838 Purge-And-Groan

Nerissa smiles, "I'm sorry Aunt Rhea, but you know churches don't agree with me..." she says apologetically.

Rhea gives her a weird look, "Didn't stop you getting little Vienna christened did it?"

Nerissa blushes slightly in embarrassment, "I couldn't not, Dad refused to not make a big deal out of it..."

Rhea snorts, "You'd think with how many he's sired he'd been used to it by now." she says sarcastically before looking at Nerissa's companions, "And who do we have here?"

Mathias smiles at her, "I'm Mathias, these two are Jerma and Lennon, and that's... Barnock." he says, gesturing towards the man still being held like a suitcase by Nerissa.

Rhea looks down and only now notices the man foaming at the mouth while struggling against ruby chains, "Ah! I almost didn't notice..."

Nerissa "We'd like for you to see if you can release whatever is possessing this man."

Rhea bends down and looks him over, touching his forehead with a glowing palm and slowly nodding, "Hm, that's some strange magic..." she mutters before looking up at Mathias, "Could you all be otherworlders?"

...

Mathias slowly nods, "Me and Barnock here were for somereason teleported to this world... I fell from the sky near Piana and we'd only just now found Barnock."

Rhea nods, "Well, no known Miracles would work on this man unless Lord Solaire himself intervened. Fortunately I am in possession of a couple purging stones from when I last cured Sir Lambert and Lady Keira of their infertility. Follow me, we'll release the curse in the medical wing." she says, walking out of the main hall via a side door.

Nerissa "Aunt, I've always wondered... Why can Purging Stones cure infertility?" she asks, having wondered about it ever since father had made the discovery.

Rhea smile, "Ah, well that's a complicated question. First we'd have to start with why Sorceresses and Witchers are infertile in the first place. The answer to that is not because completely because of biological factors. Sorceresses sacrifice their wombs in-order to become eternally beautiful, but with a variety of advanced potions made by Lady Quelina and Sir Vesemir, that can easily be solved... The same can be said for why Witchers are infertile, they actually count as a different race, as such their sperm is incompatible with the other known races... This can also be fixed via a complex set of runic inscriptions that I myself have no idea how or why they work.

That isn't all however, even after fixing what is physically wrong with both, they are still unable to have children... Any attempt would result in failure. His Holiness tried many things to fix this, from having the Arch-Mage check their souls to extracting the eggs and sperm while trying to grow the child outside of their bodies.

All failed, until his Holiness discovered something no one had thought of before... There's a thing called Nature's Curse. All beings are subject to it, it is the reason Dragons have low birth rates and take centuries to grow, and the reason rabbits and rats can sire young and grow extremely quickly. The curse seeks to keep the power of the world's inhabitants at a certain level, and to prevent one race from taking everything over.

As for the reason it affects Witchers and Sorceresses? It's due to how powerful they are relative to other beings. His Holiness said that Nature probably sees their attempts at creating powerful beings as an attempt to subvert the world, as such, it curses Sorceresses and Witchers with infertility to prevent their respective races from taking over the earth.

That's where the Purging Stones come in, I'll not explain to you what they are, how they're made, or how that function as I believe you'd regret knowing, but they are sacrifices more or less, they take on the curse that's supposed to belong to someone, freeing them of it."

Nerissa "I see." she says, still thinking about whether or not this was true, or if her father had just got lucky and stumbles across a solution. She was sure it worked as she'd personally seen her brothers and sisters, but judging from how careless her father usually is, she wouldn't be surprised if he was lying about the whole thing.

Rhea grins at her, "That reminds me, his Holiness didn't require treatment when siring his own, meaning that Nature likely couldn't curse him."

Nerissa stops her before she continues, "Auntie, I'd rather not hear about what my father does in the bedroom." she states, causing the woman to pout.

Mathias "As interesting as this all is, could you release the curse from Barnock?" he asks, the group having stopped in a medical facility some minutes ago.

Rhea nods, "Put his on the bed." she states, walking over to a metal cupboard and opening it. Mathias watches as she pulls out a large stone-looking tablet and hefts it onto her shoulder, struggling at the weight of it.

Nerissa takes it off of her to relieve her of the weight and walks beside the bed, Rhea gets Nerissa to position the skull in the middle of the tablet to directly face Barnock... She does so and almost immediately a purple glow starts being sucked out from Barnocks eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. All being drawn into the eye and nose sockets of the skull lodged in the tablet.

It takes a couple minutes, but eventually, all of the purple light had left Barnock and entered the tablet, the skulls eyes eternally glowing with a purple glow. Nerissa sets it down on the floor and Rhea leaves to grab something else...

Mathias is dumbfounded when he sees her walk back in with a sledgehammer in hand, she walks up and strikes down as hard as she can onto the tablet, smashing it to pieces and causing it to release a wail and all the purple light contain within.,

Rhea casts a wide purging Miracle which annihilates the vulnerable curse as it floats around, looking for a new host and sighs. "That should be all." she says, wiping some sweat from her face.