Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 25: Game of Power

Chapter 25: Game of Power

It has been several days since the elf kingdom Malatas fell into disarray. Talks of a plague have thrown the people into fear. The worst of all it wasn't a normal disease. Rumours had it that those infected with the disease became violent and attacked indiscriminately everyone they saw. Their eyes also changed to a bright red colour. The symptoms were fever, headache, hearing voice even though nobody was there and vomiting a black substance.

The king has offered a generous amount of treasure and promised the position of the court mage for anyone who could find the cure for this strange disease. If you wondered why the king didn't ask the royal mage already, it was because there wasn't one. The last court mage was the sage Theoron who valiantly perished at the hands of the demon lord more than ten years ago, or so the legend said. The old sage was renowned for his wisdom. If he was here perhaps he could have a solution to save the kingdom. Alas the vacant seat he left was too much of a responsibility for anyone to take or even deserved to replace him. And so the position was left empty for years.

Yet that person might not be very far. A young elf woman who spent the last couple decades of her life into researching magic could still be considered as an apprentice as elf usually lived for centuries. However in her case, she compensated her inexperience with her effort and enthusiasm. While being far from powerful like the great Theoron was, Astrea had a vast knowledge pool left behind from her master combined with her unusual curiosity for magical phenomenon. And like every mage at this moment, her goal was to find the cure for this strange epidemic.

Astrea, wearing a dirty witch robe but with feathers almost crow like, unwashed for days and a cone hat, was going through books after books in her sanctuary, a small room filled with dust because of her neglect to clean up her own house. For days she looked at these books but so far there hasn't been record of any similar disease in the archive. Indeed such a malady would have been registered in history. Did that mean this was intentional and someone was behind all this?

"What am I missing? Perhaps I should change my approach. If it's a new disease then I won't find anything here.

Any epidemic must have a source. If I can find the source and study it, I can at least find a way to limit its propagation then find a cure later."

The young witch took out a mass of documents. They were scrolls containing information gathered by the Adventurer Guild and the King made public to facilitate the research. The people were already in panic. Rather than keeping it as a secret, the King thought it might a better idea to share with everyone the knowledge they had so at least it would appear that they did something. Also who knew people with talents could be right out there but just didn't have the proper intelligence?

Next Astrea took the map of the elf kingdom and decided to mark all the infected areas along with the date of discovery. With both the time and location, she could trace back to where the epidemic began. And she found it.

The first case started right in the capital Galahad. A day later it spread to the surroundings areas but not all of them at the same time. In fact the closer the areas to the main river, the earlier the date of discovery. Could it be that something was in the water? It would make sense that if the water was contaminated then the disease could spread across the land in such a short time. But there were so much places to cover, where could the source be?

At that moment an idea came up to the apprentice. First of all, the first victim discovered was in the capital. Secondly it travelled by the river to others part of the country. This could only mean one thing: the Sacred Fountain, the source where all rivers in Malatas originated from.