I’m not sure I like how Raya and Joras are looking at each other. It’s giving me the impression that all of them agree that I’m up to something. Which I am, but that doesn’t justify those looks. All I want is for the person Lauren is devoting her life to actually to show up to help her. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Well, I also want Lauren cured, especially now that I have magic eyes to see just how bad it is. And she’s been keeping secrets.
The Affront is spreading throughout her body. Tiny tendrils of evil are creating a web siphoning off her magic and killing her at a snail’s pace. She’s a lot weaker than she’s been letting on. Joras looks at me with doubtful eyes before speaking up.
“Kira, I have my doubts about your goading of a God. They can be as vicious as they are generous. What will you do should Merciferus choose to strike down Lauren to spite you for your actions?”
I already know she won’t. In fact, I think the thing she finds most annoying about me is that she agrees with me. I tell Joras as much, but it doesn’t help with those doubts of his. Her entire thing is that she keeps people safe and healthy, and her own champion is dying because of a disgusting magic-eating soul disease. That has to be pissing her off more than I am. It’s like a direct insult against her very being.
We do need something more for this envenoming, though. We need a couple of balloons or pouches to hold the venom and make the needle fangs into pipettes. I explain the idea to Joras while carving it into the stones making up the street. His thinking brow indicates that he’s curious, and walking away without saying a word indicates that he’s rude, but has a plan.
“Raya, try using the magic sight and see what you can see when you look at Lauren up close.”
Raya jumps from the roof and bounces off my arm before landing at street level and sauntering right up to Lauren, getting way too into her personal space. As soon as Lauren expresses discomfort, Raya gets even closer, grabbing hold of Lauren’s arm and inspecting it with a keen eye.
“Can you see the lines, Raya?”
She confirms that she can, pulling out her dagger and making a cut in Lauren’s arm, trying to remove one.
“What the fuck, Raya?! That hurts!”
Instead of letting Lauren go, Raya tells her to take some of my magic and do some weird weaving, and Lauren actually does as Raya says. She still seems a little pissed, though, which is fair. Getting cut is not fun. The little stabby goblin continues inspecting the incision with remarkable focus.
“As if I have any idea how to do this... If I could learn mage spells, I would at least have some defensive spells...”
“You can do it, Lauren! I believe in you!”
“Thank you, Kira. It’s not like it matters all that much anyway. I’ve never had the luck to rely on something unreliable like this. I wish it were the solution, but I’ve already accepted my death.”
It’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t know that I can hear her, so I’ll just take the opportunity to push her to the ground with my face and reassure her. With my snout resting on top of her, I make sure she knows that it isn’t just her luck we’re relying on here, it’s mine as well. And I’m pretty lucky when I’m not making a mess of things.
“You’re so heavy, Kira...”
“Heavy with love for my friends.”
“No, literal weight... You’re crushing me...”
Raya joins in by lying on top of Lauren’s face, and we’ve got her now! She won’t escape the care and support of her friends!
It is taking some effort to keep her pinned just enough to not hurt her. I’m pretty sure the weight of my skull alone would be enough to kill someone. Getting off her, she keeps lying there with Raya covering her face. Raya turns her head to face me with a question.
“Kira, do you think we should try pushing some venom into a cut on her arm before Joras gets back? It looks weak enough to be affected by your regular venom.”
Before I get to reply, Lauren grabs hold of the goblin and throws the tiny figure away with all her might. Raya lands on her feet without much effort, much to the annoyance of Lauren.
I do agree with Raya, though. We should try something. To begin with, I nudge Lauren and tell her it’s okay to get up now.
“I can’t! Your damnable purring numbed my legs! And how did you know I was thinking about my bad luck?”
“When you were interacting with my magic, I could hear you, but it seems to have stopped now.”
She seems relieved, which I get. I’m not sure I would like someone reading my thoughts all the time. But it does bring us closer to understanding what’s going on with this mental link. It’s quite the advantage in a fight if we can just project our thoughts onto the other, leaving the enemy no way of knowing what we’re planning.
Raya is approaching Lauren with her hand drawn and a mean look in her eyes. She doesn’t seem concerned with Lauren’s worries about my mental prowess.
“Did you cast the sight magic, Lauren?”
Lauren confirms that she did, and Raya instructs her to look at her arm. It appears that both of them can see the Affront tendrils now. And then Raya gets bossy again.
“Kira, head to the ground and open your mouth so I can get some venom. I don’t want to climb all the way up there to get it.”
That does make sense. With my neck stretched, I’m like nine or ten Rayas tall. That does mean one terrible thing... I have to back up a little to lie down. With how fragile buildings are, I’m gonna have to be so careful with my tail. The dang thing has a life of its own at times, and walking backwards is definitely one of those times. And if I turn my head back to look where I’m going, my tail will want to swing in the opposite direction for balance. I’m not sure how I’ll do this...
I’m gonna have to do it without looking back! Keeping my nose pointed straight ahead, I take a careful step back, focusing on feeling anything I might bump into. Of course, Raya tries to sabotage me with idle chatter aimed at Lauren.
“Did you know she couldn’t walk backward?"
“No, and now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her walk backward."
I can walk backwards, dang it! It’s just that this is a very delicate situation... The piercing stares of those two tiny people fixating on me are making this even more difficult. With such unreasonable pressure, I focus my entire will on moving one of my hind legs and follow it up with one of my arms, shifting my weight with caution. I’ve done it! I’ve taken one step backward!
“See?! I can walk backwards! Screw the both of you!”
“Yeah, you really showed us with that one step.”
Yeah, Raya is getting a puff of punishment smoke for that. They’ve both got amused smiles going on, and just like that, this is gonna become their issue. Instead of trying to make room, I’m gonna take room by lying down and forcing them to move. Raya moves to a wall and Lauren is quick to get up and move away from my descending head. Turns out she’s not quite numb anymore.
With all of me lying down, Lauren and Raya move to my head and sit next to me. I’m curious to see whether Lauren is up for trying a little experimentation with her extremities and my venom. Raya seems quite eager to try, which should be a red flag for Lauren.
Raya brings up the subject of the magic sight again, and it turns out that Lauren did sort of maybe start getting the hang of it, but she blames me for distracting her, which is complete nonsense.
She gets to work trying the spell again, I can tell when Lauren pulls on my magic, and she does it in a different way than Raya. When Raya takes some of my magic, it’s like she grabs a handful and runs away with it without a care in the world, but Lauren is more cautious, reluctant, and she doesn’t quite bring it close to herself.
“Raya, tell Lauren how you use my magic. The two of you feel very different when you reach for it.”
“What do you mean? I just take some and make it do magic stuff.”
Okay, so not the best way to explain it, and Lauren isn’t looking all that impressed with the explanation. Raya demonstrates by creating a fire bolt in her hand and showing it to Lauren before snuffing it out by closing her hand. Watching it up close seems to confuse Lauren.
“That’s not... How did you just end the spell like that?”
“Just did.”
I’m beginning to suspect that Raya might not be the best magic instructor around. Which reminds me, where the heck is Joras? He’s been gone for a while and I have no idea why it would take this long to fetch a couple of waterproof pouches.
“Raya, that’s not normal. To cancel a spell, you would have to dissipate the magic. You can’t just close your hand around it like that.”
“Sure, I can.”
To prove her point, she does it again, and I can’t tell whether Lauren is flabbergasted or frustrated at Raya’s nonchalant approach to magic. It does seem like Raya has a different approach to the whole magic thing that might be useful for Lauren to learn. If she could learn to use Raya’s fire bolts, then that would go a long way toward having some magic to protect herself. Especially because those fire bolts can hurt me.
I’m not sure this magic practice is a good idea while Lauren has some illness eating magic, so I’m gonna cut this short. Instead, I suggest that we try that venom thing on an arm while we wait for Joras. They seem to agree, though the levels of enthusiasm vary quite a bit. Holding her arm out, Lauren lets Raya make a cut where she sees one of the tendrils and then grabs some venom from my mouth and rubs it into the wound. If I hadn’t been assured that germs weren’t an issue, I would have thought that this would be a ticket straight to infection town.
I’m not sure how well it’s going because Raya keeps blocking my line of sight, but judging by her enthusiasm, it seems to be working.
“It’s like the Affront is pulling away from Kira’s venom. I’m gonna keep trying stuff.”
I wanna see, though! Making my displeasure known, Raya scoots to the side a bit, letting me watch her stabby misadventures.
It doesn’t seem like Lauren’s consent is all that important to Raya right now. The little goblin just keeps stabbing away at Lauren’s hand and rubbing venom in the wounds, but from the looks of it, it’s very targeted, starting at the tips of her fingers and moving toward the palm, except for the pinkie. Raya seems to be going with my plan on her own. Isolate it somewhere and cut it away, which means Lauren is about to yell at Raya.
With almost all of the affront from Lauren’s wrist and hand isolated in her pinkie finger, Raya is ready to carefully cut it- She bit it off...
“What the fuck, Raya?!”
Not one to waste time, Raya spits out the small bit of finger, and as soon as it hits the ground, it explodes into a small metallic tree of evil. Raya is quick to ignore both Lauren’s yelling and my consent when she jams both her hands into my mouth and scoops up some more venom to douse the Affront tree.
And it seems to work, the tree is too weak to handle even a little venom and starts crumbling. I feel like I shouldn’t be here for this. If some of that affront gets a hold of me, it would have a ridiculous amount of magic to grow from. And I might be a little afraid of the evil metal that can knock me unconscious by shedding particles into the air.
Instead of wasting time by listening to Lauren’s valid complaints about losing a finger, Raya pulls out a very small waterskin and douses the stump of Lauren’s finger. She even rubs the venom away, much to Lauren’s displeasure.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
With the wound cleaned, Lauren gets the opportunity to heal her hand from the absolutely ridiculous amount of stab wounds. Her hand looks like she went straight from slapping a porcupine to high-fiving a cactus. That seems vicious, and I’m impressed by how little yelling was going on.
“Gimme your arm so I can remove some more, Lauren.”
Raya is enjoying this a bit too much, and I think Lauren knows because she is not up for more stabbing and cutting. Instead, she suggests we just wait for Joras to return, which I’m kinda for. It’ll also give us an opportunity to see how it spreads after being removed.
“Lauren, try taking some of my magic like Raya does and using it to heal your hand, but you should know that my healing ability hurts.”
“I’m familiar with pain, Kira.”
I feel a small amount of magic disappear as Lauren concentrates on her spell and prayer. As she finishes her chant, she screams in pain as her finger regrows. Yep, that’s my healing alright.
Whatever amount of magic she took, it wasn’t enough. I can feel her spell draining more magic to regrow her finger, so that’s really good to know. It won’t just fizzle out and leave half a finger with nerves exposed. Though the other side of it is that it could keep draining me to heal too much. We’ll have to explore that today.
“Is... Is that what you go through when you heal, Kira?”
She deserves a nudge for worrying about me. But I can’t tell whether it’s the same or not, since pain is so subjective, so I’ll just reassure her a little.
“Not that bad, so you did really well, and I’m proud of you, Lauren.”
“Are you proud of me, too?”
“Of course, Raya. You’re the best stabbing herbalist around.”
Raya beams with pride as Lauren takes a moment to just sit there, breathing heavily. The bad news is that she will have to go through more of that once Joras- Oh, he’s here and he’s running. He’s quick to ask what’s going on, what happened, and whether Lauren is okay, and when she waves him off, he settles down and collects himself.
“Hey Joras, do you think Lily could cook for us today? I wanna try those dishes from her homeland and I’m sure Lauren would like a hearty meal once this is done.”
“I’m sure she’d like that, but we should focus on Lauren for now.”
Where is Lily anyway? Lauren has been yelling and screaming for a while now, and nobody has come to check on her, that’s a little rude. If they’re assuming that I know what I’m doing, they’re sorely mistaken.
“Joras, how come you still have those burn marks from my magic, but Lauren doesn’t, and Raya uses my magic for every little trivial thing she can think of?”
“No, I don’t!”
“Raya, have you or have you not used my magic to heat up your dinner?”
“Shut up, that wasn’t trivial. Cold stew isn’t good.”
For some reason, Lauren looks at Raya with envy. I’m getting the impression that she wants my magical stew-heating powers too.
“To answer your question, Kira, I’m not sure. To be entirely honest, I haven’t given it much thought, as I’ve frequently had other things to see to. Now, I believe we have what we need to begin this procedure.”
Before things get away from me, I bring up my worries about the affront metal affecting me again, and after a moment, Joras seems to agree. He doesn’t agree with the experimentation Raya and Lauren have been up to as he shouts at them about how irresponsible it is and all the things that could have gone wrong, and demands to know everything they’ve done so far.
I don’t feel like getting yelled at, so I get up and sneak away quietly. They won’t notice me leaving.
“Kira, you’re not getting away that easily! You should not have encouraged this behavior! It was reckless and dangerous! And are you really trying to sneak away by stepping over us? We’re gonna notice the sun disappearing!”
His ranting is cut short by Raya stepping in to help me.
“She can’t walk backward, Joras.”
“I can walk backwards, dang it! Stop saying backward! The streets are just really narrow here, and I don’t want to break things.”
She did succeed in distracting him, and now he’s got his thinking brow going as he no doubt thinks about how to make my life easier.
“Enough of that. Everyone gets up now. Raya, fetch the concentrate from my lab. Kira, carry Lauren and go to the north gate and wait for us. We need to do this outside of town to prevent any contamination here.”
That’s smart, and since I’m such a responsible person, I’ll get right to my task. Grabbing Lauren by wrapping my tongue around her waist and ignoring the yelp, we head toward the north gate and prepare to wait for Raya and Joras to join us.
“Kira, please. This is embarrassing.”
“Sorry, Lauren. I can’t reply right now, since I need my tongue to verbalize, and it’s currently busy.”
For some reason, that earns me a few pats as she chuckles at me. Our trip through town goes off without a hitch, and the people around us stare for a bit, some sharing jokes about Lauren’s current predicament. She seems to have resigned herself to her fate.
“Do you think Merciferus might show up? I think it would be nice if she did.”
“I don’t know, Kira. It would be unusual for her to do so, but unusual seems to be a daily occurrence with you.”
She makes it sound like I’m disruptive or something. I may have been a little disruptive. But I’m not the one who started it, so I say the adventurers and Frosty were the disruptive ones.
Enough of that, we’re at the gate and I just need to wait for folks to get through so there’s room for me to go through. Much like last time I was here, I have to tug in my limbs a little to pass through, but I manage to do so without much difficulty. I’m great at not breaking things!
We can’t stay here blocking the gate though, so we’re off to somewhere a bit from here! We still need Raya and Joras, so we can’t just leave, but I don’t want to block all the merchants from entering or camping out here. A lot of the wagons smell very enticing and it’s so tempting to go have a look at what they’re transporting, but I know it’s rude to just stick my head into someone's wagon like that.
Yes, sticking my head into the wagon is rude... Sneaking closer to one on the outskirts of the trade encampment, I stick out my Lauren-carrying tongue and push her into the covering tent of the wagon.
“Kira, stop this! What are you doing?!”
“Lauren, tell me what’s in there! I’m so curious! It smells really good!”
“I can’t tell. How is that important? You realize I’m trespassing, right?”
Well, if she can’t tell, then we can’t do anything about it. I’ll just have to sate my curiosity somewhere else. Like finding out who’s shouting for some old man, telling him that someone is messing with his wagon.
“Who’s back there?! Don’t make me get the belt!”
A gruff old man comes stomping around the corner and stares straight at Lauren and me, but mostly at Lauren. She’s in trouble now!
“Run, Lauren! He’s getting the belt! You shouldn’t have gone into his wagon!”
He isn’t getting the belt, as it turns out. He seems to have frozen somewhat, and Lauren is too busy laughing to run.
“How am I supposed to run, Kira? You’re still holding onto me, and I can’t reach the ground.”
To prove her point, she squirms a bit, but that’s nowhere near enough to get loose from my mighty grasp.
“You caught them, old man, gonna get your belt?”
“Uh... No... I think I’ll overlook it this time...”
The people behind him seem to find his response quite amusing as they begin talking about how it’s a rite of passage to be frightened by me. I’m not sure I’ve scared that many people, so it must be an exclusive club. Good for him.
“No worries, old man. Fearsome beast she is, but no trader has been harmed by her that we know of.”
He seems pretty confident that he’s speaking the truth as he struts up to me and pats me on the arm. I have to mess with him, but how?! I can’t let him get away while I give this conundrum a think, so grabbing him, I hold him above the ground to prevent his escape.
Oh! I’ll put him in the wagon, then he can get the belt! The old man is quick to pick up on what I’m doing as he pulls his belt from his trousers and approaches the wagon. As soon as the younger guy climbs out, he’s assaulted by light slaps of leathery discipline from the old man shouting about entering other people’s wagons without permission.
My fun is interrupted by Joras arriving with a stern look on his face. He points toward the north with a surprisingly bossy finger, and he’s right, we should get moving and sort this stuff out. Rather than linger here and let Joras get upset, Lauren and I join him on the trek further north to get some distance from the town. I don’t see Raya, so I use our mental link to ask Lauren to ask about her.
“She will join us soon. She’s bringing the concentrate with the help of a guard. Kira, you understand that Lauren will die if this continues, right? We can’t afford to keep delaying this.”
I do understand, but rushing can also be fatal, and I don’t want to lose a friend because I couldn’t wait five more minutes. And draining the fun out of Lauren’s life to gamble on a maybe doesn’t sit well with me. I want her to have had fun if she’s going to die. If I were dying, I’d want my last days to be spent having fun, not wallowing in misery. I tell Lauren to tell him as much, but she doesn’t, she just pats me some more.
As we reach a spot to Joras’ satisfaction, I release Lauren gently as she struggles to balance, mumbling something or other about needing to adjust to no longer being held in the air by a slimy appendage.
Joras starts preparing by unfolding a large blanket for her to lie on as he tells her to strip and lie down. She doesn’t seem to mind as she gets to work, and when she lies down, he opens a small wide-mouthed bottle and starts using the liquid inside to draw on her body.
Finishing up that part, he pulls out two large, thin sticks. Oh! Those are the fangs! He really got to work on them. They look like large chopsticks but hollow. I’m curious what the plan is, so asking him, he starts explaining.
“We will fill the needles with venom and inject it into these areas. The venom should then permeate her body and force the affront to retreat into one body part. And instead of amputation, which the three of you seem so keen to do, we will attempt an extraction instead. Which should be far less painful.”
Okay, so that does sound like a better plan, but at least we know that amputation works. And turning on my magic eyes again, I give her hand a look. As far as I can tell, the affront hasn’t regrown in the area, so that leaves whether she can use magic all that well. We’ll find out soon, I guess.
Just as I’m wondering where he’ll start, he pulls out a knife and grabs Lauren’s face. She just tolerates it as he starts shaving the sides of her head. He might not be a hairdresser, but he’s doing a good job of giving her an even cut. And it really suits her, I might have to encourage this hairstyle in the future.
As he finishes up her haircut, Raya finally joins us, looking somewhat tired from all the heavy lifting. The concentrated venom has been stored in a barrel as large as Raya, and it’s making me hope I don’t drool that much. If that’s the result of concentrating the venom from like three or four gathering sessions, then I produce a lot of the stuff, geez.
As soon as she puts down the barrel, Joras cracks open the top and dips a bowl into the contents, pulling out the viscous fluid. Raya steps up with some crude scissors and cuts the fluid, so it doesn’t empty the bowl again. Geez, that’s gross.
Now he’s picking up one of the needles, attaching one of the small bladders to it. With a few magic words, the bladder starts inflating, and as he dips it in the bowl, it sucks up the venom, filling the needle. Raya then cuts the string again and they’re ready for the first injection.
“Are you ready for this, Lauren? I don’t know what it will be like, but I have no doubt that it’ll be painful.”
She nods, and he places the bevel of the needle against the side of her head and pierces the skin. She manages to hold back most of a wince as he starts squeezing the bladder, injecting a bit of venom. I feel Raya pull on my magic as she starts instructing Joras on where the affront is moving.
From the sounds of it, it’s working, but Lauren is in obvious pain. Raya and Joras continue to work together to inject her at the right spots, and it looks like his little painted spots have been spot on so far. It seems he had an idea of how effective the venom would be.
To facilitate the extraction of the affront, Raya makes an incision into the bottom of Lauren’s foot and leaves her dagger in the wound. It goes against everything I’ve learned about sanitation, but that just goes to show how little I know about things here.
As they finish up with her head, Joras remarks that the most dangerous part is done, but that leaves the most tedious part. As they prepare to proceed, Joras inserts a needle in her chest, just around her heart, and pushes more venom into her, explaining that it will help protect her heart as the affront will try to evade it instead of gathering at it.
Leaving the needle in, he uses the other to get working on her hands, starting with each finger and working his way up her arms until Raya tells him that they’re clear. I want to know what’s going on, and I could see it if I used my magic sight, but I’m afraid I’d intervene to protect her instead of allowing the two surgeons to proceed. It’s taking so much effort to not push them away from her whenever she screams in pain. Don’t they have freakin’ anesthesia?! Give her all the drugs!
Watching Raya and Joras work is impressive to a degree that I’ve never seen before. Every little gesture seems to mean something that the other understands, and they’re so synchronized.
Raya scratches tiny marks into Lauren’s skin with her sharp nails, and Joras follows it up by jabbing a needle into her, injecting even more venom. Even when they refill the bowl, they both just do what has to be done without communicating, at least not in a way that I can see or hear. They're working too well for me to participate, and I’m feeling a little envious. Focus, Kira! Lauren is the center of attention, not your negative emotions!
Lauren has been doing an amazing job of toughing this out, so she deserves a nudge. She raises a tired arm to pat me as I brush her face with mine.
“Thank you for staying, Kira. I know you’re afraid of vile steel...”
It’s true, I am, but I’m not leaving a friend behind like this. I can’t really do anything, I can’t even stop growling at Joras and Raya, but staying by my friend’s side is something. At least I’m managing to keep it at a low rumble, rather than outright predatory growling.
Judging by the progression of the needles, they’re pushing the affront further down her body and they’re working on the lower half of her abdomen. That’s where a lot of the tasty organs are, so they’d better be careful, those are very important.
Joras pulls out the needle near her heart and hands it to Raya, who moves to the opposite side of Lauren and starts injecting venom mirroring Joras. They’re concentrating so much to get it right, and Raya continues to give Joras instructions as she works on her side. Lauren is looking thoroughly hurt, with needle marks covering most of her body. I have no idea how she’ll heal this, considering my venom has a habit of interfering with healing magic.
The smell of rot starts permeating the air and as I look down, the affront has begun leaving her body through the wound in her foot, but that leaves her other foot to become flooded with the stuff. I have a plan for that, maybe. Pulling my head away from Lauren, I move it to my belly where Lunch struck me with his magic and with a careful tooth, I manage to snag one of my ruined scales and rip it off. It falls to the ground and looks quite sharp, so picking it up, I hand it to Raya who gives me a look before stabbing Lauren’s other foot with the jagged scale.
She barely manages to pull her hand away as the affront bursts out of Lauren, creating a web of the stuff. It would be pretty if it weren't so gross and evil.
Joras and Raya have been at this for hours, and Lauren’s breathing has become shallow as her skin turns pale. I bring up the possibility of blood loss being an issue, but Joras tells me that we can’t do anything about that, we have to keep working on this and hope for the best...
I don’t like that... Merciferus, I’m sorry for bothering you, but Lauren really needs your help. I think she might die without it, and I don’t know how to save her. I’ll do what I can to pay back your help if you just show up this once.
Lauren looks at me with a smile before speaking.
“You’re in trouble, Kira. Mermer is gonna kick your ass for teasing her...”
What? She seems delirious, but she seems to be having fun as she laughs at me, repeating that I’m in trouble with a singsong voice. It’s a little ominous, and I’m not sure I like it. Joras and Raya glance up at me before shrugging and returning to their work.
If I had hair, I’m pretty sure it would be standing right about now.
“What my dear champion means to say, you insolent dragon, is that I will demonstrate why the people of this world revere the Pantheon. And why those who stand against us fear us.”
Ah, crap. I don’t like that last part.