Death dodged to the side, trying to evade the ogre’s swing. Unfortunately, she was used to the ogres on the level above; these were faster. She didn’t quite move fast enough. The tip of the club smacked her side and sent her spinning back, away from the ogre.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. Death had never felt anything like it. Each breath she took felt like another stab; worse, it triggered a wet cough that hurt even worse than the stab of breathing.
She had to force herself not to pull in more of her power than she’d allowed; the point was to learn something about humans, after all. Her Incarnate was once human and in many ways still considered himself human; she wanted to know what that meant. She couldn’t abandon it just because she made a mistake.
Kaasi screamed something Death couldn’t quite make out. The world seemed to flicker oddly as blades made of air stabbed into the ogre boss’s side, then one of his eyes. The ogre roared; out of nowhere, Kaasi was on the ogre’s back, slicing through his spine with her blade.
Kaasi was moving far faster than Death had ever seen her move. Death didn’t think that was because of the way the world was dimming and brightening randomly. She was pretty sure that Kaasi had been holding back on using her full speed. She was higher Tier than anyone from Earth other than Serenity, after all.
The world dimmed again as the ogre fell to the ground, still dangerous but no longer able to walk. Death reassured herself that Kaasi was clearly fine and doing well; this was the sort of mistake that could and did kill delvers, but it shouldn’t kill both of them.
Death had used Serenity’s body as a base for her own, anyway. She was hurt now, but she’d probably heal on her own. If she didn’t, well, she already knew what would happen; the body would reanimate as an undead. She wouldn’t have to go through the issues Vengeance had, just like Serenity wouldn’t have to. His body and therefore hers was completely prepared to function using Death as its base. It would change the odd dhampiric attributes, probably, but other than that Death didn’t expect any real issues.
She had to admit that she didn’t want to find out any more than Serenity did. She’d enjoyed the emotions that being human brought; it would take a lot of effort to do the same things as an undead, since she didn’t really know what to expect as a human. She’d probably have to dissolve the body and start over and she really didn’t want to do that. She wasn’t sure she could accurately replicate Amaia Black.
Actually, she was pretty sure she couldn’t. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to restore her dual mana/essence Vital Affinity if she came close enough to death to have it change to Death. Serenity knew how to do it for Life; maybe he could figure it out?
Everything was quiet. Was the ogre dead?
Death felt something in her mouth, something hard. She managed to open her eyes enough to see Kaasi holding a small metal flask to Death’s lips. A moment later, she felt something wet being poured out of the flask; it tasted vaguely like fake strawberry. That had to be a healing potion.
Death managed to swallow, but she felt the potion dissipating as she absorbed the mana instead of it directly healing her. The dots connected almost immediately: she was based on Serenity, which meant she was an Essence Dragon and therefore a manavore. Potions that contained mana wouldn’t do anything to her unless they managed to overcome the amount of mana she could eat at a time and this one clearly wasn’t that overcharged.
Death coughed slightly. It hurt, but she needed to clear her throat enough to be heard. “Won’t work. Potions don’t. Should heal, probably.”
She wasn’t sure the last few words were audible. She’d tried, but there simply wasn’t any more air.
Kaasi poured another flask directly on the injury. Death wasn’t sure if that would work or not; it might. For most people, that would be less effective at dealing with internal injuries than drinking the potion, but for Death it might be better.
Kaasi heaved Death over her shoulder. It definitely wasn’t the right way to carry someone with her injuries; Death could feel the stabbing in her chest grow worse. Kaasi didn’t seem to care; maybe she couldn’t take the time to care? Death couldn’t ask. She couldn’t get enough breath together to say anything.
She did notice that Kaasi walked right past the unopened chest in front of the dungeon’s exit. That seemed out of character for a moment, then Death realized what was happening. Kaasi was worried about Death! She didn’t know Death couldn’t die, at least not permanently. Death tried to say something, but while she could move her mouth, she couldn’t hear herself making any noise.
Actually, she couldn’t hear anything at all.
The next thing she knew was pain. It took a moment to resolve into pain from her side before it quickly began to diminish. She felt the magic and knew what was happening: someone was healing her. It was probably the healer stationed outside the Ogre’s Hollow Dungeon, but something about that didn’t seem right.
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She wasn’t sure what until she opened her eyes and saw a ceiling. The thing that hadn’t seemed right was that she was resting on a bed, not on the ground or a table. The woman healing her also wasn’t the healer she remembered from the entrance; instead, it was a woman dressed in ... what did they call them? Scrubs? No, that was for nurses, wasn’t it?
Death felt like she needed to cough as the pain continued to fade. Before she knew it, she was sitting up, almost doubled over in a coughing fit that sent partly-dried blood out of her mouth. It tasted odd; while there was some of the coppery taste she’d expected, there was also the flavor of magic, both mana and essence.
She should have expected that.
Death noticed that the doctor’s hand was on her back as she finished coughing. When another deep breath didn’t trigger another coughing fit, she straightened and looked around. Kaasi wasn’t there! “Where’s Kaasi?”
“Your friend is waiting outside,” the doctor stated with a wave at the door. Death noticed a nametag that said BROWN on her chest. “I’ll let her in as soon as I’m sure I got everything; I wasn’t expecting you to shake off the sedative that quickly.”
It took more than half an hour for Dr. Brown to be confident she had indeed healed Death completely. After that, there were some hoops to jump through, including paying for treatment. They seemed shocked she didn’t have something they called a health plan, but fortunately the hospital was happy to take Etherium directly, so Death didn’t have to jump through the hoops of getting it converted to dollars first.
She’d probably have to in order to pay the ambulance bill, apparently, but she’d deal with that when the time came. It didn’t make sense to her that she couldn’t pay that bill at the hospital, but no matter how much they argued, they told her she had to pay someone else.
Death had to handle it all without much help from Kaasi; her friend was clearly still upset at how hurt Death had gotten from that simple mistake. She didn’t say much until they were on the metro, headed back to the Adventurers’ Guild building.
“You should get better gear.” Kaasi’s words came out of the blue for Death. Kaasi hadn’t said anything other than “I’m so happy you’re fine” since they left the hospital and they were nearly halfway home.
“What do you mean I should get better gear?” Death frowned at her friend. Her gear was fine; it kept the weather off, even in dungeons that continually rained. That was what it was supposed to do, wasn’t it?
Kaasi twisted in her seat to face Death. “You make more Etherium than you spend on housing and food, right? You’re a delver; that means you should put some aside for healing and spend the rest on gear to not need the healers. Unless you send some home?”
Death shook her head. A few weeks earlier, she’d have wondered at “send some home,” but she knew what Kaasi meant now. She didn’t have anyone else she was trying to help support, so she followed Serenity’s example and saved it. Of course, he also spent it sometimes, so there was no reason not to if Kaasi thought she should. “I’ve saved it. I only spend it on movie tickets and concessions. I can spare some if you think I should?”
Kaasi nodded. “You do. That ogre shouldn’t have been able to hurt you that badly through your armor; yes, it’s a Tier Three boss, but one glancing blow still shouldn’t break your ribs. Even mages’ robes can be enchanted to handle that much. Once you have a shield, it’ll be better, but until then armor is really important.”
Death blinked at that. She hadn’t really thought about armor; she was only wearing sturdy clothing. She should have thought about armor; Serenity wore armor. She probably hadn’t thought of it because his armor was another body of his, but that meant he actually wore excellent armor. Dragonscale armor was some of the best armor possible at its Tier. “You’re right. I should have known that.”
She probably needed a new weapon, too. Maybe she could get it at the same time?
The metro car stopped. Death followed Kaasi through the crowd and back to her car. She climbed into the driver’s seat, then tapped the button Tek included to swap control to the car itself and told it to get to the Adventurers’ Guild and park in her spot. Death normally drove herself, but Tek wanted that feature tested and Death wanted to talk to Kaasi more than she wanted to practice normal human activities like driving.
Moments after Kaasi clicked her seat belt, the car started and backed up out of the parking spot. Good; it was working properly.
“What sort of armor do you think I should get?” Death leaned back in the seat and looked at her friend.
Kaasi paled. “Watch where you’re going!”
Death looked forward. Everything looked fine. “Where should I be looking?”
“Where you’re steering the car!” Kaasi sounded concerned, maybe even scared.
Death didn’t want her friend to be scared, but at least now she understood the problem. She turned back to Kaasi and shook her head. “I’m not steering the car. It’s driving itself. Tek said that she took some of the existing self-driving algorithms and updated them to include more situations and incorporate more robustness, but I think she just didn’t want to get into the details. She also said she wanted to give it more road time, so…” Death shrugged. “It lets me give you my full attention. We can wait until we’re back at the Guild if you want?”
Kaasi watched the car drive itself for a long minute or so before she shook herself. “No, no, we can talk. I’ve heard of self-driving cars, I just never expected to see one. Where did you get it?”
Death grinned. “Tek gave it to me. She said it was a professional courtesy and something she owed-”
Death stopped and the smile faded from her face. She’d almost let the words “to my Incarnate” slip out. Those words would be far too revealing; she didn’t want to admit she was someone who had an Incarnate. That wasn’t something humans did.
Or did she want to admit it? She didn’t really like lying to Kaasi, even by omission. She didn’t mind it for other people, but Kaasi was special.