un: drenched kitten of heated purrs, audio

[jeoha]

[ There's a pause, as he remembers how to use the magic, and then his voice comes through - crisp, low, commanding. He has his Prince voice on and he doesn't even notice. ]

You must go for the head. Decapitation is best, if you can manage it. Caving in the skull second best. Slice open the throat, third. No fancy footwork, no finesse. Your first priority is to keep yourself from harm, so only go for the kill that you know you can take. If you can't take it, escape.

[ He pauses, breathes. ]

We have been told to kill them, if we can. If you cannot, come to me. I will teach you how to fight.

We do not have the luxury of being ignorant.

Comments

forever written

[downswing]

These creatures propagate so?

[jeoha]

Yes. Some of them do.

Some are made by men without morals, who kill and then resurrect them before the corpse can rot, to set them upon their enemies.

Or oppress their people.

Some— if one eats the flesh of a man who had been infected, or bitten, it creates a new breed. The creatures they turn into spread the plague rather than simply rendering you dead.

I cannot say which these are. But a bite wound is lethal in any case.

[downswing]

And so, you released them.

[jeoha]

[ A deep sigh. ]

Unwittingly, yes.

Thus it falls to me to attempt to undo what I have done.

[downswing]

Costly error.

[jeoha]

Yes. But not one I could have easily avoided. I could not leave living men behind.

Assumptions always bring the costliest mistakes. I will own mine.

[downswing]

There are women alongside us. Children.

[jeoha]

All the more reason that the able of us know how to protect them.

The infected don’t care about age, or ability. A child will turn into a monster just as easily.

[downswing]

We were preyed for feeding?

[jeoha]

I can only make guesses, based on the knowledge I have, and it is scant when it comes to this world or its politics.

Whether we were intended as prey or not, the infected make little distinction.

[downswing]

'Infected.' Curable?

[jeoha]

Yes. And no.

If caught while the infection is still fresh, yes. If a body is plunged under the water, the parasites will leave it.

But if they reach the brain -

No. Then there is no coming back.

[downswing]

Then, we are butcherers.

[jeoha]

I would rather be butchered than become the monsters they become.

If the infection hasn't spread that far, it is easy to tell - they can still reason. Still think. Once they lose that, it is too late.

[ A pause. ]

But I cannot say how it works now, or if it works the same. Some of the infected here speak. And I do not have my physician to help figure out what has changed.

[downswing]

If this remains the same sickness.

[jeoha]

Yes. If it is.

And if Seo-bi were here, she could tell us. But for now we must struggle on our own.

[downswing]

Your realm won against them?

[jeoha]

.. "Won" may be an overstatement, but we... overcame. Eventually. At a very high price.

[downswing]

How much lost?

[jeoha]

The first outbreak was around 30. Men, women, children... It did not discriminate.

We didn't know, at the time, what would happen. When we found the bodies they seemed dead - mangled, skin darkened, all wrapped around each other and hidden under the floors.

They rose in the night. When the sun set, and the chill fell.

That first night... Nearly an entire city was lost. Thousands. We saved some - a hundred, maybe two. But most either succumbed to the plague or to the fire that tore through the city in its wake.

The plague spread. I do not know how many towns or villages it hit, but the refugees came to the nearest city. We defended as well as we could. The walls held, but the monsters... There were thousands. We could not stop them. All we could do was fall back, as the weather got colder and the sun no longer turned them away.

The gates to the province were closed, it's walls secured. But many thousands died. And when an outbreak was seeded in the Palace... maybe 30 of us survived. Hundreds perished.

But we stopped it. We learned. And we destroyed them as well we could. The work is still being done now.

[downswing]

( A city. Thousands lost. The plague, spreading like wildfire. )


We cannot abandon them to slaughter.

[jeoha]

No. We cannot.

[ There is a heavy pause, a breath. ]

I cannot.

They may think now that they can control them, use them. They once thought that in my homeland, too. But it is only inviting disaster.

[downswing]

They appear to coexist.

[jeoha]

They are instruments of war. If you call oppressing the populace through fear 'coexisting', then perhaps. But I do not.

My sword may be an instrument of war, but it cannot decide to cut on its own.

[downswing]

Agreed. But they are not actively preyed.