When Kharon heard news that a disease was going around that affected magic users, he was far less wary than he should have been. He didn’t even realize he caught it. When the shop keep sorcerer sneezed in his face he wasn’t pleased, but he thought nothing more of it even after the sorcerer explained the disease to him. If he did get sick it wouldn’t be anything more than a cold, right? When had an illness ever actually affected spellcasting?
It started simply enough, just like a cold, he was coughing and sneezing, his sinuses were clogging up and his throat was constantly dry. Like a cold, a bad one, but a cold. It had however gotten to the point that his teammates demanded he stay at the tavern, in bed, until he was better. Kharon agreed to this, but only because he was too exhausted not to. It wasn’t until Fineas came up to bring him something to drink before bed that the reality of the situation came to light.
Fineas was normally pretty dexterous, but he wasn’t beyond tripping. This was one of those instances, where even the most dextrous would slip, as he stepped on a bit of blanket that had pooled onto the floor and stumbled. The glass of water went flying, and Kharon, in an attempt to save the glass, cast feather fall on it. However, feather fall did not happen. Instead, all candles in the room went out. In fact, all candles within the inn, went out, and there were a few shouts of shock followed by the ensuing chaos of the sudden darkness.
The glass had shattered on the ground, and Fineas was face first against the bed Kharon was using. He quickly hopped up, about to say something, but was stopped by the darkness.
“Wow, when did the lights go out?!”
Kharon, who had been stunned, slowly returned to reality with the question. “I don’t… When I… When I cast levitate…”
“Yeah, I… Hold on… Let me just li-” Kharon attempted prestidigitation to light the candles in the room as he spoke, but the result was not illumination. Instead, he was gone, and where he ended up was somewhere he had never expected to be. The astral plane. Kharon was too stunned and sick to do much of anything, which mattered little because he was back after six seconds.
“Kharon!?” Fineas sounded incredibly distressed.
“Hi… Yes… I’m here, again, I think.”
“Yeah, I realize that, but I’m back now so…”
“I… … Somewhere else, I don’t know.”
“I have no idea. I was just trying to light the candles with prestidigitation, and then I wasn’t here.”
Fineas put the pieces together quicker than Kharon ever could have in that moment. “When you cast magic! Things keep happening when you cast magic!”
“What? That… That doesn’t make any sense.” Kharon coughed, lying back against the bed as Fineas lit the candles.
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“It does if you caught the magic cold!”
Kharon squinted at the ceiling, trying to reason out the possibility that the illness was the cause.
“What did the sorcerer at that shop say? What did he say it did?”
“It made casters physically ill, and turned all their spells into wild magi-... God, DAMNIT.”
“Aw, Kharon, it’s alright. You just gotta get better and then you’ll be back to your spells again.”
Kharon rolled over on the bed, away from Fineas, groaning.
“Here, I’ll pick up the glass and get you some fresh water. It’ll be okay, you just gotta wait!”
“Waiting is the literal worst thing.”
Fineas gave Kharon an apologetic smile, before cleaning up the glass and spilled water and heading out. Kharon groaned again, but was cut off by the need to cough before sighing and curling up on the bed. This was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to him. … Well, okay, beside the amnesia, but still. Hopefully, just hopefully, it would be over soon.
