A few moments later and the yelling subsided, someone had dragged over a few large oil-soaked torches and lit the crude square up brightly enough for Erika to see the participants sweat beading on their bulging foreheads and the red flush of anger creeping across their skin, neither Merchants nor Jarls were used to bargaining from a position of weakness after all and quite a few of the younger’s heirs looked ready to draw steel if it would get them healing.
Of course the iratest and most demanding of the jarl heirs were also the least injured, Erika couldn’t feel a drop of the poison in any of them even as a few of their thralls finished dying on the cold stone at their feet, Erika barely kept herself from tutting at the terrible waste and foolish pride on display.
A moment later the some of the assembled delvers trotted away from Sigurn and dragged three of the wounded to the front by pulling on the leather sheets they rested on, a few more words were exchanged and then runners were sent off presumably to bring the payment back, Sigurn turned to Erika and nodded at the recumbent delvers. “Can you do these three Lady Vitki?
Erika nodded and accepted the title without issue, presumably even Sigurn needed to show she respected her in front of an audience. “Of course, after that though my well will be noticeably drained.” Erika knew not to say exactly how many castings she still had available and she was somewhat gratified to see Sigurn seem to slightly jolt as if realising this at last before leaning in to her side and whispering “about six yeah?”
She thought she really shouldn’t have been surprised, of course Sigurn knew enough about vitki casting to identify well depth on the fly, but it was still ridiculous that any non-vitki understood to that degree… Erika decided to put it down to being a silver rank and just move on.
The first wounded was a sagaborn from the jarl’s party, despite what Erika had assumed though they were definitely not a jarl they looked like one of the refugees covered in crude tattoos and wearing only a rough jerkin and wool kilt but why would the jarls send this man to her first… oh, Erika grinned as the loudest of the toffs knelt down and took the injured man’s hand in a tight clasp, holding him close and staring into his eyes.
Ah young love Erika thought, or started thinking, then Kara shifted from her position behind her discernible by the characteristic jingle of chainmail and Erika remembered she really wasn't in any place to judge.
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Pulling Odin from her well Erika focused on her flesh shaping magic quickly pulling back muscle and skin leaving tainted blood behind in a puddle on the stone. Having done this three times already Erika was done in a handful of moments. Gesturing for Kara to roll the man back over to this boyfriend Erika focused on her next patient, one of the jarl heirs this time, the pulsing twisting black of twilight divinity curdling in his stomach.
Erika split the skin of his torso and looked in and oh… oh that wasn't good. Turning around she stared at Sigurn until she got the message and leant down to put her ear at Erikas mouth.
“This one has the poison in his heart, I can’t cure him… I mean I'm not curing any of them, just taking the curse out…. But I… I can’t remove his heart without him just dying faster… do I…”
Sigurn placed a comforting hand on Erika’s shoulder and quieted her. “Don’t worry Lady Vitki this kind of thing is expected, you’re doing so well, just let me talk.”
A few more pointed whispers, a few hissed “do you know who he is!” and a disapproving stare from Sigurn later and the man is being dragged back into the crowd complaining and arguing at the top of his cough wracked voice.
Erika just ignored him, she wasn't wasting her well on a corpse after all, and focused on the next man… this one had poison in his leg and arm, it couldn’t be the food, right? Or was that what she was supposed to think? Erika wasn't in anyway an expert on twilight divine arts but she would not even slightly be surprised if at least Loki had a way to make a poison you drink or eat appear in the limbs not the stomach, that would be just the kind of trickery that little prick was known for.
Without really focusing Erika moved skin and bone yet again, this time however one of the peons in the crowd had found a mop and wiped the tainted blood away, he kept up his mopping as the third was summarily dragged out, had his blood removed and was then sucked back into the crowd and borne on shoulders away towards the merchant side of the encampment.
“How’s your Well Erika?”
Erika jerked slightly as she noticed Sigurn stood right at her shoulder, Kara didn’t seem surprised so she probably hadn't snuck up, Erika must just have zoned out again when she was focusing on her well which at least meant that she knew the answer right away.
“It cost me less Odium to do those three, I guess I'm getting the hang of it? I can probably do five more total but remember they aren’t healed, I just remove the poisoned blood, they can still die and they should eat lots of red meat to help regrow their blood.”
“I’ll see to the food personally, thank you Lady Vitki.” Said one of the jarl kids, Erika hadn't bothered learning their names, she also wasn't sure where he was planning on finding red meat but maybe Losthope had run into wargs like the expedition did. Warg tasted bad but it was still better than starvation.