19 – A Messy Situation

“Hey,” Ward swallowed a gulp of water, “you think it’s a good sign that we found some stairs leading up? Everything’s been down so far.”

Grace walked over to the narrow, tarnished copper steps and tapped her bare toes on the first one. “Seems like it might be a good sign.” She turned to him and frowned. “How long will you make me wait to watch you open that chest?”

“That little copper box?” Ward chuckled, enjoying teasing her.

She scowled and stared at him for a minute. “God, you’re filthy.”

Ward sputtered, almost losing some of his precious water. “Excuse me? I just crawled through hell! Hey, seriously, though, when you say ‘God,’ are you—”

“Ward, I don’t know anything more about God, gods, or the afterlife than you do. When I say things like that, I’m just speaking like all the humans I’ve hung around with for the last few decades. Okay?”

“Right. Well, you know, I figured I’d ask.” Ward stuffed his water bottle back into his pack and then laboriously clambered to his feet. “All right, let’s see what we’re dealing with here. He stepped over to the little shoe-box-sized chest and squatted down, peering at it from every angle. “I’m no Nevkin, but I don’t think it has a trap.”

“I don’t see anything suspicious either,” Grace spoke right into his ear, her hot breath tickling it and sending shivers down his spine.

“Jesus, Grace! Ever heard of personal space?”

“I’m a devil living in your head . . .”

He shuddered again, then turned back to the chest. “Let’s see here.” He flipped up the little latch, then carefully lifted the lid, peeking through the gap as it widened. When he saw what was within, he flipped the lid all the way open. “Huh.” Nothing sat within save one small bottle, probably about eight ounces worth of white, milky fluid inside. “You shitting me? A bottle of milk?”

“Don’t be a dummy. Just because it’s white doesn’t make it milk. This might be it! This might be a refinement elixir!”

“Refinement? That’s what you were hoping I’d find, right? Something to make me better at dealing with mana?”

“That’s right—something to improve your vessel.”

“Okay.” Ward gingerly wrapped his fingers around the bottle and lifted it. “Let’s see if there’s any kind of label.”

“Careful!” She hovered close, holding her hand beneath his as if she could catch the bottle if he dropped it.

Ward scowled. “Would you relax? I’m not suddenly going to have butter fingers just ‘cause—Oof!” He grunted and stumbled, pretending to fumble the bottle. Grace screamed and, in a panic, waved her hands around near the ground, where it looked like he was about to fall. “Oh, good grief! Relax!” He laughed, standing up straight, bottle firmly in hand.

“You asshole!” Grace leaped up, the fire in her eyes flaring brightly as she scowled.

“Okay, let’s see here.” Ward carefully rotated the bottle. It was corked and sealed with something like blue wax. As he spun it in his fingers, he found that the wax had been stamped with a fanciful, curlicued ‘R’ on one side. “R for ‘refinement’?”

“We can hope!”

“Huh. What if it’s ‘R’ for ‘regression’? What if it turns me into a caveman?”

“What difference would there be?” Grace smirked, folding her arms over her chest.

“Proud of yourself? I handed that to you.” He pondered the little bottle again. “What do I do? Just chug it?”

“That’s actually a good question.” Grace stepped closer to him, peering at the wax seal on the bottle. “Nothing to do but try, I guess. This room seems pretty safe. The stairs go up a long way, and I can’t imagine anyone sneaking up on you through that tiny, awful tunnel.

“Yeah, all right.” Ward started dragging his thumbnail through the wax around the cork, trying to peel enough away so he could grip the stopper. After he’d chipped most of it off, he seized the cork between his incisors and twisted the bottle, tugging until the cork started to slip free of the glass.

“Wait!” Grace grabbed his arm. “You should sit down before you drink it. I don’t know what it will be like, but you might faint or something.”

“Faint?” Ward snorted. “I doubt it. I’ve drunk some pretty strong stuff in my day.”

“Oh, brother.” Grace sighed and buried her head in her hands. “Why me? Why did I get such an oaf for a host?”

“You chose me, remember? Anyway, relax.” Ward turned, then sat on the second step of the copper stairs. “Happy?”

“I guess it’s a compromise.”

“Okay, bottom’s up!” Ward yanked the cork the rest of the way out and tipped the liquid into his mouth. He was thirsty, so he was glad for the drink, but when he tasted it, he chugged enthusiastically. He supposed that if he wasn’t thirsty or hungry and hadn’t just crawled on his belly for two hours, he might not have so enthusiastically enjoyed the sugar-sweet concoction. As it was, he appreciated it, and when he lowered the drained bottle and smacked his lips, savoring the tangy, almost citrus aftertaste, he noticed Grace staring at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“What, what? I’m watching to see what happens!”

“I think we were wrong about it. I just feel really refre—urgh!” Ward’s words cut off in a strangled gasp as his stomach contracted into a tight ball, and he doubled over in agony. “Jesu—argh!” His guts kept spasming in waves, and he could feel things roiling around in there. Ward had had food poisoning a few times; he’d experienced his body voiding its contents in both directions a couple of times in his life, but this felt different. “I’m fu—I’m poisoned!” He gasped and writhed, hot and cold waves rippling through his flesh, starting at his stomach and radiating outward. He felt sweat exploding from his pores, drenching his shirt, pants, and hair. He coughed and wheezed, and his mouth filled with tangy saliva that dribbled out over his chin as the spasms spread from his stomach to his back, neck, and limbs.

“Hang in there, Ward! I think that potion’s cleansing you or something. Oh, jeez, we should have taken your clothes off. Well, at least that armor’s keeping you from scraping yourself up on the ground while you writhe around . . .” Ward couldn’t concentrate on her babbling. His vision had gone all weird and rainbow-hued. The walls and ceiling were wavy and transparent, stars and galaxies visible beyond them. All sorts of sounds were echoing and buzzing in his ears, from horses whinnying to cannons blasting to a violin playing some kind of waltz.

“What—” Ward gasped, “the—” he groaned and ground his teeth, “fuck!” As suddenly as his stomach had first contracted, everything suddenly stopped, and he found himself lying on the damp stones, eyes squeezed shut, panting for breath. Slowly, as the ringing in his ears faded, he became aware that Grace was speaking to him.

“. . . think it’s normal, in any case. Oof, I’m so glad I don’t have to smell things. I mean, I can, but I can also not. You know? Jeez, man, you look rough. I’m sure you’ll look better after you get cleaned up and have a good rest. Probably won’t hurt to get a real meal in your—”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Grace,” Ward grunted, flopping onto his back and opening his eyes the barest of slits; even the dim, ambient glow of the catacombs was painful as it stabbed into his retinas.

“Yeah?”

“Shut the hell up for a minute.” He squeezed his eyes shut again, inhaling deeply through his nose, then reached up to rub his face with his hands. They’d been grimy before from the long crawl through the moldy, damp tunnel, but they were utterly filthy now, and he instinctively jerked them away from his nose when he caught their odor. “What the hell is that stench?”

“You!” Grace laughed. “Your clothes are ruined!”

“So that potion just made me sick? I drank that shit so I could cramp up and sweat out a bunch of poisonous gunk?”

“Oh, trust me, you did more than sweat. Your pants are utterly destroyed.”

“Shut—” Ward was going to tell her to shut up again, but his mind had stalled as he struggled to sit and realized she wasn’t lying. He’d pissed and shat himself, for sure. “Damn it. I have no clean clothes and, like, six ounces of water.”

“Well, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t. If you run into someone, just say you . . . Oh, maybe just say you had to crawl through a sewage-filled tunnel.”

“God, I feel weak.” Ward leaned forward to rest one palm on the cold, rocky floor, waiting for his head to stop spinning.

“I’m sure whatever that potion changed in you took a lot of energy. You should eat the rest of that travel cake you stole from the scavs.”

“I didn’t steal it.” He crawled over to his pack, still resting on the floor near the stairs, then began to dig through it. He pulled out the thick, woolen blanket he’d slept on while out in the wild, and an idea occurred to him. “Yeah, this’ll do.” He set it aside, then fished out the foil-wrapped cake. Before he knew it, he was crumpling the foil into a ball and licking the last crumbs of the cake from his fingertips.

“That was amazing!” Grace laughed. “I’ve never seen a human eat something so dry, so fast! Your face is beet red!”

“Hard—” Ward choked on the word and dug out his copper water bottle. He chugged the last of it, then finished what he’d been trying to say. “Hard to swallow!” He sat back with a sigh, already feeling much better. After gathering his thoughts, he drew his knife from its sheath and got to work on the blanket. Grace slowly circled him as he measured and cut, scrutinizing his work and nodding. “Wanna tell me what the hell just happened to me? I don’t feel ‘refined’ by that potion.”

“Oh, but you were! That gunk you . . . expelled was an accumulation of impurities and old cells from your body. The potion must have purged them from you as it built up your vessel, er, your body. I bet you’ve improved in lots of ways! I can’t see a big difference in you physically, but then, I’m used to you. Maybe if you cleaned some of that gunk off your skin and stood next to the old Ward, I’d notice the changes.”

He dragged the knife blade down an imaginary line on the wool blanket and snorted. “The old Ward?”

“You know, Ward from before the potion. Anyway, I bet you’ll see a big difference when you next try to absorb mana. Heck, you might even survive using one of the words now.”

“The, uh, words of power?” Ward held up the cut section of the blanket and nodded. “I’ll check the hemograph in a minute. I’m gonna get naked, so give me some privacy.”

“Are you joking? I just saw you do the most vile things a human body can do! I think I’ll survive seeing your penis!”

Ward was too exhausted and anxious to get out of his clothes to argue. “If you want to see me naked like this, that’s your business, I guess. Didn’t think you were that kind of pervert.”

“Like this?”

“Covered in shit, weirdo.” Ward pulled the heavy, armored shirt over his head, grunting with the effort. He held it up, pleased to see that his shirt had absorbed most of the stuff he’d excreted; the hauberk was filthy, but not with his . . . gunk. He draped it onto the copper stairs, then pulled off his shirt. Before he threw it away, as he wanted immediately to do, he balled it up and scraped it over his body, trying to wipe away as much of the filth as he could. That done, he performed the same procedure with his pants, wishing he had some water to rinse off the mess the whole time.

Once he was finished with that, he picked up his new, knee-length poncho constructed from his scavenger blanket and draped it over his head. He folded the sides flat and then cinched his old belt around his waist, holding it in place. “Not bad!”

“I’ve seen worse, but that was back in the twelfth century or so.”

“You’re extremely helpful, you know that?” Ward stuffed his bare feet into his leather shoes, then pulled the armored hauberk back on, grunting and staggering as he forced his head through the neck hole. He hadn’t fully unbuckled the straps because it was a lot easier to put on by himself if he didn’t. Finally, feeling a bit more like a human being, he strapped on his sword belt.

“At least you’ve got nice legs!” Grace quipped as he sat down again on the steps.

Ward didn’t let her get a rise out of him. Instead, he picked up the hemograph and balanced it on his knee while he pulled out his knife. “Let’s see if you’re full of shit or not.” A few seconds later, he was puzzling over the updated table that the device displayed:

Bloodline:

Awakened Human (ah)

Accumulated Mana:

0

Mana Well:

Copper

Mana Sensitivity:

Iron

Mana Pathways:

Copper

Vessel Capacity:

Copper

Vessel Durability:

ah + 13.11

Vessel Strength:

ah + .08

Vessel Speed:

ah + 9.31

Longevity remaining:

~62.33%

Anima:

NIL

“Holy shit,” Grace breathed into Ward’s ear, suddenly hovering by his side. “Ward, I don’t fully understand this thing’s ratings, but that seems like a big change!”

Ward frowned, staring at the numbers. “I wish I had a notebook. I’m trying to remember what they all were before. The ‘copper’ ones were ‘tin’ before, right?”

“Yes, and your mana sensitivity was ‘bronze.’ I’d guess tin leads to copper and copper to bronze, which, in the case of your mana sensitivity, became iron.”

“And my other stats—they say ‘ah’ now for ‘awakened human.’ That’s pretty cool. The numbers are totally different. Do you think if I get those high enough, I can go to the next stage? Whatever’s after ‘awakened human?’”

Grace sat down by his side and shrugged. “It’s a good theory. I’m out of my depth, Ward. Obviously, none of my Earth-bound hosts ever got this far.”

“Can’t complain about twenty percent more longevity, either.” Ward held the hemograph up and chuckled. “Assuming this thing has any basis in reality. It could be just a bunch of bullshit like astrology, for all I know—”

“Ward! Don’t mock astrology. Good grief, but you’ve got a lot to learn!”

“Uh-huh.” Ward stood with a grunt, then stuffed the hemograph into his pack and slung it over his shoulders. It certainly felt a lot lighter. “Welp, I need a shower, a huge beer, and some pizza. Let’s get the hell out of here.” With that, he began stomping up the stairs, two at a time.