Demonic Magician

Despite the gloom the boss chamber tried to weigh down on me, and the heartache that the group was starting to wear down from our traumatic lifestyles… I was enjoying this fight a lot more.

Mostly because I was being insufferable with my newly acquired ability to manipulate mundane cards. A circle of them spun around my outstretched hand as if I were wearing a gauntlet. Periodically, one would burst into purple light and shoot off to the giant monster, the gap filled almost immediately by another normal card.

The interesting thing was that manipulating my deck this way didn’t seem to use mana - or if it did, it was a paltry amount to my total or current regeneration. Not that I bothered to check the bar usually. Having a feel for the amount I had left in the tank had suited me well enough for all the time I had been in this world.

Still, I had only two or three minutes left before the radiance constantly warming my arm would falter… and after that? Agony, most likely. Hopefully, some more progress on it healing fully. My main worry was being caught unawares by the Crimson while being disadvantaged. It made the group weaker.

Not that they’d see it that way. Ren had been a bit more proactive in keeping her heals and shields up on Wolf even when he looked fine. Other than once, when Quinn didn’t catch the wave attack at the right time and almost knocked himself out into a pile of small monsters, we had been mostly safe at the back. And he couldn’t really be blamed, with his eyesight, and he was in the middle of reloading his crossbow.

With a crunch and a wail that reverberated throughout this cavern causing drops of water to fall from the rocky ceiling, the Boss was felled. Just in time.

“Could you sling me up, Ren?”

She turned to me and gave a brief nod. Put her bow away and withdrew the fabric we had used. All business. Removed the bandage as my wounds needed room to breathe, and started to hoist it up into the sling once more.

And then it began.

I clenched my teeth together, as all the damage felt as though it was being done unto me once more. Cold and warm flashes ran through me as sweat began to bead and roll down my face. Blue eyes looked up at me in panic.

“Shit, hold tight.” She put a radiant heal through me.

Didn’t help much with the sudden feeling, but the pain tapered off to something more manageable. Only felt like I had popping candy mixed in with my damaged muscles.

Then Tanya was there. Took my hat off with one hand and put the back of her other against my forehead. “This temperature isn’t normal, right? Because of how you’ve changed?”

Ren shook her head and placed her own hand on my forehead just as soon as the weaver moved hers away.

“Changed?” I asked, feeling too nauseous to care that I was being manhandled. I might draw the line if Quinn or Wolf wanted a turn, however.

“Fuck, trickster. You’re burning up bad.”

“Yeah, changed.” Tanya started digging around in her Inventory for something. “You might come from Earth, but your iris’ are bright purple.”

“Oh, yeah. A recent development.” I clenched my teeth together and vertigo had me stumbling away from them. A cushion of soft fur caught me, and I slunk to the floor under the concerned looks of the two women.

“Rest easy, brother,” Wolf’s voice reverberated through the back of my head, comforting me.

Tanya sighed and shook her head in exasperation. “I’m not sure what I really have for this. It’s not injury so much as… you might have an infection or it’s just the trauma from the wounds. You still have my idol.”

I exhaled and closed my eyes. “I have a Gradual Healing potion, and a Greater Antidote.”

“Take them,” she ordered me.

Ren crouched down beside me. “I’m too full of worry to chastise you for pushing too hard again. Maybe the rest is what we all need.”

“Perhaps.” As much as I wanted to give a more elaborate response to her statement, I was currently trying to arrange a phone consultation with my regular doctor. Not that staring at the keyboard was making me feel any better.

[Max: Hey rubes]

[Max: Can you diagnose without touch?]

[Ruby: Maybe? Are you okay? I’ll need symptoms at the least.]

[Ruby: {o>o}?]

[Max: Deep lacerations, fever, agony, delirium, and nausea]

[Max: vertigo, nerve pain, numbness, agony]

[Ruby: …what have you done]

[Max: Right forearm, overwhelming power, agony]

[Ruby: Fuck. Let me think {->-};]

“Max?” Ren jostled me. “Stay awake.”

“I’ve fine, had worse by…” I stopped, before my tongue could throw out a sentence even more incorrect that what had already transpired. Instead, I went through my Inventory to draw out the two potions. Under Ren’s supervision, I downed them one after another. They both tasted like bile, which didn’t seem correct.

How many times had I ended up sitting on the ground up against the bear, feeling useless and under the weather? Something about this dungeon had thrown a gloomy cloud over me, and it wasn’t just the abduction by something I didn’t understand. The fact that this was partially self-inflicted just made me feel worse. A hindrance. A liability. A fraud.

[Ruby: Not much I can do without seeing it.]

[Ruby: Sounds like it needs some goop.]

[Ruby: Time and rest. I’m sure you’ve tried most other sources of healing?]

[Ruby: Sorry.]

[Ruby: Keep me updated? {u>u}]

[Max: I will, thank you.]

My eyes switched back to the present situation. Ren was hoping that staring at me intently could cure me. Tanya was briefly frozen with indecision. Quinn looked all out of place. Wolf was content enough to be my place of safety.

While my thoughts were nothing but wriggling eels in my jellied skull, I grabbed hold of them tightly and took charge. The System wasn't giving me any clues, but I felt it in my bones. Almost literally. Poisoned by the blood of the Siren, or something of the sort. Washed together in the whirlpool of my eager self-injury and overwhelming power. Something of her had... seeped within. Netherthless - I had to take control.

“Tanya, go finish up the looting. Quinn, get the location from her and start planning our exit route. I’ll probably need you to keep me steady, Wolf.”

Ren leaned in a little closer. “What do you need me to do, Max?”

I looked up into her worried face. She really was beautiful. I’m sure she would deny it, complain about the dirt and grime of battle, the grease and smells accumulated from the turmoil endured, and the uncomfortable and stifling outfits we forced ourselves to wear… but none of that mattered. It wasn’t even the shape of her nose, her soft skin, pointed ears, or radiant hair that drew me in.

I was just powerless under the spell of her eyes. An unnatural light blue that seemed to glow and pierce straight through me. Always giving away her true feelings, whatever her facial expression was.

“Just… don’t ever break my heart, okay?”

She frowned and pouted, unsure whether to laugh or burst into tears at the ridiculous ask. Eventually, despite it being the daytime still, she settled for something else entirely.

“I can’t promise we’ll have a happy ending, trickster. But I will be by your side wherever life or death takes us.”

Now it was my turn to pout. Maybe that sort of thing was already implied when we had declared our love and been through so much already. I had no idea how relationships worked past awkwardly going to cafes or movie theaters and failing at not being full-on insufferable with my magician side. If anything, going through that portal - or those two portals, as the case may be - was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

Especially since one of me had been about to be either clobbered to death or eaten alive by pigmen demons. Plus, they also copulated with corpses, which was neither here nor there, and now I wished I had a better grasp of where my delirium was taking me.

“If I start saying anything about necrophilia, it might be best to knock me out.”

Ren stared back at me with a blank expression. Perhaps whiplash from the subject change. “Okay.”

“Everything’s looted,” Tanya confirmed.

“Route is added. Twenty minutes average pace,” Quinn added.

Wolf grumbled and shifted. “Let’s get brother someplace healthier, sister.”

The elf nodded and lent down both hands to help pull me to my feet. Having Wolf consider us his family sounded nice at first, but referring to us as brother and sister made things weird for our copulation. Oh, I should definitely stop using that word. Copulate.

Quinn led the Party forward, back to the waterfall. Ren and Wolf were either side of me to hopefully catch me if I tried to enact a knock-knock joke on the stone floor with my soft skull. The punchline would be… hmm, maybe it would actually fix these thoughts I couldn’t control. I eyed up the damp rocks jutting from the cavern walls to find something suitable for such purpose.

System had determined this to be my fate, but I just kept fighting it. I just had to be the winner and persist. Stupid fucking rock walls could fuck off. Survival was my middle name. Maximum Survival Dickbag. Sweat dripped from my head.

“The cold water might help with your temperature, or it might give you an infection.” Tanya shook her head. “We should have been more careful when you received the injury. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I managed. My eyes ached, though. Perhaps she had planned this. A slow way to kill me off that didn’t draw suspicion to herself. The betrayal clear as day, I watched as she stepped through the curtain of falling water. Her intent was out here for all to see. I would die, drowned, and full of nasty bacteria and whatever gunk the System filled the water with.

Despite my brain trying to push for conflict, I stepped through the waterfall calmly and at a decent pace, so I was only briefly chilled. I shivered off, rather unhappy that my suit was now soaked once more. Tanya was waiting for us, and I smiled up at her. My savior. I was sure she could lead the Party to seal the deal against the Lady in my stead, should I fall.

“Stop one second,” I requested. They did so. “If you could all step over to Tanya, apart from Wolf." Curious, but they did so. I gave him a pat and asked him to turn side-wards. Now, with him blocking most of the view of me - I set my outfit to be fixed, the System dropping me to my underwear only.

“Max,” Ren complained. “You’ll catch a cold standing there like that.”

Of course, they could at least see the back of my shoulders as I stood and faced the waterfall. Maybe I should jump in it. Cool off - or no, maybe it would be warm this time? I ran my tongue across my lips tasting the errant drops that had wet my face. Once my suit came back, it would cover my wounded arm again, which sounded painful.

Into my Inventory, I switched some things around. Top layers unequipped and wouldn’t repair now, I instead changed to some spares. Whatever the medieval version of a tank top was called, in a deep, muted gray. Black shorts, which had little armor but seemed more comfortable that some of my other options. Sandals, because fuck this world.

I turned back to them and tipped the invisible hat I wore, the real one someplace safe, I hoped. Belt and sling remained present, which was nice. Wolf moved back to my side to reveal my outfit change.

“Weird,” Tanya surmised. “It’s like seeing a tortoise without its shell.”

“Odd,” Ren partially agreed, “but kind of cute as well.”

My scowl turned to Quinn now to see what the third judge thought. Briefly awkward at being put on the spot, he eventually shrugged. “I agree more with Ren, although it is slightly-”

“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “I’ll take cute. Let’s keep going.”

A compliment that wasn’t related to my performance acts? I’d cherish that forever. Especially coming from Ren. The change of clothing helped my body temperature regulate better, although made me feel off being so weirdly dressed compared to what I was used to.

I flexed my fingers as we continued toward the exit, almost giddy at seeing the open air and sunshine once more. Oh? I could move my fingers with... little pain at all.

In fact, my arm was feeling a lot better all of a sudden. A beat thrummed in my ears that at first I dismissed as a fever-bound heartbeat gone awry. But no, it kept on going and… was drawing me. A thread leading to the left. Another whisper? Friendly and famililar, but different...

“Max?” Wolf asked, drawing the attention of everyone else.

I took a couple steps towards a wall and stopped before it. “I need to go in here.”

“We need to get out, trickster.” Ren sighed. “Have your manic break under the clear sky instead.”

No. I shook my head and gestured Quinn over. “Did you know there’s a room here?”

“There is? I did not.” He raised an eyebrow back at Tanya, who returned a shrug. “I can have a look.”

I wavered as I took a couple of steps back to allow him access. Seemed so clear to me, as if it was written there. MAX, the secret room called out. YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED. I was here, secret room, please be patient.

“Oh! There is? How strange.” Crouching down by the wall, the fixer had his brow furrowed, and with a finger pressed against something, a click signaled my words were nothing but truth.

Stale air washed through the passageway as the stone moved to the side - a sliding door that crunched and wore across the damp rock surrounding it. And inside? A blue light illuminated a small room that I was already stepping toward.

Ren was beside me before I had noticed, eager to ensure I wasn’t about to do anything stupid. But how could I when I felt so right?

By the back wall of this dozen foot deep space was something akin to a fountain - some metal font made of tarnished copper. It was an altar; I knew this fact somehow. Patterns and designs spun out around the walls as if the engravings had sprayed forth from the centerpiece. Each of them told me the same tale.

It was related to the Guardian here.

My left hand went up and undid my sling. Right arm came out with no pain. Still looked terrible, but I moved it around to show the elf. Perhaps this was my reward? I had defeated the Siren, now it was solely up to me to reap what I deserved. And I was so deserving.

Slowly, I stepped toward it, feeling better and better every inch. Fever cleared and my mind sharpened.

With a wide grin across my face, I reached out and placed my hand on the cool metal edge of the fountain. All was right with the world.

Oh, and then my entire forearm exploded off of the bone, painting the room and elf in bright red gore.