A Sinner’s Chance

Without even telling Neyla what was going on, I suddenly started mass producing silk and tearing carapace off my limbs, something I was pretty sure shocked Neyla as I heard her begin to question me, her voice filled with concern, only to become amazed as it was reconstructed with an extended burst of purple black flame. It was a shame I didn't have any proper tools on hand, as that would not only have made this faster, but the final result would be much safer too.

However, I simply had to make do with what I had on hand, thankfully between my silk and carapace, I was confident that I would be able to make this work. I ended up with a canister about the size of my thigh, a small protruding opening at one end, which I began to fill with air that was being compressed through Air Magic. The biggest problem with my idea was that I didn't have any idea what kind of pressure I was creating so I just had to wing it and hope I didn't do too much or too little.

Once satisfied with the amount of compressed air I sealed the small protrusion I'd used to fill it with a hopefully easily breakable cap. Using more silk I attached the canister to my harness before setting up an anchor in-between a few of the trees along with a net that would hopefully cushion any impact.

Holding the carapace canister of compressed air with my left, I took a deep breath as I once again charged into the area of poisoned air, a thick thread of silk trailing behind me. This time I didn't worry about if I would be able to make it back and simply ran and picked up Steria with one arm, rougher than I would have liked but there was only so much I could do for her comfort. This time however, instead of turning around and rushing back I pushed up to the restrained Renae who looked at me with hopeful eyes. I wrapped the trailing thread around the tree she was restrained on, tightening it as much as possible while hooking the canister to the now taught thread. With my hand free I drew the naginata from my back and cut Renae free, my body beginning to shut down once again from lack of air.

I offered my hand to the now free Renae who I pulled into an embrace along with Steria as I used Thread Manipulation to remove the cap from the carapace canister, causing the compressed air to jettison itself quickly, which propelled the three of us across the silk line. We only accelerated for a short bit, but it was a very quick and we moved across and out of the grove in a matter of seconds, only for me to smash into the large webbing I'd created to catch us, stretching it to its maximum, which caused me to gain a few small but deep cuts as the thread dug into my skin rather than snapping apart.

Rather than being flung back down the thread due to the bounce, we stuck to the web as it shook back and forth. Once the shaking stopped I released Renae and had her place Steria next to Arya as I cut myself free. While I would have preferred to go back to Neyla's lair to treat Steria, it didn't appear that I had the leisure to do so. Steria was in her mostly human form and her skin pale and breathing shallow, the veins on her left leg clearly darker than the rest. Thankfully Renae had gotten a part of the plant that poisoned her and she held it up so I could use Seshat's Library on it.

I could only grimace as I read the records for it. Known as Devil's Sting, it was a deadly and cruel plant that grew in areas of dense mana and negative emotion. Its poison caused paralysis, intense pain, and usually death. While there were a few antidotes that could be made to neutralize it, they all required at least one rare and expensive material, not something one could just stumble upon.

The most common method of dealing with the poison was amputation, not something I really wanted to do to Steria as she wouldn't be able to do much with only a single leg. I wasn't skilled enough in Life Magic to regenerate limbs, and I doubted I ever would be since my affinity for it was awful. If there was something I could do with its Death counterpart I might have tried, but I barely understood how to properly use Death Magic, or what I could even accomplish with it.

Without much of a choice, I was left with a dangerous operation to perform, one that would hopefully leave a chance for recovery, though I imagined it was going to take a long time, even with the help of healing spells. Mentally psyching myself up I knelt beside Steria as hundreds of small threads began to float about before being inserted into her leg. Originally this technique was used to physically control someone, but it wasn't something I had gotten to use ever since I dealt with the Hero. While useful and extremely strong, it was simply too difficult to use while in a fight.

Once I was certain that I had placed thread in all the affected spots I manifested a miniscule amount of Yinfire around the threads, burring away at not only the poison, but also devouring and breaking down the surrounding flesh. The duration had been extremely short, under twenty seconds, yet my Yinfire had done its best to break down as much as possible before I got rid of it. While it seemed that Steria was still in pain, it didn't seem as bad as it had when I'd first picked her up, and her flesh was recovering its usual complexion.

Strapping Arya and Steria to Neyla, we began to make our way from the dense wooded area, trying to place distance between ourselves and the likely extremely angry Alraune. However, there was a saying back in Velen's world. Misfortune comes in threes and just like that there was a furious screech followed by the sound of rustling, almost as if all the vegetation had come to life and wanted to kill us. 

With a naginata and my Yinfire I helped Neyla clear a path, only to glance behind to see a little girl, if little girls were made from what looked like plant stems and had thrashing tentacles of vines pulling her towards us. Without much thought I gave up on clearing the path and devoted myself to keeping the Alraune at bay while Neyla took the other three and retreated to her lair. I was the one least likely to die so it only made sense, something that caused great worry between Neyla and Renae, but someone needed to do it, and there was simply no way I'd place Renae in such danger, while Neyla was my only hope of taking the three to a safer place, leaving only me to keep the raging plant monster from pursuing.