Chapter 55: Blood Bond

  Marcus slowly crawled back into consciousness and opened his eyes. “We have to stop meeting like this. It is embarrassing for you.” he didn’t need to turn his head to know it was Janette. “Where are we and how long have I been out?” he said and slowly pushed himself up. He was in a nice room with a large bed and soft bedding. Janette was on a chair next to him “We are in a nice place in the city and you have been out for about 2 hours. I can tell you when they brought you back, looking dead, things went wild for a moment. Some crazy person nearly shot the Blood Mage.” Marcus looked at her, knowing exactly who the crazy person was.

  “What ever happened with you, it completely changed things for us. We have been invited into the city and the diplomats and scientist are running around town.” She said and Marcus only slowly remembered what happened to him. “I need to talk to Ms. Taylor and all of you too.” he said trying to put his cloths on. “Okay but first you eat something, I called the boss the moment you woke up anyway. Her orders by the way.” Janette put some ration bars into Marcus’ hand.

  Only two minutes later the door opened and Ms. Taylor, Carmen and the rest of Marcus’ team stormed in. “Marcus!” Achara hugged him and everybody looked a lot happier since the last time Marcus had seen them. “Marcus, we are all burning to hear what happened to you. Given the reaction of the ginghi [ginji] it must have been big.” Carmen said and Marcus looked lost. “Ohh Ohh, right. Ginghi is the name of their species. We have finally a proper name for the “orks”.” Carmen said, happy like a kid to Christmas.

  “Marcus what happened?” Ms. Taylor asked again with a serious face. “Miss Taylor..”, “Grace please.” she said with a smile. “Grace, the Blood Mage drew my blood and gave it to another ork. That ork has a malady I think and for some reason my blood helped him. It might be related to my class.” Marcus said, voicing his own thoughts. “This ork, ehm ginghi...” He tried to find the right words to explain his impression “I can not even fathom how high his level is. He felt closer to a demi god than a mortal. Compared to him the strongest humans look like ants.” Marcus said and the rest looked shocked.

  “Stronger than the sisters?” Grace asked. “They are sisters?” Marcus found it hard to imagine that the two ginghi women could be related. One was basically a green angel the other was first pick for an evil witch in a movie. “And to answer your questions yes, no matter how strong they seem to you they are little kittens compared to-” the door opened and the evil witch stepped in with a translator in tow.

  The room was already full but everybody made way for her to reach Marcus. Her face was no longer painted white and now Marcus could see her light green skin color. Her eyes meet his and she carefully put her hand on his neck and nodded after a few seconds. Satisfied with the situation she stood up to her full height and concentrated visibly “Thank you.”, she said in very broken English. She checked with the translator who nodded. “You are welcome.” Marcus said more out of reflex and shock than anything else. She seemed to understand and left the room without another word.

  “Did you have the feeling the treatment of the demi god ginghi was done?” Grace asked still looking at the door. Marcus shook his head “No, it looked more like a temporary relief.”. “Good.” Grace said turning to Carmen “Given how important this is to them, further treatments can be the foundation of our negotiations. And heavy leverage too.” she said and Carmen nodded. “With your consent of course Marcus.” Grace quickly said after realizing how it sounded. “I doubt this is covered in the mission payment.” Kou talked for the first time and hit the nail on the head.

  “We will surely find a solution for that. If this turns out to be as fruitful as it looks the UN is going to pay you handsomely for your pains Marcus.” Grace said and Carmen agreed. “Your people can talk to my people.” Marcus replied and pointed at Kou who smiled like the devil.

  After Grace and Carmen had left the room, Colors of the Wild was finally alone. “Okay Marcus, how strong is that ork...GINGHI really?” Janette asked taking one of the ration bars back to eat it. Marcus worked on his own bar, now that he was awake he felt famished “So strong I can not even imagine how you could fight somebody like this. He really felt like a mythic existence.” Kou sat down next to Achara and by now everybody was on Marcus’ bed. “Well at least we now know that a class holder can get this strong, level 200 and most likely 300 is not the end. Any idea what class he is?” That was a good question from Kou and Marcus thought back to the encounter. “Something tells me he is a Blood Knight.”

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  Marcus spent the rest of the day with his teammates and explored the town or watched the scientists work. The translators and diplomats were working until they fell over but they all looked like they had the time of their life. Many new information about the ginghi were recorded but Marcus only caught a fraction of it. It was just too much.

  At the evening they joined a festival and marveled at the show of skill of ginghi class holders. As far as Marcus could see all of them were very skilled and of high level, but there were surprisingly few. It was possible that the low level ones trained or worked somewhere else and only come back once they reached a respectable level.

  Too bad, they could not eat or drink anything here, the food that was offered looked just heavenly. Unknown birds and mammals had been cooked or roasted and garnished with bright fruits and vegetables. Marcus knew adaption to the micro organism of a different world was time consuming and a less than fun activity but he was certain it was worth it in this case.

  The next day, shortly after breakfast, he was asked to join the Blood Mage sister for another blood draining session. He was not keen on it but given how well everything was going he did not want to cause problems for the rest of the expedition. A ginghi servant guided him and to Marcus’ surprise they did not return to the massive ginghi leader but entered a different building. The feeling of this place was very different, he saw many books, scrolls and one ginghi even carried a stone tablet.

  Marcus entered a large room filled with shelves full of books and scrolls. Large tables were covered with texts and notes and diagrams. The Blood Mage waited for him standing next to one of the tables upon an artistic glass carafe stood. She was dressed differently today, in a simple, light blue dress with long sleeves and a high neck.

  Looking at her it was hard to imagine she was the sister of the silver armor wearing woman. She had a slender body with a petite look, that was fundamentally not unattractive, but compared to her sister it was night and day. She was not alone, one of the translators stood nearby and waved a hello.

  Marcus greeted the ginghi woman with a bow, she returned the gesture and pointed at the stool next to her. Marcus took place and revealed his left arm but remembered something.

  He pointed at himself and said “Marcus” and waited to see if she understood. Of course she did and said several words that Marcus could not follow but then she said “Azaa” [Asaa, emphasis on the last a] making a gesture that this was a short form. Marcus repeated the name “Azaa” and she nodded.

  Azaa pulled out her knife again and made a small cut in his arm. His blood streamed through the air and into the glass carafe in such a graceful way Marcus nearly forgot he needed the stuff to live. The procedure did not last nearly as long as last time and Marcus was grateful. While his body was quick at recovery, falling unconscious was getting old really quickly. He was about to get up when she told him to stay and to take of his shirt. Unclear what was going on he removed the shirt and Azaa moved behind him. Marcus felt a wave of worry inside of him, she had been more gentle today but he could not help but mistrust her. She drained his blood for goodness sake.

  Her hand was on his back and slowly the spot started to grew warm and then hot. Before it started to hurt she moved her hand and the process repeated. Azaa continued her treatment for several minutes and Marcus finally realized that this was a form of massage. His back felt warm and sweat formed on his skin but the muscles in his back and shoulders started to relax nicely.

  After nearly twenty minutes she stopped and Marcus thanked her while putting on his shirt again. Until now the translator had only made some notes but Azaa was conversing with him and used the tablet to support her words. “She wants to know how old you are Marcus.” The man said with a confident look. “20” Marcus said and the translator conveyed the information.

  Azaa’s eyes widened and she quickly repeated the question but the translator gave the same answer. Even so she was not human Marcus could tell she was suddenly upset, extremely upset. Azaa grabbed his hand and pulled him along as she left the room. He and the translator had to run to keep up with her agile steps, and she did not slow down until they barged into a large room. Her sister, human diplomats, Carmen and Grace were in discussions and turned to the ruckus. Azaa started talking while she was still moving and her voice sounded very angry indeed.

  Her sister listened and then turned to her translator to express something and now she too had an angry expression on her face. The woman, a translator from an Asian country, tried to keep up and for two minutes she worked hard before she turned around with a weird look. “I think, she wants to know why we have corrupted a child with the touch of the monoliths.”