Born a Monster

I activated. Gangrene jumped back half a foot, yowling. Then she also fled the tent.

He came straight through. he reminded me.

[Unidentified disease encountered. Focus here to...]

To adapt, right? I focused on that message without reading it.

[Cannot absorb/adapt spirits with Absorb Disease. Using Bind Spirit instead.]

Oh, no, I didn’t want that either. For one thing, it wouldn’t work; Manahuru was far too powerful...

[Binding enforced.]

Blah, blah, XP messages.

.....

screamed Manahuru.

“no...” I moaned. I mean, what the ACTUAL crap? I lose Gamilla, I lose Madonna, Kismet... had a price tag attached. I return home, and the only one who WANTED to be part of me was a disease spirit?

A freaking DISEASE spirit.

And even that was trying to pull away.

He kicked and screamed and did things to my liver, my kidneys, my brain. He disrupted the balance of my digestive tract; twelve hundred biomass of damage with just a flick of his will.

[You have three times your Might in Severe Injuries. You must make a Healing check against rating 5 to regain one health for the day.]

I started at my brain, with the [Encephalitis] that might kill me. It was a symptom, though, not a disease, and there were two of them. That said, both were Pathogen 4, and my Might was 5, effectively seven, because I’d learned not to mess around with poisons, sickness, or bleeding.

I needed to do something about Impact damage, too.

Having exhausted his mana, Manahuru finally tried talking.

I said.

He yelled, he cursed, he even struck at my spirit until I cut him with the Jaws of Wrath in retalliation.

Had Blacksnake been capable of that? She’d never TRIED, not that I could remember.

I said.

I started again at my brain, with the ritual of tapping.

he chuckled.

I could, however, tap the natural sepsis of the man from the corner.

Perhaps not, but I COULD get the mana needed to ... damn it.

I said, bolstering my immune system.

Dang it. My intestines, and the mess he made there were... wait, wasn’t there an evolution for that? There was, but I needed biomass, and the network of life that provided me with the very nutrition that I needed to fight off this wave of diseases.

In my physical stomach and intestines.

A quick check of my System stomachs verified the truth; whatever liberties Manahuru would take with my physical body, he couldn’t reach into my System. So whatever else happened, I could rely on having a source of biomass. So long as I could get food.

For the most part, I ignored Manahuru’s rantings. I truly wish I could say he was wrong, but he seemed confident in his abilities. If he were capable of this much damage every single day...

No. I’d survived diseases for four years. I had fought spirits and survived. I had...

Well, I couldn’t count surviving the angel. She’d had me dead to rights.

He’d set his attacks across a broad spectrum. Not only of organs, but of damage types. Biological, Toxic, even Neural. From Lifeshaper, I selected Bolstered Life, and ability that granted me armor against six points of Biological damage. I couldn’t use it as many times as Nerves of Steel, for example, but it would grant me...

Manahuru said.

At that point is when Flora, the wife, came rushing into the tent. “What manner of nonsense is going on here?”

“I will need fifty servings of food, roughly every two hours.”

She folded her arms before her chest. All matrons have that ‘you are in trouble’ stare, but forgive me thinking that Uruk have an advantage with the Intimidation roll. “Oh, do you now? And why is that?”

“I have become entwined with a spirit of disease.” I said. “One powerful enough to scare your spirit of healing.”

One of her hands darted forward, so she was looking into my remaining eye. Her voice was less stern, almost pleasantly curious. “You can see her?”

“Shaman.” I said. “I need to engage an ability, but yes, I can.”

“And you can share that vision through a group link? Wait here.”

It turns out that Flora enjoyed spirits in general, and ‘her’ spirit in particular. But she lacked the spiritual power to talk to it on her own. Twice a day, I was enlisted to let the two of them speak. Not just for medical purposes, although that sometimes happened.

No, I was enlisted to let Flora and her-him talk about things the spirit didn’t understand, in the manner in which small girls might discuss such matters. And no, those are NOT my discussions to speak of here.

“So, you can end this disease spirit? I’ve suspected for days that it’s been preying on our patients.”

“I can guarantee that it will no longer trouble your patients.”

She wagged a finger at me. “That is not the same thing.”

“I may have... accidentally... bound us to each other.” I said.

“You are HOSTING the damn thing?” She brought a fist down, bouncing my head off the floor.

When awareness returned to me, there was an elder man, pushing plates and bowls of food near me with a cane. A sixth dish resided in his lap, and he ate in a slower and more civilized manner than I did. My feedings were closer to forty servings than fifty, but I’ve made the point multiple times that properly imbued food, made from imbued ingredients... it was more than enough.

While Manahuru hadn’t lied, it had exaggerated. You see, when a body resists a specific disease, it builds up a resistance. While Manahuru had access to two dozen diseases, after the second day of fever, it was clear that time was, for once, spinning the loom of fate in my favor.

Not that it was all one-sided, even with the System numbers in my favor. Manahuru was an experienced killer, and had many tricks, an expert in using diseases with overlapping or complimentary effects. My favorite was watching as he unveiled Hemorrhagic Fever and Blood Plague at the same time, and just letting my already existing anti-bleeding measures take care of that.

On the fifth day, my liver was in sad shape, one of my kidneys had outright died. My blood pumped dead blood cells with the living, and my body still blazed hot. But I had a single point of health, and could remain awake for... well, okay, for only half an hour or so at a time.

I was spent, but so was Manahuru. He regained roughly eight mana each day, but it just wasn’t enough. Properly fueled, my own healing abilities are... impressive. I had regrown from two skinnings, a disembowelment... but you know this, having read about it in my earlier works.

Although I’d done my best to defend my brain, it felt like I was fighting my way through cotton just to form basic thoughts, basic words.

A wave of sorrow and resignation came from Manahuru the Fever.