Any Plague Hunter who chose to face Blights without the backing of an agency must have cared little for their own preservation. Freedom, after all, came at a high price. The agencies offered handpicked assignments suited to one’s talents, carefully chosen partners of like ability, and a generous sum upon completing each task.

In another life, perhaps those comforts might have swayed Tate. Yet they came shackled to regulation—rules on who to work with, how the work should be done, and why certain sacrifices were off-limits. But to a hunter, such restrictions seemed laughable. The task was simple: eradicate Blights, by whatever means necessary regardless of the cost.

Blights were grotesque things. Manifestations of disease that plagued the common folk—pneumonia, influenza, even the humble cold. Where outbreaks ravaged, it was often a Blight at the heart of the suffering. Without intervention from untrained Hunters like you and Tate, entire districts could be wiped from the map within weeks.

The cart shuddered, its wheels struggling through the mire of the forest path. Vines and brambles clung to the undergrowth, while the chill of the air pressed in from all sides. The wind cut through the layers of cloaks that wrapped Tate like a cocoon. Few things in this cursed word did he loathe more than winter.

Tate sighed, his breath misting in the frigid air as he pushed up the edge of his mask. From beneath his cloak, he produced a well-worn pipe, lighting it with practiced ease. The smoke curled lazily in the air, though the herbs within offered him little in the way of true comfort. For days, the two of you had pursued a diseased herd of deer through this forsaken stretch of woodland. They had once been docile, but a Blight had twisted the poor creatures. Now they turned on any soul, looking to spread their disease.

“At times like these,” he muttered between puffs, “the notion of agency life seems almost tolerable. They would have given us something of use—maps, intelligence. Anything more than just a bloody rumor.”