M.D.Syl
patreon
Chapter 99 colorless
🕑 Added 2023-07-22 17:34:48 +0000 UTCChapter 99 War Wounds.
I’m blood crimson and red.
Scarlet thick, the color of dread.
I bring life, I show pain, from toes to head.
Yet, everyone lusts for me, without consent.
Mayan, the Ocean Fairy.
I wake up with a thumping headache. There’s something wet on my face and upper body.
“You’re injured, Your Majesty.” I see Lepp’s face. “Try not to touch the arrows. We need a healer.”
“Snok hider.” <Snake healer.> I say, but my mouth doesn’t function properly with an arrow stuck in it.
I whimper, the pain is too much.
I can’t even drink a healing potion or a pain tolerance potion with my mouth being torn like that… Just bear through this pain… I can’t… I have to! I’ve done worse! I’ve chopped my own hand! Just pull the damn thing out!
Screaming, I pull the arrow out of my cheek. Blood pours out in volumes, filling my mouth. I cough, trying to swallow instead of breathing it into my lungs. I look at the piece of my own flesh stuck around the barbed head. I pant heavily, covered in sweat. My heart beats loudly in my ears. I drink one of my healing potions but it doesn’t work. What’s wrong?! Heal! Maybe I can’t heal with an arrow stuck inside my back…
I look at the arrow I pulled out. It’s steel. Of course I can’t heal. That’s what cancels the magic from the healing potion.
The iron in the steel can’t stop a spell that is already actively working, not efficiently anyway. But as long as it maintains contact with my body, it would cancel the activation of a new magical effect. Such as the healing potion, which is essentially a healing spell trapped in liquid.
I probably crashed because the spell ran out of time… I couldn’t add any prolonging patterns… Or the pain was too much to keep my patterns in place…
“Poll de arrow.” I order Lepp, gesturing at the arrow in my back.
“Your Grace, you shouldn’t…”
“Poll de arrow!” I scream at him. “I con heal fhen is out!”
He nods and tugs the arrow in my back.
It feels like my shrill screams belongs to a stranger, as if someone else gets their guts torn open right now. Something numbs in my own brain, the pain is too much, it feels like I’m going to lose my conscious again. I bite my tongue, but I can barely feel it. I only note it, detached.
Lepp stops pulling the arrow. I can tell it’s still stuck in my back.
I gasp, traitorous tears rolling down my bloodied cheek. I cough and vomit blood, bathing in my own sweat, unable to move a muscle. I need a healing potion! Fast!!! “Poll de snoking arrow!!!” I screech at him again.
He pushes me down, and makes me lay face down on the muddied ground. He bends the arrow to the side, twisting it in my guts, before yanking it out. “There! Out!” he declares angrily.
I find myself hyperventilating. Still unable to move. “Potion…” I form the pattern for ‘Minor Telekinesis’ and pulls a healing potion from my belt bag.
He spills it on my back. I let out a relieved sigh when the pain alleviates. I takes some of the potion from my back and rub some of my cheek. The wound on my cheek closes too.
I stand up and cough a little blood. But I feel much better than I did a minute ago. The soothing effect now removed the pain entirely. I touch my cheek and lower back making sure I’m fully healed. That guy fires like Berthold, he’s dangerous! I’m going to find that archer and kill him!
“Thank you Lepp.” I should also take a 'Pain Tolerance' potion... just in case... No. Bad idea... It's numbing, it makes focusing harder, and I won't be able to cast as many patterns. There's also a danger of having no pain, I wouldn't know I was hit if I never felt it.
“It was an honor, Your Grace.”
An honor huh? “Here. For saving my life.” I hand him ten magical gems.
“Myrsha, nia tsaf lah, lah shitol ni latsa lah, fel ka’am J’an nia kent.” <Gravity, I command you, you will give me to defy you, and move as I want.> I cast ‘Lesser Flight’ again and take off, using my necklace as my mana source. The purple speck of light circling and darting around me.
As I pass above the enemy army, I no longer fly in a predicted pattern. “Nimuwal!” <water unlimited!> I cast my ‘Water Jet’ cantrip again, moving the torrent of water above the remnant of enemy soldiers.
The arrows come flying again. I make sure to actively dodge this time, not flying in the same half circle above the enemy, and definitely not stopping midair to observe the situation. I jerk back and forth in the air without any set pattern. An arrow misses my leg by mere centimeters, it’s enough to give me a general direction of the archer.
I abandon my distracting water jet, and bolt toward the spot in the wall where the accurate arrow came from. I dodge and weave to avoid getting hit. Another arrow misses my head.
This time I spot the archer on the wall. A middle-aged man in a green bloodied cloak, aiming a tall longbow at me. He releases another arrow, and I roll in the air, letting the arrow fly slightly above me. You bastard! He drops the bow and turns to run, going down the stairs that leads into the city.
Oh, you won’t be getting away! I fly above the wall and float less than a meter above of him. “Reviss, kas!” <Energy, feed!> He’s halfway of drawing his swords when my invisible electricity causes him to spasm in place. I float down to face him, let the spell go, and aim my finger at his exposed neck. “Felul felik!” <Wind cut!>
I watch with satisfaction as a thin cut appears on his throat. The blood gushes out and he holds his throat, trying to stop it.
I soar back up, but something holds my legs. Three vines are wrapped around my legs, anchoring me to the wooden stairs halfway up the wall, they crank against my ‘Lesser Flight’ spell.
I spot a hated face from the city’s street below. Oshi Darkheart. She wears a padded green outfit, sticks her tongue out at me, and wink with a maniacal grin. A pair of stony wall pieces slowly floats behind her. These have clearly been torn off one of the nearby houses.
She gives me a curtsy, and point at me. “Kushrif yefa!” <____ fly!> The stony pieces of walls around her shoot out hundreds of small bricks, rocks, and pebbles at an extreme speed.
“Myrsha samir!” <gravity protects!> My “kinetic defense” shows up around me. The barrage thuds on the orange bubble and gets thrown away like it hit a wall.
The archer to my right who was still standing—although gurgling and trying to staunch the flow of his blood—gets stoned against the wooden wall to my right. A pebble leaves a bloody mark on his temple, and a broken brick tears through his abdomen. He collapses trying to hold his guts in.
I shudder. I really shouldn't let her hit me with that... I’m forced to cancel my flying spell if I want to have more patterns to cast.
“Felul felik!” <Wind aircut!> I attempt to cut the vines holding my legs, but only one out of three gets cut. "Rod'ena." <Vines.> I grow my own vines to tug Oshi's vines off my legs.
*Fwooop* with a weird sound, my defensive bubble collapses before its duration. A large catapult boulder hits my defenses.
“Ritsa!” <Repulse!> I call out in a desperate attempt to stop the boulder from hitting me, I weave amplified patterns into it. The boulder slows from the cantrip's shockwave, but it’s too heavy for 'Repulse' even an amplified one. My amplified cantrip isn’t strong enough to even halt it in place. The boulder crashes into my left hand, the crack is loud enough to tell me I broke it. My back is pressed against the wooden wall and the boulder presses me against the wall. I gasp, it hurts, but compared to before it's not as bad.
I can hear Oshi laughing in delight behind the boulder. “Kumral,” she says, and the boulder that's crushing me begins to roll, pushing and grinding me into the wooden wall. She’s toying with me!
Myrsha kalfit <gravity lightweight> I cast silently as I put my healthy right hand against the boulder at an angle. I drain away its weight slowly. I can’t reach my rose pouch for a spell, nor can I cast it with my throbbing arm.
I start screaming, to keep the pretense of being crushed and tortured. I don’t have to actually pretend, my arm throbs with immense pain, my inner organs are squeezed, and my breasts scream being tugged by the rolling rock. My spine and ribs feels like they’ll crack under the pressure, and I can barely keep my chin above the rolling surface of the round boulder. I barely just recovered from the arrow, this is not helping!
I can hear Oshi laughing behind the boulder. She enjoys my screams. “Oshi! Please!” I shout. Her laughter intensifies, the boulder spins even faster, and now her purplish gas spreads around the boulder. The gas obscure and burns my exposed skin, luckily my face is covered by a mask, and it doesn’t hinder my sight too much.
“Nalfit is no longer here to protect you, precious. Any final words?” she mocks.
The weight crushing me slowly disappears, and after half a minute, the boulder feels like a large coarse sack of potatoes that rolls against me.
I let out another shriek. Thanks for toying with me Oshi. Lezere was right, torturing and toying with an enemy that might kill you is a bad idea… I’m going to kill you now…
Oshi continues her smug monologue. “Or you could scream. I really enjoy your screams precious. Yes you are dying. Yes, this is the…”
Ritsa! <Repulse!> The boulder is sent flying.
Oshi is standing two stairs below me, the boulder misses her by a small margin. Her amber ringed eyes open like a pair of spotted oranges, her mouth agape.
I close my eyes. “Revissor ak!” <Light strong!>
The stunned woman barely regains her wits, she breathes another cloud of gas in my general direction. Felul! <Wind!> “Hod myrsha.” <Ground pull.> I cast the two cantrips simultaneously, weaving wind and gravity mana separately. Since I’m not influencing the same object, the patterns don’t conflict.
The gas disperses, and Oshi stumbles back on the wooden staircase as the pull of gravity triples for her.
I pounce toward her, pressing my healthy right hand against her collar bones and: “Myrsha ritsa!” <Gravity repulse!>
*THOOOOMP*
I am all too familiar with the sickening gory blast by now, but this time, it’s followed by a cloud of black gas. I dart up the stairs in a panic. “Felul!” <wind!> I call out, dispersing the gas.
The gas disappears with my breeze, exposing Oshi who lay on the ground, her amber eyes open, void of life. I can see her black blood trickling down the wooden stairs through the gaping hole in her upper chest. She doesn’t make a sound, just lay there, lifeless. Is she dead? What was that gas?
Maybe I hit the spot her body stores her acidic breath? It did burn my hand a little… Must be it… good riddance to that bitch… I should finish her off… just to be sure…
“Maaaaaaaaahh!!!” Janara screams as she runs toward me down in corpse littered ground below the wall.
I look at her from my elevated position on the wooden staircase, halfway up to the wall.
Her partially mutilated face is distorted by hate and anger, but I notice that her jawbone is healed now. “I’ll kill you for this!” The ground shakes and shoots pebbles at me by the hundreds. She didn’t even cast, this is sheer anger!
*~*~*
Interlude 99.1
Salik.
Salik hates fighting inside a city. Fighting in the streets is always messy, but the walls are no longer good enough, he has to resort to some good old guerilla tactics. He and his soldiers know this city, the enemy doesn’t, and he’ll take every advantage he can get.
Salik holds his breath. He watches ten of his soldiers in red running away through the muddy alleyway, chased by a group of nearly a hundred men in green.
“Now!” he bellows.
Crossbows click, bolts rain from the windows all around, pinning the clueless soldiers to the ground. Their general isn’t the brightest apple in the pile, easy to deal with. If only Salik had enough men to actually put up a solid fight.
The soldiers in green attempt to retreat, covering themselves with their shields. His old unit would have a shield tortoise by now. His old unit isn’t here, he has to do with what he does have on hand. Adapt to your hand of cards. “Two more volleys and retreat to Koshavi Temple Street,” Salik orders.
Jarik, the man besides him nods. He puts his fingers in his mouth and let out a pair of deafening whistles. This is followed by another volley of crossbow bolts, and a cheer from the houses all around. The last volley hits when the soldiers in green are almost out of the alley.
Salik and his small party rushes through the streets, passing by a terrified woman hugging a child. Fighting in a city is always messy.
His soldiers know the way and Salik follows them. They circle around a large unit in green, using the houses themselves as shortcuts.
This house is bloody. A woman in her fifties, died crawling on the ground, leaving a trail of guts and blood. They were left here to die. She seem to have crawled toward a dead twelve years old boy. The kid is impaled against the wall by a spear, the knife he held dropped on the ground nearby. A young woman in her twenties slit her own throat, she knew all too well what’ll happen if she stays alive.
Salik shakes his head as he passes by a murdered family. Fighting in a city is always messy, he had seen these sights too many times, it never gets easier. One day it’ll be his turn to die in an alleyway, at least he lived a good life. He did some bad with it, true, but a whole lot of good might make up for it. And he had fun. It seems like his death is near. He can tell.
The sound of flesh striking flesh from one of the inner rooms reaches Salik. He raises a fist for his men to hold and opens the door to one of the inner rooms. There are confused noises inside, along with the whimpering of a young woman.
“Yraaaaaa!!”
Salik blinks. As a giant ginger man charges from within the room.
Salik pulls his hand back, but not fast enough to avoid the axe swing. Salik's hand falls off in a torrent of blood. Despite the blood sprouting out, it doesn’t hurt. Adrenaline.
Salik jumps back from the mountain of a man that exits the inner room, the ginger beard on his face marred by blood. “I told you to kill her, Ruphus!” The man in green shouts back. “The reds are here!” The ginger man charges at Salik, Salik steps back, letting his adversary expose himself.
*Twang twang twang.*
The man falls, a dozen of crossbow bolts sprout out of him like a pin cushion.
Another man without a pair of pants comes out of the room while raising a shield. Salik tugs the shield aside with the beard of his axe, dances away from the man’s blade, and slice off the man’s fingers around the handle.
The man falls to his knee, a bolt pinning his shin to the ground, and Salik hacks the man's head, the axe splitting his face in the middle. War make good men into rotten animals, himself included. It’s why he left it behind, it’s why he decided to work small jobs slaying monsters and escorting merchants.
“Sir?” Jarik lifts the detached hand for Salik.
Salik stares at his lost hand, almost curious. He had never lost a limb before. He knew plenty of people who did, he knew plenty of people who died, but none of it ever happened to him before. He’ll probably die today, this is the day. He wraps a piece of cloth tightly around his wrist to stop the bleeding, grabs his detached hand, and tugs it under his arm using the armpit to hold it. “Let’s go!”
“But sir!”
“They won’t wait for us, fix my bandage on the way. Let’s go!”
They leave the house, leaving a shaken woman holding blanket to her chest. War is a terrible business, twice as terrible when the fighting happens inside a city with women and children within the reach of the war animals. He had left it all behind, but it finally came back for him, it finally came back to claim its due.
*~*~*
Power level: 3rd stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Crown-knot: Affinity 10: connected: 1 gem replenished per minute.
Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 73
Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5: formed: 11 gems. Conversion ratio: 6:1
Air: Affinity 4: formed: 22 gems
Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 11 gems
Light: Affinity 3: formed: 16/17 gems
Water: Affinity 6: formed: 33 gems
Earth: Affinity 1: formed: 5 gems
Wood: Affinity 2: formed: 11 gems
Gravity: Affinity 9: formed: 46/50 gems
Cantrip known:
Air: Shavi’s Breeze, Shavi’s Sword. Shavi’s Hair Dryer, Aria’s Enhanced Hearing. Aria’s Sonic Scream.
Fire: Nuriss’ Flame. Effrat’s Firefly, Effrat’s Fire Breath. Sorladika's Lesser Heating. Nuriss’ Ignite. Oniga's Soap Creation.
Light: Noxi’s Light. Lako’s Blinding Light. Rika’s energy hand.
Water: Water Evocation, Water to Ice, Ice to Water, Water to Vapor, Vapor to Water, Mayan’s Icy Spike, Ayla’s Water Jet. Ayla’s instant freeze. Ayla's Flowing Shield. Ayla’s Freezing Vapors.
Earth: Alice’s Oil Summoning, Reiko’s Acid Spray. Alf's Copper Bolt
Wood: Arigor’s Lesser Vines. Kolosu’s Vegetable Summoning.
Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burst. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s Lesser Shield II. Imari’s Minor Telekinesis. Imari’s Jump. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light Body. Alino’s Heavy Body. Alino's Orbiter.
Transmutation: Oniga's Laundry.
Spells known:
Light: Rika's Electric Channelb1
Gravity: Alino’s Weightless Bodyb1x2. Imari’s Lesser Flightb2.
Life: Brigit’s Lesser Cure Poison.
Focus capability: 17 patterns.
Social status: The Queen of Red Cedar City. Shaman of the Twin Moon Tribe. Inara, Daughter of Mysteries. Apprentice to the Maven of Mysteries. Sorceress.
Personal Wealth: 1738 Magic Gems. 63 Diamonds. 1420 Golden Peas, 45 Silver Scales, 32 Copper Bits.
Personal Items:
Magical necklace. Contains 100 gems of general mana, can be drained like a mana pool. It’ll recharge by itself at the rate of five gems an hour.
1 potion of lightning body.
1 potion of mana, medium grade.
2 potions of Lesser Healing.
5 potions of Pain Tolerance.
An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keeps the pouches’ content fresh. Each pouch may contain 10g of petals or six potion flasks.
Fresh rose petals, 6g
Fresh lavender petals, 10g
10 empty soul bottles. Glass with a diamond stopper, put in scaled leather wrapping.
The Great White Egret grimoire. Dedicated by the Maven of mysteries to Inara. 26/100
Present Companions:
Languages:
Toml’a <People’s tongue> Fluent
Sinteo <Speech> Fluent
Myrsha <Gravity> 8/10
Felul <Wind> 1/10
A'arkalu 1/10 <wolf tongue>
Injuries and scars: Melted skin; face, upper chest, chain scar. Left wrist broken. Bruises. Light acid burns.
-
Kingdom’s treasury: 8,438 gold coins.
Kingdom’s citizen: 5,898 humans, 2,251 human children. Twin Moon Tribe: 1,243 orcs. 294 orc children. 164 sheep-slaves.
Kingdom's army: 1,243 Orc Warriors. 800 Levy militia. 900 Footmen. 26 Peacekeeper Knights.
Notables at Court:
Tasiya Keyholder
Jolla SilverQuill
Talbot Bookkeeper
Marasi Chef extraordinaire (spymaster.)
Old Gardner Tiom
