Blood of the Dragon V

[Prehysterical]

Vaex saw it differently, but he shut his snout and nodded. "All right, then. I shall keep my story straight, then."

Crawling over to Lux, Vaex asks, "So, have you made any observations from the Void samples?"

[Diachronos]

"Anywhere that isn't here, that's where."
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Lux frowns as she looks at the lump of corrupted flesh. "Dark aether seems to be... alive, like it's a living entity all on its own."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark sighs and stands up. He walks away from the building and lays down next to a different building to get some sleep for the night.

[Prehysterical]

"Well... If it's living, that must mean it has some kind of poison, right? Not even the undead are immune to everything." The only races more at home with poison than kobolds were the drow and serpentfolk.

[Diachronos]

As Stark tries to settle in for the night, he gets the feeling of something watching him.
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"Not quite like that. It's more like... how to describe it... It's as if it's trying to consume and replace anything that isn't made of dark aether, like how a mold of fungus would do to the surface it's growing on."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark sits up. "Ralek, you may be an immortal creature made of disgusting toxic sludge but if you don't give me some privacy I will sleep out here naked," he says aloud.

[Prehysterical]

That sounds even worse. Vaex frowns deeply. "It doesn't seem to be trying that with you right now. Why is that?"

[Diachronos]

Stark hears a hissing come from nearby, and when he looks for its source he sees a small cluster of mistborn lurking in the shadows of the buildings.
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"From what I can tell, it needs to enter a creature's body somehow in order to have any effect, and it can't get through skin on its own. I've put up some wards to keep myself from getting infected just to be safe."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark chuckles and stands up. "Oh? A little target practice, is it? Fine by me."

He raises one hand and blasts the mistborn with a ball of fire.

[Prehysterical]

Vaex blinks. "That's very odd... So this thing is capable of wiping out entire worlds, but even warmblood skin is enough to keep it back? I take it that that rule does not apply to corpses?"

[Diachronos]

A few mistborn are caught in the blast, but the rest scatter into the shadows.
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"It looks like the life energy in a living creature can keep it from infecting them if they're not injured. Corpses... I doubt they'd have any kind of protection from it."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark sighs and sits back against the wall. Seems like he won't be getting any sleep tonight...

As the mistborn rise up, he tries to keep them at bay throughout the night.

[Prehysterical]

Vaex drums his fingers on the wagon, deep in thought. "So then, golems would be useless against it? Or any other kind of construct?"

[Diachronos]

The mistborn retreat into the shadows each time Stark attacks them, only to rise up again. They don't retaliate or make any attempt to attack, though, just observe.
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Lux shakes her head. "No, it can infest non-organic matter too. Not quite as easily as it can infect a creature or plants, but I've picked up traces of it in the ground and the stones that the locals used in their construction."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark raises an eyebrow. "...Do you all answer to Xinia?" he asks after a moment.

[Prehysterical]

Vaex was grasping for straws, but how else was he supposed to drink when it felt like there was no movement and the glass was half-empty? "But they were able to contain the girl... Maybe, instead of trying to contain it,
we could make some kind of magic forcefield that keeps it out? Maybe limit it to a person's body instead of trying to cover a wide area?"

[Diachronos]

They don't answer.
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"That's definitely possible, it'll just take some time to study and get an understanding of dark aether's nature."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark sighs and rolls over. If they're going to kill him, whatever. He doesn't need to waste his magic on this. He closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.

[Prehysterical]

Time. Always time. The one thing that they didn't have. Vaex crawled back into the passenger seat, the wheels in his mind spinning as he struggled for answers.

After a while, Vaex starts tossing around another idea. Climbing back, he approaches Wendy and asks her, "Wendy, Lux is working on a means to repel the dark ether samples. Do you think that you could work with her and see if there isn't some compound or ointment that you can make to keep away infection?"

[Diachronos]

The mistborn don't bother Stark at all aside from staring at him as he tries to sleep.
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Wendy thinks for a moment. "I believe so. I'll need to do a thorough examination of it, though, and we might need to collect some additional samples."

[NeoSeraphi]

In the morning, Stark yawns and reads his spellbook for an hour. Once he's fully prepared and ready to go, he walks over to the house that Xinia holed herself up. "Morning! Ready to talk?" he calls to her.

[Prehysterical]

"Whatever you need, I'll get it," Vaex is quick to assure her. "Even if we can't just magic away the stuff, at least we can try to stop the infection from spreading through Stark's body."

It wasn't purely for the sake of eliminating a possible threat. Despite how antagonistic he could be to the young mage, Vaex did not want to subject the man to a slow, painful death under the Void's touch.

[Diachronos]

Xinia doesn't come out, but she does talk to him. "Oh, for the love of Hundron, you're still here?"
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"I think I can put together something to at least stop it from spreading. Removing it entirely is another matter, but we should probably focus on preventing it from infecting more people first."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark chuckles. "Of course I am! I told you, you're still recovering from those injuries. I'm going to stay here and make sure you get back to one hundred percent safely. If you still want to go back to the Void after that, I won't stop you. Are you hungry?"

[Prehysterical]

She was right. Boy, was Vaex glad that she was so smart! Not that Lux wasn't also smart, but Wendy was... special.

Vaex clambers back up to the passenger seat, trying to calm the maelstrom of tests and ideas in his head. He would need to have his senses about him in the Wastes.

[Diachronos]

"I'm fine. Get lost, it's dull enough mending my wounds without having to listen to you run your mouth."
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The group travels through the night, and soon after setting out the next morning they can see the gleaming white buildings of the capital in the distance. They should be able to arrive by nightfall.

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark sits down. "...What was your home world like, Xinia?"

[Prehysterical]

Vaex looks over to Taalia. "So, how do you want to handle going in? Are we just riding up to the front gate?"

[Diachronos]

"What does it matter? Remembering it won't bring it back."
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"We go through the front gate. If we want to convince the queen that we don't want a war, our best chance of doing that is to come out into the open."

[NeoSeraphi]

Stark smiles. "It's important to you. I know from how you acted when I gave you that book back. I want you to remember what it was that you lost, so you can find it in your heart to help fight to make sure no one else loses it too."