The process of training Entisse to receive Poison Resistance was a deadly mirror to that of the method used with Aslan. While Symon's Dumosan friend had been more than willing to try, he lacked the reckless enthusiasm that the elf displayed now. Receiving a resistance was an incredible boon, but not without its dangers. There'd been a solemn, almost ritualistic air about the process, the man subjecting himself to the torture more out of duty than desire. Meanwhile, Entisse…

"More! More!" she hissed loudly, sputtering when a wave of pollen washed over her face. She was halfway submerged in the pollen barrier, her front sticking out like she was floating on water, only vertically.

"Keep your mouth closed!" Symon chided. "Just because the pollen burns itself out magically doesn't mean it physically vanishes. It'll still be in your lungs."

It sounded like she tried to say something, but all that came out was a hissing cough.

"Yes, exactly," he said, then shuffled to his left. Entisse followed the movement. Her eyes were closed, but her long, stick-thin fingers wrapped around his wrist for guidance. He imagined it would feel similar to hold hands with an octopus.

She would occasionally flinch when a particularly strong wave of the pollen washed over her, causing her claws to dig into his flesh involuntarily. With his Pain Resistance, he felt almost nothing, and his vitality would heal the wound before he could even see it. Still, her claws and his forearms were smeared with his blood.

A steady stream of vitality also transferred into her through their contact, the healing perfectly matching the damage the mist caused. By now, he'd worked out exactly how much he needed for the current rate of damage. Her normally pale grey skin was dyed a bruised purple, but no other damage was apparent. The vitality was ready and waiting for the exact moment it was needed.

"This is sustainable. Ready to ramp it up?" he asked. The more serious the injuries, the faster she'd acquire the resistance, and he was currently draining more vitality from the roses than he spent on healing.

She nodded wordlessly, but he paused before continuing.

"How's your mana looking? If you run out, you could just walk out, but we'd have to repeat the process every time." The amount of mana burned by the pollen was minuscule, which is why no one had noticed before, but it would still eventually deplete her reserves and make further training much slower.

She poked her head fully out of the mist and took a few hacking coughs to mostly clear her lungs. "Not a problem. Blood to mana."

Symon nodded in appreciation. No wonder she seemed so willing to attach herself to him despite her reservations against humans — his magic complemented hers perfectly.

"I see. In that case, I'm ready if you are. Step in all the way, and I'll pull you out if my healing can't keep up." He expected it would, though. She must have had an impressively high Constitution, because the pollen's effects weren't nearly as instant as it was for the others.

Keelgrave had gotten over his elven prejudice enough to at least chime in with his theory: that her being a true spellcaster made her mana more resistant to the pollen. It was something to do with having greater control, although most of it had passed over Symon's head, largely due to Keelgrave being a poor teacher of such an esoteric subject. The old ghost's knowledge on the topic had been pieced together from hundreds of different sources over a full lifetime, so it wasn't entirely his fault.

None of them had been to a magical university, especially not Entisse, who had unhelpfully claimed to have the most powerful mana in the world. Still, the theory at least sounded right to Symon.

"I am ready," she nodded. He noticed a tiny trickle of blood from her mouth — she must have bit her tongue when enduring the pain. It might not have been as sharp and searing as it was when it attacked his friends with their lower Constitution, but being half-submerged in it couldn't be a pleasant task. Not everyone had the benefits of his Pain Resistance, but she was bearing it with remarkable stoicism. If Anatomy hadn't been highlighting the way her skin attempted to bubble under the ministrations of the mist, only barely kept in check by his healing, he might not have even known she was in such pain.

That changed when she fully submerged herself in the mist, Symon following after her.

Safiya's ears perked up. The misty barrier had been insulating the sound of its contents, but something had managed to pierce through. The last time that happened had been when their new Healer had collapsed a building on a revenant. Such a funny character, that Symon.

The sound was a long, drawn-out scream. It went on and on, wavering up and down before dying out. It was too high-pitched to be Symon's, so it must have belonged to that elf. A Deep Elf, apparently. Capable of speech and teamwork, at least according to Symon. Nothing at all like the savage little Forest Elves that lived around the plateau.

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None of the others heard the scream, so she decided to just keep it to herself. It was probably just the training, and it wasn't like they'd be able to run in there and help either way. Not that she would be particularly inclined to help one.

The Forest Elves screech instead of scream, so she must have been different after all. In truth, they were more pests than true threats, at least since she'd Awakened. They could be dangerous in large numbers, but they were usually just the subjects of boogeymen stories for children — eat all your stew or the elves will climb up and eat you, things like that.

The screaming started back up again, but quickly transitioned into a hissing laughter that she could only barely make out, even with her enhanced healing. She spun one of her daggers around a finger, the blade rotating faster and faster until even her eyes could no longer track it. Soon, it would be her taking a trip to the mists. Her loveable oaf companion would be fine, having an impressive Constitution, but she could tell their leader was having second thoughts.

He would go through with it, of course, and you wouldn't notice his inner turmoil without having known him for years, but she still noticed him rubbing at the hand he'd been dunking into the mist. There wouldn't be any pain from the wounds, Symon having fixed them all already, but he continued nonetheless. Out of the corner of her eye — her peripheral vision was almost as good as her central vision — she saw him staring into the mists.

The hissing laughter must have been inaudible to him, so he would have been lost in his thoughts. She decided to speak to him — the discovery of a wild, unclaimed dungeon was a once in a lifetime — no, a once in a dozen lifetimes — boon that could not be ignored.

Symon wanted to tell Entisse to stop laughing, but he wasn't about to get a mouthful of pollen for it. If cackling like an insane person helped her to endure the training, then he wasn't going to force her to stop.

Though Anatomy struggled slightly with her not-quite-human physiology, it still told him what was happening to her. The pollen covered every inch of her, her pale grey skin barely visible.

Underneath it all was a war. Her body was the battleground, his vitality and the pollen the combatants.

Immediately, he could tell it was a losing battle. He would shift to the side, bringing more roses into his range. As soon as the fresh vitality flooded into him, he would pour it into her. Still, it wasn't enough. Every second, her skin purpled further from her natural tone, and tiny blisters began to grow and spread.

Previously, his limitation for healing was the amount of vitality available to him. There was little to be found in the desert, while the grasslands had been painstakingly slow. Here, he found a new bottleneck: he could only guide the vitality into her so fast. Her hissing laugh took on a wheezing tone as she stumbled, her body unable to take the abuse even when the willpower was there. He grabbed onto her other arm, guiding her on a circuit through the mist. He could pull her out, get rid of the fresh pollen reinforcing the conflict, and heal her back to full form. It would defeat the purpose of this training, though.

Every second spent like this was the equivalent of minutes training at a gentler pace where one took only minor wounds at a time. And the closer they pushed her to the edge, the more effective this ratio would grow.

Symon had gained his Poison Resistance in a matter of minutes, but that was because he'd been barely hovering on the edge of death. He wouldn't be risking things that much here, not when there were other ways for Entisse to escape the mist if she really needed to, but they still went much further than he did with Aslan.

He wasn't sure what was driving her, what was compelling her to endure this. Was it a lust for power, to use for vengeance against the humans who attacked her people? Maybe it was simple utilitarianism, and she'd decided that the possible future benefits of a resistance were worth the present pain.

Perhaps she was just a little insane, and it was a fool's errand to try and understand her alien thought process.

He shifted to the side again as the current patch of roses died out. By now, he was holding Entisse up with two arms, her feet dangling and dragging through the dirt and pollen mixture as she weakly tried to follow. Once more, he noticed how uncomfortably light she was. It reminded him of how it felt to hold the little Stitch — like they would snap in half with one wrong move.

Clearly, her current weakness was only physical. Her body still shuddered with barely suppressed laughter or sobs — not because she was trying to hold it in, but because all the pollen in her lungs made it impossible.

As focused as he was, he wasn't sure how much time had passed. His perception and concentration were purely focused on Entisse and his vitality. His vessel was so full with the essence that he imagined it to be glowing, but he just couldn't transfer it into her fast enough. It wasn't like he could simply open a faucet and let it all pour out — in fact, there wasn't even a set entrance and exit. Instead, it required a conscious force of will to pull a piece of vitality out through the crystalline walls, then more attention to guide it through his body and finally out and into her.

His eyes were screwed shut tight against the pollen, but he could tell she was still conscious by the weak hands wrapped around his wrists. They were no longer necessary to help her remain standing, her weight now fully supported by Symon as he once more carried her. However, it was a yardstick to know how close she was to death. As long as she was still squeezing, she wasn't in any true danger.

Slowly, her grip weakened until, blind in the mist as he currently was, he couldn't tell if she was still clenching them or if they merely rested atop him.

Should he stop now? It wasn't like all their progress would be lost, but the more times they repeated this process, the higher the chance of something going wrong. He needed a way to see her, but how?

"Your vitality sense, show me," Symon said, his teeth clenched with effort subconsciously, even though he kept the words in his head. He doubted Entisse was in any state to overhear him, but he was more adverse to a mouthful of pollen than she was anyway.

<Holding steady,> the spirit said, his voice calm and collected. Keelgrave hadn't understood him.

For too long, the first ability he'd earned himself had been treated more as a detriment than the power it truly was. It was time for that to change.

"No, show me. Use the bond," Symon commanded. The moment he did so, he felt a swirling in his vessel as the edges of his vision quickly darkened.

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