“Hello?” Mel called out. The front desk was left unattended, so there were probably anti-theft enchantments on the store. That was a good sign. If this Healer could afford fancy enchantments then she was definitely good.

“Emergency or appointment?” A surprisingly deep voice yelled from the back. It was definitely a man’s voice.

“Emergency, my friend was stabbed six times and his blood is mostly a substitute created by a blood powder potion.” He shouted back. “Should I bring him in… what should I do?”

The door leading into the back of the shop opened abruptly, revealing a giant man. He stood towering over Mel, who felt quite small standing in the shadow of the man. “Help me get the stretcher, I’m assuming he’s in the wagon outside?”

Mel nodded, and grabbed the offered end of the stretcher. They maneuvered it out the shop without hitting a single fragile potion. That was good, because half the vials had prices measured in gold. Mel had, in total, maybe six silver pieces on him. He didn’t really count up the copper coins, but he had somewhere around twenty. That would probably last him a couple months of food and nights at inns. After that he would be relying on his skills as a Traveler to provide. Hopefully his skill Journey’s Fruit would help him with that. He got the feeling it would provide him some form of reward at the end of any trip.

Once they positioned the stretcher where the large man wanted it, he lifted Simon with complete control and stability onto the stretcher. “Hey, you Delphi? That’s odd, thanks for helping me though.” Simon mumbled. He sounded much worse than he had on the ride here. That wasn’t good, because the potion was supposed to wear off pretty quickly after a day. If he still didn’t have enough blood he would need another dose.

“Me? Nah, I'm a Nurse and Alchemist. My boss is Mrs. Delphi. My name is Ralt, it is a pleasure to carry you today. Mind telling me how you're feeling?” He gently told Simon before turning to Mel and barking “Help me lift, if you drop him I will make you eat dirt. Lift more!”

Mel grabbed the two poles to lift the stretcher up off the wagon while the Nurse chatted with Simon about his condition. The grips were useful, but his hands were so sweaty it still felt like they would slip right out of his fingers. And he hadn’t slept in over a day. He managed to shakily help Ralt carry Simon into a backroom where a strangely dressed woman waited. She had on a thick full body gown, and wore a large headset. The headset covered every inch of her head, but had a small sheet of crystal clear glass on the front for her to see out of.

The room itself was an oddity to Mel. The walls and floors were all white, with a large number of glowing pieces of glass illuminating every angle of the room. Some were even attached to metal instruments that hung down from the ceiling. They looked articulated like an illustration of a spiders leg he had seen once. Then there were the instruments. More knives than a Butcher, and some tools Mel didn’t dare speculate about. And the scoops. The scoops could only be for terrifying purposes.

“What’s his injuries like? How much blood loss? Any potions usage?” The woman asked, her voice coming through perfectly despite the massive mask on. That left Mel wondering how air got into the gown in the first place.

“Multiple stab wounds, lethal blood loss, the only thing keeping him alive is some sort of fake blood potion.” Ralt quickly answered deferentially.

“Hey that sounds really bad!” Simon said, his head lurching forward at the words lethal blood loss.

“Don’t worry. I have plenty of real blood that will suit you just fine. Probably. You wouldn’t happen to be of a mixed heritage? If so that makes things infinitely more complex.” Delphi soothed him. It sounded kind of horrific though. What kind of person had blood lying around? Although it makes sense considering her class.

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While Mel dwelled on the fact that Healers apparently kept stores of blood around, the professionals kept asking Simon questions about his ancestry until Ralt seemed to remember something. “Hey kid, get outta here. No witness- uh I mean no friends or family in the operating room. Scram.”

“No witnesses?”

“Out!” Ralt yelled.

Sheesh. Mel walked out of the operating room, as Ralt had called it, and planned to circle back later. The wagon was locked up tight, and he saw a couple guards eating at a restaurant across the street. He could wander for a bit. But where to go? The roads he had passed along the way all had cool looking things in them. There was no clear place to start, and he had no clue where to go to find the best things. He didn’t even know what would qualify as the best. Hmm. Left it is.

He turned, indecision forgotten. Up ahead there were a few street stalls, and he saw one that was selling pies that could fit in your hand. Hand pies. Marching past people crowding in the streets was a struggle in and of itself. But once he finally got there he was met with a far greater problem. “Come on! Is this really the start of the line!” He complained to an equally annoyed man. The line was at least twenty people long. But that did mean the pies were probably excellent.

“Yeah, the stupid pie man keeps talking to every cutomer! Should just hurry and serve the damn pies!” The surprisingly rude man said.

“Hey dude c’mon, I was just upset about the wait. There’s no reason to take it out on some guy trying to be nice.” The man grunted and muttered something under his breath. Mel was too tired to care at this point. He wanted to get his pie, enjoy a nice walk around Langston, and then go to sleep. Preferably in a bed.

The wait went by quickly, there were plenty of other stalls to check out while moving up the line. One of them was selling some weird colorful sticks that seemed really popular with kids. They would take them, and then use them to draw pictures on the paved streets and sometimes even the walls of buildings. Although he had seen a guard give one a lecture after catching him marking a wall. So the streets were fair game then, huh. That could be fun.

“Hello young man! What kind of pie would you like hmm? I have blueberry, strawberry, atlas, and I think a couple heart lace pies.” The kindly vendor asked. He had eaten his fill of atlas fruit, so maybe something like a strawberry pie would be nice. Heart lace was far too sweet for him. The super sweet fibers always made his stomach turn. He honestly could not believe how popular it was, especially when other things were plenty sweet. Sometimes he would imagine what kind of odd flavors other nations or continents candy would taste like, always hopeful for something other than sweet.

“I’ll have a blueberry pie please. Oh, and what are these?” Mel asked, holding up a small ball of something wrapped up in a thin waxed sheet of paper.

“That's a piece of spicy candy. It tastes like your mouth is on fire! Sometimes if someone is being annoying I’ll put one into their pies. Haha, you want one? It’s only an extra copper for one. That will bring your total up to six coppers.” The vendor gleefully told him.

“Yeah, I’ll try one.”

Mel walked away with his prizes looking for a place to sit. All the seats seemed to either belong to a nearby business or were already filled, so he headed back to the wagon to eat. Hopefully Simon wouldn’t mind a few crumbs. Even if he did, what was gonna do? Yell at the man who saved his life? Hehe. Mel sat down and started munching on the pie. The crust was oddly soft, and the filling stayed in the pie almost magically. A skill, for sure.

Once he finished his dessert he checked back into the Healer’s clinic. “Hey how much longer do you think it’s gonna be?” He asked Ralt who was now simply sitting at the counter. A couple of customers perused the racks and shelves of potions.

“We can probably ship him out of here in five hours. You're a little hero aren’t you. Saving a man off the road, you have my respect for sure. How’d you manage it?” That brought up some unhappy memories. Mel considered just not answering for a moment before quietly responding.

“I used a ring with Tracking Shot to kill the man. It took three shots before he died. It wasn’t brave or even honorable. He didn’t fight back, so I just shot him until he stopped moving.”

Ralt smiled at him, seeming like grim omen.”Do you know what real honor is? What it is, when you really scrape away all the rules Knights tack onto it? It’s understanding that there is a need to kill those who do true evil, but hating it the whole way. It’s respect even for the worst scum out there. Because at the end of the day, they were still people no matter their actions.” The words had an intense zeal about them as though Ralt believed in it so strongly that it infected those who heard him. They felt vindicating, as though they revealed his own innocence to him. He smiled back at the massive man.

“Thanks Ralt. That helps.”