A Healer In Action
Tamoen demonstrates medical expertise under impossible conditions
Level 1, Healer 1, Adept 1, Naturalist 1
Healer Maneuver: Infections 1
Naturalist Maneuver: Herbalism 1
Adept Maneuver: Fire Shaper 1
The crow cawed once and settled on his cloak rack as another wounded guard stumbled through the tent flap, clutching his shoulder. Tamoen glanced up from a woman whose arm he was splinting and nodded toward the only empty cot. "Sit. Don't bleed on my clean bandages."
Three days into the siege, the makeshift infirmary had developed its own grim rhythm. The townsfolk no longer flinched when Tamoen spoke, though they still watched him with the wariness reserved for necessary evils. A priest of Rikitak was help you couldn't refuse, but couldn't trust.
Triage
Tam picked a hooked blade from the table. The man squeezed his eye shut, but Tam only began cutting away his compromised armor and clothing to expose his bleeding shoulder. The new arrival was a simple case — a deep puncture from a field-point arrow. Tam was young but well trained for his age. He assessed the wound.
He's Level 1 + Healer 1 = EL2, rolling a 2. The man's Battlefield Wound 2 rolled 1d[0-2] for a 0 and seemed to hide no secrets, giving Tam a Diagnosis 2 Boost.
The wound represented significant trauma, but it was fresh and clean — nothing exotic requiring specialized knowledge. There was muscle damage but no arterial bleeding, no foreign debris, a good chance of full recovery with proper care.
He stood and walked to the shelf for a bottle — the crow complained and flew to his chest across the tent — and he chided it as he fetched his bag and walked back to the wounded soldier. "Don't be such a ninny. You aren't even tasty — I know."
He handed the soldier the bottle and rummaged in the bag. The soldier looked at it, uncertain, and Tam mumbled "It's going to hurt, you might want to take a pretty good pull on that." The man gulped, and turned up the bottle for a deep drink. Tam brought out a phial and set it on the little table by the cot. He picked up tongs and walked out to the boiling pot over the campfire in front of his infirmary tent, ignoring the shouts and twangs of bowfire to collect steaming bandages into a tray. The man watched with obvious fear as he returned.
"Are — are you going to torture me?" Tam met his eyes, his expression unreadable, but not unkind.
"Yes," he said gently. "Know that the price of the blessings of Rikitak is high, but not one moment of your agony will go wasted. All your pain and fear will pay for the best care you can receive, and I will see you healed and back to your family." The man's lip trembled, but he clenched his jaw and nodded. Tam set the tray down and took a steaming, dripping cloth from it, and an odd pair of flat plates with handles like a bellows. He squeezed the water from the cloth between the plates, and then poured the brandy into it before using it to wipe the wound clean. The man's eyes flew wide and he hissed in pain, but he squeezed them shut and clenched his jaw, and sat still. "Good," Tam muttered. "That strength will serve you well, now and later." With not much else to do for it, he anointed it from the phial and wrapped it to keep it clean.
"You are fortunate to have bled so freely — the wound is clean. Keep it that way. Change the dressing daily, and eat well. Don't use this arm unless your life depends on it." He bound it in a sling. "Pretend that it is ruined and it will get better; ignore my advice and it will be ruined, and you will lose the use of it. Do you understand this contract?" The man's eyes went wide and he tried to swallow but apparently his mouth had gone dry.
"Y-yes, ..." He appeared to be fumbling for how to address the young priest.
"You may call me Honored Flame, or 'Master Tamoen', but titles are not why I am here. Do as I have decreed without fail and you will heal. Now go, and use your good arm to help your comrades. Get out so I can concentrate on people who need more care than you. Both of you." He waved the woman with the splinted arm out as well.
He looked at the two men lying on the other cots. The crow cawed at him.
"Be quiet," he scolded quietly. "There's nothing more I can do for them now. They need rest — and so do I." He frowned around the tent, and sat on the cot the soldier had just vacated. "I can't afford to make mistakes."
Critical Complications
He woke when the crow raised a fuss at more men coming through the tent flap. He sat up rolling tired eyes and set his boots on the floor as another soldier eased the sergeant into the one vacant cot. The man flopped back, arching his back in obvious agony, keeping one swollen boot clear of the floor.
Tam frowned at the sergeant and silenced the babbling of the soldier that had brought him in. "Why are you wearing that boot? I told you to stay off it."
Sergeant Doek came to see Tamoen a few days ago for an injured foot. His other hurts have healed, but this one persists. This morning his daily recovery rolled (0,0,0) — an Extreme failure. The foot has become infected and gone septic overnight.
The sergeant panted but met his eye. "My men need me. I —" He grimaced and lost the rest of the sentence. Tam exhaled slowly.
"Did you use the powder I gave you?"
The man shook his bearded head. "Gave it to...Tavich..."
Tam interrupted his rummaging and setting out tools to glare. "Tavich — the belly wound? I gave him his own. That was for you. It's for the pain, but dose makes the poison, sergeant. If you've killed him I shall be very wroth." He pulled a small, twisted paper packet from his satchel and dumped it into a cup, sloshed a ladle of soup over it and shoved it into his hands. "Shut up," he said when the man started to refuse, "and drink the damned soup. Every drop, or I will pour it down your throat with a funnel and tube." To the other soldier he pointed and said "Get that boot off him, and try not to take any of his foot off with it."
The sergeant wasn't accustomed to being talked to this way by anyone but officers, and the soldier who brought him in was aghast, but Tam's tone brooked no argument and he was the best medic they had. He sat up and gulped down the soup. The other soldier started unlacing the boot, and the sergeant went back on the cot, gripping the sides with white knuckles, but let the man work. He tugged at the heel and the sergeant screamed as Tam gathered more bandages from the boiling pot.
The priest walked back into the tent to the smell of foetid meat. He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.
The sergeant's foot was an ugly, mottled mess. "You fool," Tam whispered. "You put that boot back on and laced it tight so that you could limp on through your day, braving the pain to be there for men who will miss you much more when you are dead." Both men turned their eyes to him in fear.
He pushed the soldier out of the way and lifted the sergeant's foot none too gently to inspect it. The man screamed again. "At least it still hurts," Tam muttered, and the man thrashed and gurgled as the priest squeezed out a variety of disgusting fluids. Sergeant Doek went suddenly quiet — he had passed out.
Tamoen pointed to the straps hanging on the tent pole. "Bind him," he said. He grabbed a board and slid it under the damaged leg, creating a makeshift operating table out of that end of the cot. He helped the soldier tie the sergeant down, and checked Doek's throat with the ends of his fingers. He started into the middle distance as he did this, looking at nothing, and exhaled quietly.
"The spirits whisper that you're dying, friend," Tamoen murmured, releasing Doek's throat. "Shall we see what the dice have to say about it?" He took a steaming fresh bandage from the tray and spread it over the aggrieved foot with the tongs. The sergeant moaned but did not wake. Tam cut away the man's trouser leg and after a moment he gingerly used the hot bandage to clean the lower leg and foot, sucking air in pain at the steam still rising from it. He threw it aside and lay on another, pouring the brandy over his hands and the bandage before making another pass. The soldier covered his mouth, and Tamoen offered him the brandy. "Take a little liquid courage to stifle the gorge. I may need you steady in a bit." The man drank.
"Sepsis," Tamoen explained grimly, sighing at the hesitant withdrawal and blank stare of the soldier who thought perhaps he was casting a spell. "The wound has gone bad inside. Probably gangrene. Certainly infected. Without intervention, the sergeant will likely be dead in a few days, possibly as soon as the morning."
Desperate Measures
"I can perhaps save his life," Tamoen said quietly, "but the price will be high. The infected tissue must be removed. All of it."
The soldier blinked. "I —" He just shook his head. He didn't want to make the decision.
"I am not asking for permission, you buffoon. I am explaining, though the gods alone know why. Go, begone. Fetch me the midwife, and be you quick about it!" The man fled. The crow raised another fuss and Tam levelled a finger at it. "I might not eat you, but that doesn't mean I won't cook you. Be quiet!" It flapped its wings but held its tongue.
By the time the midwife arrived he had everything prepared. The powder in the soup had begun its work, and Doek's troubled murmurs had faded to complete stupor. Fresh bandages were boiling, clamps and pincers and several knives were cleaned and ready, a saw, needles and fine, strong silk thread, strong coffee, a fresh bottle of brandy; he handed the terrified woman a brandy-laced coffee and told her to drink every drop. The poor woman spoke not a word, but did as bid with a fierce grimace, and he assessed her with an approving nod.
He used the sedative as a Wagered boost for the surgery. At Level 1 + Healer 1 + Naturalist 1 + Herbalism 1 = EL4 he set aside just the one point for a final EL3. He rolled 3d2 (0,0,1) for a 1. The sergeant resisted with only his base level of 3, but his Festering Wound 2 limited him to a single die for a 0, and he slept soundly, giving Tam a Sedated Patient 1 persistent Boost.
He had prepared his operating space as well as he could with Level 1 + Healer 1 + Infections 1 = EL3, rolling a careful 3d2 (0,0,1) for a 1 vs DL2 Questionable Conditions which rolled 1d3 for a 2, hindering him with a Poor Environment 1. The midwife was also Level 1 + Healer 1 = EL2 and she rolled 2d2 (0,0) for a 0 to help, but the DL2 Questionable Conditions also rolled (0,0) for a 0 to make her no hindrance.
He told her clearly every thing before he did it, what to expect and what was expected of her, and then he did what he said with precision and commitment. She did not faint or falter, though she wept. Tam did not chide her for it; only bade her wipe her face with a clean towel and clean her hands after. In the end, all Tam's preparations were thwarted by the crude battlefield infirmary, and it would be his skill alone that mattered.
He rolled Level 1 + Healer 1 + Infections 1 (+ Sedated Patient 1 — Poor Environment 1) = EL3 for (0,0,1) a 1. The Festering Wound 2 rolled 1d3 for a 0, and he succeeded in his emergency procedure.
Doek's critical condition had been removed, and was now in the bucket at the foot of the bed. Tamoen had cleaned and cauterized it, salved and bandaged, and summoned a carpenter and a leatherworker to describe for them the wooden peg Doek would need built to replace the foot.
The sergeant now has an Amputee Hook on his character sheet which acts like any other.
As dawn broke over the embattled town, the crow cawed once more and took flight through the open tent flap. Tamoen gathered his tools and prepared for whatever new casualties the day would bring. Behind him, the sergeant slept heavily.
In the corner, the tired midwife dropped a small pile of silver coins on his makeshift altar — payment he had not requested, but that he did not refuse. She said not a word as she left.