M.D.Syl
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Chapter 124 colorless
🕑 Added 2023-12-14 14:14:35 +0000 UTCChapter 124 A Blood Test.
A lack in knowledge creates many mistakes.
A lack in knowledge leads to repeating these mistakes.
A lack in knowledge leads to poverty and a primal life.
Primal life leads to a lack in knowledge.
When a mortal concerns with food,
they do not care for knowledge.
Tukado, the Creator.
The palace is untouched for a reason I cannot fathom. The palace staff is still present although rather scared of what has been going on in the city. The treasury is also untouched.
But it none of it matters at the moment, we have a curse to cure and I have a breathing problem to solve.
Half an hour later we’re in the gardens, I summon Jolla here with the a small pile of book. I figured the dusty bookshelves and the musty scrolls of the library can risk a cough or a sneeze, and I do not want to infect anyone with this curse. Tiom, my gardner, is taking a nap away from us. The old man is sleeping under the shade of a tree, a cloth bucket hat covering his face and his long white beard juts out from under it.
I sit on the green grass near the lavender bushes, browsing my books while Jolla draws blood from my arm. Her face is covered by a metallic breathing mask. She puts me through a series of slightly uncomfortable checkups. While she busies herself with an odd set of instruments, I search in my books for any mention of the blood fae we encountered, but there’s not a single record of that creature. I can only assume it’s undocumented. The orcs sit on a bench, clearly uncomfortable in this peaceful garden, and if I didn't know better I'd say they're scared of Jolla's odd devices. It seems like the gnome had the maids bring half of her personal laboratory out here.
I listen as Jolla obsesses over my blood while she fiddles with her tools. “By Tukado’s hairy peas, this is astounding! You have a unique hormonal structure. I never seen half of these hormones before. And your dopamine is too high for a human, what in the five hells are you?”
"Can you solve my breathing problem or not?" I ask.
"If I solve your breathing problem will you answer my questions candidly?" she asks, fixing her glasses as she observes me.
I fold my hands across my chest. "If you solve my breathing problem and find out what kind of curse the orcs and I have, along with how to cure it, yes, I will. I will require you to destroy any blood sample you take from me, I'm aware how it can be used to track me."
"We have a deal then. I solve your lethal breath and the orcs bloody problem, and you answer every question I have about your unique race. I expect you to honor this deal. If you do not, you'll never get help from me again." The short gnome offers her tiny hand for a shake.
I shake her hand. "We have a deal then."
"Take a pain tolerance potion and lay down," she orders.
I obey, gulping the potion and laying down in the grass. I feel her hand on my chin, then something stings my throat, numbed by the potion. "Pha! Got the little bugger. By Tukado's beard, you're an ugly one. Don't move, girl, I'm not done yet." The sting turns into an uncomfortable prickling sensation with Jolla's firm hands against my neck, chest, and chin. "There! All done. Take a breath?"
I take a deep breath, it prickles and itches my throat, but my airways feels clear. I sit up, reaching for my throat.
Jolla pulls my hand away before my hand touch my neck. "Don't touch it or you'll rip your stitches. You'll need to let it heal naturally, a healing potion will only reverse what I just did."
"What did you do?"
"Took this slug out of your throat." She shows me a crystalline clear—most likely glass—jar. There's a fat black bug inside it, made out of a huge gland for a body and a long thin tail. The bug sucks the light out of the surrounding, darkening the bright sunny day. Jolla covers the jar with cloth and the sunlight returns to the garden. "I'll save it for my experiments if you do not mind, Your Majesty."
"Not at all, but do share your findings with me and answer my questions."
"Agreed. Now, about the..."
Jolla doesn't finish her sentence, Agilla lifts the short gnome by the scruff of her neck and bites the air in front of the gnome's nose. “No more words, kitten. Can you lift this curse or not?!”
"I'll need to take a look at your blood, girl," Jolla replies in a lecturing tone, seemingly unaffected by the fact that the brutish orc raises her like a fragile doll into the air.
"You posua'ali don't touch my blood!" Agilla declares with a growl, lifting the gnome higher.
"Put her down!" I yell.
The orc grunts and obeys my command, lips drawn in a snarl.
"I'll need to draw their blood from the orcs," Jolla says.
“Sure, go on ahead!” I wave my hand in dismissal.
“Shaman?!” Agilla’s voice sounds like a canine whine.
I raise an eyebrow, keeping the smirk away from my twitching lips. “What is it?”
She looks aside, abashed. “Don’t let this posua’ali touch me!” Agilla proceeds to cover her face with her hands, lowering it.
Shufa nods rapidly while giving the scholarly gnome an anxious glance.
“Grraah! Yomla’, ti-a’ark!” <Graaah! cowards, we wolves!> Balgrum gets up, shouting the orcs’ traditional battle-cry. He lets out a loud battle-cry as if he’s charging toward an enemy, and exposes his arm violently from his new black scaled armor. Only now do I note the large tear at the abdomen region and recoil in horror. That blade of the blood fae… the armor didn’t repel it!
Doesn’t matter. It’s dead. Just don’t trust this armor to block everything.
Jolla draws blood from Balgrum and proceed to her odd set of glass and metal devices.
"What curse is it, posua'ali?" Agilla haunches over Jolla's devices, as if looking at what the gnome does will make some sense to her.
“Oh this is no curse girl. This is a disease, a virus,” Jolla keeps fiddling with her odd devices.
I see... “Can you make a cure for that disease?” I ask.
Jolla fixes her glasses and turns to me. “I’m afraid that’ll take me months. Magic is better than science in that department, why won’t you brew yourself a cure disease potion? It should work.” She hands me a pouch. "Some dog's claws, you'll need them for the potion."
That’s all? If it’s just a cure disease potion, I can probably make it… better if there’s a spell version of it, but my grimoire is locked… “And that potion will work?”
“It should,” Jolla says quietly. She ceases noting down in her parchments, and opens my eyelid wide, forcing me to stare into a glowing piece of glass above her shoulder.
Once she lets my eye go and goes back to jot down notes, I get up. “Thanks, I’ll go look up the potion.”
“Not yet.” Jolla tugs my wrist and pulls me back to sit down. “You haven't answered all of my questions about your race, and let me finish taking blood from all the orcs too.” She focuses on the other two orcs who eye the process with visible horror on their faces. “I need to make sure they are all infected by the same bacteria. I also want to compare the effect this bacteria has on their blood to yours. You weren't infected in the same manner, and you carried that... parasite that seemingly have nothing to do with this disease.”
"Nothing to do with this disease?! Every time I coughed it made the amplified effect of that very same disease."
"Indeed. While that is correct, that parasite is a different organism all together, unrelated to the disease. This... creature was a part of you. Some sort of self defense mechanism of your body. This is why I said no healing potions. Should you take a healing potion during the next month, your throat will grow it again. Which brings me to question your race. I've never seen blood like yours. As I mentioned, you have a unique hormonal structure. You even have akeshlu, a hormone that’s unique to gnomes of all things. No other race has it. I have never seen anything like that before!"
I sigh. “I'm a part human, part elf, part fae."
Her white eyes open so wide they match the size of the glasses device on her eyes. “A quarter blood?! You’re lucky to be alive. Many quarter-bloods don’t even make it to adulthood.”
“Which kind of fae-blood is your quarter?” Jolla asks with interest.
“I honestly don’t know, but I suspect a Rakshasa…”
She nods, taking an odd metallic pen without a feather from behind her round ear and jots swiftly in her notes. “Hrm… powerful, would explain why you’ve survived. I’ve never seen a sample from a Rakshasa and I cannot confirm your theory. It also won't explain this odd parasite which I have no explanation for, to the best of my knowledge Rakshasa do not carry such parasites... By Tukado’s beard, your blood is the best riddle I’ve had in years!”
“If you ever solve it, do let me know what you find. I am in search of my blood mother.”
“Of course. You have a right to know.” She turns to her devices and put the vial of my blood through them. “Any abnormal thoughts?”
I roll my eyes in response. “If I had abnormal thoughts, I wouldn’t know they’re abnormal, right?"
"Pha! You have a point. Any desire to rule over mortals?” The gnome turns to me, narrowing her white eyes behind her glasses.
I tuck my hair out of my face in annoyance, trying my best not to touch my itching throat. “Yeah, but normal humans also have the desire to rule over mortals. I wouldn't know if my desire to rule stems from my bloodline or from my human ambitions.”
Jolla snorts. "By Tukado's beard, girl, you question your sense of existence too much for your own good. Do you need to feel superior to others? Make use of them? See them as nothing but currency to be thrown aside once their use to you is done?"
I fold my hands, both in anger and to make sure I won't attempt to touch my throat. "You're asking if I'm a monster who don't care for people's lives? Did the way I care about my friends wasn't clear enough? The way I'm trying to save Kolag from his demon? How can you even ask me these things?!"
"Yet, you kill others with disregard. You value your friends, but not human lives."
"I can say the same about many humans who would only care about their families and not the lives of strangers. I'm not King Luard if that's what you're implying. What's your point?"
She snorts. "Pha, by Tukado's hairy peas, you're a sensitive one. You have an increasingly high amount of annexilin in your blood, this hormone relate to dopamine in a…”
“Jolla. Laymen terms?”
“Pha, I should be talking to a Loremaster, but the only Loremaster around is pretending to be sleeping!" She raises her voice in Tiom's direction. The only reply she gets is loud snores. She shakes her head. "Laymen terms, fiine. Tukado helps me with you laymen types... You have a something in your blood that makes you happy and satisfied when you command or rule over others. It fits with your Rakshasa theory. You also have an odd magical phenomena in your blood. In theory you should be capable of drawing mana from the souls of those you rule. Um… you gave me the idea for the conjecture that: ambitious gnomenoid rulers may have the same chemical in their blood, which may be the motive of their power gain. But whether or not they share the same hormones with you, they do not share the negative mana receptors that tied up to it... pha Tukado's anvil, they don't share the ability to absorb mana from an adoring crowd.”
“I can confirm this. I get weird... urges whenever I give a speech to a crowd, whenever I leave a crowd in awe of me. I enjoy it at times, but it feels perverse and I do my best not to indulge myself..."
"Why not?"
"Because it's wrong. They're people, not pawns."
She nods and jots down in her parchment. "You were raised by humans I take it?"
"Yes."
"Your human common sense interferes with your true nature then. Which can be good or bad, depends on how destructive your true nature is. Assuming you are a part Rakshasa, I'll agree that it's a good thing. Not that humans do not have their own dark desires... or gnomes... Orcs however." She sneers at the orcs on the bench. "Introduced their dark desires into their culture and glorified them, it's why so many races hates them, but that is irrelevant to our discussion. Are you suffering from paranoia?”
Am I? I guess I am… But after everything I’ve been through I have a good reason to be. Then again, I’m fully trusting the people I care about, so I wouldn’t call myself paranoid either… “To a degree. But I’ve experienced things that would create a paranoia for the average human. I had to and still have to fight for my life constantly. I think it'd influence your conclusions about my blood.”
She nods in agreement. “I'm glad you're self aware enough to answer like that, even if you wouldn't admit you enjoy ruling over others. Do you have a high amount of depression?”
“No. I have no depression. Guilt and grief at time, for the people who died for me. I often use apathy as a way to cope, but I’m not depressed.”
“Insomnia?”
“No. I’ve had nightmares after bad experiences and fever, but it went back to normal rather fast.”
“Curious.” She holds my wrist and presses a finger against it. Then against the side of my neck, and another on my heart.
“Most curious. No anxiety, but very high blood pressure, no weight gain or insomnia. You have three times the amounts of cortisol and five times the amount of adrenaline compared to the average human male. Human females have an even lower amount and…”
“Laymen terms Jolla. Explain.”
“If we inject your blood into the veins of any other mortal race, they’ll die.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the case if you inject blood to someone’s veins anyway?”
“Not necessarily, no. Mortals may have the same blood, depending on the race. Humans, pale ones, dwarves, and orcs even share the O blood type between them, dwarves and humans share all four blood types humans possess. Humans have four major blood types, pale ones have two, dwarves have seven, three more in addition to the human ones, and orcs have three. Silioes are odd ones. They have five blood types that are unique to them. Goblins have…”
“Jolla, focus on our conversation please. I couldn't care less about goblins' blood types.”
“Bah. By Tukado's beard, girl, would it hurt you to learn something new? Regardless, your blood is nothing like I’ve seen. Goblins and Kobold are the only creatures who are getting a little close to the amount of adrenaline you have, and they aren’t intelligent. I found that high amount of adrenaline in the body turns an individual into a brainless killer, but you are not. Nor do you show any side effects of high amounts of adrenaline and cortisol. The only conclusion I can come up with that it's normal for your body.” She nods to herself “What is your diet? How much do you eat per meal? How often?”
“It depends on how much I meditate and if I have a dead magical monster on hand…”
“Ah. Irregular diet. Never mind!” she reaches for my head and moves her hands on the front part of my scalp, parting my hair.
“What are you looking for?”
“Horns.”
“Why would I have horns?”
“Pha! I cannot find any. You may be a juvenile and you will grow them in the future. It is also possible that only males of your kind may grow horns. Open your mouth.”
I roll my eyes and open my mouth. Her light device moves lower. “Your teeth should be sharper. Too much human blood. I need to look at your blood again." She turns to the glass vial of my blood and put it through her devices again.
“While you’re at it and already looking through my blood…” I shouldn’t ask… But I want to know. I need to know. “Am I infretile?”
She slaps her forehead. "By Tukado's hairy peas! I'm a fool! Forgot to ask that! I’m unsure. I’ll need more details, how old are you exactly and have you started bleeding?”
“Twenty eight… And no, no bleeding…”
“You poor thing. Must’ve been hard not knowing. Bah. It’s hard to tell because of your odd hormonal structure, and the elf blood mixed in makes it into a very difficult question. Female elves only begin to bleed when they’re ninety years old. Do you have any feelings of sexual attraction at all? Do you get wet while thinking you're in the arms of that knight of yours."
I blush. "Yes?"
She nods. "Aye, that's a good sign. It's too early to know for sure, so take my words as an assumption. If you don’t bleed by the time you’re forty five, then you are probably infertile. It’s very likely that all quarter bloods are infertile, but not enough quarter bloods survive to document such a thing. However, if you are not infertile, you can only procreate with a full blooded human. If you attempt to do with any other species, the fetus won’t survive.”
I see… so it’s only a matter of time finding out… I simply need to be patient… I don’t even want that! I shake my head. "Thanks..." And do I have to wait until I'm forty five? Do Kolag have to wait until he's over forty for this too? If we even solve the demon problem by then... And it's not like our current state is great to raise children... We aren't even married, why am I even thinking about this?! I have bigger things to worry about right now...
I sigh, shaking my head to chase my thoughts away. "Any more questions for me? Or can I go brew that potion now?"
"None. You also do not need that potion yourself, girl, this parasite sucked all of the bacteria out of your bloodstream, you are no longer sick. The orcs do need it though."
"Alright, let's get to it then..."
*~*~*
Interlude 124.1
Nolkum Marvu.
Marvu listened to everything the little drow had to tell him about Queen Inara.
Freezing an entire street of men and breaking them apart like toys. Setting an entire unit of men on fire after blinding them. He'd normally call it tall tales, no sorcerer should be this powerful, but the account of his own men matched everything the drow had said. If anything, it felt as if his own men were the ones who were exaggerating about her powers.
While sorcerers could do these feats, most sorcerers were limited to a single element, some had two. Inara had demonstrated the usage of four, and according to the drow she has more than seven elements under her command. Sorcerers like her aren't common, not in the Gray Isles at least. While he heard tales of powerful ones in distant lands, he never encountered one such as this. The matriarchs of his clutch were more powerful than sorcerers, but he left his clutch for a good reason.
To add to her power there was the carnivorous horse who ignored sharp weapons as if its skin is made of stone. While such monsters were common in the wilds, he never encountered a tame one.
The only good news from the drow was that Inara had mistaken Captain Silde for Marvu himself and believes he's currently dead.
"Ya. She think ye dead," the drow shouts with a nod, chewing his chicken wing loudly enough that the sucking noises are audible for Marvu's faulty ears.
Marvu's scales shift into scheming purple. That means that Marvu is in an excellent position to strike. He's an unknown quality to the queen. "Anything else you can tell me about her? Does she have any enemies?" he asks the drow.
"Oh ya. Enemy queen phoebe. Hates her. Wanna kill her bad." The drow pauses to try and rip small bits of meat off the chicken wing. "She prisoner of that Tiara girl, they chopped her arms and legs like this! Wooosh!" The drow makes a fast cutting motion with his hand.
Marvu's hopeful cyan scales turn into disappointed dark blue. "That is useless information. If that enemy is permanently neutralized, there's not much I can get from her."
"Nah. I have de trick to heal her hands and legs, but keep it a secret! Inara can't know!" The drow shouts the word louder even in Marvu's faulty ears as if the fact he's here isn't a secret to begin with. Marvu had never met such an odd fellow. The drow continues. "You rescue her from Tiara girl, I heal her. Got a message for her from boss lady."
"Boss lady? Inara?"
The drow shakes his head. "Nah. The old boss lady. The one who goes gigigigigigigigi. She a scary mage you don't say no to."
Marvu scales shift into multiple colors before settling on suspicious brown. Who does this drow serve? He's clearly here on another one of Inara's enemies behalf. The enemy of my enemy is a helpful distraction that allows you to strike. It seems that Marvu is to become the distraction for that "old boss lady" to strike. The drow isn't even try to play him, which is oddly refreshing. Yet again, who's to say what the drow doesn't tell him, his kind is known for their scheming nature.
The conclusion is simple. Marvu wants nothing to do with it. Inara doesn't know of his existence, and it'd be best to keep it that way. Marvu will forget his grudges for now in order to live and to avoid whatever schemes the drow is trying to involve him with. But Marvu has a long memory, if there's a chance to strike, he'll take it. For now...
Marvu steps out of his tent, scales flickering. "Alright, men. There's no profit to be made here. We venture south! I heard there's a new queen to the south, her armies shall rue the day we arrive in her land! I promise you'll all be rich men with plenty of slaves!"
The men don't cheer this time, too many were lost in the skirmishes with Inara's forces. His scales shift to angry red. Curse Silde, the man should've never disobeyed his orders! He told him not to engage.
As for the drow, it's best if he kept him near Queen Inara. It'd be useful to have intel on her movement, and he'll get an early warning should she ride south to conquer new lands.
*~*~*
Power level: 3rd stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Crown-knot: Affinity 10: connected: 1 gem replenished per minute.
Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 85
Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5: formed: 21 neutral gems. Conversion ratio: elemental : neutral 6:1, neutral : elemental 1:1
Air: Affinity 4: formed: 30 gems
Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 15 gems
Light: Affinity 3: formed: 22/23 gems
Water: Affinity 6: connected: 69 gems
Earth: Affinity 1: formed: 7 gems
Wood: Affinity 2: formed: 15 gems
Gravity: Affinity 9: connected: 93/104 gems
Cantrip known:
Air: Shavi’s Breeze, Shavi’s Sword. Shavi’s Hair Dryer, Aria’s Enhanced Hearing. Aria’s Sonic Scream. Aria's Increased Voice.
Fire: Nuriss’ Flame. Effrat’s Firefly, Effrat’s Fire Breath. Sorladika's Lesser Heating. Nuriss’ Ignite. Oniga's Soap Creation.
Light: Noxi’s Light. Lako’s Blinding Light. Rika’s energy hand.
Water: Water Evocation, Water to Ice, Ice to Water, Water to Vapor, Vapor to Water, Mayan’s Icy Spike, Ayla’s Water Jet. Ayla’s instant freeze. Ayla's Flowing Shield. Ayla’s Freezing Vapors. Hot Water Conjuration. Boiling Waterjet.
Earth: Alice’s Oil Summoning, Reiko’s Acid Spray. Alf's Copper Bolt
Wood: Arigor’s Lesser Vines. Kolosu’s Vegetable Summoning.
Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burstm. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s Lesser Shield IIa. Imari’s Minor Telekinesism. Imari’s Jump. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light Body. Alino’s Heavy Body. Alino's Orbiter.
Transmutation: Oniga's Laundry.
Spells known:
Light: Rika's Electric Channelb1
Gravity: Alino’s Weightless Bodyb1x2. Tukado's Pushb1x3. Tukado’s defense IIIb1x4. Imari’s Lesser Flightb2.
Life: Brigit’s Lesser Cure Poison. Brigit’s Skin Restoration.
Focus capability: 18 patterns.
Social status: The Queen of Red Cedar City. Shaman of the Twin Moon Tribe. Inara, Daughter of Mysteries. Apprentice to the Maven of Mysteries. Sorceress.
Personal Wealth: 1465 Magic Gems. 1420 Golden Peas, 45 Silver Scales, 32 Copper Bits.
Personal Items:
Magical necklace. Contains 100 gems of general mana, can be drained like a mana pool. It’ll recharge by itself at the rate of five gems an hour.
1 potion of lightning body.
1 potion of mana, medium grade.
2 potions of Lesser Healing.
2 potions of Pain Tolerance.
An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keeps the pouches’ content fresh. Each pouch may contain 10g of petals or six potion flasks.
50g Rose petals
20g Lavender petals
10 Glass with a diamond stopper, put in scaled leather wrapping.
The Great White Egret grimoire. Dedicated by the Maven of mysteries to Inara. 30/100. Locked.
Present Companions:
Sharlafyn Nettledew
Jerro
Languages:
Toml’a <People’s tongue> Fluent
Sinteo <Speech> Fluent
Myrsha <Gravity> 8/10
Felul <Wind> 1/10
Nim <Water> 1/10
A'arkalu <Wolf Tongue> 3/10
Injuries and scars:
Curses: unknown extracted parasite, possibly bloodline related.
-
Kingdom’s treasury: 3836 gold coins. 123 magical gems.
Kingdom’s citizen: Red Cedar City: 3,881 humans, 1,836 human children.???
Apricot City: approximate 800+ humans.
Twin Moon Tribe: 1,138 orcs. 293 orc children. 529 sheep-slaves.
Kingdom's army: 1,136 Orc Warriors. 40 foot man 284 Footmen ???. 49 Peacekeeper Knights ???. 500 Blood Spears.
Notables at Court:
Tasiya Keyholder.
Jolla SilverQuill.
Talbot Bookkeeper.
Marasi Chef extraordinaire (spymaster.) ?
Old Gardner Tiom.
Balgrum Orc Chieftain.
