Her skin went pale, and her breath stuck in her throat. Cold sweat beaded on her scalp.
“Char!” Declan cried out and rushed to her side.
She sat with one leg folded under her, propped up by the desk. There was something she should be doing, but the pain stole her ability to string thoughts together. Declan grabbed her shoulder and pulled her hand away from her chest to look for a wound. He said something, frantic, demanding. The words barely registered, but one of them stuck. Heal. She needed to heal.
The pattern was there, if she could just make herself focus on it. She tried to hold it, to shape the mana. Her hands trembled. A notification icon pulsed, and the pain receded somewhat. Not gone, but more distant, easier to push through. Mana flowed and twisted into a familiar pattern, her first pattern. Mend Flesh washed through her as the spell snapped into place, Flesh mana repairing the damage done by the poison.
Her heartbeat steadied, and the pain retreated down her arm. Breathing hard, she dropped her head back to rest against the desk. The edges of a mana headache prickled behind her eyes, slowly fading as her pool refilled.
Lulu stretched out by her side, whining and worried.
The damage had been undone, but the poison still sat, heavy and malevolent, in her forearm. The foreign mana wasn’t going to give up and go away. Like an infection, it started its spread again. Slower, though, she was sure now. Her Poison Resistance must have improved.
“Char, what can I do?” Declan crouched next to her. Lines of worry creased his brow and made him look older.
She shook her head, “Unless you’ve got a potion to help, not much. Go make sure everyone else is OK. I’ve got this.”
He squeezed her shoulder and nodded. Frowning, he turned and went to help Leigh and Mira to their feet. There was motion and sound in the office behind her, but Char tuned them out, turning inward to focus on her mana and the death crawling through her veins.
Her mana was at rock bottom, and this poison moved faster than the one that had nearly killed Lina. She might be able to stay ahead of it, but there had to be a better way.
She checked her affinity to see how close she was to reaching Rank 2 in the Flesh Domain, but despite how often she used it, it was still only at eighty-two percent. Not close enough. She pulled in a deep breath through her nose. There was one thing she could try. Judging by Loman’s reaction when she’d cast it on him, it was going to hurt. A lot. But if a Rune could cleanse blood armor from the outside, it should be able to purge what was inside, too. Theoretically. If she didn’t kill herself trying it.
She watched her mana tick upward as she racked her brain for any other solutions. Nothing came to mind. When she had enough mana, she closed her eyes and resigned herself to the pain. The black veins were already climbing her upper arm again.
Bracing herself against the anticipated agony, she repeated the Rune Scribe spell, but she changed the final variable to aim the cleansing inward rather than at the surface. Casting the spell was far easier this time, but the pain was every bit as awful as she’d feared. Searing pain, as though her very soul was being branded, shot out from the place on her forearm where the twined Flesh and Rune mana pressed into her.
The effect of the rune rippled outward, up and down her arm. Poison and the mana that had been creating it were forced out through her pores, running down her arm like viscous blue-black pus from a lanced boil.
Despite her best efforts to hold it back, a scream tore itself from her. She grabbed her left arm at the elbow and hunched over it, breathing hard, and gritting her teeth until the pain had passed.
Sweat beaded her brow when she thumped back against the desk. She let herself just sit and breathe as the pain faded. She examined her arm. It would need another healing as soon as she had the mana for it, but the unnatural black veins were gone. There was a rotten, suppurating wound where Gina’s hand had touched her arm, but that pain was only the normal sort that was easy to ignore.
Just above the wound was a new scar in the shape of the Cleanse rune. She stared at it for a long moment, her brain not wanting to kick into gear. Slowly, sounds of activity filtered in to her from outside, and Lulu’s presence near her feet reminded her that she couldn’t just shut down and sit here. There were things that needed doing.
First among those was Mending herself and Lulu to get rid of the lingering damage from the poisons they’d been afflicted with. Lulu had stopped purging, but though the worst effects of the poison had worn off, she still wasn’t feeling her best.
While she waited for her mana pool to refill, again, she pulled up her notifications. The first three kill notifications made her wince. Getting experience from ordinary humans made her feel dirty, even if they had been trying to kill her first.
After those notifications, things got more interesting. Her Dodge skill went up to Apprentice tier, and so did her Mana Manipulation skill. Then, there was the new spell:
Congratulations! You have discovered how to use blended
Mana types. The ability to combine Domains opens up
A cosmos of possibilities for new spells.
Your Title Arcane Advancement has been upgraded from Bronze to Silver:
Arcane Advancement (Silver)
You have modified an existing spell
through your own efforts. Not a task
undertaken lightly.
+5 Willpower, +5 Intelligence
—————————————————————
New Spell:
Inscribe Flesh
Create a temporary effect by inscribing a
Rune directly onto a living being.
(Caution! Not all runes are compatible with life.)
_______________________
You have killed
Human
Level 21
Experience gained.
———————————————————————
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 27.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
You have gained +1 Strength, +2 Speed,
+1 Dexterity, +3 Endurance, +4 Intelligence
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
+1 Willpower, +3 Spirit
——————————————————————
You have killed
Human
Level 21
Experience Gained.
——————————————————————-
Your skill Pain Resistance
Has improved from Novice to Apprentice.
———————————————————————
Your skill Poison Resistance
Has improved from Novice to Apprentice.
———————————————————————
You have killed
Human
Level 23
Experience Gained.
She wasn’t sure if it was good that their names wouldn’t show up in her logs to remind her, or a bad thing that the entries were so impersonal. She didn’t want it to get too easy to kill other people. There should be something to remind her. The gains were nice, but considering how she’d earned them, celebrating didn’t feel right. She waved the screen closed.
It took nearly two hours to get everyone calmed down and organized. Char gave herself more than one mana headache as she healed burns, gashes, and broken bones. The courtyard was a churned mess of mud and scattered debris. One of the large display windows at the front of the store had been shattered in the fray, and shards of broken glass crunched underfoot. There had been a great deal of yelling and crying, and fighting had nearly broken out a second time as recriminations were tossed around and old resentments flared.
The fate of the six surviving Voss loyalists had been put to a vote of the community, and they had been exiled; no one wanted more killing. That left a total of sixty-three people, shaken and scarred, but alive. All of them were eager to start over in the Sanctuary, though more than a few were understandably uneasy about the trip.
Packing up was an exercise in civil pandemonium. Many belongings had been scattered in the fighting, and people rushed to and fro searching for lost items. Char tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. She paused to help one woman shake the broken glass from her bedding, and was nearly sent sprawling as someone else with an armload of clothes bumped into her. A man passing in the other direction caught her before she could fall. When she turned to thank him, he was already hurrying away.
“Char,” Anais called from across the store, “Got a minute?”
Char glanced over. “Yeah, just a sec.” She smiled at the woman she’d been helping and excused herself, waving off the woman’s thanks. When the first group of people had arrived at the store, they’d all staked out patches of floor and laid out bedrolls, and in the week she’d been gone, the population had more than doubled, but the sleeping situation hadn’t gotten any better. It had been crowded with thirty people. With more than sixty, it was a madhouse.
She joined Anais by the door, and the other woman held it open for her, “Let’s talk outside, out of the way.”
Char stepped out. She spotted Leigh helping to gather up the tools that had been scattered during the fighting. Lulu, her coat freshly washed, was trotting along at her side, a hammer held in her mouth. Char stepped off to one side and leaned against the wall. “What’s up?” she asked as Anais joined her.
“Logistics.” Worry lines creased Anais’ brow as she let out a long breath.
“That’s a big topic. Can you narrow it down a little?”
Anais rubbed her face and nodded. Char gave her a moment to get her thoughts organized. “We’ve got enough food for a couple of days, and a crew just came back with a couple of barrels of water, so we’re good there. Thank God for these inventory systems, or we’d really be in trouble.” She shook her head and waved a hand as though shooing away the tangent before continuing, “What I’m mostly worried about is shelter. Considering how cramped this place is, and how volatile emotions are right now, I don’t think staying here another night is a good idea. Everyone is anxious to get to that Sanctuary of yours, and making progress in that direction will be good for morale. I’m just not sure how far we’ll make it with…” she looked up at the sky, trying to judge the time, “What? Four, five hours of daylight left?”
Char glanced up as well. It was hard to tell with the thick overcast, but she thought Anais’s estimate was probably right. The little Japanese house wouldn’t be big enough for this many people, and they were mostly lower level and couldn’t move as fast, so she wasn’t sure they could make it that far before nightfall, anyway. The sky looked like it might open up with a downpour at any moment. Between the weather and the monsters, sleeping in the open would be an awful idea. The warehouse where her truck had been left was in the wrong direction and too far away.
She looked down and bit her lip as she considered the problem. Anais’ concern was well-founded. The tension and excitement of the community were palpable. This place held too many painful associations for these folks, especially now that they knew the disappearances and executions could be laid at the feet of Voss’s greed for power. Char had learned from talking to people that there had been far more than the five executions that Cory had told her about. Voss’s ‘hunting parties’ tended to come back smaller than when they set out.
Glancing around the courtyard, she found Declan talking to a couple that she recognized from the original group. She whistled over the noise of the busy courtyard to get his attention and waved him over when he glanced her way. He excused himself from his conversation and jogged over.
“Hey, Dec.” She realized that she hadn’t checked in with him after the scene in the office, and suddenly felt like an asshole. With an internal wince, she changed what she’d been about to say. “How are you doing? That thing Voss did… That had to have been rough.”
He scratched the back of his head and shrugged. “I’m OK. It was… Well, nightmare fuel, to be honest, but I’ll live. You got there in time. I’ll be looking for ways to keep it from happening again, that’s for sure. Mostly, I feel kinda useless. I mean, I went in trying to get Leigh and Mira free and just ended up another hostage.” His jaw went tight, and anger flashed behind his eyes.
“Hey, it’s a steep learning curve for all of us, and you kept Voss from shooting anyone when it counted. Without you being where you were to grab the gun, any one of us might be dead right now.” Char looked him in the eye, trying to make sure he was picking up what she was saying.
“In a way, he held all of us hostage. That mind thing he could do was…” Anais trailed off, at a loss for the right words. She shook herself, as though chasing off a chill. “You ran in and acted where the rest of us cowered. That counts.” The older woman put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
Declan gave her a weak smile, then turned back to Char. “You didn’t just call me over to check on me, did you?”
“No, I’ve got a job for you. I want to get this circus moving in about an hour, but we need a destination. I want you to gather up a couple of the hunters or guards, a few folks who can handle themselves, and see if you can find someplace for the group to camp tonight. We won’t be moving that fast, so nothing too far out. We don’t need five-star accommodations, either. Walls and a roof should be enough. You up for it?”
He nodded, “Yeah, no problem.”
“Alright. I’ll send Lulu with you. Our link is the closest thing we’ve got to long distance communication, and she’ll be able to let me know if you find something. That’ll save time.”
“Works. I’ll see you in a few hours.” He nodded to Anais and jogged off.
Char sent Lulu a message and watched as the dog dropped the tool she’d been carrying, licked Leigh’s face, and ran off to join Declan. Smiling, she turned back to Anais, “So, that’s taken care of. What else needs doing?”
It ended up taking a little more than an hour to get everyone moving. The mix of fear and excitement had everyone on edge, and tempers flared over small infractions. The most competent and highest-level people were stationed on the outside of the group with whatever weapons could be found, including the weapons that had once belonged to the exiled and dead Voss supporters.
Char had overestimated the speed at which such a group could move, and she was very glad to hear back from the scouts less than half an hour after the community filed out through the gap in the wall. Lulu sent her a mental image of a building that looked like an old-fashioned train station. She used her sense of where Lulu was to angle the crowd in the right direction.
It was an exciting and stressful three-hour walk. A Tree-Top Stalker jumped onto one of the guards at the back of the group, but three of the others ganged together to kill it before Char could even get there. Her Mend Flesh spell turned out to be more useful than her martial skills for getting everyone to their campsite in one piece.
The building Declan and his scouts had discovered was an old-fashioned train station. A relic of the Old West, it had been converted into a museum. When they arrived, Char tried to help get everyone organized and settled, but Anais and Mira were much better at the job, and Char’s social batteries were drained. As soon as she could slip away, she told Mira she was going to stand guard and climbed up on the roof to get away from everyone.
She sat with her knees up, watching the surrounding forest. It was nice to be alone with her thoughts with nothing to do for a little while. She could bring these people together, make sure they were protected—or could protect themselves, but she didn’t have to lead them. She could set up a council. Anais, Mira, Irina, Jabat, Annabelle, and Cory were all competent people, and far better suited to handling the complex issues that were sure to pop up.
Char decided that seeing to the defense of the Sanctuary, maybe training up some people to act as a militia, would be her focus. For now, at least. She’d get it set up, anyway. Then, she’d do more exploring. If she wanted these people to get stronger, she’d need to find some Domain Affinity Cores for them, and that meant finding dungeons and fighting area bosses.
Then, there was the Aldevari Dominion. If Humanity was going to shake them off and reclaim its own sovereignty, they were going to need more than a few strong people. She’d need to figure out how to get that Travel option on the Hub menu active. It was starting to sink in that the fight would be a marathon, not a sprint, and they were going to need a solid starting point.
She sat there for several long hours as the day faded to night. Half-formed plans and hypotheticals swirled around her brain. Sometime near midnight, Declan climbed up to sit next to her. “I’ll relieve you. Go get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
Leaning over, she bumped his shoulder with hers. Then, she made her way inside to find a patch of floor for a nap. As she drifted off to sleep, Lulu curled up next to her. She felt an odd warmth coming from her pocket. Before she could reach down to explore the source, mana started to flow from the warm lump, some item in her pocket that she hadn't put there. The magic wrapped around her and lulled her half-asleep mind deeper towards slumber. Before she could mutter a surprised, “Now what?” her mind was pulled away down a long corridor of swirling clouds.