" Chieftain! Chieftain Maki! Chieftain! " A barbarian shouted as he rushed towards the room that belonged to the chieftain of the fort.
" Chieftain there is a problem, please come with me " The man said as he finally found Maki who was unbelievably pissed about having to go to some unknown destination with an underling and leave his game of dice.
" Don't touch my money, I will be back " Maki said as he glared at everyone else he was playing with, to send them the warning that they should not touch his dough while he was away.
" What is it? Why are you shouting like someone chopped your brother's balls, what is the emergency? " Maki asked as he smacked the underling on the head.
Maki was a giant of a barbarian, he was 8 and a half feet tall, built like a horse and had hands the size of normal human heads.
He was the kind of man who could crush a man's skull with nothing but his bare palms if he wanted to, hence when he smacked his underlings head the man was nearly floored to the ground.
" The healers, they think there is a new epidemic breaking inside the fort, a new deadly disease " The underling said as he led Maki to the infirmary.
" Furio, what is this nonsense? '' Maki said as he entered the infirmary and was shocked to see that it was filled to capacity with all 40 beds occupied.
" It's a black spot disease, initially the patients have 1-2 spots but soon the spots start spreading all over the body and make puss filled centres.
In the end the body's own immunity kills the body, we have already lost 4 lives and have no means of curing the disease for the remaining 40 who have been contaminated by it " Healer Furio said as Maki finally understood the seriousness of the situation.
" What do we know about the disease? " Maki asked, now in a grim voice as he understood the potential risks of the outbreak.
" We know that it spreads through both air and water. I've isolated everyone who has been in contact with the patients in the last 2 days but the disease is still spreading fast.
If this keeps up, we might have over 1000 strong men infected in a week " Furio replied as Maki winced hearing his words.
Airborne diseases were the worst kind to contain, the barbarians usually had excellent vitality and immunity, and they hardly got sick if ever they did which was why a disease which turned one's own immunity against one's body was a difficult one to deal with for his kind.
" I'm not pointing fingers here, Maki, but there is a fair chance that Shamans are involved with this fiasco " Furio said as he pointed at one of his patient's dark spots.
" What do you mean? " Maki asked with an eyebrow raised
" These spots are charged with death energy, they are converting the life force of the patients and feeding it somewhere to someone.
Such magic can only strike as shamanic to me.
Maybe the snakes we have been watering in our own backyard have decided to bite us " Furio said as he suggested that the dark faction players they had given asylum to for spying on their enemies might have finally shown their true colours.
" That's a serious allegation Furio, how sure are you about this? " Maki asked solemnly
" 75% sure, this is shamanic magic every way I look at it ". Furio said as Maki suddenly felt difficulty breathing and had to leave the room.
Hiring the shamans was his personal decision, his clan did not have great scouts within their ranks as their kind was worthless when it came to stealthy and dexterous jobs.
To counter this weakness and to make sure that they were never jumped on for lack of information, Maki had made the executive call of letting 3 shamans from dark faction live with them inside the fort, however, the shamans had to work for him in return for the asylum.
For 7 years this arrangement had been stable, and although some of his tribesmen got the creeps because of the presence of dark faction players and their demonic practices, due to Maki's orders they were never heckled.
But now it seemed like the snakes were beginning to show their true colours, betraying the hand that fed them by unleashing death and disease on the barbarians.
Extremely Angry, Maki pulled out his giant dual handed sword and put it over his shoulder as he walked towards the shaman hut area.
*********
( Meanwhile Max )
Max was covered in a pool of his own sweat and grime as he carefully opened the lid on his 35th mana potion of the day and drank it as he continued monitoring the death plaque spell.
Monitoring a bunch of mice was harder than Max had expected as with his telepathic link with the mice he could see what a particular mice saw, but the problem was that mice in general saw much less than what humans did and hence Max had trouble making sense of what exactly he was seeing.
He had gained about 30% increase in his EXP bar ever since he had started the project and had killed
7 tier 1 warriors
4 tier 0 warriors
1 tier 2 warrior from the plaque yet.
The first few deaths, nobody seemed to care that some low level tier0 workers died, but the moment the tier 2 warrior was infected he was immediately brought to the infirmary and the healer began looking into what was exactly going on.
Max's goal was to kill off at least 4000-6000 troops in the coming week and scare the shit out of the remaining troops and to do so he needed at least 3 more weeks time.
Maintaining this spell for a total of 20-25 days was an extremely challenging task that was going to set Max back about 30 million gold coins in mana potion costs alone, however, the EXP gains and the enemy lives he would reap from it would be well worth it.