155 - Lifeforce
Alexandra should have known things were going a little too well. Sure, she’d gotten lost in a cave system, lost a fight to the first darkness elemental she met, and nearly collapsed the ceiling on her head more than once. But in the end, she’d walked in as a stronger-than-average Bronze rank, and walked out as a force to be reckoned with in the basin.
Of course something bad would have happened in her week of absence.
After pestering Leander for an event quest, for which the ghost annoyingly refused to cooperate, she’d got him to give her a path she could follow to return to the surface. The old hero had prepared everything when he built his tomb, so a staircase conveniently went straight to the same valley she’d entered the cave from.
When she exited, it was night. She made her way back to Balrum, expecting to find her friends sleeping in the house she’d found for them. But when she pushed the door open, she found the building empty.
Alexandra used Tracking to look after Willow and Kam. She found the former outside of town, looking for her.
The girl was relieved to see her and explained that Kam had been hiding at home for the past week.
This sounded strange to Alexandra because Tracking told her he was in the mountains.
The two friends followed Kam’s tracks, which mixed with someone else’s. Alexandra found the situation suspicious. Kam already had trouble spending time with Willow. She didn’t think the boy would travel out of Balrum with a stranger. Unless it was Zeynep, but the woman didn’t strike her as the type to take strolls in the mountains.
And now she found herself in a shack, staring at a cultist, Rays Of The Sun ready to tear into the masked figure.
“Goodbye,” she said.
She didn’t answer and let the beam of light home onto the woman. Not long ago, the same skill struggled to pierce through the scales of a Gold-rank lizard. Unfortunately for the cultist, human skin was much less resistant, and between her skill level and her growing understanding of the conceptual truth powering it, there wasn’t much she could do to fight it.
The beam of light pierced straight through her chest, not leaving her time to react. The mask slipped, revealing a stranger’s face, and the body fell limp to the floor.
“Creepy,” Speck commented, hiding inside her body.
“You can come out, you know. The ghost said you’d be fine.”
“Light. Bad.”
“What?” Willow asked, still kneeling beside Kam and the cursed girl.
“Nothing,” Alexandra said. “Just talking to my shadow.”
“Not. Shadow,” Speck said. “Darkness.”
“Come out and introduce yourself. Else you’re a shadow.”
“Mean.”
“Ugh, Alexandra?”
“I’m coming,” she said, moving toward Kam. With how the malediction was absorbing lifeforce from him, every second counted. “How are you?”
“Not great,” Kam said. “I can’t stop the suction.” He looked at the girl. “She can’t either. She doesn’t have much life left in her.”
Alexandra looked between Kam and the girl. “I can try suppressing the malediction. But I’m not sure I can.”
With Solar Core Control, her newest rare skill, she was confident in dealing with curses and sicknesses inside her core. Her core. Going into someone else’s was a whole different matter.
The girl was only six or seven years old. Unranked. She had no way to resist the curse herself.
“Don’t,” Kam said. “This malediction… It’s everything I strived to achieve.”
“Eh? Grim.”
Kam’s eyes went wide. “No. No. Not like this. The method is not good. But the result is there. A treasure to extend one’s lifespan.”
Willow looked at the girl trembling under the blanket. “Even then, we can’t let her stay like this.”
“We don’t really have a solution either,” Alexandra said. “As I said, I’m not confident I can cure the malediction. In fact, I’m quite confident in the opposite.”
Kam shook his head. “I am.”
“You are?” Willow asked.
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“Bold.” Alexandra raised an eyebrow.
“This is what I was studying for. The girl is being used as a vessel for the malediction. It won’t kill her until its purpose is complete. She has a year. Maybe two. I just need to find the solution. If someone can, it’s me. With my bloodline…”
“You think you can find a way to replenish the lifeforce she lost,” Alexandra said.
Kam nodded. “Yes. The sensation of my lifeforce being siphoned away is already giving me some idea. I’m confident I will be able to recover my lifeforce, so why not hers, and perhaps yours.”
“Still, we have to stop the suction of your lifeforce first. I don’t think the malediction cares to keep you alive.”
Kam grimaced. “Yeah.”
“Any idea?” Alexandra asked.
Silence.
“Well, shit.”
“Idea. I. Have.”
“Tell me,” Alexandra said.
“Cut. Hand.”
She looked at Kam’s hand, stuck on the girl’s wrist, and winced. “Speck says we could cut your hand off.”
“Who?” Kam asked, clutching his arm with his free hand.
“Speck. A darkness elemental I picked up on the way. A little shy.”
“Okay… I’d rather keep my hand.” Kam hesitated. “Let’s keep that as a last resort.”
“Cut. Child. Hand.”
“I guess we could also do that,” Alexandra said, not liking the sound of it.
“What?” Willow asked.
“Cutting the girl’s hand.”
“That’s not…” Willow started.
“That’s not worse than cutting Kam’s hand.”
“Still…” Kam shook his head.
Alexandra studied the joined hands, Kam's fingers locked on the girl's wrist.
“I should try separating you first,” she said slowly. “We can cut hands later.”
“Please,” Kam said. “Anything that doesn't involve losing a limb.”
Alexandra waved her missing finger in front of him. “It’s not that bad.”
Kam sighed.
“Fine,” Alexandra said. “Drain Life.”
Willow blinked at her. “How is that going to help?”
“It’s a skill to steal lifeforce,” Alexandra explained. “That's exactly what this malediction is doing. If I connect to the flow properly, I should be able to get between them. Interrupt the exchange for a second. Long enough for Kam to get away.”
“Are you sure it will work?” Kam asked.
“Not at all.”
“Comforting.”
“Bad. Plan,” Speck offered.
"Do you have a better one?"
Silence, which she took as a no.
Alexandra extended her senses toward the girl. She could feel, faintly, the current running between her and Kam. It wasn't a clean thread, but rather was a wound, a sponge hungry for more.
She called on Drain Life.
A thread of her mana got in front of the wound.
The malediction caught onto her, and for a moment, she was the one being drained.
“Now!”
Kam wrenched his hand back.
Alexandra clenched her fists and fought back. She wasn’t doing that to lose her lifeforce. She pulled on the thread, going against the malediction. Yet, her plan wasn’t to drain the curse of the lifeforce it had accumulated. She could do nothing with it, and it might harm the kid even more. Instead, she slowly reached a balance and equilibrium where neither side could take from the other.
The connection faded on its own.
Kam sat back, cradling his freed hand. “That worked.”
“That worked.” Alexandra sat back too, her own head spinning from the backlash. “Don’t do that again.”
“I might have to,” Kam muttered. “I’ll need contact to find a solution to her issue.”
“Ah. Right. Well, ask me when you—”
Willow put a hand on both their shoulders. “Guys, that’s enough. Can we have one day without someone risking their life? Please.”
Alexandra smiled. “I was perfectly safe in the cave. I even made friends.”
“You? Made friends?”
“Rude.”
The girl stirred.
Not much. The twitch of fingers. Then her eyes opened, unfocused, glassy.
“Speck.” Alexandra didn't look away from the girl, keeping her voice steady. “The body. Hide it. Now.”
“Where?”
“The darkness. Anywhere she can't see it.”
“Darkness. For. Rocks.”
“Speck. Do it.”
“Fine.”
A shadow slid out from Alexandra's shadow, wrapping the corpse until it vanished. The mask. The robes. The woman with a hole through her chest. Gone.
“What the…” Willow whispered.
“I wasn’t kidding. There’s a darkness elemental inside of me.”
“Speck,” it said, proud.
“And its name is Speck.”
The girl’s eyes slowly fixed on the three strangers in front of her. Her lips trembled as if she was about to cry.
Alexandra turned back to the girl, keeping her hands visible, her voice gentle. “Hey. Hey, it's alright. You're safe. My name's Alexandra.”
This didn’t seem to help. The girl started crying, louder than her weakened state should have allowed.
Willow patted her back, trying to console her. Kam moved back, making distance between them.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Alexandra asked.
No answer.
“Want. Rock?”
“I don’t think she wants rocks, Speck.”
“Want. Rock.”
Speck sifted through its collection and manifested a small shadow figure shaped like a stickman. Carrying a smooth pebble like it was struggling to lift it, the elemental dropped it inside the girl’s palm.
“What is that?” Willow asked.
“I told you. It’s Speck.”
The girl looked at the pebble and instantly stopped crying.
Speck nodded in satisfaction. “Beautiful. Rock. Appreciate.”
Alexandra exhaled. “You have to be kidding me.”