As the battle in the arena raged on, combatants disappearing one after another, Azim remained holstered in one spot by the hunter’s bubble. He tried to move his arms but they were only met with tension as they trudged through the thick water. While the robot did not need to breathe, the aquatic environment surrounding him still posed a small threat. If too much water leaked into his internal circuitry, he would short out and render himself immobilized.
It was, of course, possible that he could be repaired after short-circuiting, but there was no guarantee. For now, the metal man could not afford to take any chances and treated this predicament like his life really was on the line. Azim was able to close off the openings in his exterior, preventing water from passing through its gaps, but doing so came at the cost of significantly restricting his movement. How was he going to find a way out of this watery trap if he was unable to move?
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Back at the odd-smelling house, Riva and Iman were doing their best to take care of the situation. They had removed the man’s wife from her chair, which, from what he had described, was the most she had moved in several days. Nevertheless, her nearly lifeless body remained as limp as a corpse. Even with the nør elf’s spell to jostle the woman, she was unchanged.
“Now what?” Iman asked her companion, unsure what the plan was.
“Y-Yes, I would like to know also, just what is the plan here?”
Walking over to where the woman was dangling from, Riva answered, “We’re going to find whatever parasite is leeching onto her.”
Riva took an initial glance around the woman, trying to see if there was an obvious lump or bulge anywhere under her clothes that would suggest a parasite. There was nothing to be found. Whatever it was, the pest was small. Riva asked the husband where their bathroom was, and when he answered, asked if he could take them there. Iman carefully maintained her spell, strumming as she walked so as to not release the hand construct and drop the immobile woman.
Making their way to the bathroom, Riva had Iman carefully drop the woman into her and her husband’s bathtub. There she lay, depressed and unmoving, while the others just stared, concerned. Riva turned to the man and instructed, “You are going to have to disrobe her.”
“What?!” he and Iman questioned in unison.
“What makes you think that’s what’s necessary right now?” shouted the man, who was starting to find a voice.
“Look, I’m not trying to act all ‘in charge’, it’s just that if she has some kind of parasite latched onto her, you are going to need her undressed to see where it is so you can remove it! We can leave the room if you’d like, that’s perfectly fine, but then you have to be able to handle it! The stench is getting worse. I’d wager that is to discourage others from getting too close or removing the thing, but if you can withstand the odor, then you need to find where on her that thing is and get it off! But that’s not going to happen if you let her stay like this!”
Taken aback by Riva’s serious tone, the husband complied with the order and asked the women to stand outside the room. Riva and Iman stood around awkwardly, pinching their noses so as to not hurt their senses any more than they already had. With a nasal voice, the nør elf admitted to Riva how impressed she was with the woman for taking charge so well. Riva then assured the young musician that it was only because the man did not know what to do, and someone needed to keep his head on straight. Iman just stared at the woman. She was glad they had met. She, herself, had never had such conviction, hence why she had stayed in the Asher Woods for so long. To see someone be so responsive to a problem without hesitating was a skill the nør elf wished she had. Though, she figured being friends with such a person wasn’t that bad either.
“How’s it going in there?” Iman asked, shouting at the bathroom door while giving it a knock.
Instead of being met with a verbal response, the women overheard a loud crashing sound followed by a thump, before finally hearing a woman’s voice screaming and heaving. Panicked, the ladies burst open the door, expecting to see the husband and wife staring at some gross, stinking parasite on the floor of the bathroom. Instead, the initial problem was still very much alive, only with a slight twist.
Iman and Riva stared at the husband’s face, contorting their own at the sight of the creature resting against his neck. The man’s wife, who was naked and had wrapped herself up in their shower curtain, was freaking out at the sight of her infected husband. From her demeanor, Riva guessed that she had no recollection of the past few days and had come to in this moment, only to find herself naked in the bathtub and her husband being attacked by some kind of leech.
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“What the hell is that thing?! W-Wait, who are you two? What the hell is going on?!”
“Maggie, it’s alright, your husband brought us here,” Riva spoke calmly, doing her best to de-escalate the situation. “He brought us here… to help you.”
“My husband?” retorted Maggie. “You mean the one right there that’s not moving or talking or expressing himself in any way? Him?! Because that is not my husband! My husband does not normally have a weird growth on his neck leaving him looking half-dead!”
Iman jumped into the conversation, bluntly clarifying, “Well, it was on you first.”
“What?!” exclaimed Maggie.
“It’s true, that… thing… on him, it was originally latched onto you,” Riva asserted. “That’s why your husband asked for our help, he was just worried about you and getting that thing off of you. It’s some kind of parasite or… or leech, I’ve never seen it before but that’s what we think it is. According to your husband, whatever it’s been doing to you, whatever mental state it put you in, you have been like that for the past several days, not eating or sleeping or anything.”
“You can’t be serious,” Maggie replied, in denial about the whole thing.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true, we can figure out the details later, but we have to help out your husband first, okay?”
“Okay, okay. I don’t know what’s going on, but if my husband does, then yes, please help him. And— ugh, I’m sorry, but what is that atrocious smell?”
“That’s the leech, too,” Iman chirped.
With the wife finally settling down a bit, she turned away from the scene, using the shower curtain to shield herself from the stench as much as possible, though she was not met with much success. Meanwhile, Riva and Iman took care of the husband, who was staring emptily at the wall of the bathroom in front of him. He had the same stiff posture that his wife had expressed earlier. The women took a closer look at the parasite to get a better sense of what they should do. It was disgusting.
The creature looked like a cross between a miniature octopus and a lamprey, with dark blue skin and black and white stripes along its parasitic limbs. It had a slightly deflated sack of some sort at the center of its body, which Riva figured was the source of the odor. Each of its six limbs had tiny spines sticking out from either side that had embedded themselves under the skin of the man’s neck. The creature was about the size of a child’s hand, yet it was obvious that its grip on the husband’s throat was worryingly tight.
Riva and Iman considered their options, unsure of what the best way to remove the leech was. As they thought, they noticed the man’s skin starting to wrinkle, and realized the leech was draining his energy much faster than it had been his wife’s, likely because it had been aggravated by them trying to remove it. They had to hurry. If they took much longer, the man would likely need serious medical attention, and they did not have that kind of magic expertise.
After a few moments, Riva had an idea. She asked Iman to hold the creature down, but not too tightly so as to not freak it out and jump on her instead. She quickly added to use the hand from her spell and not her own, as she didn’t want the nør elf getting too close. While she didn’t understand exactly what the plan was, Iman trusted Riva and cast a glowing, yellow-orange hand to wrap around the small parasite.
Once sure the pest was secure and not going anywhere, Riva dug around in the couple’s bathroom until she finally found a small straight razor. She walked slowly over to the man and carefully approached the trapped creature. One by one, Riva slowly picked at the limbs of the parasite hooked into the man’s neck, lifting every spine out from under his skin until the whole limb finally popped up. It took several minutes and serious dedication, but Riva remained focused and determined. After about 5 minutes of delicate handwork, she pulled the sixth limb off of the man’s neck, completely loosening his neck from the parasite's grasp. Iman’s hand construct was then able to safely pull it off of him without letting it touch anyone else, before crushing it dead.
With the parasite dealt with and the stench slowly fading from the house, the husband and wife were both safe. Riva and Iman, as well as the husband, filled the wife in on what had happened. Riva told her about how the odor was evenly dispersed throughout the house, making it hard to locate the leech as it did not get more concentrated the closer one got to it. Her husband explained that he had been trying for days to help her but was met with no success, so he went out into the street looking for someone to help and stumbled into Riva and Iman. The woman thanked the both of them graciously, though she insisted it was no trouble and they were just glad to be of any help at all.
Fetching some money at the request of his wife, the husband came back with a “thank you” gift for the two women, who assured them it was okay but quickly realized there was no turning down the gesture. Along with the small pouch of gold, the man had brought a small spell book. He mentioned that if the two women were aspiring adventurers, they might want to have some basic spells under their belt. He assured them that he had no more need for it. He had managed to learn a few spells from its pages, but magic was not something he was adept at, and so he was comfortable parting ways with it.
Now it was Riva and Iman’s turn to be grateful. They gave their thanks to the couple before taking their leave, Riva letting them know they had left their pet cat in their carriage and did not want to leave him alone for too long. As they said their final goodbyes, the two women set off back to the cart, reveling in the miniature adventure that the two of them had just shared, Iman especially excited about the money they had picked up as well.
Arriving back at the carriage, saying “hi” to Roman and giving him some head scratches, Riva was happy. Iman was already setting up to play some more music for the passing crowd, but she was content. As she sat down between the mosstail and the nør elf, she let her mind wander, letting the music carry her away. She could not help but wonder what the boys were up to, and just what kind of trouble they were getting themselves into.