"People die every day, Quylla." Marth sighed. "Even if it's horrible, this time war would give us a common enemy and the opportunity to stop our pretentious squabbles. There's so much the three great Countries could learn from each other.
"You have no idea for how long I wanted to speak with my colleagues from the other nations. Besides, it's too soon to despair. We know this plague is artificial, hence it must have a kill switch. We even know the cure for its original strand.
"We already have all we need here. It's only a matter of putting together all the pieces of the puzzles. If we can't, it means we are still missing some of them. Don't obsess yourself with the cure and focus on the illness.
"Once we understand how to recreate it, we'll also learn how to treat it."
Quylla wanted to reply that it would be her relatives to fight in the front lines, but she was too tired and hungry to reply. In her frenzy, she had skipped lunch and was about to skip dinner as well.
When she saw the Warp Steps opening in the middle of the lab, she prayed for good news.
"Took you long enough for a simple recon. Have you found our undead?" Marth asked. They had no idea that the parasite contained Erlik's tissue and even that small piece of knowledge would have been a game-changer.
"No, but we can rule out Grendels as well." Kalla said before recounting them their encounter with the thrall and the discoveries they had made in the treehouse.
"Are you sure about it, Lith?" Marth was having a hard time to prevent his disbelief to leak into his voice. "You're the most competent Healer that I know and I would take your word at face value if not for your lack of understanding about plant folks."
"Damn sure." Lith spoke gibberish while his hands performed random gestures before sharing with Marth what he had seen through a holographic 3D depiction of the altered life force.
'Gods, I wish I could do that.' Marth thought in envy, and with him almost all of those presents. The members of the research teams were the cream of the crop of their respective countries, experts with decades of experience in the field of light magic.
Yet none of them was able to create holograms without the support of a magical device, let alone create hard light constructs.
"Professor, you can ask Lith for details later. Someone has to go there and take scans of the residual traces of the artifacts before they disappear forever." Phloria said. "Maybe it's nothing, but maybe it's how Erlik farms the symbiotes."
"Someone else, to be precise." Friya said, her stomach had finally settled up after being assaulted by Scanner's results and the long-suppressed hunger was kicking in.
"We're all physically and mentally tired. Unlike our enemy, we need some food and rest to work properly." A choir of growling stomachs agreed with her. Lith could go on, but Friya and especially Quylla were suffering from a massive headache due to lack of mana.
Marth nodded and had Lyta bring them back to their apartments, where the table was ready for eight and there were a couple of unexpected guests waiting for them. Kamila and Jirni were discussing in front of a big holographic map representing the entirety of the Garlen continent.
The map was filled with multi-colored dots and despite the unconcealed hostility in their voices, it wasn't addressed to each other.
"Kami, what are you doing here?" Lith's question made both women jump off their seats and hug their respective beloved ones.
"You're not going to get rid of me that easily." She said while making sure he was alright. Kamila was used to Lith facing attempts on his life on a daily basis, but that didn't mean that she was okay with it.
"Mom, what's that thing?" Phloria pointed at the still open map.
"We're hunting for Manohar. The green dots are his known hideouts, the yellow dots are the reported sightings, and the red dots are where I almost got him." She snarled.
"I swear that after I get his sorry ass here to solve this situation, the moment he is done working, I'll kill him first and Marth second."
"You almost got him?" Lith was flabbergasted. "I thought it was impossible."
"The Royals are not stupid and neither am I. We've been keeping track of all his research projects, making copies of his notes to know what was on his agenda. Thanks to that, we know where to search since the ingredients he's after are very, very rare." Jirni replied.
"Even ignoring the blatant violation of a mage's most basic rights, how do you even translate that gibberish? His handwriting is even worse than mine." Lith said, knowing that Manohar refused to write with water magic for safety reasons.
Mostly his own, since he would use the first thing at hand to jot down his bursts of inspiration, be it a napkin or someone else's clothes. It made his notes easy to lose and hard to recover from his latest victim.
"It's more than bad handwriting, it's a code. We had to hire his mother to translate it for us and believe me, she doesn't come cheap. Now sit down and tell me everything."
Lyta clapped her hands, making several dishes appear out of the house's dimensional storage. Everyone was a bit embarrassed noticing that Lyta would dine with them and that several side dishes included vegetables.
"Isn't it awkward for you?" Quylla was afraid that eating them would hurt the Dryad's feelings.
"Not at all. Once something is dead and digested, it's just food. Don't worry about me, dear. I made sure that to respect your customs, no human meat was employed to prepare your dinner." The entire table froze at those words.
"Do you guys eat humans?" Friya asked.
"Why not? Aren't they animals as well? We don't actively hunt them, exactly like we do for beasts, but if a conflict happens, they're a fertilizer as good as any other corpse." Lyta shrugged.
It took them a couple of seconds to remember that despite the fact that their appearance closely resembled humans, plant folks weren't humans at all. It wasn't just a matter of a different skin color or traditions.
Laruel had its own culture and morals, whether they liked them or not. Kalla had no problem with her food since the only thing she wouldn't eat was Byk meat, but according to her nose, there was none.
'Damn, if I ever visit one of those cities of Emperor Beasts Faluel told me about, I must remember to specify that I'm not a cannibal.' Lith thought. Beasts shared such traits with plants, feeding indiscriminately upon every life form, even their own kin if necessary.
Jirni listened to their story, trying to use her expertise about human plotting and power plays to make sense of Erlik's plan. Her face looked like it was carved out in stone, never betraying an emotion she wasn't willing to express, but Lith could feel that Jirni knew more than she was letting on.
"My opinion is that the plague is just a diversion." Jirni said after asking Lyta more information about the size of the armies in play.
"If his aim really was to follow the rules and dethrone Leannan in battle, he would have already challenged her."
