Hunger and thirst woke Ere’lur from her dreams. She had dreamed she was a regulator, in service to the lord of a powerful city in exterminating a horrific infestation.
Again she found herself awake. This day was a struggle, and the victims were endless. Each day she washed bandages, prepared casts and struggled to bring healing to the afflicted. She ached to be out on the front lines, yet she was needed here. Not four hours passed that the insectoid menace attempted to infiltrate the hospitals, and at each instance she was there to show them right back out.
Again she found herself awake, and stronger this time. It was a good thing, a group of the Purifiers tried to hassel a fellow healer. Yet she showed the man what for and sent him packing.
Again she found herself awake, even stronger. A dozen Purifers showed up, yet she held them off until Lord Stone-Weaver arrived. And did he arrive if not descending from the sky like a meteor that sent all Purifiers reeling and stumbling back. Ere’lur could not hold her excitement back, blasting the sole Purifier who kept his feet with the strange Aether she possessed. She did not harm him much, yet her heart nearly exploded from her chest at the thought of such power. And did not the lord look upon her favorably. It was just as the tales had told her.
And it was from this dreamy state that E4 awoke, dressed in trousers and a low cut top that meshed practicality with a touch of sensuality through clever use of mesh and flesh colored cloth. A few meters away she heard the “Click Click” of marble being chipped away.
“Where am I?” She asked, half expecting to be dizzy or light headed but she was fine. She wasn’t even hungry, foggy memories revealing she had just had lunch after assisting at a makeshift infirmary.
“Oh, hold still, hold that pose.” E4 froze, just long enough to hear a few last clicking sounds. “Good. How are you feeling Ere’lur?” E4 turned to see Stone-Weaver who now bore a tired, yet satisfied expression. Before him was a statue of Aether infused marble in her likeness, with only the face missing.
“Foggy, I remember being beneath the streets,”
“Good, good. That’s more than you had yesterday.” Stone-Weaver replied. He made a gesture and the stage she was on settled to ground level.
“What have I been doing?” E4 asked. “I have vague memories, but the last few days have been a blur.”
“Ere’lur, we have an emergency!” E4 turned to see the towering form of Missy roll through the doorway before standing back to her now three meters in height. “Four more Purifiers and a dozen guards just came back from the front and they’re really hurting.”
“Duty calls.” E4’s words had a strange snap to them, a sense of united purpose as The Hymn and her own will met in perfect unison. “Pick up… wait, why are you sculpting me again?”
“Come on, I’ll explain on the way.” Missy spoke up, taking E4 in an oversize but delicate hand. “We found you a few days back in the crater of a blast site, apparently it was one of Corey’s labs that went abandoned. Best Stone-Weaver can figure you must have been one of his volunteers for the trials.”
“Woah woah woah, Corey? Who’s that?” E4 asked, easily keeping up with the armored woman as they ran down a flight of steps. At the bottom rather than duck beneath the door Missy rolled, the crash bars built into her suit ensuring that she didn’t put the weight of her armor on her head. As E4 followed through the door she saw a pair of maids standing aside, one looking startled and another just shaking her head. Beyond them the pair ran through a large gallery of statues, mostly marble but some granite, of dozens of figures rendered in stone. “I don’t think I’ve met him.” Though inside a pit of black dread was quickly building up in her gut.
“Corey… can’t remember his last name. Something with an L. Came through town a few weeks before the Eagle-Wood and Marked families. You were in his lab so you must have met with him.” She ducked under another door, startling a maid though in a feat of dexterity that surprised E4 she managed to catch the bundle of clothes and return it to her. “The Soul summoning experiments? Trying to draw a soul from The Myst into a body?”
“I’m already blessed, and we’ve already met. Did the fire burn me that badly?” E4’s hands went to her face, only to find bandages covering all but her eyes. The skin on her hands was patchy, meandering lines of red and pink against a pale background.
“Wait, that was you? E3, no E4. So that’s where you vanished off to. I didn’t recognize you under the bandages.” Missy replied. As E4 continued to touch her face she realized the bandages had been made by her flesh fabrication. She could feel her fingers through the bandages, which was a good sign. “Explains a lot, I was wondering how one of us was using so much Aether without getting turned to stone. I’m sure The Eagle-Woods will be happy to see you when they get back from the front.”
“The Front?” As E4 and Missy stepped through the door to the outside she was shocked by what she saw.
Guards in Stone-Weaver’s livery patrolled the streets, each escorted by a Purifier with a flamethrower. Yet for every Purifier there were two guards and a third wearing an enlarged suit of stone armor. Now that she was in the sun E4 could see Missy’s armor was on the smaller side. Every guard carried a large chopping blade as well as a crossbow that looked ready to chuck the meter long bolts with impressive force.
“I thought Power Armor was supposed to be rare.”
“It is, we don’t have many sets but we’re using all of them.” Missy replied. “My set isn’t actually a FOG suit, but with what’s been going on I figured I was going to need every advantage, even if it means I’m going to be a statue soon.”
“Wait, run that by me again?” E4 asked.
“Being a Myst Folk I’m not supposed to have Aether, but by channeling Stone-Weaver’s power I can use it for a bit, at the cost of slowly turning into stone.” Missy answered. “It happens to all muses, I’m just burning my candle a little quicker than most.”
“Why?” E4 asked.
“Because Stone-Weaver needs strong guards, now especially. I will rest beside my sculpture, a contrast between who I was and who I became for my lord.” She replied. E4 could not see her face through her helmet, but guessed the woman would have a serene expression. “Come on, we have to move.”
E4 didn’t have to be shown to the infirmary, half way there her horns sensed the sickness and two thirds of the way The Hymn grabbed her by the ears and almost dragged her, her perfect position skill activating without her exerting any ATP. She was already putting on a mask drawn from her healer’s kit as she entered the door. The Hymn sang to her the conditions of the dozens of patients before her.
“Where was this when I was doing my residencies.” E4 muttered to herself, a wide grin plastered on her face. With a gesture she called a cart of medicines to her side, and a maid dressed in a gray dress and wearing a similar mask stepped to attend her. Before her sat a young man, his chest a mess of wounds riddled with fungal debris. “Nurse, get the anethesia,”
“No, don’t put me out.” The man whispered.
“You sure?” The man nodded, extending his arms and legs to allow the nurse to bind them in thick leather straps. “Ok, I’ll be quick.” With that E4 gave him a quick jab of her claws and went to work.
E4 found her elevated intellect stat allowed her to take in and process aspects of her patient that she would normally require an entire team to keep track of, The Hymn interacting with her healing hands skill in an interesting way to let her feel what was wrong. It wasn’t the level of information a full lab panel and CT scan would tell her, but for a field hospital with a low technology level it was just the thing she needed. Immediately she knew that if she tried to brute force it with healing hands her patient would die. While in a Blessed the skill would burn off the damaged Myst and replace it with ambient Myst, without their innate resistance to Aether a Myst Folk would be burned through and there wouldn’t be enough Myst left for them to survive. That meant doing most of the hard work through surgery. As she got to work E4 found the nurse, Gr’now as she quickly learned the woman’s to be named, seemed to be just as in tune with the hymn as she was. Whenever E4 reached for a tool or a supply Gr’now was right where she needed to be with just the right implement. It didn’t help that the cart seemed to “happen” to have whatever she needed the moment she turned to get it. True Gr’now had no idea what a blood type was, but E4 quickly discerned that her first patient was O+ and the flesh scaffold she drew from her bag from flesh fabrication was a universal donor. Within a few minutes she had cut free the worst of the infection, burning the rest free with careful application of metabolic fire, and replacing the holes with the scaffolding before applying bandages and a mild antiseptic. She followed up with a burst of healing hands, which made the man wince as it burned the ravager toxin out of him and made his skin seem to shrink. E4 winced at the damage a shot of Aether did to the man, but The Hymn assured her that between her surgical precision and her other efforts
“Five minutes, it seems the sulpting is working.” Gr’now spoke up as they finished.
“Sculpting?” E4 asked.
“Stone-Weaver’s sculpting allows up to channel Aether like the regulators do.” Gr’now replied. “My own showed special care to my hands, granting me the skill perfect position. I normally use it in the kitchen and dining room, but that is for later. Let us move to the next patient.” She stepped to the next patient, a young woman with impressive musculature and a crushed right arm. Gr’now immediately drew a saw. “This may hurt.”
“Hold up, wash your hands.”
“Excuse me?” Gr’now asked.
“You have to scrub between patients. You’ll spread something between them if you don’t and that can be as bad as the fungus.” E4 immediately moved to a sink, her speed stat and perfect positioning letting her move through the rush of bodies as other physicians and assistants did their work as if they weren’t even there. She washed, the water hot and soap foamy, before a burst of healing hands burned off the surface layer of her skin and replaced it with fresh flesh. She then applied a new set of gloves.
“There is not time.”
“If there is not time to do it right there must be time to do it twice.” E4 replied. “come wash.”
Gr’now grumbled, but did as she was told. Immediately they moved onto the next patient, another guard with a limb half chewed off and some manner of venom in his veins. The body of the creature that had bitten him lay on the floor beside him, a butcher’s knife still lodged in its skull. E4 quickly took a sample of its venom over to a machine that she didn’t recognize despite the fact she knew she had used it before.
“Red?” She chittered. “When did we start handing these out?” The object, or perhaps creature, before her was an antigen fabricator. To the outside eye it looked like a red box with a stylized M on it. To anyone with resonant senses it would light up like a beacon. A harvestman isopod within it had been given plenty of flesh and reagents, indicated by the dozen small bottles currently hooked up to the bottom and left side. The instructions were written in three language, English and two E4 did not recognize. Two empty slots waited for the final two components, a sample of the patient’s blood and a sample of the venom to create an antigen to.
[[The antivenom forges were put up two days ago, Ere’Lur was quite insistent.]]
“We’re just passing out resonant tech?” E4 asked as she applied the blood and the sample. The device began to hum and she heard it chitter, which was immediately replied six responses. “What?” She paused. “There are seven of them? How did we get enough harvestmen for 7? That’s great.”
[[Ere’lur was quite thrilled to take up the reins. She quite enjoyed going on a secret mission to the ravager pool, and almost got caught a few times. She will need to learn the stealth side of things, but Mara in her grace deemed the risk worth the benefits. She has begun cataloging genetic markers from the Myst folk, with surprising results which warrant further study following the current crisis.]]
E4 scrubbed and moved on to the next patient, a woman whose injury was fortunately just a broken leg from where a charging beetle had struck her. While the injury wasn’t horrible the woman was irate when E4 asked about it. “I shot that thing three times with that burning boomstick P-23 gave me, and what did it do? It crashed right into my leg and snapped it like a twig.”
“So the shotgun didn’t kill it?” E4 asked, nodding to her nurse and fetching a bite stick. While the nurse was gone she poked the woman with her claws, giving just enough ravager toxin so she wouldn’t feel what came next.
“No, it was dead, but that much bone doesn’t just stop.”
“Momentum’s a witch.” E4 replied. With surgical precision she flayed the woman’s leg, thin lines of aether manifesting on the edges. Within a few moments she had the bones back in place and began sealing them with healing hands. She winced at the amount of aether being used, but there was nothing for it. “So I can put your legs back together, but I don’t think your flesh will appreciate the aether. You might have some burning in the legs, and they’re going to be fragile for a while.” She winced, trying to figure out how much to tell the woman. “If you don’t heal up right, you might lose your leg for good.
“Doc, you haven’t been on the front lines. Those bugs just keep coming. Get me up, even if you have to encase my body in stone to do it.” The woman tried to sit up, only for E4 to push her back down. “Our lot is short, here especially. Let me at least earn a stone limb before I go.”
“Red,” E4 chittered, “I don’t suppose Ere’lur managed to figure out the power armor we were working on before we came here?”
[[That is negative. We had yet to figure out how to get that to work on Earth. The Wise Mind is backlogged as it is, and that’s with the antigen forges crunching numbers. Maybe we could replace a leg.]]
Yet even as E4 and I conferred something happened neither of us expected. The woman’s leg sealed up without E4’s intervention, and turned to stone. All across the medical hospital similar things happened, causing a few of the other doctors and nurses to quickly step back as their patients had their wounds petrified closed. Several folk immediately went still as the stone invaded critical organs, but the majority let loose a cry of exultation, immediately rising from their beds.
“What the blood?” E4 gasped at the scene. The other nurses were quick to collect the bodies of those who did not survive. “What just happened?”
“A miracle.” her asssitant spoke. “Lord Stone-Weaver has brought healing to those who would be crippled, and peace to those too far gone.
“We could have saved them.” E4 snapped.
“No, you could not.” Stone-Weaver spoke even as he carried in a man clutching a crushed arm. A dozen Purifiers followed him, making E4’s hackles raise as she prepared to fight her way out again, only to realize they were bringing in more wounded. To a man they were all in Purifier uniforms. “Triage, if my restoration was insufficient to heal them, then you will not have time.”
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“Do you even hear yourself?” E4 asked, her voice cold with rage. “These were your people,” At that she noticed the twitch in his face, the sweat dripping down his face and the deep breaths he was trying to hide.
“Alright, welcome to double overtime.” A self assured voice called as a Purifier in full armor stepped in, stooping to get through the door. As he did he kicked a bed, which immediately went flying and knocked a nurse to the ground. Immediately E4 was by her side, checking on her. “You, up. No time to lie around.” Even as he spoke he gestured with his gun.
“Can you stand?” E4 asked as she lifted. The woman tried, yet as she did her right leg seemed to collapse beneath her. “That’s going to need a splint.”
“Hey, I said up.” The Purifier snapped. “This is a medical emergency chop chop. Get the lead out.”
“You just harmed a medical professional during a medical emergency.” E4 replied coldly. “Under Article 21 of the Geneva convention you have committed a war crime. Under penal code 324 that’s a one way trip to the front line, without armor.” Immediately she found a shotgun pressed into her face. “Did I touch a nerve Nurse Purifier?”
“Don’t you dare quote the Geneva Suggestions to me Folk.” He replied. “And it’s Doctor Wakemen to you.” E4 eyed his armor, noting the lack of insignia denoting the accomplishment. He paused, as if thinking of something. “Though, I will forgive you if,”
“What’s the hold up, we have wounded and they aren’t in beds within 15 seconds I’m declaring everyone in here infected.” Another Purifier exclaimed, stomping into the infirmary. “MOVE!”
E4 moved before the Purifier could stop her, already taking charge of one of the patients. The man had a crushed lung, which fortunately telekinesis was perfectly capable of stretching back into the proper shape. Of course, being possible and being easy were two very different thing. The process still took over an hour, during which time a Purifier demanded she hurry up twice and once demanded she abandon the patient due to some other emergency that took priority.
“I’m glad I nabbed that book on Purifier emergency protocols.” E4 replied. “You’d think these Purifiers don’t know their own rules.”
“Hey Nurse, you done yet?” A Purifier in full riot gear demanded. “You’ve got three more patients this hour, tic tock.”
“Per protocol I have to scrub and change into different clothes.” E4 replied, taking her time to wash her hands.
“Per protocol you get to do what I say.” The Purifier grabbed her by the shoulder, spinning her around and throwing her to the ground. “Worthless Folk, can’t do anything right.” E4 saw the stomp coming, and rolled out of the way. Only after she had did she realize that, out of instinct, her tail had lashed out at her assailent. Normally this would have done nothing, Purifier armor being sturdy stuff. So the fact her tail cut clean through the man’s tibia and his leg immediately started leaking Aether. The man glared down at her, not noticing the wound, before turning and stomping off. “I’ll be back in five, you’d better be working.”
E4 did get to work on the next patient. A part of her wanted to give the man a Purifier’s mercy, and it would be so easy to just douse him with metibolic fire while his arms were restrained. The man bit down hard on a piece of wood as she worked.
“Are you sure you want me to do this while awake?” She asked, eyeing the wound in the man’s gut. “A perforated bowel isn’t something I’d want to go through awake.”
“Don’t you dare put me out.” The sheer venom in the man’s words made E4 take a step back. “Don’t you dare Folk, bad enough I let you touch me.”
E4 glanced at the man, his eyes shadowed and dark. “You’re one to talk.” With a gesture lightning danced across her fingers, distracting him as she jabbed him with a single claw. “You’re nothing but a Folk yourself.
“You take that back.”
“Blessed and Cursed aren’t afraid to go to sleep.” E4 reminded him. She quickly got to work, practically flaying open skin and trusting her surgical precision to let her sew him back together after. A part of her knew she should have gone with a less invasive procedure, yet another darker part wanted to see what she was capable of and if that cost a few, dozen, Purifiers then at least their lives would have worth. She quickly shook off the thought, though the cloud remained circling her mind. “If you’re not a Folk what are you? You’re not Blessed or your eyes would be glowing. You’re not Cursed or you’d have cloudy eyes.”
“I’m a Purifier.” The Purifier replied.
“Oh really, look down.” The Purifier did, and immediately began to retch at the sight of his own organs. “You’re lucky we’re within The Distant Shores, if you were on Earth this kind of surgery wouldn’t be possible without a dedicated surgical suite. One surgeon and one Nurse, your buddies dragging you back with your bowels opened by a giant bug, you’d be dead and that’s that.” E4 finished her stitches, using a bit of healing hands to close the wound, before closing up the layers of flesh she had to cut away to get at it, which she stitched closed with a surgeon’s precision and sealed with more healing hands. On a whim she slipped him a Harvestman beneath his bandages to keep an eye on his vitals. “Fifteen minutes, personal best.” She turned to her nurse, who looked a little green. “Ok, let’s get scrubbed up and onto the next one.”
E4 continued work, yet it seemed as if the tide was unending. The Hymn rang loud in her ears, guiding her from patient to patient, feeding her information as she needed it. She examined the triage notes more out of formality as The Hymn gave her more information than was contained within the scribbled notes. Telekinetic fields flowed from her hands and were read by her horns, informing her on every cracked bone and patch of ruined flesh that needed to be repaired. She vaguely remembered eating something, a ration or wafer that tasted vaguely of apple and cinnamon charged with Aether. The information from The Myst flowed more freely after and she vaguely felt as if she had gained a skill1. At some point she noticed she was in a different infirmary than she remembered being in, the floor slick with blood and limbs lying all around. The Smell of rot warred with the scent of detergent, while the brilliant lights seemed to reflect across the pooling blood and give the scene a strange too bright sheen.
“Hey, stop, take a breath, think.” She wispered to her fellow healer, a man with a bushy beard and whose white apron was stained with both fresh and dried blood. Her hands were on his arm, holding tight but not trying to hurt him. “Put down the hacksaw.”
“The hand must come off, it is infected with a rot most foul.” The man said wearily as if in a trance. The echoes of the Hymn that spoke in his ears echoed across her own, her claws manifesting from her free hand as if of their own accord.
“Yes but first,” E4 adjusted the sheet over the man, covering the healthy hand and uncovering the injured hand. To the man’s credit, the injured hand had a pair of ant heads the size of a bowling ball locked onto it, and it had turned black either from the venom or the tourniquet that was keeping the venom out. It most definitely needed to come off. “How long have you been at this?”
“I cannot know. I was prepping for the lunch rush when the purifiers demanded I assist them.” He gestured to his tools, and the body parts that a weary nurse pushing a cart was only now returning to collect. “As you can see I am a butcher by profession.”
“Have things become so desperate that we’re pulling everyone who can cut or stitch?” E4 heard a scream as a pair of men with a band saw worked to remove a limb that was mangled far beyond repair. Both wore the plaid colors that marked them as wood cutters. “My word.”
“Enough chit chat, there’s more injured.” Another Purifier announced, bringing in more men.
“This cannot continue. Clearly we are all beyond our fatigue thresholds.” E4 replied. “These men must rest or the risk of mistakes will skyrocket.”
“There is no time for rest nurse, they will make do.” The Purifier replied.
“We are all way over our limits.” E4 spoke sternly but calmly, as if explaining something to a child that it was bed time, and gestured to a nearby window. Someone had drawn the blinds, but it was clear that the sun was already high in the sky. “We’ve been up over 24 hours, accidents will start happening, we can’t,”
Any other day E4 could have caught the blow. She could have ducked, stepped aside, or perhaps even stabbed the man through the hand with her claws. Yet her fatigue and frustration had dulled her senses.
“Shut your mouth nurse.” The Purifier replied, removing his helmet. Beneath was a pale faced man, his hair white and whispy. Immediately E4 was drawn to his eyes, red veins shooting across the sclera like craters and even breaching the iris in a way she knew wasn’t normal. “If you don’t like it, one of these will get you in shape,” He spoke with manic energy before drawing something from a pocket of his armor and lunging at her. Yet the sheer horror of the vial gave her the jolt of energy she needed.
E4 scrambled back as if she had been burned by tell tale purple vial of poison. It glinted in the light in the Purifier’s hand, as if inviting her to try it. “Poison, you’d have us poison ourselves!”
“It is medicine, take it.” The Purifier demanded. With a gesture a section of his armor opened revealing a leg swollen and pale, several puncture marks still visible. Before E4’s eyes he stabbed himself with an auto injector full of the Panacea 7. The syringe, made from brass and glass rather than plastic, let out a hiss as the spring loaded injector released its payload, and the Purifier’s sigh echoed its sound. “See, it is medicine.” With a gesture another vial dropped from a belt pouch. “Hold still,”
E4 did not hold still. She turned and ran out the door, tackling it open and bursting past a group of a dozen Purifiers, eight piled in heaps upon stretchers carried by the other four. E4 did not stop even as she passed the heaps of ash that had once been insects, or maybe civilians. She did not stop even as she broke through carefully positioned yet horribly staffed road blocks.
It was only after her second roadblock, a pitiful construction of loose gravel packed into sacks and manned by a Purifier in ill fitting armor that E4 felt a strange burning. “Have to find a place to hide, a place to rest.” With a gesture she rerouted more ravager toxin to her limbs, only to find them torn apart from the lactic acid. The remnants of a syringe still stuck from her leg, the poison within keeping her from realizing it, and keeping her body from repairing the damage. With a gesture she removed the offending limb, only realizing in her exhaustion the damage she had done a moment later as her face hit the ground, and just kept going.
It was hard to tell how long she lay there. She did not feel the flames, nor did she feel hands lifting her up. She was not aware of anything until she heard the “Click Click” of marble being chipped away. She opened her eyes to see Stone-Weaver working on a model of her sleeping form. It was small, small enough to fit in his hands, yet of frighteningly high detail. Sitting up she found herself lying on a mat in a dark cell, lit only by the strange flickering glow of some manner of metal container further within the cell.
“Three days were too much?” He asked. E4 didn’t answer, so he continued. “According to the other nurses you’ve been working for four days, save for when I pulled you onto my pet project.” He blew on the image, the dust flying off with the wind and landing in a neat pile which evaporated immediately. “You’ve had a busy week, and you did a lot of good; even if it was those pyros you did the good for.”
“Three Days? It felt like one.” E4 eyed the statue. “How long as I out?”
“A few hours, I work quick.” He turned the image, showing that only the face was missing. One additional quality was the purple discoloration on one leg where she had been stabbed. “I was going to do the face last, I’m a bit out of practice on those.” He paused, as if mulling over something. “Tell me, did you see anything strange about the Purifier who stabbed you, and yes it was him who stabbed you.”
“He was completely out of his mind on Panacea 7. His eyes were so bloodshot the veins were crawling across his iris. His leg was swollen and if it were not for the anti-biotic properties I’m sure it would have been rotted through.”
“I see, and what else?”
“He was wearing Purifier armor, all brass and iron like they always do. A gleaming mask to cover the smoke and shame.” E4 thought about it a bit more. “He had a shotgun on his back, no fuel tank. I don’t remember… wait, are you saying he was Blessed?” She thought about it. “His eyes didn’t glow, but they weren’t shadowed either. I guess if his eyes were that blood shot I might not see the glow.”
“You are half there.” E4 felt a sensation like a feather had crossed her face as Stone-Weaver began chipping away on the statuette’s face. “Let me tell you a little secret, it’s something of an open secret. I can’t see faces.”
“Is that why you never put faces on statues?” E4 asked. “Sure beats the reason,” She immediately covered her mouth before she could blurt out the real reason.
“You thought I only valued my subjects for their bodies, and their minds and personalities were irrelevant? I’ve heard it before, I’m not bothered.” He went back to his work. “I was blessed once, traveling the rails with two of my best friends. Yet when they married and settled down I needed to find a new hobby, so I traveled collecting stones to carve. I made statues for all the largest cities, even the founders of the Eagle-Woods have a statue. That was my undoing.”
He examined the little statue for a moment. “When I received a call from my friends I was in the middle of a commission. Alexander Greatfields, The High Inquisitor of the League of Man, rendered in rare two toned marble. It was to be magnificent.” At this he put down his tools for a moment to examine the face that was slowly coming together. “Missy told me something was happening, the creatures of Myst were getting stronger. I sent back a telegram reminding her that creatures of Myst do that when you stay in one place and that she and her husband needed to pack up their new son and go.” He shook his head. “How was I to know it was but one of the first signs of the Herald of Woe?”2
Picking up his tools he got back to work. “I petitioned first Sister Mercy, yet she who heals has little power over undeath. Next I petitioned The Uncrowned Kings in general, for my patron Mountain Sculptor was among their members. A pact was made, that I would rule over a city and the undead who had slain my friends would be imprisoned beneath the deepest part of the mountain. There was deliberation over the price, or maybe there wasn’t who can say with the patrons? In the end they wanted a city lord to support their interests. I would aid them in their war against the Titans of Industry and make a city that was a center of craftsmanship. In exchange, the undead would be sealed beneath the monster, crushed in rock and its captives souls extracted. Of course, no bargain like that comes free. It was decided that, since I could not break from my carving to save my friends, I would become face blind. I can create all but the most important part of the statues I, and even should my friends return they would have to recognize me for I could never recognize them. In truth, it is normally a boon. I can tell Blessed apart from Folk easily, and with the resources from the city I have done quite well. At least, I thought so.”
“Then it all went wrong?” E4 asked.
“Pretty much, but that’s normal over here. Hubris gets us all eventually. We found an abandoned mine, and at that exact time a promising young Aether Blessed showed up. He seemed young, but he was a bright one. Said he worked mine management back on Earth, and I figured why not? Give the Uncrowned Kings some extra resources to work with, and you don’t normally have to take up the nomad lifestyle until you’re 18 so give the kid an easy start to being Blessed. Then he said he found something, some fungus that was making the workers sick, and he needed a lab to study it.”
“And you didn’t think that was odd?” E4 asked.
“Not at the time. Once you have a high enough intellect stat you tend to accumulate degrees like so much baggage, unfortunately there is no wisdom stat. I should have watched him more closely, but I didn’t. Then, when all this nonsense started happening Kindred showed up, and well now I’m explaining this to a fugitive nurse in a hole in the ground. According to him I’m undergoing intensive treatment. The reality, he sent his goons into my home with flamethrowers.”
“Dealing with Purifiers tends to do that.” E4 replied. “Yet you were talking about eyes? What is the significance of seeing a Purifier’s eyes
“Yet getting back to my original point, I cannot see faces. Part of why you caught my eye was because I can see yours.” E4 filed that bit of information away, a notable flaw in her innate human mimicry. “However, I can see creatures of Myst without issue, including humans.”
E4 gave him a curious look. “Wait, isn’t that just Myst Folk?”
“No. The exact reason is unknown, but some Myst Folk lose their connection to The Hymn. According to the Folk they give up on the hopes of ever receiving a soul.” He shrugged. “Not sure if that’s true. We Cursed must always watch out, for they swiftly become human or kobold monsters. They lose empathy for their fellow Folk, and they will never follow a Blessed.”
E4 thought of the Purifier who stabbed her with the Panacea. “That tracks. What do we do?”
“Well I could always abandon my home, abandon my hopes of recovering my friends, and get a job under Arnold in Los London.” He tilted his head, putting the final finishing touch onto the statue. “Or, we could kill Kindred. I’ve seen you work, and most of his men are wounded or out fighting. I’ve already drawn the poison from your leg into this statue, if you die it will break and you will return to where it sits. There’s a big vat of concentrated Myst right over there, if you purified it the result would be like tapping 10 standing stones at once. I was saving it to bribe Vienna into getting rid of the man, but seeing how much you dislike him I don’t have to worry about you turning me in to him.”
“What about Leechwort?”
“Well that is an issue, without the Purifiers those fungi will likely overrun us, but I cannot leave my people here under his rule. With the fungi either we live or die. Under him, the eternal threat of a death by fire, that is not life.”
“I wish we had more like you on my Earth Stone-Weaver.” E4 replied, standing up and testing her leg. It seemed alright. “So that thing will break if I die, and I’ll go to wherever it is?”
“In theory. It’s not perfect, but I used to use them back when I was blessed. It should be even more powerful now that I’m Cursed.”
“Did you make one for Kindred?”
“I did, though it was to let him channel power not revive. I will go break it before you slay him.”
“Oh, that’s already been taken care of.” E4 said as she approached the metal container, which opened at her approach. Within swirling Myst strained against runes and echings worked into the metal. E4 couldn’t help but think of the thing as a furnace for how it looked. “Any chances you can sneak that thing into his office?”
“You would slay yourself to get the jump on him?” Stone-Weaver considered it. “Certainly a bold strategy.”
“Oh hardly,” E4 reached out, the Hymn singing her the directions she should make. As she did crackles of lightning began to form within the storm. Her hair stood on end, making her head look like a red pom pom. From somewhere a low breeze began to blow. “But that’s just a contingency. I intend to come back after killing Leechwort.” As she continued she began to chitter, her Wise Mind activating and scanning the mass of dense Myst before her. It calculated and advised her, adding resonance to the already potent brew of Myst and Aether before her. Immediately the breeze stiffened into a gale.
“You say that as if it is certain. Four Purifiers, two of higher tier than yourself, and an army of my men and Purifiers have tried and failed.”
“Let me tell you a secret a Purifier friend told me, a secret he used to finish off Leechwort the first time.” At her voice the wind became hurricane force, and The Hymn screamed in her ears to finish. “A lot changes when you accept you’re not coming back!”