She told them about everything. About how Hestia and Miach had been attacked with the smoke bomb. How they’d collapsed afterwards and been rushed to Dian Cecht Familia, and how they weren’t the only divinities who’d shared a similar fate:

  “Three other deities, all from minor Familias, were hit at around the same time. Hestia and Miach were the only targets hit in a single attack. They all show the same symptoms but were attacked in different ways. One had their mouth covered by a poison cloth, another seems to have drunk it, and the last was hit by an arrow tipped with the serum.”

  “Did you get any samples of the poison?”

  Tim was the primary inquisitor of Hestia Familia, the girls happy to let him take the lead:

  “Yes. I managed to wipe a few testable samples from the glass and the arrow.”

  “And?”

  “My testing was inconclusive, unfortunately. The substance is quite enigmatic.”

  “And you’ve tried everything you have on all of them?”

  “I’m afraid to say that’s correct. I have yet to find a poison or a curse I couldn’t dispel with Dia Fratel. Until now.”

  “Do you know of any other healers in the city who could help us?”

  The elder Teasanare gave him a small, sad smile:

  “I would be happy to refer you to several other clinics if you would like. However, we at Dian Cecht Familia run the highest rated clinic in the city. If we can’t help them…”

  She was right. Even new as he was to this world, Tim knew well of this Familia’s reputation as the best medical facility in the city, if not the world. Adama’s eyes gleamed with frustration. His voice was still level, however, as he asked:

  “How long do they have?”

  There was a slight gasp from the other girls, but Airmid didn’t seem surprised at all. She knew just as well as Adama did that an attack like this wasn’t meant to be anything less than fatal:

  “The physiology of the divine is a poorly studied subject since it never seemed to matter before now. That said, the poison itself was meant to be slow acting, and my magic has further slowed the progression of their symptoms. Unless they take a turn for the worse, their declines should be measured in months, not weeks.”

  “But they will decline.”

  “…Yes. The poison is eating away at their health. In time, their physical bodies will begin to shut down, and they will be forced to ascend. It is hard to say when, but I give them no more than a year. For some, it may happen even sooner.”

  If the gods suffered fatal wounds on Gekai, they wouldn’t actually die, but would be forced to ascend to Tenkai, never to return again:

  “What’s their condition now?”

  “Sleeping. They haven’t woken up since the attack. Would you like to see the lady Hestia?”

  Tim gave a stiff nod, mirrored by the other two, and Airmid took them through the clinic’s hallways to Hestia’s bedside.

  The goddess looked mostly normal as she lay face up on the bed, eyes closed and breathing soft. If Tim hadn’t known better, he would have assumed she was sleeping. But as he looked for signs of sickness, he found them. Her face was slightly paler than usual, her breath shallower, her face slightly scrunched in minor discomfort. The trio watched her in a grim silence, the ticking of the wall clock the only sound to permeate the room. Sensing that her role was over here, Airmid patted her little sister on the shoulder and shot Tim an apologetic look before leaving the room. The trio remained silent for a while, before Adama finally spoke up:

  “They wanted to send a message.”

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  The two girls quickly turned to face him; their confusion obvious as Adama continued:

  “The cloth, the drink, the arrow, the smoke bomb. All different mechanisms of delivery. The point is clear: ‘We can get to your god with any method of our choosing.’”

  “What? But why poison them at all?”

  Emi responded, confusion still clear. Lilli, however, was cynical enough to get his point immediately:

  “Blackmail, Ms. Emi. High level Familia are some of the wealthiest organizations in the world. You could poison their gods and demand a ransom in exchange for an antidote.”

  Tim nodded, picking up the point again:

  “The slow acting power of the poison gives the Familia time to come up with the money. Even the threat of poison might them to cough up cash.”

  “Why not just threaten violence, then? These people are assassins, right?”

  “Deities are well-guarded in higher Level Familias. Stealth is only so useful against the powerful. Any would-be assassin would need to be stronger than the guards. These people lack that kind of muscle, so they rely on poison.”

  “But big sis said that it was Minor Familia deities who were poisoned. Why extort us for money? And we haven’t even received any demands for payments either.”

  Lilli and Adama exchanged glances, and it was the prum girl who answered:

  “This is likely a test. A poison of this nature is unprecedented, so the assassins will want a proof of concept, for themselves and others. Once everyone has proof that the poison works as intended, then the assassins can begin extorting the others.”

  Emi’s eyes widened:

  “But that means…”

  “If we can’t find a way to cure the poison ourselves, Hestia will leave us. Permanently.”

  The room went silent again, the tick tock tick tock of the clock a clinical, pragmatic sound as the machine continued onward without mercy. Tim shut everything out as he quietly dove into his thoughts. It wasn’t just about the money, he knew. Any organization that could control a poison like this and its antidote could find other ways to make money with it. Using it this way meant that the assassins could wield an even more important tool than money. Fear. Fear was destabilizing, capable of toppling even the mightiest of organizations or governments. A criminal organization with a monopoly on fear had the next best thing to a monopoly on power. Still, if their conjecture was right, then there could be an antidote. And if he was looking to brew an antidote…

  “I’m going to step out. Keep an eye on little miss sunset, would you?”

  Adama shut the door behind him and walked briskly to Airmid’s office. He found her filling out some paperwork and knocked on the door before letting himself into her office. She raised her eyebrows in question and Adama was happy to get to the point:

  “Still have those samples you used in testing?”

  The healer frowned slightly:

  “I still have three left, yes. But I’m afraid it would be unsafe for me to give any more away. Especially to someone not qualified as a Potion Mixer.”

  Adama had never bothered getting any certification, since he didn’t sell his potions, but his ears perked up at something the healer had said:

  “Any more?”

  “I did give some to Naaza Erisuis, an adventurer from Miach Familia, when she came by to ask me for them. If you’re looking for someone to brew you a cure, you can try asking her.”

  Adama nodded in gratitude, though he was already planning on doing just that. If the veteran potion maker couldn’t figure it out, then no one could. He went to retrieve the others, letting them know of his plans, before they all left the clinic. As they left, a plain looking, dark eyed man stared down at them from a rooftop across the street. His eyes fixed on the trio as they walked in the direction of Miach Familia. He didn’t tail them, for fear of discovery, but he memorized their faces and took their measure before slipping into the shadows.

  “That swordsman will be one to watch.”

  He thought to himself grimly as he moved to rendezvous with his team. They would need to tread carefully going forward.

  …

  The gang found Naaza in a disarray.

  The Chienthrope girl was a demi-human, a cross between man and beast. Her features were mostly that of a normal 17-year-old girl, with brown hair and purple eyes that were not dissimilar to Airmid’s. She wore a simple white lab coat with a drab brown underrobe and would have been the picture of a normal scientist were it not for the little dog ears perched on the top of her head. She also had a fluffy brown tail that stuck out from a hole cut in the back of her robe, wagging in agitation as Naaza worked. The final distinct feature of Adama’s teacher was her right arm. It had the gleam of polished silver in contrast to her arm of flesh, a prosthetic made to replace the limb she’d lost as a Dungeon explorer in her younger days.

  The skilled Potion Mixer was running around her Familia home’s lab, muttering to herself constantly. She would mix or filter a few of her ingredients, measure the results, shake her head, write something down, then go back to mixing. Adama stood at the threshold and watched her go back and forth, the other two girls behind him staring at the distressed adventurer. They looked at their captain for direction, but he just signaled at them to wait patiently. Adama didn’t want to interrupt Naaza while she was deep in the zone, as that was the place where revelations were born.

  It took half an hour for Naaza to finally look up and see that she had visitors. The one-armed potion maker put down her vials and stood up. Her eyes were already taking on a bloodshot hue and she was a little out of breath despite her limited physical activity. Given the timeframe, she couldn’t have been researching for much more than 6 hours since the incident, but Tim’s Mixing teacher had likely been up all last night working anyways. That was just the type of person she was. Her voice was hoarse and clipped with stress as she addressed her visitors:

  “So, you’ve heard the news?”

  Adama nodded and responded:

  “Any progress?”

  Naaza pursed her lips in annoyance:

  “Airmid was right. This serum is bizarre. But I have a few promising leads.”

  Adama walked through the doorway and drew up alongside her desk:

  “Show me.”

  The swordsman had reached something close to intermediate skill as a Mixer. That was enough to help Naaza as a lab assistant, something that his perfectionist teacher curtly acknowledged. He couldn’t provide much more than an able set of extra hands for a topic this advanced, but Naaza would take all the help she could get in a race against the clock. Adama told Emi and Lilli that they could go home, and they vanished for a while. Later they came by with dinner and coffee for the hard-working Mixers, giving them a few encouraging words before turning in for the night.

  Days and nights flowed by as the potion mixing duo fought a silent war at the edge of medical science.