For all Alarion’s whinging, it hadn’t actually been that bad. Yes, the viscous fluid had felt exactly as gross in his mouth as the young man had expected, but the candied taste somewhat offset the unsettling sensation of drinking a liquid that was decidedly… gooey.
And despite his complaints, there was no arguing with its efficacy. He’d expected a delayed onset, a slow and steady build up as the potion worked its way into his body. What he got was an instant notification and an abrupt, vibrant sensation.
You have consumed a Healing Potion – Basic [Rank I]. +111 HP/s for 9 seconds.
The results looked as impressive as they felt. When Alarion had been six, he’d fallen from a stack of hay bales and twisted his ankle quite fiercely. It had taken his body four weeks to heal what this potion had remedied in as many seconds. The swelling in his arm visibly shrank with each passing moment, the pain transitioning from a sharp wound to a dull ache to nothing at all in as many breaths.
To his eyes, the results were miraculous and his expression said as much as he looked to Sierra.
“That is nothing special, I promise you. We have at least a full barrel at the manor.” She said, waving off his wonder. “Even provincial Auxillia are issued potions when on patrol, outside of exceptional circumstances.”
Alarion turned his attention to his previously wounded hand. He clenched and unclenched his fist, rolled his wrist and then tightened the bracer fully over the once injured limb. “If you have so many wouldn’t it have made more sense to send me with dozens of potions? I could fight almost without risk.”
“Do you think that is a good habit to be getting into?” She asked.
He gave her a look.
“Even if you did.” She continued over his unspoken contestation. “Which you should not, there are other issues. Remember what Ezekial said about stress? Would you be under more or less stress with an unlimited number of potions.”
Alarion saw her point, but felt the need to retort. “Drinking that many would be a different sort of stress.”
Sierra sighed.
“Fortunate for you then that you can not.” She replied as she set off into the forest with barely a glance back in his direction. “You saw your new condition?”
He hadn’t. That much was clear first by his puzzled expression and the vacant one that came after as he navigated through his status to find what she was talking about.
New Condition! Potion Toxicity: Minor.
Survivor’s Endurance has taken effect.
Potion Toxicity: Minor – 1% Malus to all Attributes.
Time Until Healed – ~2 hours.
“I thought consumables meant food.” He explained at last, having found the filter he had incorrectly triggered in his Status. “They’re poison?”
“Similar. Poisons mostly deal damage directly or impose damaging conditions. Toxins penalize stats. There is some overlap, I think. I am not sure.” The girl shrugged, stepping carefully over a high root as they walked. “If you drink too many potions or potions that are too strong for you, particularly ones above your rank, you will suffer greater and greater attribute penalties. At the maximum rank it will turn into a fast acting, lethal poison.”
“How many is too many?” Alarion asked, perturbed.
“It depends on the person. Your vitality plays a role, as do your skills. Your survivor’s endurance will help, but I am not sure you could use the same trick with the Void Arena to increase your resistance further. Elena probably can not replicate a fake potion, and real toxicity would still kill you.” She seemed to consider the matter more thoughtfully before adding. “You could probably handle three of these safely, though the penalties would be very high after the third.”
“Better than bleeding to death.”
Sierra tilted her head slightly in agreement as she walked, then laughed. “You are not wrong. There is one more reason not to rely on them.”
“Mm?”
“They can not heal everything.” Sierra held up a hand and pointed just below her first knuckle with the other. “Lose anything more than this and a basic potion will not be enough to regrow it. Lose an arm or a leg, it is gone. Lose your head, or your heart, and you are not likely to survive long enough to drink the potion, not that it would help.”
Alarion glanced at his own arm, his mind filled with hazy memories of crude amputation in the Void Arena. “There is nothing that can restore it?”
“Nothing readily available.” She corrected. “Powerful spells or items would be able to. There are regeneration potions, even at our Rank, but they are a thousand times more expensive and take weeks or months to properly restore a lost body part. Most Vitrians who lose a limb rely on prosthetics for a reason. Sometimes a severed bit can be reattached by a healer, but it needs to be done quickly.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It is not supposed to be.” Sierra countered. Then, seemingly done with the conversation, she fished into a small pouch on her hip and produced a small blue stone. She tossed it in his direction trusting on his reflexes as she started walking once again before it had even reached him. “Here. I am going on ahead.”
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Alarion regarded the small item with a perplexed eye. It was the size of a fingernail and perfectly spherical with a slight shimmer of pearlescence. Despite that sheen it was easy to catch and hard to drop, with a rough surface that clung resiliently to the fabric of his glove.
And he did not have the slightest idea of what it was.
“Sier…ra?” Alarion asked, only to frown as he looked up. He was becoming less and less of a fan of her disappearing act by the day.
So what to do with it?
Eating the item was out of the question. A simple squeeze between thumb and forefinger let him know that the pebble-like item was at least as hard as an actual rock. Awakened vitality or no, he valued his teeth. Besides, Sierra didn’t seem like the type to carry around candy.
It was much too small to slot into the open spots on his greatsword, it wouldn’t make much sense for her to toss it to him if she merely wanted to discard it-
“Oh for the Mother’s sake Alarion, put it in your ear!” Came a somewhat distant shout.
He didn’t need to be told twice.
“I swear. To look at you, you would never know.” Sierra’s voice came whispered into his ear, causing Alarion to abruptly turn to the right in alarm. “But the moment you encounter modernity or open your mouth to speak-”
“What’s wrong with the way I speak?” Alarion asked.
“What is wrong with the way you speak.” His brows knitted together, but Sierra’s voice continued unabated. “I assume you can hear me clearly.”
“As if you’re right beside me.” He agreed, slowly coming to terms with the fact that she was not abusing her stealth skill simply to confuse him. “It’s… odd. How does this work?”
“Magic. And before you complain, no, that is not me being pithy. I just do not know how it works, the same way I do not know how an ironclad’s engine works.”
“Mm.” Alarion conceded, starting off into the woods in pursuit of Sierra.
“To your left.” The girl corrected him dryly. “I am not far ahead of you. Without a nexus or other nodes to repeat their signal, these Simus only reach about five hundred yards.”
“Simus?”
“Simultaneous Communication Device.” Sierra expounded.
“Simu.” Alarion agreed hurriedly. There was no way he was going to bother to remember that. “They are more convenient than having my face cave in on itself.”
“What?!” Sierra asked before a realization hit her and she interrupted his reply. “Oh, no. Face shaping is a trick limited to the Ordinates. It is used less and less these days in civilized areas, but out in the provinces, old magic like that is the only way to have secure communication over any meaningful distance. Their entire class line is dedicated to utility powers. Communications, logistics, education, transportation and so forth.”
“Is Ordinate a name? Or a title?” He asked. In truth he had been curious for some time, but had never found a proper way to ask.
“Both and neither.” She explained. “They give up their names when they are selected, but it is not a title like Governor. It is meant as a descriptor for what they are, not who they are.”
“That sounds a lot like how you’d treat a dog. Or a slave.” Alarion walked in silence several seconds, long enough for the quiet to grow uncomfortable, before he added, “Sierra? Is this working?”
“Yes Alarion. I’m here.” The girl responded. Her voice was somewhat muted, and she paused nearly as long again before she settled on a reply. “Your opinion is not unheard of. Ordinates are pulled from the lesser children of Vitrian houses. As a vocation it is voluntary, but it is often the best of a number of bad choices. To serve used to be a respectable calling but… times change. I’m going on ahead.”
The silence returned for some time after that somber note. Functionally alone, the forest felt considerably more unsettling as Alarion weaved his way between its unnatural rows. Every so often Sierra would chime in, redirecting him back onto her path if he led himself astray, or indicating a mark she’d scratched into tree bark to keep him on track.
Twice she located wandering fiends. In each case Alarion took advantage of the opportunity to practice stealth skills originally honed on the avian population of the Old City. The first time ended in a crunch of leaves that devolved into a brief scuffle and a dismembered monstrosity. The second proved more successful as Alarion closed enough distance to grievously wound the fiend with a thrown greatsword before the battle had even begun. Neither attempt was enough to fully level his stealth skill, but Alarion found endless delight in watching his progress increase so visually all the same.
The third time Sierra told him to stop, he knew something was different.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, only after taking concealment behind a cluster of nearby branches.
“Nothing wrong per se.” Sierra explained. “This is definitely what we are looking for. But we are still quite far out from even the outer perimeter. There should not be a fiend this large this far out.”
“Should we leave it be?” Alarion replied with surprising caution.
“No. I think you are safe to come up. Nothing I could not handle if it came to it.”
Judging by her tone it wasn’t intended as an insult. Even so, Alarion felt a slight burning in his cheeks as he worked his way from cover to cover, carefully following Sierra’s guide on when it was and was not safe to move.
Over the previous days he’d intuited a good deal about Sierra’s Shadowdance skill and the specific ways it differed from his own. Both had a passive effect of increasing the user’s ability to hide, though obviously hers was better. However, the main difference was in the active half of her skill, an ability that allowed her to supernaturally conceal herself so long as she stood at least partially within a shadowed area roughly as large as her body. His improved proficiency beyond natural limits, but hers was fully supernatural.
That difference accounted for the struggle he had in approaching the small clearing nearly as quickly as she had. And in locating her once he did. The growth in her skill had so outstripped his detection that even with her telling him where to look, it was several seconds before he was able to fully see the leather clad girl crouched up in a tree overlooking the three fiends down below.
Two were of a similar make to those Alarion had already seen. Tall and gangly, with misshapen limbs and unsettling flesh. The third was not. A foot taller than the already large fiends it was wider again by half, its glistening red and pink body covered in thick musculature that seemed as though it were ready to tear if the thing flexed in just the wrong way.
Stranger still, it was battling its fellow fiends.
Or, perhaps battling was the wrong word. An adult did not battle with toddlers, and the sheer difference in physical strength between the larger fiend and its fellows was such that it was able to easily rag doll them as they came at it, tossing them away. Shoving and slapping them.
“It isn’t fighting to kill.” Alarion remarked though a glare from Sierra killed any further observations on his lips.
“No it is not.” The girl whispered through the Simu. The battle between the fiends was a veritable cacophony in the otherwise still forest but she still timed her words to coincide with a strike or a rumble of footsteps. “It is a power struggle. For possession.”
“Of what?” He asked.
Sierra raised a gloved hand and pointed just behind the larger of the three battling creatures. For a few heartbeats Alarion saw nothing, until at last he noticed the slight decline of the soil, the start of the large pit that Sierra could clearly see from her perch. “I am pretty sure they are fighting over that.”