Chapter 86 – Crystals of Life

  I spun back toward the team and felt my stomach drop.

  Spots of angry red had already blossomed across exposed skin. The damage was evident on foreheads, wrists, and even the V at the throat where a collar didn’t quite meet. Eyes streamed. Kelly had both hands clamped over his face, gas mask belatedly half-on, half-off. Rodriguez’s neck looked like someone had gone at him with a cheese grater. Dara’s cheeks were a weeping mess where the mask seal hadn’t sat flush.

  It was like nothing I’d ever seen. This was magical chemical warfare on a level that was usually reserved for gory ‘B’ movies.

  “Hold still!” Marion shouted, voice clipped and calm in the way only someone trained to function in a crisis talks. She moved to Kelly, hand hovering an inch from his face. White energy flowed from her fingertips and washed over him.

  The spell didn’t heal him, but he wasn’t getting any worse, either, so I figured she’d probably cast Cleanse. A moment later, Marion cast another spell, sending more white light over the injured man’s wounds. This time, the effect was immediate. The angry blisters dulled from wet crimson to pink, then to normal flushed skin. Kelly sucked in a breath that didn’t hitch and made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh.

  “Next,” Marion said, already pivoting.

  She went from person to person in a tight spiral, hitting each with the spells as quickly as she could recover mana. She used Cleanse to strip the spores, then Heal to undo the worst of the damage. Every cast cost her—you could see it in the way her shoulders hunched and the little tremor that started in her fingers after the third spell and turned into a full shake by the seventh. Sweat beaded at her temples.

  Alex had sagged back against a wall, still standing but only just. His hands shook, sores tracing red punctuation marks along his knuckles and wrists. When Marion got to him, he saw she was in rough shape herself from all the spellcasting.

  “Save the big heals for anyone with airway involvement,” he managed through tight teeth. “I’m functional.”

  “You’re bleeding, you get Healed,” she said, and pressed Cleanse and then Heal into him anyway. The sores scabbed over, dried, and finally faded away. Color climbed back into his face.

  Alex exhaled, still shaky, and squeezed her forearm. “You’re doing great, hon.”

  “Tell me that again in five minutes,” Marion muttered.

  While she worked, I stayed aloft, scanning the fungus forest for additional threats. This would be the perfect time to hit us, while we were trying to recover from the previous fight, so I focused on making sure nothing else snuck up on us. Nothing moved except the slow ooze of water down stone. The air reeked from the combination of ozone from our bolts and a bitter spice scent from the spores, but it looked like there might be no more threats in the area.

  I wasn’t sure enough of that to give up my watch, but the others were getting back on their feet as they finished recovering after Marion’s Heals, so the danger was dropping by the minute.

  “Castle,” Alex called up, steadier already. “You’re wearing it better than the rest of us. Check the bodies?”

  “On it.”

  I dropped to the cave floor and picked my way to the withered husks. Up close, the beach-ball things looked like oversized leather medicine balls. I touched the first gingerly, with two fingers. Both of my hands were still bright red from the spores, so I wanted to be a little careful, but Alex was right. It wasn’t impacting me nearly as much as it was the others.

  A crystal winked into my palm—clear, tier four, Stamina. A nice find, but not what we were hoping for. I moved on to the next crushed pod. As soon as I tapped it, another clear stone appeared in my palm. This one was for Will, also tier four. Even better, given how much casting we were doing.

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  The third and fourth ones I looted both dropped white crystals. I stared for half a breath, then grinned behind my mask. I had two tier four Healing stones in my hand.

  “You called it right, Alex!” I said. “Two Heal crystals so far. The fungi are dropping white stones.”

  “Good. We need them. A lot,” Alex croaked, his voice raspy. He must have gotten a lungful of those spores somehow.

  The fifth body gave up a green stone for an Entangle spell. The sixth finished the set with one more white Heal. I tucked the crystals into my palm and jogged back to the others.

  “The loot fairy was generous,” I said, holding them out so Alex could see without touching. “Six tier four stones. We’ve got Stamina, Will, Entangle, and three Heals.”

  Dara let out a low, heartfelt, “Oh, thank God.”

  Alex’s eyes tracked to Marion, who had just slumped against a wall for a few seconds of stolen rest. “We need to spread the load on the Healing. Who’s got an open slot?”

  Ruiz raised a hand. “I do. Been saving it for something useful.”

  “This qualifies,” I said, pressing one of the white stones into his palm. It sank immediately into his hand.

  “Thanks,” Ruiz replied. He blinked hard as the knowledge hit, then nodded. “I have it. Damn, this is cool.”

  “Help Marion,” Alex said. “Short, quick casts. Marion, try to save your mana for Cleanse, since you’re still the only one we’ve got who can cast it. Ruiz, focus on Healing.”

  “On it, boss.” Ruiz moved to Rodriguez and laid a hand just off his neck. White light shone, less bright than Marion’s, but still potent. The worst of the rawness sealed. Rodriguez flexed his shoulders, rolled his neck, and gave Ruiz a grateful clap on the arm.

  “Careful not to burn yourself out,” I reminded both of them. “If this place drops a boss on us, I don’t want our healers tapped.”

  “We’ll pace ourselves, but we need everyone back on their feet, too,” Marion replied.

  “Anyone else have a spare slot?” I asked. I considered trying to pop one in myself, but wasn’t sure which I should remove. I could maybe take out my blue stones? They weren’t going to do me much good in here, but the Water Breathing had been clutch against the Karabos, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk it. I’d learned that sometimes you could pop a stone out safely, but other times it would crack, coming out as a useless hunk of rock, all magic gone.

  The healers fell into a rhythm. Marion would Cleanse a face and step, Ruiz would Heal the person’s wounds and step, like a dance they hadn’t rehearsed but somehow knew. In two minutes the worst of the team looked merely miserable instead of actively dying. In five, you wouldn’t have known they’d been on the wrong end of a weaponized spore cloud, except for the damp straps of their masks and the haunted way Kelly kept flexing his hands, like he could still feel the burn.

  I stayed thirty feet out from the circle, eyes and ears open. I sent out a quiet Gust of Wind to move the lingering spores away from our side of the cavern. That seemed to help the others, some.

  My hands were finally healing, too. The spores must lose effectiveness after a bit, because my Regeneration was rapidly healing my wounds now. When Marion finally turned my way, ready to Cleanse, I shook my head.

  “I’m good,” I said, holding up my hands. “Regeneration is healing me. Save the mana for the others.”

  “All right,” Marion said, a little breathless. She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist and left a clean streak through grime. “That’s everyone, then. If your skin starts prickling again, shout.”

  “Good work,” Alex said. He looked to me. “You keeping those Stamina and Will?”

  “I vote yes,” Dara said immediately. “The guy just face-tanked a spore bomb and is still pretty.”

  I snorted. “I’ll hold them for now, if you want, but we ought to split these crystals up, once we’re done. Make sure everyone gets a good share of them.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’d still like to get a Heal crystal to one more person, if anyone else has a free spot?” Alex said. He looked around at everyone, but they were all shaking their heads. Alex gave a rueful grin. “I picked this team because I know all of you have Stamina stones. Figured that might help you resist the spores some. But I should have been thinking about people with empty slots. That’s fine, though.”

  He winced, then opened his hand, where a black crystal now rested. He slipped the stone away into a pocket and stood, turning to me. “I’ve got a slot, now. It was just a Control Undead stone, so no big loss. With my Will, I ought to be able to cast a good number of Heals.”

  “That’s a smart call,” I said, passing him one of the white stones. “Another healer might save us all.”

  As soon as I placed the crystal in his palm, it sank into his skin, vanishing. He blinked a few times as the memories from the stone washed over him. “Whew. That is a lot, isn’t it?”

  “Yup. Try it at tier eight!” Marion said. “It’s a regular ass-kicker.”

  Alex took in the cavern again, then the corridor we’d come from. “I think it goes without saying that masks stay on from here on out. We’re pushing on. Keep your spacing wide. Cameron, stay on point. Same order. Let’s move out.”

  I rolled my shoulders. The rash-itch along my knuckles had faded to memory. The dungeon’s glow painted the edges of my team in sickly mint again as we shifted back into formation.

  “Round one to us,” I said, low enough that only Alex heard.

  “Let’s keep the streak,” he replied.