Chapter 286: Something Went Wrong with the Ritual
Underground Base, Bolton Lands
POV of Domeric Bolton
Domeric woke up to the sound of someone crying.
His fingers twitched in response, and he opened his mouth to speak something, but the raw pain in his throat stopped him from doing any such thing, and he coughed.
The resulting pain in his throat woke him entirely up, and he coughed a few more times, each cough sending a jolt of pain from his throat before he finally calmed down.
He felt someone saying some gibberish and massaging his back.
He blearily opened his eyes and saw the ground filled with black dust.
He took some dust on his index finger and rubbed it with his thumb. Why, he had no idea.
Where was he? Why was his whole body burning in pain?
He felt someone around him and saw… Ygritte.
"Ygritte." His words were barely above a whisper, and he flinched at the pain it caused him.
Why was his throat hurting so much?
"Thank old gods you're alright." She said, her eyes filled with tears, and she bent down to kiss him.
"Where're we?" he whispered and once again grimaced at the pain.
Ygritte smiled at him through her tears. "In the ritual room. Did you forget?"
The ritual room? What…
Oh…
The memories came back to him.
The pain. The screaming. The sensation of his body being torn to pieces and being rebuilt over and over.
He shivered in fear, and Ygritte's grip around him tightened.
Then, as if remembering something, she reached for her bottomless pouch and took out… a large blanket from inside it.
The red colored embroidery on the blanket was beautiful. It reminded him of…
He removed the image of Ginny from his mind and focused on Ygritte.
A part of him realized that he was still a little disoriented, while the other part felt comfort as Ygritte wrapped the blanket around him.
"Dittany." He whispered to her.
"What?" she asked, turning her head toward him to listen more closely.
"Essence of Dittany." He said.
She nodded and quickly reached for his bottomless pouch.
She put her hand inside it and took out a large trunk a few moments later.
She opened the trunk. It was filled to the brim with various kinds of potions he had managed to brew recently since he obtained the Alchemy Fountain and took out the bottle named Essence of Dittany.
It was not the real Essence of Dittany. Not really. It was a substitute for the healing potion that he'd managed to make according to the recipe he got from the Alchemy Fountain with the ingredients he had found around the world and grown in his magical glass house.
But even as a substitute for the Essence of Dittany, it was still a healing potion and far better than any other mundane medicine out there. It was even slightly better than the real Essence of Dittany.
He closed his eyes to check the state of his body to see if it was all right for him to consume a potion so quickly after such a powerful ritual.
His body was filled with magical residue to the brim, and he wasn't sure if it was entirely safe to drink the magical potion right now.
It could help him as much as it could kill him at this point.
Should he take the risk?
He opened his eyes and shook his head.
"Library." He whispered to her, feeling more sluggish and weak by the moment.
"You want me to take you to the library?" Ygritte asked. He nodded, the world becoming blurry by the moment.
Ygritte put the bottle back in the trunk, then the trunk back in the pouch, before she picked him up in a princess carry and took him out of the room.
'This is a little humiliating,' were his last thoughts before he lost consciousness once again.
---------------
The next time Domeric woke up, he was in his bed. The bed he had set up at the corner of the library for days when he pulled all-nighters and didn't bother to go back to the castle to sleep.
He looked around and found Ygritte sleeping on a chair beside him. Why she didn't simply sleep with him was beyond him.
He looked down and noticed that she was holding on to his hand. He couldn't resist massaging her soft hand with his thumb.
Ygritte groaned and blinked a few times before her eyes opened, and she looked at him.
"Water," he whispered, still feeling a bit weak, and his throat was still sore, protesting with a good deal of pain.
She nodded groggily, took out a pitcher of water from her bottomless pouch, and helped him to drink.
After drinking his fill, he closed his eyes and looked at the residual magic left in his body from the ritual.
There was still a good deal of residual magic. Something that won't go any further for a whole decade, but it was safe for him to drink the potions now.
"Dittany." He whispered. Ygritte nodded and quickly took out the potion that she had already kept on a table nearby.
He removed the cork from the bottle and emptied the whole potion in one go.
The potion tasted and smelled like sewage, and his empty stomach protested.
He already knew that he would get diarrhea from drinking the potion on an empty stomach, but he needed to heal.
He gave a motion to Ygritte, and she helped him into the bed.
He was thankful for her presence. Without her, recovering from this ritual would have been a whole lot harder for him.
He closed his eyes and rested.
A few seconds later, he felt the warmth from the magical potion permeate his body, and his strength slowly started returning to him.
He clenched his fists and moved his fingers in his legs.
Better.
"Food." He said. His throat was still hurting from speaking, but the pain had gone down in intensity.
Ygritte nodded and handed him a plate of warm food that he had kept in stasis for emergencies.
This situation was not much of an emergency, but he wasn't going to say no to good food.
Unfortunately, his throat was still too raw from all the screaming to eat solid food.
He removed the stasis, and then, with wandless magic, he mixed the food with water and pureed it all. And then he quickly consumed them all.
Pureed foods were much easier to consume, and the body digested them much faster.
But unlike normal, as soon as the pureed food reached his stomach, the magical residue accumulated in his body after the ritual started to activate again and began to rapidly decompose the food in his stomach and distribute it throughout his body.
And in that moment, Domeric realized where he had gone wrong with the ritual and how he ended up in this situation.
"More, please," Domeric said. His throat was already feeling better.
And for the next fifteen minutes, Domeric rapidly consumed everything Ygritte put in front of him, turning it into puree first, until the magical residue in his body slowed the food's decomposition.
The dittany had also done its job, and he could already feel the pain in his body turning into simple soreness. But it also left him both physically and magically tired.
He motioned to Ygritte, and she helped him back under the blanket, where he closed his eyes.
Ygritte, feeling sleepy herself, entered under the blanket and wrapped her hand around him.
He smiled at her, though he doubted she would see it in the darkness, and fell asleep.
---------------
LAST DAY!
Hey folks.
You can get a 50% discount on all my Patreon memberships with the code END2025 until January 2nd.
---------------
Author's Note: You folks can also read up to +65 chapters on my P@treon Page as an early access privilege.
You can also read "+3 Free Chapter" and see some pictures as aFree Member.
www.patreon.com/vanguard_v
P@treon Page Name: V For Vanguard
Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.287: New Look - Dragonlord Appearance
Ch.288: Enchanted Valyrian Armor and Staff
Ch.289: Staffs vs. Wands