Chapter 10 - Dark Murmurs

“Lord Noga have mercy on me...” Dr. Ilec gasped in shock as he saw the stem unfurl, his eyes wide in horror.

“A parasitic plant has invaded her body.” Hakuya muttered grimly, sweat beading off of his forehead as he quietly examined the plant without touching it. “It is likely that the fever was the initial response to her body attempting to fight off the infection. After it gained strength in her body, it placed her in a coma, spread through her blood and germinated.”

“What of the wordless mutterings during that time?” Dr. Ilec voiced in a tense whisper.

Hakuya remained quiet for a moment. He could not voice his true hypothesis to the doctor, because the doctor was not an Exalted - an individual that had a special relationship to the mystical. To the doctor, as a follower of Yuima he was a cleric versed in herbal medicine. Of course, there were myths and stories of their more miraculous healing abilities as well, but they weren’t taken too seriously.

Common folk believed that followers of Yuima were trained to be capable of gathering, identifying and extracting the active ingredients from plants, animals and other natural sources. They were competent healers and able to concoct more effective medicines than most herbalists. Their worship of the Goddess of Nature was seen as a personal pact to adhere to the philosophy of balance and natural law.

All of these were true, but Hakuya’s attunement to aetheric and spiritual energies were what gave him particularly extraordinary abilities. They also came with a deeper understanding of the mystical, esoteric and mysterious.

With this deeper understanding and the spiritual intuition granted to him by his power as an Exalted, he understood that what was going on in this woman’s body was something that should only exist in myth and legend. The parasite had not just affected her physical body, but had penetrated her aetheric body and was siphoning her life out directly.

If Hakuya gave her the potion he had concocted, which had the side effect of bolstering her physical, spiritual and aetheric bodies, he would only feed this attuned parasite, speeding up the death of the woman and promoting the parasite’s growth.

Furthermore, he had one more terrible revelation.

“The mumbling must be a side effect of the coma, it is likely meaningless.” Hakuya lied, to put the doctor at ease. Then, he patted the doctor on the shoulder and smiled to comfort him, “You look tired. Perhaps you should rest. I will observe the patient through the night and see if I can think of a treatment. In the morning I will likely send a telegram to my associates to see if they have further insight.”

Dr. Ilec sighed heavily and nodded, drooping visibly from fatigue. Though he was disturbed by the strange plant growing from the patient’s body, and terrified by even the existence of such a parasite, he was reassured by the calm and confident bearing of the cleric.

“Very well. I shall attend to my other patients, then adjourn in the room next door for the evening. Please don’t hesitate to wake me if there are any developments.”

With that, Dr. Ilec left.

Hakuya’s smile faded as the door closed behind the doctor. Readjusting the lantern to better light the frond, he leaned in close to observe it without making direct contact. The thin leaves, whose edges were wavy and uneven, oscillated slowly as if stirred by a faint wind.

The patient had fallen still, her breathing slow, but steady. A small clipboard contained her basic information.

Name: Anabelle Kent
Age: 39
Address: #3 Centin Road
Occupation: Cleaner
Relatives: Peter Kent, 41 years old, husband
Luke Kent, 19 years old, son
Lucelle Kent, 16 years old, daughter
Notes: Brought in on 04-05 with high fever by her husband. Slight confusion. Weakness. Complaints of soreness throughout limbs.

The date was written in month-day format. Today was the 9th, so she had been admitted to the clinic four days ago. The report went on to detail the treatment that the clinic had administered (with no effect), and that the husband had checked on his wife two days ago. Notes were also made on the developments of the illness - deep slumber from which the patient did not awaken from, speaking in gibberish while unconscious, the appearance of sores. Though she was unconscious, she strangely responded to hand feeding of porridge and drank small amounts of water through a straw.

Although he was disturbed by the strange organism growing out of Anabelle’s arm, he felt that it was dangerous to take any rash actions, such as cutting off the stem of the frond. Since the rest of the sores had not punctured the skin, the parasite must still be in gestation and not yet ready to proceed to the next stage of its life.

This meant that as long as there weren’t any more developments, the life of the patient wouldn’t be in grave danger - the parasite would not kill its host until a later stage. This gave him hope to be able to eventually cure the woman and bring her back to health.

He planned to investigate the origin of her affliction, to find clues as to where exactly this attuned life form came from. He wanted to directly ask Dr. Ilec for directions on how to get to Centin Road to find her husband. However the reports of mumbling bothered him, and deepened his suspicions. If his intuition was right then there would be greater consequences beyond just this single patient. He thus planned to stay by her side through the night and hopefully overhear her mumbling.

~

It was deep into the night when Hakuya was stirred awake by a noise. He opened his eyes and found that he had dozed off in the chair beside the bed. His neck was stiff from sleeping in the awkward position and he stretched it out as he took note of his surroundings.

The light from the lantern was getting dim. It flickered unstably, casting shadows on the walls of the small room. No light entered from the window on the opposite side of the bed. The thin wooden door was shut and no sounds came from outside.

The leafy frond that was still standing up from Anabelle’s arm showed no signs of change. Its leaves continued to oscillate gently from an unseen breeze.

Anabelle lay on her back, her head propped up by a pillow and her arms flat beside her. She was plain looking, with medium length blond hair, pock marked skin and thin lips. Her brows were furrowed ever so lightly, but otherwise her body and expression was at peace.

Hakuya was about to relax back into his seat again when she began to stir. Her eyes remained closed and her body still as she began mumbling in a language that was not Nianese, which was the most common language spoken in the country and was the standard language in the province of Kumin, which Noga was the capital of, and also the province of Huan, where he hailed from.

Unlike the doctor, who only heard gibberish, Hakuya distinctly understood the words spoken by her. It was the same ancient language which he used in his rituals, a language based in the energies of nature and the divine - Fortus!

With shallow, barely vocalized whispers the unconscious woman murmured in ancient Fortus, “Praise... His Gift... Praise... His Will... Praise... Deka... Praise... The Prince...”

This unconsciously spoken prayer was repeated several times in slow, drawn out syllables. The disciple of Nature listened to the woman’s voice with a growing dread. He didn’t dare to move or even breathe, as if he would disturb the ancient existence that the woman was calling out to.

As a follower of Yuima, the Goddess of Nature, Hakuya studied the tomes and scriptures of his sect. His studies encompassed herbology, medicine, aetheric manipulation and special healing techniques. He also studied the ancient languages of Fortus and Eslin, learned divine rituals and explored the lore of Yuima and her sect.

The legends written of Goddess Yuima warned of three evils that Yuima had killed or banished from the world. Her eternal sworn enemy, Okuron, the God of Knowledge was the principal evil that she had vanquished, at great cost to her. Always depicted at Okuron’s side were his brother, Jagrash, Demonic Prince of Death, and Deka, Demonic Prince of Life. Both these demi-gods fell to Yuima in the battle preceding her final conflict with Okuron.

Jagrash had been killed, his four bodies scattered to the void. Okuron’s physical, spiritual and aetheric bodies were destroyed by Yuima, but being a God his astral body managed to escape in a crippled state. The fatally wounded Deka fled to his kingdom, a wild land rife with monstrous plants and animals born of his madness, where he had supposedly perished.

Yuima’s followers, in addition to their primary charge of bringing balance to the world wherever it was threatened, were always taught to be on guard for signs of Okuron’s revival. It was even recited as part of their oath to the Goddess.

These were myths and legends from a past era, back when the aetheric, spiritual and physical worlds were in harmony, when monsters supposedly roamed the earth. These myths were no more believable to Hakuya than the concept of magic and mysticism were believable to common folk.

But as Hakuya sat in that quiet room, listening to the barely vocalized murmurs of the woman, he could only come to one conclusion.

Deka, the Demonic Prince of Life, had returned!