When Cal eventually awoke, her first thought was that she was amazed to be alive.
Her second thought was that everything hurt. More than that, she’d never felt so weak in her entire life.
She tried to flip herself over so that she wasn’t lying face down against the blood-soaked ground, but it was no use. Her muscles absolutely refused to behave themselves. Confused, Cal turned to her notifications, first discovering her quest completions and the kill notification.
“Good riddance. If I slept like a normal person, I’d probably have nightmares about that thing.” Frankly, the dungeon had done a pretty good job of punishing her, not that she’d ever admit that. Cal was pretty sure that if she used the full version of Apex Shroud at all times, not even the dungeon would be able to spot her, but still, she doubted she’d try her “skirting the edges” trick again.
Following her quest completion messages, there were a few lines of skill increases, mostly focused on her resistance skills. Reading past those, she groaned as she finally discovered exactly why she felt so abysmally awful.
Your Rising Tenacity has worn off.
Your Wellspring’s Renewal has worn off.
Your Surging Vitality has worn off.
All three of her resource-recovery buffs had expired shortly after the fight. On the flip side, the curses didn’t have the decency to do the same.
You have eliminated the source of one or more curses! Based on their strength and the number of stacks each has, they will begin to expire naturally.
The fact that they’d eventually go away was obviously wonderful, but when Cal checked the durations left on all her curses, her eyes bulged out of her head.
“Weeks? Seriously? I won! How’s that any fair?” As stacks dropped off, she’d slowly get better, but the worst of her curses would take multiple weeks to burn off. The same was true for her skill lock curse, which meant she wouldn’t have access to Apex Shroud for a good while. If there was a single silver lining, it was that enough of her blindness curse had expired so that she could see color again, but that was about it.
Well, if I have a choice, I’d rather spend my recovery time in bed than here. Once again, Cal tried to lift herself from the earth, putting all her will into forcing her muscles to obey her.
She got a few centimeters upwards before an unnerving tearing sensation traveled down her left arm. Cal stared at the limb, blood trickling down it, before remembering.
Oh. Right. Paper skin. Even the single movement had reopened some of her injuries, undoing what little recovery she’d managed while passed out. Quickly checking her health, Cal swore at her foolishness.
Calilah: 18/350hp
As someone who didn’t need to eat, Cal had her own ways of producing blood. Namely, her body could slowly create it directly from mana. Given that her mana recovery was also down to nearly nothing, the amount of blood currently in her body was so drastically low as to be fully lethal for most people.
Even for Cal, it was too much. As her arm continued to bleed, her head went fuzzy, and once again, she passed out.
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For days, Cal teetered in and out of consciousness, her health lingering in the single digits. Whenever she was lucid enough and had some mana to spare, she fired off a few healing spells, though they only managed to heal her a single health point at best.
Ultimately, it took far too long for her to remember the wealth of class points she was sitting on, and when Cal finally did, she cursed herself out. One short trip to her class space later, and her health recovery was significantly boosted. She’d saved five points for later, but even so, things went much faster from there.
When at last she could pick herself from the ground without utterly bleeding out, Cal readied herself to begin the relatively short journey back home.
Right before she set off, however, she noticed something she’d missed while lying blind on the ground: remains. A scrap of amorphous gray material sat by her feet, a small golden-white light hovering above it.
Loot. Not that she really wanted to carry anything all the way back to the cabin, but Cal would sooner lay down and die than leave without checking what she’d earned from her harrowing fight. A quick poke was all it took for the system to dispense her reward.
You have received: The Hag’s Prized Locks.
A few wisps of thin, oily hair fell into Cal’s hands, and it was all she could do not to immediately toss them aside in revulsion. “Eugh. I would have preferred pretty much anything else. Even one of the nasty black teeth would have been less gross.” Even so, Cal examined it.
The Hag’s Prized Locks
Place anywhere on your head to attach.
+3 Wisdom
+3 to Curse Magic
+3 to Curse Resistance
Slightly enhances all of the wearer’s retaliatory skills and effects.
Cal stared at the nasty locks of hair for longer than she’d care to admit, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t have Curse Magic, nor did she use any retaliatory skills.
The Wisdom in and of itself, though… And I could really use some extra curse resistance right now.
In one swift motion, and while choking back a gag, Cal brought her hand to the back of her head, choosing a spot that would be completely covered by her existing hair. She could feel as the hag’s locks latched onto her scalp, her resulting involuntary shudder nearly enough to reopen her wounds.
“If I ever get some bard to make this into a ballad, I’m leaving this part out.” Thus said, Cal turned back to the prairie and began shuffling back home. The moment she exited the region, it winked out of existence, replaced by the standard rocky shore.
Her motions were slow, her health was low, and a good deal of her wounds had yet to close. With the stamina curse still in effect, even a single minute of walking was enough to leave her winded, but bit by bit, she proceeded until the wooden cabin came into view.
Tess. When at last Cal saw her friend rushing over, she knew her ordeal was over.
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“So, yeah. That’s it. Tada!” Cal raised her mummy-like arms, waving her bandaged hands about to emphasize her grand victory. The fact that the motion did not fully drain her stamina was proof in and of itself of how much she’d recovered. “Anyway, I have notifications waiting, so can we hold off on the questions and the inevitable lecture from Verin? Yes? Good, thank you!”
Naturally, Verin started to respond, but Cal tuned her out as she checked her new skill levels.
Bleed Resistance has reached level 7!
Curse Resistance has reached level 4!
Pain Resistance has reached level 6!
Bleed Resistance has reached level 8!
A few other less important skills had leveled -- at some point, she’d randomly picked up Hiking, for instance, and the skill seemed to have loved her trek back home -- but none of those notifications were what drew her eye.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
There, at the very bottom of her screen, was a line she hadn’t expected at all. A truly, honestly, awful one, at that. Cal read it over and over again, as if sheer stubbornness would force it to delete itself.
Her sheer horror didn’t go unnoticed, with Verin and even Tess chiming in to check on her. When at last she found her voice to answer them, she could only lament her pitiful existence.
“Are you seriously telling me I slept through my entire birthday?”
Age has increased to 23!
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In fairness, there were some upsides to having her birthday now. For one, it delayed any sort of admonishments from Verin. Even the icy noble didn’t have it in her to chastise Cal in light of her announcement.
Plus, Cal was able to put Tess into cooking-overdrive mode, having her go all out in preparing just about everything she was able to. Thankfully, she forewent the squid this time around, but other than that, she went wild, using nearly every meat they’d come across in the dungeon in some way shape or form.
Here, Cal’s suspicion was proven correct: Her Curse of Gluttony actually did let her chow down more, with her body rapidly breaking down each dish and leaving her with an empty stomach once more.
Of course, considering she was essentially swaddled, most of the feast had to be fed to her, and as Tess was the one actively cooking, that left the feeding duty to Verin. That in and of itself would have been a wonderful birthday gift as Cal tried and failed not to laugh at the noble’s cross expression, except whenever Verin got fed up with Cal’s expression, the food suddenly got suspiciously cold.
In the end, though, eating was the full extent of the day’s celebrations. With her hemophilia, further thinning her blood with alcohol was inadvisable, and with her paper skin, it was best if she stayed put.
“This was nice, but we’re having my actual birthday once all the curses go away,” she announced with finality.
Either out of habit or from a genuine grievance, Verin couldn’t resist arguing. “I believe that the Lady Tess has already cooked more for you than she did on my birthday. Yet you still demand another day dedicated to you?”
Oooh, someone’s jealous. Cal wouldn’t back down though. “Look, I turned 22 in an endless expanse of darkness being chased by monsters directly crafted by god. I turned 23 sleeping off curses while trapped in a dungeon. I am absolutely not waiting to have a proper celebration all the way until 24.” It would just be too tragic. Too cosmically unjust. These were supposed to be her glory years or something like that!
Verin relented at that, eventually leaving Cal to her own devices as the night drew on and Tess exhausted her supply of ingredients.
It would have been nice to say that Cal kept herself busy for the rest of her recovery. That she occupied her time with continual spell casting and mental training, or that she strategized for their future.
Mostly, though, she was just painfully bored. Eventually, she dipped into her class space and spent the rest of her points. It wasn’t actually that helpful considering that time froze while she was inside, but at least she got two new skills out of it.
Finally having met a foe she couldn’t dispatch in a single supercharged sneak attack, Cal decided to first add some extra situational power to her attacks.
Embrace of Exhaustion
During combat, gain additional Strength, Intelligence, and flat damage based on how much health, stamina, and mana you spend.
The effect had a cap that scaled with her resource stats, but if she ever found herself in another protracted battle, she would be considerably stronger the longer the fight continued. Had she bought the skill prior to her fight with the hag, she might have ripped through it far faster, and with fewer strikes.
The second was another recovery option, but one with so much utility, she didn’t dare pass up on it.
Omni-source
At a penalty and a capped rate, freely transfer points between your health, mana, and stamina.
In some ways, the skill wasn’t worth it at all. If she wanted to transfer her mana to her health pool, for instance, it would be far more efficient to just use a healing spell. In all other directions, however, it was a godsend, effectively meaning she could keep moving and casting spells unless all three of her pools were fully empty.
Neither skill, however, was particularly distracting or amusing to use, which left her right back where she’d started in terms of boredom.
Perhaps detecting how much she detested being cooped up like this, both Tess and Verin spent plenty of time with her while she was on the mend, keeping her appraised of their recent exploits. Eventually, it was time for Tess to pick up a new batch of produce from Arbor, although she was unusually cagey about what she requested.
When at last Cal was up for moving, the very first thing she did was take a bath. The hot water felt scalding against her sensitive skin, but she welcomed the sensation nonetheless. A few days later, her curse stacks were low enough for her to get some light exercise in, letting her get accustomed to her new class skills.
And then, after far too long, the last of the curses expired.
The celebration that ensued was as raucous and rowdy as they could manage, given their circumstances, beginning with drinks inside the cabin. It helped that Tess had come prepared with a number of juices that masked some of the moonshine’s less pleasant features, both when mixed with it or when used as a chaser. Blackberries turned out to be the winner here, with Tess muddling a bunch of them into the bottom of their crude stone cups before pouring moonshine and juice in. With a bit of sugar and water thrown in, the final concoction was almost passable as a real cocktail.
The real surprise, however, was yet to come. Cal was sitting at the table with Verin when, with an unusually furtive air about her, Tess sidled up to the birthday girl.
“I cooked something. It didn’t… it didn’t turn out perfectly, and I was originally going to wait longer until I got it just right, but I figured we should try it today for your birthday.”
Huh. Wonder what’s worth all the buildup. Still, Cal was hardly going to refuse food from Tess. “Lay it on me!” Truly, with Tess’s neverending culinary creations, Cal was ready for just about anything. Somehow, that didn’t blunt her shock when Tess removed her newest dishes from her storage, setting them on the table.
Atop a simple stone plate, a stack of vaguely puffy brown disks let off wisps of steam. A large number of thin wooden sticks were impaled into the top of the stack, their purpose unclear. To their side sat two small bowls, one filled with a viscous yellow liquid, while the other contained a granular white substance.
“It’s not an actual cake, but I made bread,” Tess muttered. “I left the dough outside in the forest for a while. I think it took on some natural yeast. No oven, so I used a pan, which isn’t the best, but-”
Unthinking, Cal snaked her hand forward and tore off a large piece from the center of the stack, thrusting it into both of the two accompanying dishes. The hunk of bread was in her mouth before Tess could get another word in, and Cal didn’t even try to stifle her audible pleasure.
Oil. Salt! Holy hells, she’d missed the two of them for so long.
Admittedly, the bread wasn’t great. It had a sort of funky taste to it, and it was by no means as light or fluffy as what she was used to at home. The simple creature comfort of warm bread, however, was as good a present as she could ask for.
“Incredible. Tess, you’re a genius.” Her mouth still full, Cal gestured to the strange wooden rods embedded in the bread. “What’s with the sticks, though?”
In way of response, Tess removed another long stick from her storage. Fire erupted from her fingertips, quickly igniting the elongated match.
“Birthday candles. Twenty-three of them. You blow them all out and make a wish without telling anyone.” Tess methodically brought the flame to each of the many makeshift candles, until all of them were alight in flame.
“A curious tradition. Am I correct to assume it originates from-” The rest of Verin’s words were abruptly replaced with a coughing fit as Cal took Tess’s words to heart, blowing on the candles with all her might. With the lack of proper wax candles, a cloud of smoke fled the bread, pushed directly into Verin. Given the resulting murderous look on the noble’s face, Cal assumed it was only the occasion that prevented Verin from summoning an icicle to stab her with.
A wish, huh? A few candidates came to her immediately, and she started to filter through them with some difficulty before thinking better of it. After all, why just one? It was her birthday, wasn’t it? Cal was allowed to be a bit greedy, she decided.
I wish that we escape the dungeon soon. And that Tess gets better. And that we completely crush the poison region, and that I get a million gold and a thousand more levels and that I live forever. Uh. And that I can have a normal 24th birthday next year. That felt like a reasonable list, right?
“Done wishing! Back to eating!” So said, Cal pilfered an entire circular loaf for herself, tearing into it with abandon. If with a bit more decorum, the others quickly followed suit. Tess even brought out some meat and sliced vegetables, and Cal had her first sandwich in over a year.
It was utterly, truly, blissful.
The day quickly devolved into a stream of food and drink and -- with enough booze and goading -- song and dance. When she eventually selected some of her favorite games to play out of their slowly growing repertoire of card and board games, she even won a few rounds!
Enough blackberry cocktails later, and things got slightly blurry, but at some point, she found herself sprawled out on the ground by a fire. The three of them just lay there, idly chatting and enjoying each other’s company.
In many ways, it was a humble celebration. After decades being trapped in the palace, forced to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, though, it was nice. Fresh. More honest.
Yeah. Pretty good, I guess. Happy Birthday, me.
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While it took Cal a bit of time to adjust to her new class skills, now that she was better, there was no reason to put things off any longer.
And so it was that just a few days after the celebration, the three of them summoned Tal’Ket once more. Huddled together on his back, the trio soared through the skies as the desert, the labyrinth, and the floating islands passed beneath them. Only when the familiar jungle landscape came into view did their majestic steed begin to descend.
The roc lord landed directly outside the influence of the jungle’s poison, dropping off his passengers before flying away. With his summoning disk’s two-week cooldown, they wouldn’t be seeing him again for a while.
But that was fine. All three of them had taken some detours along the way, but at last, it was time to tackle another region.
And with any luck, maybe this will be the last one before we reach our first mana-collection site.