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She was in pure agony.
Her whole body was in pain, her branches and crown felt like they were on fire, only that the fire came from inside of her. She was doubled over and breathing heavily because of the excruciating pain. What had happened to her?
One moment she was fine. Then, suddenly she was in the most intense pain that she had ever experienced. She was a Higher Being, what could make her so sick and weak?
She didn’t have a clue what happened and that was what scared her. The fear of an assassination attempt crossed her mind shortly, but who would be so dumb and try to off the queen of Hallownest?
She was so caught up in her pain, that she didn’t notice how someone entered the room. She only managed to react when he talked.
“Root, I sensed that you are in pain, what’s wrong?”, the Pale King asked.
“My wyrm…”, she managed to say, talking felt arduous and strained her a lot, “I… don’t know… suddenly… I was… in pain.. so much…. pain.”
The Pale King looked her over and and then checked her soul… removing his hand as if he had gotten burned. “Root, you are poisoned.”, he said.
She started to feel cold. Did someone really try to assassinate her? She had eaten some food just before it had happened…
“Oh… maybe there was… poison in… food…”, she managed to get out.
The Pale King went over to the plate, it wasn’t finished and took a sniff at the plate, then his face wrinkled in disgust. “Root, this food is SPOILED. Do you tell me you ate food that smelled and tasted that revolting?”
The White Lady didn’t reply. Not only because of the pain, but also because of the realization. It had tasted different, sure, but she had found it kind of sweet and it had been a peculiar taste, but one that she enjoyed.
It was because she normally didn’t need to eat food. She could just get her nutrients from the ground and from getting watered. That was the reason why her body was unique when it came to food.
“May I remind you that you lack a digestive system?”, the Pale King said, a scolding tone in his voice. “Your food gets broken down to nutrients and soul right away and distributed in your body. You don’t have any defense mechanism to get bad food out of you. You can’t vomit, Root.”
“I… know…”, she said, clutching her stomach, even though she didn’t have the organs for a stomach ache, instead it was a full body ache. “I made a… mistake… Wyrm, please help me…”
The Pale King sighed as he stepped back to her. “It would be a lot easier when you could vomit. It’s a deeply uncomfortable feeling, but at least it makes you feel better once it is over. Without your body able to get rid of the bad food, I will need some time to remove the poison from your flow.”
“Please… do…”, the White Lady said, feeling more and more weak and more prone to fainting, the pain was just too much.
“Very well then.”, the Pale King said and touched her bark. “I’ll start. It will be very uncomfortable for you though, Root, this is my only warning.”
He didn’t lie about the treatment being uncomfortable. To remove the poison, the Pale King practically had to remove the poisoned soul out of her flow. In the short moments in which she managed to open her eyes, she could see him deeply concentrated, clumps of soul on the floor next to him. Soul was liquid and shouldn’t clump like that… no wonder she was in so much pain.
She didn’t know how long she had to endure his treatment, but she noticed that with each removed clump she felt lighter and the pain went away.
“Alright.”, the Pale King said. “That must have been the last of them.”
With her pain being gone, the White Lady raised, or tried to. She pretty much fell to the ground right away, not because of pain, but because of exhaustion.
She let out a small noise of surprise, confused about what had happened to her. The Pale King chuckled next to her. “Root, your soul is very low now. I am afraid you have to fill your reserves up first. Let me share some of my own and then let us head to a soul totem together.”
“Thank you, my Wyrm.”, the White Lady smiled at him as he took her hand.