Bedbugs
With Aithorn assisting with alchemy and procuring materials, Noah secluded himself in his home, writing out runic equations and sketching molecular structures. The memory tea had succeeded in bringing back old formulas from his past, and now he just had to fiddle with them a bit and experiment. With each new drug he created, he would expose it to bacterial samples and observe their reaction under the microscope. These diseases were formidable adversaries, but with the combination of elvish and modern medicine, the tide of battle was turning.
After burning the morning hours looking through his microscope, he took what he had and went to see his patients. However, as he and Aithorn made the walk, they encountered three different fistfights between the citizens, and parties screaming about offenses and long-buried grudges, ruining what was supposed to be a city of quiet serenity.
"Is Sylphtoria usually like this? I didn't think elves were so prone to random acts of violence and anger." Noah asked.
"I don't know what's going on, I've never seen it this violent here. I heard that things have turned utterly chaotic while we were gone," said Aithorn as he and Noah watched soldiers arrest the brawlers.
"Maybe it's fear of the epidemic making everyone crazy. You normally see this kind of behavior during famine, economic struggles, and political polarization."
"Things don't change here as rapidly as they do in human societies."
"But clearly, something has."
They reached their destination, but there were even more sick people now than the day before, all at different stages of infection.
"What is this?" Valia asked as she watched Noah mix white powder into a glass of water.
"These are called antibiotics. If this medicine doesn't cure you, it'll at least get the bacterial count so low that your immune system might be able to fight off whatever remains." He handed her the cup, and she took a deep gulp, but nearly spat it out. "Yeah, I added some sugar to make it sweeter, but I imagine it still tastes pretty awful."
"You got that right," she said with a grimace.
"Even if I can cure this, unless we figure out the source, it's just going to keep happening."
"Maybe Balil isn't the original source of this disease," said Valia. "Maybe he caught it from someone else. Unfortunately, we can't exactly ask him about it."
"Either that, or the source is somehow environmental, maybe in the water, or...."
"You! Human!" Noah turned, seeing a male elf pointing to him, his face covered in lesions. "You did this to us!"
"I'm the one trying to cure you."
"Liar!" He charged towards Noah, reminding him of Clemens, but this time, when the punch came, Noah grabbed his arm, twisted it, and brought the man to the ground. The disease had robbed him of most of his strength, but hysteria had amplified everything he had left.
"Calm down!" Noah barked, but the elf was howling profanities. Aithorn helped tie the man up and return him to his bed, but he had to be gagged to stop his screaming.
"Damn it, this city is coming apart at the seams," said Aithorn. He then noticed a peculiar look on Noah's face. "What is it?"
"All those people fighting before, I think they're infected."
"But they weren't showing symptoms."
"Yes they were, at least they were showing one symptom, but the rest are sure to follow. Muscle pain and spasms, nausea, dizziness, skin lesions, and psychosis; these are all symptoms of ergot poisoning."
"Ergot poisoning?"
"It's the result of eating wheat and grains infected with mold. In various world histories, those suffering from ergot poisoning have believed themselves the victims of witchcraft or demonic possession. This world must have something similar, where the mold carries these bacteria. It's possible that each symptom is the result of different kinds of mold contamination in Sylphtoria's bread supply. Maybe Meralda and I succeeded in curing Balil, but every time he ate contaminated bread, he just made himself sick again."
"Is there any way to prove this?"
"Using alchemy and the bacterial samples we've collected, we can test the bread to see if any contamination is present. We just need a large sample size"
"You don't understand. The wheat for our bread isn't grown in large fields. It's grown in gardens spread across the entire Anorvan forest. Even if you can prove its contaminated, there is no way to isolate the source."
"But if we can find the contamination and prove the theory, then that'll be enough for the queen to order the burning of all the bread and wheat in the forest. You guys are surrounded with food and can use druidism, so this isn't exactly going to cause a famine."
"What do we do?"
"I'm going to back to the house and write out the formula. I need you to get some soldiers and collect bread from every home in Sylphtoria."
Before, Aithorn would have insisted on keeping Noah under watch, but he just nodded. "I'm on it."
Thus, they split up. Noah returned home and began working on the test, while Aithorn and several soldiers went around the city, gathering as much bread and grain as they could find. They arrived at the house with carts, wheelbarrows, and sacks full of suspected food. Noah and Aithorn spent the rest of the day testing the bread and continued their work long into the night.
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