Duskbound

It was a well-documented fact that the more potions a person used in a short period of time, the less effective they became. Worse, too many at once could make a person sick, as could mixing different types. Velik had never been forced to experience that himself before today.

He limped back into camp, his clothes shredded and bloodstained. The only good part of the last half an hour was that a few minutes ago, he'd gotten a notification for helping kill another agent of corruption, which he assumed meant Sildra had gotten one of the two still in the hunters. Gods only knew how badly he'd screwed up finishing off the one they'd chased out of Emberson.

It was hard to think of a time when he'd been hurt worse. Maybe after I fought the other Velik, but even then, I was able to fix things up with a potion. His current state was after not one, but three potions, though the last one had done so little that it had basically been a waste. Worse than that, he'd used his haste potion in the fight and still lost.

And it was just some random monster, barely level 30! How did this happen?!

"Oh gods," Sildra said the moment he shoved his way past the brush screening the cave.

"It's fine," Velik said. "This isn't all mine."

"Why didn't you…" Giller trailed off as she studied him. "Oh. You did."

"Did what?" Sildra asked.

"Hit your potion limit and you still look like that," Jensen said. "What happened?"

Surprisingly, it was Emberson who answered, "That monster is different from the other ones. It's stronger. It can do something to its host to empower them."

"Yeah, I figured that out," Velik said sourly. "It did it to you at the end, right? When you tried to kill Sildra with that fire beam."

"It did," Emberson confirmed weakly. "But when it didn't work, it fled. Lucky for me, I think, otherwise I'd have died in the next few seconds."

"That doesn't really answer my question," Jensen pointed out.

"It found some sort of colony of massive insects—mantises with a few extra blades coming out of the elbows and knees—and infested one of them. They were only about two feet tall, and it couldn't even fit all the way inside of them, but I guess that was good enough."

A brief memory of one of the giant bugs coming at him, the agent's goopy body oozing out of burst seams in its chest and back, filled Velik's mind. [Apex Hunter] had put the swarm at mostly low to mid-twenties, with a few over level 30, but every time the parasite leaped to a new host, it fought like something around level 50.

"Why didn't it do that with you?" Jensen asked Emberson.

"It did. When you all were fighting my body, I was fighting it for control, slowing it down, keeping it from using my skills freely."

"That was slowed down?" Velik asked, an uneasy feeling in his gut. He'd initially assumed the agent of corruption had gotten its power from having such a strong host, but fighting his way through that storm of insects as it leaped from body to body certainly implied otherwise.

"When we first encountered it in the mine, it was inside a different monster, something that was around level 40. Even in that body, it was strong enough to fight me to a standstill," Emberson explained. "I'm level 64. Nothing at level 40 should ever be a challenge to me. I think… I don't know. Maybe the monsters cooperate with it? It's more effective with one of those as a host."

The only good news was that it was still wounded. Velik had been worried that the parasite could somehow steal its host's vitality to recover, but as far as he could tell, nothing like that had happened. That having been said, it had somehow managed to rile up the whole swarm by itself. Hopefully, that was a result of the insectoid nature of the monsters that caused them to attack in a group and not some hidden power of the parasite itself.

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"This can wait," Sildra said. "Velik needs medical attention."

Only because every time it jumped into a new host, it got three times stronger than anything else around it. It didn't seem to have any trouble using their wind magic either, especially inside that one elite in the group.

Velik looked like he'd been serving as a training dummy for a group of particularly rambunctious novice swordsmen. The fight had only taken two minutes, but he'd been no closer to catching the parasite once the monsters were all dead. Somehow, in the confusion of everything, it had fled again. He wasn't even sure if it had taken one of the bodies or run off in its own form.

"No. Get the last monster out of that hunter first," Velik said. "I'll be alright. I've healed enough to stabilize, and I want a full team with me before we go back into the mine. They need time to recover, too."

"Smart," Emberson said weakly. "I don't think I'll be able to take the field again, but the others should recover quickly."

"Maybe we should consider retreat," Giller suggested.

"There are still two hunters down in that mine," Velik argued.

"That's an assumption. They could be gone by now."

Everyone looked at Emberson, who, despite being unable to move, seemed to notice the stares. "The creature didn't give any orders for them to abandon their positions while it was controlling me, but we can't be certain where it went. It could be back there now, resuming its control over its original host. There's no telling what it's got Lali and Vudra doing."

"The water mage and shield bearer, right?" Velik asked, thinking back to what Phun had told them about the hunters who'd been captured.

"Yes," Emberson said. "Both over level 50."

And I'm only level 42, maybe close to 43 if I can kill a few more of these agents. Fighting Emberson wasn't worth anything, not unless I want to kill him off. Something tells me that wouldn't endear me to anyone. Besides, he's a lot less of a jerk now that he's laid out on his back.

Not for the first time, Velik debated the merits of disappearing into the mountains for a few months, but he recognized that the anomalous invasion that had seen him shoot up close to twenty levels in a single season wasn't something he could count on happening again. At least, he hoped it would never happen again. Spending all summer hunting would see him to perhaps level 44 if he was lucky, which certainly wouldn't change how strong he was in any meaningful way.

Though the chance to work on my skills would be welcome. I'm far enough behind gold-ranked hunters already. Even some of the silvers have better skills than me.

Velik brushed that thought off. It wouldn't change anything today, and the enemy wasn't going to just stand around waiting for him to go get stronger before coming back to challenge them. If life were that simple, there'd be no challenge to it.

"If these three can get back on their feet," he said, gesturing to the three hunters still laid out deeper into the cave, "I think we've got a chance. You only lost the first time because you got ambushed by another team while you were fighting the monsters, right?"

"The other way around," Emberson said. "I was immediately suspicious of the new team. We weren't surprised when they attacked us. It was when the monsters joined in that we were overwhelmed, especially…"

Emberson trailed off, no doubt lost in some horrific memory of his own. The man had gone through hell, and Velik hadn't missed the paralytic someone had applied to him. Considering the nature of his injuries, that was probably the only thing keeping Emberson talking at the moment.

"I haven't even started working on this hunter yet," Sildra said, her voice tired. "I'll do my best, but it'll probably be hours before he's ready to go."

"I did kind of destroy his bow a little bit anyway," Velik admitted. "He might not be able to help much without that."

He didn't like the idea of going back down there by himself, not now that they knew he was there. He'd won a two-against-one fight already, but it had been a tough battle. That was before he'd been injured, and he definitely needed a few hours just to rest and recover. There was no telling how much another potion would help, but he wasn't going to bet on it fixing him up.

As much as he hated to admit it, Velik didn't think he could do this. They'd saved four out of the six hunters, but there was no one left on their team to fight. Giller was probably their best bet, and she'd made it clear that she wasn't going into that mine. Her job was to protect her employer's investment in Jensen, who was far too weak to go into a dungeon.

"I'm sorry, Emberson, but I just don't know how to extract those last two. The best we can do is find a new camp to hole up in and wait until tomorrow," Velik said.

"I understand," the platinum ranker told him. "Can't really blame you for not being able to fix my mistakes, especially when you already saved three of my people."

Emberson looked like he was about to say more, but he broke off abruptly. Velik glanced out of the cave at the mountain trail at the same time, having heard the crunch of a footstep on the gravel. Maybe we won't have a choice about fighting those last two.

Then Torwin walked into view. "Told you they were in here," he called back over his shoulder. Peering into the cave, he said to Velik, "Looks like you guys have a bit of a mess on your hands, huh?"