Sage gently lowers Jin against the wall, and then quickly moves to close the gate. She pulls the railroad spike and hammer from her bag and starts hammering the spike into a hole where a lock used to reside. The spike is ever so slightly too big, but with surprise Sage notices the hole itself widening from her unrelenting hammering. She frowns, worried now that the gate wouldn’t be able to keep anything out, and gives the whole thing a good jiggle. The gate doesn’t move, but Sage does see the spike wiggle ever so slightly. She bites her lip. It might work against a disinterested creature, but probably no beast who really wants to get through.
Sage looks out for any signs of the arc-wolves but sees nothing. She holds her breath to listen, but can’t hear anything over the hammering in her heart. She waits for one minute, then two, then sighs. She turns towards the cleric she just saved.
Jin has a glassy look in her eyes, and she stares out at no point in particular down the sewers.
Sage keeps gnawing at her lip, careful to not break the skin. The adrenaline has started to leave her system and the jitters of the come down start. It’s enough to make her stop risking the gesture; she almost bit through her lip once while practicing sword stances with her older brother. That’s an experience she never wants to replicate.
Sage quickly examines her hands. She had wrapped her palms in bandages to keep her hands from blistering when she was chiseling the hourglass free. The bandages are worn and her hands ache, but the fabric has done its job in keeping her skin intact. Her trousers protect the skin on her legs and knees, but she expects the latter to be well bruised come tomorrow. All in all, nothing to worry about!
Unfortunately the same could not be said for the other woman. Sage eyes her dubiously. She’s wearing shorts and boots, absurdly enough, and Sage doesn’t have to look hard to see the damage that caused. Her legs are more red than skin-color.
Jin holds her hands slightly curled and palm up to avoid further injuring the shredded skin. Sage winces at the sight. She wishes she could have mitigated the fall, but the explosion was too quick to react to.
Now, damage control. She looks down the rapidly darkening sewer tunnel and frowns. She dropped her lantern at some point while they were running, which will make all of this much more difficult. She would like to leave their slightly exposed location by the gate quickly, but without light…
Another howl takes up in the distance. Sage bristles. It sounds like the wolves are leaving the area? She waits two beats to see if the sound changes directions, then lets out a sigh of relief.
Sage takes off her bag and places it beside Jin. It only takes a moment of digging to procure her medical kit, which had the grand item list of bandages and an herb salve to ward off infection. Her sister made her take it before she left, which Sage immediately vows to thank her for when she gets back home.
Jin doesn’t react to Sage’s actions, and Sage starts talking to make the situation, or at least herself, feel less tense.
“Well! That was scary! This might sting a little by the way but don’t worry, it’ll help!” She pulls out one of her canteens as well and gently holds one of Jin’s hands. She glances up at the woman’s face, but her half lidded eyes only lazily slide over to what Sage is doing. She continues, pouring water over the woman’s palms to clean out the dirt and rock embedded within. Jin’s face twists slightly, but she otherwise doesn’t react. Her eyes stick to her hands, still unfocused.
“I thought for sure we were gonna be goners after I saw how slow you run. You’re super slow by the way, like, wow. Not that that’s a bad thing! I mean, um, it kinda is if you’re running for your life and all. Uh…” Sage pauses and bites her tongue, but the other woman doesn’t seem offended. Although… she doesn’t seem not offended either. Or to be listening at all? Sage ignores this and opens the salve jar.
The smell of strong spicy herbs immediately hits her nose, and Sage feels her sinuses prickle in response. She dabs a small amount of the green-brown goop onto Jin’s hands. “Anyway, I’m sure that doesn’t really matter, you being a cleric and all. Wow, I actually can’t believe that! I mean, surely I should have guessed based on the context I found you in, and I did consider it! But I didn’t think you’d really be a cleric, you know? They’re so rare after all, how could I? I thought it musta been some artifact nonsense. But no you really are a cleric.”
This finally gets a response out of Jin. She blinks slowly and her eyes focus on Sage’s face, brows furrowing ever so slightly.
“You keep calling me a cleric, why?”
Sage blinks, “Because you are one? You just made a miracle happen out there! Rocks don’t stop midair like that! I have no idea what was going on with the artifact, but that was you right? That explosion? I wish I had a little warning, I was super disoriented, but it’s ok! It was an emergency situation so I super understand. I saw you open your mouth and I guess that’s what you were trying to do anyway right? Not that the arc-wolf left us any time, so that was really all his fault I guess. Uh, actually you know they could totally shoot lightning through the bars here.” Sage eyes the gate, concerned. But the concern fades just as quickly.
“Eh, if they were gonna they probably would have come here to do that already right? Ever since that one left I’ve only heard one howl kinda far away. You think that’s because they met up? I sorta assumed they would keep howling, but maybe if they know there’s only three of them nearby then they wouldn’t need to howl to find others? I dunno.”
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Finished wrapping one hand, Sage cleans, salves, and wraps up the other girl’s arm too. They’re not nearly as bad as the hands, but still need tending. Jin interrupts the girl’s monologue, “That wasn’t some miracle out there. That was magic. Any half competent mage could do the same.”
Sage glances up at Jin and furrows her brows, but goes back to work. “Mm… well I guess the church did say clerics often hold on to delusions. Not that you’re delusional! Well, maybe you are - they also talked about clerics holding a lotta false memories so maybe it’s just that! You seem perfectly sane to me. Uhh…” Sage bites her tongue, hard this time. Really? She just went and told this woman that she’s delusional! That’s almost certainly a “dick move”, as her brother said once. Librarian Mirriam made him wash his mouth with soap after though, so Sage silently corrects the phrase to “rude move”.
Instead of reacting as she feared, the other woman laughs. It’s a strangled, halting laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Sage almost pauses her bandaging in shock. She doesn’t though, because she wants to be an inquisitor one day, and Inquisitors never stop helping people.
Jin holds up her bandaged hand and flexes it, wincing. “Fuckin hell. Not only is my world in pieces, but also nobody knows what the hell magic is. Fuck me, eh?” A grin without mirth plasters itself on the girl's face and she rests her head back on the wall, looking up. Sage glances up too, but only sees the curved rock of the sewers.
Sage starts cleaning the injuries on the girl’s other arm. “You sure do swear a lot, Miss Cleric. Oh! I don’t know your name!”
The woman’s eyes close, “It’s Jin.”
“Okie dokie Cleric Jin. I dunno if I said this earlier, but I’m Sage. Acolyte Sage! Wow your legs are real cut up. I don’t suppose you know any healing miracles? Well, I guess not, else I’m sure you woulda healed yourself already. Our church librarian, Librarian Mirriam, told me a story of a cleric who would go around healing people once. I thought all clerics were like that for a while, until she told me another story of a cleric who could only fight. You must be part of that group. I know the first thing I did was complain about not warning me, but that explosion was super cool! It’s too bad about the artifact though. That’s what you used for the explosion, right? I saw it flying towards the wolf and that’s definitely where the explosion came from. I had no idea it was an explosion artifact! Gosh, that’s scary. What if I set it off when you were still all frozen?”
Jin’s eyes open partially again, but she doesn’t move her head as she eyes Sage. “It’s not an explosion artifact. Complicated enough enchantments just do that if you flood them with the wrong kind of energy. Like that lightning. The wolf did that to itself, mostly.”
“Huh…” Sage chews on that for a while. The two fall into silence, and this time Sage doesn’t try to fill it.
She works quickly. Once both arms seem good and bandaged Sage has to eye the girls legs critically. There’s lots of cuts, but only a few that are deep. No skin flapping in the wind, at least! It’s never good when that happens.
At one point she has to pull out a rock that embedded itself partly under Jin’s skin, and the gold eyed girl tries to shoo Sage away from it, but far too slowly. Sage quickly darts her hand in and out, coming back with the rock in question. Jin cries out in pain, but just as quickly silences herself when she sees the shard in Sage’s hand. Sage can’t help but feel a little proud, but professionals never let their feelings get the best of them, and she’s already back at work. The gash caused by the rock does start bleeding… A lot… Maybe she should let Rosemary teach her how to sew up skin after all. Sage gets to work as fast as she can, relying on compression to keep the wound close.
Minutes later, she folds the last inches of bandages away and stands up. “There! All fixed up.” She offers an arm to the other girl, who stares at it for several long moments. Sage is about to ask what she’s doing when Jin lets out a long, suffering sigh and reaches up for her arm.
Unsteadily, they manage to get Jin upright, whose face is twisted into a mix of a snarl and grimace the whole way up. She shifts from one leg to the other, her face settling into a mild grimace. Sage can see a large bruise forming from beneath her shorts on one hip, and she shares the grimace. She can’t help the worm of guilt since she’s the one who pulled Jin down for that injury, even though the cleric put the barrier up. She knows she shouldn’t feel guilty, of course. There’s no way she could have known. It lingers anyway.
“Thanks for helping me, by the way.” Jin looks sideways as she says it. “You… Didn’t have to. It would have been much safer for you to leave me. I appreciate it.”
Sage gapes, what?! “What?! I couldn’t just leave you there! What do you mean I didn’t have to? I mean yeah I guess nobody has to do anything or whatever, but if helping people isn’t worth doing then what is?”
Jin looks into Sage’s eyes, shocked. “I…” She turns away again. Sage thinks she sees her cheeks redden, “Thank you, anyway.”
Sage smiles, but feels a sadness poke into her heart. Poor girl, what kind of life did she have to make that sort of comment? “I’m happy to help!”
Jin looks at Sage again with a strange expression, one of confusion tinged with awe? Sage thinks she also sees an undercurrent of disbelief, despite what the cleric says next, “I guess you are, huh?” She shakes her head, “Do you know your way through these tunnels? They used to be a sewer, but it doesn’t smell that way now.”
Sage grins, “I’ve been in these sewers before, and lucky us, I know a route out too! One that isn’t collapsed. A lotta sewers under this city are, so it’s gonna take a while to get through.” Suddenly she frowns, “But I dropped my lantern while running… Gosh, it’s so light out tonight but that won't help us at all in these tunnels.”
Jin looks unconcerned, and then light just suddenly exists. Sage gasps out loud.
Slightly above and between the two girls, an orb of warm light hovers in the air. Gold strands shimmer across its surface in hypnotic patterns. The orb starts slowly floating deeper into the sewers. Jin is analyzing Sage’s face, and the hint of a smile tugs at her lips as she speaks, “Light is easy. Lead the way.”
Sage gapes after the light for a moment longer, before a smile bright enough to rival the orb of light dominates her face. “Can do!”
She can’t help the excitement fluttering up inside her, despite maybe nearly dying just minutes earlier. Her eyes follow the orb of light, and she bounces slightly from one foot to another. Her energy turns into a twirling skip forwards to do as she was requested, and she starts leading the way.
Miracles!