Crowned in Black: Chapter 20

The whining started before we'd even hauled Jacob out of his cell.

"Urrgh, what are you doing here? It's too early!" He moaned and cringed, shielding his face from the lanterns.

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey." I set down the tray of food I was carrying, then reached back and made a grabby-grabby motion toward Suri. She passed over Jacob's new accessory: creatively entitled the Anklet of Finding. "We got a new shiny for you, too."

"Is that... " he squinted at the bluesteel cuff in my hands. "... Is that a tracking anklet?"

"Yep. It sure is. Works great, too. Rin made it." I said, as loudly and chirpily as possible. "Now stick your lil' leggy out so we can snap this bad boy on. You're going on a field trip."

"Where? Why?" Jacob's dark eyes narrowed. He was a decent-looking guy - or would have been, if not for the cringing, sulky expression that always seemed to written into his face and posture. Five weeks of solitary hadn't been kind to him. He was thinner, paler, his hair shaggy.

"We voted to take you to the hospital to help us treat victims of thornlung plague," Suri said from the doorway.

Jacob boggled at us. "... Are you fucking serious? You want me to go and play nurse at some stupid hospital?"

"Yes. Because you need to get out of your own head, and see other people for what they are." Vash sounded the most relaxed out of all of us: calm, authoritative even. "Other people."

Jacob blinked, then guffawed. His expression was one of mingled spite and disbelief. "Listen to me, okay? I MADE you. Everything you do is in line with the programs and the adaptive learning I designed. What makes you think I give a shit about townies? I'd kill them for the EXP if I could. All I want is to be back in my own body, in my own world, with REAL people."

"That is not what you said to me when you were crying over your dead mother," Vash replied coldly. "Now listen to Hector, and put on the assfucking anklet."

Jacob's head jerked like he'd been slapped. He glanced at me and Suri, fear and rage both flickering through his eyes... then resignation.

"Why are we even doing this?" he said bitterly. “Just kill me already."

"Nope. Stick that on, then eat your breakfast. Because we have some absolutely fabulous fashion for you." I pulled a set of bright orange pants and tunic from my inventory. "We have a big, big day ahead of us. A big day of helping people with no expectation of reward."

"Stop talking to me like I'm five." Jacob reluctantly snapped the anklet on. I was carrying the keystone that unlocked it, and Rin had assured me that because he was our prisoner, he wouldn’t be able to unequip it once it was on.

"I'll stop talking to you like a kid when you start sounding like an adult," I replied. "So quit sniveling and start dressing, or we're taking you to the hospital in whatever you happen to be wearing. And if that's nothing, guess what? You'll be helping nurse plague victims with your Lil Ratzinger flapping in the wind."

"Spare me," Suri muttered softly.

He rolled his eyes and uttered a long, dramatic sigh. "At least give me some privacy to change?"

"As you keep insisting to us, this place is a game. Just equip it, dude."

With another eyeroll, Jacob did just that, leaving his dirty clothes on the floor. He still wasn't allowed to have a belt in case he tried to throttle himself with it - or throttle Suri - but he'd reached the point where he seemed to know he was a prisoner, and wasn't actively fighting it any more. When Suri went over to him to clap his manacles on, he didn't resist.

"I don't know what you expect me to do." He stumped along between the three of us once we were finished, clinking on every step. "If you're trying to prove that the NPCs here are real or something, I'm just going to point out all the ways they aren't."

"Sure, you can do that," I replied. "Or you can harden the fuck up and learn something. In any case, consider it your first opportunity to make up for putting Suri through hell."

"It wasn't just me," he mumbled.

“Yeah, but Nic’s not here,” Suri replied stiffly. “And believe me, if he was, I wouldn’t be taking him on a day trip to a hospital. I’d be pulling his cock up through the hole I cut in his throat.”

Our ride for the day was a bitch-basic covered wagon, Oregon Trail style. We didn't have any of the magitech-powered carriages in Kalla Sahasi: this one was being pulled by a triceratops, who snorted and stamped as workers loaded the last of the medical supplies we needed to deliver to Karhad. Karalti waited for us on the front seat, peering around curiously as we escorted Jacob to the back.

"So, three rules," I said, putting a boot up onto the steps. "One, you don't leave our sight for any reason. You need the bathroom, you get an escort. Two, you only associate with women in public areas. If anyone complains that you've been acting inappropriately, you'll be punished very thoroughly and very publicly before being returned to your cell. And three, if you so much as utter the words 'are we there yet?', I'll cut your damn tongue out of your mouth. Understood?"

"Fine, whatever," he muttered, as he stomped past me and flumped down onto a bench. "So much for the supposed 'good guys'."

"There's good, and then there's 'nice'", I said, hopping lightly to sit beside him. "I try to be good AND nice to most people. But I don't have to be nice."

"Me either." Suri glared at Jacob as she sat across from him, the point of her zweihander resting on the floor, the blade and hilt resting along her torso. Vash got in last and closed up, squatting just in front of the tailgate.

"All ready to go?" Karalti trilled from the front.

"Yup. Let's get this dog and pony show moving," I called back.

"Yah!" Karalti telepathically urged the triceratops, slapping the reins against its neck. "Hi ho silver, away!"

The dinosaur grunted, and continued to pull dandelions up from between the cobblestones, chewing noisily.

"Your Holiness, I do not think this lumbering idiot is smart enough for you to speak to its mind," Vash said delicately.

"Hmm. Okay. Well..." Karalti stood up, threw her arms up, and screeched an inhuman cry. "MOVE IT, DUMBASS!"

The triceratops bellowed, lurching off at speed. Karalti sprawled back into the wagon with an 'EEP!', nearly landing on Suri's sword hilt. Jacob tumbled into me, sprawling over my lap, while several crates rocketed toward Vash. He caught them with a grunt and a clang.

"Sorry! I forgot they're prey animals!" Karalti squeaked, lunging for the reins. “I’m used to being ridden, okay?”

“I just bet you are,” Suri said drily, with a sly glance at me.

I facepalmed, blushing against my hand. Vash began to laugh, snortling so hard he had to sneeze. Jacob, who hadn’t heard Karalti’s telepathic speech, looked between us like a spectator at a tennis match.

Half an hour later, we entered the gates of Karhad, having managed not to go teetering off any of the narrow mountain roads down to Myszno's capital. The city looked much better than the last time we'd come down here. The streets were bustling. Many of the elegant brownstone buildings had been repaired with new, bright red roofs. The gutters were clean, and pots full of late Fall flowers hung from apartment windows. The winding walled streets had been cleared of rubble, and scaffolding covered the ruins not yet rebuilt. Hawkers and market stalls were back; women queued by public water pumps with buckets to take fresh water back to their families. Flags - the Dragozin flag and Vlachia's Royal flag - hung from poles in the streets, and now and then, the air was punctured by the bright laughter of children playing.

The River Ward was more subdued, quarantined from the rest of the city. We passed a checkpoint of armed guards, all of them masked to ward off the plague, and donned masks ourselves as we entered the stricken city quarter. The streets here were mostly empty, save for Mercurions - they didn't breathe and couldn't carry disease, and were exempt from the quarantine. It meant they'd become indispensable couriers, running messages and making deliveries to keep the ward from collapsing into stagnation.

A hush fell over us as we entered the hospital. Unlike almost every other religious building in Vlachia, this place wasn't dedicated to Khors, the god of the forge and crafting and Vlachia's patron deity. This building was decorated in reliefs of dragons of a decidedly feminine appearance, sinuously coiling around eggs and stylized flowers - Devana, the mother goddess of The Nine, who ruled over the Earth element and was apparently also Matir's wife. Or sister. Or both. The staff were a mix of male and female, all dressed more like classical monks in brown robes, though instead of bald heads and nun habits, both sexes in the clergy of Devana wore their hair long, and braided it back with brightly colored, rainbow-hued ribbons. Their rope belts were also multi-colored.

I took one look at the ward, and froze in the doorway so suddenly that Jacob shuffled into me by accident, bumping me forward a step.

"Ow! What the hell?" He hissed.

I didn't answer him, reeling with a sudden wave of dizziness. The rows of stretcher cots and simple tables; the wheezing, coughing, retching patients. The smells of antiseptic and something that was just... wrong. Sick. Sweat and blood and corruption. It looked, smelled, sounded just like the field tent where I'd expected to die. As I froze, a sudden flash of icy pain ran down my left arm.

"Urrgh... shit." I flinched, clapping my hand over the join of chest and shoulder: the place where flesh was replaced by a glitched out void of nothing. Normally it didn't hurt, or feel like anything. But suddenly, I felt a sharp, throbbing pain there that radiated all the way into my chest.

"Hector?" It was Karalti's sweet voice that pierced the fugue. "Are... are you okay?"

"Yeah." It was a lie - I knew it was a lie even as I hissed the word through my teeth. Suri shoved Jacob out of the way and came to me, looping her arm around my shoulders and pulling me to the side. Her perfume, her presence... it helped.

"Hector? What's the matter?" Suri asked, shooting a glance at Jacob - who was staring at my back in confusion.

"I... I don't know." I looked up into the hospital ward again, swallowing. When I looked into the vaulted wooden room - really looked at it - it didn't look anything like the field tent, really. "Just... bad memories, I think. This disease, Thornlung. It really looks like HEX."

Behind me, Jacob frowned. "Holy shit. You're right, it does. They've even got the rash, don't they?"

"Yeah." I was angry at myself now: pissed off that I'd shown this kind of weakness in front of Jacob. I gave Suri a squeeze and stood upright, drawing a deep, deliberate breath. I was Tuun, and a Napathian half-blood. I couldn't catch this disease. It wasn't HEX, and I wasn't helpless. To the contrary: I was here, in MY city, to kick its ass. I set my jaw, and looked around to see who had the golden Quest Marker hanging over their head. It came into view over a broad, matronly woman with a thick braid of greying hair. When I focused on her, I also got her name: 'Mother Elena'. She was bent over a bed where a man no older than I'd been coughed violently from Thornlung, wheezing as the attending priests helped him drink a potion. I steeled myself and marched over, and she glanced up at me. Then she did a doubletake.

"The Voivode? Here, brother: take this from me." She urged a younger [Monk of Devana], standing up to face me and bow. "Your Gr… I mean, Your Highness! To what do we owe the honor?"

"Mother Elena? We brought your medical supplies for the plague, and we're here to work," I replied. "Me, Suri and Vash are volunteers. And if you're willing to have him, Jacob here is being rehabilitated with some good old fashioned community service."

Mother Elena's eyebrows arched as she took in the sight of Jacob: bright orange, cuffed and collared, sullenly kicking dust bunnies across the floor while he waited. "I... see. Well, I won't refuse any of you. Truth be told, we can use all the help we can get. Cases grow by the day, no matter how much we keep people to their homes."

[You have completed Quest: Supply and Demand!]

[You gain 1249 EXP!]

[New Quest: Mercy for the Sick.]

[New Side-Quest available: Ill Winds.]

"Hang on for a moment, sorry." I held up a hand and summoned my Quest tab. Behind me, Suri and Karalti did the same.

New Quest: Mercy for the Sick

Now that you have brought the medicines needed to treat Thornlung plague, and have volunteered your services to help the sick, it’s time to put the ingredients to use. Brew 50 Clearwind potions and 25 Heatsbane potions administer them to patients.

Rewards: 3116 EXP, Renown (Karhad), new recipes.

New Side-Quest: Ill Winds

Thornlung, a virulent plague that strikes the young in their prime, is ravaging the Riverside Quarter of Karhad. While this isn't the first time Thornlung has ravaged parts of Myszno, there seems to be some vector for the disease that is escaping all attempts to quarantine it. Investigate the source of the outbreak and see what may be learned.

Rewards: 2284 EXP, Renown (Karhad)

Special: Attn: [SEED#: NUMBERFETCH 00-001A-TypeNew[HeraldOfMT]_PARAGON: Hector Park.] - Learning Cycle 3944390-SI.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. It was one of those weird corrupted quests... and I was coming to learn that meant that there was some high fuckery involved. I turned back to Mother Elena. "Where did the outbreak start? Do we know?"

"It was almost certainly the Ekaterina Mill along the river," the priestess replied. "That family was the first to fall ill. For some time, they were the only cases, and we hoped it had been contained early enough to keep from spreading."

I frowned. "I remember that. And I ordered that all the people they'd come in contact with in the last two weeks should be confined to their homes. According to my guards, that order was carried out."

Mother Elena bowed from the neck. "Yes, it was. And it ought to have worked."

I squashed an uneasy feeling in the pit of my belly. The quest had contained my Seed Code specifically. But why was it flagging me?

"Did you guys see anything weird about that sidequest?" I asked over my shoulder.

"What sidequest?" Suri asked.

I blinked. "Wait. You guys weren't looking at the sidequest?"

"Nope. Just Mercy for the Sick.” She shrugged. "Did YOU get a sidequest?"

"Sure did. One of the weird bad ones." I accepted it anyway, steeling myself for... something. Pain, viral payload, whatever. Nothing happened, which was almost worse. "I have go investigate the mill."

"Alone?" Vash asked sharply.

"Yeah. Trust me. For some reason, the uh, Overconsciousness wants me to go alone." I glanced at Mother Elena, who had the polite and pleasant expression of someone who was confused about something she knew wasn't her business. “Anyway, let’s get these medicines in, and we can start on potions. The sick and injured come first.”

Five sturdy Devarans came out to help us unload: and then, it was potion making time. All of us, with the possible exception of Jacob, were immune to Thornlung thanks to various class or race features. We stuck Jacob in a mask and gave him a prophylactic dose of the early-stage herbal cure for the disease, Clearwind Potion. It was made of several common ingredients, plus the pricey [Iguanodon Bile Salts] we'd brought with us from Kalla Sahasi. It also apparently tasted like shit, because Jacob retched several times.

"What do you even want me to do?" Once he felt better, Jacob sidled up to me at the makeshift alchemy station, where Vash and I were busily brewing, chopping, mixing and bottling both the Clearwind Potion, and the powerful but dangerous alchemical anti-inflammatory, Heatsbane.

"Take some Heatsbane with you and help administer it to the sickest people," I replied, glancing up. "Make sure the attending team has everything ready in case the potion botches and the patient gets mana poisoning or some other side-effect. Anything alchemical isn't guaranteed to work."

"Oh." He sighed, accepted a couple of vials, and scanned the room. Karalti and Suri were already busy helping Mother Elena with a stricken woman; across from them, two monks of Devana were gathered around the bed of a young boy, using an old-fashioned manual respirator - little more than a pump, a bag with an outlet valve, and a leather mask - to keep him breathing. "Oh hey, look at that. Quest markers over the sick patients. Almost like they're plot objects, and the game wants me to achieve an objective."

“I never said we aren’t in a virtual reality with mechanics.” It was my turn to roll my eyes. "Go help the damn sick people."

“Fine.” Jacob slouched off to go join the crew with the boy. Suri nodded to me, and went to tail him, keeping an eye on him as the monks welcomed Jacob in and began to guide him on how to administer the potions. From across the room, I watched his demeanor change as he got engaged in the minigame. He went from looking like a sulky kid to more like an adult trying to solve a problem. As the respirator came off and the boy struggled for breath, I saw Jacob's expression shift to something complicated... sympathy and wariness.

"Alright. I've done about all I can do. I need to go investigate this mill." I looked to Vash. "Can you take it from here?"

“Uhhn.” Vash grunted. “The herbal ones, yes. I’ve no skill at Alchemy, and don’t trust these metal fingers of mine to be precise enough to try. I’ll leave those to you when you get back, Dog.”

If I get back. “No worries. Leave them for me.”

The Baru looked up from under his brows, grey eyes dark with concern. “Be careful. Remember Tsunda.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget Tsunda,” I replied. “Not as long as I live. Don’t worry, alright? I’ll be in touch.”