024

Ch 1.18: Starhound

The fur on the creature rounding the corner was anything but natural, jet black with what could only be described as stars on it, small little points of twinkling light breaking up the darkness. The coat of the four-legged monstrosity resembled the night sky more than it did any animal Elaina had ever seen, but the shape was at least a little familiar, the paws and legs of a wolf supporting the body of a small bear that looked like it would almost lose balance any moment, but it just lumbered forward, yellow eyes sitting atop a bearish canine head with four elongated fangs protruding from a stretched, thin mouth. Its mane was its most disturbing part though, a flow of black, smoky tendrils that fell to the ground, pooling at its front paws and then spreading out.

"Starhound!" Carline said, the same instant as the creature let out another of the howl-growls, a high-pitched, beating whine that stuck Elaina's legs firmly to the ground.

The creature was bounding at Elaina before she even fully comprehended the situation. She raised her hand, conjuring a shackle around the monster's back leg, running a chain from it into an open door and locking it in place with an iron bar on the other side of the door frame, the starhound jerking to a stop as it tried to pull the iron bar through the opening.

Thank gods I had that duel, that this isn't my first fight.

Elaina had been somewhat prepared this time, had at least some idea what the adrenaline of a fight felt like. She stared at the immobilized animal. Animal? No, this wasn't that, not even a beast. It was magic, as unnatural as any Aspect. The stars on its coat seemed to move, dancing about the creature as it lunged in futility and made that terrible, grating sound.

Elaina turned back to Carline, who was still transfixed on the thing in front of them. "Good job," Carline said, "but what now?"

She had a point. Elaina had successfully restrained the creature, but all that meant was that it wasn't going anywhere. It was still a problem that needed to be dealt with, and as Elaina turned back to it, she noticed it was an even bigger problem than she had originally thought, as the chains she had manifested were disintegrating, falling to pieces as they were whipped at by the falling smoky tendrils from its mane.

And then the second starhound rounded the corner.

"Shit, run!" Elaina said, turning back and bolting. Carline stared in shock until Elaina grabbed her arm and started pulling her along.

This is not good.

She'd barely been prepared for one, and with her chains being destroyed by the monster's falling mane even that was debatable. Two was

way

too many to deal with.

She ducked into a side entrance, beckoning Carline to follow and looking back to the creatures. The second one was squeezing past the first, but the first itself was just breaking the chain holding it back as Elaina entered the doorway. The room was large, but empty save for one dim light on the ceiling, and they had only a few seconds at most.

"If you keep them out, I can try something!" Carline said, panting.

"Okay," Elaina said, steeling herself and raising her right hand. She willed the chain that had come with her sad excuse for gear off of her arm, commanding it to form a barrier on the doorway, latching it to the doorway and crisscrossing to make chain-link bars across the entrance. She realized the potential of her weapon as it touched the metal frame, that she could attach it, meld it to the wall it was up against, something she couldn't do with any other chain she could make. And this chain was made of crystal itself, the most durable material known to humanity, so it

had

to be sturdy enough, right?

The starhounds arrived to stress test her makeshift blockade, one ramming into it as the other clawed over its partner from behind. Elaina looked back at Carline. The Vitalist was focused, staff pointing towards the entrance. But nothing was

happening,

nothing Elaina could see anyway, until the monsters backed away for a moment.

Maybe Carline's plan is working?

One of the creatures charged the chains, tendrils from the smoke-mane launching with the force of the impact as the barrier jerked forward. The chains themselves were holding, but the doorway itself was beginning to buckle after just the one charge. That starhound backed away once more, and the other lunged forward, shaking the entrance again. They kept repeating, almost like they were coordinating the assault.

"Carline," Elaina said, teeth chattering, "whatever you're planning on doing, we need to hurry."

"I'm doing it, but it's slow against these things!" Carline shook her head. "Not enough... Do you trust me?"

They locked eyes. Carline was serious, determined, no hint of the meek girl Elaina had met only earlier that day. "Yes."

Carline nodded. "When they break through, hold one back, no matter what." Could Elaina do that? She didn't have a choice.

The starhounds continued to pound at the gate until one finally broke through, ripping one side of the metal wall off as it pounced towards Elaina. She activated [Personal Restraint], freezing herself and gaining increased control over her crystal chain, which she wrapped around the creature as tight as she could, pinning it to the side of the doorway which hadn't come clean off. The second one still made it through though, barreling towards the motionless Elaina.

Carline rushed past her, stabbing the thorned end of her staff into the monster's chest. Once impaled, the creature stepped back, looking more confused than in pain. It circled around the room, a small trickle of black ooze falling from its wound as it walked in front of its restrained companion, staring Carline down as she waved it back with her weapon, Carline herself circling around Elaina, keeping in between her and the starhound.

Black ooze continued to pour from the thing's chest, the flow increasing as the creature stumbled. It looked down at its own blood, then back at Carline, making another dash, this time trying to run around Carline to get Elaina.

"No you don't!" Carline jumped in front again, stabbing into monster's flank before it swatted her away with a paw, sending her flying across the room with a scream, staff still stuck inside the creature. The monster jumped at Elaina, but she threw herself to the ground, ending her hold on [Personal Restraint]. It flew over her, careening into a wall, drops of its mane falling onto her, burning her skin, radiating pleasure through her body. She didn't have time to think about that.

Reactivating her skill as the other one tried to break free, Elaina froze herself again as she stared at the wounded monstrosity. It struggled to get up, falling down twice. The chest wound was visibly larger now, spewing forth bile like a faucet. Out of the corner of Elaina's eye, she saw Carline on the opposite wall staring the beast down, hand outstretched as it tried to get up one last time before falling into a pool of its own blood, its smoky mane fading entirely, twinkling stars on its body dying out.

"Elaina! I'm sorry, I'm out of mana," Carline said, panting and struggling to get up herself. "I'll do what I can." There was no time though; Elaina needed to do this herself.

With a lurch, the other horror broke free from the wall. Elaina willed the chains back by force, trying to get them to reattach to something,

anything

, but the creature struggled forward, not allowing her the time or stillness she needed to replicate what she did earlier.

She'd conserved a lot of mana until now by relying on anchors, but physically restraining the monster was draining her reserves fast, even with her current power being doubled by [Personal Restraint]. She needed [Humiliation Factor] too, but there wasn't a single ounce of embarrassment in her, only fear.

How can I do this myself, how do I kill something with just [Restraint]?

The starhound was inching forward, stronger than the output she was able to make, its floating mane creeping closer and closer as if it was being willed forward the same way Elaina could will her restraints. The tendrils started to fall on Elaina's legs first, searing her flesh, the minor pleasure she'd received before from [Pain Response] increasing but being overwhelmed nearly entirely by seething pain. She moaned out in both agony and ecstasy, holding [Personal Restraint] despite the sensations. If she let up, she was dead.

Elaina stared at the monster's mane, the source of the tendrils, as at it crawled forward. That was it, the only way. But she still needed more power; she couldn't focus on the fear. She looked down at herself, imagining the view up her dress Carline could have, the thoughts Carline would have hearing her moan in pleasure at a time like this. [Humiliation Factor] kicked in, only a little.

And it had to be enough. She moved her chains up along the starhound's body, forming them around its neck, squeezing them as tight as she could while pulling it back, carrying both it and the burning smoke away. It attempted to cry out, trying to make that guttural howl-growl, managing only a gargled purring sound as the cry literally caught in its throat. Carline was on her feet now, moving behind the creature and spearing its hind leg with her staff.

The cry of pain actually made it out, a high-pitched wheezing at the monsters stopped trying to move forward, instead shaking its hind leg back at Carline, who was already backing away to a corner. Elaina could focus now, not on holding the thing back, only on constricting its throat. It jerked around the room, crashing into walls, no focus on the opponents it had, trying its absolute best only to breathe, no other thought in its head.

The beast slowed, falling the ground and still thrashing about. Elaina ran out of mana as the animal started kicking only its legs, but the tight loop around its neck still held until the writhing stopped and the mane faded from the starhound's corpse, its stars fading soon after.

Elaina ended the now-useless [Personal Restraint] and pushed herself up, heart pounding. "Is that it?"

"Yeah," Carline said, panting in the corner. "Are you okay?"

"Uhuh," Elaina said. "I'm fine," she continued, the last bits of strength and adrenaline leaving her as pain coursed through her body, her vision faded to black, and her falling head hit the floor.

Ch. 1.19: Vitalist

"Damnit, Elaina!" Carline said, tears running down her face, her new friend's unconscious body lying in her lap. "I'm sorry-- I thought..." She'd thought she could take down the starhounds alone by messing with their circulatory systems, like she'd practiced with elk and bears before coming to Endrin. It

should

have worked, but it didn't.

These aren't animals though; they're monsters.

If she'd thought about it for even a moment she would have realized, known that a starhound of all things would of course have some resistance to external aspects, the same resistance or more than an Aspected human would. "So stupid... This is why you don't speak up, why you don't make plans. Should have just let her come up with something from the start."

She poured her mana back into Elaina, the little bit that had recharged in the seconds since she'd last tried to heal her. Carline's own arm hurt too, where the monster's mane had grazed it in the fight, but that was just a surface wound. Elaina had the stuff drip on her continuously, burrow through her skin completely.

And now it's inside of her, coursing through her veins.

Carline could sense Elaina, everything about her, as long as it related to [Health]. The smoke wasn't a poison, not exactly. It was a corrosive, eating away at the inside of her, Carline desperately healing the parts it was attacking. And since it wasn't poison, wasn't illness, there was nothing more she could do. Those things the body had ways of fighting, measures Carline could bolster to heal faster, but this she could only manage the symptoms of, racing against the destruction of Elaina's body with her depleted, slowly refilling mana pool. It was a race she was losing. Elaina writhed, unconscious, but clearly suffering. "Fuck!" Carline screamed, a word that had never come out of her mouth before.

She placed her hands on Elaina's shoulders again, preparing to heal her once more. The staff the system had given did help her focus her aspect at range a bit, but physical contact was still the most efficient. She couldn't bring herself to do it though, to pour any more into her partner that was still letting out cries of agony.

Am I just prolonging her pain? I'm not healing faster than this stuff hurts her anyways.

Elaina had protected her, given her time to think, taken down the last creature with sheer force despite being frozen in place by her own skill. She'd even had to drop the skill to dodge the one Carline was supposed to take care of. All those years practicing with a spear, all that training, all the suffering she'd endured during it, and it still hadn't been enough.

So useless.

Elaina had trusted Carline, and now Carline was going to let her die.

"No," Carline said, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm not letting you die!" There had to be something she could do. If she'd had more time training before she came to the academy, she knew she'd be able to do it, but she'd only found out what her aspect actually was three months ago, and her parents had only been able to arrange medical training for the last two. There was still so much about the body that she didn't know, so much more she'd have to learn at Endrin before she'd be able to do everything she needed to do. Still, she couldn't give up.

Raw healing was out. She had to get the shadows, the invaders out of Elaina's body somehow. She couldn't feel them, the same way Elaina's own body couldn't feel them, but she could tell where they were by the pain they left in their wake. Four different concentrations throughout Elaina's bloodstream, flowing through and leaving devastation in their paths. Carline looked at the largest wound on Elaina's legs, the one just above her right knee, creeping up Elaina's thigh, which Carline had patched over with a thin scab. She ripped the bottom of her white robes, tearing off a portion of the flap in front of her legs to use as gauze. She'd need it, for what she was about to do.

Carline opened Elaina's wound back up just as she could feel the smallest mass of pain shooting through Elaina's leg, increasing her blood pressure by bolstering her heartbeat and constricting her veins, just like she had done to the starhound to make it bleed out faster. Carline couldn't make wounds appear with her aspect, but messing with them once they were there was doable, and increasing blood flow was trivial. A tiny black worm made of smoke poured out of Elaina's thigh, trickling down and burning her leg, but mercifully landing on the floor before wriggling in the pool of blood and starting to evaporate. They were a menace inside the body, but once exposed to air, they didn't last long. Carline let go of her aspect and went to staunch the flow of blood with her makeshift rag. She couldn't spare the mana to reseal it; it all had to be saved for forcing the things out.

The waiting was horrific. The things were continuing to eat at Elaina, Elaina's screams were growing, and Carline couldn't do anything about it. Eventually, she figured she had enough stored up to try again. She waited for the next biggest mass of pain to run up to the open wound, and Carline pushed again, flooding Elaina's leg again, once again popping out a disgusting black smoke worm, once again watching the thing fade away.

Carline panted, heaving as she covered the wound again. Mana was its own resource that didn't normally expend physical energy, but your body didn't like being completely out of it, so draining it completely, multiple times, still took a toll. She wiped sweat off her brow, pulling her hair back away as well.

Two more.

Halfway done, but the remaining worms were still doing damage, completely unmitigated. Carline only needed to wait a minute before extracting the next one, which went as cleanly as the previous two, causing superficial burning on the side of Elaina's leg as it came out, but nothing more serious.

The blood loss was significant though, each larger entity requiring Carline to pump out more of Elaina's blood to force it out, leaving a terrifying amount of blood on the floor next to Elaina. Only the last one remained though, the largest. Significantly larger, in fact, and also the one that was doing the most internal damage. Carline had thought about removing it first, but that would have meant waiting on enough mana to exorcize it and leaving all four alone in the process. No, this had been the best way, but it still scared her, as the damage it was doing, the pain it was causing, she had to let them go, had to hope it wouldn't be too late.

Elaina coughed up blood.

"No," Carline said, pulling Elaina's head off her lap and setting it on the ground, turned sideways to reduce the risk of choking. "No!" It had to be now, no matter how much mana she had. But the worm had just passed up the right leg, and she needed to wait for it to go back through the entire body again. Elaina continued to cough up blood, not an obscene amount, but even with meager medical training Carline knew that any amount wasn't good. The demon inside Elaina made its way round, Carline altering the blood flow to make sure it went down the right artery and back up the right vein; she couldn't leave it to chance.

Carline pushed, blood gushing out of the wound as she burned through all of her remaining mana, as she burned through

not enough

mana. The end of the worm was pushed out, started writhing as it burned in the air the same way it burned Elaina, but it was still inside her, and it started to burrow back into her leg.

"No you don't!" Carline said, grabbing the thing with the bloodied piece of her robe. The cloth in her hands melted immediately, and she screamed in pain as it burned, seared at her palm, but she pulled anyway. No mana, no way to help herself, she pulled with raw strength, gripping it with her other bare hand once she'd pulled it out enough, yanking it and tossing it away. It flew out the room, into the bright hallway where it squirmed away the last seconds of its damned life.

Elaina was bleeding again. Carline ripped even more off the bottom of her robe, grimacing as she did, her hands in agony as she pulled against the cloth. She shoved it back into place on Elaina's leg, focusing on the [Health] of her again. The worms were gone, all of them, and completely. "Thank the gods," Carline said, crying again.

Once she'd recovered enough mana, she began the slow, slow process of healing Elaina once more, stopping the major internal bleeding first, then moving to the wound Carline herself had reopened on her knee, and then the minor internal injuries. This was routine, stuff that Carline had practiced far more than she would have liked in the last three months. She shook her head, pushing those thoughts of her parents away.

The surface injuries on Elaina remained even after all the internal ones were healed, but they could wait until there was mana to spare. Carline fell back, panting relentlessly, her palms aching in pain. She brought them up, staring at the wounds. It was more than the minor graze her arm had gotten earlier, but still far less than most of the wounds Elaina still had.

That would be temporary though. [Health] being an external aspect, Carline couldn't use it on herself. Once she had rested enough, she could heal Elaina completely without tapping out again, Elaina would be perfectly fine, and Carline's burns would remain. And a thousand times over, it still would have been worth it.