“What have you heard?” Gari spoke with a frown.

 

He would always become tense when people asked about his daughter. He was normally a calm and steady man, but everyone had a weakness.

 

“I haven’t heard anything other than the fact that she is sick,” Kade spoke in a calming tone, “I am just asking about her condition.”

 

Gari hesitated, his eyes meeting Kade’s, looking for something, before finally replying, “Her sickness is quite serious. The Priest of the Silver was too low-level and was powerless; he said that she might not last more than a few weeks.”

 

“The only way to save her would be to find a Priest of the late 2^nd Rank. But those are very expensive, and we managed to borrow some, but it wasn’t enough.”

 

“Her sickness appeared suddenly?”  Kade asked.

 

“Yes, that’s right.” Gari was curious how he came to that conclusion, “Could it be that you have some knowledge of the sickness?”

 

“I don’t think so. I have seen a few cases of sudden sickness while traveling.”

 

“What? You might have seen this sickness?” Gari couldn’t hold back the excitement that suddenly surged up in his heart. His daughter was the last of his family, because his wife had died in childbirth.

 

“I might have. That’s why I asked.” Kade spoke unhurriedly, “Is her skin yellow, and her muscles disappearing--do her eyes have a strange layer over them that makes them seem to shine when under direct sunlight? Are there small black spots in the base of her neck?”

 

Gari was shocked when he heard these questions, his shoulders trembled, “That’s right…How do you know?!”

 

“Mister Gari, you are lucky. Not many people in Feinan know of this.” Kade paused, “Don’t be too shocked by my next words, this isn’t a sickness…it’s actually a plague.”

 

“It has only appeared in Feinan’s recorded history; each time, it destroyed the city of origin, and a few surrounding cities--it’s called Dark Sweet Poison.”

 

Gari stood stunned.

 

***

Dark Sweet Poison was the name of a plague that came from the Plague God. This Evil God wanted to join the fun in Feinan a long time ago. To him, a perfect world was one filled with terror, plagues, and death.

 

He spread the Dark Sweet Poison everywhere; everyone who was infected would get yellowed skin, look malnourished, and their eyes would shine in the sunlight.

 

When they had reached this point, they would begin to have hallucinations, and increased appetite--however, all the nutrition would nourish the growths on their neck…growths that would start out as small black spots; but by the time the victim died, the spots would explode and release spores.

 

The Dark Sweet Poison was very frightening, it was a plague created by a God, and it would take a lot of lives every time that it appeared.

 

The first recorded outbreak was during the Ancient Elven Era. At that time, mankind had a low status among the sentient species, their quality of life was quite bad. When the plague appeared, almost 60% of the entire species was eradicated.

 

This increased the Plague God’s strength tremendously.

 

But, a Saint appeared at this time. He had somehow discovered the source and cure of the Plague, it was because of him that Humanity didn’t cease to exist.

 

The Saint’s last name was Brando, but everyone forgot his first name: Saviour Saint Brando was what he was recorded as. But after he treated the Dark Sweet Poison, he seemed to disappear.

 

People gradually forgot about this terrible Plague.

 

But Kade had read the backstory of Feinan from the game’s forums.

 

The Dark Sweet Poison outbreak this time was another of the signs upcoming chaos of the Great Calamity. Although the source was very quickly suppressed by the Wizards--this was only a small probe by the Plague God and nothing more.

 

The game’s forum deliberately kept it obscure whether the Saviour Saint Brando was actually an incarnation of the Wizard God Lance or not.

 

But he wasn’t the actual end of the Plague. He had saved a large city, and spread a cure--but it wouldn’t have been distributed quickly enough to save as many Humans as was recorded. The real cause of the end of the Plague was that it spread to the West Forest and annoyed the Nature God of the Ancient High Elves.

 

Because the Nature God had many more worshipers, he used his much stronger Divine Power to beat up the much weaker Plague God.

 

The pathetic Plague God hadn’t had enough time to develop his own territory when his Divinity was almost destroyed by the Nature God. Fortunately, the Fear God, Destruction God, Death God, and other Evil Gods moved to help him, or he would have been sealed away.

 

Ever since then, the Plague God moved a lot more cautiously.

 

However, after the Nature God, and other 2^nd generation Old Gods became less active, the Plague God became restless, wanting to try again.

 

Now that a large portion of the stronger 3^rd generation Gods planned on allying to destroy the Font of Magic, it was obvious that this was an opportunity--even for the weaker Gods.

 

This was an exceptional chance for them to increase their influence and get more followers, more power.

 

***

“So…does that mean my daughter is incurable?” Gari’s lips turned pale. He had felt panic rising as he heard Kade say that his daughter was infected by a plague.

 

This was terrible--if people found out that it was a Plague that infected his daughter, it was probable that they would panic and burn her. Even with Priests and Wizards…Humans still had a deeply ingrained fear of Plagues, because of the events in the past.

 

In a way, Fear and Plague were indeed a perfect match. Unfortunately, the Fear God wasn’t interested in joining with the Plague God…even though, when they were still mortal, the Plague God fell in love with her.

 

“If your daughter was incurable, I would have said it straight away.” Kade spoke reassuringly, “I do know of a method that could save your daughter.”

 

“Really?” Gari suddenly felt hope, he knew that the Masked Warrior didn’t really need to deceive him.

 

“Don’t worry, most people have forgotten about Dark Sweet Poison, and while in the final stages the black spots explode, we still have time.”

 

“For now, the most important thing is the recovery of White River Valley. Because the method to save your daughter is in Baron Kade’s castle.” As Kade stood up to leave, he patted Gari on the shoulder, “Relax, now we know the cause of your daughter’s sickness, she will be cured.”

 

Gari replied in a hoarse voice, his face filled with a smile, “Thank you, so much…”

 

***

It was nightfall of the day after the Adventurers gathered. Everyone had finished preparing and quietly gathered at the sentry posts on both sides of the forest.

 

Following the plan, the Young Guards and Bramble went one way, while Lynx and the three solo Adventurers went another.

 

“Let the bait out.” Anna spoke indifferently.

 

Gari glanced at one of his teammates and nodded.

 

A woman standing behind him shivered before leaning forwards and chanted a Spell; in a flash of green light, she turned into a deer.

 

The deer looked back at Gari, rolled her eyes, and then rushed across the road and into the woods.

 

This caused the six, idle, Mutated Direwolves to start drooling and growling, before chasing the transformed Druid.