100 Chapter 100 Assassins And Cookies (1/2)
After almost seven hours of sleep, Joseph woke around 2 in the morning, fully rested. Everyone was ready to leave, so everyone was heading to their wagons. Stella was hurrying behind Joseph, on their way to their wagon, when she suddenly pushed him down to the ground.
Rolling to see what was going on, he spied the silhouette of a man on the roof of one of the carriages, holding a crossbow. As there was a click of a bolt releasing, Joseph circulated his mana faster than he had ever done before, casting DETONATE on it. The arrow head went wide as the blast went off. Raising his arm, he knew he couldn't do that again.
Stella stood over him, as half a dozen clicks heralded a swarm of arrows. She knocked them away as fast as they came, but one sneaked through, embedding itself in his arm, wedged between the two bones in his forearm.
The pain was excruciating! It was worse than when Sylva had killed him. The area immediately around the wound started turning black. Stephan was there, casting CURE WOUNDS, but this thing was poisoning his very mana. It was dark and disgusting. The pain took his breath away. Even Stephan's CURE POISON didn't stop it.
Joseph rolled to his knees, holding his arm out. It had to be some kind of demonic curse, similar to the corruption from Cthulhu-Skeet.
”Stella, cut it off! It's killing me!”
She swiped with her blade, and his arm fell off. Somehow, his arm being cut off, hurt less then the arrow had. The arm on the ground continued to turn black. Breathing hard, as he held his amputated stump, he stared at the appendage on the ground. There was only one spell he knew that might work, but he had to believe in it, for it to work.
It wasn't his arm, laying there in the spreading pool of blood, it was a hunk of meat. It was food. It was food. It was food. Then…PURIFY FOOD.
His mana was still abused from his forced DETONATE, so forcing the spell on something that would never normally be food, increased the strain to a point that he vomited off to the side, but he managed to hold onto the spell. The spreading blackness and the arrow were destroyed.
With a trembling hand, he picked up his arm, and held it up to his stump.
”Now, Stephan,” he barely managed to whisper.
Stephan was pale as he cast MAJOR HEAL. His nose promptly started to bleed and he pa.s.sed out.
Joseph held his arm, covered in blood, panting, as he examined the baseball sized scar in the middle of his forearm. Wiggling his fingers, his relief caught him off-guard. The sound of bodies. .h.i.tting the ground, and shouts in the dark faded from his ears as he pa.s.sed out next to Stephan.
When he woke up, he was in his carriage. Stella had her forehead on his, and sighed when he opened his eyes.
”You smell like cookies,” he whispered, and she smiled. ”Are there any left?”
”No, silly, you're imagining things. You don't have a fever, and you're awake…”
”What happened?”
They both glanced down to his arm, to see that the sleeve is still missing. It disappeared with the arrow and cursed flesh. It looked horrible, and his hand was very stiff. Hopefully a couple more heals would fix that.