'The journey has been long,' Kaiya thought to herself as she neared the top of the hill. 'But worth it if this works.' Kaiya had traveled many miles seeking a cure for a health problem that had plagued her for years and promised to soon be the death of her. This was a last resort; mystics were known to be a strange sort with many of their dealings carrying hidden costs for those they helped. 'What other option do I have?' Kaiya asked herself as she leaned on her staff, weary from the climb. In the valley below her, nestled beside a babbling brook, crouched a cobble and thatch hut: the mystic's home. --Karen
She carefully climbs down to the thatch hut and looks around before giving a soft knock on the door. It was a few moments before she was greeted by a young woman who had opens the door for her. The young woman had sparkling, deep green eyes that stared back into her ocean blue eyes. "Can I help you with something?" She asks Kaiya with a smile. Kaiya nods in return and collapses at the woman's feet. The woman helps her up and takes her inside of her home, which smelled of many herbs and different flowers around them. ––Furry
Gently the mystic helped Kaiya to a low bed, the mattress filled the air with a soft fragrance as Kaiya's body slumped into it. In her exhaustion her cloak fell open exposing the disease slowly eating away her humanity and her body. The soft round body of the mystic shuddered. She hadn't seen the scaly pus dripping sores at the woman's neck and arms in decades--far longer than anyone from the outside world knew; without a word she moved purposefully around her small house gathering herbs, black clay jars, a heavy iron pot became an impromptu basket, as she placed them on the bench her eyes drifted to the woman slowly dying on her only bed. "I'll have to burn the bed." A shiver ran through her as she worked the cleansing agents into a thick paste and took it to smear across the unconscious woman. Without hesitation the hands of Ancient Caldonia cut through the woman's loose dress and rolled her groaning body to apply more of the salve to the shriveling husk of a once young and vital woman. As she washed the body and smeared on the salve she found a brand, high on the outside of the woman's thigh. The bowl in her hand shattered as it hit the floor and she fell back on the floor and scrambled away. "Melipricosa!" she hissed. The brand steamed as the salve dripped onto it as if still fresh from the iron. – Riza (BWB)
The cause of the disease finally made sense. The mystic had been sure that both Melipricosa and those that had crossed her path had all died many decades ago. She knew that if the curse of the brand was there, the disease would continue eating away at the poor woman. She had to succeed in removing it, very quickly, if she wanted to have any chance of curing this woman of the painful sickness. She quickly went over to the bench that she had put the herbs on and got to work on a different salve that she could only hope would help. – Anna
The new salve was none of the healing kind, it was the one of pain and decay. She knew what she had to do. In order to undo the curse, she had to remove the branding with the acidic slave that ate away flesh, She couldn't let the new salve stay on the woman for a long time, only a couple minutes and the branding will be gone and the curse shall reverse, at the cost of a chunk of skin burned away. New salve created, she scraped a tiny dollop onto a stick and applied it to the brand where it immediately began to eat away the skin, and the woman winced in pain. Once the branding burned away she got water and washed away the acidic salve, quickly she put healing slave on it and wraps the wound with cloth, meanwhile the curse that the pretty woman bore reverses and the only thing remaining was the hole where the branding had been. - Hayday
