Ichor Cell-Chapter 19: Fetch quest

After a desperate dash through quickly brightening streets, the trio had barely managed to reach cover before the sun fully rose. The building they'd found—another abandoned, half-collapsed shack that seemed to be the architectural staple of the slums—provided sufficient shade and shelter to protect them from the lethal daylight. The moment they were safely inside, Elara wasted no time launching into a blistering tirade, thoroughly chewing Alex out for his deception.
The young man had little choice but to sit quietly, letting her fury wash over him. He knew he deserved every harsh word she hurled his way; tricking her like that had been unfair, no matter how desperate he'd been.
Eventually, her anger burned itself out, replaced by exhaustion and begrudging resignation. Elara settled herself in the corner, arms crossed, and pointedly refused to look in his direction, making it clear she was still furious, but had said all she intended to—for now.
Duran, who had silently observed the heated exchange from the far side of the dusty room, wisely chose not to interject. Instead, he carefully lowered himself to sit against one wall, stretching his limbs experimentally, still adjusting to his strange new existence.
As silence once again descended, Alex felt the night's accumulated exhaustion finally catch up with him. The ambush, his escape, finding out Grenil’s fate, the graveyard, his sudden bout of mana sickness, all on top of working the store all day beforehand. His limbs felt leaden, his mind foggy.
He leaned back against the wall, eyelids heavy. Although his need for sleep had been steadily decreasing, he was not completely free of that mortal trapping just yet.
He knew he needed rest—not just to recover physically, but to clear his head and start making sense of everything that had happened. There would be time to plan their next moves later, to consider how he would grow stronger, and to figure out how he might save—or at least bring back—Grenil.
For now, he allowed his eyes to drift shut, the dark pull of sleep quickly claiming him.
There was not as much time to plan things as Alex had thought.
“
What
did you just say?” He questioned Elara in disbelief from a shadowed shack corner, where he huddled to avoid the light.
“I said we only have a few hours to decide our next course of action.” She repeated with a frown. “We were told to be there by sundown, today, which—from what I can tell of the sun’s position—is less than four hours away.”
“Fuuuuuck.” Alex slowly dragged his hands down his face, distorting his features in distress.
‘Actually…’
He suddenly slumped. “I mean, we already kinda decided yesterday, didn’t we? It’s impossible to rescue the old man no matter what we do, so we may as well just use my abilities to bring him back. It’s not like we have much of a choice. I can’t exactly get out there and get things done even if I wanted to, and neither can he.”
He gestured toward the opposite corner, where Duran sat equally concealed by shadow. They had experimented earlier, testing his theory on the inherent weakness of his magic.
The ghoul's vulnerability to sunlight proved significantly worse than even Alex's own—his finger had blackened and begun to crumble almost instantly upon contact with the rays.
Duran had quickly withdrawn the hand, saving him from further damage, but the grim results were undeniable. At least they had also incidentally discovered that his sense of pain had been greatly reduced; an injury that would have left a normal man screaming in agony merely caused him mild discomfort.
Moreover, unlike Alex and Elara, Duran hadn't slept at all. He had simply remained awake and motionless throughout the hours Alex and Elara had rested. Whether this was a temporary energising effect of his recent revival or a permanent state, none of them knew. Either way, Alex knew it was yet another mystery they'd need to unravel in the future—if they survived long enough to try.
Elara rubbed her temples wearily. “Fine. If that’s the plan, then we need to make sure we’re prepared. We can’t afford any mistakes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “Thanks, mom.”
“Hmph, I don’t have such an unfilial and troublesome son.” She flipped her hair arrogantly.
Letting out a chuckle, Alex adjusted his position, pulling free a small rock that had been digging into his backside.
Absently turning it over in his hand, he inspected the bean sized pebble as he let his thoughts wander. When they flickered to the events of last night, a sudden impulse came over him. Narrowing his eyes, he flooded his arm with mana, feeling the exhilarating rush of power through his veins.
He focused carefully, channelling the magic directly into his hand. While he had not unlocked the ability to infuse more than two ‘parts’ of his body at once, it appeared that the hand and forearm were considered as one in the eyes of his magic.
‘Going by that logic, do I need to be able to channel eight spells at once to fully infuse myself?’
He mused.
‘No, actually, that’s just my limbs. With the head and torso that makes… nine? Ten? Could be either. We’ll see.’
Bringing his thoughts back to the present, Alex felt his hand reaching saturation, a not unpleasant tingling filling the extremity. Shifting his grip, he curled his fingers, letting the mana enhanced tension build and build, until he suddenly released it,
flicking
the rock as hard as he could.
The rock shot out of his hand with a sharp crack, blurring across space in mere instants before piercing the opposite wall and disappearing, leaving behind a neat, precise hole surrounded by faint wisps of dust. The sound shocked his two companions—who had been curiously observing his actions—out of their reverie.
Whipping her head back and forth between Alex and the hole, Elara’s eyes threatened to fall out of her head. “What the hell was that!?” She demanded, with Duran nodding along emphatically behind her.
Alex waved them away, unable to stop a grin from spreading across his face. No matter how many times he used it, his mana continued to amaze him—its sheer power, its boundless potential.
He flexed his fingers experimentally, sparks of excitement dancing within him. Magic almost made all of this worth it.
‘But not worth it enough.’
His grin faltered, the joy soured at the thought of Grenil.
‘What’s done is done. Stop sulking over it like a child and do what you can.’
Shaking his head, he slapped himself on both cheeks to clear his thoughts. He reached into his cloak to take out the book and resume his magic study, only for his hand to meet nothing but air.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, the infringement.
Looking down, he remembered that his cloak was now nothing more than strips of fabric dangling over his frame.
“Well, shit.” He swore, suddenly remembering where he had left it last night. Sighing heavily, he looked across the dusty shack. “Hey, Elara!”
The woman looked over at him curiously, quirking an eyebrow.
“Elara, I hate to ask, especially after everything, but… could you do me a favour?” He asked hesitantly.
“Sure, I guess.” She shrugged. “Though I don’t guarantee I’ll agree.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Well, in all the excitement yesterday we kind of forgot about the whole clothes situation.” He vestured down at himself. “Could you possibly go do some shopping?”
The young mage winced. “Right, I should really go do that.”
“Thanks.” Alex flashed her a smile. “Also, while you’re at it, would you be willing to drop by Grenil’s place to pick up your book? I may or may not have left it there when we headed out last night.”
“You left…” Elara reached up to clench her hair, letting out a long sigh to calm herself. “You left one my most valuable possessions in a place that had just been raided by people who very much want you dead?”
Alex stilled at the poisonous sweetness in her voice. “Uh… I did hide it…?” He tried defending himself.
“I am gonna-” The furious mage interrupted her threat halfway through, suddenly turning around and stalking towards the exit.
Alex offered a weary smile, a mixture of relief and gratitude in his eyes. “Sorry about that. Being in a rush is no excuse for mistreating your belongings.”
Elara hesitated briefly at the doorway, casting a glance back at both Alex and Duran. "Stay put and stay quiet. I'll be back soon."
“You should be more worried about yourself.” He waved her concern away. “They may not have had anyone stationed there last night, but they might be watching today. Be careful. The book should be beneath a loose floorboard, eighth row from the left. I think.”
With a nod, she slipped out into the daylight, leaving Alex alone with a quiet, contemplative Duran, the silence around them growing more palpable in her absence.
“So, uh, nice weather we’re having?”
Elara stepped out into the daylight, taking a deep and glorious breath of fresh air after the frankly putrid smell that permeated the building she had just vacated.
‘I guess I can’t really blame our newest addition, but Alex was acting entirely too unperturbed by the stench he was emitting.’
She frowned and with a final backwards glance turned to leave.
The sun was slowly making its way across the dome of the sky, bathing the streets in its warm, energising light. Squinting slightly, she briskly made her way out of the slums and toward the nearest market, keeping her expression carefully neutral and her movements purposeful yet casual.
Having decided on the way that there was no need to get anything too fancy, she quickly located a modest shop with below average prices, ducking inside without hesitation.
The shopkeeper, an elderly woman with a pleasant smile, greeted her warmly and guided her towards a selection of inexpensive but serviceable clothes. Elara swiftly selected a few simple garments, having loosely estimated the two men’s sizes, and brought them to the counter to pay.
Transaction completed without incident, she left the shop satisfied. Her next stop, however, was potentially far more dangerous.
Pausing in a secluded alleyway near Grenil’s shop, Elara set down her shopping to free up both hands before continuing onwards.
Approaching the building, she mused at how different it seemed in the bright midday sun, no longer eerie and menacing like last night; instead, it simply appeared sad, abandoned.
Shaking off the sudden melancholy that had overtaken her, Elara redoubled her focus. Edging ever closer to the structure, she finally came to a stop at a cautious distance, hidden in the shadows across the street.
Remembering Alex’s warning, she gently coaxing her mana forward, silently muttering a careful incantation. As she mouthed the arcane words, thin, invisible threads of mana spiralled outward from her body, their ends growing and splitting in all directions, like an ever-expanding web.
An interesting and not widely known fact was that all living beings produced and contained some degree of mana, even ones that did not outwardly display any magical ability.
This fact had produced the most widely accepted magicians’ definition of a living thing: Any and all beings capable of producing mana are to be considered as such.
The reason this was relevant was that this discovery led to several complete revolutions in the field of magic, one of which was the creation of the detect life spell; a crude and incredibly easy to learn technique, yet dangerously effective even in the hands of a complete amateur.
By sending out many thin and weak mana threads, one could sweep a huge area with minimal mana expenditure; any locations where the threads met resistance indicated a source of mana—in other words, a life.
Satisfied with the length and spread of her threads, Elara gently swayed them side to side, sweeping an area over 200 feet wide in less than a minute.
Immediately, she stiffened as multiple life signatures made themselves known around Grenil’s store. Some were obviously residents going about their business, moving in and out of houses or along the street as they went about their day.
However, several were highly suspicious.
They were scattered discreetly—one figure concealed behind stacked crates in a nearby alley, another crouched low on the rooftop opposite the store, at least two more hidden within the shadows of adjacent buildings. The last one—and the one that had caused her to break out in cold sweat—was hidden almost within arm’s reach, just inside the house she had been using for cover.
‘Damn it, they really were waiting.’
She swore to herself, thanking the gods and everything that was holy that she hadn’t been noticed. Letting out a shaky breath, Elara ever so slowly backed away from the building, moving as quietly as she could.
With her heart pounding in her chest, she once again crouched and closed her eyes, doing her best to refocus despite the adrenaline she could still feel pumping through her veins.
Taking a moment to steady her breathing, she crouched and closed her eyes. Murmuring softly, she felt a familiar tingle as the spell wove itself around her form.
Her body gradually faded from sight until she was almost entirely invisible, only a slight distortion in the air left to tell tale of her passing.
Grabbing hold of her mana again, she cast her third spell of the night, wincing as the mana left her body and permeated the air around her feet, muting any sound she made.
The drain of casting so many spells in such a short period of time was starting to get to her, especially as she channelled two of them at once—despite claiming to Alex that she could not do more than one.
Taking a moment to briefly sense her mana reserves, Elara’s heart rate once again increased when she realised that she was sitting on barely half left, and that amount was decreasing with every second.
She cursed internally again. If she ran out of mana, she'd lose her invisibility as well as any ability to defend herself, and then…
She shook her head sharply, forcing away the grim thoughts. She had a job to do, and worrying would only waste precious seconds. With renewed determination, Elara quickly dashed across the street and into the waiting building.
The interior was dim and silent, shafts of sunlight streaming through the windows, catching dust that hung motionless in the air. The shop looked exactly as it had the night before, but there was no bloodied figure taking up the space in the middle—Elara still shuddered at the memory of what Alex had looked like in that moment, half hidden in shadow and covered in fresh gore.
Navigating around the shards of wood still covering the floor, she made her way over to the side of the room, where she crouched and started quietly tapping the floorboards to find the compartment.
Once she did, her hands worked quickly, sliding the old wooden panel aside and pulling free the thick leather-bound tome within, idly noticing a beautifully crafted necklace lying under it.
Relief swept through her in a cool wave. She cradled the book to her chest protectively, retracing her steps with cautious haste. Every second she spent inside chipped away at her limited mana supply, the pressure building in the back of her mind in the form of a growing headache.
Back out on the street, Elara moved away from the shop at a brisk but careful pace, her body still shimmering faintly with the effects of the invisibility spell. She ran into the alleys behind the building, avoiding open spaces where her observers might be able to make out the slight distortion left in her wake.
Her thoughts were already on what route to take back when it happened.
Rounding a corner too quickly, her shoulder collided sharply with a figure hidden in the shadows. She bounced off with a surprised grunt, and the figure also stumbled back, letting out a low gasp of confusion.
Lifting her head, Elara’s breath hitched when she noticed the man who had obviously been hiding there, his face covered by a dark cloth, leaving only his eyes visible; eyes that were now locked onto the vague outline of her silhouette.
‘Ah.’
She thought.
‘Well shit.’