Chapter 17: A Bloody Interview

As the time of her appointment drew nearer, Suria desperately practiced her runework, even buying another practice slate from the merchant to continue. But, she eventually realized, she wasn’t going to be able to attain a sixth rune. She considered asking Maut-mai for her potion, since she knew the other woman had it, but judged that harming the fledgling relationship wasn’t worth it.

Especially because there was no guarantee that she would even be tested. Suria had been given a specific time to present herself at the Grand Prince’s Medical Ward, but didn’t know much more than that.

Just in case, she headed out well before her appointment. The frenzy of the previous day had abated considerably, but she had never actually been to the building before. Actually, based on the map she’d obtained from the library, she had passed it multiple times: the medical ward was just to her left when she entered the university.

The Grand Prince’s Medical Ward proved to be a long building, practically serving as one of the main walls of the university separating it from the city. Strangely, the bottom floor had only narrow slits for windows while the upper two floors had numerous large windows. She knew that the medical ward contained areas for class instruction as well as actively practicing houses of healing, so perhaps that reflected the division.

Numerous entrances poked from along the building, but one was clearly the primary entrance: not only did it have a larger arched doorway, there was a small plaza with a statue in the center. It was a mark of how she was getting used to Darkmoon University that she was surprised that the statue didn’t move. She wondered if the mustachioed man was the “grand prince” from the name but rushed past him.

As soon as she entered, she flinched from shouts and people rushing through the halls. No one seemed to be paying attention to her and she wasn’t sure why until she saw a group of healers levitating a bloody man on a stretcher. Was it like this every day?

“Suria Northbrook?” A harried-looking older man approached, wiping blood off his forehead. “Here for an interview?”

“Umm, yes?” she answered weakly.

“It’s not going to be the way it was planned. You have some healing spells, right? Follow me.”

Suria hastened after him, swallowing her nervousness. They turned away from a large hall into a narrower corridor without any furnishings. She heard groaning and cursing from the first several doors before they abruptly turned to enter the next.

Inside, there was a woman lying on her back in a simple bed. Something had struck her across the shoulder, leaving a bloody gash, and it looked as though one of her feet had been crushed.

“Do what you can,” the healer ordered her.

“I can’t save her foot!” Suria protested. “She’ll lose it unless you find a better healer!”

“This isn’t a trial for you – it’s triage.” The man gripped her shoulders and looked her directly in the eyes. “If you don’t heal her, she probably won’t be healed. Most of us will be exhausted by the time we deal with the worst cases. You’re all she has.”

With that, he used his grip on her shoulders to spin her around to face the woman, and he was gone a second later.

Being left alone with an agonized woman might have flustered another new student, but for the first time since she arrived, Suria was actually in her area of expertise. First she investigated the woman’s foot, which was a bloody mass. Something had crushed it, probably a stone judging from the abrasions. She had to accept the grim fact that there was no way to save the foot – the woman would be lucky to get out with her life based on the blood loss.

The ideal first step would have been to use a tourniquet spell, but that was the sort of advanced magic that Suria had never found anyone who could teach her – one of the reasons she’d wanted to come to Darkmoon. She instead gripped her healing talisman and began casting at a low level, cleaning the injury of disease and filth.

As she did so, she looked around for bandages, but couldn’t find any in the simple room. She tore off a somewhat clean strip of the sheet, cleansed it with the same spell, and then tied a basic tourniquet. Without a proper windlass, she used her spare stylus to tighten the bandage as much as possible, taking care to ease the pain with her spells. Once the bleeding had been staunched, Suria could turn her attention to the foot itself.

Using the same talisman but completely changing her focus, Suria began casting to heal over the crushed flesh. Again, it would have been good to cauterize the wound or cut away lost tissue, but she had to work with what she had. The best she could do was leave a stump that would easily take a prosthetic so the woman could figure out a new life for herself afterward.

Her work on the foot was successful, but the woman was tossing and turning. The pain might be getting through to her, or there might be disease settling within her. Suria wiped the sweat from her forehead with one hand while casting pain relief spells with the other, soothing the woman.

Once that was done, she cast the healing sleep spell as strongly as she could, hoping the woman would recover. There was a strange resistance that she didn’t understand, but it didn’t seem to be harmful, so she had to ignore it. Suria then turned her attention to the gash across the woman’s shoulder. That was easier to handle, so she made sure to do it right, healing over the flesh so it wouldn’t leave any painful or stiff scarring.

What else could she do? Suria had no analytical spells, so she had to check the body directly for fever, then investigated for injuries under the patient’s clothes. No fever, but she did find some ugly bruises around the opposite shoulder. Her flesh healing spell wasn’t very effective for bruises and could cause complications, so Suria only cast it lightly and then added a little more pain relief.

That was probably all she could do. Suria turned away to see if there was anyone else she could help and leapt in surprise when she saw that she was being watched.

Professor Frunah Gwaslos stood in the doorway, and for a moment Suria thought that she looked completely untouched by the medical emergency. She analyzed more carefully the next second: the professor had a hint of exhaustion in the corners of her eyes, she wasn’t wearing her healer’s stole, and her sleeves were rolled up and bloody.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“You did a good job with the patient,” the professor told her quietly. “Recognizing that you couldn’t save the foot was the correct decision; even a master healer might have done the same to save mana. The biggest omission is not casting anything against infection, but I’m guessing you lack the spell?”

“I’m afraid so,” Suria said. “My primary inscription wards against disease a little.”

“There’s one other mistake, though this one isn’t really your fault.” Professor Gwaslos stepped into the room and pulled up the side of the sheet, revealing glyphs carved along the side of the bed. “All our medical beds have a healing sleep glyph on them, for the exact reason you cast it to help recovery. But doubling up can send the patient into a coma, so it’s fortunate you weren’t strong enough to cause that.”

Suria went pale as she imagined how horribly things might have gone wrong. But, even though it was selfish, her mind was moving on from the patient to what this would mean for her. “How many other patients are there? Can I help?”

“Can you cast that flesh knitting spell again?” Professor Gwaslos asked. When Suria nodded, she made a quick gesture to follow and swept back into the corridor so quickly that Suria had to scramble to follow.

They headed past several more doors and nearly collided with another group of healers. Suria wanted to shrink aside before they knocked her over, but they parted around Professor Gwaslos, who didn’t miss a step. The next room contained a man who had moderately shallow cuts all across his chest, obviously in need of immediate treatment.