Page 105 of I Ran Away to Evil
“And,” he continued, “I’m throwing you in our dungeon when we get home. You need more sessions with Rufus.”
I put up both hands then and pushed him away. “You’re not—Your shoulder! What happened?!”
Even through my barely recovered vision, I could see the stark red blood that matted his sleeve. A blade had cut through his clothing. I leaned closer and felt a wave of relief; there was only a nick in the flesh of his bicep.
“Someone,” Keith whispered into my ear, dragging back my attention, “deals [Void Damage]. My greatest weakness.”
I blushed. My father’s spies had guessed that information, which was why my father had sent me into the dungeon to find Jacqueline. It was something I’d planned to mention to Keith someday.Today, actually. When we’d reached the top floor of the dungeon, and I could let loose.
It probably wasn’t the best way to find out … being stabbed by your date.
“One more thing,” Keith said, looking strangely intense. I braced myself. “Did you level up?”
CHAPTER 64
The Bloodthirsty Urge to Go Burn Down Drendil’s Castle
Keith
[Error! High Tier Spell:Dark Flarehas failed. You take base mana cost x3 modifier damage to Health.]
[Warning! You haveManaBurn. You will continue to burn mana until you Rest. Mana burned at 1/3 base rate due to Arcane Sage Perk:Slow Burn.]
[You have 01:18:42 until Death byMana Burn.]
The dungeon boss on level nine had spawned mini bosses. While Keith was distracted blowing them up, the boss had managed to slide a tentacle of darkness around his leg—which he couldn’t see very well, since he was holding a princess in a princess hold in his arms.
This was the first time he’d tried to fight while protecting someone, and it was very distracting.
The tentacle broke Keith’s high-level “By Draconic Flame that Bursts Forth, [Dark Flare]” cast, and he felt the spell rebound.
Every time. He’d had more spells fail since Henrietta had shown up at his castle than he’d had in the lastdecade.
It was the work of willpower to clean up the boss through the [Mana Burn] pain, down a health potion, and teleport out of there.
By the time they were back in the market outside the dungeon, Keith was fighting a pounding headache and the still-burning sensation where [Void Damage] had sliced his arm.
After he sat down with Ria, Keith shuffled a bit and popped a green high-grade mana potion. He sighed as he recovered a hundred mana, giving him extratime before he passed out. He could force himself to stay awake until he died from the mana bleed, or he could let sleep take him and start recovering … Unfortunately he’d be out for a good sixteen hours and he didn’t want that.
Better to push it to the last minute and use mana potions to get back to Gren’s Keep. Safer too, when assassins were still running around the forest.
He was seriously resisting the bloodthirsty urge to go burn down Drendil’s castle. He didn’t know what exactly had caused Henrietta’s crippling phobia, but her begging him to, “Let me out,” implied this wasn’t simply an I-got-trapped-in-a-dungeon-pit-for-too-long fear and more of a someone-locked-me-up-and-wouldn’t-let-me-out type of response.
He could hazard a guess as to who could lock a princess up in a dark room until she broke.
As much as he wanted to go off and destroy everything … Keith still had Henrietta to see too and a bed with his name on it. For now.
His shoulder’s still hurt from where the wings had dragged behind him. He’d dropped a good amount of mana in order to sustain his [Flight] spell at its highest speed, and his construct wings suffered from getting whipped behind him. The floor boss had even torn one of the wings trying to pull him from the sky, not realizing it was actually a spell keeping them aloft.
He’d made the wings when he wasten. They were useful and looked impressive, but they were not durable or a replacement for the actual high-class magical spell.
After portaling out, he’d ordered a private tent for them and set about taking care of Henrietta.
Which led to their current conversation. He meant what he’d said. As soon as they were home, he was going to drop her off straight into their dungeon for another Rufus session.
Before she could get upset over attacking and injuring him, Keith changed distraction tactics.
“Did you level up?”
