Edico tapped his index against the steel bracers hidden by his cloak. He didn’t know the last time he had felt so anxious. In fact, he didn’t know if he had ever felt so anxious. Even when he returned as the sole survivor of a mission and was called to Escar’s audience chamber, expecting to be stripped of his title but getting promoted to sycount instead, he didn’t feel like this, and he didn’t know why. He had undertaken countless missions before where his life was on the line, and torture was the consequence of failure. But this was different. There was just something about Sara Reece that made him want to protect her, and the people going into Alexbrook Tavern were stone-cold sober but bathed in the stench of decadence. And when they left, they didn’t have so much of a buzz, but they were grinning with excitement and anticipation, looking at each other. It was unsettling. He wanted Lady Reece out of there as soon as possible.

Edico looked at his pocket watch. An hour had passed. It was the deadline, but it wasn’t. He’d have to make a decision soon whether to prioritize the mission or Lady Reece’s life—or compromise. He was certain he’d opt for the latter.

Sara stumbled through the bustling streets, losing balance like some stereotypical Irish drunkard. She felt like her skin was crawling with bugs, just under the skin, biting her arms from within as if fighting for sunlight. The pain from her chaffed and bruised thighs returned tenfold, and the damage she had done to them during her period of self-imposed leprosy magnified it. It made her limp as she stumbled forward, moving to the street Edico was on. The thought of passing him like this was terrorizing, but she pressed forward.

Suddenly, as she was crossing the street, she crashed into someone and retched on the ground.

“Hey!” a woman yelled, jumping backward. “What are you doing?!”

“Sorr….” Sara’s body convulsed.

A man beside the woman grabbed her arm and hushed her. “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

“Don’t hush me! She threw up on my shoes. It’s gross!”

“Don’t make a scene. Look….” He pointed at Sara’s armor, peeking through the cloak, and the woman backed away. It was nice. Beautiful, even. Most importantly, it was silver and green, the colors of the Escaran Kingdom. “Come on, let’s go.” The woman’s face twisted into a snarl. “Okay.”

Sara grabbed her head. It felt like everything that just happened registered in her brain, but it was dumped into a sea of intellectual soup and stirred up. This is bad…. Wait…. Then she turned and found that people had moved away from her and the vomit, exposing a line of sight between her and where Edico was standing—

—but he was gone.

Where is he? Sara thought. A bad premonition loomed over her like a guillotine, and a moment later, it came true. People started flooding out of Alexbrook Tavern like ants escaping a water-drenched ant hill. Each one of them was sickly pale, yelling at each other.

“What are you doing? We need to go!”

“He said he’d remember us!”

“Then let him come to us if he remembers! Right now, he’s going to kill us!”

“Leave him, Kal. We need to go!”

Sara watched in horror, her mind swirling with raging emotions. Shit. Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit! she internally screamed, adrenaline pulsing through her veins, sobering her up as the human body fought for survival. Then she limped forward, using the commotion to make it to the back alley, praying she’d make it in time.

“Where is she?” Edico demanded, grabbing Ubis by the collar. He had already cleared out the patrons by flashing his royal armor underneath his cloak; now, he was interrogating the tavern owner about Sara’s location since he was the person who hid the silvermoon bloom upstairs.

“I-I don’t understand,” Ubis said, as if he was genuinely confused about why he was under scrutiny. However, that was a ploy. The man knew who Lady Reece was and where she was and was feigning ignorance. He must’ve been an incredible liar, but he was used to people like him.

Edico hoisted Ubis by the collar as if he were a toddler and slammed him on the bartop with a resounding crack. The impact dislocated his shoulder. Good. Ubis started to scream, but Edico cut him off, grabbing the man by the cheeks and pressing until his mouth popped open. Then Edico unsheathed a silver dagger (a royal weapon engraved with two montas charging up the handle toward the Escaran Kingdom’s insignia) and put the blade into Ubis’s mouth.

“Listen to me,” Edico whispered. “I’m going to ask you a question. I’ll speak it very clearly so you cannot mistake my words. Then, you will answer it. If you don’t, your silence will be permanent. Next, I’ll put a piece of paper in your hand and ask you to write the answer, and you will write it. If you don’t, you’ll never write again. But that still won’t free you. By the time I’m done, you’ll be answering my question by pointing your bleeding stubs. And if you still refuse….” Edico's lips curved into a wide grin. "We'll have to get creative. Do you understand?"

Ubis’s eyes filled with terror, and he nodded.

“Okay. I’ll ask my question. Where is the blonde teenager that came in here an hour ago? She had brown eyes, soft features, wearing a black cloak similar to mine. I watched her walk in here. Now tell me. Where. Is. She?” He removed the blade from his mouth.

“I-In the back,” Ubis said. “U-Up the stairs. Bathroom.”

“Why?” Edico asked with drawn-out syllables.

“S-She was sick. I swear.”

Edico remembered Sara’s pale complexion and sickness as she walked to the door and the way she collapsed after the divination pulse. He grabbed Ubis by the arm, threw him onto the floor, and pushed him toward the stairs. “Move!”

Ubis moved up the steps slowly, falling intentionally to work out the details of the situation, his mind moving a mile a minute. His throat was dry and cracking, and his thoughts were befuddled. He couldn’t get more confused. Didn’t that blonde girl have a royal insignia? So why was her fellow sycount threatening him? Was he tricked?

It was likely enough. The whore was probably running from a sycount and thrust the stolen plant into his hands so he could take the fall. That seemed the likely scenario, but it didn’t make sense why she would be wearing the same exact gear as the man beside him. Both had charcoal gray cloaks and royal armor beneath them…. Wait.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The scene that had just played out flashed through his mind in an instant, and he recognized why there was something nagging at him. It was the insignia. The blonde had one, but the man didn’t. He only had the cloak and armor. If that was the case, maybe Ubis could entice him with bait.

“Look,” Ubis said as they reached the top floor. “If you’re wondering why she—“

“I don’t care why she came here,” the man said. “That’s your business. But if she’s not here, or she’s hurt, it is my business, and you’ll find Farulon forging your bones on an anvil by nightfall.” He grabbed Ubis’s good shoulder and squeezed it so hard he thought it’d crack. “Move.”

Ubis winced as he stumbled forward, realizing that the man was with the blonde, but the cunt didn’t make her business known before she waltzed in and dropped a death wish into his arms. He loathed her, but at present, he was praying she had enough decency not to run off and leave him for her partner to kill. Then he’d die, and her job would be ruined. Stupid bitch.

The momentum abruptly stopped as the man reached the door, giving Ubis whiplash. “Lady Reece!” the man yelled.

On the other side of the door, the witch that set him up groaned like she was being fucking tortured, and his shoulder suffered the cost.

Suddenly, the sycount stopped thinking and lifted his boot, smashing into the door and sending splinters shooting through the room like sawdust. Ubis thought he’d be cleared of suspicion when the man saw his girl. He was wrong. The moment Ubis saw her, he prayed for his life.

When Edico saw Lady Reece’s bright red skin spiderwebbed with thick varicose veins, he immediately slammed Ubis into a mirror on the nearest wall, making it shatter and rain glass onto the floor. “What did you poison her with?!”

Ubis tried to speak, but he was gripping his throat too tightly, so he eased up and let the man wheeze. “Tell me!”

“Stop!” Lady Reece yelled, stumbling to the side of the toilet, wheezing and panting. “I didn’t eat or drink anything. I just….” She lifted up her hands, and his eyes widened in shock. They were nearing the point of purple, with serrated marks moving up them.

How didn’t I notice that? Edico thought in horror. Lady Reece had tista weed poisoning etched into her hands. He was bewildered. He scoured Moonlit Grove for clues about what dragged Lady Reece into the forest and didn’t even see tista weed. Wait… when she fell.

Sara fell off her horse on the way to Helscope, and he remembered panicking, seeing tista weeds growing on the side of the road. He remembered being so relieved when she got up and there weren’t any around her. Was he mistaken? How did things even get so bad? Tista weed only gets this bad if someone eats it.

She must’ve touched the bolwark after touching it…. He thought back to her eating the sausages during lunch. Direct contact. It was incredible she had held out as long as she did before getting sick. Sara was unbelievably resilient. Still, how didn’t he notice?

Edico turned to Ubis, hoisting him off the ground and snapping his shoulder back into its socket. Ubis screamed. Edico didn’t care. His eyes were cold as he said, “By order of King Escar, I order you to arrange a room and bring fresh water and towels to it. You are to be discreet and silent. What you’ve seen here never happened. Do you understand?”

Ubis grimaced, turning away. “Understood.”

Edico didn’t watch him leave. He knelt down and helped Sara back to the toilet. When he did, he felt his stomach churn. Her hand…. If she had simple tista weed poisoning, her body would be red hot from the forge, but it wasn’t. It was dead cold, like a nighttime gust of wind in the Stralla Desert. It made him shiver. Mana deprivation…. He examined her body. It’s even worse. How? I didn’t feel any divination pulses….

Edico felt like someone had touched his lungs with their bare hands and pressed. What were you doing in here?

If an elixologist mixes tista weed with granla root, welrot, and wistlash extract, regulating mana siphoning while simmering it in a ventilated area, they get “tista log,” a thick, yellow sludge that is molded like clay. Boiling it in ethanol under an apparatus releases the poisonous chemicals that cause severe poisoning, constricting blood vessels and causing them to pop. However, the resulting substance is a hard solid that needs to be humidified, broken apart, and cut with a filler to prevent it from granulating. Only then is it safe for consumption.

The problem was that only ranked elixologists could perform the tasks, and few elixologists got banned from guilds due to their value unless they committed heinous crimes. And even if someone found that person, the materials for making such a drug were more expensive than all the other plants with natural opioids. That’s why even drug fiends stayed away from tista weed, and the Forest Fiends, as they were called, were a rare breed that was short-lived, like the junkies on Earth that turned to Krokodil and died standing up, track marks green and scaly, their flesh rotting from gangrene.

That’s what a renowned elixologist explained to her years ago, but she still ate it anyway to ensure that no one knew that she made contact with Kyritus and Tiber. She was the only person who knew of the encounter, shutting out leaks, and Edico believed she was in Alexbrook hurling her guts out, so he couldn't report it to the king. Even if Edico suspected, he didn't know where she went or what she did, and the adventurers didn't know who she was since the Escaran kingdom was hiding the heroes' existence (as they were budding weapons of mass destruction). As for the reason she did so quickly and riskily, it was to ensure that even if she died or King Escar locked her up like he did Jason, Tiber could eat a leaf and live a relatively-tyrexis-free existence. That said, she regretted it. Oh, yes. She regretted it. She’d rescind that regret two days later when her pale, vein-stricken skin turned smooth and tan again. But right then, writhing on the floor as she pulled herself to the toilet, vomiting all the water in her body until dehydration threatened to take her life in a seedy guest room bathroom of a past enemy, she regretted it.

Healing magic mends—it can’t replace—and getting rid of tista weed poisoning requires a person to shed their entire stomach lining for the cause. So she was shit out of luck on the healing front, even if she snuck away to heal herself and would be out for days.

Yet Sara endured. She had suffered far worse over the years, to the point that trauma was commonplace, and normalcy made her feel anxious and uncomfortable, wondering when the hell would return. So she gritted her teeth and bore it, forcing water down her throat every time Edico offered it and not complaining when he stripped off her shirt and washed her with a cold cloth. Sara was forged in the pits of hell, and she could handle it. And so she did, weaving in and out of consciousness for two days until she awoke on the third, thirsty. Instead of asking for water, she simply crawled out of bed and walked to the sink, rinsing out her mouth and drinking.

“Lady Reece!” Edico said, jumping off the chair he was sleeping in. “Lay back down. You’re in no shape to stand.”

Sara turned to him, clearly standing as if saying: Does it look like I can’t stand? If anything, she felt better than before. Two days had naturally healed the chaffing, and Edico had fed her enough anti-poisons and health and mana restoration elixirs to restore her to prime condition. It was mostly dehydration and fasting that kept her down for another day. Tista poisoning was one hell of a ride. “We need to leave. The Golden Trial is in three days, and I still haven’t established a core.”

Edico scoffed. “You think you’re in any shape to develop a core?”

“Not right now, but I will be after a half day’s ride,” she replied, ignoring his water cup, drinking from the sink. That left his cheek muscles twitching, but she didn’t care. Accepting niceties from someone during times of crisis puts them in control, and Sara didn’t have that luxury.

The Golden Trial brought out patrons willing to provide strength-building resources in exchange for a percentage of the treasures brought back from quests and missions. In her last life, Jason got the most resources by a wide margin, boosting his power unbelievably quickly. Between screwing all the other heroes out of a golden core and the resources, he was capable of taking over the kingdom even without Qualth, the God Slayer sword.

In this life, all the resources in the world wouldn’t let him scratch her any time soon. However, if he got those resources, he’d solidify a political and economic position within the kingdom. If she wanted to prevent history repeating without breaking Jason’s neck, she needed to go to the trial and collect all the resources she could get her hands on. The alternatives ranged from inhumane to lethal, and she’d rather not have more things resting on her already tainted conscience.