Eldritch Guidance

Chapter 13 - What was lost

There was a feeling of cold water dripping onto Scarlett's face, rousing her from her slumber.

She felt awful. Her body felt heavy and her joints ached. There was a desire to return to her slumber, but more water continued to drip onto her face, making it impossible for her to go back to sleep. Opening her eyes she looked up to see where the water was coming from, but only saw darkness.

Scarlett slowly picked herself up. Upon doing so, she felt the cold stone floor beneath her and she finally realized that she was not in her bed. She was in a dark chamber with stone rubble all around her. The only light in this chamber was the small amount that came from a single hole above her.

While trying to sit up, she felt restraints pull against her wrist and ankles. It was then that she remembered what had happened.

She wanted it to be one of the many nightmares she had while sleeping in the Wildlands, but between awakening in an unfamiliar environment and the feeling of rope around her limbs, she knew it was not that. It was a memory, a memory of her disciples trying to sacrifice her.

The pain from that betrayal made her tear up a little, but she managed to swallow it back. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she then focused on her restraints.

She worked on her them for a few minutes and was able to slip one of her hands out the bindings. From there, it was easy to untie her other hand and ankles. She then lastly untied the collar around her neck.

Once it was off, she got a better look at the collar that was sealing her magic. From the little light that was in this chamber, she could tell that the Jinsil that was wrapped around her neck were pieces of equipment made of Jinsil that they had brought on the expedition. It was tied together to make a makeshift collar.

She threw the collar on the ground and tried to create a flame in her hand. It was still quite dark in the chamber, and she was trying to make a light source to get a better view of where she was. Scarlet concentrated, but the aether wouldn't flow into her hand like it normally did. Something was wrong. She was struggling to focus even the smallest amount of aether to produce any fire.

"When that ritual pulled out my aether, it must have damaged my aether veins." Scarlett thought to herself.

Aether veins were special pathways in people that aether flowed through. It was what allowed one to gather and focus aether for spellcasting. If someone pushed or drew too much aether too quickly, it could damage them. Scarlett recalled the ritual forcefully drawing out her aether, and assumed that it must have damaged her aether veins in doing so.

It would take her months and some expensive drugs, but she knew she could recover from this. However, she needed to get back to civilization first for that to be a possibility.

She concentrated intensely for a minute. It took a great amount of effort, but she managed to gather enough aether to create the tiniest flame on the tip of one of her fingers. The flame was no bigger or brighter than a pocket lighter, but even this small light was hard for her to maintain. Beads of sweat were forming on Scarlett's brow from the effort she was exerting to keep the little flame alight.

Knowing that she couldn't maintain the flame for very long, she did a quick look at her surroundings. The light had not revealed much she did not already know, except for the collapsed stone walls all around her. She was trapped. Entombed by her disciples somewhere. This was all she could make out before her flame started to fade.

The flame Scarlett had made flickered then extinguished itself. She was left back in near complete darkness, except for the tiny amount of light that shined through that small hole.