Urges

Chapter 46

Mistress,

I delivered the package as you requested. Bess is quite taken with the Lepusan kits and looks forward to living with them in the valley.

Unfortunately, my other news is not glad tidings. Disturbing events have reached me. It seems a village in the Hallen Barony has had an outbreak of Bloody Mana Fever. It is not too close to where we are now, but it shares borders with the Earldom and is close to you.

I do not fear passing it with your protection, only that the roads in that direction may close. It would not be strange for Earl Savex to close the border.

Your Servant,

Elim

I felt sick as I considered how terrible things might get due to the outbreak. Elim had said that Earl Savex had burned villages to stem the spread in the Earldom. His tone had made it seem like a grim necessity rather than an evil act. I felt an instinctive rejection of that but knew it wasn’t done out of malice.

I had fantastical powers and a basic understanding of medical concepts. Yet despite wanting to help I’d been able to do little so far. The Earl’s power was likely more mundane in nature and his knowledge even more limited. He was doing something he believed would work, and he wasn’t completely wrong.

Elim,

What I had you deliver was a teleportation circle linked to one in the valley. I don’t know if it will work from so far away, but that isn’t important. I’ll help you figure out what to do if it doesn’t. Follow the testing instructions in my letter.

I don’t want any of you to end up caught in a quarantine.

Hoping for your quick arrival,

42

My plan to have him stop at a temple or church evaporated. I didn’t want him or his family anywhere near the bloodbath likely to happen when the infection spread. Thinking about it was enough to make me shiver. The outbreak changed the urgency of my other projects and I was writing a text to Mina next.

Mina,

A fever outbreak has occurred. Tell the priests you are working for a hermit researching how to stop the spread. It's why I want the scrolls. Hopefully they'll agree knowing that. If they still won’t let you have them, please find one who will quickly. I need them ASAP.

-42

Now I was stuck waiting again. That and hoping the teleport circles would work the first time or be easy to fix. They had been easy to make. I’d stamped the teleport seal on a thin slab of metal to make it portable. My regret was not being able to test it. It worked fine inside the dungeon, but I couldn’t predict how things would go outside of it.

“Motherfucker!” I muttered to myself. Couldn’t test it? I certainly could have. I’d explored outside the dungeon in the early days. There was nothing to prevent me from hovering a couple yards past its boundary. I didn't even need to carry the panel.

That wouldn’t have proved it worked at the needed range, but it would have been a basic test. I’d have at least known if it would work at all. How something like that could slip my mind was beyond me. I was furious with myself, but I forced myself to calm down. Self-reproach on that point needed to wait, I had a larger fuck up to consider.

I’d based my timeline on Elim’s mother's exposure and what the entry had said about its incubation period. The math I’d used to come up with it was simple and worked perfectly in a vacuum. A vacuum in which the disease had not become a feature of the natural environment. I’d been assuming it was something Dr. Satan would have to activate. That would have made it consistent and predictable.

Hindsight was an unforgiving and indifferent bitch, like always. I didn’t know much about diseases in the first place. Unfortunately, lack of knowledge wasn’t what was biting me in the ass at the moment.

The entry on BM fever had detailed how it spread. It started in contaminated water and spread to the biting insects breeding in said water. They spread it to humans, humans spread it to new water sources via contaminated body fluid.

It was a very efficient cycle for destroying a population. Especially one without a concept of safe waste management. Yet I’d been thinking it wasn’t part of the ecosystem at this point. That it was something Dr. Satan would have to start artificially. Knowing I was wrong was an ugly and unwelcome surprise.

Despite my new and unpleasant understanding nothing changed. I’d been working with a sense of urgency from the beginning. That the timeline was in fact unpredictable to me didn’t change my progress or dedication. Knowing but not being able to do anything left me feeling exhausted.

I needed a break, but couldn’t think of what to do. Rest wasn’t something I needed and most of my usual leisure activities didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone either and decided to leave my chamber of machinations.

It had been a while since I’d gone to the deepest level of the dungeon. I teleported there and spent a little while floating through the boss room. It was strange to explore the cold and almost empty chamber. I’d set it up like my tutorial dungeons boss level.

That set up had never felt quite right in the end. I’d removed the lava when I moved the hound’s breakroom. Unable to come up with something better it remained unfinished. At the back I found my core where I’d left it, nestled in a flower carved from stone. The centerpiece of a lonely and cold tomb.

It was part of me, but I’d barely interacted with it. Not after the first week or so. I’d always rejected the instinct to stay with it. Unexplainable feelings were part of my new existence, but that didn’t make me any less uneasy about them.

Especially the desire to curl up around my core. It hadn’t been unpleasant when I did, but I hadn’t enjoyed it either. I couldn’t explain why but for the moment I welcomed the idea of it. I wasn’t sure but it was possible I should have listened to my instincts more. Being close to it might have been my equivalent of sleep.

I still hesitated for a moment, uncertain of my logic. In the end curiosity won out and I laid down in the heart of the stone flower. It wouldn’t hurt anything to take a break and see how I felt after. At most I’d get bored and decide to leave before long. Settling in I snuggled the glowing sphere.

Nothing happened as the moments ticked by. I completed routine tasks but didn’t feel like doing anything else. Eventually I was laying in place, my focus drifting as if I were in a light doze.

“42?” Henry’s voice broke through my haze. He was kneeling at my side, hand on my cheek as he looked into my orbs with worry. There had to be a reason why, but I couldn’t figure it out. My mind was still fuzzy as I sat up.

“I must have spaced-” What I meant to say was lost. Henry pulled my head against his chest and hugged me. It was a weird blend of comforting and headlock I didn’t try to fight.

“Kindly don’t scare me half to death!” Henry all but shouted. The note of panic brought me clarity. Something had to be wrong and I needed to get my shit together.

“What happened?” I asked, not pulling away.

“We were supposed t-to have a-a me-meeting and y-you’ve b-been m-missing for for ho-hours,” he said flatly. I felt a thrill pass through me and checked my countdown. It had been five hours, but I felt like it had been half of one.

“It’s true!” Stalin called. A moment later Stalin stood up to put his front paws on the upper row of flower petals. He looked at me with a curious tilt of his head. Blackmore joined him a moment later.

“I-I’ve been trying to-to w-wake you for a while,” Henry added as he loosened his grip on me. Holding me at arm’s length by the shoulders he looked me over. As if not convinced I was alright.

I felt a thrill of fear roll down my back to the tip of my tail as I looked down at my core. Moving like it had a mind of its own my tail released it as I initiated a teleport. A heartbeat later I was in my chamber of machinations along with him and the hounds. The three of them looking at me curiously after the unannounced change in location.

“What’s wrong Mistress?” Blackmoor asked.

“I… I’m not sure. I just didn’t want to stay there,” I replied honestly. I’d landed on my couch and was curled up defensively.

“42?” Henry said my name and I looked over. It took me a moment to realize I’d wrapped my tail around him. Embarrassed, I uncurled it but he didn’t move away from me.

“Ah… Sorry, not sure where my mind is,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. The hounds exchanged a look I couldn’t read. Settling something between them they came over to lick me affectionately before leaving.

“Hey-” I started to call out to them in surprise. They didn’t listen and trotted out to the antechamber. I was surprised, normally they liked to smother me for a bit when I was upset. I looked to Henry, about to comment on their behavior, and found him looking thoughtfully at my tail.

“Y-you se-seem to grab… th-things when y-you’re in p-pain or-or sc-scared,” He said, not looking at me until the end. I’d let go of him, but my tail was starting to curl again, and I couldn’t deny what I’d already done.

“This isn’t the first time?” I asked.

“We-we’ve a-all noticed it-it curls wh-when you’re up-upset,” Henry explained. I’d have taken that at face value if he didn’t look away from me as he said it. I could believe I had a nervous tick I hadn’t noticed. That was normal despite the abnormality of my physiology. Yet I was thinking about something that had puzzled me a while back.

“Did I grab you that time, when I upgraded?” I asked. How he’d ended up damaged enough to need to respawn had been a mystery. I was relatively strong but didn’t have much weight. Even if I punched someone it wouldn’t do serious damage. If I’d made like a boa constrictor though I could’ve been strong enough during my upgrade sickness freak out.

“It d-didn’t h-urt,” Henry said after a pause.

“Neither of us feels much,” I agreed. I couldn’t look at him as I said it. I was glad I hadn’t checked the security feed to see what had happened at the time. There would have been no way I could have pretended not to know that. I’d have been utterly mortified.

“Th-that’s… n-not e-e-exactly tr-true. I-I-I,” Henry fell silent after stuttering harder than normal. I received a text notice after a pause.

My comrades and I can sense your touch unlike our own. It's pleasant, like a soft breeze.

The text read and I was vaguely glad I didn’t have an equivalent of a blush reflex. I’d have been glowing green from head to tail tip otherwise. The revelation explained why the skeletons reacted oddly to my touch on occasion.

“I can feel illusions, but that’s pretty much it,” I said. Changing topics was my fondest wish but my brain was locked up.

“L-l-like I-i-ill-illusions of-of l-l-life?” Henry asked. I nodded, distracted by embarrassment, and not looking at him.

“It’s why I can feel the couch. Normally I wouldn’t. The same goes for things like gloves. I can’t feel them even if you have an illusion of life if they aren’t part of it or aren't enchanted separately,” I said, feeling a bit better now. Discussing it like a normal topic made it less awkward.

A few moments of silence passed, and I looked over at Henry curiously. I felt a little worried he might not be as comfortable as I was. I had effectively crushed him to death after all.

“Hen-” I fell silent in confusion. He was taking his gloves off. Neither of us experienced temperature differences nor sweated. It was rare to see any of the skeletons shed a layer unless they got dirty.

Henry’s lips pressed into a fine line and his expression was grimly determined. I was about to say something just before he reached over and took my hand gently. He turned his head away so I couldn’t see his expression, but the illusory tips of his ears had turned a brilliant shade of scarlet.

“What h-happened ear-earlier?” He asked, looking at me with concern. We’d gotten away from that topic for a moment, but he hadn’t forgotten.

“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. It made me nervous to talk about it, but I couldn’t explain why.

“Bloody mana fever’s broken out ahead of my original projection,” I continued. I half hoped he’d start asking me questions about that so the conversation would derail again. Instead Henry just looked at me intently, waiting for me to continue.

“I felt… A lot of things. Tired. Then… I guess I felt like visiting my core. I don’t really understand why I was so disconnected. Oh, did I worry the others?” I asked, realizing my absence might have caused problems. Nothing major was going on but it wasn’t strange for them to pop in to see me about minor things or give reports.

The more I thought about it, the less sense what had happened made. Unless something caught me by surprise, I was generally good about informing everyone about what I was doing. Curiously though I didn’t have any messages waiting for me either. I’d usually get one or two every couple hours.

“It-it w-was str-strange,” Henry said, uncomfortable again.

“I was wo-worried but di-didn’t act on i-it like I sh-should ha-have. None of u-us di-did, except the h-hounds,” He continued.

“Th-they said… o-one of-of th-their,” Henry stopped, expression turning desolate for a moment.

“Th-their ma-ma-master a-acted st-strange, th-then disss-disappeared, but-but the dun-dungeon kept r-ru-running,” he finished.

I sat stunned in the wake of Henry’s revelation.