Dear Diary,

Some day the day will come that I will hit a point where I'm not waiting for the other shoe to drop. Today was not that day. Tomorrow's not looking good either.

So we rolled into the farmstead north of Lancaster House just after sunset. For what it's worth, they had sentries out, which I took to be a good sign. Previously there had maybe been some guys sleeping outside, but never something like a formal watch. That meant this place had enough to mount a formal watch through the night.

Of course, all of the Volunteers on watch wore the distinctive Dragonhide leathers we'd provided for the troops we'd brought from Phileo with us. That did mean no real grief getting through the perimeter, at least. Just identifying ourselves, letting one of the watch get close enough to positively ID us, and that was it.

When we got into the courtyard, I noticed a guard posted at each door to the southern bunkhouse. Gary and Rowena met us at the door to the farmhouse, so I asked them about it.

Gary looked to Rowena, who solemnly replied, "many of the Volunteers billeted here and some of the farm's people had already died when we arrived. Too many for the remainder to bury, what with the soil frozen and most of the troops still convalescing."

I took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "Fuck." I shook my head and raised my gaze to meet Rowena's. "This sounds like the worst we've hit thus far, except the ones along our path in."

Rowena nodded, "unless one of the ones to the south or west were worse, yes."

"Just a second." Something had jostled loose in my brain and I needed a second to sort out what it was. Something about, what was the word? The image of a nerdy guy in an orange jump suit popped into my head, and I said, "vectors! Okay, had anyone here gotten the plague and lived through it before you got here?"

Gary nodded, "a few of the men."

Rowena backed him up, "many of the surviving women, and all of the surviving children."

That hit me like a punch to the gut, nearly driving my whole thought process out of my head. Kids had died, and I hadn't been there to save them. On the one hand, I understood I couldn't be everywhere all at once. Even if I tried, I might wind up in such sad shape I wouldn't be enough to help anyone. Maybe if I'd left the folks to the east and come here first? Before I could follow that line of thought any further, Larry said something that pulled me out of it.

"It sounds almost like it hit here before it hit Lancaster House."

That brought the idea back into my head. "Yeah, yeah it does. If your dad put out a call for Volunteers, most people would be travelling inward, right?"

He shrugged. "Everyone but the messengers sent outward, yes."

"Okay, so if this place got hit first, and Volunteers came through here headed for Lancaster House..."

Larry might have had his head up his ass most of the time I've known him, but apparently removing his cranium from his rectum had freed up a fairly good brain. "They brought the plague with them?"

I nodded. "That means the further we get from here, the fewer and newer the plague victims will be." I turned back to Rowena. "Did you Cure the folks who had survived the Plague already?"

"Why would I?"

It took me a second to figure out how to explain something in a way that the others would understand. "Even if someone's mostly fought the disease off, they might still be carrying the Plague with them. Maybe on their skin, maybe in their hair, maybe in their clothes even. From what we've seen, Cure Disease seems to annihilate even those tiny bits of Plague though."

She frowned. "That means it's going to take a lot longer to clear each farmstead."

I nodded agreement. "Yeah, it does, but it also means we won't see a resurgence of this shit in the spring when people start moving around more." When neither of them disagreed with me, and Larry mostly just backing me up, I asked, "do either of you know which of the farmsteads up where your family are from have local Healers?" They looked at each other, then shrugged. "Okay, what's with the meaningful look?"

Gary replied, "both our families lands are less," he paused, as if looking for a word. "Orderly than those around Lancaster House. There are also some small villages that aren't officially there. Those villages? Usually have some of the best Mana Shapers around."

"Would they come help out if you asked?"

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Gary shook his head, "they really don't respect the authority of the Riders or the Rosens."

Before I could say anything, Rowena said, "that's not what she said, Gary." She turned to me. "You want us to ask them. Not tell them."

"If that's more likely to get them to pitch in? Hell to the yes. You guys were at my Court Martial, yeah?" When they both nodded, I followed that up with, "you remember Loki asking Miles about whether his pride was worth more than somebody else's life, right?"

Gary got a kumquat look. Must be the water. "But... the Headmaster was talking about Cadets!"

Rowena lay a hand on his shoulder. "How many of the folks from those villages could be Cadets if we weren't stopping them."

His face screwing up further, Gary said, "but we don't stop them."

She just shook her head, "do we visit them when we're recruiting, when we're looking for new Cadet Candidates?"

He blew out a long, steaming breath, then dragged his palm over his face. "Shit." He turned to me. "You want us to head that way and ask?"

I nodded. "If you stay on the roads, how many farmsteads or villages or whatever would you pass on the way to your family's lands?"

They looked at each other, and after a moment of unspoken communication, where Gary definitely counted on his fingers for a bit, Rowena said, "six to my family's nearest farmsteads. How many more to yours, Gary?"

"Another four."

I nodded. "Okay, Are there ten units here, other than the two you brought along?" Both of them nodded. "Okay, here's what I want you to do. Take ten units and follow that least time route. Cure and Heal any who need it, although I'm hoping you won't find nearly as many. Leave one unit at each farmstead or whatever to enforce quarantine. Recruit any Volunteers or Healers you can; I'd like to have at least one Healer with each of those units enforcing quarantine, but if not even a few more to let us clear farmsteads faster would be awesome."

They nodded along. Larry said, "those Volunteers and Healers aren't likely to be Academy trained, or even trained to the quality of Phileo or Lancaster troops."

Okay, apparently he could occasionally use his gluteus maximus as a hat now and then. "We're not looking for high quality here; we just need people who can say 'stay back until we can get you a Healer', and Healers who can cast Cure Disease. We can leave them mostly in the backfield fighting the Plague by pushing our quarantined safe area outward, while the more highly trained troops get ready to meet whatever the fuck Calverton sends at us." I met the gaze of each of the three of them, and when they all nodded, asked, "any questions?" They all shook their heads, and I said, "okay, go see if you can gather up the folks who survived the plague."

Kitten?

Yes, Goof?

How's that Mass Cure coming along?

I wish I had a group of people to test it on who wouldn't die from not being Cured.

C'mere a second.

A moment later she landed next to me. "What did you have in mind? Also, why didn't you tell me you were outside?"

I realized right then she'd arrived in Glowing Midnight; I whipped my jacket off as quick as I could, then wrapped it around her. "Sorry, Kitten. Got too excited."

"It's okay, Goof. What did you want to show me?"

At that point, Gary, Larry, and Rowena each led a small group from the buildings around us. "These folks survived the Plague without being magically Cured. I wanted to make sure they aren't infectious."

She nodded. "Gather together, everyone." She turned to me. "Can you give me a boost? I need line of sight to each of them."

I lifted her up until she had one thigh on each of my shoulders, at which point she thought at me, I'll need you to provide me a steady stream of Mana, and you'd best look through my eyes at the Shape, so you can reproduce it.

You got it. I shaped a Stabilize with one hand, laying it on her thigh, then kept the Mana pouring into it as I looked through her eyes as she Shaped. I recognized the 'Cure' portion of the shape, but not the rest of it. I stared at it until it burned its way into my brain, trying to be sure I could do it if I had to. When she released the Shape, it flowed through everyone in the courtyard, and through her eyes saw little reddish motes of light as if something had been burned off or out of them by the wave of Mana. How do we know if it worked?

Well, they're not dead, which is good. The visual indicators of Mana eradicating bits of Plague is another. Also? I really hope you're ready to carry me home, because I'm about to pass out.

I looked around and said, "thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You should be completely purged of any lingering Plague bits on you at this point." I looked to Larry and quietly said, "I need to get the Imperator home. Can you cover for me here until morning?" At his nod, I stepped back to our cell at the Academy, then gently lay Saffron on the bed.

"So forward, undressing me without so much as a 'by your leave'."

I grinned down at her as Marie and the menace came through the door. "Yeah, well. I didn't figure you were up for anything energetic, what with being all exhausted and all."

"Mmrph. Prolly right. G'night."

"Good night, love." After that Marie stole away my snow-crusted clothing, and I climbed into bed with Saffron. The menace wormed her way in between us a moment later.

Mimic dreamt of bigger tic tac toe boards, not to mention taking a look back at the lake. Weird as fuck, but whatever.

Woke to Marie laying around and atop us. Warm, but I needed to get up and go back to the snow. I wormed my way out of the pile, put on a fresh uniform, and after hugs and kisses good bye for the day, stepped back to the farm with Larry and his two former minions.

When I walked into the farmhouse just in time for breakfast, Larry said, "So, what shall we be doing today, Commander?"

I looked at Gary and Rowena, "will you two be following the same basic paths to get home?" When they nodded, I asked, "north or east?"

"North."

I nodded in turn. "Okay. Larry, first you and I will head west to the next farm. If I'm not too far from wrong, we shouldn't find too much in the way of Plague there. Whether we do or not, though, we'll leave a unit there, then head back through here to the east. You got all that?"

All three of them nodded, and I turned to the head of the farmstead and asked, "will you be okay with just one unit of troops billeted here for the time being?" The guy, a tall, skinny dude who reminded me of pictures of Abraham Lincoln from kids books, just nodded. "Okay then. As soon as breakfast is over, we head out."

The actual trip westward? Uneventful. Just more stomping through snow.

With me looking for falling footwear everywhere.