《Ignis》Chapter 13: Muscle Atrophy Sucks

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You lay back on the bed after your bath, horrified at how weak you feel. You had to lean on Bedard and Miotal Scathanna all the way to the tub, barely able to hold yourself upright and move. You resolve to take things slowly, to give your body time to recover. Bedard hooks a nutrient drip back up, to fuel your body while it rests, and leaves you alone in your room.

+We need to restore our body.+

+No arguments there. I am so weak. I've never had muscle atrophy this bad before.+

+What is this flesh-weakness? How is it to be repaired?+

+ As I understand it, when one does not use a muscle for more than three days or so, it begins to weaken. I was immobile for fourteen days. I'm honestly surprised that I could walk at all. To heal from it, I need to exert myself: move around, lift things, stretch out.+

+A good time for us to re-learn our Martial forms.+

+Once we can stand again, and move without falling!+

You close your eyes and start drifting off to sleep. Bedard obviously intends to let your mind reorder itself before working on your body.

The next morning, Bedard helps you bathe and change your clothes again. He also has you try to walk around and eat some porridge by hand instead of by the nutrient drip. It's not a pleasant sensation, but you push through it. Bedard seems pleased at your performance, and helps you sit upright in your bed. "Helheim showing up to ask more questions?"

Bedard nodded. "Plus Canala sent down some books from your quarters along with the clothing, so you should have something to do while resting between therapy sessions. Once you can lift them safely, of course."

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Helheim knocks polity at the door. "Hows is the Lady today?"

You grin. "Much better, thank you. Long way to go yes, but better. You have questions, let's see if I have answers."

"I also have some for you, hopefully. Bedard, would you mind getting us both some water? We may be talking for quite a while."

"If I do kick you out, you stay out."

"Understood Apothecary." Helheim takes a seat at the foot of your bed. "Both of your hunches played out. The staff was placed for us to find. I went back over that ship and found only two sets of tracks in the recent past. One was our intrusion, the second one a pair of tracks, one small-footed lightweight humanoid, one lightweight bipedal machine. Wraith tracked down your hunch about the staff's name, and actually found something. He had to dig all the way back into pre-unification languages, but he found it. 'Miotal Scathanna' matched up to an old language called Eriesh, and translates to 'Shadowed Metal' in plain old low gothic."

You lean back against the pillow. "Thank you. I'd planned on tracking down the name as soon as I could."

Helheim shakes his head."We got lucky. Wraith has a habit of studying old languages, and he found more than a few references to Eriesh when he started looking into Dagda. I'm thinking the AAs did the same studying when they Named the staff."

"The 'AAs'?"

"Ariavari and Anai. The Deathwatch knows them as individuals of interest, known to work together, and as extremely dangerous. If they were both involved in creating the Scathanna, and then gave it away, then clearly they are playing a much longer game. What I'd like to do is go back over those other two locations you saw, try and track down what and where they might be. They'll be long-abandoned by the time we discover them, but they will point out the path that at least one of the AAs traveled in the recent past."

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You nod and gather your thoughts. "I'll do the best I can, but I'm working from glimpses in a Dream here. The first one, the cavern. Underground cave, deep below red ground. Big underground ravine takes up much of the space. Big enough to be completely dark, and to not echo. Two names, I think: the Beast and the Night's Labyrinth."

Helheim leans back. "Allfather..." He then slams his hands on his legs. "Allfather!" He repeats in a very different tone. "That may well be the Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars. And that means one, we'd never get access. And two, at least one of the AAs got all the way into the Sol system, made planetfall on Mars and got back out again undetected. Impossible to verify, and it would drag the Adeptus Mechanicus into the fray, which the Inquisitor does not want happening." He lets out a long breath. "Alright, what about the shrine you mentioned?"

You shake your head. "Fewer details, but three names or titles. The 'Shattered Anvil' at the heart of the 'Sundered Wayshrine', with 'the Shades' sleeping in attendance."

Helheim shakes his head. "Sounds Eldar, but we'll have to look into that. You stay here and rest, I'll see if I can pry Wraith out of his books so we can start looking." He gets up to depart, but hesitates at the door. "You just concentrate on getting healthy Lady Dannan. Leave the work of prying into dangerous secrets to the Deathwatch. He vanishes, heading down the corridor.

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