Floris sat on his bed heartbroken and defeated. The last of his resources had been used up and there wasn't enough time to gather anymore to continue his experiments. He had just broken the sad news to the villagers that there was nothing he could do to save them, and he felt like a failure because of it. He had saved the villagers countless times over the years from poisonous snake bites, diseases, poisonous spores in the air, and so on. But what he was dealing with now was some kind of outside force that wasn't natural to the swamp and was like nothing he had ever seen before, which meant finding a cure for it was next to impossible from the very beginning.
What he started referring to as "the sickness" was rapidly approaching the village. It grew closer and closer with each passing day and anything in its path died almost instantly. However, things were about to get a lot worse.
Alvis busted through Floris' door, making the alchemist snap out of his depressed thoughts as the door slammed against the wall, "We've got big problems, Floris!"
Floris stared up at Alvis for a moment, then hung his head again, "Let me guess. The sickness has reached one of the two creeks and is starting to approach the village?"
Alvis nodded frantically, fear and desperation clearly visible on his facial features, "Yes! What in the world are we gonna do now?! You seriously can't come up with a cure to this...this...thing?!"
Floris slowly shook his head, "I'm out of options. I just used up the very last of my resources; my swamp rats are all dead...the village is done for."
Alvis stared at Floris with a horrified look in his eyes, unable to say a single word.
Floris looked up at Alvis again, "We only have a few options left. Either we stay here and die with our home, try and resettle somewhere, or we face the inevitable and take off for the outside world."
Alvis gritted his teeth and clenched his fists tightly, "I...I don't...what other choice do we really have but to leave? I don't want to leave because this village is all I've ever known! We don't know what's waiting for us out there!"
Floris nodded in agreement, "True. The last of both of our families are here as well. If we leave, we'll both be the last of our bloodlines. Though...that seems impossible to change now, given our current situation."
"Yeah," Alvis said slowly as he looked down at the floor. A long pause of silence followed until he was able to think of something else to say, "The trader says the people outside the swamp use something called...I think he said it was cressency, or something like that."
"I think you mean currency," Floris said.
"Yeah, that's it! Do we have any of this "currency" in the village?" Alvis asked.
Floris nodded and stood up from his bed, then walked over to one of his chests, "I knew that one day we would have to pack up and leave due to a number of different reasons. I was expecting it to be because the villagers all died from old age...but I never expected this...sickness to be the reason for our leaving." He reached inside the chest and pulled out a small sack, "I've made a small savings of what they call gold coins in the outside world. Apparently, this is one of the most crucial things we'll need when we leave."
"Can I see it?" Alvis asked with a strong sense of curiosity in his eyes.
Floris nodded and handed him a few gold pieces from the sack, "It's some sort of strange...I don't know. Metal, perhaps?"
Alvis stared at the three gold pieces in his hand and observed them front and back, then looked at Floris again, "So...how do we use it exactly? It seems like junk to me."
Floris took the gold pieces back from Alvis and put them in the sack again, "Truthfully, I have no idea. Supposedly, you do something called "bartering" with it, but I have even less of an idea of what that means. I guess we'll find out when we get outside of the swamp."
"Yeah, I guess. But I still can't believe its come to this. Where the hell did this...sickness even come from?!" Alvis asked in an angry voice.
Floris shook his head and put the sack of gold pieces back in the chest, "I don't know, and I doubt we'll ever meet someone who does. As far as I can tell, there isn't another village in that direction for at least a ten-day journey. They're probably the only ones who would know...if they're still alive, that is."
Alvis sighed heavily and started to walk out of the room, but he looked at Floris over his shoulder before he exited, "I don't want to leave until we absolutely have to. I'll make some water skins for us and spend some time going further upstream to collect some clean water. I'll be sure to go far enough away so that...whatever it is doesn't infect us as well."
Floris nodded, "You do that. I've already told the villagers of their options and they're deciding what to do as we speak. I would be very surprised if they said they were going to move."
Alvis nodded, telling Floris he understood, then walked out the door.