Eska steadies her breathing, focusing her bloodcraft to control the bleeding.
The pain remains sharp and unrelenting, gnawing at her concentration.
"Stupid!" she scolds herself. "I got overconfident. These aren't deer or boar or even argalias. These things ignore pain and keep attacking. And they're fast—way too fast."
She closes her eyes, forcing her mind away from the pain and recalls Marina's words.
"A test. Is this the test?" Eska thinks to herself, her thoughts spinning. "I chose to come in here. She only wanted to know what was outside."
The realization dawns on her. Her mind races back to what she knows.
She thinks for a few minutes. Remembering the lessons Oblea gave her on each of the monsters she has fought before.
"Wendigo vital organs are useless. To kill one, I have to decapitate it—the magic keeping them alive is tied to their head. They're just fast undead. I can do this."
Eska clenches her fists, hyping herself up as she forces her body to move despite the pain.
She pushes herself upright, the searing pain making her teeth clench. Searching the room, she pockets a few pencils before stepping back into the hall.
The space is a mess—blood, dirt and dust coat the floor and walls while bones of both humans and animals lie scattered.
Eska freezes as faint steps echo through the corridor. A single wendigo prowls the area, its throat sliced but otherwise unbothered by the injury.
Dropping to a knee, Eska throws a pencil across the hall. The sharp noise cuts through the silence and the wendigo immediately rushes toward the sound, finding nothing.
Before it can catch on, Eska tosses another pencil, this time closer to her. The faint clatter rings out, unbearably loud in the stillness.
The wendigo pivots sharply toward the noise, rushing once more in the wrong direction.
She seizes the moment, standing swiftly as the wendigo itself makes noise. From each hand, she draws long, thin strands of blood, wrapping them tightly around the creature's neck.
She yanks the strands with all her strength, forcing the wendigo to the ground as it thrashes violently. Pulling one hand back and forth like a saw, she struggles to cut through its tough skin and bone.
"Why is this so hard?" she screams internally, her arms burning from the effort.
The wendigo thrashes violently, its unnatural strength making every moment feel endless. She pulls with one hand and then the other, attempting to serrate through its neck. Her blood strands cut slowly, the creature's tough bone resisting her efforts with every pull.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the strands tear through and the wendigo's head separates from its body.
Thick blood pools on the floor as the body spasms briefly before falling still.
Relief washes over Eska, her arms trembling from the exertion as she stares at the lifeless creature.
The moment is fleeting, shattered by a distant screech echoing through the halls. Her heart sinks, pulling her back into the reality of her situation.
"Dammit," she mutters, stepping back before breaking into a sprint.
She races down the hall, finding a staircase and climbing to the next floor. At the top, she collapses onto the steps, breathing heavily and praying the screeching wendigo doesn't follow.
For a few minutes, she rests, her body trembling from exhaustion and pain.
"These creatures are so tough," she mutters to herself, taking out her canteen and a handful of berries.
As she eats and drinks, her mind drifts to Marina and Oblea. Both had warned her about wendigos—Marina had called them nearly unkillable for small time hunters while Oblea had told her to run at the first sign of one.
Regret stirs in her chest as she remembers ignoring that advice but she shakes it off after she remembers the voice coming through the device.
Eska thinks back, examining her previous encounters, noticing how much blood she's been using. "I need to make it thinner," she thinks when noticing how much blood she has been using..
"I'm wasting too much keeping my wound together." She decides to try something new. She draws her blade, the same size as it's always been.
She focuses, trying to hollow out the blade but maintaining its durability.
It proves to be challenging.
She practices while eating and drinking during her much-needed rest.
An hour passes and Eska resumes moving through the facility, carefully avoiding the wendigos' trail. Stealth, after all, is something she is familiar with.
She limps slightly, her wounds slowing her down but not enough to stop her. As she walks, she experiments further with her bloodcraft, this time attempting to create a thin layer around her hand.
Her early attempts fail as the blood keeps breaking apart from how thin she is trying to make her drawn blood, but she persists.
Eventually, Eska takes another break in a quiet room, sitting down to refine her technique. This time, she manages to form a thin, rose-colored veil of blood around her hand.
It envelops her palm and fingers evenly and she raises her hand to admire her progress. A smile spreads across her face as she nearly shouts, "I di—!" but she quickly covers her mouth with the blood-coated hand.
"Next is making it durable," she whispers to herself, determination burning in her eyes. She recalls Marina's books and the lessons about the importance of density and fine control when creating magical weapons.
With renewed focus, she prepares for the next step. Eska mutters, trying to repeat phrases she remembers from one of Marina's books.
"The effective manipulation of density requires an advanced understanding of molecular interconnectivity and energy thresholds."
She recites another part of the book, trying to make sense of the process.
"Density augmentation demands precise energy modulation to ensure molecules retain cohesion under extreme compression."
Focused on her experiment, she doesn't notice the growl to her left until it breaks through her concentration. She freezes, her heart racing as she slowly turns toward the sound.
A wendigo crawls closer, moving low to the ground, its emaciated body barely making a sound.
The creature inches forward, its movements deliberate and unnerving. Eska takes a careful step back, trying to stay quiet but the wendigo suddenly snaps its head in her direction.
It lets out a sharp click, followed by an ear-piercing screech and charges at her in a blur of speed.
Eska spins to run but the searing pain in her back slows her down.
Gritting her teeth, she forces herself to recover but the creature closes the distance too quickly. As its claws lash out, Eska twists her body, narrowly dodging the attack. Instinctively, she wraps her right hand in the thin, reinforced blood veil she'd been practicing with and throws a punch.
Her fist connects, staggering the wendigo back a few feet.
Eska stares at the creature in shock, her breathing ragged. She glances down at her fist, now covered in a faintly glowing purplish veil.
The wendigo recovers almost instantly, letting out an enraged screech. Its face twists in fury as Eska steadies herself.
She draws her blade with her right hand while reinforcing her left with bloodcraft, though her slow movements reveal the toll her wounds are taking.
This time, Eska charges first. The wendigo bolts at her, swiping its claws but she deflects the attack with her reinforced hand. Using the momentum, she drives her blade straight through its neck.
The creature lets out an ear-splitting screech, thick blood pouring from the wound. It thrashes wildly, its claws raking across Eska's torso, tearing through her clothing and skin.
Gritting her teeth, she twists the blade upward, a sickening crack echoing from its neck.
With one final move, Eska spins the blade, bringing it down to slice through the other side. The wendigo's head hangs limply, barely attached by the bone, as it collapses to the floor.
Eska wastes no time, piercing its neck again and severing the head completely, silencing the creature for good.
She stands there, breathing heavily, her entire body wracked with pain.
Blood drips from the gashes on her torso as she stumbles, collapsing briefly to the ground.
"I'm out of blood," she thinks, her vision blurring. "I can't keep this up for much longer."
Forcing herself upright, Eska limps forward, clutching her side as she moves through the cold corridors. The freezing air stings her wounds but numbs the pain enough for her to keep going.
Eventually, she reaches a set of stairs and stops, her legs trembling. "Shit," she thinks, leaning against the wall.
"I need to stop here. I can only hold my blood inside for so long with this pain."
Eska opens her bag and pulls out a small green pouch. Inside, she finds a sweet-smelling ointment and a cloth.
She applies the ointment to the cloth, presses it against the wounds she can reach and uses her last bandage to wrap herself as best as she can.
Taking a moment, she focuses her mind to regain control of her blood, easing the flow and lowering the pain. The relief allows her to relax, if only briefly, before she continues her trek upstairs and through the hallways.
After some time, she reaches a large, round room with no door and no other visible exit.
The room is lined with console panels, most of which are heavily damaged. In the center, a broken metal tube looms ominously, evidence of something large having broken out of it.
Scattered throughout the room are skeletons with fragments of dried, rotting flesh clinging to them, many torn apart and spread across the floor.
After circling the room and finding nothing else of note, she heads back toward the broken specimen tube.
As she takes a step, the floor rumbles beneath her feet.
Eska freezes, holding her breath, but when nothing more happens, she lets out a sigh of relief and continues walking.
Suddenly, the rumble returns, louder this time and before she can react, the floor collapses beneath her, sending her plunging into the darkness below.
Eska instinctively raises her hands to protect her head as she tumbles through the rubble. Curling into a ball, she braces for impact and lands hard on her side against a slab of concrete.
"Oof!" she groans, pain shooting through her body from the jarring fall.
Pushing herself up with trembling arms, she tries to gather her bearings. A screech echoes from the top of the room, sharp and piercing.
Her heart races as another screech joins it, then another, surrounding her in an overwhelming cacophony of sound.