"My father is not well, so don't call on him for the operation."
On Main Street, Fina explained softly.
The witch's eyes widened, "His body healed when he wiped my neck?"
Fina averted her eyes, "Maybe you said something bad to make a medical miracle happen."
The witch was instantly so angry that she wanted to jump up and fight her.
Eleazar helplessly sidetracked the two, "So what exactly did you divine?"
"Smooth or not!"
"That's it?"
Fina explained for the witch, "The more complex the factors one wants to predict, the more inaccurate the results one gets, and vice versa, the simpler the factors are in divination, the facts tend to be less off by a wide margin, and following that process she did..."
"Very, very, very, very, very, not good!"
Evelea added, adding:
"You're an imposter astrologer who knows quite a bit about divination."
Fina glanced at her, "Very uneventful, this direction is so vague, anything can happen, have you considered what if it's his sneaky surveying that security finds out about and he's taken in?"
"We could have gone to bail him out, and now that you've egged us on to come, we'll all go in together then."
Eleazar looked at the two with a stern face, "Don't use me as such an unlucky example!"
...
Arriving at the town office building and confusing an official returning from an errand, they inquired about the situation.
"Mayor Dolenk has unfortunately contracted an illness and has gone back to the countryside to recuperate..."
The mayor of the town, who had contracted an unknown disease, coughed up blood frequently, became irritable and anxious, and changed his diet drastically, eating half-cooked meat at every meal.
He had gone back to his country estate a few days before to recuperate, and had left all the affairs of the town in the hands of a very shrewd and able clerk.
The three men looked at each other for a moment.
"It sure was rough..."
Walking to the station, Fina craned her head to look at a pensive Witcher.
"Think of anything?"
"Carnivorous, manic..."
Eleazar looked up thoughtfully, "Kind of like the symptoms of the damned."
"Tyranids, werewolves, ghouls, the beginning stages of being infected by these types of plagues all have types of sickness..."
"I shot another bottle over here of holy water over here!" Evelea held up her hand.
Fina looked at her with some surprise in her eyes all of a sudden, a bit in disbelief that this person dared to play so fancy.
Eleazar rested his chin, "I'm actually a bit curious about the druid's intentions for what he said, if the mayor really did have a plague-infected condition, he would have just said so, why beat around the bush."
"Never mind, let's go over there and see what happens."
Going to the station and waiting for a tram, they were ready to ride out of town, but on the way there, the circuitry failed and a whole carload of people were driven off.
Eleazar and Fina silently looked at the innocent-faced witch.
"I told you, this trip is going to be very, very, very bad!"
The private estate, built on the remote outskirts of the city, was so far away that it would probably take dark to get there on foot.
Eleazar looks around the town and finally hires a wagon.
"When are we going to get our own car?"
In the carriage, the witch whispered close to his ear.Eleazar flicked her forehead in displeasure, "The tax collectors love people like you who don't have any possessions but can buy large amounts of goods."
The lurching carriage, rattling toward the outskirts of the city.
...
"Guest, up ahead is Sheep's Horn Village."
The silent driver of the car knocked on the carriage behind him which did not move at all.
Both shoulders heaving Eleazar rubbed his eyes and pulled back the curtains to look.
"Keep driving up that unmarked road between Sheepscot Village and Jasper Mines."
Eleazar relayed the address that the city officials said they had.
The coachman fell silent again, shaking the reins in silence.
Eleazar looked silently out the window at the endless field.
The sky was overcast at some point, thick with clouds, and the plowed fields were gray.
Eleazar, who suspected that he had slept through the evening, took out his pocket watch and looked at it.
At 3:30 p.m., they had been on the wagon ride for almost four hours.
Is this going to rain?
"Strange, I remember it rarely rains in winter."
Suddenly, the horses in front of him stood up and hissed, and no matter how much the driver tried to pacify them, they could not be calmed down.
The two women in the carriage were awakened and raised their heads to rub their eyes.
"Are we there yet?"
Eleazar's face was stony as he sensed the surroundings and slowly stepped off the wagon.
"Thanks, that's all there is to it."
Even if they still wanted to continue driving forward, it was impossible; the keen horses, already vaguely aware of the crisis, refused to take another step forward, no matter how much their masters drove them.
Eleazar paid quickly, called the two women down, and then together they assisted the terrified horses to turn around, and before the driver could thank them, the horses were tugging at the heavily lurching up wagons like mad, and galloping off like they didn't want to die.
"Rob, slow down! Slow down!"
The coachman had a death grip on the reins, and his tone was equally filled with horror.
Eleazar watched as the wagon, which was almost on its side, quickly moved out of sight, and turned slowly, looking around again.
In front of him was a lush mountain forest, a wide road, set off by dense rows of trees on either side, slowly disappearing into the depths of darkness.
On either side there appeared to be hunting grounds, posted with signs saying private property, no hunting, but the forest was silent, as quiet as death.
Walking down the spooky, heavily wooded road, the three were secretly on guard.
"Blah blah blah blah..."
A chewing sound came from the forest on the side.
Eleazar and the two women looked over and walked down the footpath, poking through the bushes.
Inside, a wild deer was eating something with its head down, making a harsh chewing sound.
When it lifted its head at the sound of movement, the three's pupils shrank.
Half of the wild deer's cheek, long since decayed, with only a black hole left in the eye socket, exposed the white bone half of his face, where long rows of teeth could be seen grinding something blood red, with the slightest splatters of blood coming out.
The corpse deer looked at the trio with cloudy, whitened eyes, and slowly lowered its head again, tearing a piece of flesh from the carcass it trampled under its hooves.
It was eating a hyena.
"It's a natural plague!"
Looking at the mutated beast, Eleazar slowly took a step back and turned his head to look at the witch and warlock.
Just by being near a source of corpses, they were already infected with the plague, their complexions quickly turning dull and gray, and they could see the veins inside that had turned black.
"Rackpot, you all need to drink the antidote, quick!"
The witch covered her mouth and couldn't help but cough a few times before spitting out a mouthful of black blood.
Fina did likewise, her bodily functions rapidly corrupted by the natural plague infection, holding onto a tree trunk and vomiting black blood over and over.
Looking at the two men in pain, Eleazar crouched down on the side of the road and quickly concocted a high level antidote to the poison.