We are having a day of rest and recuperation. Healing drains you. I don’t know whether the effect is psychological. It feels very, very real though. That I have to do with an improvised tent does not improve my mood.
I may be able to live off the land. I cannot feed anybody else, let alone supply them with medication. That is not new. New is that I have stopped caring. I am not Albert Schweitzer. The local people have a town full with people trained in all kinds of supernatural arts. Hell, they have gods of healing as I have learned. If they cannot be bothered to send aid, it is not my problem.
I am getting a viitor. He is bearing a teapot and therefore most welcome.
PN: You looked quite angry.
P: I was. In fact, I am.
PN: Nobody died. Nothing irreplacable was lost.
P: This time.
I smile to take the sting out of my words.
P: Tea in that pot?
PN: Sure.
Among the advantages of iron rank is that it is harder to be damaged from mundane sources, including hot beverages.
P: I know that we have to take risks. But that was too close.
PN: Are you just bitchy because we were doing an altruistic hunt?
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P: Well .. Yes, that is part of the problem.
PN: What else did we do wrong?
P: We used vehicles in a closed configuration in an unexplored territory.
PN: And that’s it?
P: No. At the core we do not know what we are doing. We have a sixth sense but we are not training it.
PN: OK, we can train that.
P: Well, then there won’t be anything after that. If we take the time this will take, this epidemic will be over, one way or the other. Then we move to a city.
He remains silent for half a minute.
PN: She will not like that.
P: Then we need to change our basic approach and get ahead.
PN: You mean we need to have a vaccine?
P: Yes.
PN: Do you have an idea how hard that is to make?
P: Pasteur did it with late 19th century technology.
He remains silent again for half aminute.
PN: What do we do now?
P: Nothing. And tomorrow we train, including an analysis of our errors.
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Lidija is approaching my tent.
L: How do you feel?
P: Rotten. We came to close.
L: Bad luck.
P: That is the very point. If you regularly depend on good luck, you will be disappointed. A calculated risk is still a risk.
L: And what do you want to do? Just give up? We should go back to the place the monster got you and exterminate them all.
P: You cannot exterminate them. That is the point. We can never truly win. Monsters will keep spawning.
She senses that I am in a foul mood today.
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Z: How was it?
L: You are right. I think he is at the breaking point. What can we do?
Z: Give him time.
L: And the people in the fort?
Z: They will have to depend on the efforts of their government, not on us.
L: That is not nice.
Z: „Nice“ is what they say at your eulogy. The point is not becoming the subject of one.
L: And how do we do that?
Z: I suggest we try to train for combat. It just have no idea where to start. Which of your capabilities have you used least?
L: My teleport mixup ability.
Z: Well, let’s find that scholar.