A week later it seemed that Cena and Hogan had settled into their new jobs. Cena had been assigned by Persy to take care of all of the animals that had been boarded in our stables, as many of them were sick or about to give birth. When she wasn’t doing that, she was inventorying the warehouse or moving salves and potions around. I noticed Kanta checking her out on more than one occasion, but as long as he doesn’t start harassing her that’s between the two of them. He had gotten kicked out his parent’s house a few days ago on his fifteenth birthday, and moved into one of the cheaper apartments in this part of town, and it would probably do him good to take his mind off of it by going on a date, assuming she also wanted to.
Hogan was mostly moving cargo into the warehouse when it was delivered, moving potions there whenever a crate was filled, and loading those potions into the backs of wagons whenever mother or one of our other buyers came for a pickup. I had went over there a few days ago and found that someone had went over the entire building with the Cleaning utility spell. The Carpenters that had previously used the building as a furniture workshop until Mother decided it wasn’t making a profit smoked like a chimney throughout the day. Usually you wouldn’t want to smoke near sawdust, as it was too flammable, and the dozens of burn marks around the shop testified to the fact that they had almost burned the place down multiple times, but had managed to put it out every time. A week ago the scent of tobacco was part of every board in the building, but now it smelled like pine sap and the herbs the alchemists extracted essences from. I much preferred the new scent.
Hogan told me that she had cleaned the place like that because, while she also didn’t like the scent, she was mostly bored. As the only one there at night and nothing to do, she had taken to cleaning to just pass the time. As a criminal slave, and not a lifetime slave, she wasn’t used to having nothing to do at night. I offered to buy her a training manual if she wanted to study, and she shrugged. “Having a book to read and skills to practice would at least pass the time.” While she knew most of the utility spells that everyone tended to learn, she didn’t like magic, so none of the books I had would interest her. I hadn’t actually had a book for swordmanship or guard training, after all. Instead, she asked for a book on Martial Arts or Physical training. The Adventurer’s guild sold basic versions of both, so after spending the two silver I brought both of them to her the next day.
This act earned her trust a bit, as I’d shown that I actually cared about my slaves being bored and let them make their own choices, so she shared something else with me. She didn’t have the money to cover all of her living expenses. While normally a refugee would survive on two silver per week or a bit less, and Marya had based her living expenses on that, she was spending twenty coppers a week on food, leaving her only four per week for things like soap and clothing. She had opted to spend three of those on a bar of soap, washing her only set of clothing every night, setting them by the fire place to dry, and going to sleep naked. I knew that people with excess strength, especially those with active physical jobs, needed a lot of calories and protein, which is why she needed to buy so much food. Her meals every day consisted of protein and carbohydrates extracted from food that had started to go bad and cheap vegetables, mostly root vegetables, as they were the cheapest at this time of the year. I gave her a silver and told her I would talk to Marya about increasing her budget to three silvers per week, about what a low skill worker at a shop would earn. It was more than refugees or slum dwellers needed to live, but they usually didn’t have super human strength and physically active jobs.
Two days later I went over one morning to do a surprise inspection and noticed that she was wearing a new dress, so she must have decided that daily laundry was the first thing she needed to fix. Well, new was a bit of a stretch. It was probably bought at a second hand store in order to save money, but at least it was new to her. It also looked really cute on her, so I was certain that she would have no problem getting a date if she wanted one. I told her that she looked good in it and she seemed to have the same idea. “Out of curiosity, boss, what’s your policy on bringing guys back here?”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t, since it means that he has access to the store while you are distracted. It could be used to steal from us.”
“Won’t he be quite distracted as well?”
“Sure, but all he needs is a friend to follow him and they can rob the place blind while you are too busy to stop it. Best to go to his place or an inn, that way you can just wear your key while you’re busy and no one can take it to rob us. Just don’t be gone at night for more than an hour, as it gives them time to break in.” She nodded. With her love life now sorted and the place running well, I went back to work.
I sat down and started reading one of my training manuals, but fifteen minutes later the door was pushed open hard enough to slam backwards and Sir Philip helped one of his men inside, both of them covered in blood. Several more streamed in behind him, and I could hear people in the standard area as well.
--
Persy’s point of view:
I was sitting behind my desk explaining to Cena the basics of cleaning wounds when the door was knocked open and a man carried in an old Fox beastkin. I ran over to the patient and noticed that he had been stabbed through the left shoulder. Then I realized that I had seen this beastfolk seven years ago. “Grandfather?”
He looked at me with bad eyes that couldn’t have been made any better from the blood loss. “Per..Persimmon?” I nodded as Cena arrived with one of the wound treatment kits that we kept behind the counter, with prearranged bandages, wound cleaning supplies, pain killer, and even a needle and thread, though I rarely needed the last one.
“What happened?” I asked as I poured water into the wound to flush out any dirt or debris. I could have used cheap alcohol to clean the wounds if I needed to, but I could do that with a spell as well, and it was both cheaper and less painful.
“Bandits hit our caravan.” Said the human man that brought him in. “One of them came for me, and he jumped in the way. Can you help him? I can’t lose my best driver.”
“Sure. I’ll have him back together in no time.” I replied.
“In that case, I’ve got other employees I need to see to.” He patted grandfather’s right shoulder. “You stay here, Wally. I have to see to the others.” Grandfather nodded, trying to ignore the pain of someone working on his shoulder, and the boss left.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
“So, you’re Persy’s grandfather?” asked Cena, trying to distract him.
“Uh, yes. I take it you’re her co-worker?”
Cena held out her hand. “Cena. Master bought me last week to help with the heavy lifting and security, so I guess you can say that.”
Grandfather looked at her outstretched hand and, noticing that she had held out the wrong hand, she switched hands. He shook it. “Nice to meet you. Name’s Walnut, but everyone calls me Wally.”
Cena nodded. I was busy working on the wound so I couldn’t be distracted with questions, but that didn’t mean the patient couldn’t. “So, I take it you two got sold to different people seven years ago? Slave trader split my family as well. Haven’t seen my dad since I was eight, though his old boss did buy me for four months to see if I could do as good as a caravan guard. A cow girl that isn’t even an adult doesn’t really intimidate folks the way a Minotaur does, though.”
Grandfather looked a bit saddened at being reminded of how we got separated. “Yeah, I tried to flee with her over the border when she was five along with several other beastfolk. Got caught by a patrol a kilometer from the border and, since they didn’t know who to send us back to, they sold us for ten silvers each to some traveling slave merchant that happened to be passing by. He just cast new permanent slave contracts on all of us and hauled us off to sell to anyone that wanted to buy us.” The standard slave contract that was used on beastfolk about a month after birth, once they were strong enough to survive the initial pain, had a standard cost of ten silvers no matter who cast it, so the man had a gold invested in each of us slaves. “I got sold for five gold to a traveling merchant that the slaver met on the road, he assigned me as a driver, and I’ve been working for him since. Not sure what happened to Persimmon, though.”
I had managed to stop the bleeding and was about to start the healing when Cam yelled for me and Cena to come to the Rich area. I slapped a Flash Heal on his shoulder to seal the wound, promised to return, and ran though the warehouse to the other side of the building.
There I saw over a dozen injured guards. Most had relatively minor injuries comparable to Grandfather’s, but one unconscious man had a blood-soaked and dripping bandage wrapped around his middle. Someone must have gotten a lucky swipe to his guts. “Cena, hold down his shoulders. Someone else hold down his legs. This is going to hurt, but it’s the fastest way to treat him.” Cam ran into his office and came back out with a bottle of whiskey.
As Cena and a guard with a bandaged leg held the man down, Cam removed the bandage and the room was immediately filled with the scent of opened bowels. I almost threw up at the sight, but I managed to hold it in. He condensed water from the air to wash out all of the waste that he could, the mess covering the floor, but he didn’t seem to care. He then sent several detection threads into the man’s abdomen. “Damn.” he said. “Not only did they open his intestines, they nicked his bladder and liver. He poured half the bottle of whiskey into the man’s wound, causing him to wake up, scream in pain, and start trying to get away. Luckily Cena and the other guard held him down. Cam then washed it out one more time with conjured water.
“Persy, I need you to start working on the liver and bladder. Don’t be afraid to use Flash Heal if you have to. We can fix the scars later. I’ll start fixing the intestines.” With that we got to work. He held the two sides of the cut together with his fingers and cast a small Flash Heal between his fingers, a technique called Flash Suture. Once he was sure the whole cut had been reconnected, he started carefully moving down the line, using normal healing spells to make to two sides mend together properly. Once the two of us were finished he poured the rest of the bottle of whiskey into the wound, causing the man to scream in pain again, and washed the wound out.
He sat down and, by the way he seemed unable to focus his eyes, I could tell he was close to mental burnout. Not having many customers meant that he hadn’t had to channel that much mana for a while, and channeling took a great amount of mental effort. “Persy, do you mind stitching him up? I can check for infection once I recover.” He got up and went to his office, where I was sure he was going to collapse on his couch.
I Flash Sutured the wound closed and closed the wound enough with normal healing that nothing would get in it. “I’ll treat the rest of you now, if you want.”
“You aren’t going to finish treating Jonz?” Asked one of the other guards in irritation.
“He’s out of the water, and mostly just needs rest and to recover his blood.” I motioned for Cena to put him in a recovery room. “Once I treat your wounds and recover a bit I’ll go over his wounds again with a proper healing spell so he doesn’t scar. For now though, you guys are at more of a risk than he is, since your wounds need cleaning and many of you are still bleeding.” Berry came into the room with two Temp workers, apparently having treated all of the people in her section, and I asked if they would help treat these wounds. Soon the four of us had cleaned and healed all of the wounds and I sat down behind the counter to relax.
Just as I was about to go to sleep, someone came over to me. “Thanks for that, Persy.” said Sir Philip. “I know you are at your limits. Anything I can do to help?” I opened my eyes and noticed Cena walking down the hall carrying a warm bowl of broth. Cam must be hungry.
“Mostly I just need some rest, and I’ll be all good. This is the worst case we’ve had since opening, and we had more workers when we were doing medical exams, so that wasn’t as mentally taxing.” Healing spells used the energy in Mana to fuel the division of cells. Proper healing spells made sure the cells divided properly, and didn’t grow into scars. Flash heal, however, used a lot more energy but didn’t care how the cells divided as long as they did. It could cause tumors if overused, and was well known for causing hideous scars. While all of the detection threads we used during the medical exams tested our abilities, it was hard to compare to the massive amount of concentration ten minutes of channeling level five mana required. Compared to that, healing all of the other wounds were easy. I had been Flash Healing most of the animals that were brought in, so while my mana reserves were probably larger than Cam’s, my concentration couldn’t compare.
“Well, in that case, I’ll come back by tonight before you close up to check on Jonz and settle the bill. I need to talk to the Count about what happened.” With that, Sir Philip motioned for the men to leave and one by one they got up to head back to the barracks.
I’m not sure when I dozed off, but I woke up to Cena shaking me. “Hey, Persy, your grandpa and the merchants are about to leave, if you want to say goodbye. They should be in town for a few days, though, if you want to rest. I heard the boss saying he was going to rent them all rooms at the Inn so that they could rest after what happened.”
I got up and ran outside to see grandfather climbing into the front of the cart so that he could drive them to the Inn. I ran over and gave him a hug which caused him to wince a bit in pain. “Easy, I’m not going away yet.” he said. “We’ll be staying in town for three days, so I’ll come by later, ok?”
I nodded as I wiped the tears from my eyes. “Sure, I’d like that. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
As he started to leave I heard another driver, a dog man, speak to him. “Is that your Granddaughter? Not bad looking. Is she single?” Grandfather gave him a mean look, but I could tell the man only did it to mess with him. They were probably good friends, as they were the only two beastfolk I saw in the caravan, and were used to teasing each other.
As it was time to close up, I went back inside to start setting things back where they needed to be. “Thanks for taking Cam a meal earlier, he must have been hungry after that.” I told Cena, and she gave me a weird look.
“I didn’t take Master a meal. I took the patient Jonz a meal. He was weak and needed nutrients to finish healing and make more blood, so I gave him a nutrition potion and a bowl of broth. I hope that’s ok. I know my job is to feed the animals and not the patients, but...”
I nodded. “We put his bladder and intestines back together well enough for him to eat, but I’ll check on him just to make sure. As tired as we both were, we may have messed up.” I went into the room to find the man sleeping and sent several detection threads into his abdomen. Luckily we hadn’t made any mistakes and the food and potions had mostly been absorbed by his body.
I closed the door quietly and went back into the lobby to find that Cena had mopped the floor and started scrubbing the furniture in the Rich section with her Cleaning spell. Realizing that we should make sure blood didn’t dry on the nice furniture, I joined her. We could probably get it out after it dried, but I didn’t want to take a chance with a chair that probably cost more than I did. After all, Cam told people he paid one gold for me and that chair was probably worth at least that new. Though, as skilled as I was now, I was probably worth ten. Honestly, I found maid work relaxing. “The patient was fine, and was sleeping. Do you mind keeping an eye on him tonight?” I asked her. “I don’t want him to wake up and not be able to find anyone. Just sleep in the chair in his room or on the floor.”
Cena nodded. “I don’t mind that, though if I’m not going to get a comfortable bed tonight, I want something out of you.”
“What’s that?” I asked, cleaning the blood off the seat Sir Philip had set in. As he was covered in blood, the chair was too.
“It didn’t seem like your grandfather told me the whole truth about how you got split up. So how about you tell me the real story?”