Journal Entry #12
8/15/1 AME
Another entry into the journal, this one more for my own sanity than anything.
Still been stuck in the hospital. Mostly for monitoring.
The cast has been set on my arm and they wrapped up my chest enough to keep the ribs from further fracturing and my head is almost physically chained to the bed to keep me from moving it too much. But despite this and nothing else really being wrong with me, they want to keep me here and in bed for monitoring reasons.
I’ve gone to the MRI machine twice now and they still seem flabbergasted that my lungs have no puncture wounds. Not even a sign of injury. I don’t really get half of the things they say but they swear that with the broken ribs I had, at least two of them should have at least punctured a lung. Yet there isn’t even any noticeable abrasion on them.
But despite this and nothing else really being wrong with me, they want to keep me here and in bed for monitoring reasons.
It’s been terrible. Being stuck here for running on 8 days now is driving me insane with boredom. Even with visits, it’s been mostly boring since either nothing around town has happened or everyone visiting is keeping any news from me. The nurses are too busy with older patients to visit me for longer than a general check up on my bandages and stiches.
Lana visited me first. Maybe two days after she managed to drop off my journal, we were able to have a more proper visit. It was simple and some of it was definitely to clear up some stuff I had managed to write in the report that was required of me and the troop. I had to have her deliver it for me and the higher ups wanted some clarifications on the areas I had managed to mark out and the information gathered about the orcs encampment. From what she says, that was something that they really honed in on and found worrying. I agree with that sentiment but disagree with them about not taking action sooner. Turns out that although this expedition was a mostly successful, any plans that are being made from it are to be put on hold do to the mayor’s office wanting more local scouting and to keep the Rangers around for the what is going to be the clean-up of the final harvest. They want to have them around for protection as the farmers prepare to take measure to ensure their farms safety and preparedness for the next season. Despite the large amount of cattle we have in town, there has been very little in terms of attacks on them. Sort of interested as to why that is since we don’t do too much defense for them. They are kept mostly closer to town but it still tends to be farther out than the actual town itself.
Outside of that, we discussed a bit about the recent expedition we did. She wanted know what I was thinking when I broke rank from the troop to investigate the orc encampment so I explained to her my reasoning about why I took those actions and a more detailed story of what happened. She wasn’t happy with me and didn’t like my explanation; calling me a selfish idiot but at least understands my motivations. I did couch my explanation in a bit softer language and more personal words than going into detail about the usefulness of the expedition to the town and how I felt Range Master Jacob was too cautious because Lana was there. I feel like she knew that part but it was something that was between her and her father. There were times on the expedition that felt tense between them but that was mostly at the start. After bit more talk about work and possible training together and then some more talk about some off time stuff we should try to do together with, she left me with some bakery goods she managed to pick up.
It was relaxing talking with her. Sure, it was a bit stressful when she interrogated me about the expedition but outside of that, it was a relaxing conversation. Not like with Samantha, who visited me the next day, mostly to take advantage of my hospitalization to extend her lunch break.
Samantha and Elisa took their lunch break in my room a couple times over my stay, starting out by giving me a general checkup and bandage change to have the ground to say that they were working to slowly change into lunch. It wasn’t too bad but when they switched, I hadn’t had anything to eat and it was bit harder to ignore the pain when hunger makes it all seem worse somehow. After that though, technically work was done and so they eat lunch in my room, calling in lunch for me as they started and I was treated to the hospital gossip.
I don’t know if it’s just me or that the Ranger Corp is technically new but it seems as though office politics are generally insane and the hospital is just another level of it. From what I could pick up from Samantha’s and Elisa’s talk, the hospital is only really now changing around its methods and procedures since its only now that their stores aren’t looking to great. I asked about why did they not think of the stores until now and it was explained to them that they were actually running on a triage system for about a month or so now but that the stockpiles were only being affect now.
At first, the hospital basically operating on a system of getting everyone who wasn’t chronic or terminal out. Anyone with a broken bone or with some heavy sickness was given medical treatment and then told to get out and go home if they had anyone who could take care of them. This was to get the best handle on their stockpiles and try to see how much they could use and ration out.
Once the town was initially stable in terms of hospital admittance, things cooled down but nothing really change until a couple months ago, after the first expedition that had gone bad, that methods had to change. The hospital is pretty small and so doesn’t have a lot of wings (as in there wasn’t any beside the wing for the older patients) so they basically had to section off the hospital themselves. At the moment, they are operating having three basic wings. The second floor of the hospital is dedicated to all old patient and long term care wing, the first floor is split between immediate care and a smaller wing of ‘Out-world Injuries’.
I am currently in the ‘Out-world Injuries’ wing and from what Elisa says, it’s basically a wing dedicated to Rangers and their injuries. Samantha explains that it’s more of a wing dedicated to injuries that come from experiences of the new world. As it stands, aside from Rangers and the few people attacked by the knockout roar from earlier in this new world, there aren’t many people admitted to this wing which is why it only a third of the first floor.
Yet this was something argued by the hospital staff. Samantha and Elise are part of a small group of nurses and doctors that want the hospital to be expanded to get a bit more of a balance between the two first floor wings. Fat chance of that happening soon but still something that has a faction dedicated to it. As for the other nurses and doctors, there seem to be two larger camps but with splinter factions already growing.
The two big ones are what have been nicely called the Medievalist and the Renaissances. I don’t know how they got those names and I’m pretty sure it’s just a naming convention that Samantha and Elisa came up with (Harris has been recounting his favorite books so maybe that’s where they got the names from). The Medievalist are called that because despite their want to uphold their oaths, they believe it means saving/helping those that aren’t too much of a burden. This tends to mean leaving the old to die off peacefully instead of attempt to keeping them up with current medical methods. It’s not pretty and from how Samantha describes them, they seem to be willing to let the grievously wounded die if too many resources are required to save them.
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The Renaissances aren’t on the opposite end necessarily but they do oppose the Medievalist in their mindset. They aren’t opposed to letting people die but they aren’t going to restrict the resources they have without reason. It’s this factions that have attempt to branch out to see if they can either make or revive older herbalist methods to get the medicines they had before. Samantha is technically one of them since she became a Hippocratos (the new title) and has been spending some time trying to find ways to recreate drugs we would use from plants and such. While the Hippocratos are technically a separate faction, they have yet to produce any real results as without any expeditions to gather plants and such, they don’t have any chances to produce anything and so are more of a 'faction in name only'.
I don’t think they are wrong in their idea as some reports from the Ranger Troops have reported to seeing other flora around but it was never a focus due to the pressing matter being the Chimera. As is though, they are probably going to be a straining faction all throughout the winter since it not likely that any Ranger will be allowed out for large expeditions, let alone have doctor tag-alongs.
Yet this was only the start of the internal politics of the hospital. The current head of the hospital has yet to really pick a side in the factional strife and while it’s admirable, it leading to tensions that aren't going to blow over. The more militant of the Medievals seem to be ready to pull the plug and half of the upstairs residents. What’s worse is that from how Samantha talks about some of those residents, they wouldn’t seem to mind and even encourage it. The only reason why they aren’t dead is because of the lack of a unified front. Some of the more hopeful Renaissans want to go out to gather local plants but don't have any idea where to start from without any assistance. Elisa has talked to a couple of the other doctors who probed the more drugged up Rangers for information. The stores are getting smaller and although there hasn’t been a major case in a while, a lot of the nurses are afraid of what is going to happen when one does show up because the Medievals are currently the only ones with a plan. This is also ignoring the more splintering factions between the groups themselves with the some of the Renaissans believing they should try to use the Chimera parts to grind up like some 'Ancient Chinese Medicine Man' and hope for the best.
This is mostly covered in only a the first couple of their breaks which shocking but only slightly less so on how normal it was to them and that they then got me talking about the Ranger Corp and comparing them. It wasn’t great since while I was able to mostly explain the structure of the Ranger Corp, I had no real insight into the political situation of it. Mostly because I tended to keep my head down and do my job.
Maybe I should pay more attention to it? I didn’t think about it too much when Range Master Davith came to visit but maybe it something I should ask him about. The Ranger Corp, while not being so established that it didn’t have staples, still had people in it that answered to the Mayor and decided the major actions we took. I know that Range Master Davith and Jacob had some words to say about the mayor but maybe there were others. The current head of the Rangers, Head Ranger Olver, was chosen more because of his relationship with the Mayor rather being selected by the Rangers. From how I understand it, due to the recent forming of the Rangers, the needed some authority. The mayor was that authority and so installed Olver as the Head as way to gather around him. Now though, it seems like that relationships is more one sided and detrimental to the Rangers as the first major expedition was proof.
A day after another horrifying discovery of the internal politics of the hospital from Samantha and Elise lunch break, Range Master Davith showed up to see how I was doing. It was the nicest of the visits and with the most interesting discussion.
We initially talked about the expedition we just took. Since Range Master Davith is no longer an active Ranger, he doesn’t go out too often anymore and seems to like to hear about the reports and expeditions first hand. We talked about that for a bit, mostly talking about the Chimera I had encountered and catalogued. It was nice, since he brought my Chimera Bestiary to help with the cataloging. After going over my report and the others he brought, we were able to add two more Chimeras to the Bestiary and add on to another three that were there. As of yet, we haven’t gotten any real names for them (we are currently debating to call one a Gatrongo or Scale-Back Gorilla (a strangely scale-y looking ape with a claws) and the other a Serpagle or Earpant (Snake like body with falcon wings and legs and a strange bear ears)) but that seem to be more of an issue we are willing to put off until its revealed to the rest of the Rangers. Davith says it’ll help the other rangers get invested since it adds them to the creation of the Bestiary.
We talked about the Bestiary for a bit more before I broached a more secret topic. I hadn’t told anyone else about my dream/sleep state thing but at that moment, I felt relaxed enough with Davith to slowly broach the subject.
I told him about the whole experience. About walking up slightly and seeing the strange women. About the strange feeling. The sticks and the strangeness of my injuries. I told him everything and actually managed to describe the woman (since I’m sure she was a women now) enough so that it was actually easy to picture her in my mind. He listened to me go on and didn’t look as though I was spouting crazy stuff, which was slightly reassuring. When I asked about the possibility of other beings that are out there that are closer to us and weren’t here before, he didn’t shoot me down immediately. He doesn’t agree just yet but he does say that what happened to me definitely did happen and I technically have proof for it. Whether or not it happened exactly that way is something he is more willing to be believed than what I directly told him.
This still brought us to the discussion about this town in relation to other neighboring towns. Ranger Master Davith says that the original town of Oakdale did neighbor another town called Kingman but it was still pretty far and since the whole landscape has changed, it’s possible that the town isn’t there anymore.
Davith remembers Kingman as a sort of friendly rival town that Oakdale would occasionally have bouts with in terms of sports and town events. They were different in terms of town character though; Oakdale was the more rural and nature-tuned town with farms, orchards and local hunters around every corner. Kingman definitely leaned more into the physical and technical as he called them a town of handy men. They had plumbers to carpenters to metal workers and everything in between. He says that they were a larger town and Oakdale definitely used them for their expertise in the things they didn’t have but it wasn’t a wholly-reliant situation. Just that they tended to have better people for the more specialized jobs.
The town is getting by as is, but the work that many of the mechanics have been doing have mostly been from more mechanical and separate things; farm machines, town generators and portable engines. Stuff that they need now and will probably keep using. The issue is more about what happens when there are things they can’t do right or not without experience, like plumbing work of boiler room work.
We talked about the possibility of sending out expeditions to other towns and how that would work. Caravans might make a return as the trucks aren’t allowed to be used since the lot of the gas was schedule for reclamation for the town’s heating systems. With winter looking as bad as it is, many aren’t arguing nor are they thinking of farther out concerns. Davith’s and I do, but its more of just speculations and hypothesizing rather than actual planning.
Maybe when I’m out of the hospital.
Whenever that is.
We talked a bit more about the protection of the town before Range Master Davith left. More about the possibility of attacks from outside forces, be that from Orcs or from more daring and hungry Chimera. At current, the town police have been doing a decent enough job it seems like their general strategy is to just pump the intruder full of lead. Not a bad strategy, but we are trying to keep a ration on bullets for emergencies. We don’t know what those might be but its better safe than sorry. We eventually finish by agreeing to write up a proposal to the Range Head about the city defense later after my recovery was complete.
As I write this, I am already mentally planning how to bring it up to the Range Head outside formal setting. Olver is a busy character and he doesn’t get seen much outside of the larger Ranger talks we have with the whole group. Outside of those times, he seems to be stuck between his own office and that of the mayors.
Politics. If there is going to be a lesson from this entry then let it be this: there will always be office politics. No matter how few of you there are or how non-important your role is, politics will hinder and help you in your career.