Chapitre 28: Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25: Deterioration
During the first day of his awakening, Arkyn learned his metal form could see energies and their associated elements. Every living creature he had seen contained some form of the elements.
Even the roots of plants had traces of earth energy that the cows, bulls, and other livestock would absorb when eating.
When down in the smelting areas in the base of the Keep, he could see red wisps of heat energy radiating from the magma pits and into the metals the golems melted.
The only thing that he noticed was unique to himself and Kresha were the magenta lines of psionic tethers and the teal energy they used in their mind to manipulate other elements, or in his case the runes that made his body.
Arkyn thought that maybe he could use his ability to manipulate and correct Kresha's flow, assuming that her energies could help fix her body, but found something much worse as soon as he changed.
Decades ago, he saw little black bubbles emerge and disperse along her body. Every time he saw Kresha, they would surface and disappear within mere moments, only growing to be no bigger than a mole.
Now that she had stopped taking enough Fangbell to regenerate her dying cells and tissue, the black spots had run rampant all across her body. It almost resembled a monster centered at the bottom of her abdomen.
The black sludge moved like windy and twisted arms of an octopus, constantly pushing against the currents of Kresha's mana circuit to take over the space. If not from the strong pulses of magical energy from her heart and mind, it would have taken over her heart and lungs much sooner.
Sadly enough time had passed that the infection of the Coven virus had not been idle, spreading to where the circuit was the weakest and using that as a foundation. Her lower half was now covered in thing veins, while clumps had begun forming around her lungs along the side of where the bite originally came from.
Arkyn picked Kresha up and carefully carried her to the master bedroom. The coughing subsided, but in just a short period of time, she looked as though she had aged another few years.
On the way, she waved him to stop and reached to a water collection bucket that was sitting along the staircases. Akryn didn't get a chance to ask any questions before she began vomiting the contents of her stomach inside the metal container.
She began chuckling to herself uncontrollably, not bothering to move her hair out of her face. "Well it looks like I couldn't handle the fun stuff. What a waste of Silim Sap."
Arkyn now understood part of what had happened. A Silim Cap was a white mushroom with purple dotting that grew on certain trees during the late spring of Odbrane. They caused mild hallucinations and somewhat reduced pain when eaten raw, but when the oils were extracted into a syrup, the sap-like substance was a lot more potent.
'Kresha must have made it as a form of fast acting painkiller.' Arkyn assumed correctly. 'Too bad every herbalist book writes they are prone to inducing several horrific symptoms such vomiting and anxiety once the high disperses.'
His experience with several tests involving Silim Caps gave him an idea about what happened, but the smell of the fungus concentrate mixed with stomach acid was the final confirmation.
Kresha's loopiness and giddy behaviour was a result of the sap, an unfortunate side effect of trying to alleviate the pain of her body starting to fail from the once dormant disease in her body.
Once she was under the covers, did Arkyn use water manipulation to clear her face and hair. He took a second to apply heat into the bed to help the chill that was slowly taking over her body. Once He felt that his actions would give her a few minutes of comfort, he tried to leave the room in order to grab a solution.
Arkyn was about to run back downstairs and into the Fangbell storage room, knowing that it would help, but Kresha grabbed him by the wrist with what little force her aging body could produce.
"Stay here." She said in a relaxed exhale. Her cleansed stomach and the warm bed gave the peace in her body that she was trying to achieve back in the Harvest cavern.
Kresha had been in such a rush to rid herself of the pain in her hips, she made a mistake in how much Silim concentrate to dilute. The end result was getting delirious in the cavern and making a moving golem start bringing all sorts of junk and furniture down to the space.
"Madam, I need to give you some Fangbell, the disease has begun taking over your lungs and has already overtaken most of the organs in your lower body."
"Yes, I am aware. Now stay here and listen to what I have to say." She shut her eyes but continued talking for a moment.
"I have begun dying, and you will do no such thing to prevent that."
She let it sink in as sorrow as Arkyn felt a familiar pain where his heart was supposed to be.
"Good, now do you remember how to unlock the air-seal array on that back panel?" She opened her eyes and pointed a finger at the backwall.
It was the same panel she had opened after accidentally losing control of her feral form and chasing him around the Keep. He nodded and opened it using the same order she used so many years ago.
"Bring everything here."
He took out the contents; an old painting, a silver necklace, and the wooden carving her father made. Kresha took them and set the two smaller items aside, grasping the old paper carefully in her hands.
She took a deep breath before finally unravelling the painting and revealing the image to Arkyn.
It was an oil painting of the mountain that the Ash Keep was hidden inside. The perspective from the bottom, depicting small village houses that were a mix of wood and stone. The sun had just set behind the mountains, giving a bright orange coating to everything.
In the center of the painting stood a man and woman, they embraced while wearing a form of wedding attire. The female in white and grey robes while the male appeared to have been wearing a form of decorative armour.
The man's dark, wavy hair was tied back with a little crown of flowers knotted together while the woman had her brown hair in a tress braid that ran down to her chest. Both seemingly captured in joyous laughter, Kresha looking absolutely ecstatic to be marrying Arkyn.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone