Chapter 111: Chapter 98 – One Weight Lifted, Another to Shoulder

"It was a surprisingly fruitful talk I had with matriarch Fareesa. The saying that the old tend to have wisdom applied well to her, and she saw through my dilemma on the spot. That very same day she even brought me to meet a few middle aged elves. Survivors from the raid on Vitalica.

 

And then we just sat down… and talked.

 

It was honestly quite enlightening to learn how the elves of old had thought, which had led to their savage, raiding ways. They never thought to grow - other than some shamans - and mostly sought to take. The raid that had hit Vitalica had apparently been long in coming, though it was originally not aimed our way. That bit was mostly thanks to Beragonys, the Antemeian ascendant who had apparently plotted for decades to retake our land.

 

Surprisingly, none of them bore a grudge towards us, whereas the same could not be said for us. In their old beliefs, to lose to someone superior was nothing to be ashamed of, and the strong had the right to take from the weak, which had been the main philosophy behind their frequent raids.

 

Said philosophy is dying out now in the shadow forest, because its most vocal proponents have gone and died decades ago, allowing for more progressive factions to take hold. Which was how we got that delegation sent to Tohrmutgent in their hour of need.

 

It felt awkward that the older elves, the few surviving raiders, had nothing but praise for me though. They had worshiped strength, and their warchief was their strongest. By that same logic, they now admire me for having slain their warchief." - Diary of Aideen Fiachna, the First Unliving, circa 80 VA.

 

Grand Hall

Eastern section

Shadow Forest / Ævietønavæel

5th day, 1st week, 6th month, year 80 VA.

 

"Why in the eighteen hells is this happening!? This doesn't make sense!" Mallard cursed as he inspected a dying patient while Aideen was doing her best to keep the young elf alive.

 

The healers had made good progress on fighting the plague, and they had thought they were close to finding a proper treatment. Just two weeks ago, however, the plague seemed to intensify, hundreds more patients were ferried back to where they worked, and some of their current patients who had been nearly cured fell back into illness, or worsened.

 

At least a couple hundred, likely more, had passed away from the illness just in these past two weeks alone. It was as if the disease had increased in volatility, in savagery, and the speed at which the patient's well being declined drastically increased as well, forcing the healers to all work themselves to the bone.

 

Even worse, the plague had spread further, straight into neighboring Ptolodecca and likely Antemeia as well. One silver lining was how it seemed to mostly ignore people of other races, but elves also lived in Ptolodecca, and noted cases of the plague had been spreading deeper and deeper in.

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By now the healer delegation had discarded their gloves, eschewing the possible safety of not contacting the diseased patients in favor of applying their mana via direct skin contact, which had always been the most efficient method. Even so, all their efforts had only barely managed to keep the current batch of patients alive, and every day reports of people dying before they could be brought to them kept coming.

 

Letters were exchanged with their colleges in Ptolodecca, and more healers were underway, as Ptolodecca had a far smaller elven population and more healers to care for them. Even so, despite their best efforts, Aideen could only watch in frustration as one patient after another slipped away from her hands, as even her best efforts only managed to buy her patients more time against whatever this plague was.

 

She herself received some separate reports from Myrddin, rumors and hearsay pointing out that this plague might have been engineered by someone in the Elmaiya Empire, supposedly someone who had lost everything dear to him… to an elven raid in the past.

 

The agents they had in the empire were furiously at work trying to find a possible location of said person, for if the plague was man made, the one who made it might well have its cure. At the very least, by learning how he created said plague, they would have an inkling on how to work towards curing it.

 

Yet the empire's land was vast, and trying to find one person in such a large area was far easier said than done. Aideen knew how difficult work was for the agents, since she had worked together with them on many occasions, and knew that they were trying their best. Even so, she couldn't help but fear for the elven members of her family on Tohrmutgent. The spread of the plague had continued unhindered by all the measures they had taken so far, and it would reach the capital in a month at most.

 

The next week, more healers from the empire had arrived, this time hundreds of them being sent at once. Also being sent was even more undead and troops, as the Elmaiya Empire had apparently not taken to the intervention nicely, and had intensified their skirmishes. The Ptolodeccan army was vastly stronger than the skirmishers, sure, but they were on the defensive, and there was a vast forest to defend.

 

On top of that apparently there were some killers who were targeting healers closer to the front, and for that reason, squads of the Death's Hand were also sent, to guard their own healers from these assassins.

 

By now the elves had truly broken down under the plague, and the healer delegation Aideen was part of moved further west, to the central area of the forest, where they found many, many more patients awaiting them, with elven healers working themselves until they collapsed from exhaustion to keep up with the ever increasing patients.

 

Without a word being said, every healer in the group looked at one another, nodded, and immediately went to work, as their calling demanded.

 

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