Spear of Destiny: Ch. 3

I woke to darkness, and a low, droning song that rose and fell, rose and fell… a healer’s lullaby, sung in a pleasant smooth baritone. Something warm and wet rolled down my face, and I groaned, turning my head to the side. Something cold slid over my cheek. I reached up and felt damp cloth, and a cool, wrinkled hand.

"Sssst!" Masterhealer Masha hissed under her breath, swatting my fingers away. "Leave it. It’s a compress, and it needs to stay where it is."

A compress? I realized I could smell herbs and incense and the clean, sharp odor of alcohol. The song ended as she spoke, trailing off into the silence of the hospital.

"Mmmmasha?" My mouth felt like it was full of marbles. "Whu happen?"

"You had a heart attack, is what happened." The woman's voice was calm and controlled, but tight. "We pulled you from the brink of death again. Just as well: Her Holiness tells me that each time you revive from death, it’s more difficult than the last. We do not want you getting caught in a cycle of dying and resurrecting for all eternity, do we?”

“Urrgh.” I sunk back down into the bed, and reached out mentally for Karalti. My mind touched hers, but all I got was radio silence. She was asleep. Blearily, I checked my History and got Navigail to read out the logs from the last thing I remembered: standing with Karalti on the back of Withering Rose, facing off with Baldr:

[You take 7559 Aetheric damage!]

[You have died.]

[You are immune to Corruption!]

[You are immune to Corruption!]

[You are immune to Corruption!]

[We have detected that an unauthorized user attempted to access and modify your character data.]

[Security Incident logged with <Admin>: Ticket #399]

[Data restored from character profile: [HeraldOfMT].]

[We have restored and repaired your Character Profile following a security incident which targeted your account. We apologize for any reality distortion issues you may have experienced during this time. No further action is required, but we recommend you log out and rest for at least 2 hours before resuming play.]

[You have a new reply from <Admin>: Ticket #399.]

Holy shit. Baldr had one-hitted me with enough raw Aetheric damage to knock a full-grown dragon out of the sky, and then… he’d tried to hack me? Swallowing, I glanced at my Message folder. Sure enough, there was a new message pip. 

“Is Karalti okay?” My voice was dry, like I hadn’t spoken in days. “Suri?”

"Easy now. They’re fine." Masha peeled the compress back from my eyes. "Do you remember anything of what happened to you?"

"I..." I closed the HUD down with a thought, blinking against the dim light. It was night time, and the hospital of Kalla Sahasi was lit with lanterns. The dim, wavering light made my eyes water. "Uh... no."

"Karalti told us that self-styled Emperor Hyland somehow tracked you to the Bashar Desert. That you sent her away in the knowledge he would kill you. He must have, because you did what Starborn do, hmm? You rose from the dead in your quarters, but you woke with no memory of yourself, raving and paranoid." The Masterhealer sat back, her brows knitted in a scowl. She was a tiny woman, barely four feet in shoes and as dark and wrinkled as a walnut. Her eyes were bright and piercing in the gloom. “Karalti touched you, and you collapsed and went into a seizure. By the time I got inside, your heart was failing.”

I grimaced, and rubbed my face. "I don't remember anything. It's like I sent Karalti away from the desert, then woke up here. Is Rin still in Litvy?"

“Our lovely Artificer is on a ship from Litvy to Karhad, and expects to arrive in the morning.” Vash Dorha’s dry, reedy voice came from deeper back in the room. 

My vision swam as I tried to focus on him. The monk was balanced on top of a tall stool, sitting cross-legged with his great fall of beaded braids resting in his lap. He was wearing a patched herder’s coat, one sleeve hanging loose off his shoulders in the Tibetan style.

I cracked a tired grin. “Uh oh. There’s trouble.”

“Indeed. Not exactly the kind of face you want to wake up to see, but between my sensual crooning and Masha’s girlish charm, we called you back from the Land of the Dead.” He flashed me a warm, crooked smile. “You look like shit, Dragozin.”

“I feel like the incarnation of diarrhea,” I croaked. “Where’s Karalti? Suri?”

Vash grunted. “Suri is asleep. It’s past highmoon, and she held court all day in your stead, with Istvan’s help. Karalti went hunting to feed herself and soothe her nerves, and I assume she might now be sleeping somewhere near the castle. Both women are exhausted. She and Suri have been taking turns at your bedside these last few days-”

“Days?” I squinted at him. “What do you mean, ‘days’?!”

“Four days,” Vash said, holding up his fingers.

“Don’t stress him, Baru.” Masha tutted at him. "Not for the rest of the night. He cannot afford to strain his mind. That’s what got him into this state to begin with."

Strain my mind? Yeesh. I was a digital entity now; a dataset living inside of a virtual reality – I shouldn’t have the ability to strain anything. But even knowing that, as I shifted on the bed, a wave of dizziness caused the world to loop around and drop my head back to the pillow. "Hang on, I've got a message. Give me a minute."

"You shouldn't be reading messages, you dolt." Masha scowled.

"I'll have it dictate to me, it's fine." I opened my HUD again, and navigated over to the notification from <Admin>. I'd gotten a message just like this one not even a week ago. Bracing myself for a huge wall of text, I opened it up - and was unsurprisingly confronted by a wall of code and gibberish.

"The hell is this shit?" I muttered, closing it back down.

"A letter from Hyland?" Vash craned his head forward with interest. 

"No. Says it's from 'Admin'. Some Architect, or something." I groaned, dismissing the message. "It's not the first one I've gotten. Doubt it will be the last."

The monk scratched his scarred face, quirking his lip in thought. "I speak languages you don't, Dog. Perhaps I could look at it?"

"No, it's just garbage. Numbers and... uhh... what are they called...?" I squeezed my eyes closed, struggling for the word. "Para... peri... uhh, fuck it."

"You could at least let me try." Vash's mouth split in a twisted grin. He had a face like a smashed mirror, with no fewer than seven gnarly scars distorting his nose, mouth, and one eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be the first man I’ve surprised with my oral skills.”

“Honestly, Dorha!” Masha hopped to the ground and planted her hands on her hips. "Do you ever stop with this lechery?" 

Vash closed his eyes and made a priestly gesture in front of his chest. "In accordance with my solemn vows to the Lord of Night – No. Never." 

She huffed. "I'd say 'give it to the Black God', but you'll turn that into something filthy as well.”

The monk leered at her. 

"Do not." Masha's eyes narrowed.

He flashed her a look of affront. "My good lady… I didn’t say a word.”

"You don't have to, you debaucherous weasel." The Masterhealer’s dark eyes were dancing with hidden laughter as she turned back to me. "I must rest, Lord Tuun. Vash is here to watch over your bedside for the nightshift. Gods help you."

"Indeed. Just think, Dragozin: you have hours upon hours of my delightful company, all to yourself." Vash sighed happily. "Rest well in Burna’s velvety bosom, honored elder."

I gave her as much of a nod as I could manage. "Yeah. Good night, and thanks for patching me up."

"My pleasure." Masha gave Vash a peevish look, then turned and strode for the door.

The monk assumed a meditative pose until the latch snicked shut, then cracked his eyes open and glanced sidelong at the exit. He waited about half a minute, then pulled his pipe from inside his jacket.

“Time to hit the grass?” I grinned at him.

Vash shrugged, already preparing his bowl. “As vices go, smashweed is not the worst. The plant is non-addictive, and – more importantly for me – it helps with pain.”

"Your arm still bugging you?" I motioned to his right arm, the mechanical one. He’d lost the original in possibly the most epic way imaginable: by punching a diving dragon in the face. Our resident Artificer had replaced it with a high-end magical prosthesis. The first attempt had nearly killed him after his body rejected it. The second steel-free implant was doing better, or so I'd thought.

"No, not the arm." He shook his head. "The axe blows I took to the face smashed my sinuses into little pieces. They have caused me pain ever since."

I fidgeted on top of the covers. As much as I liked Vash, there were a lot of things I still didn't know about the guy. For example: why was he was a self-described 'kinslayer' with fifteen dead relatives? "How'd you get them?"

"The scars?" He cocked his eyebrows as he lit his pipe, eyes closed. "My sister."

I blinked a couple times. "Your sister smashed up your face with an axe? What the fuck for?"

Vash took a long drag off the pipe and shook his head. "Nothing I feel like recounting right now. But…”

“But what?”

“Speaking of my sister, I may need to ask a personal favor of you, some day soon. That is, if this common scoundrel can request such a thing from a great and noble lord such as yourself."

That got a laugh. “Dude, of course you can. You're starting to sound like Istvan.”

He gazed piously toward the ceiling. “You are what you eat.” 

I chuckled, watching as my HP slowly ticked up from 20 points to 22. The regen was agonizingly slow. That was thanks to a debuff I’d never had before: [Chronically Injured]. When I highlighted it, I got a brief tooltip explanation from Navigail:

[Chronically Injured: You have suffered a major internal injury that requires a 12-hour period of bed rest. Normal herbal remedies are ineffective at treating this condition, but alchemical potions may speed healing. You cannot regenerate Adrenaline Points or HP unless you are at rest.]

“Ugh. I’m stuck in bed for another twelve hours.” My stomach rumbled, and I grimaced. “So I’m in here until… what? One in the afternoon tomorrow?”

“Something like that.” Vash exhaled away from me, and sighed with contentment. “I can make you a draught to help with sleep.”

“I’m nowhere near being sleepy.” I frowned, trying to think back over what had happened. It was all a blur after Dakhdir. “If I’m stuck here, I might as well work on shit. I need to review the Kingdom Quests, I need to call a meeting for tomorrow…”

“Yes, but, there is one extremely important thing you must address first.” 

“What?” My chin jerked up in alarm.

Vash pointed at me with the stem of his pipe. “You need to park your arse in that bed and rest. Because I assure you that Karalti, Suri, and indeed your entire council would vote that rest – genuine, uninterrupted rest – is your highest priority as Voivode right now. So I will prepare that sleeping draught, and you will putz around with your Kingdom Management menus until your nerves are settled and you can bring yourself to drink it.”

“Meh.” I turned my face to look over at the darkened window. “… It was bad this time, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Everyone agrees that if you die one more time, you could become trapped in an endless loop of dying and reviving.”

Like Ororgael. I shuddered.

“I don’t know why this amnesia shit happens,” I said. “Or why it gets worse every time, if I’m immune to corruption.”

Vash thought about that for several minutes, smoking in contemplative silence. After a time, rubbed his chin and looked up at the ceiling. “Beats the hell out of me.”

“It doesn’t make sense. No one else I know has this happen to them.” I bought up the KMS, sighing as the crowd of tables, lists and menus jumped unfolded in a three-panel holoscreen in front of me. There were no fewer than eight different yellow alerts.

“Well, while that might be true, you don’t have to sound like a sulky child about it.” 

I peered around the screens and scowled at him.

Vash pointed at me with the stem of his pipe. “Because in case you forgot, you still DO come back to life.”

He had a point there. “As usual, you manage to kick my ass without lifting a finger.”

He took a deep pull of fragrant smoke off his pipe, and sighed it out with a shake of his head. “Of course I can, you dog. I didn’t spend twelve years busting my guts in that hellhole of a monastery for nothing.”