We are not Flowborn, nor are we Shadelings; we are sentients. No Crystals or Stones well up inside us. We are husks waiting to be filled.
The science men’s theories we had heard based themselves on that one phrase.
Maybe it was for that reason that when the Shade Plague took completely over the body of its victims, they turned into pieces of ice. Their husks were filled by the Ghosts of the Night, said the tale.
“The Ghost of the Night will come to take you if you don’t behave!” Was what the mothers told their children.
I did not believe in those fables, maybe because I had seen far worse things than a Ghost of the Night.
Seeing our grandfather’s grave freezing the ground solid was something I never hoped to see.
The soil where the oval-shaped grave had been dug was already frozen when we went to see it.
He had died the night before. And he hadn’t died of the Plague but of old age; certainly, the Plague had sped it up. So the process of his body being taken over by the cold did not happen in just a few hours, but it would indeed happen.
The villagers did not want his house, which would now belong to us, to get destroyed by the ice. We would have to find another place to stay then, and although many homes had been freed of their occupants. We would have definitely liked to have ours for ourselves.
They had interred him before our coming for that very reason. One night was enough to release the Plague’s ice-cold power. It would dissipate in a few days, given the environment, but it would have hopelessly destroyed the house’s wooden foundations and all that was in it.
We thanked them and left them the product of our hunt, then we spent a few hours by the grave. It had no stones to it but wood, like most of them.
The place in which we buried our deads was a giant gully to the side of our village. It had been infertile ground before, but it had slowly taken to grow vegetation when we started burying our deads, beautiful and tragic at the same time.
In front of the graveyard was the passage that led to the Crabs’ River. It grew right from the inner mountain.
There must have been some hidden water source that we hadn’t managed to detect inside of it, and it was the one responsible for the river. If it wasn’t for the Plague, Murkstall was a wonderful place to live.
Its name didn’t give it justice, but the residence that had founded it had chosen that name so that people hearing it would despise the idea of trying to look for the village. It was a good idea, and rather effective too.
Nova had gone to sleep. She slept by gramps’ side, passively healing him over the course of the night. She would have to sleep alone now.
I was of a certain age now, and I did not want any accident to scare her about the man-woman relationship. I hoped for her to find someone good enough to treat her as she deserved and to discover those things at the right time.
Besides, Gramps had been by far the one in the worst condition amid the villagers. So he required a lot of her attention; now, however, she would have the means to keep up her work.
I was not home yet; I was contemplating the graveyard for some reason; the villagers had given me space. The fear of us abandoning them now, since our grandfather was not our responsibility anymore, was palpable, but not so much as to make them act in improper ways.
When I finally left the graveyard with my head full of complex thoughts, I came upon Alistar.
Alistar was one oddball of a Kobold in a human-centric village such as Murkstall.
He and his family belonged to Murkstall before we were brought here by our parents; he was not an outsider even though they were the only Kobolds in the village.
The teen reptilian, easily guessed by his half red, half green scales, was training with a dull sword. And his slashes felt rather powerful, judging by the sound they made.
When did he become so energetic? I asked myself, but the question became useless the next moment when I noticed the complete lack of dark patches on his scaly skin.
“Star!” I shouted, surprised, as I ran toward him. When I closed the distance I noticed something else too.
Damn if he had grown up. He was tall, very tall. And Kobolds grew for their entire life, how big would this boy get?
I did not know Alistar as well I should have, but my responsibilities took a lot of time out of my days.
“You beat it!” I shouted, keeping the other observation with me, “You beat the plague!”
If there was something we needed now, that was hope.
“Loke,” he said, opening into a big smile, which quickly faded as his eyes reached the graveyard for a second.
“Yes, it’s been almost two weeks, actually.”
“Two weeks!? Why didn’t I know!?” I said, almost really getting mad.
“You and Nova were really busy, Loke. When she had that accident, you kind of went berserk with training her; you looked obsessed, so, no one wanted to intrude, you know? But anyway, I needed my time to recover my body. I feel fine now.”
I noticed that he had not only beaten the Plague but his infantile-bound hiss too, had disappeared. He could be considered a proper adult now.
“I’m sorry Alistar… you’re right. I should have noticed; it’s just that…”
“Loke, you don’t have to say anything, believe me. I understand you completely.”
I looked at his slitted pupils; he was sincere, and I was sincerely grateful for his understanding.
“How did you do it? Tell me!”
“The conventional way,” he said, smiling a weak smile.
The conventional way of beating the Plague was by giving it your all in adding points into Constitution.
It was the most effective way, but it could only be accomplished by younglings that had yet a lot of easy levels to spare. However, that too came with a price. Doing such a thing meant sacrificing a lot; dreams to start, since it would preclude access to many Classes, maybe really desired Classes.
“How many levels did you- no wait, I believe I can gauge it by myself. Maybe I can show you something interesting. I gained it yesterday.”
“Alright, what is it?” he asked, looking eager yet a little bit on edge at the same time. I did not know why, but I knew that villagers of the same age as me suffered a bit of an inferiority complex in my regards. Because I got to be free and responsible for their lives when they couldn’t do anything but try and not freeze to death in their beds.
I took a Crystal I had removed from the Redfoxes from one of my pockets and marked my target.
Alistar Migs Soldier Level 20, Fisher Level 28
Health: 100%
Stamina: 73%
Strengths: Constitution
Weaknesses: Unbalanced stats
Race: Kobold
Sex: Male
Height: 193 cm
Weight: 101 kg
Age: 18
Origins: Murkstall
Family: Potts Migs, Gudri Migs
That of the Soldier was a Class heavily tied with Constitution, its bonuses were + 2 in Constitution, and +1 in Strength, at the same time, the Fisher gave bonuses in Constitution, Perception, and Willpower.
Together they were not bad at all. The problem was that the number of points he would need to place into Constitution to entirely free himself of the curse was 50. And fifty was a large number.
I had no idea how he managed to reach such a tall number with those Classes and, most importantly, with those levels, but I was happy for him.
“Hey! Was that what I think it was? Since when could you do that?” He asked.
“I unlocked it yesterday. But damn, your Soldier level is pretty high considering…”
“Say it, don’t worry,” he said, smiling.
“Considering all the time you had to waste fighting the Plague at home,” I finished.
“Thankfully, my Constitution was always high; and I’ve been fishing with my dad since…ever since I was a little scaled thing. Thanks to that, I had enough Stamina to go around and slaughter many crabs… many… many crabs,” he said before exploding into his hissing laugh.
“Oh, sorry, I- didn’t mean to laugh like that,” he said after remembering what had just happened.
“You don’t have to worry about that, Alistar, and anyway, talking helps me to not think about it.”
I had an idea then.
“However, now that you are functioning again, there are going to be three hunters here. What do you say if we make a team?”
“I was actually thinking of giving it all into fishing to evolve my Sub-Class for now, but if you have something in mind…” he said, letting his words hang in the air.
“There is something I would really need a hand with, but I guess it’s something you’ll have to think it over yourself. It’s very dangerous, and you’ve just had your life back. The last thing I want is taking it away from you.”
“Loke, you are talking weird. What is it that you want to do? I don’t think there is a need to hunt dangerous games for now, is there?”
“What I’m looking to hunt is not games; it’s people, Star. The same slave traders that have taken Roana from momma Jane. They are on Gnolls’ turf; they bought a truce with them and are using their territory as a hideout for their disgusting business. I want Roana back, and I’m planning to take them on within this week. Think about it, but don’t take too long because if you say yes, we are gonna need to create some basic form of teamwork before we can do much more.”
If Alistar looked intrigued, he did not show it. However, his answer blew me away.
“Point me at them, and I shall slaughter them where they stand.”
How could I have forgotten? Long ago, before the plague, his sister had been taken away by slave traders too. I smiled, though.
Our two men team was about to get one hell of a tank. Constitution was not enough to properly tank; he would need Strength too, and at least a little bit of Agility and Perception. I believe he had the Perception for it, but he surely lacked Agility and Strength; part of those could be worked around, the rest we would have to adapt to the newborn three-men strong team.
“Nova and I will leave for the clock-engineer tomorrow. I won’t have much to trade with him after I am done with my equipment. However, I can pitch in with your needs. Because if you come with us, tomorrow you are going to get yourself a proper weapon.”
“I’ll take what I can get; however, we don’t need any armor. There are soldiers that won’t be able to use theirs… anymore, in the Soldier’s hut,” he answered. He was right.
We agreed that I would come looking for him when we had to leave in the morning.
“Hey Loke,” he said as I left, “You Gramps was a good man. He really was.”
I almost choked as I nodded to him. As much as I was prepared for his departure, I didn’t want to think about it.
Instead while walking about the village’s unkempt streets, I thought about Alistar.
When the Plague first struck the village, they blamed the Migs family; their presence.
Kobolds were thought to have strong ties with Shadelings; some even said Kobolds were Shadelings in disguise. Of course, it was clear it wasn’t so when his father came down with the Plague, but before people recognized it, they had already mistreated them enough to almost push them away from the village. They had burned their fish shop down.
Obviously, the Migs did not leave. They forgave the villagers and put everything aside. Alistar had Nova’s age back then. If it was me, I wouldn’t have reacted as calmly and unwaveringly as they did.
In that period, the only one standing by them had been Gramps.
I was still a stupid kid back then, dealing with my misfortune problems, so I was blaming myself for the Plague’s coming and didn’t give the Migs situation much thought, if not just believing that the fault wasn’t theirs, but at least I wasn’t among the ones pointing their fingers at them.
I bet Alistar remembers it better than I do. We’re really going to be a good team. I know it. I thought; then I headed home. I needed to find Nova, talk with her, and then sleep.
***
Murkstall’s streets, although streets was a rather big word to describe them, given their peculiarity of being entirely made of dirt, were empty.
There was not a soul around. Of course, I had grown used to it, but the funeral had shown me how many still had the force to get up from their beds. There were currently sixty or so able-bodied people in the village; the other ninety were bedridden.
The ones that still had the power to continue in their activity were still too weak to do most things that required too much effort.
The Plague sapped at their Stamina, slowing them and making them tired all day long; it also sent shivers through their whole body.
Nobody knew how the Plague came to be; what it was known was that it appeared on the lands when they were too exposed to shadows, its effects, and how to beat it.
There were three ways to fight the Shade-Plague. One was raising Constitution.
It could still leave side effects, though, like momma Jane’s sterility. Another method was a heavy Flow injection cure. The Flow was rare in the village, and although we had tried long to expose people to as much Sun they could get, it did not reveal to be enough. Some said that the way they cured the Plague in the city was through massive Flow Crystals exposure. But that too was very dangerous; Flow overuse could easily invite cancer.
Lastly, the third method was the most effective, and of course, the harder. Curing it through Skills. Rare Skills that were hard to find even on Medics, Healers, or more advanced Sub-Classes.
Nova was hoping for that.
Like all the other houses, gramps’- our house, was made of hardwood. It was large, with the main hall used as both kitchen and dining room. The mezzanine, if it could be described as such, had two bedrooms.
Each of the villager’s houses was stuffed with pelts to keep the warmth in. In ours, the warmth did not come only from pelts but from a massive load of Crystals littering the place.
Both Crystals and Stones did not turn to dust if not used. The peculiarity of each was that they had to both be in a perpetually lighted environment for Crystals and a perpetually dark environment for Stones. Both conditions were easy to reach.
Crystals could feed on other Crystal’s light for a very long amount of time. We used them to keep the humidity out and the warmth in, among many other uses.
Stones were used instead to refrigerate. Each kitchen had a hole in the ground where we stored our food. The cavity was then stuffed with Stones, which would last for a very long time, close together as they were and bathed in full darkness; and in those holes, we preserved our food for the cold winters and for periods of need, which were rather frequent since our farms were subject to creatures raiding.
The bedrooms on the mezzanines were the place in which we stored our things in big trunks of wood and where our beds resided. It was there that Gramps had died, and it was there that I found Nova.
She was waiting for me, sitting on Gramps’ bed. Straight and focused. She looked like an arrow.
When she heard me leave my bow on the door frame, her eyes shot open.
“I’ve taken my decision,” she said.
“Let’s hear it.”
She righted herself even more.
“I’m going to heal all these people. I’ll stay up day and night and heal them until I Class up. And if I won’t be given a Sub-Class with an ability to heal them of the Plague, I’ll go to the City and ask for them to help us.”
I was proud of the first part, but the second part of her statement was not what I wanted to hear.
“We’ve already discussed that, Nova. The Sunguards kill us on sight. They recognize that we are Wastelands people from a mile when we get too close. One arrow is all that’s needed to take us down.”
“They won’t,” she said.
“They won’t? Why? Because you’re cute because you look like a Flow-blessed?”
“Yes, and because I say so!” She said, shooting up. “I don’t care what you are going to say! I need to heal them! I won’t allow anybody else to die! There are children, moms and dads, and grandpas and grandmas here, dying because that stupid city hates us for our origins! I don’t care about origins! I want to make them better! I want to give them back their lives! Why can’t those stupid people’s cities understand something so simple!? Why are we hated? Loke! Why!?”
By the end, she started crying, a raging cry of the likes I had never heard.
I took her into a big hug as she sobbed and wept in my arms.
“I believe…” I started saying, fighting back my tears, not because I wanted to look strong, but because I wanted to talk clearly, “I believe that if you put yourself to it; if you give it your all, you can heal them, all our villagers. You can make them all better. The City? They can go f*** themselves. We’ll become so big and strong that they will beg us to join them, but we will not go to them. And when their little shiny abode will look like a tiny Crystal, we shall shine as bright as the Sun itself.”
I did not know where those words came from; what I knew was that I wished for them to come true. Which meant a whole lot of trouble for me, for us, from here on out.
