Chương 92: 91 - The Price of Power

Alexandra lay on the ground. The cold floor of the cavern seeped through the cloth of her robes onto her back. The troll's foot stood above her, ready to crush her. She wanted to move, but pain flared through her ribs. Broken. Still, she found the strength to roll to the side. The ground shook where the foot had landed. The troll raised its club. It came down. She rolled again. The impact traveled through the stone, into her back, her arms, her legs. Up. She had to get up. She got one knee under her.

The troll stepped forward. She threw herself sideways. The weapon grazed her shoulder. Spun her. She came down hard on her hands. Her half of the spear skittered away across the floor. She watched it go. Didn't chase it. Up. Her left arm buckled when she tried to push off it. She used the right. Got her feet under her. The cavern tilted. She planted her feet wider and waited for it to stop. The troll was watching her. She reached for her mana and cast Inflict Weakness. Her concentration kept slipping.

She cast it again. Something to do. Something that wasn't just standing here and waiting for the beast to finish her off. Through the curse of cold blood, her mind was still working. Not perfect, but better than it should have been in her state. The club swung at her legs this time. She stepped back. Her ankle slipped and her knee hit the stone. She stayed there for a second, breathing. The cold came up through her kneecap. Her ribs moved when she inhaled. Pain. The troll raised the club again.

She was already moving, already going through the same motion. Dodge. Reset. Hold on. She didn't know what she was holding on for. She ducked under the next swing and felt the air move across the back of her neck and staggered forward, past it, toward the center of the cavern. More room. She needed more room. Her ankle was wrong. She could feel it with every step. The troll turned to face her. She could run, but the troll might follow her.

The doors would be shut, and they would stay this way until she defeated the chieftain. Maybe this troll was her target. Maybe not. If not, injured like she was, she wouldn't make it through the dungeon. This wouldn't work. There was only one way out. Something she hadn't ever succeeded at doing. Drain Life. Her skill slid off the troll's lifeforce like it wasn't even there. She tried again. The skill hit the edge of that torrent and skipped off, and the recoil traveled up through her concentration.

The troll closed the distance between them. She backpedaled, cast Inflict Weakness twice in quick succession, burning through her mana like there was no tomorrow. Then, she reached for Drain Life again the moment the second curse landed. The torrent didn't care. It roared past her skill without slowing. She circled. Bought herself a few seconds. Pushed through pain and exhaustion. It wasn't the strength of the lifeforce, she thought.

She'd been reaching for it the same way each time, the same angle, and it was the wrong angle. Like trying to cup water from a river with your fingers spread. The club swept wide. She stepped under it. The motion pulled at her ribs and her vision went white at the edges. She put her back to the far wall and braced. Different, then. Not the whole torrent. She didn't need the whole torrent. Not yet. The troll raised the club overhead. She cast Inflict Weakness. Watched it land.

Then, instead of reaching for the lifeforce directly, she followed the curse in. Rode the thread of her own magic back toward its anchor, and from there, reached sideways, carefully, for just the edge of the flow. The club came down. She stepped left on her bad ankle and nearly went down. The weapon struck the wall where her head had been. But she felt it. For one instant, before the troll's movement broke her focus entirely, she felt the current against her grip. Enormous. Hot. Real.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Then it was gone. She stood there breathing, her cheek wet from a fragment of stone that had cut it, her ankle screaming, her ribs shattered. It was there. The way in was there. She leaned on her good foot to avoid another strike and followed with another Inflict Weakness. There was no hesitation in her movements. Curse, follow, then chip away at the edge of the torrent. The first sliver of lifeforce came her way.

Through the rank and species barrier, it did nothing to improve her state. But it was there. The second sliver came easier than the first. Not easy. Nothing about it was easy. She had to hold the thread of her curse like a needle, thread it through the troll's mana, find the same angle she'd found before, and pull. Pull carefully. Pull without taking too much at once, because when she'd tried that, the current had ripped free of her grip and the backlash sent her mind reeling. The troll swung. She moved.

Her ankle sent a spike of white heat up through her shin every time she put weight on it. She'd stopped counting how many times she'd nearly gone down. The cavern floor was. Her eyes kept losing the troll's outline when she moved too fast, the edges of her vision graying out like candleflame in a draft. She circled. Cast. Followed the curse in. Pulled. Another sliver. It crossed into her and dissolved. Her body couldn't use it. Her ribs moved. Pain. The troll looked the same. It had slowed, maybe.

A quarter-step behind where it had been. She told herself that. She tried to believe it. She cast Inflict Weakness again because the last one was fading. Her mana was low. Not empty. It was as Tristan said: nobody ever runs out of mana. She just had to reach deeper, pull threads that had barely formed. She knew there would be a price to pay, but so be it. The club came down to her left. She stepped right. The troll was looking at her with a dull, patient rage.

She wondered if it had ever met anyone who stood back up as many times as she had. She doubted it. Maybe it didn't exist outside this dungeon instance. But she did, so she wouldn't give up. She cast Inflict Weakness, followed it in, and pulled another sliver of lifeforce. Her teeth were chattering. The cold blood curse kept her mind clear. She was grateful for that, because without it she would have been on the floor by now, too confused to be afraid. Instead she was fully aware of every broken thing inside her.

Her ribs. Her ankle. The deep bruise across her left shoulder that had turned the whole arm unreliable. The cut on her cheek had clotted, but the skin pulled tight around it when she moved her face. She was aware of all of it. She kept moving anyway. The troll stumbled. It was small. A half-step, a slight drag of the heel, the club's arc cutting a little lower than it should have. She stepped back from it instead of sideways. The weapon passed in front of her instead of overhead.

She stood there for a moment looking at the troll as it reset. There. There it was. She pulled harder on the drain, scooping up just a little more from the torrent. Not a torrent. Not anymore. A stream. Dwindling. The troll raised the club. She shoved herself backward before the backswing could catch her. Her back hit the cavern wall. She breathed. Two seconds. Three. The troll turned to face her. It was slower. She pushed off the wall and started circling again, because standing still was dying.

She didn't know how long it had been. Long. Long enough that her legs had stopped burning. She could barely feel them. Every step was pain. Every cast was pain. She had to make each one a conscious choice because if she didn't, she would stop moving. The troll stumbled again. This time it caught itself on the club, the thick shaft grinding against the floor, and stood there for a moment with its weight forward, its head hanging lower than it should have been. She watched it. Her pulse was loud in her ears.

It looked at her. Yellow eyes, like the others. She kept draining. Cold blood dulled everything but her concentration. She had a firm grasp on the troll's lifeforce. It groaned. She spotted her spear on the other side of the cave. It had come to rest against a shelf of rock near the base of the far wall, the broken shaft angled up slightly, the head catching light from the mushrooms. She walked toward it. Limped more than walked. The troll pushed off the club and lurched in her direction.

She changed her angle, limped wide of its path, watched the club sweep through empty air, and corrected her course back toward the spear. She bent down. Grabbed the shaft and straightened. The broken end was ragged where it had snapped, splintered wood sticking out. The head was intact. She turned it in her grip and looked at the troll. She breathed. Ragged. The troll stepped in her direction. Fell on its knees. Its club fell on the ground with a thud. She looked at her spear. She could end it here and now.

Alexandra met the troll's eyes. She could see the pain. The anger. The hatred. It was her or the beast, and she had won. But she didn't move. Instead, she kept draining its lifeforce. Even reduced to a trickle compared to the raging torrent that it once was, the lifeforce still held so much energy. The troll's chest moved. In, out. Slower than hers. She kept her skill steady and pulled. Not carefully now. There was no backlash to fear from a current this weak. She just reached in and took. The troll's head dropped.

Its hands were flat on the stone, fingers splayed, holding itself up by will or instinct. Its breath came out in a low groan. She watched it and kept draining. She was killing it slowly. Too slowly. She knew that. She'd done the same thing to goblins. She kept her grip on the thread. Her ankle throbbed. Her ribs moved with every breath. The cavern was cold and quiet except for the sound of the troll's breathing. She could have ended it with the spear. She knew that too. She was choosing not to.

The lifeforce came and dissolved into nothing. A waste. She kept pulling anyway. The troll's arms gave out. It went down sideways, one shoulder hitting the stone first, the rest of it following. The impact was heavy and dull. It lay on its side facing her, still breathing, the breaths shallow now, spaced further apart. Its fingers moved once against the floor. Then stopped. It looked at her one last time. She kept pulling. Until there was nothing left.