Despite her words, Larna Smith pulled back the unconscious woman and dragged her out of the room, possibly to keep Maria and Miss Shelley from deliberately trampling her. Her nose wrinkled slightly, but whatever she smelled couldn't have been any worse than the state of the room itself.
Maria's mother had been beautiful for her age, and one of her memories from before awakening the recollections of her past life was hearing that her mother had been considered the village beauty when she was younger. Many had envied and wanted her.
She tried to keep that in mind as she stared down at the thankfully still-recognizable woman tied to the old wooden bed. Her wrists and ankles had been tied to the legs at each corner, and from the smell they had not let her go to relieve herself. She had been tied tightly, almost enough to cut off circulation. Bruises covered her arms, and they could likely expect the same all though her body. Some sort of slop covered the bottom part of her and chin, as well as one side of her head. Her lips and nose had been split, blood caking them, and her face was covered in bruises. Many parts were swollen, as if infected. Her mother was sheathed in a thick layer of the black smoke of Dark Magic. It seemed similar to the haze that surrounded the woman but thicker, almost opaque. Instead of mist, it was like a black sludge or jelly, one that coiled around her like a serpent and seemed to roil like it was alive. Her mother was still visible through it, but it clung to her limbs and abdomen.
The stench was, of course, revolting. Just being in the room made Maria recoil, and she noted Rafael reacting the same as well.
Miss Shelley rushed in like she had absolutely no olfactory abilities whatsoever, kicking aside the unconscious woman's legs as Larna Smith dragged her out of the way and splashing though the foul, stagnant puddle next to the bed that was probably the result of the captors' no-hearted excuse for attempting to deal with the smell. She hesitated for a moment, but reached for Maria's mother's face, gently removing the things caked on.
"She's warm," Miss Shelley declared. "I think she's feverish! Lady Maria, we need you, Alice likely has a severe infection. Possibly several!"
That snapped through Maria's reticence, and she pushed her way into the room. A part of her was distantly glad her boots were waterproof, as she didn't have to worry about blood, swamp muck and, in this instance, her mother's wastes getting in to her feet. Now that she was closer, she could see that the strange dark jelly seemed to also enshroud her mother's head. Only her was still exposed, but Maria got the vague sense the darkness was creeping in from the edges like a slowly rising tide.
She ignored that, ignored the sounds of Larna and Rafael securing their prisoner behind her, ignored the spell and the rage and focused on her mother. She called eldritch light to her hands, brighter and stronger than she'd ever felt she needed to before and lay her fingers gently on either side of her mother's face, letting the Light Magic flow.
The black jelly reacted violently, roiling as if water being boiled, and Maria's mother suddenly thrashed, pulling the ropes tight on her wrists. Surprised, Maria stopped what she was doing, and the darkness settled, becoming a placid gel once more. For the first time, she'd felt a resistance, as if something had tried to stop her Light Magic from leaving her hands. What seemed only a trickle had been released, and her mother hadn't been healed.
"I can't heal her," Maria said, the beginning of panic starting to gnaw at her. "I think the Dark Magic on my mother is preventing it somehow."
"Is that what the dark mist is?" Miss Shelley said, not ceasing in attempts to clean Maria's mother's face. Already her handkerchief was stained, but at least nothing was clinging to mother's face any longer.
Maria turned sharply towards Miss Shelley. "You can see it?" she said.
"Yes… shouldn't I?" Miss Shelley said. "I saw it the moment she came into view, but it didn't hamper me when I reached through it."
"You shouldn't be able to see it at all," Maria said. "Dark Magic is invisible to most people's eyes." She turned and called into the previous room. "Larna Smith! Can you see anything around my mother?"
Larna Smith looked over her shoulder as Rafael came from the other open passage, carrying an old pot that sloshed with water. "Besides that black thing?"
"Oedon's dregs," Maria swore to herself. She stared at the blackness enshrouding her mother in horror. "Only Rafael or I should be able to see it at all."
"I assume this portends ill," Miss Shelley said, taking the pot from Rafael, who seemed pained by the room's smell, and began to use the water to wash away the rest of the grime covering mother's face. For a moment, Maria was struck by envy by the other woman's poise and control.
Instead of answering, Maria reached for the darkness again, calling eldritch light once more to her hand. "Mother will thrash again," Maria said. "Please hold her still so she doesn't harm herself."
Miss Shelley glanced at her, then moved to stand at her mother's head, hold her gently lest she strike her skull in her thrashing. Rafael called for Larna Smith, then moved to hold down her mother's shoulders.
"Dirty end, got it," Larna Smith said as she moved to put weight down on her mother's knees.
Maria took a deep breath and let the Light Magic flow.
The darkness ran wild as Maria tried to overpower the resistance keeping her from healing her mother. Her mother as predicted thrashed, though feebly, as if she had little strength yet.
"Stop!" Miss Shelley cried. "Stop it! She's having trouble breathing and her heart is beating too fast!"
Maria pushed for a moment more, but even as her mother's struggles grew weaker, the darkness seemed to thicken, throwing out thin wisps as is frost drifting from ice. Reluctantly, she stopped. Her mother subsided, the darkness around her slowly thickening against to a gel-like consistency. Maria resisted the urge to collapse to her knees as the feeling of failure overcame her. The floor was filthy, after all.
"Would it help if we woke her up?" Larna Smith suggested.
"Dark Magic can trap you in your own mind," Rafael said. "I know of only two people who've been able to fight it off from the inside, and one of them is in this room."
"Well, we can't leave her like this," Larna Smith said, voice analytical. "I have some Crescent Moon Grass Jelly in my pack, do you think that will help?"
"It's better than nothing," Miss Shelley said, and Larna Smith dug into her pack and tossed the stoppered jar towards her. Maria winced at forgetting something so basic as bringing medical supplies. Granted, they had no blood vials here, but she should have remembered and not assumed any medical treatment could be dealt with by her Light Magic… even though that was usually a good assumption most of the time.
Rage and frustration rose it her, borne of her helplessness. With nothing better to do, she drew her dagger and cut her mother's bonds. She almost instinctively called eldritch light when she saw the state of her hands, but forced herself to resort to massaging blood back into the extremities, before moving down to cut free her mother's feet. Predictably, mother was barefoot, her legs stained with filth both liquid and solid. How were they going to carry mother with any sort of dignity?
Idly, Maria noticed the faintest wisps of darkness beginning to escape her body, and she was just about to reign in her Dark Magic when she paused. She stared down at her hands, small streamers of dark smoke rising from them. She stared down at her mother, at the thick, tarry darkness surrounding her.
Light Magic was singular among the magics taught at the academy. Many of the rules that applied to other magic, like the principle of Push-and-Pull, thermodynamics, acoustics… many of them didn't apply to Light Magic because it had no form or substance. There was nothing to heat or cool down for thermodynamics to become relevant for. That applied to many principles taught about controlling the manifestation of the form of your magic. Light Magic didn't have a form to manifest. It didn't even produce visible light!
But… did the same apply to Dark Magic?
Slowly, Maria raised her hands, full of abyssal darkness, and lay it on the darkness that shrouded her mother.
And felt resistance.
Something in her seemed to snap. With a near-bestial cry, she clawed at the darkness with her bare hands. The other three jumped in shock as she began to tear wispy, misty, tarry chunks from the darkness around her mother and threw it behind her. it tried to resist, roiling in her hands, trying to pull itself from her grip, but she called eldritch light and it went mad, and she used that distraction to rip of more parts of it. They came off slowly, reluctantly, like cooling sugar syrup or molten glass. In her rage, she willed to be pliable, willed it to break, and it came off in pieces in her hands.
Slowly but surely, Maria directed all the anger, the despair, the helplessness, at the dark smoke as she tore it off her mother. It tried to stretch, but Maria ripped it off. It tried to spread across her mother, to cling to more of her for grip, but Maria reached in, and there was nowhere it could hide. it tried to sink into mother's flesh, but Light Magic caused it to burst out again, and Maria's hands, light striking serpents, caught at the little tendrils, ripping them off like spiders clinging to the ceiling.
The parts that she'd ripped off tried to flow back, but she crushed them under her foot, squashing them flat. Even as she finished ridding her mother of them, they tried to return, tried to clump together and form a tendril that reached upwards, trying to touch her mother. Maria ripped the mass from the ground and slammed it into another clump, and another and another, gathering all the darkness and tried to force her will into it, tried to control it as she would have a person. Yet it had no memories to manipulate, no tiredness and sleepiness to make into overwhelming unconsciousness, only a need to feed and… something else…
Maria attacked, suppressing its hunger as she called forth the massive effort to break it to her will. And her will was that it would not harm her mother!
When the darkness finally, finally, broke and stopped fighting her, stopped trying to return to her mother, it had compressed into a pure black, pearl-like orb the size of a fist, clutched tightly in her hand. A strange, fuzzy white corona surrounded it, and it quivered slightly as she continued to will it to formless docility and harmlessness.
For a moment, she just knelt there, panting.
"Are you done other there?" Larna Smith called.
Maria blinked, and she realized she was in the communal room, kneeling next to the table. The blonde woman, almost certainly Estella Almera, was tied up with slender, almost bracelet-like manacles with a short length of chain between them, hands behind her back and still unconscious. Feeling emotionally drained, almost numb, Maria forced herself to her feet. The darkness tried to roll out of her grip, but she held on tightly, not allowing it to escape and do who knew what mischief.
"Rafael," she called, even as she trudged back into the fetid room. "Can you heal her now?"
"Yes!" Rafael said, both hands on Mother's face. "The wounds are sealing and some of the swelling is going down. We're hoping to break her fever soon. Could really use help with this."
Maria held up the darkness in her hand.
"Or not," Rafael said. "Keep doing what you're doing, just to be safe. We have Light Magic and grass jelly, we'll be fine."
Maria nodded, internally sighing in relief as she used both hands to hold on to the darkness. While she wasn't sure what they could do with it, she knew they couldn't just carelessly leave it behind. That sort of thing is hot you got giant spiders and all sorts of abominations.
A sound came from mother, and Maria nearly lost control then and there as she saw her mother start to stir. Dark tendrils like tentacles exploded in many directions before Maria was able to call the will, Light, and Dark Magic to suppress it again.
"Alice!" Rafael said joyfully, leaning over to look at her face. "You're awake. Do you feel any pains in your torso or stomach? How do you feel?"
"Keep healing," Miss Shelley snapped at him.
From a distance, Maria, still in the midst of regaining control, saw her mother's eyes flutter. Her lips moved, but whatever she said was too gentle for Maria to hear.
Miss Shelley could hear her just fine, however. "Yes, dear Alice," she said, her voice tender. "I am here by your side."
Her mother's lips moved again.
"No," Miss Shelley said. "This is not a dream. Rafael Walt and your daughter Maria are here as well."
Rafael awkwardly waved. "Hello, Alice," he said lamely.
Maria's mother sighed, and her body seemed to relax.
Maria's heart leapt to her throat. "Mother!"
"It's fine!" Rafael called. "She's just asleep!"
Maria sagged in relief.
"So…" Larna Smith said. "How are we getting her out of here?"