Chapter 155: Conviction

Chapter 155: Conviction

They faced no further threats on their trip out of the Vibrant Woods. By the time night had fallen on them, the group had made its way out of the colorful forest and out into a grassy plain beyond it, quickly finding the main path.

“We should get a little farther before we set up camp,” Moxie said, sending a glance over her shoulder at the woods behind them. “I don’t want to risk something coming out, especially while we’re down a fighter.”

Lee still laid limp in Noah’s arms, though he could still feel her breathing. At least the damage didn’t seem to be getting any worse, but he knew firsthand just how bad soul damage could be.

I wonder just how much soul damage she took. I never got enough to get a physical injury from it, but those visions were pretty bad. It did seem like they had a lot more to do with the Hellreaver somehow accessing that weakness in my soul than just being injured, though.

Maybe I can somehow heal Lee’s soul in a similar manner to how I healed mine?

Noah remained lost in thought as they continued along the road. He nearly didn’t realize they’d all stopped at a campsite until he’d stepped past the rest of the group and had to spin on his heel to rejoin them.

Isabel was already setting up stone tents. They no longer had a bunch of trees to access for firewood, but Todd formed a small flame in the center of the camp and held it there for warmth. It didn’t do much, but Noah wasn’t particularly concerned with being cold anymore.

“How’s Lee?” Moxie asked, walking up to Noah, a worried frown on her lips.

“Unconscious,” Noah replied, shifting her gently. “She doesn’t seem to be changing much in one direction or the other. I guess that’s probably a good thing for the time being. Were you serious about her being out for days?”

Moxie chewed her lower lip and nodded. “It’s not like I’m an expert on soul damage. I haven’t experienced much of it myself. There’s a reason it’s such a thing to avoid, you know. The cures for it are all either incredibly rare or expensive – and usually both.”

Not all of them.

“How bad are we talking?”

“Thousands of gold if you want anything effective. Probably tens of thousands, honestly. You’d need a connection that would actually be willing to sell to you as well. Anything that deals with restoring the soul is in very high demand, so you’ll be vying against a bunch of powerful mages.”

Noah grunted. Moxie mistook his action for disappointment and raised her hands. “Don’t worry. It’s not all that bad. Maybe demons heal from soul damage faster than humans do. Like we said, Lee’s not dumb. She wouldn’t take such a big risk if it wasn’t for a reason.”

The ground trembled as Isabel pulled out another stone tent from within it. She was getting faster at using her Runes. What had previously taken her almost half an hour to gather the energy to do was now only taking minutes.

“I might be able to heal Lee’s soul damage,” Noah said. “I healed my own.”

Moxie’s eyes widened and she glanced back at the students before lowering her voice. “You’re serious? You can heal soul damage? For other people?”

“Well, I’m not totally sure,” Noah admitted. “I healed my own soul damage, though. If I could have just formed the damn Rune, I bet I could heal Lee as well.”

“I remember you mentioning that, but I think it somehow managed to slip through the cracks of all the other lifechanging things you mentioned,” Moxie muttered. “Didn’t it fail, though?”

Moxie smirked and shook her head. “You’d know more if you just read a few more books.”

“I’m working on it, okay? I read the dossiers. That’s more than I normally do.”

“Do you want a medal?”

“Yes.”

Moxie rolled her eyes and nodded back in the direction of the students, changing the topic. “There’s a lot more we can still cover with them, but I’m going to be spending a little time going over theory again. I don’t think Isabel or Todd ever got the opportunity to learn it.”

“Probably a good idea,” Noah admitted. “You don’t think they’ll need the extra practical experience?”

“I think they’re going to get it one way or another, so I might as well try to round it out a bit,” Moxie replied. “I’ll probably ask you to handle some of the physical training. I hate to admit it, but you’re better at fighting than I am.”

Constant life or death battles are a great way to increase your combat abilities really quickly. You should give it a try sometime. The worst that can happen is that you die.

“I don’t think the methods I used for myself are going to be particularly applicable for anyone else,” Noah said with a knowing look. “But if we’re going to be doing any training in the style that I taught Isabel and Todd back in the Scorched Acres, we’ll need a Great Monster. Does the Red Barrens–”

“Yes,” Moxie said. “The Sandray. It’s a huge, flat monster with a big stinger that swims beneath the sand in the Red Barrens. It wasn’t placed there by Arbitage, but it’s too big to actually hurt and usually doesn’t bother anyone. Many of the monsters in the area should be under its influence, though.”

“Perfect. I’ll train against them while you do the theory stuff with the kids to save time,” Noah said. “I should be able to get a good grasp of what they can do in a day or two.”

Moxie nodded, but she didn’t look completely convinced. “I have to ask – doesn’t this method only work against individual monsters? The moment they come up against something that doesn’t have a set fighting style, they’ll lose a lot of what they’ve learned.”

“Some of it,” Noah agreed. “But I wouldn’t say they lose it. They’ll just have to adapt more, and they’re already doing that. The purpose of my training is to push them to understand how their enemies fight. The better they understand it, the more they’ll eventually be able to put the pieces together. Human minds learn by finding relation between things. As long as they’ve fought enough enemies with varying fighting styles and are clever in their future fights, then they’ll be able to adapt.”

Moxie inclined her head. “True enough. I’ll take the first watch, then. You’re probably tired from carrying Lee around all day. If anything happens, I’ll wake you.”

“Sounds good,” Noah said. “Thanks.”

Moxie just nodded. Noah walked over to the group of stone tents and ducked into one of them, kneeling on the ground. Two bunches of soft vines pushed up from the ground in the tent, forming into two beds.

Noah glanced over his shoulder as Moxie walked past, joining the kids at the fire. A small smile crossed his face and he gently laid Lee down on one of the beds before claiming the other for himself.

He had a lot of work to do that night, and he’d need all his energy to actually focus on it. For now, the best thing to do was actually take Moxie up on her offer. Noah laid back on the vines, surprised to find them far more comfortable than he’d expected. They weren’t quite a mattress, but they weren’t far.

Noah let his eyes close. He wasn’t sure how things would turn out the next day, but he was sure of one thing – he was going to find a way to make sure Lee’s damage wasn’t permanent, even if that meant forming a Rune that nobody had ever made before.