Chapter 66 Village of the Damned

The snow still fell the next morning, although a trifle more lightly. We could just manage to see the closest hut to ours through the swirling flakes. I left provisioning to the others and went to the center of this village to set myself up as a free clinic. They have no doctors or healers here, so they should have had need of my services. Sadly, none came to see me.

I gave up after a while, checked the weather, and returned to the hut. The blizzard was only going to get worse and I saw no end in sight. Peter Popoff has joined us. I have never heard of him, but José recognized him. He was a renowned faith healer, serving Shallia, but he says he no longer uses her powers to heal. A crisis of faith, perhaps? Regardless, he is certainly a skilled physician, and it's nice to have someone to talk to who understands. He had no news from the outside world that we didn't already know ourselves, isolated as we have been recently.

Most interestingly, José created fish for us to eat, which effort always tires him. Peter, with a simple prayer to Shallia was able to restore José completely. I wonder if he will be able to do the same for me, after a healing? If so, I can heal more before having to stop and rest. With this group, that would be a huge benefit. Pippo also stopped by and offered us a rabbit he'd caught somehow. Sun and José cooked the fish and the rabbit, and Pippo sat down to eat with us, at Miara's inviation.

Bark had been sitting quietly in a corner of the hut all morning. Miara invited him to lunch with us, and suddenly an earth elemental clawed its way out of the earth floor of the hut and walked out, not harming any of us. Miara took him to task for using the crystal, as it does nothing but spread chaos. Bark disagreed, explaining that his vision told him "chaos will help us prevail". But of course, Miara is right, too, and the chaos he had just messed with slapped him down: Bark's clothes rotted right off him. He grabbed a rug from the floor and covered himself with it, but not before we all saw him: covered in fur head to toe. So that is why he hides himself so carefully. He is a beastman. He has proven to us, though, that he is unlike most of them, and seems to be almost human.

As the earth elemental made its way through the village, we heard screams outside. Bark said not too worry, it will all work out. He summoned the thing to go delving into the mines and the mountains themselves and bring back silver to the village, so they won't be so poor.

Pippo seemed unsure about the idea and said he thought the villagers might not appreciate that as much as Bark thought they would. But he looked earnestly at us all and said with conviction, "You are all good people." Miara asked how he knew that, and he simply repeated we are good.

Miara seemed to believe him. I'm not sure I do. At least not until, and if, we can ever get rid of this horror we created.