I collapse against the wall, sliding down until I am sitting opposite Macille in the cramped treasure room, waving the rune of attunement his way. “So?”
Macille bites his lip. Magical energy continues to pour out of his hands into Adrius, but the bloody stumps at the ends of his arms don’t look to be improving much. “You would give that away?”
“Well,” I say, looking over at Dovik who stands in one of the corners, arms crossed. “I guess that would be a decision that we need to come to. I’m still fairly new to magic so giving me the rune might not be the best idea anyways; I don’t really know how to use it.”
“They are fairly intuitive,” Dovik comments. He scoots one of the chests towards him, not bothering to open it, and takes a seat on top of it. “You probably have some insight into affixes. The runes function like that, except they can add permanent affixes to a single ability. If that really is a power rune, then it might boost a singular ability to be as strong as a rank two ability.”
I look at the rune in my hand before looking back at Macille. “Would that be enough for you to heal Adrius immediately?”
“I don’t know.” Macille swallows hard. He looks between his patient and the rune in my hand. “Rank two healing is pretty powerful, but it feels like it would be a waste to use that on me now. If you give me some time, I will be able to get Adrius conscious. He should be able to heal himself better than I can. His healing doesn’t require his hands, as far as I know.”
We all stare at the unconscious healer. Adrius’ breaths are shallow and rapid, his skin glistening with sweat. Despite Macille healing him continuously, Adrius’ skin looks so pale that he might be made of marble.
“Maybe,” Dovik says. I can see clear concern conflicting with some other emotion on his face. “The question is then, do we plan to continue or turn back here?”
My eyes turn his way, surprised. “Can we even turn back?”
Dovik nods to the lever set into the wall next to the yellow barrier. “I am hoping that will deactivate the wall. There exists the option to rest now, regain some of our strength, and try to make it back to the entryway where we started.”
“We heard the entryway close when we entered,” Macille says.
“Charlene here can melt through stone. If we need to do a little of that to make sure that no one else is wounded or killed, then that would be the responsible choice.” I can see that Dovik hates the idea of turning back. The man scrunches his face up like the words choke him to speak. “We already lost one person.”
“Why would they even attack us,” I mutter through gritted teeth. Remembering the sight of that arrow passing through Samissa’s neck brings back the anger that I had just pushed aside. My hand clenches hard around the rune in my hand, the joints in my fingers creaking from the strain. “No warning. No demand that we give them our stuff. They just shot her in the neck and blew Adrius’ hands off without a warning. What kind of maniacs do something like that?”
Dovik sighs, shaking his head. “The kinds of people that have been nurtured all of their lives to believe they have the right to decide who lives and dies.” He lays his head back against the wall and sighs. “I thought that there would be infighting eventually. Whenever resources are limited conflict is a natural consequence. I just thought that we would have more time. Why did I have to pick this year to attempt the passage.” His smile is sad and self-deprecating.
“You mentioned that this Passage is different than it usually is,” Macille says. “What is it usually like?”
“I have only even been alive for four of the Passages, they don’t happen every year. Typically, rich families send their extra sons and daughters here to make inroads with the guild, only a scant few are anything exceptional. The little lordlings are taken on almost a guided tour of the forest, rank three proctors leading teams north for a few months, designating monsters for the little lords and ladies to fight, keeping a running score. There is some infighting, there always is in a competition, but people don’t usually end up dying.”
“People are dying now though,” I say.
“Yeah,” Dovik says. “People are dying now.”
“I just don’t understand this,” Macille says.
Dovik shrugs. “There are no proctors around this time. No one to keep the little lords in line.”
“So, they want us to kill each other?” I ask. I still can’t help but stare at the rune in my hand. It beckons me to use it, and it takes all of my willpower not to immediately give in.
“No,” Dovik shakes his head. “There was nothing said that indicates they want us to attack one another. It is just that nothing is stopping the opportunists from doing so any longer.”
“And so, the Willian guild will fill its ranks with murderers,” I spit. “It makes you wonder why anyone would want to join it.”
Dovik stares off into space. “Maybe,” he says. The conflict playing out on his face is too depressing for me to keep paying attention to.
“Whatever we decide, you should take the rune,” I tell Macille, tossing the stone to him.
Macille catches the rune and turns it over in his hands. “If we decide to turn back then it would be better that we keep this or use it on someone who needs it more than me.”
“If we decide to turn back, we will want Adrius healed and conscious anyway. If not, someone is going to have to carry him, meaning that someone will have to take him all the way up the staircase and over that bridge full of nightmares. Samissa is gone now, we don’t have anyone to point them out.”
“Exeter’s balls!” Dovik swears. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Macille looks between the two of us, and when we both nod back to him, he bows his head and pulls the rune to his chest. “Thank you both. Really, this means a lot.”
“It’s fine,” Dovik says, waving his hand.
I have a harder time writing off the rune. I bite my lip as I watch Macille somehow start to pull the magic out of the rune while holding it to his chest. Lust dances in my eyes as I watch the magic enter him. Then, after a minute, it is over.
“Did it work?” I ask.
“I think so.” Macille turns his attention back to Adrius, his hands moving toward Adrius’ horrific injuries. The green light of his healing magic is more opaque now, more vibrant, like the touch of fresh grass and summer. Before my eyes, I watch as the bones of Adrius’ stumps begin to mend, stretching out in an effort to reform his hands. I find myself holding my breath as I watch the grisly sight of the bones sprouting muscles and ligaments as they continue to grow out of his wounds. I have to turn away before seeing any more of it.
“I think it is working,” Macille says, though I am studying my own hands too hard to look over.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Good,” I say. I spare a glance in Dovik’s direction and see the man cringing as he watches the healing, unable to look away. “Just tell me when it’s over.”
The healing doesn’t take long, not nearly as long as I had thought it might anyway. Macille’s strengthened magic is able to regrow Adrius’ severed hands in a matter of minutes, and when he is done, Macille is left pale and wrung out, leaning against the wall. Adrius is still very much out of it, but the elf’s breathing has leveled out somewhat, even if he is still white as a sheet.
“He didn’t wake up,” I comment.
“He lost a lot of blood,” Dovik says.
“I’m…sorry,” Macille says, attempting to get a hold on his breathing. “I am not… a dedicated healer. This was the best I could do.”
“You probably saved his life,” Dovik says, standing and patting Macille’s shoulder. “You saved the life of one of my oldest friends today; I won’t forget this.” Macille waves off the thanks rather than speaks, still focusing on slowing his breathing. Dovik walks over to Adrius and unties his belt from around Adrius’ arm, doing the same with my own belt. “Wouldn’t want him to lose his hands again because of bad blood flow.” He tosses me my broken belt.
“Thanks,” I say, looking at the buckle. It is something that I might be able to fix.
“How long do you need to be ready to move?” Dovik asks Macille.
“Give me two hours and I will be in good enough condition. It is going to take another day at least for all my mana to regenerate.”
Just hearing that makes me feel slightly guilty. Looking at my own mana, almost a quarter of it has regenerated over the half-hour or so that we have been in this treasure room. I work at tying the belt around my waist, threading my faux bag back through it. It takes some work to do, but it is just about functional after a few minutes of effort.
“So, what do we want to do?” Dovik asks.
“Honestly, I want to track down those people that killed Samissa and torch them,” I spit.
Dovik nods gravely at me. “Have you ever killed someone Charlene?”
The question catches me a bit off guard. I hadn’t expected him to be so direct. “No.”
“Well, I have,” he says, nodding back to the kitchen. Whoever was attacking us from the shadows of the hallway never appeared. Standing at the entrance, I was clearly able to see the dead man’s boot with the toe sticking lifelessly up in the air. I knew that Samissa was laying just next to him, the two bodies almost looking like lovers lying next to each other–if you ignored the dullness in their eyes. Emotions that I don’t even want to try and figure out coil like a ball in my stomach, churning.
“Is that the first man you killed?” I ask Dovik.
He looks back into the kitchen for a long moment, chewing on his cheek. “Yeah,” he says in a low voice. “Yeah…”
“How do you feel?” Macille asks.
“I don’t know.” Dovik shakes his head. “He deserved it, or he would deserve it. Maybe he never hurt anyone before. I don’t know.” He sighs and bends down to one of the chests. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Without hesitating, Dovik unlatches one of the chests and opens it up. I hear the jingling of coins move inside and stand to see what it is that he has found. The chest appears on the outside like most of the chests that I have found in the forest before. Inside, a pile of silver and bronze coins catch the yellow light of the barrier, almost tricking the mind into thinking there is gold inside.
“You might have to dig around to find the item,” I tell Dovik.
“Item?”
“Most of the chests we found in the mud-forest had a magical item inside,” Macille says.
Dovik starts pushing the coins aside, digging up an amulet on a silver chain, a circle of bronze inlaid with an emerald. “Great,” he says, “another reason for some assholes to try and kill me.” Despite the ironic smile Dovik tries on, the humor doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Can I see that?” I ask. Dovik hands it over to me without hesitation. I don’t really need to hold the object in order for my eye to tell me about it, but I am starting to think that maybe being a bit more subtle about what my abilities can actually do would be a good idea.
Amulet of Protection(Rare):
An amulet crafted of a purity gem, engraved with sigils of protection by a shaman of Khelflin. This amulet will impart protective warding onto any who might wear it.
Enhancement: +15 Defense, +10 Magic Defense
“It’s a defensive charm,” I say, handing it back to Dovik.
Dovik looks down at his armor, thinking for a moment. “I would like it if no one opposes it.”
In all honesty, I am starting to think that it might be a good idea for me to get my hands on as much defensive empowerment as I can. The only times that my defensive attributes have ever increased is when I have taken significant damage in a fight. I expect that in the future all of my defense will come from my equipment. Still, I don’t want it enough to take it from Dovik.
We find some good things in the other chests as well.
Ring of Regeneration(Rare):
A ring of regeneration, a mainstay of any well-prepared adventurer. This ring was crafted in the Wall City of Grim, a collaboration by guild artisans to produce many such beneficial items for the upcoming Passage of Rising Tide.
Enhancement: +20 Recovery, +5% Recovery
Boots of Striding(Rare):
Your classic boots of striding, a mainstay of any well-prepared adventurer. These boots were crafted in the Wall City of Grim, a collaboration by guild artisans to produce many such beneficial items for the upcoming Passage of Rising Tide.
Enhancement: +25 Speed
No one complains when I ask to take the ring for myself. It has a multiplicative effect on it, and according to what Arabella told me prior, that is an extremely good thing for a specialist. However, when I offer the boots to Macille, trying to split the loot evenly, he turns me down, claiming that the rune was more than enough for him. Dovik turns them down as well, and while I do extremely want the boots–they are made of an interesting blue leather and the three-inch heel would admittedly look a little silly on a man–I still feel a bit bad about accepting them. Kicking off my own dirty boots, I decide that I will give them to Adrius when he wakes up. The man is pretty enough to pull them off.
Thinking about Adrius makes me think about Samissa, and any elation I might feel at getting new magical items quickly disappears. Despite both Dovik and Macille claiming they don’t care about silver or copper coins, I make them sign my growing ledger next to the amount that I owe them as soon as I have put all the coins in my inventory.
“Are you not going to take these chests?” Dovik asks.
I look through my inventory. “I already have eight chests. Do I need more?”
“What?” Macille says. “How can you fit eight chests inside of that bag?”
“It’s a storage bag…”
“No,” Dovik says. “That must be a huge storage bag. I don’t think you are likely to find many first rank storage items that can contain that much.” He slaps one of the chests. “It can hold eight of these. Arabella must really like you.”
It is a difficult thing to keep my eyes from flicking down at the ring that is actually my storage item. I had no idea that there were ranks to magical items, but of course there are. It seems like every part of this new magical world that I am learning about has some kind of ranking system attached to it.
Perhaps I really should have tried to read more about those kinds of things in the books that Arabella offered to let me peruse. Sure, the runes and magical theory is incredibly boring–extremely boring even–but learning a little more mathematics might have been a good idea. Whenever I think about numbers in terms of money, well, it is just so much easier to stay interested. My eyes flick toward the numbers in the top of my inventory that indicate my current funds. Either way that this competition ends, at least I won’t be going hungry for a while.
We while a few hours away, and when Macille indicates that he is ready, we prepare to leave. Adrius is still out cold, though he has stopped sweating so much, and the water that Macille makes him drink seems to be helping.
“Be ready for anything,” Dovik says, taking up a position near the yellow barrier. He inhales deeply as he grasps the lever on the side of the door.
We all wait with bated breath, muscles preparing for sudden movement as Dovik’s hand lingers on the lever. It has gone unspoken between us, but the people that attacked us could still be waiting in the corridor for us to let down the barrier. With a sharp exhale, Dovik pulls the lever, throwing it hard the other way.
A second passes, all of us waiting to run into the kitchen, Macille having hoisted Adrius up onto his back. Nothing happens though; the barrier remains in place, its sickly yellow still glowing. Dovik throws the lever back and forth a few more times, but nothing happens either.
“Fuck!” Dovik screams. His weapons are in his hands, and he is slamming them into the barrier yelling with each strike. The man rages against the magic, the air around each of his strikes violent and distorted by the clashing magic. One of his weapons is ripped out of his hands by the barrier, spinning off into the room to clatter onto the floor.
Dovik falls away, chest heaving, rage and impotence on his face as he stares at the barrier. Slowly, his eyes roll over to me, and I know that we are both thinking the same thing.
I must have broken the lever when I destroyed the statue outside. We can’t go back.