Shadows of the Past

It is not an easy choice to make. While your current state is worrying, it seems you are at least stable. Xochis life hangs on this. When you come back to her, she has awkwardly lain down on the dirt again, probably because standing strains her wounds, but you doubt she would admit any discomfort if you asked. In the little time you have known her, she always seemed so easygoing, if a bit headstrong. During the fight though? Her manic expression when she dropped on top of a spirit, armed with nothing more than an arrow? Unbidden you remember her admonishment about you not going all out in the training. By which she meant not actually trying to gut her with a knife. She isn't doing things by half measures and seems blissfully unconcerned of her own mortality. Maybe it is better to not confront her with your worries. The reminder that her actions, however well meaning they were, might yet claim her life might shake her more than the ravenous beast she faced.

So you keep quite, lest she become restless or panic. Neither would improve her chances if your state doesn't improve. A night of sleep might be all it takes, yet this is only a guess in the end. You simply don't know what the Fleshweaver did to you, and while it would be vexing to not know under different circumstances, there is still the horrible worry that your state is permanent. However, the numbness makes it easy for you to hide your thoughts from Xochi, not that she seems terribly inclined or well enough to see through your mask anyway. The choice to make camp in the cave for at least one night is easily accepted and so you bring down the equipment left above and a bit of wood to light a fire beneath one of the shafts. With the campsite prepared, it is with slight trepidation that you ask Xochi to lay down on her mat so that you can properly bandage her.


Despite giving it your best, you can't quite get a bandage to sit properly on her back. The wound is too large and too deep. It would need cleaning first and foremost, but you don't trust yourself to prod her spine in your state. You leave the slapdash bindings on her back regardless, both to keep up appearances and to not have any more dirt enter her wounds. Afterwards you busy yourself with the carcass of your foe. Not your fine set of healers tools, but the dagger it is that carefully cuts flesh and sinew to separate some useful parts from the spirit. Three legs you take, in the hope of finding someone to make you a new bow from them and maybe a dagger. The fangs would make fine arrowheads, the long and thin fingers just needing to be cut apart and sharpened. At last you take a plate of armor, which hopefully will be enough to pay for the work all of this will take.

By the time you are done, the light shining from the ceiling has already dimmed and the dull ache of your bones manages to pierce through the haze of your mind. So you lay yourself to rest, hoping for your problems to become smaller in the meantime.

---

You startle awake as a cold shiver runs down your spine. Around you, the cave is dark, except for a few embers from the fireplace and the bit of light from the waning moon. Getting any rest at all was hard enough and you couldn't even manage to fall asleep properly. A part of you seemed to be still awake the whole night and you recall clearly the feeling of your body resting while your mind was not. A few times it seemed as if you where not alone in this cave and desperately tried to wake up properly, but your body wouldn't obey. Maybe you just panicked. Maybe it was just a strange nightmare. Yet the nagging fear remains, just as the numbness does. You glance over to Xochi, who sleeps on her belly and wince when seeing the shoddy work you left on her back. This won't help. You won't help her at all in your state. Cold dread seeps into your bones as you watch her sleep.

Almost of its own accord, the small talisman Matlal gave you finds its way into your hand. Your time with him was dreadfully short, but he clearly knew more about spirits than even the Wise Men. Maybe he could tell you more about your state and how to treat it. Though even if he has a solution, will you have the tools and wits to enact it? Another solution comes forward again. You briefly entertained the notion of brewing an antidote from the remains of the spirit. Your master had taught you that Alchemy was the art of concepts, and while he was adamant to never experiment on your own, you have preciously few other options right now. Perhaps it is just the lingering effect of poison and you could cure it by creating an antidote, but the numbness feels still odd. It is not a feeling like any narcotic you ever tested, despite being so very similar. It seems as if something is missing from you, taken by the spiteful monster. Could you try to regain whatever it is? The vessel does not need to be clay jar after all.


The last spiteful act of the Fleshweaver still lingers and keeps clouding your mind. Something must be done, but what?

[] Set out to Tlamaca. You both need healers. (Takes roughly 8 days)

[] Contact Matlal. He might know what happened to you and how to fix it.
-[] Write-In message (Can be at least 26 words long. Message might be cut off if longer.)

[] Try to use Alchemy to brew an antidote.
-[] Write-In what organs and parts of the Fleshweaver to use.

[] Try to use Alchemy to draw from the Fleshweavers body what he took from you.
-[] Write-In what organs and parts of the Fleshweaver to use.

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AN: First and foremost, I would like to apologize for messing up the wound calculations last update. Due do a typo with Xochi's CON, I messed up the DCs for her healing checks, which depend on wounds taken, which I assumed to be 16, not the actual 21. Nothing bad happened in this night, so you are pretty much where you started and no damage was done, but I'm giving Xochi a free pass on Infection tomorrow due to sending you guys off with wrong information.
Should double-check my calculations when writing tired.

Skill gain and other frontpage updates will be done when you get home to Tlamaca by the way.