Chapter 291: The Infirmary

 

  The infirmary was larger than most buildings in Undergrowth. Dozens upon dozens of rooms were scattered throughout the stone structure. The size alone made it seem almost like a castle. But where castles were filled with guards, servants, and luxurious tapestries and furniture, the infirmary was filled with the dying and the sick, and the sweet putrid scent of medicinal potions.

  There were many healers, each bustling through the narrow halls, juggling between patients. Most of the healers were academy-trained doctors or herbalists born and raised in Undergrowth. Far fewer were white mages capable of casting powerful healing spells that could stimulate and increase the speed of the body’s natural regeneration. 

  The best of the healers had been assigned to take care of anyone who came in from the Great Cities Tourney. Yet for all the power of the white mages, they were unable to figure out what was truly wrong with Beatrix dai-Morrigan. The young warrior-mage had several injuries, but none of them explained her loss of consciousness or how most of the healing spells seemed to be having little effect on her body.

  After an hour of intense spell-casting, the group of white mags declared the orc stable and left the crowded room. The patient was left unconscious on her bed of linen sheets. A vase with a single pitiful pale flower sat on a bed stand to the left of her. It had been the infirmary’s chief healer’s idea to liven the rooms with some flower decorations, but the dying flowers seemed only to remind its residents of the stench of death floating throughout the halls.

  It was the window above Beatrix’s bed, the small connection to the outside world, that called her back from the mind’s oblivion. The faint echoing cries and cheers of the coliseum’s crowds reached even all the way here.

  Beatrix groaned a soft sound and scrunched her shut eyes tight, before slowly opening them in a blurry gaze. The pale stone-grey ceiling was unfamiliar, but the sweet sick scent of medicinal potions was anything but.

  She laid still in her bed, a thousand thoughts ran through her muddled head, but one thought resounded clearly above the rest.

  “...I lost,” she mumbled with dry lips.

  “Beatrix…? You’re awake!” the voice yelled with a mixture of surprise and relief.

  At the sound of the familiar voice, she tried to turn her neck and barely managed to have her head loll on the pillow. At least it was in the right direction she supposed.

  In the corner of the room sat her older half-brother, Gilgard. She had guessed it was him, the voice was too familiar. Though she would never have guessed he’d be here.

  Gilgard stood to his full towering height, a common trait in the Katag and Morrigan families, and rushed to her bedside.

  “Are you alright? How do you feel? Talk to me, please,” Gilgard said in a jumble of breathless words.

  Beatrix glanced around the empty room with sluggish eyes before finally settling her gaze on the giant orc looming over her. She paused, her mind’s thought came to a sudden halt, transfixed on what she saw. She had never seen her brother so… scared.

  “You came…?” she mumbled.

  Gilgard broke into a relieved smile, “Came? I’m the one who carried you here.”

  “You did?”

  He shrugged, a hint of anger in his deep-set amber eyes, “I wasn’t about to wait for some amateur healers to march into the arena with some stretcher ten minutes too late. The moment the heralds called the match I jumped down from the stands, picked you up, and rushed you to the infirmary.”

  “...You didn’t have to do that.” Beatrix bit her lip, “I don’t know if I would have done that for you…” Not after our fight…

  “Then thank the gods that I’m not you,” Gilgard winked. He pulled up a chair next to her bed and sat down. His playful expression suddenly turned solemn, “...I’m sorry. I was so focused on trying to change House Morrigan, to be different from our father, that I lost sight of the family struggling right next to me.”

  The words stung and cracked her outer shell. Beatrix sighed and stared up at the stone-grey ceiling, “Lord Morri-... Father would never have apologized. You don’t have to try and be different from him. You already are.” She smiled lopsidedly, “You always have been. It’s why you’re such a pain in the ass.”

  “Did you just… insult me?” he blinked. His lips curled upwards in a grin, “What happened to my ever-so-proper sister? Did you get a concussion in that duel?”

  “I don’t know… I’m not really sure what happened,” she said quietly.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Cold… It was so cold and dark.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, “And there were eyes, pale purple eyes that shimmered in the dark. I thought I was going to die…”

  Gilgard grabbed her hand gently, “So did I. But right as it looked like the Ebon Aspirant was going to kill you, he just stopped… I still don’t know why.”

  Beatrix groaned and tried to sit up, but she felt so weak; her body barely budged an inch before falling back into the bed.

  “Don’t push yourself,” Gilgard said. “It’s only been an hour since your duel. Healing magic can only do so much. Your body has to do the rest. You need to give your body time to heal.”

  She closed her eyes in mild resentment at her own body before finally giving up and asking a question she really didn’t want to, “What’s the diagnosis?”

  “The healers found only external injuries, which lines up pretty well with what everyone saw in the duel. You had five slash marks on your neck from the Ebon Aspirant’s claws. Fortunately, they were shallow and the healers were able to seal the wounds. But they couldn’t find out why you weren’t waking up. They tried checking for internal injuries, but they couldn’t find anything. Except that…”

  “Except what?”

  Gilgard turned her hand over and pointed at the veins on her wrist, “Your mana flow was in complete disarray. You may as well not have a flow at all right now. But don’t worry! The healers said that they noticed your flow was recuperating, albeit incredibly slowly. It’ll probably be a few days before you begin to feel like your old self.”

  “Are you sure?” Beatrix asked worriedly. Even now she couldn’t feel her own mana flow, not even a whisper of the blue mana coursing through her veins.

  “Y-yeah, I think so. One of the older healers said your flow resembled a pattern and set of symptoms that he had seen many other mage patients have in the past.” Gilgard winced, “...Though he said the effects seemed far worse than anyone he had treated before.”

  “What sort of patients?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Hm?”

  “What sort of patients had symptoms like mine?”

  “Oh, the healer said that your symptoms reminded him of mages who had gone a little too close to Shadow Lake.”

  “...Chaos poisoning.”

  “Yeah, it’s strange, I know.”

  “No, it’s not,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Gilgard furrowed his brow.

  “When I fought the Aspirant, I managed to get close enough to see his mana flow…”

  Gilgard nodded, “I guessed as much. He dropped to the ground the moment he touched you. What I don’t understand is how he got back up and you ended up falling.”

  “I think I have an idea, maybe, I don’t know…”

  “What do you mean? What happened out there?”

  Beatrix closed her eyes and recalled that terrifying moment. “The Aspirant had all ten chromatic colors flowing through him, as expected. And his flow was strong and consistent, definitely that of a master’s, as suspected. His equilibrium was weak, also expected… But that’s where all my expectations ended…”

  “I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”

  Beatrix bit her lip, “There was… something else… lurking within him. I had never seen anything like it. Looking back, I can tell that it somewhat resembled chaos mana like what swirls in Shadow Lake, but this… this was different, like the mana had mutated somehow, it was unique, and far more potent. It felt… almost alive. It attacked me. I’m guessing it’s why I lost control of my body… chaos poisoning.”

  “Wait, hold on a sec,” Gilgard shook his head. “You’re saying that the Ebon Aspirant, a prime mage, had elemental chaos mana inside of him. First off, ignoring how he somehow managed to inject himself with some strange variant of chaos mana, how in all the bloody Null Realms was he not completely disabled from chaos poisoning?”

  “...I don’t know. But he didn’t inject himself with it. That mana was flowing within him, coexisting with his chromatic flow. It reminded me of the frost giant hybrid on Frost Rim’s team. Both of them had an elemental and chromatic flow living in a symbiotic relationship within their bodies.”

  “You’re saying it’s natural? The Aspirant naturally has chaos mana? How is that even possible? Chaos mana can’t coexist with other kinds of mana, it’s literally why mages get sick when they are near it.”

  “And yet the Aspirant wasn’t… We don’t know a lot about the Ebon Lords or their true limits. The Ebon Lords of the past kept their secrets closely hidden. We still don’t even know how the ebon walls of Hollow Shade were made. What if this is one of those secrets?”

  “That Ebon Lords had chaos mana? Beatrix, a prime mage is still a chromatic mage, beholden to the same rules as the rest of us. Your theory seems a little far-fetched.”

  “As far-fetched as a mage walking around with chaos mana inside them?” she raised her eyebrow.

  “...Point taken. I’ll send a message to father, an inquiry regarding the Ebon Lords of the past and their magic. If there is something about chaos, hopefully we’ll find out.”

  “Don’t tell father about the Aspirant’s secret.”

  “Huh?” Gilgard frowned. “You of all people want to keep a secret from Father?”

  Beatrix looked away with shame, “I already lost today’s fight. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m just making up an excuse for why I lost.”

  Gilgard squeezed her hand and smiled warmly, “Don’t worry, as if I would ever tell him any secrets.”

  Beatrix smiled, “You know, I’m glad you’re different.”

  A visitor abruptly knocked on the door, their fist hitting the wood with a hard thump.

  “Who is it?” Gilgard called out.

  “It’s me, Hallus. May I come in, captain.”

  “Come in,” Gilgard said.

  The door creaked open and an orc as tall as Gilgard and twice as bulky walked in. He glanced at Beatrix briefly then turned to Gilgard, his hand raised in a salute, “Captain, I’m sorry to bother you and your sister.”

  “It’s fine,” Gilgard said.

  “Hallus, I know you wouldn’t come here without a reason. What happened?” Beatrix asked.

  Hallus cleared his throat and straightened his back, “I came to report that Lady Thorn has drawn the names for the next duel.”

  “And? Who are they?” Gilgard asked tentatively.

  “Kalliste of House Lilith and Callum of House Veres.”