Goriel and beyond, part 6

[Alberich]

Tim shrugged. "Fine by me." As it was. There was nothing scarier around here than silly old busybodies and some kind of totally pointless Tsuirakuan spying-on-nothing, and dinner out held no terrors for him. So he made a couple of inquiries.

[Graybeard]

The old woman doddered away, muttering under her breath about foreigners and trolls and elves and the way this younger generation of clergy just didn't respect Luminosita.

Therese, who had watched proceedings in discreet silence, was amused. "We have those at home," she said. "Old ladies who natter endlessly about the deteriorating moral quality of the ones we rescue." She chuckled. "Of course, most of them were rescuees themselves, fifty years earlier. So what now?"

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[OOC: Sorry, this is long, but important... Note a very delayed edit, as the man wouldn't know about Rose's promotion as she was leaving active duty. /OOC:]

"Cap'n Rose, ma'am! Be that you?"

Sister Rose relaxed visibly. She recognized the man now, from the days up north. His name was, or had been, Private Mufiel, if she remembered correctly; a man in the regular army, of no great aptitude or intellect, but solid enough, and certainly no hoodlum. She suppressed a wince as he drew near, seeing that the years hadn't been kind to him. "Yes, good to see you again. Now what is it?" she asked, trying to keep equal elements of compassion, distance and command in her voice.

The man was all but tripping over his own tongue. "Lum'nosity be praised! Ma'am, it's -- it's -- she be dyin', I be thinkin'. You best be comin' real quick-like. This ain't good." There was no mistaking the distress in his voice.

Rose looked at Argus, back at Mufiel. <"I think we have time to help this poor guy,"> she thought at Argus. Then out loud to the man: "Yes, yes, I can administer last rites, or try to heal injuries or illnesses. But who is this that 'be dying'? A friend of yours?" The man didn't seem to be wearing a wedding ring, so at least it wouldn't be his wife, probably. That was good -- relatively speaking. She was already falling into step behind the former soldier.

"Thankee, ma'am," Mufiel said as he strode rapidly along, with the sincerity of a simple man. "She be this poor street beggar that me an' some o' the boys from th'old regiment be takin' care of since we be findin' her. I don't be knowin' her name, and she be not tellin' it. We just calls her 'Sis' on account of 'coz she be like a little sister to us. An' she be real sick! We be thinkin' she got inta some bad bootleg rotgut or somethin'..."

Like a little sister to us, Rose thought, with more than a hint of pain. She hadn't seen her own little sister Margot in years. Yes, she should try to help, for the sake of all little sisters who'd gone out into the world and had bad things happen to them. She quickened her pace, trying to balance between the agitated ex-soldier and Argus.

A few minutes later, and after one or two turns into alleys that Rose would normally not have wanted to enter alone, they were closing on a small group of men standing around a woman who was curled up on the ground, lying in her own vomit and retching and coughing. Rose fought down nausea; this was ugly. The men were big and rough-looking like Mufiel, but they were trying their best to be comforting. Good men, Rose thought, just down on their luck; our government should be better at taking care of the likes of these, and not just because they fought for their country. One of them looked up at the approaching trio, relief on his face. "Hermie! Blessin's on ye, man, ye be bringin' a healer?"

Rose exchanged looks with Argus. "Yes, I have some healing magic," she said, understating the case somewhat. She addressed the sick woman, her voice calming, kind, merciful, the voice of a nun of the Veracian Church rather than a military officer. "What can I do to help you, miss?"

She wasn't prepared for what happened next.

The woman turned to look at her, rage on her face. "I don't need the help of any god-damned nun of that damn light show," she snarled. "Now get the hell out of here and let me die in peace." If she was going to say more, it was lost in a round of coughing.

Rose recoiled at the words, but what really horrified her was the realization of who was speaking them.

"MARGOT!!??" she gasped, as she gazed on the alcohol-ravaged face of her own sister.

[Drannin]

Argus stared, mind going blank. Huh?

(OOC: Yeah, that's pretty much the entirety of my own thought process, right now)

[Graybeard]

<"It's my sister,"> Sister Rose thought at Argus, momentarily unable to verbalize anything.

[OOC: Yeah, Rose has kinda locked up too, from that little jolt.]

[Drannin]

<"...Oh."> Well. That really didn't help Argus' cognitive response as much as he might have hoped. Seriously, what did one say here?

[Graybeard]

The one mental word from Argus at least got Sister Rose rebooted. "We can't leave her here like this," she said. "Help me with the spells. This isn't gonna be easy." With a deep breath and a prayer, she set to work.

First came a Purification (or Hygiene) spell, not so much to clean up the mess (although that was certainly needed too), but rather to counter whatever Margot had drunk to put her in this state. It would work on her stomach contents, but the poisons swimming in her veins would simply have to remain there for the moment.

Next, Rose focused Healing energies on the young woman's lungs. She'd clearly aspirated things she had no business aspirating, and that could kill her quickly. Magic flared, and as though by magic (so to speak), Margot's coughing and gagging stopped. Rose breathed a deep sigh of relief. That would at least buy some time, although whatever damage had already been done to the lungs wasn't going to get reversed quickly. In fact, that was going to be a general problem. Magic could deal with the acute alcohol poisoning, after a fashion. The chronic damage that years of it had done to the liver and pancreas and other organs ... maybe not. Certainly it would take a professional healer to do that.

There was also the matter of shock to be dealt with. Margot's teeth were beginning to chatter as the contaminated blood rushed to her core (further poisoning all those organs, Rose realized, but that was just a drop in a bucket compared to the years of abuse they must have faced). Fortunately, treating shock was one of the first bits of healing magic any competent magic user learned. She and Argus soon had that under control ... and to her immense relief, Margot's feeble curses suddenly stopped and she fell into a deep sleep, her breathing reassuringly even and her pulse strong again.

"That'll hold her for now," Rose panted, wiping sweat from her brow. She smiled weakly at young Mufiel. "Much better than last rites, don't you think? Now can you get her out of the street, into your flat or something, until we can send more professional help?"

The large, untidy man squinted at her. "Uh, yes, ma'am, but who's gonna be payin' for--"

Rose interrupted; she was getting her presence back, if only for a moment. "I'll worry about that. Now do it, soldier." That came out wrong, didn't it? Her gaze softened. "Always better to save a life, isn't it? And you helped do that today. Thank you." I'll tell him later just how much that life means to me.

Mufiel gulped, but then he managed his own weak smile. "Aye, aye, ma'am." He scooped the unconscious woman up in his long arms (not much to her now but skin and bones, Rose realized; privations would have to get fixed too, but money would work for that) and headed up the alley, disappearing into one of the tenements. The other men nodded silent thanks and dispersed, after giving Rose the address of the flat where the convalescence would begin -- she hoped.

With the intensity of the moment behind her, Rose started to say something -- "When we get to dinner, I'll have Mom send--" but that was as far as she got before the adrenaline wore off. Shaking nearly as hard as her sister had been, she sagged into Argus' arms, exhausted.

[Drusia]

"So what now?"

"Going out to dinner, I believe," I tell her. "Tim was just going to show us the way."

-- Desiree

[Alberich]

As indeed he did. He found an inn with a good reputation -- Jillian's -- featuring a good, coarse wheat bread Tim hadn't tried before, plus a crunchier kind made from barley, plus a mixture of olive oil and herbs to dip them in, plus a small but well-prepared range of soups and meat dishes, and (a true extravagance) half a dozen varieties of beer, including one brewed at the inn itself. For the occasion Tim might allow himself a second pint before the meal was done.

Jillian herself was a pleasant lady in her thirties who'd been feeding the world (and her own ample self) since her husband died ten years ago. Operating a business like this in a city like Saus, she took Tim and his foreign lady guests in stride.

[OOC: From today's reprint comic I see something I forgot - namely that the Veracian military actually does have some guns. But Tim hasn't trained with them.]

[Graybeard]

Therese sipped surprisingly daintily at her beer. (At least those who'd seen her at a post-rescue party in Refuge-Nouveau would have been surprised.) Being able to enjoy a meal like this, anywhere except in her home city, just felt -- weird. She had a whimsical thought: dropping twenty places like this one in the middle of Goriel would be more likely to cause a revolution there than anything the Sisterhood is doing. Of course, places wouldn't stay like this one if dropped into Goriel. The culture there was just all too pervasive.

She was about to compliment Tim on his choice of dining establishments when there was a commotion at the front door. Half a dozen people wearing Tsuirakuan outfits had burst into the inn, looking wild-eyed -- she would almost have said "panicked" -- and jabbering heatedly in Tsuirakuan, a language in which Therese was not at all fluent. [OOC: Is anyone else in this party? I don't think so. /OOC:]

"Anybody know what that's all about?" she asked softly of her companions at the table.

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"Just let me rest for a few minutes," Sister Rose panted softly into Argus' chest. The pair found things to sit on -- the alley certainly didn't have chairs, but old crates would do in a pinch -- as she got her metabolism back under control.

As soon as she was breathing normally again, she asked him a question that had been on her mind from the first moment she'd realized who the derelict woman was.

"What are we going to tell my mother?"

[Alberich]

"Nope," said Tim, pushing back just a little from the table. He hoped there'd be no need to involve himself in the commotion, but wanted to be ready to move just in case. Anfisa instinctively squeezed closer to Desiree for protection. (But nothing about this move was overtly sexual.)

Jillian herself, as a successful entrepreneur in a city with a sizable Tsuirakuan population, did speak a little of that language. She walked forward with both hands up. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," said she, in semi-broken Tsuirakuan. "My house is a place of peace. Let me present you a table, is it?"