“Now that was beyond disappointin’.”

Prisoner now stood between Sechen and the attacker, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. “I thought you’d be able to do somethin’, but apparently that somethin’ was lose. Hard. Did you even try to fight this freak?”

Sechen smacked her lips twice in terror.

“And who are you supposed to be?” The attacker asked.

“You shush. I’m dealin’ with somethin’ here.” Prisoner said, waving a hand dismissively without turning to address the attacker.

“Hey! I’m…”

All sound cut out, even the forest noises that had been a backdrop this entire time. And with them, the Issi hands gripping Sechen’s throat. She gasped for air, tears streaming down her face, and she let out a wracking cough that shook her whole body.

“I thought you’d at least have some instincts, considerin’ what you are, but you’ve got nothin’ in that head of yours, do you?” Prisoner walked up to Sechen and tapped her on the forehead, and she felt Issi surging and shifting around her to something familiar. “Take that in and fix yourself up. If you want to be useful, you’re gonna have to work ten times harder than you ever have in your life. Maybe a hundred. You’ll end up hatin’ me for as hard as I push you, but you can still run away. Could end up bein’ better for you in the long run, softy that you are.”

Sechen stared at the ground, Issi funneling into her like light through a prism. Her tears hit the dry ground and were instantly sucked away, her heaving sobs that followed similarly absorbed by Prisoner’s Issi barrier. She felt her face growing hot, but not out of rage or sadness. Not even at Prisoner’s jabs, which she knew deep down were true. No, what she felt in the moment was shame. Shame and pain. Shame that she could do less than nothing to help herself, nevermind anyone else. And she wanted to rescue Revel from Rainshear? The woman was stronger than Metea/Irric, and without a doubt stronger than the mercenary who’d just put her in the dirt.

“What did you do?” The attacker desperately demanded, walking up to Prisoner with countless fists pulled back and ready to strike.

“Would you mind givin’ us some space? Tryin’ to use this as a teachin’ moment here.” Prisoner said, pressing a hand to the attacker’s chest and lightly shoving them backwards. At least it looked like a gentle shove, but the attacker’s chest exploded out into a myriad of tiny flesh cubes that splattered down for at least fifty meters behind them. They didn’t even have time to realize what had happened to them, looking down at the hole in their chest with disbelief, and poking their arm through it with a faraway look.

They were dead before they began falling to the ground.

“Disgusting.” Prisoner said with a grimace, tearing a piece of the attacker’s Issi out of their cloak and using it to catch an Issi hand before anything dissipated. He then snapped his fingers, and the bundled up package disappeared. “Now, where was I? Ah, right, beratin’ you. Do you understand what would’ve happened if I wasn’t here, ringlet? Who am I kiddin’, of course you do. And if you don’t, just imagine that those hands had stayed on your neck just a few moments longer. I thought you’d have at least the tiniest bit of fight in you, but you don’t even know how to throw a punch. Hells, you’re one step and some gauze away from bein’ a mummy.”

“I do fine.” Sechen croaked out.

“Of course, of course. That’s why you’re leanin’ up on a tree, limbs as thin as twigs and bones one stiff breeze away from breakin’ free of your skin. Because you’re fine.” Prisoner set Sechen’s bag down next to her, stepping back and turning towards where Metea/Irric had run off to. “Looks like cloudy managed to run off the others. But she ain’t in good shape, so I better go catch her before she bites the dust. And ringlet? If you’re still here when I get back, you ain’t got an excuse no more.”

Sechen looked over at her pack, and all she could think about was the diamond that was nestled among her clothes. Prisoner had given her an out, and was pushing her towards it. She swallowed hard around a lump in her throat, trying not to compare what Prisoner was doing with what she’d suspected Revel had been attempting. She curled her fingers around one buckle, but they looked wrong. Too skinny. Like bone wrapped in leather, no muscle or fat to be found. That was normal. Her normal.

So why did it bother her now? Was it just because Prisoner had pointed it out? Sechen coughed through her injured windpipe, feeding it some of the Issi that Prisoner had purified for her to speed along the healing. The Issi slid out of her container and up through the invisible pathways that ran parallel to her blood vessels, twisting and contorting around her biological maze until it found its way to where she needed it. But not all of it went to her neck.

A smaller amount, so little that Sechen almost called it a trace, continued along until it had coated every inch of her pathways in Issi. She nudged at this foreign feeling, but everywhere she touched felt tender and weak, like the bruised flesh of an apple just under the peel. Sechen raised her left hand and stared at the back of it, now looking at it through the eyes of someone who wanted to be better.

Just under her skin, she could sense her Issi permeating every fiber of her being. When she scraped her core raw, that Issi had gone away in a last-ditch effort. And it had left her weak and useless. Sechen put her hand to the ground and pushed herself up, looking to Gilt’s slowly regenerating form first then shifting to look after where her arm had been thrown. Her legs were shaky, her thoughts hazy, and everything felt like it was both numb and aching. She hated every second she felt like this. And as she picked up her pack and slung it across her back, she made up her mind.

“Crazy meetin’ you here.” Prisoner said as he appeared out of nowhere, supporting a very beat up and mangled Metea/Irric who struggled to breathe as she leaned against Prisoner’s shoulder. “I take it that’s your answer?”

“Yeah.” Sechen said, unconsciously flexing the fingers on her right hand as it hung by her side. “But I have a question I need answered first.”

“Shoot.”

“How am I alive right now?”

“In the metaphysical sense, or the how did I survive that fight sense?”

“Meta… no. Like, how can I still move my arms? Stand on my legs? I can’t even flex my muscles because they're so atrophied, but somehow I can walk and run and jump without any problems?”

“Hmm. How do I put this?” Prisoner kneeled over and gently set Metea/Irric down, putting a finger on her forehead in the same way he’d done to Sechen. “Can you put a ring on her? She needs all the help she can get right now.”

“Yeah.” Sechen said, pressing down on her first knuckle. All she felt was bone.

“Thanks. Now, back to your question.” Prisoner stood up and dusted his pants off. “When you bond with a wisp, you don’t just get the container. That would help you store Issi, but you wouldn’t be able to do much with it. Like a metal chest that’s been welded shut. And you never actually see what’s inside it, just feel it, so your mind makes an imaginary space with what it feels your container should look like. That’s your headspace. And then there’s the connecting space that lets you push Issi to wherever in your body you need it. And those pathways are always greased with a little bit of Issi so there’s barely any delay in using techniques.”

Sechen nodded. That seemed to fit with what she’d just noticed.

“But that’s not all the pathways are used for. They take on the burden anythin’ else in your body might not be able to take on, which is why you never see practitioners dyin’ of somethin’ like a heart attack. Your Issi physically won’t let that happen, unless you do somethin’ horribly reckless. Kinda like what you just did. Now, when I say they take on burdens, I don’t mean they pick and choose. Your Issi is always empowerin’ you, but to different degrees with different people. Take sleepy for example.”

Prisoner snapped his fingers, and Elach’s body appeared next to Metea/Irric’s. She twitched in surprise, then mumbled something incoherent that might have been an apology.

“He’s got an Issi saturation most people would kill for, since he spent so much time in the primal spring. That means his pathways are built up strong, and can hold far more Issi than someone weak.”

“Like me?” Sechen asked.

“You said it, not me.” Prisoner shrugged. “But yes. You obviously haven’t been takin’ care of yourself, because your pathways are shriveled little things that strain under the tiny bits of Issi you’ve got coursin’ through ‘em. Cloudy’s got fairly standard pathways, which would be fine for anyone else, but she’s got special circumstances that make ‘em pretty subpar in comparison to where she could be.”

“So how do I make my pathways stronger?”

“You’re askin’ the wrong question, sister. If you try to make your pathways stronger, you’ll hit a wall where you can’t function without Issi jackin’ you up. What you need is to get healthy first, then once you can stand on your own two legs without help from your Issi we’ll work on makin’ your pathways stronger.”

Sechen leaned over Metea/Irric, staring down at a series of gnarly slashes on her abdomen. She’d taken more punishment than Sechen and had still come out on top. “Why would I need to work on my body when my Issi already does all that for me?”

“You’re makin’ this more complicated than it needs to be.” Prisoner sighed. “Why couldn’t you have just accepted my words as fact and moved on?”

“Well, sorry for wanting to know more about what kind of hell you’re going to put me through.” Sechen said defensively.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Prisoner blew out a long breath. “Alright; think of it this way. Each and every part of your body has a number assigned to it, and that’s how good it works. Your Issi saturation is a flat bonus to that number, and that comes from how good your pathways are. Then you take how good your actual Issi is, and you multiply the number you got from the first two things to get how good it actually is. Did I just say ‘good’ a lot? Because it feels like I did.”

“That still doesn’t explain why I need to make my actual body healthier. Wouldn’t increasing my Issi saturation do the same thing? And it would probably be a lot easier for me. I mean, look at me.” Sechen gestured at herself in disgust. “I’m nothing but skin and bones.”

“Like I said, once you get used to livin’ with Issi you won’t be able to go back. And every exercise you do, every healthy meal you eat, every book you read, well, pretty much everything you do while you’ve got your pathways filled doesn’t help your actual body at all. It all goes to growin’ your pathways.” Prisoner patted his own bicep, which wasn’t quite as big as Sechen expected it should be. “That’s how you get fat practitioners, hobbled practitioners, and malnourished practitioners like you.”

Sechen opened her mouth to comment, but snapped it shut as everything clicked. The years of looking almost exactly the same, but a little older, even as she ate better and walked for miles and miles. “If I don’t fix my body now, It might be impossible to fix later on.”