After sorting through the darkness material, it was time to shift gears and delve into what had actually been on my mind all this time. The problem with Blights was that apparently they weren't exactly... well-documented. The magic stuff had already been barebones, but this? This stuff was forbidden. Hidden away in old stories and vague references, like nobody really wanted to admit they even existed. I could still recall the old man seemingly going through a book about blights after he'd figured out that there was something wrong with me. So how could a simple man like him have a book on that in his basement while these knowledge fetishists had barely anything?

How does that even make any sense?

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like my blights were still my main concern. The collar I'd gotten from the old hag had so far taken care of them altogether. But what would happen if I'd ever take it off? I hadn't done so since I'd first gotten it. This bronze-colored piece of crude jewelry was essentially my weak spot. Besides that I was still curious. I wanted to know. To know who or what had given me those bloody curses in the first place.

I had Tavrin and Kyris hunt down anything they could find that just mentioned the word Blight. But as expected, it was slim pickings. Every time we found something, it felt like trying to read half a page torn out of a burned-up journal. Frustrating didn’t even begin to cover it.

Most of the records we found just danced around the topic. One scroll hinted at Blights being tied to forbidden rituals, another suggested they were a result of elemental corruption gone wrong, and a few even said they were born from soul fractures - whatever any of that actually means.

The first bit of solid info I dug up was that Blights didn’t start as random curses. They were intentionally created, part of some twisted old magic vengeful people used to deal with enemies. The kind that gets you exiled or executed if you were caught practicing it, even if you were a certified mage. Like a weapon you could never fully control. Once it attached itself to someone, it evolved, fed on them, and became something more than just a curse.

And that's where things got even more weird. Blights weren’t just magical leeches - they could grow, adapt, change their form and effects based on their host. Some records described Blights that twisted a person’s element into something else, while others were said to strip away time or mess with the soul itself. My magic-blocking Blights were nasty enough, but soul-bound Blights? Those were worse. They didn’t just mess with your magic; they latched onto your essence and ate away at you from the inside out.

Didn't Fragaria actually mention something about my very soul being cursed?

One particularly creepy mention talked about a "Time Blight." Apparently, this one warped time around the victim, trapping them in an endless loop, making them relive the same moments over and over again until they... I don’t know, burned out? Disappeared? The text wasn’t clear, but it sounded awful.

How did people even find out about this?

What person struck with shit like this could ever live to tell the tale?

Needless to say I remained skeptical.

"Damn it." I slapped away a scroll with my tail. "None of this fanfiction is helpful."

The scroll skidded across the stone floor, rolling itself up in protest. It felt like every piece of information we'd dug up so far was either half-baked or conveniently destroyed. Every time I thought I was getting close to something concrete, the words would trail off, sentences would end mid-thought, or entire pages would be missing. Like someone had gone out of their way to erase a potential trail.

Unfinished records. Deliberate gaps in the story.

Why?

Who’s covering all this up? The very people supposedly dedicated to preserving all knowledge? Or was it something else?

This wasn’t just some local superstition getting lost in translation. This was deliberate.

And now I had more questions than answers.

"What’s wrong with these idiots?” Kyris mumbled, hopping onto one of the shelves, knocking down a couple of books. “You’d think a place like this would actually know stuff.”

"Or at least pretend to.” I grumbled. “But no. What little they know might as well be bedtime stories for all it’s worth.”

“It's as if...” Tavrin said, leafing through another scroll, his eyes narrowing. “It’s as if they’re hiding things from us on purpose.”

My thoughts exactly.

But why? Because we weren't authorized enough to know the important stuff?

We got important shit to research for the King here! This is a matter of life and death!

Well, not like that was my prime concern.

Life and death.

I wondered if they had anything on those... Eternalists.

I snapped out of my thoughts, suddenly aware of the silence that had fallen over the Hall. “You remember the Eternalists, right?”

Tavrin and Kyris both froze. Tavrin frowned as he put a hand to his chin. “Those... those people I travelled with?"

“Yes, if you want to call them people.” I said. “The ones we tangled with back when we first met you.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"What about them?" Tavrin asked.

"Find me anything you can get about them. And if you have to have annoy the living crap out of the Nerites so be it."

Tavrin nodded. And while Kyris had probably no idea what I was talking about, he too got to searching.

We browsed for an hour. Anything about those guys would help.

That bunch of weirdos, obsessed with immortality. With their silly get-ups and spaghetti maces. And that fog-casting idiot. The same bunch who allegedly took Tavrin's brother with them.

A cult-like group researching an infinite life, kidnapping children. And yet, despite how freaky and dangerous they apparently were, there wasn’t a single mention of them anywhere.

Not one.

Nothing.

No records. No signs. No cryptic warnings hidden away in a forgotten scroll. No trace of anything resembling their existence.

This place sucks.

The old man had known more than this entire temple combined. His basement held more solid info than all these scrolls of guesswork. How?

This was pathetic.

“How is it that there’s not a damn thing about these dumb Eternalists in this whole place?” I mumbled, pacing back and forth.

Tavrin looked up at me. “Was that even their name? I thought you just call them Eternalists because of what they're doing."

"No? That's what the old man called them." I said.

And if Vrintas knew about them, then... what does that even mean? How does an old man in the middle of nowhere have more intel than an entire temple dedicated to knowledge? I know he'd travelled a lot in his life but this was downright ridiculous.

Maybe it was time to finally ask him the big questions. Or any questions at all, actually. That geezer has been avoiding me for long enough now.

"Alright, enough playing around. Let's focus on what we came here for." I finally said.

“Sandskin and Nightnail?” Tavrin asked, already pulling down another scroll.

“Yes. Those would be a start.”

To my suprise the resources they had on diseases was abundant. Par for the medieval course I'd say.

Sandskin was supposedly the disease where your skin started to disintegrate like dust. Piece by piece. At first, it was just a bit of peeling, maybe some patches on your hands or arms. But then... it got worse. Your entire body would slowly begin to crumble away. Like turning into sand.

One record we found mentioned that Sandskin could even affect the victim’s mana, draining them of their ability to channel energy as their body disintegrated.

Well. If your body is falling apart, casting spells is probably the least concerning problem you have.

Another scroll suggested that the disease originated in desert climates, because of course. Though no one seemed sure exactly where. Maybe somewhere far to the south. That or it could have been brought over by foreign magic practitioners.

Nightnail, on the other hand, was different - more violent, more excruciating. It made your skin harden, gradually turning into something akin to obsidian. The rapidly hardening skin would eventually render the person immobile, like a living statue. Of course we'd seen that one play out before us live. Their skin also seemingly turned into impenetrable armor.

Both diseases sounded like slow, agonizing deaths. And from what I was reading, there were no clear cures. Only vague references to rituals, magic theory, and... desperation.

Though something here struck me as odd. The last recorded outbreak of either Nightnail or Sandskin on this continent had happened some time ago. As in over a hundred years ago.

How was that possible? Had these diseases been shipped backed onto here from somewhere far away? I don't think a disease was able to lay dormant for a hundred years to just spontaneously pop up again now.

And again. Vrintas seemed to have done his homework here. He was like an expert on the subject. Talking about it like he'd seen this shit in person. I know he looked like he was about to disintegrate any moment now but he wasn't that old.

Sigh.

Kyris snorted. “You know, the more I read about this, the less I like it.”

“You’re not alone there.” I replied, stepping over a scroll.

As for how these diseases spread? That remained unclear too. Some scrolls hinted that they were contracted through cursed objects or arcane environments, while others suggested that they were a natural result of advanced mana corruption. Essentially the drought. But nobody seemed to know for sure. My guess was... simply by touch?

Sometimes things weren't as complicated as people made them out to be, you know?

As I flipped through another scroll, something caught my eye. The parchment was older than the others, almost falling apart beneath my claws, and the ink was barely readable. I nearly tossed it aside, but there was this little symbol in the corner — an orange phoenix in flight. I’d seen it before for sure, though I couldn't remember where.

“Guys.” I said, my voice a bit sharper than I intended. “Come take a look at this.”

They both crowded in, peeking over my shoulder. The scroll didn’t mention Nightnail or Sandskin directly, but it did talk about something else. Something that piqued my interest.

The Ashen Sea.

Tavrin tilted his head, clearly intrigued. “Wait, isn’t that the place between the old Solidan heartlands? That weird sea where it rains ash all the time?”

“Yes.” I nodded, still scanning the text. “But this says there’s more to it than just a creepy coastline.”

According to the scroll, the Ashen Sea wasn’t just a dead zone. It was where the world... thinned. The lines between reality and whatever else was out there got blurry. The rain of ash? That was the land still slowly dying, crumbling away because of something buried beneath it. Something old.

One part of the scroll stood out, though most of the words were so faded they were barely legible.

"From the heart of the now Ashen Sea, the sickness of the world spreads, its touch withering flesh and stone. A curse upon the land, brought forth by what slumbers beneath."

Beneath it.

If one was to believe the Scourge of Sol I'd say what slumbers beneath was a shit-ton of cities and dead people. Was that supposed to be the origin? The passage did sound familiar in part.

“Wait a second...” Tavrin leaned in closer, his eyes narrowing. “You think these diseases came from there? Like, from the sea itself?”

“I don’t know.” I admitted, my thoughts still all over the place. “But the last major outbreak of Sandskin? It started in the port city of Gades in the lands of today's Xeshmunite Empire. Near the Ashen Sea. Right around the corner.”

“And it’s not just that.” Kyris added, his voice unusually serious. “The ash. The black rain. It’s like the land itself is infected. I've been there once. It's... unpleasant. Maybe... maybe these diseases are just symptoms of whatever's really wrong with that place.”

"You've been there? For what?" I asked.

"Once or twice. I had something to settle there." He replied with a shrug.

That's fantastically vague.

"And? Were there any people? Infected or not?" I closed in.

"Not... that I can remember. They'd just recently failed to repopulate the area, so everybody left."

"Repopulate the area?" I echoed. "What. Like a colony?"

Kyris just shrugged again. "You could call it that."

Interesting.

Then maybe one of those failed repopulation attempts could have eventually dragged in a disease or two.

"Alright. Let's wrap it up for today. I feel like we've made some good progress." I said, prompting the other two to nod in response.

We'd spent the whole day in here. This place was a literal time sink. But we were far from done here. This was just the beginning. There were still a million different questions running through my head. And something...

Something was once again telling me deep inside...

...that the old man had the answers to those questions.