[F18 | SP] [EV] A Bottle a Day, Part 2 | <<Fatal Error>>

[Acanthus 0]

Continued from <<A Bottle a Day>>

Everything was normal. And that wasn't normal at all.

Haru's heart monitor beeped steadily. The birds outside chirped, crowed, and sang just like songbirds should: there was no cackling, no rumbling, nor chittering from any fantastic, oversized creatures. Taeko Onuki  gently accompanied the birds, smooth pop playing through the radio by Haru's bedside. And a clean, antiseptic scent clung to the sheets. The same smell that clung to Haru every day she returned home from work. Every part of the room was familiar, and everything she saw felt like the world she had left behind. The only trace of her adventure seared itself into the corner of her vision. That faint outline of an empty health bar reminded her that her journey back to reality was more than a fantasy.

I'm not home. The thought formed involuntarily, another fact received and processed by her mind. It looks like home. It smells like home. But I'm not there.

-----

Acanthus | Lvl 72 (34/38) | No stats (RP thread)

Edited 19 hours ago by Acanthus

[Acanthus 0]

Despite what her mind regarded as absolute truth, her heart ached with emotion. She would take whatever solace the hallucination offered her. Exhaling, she closed her eyes, ready to remain as long she was allowed.

<<You have a visitor.>>

The pleasant, neutral voice piped directly into her brain, and Haru's eyes snapped open. She accepted the disembodied voice without question or curiosity, and simply trained her eyes on the door, waiting for her guest.

A young girl entered the room. She looked remarkably like a young Haru, although Acanthus remained certain that she was not. The girl wore a plain brown dress the color of tree bark, and a small persimmon bow. She used Haru's voice to speak a simple command.

"You're not done."

Acanthus wanted to respond, but her mouth refused to move. "You still have so much left to do. You are not ripe." The girl’s voice shifted disconcertingly as she trailed off. As she spoke, Acanthus tried looking away to focus her mind on the soothing sounds and smells of the room, not this stranger who stood at the foot of her bed. Just as Acanthus’ mouth refused to move, her eyes remained locked on the girl.

"You have to save me. Save us. The people of Aincrad." Acanthus rocked the bed, thrashing violently against invisible restraints. No, stop it. Let me go home. Let me stay here. Please, I want to go home.

[Acanthus 0]

The little girl shook her head and repeated herself. "You're not done. I need you." Both pairs of eyes brimmed with tears. "I need you to find <<The Root>>."

The demand sparked a sudden wave of anger. I'm not going. Find it yourself. But the little girl again shook her head. "I can't. I'm not allowed to. It has to be a person… like you."

I don't care! If Acanthus could have spoke, she would have been screamed. The intrusion disrupted her peaceful kingdom. The room itself rebelled against the girl: every step she took made the fantasy waver. Acanthus' peaceful surroundings slipped into a digital mist as the girl walked around the foot of the bed, her hand outstretched. You stupid girl, Acanthus shouted in her mind. Let me stay! Let me stay right here, you little—"

The girl placed her palm on Acanthus' cheek, and pressed a finger into the place where the NerveGear's power button should be. With a mechanical click, the fantasy vanished.

[Acanthus 0]

Acanthus sucked in a week's worth of oxygen in a single breath. Her left arm slammed the headboard behind her; she tried sitting up with her right, only to find it fixed firmly in a cast. Her instincts told her to channel a sword art, but botan rested on the other side of the room. A hand gripped her shoulder tightly and squeezed once.

Argent stood over her with sunken eyes and a relieved smile. His other hand held three different bottles, all nearly empty. "Hold still. I have another round of potions." Deftly, he uncorked each of the three bottles and administered them to the unwilling patient. "This was a lot easier while you were out," he joked. Acanthus scowled. "I am not a child."

"You were dying."

The humor evaporated from his voice. "You came in with more status ailments than I've ever seen. You were losing health—in a town. I didn't even know that was possible. Safe zone regeneration outpaces every single debuff listed in the broker's database. It took a mix of health regen, energy regen, antidotes AND probiotics just to keep pace with your health loss. But the worst of it should be behind you."

"…Did you manage to update the database, then?"

"It was the one good thing to come out of this."

[Acanthus 0]

Acanthus' indignance subsided in the face of Argent's calm rebuke. Finally, she offered an apology. "Thank you."

Argent let the response hang in the air before speaking. "I'm just glad you're ok."

"You did a good job with the splint. Did you already know how, or did the game help out?"

“Yes. To both.” Argent pulled up the party menu and talked as he reviewed her health bar like a patient’s chart. “I served for about two years as a medic in the army. I didn’t see a lot of action, but I saw enough that the training stuck. You’d be surprised how much of it applies to video games.”

“I would. Isn’t it all just health potions and antidotes?”

Argent ignored the slight. “Mostly. But there’s a lot of intangible aspects. Evaluating injuries and calming traumatized patients are the two big ones. But I’ve also noticed that some of the medicinal items can have strange interactions when used on a player with multiple debuffs. For example, curatives that cleanse non-damaging injuries seem to be coded differently than curatives that address poisons and the like. Rather than removing the debuff, blind and deafness antidotes simply set the timer to one second. It’s essentially the same thing, but not always.”

[Acanthus 0]

Despite her bedridden frustration, Acanthus found the way Argent explained the system fascinating. She’d never taken the time to parse the intricacies of healing in the game. His thorough understanding reminded her of the time she wished to catalogue all the flora of Aincrad. She listened silently.

“That distinction saved your life two nights ago. One of your debuffs was the infamous ‘Infection IV.’ Standing alone, it ticks away at your health like any other poison debuff. But it has a lesser-known effect: whenever another debuff hits zero, it triggers a moderate burst of damage. If I’d cleansed your deafness without healing you first, Infection IV would have done you in. Instead, I gave you a deafness potion to prolong the status effect so that we could wait out the infection.”

“That is quite a solution. Do you often have to engage in overly complicated treatment in this game?”

Argent’s mood lightened as he spoke. “Never. Keeping you alive was a challenge. But like I said, you had more status effects than I’d ever seen. I actually couldn’t get rid of a few of them.”

[Acanthus 0]

Sure enough, Acanthus saw three debuffs remaining (outside of the ever-present “Lightweight” effect): A sprained leg, a fractured wrist, and Disease - Blackblood. “The first two explain themselves. The last one is… confusing. It’s not causing any damage that I can see or that the game can register. It didn’t exacerbate your other debuffs as far as I could see. Now that you’re awake, I’d like to run some tests. May I touch you?”

“If you have to. Haven’t you already been doing that while I was out?”

“Just enough to get you here and make you drink potions. But now that you’re awake, I’d prefer your permission.” Acanthus shrugged, and Argent got to work. He turned over her free arm, checking prominent veins for coloring. He hummed to himself, moving up and down her arm with light presses from his thumbs. He took two fingers and moved up, pressing them against her neck. “All of the shortcuts the designers took on imitating life, but they kept our pulse in. I think it’s because the NerveGear already registers it, so why not add it to the player experience? I heard that the system was supposed to forcefully log out users if their heart rate exceeded a certain limit. That… obviously didn’t make it into the final release.”

[Acanthus 0]

Acanthus felt her heart pulse rhythmically. It was not the steady, biological warmth she knew from reality. In game, focusing on her pulse gave her the feeling of a stiff, ticking clock. As Argent’s fingers pushed delicately into her carotid, she felt her clock quicken for a fraction of a second.

“Six seconds is enough to track a pulse,” she said quietly, and Argent’s hand slipped away. “I’m sorry. Would you like to be done for now?” Acanthus shook her head. “You’re fine. I just wanted to make sure nothing was the matter.”

“You seem to be in perfect health, fractures and sprains aside. Which makes ‘Blackblood’ even more perplexing than before. My current guess is that it's a catalyst for another kind of attack or debuff. The gasoline for an unknown match.”

“A match probably found on Floor 29.” Argent nodded solemnly. “Which is why I’d like to keep you under watch until the debuff runs out.”

Acanthus opened her mouth in protest, and closed it quietly before continuing to speak. “I don’t like being under house watch. But your reasons are rational.”

Argent  brightened. “Thank you. I would really hate to have put in all that effort to have you wander back to Floor 29 and die. Why don’t we split the difference? You seem to be recovering quickly—bones in Aincrad mend much quicker than those in real life. Let’s run some errands together. Get you back on your feet, but not into danger.”

Danger is where all the progress is. She bit down the response, not wanting to fight Argent on the matter. “We can do that. Where to?”

[Acanthus 0]

Of all the floors to visit, Acanthus had ranked the Eighteenth as the least likely, alongside the other inhospitable ones. There was no part of the floor untouched by bog and mire. The bogs differed from Floor 29 in that they contained some trace of life, but the life they contained left no room for players. Large creatures lurked below the swampy green waters, and the incessant swarms of bugs were somehow worse than their real-life counterparts.

To Acanthus, the floor was uninhabitable. Surprisingly, that hadn’t stopped players from inhabiting it.

Argent greeted the leader of the small band with a firm handshake before introducing Acanthus. “Saitou, this is Acanthus. Acanthus, Saitou.” The old man grunted, resembling a moderately polite hello.

“You’re orange.” The words escaped before her filter could drag them back inside. Of course, Saitou himself was not orange. He looked like an old man she would have met at the hospital: short; stout in a way that suggested muscle before the atrophy of age claimed him; and plagued by the perpetually dour grin present on every old man above seventy. Saitou seemed to have claimed his dour features about ten years too early, though it was possible he simply looked good for his age.

But he was not orange. His skin was the wrinkled and tanned skin of any elder she had met, and his hair was a healthy (if not a dull) black that absorbed the light. What Acanthus had noticed was hovering slightly above Saitou’s head, rotating calmly.

[Acanthus 0]

“Got yerself a sharp one, Argent,” he drawled. “She can name all the colors in a crayon box. Even shows a few when she gets embarrassed.” The heat in her face suggested a flush apparent to both Argent and Saitou. Acanthus did her best to recover. She bowed appropriately, saying, “my apologies, Mr. Saitou.”

“Saitou is fine. You can bow, but it’s a waste of time. Did you bring the crystals, Argent?”

The tavern keeper stepped forward, eager to reclaim the conversation and spare Acanthus. “Five crates: three for healing and two for antidote. Hopefully it will last.”

“It won’t. Those Knights have been chewing us up and spitting us out. We’ve got a few of the braver kids sending them on wild goose chases in the bogs, but they always find their way back. At this point, we’re going to have to beg the frontlines down here to kill the damn things.”

[Acanthus 0]

“Things? There’s more than one?” Acanthus wormed her way into the conversation once again. Saitou gave her a dull look. “Yes, girlie. There was just the one, and then it went off and ate Grundar the Blacksmith. No, it didn’t literally eat the damn thing,” Saitou interjected before Acanthus could speak. “That’s just what the kids called it when it… when it did whatever it did.”

“Did it look like he was… breaking, I think it the best word for it.”

One immovable eyebrow raised slowly. “Yea, that’s about right. Cracked like a bad mirror. Bad luck, my grandfather always said. Bad luck to crack a mirror. So you’ve seen it before?”

“Yes. I saw one on Floor 29.” Acanthus started to give details, but Saitou did not seem interested, except for one thing. “So did you kill it?”

“No, it left. It seemed focused on reaching the teleportation plaza.”

[Acanthus 0]

“Lucky girl. Ours seems hellbent on finding NPCs to eat. Jokes on them—Eriwald ain’t nothing but a dozen shacks and two NPCs. One NPC, now.”

Saitou’s assessment was on the mark. Eriwald might have been the smallest Main Settlement Acanthus had ever been in. The whole place was barely a row of houses, each built on stilts that leaned dangerously into the murky water. Two dozen players stood behind Saitou, looking fearful and hopeful all at once.

“Well, I’m keeping ya, Argent. If you could drop the crates off at Muck’s, Thrymr and CrowHunter will sort through ‘em and hand ‘em out.”

Argent refused to move. “If that Knight is coming back, you’re going to need more than potions.”

“Sure. But we ain’t got more. We’ve got Brag and Flechette luring into the swamps every three days. And so that’s what we’ll do.”

“Surely we can do something else. Build some walls, call for backup.”

[Acanthus 0]

“Backup? Where do you think we are? The Aincrad Liberation front doesn’t come up this far, and the frontlines don’t come down this low.”

“Then why don’t you just leave? This looks like a terrible place to live anyways.”

Saitou’s glare turned murderous. Acanthus realized she had said something she shouldn’t have a moment too late. Thankfully, Argent stepped forward. “Saitou, let’s head over and drop these off together. After that, let’s talk about getting some barricades up, and discuss some long-term solutions to your Spectral Knight problem. Acanthus, wait by the plaza for me. I’ll be right back, ok?”

Acanthus wanted to protest, but Saitou clearly wanted to show Acanthus that his orange marker was no accident. She shrugged and slumped down on the nearest set of dry boxes. Anyways, her leg was beginning to throb with a sinister energy. The timer indicated that she’d be walking normally in another eight hours; until then, she would have to rest and relax to avoid adding to the timer.

[Acanthus 0]

“What’s Saitou’s problem?” Argent walked towards the boxes where Acanthus sat uncomfortably.

“If I had to guess, he doesn’t like being told his home is a dump.”

“But it is. I didn’t mean to be rude, but look at this place. I know it’s a Safe Zone so it’s not falling into the swamp anytime soon. But what do they like about Eriwald?”

Argent plopped down on the boxes next to her. “I don’t know. I would never want to live here. But that doesn’t deprive Saitou and the others of their right to settle down in Bug-opolis on the Swamp.”

“It’s a terrible decision.” Argent made a non-committal noise, but Acanthus pressed him. “And Saitou. He’s a grouch and a leech. Five crates of healing supplies! Even if you’re an alchemist, and I hope you are, that was about a month of crafting? Almost a hundred materials, I’d say.”

“One hundred and twenty, to be exact.” Argent stared into the misty wilds beyond the safe zone. “And in a month, I’ll have three more crates for him and the other players in Eriwald.”

“One hundred and twenty.” Acanthus repeated slowly. “Argent, that’s insane! Why are you bleeding yourself for this cranky old recluse and a dozen other hermits? Did you know Saitou in real life? Are you really just that soft—”

“I’m the reason he’s an orange player.” He spoke in a way that forbade further questions. “So they’ll get their supplies as long as they need them, or as long as I’m alive. Whichever gives out first.”

Acanthus fell silent. She had missed the mark twice today. There would not be a third.

Argent stood and stretched, acting as though they had just finished talking about the game last Friday. “I managed to convince Saitou to let us help throw up some barricades. They led the Knights out into the swamp about two days ago, so they’re expecting them again tonight or tomorrow. I should get to work.”

Edited 20 hours ago by Acanthus

[Acanthus 0]

“I’d like to help as well, Argent.” Acanthus pushed up with her good hand, swaying as she stood. “I can’t do much, but it’s better than sitting on the crates uselessly.”

“I’m honestly just shocked that you’re not trying to slip away while I’m busy. You seemed pretty reluctant to stay under observation in the first place.”

“It’s not like I can do anything with my arm and leg messed up like this,” Acanthus complained. “I’m too screwed up to go on a real quest. I’m basically useless.”

Argent’s familiar hand squeezed her shoulder, and he frowned at her. “Acanthus, stop saying that. You’re worth more than the number of monsters you’ve killed.”

“Yea, yea. I’m worth it when I save people and help the less fortunate. I see some boxes I can carry one-handed. Let’s get to work.” Sloughing off Argent’s hand, she stumbled away and towards her duties.

[Acanthus 0]

Putting up barricades with one good hand frustrated Acanthus. Her abilities were limited to short distances and light boxes. She tried testing her bound hand once, only to find it totally numb. Her HUD told her that she could reclaim her hand in another sixteen hours. She knew a real broken wrist would be much worse, but losing access to her hand still felt humiliating. Saitou, easily thirty years her senior, was running laps around her. He was currently balanced on a wall of conjoined boxes about two meters tall.

“Hand me the hammer, girl. Mine just lost durability.” Acanthus looked up in time to see blue flakes of light shimmer and disappear. She reached into the box of fresh hammers, and tossed it towards him. It flew wildly off course, landing in the distant swamp with a soft *plep*.

“You throw like a girl,” he remarked casually.

“I throw like a right-handed person who is stuck with only their left,” she responded stubbornly. Fishing out another hammer, she tested the weight and feel, stepped closer to Saitou, and tossed it slowly. Saitou stretched out to catch the hammer and almost lost his balance. “You’re trying to get me killed, aren’t you?”

“I can go help Argent instead,” she said. Saitou gave a raspy laugh. “And have you kill him instead? No, you can stay here. Besides, it’s still better than climbing down from these crates every time I need a hammer. I’d keep them up here, but CrowHunter needs em for the eastern barricades. And if I have to toss hammers down from here, someone’s going to end up out cold.”

As if on cue, a young girl dressed in a black, feathery outfit (CrowHunter, most likely) sped up to Acanthus and Saitou. There was no color in her face, in perfect contrast to her all-black outfit. Saitou chuckled. “We were just talking about you, Crow. Need a hammer?”

“No, a sword. One of the Knights is back.”

[Acanthus 0]

The players of Eriwald gathered in the town square, focused on Argent. His command of the group impressed Acanthus. Argent spoke clearly yet softly, but the silence of the crowd carried his voice through them.

“We’ve got one Knight coming from the south. We should be prepared for the worst and assume the other Knight is with him. Brag, Flechette; are you two able to lure them away as usual?”

A teenager’s hand shot up from the crowd. “Brag is down on the first floor visiting his brother. Just me today.” Argent’s face dropped. “He picked a terrible day to be a good brother. Crow, we’ve been training on this. Think you can run interference on the second Knight, if he appears?”

The girl swallowed and nodded fearfully. “I’ll do it. I have to do it.” Argent tugged on his hair. “No. On second thought, I’m not really comfortable with that. We haven’t had enough time for you to memorize the safe routes. The mires are just as dangerous as the Knights themselves.” Crow breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ll need another backup plan. Saitou may have some ideas… where did he go? He’s usually pitched in some ideas by now.”

Acanthus spoke up. “He told me and Crow to go on ahead. He wanted to add a few finishing touches to the southwest barricades.”

Argent’s eyes flashed, betraying his calm exterior. “That old bastard! Splitting the party like that is just asking for—”

[Acanthus 0]

An explosion rocked the town. Eriwald buckled, each stilted house swaying precariously as the force of the tumbling barricade shook everyone from their feet. Argent was up in a flash, sprinting towards the source. Acanthus was up next, leg pulsing with that distant static. Before running, she looked to the crowd. “Stay in groups of two, three if you can. Keep an eye on each of the entrances to Eriwald. If you can’t reach me or Argent, find Flechette. You said you know the routes outside of town?” The young boy gave a courageous nod. “You bet! I’ll have ‘em knee deep in algae and swamp bugs before you know it.”

“Good. Argent and I will handle the one that’s here now. With any luck, the other one will be right behind—or nowhere in sight.”

She hobbled away, leaving the other players to divide and conquer the remaining points of entry. Her own actions confused her: she’d just been talking about how these players should move away, hadn’t she? With Saitou nowhere in sight, this would have been the perfect time to convince them to go somewhere safer. They were risking their lives to live here; whatever they got, they deserved.

“But that doesn’t deprive Saitou and the others of their right to settle down in Bug-opolis on the Swamp.”

Argent’s voice grated her conscience. She was acting only because she would look bad if Argent saved them while she idled. There was nothing else to it; a mere display of productivity. She also preferred if Argent did not die.

[Acanthus 0]

The southwest barricade was in shambles. The brief efforts of the town had been trashed in a single swipe. Debris littered the walkways, and the support beams beneath groaned under the weight of the Spectral Knight. Saitou laid over a nearby walkway, having been thrown from the barricade in the blast. The Knight approached him slowly.

Acanthus scanned the area and was crestfallen to see Argent was not there. The town was too small for him to get lost—but where had he gone? He was likely the only thing standing between Saitou and the Knight.

Aren’t you here?

Her subconcious began charting the quickest path to intercept. With wings, she could be there in seconds, but the winding paths did not lead directly to Saitou and the Knight. Instead, she counted three small gaps where the winding walkways approached, but did not intersect with each other. Normally she could leap over the smaller distances, but it was a risk with her bad leg. Given her slow speed, the long way would take too long.

The Knight strode towards its victim, sucking sound from the air and replacing it with the faint tinkle of shifting glass shards. Saitou’s face remained dour, but his entire body shook as the thing approached hungrily. His legs did not move, frozen either by injury or fear. The Spectral Knight took its time approaching before grasping Saitou’s arm like a child picking up a doll. It lifted the man up, cocked its head, and listened to silent words tumble from the curmudgeon’s mouth. Sharp, translucent fingers tightened around Saitou’s wrist, and the old man cried out dully in pain. Acanthus saw white lines working its way down the old man’s arm. Lines like broken glass. The same lines that had claimed the NPC in Miremore.

A sharp memory stole Acanthus’ thoughts away. A young player cornered in a demise of his own making. Monsters prepared to flay and consume the idiot, and Acanthus standing by, prepared to watch. She was not the one cut out to save the helpless, that had been Jomei. She was not cut out to save any of the players during the initial attack on Floor 29, that had been Morningstar, Freyd, Lessa, Baldur... Countless others, but not Acanthus.

Those countless others were not here. There were no heroes available, powerful enough to stem the tide with their storybook goodness. Argent had been somehow waylaid, and the other heroes all fought their own battles on other floors.

There were no heroes on Floor 18. A willing sacrifice would have to do.

Her legs moved before her mind had accepted the action. Stale wind rushed through her hair as she flew, and the swordswoman blinked away the bugs to gauge the distance on the first gap. It was the smallest of the three and with her momentum—

Thud. One gap crossed. A familiar static shot through her body, and Cardinal’s humming alert warned her against further exertion. She discarded the thought.

THUD. The second gap proved further than anticipated. Acanthus rolled, taking the brunt of the crash landing on her left arm and recovering quickly into a full sprint.

<<Warning: Excessive use of damaged limbs can—

“I know how my fucking legs work!” She shouted angrily. The noise startled both Saitou and the Knight. The thing turned to look at her with a vacant curiosity. It seemed unable to acknowledge existence outside of itself and its prey. Saitou’s arm continued to fracture and crumble into glass, exactly like the woman in the belltower. Only this was a real person, someone with a life, and he was dying—dying for being stupid, but he was still dying—

THUD.

Her boots landed with a force that cracked the wood beneath her. But she stayed upright and pressed forward on her momentum. In a single, fluid movement, Acanthus drew her shield and focused her attention on the Knight’s outstretched arm. Fractured Heart sputtered with flames as the light of a sword art grew from within. Leveraging the edge of the shield as a spear, Acanthus leapt forward, striking at the thing’s wrist with all the speed and strength she could muster.

The sound of shattering crystal rang in her ears. Saitou plummeted to the ground, one leg twisting awkwardly beneath him. The knight backed off, stunned in equal measure by the sword art and the girl’s audacity. Shards reformed at the end of its arm, and it prepared to counterattack.

“Run, old man. Limp if you have to.” Acanthus braced the shield against her body as she eyed the thing’s warhammer. “Argent will be here soon.”

“No, he won’t. He’s handling the first Knight.” That explained his absence. But it also meant she was out of luck. She glanced back at the Spectral Knight in time to see the hammer sailing towards her. She adjusted to allow the blow to glance off her defenses, but the ferocity made her teeth rattle and her health bar dip.

“So Argent won’t be here. All the more reason to leave. Your leg looks sprained, but you can still walk. Regroup with the others.”

“I’m not leaving, girl!” His face twisted in pain and anger. Acanthus shouldered another hit and barked at the stubborn old man. “I didn’t jump in here so you could die with me!”

“I ain’t running just to see you decide you’ve held on long enough and give up. If you die quickly, then I do too. So you better stay alive!”

“You—agh!” The weight of a mountain pressed on her shield, interrupting her. The thing’s strikes were no longer fierce and frenetic; it had decided the best option was to crush Acanthus slowly. She cried out as the sheer power of the Knight forced her to one knee. Fractured Heart’s durability dropped by the second. It had another thirty seconds before it would snap in two.

Saitou had made a mess of the situation. Her plan was to jump in long enough to buy him time to leave. She only needed enough strength for him to escape, yet here he was, staying close behind her, urging her up in his own way. And now she grappled with the Knight, far past her limits. Saitou had the gall to grumble at her. “Get up! I swear, youths these days give up too quickly. You think that’s all you’ve got in the tank.”

“I’m—I’m going to live—just so I can—hngh—beat you to death mySELF.” Stressing the last syllable, Acanthus pressed back on the Knight. Her shield cracked in protest, and its durabilility dropped even further, but she managed to move the mountain back long enough for a second of respite.

“Then do it!” The old man said stubbornly. “Do it just a little longer. Argent is heading this way.”

Acanthus could not sense anyone nearby, and Fractured Heart was seconds away from splintering into nothing. Even if Argent were in view, he would not make it in time. It had all been borrowed time, anyways, Acanthus thought calmly. Argent saved me once, and I still ended up here two days later. Maybe Cardinal is done with me.

[Acanthus 0]

A bolt of light arced through the dim sky, illuminating the town in a blinding glow. As the bolt closed in on their position, Acanthus and Saitou squinted to avoid the flash. Even the unfeeling Knight seemed to stop and observe the strange light racing toward its helm.

The bolt connected with a piercing clap, and the Knight stumbled back, its head skewered by the still-crackling bolt of energy. In a flash, the Knight forgot Acanthus and focused on its new, distant foe. Argent stood tall on a rooftop and nocked a second arrow. As he drew back, the arrow transformed into pure light. He shouted from across the distance.

“Acanthus! I’ve got aggro now! Take Saitou and get out of there!”

She would question the miracle later. Dropping her shield, she threaded her good arm around Saitou’s shoulder and propped him up and onto his feet. “I can’t carry you like this, but I can do most of the work. Let’s go!”

“I was always pretty good at three-legged races,” he quipped. Argent’s last-minute save had revitalized his spirits. Acanthus’ spirits could not help but lift as well, and she dragged Saitou back to the plaza while watching the Spectral Knight chase Argent through the streets of Eriwald. Argent continued to kite the creature, arrow after arrow, until the pair disappeared into the swamps.

“He’ll be ok.” Saitou’s dour mask had completely returned, sealing in his emotions. “He doesn’t know the swamps like Flechette, but he’s been out once or twice. Besides, he’s handy enough in combat.”

“He is.” Acanthus spoke with a soft sense of wonder. “He is a good shot.”