"Shit."

"Yeah...."

"What the hell can we do about it, then?"

Alfaer sighed and shook his head. "That depends on the situation; if the Old One is directly involved, then we could use the Paladins to call on enough divine energies to banish the creature to its home dimension - assuming, of course, those arrogant, pompous, pricks are going to help us with this plague. Have you secured their aid, by the way?"

Zhang Fe nodded. "Yes. Though I did have to call on a substantial number of favors; the Paladins will be offering their aid. Twenty Veteran Knights will be meeting up with us, once we reach the land of the Hunters; from there, they will accompany us on the journey north."

Alfaer nodded. Well, at least those jackasses were on board. "The second possibility, which I'd prefer to be the case, is that someone's merely channelling the powers of an Old One to fuel this plague. In that case, we simply need to kill whoever's responsible and maybe devise a working cure for the plague, since we can't be sure if killing the summoner would halt its symptoms or its advance. It's much better to be prepared than to be sorry after the fact."

"Quite true - have you begun on your formulations for a cure to the plague?"

"The samples I've received are not nearly enough; I need fresh samples - not frozen limbs. In any case, we should start seeing signs of the plague even at the first village in the Northern Kingdoms." Alfaer explained, snapping his fingers. A map appeared on the table, spectral and yet clear as day, outlining all the roads, villages, and towns - both minor and major - in the far north. Alfaer pointed at tiny village that lay just outside the lands of the Hunters. "Stoneberry Dale will be our first stop; we've received word from the Hunters that the plague has reached the village, though the victims are apparently few."

The Sword Saint merely nodded, jaded eyes peering into Alfaer's construct. "Very well. I suppose it's as good a place as any. I'm assuming the ravages of the plague worsen the further north?"

Alfaer nodded; the reports he'd received from his scryers were... worrying. The effects of the Catarina Plague were gruesome and terrifying - more so than any biomantic contagion. A part of him knew that there was far more to the plague than what they all knew - far more than pain, muscle spasms, uncontrollable aggression, constant hunger and thirst, chronic nightmares, and an eventual death. There were more symptoms; he was sure of it, but these were all he could uncover from witness accounts and scrying, which - in the grand scheme of things - wasn't much.

There was more to it than any of them realized. 'Call it a hunch, but something of this magnitude does not end in death so easily.'

"The town of Catarina lies in Volgrad, the neutral lands at the center of the north." Alfaer continued. "From there, the plague would've spread towards the outlying villages and so on. With the rate at which it spreads, the whole of the north should've been engulfed by the plague within a month - at least."

"And yet there are many, who have not contracted the sickness, which begs the question of why." Zhang Fe finished, eyes contemplative. "Does that mean some folk are naturally immune to the plague?"

Alfaer shrugged. "Possibly - but I honestly don't know how the plague itself even spreads. So, answers to that question will have to wait until we can study its vectors closer... or find out what they are, really."

Zhang Fe nodded, sighing as he took his teacup in hand and took a sip of the cold tea. His face twisted into a frown, which was further accented by the lines that ran across his aged face. "To think we'd have to live through two historical events in our lifetime; we're too old for this, my friend. The Morning War was bad enough and this...."

"True... I didn't think ascending the ranks to become Archmagos would land me right in another... well - this." Alfaer chuckled, though it lacked the lightness of any true chuckle. It sounded more like a cough if he really listened to himself. "But we must do what we can for the future generations, yeah? My grandchild was born with an affinity for magic; I'd like to see her ascend the ranks someday as well."

Zhang Fe smiled. "Mindora's kid? I thought she wanted to stay away from this life?"

"My daughter might've abandoned her talents, but my granddaughter - the last time I saw her, at least - expressed quite a bit of interest in joining a University, after I showed her a few spells." He grinned; that'd had been a very pleasant memory.

"Spells? You mean that stupid card trick of yours that doesn't even need actual mana?"

"What? Noooo, any idiot can- yeaaah, she was very impressed,"

The scrying orb at his side blinked and released a brief wailing sound. Alfaer turned and beheld the magical artifact for a moment. "Ah, the others have finally arrived."

Zhang Fe glanced into the orb as well, even from across the table, where his aged eyes would've struggled to see anything. "Color me curious, old friend, but- who else have you brought into this expedition?"

The walk across the bowels of the mountains was rather silent. Nyx had fallen asleep, or was pretending to, on my back. The path itself was laden with wondrous, glimmering rocks and stones, adorning the walls of the cavern, strange glowing mushrooms and a whole bunch of harmless giant insects that scurried away from me. I tried eating some of the glowing rocks, but found they offered nothing substantial so I puked them back out; they did taste somewhat sweet, however. We stopped only twice, mostly to drink from the cold rivers that run into the depths of the earth.

Nyx, curiously enough, woke up, stared down an unfortunate squirrel, and then turned it into a rock.

It was fascinating, truly, especially that last bit as she had explained that such an ability would come to me in time. She might've been referring to that cosmokinesis ability that I had, but... thinking about it still makes my head hurt. So, the obvious solution is to not think about it at all; besides, turning living things into... other things doesn't seem all that useful to me. Perhaps, in the near future, when I understand enough of how it works, I might give cosmokinesis a try.

Are we there yet?

I looked ahead. In the distance was a faint luminosity - an exit, perhaps? It wasn't all that far, and already I caught the faint smell of blood, blowing inwards. It was... human? I didn't think I'd taste the blood of humans in the air this soon after leaving the woodlands. Thinking back, the scrawny creatures never did sate my hunger all that much; hunting them was more trouble than it was worth, since they fought back most of the time, unless ambushed, and I have witnessed plenty of powerful predators brought low before the humans.

I shook my head. It's probably best to avoid them in my quest for adventure.

It's not far. I can already see the end of the cavern.

Okay, little one- can you smell that? There's something... familiar in the air.

Flicking away a piece of rock that suddenly fell from the top of the cavern, I asked. You mean the human blood?

What's a human? No, I mean... ah, it doesn't matter, little one. You probably can't recognize our kind by smell alone - not yet, anyway.

Quite true - all I smell is human blood in the air. Well, of course there were other things, like leaves and dung, but the smell of blood was what stood out the most.

Nyx stayed quiet after that and, for the next hour of walking, all I could hear around us were the faint splashes from the rivers that ran underneath the mountain. The sound of my own footsteps had long since disappeared with all the... weird things I've eaten - artifacts, the talking bone thing called them. The cavern itself smelled faintly of seawater.

Once we reached the cavern's exit, we were greeted to a rather familiar sight - tall trees as far as the eye could see, green grass peaking beneath a thin blanket of snow. The air was much colder here as well, much like the howling winds near the sea to the far east. My whiter cousins would love this place; those bears preferred icy landscapes and this was certainly it.

Nyx chimed in, standing, but keeping herself on my back. Ohhh, we're out!

Yes, it doesn't look all that different from the other forest, honestly-- just... a lot less sweetness in the air, I think.

We pushed on - well, I did; Nyx went right back to sleep on my back the moment I started walking. Well, not that it bothered me; she was literally weightless. Moving deeper and deeper into the new woodlands, where the scents in the wind carried little to no sweetness in them, I encountered a strange and definitely unusual sight. In a large clearing stood three humans; each of them stood far apart from each other. Like any human I've encountered before, these ones wore strange furs and colors over their skin. Two of them held strange, small sticks in their hands, which they aimed at each other, while the third stayed far back, sitting on a large rock.

Curious, I waited and watched. 'What are these humans doing?'

Nyx still wasn't moving.

I sat down and kept my eyes firmly on the peculiar scene.

And then, even though the skies were clear, thunder cracked and boomed all across the woodlands.

What was that?

One of the humans fell - dead. Bits of smoke seemed to fill the air for a brief moment.

I don't know....