Gabrio was thinking of protesting about matters regarding his role in the Galleon with how many times he had been dragged around. He had to apologize to his patients about how his check-ups had been ruined. He had been rescheduling, adapting to this new change. It was only going to be a few weeks in the Icean Spine, but the amount of work that needed to be done was enormous.

He even heard deckhands, apprentices, sailors wondering when they were going. Morale was high enough, with all the victory that they had accumulated. There is merit to calling them ‘lousy’ for not immediately venturing forth. Nevertheless, overconfidence has been one of the greatest tragedies of the world. The officers, captains, and the commanders of the fleet were experienced. They know battle. Understood battle. And is familiar with how battles are to be waged. What the fleet was doing, gathering information, had meaning.

I don’t expect them to understand this, Gabrio thought. It was not like he underestimated his fellow fleet-kin. But even the older, wiser sailors understood, lectured the younger ones why they were being stupid about this. Gabrio even got a bigger understanding after reading the people who had died during their campaign. Honestly, if the Icean Spine wasn’t around, they would have been in a strict rationing even with the Arkshelled Island.

The quartermaster was busy examining the goods and commodities entering the Galleon. Originally, a Galleon was meant to sail goods over great distances, not relying on coastal sailing like most of the transport ships. What makes the Grand-Galleon expensive and tiresome to operate was the amount of people. There was a great debate about how ‘troublesome’ it was for the crew members to bring their family aboard. Normally, it wouldn't be allowed because of the great danger of it. The seas alone were their greatest enemy.

The helmsman of the Milostiv himself told Gabrio that sailing on unknown waters had been putting pressure on him. He was able to somewhat sail through the dread line and to the Icean Spine with confidence because of the sea charts that they had. However, now that they cross the strait of Brampi then past the Black Great Gates. The helmsman of the Milostiv was not sure how to handle the seas.

There are also reasons such as that even though there are many of them. One huge storm could destroy the fleet. A giant wave could crush the smaller ships, damage the hulls of the Grand-Galleon. And if they are unfortunate, attract the attention of the monsters.

During storms they could lose sight of others. The sails of the fleet would be tangled, the formation that they used to make the fleet look like one giant being would be disrupted, leaving bigger underwater predators to target the smaller ships.

The light’s blinder, the Arkshelled Island, the Elven-kin might be powerful on their own. But what about folks like Gabrio who didn’t wield such power to go against nature? Tragedy could beset the progress of the Fleet, and as they used more time, the harder it was to reach the thousand islands.

Gabrio had been rather steadfast because of his purpose. But during peaceful times where there was no work to be done, no injuries to be tended to, no one dragging him around to a place that might have conflict. He found himself unable to do anything other than stare at the flat of uneven tables located in the clinic of the Grand-Galleon.

His thoughts had taken for the worse once he had read the report given to him by the Inquisitor who had somewhat deemed it important to make him know what they were up to. He had almost forgotten that due to the creatures of the interstice that he had almost died in their first few months here in the Icean Spine.

The thought of meeting those creatures put the fear of God in Gabrio’s heart. Humans and gigantic creatures eager to kill him were something he could handle. But those beings that are able to sing the artes and cast powerful hexes made him fear. He couldn’t heal what he couldn’t see, and even if he could. Would he be able to do so?

Gabrio found himself hurting. Thinking of what had happened he held his head while his shoulders shook madly, and jaw rattled. He clenched his jaw and strained his eyes to keep himself from biting his tongue. His right hand shook. He exhaled hard and inhaled as if struggling to take in air. He closed his eyes, muttering. “Just make sure that you are brave, don’t let fear rule you.”

As much as Gabrio tried to ignore the pain. He felt himself unable to calm down. Unconsciously, he searched his doctor’s bag, reached out to the opium that he used to alleviate pain, and injected himself with it.

He braced himself against the table. He sat quietly, holding on to his chest, waiting for the pain relieving opium to take effect. It was only after a moment of staying still that he was able to feel his limbs calm down. The irregular shaking of his body was gone, but he felt like his head was flowing.

He hated it. He hated why he was having such uncontrollable tremors. Nonetheless, his mind told him to reach out for the journal he kept in his pocket. He plucked it out of the pocket sewn under his coat, placed it on the table, and started scratching his writing stick on the empty pages.

He stopped. His breathing remained and yet found himself sweating more than usual. The area where he injected the opium became red and wrinkly. Gabrio felt drowsy, a headache came in, made every object that he saw duplicate into two. Gabrio tried to stand, only to feel his legs numbed. There was a tingling, cold feeling on his limbs and there was this hateful urge to scratch the red and wrinkly area where he injected the opium.

Gabrio fell on all fours. He crawled away from the table, and then started vomiting on the spot. His eyes rolled backward, he fell on his side. His legs were weak and numb, and he made unconscious rhythmic jerking movements. Gabrio vomited again, then started shaking uncontrollably.

It didn’t take long until Gabrio fainted. When he woke up, he saw that his hand was swelling, and although the cold, numb, tingling feeling was gone. He found himself weakened, and the smell of his own vomit irritated him.

“What happened?” Gabrio asked himself, pushing up, and staring at the vomit. He first took care of the vomit, removed the stain on his clothes, and placed them in the wooden bucket to wash later. With how isolated the clinic was sometimes, there was no way for others to hear him struggling suddenly like that.

Gabrio thought deeply of what happened. “What happened? I was having a rather strange attack, and it wasn’t as terrible as it was. It became worse, why?” he looked at his hand. The red and wrinkly part where he injected the opium had swelled, and it felt horrible.

He sat on the operating table and drank water to hydrate himself. The feeling still remained, and although not as terrible as before. “Wait, the opium? No, no, it couldn’t be right? Did I make a mistake in my concoction of them?”

Gabrio thought hard, but he did not have proof. The only way he could test it out was to inject himself again. But if he were to inject them to his patients, and if it would go wrong… then wouldn’t it cause problems?

Gabrio breathed out. He collected a spare bucket, braced himself, and this time injected the opium again. He waited for the effect to happen. It was only then he started to feel the same drowsy, floaty, feeling that came with a headache again. Immediately, he reached out to the bucket, vomited, and felt the uncontrollable movements again.

Before his limbs went numb, he positioned himself on the seat where he could sit upright without falling on the floor like a fool. His eyes rolled back. And once again, he found himself drifting into the black.

When Gabrio found himself awake, he found that the arm that he injected the opium into had become totally swollen. He found that his chest was aching and his heart rate was slower than usual. He might have a treeheart, but it sure didn’t help in whatever was happening to him.

“Should...I go for another try?”

Gabrio thought of doing it again, but it might kill him instead. He thought to himself that he should try it on an injured soldier next time. He had his own hypothesis after testing it on himself, and he had a somewhat reasonable explanation why this was so.

What he felt was a withdrawal, but at the same time he had deduced that it was because of him.

“I did use opium for days and weeks to alleviate the pain. Who knows what side effect had happened? I could have built resistance and possibly… my body started to recognize the opium as a threat to my own health.”

There were things like this that had happened back in Fort Rava where his Teacher had regularly fed a prisoner the same drug, only for said prisoner to start vomiting, and feeling side effects. Too much was harmful to anyone and if it was an addictive substance, there might be even more adverse effects that he could imagine.

Gabrio noticed that he felt this awful craving to inject himself. Made him think that doing so would bring him further comfort. For now, he covered his arm with a slightly wet cloth to cool it off. Then he took out a mop, and started cleaning his own vomit with a blank mind.

It didn’t take long for him to do so. He threw a detergent on the floor, and then sat down. “I need to stop thinking hard about the creatures of the interstice.”

Gabrio didn’t understand why was afraid of them. Could it be because of what they had done? He knew he wasn’t that brave and he wouldn’t be as lucky if something like that happens again. Gabrio knew that he had the right conditions when it happened. And even though the chance of it happening was far higher because of the Light’s blinder. He doubted that he would be targeted again.

But that fear remained in him. It was engraved in his bones. How and why he was only feeling this, he truly didn’t know. Study of the mind was non-existent, and there even though there are words from philosophers and wise men that could help him suppress the fears. Gabrio wasn’t that steadfast.

“Just move one foot and another, focus on that candle, don’t let the wind blow it away. Forge that metal around that flame, and turn your emotions into those steely walls, Gabrio. You can do this. Fear is a killer of the mind.”

He slapped his cheeks. He tried to keep it in but the anxiety born from said fear never really went away. How could it go away so easily? That was the closest time where he was so close to death. He had many near-death experiences, but it was only that time that he felt like he was truly close to death.

After he was done cleaning up his own mess. Gabrio retreated to his cabin, locked the doors and held his face on his palms. He wiped his face, covered his ears and then sat staring at the wall of his cabin.

After a moment of such dreary staring. Gabrio slammed his fists on his knees and slid on his chair, he opened his journal, and decided to write it down. He needed to do something other than be afraid.

Gabrio came to realize that despite it all. He seems to be still human. There was only himself that could rely on when he’s afraid. Despite having a treeheart, nothing changed about him other than a longer lifespan.

And if he had such a long life… could he even reach such old age?

He recalled in the scriptures of the church how the appearance of the light’s blinder signalled the end of the world. Where light and the dark would clash to decide who shall rule the domicile that is called the world.

At the end of the world, where a cosmic blink could destroy cities in a blink of an eye. He knew that his fears were insignificant to the coming chaos. It wasn’t time to have such fears, not when the creatures of the interstice are lurking in the dark.