Sorry, The Only Power Left Is Alteration.

“Derk!”

A hand went in front of her mouth as the cave, the skulls, her party, all rotated in her head. A gurgling sound pushed from her stomach. Burning liquid cascaded up her throat and against her tongue. The stinging numbness over her torso wouldn’t go away even though the arrowheads hadn’t done more than poked and bruised her through the leather armor.

The rest of her party looked worse though. Mike struggled to hold his heavy shield while his arms shook visibly. The heavy steel plated barrier found itself resting against his knee while sinking lower and lower. It looked like the fatigue in his arms was too much for him.

Their spell caster tilted his head toward the ceiling as blood from his eye socket dripped over the left side of his face. The wand rested on the floor in front of his knees.

The healer stood behind her, slightly to the left. Carrie turned to see that he suffered an arrowhead piercing his upper arm under the bite gap in his armor. Her eyes moved from Yull to Derk.

“Can you save him?”

Tears ran down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth. Yull nodded, flexed slightly, and knelt beside Derk. Instead of relying on basic restoration, he utilized the trump card.

Mend Novice 01: Can patch one wound daily, forcing any type of flesh back together. The wound site will only be sealed or stitched and requires time to heal completely.

As he casted this spell, he could sense the smashed knee cap and torn tendons. His vision of that knee-cap showed a bone shattered into little jagged bits; without this spell the only other option would be surgical removal. The knee cap pulled together as strands of fleshy material wove in and out of those tendons to push them back together. The strings tightened with no regard for pain or swelling.

Yull wasn’t sure quite how it worked, but his vision didn’t conflict with his medical knowledge. It felt so incomplete and imperfect, and yet this skill mended the wound better than outpatient surgery. However, pain relief didn’t come with the package.

The intense scowling frown on Derk’s face made Yull concerned.

“It’s gonna hurt, but it’ll mend.”

“I’m sorry. You used your trump card on me. What about Ralph’s eye? You’re so focused on knee surgery and your practice you can’t even see what’s important!”

“I can only use it once a day, and you can’t fight with only one leg.”

“Have you considered he might have a brain injury, or that he might bleed out. I’m not even much better than I was, but he’s crucial. And what about my hands, I can’t move my wrists. I can’t even pick up my sword. What do you want me to do, fish slap them?”

Yull stood up, “It was a spur of the moment decision. I had to do something!”

As Ralph pressed his hand to his wounded socket with the back of the arrowhead extending from open fingers, he kept his remaining eye open.

“New skull! It’s attacking!”

The black skull studded with gleaming mana diamonds twirled above them. It spun dizzyingly before it suddenly stopped. The eye darted back and forth between Ralph, Yull, Derk and Carrie. When the eye finally stopped darting about, its stare burrowed into Derk. The jaw opened with a pop as it spoke with a scratchy, mocking voice that sounded like an old man wheezing on an old record.

“Heeeeeeaaliing!?”

The skull fell back to the ground to continue its dance. A lustrous golden-red glow formed over Derk’s left knee and both his wrists. A frown grew across the knight’s face, then a scowl, a wince, and tears. The pain pulsated from all three of his wounds. The slightest sway of his wrists or bend of the knee caused a grinding pain that sliced through his head. A sickening pop could be heard by the entire party as Derk’s left knee burst internally and he hit the floor rolling in agony.

Every tendon connecting his hands to his muscles tore as he rolled. A blotchy purple and yellow hue spread from his wrist. It crept up his arms. Muscles tore as if someone pulled them apart. Yull tried to turn the screaming man so he laid on his back. Bone crunched from under the torn cloth joint of the chain armor. The patella, the lower section of the femur and the upper section of the tibia splintered into sharp nerve-piercing shards.

Derk stopped screaming. Fists refused to clench. Hands remained limp and fingers straight. He groaned and frothed a bit at the mouth as he clamped his eyes shut.

A hand went against his armor as restoration power flowed into him. Yull remained kneeling at his friend’s side. He examined Derk’s wrists and noticed the skin around the internal wounds had become a jaundiced swollen yellow, even greenish, where the bones and tendons were shattered. When attempting to cast simple restoration on the wrists, he discovered that his mana had already depleted.

The flame skull took to the air. It tilted toward Yull as the jaw creaked open.

“Yull, run you idiot!” Ralph yelled.

A huge bright blueish-white flame singed the edge of Yull’s nose and burnt the front of his hair as he dodged backwards from the flamethrower. The flames flew just above and to the right of the wounded knight without touching him directly.

Heating chain mail cooked Derk's right side. His entire right arm burned under the armor as the useless hand became bright red, swollen, and suddenly split open along the back with a pop. The same happened to his right ear, which swelled with sizzling fat as his lips and cheeks crackled.

Hair crumbled away to miniscule embers. The scalp underneath turned red and swelled quickly. Blood oozed from cracks in the skin before drying into burnt clots.

A repeated twitch along with deep labored breaths indicated that the knight still lived. Eyes strained upwards towards Carrie. One burning into a pasty, puss filled white and yellow ball with a lash shorn lid fused against the top. Strings of flesh clung between his lips as they moved.

“I- I... love you.”

The fire withdrew and the flame skull returned to its dance with the others. The sickeningly sweet odor of burnt flesh penetrated their nostrils. The bow dropped as Carrie vomited over her hands and fell to her knees shivering tears. Only a small trickle escaped to puddle into her gloves but it burned her mouth and throat.

The blackened steel and wood shield hid the tank as he knelt behind it. The lower ledge rested on the floor. This armor was too heavy. His burn stung too badly. The shield and sword felt like immovable objects. He peeked at Derk from the side of his shield. So, they had already lost one party member. If he could only survive, he could be with her as it always should have been. He just needed to find a way to survive. It didn’t feel manly to be crouched behind a shield with his sword stabbing the granite, especially after what Derk had just suffered. Mike summoned his energy to stand, raise his sword, and hold up his shield.

“Get up and defend yourself Carrie, he wouldn’t have wanted you to go out like this,”

A gasp of gurgled protest escaped Derk’s swollen lips. With great pain he attempted to move, to let them know he wasn’t dead. His right leg, though cooked under his armor, could still support him. He bent it and stomped his foot firmly. The sting of the long blistering burn from head to toe almost sent him out. He stiffened his chest and took deep breaths to fight the pain.

The arrowhead skull jumped and spun around with its now familiar ear-splitting scream. This time, it bellowed louder with a more extreme pitch. Blood spurted from Derk’s left ear as all sounds faded into a constant high pitch ringing. Despite this, Derk planted his stinging elbow into the floor and flexed his back to get up. So much pain, so very much pain, everywhere, that he could barely feel it anymore.

Adrenaline Rush Novice 01: You can pump massive amounts of adrenaline into your system at will. High risk of fatality.

The skull flew toward Carrie. The one eye on the withered tendon stared her down. The jaw clacked and it started to open.

“No!” Derk shouted with all the power remaining in his lungs.

His left leg crunched and snapped. The skin of his right foot clung against the inside of his boot as he favored it heavily. Hands hung down limply as he raised his arms, used them like clubs, and batted the skull down against his torso armor.

The skull spun. It shredded through the chain link armor. Bits of chain link clanked against the granite. It shredded through his waist even faster.

Bits of Derk splashed against the granite.

The skull released its arrows inside his chest cavity as he fell face first. They popped easily through his body. The back side of the chain link suffered multiple indentations from the force within. The last thing Derk felt was an iron arrowhead come up from his stomach, slice upward through the center of his throat, and lodge into the back of his mouth. Chainmail bulged as the skull trapped within pushed against the back of the armor rather pitifully. Blood spread from the fallen knight.

Derrin James Critchley: Lover Boy: HITBOX ZERO!

FATALITY!