He’d just finished evaluating another party and broke off from them to greet us.

“Hey, Felmar. How’s it going?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, just the usual. You two plan on going beyond where you ended up last time?”

“Soon,” I replied. “Not sure if we'll do that today, but it’s on our to-do list for the near future.”

“If you get past it a few more times, do let me know, with proof of your victory of course. I can make sure you get a promotion at the guild, but I expect it has little use for you since you don’t seem to be working on the missions offered there. Might be a good idea to look into it once or twice a week though. For example, a large order was recently placed for bison pelts. They are going at a premium now.”

“That’s… wow. Thank you for that,” I said.

“Not a problem,” Felmar said with a small smile, barely visible. “Anyway, I need to get going. Be careful in there.”

My presence didn’t scare him at all anymore, and I was happy to see how he acted around me now. After he and the party he followed had left, I turned my head to Cellestra.

“Whatcha say? Should we go for some money?”

“Could be worth testing out the lightning arc spell on those. I reckon they are much tougher than the anteaters.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” I let out. “The only question we are left with is how we get it out of the dungeon.”

“Think you can just drag it, like you did with the logs?”

“Suppose that’s the only way. How do people normally do this? It’s not like everyone has the luxury of being able to drag a ton.”

“Perhaps they skin it in the field, perhaps they have couriers from the guild help out. Who knows?” Cellestra shrugged.

“Maybe we’ll get paid extra,” I said with a snicker. “But let’s get moving.”

We stepped through the portal and quickly made our way across the plains before carving a path through the long grass, killing one lioness that was foolish enough to attack us. Soon after dispatching it, we arrived at the next part, where the bisons roamed.

“Ok, you ready?”

Cellestra nodded and I told her to hold on tight.

I was going to paralyze this beast with a potent dose of venom and then try to restrict its movement. Spider thread was extremely strong, and if I could just wrap this thing in enough of it, it wasn’t going anywhere.

I slowly approached the animal from the side, ready to strike from underneath with an earthen spike, laced with paralytic venom. I imagined this would be the best way to preserve as much of the hide as possible. We had to be able to sell it, after all.

I got within range and summoned two venom spikes at the same time, holding back to make sure they wouldn’t penetrate too deep and outright kill the bison. From there, I waited for the venom to do its job while running away to make sure I wouldn’t get gored by its horns.

Moments later, the animal collapsed, and I lowered myself to it to heal its wounds before starting to summon hundreds of threads to bind its legs together, and fasten them to its belly at the same time.

This thing wasn’t going anywhere, probably for the rest of its life.

Again, my conscience was challenged. I was practically going to torture this animal for our own gains, and then kill it at the end. If this had been anything but a dungeon-spawned animal I likely wouldn’t have been able to do it.

I was reminded of the rabbit that I’d used to gain an achievement, and that had already made me feel horrible. However, that one I’d let go after I finished. I hoped it lived a good life, but nothing was certain in the wide outdoors, certainly not for bunnies.

“Well,” I said, trying to come up with something to make all of this feel less macaber. “There’s your target dummy. Want to see how strong you can make your spell?”

“I’d love to,” Cellestra said happily as she stepped off my back, stumbling and falling to her knees as she messed up and wasn’t prepared to jump from that height. I giggled and lent her a hand to stand up.

“Ready?” I asked. “Do you need assistance with the spell?”

“Might as well, just to be sure I get it correct.”

I nodded as she placed her hand on my back, sending her stream of magic through me as I cast the arc lightning spell, channeling it briefly before canceling it again.

“That enough?”

“Yeah,” She replied with a nod before taking a few steps to the side. At the same time, I healed the bovine from a distance, and waited for Cellestra to channel the spell before healing more.

She started the lightning arc, and I started healing her target, slowly at first, but as her spell increased in intensity, so did my mending. Thanks to the creature being much stronger than our previous target, we soon reached the point where her spell killed the anteater.

Cellestra remained focused as the lightning arc shifted from blue to white and sparks started swirling around the main beam.

Wait, is one of those sparks purple?

I noticed a purple particle, slightly larger than the other ones sprouted from her hand, and then another, and another. Cellestra seemed taken aback as I saw her take a step backward, but she didn’t cancel her spell, even as more and more purple appeared, seemingly interwoven in the spell as even the lightning slowly started to change colors.

“Kealyna,” Cellestra suddenly called out my name while panting, louder than her usual voice and broken. “Help…”

“What’s wrong?” I immediately asked as I stopped healing the bull, turning my attention to Cellestra instead. The bison died almost immediately after, I could see its movements and breathing had stopped, but the brunette’s spell kept on going and was entirely purple now with sparks of blood red saturating the air around the arc.

“I. Can’t. Stop. Can’t. Control. Help!” She said every word with great difficulty and screamed after the last, causing me to panic. She was clearly in pain, which made my mind race on how to stop her spell.

An orb of purple erupted from the massive arc and was flung tens of yards into the distance, where it exploded with a resonating bang.

“Quick!” Cellestra shouted, mortified.

She couldn’t control her spell anymore, and it seemed to continue in strength indefinitely. I did the only thing I could come up with on such short notice to prevent the worst possible outcome.

I jumped behind her, cut the straps between her legplates, revealing her calves, and sank my fangs into them. I held on to the confused elf with my arms as I injected my mana sapping venom directly into her bloodstream.

“Kealyna?” She asked in both confusion and fear as her spell kept on intensifying. Another orb was flung into the distance and an even louder explosion followed shortly after.

She let out another scream of pain, which filled my heart with sorrow, and I didn’t know if it was because of the pain from my bite or from the strain of the spell. If it was the first, I could always heal it. I regretted having to do it, but I just… I didn’t know if there was anything else I could do…

I closed my eyes so that I didn’t have to watch her pain, but there was no escaping the sight for me, my arachnid eyes proving to be a curse as I watched blood flow down the legs of the person I loved… her blood.

Her spell was eventually disrupted, the purple changing back to blue for just a second before it was abruptly stopped altogether. Cellestra remained standing with her arm still stretched before her before collapsing to her knees.

“Are you okay?” I asked. I received no reply and instead, started healing her legs, quickly closing the wounds I’d created to sap her mana.

The brunette raised her hands in front of her face and simply stared.

“Cellestra,” I asked, more urgently this time. “Are you okay?”

“I’m so sorry,” She responded weakly.

“Shhh,” I cooed to her as I lowered myself to hug her from behind.

“Why can’t I do anything right?” She said, her voice shaky. “Why am I so useless?”

I was shocked to hear those words coming from her. They were untrue, and hearing her say those made my heart ache. It was made even worse by the sobbing that followed.

Cellestra, please don’t.

I thought it, but for some reason, I couldn’t say it. The words refused to be formed in my mouth, which was completely silenced by the broken person in front of me.

With pain in my chest, I placed myself before her and removed her helmet, revealing the mess that was underneath.

“Cellestra,” I whispered, removing a lock of damp hair from her face.

Her eyes refused to meet mine and just looked down, continuing to shed tears as she seemed lost in despair.

“Cellestra,” I whispered again, unsure what to do or say next. This was the second time her latent, unstable magic had surfaced in a bad way, perhaps even more pronounced this time. I wanted to say that I knew how to fix it, but I didn’t.

I didn’t want to see her crying. Not again. Not anymore.

She was lost, and I knew it. I could only imagine how this must have felt for her, and it appeared even worse than that. I wanted to break her out of whatever trance she was in. Without even thinking, I took her head between my hands to peer into her confused, teary eyes, before closing in to press my lips against hers.