Chapter Text
A static-filled klaxon blares through the speakers of an old radio not much larger than a shoebox. And which certainly seems to have been dropped more than once. Despite all this, the enunciation of the radio host comes through clearly, a tone far too calm for the message they carry.
This is an emergency broadcast from the Tavium Catastrophe Messengers.
A sand storm saturated with active originium dust is expected to travel through the Akoren region at approximately 1830 local time. Active particle saturation ranges from 45 to 55 percent.
Hazard…Gale force winds up to 82 kilometers per hour.
Hazard…Airborne originium shards up to 5 millimeters in length.
Impact…Winds will cause damage to windows and vehicles. Expect heavy debris. Moderate to High risk of injury and infection to those outdoors.
Seek shelter immediately in sturdy, airtight buildings. Stay away from windows. Remain indoors until ambient contamination has fallen to acceptable levels.
An active originium watch is in effect until tomorrow 1100 local time.
Another blaring klaxon punctuates the end of the message, and then it repeats. The farmer that owns the radio had seen more than his fair share of catastrophes in his lifetime. They always came and went. He had known many rulers in this land as well. And they were much like the catastrophes.
He had survived far longer than he had anticipated, having outlived his wife, his children, and even some of his grandchildren. Although the last few were due to youthful recklessness rather than old age. The ancient Savra, his scaled skin practically leather at this point, knows a thing or two about enduring. Take things easy. Don’t be overly ambitious. But always be prepared.
A smattering of mudbrick and mortar on the exterior gives his home a rather plain appearance. Something that any salt-of-the-earth subsistence farmer could make from the local dirt. Enough to deter local bandits, who would want to ransack a hovel?
Underneath it all, however, is reinforced concrete that was planted deep into the earth. Much like the roots of his tubers currently billowing in the gusts outside. He made sure his windows had strong metal shutters that dropped down and latched with the windowsill. Perhaps a bit much for a weak catastrophe like this, but such measures had served him well when worse came.
“Hey boss! I think there’s someone out there!” The old man’s farmhand cries out as she peeks through the bottom slat of a window. The Savra checks, seeing a distant silhouette being tossed this way and that by swirling black dust clouds, as if pushed by invisible hands. The young Vouivre alternates between looking through the slot and looking at the old man. “W-what should we do?”
The old Savra sighs. This was a common sight back in the days before the Catastrophe Messengers built the radio stations. Poor souls that didn’t have the wilderness skills needed to sense the catastrophes coming. Who carried on with their business until it was far too late. Running frantically for whatever shelter they saw in the distance.
If they made it, fine. A warm bath and a warm bed for them. Maybe some medicine on their way out. If not, no sense in having to take care of two terminally ill patients. Perhaps this was a somewhat merciless mentality. But no one survives long in this land without being at least a little self-centered.
“Don’t even think about going out there alone.” The Savra wearily answered. He could see his young protege already eyeing the door. She was honest, hard-working, always smiled at everyone she met. And too damn nice for her own good. That’s why her parents left her in the farmer’s care while they traveled and traded. “Even if you are a Vouivre, you aren’t gonna last long. If the winds don’t get you, being infected will.”
“Infected…Wait! The Towers! The Towers will probably know something!” The farmhand exclaims. The farmer slowly follows his younger counterpart to the guest room. To the two people that drove in this afternoon, hoping to find shelter from the imminent catastrophe.
They were some outsiders that had come to these lands recently, claiming to be experts at dealing with oripathy. The girl called them the “Towers,” but only because she had trouble reading the Victorian script on their clothes. The Savra, on the other hand, knew that language and many others. Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals. Not a company he had ever heard of. It must have been some new start-up. Maybe from Columbia or something. Their mission statement fits the bill. Far too lofty in his eyes.
“Goodness sake! Take a lamp with you.” The Savra cries out in exasperation as his farmhand trips over a dimly lit rake. A rake that the girl had dropped on her way in, no less. By the time the Savra reaches the guest room he had offered the two Rhodes Island strangers, his assistant was blabbering to them, her Victorian slipping into Sargonian, then to complete gibberish.
One of the them, a male Sankta, is busy duct-taping down his sleeve. He wears a thick suit made out of some plastic synthetic material, entirely in garish yellow. A hazmat suit if the Savra had to guess, and a pretty heavy duty one at that.
“You saw the poor soul out there too?” The Sankta asks in Sargonian as he tears off another strip of duct tape, securing his pantleg inside his boots. “Don’t worry, we were planning on rescuing them. You can stay put, we’re the professionals. Wading through catastrophes is our bread and butter.”
The Vouivre walks up to them, gesturing to a hazmat suit a Liberi woman was just about to put on. The female operator raises an eyebrow at the local woman before looking at her partner. The farmer sighs. There is no world in which either of them could understand the girl. He should step in.
“I think she’s volunteering, Dina.” The Sankta replies before turning to face the young woman. “Um, can you slow down a little? Sorry, my Sargonian is still shaky when people speak fast.”
“She’s probably stronger than me.” The short Liberi woman muttered as she put a hand to her chin. “But we shouldn’t be endangering the life of a civvie.”
“I wouldn’t be so worried. The kid’s set down tarps in winds like this before. She knows how to not get blown away.” The Savra chimes in. The Vouivre turns around, surprised that the old farmer would say something like that after practically leaving the person out there in the lurch. “She could probably drag two people back by herself if needs be.”
The old man leans in to whisper to his assistant. “If you’ve got protective equipment and there’s an expert with you, I’ve got nothing to worry about. Go on, not every day you get to be a hero.”
“She’s going then?” The Sankta asks. The two farmers nod their heads, and he takes the spare suit from his partner. “Alright, I’ll help you into this. Dina, go prepare this room for our guest.”
---
“What’s your name, friend?” The Sankta asks as he puts on a protective mask. His halo buzzes as the cowl covers the top of his head. A few deep breaths and the vertigo goes away.
The screaming wind could be heard, even behind the doorway. The sunset’s reddish glow harmonizing with the catastrophe’s orange forks of lightning. It would’ve been quite picturesque if not for how devastating it all is.
“H-huh?” The Vouivre stammers out as she fiddles with the suit she was stuffed into. How the diminutive Liberi was going to fit without it being extremely baggy was beyond her. Maybe that was what all that tape was for.
“If you’re gonna risk death with someone, you should at least know their name. Mine’s Leo. Codename Zadkiel.” The Sankta smiles behind his mask, his brown eyes belying his friendliness. His mouth is obscured by a black snout that reminds the Vouivre of a tuskbeast for some reason.
“A-Azar, sir.” The Vouivre answers shyly, fiddling with her own mask.
“Azar? That’s a good name. And no need to call me sir.” Zadkiel moves to fix his comrade’s mask, fastening the straps and making sure everything was airtight. Airtight as it could be with her horns, anyways. Hopefully the duct tape could do the rest. “Stay close to me. Follow my wings. You won’t be able to hear anything, so I’ll signal if I have to. If the wind picks up and we get separated, drag them back to the house. I’ll be fine on my own. Got it?”
Azar nodded, jittery with both fear and excitement. Zadkiel turns the handle slowly, before yanking the door towards him. The gust that barges in almost knocks him off his feet, his fingers clamping down on the doorway for dear life.
Just as he thought, the storm was maddeningly loud. He turns back to shout, hearing nothing but the howling of the wind. He shouts again, the vibration in his mask the only indication that he had said anything. Giving up, the Sankta plods forward, slamming one foot down, and then another. Fighting against the black dust swirling around him.
Tiny originium shards batter the visor of his mask, making a sound like hail crashing against a windshield. The grains more broken glass than sand. Without all his protective equipment, it must have felt like hell itself.
Crackles of orange lightning, the telltale sign of active originium dust, dance in the air. They spark off of his coat harmlessly, but the wanderer in the fields doesn’t seem as lucky. They convulse and twitch with every strike. Their brown cloak doing little to protect them.
Zadkiel keeps moving forwards. Past the fields, tarps flail wildly, held down by a line of stakes about a foot apart. Past the storage shack where the farmer’s tools and the operators’ car are sheltered. The building as sturdy as the house. The two rescuers are not as unfazed, as a sudden shift in the wind pushes them forwards, almost knocking them off their feet as they cling to fencing.
The Sankta’s visor fogs up from heavy breathing. And he can feel the vibration of the infection monitor on his wrist. It would probably be beeping incessantly as well, but thankfully he was deaf at the moment. Putting his arm in front of his face, it glows a sinister red. He probably isn’t at risk, the thing always gives off false readings inside catastrophes. But he didn’t want to chance it.
At the edge of the field, trying to hop the perimeter fence, is their target, wrapped in a brown cloak. Any distinct features hidden in what may very well be their shroud in a few minutes. Just as the two get close, the wind shifts direction again, blowing the wanderer over the fencing, landing flat on their face. Their cloak billows open, exposing them to the sea of jagged crystal and static electricity. They open their mouth instinctively, rewarding them only a mouthful of sand and originium.
Zadkiel leaps on top of them, shielding them until he can fix their cloak. Azar follows soon after, lifting the traveler’s arm up.
The Vouivre bears the brunt of the storm as the three march back to the farmhouse. By the fields, the traveler trips on a stake, sending the three tumbling to the ground. Zadkiel lets out a muted curse as he scrambles back up. The angel and wyvern start sprinting all the way back to the house. Their legs feel numb, dampened by adrenaline as the farmhouse gets closer and closer.
The moment they reach the door, the old Savra is waiting for them. Charging inside, the door is slammed behind them. The two nearly collapse, their breathing ragged behind their masks. In Azar’s mind, she could still hear the whistle of the winds. The silence almost disconcerting after so much time outside. Her head feels lightheaded as her heart slams against her chest, a pleasant and dreadful sensation for some reason.
“Bring ‘em in.” Dina takes the body from Zadkiel and Azar. Wrapped us as the person was, they reminded her of a mummy. She certainly hoped they’re far more alive. At least they were still breathing for now.
“Take their clothes off.” The Savra holds out an empty wicker basket. “Probably all contaminated. I’ll get a fresh change for them. There’s warm water in the room. And I’m making something simple for them to eat. Azar, when they’re done, take the clothes and seal them away in the closet with all the tools. I’ll clean them up tomorrow morning, the crystals should be inert by then.”
The two Rhodes Island operators part ways with their hosts, depositing their patient on the guest bed. Peeling off the cloak reveals a young Reproba barely out of boyhood. His pudgy face scrunched up in pain.
“Goddamn. Kid looks younger than Azar.” Zadkiel exclaims as he swaps his mask for a simpler respirator, one that wouldn’t give him a headache. The young man is covered in small gashes and burns. Originium shards embedded into his skin, as if he had been thrown through a window. The two operators don’t flinch at the sight, far too accustomed to such injuries. Dina pours a small trickle of water into the Reproba’s eyes.
“Can you hear us?” The Liberi asks firmly, her voice slightly muffled behind her filter. The Reproba nods weakly. “We’re here to help you. Just stay calm and let us work. Blink a few times. We’ll flush out your eyes first, then I’ll give you some painkillers to swallow. Alright, you need to stay still while I pull the shards out of your body. Zadkiel, hand me tweezers and gauze, then get the detox kit ready.”
The Sankta nods as he pulls supplies out of a red first aid box. To think they had almost left it in the car. Looking through the multiple syringes and pill bottles, he really wishes a medic was with them. He pulls out an autosyringe, using the light of his halo to read the labeling.
“Let’s see. This one, right? The chelating agent? Blood thinning. Dehydration. Fever. Nausea and vomiting.” The Sankta looks up at his partner bandaging the patient’s arm. Bloody fragments of black glass are piled up on a nearby metal tray. “I don’t think he’s drinking anything anytime soon. We should set up an IV. And get a bowl in case he pukes.”
“We can ask them later.” Dina replies tersely as she finishes taping a piece of gauze onto the Reproba’s forearm. Catching sight of the black lesions on the Liberi’s face, he instinctively pulls his arm back, only for her to yank it towards her.
“Come on. Person-to-person contact isn’t dangerous. You’ve got far more to worry about than touching me.” The woman berates him. He winces occasionally as the silver-haired Liberi pulls small shards out, but remains cooperative from then on.
At least until a syringe entered his eyesight. Dina forcibly presses him down, anything to stop him from squirming and making his injuries worse.
“You were out there for a while. Doesn’t matter how tough you are, that’s way too much originium exposure. And you should know what happens to people like that.” The woman growls out as the Reproba settles down.
His eyes widen in horror as the full scope of his situation finally dawns on him. “This is just an emergency treatment, but we can at least slow down the rate at which it spreads. It’ll make you feel sick, like you got a nasty stomach bug, but it does work. Trust us, alright? We’ve been helping you so far.” The angel explains calmly.
The Reproba glances at the needle in Zadkiel’s hand suspiciously, but relents, stretching out his arm. A small prick, and the deed is done.
“Time to set up the IV. Uh oh, we forgot to bring a stand in.”
“Just tape it to the wall then.” Dina bluntly suggests as she bundles the Reproba’s clothing into the wicker basket by the door. A blanket is the only thing protecting the youth’s modesty at this point. “Sit up, I need to check your back.”
“What a ramshackle operation. Sorry, kid. We gotta make do.” The Sankta smiles apologetically as he sticks the needle into the Reproba’s arm. And then duct tapes the saline bag to a nearby wall.
“He feels fine now, but it’ll probably get worse as the drugs kick in.” Dina wipes her forehead after covering the last wound she saw with gauze. She looks around the room disapprovingly. The suits worn by Zadkiel and Azar were haphazardly tossed into a corner of the room, bandage packaging left on the floor, and then the small pile of originium shards she would have to dispose of. If any of the doctors were here, they would have a heart attack at the impromptu field clinic the two operators had established.
“I’m sure that old farmer will understand.” The Sankta replies, as if he could read his partner’s thoughts.
“Really? He didn’t seem that happy when we first came here and asked for a room.”
“Maybe he wasn’t pleased, but he did let us in without a question. And he’s been slaving away preparing dinner for all of us on top of brewing some herbal tea and preparing a set of clothes for our friend here.”
Dina shrugs. Zadkiel was better with people than her. “We’ll have to watch our patient here for the rest of the night. Who should take the first shift?”
“I’ll do it.” Zadkiel answers. “I’ve got better bedside manners than you. You’d never be able to lull him to sleep.”
“If you say so.” The Liberi picks up her garbage and dumps it into a hazmat container. She knew she needed sleep, but the storm outside was a nuisance. Hopefully she’ll be exhausted enough that she’ll pass out regardless.
---
In her drowsy state, Dina kicks the door on her way in to the guest room.
“Dosa, you woke our guest.” The Sankta turns around and teases the Liberi rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. His halo and wings softly illuminate the room alongside a small electric lamp. The storm had died down by this point, but the shutters remain closed. No one was allowed to go outside until the morning at the earliest.
“I’m surprised he could sleep at all with that halo of yours.” The woman snipes back playfully, before adopting a sterner face. “Any important changes while I was out?”
The Sankta rattles off the minor changes in the boy’s condition. Some minor dry heaving, complaints of pain. But nothing major. Until he whispers far away from his patient. “I took a blood test, too. It ain’t great. Thankfully no flare-ups yet…but, you know. The catastrophe was a minor one, but it’s still acute poisoning.”
“Right.” The woman traces a line of black crystals jutting out the right side of her cheek. Leo gently grasps her hand, brushing the scarred skin of her lesions alongside her. She stares at her partner, her amber eyes filled with a painful melancholy. “If he gets worse, we don’t have the training or equipment to treat him.”
“I know. And we can’t go back to the branch office, the ambient contamination will make a mess of the car’s internals.” Leo whispers grimly in reply. The first aid kit has a body bag as well, just in case, but neither of them want to even think about using it. The man gives his partner a pat on the shoulder. “We just have to hope. If something happens, wake me up. Good night.”
As the man exits the room, Dina takes stock of the situation. The contaminated clothing and waste was already taken away. Leo had been nice enough to replace the saline for her. And emergency suppressants and anesthetics were neatly laid out on a nearby table.
“I’ll apologize ahead of time. I’m not as good a conversationalist as Leo.” The Liberi woman states flatly as she sits down next to the bed. “If you need to vomit or urinate, let me know. If something hurts and you’re still coherent, tell me. Any other problems, I’ll just have to intuit.”
The Reproba nods weakly. He opens his mouth, a faint whisper spilling out. “F-Faruq.”
“Your name?” He nods. The woman gives him a curt smile. “Just call me Dina.”
Faruq shifts around, trying to get comfortable. Hard as it is given any position he shifts to put pressure on one wound or another.
“I tried to dress your injuries as best I could. You’re lucky they weren’t too deep. Did any of them open up again?”
The young Reproba shakes his head. He looks around the room, the question he wants to ask lodged firmly in his throat. Delirious as he was back then, he could still remember all those black crystals stabbed into his skin. They were removed, sure. But what remains of them inside his body?
“Y-you can treat me, right?” He pleads desperately, staring at the growths on the woman’s cheek. Something like that would have gotten her kicked out of his village. What would erupt out of him? Would he get banished too? “Before I…Um…Before…”
“Before you become infected.” Dina says bluntly. The man nods frantically, as if she had access to some miracle cure. The Liberi sighs deeply, bracing herself before she breaks it to him. “We’re not doctors. We know first aid, but Leo and I are just hired guns. Judging by what happened to you, you’re probably already pre-oripathic. Your immune system alone isn’t enough. The injection we gave you isn’t enough. If things get really bad, you might need actual detox just to survive.”
Faruq assumes it must be some fancy treatment, probably something they did in a hospital with a machine. His grandfather once had to visit a hospital. The entire village had to pool together their money to send him to a city for treatment.
Dread churns in the young man’s stomach, there was no way his family could afford something like that. Even if he gets lucky and only has to take a few drugs, that would probably still be out of his price range. He isn’t nearly special enough, not like his grandfather, who was the town’s only mechanic. He was just a simple hunter, someone that could be easily replaced.
“Don’t worry about pricing. Our company’s fairly flexible about repayment plans.” Dina points to the badge on the shoulder of her jacket. A black tower in front of a white triangle. “We’re not ones to turn people away just because they can’t pay upfront.”
The angel and the bird seem like honest people. They patched him up after all, so they probably weren’t selling him snake oil. But the man hesitates still. His parents are probably worried sick that he hasn’t come home yet. But how far away was he?
Faruq thinks. He had been chasing that large antlerbeast for far too long. Past the wilderness he was used to. If he started chasing it around noon, and then the catastrophe hit around sunset. “M-my home. It’s a day from here, I think? On foot at least. It’s to the north. Could I at least go back and talk to my family first?”
Dina leans back, calculating hypothetical routes in her head. By vehicle, it would still be a few hours to go to wherever Faruq’s home was and then double back to the city. She looks at the blood test Zadkiel had performed.
.18 u/L. For a young and fit non-infected, if it was just a few ticks lower, his body could probably flush it out by itself with a few drugs they had on hand. The possibility of emerging uninfected might even be a possibility in that case. But as it stood, by the time they were done visiting his home, the originium in his body would probably start spreading. She clenches her jaw, she would have to give him an ultimatum.
“Unfortunately, every moment counts. We do not have the time if you want to get treated. Trust me, you don’t want to live as an infected.”
The woman traces the jagged black ridge on her face again, shuddering as painful memories flooded in. “Back before I signed on, there were times when I woke up in the middle of the night and it felt like my skin was melting off. Or I couldn’t get out of bed because my joints hurt too much. Maybe to some it’s just another disease, but it can get real painful if you leave it untreated.”
Faruq shakes violently, a wave of vertigo assaulting him as he leans off the bed to a nearby bowl. He heaves again, bile rising in his throat. Dina grabs his shoulder and waits for him to settle down, panting through tear-stained eyes.
“Sorry to scare you like that, but I just wanted to hammer it home. Oripathy isn’t something you can just tough out. And that’s before I get into how people see you.”
Dina tucks the blanket back onto his weary body. The cold air brought in by the desert night did not help Faruq’s condition in the slightest. Even under the warm clothes the farmer had given him and a thick blanket, he still has goosebumps.
“But if you still don’t want treatment, I can’t force you. Just try to get some sleep for the rest of the night. Once the contamination watch is over tomorrow morning, you can give us your answer.”
Faruq lies down, trying his best to fall asleep. His nostrils burn, his stomach feels queasy. The two strangers were not wrong, it felt like he was sick. But the illness he feels now isn’t the seed of his dread. Oripathy. Stone Disease, as some of the older folks from his village called it.
He had seen people he grew up with kicked out just because they got it and not some other illness. One of his friends had dug too deep in a local mine. He went out to search for them near their usual hangout spots in the outskirts, but he never found anything. Not even a body.
He heard that the infected crystallize upon death, so that was what he thought had happened. Would he join them soon? The image of his body slowly converting to that horrid black crystal flashes in his head.
The operator frowns as she gazes upon the young man’s face. His eyes are shut, but it was obvious he isn’t going to sleep anytime soon. She looks through the contents of her first aid kit again, hoping to find something that could help. Maybe some sleep aids. No, if something went wrong, she would have to wake him up at a moment’s notice. Having a medic with them would’ve been a godsend, but she and Zadkiel were never expected to actually administer aid to anyone on this excursion.
Once they got back, Commander Panopticon would probably commend them for doing what they could. But that would just rub salt in the wounds. She takes a deep breath. Logically, they had done what they could with the resources available to them. And she needs a clear head for the rest of the night. No sense getting mad at something she can’t fix.
Theodosia Adriana is not a religious person, at least not in the traditional sense. Sure, she shows up to services, pays tithes, reads scripture. All the things a devout Lateran ought to do. But all that was social in her mind, not spiritual. The rituals were not meant for God, but for the community.
Nonetheless, in this land far away from the Law of Laterano, a corner of the world her god may not even know or care about, away from anything resembling consecrated ground, she finds herself muttering a silent prayer under her breath. Would it actually reach anyone or anything meaningful? Probably not. But a part of herself is hoping still. Maybe things won’t turn out the way she thinks they will.
---