“I honestly don’t think you would believe me,” Buck said, tears still fresh in his eyes from his tightened throat. His lungs were burning like never before, even the run over to the prison being mild in comparison. “I don’t even think I believe in myself.”

The small laugh he gave himself mustn't have been the calmest response to the Warden’s question but the man could not help himself. He was going madder with every second, his mind unable to function as it should have. Thoughts, desires, and everything in between was popping up like crazy. The idea that he had murdered those people in cold blood just to ensure his own survival… it didn’t feel real. Not when put together with a magical ant beaming thoughts into his head.

“Give me the answer you think you have and I will decide whether to believe it,” the Warden stated. Buck knew he had a name but he couldn’t remember it at the moment. Those cold, unfeeling eyes staring down at him were felt on his skin. Every part of his body was screaming out to him, begging him to crawl into the corner and hide from the man’s sight. Not that the Druid would ever think of doing such a thing, those very same corners able to hide too much from him. When he wasn’t looking, he could hear them making those dreadful noises, sharpening their teeth as they prepared to gouge out his flesh by the portion.

Calming breaths were had, many more allowed than Buck would expect. He tried to force his pulse to lessen, tried to make his mind as calm as it needed to be. Yet, most attempts were met with failure, his eyes only watering at these efforts. Not that it stopped him, those loud, drawn breaths being without pause for many a minute.

“I wasn’t killed in there but I thought I would at any moment,” Buck stated, eyes glazing over as his mind replayed the scene again and again. “They dragged me… I don’t know for how long. The wall we had destroyed to get further inside was passed at least. It’s… no, you won’t believe it.”

“This isn’t your choice to take, Druid,” the Warden warned, that feeling of silent observation slowly being replaced with power yet again. With each second, the act of breathing became slightly harder. Buck wanted to grasp at his throat but the chains in the table made it impossible for his hands to reach. “Tell me all you know.”

Eye contact was made, though Buck wasn’t able to see much more than a blur at that point. Sweat, dirt, and tears had filled his eyes right up in the past few days. The perfect sight had been lost a while back. Even with the most perfect of sight, however, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to look into those eyes for long. Instead, the words began to flow again.

“My head wouldn’t stop hurting for what felt like hours, days, even weeks. I don’t know how long it took in total, truly. I just know I lost track of time somewhere in between then and now,” Buck continued. He looked up to see if there was some reaction to his words but the only result from it was a look at the Warden’s face once again being like a stone wall. No emotion was shown, no inner thoughts were revealed with observation. The only thing sensed was the slightly tender air around him at the long pause, making the Druid quick to continue. “It felt as if something was trying to break in throughout it all as if something wanted to know every little secret I had. A knife was being shoved into my brain again and again and I just wanted it to stop but it never would, no matter how much I begged and screamed.”

Another long breath was had for a few seconds, Buck able to hear his own words becoming more mumbling than anything else. It would do no good to say it all without being understood. He just wanted help.

“But then it did stop and I heard a woman’s voice,” Buck said. That did cause a reaction, the Warden shifting in his seat as he leaned forward. The Druid barely noticed. “It said the weirdest things, hardly ever acting as if it spoke to me. The voice could hear me but it could also hear something else. Somebody else. I never saw who, though.”

“So you saw the woman?” The Warden inquired, that detail being more important than anything else. Buck had described his time of torture and a woman was more at the forefront of the man’s mind. Could he not see how much his hands shook as time passed?

“There wasn’t a woman,” Buck said, leaning back in reaction to the other man’s actions. The extra closeness made his body churn in pain as if it couldn’t survive the lessened distance. If he could have fled from the room, he was sure he would’ve. “There wasn’t any other breathing person in that cave.”

“But you saw something. Something living,” the Warden guessed. The man could have likely seen it from the Druid’s dead eyes, Buck reliving it all over again. Those appendages were more than capable of digging a hole right through his chest… It made him shudder in fear, a few glances around the room to check up on the corners again.

“Something that should have been dead before anybody had to look upon it,” Buck confirmed, his teeth gritted as he looked empty. “It was meant to be a large ant-like the rest of the dungeon inhabitants but it had mutated. It had fleshy tendrils on its back, more than capable of flexing them at its will. I saw them push through stone as if it was mere water.”

It had also softened his fall as he fell to the ground from nearly dying of blood loss. Or had it even happened? He knew little about what was truly going on inside that cave, only being sure that it was without equal anywhere else. The horrors he had felt were second to none. Even the pressure upon his neck and back were like small insects in comparison to those absolute blows inside his head.

“Just to confirm, this creature spoke to you in a woman’s voice while also speaking to another intermittently?” the Warden asked, clearly needing the detail repeated. Buck could only try and hold his laughter in at that.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Buck said, his blood rising in pressure with every moment passing. He couldn’t handle it all. If he had been able to use his magic at all, he would have flung the table to the side in the hopes that the action would have broken his neck. Even the thought of it made him try and manipulate his Mana-Core. The action made him gasp in pain.

“I have a hard time believing many things but most have turned out to be truths through the years,” the Warden reported. “That show of pain right there… I can only think you are hurt. Do you know how?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“It was just before I was allowed to leave,” Buck answered without a single pause. The pain had made him think back to it, making it more than easy to put it into words. “I felt a sharp pain in my back and then it just let me go. Walked away, left the exit wide and open. I just ran. I didn’t know what else there was to-”

Buck cut himself off as he saw the Warden rise from his chair and begin to walk beside the table. The feeling of the man getting closer made his eyes bulge in pain, the headache searing up to near-absurd levels.

“No! Get away,” the Druid shouted yet any attempts to stop the process were without effect, the Warden grabbing a hold on his neck within a moment. His leather top was pushed to the side, ripping several places to accommodate for the need for an exposed spine. “Stop it.”

“Sit still of your own accord or I will make you sit still in a more painful manner.”

A moment more was spent resisting before Buck settled down. Any attempt to break the hand around his neck met with failure, the strength in those fingers being more than anything seen before. What level was that man exactly? The low-level druid asked himself that as he tried to sit still, even as the nerves on his body screamed for escape.

A finger glided through on his back. With the last remaining bits of [Mana-Sense], Buck was able to deduce the Warden to be searching for something. Perhaps the wound that had been gained? It shouldn’t have been too hard to do. He could still feel it sting every few minutes, even when so many days had passed by. While Buck hadn’t seen it for itself, the wound should still have been obvious to the naked eye. So… why was he gliding the figure across so many places? What else was there to detect?

“Why did you choose to become a [Druid]?”

“What?” Buck had to utter, the man not quick enough to understand the shift in style. What kind of question was that?

“The reason behind your class. You chose to wield the forces of nature for your own purposes. Why?” the Warden queried, not stopping the search on Buck’s back. It was getting uncomfortable with how long it had gone on.

“I had the talent for it and it was better than becoming a mage,” Buck answered, not mentioning his longer career tending to animals more than anything. His experience with woodland creatures was perhaps not extremely varied but he knew more about a few species than most ever would in their lifetime. “When given the chance, I had to take it.”

The other possible choice was to starve to death on the streets, the cost of getting out into the forest too high for a smaller halfbreed. He managed, though only after doing many things he wasn’t proud of.

“It is a fine choice to make. Many of your kind have created the most wonderful creations through the ages. Your ability to weave nature into a weapon is like nothing I will ever see from another source,” the Warden stated before getting up. “But, I do not believe it was the smartest choice on your side. Have you ever noticed yourself being more… sensitive to the forces of the world?”

“Yes. Of course,” Buck had to answer. He had been born with that gift, after all. “It’s the gift that has allowed me to live for this long.”

“And it’s the curse that will cause you to not live for much longer.”

… At that moment, a leaf falling onto the forest bed could have been deafening in comparison to the sound emitted in that room. Buck’s mind was too tired and broken at that point to understand the words and the Warden was waiting for the reaction he had been expecting from the start.

“Explain,” was the only thing the half-dead Druid could say. He hated how much the description matched.

“Your oversensitivity is not just in your mind but in your body as well. Your blood, your heart, and everything in between are not kind to too much energy at once. And, for whatever reason, you have more than enough to kill you currently circling your inner organs. Your spinal cord is filled with [Dark Mana] to the point where I am surprised your back hasn’t collapsed yet.”

The words kept coming out of the warden’s mouth as the Druid couldn’t help but stare back. Death in the face of overwhelming odds wasn’t the way he had intended to go. Yet it also showed another memory come forth.

“It was the ant that did it!” Buck said as he put his hands atop the table with a hard hit. “It did something to me!”

“That is very likely if your previous statements were as real as you believe them to be,” the Warden stated. “One could also imagine that you were too close to the Core, exposing you to levels of energy that your body was never made to withstand.”

“No…” Buck looked into his hands, seeing the shaking. “No, you have to help me. Please, I’ve been feeling my body go more numb every day. You have to get somebody that can heal me from this.”

It was the entire reason he had fled to the prison, to begin with. He couldn’t heal himself, couldn’t cure the affliction he knew he had. But those with power surely could. They had the people that could set people back together. They could surely-

“That is not going to happen, I'm afraid,” the Warden said, the sound once again turning to a stop. “You, Druid by the name of Buck, have already been reported dead in an accident that included a highly esteemed noble. If I were to change the details around at this time, it would ruin this place. Decades of work taken away just to let a single one live. I can’t do that.”

“What-”

“You have a day or two more to live before the Mana reaches your heart. Maybe a week if you’re lucky,” the Warden stated, signalling for a guard to come in with a wave of his hand. Buck could only stare at him blankly. “Try to make peace with your life. After all, you have experienced more than many could ever dream of.”

Buck couldn’t even get his lips to move as he was dragged out of the prison. His entire plan to survive had ended up without luck. He was doomed to die of an affliction no [Enlightened] could cure.

…

Character Screen

Name:

Buck

Gender:

Male

Level:

12

Class:

Druid

Race:

Elf/Human

Title:

Mad One

Health:

34/120

H-Regen:

0.11/sec

Mana:

1/170

M-Regen:

0.12/sec

Stamina:

89/140

S-Regen:

0.13/sec

Basic Stats

Strength:

11

Wisdom:

16

Vitality:

11

Intelligence:

12

Dex:

13

Willpower:

9

Available points:

0

He was dying. His health wasn’t regenerating anymore. Mana had been at the bottom for days. His stamina was replenishing but never to an amount where he felt like he had any energy to spare.

But none of that mattered. Being dragged through the prison had twisted his leg, stopping Buck from running. Yet he could still walk. He could still move. And if those with the same mind as him weren't going to help him, there was only one place to look. It was time to retrace his steps.