by H. C. Mills
Alec is the one who breaks it. “I guess that’s that, then. I don’t know about you guys, but I say either we all get out of here or we go down together. So we’d better get that final Stardrop, then go make the deal.”
Dave sighs, and nods. “There’s nothing for it, I suppose. You’ll have to explain to us how to get it, Emma, because you’re in no shape to go out there again. Maybe we can grab some extra, and—”
I shake my head. “I hate to break it to you, but you’d never make it there, even if I forewarned you about all the dangers and you walked there in a straight line. When I came back I was at 11.6 Onkh of Toxic Energy. You guys simply don’t have the necessary Tolerance.”
Dave frowns. “Well, I can Purify myself—”
“Yeah,” I cut him off, “once an hour, for ten minutes. That’s not gonna cut it.” I get up and start pacing the floor. “God, how did other people even get there? Are there more freaks like me walking around?”
“Maybe they found another place with Stardrop Flower?” Alec offers.
“Maybe,” I mutter. “But there’s no time to look for it.”
Dave folds his arms in front of his chest. “So what are you saying? You want to go back in yourself?”
I shake my head no. “That’s even more impossible, even if I wasn’t currently so intoxicated. Remember how I said I got greedy? Well, the truth is, I got attacked for taking too many Stardrops. I was lucky to get away the first time.”
“Shit,” Dave mutters.
“Maybe we could bargain,” Alec says. “See if we could get them to release Kaitlynn for the four Stardrops we do have.”
I frown. “That might actually work... but what do we do after that? Even if we get them their Stardrops, we still need them too. Two of you would somehow need to survive a trip into the glade, just to get enough for us to level up. And we’d need to figure out a way to do that before the rest of the doors are used.”
“Right,” Dave sighs. “If Bruce uses the third, that’s only three doors remaining.”
Alec groans. “All right, so what are our options here... all I can come up with is paying them, abandoning Kaitlynn, or—”
I halt my pacing to spin around and glare at him. “Abandoning Kaitlynn is not an option.”
Alec holds up his hands in supplication. “I wasn’t suggesting we do it, just listing hypotheticals. Anyway, leaving that out, our only options would be paying them, or staging a rescue. But a rescue would probably...”
“Get rather violent,” Dave finishes, appearing uncomfortable with the idea. “Not to mention incredibly dangerous.” He hesitates. “In all honesty, I’d prefer to bargain for a lower payment and then try to figure out a way to get more Stardrops in the time we have left.”
I groan, then rub my eyes with my palms, one soft and squishy, the other hard and smooth. It’s a stark reminder of our harsh reality.
I take a deep breath and open my eyes, my mind made up. “Look, all of our options suck. Trading may seem like the best bet short-term, but long-term, we have much more to gain from confronting them and kicking their asses. Normally I’m all about live and let live, but they crossed a line. Also, if we go that route, we have one major advantage: we can level up first.”
Alec’s eyes sparkle. Perhaps he’s a little too into this plan. Probably imagining himself a dashing hero, coming to a maiden’s rescue.
Dave seems less enthusiastic, more worried. “If we do that, we’ll be putting Kaitlynn’s life on the line.”
“I know, Dave,” I say with a sigh, “and I hate that.” I really do. “But so does handing over her Stardrop. The fact is, all our lives are on the line in this place, all the time. We have to think strategically. Right now, Kaitlynn is at their mercy, but if we give in to their demands, they’ll hold all the power, and we’ll all be at their mercy. What if they level up, then decide they want our Minor Lavi Crystals too? Or worse, our Qi Pearls?”
After a long pause, he nods. He still looks rather squeamish though. That won’t do.
“If we’re going to do this,” I say slowly, “we’ll have to get to her quickly and efficiently. That means no holding back. We’ll attack with force. Lethal force, where necessary. I need to know you guys can handle that.”
Alec nods determinedly, zero hesitation. I’m starting to fear for this boy’s sense of reality. I bet it’s is seriously warped, but right now, it’s working in my favour. Dave closes his eyes and turns away from us. A tense silence falls in our little hut.
A part of me hesitates, and I wonder if I can handle it. A larger part of me tells it to shut up and promises rivers of blood until Kaitlynn is safe.
Dave looks up with a sigh, staring unseeingly at the ceiling for a few seconds. He turns to face us, face like a storm cloud.
That’s it, boy, get angry.
“I’ll handle it,” he says gruffly. “For Kaitlynn.”
I nod. “Then we agree. Let’s start by levelling up, see what it brings us, and go from there.”
We take out three Stardrops, each of our Qi Pearls, and all three Minor Lavi Crystals we currently possess. Good thing we hid them all here.
Suri is quick to explain the process to me.
The first step to levelling up is heating the Stardrop until it liquefies enough to becomes drinkable. Immediately after drinking it, the Lavi Crystal and the Qi Pearl must be swallowed. Those provide the energies necessary to change the body, and also serve to use up most of the Stardrop’s effect of igniting energies, so it doesn’t burn up all the Lavi in the body.
Just most of it.
The process takes about fifteen minutes and is apparently ‘quite painful,’ but the ones undergoing it have to remain awake to control the raging flows of energies. Specifically, we have to integrate that energy into the existing flows passing through our meridians and prevent them from colliding the way they do in Boost Physical. That way, the energies can slowly refine our bodies, instead of, say, ripping parts of us asunder in violent explosions.
Basically, if we lose consciousness due to the pain, it’s game over. I’m suddenly very glad of all the effort I put into training Alec’s Willpower.
After those fifteen minutes, the body apparently enters a state of resting and healing that should last for about eight hours, which puts some serious pressure on our timetable.
According to Dave, there’s only about thirteen hours left before the deadline, which means we need to start levelling up now. Even if it leaves us all incapacitated and undefended for several hours, it’s a risk we have to take.
There’s just one little snag in our plan.
[You shouldn’t level up right now, Emma.]
“What do you mean?”
[There is currently still a lot of unchecked Toxic Energy in your system; the Stardrop will ignite that as well, making it far more volatile and destructive. The pain alone would be unbearable.]
“Status Window.”
Shit. Though Dave did a good job Purifying me while I was out, 9.8 Onkh is indeed still quite a lot. But if I don’t level up now, I will lose the chance to do so before the attack. If I, moreover, don’t succeed in getting rid of that Toxic Energy, then even with Boost Physical I’d be mediocre, and mediocre isn’t good enough.
I need to catch them off guard and utterly crush them, so I can get to Kaitlynn before they can actively threaten her well-being and force us to back-off. The thought of someone holding a blade up against her throat makes me—
Makes me want to do something stupid.
“You said ‘shouldn’t.’ ”
[Excuse me?]
“You didn’t say I ‘couldn’t’ level up, you said ‘shouldn’t.’ Tell me, how would you rate my odds of survival if I tried to level up right now?”
[Emma... Look, even though a freak like you may manage to stay conscious with that level of pain, the ignited Toxic Energy would eat away too much of your Lavi.]
Damnit! Thoughts race through my mind as I try to come up with a solution.
My eyes widen when I hit upon an idea. “What if I ate a butt-load of trigot meat first? The Stardrop ignites the energy in my stomach, right?”
It’s silent for a while. Perhaps she’s calculating something?
[Theoretically, that would be enough to keep you alive, if you stay conscious,] she chimes, [but—]
“And the ignited Toxic Energy, that will be gone afterwards?”
[Well, yes, but nobody’s ever—]
“Good,” I say, clapping my hands together decisively. “Then I get to be the first.”
Alec looks up from the stove where he’s heating the Stardrops.
Dave’s Meditating, but also cracks open an eye. “Something wrong, Emma?”
I smile beatifically at them. “Nope. All good.”
But I’m totally crossing my fingers behind my back.
Maybe I should stop doing that before someone catches on.
Alec warms the glittering Stardrops by putting them in separate leafy bowls and setting those afloat in the basin of heated Hydrum above the stove.
He looks so proud of his ‘invention,’ I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s basically just a bain-marie.
Despite my conviction, I am shaking in my stylish blue leather boots by the time Alec declares his ‘dish’ as done.
Anyway, I made sure to eat a hearty meal of trigot meat as we waited for it to warm, so I’m as ready as can be. Thankfully, Dave hasn’t caught on to the risk I’m planning to take yet. He’s probably far too stressed and worried to consider the possible dangers of me levelling up with Toxic Energy still in my system, poor sap.
At least I don’t have to worry about Alec. The moron wouldn’t catch on in a thousand years.
The moron in question carefully scoops the floating bowls out of the Hydrum. He hands one each to me and Dave where we sit cross-legged on the floor, then picks up the last one and sits down as well.
For a moment, I study the shimmering liquid. It really does look like a tiny galaxy of stars caught in a puddle of liquid.
I look up to find two expectant gazes. I swallow heavily and raise my bowl. “For Kaitlynn.”
They mimic me solemnly. “For Kaitlynn.”
I set the bowl to my lips and take a long pull of the warm liquid.
The viscous, unexpectedly sweet, warm liquid pops and crackles on my tongue and down my throat. The whole experience reminds me of carbonated sugar. And... is that a hint of vanilla?
Pleasantly surprised with the taste, I quickly finish it. Not like I have much of a choice, by the way; despite becoming less viscous due to the heating, the Stardrop still seems loath to split apart, so it basically goes down in one unbroken string.
As soon as the last bit enters my stomach, a painful burning sensation radiates outwards from there. I quickly grab my Yin Qi Pearl and Minor Lavi Crystal and swallow them one by one.
They go down way easier than I expected. I’ve never been great at swallowing pills, but just now it felt like swallowing was hardly necessary, like it was just a perfunctory formality and these masses of energy would have gone down regardless.
And go down they do. They drop into my stomach like a roll of Mentos into a bottle of Pepsi. In fact, my stomach visibly swells from the raging energies inside.
“Eh, Suri... a little help?”
[You’re crazy, you know that?]
“I am aware. Please help me anyway.”
[Very well. I will initiate the mind-meld. Don’t resist.]
A familiar prickling erupts behind my eye-crystal, before a cold pressure inches up my optical nerve, like an ice-cube slowly being shoved up into my brain, but then not as horrifyingly painful.
So that’s what Suri did back in the First Trial: a mind-meld. Like last time, I suppress the urge to block her entry.
It is the weirdest feeling when she succeeds, like there’s a ball of foreign emotions occupying a space in the back of my mind. It seems to contain mostly amusement. Huh.
[Now, do me a favour and enter a lucid trance; it will improve our cooperation and help you deal with the pain,] Suri chimes, her voice louder, clearer, and somehow warmer than before.
Naturally, I do as she asks.
And in my trance, she helps me to look in, and we study the raging—and still swelling—ball of energy in my stomach directly.
It’s like a miniature star, white-hot, and positively thrumming with power.
[Looks like it’s about ready.]
‘I’ll say,’ I send back, placing a hand on my alarmingly swollen belly. ‘I look like I’m about to enter my third trimester!’
[Don’t worry, the human stomach is quite suited to taking in of large amounts of energy. It’s actually the safest place for that mass of energy to be in your body. Of course, it will start randomly leaking out eventually, so we’d better handle this proactively. Here, let me show you how.]
Under Suri’s directions, I take hold of a strand of energy at the bottom of my distended stomach and guide it into a large meridian leading down.
More energy eagerly follows it, turning the strand into a glowing silver snake that burns my flesh like molten metal as it treks through. Or no, it’s actually freezing, leaving trails of frostbite wherever it goes.
I grit my teeth against the pain and follow Suri’s instructions to carefully split the flow evenly at every intersection, causing the raging energy to slowly fill my system while my stomach deflates a little.
The pain is nauseating, but I can still take it. However, as the glowing silver snakes traverse my body, they pick up deposits of purple energy and slowly start to turn lavender...
And finally, they transform into small, purple, fire-breathing dragons.
CHAPTER 43
The MOAB
THE PAIN WAS ALREADY close to unbearable, but now that the Toxic Energy has joined the fray, it immediately threatens to consume me. The lavender energy blazes through my body, radiating pain and destruction as it freezes and shrivels my flesh.
My muscles quiver and clench uncontrollably and cold sweat erupts all over my body—real cold. The drops roll down, leaving behind trails of frostbitten skin. I swear I can hear my joints rattle and my bones creak.
The Yang fire still burning beneath the stove has never looked so inviting. The way the flames swirl around the wood is almost hypnotic. That deep red colour in the heart of the fire seems to promise endless warmth and giggles.
Giggles because it reminds me of Kaitlynn, obviously, of the ruby red crystal that replaced her eye and—
[Emma!] Suri’s voice breaks through my pain-induced haze.
“Whu?”
[Finally! Do me a favour and stay focused, Emma. We’re about to enter a critical stage of the process; you need to remain awake through it!]
Shaken by my near loss of consciousness, I grit my teeth against the pain and turn my gaze inward again.
The lavender energy snakes have traversed most of my lower body by now, and are coming up on my chest. More specifically, my heart. Yup, critical stage incoming.
However, some of them appear to be straying from my meridians, so I attempt to take active control of them so I can strongarm them back in.
It feels not unlike wrestling with a barrel of eels. It takes a lot of pushing and tugging, but I ultimately get them all back in line.
Unfortunately, this only speeds up their progress towards my heart. Oh god, this is going to hurt like a bitch, isn’t it?
There are also some energy snakes currently touring my arms, and as one of them reaches an acid burn on my lower arm, it flares up and turns slightly more purple.
More cold sweat bursts out of me, tracking freezing trails down my back.
And then... Oh boy. Here it comes!
Four snakes of energy hit my heart simultaneously from four different sides.
After a fraction of eternity, my heart falters. The moment it does, all of the energy snakes—in fact, all of the energy flows—freeze in place.
I double over in pain. Someon
e screams in the distance; it takes me a bit to realise it was me. My vision swims as I threaten to truly lose consciousness, and all I have to anchor me is Suri’s nagging and... Kaitlynn.
Kaitlynn’s waiting for me. Kaitlynn needs me.
With a jolt, my heart starts up again
I feel more than see the pop-up appear.
Great, now I can force even more pain on myself next time...
Still, it helps. The snakes resume their path of destruction, but I feel like I can handle it now.
At least until the snakes crawl up my neck, heading for the last part of my body they need to visit to completely connect and integrate into my meridians. My head.
‘Say, Suri,’ I send. ‘What exactly is going to happen when these things hit my brain?’
[I wouldn’t worry about it,] Suri chimes back.
‘Why the hell not?!’
[Well, there’s not much more we can do at this point. You’ve done well so far, so I’d say you have a 50% chance of making it.]
I’m currently guiding the energy snakes through the pathways in the sensitive flesh of my skin. I also have to deal with flaring pain whenever one hits one of my acid burns, so I don’t have the wherewithal for a more complex response than, “SURI?!”
[If you survive, you’ll be unconscious, and I’ll take care of the rest. Best of luck, Emma!]
And as the snakes burrow into my skull, the Mother Of All Brainfreezes turns everything white.
I groan. Every inch of my body feels weary. Did I take E again last night or something? I promised Mom I’d steer clear of that crap. Must have been some party...
My confusion lasts right up until I crack open my eyes and see the notification window that awaits me.
Right, I’m in the Realm of Many Ways to Die.
Try to avoid—you’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me.
Whatever. I survived this long, not going to let some little adjustment issues kill me. Also, what is up with that increase in my Resting Lavi Consumption? To think there’d be a drawback to levelling up as well...
