53. Healers Don’t Get Enough Respect
The “healing area” was really just a small corner beside the stands roughly separated off with tape. A few benches had been pushed together in imitation of beds, and there were other stray chairs and stools scattered around, but nothing about the place looked particularly well prepared. As far as Isaac could tell, the only real medical supplies present were a stack of bandage rolls, one basin of water, and some cloths.
The place was also a fair bit more crowded than Isaac had expected it to be, though, at a glance, most people seemed to just be using the area to rest in and weren’t actually seeking medical treatment. Fey milled about, chatting, while demons paced around and Abyss creatures swam through the air. Though the other realm creatures were abundant, there weren’t a lot of humans there, Isaac noted.
In fact, the only human he immediately saw was Rosalinde, who was sitting in the center of the area and appeared to be treating someone’s wounds. Carefully weaving through the crowd, Isaac realized that the other person was Aster.
The fey had a long cut on her arm that looked like it came from the thorn maze—crossing through apparently hadn’t been as effortless as she’d made it look. Aster was frowning and tapping her finger along the bench in sharp motions, stopping every now and then to release a long sigh, as though having a wound looked at was a terrible transgression.
Rosalinde, on her part, didn’t seem to mind her patient’s irritability. She extended her hands so that one was on either end of the cut. A soft silver glow formed in the palm of her hands, then floated outward and spread until they formed two small, identical silver circles that hovered on opposite sides of Aster’s arm. Rosalinde had a look of concentration on her face as she inhaled, and the glow of the circles flared brighter. Slowly, the skin around the cuts was pushed together, drawn away from the circles like equal poles of a magnet, until the gash was no more than a narrow seam. The whole process took a couple of minutes, and at the end, Rosalinde dispersed the magic and turned to grab a roll of bandages to wrap the wound.
On his tablet, [SKILL REPEL LVL 16] flashed across the screen. Stat wise, Rosalinde was only around Lvl 10, but her proficiency with this skill had resulted in a higher overall level for her. Rosalinde has once explained that it worked exactly as the name implied; those circles (magic circles were Isaac always thought of them as) could emit a light repulsive force. By placing two of them on opposite ends of a wound, it allowed her to close it quicker, and it was particularly useful for slowing down bleeding, she’d said. Of course, its scale was limited, as was the strength of repulsion, so Rosalinde also had to know basic first aid.
The woman in question glanced up as she wrapped the bandages around Aster’s arm, smiling pleasantly. “Ah, Isaac, it’s good to see you. Do you need help with something?”
Isaac became uncomfortably aware of the heads that turned in his direction, but most of the creatures, at least, either were good at pretending not to listen or lost interest and resumed their earlier conversations. Unfortunately, Aster, who was right next to him, didn’t try at all to hide the sharpness that appeared in her eyes. She spoke before he had a chance to answer Rosalinde.
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“You’re the Traveler, right?”
He nodded. “One of them.” He paused, then said, “You’re friends with Yarrow, right?”
Aster frowned, but assented. “They were telling me about you,” she suddenly said. She scowled and looked like she would’ve crossed her arms if Rosalinde wasn’t still wrapping her wound. “What’d you say to them?”
Isaac blinked, a bit taken aback by the fey’s suddenly accusatory tone. “What do you mean?”
Aster rolled her eyes and let out a little huff. “They’re alway busy watching that little brat these days. I thought for sure they’d come to the tournament at least, but nope, they said they had to ‘protect Her Highness,’” she said mockingly, voice dripping with sarcasm.
It took a moment for Isaac to realize the “little brat” she was referring to was probably Gloriana. His eyebrows rose. “That’s kind of a bold way to talk about your future queen.”
The fey shrugged. “I serve His Majesty. She hasn’t taken the throne yet, heck she probably never will.” She narrowed her eyes. “Anyway, whatever you told Yarrow, you should take it back. It’s fucking boring with them working all the time.”
“I really don’t think I said anything.” At least, he didn’t think anything he’d said would’ve been enough on its own to cause such a shift.
Aster didn’t look like she believed him. Rosalinde finished tying off the bandage, and the fey immediately stood up, first testing her arm and poking at the covered wound. Once she was satisfied, she released another huff and stalked off without another word. Isaac frowned, about to yell for her to at least thank Rosalinde, but the woman just shook her head with her usual serene, utterly unperturbed smile.
“Did you need something?” She returned right back to her original question, as if the whole exchange with Aster hadn’t happened. Isaac wondered how many rude patients the woman had had to deal with over the years.
“I just wanted to check in. See how many injuries, stuff like that,” he explained. Rosalinde nodded in understanding. She hummed in thought.
“There haven’t been many severe ones,” she said. “Quite a few minor cuts and bruises, but nothing extreme or particularly dangerous.”
“Hm, well that’s good at least.” Hopefully it stayed that way. Considering the event was supposed to switch into a bunch of smaller competition stations now, he wasn’t actually sure if that would raise or reduce the chances of injury.
“It’s nice of you to be concerned,” Rosalinde commented. Isaac blinked.
“I mean I figured that was just, like, par for the course.”
The woman chuckled at that and turned to organize some of the scattered bandage rolls—which had been knocked over by some of the competitors milling about—humming lightly as she did so.
By now, quite a few of the others in the area had left, and it was significantly less crowded, to Isaac’s relief. Despite living in Chrowall City, which was overpopulated city central, it still felt strange to see that level of crowding in the Underside. Though, to be fair, quite a few Underside inhabitants were significantly larger than a regular human, so the increased sense of claustrophobia wasn’t all that unexpected.
Just outside the designated healer’s area, the sound of angered whispers caught Isaac’s attention.
“—‘s he doing here—“
“—careful—don’t know—plotting—“
He recognized those voices, one richer with a hint of rasp and the other more shrill yet rough. Turning around, Isaac stepped over to the edge of the tape and glanced around. After some scanning, he spotted Sharil and Olzu’s familiar forms standing off to the side, the two in the middle of what sounded like a heated discussion.