Pain. It seemed that with the amount he was being forced to endure Veric would be used to the sensation, but there was no luck for him in that regard. The pain in his non-existent arm slowly grew as his mind was clearing away the cloudy feeling of being unconscious until it stopped to just a throbbing pain. He slowly propped himself up into a sitting position and did a once over inspection of the tattered remains that was his small almost skeletal body. "How am I still alive?" He asked a question to no one in particular, just now realizing how nonsensical it was that after everything that happened, he was still drawing breath, albeit shakily when he felt a sharp pain that traveled through his body as a punishment for being too greedy with the amount of air he was taking in.
'One right arm, two legs, well a wounded right leg and a mostly intact left, guess I should feel lucky about that. Still the amount of deep cuts and gashes i had all over my body should have had me at least bleed out.' He guided his bandaged hand gently around his body, touching the various scabbed and sealed wounds, reaching up to his face to find a cut going from the bridge of his nose, across the right cheek and ending just before the jawline. After inspecting the appendages he had left and torso he brought his attention to the source of the throbbing pain.
All he could think of was both the pain of feeling something that wasn't there and panic of wondering what he was going to do now that he was incomplete. ' I saw men and women missing arms and legs in town, working and laughing, and some were crying and drinking if they had money, but what am I supposed to do? How do I work? How do I eat? Who is going to help me!?' As Veric's mind was swirling with these chaotic thoughts, tears started streaming down the childs' face. He had never seen a child with missing limbs where he lived. That right there told him that there were only two options for incomplete children, adding on the fact that he was a dark sorcerer and he had a pretty clear idea of what was going to happen to him. Unskilled, weak and maimed, and ostracized. Death by the wolf beasts may have been a kinder end.
Veric buried his face in his remaining hand and sobbed. As collected as he was before, it was glaringly clear that he was still immature, in both body and mind. After weeping for his future for a while he was left with no more tears and was staring blankly at the moss that grew on the opposite wall, watching the light it gave off intensify before dimming to repeat the pattern. 'What do i do? I am scared, I don't want to die. Who will help me? No one….But what do i do? WHat can keep me alive??' Asking himself these questions over and over khe was suddenly reminded of the words spoken by the young woman, Serena. "Leave this place and grow strong enough to come back, but most importantly, grow the fire in your heart, that is power as well." He was thinking of the 'fire' she was talking about and remembered it flaring and filling him with strength in one particular instance
Gritting his teeth and finding himself missing a bottom front tooth and top molar, he pushed against the wall and slowly stood shakily to his feet, enduring the pain racking his body. He said out loud in a strained voice, "She already showed me what I can do next. Anthony, Rachel, Eloi, the people who named me a dark sorcerer….the gods. All of them are what I need to show them as much care as they did me. Every single one of them will feel everything that they did to me. Every single one of them will endure all the pain I will have before meeting them. I will use everything they give to make myself stronger! I WILL BURN THEM!!!" After every word he shouted, Veric could feel his heart burning. It was beating normally but the veins were pulsating, pumping a formless energy throughout his broken and battered body. The process was painful, both the screaming and burning, but neither mattered as he had found the hope he needed to move forward.
After calming down, Veric noticed that while almost to the point of not noticing it at all, the pain lessened, and the wounds on his body seemed to take on a better shade of bruising and inflammation. Placing a hand over his chest he could feel his heartbeat a little stronger and a faint heat radiating from the middle of his chest. 'This is the fire she talked about. The anger made it hotter and helped my body a little. It feels like I can walk a little without falling.' Aloud ing a hoarse voice, not even being able to raise above a whisper, he said "Thank you Serena, i'll be back soon enough." Glancing around he saw the scattered ointment containers, bloodied pieces of cloth and vials of the healing mixture. After drinking another healing mixture, he lifted up a water bag and poured it over a clean piece of cloth and began the process of rebandaging himself leaving the ones done by Serena.
After a time he finished and gathered everything together, separating it into trash and whatever was still usable like the empty vials and containers. He then activated his vital core, sending the energy it gathered down the energy veins traveling through his neck, to his shoulder, making its way to his hand that became enshrouded by slightly distorted space. He tried using the origin energy he felt burning in his heart but it only traveled up the energy veins leading to his vital core a little before going back to his heart and dispersing into his body. 'It seems that it has no use for me other than making me a little tougher. What can I use it for?' Putting the question aside, he started emptying his personal space of what was left that was in there besides the medical supplies. Herbs, a couple of books, some clothes, a small sack of dried meat, a grinding wheel and mortar and pistil, and a small pouch of coins were all that was left of Josh's stuff. There were also a couple of knives that were dropped by Anthony that he picked up before they had to run from the wolf beasts.
He looked for the smallest shirt and pants he could and cut the legs and arm to fit before he tied the scraps of cloth together to make himself some kind of belt. He tied the left arm sleeve off before letting his eyes linger at his almost comical appearance. Obviously being a tailor was not the way to start on his path to revenge. Pulling his attention away from that sight, he looked through the sack of meat and started gnawing on the meat that had the consistency of leather. 'Wait is this leather?' He didn't have time to answer before he saw what was in the coin pouch. 'Ten bronze coins and two silver, enough for some bread and a little actual meat. I wonder if I have enough to have a place to stay. It would be safer than the crowded broken house I was staying in before.' After assessing his finances, Veric looked at the precious books that had actual paper. 'Josh said this one had a bunch of the descriptions of plants and animal parts he uses to make medicine. And this one had his descriptions of how to make a medicine and what it does. There are a lot of empty pages in this one and I can read most of the words but I can't read most in the other one.' Deciding against selling them even though they would get at least a couple of silvers he rewrapped the journal and put it back into his personal space along with the medicines, money and encyclopedia, the rest he put in the regular space.
Only one thing was left out and Veric was staring at it, unsure of what to do with it. 'The collar control device, do I keep it or turn it back into the Mercenary guild? If I keep it then no one can use it against me and I can figure out how to get the collar off without the core overloading and killing me. But if i don't then i won't be rented out to work as a porter and will have to find something else to make money. If I am caught then I'll be sent to the labor camp and hiding it with a scarf won't work for long.' He stayed in thought for a while before making up his mind, 'No, I just got my freedom back, I need to find out if I can find someone to take the collar off before they find out. I won't just give my freedom away by choice.'
He turned his hand with the device in it upwards and it disappeared into his personal space. As he was about to get up, something caught his eye. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around it and brought it closer to his face. It was the bone shard he broke off. Rubbing his finger on the edges and on the body of the bone he activated his vital core and it disappeared into his personal space. It would serve as a reminder of what was taken from him. He looked around now that everything was cleaned up and looked at the way in front of him. The other way led to the wolf beasts so this was the only way to go so he started making his way forward while relying on his experience from working as a porter in the past to try and find the way out.
While ducking, crawling and walking through tunnels, Veric started thinking about his interaction with Serena. 'Who is she and why is she down here? What did she mean by vessel? She laughed a lot and seemed friendly but I could see that when she was talking about the gods, she was angry. What happened to make her hate them?' As he was thinking, he finally saw light that was brighter than the moss and started rushing to it as fast as he could with the left arm of his shirt flagging behind him.
As Veric approached the source of light he found that it was a vine covered crack that led outside into the forest. He raised his hand and one of the knives appeared in his hand and used it to start cutting the vines. It took a while because the blades were meant for piercing and not slashing so they didn't have much of an edge but eventually he successfully cut the natural barrier and stepped outside feeling like a completely different person than when he first went in.