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Chapter 34 - Peste timenda ad muros eunt

  Karolína and Pavol have requested a council. Not that I think that they are wrong. We have problems. If I need to order my on robot to fry myself, something is wrong. If one of us ends up with a broken pelvis, something is wrong. I just doubt that that is something we can solve by a simple change we might discuss.

  On the other hand a discussion is a good idea nevertheless. We are the only people from our world. Breaking apart the group does not look like a good idea to me. Nobody of us really wants to live in some village alone. Realistically we’ll end up in Greenstone or book a passage thence.

  But frankly that does not look attractive to me, as we’ll look alien and being aliens arriving just before an epidemic is not a good long term strategy. But I do not want to be the one spreading doom and gloom all the time.

  I get an unexpected visitor.

  Z: Good morning.

  P: You are improving it.

  Z: Thank you. I wanted to ask whether you are still handing out awakening stones.

  P: Yes. They were stored in crates of five each. Do you want me to call the ritualist?

  Z: Nope. I gave capitulated, but not that far.

  We are stepping to the ritual disks.

  N: Mommy!

  S: Mommy! We were worried about you.

  A group hugging session starts. I carry Natalija.

  Z: I got the tablet. She really can read minds. This is horrible.

  P: Not to make too fine a point, but isn’t omniscience a big thing in theology?

  Z: That stuff was supposed to be confined to baptisms and weddings.

  She left out funerals.

  Stjepan and I draw in tandem. We are getting good at that. Zora produces another awakening stone.

  Z: Lidija looted that.

  P: Cool.

  We are getting spectators. Our meeting is starting out to be even less formal than our meetings usually are.

  KN: This will simplify things. We will be waiting in the shade.

  Nice from her.

  Z: When I fired my gun. I could claim that I needed to protect the children. But no, I didn’t want to be alone.

  P: So we are forming a team.

  Z: No, we are not forming anything. We are standing together. But we cannot go on doing this. I don’t want to go on.

  P: It sure wasn’t fun.

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  [Eye of the Infantryman]

  See when people aim at you.

  [Wreathed in Flames]

  Cost: Moderate ongoing

  Cooldown: None

  Wreath a melee weapon in flames. It then inflicts additional heat damage.

  Gabrielle is nice enough to stand a virtual watch, so that we all can gather.

  PN: I think we must stop reacting and start planning. That must start with an honest assesment of our status.

  DT: Right. I am at a loss. Most of our team mates are captured. We have no idea, where they are held. The trail is cold now and would lead us anywhere but to them.

  GP: Before you ask, no, I am sorry.

  KN: Won’t they send a message with their demands?

  OL: We have a pretty much global agreement. Prisoners are acceptable; hostages are not. At least among noble families. You cannot give in to blackmail, but you better give your opponents an incentive to return prisoners alive.

  PN: That seems designed to prolong wars.

  P: Adventurers are not soldiers. I had this discussion with a superior. You cannot win against the monsters. There will always be new monsters.

  PN: But this is not against monsters.

  P: Essences also mean that adventurers are necessarily mostly members of the upper class.

  RC: Fascinating. In your …

  GP: No.

  A few seconds of silence.

  DT: Maybe it would be more effective to talk about the epidemic.

  Z: Will we get help?

  DT: Good healers are always busy.

  L: But you have healing potions.

  RP: Yes, but they are a finite resource. We can cure anybody, but not everybody. Nor do we know what this disease is.

  GP: No.

  RP: Hence one of the strategies is is to allow this to burn itself out and cure the people who are going to die, as long as the potions last.

  Z: Do you think somebody is using this disease as a weapon?

  OL: That really gets the Adventure Society to hunt you down. Besides, bandits rarely have good access to potions.

  KN: Nevertheless we ought to do something.

  L: Can you heal infectious disease? I cannot. Infected wounds, other diseases and poisons, but not systemic infections.

  KN: No. I also cannot do that. How many people are we talking about?

  DT: Hundreds, perhaps in the low thousands. Provided it is limited to the fortress town.

  PN: How much antibiotics do you have.

  P: Not nearly enough. Besides, it may just as well be viral.

  RC: Antibiotics?

  GP: Later.

  RC: I’ll get an explanation?

  She nods.

  P: May I propose a compromise?

  DT: By all means.

  P: We could send you, Russell, Karolína and Pavol to the walls and let you talk to them. Maybe the symptoms are distinct.

  PN: Good idea. And you?

  P: I could apply awakening stones to Lidija.

  L: Sure, I’ll take those.

  RC: Purgation, Life, Knowlede or Light have good chances.

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