---[ POV: Flynn ]---

The feeling of hopelessness that emanated from the woman was almost tangible and Flynn’s heart had sunk at the scene taking place in front of him. Tears traced clean lines on her blood and grime-covered cheek - only the left one, since she had lost her right eye, now covered by a golden eye patch - and locks of messy brown hair had fallen from the iron pin she used to keep them back.

Since he had met her, Flynn had felt strength in her; she was tall and strong and covered in so many scars, the young lieutenant was persuaded she had seen much more of war than himself, despite his years of service in the ISF. But even beyond physical appearance, she had courageously tried to fend off an army to protect a helpless child despite the obvious defeat that awaited her. She had lost an arm, and instead of dwelling on it, had spent her time worrying for the other girl. Flynn had seen fierce defiance in her eyes despite her dire situation and her fear of the unknown. That was not the kind of woman that cried.

Seeing such a proud and brave woman reduced to tears while he was unable to do anything to help was one of the worst feelings he had ever experienced.

Flynn had done everything in his power to save the young teen girl but, for the love of God, he could not even figure out what was wrong with her in the first place. Everything was fine a couple of hours ago and she was well on her way to complete recovery.

He had administered her - just like he had the scarred woman - with one of his limited doses of medical lymphites as well as some biogel the moment he was done dealing with the goblins. That should have been more than enough to repair their bodies and purge any kind of infection or disease from their systems. However, they had both reacted strangely to the treatment.

The woman’s arm had not regrown as it should have - medical grade lymphites could normally regrow limbs in a matter of hours. Instead, she had simply formed scar tissue on her stump. It was proof the lymphites were active, but it was far from the intended result.

The girl, on the other hand, had reacted normally at first. The large slash that crossed her face had closed and almost disappeared, leaving only a thin silver scar that did not impair her impressive beauty at all. She was simply sleeping and recuperating when Flynn had placed her in the corvette’s bed earlier. She should have been fine by tomorrow. However, her condition had abruptly taken a turn for the worst and Flynn had no idea why. He had used every measuring and diagnostic instrument at his disposal and stuffed her with more than enough drugs and medicine to bring the dead back to life, but she was indifferent to everything.

The only thing Flynn had gathered from his observation was that the young girl seemed in a state of intense brain activity, but the wavelength he had registered did not correspond to those of dreams or nightmares. It was something he had never heard of - more terrifying still - even Athena had no idea what was at play here.

Flynn tried to put an appeasing hand on the woman’s arm. He could feel her shoulder shake and bounce up and down because of the sobs she was no longer able to refrain. He was wracking his brain trying to find what he should say to appease her but, there was nothing, really. He could not even pretend to know what she was going through. Who were those two women to each other? Family? Friend? Lover? All those things, Flynn had not much experience with. He was separated from his family when he was 14 and had not much time for love or friendship while in service. The ISF made sure their soldiers’ were mostly numbed to such losses anyway because it prevented erratic behaviors and other problems with troops morale. He decided to keep his mouth shut and let her grieve in peace.

He was about to leave to give her some space and privacy when the voice of a man rang from just outside the corvette, at the foot of the ramp he had left open earlier. Flynn and the woman both turned their eyes to discover there was effectively an old man dressed in white robes standing at the entrance. He had mid-lenght white pulled-back hair and an impressive mustache, but was shaven on the cheeks and chin.

How the hell did that man get there without being detected by my security perimeter?!

The woman beside him was aghast for a moment, then her face tensed and her eye turned hard. She jolted on her feet and jumped the railing of the catwalk to fall in the cargo bay. She received herself with a graceful roll, got back up, and ran toward the exit.

With a scream, she jumped from the cargo bay to the man without bothering with the access ramp. The man seemed a bit surprised but Flynn saw him twitch as if he was about to dodge and decided otherwise. The woman collided with him, locking her legs around his chest and head butting him in the face. They were sent tumbling on the ground and rolled together for a moment before the woman was able to stabilize her position on top of him and started to punch him in the face repeatedly, using both fist and stump.

Damn woman, remind me never to get on your bad side…

Flynn jumped in the cargo bay too and jogged outside. The long mustache of the old man was now covered in blood. His arms were splayed on both sides of him, fist tightly clenched. He was not reacting to the assault but there was a hard glint in his eyes. He looked helpless, being battered pretty bad by the enraged woman, but it was clear he was not.

This man is dangerous, thought Flynn. I don’t know what’s the bad blood between them but it’s clear he could retaliate if he wanted to but is holding back for some reason. That takes some serious self-control. He’s clearly trained in some way. Euh? Why is he looking at me like that? Does he want help?

Flynn tried to ask the woman to stop but she did not listen to him. He doubted she even heard him. She was screaming in rage. It was kind of scary actually. The last time Flynn had seen something similar, it was the mental breakdown of a trainee that had suffered at the hand of older bullies for 2 years during BCTT. Seeing the man's hands were starting to twitch again and that his eyes burned with contained aggression, he decided to intervene before the situation could degrade even more.

Flynn took two steps and tried to calm the woman by placing a hand on her shoulder and pulling her backward but she violently elbowed him in the groin and, with a feral cry, plunged to bite the old man in the neck.

Scary… and also, what the fuck! What did my boys ever do to you? Thank god for the armor, that was a nutcracker right there!

Irritated, Flynn jumped forward to seize the woman before she could bite the man. He thought he would be able to remove her from him easily enough but she proved stronger than he anticipated. Monstrously strong. She could almost compete with the might of the armor. Almost. Flynn observed that her skin was covered in bulging veins as her muscles hardened and flexed to fight him back. He had to grab her from beneath both arms and let himself fall backward to finally wrench her away from the old man.

What the fuck! No one should be strong like that! Is she really human?! And that man was taking her punches head-on! Are they some kind of monsters?! Someone able to wrestle against this armor should have flattened his skull in no time! Was she pulling her punches? No, I doubt it seeing how mad she is.

The woman yelled things he could not understand - Athena was already trying to deduce the meaning of their words and compiling a language pack, but it was extremely hard to do without an interactive conversation flowing both ways and Flynn did not really have the time to engage in a proper one yet. The wild woman was thrashing around, trying to get loose. She screamed like a beast and Flynn feared she had just lost it. She had seemed extremely affected by the impending doom of her companion so it was possible she just snapped for some reason.

That’s just my luck, though Flynn. I finally find people on this planet and one is dying and the other one is crazy. I really hope that old man will be easier to deal with…

Speaking of the old man, he was now back on his feet, brushing the dust from his clothes and the blood from his face in a nonchalant manner that would not suggest he was getting battered in two seconds ago. Flynn wondered how he was still able to walk after taking so many hits to the face from a woman with such a colossal strength.

The man in white robes approached and tried to talk with the woman, probably to calm her or negotiate according to his tone and hand gestures, but she dismissed him with incisive remarks, hateful screams, and what was - Flynn was sure of it - a plethora of colorful insults.

The man seemed profoundly annoyed but showed no sign of aggression, even after two minutes of unsuccessful verbal exchange. At some point, he seemed to realize something while looking at the woman who was thrashing around, trying to free herself from Flynn's double shoulder lock. A spark of comprehension flashed in his eyes and he started to make some strange hands gesture while speaking three short rhyming sentences with an irregular intonation that was clearly not conversational nor musical. A faint white light appeared on the fingers tips of his right hand, then quickly disappeared.

The woman calmed down immediately. She was still hostile toward the man, but she had started to speak rather than scream and dismiss him. She had stopped to fight enough so that Flynn felt comfortable releasing his lock on her.

Flynn got back up and offered her a hand but she brushed it aside angrily.

Oh, come on! Did you really expect me to watch while you chewed on that man's throat and played whack a mole with his head?

She stood up on her own and turned to face the old man. They started to talk again. This man has the patience and self-control of a saint, though Flynn. The woman had started to aggressively scream at him on two occasions but each time he was able to calm her down. Flynn did not know what he told her last, but she was now silent, a reluctant and pensive frown on her face. She seemed torn by something.

After a moment, she spoke and the man seemed to relax a bit. He then produced an opaque flask of green glass sealed in wax from a leather pouch at his belt and gave it to the woman. She took it with a dubious air, removed the wax with her teeth, and smelled the content of the flask. She took a small sip. The old man made a protesting gesture and said something but the woman ignored him and looked at the bottle again. The man sighed and tried to speak to Flynn but the lieutenant shrugged and gestured to let him know he could not understand. To reinforce his point he also explained it in plain words, which he knew the man would not be able to translate. The old man asked the woman about it and she answered something back absentmindedly, still examining the flask. The man in white had a surprised reaction, then he smiled and turned toward Flynn.

He approached the lieutenant and once again produced something from his pouch and put it in Flynn's hand. It was some kind of collar or amulet. Curious, the young man observed it and realized it was made of mummified ears strung on a simple leather lace. The man gestured for Flynn to put it on.

What is that?! thought Flynn. Those people are barbarians! Those are definitively human's ears! He wants me to put that on? Is it some kind of trophy or maybe just a tribal custom?

Flynn did not want to adorn himself with human body parts but he thought there was no harm in doing so once to indulge the old man. As soon as he did, the old man smiled again and spoke to him.

"I hope you can understand me, My Lord." Said the man. "This charm is simple and quite old so it might not work properly."

Flynn was taken aback. What was happening? He clearly did not know the words the man had spoken, yet, somehow, he knew what they meant.

"This charm?" asked the lieutenant.

"Yes," said the man, "should work for another day or two but I fear it will quickly deplete its magic."

"Ma, magic?!"

"Yes. Do not fear, I am a Forged. Here's my guild ring." The man raised his hand to expose a simple golden ring covered in strange glyphs.

"I… Never mind. Who are you? Everything's OK with the lady?"

"Gwenvar? She's…" the man paused and looked at the woman from the corner of his eyes. She returned the attention with a daring and menacing stare and he sighed slightly. "She's going through a lot, I suppose. Her Ward is dying. I came here to help. As I said, I am a Forged, so I might be able to help fend off the Fever."

Flynn nodded. Most of the terms used made no sense to him but he got the gist of it. So that man could maybe cure the young girl?

"Any help is welcomed. I already tried everything I could and nothing seems to work."

"Yeah, her Fever is particularly strong. That is what guided me here. Could sense it from miles away. Poor thing must be going through hell right now. Please allow this Herman here to help."

"Herman?"

"Yes, my name, but most people just call me Old Man White"

A sudden flash of golden light followed by the sound of a plaintive wail came from inside the corvette.

The woman rushed inside screaming.

"Hold on Amy! I'm coming, we're gonna get you through this!" She sounded more afraid than anything else but if Flynn had interpreted the words of the old man correctly, there was a special relationship between the two women, so her distress was understandable.

"Let's talk later," said Herman, "that girl has to survive or Gwenvar is gonna kill me for real this time. Anything else can wait."

"Agreed," said Flynn.