Lore for May
Tittle: The Walking Pest
PART 1:
After what the Man-Bear explained to me, I decided to find out first hand, so I went back to the Thebas Market…
I was hesitant about appearing at Queen Penthesilea’s court, when I overheard a casual conversation between a shopkeeper and his customer:
Transcript of the conversation.
-Yes, Temocles… as I told you, several have died there in the town near Larissa.
-Come on, man, with the artifacts of the visitors, no one dies anymore… No doubt Hades will be worried about the lack of souls that he will have, ha ha ha…
-Yes, yes… that when they went to resuscitate they writhed and died in excruciating pain… The one who brings me the merchandise told me, and I swear to the gods that guy doesn’t lie…
End of Transcript.
So apparently it all started in Larissa… Curious… I should definitely go for a walk around that town…
I approached the TP, and in a big flash I was dematerialized and reappeared in Larissa.
Still blinded by the lights of the TP, I took a step forward to trip over something and fall rolling on the ground… Gods, what the hell was that?..
“That” was a corpse at the feet of the TP… His lifeless eyes with petechiae, his hands clasped, in an unnatural posture… Since the Revives, he hadn’t seen a corpse in years…
I left the vicinity of the TP and took the road towards the town… As I got closer, the smell began to be indescribable… The smell of a corpse… And my fears were seconded when I got to the town…
A ghost town, with some bodies on the ground, and I imagine more in the houses…
A noise startled me… Turning my head I saw several survivors looking at me… They were haggard, hungry no doubt…
-Foreign!!! Can you help us? –Said one of them with fear in his eyes.
I cautiously approached while activating the air filter of my mask… luckily the Viceroy was a very airtight armor, so I was reasonably protected from possible viruses.
-What happened here? - I asked for.
-We don’t know… just that a few days ago some of us got sick and died between fevers and convulsions… then the Sky People Artifact was not able to revive them – She answered with a shadow of pain in his eyes.
A girl next to him tugged on his robe.
-No dad, they came back to life… but badly… They writhed, screamed and really died.
I looked at the girl…her eyes were afraid.
-Why didn’t you run away? -I asked for.
-We couldn’t… The village chief blocked the Artifact’s exit, and the roads have been unsafe for days… A band of very ferocious Arges has appeared and is prowling around and preventing us from leaving… We are going to die here…
-No man, we can do something to…
I couldn’t finish the sentence… The guy stared at me and suddenly the veins in his pupils burst… he opened his mouth and just collapsed dead…
We were all shocked… the body dematerialized and suddenly a strong light appeared in the nearby revive… The guy was going to resurrect…
He opened his eyes and… An animal scream pierced the air… his spine bent to unsuspected limits and his fingers caught like claws… Seconds later he remained motionless, dead…
The rest of the survivors ran out screaming… the fear of getting infected made them flee…
Well, the TP wasn’t working back, so I decided to take my Quad and fly to a friend who could help me… Doctor Borward.
PART 2:
I arrived at Pearl Cove and asked for Boward… They sent me to the upper floor, to the famous laboratory already known to me… there he was with his assistant Peter preparing, you know the Gods I experience…
In a few minutes I brought him up to date on what had happened… He looked at me in disbelief, unable to believe what I was telling him.
-But Dante, that’s impossible… The Revive works thanks to the DNA banks, and all the people here were scanned when we implanted the technology… Including Greece, thanks to the fact that Queen Penthesilea saw the advantages… So that doesn’t make sense …
-Okay, okay, come with me and check it out…
It took me a while to convince him to come with me… Boward had been a good soldier, but he had been a scientist for a long time now… Anyway, from his locker in the lab he pulled out a dusty old suit of armor from the days of the ancients first Elysian settlers and placed it.
From the laboratory he took out a series of devices, samplers and other scientific accessories and placed them in a briefcase… Once equipped, we went to the PT and, with a blinding light, we appeared in Larissa.
Boward’s face of surprise when he saw what happened was priceless… he moved carefully, as if some unknown danger was stalking him… yes, he stopped being a soldier a long time ago…
We approached the Revive and there was still the guy who died in front of me… Boward came over, opened his briefcase and started taking the equipment out of it…
For the next hour, Boward was busy examining the body and taking samples of all kinds… He filled various test tubes and other containers with fluid and tissue samples… He looked at me and nodded… Time to go…
It’s been several hours since we got back… Borward locked himself in the lab with Peter and they didn’t come out for anything, not even to eat… finally, when he was about to go in and ask, they both came out…
-Damn Dante… I can’t figure out what’s going on with this!!! -exploded.
-What’s going on? Have you found out anything? -I asked for.
-Let’s see… It is clear that it is something viral, since fevers appear and certain indicators in the tissues that imply viral activity, but… That the resurrection does not work? That depends on the DNA of the people, and this is correct, I don’t see anything in their DNA… I don’t understand.
Borward looked dejected… Not knowing what was happening had left him depressed… I decided to give him some encouragement.
-Come on Borward… if you haven’t been able to, at least you have results and tests over and over again… Maybe in another laboratory they can…
He looked at me… he nodded silently, he knew I was right…
-Okay… We should seek help among other more technologically advanced factions… I know people between the Loyalists and the NEO… You know they don’t get along very well with each other, but we could ask… I would go first to see some scientific friends I have between them. The Loyalists, let’s see if they can get something clear with the material that we are going to bring them…
No sooner said than done… It wasn’t too far, so we gathered what we needed, put the coordinates in our TP Chips and with a flash we disappeared from the lab…
PART 3:
Our visit to the Loyalists did not produce results: after several hours of tests, not even with their laboratory and Borward’s help were they able to obtain a possible reason for the deaths…
Borward and I went back to Pearl Cove… We had no idea what was going to happen…
Boward, what do we do? This is beyond us… Maybe we should talk to Chief Socrates – Really, I had no idea what to do…
Dr. Boward looked down…he could almost hear the gears in his mind: If we let Chief Socrates know, and with something as serious as a deadly pandemic, the Central Government of Calypso could quarantine the planet, declare Martial Law, or send the armed forces to prevent possible revolts… We did not know…
On the other hand, we could try to keep looking, but time was against us: If the epidemic spread from that town to the rest of Greece or Next Island and it was found out that we were aware of it and did not notify… Well, we would spend a long time in the Rocktropia Prison-Planet.
-Dante, I think we should go back to the town and continue taking samples, but… if we see something strange that indicates that the epidemic is spreading from there to the rest of the planet, we urgently notify Socrates… okay? -He told me, as a last option…
Said and done, we took the closest TP to Ancient Greece, and we appeared in Thebes Market… The deafening bustle surrounded us… We looked around and… I saw something that left me perplexed…
A girl was coming from one of the streets… barefoot, dirty and with her clothes in ruins… I recognized her… She was the girl from the village… the one whose father died before my eyes… How did she get to Thebes???
I nudged Borward, who didn’t know who that girl was… I was going to explain when I heard a scream that made my blood run cold: The girl was screaming while her pupils were bathed in blood, and she fell to the ground dead…
People were hardly scared or surprised… nobody knew what was happening, but the fact that whoever died in the Entropy Quadrant came back to life meant that people were no longer amazed at any death…
The girl dematerialized and reappeared in Revive…
What no one had foreseen is that the girl would die again in front of her eyes, in an unnatural position, with her hands hooked like claws… she was a FINAL DEATH, and people were not prepared for that…
The epidemic had left Larissa and was going to spread throughout Ancient Greece…
PART4:
That’s it: The pandemic had left the town… We didn’t know how, but the girl had escaped from the town, eluding the Arges gangs and through the fields, since the town’s TP had been blocked.
Within a couple of hours, everyone knew something was up: Thebes market was deserted, and Queen Penthesilea had sent a couple of squads of hoplites to see what was going on…
Borward and I hid near the prison…
-Dante, how is it possible??? The pandemic is here… - Boward was terrified, and it was not for less…
-Let’s see, we must keep a cool head… Two state-of-the-art modern laboratories have not found anything… Maybe the way we do things is not correct… - An idea was brewing in my mind…
Borward looked at me without understanding… Let’s see how I explain…
-Look Borward… This is Ancient Greece, thousands of years ago… There were different diseases than we have today, with different symptoms…
-And what do you mean? – Borward did not see my reasoning.
-Well, maybe it’s a disease of those times, with microorganisms or viruses of those times and that we could still need a doctor of those times… - I looked doubtfully at Borward…
Once again the gears of his mind started moving… And suddenly he saw it clearly.
-TRUE!!! Let’s remember how Smallpox was eradicated at the end of the 20th century, or how AIDS was eliminated in the 21st century… today nobody would know those symptoms, nor a remedy against them… -A smile lit up his face.
-Exact!!! Maybe this was a known disease in those days, which was later eradicated or simply disappeared and did not reach our days…
-So we must look for a doctor from this time… And in that case…-he looked at me cautiously…
-Come on, Borward…
-That in these times, the legends told about a famous doctor, who was also one of the teachers of those ancient heroes… what were they called?.. ah, I remember… Ajax, Achilles and Jason… his teacher It was the Centaur Chiron…
A CENTAUR!!! But how the hell are we going to contact a Centaur??? As soon as we get close to their territories, they will come in flocks to kill us… They are very warlike, and there is no news that relations between centaurs and humans have improved lately…
But there was no other choice… We should approach Knossos, and from there enter Centaur territory beyond the place of the Gorgon…
PART 5:
We dodged the hoplite patrols and approached the TP… In a flash we appeared at Knossos, as memories of our great adventure with the Gorgon flashed through my mind… We mounted Borward’s Quad and traversed the island…
We landed in a clearing in the middle of Centaur territory, although we didn’t see any in the place… We looked around us warily…
-Dante, I don’t see anyone… Where are they? – Borward looked scared…
-Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re already watching us… Besides, they don’t usually live in large groups, so I don’t think…
The sound of a horn interrupted me… And from a nearby forest appeared about two dozen Centaurs… They approached us at a light trot…
-Borward, don’t worry, there are few…
Why did I say anything… More appeared from a nearby cave that we hadn’t seen… and several more had been hidden behind a huge boulder…
We were surrounded… They looked at us with their reddish eyes… Their muscular torsos protruded from the lower part of a horse’s body… Horns adorned their heads, and when they opened their mouths, fangs gleamed… Honestly, they looked menacing…
And suddenly, simultaneously, they unsheathed curved swords similar to Falcatas… Each one carried two swords, using the style that, much later, would be baptized among the gladiators of Rome as “Dimachareus”…
-Dante, I think we have a problem…- Borward said as, suddenly, between screams and clashing swords, the centaurs charged at us…
What the hell!!! An angry mass of centaurs surrounded us and came at a furious gallop, swords drawn…
Well, we have two options: Either we fight, or we get killed and appear in the Revive of Knossos…
As he decided on the best option, a loud howl could be heard even above the noise of the Centaurs galloping…
They screeched to a halt… Their paws tore up clods of earth and grass as they stopped abruptly… They looked around as if searching for something…
In the middle of one of the groups of centaurs a figure emerged… It was a Centaur too, but something different… It had esoteric symbols painted on its torso, it did not carry swords but a staff, and the mane that came out of its head was braided…
With a majestic step he approached us… He looked us up and down, noticing our armor and weapons…
-Foreign!!! What are you doing in our territory??? – His voice was stentorian, but at the same time there was a hint of education…
-Excuse me, we come from Thebes and we are looking for… -I said
-Stupid!!! No one enters Centaur territory and lives to tell the tale…unless the gods have sent you…is that right? He stared at me with his reddish eyes…
Borward chimed in:
-Sir, we are not gods nor do we come from them… There are problems in Greece and we need help…
The being looked at us from landmark to landmark…
-In that case… If Greece needs help, it’s because the gods have abandoned you… Why should we help? - With a threatening gesture he pointed to us with the staff…
-Wait, wait… I see that you are the head of these Centaurs – I said, trying to intervene and prevent them from killing us… - Who do we have the pleasure of speaking with?
The being looked at me mockingly and replied:
-Who are you talking to? My name is Chiron…