Runelords 35.1 - Shopping List

Luna had sat back down on the rock she had been guarding for the last few days. She flipped through Zara, looking at the ritual she would have to prepare to transfer the deadly curse away from Khyrralien, trying to deduce what she would have to adapt and change from the array she had used for Aldern.
She hadn’t bothered to close the door, but Virgil still paused at the threshold anyway and knocked on the frame. She glanced up, and it was plain to see that he wasn’t well; the wear and strain he had suffered under the cursed illness was clear on his face and bearing, particularly now that his chipper attitude had evaporated. He leaned heavily and waited for Luna to acknowledge him before he walked in and sat down heavily on the floor. He rubbed at his face and muttered, “What am I supposed to do…?”
Still regarding him over the top of Zara, she tilted her head, “About what?”
“Uuugh,” Virgil groaned through his fingers. “I don’t think the...gravity, of this has sunk in. Khyr doesn’t want to be cured.”
Luna raised an eyebrow, “...What?” 
I warned you of this… Zara intoned into her mind, though her voice was neither patronizing nor judgmental.
“I have a problem,” Virgil admitted, lifting his head and turning to Luna, “where I apparently try really hard to not be pessimistic, and to always describe things...I don’t know, positively? Like, I don’t lie, and most of what I say sounds stupid as all heck and I know it, but when there’s things that most people would get their backs up over, I focus on the good stuff? The normal things? The important things?” He buried his face again, “So, no, when I describe my uncle I don’t go into the insatiable bloodlust and the obvious self-hatred and the loneliness and the ever-increasing disconnection with the human race. And now Khyr thinks that undeath is a perfectly fine experience worth trying, because I immediately described it positively.” Luna frowned, but said nothing immediately. Virgil sighed, dropping his arms down and staring into the middle distance with a pained concern, “What am I supposed to do if he doesn’t want to be cured? Am I supposed to force him? Am I supposed to let him die? I...spirits, I don’t think I trust Khyrralien with bloodlust. I don’t want him stuck with a wretched eternity either...but, I guess it’s Khyr: if anyone I’ve known was going to cheerfully cut their own head off because they felt like it, it would be him.” Luna opened her mouth to say something, but Virgil didn’t notice. “There isn’t a lot of time. I don’t know exactly, but I think Uncle Ryuji died in something like a week. That isn’t enough time to go back to Medinipur for scrolls or equipment.” His voice became increasingly faster, holding a note of growing panic, “I couldn’t go even if there was, because I was already terrible enough for leaving Eamon and Shadliss behind to save myself, and I have to go back for them, if they’re still...no. No, no, they’re ok. I have to believe that they got out, I’m sure they got out, it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine, we’ll fly back to Jorgenfist and I still have a scroll of Locate Creature, it will be fine. But I don’t know what to do about Khyr or if I should do something about Khyr, or if I should call Ryuji, if I even could call Ryuji, and I don’t think he could do anything about it anyways...”
“Ok, stop,” Luna interrupted. “Just stop, for a minute.” Virgil looked over to her, face worn and despondent. She regarded him flatly for a moment before sighing and sitting up, “You really do look terrible.”
He rubbed at his eyes, “That’s not really the biggest problem right…”
“No,” she cut him off as she pushed herself to her feet and went to her bag, “but it’s the simplest.” She started to pull out her alchemical equipment, mixing chemicals to make infusions. “...I’m sorry, for jabbing at you earlier.”
Shaking his head, he replied, “That’s fine. Jab all you like.” He smirked tiredly, “I’m good for it.”
“No, I’ve been...really short-tempered, lately. I shouldn’t be. I’m sorry…”
“With the amount of stress you’re under, I’m not blaming you,” he said lightly. “But it’s ok, really. I know it’s the situation, not you. You aren’t the first person to get angry at teammates. Heck, most adventuring parties would have broken up by now.” He grinned and gestured as he spoke, “Most adventuring groups are short-term; only do one or two jobs together before breaking up. The rest are people who have been friends for their whole lives or are lovers or things like that. We’ve been working this for what, 4, 5 months? I think the average is like, one month, tops.” He sighed, “These ones are the worst. The jobs that take months to do. It’s just one thing after another and another, and all you want is for it to just stop. Just...just to be quiet, so you can be content that nothing awful is happening that you know about.” He shook his head, “I’ll be glad when it’s done. But,” he sighed with a tired smile, “not quite yet.” 
Looking back up, Luna shook a handful of corked vials before getting up and handing them over to Virgil. “Here.”
“Thanks,” he said, still smiling, taking them and immediately drinking two. The colour came back to his face, and he seemed less drawn than a moment before. 
Luna smirked as she took the vials back. “There. You look better.” 
“Thanks. You do too.” Luna rolled her eyes at the compliment, and he grinned, “No, really, you do. Like, you fixed the smell, obviously, but you look really good too.”
“I...I was just practicing make-up technique, is all,” she said dismissively, with a tinge of self-consciousness. “Trying some different things…”
“Well, they’re working out great! You look good.”
“Heh. Whatever,” she replied with some embarrassment before shaking her head, “But seriously. You do not know the governor of the Undead Nation.”
He chuckled, “Do so.”
“You are such a liar!”
“I am not!” he retorted with mock offense.
“Why would you know him?!”
“Why would I know the doctor? Why would I know the Director of the Few?” he replied, grinning. “I know a lot of people; I’ve told you before. My family had some friends who went on to be pretty famous.” She shook her head in disbelief. He sighed, “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not; if this is another curse like his, I’m going to tell him, and I’m sure he’ll want to know more. You’ll get to meet him sooner or later,” he smirked wryly, “and maybe you’ll believe him.” He sighed, “If Mayor Rajdeep can’t cast Sending, I don’t think I’ll be able to get a hold of him before...before the curse goes terminal.”
“Then, we’ll do what we can,” Luna said primly. “If he actually, actually doesn’t want to have anything done...well. That’s his choice.” She huffed, “It’s a stupid choice. But it’s his. Then if he’s going to be a savage about it...well, we all handled the ghouls.” 
Virgil’s expression was wry, “That’s harsh.”
“That’s the reality of undead,” she said flatly, staring at the floor. Virgil nodded slightly in agreement. She sighed before brightening, “But! If he’s not going to be a twit, we can still hopefully fix things before it gets to that. If I can alter this ritual somewhat, then maybe we can just move the curse to me. I’m not getting deader.”
“Don’t you worry about something going wrong?” he asked seriously.
She rolled her eyes, “For who? If Zara’s right, and I’m not going to doubt her judgement on this, Khyrralien is going to be dead either way. Better to try something than nothing. And for me? No. I can’t imagine a scenario where trying to make an undead into an undead would cause the undead to not be undead. The curse might fizzle and cease to exist, or I might change into another classification with different sorts of abilities, but I can’t imagine something screwing up so badly that I kill myself. I’m not going to rot any more than I was a few months ago, I’m still going to have to eat the living.” She paused, considering, “I guess the worst case is that I go mad...but I should be able to determine more of the specifics of the curse as it develops. I don’t want that to happen, but if it’s a similar curse to the governor’s, it might not necessarily lead to madness.” She had fallen completely into scholarly musings as she spoke, “Honestly, most undead are driven insane by the hunger, they aren’t mad in their own right, so as long as I can continue a regular feeding regime, that should go a long way. Obviously an undead confined to a small space for an indeterminate amount of time isn’t feeding, and therefore its sanity would undoubtedly decay. You also have to account for the madness of isolation and lack of stimulation, so there are so many factors that might have impacted the specimen he contracted the curse from, it’s hard to say whether or not…” She continued to prattle, and Virgil let her, smiling slightly as he listened to her speak.
Some time later, as she passingly mentioned the subject, Virgil interjected, “I’m going to Turtleback right now to speak to the mayor anyways; just give me a list, and I’ll see if there’s anything in the village.”
“Oh! Yes, sure,” she said, turning to her belongings to get a pen and paper. “I mean, I really doubt they have much, but I can’t very go well look, and if I’m going to start preparing something…” She began to scribble down a list, and passed the note over to Virgil. “See if you can find any of that.”
He looked it over and nodded, the somewhat distasteful materials exemplary of necromantic magics. “Anything else you need? Food or something?”
“That would be great, yeah,” she said. “I haven’t eaten since I got back here, since I don’t want to leave this unguarded.”
“No one can fault the job you’re doing, that’s for sure,” Virgil said, standing up. “I’ll be back in a few hours I guess. Hopefully Khyr doesn’t leave without me.”
“Ok,” she said. As he made his way to the door, she added, “Hey.” He looked over his shoulder, pausing, and she added haltingly, “It’s...it’s ok, right? We caught it early. We can do something. Don’t...don’t you have a breakdown too.”
He smirked, “Nah, don’t worry. It’s good. I’m good. I’ve handled worse.”
Luna frowned, “Really?” Virgil merely chuckled, and left without further comment.
Category:Rise of the Runelords