Wizard Trials: Chapter 148 (Patreon)

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          Draevin wanted nothing more than to lose consciousness. The pain working its way up his hand wouldn’t let him. It pulsed with the rapidly increasing beat of his own heart as it fed on him. He knew what it was doing. How unstoppable it was. He tried to draw on his magic, but the pain was too great to concentrate properly, then he tried fumbling around on the nearby desk for something sharp he could use to cut his hand off. At this point, the extra pain of losing an arm would barely be noticeable.

          It wasn’t going to be that easy. There was barely a crack of light coming in from under the door since Peter had shut it on him. It was too dark to make out any details, let alone find a knife. From what Draevin could see, there were circular gears of some kind and a few springs on the desk and not much else. Even if there had been a knife and even if he had been able to spot it in the dark, he knew deep down it was already too late for that. The pain had reached his shoulder. Removing his arm would barely slow it down.

          Draevin had only one chance. He had to access his magic. Somehow. He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t calm the frenetic howling of his pain. His magic required sorrow or, barring that, at least a bit of quiet. Casting a spell under his current conditions was next to impossible. Not unless he could tap into a harmonic of pain. No such harmonic existed that he was aware of.

          Once I’m in charge.

          Once I’m in charge.

          Once I’m in charge.

          Peter. Peter had betrayed him. This pain was Peter’s betrayal. Draevin imagined the pain in his arm was Peter, twisting a knife. After everything they’d been through together, to trick him and leave him to die in a dark room, it just… it was sad. He’d been struggling with trusting Peter for months and when he finally started to let his guard down this is what he did.

          That sorrow was enough. Draevin felt a trickle of magic come into him from somewhere. He didn’t question it; he sent all of it towards the root burrowing into his arm. He used ice to freeze it in place. He could feel the outline of it. The foul thing had burrowed all the way down his arm, into his shoulder and nearly reached his heart by the time he was able to stop it. Tendrils spread out in every direction from the point of infection. His hand was already more root than flesh, even his elbow didn’t feel like there was enough left to salvage. He gave the root a squeeze with his ice, with his frozen blood, and started to try to pull it out of him.

          The root fought back. It resisted Draevin’s efforts to extract it. The tendrils pressed against the edges of Draevin’s ice. He could feel the ends curve inward, creating barbs. It was like it was intelligent enough to realize what he was doing, like it had learned from when he’d done the exact same thing to Istven and wasn’t about to let itself be extracted a second time. Draevin pulled for all he was worth but the root spread thorns to root itself firmly in his flesh. More tendrils were trying to press against his ice. It had already pivoted strategies from trying to burrow deeper to trying to spread out, testing the ice he’d contained it with for a weak point.

          Draevin had to destroy it. He had to burn it with fire. That was the only thing he was certain could stop it before it broke free and consumed him. He’d done it once before. When he destroyed that rift-net during Dwyra’s invasion he’d heated steam hot enough to ignite the air. He would just have to do that again… only inside his own body this time.

          Once I’m in charge.

          Once I’m in charge.

          Once I’m in charge.

          Peter had betrayed him. Betrayed all of them. He was planning something. Planning to take power for himself, to possibly even kill Istven if he could. The fact that he was willing to murder Draevin just to accomplish his goal said enough about the lengths he was willing to go to. Peter had always had a dangerous streak, but watching the world crumble because of his wish had broken something inside him. Rather than learning that extreme means to achieve a specific end might cause more problems than they solved, he’d gone the other way and now seemed to think his failure had been not going far enough. Draevin just felt sorry for him. He knew Peter felt bad about what he’d done to their world, and now he’d only be digging an even deeper hole for himself. These thoughts gave Draevin the fuel he needed.

          He placed his good hand against the infected one, enforcing his will on the frozen blood he’d used to contain the Blackroot growing inside him. He commanded the ice to flash to steam but contained and compressed it before it could explode. The steam wanted to explode. He forced it to condense, to grow hotter, to become the embodiment of his own righteous indignation. Draevin wasn’t about to let himself die, alone, in a dark room, unable to stop what was coming, unable to save Grrbraa, to stop Sylnya from sacrificing herself… for what? To be a pawn in some manipulation of Peter’s? Hot vengeance burned down Draevin’s arm. He screamed in agony.

          The dark room Draevin had been shuttered in briefly lit up with the light of blue flames pushing their way out of Draevin’s skin. The Blackroot inside him squirmed… and died. The deed done, he collapsed in exhaustion.

          When Draevin next opened his eyes, all he saw was darkness. It took him a few moments to replay the sequence of events that had led him to collapsing on the floor of a dark room with a deep pain pulsing across the right side of his chest. He sat up, frantic. How long had he been asleep, he wondered? Any amount was too long. He was the only one that could warn the others of Peter’s betrayal.

          There was a tiny glimmer of light coming into the room from under the door. Draevin pushed himself to his feet, his head swimming with the abrupt motion. He had to spend a moment steadying himself before he could move again. He was dizzy, he was sick… but more than either of those things he was furious! He stumbled for the door, using his mystic staff to help maintain his balance, grabbed the handle, pushed. It didn’t budge. Of course not. He remembered then that Peter had bolted it from the outside before leaving. After what Draevin had just endured, he wasn’t about to let a locked door stand in his way. He brought his staff back and slammed it forward. His arm didn’t really have much force behind it, but the blast of raw steam he released was enough to blow the entire door off its hinges. It flew across the hall and crumpled against the far wall.

          There was an open window out in the main chamber of the floor he was on. What Draevin saw through it made his stomach clench with fear: a morning sunrise. It was a new day. He’d slept through the whole night.

          In the morning rays of light that now greeted him, Draevin looked down at himself to survey the damage he’d suffered. His right arm was completely gone. Only a blackened stump remained, and it even looked like the fire had burned a ways into his chest. It was a miracle he’d survived it. There was a deep ache in there and his breathing was strained, but the fact he was alive at all seemed like the only thing that mattered at the moment. He’d lost an arm before. It wasn’t the end of the world. Not getting his ass in gear, however, might actually be.

          Peter. Peter had tried to kill him. Draevin was still having a hard time understanding why. He tried to think back to his last few interactions. Peter had talked about maybe having someone else use the Conflux besides Istven because he thought Istven might not be trustworthy enough. They had talked about it, then Draevin had convinced him Istven was the best and only option. Peter had relented! He’d agreed to let Istven take the Conflux’s power. A lie. The next conversation Draevin had had with him had been when he’d come to ask if he had a plan that could stop the Blackroot without having to sacrifice Sylnya. Obviously the very idea of that plan had just been another lie.

          Once he thought through those last interactions it became obvious to Draevin what Peter must be planning. He must somehow be planning to take the Conflux’s power for himself. When Draevin had refused to entertain the idea of anyone but Istven getting that power, that had to have been when Peter had decided to betray him. He’d just been testing the waters to see if Draevin would be willing to side with him over Istven and Draevin had unknowingly given the wrong answer. But it wasn’t Draevin that Peter was really planning to betray, it was Istven. Draevin had just established himself as an obstacle when he’d declared his continued loyalty to Istven. Sylnya was probably safe for the time being, as she’d be needed for Peter’s plan to work, but Draevin wondered what Peter would do to the lovable Grrbraa if he figured out what was going on. Would he? Could he? Yesterday Draevin wouldn’t have thought Peter capable of earnestly trying to kill him. At this point nothing that man did would surprise him.

          Right at that moment, Draevin was the only one that had figured out what Peter was planning. He had to stop him. He stumbled over to the empty shaft on the far end of the spire that had once allowed the magical lift to ferry people up and down the tall building. He flopped over the side, drawing on his staff’s mana to control his descent enough to avoid smashing into one of the walls. Floors whipped past in a blur. In moments he was one the ground floor. He landed gently on a pillow of steam. Despite how little grace his body might possess at the moment, his magic wasn’t similarly impeded.

          The floor was empty. The crates of mana potions that had been stacked all over the place were gone, the soldiers were gone, Sylnya’s vines were gone, Istven, everyone… There were a few scattered crates, but the bottles of liquid inside them were empty. Draevin spotted a small group of people gathered around the desk Istven had set up for himself. They didn’t appear to have noticed his arrival. He stumbled in their direction, leaning heavily on his staff. When he got close, he started to overhear their conversation.

          “…and that’s not the only hair he gave me,” a man’s voice said. It looked like there were two people at the desk. Someone Draevin couldn’t entirely see and the backside of a green-skinned orc.

          “Is show me sex man hair,” a feminine voice purred in a broken accent. It sounded like the feminine voice was trying to be seductive, but by the time it echoed around the empty room enough to reach Draevin’s ears it had kind of lost its luster.

          Draevin cleared his throat. Loudly.

          The orc—who turned out to be a woman—turned around in surprise, the slack mouth and wide eyes of embarrassment clear on her face. As she turned she revealed to Draevin the man seated at the desk behind her. He was an elf, and his shirt was open to reveal a hairy chest. Unlike his companion he didn’t show a shred of embarrassment, only slight amusement at Draevin’s arrival. Then, slowly, his mouth curled down into a frown as he took in the totality of Draevin’s appearance.

          “Sho’tan take you, what happened to your arm, man?” he asked.

          “Hello again, Kranin,” Draevin said. “I need to find Istven. Now.”

          Kranin blinked, buttoning up his shirt as he replied. “You missed him. He took everyone and left for Arena City yesterday. I—I don’t… how are you here and what happened to you!”

          “I was betrayed by someone I thought was my friend,” Draevin explained simply. “It’s really important that I find Istven. Life-or-death important.”

          Kranin shook his head, brows knitting together in confusion. “But you went with him,” he said. “I watched you go. We said goodbye and everything. You even congratulated me on my promotion to Governor of Truntstown! How did you even get back so fast?”

          Draevin squeezed his hand around his staff so hard his knuckle went white. “Peter,” he said with more hatred than he thought he’d ever impressed into a single word in his life. “I never left, Kranin. Peter tried to kill me. If you saw me leave with the others, that was an illusion.”

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