while he had just emptied his. Her eyes widened when he looked at her before she suddenly averted her eyes.
"Hey, Calix. Sorry to pull you away from the Kitchen like this," he said, thinking her stranger-than-usual behavior was because of him.
"N-no, it's alright. We're already doing something similar with those two hunters from Bates' party..." her voice trailed off as she remembered the states of the mentioned players.
The one with the amputated leg was able to make do with his situation once he had a pair of crutches, and surprisingly the other wasn't far off. Since they managed to get him back to the camp quickly they had been able to set his bones in the (mostly)correct positions. He still feels a tremendous amount of pain from his [CHRONIC PAIN] debuff whenever he tries to move around on his own and will be stuck like that for the next three years, but even that is miraculous considering the level of damage he had received.
Loran silently realized that he should try to figure out that healing spell sooner rather than later.
"B-besides, there isn't much happening in the Kitchen right now anyway," she said hastily. She then held out the bowls, which Loran took as he left her with the empty ones.
"Alright, as long as I'm not interrupting anything." He raised the bowl of meat. "Thanks for the special jerky by the way."
"Thank you," she said with a small smile.
Calix was about to walk away when a question popped into Loran's head.
"Hey, what am I like when I'm, you know, non-responsive?"
The young cook seemed taken aback by his question, but after a moment she had an answer. "It's... really weird. You just kind of lie there, your eyes are open but they don't move. It's like looking at someone in a coma."
Loran grimaced. "Sorry, I guess it makes you uncomfortable."
She shook her head. "It's not that bad, a little interesting once I got used to it. When I brought you food this morning I-" she blushed, "I may have spent some time poking you with a stick, just to see how out of it you were."
Loran's eyes widened. He then started laughing as Calix became more nervous. "Really? With a stick?"
"Y-yeah. You were really not responding."
"Alright, well as long as no one tries to draw on my face I guess it's fine."
"...Too late for that..."
Loran's mind blanked as he processed her words, before slowly turning his head to look at his reflection in his water bowl. Sure enough, someone had used charcoal to draw all over his face while he had been unconscious.
There was a mustache that turned into big spirals on his cheeks. An overexaggerated scar over his left eye. There was even a little smiley face on his forehead.
Completing his humiliation was a phallus pointing at his mouth.
Calix watched as Loran's face shifted from an expression of stunned surprise to a dead-eyed stare. He then let out a resigned sigh.
"...I do not have the brain capacity to deal with this right now," he said as he went back to eating.
Calix stood silently for a moment before timidly shuffling away.
~~~~~
'Only two more days,' Loran thought as he watched the timer tick down.
Even though the sensory deprivation void helped speed up time, it wasn't as if it actually passed instantaneously, and Loran was getting extremely bored. He was stuck in a sea of darkness with nothing but his thoughts, and his concussion made thinking difficult so even that didn't really help.
More than anything he wanted to experiment with magic more, but the level of concentration necessary was just too much for his current state. He could still do it, but controlling even a single MP gave him a splitting headache that not even turning his pain sense to 0% could stop.
He was bored out of his mind, and he still had another two days left.
'Whatever, it's about time for breakfast anyway.'
Reactivating his senses, Loran crawled out of his shelter.
"Hey, we need to talk."
Loran looked up to see Yin and Soze standing over him.
"What's up?" Loran said as he sat down. Yin handed him two bowls, containing water and a warm stew instead of dried meat.
"You need to stop turning off your senses," Soze said.
The demand was so unexpected that Loran nearly dropped his lunch. He looked up at Soze skeptically. "I'm going to need a damn good reason for that, this is the only thing keeping me sane right now."
"It might be doing the opposite."
"What do you mean?" he asked as he began eating.
"Many of the players using sensory deprivation to learn magic have been acting erratically," Yin explained. "It varies from person to person, but many of them have become easily startled, distracted by the slightest stimulus, and almost all of them need time to recover after returning to their senses."
"I...I haven't noticed anything like that." Loran said absently. Such behavior was shocking to him since he felt more or less fine.
"Really?" Soze asked skeptically. "Nothing?"
"No. Whenever I come out of the void I feel more sensitive to things but that passes after a minute or two. Is that what you meant by them needing time to recover?"
"That does line up with most cases, but some are worse, and one guy even struggled to control his own movements and couldn't stand up for several minutes."
Loran was stunned silent for a moment, needing a moment to process his thoughts through his concussion. "A-and everyone is being affected like this?" he asked, setting down his food to focus on the conversation.
"We did say it varies," Soze reminded him. "No one is completely unaffected, but more than half are able to go back to normal like you and don't show any lasting symptoms."
"Okay, so we should be fine then?"
"No," Soze said firmly. "We don't know if the effects could get stronger over time, we don't even know what's causing it."
"Wouldn't it just be the sensory deprivation itself?" Loran said as if it were obvious.
When both Yin and Soze looked at him questioningly, he explained that in the real world it was possible to build an "Anechoic Chamber," which was a room with so many sound-dampening properties that it could register as having negative decibels. Even if you made a sound yourself in such a room it would sound strange because the walls produced no echo and the sound would cut out instead of fading away.
In such rooms, people could only stay inside for limited periods of time until they would start to go insane from the lack of sound. In such an environment the human body would become hyper-aware of itself. Your heartbeat will begin to boom like thunder, the blood in your veins would roar like rapids, and your breathing would bellow like a hurricane. Even the moving of joints would snap and crack in ways that are completely normal, but typically imperceptible.
"Most people can't spend more than 45 minutes in those rooms before they start to go crazy, and even the world record is something like 3 hours," Loran explained.
"That wouldn't explain how you and the others are mostly unaffected," Yin said.
The three were silent for a moment before Loran made a decision.
"I'm going to keep using the void."
"But we don't know enough-"
Loran raised his hand. "And we'll never know more unless we test for it. Maybe it's because I'm concussed, but I think my aftereffects have been getting easier, not worse, so I should be fine." Loran shrugged. "Besides, it's also possible that some people are getting traumatized by being in a complete sensory void, that's not exactly something people were ever meant to experience."
"True, those with moderate symptoms are those who entered this 'void' once and then refused to do so again," Yin noted. "Those suffering the most may just be too stubborn to give up."
"And those like Loran just aren't shaken by it or something," Soze said derisively. He paused for a moment before sighing. "I don't really believe it but it's not like we have a better answer."
"Once I get better I'll make sure to be careful with the void, and to check in with you guys in case I am going crazy."
"You could also, you know, not use it until your concussion is gone?" Soze suggested.
"No way, the boredom will definitely drive me crazy," Loran said, picking up his bowl of stew. "Is there anything else, I'd like to eat before this gets cold."
Yin giggled as Soze could only sigh at Loran's disregard for his own sanity.
"Just try to be careful?"
"I make no promises." Before he started eating, a question occurred to him. "Did Alexx and Zed go on their hunt yet?"
"Yeah," Soze said with a knowing grin. "They left with Yang yesterday after drawing on your face."
"THOSE FUCKERS!"
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