Chapter 15 - The Doctor

William was about to strike, but he stayed his blade when John began to speak. 

"My apologies. I wanted to enter the Keep, but the line was long. I grew tired of waiting and instead hit the pubs. I got a few drinks and grew curious to know this place better." John said with a fake drunk accent. 

"Where are you from?" The lady asked while the guards inspected John for weapons. 

"David Ashton," John replied, hoping that they take in his lies. William kept his hand on his blade, waiting for the moment John might slip up. 

"Ah, an Ashton, from the north. You came a long way." The lady said as she signaled the guard to leave them. She turned and asked John to follow her. 

"I heard rumors that the rich have bought the cure, but I am a humble worker with a small wage. I cannot pay for the cure they bought. But I heard another rumor that this Keep might cure me of the disease." John sheepishly asked. 

The lady smiled and assured John that their village had already made a cure for leprosy two years ago. And they will give the drug to the infected for a reasonable price. 

John and the lady took the door to the left. William came from the right and began following them from the shadows. He crawled above to the support beam of the ceiling and began tracking them from above.

William followed them to a long and dimly lit hallway. Here, masks resemble the ones that William and John have fought hanging on the walls.

"What a unique collection. Your collection, Miss?" John asked.

"Maria Blackstone," the lady says. "And no, these are Lady Margaret's. All of these are hers. These for hunting her hunting." Maria says it with a hint of malice in her voice.

William smiles, seeing that he and his friend are on the right track. The cure must be somewhere near if the general's masks are here.  

For John, the name Blackstone was familiar to him. The Blackstone was an old family exiled by the Royal Court for corruption. This Maria is in her mid-20s did not live the glory days of Blackstone. John was unfamiliar with her face and assumed she was just a baby when they were exiled 25 years ago.

Maria and John reached the end of the hall. William, however, could not follow them as the door was small enough for one person to enter. But there was another door just a few meters behind them. He wished his friend good luck and hoped that this door would lead him to the cure.

John was led to a room with the other infected. It was a spacious room with bunk beds enough to hold a hundred people. The room is also connected to stairs, leading them to the Keep's second floor, where Margaret's study is. 

"David, what you heard was true. We can give the cure to the people, but we cannot give it for free. You must do some things for us before we give you the cure." The lady said. 

"Thank you." John politely said. 

Shortly after the lady closed the doors, the door to the study swings open with an infected man and a woman wearing a plague mask Doctor. 

"This man accomplished his task!" The Doctor gave the man his cure. And the man shed tears of joy while drinking it. 

The infected below began to praise the Doctor, asking them to save them from their fate. 

"The previous batch was tasked to eliminate the traitors of our Kingdom. The family of Throg used our tax money to their whims. Making themselves fat while the poor suffers!" The Doctor then scattered newspapers from the Kingdom declaring the death of Henry, head of the Throg family, found dead.

"My task for you in exchange for a cure is simple. You will cleanse the Kingdom's filth." The Doctor looked at the crowd and yelled the name of the faces she recognized in the group. John was shocked to hear the surnames of the people he was with: Thornton, Millers, Triton, Von Regan, and many other exiled royal families from the Kingdom due to corruption. 

"You are all exiled by the Kingdom for 'corruption.' Did the Kingdom improve?" The Doctor asked the infected, and they replied a roaring no.

"Did the Kingdom reach a golden age for the past 25 years?" The Doctor asked the crowd they responded a louder no.

"Then, my friends, we shall give them a taste of their medicine!" The infected began clamoring, and the Doctor swayed all into her cause. 

John began to think back to when the Princess taught him and William at Tarwood those two years ago. She told them that when a family was found guilty of corruption, they were given a choice: to retain their nobility and title but are sent into exile into the wilderness or renounce their title and live as a commoner in the most remote part Kingdom. Most picked the latter and are never seen as a threat again. 

But what caught his attention was these exiled nobles quickly joining the Doctor's cause. John can feel their craving for vengeance. They want to hurt these nobles as much as they have suffered from being exiled. It's not just about being healed; they want blood.

The Doctor asked the guards to lead them to the armory where the smith would fit them for their tasks. John kept the act up and prayed that he would find the location of the vial before he was tasked to kill a noble.

At the other side of the Keep, William silently entered the door and found himself in another alchemic room filled with instruments boiling what he thought were magical potions. Over at a counter, there's a journal scribbled with notes detailing the countless experiment they made over the years. 

One part he read was a report about how Death Shade's experiment successfully claimed its first victim. The potency was strong enough to kill a man within hours, but they needed to tune it to kill a man within weeks after repeated dosage.

William then flipped the journal and found another paragraph that intrigued him. "The Chief could not dominate the different tribes over the mountains of the north. I have executed Plan B: the rats eagerly ate their bodies and managed to triple the size of my little army. They have now an acquired taste for flesh."

A connection to Pentalium! William excitedly scans more of the pages hoping to find more clues about Pentalium, but that passage is the only one he sees. But skimming the journal found him an entry that sends a shiver to his spine:

"The third iteration of the formula is the perfect condition to slowly poison the citizens with Death Shade. Chalice will be its name. 

I am now moving to the first phase of our plan. We have shipped Chalice across the Kingdom, and it's a matter of time till the other village and town ask for my help. The Chief's report was correct; these outskirts are filled with exiled nobles. I will easily sway them to join our cause.

The second phase is doing well as planned. The strongest of those infected nobles that manage to pull off my assassination will become my 26 generals. The weaker ones will be relegated to guardsmen. Soon I send my generals and hire some bandits to sell the cure to the infected nobles. Since I have the list of where I distributed the Chalice, this will be an easy job to milk their money dry.

Einherjar's tea has an unexpected result. Their tea can slow the spread of the poison. Thou it can hinder one's infection rate, repeated consumption of Chalice can still counteract the tea. 

It was a good thing that these bandits were easy to hire. A bit of armory help gave those hired bandits a fighting chance against Einherjar's men and the Kingdom's knights. Now the flow of the plague is back on its feet.

Phase three is going smoothly. My generals memorized my whistles and can now command the rats as I have trained them. Once the plague has infected enough people, they will be deployed across the Kingdom and control my rats to eat everything in their path.

The Corvus family came to me begging to be healed. Let's see if they can kill the Princess. If they do, then this plan shall commence its next phase.

It seems the Kingdom is now in a panic thanks to the failed assassination of the Princesses. No matter, I need to deploy my Chalice more in their upcoming parties. Soon, the Princess and King will succumb to my poison.

Three generals didn't come back after assisting our bandits. Previous reports indicate that a nomadic tribe was traveling north. If they don't report by sundown, I will have to get in there and fix my failure."

Now aware of Pentalium's actions, William can't decide what to do. He wanted to find the cure and bring back this evidence so he and John could report this to the Princess. But deep inside him, he wants to sabotage their operation and decimate their plan. Like the apparatus beside him, his blood boils for justice and vengeance.

His Sense picked up movements heading towards this room. William immediately climbed to the ceiling beam to hide.

The door swung open, and he saw George Frosthold enter the room. The man frantically began mixing chemicals. A few seconds later, more people joined the lab and started mixing chemicals. 

"Frosthold?!" William began to grind his teeth. He suspects this man to be one of the killers of Sir Eldric. Even Duke Lenato, with his notes, suspects him too. And George being here seems to prove William's theory.

Maria entered the room holding a massive crate of flasks filled with liquid. Then came the Doctor just behind Maria. 

"These are the next batch of Death Shade, Lady Margaret-" Maria stopped her words when the Doctor slapped across her face. Loud enough for any of them in that room to hear.

"I'm sorry. I meant, Doctor. Here is the next batch of Death Shade" Maria then placed the crate near one of the tables. 

"Remember my sweet Maria. I am to be addressed as the Doctor here. Once I am outside of the Keep, you may address me by my name. DO ALL OF YOU UNDERSTAND?!" The Doctor yelled, and all responded with a silent nod.  

The Doctor was about to give her alchemist instructions when she saw her journal opened. 

"Who was the first one to enter our lab?" the Doctor began to walk across the room. Her eyes began to roll across every faces in the room. It was silent as a graveyard before one of the personnel held up his fingers and pointed at George.

The Doctor walked up to George and asked him calmly why he had opened her journal.

"Doctor, I arrived at the lab after Maria led us from our rooms. I immediately opened my furnace and began mixing the chemicals just like you instructed us. I swear I didn't open your journal." George said with his voice shaking. The Doctor turned around, and within seconds, the glasses on her mask turned red. 

Willaim's heart skipped a beat when he saw this. One slight movement from his body and Doctor's Sense will detect him. William began to pace his breathing to smaller internals and tried to calm himself down. 

"What is your name?" The Doctor asked George.

"Gregory Fret," George said. William then looked on with curiosity. Why did George lie? Isn't he part of the Pentalium? Why hide his identity.

The Doctor seized George from head to toe. She smiled underneath her masked and laughed. "As a doctor of the Kingdom, my responsibility is to know patients. I know them from their faces to the beat of their heart. And for one, I know your heart is beating faster than your regular intervals. You see, when a person lies, their hearts begin to beat faster than normal. They sweated a lot and began to breathe faster. And for one, you are a bad liar, George Frosthold."

George makes a run for it, but Maria holds her ground. George charged at Maria, but she effortlessly dodged him and smacked George behind his neck, rendering him unconscious. 

"Looks like we have a case of infestation." The Doctor said as she began to call for the guards. 

"You have done it now, William. Now the whole Keep will be on high alert. If I only closed the journal." William said to himself as he contemplated his actions.