Walking back to the housing section was still a stressful experience, despite the assurances they had been given that everything had been scoured and was clear.

With every step that Bertrand took away from the walls, he ironically felt more and more insecure.

Even with the dozens of armed and cautious soldiers beside him, he still didn’t feel safe.

However, his fears didn’t come true.

No adaptors leapt out of the shadows at him or his compatriots.

No zombie hordes suddenly appeared and boxed them in.

No mage level powerhouses like watchers came out from behind the corners and small alleyways.

It was a safe and easy trip.

So utterly normal was it that when Bertrand got back to the relative safety of the housing section he was just about ready to collapse as he had strained himself immensely by trying to keep his eyes on every possible ambush site.

Not only did his eyes hurt but his brain did too, a very nasty headache pounded inside his skull alongside the drum like beat of his heart.

He would get some Fargoth to deal with the pain but it wasn’t agonising enough for him to seek out the aid of Eudes.

Chances were he would end up talking to a normal doctor but he just didn’t want to risk having to deal with Eudes.

So he gritted his teeth and continued forward towards his tent.

It was a rather uncomfortable experience as he had to ignore the pain in his eyes and stay focused so he didn’t end up going the wrong way.

Which in turn caused him more pain and meant he had to focus more to make sure he was going the right way.

After two wrong turns and a few extra minutes spent retracing his steps, he had made it.

He was in front of his tent.

Carelessly he tried to open the flaps, actually closing his eyes while he did so to give himself a bit of a break from the strain of looking everywhere.

And after fumbling around for a few minutes, his persistence was rewarded with an open tent and partially recovered eyes.

Making his way inside, he took off his boots and went over to his bedroll.

Slithering his way inside it, he had never felt so relieved.

Despite his exhaustion and comfort he couldn’t get to sleep though.

The headache was keeping him awake, but he was going to be dammed if he got out of his bedroll and went to get some Fargoth.

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Who would he even go with, both Césaire and Francois weren’t inside the tent and even if they were he really didn’t want to risk encountering Eudes.

He didn’t really have a reason to hate the doctor but he just didn’t have the time to put in the effort to find a justifiable reason for his unease.

Eudes just radiated madness, single minded destructive madness.

He didn’t cut people up to help cure them, he did it because he was sick.

Of course, there was no evidence of this but Bertrand firmly believed that it was the case.

Bertrand bet if he searched for evidence though he would find horrific notes in the doctor's journal detailing various illegal experiments they had performed.

He also wouldn’t be surprised if he found letters to the doctor asking for his services from the now deceased noblesse and crazed mages.

Seer, maybe he would even find a kidnapped villager or two who was being experimented on.

For the next half an hour that was how Bertrand kept himself occupied and distracted from the pain.

Obviously there was no way Eudes would have that sort of stuff laying around for someone as amateurish in detective work as Bertrand to find.

But still, it was amusing enough for Bertrand to waste his time imagining.

Unfortunately when he did eventually fall asleep he didn’t dream of being gifted golden medals for heroically discovering the doctor's hideous acts.

Rather he dreamed of being the one these horrific experiments were performed on.

Tied down to a table in the middle of a basement, the only things inside being the table he was tied too, some stairs in the corner leading upwards and some strange trolly containing various tools that looked like they came from a torturer's kit.

The worse part of this nightmare was that he was lucid enough to think but not lucid enough to realise it was a dream.

This meant that he was able to view the bloodstains on the wall and feel terrified wondering how they got there but not question how he could actually see them considering there was no visible light source.

And the dread he felt when he heard Eudes step down the room overshadowed any confusion he might have felt about how he was so thoroughly restrained by some meagre rope that only looped around him a few times and looked thin enough to break with a few tugs.

When Eudes made it to him though was when the nightmare truly got intense though.

Being cut open and having his guts examined right before his eyes was a whole new level of horror that his subconscious mind had conjured up.

And as the nightmare progressed it got more and more twisted, with Eudes sawing off his arm and using it as a fly swatter when a fly buzzed its way down the stairs and into the basement.

For some reason this fly was as large as a cat and had Césaire’s voice.

Bertrand watched in horror as fly Césaire begged for their life before being swatted down with Bertrand’s severed arm.

The worse part of the nightmare though was when a zombie arm was surgically grafted onto his arm socket, replacing his amputated limb.

At that point, in time he went from viewing the nightmare from his own eyes to viewing it in an abstract way.

Sort of floating behind where the bloodstained walls were and as if they were see through he was able to watch himself struggle on the table.

He watched as dark roots started spreading out from his implanted arm and made their way up his neck and down his side.

In a matter of seconds his whole body was covered in pitch black roots.

And despite his ethereal viewpoint, he was still very much attached to his body.

As the roots drilled their way through his body he became overwhelmed by such intense agony that if this had been reality he surely would have passed out.

Sadly this was not the real world which meant there was no possibility of falling unconscious.

Which meant he had to endure the tendrils and intense pain they inflicted, without any respite.