"Byctses! Off the ground! Off the ground!" One of the Study Hammers roared the warning, rushing through the camp.
Cerise's parents quickly sprang from their blankets and grabbed for Cerise and Mykhal. Reflexively, Cerise rolled away from the grab. She came up in a standing position with her staff in hand.
There was a weird flow of mana under the ground, and some of it was heading for Daisy. Cerise ducked under her mother's next grab and reached the hobbled mare in three swift strides. She thrust her staff at where the mana was moving the earth. Something crunched under the staff's butt, and then Mykhal was beside her.
"I'll guard Daisy! Get your parents on top of the cart!"
It took her a moment to understand what was happening, then she nodded, and turned, nearly colliding with her mother.
Cerise's mother made an inarticulate sound of frustration and hauled her daughter back to their cart. Her father had his staff in hand, and was watching the ground. Her mother shoved Cerise onto the cart top, then scrambled up herself. Cerise moved to the edge, watching the ground near her father for more mana disturbances.
"I'm watching, Dad! Up on the cart!" She said.
He used his staff as leverage to jump onto the wheel and then up to the cart top. He moved to the other side, standing guard there.
Her mother began berating Cerise, but she was more focused on the ground and the mana flows.
She and her father ended up smacking at least thirty emerging holes between them before the all clear was called.
Mykhal, meanwhile, removed Daisy's hobble, and she joined him in stomping on byctses throughout the camp as they made sure all the caravaneers had gotten off the ground.
One of the guards started to order Mykhal to get onto a nearby wagon. While he was speaking, Mykhal jammed his staff-butt into the face of a monster that resembled a mix of mole, worm, and porcupine, but about the size of a beaver. Then he did it two more times in quick succession while Daisy did an impression of a deer bounding in place on two more.
"You were saying?" Mykhal asked.
"Carry on," the guard said, laughing. "Damn [Monster Hunters]."
Mykhal returned to give them the all clear, Daisy following after him with a small limp. Cerise was happy to find that the limp was from a strained muscle, not a wound, and took barely any mana to heal up. Daisy nickered her thanks and nuzzled Cerise, getting head pats in return.
"And here Tamrin said I would be hard-pressed to find a better guard beast than a mule, but look at you! You danced all over those creepy things!" Cerise praised.
"Hopped, jumped, and stamped, too," Mykhal agreed. "A few [Wagoneers] got bitten before they got to their wagons. Mama, Mister Aldo said that he would pay for Minor Healing Potions if you have the materials to make a pot."
"We do, and I'll get that started. Cerise, check on everyone first, then start healing." Her mother frowned to emphasize her order. "Mykhal, you watch her and don't let her skills take her over."
"Yes, Mama!" He said, and the two went off.
The byctses turned out to have a paralytic venom in their bite. The [Wagoneers] were uncomfortable, but they had lost two oxen, and six more would not be back in the traces without surgical applications of the Minor Healing Potion Cerise's mother was brewing.
Then one of the Study Hammers came running. "Brower needs help! We found the twins bad mauled!"
Cerise said, "Lead on!" and she ran beside the Free Lancer guard to where two other guards were stretched out on the ground. Her Triage Aura picked up on the toxin in the quieter guard, a woman named Kaspia, affecting her heart. The other guard, Kaspia's brother Casper, was more heavily wounded but active.
Cerise went to the woman, opening the spout on her water bag.
"Mykhal, bring me two water bags of Mama's potion as soon as it's ready!" She ordered.
She pulled out her large blade and began cutting away the straps holding Kaspia's armor to her, and sliced as quick and sure as she could to get through her gambeson to the skin above her heart.
"What are you doing?" Sorkha asked.
"There's toxin in her heart. I need an incision near enough to apply Heal Toxins, and then Heal Wounds after I cleanse away the toxin," Cerise answered, her mind focused on saving the woman's life.
The skin over Kaspia's heart exposed, Cerise dropped her large knife, drew her small blade, the one she kept nigh brittle sharp, and used Greater Cleanse to clean the blade and the incision point, just left of Kaspea's sternum and between her ribs. Cerise's movements were quick, steady, and deliberate, and she kept up her Greater Cleanse even as she alternated between Heal Toxins and Heal Wounds.
Mykhal returned with the water bags of healing potion.
"Give one to Brower. Then pulled the stopper for mine. Hold it steady." She ordered.
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Mykhal did as she asked, even as he swallowed at the blood flowing along with the yellow-green venom from the small cut Cerise was keeping open with her surgical knife.
Brower's eyebrows raised. "Uncommon! Good!"
Over her shoulder, Cerise said, "Direct application, even if it involves cutting, is half a hand more effective against long injuries. Let me know if you need a cleanse. Long needles work for getting the potion to bone breaks and bruising. What does your Triage say about the toxin?"
"Paralytic, wears off in two to three hours, minor concern for Casper, deadly for Kaspia," he responded, flicking a glance at Cerise and his guild mate.
"Yeah, hours of no heart beating is bad," Cerise agreed. "Mykhal, three drops of potion down the blade."
He nodded and carefully poured. Cerise stopped using Heal Wounds, focusing her mana into Greater Cleanse and Heal Toxins. Once the incision finally stopped producing the yellow-green toxin, Cerise did a more thorough Diagnosis. As soon as Kaspia began to rouse, Cerise used Slumber on her and started healing the incision, removing the blade one nail's width at a time, letting the healing potion do its work before easing another nail's width of blade out.
Once the blade was removed fully, the last bit of Minor Healing Potion applied, the incision closed up. It quickly turned red, then white, then faded as if Kaspia had never been cut.
Cerise cleansed her small blade, checked for damage, and traded her knife for the half full bag of potion. "Sharpen that, please," she asked Mykhal. "I'm going to fix up the worst of her wounds, Brower, but I need to save some Focus for the oxen if we want to leave this camp anytime today. Are you good?"
"Aye," he said.
Cerise used her needle and the potion to patch up the more vicious bite wounds, and made Mykhal hold some of the tears in Kaspia's skin closed while she used her needle to get the potion where it was needed to close more. She used one last activation of Greater Cleanse to get the dirt out of Kaspia's remaining wounds.
She then Dispelled her Slumber on Kaspia, gathered up Mykhal and her tools, and headed back to the oxen.
Mister Aldo was there and his Quartermaster, both looking somber. "We'll have to travel with half teams, more rest stops--. Are you hurt?" The last was said to Cerise.
She blinked, glanced down, saw the blood her Cleanse Aura hadn't yet dealt with, and shook her head. "One of the guards. Two were badly hurt. The [Wagoneers] I know were injured are all minor enough to wait. I was about to help the worst of the oxen, to give them enough time to recuperate from healing for us to move out tonight, then go see to the [Wagoneers], and then the less injured cattle. Did you get the potion from Mama?"
"Yes, and we have distributed it to the [Wagoneers]. We were just assessing the beasts and lamenting not having more for them," Mister Aldo said, his eyes moving to the water bag in her hand and the other at her waist.
"Well, you're in luck. If you wouldn't mind holding that fella steady, he is the least mobile of those still living." Cerise just started walking to the oxen she pointed out. Mister Aldo allowed Cerise to direct him.
"If you've never seen Surgery performed, it can be weird, and counterintuitive. I will be using skills to Block Pain, and then using my needle mostly to get the potion where it will have the best effect. I'll also be running a Cleansing skill to prevent infections. I am not yet to the Intermediate rank-open so there might be more blood than a more skilled [Surgeon] would cause. That said, all the people and beasts that I've used my [Healer] skills on have come out better than when I started." Cerise delivered that little speech at the prompting of her older memory fragments, and her bluntness and assurance seemed to help relax Mister Aldo, the Quartermaster, and the hale [Wagoneers] now checking on their cattle. She also figured that if there were going to be objections, let them be made now. She did not want anyone trying to stop her while she was in the middle of surgery. That could cause the animals more harm.
Mister Aldo slipped a halter on the ox that Cerise had pointed out. She felt the faintest hint of mana coming from him as he calmed the beast. His job got a lot easier as Cerise's Block Pain skill took effect, and she set to work.
One of the onlooking [Wagoneers] commented, "You're being right miserly with that potion."
Absently, Cerise said, "Bodies can only handle so much mana. No need to give the pretty boy alchemical sickness on top of the rude wake-up call. Isn't that right, you sweet boy?"
The ox lowed in agreement.
The [Wagoneer's] frown only went away when Cerise finished and he could not find any scars at the bite sites.
Cerise, Mister Aldo, and Mykhal had already moved onto the next ox needing healing.
"Well, I'll be damned," the [Wagoneer] said.
"I hope not," Cerise responded, still more absorbed in her labors then the conversation around her. It meant she wasn't really paying attention to what she said, or if what she heard even needed a reply. "Being forgotten is the final death, after all."
Mykhal said, "Cerise, you're being weird again."
"It's not 'again' when it's 'always'," she countered.
"Okay. Point to you. But, you're usually better about not saying the weird stuff," he responded.
"I'm usually not mostly focused on healing mobby bites," she agreed by explanation.
"You know it's really frustrating when you do that one-up agreeing," he said, laughing.
"Then don't be right," she said.
He opened his mouth, then shut it, sighing. The caravaneers around them laughed.
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While Cerise and Mykhal were helping to heal humans and beasts alike, her parents gathered up the corpses of the defeated monsters and started processing them.
Daisy had not been hobbled again, and unlike most normal horses, she did not seem terribly bothered by the blood.
As Cerise's mother told the tale at their next camp that evening, they found out why when they caught Daisy lipping up a small mana cryst. Their horse was in the beginning stages of turning dire.
Fortunately, she only got the one cryst, and it was a small one. Natural creatures, those born of some sort of parent, had to grow their tolerance to mana. Too much led to mana poisoning, and from there to mana warping, a rather grotesque and, by all accounts, insanely painful monster-fication. Mana born creatures skipped the pain, but kept the insanity.
According to Tamrin, and all the [Wagoneers] they talked with, actually, the best way to manage a draft beast turning dire was to add a bit of mana-rich forage to their diet. Monsters got aggressive when they were mana starved, and once a beast went dire, they were monsters, needing mana to stay healthy.
The next day, Mykhal added foraging for magical plants to his routine while hunting. Cerise saved the seeds that she could, and Daisy enjoyed treats.
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This time when Cerise saw the walls of the city in the distance, she turned off her Triage Aura right away.
Va'Velton was a beautiful sight, and no less terrifyingly crowded than Va'Treborant. The walls towered at least a quarter field tall, forty bow lengths that was, and the passage through the walls into the city was a good fifteen bow lengths, not quite an eighth field.
Cerise could feel people in the walls, watching them through slitted windows. She double checked that she had her Triage Aura effect off. Though she wasn't getting a very strong sense of the watchers' bruises and aches, she did still feel the minor training wounds they sported.
Mister Aldo had invited Cerise and her family to guest at the Ma'deron Consortium Compound in the city, to which they agreed. The caravan would lay over for a few days before continuing on their circuit.
On the first morning, Kaspea and Casper requested Cerise's family accompany them to the Free Lancers Compound.