Neil

I snapped awake suddenly a scream already being ripped out of my throat before I even knew what was going on. There was a burning pain in my right shoulder, and I tried to sit up and grab it with my left hand on instinct but found my hand refused to move. Looking at my shoulder, where my right arm should have been I instead just saw blood spurting, slowing and spurting again.

Still screaming I tried and tried again to move my left hand, but something was still holding it back. I pulled again and again but it simply refused to move. Looking left and then right I tried to see what the problem was and saw that my wrist was tied up and pulled out leaving my arm taught, there were also ropes tying up my legs, and holding my body down as well. Still screaming I saw Talass and Yallia off to the side bound and gagged, Yallia was on her knees, and Talass had her tail bound into tight coils. Both of them were struggling against their bonds but two Lamia hunters stood over each of them with hands on their shoulders.

I stared at them for only a few seconds when something slammed into my face, with the agony in my shoulder I barely noticed anything other than the impact which just forced my head back. While the impact didn’t hurt, it did get my attention.

Looking up at the figures looming over me I saw Alezaria standing over me holding an arm, I was confused for a second wondering where she had gotten an arm from before recognizing that it was mine. She was holding it by the bloody stump side and had just used my own hand to smack me in the face.

Shocked I began screaming at her in English. “What the Fuck did you do?!”

Looking down at me with a cold look in her eye she nodded to a Lamia beside me and before I could yell anything else a red-hot piece of metal was placed against my bleeding shoulder.

If I had thought the pain of my arm getting cut off was bad, then this was on an entirely different level. With a hissing sound and a smell of burnt meet my bleeding stump was cauterized. The scream that was ripped from my throat sounded more like a dying animal than a person. Fortunately it only lasted a few moments before I blacked out from the pain. The second time I awoke it was to someone roughly holding my head back with a handful of my hair and forcing a potion down my throat. Sputtering and choking I started to cough as half of the potion was breathed in, and half was swallowed.

The potion must have been something to make me awake and alert, or possibly even something to help me think more clearly because I was suddenly wide awake. Every detail of the scene in front of me was now crystal clear.

Alezaria standing in front of me holding my still bleeding arm, the Lamia hunter standing up from me and picking up a large axe with a simple obsidian head, on her other side was a roaring fire, even though it was the middle of the day. Yallia and Talass, one looking like she was getting ready to stab people the other with a horrified look on her face with gags in their mouths and their arms tied up behind their backs, even the rest of the Chellack tribe standing nearby cheering at the sight of me being mutilated. The agony on my shoulder was also crystal clear, the cauterized burn pulsed in time with my heart sending fresh waves of agony through my body every second. Looking at the small pot containing the potion they had just given me I focused on it and asked, “What?”

DING

Potion of Alertness

Made from Arabica beans, purified water, and Tala leaves this potion will make a person alert for several hours.

“What? You ask what?” Alezaria asked fury lacing her voice.

For a second I had no idea what she was talking about until I realized that I had asked that in Lamia.

“You came to our village under false pretenses, tried to steal our most valuable relic and killed my husband? You vile murderer!” She shouted the word murderer loud enough that I could hear the echo a few seconds later. “We will make you pay in blood for what you have done.” She continued in a low voice that promised nothing but pain. “We will spend years killing you.” Her green eyes bore into my own.

Body still tense I gave up trying to do anything to the ropes and instead reached to my magic. On instinct I turned to the affinity I had the most practice with, water.

I formed a whip of water and sent it towards Alezaria, but it barely moved an inch before I felt a foreign presence in the water slowly wrestling control away from me.

“You are strong, but I have experience. Get the other arm, and use the saw.” Alezaria said drawing out the last word while looking into my eyes.

The hunter discarded the axe and instead picked up a large copper saw with blunt looking teeth. Alezaria looked at my arm disdainfully before throwing it into the fire like she was disposing of trash. All the while I tried to wrestle back control of the water whip. But no matter what I did she seemed to be one step ahead of me. I hadn’t even thought taking control of someone elses water would be possible.

The hunter placed the saw against my shoulder and despite the pain I was already in I could still feel its teeth dig into my flesh.

Screaming in renewed terror I did the only thing I could think of, I reached for the Taint Affinity.

I had never been willing to experiment with it like I had my other affinities, but I still knew that it enhanced my other affinities, making them more powerful, larger, and easier to control.

I felt the sewage of the tainted affinity entering my soul and mixing with my magic. The effect on the water affinity was instantaneous.

I took control back of the water with barely a thought and it began responding not just to my thoughts, but even half formed desires, and panicked fears.

The water thrust downwards piercing the Lamia with the saw and began forcing its way into his body.

The Lamia began to scream as he thrashed back and forth and then reared back as his chest began to expand, his scream got louder and more desperate until it was cut off with a gurgle as a cracking sound from his chest cavity heralded a final pop and his chest burst covering me with blood and gore. His corpse fell to the side, only his tail on top of my legs.

The water bubble hovered in the air, bulging in different directions while still growing larger and larger. I felt the foreign mana try to wrestle control of the water away from me again, but this time I was easily able to bat away her attempts.

“KILL THEM!” Alezaria screeched from above me.

From where I was I could see the Lamia begin to move, roused from their shock by her voice. Surrounded and restrained as we were I had no idea if I could move my water fast enough to fight that many people.

I needn’t have worried.

The water affinity gave me the weapon, and the taint affinity gave me the ability to use it far more effectively than I ever had before.

The water moved and shifted as fast as I could think taking shapes that I had never even thought of using before. A tendril that looked like an arm thrust over my head, splitting into five other small tendrils at the end. It slashed at a group of Lamia that surged forwards, easily cutting through their flesh as they screamed. With the way it moved, and cut it looked like an arm with a hand with talons on the end.

More blood splashed on my face barely missing my eyes. I saw the hunters standing behind Talass and Yallia moving their arms, knives in each of their hands. With barely a thought a second and third arm split from the water heading towards the Lamia standing over each of the women. Their hands moved faster.

I watched in horror as the sharp knives were drawn over their throats and blood gushed from the wounds. One water arm punched through a Lamia’s chest, the other arm through a Lamia’s face. The fingers each extended and wrapped around their heads crushing them like melons. More Lamia surged forwards and more shapes burst off from the mass of water, some were knives, others spears, and I even saw something that looked like a head reach forwards and close jaws made of water onto Alezaria before lifting her up and shaking her and tossing her aside like a ragdoll. I was vaguely aware that the water was reacting to my desires before I had even really thought of what I wanted it to do. I had never had this level of control before and if it wasn’t for the pain I was in it would have been intoxicating.

Before I knew it the Lamia broke and started running leaving their dead and dying where they lay. The whips struck at their backs as they ran and several more Lamia fell, blood flowing freely from cuts on their backs, the appendages swayed back and forth as if in anger and with a grunt of will power I forcibly shoved the taint affinity away and with a shudder I was left feeling less than before, but I felt a dirtyness in my soul, like I had just allowed raw sewage into it.

Without the extra power from the taint affinity the water bubble lost cohesion and splashed on top of me. The cool water cleaned off some of the blood and also brought me back to the present enough that I looked to Talass and Yallia. The two women were laying on the ground, Yallia was twitching, but Talass lay still her eyes open and staring at me, but unfocused. Yallia had apparently managed to pull away from the knife, not enough to avoid being cut, but enough that it looked like no arteries had been hit. So she was simply spurting blood rather than it gushing out like Talass.

Channeling more mana I tried to form it into more water but compared to before when I was using the taint affinity it seemed to move slowly, sluggishly. Instead of creating new water I took control of some of the water that had splashed onto me. It was a tiny amount, barely enough to fill a small cup, but it was enough to make a sharp blade.

Cutting the ropes that bound my wrist first I gasped as my arm came free flexing my fingers. Despite my promise to stop using hand gestures to control my magic, I waved my hand towards my chest fingers moving. Even though it was all in my head and shouldn’t actually help me control anything better the water sped up noticeably.

The knife cut through the rope on my chest, and I sat up already slicing through the rope on my leg.

Freed from my bonds I awkwardly crawled towards Talass, twice I face planted on the ground as I tried to move an arm that I no longer had. Reaching the woman I cut the ropes that bound her and turned her over.

Looking at the wound I saw that the blood was still gushing from her, which I actually took to be a good sign, so long as she still had blood, and her heart was beating there might be something I could do. I tried to stop the bleeding with my hand but there was so much blood I couldn’t even see the wound. Talass was still breathing but barely, her eyes were unfocused and glassy, I got the impression she had moments left to live.

From beside me Yallia was thrashing on the ground in pain her head snapping to the left before pivoting back to me and snapping back to the left again.

Movement from past Yallia caught my attention, Alezaria holding a hand on her bleeding stomach was crawling across the ground towards a small jar laying on the ground. Recognizing it I left Talass behind and dove for it just as Alezaria did so.

With two hands it would have been a more even fight, but with only the one and still in shock I was barely able to slow her before she wrenched the jar out of my grip. Desperate for any way to stop her I pulled on my two newest affinities as I watched her remove the stopper and take a gulp of the potion.

Manifesting some dirt in front of her face I created a gust of wind. The dirt was blown into her eyes causing her to lean forward hissing in pain. She stopped drinking and one of her hands went to her eyes wiping at them.

I couldn’t beat her in a straight fight with my water magic, and nothing else I had was strong enough to kill her, but beating a blind woman? That I could do.

Grabbing the jar I summoned a small amount of water and hit her in the face with it as if it were a hammer.

Not having the time to finish her I turned back to the two women to see that Talass was laying still on the ground, and Yallia had turned deathly pale and was barely moving.

Remembering a first aid course I had taken in high school I tried to recal what I could of triage. If two people were injured you helped the one with the higher chance of survival first. This meant Yallia, she was still moving, and had been bleeding a little less. She had the best chance of surviving.

Tipping over the regeneration potion we had just gifted the Chellack tribe, awkwardly I poured a small amount into her mouth, it wasn’t easy juggling opening her mouth and pouring it at the same time with one arm, but I managed. After I poured half of the potion in her mouth I put it down and held her mouth shut. At the beginning she choked on it for a moment before her wounds started to heal, and I saw the cut on her neck begin to shrink.

Picking up the potion again I moved over to Talass and not bothering to open her mouth I simply poured some onto the wound, then put it down and forced her mouth open. Pouring some into her mouth I was relieved to see that the wound on her neck was already closing. I was pretty sure if she were dead then the potion would do nothing, rather than close a wound on a corpse. Still aside from the wound in her neck slowly closing nothing positive happened, blood was pumping out of her neck faster than it had been a minute ago.

By the time I was confident that the potion was doing something there was barely a swallow left. Upending the jar into my mouth I drank it greedily. Immediately the cuts on my shoulder from the saw stopped hurting and the pain from the burns on my other shoulder faded from agonizing, to just terrile. Gently I touched the stump, the flesh on it was smoothing, looking more like an old wound than one I had just received.

The shock of losing a limb so suddenly was starting to hit me, but I had no time to fall apart. Warned by my mana sense and instincts honed under a mountain filled with monsters I rolled backwards away from Talass.

Water hit the ground with a thud leaving a divot where my I had just been. It had barely missed Talass, and if I wasn’t careful Alezaria could easily threaten either of the women to force me into giving up. Deciding to go on the attack to hopefully prevent her from realizing that as well I reached for my mana again.

Out of habit as much as anything I reached for my water affinity, but found that it felt even more sluggish than before. Looking at my opponent I could tell right away I couldn’t win with it.

Instead, I reached for my earth affinity, I was still wasn’t all that good with it, but I didn’t have much other choice.

I started by creating a ring of stone around Alezaria’s tail, it barely slowed her as she was able to just slither forwards still. So I modified the shape, making a spear of hardened rock straight upwards I pierced through her tail and attached that to the top of the ring.

Alezaria screamed in pain, her body locking up. She had been creating another whip of water, but the pain from pinning her tail in place was enough to cause her to lose her focus and the water splashed on the ground harmlessly.

“I don’t suppose you'll just hand over the key and let us go now?”

Her face twisted into a vision of fury, “You kill my husband in front of me, and think we will just hand you our greatest treasure?” she yelled as her entire body tensed, with a cry and a jerking motion the spike I pierced her with snapped. Bringing the spike upwards she pulled it from her tail with a grunt and threw it to the ground.

I watched as the hole in her tail closed before my very eyes, and even the blood seemed to be drawn back into the wound, leaving her tail clean and unblemished. Throwing her arms forwards I threw myself to the right and low to the ground avoiding the half a dozen water spears, unfortunately eight water spears had been sent to me.

One spear pierced my side, and the other went straight through my leg, fortunately missing the bone. Alezarias face twisted into a smirk and I knew that whatever she had planned would be nothing but torment, deciding that I would rather take her down with me I grit my teeth and used more earth affinity than before.

The spike that raised up from the ground started at six inches across at the bottom, but by the time it reached her stomach it was only the size of three of my fingers, it was still a lot of rock to punch through your stomach though.

The shock of getting impaled again caused her to lose control of the water spears and I fell to the ground feeling almost no pain surprisingly. Maybe my shoulder had caused me to reach peak pain and I simply couldn’t feel anymore?

Alezaria grasped the rock and with a grunt of pain twisted her body snapping the end of the stone spear off. Yanking it out of her stomach blood once again poured out of the wound before it slowly closed again. My own wounds fortunately also closed, although a slower than Alezaria’s.

I looked at her and she looked at me and we both had the same idea at the same time. This battle would be a marathon not a sprint. Whoever's potion wore off first would lose. I dodged to the left and jumped straight up narrowly missing a water whip that would have taken a leg off if it had hit me, my counter attack only clipping her torso.

As we exchanged magical attacks I realized how much of an advantage she had. Not only had she drank more potion, but she didn’t have a large wound it was constantly trying to heal itself. My wounded shoulder that had just been cauterized now looked like it was months old with unblemished skin.

Taking a chance I made a thick pillar of stone in front of me blocking three more water spears. Alezaria countered by making a whip of water that could bend around the pillar, however I knew from experience that water whips could still take a bit of focus and effort to control.

Dodging to the left, the right then up and down I managed to avoid the water whip as her motions became more and more frantic and a snarl escaped her curled lips. While she was doing this, I was preparing.

Gathering as much mana as I could I felt myself start to get physically exhausted from the strain. Both from this spell and the larger one that I had done earlier to chase away the tribe. If this didn’t work I wouldn’t have a lot of Mana left for much of anything.

The water whip wrapped around the pillar two times before forming into a ball of water coating the entire pillar. The water vibrated for a moment a dozen spikes erupted from it in every direction. Diving away from the water ball I was hit in the stomach by three thin spears of water.

Alezaria smiled in joy at seeing the blood running down my legs, until I gestured with my own hand and seven rock spears erupted from the ground all around her. Each spear was the size of my fist where it entered her body and two of the spears managed to exit her body on the other side.

Alezaria lost control of the water again and I fell to the ground as the wounds slowly started to close. Looking down at them I could see that it was much slower than before and was even slowing further as they closed. The three holes stopped closing when they were the size of my finger, fortunately they weren’t bleeding anymore, having scabbed over.

A primal scream from Alezaria drew my attention back to her just in time to see her entire body twist in time with her screams and one by one the spears inside of her snapped. The last which pierced her chest she broke with her bare hands. Throwing the spear to the ground I lay on the ground watching as her wounds rapidly closed. Hunched over and breathing heavily a line of saliva dripped from her mouth. Far from the beautiful woman the night before she looked more like a demon as she stared at me.

“I will make you bleed!” She hissed at me.

“You first.” Yallia said appearing behind the woman swinging the saw directly into her neck.

The look of shock on Alezaria’s face mirrored my own.

The teeth of the saw sunk into her neck but it wasn’t until Yallia began working the saw back and forth forcing it further and further into her neck that the snake woman finally collapsed. Giving the saw a few more strokes it was now embedded halfway into her neck, far enough that it was held up by the surrounding flesh.

Despite the grievous damage the potion of regeneration was still doing its part as her mouth silently worked and even her arms twitched. However even a legendary potion had limits, especially when only some of it was drank. Eventually her movements slowed and then stilled as the potion stopped working.

I tried to get up and floundered on the ground until Talass appeared over covered in her own blood looking tired, but still alive. She lowered her hands towards me in order to help me up and I shifted my body to reach for her hand with my own right hand, before remembering that I no longer had a right arm.

Looking in surprise at the missing limb I raised my left hand to hers and she pulled me to my feet. I was still looking at my right shoulder where my arm should have been. It still hadn’t really hit me what had happened.

“Neil...” Talass said her voice filled with regret.

“Come on you two, we need to find that key and get the hell out of here.” Yallia said walking towards us. Although her tone was harsh I saw some sympathy in her eyes, she was just aware that we were still in the middle of the village that had tried to kill us and wanted us to get the hell out of here.

“Also, if we could get me some pants that would be great.”