Chp.18: Desperate situation

Corgorin quickly grabbed Carlos's hand, which was rapidly filling with purple buboes and pustules. New pustules were growing on the old ones and the skin was literally peeling. But the worst thing was that the strange infection was spreading, and by now it had affected not only the whole hand but also part of the forearm.

"Nothing works!" Carlos exclaimed as he continued to gulp down potion after potion. "Neither poison immunity potions, nor healing potions, nor regeneration potions! Nothing!"

"W-Wait! I'll try a spell!" Sarah said casting a spell that would normally sweep away any poison or toxin, but it had no effect on the infection. It didn't even seem to slow it down. "Damn! Why doesn't it work!? What is that!?"

"Shut up, I have to concentrate!" Corgorin exclaimed taking Carlos' hand and sticking out her tongue.

The man let out a disgusted noise. "Um... what do you want to do?"

"The same thing I did with the mushrooms, I will taste this poison to understand what it is! If it disgusts you, close your eyes!" Corgorin answered, and greedily licked Carlos's hand. The man turned away. It took the dragon less than two seconds to finish, but when it drew its head back, its eyes were wide open in clear fear. "This... this is impossible..."

"What's wrong with you? What is it about!?" Sarah exclaimed. "Speak! How do we stop it!?"

Corgorin shook her head. "We can't! It's not a poison or a disease, it's a tumor!"

Carlos's eyes widened at those words. Sarah turned white as a sheet. "A tumor...? What are you saying?"

"Exactly what I said! Healing potions don't work because this isn't something extraneous, it's part of the body!" Corgorin answered. "When I tasted something affected by a poison or a disease, I clearly feel that there is something more in the body than there should normally be. This time however I just taste a broken body! The taste of a tumor mass!"

Corgorin had tasted sick animals before, since they were easier to catch, and he knew how to distinguish between various diseases. They had different effects on the taste of the body. Whenever disease, poison, infection, or anything extraneous to the body was mentioned, the dragon could clearly sense the presence of something else; but when it came to tumors and cancers, they did not alter the taste of the meat, they simply made it more sour, as if it were rotten. This is because diseases, poisons, infections and all the others came from the outside in some way, whereas tumors and cancers were the result of parts of the body that stopped working properly. And precisely because they were part of the body, they couldn't be eliminated with healing potions or spells, since they could not eliminate something that was in fact part of the being they were supposed to cure. "How... how do we stop it then?" Sarah asked in a strangled voice.

Corgorin was frightened. She had never seen a tumor expand so quickly, much less she had ever heard of snakes that could cause tumors. All she knew was that if they didn't do something fast Carlos would probably be dead. But she had no idea what to do. "I… I don't know! I have no idea to how to cure a tumor! You're the wizard!"

"What does that mean? That because I'm a wizard I should know how to cure this stuff?" Sarah snapped. "I don't know such spell! I don't even know if they exist!"

"Well, me neither! I don't know what to do, okay!?" Corgorin almost screamed, then an idea flashed through her mind and the calm returned to her face. "Unless..."

She looked at Carlos, who looked like he was about to cry in pain. That quick glance was enough for the man to understand what she had in mind. "Okay" he said. "Cut off my hand. It doesn't matter, I'll regrow it with a regeneration potion"

"The odds of succeeding are low. You won't be able to simply pour the regeneration potion on the stump, you will have to drink it and wait for it to take effect. To do this you will have to use your mana to avoid bleeding out in the meantime" Dyana pointed out to him. "You're just level silver, you don't have enough mana. You risk losing your hand permanently"

Regeneration potions didn't work the same way depending on whether you slathered them on the wound or ingested them. In the former case, the potion merely repaired the wound it was touching; that is to say in the case of a severed hand it would only close the stump and heal it. But in the second case, it would have regenerated any damaged body parts; which meant that if a limb had already been repaired previously, precisely by closing the stump and leaving no bleeding, the potion wouldn't have identified it as a wound and it would have left it cut, without making the arm and hand grow back. Basically, the only way to regrow a body part was to drink the potion while the wound was still open… but that would have meant risking bleeding out, since it wasn't exactly a quick process. Therefore, it was necessary for the person in question to stop the bleeding using their mana until the regrowth was almost complete. This required a lot of concentration and above all a high amount of mana; a level silver would have had little chance of making it.

However, Carlos now thanks to the dragon's blood had reached the base of the level diamond, which meant that he had a very good chance of being able to regrow his hand. But of course Dyana didn't know this since the five adventurers had told no one about the gift of dragons and had avoided showing their strength. "Uh... I'll take the risk. Between losing a hand and dying, I'd rather sacrifice my hand" Carlos replied using the first excuse that came to mind.

"And I'll help him by giving him some of my mana!" Sarah exclaimed playing along. "Yes, it's... a spell the dragons taught me! I'm sure it will be enough!". That way, the fact that Carlos would be able to regrow his arm wouldn't seem so far-fetched.

Dyana raised an eyebrow. "Is there such magic?"

"Yes! My sister, Maldor, invented it!" Corgorin said hoping the woman would believe her.

But Dyana wasn't too convinced. "How exactly does it work?"

"Sorry, can you talk about it later, please!?" Carlos exclaimed. "I remind you that here I would be dying! Cut off this damned arm, for fuck's sake!"

"Yes, right!" Corgorin exclaimed remembering what was happening. She drew her sword and aimed it at Carlos' arm. By now the infection had spread beyond the forearm and at any moment was in danger of reaching the shoulder. With a sharp blow, she cut off the arm, which now looked more like a horrid pulsating tumor mass.

Carlos let out a cry of pain; they hadn't given him anything to bite on, so he couldn't suppress it. It wasn't the first time he'd been wounded, but it was the first time a limb had been cut off. It was as if fire had ignited where it was struck, so strong that it was burning even the inside of his bones. Despite this, however, he managed to concentrate and moved the mana towards the stump and formed a barrier with it, effectively blocking the loss of blood. Carlos was a mage, not a warrior, so he could only use his mana to gather mana from outside and form a spell, but that was enough: by creating numerous small spells all over the blood vessels, he stopped them from continuing to spray blood outside and therefore risk making him die.

At least it seemed to have worked: both Sarah and Corgorin breathed a sigh of relief to see that no blisters were appearing on the remaining stump. In contrast, the severed arm that now lay on the cave floor was continuing to generate horrendous swelling, though that process was slowing down as the arm was no longer alive even though it was still warm. At least, it didn't look like Carlos was in danger of his life anymore.

"Sister!" Corgorin looked away and saw that Serengal, Martha and Lisah were running towards them. In the distance on the opposite side he could also see Rhaegal, Efren and Atelas approaching. Apparently they had seen the distress signal. As soon as they were close enough Serengal strode up to her and grabbed her almost by the neck. "I'll leave you alone for… what? Twenty minutes? And you are still able to screw up!? First, what's that frog-headed animal tied there? Second, what is that thing on the ground that looks like a mass of pustules? Third, why doesn't Carlos have an arm? Fourth, where did that arm go? And fifth, for what fucking reason is his blood on your sword!?"

Corgorin swallowed. She had to admit that her sister wasn't entirely wrong in considering her irresponsible. And probably she too would have reacted that way if she had arrived and found herself in front of that scene. Luckily for her Rhaegal came to her rescue: "Ok, that's enough, let's all calm down" he said pushing the two sisters away and so forced Serengal to let her go. "Now tell us what happened here"

Corgorin mentally thanked her brother and explained everything that had happened, generating no small amazement in those who had just arrived and suddenly found themselves hearing a story about snakes causing tumors and sliced ​​arms as if they were hams. "This is the culprit, by the way" she said in the end picking up the body of the dead snake and showing it to the others.

Rhaegal took the snake. In appearance it was a very ordinary yellowish-brown snake, although a little smoke still emerged from its mouth. It seemed impossible that such a common-looking creature could cause such suffering. What was it doing in the frog-lizard's mouth, by the way? "I guess it acts like a parasite. It hides under that animal's lips and eats its flesh"

"Shouldn't it also infect the frog-lizard in that case?" Efren asked.

"I don't think so. Look, it hasn't the venom teeth" Rhaegal said as he opened the snake's mouth and showed it to Efren, who actually didn't see the typical long teeth with which snakes poisoned their victims. "I don't think it causes tumors with its teeth. I guess it uses another way and that it can control it... although I have no idea what it is"

Atelas let out a growl. "This place is more dangerous than we thought. As soon as your friend recovers we should return to the surface at once" he said. "And while we stay here we must be more careful. Have any of you at least checked that there are no more of these snakes in that frog-lizard's mouth?"

The tigerman's words weren't stupid; indeed, they were quite reasonable. "I'll do it" Corgorin said. "If one of those things bites me, it can't do nothing to me, after all. Just make sure you crush it as soon as it comes out"

As I said this she glared at Sarah; that was clearly a taunt for what the woman had said earlier. The wizard, however, for once ignored her and concentrated on Carlos, who had already drunk the regeneration potion and seemed to be regenerating his arm quite well. Knowing that she had to pretend to use the 'mana transfer spell' they had told Dyana, she placed a hand on Dyana's back and prepared to recite some random words. However as soon as her hand touched her friend's clothes her face became even whiter than before. With a quick movement she pulled down the hem of Carlos' shirt slightly, and she could clearly see small purplish pustules on his back. "G-Guys!"

The others hearing her frightened voice ran to see, and their faces went white too. "But... But I cut out the tumor!" Corgorin said in a whisper.

"It must have reached other parts of the body using the blood" Serengal said. "Well... at least it seems to be progressing slowly..."

It was true: not only were the pustules much smaller than those of the original tumor mass, but they were growing very slowly, not expanding out of control. However, that was still a tumor, and even if it slowly would kill the body if it reached any of the important organs. And they certainly couldn't cut off Carlos' back. "What do we do?" Corgorin asked not knowing what to think.

Rhaegal pulled out the communication device. "Carlos, just keep focusing on not bleeding out while your arm regrow. You guys, take his clothes off so we can see where the other tumors are. While I…" and he turned on the device inhis hand. "...I will call the only person that I know who can make the impossible real"