Chapter 10: Chapter IX – Jessica – Know Your Worth

After a few moments of darkness, lights began to spring to life all around the duo, these walls seemingly holding the same crystals as the chamber they had just exited. The tunnel became bathed in soft green light. Jess smiled softly as they noticed that their hair was once again glowing softly, having taken on a slightly less saturated green before. It was now slowly returning to its normal color, but Jess was feeling a little woozy. They stumbled slightly before catching their balance and taking a moment to attempt to recompose themself.

“Jessie…? Are you alright? It didn’t seem like you used that much essence back there… I know you don’t have the biggest essence supply ever, but still… I’d think that you would be okay after that…” Beth observed, offering them a shoulder which they reluctantly took as the two continued on down the tunnel.

Jess shook their head and sighed. “It’s not that… It’s just that the presence of all of those crystals… I felt like I was being pulled in every direction all at once the entire time and I can still feel it a little bit…”

Beth nodded, increasing her pace slightly, hoping to get them as far away from the crystals as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the cavern seemed to be loosely spiraling away from the previous chamber. As Beth looked down at their badges, she noticed that they still had a good amount of time left. The last chamber had taken a little longer than it should have, but that just meant they would have to take these next two much more aggressively. Hopefully, Jess wouldn’t be as out of commission for the walk to the next one and they’d be able to go through it a little faster. Despite the hinderance, it only took about five minutes to arrive at the next chamber.

They were once again met with a small alcove carved in to the tunnel, but this time, instead of simply having a curtain of dark plants covering an opening, there was a slightly more ornate set of stone doors. They were embellished with gold in certain places and in the center there was the symbol of the Sage of the Forest, the emerald rose.

Beth pushed open the doors, finding that they were surprisingly easy to move considering their size. Inside of the doors there was a large room carved out of rock. It was much smaller than the previous chamber in both the height and the width. The rock was much smoother, though there were still the occasional natural rock formations dotted all around the room, as if to remind that they truly were underground.

In the center of the room, there was a small platform that seemed to have an altar atop it. The stone of the platform was even more smooth than the rest of the room, causing it to feel a bit out of place in the room. It was a square about twenty feet on each side. In the corners of the platform, there were pillars that extended upwards maybe two feet above their height. The pillars were engraved with all kinds of writing and symbols that neither Jess nor Beth could decipher.

Ascending up the stairs of the platform, the two came to face the most likely subject of this chamber, an altar with a strange stone hovering above it. The alter was relatively simple, but the stone above it was more peculiar. It was a rough stone sphere, the stone much darker than all of the stone that made up the room. In the sphere, there was small channel that led to the center, revealing that, within the center, there was some kind of green crystal.

Setting down Jess and walking over to the altar, Beth began to inspect the sphere. She edged around it cautiously, not wanting to touch it in the event that it might activate some kind of challenge or something. After a little bit of waiting and recovery, Jess made their way to their feet and joined Beth in inspecting the sphere, pondering what this orb might actually be.

As Jess continued to stare at the orb, they began to feel a strange pull that seemed to be emanating from their chest. Looking down, they found that their chest was glowing slightly. They could feel an almost life-like presence coming from within the orb and before they even knew what was happening, their hand had raised and was mere inches from the surface of the orb. Placing their hand on it, they initially found nothing unusual, but then, the pull that they had felt grew more intense and they began to feel incredibly drained.

In shock and fear, they quickly pulled their hand back, staring at the orb as someone might a live explosive. Looking down at their hand, they found that it had been glowing green, but now the glow was quickly fading.

“I think that thing just tried to drain my essence…” Jess offered as they stepped back from the orb, looking at Beth with a bit of concern.

“Do you think maybe we should let it then?” Beth asked.

Jess thought for a moment. “I don’t know… I still don’t really get exactly get what each of these tasks are meant to be testing…”

Beth paused for a moment before replying, “I mean, they’re supposed to be testing our readiness to be a searcher. What are they biggest things you need to be a searcher? You need to be able to find and obtain heart fragments and you also need to be able to defend yourself in general. I figure the last challenge might be a test of strength or something like that. Though… maybe this one is the test of strength…” Beth offered.

“Well… if it does drain your essence when you touch it for too long, maybe the idea is to touch it for a very short amount of time and the best way to do that would be to hit it, I’d think…”

Beth narrowed her eyes as she stared at her ram companion who was currently avoiding eye contact and was already cracking their knuckles as if they were ready to throw down with someone. She then sighed and nodded, motioning for Jess to go on, knowing that, at this point, it would do very little good to try and talk them out of this course of action. “You know… you can’t solve every problem by punching things…”

Jess smiled brightly as they pulled their fist back, excited and ready to strike. “Not with that attitude, you can’t. It’s all about how hard you hit though!”

As they said that, they covered their fist in construct essence and thrust forward with practically every ounce of physical strength in their body that they could muster. They planted their foot and slammed their fist against the stone orb, hoping to shatter it, but the only thing that ended up breaking was the construct magic which shattered almost immediately.

Jess frowned and backed up before launching in to a volley of punching, burning through a good chunk of essence for the thin construct armaments they were using to ensure they didn’t break their hands. By the time they had worn away almost half of their essence supply, they fell backwards, slumping against the pillar in the corner and staring angrily at the stone orb.

Beth hovered over them and smirked softly. “So, how’d it go…?”

Jess avoided her eyes and sighed. “Oh… shut up… I get it… You were correct about brute force not being the answer…”

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Beth smiled and nodded. “Although, just for the sake of being sure, why don’t we both hit it at the same? As hard as we can.”

“Does that mean you want me to…?” Jess started, being met with a nod as Beth positioned herself on the other side of the orb.

The two of them formed seals underneath themselves, digging their feet in and getting as much leverage as possible as they began to conjure their armaments. Once they had, Beth nodded to Jess who closed their eyes and took in a deep breath. The air around them began to shift and seemed to be electrified. Glowing green sparking flames began to sprout up all over Jess’s body, the glow of their hair growing more intense until they finally opened their eyes and nodded to Beth. Silently, the two counted to three before thrusting their fists forward, each hitting the orb with everything they had.

As their fists made contact, the two found no give at all, but each persevered, slamming the orb with their raw fists before recoiling, each crying out in pain as they fell backwards and groaned. Now thoroughly bruised and bloodied, the two looked to each other and sighed, falling on to their back, groaning once more at the impact of their heads with the hard stone platform.

“Well… that didn’t work… at all…” Jess finally said.

“Yeah… Definitely not…” Beth agreed.

After a few moments of sulking on the ground, the two finally made their way to their feet again. Jess stared at the orb and then down at their hand before sighing and moving forward.

“Woah, what are you doing?” Beth asked, concerned.

“Well, brute force certainly isn’t working, so… why don’t we just let it take our essence? I don’t have much, but maybe it’s more about how much of yours it takes… Maybe it will drain me completely, but still work. You have more essence and are much more adept at using it, so it’s probably best for me to do this. We’re losing less.”

Beth bit her lip and nodded, not happy about the idea, but knowing that Jess was likely quite correct. She watched on in apprehension as Jess reached their hand out and placed it on the surface of the orb. Beth winced, closing her eyes unconsciously, eventually opening them to watch.

As Jess’s hand made contact with the orb, they once again felt the pull and then the feeling of their entire body slowly being drained of energy. They steeled themself, allowing the essence to flow out of them. This time, as it did, the holes in the orb began to grow in to large cracks all over until, finally, the drain was complete and Jess was left empty. The cracks had expanded all over the orb and as Jess removed their hand, on the verge of passing out, the rock crumbled away and disappeared, turning in to glowing green dust just before hitting the platform.

Left in its place was a vibrantly glowing green crystal shard that seemed to be pulsing softly with life. Having removed their hand, Jess’s essence was slowly beginning to return and along with it, they thought they heard a voice coming from the shard.

“Come on…” the voice beckoned.

Out of some strange sense of obligation, Jess made their way back to their feet and reached out towards the shard, wrapping their fingers around it and feeling a searing pain coursing through their body, scars starting to form on their hand.

Beth quickly pulled them off, staring at them, her eyes full of concern. As she looked down at Jess’s hand, she began to tear up, clutching it tightly.

“What were you thinking?! You have almost no essence in your body… Your healing is really slow right now… Even if it weren’t… you can’t just go around touching origin shards…”

Jess shyly looked away. “I heard it call out to me…”

Beth gave them a confused look as she began to wrap their hand in some leaves with pain dulling properties. “What do you mean…?”

“You didn’t hear it…? It was calling me to it…” Jess said in an almost dream-like voice.

Beth noticed that their chest was glowing slightly and as she finished tending to their wounds, Jess made their way back to their feet, their eyes fixated on the shard. They began slowly walking toward it once more. This time, as they reached out towards the shard, their hand seemed to be engulfed in pure life energy that they were taking out of their own essence, turning it in to a green mist. As their hand got closer, the life energy was funneled in to the shard and the shard began to pulse more quickly, almost like a heartbeat until they finally touched it. The pain returned once more, but it was lesser this time and, after only a few moments, it subsided. The light of the shard expanded outwards, engulfing the room in bright green light.

“Come on…”

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