Volume 1 Chapter 15 Plague

Chapter 15 Plague

I

“I’m sorry, I know I am not supposed to break into a girl’s room without permission, but you were screaming just now,” apologized Yanni.

Aislina was sitting on her bed, panicking with cold sweats.

“That’s alright, Yanni,” replied Aislina.

There were no windows inside the rooms of dwarves. To ventilate, dwarves built small holes which was connected to the air outside and to illuminate, dwarves used candles and torches fixed on the walls. Bathed in the light of candles, Aislina’s looked even more graceful

“What has happened. Were you having a nightmare?” asked Yanni concerningly.

“Yes, I was having that nightmare about Blightess again and now I think that she may be real. Anyway, she is definitely a part of my consciousness,” answered Aislina.

“So what did Blightess do to you?” pursued Yanni.

“She tempted me to kill all the humans in this world and thus the world can be ‘cleansed’,” Aislina continued, “By the way, what brings you here, Yanni?”

“No, nothing important … I’m just here, uh, to have some chat with, uh, with you,” stammered Yanni.

“That’s fine. You can take a seat on my bed,” proposed Aislina.

With his heart beating like crazy drums, he walked towards Aislina’s bed and sat on it. Aislina then got out of bed and sat beside Yanni.

“Aislina, I have something to tell you,” whispered Yanni, his eyes turning to Aislina.

She looked weak and pale now, but she was still brimming with elegance and beauty. Aislina was now looking at Yanni as well and their eyes met. In the past, Yanni often avoided Aislina’s eyes because he was shy and not confident enough, but right now he kept his eyes fixed on Aislina’s eyes.

He could see her pupils, even her irises clearly and he was even able to sense her feeling through her eyes. As the elder always said, eyes were the windows of the souls.

“What do you want to tell me?” inquired Aislina softly and shyly.

“I … umm … I … That is … Oh no … It’s so hard …. There’s no easy way to say this,” stuttered Yanni.

“Are you going to tell me a secret?” pursued Aislina.

“Yes, a secret,” Yanni nodded.

He really wanted to declare his love for her, but he could feel something inside his heart stopping him and he couldn’t figure out what that thing was.

“Yanni, if you’re not prepared, you can tell me what you want to say some other time,” advised Aislina.

“That’s a good idea …” agreed Yanni.

Gently, Aislina put her arm around Yanni’s and her head calmly on his shoulder. Her hands were trembling a little as if she hadn’t fully escaped from the nightmares just now yet.

Yanni’s mind became chaotic and blank once again. Trying his best to take control of his breath and heartbeat, Yanni finally managed to calm down a little.

In the past, he even didn’t dare to make an eye contact with Aislina, but now he had gathered his courage to observe her and he could find out that she was not that perfect. There were small fluff on her skin which was barely detectable and there were also some tiny pimples on her face, which Yanni didn’t notice before.

“I have something to tell you too, Yanni,” breathed Aislina, dipping her head down.

“What do you want to say?” questioned Yanni.

“You’re right about me pretending to be tough. I am in fact weak. I cannot even conquer the demon inside my own soul,” responded Aislina.

“You mean Blightess?” asked Yanni.

“Yes, and I’m afraid that one day I will be the enemy of humanity, the enemy of you,” continued Aislina.

“You won’t, Aislina, I promise,” Yanni reassured her soothingly.

II

While Yanni was chatting with Aislina in her room, Starsha and Floria were sitting in the dining room, chatting and eating.

The dwarven architectures were highly soundproof, so Aislina and Yanni wouldn’t hear them speaking.

“Will your brother succeed? Wow, I am so excited! Can you hear my heartbeat?!” exclaimed Starsha feverishly.

“Come on, Starsha, my brother’s romantic stuff really has nothing to do with you …” complaint Floria.

“No, you’re totally wrong, Floria. I am a bard, and thus I am the master of stories. I hope that every story in this world can have a good ending. What’s more, you’re my bestie, Floria, that means your brother is my brother,” argued Starsha.

Just at this moment, the door of the dining room was opened and Yanni came inside the room.

“Hey, Yanni!” greeted Floria.

“How was your journey of love, Yanni?” inquired Starsha quietly.

Yanni didn’t say anything but sighed with sadness.

“You failed? Don’t’ be sad, Yanni. You will find someone else …” Starsha reassured him.

“No, I didn’t fail. It’s just … I didn’t tell her my feelings,” muttered Yanni.

“What?” shouted Starsha.

“It’s really too hard for me to talk about it,” admitted Yanni.

“It’s okay, bro. You can try some other time,” advised Floria.

“Yeah, that’s also what Aislina said,” agreed Yanni.

“I think she has already known what you were going to say. Aislina is a clever girl,” giggled Floria.

“Really? She is an elf and elven culture is quite different from humans’,” Yanni pointed out.

“It’s true that she is an elf, but she is not an idiot. Anyway, have you figured out what stopped you from telling her your true feelings?” questioned Floria.

“I don’t know, maybe my diffidence, or maybe some weird sense of responsibility,” answered Yanni.

“Responsibility?” asked Starsha.

“Yes … After all, even if I really start to date her, I will gradually become old but she won’t and I think that’s not fair for her,” explained Yanni.

“That’s true, Yanni … Anyway, it’s your choice and all I hope is your happiness, brother …” Floria patted on her brother’s shoulder.

III

After about fifteen minutes, Aislina arrived at the dining hall. The colour had come back to her cheeks and her stomach was grumbling because of hunger.

To be honest, the food of dwarves was bad but expensive. Some of the dishes were even giving off some kind of stinky smell and most food of dwarves were soaked in brown oil, on the surface of which there was some disgusting bubbles.

Those food really looked like something coming from the toilet, maybe the cook hated humans so much that he cooked all those food in his personal restroom.

There were also some fried eggplants. Looking like some sort of slug, those eggplants were rather soft and sticky. It was really hard to imagine those things being put inside the mouth and swallowed.

“Excuse me …” Aislina apologized, buried her mouth in her hands and retched. She flushed when she realized how ugly her sounds were when she was puking air.

Anyway, she didn’t want to look twice at the foods, so she blasted those foods into pieces with her magic, and reforming it into some particles. All those disgusting oil solidified and turned into something resembling gummy. Finally, all those foods on the table became something that looked strange but edible.

When they were about to start eating this dinner, they heard some sounds of aggressive dwarves arguing with each other outside this dining room. Initially, the arguing noises were small but soon it became extremely loud.

After approximately half a minute, someone started to knock at the door of the dining room like mad.

“Get the hell out of our city, humans!” shouted someone behind the door.

“They’re so annoying”! complaint Aislina.

Accumulating her magical power, Aislina walked out of the dining room and arrived at the main hall of the Tavern, inside which dozens dwarves had gathered and held up in their hands were banners on which there were some texts like “No HUMANS IN TITAN FORGE!”, “HUMANS GET AWAY FROM US”, “DEATH TO ALL HUMANS”, et cetera.

The expression of irresistible anger could be seen on the faces of all those dwarves. They were punching their fists with their eyes reddening in unstoppable wrath.

They were shouting and yelling in blurry languages. No one could understand what they were actually talking about, but obviously, they were cursing Aislina and her human friends with their filthiest vocabulary.

Without a shadow of doubt, humans were really not welcome here and seemingly dwarves’ hatred towards humans were not less than humans’ hatred towards dwarves.

An aggressive dwarf with red beard even charged towards Aislina ragefully, wielding a fearsome iron axe. Clearly, he was going to kill Aislina without knowing that she was an elf instead of a human.

Not panicking at all, Aislina snapped her finger, and summoned some vines which wound themselves round the ankles of that dwarf with red beard, rendering him unable to move.

The dwarf with red beard trembled, horrified upon witnessing how powerful Aislina was. His aggression just now had fully vanished because of fear. He looked at Aislina in horror as if she were some kind of evil witch.

“Do something, Throne, please! How could you invite those filthy humans inside your great tavern? You’re an honoured warrior! How could you do this?!” the dwarf with red beard shouted towards Throne, who was now sleeping on the floor with drunkenness as well as sadness.

“What … I am sleeping … leave me alone … please …” muttered Throne, his eyes closed tight.

“Enough! What do you dwarves want actually?” demanded Floria.

“You humans have murdered thousands of dwarves, but what do you want? Why have you done this to us? For fun? For money?” questioned the dwarf with red beard.

“Firstly, Aislina is not a human, In fact, she is an elf. Secondly, all four of us are the enemies of the Grey Factory and we just helped you to neutralize those zombies and repel Doctor Plague,” argued Floria.

“So you’re against the Grey Factory?” asked the dwarf with red beard.

“Yes, we’re, and thus we’re not your enemies. I heard that you dwarves were a reasonable race. Therefore, we believe that all of you understand that there are some scum among humans, but not all humans are like those in the Grey Factory,” explained Starsha.

“According to the legend, Sigurd, a human hero, Gandalf, a dwarven wizard, and Maev, an elven queen once joined together to kill Fafnir the evil dragon,” muttered Throne in his sleep.

“Anyway, Doctor Plague may attack us again in any minute and we shall fight together against him, or it will be impossible for us to win!” continued Starsha.

“But Even if we really defeat Doctor Plague, there will be a stronger one assigned by Master Mortis to slaughter us,” sighed the dwarf with red beard.

“Therefore, you can help us to get to Infernal Mountain, where we four can destroy the Cube of Necrus and the destruction of the Cube of Necrus will absolutely be a heavy blow to the Grey Factory,” answered Floria.

“How can we help you?” inquired the dwarf with red beard, his anger had abated a little, and so had the others’.

“It’s simple, you only need to help us get to the Mirk Tunnel …” replied Floria.

“Well, then you need a dwarven key. One of the keys were hidden inside my nightstand …” Throne pointed out.

Suddenly, the surroundings became murky and the temperature was going down, with demonic wind beginning to blow. At the centre of all of these upcoming evil stuff stood Doctor Plague. He appeared from nowhere and now he was standing in front of the crowd.

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you once again, Aislina!” greeted Doctor Plague.

“Doctor plague …” growled Aislina, her glowing eyes fixed on that mad scientist.

“Look at this bottle of potion. It is my newest invention, check it out!” bragged Doctor Plague, taking out a bottle of red potion, “Beware the Gargantua!”

Floria shot an arrow towards Doctor Plague, but he dodged it dexterously. Witnessing Floria’s failure, Aislina summoned a strip of vines out of her hands towards Doctor Plague in aid of her and the vines wounded Doctor Plague round his whole body.

Laughing crazily, Doctor Plague took out a syringe and injected some sort of green liquid into the vines. The liquid flew along the vines all the way towards Aislina’s palm.

The moment that unholy liquid touched her palm, Aislina let out a scream of agony and her magical vines were also destroyed by that acidic liquid, turning into dusts.

Doctor Plague threw the potion towards one of the dwarf. The potion exploded and turned into a cloud of scarlet gas, which flew into the nose of that dwarf, who soon mutated into a mindless zombie.

However, he didn’t transform into a normal zombie dwarf, instead, he transformed into something far more monstrous, powerful and gigantic, a monster who was 6 meters tall with ultimately strong muscles. As Doctor Plague had called him, this monster was the Gargantua.

Yanni tossed his shield towards the gargantuan zombie and it hit him on his chest, but the Gargantua was surprisingly muscular and the shield couldn’t break his steel-like muscles at all.

Floria and Aislina were shooting the Gargantua with arrows and magical leaves respectively. The arrows were stuck in the body of the Gargantua, making him look like a hedgehog. Some parts of him were blooding but he wasn’t hurt much.

Starsha was trying to approach the Gargantua. Agilely, she dodged all those smashes, punches and treads of that Gargantua. However, when she was trying to stab that monster, he smashed on the ground, generating a shockwave which sent her hurtling for several meters.

Growling in anger, the Gargantua charged towards Starsha in an attempt to finish him, but Aislina summoned a clutch of vines to strap him. Roaring wrathfully, the Gargantua tore the vines into pieces and jumped in mid-air, preparing to smash Starsha into smithereens of flesh.

Luckily, Yanni ran up in front of her and parried this attack for her with his lunarite shield. The Gargantua was so strong that he sent Yanni flying.

While Yanni, Floria and Starsha were struggling with the Gargantua, Floria was pulling her bow. After Yanni was smashed by the Gargantua, she shot a super-sonic arrow aiming at the throat of that monstrous zombie.

She didn’t miss.

The arrow pierced through the throat of the Gargantua. Slowly, he fell to the ground. He was so heavy that when he fell, the ground was trembling as if it were an earthquake.

“Seemingly it’s difficult enough for you to beat one Gargantua. What will happen if you’re faced with a crowd of Gargantuas?” teased Doctor Plague, taking out a bigger bottle of that red potion.

At this very moment, Floria shot an arrow towards Doctor Plague and the latter seized the arrow with his bare hand, but the arrow scraped his finger and some of his blood fell from his finger onto the ground, forming a pond of blood.

“Aislina, now!” shouted Floria.

Aislina cast a spell and an enormous tree started to grew out of that pond of Doctor Plague’s blood and fruits were borne in round bloodily scarlet balls the size of small apples. She snapped her finger and all the fruits exploded and turned into a rain of blood which poured down towards all those dwarves on the scene.

Just at this moment, Doctor Plague released the virus.

Nothing happened and not a single dwarf was infected with the virus.

“Impossible! What have you done?” demanded Doctor Plague.

“I have been always thinking about a question. Even for a creepy guy like you, this necrovirus is one of the most horrible things in this world. Therefore, I bet that you don’t dare to stand among those monstrous zombies unless you have already gotten the vaccine which can make you immune to the necrovirus, and thus there must be vaccines running inside your blood and your blood must be able to neutralize the necrovirus,” answered Floria.

“Impressive, impressive …” muttered Doctor Plague, taking out another bottle of blue liquid and removed the cork from it. The liquid evaporated into a cloud of blue mist, under the cover of which he escaped awkwardly.

“What happened to us? Where is Doctor Plague now? Did we win?” asked Throne who just got up to his feet.

“We have won, Throne,” announced Aislina.

“Hurrah! We won, we won! Hail Aislina the last elf!” cheered Throne.

“Hail Aislina the last elf! Hail Aislina the last elf! Hail Aislina the last elf!” the crowd cheered and shouted..

“Come on, why don’t they hail us?” complaint Starsha.

“You’re so vain, Starsha … Anyway, dwarves hate humans, you can’t expect them to hail humans. Hailing an elf is a stopgap,” giggled Floria.

“I am not being vain. As a musician, I desire praise from the audiences,” explained Starsha.

“Thank you, friends, all of you. You four have saved all dwarves in Titan Forge, and I am going to hold a feast to celebrate our victory! After the feast, I will help you get to Infernal Mountain to destroy the Cube of Necrus,” expressed Throne gratefully.