CHAPTER 65: THE POISONED YEAR

PREVIOUSLY-

Theobald came to a halt before a massive hut, its roof spiked with sun-dried bones and dyed feathers.

It loomed thrice the height of the others, stinking of incense and blood. Carvings of fang-shaped totems decorated the doorway, and two guards lay passed out near a firepit beside it.

"This has to be the chief’s den," he whispered.

He adjusted the strap of his satchel and took one silent step forward, his hand already brushing the lip of the stone axe holstered behind his back.

--X—

"Alright,"

Theobald whispered under his breath, inhaling slow and deep.

"Just stay calm. Think."

The flap of the chieftain’s tent rustled gently behind him as he stepped inside. The scent of smoke, aged leather, and raw iron saturated the air.

The walls were lined with skulls—some polished, others charred—belonging to beasts Theobald couldn’t name. Tribal charms dangled from spears stabbed into the ground. An open fire crackled at the centre, the flames casting dancing shadows across the walls.

And at the far end, seated atop a mound of furs and woven mats, was the chief.

Seven feet and nearly another foot tall. A hulking frame covered in sea-glass-green scales that shimmered beneath the firelight.

One shoulder armoured in worn leather, the other scarred and exposed. His torso was protected by a dented steel chestplate, clearly taken from some ancient human raid. Across his lap rested a heavy axe, blade chipped but no less deadly.

The lizardman raised his snout slowly. A long, jagged scar ran down from his left eye to the corner of his upper lip.

"Human," he rasped, voice thick and gravelly,

"Tame your bloodlust. You stink of it."

Theobald stepped into the firelight, raising his hands slightly.

"Alright, you got me," he said with an awkward grin.

"Clearly, this didn’t go as I expected."

The chieftain’s nostrils flared.

"Do you intend to fight?"

Theobald stopped a few paces away, eyeing the axe still resting in the chief’s claws.

"Honestly?"

He shrugged.

"I don’t think I’m strong enough to beat a chieftain."

A pause. The flames crackled. The two locked eyes—hunter and intruder, killer and youth.

Then the chieftain did something unexpected. He extended the axe forward, offering the handle to Theobald.

"Then sit. Share meat."

"...Huh?"

Theobald blinked, confused, but accepted the gesture.

Gorvax narrowed his eyes as he watched the silhouettes moving by the fire.

"You’re telling me,"

He growled under his breath,

"We’re not going to eviscerate the entire damn tribe?"

Theobald emerged a moment later, scratching the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.

"Yeah... about that. Turns out the chief just wants to eat boar with us."

"You were supposed to kill the bastard," Gorvax huffed.

"Now we’re sharing food? What next, tea and poetry?"

Theobald shrugged. His eyes darted to the centre of the village, where a celebration was being held.

"I don’t know, fate works in strange ways."

"Krrr..."

Rook landed nearby, eyeing the cooked meat greedily.

"At least this tribe seasons their food."

As they sat around the fire, chewing on strips of spiced boar, Theobald glanced at the chief, then at the lizardmen staring at him, eyes full of curiosity.

"There’s something I should say," he muttered.

The chieftain tilted his head.

"I... may have killed some of your sentries on the way in."

The tent went still. The warmth of the fire suddenly felt distant.

The chief’s claws tightened slightly on the bone he was gnawing. His head turned, slowly. The pressure in the tent spiked—like thick air before a storm.

"...Did they strike first?"

Theobald nodded once, firmly.

The chief exhaled through his snout.

"Then it was their mistake."

He returned to his meat.

"Mr. Chief,"

Theobald said quietly, eyes reflecting the flicker of the fire,

"What’s the condition to advance to the next stage?"

The lizardman chief tore another strip of meat from the bone with his jagged teeth, chewed slowly, then swallowed. His glowing yellow eyes turned toward the boy—distant, weary.

"...My son and daughter," he rasped, "have been poisoned."

The meat slipped from Theobald’s fingers, landing with a soft thud on the fur mat.

"Poisoned?" he repeated, voice rising in disbelief.

The chief gave a solemn nod.

"Yes. Three nights ago, they ventured out into the forest near the western marshes. They said they wanted to play by the lake."

His eyes dimmed as his voice grew hoarse.

"Evening came. Then night. But they did not return."

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his scaled knees.

"I searched everywhere. And in the darkness, I found them collapsed near a dried grove... their scales dull, their breath shallow. Sweating. Twitching."

The chief clenched his clawed hands together.

"I carried them home, but they haven’t woken since. The shaman says it’s a creeping venom—slow, cruel. We’ve tried herbs, smoke rites, bloodletting... but nothing purges it."

A heavy silence settled in the tent, broken only by the crackle of the fire.

Theobald’s jaw tightened.

"...What kind of poison?"

"We don’t know," the chief said.

"It is not lizardfolk in origin. It’s human—bitter, alchemical. Something foreign."

Theobald looked down at the meat in his lap, then gently set it aside.

"Then helping them... is the condition?"

The lizardman gave a slow nod.

"If you wish to pass this stage, bring back the cure."

Rook, perched beside the flame, tilted his head.

"Krr—What kind of human poison doesn’t respond to purifiers?"

The chief looked at him grimly.

"Great vulture. It was made by those who didn’t come to hunt, but to test. My son said a man with a glass mask watched from the trees."

Gorvax’s ears twitched at that.

"Glass mask, huh? Sounds like an alchemist or a researcher."

Theobald’s hand curled into a fist.

"Don’t worry, Chief. We’ll find this bastard. And we’ll get that antidote."

The chieftain let out a slow breath, as if a weight had eased just slightly.

"Then I place my children’s lives in your hands, stranger."

He looked at Theobald—not as an enemy, but as a desperate father clinging to hope.

"May the spirits walk with you."

Around Theobald, many other lizardman turned to the chief, sorrow coloring their faces.

SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE WESTERN MARCH-

A thin mist clung to the marshland like old silk, curling around the reeds and stagnant pools. The ground squelched underfoot, damp and treacherous, thick with the scent of mildew and medicine.

Scattered across the terrain were several canvas tents, their surfaces stained with dried herbs and mud. Poles jutted out unevenly, ropes slack with humidity. Pale lantern light flickered through the fabric walls, casting silhouettes that moved like ghosts.

Figures in white coats passed between the tents—men and women bearing the crisp, clinical stride of trained healers. Each wore a heavy gas mask fitted with bronze filters, lenses fogged from breath. The symbol of the Medic Guild—a winged heart nested within a shield—was stitched with crimson thread over their left breast, stark and undeniable.

Some carried crates of reagents. Others pushed wheeled trays clinking with flasks and scalpels. The air buzzed faintly with alchemical burners, and low muttering filled the silence—discussions in coded medical jargon, spoken more for record than for one another.

This was no triage post. No battlefield medic tent.

It was an outpost of experimentation.

And somewhere inside, someone knew exactly what had poisoned the lizard chief’s children.

"Begin with Experiment Zero-Six."

The room was silent save for the scratch of parchment as the old woman’s fingers unrolled the brittle scroll. Her voice, though aged, cut through the damp, sterile air like a scalpel through flesh.

She sat at the far end of a long wooden table, warped by time and stained with ink, blood, and far worse.

At her back loomed shelves filled with pickled organs and yellowing bones, bathed in the cold light of hanging crystal lamps. Her white coat was pristine, save for the crimson seal of the Medic Guild stitched proudly over her coat.

"We have received... unfortunate word," she continued, narrowing her one good eye at the faded script.

"They claim he has created a better cure for ████████ than we ever could."

A younger man—if middle age could be called young in this crowd—sat two chairs to her left, tapping an iron ring against the table’s surface. His beard was clipped with surgical precision. His eyes gleamed with disdain.

"By he..." he drawled,

"You mean the Suture Demon of Lirathen?"

The name slithered through the room like a knife through warm marrow. Several assistants paused in their notes.

The old woman tilted her head slowly, like a raven inspecting carrion.

"A crude name, but yes," she whispered with approval.

"He who dares mend what we perfect through ruin."

She stood, parchment crackling in her hands, and turned toward the large map pinned to the wall—marshlands, marked in red ink and annotated in elegant, blood-tipped script.

"We’ll begin with their water source," she declared, tapping her finger over a small glyph beside the swamp village.

"A few drops of Variant Eight in the lake should suffice."

Her lips twisted into a devil’s grin.

"I’m curious," she murmured,

"To see how far those mud-born creatures will go... to preserve something they were never meant to keep."

A silence followed—one thick with reverence, fear, and the stench of something acrid brewing in the back room.

The experiments would begin before dusk.

And the monsters were not the lizardmen.

AT THE LIZARDMAN TRIBE-

Theobald knelt beside the leather mat, one knee sinking into the damp earth as he leaned forward. A thick cloth was tied around his nose and mouth; its fibres soaked faintly with the scent of marsh herbs and rot.

The air was heavy—stagnant with sickness, quiet with dread.

Before him lay two small forms.

The chief’s children.

The boy, older by perhaps a few years, clutched at his chest with trembling claws. His panting came in shallow bursts, each breath sounding more laboured than the last.

Where once his scales might’ve shimmered blue-green in the sun, now patches had peeled off entirely, revealing raw flesh mottled with grey veins. His tongue lolled dryly from his mouth, and his tail thumped once, weakly, against the mat.

Beside him, the sister lay curled into herself. Smaller, thinner—like a leaf caught in the last wind of autumn. Her limbs twitched sporadically, fingers flexing as if grasping at something only she could see.

Dark blotches had bloomed across her body, rupturing the hue of her scales with charcoal bruising. Her eyes, once sharp and yellow, had grown dull, the lids too heavy to fully open.

Theobald’s breath hitched.

No child should look like this.

He turned to the chief, who stood at a distance, arms crossed and face unreadable—stoic, but tense in the shoulders. A warrior’s way of mourning.

"How long have they been like this?"

Theobald asked, voice low.

The chief’s tail flicked once.

"Three days. Since they returned from the western woods. They drank from the lake there."

Theobald’s eyes narrowed.

"Waterborne... but too aggressive to be natural."

He reached out, careful not to touch the children, and hovered his hand above the sister’s abdomen. The warmth radiating off her was scalding.

"It’s progressing faster than it should." He turned to Rook, who perched silently nearby, feathers slightly ruffled.

"You saw finished scouting, didn’t you?"

Rook nodded once.

"Krr- Humans. White coats. Gas masks."

Theobald’s jaw clenched.

"Then this isn’t an accident. This is a test."

He stood, wiping his palms on a strip of cloth as his gaze shifted back to the dying siblings.

"We find the stream. We track the poison. And then we burn their tents to ash."

Gorvax’s low growl rumbled from the shadows behind them.

"Good," the werewolf murmured.

"You’re learning."

RUMBLE!

A crack of thunder didn’t roll across the sky — it tore through Theobald’s mind. His pupils shrank. A cold sweat ran down the side of his face as the realization crashed into him like a falling star.

"Chief," he said, voice sharper than before.

The lizardman chieftain turned from his children, brow scaled and solemn.

"What day and year is this?"

The beast blinked once, his tail swaying behind him thoughtfully as he stared at the ceiling poles of his hut.

"Fourth night after the seventh moon... Year 2020."

Theobald’s eyes widened, color draining from his face.

"...Ninth of Ignisveil. 2020?"

His knees nearly buckled.

"It’s that year..."

Rook tilted his head, feathers rising.

"Krr—You know something."

Gorvax growled softly. "Speak."

Theobald turned to the chief, forced a smile, and bowed slightly.

"Excuse us for a moment, chieftain."

He exited the tent, his boots squelching in the swampy earth as he tore off the cloth mask from his face.

"Damn it!"

SLAP!

His palm struck his own forehead. The impact echoed like punctuation.

"What in the hells is going on?"

Gorvax barked, arms crossed and tail twitching.

Theobald looked back, haunted.

"Master... we’ve gone back. This is no ordinary swamp. This isn’t just a labyrinth. This is history."

He pointed toward the misty treeline.

"This is the Medic Guild Poisoning Incident! I read about it last year."

He gritted his teeth.

"They were trying to develop a vaccine for a disease that didn’t exist yet — a manufactured plague. But they didn’t test it on humans."

Rook’s eyes narrowed.

"Krr-...They tested it on monsters."

Theobald nodded, anger sharpening his voice.

"On this tribe."

He clenched his shaking fists.

"They tainted the water source, watched the children die slowly. Took notes on scale decay, nerve failure, organ collapse. Laughed while doing it. Called it a breakthrough in ’controlled biological response’."

He took a deep breath, trying to settle the quake in his chest.

"But they were caught and beaten."

He looked up, voice low.

"But by the Suture Demon of Lirathen."

Even Gorvax paused.

"That butcher of a surgeon..." he muttered.

"Dr. Jekyll,"

Theobald whispered.

The name lingered like blood in the air.

"A doctor so brilliant he was exiled from six nations. So obsessed with healing, he started stitching the living from corpses. So infamous that both churches and cults refused his allegiance."

"Wait..."

Gorvax narrowed his eyes, folding his arms.

"You’re saying he shows up here?"

Theobald nodded grimly.

"Not just shows up. He burns the tents. He breaks their masks. He ties each of the medics to the stakes they tested their poisons on. And then he..."

He swallowed.

"...He made them drink it."

Even Rook’s usual snide air faded.

"Krr—Gruesome."

"He left one survivor," Theobald continued,

"To tell the world what they’d done."

Silence.

The swamp wind rustled reeds in the distance.

And then Gorvax gave a long exhale, running a clawed hand through his fur.

"Well then, kid," he growled, fangs glinting,

"Looks like we’re in the middle of a story that already happened."

"And this time," Theobald said, eyes burning,

"We’re part of it."

As Theobald and Rook approached their tent, the air felt thicker. The marsh’s usual hum had dulled, as if the swamp itself was holding its breath.

Then—

Flicker.

A pale violet shimmer rippled before the entrance, like heat rising off blood-soaked stone.

Gorvax stood there. Not as the shaggy, foul-mouthed mutt Theobald had grown to trust, but as a ghost-light — his spectral form radiant and barely tethered to the earth.

The fire of madness danced in his eyes.

"To think," he said, voice deeper, echoing as if layered with centuries of growls and whispers,

"I’d get to see you like this..."