Apothecary Talisvan – a bearded man dressed in rough fabrics, with eyes as merry as fire – arrived in the city only a few hours later, and before the sun had even risen. He sought out Caesar first, coming to the lakeside house to hear about his progress.

“How’s the situation?”

“It’s not looking too good. Although we’ve eliminated the Order of the Fox’s leadership, their lesser members are still active.” Caesar brought out Alta’s map of the city and pointed to the three different spots where the plague affected each group differently. “But these three areas are the ones we identified as possible sources of the plague.”

“I see. Let’s quickly head over there and find out what we can do.” The apothecary retrieved something from a satchel on his side – a Ring of Disease Resistance – and wore it.

“Why wear the ring now?” Caesar asked.

“A little theory. Are you interested?”

A nod.

“Well, you see, our bodies have a natural defense against diseases that I believe can also level up. Using the ring too early mitigates that defense…” The conversation continued as they walked towards the most devastated part of the city, where the death toll ran the highest.

----

“It’s like a war between our bodies and diseases. Through this, I inferred that we should prioritize aiding our own troops and controlling theirs.” Talisvan smiled in pride at his accomplishments.

“Where’d you hear about this?”

“Somewhere during my travels. As I was searching for this ingredient for a powerful potion, I…” A story was coming, and Caesar let him ramble whilst listening for any particularly interesting information. Apparently, a place in Rishlik contained materials suited to cure diseases and poison others, which he stored in his mind for later.

Talisvan took the initiative, directing Caesar to gather plagued people into one area. He now used the emblem provided by the castellan to command the nearby guards to help, who promptly completed the task.

Later that day, at an empty stone square, a small group of sallow men and women came to wait for aid. Occasionally, they’d cough and scratch open sores around their arms. A somber frown appeared on Talisvan’s face as he approached them to ask about their condition.

“How are you folks?”

“Not doing well at all,” responded one who looked more responsive. This woman lacked the incessant scratching of her companions, and thus bled less. “We can’t stop scratching ourselves, and I’ve a feeling something horrible will happen if this continues.”

Talisvan tugged on his beard and said, “Okay. Well, anybody want to try eating this and see if it helps?” He took out a small red ball which resembled flesh. It disgusted a few of the people, and many stepped back. “It’s an Uncommon item.”

One of the more diseased men grasped the chance for a cure, desperate for anything to happen, and bit into the fleshy thing without gagging at all. Talisvan peered intently into his eyes and at his face, looking for any signs. Gradually, the man began breathing calmer and scratched himself less than before.

“Miraculous. I knew I was onto something!”

“You mean to say this wasn’t tested?”

“It was, but mostly on sick animals in the wild and myself. I had no idea if it worked on other humans, since we don’t usually encounter plagues as deadly as this.”

The relieved man spoke up with a gravelly voice. “If anything, I’m very thankful for your help sirs.”

“Happy to help,” said Talisvan. “But I need to know this – how did your neighbors pass away?”

Another woman spoke, “It’s a horrible, horrible thing.” She shivered. “Their blood was black.”

A quiet seized everybody in the vicinity as they began to move into the houses containing people who had perished from their disease. Although the guards wore Rings of Disease Resistance, none of them were willing to directly enter the households and remove the corpses. Those rings weren’t infallible, after all. There had been a few incidents where a person died from a plague too mighty to overcome.

Talisvan did not hold the same trepidation. He immediately barged into a room with three corpses and frowned at the pools of still-moving liquid, with a blackness like dried blood. Whatever disease this was, it indeed seemed alive, flowing around and back into the bodies again, upon which a few more drops of black blood would spill forth after a few minutes.

“It’s very slow,” Caesar pointed out.

“Yes. But with time, this could become a grave problem.” Talisvan gazed at the pools who were attempting to wriggle closer to one another with small tendrils extending outwards. Each new cycle of droplets would add to the growing number. “We need to clean this up. Where’s your partner?”

“Away, doing something important. She won’t be available for the next week, perhaps.”

“Alright, let me try this then.” Talisvan rummaged through his pockets and pulled out another small oval item with a crimson red color, which he claimed could kill anything in a very small area. “Whatever you do, don’t eat this,” he said, dropping it into the smallest pool of black blood.

It caused the black to slowly fade away into gray and red. Another one of those fleshy balls dropped into another pool, which had a reduced effect. No red appeared, for one, and the occurrence of gray also occurred less.

“Not quite a cure, but it should delay the effect of this disease.” Talisvan nodded but still appeared grim. More fleshy balls appeared from the satchel again, larger than normal, and its bottomless properties sparked Caesar’s curiosity. “Try eating this after every meal.”

The watching plague victims cupped their medicine between both palms, ceaselessly professing their thanks to the apothecary. But he took it in stride, smiling and nodding, even shaking hands with some of the bolder folk.

Is this the power of an herbalist?

Caesar’s thoughts were interrupted by Talisvan turning to him as well. “You should try and salvage the situation over at the other place,” the apothecary said, pointing at the area with the least deaths. “Use what I taught you.” He handed over a few more of those fleshy balls and crimson-red killers, giving a quick smile before rushing to the third plague zone.

Caesar shrugged and acquiesced. He hoped the man would give a good word to the Pax Society upon returning, as he did seem quite able.

----

After approaching the community of this area, who still appeared relatively content even though illness plagued their homes, Caesar began to suspect multiple types of diseases existed in this city. Unlike the area with the black blood, whose people were pallid and sallow, bloated bellies were the most common symptom in this place. Very different, and much less disturbing than before. And when the guards sent the people to him, he noticed only about half the populace visibly infected, and most were groups who shared the same living spaces.

“How do you all feel?” he asked.

A particularly fat man stepped forwards, but unlike the others, his face appeared to have two chins. “Not much different from usual, sir.” Spectacular gems adorned his suit, which fit him perfectly. Clearly wealthy too – he noticed a few more like him in the crowd of infected, who appeared healthier compared to poorer folk with the disease.

“You’re a merchant?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Thank you.” The man stepped back, and Caesar asked a few more for the same answer before he let them go free. Since none appeared in critical condition, he kept the fleshy balls on him to return to the apothecary.

————

Over the next few days, the diseases began to progress in some of the population. Talisvan visited the lakeside house in the middle of each day, ready to share what he had discovered. He refused to take the fleshy balls back though, citing them as a gift.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. They might help you someday, or someone else, and I’d like to know how if you can share.”

The apothecary had encountered many events involving the illnesses, allowing him to draw a conclusion about the plagues. After about a week of interaction, he concluded that there were three specific diseases loose in different areas of the city, which he named Black-gut, Twine-tingle, and Spoil-blood.

The first, acquired through consumption of diseased foods and liquids, was relatively simple to manage. Because the castellan’s guards brought uncontaminated foods from the clean section of the city, they prevented the disease from growing worse. It bloated the stomach, yet all one had to do was eat enough to mitigate the other symptoms of the illness.

But although they received free food, some refused to eat, citing “worms on their arms” as their reason. Over time, their bellies would begin to bulge outwards before exploding. After that had happened in public, people became frantic, forcing themselves to consume meals and even vomiting a bit while doing so. It showed their desperation, which Talisvan was quick to placate.

That led him into the second disease, which frightened most of the populace. And for good reason, too: it caused all who contracted it to experience vivid hallucinations of string crawling across their vision. Folks would attempt to scratch the things off, causing their own skin to scab. If paired with the first plague, it could make one refuse to eat, as twine appeared to wriggle on their food. As it spread through breathing contaminated air, quarantine was absolutely necessary to prevent it from working with the other two diseases.

The third disease spread through direct blood-to-blood contact, making it the least frequent currently. But Twine-tingle made it spread much more easily and thus increased the speed of decay. Those with the most visible open wounds began to bleed black quicker than anybody else. It was gradual, and not constant, and was only made known to Talisvan after he cleaned up the messes they left behind.

Even without the second disease, over time, the life and energy of a man would rot away, then their blood would leak as it turned black. If too much of this blood pooled together in the same location, a monster of black blood would amalgamate and attack anything living it detected nearby.

“Truly terrifying,” the apothecary had remarked while shivering a little. It sounded as if it took a long, drawn-out fight for them to quell the monster.

Naturally, all three diseases came from the dungeon. If it fully dissipated, Caesar suspected all three would disappear. I should finish it quickly, he thought. The sooner the better, and the less chance of being discovered.

But were all three diseases dungeon phenomenon? He suspected not. They worked too well together to be a mere aftereffect of a dungeon’s existence. No, it seemed they came from different minibosses. And what of the boss itself?

As Caesar pondered about the situation, waiting for the Pax Society emissary to achieve more progress in a cure, the final remaining bits of essence suddenly surged around him and disappeared. He frowned. No disease should have pierced through his resistances, unless...

The true dungeon phenomenon was instead a vulnerability to diseases, allowing the three different illnesses from the dungeon to spread quicker and eventually pierce Disease Resistance. Perhaps in another few weeks, the castellan’s guards would contract the plague, and then a true emergency would start. But his ability to scour any threats from his body immediately told him to attack now, before the worst came.

He left Talisvan alone to his work and descended down into the sewers again, where the corpses of the undead had been dragged into a pile next to the portal. Into the dungeon he went and towards the tomb. His Doppelganger met him halfway with important news to tell.

“Change of plans, Alta. We have to move quickly to complete this dungeon.”

“Okay. We’ve found many secret rooms traveling through the tunnels – about five in total,” she said.

“Good. Any notable differences between them?”

“One appears hollower than the others, with emptier space than expected. It’s the only one blocked off, but there’s something in there which the python deemed important.” She frowned, thinking a little, then shrugged. “We may want to approach that place with caution. But the three other rooms likely contain lots of treasure, and the final room has a stone door with something growling inside.”

“Very nice. The boss?” Caesar asked.

“Sleeping in a coffin like the others. I noticed it wasn’t furnished with gold like the others, but with something else instead – silvery white, but not silver.”

“Alright. Let’s clear the treasure rooms first, then the growling room, and the hollow room before we fight the boss.”

“One more thing. In those secret tunnels, we found shambling undead roaming around. Called Gravekeepers – Rare monsters.”