Eliona's War 3: Lethal Healer

Ch. 38

The Deep Mines

Room 3

Time Elapsed: 1:32:08

Severance thought things were going well despite yesterday's event. His team had more or less accepted his 'condition' and were back to normal. Well, mostly. Both Snow and Kiah seemed to be keeping an eye on him. They were quick to interfere whenever he got boxed in by the freaky erfreschik worms or the wombat rat-like creatures. He barely had to lift a finger to defend himself.

It was... irritating, because he was neither incapable nor fragile. He could fight his own battles.

"Ah, shoot!" Snow kicked fiercely at a wriggly black worm, sending it flying through the air. It smacked against the rock wall with an audible thunk and dropped to the floor. "Sev, help! It got me."

The flashing health bar in the party list was all Severance needed to see. The icon sitting next to Snow's name indicated the cryomancer had a debuff. Severance thought of it as the Afflicted debuff, because it came from the worm spit and turned everything to stone. It was also very difficult to heal.

It was a good thing he'd learned how to deal with it this morning.

He ran to Snow, evading two wombats along the way. Behind him, Jack stepped in to finish them off, his sword striking once, then twice, with deadly accuracy.

"Where did you get hit?" Severance asked.
He sidestepped to avoid a flying glob of spit. One of Kiah's transparent swords struck the culprit not even a second later. She Rushed to it in a follow-up strike, cleaving it in two.

"Hand." Snow waved his right hand, gray stone already growing on his fingers.

Valentin flew overhead, his red armored-figure flipping gracefully before he plummeted down onto a cluster of three wombats. They exploded upon impact.

It was chaos, but Severance was pretty good at tuning out the distractions. His teammates were watching his and Snow's backs, giving them a safe bubble. He flourished one of his fans, electricity flaring to life all along its toothed edge.

Snow's eyes widened. "Um, Sev? Isn't that the wrong-?"

Severance slashed at the cryomancer's wrist. The affected hand fell free and instantly disintegrated into a flurry of violet sparks. Snow gave a startled shout, his face frozen comically in shock.

Earth Dance. The lightning faded into healing wind. It swirled around the entire room as Severance set up a Radiant Dome. Then he tossed a couple of Mends on Snow, which was enough to completely regenerate the cryomancer a new hand. The Dome would cover the rest.

"The hell, Sev!"

Severance switched back to Sky Dance. It lit up the area around him in crackling blue. "What? That debuff is hard to heal. Easier to cut it off and start fresh."

"You freaking chopped my hand off!"

"You can't even feel it," Severance threw back. "You're fine."

For a second, the cryomancer looked like he wanted to snap back, but then he gave Severance a deep frown. The resulting silence was uncomfortable. A few stones falling from overhead drew Snow's attention, and he turned abruptly, gaze flicking upwards.

"Heads up," he shouted. "Big one's on the way!"

"Positions!" Jack called.

Valentin and Kiah had mostly cleaned up the room of any stray critters, and now they did a quick sweep of the room, making sure none were missed. Meanwhile, Severance backed against a wall next to Jack.