Dear Diary,

Yeah, when I mentioned my idiocy reaching new bounds yesterday? Kinda because I never got around to talking about the end of the day, what with thoughts of Calverton's imminent and fully justified retributive strike taking over my poor overworked brain.

I think I need challenges more my mental speed, like putting all the blocks in the square hole.

Anyway, just as I closed down the scrying window to the northern bridge across the Susquehanna River, Saffron pinged me. Shall we spend the night in our new place tonight, love?

I considered it for a bit. On the one hand, Lancaster House had that bathtub. On the other hand? I kinda wanted to spend more time in 'our' place. Really, y'know, making it 'ours'. Something about a place you'd lived in for so long that it smelled like you, but you'd lived there so long you couldn't smell it any more, and you missed it without knowing why.

No, I do not piss in the corners of the rooms in my house to 'claim' them.

Not since I was, like, three anyhow.

So I thought back, sure, Kitten. I'll be there in just a little bit, as soon as... I've...

Is everything okay, love?

Uh... just a minute. Okay, a couple minutes. Nothing bad, exactly. Just need to check into something.

I picked up my big old cut crystal scrying bowl, which by now had given me some really good thigh workouts, since I was mostly lifting with my knees and then waddling it across the floor, and walked over to the picture of the farmstead just south of the first one we'd hit. It took me a little bit, since it wasn't one of the closest ones, and for whatever reason the ones further away took a bit more concentration and a lot more Mana. After a long few moments of concentration the water rippled and the window took its place. Same view as before, a completely still farmstead, no smoke from the chimneys, no movement whatsoever.

I stared at if for a bit. In part because the sight of a dead farm made me feel some kind of way. In part because I wasn't sure if this was gonna work. I wouldn't let myself even consider the rest of it until after I'd seen if this worked or not.

I stepped to the farm.

My feet crunched through the top layer of snow, dropping me into hip deep snow covering the courtyard. I might have gotten a little pissed at that point, because I shaped the mother of all Air Shields right there in the courtyard, blowing the snow away, uncovering the bodies. Including the only one that hadn't been laid out, a little old lady sitting on the step in front of the farmhouse door. It looked like when she was the only one left, she'd just sat down there and given up. Or just followed her family.

FUCK!

I hammered the entire courtyard with a Mass Cure, then stepped back to the scrying room. Kitten? I'm gonna be home late tonight.

Do you need help with anything?

I stood there, seething with fury at myself. If I'd thought of this before, if I'd known this was a fucking Scrying Room, if I'd been less of a dumbass, how many more people could I have saved? I almost told her I didn't need help, that I would fix my own screw up. Then I realized, my self-flagellation would just make fixing this shit take longer.

Which might well mean the difference between life and death for some poor bastard at one of the farmsteads.

I need Marie. I think I could use some moral support, too, because I fucked up. I'll explain when you get here?

We'll be there shortly.

"LANCASTER!" I pitched my voice to carry, not knowing what exactly where he was at the moment. "RALLY ON ME!"

Less than sixty seconds later, Larry, Bonnie, Lachlan, and Raven sprinted into the Scrying Room from the stairs just as Saffron stepped into the room with Marie and Isnomi in tow.

"What's wrong?" asked Larry, not breathless in the slightest from sprinting from wherever he'd come from. Bonnie and Raven both looked a bit winded, but more 'need to breathe a second' not 'out of gas' winded. Lachlan looked nearly as ready to go as Larry. "Did you spot the Calvertons?"

I shook my head. "I fucked up. Marie? I need you to move that," I pointed at the scrying bowl, "over there," I pointed at one of the farmsteads we'd tentatively identified as 'Plagued'. "Bonnie, Raven, Saffron, if you guys could mark the farmsteads we've identified as needing intervention, in our best guess as to which ones need it most?"

Bonnie nodded to Raven, "I'll find something to mark them with, you've got the notes."

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I turned to Larry and Lachlan. "Uhh... shit, any place we haven't been yet is still going to recognize Lachlan as Heir, won't they?"

They turned to each other, shrugged. "Probably," said Lachlan.

"Okay, you're with me. C'mere. Larry, can you take charge on this end?"

He asked, "of?" but I'd already tugged Lachlan over to where Marie had set the scrying bowl.

Just like I'd thought, my Maenad could one hand the fucking thing just like our tubs back home. I pushed Mana into the Shape for Scrying, self-directed rage giving me the boost I needed to finish the thing as fast as possible. I grabbed Lachlan by the hand and stepped us into the mostly abandoned courtyard of the farmstead. I turned to Lachlan. "I need every living person at this farmstead in the courtyard, right the fuck now."

He shrugged, tilted his head back a little and cupped his hands around his mouth as he Shaped something like the Message Spell. His voice rang out, "by order of Lachlan Lancaster, every man, woman, and child on this farmstead assemble in the courtyard this instant!"

While he did that, I Air Shielded the relatively thin layer of snow out of the courtyard. A moment later, the doors to the farmhouse and the bunkhouses opened, and variations on, "holy shit, it's really him!" filtered from the doorways, followed by a rush of people from each. An older guy who came out of the farmhouse said, "milord, many of my people are ill. I..."

Lachlan cut him off. "Are they alive?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Then get them out here, NOW!"

Gotta hand it to him, when given a straightforward task, Lachlan wasn't half bad at getting the job done. In less than five minutes, the courtyard was full of people, at least a third of them helped or outright carried into the courtyard. "Is this everybody?" I called out.

The older dude looked at Lachlan, who said, "is she or is she not wearing a Hero's uniform?"

"Yessir. Yes, uh, ma'am, this is everyone."

I stepped to the roof of one of the bunkhouses, apologizing mentally to The Dress when I replaced my uniform boots with hers. Even on the icy roof, I got perfect traction. "Okay, everybody, this might feel a little awful, but it's for your own good." I poured Mana into a Mass Cure and hit everyone in the courtyard. As people started puking, I tagged them with Heal from where I stood, then stepped back to Lachlan. "Okay, everybody, when they're done puking get them warm and get some food into them. If you need more help, food, more Cures, whatever, before the Volunteers get here, find a big piece of red cloth and hang it out here in the courtyard. Got it?"

The dude didn't need Lachlan to tell him twice, I guess. "Yes, ma'am!"

I reached over and put my hand on Lachlan's shoulder. "Anything you need to say before we go?" When he shook his head, I stepped back to Lancaster House's Scrying Room. I glanced around to see Marie just settling the scrying bowl next to one of the Farmhouse pictures as directed by Raven, while Bonnie had Isnomi running around moving markers. I looked to Bonnie and asked, "Larry? Saffron?"

She replied, "the Imperator realized what you were doing and took Larry to the next farm on the list."

Fuck it. I'd find some other method of self-flagellation. "Good idea." I walked over to the scrying basin, Lachlan by my side, and nodded to the picture on the floor next to it. "This one?"

The moment Raven said, "yes," I started shaping the Scry. The moment the water stilled enough to see the image, we stepped through.

Farm after farm, we leapfrogged through Lancaster House territory. Some time like two thirds of the way through, the part of me that I used to Shape Mana started to twinge. I told that shit to shut up and soldier and kept going.

By the time Lachlan and I stepped through one of the last two pictures, the little village just on the Lancaster side of the southern bridge across the Susquehanna, the sun had long since set. He stepped over to a big old bell hanging from some posts at one side of the center square of the village, grabbed the rope, and rang the living shit out of that thing. I'm pretty sure they heard that shit on the far side of the river. Men came streaming out of the houses around us. When they stopped coming, Lachlan barked out, "as Heir Lancaster, I order you to bring every living soul in this village, man, woman, and child, to this square as quickly as possible." While a few guys turned and started jogging back to their houses, a few others looked a little mulish. "MOVE! NOW!"

All but like two guys bolted at that. I stepped up to the last couple, getting close enough they could clearly see that despite the jacket, I had tits underneath it and was neither a guy nor a Lancaster. "This is a medical emergency, we've found a way to stop the Plague, but we need everyone out here immediately." My voice had gotten a little hoarse over the course of the evening. I'm not sure what convinced them, but they turned and straight up sprinted back to their houses. I turned back to Lachlan, staggered a bit, only to have him catch me and hold me up. "Yeah, I think some of your villagers might not be quite as happy with your dad's leadership as they might be."

Lachlan heaved a sigh. "Father's never done it, but my great-grandfather made a habit of acquiring new blood for Lancaster House by doing something like this."

I nodded, spitting out a mouthful that tasted metallic. "By 'new blood' you mean women, right?"

"From what I was told, yes."

"Yeah, that would fuckin' do it."

He put his hands around my waist, spanning the whole thing, reminding me that despite his typical himbo demeanor, Lachlan was a big boi. Then he tossed me straight up, catching my feet on his hands. "You want me to hold you like this, or you want to stand on top of the bell?" Shit. He also apparently wasn't quite as clueless as advertised. Might be the whole 'Hero' thing, might have been the whole 'returned to life after being told he hadn't made the cut for Valhalla' thing. But he'd caught on to the fact that I wasn't really up to too many more Translocations. "Or did you want me to try that Mass Cure thing?"

I shook my head and nodded toward the bell. He stepped close enough that I could step from his hands right onto the crosspiece that held the bell up. As people flowed back into the square, I wondered why the bell didn't have, y'know, a roof to keep things from getting weathered until I saw a bunch of lumber and shingles off to one side. At a guess, we'd arrived between 'take the old roof off' and 'put the new roof on'. Convenient.

"Is this everyone?" hollered Lachlan.

"Yes, sir." replied the muliest guy from earlier.

I didn't have any witty banter left. I pulled Mana, Shaped it, and hit the whole courtyard with the biggest Mass Cure I'd done yet.

Really glad Lachlan was paying attention, because I sure as shit would rather be caught by one of the remaining Lancaster men than test the durability of my head against the pavers.

I mean, I still passed the fuck out, but at least my head was in one piece, right?