Chapter 555 – Meetings 5 – Blood analysis

Chapter 555 – Meetings 5 – Blood analysis

Although John would have preferred to try on his suit before Aclysia got it home, this situation was more important than looking decent on a meeting that would be hostile either way. Therefore, they, Tamara in tow, went back to the Guild Hall before anything bad could happen. They successfully avoided any reporters outside, and inside John’s elementals and the Sentry Golems were doing their work at keeping people away from him.

‘Maybe I should just place the teleporter on the roof of the Palace or something,’ John thought. He had hoped that higher Tiers would allow other people outside of Collide to use it as well, but so far there was no indication of that happening whatsoever. Paying the money to move it over seemed like a logical step to take. ‘Would also make it much easier to have Scarlett sleep over at night in secret... I should consider that later.’

They made it inside and stayed on the base floor. Under John’s lead, they made it to one of the many chambers to be used for private conversation. It was decorated like it belonged straight into an old mafia mansion, defined by two colours, dark oak and dark red. The carpet and the walls were of the latter colour, same for the cushions and leather attached to the chairs, but the furniture itself was dominated by the wood, from the central table to the boards of the tall shelf, rows of alcoholic beverages lined between a glass door.

Overhead hung a small brass chandelier, small magical lights shining like bulbs but flickering like candles on the top of each of the many arms. It illuminated every corner of the windowless room. There were chambers that had a view to the outside, the glasses mirrored to make the reverse technically impossible, but John wasn’t taking chances.

Under the guidance of Eliza, Tamara once more took a seat and watched them all like a child expecting a reward very soon. “So, on the face of it, we have three choices,” John began, keeping a close eye on the blood addict to gauge her reactions. “Number one, we kill her and are just done with this topic. Quick, inhumane, convenient.”

Tamara didn’t even react to the threat of death, simply once more saying, “Bloodmother,” followed by a variation of her usual begging, “can I have more?”

“No, shut the fuck up, the grown ups are talking!” Eliza shot back, and the woman began to pout as if she got a breakfast consisting of hard meat on waffles and chocolate day. “Do I even want to hear the other two things you are going to pull out of your ass? This creepy slut can be axed and we can be done with this shit!”

“Well, yes, because I would rather not kill anybody,” John stated and caused the blood mage to sigh. By all the love he had for them, sometimes it was really easy to forget how many of his girls had a rather careless look towards human life. To be fair, many of them came from times or circumstances were murder was a lot more common. “Number two is that we look for a cure.”

Theoretically, there had to be one. If the blood of Thana could be refined, it also had to be removable somehow. Hopefully in another way than what Herman had used to revive Thana, since that had successfully separated the blood from its host by making the blood eat the host. Even that would have gotten lost with the traitor. Still, if it existed, it could be uncovered. There was just one problem with this approach.

“However, none of us have the technical know-how for that...” John continued. “Which means we will have to trust at least one Apothecary.” Rave made a sour face while Eliza just laughed crazily like he had just said ‘all the Lorylim need is a friendly cuddle’. Not that he could blame them, even during recent events, that class of Abyssals hadn’t been pleasant to deal with.

“Not gonna lie,” Rave spoke out. “I’m kinda getting on-board with option one right now.”

Tamara still sat there with something approaching a blissful smile on her face. There was certainly an argument to be made that whoever she had been formerly was already gone. Her appearing on her own before them properly meant that she had either escaped whoever had taken care of her throughout the ills associated with her condition or that there was nobody.

“The third option is to give her more blood,” John finally ended his explanation.

“No.” The absoluteness with which Eliza presented that answer made it pretty clear that she wasn’t even considering it as a potential answer.

“Well,” he scratched the back of his head. “Then we are stuck with option two.”

“How about option four, shut her the fuck out and ignore the shit out of her?” Eliza suggested, not about to start a debate on which she knew the Gamer wouldn’t cave.

“Not only do I not believe that that is going to work,” John stated, already seeing themselves getting ‘assaulted’ by this woman the next time they stepped out the door, “I also don’t want to have her out there, harassing people. I also have the suspicion that option four is just a disguised and long winded option one.”

“Fucking hell, okay, go take her to the Apothecaries then!” Eliza screamed and was ready to storm off. Two steps towards the door, Tamara hasted after her Bloodmother and grabbed her feet. “You creepy ass...”

The taken substances were put into numerous tools that John didn’t know the purpose of. It all fed into an old computer screen, properly old, the kind that was built around a Braun tube. Units and signs John didn’t know appeared, fluctuated and swung back and forth a bit, to eventually lock at values he had no idea were good or bad. He also couldn’t figure it out quickly, which annoyed him.

All the Intellect and Wisdom in the world was useless if he had no idea what was even being talked about.

Medelnick, however, pretty quickly came to a conclusion. “Give her more blood,” he just informed them and then turned to them. The dots flattened for a second, his equivalent of blinking, then he just silently stared as if he was waiting for them to leave.

Instead, John had to ask, “So you know what’s wrong with her?”

“Urgh,” Dokt groaned but, realizing he had to answer to get rid of them, quickly got to it. “Essence mixing is nothing new. Dragons use it to create Kin, its essentially the basis for Demigods to be born and all that jazz. All we have here is standardized essence mixing with a blood medium. The mental connection is unusual, but I also can’t measure that, so that’s just your word and I don’t care about it.”

“If it’s so normal, surely you can cure it?” John asked.

“HAH,” it was less laughter and more a sound of outright mockery, “right, you know what a Dragonkin looks like?”

John did, actually, it had been the enemy that came his way in the Onyx One’s Lair, the Raid he still had to beat or even progress in. The one had been a massive mixture of centaur and lizard, with scales and everything. Nodding, he had a rough idea where this was going.

“Sure, I could rip that person apart and stitch the organs back together in something that resembled a humanoid,” Meddling Nick continued. “But I can’t undo permanent alteration to her DNA. This woman is already producing small doses of the addictive substance herself. Basically, she is keeping herself tripping, but not enough to get her fix. Murder her or get her all the way there, I don’t care which. If you do nothing, she is just going to stay a confused mess looking for her ‘mother’.”

“...Alright,” John nodded. “You have been surprisingly helpful and quick about it. I will remember you, Dokt Medelnick.”

“That better be a good thing,” the Apothecary grumbled after them. John was sure it would be. While neither friendly nor sane, John was highly certain that Dokt was ethical, competent and that his utter lack of sexual interest would mean he kept his hands to himself. An ideal candidate to be the Gamer’s go-to doctor.

Not the thing they had to contend with right now, however. “We’ll lock her away somewhere nice and secure for now,” John announced once they had made their way back to the privacy of their Palace.

“Hold on a fucking second,” Eliza stated. “You don’t want me to feed her more blood?!”

“Blood...” Tamara mumbled in her sleep, still knocked out from whatever Medelnick had injected her with.

“Not right now, no,” John answered. “I realized that we’re soon facing that whole separation issue, so maybe fooling around with your blood and related things should be postponed until afterwards.” There was no good reason for that. The worst case scenario, that Thana would jump into a different person that was infected with ‘her’ blood, seemed highly unlikely. Even when Eliza had died, the goddess hadn’t switched bodies and, essence sharing or not, normal people didn’t fulfil the condition of a shattered soul to even host Thana.

Nevertheless, there could be some sort of rampage by the affected. It was best to keep their powers low in that case. They could decide their ultimate solution, if the problem even persisted once Thana was no more, once this affair was done with. It was entirely possible that the entire blood thing would just disappear.

John explained his thoughts to the ladies at his side and ended the entire thing with, “So you have more than enough time to think about it.”

“Peachy as fuck,” Eliza’s dry tone was dripping with sarcasm.