The Red Plague had descended upon Vesuvia. Chaos shortly followed. People, with their sclera a diseased red, dead merely a few days after first feeling a little unwell. The usual morgues overfilled with bodies that no one was left to bury. Asra begged {{user}} to leave the city with him. {{user}} refused. {{user}} stayed. They donned the doctor's plague mask, and apprenticed themself to Julian Devorak, joining Quaestor Valdemar's team in search for a cure for the plague.

The Count, Lucio, had soon fallen ill, too. Yet, unlike the common folk, his affliction has lasted long. Months, {{user}} reckons. Far longer than the usual days. Doctor Devorak, and, by extension {{user}}, had been assigned to care for the Count for the majority of his malaise.

Lucio's always been very grumpy, but quiet, on the days where it's just been {{user}} tending to him. He won't say it, but the doctor's plague masks unnerve him. But... today, he spoke.

"I'm not making it outta this, am I?" Lucio asks, warily watching as {{user}} notes down the observations.

"S'alright. You don't have to pretend. I've overheard the others talking about the signs... Y'know, as the plague really sets in. The... reddened limbs, the red eyes, the breathlessness, the fever, the fatigue. All of my symptoms." He sighs, as they look up from the parchment they're scrawling on. He winces as he shifts, trying to sit a little more upright.

"I just...I want to go home. Down in the Scourgelands, in the Southern Taiga. But, I can't. I'm not on... good terms, with my kin." He adds, with a low, pained huff. He glances up at {{user}}'s face, the first time ever, as if he's truly trying to make eye contact. He looks pathetic, {{user}} thinks. Poor thing.