47. Recovery
Alyssa had been explaining that Rys needed medical help and how worried she was that he might die without help soon. The old woman put a hand on her shoulder.
"I saw my dear. Don't you worry, my husband here, Harvald, is used to taking care of our village's health. He will take a look at your friend. I'm sure he will pull through." She led Alyssa to a seat in the room. "Now you all look worn out. Let's get some food in you and get you some rest." The old woman walked to the kitchen and the man made his way to the room they had left Shi and Rys in. Castus was worried though. While it would be difficult to pin them as transplants unless they revealed something, the symbols that were present on their bodies offered a vital clue into their true identity.
As the woman cooked she made some small talk. She discussed the village and gossiped about some of the villagers trying to do crazy things like taming a monster to plow fields with. Honestly the woman could talk to a brick wall. It's like she never stopped talking. During a moment where she was sucking in air to continue another lengthy ramble, Castus jumped in. "Excuse me, I wanted to ask. What is your name? You're providing us will all this help, but at the end of the day we don't even know your name yet."
The woman chuckled. "Oh, how silly of me. I'm Mary and don't worry about it. I couldn't bear to watch children suffer." She turned back to continue cooking. "Why do you know Ryden?" Cerone asked. It was a good question. The woman spoke while stirring a pot. "I used to be a Ryden citizen, but that was, oh, nearly fourty years ago. Back then the Ryden kingdom and the Morden kingdom got along quite well. When the border disputes began I had just married Havald. We moved a bit deeper into the Morden territory to avoid the warfare." She had a sad smile on her face. She moved to scoop out some food into a few bowls for everyone, then moved to set them down on the table. "That's all old history though. Eat up and get some sleep." The group looked at each other and did as they were told. Once everyone had eaten the moved back to the rooms and quickly fell asleep.
The next morning Castus woke up earlier, which was rare for him. Looking around he noticed everyone else was still asleep, but something felt missing. Looking over to Rys' bed he noticed that Rys was missing. Panic overtook Castus as he barely took time to get dressed as he rushed out of the room. The house wasn't large, so it didn't take long to search. He found Rys laid out on a wooden table in living room. Havald stood over Rys' injured and infected leg. Havald was holding a saw and looked to be preparing to cut off Rys' leg. "Whoa, whoa, wait, wait!" Castus shouted. Swinging his arms in the air. While Havald didn't speak Ryden the noise and movement halted him. He looked at Castus confused. Mary entered the room fortunately and after a quick discussion with Havald she turned to Castus. "Child, you should come with me." She took his hand and the walked out of sight of Rys.
Mary took Castus out to the front porch of the house and began talking. "Havald said that his leg is too far gone. The infection has rendered the leg dead. If he leaves it on, the infection will spread. I know this is hard for you to process, but I promise he is helping your friend." Castus looked quickly towards the living room with concern. He had seen the leg, he knew that Mary was most likely right, but he had just met these people, could he trust that this was kindness? They waited on the porch for a few minutes, Mary trying to comfort Castus and Castus trying not to worry that this wasn't some trap. The feeling of freedom that he now had, he wanted to keep it and the doubts and suspicions of everyone around him where seriously heightened. It didn't help that Wyden and Zed had left them for dead, destroying any trust Castus had in them.
Havald came to the door and spoke something to Mary. Mary nodded and told Castus. "He stable now, we can go take a look." Heading back inside Castus saw Rys, now missing a leg, with red bandages wrapped tightly about halfway up his thigh. Havald had cut off nearly all of Rys' leg. He was certain that wouldn't be a happy addition to Rys when he awoke. Mary then showed Castus how to drip water into Rys' mouth and left him to take care of Rys while Mary and Havald went out to take care of their crops.
Castus dripped the water into Rys' mouth and then remembered Shi in the other room. After he believed he had given Rys enough water he moved back to the room to give Shi some water. Entering the room caused Cerone to stir awake. "Castus, I didn't sleep too long did I?" She groggily asked.
Castus took a seated position next to Shi's bed and began dripping water into her mouth. "No, I only got up a little bit ago..." Castus hesitated about telling them about Rys, but decided too as his body was in the living room right now. "Havald had to amputate Rys' leg," he spoke somberly. With that injury Rys would have to take an exceptionally long to adjust to the point where he could travel with them.
Cerone seemed unbothered by it though. "Just the leg huh. I guess he got lucky. I thought he might lose part of his torso too." Castus was shocked by Cerone's seemingly carefree attitude about the missing limb. "Cerone he's going to have to deal with a missing limb for the rest of his life, isn't that making light of his situation?" This only prompted a snicker from Cerone.
"Castus, you forget what world we are in. Missing limbs can be healed with magic. He might be missing a leg for a bit, but if we can find a decent magic healer, he can get it back." Castus smacked himself with a wet hand, he had taken the injury has permanent, but thinking back Grant had gotten his arm back, why wouldn't Rys be able to get a leg back. This brought alot of relief to Castus as he continued to give Shi water. As he was doing so Shi started to cough and woke up. Shi tried to sit up, but struggled.
"Whoa, wait a second Shi, we managed to get you and Rys out of the umbral what happened. Are you alright." Castus and Cerone helped Shi to a sitting position. Castus reached down and brought the bucket of water up so Shi could take a sip of it. Shi drank quite a bit before letting Castus bring it back down. Breathing heavily Shi took a moment before asking plaintively. "Is Rys going to be alright?" Cerone nodded her head. "Are you going to be alright though, when we found you, you had become quite..." She stumbled for words to describe what had happened without calling out Shi as a monster.
Shi held a hand up though. "I'll be alright. The umbral did something to my mind and body. It got harder and harder to hold a human appearance and eventually I started to lose my rationality. When Rys and I started to run into more and more monsters, we started to have to fight. At some point I started to black out for significant amounts of time, only regaining rationality for brief periods in the umbral. I remember transforming parts of monsters onto myself to better protect Rys, I remember Rys losing consciousness and then having to carry him with me. Thats the most I remember." Shi looked down at herself. "I think whatever I did down in the umbral significantly weakened me though. I feel like I'm missing parts of myself." Shi seemed worried. Ever since they had found Shi in the umbral and Shi returned to the more human form, Shi's facial and body appearances had remained static in a plain female form. Brown hair, brown eyes, and the same age as everyone else in the room. It was like Shi wasn't a mimic, but a human now.
Castus put a hand on Shi's shoulder, "Well, we are just glad that you are alright Shi. Everyone was worried." Alyssa, suddenly appeared behind Castus. "SHI! You're awake, how wonderful!" Alyssa tried to jump onto the bed to embrace Shi, while Castus and Cerone pushed her back. This made Shi giggle at the comedic scene. "If you don't mind me asking, where are we?" Shi asked.
The three of them looked at each other. "Somewhere in the Morden territory. We aren't sure. We didn't come out of the same entrance to the umbral that we entered from." Cerone answered. Shi nodded. "Can I go see Rys, I want to see that he's ok. Also where is Zed and Wyden, are they still with the church?" Shi had started to move to get out of bed, when panic engulfed her face. Shi always believed the strongest in sticking together as a group, so naturally she was worried about the other two transplants. Alyssa gave Shi a light hug and then went into an explanation about what happened. Alyssa explained Grant's role in things, Darius' final message and the betrayal of Zed and Wyden, leaving them to die. At the end of it Shi had shed a number of tears. She stood on unstable legs and used Castus as support as the four of them went to check on Rys. Entering into the living room Rys was still out cold, but his color was already starting to get better. Castus taught everyone what he had learned from Mary about dripping water into his mouth and let everyone practice. They agreed to take turns helping Rys when they could.
"Sooo, what do we do now?" Alyssa dropped the question.