I hear Denet’s cries as I dash with Taren deeper into the cellar tunnel. At the end of it we find a mass of sludge, black as midnight, convulsing in an erratic rhythm.

  Rot Heart - Level 10

  An oily growth pins Denet against the wall, his arms, legs, and body immobile. Tears smear his face and hiss when they touch the black substance.

  “Free Denet,” Taren says. “I’ll distract the heart.”

  I rush towards the boy as an arrow flies over my head at the mass of black rot. My bow lies back with Taren. A knife is a better tool here.

  Before I can reach the wall. I lurch to a stop.

  An oily hand, fingers the size of my arms, has caught me. I cannot move.

  A wave of nausea hits me as the rot fingers tighten their hold. I feel vitality flowing from my body in a stream.

  I wriggle one arm free and stab at the hand, which releases me and retracts into the Rot Heart. In its place, six rot critters appear and scurry towards me.

  I dance back and slash at them, but they are too small. They attack my legs and I’m forced to [Leech Grip] them all.

  Rot Infection. Vitality diminished.

  I don’t have moss to counter the infection.

  An arrow of lightning strikes the Rot Heart and explodes in a blinding light, then fades, not a single mark to show for it.

  “Something is protecting it,” Taren says. Black acid spews from the Rot Heart, aimed at him. His feet glow and the acid rolls off him like water.

  Denet sticks against the wall, only five feet from me. I launch myself forward and stab down at the bonds that hold him, but I’m too slow.

  A rot hand slaps me across the tunnel, smashing me against the far wall. I stab at it again, and it retracts.

  We need to weaken the Rot Heart before I can save Denet.

  I rush forward, knife out, and leap onto the sludge mass. My knife sinks into the oily surface, but doesn’t seem to affect the creature. I [Leech Grip] next.

  Instead of vitality, my mana replenishes some, then stops.

  “My [Skill] doesn’t hurt it,” I say.

  So close to the heart, I’m unable to dodge when it grabs me with its rotten hand, sucking the vitality out of me. It takes two slices from my knife for it to release me.

  Six more rot critters emerge as the hand retracts. I [Leech Grip] them to fill my vitality again, but [Rot Infection] will not dissipate, not with only rotten vitality to draw from.

  Two arrows hit the oily growth that pins Denet to no effect. The boy’s face should be red from his cries, but he looks pale, a stark contrast to the surrounding darkness.

  I think of Nox, and the beetle launches from my shoulder. Help Denet. Nox circles my head and bursts through the air toward the boy. Once my beetle lands, he sinks his little mandibles into Denet. That will conserve him for a little longer.

  Another rot hand reaches for me as I dash towards Denet. I leap over it and slide, crashing into the wall and crumbling to the ground. Denet calls my name.

  I scramble to my feet as the rot hand swings towards me, fingers apart to cover floor to ceiling. This creature learns.

  I don’t dodge. Knife in hand, stretched out before me, I stab forward, sinking the blade into the rotten palm. The hand shrivels and shrinks back into the sludge.

  Denet pants, breathing in and out with clenched teeth.

  I lash out at the oily growth, cutting and slashing, but like Taren’s arrows, there is no apparent damage. The heart won’t ignore me long.

  Desperate, I reach out and [Leech Grip] the bonds. Mana fills me and the oily mass melts away, dropping Denet.

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  Denet scurries back towards Taren as I spin to face the Rot Heart, just in time to receive a dose of spewed black acid.

  Rot Infection. Vitality diminished.

  I reel in pain from the burns and rot that corrode me. I can’t see, my eyes inflamed no matter how I try to scrape out the acid. Taren calls out to me, but I’m directionless. A rot hand catches me and squeezes as it sucks away my life. My knife. I dropped it after the acid burned me—I don’t know where.

  A flash of white erupts, washing over my sightless eyes. The rot hand drops me and I fall on my hands and knees.

  Rot critters. I can hear them coming for me. I wait until they swarm me, then start leeching them until my sight’s restored and vitality filled.

  Taren stands further back with Denet. He waves at me to come. Time to flee this monstrosity. Nothing can hurt it. Though at a lower level than the Rotspore Bulb, the heart has some kind of armor we cannot pierce. It doesn’t seem to have any vitality at all, so how can we hurt it anyway?

  Though it must need vitality for something, otherwise it wouldn’t drain us.

  I rise, dodging the next splash of acid with a roll, then turn to run.

  Unless…I face the Rot Heart again.

  Taren calls out to me, but I ignore him. I need to understand this rot. If I am a part of what causes this, then something about this is like me.

  I rush at the convulsing mass of sludge, sliding left, then right. An arrow catches a rot hand before it can reach me. Taren will help.

  I dive forward under the Rot Heart’s attempt at a close-up acid attack and leap onto the creature.

  [Detect Decay] pulses within me as I search the heart. A layer of deadness coating it like a thick scab. I [Leech Grip], not on the Rot Heart, but on myself, ripping vitality from my skin and transferring it into the dead piece. It melts where my hand touches.

  I leech more of myself, pushing vitality into the dead spot until I create a large hole. Then I drop from the Rot Heart.

  Taren can see it as clearly as I can now: a mass of blackened flesh underneath the shell.

  He lines up a perfect shot of lightning, and blasts the Rot Heart with a burst of white. The convulsing stops, then starts again, faster and faster, until it erupts, spraying black acid everywhere, covering me and the walls of the tunnel.

  I cover my eyes this time, but the Rot Infection has doubled in strength as it splashes over me, burning my arms and hands. Taren and Denet stand far enough away to remain unscathed.

  The Rot Heart collapses on itself and fizzles as it turns to dust. A single stone, the color of midnight, remains where it once stood.

  Item: [Midnight Stone] – ??? Type

  You have reached Level 5.

  My vitality sinks low and continues to drop fast. The level up did nothing to restore me. There’s no moss or critter to leech from.

  Denet and Taren rush over. I remain on the ground, shaking.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Denet asks. Nox rests on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Rot Infection,” I say. I want to tear at my skin. The infection grows worse.

  “What can we do?” Taren asks.

  I shake my head. There’s no time to find moss or other plant life.

  Taren understands this. “Denet, go back up the tunnel.”

  “Why?”

  “Now!”

  Denet trembles. Taren rarely yells. With some hesitation, he flees.

  I appreciate the effort. I don’t want Denet to see me die. My vision is failing.

  Vitality Critical.

  Taren watches Denet leave, then kneels beside me. “Take my vitality,” he says.

  I don’t understand.

  Taren pulls back his sleeve and grabs my hand, pushing it against his flesh. “Do it, Sevorn. You must have some mana left.”

  But I couldn’t…steal life from a person. That’s the power the villagers might fear in me, that I will suck their very souls from them as they sleep.

  “Sevorn, now!”

  He must sense my end better than I do. I feel lighter.

  I [Leech Grip] by instinct, not by choice. My body reacts like a drowning person for air.

  Taren convulses, doubling over me.

  Vitality cures the Rot Infection and strengthens me. Human vitality differs from what I’ve felt before: warmer, purer. I feel like I’m in another world.

  Then reality slaps me and I see Taren suffering.

  My hand jerks away from him. I tremble, not from pain or anything physical, but from horror.

  Taren gulps down air, then curses. “That…was awful.”

  I’m a monster. I think I understand those golden robed mages now from my first memory—why they cast holy flames to purge me. To protect the world from a monster hiding in human skin. Me.

  Then Taren laughs. He chokes on his breath for a moment, then laughs again, falling backward.

  Denet returns, then and lightens when he sees me sit up.

  I’m confused.

  “Let’s not do that again,” Taren says. Then he glances at the remains of the Rot Heart. “We are crazy, don’t you think, Sevorn? Fighting a creature like that in secret.”

  “I could have killed you,” I say. My tone cuts the joy from Taren like a knife.

  He glances over at Denet. “Best not to talk about it, right?” He stands up and reaches to help me.

  I accept, though I’m still shaking. “Taren, I’m sorry—”

  “No,” Taren says. “Don’t apologize. You are the reason the village may survive this winter. You saved Denet. You’re a hero. Heroes don’t apologize for helping.” He plants a finger on my chest. “And they let people help them too, if they’re smart. And you may be young, but you're smarter than most.”

  He glances down at the [Midnight Stone].

  “Heroes also get rewards. And don’t deny the gifts offered them.”