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Commerce Emperor Chapter 18: Interlude: The Alchemist
🕑 Added 2023-08-01 07:16:41 +0000 UTCPrevious Chapter
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Merchday, Earthmoon 58th.
Entry written in: Timberkeep, Arcadian Freeholds.
Among the apothecaries of the Arcadian Freeholds, it is customary to record one’s discoveries in a journal for safekeeping. When I told my tutor, Lord Johannes, that I never forgot anything, he insisted that I keep up with the tradition as part of my apprenticeship.
“Only fools write books for themselves, Colmar,” he scolded me as if I were a child. “The wise write for the world.”
Henceforth, let it be known to future generations that I, Colmar the Wingless, consider this exercise a complete waste of my valuable time. Time that I could better spend helping to do practical research that will help us progress medicine today, rather than enlighten imaginary future dimwits.
To help the small minds that will read these lines—a prospect that I do not find enticing in the slightest—I shall endeavor to organize these entries by date and location. That way, any moron with a map—if you’re reading these lines, then yes, I am describing you—will be able to retrace my steps.
My ‘steps’. The very word fills me with fury.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rogueday, Earthmoon 59th.
Entry written in: Timberkeep, Arcadian Freeholds.
I have convinced Lord Johannes to let me write one entry per week rather than once per day. With time, I hope to lower that number to one per month, and then only on special occasions, and then never.
We operated on a man today. Fifty-four, nobleborn. A tumor had grown in his prejudice-dulled brain and caused shaking in his legs. Carving his skull open and extracting the putrid mass spreading its roots into his cerebellum proved less bothersome than the two hours Lord Johannes spent convincing him to let me participate. It astonishes me how many humans refuse to be treated by my kind even on death’s threshold.
Ah, yes. Have I forgotten to mention that I have feathers?
Unlike the butterfly-winged monarchs and my harpy cousins, whose fair faces make men forget their feathers, I cannot pass for human. My mouth is a beak, my skin is covered in black feathers, and my eyes are white as milk. There is no place for me among menfolk, nor among my own kin, for my wings are too weak to carry me.
It doesn’t bother me.
It doesn’t bother me at all.
In any case, it was a fascinating operation. I had long wondered which part of the brain managed control of a humanoid’s lower limbs, and autopsying corpses only helped narrow down the possibilities. This operation confirmed the cerebellum holds sway over most motor controls.
I asked Lord Johannes if we could perhaps transplant the tumor into another part of the fool’s cortex and observe the effects. For research’s sake.
I was denied.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rogueday, Earthmoon 66th.
Entry written in: some dirty human inn on the road to Hero’s Rest.
Lord Johannes received a letter from a colleague in Hero’s Rest. Lorimor, I think his name was. From what I gathered, he requires Lord Johannes’ expertise with a patient in critical condition. I argued that we have enough work here in Timberkeep, but Lord Johannes insisted.
Sometimes, I wonder why I took this apprenticeship. For all of his immense knowledge and intuition, Lord Johannes is easily distracted. Whenever he hears of a strange or odd case, he becomes like a bear chasing after a whiff of honey. Whereas I can spend days in a lab engrossed in research, he feels an almost pathological need to meet with other creatures of flesh and blood. It baffles me. What neurosis compels humans to waste time talking and drinking? It’s maddening.
In spite of our differences, we do work well together. We share the same goal, he and I.
We both pursue immortality.
Where most mortals see death as a part of life—the small mind’s attempt to rationalize tragedy—we see a disease to overcome. Lord Johannes thinks the key to conquering death is to replace defective and aging organs with artifice. He is a son of the Arcane Abbey, who worship the Goddess’ tools and see craftsmanship as a holy duty.
While his approach holds promise, I believe nature already offers us all the tools we need. Wild hydras can regrow heads, do they not, and dragons eternally grow until slain. Studying and replicating what already occurs in the animal world seems promising to me.
We both agree on one thing, however: the body is a defective machine in dire need of refurbishing.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Barday, Earthmoon 67th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
I know I promised myself that I would only write one entry a week, but I believe today’s events warrant an exception.
As it turns out, Lorimor is a ratkin. The leader of Hero’s Rest warren.
The Arcadian Freeholds are more welcoming of beastmen than any other human country in Pangeal, except perhaps the Stonelands—and that’s not saying much. We are accepted in their cities so long as we keep to ourselves in ghettos and away from public eyes, make a show out of supporting the Arcane Abbey, and stick to the dirtiest and least attractive jobs available. The ratmen have it the worst. Their warren are watched with suspicion and most cannot find work. And humans wonder why so many of them turn to banditry or demon cults for solace.
Lord Johannes, however, is an enlightened man (he has taken me as his apprentice, after all) and above such petty prejudice. It doesn’t surprise me that he would be friends with a ratkin. One of Lorimor’s charges had been in a coma after an encounter with an underground monster; since the patient suffers from acidic burns, it was probably a slime.
It’s an unusual case, but not too surprising. Slimes are naturally attuned to local essence and easily absorb its properties. More often than not it makes them nuisances, but this one had apparently assimilated the properties of various poisonous animals.
What surprises me is that a slime showed up in Hero’s Rest. Slimes usually build nests in large cities’ sewers, where they feed on filth, or Blights. Hero’s Rest is about the complete opposite: the village has barely eight hundred inhabitants, fifty of them being ratkin, with no sewage to speak of. Very strange.
In any case, Lorimor asked if the two of us could save his lad.
I replied that we were overqualified.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Priestday, Earthmoon 69th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Once again I must violate my vow of laziness. How deeply annoying. Still, today’s discovery deserves to be recorded.
You must wonder whether we saved our patient.
If so, you are an ignorant twit who hasn’t been paying attention. Of course we saved him. How could we not? Lord Johannes and I are the best apothecaries in the world.
If you want details, we purged the body of toxins with a steady combination of alchemical concoctions and blood purification. Lord Johannes invented an ingenious contraption that pumps a patient’s blood out of their body, filters it, and then sends it back. He calls it the hemocycler.
If you have let out a sigh, then that is good. You still possess all your mental faculties.
A good day of this cycling treatment and our patient woke up again, to Lorrimor’s delight. As per apothecary procedures, we thoroughly interrogated him to determine the cause of his coma. His tale proved… fascinating.
Our patient (a skittish fellow named Fein) confirmed having been attacked by a poisonous slime in the tunnels under his warren. He confessed to having accidentally stumbled into an underground cavity while trying to expand his family’s living space; a place he described as an underground garden full of strange purple flowers that do not match any botanical description I’m aware of. The slime attacked him while he was exploring the area, and he barely managed to flee all the way back to the surface.
Now if that tale appears outlandish to you (flowers do not grow underground) then rest assured, Lord Johannes and I agreed that our patient hallucinated the entire experience. Still, we decided to explore the cavity, if only to capture the slime for study. Lorrimor guided us through his warren’s tunnels deep beneath the earth until we reached the suspected site.
And as it turns out…
There are flowers growing under Hero’s Rest.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Knightday, Earthmoon 70th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Our meeting with Hero’s Rest overseer, Lord Fouket, started well. He not only gave us permission to study the Underground Garden (as the ratkin have come to call it), but also offered to host us until we completed our task. He even proposed that we use his castle’s dungeon if we wished to work in peace.
“All I request in return is that you treat my citizens,” Lord Fouket told us oh so graciously. “Hero’s Rest hasn’t had a proper apothecary in years. My peasants still rely on herbal remedies. I would like you to treat them as professionals.”
“Beastmen included?” I asked him sharply.
The condescending smile that followed… I knew it all too well. “Yes,” he answered with the voice of someone who did not like being reminded of his obligations. “Yes. of course. All my subjects deserve equal treatment.”
I have the feeling that if we ever find ourselves with one potion left and two patients on death’s door, a human on one side and a ratkin on the other, one of the two would receive clear preference.
But who cares? I could suffer hidden disdain and hypocrisy for the sake of science. The discovery under Hero’s Rest could change a great many things for apothecaries. It is well known that plants require sunlight to grow and thrive. To find a species that could thrive underground… challenged that assumption.
Lord Johannes feels the same way I do. Studying these plants will take us closer to understanding the nature of life, and through it… death.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Mageday, Earthmoon 71rst.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
A human child is stalking me.
I was on my way out of the castle when I noticed her. A small, scrawny human monkey with muddy hair, so thin I could see the bones beneath her skin. No older than ten. She followed me all the way to the warren before scampering off.
I didn’t think much of it at first. Most peasants in this region probably haven’t seen a birdkin in their life. She was simply curious.
But when I exited the ratkin warren with flasks full of petals and flower samples, there she was, staring at me from behind a tree. She followed us all the way to the castle, that nosy dwarf spy!
Ugh, I should have thrown feathers at her. I hated being followed. It makes me feel hunted.
Whatever. Exploration of the Underground Garden is underway. We’ve gathered flower samples and we discovered new tunnels leading under the cavity. We might have found a secret ecosystem untouched by mortalkind.
No sign of the slime though.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Barday, Earthmoon 74th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
This adventure keeps raising more questions than answers.
We finally captured the slime responsible for Fein’s injuries. The creature (which turned out to be about the size of a small puddle) attempted to ambush Lord Johannes while we went foraging for samples. We trapped it in a jar for its trouble and are currently examining it in our new laboratory. The creature is packing more toxins than a poisoner’s workshop. Frankly, it’s a miracle Fein survived long enough for us to treat him.
Study of the purple flowers continues to yield fascinating results. Their wide petal arrangement reminds me of the feared Arcadian Maneater—one of the most dreaded vegetal monsters in the west—but the absence of dental implements indicates they do not feed on flesh. Which begs the question, where do they draw their energy from? As any botanist worth their salt can tell, even carnivorous plants receive most of their energy from photosynthesis. Their petals do seem to possess venomous properties for protection. I suppose we know where the slime absorbed its toxic essence from.
The more we and the ratkin explore the underground tunnels, the more Lorrimor is convinced the cavity did not form naturally. He presented us with carvings his team has found in the tunnels: a symbol showcasing five animal heads forming a circle. Considering the resemblance with the Ranger’s mark, this place might have been a forgotten hero’s secret sanctuary.
If true, the irony isn’t lost on me. Hero’s Rest earned its name because Arcadia’s founder, Arcados the Green Knight, retired there to live his final days in peace. The man had never crowned himself king, yet his tomb welcomes more pilgrims each year than many emperors.
The child follows me whenever I leave the castle. Whether I go visit patients in Hero’s Rest with Lord Johannes or go to the warren, she is always there, following me. How annoying. I tried to ignore it, but this is starting to affect my peace of mind.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will throw feathers at her silly face.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Merchday, Earthmoon 75th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
I did not, in fact, throw feathers at her.
I captured the child on my way out of the castle, extracting her name (Liliane) and occupation (farmer’s daughter; I wonder why I expected anything else). When I asked her why she kept following me around, she looked up at me with big green eyes.
“Can I ruffle your feathers?” she asked me.
Now, I wish to clarify things here.
While I obliged her, I only did so to make her stop stalking me. Nothing else. I had no other motives.
And it failed. Now that she had found the courage to touch, she started pestering me with questions. “How do you heal people?” “Can those herbs make Dad nicer to Mom?” “Do you cut legs often?” “Can I help you?”
The more answers I provided, the more curious she became. Eventually, I grew so fed up that I devised an ingenious solution: I described a few random herbs and told her that if she wanted to help me, she should gather them for me. The little hellion scampered off immediately.
There, that should keep her off my talons.
In any case, exploration of the Underground Garden has encountered an obstacle. The deeper tunnels are choked with dust and the concentration of flowers fills the air with poisonous pollen. I am currently working on a countermeasure. A mask that should filter out the worst of it.
Otherwise, we treated a few cases of dysentery. Little to worry about. We also presented the strange symbol to Lord Fouket’s personal priest, who sent it by messenger bird to his superiors in Timberkeep. The Arcane Abbey’s archivists should have a field day uncovering its significance.
All in all, things are proceeding well.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rangerday, Earthmoon 76th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Liliane returned with all the herbs I ordered her to find, and flowers. When I asked why she brought me purgeleaves, she answered that she had seen a sick deer eat them and thought they could cure diseases. “Purgeleaves are tasty too,” she added.
I was impressed (though not by the tasty part). A similar observation in my youth was what led me down the path of the apothecary. This girl might possess a keener mind than I expected. She asked me if she could watch me work. Against my better judgment, I agreed to let her into the lab so long as she didn’t break anything and did as I said.
“Have you recruited a new assistant, apprentice?” Lord Johannes asked me with an unbearable smile.
I snubbed him all afternoon, though he wasn’t far off the mark. Liliane proved to be a boon. She doesn’t say a word unless spoken to first, and never complains when I send her to fetch me tools and chemicals.
I might keep her around.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Priestday, Earthmoon 77th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
I must report a strange case we’ve uncovered today.
A washerwoman came to us for treatment. She started coughing for two days and didn’t think much of it (flus are hardly unusual in the harvest season) until she noticed purple spots growing on her skin. She had the good sense to come to us for treatment.
Her symptoms are quite unusual: blood swelling, fatigue, a cough, and minor dehydration. Lord Johannes wonders if another slime is on the loose, but we found no trace of a foreign contaminant in her blood. She shows none of the toxins Fein suffered from. She had no direct contact with the ratkin either, so we can probably exclude a correlation between these two cases.
For now, we’ve decided to keep her in observation in the dungeons until we can find more. We have given her a steady diet of potions and water to fight off the dehydration. If the blood swelling worsens, we will have to hook her to the hemocycler. We asked her husband to remain at home with his children for the time being and to refuse visitors, in case whatever this woman caught proved contagious. Liliane will deliver medicine to their door in the following days.
Better safe than sorry.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Knightday, Earthmoon 78th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
The Arcane Abbey sent an answer by messenger bird. The terms are clear and strict: an inquisition squad has been sent to Hero’s Rest, and we are to stop all exploration of the Underground Garden until they arrive. The site we uncovered might be linked to ‘heretical activities.’ Lord Johannes laughed upon reading that missive; I did not. Once again, these fanatics see demons behind every discovery.
Still, none of us have any desire to end our life on a pyre, so Lorrimor closed access to the tunnels until further notice. We have enough work on our hands anyway studying the flowers we extracted (which Lord Johannes named ‘nightseeds’ for their ability to grow without the light of day). Constant experimentation has shown us that they require little to no sustenance. Water, sunlight, nutrients… as far as we can tell, they can survive without any of those.
I can hardly contain my excitement! We might have discovered the first case of biological immortality in the wild! Lord Johannes is more cautious, but he’s more enthusiastic than I’ve ever seen him.
I wish I could say the same for our patient. The woman’s symptoms kept worsening, so we intensified the doses we gave her and hooked her to the hemocycler for regular treatments. Liliane volunteered for the task. She is a brave girl.
If only she could stop chewing purgeleaves. It’s annoying.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Mageday, Earthmoon 79th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
We are losing the patient.
She is hardly conscious now, and Lord Johannes fears she will soon fall into a coma from which she will not wake up. Her arms have turned purple and she can no longer move her legs.
This is unthinkable. I, Colmar, do not lose patients. No one who has ever come into my care perished to protest otherwise. So long as the patient breathes, the battle is not done. That’s what I always say. This battle goes on.
But what are we fighting? We triple-checked the blood samples and we found nothing. Nothing. The blood is the vessel of all diseases. This is one of the cardinal rules of medicine. So why can’t we see anything?
We are running out of time. Lord Johannes decided that we would amputate the arms to slow down the infection, since they show the most purple patches. The woman was under the influence of so many painkillers that she hardly wept through the process. Lord Johannes promised to develop a set of prostheses for her while he held the boneblade. I’m not sure she believed him.
I sent Liliane to check on the patient’s family before the operation (and to spare her the sight). They are holed up in their farm and show no symptoms. That's a relief. Whatever our patient suffers from, it does not appear to be contagious.
If all else fails, I have suggested to Lord Johannes that we test an experimental serum based on the nightseeds. While these plants’ petals carry toxins, their sap might carry whatever chemical agent that lets them sustain themselves. While it is unlikely to save the patient… if all else fails, we might as well try.
Lord Johannes is obviously uneasy at the idea of testing medicine developed from a newly discovered plant on a patient on death’s door and vetoed my plan. For now. If the patient’s vital signs keep growing dire, he is likely to change his mind.
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The next page was caked with dry blood and stained with purple powder.
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We…. we tried my serum.
It went poorly.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Merchday, Earthmoon 80th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
The patient is… gone. Not dead (not dead). But gone.
We had to chain her… it… in the dungeon’s deepest cell. I forbade Liliane to approach it. This disaster already cost Lord Johannes an eye. At least now we understand what the nightseeds are.
Our mistake was to believe they were alive at all.
I should… I should have seen it coming. It’s obvious, in retrospect. What could survive years, centuries underground without food or water? Nothing. Nothing at all. The plants died long ago. They simply… carried on anyway.
Like our patient.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rogueday, Earthmoon 81st.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Out of nowhere, the houses are full of sick men and women.
Fifteen people across Hero’s Rest show purple spots on their skin, alongside early symptoms. The patient’s family (who still knows nothing of what we did) is among them.
It is contagious.
A Purple Plague.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Barday, Earthmoon 82nd.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
The dungeons are crowded with patients. Thankfully, we have enough space for them all. For now.
We reassured Lord Fouket we were working on a solution and that our initial patient hasn’t died yet (which is… technically true, in the loosest sense of the word). Many in town believed us. Others did not. I’m sure a few are already preparing to flee to other towns. We suggested that Lord Fouket order a curfew until we could resolve the situation, a piece of advice he thankfully followed. That should slow down the infection for a time.
We are nowhere near close to understanding the method of transmission; doubly so since some of the victims never had direct contact with our first patient’s family. We noted that the disease only appears to target humans, however. None of the ratkin show any symptoms so far.
This discovery does not provide comfort. Lord Johannes and I spent days in an underground dungeon with a patient showing advanced symptoms. It’s only a matter of time before my mentor catches the disease. I worry for Liliane too.
Considering the gravity of the situation… We’ve decided to put down the abomination we have created and to autopsy the remains. This should offer us more insight into the plague.
For the first time in my life, I have failed a patient.
I can only hope this loss will help save dozens.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rangerday, Earthmoon 83rd.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
The autopsy is complete. As expected, the heart and brain started undergoing necrosis days ago. The patient… was long gone.
As I am confronted with death itself, my thoughts wander back to that fateful day when I first tried to take flight. My siblings had all left the nest successfully, but when I tried to fly away as well… my wings failed to support me. I crashed and nearly perished. I still remember that icy grasp tightening around my heart as I fell down, that dread that preceded the impact. I have lived in fear of it since.
As the years went by and neither of my wings grew, my nest gave up on seeing me fly. I kept wondering… why me? What quirk of nature caused me to be born defective? Our elders kept telling me the Goddess chose to imbue me with intelligence rather than flight; but… why couldn’t she give me both? None of the elders could offer me a logical reason.
The Arcane Abbey tells us that the Goddess’ work is imperfect and that she left on a long journey to perfect her craft. One day she would return to judge what mortals accomplished and reform Pangeal into a paradise. Priests have waited seven hundred years for it; I will not. I swore I would perfect mortalkind through my work.
One day, I will fly. I will never die. And when the Goddess at long last returns from her journey, I shall be there to greet and shame her. For there is nothing that is beyond my ability to overcome. Not the frailties of my flesh, not this plague, not even death.
The progress we’ve made tonight only solidified my resolve. The autopsy revealed that the patient’s lungs turned completely purple, suggesting that the disease subverted them early in the infection process.
Breathing.
Breathing makes the most sense as a vector. Our patient was a washerwoman. It is probable that she unknowingly transmitted the disease to her clients while discussing with them. Since the incubation period appears to last days and Hero’s Rest folks regularly gather for church sermons or harvest feasts, I suspect a large percentage of the population is already infected.
In light of this discovery, Lord Johannes developed a hypothesis as to the disease’s nature; namely, that this plague does not infect the flesh, but the essence. This would explain the absence of contaminants within the victims’ blood. The plague does not infect its victims.
It changes them.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Priestday, Earthmoon 84th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Today… today is not a good day.
The number of victims is growing exponentially. A tenth of the village’s population has grown purple spots on their skin and a fifth shows lesser symptoms. Lord Johannes is among that number.
We have not lost anyone yet (except our initial patient) but three of our patients are now in critical condition. The prognosis is growing increasingly dire.
Since the disease is airborne, I have started wearing my filtering apparatus at all times and designed another set for Liliane’s use. She remains unaffected by the plague so far. A small miracle considering the time she spent among the sick. Her presence soothes our patients.
The essence infection hypothesis has now been confirmed, alongside other unsettling discoveries. We have found an ingenious way to track the infection: the slime we captured. Since it absorbs essence on contact, we can determine whether or not a person is infected by feeding it a blood sample and watching the changes in coloration. If the victim is infected, the slime’s color leans towards dark purple; if healthy, it grows redder. The creature easily reveals what our tools can’t.
As it turns out, I am infected. As are all the ratkin whose blood we have tested.
I… I previously discounted the now very real possibility that the infection started with Fein because no one in his warren suffered from the disease and that he never met our initial patient. I failed to consider that we beastmen could carry the disease without the symptoms.
Human or ratkin, the village’s washerwomen use the same river. It’s possible our initial patient struck up a conversation with a passing ratkin and unknowingly contracted the plague then.
Lord Johannes and I agreed to keep this information to ourselves. I’ve already heard Lord Fouket wonder why the ‘vermin’ hadn’t contracted the disease yet. If the truth were to spread… I fear certain folk will mistake an accident for a malicious plot and react accordingly.
Finally, and perhaps worst of all, the inquisitors have arrived. Led by a certain Robert Duroy (a bald fellow who struck me as the kind of person to draw his sword first and ask questions later) they have quickly deemed the situation a demonic plot. As if the very forces of nature bent the knee to long-sealed relics.
Whatever the case, the inquisitors have blockaded the roads and sent reports of what’s happening here by messenger birds. Crossbowmen and archers will soon encircle the village and shoot anyone trying to leave on sight. Anyone who managed to flee the village earlier will be captured and either sent back to it for quarantine or executed on the spot.
The message is clear: no one leaves until a cure is found.
—------
Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Knightday, Earthmoon 85th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
We’ve lost five people to the plague tonight. Inquisitor Duroy and his men killed twice as many after they were caught trying to escape the village. He had their crossbow bolt-riddled bodies showcased at the gallows as a warning to others.
While his methods are undoubtedly brutal, they might end up saving more lives than ours in the long term. The number of infected will soon outnumber the living. If this plague escapes Hero’s Rest, thousands (nay, millions) will suffer.
Further testing with the slime confirmed that the nightseeds carry the Purple Plague. Lord Johannes and I are now convinced that they are its source. This place was doomed the moment Fein stumbled upon them.
We have managed to convince Duroy not to put the gardens to the flame until we could devise a cure from the flowers, though he restricted their access and sent men to explore the tunnels. He believes they can track whatever demon he believes is the source of this disaster. I am less optimistic.
Still, these plants are a natural marvel and we cannot let fanatics destroy them. Our first attempt at developing a serum might have shown less than optimal results, but Lord Johannes and I are confident that we can refine it. With time, we might develop a potion capable of dragging patients back from death’s door. Maybe even extend their lifespan indefinitely.
Lord Johannes wants us to focus our efforts on refining my serum. At this point, it is already too late to save most of our patients with traditional methods.
It is too late to cure him.
Lord Johannes does not want to die. No more than I do. At least this way, he will have a chance to… linger. A loss in mental faculties can be overcome with all the time in the world.
We have consulted our patients about experimental treatment. We did not hide the risks. We have more volunteers than we have serum doses. No one wants to die.
We all seek to escape death’s harvest.
—------
The next page was scribbled, as if the writer had struggled to find his words. The next entry skipped an entire day.
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Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Merchday, Earthmoon 87th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Lord Johannes is gone.
The body… the body remains, but the soul does not. The successes (if I call reanimated rotting corpses a success) are at best mindless automatons capable of following basic commands. The failures… are rabid.
Lord Johannes was not a success.
I… I had to put him down before he could escape and attack our patients. His last eye was glaring at me. ‘Failure,’ it says. ‘You’ve failed me, you poor excuse of an apprentice.’
This… There are no words to describe this tragedy. Lord Johannes was a scholar of immense intellect. He has saved hundreds of lives and his hemocycler machine will probably preserve untold numbers over the next centuries. He was a mentor to me.
And I failed him.
Most of the village’s population is either infected or barricaded inside their own homes. People have noticed that the ratkin are immune to the plague. Lord Fouket’s soldiers send me wary glances, but since I am the last apothecary in this dying place and their last hope of survival, they let me work in peace.
However, I can feel the tension in the air. It’s only a matter of time before the villagers’ desperation outweighs their fear of the inquisitors. Lord Fouket is increasingly complaining about my lack of progress. Lord Duroy’s men have found nothing but old bones underground, they said.
In these troubled times, my only source of joy is young Liliane. She does not complain, and by now she knows me enough to anticipate orders. With Lord Johannes dead, she has become more than an assistant. She is my crutch.
Her continued resistance to the plague boggles the mind, however. When I wondered why out loud, she smiled at me sweetly with a mouth full of purgeleaves. She always did that when she didn’t know what to say.
I am starting to wonder whether purgeleaf addiction and her strange resistance to the disease might be related.
—------
Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rogueday, Earthmoon 88th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Astonishingly, it is.
Patients treated with purgeleaf show a notable reduction in blood swelling and a better response to other medicine. Enough to delay what should have been certain death. It appears to stimulate whichever part of a human’s essence fights back against the disease. Fascinating. Deeply fascinating.
I suspect that Liliane’s habits might have strengthened her essence long enough for her to develop a natural resistance to the plague. I might be able to create a remedy against it… at least for those who haven’t caught it yet. I’m afraid treatment will only buy time for those who are already infected.
I have brought my discovery to Lord Fouket, who was overjoyed and ordered his men to gather all purgeleaf available within Hero’s Rest. Inquisitor Duroy cautiously agreed to let foragers venture into the nearby woods under escort.
However; there is only so much purgeleaf to go around at this time of the year. The doses a child requires pales before what an adult requires. I’m afraid the herb will soon come in short supply, at which point I fear thefts and fights are inevitable.
Still, a potential cure is now within sight.
I just need to live long enough to see this through.
—------
Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Knightday; Seamoon 2nd.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
The Arcane Abbey stopped ringing bells for the dead today. There’s not enough priests left to sound them.
Corpses remain unburied in the mud and more join them each day. Inquisitor Duroy has joined them, though he perished from a fall rather than the plague. No one believes it was an accident, but no one knows who did it. Too many suspects.
It changes nothing. Soldiers from Timberkeep have built a vast trench around the region and patrol it. Their archers and crossbows shoot on sight at anyone trying to escape from a safe distance. Lord Fouket exchanges with their leader through messenger birds. They promised to lift the blockade once we find a cure.
I am not sure they will comply even if I grant their wish.
Lord Fouket lacks able-bodied men willing to bury the dead or enforce the curfew. Not that he cares anymore. The dreaded purple spots now show on his arm. His remaining soldiers confiscated all the purgeleaf they could find. They’ve already killed three people who refused to surrender their stash.
I am no longer allowed to leave the castle or treat any patients sent my way. I am to dedicate all my resources to Lord Fouket, his men, and the inquisitors. I argued until they pointed weapons at my throat. Not that it would have changed anything. They hoard what meager purgeleaves remains.
Liliane tells me what she hears among what remains of the keep’s household. The harvest is bad due to a lack of manpower, and winter is upon us. A man killed his sick children for fear of contagion. A woman made a fortune selling bogus herbs to the desperate as purgeleaves, only to be stoned to death when her treachery was revealed. Lorrimor and the ratkin are rumored to be building a tunnel to escape the village.
It suddenly occurred to me that Liliane has never left my side since I welcomed her into my lab many weeks ago. When I asked her why she never returned to her parents, she replied that they hardly remembered that she existed. She had six siblings, all boys who could work in the fields, while she was scrawny and quiet. I suspect her parents never noticed her natural intelligence (or cared).
“Don’t you want to try to reconcile with your family?” I asked her. “This might be now or never.”
“It is too late,” she replied quietly. I had never seen a child with such old eyes before. “Days too late.”
Some of the men that passed away on my operation tables had been her brothers. All dead, alongside her parents. She comforted them the same way she offered companionship to strangers on their deathbeds.
My mind is set. If we survi—Once we survive this, I will take her with me. I will train as an apothecary. She has a gift.
She deserves to bloom more than these cursed flowers.
—------
Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Mageday, Seamoon 3rd.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
Fouket’s men hanged Lorrimor last night.
I saw his corpse on the gallows from the castle’s walls on the morrow. A dozen other ratkin swing at his side, carried by the wind. I cannot tell if Fein is among them. From what I understand the rest have been lynched, gutted, or worse.
I knew something like this would happen the moment the ratkin failed to show symptoms. Desperate men seek scapegoats for their suffering and, as odd as it sounds, Duroy was harsh but fair. Without him, the fanatics among his men found common cause with Lord Fouket’s guards in blaming the obvious suspects behind the outbreak.
Versions differ on what started the brawl. Some say Fouket’s men requisitioned use of their ‘secret escape tunnel,’ and were denied; whether that tunnel exists at all remains a mystery, but facts weigh little against the desperation of armed men. Others said the ratkin hoarded purgeleaves and refused to share.
In the end, it does not matter why blood was shed that night; only that it did.
Ratkin are the smallest and weakest beastmen, and numbers do not help much when facing men in plate armor. They tried to collapse their warren’s entrance, but it was too little too late. The soldiers that went into their homes came back fewer in numbers. It made no difference.
Fifty ratkin lived in Hero’s Rest yesterday. None survived to see the dawn. Fouket’s men spared no one. Women, children… no one.
I wonder who the real beasts are sometimes.
—------
Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Merchday; Seamoon 4th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
I woke up coughing.
My blood is swelling in my talons. There’s purple hiding beneath my black feathers. I feel dizzy, and tired.
I do not understand.
I do not understand.
—------
The handwriting’s quality decreased considerably from then on.
—------
Date: Year 553 of the Erebian Calendar, Rogueday; Seamoon 5th.
Entry written in: Hero’s Rest, Arcadian Freeholds.
I am writing this from bed. This will certainly be my last entry.
The plague… the plague is consuming me. I can feel it crawling into my lungs and flesh and bones. It burns my innards as it spreads its roots. I am dying. I do not know why.
Lord Fouket did not wake up either. Most of his surviving men have barricaded themselves in the cellar with the last few women to drink and fuck and party. They (correctly) say it’s the end.
The remaining patients cling to Liliane. They believe she is a holy child. A saint. The Goddess’ chosen. Soon she will be alone, and it terrifies her. She only leaves my bedside to gather food and water. It changes nothing. My purgeleaf serum remains incomplete.
As is the other. It waits at my bedside. A last resort. I’ve never tested it on a beastman. I do not know if it will work.
No. I know it will work. But I am not sure how much of me will remain. Some of my earlier experiments still haunt the cells below my feet. I hear them banging their skulls against the walls, always at the same hour. The dead dance among the dying.
Do their souls remain inside those husks? Once I hoped for it. Now… I dread it. To be trapped in a prison, mindlessly repeating the same tasks… is that truly preferable to death? After so many years spent chasing immortality, now… I stand paralyzed on the very threshold.
This is why the Arcane Abbey considers the undead as abominations. A body that perishes releases the soul back to the Soulforge, where the Four Artifacts will reforge and send it back into the world. A soul that lingers too long among the living goes mad, they say. I always saw it as preferable to losing all memories, all knowledge (all that makes me, me), but… I hadn't witnessed the alternative with my own eyes.
One way or another, I doubt I will be in a state to write more.
—------
The next entry didn’t show a date. It was only a single sentence long.
—------
Liliane is coughing.
—------
I stared at the page for a few seconds before continuing. Spilled ink stands between every feverish word.
—------
Liliane has contracted the plague. The Purple Plague has sunk its claws into her. I believed she was immune. I was wrong
This plague is a magical organism. A primitive consciousness. An essence parasite whose instinct is to spread, spread, and spread. It kills, as is its nature, but it does not want to die out.
Now that this pestilence has run out of easy hosts, it is growing more aggressive. Overcoming my beastman biology and Liliane's purgeleaf-induced tolerance demands more effort, but it has no choice. There is no one left. No one left.
I told Liliane… that it would be alright. That I am on the verge of finding the cure. That we will both survive. She believes me.
Someone believes in me.
I cannot stop now. I force myself to step out of bed, against the pain and the agony. I cannot die now. She needs me. So long as she breathes the battle is not yet done. I need to live long enough to save her.
I can save her.
I must save her.
—------
The handwriting improved from now on. The words were sharper, clearer, filled with greater purpose.
—------
I have taken the undead serum.
The pain is gone, replaced with a dull, pervading sense of numbness. My tongue can no longer distinguish between flavors. Glass and stone feel the same when I touch them. As in, I feel nothing. My sight and hearing remain unaffected for now.
It does not stop the disease. Whenever I lose a feather, I see the purple spreading underneath my skin. It will devour me alive… for however long that word applies to me. It’s a small price to pay. I can walk. I can work.
I put on the filtering apparatus to limit Liliane’s exposure to my own breathing. I have worn it for so long that it feels almost comfortable. Like a second skin.
On one talon, I am lacking in resources. On the other talon, I only have one patient left to take care of instead of dozens. Liliane has my undivided attention. It reassures her. She feels alive. She is alive.
She is alive.
—------
I cannot tell day from night anymore. I feel tired, but sleep eludes me. Hunger and thirst no longer affect me.
Liliane is bedridden. I give her the last of my painkillers and remedies. It halts the disease’s progress, but it does not stop it. I will have to hook her to the hemocycler. She needs more time. I need more time.
The castle is silent. I found Fouket’s men in the cellar with their throats sliced open. Better to die quickly by one’s own hand than slowly await the inevitable, I suppose. They had the decency to leave purgeleaf behind at least.
It might be enough to develop a cure.
—------
I attached Liliane to the hemocycler. I alternate between pumping and working.
The process hurts her. For all her resilience, she’s still a child. I tell her to be strong. My purgeleaf serum nears completion.
This nightmare is almost over.
—------
The next page showed traces of liquid and a small glass shard embedded in the paper.
—------
Liliane did not wake up.
—------
She’s still smiling at me.
What is there to smile for?
I’ve failed her.
But there’s still a chance.
The nightseeds are blooming.
—------
Liliane woke up, but she is gone.
She is quieter than ever. She understands me. Enough to complete simple tasks.
But she does not smile anymore. Not even when I ask her to.
Her eyes are empty.
She is gone.
—------
My laboratory is silent, save for the noise of the undead beating their skulls against walls.
My world is damp and gray. I can no longer see colors, though I can identify essence on sight. Liliane cleans with the broom. It is all she does nowadays, hour after hour.
I feel tired. I could lie down and wait. Wait for the flowers to grow and cover me.
I cannot. There has to be someone else outside the castle. A patient to save. Someone who needs me.
—-----
There is no one left.
The village is silent and full of bones. The fields went fallow with no one to tend to them. Cows bellow among them, their owners dead. It surprises me. I would have expected the plague to turn on them.
What flesh the plague did not consume, the crows did. My cousins. They stare at me as if they could see my face behind the mask. It occurs to me I haven’t removed it in… the Goddess knows how long.
Why aren’t animals affected?
—------
Rats feast in Hero’s Rest. We’ve fed them well. I saw them devour their beastman cousins with as much appetite as the humans who slew them. The vermin gorge themselves on disease-ridden corpses, yet they do not contract it.
The Purple Plague infects the very essence of the target. All creatures that live in this world should fall to it. Yet oddly, it spared the animals who now haunt Hero’s Rest. The plague does not pass on to crows, even though the fact it managed to infect me would suggest that it could. It simply refuses to in spite of a lack of alternatives.
Something is not right.
—------
This plague is no natural plague.
The nightseeds in my care still carry it. In my current state, I have grown attuned to essence. Perhaps I have undergone the fabled Awakening, or undeath’s precarious position between life and death gave me an acute sensitivity to the world’s underpinning magic. I no longer need a slime to tell the sick from the infected.
I injected rat test subjects with the nightseed pollen that started this entire mess. I gave them doses to kill a man thrice over. Yet they do not contract the disease. My undeath serum does not affect them either. Whatever curse blooms from these flowers simply refuses to touch the animals of the world.
I can only see one possibility.
The Purple Plague is not a normal disease.
It is a weapon.
A weapon meant to kill humans, or anything close enough.
—------
I ventured back into the tunnels Fein uncovered. The warren is a tomb. An open grave full of dirt and rot. Someone set the Underground Garden ablaze during the pogrom, destroying the remaining nightseeds.
Good. This curse ought to be destroyed for good.
Besides the strange, five-headed symbol, the tunnels hold old bones. Centuries-old remains kept intact by the plants’ undead grasp. Examination of the bone structure indicates a poor mismatch of animal and human body parts. This is no harmonious blend of man and beast, but a butcher’s work. A first draft.
One of them is a man whose arms were replaced with wings. Crow wings.
The Arcane Abbey’s scriptures tell tales of the Age of Wonders, when great and prosperous kingdoms ruled the land under the Goddess’ guidance. They speak of how the sins of mankind gave rise to the Demon Ancestors, who laid waste to these ancient civilizations with wicked magic and forgotten weapons.
I believe Fein uncovered one of them.
—------
Though it tears my soul apart, I have decided to destroy my research on the nightseeds. I burned the remaining flowers, alongside my notes and all samples of my undeath serum.
May Lord Johannes’ spirit forgive me. Our dream’s cost is simply too great.
Now… I must put to rest the others. Free what remains of their souls. Liliane can sense it. If I am not mistaken… I believe she is waiting for it.
She has been waiting for a long time.
—------
I buried Liliane’s ashes beneath a bed of purgeleaves, near the place where we first met. I hope we shall meet again one day, in another life. It is my most sincere wish.
However… I cannot join her yet.
A thought will not cease to haunt me. This garden cannot have been the only one of its kind. This curse might hide in another dark corner of the world, waiting for a fool to unleash it back into the world.
I have removed my mask for the first time in what feels like months. I looked at dust and rotting bones through two eyes of glass.
Most of my flesh is gone. Consumed by the disease. The rest is being slowly devoured. The plague will cling to the very last scrap.
So I tore them off.
I gazed at my own skull and threw my crippled arms away with the trash. I tore off purple organs and emptied my suit of myself. I write these lines staring at my own corpse.
It shouldn’t be possible, and yet my soul remains bound to my uniform; my second skin. It is said that ghosts are anchored to what mattered most to them in life. I never cared about my frail imperfect body.
I only ever cared about being an apothecary.
My essence, my soul, has become one with the very symbol of my station. I am a ghost in a shell of leather and steel, more artifice than man, unchanging and free from mortal frailty. I have become my truest self in death.
I am free of the plague at least. Though it infects essence, it still needs flesh to anchor its corruption. I will burn my own remains and the evil that has infested it.
I have outstayed my welcome in this world, but I cannot leave yet.
I must see this through.
—------
Date: Year 556 of the Erebian Calendar, Knightday; Firemoon 8th.
Entry written in: Mosswood, Arcadian Freeholds.
I have saved a life today.
I have left Hero’s Rest. No one stopped me. It is only when I encountered a village on the road that I understood why. It has been almost three years since Hero’s Rest was destroyed by the Purple Plague. No one will keep watch on a graveyard so cursed not even a Blight could arise from its corpse.
Three years.
Months feel like days for the dead I suppose. I will need to keep better track of my time.
The people of Mosswood gave me strange looks when I appeared on their village’s threshold, but not for long. They suffer from a smallpox outbreak, and my expertise is required.
I have saved a life. A boy of eleven.
Liliane would have been his age.
—------
I closed the journal and stared at Colmar. My friend sat near the open window, observing the stars shining above Snowdrift.
“Almost a century and a half,” I whispered. “You’ve been saving lives for so long…”
“I could have saved more,” Colmar replied gloomily. He shook his head. “The rest will bore you, my friend.”
“I’m not certain.” I had only read a small part of the journal and of Colmar’s long, long journey through the ages. “She would be proud of you.”
“Whom?”
“Liliane. I think she would be proud of you.”
Colmar said nothing for a moment. He hardly has any body language to speak of, but I knew he knew that I was right.
“I cannot rest until I have purged this pestilence from Pangeal, Robin,” he said. “Medicine has advanced enough to reduce the harm the Purple Plague causes, but it has yet to be eradicated.”
I set the journal on my desk and join my hands. “Did you find other gardens?”
“Two more,” he confirmed. “All marked with the same symbol. Which, from what you tell me, represents the Demon Ancestor Belsara, the Beast of Sloth. I have destroyed them both, but it seems another has eluded me.”
My jaw clenched on its own. “The outbreak fifteen years ago was no accident.”
“I do not think so either.” Colmar turned to face me, his glass eyes reflecting the moonlight. “The civil war, the chaos we’re dealing with today… our foes planted these seeds years ago.”
Countless innocents perished from the Purple Plague, including my parents. If the Knots indeed unleashed it against Archfrost, Florence and her ilk would have much to answer for.
We have to find these plants and destroy them, I thought. The more we learn, the bigger our task becomes. “The bones you found,” I whispered, putting two and two together. “They were the first beastmen. The first attempts to create them.”
“I supposed as much.” Colmar shook his head. “I originally did not understand the purpose of this exercise, but if your theory about the Demon Ancestors being former heroes is correct… then I can see an explanation.”
As did I.
The Ranger class can only control beasts. Never men.
So Belsara blended both.
---------
Next Chapter
Comments
Hussar L
This chapter reminds me of Darkest Dungeon Intro where some lord uncovers, explores a dungeon, and things go to hell. I can feel same eerie, gloomy, oppressive atmosphere. My favorite chapter so far out of all awesome chapters. Such a sad chapter, going to miss Liliane 😭
Jaroslav Zapadlo
Let it be known that I did cry at this chapter, too.
