As it would turn out, Farron had reason to accost Tyr before he had left the village. Well, left again.

Adventurers were given a great deal of authority in the republic, in a normal situation only vetted members of a guild would be given the opportunity to do this. These people knew Daito, after all, a regular in the region who would help them with all sorts of things. The Hunter's guild had a relatively poor reputation, but their captain was beloved by everyone Tyr had talked to.

Constables and lawmen existed, but their duties were mostly seeing to things political – typically centered around the cities. They could be petitioned to appear in the outer villages, but this village despite being only a few days away was about the furthest they would ever go. According to the villagers, they weren't very helpful. Thus, adventurers would fill in the gaps. It made sense, they were essentially government sanctioned mercenaries, paid primarily via taxes or the rare person contract from the wealthy. A sort of social service that patrolled the lands local armies couldn't tread, since state forces arriving near the borders between states could cause some unrest, with their affiliation. Monster hunters, slayers, babysitters, constables, sometimes healers – as was this case.

Farron was desperate. His grandfather was the only family he had left. Only graced with a single boy, once his father had died – the child had been nigh abandoned by his mothers more 'upstanding' family and left in the village with his paternal grandsire. It was clear to see that the more free spirited members of the republic living out here in the middle of nowhere were not looked upon very highly, same as any other frontier commoners elsewhere. They could vote, naturally, hence why the adventurers were paid to come out here at all. But getting the people clustered nearer to the cities to address them as equals was another story. It was the same everywhere Tyr went. Classism. They were simply 'too poor' to care about, despite living in relative comfort. He knew several rural citizens of Haran that would kiss the feet of whoever offered them such convenience as the simplest amenities found in Lyran households.

“What's wrong with him?” Tyr asked, staring down at the old man. He was withered and gray, beaded with sweat and breathing so shallow that without his advanced senses – Tyr might've considered him dead. Farron's grandfather was extremely hot, and clearly suffering from dehydration, but Tyr was no healer. He'd taken a year of courses in the discipline, and learned essentially nothing. He knew how to break common curses and apply various magical ointments, and that was about it. Throughout all of their practicals, he had taken the position of 'nurse', not a doctor. Changing bedpans, bandages, helping massage some of the older patients to prevent bed sores, or give them sponge baths. Often he suspected that they had no need for such a thing, but he didn't mind. The elderly weren't so bad, Harani culture was still thick in his blood and always would be. Something about how they stopped caring about social convention over the years was quite amusing to him, even in his significantly worse state of mind back then.

It wasn't Farron who spoke, but the old man from the inn. The house was quarantined, and no villagers were to be let inside, but the innkeeper was not human. Half telurian and therefore immune, they said, but Tyr couldn't tell him from any other man he'd ever seen. Except for the golden eyes, on second inspection, just like the girl Eunice or whatever her name was, her grandfather, as it would turn out. Half-blood children between those two races were exceptionally rare, an odd sight all the way out here in a purely human village by the looks of things.

Anyways...

According to Ollan, his name, Farron's grandfather was his only friend in the entire village. One of their 'greatest generation'. Someone who 'really got it' and 'remembered what it was like when the republic was the place to be'. Tyr didn't really follow all that, but he'd listened.

“There are some names for it. Scarlet fever, fireblood, carmine cough. You familiar?”

“Mmm.” Tyr nodded, still staring at the man. “In Haran, where I'm from, we call it the fireblood. Still, I cannot help this man. I am no healer. I've only ever been good at killing things, not keeping them alive.”

Two days had passed since Tyr had entered the village, doing this or that and assisting with various chores and odd jobs. They'd even made him dig a hole deep into the earth to place a new well. A curious thing, considering water mana crystals should provide more water than they'd ever need – but the villagers insisted it was necessary. Something about mineral content and their teeth, Tyr didn't really understand that either. Water was water, in his eyes. All that was left was this single task. Tyler had been moved from the gate to a makeshift gaol in the village, and could be heard weeping and begging for apology at all hours. Nobody particularly cared. His father was apparently some big shot cattle rancher, and the rest of his family traveled with the herd.

Wasn't their problem, 'the adventurers decided'.

Naturally, during that time, Ollan had become progressively more comfortable with how he referred to Tyr. He hadn't shown a lick of fear at all, but now there was a brevity in his voice that showcased the desperation of their situation. A demanding tone that Tyr didn't like at all, but could understand.

“You're marked as a healer on your contract sheet, hence your coming.”

“I'm not. Maybe my sponsor is, but I can't cure viral infections. I might even make it worse.” The light element was not 'holy' in and of itself. Light was life distilled, and his signature fire element infused with the stuff meant growth. It might aid in breaking curses, but it'd be a disastrously poor match for a bacterial infection. Or any disease, cancer, or thing with life of its own. Technically speaking, Tyr might even give rise to a new, more advanced plague. Or so his teachers in the academy had told him. Thus, he had never been allowed to tend to a patient alone. Always observed by a diagnostician to ensure that he didn't rise to some aberrant virus or fill the building with fungal spores from thrush. Which was odd, for some reason those people were very concerned with not feeding light magic to fungi. “I have plenty of potions... Herbs, I think... Will they help?”

Ollan shook his head. “Magic disease requires a magic cure. It's a rare thing, only affects humans, but it's been ravaging these lands for centuries. Hence the mark at the door. Why nobody else can enter. Please, I beg of you...” He dropped to his knees, pleading. To Ollan, an adventurer of Tyr's stripe – even a new one – was a heroic existence. And the contract explicitly stated that he was at the silver rank, which was well into the middling ranks of what adventurers were capable of, even if he was a foreigner. “If not for me. If not for him... For little Farron. He's a rude one, I'll give you that – but... He's lost everything. Everyone. All he has left is old Jurgen.”

“Understood.” Tyr nodded slowly in understanding. “I can try, but no promises.”

And he did try, for two straight days. Not in shifts, but a constant effort. Unraveling a curse was one thing. Curses were entropy, they were darkness and not typically meant to grow, but a virus – magical or not – was another thing entirely. At first, he simply probed it. It wasn't a magical mass deep within his core, but spread evenly through the mans entire body. Tyr could feel it stinging at him, only to be annihilated by the violence of his own immune system. Knowledge of the biological aspects of a sickness could be seen as rather primitive in this age, but magic solved nearly all issues. A quick diagnostic spell and the spellbreakers to aid in the casting of it answered all of the questions he needed an answer for.

Fire-light fusion was out of the question. Tyr could do that. He could infuse light into every element after forty eight hours of nonstop practice. The problem was turning the thread to the other side and conjuring darkness. It seemed a strange thing, to him. How could he be so adept at light, but not so with darkness? Darkness could destroy the virus entirely, but darkness was a rare element. Healers possessed it, but only the 'good' ones. Those who had advanced. Tyr felt like his system of magic should be flipped on its head. Light was life, and he'd never given life to... Anything. Only destruction. Perhaps the mages in Amistad who said magic was a reflection of the soul were incorrect, after all.

His prime element was fire, which made some sense. Most people had a prime element among the four basic ones. Wind, earth, air, or fire. Some were born with a rare predilection for space or anima, but the latter was practically unheard of. Tyr doubted even Hastur was born with it. And Micah was the only space primary mage he'd ever met, though in truth he wasn't exactly paying attention. Ellemar had said it was rare, so it must be true.

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Being born with an inborn preference, however it worked, for light or dark was pretty uncommon, too, somewhere between the aforementioned anima and space. Tyr understood that his perception of things was empirical. Whereas Tythas, for example, was the only mage with darkness as their prime element in hundreds of years of academy history. Living things didn't take to entropy so well, drawing a conclusion between his rather aged state when Tyr first met him versus the present. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing. Light was a bit more common, but light primary mages like Astrid numbered between perhaps 3 or 4 in the entire academy.

“What are you thinking?” Ollan asked. It had been two days, and Tyr had rarely left the confines of the house in which his oldest friend lay dying. But it wasn't worth getting upset about, the boy was trying. The fever was a rare disease, and typically only priests of purity would be able to cleanse it. To ask an adventurer to do so was a shot in the dark, truth be told, though Tyr had no idea – drowning in his own inadequacy. And more often or not, their solution would be to freeze the body, and 'cleanse' the patient not just of the virus – but of their lives as well.

In his mind, it was just another impending failure. No fires could burn in the proximity of someone with the fireblood, so they sat in the cool light of a mana lantern courtesy of the various supplies he kept in his dimensional ring. Lest they burst into flame. Magical viruses were strange like that, any fire in immediate proximity of the body would rage out of control. Regarding Ollan's question, Tyr couldn't respond, lost in thought and all of the half assed theory he'd absorbed. Nothing that could help them now.

“Of all the people to get it, it had to be him.” The old man shook his head. “If it had been anyone else, they could've handled it, but he's too old and weak. If it had been me... I'd take it from him, if only I could, but the gods are cruel. My heritage ensures that I'll never pass from a disease such as this, but they give it to old Jurgen, and he alone...” Ollan didn't blame himself, but he didn't want to watch his friend die. It was contagious, so he was quarantined as well – but even if by some stretch of luck he got it, he'd never feel a thing Burning hard and fast, as soon as the source of it was taken care of – he'd be fine within a day or three.

“Wait...” Tyr replied, pausing in his thoughts to look Ollan directly in the eye. “What did you just say?”

“What do you mean? That the gods are cruel?” Ollan looked nervous now, shifty eyes breaking the constant mask of a bitter old grump. “I mean no profanin', gods honest, just a turn of phrase...”

“No.” Tyr shook his head slowly, allowing his hands to rest on the dying mans chest. “If you could take it...” It was how the virus worked that allowed the idea to take root in his mind. Anima was biological life force. Something every living thing had to some degree, even algae. They had spira and mana, too, but in such quantities as to be unnoticeable. Those forms of cosmic energy were more akin to the reflection of a soul, and anima tied them together to make something 'real'? Maybe?

The question, then, was how viruses killed. Especially a magical virus. It didn't take a genius to notice how it hung around the anima. Sheathing it like some second skin below the surface of that which was natural. Eating away at the life force of the subject. Some kind of surprising lesson, what Tyr had learned from feeling Hastur's anima pressing down on his own, not quite related...

But it might be enough. Enough to develop a sense and taste for it. Instead of fighting it, he encouraged the virus to spread, using his own anima as a siphon on which to transit it from host to host. Ollan had it, only half telurian he wasn't immune after all, and he did the same with the old man. Half telurian and 'immune' to the worse effects of it or not, there was no telling if he might be contagious, considering their complete and total lack of the medical knowledge necessary to answer that question. Little by little, it trickled into Tyr's body. Stronger now, what with it feeding off his magic. Enough to make him fall to his knees, skin burning with such ferocity that he immediately broke out into a sweat. Too much at once, forcing his body into overdrive.

“Are you alright?” Ollan steadied the dizzied Tyr with surprisingly strong arms, gripping his shoulders and shaking him gently. He felt the force pass through him, not knowing what it was, but it was evident it had come from the boy. “Good gods, but you're burning up!” He pulled his hands away, feeling as if he'd grabbed a fire poker left overlong in the hearth. Tyr was burning at such a temperature that his bare skin dried his linens of sweat, misty vapor licking at his skin.

If it had been anyone else, it might have killed them, but Tyr had that single unique talent for staying alive even when he shouldn't. His body was a battlefield, a toxic wasteland which no malady could survive within. At some point, he'd stopped getting sick. No food poisoning, none of the 'sniffles' common in the winter. It was like he'd become immune to disease. His only apparent weaknesses were poisons or maybe proximity to darkness magic.

Unfortunately, it hadn't been just the fireblood, but also a touch of lung cancer. These people in the valleys did what they could to survive, and Farron's grandfather had been a lifelong pitch burner. Tyr had no idea how he knew, but he did. Cancer was a well documented phenomena, one that could not... Should not have a cure. Even magic hadn't found an answer for that. Darkness magic could cut away and the problem with that was nobody had such fine control as to do so without taking more than they needed.

Panting, dragging breaths through a throat made ragged by the virus and all of the others ills from the man, Tyr vomited a long string of blood flecked phlegm. Little chunks of red matter flying out with every heaving cough. “Lung cancer, something wrong inside of his bones, the fireblood... Arthritis, for sure..” He observed, feeling his own joints crack and grind against one another. Feeling a hundred years older than he should be, his body would not stay this way for long, but it wasn't comfortable. His healing ability used mana, or spira, one of the two. It was hard to tell since the only time it could be felt was when he was already too weak to observe the result of his actions. “Your... Friend, had a lot of issues. Medically speaking.”

“W-what? What do you mean? ” He was old enough to have seen the purity priests, in his time. It had been about... Two decades? Last they came to the village, but here – his oldest friend was regaining color rapidly under the ministrations of a common adventurer. Silver rank wasn't such a small thing. People respected it a great deal, but they weren't gods. Yet, before his very eyes...

Tyr stopped trying to resist the urge to collapse and did just that. His body burnt with the heat of a forge, his internal mechanisms for defending against disease went mad within him. Thinking back, he'd really never been sick in recent memory. Not once. Not a sneeze, a cough, or a single infection despite what must be a lake of foreign particulate that had entered his blood. This, however, was for lack of a better way to say it – pretty awful. The virus had fed on his magic, chased his anima, and evolved to be something far more potent. What it was 'meant to be', whatever foul intelligence guided a sickness like that. Except it couldn't leave. Every viral cell was slaughtered and replaced faster than it could replicate. Whatever that ability he had to heal was doing the same against the virus. Nobody could answer his questions regarding his bizarre ability to heal. Even Abaddon had said that to do so without using active magic was impossible. Then again, he'd lied – or at least obscured the truth so many times it was hard to keep track of things.

“I... I'm not sure how to say it. Essentially, I used anima theory common in the healing vocation to draw an artificial mana circuit between myself and the patient. A magical virus is like all things magical, right? It wants what it wants. My mana is far richer that his, him not being a mage and all. Thus, I shaped a traditional Cirdinian mana funnel to give it a road out of him, and into me. You, too – by the way. I've cleansed you both using the same method.”

“...Wot?” Ollan replied dumbly.

Tyr chuckled, draping a heavy hand over his tired eyes. He was in good spirits. After much effort, he had succeeded, with no real help from anyone else sans the words of the old man. Wins felt good in a lifetime of failure, and saving the old man was quite a rush. What he had done here could only be good, no backlash or no need to consider cause and effect. It felt... Good. “In layman's terms, I've... Er... I've eaten the virus? Well... Perhaps not, theoretically speaking. See, I'm not actually much good at magic. I've always been shit at it, pardon my common. I took it. I didn't cure it, but rather, I took it from you both and all of the surrounding surfaces and I absorbed it. Remember when you said 'I wish it had been me'? That's exactly what I did, and my... Let's say my much healthier and more youthful body didn't have such a hard time.”

Ollan squinted his eyes, skeptical. Yet he couldn't deny how healthy Jurgen looked. So suddenly, after having been in a perpetual state of sitting near deaths door for over a week. “...I don't really understand all that, but... I suppose a thank you is in order. Will you stay for a feast? I've a nice store of dry-aged meats that we planned to save for the winter season – but truth be told we've had a heavy harvest. Enough food that half'll rot before we're through with it. Festival traders won't be buyin' that much.”

“No. I think I'll be--”

“We would love to stay!” A bright voice chimed in from the doorway to the house. “Honestly, you've a talent for doing exactly what you're not talented enough to do. What a world we live in.”

“Oh, haven't seen you in a while.” Ollan commented upon seeing their new guest.

Gritting his teeth, Tyr rose from the ground, staring directly into the face of a man who said he would be expected 'ten days from now'. Not so keen on keeping to an itinerary, it seemed. “This is Daito, my sponsor, and technically...”

“His commanding officer. A pleasure to be back.” Daito bowed at the waist, respectful, but with a mischievous grin plain on his lips.