NOVEL NEXT Chapter 96 – Problematic Plague
"All too often, people relied far too much on the convenience of healing magic for their needs, and forgot about the traditional ways of dealing with illnesses. Fortunately, in many poorer communities where healers are rare or their services were often out of reach of the average man, these traditional practices, old wive's tales, and herbal remedies persisted and were passed down from generation to generation.
I had been a healer all my life, relying on these old traditions as I am no mage. Many healers looked down on our old ways as relics from the past, and many of us also often looked down on them behind their backs for being arrogant fools, disparaging tradition proven by time.
It was not until my death and rise into unlife did I find support for my idea, theories that have long lingered in my mind but had never been able to be put into action before. With the Bone Lord as a backer, I pursued those theories, correlating findings of old with healers who willingly cooperated with me now.
Many of what we found might well revolutionize the field of healing in the years to come… and being unliving… I might actually live to see it all with my own eyes." - Mallard Fowl, Unliving healer.
Grand Hall
Eastern section
Shadow Forest / Ævietønavæel
1st day, 1st week, 4th month, year 80 VA.
The first thing Aideen noticed was how the elven healers working in the hall - and she later received confirmation that it was normally an audience hall, just converted to house patients in the current emergency - wore masks that covered their nose and mouth, with thick gloves as well. Precautions against contagious diseases, Mallard had said, that he clearly approved of.
As such, the healers from Ptolodecca also donned masks and gloves - except for Aideen and Ariadne who had forwent the gloves, as they needed direct contact to work - before they set out amongst the patients and started to work. While so far the plague has only struck elves, none of them were sure that it wouldn't hit other races as well, and they were unwilling to take the chance.
Aideen herself knelt beside one of the patients, who was clearly unconscious yet suffering, as evidenced by how his skin broke apart and bled in many places, despite the best efforts of the elven healers in place.
She laid a hand on the neck of the ailing elf, and started to work her magic as well. The elf being unconscious, her magic went unimpeded through his conduits, and what she found horrified her. The elven man's mana conduits were torn apart, with the tearing caused from within, as if his mana had become hostile to his body.
His own mana had damaged his body, as if it turned to poison, and had caused the many lesions and sores that opened into wounds at their worst. She noticed that the man was of death affinity, and while his condition was rather bad, the damage was not irreparable yet.
So she went to work, her mana weaving his open wounds shut at speeds visible to the naked eye, while she focused her work on the internal damages, which was far more extensive by far. She noticed some innate resistance from the man's own mana as she undid their work, but just flooded over it with her own instead. The way it seemed to reject healing felt vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn't tell from where.
She looked around and noticed everyone else also busy working. Healers from every affinity and several non-mage healers had gone on this mission together, each one testing out how their affinity reacts to the plague in question.
Over by the side, Mallard was deep in discussion with an older elf - who she later learned was the oldest and most respected herbalist amongst the elves - about what sorts of treatment they have tried, and suggested some of his own.
For her own part, Aideen focused on healing the elves in worst conditions, for while she could do little against their mana turning into poison inside them, she could at least fix their bodies and thus help them last longer.
As she worked, healing one elf after another, she noted all the oddities she observed. How the majority of those worst affected were of death affinity came to mind immediately, also how the illness seemed to hit younger elves the worst. Nearly three quarters of the worst affected patients were youngsters two hundred and below, and over half the total patients in the building were of that age group.
Other oddities she noticed was that rejection she felt when she tried to heal, something she confirmed with other healers of different affinities as she made her rounds. From the others she learnt that the rejection was far stronger and even violent when it was against life affinity magic, while on the flipside, death affinity magic had nothing to contribute to the illness. There was no disease causing organisms for them to kill from what they had found.
Whatever the illness was, it was strange, and unnatural. Even the way it spread was odd, as she learned that elves at different sections of the forest, who never had contact with one another and were separated by distance, had fallen ill at roughly the same time. Interpolating that information with a map of the forest gave them a clearer picture of the spread of the illness.
It had indeed started near the Elmaiya border, and had since spread further radially, somehow hitting communities that had little contact with each other regardless of distance, almost in a neat semicircle. Aideen would not have been surprised if it formed a full circle, though it seemed hard to verify since there were no elves in Elmaiya.
Regardless, after three days of busy work, where they helped stabilize those in the worst condition and tried out a new regime of remedies on others, the group had all come to the same conclusion. Whatever this plague was, it was likely magical in nature instead of natural, and what was worse, is that it seemed to be spreading without stopping. At the rate it spread, it would not even be another month before it covered the entire forest, and by then it would have encroached into western Ptolodecca as well.
Worst was how they were left guessing at the vector the illness used to spread, as nothing conclusive had been found so far. Together the group coalesced all their findings, wrote it down on waterproof parchment, and sent their report to Tohrmutgent using an undead flying courier they brought for such an exact purpose.
As for themselves, they were healers, and their fight was on.
