Crowned in Black: Chapter 41

We were all exhausted by the time we reached Kalla Sahasi. I was having to readjust to remembering to breathe more than once every five minutes or so, and felt light-headed as I climbed the stairs to Ignas' room. The guards in the hallway drew their pikes in and saluted as all of us - the five of us returning from the Dragon Gate, Masha and Istvan - approached the door. I could hear Vash's voice rumbling soothingly from inside, and rapped lightly before unlocking it and stepping inside.

Vash had taken up the vigil at Ignas’s bedside, rocking slightly in meditation as he ran his prayer beads through his fingers. He chanted the Book of the Dead from memory in a deep, droning cadence. As we entered, the monk straightened and sat up, continuing to sing until he reached the end of the stanza. When he trailed off, he arched his brows at the sight of all of us crowding into the room, then again when he saw I was wearing a spell glove.

"Istvan told me that the sky briefly darkened some hours ago, and a ripple of energy pulsed through the firmament," he said, voice low and husky after what had likely been hours of soft chanting. "And you... huh. You look different, dog. More alive. Slightly meatier. Was the journey to Burna’s resting place a success?"

"We're about to find out." I took out several caps of mana, and loaded them into the spell glove like bullets.

Vash wordlessly rose and stood aside so that I could take the chair. I took Ignas's bloodless, crystal-studded hand in mine. Mana nodules had grown in around his cuticles and under his nails. It had to be agonizing, and not for the first time, I was glad he'd been put to sleep.

I concentrated, tuning into the spell glove that Masha had given me, back when I'd passed some of her early tests in Alchemy. We'd slot in a couple vials of high-quality azurine, blue mana. As I focused on it, and my desire to speak the spell, the glove primed itself with a tiny hiss, chambering the mana. As it did, the words of power I needed to speak and think for Sin Eater stirred in my mind.

"Ikizt y'lanihaat nefesuu, yildizla'man shihben chizierum." Most magic in Archemi consisted of three-word incantations, but these were heavily conjugated Words of Power. According to Rin, that meant that a very large and precise sequence of incantations had been condensed down into a kind of code, each letter representing a phrase, or even an entire paragraph through some kind of mathematical hocus-pocus she called 'geomatria'. Everyone gathered around, listening as I barely whispered the command phrase.

A pure green-white glow spread from my fingers and flowed into Ignas's body, suffusing his flesh with a subtle light. I heard Suri behind me involuntarily hold her breath, but then my attention and focus were drawn inward to the man in front of me. Suddenly, I could see how the toxic mana had reached his bone marrow, and how the crystals that were growing from him were not actually from his skin, but from the bones themselves. And as the positive energy crawled through and around them... it began to break the crystals down. Slowly, at first, then faster and faster as the magic digested the mana and converted it into fuel for the spell. There was a difference between this energy, and the energy of the mana itself: somehow, I could FEEL that the mana in Ignas's body clung to it like a magnet, drawn to him by the fact he was alive. But the positive energy conversion of the healing spell didn't cling - it vented as light and warmth, which also grew behind my eyelids as I maintained my focus on the spell.

I was vaguely aware of my own energy draining away, of fatigue settling over me like a weighted blanket. It drew me away into a kind of trance that was broken only by a chorus of gasps and cries from around me.

I felt the Volod’s fingers twitch, then grip down with surprising strength. My eyelids flickered open: Ignas had his blindfolded head turned slightly toward me, his other hand reaching up to fumble with his respirator. Before Masha could go to help him, he pulled it off and coughed weakly. He was still pale, still very, very sick... but the growths had vanished from his skin, leaving him bleeding from a million tiny wounds.

"Morning, Chief." I slumped back into my seat with a wan smile, brushing away the [You are Exhausted!] notification with a small wave. My HP was now only 1871. The spell had halved my total pool, as promised.

"Gods..." Ignas' voice was barely more than a cracked whisper. "Hector? Is that you? I feel like death warmed over."

Masha went to his side, stunned. She picked up his other hand, staring in disbelief at the gaping, but clean wounds left by the dissolved mana crystals. Ignas winced, but didn't resist.

"I cannot believe it." Masha looked up at me in awe. “You… truly, you are the Black God’s chosen.”

Karalti came forward next, humming softly under her breath as she lay hands on Ignas. He was once again suffused with pale green light, which flowed into the many hundreds of small wounds and sealed them. When I saw his HP ring slowly fill 350 points - the amount Caduceus II could heal - some knot of tension in the pit of my stomach suddenly snapped, and relief flooded in.

“To think I lived to watch such a blessed thing.” Vash sighed happily, and made a sign over his brow, briefly bowing his head. “You truly are the Hand of the Black God then, eh? Just don’t let it go to your head, you little rotzloffel.”

Istvan’s eyes were wide. Simeon’s, too. The Court Mage almost looked afraid.

"Yeah, but... it's not that big a deal. Matir said we can teach this to other people, too, so..." I flushed, suddenly embarrassed, only to turn back as Ignas' hand gripped mine.

"For the love of Khors. Stop... underwhelming yourself. It does... not... become a... prince." The Volod sighed softly, and dropped his head back to the bed. “What happened to my eyes? I cannot see… I feel the hollowness there.”

“Your Majesty, we think Lucien… while you were being tortured, he…” Masha said, haltingly. I’d never seen her this distraught or hesitant before.

“Removed them. I am blessed to remember almost nothing.” Ignas reached up to pat around his face. His voice was increasingly agitated. “The Fleets? The men? Were they released?”

Masha gave me a meaningful look, then went to the nursing station where they had set up the medical supplies they’d been using to keep Ignas alive. She drew a small amount of clear fluid into a needle: a sedative. I nodded slightly.

“No. Most of the 1st Fleet managed to escape. The 2nd was captured.” I rested my fingers on Ignas’ pulse. He was going to be alright. The color was back in his skin. His HP meter wasn't filling any more, because he still had one status that the spells couldn’t fix: Ignas was flagged as Convalescing, which meant he was recovering from a chronic, serious injury or illness, and his HP was reduced to a fifth of its normal capacity. He would recover it as he rested over the course of several days. Even healing magic wasn't perfect.

"Your Majesty, I apologize for interrupting right now, but you need rest." Masha came back to Ignas’ beside, and slipped the anesthetic into the end of his IV. “Easy now.”

“Masha, if you’re about to… don’t you… nnnrrgh.” Ignas was too weak to put up any resistance to the drug, and flopped back weakly to the pillows.

“Out like a light,” I sighed.

Masha’s lips quirked in a wry smile, and she shook her head before looking back to me. “Aye, and if you don’t move the royal hooyeh to bed, Your Highness, I have a second jab ready for you. You are exhausted, my Prince: please, go and rest.”

"Fucking hell, don't you start with the 'Highness' shit. Just call me Lord Tuun like you usually do." I pushed up to my feet, and felt the world spin as the floor dropped out from under my feet.

I tried to focus on Masha. “I… have made a mistake.”

[You are Exhausted! You have reached the limits of your endurance. Eat to regain-]

Navigail’s voice kind of blurred off as my eyes rolled back and I dropped to the floor. Oops.

***

I woke up int he Ducal Litter Box. Well… Royal Litter Box now, I guess. It was very, very early in the morning, barely after 4am. Someone had changed me out of my damaged armor and into soft drawstring pants, perfect for sleeping. For the first time in months, I felt genuinely refreshed. When I checked my HUD, I saw that I finally had the well-rested buff. Hallelujah. Feeling someone warm, I flailed out to the side and found smooth skin over hard, well-defined muscles, Suri. She’d come to sleep with me? Suri hardly ever slept in the same bed as anyone else.

Rolling over, I pressed my body to hers and embraced her, sliding my arm just under her breasts and letting the weight of them rest against it. My heart was beating at a normal human speed. I felt warm, flushed with life - and best of all, I had no desire to eat my girlfriend. For several minutes, I just relaxed against Suri's back, breathing in the woody amber scent of her hair, and let myself just... feel. I hadn't realized how deadened my sense of touch had become after nearly being vamped.

The Spear was by my bed, leaning against the wall. I slowly picked myself up and brushed myself down, and took it into my lap to see what had changed. The first thing I noticed was that it had been repaired. The weapon had taken a lot of damage in the fight with Ororgael and had slowly been degrading over time, but it was back to a hundred percent durability. The stats of the [Spear of Creation] were the same, but there was something... different about it. The Black Star of Endless Night now had a churning liquid core, the light refraction in the star sapphire now swimming, splitting, merging back into itself. I could have sworn the haft itself had a different texture, as if it manifested long swirling veins across its surface.

"Huh." I frowned at it. Maybe they'd been there all along, and I hadn't noticed.

There was a lot to think about. Being careful not to wake Suri, I got dressed, set the weapon over my shoulder on its harness, and headed outside. The wind was howling, cold and sharp as glass. I crossed the courtyard and went to the private bar inside the gatehouse. As I got there, I realized my stomach was hurting, and when I looked at my HUD, I realized that my Food meter was empty and flashing, and my Water meter was almost empty. Right... I had to eat and drink more than once a day now. But all the kitchen staff were asleep, and I was too lazy to go cook something for myself. I dug around in my Inventory for food, but drew a blank. Whatever I’d had in there, I’d fed it to Karalti at some point.

At a loss, I poured myself a shot of brandy and dug around under the bar until I found some almonds. Good enough. Then I plopped into a seat and began to munch on them as I went into the KMS, and reviewed the design for Yava's Garden. The architect - small A - that I’d hired to draw the prospective garden had done a great job, and I approved the construction. The Kingdom Management System was alerting me that we were still at war. I flagged the Yanik Rangers to deliver a report on Janos' forces at the earliest, and only closed the KMS once I got a notification saying that scouts had been dispatched. They would report inside of six hours.

Next up were mine and Karalti's character sheets. We had gotten a ton of EXP and new abilities from defeating the Screaming Tree, and no time to sort them. I pulled up our sheets and got to work on assigning points and reviewing abilities. I had enough points to raise some of my abilities to Level 6, but couldn’t raise any of them to Level 7 until I was Level 45. For the first time, I also had some SP - spell points, though only three of them. I split the Ability Points between Blink Strike and Night Falls, two high-damage moves that were excellent for PvP:

Blink Strike IV

You attack an enemy from the front with a normal strike, but then teleport through or around them in the blink of an eye to strike them twice from behind and inflict an Elemental Darkness strike. You may activate Blink Strike following any successful hit that deals damage to an enemy. Current damage: 1068.

Night Falls IV

Chained from Jump. You are a master of aerial combat: as you descend from Jump, you deal a powerful Area of Effect strike that knocks down up to seven enemies and deals elemental Darkness damage. If you land on an enemy while activating Night Falls, you also deal your Jump damage to that enemy. If you have already dealt damage with Jump before chaining this ability, you only deal the AoE effect damage.

At Level 20, Karalti had matured into her next Path abilities: the Path of Alacrity and the Path of Royalty. I had no controls over her Baru Path - that was between her and Vash. She had some really damn good abilities from her Draconic Paths, though, along with several new spells.

Path of Royalty Level 20: Lifebringer I

Your queen dragon gains the ability to heal allies with her Queensong. By spending 80 points of mana, she can target as many allies as her Queensong is able to affect and heal them for 500 HP per unit.

Path of Alacrity Level 20: Parabolic Mastery

Your dragon has mastered her control of gravity, allowing her to stall herself in midair and recover from tumbles that would send other dragons falling out of the sky, even while injured. In addition, her wings become stronger: Wing injuries become 50% less likely to occur and 50% less disabling in the event they are injured. 1 bonus Lexica.

New Spells:

Martyr: Sacrifice all but 1 HP to restore all HP to up to 4 allies.

Blood Talon: Steal HP from enemies within range.

Delirium: Inflict the Charm and Poison debuffs on an enemy while slowly draining health.

Pierce the Veil: Greatly increases chance of inflicting debuffs on enemies.

By the time I was done assigning points and thinking about how to incorporate abilities moving forward, the sun had risen. I pushed myself up, and trudged back outside, blinking owlishly at the sunlight. My eyes were still sensitive, but the light wasn't painful or irritating the way it had been before. I stepped out of the shade and into the light, and felt the heat of it flush over my skin and through my clothing. It felt... pretty damn good, actually. I was still standing there, basking in the sun like a lizard, when someone softly cleared their throat in front of me. I cracked my eyes open: It was my butler, Rudolph. He was carrying a tray with tall glasses of juice, a pot of Vlachian style coffee, and covered dishes of piping hot food. It smelled like... pancakes. Pancakes and bacon. My mouth began to water.

"Your Grace. I thought to bring you breakfast in your quarters," he said. "Where would you like to dine? Or do you not need to eat today?"

"I... uh... definitely need to eat." My Hunger meter had only refilled a fraction from the bowl of nuts, and my thirst meter hadn't recovered at all. It had actually gotten worse. "Come on. I'll walk up with you. Suri'll be asleep for a while yet."

"Oh: she is in your suite?" Rudolph looked mildly surprised. "I suppose that makes sense. Rumor was that you performed a miracle to save the Volod's life."

“That might be a bit of an exaggeration.” I unlocked the door to the Lord’s Tower and held it for Rudolph, who awkwardly hesitated before stepping through. But he was the one with the tray, so I followed him in. “What’s the gossip among the staff?”

“Only that the Masterhealer is hopping with joy. She had been grieving, thinking his death a certainty. As did we all,” Rudolph replied heavily. “Her maidservant reported to me that His Majesty lives and is apparently recovering enough that the Masterhealer is satisfied. The servants know he is in the castle, of course, though not where he is.”

Servants heard everything that went on here, so that wasn’t a shock. I snorted softly, and let Rudolph into my rooms. He set the tray down and began to unload it while I went to check in on Suri. She was still sound asleep. Very not a morning person. When I returned, I sat down and saw that my guess had been almost correct: Rudolph had brought me a stack of buckwheat pancakes with honey and butter, bacon, and pan-fried strawberries. I fell on the meal like a starving wolverine, and realized that in addition to my sense of touch being dulled while I’d been dhampired, my sense of taste had also taken a hit without me knowing it. Every bite was perfect: the pancakes were fluffy and chewy, the bacon almost crunchy and a little caramelized, the berries and sharp with lemon juice. When I was done and my hunger meter topped up to 100, I sprawled back into my chair in a haze of gustatory afterglow, idly drinking coffee. If there was one thing I would always love about Archemi, it was the food.

I was eying Suri’s breakfast when I got a KMS alert. It was from Istvan. To my surprise, one of the Yanik scouts had already reported in. NPCs couldn’t normally send messages to players, but the one exception was the Kingdom Management System: certain retainers could PM you through it, and Istvan had sent me a message that the AI read out to me in his voice: “The Yanik scouts reported to Temeri and Szonja contacted me as a matter of urgency. Please come to the War Room for an important briefing. Janos has called for reinforcements, and is preparing a full assault.”