Chapter 85: The Illiad (2)
Ahheman stepped down from the altar after a long ceremony.
His body was drenched in sweat from the nonstop sacrifices he had been making for the past few days.
As he descended from the altar, he saw that the entire village was deserted and laughed.
" ... must have gotten the plague by now."
In truth, he had known beforehand that the Red Death was coming to Balak.
Stranger things have happened. After all, it was Ahheman himself who helped Leviathan unleash the Red Death on the jungle.
In fact, he had been in contact with the outside world for quite some time.
Whether it's helping the Leviathans conduct clinical trials of new drugs or poisons on unknowing natives in the water, or aiding and abetting bourgeois families in their unfair trade practices.
In exchange for Aheman's secret supply of natives to test poisons and medicines on, the Leviathans would freely give him new poisons or new medicines, which in turn would establish the authority of the shaman.
The shaman's authority was established by secretly releasing a poison to poison a target and then using the medicine to cure the target to gain their trust.
Sickness and medicine.