Tyler Kimball - Lessgently
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Pallesia: Chapter 127 - Cleansing.
🕑 Added 2024-04-10 10:12:09 +0000 UTCAs the minutes passed while Lee and Regina waited for Annalise, Lee had begun to calm down. While he felt like shit, it wasn’t anything new to him.
Before his life turned upside down from his trip to Pallesia, he had felt worse than he was currently feeling, more days than not. It turns out that having a giant tumor on your heart did that to people. While he hadn’t felt like this in months, it still felt semi-normal. His old normal. Well, as normal as he could be.
After realizing that he wasn’t going to drop dead within a few seconds, or minutes for that matter—he knew what being genuinely close to death’s door felt like—Lee grew angry. Both at himself and at the setbacks this was going to incur.
Lee wasn’t healthy. While true, he has full HP, he wasn’t actually healthy. He skipped meals, ate whatever he first laid his eyes on most of the time out of obligation, slept on a thin layer of fur on the hard earth, and stayed up late for some peace and quiet most days, cutting his recommended eight hours to something more akin to five or six. He didn’t exercise; he willingly hurt himself for personal gain and was losing his kindness with those closer to him with his emotional outbursts when things went wrong.
He knew these things deep inside, and having his first step of looking healthy, his non-skeleton appearance, stolen from him hurt more than the poison.
It was easy to tell yourself to get better. It was much more difficult to put that into practice.
Like most people, he had shortcomings. Nobody was perfect; that much was obvious, but being a healer and not being able to heal poison? That was just plain foolish. His healing was his greatest pride. To be the person who could swoop by and ease the burdens he knew all too well was a gift in itself and one he treasured more than most would assume.
So why was he taking it for granted?
Lee followed the pacing Regina with his bloodshot eyes as he moved over toward the recliner in the common room they holed up in to get more comfortable.
“You’re an assassin. Do you know how poisons work? Not this one in particular, but in general?” Lee asked, voice even now that he had calmed his nerves.
Regina peeked out of the wooden shudders near the front door before she flicked her eyes over him. “As an assassin, I make use of poison. So, I know what specific poisons do—their… symptoms, but I am unaware of how.”
Lee blinked his now-drying eyes rapidly as he latched on to anything she could tell him. If he could put her knowledge together with his rough understanding of medicine, maybe he could glean enough to make a spell.
“The poison you’re most knowledgeable in. Tell me the effects.” He asked—no, he told. This wasn’t a request. This was close enough to life and death that he threw courtesy to the wind.
Regina didn’t seem to care either way. She was in her ‘no-nonsense, we’re under attack’ mode. Which, to be fair, was the current scenario. “There is a type of fish with poisonous barbs—A Marine Blower. Its poison paralyzes and weakens those affected. It’s so potent that you start to be unable to breathe. Sometimes, their heart gives out first. Their mind becomes foggy, and they lose sensations in their limbs, mouth, and ears.”
Lee thought momentarily about how that particular poison caused those symptoms. Many things caused paralysis, but the one common factor was nerves. The Marine Blower’s poison was most definitely nerve damage, as Regina mentioned the victims being unable to breathe.
To breathe, your muscles must contract and retract enough to inflate and deflate your lungs. If those muscles become paralyzed, then you can’t breathe. The same conclusion comes with the heart—your heart is a muscle. If it’s paralyzed, it cannot beat, and you’re doomed.
Now… how does the poison cause that effect?
Lee ran a hand through his hair as he leaned back and looked toward the ceiling, deep in thought. If he was going to create a spell that cures poison, this is where his information needed to be correct.
Nerves have… receptors? Does the poison have something that blocks the receptors? No, not block. It would most likely be instantaneous, then. Does something mess with the receptors? Poison isn’t alive… it’s not like germs and bacteria. God damn it… I wish chemistry were a part of the business class courses.
Lee sighed and closed his eyes.
So, what about me? Organ failure, high blood pressure, weakened muscles, and tissue degradation….
High blood pressure is the easiest one to figure out. I’ve heard too many nurses explain vasoconstriction and vasodilatation to their older patients—high cholesterol was way too common. My blood vessels are constricted, causing the high pressure. The high pressure could lead to… all of my symptoms, if I’m being honest.
If blood isn’t flowing toward my tissues, organs, and muscles correctly, they could begin to wither and die. It would have to be severe, as I’ve never in my life heard about high blood pressure killing someone this way, but it makes sense.
Now… I need to figure out how to make a spell that summons healthy cereal.
Lee snorted as he opened his eyes. “I need blood pressure medication.”
He raised his hand and, with life mana, tried to create a spell that would cure poison using the knowledge about curing Marine Blower poison and his current self-diagnosis about the Wraithwhisper poison. A hail-mary if he was being honest. Hopefully, the magic would fill in the blanks, and he would be close enough to the answer, like his other healing spells.
Silvery life mana enveloped his hand like a well fit glove, and as he touched his own chest, the mana sputtered and faded into brilliant sparkles. Without even checking, he knew it had failed.
Turning his head, he saw Regina watching him like a hawk. He gave a weak shrug at her vigilance. “It didn’t work. I got one more idea, but its probably a bad one.”
Next, Lee held his hand against his breast, like he was ready to hear the good’ol national anthem. Sickening Black and withering green death mana flickered into being as he focused on a more… aggressive spell.
Death mana rushed from his hand and jolted straight into his chest, causing him to seize, bend his back from the intense spasms, and grind his teeth in horrible, wracking pain.
The spell was simple. If he couldn’t solve the issue, he just needed to kill it.
He could feel in detail how his Death mana wormed through his body like a parasite. It wormed its way through every vein, artery, organ, tissue, cell… everywhere. His mana went through the entirety of his being with reckless abandon, uncaring for any damage caused as it sought out its foe.
Soon after, Lee felt hot-searing pain flare up over his skin like a rash from hell. His body began excreating a vile black and red goop through the pours of his skin. He was sweating out all that was unwelcome, poison or otherwise.
It ended after what felt like an eternity—having blacked in and out several times during the spell. Lee heaved in lungfuls of air and gagged as the smell from the… goop that was covering him hit his nose. He dry heaved as he fell to the floor, reading his new notifications.
Spell Created!
Spell name: End of the Unwanted.
Spell Description: Using the innate power of Death mana, send forth a wave of death into a target, cleansing them of all that is unwanted—magical or otherwise. Deals damage during the duration and leaves the target weakened depending on duration.
Cost: 12 MP
Duration: Variable based on the amount of unwanted.
Lee raised a hand, giving the glaring Regina a thumbs up. He shakily managed to utter his very reassuring words. “We’re good.”
When no response came, Lee flipped onto his back and continued gulping in sweet, sweet air. He spared a look toward Regina, seeing her arms crossed as she glared at him wallowing in filth on the floor.
“Really?” She said. The pure disdain in her voice could have broken a child's will to live.
Lee didn’t bother responding as he checked his HP and used Medical Attention to recheck himself.
HP: 222/250
Diagnosis: Weakened - After severe mana intrusion, your body is frail and needs time to recover.
Estimated Duration: Two hours, twelve minutes.
Unable to stand lying in filth any longer, Lee rolled over, took off his Robe of The Genesis, and stored it in his Hidden Cache. Afterward, he grabbed one of the spare sets of clothes he had gotten back in Neldam and never actually wore.
He meekly sent Regina a look, asking for some privacy, but she either didn’t care or didn’t catch his intentions. He sighed, then stripped down to everything but his underwear. After a healthy, high-powered jet of Create Water blasting every inch of his body (And trying to clean whoever’s floor he just ruined), Lee walked behind the ruined recliner and changed. He stripped off his final piece of clothing, using the recliner as a decency barrier, and then got redressed.
When he was finished, he was dressed in a lovely bright outfit. Lee sighed as he remembered all of the flashy and bright colors the Dark Elves employed, from their rooftop shingles to their clothing. He wore a pretty basic pair of dark brown slacks, a few sizes too large, and sported a nice bright orange baggy collared shirt. He would stick out like a sore thumb outside, but that wasn’t very different than what typically happened.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Regina frowning at him. The formerly-seen disdain had made way for a much more undesirable emotion—pity. Lee looked down and noticed that the shirt he wore shouldn’t have been baggy at all. On a ‘normal’ person, it would have been a typical nice shirt. The slacks were his length, but he would need a belt and a couple of notches to have them comfortable and not at risk of exposing himself.
Lee fiddled with his clothing. “You have something you want to say?”
Regina blinked, and her face returned to her impassive facade. “No.”
There was a rhythmic knock at the door, unfamiliar to Lee but apparently familiar to Regina, as she eased in her posture and cracked open the door. A second later, Jeremy entered the room followed by Annalise.
They both gagged and covered their nose as they inspected the ruined floorboards and recliner in disgust.
As soon as Lee saw Annalise, he realized how he must have looked in this situation. The only thing he managed to blurt out in his defence was two simple words.
“We’re good.”
Comments
James Faulkner
Can’t have shit in Pallesia 😂
Winterharmony
Thanks for the Chapter
James Faulkner
Tftc haha
Tyler Kimball
Man can never have anything go right... haha
Academic Geek
TFTC! Poor Lee, making a stink just as Annalise walks in..
