Untold Tales RPG

Aergannel stood in the door of the quarantine room, holding a scented cloth over her face to avoid gagging. "Don't breathe the air too deeply, we still don't know how it spreads," the healer's aide warned her. "We put these in a separate room in the hopes to stop the spread of it, whatever it is. At least inside the houses."

Aergannel's head was reeling as she watched the languishing, coughing patients lying on cots. She felt as if her heart would break as she looked at a small child coughing repeatedly, clutching a small telpy to his chest. "Why is he alone? Where is his family?"

"They're in quarantine in another room, we're watching them to see if they contract it too," the healer's aide said. "It starts with the cough and a fever, but as the fever escalates they begin to vomit blood violently."

"What happens to the one who have died?" Aergannel asked quietly. "How does their progress worsen?"

Someone in the room began to make retching sounds, and Aergannel turned to stare as a woman near the door doubled over and liquid black like the grounds of the coffee her family drank every morning began to spill out of her. "Stay back, lady," the healer's aide urged her, pulling her away. "It could be spread through contact with the body fluids."

Aergannel felt as though she might vomit, and held the handkerchief closer to her face to avoid breathing in too much of the putrid smell that filled the room. "She probably won't live another two days," the healer's aide told her, "this is the second time she's thrown up in an hour. It will get worse, more frequent. We still don't know what's causing the blood. We need permission to do autopsies, to look at the inside of the dead bodies."

"You have it," Aergannel said, swallowing back tears. "You have anything you want. Do we need to quarantine the city?"

"The prince needs to stop all ships from sailing," the healer said, "and to lock the city down, district by district. It's the only way to stop the spreading. Like with any disease, not everyone catches it, our only hope is that those who are infected will die quickly and we can dispose of their bodies."

"Restrict movement inside the city?" Aergannel asked, shocked. "But how will the healers get to the sick? How will we remove the bodies? What about food for the living?"

"We need more healers," the aide said, "and have sent urgent requests for some. But we need to keep the sick apart from everyone else and find the sick, lady Aergannel. And to, as you say, remove the bodies. We'll have to send healers to each district, it's the only choice, moving the sick through the city could infect others."

"There will be massive food shortages! Whole districts could die if they don't properly quarantine their sick." Aergannel protested. "Is this the official recommendation of the guild of healers in this city?"

"Lady," the aide said, "they're still hoping it will end with only a dozen or so deaths, but we don't know if any of these who have contracted it will recover. It could be hundreds, even if no one catches it after today because of the quarantines."

There was the sound of violent coughing in another room, and someone swearing. "I think it's best if you go now, lady. Take a hot bath when you get home, and put the herbs and oils in it that you would if you were trying to avoid a cold. If you begin to cough quarantine yourself immediately, don't wait and see if it's just the weather."

"Thank you," Aergannel began, but the healer shushed her by forcing her to leave quickly by a back exit. As she was being ushered through the healer's guild headquarters, she heard the sounds of what she knew immediately was a man dying.

She saw it through an open door; a man with wide eyes was sitting on a table, gurgling and clutching at his throat as if he couldn't breathe, and tiny rasping shudders as he tried to cough, as if to dislodge something, but there wasn't enough air. She stood transfixed as he drowned before her eyes, clawing at the air as if trying to find some way to surface, and he began to collapse on the table even as the last of the tiny wheezing gasps left him and a putrid smell began to fill the room. Blood was oozing from his open mouth.

"You have to go." The healer insisted. "You've stayed too long, you must go." The aide opened the door, pushing her outside. "Remember, tell the Prince!"