[New Spell Unlocked: Healing Touch- Heal an ally on a 2:1 ratio to mana spent]

Gasping and coughing Typhis reentered this world with bloodshot eyes and true fear written on his face. With my eyes half open and being unable to move on the stone floors I studied him in earnest for the first time. He was leaning forward with shoulder length black hair moving smoothly back and forth with his head, bright green eyes split abnormally wide open after being woken up from his tryst with death. Throwing the breastplate off himself with a loud bang as it hit the floor, chest heaving while breathing like dehydrating ox taking its turn at a watering hole. A small smile reached the corners of my lips seeing he was fine, and I wasn't wrong about it being the right Typhis. He looked around in shock until his eyes settled on my unmoving figure laying still but breathing heavily. Training with Agatha made me quite accustomed to being completely depleted of mana, the mind breaking headache that came for most was little more than a dull annoyance from acclimation to the unique kind of pain. My bodies flow of energy was off the train tracks entirely making every movement excruciatingly painful, yet still having stamina I could still perform the actions if I needed to but, the consequences would be dire for my body.

Pushing off the stone slab he stayed staring at me with a look of utter confusion on his face, slamming his fist into the ground the stone seemed to eat his fist and when he pulled it back out, he held a small glass vial with blue liquid. Lifting my head up from the ground and onto his knee he poured it into my mouth. What felt like a small fire burned from within me until an explosion of energy cascaded over my entire body. Much like how focusing on your bodies internal energies it started at my feet then climbed onto my legs then torso, and finally reaching my head it felt like a supernova was being contained within my mind. Sitting up as if I had been electrocuted awake, we both took a second just to breathe while sitting on the floor.

"ffffuck it's cold", Typhis said shivering, and throwing his body back first onto the frost encrusted floor. "I truly can't believe you saved me, why? You are a Drukon?"

"Zarlessa is missing." I said coldly while standing up.

Explaining the situation while putting my newly upgraded breastplate on, Typhis crossed his arms and rubbed his forehead while pacing around the room. Grabbing my staff I stared at it in my hand, why did it feel like it was helping me when I was doing something I had never done before? Where did all that rage come from? I was never a fiery passionate person in my life, let alone to the point of blind anger. All of this wasn't adding up to me. Maybe the dungeon was getting to me, maybe it was something more? Sitting down with the staff laid over my legs I meditated focusing on the staff instead of myself. Usually one would focus heavily on introspection during-

Banging rising in volume on the ice wall blocking the room from the fucked up flesh hydra broke my focus momentarily. Typhis knew what was coming based on my crude description of the hunting creature comprised of salvaged body parts.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Typhis started as he continued his pacing while scratching his hair around aggressivley with his hand, showing signs of growing panic.

Scrunching my eye brows together in annoyance, "shut up, please?"

Feeling [Faith in the Eclipse] on my lap I ignored the physical sensation of the weapon the magic in the surrounding environment droned out the magic trying to commune from the staff. Separating the ambient storm of magic. Heavy amounts of death affinity mingled with life, feeling my own cold magics I searched deeper. A deep rage burned from within me a feeling of being betrayed and hated. Not just hated discriminated against, unfairness beaten into me over and over and over. Fire, yet twisted into a maelstrom of negative emotions. Burning and burrowing into my mind, becoming unbearable. I lifted a hand onto my hand and used my own cold mana to physically cool myself, [Faith in the Eclipse] started shaking while in my lap then I could feel it begin to rise. Bursting into a symphony of purple flames it swirled around me with intense magics attacking, then obliterating any other aspects and affinities in the room surrounding me. I could hear stone and dirt shifting but if I broke concentration for even a moment the flames would be left unchecked and explode. The world expanded around me as if I had gone through a worm hole in space, more akin to a black hole as I got sucked into a shadow scape.

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Wet warm rain fell onto my face. The headache was gone, and I opened my eyes. An unmoving grey colored grasping humanoid hand was inches from my face, startled I jumped backwards kicking mud out from under my feet making me slip as I tried to get away. Eventually I pushed enough mud under my shoes to give me a foundation to get to my feet. Staring in horror it was a statue of a man mid scream in clear terror, being stained red from the rain that fell overhead. Fissures littered the ground for kilometers around, dead grass and plants were scattered in grey patches anywhere the grounds were left unopened. Deep in the distance a forest with bare branches swayed aggressively in the winds of the storm. Seeing other statues of humanoids and animals some missing pieces of body parts or having random objects nearby.

"Welcome to my world..." a beautiful and familiar voice said directly behind me.

Zarlessa was sitting on a bolder with both legs hanging down one hand holding a black umbrella and her chin in her other hand, looking at the ground with a melancholy facial expression her eyes burning purple wildly reaching her umbrella and fanning out in all directions. She still wore the same dress she had on when she...

"You're okay!" I sprinted towards her and wrapped my arms around her, tightening with each passing second. Her eyes burned my cheeks, but I didn't care, I couldn't lose both Agatha and her. Luckily, she was here, she was alive. Zarlessa didn't move a muscle just stayed eerily still until eventually I felt her body convulse and she leaned her head into my neck and cried heavily. After an unnatural amount of time passed, she placed a hand on my arms and gently pushed me off her.

"After seeing this hellscape that's all you have to say?" with a giggle, "Thank you." she spoke while her eyes slowly extinguished, getting smaller in size with each passing second as she her stare bore into my soul.

The red rain softened turning into more of a light fog and slowly stopped entirely. Dark clouds stayed stubbornly overhead but lightened in color from nearly black to a light grey illuminating more of the wretched settings around us. Underneath her feet a single purple tinted rose tried to resist wilting, pedals losing and gaing color in real time as it fought a losing war for life. Taking a knee I tried to forcefully help the struggling fauna with the movement of my intentful magic. As if trying to comfort a crying child force only made the creeping grey death accelerate. Instead I lightly grazed the pedals with a gentle nudge of life mana letting the plant do the work, reacting well to the kinder approach it allowed the mana to be pushed into it sacraficing some of my own life magics into it bringing it to full bloom.

"How? This is my phylactery. And you shouldn't be able to use mana in here at all." She wiped her tears as she spoke, black mascara running down her face reminding me of maps displaying a river basin.

"Phylactery? I have a two-syllable limit with words, honestly at this point you should know that" Smiling from my own dumb joke I hoped would land well given the circumstances.

Her smile reaching her eyes, a deep rumbling sounded out from far below the ground. The world began to stitch the dirt and grass back in place giving the landscape a more natural appearance and shaking the world around us.

"Shut up dummy, c'mon let's get going" wiping the last tears from her face, the flames fully dying, revealing her deep blue colored, yet blood shot eyes.

staring at the sky and the still greyed land around us she poked my forehead with her index finger,

"Wake up Mr. Eclipse" bounced around in my head as I opened my eyes to see Zee arguing with Typhis.