by Dakota Krout
Nez roared in triumph as the lightning stopped, then slammed his foot down and released the energy back into the crowd. The lightning shattered into individual bolts, arcing to and fro in the seething crowd. The chained lightning expended all of its fury upon the unsuspecting diseased people, killing hundreds in seconds as their hearts stopped. The wall of bodies was motionless for a long minute as Nez sank to the floor.
“Celestial…” Adam whispered. “How did you catch that?”
Nez wheezed in reply, “Lightning… cultivator.” He took a sip of offered water. “You try cultivating in a thunderstorm without having a way to hold the lightning in place!”
A light seemed to dawn on the faces of the Mages around the small area. Dale felt uncomfortable as they exchanged glances. “What?”
“That Mage should have easily been able to return the favor, catching the lightning and returning it…” Chandra spoke up, trailing off. “They have no defenses in place! Defending against elemental attacks takes focus and… they don’t have any! We have been using more powerful abilities than we needed to, thinking that they would have defenses in place that we would need to break through. With this knowledge though… we can be far more effective.”
Rose spoke over the resulting noise, “That didn’t kill the Mages! They are getting to their feet out there!” She pointed at bodies that were being tossed to the side as the most powerful infected returned to their feet.
“A little thing like their heart stopping wouldn’t stop a Mage!” The portal Mage Justin scoffed, bringing the group's attention to him. “Haven’t you ever heard the description of a Mage’s body? ‘Near physical invulnerability’ is not just a saying we use to scare off assassination attempts! Watch and learn.” He raised his hands, and after a few seconds of intense concentration, the rising lightning Mage dropped dead.
“What did you just do?” Dale whispered in horror as blood leaked from the dead Mage’s eyes.
Justin, not catching the interplay, smugly announced, “I made a small portal in his head and transported his brain a few feet away.” He got a few cheers and pats on the back as Dale waited for something horrible to happen.
~Twenty-Six~
“They do, right until they die. Then a small portion of their Mana is reduced to Essence as their soul separates from their body.” Dani explained to me, much to my relief.
She gave me a look, “That is far too long for a nickname, and I think you are trying too hard.”
“Why not just call me by my name?!” Dani sounded a tad exasperated. “Whatever! Did all of the Mana get into that extradimensional space like you had planned? No leakage?”
“Pretty sure?”
“Do you mean finding a concept to meditate on? Something compatible with your Essence type? That will be difficult. You have pure Essence, and I am not certain what kind of Mana you will be able to bind with…” Dani trailed off, both of us deep in thought.
“Yeah, Cal?”
Dani sounded a bit shy, “That sounds like a plan, Cal. The last few months have been rather stressful, huh?”
“I would like that! Not too long, of course!” Dani paused mid-chuckle. “Cal! I just realized! The concept you could bind your Essence to, the concept to bring you into the B-ranks!”
“Oh, this is just perfect.” Dani started to vibrate, she was laughing so hard. “Cal, what is the difference between your Essence and everyone else's?”
“Right!” She shouted, startling a nearby Elf. “And as we know, as Essence becomes more pure, it gets closer to its true state…” She trailed off leadingly.
“Right?” Dani could barely contain her glee. “Right? It would be totally unique! There has never been a Quintessence Mage before! Well, that I know of anyway!”
“Here is how to begin. Focus on the concept, in this case, Essence. Feel the Essence, meditate really hard on what Essence actually is. As you approach the B-ranks, if your affinity for Quintessence is high enough, you will begin to understand it in ways that are unexplainable to anyone else. In your mind, during your breakthrough, you will form a bond to Quintessence and learn its true potential.”
“I hope so. You are the only being that I can think of that could do it.” Dani coughed, “Except Dale, at this point, I suppose.”
“Well, not really. It is just that… the more Mages of a certain type there are, the more likely that there will be someone to counter whatever you throw at them. Two Mages that follow the same cultivation path are basically at a stalemate against each other.”
“Well, hopefully everything is as it should be. The Mage trials are difficult, and if you aren’t suited to the Mana type it could break your mind…”
<…> I sighed, a completely unnecessary noise, as I don't breathe.
A scream reverberated down the tunnel, returning my attention to the battles raging. I frowned in concern as I realized that a few defenders had been affected by spores while my attention was elsewhere. They didn’t know it yet, but if something weren’t done soon, they would sink into madness.
“A bit busy here.” Came the reply. “You promised not to distract me in battle, remember?”
Dale impercept
ibly paused in his fighting. “Why are you offering to help?”
“Can’t you bother Minya with this?” Dale’s thoughts were filled with frustration.
I looked at the people around him.
“You are such an ass.” Dale told the people around him that he was moving back. Just as I predicted, there was almost no change in the quantity of dying infected. He moved to the rear, where healers, the apothecary, and the alchemist were doing their best to get people patched up.
“I need to talk to you!” Dale called to the alchemist. The man in question glared and told Dale off for interrupting him. He stopped grumbling at Dale’s next words. “I may have a way to formulate an antidote.”
“Fine. You have five minutes to explain how you, an untrained, know-nothing, non-alchemist can help me find a cure for this before we all die. Also, without a lab or any kind of equipment.” The man glared at Dale, seemingly ready to jump down his throat at the first mistake.
They pushed against the wall where I told them, opening the goblin respawn room. The alchemist looked around in confusion. “Why haven’t we been using this room for the wounded? It is far more defensible!”
“I just found it.” Dale told him honestly. He pointed at the jumble of alchemy equipment that I had whipped up. “What else do you need?”
The alchemist looked at the equipment. “First, I need to make sure that you can get me what you promised. Let’s start with rare material. I need two strong-type Beast Cores, a pound of powdered aluminum, and an alembic.”
“Here you go!” Dale cheerfully told the incredulous alchemist, handing over the requested items.
The man looked at the gear in wonder. “We may actually have a chance to…” He rushed to start setting up his lab, calling out for various things. I have no idea why he wanted some of the things, but I was watching raptly. There was one point where he asked for Elves ear but had a disgusted look on his face as Dale handed over the dripping flesh.
“What?” Dale was taken aback at the look on the craftsman's face.
“Riiiiight…” He sighed, “I’ll be more specific. Elves ear is an herb, not a literal ear. I’ve seen it upstairs. You may also call it ‘mountain lavender’?”
Next there was an intense interview, where Dale was asked exceedingly detailed questions about the fungus. Dale had a delightfully confused look on his face as I answered through him. The poor lad really had no idea what he was saying, just repeating as best as he could.
“...and I soiled myself.” Dale repeated, before turning red at the realization of what he had uttered.
“Oh. Um.” The alchemist took a step back, “Well… battle isn’t for everyone…”
“What the shit, Cal.” Dale muttered, choosing poor phrasing in my opinion.
“I need crushed topaz, but if you want to go clean yourself first…”
“I’m fine!” Dale snapped, grabbing a bag of topaz and nearly throwing it at the man. The alchemist looked at Dale, nodded, and began calling out ingredients whilst continuing his questioning.
Dani kept me up to date on the goings on of the fight. After a small reminder from her, I returned to using a portion of my willpower focusing on collecting and eradicating any spores that the infected released. The battle was not going well for the defenders at this point. Though they were killing hundreds every few minutes, there were thousands more making their way down the tunnels.
An exhausting hour passed, the alchemist squeezing information out of me that I had no idea was relevant. Dale was hoarse from the constant stream of speaking, and looked like he would rather be fighting mindless humans.
“Now we wait for the distillation to complete.” The alchemist sat down with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know how much this will make, but it is a start. We need someone to test it on as well.”
“How sure are you about this?” Dale asked the first question in an hour that wasn’t from me.
A slow shake of the head. “This will end up being one of two things. I am sure it will have an effect on those poor souls, but in what way? If it works as intended, it will be an antidote for the fungus, killing it without harming the host… I suppose it may simply be an effective way to kill them quickly.” I perked up at hearing this. “Otherwise… it will end up being a reagent.”
“A reagent? What do you mean by that?” Dale looked at the fluid flowing slowly through glass pipes.
“When an Inscription is powered, certain things in the pattern can allow the Rune to have additional or more powerful effects. A reagent is added for a single-use ‘effect’, whereas a catalyst is used to reduce the Mana or Essence needed to power the Inscription.” The alchemist took a deep, shuddering breath. “If this turns out to be a reagent, we will need a huge amount of celestial Essence — or a moderate amount of Mana — along with a compatible Rune for it to have any effect at all. The process will most likely kill anything with the aural signature of the disease.”
“Let’s hope it’s an antidote which will simply be a cure then.” Dale patted the man on the shoulder.
Another head shake. “Has our luck ever been that good?”
~Dale~
Dale left the alchemist to his fussing over heat levels, preferring to be in the thick of battle. He surveyed the dungeon, and it appeared that the only forts remaining were the one housing the Nobles and this one. He had to stop himself from sinking into depression at the thought that everyone had stayed on his command. He shuddered for a moment and inhaled sharply. The knowledge that your mistakes led to the death of others was the price of command, and he would do his duty by joining his vassals in combat. Falling apart would help no one except the dungeon.
Dale moved forward, replacing a much-relieved, exhausted man on the wall. His fighting style was simplistic with these beasts, draw back a fist, straight punch. Draw back a fist, punch. Pull, punch. The infected didn’t bother to defend; they were one hundred percent attack. Dale chuckled at the thought that his combat instructor would actually approve; he had made Dale punch like this into a wooden post five hundred times to end every session. Constantly drilling the simplest moves was the best way to improve the foundation of your art, at least according to the crotchety old Moon Elf.
As he was putting down another rabid humanoid, Dale realized that he was seeing a dark haze of Essence in the air. It reacted to his cultivation, so he attempted to draw it in. For the first time in his life, he unwittingly cultivated infernal Essence. He stopped fighting in shock, as the Essence did everything it could to be absorbed by him. When he started drawing it in, the dark power poured into his Center, attempting to overwhelm whatever else was there. Only the fact that the taint wa
s drawn into a small Core to the side of his Center saved him from being overwhelmed by the tendril of corruption.
“Dale?” Hans was standing next to him. “Are you ok? It looks like there is infernal Essence being drawn into you, did an affinity channel get forced open or something?”
Dale hesitated to respond, then realized that if he couldn’t trust his teammate with his secrets, he shouldn’t trust him with his life on a daily basis. “I actually think I have… all of them open?” He stated weakly.
Hans looked deeper into Dale, then gasped and took a step back in shock. “You’re a Beast?”
“What? No!” Dale reached out to reassure his friend, patting him on the arm. “I do somehow have a Core embedded around my Center though. I think it has something to do with the Beast we fought a while back. After that, all my affinity channels were open.”
Hans inspected Dale’s pure Essence, “How have you not been overwhelmed by corruption? If they are all open, you should be absolutely sick.”
“Watch.” Dale opened himself up to the infernal Essence in the room, and Hans watched as it sank into him and vanished.
“Wow! Some kind of… where did it go?” Hans was poking Dale in the chest, as though that would help explain the situation.
Dale smacked away the offending finger. “Stop that. It goes into a small Beast Core to the side of my Center.”
“How have you been cultivating?” Hans waved away the answer, “Right, pure Essence in here. On the next rest rotation, I want you to open all of your affinity channels, and suck in everything. Essence and corruption. We need to find your limits so that we can set up a training plan when this is all over.”
Smiling at his friend, Dale nodded. “I’m loving the optimism.”
“Better than planning to die!” Hans reached out and stabbed an infected man that was getting too close, punching his dagger through the man’s forehead as easily as pushing a knife though unenchanted parchment. He chuckled, “I’m going to enjoy you having to purchase enough alcohol to make a Mage drunk.”