Across a desolate, barren land. Where the ground cracked and the trees stood hollow, the tundra-like plain bore witness to a man who shouldn't have been possible.
"Oh my…"
A voice spoke, almost methodic and surgically.
"What an interesting specimen."
He voiced out in mirth, his emerald eye wrinkled in interest and open intent.
The white-robed man stood before a half-sunk skeleton, with black crystal growths lining its abdominal region and its hardened skull, marked by present cracks, and almost deer-like in its magnificent ivory antlers fixed upon it.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
I was dead.
This wasn't a metaphorical statement even.
I was truly, and humbly dead.
I remembered it so vividly, the series of actions that led to the demise of mine.
I was aged, riddled with that accursed sickness of stone, in the face of adversity we could not defeat, I, Te'qumesh, stood my ground.
I offered my life for my sarkaz brethren, not for sentimental reasons, but to uphold my creed.
Through a barren land we were being chased, injured we were, while our pursuers hunted us like mere fawns.
It was demeaning to say the least…
Faced with no choice, I offered my life; I had lived by my creed, and my sickness would take me sooner rather than later.
It would be a fulfilling end.
I still remember how I faced over a dozen with null but my great sword in hand.
I put down a few before my accursed, jagged crystal-like sickness took its toll on my body.
I remember how its sharp edges pierced my stomach open, spilling my guts…
I remember how, in an effort to defend myself, I swung my blade in an arc, only for the accursed crystal to break through my spine, making me kneel over as my body lost all its strength in but a moment…
I remember the thin blade that was stabbed through my eye, piercing my brain to end me quickly….
That was the last thing I remembered.
I do not blame them for their cowardly tactics, Wendigos, like I, had not earned their reputation through mere rumors. No, we had faced countless oppositions and risen against all odds to earn our place in the upper zenith of Sarkaz kind.
No, I blame naught but my sickness for my end.
…
Fuha, fuhahaha! God of the underworld, take a look!
…
Your job here is done.
Humans have conquered death!
…
Resurrection Fraught Hades!
…
*-a-dump*
Huh?
…
*Ba-dump*
Is this…?
*Ba-dump* *Ba-dump* *Ba-dump*
…My heart…?
… It still beats….?
*Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump**Ba-dump*
My eyes shot open, my lungs taking in air as they had never before been blessed with use, pain shot through my body before disappearing in a second.
What. Is. Happening.
Those words couldn't alone explain my sheer perplexity at my current situation.
I was dead.
There shouldn't have been a even a question in that fact to begin with.
I was dead.
I stopped breathing.
Lifeblood stopped flowing.
I shouldn't be living.
"-Ah, I see patient zero has awoken."
A voice chimed, utterly missing any hint of emotion, save for mild expectation.
"It seems as though you are suffering from a panic Attack, that shouldn't be a symptom you should be having, but considering what your final recalls might have been, it is to be expected."
He had spoken, but not with me… he spoke as if specking with himself.
"A fix should be in order, perhaps to ease you into rebirth…"
…Wha…? Rebirth?
"Know that Hades could not claim your soul, you have been resurrected by my blasphemy against the gods and virtues against illnesses."
He began. Though he must've seen the doubt in my eyes, judging from the way his features scrunched up in distaste.
"Don't believe me? I'm better than you! and I'll show you death is no obstacle for me!"
As he said those final words, I finally got a good look at my…. Savior.
Clear white hair encompassing a youthful visage, emerald green eyes, and a crow-beak-like mask covering his face.
Despite my reservations about his words…. The reality of it stood before me.
I had truly been resurrected.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Days I laid there on the bed, not from weakness but from, as this…docter would call it, "paralysis due to incomplete restarting of nerves"...
Truthfully? I didn't understand most of his words, but he has a habit of muttering to himself near the table covered in parchments. I got my bearings after a while from my first awakening and assessed my surroundings.
I seemed to be in a large cabin, dimly lit candles illuminated it, around me there were tables, all having vials and substances I had never seen before placed on them.
"Now, let's perform a check-up."
The doctor rose from his place near a table, leaving the mixture of substances, before moving towards me.
"Since you are incapable of speech, you know the drill.
Two blinks for no.
One blink for yes."
He sat in a chair by my bedside.
"Now, let's begin."
He said as he picked up a pen and paper, ready to take notes.
"Are you feeling any discomfort or pain?"
I blinked twice.
No, my body was completely unresponsive, and I could barely feel anything, though the sensations were returning… albeit slowly.
"Can you feel this?"
He poked my forearm with his pen.
I blinked once.
"Hm, how about this?"
He moved closer to my legs…before returning.
I didn't feel anything.
I blinked twice.
"Interesting, it seems the sense of touch is returning, but not as much as I had hoped…"
He spoke before muttering something too quietly for me to hear.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
"...do I need to adjust the ratios of the elixir?"
Asclepius mused to himself, he had just finished his latest check-up with his patient.
'Would a 4:9 ratio work faster? Maybe I should change the liquid "originium" to be less viscous for an easier mix?'
Moving to his table he started fiddling with the vials, two primarily large ones to be exact.
Both were filled with golden liquids; however, one was distinctly more… impure, as shown by the black lines like crystals that seemed to form from it.
The white-haired man picked up the almost empty vial of golden "ichor" with a calculated but ultimately disdainful glint in his eye.
'...almost empty…'
Yes, this vital ingredient in his elixir of resurrection was ichor, or otherwise known as divine blood; alas, he's all but run out of it.
That's not to say it's a complete stagnation of his treatment.
He can get more…
But…
His gaze flickered to his arm, as he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a few red spots…
Spots from where he had drained his own blood.
'Ridiculus… a doctor undergoing the risk of anemia simply to make medicine… utterly ridiculous.'
He thought in frustration, yet he hadn't hesitated to bleed his veins dry. After all, the pursuit of medicine and the desire to help the ill are what drove him in life.
Still, though…
'...3 liters… of which only half a liter could be used as ichor… how pitiful.'
Seeing the lack of anything remotely divine or similar since his arrival here, He had deferred to using his own demigod blood as a substitute… though, as seen, it takes a copious amount to actually take effect, judging from the torturously slow healing period his one and only patient is going through.
That was also the reason his "medical ward" wasn't filled to the brim with patients raised from the dead… he simply lacked the capacity for it at the moment.
Finally done with glaring at the almost empty vial, his gaze moved to the other one, namely the one filled with liquid Originium.
Now that Originium was a blessing to him, arriving here and seeing the lack of phantasmal creatures, he did indeed worry about acquiring "Gorgon Essence".
Imagine his joy at finding out there was a material sickness that was similar to a Gorgon's petrification, These black crystals were truly both a blessing and a curse.
Blessing for how it allowed him to keep making his elixir.
Curse for it being a fatal sickness.
Not that the sickness part was a problem, soon he'll cure it, just as he had cured all other ailments in his life, even the sickness of death.
"Fuhahaha!" he laughed to himself in thought, perfect, PERFECT! This world was just perfect for him! No gods holding back humanity, no gods holding back him.
"haha..haha…"
His chuckles continued, but unfortunately, he couldn't bask in sheer glee any longer.
His research needed to be continued.
Picking up the liquid Originium vial, he swirled the contents of it in a rhythmic motion, eyes never leaving the vial of liquid crystal, Crystal that he had liquidized by applying magic.
A faint metallic scraping sound could be heard, but the man clad in black garbs paid it no heed, too transfixed on his work.
A large, metallic serpent slithered across the floor, it sounded like a large metal chain being dragged. It moved and curled around beside the table that Asclepius was currently sitting at.
He gave it a single gaze, before looking out the sole window of the cabin which gave a view of the outside.
"Perhaps I should restock on supplies…"
He said as he stood up from the chair and cloaked himself in his white robes before moving towards the front door, still being followed by his metallic serpent.
"Sleep, I'll go and buy some supplies."
He spoke out to the single patient in his ward, he waited… not for a response, but to merely gaze at his scepter, the uniquely shaped golden rod stood fixed at the center of the ward.
A soft glow emanated from it, the magic within the "Rod of Asclepius" invigorating the patients within Asclepius' domain, making sure they remained sustained and healthy.
He closed the door behind him and stepped into the snowy wasteland he had become so familiar with.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
The white-cloaked man trudged through the white snow, his cloaked figure blowing in the frigid breeze.
He had been making his way to the nearby settlements, but not without his grievances, he absolutely hated the snow right now, how it slowed him.
'...Damn this! When I finally get that deer man up, I'll leave this wretched, war-ridden nation.'
He had arrived here in late fall, but 3 months had passed, 3 months of him learning about this land, 3 months of him tending to that deer man… or Wendigo as the people seemed to call his kind.
Truly, he did care for this land at all, maybe that childish God Ares would, but even THAT, he wasn't sure of. The Gods' moods were as fickle as their common sense.
That is to say…
He paused as a snowflake landed on his glove before melting away immediately.
'...fragile as a snowflake.'
His mouth split into a smirk under the crow mask he wore.
"Heh…hahahaha~"
How he loved it, to show the ineptness of the gods, their childish personalities and petty feelings.
His mad laughter suddenly broke, as he stilled.
Children with power… that's all the gods ever amounted to.
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What up, my peeps?