by Will Wight
“Oooh, that looks painful,” Dross said, from back in his seat in the jewel. “I’m sure you’re looking for a way to restore your spirit, eh? Of course you are, every sacred artist is. Lucky for you, I have the perfect solution!”
Every time he left his vessel, he lost a little essence, but thanks to what he'd taken from the other information constructs in the storage room, he shouldn't be in any immediate danger.
“There is a Spirit Well,” the construct continued. “Oh, it's beautiful: blue as a summer sky. So I'm told. I've never seen it myself, and for that matter, I've never seen the sky either. Or summer. Anyway, it promotes growth in the soul, stimulating recovery and increasing madra density. That was another reward for the workers: a glass or two could take a Highgold to the brink of advancement. Quite a coveted bonus, I can tell you, and I’m sure it’s been piling up just like the Dream Well. This is an opportunity not worth missing, I can assure you.”
Lindon pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. “Where?”
“Ah, that would be in the tablet library. It's where the dream artists pursued their project: they thought that they could condense a type of mental madra that, when focused on the brain, increased performance.”
“It didn't work?”
“In small doses, it worked like a charm. In less-small doses, it drove all test subjects violently insane.”
“And how do we get there?”
A brief violet light flashed, pointing straight out the door. “It's roughly five hundred yards in that direction.”
Right through Ekeri. Of course.
In any case, if he wanted to recover, he needed to keep his strength up.
Lindon looked to his fish. He would love to start a fire—not only would he prefer to cook his fish, but he needed something to generate Blackflame aura. If he simply waited on his soul to recover madra naturally, it would take weeks to refill his core, and that would be without refining or adding to his power in all that time.
But he wasn't sure he was capable of rising to his feet. Instead, he used his Remnant arm to peel the skin and scales away from a stretch of pale blue-white flesh. Ripping off a stretch of meat, he popped it into his mouth raw.
It exploded with flavor in his mouth, a sweet but metallic taste. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was intense. He almost spat it out in surprise. The meat was tender, melting like butter on his tongue, and he swallowed it without having to chew.
He gasped with relief after swallowing, reaching for a flask of Dream Well water to wash it down. “That has quite a taste to it,” he said.
Orthos cracked one eye. “Bad?”
“It's...a lot.” His right arm flopped to the ground instead of grabbing the nearest water vial. With an inward sigh, he reached out with his left arm.
When that didn't follow his directions either, he knew something was wrong. Little Blue, who had been curled up on the floor nearby, piped a questioning note.
“Orshoth,” he mumbled, “shere's shumfing...”
Heat crawled out from his stomach and slid through his blood. Sparks of lightning danced inside him, and his muscles started to tremble. A moment later, they began to dance.
His eyes rolled up into his head as he felt his body shake against the stone.
Poison, he realized. He'd been poisoned.
That was exactly what the Bloodforged Iron body was meant for, but he'd used up all but a fraction of his madra fighting Ekeri. He could feel it draining his spirit, but once he was dry, he'd be helpless.
“Cycle it!” Orthos demanded. “Take control!”
Cycle it? Lindon wondered. The heat from the fish wasn't traveling through his madra channels, but through his bloodstream.
He tried anyway, forcing his lungs to inflate and focusing on the warm, crackling energy. He pushed out a breath, and the energy moved through his body a little more.
It was like trying to push a millstone uphill one inch at a time, but he stuck with it one breath at a time.
As he did, he noticed something: he wasn't running out of madra. His Iron body should have been pulling from his spirit to heal him, but instead, it was feeding on the power from the sacred beast's meat. Now he focused on the cycling process eagerly.
Some time later, he lay on his back, staring up at the blue lights of the ceiling, breathing slow and even. His Bloodforged Iron body had seized on the last of the fish's energy, dispersing it through his limbs. Even his Remnant arm fed on it with relish.
Lindon sat up. His ribs were still tender, his spirit still aching, and his cores as empty as ever...but much of the pain had vanished. Not only that, but his arms and legs felt tense, and somehow lighter than usual.
“...was I poisoned?” Lindon asked.
Orthos took a huge bite out of the fish, tearing away half the remaining flesh and raising his head up so it fell down his gullet. Lindon could see the lump of meat sliding through his throat.
The huge turtle let out a breath of satisfaction a moment later, shaking himself like a wet dog. “Now that is meat fit for a dragon.” He eyed the remaining chunk of fish tail. Extending one nail, he slid off a hand-sized piece and slapped it skin-down on the ground next to Lindon. “Make that last,” he said.
Then he snapped up the rest of the tail, bones and scales crunching between his jaws.
“You know, I've thought of something that you might have wanted to know a few minutes ago,” Dross said, his gem flashing. “It's not too big of a deal. Hardly worth mentioning, really. But those fish? They’re called Silverfang Carp, and they are not meant to be eaten by humans. They were raised here like cattle, you know, to feed some of the, ah, larger specimens of Ghostwater.”
Lindon felt a sick feeling in his gut. He hoped it was his nerves and not some sort of horrifying parasite.
“Their meat promotes physical vitality and muscle growth,” Dross went on. “So it's not as though it's unhealthy! The opposite, really. So you see, good for you! And you survived, so...no harm done!”
Orthos belched so loudly the floor shook. “I haven't had a meal like that in decades. The Arelius family could not afford meat of that quality. You're lucky; this is the sort of food the Emperor eats.”
“He probably has his cooked,” Dross pointed out.
“So Overlords can eat this safely?” Lindon asked.
“Underlords and above have their bodies reforged by soulfire,” Orthos rumbled. “Something of this level is no problem for them, but it also doesn't provide as much of a benefit. The earlier you start eating like this, the better it is for you. If you did nothing but gorge yourself on those Carp for the next month or two, you'd have the strength of a lion and the endurance of an ox.” He barked out a laugh. “Maybe soon, I can stop calling you human.”
Dross added, “That is, if you survived. And if there were no crippling deformities caused by uncontrollable growth of your muscles and organs. Which, none so far so...yay! Let's all celebrate and not, you know, cast blame on anyone who didn't warn you.”
Lindon hurriedly scanned himself with his spiritual perception.
If anything, he seemed to be healthier than before his fight with Ekeri. A quick glance through his Copper sight showed that the line of green life aura running down his spine was brighter than ever, and the blood aura in his body was rich and dense.
He was no healer, but he imagined that was a good thing.
Mentally, Lindon thanked Eithan for leading him to the Bloodforged Iron body. If the Underlord had done nothing else for Lindon, that favor alone would have deserved Lindon's gratitude.
He started eyeing the remaining piece of Silverfang Carp meat. He wasn't exactly eager to go through that process again, but...
“I couldn't match her,” he said. “Physically, at least, she was stronger than Jai Long.”
Orthos coughed up a laugh. “She is a dragon.” He seemed in much better spirits now, after a meal; Lindon hoped the fish would give him the strength to heal his wounds.
“And she
eats like this?”
“Gold dragons eat meat of this quality from the moment they hatch.” He bunched his shoulders in his version of a shrug. “By now, she will have reached her limit. Her body can be improved no further, while you have room to grow.”
With his right hand, Lindon skinned the meat, tossing the skin and scales to Orthos. Then he crammed the remaining fistful of Carp into his mouth.
When he recovered, he could stand. Shakily. He hobbled down to the lower level and withdrew everything flammable he could find, piling it together. Orthos lit it on fire, and Dross activated vents in the ceiling that drew away the smoke.
At first, Lindon was concerned that the smoke would be visible to Ekeri outside. But she already knew they were in here, so what harm could that do?
The fire consuming the fuel released destruction aura, and the blazing flames generated fire aura. It was out of balance—there was far more fire aura here than destruction, and all of it was muted and suppressed by the overwhelming power of water—but there was enough for Lindon to cycle.
At Orthos' instruction, he simply drew the aura in and converted it to madra. He spent very little time cycling it for advancement or operating the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel to push for a deeper core. This basic aura cycling technique of the Path of Black Flame wasn't anything fancy, Orthos told him, but it was better for recovery than the Purification Wheel.
“Purification Wheel?” Dross asked. “That sounds intriguing. Is that your cycling technique?”
Lindon didn't answer him. Eithan had emphasized that others might kill him in the hopes of pulling his cycling technique from his Remnant, so he tried to draw as little attention to it as possible. Not that he expected Dross to be spreading rumors, but it was better to be safe.
In three days, during which they had nothing else left to eat, Lindon had refilled his Blackflame core and begun to train. At first, he worried every hour that the world would disappear suddenly, taking him with it. But it was supposed to last for a few more months…and besides, it wasn’t as though he knew how to escape. The fastest way out was to train.
No one slept—Dross and Little Blue didn't need to, and Orthos and Lindon were sustained by the Dream Well water. Which was the only thing they had to drink.
“A Path is designed for one purpose,” Orthos growled at him. “You must learn to see that purpose.” The turtle's mental state had been improved by the Dream Well water, so he hardly lost himself anymore, but his spirit was still scarred. Physically, he'd recovered enough to limp around the hallway, but he rarely moved more than that.
He didn't cycle either. There wasn't enough aura to sustain them both, so Orthos left it to Lindon.
“What is the strength of the Path of Black Flame?” Orthos asked, locking red-and-black eyes onto him.
“Overwhelming power,” Lindon said. He had heard Orthos talk about this often enough to know what answer he wanted to hear.
The sacred beast grumbled, dissatisfied. “But why? What does that accomplish?”
Lindon thought for a moment before he answered. This reminded him of discussions he'd had with Yerin.
“Pressure,” he said. When he trained against Yerin, it felt as though he was always on the back foot, so that he couldn't launch an attack without losing a hand.
Orthos grunted approval, snapping up a mouthful of rusted metal. Lindon was starting to wish he could digest old iron as well; it had been three days since his last taste of food.
“When your opponent defends, he is not attacking. And the first mistake he makes will be his last. Now, Ekerinatoth's Path of the Flowing Flame. What is its strength?”
Lindon took another vial of purple water and his thoughts sharpened. He concentrated on that memory of their fight, as the dragon-girl flowed like a coiling snake around his attack. She used whips, and her Striker technique curled like a stream.
“Flexibility,” Lindon said. “Adaptability.”
“The usual strength of water artists,” Orthos said, a touch of scorn in his voice. “They will avoid or redirect your attacks, and use that moment to attack. How do you maintain pressure on such an opponent?”
Ekeri's movements were clear in Lindon's Dream Well-enhanced memories. “She becomes predictable,” he realized aloud. When he left a gap, he could count on her taking it. Meaning he could see where she would attack him. “I can anticipate her.”
“Show me,” Orthos said. And he rushed at Lindon.
Two days of constant, sleepless training later, Lindon left the cave again.
Thanks to the water, Lindon felt as though it had been much longer. He was able to train for twice as long as before—when his body or spirit couldn't recover, he instead discussed strategy and theory until he was ready to move again. And what training he had was twice as effective, because he was always ready to give it his full concentration.
The level of water in the well had now shrunk significantly. Orthos' thirst was not to be underestimated, and the water was only replaced by a few drops a day. Lindon was already wondering if there was some way to take the well with them when they left, or at least recreate it outside.
He snuck out of the cave under a veil with no complications, and the Silverfang Carp died easily under his Remnant fist. His body felt lighter and stronger than ever, after digesting the power of the sacred beast meat from before. This one had only managed to scream once before he crushed its skull, then shredded its Remnant.
He had barely recovered any pure madra over the last several days—he hadn't realized how much he'd relied on Eithan's elixirs to refill his pure core. As a result, he'd only been able to make one low-quality scale for Little Blue. She hadn't been able to use any madra, so Orthos' spirit was growing worse and worse.
Even if he managed to bring back this whole Carp, they couldn't stay in the tunnels forever. Fortunately, his Blackflame core was in top condition.
He made it all the way back to the tunnel and opened the door, tossing the fish inside, before Ekeri showed herself.
His perception caught her descending like a meteor from the rock tower overhead. She blazed with power, aiming for him while he still held Dross in the keyhole.
Lindon released the Eye of the Deep and ignited the Burning Cloak.
He struck overhead, launching a punch along with a pulse of Blackflame madra above him. It wasn't a true dragon's breath, but it should at least singe her.
She was falling headfirst, her eyes blazing gold, her teeth bared. She slapped his punch aside with one claw, the other sweeping at his head.
Lindon caught it.
His Remnant arm seized on her wrist. His strength couldn’t compare to hers—not only was she a Truegold, she was a dragon. But he had gravity on his side. With all his strength, he hauled her down. She twisted in his grip, slamming into the ground braced on her feet and tail. Sand blasted away in a ring.
Lindon had already triggered his arm.
Intense heat flowed into his limb along with a flow of orange madra, sending spiritual pain shuddering through him. He gritted his teeth and continued even as she pulled back, trying to break his grip.
She snarled, turning, whipping her tail at him. He had to release her and jump back before her tail lashed him in the chest.
Without missing a beat, he vented the madra in his arm. Her own molten madra sprayed at her from only a few feet away, causing her to raise one gold hand to protect her face.
Seizing Dross again, Lindon dove through the gap and slammed the door shut.
~~~
Ekeri's rage burned so hot that the nearby aura ignited. Even through the overwhelming power of water, the edges of the nearby stalks began to smolder and release smoke. The distant fish shrieked, but Ekeri wished they would close on her. She needed something to vent her frustration.
The other Truegolds would have moved on to other habitats by now, or to the wreckage of those that had collapsed. They would be reaping a rich harvest. And here she was, clawing at a treasure chest that remained
stubbornly locked. No longer.
Raising her hand to her chest, she activated one of her necklaces: a chain of silver with a single thumbnail-sized bell on the end. The bell rang once. No matter how far away her attendants were, they would hear it and return.
The next time that door opened, they would kill everything inside.
~~~
Lindon leaned his head against the wall of the tunnel, his arms trembling. Blocking the Truegold's attack directly had cracked bones in his left wrist, which his Iron body rushed to repair, and fractures had appeared in the madra of his right arm. He patched them over with pure madra, though he'd have to perform real maintenance with hunger madra when he left.
Even that brief exchange with Ekeri left him strained and bruised, but it also left him grinning like Eithan. He had traded blows with her and come out ahead.
Orthos had already torn the head off the Silverfang Carp, and was crunching happily through its skull. “I hope you've prepared yourself,” Orthos said through a mouthful of food.
Lindon nodded to the door. “I know. She won't let me walk away next time.”
The turtle grunted. “No. Next time, you won't let her walk away.”
Over the next few days, the fish became easier for Lindon to digest. It still kicked him like a horse, but it took him less time to process the energy, and he started to see a clear improvement in his body. Every time he cycled more of the sacred beast's power was another round of tempering everything from his bones to his skin.
Orthos was clearly seeing the benefits too. He moved more easily than Lindon had ever seen him outside a fight, and even the fissure in his shell had started to close. Mentally, he reported feeling clearer than he had in years, so his mood was bright. Relatively speaking. However, his soul was still damaged and weak. He couldn't use a single technique without treatment, which Little Blue was in no shape to give him. Lindon's pure core recovered at a snail's pace without help.