“You tried to tend to him yourself?” In the guest room, Merry asked while looking over the guard sitting on the bed. “I don’t know whether to be impressed that you didn’t make it worse or be dismissive that you thought that was a good idea. Either way, I’m going to ask, what did you try doing?”

Alicia, trying her very best to deliver her rehearsed lines, replied, “I was afraid the rampaging mana would lash out if I tried directly overwhelming it, so I attempted to isolate it instead.”

Merry placed a hand on her chin. “That’ll only work shortly after the bite,” she explained, “The venom’s already spread through him, and this is just it finally kicking in.”

“When I probed his mana with mine, it seemed normal, or is it impossible to tell?”

“Like many things, if you didn’t know beforehand, you won’t be able to tell after. Regardless, I’m only approximating given the timeframe he gave us.”

The guard then spoke up, “Uh, am I going to be okay?”

Failing to invent a timely response, Alicia let out a mixed frown that betrayed her pity, and the witch answered for her. “It’ll be troubling, but yes, I’ll handle it.”

He exhaled hard. “Oh thank the Gods. I don’t have much to repay you with, but I can give you everything I have on me.”

“No need for you to worry about that. You’ll be better off with it than me, ” Merry dismissed before turning to Alicia, who looked like she had something to say. “Something on your mind?”

“So we have to drain all of the mana,” Alicia mumbled more to herself. She watched the witch work previously but was in hardly any state to pay attention and ask questions, especially since it was a tangential situation the witch already had a handle on. In fact, she brushed off her first failure with her lack of experience, not fundamental understanding.

“Yes, that would be correct. Start off by excising the limb that’s already lost, and after we can cycle through his mana. Our dear patient isn’t a mage, so we’ll have to assist,” she explained before leaving for the study, leaving Alicia with the task. With a bit of effort, she detached the ruined arm with both her Aspects, leaving it outside to be disposed of later, and after returning, she saw Merry waiting with a book. “Forcing it all out at once would strain his soul, so we’ll do it over time, but that method would require us to keep watch for any signs of worsening,” Merry said, handing over what she brought to Alicia. “That said, this is actually a great opportunity! Let’s see if you can finally make a simple domain over this room, which we’ll tinker with to expel his mana.”

Taking it, Alicia read the cover. “This is ‘On the Gift of Runes’,” she pointed out. It was a basic primer that she poured countless hours over when she first arrived. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“To make a domain, we need to key ourselves to the foundation,” Merry reminded Alicia. While a mage can bring out their mana and continuously hold it outside of their body, a domain is able to sustain that without effort or thought, and for that to be possible, one would need to share access. “The fastest way to make tangible the connection between you and the Sea is through an intimately familiar object. A tool of self-reflection, if you will.”

“I see...” she replied, “I’ll try.”

“And if that fails, I can wash out all of his mana as a last resort,” the witch reassured.

The guard interrupted, “Wait, I thought you said that’d strain my soul.”

“Well,” Merry replied, “It’ll get better.”

* * *

By Sunday, they felt well prepared. Instead of remembering all the plant life inside the domain, Cyg only bothered with the ones that he’s able to reach easily, otherwise spending the effort to help remember schematics instead. Any extra metal needed they could take from the cauldron.

At the living room table, they twiddle their thumbs waiting for Merry to have gone far enough. “Are you feeling any better?” Alicia asked.

“Uh,” Cyg began, rubbing his eyes. “No? Kind of? It’s still there, lingering. When I stop thinking about it, it fades into the background, but I can pay attention to it if I want. Thank the Gods, because I can finally sleep normally.”

“And Merry said nothing was wrong, right?” she said, “How strange...”

“If you’re worried if I’ll mess up, don’t be. I can move around just fine. Maybe even better, because I sort of see the way my mana interacts with the Outer Sea.” Not that he’d made any breakthroughs, as it had more to do with familiarity.

Placing her elbows on the table and then cupping her chin, the apprentice pointed out, “I’m surprised Merry didn’t decide to pick apart your head on the spot. Judging by what I heard, there would be plenty that would kill to learn why the effects were permanent for you. Then again, her pursuit of knowledge really is only centered around the plague.”

“Isn’t that a weight off my shoulders,” Cyg said as he stood up. “Anyway, I think it should be time.” He adjusted the breastplate, pleasantly surprised at how much a bit of padding inside changed everything, especially around the edges. It was taken from some bedding, she had told him. “How many traps did you set again? Three?”

“Now that’s a secret. Leave them to me to divert Bassy if she gets too close,” she replied, “That said, I wish I had a handle on domains; if I could figure out what Merry did to ‘ward’ the house, I’m sure this would be much easier.” She knew it must be another domain of some sort, but the details were hard to discern, especially when she had little to test it with.

After the apprentice tossed the stuffed bird out, Cyg noted, “We really do have to do it on Sunday, huh? Otherwise Merry wouldn’t be here to heal the guard.” Sticking his head out the window, he tried calling out for Bassy. After giving two hoarse shouts, he asked, “Oh right, is he still in the basement?”

“Unfortunately,” Alicia replied. Merry ultimately had to perform the “emergency procedure” as usual.

He briefly imagined the confusion that must fill the poor man each Sunday given the chaos outside but remained silent to keep the mood relatively unsullied, watching as the elf tried calling the basilisk herself.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

When Bassy came leaping into view, Cyg said, “I see how it is—she doesn’t listen to me. Figures.”

But instead of stopping neatly in front of the treat, it bounded right onto it and snatched it right up in its jaws. Surprised at the sudden ferociousness, Alicia tried sending a burst of her mana to the hidden bomb, but by the time it reached its target, the inside was already well cracked open with Bassy spitting out the nails in disgust.

The thief, looking over, said, “Read your mind on Thursday?”

“Read my mind on Thursday,” Alicia sighed. “Good luck.”

She sent another burst, and in the short period between it leaving the house and reaching the charge buried in the ground, Bassy saw it. Not only was it easier to spot thanks to the attempt prior, but it was a single point instead of a sweeping wave, meaning it could be maneuvered around. The beast swung her body as the earth erupted thunderously, the detonation matching the size of two or even three normal charges. Bits of metal shot out, embedding into Bassy’s side, all of them failing to hit her crown.

A pained, furious roar filled the air as Cyg stepped out holding a half-full sack, ready to give chase if needed. What an absurd change of roles, the thief thought as he studied Bassy. Small trickles of red ran down from the wounds on the basilisk’s side, but that told him little. The “nails” were hollow, but testing showed that it was impossible to preserve the angle when fired, to hold form, or even to go deep enough; it had shredded the surface of a tree, but a thick hide may fare differently.

“Well,” Cyg said to his enemy who was staring back, “Personally, I’d like to sit back and wait until the poison kicks in, but how about you?”

Intentionally so, he lets slip in his mind that buried around the exterior of the house were more nasty surprises, and he didn’t even know where they were. He mentally asked if Bassy could suss out where they were, and her answer was to lunge at him.

The runes on his breastplate activated and pushed him gently back, giving him enough momentum to smoothly enter a sprint. As if replaying his second encounter, he slung the sack under an arm and retrieved a normal bomb, tossing it backward. Bassy swerved out of the way, the blast barely even eliciting a grunt out of the beast. Cyg then circled to the front of the house when the basilisk abruptly stopped—two could play this game, she thought as she raced for the trees.

“H-Hey!” Cyg shouted, running after. She was so far away that there wasn’t anything he could easily swap to, so he attempted to cut through some loose dirt. Bassy slammed into a small tree with a shoulder and sent it tumbling down, and as it fell, she took the time to interrupt the thief by swiping his target with a tail. He clicked his tongue as he watched her grab the trunk with her teeth. “What are you...!?”

Confused but cautious, he stood at the ready, trying to think of what he could do, and Bassy, noticing his stupefied state, spared no time building momentum. She spun around and released it after a full rotation, sending the tree flying right at him and answering his question.

The attack was so wide and so ridiculous that it caught him off guard, and he activated the rune plate too late. Despite powering all nine circles on one side and draining all of the stored mana—an act that sent him lurching to the side—the branches of the tree snagged him and sent him spinning. Cyg fell into a roll and used his own mana to force himself back up, but Bassy had wasted no time. She began running after him as soon as she threw it, and that little hitch was all it took for her to catch his right leg in her jaws.

A nearby buried nail-bomb activated as Alicia panicked, creating another violent blast. It missed entirely, sending the payload scattering into nothing, but it surprised Bassy just long enough for Cyg to retrieve and throw another bomb. An absurd suicidal act, the basilisk read, and she released his leg and spun around as he acted. Her tail slammed into the wooden sphere, shattering it midway before his mana reached the center, miraculously saving him from immediate doom.

Now freed, Cyg used his armor to push himself away and forward. His leg was in an awful state, but it held together well enough for him to run past the front door and collapse inside. Pain wracked his entire body, his ears rang, and chill crept in from the Sea, and through all that he could still feel the pins and needles rising from the wound up to his torso.

“Cyg!” Alicia called out as she ran over, placing her hands on him Her mind raced to remember how to counteract the venom, swiftly deciding to flush out the tainted blood.

“That didn’t go so well,” Cyg said in between strained, pained breaths, “I don’t think the metal went through her hide, or maybe it was too destroyed in the blast. Or maybe there wasn’t enough of it! Gods damn it, it could be anything!”

With a grimace, he watched as crimson pudding spilled out of him. She closed the vein as soon as she saw normal blood come out, and the little spurt congealed as soon as it touched the rest of the excised “fluids”, a sight that would’ve made him queasy if he wasn’t distracted by the cracking, splintering demolition of the living room. When the two of them turned their heads, they saw Bassy running off into the forest.

Alicia, almost out of mana herself, finished snapping Cyg’s leg in place and sealed everything. Messily, of course, which was the only thing they could afford. “Now what?” she asked.

Holding onto the nearby banister, Cyg pulled his shaking body up while thanking her. His legs felt weak, but he could walk for now, and with a hand on a wall he made his way to check out the damage done to the house.

It was a real mess. One giant hole punched through a wall which led to a short trail of broken floorboards and upturned furniture before exiting in another basilisk-shaped hole in the back. Contents of the living room and kitchen were scattered outside, carried out by Bassy’s passage.

“I think we have a short while before Merry arrives,” he said, picking up a chair that had been tossed outside and putting it back upright to sit down outside. Just a little break before starting a new loop, before being thrown right back into everything again. Besides, they were a little preemptive last time, he believed. “We really need a better plan. The bomb can shred a person but it did barely anything to Bassy.”

“I don’t know how else we could build it,” Alicia explained, “There’re two problems to overcome—it needs to reach Bassy and then it needs to pierce the hide.” Having one massive explosion was supposed to solve both in one go. “I tried putting two consecutive ones, but if one has enough energy to launch it or breach Bassy’s skin, it’ll destroy the other bomb.”

Cyg, frowning, rubbed the bridge of his nose as he considered it for a moment. “Okay, you’ll figure out a way to solve the second problem and I’ll figure out the first.”

“You need to do more than just toss it at her,” Alicia replied, “If you angle it poorly, it’ll just glance off.”

“Then I’ll just have to get it stuck nice and good on her, right? It should be easier than trying to aim for only her head,” he said, “More importantly, we’ve been putting off the topic of how we’re escaping. If we’re fighting with Bassy at the house, we need to cross the length of the forest. We can solve that by fighting at the edge of the domain, but we won’t be able to hide inside her ward-whatever.”

Alicia, finally grabbing a chair of her own, sat down with him. “That... well, to be honest, I was just thinking I could get on your back and you’ll carry me out. Not the whole way, I mean, but fighting near the edge might risk dying outside the circle. And besides, I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to take her on without staying here.”

“...Actually how can we even lure a basilisk wherever we want? Will the treat work again?” he said, “Wait, I don’t suppose you can build us some kind of wagon that’ll take us through the forest? That would make things much easier.”

“It’s not likely we would have the mana to power it after a fight,” she began, “...But we can use Bassy’s blood on a loop after we refilled the circle. I’ve never built a vehicle before but—”

Without warning, the basilisk burst past the front door and through the hallway, stomping over the carpet while shredding the shelves nearby, sending lanterns and baubles scattering all over in a heart-pounding cacophony that caught the apprentice and the thief off-guard. The two leapt onto their feet and turned around, right in time for Bassy to snatch up Alicia by the back of her dress, and she only managed a yelp as the basilisk galloped away.

“Alicia!” Cyg shouted as he tried to run after, but he only managed to stumble, forced to watch her get carried off into the forest.