Hope that her previously finished task for the people of this village proved to be one that was far from fruitful. Most of what information the man was able to convey to Augusta, it had been largely that of rehashed rumor and speculation, much of which did nothing more than to further convey to Augusta that there was no definitive link between this region and those who might have practiced in arts that were against God. This left her irritated more than anything else, frustrated that time had been wasted, delivering medication to potential heretics themselves, and all for nothing more than the possibility that what she had heard once before would have been echoed again. That, that was the key point in which made her annoyed than anything else, as though it were a deliberate and aggressive effort to try to ensure that Augusta would accomplish the task without any sort of expectation of having her end goal realized. She had half a mind to go about burning the entire village to the ground, rescinding and forsaking what was appearing to be a worthless effort and trip to follow a ghost story that appeared to have no genuine truth to it at all. However, not everything was for naught, as there appeared to be something slightly different to what the man described in the information that he was able to provide. He explained something to which she had trouble wholly comprehending, and as a means of demonstrating firsthand, the man made a proposition, offering her a chance to see exactly what he meant. He reiterated that the sight of what he was talking about would have had far greater weight and value to her than perhaps just what his words could have conveyed, and at this point, it – unknown to him – stood as the difference between survival and an inevitable execution.

Along the way towards a different location in the village, towards a larger hut that had initially seemed to have been isolated away from the rest of the town, Augusta noticed the stains of blood on the ground and on the walls outside, indicating that this was one of two locations, either a butcher or that of a hospice. Either would have worked with the brief explanation to which the man described, but even just the sight of a bit of blood did nothing to help make her believe that this was what he wanted to show her. As they got closer, the scent of death became more pronounced, leading her to believe that this was more  that of a hospice than a butcher. While both might have smelt of blood, it was the hospice that more likely to convey this sort of smell, like that of dying human skin. There was also another smell that she could not quite put her finger down on as to what it was, but she did understand that might have been indicative of what this man had meant by his words.

500/1000

Within the hut that had been turned into a makeshift hospice, the scent of blood and death were all apparent, with multiple people within the hut outside of Augusta and the other man having their noses and mouths covered as to prevent the scent from entering their body. She was far more than used to the scent, if not even having become comfortable with it by this point, though there was also something different about the air with these bodies. They weren’t just dead, but as though they were still dying, as if the flesh was still rotting, though to a degree more than what would be more usual than expected of any other corpse. The man showed Augusta a quick glance at one of the corpses, the body appearing to have entire decayed into nothing more than a husk, though still having a moist component towards it and enough of a body composition and muscle mass to indicate that even if it had gone through complete and utter decomposition, it had retained most of its body. She had never seen this before, at least not when it came to normal people. Dark arts, necromancy, blood Magic, these were all among things capable of producing effects that were similar or exactly like this, but to tell exactly what it was, she did not have the time nor the inclination to check for herself. It was clear though that she was on the correct path though.

There also lay another man, seeming to have been in a state of great pain. His screams were largely ignored by Augusta who had been farm more interested in the sight of the dead bodies than that of the rest of what was going on, so he had fallen to nothing more than background noise and sounds than anything else. That was a fine situation for this man to find himself in, given especially that his body was failing him. The infection that was afflicting him, it was likely fatal, and the only question was going to have been would he arise like that of what these bodies might have in the past or not? Augusta oversaw the man and his associates attempt to perform a risky operation that involved the replacement of the flesh and skin around the heart, as though a means to halt the infection in a meaningful way. While she believed that it would have not contributed anything towards the saving of the man, as it turned out it seemed to at the very least sustain him long enough so that he might have lived another night. It stunned Augusta, the apparent advancement that this village, out in the middle of nowhere, had managed to achieve, but also the infection that she had a chance to witness, as well as the effect on a living person. She was confident enough to say that the rumors that she had heard throughout here were not that and certainly had some credence towards them.

1000/1000