Yuurei and Renji had been helping the people in this area. They had gotten to this place in Talaz Lagaar and were now here to stay. Of course, they were able to roam around whenever they were free, but at this moment they were back at it again.

The people were suffering, and there was not much they could, do but tend to them. It was their own willpower that would allow them to live and pull through it. The two of them were walking around as they figured that Brone would be there as well. They had come as a group and had taken care of the people in a certain room already.

Renji would look around as the two of them would walk around the facilities. The nurses that were there had known about him after the first day of him being there. They would giggle, smile and wave at him as they would keep moving. He would wave back at them with a smile on his face as he was happy to see them.

Renji shook his head as he looked at Yuurei with a smile.

“Of course, the nurses are fond of you, Yuu. We've only been here about a week and you have them like that?” He asked his friend while they were moving on to the next place.

Yuurei would laugh when he heard those words, and he was fine with that.

“I just spoke to them when they needed someone to speak to. I also think I’m good at hearing what they wanted and helping them with whatever they needed help with.” He said as they continued moving.

It was a nice day outside, but they're hardly any people outside. The majority of the people of this island were bedridden and doing their best to live. There were those who had perished because of this disease, which brought the duo hope that they could do more.

“I hope we are gifted with things that not a lot of people can come in contact with. I’m sure everybody that isn’t from Talaz Lagaar is looking to be rewarded with something from this kingdom.” He said to Renji.

Renji would hear this and he figured as much as he would continue walking.

“Yeah, and it seems like we might get what we want. There is the Zero area that seems to be too advanced for Fiore technology.” He said to Yuurei.

The Seraphim would hear him, and he would smile as if he wasn’t wrong about that.

“I’m pretty sure that is where a lot of people would gather from Fiore as well.” He said to Renji as they would finally arrive at their location.

It was then he would open the door and he would see all the patients that were on their beds. He would see this and he would shake his head at this scene.

“We’re here to help out with the patients here.” He said to the nurse that was checking on them.

502

Once again, Brone Heavyaxe was awoken by Gnicholas the gnome, "Why are you making this a habit when you are usually awake before dawn when we're back at home?" the gnome asked as he sat at the end of the bed while reading the daily Talaz Lagaar newspaper.

"This place isn't home, so time is different here!" Brone yelled out while he was rushing within the shower. The gnome was going to argue the point, but realized that despite how the dwarf may have worded that sentence, time zones were indeed a thing, though he wasn't sure whether or not Brone knew of it and was just trying to find anything that excused his lateness.

"How is time different here?" Nevertheless, Gnicholas decided to entertain the statement by trying to probe it so he can get his answer.

"I don't know, magic?" The dwarf replied with a snarky tone as he burst through the door while only in a towel and allowing the steam to escape into the area of the hotel room they rented for their temporary stay on the island.

"Sure" The gnome said as he got the answered he was looking for... the dwarf was trying to pull excuses out of his rear. The steam that vented from the washroom had engulfed the area, causing the newspaper to dampen and fall away; the ink appearing on the gnome's hands, irritating him, so he tossed away the useless newspaper in the nearby trash bin. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead as he realized the steam was beginning to suffocate him with the humidity, so he hopped off the bed and ran over to the main door and opened it up to allow the steam to trail into the hotel hallway, "Do you shower in boiling water?" the gnome asked, clearly annoyed.

"The hotel has some kind of super-boiler, and yet it can barely reach the temperature I want" Brone said as he donned his normal outgoing cloths; a beige linen shirt and dark brown pants and his favored boots from Timothy's, but he chose not to wear his armor, given that it had slowed him down the day prior and made things awkward.

"Because if that matched the temperature of a dwarven forge, that'll be a safety hazard!" Gnicholas yelled, already fed up with the dwarf's nonsense. He understood that dwarven skin and endurance was tough, especially for Brone himself, but sometimes he doesn't think clearly about things before making certain choices and decisions.

Brone sucked his teeth and waved away the gnome as he donned his brown cloak before walking out the door and headed down the hall with Gnicholas following.

"Where's Beni?" the gnome asked.

"I'm here" came Benimaru's voice as he slowly floated into view from the thick steam that filled the hallway, startling a couple who were passing by.

"Good, we're heading back to the clinic" Brone said as he rushed passed the shield-sword spirit.

"Goooood, more souls to devour" Benimaru's voice echoed as he followed behind the dwarf and gnome. At this point, Brone knew the spirit was joking since he had yet to witness him following up with any of his 'attempts' or 'desires', as for the gnome, he was still on the fence about whether or not Benimaru was evil, so he figured he would keep an eye on him.

The three of them eventually reached the clinic, bursting through the front doors. The nurse at the front desk pointed them in the direction, already knowing they were given their appearance and their lateness being a common thing now. They thanked her and rushed down that direction, peeking in through each and every door they could find; at one point they even spotted an odd sight; a young couple were embracing one another while on the bed, deep in passion.

"Oh, my apologies" Gnicholas bashfully said at the doorway. The couple broke away to reveal the truth behind the scene; the woman who was in the hospital gown had blood running down her mouth, her fangs crimson from her meal as the man was semi-conscious. It was but a moment of silence from both sides given how shocking it was for all of them... after a few seconds, Brone summoned his golden axe into his hand.

"No wait... she needs a blood... transfusion" the man, who was struggling to speak due to his fatigue was a doctor judging by his attire.

"...Oh" was all Brone could say before he slowly backed out of the room with Benimaru and Gnicholas who too were bewildered. After they closed the door, they agreed to not speak of this as they continued to search for the right room.

Eventually they finally found Yuurei and Renji, "We're here" Brone said happily, though Gnicholas was out of breath.

"If vampires can drink blood here, then I should be able to suck out souls without being judged" Benimaru said, already breaking the promise they made to one another in the hallway. One of the patients in a nearby bed was startled by what the spirit had said. Brone, irritated, grabbed the shield and sword and was trying to forcefully push the equipment into his magical ring where he can store his weapons.

"Your rings don't work that way, Brone" Gnicholas finally caught his breath.

"Either keep ye mouth shut I'm shoving ye into Yuurei's weapon box!" the dwarf growled at the spirit. Benimaru, his mask never changing it's expression, remained silent. The three of them finally stood at attention, smiling and ready for the next task at hand.

949

Yuurei and Renji were looking around the place and figured it was time to get to work. The nurse had seen them and she was happy that they were there. She felt overwhelmed with everything and honestly, she needed a break. With them here, she knew she could do just that. She did look around but didn’t see the other guy who was with them the last time. She figured he would come later as last time he did come late.

“I’m glad you guys are here. I need your help, and I need to go on break. I have been over doing it. Do you think you can attend to the patients while I’m gone?” She asked them.

Yuurei and Renji would look at each other and they would smile. They were here to help in any way, and this was a way of helping. They would look at her and Yuurei figured he would be the one to answer.

“Yes, we will be more than happy to help you out on this. What do you need us to do?” He asked her wondering what she would say.

She would bow slightly to them as she was happy that they were here. She would look at them with a serious expression on her face.

“I need you two to make sure that their vitals don’t spike up. It’s been getting crazier through the days. We have some medicine for you to force down their throats if any of their vitals spike up. It should be enough to stop what’s going on in their system. Of course, if one of you guys can clean this place up it would also be nice. The same thing as last time, I would need the blood from the people in this room, make sure that their temperature doesn’t rise, and do whatever you can to make sure that they are doing good.” She said to them.

Yuurei and Renji would hear everything that she had said and would nod understanding what she was asking of them.

“Thank you, we got this. You go on your break.” He said to her as she was glad to hear this.

She would leave the room, and Yuurei would look at Renji.

“Alright, for the time being, you think you can clean up this place Renji?” He asked his friend.

Renji would look at him with a smile on his face as if he was fine with doing that.

“I’m on it.” He said to Yuurei as he would start moving around the room.

He would pick up rags that were on the ground and he would put them in the bin where the dirty rags belong. He would move around the place, and he would see that they were working overtime here if they had a lot of these on the ground. Still, he was on the job and he was going to make sure he got it done. Yuurei would see that Renji had gone to work and he would do his own thing as well. He would go around the room he would take the empty bowls and would start filling them.

Once he was done doing that he would start placing them next to each patient's bed as he was preparing things for what was to come. He would see that every bowl was filled and now he was going to need a rag for each of them. While he was looking for the clean rags, he would hear a door-busting open and when he looked at it, he would see Brone, Gnicholas, and Benimaru arrive. He would have a smile on his face.

He would look at the place and he would spot the clean rags.

“It’s about time you guys arrived at this place. The nurse left us to handle things. I want you guys to get those rags over there. I got clean water in the bowls, so all you need to do is get the rags and put them on everyone’s forehead.” He said, pausing for a second.

“It seems like the nurse wants us to make sure that their vitals don’t spike up, and if they do, she left medicine for us to force on them, so they can take it. She said it should calm them down soon after. Oh yeah, she also asked if someone could clean the room. Renji is on it, but if someone could help him that would be nice.” He said as he was telling them the task at hand.

Still, now that he had told his friend what was needed, he would start his part of the job as well. Yuurei would get some of the rags himself as he would move over to the patients and he would start soaking the rags before wringing the excessive water. When it was drenched anymore, he would put it on their forehead before moving on to the next person. He could see that it was soothing them, which was a good thing. He was glad that he could help; Yuurei would move on to the next patient and he would do the same thing. They seemed to have enjoyed the feeling of the cooling towel on their head.

When he got to the next person though, his vitals would spike, and he could hear the beeping noise increasing. He would look around the table and he would see the medicine the nurse was talking about. The Seraphim would rush to it and he would take it and give some to the patient. He would force it down their throat and within a few seconds their vitals would go down. His eyes blinked a few times as he was confused about how that worked.

“Is that a super drug that they developed? That worked too quickly in my opinion.” He said out loud.

Renji would see what had happened, and he couldn’t believe it either. It would seem like the people in Talaz Lagaar were working their magic to find a solution as fast as they could. Renji would go back to cleaning though as there was a lot of mess.

1027|1529

Immediately they got to work, grabbing the rags and the bowls of water. Dampening them and placing the cloths onto the heads of each patient, well Brone and Gnicholas had done so, as for Benimaru, he simply floated around the room, watching the monitors. After every patient had a wet towel on their forehead, keeping them cool, they went about their own business, trying to find something to do while they kept watch of the patients.

Gnicholas went over to Renji and joined him with the cleaning of the medical room, "My apologies for the lateness again; Brone seems to lack a sense of time and it's hard waking him since he sleeps like a bolder but snores like an avalanche" he chuckled as he used a disinfecting spray and rag to clean one of the countertops. He doesn't tend to have conversations much, but he figured while he was there, he could pass the time.

As for Benimaru, he would float about. At one point, a patient had partially awaken and asked in a weak voice "Are you here to take me to the afterlife?"

"No, that's my brother, he isn't here yet; my job is to keep the bad spirits away" Benimaru's voice became comforting as he floated by the young teen's bedside.

"Like a angel?" the boy asked in between coughs.

"No, no, I'm a spirit from a powerful guild, our job is to protect people, the living and those who passed" though the mask was intimidating, after hearing the comforting words had made the teen smile for a bit before falling back to sleep. Brone had overheard this conversation but did his best to pretend as if he didn't. Situations like this had made the dwarf believe the spirits has good intentions, though the gnome was still hesitant, however when it comes to this conversation, the gnome wasn't aware of it.

Something beeping, breaking the silence within the room, which made the dwarf frantic; his instincts kicking in as he summoned forth his golden axe, but in the next moment, he realized the beeping was coming from one of the monitors. Yuurei had tended to the patient by providing medicine, which calmed the patient and silenced the beeping. The golden axe vanished back into the pocket dimension hidden within the magical ring on his finger. Brone looked at the monitor, wondering how it worked and how it was able to tell if the patient's vitals were 'spiking', whatever that meant. At the end, the dwarf wasn't able to make heads or tails of the device, so chocked it up to 'magic' as usual.

"Well technology is advanced on this island; our comprehension of science is at it's most basic stage since it's still relatively new to us" Gnicholas replied to Yuurei as he grabbed the clipboard at the base of the bed of the patient and went over to the monitor to mark down the vitals before and after the drop from the spike, "This may be a super drug to us, but it could be something very simple to the nurses and doctors, well depending on what the drug is fighting in the system".

"So it ain't magic?" Brone asked as he walked over and took a peek at the clipboard to try and figure out what the gnome was writing, but from what he could see, nothing seem to make sense to him.

"No, it isn't magic" Gnicholas, irritated by the dwarf looking over his shoulder, pulled away, "Science and magic are two different things".

"That is a statement that can be debated" Benimaru finally spoke up, drawing the attention of both the gnome and dwarf; the shield and sword floated over to the them, "Once, in my early days, certain practices, like alchemy, was seen as magic to those who knew so little, but scholars of both wizardry and science have claimed it to be science; eventually as time went on, and technology, albeit simple, progressed and became the norm, which brought the acceptance of alchemy being a science, because there was no longer a mystery".

Brone was confused, he scratched his beard beneath his face mask, he was trying his best to follow the conversation.

"Well recently scholars had accepted alchemy has part magical and scientific" Gnicholas replied as he returned the clipboard back to it's placeholder at the base of the patient's bed.

"Then... what is the difference between magic and science?" Brone asked, which drew the attention of Beni and Gnicholas, which caught the dwarf off-guard, wondering if he had said something idiotic.

"That is a good question; history has shown that anything that couldn't be explained at the time was considered 'magic', but after some time, when something was then able to be explained either through measurement or observation, it became scientific" the gnome then went back to cleaning the tabletops as he continued his explanation.

"Well then, that brings the question of: 'what does that make spirits?'" Benimaru chuckled. Gnicholas hesitated and thought for a moment, then he laughed when he couldn't answer that question. Brone even tried to think of his own answer, but Benimaru had a good point, for as long as intelligent living beings have been alive, no one could fully explain the afterlife, or death. The closest have been necromancers, who dedicated their lives to the study of such. There are spirits who still walk amongst the living and even beings who govern the afterlife such as angels, but such beings tend to keep the secrets of the afterlife just that... a secret for one reason or another.

"Oi, Yuurei, ye be a angel, right? Can ye tell us anything about the afterlife?" Brone asked his friend. Gnicholas was going to interrupt Brone, intending to claim his question to be idiotic, but then his curiosity got the best of him. He wasn't sure what the 'Grace of an angel' provided to Yuurei, which maybe could include knowledge, so he quietly looked to the Nephilim and waited. As for Benimaru, he himself is a spirit, but he also lacked certain information about the afterlife and wondered what Yuurei could provide to all of them.

1,045 | 1,994

Renji would continue cleaning and he would look over to Gnicholas as he was helping him out with this. He would smile as he heard their reason for being late.

“Oh I see. Brone does seem to be a bit weird from time to time. It's interesting to see that he’s late for this. Is he getting sick or something?” He asked Gnicholas as he would continue cleaning.

Yuurei would hear Gnicholas, and he figured that was the case. He didn’t know how it worked, and honestly, he wouldn’t know how it would work. He wasn’t into being a doctor or a scientist. He did enjoy learning about things like that, so if someone taught him that would be cool to him.

The Seraphim would walk around as he would continue putting the rags on the head of the patients here. He heard Gnicholas, Benimaru, and Brone speaking with each other. It would seem like Brone got lost through it all, which made him chuckle. He would finish putting the rags on everybody from his side and he figured Brone would do the same.

The hunter would move on to the next part and which was taking blood from the patients on the bed. He would start doing his share as they weren’t moving whenever he put the syringe in. While he was doing this though it would seem like a weird question would be asked. He would look over to Brone who had asked him that and he would scratch the back of his head. He wouldn’t know the answer to this even though he was a Seraphim. He had never left Earthland, so he wasn’t sure if there was another world for those who died.

Renji would continue cleaning the room as he was coming to an end. He was happy Gnicholas was helping out, for it made things quicker and easier for him.

“To be honest, I don’t know. I’m a Seraphim, but I’m one that has never left Earthland. I have never been to the world of the Seraphims, and I don’t know if they are the ones that bring the souls of the dead to a new place to live in. That is kind of out of my jurisdiction, so it would be a cool answer to get from someone that has the answer.” He said to them as he would continue working.

He would go around taking the blood of the people in their beds. They were peaceful and it would seem like the five of them being there had given the patients a soothing aura. That was good because he was happy to help them. He would continue to do his best to help them and he would hope it was enough. Renji would finish cleaning as he would stretch into the air with a smile on his face.

“All done here.” He said out loud.

It wouldn’t take long, but the nurse would come back as she would see that their job was done here.

503|2032
[exit]

Brone nodded at Yuurei, as for Benimaru and Gnicholas, they accepted the answer without judgement, for they were all in the same boat about the question of the afterlife.

"Magic" Brone said, which made the gnome and Benimaru laugh. If it wasn't known to be explained, then mark it as 'magic'. They continued their work, cleaning the area, tending to the patients and keeping track of the monitors, though whenever Brone would look at the screens, he would blank out mentally, trying to figure out what the symbols were and what the numbers meant, but the gnome assured him that he didn't need to worry about any of it, so they moved on.

Eventually the nurse returned and the group was allowed to move on with tier day. Each of them hoped that they had made some form of a difference in those people's lives. It was progress nevertheless.

150 | 2,144

[Exit]