Chapter 408 - A Yellow and Black Plague II (Patreon)

The Black Death. The Plague.

In many ways, it was good news. It was a relatively mundane disease that I knew. There wasn’t a Miasma Classer secretly attempting to murder an entire city. It wasn’t some bizarre mutation caused by magic. I knew what the reservoir and cause was, namely rodents and fleas.

I healed the poor beggar and got back up, moving towards the healer’s guild with renewed speed and vigor.

“Brrrpt.” Auri warned me.

“I know.” I was pushing my luck with how I was moving, but fuck that. I’d take getting run out of town if I did my work first. I also struggled to imagine a lynch mob would be coming for me when I was actively fighting the plague wracking the town. Like, everyone kept telling me it’d happen, but I just could not imagine it. Would people really be that vicious? Would they really shoot themselves in the foot that hard? And even if they did… that was just more people in one place to heal!

My focus was permanently split, one [Parallel Thoughts] devoted purely to checking on the apple-status of people around me. There weren’t many, and a combination of crossing the busy street, or looking at vendor’s wares when someone passed by was more than enough to handle the issue. It was annoying, it was slowing me down, but it wasn’t a problem. My secret was safe.

Back to the plague.

It wasn’t all good news. The Black Death had devastated Europe for a reason. The lethality rate was around thirty percent, and death could occur as quickly as 24 hours from infection. Vitality and skills played merry hell with those numbers, but the disease stayed lethal.

The Black Death was classified in three different ways, depending on where a patient was infected. It was pneumonic plague when a patient had breathed in the bacteria, and was primarily located in the lungs. Coughing would naturally spread the disease further. Bubonic plague was when the cause was from the bite of a flea, or otherwise getting infected through broken skin. Someone handling fluids from an infected patient that had cuts on their hand - like the family I could see through the walls, where the dad had sliced his hand on his knife and was now looking after his sick kid - would also result in bubonic plague. The last type was septicemic plague, where the bacteria got into the bloodstream and multiplied.

That one got ugly.

Someone infected by the Black Death could get one, two, or in rare cases, all three types of plague.

The other bad news was the reservoir was fleas. Healing people was easy enough, I was doing it automatically. How did I kill enough fleas to stop the disease from coming back? My style of blast healing didn’t automatically teach immune systems how to identify the bacteria responsible - damn Papilion for erasing the name from my memory - but it did clear everything out of the body, and fixed it to perfect health. Sometimes that was enough for a patient’s immune system to build enough defenses against the plague, but that took time and resources, something in short supply in the city. Until that happened, they were vulnerable to reinfection, and with how quickly the plague acted…

I could keep people alive until the cows came home, but unless I could tackle the fundamental issue causing the plague, I’d just have a revolving door of patients.

Speaking of, I was nearing the Healer’s Guild. It was fairly obvious, a large building with the classic modern symbol of healing.

A hydra, coiled around the trunk of a willow tree. There were all sorts of metaphors and symbolism in it, most of which went over my head. The obvious ones had to do with the fantastic healing abilities of hydras, willow bark being the key painkiller, and something about the shelter of the tree.

There was a large commotion in front of the Guild as I arrived, throngs of people leaving as someone shouted at them.

“Come back! The proper fees haven’t been paid!” The shouter protested. He was standing on a crate.

“We’ll pay if you can show us who did it!” A leaving member shouted over their shoulder.

Oh.

Hmmm.

Whoops, that was probably me. Ah well.

I pushed my way against the crowd, ending up at the door of the Guild. The shouter slumped, and spoke without looking at me, a well-practiced speech.

“Patients through that door. Please have your payments ready, and we’ll get to you as quickly as we can. Getting a healer sent to your home costs extra, and we’re backlogged on house calls at the moment.”

I stood looking up at the crier.

“Excuse me! I’m a [Healer]. I saw the plague flags and stopped by to help. Where should I go?” I asked him slowly and carefully. My trader-tongue was mediocre at best.

He did a double-take, and I once again prayed to the moon goddesses that my disguise was holding.

“Ah, a healer! Excellent, follow me, I’ll show you where to go. Hang on, you’re not the one who healed everyone waiting in line, were you?”

Ah, whoops, I’d been slightly obvious about that. ‘Everyone is mysteriously healed’ followed hand in hand with ‘a new healer shows up three seconds later’ was as obvious as it could get. Denying it would be pointless.

“Yup, that was me.” I happily said as the man led me into the Guild.

“Brrrpt!” Auri hopped in circles on my head, showing how proud she was of me.

Controlled chaos in the midst of minimalist wealth was the guild. It was all made of varnished wood, wealth without being ostentatious about it.

That, or it was because of all the sick and dying patients filling the room. Easier to clean up all the messes made if it was only wood. A few orderlies were working in the room, talking with patients, collecting payments, and escorting them down another set of hallways.

A semi-familiar setup, except seen from the other side. It was like how Perinthus had been organized, except I’d never seen the waiting room. I was tempted to use [Imbue] with [Nova Lance] and hit everyone in the room, but no. [Cosmic Presence] already ensured everyone here would last until they saw a healer, they were going to get medical attention, and there was no sense in disrupting things right now.

I’m pretty sure I’d massacred the entire line waiting to get in already. If the room wasn’t empty on the way out I’d think about it again… although everyone here was about to be healed. Was speeding the process along worth robbing a junior healer of experience, when the end result was going to be the same?

A tricky question for fifteen-minutes-in-the-future-me.

“How’d you expect to get paid? How are you going to pay the Guild tax?” The person leading me asked, then shook his head. “Nevermind, I’m not the person to be asking that. Here we are!” He pushed a door open and ushered me into an office.

I’d gotten a look before the door opened, I just didn’t know which room was the guild leader’s room. A minotaur sat like a fat toad behind a desk towering with paperwork, and a parrot was in one corner, its bright colors contrasting sharply with her grey hair.

[Long Range Identity] showed me [Leader - 341]. Interesting. It wasn’t a [Healer] tag, and being allowed past 256 implied that none of her classes were medical in nature, yet she was the guild leader.

“[Guild Leader]. This is… a new healer from out of town.” I sensed the moment where he realized he’d never asked for my name. He quickly recovered and carried on.

“Had a minor issue where she healed the wait line. She said she wants to help.”

The woman gave a sickly sweet smile.

“Thank you Barvah! I’ll take it from here, why don’t you be a dear and leaf?”

The crier - Barvah - nodded his acknowledgement and left. The [Guild Leader] shifted around in her chair, shuffling a few papers around.

“I’m sorry, I guarantree this won’t take long.” She said. Her quill moved slowly and methodically across the paper, and I swear she was moving extra-slow.

Level 341 in a leadership and probably paperwork-related class, and working at a speed an unboosted human would work at? I dunno if she was deliberately trying to annoy me.

Auri and the parrot were glaring murder at each other, sparks practically flying between them. Auri puffed up her brightly colored feathers and started strutting around, while the parrot was preening and showing off all of his colors.

In short order she put down the paper and looked up at me.

“Well! I’m quite sorry about that! Melvinna at your service, what can I do for yew? I’m sorry, I never caught your name. Barvah said you’re new here, are you planning on putting down roots here in Tromville, or are you just branching out for new opportunitrees?”

The tree puns were getting old, and I had a decision to make.

Elaine was my name. I was proud of it. I liked it.

It also caused no end of issues, given that healer in trader-tongue was, naturally, Elaine. I had a nice title that I could use, a second name I responded to well, and even if people spoke Creation, it didn’t matter.

“I’m Dawn! I was passing by when I saw the flags, and I felt obligated to help. I figured I could see what organizational system you’ve got going on and work with that. How can I help?”

Melvinna tutted at me for some reason and frowned.

“Please tell me you’re not one of those oathbound healers? They needle me so.”

Now I was utterly confused. The leader of a Healer’s Guild… who didn’t like oathbound healers?

The parrot jumped in.

“Squack! Gems for service! Gems for service!” He screeched, the infernal thing having a Sound class to amplify his words.

My confusion must’ve been evident on my face. Melvinna sighed.

“We all have things to do, there’s a plague on. Short version. About a hundred years ago, three friends settled in Tromville, oathbound all. They were strong, their skill helped with regenerating mana. Each one claimed a different plaza and marked it with their skills. Anyone walking through was healed, at no cost, at no charge. Quick, easy, efficient. Over time, they became fixtures. Everyone loved them. They wanted for nothing, were charged for nothing. A paradise.” She practically spat the word.

“Issue was obvious to anyone with eyes. Other healers couldn’t compete. Why get charged a jadeite coin for medical attention when you could walk through a plaza? Who even got sick when their daily routine got them healed? One by one the other healers left town, and the three friends didn’t bother to train apprentices. They were living large, wanting for nothing while their skill worked.”

Seemed like a pretty good gig.

“Sixty years. They were the fixture of this city for sixty years. Then they were all felled in the span of a week. I won’t bore you with the rumors and theories. They were dead. And the city had no healers, not even an apprentice, and people used to not paying for healing. How woad you convince someone to move here? How do you restart a critical guild? Stumped? So was the town. I was brought in to fix the issue, and I did. Let me make the rules very clear to you, young sapling. You can heal whoever you want, and charge what you’d like. Guild law - which is also city law, so no getting smart with me - is a five arcanite coin charge per patient healed, per day. Now, how you get the money is of little concern to me, but word to the wise - you’ll bankrupt yourself trying to do it yourself. If you choose to take a room here and heal at the guild hall, we’ll handle all that, and pay you appropriately, after our cut has been taken. Good if you don’t wish to tackle the business aspects of healing, and simply want to help. I understand that I sound harsh and uncaring, but you have not seen a city with no healers. I have. It will not happen again under my canopy. Am I clear?”

The woman had gone all fanaticism and steel, a true believer in her cause. I didn’t agree in the slightest, but she had maybe a third of a point. None of which applied during a fucking plague.

I could argue until she dropped dead of old age, but I doubted I’d change her mind, and there were people out there I could heal right now.

I technically answered her question.

“Yes guild mistress. You’re clear. I believe I will manage on my own, you seem to be running a tight operation here. How much do I owe for the line I healed outside, and is there anyone I can talk with regarding combating the source of the plague?”

Her greasy smile came back, and I was once again uncomfortably reminded of a toad. A competent toad, by her own story, who’d reanimated an entire guild from scratch, but a toad.

“Well! What an understanding young sprout you are. I do admire the spirit of an oathbound healer, don’t get me wrong, and it is a noble pursuit. This one time, I’ll waive half the fee. Average of fifty people in line, five coins a person, 25 obsidian coins. Half of that is 12 obsidian coins and five arcanite. Barvah can collect the tax, and it’s expected that you pay once a week. He can also direct you to Tessa, who’s working on the root causes. It stems from fleas, if you could believe it!” She sounded so shocked and scandalized at that, like she wasn’t the head of the Healer’s Guild.

That was practically daylight robbery. That was a full day’s wages for an [Apprentice], and I’d gotten the bill for seconds of work.

“Understood.” I curtly agreed, unable to bring myself to making the nice polite noises I should make.

I turned on my heel and left the office as quickly as I could, Auri briefly making a subtly rude gesture in the shape of her flames, not enough for anyone to properly take offense to - it could’ve just been an accident of fire, like seeing shapes in clouds - but good girl.

I was wasting time here, people weren’t getting healed. People had probably died because I was delayed with the enormous ass of a guild mistress, instead of being out there.

The issue wasn’t the tax. It wasn’t the payment. It was the obstacle. I could literally heal people by the thousands. Needing to pause, collect payment, then move on would limit me to one or two people every few minutes. It was a fine setup when I was level 150 and gated by my mana regeneration. It was a completely different story when I was over 500, and gated by how many people I could get in range of.

Getting to know what was going on with the plague prevention issues was important, and I got quick directions from Barvah. I had a plan forming, and I chose, for the greater good, for the sake of the plan that was forming, not to heal the waiting room. There were enough healers.

I left the guild hall, and I’d never turned my [Persistent Casting] off. There was no visible line, no sudden purge to let slip what I’d done. But anyone approaching was going to find themselves miraculously healed, and I doubted they’d keep going to the guild hall.

I easily spotted Iona in the crowd, the Valkyrie a head taller than most of the other people here. She spotted me at the same time, and we quickly walked towards each other.

“How do you feel about becoming a wanted criminal?” I asked my girlfriend.

Iona quirked an eyebrow up.

“Tell me more.”