Quinn woke up with a start. Zombies! She bolted upright in a stance as defensive as she could muster. Her locale was a lot different than she last remembered. Instead of a corpse-strewn plaza, she was in a long room with beds along either side. Other people were in a few of the beds as people moved about the room. It was definitely a medical ward of some kind.
She looked over herself. She could remember getting injured quite heavily. And something about a flapping fish? Her memories were all a blur after they reached the caravan. Her arm and side were heavily wrapped in bandages. She could see a bit of red in them. Her arm and side didn’t hurt nearly as bad as they should’ve.
“Miss?” A woman’s voice called from her side. A blonde woman in a white outfit approached her at some point.
“Ah, uh, y-yes?”
She tried to get out of bed, but the woman stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She used slightly more force than was probably needed. “Wait a minute miss, let me check on you.”
"Where am I?"
The woman, who she was a hundred percent sure was a nurse, smiled a fake customer service smile. “The Lacht Clinic in the fortress city of Mauershein.”
Mauershein? That was where they were headed, right… the caravan must have carried her here or something. She let out a relieved sigh. She was kind of expecting to die in Umbersnkecht.
“Do you know where, uh where my stuff is?” Quinn asked the smiling nurse.
The nurse looked over her bandages. “The elderly man who dropped you off has some of it. They said they would be staying at the Shattered Grail. The rest of your gear will be returned at the exit of the clinic. Now, how do you feel?”
She took a second to look over herself. She was super sore but overall wasn’t in as much pain as she remembered. Her side and arm felt more like a cat had scratched them than deep gouges. The Lacht Clinic must have a good healer.
Her head also felt miles better. She still had a slight headache, but she felt as though a veil of fog had been lifted and she could finally think at a hundred percent instead of fifty. It was very refreshing.
The only problem was her mana was super low. She had maybe an eighth as much as she usually had. She felt super light compared to usual and could feel and sense the amber in the air without even needing to try. It felt… light and bouncy, like a cloud. It was completely different from how it used to feel.
“I, um, I think I’m fine? It still hurts a bit, but I feel pretty good overall.” She shrugged. Her body still felt injured, but her mental and emotional felt so much better that it was hardly a competition.
The nurse grabbed her right arm and began to lightly undo the bandages. “That’s good. If you feel fine, then we’ll just change your bandage and let you go. Your friends paid for the silver treatment plan, so if you feel hurt, don’t hesitate to return.”
The bandage fully fell off, revealing her arm. It was almost completely healed. The wound was just a long and thin scab. Their healer must have been seriously good. The nurse had her lift her tattered tunic and took off the other bandage. The wound on her side was just slightly worse but was still miles above where it had been.
“Wow. You healed remarkably well, miss. Let me just replace this, and I’ll lead you to the door.” The nurse muttered under her breath and a familiar magic circle appeared above the bandages. Who would’ve thought that simply using Cleanse would be good in the medical field? Every day that passed reinforced the notion in her head that it was powerful magic.
The nurse lightly wrapped her up in the bandages once more. It took a while to get it all around her side and chest, but eventually, her body felt like a part mummy. “Final check, can you stand and walk?”
Quinn slung her legs over the bed and stood up. She momentarily lost her balance as a huge amount of pain wracked her foot, but managed to stand up just fine. She took a step and was able to walk around perfectly well assuming the limp was ignored.
“Perfect!” If she saw the limp, she decided to ignore it. The nurse led her out of the room and to a large circular room. It looked as though several other hallways branched off of the circular room, almost like fingers on a hand. It appeared to be a waiting room judging by the amount of people sitting around in chairs.
She saw familiar red hair off in the waiting room but was led in the opposite direction by the nurse. She stopped in front of a door as the nurse entered it. The blonde woman returned barely a minute later carrying with her Quinn’s sagen, pack, belt, and all of the goodies she had attached to the belt.
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“Thank you…” Quinn grabbed them and through them on, covering the tattered tunic and messy trousers. She looked over herself. Hobo. That was the only way to describe her new look. Her tunic was literally a torn mess. The only reason someone wouldn’t be able to see what they shouldn’t was because of the bandages tightly wrapped around her body. She needed new clothes.
“You are good to go, miss!” The nurse rapidly backpedaled and disappeared into another hallway.
Quinn shook her head and headed out into the waiting room. Mikeal was among the twenty people waiting in the round room, though he was the only one entirely passed out. He looked so peaceful as he slept. She almost felt bad as she walked up to him and poked him in the shoulder, then the memory of all his horrid singing radiated in her head. He had her bow and quiver, which was the last of her gear.
Mikeal bolted up, a wild look in his eyes as he looked around. He didn’t summon magic circles this time, but he looked pretty dang close. “Oh… Quinn, how are you? Are you okay?”
She nodded lightly. “I’m fine, I think.” She glanced around and saw several people staring at them with displeased looks as they disrupted the silence. “L-let’s, uh take this somewhere else?”
The redhead stood up and handed her her bow and quiver. “Of course… are you sure you’re okay?”
“I feel mostly fine… Just a bit scratched up is all, ha ha.” She rubbed the back of her head as they walked out of the front door. She slung her bow and quiver back into place, feeling oddly assured as the weapon's weight was back.
Quinn was quite surprised when they stepped out into the street. It couldn’t be compared at all to the towns she had been in the past couple of weeks. Tall buildings lined either side of the road. They seemed to be made from bricks and stone. Their architecture and materials were far more modern than the medieval-looking places she had been.
They were mostly made of white stone, though there were quite a few buildings along the road that used a combination of stone and brick. Every building seemed to have flourishes and alcoves, giving the entire row of buildings a depth they wouldn’t normally have. It was as if this city was hundreds of years more advanced than the town- nay, the villages she had been in.
And the road! She felt somewhat at home as she looked at the road. It looked as though it was made from a mixture of stone and brick laid over each other. Lamp posts with flickering flames sat evenly space along the patch of grass between the road and the sidewalk. They flickered like oil lamps, but Quinn couldn't see any oil containers. If it weren’t for all the horses and carriages rolling by on wooden wheels, she could almost imagine she was back home.
The people were also quite different. They walked around and idly chatted with smiles on their faces. They wore clothes far fancier than a tunic and trousers as they walked up and down the sidewalks of the main road. The men wore what could only be described as suits and vests. Top hats adorned the majority of their heads as they walked around with canes for no other reason than to have them. The women wore varying outfits of dresses and trousers that didn’t lack in the slightest compared to the men. Their hair was pulled up in intricate braids adorned with jewelry. The color scheme was a bit lacking, but Quinn still looked like a broke bumpkin in their presence. The level of wealth was a far cry from where she had been.
Even though their clothes were fine and they looked as though they had no worries, weapons were still held by the majority of the people walking about. Swords seemed the preferred weapon as gentlemen and the ladies not in dresses walked about with scabbards about their hips. The hilts of their swords seemed to gleam with light as if to show off their owners' status. Bows were definitely not preferred as she only saw a couple among the many people that passed by. She even saw a weapon resembling a flintlock, but only one.
And the shoes! There were so many varieties- actually, there were only two kinds of shoes that the people wore. Fancy black dress shoes, and high heels. There wasn’t nearly as much variety as she expected based on the clothes. Maybe it was an underappreciated market?
Everyone, of course, had on gray sagen for the most part. There were a few other colors, but they were in the minority so much so that by the time she noticed one, they were already gone. The difference was in the style of the sagen. Hers was obviously a hand-woven work that was made purely for the rain. The people, however, were quite fancy with frills, patches of light and dark colors, embroidered symbols, and all kinds of extra attachments.
She had thought that Mikeal had fancy clothes, but she could see now that he had rather normal clothing by comparison. He must have downgraded to find something more suitable for travel. She really couldn’t blame him. She shuddered to think about how awful it would be to travel while wearing a suit or worse; a dress.
She could hear chatter and laughter as people walked about. The sounds of rickety wheels and the whining of horses came to her ears. It was quite shocking. There was no sound of thunder and lightning nor was there any rain pattering. For that matter, the rain wasn’t even falling on the street as if held back by some masterful magic!
She looked up to see colorful tarps hanging from one building to the other, stretching across the entirety of the streets. She could see through their colorful glaze as rain pittered across the translucent tarps. The tarps were held up in the middle by bars connecting the buildings, forcing the rain to slope off to the sides. She tried to follow where the rain went since it obviously wasn’t falling on the streets but lost it in the darkness of the sky.
Mikeal nudged her arm. “C’mon, we need to get you some new clothes. Yours look like they’re about to fall off.”
She blushed a deep shade of crimson. “Y-yeah.” Mikeal walked off into the throngs of people, keeping just slow enough that she could keep pace with him even though she was limping. She felt as though she was walking into a second new world as she took in the vastly different sights and sounds.