Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigor X] Increased.

[Life - Vigor XI] Acquired.

The thought-light flickered as a stream of gold left my fangs and began to fill not-Needle’s flesh. For a second, it felt like her body resisted. Like it pushed back, unwilling to take more of the power that I offered - but only for a second. The resistance crumbled, and her pale skin changed; thick lines of gold ran across her throat, radiating out from the small punctures in her outer neck. I hissed softly, watching the lines stretch and grow, noticing the way that the-female-who-was-not-Needle began to all but vibrate in place, like an overexcited bad-thing at the sight of a vulnerable Core.

[Excitement] - and a growing degree of [discomfort] and [nausea] along with it - rolled off of my Coreless in great waves. Her mouth twisted upwards, and she bounced from foot to foot. I bounced with her, just barely managing to hold on and take hold of my own tail as she shuddered and shook.

[Mana Restoration] started to restore what I had just lost, while [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail]’s healing itch crawled across my scale-flesh, an unavoidable tingle that I was forced to bear. It wasn’t enough to overcome the Lesser Core’s effects, but it delayed them some. At the same time, mana-wrapped vitality soaked itself into my blood and streamed through my flesh, vigor’s unreleased other half still remaining within my body. My Coreless didn’t need it as much as I did; the last [Little Guardian’s Focus] was still able to reach them. I could tell that it wasn’t working as well as it had before, though.

The Lesser Core’s aura was getting stronger. Visibly. It pulled at my flesh in sickening wisps of darkness, leaving slowly-decaying scale-flesh in its wake and draining my stores of mana. Forcing me to spend longer and longer within the effects of [Mana Restoration] to keep my mana as full as possible.

Not-Needle helped with that, her natural speed - enhanced by vigor to become even more deadly - combined with her unnaturally sharp fangs of ore-flesh a near-perfect counter to the corpse-things that assaulted us. The others were effective as well, but it wasn’t worth the time or mana to give vigor to each of them.

One was enough.

The world blurred again, air violently whipping against my scale-flesh. I nearly flew away, a reflexive [Clinging Grasp] the only thing keeping me safe - and then we were among the most recent group of enemies.

I hissed past the scale-flesh that filled my mouth, using [Sound Shaping] to twist the noise into a weapon that bit into the corpse-things’ ears. It did nothing to stop them, but it was enough that, when the corpse-things died at last, the thought-light flickered.

Experience Gai-

Experience Gained! Re-

…

Experience Gained! Reduced Due To Assistance Received.

…

Experience Gained! Reduced Due To Assistance Received.

Level Up!

1 Trait Point Gained.

My coils fell slack around not-Needle’s ore-flesh as she began to slow, no longer forced to hold on uncomfortably tight to the rapidly-moving Coreless. Beside us, The Unrepentant One lifted his giant claw of ore-flesh from where it had passed through a corpse-things head and into the stone below it, grunting with exertion. He raised a hand to wipe at his brow, letting out a heavy breath. His other hand came down on not-Needle’s free shoulder, flexing slightly.

“Are you good, Val?” he asked. “You moved a bit slower that time.”

By the time the male Coreless finished speaking, the Lesser Core’s aura had already overcome the remaining vigor in not-Needle’s body. Something that was happening faster than before.

“‘m fine, Doran. Just a bit tired,” she yawned, the dizzying [excitement] fading while much of the [discomfort] and [nausea] stayed behind. Her limbs shook one by one, as if trying to wrench themselves out of place. “A little nauseous, I guess. A few kinks, too. I don’t think my body can handle this much longer, even with the healing. It’s starting to feel…off. Like mana strain, almost. Not quite as bad, though.”

“Because that’s probably what it essentially is,” he replied, voice laced with [concern]. “Getting that kind of boost repeatedly can’t be healthy for you.” I ignored it, trying to focus on my still-replenishing mana stores, letting a drop of vitality or two - or a lot more than that, unfortunately, given the increasing amount of damage that the Lesser Core’s aura was doing to my flesh as we moved closer to its source - drip down my fangs. The bits of gold beat back the frigid cold, for a little while. A shadow fell over me for a brief moment. A hand. “Let me take him,” The Unrepentant One said.

It was waved off.

“It’s fine for a little longer,” not-Needle said. “I’ll hand him off before it gets to be too much. Besides,” she continued, “if it is like mana strain, this could be good for me in the long run. Get me a little stronger.”

“Not if you push it too far and actually hurt yourself.”

“And I won’t,” not-Needle answered again, voice firm. “I know the signs, Doran. We’ve all done this before. Something like this, at least.”

“What’s mana strain?” The Grateful One asked, her black-clad figure stepping in from the corner of my vision. The other Coreless stared at her. The Grateful One fidgeted.

“Really, Elara?” Needle asked, having finished gathering her lost needle-fangs and feeding them to the giant skin-mouth that she kept on her back. Bits of gore and gobbets of flesh slid down the needle-fangs’ shafts, not quite cleaned all the way after being recovered.

“What?” she asked, a bit of [defensiveness] creeping into the connection between us. Her arms crossed for a moment before finding their way to her side again. “I never learned this stuff.”

“You…you should know what it is,” Needle continued, lightly [befuddled]. “Skies, you should’ve had it, with the way that you…” she stopped, a note of [realization] and light [envy] pressing into the connection between us. “You just pushed the sensations down like everything else, didn’t you? Didn’t think of that, but it makes sense.”

Beside me, the-female-who-was-not-Needle groaned and laughed all at once, a garbled mix of sounds that was neither one or the other. A hand reached up to press against her head lightly, pushing down and rubbing itself in tiny circles. “Mana strain is what happens when your body is changed by mana too much, too quickly; it starts to rebel. At the low ends, you have discomfort, tingles, and nausea, but it gets worse as you go. Weakness, headaches, and vomiting would typically come next. Then, at the highest levels, if you - for some reason - push yourself too far without letting your body recover and acclimate to the changes, your body starts to rip itself apart. That’s when you start bleeding from your eyes, ears, nose…it’s not pretty. Which did happen to you, though I’m not sure how conscious you were at the time. Even if it doesn’t kill you, surviving the injuries can still leave you Mana-Touched. Not right in the head. Now that I think about it, though, you bounced back pretty fast afterwards - healing or not, the nausea and discomfort should have lingered at least. I’m definitely still feeling it, even at a far lower level of mana strain and with my [Little Guardian’s Totem] healing me, so you should have too.”

“Oh, that,” The Grateful One said, her shoulders lifting and falling briefly. “Yeah, that was awful. I just made myself stop feeling it though. Didn’t know it had a name.” She paused, thinking. “Should you pass the Little Guardian off to someone else, then? If it’s that big of a risk, I mean.”

“Yes, she shou-” The Unrepentant One started to say, but whatever noises he was trying to make were quickly cut off by the-female-who-was-not-Needle.

“No, not yet,” not-Needle said, her eyes narrowing at The Unrepentant One in warning. “There are stages to it, and I’m not at a dangerous level of mana strain yet. I’ll pass him off to someone else when it gets bad enough, but I think I can go a little longer before we have to do a switch.”

“Fine,” The Unrepentant One responded, huffing. “We’ll be keeping watch, though.”

The other Coreless, having all stepped into view by this point, all bobbed their heads in some form of [agreement].

“Sure, sure,” not-Needle answered. And, just like that, the noises of the Coreless fell silent. We moved on, creeping down the tunnels of the World Dungeon.

The next time I used [Life - Vigor] on the-female-who-was-not-Needle, I had to push past even greater resistance than before for the effect to take hold, like her body was unwilling to accept what I offered. When it rushed through her veins, thick lines of gold cutting across pale skin, her [nausea] spiked faster than the [excitement].

I started to realize that I had made a mistake. So did not-Needle, right around the time that she vomited all over The Unrepentant One’s shining ore-flesh.

He was not [amused], though he was slightly [vindicated].

In between heaves, she plucked me from her shoulder and passed me to the Unrepentant One. “Not…” a heave, “a…” a retch, “word.” She vomited again, and I noted the three other Coreless stepping forward to meet the tide of corpse-things rushing in.

Meanwhile,I found my perch on The Unrepentant One’s shoulders, biting down on flesh. Unlike with not-Needle’s clearly overstressed form, his body put up no resistance; it accepted the stream of gold eagerly, drinking it with the same urgency as a dying bad-thing drank mana-water. Countless lines of gold stretched across his skin, wrapping around his throat and reaching below the boundaries of his ore-flesh. I hissed with glee at the sight, finding it nearly as beautiful as always. The hairs that spilled from his chin blocked too much of it to be just as beautiful, though, hiding much of the gold beneath their mass. Still, I was happy to see it, even if I now knew that I would need to be a little more careful with repeated uses of [Life - Vigor] than I thought. Luckily, the growing [nausea] and [discomfort] that I had sensed from not-Needle, along with the resistance that her body began to put up, were probably good signs to look for in the future.

I hoped so, at least, because [Life - Vigor] was too powerful to just stop using entirely.

“Oh. Wow,” the large Coreless gasped in [surprise], starting to vibrate in place. “That’s…” he laughed, lips curling upwards. “Wow. Are you good?” he asked the still-heaving not-Needle, the overwhelming [excitement] that [Life - Vigor] now gave already beginning to outpace his [concern] for the [nausea]-filled Coreless.

She waved him off with a grunt, and he rushed forward.

The corpse-things shattered under his heels, bones breaking with brittle snaps, his already-impressive strength boosted by [Life - Vigor] in the same way that not-Needle’s speed had been. I could tell that it was enhancing him in other ways, too, giving him more speed and durability than he otherwise had, but those changes were hardly worth mentioning in comparison. Like his body wanted to be strong, just as not-Needle’s wished to be fast, and forced the drops of vigor that I filled him with to focus on that to the near exclusion of everything else.

I curled up again, ignoring the faint discomfort that came with stretching across the male Coreless’ far larger limb, and reached out for my tail. By the time I found it, the battle was already over.

We moved on again, pushing into the darkness, the scent-taste of the Lesser Core growing heavier on my tongue. Its aura grew with it, every wisp of smoke-like darkness lightly flaying my scale-flesh. Filling it with a discomforting chill.

I bore it, biting down a little harder.

Just a little longer, I knew.

Just a little longer, and then we would be done.