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The run through the Old Waterway is brutal and nerve-wracking, with Geis and Dogi partnering up to kill any monsters that cross their path as quickly as possible before moving on. Dogi is acutely aware that their head start will only last as long as it takes for the Dragon Knights to make Tia reveal where the three of them went. He hopes, for her and Maya’s sake, that the Dragon Knights dismiss her as irrelevant and that she doesn’t move from their classist blind spot.
Adol stumbles alongside him, keeping to his feet out of sheer grim determination. His face is set in a pale mask, ghostly in the pallid torchlight, and Dogi is reminded yet again that Adol really could have died today. There hasn’t been time to treat his wounds and he’s still too weak to bear the weight of his armor, and so Adol has had to remain bare-chested as they make their way outside the city. At least the waterway itself seems clean and unpolluted, and the monsters are thankfully few in number. It means that Dogi has more time to spend helping Adol forward. The last time Adol stumbled and almost fell, Dogi reached for him instinctively only to flinch when Adol hissed through his teeth in pain. Now he just hovers helplessly as they make their way to relative safety, always keeping an eye behind him signs of pursuit.
Dogi knows they are near to their destination when the air becomes more arid, the passageway easier to navigate in the improving light. Altago’s days are so hot and bright that Dogi can almost taste the sunlight. Normally, the sun is an inconvenience, especially for Adol who seems to burn easily, but now it is a welcome sign that they are nearly to safety. They pick up the pace, with Adol managing a shambling run at this point, because once they pass through the waterways to the plains they’re as safe as they can be at the moment. The bricked up wall dividing Altago City’s abandoned waterways with the outside world goes down in a matter of moments thanks to Dogi’s fists, and finally they are out in the Altago Plains.
Dogi sucks down lungful after lungful of hot, dry air, and thinks that freedom had never felt so good. As he catches his breath, he takes the opportunity to gain his bearings as well. They appear to be just outside the city, an area that appears to be a mingling of the grassy fields of the Plains near Altago City and the Shannoa Forest, with long fine grasses growing next to tall trees. While he can look up and see the walls of Altago City, it seems that they can’t be seen by the patrolling soldiers on the barricades. Good thing too, as this is where Adol’s stamina finally runs out.
Dogi turns to Adol, and what he sees does little to reassure him: the stark contrast between the dark red blood and Adol’s paper-white skin is unsettling, especially now that Dogi can more accurately assess Adol’s injuries. In addition, Adol is panting raggedly, and he is looking around them with the dark, dazed gaze of a man driven to his limit. It hurts to see him like this and it hurts more when Adol barely manages to reach the shelter of a tree before sitting down in a heap.
Dogi rushes over and hunkers next to him, alarmed at the collapse, and for a wild, terrible moment thinks that this is finally the thing that does Adol the Red in. He knew he should have broken through that wall, even if it meant he got captured as well. At least then the two of them could have been tortured together if nothing else.
Adol straightens, using Dogi’s shoulder for balance, and manages a rueful smile before telling him that he is fine now that Dogi is here. Dogi smiles back automatically, but holds himself back from slapping Adol companionably on the back. Adol winces from that impact at the best of times.
Geis stands a little apart from them, looking impatient and a little bit embarrassed.
“There’s a stream nearby,” he announces abruptly, shouldering his halberd and stalking off down a narrow pathway to the south. Dogi presumes that it's in pursuit of this supposed stream to restore their water supplies. Geis can take care of himself in any event.
Once Geis is out of sight, Dogi starts to examine Adol’s wounds more closely with an eye to identifying the wounds in most need of treatment. He has to think of each individual injury has having happened to someone else in a story, as thinking of them happening to Adol makes his hands shake in fury and he needs steady hands for this work. He is able to reconstruct Adol’s desperate battle against the titano from the marks it has left on his body: the burn across his shoulders, red and raw and weeping; the gouges along his ribs that cut through older welts and scars, lined with dirt that would need to be cleaned; and blue-black bruises that are still forming. It’s a miracle that Adol survived it on his own, especially given that all he had was a weak sword and buckler to stand up to its fury.
What doesn’t make sense in Dogi’s cataloguing of Adol’s injuries are the welts that cross Adol’s back and chest. They’re long and thin, and the skin around them is puffy and hot. Adol holds still in a terribly controlled manner as Dogi’s fingertips brush the welts as he tries to map their locations. They look older than the other injuries, and they’re over the floating ribs, the kidneys, the armpits; all places where the hurt would linger for days to come and all places that a monster wouldn’t normally be able to strike with so much precision. It looks deliberately done, by a creature that knows exactly how to cause pain but not kill a person, and that’s a kind of intelligence that Dogi hasn’t seen from a titano thus far. It just doesn’t make sense.
Then it does, and Dogi stares at Adol in shock. “Who did this to you?” he demands, but already knows the answer. After all, the Dragon Knights think that Adol is a Romun spy who killed their king.
Adol’s smile is strained as he tells him that Commander Scias did what he could, including giving him a Nadly Extract before the fight with Ygses Toluca. The Nadly Extract does explain how Adol was able to keep moving for as long as he did, as it’s the strongest restorative they’ve encountered thus far on their journey. It also explains why Adol is able to remember the name of the beast he fought. Adol’s always been more interested in that kind of thing than Dogi, always meticulously recording the details of the foes they face and illustrating them in his journal, but even Adol would have struggled to remember the titano’s name after being tortured. It’s a small kindness, he supposes.
On the other hand, Scias could have stopped Ursa from torturing Adol in the first place. Dogi didn’t have any time for Raul and found him the worst kind of boor, but he had liked Scias. Knowing what he does now, that he would go along with what Prime Minister Ordus wanted rather than taking note of the obvious truth, makes Dogi think his faith in Scias was ill-placed. Geis’ black humor back in the cell about the perils of making friends with people in power cuts deeper now, because Scias had seemed different.
“When I see that Raul and Scias again, they’ll answer to my fists,” Dogi vows vehemently.
Adol shakes his head, saying that Scias did what he could, including that he hoped that Adol would find King Kiemarl’s true killer.
Adol’s always been too willing to trust absolute strangers. Anyone else would end up getting mugged or killed in a shady alley because of it. Yet, Adol seems to be better at most at identifying people who would respond well to that kind of trust, making friends in the strangest of places. It’s how Adol and Dogi met, after all. Dogi resolves to consider the issue later. Now, he should be focusing on treating Adol’s injuries.
He starts with the injuries on Adol’s torso, as they are the ugliest, seeping blood and fluid from the gouges and burns, the welts purpling and swelling. It must be difficult to breathe, let alone sit as still as Adol is. Fortunately, they had picked up a number of Nadly Extracts before heading to Ruins Island, and Dogi just pours them over Adol’s torso, one after the other. The extract mingles with the drying blood on Adol’s torso and exposes the injuries obscured by the blood. It’s a terrible sight, but one that gets better the more that Dogi pours over it. Nadly Extracts usually smell pleasantly sweet to Dogi’s nose, but after pouring a dozen potions onto Adol’s chest the smell is sickeningly strong. Dogi wrinkles his nose and keeps going, taking some comfort in seeing the wounds heal as he does so.
Adol remains quiet and still as Dogi pours Nadly Extracts on his injuries, but Dogi is able to read how much pain he’s in by the way that he holds himself. He sighs as the last of his injuries heal, eyes closing in obvious relief. His thanks, when he finally speaks, are sincere and heartfelt.
“Ah, don’t mention it,” Dogi says cheerfully, mood instantly improved now that Adol is back to normal. “Once the potion has finished working, you can put your armor back on and we can get going.”
Adol looks around, frowning, before asking where Geis has gone.
“Getting water, he said,” Dogi replies. “More than likely though, probably complaining to those sprites of his about how he doesn’t like you. For someone who claims not to like you, he spends a lot of time following you around.”
Adol smiles crookedly at the observation but doesn’t dispute it. Instead, he stands up, stretches his arms out in front of him, and then starts to look for his armor. Dogi has it all ready to hand, and hands Adol his undershirt, laughing as Adol makes a face at how the shirt clings to the remnants of the Nadly Extract that hadn’t yet seeped into his skin.
“It’s your own fault for being impatient,” he tells Adol, who looks distinctly unimpressed. He helps Adol fit the breastplate properly, and then drapes his scarf around his neck to hang jauntily as a splash of color against the silver of Adol’s armor. Now that Adol is dressed once more, he looks more like the adventurer that Dogi has dedicated his life to, confident without being cocky, and with an excited gleam to his eye about what adventure they will uncover next.
“Let’s go find Geis,” Dogi suggests. “Then we can find out who this guy is that he wants us to meet.”
Adol agrees with the idea, and the two of them set off.