Chapter 134: Bittersweet

Every day, there was death. From morning to sunset, and then all throughout the night—death, death, and more death. As Kesten handed in a transfer form to the woman at the front desk, which called for another eight victims to be taken away to the morgue and processed, he held himself back from swearing aloud and upsetting the apprehensive families waiting in the various lobbies for news of their loved ones. All turned their eyes on him as he waded gently by and headed back into the thick of things. With a sigh, he wiped a light coating of sweat away from his forehead; the perspiration was due to nothing more than pure stress and frustration, as Hope’s Rest—one of the hospitals here in Giant’s Fall’s primary city—was kept quite cool if not borderline chilly.

“My…father?” a young woman in her late teens asked as he moved past her. She stood just outside the wide, roped-off entryway to the staff-only elevator. “Is he…?”

“I’m sorry,” Kesten whispered to her, recalling that he’d promised her three or maybe even four hours ago that he’d check in on her dad. She must have been standing right here waiting for him this whole time. He was so busy he’d nearly forgotten her. But worst of all, for all her patient waiting, Kesten could only give her terrible news. “I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”

She nodded. “And my mother?”

He tightened his grip on a clipboard he carried partially under his right arm. “She’s still alive, but her prognosis isn’t good. I don’t believe she’ll survive the night.”

“Can I see her?”

Sadly, he shook his head. “They’re not letting anyone visit the patients since we’re still not entirely sure if it’s safe for the irradiated victims to come within close proximity of others, and we just can’t spare the protective equipment right now. I realize how awful this sounds. I wish to the Gods I could do more for you or have better news, but this is just how…this is all I have for you. I’m so sorry.”

The girl again nodded her head, and Kesten was awed by her strength. Though her eyes were moist, she tightly gripped her younger brother who stood next to her and kept a strong, brave face. “I’m going to take my brother home now. Thank you for trying your best, doctor.”

“I wish I could’ve done more,” he said. “Those aren’t idle words. Gods, I mean them.”

“I understand.” With that, she turned around and left. Kesten had no idea how she had the strength to keep from breaking down. She wasn’t even going to be able to say goodbye to her mother. As though resigned to her fate, she simply turned around and made her way out of the hospital. For several seconds, Kesten stood transfixed and watched as she guided her little brother away until both pulled out of his line of sight; then he returned his thoughts towards tending to his patients, many of whom would not last much longer.

This is really taking its toll on me, he thought to himself. I can’t endure much more of it.

Everyone was all so overworked, and morale was as low as Kesten had ever seen it. Every hour, dozens more would die; the eight Kesten reported pertained only to those he had been tasked with looking after; there would likely be many more. And that was only in this hospital. Despite two weeks having passed since the bomb had been dropped on Ogre’s Axe, the death toll continued to rise by thousands each day. It was getting to the point where they were running out of space to put all the dead bodies.

When will it slow down or level off? he wondered. At this rate, the death toll is going to hit the one-million mark by this time next week.

Kesten thumbed the elevator call button and waited for it to arrive. When it did, he stepped inside and pondered where he should head next. As far as Hope’s Rest was concerned, floors 12, 13, and 14 of the hospital had been dedicated solely to the treatment of bomb patients. For the purpose of keeping things organized, the victims of Ogre’s Axe had been separated into three different categories, which determined where they were placed.

On the 12th floor were those who were not expected to live beyond another few days; it was never a happy moment when someone had to be moved down there, but the way things were heading, it wouldn’t surprise Kesten if more than ninety percent of the patients ultimately spent their last days on Galterra suffering in a bed on the twelfth floor—and things weren’t that much better for those residing one floor up, either.

On the 13th floor were victims who were in critical but stable condition—yet with a negative overall long-term outlook. The patients on the 13th floor were those likely to live at least a week to a month, but they were suffering from wounds, radiation poisoning, or a combination of both severe enough so that they were not expected to hold together for a whole lot longer than that. Early on, a wide variety of medical issues were dealt with on the 13th floor, but at this point, it was now almost exclusively down to radiation, as most people with serious blast wounds had already perished.

Finally, there was the 14th floor. This was where the patients with the most “optimistic” outlooks were being held, but even in this case, their long-term prognosis was only between one and three months. Anyone expected to live longer than that had either been transferred to a different hospital or, if they were far enough outside the blast radius, they had been discharged completely. And yet, even many of those people were unlikely to make it beyond one-to-five years due to various, incurable cancers.

If the Gods really do exist, they’ll never forgive the bastards responsible for this.

Desperate for at least a hint of something resembling hope, Kesten pressed the small, metallic round button labeled “14” and ascended up from the lobby. As the elevator climbed, his thoughts turned to the danger this weapon posed even to people like him. It caused his shoulders to tremble somewhat as he reflected on all that he’d seen since volunteering his services to this hospital. By far, what haunted him most of all was the fact that not even adventurers were safe from the effects of the nuclear bomb.

It even kills people like us…

At the time of the blast, it was believed that there were fourteen people higher than level one present in Ogre’s Axe. If there were more, then they had not yet been identified. And of these fourteen, of which four were adventurers and ten were political guild members, thirteen in total were now dead, including a fifteen-year-old girl who was only level 4 and just starting out as an adventurer. She was believed to be studying in the grand library, hopeful to find her first dungeon, when the bomb fell. She most likely died instantly—as did anyone who had less than somewhere between 40 to 50 points into constitution depending on proximity to the center of the blast.

In this case, six of the fourteen had died either immediately or within a few minutes of the nuclear bomb exploding over the city, leaving eight horrifically, lethally wounded—and badly disfigured—adventurers and political guild members writhing in pain in the city’s ruins. Of these eight, one died before they could be taken to the hospital, and the other seven had barely been clinging to life when they got here.

Yet, even despite this, there had been hope: for those first few days, at least, there had been hope. Because upon their rescue, both the political guilds and the adventuring guilds rushed forward, volunteering as many rejuvenation stones as was needed. And in the beginning, it did indeed seem like these seven souls would make it through this ordeal no worse for wear. In fact, less than two hours after the blast, these disfigured, mangled, yet somehow still-living bodies that had somehow survived the blast were brought back to their full form thanks mostly to the red stones. And though they were all shaken up, all seven men and women walked out of the hospital that afternoon in a condition that Kesten would bet looked just as healthy as they did before they were hit with the bomb.

And then, things changed.

That night, one by one, all seven returned. And the sickness was visible in their faces—in their very eyes.

Flaky, peeling skin, and open, inexplicable wounds, along with tumors growing uncontrolled—all seven were bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose, and rectum. Their heart, liver, and kidney functions were in rapid decline. They had sores all over their bodies, and they each had trouble speaking due to a terrible cough. They were sweating, exhibiting signs of tachycardia, and worst of all: the stones were no longer having an effect. At least not outside of the purely superficial.

Incredibly, the red stones became the only stones that managed to at least give the illusion of healing. Upon administering the red stones to each of these seven, their bodies, at least from a glance, returned to form. Their skin healed, their wounds closed up, and their bleeding ceased. Yet within two-to-three hours, they reverted once again. This, ultimately, did little to prolong their lives, as the real issues they suffered from were internal in nature, and the yellow and purple stones failed to assist them on that front.

Two political guild members died the first night, an adventurer died the second night, and on the third night, all but one remained: a man by the name of Aerick Ondoranth, a level-57 adventurer and horse tamer, who was 5th in command of the adventuring guild Lost and Found—and who also happened to be a personal friend of Kesten’s as well.

By all accounts, Aerick, who was on death’s doorstep, should have followed the other six to their deaths. Yet as he was mere hours from leaving this world, his guild-leader, a woman by the name of Brea Nightfel, showed up with one of the most valuable and desired items in the world of adventuring: the prized, deeply treasured light stone.

She had insisted it be tried despite nothing else thus far having worked, as it had always been taught that there was no ill the light stone could not cure. And indeed, Kesten had personally witnessed for himself what a light stone could do—and how quickly, too. When Alex had been ripped apart by the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth adds, he’d used his own light stone, which he’d been saving for years, and he had been healed back to full health within a mere twenty seconds.

Thus, Kesten had crossed his fingers and watched on hopefully as the light stone was used on Aerick, and to his relief, he would soon discover that there was at least something in this world, however rare, that was capable of saving the lives of those condemned to death by the bomb’s sickness—well, sort of.

It was often said that no matter how dire the illness or wound, all it ever took was a single light stone to heal someone back to their full capacity. That, as it turned out, was now provably false. Although Aerick’s life was spared, and though he was no longer in any danger of death, he was not able to walk, his overall condition was very poor, and he was not recovering any further.

He was stuck in a weakened, diminished state. Kesten had experimented with using more of the rejuvenation stones on him, but like before, they had little impact aside from the red stone, which could make the man appear, at least cosmetically, as his former self for a few hours before his fresh, new skin would once more peel off his face while several of his quickly regrown teeth would loosen and fall right back out almost as soon as they grew in. He would also inevitably become blind in his left eye, and his limbs would fail him after just an hour or so.

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Most likely, he would need another light stone to make more progress in his recovery. But getting him one would be no simple task. For as generous as the adventurers may have been when it came to the other rejuvenation stones, trying to get one to part with a light stone was easier said than done. Those stones were so coveted that many adventurers hesitated when needing to use one on themselves. There were cases of adventurers actually dying because they chose to try “toughing it out” rather than using their light stone, which would have saved their lives. And in some ways, Kesten could not blame them. To call the light stone “rare” just did not go far enough in describing how seldom they were to come across.

By most metrics, adventurers were lucky to even see a light stone during the course of their entire lives, let alone actually possess one. It was part of the reason why the Explorers Brigade was working so hard to complete the “puzzle” in Whispery Woods and unlock the event portal that led to the Ohorja raid—an event that Zach and Kalana had somehow unlocked on the girl’s island. This was because the quest that accompanied the raid would reward each participant a light stone, and Kesten was already planning on giving his to Aerick if he was able to get a spot on the raid.

He needs it badly, Kesten thought. I’ve got to come through for him.

Stepping out of the elevator, he arrived to find the man peacefully sleeping further into the radiation ward, though his breathing was labored and uneasy. At the moment, he looked weak, frail, and he was missing nearly all of his medium-length, thick locks of brown, straight hair. He had been a very handsome man, and now he looked grotesque and disfigured. Three quarters of his teeth were missing, and those that remained were the color of charcoal. His skin was covered in lesions and sores, and he smelled of death.

Fortunately, his vitals were stable, and Kesten genuinely did not believe his condition would become any worse. He would likely be bedridden until such a day came that someone presented him with a light stone. Yet even that might not be enough. With one light stone, he would likely return to a point where he could walk, partially resemble his old self, and maybe even swing a sword—though that would be pushing it. It would probably take two light stones for him to truly make a full recovery and be back to his old self again.

“I’m gonna get you those stones, bud,” Kesten said, nodding his head at the sleeping, pitiful figure who looked more like an unwrapped mummy than a living human being. “Please just hang in there. Beg, borrow, or steal, I’ll find a way to get you better again. Promise you, Aerick.”

Kesten patted him on the shoulder then turned around and headed back to the elevator to check on the patients one floor below. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to transfer another dozen from the 13th to the 12th. Yet, deep down, he knew he’d be lucky if that was all he had to contend with. Things were as bad as they could get.

Someone needed to make the Guild of Gentlemen pay. There was no justice in a world in which this went unpunished.

******

Zach yawned.

Putting aside the violence earlier in the day, the last two weeks had been good. Really good. And not even the knowledge that society was falling apart had been enough to ruin the vacation that Zach had taken. He had needed the time off from the world so badly, and in truth, he needed more of it. He needed several months at the very least. But that wasn’t going to happen for him, was it? This, he considered as he sank lower into the pool, closing his eyes and letting the warm sunshine cover his face as the water comforted him and added a feeling of weightlessness.

The smell of barbeque in the air helped lull him further into a sense of tranquility and wellbeing. He really loved it here. Soon, he was going to have to get his hands dirty, but for now, he tried to soak up every last second of peace to be found. All things considered, the second part of today had also turned out to be really good as well, though it was a bit mired by the unavoidable sadness that had sprouted up right around the time when he and Jascaila had reentered the home following their impromptu therapy session.

Upon walking in the door, the sound of a little boy wailing had greeted the two of them. Having become nervous, he’d hurried into the living room to see Kalana and Fylwen both gripping that child Fylwen had brought here, who she'd claimed was Peter V’s only offspring. Right away, Zach had known something was out of the ordinary; he knew what it normally sounded like for a child to cry, but this was different. There was real misery in the way the child was howling. This had been no mere temper tantrum.

“No!” he’d wailed. “No, daddy promised! He promised!”

Seiley had looked mortified, and she had been profusely apologizing to Fylwen for a reason Zach, at the time, did not understand. “I’m so, so sorry, my queen,” she’d said. “It was an accident.”

“It’s not your fault,” Queen Vayra had replied, kissing the top of the boy’s head as he continued to fill the house with the sound of his crying. “You couldn’t have known, and this was bound to happen eventually. The fault, truly, is mine.”

Zach would later learn that, while him and Jascaila had been outside, Seiley, who did not even know that the boy was the child of Peter V, would make a casual remark about something on the news involving the man’s death. This would be overheard by his child, who somehow had not yet been told of his father’s passing. The result was a sadness that could be felt by everyone. Zach was just relieved that Kalana was on hand to give him hugs and support—and Ruby, as well.

Without question, Ruby’s actions today really made Zach glad for the mistake with the stone that brought her into being, as he was beginning to see that she was such a sweet, loving “dinosaur”—or at least Jimmy seemed fairly confident in proclaiming her type of species as such. It was a word Zach had only heard once or twice before, and it was apparently the category to which a “raptor” belonged. But whatever the case, Ruby was so empathetic and loving that it boggled the mind how she’d formerly been a “Cursed Defender of Ziragoth” that had contributed in tormenting the raid.

Shockingly, Ruby seemed to be the only one capable of making Peter smile. Throughout the day and into the early evening, he stopped crying only when she would play with him or nap while cuddled up with him after he’d exhausted himself from another bout of intense crying. She even planned to sleep in the bed with him tonight to comfort him. She was a good girl, and Zach was wrong to have judged her so harshly at first.

Jimmy, for his part, had his own theories about her. He claimed her behavior and mannerisms were far more in line with that of a golden retriever than what he’d learned in his time about raptors and dinosaurs, which were apparently remnants of life on Earth that had gone extinct long before the existence of people.

After explaining to Jimmy the nature of Ruby’s sentience, Jimmy hypothesized that whoever “made” the gem that turned mobs into sentient beings must not have known what psychological profile to give a raptor and, in his words: “They probably took a shortcut and made them into dogs.”

Zach himself had no clue. Though Jimmy might have been on to something, as Ruby, despite being aware that she was a “raptor,” did kind of share a lot of similarities with a common dog. She wagged her tail when happy, chirped whenever a dog would typically bark, and loved to lick people’s faces. Fortunately, if Jimmy was correct, Fluffles did not understand or realize this, because Fluffles hated dogs and that would’ve created instant conflict.

“Let’s go running outside,” she’d said to Peter earlier, inviting him to climb on her back. Zach was surprised by how gentle and patient she was with the little boy. “We’ll go on an adventure!”

“Okay, but…but I get to be the sword guy and you have to be my sidekick.”

Only a small child could smile and giggle in the same day that they’d heard such devastating news. Ruby had done laps back and forth along the front lawn with the boy holding onto her; this, while Fylwen and Jascaila had engaged in a private conversation regarding his future in the kitchen that Zach had been chastised for eavesdropping on. The dynamic there was actually another big surprise to Zach. Fylwen and Jascaila seemed to really take well to one another. The queen spoke to her as though she were an equal. As far as Zach was aware, the two had never met one another before today, and yet despite this, Fylwen was treating her like an old confidant. Fylwen had also tried to corner Zach several times for what Zach was sure would be an attempt to badger him with questions he wouldn’t be able to answer in this setting. Thankfully, he’d managed to go all day while finding excuses to slip away.

Amid all this, Zach was troubled, but he was stronger now than he’d been before; of that much, he was certain. As he relaxed in the pool and entered a somewhat meditative state, he found his heart becoming more resolute over what might—and in all likelihood would—take place tomorrow night or at the very most the next few nights thereafter. Truly, the chance of him getting through any of this without bloodshed was slim to none. But what held him together was the knowledge that no one could say he was doing the wrong thing.

What is the action I plan to take, and why do I want to take it? he asked himself—something he’d learned to do over these past two weeks.

Jascaila had taught him how to deeply reflect on his actions and consider them from the perspective of an outsider looking in: to judge himself in a way that was both impartial and logical. Doing so, he understood that what he planned to do was necessary and would save far more lives than might be ended, especially if Mr. Oren was right and the execution of Vim could lead to foreign wars with the Gnomes and inevitably their cousins, the Dwarves.

Tomorrow I’ll learn the most up-to-date information, and then we’ll come up with a plan. I have to do this. If I don’t, I’ll end up in a worse place mentally than I will if I go through with it.

Zach continued to meditate on the coming conversation with Eilea, which would happen tomorrow early in the morning. The two had a lot to discuss in just five minutes, and Zach wasn’t sure how he was going to fit all of it in. He didn’t know how he’d touch on each of the points he’d already planned to discuss while making room to talk about Jimmy, who would not be happy if he had to wait another week to get answers to the questions that were clearly burning a hole into his heart.

Right now, though, Jimmy at least seemed to be holding up well enough. He and Jascaila were swimming laps back and forth, laughing and discussing some admittedly fascinating things about Earth. Zach, passively listening in, was learning things that surprised him; for every one aspect of life on ancient Earth that was different from life here on Galterra, there was one that was just as similar.

“So wait, you and your friend did what?” she asked him, giggling.

Jimmy stopped swimming and began treading water, laughing as he reminisced about something he claimed happened only a year ago but in actuality took place such a long time ago that the history books referred to it as the dark ages and offered practically no information regarding the time period.

“So, me and Marcus,” he began, having to pause mid-sentence due to laughing. “We uh, we bought fireworks off this shady-ass dude for the 4th of July, but you’re not supposed to do that in New York because it’s illegal, right? So we had to buy them from this guy on Marcus’s block. Anyway, shit was defective as hell. And one of the bottle rockets flew right into a cop car. We both booked it out of there. We ran our asses off.”

Zach smiled, though he did so with a slight wince, as he knew exactly what Jascaila was doing. She was in the “disarming” phase of things. Her first two sessions with Zach had also been all giggles and laughs. It was only later that things would become much more serious and personal. Yet he was glad Jimmy was willing to speak to her, because Jimmy’s lingering doubts over whether or not any of this was “real” was a serious problem. While Zach genuinely did not believe Jimmy wanted to die, he might nevertheless convince himself to do something indistinguishable from suicide if he got it in his head again that this was all just a fake reality and that he’d wake up in the real one if he “died.” Zach, acting out of concern, had told Jascaila about the incident earlier today in Angelica’s with the knife, and she had seemed to agree that it was cause for concern.

If Eilea brought him here, we’re going to need him, Zach thought. For his own good and everyone else’s, he needs to accept the world for what it is.

Towards the shallower end of the pool, Peter and Ruby were swimming together under the watchful eyes of Kalana and her mother while Trelvor and Seiley tended to the barbeque. Not far from them, Fluffles—and a visiting Chumpkenwiffles—sat on their butts and stared up at the food with lust in their drooping tongues. The two Shadowfangs appeared too drawn-in by the smell of the apple sausages to feud with one another.

Chumpkenwiffles wasn’t the only guest they were having over, either. Olivir, Kolona, and Grundor had all dropped by; the two vampires were sitting in sunchairs, which Jimmy seemed to find amusing, and Grundor, for his part, was gliding back and forth from one end of the pool to the other. Kalana and her mother, on the other hand, were both sitting on the steps leading into the pool, the water reaching up to their ankles; at the moment, they were talking quietly but animatedly to one another. Zach was unable to make out what they were saying.

All in all, it was a moment Zach would characterize as bittersweet, for in the back of his mind, he knew that he would soon have to take up his sword and use it to kill. With all his heart, he wished he did not have to do this. But the world was giving him little choice. For better or worse, he was prepared to do what he must. And he was determined to come back in one piece: physically and mentally.