Stolen Lives: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Underhill Chronicles Book 1) Keith Ahrens (best e reader for epub txt) 📖

struggle to sit up. Strong hands hold my shoulders and legs down; I fight them as much as I can but to no avail. I have no leverage and not much strength left. The heat crescendos to a raging fever as the ringing in my ears changes pitch and gets louder and louder until a loud POP, and I can finally hear myself shout in pain. The heat recedes like a bonfire quickly doused, and I lay panting for air.

Amid the fog in my head, I hear a voice, quiet and weak, “No one told me the Stupid One was hurt again.”

I look over past Jesse, who's holding my shoulders down, and see Thorn collapse, eyes rolling back in her head. Haynes, standing right behind her, catches her and lays her gently down on his cot.

I slip back into a much more comfortable sleep, though not entirely by choice.

After an indeterminate amount of time, soft voices pull me from my involuntary slumber. Yup, voices! It finally registers that I can hear again! I open my eyes and realize the cell is very dark. The only available light is coming through the small barred window in the door.

“Why is it so dark in here?” I ask, my throat dry and my voice cracking.

A pause and then, “Well, well, well, he has arisen again! You gotta learn to duck on occasion, Hoss. This here's becoming a pattern.” Des laughs but keeps his voice low, his drawl a comfort to my ears.

“Sorry to be so predictable.”

“The pixie died,” says Haynes in a quiet voice, the first words out of his mouth.

“Huh?”

“You asked why it was so dark in here… I said, 'The pixie died.'"

“Still not getting the connection. What pixie?”

“The pixie that was trapped in the crystal in the ceiling. The pixie that lived on ambient magic. The pixie that died when Thorn drained all the magic in the area after she healed your sorry ass,” whispers the angry Sergeant.

“Now, Sarge, that one ain't on him. He had no way of knowing. Thorn pushed herself too hard, that’s all. No one's to blame,” Des whispers, trying to keep the peace. “I felt it, Sarge. After Thorn passed out, I felt her go all weak, like she was fadin' away. Then I felt her reach out, kind of instinctively. She pulled all the magic from the room, that part is true, but she also took just a lil' bit from each one of us. I don't reckon she even knew it.”

The small cell is filled with tension, thick enough to slice and serve on plates. I decide to keep my mouth shut for a change.

Apparently, I am a slow learner and pipe up once more. “So, is she okay?”

“No, she’s not okay! She almost died, you asshole!” whispers Haynes, anger evident.

“I am fine now, Breá,” Thorn's voice sounds muffled from behind him. “But if I'm awakened again by you lot, I may have to kill someone after all.”

“My apologies, ma'am,” says Des.

“Sorry, Thorn, didn't know you were here,” I say. “Um… thank you.”

“Go back to sleep, little one," Haynes says to her, much gentler and reassuring than when he spoke to me. "We'll try to keep it down, but we have a lot to discuss.”

“More than you know,” she mutters sleepily. Straw and fabric rustle as she rolls over and pulls her robe tighter around herself.

We all stay quiet for a few minutes. Then a few more as the lame jailer makes his slow rounds. Step-drag-step-drag. The occasional rattle of the doors reaches us as he checks to make sure they are locked. Thorn snores lightly in her sleep. It’s almost cute. I’m restless and begin to peel at my nails, working at a particularly stubborn hangnail. I've never been good at waiting around and doing nothing. Yeah, sometimes I'm a fidgeter. I admit it.

So… magic. The little of it I'm seeing around here is kind of scary. The lightning attack I can understand. Any time you have more than one person around, eventually someone will figure out a way to kill the other. In the real world, humans keep coming up with more creative ways to kill one another. It just makes sense that the elves have done the same. We developed artillery shells to randomly destroy our enemies, so why wouldn’t the Fey? Magic lightning used as artillery? I guess that makes sense here, too.

But healing that can kill the healer? That’s a scary thought. I've put myself in danger plenty of times. Sometimes without even realizing it. It’s part of my job, my calling. But if I knew that every time I rolled up to a call, there was a chance I could kill myself just by administering medicine, I believe I might have to rethink my career choice.

Life and death are always closely linked. Two sides of the same coin, if that’s not too cliché. The areas I've worked, death is cheap and easy, just like the hookers that haunt the street corners. It only becomes more expensive, more valued, when you have more to live for.

It stands to reason that to use healing magic, the power has to come from somewhere. If I had to guess, that power comes from the healer, from him or herself. The more reasons the healer has to live, the further from death they are. Therefore, the stronger the healer, the further from death they are.

And Thorn almost died tonight. Chew on that for a while.

Des is the first to break the silence. “You still awake?” he whispers.

“Yup." I pause and take a deep breath before I ask, "How many survived?”

Silence for a few moments. “I think about thirty, all told. A few are gonna lose some limbs, and most will be a damn sight uglier. But they're likely to make it. Thorn says you do good work. 'Crude' but good. She went back around after you left and threw a lot of magic around. She was damn near running on empty