Pieces of Sonder

“When you say ‘bring the person close as possible to death,’ do you mean, like under anesthesia?” Nightscythe ventured.

Freya frowned, “Under anesthesia?”

“Can you do it in a way where the person doesn’t feel pain?” Heilong rephrased the question, but she didn’t look hopeful about the answer.

“Ah, I asked the same thing,” Freya answered, sighing in defeat. “But no, in theory, the patient must be awake. I think a demon can sense things even when the soul they are attached to isn’t awake, but many disagree.”

She shook her head, “Demonic possession is a rare problem, and we have many effective potions against it. But if it seems incurable–like Aziza’s condition must have seemed–some shamans would try this method. I hope she didn’t die as a result, but well, given she is dead now…”

A stifling dead silence hung in the air.

“Are you going to try to find her again?” Infamous Biscuit asked.

“I want to. But she probably won’t appear again for a few hours or even days.” Freya bit her lip, “Just before those wolves showed up, she released a lot of energy, so she will need time to recover. We should keep going with our quest.”

“We have to come back to the train station to leave, so you’ll get another chance,” Heilong said, giving Freya a hopeful smile. 

Freya nodded, and they moved out. Despite herself, she looked back at the building several times before it disappeared into the fog. If only I could have been the shaman treating her.

Dragging her feet, Freya stayed near the back of the group. K13 had taken the initiative to lead the group towards the port. He looked back and forth from his screen to their surroundings. Freya half-heartedly tried to guess the path they needed to take, but she had trouble matching their location to details on her map. The fog certainly didn’t help. With the sun gone and the fog obscuring anything further than twenty meters, navigating through the relatively small port town was difficult.

“I think I led us in a circle,” K13 said with his shoulders slumped. They were back in the same shopping district area. Infamous Biscuit came over, and they started discussing their location and destination. Freya felt a little better that she wasn’t the only one confused. As they talked, Nightscythe kept making circles with his hands and looking through them.

“Why are you pretending to look through binoculars? Are you five?” Heilong finally asked him.

Nightscythe looked offended at the accusation, “It activates my Translucent Field skill.”

“Seems annoying.”

Freya half-smiled when they started bickering again. It felt comforting in some strange way. 

They started moving again, this time with both K13 and Infamous Biscuit navigating. Freya gave up trying to figure out how they would get to the port—looking at the map on her screen while walking was making her motion sick. 

Then something caught Freya’s attention. Squished between the gap of two shops, a human-sized grey weed with black flowers reached out into the street.

Is that an Azaleihagen?

Freya couldn’t believe it, but the text box that popped up above the plant confirmed it.

[Greater Azaleihagen]

[Lvl 5] [100/100]

“What a creepy looking plant,” Heilong commented. The weed’s gangly stalks and grey color made it look dead, but its full, lush leaves gave it a contrasting healthy appearance. 

“I’ve never seen one grow to this size,” Freya said, approaching the demon plant. Its broad grey leaves looked a little pale compared to smaller Azaleihagen’s she’d seen before.

K13 hefted an ax, but Freya stopped him. 

“If an Azaleihagen is disturbed, they’ll release the pollen in their black flowers,” Freya said, pointing to the spiky charcoal-colored flowers. “They collect ash out of the air and condense it. It’s terrible to breathe in. Just one flower can leave you hacking and coughing for a month.”

“Should we leave it alone then?” Infamous Biscuit asked, looking apprehensively at the giant weed taller than him.

“No, they’re easy to get rid of. Azaleis only respond to physical attacks.”

Freya reached into her inventory for her shaman bag. She pulled out a brown bottle. Taking the stopper off, she slowly approached the plant and emptied the bottle’s contents at the base of the plant. Then she struck a match and flung it onto the liquid.

“Wow, nice!” Nightscythe applauded as the propellent caught fire and set the weed ablaze. The plant’s grey leaves wilted under the inferno. The narrow space between the buildings provided a perfect funnel for the fire to rapidly move up the demon weed.

Once the plant was entirely engulfed in flames, it poofed out of existence, extinguishing the fire along with it. 

“Well, that was easy,” Heilong said, looking at the ashy remains of the demon.

“They are simple to exorcise,” Freya said. “Which raises the question of how this one got so big. They thrive on ash, so they like to grow near cities. But they’re easy for a shaman to recognize and burn when they’re less than a candlestick tall. How could they let it get so big?”

“How fast do they usually grow?” Heilong asked, “The king said this area’s been abandoned for a month.”

Freya shook her head, “Even given a month, they could grow maybe a meter, but that one was triple that. Plus, that Azaleihagen was probably starving from not having any nearby chimney ash fall.”

“So, you’re saying that plant was that big even when people lived here?” Infamous Biscuit concluded.

“It seems crazy. The king made it seem like demons came one day, and they were forced to abandon the town. I thought maybe demons from a major dungeon had escaped again, just like in Kai Nai,” Freya said. She had been sure this was all game-related. After all, they did get a game quest to explore this area. She wanted to blame it all on the game. Biting her lip, she spat out, “But it looks like the shamans here were just incompetent.”