3 – The Mosaic of the Witch

The health bar moved down. Barely.

“You need to deal with the poison as soon as possible,” Aury’s voice sounded somewhat alarmed.

“Do I?” The math was simple. But Ashley hated math. “My HP pool is ginormous. I’m not exactly a tank, but it’s still pretty good.”

“The poison ticks upward every five minutes, mistress. It’s going to be a problem soon,” Aury said.

“Still. It’s not going to kill me for a while. Honestly, that’s not what is bothering me, Aury.”

“The aggressive toxin in your bloodstream is not the problem?”

“No. It’s the principle. You see? It’s shameful.”

Ashley blushed. She covered her cheeks with her palms. The heat of her skin felt like a brand.

“I cannot be seen like this. Injured by a lone B-tier mob.” She clenched her fists until the joints complained. “I made a fool of myself.”

“Right. Sure, mistress.”

Aury’s voice was a little too flat, but Ashley ignored the tone. Loudly.

“Are you messing with me, Aury?”

This time, Aury had the sense to stay quiet.

“Anyway.” She had more pressing matters now. She had to get rid of the proof of her shame. Then she could enjoy a hunt worth having. As for logging out, it was Sunday. There was no rush.

“Let’s see. I’m sure I have something in the [Inventory]. I’m ready for anything.”

She summoned the ethereal screen. Its crisp blue glow was clean and sharp in her eyes. Too sterile against the scorched glass of the crater. She moved through the tabs with practiced speed, her fingers sliding through a UI she had navigated thousands of times.

She reached the consumable section. Her eyes widened.

“Are you kidding me?”

━━━━━━━━━━ Consumable ━━━━━━━━━━

[Greater Health Potion]: Heal 100% HP.

↳ Expired: Usage will cause HP to drop to 1.

[Panacea]: Heals all status ailments.

↳ Expired: Usage will cause a random permanent debuff.

[Frost Hell Potion]: Can freeze hell.

↳ Expired: Usage will cause a slight permanent [Frost] status.

━━━━━━━━━━━ More >> ━━━━━━━━━━━

Every consumable was gone. Every single one. The red text blinked with cheerful, mechanical indifference.

She tapped the [Panacea]. The chime that answered sounded less like a system alert and more like a small, bureaucratic death knell.

“Aury.” Her voice was tight. “Why is my entire stock of potions useless?”

“Well, mistress.” The familiar’s tone carried the specific lightness of something trying very hard not to laugh. “You have been quite immobile for a long time. All consumable has a ‘sell-by’ date, as your holiness surely knows.”

Ashley looked at the dark threads of poison crawling in her wing. Then she looked back at the useless [Panacea].

Immobile?

Celestine had been inactive. But Ashley logged in every single day, even if only for a few minutes. And she had played with Celestine. Always.

Maybe they released a patch or something.

Her mind raced. It was common for a patch to break something, while trying to fix something else: a bugged UI, a corrupted quest-line, or a glitchy physics engine. Had they released a patch that jumped the clock ahead? Had the update messed with time itself? And what about this new reality, full of sensation almost too real to feel virtual?

She paced at the edge of the crater. Shards of glass creaked under her shoes. She tried to collect her thoughts before they got lost in the weeds.

No. That is not it. Probably.

She looked at her unfamiliar hands once more.

One thing at a time. First the poison. Then the world.

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“Aury.” She kept her voice flat. It was the tone of someone already bracing. “How long was I immobile? Exactly.”

A pause. The considered kind. The sort of pause she hated, where people thought too much about how to say a thing, instead of getting straight to the point.

“Ten years, mistress. On the clock.” Unexpectedly straightforward.

She opened her mouth.

The wind caught her robe and snapped it against her legs. The crater’s glass gleamed around her, still faintly warm. Above, the last violet traces of [Infinite Judgment] bled out of the sky. Ordinary blue returned to fill the space where the false night had been.

[Effect: Poison. -300 HP.]

The chime cut through the weight of the silence. Ashley’s pulse hammered in her ears. Her hands were steady. Too steady.

Ten years. The world moved on for ten years.