Corrupt Blood

The next day brought rain to Stormwind and the surrounding countryside. Stepping out into the downpour with an old cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders Derk approached the Goldshire Inn for his daily assignment. When he arrived he was ushered into the back room, where Agatha and Sam stood in conversation with Lieutenant Casey and several other Stormwind guards.

Agatha turned towards Derk as he entered, and pointed towards several bodies in the corner. “5 deaths in 24 hours, all of them very healthy individuals. I’ve never seen the disease progress so rapidly.”

“I know a few of them, they wouldn’t expose themselves to the disease unless by accident, and once they knew they were sick they would have found help. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, with all the precautions the spread is on the decline, so why this sudden outbreak.” Casey replied, pondering the situation.

“Derk, Sam, I want both of you in Goldshire on bank duty, but keep an eye out for anything suspicious.” Agatha said, giving the two a stern eye as she turned back to Lieutenant Casey. “We may be dealing with a new strain, or, worse case scenario… there may be someone out there trying to spread the disease on purpose. Stormwind has a lot of enemies.”

Derk and Sam braved the rain and took the long walk to Stormwind’s bank, they didn’t talk much, but when lightning lit the sky around them Sam instinctively grabbed hold of Derk’s arm. Both blushed under their rain cloaks, but neither was willing to break the contact. It felt good, in the freezing rain and hopeless situation, to give in to a small amount of affection. Neither spoke until they reached the bank, where they immediately went inside and tried to get dry.

“Sam…” Derk began, from his side of the bank’s door, watching the rain flow across the cobblestone streets of the trade district. “With all that’s going on right now, all the chaos… I’m not sure about a lot of things.” She nodded, waiting for him to continue. “I don’t know when this will all be over, I don’t know what is going on with my family, whether they are alive or not. But I do know that I care about you, more than I’ve cared about anyone else in my entire life.” He said, watching as she turned to meet is gaze through the hood of her robes.

“But right now… It’s too dangerous; we have too much to focus on for me to be distracted by this. So I’ll say it right now, I don’t know when this will all be over, but I do know that the two of us will make it through. And if you care about me the same way, then I promise when this is over we can be together, and see where this goes.” He smiled at her, and she gave a small smile before turning back to watch the rain.

“I do…” She murmured, her voice nearly lost to the noise of the storm. “I do care… about you.”

Derk heard, and he smiled.

There were a few hours of silence, nobody in their right mind would go use the bank on a day like this, Derk figured. But nonetheless a lone figure came wandering into view quite some time later. It staggered under a heavy rain-cloak, bringing itself out of a nearby alley and staggering towards the bank steps. When it was only about 10 feet away it fell, face first, into a rather large puddle.

Derk rushed into action, turning the figure over and dragging him into the bank. It was a man, about Derk’s age, and he had been stabbed. “What’s the situation?” Sam asked as she knelt down beside him. Derk had begun removing the man’s cloak and the clothing around the wounds.

“Looks like a mugging victim. Multiple lacerations and stab wounds, plus several cracked ribs.” Derk replied, already preparing a healing spell for the worst of the injuries. Sam joined in, noting that the man had bruised kidneys as well.

“Must be a rogue out taking advantage of the rain.” Sam noted, beginning to heal as well. The man was unconscious by this point, but as they he was healed he began to show signs of waking up. The whole process took about an hour, the cuts were numerous and the ribs needed to be repaired so he could breathe safely. When they were done he looked up at them feverishly.

“Black… Coat…” The man whispered, sweat had rapidly begun to pool on his body. “Black… Coat…” he repeated, staring with blank eyes at the ceiling.

“Derk… This man still has all of his money.” Sam noticed, pointing to a full coin purse.

“Then why would someone do this?” Derk asked, both of them wondering the same thing. Looking down Sam gasped, black lines had begun to appear all over the victim’s body. Each stab wound, each cut, was now surrounded with corruption, and it was spreading fast.

“How is it spreading this quickly?” Derk said, as both of them tried their best to purge the disease from the man.

“It must have come into the body through the wounds; if someone is exposed to a massive amount of the disease then it will progress much further much quicker.” Sam replied, finally curing one of the wounded areas, only to find the others had grown even worse.

Derk was stunned; the man had received such a large dose that in only an hour the man was this far gone. “You mean someone is out there using this disease as a poison? Spreading it on purpose, like Agatha said?”

The victim gave a shudder, and reached up to grab Derk’s shirt. “Black… Coat…” he gasped, before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. He was dead; the disease had acted so rapidly that in his recovering state his body couldn’t handle it.

Both of the healers looked solemn when Lieutenant Casey arrived, the guards had been sent once the man had first been spotted. “So it appears you have a lead on our terrorist.” She said, noting the covered body in the corner.

“We believe there’s someone out there using the disease as a type of poison, by introducing large doses of it through his weapons the victims can build up a lethal amount of it in a matter of hours.” Sam said, still staring at the floor.

“If that’s the case, small targets like these suggests this is just a test run. We need to find this guy, and figure out where he’s getting this ‘poison’ of his from. Did the victim say anything?” Casey asked, lifting the cover and looking at the man below.

“Just… Black Coat… over and over.” Derk said, looking out into the downpour as he tightened his cloak against the chilling wind.

“Well, we’ll get on it, you two keep safe. Don’t be going out there alone tonight.” Casey gave a salute and led her troop out into the rain, shouting some orders before the guards dispersed into the alleyways.

The rest of the day was as slow as before, but the silence was much less comfortable. Derk wanted to go to Sam’s side, to show her she wasn’t alone, but he had made a promise before, he’d show her how he cared when this was all over. Instead, when it was time to go he gave her a gentle pat on the back, to which she responded by once again holding his arm on the way home.

As they neared the exit to Stormwind they heard a sound from a nearby alleyway, a figure was standing there in the downpour, rain pouring off of his back cloak in rivulets. At his sides he held twin daggers, both dripping in the rain. With a gentle splash he took a step forward into a puddle, before bursting into a run towards the two.

Derk pushed Sam back out of the way and met the charge with one of his own. The handle of his hammer coming up against crossed blades. They both pushed off, sliding through the water as the cloaked figure came forward once more. It danced in almost a drunken fury, his moves both erratic and dangerous. Once or twice a blade flew past Derk’s defenses, but each time it cut through his cloak but bounced harmlessly off of his plate armor. In response Derk’s hammer lashed out, keeping the figure off balance and cracking stone where it hit the floor in holy wrath.

With a spin the figured dodged a very close strike and lashed out, blade poised to strike Derk cleanly across the face. He was interrupted by a bolt of blinding light that shot across Derk’s shoulder. It barely hurt the figure but he staggered back enough for Derk to counter, a strike to the chest sending it to the floor in a heap.

Sam ran to Derk’s side, checking his face closely for any scratch or wound. He smiled down at her, as thunder and lightning sounded in the distance, “Looks like you saved my life this time.” He said, leaning down and giving her a chaste kiss. She blushed and shivered, but whether it was the kiss or the rain was left unknown as a platoon of guards arrived.

Lieutenant Casey was called for a second time; she didn’t seem thrilled that Derk and Sam were the source of all of her trouble that day. The cloaked figure turned out to be a man, and his erratic behavior was caused by a very late stage of the corrupt blood. Exposure to the disease he was spreading meant he was likely as good as dead before the fight had even begun. The daggers he was using were coated in a dark slime, which seemed to originate from an empty vial on his waist.

“I know that mark,” Casey said, pointing to a brand on the man’s shoulder and sighing. “He’s with Kurzen. He was a Colonel, sent by Stormwind on an expedition to Stranglethorn Vale quite some time ago. Word has it he went nuts, and now he and his followers are up to something down there. If this is what it is, then we have a serious problem.”

Derk nodded somberly, “What are we going to do about it?” He asked, and Casey just shook her head.

“You two head for the Inn and wait in the back room. I’ll come by once I’ve filled my superiors in on the situation.” She gave an order to the soldiers, and they all took off at a jog towards the keep.

Several hours later, a much warmer Derk and Sam sat in the Goldshire Inn, waiting for news from the keep. The Inn had quieted down quite a bit, there were less patients every day thanks to the strict measures by the controlling forces of the Alliance. Gossiping with other healers Derk discovered Ironforge was doing well, and towns like Redridge and Darkshire were nearly clean. It seemed now that, barring whatever Kurzen was cooking up, the corrupt blood outbreaks were coming to an end.

Casey entered with a troop of 5 Stormwind soldiers, and the gossip stopped immediately. “Well, we have a plan now at least. We’re flying out a team of healers to help with a raid on Kurzen’s compound; whatever we find in there we’re bound to need the support. The objective is to crush this rebellion that has been going on far too long, we’re taking Kurzen, dead or alive, and wiping out any of his followers.”

“We’re bringing healers from every front on this, we can’t send everyone from a single place, or it leaves us vulnerable to another outbreak. Derk, Sam, I know you too have been up to your neck in this since the start, so I’ll give you the chance to say no, but I’d like you two to come along on this.” She gave them a look as the two thought it over.

“I’d like to be there, like you’ve said, we’ve been involved since the beginning of this whole outbreak, we need to see this put to rest.” Sam said, giving a glance at Derk who merely nodded in agreement. “Besides, the sooner this is all over the sooner we can get on with our lives.” She smiled a little at the look Derk gave her.

“That settles it, pack up, we’re heading out in an hour, the rest of the briefing will be held at the forward camp.” Lieutenant Casey concluded, and with a salute from her platoon she left the room.