CHAPTER 11 — THE ARCANE SURGERY OF AUXVASSE
Flint awoke in a bed. He looked down, saw a white sheet over his body. He looked around, the room was well-lit, sunlight creeping in through a wide window, casting dappled shade along the opposite wall where the Mender’s sigil was engraved.
He sat up and moved his legs to the side of the bed. He was in a hospital room of some sort. And back inside the Game Universe, since there was no Gannon and his arms weren’t shimmering pixels.
“What the fuck is going on?”
This time, the words did issue from his throat. But the only response he received was the illumination of his HUD.
NEW QUEST: THE WORLDBREAKER
(ERROR RETRIEVING QUESTID #23133c)
He stared at the error message. Worldbreaker. What the fuck did that mean?
Gannon had called him that a few seconds ago, too. Or at least it seemed like seconds. Truth was, he didn’t know when his interaction with the Admiral occurred. Whatever the case, the game was clearly fucked-up.
“You are the only one who can save us.”
Flint scowled. He didn’t know who “us” was. As far as he was concerned, the Fleet leadership and the FRB could go fuck themselves. The only person he was interested in saving was Zeeke.
To that end, a notification popped into his vision.
ACTIVE QUEST: KEEPING ZEEKE ALIVE, PART II
You will journey to Siolan and meet up with the criminal witch known as Sigrid. She will help form the guild that will become your army to challenge the Imperator. You will find her within thirteen days’ time, or Zeeke will not receive another Decel infusion.
“Yeah, yeah,” Flint said. “I’m fucking working on it.”
He did an inventory of the alerts in his HUD, focusing on the one notifying him of unspent Tree and Skill Points. He went into his Trees and briefly looked around. In the end, he put the two talent points into Strength, and all the rest into Health, saving the Skill Points for deeper consideration. It was plain that it was of absolute necessity that he stay alive. To that end, he was pleased to see that his Health bar was sitting at a full 100%. He checked his status effects, saw the Ramistigmine toxin was no longer in his system.
Pleased with that, he checked over to his skill bar. All of his skills were blacked out, but fully recharged and available to him, should he find his weapon. He looked around the room, but didn’t spot any of his belongings. Then he remembered being robbed by that damn gnome.
“Ah shit,” he muttered. Seemed one problem led to another which led to even more. Now he knew the fate of thousands of lives rested on his ability to survive a dangerous trek across the continent, health points seemed pretty valuable.
He buttoned up the shirt on his gown and made for the door, finding a set of loafers waiting for him. He slipped them on easily, just a size too big for him. He was within a stride of the doorway, when an angry voice wafted in from the corridor.
“This is unacceptable,” a male voice said. Older, authoritative. “This woman has been a failure ever since she started residency. This is but one more example.”
“It wasn’t her fault, Mender Warren.” The nurse Vibiana’s voice. “This Mend student Busby, he took a bottle of—”
“Mend student?” the one called Warren cut her off. “She let a Mend student give her patient a potent neurotoxin?”
Flint peaked out the doorway. A man with a long white coat stood in front of a desk in the center of the room. On the other side was the giant nurse Vibiana. She was flanked by coworkers wearing the same black short-sleeved shirts and what looked like aprons. Nurses of some kind, he figured.
“She can’t stand at the bedside for the whole journey,” Vibiana snapped back. “You’re being entirely unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable?” Warren snapped back. “Unreasonable was her not being fired after the last five infractions.”
The sound of approaching footsteps. Flint couldn’t see who it was, but it made Vibiana twist around, a worried look on her face.
“Running your mouth again, Warren?”
The Mendress named Kali Dah’me appeared in front of him, face twisted into the scowl she seemed to wear constantly. She wasn’t wearing the fashionable winter robe he’d seen her in the first time. Instead, she was drawn up in a white coat buttoned straight down with a sharp collar. The insignia of the hospital was etched on her left breast, below which was her name and credentials in scripted lettering. For all intents, she looked like a real-life physician.
“How dare you speak to me like that,” Warren said. “I am the Chief Resident Mender at this Surgery.”
“Fuck yourself, cunt,” she spat at him.
There was a collective gasp from the people inside the nurses’ station. Flint’s brow shot up. The man called Warren positively bristled, the side of his face reddening as his fists balled up at his side.
“You are low-life, wretched excuse for a Mender,” he said, stepping up right in her face. “You’re lucky we’re in the hospital or I’d kick your sorry—oomph!”
Kali’s fist smashed into his jaw with shocking force. The Chief Resident toppled back into the wall with a thud, a look of profound shock on his face.
Flint's brow arched. Now that was a decent sucker punch.
Kali stepped up again, looked for all intents like she was going to kick him in the face, when Vibiana launched herself on-top of the woman.
“Holy shit balls,” Flint muttered.
The room descended into chaos. Nurses and students yelled for security, while others jumped between the two Menders, trying for all their might to keep Kali from smashing the man’s face in.
Flint considered eloping in the midst of it all. Seemed an easy way to avoid the inevitable medical bills. He was ready to bolt when a thunderous voice boomed over the commotion.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The chaos stopped so quickly, Flint thought there was some kind of magic involved. Flint couldn’t see the source at first, but by the reactions of the crowd it must’ve been someone important. The nurses and students got eyes big as cows. You could hear a pin drop in the room.
“Chief Mendress Chela,” Warren said, voice cracking as he pointed a shaking finger at Kali. “This devil struck me!”
“Only after he tried to hit me!” Kali returned.
The quick sound of hard-heels tapping across tile, and a new person appeared before the scrum. She was short, no more than five feet tall, and walked with a notable limp. Dressed in the same white coat as the others. She didn’t seem like much more than a crippled old lady. But the people at the nurse’s station jumped out of her way like she was a Hornslog.
“Everyone get back to work,” she snapped. Then looked straight at Warren. “That includes you.”
“But Chief Mendress, I—”
“Do you have dung for brains, son?” she said, cutting through his protest like a hot knife through butter. “When I tell my employees to do something, I expect immediate compliance.”
Warren stared up at her, blood drooling from his nose and down his shirt. He gave a hateful grimace and turned on his heel.
“Chief Mendress,” Kali said.
The old woman held up a hand. “We’ll discuss this later. Who is the next patient?”
One of the students trembled so badly with a clipboard he looked like a spastic. “Patient name of Walker, first name unknown…”
“This one, Chief Mendress,” Vibiana said pointing at Flint.
Flint’s own heart leaped a moment. He’d been so caught up observing he didn’t think anyone noticed. The old woman turned to face him. Her face was wrinkled, but she had hard eyes. Arched and angled. He might not have made the connection, but standing right next to Kali, there was an unmistakable similarity to those hard features.
“So you are awake,” Chela said, using her cane to step towards him.
Flint backed into the room, allowing the crowd of people to enter. Among them, much to his displeasure, was the old man Busby. He hobbled in behind his fellow students, gave him a weak little smile. But it seemed even he wasn’t about to talk out of turn with the grand Pumba standing there.
“How are you feeling?” Chela asked him, taking the only seat available. The retinue of students hovered nearby, hands clasped behind their backs, eyes downcast. Kali’s face was twisted up into a hard scowl that made him viscerally uncomfortable.
Flint backed up to the edge of his bed. “I’m fine, I guess.”
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When Chela spoke, the hardness was completely gone, replaced by a kind of grandmotherly inflection. “You had us very worried, young man.”
“How do you mean?”
“After Mendress Dah’me put you to sleep, your heart stopped beating. We assumed the overdose killed you.” Chela paused to give Busby a side glance and the old pupil’s eyes became fixed on the floor. It was so awkward, he almost felt bad for the old fool. Almost.
“Your body never disappeared, however,” Chela said. “So we admitted you to this room and monitored things. The thought was you’d either wake up or disappear. I’m glad it was the former.”
Flint said nothing. He supposed his field trip to Gannon’s conference room would be beyond the comprehension of these NPCs. “I had a friend with me. A girl named Esse.”
The old Mendress glanced at Kali, who was still staring daggers at Busby.
“Dead,” Kali said. “Disappeared shortly after we arrived.”
Flint’s heart sank at hearing the news for the second time. Esmeralda wasn’t just one of his oldest friends. She was a girl he had a crush on for over a decade. At some point, her loss would feel particularly acute, and he would need time to grieve. But now wasn’t the time.
“How did you find us?” Flint asked.
“The hospital has a Tower of Quandaries. We have Seers that are trained in the art of recognizing patterns of physiologic distress. When they sense someone in medical danger, they dispatch a team of Menders.”
Flint nodded. It was a fascinating concept. “Like some magical 911.”
“911?”
“Never mind.”
Chela smiled. “Well, seeing as you are healed, I see no reason to keep you here. Unless you want to let our Mend students practice procedures on you.”
Flint laughed politely though he didn’t think the joke was funny. The others seemed to take it as permission to do so as well though. He cast a quick glance at Busby, hoping the old coot felt bad. “I’ll pass.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said. “Though it seems you’ve lost a lot of things lately, even your clothes. How, prey-tell, did that happen?”
“Some gnomes robbed us.”
Chela frowned. “I see.”
There was another pause. Outside, there was a chime of some bell. Some important hour of the day had been struck.
“It is your business of course,” Chela said. “But I would like to know one thing. If the lady traveling with you wasn’t your wife, how is it you were wearing a Bonding Mark?”
Flint’s mind went back to the conversation with Busby in the cart. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Sometimes young people elope,” she said. “Especially the wealthier ones in relationships their families disapprove of. Sometimes the decision is fueled by spirits and other such… substances.” There was a pause then as though she was suggesting this was the case with him and Esmeralda. “Nonetheless, the way they are eventually tracked down is by the Mark. The Mark of the Bonding is one of the strongest magical signals in the world. This is especially true for a Mark-Pair that is most recently placed. It was this Mark that drew us to you without the slightest bit of trouble.”
“Well, we didn’t elope. I’m sure of that.”
“Why did my people find you naked on-top of each other?”
Flint gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Just trying to stay warm.”
“That is the wrong thing to do when two people are freezing. It is a good idea when one person is freezing and the other is at normal body temperature. You do no good clutching a frozen person.”
“I’ll remember that. Thanks.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because I don’t have an answer. I’ve no notion of what this whole Mark thing is about. We weren’t married, accidentally or otherwise.”
Chela looked at him with some suspicion for a while, then nodded her head. “Your business, of course.”
“You think I'm lying?”
“I am a Mendress. How and why you got here isn't relevant.”
Flint frowned. “Okay then, you tell me. How does someone get this Mark without knowing?”
“Did you encounter a Ceremony Mage on your recent travel?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“Ceremony Mages are exceptionally powerful. It’s unlikely you crossed their path without knowing.”
Flint thought about it. “The gnomes had some mage with them. He seemed pretty powerful.”
“Did they force you to marry prior to stealing your belongings?”
Flint frowned. “No. They killed my…” he thought about how to describe Vardock. He certainly wasn’t a friend. “Another man traveling with us.”
Chela clicked her teeth. “Very strange. What made you think he was powerful?”
“He had a funny name and wore an ugly brown hood. Looked like a damn giant, to be honest.”
“Really,” she said, seeming bored. “What was his name?”
“Can’t remember his exact name. Romchil-something.”
At the mention of the name, Kali’s demeanor changed. Her eyes grew wide in her skull, mouth slackening.
“Branimir Romchil?” she said, voice shaking.
The whole room turned to look at her.
“Yeah, I think so,” Flint said, frowning. “Do you know him?”
“Do I know him?” Kali repeated as though it was the most ludicrous question ever asked. “He’s the most powerful Ceremony Magus in Kvar… maybe even the world!”
Flint thought back to his targeter lighting the man up. Level 200 Specialist Mage, it had said. Then he remembered the one-hundred-second silence that blacked out his entire skill bar. He could believe that was right enough. “He convinced the gnome not to kill us.”
Chela’s brow was high on her wrinkled forehead. “How gracious of him.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Didn’t save Esmeralda, though.”
A long pause took hold of the room.
Chela planted her cane and foisted herself up. “Well I for one wish you the best on your journeys, Master Walker.” She turned to Kali. “You may put in the discharge orders, Mendress.”
And just like that, she was gone, her retinue of students going after her. Kali seemed to linger for an inappropriately long moment, her wide eyes fixed on him. Flint wondered if she would jump on him and eat him for dinner when something shook her out of the trance. She slowly walked backward out of the room, her eyes never leaving him.
“Damn weird,” Flint said.
The nurse Vibiana entered shortly afterward carrying a sheet of parchment. Flint took it from her and glanced at it. A bill for hospital services. Thankfully, at the end of the itemized receipt showing various charges for equipment and nursing care and Mender services, there was the lettering: 0 gold.
“Free?” he asked.
Vibiana shrugged. “The least we can do after trying to kill you.”
“Works for me.”
She handed him a sack, one not unlike the inventory sack he’d once had. He took it from her, found some basic clothes inside. “Here’s some more charity.”
His HUD notification screen blinked, showing he had increased his inventory slots from 0 out of 0 pounds to 0.15 out of sixty pounds.
“Thanks,” he said.
##
He was met with quite the sight when he stepped out of the hospital. Great swaths of Gothic buildings, statues, and archways spread before him. They stood tall between cleanly-paved roads of red cobblestone packed to the brim with horse-drawn carts and people in finely dressed cloaks. Above all of them hung a blanketed canopy of honey-yellow leaves, throwing the city into various patterns of shade. When he came to the center of town, he realized there were not dozens of tall trees over Auxvasse — there was, in fact a single tree. It stood in the center of a giant circular fountain, its trunk almost as wide as the city’s largest building. As he looked up into its branches, he saw they stretched out hundreds of feet above in dozens of gold-colored leaves.
He gave vent to a whistle. All around it seemed that he was in some grand Medieval city built under five-hundred foot trees. Seemed the crazed old man Busby wasn’t overstating the matter. He stared up at the thing for a long moment, taking in its majesty. A group of women in long white bonnets, groups of younger, meaner-dressed women following behind them and holding their dresses up. They eyed him with a look of utmost suspicion, made him wonder about his clothing.
“Quite the sight, isn’t it?”
Flint spun around suddenly, the sound of the voice automatically putting him on guard. Busby was standing there in his Mender Student’s robe. He was cradling a stack of books piled to his eyebrows.
Flint felt a strange urge to turn and run from the man.
“I am relieved to have found you, Master Walker,” he said. “I spent the past half-hour searching for you.”
“Why? Looking to poison me again?”
Busby gave a nervous chuckle. One of the monstrous textbooks slid down and hit him between the bridge of the nose where his glasses were perched. “Oh, ha ha a funny joke.”
Flint wasn’t laughing. “What do you want?”
“I owe you for the trouble I have put you through,” Busby said. “I made a profound error in medical judgment, under pressure in all.”
“Is that right?”
“It is, it is. I was hoping, Master Walker, that you might consider being my guest for supper?”
Flint didn’t have any desire in that direction. “No thank you.”
He turned up the street to walk away.
Busby hurried after him, books barely held in front of him. “Yes, I understand you may not want anything to do with me. Who would, after all? I am a long-winded old fool and a dreamer to boot. But still, when I make mistakes, I rectify them if I can. If you will not have supper on me, then only name the price of my transgression against you.”
Flint paused and turned around. “You have money?”
Busby strained under the weight of his book load. “Alas, no. My wife, the beauteous and most talented Professor Myrtle Maribelle Mathers Busby has set limit to the amount of currency I may carry on my person.”
“Huh.” Flint turned up the street again.
“I can, however, get you to your destination. I am good friends with the owner of the Siolan Caravan Cooperative.”
Flint paused, the words stopping him like a bullet. “The Siolan what?”
Busby trekked up to him, the swaying books dangerously close to falling. “Master Reese Karpathia, the owner of the Cooperative. No man has delivered more people safely through this side of the Bellwoods.”
“How does he do it?”
“He coordinates a group of wagons that make the journey every other fortnight,” he said. “He has been doing so successfully for many years.”
“And when does this fellow's caravan leave next?”
“I must confess, I am not sure. But my wife, the beauteous and most intelligent—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know the rest,” Flint said. “Get to the point.”
The old man beamed. “She knows his wife. Every Eionnsday night, they drink sweet tea and play Windlass.” He leaned in as if to whisper, one of the books sliding back into his face again causing him to squint. “You might say they are gab quarriers.”
“Gab quarriers?”
“Gossipers.”
“Right.” He worked his brow. “How does this help me again?”
“Why, it is Eionnsday today, is it not?” Busby beamed. “The ladies are scheduled to play this evening. On the top floor of my tavern, no less.”
“You own a tavern?”
“Only the most extravagant drinking hole in all of Reach,” he insisted. “A most reputable establishment called Busby’s Happy House.”
An alert popped up on his HUD:
NEW QUEST: TAVERNS OF AUXVASSE
Have a drink at one of the fine watering holes in Auxvasse: Busby’s Happy House, The Shit-Hammered Dragon, or Bandy-Ho-O-Tep-O-Tep.
Flint sighed. He didn’t relish the idea of going anywhere with Busby. But easy XP was hard to pass up. Plus, the reward for completing the quest was a Simple Jacket and Men’s Breeches, and he desperately wanted to replace the hospital attire he was sporting.
“Fine,” Flint said. “Why the hell not?”
Busby beamed. “You will not be disappointed, Master Walker.”
“We'll see about that.”
A cart horse came up behind him, but Busby was oblivious. He began backing up, trying to balance the top book yet again. The old Mend student came smack dab in the center of where the carriage was maneuvering around the pond. A white-gloved man in a black top-hat leaned out the window, a ferocious scowl on his face.
“We have the finest ale in town,” Busby continued. “I do say, the finest—”
“Outta the way ya fuckin’ old coot!”
Busby turned quickly, clipped the edge of a cobblestone. He pitched backward, glasses flying from his nose, books going up in a shower of rippling pages. There was a splash as he fell ass-first into a shin-high puddle of water. People around began laughing hysterically. The man on the cart snapped the reins and the horses moved, one of the leather-bound books torn asunder by the wagon’s great wheel.
Flint heaved a sigh and stepped forward. He reached down and picked up the man’s glasses, the right eye cracked into a spiderweb of broken glass. He began collecting what was left of the books.
“Oh no…” Busby whimpered. “Mender Warren is going to kill me…”
“Kill you for what?” Flint said, pulling him to his feet.
“The Medicus Arcanus of 43 Sunden,” he said, reaching for the ruined textbook. He picked up the torn leather tome, turning it over gently like it was his dead puppy. “There’s only one copy left in Reach.”
Flint frowned at the mess of tomes on the ground. “What are you doing with all these books anyway?”
Busby seemed almost on the verge of tears. “I’ve been forced to prepare the conference presentations this week,” he sniffled. “Normally a group effort, but…” He drew in a ragged breath. “My peers find it difficult to collaborate with me.”
“They’re making you do all the work?”
“Alas, I am not popular among my colleagues,” he said softly.
Flint felt an immediate surge of sympathy. He knew well enough what bullying felt like. Still, he was hardly in a position to give advice on how to deal with it.
Busby leaned back and studied the sky as though contemplating things deeply. “But let not my clumsiness ruin the evening. Come, let us go.”