Agony like she had never been able to conceptualize wracked Alanna as she fell limply to the ground following her throw. Her muscles spasmed and constantly contracting then expanding. Her back arched as she screamed and tore at the ground. This time the pain was more intense then the last and seemed to be in no hurry to fade. She felt fire burning her from the inside out and the pain was intense enough that she felt her spine begin to crack under the pressure of her hyperextensions. She lost herself in the pain for a moment but deep in her subconscious she had a realization. Her mind was not being affected by this pain. Oh, her head certainly felt the pain as did everything else but her mind was in tact.
The druidess pulled into herself and focused on the internal world she would build during her brief meditative experiences. This part of her self remained detached from her physical body and was a tiny subconscious part of her being that housed her will. In this place she found the tiniest bit of clarity. She saw herself from outside of her body. She could see that the rest of herself was experiencing the pain and that it had begun to cause her physical harm and so she pushed herself to activate her healing spell. It did nothing for the pain but the damage to her body was being addressed.
She could not understand what was causing the pain as there was no clear damage actually being done so she had to look not at the physical but at something deeper. She started at her core and and followed the mana pathways that it created and spread throughout her body and when she reached her spine she found the culprit. Tendrils of dark malicious fog clung to her central nervous system and were trying to burrow into her nerves causing them to flair in pain. She did not really now what to do with this information so she tried what came first.
Pulling from her core she flooded her central nervous system with mana and it seemed to work in pushing out the malicious energy. However, the oversaturation of mana was causing her pain as well but this time it was effecting her mind. She grunted at the discomfort and tried to pull the mana back to her core and while she was able to salvage most of it some dissipated. Yet once her mana was removed the malicious energy rushed back in to attack her.
Because she had no idea what she was doing she had been watching very carefully and noticed that her mana pathways had natural channels that it wanted to flow into. She hypothesized that the pain she felt was because she flooded the channels simultaneously and unidirectionally. She tried pushing mana once again but this time she spread it only into the pathways that wanted to accept outbound flow and what she found was both interesting and confusing.
Some of the pathways led to an indeterminable place outside her body while others seemed to terminate in her major organs. However, the ones that terminated in her organs had pathways that out yet nothing was flowing out of them. She pushed her mana into the organs and felt no issues like she had previously. It took nearly the rest of the mana she had within herself but her major organs filled to the brim then the mana excess moved into the unused pathways which then flowed back into her core creating a circuit. Her subconscious mind recognized a message in the form of a fog screen appear but ignored it in that moment and it dissipated.
Immediately after the mana hit her core her body pulsed and the foreign energy invading her system was broken down and destroyed. The pain wracking her body ceased and her will retreated back into her subconscious mind. Alanna groaned as the healing she used pushed through her body a final time before its energy was dispersed. She tried to stand but felt a bit off so she glanced at her body to see what felt wrong then she noticed the smell. A filth that she could not comprehend covered her body and clothes she tried to wipe it away but it was so prevalent that she just ended up smearing it around. She gagged at the scent and then rolled to the side to spew forth the contents of her stomach which turned out to be more filth.
Alanna cried. This experience had been perhaps the single worst experience of her life and she did not know what to make of it. This was not how the trials were supposed to be. How could a normal human swordsman have dealt with this? It seemed impossible to her. This whole experience from the day she decided to accept the quest till now was not what she thought she was signing up for. So, she cried. She cried out her confusion, her pain, and her fear. She cried because she missed her mamó and daideo. Hells she even missed her mothers side of the family in this moment. Sure she had felt a sense of accomplishment for overcoming her trials but this had been a lot.
Sure a deep part of her being accepted this as a rite of passage and was expected if not desired. Yet, while she was many things right now she was an 18 year old girl who wanted to wallow in self pity. She would have likely continued in her weeping but she heard whimpering coming from the grotto and she knew she was not finished with this trial yet. She tried to breath slowly through her mouth as the smell assaulting her was too much.
She wiped her hands off on the ground as best as she could then picked up her sword and carefully held it at guard as she shook here head in an effort to shake the tears from her eyes. She was not about to touch them with her hands as she was unsure what that would do to her. So, she cleared the teary vision in the best way she could as she stalked forward to finish the evil hag. She turned her sorrow into rage at this being that had caused her so much pain.
The druidess's normal beautiful face was anything but in this moment. Her rage filled countenance was amplified by the black filth that seemed to cling to her skin. She looked positively demonic and when her rage filled glare found its target a chilling grin crept on her face. The old hag had not been so lucky and Alanna's desperate throw had found its mark and had skewered the old monster directly under the sternum and had pinned it to one of the willows. The hag was trying to pull herself off the spear but was weakened from the severing of its spinal cord and massive blood loss. She was clearly dying and Alanna's rage filled mind had channeled the darkest parts of her psyche that lacked her normal humanity.
She just watched the hag as it struggled and cried and weakened by the minute. The hag tried to draw upon her mists but they did not fully answer her call. The druidess's smile at this was cold and she was content to let the hag suffer until she passed. Alanna looked around the grotto which had a comfortable feel without the hag's mist constantly spewing forth.
There was a large fire pit near to the center most point that was 4 meters by 4 meters and a meter deep dug into the ground that had been covered by some sort of iron grate. On the left side of the pit there was a large roasting spit that had three hooks attached with the center occupied by an iron pot. The right side of the pit had a large iron tub that was steaming but as the fire below was only coals it was not boiling. It was a massive cauldron that looked to have been made for serving an army given its size but Alanna wanted to use it as a bath. She inspected the water inside which looked pure enough and gingerly placed a finger inside. It was hot but not quite scalding so she decided she would wash the gunk from herself when the old hag died.
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She continued her inspection of the area and found a table set up with several tool like items spread out that Alanna could not immediately identify. She had to delve into her memories and found that they were embalming and skinning tools which she decided to ignore. She did not want to consider the implications of such because it would lead her mind to rather uncomfortable places. Hag's were already bad enough in most myths so she would not consider this further.
Alanna did find an iron wrapped oak chest which had some personal effects which she took out one at a time. There was not really anything of interest except a bar of soap and some oils which she immediately set aside for use. There was also a leather wrapped tome she found that had a strange type of paper inside it. Written on the paper was the ancient language that she had seen previously and she called on her past memories once again to process it. This one had a different cadence and some of the words were a bit off so she was unsure where the dialect would have come from. Still, she was able to figure it out and began to read.
For the most part this was a journal that annotated the results of experimentation that the hag had been committed to prior to ending up in the land of mists. There were quite a few tests involving diseases that she was trying to mutate into a curse type spell. Alanna shivered at the extent of her testing and the results some of which she was intimately aware of. She shuddered again at the memory of the pain and lethargy she had felt. It was certainly not a pleasant memory and she wanted to burn the book accept the last two pages showed that she had perfected a magical disease curse and also a spell that would act as a cure for said disease. Alanna was not interested in the magical curses and nothing about them spoke to her in a way that indicated she would be able to cast them with anything approaching proficiency.
However, when she read the last page with the results of the curing spell she felt something click and received confirmation by the fog screen.
"Oh," she thought with a bit of surprise. She was glad to know something good came from the horrific testing the hag had been a part of. The screen reminded her that she had missed a notification previously so she thought about it and it appeared.
She thought back to what she had been going through at that time and realized it had to be whatever she did to reject the curse. As was typical with the fog systems she had no idea what the spell and ability was even if she was fairly certain the spell was a cure spell. So, after a quick glance to see the hag was no longer moving and had slumped over. If she wasn't dead she would be soon so Alanna decided to take a peek at her character sheet.
"Well, Ok." Alanna thought. "I did something to my body and it strengthened it apparently. That actually makes me nervous. I am just glad it was intuitive or I could have killed myself." She felt positively about the change as it was beneficial but she feared making a mistake. She would admit that learning the spell and the ability felt good but her entire mood was poisoned by this experience and her excitement had been dulled by this. She noticed that her race had once again changed but she decided she would not give it much thought for now. She was going to learn more about the past and herself in this journey so what was the point in stressing over that small detail.
The fog hag coughed up blood which caught Alanna's attention and had her moving away from the chest and the leather tome and back toward the tree where she was pinned. The hag's bloodshot eyes blinked slowly and it took most of her strength to look up at the whelp that managed to kill her. She wanted to rage against her fate but she could no longer muster the strength to care. She had been so certain when her curses took root that she would easily win this fight. She had been watching this woman from the moment she had stepped foot in the mists and while the druidess was powerful she was severely weakened in this domain.
The hag thought she would have an easy victory when the trials shifted their difficulties to better fit one of the old bloodlines and then became sure of it when the druidess struggled through and had to use her precious energies to even get to her. She had not realized how strong the woman would be nor had she accounted for her desperation and the fact that the spear was well balanced for throwing. That was not exactly true she had considered it but the girl's willpower was unforeseen. To be able to fight through the pain that she had seen melt some people's mind was praiseworthy. Oh she wished it didn't come at the cost her own life but praise where it was due. The fact that the woman was now walking toward her spoke volumes as well. She had found a way to dilute or destroy the curse and given that she had clearly been through some form of cleansing ritual it was likely destroyed.
That act alone was worthy of respect. To go through that pain and come out stronger. The fog hag hated her for it but respected her all the same. She hung limply as she watched the dangerous woman approach. She did not have much time left as her vitality had been sapped by this damnable spear. However, she would go out by offering a last surprise. She was pretty sure it wouldn't matter given that the druid seemed to have developed an ability to destroy the curse. Still, she would not die without trying to take down this welp. As Alanna made her way closer the old hag pulled the remaining life force and mana into her best curse and exploded into mist.
