Chapter 100: Blues

Parth stared at his hands for a few seconds in a stupor. The blue flickered to orange once again before he snuffed the flames. Not because he didn't want to experiment more. But because his body was aching all around.

He was getting really tired of passing out and waking up like this. No more.

Apart from his pain, the first thing he noticed was the heat. Oh, it didn't affect him. His artifact’s passive immunity to high temperatures was still going strong. But due to his heat sensing, he could feel it loud and clear. He had a niggling thought in his mind that he could exert some mana and ramp up the surrounding temperature with ease. Not now, though. He was clearly still healing, and he needed to rest.

He was already laid atop a sleeping bag, and he had no urge to get up. His body was begging him to stay put, and he obliged. Parth took a good look at his body and groaned in dismay. His torso was covered in bandages, but it wasn't enough. Half-closed cuts littered his entire body. Several suture tapes attempted to fully close some of those wounds, but even they weren't enough. There were just too many injuries on the canvas of his skin.

Not willing to look at his sorry state any further, he finally paid attention to his surroundings.

Kwame was resting on another sleeping bag right next to Parth. The teen seemed sound asleep. Kwame didn't have as many injuries as Parth. But the major one he had was pretty nasty. Parth could see the stump of Kwame's left ankle. The foot was nowhere to be seen. They all knew that Moira's cards couldn't regrow limbs. But such visual confirmation was a nasty reminder. The repercussions of such an injury did not hit him so far. More like, he was refusing to think about it just yet. It was a heavy blow to their fighting capabilities as a team.

Parth immediately admonished himself for immediately jumping into threat assessments yet again. Kwame had more pressing things to worry about. Losing a limb at such a juncture was a nightmare. The kid had his whole life ahead of him, and he had lost a foot. Sure, Tavan prosthetics were leagues better than what they had on Earth. Even then, the loss was immense.

Not only that, but Kwame had lost his closest friend—Kade. Even Parth had been taken aback by the sudden nature of the passing. He hadn't seen the act, but he'd arrived to see the severed head. It drove in how fleeting life was. One minute, you're taking down a kraken, the next, you're dead. Parth was no stranger to it. His parents' death was sudden as well. They'd left in the morning. By lunch, he got a call that there had been an accident and they'd passed. Life was unfair like that. The dungeon was just exacerbating the futility of death.

There was no reason for Kade to die. No sane person would have laid such an elaborate trap instead of moving on to the next level. Instead, the Severance and his cohort hadn't even cared about their time running out and prioritized their hunt for Parth and his team. Imbeciles.

Momentarily putting his mind off that train of thought, Parth continued surveying his surroundings.

He was settled in a narrow valley. There were cracks in the stone from which hot air was slowly escaping. He smiled ruefully as he realized that he could immediately identify that only due to his temperature sense. It seemed like this facet of his magic had grown when he had slept. Or did the vision have anything to do with it? He couldn’t say for sure.

He was sure of one thing, though. Even when his artifact was inactive, even when he was not actively using his mana, he felt a deeper connection to flames. He could feel the temperature differences up to a certain distance. He didn’t know how far his range extended, he’d have to test later. The heat all around made it easier. Given that this level was dedicated to the element, it was only natural.

The sensation was intuitive, yet at the same time, elusive. When humans think about breathing, they consciously control their breathing patterns and abruptly break out of the automatic rhythm they were in. Just like that, when he thought about the heat sensing ability of his, it suddenly felt difficult to focus on it. But when his mind was focused on something else, the sense came naturally.

He tried to get up, but he immediately gave up on that endeavor. With a grunt, he rested his head again. Everything hurt. His body was not ready for strenuous activity just yet.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As he lay on his sleeping bag, Moira descended to the campsite.

She looked haggard. Her hair was ruffled and sticking to her sweaty face. Her wings had lost some of their shine. Her body was hunched, as though she was having a hard time standing upright. Her blue armor was covered in soot, looking worse for wear. She looked like she had been through the grinder.

Ironic, considering Parth had been on the epicenter of a magical blender.

Moira’s current state once again made him feel bitter. They had failed to clear the trial in time, that was a given. But if Parth had been free of injury, he’d have at least helped Moira. Now, he had just been additional dead weight for her to cart around. Another failure on his part.

Saying that would not help the situation, though. Moira took pride in her abilities. Delving over what-ifs would not help her now. Nor would it help him. He couldn't let himself drown in frustration once again. That was how it started. And he'd rather not go back to that frame of mind.

“You look like death warmed over,” he said instead.

“Invest in a mirror, please. If I look bad, then I don’t even have words to explain your current state.” A hint of a smile broke through her weary face, her eyes brimming with relief.

“About that… what happened after I went down?”

Moira sighed and sat next to Parth. She then began the tale of the aftermath. Parth was glad to learn that both Ava and Urban were done for. It was a surprise that an amputated Kwame crawled up to finish the Severance. But then again, revenge was a strong motivator.

“After that, he fainted again. Too much blood lost. I waited there for an hour before my reserves returned to some serviceable shape. Slapped a couple of low-level hearts on all three of us. I needed the mana boost, and you two needed the healing. Thankfully, no other monsters appeared. Took me a few more hours before I could even lug you two around.”

“Yeah, how did you manage that?”

“Barrier. I laid you two out on a two of diamonds and moved the barrier with my vectors. The temperature over there was too adverse for you two to heal. We are at the outer edge of the third level. At least here, it's hot, but it hasn't reached an extreme yet.” They both knew that it wouldn't stay that way. But at least inside this level, Parth could mitigate the worst of it easily.

“Thanks a lot, Moira. I owe you one.”

“Oh shut up. It's no big deal. But there's some bad news too,” She said in a tired tone.

“On top of this?” Parth motioned his arm towards their motley camp and immediately winced at the pain shooting through his cuts.

“Don't move. Between a couple of monsters here and there, and just carrying you two around until I found this spot, I didn't have much time to heal you with stronger cards. The low-powered ones have been stacking up steadily, but it's not enough. Your injuries aren't fully closed. Some are still deep, so just wait for the magic to do its thing. Now that you are awake, though, please start supplementing your natural healing with your mana. It'll make things easier for me.”

“Hmm, but last time you said that if something interferes with your healing, then it'd scar. I don't fancy these many scars.”

“That only happens if you have already been healing yourself for a while. In this situation, I kick-started your healing, and have been doing most of it so far. It won't scar. Don't worry.”

“Thank god,” he croaked. But then he remembered that they had deviated from what he had asked. “What's the bad news?”

“Your storage container got caught in the crossfire. The thing got completely shredded. And it was an expanded dimensional storage, so we couldn't retrieve anything.”

Parth groaned upon hearing that news. They had to survive for about three weeks before they could make it back to Tava. Losing his supplies was a major blow. Food and water were the immediate concerns.

Moira nodded and continued. “We still have our crates, so we can share. But it won't last long enough now. At the very least, we'd need to stretch for two weeks before our allies will be back inside the dungeon. Knowing Celeste, she'd definitely send some stuff with them.”

“Yeah, we'd need to figure something out till then. As for clothes, I suppose I can use Kwame's spare undersuit.”

“Yup. And I don't advise rationing food despite the shortage. You both need all the nutrients your body can take. Magical healing can do wonders, but it's not the end all be all. Your bodies need proper food.”

Parth agreed, before freezing mid-nod. “Ah, fuck!” He swore.

“What happened?” Moira asked, worried.

“Clothes and food, I can find ways to manage. But the box had all my coffee,” he said, his voice laced with genuine anguish.

For a moment, Moira just stared at him before responding. “You need to get your priorities straight.” She shook her head in exasperation. “Although, I could go for a coffee or tea or whatever, right now. I'm getting real tired of this constant mana usage.”

“See? You should have packed some of that good stuff as well.”

“Has anyone told you that you sound like a dealer?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

They both looked at each other before chuckling in amusement.

After the laughter subsided, Parth fired up his ring and looked at the timestamp. “I've been out for almost a day, huh?”

“Not really. You woke up several times in between, but I don't think you were really conscious during those times. Just stared at the sky and went right back to sleep. Kwame is the one who went out like a log,” she answered.

“I don't remember any of that. All I remember—” Parth's response cut abruptly as the canyon slightly shook all of a sudden.

It was to a beat. A loud noise echoed periodically with each shake.

“Footsteps?” Moira asked.

“Possible.”

A massive roar then echoed throughout the canyon, rattling Parth's broken body.

“For fuck's sake, is some peace and quiet too much to ask for?” Moira groaned as she got up, deck in hand.