Constance had several white magic related skills. Rick learned about them completely involuntarily.
“I think Pern is kinda annoying sometimes too, you know —”
“Spark,” Constance said. She brought the light so close to his eye that it washed out the room’s left side. “You’re lying.”
Then she muttered softer: “And I think your heart’s the best place for this, too.”
Rick flopped up and down like some pathetic fish. He could only do sit ups or shoulder rolls; and while there are secret techniques for dancers and slaves, there are no martial arts for the drugged.
“Heal,” Constance said to his bent leg, and the wound closed. “Does that help you keep still? Don’t worry about the numbness. When you take the panacea” — she nodded to a vial on the shelf— “it’ll all go away. Just try to lay back and relax for now, okay?”
She pushed him. “Drain!”
A warmth blossomed where her lithe fingers connected to his heart. It was as if a puddle had formed there, and her hand splashed through and stroked the organ. Nothing else happened, and Rick prayed that her skill had gone wrong.
“What kind of powers do you have, Rick? If you answer freely this’ll all go by rather quick.”
Earth Resistance S. That was the first that came to mind. But as soon as he thought those words—pop!— it was as if her hand had grasped it and tugged it away. Constance smiled, and where he once had the skill there was now just a big plain Null.
“For something that’s white magic, that’s pretty damn demonic.”
“Drain is designed for taking curses, but I’ve found it has certain other uses too,” Constance said. “Now, how about you tell me about your Water Resistance S?”
Rick shuddered. He had made his mind a blank slate, but he had no choice but to think those words when she said them, and when he thought those words she could take them. Water Resistance S, the weapon he’d used against the slimes, had begun to slide away.
But not yet. The words were caught on what felt to be a thorny vine. Before Rick could understand what happened, the hand yanked and Water Resistance S was truly annulled.
“Then Fire Resistance S. There we go… nice and smooth.”
Gone.
“Three more. Thunder Resistance S.”
This was supposed to be used for battles only, but Rick found his best use for it was escaping consequences after he teased Pern. Constance grasped it, and the words were caught once again— this time in the scratched branches of a dense pine.
“Hmm..?” Rick muttered, then Constance grimaced: “Easy… easy…”
Rick remembered how the lady knight had shocked and hit him—it was, he reflected, actually rather close to a hug, how she embraced him to maximize coverage of pure electric shock.
“You’ve got Thunder A, too? I didn’t know—ah!” Constance fell backwards to the Inn floor and dusted herself off. Rick had tried to shock her before she could take the pair of skills, but her Saint Robe had 100% Element Resist anyways.
“I told you to take it easy!” She reprimanded. “It’s a good thing we’re almost done.”
“You’re finished,” Rick said.
“Yes, I soon will be. Phys Resistance C and Info’s all that’s left” Constance said. Both those phrases emerged within him. Rick thought strongly of Phys Resistance to overpower any thought of Info, so Phys was the one that she took.
Constance then smiled with the pleasant glow of a work well-done. Maybe after trussing up Rick and tossing him in a closet she’d have time for a ten minute nap. Rick, on the other hand, felt a painful fatigue that made his thoughts feel like spikes, and the air he breathed settled into him like a heavy smoke.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Information Resistance is your last ability, and very useful if you want to take someone by surprise. Unfortunately for you, I already knew all your skills, even the ones from stones it took you months to receive.” Constance said, flexing her hand. “It’s time, Ricard. Drain!”
“No.”
“You refuse?”
“You won’t take it,” Rick said. Constance tugged, and tugged, but it was true. His Info Resistance skill seemed completely fixed.
She frowned, and threw up those lightly glowing hands. Then pressed them onto his temple; and it was as though her fingers went through it and massaged his brain. His thoughts had little stutters and jumps when she pushed them.
Stupid blue-white potion. Stupid m— . Once again I’m completely f—. But I remember. All the time I spent here.
This stupid, dumbass town. The people I’ve met here, the people who supported me and the people I’ve done favors for. They’ve made me who I am. As much as Riona, a little more than P—, and I’ll never be able to lose that p— of me.
If I focus on memories that matter to me, I can push back her “‘hands.” And being part of something greater like that is to me the most important thing of all.
“You hapless sap!” Constance walked back and slammed the shelf; the flowerpot and the cure-vial there rattled and shook. “If you want Info Resistance that badly, you can keep it. Go ahead, hide the fact that you have absolutely nothing!”
[EARTH RESISTANCE S LOST] → [NULL]
[FIRE RESISTANCE S LOST] → [NULL]
[WATER RESISTANCE S LOST] → [NULL]
[THUNDER RESISTANCE S LOST] → [NULL]
[PHYS RESISTANCE S LOST] → [NULL]
[THUNDER A LOST] → [NULL]
[INFORMATION RESISTANCE S: ACTIVE]
“I could have taken just your Thunder and Fire skills to render you useless, but I think the skills you perish with deserve to match your wimpy, simp-like face,” Constance said. “Not that you’ll keep even that.”
Smoke streamed in through the window. The heavy air Rick had felt wasn’t a metaphor: the Morning Lark really had caught fire, and cries of alarm rose up from the streets.
“You and Pern were always so obnoxious! So oblivious! Look at me, I’m so smart. I’m so strong. I’m so moody. Rick, that’s supposed to be you and Pern, I hope you understand that. But as a healer I’ve finally got the better of everyone.”
She hauled him up by the scruff and rolled him onto the scuffed carpet.
“I asked Matthew to set a fire, and if that fire happens to kill you, then I didn’t break my oath. And everyone will know that I’m the one who made the plan and removed the Kingdom’s second most problematic Adventurer; I’ll ask King Galon to promote me to S-Rank and give me a nice big feather mattress and a master bedroom of my own. You and Pern can go sleep in hell!”
Rick lay flat on the floor. His arms and legs were still betraying him, and though his senses had returned it was just so his eyes could sting and so his lips could taste the smoke. He tried to make use of his clumsy tongue.
“‘Constance.’ ‘Saintly Healer.’ I could call you all sorts of unpleasant things, and I’m sure you’ve already been called far worse. But I’ve just got one word for you.”
Rick hesitated. He really was unsure about what he was about to say, and what would happen after.
“What?” Constance eyed him.
“Dumb.”
“That's it?”
“Thumb!”
GREEN THUMB A: [ACTIVE]
The flower on the shelf puffed a pollen-cloud into her face, and Constance sneezed. Then it grew, and grew, with a large vine that wrapped around her arms and cut through her cloth.
“Green Thumb! Strike!” Rick said.
A second large vine flailed on the shelf. It knocked over books and glass jars everywhere on the room’s other side. Constance had grabbed a scalpel meanwhile and sawed at the slithering rope that held her captive.
“Ahhh!”
Controlling the vines was like having long floppy arms with delayed responses. Rick lost focus on the one that had Constance, and she tossed it aside. But with the other—
He wrapped it around an orange beaker, swerved and poured it all over him. Most of it soaked him, for he had no Water Resistance, but enough of it landed on his lips, and a cool ice flowed from it there into his blood.
“Argh!” Rick forced his body up.
“Ahh!”
He grasped Constance’s hands behind her back. It was over. It was—
“Punishment time, Rick smiled, grasping her hands behind her back as she wiggled and flailed.
“Eek!”
Constance had just woken up when Pern had rushed into the hotel. She wore a little white slip that clung to her body and hung just space from each contour, and her collar and hemline dipped and dived as she struggled. While her healer robe was fine silk, this slip was coarse and mass-produced. It reminded Rick of a prison uniform, if there were stripes added to it.
Rick shoved her. “Conspiracy to commit murder, 5 years to life. Attempted murder, 5 to 15 years. Assault with a drug, 5 to 20 years. Possession and administration of a controlled substance, 5 to 10 years. Calling someone a kid for sleeping with a stuffed animal: legal, but hypocritical when you’re obsessed with naps.”
“You’re terrible,” said Constance.
“Pern and I delivered the letter to the Guild. Once the fire’s taken care of, it’s over,” Rick said.
Constance smiled thinly, an odd little grin that was at once disappointed and relieved. Rick was disturbed.
“Don’t tell me you’re some kind of a maso too,” he sighed.
She didn’t deny it. But what she said brought him great pain:
“Doesn’t matter where you’ve hidden evidence if it at all turns to ash. The fire’s not just at the Morning Lark—Matthew’s set them everywhere.”