Opening her eyes, Jessica stared briefly at the surrounding darkness absentmindedly. She seemed confused and slightly lost before her eyes opened wide, and she sat up straight in a hurry. Letting out a gasp as she felt a few stabbing pains shoot up her back. Only after looking around and seeing the dark shadows of the walls and the long hall did she turn and see she had made it through the chunked hole.
Using her arms one at a time. She swiped at her back as she felt a few pieces of rocks that had been embedded into her, through the weight of her body. Possibly because of the abnormal state of her mana she wasn’t in any real pain, nor had she felt any wetness when she went over it again. Instead, there was a dry lathering of something coating the front of her body and clothes.
Thinking back, she felt her heart quivering slightly. She couldn’t help edging herself away from the hole as she cleared a path to the wall a bit away. Once she was further from the hole, she started to calm down a little. Inspecting her body, she wasn’t completely clear, she could tell the shades of her shirt and pants were compromised. Like something had spilled as she had been crawling her way out. Because of the dark, she couldn’t be completely clear. She was using a minimal amount of mana to increase the ability to see in the dark.
Looking at the difference in color, everything made sense if the spill originated from her mouth and nose. There wasn’t a large coating, as under the clothes, most of her skin didn’t have a removable layer of filth. The area under her nose, her chin, and her hands were covered in a dark shade that appeared to match the conclusion she was coming to. At the moment she didn’t have time to think about anything but surviving, she had no idea how close she actually was to dying. Even now she only had a slight headache but wasn’t feeling anything too abnormal.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. Even with so much fear that just thinking about it caused her hands to shake uncontrollably. She could still feel a steel resolve pushing her to go in there again. There was no other option. If she wanted to survive, she had to go in that room. And while there was no guarantee she would survive, it held the greatest hope. She didn’t even have that much time. In her supplies, they had prepared enough for three months.
They hadn’t been in a single month, the problem arose from the tension. At first, they tried to ignore the environment, but skeleton after skeleton until they found the first pristine set of bones that painted a picture that made it hard to ignore. They only entered with so much because they didn’t want to carry too much. Rations they were carrying were cantons of water, medical supplies, and compressed biscuits. That was in order of their weight.
Mana would allow her to carry far more than one could expect, but the amount it increased passively wasn’t enough to make up for the weight of water. Using mana just to carry weight was a death sentence. In the end, being stranded, she would be running out of water. The stress and the injuries caused her to need more biscuits to increase her recovery. And while they were very light and filling, they generated thirst.
From Grade C on, she could use magic for creation. But before that, all magic needed a medium. Even if she could produce water, the air was too dry to produce enough water for consumption. The only reasonable way for her to escape was through means on the other side of the hole. Steeling herself, she couldn’t stop the slight quivering as she remembered the condition she experienced not too long ago. With preparation in mind, she had a picture in mind as she moved to the hole before experimenting.
Surprised by her findings, she discovered that it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as she originally expected it to be. She stuck her arm through the hole and felt a pin and needle pricks on the skin, only outside the irritation and goosebumps there wasn’t too much of a reaction. If she focused on nothing but the arm, she only felt some discomfort. With grit teeth, she poked her head through the hole.
Without entering and ignoring her surroundings, she felt like her surroundings got a lot darker, other than her thoughts slowing down and a bit of a headache. She was able to focused in and ignored the room itself, while she found her discomfort had reached a higher level, it wasn’t anything like the first experience. With a great amount of difficulty she was able to clear her head to enter a bit of a clear-headed state that tried to mirror a meditative state, and she found it possible to inspect the room from the other side of the wall.
With a large degree of concentration, she was able to ignore passing thoughts as she focused on a single picture she had painted in her mind. This became tiring, however, it allowed her to enter the room entirely. Staying to the center aisle, she could see there was a path leading into the depths of the hall.
Jessica found it the most difficult trying to look at something with only surface level thoughts. She didn’t dare even look at the walls. When she experimented earlier, she noticed some type of marks on the walls that were the origin of the emotions. Just looking at them caused her heart to speed up and her to start shaking as her subconscious mind kept trying to flood her mind with thoughts and memories of what she had experienced.
After entering, she looked straight down as she followed the path. Keeping her eyes away from the walls. Without much effort, she was forced to a stop. The room wasn’t that large to begin with. By this point she was already becoming more accustomed to the darkness and the amount of mana she was needing to see was lower. Though what she was seeing wasn’t all that trustworthy as she was exploring through different shades of darkness. She could barely make out a shade of red on the floor that appeared to be a carpet at one point. All that remained was coloration that would disappear as soon as she stepped on it.
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In front of her was a stage. On the stage was an object that appeared to be stabbed into a small pedestal. It was hard not to, it honestly screamed trap no matter how she looked at it. It was as generically obvious that the design was from some type of fairy tale for children. With a sigh, she wasn’t sure what to do. She had checked before entering and her remaining supplies if rationed drastically, she only had two weeks. Near the end her ability to move would start to deteriorate, it was impossible to know how long she comfortably had left.
During the fall, she had rolled and two of the caps on the water cantons had cracked. Because of this, her four remaining containers of water had become two and a third. If she mostly starved herself, the water would last her around two weeks at best. In reality, her mental state was already shaken. As time went on in this isolation, she would slowly start to require more to stabilize herself. If not, she wouldn’t be in a condition to be able to escape, even given the chance.
She spent a day, the first half was uncomfortable as she kept trying to think of another possibility. The second half wasn’t comfortable either, as she had gotten used to the feelings radiating off the walls, but she made a new discovery. The back wall was too far to see any markings and while she could feel some emotions she was too far away. From what she could see, unless there was a trap or contraption, this room was closed off with only one entrance and exit.
The weird mana had not shown itself outright. But she started to get a feeling it had taken on another form. At first, she believed she was just stressed and imagining things, only when she tried to meditate she was able to feel it. When she connected to the world, she made contact with the strange state that allows one to feel mana in their surroundings. When the bright mana spheres moved past her without any reaction, she noticed the bright balls of light were sucked dry by the object stabbed into the pedestal on the stage.
Once she became conscious of it she could feel it breathing. She was sure it was metaphorical, but she could no longer see it as anything other than alive. Not a ghost or another supernatural creature. At least, she had never heard of any creature that was alive that could possess an object. Rarely was it spoken that there was a ghost in some dungeons that had the ability to possess objects, but they would act like the undead that possessed them. They thirsted and didn’t have the ability to ignore living creatures.
No matter how she thought about it, she felt that the mana signature she had felt before was in the sword now. There was no hostility, and in fact it treated her like air. It passed right by her and completely ignored her. Only after passing her did it show any reaction as it moved over to the wall. When she moved by, she inspected the wall and noticed a near invisible crease. It was a switch, the insane mana she felt for a split second must have hit the switch and stopped the traps down that hall. It was the only conclusion she could come to, even if it didn’t make sense to her.
It was another nail in the coffin that a ghost was known to only be able to interact with anything outside the spirit world by possessing an object in the real world. Finished products were magical, but not to such a degree. Fitting their names, they were known more as cursed items that harmed their wielders in the long term. This was one of the reasons the Adventurer's Guild would outright buy and connect you with a master dwarf blacksmith. The finished product was at a higher grade, however, the products made by master blacksmiths especially the dwarfs were renowned. They also didn’t have a tragic history of tragedies befalling those who took possession of them.
When the day came to an end, she still wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t dare probe the stage, as she feared disturbing whatever was inside it. Even if she was almost completely positive it wasn’t an undead because of the lack of hostility. This didn’t mean whatever was in it would be friendly. Finished products had far too long a history of negativity. Even knowing it was the only way out, she still couldn’t bring herself to come to a decision.
After leaving, she slept outside as she didn’t dare to sleep inside with the stage and the walls. Waking up to a sore body while sleeping on the hard floor, she couldn’t help but stretch. With a great deal of hesitation, she backtracked to the crossroad. She was wavering too much, thus moving back to investigate every possibility would force her to a decision.
She left and only returned three days later. If going by the same measure she was using, the amount of supplies she used, it had been around a week. In reality, she only slept four times. Two of which were normal, but the other two were forced. She had a slight limp and her face was pale as she had a new bandage around her right arm. Originally she hesitated because of her leg, only when push came to shove she had tried to force her way through the side path and ended up being stabbed just shy of her shoulder. It stabbed cleanly in and if she reacted any slower she would be dead.
Even to this point, she didn’t know how she had survived. She had been stabbed by an arrow that had only nicked an artery or vein. She was able to cover it with mana, but she also had to wrap her arm to her torso to ensure she didn’t move it. If she was even slightly rough with it, she would bleed out very quickly. She needed to meditate for a straight twelve hours for the mana she gathered to heal enough for her to be able to close her eyes and get any real rest. That was, unless she was willing to risk it and possibly leave a weak spot, allowing the blood that ran through to possibly find it and burst open. Most likely killing her in the process.
There were dark circles under her eyes as she was close to mana depletion. If she nudged it and the nick was opened again, she wouldn’t have the mana to close it again. Mana could do many things but that required sufficient knowledge. She was very good at killing, she had next to no knowledge of healing or fixing things.
A silver lining could be found in this. At least to her, once she reached a dead end, it was no longer hard to figure out what to do. She excelled at this specific thing. When push came to shove, she was able to put her mind at ease and follow through when all else had been eliminated. Carefully getting through the hole, she found herself slightly woozy. The emotions were bombarding her. Because of the situation, she found it easier to ignore them after the first initial wave.
Her steps were slow, but once she reached the stage she didn’t stop. When she took the first step, she had to take a large inhale as she felt the all too familiar heartbeat in her chest. Like being shot with a syringe of adrenaline. Her droopy eyes opened wider and her field of vision seemed to widen as her brain was kicked into overdrive. The second step got her onto the stage as she was finally able to make out that the object was really a sword. She could physically feel her heart beating in her chest, it hurt slightly as she looked down at her arm for a second. Seeing the bandage didn’t have any discoloration from bleeding, she moved forward and reached out to grab onto the handle of the sword.