No concern with philosophy or reasoning, I respect the woman to the utmost degree. If there is any that the term researcher can be applied to, then it truly is Baalka. I have met her before, long before the Great War started. I have never known a woman so educated in biology of the human such as Baalka save for the Goddess of Health and her Clerics. Yet they know from simple touch. Kavaa may lay her hand upon a person and immediately all the processes going on within the body. Baalka though?

Neneria's death is swift and silent at the very least. Baalka stands in the ranks of Anassa and Fer for the amount of sadism she displays on the field. That is nothing to be told of the application of illness within matters of the military. In the last third of the war, Kavaa served double duty, the ranks of Clerics swelled to be as great as the Sect Armies of Guguo. The Greencloaks were seen everywhere. It did not matter whether it was a team of mages only a half dozen large, whether it was a band of hunters or whether it was local levees conscripted into action.

Every well, nay, every stream and every source of fresh water had to be cleansed. Every wild animal we came across had to be put down. Maisara's Paladins began to carry smoking torches to terrify insects away. What damage our men did to their own lungs could be healed after all. Death could not. The grey smokes only lasted for two years before supplies ran out and we switched to tar. I have seen men cough up sections of their own lungs after that.

And yet, what could be done? Bee or ant or beetle or the dreaded bloodsucking mosquito could be carrying any of Baalka's illnesses. Spiders and ladybugs that crawled into people's mouths when they slept would sentence them to a sudden death a month later. Near the end, her diseases did not even have symptoms. They incubated, they spread silently to other hosts and then once the illness was visible, a Cleric had to be close by as the time from the bleeding of eyes to death was less than a quarter hour.

For Kassandora, it must have been a joy. She had the ultimate weapon of attrition. A single rat crawling into a grain cart would kill more than a whole platoon of Arascus' winged cavalry.

- Excerpt from the secrets texts in the White Pantheon's closed library. Written by Goddess Fortia, of Peace: 'How to Wage War on War.'

Roughly three hundred years Baalka had been out. On one hand, it was a travesty, on another, Kassandora and father both had been locked away for a full thousand. Three hundred and some when the Jungle had caught her, back then, especially in Arika, things had not changed much whatsoever. There had been some advances Kassandora would have no doubt appreciated during the Great War. The printing press for papers for example. But Pantheon Peace had truly been a time of Peace enforced by the Pantheon. Kassandora had once said that if she were to ever go away, then humanity would turn to such a stagnating rot that they would wish for her return to get them out of it. She always spoke like that though. Pantheon Peace had slowed everything down true, but it was not the end of the world that Kassandora always professed a lack of warfare to be.

But now, as she stood in some lightless, giant cabin of sleek metal that obviously wasn't silver… Baalka gave it a tap. It sounded hollow on the inside, she wondered what humanity had been doing for seven hundred years if in less than half that time the world had become unrecognizable. Arascus was planning to hold a celebration, people were already being flown in on great machinations that were parodies of dragons. Siege engines that were not siege engines but rather people carriers were also coming to this location known as Central Requisitions. One of those great battering rams without the ram had been designated for her. Anassa had all put thrown her inside and told her to clean herself up.

Baalka had thrown off the clothes Arascus had given her and now stood in what had to be the washing station. Even though she felt utterly stupid, she knew a drain when she saw one. And that was all. A drain. She looked around… What was it even? This war machine that was actually a domicile and started to chew her lip. Well, at least it was private. But Baalka didn't know what she was doing and she had been in here for what felt like an hour already. She quickly re-dressed herself in the clothes Arascus had given her. They had been fresh when Arascus had handed them to her just a few hours ago and now they stuck of her toxic blood.

Baalka went to one of the windows, pulled back the curtain and tried to make out what was going on in the commotion outside. People were idling about. Servants were setting up a table. A giant fire had been started around which people were talking. There were Clerics about and soldiers in dark uniforms, but the vast majority were just humans in the new fashion of clothes. Black jackets and trousers that had belts instead of suspenders. Very little hats too.

Baalka's eyes passed over the giant tree that apparently Iniri had grown. A twisting mixture of wood that blocked out the starry sky with its thick leaves. To think that they had managed to get not just the Goddess of Health but also the Goddess of Nature on their side. Or did she still go as Of Health and Bounty? In Baalka's mind, Iniri would never be anything but that terrible forest entity for whom people came to Baalka herself so that Nature's trees would be chased away. She tried to find one of her sisters. Anassa was in the air. And then she suddenly disappeared off to somewhere. Kassandora, Neneria and Arascus had gone off to discuss war-plans while they had the time.

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The only one who was down on the ground was Kavaa. Baalka wasn't too happy that it wasn't a sister. But then would it be Kavaa or would it be a mortal? She waved through the window for the Goddess of Health. She waved and waved and waved and was sure that Kavaa even glanced a few times in her direction. Was she being ignored?

No.

It would not stand.

Baalka stomped to the door in the side of the machination she was in and opened the door. "KAVAA!" She shouted and saw the crowd turn towards her. This time, Kavaa couldn't pretend to be ignoring her. She made a brisk walk to Baalka's den or whatever it was and stopped at the doorway.

"You called." Baalka stepped aside and pulled the Goddess in, then commanded her to get to window from where she had been waving.

"Could you not see me?" She tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

"The windows are black-out." Kavaa said. The Goddess of Health raised her eyebrows and explained when it became obvious Baalka did not know what she just said. "It means you can only see through one way."

Oh. So time had passed indeed. "And this was made when?"

Kavaa shrugged. "I don't know. Recently?" She said. "Why?"

"I was waving for attention." Baalka said.

"Oh." Kavaa said, looking down at the Goddess of Disease. "No you can't see inside here."

"Well I got that now." Baalka said.

"Is that everything?" Kavaa asked, stepping to the side, back to the door. "I have a lot on my plate."

"Mmh." Baalka said, lost in thought at the fact that something which had once been the realm of magic was now just so… Well, it just was. How crazy was that!? "Yes! I mean yes. I need help." Kavaa sighed and shook her head.

"Go on then." She said. "Lead the way, what are you stuck on?"

"I…" Baalka trailed off. "I'll just show you." She led Kavaa to the dark small room with the steel panels and the drain. "This is the washing spot." She said, now not so sure of herself. Kavaa chuckled again as she reached for something on the wall. The woman clicked something and suddenly, Baalka had to squint as her eyes readjusted to lights shining from above her.

"Wow." She said. She looked up at the ceiling. The lamps were built straight into the ceiling. Did Baalka even want to ask? It couldn't be the ancient gas lamps and it obviously wasn't dwarven glowstone. That had a warmer glow to it. No. She had to ask. "How does that work?"

Kavaa replied as she would to a child. Baalka wasn't even offended by the tone. "Basically, you click this switch and it turns off and on. You know you have lights in the rest of the bus too."

"Bus?"

"The vehicle we're stood in." Kavaa said. "What did you think it was."

Baalka made a stupid smile as she answered quietly. "War machine."

Kavaa actually burst out in laughter at that. "Don't give Kassie ideas." And that ticked Baalka off. It was one thing to explain casually. Obviously Kavaa had ingratiated herself with the rest of the family. Elassa too, Baalka remembered feeling both of them within her mind when they had gone into heal her. But Kassie? Nicknames? Just what was going on? She would ask dad later. Maybe Kavaa needed to be eliminated? Baalka was sure she could find some way to poison the Goddess of Health. "Don't look at me like that." Kavaa quickly said and Baalka caught herself.

"So this is the wash room?" She changed the topic.

"It's the shower." Kavaa replied. "Inside the Oak, the plumbing is being repaired." Finally. Plumbing. Something Baalka actually recognised. So this wasn't a totally different world.

"But I'm expected to shower in here." Baalka said.

Kavaa caught what Baalka was trying to insinuate, although she was terribly undiplomatic about it. "Are you asking me to show you how to turn the water on?"

"That would be good." Baalka said and Kavaa sighed. She walked to the other side of the room and stood awkwardly off to the side. One hand moved to a line of vertical circles. She pressed the top one. Immediately, water started splashing out of the tiny holes in the ceiling. "So I just stand there and press that?"

"That's just the water on off switch." Kavaa said. "Here is temperature. Up." She pressed a button. "Down." She pressed another. They were underneath each other. "The one at the bottom changes settings like this." She pressed it and the water became stronger. Then it became a mist. Then it shot off one wall. Then it shot off the wall and the top. And finally it returned to the original setting. Kavaa pressed the top button again after the demonstration. "And you don't have to stand here, I just don't want to get wet." She said.

"Oh." Baalka said. Of all the people she had ever thanked in her life, she had never thought that Kavaa would be one. "Thank you."

Kavaa actually smiled at that. "Glad to be of service." She said. "Don't mention it." She walked by Baalka and out the door.

"Wait!" Baalka called out. She supposed this had to be done eventually. She would say the same to her sisters too. But Kavaa was here now, it would be awkward if she put the moment off. Better get it over and done with.

Kavaa leaned back through the door. "Hmm?" She asked, somewhat amused with herself.

"I…" Baalka took a deep breath. "Thank you Kavaa."

Thank everything in this world that the woman wasn't stupid. She just blushed and shook her head. Grey hair waved from side to side. Baalka felt rather sorry for the woman that she had been cursed with such sad colours. "You don't have to." Kavaa said. "You're the only person I've found I could not heal."

"But you tried." Baalka said. "But you tried and that's enough. Thank you." Kavaa's blush deepened, she was exactly like Kassandora. It was almost scary how they managed to have reactions so similar to one another.

"Thanks." Kavaa said. "But I have to go, really."

Baalka nodded and Kavaa disappeared for good this time. The Goddess of Disease listened to fast paced footsteps, to the door open and then slam shut. That wasn't like Kassie though. Kassandora was polite enough to close doors behind her. Baalka threw her shirt off and slipped out of the shorts out of the trousers, leaving them on the ground. She pressed the top button of the shower.

Water started flowing. It was cold for a moment, and then it began to warm up. Seven hundred years and they had still been bathing in streams, in lakes or in cumbersome baths that needed to be filled by a servant. Three hundred years and all it took was a button. Baalka pressed that button at the bottom and laughed when the water splashed into her side.

Three hundred years and she needed help to wash.

What a world.

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