Though he never knew how many lived there, he'd saved well over 500 lives. Saving that small village by discovering a cure for a plague had become his deepest desire. He'd saved them not because Wraithvine had required him to save lives as penance for his crimes, but because looking into the eyes of the sick children, he swore to every god that would listen he'd rather die than see these people suffer, Wraithvine's requirement bedamned! Cold irony, the cure didn't work for him. His last request was to hopefully live long enough to see Wraithvine one last time, despite the chest-caving cough and weakness that wracked his body due to illness, to tell him he was sorry he couldn't fulfill his promise to the man to adventure out and find 300 souls. But hoped, at least, saving this one village would show he at least tried.
@internutter/challenge-03212-h303-they-were-behind-you-the-entire-time --DaniAndShali
One hundred lives saved already, before Kal found Sunnybarrow. A virulent disease was sweeping the little township and the people were desperate. Kal wasn't thinking of his geas from Wraithvine. He was thinking of at least a hundred children who reminded him of Lissi.
A person could save one with a Wish, but they were either expensive or hard to acquire. What Sunnybarrow needed was more than that for certain.
Having wandered with Wraithvine for a space of time, Kal had picked up more than a modicum of alchemy, potioneering, and medicine. He had also acquired some rituals that may or may not be any help.
The first he used in divining the cause of the disease, to thereby prevent its spread and, perhaps, gain an insight into finding a cure. The next he used in seeking out the key ingredient to the cure.
Some perished whilst he ran the experiments on which dosage worked best. Kal counted that in his sins. Further, there was a little part of him that could calculate the dead's value to the Dark Magic Market, down to the carobweight.
He wished that part of him would go to hell.
In working with the sick, Kal got sick too. Nevertheless, he made certain every step of creating the cure was written down in exacting detail for those who would follow after. Unfortunately for Kal, he was deathly allergic to one of the ingredients. Taking his own cure would kill him.
He kept himself apart, lest he infect everyone else and cause a second outbreak. Kal knew that the wooden hut would be his funeral pyre, and kept kindling and jars of flammable oil under his bed.
Under what would be his deathbed.
Meals arrived on the end of a long stick. Correspondence was via large letters chalked onto a piece of slate. Everyone knew why. One such message was, Send for Wraithvine.
Wraithvine actually entered the hut, though ze entered in a canvas suit covered over in thick grease. There was a mask with so many filters in it that it looked like a snout, and a hood that covered hir hair. Gloves and boots and all, it looked like some creature from nightmares, but it walked like Wraithvine.
Kal was in bad shape. The last symptoms of the disease were rife all over his body. "I'm sorry," he croaked. "I couldn't save three hundred... like I said."
"By my count, you've saved twice that many. More and more as the knowledge of your cure spreads," countered Wraithvine, muffled by hir mask. "You have done what I expected of you and more so."
"That wasn't... brave." He had to gasp to speak. He didn't have long. "That... wasn't heroic. It... was... stupid."
"If it's stupid and it works, it wasn't that stupid," said Wraithvine. "You've done well. You've repaid your debt."
"I knew... the cost of... each death. To the... carobweight." Kal closed his eyes. "Deserve... hell..."
Wraithvine eased his pains as much as ze could, and sang him softly to the greater beyond. "The gods will know where to put you. May they show you mercy." Ze couldn't know for certain.
Wraithvine left the body in a position of grace before ze left, and made certain to only touch the insides of the suit before adding it to the kindling set under the hut's eaves. The next step was bathing in lye and ingesting a vial of the cure, just in case.
Wraithvine was the last person anyone wanted catching such a plague.
The fire burned brightly, when a lantern was hurled into the tinder. There would be nothing left but ash. Which would, the townspeople swore, be incorporated into concrete to make a memorial to Kal and his efforts.
What the gods did to him would have to be seen.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / paulfleet]
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