"What exactly is a curse?" Iris asked.

The party was making their way through the forest of Black River Point, led by Victoria as she followed intertwining roots of the old forest, long since buried by ash and soil but still detectable to her from the distinctive, unnatural aura they shared with the golem from the night before. Iris still felt cold despite the warm and humid summer afternoon, but not quite in the way that a typical fever might make one feel cold. She was cold to the touch, as if her body now eradicated warmth rather than harboring it.

"You can think of it as a sickness of the soul," Victoria explained, "it's usually caused by a spell or some kind, or more rarely, a haunting."

"A haunting?" Iris asked with panic in her voice, "is my soul haunted?"

"Maybe-- probably not," Victoria tried to think of words to calm her, but failed, "I wouldn't think about it too much, if I were you."

"I'm absolutely going to think about it!" Iris said erratically, "is there a ghost in my soul right now or not? That's the kind of thing a girl wants to know!"

"Not in your soul," Victoria said, "more like clinging onto the side of it, if anything."

"Well get it off!" Iris shouted.

"It's not that easy," Titus said, "I left school before I learned much about curses, but they're notoriously stubborn things. Cutting off the source of the curse is our best bet by far at ending it."

"What about the soup? Autumn can make more, I'll eat a whole cauldron of it!"

Titus shook his head apologetically, "that's only helping alleviate the symptoms of your body trying in vain to fight off the curse, and maybe distracting somewhat from the symptoms of the curse itself, but it's not doing anything to actually cure it."

"Can't you just pump me full of healing magic?" Iris pleaded.

"I don't have anything that can cure curses, Iris. I'm sorry."

"How did I even get cursed? Shouldn't there have to be some dark and scary wizard casting a spell or something?"

Victoria pursed her lips rather than answering, prompting Iris to blip in front of her and block her way.

"I know that look," Iris accused, "answer the question."

Victoria sighed, "do you really want to hear it?"

"Yes!" Iris insisted.

"I have a theory, but it's just a theory. I can't confirm anything, but--" she hesitated for a moment, "did you get any dirt in your mouth while fighting the golem? Or maybe in a wound?"

"I spat out some chunks after he threw me into the ground, why?"

Victoria grimaced, "the soil... I think it's full of ghosts.”

Iris's mouth dropped agape in horror.

"Once it got into your body--" Victoria began, but was interrupted.

"I'M POSSESSED?" Iris shouted, "BY MULTIPLE GHOSTS?"

"More like fragments of dozens of ghosts, and not strictly possessed as much as--"

"I'm fucked," Iris threw her hands up in exasperation, her voice cracking from stress, "I'm gonna die. Ghosts are going to eat my soul and I'm gonna die."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Victoria started to speak, then stopped herself. After a second she started again, then stopped again.

"'let's not convince our patient she's going to die'" Eli mocked.

"Shut up!" Victoria and Titus both said simultaneously as they both wheeled on Eli.

"You try calming her down, then," Victoria added.

Eli stepped in front of a pacing Iris and grabbed her firmly by both shoulders, "Iris, look at me."

Iris froze in place and met his glare.

"We're going to save you, do you understand?"

Iris didn't respond.

"Say yes."

"Yes," Iris said, obviously unconvinced.

"We're going to cure the curse and save you. Snap out of it and get serious so you can help us do that, or I'll strap you to Glimmer and have her fly you in circles until we do."

"You can't do that, I'd escape--"

"Shut up," Eli commanded, "repeat after me. We're going to cure this curse."

Iris sighed, then mumbled, "we're going to cure this curse."

"Louder."

"We're going to cure this curse," Iris groaned.

"Good," Eli said, withdrawing his hands from her shoulders, "go scout ahead and report back if you see anything that looks important."

Iris nodded hesitantly, then blipped away.

"Are you sure sending her off alone is a good idea?" Victoria asked.

"She needs a task to keep her busy," Eli answered, "keep an eye out for her aura, though."

For the next few hours of travel, Iris occasionally blipped back to the party to let them know they were approaching another hollow stump. She wasn't truly contributing much, as the trail of underground auras would inevitably lead them to each of the stumps anyway, but it kept her busy. On one occasion she reported back with scratches on her leather armor and a tear in the sleeve of her robe, explaining that she had gotten into a minor altercation with a medium sized squirrel but had handled the problem. Each time the party reached another hollow stump, their direction of travel changed as Victoria followed the root with the strongest aura, which led them slowly closer and closer to the source of it all.

"Can I see the map the Dreamweaver gave you?" Eli asked quietly as they departed from the fourth stump.

"I noticed it too," Victoria said, not bothering to hand him the map as she confirmed his suspicions, "the roots are leading us towards the thread."

"Do you think it's related?"

"I hope not, but I doubt we'd be so lucky," Victoria said, "I've been putting pieces together over and over in my head, and any way it goes none of the options that make sense are comforting. On the bright side, taking down the golem put me at the threshold of Champion. If the thread's still there, I'll be ready for it."

The next time Iris returned, she was noticeably more sluggish than when the day's journey had begun. The bags under her eyes were growing darker, her posture was slumped, and the shivering was beginning to return. After seeing her current state, Eli instructed her to stay with the party and Autumn started handing her handfuls.

"Chew these, then keep 'em in your cheeks for five minutes," Autumn said, "don't swallow, spit them out when you're done."

"What'll they do?" Iris asked before shoving the herbs in her mouth.

"They'll help with your energy, make you feel less sluggish."

Iris nodded as she chewed the herbs. They tasted terrible, but she didn't complain.

A short while after midday, they reached the largest stump they had found so far, it was ten feet tall and situated against a small rocky cliff that jutted up out of the landscape like a shelf of rock. It was one of several such rock shelves breaking up the otherwise grassy meadow full of flowers and dotted with bushes. This stump was blackened and charred like the others, but rather than simply being hollow inside, this one was also split down the middle of the outer ring. Through the split in the stump was the mouth of a cave draped with a curtain of hanging roots and lined with carpets of moss.

"We're here," Victoria announced, pulling the map from her pocket and looking over it, "this is where the aura is strongest, roots from all around are converging on this spot. It's also exactly where the Thread of Power is marked on this map."

"Listen up, team," Eli said, "whatever we're dealing with just a lot more complicated. We weren't expecting the thread to be involved with this quest at all, and odds are whatever big bad we're about to fight is powered up with it. We need to be at the top of our game for this one."

"I don't like it here," Titus announced, "it feels awful. I don't know how else to explain it."

Autumn nodded in agreement, "it feels like a graveyard."

"It'll be worse inside," Victoria said grimly.

"Well, let's get it over with before the curse gets me over with," Iris said, stepping up to the edge of the stump.

"That barely made sense," Autumn said.

"Yeah, I'm feeling a little out of it," Iris admitted.

"You should stay out here," Eli said, "let us handle this."

"Not a chance," Iris said with a burst of vigor, "there's no way I'm missing out on seeing Victoria absorb a Thread of Power, and I'm definitely not sitting out on a big fight with a mysterious monster in a cave. Days like this are why I became an adventurer," she paused to lean on the wall of the stump for support, "I think I might just stay out of the way when the fighting starts, though."