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The boy named Carl Copperhand was the son of Markus Copperhand and Lady Treebark. The blonde woman on the verge of death over this bed. He was around 11, and he seemed to be quite the crybaby… But I could understand him. I would also feel a strong sense of grief if my mother were to be on the border of death. Not as if I would ever allow such a thing to occur to begin with.
Ellergest attempted to calm him, but the boy continued crying. He seemed very affected and could barely muster words, but as he spoke, we learned that his mother had been ill for almost half a year by now. It all started with very small symptoms, which slowly began to worsen. She continued to grow pale, weaker physically, with indigestion that included diarrhea and puking, and even hallucinations. What kind of disease last this long without killing the patient but gives her all sorts of weird symptoms? I have not known much about diseases in my previous life because I was never affected by them as a Vampire, but it would certainly be dangerous for us to get closer to her, and also for Carl as well.
“S-She hasn’t moved from her bed for over a day now, s-she’s not breathing well either!” Cried Carl.
“Hmmm…” Ellergest began to analyze the woman’s pulse, it was weak, he also heard her breathing by putting his ear close to her mouth, and realized she didn’t had any sort of respiratory problem yet her breathing was becoming very slow.
“She’s on the verge of dying… Seth, use your spirit and try to utilize flames of recovery.” Said Ellergest.
“Understood.” Said Seth, approaching the woman in bed as he suddenly summoned his spirit.
FLAAASH!
A white flame suddenly emerged out of his chest, it was the size of a fist, and seemed to have a glowing core in the middle of its flaming body. This strange spirit was named…
“Sacred Flame Wisp!” He said, rather dramatically. Seth seemed to be a fan of his own spirit, and loudly chanted its name.
“Oooooooh…”
The wisp floated around the woman, analyzing her although it lacked any sort of facial expression, it was able to generate an eerie-sounding voice that resembled the voice of a girl. Seth quickly began building runes, and then a magic circle appeared in front of his hands. As the Spirit received the magic and its effects, and suddenly shapeshifted its body, turning into golden flames that covered the woman.
FLUOOOSH!
“Uwaaah! M-Mother!!!” Cried Carl, thinking that she would be burned, but the flames were not burning her, they were actually slowly healing her. Flames of Recovery was a passive buff-like spell that apparently enhanced the natural recovery of health of a target, it couldn’t directly heal, but it could maintain her in a better state for a bit longer.
“Calm down, boy! Your mother is fine, this is a fire that heals, it doesn’t burn.” Said Jack, who had the job of stopping and calming Carl, although his scary face, nature, and personality weren’t really good at keeping a child in check.
“B-But mom!” Cried the boy.
“Please, calm down. Everything is going to be okay… We will do everything we can to heal your mother.” Said Elisabeth, smiling warmly at Carl, as the boy looked at her angelic appearance and couldn’t help but feel captivated, stopping his mourning and calming down at the end.
“O-Okay… You promise?” He asked.
“We do!” Said Elisabeth while smiling innocently.
Meanwhile, Seth sighed in exhaustion. Accommodating his glasses which were falling down and then sitting over a nearby chair, he seemed to be exhausted out of his Mana. When somebody uses their entire mana. Tcauses a shock in the body that makes you feel tired. Although he seemed exhausted, he was able to resist it pretty well, he had quite possibly experienced this same pain and exhaustion several times, making his body more adapted to it.
“Hahh… I-I think that’s my last use of the day.” Sighed Seth, he had used the spell a few times already, apparently, so he wouldn’t be able to do it until his Mana could fully recover over the next hours.
“Hmm… Ngh…!”
Suddenly, Lady Treebark slightly woke up, moving around the bed while gritting her teeth. She seemed to be in pain, but not due to the flames, something else within her was giving her such pain, this “disease”.
Ellergest and I began to analyze the woman in more detail as Seth was able to delay her death for a bit. Ellergest continued using his “scan” spell, while I used my Demon Eyes by using a minuscule amount of demon energy that I masked its presence using illusion magic.
When I looked into her body, I realized there was something within the interior of her body. it had spread everywhere, and it looked like a black soot that emanated a dreadful aura from within. Was this the disease? No, it looked like some sort of energy that has been sitting inside of her for a long while.
“This woman… She is not sick.” I said.
“Eh?” Asked Carl in surprise.
“What do you mean she’s not sick?” Asked Jack. “What else would it be?”
“She was poisoned.” I said.
Everybody in the room suddenly raised their eyebrows. They suddenly put all their attention into the words I was saying.
“There is no sickness that would last over half a year with such symptoms that wouldn’t be lethal. She should be already dead if it were truly a disease. This woman has been slowly poisoned over time, slowly, with little bits of poison, probably daily if not biweekly. Her symptoms became worse as she continued putting more of this poison into her body. The indigestion, the hallucinations… These things that have lasted way too long are not a disease, they’re the result of poison.” I said, as I looked at Carl with a gaze filled with conviction, so the boy could believe me more.
“That… Makes sense. I have been scanning her for a while but I still cannot really find any sort of pathogen inside of her body. Usually people that have some sort of disease immediately would show some sort of color where these pathogens are but… I cannot find anything.” Said Ellergest. “If she was poisoned, then what she has inside is poison, not a disease…”
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