Real Talk

“What, afraid of your own thoughts and realizations?” the Succubus said as if she’d read his mind.

“Say whatever you want,” the Paladin said without breaking his stride. Demons, he knew, liked to taunt humans. For some reason, they liked to point out the things that most people didn’t want to think about.

“You said you want to bring My Lady to her destination, but I don’t think you have what it takes,” the Succubus said. “If you’re turning away at this, you should just give up.”

The Paladin spun around, frustrated. “Why are you doing this to me? What’s wrong with wanting to uphold my promise?”

“Because you’re an idealist who’s not thinking carefully,” the Succubus replied. “Not only that, you can’t even admit you’re a hypocrite. What makes you think you’re good enough to stay next to My Lady with that attitude?”

“That’s not up to you to decide,” the Paladin said, his hands shaking with rage. He wanted to punch the Succubus in the stomach.

“What, all these years of being a hero made you delusional?” the Succubus said, waving her hand at the Paladin. “Just because everything has been going your way so far doesn’t mean you have the right to stick your nose into whatever business strikes your fancy.”

“You think my promise is just some shiny object that I’m attracted to at the moment? You have no idea the amount of work I had to go through just to become Paladin,” he said, putting a firm foot down, defending his position.

“Don’t care, doesn’t matter,” the Succubus said. “My Lady already said she didn’t want you on this journey. Whatever debt you owe has already been paid. Yet you insist on being with us. You turn your stalking behavior into justification with a word like promise. You can’t admit that you said one thing but ignore something else when it’s inconvenient for you. If you were really that thoughtful towards My Lady, you would have respected her wish to be left alone.”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” replied the Paladin, his face pale as he shook his head. “If I hadn’t followed, you wouldn’t even be able to see the curse on the Blue Witch’s body.”

“And without any means to cure her, I would have taken My Lady to our destination already.” The Succubus glared at the Paladin. “It was fortunate for the Blue Witch, but you using her condition as an excuse to justify your stalking behavior is quite distasteful. Not to mention you feel no remorse or offer no apology for causing discomfort to My Lady with your presence.”

Back in the cave, sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by mana plants, tools of various shapes and sizes spread out around them, the Scholar and the Fleur put their heads together to find some way to make the mana plants useful.

“At least they don’t die if we cut into them while they’re rooted,” the Fleur said, cutting into a leaf with her knife.

“But if we take a part of it off the plant, the detached part dies,” the Scholar said. He plucked off one of the flower petals. While the petal in his hand turned into a small pile of petal skeletons, the rest of the plant on the ground remained undisturbed.

“The strange thing about these flowers is that they don’t have stamens or pistils. There’s no way to make seeds,” the Fleur said.

“Then how do these flowers grow?” the Scholar asked.

“There are no insects here to pollinate them either, so I’m really not sure,” the Fleur said. They put their hand over the flower and pushed down, absorbing the plant into their hand. Their eyes loosened their focus as they analyzed the plants.

“They use pure mana as food,” the Fleur said. “But we need more than pure mana to make it grow.”

“Pure mana is already hard enough to make, but it can be done. What else does it need?” the Scholar asked. At least one part of the mana plant’s mystery is solved. The Scholar was quite happy to hear that it was pure mana. Common folks might have difficulty getting their hands on mana, let alone pure mana. With several arcane artificers in the group, there should be no problem procuring it. However, that is assuming they manage to find a way to grow it outside of the labyrinth.

The Fleur touched their hands to the ground and felt around the base of the mana plants. If the Scholar hadn’t known better, he would think that the Fleur was trying to arrange the non-existent soil on the ground.

“The minerals on the ground, I think, are the other components,” the Fleur said. “But there’s something else, and I’m not sure what it is. However, I can’t produce these minerals.”

The Scholar sighed. With his elbow on his knee, he plopped his cheek onto his hand like a pouting child. He tapped mindlessly on the leaf at his feet.

“We’ve been here for about three days,” the Scholar said. “I hope Blue is alright.”

“I hope so, too,” the Fleur said.

The leaf underneath the Scholar’s finger began to turn skeletal. He stopped, watching as part of the leaf died while the rest remained transparent.

“Maybe we can use the skeletons somehow,” the Scholar said. “Maybe they can still serve a function even if they have solidified.”

“We can try,” the Fleur said. At this point, they were still exploring options. If the skeletons really could be of use, then it would be easier than trying to bring the mana plant back to Blue in its transparent state.

The two companions gathered the plant skeletons and returned to the cave, where they had set up camp.

With the pile of mana plants between them, they began to experiment. They heated the skeleton, soaked it in water, recoating it with mana. They tried to insert a small piece of the mana plant into the Scholar’s body and wrap it around one of his mana channels. It was a painful experience, but if this small injury could prove the key to saving Blue, the Scholar was willing to try.

“I think I misjudged you,” the Fleur said.

“How? I don’t think so,” the Scholar said.

“You’re kinder than I thought,” the Fleur said. “When you’re working, you concentrate deeply, and you care more than you let on.” Their eyes arched into a kind smile as they looked at the Scholar.

The Scholar shrugged. “I’m who I am.”

“You’re also quite handsome when you keep your mouth shut,” the Fleur said, chuckling.

To that, the Scholar gave the Fleur a scowl, and the Fleur laughed.

“Where do you think the Witch is going?” the Fleur asked. “I’m following along because I think it’s better to travel in a group where we can look out for each other. My instincts are telling me that interesting things will happen if I stick close to the Witch, but she never told us where they wanted to go.”

The Fleur picked up another piece of the skeleton and rubbing it in her hand, imbuing it with mana.

“They didn’t want us to follow them, either, remember?” the Scholar said. “Honestly, I felt the same way as you. The road isn’t always safe. It’s much better to travel in a group. What better protection can you get than a Paladin? Combine that with my magic and your healing, we’re almost invincible.”

The Scholar also picked up a skeleton and imbued it with his mana. After he successfully did that, he handed his piece to the Fleur.

“I do feel a bit bad. They were obviously trying to get rid of us,” the Fleur said.

“You saw what the Paladin could do,” the Scholar replied. “His sword somehow locked onto the Succubus and tracked her wherever she went. There was no way we’d lose them unless they went separate ways, but from the way things were going, that was unlikely to happen. Since the Paladin wasn’t going to give up, I figured I might as well just go along with it.”

“That sword is strange. There’s something uncomfortable about it,” the Fleur said.

The Fleur took the Scholar’s mana-infused skeleton and infused her own mana into it, mixing their mana together. The Scholar leaned in, observing the reaction of the combined mana.

The Scholar nodded. “Without the Paladin’s Holy Powers suppressing the sword, it would feel even more uncomfortable. That’s a demon-slaying sword forged centuries ago, its steel purified by the Holy Powers of several Paladins. The stones you see on the sword can absorb magic of any kind. It can even absorb physical attacks, I found out earlier.”

The Scholar scrunched up his nose, remembering the foul smell of the poisonous green liquid the centipede had thrown at them. “One of those stones also absorbs blood and souls. It was said that a thousand demons and their souls were made as offerings to give birth to a demon-slaying sword. Their souls are forever trapped in that stone.”