Chapter 13: The Cleansing (1/2)

Viv yawned.

“Yoink,” she breathed half-assedly. The revenant fell back in a pile of ash and bone. Those horses the knights were riding were fucky to be sure, they should have been tired by now. It was fast, though, much faster than dragging a sled behind her like a smelly husky, not that she was jealous.

Technically, the knights had magical horses. That made them horse girls, which Viv only had a lukewarm opinion of. She, however, had a semi-tamed dragon and a golem. That made her a Pokemon trainer which was much cooler. There were already six balls right next to her, haha. Probably.

You are suffering from mild mana poisoning.

Alright, that meant water treatment when she got back. Her supply was almost exhausted and the effects were fading anyway.

The trip continued for only a few minutes. The plains being flat and boring, she could spot her destination from afar. The town emerged from the sea of dust and sand like so many white bones, the walls flayed by the sands over the centuries. She wondered why any undead creature would want to stay there.

They stopped about fifty meters away from the closest house, facing the main street. It was also, in fact, the only real street. Viv quickly yoinked the surrounding revenants and waited. She hoped that they had a way to attract the closest monster.

Her answer came quickly. Benetti rode ahead alone and removed a rapier-like sword from its sheath on his flank. He clanged his push-blade.

Viv wondered if he was serious.

Revenants slammed into the ground from inside a nearby hovel. A massive arm emerged from inside, quikly followed by the rest of the obese body. She recognized the gut spiller from its strangely horned face.

Benetti swore and rode back, creatures in tow. More of the gut spillers were now after him, as well as a pair of much faster crawlers. They all turned around and left at a trot.

It was now clear that the crawlers were very fast, much faster than the ponderous gut spiller. Their unnatural gait allowed them to move forward at surprising speeds. Viv calmed down and aimed at the first one as soon as it was in range.

“Yoink.”

Her mana flooded a complex channel and withdrew without too much difficulty. The mana was dense in her conduits. Eager. It pushed into her with an intimate pain that made her want to use it. Her next drain spell flew like a snake and robbed the crawler of its strength mid-jump.

Jor pushed the falling body away, some of it disintegrating on his blade.

The trio of cavalrymen turned and started to circle the mass of spillers at the edge of Viv’s range. The stupid things walked on each other in their eagerness to reach their juicy targets. The three focused on pushing back nearby revenants while Viv went to work on the special enemies. Each one of her spells found soft tissue and pulled unlife from it. She was regaining more mana that she could consume. Her conduits burned.

In desperation she simply let mana vent from the conduits on her back. Cernit looked back with panic in his eyes. She turned as well.

Two wings of darkness flew from her shoulders like demon regalia.

Intimidation has reached Beginner 5

Neat, but pointless. With less risk of exploding like a balloon, she kept firing at the spillers. An observation nagged at her confidence.

She was slowing down.

She had never had to use so many yoinks in such a short time. The repeated spells were easy, but they added up to form a burden on her mind. It was getting more difficult to guide the mana, make it understand what it was supposed to do.

Viv gritted her teeth and endured. A spiller fell. Another. She coughed, suddenly short of breath.

Jor turned to her and said something. Viv could not exactly follow. One last spiller missing a leg limped out of the village, smashing aside the crowd of revenants now slowly emerging from the derelict. Almost there.

Then, there was a screech like a hundred nails on a gritty hardboard. She winced and grabbed her rider, feeling dizzy.

Cernit yelled something and the trio raced away at great speed. Viv coughed again but it felt different this time. She tasted iron on her tongue. Something burned inside of her, even as a dark bird launched up and towards them.

The knights were pushing their mounts as much as possible. The armored horses now moved so fast that Viv felt wind on her face.

Once more, Viv called upon the black mana flowing inside of her, with her frayed mind and her tired will. She dragged on it. She pulled it out piece by piece, feeling like she was dragging herself up a rope with exhausted muscles. The black mana answered her call. It wanted to be used, but she had trouble guiding it. Molding it. A shadow wrapped over her.

A horrid stench made her gag.

Even through the mask on her face, the dreadful odor made her want to wretch. The spell wavered in her hands.

Jor turned around and his eyes met hers. She saw no hesitation in those brown depths, not a wrinkle on the corners of his strangely greenish skin. His gaze drifted from the tears marring her cheek to the horror approaching with only acceptance. He fluidly jumped on the saddle until he was standing on it, turned around and jumped out, polearm brandished in his muscular arm.

She knew that it would not be enough.

Viv smashed through her pain and confusion, she turned to face the creature at their back and slowed time. It was a gigantic undead bat with rotten skin held taut between skeletal fingers. The tendril caught the thing in the face. It reeled. The distraction gave Jor a moment, which he seized. His crescent blade dug into the beast’s chest, then his feet touched the ground.

The beast flayed and fought, held back and blinded by a colossal strength and a colossal will respectively. Meanwhile Viv was fighting.

The thing was immensely powerful. Her mana struggled to fill its deep conduits, it was like trying to push water through a small hose to fill a bathtub. No matter how she forced herself, progress was agonizingly slow.

Focus +1

She was close. So close. The big fucking thing would fall. She was going to kill it.

“Die!” she screamed “yoink!”

A threshold was reached. Her mana reached the point where it occupied more than half of the creature’s conduits. Its resistance collapsed.

With one last screech, the beast’s resistance stopped.

Power flooded her veins then, it was too much, and she raised her trembling arms to release it. A column of black escaped from her fingers.

She started to slip back.

Benetti and Cernit turned around, the lieutenant holding the reins to her ride. They were staring ahead and did not notice. She feebly grabbed the saddle and pulled herself forward.

Not gonna fall. Not gonna faint like some weakling. Not before those idiots.

Willpower +1

She was at twenty-nine on all mental stats. There were surely some juicy rewards for reaching the threshold. But only for people who could hold on.

She found her balance.

And immediately collapsed forward into darkness.

Viv woke up in her bed feeling strangely warm. There was a heavy weight on her chest. She looked down to investigate and found herself nose-to maw with two evil scarlet eyes. And a lot of blood.

Arthur’s jaws shone crimson...

Viv’s first thought was unkind.

‘That motherfucking twit finally went and ate my entrails.’

Then, she realized there was far too little red stuff and that she would have gone into shock by now. Being exsanguinated and eaten alive also came with a slew of symptoms that she was mercifully exempt of. It was warm and toasty under the cover.

//You are awake, Your Grace.

//Your condition is stable.

Arthur spread her wings and stood on her back legs, her front paws clawing the air.

“Squee.”

“Thank you for watching over me, Arthur. You did an amazing job.”

Viv scratched the dragonling’s chest, eliciting a strange sound between a soft roar and a purr. Her task completed, the almost pet slithered away and jumped on her bedrest, which Viv had placed on a table by her bed. She also found a wooden cup filled with water and a small grey pill on a stool within arm’s reach.

//The water and medicine will help with the nausea.

“What nausea? Ow!”

Should have known better than to invoke that dreaded name.

//You are suffering from overcasting.

//It was a mild case, and your recovery was quite fast.

//I would recommend avoiding any strenuous activity until tomorrow.

//We will suspend your training until then.

//I will still require a charge.

Mana manipulation reached Beginner 6

Viv swallowed the water and the [mild rejuvenative pill]. She had questions.

“Why does Arthur have blood on her mouth? Did someone feed her meat?”

//In a manner of speaking, Your Grace.

//Someone broke into our room with designs on my person.

//I have already notified the relevant authorities.

Viv stopped for a moment. Snitching on your first day would make the soldiers mistrust her. On the other hand…

“Did one of the intruders happen to be bald?”

//Yes, Your Grace.

//A despicable man by the name Hern.

//Arthur marked him.

“I see.”

It was better to be feared than to be dismissed, especially as the lone woman in a camp full of men. She would never be able to make them see her as an ally anyway, not without spending an inordinate amount of time doing so. They did not even share a language. It would take too much time and effort. Being feared was fine in her book. She had no intention of sticking around.

A little voice inside of Viv told her that it was a lie, that showing respect and decency would go a long way. It said that she was still the entitled, privileged princess who had left a rich home behind because she already had an out with the army. It said that, at heart, she was still the arrogant bitch who had enjoyed watching her father humiliate others, who had done so herself.

She crushed that voice.

Fighting for the others was a good start. She did not owe them to try and be friends.

And speaking of helping others.

“Do you know what happened to Jor? Is he still… alive?”

//Jor was alive when he was brought here.

//However, he was wounded by an undead creature.