Progress was slow. The trail was difficult to follow and Yosh claimed it was a miracle that there was even a trail left at all. And while it was not a particularly dense forest, it was enough to make travel even slower. The small amount of gear they carried was their only saving grace. The only cumbersome thing any of them carried was bedrolls.

It also became quickly apparent to Helianna that Yosh’s tracking capabilities far surpassed hers. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, she constantly bothered him with questions and asking for pointers. At first, he helped her, showing her some new things, but it was quickly proved that the biggest difference between them was practice. Instead, he often prodded her when he found evidence, trying to get her to notice.

Eventually however, he began to clam up. Not wanting to lose the impromptu instruction, she asked him about it. In response, he said he’d happily continue to help train her, if she paid him. It took almost no time for her to agree and they quickly decided on a price. Five silvers a day was fairly expensive, but he insisted it was fair due to the level that he was training her at. She didn’t think it was worth it, but as always, it wasn’t her money.

The trail took them several days into the forest and one night, Yosh got curious and asked Helianna why she was here. Once she explained her fake story, he insisted that she show her combat skills in a spar with Eann. Eann didn’t want to agree, but after some wheedling, Yosh managed to convince him that it would be fine. Yosh could keep a loose watch while they sparred. Of course, Helianna made a stipulation that they don’t use magic, claiming that she ‘didn’t want to get too flashy and give themselves away’.

After some quick preparation, they started sparring, and she instantly proved her worth. She had been expecting more of a fight, but she repeatedly trounced Eann, to the point where he quickly gave up and refused to spar her. Yosh and Helianna had a laugh at his expense and they turned in for the night.

It was the very next day when they found their quarry. They had refused to use a fire the entire trip, which had proven useful as they had been able to see his in the distance without being discovered. The past few nights however, his fire had been missing so Yosh and Helianna were unable to use it to gauge his distance. This loss combined with the tracks still looking old, they were caught by surprise.

Yosh had been in the front and Helianna had slept poorly the previous night so she was flagging in the back. Suddenly, the entire forest below them became slick with a sheet of ice and they all shifted, trying to identify the attacker. A rain of sharp icicles whistled towards them, fortunately coming from directly in front. Despite being able to see them coming, Yosh was unable to react quick enough and several embedded themselves in Yosh’s gut and arms, which were blocking his face. He immediately fell from the onslaught and started crawling away.

A small burst of fire erupted from Eann as he tried to counteract the icicles, but they weren’t enough and he suffered several wounds. Helianna was of course unharmed, but let herself fall and hid herself in the surrounding bushes. Out from behind a large gnarled tree in front of them came a tall, yet portly tijatan, something Helianna didn’t know was possible. She had heard Eann describe him this way, but was still surprised. He was covered in sweat and had a hand outstretched.

“You assholes really want it that bad?!” he yelled at Eann. “Well you can have it!”

The air around him immediately decreased in temperature dramatically as he pulled his hand back towards his body and cradled it with the other. Eann shot a weak flame towards the man, but it failed to reach him, petering out as it entered the tijatan’s aura of cold. The man visibly tensed and the aura condensed into a layer of frost covering his body.

Seeing he was unable to do any real damage, Eann tried to retreat behind cover, but found the layer of ice still coating the ground preventing him from reaching it in time.

Helianna saw all this happening from the side of the battlefield where nobody had noticed her sneak off. She now had a dilemma on her hands. Jolan was clearly charging up another large attack entirely focused on Eann, which would be his last major attack. Icing the floor and the opening attack had clearly drained the tijatan and he could barely hold the current attack together. It could be strong enough to kill Eann, but it might not. Also, with Eann trying to avoid it, the attack could completely miss. She was in a location where she could easily step out between them and block any attack sent at Eann, but she was not close enough to reach Jolan and stop him from sending it. She had to choose whether she would risk Eann’s life or block the attack and reveal herself as a null.

Revealing herself in this situation would do far more than simply losing the element of surprise. First off, she would immediately implicate The Academy, which they didn’t particularly want. Although, thinking about it a moment longer, she decided that if anything, that may actually be a slight positive, considering her stance on The Academy.

However, her relation to The Academy would be revealed. Her only mission so far had kept her hidden. For a second, she thought that since she was using a different name and face, she’d be able to get away with it and nobody would know it was her. She immediately realized that it didn’t matter, however. She was one of the only null agents that left The Academy on missions. Her disguises likely didn’t matter in the long term if she was planning on leaving The Academy the second they learned she was null.

Being related to The Academy could cause her significant issues in the long term. When she eventually left, trying to join organizations that are anti-academy or just wary of them could prove incredibly difficult. It always would have been, but being so easily exposed for an assassin-like figure that could do infiltration could damage her possibilities significantly. Of course in the short term, revealing she’s null wouldn’t be ideal either, but the problems there don’t compare much to the long-term effects so she made her decision.

It wasn’t worth it.

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She continued to sneak around the battle site as Jolan concentrated his attack. The moment he released his magic, she rushed him. In the blinding blast of ice and the immediate daze that resulted in using such a powerful attack, he never saw her coming. She snapped his neck in an instant and he fell to the ground, paralyzed and dying. She knew he wasn’t dead yet, but he was for all intents and purposes. She then ran back to Eann as fast as she could. Instantly she noticed the snow that had come from nowhere and was already melting on the ground. She hadn’t had a chance to see what Jolan did, but clearly it was powerful.

She found Eann lying on the ground, wheezing in pain. He had clearly been hit by some of it, but given that he was alive and conscious, she figured it was only a glancing hit. She took a moment to analyze him and quickly realized what the tijatan had done. He had likely sent out a cone of effect that had frozen anything in range in an instant. If that had hit Eann fully, it would undoubtedly have killed him within minutes, ice crystals from his frozen blood rupturing every cell in his brain. Instead, one hand, nearly an entire leg, and the other leg from the knee down were already a deep purple.

She had heard of attacks like this, and they were typically only used by the desperate who would risk damaging their magical reserves to perform it. Pretty much the only people who could do it without damaging themselves were ithrax. She looked around and saw that the magical ice in the environment was quickly fading, but she knew it may not matter for Eann.

The tissue in the places that froze would be damaged beyond repair. Additionally, the blood would have ruptured itself and become unusable, flooding his body with bad blood when unthawed. And lastly, the extreme cold would likely transfer through him and force his body to fight off hypothermia at the same time. As horrible as it was, the best way to keep him alive was to amputate.

“Shit. Eann, we’re going to need to amputate, it’s the only way!”

“Don’t you fuckin dare!” he yelled. “I refuse to become an amputee!”

“Are you insane? You’ll die!”

“Good!” he yelled back.

His response stunned Helianna for a moment, but she shook it off.

“I’m saving your life whether you want me to or not!” He tried to stand up and take a swing at her with his good hand, but with one leg barely functioning and the other completely useless, he lost his balance. With little effort required, Helianna delivered a blow to his chin, knocking him out… cold. She chuckled to herself. She usually wasn’t one for puns, but it felt right to her right now.

She took nearly a full minute to brace herself for what she had to do. She had already killed people and dealt with blood. She had learned how to do emergency aid and limited amputation. Putting it into practice was something different. She took a nearby stick and put it in his mouth if he clenched from the pain. She didn’t need shattered teeth added to his list of wounds. It took nearly half an hour to properly set up all three tourniquets and she hoped she had been fast enough to prevent too much damage from spreading. The only thing she had to amputate him was a machete that they brought.

She tied him down, grateful that Eann had carried some rope. She wasn’t sure why he had taken it, but she wasn’t complaining now. Eann quickly woke up due to a lack of painkillers but couldn’t resist thanks to the rope. Even through her cutting, the stick crunched as he bit down on it. Removing his hand was easy. His legs… were a bit more difficult. During the process, Yosh returned from wherever he had crawled off and promptly threw up. She quickly explained what she was doing while she was working and while he didn’t stop her, he promptly left.

Eventually, she was done. She was covered in blood and sweat, and she was tired from the exertion. She looked at Eann, who had passed out half way through, likely due to the pain. She checked his pulse and it was there, albeit weak, which was to be expected. Three amputations was likely too much. If he died of shock, she wouldn’t be surprised. She checked the tourniquets again to make sure he didn’t bleed out, and they were holding, despite the rigorous ‘surgery’ she had just performed. She cleaned his wounds as best she could and wrapped them with spare cloth, but knew it was far from optimal. While this had been his only chance at survival, she didn’t think it was likely he’d make it. If she killed him while trying to save him, then so be it.

She finally collapsed against a tree, thinking about what had happened. The first thing she thought about was the mission. She looked at the man that had started this, and suddenly remembered that she was supposed to take the dungeon heart from him. She stumbled over and rummaged through his pockets, not finding anything useful. Trying to avoid thinking about what else had happened, she searched around, looking for the man’s camp.

Despite her attempts to distract herself, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. She had just performed a brutal and gruesome surgery on an unwilling patient that likely would have died either way. Since when had she been able to do that? Not physically, but emotionally. That just didn’t seem possible, but it had been her. She looked down at her hands, still covered in the man’s blood.

Not only had she performed the surgery, but the idea of his death didn’t really bother her for some reason. Of course, she had tried to save him, but she just felt numb. She thought about the fight leading up to it and came to a horrible realization. She had a choice to save him. To easily remove the risk of his injury and death, but had chosen not to. It wasn’t even for the greater good or anything. She had chosen significant risk of another man’s death over the possible risk of her own future trustworthiness.

Her hatred toward The Academy grew. They had turned her into this. A monster that cared only for herself. Soon, she would be striking out on her own and have to deal with what she had become under their tutelage. She hated them because she knew she was in the wrong and couldn’t find it in herself to care.

She was shaken out of her raging thoughts when she stumbled onto a camp. It was fairly simple but surprisingly nice for a single person and she wondered if he had set this up before attacking the dungeon. She put it out of her mind and rummaged through the camp. It didn’t take long to find the fist sized heart and she pocketed it. Realizing there was an opportunity here, she took the bloody machete and cut his tent to pieces. She picked up the large strips of cloth and on her way back to Eann, she grabbed some sizable sticks on the way.

There, she found Yosh, who had apparently buried Eann’s missing limbs while she was gone. He turned to her with red rimmed eyes.

“You’re a monster.”

“Maybe,” she said as she shrugged. “But it was his only chance at living, even if it’s still slim. Now help me make a stretcher and let’s get out of here so that he might have a chance.”

Using the tent and sticks she had picked up, they made a stretcher and promptly started working their way out of the woods carrying Eann. Despite carrying him, it didn’t take them much longer than it did on the way in, much to their surprise. They exited the forest slightly less than a week later after the battle, but they were too late. Eann was dead.