The Poison Princess

by J. Stone

  The Poison Princess

  By J. Stone

  Text copyright © 2014 J. Stone

  All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  Additional Works

  Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague

  Cultwick: The Wretched Dead

  Cultwick: The Science of Faith

  http://jstonewrites.blogspot.com/

  Cover Artwork Provided By

  Marjorie Davis

  xmarjoriex.md@gmail.com

  marjoriedavisart.blogspot.com

  Dedicated to Jeremy,

  My frequent sounding board.

  Chapter 1. Strawberries and Blood

  Chapter 2. A Hands on Experience

  Chapter 3. Abyssal Imps

  Chapter 4. Darker Depths

  Chapter 5. The Serpent and the Fruit

  Chapter 6. Clouded Judgment

  Chapter 7. The Concoction

  Chapter 8. Dirty Water

  Chapter 9. The Other Road

  Chapter 10. The Horned Nurse

  Chapter 11. Wake in Filth

  Chapter 12. Self-Control

  Chapter 13. Gloomport

  Chapter 14. Spiders and Deceit

  Chapter 15. Toxic Maelstrom

  Chapter 16. The Black Wave

  Chapter 17. It Was This Big

  Chapter 18. Washed Up

  Chapter 19. Sex and Violence

  Chapter 20. The Oracle

  Chapter 21. Looking for Magic

  Chapter 22. Split Personalities

  Chapter 23. Nightmares

  Chapter 24. Coming to Terms

  Chapter 25. Pack Hunters

  Chapter 26. The Cloister

  Chapter 27. Virulent

  Chapter 28. Rashtalg

  Chapter 29. The Absent Glow

  Chapter 30. Into the Nether

  Chapter 31. Blip!

  Chapter 32. Following the Mental Breadcrumbs

  Chapter 33. The Untethered Demon and a Forgotten Beast

  Chapter 34. The Way Back

  Chapter 35. Willow’s Wood

  Chapter 36. Home Sweet Home

  Chapter 37. The Undercroft

  Chapter 38. Sythys’ Treasures

  Chapter 39. What is Right

  Chapter 40. Reaching Into the Darkness

  Chapter 1. Strawberries and Blood

  The question Ruby continued to ask herself was a simple one but with complicated ramifications - Do I do what is right, or do I do what I want?

  This would be a question that the princess continued to ask herself in abundance over the course of what remained of her life. Even though the reason she asked herself the question this time would soon be rendered moot, the question would remain. She pretended that she had a choice in this question beyond doing what was expected of her. She kidded herself that she might give in to her own desires rather than what was the greater good. At the end of the day, however, she acknowledged that her choice would always be the same. Her own desires fell to the wayside when weighed against the needs of her people.

  Princess Ruby Willow paced back and forth in her sizable bedroom of the drafty castle. She’d lived there for twenty years of life. It certainly wasn’t a bad place to live, and she was quite aware that she’d drawn a winning lot in life. During all her years, her father had ruled Lavidia justly and with the adoring approval of his people. Imagining that Ruby had a good life and was well taken care of is an easy assumption for you to make, and one that is not at all incorrect. That specific day was set to be an important one for her kingdom, for her people, and most of all, for her.

  You may be wondering where exactly this kingdom was situated. Lavidia was just one small piece of the world known as Nabiria. The lands of the humans were primarily composed of Lavidia and another large kingdom called Elythine with a scattering of other settlements and villages outside those borders. Farther north, in the harsh cold, were more barbaric men and women, while in the south beyond the Sornik Sea were elf lands called the Land of the Dead. Far to the east was an orc empire that the humans had fled centuries prior, but our tale takes place in the human’s land, and it starts in one small room of the castle at the center of Lavidia.

  Given the importance of the event later that day, Ruby had dressed up for the occasion. She wore a long yellow dress of a rich, vibrant fabric with flourishes of fanciful designs sewn in blue thread around the various hems. Her light brown hair was braided into a pseudo crown design around the back of her head, while the rest hung down just beyond her shoulders.

  Finally abandoning her question, Ruby left her room, walking through hallways, until she passed through the large dining hall’s doors. Ruby found that the kitchen staff had laid out more than enough breakfast for her and any others of the castle who were interested in partaking. There was only one person there though, discounting, of course, the guard stationed at the hall’s entrance. Durin, an eccentric court wizard, was sitting at one of the tables enjoying the bounty, when she entered.

  “Princess Ruby,” he greeted her, putting down a glass of red wine before wiping his mouth and white beard of the last sip with his long robe sleeve and leaving a stain in the wooly grey fabric.

  “Good morning, Durin,” she replied. “How are you today?”

  “Quite well, princess,” Durin said. “Quite well, indeed.”

  “How is the food?”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” he told her. “I’ve only just tasted the wine. I’ve left the strawberries for you to try first.”

  Ruby smiled at the comment. The fruit was one of her indulgences, and she almost never went a breakfast without sampling some of the kingdom’s harvest. Some joked that her fondness for the fruit was singularly responsible for keeping the strawberry farmers of the Lavidia kingdom in business. They may have been right. Walking over to a table of the various foods on display, Ruby picked up a shimmering metal plate and began to select things for her breakfast. Chief among the items was the red fruit that she enjoyed so immensely.

  “Grab me a banana, while you’re there, would you?” Durin called to her.

  “Ugh. That poison?”

  The wizard allowed himself a little chuckle. “You’re not allergic, princess. I assure you.”

  She smiled but said, “I’ll stick with my strawberries.”

  Once she had collected all that she wanted, she grabbed the banana, holding it at nearly arm’s length. Ruby then returned to Durin, sat across the table from him, and handed him the yellow fruit.

  “Thank you, princess,” he said, taking the fruit from her.

  “Of course.” Ruby then watched in relative disgust as he peeled the skin from the banana. She’d had a bad reaction to a banana, as a child, and it had colored her opinion forever. As the wizard took a bite of his food, she turned her eyes to her own plate.

  Picking out one particularly plump and firm strawberry, Ruby bit into the fruit. Almost immediately, Ruby realized that something was wrong with the strawberries. The taste that she was so familiar with soured in her mouth as though it was rotten. Against all proper decorum, she violently spit the food back out to her plate in an attempt to purge herself of the foul taint that she felt spreading throughout her body, but it was too late. The poison had already taken hold.

  “What is it?” Durin asked her with a pair of bewildered eyes.

  “Poison,” she sputtered, before taking a drink of the wine to cleanse her mouth and then spitting it out as well. Her skin turned pale, and she could sense a sickness inside her.

  Durin looked at her in horror, as he watched the poison take noticeable effect. Ruby fell off her seat to the floor, grabbing at her neck and choking. The wizard pulled out his thin, gnarled wooden wand and got down on the floor with the princess. Aiming
the implement toward Ruby’s mouth, he muttered some incantation.

  As Durin began to conjure the spell, Ruby could feel something coming up from within her. At first, she thought she was going to vomit, but the sensation was somehow different. Instead of her sick coming up, a dark purplish liquid began to drip out of her mouth. The wizard continued to cast his spell, pulling the substance from within her. It spilled out, coloring her yellow dress purple. Her lips, chin, neck, and soon even her whole chest were coated with the poisonous ooze, as it began to pool in her lap.

  The poison sludge ceaselessly dripped from Ruby’s mouth, as the wizard channeled his spell to suck the substance from her body. Durin attempted to purge Ruby of the vile substance inside her and save the princess’ life, but before he had finished the spell, a sword protruding through his rib cage interrupted his attempts. A grotesque expression covered his face, as he looked down to the metal tip of the blade ripping through his chest.

  “That doesn’t go there,” he uttered, before his eyes rolled back in his head.

  The castle guard at the other end of the sword placed his boot to the wizard’s back and pulled the blade out. Durin toppled to the side, collapsing to the cold stone floor, and his blood pooled beneath him, soaking into his robe along with the red wine stain on his sleeve.

  Ruby crawled backward from the guard as fast as she could manage. Durin’s murderer was one of her father’s men. He had betrayed the king, but she couldn’t imagine a possible reason as to why. She wondered what was going on. The guard looked at her with such malice in his eyes, and Ruby realized he would not stop until she was dead. He didn’t seem at all concerned with the flow of poison from her mouth or her ghastly pale appearance. He was singularly focused on ending the princess’ life. One might even say that he looked to be in a trance.

  The poison wildly spewing from Ruby’s mouth poured forth with no end in sight. The wizard’s spell had been interrupted. She no longer felt sickness from the poison within her, but Ruby thought that the deluge of purplish black goop would never stop. If she’d known the truth of her condition then, it surely would have horrified this innocent young princess.

  Continuing to crawl backward, Ruby soon found herself against the wall of the dining hall with the trail of expelled poison in front of her like that of a giant slug. She had nowhere left to go, and the guard slowly walked toward her. He didn’t strike her as in any particular hurry to kill her, seeming to savor every step closer to Ruby. She wondered what she or her family could have ever done to deserve such vitriol from this guard. Who had put him up to such a task? Ruby conceded that she was unlikely to ever learn such answers. All her life, she had strived to be a force of good, helping her people however she could, but she feared such deeds would not save her now.

  The guard stopped, standing over Ruby’s cowering form and straddling the poison trail that she had left. She forced herself to look up at her killer one last time. A dark shiver ran down her spine, and she felt somehow emboldened. Her breathing slowed, she stopped shaking in fear, and Ruby even stood to face the guard, mere inches from his face. He smiled sickly at her and grabbed her throat with his gloved hand. Ruby reactively spit some of the poison out toward him from the force of his grip.

  The goop landed on his glove and then dripped beneath his armor. At the very moment the poison touched his skin, the guard yanked back his hand, flailing in pain and releasing the princess from his fierce grip. He dropped his sword to the stone floor with a clatter and attempted to pull off his glove. Falling to his knees, he screamed as the poison ate through his skin like acid. The smell the poison left behind as his flesh was devoured was unlike anything Ruby had ever experienced before. The odor filled her nostrils, and while she thought that it should be an awful stench, she found herself somewhat attracted to it. Something about it just felt right. She didn’t quite recognize herself in that moment, but it was only the beginning of her changes.

  Forcing herself to ignore the sweet smell, Ruby realized that this was her chance. She rushed forward and grabbed the sword that the guard had dropped. It was heavy, much heavier than she would have guessed. She barely managed to grip it and hold the tip off the ground, lurching her shoulders forward in the effort. The poison gurgled forth from her mouth, and some of it landed on the blade, mixing with the dark red of Durin’s blood. The guard, meanwhile, seemed to be in agonizing pain from the poison she had spat out at him and was paying her little to no attention, giving the princess the opportunity she needed.

  Amassing every fiber of her being into the task, Ruby raised the weapon and brought it down diagonally at the guard’s neck. The blade landed with a sickening thunk in the man’s flesh and lodged there. Ruby released the hilt, as it reverberated painfully in her hands. She winced and backed up, watching blood spurt out from the wound, covering the guard’s armor in the red liquid. He screamed again, finally paying her the attention she was due. The blade hadn’t gone far enough into him to kill him and hadn’t hit anything truly vital, but she was certain that he was in great pain.

  The guard somehow stood and turned to face Ruby, the weapon still planted firmly in his shoulder and neck. He hobbled toward her, holding his shoulders hunched to the side from the weight of the blade. Ruby backed up once again, but she knew he could do nothing to her now. Their roles reversed, she toyed with him. He moved slowly, and she outpaced him, as he attempted to approach her. She saw the poison that she had inadvertently spit out onto the blade of the sword was dripping toward the guard’s spurting neck. Something within her forced her to smile, as she watched the sludge mix with the guard’s blood and then finally seep inside the wound.

  As the dark purple goop dripped inside him, the skin at his neck turned blue, and all blood streaming forth looked to have been tinted an ashy black. He stopped dead in his tracks and collapsed to the hard, stone floor, landing on his knees. His eyes were wide open and staring at Ruby. She stared back in defiance. He seemed frozen by pain but was no longer screaming, though his mouth hung wide open and slack jaw. Ruby approached him and kicked his body backward with the heel of her shoe. She could tell that he was still alive, but that wouldn’t last for long. Standing over his face, Ruby allowed the poison from her mouth to drip into his, drowning him in the vile substance that she was now plagued with. For a few moments, he struggled and gurgled against the muck, but his body seemed almost completely incapable of movement, so his fate was sealed.

  After Ruby was certain that he was dead, she snapped out of the moment and realized what she had just done. Never had she thought herself capable of taking a life, especially in such a gory and violent way. The princess stepped back, tripping her foot over his body and nearly falling to the floor. She twisted about, facing Durin’s body next to the table of poisoned food. Ruby leaned down, rolling him over to see if he had survived the attack. The court wizard was limp and lifeless, but his eyes and mouth were still wide open. She couldn’t stand to see him like that, so she rubbed a hand over his eyelids, closing them, and she pushed his jaw up to his face, giving him a look of relative calm.

  The purple ooze that continued to slop out of her mouth dirtied her hands, however, and some of that poison got onto the wizard. Ruby leaned up to the table and picked up a cloth napkin, using it to wipe the gunk that she had covered him in. The princess then turned the cloth to her own face, attempting to clean herself as well, but there was no end to the venom’s flow.

  Dropping the cloth with a sudden thought occurring to her, Ruby considered that whatever had occurred in that dining hall wasn’t over. What had happened to the rest of her family? She feared that this was not an isolated incident. The food had been meant to kill her, and if Durin had not been there, it certainly would have. She had to find her loved ones, and she believed that the poison within her would serve in her endeavor. Ruby located a small dagger on the guard’s body that was much more manageable for her than the large sword. Picking it up, she spit out a hefty sampling of the purplish ooze onto both sides of th
e blade, giving it an excessive coating in the awful substance. She would protect herself if she had to.

  Ruby left the dining hall, dagger in hand and drenched in the poison flowing forth from her mouth. Her lips, teeth, and chin were completely stained the purple black color, as the liquid continued to stream out from her following Durin’s spell. The ooze muddied her once yellow dress all the way from her neck down to the hem at her feet. Ruby’s skin was pale white and the dark veins beneath stood out in stark contrast. The poison was beginning to do more to her than merely flow out from her mouth. Her light brown hair had turned black, and the soft green eyes she once had were now ebony abysses. Even her mind felt like it was changing. Dark thoughts permeated her head, as she strode through those familiar hallways. She wanted to inflict pain on whoever had done this. Needed it. Every suppressed thought was flooding to the surface, and she felt unable to quell her own dark desires. Ruby didn’t entirely want to either.

  Her goal was clear though. She had to find her younger sister, Leina. She had to make sure that she was unharmed. If anything had happened to her, Ruby was uncertain what she would do, but if the dark thoughts in her mind were any indication, it would be savage. Monstrous.

  Walking through the hallways, Ruby heard a great deal of chaos breaking out throughout the castle’s walls, and she was certain that her assumption was correct - her ordeal had not been an isolated incident. Her pace quickened with the hope of reaching Leina sooner. Turning a corner, however, were two of the castle guards standing in her way. They had their swords out, already bloodied from some other poor souls, and when they saw Ruby, they approached her with a clear ill intent.

  The princess couldn’t imagine she would be able to defend herself against two armed guards. She knew little of combat, and armed with only a poisoned dagger, she feared she would not be able to hold her own.