Chapter 51: A staff in the mouth is worth two in the... wait, no, what?

The temple's activity stopped almost instantly the moment Derivan walked in with Kestel in his arms. Many priests had a basic [Triage] skill running at all times, and the fact that Kestel had immediately caught their attention was just as immediately alarming; Sev winced slightly as he watched a few clerics practically pull the silent scientist out of Derivan's arms, bringing him over to the corner of the temple they usually kept for the sick and infirm.

It was a small corner of the temple, admittedly, compared to the large marketplace they kept for potions and other healing products. The problem lay in the fact that it was rare for them to really have to keep patients for long; illnesses outside the scope of standard healing spells and the buffer of health were uncommon. Status effects that could not be instantly cleared were even more uncommon.

So that corner of the temple was a makeshift area, set up for those with no health left and were being kept on what was effectively life support, or those with cursed status effects like [Petrification] or [Inward Petrification]. The second one was strange, and poorly understood; planeshifters had explained it once as an illness in which muscle turned to bone, and magical attempts to reverse it had only created ill-defined, loose pieces of muscle that were attached to nothing, and caused more harm than benefit.

All of which Sev thought about in an attempt to distract himself from the possibility that Kestel was hurt in a way that he couldn't heal, or in a way that he could only heal at great personal cost. The rest of the temple's infirmary was effectively empty; there were mattresses and vaguely crumpled, messy sheets, along with some healing artifacts that had collected dust.

"He has several concurrent status effects on him," one of the priests finally said as he walked over to them — Sev recognized him, actually. He'd been the somewhat obnoxious fellow that had kept preaching to him when he'd been at the temple not too long ago. The priest clearly recognized him, too, but was staying professional. "What happened to him, if I may ask?"

"We don't know the exact details," Sev said, glancing awkwardly at the rest of the team — they should've brought one of the researchers with them. They'd at least be able to recount the story. "There was a fight of some kind and he lost all his health. He was kept alive with a [Resuscitator] for about half an hour before I was able to heal him."

"That explains some of those status effects," the priest muttered with a sigh. "Some of them will wear off with time — effects like [Dazed] and [Nonresponsive] — but others are going to take more work, and more mana crystals. Status effects are expensive to remove, and several of them are in later stages. We don't have the mana crystals we need to heal him completely."

"Shit," Sev muttered. The Guild was short on mana crystals as it was — and, glancing at the Guildmaster, she seemed to feel the same way. She was frowning to herself, gesturing with her fingers like she was doing some mental math. "Will he be okay in the meantime? It'll take us a while to get... how much do you need?"

"A grade four, at least," the priest answered, and Sev grimaced. So did the Guildmaster.

"And the price of the actual treatment?" he probed.

"We don't charge," the priest said, shaking his head. "We get most of our gold from potion sales anyway, and we don't actually need a lot of gold. Plus there's been a paladin that's been throwing around his gold a lot, lately."

"Actual gold, or currency gold?" Sev asked warily.

"Both," the priest said, his tone a touch exasperated. He'd clearly tried to explain the difference before. "We just pile up the non-currency gold in the corner."

"Someone needs to explain gold to him," Sev muttered.

"Not it," Misa said immediately.

"I don't think that's our job?" Vex said, though he phrased it like it was a question.

"We're getting there," the Guildmaster said wearily. "He's been a bit pampered in Anderstahl, up until he got kicked out, so."

"How much time will Kestel take to recover, once we provide the mana crystal he needs?" Derivan asked, bringing the topic back to the matter at hand. The priest frowned, considering.

"We can prevent the status effects from getting worse," he eventually said. "Until we get the mana crystal, that's the best we can do. Even without it, he might be able to make a recovery on his own, but... it's going to take a long time, if it happens at all. Right now he'll barely be able to walk."

Sev sighed, glancing over at Kestel. The man was lying somewhat listlessly in the bed, staring up at the ceiling; it was a bed that had been modified for lizardkin, with a slit down the center of the mattress for the tail to slip comfortably into. It was a testament to how out of it he was, then, that he just lay awkwardly with his tail crumpled beneath him, until younger priest reached over and carefully nudged him into a position that wouldn't hurt his back.

"I... will try to make room in the Guild's budget," the Guildmaster said eventually, softly. She was staring at Kestel too, Sev realized, and there was a note of familiarity in her eyes; no doubt this was something she'd seen before. "But we have other adventurers in similar conditions, in other branches..."

"The mana crystal thing is really a problem, isn't it," Misa said, glancing sympathetically to the Guildmaster.

"You have no idea," the Guildmaster said with a sigh. "But we should get going, if we're going to prepare for that many people arriving. The priests will take care of your friend, and I think I might post a guard here too, just in case..."

The Guildmaster frowned for a moment, lost in thought. Sev picked up on the thread of conversation, turning a weak smile to the priest that had helped them. Velykos was nowhere to be found, and he wondered if he'd find the stone elemental again before they had to leave for Elyra; he hoped so. He wanted to make sure the guy was doing alright.

"Thanks for all the help, uh..." Sev trailed off, somewhat embarrassed, as he realized that he hadn't ever actually asked for the man's name. He'd probably introduced himself at some point — presumably at the start of all the preaching — but he hadn't really bothered to memorize it.

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"Ixome," the priest said, which was a strange name for a human, but Sev didn't question it.

"Thanks, Ixome," Sev said. "And uh... sorry about last time. With the staff."

"Believe it or not," Ixome said — and this time there was a touch of dry humor in his voice. "I've been informed by my colleagues that preaching at someone is not a good way to get them to repent. And I've had a number of informative dreams with my Goddess since then."

"Informative dreams?" Sev raised an eyebrow.

"They involved a number of staffs," Ixome said, his words still as dry as the desert. "I took them as the lecture that I imagine they were intended to be."

"I... see," Sev said, blinking once. Ixome didn't seem like he was inclined to elaborate, so he decided not to ask.

"Regardless," Ixome said, changing the subject. "I do apologize for my behavior back then."

Sev nodded. "Water under the bridge," he offered, though Ixiome gave him a strange look at the idiom. "Meaning don't worry about it. Do you know if Velykos is around?"

"He makes it a habit to pray around this time," Ixome said. He started to head back towards Kestel. "My mana's back, so I'm going to go help stabilize those status effects. If you're looking for Velykos, you'll find him in the back gardens."

"I'll find him later," Sev decided, glancing back at the Guildmaster. "There's still a lot we need to figure out before we get to have some downtime."

"That's an understatement," the Guildmaster said. She glanced back at them. "You want to talk to Kestel before you leave?"

Sev hesitated, glancing at the others. Misa frowned, and Vex looked down slightly, like he didn't know what to say. Derivan simply bowed his head.

"I think it's best we let the priests work for now," Sev said quietly. "He's going to be crowded enough as it is when the researchers come to see him... I'll slip a message to him through the system, so he can read it when he's awake enough, so he knows we all wish him well."

And he did. All four of them did, actually, adding their own little notes to Sev's message of wellbeing; it was marked as unread when they sent it, and when they looked over, they could see that Kestel was sleeping. Probably for the best that they hadn't gone to speak to him, then.

The Guildmaster led the way out of the temple, back towards the Guild. "I'm not sure we can spare the mana crystal Kestel needs," she said without preamble. "There's been a spike in dungeon activity, everywhere that we know of. Elyra and Anderstahl have both sent correspondence to us about a strange notification from the system, about something being added to their dungeons, coinciding with the time dungeon activity increased. We've gotten reports from adventurers from Bronze to Platinum about it."

Sev grimaced, and the Guildmaster leveled a glare at him, though there was no real heat to it. "This is your fault somehow, isn't it."

"In our defense," Misa said. She stopped.

"In your defense...?" the Guildmaster quirked a brow at the half-orc.

"Yeah, I got nothing," Misa said with a shrug. "We'll do what we can to take pressure off the Guild. It's the least we can do."

"I should hope so," the Guildmaster said with a sigh, but she didn't really seem frustrated. If anything, she was contemplative. "It's strange that all of this is happening now. Why now, of all times?"

"I think it's..." Sev started, and then he fell silent, shaking his head. "Sorry. Can't say. It's probably under the infolock. We can try again, since this is new information, but... Derivan?"

Derivan glanced at him. He gave the Guildmaster a moment to use whatever skills she needed — she already seemed prepared for a headache — and then began to speak. "Sev suspects that it is because the gods appear to have plans for this as well," the armor said out loud. Onyx had nearly said as much to them, along with the other individual, back in the space they'd fallen into before they'd returned to reality. He didn't know who the other one was — another god, most likely, perhaps one of falling water. "If what Aurum did is any indication, then the gods must be aware that they are being targeted, though they do not seem to know why."

"Targeted," the Guildmaster repeated in disbelief. "Max briefed me a little on what happened with Jerome, but she couldn't tell me the specifics. If you're saying gods themselves can be targeted..."

She shook her head and sighed. "And yet," she said. "Somehow, the part that I'm most worried about is the fact that you can tell me all this now, when you couldn't before. Something changed, and until we know what... be careful."

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