Medical Intervention

"You're not cutting my arm off." Blood responded quickly.

"And what?" Emile asked, "You're gonna keep this crystal here because it looks pretty? Your arm would already be dead if I didn't keep it alive—it's coming off."

"How are you even planning on taking it off?" Blood asked as he rose to his feet, stepping away from Emile.

"I'm sure you have a nice relic for that—and if you don't it's barely holding on as it is. I'm sure I could just rip it off."

"You're not ripping my arm off!" Blood raised his voice.

"You can't even move it! Or feel it! It's already dead!" Emile insisted.

"I know!" Blood's voice cracked, "I know it's gone—just use this."

Blood held his hand out and the familiar white particles quickly formed together creating a sleek, silver dagger. The dagger had a black handle and hollow pommel at its end so Blood could spit it around his fingers.

Emile accepted the relic and instructed Blood to lay down who, for once, silently obliged.

With the reflective dagger in hand, Emile raised it just above the remaining inch of flesh keeping Blood whole. With a gesture of readiness, Blood exhaled and his crystal shoulder blurred until it returned to liquid blood.

Blood immediately grit his teeth, the pain resurging just as the crystal melted. Assuming now was as good as ever, Emile angled the dagger over Blood's arm and pushed down like he was cooking.

An audible grunt escaped Blood's lips, but his arm had been fully detached. Emile pushed the lifeless limb to the side and began circulating Breath of Life. Emile's essence plummeted from 100 to 0 instantaneously, but with such a costly expenditure came a rewarding show.

Blood's skin grew at a visible rate. First, his blood congealed and blistered, creating an unnaturally thick scab from the bottom of his neck to his armpit.

The scab cycled between multiple shades of red, what was once a vibrant crimson deteriorated to a muddled brown. Then, the scab across Blood started to crack like a newborn hatching from an egg.

Each awkward or uncomfortable twitch by Blood cracked his scab casing until parts of it began to fall all together, revealing his freshly formed, pale white skin.

Blood leaned up and grabbed his old arm. He walked over to the stream of lava beside them and kneeled before it, after a few seconds of purposeful silence, Blood dropped his arm.

For a few moments things seemed to be fine, that was until the arm caught fire and the stench of burnt hair filled their small hideout. Emile tried to hold his breath for a while, but once he saw Blood rushing to the exit he followed suit.

Both were leaned over outside, their hands clutched their guts while they simultaneously heaved from the rancid smell and struggled to suck in life giving air. Finally, the arm disintegrated into the lava and the smell faded.

Wiping the spit from his mouth, Emile stood up and said:

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It's the psychological damage, Spright. It's always the psychological damage…." Blood spat onto the floor again, "Can we finally leave this place?"

Emile looked up the narrow tunnel that led down to them, "Shouldn't we wait for Luna? We don't know the way out." Emile said.

"Spright it's a mountain—just go up."

"Just go up?" Emile repeated.

"Yeah. Trust me—we're guaranteed to find a way out." The muscles below Blood's collarbone twitched while he smugly shook his head.

'Did he just try to fix a fake tie with an arm he doesn't have?'

"Lead the way." Emile gestured to the tunnel before them.

Blood confidently strode by Emile and worked his way up the tunnel. They soon came to a crossing where Emile reminded Blood that they had come from the left before, not necessarily to avoid backtracking; Emile wanted Blood to consciously choose whether they should return to a familiar place like the pit or try their luck on a new path.

Blood chose the unknown path and the two continued. After multiple hours of exploring, Emile noticed that Blood was following a rule: if they came to a fork in the road Blood would choose whichever path appeared to go up, if all the paths stayed on one level, Blood would always go right.

At first, Emile became worried that they were going in circles. After all, four rights and they'd end up in the same place, but after thinking about it some more, Emile concluded that going in a circle might actually be exactly how they're supposed to get to the top of a mountain.

Also, every tunnel they've come across so far has been lit by some type of luminescent stone. The multi-colored pebbles sat in a small bird cage and hung from the walls of the tunnels giving the atmosphere a chaotic neutral feeling.

The colors weren't too overbearing like all red and weren't too out of place like all blue would have been. The random assortment of colors mixed together, forming a general brightness for them to see.

Before he knew it, Emile crashed into Blood's back who had apparently stopped walking.

"Hey what's the—"

Blood's one hand came racing towards Emile, covering his mouth and muffling his words. Noticing the seriousness of Blood's new attitude, Emile nodded his head and Blood removed his hand.

Blood took a step back and pointed around the corner. Leaning forwards, Emile's eyes peaked around and surveyed the room.

It was a wildly spacious cavern. The ceiling towered above them, massive pillars erected themselves randomly around the room, each one carried four stone lanterns.

But the monstrous columns and the spacious room were merely assets for what laid at the center. Two huge white horns pushed towards the ceiling, dark brown scales protected the monster while its almost human, clawed hands sat beneath its chin.

The monster was unmoving, it lay at rest in the middle of the room while a low rumble escaped with each breath from the monstrosity.

Emile took a step back and looked at Blood, mouthing the words:

"What is that?!"