Death And Disease

Slowly and painfully, they make the long walk back to camp. Mercifully, it is downhill for most of the way, otherwise the task of dragging Viirin's corpse all of the way back would have been more than their strengths would allow. Still, the journey is a tough one for all, taking nearly three hours to make the journey which took them just half the time when they were all well. With relief, they see the camp below them.

Robert sees them coming from quite a distance away. Delighted, he and Min start to run towards them. Robert stops in his tracks, however, as he sees the deceased form of Viirin being dragged by them, plus the diseased countenances of Will, Jihan and Xavier:

'Oh my lord' he says in shock, 'whatever has happened to you?'

"Min, Stay." Will speaks sadly but firmly to the small dog while yet a distance away, and looks on in tears as the small dog obeys but looks longingly at his master, whimpering quietly every now and again.

Will suggests that he and the others whose bodies succumbed to the disease stay some distance from the rest of the party as a quarantine. Robert nods his head in agreement and goes to re-pitch two of the tents some 100 paces away from the rest of the camp. The three diseased members of the party move away from the others in order to go into their quarantine.

As Jihan gets to the tent, all he can do is collapse in a fetal ball of agony in his tent, too fatigued and agonized to even shuck off his battle harness. With the cold company of his weapons, the elf slips into and out of an agonizing half-sleep.

Will looks on at the sleeping elf beside him. The thought of playing something to soothe the pain crosses his mind, but his once nimble fingers are now covered in painful sores:

"Lechit, speed Blesk's blessings to Hrust and drive the filth of Nemotz from us," he mutters in prayer as he bows his head in pain and grief.

Having finished re-erecting the tents, Robert makes some more of his special brew of tea and gets another meal on the go.

After the sick have been attended to, Winnacer loses himself in the creation of a cairn, assisted in the not inconsiderable task by Bennett, Zsolt, Robert, Hrust and Yaz. Once the bodies have all been interred, Winnacer speaks softly:

"May those who have lost their lives remedying the evils that plague us all rest peacefully, their souls meeting that which their faith promised them. And may Spravedelna grant us the strength and the clear-sight to avenge these lost lives at the hands of the undeath."

He then spends time chiseling out two grave markers. The first inscribed with the symbol of Kozlo and saying:

IN MEMORY OF

PETR AMARANDIR

YAROSLAV SKALICHKA

STANISLAV KOKOSHKA

ROLAS TINANDIR

RADIM SVOBODA

MAY THEIR COURAGE AND SACRIFICE EARN THEM PERPETUAL PEACE.

Winnacer then begins to chisel out the second marker, asking Yaz what he would like it to say.

Grim-faced, Yaz replies:

"Put... put that this is the grave of Viirin, the wolf from the north whose ferocity and passion helped tip the balance... in favor of the innocents, the forest..."

"And put... that his breath was... chillest of all the wolves of winter... like a blizzard, like a blanket of ice, most deadly, from which no enemy could survive..."

"And, and..." he adds urgently, "put... put that his gallop was swift and silent, and his coat like moonlight... Moonlight on a dark pool..."

"Oh! and... his patience... and terrible temper... and well-spoken manner... Yes, write that his tongue was made of silver, too, just as he was..."

Yaz looks up at Winnacer with glossy eyes.

"He was not kind," he murmurs, "nor soft-hearted. But he played his part, lived, with passion and conviction. A full life, a meaningful life... more meaningful than most of his kind ever know."

"Prirodna reward him," he continues, to the sky, "take his spirit and infuse in a higher incarnation... Lady, bless him with a new life, perhaps as an elf, or a human child. He deserves that much."

Finished, he backs out of the center of attention and kicks at the ground.

"He does, y'know. Can you write that for me?"

Winnacer responds softly:

"I will do my best."

He works the marker until it has Prirodna's symbol of a tree under which runs the text:

"VIIRIN - A WINTER WOLF SO NOBLE AS TO BE MISSED BY BOTH MAN AND ELF. MAY HE HUNT AT PRIRODNA'S SIDE"

Bennett is silent all throughout the funerals, though he did the bulk of the work digging the holes, as he was in the best condition for it. He carved off a flat section of wood from a tree to dig, breaking up the ground with blows from Regret and making it soft enough to dig with such a crude shovel. Though it took many hours to dig the holes, Bennett dug silently, never halting until the task was finished.

Once the cairn over Viirin's corpse has been erected, Yaz kneels in front of it in silent prayer, not stirring until well into the night.

Seeing Yaz kneeling in silent prayer before the cairn, Bennett is overcome with remorse and comes to kneel besides the druid:

"Man, I am sorry, Yaz. I shouldn't have kept us going any more. I just didn't want to deal with coming back to this place a dozen or even a half-dozen times, so I pushed it too far. Forgive me, my friend, for I have cost you one of yours."

Yaz listens to Bennett while staring at the cairn with dry, dark-ringed eyes. When the man finishes, Yaz looks up at him:

"F**k that," he begins. "If his death is your fault, it's mine too. But it's neither. You know what I blame? I blame the unnatural filth in that Tower, the twisted pervert who dares to mock and interfere with the Cycles..."

Yaz's voice is raising in intensity quickly.

"You know who I f**king blame? Do you?" Yaz's eyes burn, and he leaps to his feet, pointing at Bennett with a dirty finger, his leathers untied and hanging from his frame raggedly.

"It's f**king Bosco! Bosco! The f**ker thinks he a god, does he? Thinks he can cheat death, does he? Rob the world of its life, will he? F**k!"

Yaz slices his scimitar through the air in front of him, then wipes the spittle from his lips and clenches his teeth. His voice becomes quieter, but more intense.

"But he won't. He can't. Nature will not be mocked. Nature cannot be defeated. He doesn't know. No, he doesn't know the power."

Yaz drops the blade to his side, and his shoulders relax. His body shakes slightly as he starts to chuckle. He speaks through a wicked grin:

"But he'll find out, won't he? Oh, he'll find out what happens to bad boys like him, yes he will indeed..."

After Yaz's rage at old Bosco, Bennett uncharacteristically tries to calm him:

"You don't know what the death of all that you love at once can affect a man. It gets inside you, whispers evil things to you, tells you that whatever you do is all right because the gods have it in for you anyway. Whatever you do seems justified. I know. I've been there. This Boscobelous just didn't get lucky enough to meet someone that forced him from the path. I shudder to think where I might be now if we hadn't been forced together. There isn't much to separate one that is a friend from one that is a bitter enemy. Remember that when you think of him."

Jihan, fighting the pain with clenched teeth, drags his seething carcass to attend Viirin's funeral, barring anyone physically preventing him. He sits at a distance, watching the proceedings with glassy eyes and murmuring a broken elven prayer to guide the poor wolf's spirit way on the Last Journey. Wrapped tightly in his sweat-soaked, feculent blanket, the elf sits for a time watching the cairn/grave before him, before moving slowly and painfully back to his tent.

Once the devotions have been seen to, Winnacer walks over to the quarantine tent. Seemingly having little fear of catching the infection, he busies himself through the early evening looking after them, bringing them water and changing their bandages when necessary.

Bennett follows Winnacer in there and begins to apologize heartily to the diseased members of the group as they go through their pain and helps them with whatever they require, though he cannot help but shudder as he looks at their boiling flesh. He makes an effort to ignore it, but is definitely uncomfortable around them, even Xavier. He makes clear that he will go along with the majority opinion from now on, whether it means a hundred trips into the tower or not.

Bennett and Zsolt then sit in the center of the camp. Although Zsolt won the bet that the two of them made, he is in no mood for gloating. He even refuses to let Bennett clean his armor, and sets to cleaning his armor himself, taking a great pride in brushing the filth and slime off his chainmail. Bennett sits next to him, performing the same duties.

Bennett is not pleased to be rebuffed, but can understand Zsolt's attitude. Nonetheless, a bet remains unpaid, and Bennett does not welch, even when asked to.

The two of them try to converse as best they can, as Bennett is interested in learning a few words of Pannon. He points to certain objects and says them in Bohavian and waits for Zsolt to say the word in Pannon. As Bennett tries to repeat them, the Pannon breaks into a rare grin as he hears the Bohavian struggling to get his tongue around the language. Bennett soon realizes that Pannon is far from an easy language to learn, having no similarities with Bohavian whatsoever. In fact, it sounds a lot closer to elven than any of the human tongues that he has come across. Zsolt is having similar difficulties in getting a grasp on Bohavian.

"Damn, but this fairy tongue slips around my mouth like an oyster" Bennett says as he continues to have difficulty with the sounds.

"I must each you my language, a man's language!"

Bennett's relative difficulty with language won't help him much as he attempts to learn an entirely different base of sounds, but he should, over time, be able to communicate as a retarded child. After spending most of the evening on the lesson, they have both managed to grasp a few words of each other's languages.

Half way through the evening, it starts to rain, just to make things more uncomfortable than they were already. It makes little difference to them, however, as no one is in the mood for any celebrating and so they make for their tents in order to escape from the rain. The honey leather tents that the wood elves gave them prove their true worth in the rain. Although it rains hard, not a drop of water passes through the material.

The rain has a strange effect upon Hrust. Rather than sheltering from it, he takes his rod and makes his way to the peak of the highest hill in the vicinity of the camp. They see him silhouetted against the dark evening skies standing upon the hill and barking towards the skies. He remains in this position for more than half an hour until they start to hear rolling thunder in the distance, followed by a crack of lightning. As the thunder and lightning gets closer to them, Hrust's chanting gets louder and louder until the storm is right overhead. As it does so, a fork of lightning comes down from the cloud and strikes the rod in Hrust's paw and for a split-second, it is as light as day. They see the rod glowing for a short while, and then the power subsides. Hrust kneels on the hilltop, chanting his thanks to his god, and then he descends the hill in order to return to camp.

Winnacer then fights his body's exhaustion to keep watch. He offers his wounds up to Faewen'il after all others have been treated for binding and stitching, waiting for the night to come. He finds himself hammering out his armor and sharpening his swords in order to keep awake.

Bennett, after a few hours of sleep to rest from digging, awakens and relieves Winnacer, then keeps watch until whenever the group awakes the next day.

Jihan has a troubled night. He falls in and out of consciousness and seems to be on the state of delirium, calling out in his sleep in a mixture of common and elven. The elf has had one of the worst days of his life and if is obvious that it has affected him mentally as well as physically. In the middle of the night, he awakes with a start and finds it hard to get back to sleep. He peers out of the tent and sees that Yaz is still knelt in front of the cairn containing Viirin, oblivious to the pounding rain running in rivulets down his body. Jihan wants to go and join him, to share his pain, but he does not want to put his brother in any more danger of infection and so he just watches from afar into the night, before he is finally overcome with exhaustion and slips back into a troubled sleep.

From his position on watch, Bennett sees Yaz kneeling in the pounding rain and comes over to him in order to apologize once more.

Yaz simply replies:

"Bennett, it's not your fault. He's in a better place now, and he's done what he was purposed to do. I don't wish him alive again. I just miss him, that's all."

 

11 OKTOBER 3460

One by one, they start to come round after 8.00 a.m. They see to their relief that the rain has stopped some time during the night and the weak morning sun is shining once more. The night was quiet and, as the day progresses with no sight of anything larger than a small bird or mammal, you realize how Dobroushka could have remained hidden for so long. It is obvious that all within a wide radius of the tower know of its terrible secret and keep well away from it.

Winnacer is still exhausted and finds his way to bed after sharing a few words with Bennett:

"This expedition has been disastrous so far" says the young lord with sadness. "I fear that some of us may not survive the horrors of the Tower. I wonder if we should consider alternative ways of handling this place, perhaps retrieving Flint to blast the tower into splinters. The horrors inside that place need to be destroyed, and I am beginning to doubt that our combined might is enough to succeed in the task."

"I think maybe you are right" agrees Bennett, "but do we have enough information to fulfill our bargain with Konan? Actually, I feel a need to understand whatever I can about this Boscobelous. I was once in the place that he was in and driven to do things I regret now, but have been given the opportunity to redeem myself with you and the cause. Perhaps by understanding him more, I can understand myself more as well, and come more to grips with what harm I have done, from rage or grief. As a favor to me, I would ask that we continue to explore this place, whatever the risk, and not destroy it out of hand. Perhaps a key to unlocking the darkness within my soul might be within, and I do not wish to bypass that key. As I said, I will abide by the wishes of the group and if they wish to destroy the place so will it be done, but my vote is definitely against such. Besides, look at this fine item"

Bennett holds up 'Retribution', which gleams in the sunlight,

"Perhaps such a weapon looms inside for you, to go with that fascinating shield you recovered."

"I would not want to deprive you of any self-discovery" replies Winnacer. "But more so than that, I worry that mere explosions of the flesh will not be enough to lay to rest the malevolence that exists within that Tower. To be honest, I almost feel compelled to face it en face, to see if such horrors could shake the faith that has been swelling inside my heart. But I must wonder if the individual rewards we may gain by facing and defeating such incredible evil outweigh the risks that such an enterprise creates. Perhaps you and I shall take the fore as we reenter that horrible place. Boscobelous' restless spirit needs to find rest and if my blade is inadequate perhaps your axe will be."

"I thank you for the offer, and I hope that Retribution and I prove up to the task" Bennett replies.

He heartily embraces his position at the front of the group, as he really hated being the rear guard (not boredom as much as fear, really)

Robert busies himself making breakfast. He looks tired as he spent much of the night looking in on the sick. Yaz and Hrust both set off in separate directions so as to make their morning devotions to their different gods. After a period of an hour, they have both returned. Upon meeting up with Yaz, Hrust casts a spell allowing him to speak Bohavian.

'We have much work to do with the sick' he says to Yaz. 'Come let us provide them with our gods' blessings.'

The two of them walk together to the quarantine tent. The condition of the three occupants seems to have deteriorated some more during the night. Only the aching of their tortured bodies stops them from drifting into a deep sleep.

Hrust speaks to them:

'Blesk sees fit to only bless me with one spell per day to cure you of this terrible infliction. Although your conditions are bad, you need not fear death, just the discomfort. The pain, however, will continue to get worse. So which of you will receive Blesk's blessing today?'

There is quite a lot of debate amongst the three of them as to which will be the first to be cured of the disease as Xavier, Will and Jihan gallantly demand that the others' needs are greater than their own. After five minutes of the debate, Hrust starts to get a little impatient and so makes his own decision, selecting Jihan as the first to receive Blesk's blessing. He places a large furry paw on Jihan's forehead and starts to utter an incantation. He then removes his hand, although nothing seems to have happened.

'You will start to feel the disease subside shortly. You should be completely healed within a few hours.'

Jihan can only thank Hrust for choosing him to be healed first, yet he can take no true joy in it, as he cannot stand to see his other brothers suffer. Confident again in the ability of the gods, he does not worry about being affected again by the disease, and helps Winnacer to tend Will and Xavier through to the end of their tenure with the foul affliction. He winces with each tiny movement the two make, remembering all too well the wracking pain every such evokes.

After he has done this, he takes some soap from the supplies and makes his way down to the lake, speaking prayers to Prirodna all the while, and strips off all of his filthy clothes. He dives into the water, and raises his voice in prayer to Prirodna, scrubbing himself all over to drive the sickly feeling from his skin.

The elf spends the rest of the day and well into the evening compulsively cleaning his clothes and gear, polishing each weapon to a mirror-like sheen as Bennett instructed him and scraping off all the dirt and grime from his garments. All of this cannot keep the stench of the plague out of his nostrils however, and he dresses in his spare set of clothes that he received at the safehouse in Dvur.

Sitting in the muted earth tones of the cotton, the elf, uncharacteristically, does not go to join the warriors in swordplay, which he has enthusiastically done the past few weeks. He sits over Viirin's grave most of the time, with Todtaenzer and his new shortsword, which he has ironically named Todgeschenk, spread out on the ground before him. In silence, he contemplates the happenings of the past few days, a grim dark look on his face. He has not sunk into the laconic silence of his melancholy reverie of before, yet he does not say much at all. Yet the others notice, when he has been fully healed, that the elf appears steadier on his feet and firmer of shoulder. The lightness and casual joyfulness that once so characterized his eyes is absent, though. Instead they appear a lot more thoughtful and cautious. The repeated close brushes with death that he has had in the past few days have had quite an effect on him, so much so that the century or more that he has lived actually begins to show a little in those multi-colored orbs. Anything he said or did in his delirium is beyond his memory.

The two clerics are not able to rest yet, as there are wounds to be seen to as well as the disease. They start to go through the party, evaluating everyone's condition and cast ten healing spells between them during the course of the morning. By lunchtime, Hrust has received one healing spell, Yaz, Jihan, Xavier and Zsolt, two and Winnacer, three. Now all are close to being fully recovered from their wounds, although Will and Xavier are still hurting badly from the disease.

Hrust spends much of the day, as usual with Zsolt at his side. During the morning, Bennett comes up to him and tries, using sign language, to ask Hrust whether he has any more of the spells that allow him to communicate. Bennett gets his answer when the bugbear starts to cast and speaks to him:

'Speak as you will, Bohavian' the bugbear says in a friendly manner, 'I feel that we are in no immediate danger here and so I will ask Blesk to grant me the power to speak with you in your foreign tongue while we wait for the diseased to return to full health. What is it that you would ask of me?'

'I have read that some gods grant their followers the gift of looking into a man's soul and determining their true nature, Shaman Hrust' Bennett asks. 'I wonder whether Blesk is able to grant you that gift also?'

The bugbear nods:

'You know your priestcraft well. Indeed, that is a gift that Blesk has blessed me with on several occasions and it has come in useful several times during my stay in Bohavia. It is not a gift that I use willingly, however, as it is my place to pry into people's characters unasked for, but there are times when it is necessary. Why do you ask?'

"I would ask that you cast the spell on me, in front of all the group, and decipher it's meaning to them" replies Bennett. "I am prepared for the verdict, whatever it may be. I wished for Kesryk to do the same, but he wanted only a convert to his religion, which I am not prepared to be. You seem to be less of a conversion priest and I hoped that you would do the favor for me. It might prove enlightening to the group and myself. Anything I can do to repay the debt to you, just ask and I will willingly do so. If it is too much of an imposition, then I apologize, and will not ask again."

"Very well" the bugbear replies. "If you are truly willing, then I will ask Blesk to bless me with the ability to read your soul tomorrow."

After answering the question, Bennett uses Hrust as an interpreter so that he can speak with Zsolt. He asks Hrust to ask the Pannon why he would not allow Bennett to clean his armor when the Pannon won their bet fair and square. The bugbear speaks with Zsolt and obtains an answer:

'If the results of the combat were happier, then Zsolt would have taken you up on your honor as he loves to gamble, but only for fun, for a little light relief. After the tragedy that befell the loyal wolf and our three diseased comrades, he was in no mood for levity. He says, however, that he will be happy to wager with you once more on the next journey into the tower, although he hopes that the result of the next journey will be more favorable than the last.'

"Tell him I begin to think that the Tower is a poor place to have such wagers," answers Bennett, "as too much tragedy lies within to make light. I know that now and regret ever trying to make it less serious than it was. Tell him that, in the future, we shall have such a competition as will strike envy in the hearts of all but the strongest of warriors. Perhaps the next time we meet up with 30 goblins or so" Bennett smiles with the memory of that victory, "and the stakes shall be high enough that you will regret losing. Tell him all that! Please."

'Indeed I will' replies Hrust. 'He thinks that it is wrong to dwell on the past, however, as he has seen many comrades fall at his side. He asks whether you would be interested in sparring with you some more. He tells me that he feels strong respect for you, and that you remind him of the days when he was younger. He sees that both you and the young lord are truly great warriors to be such competent fighters at such a young age.'

"Tell him there is still much for us to learn," adds Bennett, "as we both know very well. Having such doughty veterans as himself and Xavier by our side will help us very much. Also tell him that I would be very happy to spar with him whenever he is willing and we are both able. Also tell him that if I should fall in battle, in the tower or anywhere else, I wish him to take Retribution. No one else in the group uses such a weapon and I feel confident that in his hands it would serve its purpose well."

'Very well' the bugbear replies. "I shall do as you wish."

With that, he starts to tell Zsolt all that Bennett told him.

Hrust's language spell does not last much longer and so Bennett and Zsolt spend the rest of the morning polishing their weapons and armor and carrying on with their language courses, but by lunchtime their arms and armor just can't be any cleaner and neither of them have the patience to spend too long on learning. They spend the afternoon sparring with each other, trying to get one over on the other, until they are both exhausted.

Min hangs around Yaz for most of the day, his tail kept firmly between his legs and glancing over at the tent where Will is wracked in agony. Yaz casually strokes Min continuously, but seems lost in thought. Faewen'il sits in her tent throughout the day, furiously scribbling in one of her large leather bound books, speaking only when spoken to.

The sun sets again on an uneventful day and another watch is set up, for which Bennett eagerly volunteers for double duty. During the night, Bennett is almost praying for something to approach the camp, anxious to test 'Retribution' some more. However, there is to be no excitement in the night, and Bennett's four hour shift seems to last forever.