Diseased (for Lilthis and anyone else who wants to jump in)

[Flamebird]

"Why are we away from Radansanth again?"

As the clouds rolled in and the sky, Felicity looked up. The volcanic explosion was something she had missed entirely, thanks to being swept away into the Thaynes Realm with an owl guy.

Said owl guy was in a tree. As a literal owl. As the shape-shifting Thayne fluffed his feathers against the cold, his voice echoed in her head. "War. You don't want to go there..."

But I could help-

"-No!"

Felicity gazed up at Gwenael's perch with conflicted eyes. The Lesser Thayne sat upon the dry, mostly dead tree. The white feathers stood out against the drooping, brown leaves tremendously. Still, as he watched with glowing amber orbs, his voice grew gentler.

"If you insist on putting yourself in danger, there are other places in Corone in jeopardy as well." The owl shook itself before fixing its gaze to the south. "Like the town suffering an epidemic over there."

Felicity followed the Thayne's gaze away from the blighted field they were resting in. There was an once overgrown path covered in dying plants. Felicity's eyes narrowed as she took a single step forward. What is it?

"I'm not omnipresent, Felicity." The owl started picking at his feathers, "I see the town's potential future in death, not the cause of death."

Felicity sighed. Now, she definitely needed to see what the town was suffering. She started towards the path. Meanwhile, Gwenael took off and started to fly in a different direction.

"Be careful, Felicity."

Once down the bumpy path , she realized that the ground had dipped. The browned plant life dipped down into a valley. Indeed, a town could be seen ahead. Felicity reached into her alchemist kit and pulled out a rag. She wrapped it over her nose and mouth in case of the cause of disease being airborne. She continued to walk, weapons and bags bouncing as she strode. She placed thin, cloth gloves on as she entered the city limits.

What she saw was far, far worse than Gwenael had let on.

The smell was atrocious. Far more than one or two deaths had occurred here, obviously. Felicity lifted her hand and plugged her nose as she took notice of how vacant and haunted the dirt streets felt. Even animals were not to be seen out here, although a cat lay dead next to a broken pot.

The buildings were the standard wood and stone make. Felicity immediately noticed that many of the houses were boarded up, with large X's painted on them. Disgust rolled in Felicity's stomach as she recognized the cruel tactic of house lock in's. If a single person was found infected with a disease, the entire house was boarded up. The family was, essentially, left to die. Disease could kill its thousands, but lock in tactics killed their tens of thousands.

Anger burned in Felicity's chest. Had the entire town perished for this? Her fists tightened as she turned and kicked the closest thing to her away in rage.

A child's straw doll fell limply in the dust across the clearing.

As the smell of death and decay continued to poison the air, Felicity was just about ready to leave. Had all of them died? Then - the sound of wood shattering from impact. It came from a distance away, but Felicity still heard it.

Hope flared! She immediately bolted down the street, leaving trails of dust behind her. As she bolted towards the general direction of the noise, she passed a single woman slumped on the ground. Dead. Emotions swelled as Felicity darted through the abandoned streets. She vowed to save the lives still left here.

She skidded to a halt down a single street. There was another man, slumped aside one of the boarded buildings. Parallel from him was a busted door. One of the boarded houses had been broken into. Felicity hurried to the man and bent down, feeling for his pulse. Nothing.

Tears flooded in her eyes, and not just due to the rotten odors surrounding her. Had she failed already? No. She shook her head. She stood up, wiping the tears from her eyes. Fresh determination pulsed through her as she marched towards the broken door.

The house was as in sad of a shape as the rest of the town. It was an unkempt disaster with dirtied dishes and filthy clothes just lying around the dust coated house. Inside, two figures stood as silhouettes against the light shining through the door. They stood over three collapsed shapes. One was bent down, offering food.

Felicity ran forth, her botanist mode switched on and ramped up. "Move, I'm a doctor!"

Felicity bent down and skidded on her knees. As the dilapidated floorboards cried beneath, she took notice of the steady rising and falling of a child's chest. As he hoarsly breathed, Felicity pulled off a glove and placed her hand on the boy's forehead.

He was burning with a fever.

Felicity frowned beneath her mask. Addressing the people already here, she started taking out her supplies as she spoke.

"Don't feed them anything you find in this town. It could be in the food. So far the symptoms I have here are too broad to pinpoint. How brilliant!"

She looked up to the individual and blinked in attempts to get used to the shading. She could not take in what they looked like, but already could judge their character by the food they offered.

"I can tell this town practiced boardings. Entire houses were boarded up and left to die." She looked back to the whimpering child, eyes shut, and pulled out another cloth. Bringing it to his forehead, she continued to speak. "We need to find all the survivors we can and round the sick ones up in a single place we can medicate them."

Still, fear started to grip her as the obvious questions screamed inside. "We just need to know what this disease is..."