Norscan Misery 6
This...
This hurts. Pain falls on you like stars from the sky. You see purple, and red, and a whole kaleidoscope of colors besides. The world spins in strange circles, and you cannot tell whether your companions are giants or halflings-- it changes from moment to moment. They're probably speaking, but you are too busy writhing on the floor in agony to listen.
Pain isn't that new to you. That time as a squire, when that merchant slid his razor through your arm? That hurt. You've still got that scar. It sometimes twinges at night.
When your body was shattered at Aldium, and you suffocated under the press of greenflesh, crawling and scrabbling and choking, that hurt. You sometimes breathe funny during training-- not wrong, just...long.
When you rode, as your father's emissary, to the aid of Estalia against her foes and you were shot by Skaven-- that burned. That still burns, now, if you think too long about it, feel your shoulder give way under lead.
This? This is worse than any of that. This? Isn't going away.
Unless this passes, it's going to kill.
That thought brings sharpness, clarity, and your tongue starts working again well enough.
"Lady... You saved my life at Aldium. You gave me vissions, you gave me a mission. I'm not done with it. The world's still not saved. Grimgor and Maullobaude still aren't beat. And if they don't fail, a million souls will perish as slaves. The innocent, Lady, rounded up, and fed on and murdered and abused. Dishonor rampant."
You vomit up blood. At least, you're pretty sure that's what happened.
Pray To The Lady: 76/???
"Please, Shallya. Lady of my wife. Don't let me die here, in this festering winter. Let a son return to his mother, let a husband return to his wife." You grasp your shoulder, feel the the blood soaking armor. "Let a father see his child at least once. I'll pay any price you ask, mother of mercy, just please don't let me die here, and now."
Pray to Shallya: 58/???
"Ulric! Sigmar! You worthless bastard gods of a worthless bastard Empire! I've protected your name, father murder! And I'm told, False King, that you hate Chaos! Well I just slaughtered more of their servants than any ten of your priests! I showed valor and courage, and I'm told that you value that, as much as you value anything besides beer and women!"
Pray To Imperial gods: 10/???
"Myrmidia! I protected your flock at Aldium. Didn't I? Didn't I..."
Pray to Myrmidia: 10/???
You feel more red blood pour out.
You are going to die here. In this worthless hole of evil, and snow, and murder. You are going to bleed out, slowly. Your heart is going to slow, and slow, and stop.
You are going to meet Gilles much, much too soon.
Somewhere a crow's voice breaks the silence, calling you home.
It isn't fair. It isn't right. You start crying, if you weren't already. You were going to save the world, and now look at you. Dying in a puddle of your own blood to help a band of Norscans.
Pathetic.
Just like your life's been. They were not right-- but now, you'll never get to prove it.
Then before your eyes-- and you swear it is not simply the poison cutting off the oxygen to your brain-- you see mists beginning to pour in from the darkness. Water falls, and carries away the dirty snow in small streams-- gray ash is channeled, and the stone is cleansed.
From out of the mists, three women appear before you clad in pure white dresses.
The crow flies away.
You cannot see them, such is the intensity of light that comes before them. Their staffs are purpleheart, with many fine engravings exulting the Lady wrought into their body. Their eyes-- their eyes are like the very deepest depths of some languid pool found in the most beautiful forest of this or any world, for that matter. Blond hair is captured in a silken veil that falls far onto the ground itself, though it remains clean-- if only by the expedient method of melting all the snow from under it.
One of them takes a silken cloth with a lily embroidered in it, and wraps it around the wound where the poison entered. And immediately, the pain and the sweat and the very bad trip, they all end. Through the whiplash, you at least manage to communicate a very simple question:
Why?
"The Lady has asked much of you."
"She can give much in return."
You try to adjust the silk, only for the one nearest you to slap your hand-- and somehow it still hurts, even through armor.
"Do not-"
"Do not-"
"Do not-"
"Meddle with that bandage."
"It is-"
"-The Lady's very own favor-"
"-And a tourniquet choking and cleansing the poison."
"If it falls, every effect of the poison will return-"
"-If not worsened-"
"-And you will die."
Flowing, each starts then finishes sentences, one thought shared by three minds. It's oddly comforting-- kind of like what you'd expect if you had three mothers taking care of you. Not so bizarre as that sounds, but still.
"Thirty days, at least, to heal it."
"Be well-"
"-sons of Bretonnia." The first fixes Asger with a glare that could mountains.
"Betray them, north son, and the birds will feast on your carcass."
"The birds feast on every carcass one day, woman."
You really want to punch him. Raiding your people, blowing you up, and now getting into a fight with the Lady's Prophetesses.
Instead, all you do is say "thank you".
And with that they depart back into mist.
--
You've risen up from the ground where you were bleeding out, flexing your arm. The three of you are taking a moment to catch your breath, and to feel human again.
Asger has already started examining your armor, hoping to figure out how, exactly, the bone pierced it-- he is, apparently, worried that the extreme heat of the explosion weakened the metal some, or warped it when taken in combination with the rough landings you both had.
The Grail Knight has been silent.
You've been praying.
"Your name, Sir?"
The peace comes to an end.
"...I don't know." The grail knight looks to the ground, almost like he expects to see it written in the dust.
"...Pardon me, what?"
"I don't know my name. I don't know my family-- if I even have a family left. The last thing I remember is waking up in that castle, being interrogated by those men. That was a year ago.
All I know is that I am a Grail Knight, and I have to destroy this." He pulls a large, sickly yellow crystal out from under his clothes. It hurts to look at it. "I'm not sure how to destroy it, but the Lady has guided me so far. Further, I believe she has guided me to you, and for a reason at that.
I will confess, there is some chance that the beasts of Chaos seek us out for rewards from their dread master-- but she is not so terrible, and she is not so mighty, as they believe. They can be beaten, and so can that dark god. If you wish me to leave, I will-- but if not, I would like to travel with you."
[] Yeah, you'd like a Grail Knight with you.
[] You need to be inconspicuous and blend in-- not drag in every foul beasts that wants to end your life.
--
Gain Trait: Magical Poison Bandage- the Lady has gifted you with the method to not die of poison: A magical bandage. However, if it is moved-- not rattled, or shook, but moved-- the effects of the poison will return, and the stronger at that-- a potential weakness.
