Cultivating on the run had reduced my consumption to the point that when I finally made it back to the stone circle a few minutes later, I was only running on the dregs of my Praxis, rather than the fumes. My extended channels allowed me to output more energy at any given time than most people at my level, moving my advantages from significant to unfair at times, but that also meant my reserves emptied quicker than your average cultivator. Wiping sweat from my brow again as I came to an ungraceful stop in front of Toria, I decided that I would need to prioritise my research into making my channels more efficient; I had apparently over-estimated my capacity to maintain extended fights with other cultivators.

“You look like you just stepped out of a sauna, except you’re pale, Hunter. What happened?”

Putting my hands on my knees and leaning over, I looked up through my disarrayed and damp wet hair, waiting a moment before answering.

“Found some more of ‘em, in the direction I went. Just two, but I was low on Praxis and they countered me pretty hard. One seems to throw and control knives, the other makes frictionless barriers. Works well together.”

At my words, Toria’s eyes sharped and she glanced behind me, gaze flicking amongst the trees looking for any sign of pursuit.

“Did they follow you?”

“Not that I know of, I was moving significantly faster than them, at first. But they probably knew where I came from, so they might come after me. I’m going to let Reff and Riffa know.”

Toria just nodded, her eyes searching behind me still. I waited a moment for a verbal reply, but after several seconds, it was apparent that I was not going to get one, so I moved on, heading for the tent.

Fumbling my way inside, I found the risi siblings sat opposite a grumpy looking Darina, who had her arms and legs crossed aggressively, somehow.

“Darina, you’re awake! Awesome, I was worried about you. But I guess the whole, super-speed and healing thing was pretty exhausting...”

“Hunter, you idiot, why didn’t you wake me up if there was a fight?”

“Uh, you were sleeping...?”

“Obviously, I was sleeping, otherwise you would not be able to wake me. Why did you not.”

“You sort of just passed out, and didn’t wake up when I caught you, picked you up, ran with you and then put you in a tent, so it seemed like you needed it?”

“Hmph.”

I looked over at the other two present, who met my eyes one at a time and offered me tiny – for them – shrugs.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough.”

“With... with tactful interjection, Darina awoke shortly after you left.”

“Right, thanks Reff. So, Darina – are you okay now, or do you need to maybe sleep more? You seem a bit grumpy.”

Darina turned to me her face hot despite the bags under her eyes, clearly ready to dress me down, but instead she paused, her head tilting to the side.

“You’re pale.”

“I have spent the last two months inside someone, D.”

The apprentice raised one eyebrow at being called D, and I actually had no idea where that had come from. It was not something I normally called her.

“Come here; it's possible you have lingering injuries from the journey I did not find.”

I wiped at my face again, wishing either my hair would dry or I would stop sweating so I could stop clearing the droplets away. Shivering a little as the damp drew heat out of my body, I waved her away.

“I’m fine, and you should rest.”

I swayed in place, dizzy for a moment and decided it was probably for the best if I sat down – while I was fine, I still knew I needed some rest, and to meditate.

“Okay, maybe I should rest too. Wait, how am I cold?”

Reff, Riffa and Darina looked at me like I was mad, and for a long second, I could not figure out why, and then I recalled that I had not told them about my anti-drain ability. Oops!

“With concerned attention, are you well, Hunter? You said you were fine to scout the area, but you do appear to be somewhat less yourself than usual.”

“I’m fine. Oh, but I did find some Risen Throne reinforcements, they were in a hill back the way the others came from. Shit, I should have started with that, they might be coming...”

“With, exasperated urgency, stay here and rest, Hunter. I will join Toria in case these reinforcements show up. Can you tell me anything of them?”

“Uh, yeah, I should probably top up my Praxis. Good call. Oh, right. Reinforcements. One throws knives, and can control them, and the other makes frictionless walls. That are invisible.”

With a nod, Reff stood and strode past me and out of the tent.

“With dissonant concerns, I will join my brother. Please allow Darina to inspect you,” The giant woman turned to the much smaller apprentice, “though she should not heal you unless it is an emergency.”

Rising to her own feet, Riffa followed her brother out of the tent, a faint rumble that I was sure was meant to be a whisper trailing behind her, saying something about stupid, stubborn humans. I had to agree with her, Darina was pretty stubborn.

“Riffa is right, come here Hunter.”

“D, I’m fine. I just drained my Praxis a bunch. A bit of meditation and some reflection and I’ll be good as neeeew.”

“If I have to come over there, I’m going to hit you, Hunter, and I don’t think you want that.”

“Fine! Dammit, D, you’re extra-grumps today.”

Grumbling under my breath, I crawled over to the healer on my hands and knees, too tired to stand, before finally flopping onto my back next to her.

Darina placed one hand on my chest, and I felt a tiny filament of energy enter me – it was not like the times I had been examined by pseudo-Ascended, or even the other times I had been conscious when Darina herself had healed me previously. It felt more like an endoscope, somehow more invasive than whatever it was that Apexes and their ilk used.

Not knowing how long it was going to take, and not caring for the sensation, I decided to take a short nap, since I was so tired. Just for a moment. If only it wasn’t so hot in the tent...

*

***

*

I dreamt of smiles without faces, cruel and joyful with it. They leered without eyes, and laughed silently as red blood poured out over white teeth.

I dreamt of green and black, of skin being stripped from muscle by glowing claws, muscle flensed from fat and cut away before the wound is burned shut with licking flames, flesh blackened and red.

I dreamt of struggle, of war waged; battles fought, won and lost in time with the pounding of my heart, worms burrowing amongst the dead as crows circled overhead.

An eternity, or more than one, passing in a moment; disconnected visions came and went, falling and fracturing into shards of jagged memory, cracking smaller and smaller, until the dark took me back with open arms.

To repeat.

*

***

*

I woke up slowly, the light filtering in through the tent flap flickering briefly across my eyes. The inside of my mouth was dry and tasted rich. A headache pulsed low and rhythmically at the front of my skull.

“Gaah.”

Without thinking, I reached into storage rings and pulled out a hydrating pill before stuffing it into my mouth and forcing it down my throat. I immediately began to feel a little better, the dryness leaving me and the headache starting to fade. I was about to retrieve a cleansing pill to correct my gamey mouth when I sensed somebody next to me, and in the next moment I felt my right eye pried open to find Darina staring down at me.

“You’re awake.”

Opening my other eye, I waved the healer’s hand away from my face and sat up, finally grabbing my cleansing pill and slapping it against my chest. A moment later, as the vapor finished spinning about me, I ran my tongue around my mouth, glad to be back to somewhat more presentable state.

“I am. What happened? The last I remember is... coming back from scouting? Oh, shit. The Risen Flunkies, we need to-”

“They’re gone. Reff and Riffa went to investigate the morning after your return. Reff located their staging area, but it was deserted.”

“Oh. Good. Maybe not? Shit. Wait, the morning after? You mean... now?”

“You’ve been unconscious for six days, Hunter.”

“Six days?! How? Even when my centre was completely drained of Experience by the... by Shade... I didn’t sleep for more than a few hours. Is this something I should know about Praxis...?”

“Your problem was not one of energy. You were sick – some kind of infection. Only the fact that you heal as rapidly as you do seemed to have slowed it down enough for you to stay on your feet for as long as you did.”

“I didn’t think cultivators could get sick. Outside of... other cultivators doing it, I guess.”

“It is rare for a cultivator to get sick once the Focus is established, but it still happens. Viruses, bacteria parasites – they all absorb Experience too. Eventually they reach a point where they can affect us. But this is not the case this time – your infection appears to have been inflicted, as you say, by another cultivator.”

“Somebody made me sick? Who? Wouldn’t I notice? Or is this like the Phoenix Plague? Are you guys alright?!”

“I have checked myself and the others – only you were afflicted, Hunter. Judging by the way it progressed, it would have had to have been done after our arrival here. We suspect V, as his attacks are known to confer disease.”

I recalled the doctor back at the Skybreaker tower telling me that Sidona’s wounds had been severe and necrotising, and how she had required significant alchemical attention to resolve the issues. Those wounds had been inflicted by V’s ethereal claws.

“He never hit me, not once. Not even a scratch.”

My voice was quiet as I thought back on the fight, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not remember a single instance of V landing a blow. Looking back up at Darina’s stoic expression, I shrugged helplessly.

“Do we know where it started? Maybe he had more tricks than I knew, maybe some kind of... mist, like Cad?”

“The infection originated in your right hand.”

“My right hand? Wait, I got sick from punching him? That can’t be right. He was Foundation stage, what he could do with his powers should have been be fairly set, and neither Reff or Riffa got sick after fighting him.”

I thought back on the fight in the Sha Forest; while Darina and I had been occupied with McCreepy – the weird corpse-thing – the risi had fought the torturer, defeating him by sitting on him with his Mega-form. The weight of the colossal statue simply being more than the Foundation stage cultivator could lift. And that was my clue – both Reff and Riffa were descendants of their homeworld’s artisan caste, and both they, and their older brother, still worked in stone for their cultivation. Reff created a layer of stone – molten or otherwise – around his body, and Riffa manipulated sculptures made from sand. Neither one of them would have ever actually touched the bastard’s green energy with their bare skin.

“Shit, they probably never even touched him.”

I remembered the man’s creepy smile as we fought, how I had thought he was up to something at the time, but could not figure out what.

“That is what we surmised, as we were unable to find any wounds on your body, other than your palm, though that seemed more recent.”

“Yeah, I cut it on a dagger in the fight with the Flunkies...”

I looked down at my hand reflexively, and was amazed to find a pink scar running across my hand. Since my arrival, I had never had a wound that lasted more than a day – even the holes from having metal stakes driven through my arms had closed in hours, and left me well enough to move. To still have a scar, my Lesser Regeneration must have been really working overtime on other things.

Still staring at my hand, a new image sparked to life in my mind, of another fight with V – one with all four of us.

“Wait, we all fought V on the plains, when the commander saved us. None of us got sick then.”

“We discussed that too – we think he simply was not taking us seriously at the time, and was not using his abilities.”

That was a sobering thing to consider – that the four of us had been of so little threat that the man had been simply able to play with us at his leisure. But it also made the corners of my lips quirk up – in only a couple of months, I had gone from that to soloing the green shitbag. Even if he got in one last trick.

“Right. That makes sense, I guess. Anyway, I’m better now? I mean, I’m awake so...?”

“... Through a combination of your own healing, the pills and potions we had on hand and my efforts, we have beaten the infection back, but it is still in your system. It is powered by Veritas, and a great deal of it. More than I can counter with my Praxis. We will either need to find a more advanced healer, or wait for the energy to wear itself out. We may have been able to eradicate it, if I had acted sooner, but I did not have the energy to intervene until the day after you fell unconscious.”

As she spoke, I finally saw through the stoic demeaner; Darina thought she had failed me. Despite her brash and sometimes abrasive demeaner, the apprentice was somebody who had decided to devote themselves to healing, and while much of that was perhaps in the pursuit of her own physical continuation, she had never hesitated to heal others, even to her own detriment.

“Darina, thank you. I’d be dead, at least twice if not for you. You can’t will yourself to me stronger, or to have greater reserves. The fact you were able to beat back the perverse technique of a cultivator an entire stage above you is incredible. You did a great job, and I’m eternally grateful.”

The small women only gave a slight shake of her head, a denial.

“You’ll probably find your natural regeneration significantly diminished, until the infection is resolved.”

Her voice was tight, and I was about to reach out to place a hand on her shoulder, to try to again tell her that she had not failed, but had in fact saved me when otherwise I would be dead, but before I could move, a shout came from outside the tent.

“The gate is open! The Crystal Drake is returning!”

Toria’s voice rang out, a hint of excitement in her voice. Blinking, it occurred to me that Darina and I were alone in the tent and I wondered what time it was, and where the others were. In my moment of distraction, Darina stood and strode from the tent, her back straight and stiff. I made a mental note to talk with her again, and climbed to my feet, muscles aching slightly as I made my way out.

In the centre of the stone circle, a rainbow plane of energy sat, its edges sparking slightly in a way dissimilar to the previous occasions on which I had seen such a thing. I wondered if this was a difference in style between Apexes, or whether it was something specific to the location. My other companions stood to the side, watching the gate, answering my question as to where they were.

As I walked over to join them, Reff turned and gave me a shallow nod, concern traced lightly on his impassive features. I offered him a thumbs up, and he nodded again, turning back to watch the shifting light.

As I came to a stop, a dark spot appeared in the flicking door, and half a second later Jorl strode through, his eyes immediately locking on us. The light behind him snapped shut with a sound like electrical discharge, and he spoke a single word, his voice a growl.

“Blood.”