Chapter 8 - Unwelcome realization

Her senses returned slowly to her. First came hearing, than touch and at last she opened her eyes to find out that she lay on an operation table in the middle of a dimly lit room. Her clothes had been removed and she was only covered by a thin blanket. What happened?

She recalled how she was digging... and then she found another artefact... and it began to glow... and it had been incredibly beautiful... and–

"What the hell!" she screamed.

Had she been possessed by that thing? Now she remembered the burning pain that had filled her whole body. Even now she shuddered just thinking about it. Was she injured? A quick check of her limbs revealed no obvious change.

At least she now knew why she was in a medical facility. The other two Umbra Hands who had accompanied her must have transported her back on the cart. Or one of them had just carried her. She was certainly light enough due to age and malnutrition.

Good. Everything was fine. Hopefully. If she hadn't been possessed by an ancient amulet or whatever.

Where was the damned thing? She would ask Bondrewd. It was her only lead and main evidence on what had happened to her. Analyzing it might reveal something useful. It had been the ninety-fifth artefact she had found on the expedition. A small, cynic part of her was amused about the fact that she hadn't even made it to one hundred before injuring herself. How pathetic.

Hopefully Bondrewd would not interpret this incident as a failure on her part. Workplace accidents did happen after all.

∞•۞˂Bondrewd´s point of view˃۞•∞

It was his fault! Why had he agreed to this expedition? He had just mentioned the possibility to see how she would react and Tanya had eagerly agreed right away. She had repeatedly empathized how much of an honour it was to be trusted with such responsibility. Had she perhaps misunderstood him?

Nonetheless, he should have known better than to send a five-year old into the fifth layer. And now his beautiful, amazing, talented little Tanya had been injured by a mysterious relic, the likes of which had never been seen before.

Luckily her body seemed perfectly healthy, but her mind could be another matter entirely. If her astonishing intellect had been damaged then that would be a huge loss. A setback to his plans that could not be mended soon. Or ever if he was perfectly honest with himself.

Then there was the problematic question of what the odd amulet had actually done. From what he heard through his Hands it must have been extraordinarily painful. Some idle fraction of his shared consciousness wondered if it was as painful as the curse of the sixth layer.

In case that she had woken up by now he should check up on her. Did she already know what happened to her? The only visible change the relic had caused had been, quite literally, irreversible. He hoped she would adapt soon.

∞•۞˂˃۞•∞

Tanya was feeling thirsty. She went on to idly massage her parched throat when she suddenly paused mid motion. What was that feeling? There where normally smooth skin stretched over tendons and bones was something different...

Hastily she rushed over to a table with a small mirror on it. With dread pooling in her gut she looked at herself and gasped. That artefact... it had fused to her skin. Bright golden veins were radiating out from it and spread like a glowing web underneath her skin. In panic she tried to pull it off, but she was as successful as if she had tried to remove a finger with her bare hands. The relic stuck stubbornly to her skin like it had been a part of her all along.

She forced herself to calm down. Panicking now would bring her nowhere. Was that thing actively harming her? Not that she could feel it. Did it hurt? Also no. All in all it didn't seem too terrible. If she wore a scarf than she could cover it up quite easily in fact.

Her breathing slowed and she turned around only to be greeted with Bondrewd´s signature glowing mask in the corner. How was he always so damn silent? Had he been here the whole time? And the realization hit her that she was completely naked at the moment. Her blanket lay still on the table and her clothe were nowhere in sight.

With a yelp of embarrassment she covered herself with her hands before awkwardly sprinting to the table with her blanket on it. Bondrewd was nice enough to not comment on that shameful accident and waited until she had wrapped herself in the cloth before he softly spoke:

"Are you ready to talk about what happened my dear? It would help me understand your accident a lot better if I could hear the story from your perspective."

She nodded.

"But, ehm, can I have my clothes back before that?"

"Of course my dear. They are in your chamber."

Without any warning he picked her up and pressed her to his amazingly warm chest. It was highly comfortable and extremely embarrassing at the same time. Especially so considering she was only wearing a blanket. All she could do was hide her face to not show how flustered she was by this intimacy. The reason for his action became clear as they arrived probably twice as fast at her room as she could have done on her own. Short legs were the worst!

He let her in alone and waited for her to open the door from the other side. When Tanya could look at him without developing a slight blush she began to recount everything that happened in great detail. Bondrewd on his part remained utterly silent and just nodded his head from time to time to show that he was listening. It was hard to interpret his facial expression when he lacked a visible face, but he seemed deep in thought.

"So it resonated with you. How interesting."

"Can it be removed? The artefact I mean."

"No. I tried already. It appears as if it has perfectly fused to your flesh and the bone beneath. It also has somehow managed to connect to your nervous system so even if I could remove it, it would cause irreparable damage."

"Do you know what it is or what it does?"

"In all my years as a delver have I never seen something like this, little one. But I am positive that it indeed has a function. It is too complicated to be a parasite and has shown no sign of doing anything as of yet which means that it has likely not been activated yet. How you do that is sadly unknown to me. We will test it tomorrow. "

Perhaps it was like a first or second grade artefact if she was lucky. Maybe it could give her super-strength or make her invisible or teleport her... Powerful artefacts had often drawbacks and hers had a pretty huge one. She couldn't take it off. She hoped whatever she got in return would be worth it. Optimism mostly led to failure and disappointment, but she would not change her situation by imagining all the horrible things that could come from the piece of cursed jewellery at her chest. Looking at the bright side was the only way forward.

"For now rest well my dear. It is going to be a long day tomorrow."

And even though she had woken just an hour ago she fell into her bed like a stone.