Sometimes life changes for no reason. The interesting thing is whether these changes are good or bad.
Does waking up in an unknown world with many people who develop a crush on you count as a nice thing?
Without any objections uttered, everyone makes their way to the upside-down ruins. It took you some time to find the right path, but as soon as you did, exploration progressed significantly faster. Dain got rid of the barrier and - together with the help of the others - you got over plenty of gaps in the floor you would have never managed to cross out of fear of falling the long way down or simply because you can’t safely jump that far.
An uncertain amount of time passes and you are still wandering around this building. “Hmm…” You can’t help but begin to brood. So far this ruin exploration went pretty smooth. Too smooth. Shouldn’t you have run into those former Khaenri’ahn guards by now? Normally you wouldn’t be bothered by something like that, but one of them does play an important role in this quest…
Aether lightly squeezes your hand. “Is something wrong?”
“No… I am just thinking…”
“About something we should know?”
Before you can answer, Paimon speaks up. “Hey, is this the thing you were talking about before?”
You look in Paimon’s direction and see exactly what you were looking for – a mysterious structure on the ceiling similar to a small pool, emitting a gentle light. A faint beam of light is coming down to the ground where an altar is. “Yep, that’s it. I have to say Paimon, today you are finding a lot of good things. Good emergency doggy~”
She puffs herself up. "Hey!"
Dainsleif is the first one to get close to the pool. “How odd it looks. For something like this to have such an easing effect on ones body…”
Aether follows him, letting go of your hand. “Sorry for your body, but we need to shut this thing down. The question is how…”
While the others are inspecting the apparatus to figure out how to turn it off, your attention is caught by something else. You walk towards one of the corners of this room and look at what is laying there on the floor. Armored humans – or what is left of them – murdered and collected in a pile. “So that’s what happened to the Black Serpent Knights…” You touch one of them with your arm that isn’t holding Rosa to check if they are really dead. They indeed aren’t moving an inch. A bad feeling overcomes you. “Guys, I think something is wrong here-” Barely having said your sentence, a loud boom erupts from the center of the room.
All of your friends are unmoving on the ground and instead there is now a Abyss Herald standing in their place. “You should watch your back better. You might get ambushed~”
“Aether, Dai-“ As quickly as the others were knocked out, you are grabbed by your neck and lifted up. You immediately let go of Rosa to try to free yourself from the stranger’s grip. Sadly, you aren’t particularly strong.
“You must be (Y/N), am I right? The lesser known shadow of the Traveler who has a tendency to run into trouble. It appears you didn’t see this one coming, but I suppose this makes it easier for me.” The Herald teleports back to the center together with you. He turns towards the apparatus.
“This won’t have the outcome you are wishing for, you living piece of shít.”, you hiss at him with gritted teeth.
“Even so, it is ideal to test something out. Come on, show me what you got.” He focuses on the beam of light, intensifying it drastically for the curse-removal procedure.
“Let go of (Y/N)!” Aether charges at the Herald with his sword which results in him actually having to drop you to save himself. Having you and enemy separated, the blond boy can now attack with more force and vigor.
You on the other hand have different problems at hand. For some reason, your body feels like it is burning. It isn’t outright painful, but it makes it hard for you to breathe. As if a fire inside you is consuming all the oxygen that is meant for you. Your heart is pounding rapidly like the one of a small mouse. Lifting yourself up from the ground, you look at Dainsleif’s direction. He isn’t unconscious anymore and in contrast to you, he is in agony from the curse-removal machine. With shaky legs you stumble towards him. To be more exact, you fall right next to him like an object that was just thrown through the room as you are extremely dizzy.
Despite having to deal with his own problems, Dain makes the effort to pull you closer to him so that your head rest comfortably in his lap. Seeing your distressed expression, his eyes fill up with shock. “…why… Aether, you need to stop this thing!”
“…burns… Dain- why does it… burn..? Why… can’t I… breathe..?”, you choke out with a cracked voice. You stare back at Dainsleif’s star-shaped pupils. Thanks to your oxygen-deprivation more and more stars appear next to his own ones.
Gently, he puts his hand over your eyes, blocking out any light. He leans a bit down towards you. “It’s alright. Everything is going to be alri-ght…”
You don’t know if Dain’s voice is cracking up because of his own pain, or because someone he likes is suffocating in his lap, but it somehow soothes you nevertheless. Your body relaxes together with your heart and pleasant warmth spreads though your body. The burning sensation get further and further away and so do all the noises around you until it stops all together.
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