As I flop onto my bed, I catch a whiff of the stink from Taegan, and grimace. Even with him on the other side of the room I could still smell the stench of the rank up grime. Of course, I knew logically that I would have to go through it too, but I think I could wait for that. The only unfortunate thing about Taegan’s rank up is that we don’t have that much water, meaning that he only has a very small portion of water to work with until I rank up and can create water, but even then we would be restricted by my mana.
As I ponder this-and inadvertently block out any sounds of Taegan’s suffering that may cross the room-I just am met with a blank brain, staring at my tent. I sigh. Everything now was so complicated, so hard to do, I just wished that we could escape. Some days, it was fun to be in here, like a dungeon or a special adventure, but today, well, it wasn’t one of those days. Today just reminded me of how tiring it is here. Bland food, no colour except purple, absolutely no control on what happens…
It was a lot, just a lot. I get up with a groan, curiosity overtaking me as I walk over to our bag, wanting to see what food we had after the delicacy that was the Dueler trials soup. As I dig in it, I bring out the dimensional bag holding all of our water, and get a feel for how full it is. A sigh escapes me. “Dalyva.” I yell, and she turns her head. “Yeah Sha?” For a second I forget what I was saying, before replying. “How much water are we allowing Tae to use for cleaning.” She walks over. “Why?” She seems genuinely curious, as she stares at my hand in the big bag. “I’m taking inventory.” I replied. She nods in understanding. “Not much, as little as we can afford probably.” I look at it, before estimating a line where Taegans bit is, and seeing how much water we have then. Not much.
I stay quiet as I rummage through the bag, looking for food. However much I would’ve loved to find heaps of food, I only found a couple things. Two Appa fruits that would barely last a day or two, three bags of glow berries, and the bag of grain from the start. At the start of our journey it had been bulging full, but after days of congee for breakfast had worn it down to now only three days of breakfast if we ate what we normally did, or maybe a week if we toned it down a bit. Of course, I didn’t want to deprive us of food, but the way we were going, with only either fruit, berries and grain to otherwise flour, eggs and sugar we would last a week to two weeks if we didn’t get any more food.
Dalyva-having walked behind me-gazes at the flour before piping up. “Five Bak eggs and plenty of flour could make something good.” I look at her. “Yeah, what?” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Taegans the leader on that.” Just as she says that, Taegan yells over from his corner. “Hey Dalyva, Sha, can I have some water to clean myself?” I look over to him. He’s absolutely covered in black gunk, with a puddle of it surrounding his feet. I chuckle as he uses his palms to push off some of the gunk from his face. “C’mon Sha, please?” He says, and I reluctantly go over and hand him the bottle. Pouring it over himself, he gets cleaned up. I do help by controlling the water up for him to use over and over so he doesn't waste it, till he’s decently clean. I look him over with awe, his features looking sharper, more refined. Not to mention he has a six pack, which I look at with envy, even though I knew logically that I had one too from our daily exercises, training and fights.
“What can you do now?” Asks Dalyva, as Tae wipes remaining gunk from himself. Looking up at her question, he grins. “Quite a bit, yeah.” He says, holding up his hand and concentrating for a second, before sand generates on his palm. There’s a wince on his face, but it’s quickly covered by a grin. He hovers it above his palm and forms it into a ball, and then looks at us. “See?” He says. I grin, and so does Dalyva. “Nice!” I say, before waiting a few seconds and adding. “Also, I believe you promised biscuits?”
He stares at me for a second, maybe not just in surprise but a hidden tiredness as well, before chuckling a bit. “I don’t know if just sugar, flour and eggs will make biscuits.” He says as he walks over to the leather on the floor that while we were in the trial had dried the sugar on it. I, seeing what he’s planning, go over to the big bag, and grab a little one that was empty from inside it. He picks up the leather, and I hold the bag open for him as he folds the leather and it all slides in from one point into the bag. “Yeah, I’ll make biscuits, but you better not criticise how they taste, because I don’t think they’ll taste that good.” I shrug. I just want to eat something good.
He grabs the now sugar filled bag and then finds the flour and eggs, then a bowl. He looks at Dalyva as he mixes some flour and sugar, then cracks an egg, and it falls in. Now, since we don’t necessarily have a spoon, he has to use his hands. Of course, he made sure they were clean, and then started to mix. He puts the flour over the egg so he doesn’t get it on his hands too much, and tries to mix it. Of course, it ends up on his hands anyways, but he manages to mix it quite well. “Dalyva?” He looks up, and she cracks another egg into the bowl. He mixes that in, but it's starting to need more flour, so as I’m holding the flour on the other side of him, I pour it in. We do this for a while before Taegan has a clump of dough in his bowl and we have no eggs. He grabs little bits of it, and rolls them up into balls, before squishing them down into biscuit like shapes.
I then get up, (Read- try to get up) stumble backwards and then are falling onto my back, before luckily my great brother manages to get some sand under my back and save me. He rolls his eyes at my clumsiness, but a smile is on his lips. I huff, and then sit up. “That wasn’t me, the floor moved!” I protest, and two sets of eyes stare at me with disbelief and amusement. “It didn’t for us.” Said Taegan, and I stuck my tongue out at him. I went to get the fire started so we could cook these biscuits, and when I lit it, I blew on it gently to fuel the flames into growing.
Soon enough, they’re big enough to cook with, and Taegan brings over the first batch of biscuits. We still have a lot of batter left, so it’ll take ages before we get through all of it. Which is good. I mean, they’re not exactly healthy, but they’re food, and tasty. Dalyva put up the stones over the fire for the biscuits to cook on, and Taegan placed the first biscuits on the stone. He made them and then just placed them on, of course. I watched the biscuits as they cooked, bored. “Shankhe.” Says Taegans voice, interrupting my train of nothing that was going through my head. I look up. “Yeah?”
“Let’s play specialisation battles.” He’s smirking, so I assume he wants to try out his new upgrades, inadvertently on me. I pout, but nod. “Okay. Is Dalyva participating?” I look over to her. She shrugs, but suggests something. “We can do fights as well maybe.” I nod my head at her comment, before unplugging my bottle and walking up opposite Taegan. “Ready?” He asks. “Just count down already.” I complain, wanting to just fight. “Who’s impatient now?” He teases, but starts to count down. “Three… two… one. GO!” Both of our spesh rush out of our respective bottles, colliding in the middle, and all the stuff spraying to the side clashes as well as we control it. I’m completely focused on our battle as I manoeuvre the water to split into several strands, attacking his at different angles. Last time we did this, I lost because I let him overwhelm me, but this time, I’m going to win. Blocking some strands of my water with sand, he generates more, letting it surround him in a circle as it shoots off to attack the rest of my water strands.
All the water I sent at him to attack is covered, and I grimace. He’s got me in a stalemate. If I move my water back, the sand comes with it and he wins. If I pressure my water past his sand, it’s just going to be stopped. I look at my bottle. It still has some in it…. I got an idea. Since the water strands circle Taegan, I push them wide, spreading the water. Taegan wasn’t expecting this, and his sand didn't react for a few seconds, before trying to stop my water from connecting. However I was fast, and pushed a lot of mana into making sure they connected. Once they all connected in a circle around Taegan, his ring of sand started to try push it back, but I held my ground. Drawing the last bit of water from my bottle, it snakes above Taegans head, and forms a mini dagger, trying to crash into him.
Suddenly sand explodes out of him, and covers all my water. It condenses the water, forcing it to bend to his will, and I struggle to fight back. Managing to wrestle control away from me, some sand keeps my water in a bowl, while the rest of his sand attacks and surrounds me, a sandy sword pressed to my neck. He smirks as he walks up to me. “I win.” He happily states. I grumble about it not being fair under my breath as we both take back our elements into our respective bottles, and he also has to absorb some that he created as it's too much to fit in the bottle.
Surprisingly, the biscuits were cooked, and a second batch was already on and almost cooked as well, since the flames were hot. We sit down as Dalyva takes off the second biscuits and puts them on an extra stone. The third batch wasn’t much, and as they cooked, I turned to Taegan. “How’d you do that?” I ask. He looks confused, before recognising what I was talking about.
“Oh, before?” I nod. “Simple. You let your guard down, and put all your water towards me, meaning you had no defence if I covered your water in sand and took away control. So, that's what I did.” Understanding went through me. “So, you’re saying that until I can create my element I should have extra around me.” He tilts his head to the side. “Sort of. Even if you can create your element, you should have some already created to defend yourself in case you lack mana.” I took it all in and noted it down in my head.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Guys?” Dalyva pipes up. We turned to her. “Yeah?” She’s putting the third batch on the stone, before saying. “Why don’t we do the Path-Finder trial now while the biscuits cool?” She asks. Taegan looks at me, and I shrug. “Sure.” We get up, grab our weapons, and start to head over to the door. It has the symbol of a squiggly line, that on either side says start and finish. I assume it's supposed to represent a maze. We push it open, and lo-and-behold an archway is in front of us. The door closes behind us as we stare at it, a giant ‘Start’ above the arch.
“Guess its a maze.” Says Dalyva, as I groan. Not only am I terrible at mazes, they’re just annoying. Tiring. I let out a long breath as Dalyva goes ahead. She starts to walk in it, and I follow behind with a bored gaze.
We continue onwards, but then Taegan tenses. Confused, I stared at him with confusion. “What?” I ask, just as a giant Korrong jumps out. I draw my sword in a flash, ready to attack. “Fu-.” The black and white badger-like creature rushes at me. Panicking, the only thing I do is respond to my reflexes, and leap to the side, completely abandoning any plans of fighting. It’s acting almost like a rabid dog, and I panicked at its looks. It has growing purple eyes, and instead of drooling purple liquid is dripping out of its mouth, the same from the rat ages ago that corrupted my arm.
A sort of phantom pain runs along my arm, right where the corruption is. All the way up to where a normal t-shirt ends.
However dangerous looking it is, sand wrapped around it like rope, and restrained its movements, stopping it from attacking us further. “Dalyva.” He instructed with a hungry gaze. “Slice its head off, and we can eat the rest. Instantly her eyes light up, and she raises her halberd, approaching the squirming and struggling monster, before chopping its head off in one clean hit. “Nice!” He says, grinning as he stares at the abundance of food before us. I look at him, knowing we don't have any sort of bag to carry it in. He looks back at me, reading my expression-which I still have no clue how he does-before kneeling before it and bringing out his dagger.
He starts to cut the skin off, and I help him, so does Dalyva. Now, we just have a skinned corpse, and I observe how none of the meat is that badly purple, maybe like a little more than usual. Taegan, in all his expertise, cuts a line on the inside of its leg, and cuts the meat from around the bone, before repeating with all the other legs. Then he goes to the stomach and cuts a line there that allows him to cut the meat from the ribs. He ignored the organs, although the sight of them made Dalyva a bit green.
We eventually had a good chunk of meat with the bones and organs far away from the meat as it lay on the leather. Dalyva wasn’t even looking as she stood away from us. I sort of understood, but then again she probably would have to get used to it. Taegan then picked up the leather under the meat, and it functioned like a bag, as he hauled it onto his shoulder and started to walk.
We followed behind, only to run into a wall. We backtracked, and this time took a left, not a right. After quite a while of complaining, fighting Korrong that jumped out, and just generally backtracking more times than we could count, we finally managed to get to the end.
However, that was not the end of our torment, as a monster jumped out at us. Taegan immediately put down our meat. Key word-put down. He didn’t drop it. Which was good, because otherwise he’d hear it from me. I draw my katana, and get ready to fight.Taegan takes out his Jambiyas, and Dalyva readies her halberd. “Dalyva, take the left, Shankhe, to the right.” We rush in,a nod he takes the front. This Korrong is huge, but instead of being just mildly corrupted, it's very corrupted, chunks of its fur even just melting into the same purple stuff emanating from its mouth.
I rush forward, Tae yelling instructions that I obey, yet don’t fully process except the main bits, like when he says ‘Sha, left’ I go left and don’t listen unless he says my name again. As I’m rushing left, I notice a giant white and black shape coming towards me, with sharp purple claws coming from the shape. That’s when I panic. Do I go left, away from the creature, or right, into the creature in order to stab it? “Sha, towards it!” A yell comes from behind me, and I listen, running into the black and white creature, putting full trust into Tae.
It’s also much smarter, shown as it raises up, using its back legs to balance and trying to catch us in a deadly hug. However much I would like to be hugged, I believe hugging with a monster, one with sharp claws no less, is one of the most dangerous and stupid things you could ever do in your lifetime, and something I wholly think you should not do under any circumstances. Now, that just be me though. As these said claws come to us from either side, me and Dalyva backtrack to dodge, while Taegan rushes in front of the claws, aiming to attack its head while its arms are unable to block. However the Korrong ducks down, and Tae’s blade bounces off the top of its head and doesn't go into his eye like he planned. His whole plan was foiled by the Korrong thick skull, which is why most attack its weaker areas, like its neck, eyes, stomach or armpits.
As he runs over the Korrong’s back, it rears up, but i rushed in, which diverted its attention just enough for Tae to manage to jump of the Korrong back, as Dalyva simultaneously rushes from the other side. Both of our weapons are pointing towards the creatures chest however my blade is more to the left, and Dalyva is edging over to my side on the left, ready for me to distract the creature while she slits its neck. It’s rearing up, trying to snap at Taegan who is behind it, and leaving its neck wide open as its claws try to ‘hug’ us.
Taegan sees this, and yells. “Sha, stab the paws!” I turn, and, as he instructed, stab the paw of the Korrong, quickly pulling my sword back out as it yanks its paw away, a cry of pain leaving its mouth. It’s other paw paused, and gave Dalyva enough time to jump, extend her blade, and then in turn slice the Korrong’s neck. It gave a shrill cry of pain, that turned gurgled, and purple blood frothed at its mouth, spilling out as it collapses onto the ground with a thud. I stare, before a grin spreads onto my face. “Yeah!!!” I throw my hand up. “Tae, Tae, we did it!” Taegan is walking over with a smile. “Yep, we did so.”
Dalyva stares at the creature, sort of in awe. “What?” I ask, going in front of her, curious to why she’s staring off. She looks up. “Hey Taegan, what was the rank of that monster?” Taegan looks up. “Huh? Oh about high bronze.” He comments, and Dalyva’s eyes go wide, almost with a sort of giddy happiness. “We’ve improved so much!” She says, cheering a little. Then, she closes her eyes to check how long she’s got till the next rank, and I do too. As I search, I see the bright blue ball of mana, before staring past it to get to my Soul. Seeing all the Spirit fill it, I get a definite feeling. I can ascend rank.
I immediately open my eyes, and say it out loud. “Hey! I can ascend rank!” Both of them turn to me with grins. “Really?” Says Dalyva, and i grin excitedly. “Yep!” Taegan also looks happy for me, as he turns to Dalyva. “What about you?” I ask her. Her grin widens. “Almost there, one more monster and I’ll be ascending.”
Suddenly a token descends down in front of Taegan, and he grabs it. It’s the token for completing the maze. “That didn’t take long.” I point out, a bit confused. Taegan shrugs. “Maybe it was just a short one before the trophy room.” I could tell he really didn’t care, he just wanted the token so we could get out of this area, and I agreed with him. For how many close encounters we’ve had in the trials, i really wouldn’t like this place either. I want to leave just as much as him. Taegan picks up the meat on the floor, that is-thankfully-untouched and we go through the door, and are now back in the white room. Guide says stuff, but we ignore him, too tired to listen to our time and also not caring.
I go over to one of the corners, a different one from what Taegan chose to rank up. As I sit there, ready to rank up, and I close my eyes, I get an instinctive question. It’s not words, it's more a feeling, and as I accept the instinctive question, I see my Soul churn. Icy cold fingertips inch up my arm, from my fingers, to my hand, to my elbow and beyond. Heat creeping up my legs, from my toes, to my feet, to my knees and then further. Both of the feelings meet at my core, swirling, before all the mana in me is absorbed into my core, and the Spirit inside starts to mix with the mana, as an immense pain washes over me. I don’t exactly hear what my body is doing, but I can tell it's probably fallen over from the pain. It’s like I’m a spirit, watching over, except I feel the same pain as my body, I just can't really tell how my body is reacting to the pain. My Soul starts to slowly expand, as all the Spirit mana is absorbed to do it.
Multiple feelings wash over my body as I open my eyes. First, pain. That’s an obvious one, and I hissed as I felt it fully for the first time. The second is feeling my head throb from mana depletion, and the third is an energised yet tired feeling. The feeling is me knowing I could go for a lot longer than normal, yet right now I’m very tired. I have no clue how Taegan was functioning after this, let alone wanting to go do a maze and fight. Finally all my senses come back, and I notice I’m in the middle of a gooey, black pile. It stinks, and I get up, groaning from pain but inducing it as I walk over to the edge of our camp. Dalyva notices my approach, and gets the water bottle, pouring some over me.
I use my specialisation to stop it, and realise it comes a lot easier now, however it hurts because of mana depletion, as teh water drops to the floor. Dalyva stares at me. “I just realised.” She said, an annoyed look crossing over her face. “You could’ve just made some water, dumbass.” She whacks me over the head with the water bottle, and my head gets pushed down a little as I pout. “Owww…” I protested, before saying. “I have barely any mana though, it was used to rank up~~~” She looks at me for a second, and sighs. “Fine.” She gives me the bottle, and I mostly clean myself up, with Taegans help of course. He uses his spesh to control the water a bit and clean it so I’m decently clean.
Then, we all sat around the campfire, and had some of the Korrong meat, before I slunk off to bed tiredly. Taegan too heads off to bed, and I hope he sleeps in. After all, I was exhausted when I ranked up, emptied of my mana. He really should not have done the maze with us. He should’ve been drained, yet he acted like it was fine When it wasn’t, something I noticed he did a lot. Too much. As black overtakes me, a hand sneaks to my sword, and I gasp it instinctively, almost like an oddly comforting toy.
In the morning, after discovering that unconscious me had dragged my katana-in its scabbard-to my bed, and then slept with it, I got up to have breakfast. Admittedly, it felt more like a brunch, but I didn’t care. As I exit my tent, I see Dalyva is cooking breakfast with the low amount of water we have left. As she notices me, she grins. “Ah, Shankhe. I was waiting for you.” She ushered me over to her, and I, sighing, tried to create water.
Taegan made it look easy, so i expected it to be easy for me too, yet it wasn’t. Half the problem was finding how to access the water residing within me, and the other half was getting it out of my body in a physical form. I first tried to imagine an ocean, and then a stream of that ocean going to my hand, and materialising. And, it worked! I filled the pot, and we sat down as it started to cook.