Chương 17

Selena had no idea what the humans were squabbling about, but they were clearly afraid of something. All three of them were now crouched around that small magic device with the white screen light, talking in that weird language she hadn't ever heard. She let them fuss about that, someone had to keep watch in the meantime for any enemies. The goddess guides after all. She hoped. The scout wards she'd put out didn't report any nearby threats, though the wards were slowly fading away in power.

The ones she'd laid down by the sewers were already gone. Unfortunate, but she had to conserve as much mana as she could. She had no idea when she'd escape this area or if she'd find another mana crystal out here. All the homes had been mostly stripped clean of useful items. Then she looked back at the group and saw them huddled around the human with a dark green shirt again, the little magic device put away. Huddled around the human who had peeled off his shirt sleeve to expose a deep wound on his arm.

The human who was clearly, and utterly undeniably, infected with blackrot. Literally less than a foot from the one person she'd been ordered to protect by her goddess. Selena blinked. Then she acted with as much speed as she could possibly muster. Wade had only a second to hear movement from the elf, look up and leap off the side before the spear jabbed at him. And then backstep frantically as the elf followed through. Her gaze was cold, determined, and utterly devoid of any mercy.

The attacks hadn't been killing blows, but they certainly were made to force him to back away. The second thing she did was yank at Illy's shirt and haul her backwards, the shield instantly snapping between the girl and Wade, the spear rising back up as the woman drew the weapon into position. That's when Illy and Leon both jumped the elf, trying to pin her down and hold her off. Illy from the inside of the shield, and Leon yanking her spear out of Wade's direction, a firm hand right near the blade part.

The armored elf seemed to get the impression that the two of them were trying to protect Wade, and that clearly went against her primary objective.

"He's collarless and infected! Goddess, you absolute morons!" She called out, both annoyed and with some desperation.

"Throw him out the window, cut his arm off, or kill him, but do not get near him." Hah. The level 25 fantasy elf with magic and a weapon wanted to kill little level 4 him. Nice. Fighting her was clearly not going to happen.

"The feck is she on about?!" Illy yelled out, trying to hold the elf back and struggle out from under the shield.

"Uh, she's saying I'm infected and she's trying to protect you from me?"

"If by protect you mean skewering yer arse, then I fecking see that."

"For the last time you stupid human," Selena hissed out, trying to keep a gauntlet over the hellion.

"STAY BEHIND MY SHIELD!"

"He ain't the enemy ya daft blond bimbo!" Illy yelled back, clearly not understanding a word being said.

"Leon! Take Wade out the door, she's freaking out and I'm about to piss her off a whole lot more in a second."

"You got handle alone on her?" Leon asked, worried. He'd said before he thought he was physically stronger than the elf, but holding her back proved it. And if he let go, only Illy would be holding her off, and the Scot was clearly on the other end of the strength balance.

"I fecking got it! Trust me. Now get the yank out of here!" Leon let go. Illy moved like a snake in the elf's grasp and a moment later Selena was doubled down on one knee, shield arm lifted up and twisted as the Scot had somehow grappled herself behind, kicked the back of the elf's knee, and was holding down hard, one hand pressed against the spine of her neck, while the other was holding the shield arm at a harsh angle. It had all been done in under a second.

Selena looked more confused at the change of position, as if she couldn't quite understand how she'd been folded into a pretzel by a four feet something ball of anger and spite. Leon knelt to pull up the doorway, away from the elf now fighting to free herself from the menace that pinned her down. He then turned back to Illy, "You have good handle on her? Should we still be going or stay?"

"She's pinned, but no idea if she's got magic she'll use or not." Illy said with a grunt.

"Yank can't talk back to her yet and explain the situation, better get him out of here before she pulls something I can't handle. Only way to defuse her I think." Leon nodded, then motioned to Wade.

"We going now then, before problems." Wade turned and locked his gaze directly at the elf, thoughts moving at twenty miles a minute. On one end was Leon was grabbing his unwounded arm to pull him away, and on the other end was an elf who might know what the hell was going on. Might as well just shout and try to gesture away, maybe just by sheer body language he'd get the message across.

"Hold on! Wait! What do you mean infected? Do you know what this is?!"

"Yes infected, what in Nox's silver cupstrings did you th-" She completely stopped struggling against Illy, her head snapped to Wade.

"You speak elvish?" Then her voice went up a pitch, in horror.

"You speak elvish." The room went dead silent. Leon stopped trying to shove him out the doorway. Illy equally going still, no longer holding pressure on the elf's arm.

"Uh, I guess I do now." Wade said, hearing it in his own voice, just as shocked as everyone else. It sounded completely alien. And he knew the others couldn't understand. That's how the blessing worked? Just speak english at his target and the rest is handled?

"Fecking good timing to figure out how to speak elf." Illy said. Wade gave a small helpless shrug back.

"I don't… actually know how I did that myself. All I did was just look at her and talk english."

"I ain't asking questions, just tell her to quit trying to murder you first, we'll deal with everything else after." The elf's expression shifted to one of mute horror as she processed the fact that he could understand her. Wade realized he had a small window of opportunity here to negotiate a ceasefire before the elf went back to trying to fight back against Illy's wrestling hold.

"Uh, we're not from here. Like, at all." Wade rapidly said, trying the same thing he had last time. Staring at the elf, and speaking english. What came out of his mouth wasn't english.

"I'm Wade, Michael Wade. We have no idea where we are, how we got here, or how to get out. I don't know what's on my arm, but I swear I'm not trying to hurt anyone. I already told them not to touch the wound, see?" Leon had indeed let go and was at the doorway, and Illy was still holding the elf's back and arm pinned. Selena blinked, "Very well, I suppose that's a start."

"She's not going to kill me anymore." Wade said to the others, "I think. You can let her go."

"You sure bampot?" Illy asked.

"No, but not like we got a better idea." The elf stood back up, and Illy allowed it. Once she was on her feet, she brushed off her armor, made sure the tunic and cloth parts of it were straightened out, and then turned to Wade.

"Whether you intended harm or not is irrelevant. We do not have a collar here, nor have I seen one in any of these old ruins." Her tone had shifted into some kind of formal royal speech pattern, in a way that Wade knew didn't quite translate into english well. But right now, he'd roll with it.

"It's just my arm and I only got bit like twenty minutes ago. I only started working on the problem. I don't think I should die for it without at least knowing what's killing me."

"It's blackrot. What land do you even come from to not know this?"

"Uhh, earth."

"Ehhaarth?" The elf had a hard time saying the word.

"I have never heard of this region before. Is it part of the Driftlands?" The other two had perked up hearing the familiar word.

"You telling her 'bout us?"

"Trying." Wade waved them off. Right now he had a different objective - not get taken over by the Princess Mononoke knockoff arm.

"It's not region, think entire alternate world. Like elves and mana are made up stories from where I'm from, we don't have any of it. So when I say I don't know what blackrot is - I mean I really don't know the first thing about it at all. It doesn't exist where I'm from." She looked utterly boggled at that.

"You three are from another world? Goddess, what in the nine circles of hel-" She held a hand up to her mouth, cutting off her swear. Then shook her head, "Forgive my lack of decorum in demanding answers." She straightened up slightly, her intonation returning to something more professional.

"Blackrot is an infestation that takes over the body. There is no known cure."

"What do you mean there's no cure to this?" Please don't be magical cancer. The elf looked back with pity.

"Once you are infected with blackrot, your life is forfeit unless you can amputate the limb infected before it fully spreads out. And I do not have the means to do that safely with what we have to work with here, you would likely die from that procedure. The only other alternative is to delay with a collar, but we have no means of crafting one here. You need to leave now before you become a threat to everyone."

She paused, and looked like she wanted to ask something, but her ears started twitching, like she'd shoved her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from talking. Or at least the moonwing-elf body language version of that. Wade had a feeling Selena thought she'd just been about to commit some kind of cultural no-no. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Something to do with being a paladin? The blessing was giving some vague notion of that, but he couldn't tell.

He had bigger fish to fry anyhow, namely: "How long do I have before that's a problem? I've only been bit just before I met you all, it can't be that bad." She shook her head at that.

"If the blackrot reaches your head, you will turn feral. The timing is entirely random. If fortune smiles, it might crawl down toward your toes first. Or if you're unlucky, it could race straight to your heart, after which it will spread like wildfire. Without a collar, you have perhaps a few hours at most if it is spreading out in all directions uniformly."

"Can you at least tell me what this collar thing is? You mentioned delaying it, how do I do that?"

"Mithril." An armored hand went to her neck and pulled up a small chain. She had a bit of a hard time, given her gloves were thick, but after a third attempt she managed to pull the necklace up from the inside of the chestplate. There was a tablet of bismuth looking metal at the end.

"This is mithril, it's the only metal known to repel blackrot. I have a pendant and a ring, however both will not be enough for the task. You need to fashion a thick collar of it, and lock it around your neck forever after. The blackrot takes the paths of least resistance almost always, so it will not travel up your neck until the rest of your body is completely blackrotten. Some people have managed to live on for years, but never more than seven." Wade felt a bit of relief at that.

"Right. Seven years, that's already way better than the few hours I had so far. How hard is mithril to find?" She held a hand out to stop him.

"I am sorry, I do not wish to fill your head with false hope. A well made and prepared multi-tier collar can let you last seven years. If you hand craft a collar, it may not last you more than a few days."

"Still better than hours or cutting my arm off." He opened his stats and checked on where the blackrot was percentage wise. It had gone to eight percent, but nothing else. At this rate he still had an entire day or so, but that was considering it taking over his entire body. If what Selena had mentioned was correct, it wasn't about the overall body percentage, it was all about what parts of his body were infected. Namely, his brain.

"Where can I get my hands on mithril? What can you tell me about it? Is it some super expensive metal or do I have a chance out here?"

"The metal is not particularly scarce, nor does it command a high price. I know blacksmiths can shape it with minimal heat. Beyond those basic facts, I cannot tell you anything about how it is mined or where additional supplies might be found here, especially not in this strange place. I am no smith, only a paladin in training," She waved her spear and her shield.

"This is the life I know." He cursed, sitting down against the wall. All right, mithril collar. That's the first step to clearing the new quest here and making it out alive.

"You okay Wade?" Leon asked.

"Yea. Just got some bad news from the elf about my arm. I mean, somewhat in a better position than I was before, but not by much."

"She knows what it is?" Illy asked, then looked down in thought.

"Makes sense enough though. Any beastie the system named with blackrot, she'd go right outta her way to kill it."

"I take it, no cure?" Leon asked.

"Yeah, I need to get mithril like that pendant she pulled out earlier, a lot of it, and then make a collar around my neck." Wade said.

"It'll delay it though."

"There's got to be a cure." Illy said.

"You mentioned a quest fer it right?" He had seen a quest, but they'd freaked out too much and went straight to peeling off his shirt from the moment they'd read the debuff. So he opened up his stats and looked down the list until he found it: Personal quest: There can be only one - Eliminate, purge or dominate the Blackrot entity in your body. Reward: One storefront coin. Continued control over your body. He told them what he read. Illy was the first to point out the obvious.

"Says you might find three ways to cure it. Maybe the elf's folk don't have a way out, but we've got ourselves a game system and a god on speed dial. Assumin' it talks." Wade took the phone out, and the text was right there waiting for him. Can tell you nobody in my circle of friends knows how to cure blackrot, world would be a lot more fixed if we did.

"Can the storefront thing get me a cure?" Doubt simple starting gear or supplies are anywhere in the same league as an outright cure for Blackrot, but I'll check just in case. There was a pause, and then the text refreshed. And nope, says invalid request. There was a cure and the system knew about it. It just didn't want him to get an insta-win quest done by buying his way out of it or something. There was magic in this world.

He was in the same room as an honest-to-god elf, minus the feathers, he didn't know they grew feathers but he could guess this might be a sub-race of elf. Typical fantasy trope. Maybe she didn't know those three options, but he at least had a starting point.

"You said you were a paladin in training?" He asked, looking at her direction and letting his game skill translate his words into elvish.

"I don't think we know anything about you so far. Who exactly are you, and how did you get here?" She gave him a flat stare for a moment longer before realizing she hadn't introduced herself at all.

"Ah." Her ears twitched, and it looked like her cheeks flushed red too.

"I am Selena Nightreaver." She stood taller for a moment, letting the spear butt hit the ground with two thumps.

"Paladin-in-training, heir of Flight Nightreaver, apprentice defender of the Reaches. I am currently under contract to Lady Illy, the human there, and serve as a Moonwing mercenary." A hoity toity noble elf in training with an ego. Great. He engaged the same mental defenses he used against Karens at the register demanding for the manager. Compared to those, a haughty elf with way too many levels over him could easily be managed. That said, she did mention she was a paladin-in-training. Not a fully fledged paladin?

She might be pretty young, but then again... elf. For all he knew, she could be three hundred years old. Certainly could fight better than they could.

"And how did you get here? Do you know where we are?" The ears waggled. Wade frowned.

"Nothing at all?"

"I recognize Nathir golems and architecture but I have never seen this many all together, or this many intact nathir structures. I believe we might be in a city of some kind. There are some Nathir bunkers that are sealed, I've never heard of how they appear on the inside." All right, that lined up with what Play had said earlier about nobody knowing jack squat about these sealed cities. So how did she get here in the first place if she wasn't supposed to be able to?

He asked as much, and the elf's ears twitched in a way that functionally meant something similar to shrug, while the rest of her posture took on something more professional. Like a soldier reporting in the battlefield.

"I was tending to lunch in my estate, and then appeared here fully armored. There was no magic spell, no transition, nothing. My armor was equipped as if I was setting off for war. I had my spear in hand and shield." One armored finger touched her face, where the black lines were drawn under her eyes. She withdrew them and held it out. Wade could see the smudge there.

"War paint was applied as well. I haven't seen myself in a mirror yet, although I suspect it was perfectly applied. All of my armor is powered, polished, and the spear sharpened exactly as I would have done myself before an expedition. I have no memory of doing any of that and yet I see all the signs that I had." The elf looked down at her chestplate. Blood, mud and dents were already starting to cover the markings." Was polished and prepared. Lady Illy, if that is the human girl's name, was the first sight I had.

We were attacked after and I defended myself. Once the initial danger was done with, I went to pray for a moment and was answered by my goddess to protect her with my life." And there were the gods again, a hand in just about everything that was going wrong around here.

"Who's your goddess, and how did you speak to her? Because I've also got a god on my ass and I'd like to know more about Azdrial gods in general."

"A moment." She held a hand out, taking a breath.

"I'm not sure how to best address your questions, as you are an outsider of sorts. You should understand that Nox is not a greater goddess. She is classified as a lesser one. One stripped of all power as well. My people protect her out of duty for what she did to shelter us in the past, when she still had power. So for her speaking to anyone at any distance takes great energy out of her. For her to answer my prayers… it must have been important."

"And she told you to protect Illy?" The elf gave a slight hesitant nod, "She spoke two words in my mind, ' Protect Illy' however, she used up her strength and I heard nothing else after. I have followed her mission to the best of my abilities." The elf swapped her gaze to Illy the menace.

"Despite her best attempts otherwise. I hadn't been certain of the human's identity until she introduced herself as Illy."

"I heard me name a few times now, what's knife-ears ratting me out on?" Said menace asked.

"Don't like the way you're both leering at me like that."

"She's explaining who she is and how she came here." Wade said.

"She's a paladin in training, was eating lunch and got yanked here out of her home, fully armored up. First thing she saw was you, and was told by her goddess to keep you protected."

"Ach. That checks out right enough." Illy said with a shrug.

"Didn't know about the goddess part though."

"Does the name Nox mean anything to you?" Wade asked, having a deep suspicion on what was going on.

"…Aye, that's the name what's next to my sponsor buff fer the game." She said, eyes narrowing down on her.

"The elf said something about Nox?"

"Yeah. At least we know whatever sponsor you have wants you to live. So now I really need to know, how did you two summon Selena out here? I think I deserve to know after all this." He looked down at his arm, "Especially now when I need all the help I can get." Illy glanced over to Leon with a guilty look. He patted her shoulder.

"Is okay. You should trust more people now. He'll understand."

"All right. Fine." She nodded slowly, then turned back to Wade.

"We got her out of a lootbox."