“Where did the Black Curse come from?” The questions came two days into the trip to the city, as they took their break under a lone tree during the high of the sun’s journey. It was something that she had expected and dreaded. How to explain what they knew and didn’t know about the curse, what it did and where if came from. Start at the beginning, Vaska thought.
“Thirty years ago, rumors started to circulate regarding monsters roaming the land.” The boy’s eyes were intend on her face as she spoke. “At first no one paid it any heed, there was always wild tales coming and going, but soon enough proof came that the monsters were real. With proof the king had to do something, so he gathered up a group of the best warriors in the land and sent them to destroy the threat. At first they just encountered a few monsters, then more and more.” She looked up at the sky and continued. “They finally found the source at the shores of a lake whose water was as blacks the night sky. They slew all the monsters there at a great cost, and those that returned were greeted as heroes.”
“What happened after that?” Thomas asked quietly.
Vaska sighed, “Nothing for quite a long time. Then ten years ago the monsters came back. At first no one knew why, no villagers ever went back to live by the shores of the lake. Then one day a known veteran of the campaign changed in the middle of town. He didn’t live very long after that but it was enough for some of the villagers to change as well.
“You know a lot about it.”
“Yes, I've been involved with the attempts to cure it almost since the beginning.” The rest of the day followed in somber silence.
The Carlitah was a walled town located on a river, watch towers dotted the walls, and they wereas manned as they could be. Trader’s wagons were waiting at the gate for admittance, and somewhere there was a fire birthing black smoke that rose up to the sky. Most of the buildings were made of brick or wood, with thatch roofs. Thomas looked like he wanted to duck behind Vaska but was trying to appear unaffected. This was probably the largest town that Thomas had ever seen.
Vaska and Thomas made their way to the Healers House. There was a guarded door that to which Vaska presented a leather strap which had an eclipse pattern of studs impressed into it. The guard took it and run her hands over the studs before handing it over and nodding to the other guards and with that they entered into the Healer's House, of course calling it a house was downplaying it a bit. Vaska knocked on the door and it was pulled out by a tall woman.
“Vaska, You're back already.” Said the woman at the door. “Did you go through all of your medicine already?” She had hair hanging in braids that gently brushed along her shoulders as she turned to look at Thomas then back at Vaska.
“Almost. But I'm also here for another reason.” Vaska nodded to Thomas. “He wants to be your apprentice, Rael.”
Rael blinked, “Oh? Thinking of the honor of curing the diseases that plague the world and your fellow man?”
Thomas blurted. “I want to help you cure the black curse.” His hands were twisting the hem of his tunic.
“I see,” Said Rael, she tapped a finger on the door frame, “Then you had better come in.”
The inside of the sick house, was sparse and minimalistic with a drain in the floor. Vaska settled herself on a stool by a small table, the table had dark stains upon it's surface. Thomas took the stool on the opposite side while Rael stood and eyed him.
“Why are you want to become a healer?”
“I'm not a great fighter,” He began his eyes locked onto the stains.
Rael cut him off. “It takes more than a lack of skill in the fighting arts, to make one desire to be a healer.”
Thomas lifted his eyes from the table meeting Rael’s eyes. “I want to stop people from dying like my father did, of the Black Curse. I can do anything to further the cause of eliminating the curse from the world.”
“Fine. Then you can start now.”
“Really?” He perked up, like a field after the first spring rain.
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“Yes, start picking up the cloths and taking them to the back room.” Thomas's eyes widened, in surprise. He looked at Vaska and nodded. Then he hopped off of the stool and started picking up the clothes.
Rael and Vaska watched him leave the room. “I didn’t think that he would actually do it.” Rael said. “Most would be healers with delusions that they'll be the one to defeat the curse, but ask them to do the basics and they flounce out, trailing their pride behind them. Why did you bring him?”
“I thought that if I didn’t. He would have followed me here anyway.” Vaska shrugged. “Besides he has nowhere else to go.”
“So he might as well learn a trade, right?' Rael sighed. “I'll see how he does. If he's completely hopeless I'll send him over to be a guard. Speaking of the guards, don't you have to report in?”
“I thought that I would drop Thomas off first before going to the castle.” Vaska hopped off of the stool. “I'll see you tomorrow.”
Vaska made her way out of the house that was her informal home, she passed by the weak and the infirm that lived away from the rest of the population. Vaska made her way up to the castle. Once again she showed the leather strap and walked into the halls of the castle. Here, she was a common sight and they just nodded to her as the inhabitants go on about their lives. The walls were covered with tapestry from the previous eras, heros, villians the lucky and the unlucky, decorated the in thread.
One of the servants passing by directed her to an office in one of the towers. She trotted up the stairs noticing the ground pull father and farther away as she ascended. The king was up in an office, using the high ground and the sun going through the light skin of the roof. Vaska knocked on the door and called out. “My Lord?”
“I'm in here.” King Renard, the ruling of the city-state said absently. He was looking at the map spread out over a table corners dipping over the edge. Pins festooned out form the various marked places, as Vaska walked closer she noticed the there was a knife stuck in it where the black water was. The place that started it all with the curse.
“You wanted me to report in?” Vaska said.
“Vaska, I didn’t know that you had returned.” He did not turn away from the map to face her.
“I just got in my lord.”
“Well, what have you learned about the spread of the black curse?”
“Another one of the survivors changed in a village to the south. I managed to to kill the active monster but to my knowledge there was no afflicted created.”
King Renard nodded, “I'll have the guards go and double check. Once the threat is away they may be more honest with us.” He looked closely at her. “Are you doing well?”
“Yes, I'm fine. Rael gives me enough medicine to keep back the pain.” Vaska smiled to try to smooth over his concern. “Do you have anymore leads for to follow up?”
“No yet, come back in a few days. Something may be found by then, or a task for you might occur.” She nodded and bowed out. The memories of when her village had been attacked by the black curse rose up in her mind. This was something that had irrevocably changed her life, both for the better and for the worse. If that had never happened she never would have met Rael. She had met the two of them at the same time, in the wake of that event. She had got on her hands and knees to beg and plead to be allowed to pursue the Black curse, Rael had been an apprentice healer but already she was deeply involved in trying to find a cure to the Black cure, a way to break it or cure it.
She walked down out of the city, she did care about it as much as she could. This was her home after the death of her family and the destruction of the village. In her armor and walking down the street she was almost anonymous and not the monster hunter of the king. It was a bit of the relief, in a city as ravaged by disease and the curse, anyone even remotely affiliated with it was to be treated as if they them selves were afflicted.
When she arrived back at the home, Rael was ordering Thomas to clean the pots and pans so that clean water could be boiled if necessary. “You never know when things might go wrong and suddenly you need to treat a hundred people.” She said to him. It was a cozy little scene that was probably as close to domestic that things would ever get. Eventually they all went to bed to get the best sleep they could.
They were woken in the deep sleep in the dark night by a wailing and carrying on out side of the house, quickly followed by the sound of knocking upon the door of the house. Vaska could hear Rael’s door open as she ran down to see who needed help. Vaska was about to go and see what she could do to help, when a stabbing pain knocked the breath out of her. She dragged in two breaths before getting up and started to get dressed. Moving around would help make the pain go away, just in case though she drank half a bottle of the vial she kept on her beside table. She barely noticed the taste any more but it got her out the door and down into the hall. Thomas had come down at some point and was doing the best to his inexperience would allow him to.
The source of the wailing was a woman who had come in blood running all down her arms from where there were large cuts in the skin of her shoulder. Rael was talking to her as she started to clean up the blood and calm the woman down, the man that had brought her in wasn’t doing to much better.
“I just want it gone.” She woman sobbed as her had went back up the wounds and formed into a claw like she was going to tear it open again. Rael caught her hand and put it by her side. As the blood was cleared off from the woulds, a strip of black scar tissue became apparent despite the attempts to remove it. The mark of survival of an attack.
“Cutting it out won't change anything.”
“It's a mistake! I'm not cursed, it's all of a mistake.”
Vaska walked backup the stairs as she wasn’t needed there, and the woman would not want her there to see her humiliation. Her mind went to the small vial that she kept in her bag, if the worst came to worst she would take it and avoid the horrible effects of the curse.