Max planned his next series of moves. He had limited resources, limited time, no ability to teleport, needed to find an old doctor, stop potential contamination from a system penalty if there was time, endure the frenzy of exploding wood and immature magic around him, dodge a decent magic user, and prepare for an upcoming ambush. No problem, right?

  Kind of a problem.

  The easiest solution was to kill them all. An option, but not his preferred choice.

  The next solution would be to give up. Not really a choice anymore. He would have to give up and live with the consequences of trying to kill Cy for so many hours. Being potentially locked in a tight box was not an option.

  Another idea would be to let Elder Aris win this fight, call it a day, and start a new life… Not a bad idea. It didn’t solve the penalty problem if Darius and Elder Charaka didn’t work together.

  Should he signal Edric to come? The thought made Max smirk, causing Elder Aris to intensify his attacks. It would be more merciful to kill them all himself, at least it would be quick.

  The singular prompt taunted him in the corner of his vision. After lifetimes of stories filled with penalties, requirements, and sub-goals; the freedom to act made it difficult for him. How many lifetimes had he spent trying to wiggle his way through five-stars stories? Why couldn’t the system do him a solid and guide him with restrictions.

  A cough.

  Max instinctively looked over to the mentee, who let out the harsh cough. Behind him, Elder Charaka was continued to meditate before being whisked away to somewhere else. It was the sign he had been wanting. Suddenly the system penalty rose in priority in his mind.

  Without hesitation, Max grabbed the closest person to him. One of the mentees screamed when a series of runes erupted on the surface of his skin. “Don’t you touch him,” Elder Aris shouted before pulling his pupil away from a loose grip Max. It didn’t take long for the kid to make a miraculous recovery.

  “Touchy. Why are you sending in kids? Shouldn’t there be a horde of adults in their place,” Max mocked as he repeated the action with another pupil. Elder Aris was about to launch his next reckless attack when Max gave a command. “Dryads. Roots.”

  The simpler words were obvious to the intended ears, who suddenly reached down in unison. The ground rumbled before a series of tree roots erupted from the soil and began wrapping themselves around the members of Elder Aris’s group. Taking advantage of the confusion, Max used his limited internal magic to slap four more runes onto the roots: strengthen, anti-fire, anti-heat, and repeat.

  The orange and yellow runes began to blink fiercely before weakly resuming.

  Elder Aris didn’t hesitate to start chopping away at the roots with his broken axe as he barked orders at his mentees to stay calm and focused. The increase in coughs were hard to hear over the commotion.

  Max began approaching the dryads individually and whispered to them in a low voice. “Move coughing people close to not coughing people.”

  The longer the mentees were bound by roots, the more they coughed as they were dragged around. It wasn’t long until Elder Aris began to join the coughs. “Get back here!”

  Max ignored him until he heard another familiar voice. “Max! What have you done?”

  He stopped whispering to the dryads and looked at Elder Charaka. “Shouldn’t you be meditating?”

  The Elder let out some violent coughs. “What have you done?”

  “What did Darius tell you about his penalty?” Max asked, genuinely curious. Was this another way Darius was hoping to waste his time? Did he anticipate the penalty spreading? Was that why he broadcasted his explanation to the entire community? Even among people like Max, the consequences of a severe penalty weren’t widely known… But Max saw it enough times that it was believable for Darius to glimpse at it too. “If I were you, I would focus on healing these kids before the system’s penalty gets too far and kills them all.”

  There was sudden silence.

  “The fuck did you say?” Elder Aris spluttered in between coughs.

  “I am trying to heal,” Elder Charaka refuted, as he struggled with his own coughs. A figure next to him was suddenly wheezing between coughs. Was that Charon? “What have you done?”

  Max didn’t hesitate to tell the truth. “Strengthen the disease by using some of your people as a source of the mutation. If you’re going to do a full-heal, fully heal them. Not just the skin.” Because their internal organs now have a few scars too. The two who had been afflicted suddenly exploded into light causing them to shout in surprise. Once the light subsided, they frantically rubbed their eyes.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Your presence brought the penalty.” Max’s words were pointed at Elder Charaka. “And your healing caused it to spread.” Max could usually depend on the system to be cruel. Healing bringing death? It sounded about right.

  Elder Charaka held his arms out wide. “Pause procedure F. How do you propose we fix it?”

  “Like hell-” Elder Aris began before suddenly falling unconscious. Max blinked a few times. That wasn’t him?

  Everyone was now still, and all the aggressive spells subsided. It took Max a moment to catch on. “You’re genuinely interested in what I have to say? You’re pausing procedure F?” And attacking a fellow Elder? Why didn’t he attack Max the same way? Had he been waiting for this chance while everyone else was restricted?

  “I have been fighting Cy’s penalty for seventeen years. I know better than anyone the death sentence awaiting us.” More coughs, there was some blood this time. “The blue lines are too weak to heal it?”

  “Too weak to prevent it from worsening,” Max corrected. “And you need direct contact… I’m also running out of magic.”

  “What-!” One of the mentees exclaimed before falling unconscious, joining his mentor. The mentees got the message and kept silent.

  “Darius mentioned your blood makes the runes more effective.” It was the main reason why Max wasn’t joining in on the cough. “Are you willing to donate?”

  “Don’t you already have my blood?” Max recalled back to the medical exam. Elder Charaka drew a few vials of blood. “Didn’t you bring it with you?”

  Elder Charaka angrily spluttered in between coughs. “You got Cy to steal it weeks ago!”

  What? “Cy stole my blood?”

  Elder Charaka calmed down immediately. The confusion between them was clear. “You didn’t know?”

  “When did he do that?”

  “The day after you got approved to stay here?”

  Max was about to question Elder Charaka’s accuracy before he remembered. The day Cy was being bitchy… Didn’t he mention going to Elder Charaka’s office? He fucking broke in and stole Max’s blood? Why? “Well, I didn’t tell him to do that.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because it would’ve been easier to target you with spells?”

  “I mean… I guess? It didn’t really cross my mind at the time… Why didn’t you report it?”

  “Elder Darius paid me a substantial amount to keep my mouth shut.”

  “He did?” Exactly how long had Darius been planning something? Or was he just trying to cover up Cy’s crime? Why would Cy do this in the first place? “How much-”

  Max sensed danger and instinctively pulled up a shield before it fell apart naturally. The orange runes had lost their light.

  “What’s going on here?” Elder Obi demanded before an exhausted and coughing Charon collapsed beside her. Small victories, at least their main teleporter was gone. Elder Obi was about to attack when she suddenly lost consciousness. The healing Elder betrayed them again.

  “How can I cure this?” Elder Charaka asked in a desperate voice.

  Max maintained a poker face, as if he still had a position to bargain with. “Are you willing to give up Cy for the cure?”

  “I am.” The lack of hesitation was disgusting.

  “Come here.” Max coaxed him forward before gesturing for the Elder to sit on a blue line before him. “I’m going to cut a few runes into your skin.” He explained calmly as he took out his trusty pocketknife. “One will mutate the infection created by the penalty. You will be the host of this new version. As it makes contact with the original penalty, the mutation will spread. This will make it easier for people to fight it. Another will get your white blood cells…” Elder Charaka was frowning. Still behind on modern medicine? Perhaps they had another name for it. “It’ll make your body fight it better.

  “Keep treating them,” Max gestured out to the others. “Treating them will help spread the new variant. Think of it like a vaccine. The new variant multiplies but also alerts the body’s immune system to something being wrong. Hopefully that, along with your magic, will be enough for everyone to survive.”

  “… And if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then let’s hope I can be done with Cy quickly.”

  Elder Charaka thought for barely a second. “Go. Cy should still be waiting there. I’ll keep the others here.”

  Max nodded while hate hid behind his eyes. Elder Charaka flinched as Max cut into his skin, a little more than a nick. “I won’t use the dryads anymore. Their magic is running low, but they’ll help keep the infected from going anywhere.” The mentees gave panicked glances to each other. “When time runs out though-”

  “They won’t go anywhere.”

  There was a selfish tone in his voice. The same one Max noticed during his interview. “And if you could let out an emergency broadcast-”

  Elder Charaka didn’t need telling twice as he started up a spell in the other palm of his hand. “This is an emergency broadcast. Immediately halt procedure F. There is an infectious penalty going about caused by the system. Repeat. Immediately stop procedure F. My mentees head in my direction. Be ready to heal. For the others, all those who are not within my vicinity and have been working on the frontlines should relocate to the hospital. Do not contact anyone. Do not approach anyone else.” The glow of the spell lowered. “Anything else to add?”

  Max whispered as he looked down at the newest iteration of his map. The lights were retracting away. “Where do people go when evacuated? Is it a confined space?”

  “It is.”

  “Can you get to them before they infect others?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Then I don’t have much more to add.”

  “You don’t want to rescind the teleporting ban? Only Charon can navigate around it.”

  “… Cy can’t teleport away?”

  “At the moment, he can’t.”

  “Then keep it this way.”

  “End of transmission.” The spell fated just as Max finished the last rune.

  “Do you think you can keep healing everyone until they gain immunity?”

  “How long would that be?”

  “At best, a few hours. At worst, a few days.”

  Elder Charaka grunted before resuming his meditating position. “Will you keep the blue lines on?”

  “Until they naturally run out.”

  “You won’t turn it off? What if Cy tries to heal himself?”

  Max found his words stuck in his throat, as he just shook his head. Elder Charaka was right. He needed to be thorough. Feeling the sickly sensation bubbling up inside him again, Max grabbed the broken axe from a sleeping Elder Aris before continuing into the woods.

  The sun was going to rise soon.