A tendril of inky darkness reaches out from you, reaching for a creature within range to drain life from it. Make a spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 3d8 necrotic damage and suffers a point of exhaustion.

Until the spell ends, you can use your action on each of your turns to automatically deal 3d8 necrotic damage and a point of exhaustion to the target. The spell ends early if you use your action to do anything else, if the target is ever outside the spell’s range, or if the target has total cover from you.

Whenever the spell deals damage to the target, you regain hit points equal to the amount of necrotic damage the target takes.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th.