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Out of Character:
--Galonan, Raiaera--
“I'm so tired.”
Considering recent events, tired was an understatement. Let's just say that, on a scale of one to ten, “tired” sits at a three. I was at around a twenty-six by the time Hyperion and I reached the gates of the small port city.
The golden-skinned guard at the post kept giving us these weird looks as we tried to make our case to be allowed entry. Thick hands clad in steel tightly gripped the shaft of his spear. Every muscle in his body was wound up tight, and he stood ready to lash out at the pair of us.
“We are but two weary travelers who seek shelter until the week's end,” I pleaded with him with false urgency in my voice. I threw my gloved hands out before me for added emphasis.
“There are no travelers on these roads nowadays, be they elven or otherwise.” The guard's untrusting eyes shifted between myself and my companion. “Especially with the threat of the Alerarans looming in the southwest.”
Hype took a step forward, ready to speak her lines. “But we are not aligned with anyone in your long-standing conflict.” She spoke with a certain elegance, sprinkled with the correct amount of innocence and sincerity. “We are simple folk, researchers and devoted worshipers for a long-forgotten goddess on a sacred pilgrimage. We come here with no ill tidings on our tongues and no hate in our hearts.”
We certainly looked the part, that's for sure. Ever since her “birth”, Hype preferred to wear an odd assortment of purple and blue robes and wraps with a mythril facemask that made her look like a devotee of one of the old gods that took a few fashion design classes. I only recently adopted a similar wardrobe, after I discovered for myself that it allowed me an impressive range of motion and plenty of folds and spaces in which I could hide shit in and sneak vines out of.
It looked like the guise was not working on our friend the watchman.
“I cannot let you in either way,” he commented with a solemn shake of his head. “Even if you speak the truth, the Council is permitting nobody to enter Galonan.”
I cocked my head to the side just enough to feign interest in his excuses. “And why is that?”
The guard sucked his teeth and threw a cautious glance over his shoulder, as if we weren't the only people outside the towering stone walls of the city. “About a week ago, there was an outbreak of some sort. We don't know what triggered it, but our healers have had a terrible time trying to treat those who have been infected.”
A small weight clamped down on my chest. My throat tightened. My thoughts immediately spun out of control and took a dive into the unending abyss that is The Worst Possible Scenario.
I never forgot that I developed bioweapons for Alerar; a nasty cocktail of viruses that preyed specifically on Raiaeran biology by first severing their unique ties to this world's magicka before attacking their systems with a modified version of my own personal plague. Could it be that the dark elves already pulled the trigger on their plans to--
--No, impossible. At the very least, improbable. It had only been two months since I left Ettermire with my payment in tow. While I hadn't exactly been in the best position to learn news of their maneuvers, Aleraran military tactics weren't exactly what you could call subtle. Had they used my weapons as the king intended, Galonan would currently be under siege, with thousands of dark elves encircling the smoking ruins of this place while the plague finished off the citizens inside.
No, it wasn't my weapons that caused this outbreak. It couldn't have been. It wasn't possible.
But, I had no intention of sticking around and knowing for sure.
Hype's eyes flashed brilliant amber at the mention of the sickness that held the city in its clutches. “Oh, that's wonderful!” The sudden burst of mirth in her voice caused the guard's otherwise smooth face to darken and twist into a scowl.
She turned to me, bouncing on her heels and entwining both of her hands in mine. “This must be our next big test!” The briarbane turned back to the guard, yanking me off-balance in the process. “You see, we are worshipers of an old plague god. Her name is unpronounceable in modern tongues, but a close approximation would be--” Hype then rattled off a series of insectile clicks interwoven with vowels and the occasional “pf” sound with her tongue and teeth.
“It is an important part of our pilgrimage that we recognize the transgressions she made when she walked this earth, and atone for her sins by working to heal anyone who has been an unwilling recipient of her infinite gifts. For in order to understand Her, we must understand both the Poison and the Cure.” If it weren't for her mask, you'd be able to see the sharp grin that was plastered on her face--quite possibly for remembering the whole backstory we agreed to give anyone who questioned us on our way out of the Plaguelands.
In the meantime, only anxiety sat on mine. I desperately tried to free my gnarled mitts from her ironclad grip, wanting to be anywhere else in the world than right here this very moment.
“It has been made clear that we are not welcome,” I hissed softly to my companion. “We should go.”
The briarbane turned and looked me dead in the eye. There was a quick flash of anger on her face, one that I had never seen before.
“But that is the Oath we took, is it not?”
The Oath.
Gods damn it all.
After everything that happened with Maeril Thyrrian in Trenycë, with the Archivists and the visions of the Forgotten One Xem'Zund, my meetings with the scholar Cain and his efforts to cure the Plaguelands...
Hyperion and I made an oath that would help keep me from falling into the dark clutches of the Forgotten once more. I nearly lost myself twice before, and could not allow myself to succumb to their whispers and promises for a third time.
If you look at it close enough, everything she told the guard really applied to me. This obviously wasn't a pilgrimage in the name of some old god we made up after sharing a couple pints and some run-down tavern a few days ago; this was my own personal atonement. Hype and I both agreed that, in order for me to resist the pull of my apparent destiny, I should travel the world and use my considerable knowledge on all things infectious and contagious to ease the suffering of others--and my own suffering while I was at it.
The more and more time wears on, the heavier and heavier my guilt weighs on my shoulders. All the lives I took in Eiskalt with a handful of rats, the horrible things I prepared for Lichenish Ulroke in the Seventh Sanctum, how I've managed to ruin the lives of several close friends... The Forgotten were able to capitalize on my desperation to be something more in order to turn me down a darker path, and I eagerly followed them to my own damnation.
And now...
Hype was right. We cannot be turned away from Galonan so easily. We have to keep the Oath.
For my own good, if anything.
The guard left us outside the towering gates while he conferred with unseen persons inside the guard tower. It was about fifteen minutes later when he returned, a solemn and untrusting look etched on the parts of his face still visible through his polished helmet.
“We have sent word to the council, to see if they will permit you entry.”
“Thank you,” I muttered. Deep down, I was hoping that he would have turned us away. The sinking feeling in my gut was only growing stronger and stronger as the seconds ticked by. No matter how much I repeated this isn't my fault, this isn't my fault in my head, I was becoming more and more convinced that it was.
I thought back to that night in Ettermire, in the depths of the great library, Ankhas. The night that I found the Archivist behind the wall. The night that Lenexa, an agent of King Edar'axa, attempted to assassinate me now that my usefulness to him was at an end. The night that I uncovered a plot against the Aleraran Crown after killing Lenexa and reanimating him with cordyceps. I ended up sending a message to the dissidents telling them that I wouldn't blow their cover, as I had no stakes in their designs—but I warned them that if it had gotten out that I was the one who designed their bioweapons, I would absolutely destroy every last one of them.
Well... Whoever was left after Edar'axa finished with them, anyway.
My mind raced with the possibilities. It was no secret that Alerar intended to continue its campaigns into the weakened Raiaera, but I had figured that he would begin bombing the settlements in the west that resisted his efforts before moving northeast. Was I gone that long dealing with Maeril Thyrrian that the Crown accelerated their war plans? Or did they decide to sneak up to the northern shore, weaken the Raiaerans up here and moving southward in order to trap the survivors in a pincer attack?
More importantly, in what way are they using my weapons?
No, no, no-- I have no proof that this was my engineered plague at work in Galonan. I haven't even seen the infected yet, let alone have a chance to identify what disease might be sweeping through the area.
I have to focus. I have to keep the Oath.
I cannot go back.
The creaking of heavy gears and mechanisms hidden deep within the stone wall snapped me back to reality. The weathered wooden doors began to pull open, revealing what I assumed to be a member of the council based on his moderately elaborate blue, gray, and gold silks and the retinue that escorted him to the city gate.
The elf towered above us as he sat on his horse, tall even by Raiaeran Elf standards. He introduced himself, but I didn't bother to remember his name. No reason to; Hype and I would identify the plague, work with local alchemists and healers to produce a cure, and be on our way with a bit of extra gold to fund the continuation of the Madison Freebird Redemption Tour C.P. 1812.
“It's very nice to meet you, Councilman,” Hype greeted him with a spring in her step. She graciously took his hand in both of hers and gave it a hearty shake that almost yanked him right out of his saddle. “My name is Hyperion, and this is my friend--”
“Briarheart,” I blurted out in a fit of paranoia, trying to get the word in before she could say my actual name. Hype looked over her shoulder at me, her head tilted in curiosity.
“Yes, this is Briarheart,” she confirmed after a pause, her four bright orange eyes lingering on me for a moment before turning back to the elf. “We are on a pilgrimage in the name of--”
The Councilman waved his free hand dismissively. “Forgive me for being curt, but I've already heard your story from the guardsman at the gate. I do not care who you worship or your reasons for traveling the roads during these difficult times, but if you believe you can heal our people--” He finally tore his hands free of Hype's vice-like grip. “Then by all means, you are welcome within these walls.”
Whatever-His-Name-Was motioned with a hand wrapped in silk towards a pair of horses without riders, and bid us to climb up and follow him and his entourage through the streets of Galonan. As we rode, I couldn't help but to notice that the place was practically silent to the point of seeming abandoned. From what I remember from my schooling as a child and tavern gossip as an adult, Galonan was a relatively-successful port town, and later on one of the few bastions that withstood the onslaught of undead during the Corpse War. During those dark years, refugees flocked in droves to the town and its sturdy walls, which stood against the Forgotten One Xem'Zund's endless siege until it was finally broken with his death.
And yet, nobody was to be found walking the streets, shopping in its markets, conversing with their neighbors, or anything of that sort. Galonan was almost as devoid of life as the cities I visited in the Plaguelands themselves.
Sensing that a question was on the the tip of my tongue, Sir Fancypants spoke. “We have a twenty-four-hour curfew in place to keep the residents from spreading the infection as much as possible through a lack of contact with one another.” His regional accent was thick, and clearly he was not used to conversing in Tradespeak despite living in a port where the language was pretty common among those who docked here.
“We send around a group twice per day; the first round to make sure our residents are supplied with fresh food, water, and anything else they may need, while the second checks on their health, gathering anyone who may be showing symptoms of the disease and bringing them to the quarantine zone in the Fifth Ward.”
“How do you make sure these groups aren't spreading the disease themselves?” It was a pretty obvious question, and I expected an obvious answer.
I was not let down. “We've located several groups of individuals within the town who have shown immunity to this strange new sickness. They volunteered to fill in on the guard while our healers work to find a cure. Not that they had much of a choice, with the gates being locked and the port closed.”
I assumed that's where we were headed. “Is there anything you can tell us about the disease?”
The Councilman shook his head. “Unfortunately, there is not much I know about it. My studies weren't geared toward the healing arts when I was a child all those years ago. The outbreak began several weeks ago, after a shipment of building implements and weapons arrived from Knife's Edge. The ship from Salvar had already left port by the time I ordered the lockdown, so we could not question the sailors and merchants aboard. But the illness spread pretty quickly, and our healers have had a rough time dealing with it.”
“Your people are well-versed in every school of magic,” Hype chimed in. “What issues are they having?”
It was a second before we got an answer. “Our people are well-versed in the magical arts, but there doesn't seem to be a spell we can weave that will help us.” I could physically hear the wound in his pride tear itself open just a little bit wider. “No potion, no poultice, no words of healing, nothing seems to be working on my people.”
A pang of dread crept down my spine. “What about those who are not elves?”
“That's what troubles me the most, Briarheart. Raiaerans seem to be the ones that are having the most trouble with this outbreak. Outlanders seem to be able to resist and recover better than my elven brothers and sisters. The survivors among them are the ones we conscripted to make the rounds through the village.”
I don't remember the rest of the ride to the Fifth Ward.
We came to a stop in front of a building that I could only assume was a hospital. Raiaeran architecture was never my strongest subject, and to say that my mind was preoccupied on other matters was a gross understatement.
Along the way, the Councilman had said words to me, but they all went in one ear hole and out the other. Luckily, Hyperion was always willing to engage someone in conversation if it meant that she'd learn something from it--and it would be very good for her to learn everything that she could about this disease just in case my worst fears didn't come to pass. I'd just get the details from her later, and we'd work to help aid the people of Galonan from there.
I barely had the capacity to climb off my horse and plant both feet on solid earth. Every possible scenario that I played out in my head grew more and more dire. What if it was actually my bioweapon? What if the Alerarans plan on striking tonight, when Hype and I are caught off-guard and cannot make our escape?
What if they incriminated me as a feint in order to direct the ire of the High Bard Council elsewhere as they geared up for all-out war?
And here I was, ready for them to capture me while an army moved ever northward.
No, no, no no no no--
Nothing is proven. Nothing is certain. Get a hold of yourself. You don't even know for sure that this is your work. Besides, you've given them an alias. They would have no way of knowing that it was you, if it turns out that it was you.
“Briarheart?” I snapped back to reality. Hyperion stood five feet away from me, head cocked to the side, but she sounded so far away.
I shook my head in a weak attempt to clear my thoughts. “Yes, sorry, I'm coming.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper as I strode past her. “Is everything alright?”
No.
“Yes, I'm fine,” I responded.
As I continued down the stone path towards the door of the old wooden building, I felt the briarbane's hand slide down the inside of my forearm, her fingers filling the spaces between my own. She gave me a knowing, reassuring squeeze.
I felt a stinging sensation building up in my eyes. No matter what I told her, my friend always knew when something was wrong with me. She wouldn't say anything when I lied to her; she'd just... offer this small token that she knew the truth, and that she would be there for me. My rock. The one thing that keeps me tethered to reality. The one thing that keeps me from losing myself for good.
I gave her hand a quick squeeze as well as we entered the building.
The first thing that hit me was the stench. The awful, horrid, odor that I won't forget anytime soon.
How to best describe it... Do you know that smell? That very distinct, unmistakable odor of sick? It hits you every time you walk into a place like this. They try to mask it with flowers and incense and whatnot, but you can always tell when someone suffering from some illness is nearby just by taking a big ol' whiff of the air.
Yeah. Take that and multiply it by about one thousand.
Even Hype, who normally never reacted in such a rude manner, brought both of her hands up to her mask out of some sort of reflex, as if the smell that got through her mask could be blocked by her gloved hands.
Sir Silverspoon had produced a small cloth mask to cover his nose and mouth when I wasn't looking. “We keep the majority of those who are ill within buildings on this street. This hospital currently houses most of those who appear to be in the later stages of the illness. Follow me, if you will.”
We were led down the narrow, lamp-lit hallways towards uncertainty. Each door we passed was closed shut. Not a single noise emanated from beyond them. We were completely and utterly alone, surrounded by that familiar suffocating feeling of death.
Somewhere down the hall, a door creaked open. A golden-skinned waif emerged, dressed in the white and red robes associated with apprentices of healing magic. She scurried towards us, her eyes firmly fixed on the floor. The poor thing nearly ran into me as she made her way to the other end of the building. As she passed, I could tell it had been days since she had gotten any sleep. It was a wonder that she hadn't caught the plague herself.
Before long, the Councilman stopped us in front of a door. With a gloved hand, he lightly gripped the gold-plated knob and gave it the lightest of turns. The mechanism clicked, and soon after I saw the extent of the damage this mystery virus had wrecked.
And that smell. That horrible, rotten, oppressive smell. I immediately recognized it.
“Greenmold. Dragon's Tongue. Nanashi mushroom pulp. Albarnon root.”
One by one, the ingredients rolled off my tongue, words in the air aimed at nobody in particular. My voice was soft, monotone, distant. Barely above a whisper. I clenched my eyes shut. I couldn't bear to look. I wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that very moment.
I recited the entire recipe by heart. Every last bit of preparation, every last step of the process. I gave exact measurements required for each dose of the cure, and the exact time that must pass between each half of the doses, lest they conflict with each other and exacerbate the victim's suffering.
When I finished, I took a deep breath and exhaled. A deathly quiet had grown between the three of us, surrounded by the pale, ashen bodies of dying Raiaerans. The Councilman was the first to break the silence.
“How do you know all this? You haven't even examined anyone yet.”
I had to scramble for an answer. I wracked my brain for several seconds, my thoughts tripping over one another as I tried to form a complete, coherent sentence. “I've seen suffering like theirs once before. In a far away land, ripped apart by war. One side employed a bioweapon, and...” My voice trailed off before I could recall the horrible fate that came to those caught up in the Eiskalt conflict.
I could hear the jaw muscles of the elf working as he opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Bioweapon? Are you sure this is what--”
In a sudden burst of rage, I spun around and faced him. “You're doing an awfully shitty job ensuring the future well-being of these people, Councilman!” Brilliant amber light glinted off the edges of my mythril face mask as I drew closer to the silk-robed figure. My briar-knit fists were clenched, ready to lash out, ready to strike in a moment's notice.
“I suggest you gather any alchemist and apothecary that is well enough to begin working on the cure. Tell them everything that I just told you. They must begin as soon as possible, if you wish for your people to see the end of the week.”
The Councilman's face was unreadable, save for the barest hints of fear and anger dancing around in his eyes. “Very well, Miss Briarheart,” he said after a long few seconds before turning on his heels and disappearing down the hallway.
As I watched him go, I could feel Hyperion draw closer to me. Her hands once more found mine. The flood of emotions receded with her touch, leaving me feel empty once more. Empty and fearful. Empty and fearful and uncertain and confused and--
Hype's voice was soft and full of worry. “Madison...”
“No,” I responded, my own words quaking as tears formed in my eyes. “I'm not okay.”
Several hours passed before the floor finally stopped trying to fall out from under me.
Councilman Th'fuckshisname was polite enough to offer me a room in his modest home to recover in. I graciously accepted his offer, and after making my way there, flopped face-first onto the bed and haven't moved since.
“We have to do something,” I growled into the cotton case of the pillow.
“Yes,” Hyperion agreed solemnly, “as you have said fifteen times since we arrived. But you won't tell me what it is we have to do.” I could hear the individual vines in her neck twist and brush up against the fabric of her scarf as the briarbane cocked her head to the side. A hint that I was about to be very politely interrogated. “You also won't tell me exactly how you knew what the treatment to this mysterious disease was the moment we stepped into that room in the hospital. You didn't even so much as glance at those suffering elves before you told the Councilman the ingredients he would need.”
I wondered how long it would take to smother myself with this pillow. Probably not long enough to actually have it be worth the try before Hype ripped the damn thing out of my hands.
“I know you're not in the best of moods,” she continued, her voice calm and calculated, “but I would very much like to know.”
“You recognize the formula.” The guess escaped my lips muffled and weak.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Or most of it, anyway.”
I turned my head just enough to glare at her out of the corner of a couple eyes. “Then you understand why I'd rather not talk about it.”
“But you will,” she said as she rose from her seat in the corner. It wasn't quite a threat--Hyperion was very bad at that sort of thing, bless her, but we both knew that she wasn't going to drop the subject until she got the answers she was looking for. And I so very much wanted to open up to her, to confide in her the horrible thing I did in Alerar that led up to the outbreak that's killing the residents of Galonan one by one.
What would she think when I told her the truth? If it turned out to be anything like what happened in the plaguelands, when I was so close to the edge...
I took a long, hard look at the unreadable surface of her face, shielded by mythril even when we were alone in the quarters. While her visage was cast in hard angles of forged metal, her four brilliant amber eyes held nothing but sadness, confusion, wanting, and hurt. My heart still ached with... what happened not so long ago, and what it did to her--and us.
“Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath. If she couldn't talk the info out of me, she was going to guilt it out of me eventually.
“Do you remember when I left you for about a month, saying that I was going to go on a business trip to Alerar and needed to travel alone?”
Hype's head rocked on her shoulders in affirmation.
Gods, I can't believe I was about to tell her this. I turned my face back into the pillow, ready to suffocate myself in a moment's notice. The words burned in my throat and tasted like ash on my tongue as I whispered them into the cross-stitch of thread and densely-packed down. “I—I--” --do not want to finish this sentence.
The briarbane's head tilted back at an angle as she tried to make out my mutterings. “You what?”
“--may have helped the Crown develop a biological weapon to use against the Raiaerans in exchange for access to a library.”
The complete, utter silence that followed could have slain me right then and there. Neither Hype or myself made a noise, as she processed my confession. I had the sudden urge to press my face deeper into the pillow and let everything run its course.
Hyperion was mindful enough of where we were staying to keep her voice down. I could still sense the anger in her words. No, not anger; disappointment, which was far worse. “You damned the lives of thousands for books?”
For a brief moment, I wished that I listened to Aurelianus and developed Hype without a conscience. “Well, if you put it that way,” I grumbled.
“That's exactly what you did,” she snapped back, her voice low and flat.
The faint scents of elf residue and perfume filled my nostrils as I burrowed my face deeper into the bed, wanting desperately to be anywhere but in that bedroom with my finest work and best friend. “In my defense,” I began meekly, “the only book I grabbed from that library was the one strapped to the back of the Archivist.”
This managed to shut her up long enough for me to continue my explanation. “I know that doesn't justify anything, but without that accursed beast we would not have been able to make the discoveries we did in the Plaguelands. We couldn't have helped that idiot scholar out; Cain, or whatever his name was.” By this point, I had peeled myself off the bed and was sitting on the edge of it, hunched over with my elbow on my knees.
Hype considered that for a moment. Even though she had a strong moral core left over from the corpse she was birthed from, the briarbane was also very understanding and supportive of the “greater good”. The flickering glow in her eyes showed that the two concepts were having it out with each other in her mind.
Just my luck that her conscience would win that fight. “That may be so,” she said slowly and deliberately, “but... Weaponizing plague for a warmonger king? And you were so easily talked into it with access to a library?”
Thanks for making me feel like the worst person ever, Hype. “Can we just drop this already?”
The briarbane rose from her chair and restlessly paced around the sparsely-decorated room. “No, no we cannot! We have to do something to fix this!” She stabbed a gnarled, gloved finger in my direction. “You have to do something to fix this!”
I took a quick glance out of the window. Faint lamplights illuminated the empty streets of Galonan. Off in the distance, I could see the faint glow of the harbor. The outlines of several ships forbidden to leave slowly rocked back and forth on the waves. “I know, I know,” I grumbled. “The Oath, and all.”
Hype stormed up to me, kneeling down to get inches from my face. “This is about more than The Oath, Madison!” The orange light of her eyes flared in barely-contained anger as she spoke. “Countless nights we've talked about all the guilt you carry with you! The nightmares you have about those who've died in your wake! And yet, you continue to be the person you wish you weren't!”
I slowly rose to my feet. A wave of darkness began to wash over me. A soft, feminine cackle filled my ears, blocking out the words of the briarbane as she continued to scold me. As if I were some insolent child.
Me. Me. Her creator. The one who gave her life.
Who did this abomination think she was? I could tear her limb from limb in the amount of time it would take for her to blink in surprise.
The laughter grew in intensity until I could hear was... red.
No. No no no no no no--
My knuckles ached as I took a glance at my balled-up fists. A deep, dark crimson had seeped into my fingers.
With each passing second, the red crept further and further up my arms. I desperately tried to fight it, tried to suppress the magic of the Forgotten One Pode that corrupted me.
Hype's voice echoed off the walls and rattled the windows of the manor bedroom. "People are dying out there, Madison! Innocent people!"
"People die every day," I growled. The words were not my own, but I couldn't stop them from coming out.
The briarbane took an angry step towards me, her gloved hands clenching and relaxing, her amber eyes flickering with a maelstrom of emotions, her mind and body unsure of what to do next. "But they don't have to die by your hands!"
"Drop it, Hype." An uncontrollable fury boiled in my gut as that damned laughter echoed in my mind.
"I will not drop it! All you talk about is trying to run from your past and be a better person, but everywhere you go all you bring is death and misery! It's time to stop making excuses and do something about it!"
In a flash, I was across the room, a balled-up fist flying through the air. The crack of bone and vine against mythril reverberated up my arm and resonated in my ears. A sound I will never forget as long as I live.
Hyperion flew halfway across the room and came to a stop in front of the door, her body a sprawled and twisted pile of vines and robes.
"Don't you ever judge me," I roared at her as a fresh wave of pain ripped through my hand. "I am your creator! You will not question me or my actions! It is not your place to do so!"
I took a few steps closer to her sulking form as she tried to push herself up onto her knees. The maniacal cackling of the Red Witch was all I could hear. I felt her comforting, warm embrace as I gave myself up to her hate once more.
"Do you understand, creature?"
Slowly, Hype's head rose. There was a small pair of dents in her mask where the blow landed. I could not make out the expression in her eyes.
Silence. And then, a soft glow emanated from the stone embedded in her necklace.
A flash of blue light.
And then she was gone.
Thread: One Minute Til Midnight
Author: BlackAndBlueEyes
Type: No Judgment
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