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The man holding Lyn screamed as the spell went off. Lyn grimaced and bit down on the gag to stifle a scream as she felt the incredibly hot mana rip through her mana channels once again – all of them. Not just in her arms – but every single mana channel was instantly pushed to its maximum limit as the mana pushed out of her in all directions. An explosion of lava all around her body. I just wanted a protective sphere! What the fuck! She was dropped and gasped out of pain as the blunt impact with the ground bruised her tailbone. The ropes instantly incinerated, and she removed the gag entirely, wincing in pain at the exertion from her arm’s motion.

The young man screamed and collapsed to the ground. If he didn’t have emergency treatment, he would surely die. I said it perfectly! She hadn’t spoken any words in the spell that implied any sense of harm to others. I didn’t want that to happen!

“Ima git outta hir!” the other male voice said as she heard the scraping of metal on stone.

“Fucking bitch!” The woman yelled as she said an incantation. “Lathron en ethuil / dagor en garthûr / thangor lin.” Lyn recognized it instantly. A basic internal spell. One of the simplest taught to combatants to charge their blade with mana, enabling it to damage magic barriers and bypass some defenses.

Lyn rolled sideways as the blade stabbed into where she once was. The woman’s blade glowed with a ruddy brown light. Oh, she’s weak. The hero mana cores all were quite powerful, and their spells manifested in bright, vibrant colors. But normal, regular mana cores were dark and earthy in tone. This person she was facing off with had never improved their mana core – it was dark as mud. She slowly stood up, hissing in pain as her legs trembled. Those mana channels were, thankfully, the largest in the body – just like the muscles in the legs were some of the biggest. She could still walk, but running was out of the question.

“You bitch, you don’t even understand me, do you?” The woman lowered her blade into a fighting stance and Lyn instantly recognized the style.

You served in the Khrelarda Kingdom’s military. Lyn cracked a smile, only to double over and scream in pain as her mana core roiled once more. A red-hot poker seemingly stabbed her in the chest. The woman moved forward, and instinctively, Lyn threw up her stump – and cast a go-to, simple spell. “Thûl!” The mana channel opened and for a brief moment, Lyn could see the spectral outline of her hand still present. Even if the physical body was gone, the mana channel was still there. And from that phantasmal outline of her palm, a globule of lava flashed outward as the incantation for blast forced the mana into a physical form.

The warrior tried to parry the spell, but her blade melted in her grip as the burning mass impacted her torso, blowing her backward, end over end as she tumbled to a stop. She screamed in pain briefly from the initial impact, but death quickly took her.

The scent of charred flesh hit Lyn’s nostrils – a smell she was used to from battlefields. The burning scent brought back memories in a torrent that washed over her and made her gag in revulsion. Burning flesh was never a smell one got used to. Lyn looked at the burned, young Human man who was still alive – breathing faintly despite being covered in horrific burns all over his body.

His arm was missing – exploded from the heat like an overcooked sausage. Lyn leaned over and dry heaved as panic overtook her for a moment, the vivid memories of seeing people burned alive and exploding from intense heat of powerful spells surging through her thoughts.

But training reasserted itself, and she shoved the memories back. She would be able to process those…eventually. She knelt next to the young man. I can’t restore the arm. But you won’t bleed out. She breathed deeply and focused on her mana core. She could feel it bubbling and roiling inside of her. It craved…destruction. Her Scout mana core craved freedom, to be let loose and run wild. This mana core wanted to be unleashed. To devour and consume in roiling flames and bubbling magma. It has to be the Demonic Dragon’s mana core.

Even though every person had a mana core, most were not very powerful. And, unlike the regular citizens and civilians on Ghomar, the hero cores were limited to specific types of external spells and could only have their versatility increased by consuming other mana cores. I don’t even know if this core can heal. Lyn felt doubt cross her mind. Not knowing the capabilities of this mana core was dangerous.

I have to try. She might have the outside of a Duskari, but inside, she was still a hero. Lyn Rivers, the slayer of the Demonic Dragon. She calmed her breath. Just to be safe…nothing custom. Just a memorized incantation. “Nûtha en telath / a garthûr en neva / athân naeth galen lin / a beral en ithil enni / Do nâ, o virith suil / a tathar amnûr enni.” She finally listened to the sound of her own voice, and was caught off guard. It was higher pitched than before. A soprano that was gentle and almost naturally sultry. She had to admit to herself, it was better than her old voice that had gone hoarse from singing along to grunge bands with Misty in her friend’s room.

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The mana poured from her left hand, searing her mana channel once more and causing her to cry out for a moment in pain. The lava dripped down, covering his wound. The young man woke up, screaming as the lava seared into his flesh and dripped into his body cavity through the wound. His body thrashed for a split second before it went limp.

“Shit! I’m sorry!” Lyn said in shock. She felt a pang of sorrow for the young man she’d just unintentionally killed and sagged in her seated position. “…I’m sorry.”

She should have been able to perform a healing spell. Even a tiny, insignificant one. This core can’t heal. That sent chills down her spine. Her last core was very versatile, with a predisposition towards wind, air, and internal spells to augment speed and movement. She had always been able to do a healing spell in a pinch. But now it seemed that was off the table. I have to be a lot more careful. Injuries will be so much deadlier now. She’d never heard of a core that was completely cut off from a type of spell.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm the roiling mass in her chest. Trying to push the face of the young man from her memory, banishing his visage along with the rest of her repressed, PTSD inducing memories. “First things first,” She walked back to the throne room and to the dais. To the left she eyed her severed hand. To her relief, it was intact. She even gave a slight chuckle as, seemingly by muscle memory, it had curled into a middle-finger, flip-off gesture.

She grabbed it by the wrist. I’ll have to find a healer quickly. Or figure out a way to put this on ice. Looking down at her arm, she grimaced as the blood continued to drip in a steady stream. I need to tourniquet this. She went back to the still-warm lava and tried to cauterize her stump in the superheated mass, but instead of sealing the wound and charring it shut, it just felt like submerging the stump into a warm bath. Damnit. She went to the corpses and began to try and strip them of any cloth – but the lava had burned away or melted all of the fabric.

Her ears twitched as she picked up voices. Speaking in Arinol. They were distant. Just two voices; male and female. She went back to the hallway with the two corpses. One way was the direction the other man had run, but the voices were coming from the other direction. A solid stone wall. “Asul enni tirîl neledh îdhinen.” She had tried to use a basic divination spell, knowing that voices coming from behind the stone wall meant it was either an illusion or a trap door of some type. But nothing happened. Is this core only good for shooting lava at shit? She crouched behind some of the rubble, waiting to see what would happen.

When they had come down this corridor to fight the Demonic Dragon, the heroes had several spells active that allowed for seeing invisible objects, traps, inscriptions – every precaution that Thomas could think of. If he couldn’t see it when they first came here, then it must be mundane. A trap-door was most likely, but it could just be a false wall or even a mimic that was trained.

“I told you, no one is here, just the usual wall,” The male stated. The wall shifted and moved as Lyn got a look at him. His pale skin, dark, red eyes, and cropped, short, white hair marked him as a Duskari.

“Hush. You don’t want to alert them,” the female replied, following him right behind. She looked like what Lyn imagined she would look like in a mirror. The same as the male, except her long, white hair was tied up in a warrior braid. “What in the abyss happened here?”

Lyn cleared her throat and stood up. “Hi there,” she said in Arinol.

“Halt! Who are you?!” The female Duskari shouted as she leveled her spear. She and her male companion were dressed in thick, dark, leather armor with bits of chainmail connecting the main protective pieces. They had similar skin to hers – pale, ghostly white.

“One of you.” Lyn held up her left hand – holding the severed appendage. “Are either of you healers?” The male looked her up and down, cracking a lewd smile. Right. She looked down at her still nude body. I’d kick your teeth in for leering if I wasn’t hurt as badly.

The female raised her spear, “We are not healers. Where are you from?”

Lyn rifled through memories. She knew that they lived in Conclaves. Damnit. We destroyed a few. I should be able to remember one of their names…Glancing at the two, she could tell that they were tensing at her lack of immediate response. Fuck it. Just tell them something. “I was captured. I was able to escape.” She pointed to the corpses behind her, “They captured me.” Lyn felt a sense of malaise wash over her. Looking at her stump, she knew the blood flow had lessened, but she had lost a good enough amount. Unconsciousness was coming.

She leaned against the wall and slid down it partially. Damn blood loss. She was familiar with the sensation. First, she would be dizzy, then her heart would race faster, but eventually darkness would take her. You better help me, she thought towards these two. Help one of your own.

The male walked forward slowly and poked corpses with his spear. “She speaks true.”

The female nodded, “I am Vael. This is my brother, Gael.”

“I’m Lyn.” The world began to swim in her eyes.

The male looked Lyn up and down once more, “What Conclave do you hail from?”

“I don’t know,” Lyn muttered as her sight began to dim. “Just…please…”

Vael frowned. She pushed her hair out of her piercing, red eyes and nodded slightly. “You’ll come with us. Our Conclave is close.” She handed Gael her spear and rifled through a pouch at her hip, pulling out clean, white cloth and some thin twine. “Let’s get this bound.”

Lyn held up the stump and nodded as Vael applied the fabric coating and tourniquet. “I…” Lyn surrendered to the blackness.