A sudden, firm push from behind sent her stumbling forward onto the path.
Bazren: "Move it! With any luck, you'll be back before you know it. Not like it's going anywhere, anyway..."
Mola caught her balance, her shoulders slumping as she began to walk away without a backward glance.
Mola (muttering): "It's not the tower that I'm worried about..."
Bazren: "What's that?"
Mola: "Nothing."
Xayn, who had already strode out ahead, turned back, his new, handsome face incongruous with the ancient weariness in his eyes.
Xayn: "Come on, you two! Let's make the most out of the day while the sun's still up."
His gaze, a piercing cyan, settled on Mola.
Xayn: "You'll have to be our guide, I'm afraid. Which way to this tournament?"
She passed him without a word, her eyes fixed on the distant horizon, her silence a heavy cloak. With the sorceress setting a brisk, joyless pace, the trio advanced into the vibrant green landscape, a procession of ghosts walking under a sun that felt like a judgment.
Xayn: "So, Mola... We've told you about us. Care to pay us back in kind? Share something about you?"
Mola shrugged, the heavy burlap sack shifting on her shoulder.
Mola: "There really isn't much to say."
A scoff, sharp and derisive, cut through the air from behind them.
Bazren: "Is that so? Well, I can think of at least one thing! Why don't you share with us what was going through your head when you created that possessed, genocidal dagger, for starters...?"
Mola's stride didn't falter. She shook her head, her voice as flat and grey as the tower they'd left behind.
Mola: "Look... Whether you want to believe me or not, I never intended for that massacre to happen. As I said... the dagger was merely going to serve as proof. Proof that I could control dark magic and imbue an item with it, greatly enhancing its... properties."
Bazren: "Suure... The kind of properties that cause accelerated *rot* and *decay*!"
Mola shrugged again, a gesture of profound indifference.
Mola: "So? Countless powerful wizards are known to enchant weapons with elemental magic. I wanted to show my Master that, like other types of magic, black magic too could be manipulated to achieve such a purpose... Unfortunately, I failed."
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She glanced down at her hands, flexing the fingers.
Mola: "... Or perhaps I succeeded too well. I did more than I imagined... The weapon was not meant to become sentient. Tools are tools. The better they follow your commands, the better... Conscious tools tend to be unpredictable. At the time, I couldn't understand why. Every time I sacrificed something in the past in order to summon the Void... I did so with great strain, and the results were always... mediocre."
Xayn listened, his expression thoughtful, while Bazren's pink eyes narrowed, trying to dissect the truth from the justification.
Mola: "All of a sudden, the roles reversed. Instead of pushing, I had to hold back. There was more magic pouring from me than ever before... Now... Now I think I get it."
She stopped, turning to face them, the bright, living world a stark backdrop to the deadness in her eyes.
Mola: "The destruction of Mortmundus must have catalyzed all of this. This voice I hear inside my head... The sudden amplification of powers I took a lifetime to understand... It all makes sense. *You two* are to blame for all this."
She pointed a trembling, accusing finger.
Mola: "The people who died... Even my master... If it hadn't been for you, none of it would've happened!"
Bazren: "HEY! What kind of rotten logic is-"
Mola: "IRONY!"
Her voice cracked, rising with a hysterical edge.
Mola: "It is pure, pure irony... that when I first met you, my instincts were to blame you. I didn't know anything about you at the time, other than you were two monsters that didn't belong... the perfect scapegoat for my failure, all the evidence I needed to feign innocence. Little did I know... that I was actually RIGHT!"
Bazren: "What you are is *delusional*! You've been playing with fire, and now you actually got burnt. And it serves you right!"
Xayn listened to their furious exchange, his gaze unreadable, his mind tracing the connections, looking beyond the anger for the shape of the truth beneath. He let the heat of their argument pass before he spoke, his voice cutting through the fury, quiet and sharp as a shard of ice.
Xayn: "What is the most you've ever sacrificed... Mola?"
The argument stopped dead. The ensuing silence was absolute.
Mola turned away.
Xayn: "You said that every time you summoned the Void in the past, you did so under great strain. What was the most painful thing you sacrificed...?"
Mola: "... I fail to see how that matters."
Xayn: "I'm just trying to understand. During our battle in the village, a pinky was all it took for you to bring that town to ruin. Now, I want to know what kind of sacrifice it would have taken you before this 'amplification' as you so dubbed it, to manifest that much power."
Mola was quiet for a long moment, the memory a foul taste in her mouth.
Mola: "... Before, I would have never managed anything close. The most I ever did was murder two people. What I gave in exchange doesn't matter... All I can say is that it cost me far more than a pinky."
The confession was delivered with such chilling flatness it made Bazren's skin crawl.
Bazren: "Well, see to it that you don't sacrifice anything else when we're around. As you say... tools are better when they follow your commands. Your chaotic powers will do us no good."
Mola: "I will make no such promises... You are too short-sighted to see the true potential behind this shift! If I could summon that kind of strength with just a finger... What if I merely sacrifice a thin slice of my skin? An eyelash? A nail? A lock of hair...? Could that kind of sacrifice, which would have been useless then, now grant me enough leverage to stand toe to toe with the most powerful of magic users...?!"
The thought brought a faint, disturbing spark of life back to her eyes, the cold curiosity of a scholar examining a fascinating, deadly specimen.
Xayn: "Either way, Bazren has a point. If you must experiment, I ask that you do so well away from us, and preferably civilization. Let's try to reach our destination as alive and as inconspicuously as possible, shall we? I believe that'll be for the best, for all of us."
Bazren: "Better yet, stick to more 'traditional' magic and quit dark magic for good..."
A short, brittle laugh escaped Mola's lips.
Mola: "I believe you know me well enough to know that's not an option, Bazren... But yes, rest assured. I am not so foolish as to let myself lose control again, now that I know how much my limits have changed."
Bazren raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Bazren: "... Do you really?"
A strange, unreadable smile touched Mola's lips as she turned and resumed her walk, her back to them once more.
Mola: "I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it...!"