The Reborn - Finishing What Was Started IC [M]

[Minkasha]

Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright, Doctor Jeon Smythe, 'Melvin' & Panos Lambros

The vicissitudes of their kidnapped fates were granted the relieving obscurity of sleep. The darkness was black, swift, and heavy for Gina and Jeon. Though crude, the Dead Drak was at least warm, letting the cold shivers of regret, disgust, and confusion mimic fevers whose shakes jumped from the soul. No one awoke them, eerie for it was counter to any sense of adventurous urgency the party had.

Gina Wright

The young lady was rested, cocooned in a lukewarm puddle of her spent bathwater intermingled within the furs and sheets. Her locks were frizzy due to being tossed among the bed with no regard. A physical restriction eased now that she had been able to sleep in. She had a brief moment of perfect comfort before sensation spread back through her limbs and she realised that the furs around her were vaguely damp - her punishment for exhaustion the previous night. A few moments after that, it occurred to her to wonder why no-one had woken her. She couldn’t tell what time it was; only that judging by the light filtering through the curtains it was daytime once again. Everything was still and quiet, like the morning after a snowfall.

The calm was somehow worse than an alarm. The eeriness of it sent a familiar fizzing sensation rolling through Gina’s stomach, prickling her skin and sharpening her senses. She had been through it so many times that now the fear was almost a comfort; a dark bird settling on her shoulder. We’re okay. she told herself, firmly. Cal’s guards would’ve woken us up if we weren’t. She sat up on one elbow and looked around.

Her room was undisturbed, including the tub. The fire in the hearth had burned down to dusty ashes. Gina bundled herself up in a voluminous bearskin and clutched it to her shoulders as she slid her feet onto the cold floor and padded across the room to investigate the dresser. The drawer held a tarnished hand mirror and a two-sided comb, which had been picked mostly clean apart from a few stubborn strands of someone else’s hair wound around the teeth. The face that greeted Gina in the mirror was pale and tousled. Honestly, she had expected worse - which was just as well when free makeup didn’t seem to be among the inn’s amenities.

She picked up the comb and hesitated. Even something as normal as combing her hair felt wrong now, like the world was trying to lull her into a false sense of security. She had to remind herself that they needed to meet an emperor today before she was able to start brushing her bed hair into submission.

Her clothes lay where she had dropped them the previous night, her city dress made semi-suitable for the snow around Whitebar by the cloak, socks and mittens that Cal had found for her before leaving. As she pulled the scratchy woolen socks up over her knees, Gina cocked an ear and listened for any sounds of activity in the corridor, but everything remained stubbornly, unnervingly tranquil. Huffing, she pulled the cloak round her shoulders and set off to look for the others.

As she stepped out there was the fortuitous sign that the area was undisturbed by any violence or chaos. However the eyes made by the attending guards before Calamity's door didn't promise anything of good character. Their eyes on Gina and the following gloomy sigh promised less than good. Not entirely surprised after the taciturn guards she had come up against at the castle, Gina decided on a question that they would have more difficulty avoiding.

“Are there any instructions from the marchioness?” she asked the stony-faced men either side of Cal and Panos’ door. “Does she want food brought?”

The two men looked at the door and then around the corridor awkwardly. Gina's questions were left unanswered.

Now before the door, Gina could hear the crying from inside. Pained, sobbing, but muffled cries faintly phased through the door. It was all too clear now why the guards were uncomfortable. From what she could hear, Gina could guess it was Panos.

Gina worried at her bottom lip, her empathy pulling her forward while her reason pulled her back. Don't put them in danger.

“Um...” she said, lamely, “I'm sorry...I'll go and get the others ready to leave...”

She turned awkwardly and hurried back up the corridor, towards Jeon's room.

Doctor Jeon Smythe & 'Melvin'

Jeon awoke with no more answers, sleep failing to grant the doctor any lost memories. The thermal heat packed into his sheets was tempting, asking him to stay in bed. The Zyan's brown hair lay in more disarray than he had it the night prior, nothing unusual from usually going to sleep.

Morning always seemed to come so suddenly.

"Room service," he orders, stifling a yawn, "Tea, Yorkshire Gold, hot, two sweetener tabs."

His command was met with silence. For a long moment, he laid there, luxuriating in the warmth, then cleared his throat. "Room service?"

Still, there was no acknowledging beep, or the sound of a cup being filled with tea. Great, they gave him a room with a broken dispenser. Or had he run out of compressed tea tablets? With a groan, feeling the pain from his side, he reluctantly flipped up the sheets and blankets and swung his feet to the floor.

"Hey!" he grumbled, shocked at the coldness. "Don't tell me the floor's broken too?"

The chill was waking him up. Why was he wearing robes in bed? And what kind of room has he checked into?

"What is this, a hobbit-themed love hotel?" he demanded, eyeing the decor. "Medbot? Where are you?"

"I'm afraid your medbot couldn't make it," spoke a sort of familiar voice, amused. "You're such hard work in the morning. Do you remember where you are?"

Jeon stared at the strange boy on the couch, and his memories (or rather the few he still had from yesterday) came flooding back.

"Oh," he sighed, shaking his head. "This wasn't a dream."

"I'm afraid not," 'Melvin' replied. He roused his raven drones, sending half to fly around to see anything unusual that might be going on while doing a scan of the neighboring rooms.

"So, no tea."

"Perhaps later, I think 'room service' hasn't arrived yet."

'Melvin' raven's found the area to be undisturbed. There had been no cruel trap, merely hierarchical power plays and inefficiency among Humans. Or, if there was to be a trap it was not as obvious as disrupting this place of rest and drink.

"Why don't you freshen up while I go to see how the others are doing?" the Probe Shell said, rising.

"Shouldn't that be my job?" Jeon asked dryly.

"You just woke up. Best to wash now while you can, we don't know what tomorrow will bring."

"I... ah, only have this one robe," he admitted, pulling on it.

"Not to worry, I made some arrangements," 'Melvin' said, producing a spare robe and underwear, which he brought over to the bed.

"Thank you," Jeon replied, surprise in his voice.

The bath which Jeon would have available was in a small room to the side but it was undisturbed and chilled after a night's neglect. If he wanted new water, warmed water, it'd have to be called from the inn's staff.

"Strange," The Probe shell said as they examined the bathtub. "After the fireplace, you'd think they'd have some magic glyph here to heat the water?"

Gina Wright, Doctor Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

There was a sudden knock at the door, soft but insistent.

“I'll take care of that,” Melvin replied, leaving Jeon in the bathroom and closing that door behind him.

It was Gina, looking slightly drawn, but dressed and alert as she glanced over her shoulder and slipped through the door. The hinges protested as she pushed it closed behind her.

“Melvin, do you still have the card?” she asked pensively. “I don't think Panos is okay.”

The Probe Shell scanned in Panos and Cal's direction as it produced its SmartCard. “What makes you think that?” it inquired as the results came back. “We wouldn't want to barge in again after last night.”

The others were important to understanding whatever this was they'd been dragged into, it reminded itself. It does not mean you are to be drawn into their domestic situations.

Melvin could see through thermal vision Panos leaning into Calamity's lap as she sat on the bed, holding around her waist as he sobbed. When the SmartCard came forth, the heartbroken crying came clearly through the means of communication.

Gina glanced at Melvin, and swallowed when the robot - plastiform - just stared levelly back at her. She shuffled over to the bed and perched on one corner of it.

“Hey...” she said gently, cupping the Tarot card as if it were made of fragile glass. “I’m sorry, we heard from outside...is there anything we can do to help?”

“Leave 'im be,” Jeon commented from behind the partially opened door bathroom, from which some splashing could be heard. The accent had crept back into his voice. “That there's a man under stress, more than 'is fair share, I'd bet. 'E needs ta get it out. From wot I've seen, you've all got signs of it, and I don'na think it's just from tryin' ta save a king from an assassin or rescuing 'is kingdom. Lord knows that should be enough right there.”

“Gina…” Calamity said with a voice of a whisper almost buried by Panos' muffled sobbing. “He's not well...it's about...what I said…” She spoke cautiously, as if trying to speak in code around Panos. If the young lady heard Jeon speak she didn't respond to it.

Gina laid the card down in her lap, her hands scrunching and unscrunching the material of her dress. Jeon was right, they were all under pressure - and Panos had reached his breaking point. Gina shivered as she remembered the previous night, the unsettling normality of her room that had allowed the previous few days to catch up with her. Poor Panos. How long would it be until her own dam burst, she wondered, and it all came slithering out of her, like ugly black tar.

“Okay.” she replied quietly into the card. “Take your time. I’ll see if I can get an update on our appointment. I’ll put some food in my room in case you want it.”

She tapped the card off, feeling rather wretched.

“Me losin' my memories is a bit of a blessin', I suppose,” Jeon shrugged, using a washcloth to scrub his pits. One thing he'd learned at the orphanage was you never get into a cold tub of water on a winter's day, just stay out and wash the important bits. “I don't remember what I did, so I'm not bollixed m'self fer doin' such a mad fool thing in da first place.”

“We didn’t do this on purpose.” Gina said, more sharply than she had meant to.

“Never said you did,” he sighed. “So how long ago did this all start?”

Gina had to think. The leaping across worlds made some of the days blur into each other. “Not even a week.” she said at last. It felt more like six years. “All we got was that note, telling us to help them, and the zodiac clues. I think this is the last one. Last world, last symbol.”

Jeon frowned, wondering if that meant the two would have to separate. Gina rubbed her eyes, and handed the card back to Melvin.

“Thank you,” the Probe Shell said gravely, slipping the card back into its pocket.

“Come on,” Gina rallied. “Let’s get some breakfast and see if anyone knows when the portal’s going to be ready.”

“I'll be a few minutes yet, although I won't mind iffen you leave the room first,” the doctor sighed. “Do they charge the bill or is it money out of pocket at meals, do you think?”

“I’ll put it on Cal’s tab.” Gina said, with a thin smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She rose from the edge of the bed and started back towards the door. “You coming, Melvin?”

“Certainly,” the Probe Shell answered, following Gina.

It gave the guards in front of Cal's door a look as it closed the door, then headed towards the main room.

“Any idea of what's going on?” 'Melvin' asked. “Outside, that is?”

“Not a clue.” Gina whispered back. “I'm going to ask the owner.”

In the main room, Melvin gave it a careful sweep, including the impossible glyph in the fireplace. Where did it get its power?

Panos' passing cries were lost as the pair entered into the front of the inn. Now that it was morning it was barren of guests, except a few of Calamity's guards who were sitting at the tables looking rather sour. They too did not look comfortable about the circumstances in Calamity and Panos' bedroom.

The aging innkeeper was walking among his tables, the final brown tips of his grey beard and thick hair shining off light from the magically powered firepit which had not weakened in the passing hours.

As he saw the two young people the man gave a cautious smile, waiting for them to speak.

“Morning.” Gina said, plastering on a smile. “Is there any news about the portal? Is it ready yet?”

“Not that we haven't been enjoying your... quaint inn,” 'Melvin' added with a smile. “The beds are very soft and warm. It's just the marchioness is on some rather urgent business.”

The Probe Shell ran a scan on everyone in the room, hoping to spot trouble before it started, including a chemical analysis of what people were eating and how it was affecting them. There was no trouble to find, but disappointment and confirmation that these times even with magic were more primitive. Without electricity or other readily available forms of power the level of mundane functionality was apparent all around the probe. No one had nothing of import, the food made of oatmeal and fruit identical to raspberries. It wouldn't be a surprise if everyone here was subclinically malnourished.

Gina could see the smile on the man was as placed upon as her own: the grieving marquis the elephant in the room. “Ah, you didn't hear that Thronehearth sent a messenger?”

“No.” said Gina, getting a sinking feeling. She crossed her hands behind her and leaned back against an empty table. “When? What did they say?”

The front door opened and Calamity's heavy hearted guards looked up. It was a young man in furs with a hood over his face.

It wasn’t until the door was closed behind him, the beating cold gone in an instant by the stewardship of the fireplace, that he revealed himself. Snow fell onto the wood at his feet and jade colored eyes searched around. Though he was in different clothes, the handsome suitor was unmistakable. He gasped when he saw Gina.

Gina mirrored his surprise. “Alfred?”

He clearly wanted to rush to her, but one of the guards grabbed lazily at the sword upon his table, giving the young man a cautionary hint. Stopped, Alfred stared at Gina with wounded concern.

“Gina, why are you out here?! I heard you left with the marchioness?!” A kind and sturdy hand reached in the young lady's direction.

“Yes, by her order.” Gina explained, hoping that Cal’s implicit authority would end the discussion there. “Are...are you alright? What are you doing here?”

Jeon chose this point to walk out of the corridor that lead to the rooms, noting the soldiers scattered around the room, the aging innkeeper, the man in furs who'd tracked in snow, Gina and 'Melvin'.

“Well, that was refreshing,” he beamed heartily. “I don't suppose there's any tea?”

The Probe Shell sighed, shaking its head.

“What?” the doctor demanded, confused. “There's no tea?”

After Gina's explanation the guards released their swords and returned to sour moods at their tables. Alfred rushed to stand in front of Gina, holding her at her shoulders. The young man looked concerned, and protective. It was as if he wished to come into the scene and save her, taking her away from all her problems. If only he could, Gina thought wryly.

“You shouldn't be here, I am not aware of what happened but when I woke up I heard you were gone.”

“You came all the way here?” Gina asked, still not quite believing it. Alfred, you noble idiot.

“Your father is very worried I am sure, and I am a poor Taylor son if I don't return you to his safety.” Each of his words were intended to be soothing while his fingers held a littler firmer onto Gina's flesh.

Gina tried very hard not to sigh at the poor boy. “You’re too sweet.” she said, letting Alfred’s hands slide down from her shoulders to her wrists. “But you’d be an even worse Taylor son if you made me break lady Sauver’s trust.”

She had to be careful with her words, surrounded as she was by Cal’s loyal retainers. She hoped that a pointed raise of her eyebrows would be enough to remind Alfred of the marchioness’ reputation when it came to those who defied her.

“Can anyone help?!” One of the merchants with tanner skin came rushing down from the hallway, holding his britches up by a sweaty hand, the fifty year old, chubby man searched around the front of the inn desperately.

Forcing a smile to his face, the innkeeper met eyes with the shocked man. “What's the matter?” he asked with a gruff voice.

“The woman...she's about to give birth.”

The innkeeper sighed. “Are you su-” From the back a woman's scream reached to their ears. “Ah shit, she's two weeks early.”

“You, Melvin. You had some medical supplies earlier. Still have them?” Jeon asked, turning towards the Probe Shell.

“I have a kit,” it responded, patting the satchel.

“Fuck! You promised no trouble!” the half-naked man scathingly lashed at the older business owner.

“Recriminations later,” Jeon scolded. “I can help, but I'm going to need hot water, lots of it. Clean cloths, preferably washed recently in hot water.”

Alfred looked on with a leer, the events reinforcing his beliefs as he reached for Gina’s hand. His larger touch held to her palm and fingers with a soft strength.

“Come. We can get teleportation back to our home.”

“I told you, I can’t.” Gina insisted. She glanced back over her shoulder, unnerved by the screaming. She didn’t remember seeing a pregnant woman among the merchants the previous night, but then she had been almost dead on her feet at the time. Either way, midwifery was far outside her range of expertise.

“Listen, lady Sauver’s trip will all be over and done with soon.” she tried to reassure Alfred, turning back to him and nodding as if she believed it. She could feel the zodiac symbols prickling the skin of her forearm. “You’re right though, dad must be so worried…” She chewed her lip for a moment. “Could you do one thing for me? Could you take a message home that I’m safe and I’ll be back as soon as I can?”

Gina bounced on her heels and gave Alfred a shamelessly pleading look. Go home, Alfred. she willed him, silently. Go back to where it’s warm and safe before you get killed trying to protect me.

“So, show me to the patient,” Jeon instructed, now in full doctor mode. The owner of the establishment rushed off down the hallway.

“I'll see what I can get.” the man answered Jeon breathlessly while he walked quickly. Alfred meanwhile was taken by Gina's stare, brushing away hair from her face while her eyes tried to convey her hopes of him leaving.

“Gina, Melvin,” Jeon summoned, then glanced at Alfred. “You best stay here for now.”

“I shall ask the Marchioness if I may stay.” the handsome young man smiled reassuringly. “If I am able, I will then ask someone to give the message, I promise.”

“Thank you.” Gina whispered with a smile - it was all she could do. As soon as Alfred had turned down the longhouse corridor to find Cal's room, however, she caught Melvin's eye, tapped her sleeve where she had kept her Tarot card the previous day, and gave a subtle shake of her head. She hoped that Alfred would have more sense than to try and force his way through Cal's guards.

“I'll, um, help the owner fetch and carry.” she said to Jeon as the alien doctor took charge. Midwifery might not be her speciality, but she hadn't finished asking questions of the innkeeper.

Cal's card beeped, and when she answered, Melvin relayed the message that Alfred was here and Gina said to not grant him permission to stay.

Through the sobbing, the Probe managed to deliver the message; repeating itself twice before Calamity put away her tarot card. As the half naked merchant brought Jeon into his room, Gina followed the older man to a supply closet. The room shelved many sheets, several washing buckets, and long cotton cloths she was quick to tell were used to dry with as the man grabbed them and handed them to her. He was grumbling but kept the content of his complaints to himself.

“You said a messenger came from Thronehearth?” Gina asked as she piled up a tottering armful of sheets and towels. “Who was it? What did they say?”

“His name is Theaobin, and he is somewhere in town. He's holding onto the message from the Emperor…” It looked as if that were all the man wanted to say, speaking with timid fear of the powerful man.

“Theaobin.” Gina repeated, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar name. She adjusted her grip on the towels. “Can you describe him for me? I expect the marchioness will want to meet him as soon as possible.”

“The most expensive man here. You'll see the gems if you even look his way.” A finger tapped on the outer ridge of his ear, “He got some Elf in him, ears a little dagger-like.” And in this fact, the innkeeper held suspicion as he leered cautiously.

“Thank you.” Gina nodded, balancing the last of the towels and sticking her toe round the door to pull it open for them. “I’m sure the marchioness will thank you too.”

Her smile waned as they headed back down the main corridor of the inn. Following the groaning, Gina also had to pass Panos' crying, making the intersection of the hallway a grim and primal place of human suffering. Leaving Panos’ sounds behind the teenager was able to cross the hallway with Alfred not noticing as he spoke with Calamity's guards.

“Can I have three breakfasts brought to my room, please?” Gina asked as she and the owner passed her door. It felt like a sad little gesture, but it was all she had been able to promise. “I’ll take them to the marchioness when she’s ready.”

Together, Gina and Jeon were left to see a half-naked woman in her mid twenties, soaked with sweat and heavily with child. Her alluring makeup was running down her cheeks and staining the pillows as she turned her head side to side with pain. Her legs were spread open, dress hiked to her waist and baring everything to the two new people into the room.

“I was to have a good time and now she's about to spill out her child!” the interrupted and flustered man explained to Jeon. “How long is this going to take?”

“As long as it takes,” the doctor said, glancing over to him. “It could be twenty minutes or two days from now, followed by a week's confinement while she recovers. I take it you're not the father? In that case, I suggest you leave the room.”

Gina blinked. Are you fucking kidding me? She had assumed, perhaps naively, that the older man had been pulling his clothes back on because the woman’s screams had woken him up. No wonder Alfred had sneered.

“Are we in a…?” she blurted, and just tapered off into a groan when she realised that the answer hardly mattered. She looked at Jeon instead. “What do you need me to do?”

“I don't have my MedBot,” Jeon sighed, then glanced to Gina, leaning in closely. “While I'm assisting with the delivery, I need to you keep her calm, but more importantly, alert me to any sudden changes. Even in my time, there remain risks.”

Under the violet brushes of eyeshadow, the woman's eyes opened to see the three people standing in the room, huffing for every breath. Her brown curls matted against her skin.

“Wh-...who are you?” she asked with a tone of fear.

“I am the doctor,” Jeon replied. “We are... travel companions of the marchioness. Well, I say travel companions, but in truth we are in her charge while she delivers us to the Emperor. The young man is my assistant, while the young lady has graciously volunteered to sit by you as you give birth.”

“What I wouldn't do right now for a sterile field generator or even some povidone-iodine antiseptic,” he sighed to Melvin. To his surprise, the Probe Shell fished out two brown plastic bottles.

“Why do you have this in your bag?” he demanded, taking hold of both.

“I believe in being prepared,” the Probe Shell provided.

The merchant had lingered, but with what he might have considered his part of the task done, he left with heavy sighs of disappointment. They couldn't be heard for long as the woman groaned again, the tone ringing with panic.

“WHY NOW?!” she cried, tossing her head back. 'Melvin' could sense her stress was elevating to dangerous levels via her biomarkers.

"Perhaps she needs a sedative," the Probe Shell suggested.

"No, not unless we need to do surgery," Jeon said. "We can't use any of the usual pain blockers, so we're going to have to find something we can use - like an analgesic!"

He smiled. The lecture on the history of medicine in his freshman year came back to him.

"We need morphine," he said, then turned towards the android.

"I got Vicodin," Melvin replied.

"Oh. Well. Yes....?"

Wordlessly, the Probe shell handed over a pill bottle.

Gina dumped her armful of towels at the foot of the bed and moved to get out of Jeon’s way. She hovered for a moment, gnawing her lip. She wasn’t qualified for any of this, and she was also fairly certain that helping this woman give birth had precisely fuck all to do with getting her friends home. And how long would it take? Her own mum had liked to tease that Gina had taken all night before finally deciding to come out. This could take hours...and the king won’t wait hours! But seeing the young lady in such obvious pain and distress…

She knelt down beside the head of the bed and offered the woman her hand to squeeze.

“It’s going to be alright.” she hushed, stroking the woman’s sweat-matted hair away from her forehead. The woman was barely older than Gina herself. Crazy. “You’re going to be fine. I just need you to breathe for me, okay? What’s your name?”

The young woman looked up to the teenager, bewildered. Though the hand wasn't rejected, in fact it was squeezed as another wave of shuddering pain and contractions surged.

"Marelinta..." she named herself, after taking a heaving breath in a moment of bodily calm.

“Hi Marelinta.” Gina replied. “I’m Georgina.”

“Take this,” Jeon said, producing a pill. “It will help with the pain.”

Marelinta's face grimaced at what Jeon produced. It was clear to the doctor that these people weren't used to seeing pills. It must look strange to her.

“What...what is that?” Marelinta turned her eyes back to Gina, more trust given to the girl than the lanky doctor and his 'assistant'.

“It’s medicine.” Gina explained. “You swallow it. It should take some of the pain away.” She looked around. “Melvin, can you get her some water or something to take it with?”

“Of course,” the Probe Shell responded, checking the room for a cup or glass that it might bring the water back in.

Odd that the woman didn't know what a pill was. Jeon's previous tenant, the assassin, held a public job as an apothecary. Certainly his shop was filled with various medicinal herbs and spices. Did these people not use prepared medicines? Or did the people use healers for even minor complaints like headaches and splinters?

This created a whole new dimension on the healer's shock when it casually began pulling out the shattered glass from its face after the battle - someone was taking care of themselves and leaving them out of it. If it was determined they weren't magical, it might lead to a strike among the healers.

Water was found, poured from a glass pitcher into a matching cup. Though Marelinta had fragments of reservations she followed the teenager's suggestion and swallowed down the pill. She flinched as pain freshly jabbed at her, head pulling back.

“Easy, easy.” Gina shushed. Sounding calm and in control was the best thing she could do right now, even though her head was pounding. “It’ll help, I promise. You’re going to be okay.”

This mother to be was in their care, what were they going to do?

“Melvin…” Gina said quietly, touching the boy-construct’s arm as he began to move away to help Jeon at the foot of the bed. “There’s a man in town with a message for Cal. Theaobin. The owner said he’s got pointy ears and he looks rich. We need someone to find him.”

"I see," the Probe Shell frowned. Clearly she wanted it to go find him and bring him back. Of course, the question is why didn't the man stay and deliver the message if it was that important?

Glancing back at Jeon, it sighed and took off the messenger bag. "I've got some basic stuff in here. Do try to stay out of trouble, the last time I let you out of my sight you wound up with your own spear sticking out of you."

"No spears here," the doctor retorted. "Go find that messenger and get back here as soon as you can."

Outside, two of the ravens watching over the inn took flight, already starting their search.

The woman on the bed whimpered from another spasm of pain, and squeezed Gina’s other hand hard enough to make her flinch.

“It’s okay Marelinta, I’m still here.” she said, turning back to the pregnant mother. “Just keep breathing. It’s going to be fine.”

Should she be lying down? Walking around? Crouching? She glanced towards Jeon, looking for some kind of direction.

"Oh yes, perfectly normal this," Jeon said reassuringly, wishing he had a room full of equipment to monitor patient and soon to be born infant. He smiled at Gina. "Try stuffing some pillows and blankets under her, it'll go better if she's on a slight incline."

"Now Marelinta, I'll let you know when it's time to push," he said. "Just try to relax, and this will be all over with soon enough."

[Minkasha]

Gina Wright, Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

A grueling half an hour passed. Gina and Jeon were caught in the drama of Marelinta's dawning into motherhood. Gina pacified the woman's fears, Jeon using a mix of primitive tools and advanced knowledge to help facilitate life's springing. Gina saw the power and pain of a woman's body, Jeon was able to witness the birth of a little girl in this far off and strange place.

The little girl was wiped clean, the screams ended and replaced with cries. The stress of the situation hardly had the time to fade before a new concern arrived: Calamity had summoned them.

Gina was still kneeling beside the bed, finding it difficult not to smile in spite of herself, when the guard appeared. She nodded acknowledgment, hoping that this meant Panos was feeling a little better.

“Is there anyone you want us to get for you?” she asked Marelinta, who was now lying with the newborn cradled against her chest.

“We'll try to check on you and your daughter again shortly,” Jeon added, packing up the supplies he found in Mevlin's bag. “For now, rest and let her nurse when she gets hungry.”

Marelinta didn't allow her eyes to peel off from her new daughter, the child named after the kind teenager at her side: Georgina. (Gina had been on the verge of objecting when she first heard it, but instead she had managed to stutter out an “Oh...wow...th-thank you…” before blushing scarlet and lapsing into silence.) Baby Georgina sank deeper into her mother's breast as the mother held her fondly.

“My cousin Holden…” she answered with a thin voice, tired by the whole ordeal.

Gina nodded and headed for the door, where she found the inn owner hovering, and so relayed the message. The man seemed to know who she was talking about even if Gina didn’t, because he jerked his head down sharply and hurried away.

Led by the resolutely stoic guard, Jeon and Gina retraced the longhouse corridor once more, Gina stopping briefly by her own room to collect the three plates of food that were going cold on the dresser where the innkeeper had left them for her.

“Do you need help with that?” Jeon frowned, turning.

“No, I’ve got it.” Gina reassured him. “I waited tables over summer.”

Her mum had suggested it rather than have her mooch around for the rest of the school holidays, and with her head still full of Austere and Them, Gina had agreed. To think, she had been feeling almost normal again before West Hills, and before this. Now she wasn’t even sure if she could trust normal ever again.

At least I can help. she thought, listening to the baby gurgling quietly in the far room.

With the three plates balanced on her forearms, she shuffled after Jeon and the guard as they entered the Marchioness and Marques' room. Panos was in a wretched position of pain, with his arms crossed over his head, legs bent and thighs held together tightly. Though he was quiet, unconscious, his process in becoming so was clearly a journey of terrible emotional turmoil and lassitude. Gina quickly backed into the door and pushed it shut behind them, so that the guards wouldn’t see or hear any more than they had to. Calamity had her arms crossed below her chest, glancing between Panos and the other two, dismayed.

“I don't know what to do...he told me more of what...happened.” A hand covered her mouth, the black-haired young lady reeling from more visceral details of the brutal act.

The warm, fuzzy feeling left in Gina’s stomach by the memory of Marelinta and her tiny baby fizzled. Her face fell with it, and she awkwardly slid the plates down onto a table so she could cross the room with free hands. “Oh I’m sorry Cal...” she said gently, cupping her hands around her friend’s upper arms. “I’m happy he trusts you enough to talk, but...fuck, that must have been hard...”

She glanced over at Panos, thinking that the young prince probably wouldn’t want to wake up to the rest of them seeing him like this, and noticed that he hadn’t stirred.

“You didn’t...you didn’t voice him, did you?”

“'Voice'?” Jeon interjected, confused. “What's this 'voice' thing?”

The question provoked a stressed and irate glance from Calamity at the doctor, but it was quickly withdrawn as she sighed and rubbed her forehead.

“I did.” she admitted to Gina, “Just...so he would rest. For some reason I had to do it twice...” The touches of weariness came from more than being Panos’ emotional support. “I don’t know what to do. He can’t continue anymore, not like this. If...I made him forget would he be better off?” Tears filled her eyes and she met Gina’s, “I don’t want to see another person who is reliant on us die.”

It was her last words that hit Gina the hardest. Neither of them wanted Panos to become another Baka, another Vahsi, another Nisha. Blood started to thud in Gina's temples. Cal's expression put immense pressure upon the United Kingdom girl, what was the right course of action?

“I…” Gina began, and immediately faltered. Yes, he probably would be better off. No, it wouldn't be right. She rubbed the back of her neck, uncomfortably, and turned back to look at the sleeping Panos. Then she looked at Cal. She'd be taking a risk too.

“I feel like we should ask him if he wants it…” Gina said at last. “And maybe me and Jeon should stay away; he'd probably hate knowing that we know...but Melvin needs to be close by, so he can stop you if you're going to hurt yourself...and if it works he should maybe take one of the stones, in case O'doln or someone else can tell.”

Mind you, she thought ruefully, if O'doln could sense the effect of Cal's magic on people, then they might be in for a whole world of pain when they got to Thronehearth.

She was hurt before? How was he supposed to treat anyone if they keep the information away from him?

Calamity looked to Gina with wounded incredulity.

“Would he say yes? He could hate me for asking.” The multiverse-leaping princess looked to the prince of their group, “But I will try. I have to.” The adolescent features crumbled into timid fear, yet the eyes held strength and a will to follow through.

Gina just wanted to hug her friend and not let go. “Listen, Cal...” she said quietly, “You know him best out of all of us. Much better than me. Trust your instincts on this one. I know you’ll do the right thing by him either way.”

“When this is over I want to forget it all…” The young lady gave a closed lipped smile somberly to Gina, “Or most of it.”

Amethyst eyes met Jeon's as she glanced at the doctor. “Oh, right. Speaking of memory...I have magic from my father's bloodline. I can...make people do things if I focus on my words.” There was no pride or hubris in what she shared. In fact, the truth of it made her look unsettled as she said it out loud that directly.

“So…” Jeon drawled slowly, “You could already use magic before winding up here?” Did that mean she could also work magic in his world?

“I see,” he said, eyeing her with a bit more respect. “The fact you do this reluctantly says volumes about your character. Is it possible that someone like myself can learn to do these things?”

Calamity looked back to Panos and shook her head.

“It is inherited from Fey blood.” The teenaged young lady walked over to the bed where the young lad lay in the slumber induced by her power. Kneeling at the bedside, black hair rested over her shoulders as her forehead laid down on the bedside.

“Stay close...please.” She asked as she waited for the two of them to leave.

“We will.” Gina promised, beckoning Jeon to follow. “Shout if you need us.”

Whether she chose to ask Panos or to keep him in comforting ignorance while she charmed him, Gina trusted her friend to do what was best.

Jeon followed Gina outside the door, closing it behind him then giving the guards a pleasant nod.

“Your friend is likely to still be in the common room,” he said. “It may be better if we wait in my room - with the door open, of course.”

“Sure.” Gina nodded gravely, the third breakfast slowly going cold in her hands.

“Let me help you with that,” Jeon said, offering his hands. This time Gina let him take it.

Once inside the room, Jeon put the things down on the table, then glanced around. “Where I'm from, the walls and furniture is what you would call 'bare', no decoration. The room is painted with holograms, allowing you to change the look of the walls and furniture in a moment. But this is an actual room....”

He paused. “This looks incredibly cluttered.”

Gina sat down and took a bite, wondering at the alien world she was getting only the tiniest glimpse into.

“Try not to talk about holograms and stuff while we’re here.” she suggested, breaking open the small loaf on the side of the plate and offering half to Jeon. “You’ll confuse people.”

“A little confusion now and then can lead to some interesting ideas,” Jeon replied, taking the offered bread.

'Melvin'

The robot in boy form was not able to find Theaobin quickly. As much as a wealthy dressed man might have stood out from the many in brown, fur rimmed winter garments, he wasn't spotted at all. The ravens saw only a mix of yurt and long house snow covered buildings with many people on foot about the town.

What may not have helped was 'Melvin' walking freely in thin robes and showing no distress about being in the snow. He earned a few eyebrow raises and no answers from the community. That was until he walked up to a girl about the age 'Melvin's' disguise was.

A pale girl with straw colored blonde hair and darker green eyes, 'Melvin' saw from her heating body and smile that she was experiencing attraction for its current form. Wearing a woven, closed lid basket, she looked to be carrying trade goods.

"How are you not cold?" the young lady asked Melvin while looking him up and down.
"A wizard cast some sort of warming spell on me a while ago," the Probe Shell says with a shoulder shrug. "Have you seen a tall man walking around in fine leathers?" The girl huffed.

"There's a lot of those" The annoyance couldn't have been more obvious, and yet she extended a hand. "You didn't tell me your name. Where are you from?" Again the green eyes looked over the boy, her heart rate subtly increasing while she continued to speak with him.

The Probe arched the puppet's right eyebrow, but didn't take her hand.

"The inn," 'Melvin' said, bowing its head slightly as he took a slow half-step back. "Before they sent me out, I was helping to deliver a baby and I've not had time to wash my hands first."

She did not offer her own name, despite recognizing that it was a stranger here. Clearly she expected the Probe Shell to recognize her. That marked her as important - or arrogant. Possibly (probably) both.

"They'll probably send the guards after me if I don't return soon," it added, backing away as it scanned the immediate area while the scout ravens over head wheeling gave 'Melvin' a literal bird-eye's view. If it darted towards one of the other inns at an angle away from the garish one, it would probably confuse anyone trying to find it.

"Please excuse me," the Probe Shell added with a slight bob of its head, an escape route mapped out in its head as it dashed off to the left. The girl followed. ‘Melvin’, through the bird contraptions, did see another gathering place - another longhouse where people entered many numbers. This one drew more than the Dead Drac.

“You won’t get in trouble if you’re with me!” She suggested while moving at his pace, “I want to know your name. What is it?”

'Melvin' stopped suddenly, frowning as it scanned the girl then the surrounding area.

"Why?" it asked, studying her curiously. "Why won't I get in trouble if I am with you? You do not know me, so how can you be sure? You have no idea who I am or why I am here - or do you?"

It reached out in an attempt to grab her wrist.

"We were kidnapped from our separate realities and brought here to occupy these bodies. Did you kill us in our own realm to bring us here? Are those souls that belong to these bodies dead now as well as a result of your meddling?"

"You have plunged us in the middle of a coup and a war," It went on, looming over her, "none of us is walking away unscathed by this. One of us is losing their mind as we speak, and I still bear injuries no healer of this world could even comprehend let alone heal. You declare us "mage born" when you know we have no magic and seek to separate us. Do you enjoy our suffering? Are we merely entertainment for you? Playthings?? Rats in a maze?"

'Melvin' paused, its tone implacable as it stared at her.

"Identify your species and your intentions. You will answer."

"You will answer."

The young girl looked horrified the further 'Melvin' went on questioning her. She looked bewildered, as if she struggled to understand all that had been said to her. A few passing adults were starting to glance their way as they walked on over snow crushed paths.

The Probe stared. She was well dressed and sure of herself, it was possible she was the daughter of some high ranking member of government. But the others had easily been moved into new bodies in this dimension, it had to face the possibility that nobody was as they seemed.

Silently, the Probe Shell spun on its heel and walked towards the longhouse. It may only be fooling a girl, or an intelligence who could do the impossible - and there was no way of telling unless it gave itself away. The girl didn't follow, 'Melvin' walking to a new business establishment, one which lacked any grotesque racially motivated murder scene in front of it. Instead hung a neat circular sign with a white ring and at its center a white bear head looking upright and to the right. Below dangling from this sign was another which said 'White Bear Inn'. Entering the White Bear Inn the robot wasn't the only one to do so as several men were entering just as it was. There were more merchants of several skin tones who were drinking in nice circular wooden tables. A few were gambling with games of dice, but there was a conduct to everything and a liveliness which the Dead Drak lacked. This in lacked a magical symbol before its fireplace, the inn keeper tossing in wood as 'Melvin' studied the area.

Among the gamblers the robot saw the Elf-blooded man. He was gambling and sipping a drink. His red hair was kept short except a thick braid of hair on the right side of his face. The man's nose was pierced with a silver ring, green eyes and bronzed skin brought out the color of his jade square studs. He was wearing robes with rectangular cuts of various following spiraling lines around and down the body. His ears did have a noticeable point to the outer cartilage and those who gambled with him did so with tense and timid expressions even as Theaobin smiled.

The Probe Shell did a scan of him, then strode up to the table.

"My lord," he bowed. "My lady the Marchioness was told you had a message for her. Would you please accompany me to see her?" Theaobin did not bother to give any expression or gesture of acknowledgement to 'Melvin', tossing the die again and smirking with amusement.

"Where is her seal? You haven't presented it to me. You aren't the first child to play pretend errand boy." He said cooly, tilting his head while watching another man at the table take the gambling risk.

And messengers were expected to wait.

The Probe Shell shrugged.

"I'll let her know that you are occupied," 'Melvin' stated flatly, unconcerned. It took a couple of steps back, then headed towards the door as it instructed one of the crows outside as to who the target was and orders to follow them.

It compared its scan of Theaobin with that of the girl. Perhaps they were related? It would not be surprising with how events had turned out previously. Theobin's physiology revealed that his proportions were slightly longer yet symmetrical. To the naked eye it would be imperceptible, but it was also shared that this man wasn't entirely Human.

The Probe began running comparisons on all the beings it had scanned previously, looking for a match. Perhaps if it could find one, it would know what it was dealing with, here.

'Melvin' also kept a wary eye out for the girl it had confronted. It doubted even its questions would thwart her interest. Not seeing her, however, it decided to take an evasive route back to the inn.

Gina Wright, Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

If Gina was wanting a quick solution to the inner turmoil of Panos, she wasn't getting it. Gina and the others were left to wait. Ten minutes of awkward silence as a girl from early twenty first century Earth waited with an alien doctor, trying to swallow down food she wasn’t hungry for and listening tensely for some signal from Cal’s room. There wasn't much to talk about between the teenager and man more than twice her age and technological revolutions - at least, not when there was a chance the rest of the inn could overhear them. When the robot-in-boy guise returned, Gina was almost grateful for the distraction.

“Did you find him?” she asked Melvin.

"He brushed me off," the Probe shell replied. "As I didn't come bearing the Marchioness' seal, he didn't believe I was sent on her behalf."

However there was a pounding on the door frame. "Is there a little bastard in here?" A man's voice angrily asked.

Gina flinched, shocked by how violently the sudden noise set her heart racing. She swallowed and gritted her teeth.

Melvin glared at Jeon.

"I was gone a half hour! What did you do?" it whispered furiously.

"Me?" Jeon denied, shaking his head. "I've been sitting here with Gina! What did you do?"

"I'm looking for the dead lad who thought it smart enough to harangue my daughter! Get out here, now." The man's voice through the ajar door sounded as if there was no room for compromise.

"Oh. Sorry Jeon, I think this one is for me," 'Melvin' smiled. Pockets formed within the synthetic flesh of the probe shell, filling with warmed preserved blood. This was probably going to get messy.

"Get out of sight," the doctor scowled, gesturing for Melvin to back away from the door. "I'll deal with this, but with today's surprises, I want to make it clear that whatever happens, neither one of you is ta kill this man, even by accident. Is that understood?"

Gina glanced at Melvin, who seemed unconcerned, and hurriedly tiptoed to the wall near the door - out of sight from the entrance, but close enough to hear and react if needed.

Striding over to the ajar door, Jeon firmly planted his leg behind it before pulling it open slightly.

"Shut it!" he ordered. "That's the Marchioness' guards down the hall and the last thing she needs right now is some damn fool bellowin' his head off!"

"Now what's brought you screamin' bloody murder on my doorstep?" he demanded. "You're seekin' some boy for the high crime of talking to a girl, did I hear you right? What did he say to her?"

Jeon was made painfully aware that the guards he had tried to threaten this man with apparently gave him their blessing, for they were standing beside him, appearing as angry as he was.

The man in question was six feet tall, graying in middle age with whips of blonde remaining held back by a copper hair ring. He was fit, clearly a very dangerous and well trained warrior. Faded scars covered his face and the exposed skin Jeon could see of the neck.

"This is Stror, show your respects!" Though Jeon had gotten some social clout from his 'heroic' actions in the prior battle, it was still challenged by those who knew this warrior before him. Even Calamity's men held him highly. He helped himself in by pushing open the door, the thin doctor feeling the door stab into his foot and then dislodge his position to force him a step back. The guards only continued to watch with crossed arms.

Gina glanced at the opened door and hoped for once that Cal and Panos wouldn’t pick this moment to emerge from their room. Stror seemed like another ally of the marchioness who they would need to pretend to know - maybe even a useful one if they could only calm him down. But there seemed to be little chance of that in the moment. He was a man made fully in the image of Calamity Sauver: dark with rage and violence.

"Who are you and where's the lad? Is he your son? Did you raise him to be such a pissant?" the man called Stror challenged, growling through rough, cracked, teeth.

"His name's Jeon and he's a hero too," 'Melvin' said, stepping out before Jeon could respond, hanging his head. "He closed a Draconian portal, cutting off their forces who were attacking the Marchioness, killed their wizard. He's still a bit hazy on details, the wizard struck at him with lightning just before he got run through. Amazing he survived, really."

"He rescued me at grave risk to himself and made me his apprentice. When I was trying to get him help after the battle, a man threw a glass at my face and I had several large shards stuck in it. Ask them if you don't believe me," he said, waving his hand at the guards beside hm

"Melvin...." Jeon began.

"It's alright master," 'Melvin' replied. "When I was running the errand for the Marchioness, there was a girl who I asked her if she'd seen Lord Theaobin. She was cross with me, I asked her to excuse me but she kept running after me, demanding to know my name although she never told me hers."

'Melvin' paused, looking up at Stror. "I was afraid, sir. I didn't know why she was following me, others have been plotting against the Marchioness, I didn't know what to do."

The Probe Shell closed its eyes, turning its head to offer up its right cheek as it tensed up for a punch to its face. It was a pose it had seen a few times watching over Jeon in the orphanage.

Gina held her breath, her back against the cold wall. Even though Melvin seemed to know what he was doing - He’s a cyborg, right? He probably won’t even feel it? - her mind was still racing for something, anything that would halt Stror before he beat what looked like a ten-year-old boy to a bloody pulp.

Sir, surely you wouldn’t strike this boy in front of a woman? Yeah, right. At best she’d commute Melvin’s sentence to being beaten up outside instead. Gina chewed her tongue, fists balled against the wall behind her back.

She didn’t look at Stror. Everyone else was watching Stror. She watched the guards instead, and the corridor behind them. She told herself that she was keeping lookout. The warrior hero was calculating through seething anger what to do to 'Melvin', knuckles cracking while he closed and open his hands slowly.

"You laid your hands on my daughter." he bent down and grasped the boy by the throat to lift him with the strength pure and undiluted by comfortable society. Stror looked to be a man who knew winter, and war: he knew suffering. He squeezed while he held on easily. The guards glared at the boy, only one of them looking insecure at the scene before him. "I hear you're one of our Marchioness' guests. You're going to beg for her apology." He smirked, spitefully enjoying his suggestion. 'Melvin's' feet were left to dangle many feet from the air.

"No," the Probe Shell managed to rasp out, weakly grasping the man's wrist to pull itself up. It had to be careful - if it over-exerted itself, the man's wrist would be crushed - and that would be harder to ignore than when it pulled the glass out of its face.

"Do this, and know no one will dare approach your daughter ever again," Jeon warned heatedly. "He was doing his duty, that's what they'll remember, and was beaten to a pulp for it. Does your daughter need suffer for your pride?"

Gina swallowed as Jeon and Melvin pretended to be suitably horrified by getting the bloodthirsty marchioness involved. It was as good a chance as they were likely to get.

“I’ll...inform the marchioness, sir.” she quavered, in a small voice. Better me then you. She practically fled the room, pausing briefly in the corridor outside to touch the shoulder of the one guard who had looked uneasy.

“Help me.” she pleaded him in a whisper. “I’m new to the borders, who’s Stror to the marchioness?”

The man frowned as the situation continued, dancing his eyes between the conflict and Gina.

"Stror is our greatest war veteran, he fought with the Marchioness' parents and lived!" The jolt of pride pulled him to look back at the man as he held the boy longer. Gina pressed her palms together and mouthed Thankyou! before running to Cal’s door. Before she knocked she put her ear to the wood, not wanting to distract Cal if she was still halfway through the process. Though unable to hear words, she did catch the sounds of her friend crying.

Stror coughed, tossing the boy without focus which sent 'Melvin to impact against the door and roll on the ground as the treasured veteran seized into a fit and gripped against the doorframe for support. Outside Gina paused again, flinching at the thump of Melvin hitting the floor. Jeon’s a doctor. she remembered. Maybe that would be enough to get back on the dangerous veteran’s good side.

"You!" Jeon ordered, pointing to the guard on Stror's right as he strode forward, "Brace him in case he falls! And you, go back and guard the Marchioness' door. Someone may used this as an opportunity to attack."

While the guards were antagonistic against Jeon they fell in line to his words now. Gina saw a man looking down at her as he took post at his leader's door. He shook his head gravely as Gina put her hand on the door handle, lips drawn into a tight line. Maybe he had heard the crying too. Hopefully he would think it was just Panos. Gina could only nod in silent acquiescence and step back. Behind her, Jeon had hurried to Stror’s side.

"Stror, can you hear me?" he demanded, checking the warrior's pupils. "Do you know if he's had these before?"

The 'Probe Shell' rose, scanning Stror in the doorway, looking for abnormalities in his brain and body. Stror's dilated eyes kept to the ground, his fit unrelenting as the coughing increased its jagged utterance. The brawny young man holding him at he shoulders looked at Jeon. "Ever since The Battle of the Eastern Hoard he's had this..." He trailed with the memory or understanding being painful to recall. Though his manner of speech suggested it was a well known event, something Jeon should already know.

"Well?" Jeon snapped, staring at the confusion and doubt in the guard's eyes. "I do a lot of traveling in my line of work, so I'm often the last to hear about things. Everyone I meet on my return is talking about what happened yesterday, not last month. What happened at that battle?"

'Melvin' could see the man had terrible scar tissue riddling his lungs. He had been horribly poisoned by an air toxin at some point in his life as the scars riddled the trachea, bronchi and to the more narrow channels.

"It's his lungs," Melvin said.

"Very good," Jeon replied. "I'm going to need a table, a large bowl, a pitcher of hot water, and a towel. I think the dry air is affecting him as he's been over-exerting himself."

Stror's strong hands pawed at the doorframe and held tight. The great power and command of his figure and presence were equal the visible pain cull his capability. His admirers stood stupefied.

"This is its worst!" One of the men exclaimed while watching the aging blonde shake while trying to delay his next cough, water in the eyes.

"Does your cough come up bloody at times?" Jeon asked, concerned. Just what was the man exposed to out on that battlefield?

"What are you doing? Help him and get a fucking table!" The guard at the door yelled at the group paused next to their war hero. They quickly scurried.

"And tea! With honey!" he yelled after them. "The heat should help you take in the moisture, while the honey will coat and soothe."

“Towels.” Gina piped up from outside. “Right.” She hurried off in the direction of her own room.

"Yes, thank you!" Jeon called out after Gina.

As soon as she was inside and out of sight of the hall, she slid the edge of Melvin’s tarot card out of her sleeve and tapped it.

“Cal?” she whispered as she tucked the card away again, stooping beside the bath and gathering up the towel she had neglected to use the previous night. “Are you okay? What’s happened?” Calamity's crying came out clearer as she responded with her end of the line.

"I tried to talk with Panos, telling him what we could do because of what happened to him...He tried to kill himself by biting his tongue! I had to command him to stop and...and things got out of control..."

Gina felt her head starting to spin. “How?” she whispered. “Are you...is he...?” If she was worried of his death, for now, she felt her innate connection to Panos. With jagged recollection Vashi's and Baka's deaths had come with a terrible severing she did not feel with who she was concerned for.

"He is okay, he punctured it a little..." Calamity was panting, her heavier breathing faint but noticeable.

Gina licked her lips, clutching the towels to her chest. "Can you both still meet the king?"

The Probe shell scowled as it listened in. Good thing it was winter, Panos could suckle on an icicle while his tongue healed from its puncture, but maybe a styptic swab would be better to stop the bleeding. The pain would be sharp but fade quickly.

"I will have to. I don't know what will happen when he wakes up. I don't know what I did...exactly." The guilt and pain color her voice to becoming a vivid warning of her desire to weep.

Gina’s insides crumpled in sympathy. “We’ll work something out.” she said, as reassuringly as she could manage. “I’m sure Melvin can help.”

She glanced at the door.

“I need to go. We’re helping Stror at the moment, he’s a war hero who knew your parents. If you can’t put your marchioness face on right now, just tell the guard through the door that you want to see us in your room, okay?”

She bit her lip, tapped off the card and scurried for the door.

"I need hot water and a basin," 'Melvin' told the innkeeper. "It's an emergency."

Meanwhile Jeon saw a narrow dining table presented but Stror was in the way, gripping the wood of the doorframe to the point some cracked under his power. His leaking eyes glared at Jeon, nodding his head yes. The men set the table down in the middle of the hallway, looking at one another and unsure how to proceed as it seemed none of them wanted to move their war hero.

"He'll need a chair. Where's that basin and the hot water?" Jeon growled.

'Melvin' could see the older man was already hurrying for such requests by the provoking of Calamity's guard. He was already pouring hot water from the large, magically empowered, fireplace into a metal container with handles. The guard took hold, ignoring the patrons staring from their tables.

With a heavy clank a man at the summoned table ran to one of the rooms and grabbed from it a chair. Another rushed in to bring the tea to Jeon, the hallway becoming a rapid makeshift care center. It had clear line of vision to those in the front of the longhouse, people unable to help but stare.

“Towels.” Gina said briskly as she reappeared, dropping an armful of them on the table next to Jeon.

"Thank you," Jeon smiled, talking the tea.

"Drink the tea slowly," Jeon ordered Stror. "It'll help to open up those lungs and to ease your cough. Then when you're ready, we'll move you to the table and let you breathe in steam for a bit."

"Melvin, do you have any eucalyptus or peppermint oil in your kit?" the doctor demanded.

"I have both," it replied. "Are you sure you don't want anything... stronger?"

"Let's start this carefully and elevate as needed," Jeon responded as the requested oils appeared from the medical kit. Though there was pride to wrestle with, the powerful veteran did take the tea in hand. However the fits were unforgiving, making his hand shaky and instead of a gradual swallowing he gulped the hot fluids. The guards nearby gasped as he fell to a knee against the doorframe and sucked in air.

"Take it easy," Jeon said, coming down to help him up. "I don't suppose if any of you know if there's a sauna here in this village?"

For a much of such power, he was reduced to horrid physical weakness by the cruelties of a war unseen by the Multiverse Travelers. His hacks lessened to quiet huffs and spouts of air but he needed more or the agitation would build into searing coughing once more.

"Let's get him over to the table," Jeon told the guard holding onto the other side. "We need to ease his breathing more. Ready?"

[Minkasha]

Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

The men around did not look eager, staring at the man half raised to standing. Stror glared at everyone around him, shoving Jeon off him. "I could break every damn bone in your body, I don't need your mothering." He scoffed, dropping the tea cup onto the ground and trying to stand upright all on his own. His posture shaking despite his best efforts.

A man reached out to grab his shoulder, trying to guide him to the table but it was met with a shove as well. "Ack!" The stressful breathing cut him internally and a pained face showed despite himself. He was like a cornered animal, but he wasn't running away either. The man was in need but too proud to accept it.

If he was in his time and place, they could give him medicines to help stabilize him while new lungs were cloned for him, then put him on a bypass machine during surgery. Jeon scowled, his fists balling up in frustration. No organ cloning or bypass machines here.

He waved 'Melvin' over. "Without my med.... well, I feel naked without it. I don't suppose you've got anything in your bag to treat this?" he asked softly.

The probe shell glanced at the stubborn warrior and sighed. It could bring the hero inside its surgery and treat him there, but an instant miracle would surely be noticed. Or it could prepare a 5-day nanite treatment course, but the man would likely take them all at once. And once again it would be noticed. And if he got noticed, they would be more exposed and others would become more determined to make them into 'wizards'.

'Melvin' shook its head, speaking a little louder so he could be heard. "The monks would make a herbal tea - mint, magnolia flower, and eucalyptus. But if your potassium was low...."

"Yes. If he has a lot of attacks like this, it would be low. Fruits and veggies would help, but it's winter here."

"They may have dates or raisins," 'Melvin' replied, then glanced up at the doctor. "Is that the right answer?"

"Yes. Even pickled beets would help him if they don't have fresh tucked away someplace. Think you could make up the monk's tea blend?"

"Yes, master."

The fall from his grace was becoming a burden Stror couldn't continue for his body eased but also slumped over. Again the soldiers tried to move him, but this time were able to as he was without strength to fight.

The lost face behind helmets stared at Jeon.

"I...think he liked that tea..." One of the mumbled, rushing off in the direction of the innkeeper.

"I think what he needs is to be someplace that's warmer, more humid," the Probe Shell said. "Or failing that, a sauna."

"I must confess, I'm rather curious as to why healers were unable to treat his lung injuries?" Jeon asks softly. "We know they do internal injuries, so why is this different?"

"Too much damage?"

"Possible, but why can't they work in tandem or a series of treatments?"

"Perhaps they're doing that now?"

"But why here? This is a terrible place for someone with lungs in that sort of condition."

"Perhaps he likes it here?"

Jeon paused, then shrugged.

"Well, there is that. But warmth and some humidity in the air would do him wonders between such treatments."

The remaining men, now having lowered their war hero down onto the table looked at Jeon and Melvin with offended agitation. The candidness of their conversation wasn't welcomed by those who they were helping.

"This is his homeland. He didn't sacrifice himself to that magic to live elsewhere, sir" One of them told Jeon, holding back much anger in the process.

Jeon paused, looking over at the man who spoke, then scan the rest of the room before returning to the speaker.

"Sir," he said deliberately, "I am a doctor...."

"Apothecary," interjected 'Melvin'.

"Apothecary then," Jeon continued smoothly, shooting the 'boy' an irritating glance. "It is my profession to treat my patients and to do what I can to end or at least reduce their suffering. And it's clear to me that this man is, in fact, suffering as a result of his injuries. Do you deny this? Do any of you here deny this?"

He let his eyes sweep the room.

"We can see that Stror is a proud, noble warrior, and what the magic has done to his body. What my apprentice and myself are discussing is the best possible care for Stror," he stated, bowing his head at the man.

"Forgive me if I am wrong, but I hope that you feel as I do that for all his sacrifices, whatever relief that can be provided for him, should be considered?"

This approach paralyzed much of the friction, the soldiers shifting from hip to hip. Stror laid on the table with a grimly frustrated expression to his face and restless body language.

"I did not give my all to lose my homeland, do what you can and be done with it." he scoffed, wielding his pride as firmly as the situation allowed him to.

"If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, then the mountain must go to Mohammed," the Probe Shell sighed, looking up at Jeon, who winced at the misquote.

"Don't do that," he said, shaking his head, then glanced up, considering the ceiling. "Well, I see two possibilities. The far more unlikely one is a natural hot spring. They like volcanic areas, so if there's a volcano near by, we're in luck."

He peered around the room. "Anyone know what a volcano is?"

"If there's no hot spring close by, then we'll have to try something else - a sauna. Anyone know what a sauna is or where one can be found?"

The men at first and then were agitated as question after question was loomed over their heads.

"Yes there is Mount Feris." Running quickly but with ridged stiffness a guard cautiously brings the hasty tea to the lowered warrior on the table. "Why are you not doing anything else? We got him on the table, sir" Another prod Jeon with impatience.

Why were people always so impatient?

"What would you have me do?" Jeon asked as he threw up his hands, staring at the man who delivered the next cup of tea. "Lay Stror on his back and cut a hole into his throat so he can breathe through a tube? Is that what you want me to do with him?"

"Surely in your profession you know there are times you must wait? Well, now is one of those times," Jeon replied, letting his hands drop to his side. "Drinking the tea is helping him to recover. I know it's only temporary relief, but I can't properly examine him until he's had a chance to stabilize."

Meanwhile, the probe shell began examining the structural integrity of the building, to spot weaknesses it could exploit should it be necessary to extract Jeon from the upset guards. The building was constructed by stone walls and wooden ceilings, it was all painfully primitive compared to what the robot was accustom to. There were minute cracks everywhere, with the strength it had, it could fell a wall if focused upon the weaknesses.

The soldiers huffed, or crossed their arms. One walked in a frustrated circle. "If your boy knew how to behave, none of this would have happened." reasoned one of them bitterly.

"Then I would have been left unaware of Stror's current condition," Jeon pointed out.

"I got shards of glass in my face when I asked for a blacksmith's help. I got accused of using 'magic' when I pulled those same glass shards out myself. I tried to avoid his daughter," 'Melvin' sighs, staring at Stror, "He shows up to beat me to a pulp."

"I should stop trying to help people."

"Melvin!" Jeon rebuked, but now the others were staring at him instead.

"Then what good would you be for, apothecary? Maybe we all should stop doing what we ought to because it's hard." mocked one of the gruffer soldiers, made emotional by the exchange and the state of their star-studded companion. Stror reached up from the table and grabbed the man's wrist. Apparently it was with enough strength to make the man gasp in pain.

"Shut it, this is becoming a bunch of bitching and I'm tired of it." The weathered man commanded, finally ending the back and forth with his own authority earned by merit and peaked prowess. "I can't tolerate you but you helped me." the middle aged warrior admitted from his laying position, looking down at Jeon. "Do what you need to and I hope we'll not meet again."

"Melvin, we'll talk about this later. Give me a...." Jeon paused, floundering. He was going to have to depend on ancient medtech. "...A stethoscope, a tongue depressor - and a head mirror."

Reaching into its satchel, the probe shell produced the requested items and handed them over.

"Now, write up that tea blend your monk friends used to use and sketch out a small sauna for him, would you?" Jeon asked before turning to Skror. "Pick up your tea and follow me to my room so we can conduct this check up privately."

Stror pushed himself up and gradually stood, once again allowing the full presence of his powerful body grip the area. The men looked less and less with anger than confusion at Jeon and cautious study of their leader.

The graying blonde walked after the medical expert, eyes staring into the back of Jeon's skull.

Jeon paused at the doorway to look back into the main room.

"Someone fetch a pot of tea, we may need a few cups. And don't forget to knock!"

"Come in," he said, waving Stror inside. "I have some questions before we start the examination, it'll better help me to evaluate your current condition."

Closing the door after him, Jeon waved him to a seat. "Now, the first lesson they drilled into us is to never assume. So are you currently under the care of a doctor or healer?"

"What exactly happened to you on that day you received this injury? I need full details, don't assume I know what happened, you are the best source." The few places to sit were either a dark wood chair at a small table or the bed. The veteran lowered himself upon the chair, leaning forward, arms on the table and eyes down to it before he straightened himself up with a deep breath.

"There is a woman I see when she visits from Whitemantle, she heals what she is able. But it is magic and always comes back" He stared off into a stone wall, the weight of his experience as close to a literal curse as Jeon had ever encountered in his medical career. When Jeon inquired about the injuring event, Stror looked annoyed.

The scar across his cheek, diagonal his nose bridge and the slash at the sight side of the neck already told some story without him speaking.

"Five years ago, in Linemlya the Orcs were taking the land. Those easterners don't fucking know how to raise a sword, they needed us or the kingdom was going to fall and the empire would be open to attack. I was serving the Marquess. It was raining...everything felt hot, blue fire everywhere...there was a horde of them, like a pile of green flesh knocking down the tree line" It was a story he had told again and again, first starting with vigor and trailing into lethargy. The downfall repeating in his mind once more, "The fire released a smoke that fell on us, burning us...and the Orcs charged us then. In the blue-black we fought them off, walls of bodies and the smoke didn't end until the last of them was culled. I was coughing blood but I survived...but the battle was to stay with me, I learned...Is that what you wanted?" Stror asked, irate and the walls of honor and self protection put back into place.

"Yes, thank you," Jeon said grimly, then sighed, holding up the stethoscope. "Please strip to the waist, I'd like to listen to your lungs." Stror now takes notice of the item in the doctor's hands and his mood shifts to one of caution.

"What is that?" his voice challenges, armed against the unknown.

"It's a listening device called a stethoscope," Jeon replied. "I use it to listen to your lungs and heart. People often complain that the chest piece is cold, but it's harmless."

"Since the problem is with your lungs, this will allow me to listen to the noises they make when you breathe." Stror kept stiffly stoic, staring with hesitation upon it and Jeon. However, there was no resistance. Layer by layer the man peeled off his winter clothing, revealing a fit body with only a thin layer of weight gained by living a life not as vigorous as his youthful military days.

When the stethoscope was maneuvered closer to his chest, Stror's hand quickly held the Zyan's wrist, stopping the medical device inchers from pale flesh.

"Why are you doing this? Why aren't you a warrior?"

"Why aren't I a warrior?" Jeon repeated. "You were strong and good with weapons, so you faced enemies armed with sword and magic. In a way, you are lucky, as you can see your enemy."

"My enemy is death. The battlefield is my patients, who come to me suffering from injury, disease, or old age. For weapons I have drugs that can relieve pain in the right proportions - or kill. My scalpel is smaller than any blade you carried, but no less deadly. And while I may win the battle, in the long run, I shall lose the war - not once, not twice, but many times. In truth, I already have many times. All I can do is a delaying action, to keep Death as far away from my patients as possible, as long as I am able."

"So, may I fight this battle?" Though he'd never articulate it, there was a surrender in the man's eyes. A flair of his nostrils and the wrist was released. Breathing, the shoulders slouched and Stror sat still, waiting for the doctor to fight his battle.

In the main room, the Probe Shell sat drawing, but the Probe was pleased by the doctor's speech, having been there many times beside him.

"Like I said, this will feel cold as first," Jeon warned, "but it should warm up quickly."

Pressing the chest piece on the man's chest, just over his heart, he began his examination. The pulse was quickened, not to such rapidity that the doctor could expect a full fight or flight activation of his body, but he could easily predict a stress response. Examinations did have a way of making patients anxious, the stress on the warrior's face exuding it.

As Jeon traveled to the lungs, the scratchy drawing of oxygen could make him cringe: he could hear the damage. Though he was fit man in his middle age, his lungs sounded older, scarred to a degree which aged them. As the test breaths continued, Stror was able to complete with adequate breathe, but the Zyan had right to question the man's long term stamina in high intensity situations.

"That isn't cold" The toned father retorted with a stiff upper lip, pride to buck the vulnerability.

"Well, that's good, isn't it? Mind you, when I was in school it got out that my insides are quite a bit different so my classmates would come over all the time to have a listen. All those cold little disks pressing against my chest, made me jump every time," Jeon shivered, reminiscing. "Then, of course, the professors decided I'd make a great prop for their lecture on human oddities so they'd bring me in to this big lecture hall that was absolutely freezing, me with my shirt off, of course, and then have all those first years come up afterwards and get a listen. Got bloody annoying."

He paused, putting down the stethoscope and looked Stror right in the eyes. "Best have a seat for this." And he resumes once the man had lowered himself.

"So, what do you know about oysters? Don't know if you seen any up here, but you'll find fresh water ones in rivers and streams, and of course salt water one in the oceans. Some like to shuck the shells open and swallow the whole slimy mess down in the belief it'll help with the ladies later."

"Well," he shrugged with a grin, "there is some truth to that, but mostly it's marketing. Get told something often enough, people start to believe it."

"The thing is, sometimes when you open up the oyster, there's a pearl or two inside," he paused. "So this poor thing is stuck down there on the bottom and sucks in some water to breathe and to get a bit to eat, and it gets this nasty bit of grit with it. And it gets stuck in there, just irritating the hell out of the poor oyster, so it starts painting it with this stuff to get rid of the edges - but it doesn't stop painting it so eventually you wind up with a pearl."

He paused, looking at Stror. "The reason I'm telling you all this, is because we do something like that as well, just not as pretty. Do you use coal around here? Well, when the miners go and dig it up, there's quite a bit of dust that gets into the air - and some of that gets sucked into their lungs - not unlike that magic smoke you were breathing in while fighting the Orcs."

"So while it was keeping you from breathing in clean air, you got tiny bits of grit of whatever they were burning to make that smoke down in your lungs where they got tangled up in there, ripping a bunch of tiny holes that make it harder to breathe. So your lungs tries to cover them up - and that makes your lungs heavier. But that's not it, I'm afraid."

"When miners get coal dust trapped in their lungs, their lungs start turning black and the cells nearest the trap dust begin to get sick, becoming cancerous - growing oddly, and not letting you breathe well. Meanwhile, that cancer begins to spread to the rest of the body, making other organs sick until the body can't go on any more."

"You're a warrior, Stror," Jeon added, "And I know you want the unvarnished truth of what you're facing here. That grit caught in your lungs is giving you a magical cancer. The healer sees it, I'm sure, and they can reduce the cancer so it's easier to breathe, but I bet they can't see the grit inside much less get it out, so the cancer keeps coming back."

"Short of magically growing you a new pair of lungs, which, to be honest, I don't know if they can do that, your life will continue like this. The healer will roll back the cancer, you'll feel better for a while, then everything will slowly get worse until the next time you see your healer and all the while it'll take a toll on your body."

"Now, you're still strong and vigorous, so you're likely to have a long life despite the cancer. The sauna and the herbal tea Melvin is writing up for you will help to ease your suffering, but it's not a cure."

"Do you have any questions?" Though Stror had flaunted that he felt no cold from Jeon's stethoscope but as Jeon explained what was taking place the warrior had drawn back several times. By the end the doctor's hand was slapped away from the man's chest as the fighter stood.

Huffing heavily, Stror glances side to side, trying to process what he's been told. "We're done" The man flatly delivers before dressing himself as he leaves the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Jeon alone.

Melvin had already bundled up the papers on how to build a sauna and the herbal tea blend for the warrior.

It glanced back as it heard the door and slipped quietly out of its chair, ready to present them to the warrior.

One-in-ten odds that Stror would strike at the probe shell, but he was more likely to leave, quietly. Either way, the Probe was likely to have a visit by the man's daughter again. Stror's heavy steps weighed on the wood of the longhouse, the offer snatched and he peered onto the documents. He seemed unnerved by what he was reading, the technical details of the construction of a sauna being what kept his eyes busy.

Despite himself Stror returned his vision onto the youth half his height. "How do you know all of this?" It bypassed his prejudices, and frustrations. For a moment 'Melvin' had a psychological opening to the prized war veteran.

"That is not the question you should be asking," the probe shell said, locking eye contact with the warrior, "But I'll answer it. When I was small, I lost my parents in a distant land called 'Zhong-guo'. Not knowing what to do with me, the people there took me up to this place of wise men and other orphaned boys."

"There was not much you could do there except work, train, and read," 'Melvin' shrugged. "So I did a lot of it. One of the wise men there could speak with me, so he became my master. He tended the herb garden there and would make up medicines. Sometimes we take them down to the village, and we would build these saunas for the people who needed them in winter." 'Melvin' successfully threw off the fighter's scent, a local hero also limited in his geographical knowledge.

"Explains why you look like a pushover. You don't have the training. When you want to replace the attitude with some discipline, find me boy. And stay away from my daughter" With the final warning he walked around the robot to go down the hallway, the loitering guards following him with fanfare.

Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright, Panos Lambros'

In this moment of urgency Gina faded into the background until a man tapped her on the shoulder. It was the man that had blocked her from Calamity's room.

"She wants to see you."

“Oh.” Gina said, hiding her worry behind a mask of feigned surprise. “Um...of course.”

She glanced back at Jeon and Melvin tending to Stror, before following the guard back into the corridor. The men hovering outside were all Cal’s, but she still thought it best to open the door as little as possible. Squeezing through sideways, she pushed it closed behind her and turned towards the bed, fearing what she might see of her other two companions.

The young leader was laying against the side of the furred bed, on her knees with a clutched hand hold the Greecian's. The pale young man was laying on his side with small lines of blood falling from his lips, unconscious. The look in the girl's eyes was fearful, dare Gina think, hopeless as she stare at Panos. There was sad fire to them, as someone who was facing the inevitable but had to continue.

Wordlessly, Gina crossed the room and knelt down, putting her arms around Cal and squeezing gently. The hurt was deep enough to choke words. She waited patiently for Cal to find hers.

"I want him to wake...but I'm afraid to learn what I did to him..." Calamity admitted grimly to Gina. "This power of station, the power of my blood. I can command people and tell them what to do and still nothing works. My mother...she made it seem reasonable, even if she was wicked..." With grief fresh in her heart, Calamity put the limp hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, unintentionally placing their wedding rings near one another.

Gina rested her head against Cal’s, feeling her own eyes begin to prickle in sympathy.

“I don’t know your mother.” she murmured. “But I know you, Cal. You’re a good person. Even when being good is really...fucking hard.”

Her eyes drifted up towards the unconscious Panos. Plans and solutions could wait. For a moment, she just wanted to be there for her friend. Panos, for as jaded and rude as he was could be seen in this moment as beautiful and wounded. His almost supernatural color and clarity of his skin, the innate airs of his being as his hair fell with a lounging pride across his face and around him. The young Lambros was a born noble. But he was a miserable and mean person. Could he ever be more? Not with the cruelty of this place. Cruelty could only break whatever good was left in people. Only kindness and patience had any chance at all. Someone like Cal, who had promised not to leave him alone.

"I hope that in the end the Note Writer can tell us what this was all for. Why it was worth it."

Calamity leaned into Gina. "We're going to get a lot of answers when we complete this...trial...prison?" She had to ask the fellow teenager, knowing she'd understand the caged sensation of this adventure. "You have been so brave and strong Gina. I know I couldn't have done this without you."

Gina smiled wanly at the compliment, hiding her doubt. As far as she was concerned, that was all bravery was: stepping up when there was no-one else to do so, and concealing your uncertainty until the danger was passed and you could find somewhere private to safely break down in a shivering wreck. “It’s not just me. You held it together all this time when everyone’s expecting you to be a monster. And the king, and that fancy dog back on Valkure…that was all you.”

The young lady hesitantly smiled, willing to hold onto some light despite the darkness. "I wish this never happened, but, I feel fortunate I made you as a friend. We are going to be okay, I can't accept anything else. Not after this, not after what Panos has been through." The hue of her eyes darkened and she looked on to the princely young man with fire in her tired eyes, hands holding Gina's in return.

Gina drew in a breath, letting it shudder out. “We can do this. Whenever you’re ready.” Calamity reached for Panos' shoulder to gently move him. His face shifted with confusion before swiftly slapping away the hand by instinct and opening his eyes wide. Following the drive of fear he pulled back further on the bed before realizing who he was looking at. Calamity sighed with relief as Panos looked on to them with recognition. He grimaced in pain as a hand cupped his mouth.

"What happened? Were we attacked in the battle?" Panos asked with cringing hesitation as he slowly tasted the blood in his mouth. He sighed with a shiver of pain as he had to endure his wounded tongue. Calamity glanced over at Gina, it seemed Panos had forgot all things back to the beginning of the Draconian fight.

"It's okay, we're safe now." Gina said quietly, settling down on her knees. "The Dracs are gone - Jeon and Melvin closed the portal thing they were using to get into the castle. How are you feeling?"

Panos leered at her in the way she had come to expect.

"I'm injured and it's uncomfortable." The young Lambros admitted with a huff, before scanning with bright eyes to Calamity. "Why am I here in this state?" The young woman paused, Gina seeing her about to clench her hands but stop.

"We are about to speak to the emperor, we are in Whitemarch now. Do you not remember the fall?"

"Fall?" A blanch eyebrow raised.

"You fell and hurt yourself, knocked out as you landed. We were so worried..." Calamity softly told Panos while turning her head to Gina for support in fooling Panos.

A fall it is then. Gina thought, taking Cal’s lead and running with it as best she could. “Off Cal’s sleigh.” she said, nodding seriously. “I didn’t see it, but I freaked out when they brought you in with blood all over your face. The healer said you’d just bitten your tongue though, and you’d be okay if we let you wake up in your own time. We weren’t going to leave you behind, so we carried you here.”

She raised her arms to indicate the room and the inn around them, and then sighed.

“We should probably fill you in on what’s been happening, huh?” She massaged her temple. “Well the short answer is we won…there was a portal that the Dracs were coming through - Jeon and Melvin closed it, but now everyone thinks they have magic too…uh, and while that was going on, the king sent me looking for the arcanium that let the Drac prisoner escape…”

She proceeded to summarise how they had uncovered lady Leann, only to find that O’doln had whisked Kinglos, Charlie and Hedspeth away to Thronehearth; their journey to Whitemarch and its portal; the events at the inn; and the message that was apparently waiting for them.

“And assuming Theaobin doesn’t fuck things up for us,” she finished, “We’re going to head through the portal, deal with the whole Jeon situation and check if the king’s still under Cal’s orders. We’ve got those three anti-magic stones you found - I don’t have one but I’ll just dump Melvin’s card before we go - and I’ve still got Bonroe’s confession in case we need to nail Hedspeth.”

She shifted her weight, having grown uncomfortable kneeling beside the bed.

“One last thing, there’s a big man outside called Stror. He fought with Cal’s parents, but it left him with a lung condition. Caroline told me Cal’s parents died fighting orcs in the east, so maybe it was the same battle. Either way he’s a war hero, and Cal’s ally. He’s pissed off at Melvin, but maybe them helping him out has calmed him down a bit…”

Panos did not look pleased hearing any of this news.

"Dioonyysuss!" He emphasized with a seething hiss while rubbing fingers against the area between his eyebrows as if trying to rub away a headache. "Now, what, the silent, weird, boy is a burden to our cause too?"

Calamity stood and sat on the edge of the bed, which Panos showed no aversion to. "He isn't a mute. He can speak."

"And promptly got us into trouble because of it, ugh..." Panos quietly groaned with his tongue's pain, now his verbal lashings also stung him too. He waved it off, as if to dismiss his own experience before leering at both young ladies. The sharpness of his eyes revealed his spinning thoughts. He rubbed a finger over his thumb, the skin dry. "I need water."

Calamity looked around and found it in the room to pour. For the first time Panos looked at Gina, speaking to her without complete contempt, and addressing her for her opinion.

"With Jeon's and Melvin's unreliability, how can we assuage any court without drawing more unwanted attention? People at that level of power are excited to exercise their power over any social error. You don't have the training, and you are bearable, but Jeon sounds entirely a dunce. Only Calamity and I have lived in these social webs..." The young man turned away as he gritted his teeth, having to stop because of the pain. He sighed and crossed his arms, tossing his hair back with a dance of his neck.

Gina scratched her cheek. "Well, they can't not go, if the whole pretext is to present them to the emperor...you're right though, it's probably best if you and Cal do most of the talking. It's your territory. That said, if you could give the rest of us a crash-course before we go through the portal, it might be better than nothing?"

She stood up and stepped back out of Cal's way as she brought over the water jug and cup.

"There's some breakfast if you want it." she remembered, indicating the now-cold plates she had put down on her previous visit. She folded her arms, crossing her legs at the ankles. "Do you want me to bring Jeon and Melvin here after they're done with Stror?"

"We don't need to make the couple's bedroom look any more popular. Even having you here is strange and would make rumors." Panos sighed as if pointing out the obvious others cannot see. Sipping on water, Calamity awkwardly glanced at Gina.

“It’s alright.” Gina reassured her, deferring to the experience of the two genuine royals. “I can go get Theaobin’s message, and if they ask I’ll just say that’s why you called me in.”

She paused for a moment to consider.

“What about Jeon, would it be weird for him to be in here?”

"Here he is an...apothecary, it should not be too strange. He should see your tongue as well." Cal insisted, walking beside the bed.

"The four of us act far too familiar for strangers that met today. We are fortunate we are only around stupid men and their swords, others will suspect something is strange if they see us as we are. And, if we don't have Jeon practice what he says and let him offensively ramble, we are fucked." Panos said flatly, before finishing his water.

I’d better brief them both on the fall story, and all. Gina thought, chewing the inside of her cheek.

“More distant in public, got it.” Gina nodded. “Melvin said Theaobin wanted your seal as proof, could you press it for me?”

She went to the dresser and began hunting for wax. Calamity helped her look for it but there was none to be found in the sparse furnishings of the room. The marchioness decided to stay and help feed herself and Panos due to his injury. Gina cracked the door and sidestepped through, taking stock of the scene as she pulled it closed. The guards were still observing Jeon's work, while Stror coughed fitfully on the table. Gina singled out the guard who had previously helped her and touched his sleeve to garner his attention.

"The marchioness has asked me to go and collect Theaobin's message." she told him quietly. "And to take a guard to make it official. Could you please come with me? I'll be leaving in a few minutes."

As the man who had stayed at the door to protect his leader, attention was already set highly upon his code of conduct. Following after, he remained (no surprise) behind Gina.

Gina shifted foot to foot to peer past the other guards, and spied Stror seizing one of them for a stern rebuke.

"Melvin." she hissed, beckoning to the android as he stood back from the exchange. "A word, please."

She retreated halfway up the corridor, out of immediate earshot of the cluster of men by Jeon's room, and stooped to speak to the child-sized construct.

"They're alright." she whispered. "But Panos has lost his memory of everything since the battle. We told him that he fell off the sled during the Drac attack and hit his head. If you and Jeon could stick to that story too that'd be great."

'Melvin' looked up from his sketch and nodded. "I'll let Jeon know. He may ham it up, you'll please forgive him for that."

“Vague is best.” Gina cautioned, “By the way, where was Theaobin last you saw him?”

"At an inn playing cards," Melvin said softly back, nodding at its general direction. "As I didn't have a ring or some other device bearing our marchioness' crest, he accused me of lying. And as my efforts to avoid a confrontation has only lead to another confrontation because I wouldn't give a girl my name, you'll forgive me if I want to stay here and have Cal send someone else in livery to handle this."

“That’s what the guard’s for.” Gina said, motioning with her thumb towards her escort standing further down the corridor. Hopefully an armed man with the marchioness’ impaled hand sigil on his surcoat would be proof enough for Theaobin. Back in Jeon’s bedroom, she heard footsteps and a door closing. “Better get back.” she ushered Melvin.

Being in the main corridor gave Gina a view of the innkeeper coming and going, allowing her to find the old man. Between the woman giving birth and the afflicted war hero, the man was busy going back and forth, now offering a refilled water pitcher to Marelinta's room. Gina fell into step beside him as he reached the end of the corridor.

"Thank you for all your help." she said, while he was setting water down at the woman's bedside. "Is Holden on his way?" She paused to push her hair behind her ear. "What's their story anyway? I mean, who are they, Holden and Marelinta? And what's she doing here?"

"That's my cousin...the father of my child." Marelinta, whom Gina had taken to be asleep, explained with half lidded eyes while feeding.

"He'll be here soon," the man reassured, but looked at Gina with an odd expression while considering further what she had said. "It would be...inappropriate to share too much with a guest of the Marchioness." The older man seemed to openly flinch at the consideration.

“Well, I won’t pry.” Gina crossed her legs at the ankles. “That said, if it’s offending me you’re worried about, I’ve already delivered a baby today. There aren’t many secrets after that.” She smiled faintly. “I don’t think there’s much that could shock me anymore.”

The innkeeper simply smiled back, awkwardly. He ducked away by placing more water at the woman's side and excusing himself quickly from Gina. Marelinta looked at the teenager one last time before closing her eyes and dozing back to sleep. Gina took a moment to satisfy herself that mother and newborn were comfortable, then quietly withdrew, closing the door behind her.

She trotted back up the corridor and found her guard. “Shall we?” she asked, pulling the warm mittens Cal had given her onto her hands, and headed for the door.

It was Gina's turn to be taken to the other inn. Below dangling from this sign was another which said 'White Bear Inn'. Entering the White Bear Inn, the young lady wasn't the only one to do so as several men were entering just as she was. There were more merchants of several skin tones, who were drinking at nice circular wooden tables. A few were gambling with games of dice, but there was a conduct to everything and a liveliness which the Dead Drak lacked. This inn also lacked a magical symbol before its fireplace, the wood nearly charred and burned away within.

“Party starts early here…” Gina murmured to herself as she stepped away from the door, and teased off her mittens while she surveyed the scene. A bit of elf in him, the innkeeper had said. That probably meant pointed ears, like O’doln.

Among the gamblers the young woman saw the elf-blooded man. He was gambling and sipping a drink. His red hair was kept short except a thick braid of hair on the right side of his face. The man's nose was pierced with a silver ring, green eyes and bronzed skin brought out the color of his jade square studs. He was wearing robes with rectangular cuts of various colours, following spiraling lines around and down the body. His ears did have a noticeable point to the outer cartilage, and those who gambled with him did so with tense and timid expressions even as the man smiled. He was very easy on the eyes, yet also sleazy in a way which bristled her instincts, instructing her to be careful.

Hello, Theaobin. She threaded her way through the tables towards the messenger, sticking close to the solid weight of her armed guard. The sense of him looming at her shoulder wasn’t any less unnerving, but it was nice to think that he was a barrier between herself and the unfamiliar crowd if she needed it. She put on her best professional face.

“Theaobin?” she hailed the gambler as soon as she was close enough to make herself heard over the background chatter of the merchants. “The innkeeper at the Dead Drak told the marchioness you had a message from Thronehearth for her. She sent me to get it from you.”

The surrounding men looked up at Gina, then back down to the table after a moment's consideration. They didn't want to look in Theobin's direction. His lips smirked with teeth gleaming and fatal eyes on her.

"A girl sends another girl in her stead, what an incredible child. Come over here. My dice may make use of your blessing." His tan hand raised, the gambler's tools laying in his palm, caged by closing fingers. Slowly brought upward, the fingers pulled away and showed the dark wood cubes.

Gina smiled politely but didn’t move, not wanting to let the gambler divert the conversation away from her business here. She was hardly new to young men who were aware of their own good looks in the brash, unsubtle way of all wannabe playboys.

“Oh you wouldn’t want my blessing.” she grinned, shaking her head. “My luck is terrible.” And ain’t that the truth. She cleared her throat and folded her hands. “The marchioness hates to be kept waiting though. If you can just give me the message I’ll get out of your hair and let you and your friends get back to your game.”

The Elf-blooded man smiled, teeth bright and eyes charming.

“I am the message. I am sent to...mmm.” He manipulated the dice in his hand, still holding them out for Gina's influence, “Survey the situation here and see if it is truly worth the Emperor's time.”

“I see.” said Gina. Cal and the others would need to meet him then. She immediately worried for Panos - if O’doln’s presence had upset him, then another red-haired elf with a dangerous smile certainly wasn’t going to help, memory loss or not. She straightened. “I guess we’re both messengers, then. I take it the emperor gave you some kind of seal or token…?”

She let the question hang for a moment. If Theaobin had thought it necessary to check that Melvin was really who he said he was, then he couldn’t complain if she returned the favour. The Elfin man seemed pleased by Gina's question, producing from his pocket a silver stamp seal. Its symbol was that of a man's fist holding fiercely to a sword at the blade, the weapon bearing a very sharp and almost crescent shaped handles of the hilt.

“The Marchioness is a remarkable young one, but the Emperor must watch much at once. Now, if you'd want to help our meeting's pleasant blossoming, help me win this roll of the die.” he intoned with a baritone voice to tease her, slither pleasantly into her ears. Handsome eyes twinkled with opportunity, or was it opportunism?

Gina considered the impasse. Was he magical, like O’doln? She didn’t have anything incriminating on her for him to snatch or sense, much less anything valuable. If all else failed then she had Cal’s guard at her back - though she had to hope that it was still far too early in the day for anyone to be getting stabbed in the pub.

“Alright.” she acquiesced, stepping forward and lacing her fingers behind her back. She leaned daintily forward to blow on the dice in Theaobin’s open hand. He’s looking at my boobs, isn’t he? “I warn you though, I wasn’t joking about my luck being awful.”

She smiled thinly as she stepped back, and changed the subject while she waited for Theaobin to send his dice rattling across the tabletop.

“What’s been happening at Thronehearth? Is King Kinglos still there?”

Theaobin tossed the dice, and rolling upon them was a symbol of a leaf on one, a hand with four fingers raised on the other. Those at the table grimaced, a sudden spring of coins heading into Theaobin's collection. He leaned onto the table with a hand, the other grazing over the new additions.

"The Stonelord is visiting, perhaps this time he'll be reasonable with his demands, hmm?" he asked with a teasing inflection of voice. The men around chuckled and some scowled, not in favor of the man mentioned. "The Dwarf tries to squeeze our commerce to dust. Painfully greedy and short sighted, but what can be expected?"

For a moment Gina thought he was talking about an actual dwarf man, but then she remembered what Caroline had said about the elf queen’s friendship being needed to keep “the dwarves” pacified, and the pressure their race was putting on Kinglos’ fragile kingdom.

Theaobin sighed while grabbing one of the gold coins and handing it to her to make his point. The piece was the size of a one pound coin, with the portrait of an older, bearded man facing to the right. He was dressed with a hood which his crown kept upon him, the rim of the hood receded enough to keep the face exposed. Etched beneath, an impossible to read mix of curved and rigidly straight characters shifted in her vision to read 'Emperor Gorgazin, may he rule for many days'.

"And that king of yours...who knows?" Theaobin asked of Gina with a playful smile, eyes headed in her direction.

Gina had nothing to trade for more secrets - or at least nothing she wanted to give Theaobin. Except perhaps secrets of her own, which she also needed to be careful with around all these strangers.

Careful. The merchants last night had seemed convinced that the emperor was on the verge of having Kinglos replaced, and who knew what he, O’doln, Charlie and Hedspeth might have said while they were in Thronehearth. The letter folded into Gina’s bodice, Bonroe’s confession naming Hedspeth a traitor, scratched insistently against her skin. That was their nuclear option - but would she get the chance to talk to Hedspeth alone and convince him to flee, or would she have to pull the trigger on his death warrant?

And that king of yours…who knows? Theaobin’s smile twinkled dangerously.

“The marchioness certainly wants to know.” Gina answered evenly, and raised her eyebrows in questioning promise. “Would you do me the honour of coming to see her, so you can survey the situation properly?”

The dapper man leaned back, straightening himself from being over the gambler's table. He was six feet tall, and his smile never retired. This seemed to amuse him, the aura of supremacy even more patronizing than Panos' bitter ire. Turning his eyes to a man nearby, he gracefully gestured a hand to Gina.

"The money for the lady, after all I would not have won without her." The men at the table grumbled, a servant gathering the mass in a coin pouch to hand to Gina.

“Oh.” Gina said, deciding to look politely surprised. “Thank you.” Theaobin clearly wasn’t short of money, then. She dropped the lone coin with the emperor’s face in with the others, sure that a little petty cash would come in handy at some point. She studied the servant for a moment, curious as to whether he was a local or someone Theaobin had brought with him from Thronehearth. The servant looked to be a regular man grabbed from the city and converted to service, his winter wear having no formality or practicality for extensive indoor activity. With a snap of Theaobin’s fingers people obeyed. This was power.

"We have yet to introduce one another cordially, what is your name?" Theaobin asked while extending a hand to hold hers. It wasn't for a handshake, but held upright to hold her touch in a ladylike manner.

“Georgina Markoni.” Gina answered, reasoning that the false name she had given the previous night was as good as any. “And I’m pleased to meet you.”

She obliged Theaobin by laying her free hand on top of his, their fingers lightly touching.

“Though of course lady Sauver will be even happier.”

Gina was given an unexpected sight to the top of Theobin's head as he leaned down and drew her hand to his lips. With a diplomatic press to her pale skin, the tanned man glanced up and winked with a heart throbbing tease. Releasing her hand, the elfin man introduced himself.

“Theaobin Londale, an Overseer of our great Emperor Gorgazin. I look forward to the lady's happiness, but I am never fond of leaving any woman unwell, or unamused in my presence.”

Gina let out a hm, half a laugh. “Well, I’m not unwell as far as I know.” She swept her free hand towards the inn door, half turning towards it. “As for staying amused, how about we walk and talk?” Her accompany guard was watching from a narrow distance behind Gina and Theaobin seemed to notice in the moment. If Gina glanced she'd see the man was openly staring at the man, surprised.

Elves kissing humans doesn’t happen often, then. Gina surmised. She could have guessed as much from the bloody frescos at the Dutt villa, and the general antipathy everyone here seemed to have for the other kingdoms - though since no-one seemed overly bothered by O’doln and Lyina, it clearly wasn’t banned. She filed the nugget of information away for later, and looked forward to handing off the minefield of social graces to Cal and Panos.

"It is the ears, hm." Theaobin remarked, his small and quaint noise of social retort matching Gina’s. "Do you find my blood as distracting, Lady Markoni?" he inquired while following her out of the inn.

Gina tugged on her mittens, her breath puffing white in the air as the cold wind raked her cheeks once more.

“I try to stick to judging what people do.” she said, turning back towards the Dead Drak. “Still,” she added candidly, “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit distracting, if only ’cause I’ve only seen one elf - and that was yesterday when O’doln was fighting the Drakes.”

The snow crunched beneath their feet, Cal’s guard shadowing them from a pace behind. Gina looked sideways at Theaobin, curious as to how much of what she was saying was news to him.

“Did he tell you what happened?” The man of Elfin blood was curiously studying her, not thirsty for every word given but open and wanting to hear more. Now wearing a fur coat given to him, he kept step with her, hands behind his back.

"Of course, O'doln is my cousin. I know the things he does not wish to share either" Theobin intoned with a closed lipped grin following. "We are not Elves, Lady Markoni, merely laced with their ancestry but far from whole. His blood is more potent of their kind than my own, but he is still ample his Human follies. After all he is so loyal to such a silly man"

[Minkasha]

Gina Wright

The snow crunched beneath their feet, Cal’s guard shadowing them from a pace behind. Gina looked sideways at Theaobin, curious as to how much of what she was saying was news to him.

“Did he tell you what happened?”

The man of Elfin blood was curiously studying her, not thirsty for every word given but open and wanting to hear more. Now wearing a fur coat given to him, he kept step with her, hands behind his back.

"Of course, O'doln is my cousin. I know the things he does not wish to share either." Theobin intoned with a closed lipped grin following. "We are not Elves, Lady Markoni, merely laced with their ancestry but far from whole. His blood is more potent of their kind than my own, but he is still ample in his Human follies. After all, he is so loyal to such a silly man."

“Maybe he sees something everyone else doesn’t?” Gina suggested carefully. Although they were alone in the snowy street save for Cal’s guard, she was wary of openly naming the king, even one who seemed to be about as popular as the plague. And even though she seemed to have Theaobin’s curiosity now rather than just his lecherous eye, anything she said to him still had a good chance of making it back to emperor Gorgazin. By his own admission, that was his job here.

On the other hand, he just said O’doln’s keeping secrets. Secrets that he’s clearly happy keeping too. And if that secret’s about the king…

“I mean,” she went on, with a slight smile, “You know him much better than I do, but with magic like I saw yesterday, I imagine he could find work elsewhere and be very well paid for it, if he wanted to.”

She paused to look at Theaobin, curious to hear more about what made his cousin tick. From what Lyina said, he’s the biggest risk of finding out what Cal did to the king…but if he has Kinglos’ best interests at heart, and if we could convince him…

"Some are idealists, and that cannot be dispelled even with the most powerful of magics. I'm curious...What is it that you see of the marchioness that others do not? You know her much better than I." Theaobin said, charming Gina with a smile as he used her own words for playful intentions.

Gina laughed slightly, conceding the deftness of the reversal. “Nowhere near as well as a cousin, mind.” she returned, wrapping her arms around herself in thought. There was plenty to admire about Cal, but they were talking about marchioness Sauver. She laughed again, more nervously. “She scares me, to be honest. But when the Drake army came pouring through that portal, looking like they wanted to murder us all…I’m glad she was able to scare them too.”

Slowly falling snowflakes landed on her arms, connecting together as they settled. Like a path. Gina mused. She hoped that it was one that led home.

“And I’m glad of the king too, crazy as it sounds.” she added, creasing her brow as if pensive. “He tracked down the traitor behind it all. Who knows what would have happened if she got away to try again.”

She paused for a moment.

“Is it really never too late to do something good?” She smiled, self-deprecatingly. “Or is that too idealistic?”

Gina's ploy of propping the king up was effective, the handsome Elf-blooded Human twitching a brow briefly with a well placed smile to try and conceal the moment of irritation.

"One star in a dark sky is only one diminutive light. We may focus on the light of the lone star, or see the great blackness around it. One heroic act, who will see its light within the darkness?"

As the question was asked it was the moment the three walkers re-entered the inn they had left, walking beneath the lynched draconian mannequin to enter.

Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

'Melvin' successfully threw off the fighter's scent, a local hero also limited in his geographical knowledge.

"Explains why you look like a pushover. You don't have the training. When you want to replace the attitude with some discipline, find me boy. And stay away from my daughter." With the final warning he walked around the robot to go down the hallway, the loitering guards following him with fanfare.

'Melvin' watched as Stror left, then sighed as the door closed behind him, shaking its puppet head.

"This began because I was trying to stay away from your daughter," the Probe avatar said softly. Stror would likely instruct his daughter to stay away from 'Melvin' as well - but a headstrong girl like that could already be waiting outside for her father to leave. Perhaps wondering how badly 'he' was hurt.

Images of Theobin, Stror, and his daughter were tagged and uploaded to the ravens on lookout as the Probe shell headed back to Jeon's bedroom. They flew through the snowy skies, forced to keep low and fly from rooftop to rooftop to study the faces of the people below. For now, only Theobin was found, in the company of Gina and a guard as they walked gingerly back to the very inn where Jeon himself was located.

The Probe Shell sighed as it glanced at the marchioness' door, flanked by guards.

"Stror has ordered me to stay from his daughter," the avatar said to them. "To abide by his wishes, if she shows up, please tell her I went out."

"Ah, there you are!" Jeon said as 'Melvin' entered the room. "Did you give him the plans and the tea recipe?"

"Yes, of course. How did he take the news?"

"As well as could be expected," Jeon sighed, leaning against the bed mattress.

"So... badly."

"He's in the denial stage."

"He wants me to stay away from his daughter."

"Well, that should be easy enough to do, right?"

"So, do you know what we have to do in order to leave this world and go back to where we belong?"

"I think there's some sort of connection that has to be made, but I don't know what exactly whoever's doing this wants."

"Great."

From where Jeon stood, he could feel Gina coming closer to him as she entered the inn. Jeon paused, glancing towards the unseen inn entrance and said, "Gina's back. How do I know that?"

"Pardon?" 'Melvin' asked, glancing up at him in concern.

"I can feel the others," the doctor said, shaking his head as if to clear it. "I could feel it when she left the inn, and now she's back and I know it without seeing her. And I know she feels the same thing?"

The Probe Shell paused. Did he mean...?

"Do you know what she's thinking right now?"

At that moment, Gina was in fact thinking about how far she should play her hand with Theaobin. The part-elf indicated that she should go first with a gracious wave of his hand, before following himself. The guard came last, the heavy door swinging closed behind him with a loud bang that made Gina flinch, though she had no idea why.

“You might be right.” she sighed in answer to Theaobin’s comment about the king, and twisted her mouth regretfully. “Still, like you said, the emperor has to watch a lot at once, hm?” She glanced back at Theaobin, mustering a smile. “It’s only fair that we give him the whole picture.”

She looked around the common room of the inn, noting who was present. They would have to be more careful here, with more potential eavesdroppers around - even if most of the Dead Drak’s patrons were nominally loyal to Cal.

“The marchioness is just through here, sir.” she said, stretching an open palm towards the long corridor that connected the various rooms of the inn, and then beginning to thread her way through the tables. Jeon and Melvin were standing to one side, talking.

“Doctor.” Gina acknowledged Jeon with a nod, remembering Panos’ advice for them to seem less well-acquainted in public.

Jeon froze, looking up at Gina. Did the girl have some sort of title...? If only he could read her mind, then he'd know exactly what sort of answer he was to give in front of her strange companion!

"My lady," he said cautiously, slightly bowing his head. His eyes glanced towards Theaobin, taking in the curious construction of his face and ears before remembering to bow his head to him as well. "My lord."

Was he a doctor here? Was there a sheepskin back at wherever this body called home, hanging on the wall? Or were they trained like he was supposedly training his apprentice?

Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright, Jeon Smythe & 'Melvin'

Calamity exited from her bedroom, painted on her face was a serious and somber expression that may have resembled the real marchioness if they could have met her. Gina did catch the other teenage girl look cautiously between Jeon and Theaobin. Before Gina and her companion were close enough to begin appropriately speaking, Calamity stood next to Jeon.

"My husband, when he fell was injured." she said, staring at Jeon's eyes as if looking into his soul with their amethyst stare, begging he'd go along. "Would you go and tend to him?"

"Of course," Jeon said, bowing his head in acknowledgement. He turned towards her room, only to pause for a moment to glance back. "Apprentice, please grab the supplies in the room and bring them over."

"Of course," the Probe Shell replied, bowing its puppet head as well, then bowed to Calamity before backing into Jeon's room. After all, she was the Marchioness as far as everyone else was concerned. Especially the messenger. These acts of submission to the courtly hierarchy seemed to please Theaobin who did not glance their direction but smiled brighter to Calamity.

"Oh, what happened?" Theaobin asked Gina, overhearing Calamity from several arms' length away.

"He fell from the marchioness' sled during the battle and hit his head." Gina said in a low voice, but loud enough for Jeon to hear. "He's alright, from what I've heard - he just doesn't remember any of the battle from when he was knocked out."

As Melvin hurried away to fetch his things, Gina waited for Cal's eye to fall on her.

"Lady marchioness." she explained, gesturing to Theaobin. She didn't have to fake a sense of tension now that she was back in Cal's presence. "As you ordered, here is Theaobin Londale, the emperor's overseer."

"Very good." Calamity said crisply and quickly to Gina, the young woman putting on a stoic face. The expression was without flaw, her eyes only lingering on Gina to express something she couldn't say or show, perhaps reassurance or solidarity? "Welcome to my lands, I expect we shall leave together soon to meet the Emperor?"

Gina hadn't seen Calamity smile with her charms but the beautiful young woman could light a room with her black hair and crystalline purple eyes. Calamity was putting on a show, both appealing and terrifying as her smile faded back to the serious stare upon Theaobin.

The man of Human and Elf blood bowed at the hip to her, "I must say I am here on reconnaissance on his behalf. I am to survey the situation and see if and when our ruler may accommodate a meeting."

Gina saw Calamity hide her hands behind her just as they started squeezing with frustration, her face smooth and icy still. "I assure there is must to discuss. I may share with you details of the battle? And I will be in need of Wizard-Lord Tengirn's scrutiny."

Calamity didn't miss a beat listing the man's name. She must have drilled it into herself as they rode through the snow. Theaobin seemed impressed, but Cal was gesturing to another door in the hallway. "A place where we may talk." Calamity was going to have to handle this one alone, as she had to act from a position of strength. The young woman glanced at Gina.

"Follow the doctor and make sure he takes care of my husband." she commanded, walking off with Theaobin to a door across the hallway.

"Of course, marchioness." Gina responded dutifully, lowering her gaze.

While walking with the man, Calamity stole an honest look Gina's way. She looked worried but determined, returning into character as the door was opened. Gina sent her a slight smile of encouragement as it closed.

Gina Wright, Panos Lambros, Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

Entering into the rented room, past the guards at the door, Panos was sitting on the side side of the bed with a leg crossed over the other as he held a hand to his mouth with some visible discomfort. When Jeon entered, Panos sized him up with sapphire eyes and then looked away.

"Ah, Good morning Lord Panos," Jeon said cautiously, closing the door behind him, then nodded at the younger man's face as he stepped in front of him. "What happened here?"

"Please rate your current pain from zero to ten, where zero is pain free, and ten is the worse possible pain, so severe that nothing else matters?"

The Probe Shell saw the items lying on the unmade bed in Jeon's room. Picking each up, it gave them a spritz of sterilizing spray and wiped them down before returning them to the bag. Ideally, they would be returned to Supply for full decontamination, but that might raise questions if it gave Jeon a different set.

Stepping out of the door, the avatar glanced down the hall where Calamity and Theaobin had stood, giving Gina a polite, professional nod. So far, no sign of Stror's daughter.

It stepped out behind her, following her back to the marchioness' room.

Before following Jeon inside, Gina took a moment to glance around the inn, looking to clock anyone who was still loitering about the main room and hallway. There wasn't anyone Gina could at least quickly deduce was suspicious as customers passed through the hallway or were enjoying themselves in the front of the longhouse inn.

"I am to assist the doctor," 'Melvin' spoke to the guards at her door. 'Melvin' was allowed inside, Panos cupping a hand over his mouth. Still his body language was closed, and pulled away as he faced his whole body away from Jeon and 'Melvin'.

"It is a four, five since you walked in." Panos hissed as he reacted from the pain, his own lashing out with his tongue wounding himself. "I fell like a stupid fool." Panos admitted with great self criticism.

"Ah. Well, that happens. A great big hole opened up once and swallowed..." Jeon faltered, "...me."

The Probe paused, its puppet staring up with concern at the doctor.

"A hole swallowed you?" it prompted.

"Twice, come to think of it," Jeon says. "Or three, not sure how I got here. I seem to have a lot of troubles with mysterious holes. Anyway, this one was while I was in the System Health Organization. One moment I'm walking along, I fall in, the next thing I know I'm lying on the floor having aged a dozen years and no idea what just happened to me and couldn't tell anyone else what happened, either."

"What's your point?" 'Melvin' asked. Was he remembering being swallowed by the avatar at the battle? Or the gate that brought him to Earth as a child? Were there other gates?

"Feeling foolish," Jeon grinned. "It's going to happen, quite a lot. Especially when lovers are involved. Best thing to do is to accept it and get on with things."

"So, your mouth hurts. Open up and let me take a look and let us get pass this." Gina, Jeon, and 'Melvin' could see Panos subtly stiffen where he sat, eyes aside until he narrowed them upon the doctor.

Finally the Lambros prince complied and with his tongue also displayed (but kept within his mouth) they could see incision marks with small trickles of blood. It was not at the tip of the mouth where most accidental injuries would have taken place, but the middle of the tongue as if it was stuck out before bitten.

"Melvin, do you have any oral antiseptic and a dermo regenerator in that bag of yours?" Jeon asked after a moment.

"Are you sure you want that?" 'Melvin' asked, digging in its satchel. "A few days and it'll be healed on its own."

"Cal asked we tend to him, so that's what we're going to do."

"It's going to 'buzz'," the probe shell warned, giving him a look but handing over a pump spray and the dermo regenerator with its System Health Organization tag certifying its inspection.

"Panos," Jeon said, turning to the young man as he received the spray and the medical device. "I have this spray here that will clean your wound, but I should warn you that it will sting somewhat and leave a weird taste in your mouth. Afterward, I have a device to help heal your wounds a little faster. Do I have your consent to treat?"

Panos stared up to the doctor and the strange objects in the man's hands.

There was debate in his eyes, glancing over to Gina and back up to Jeon.

“I’m sure it’s safe,” Gina offered. “His world’s just a bit ahead of yours and mine, that’s all.”

"Spray it on yourself first." The Greecian royal told Jeon, not trusting him (despite having had a head injury treated by him before).

Jeon's right eyebrow quirked and he sighed. Every time they wanted him to try it first.

"Okay," he said, holding the sprayer up to his mouth and giving it two pumps. Benzocaine and eucalyptus erupted into his taste buds, but that was all. He then turned on the dermo regenerator and, holding the softly buzzing device over the back of his hand, then turned and showed his hand to Panos.

"May I treat you now?"

Gina motioned towards the door with her thumb. “If you prefer, I can step out?”

"Doctor, his wounds will heal on their own," the Probe avatar said.

"Painfully over days, assuming no infection."

"That's his choice, yes?" it asked, then turned to Panos. "How does your culture normally treat infections?"

“With medication, going to the doctor. I didn’t come from barbarism” Panos snapped at ‘Melvin’, shifting weight side to side before saying “Touch me more than necessary and I will find a way to maim you.” The teenager warned and jumped his eyes to Gina, extending to her a trust once unfathomable. “Watch him closely.” he ‘asked’ before waiting to comply with Jeon’s procedures.

Gina nodded earnestly. “Sure.” The shift in the young prince’s attitude towards her was one she was still processing, but if he was willing to extend a measure of trust to her then she was determined not to break it. She turned to Jeon, confident in turn that the alien doctor knew what he was doing and wouldn't cause Panos any needless discomfort.

"Very well," Jeon said, handing Panos the oral antiseptic bottle. "You'll have to do this yourself then. Hold this up to your open mouth and push down the button on top so that it sprays into your mouth. You may experience a small burning sensation from your tongue and any open sores. The rest of your mouth will tingle a bit. It's important that you do a thorough job so that everything is covered. The aftertaste will fade quickly. You will then open your mouth wide so I may look inside."

Panos didn't hesitate, speeding through the ordeal as if to race it and pass it. While Jeon knew there was to be stinging, Panos' self control or detachment allowed the young man to be stiff and reserved through the process.

Keeping his eyes away from Jeon's, Panos opened his mouth, the punctures still remaining, of course, but the swelling was starting to be tamed.

"I need a UV otoscope," Jeon ordered the Probe shell. After his assistant retrieved it from its bag, Jeon held it up to his eye and leaned in to inspect Panos' mouth and tongue before straightening back up.

"Hmmm. Spray it again. If there's any burning, it'll be less intense." Panos followed instruction, quiet through the entire experience. Dropping the spray so that it rolled to Jeon's feet, the blanched haired royal studied the Zayan closely.

"Why isn't Calamity with you two?" Panos asked, scanning his fellow multiverse travellers.

"Not until we finish this," Jeon ordered sternly, holding up the dermo regenerator. "Calamity needs you to be fully alert, not distracted because of pain. You do this right and don't try to rush it, it will take only a couple minutes. You just open your mouth wide, stick out your tongue, and rub the head up and down while slowly moving it to one side while holding down this button, then back again. It'll start making your tongue itch, that's the tissue healing."

Gina waited for Panos to begin reluctantly rubbing the regenerator over his tongue before throwing the disgruntled royal a bone.

"Cal's fine." she told him. "She's just next door with Theaobin. Turns out he's not so much a messenger as an overseer, here to see if we're worth the emperor's time."

She wrapped her arms around her ribs, wondering how best to explain his relation to O'doln, and her own hunch that the elvish wizard might be an ally even if he knew what Cal had done to king Kinglos. She still wasn't sure. The things O'doln does not wish to share could mean any number of secrets, after all.

While she worked the thought round in her head, trying to knead it into shape, Jeon and Melvin continued to watch Panos apply the healing gizmo with a doctor's critical eye.

"Remember," the Probe shell said as Panos continued rubbing his tongue. "Gina told them that Panos hit his head. We may want to bandage it."

"It's been a few days, I think we can go without the bandage."

Gina's neck prickled a little as the conversation steered close to dangerous territory.

"What do you think, Panos?" she asked, pushing her hair behind her ear. "Like you said, you know these royal types better. Would a sympathy bandage or looking strong be the better play?"

Gina's search for insight was damaged by the young man's mental state. While he had begun the task, as it continued something about it disturbed him until, with wet eyes, he pulled the device away. The dermo regenerator shook within his trembling squeeze. The other hand concealed his eyes while he hung his head low, breathing rapidly, as he tried to steady himself by the hitches of breath. Gina knew why, knew what must have come into his mind. She bit the inside of her cheek in sympathetic discomfort.

“I’m sure that’ll do for now.” Gina said, looking at Jeon. “Right doctor?” She quietly moved a little closer to Panos, not touching him but close enough to offer a hand if he reached for one.

The Probe Shell scanned Panos as it and Jeon glanced at each other.

"He hasn't eaten yet, and with his injuries, his blood glucose is low," 'Melvin' said. "I should go to the kitchen to see if I can scare up something for him, in large portions."

In case he wanted them to test it.

"You do that," Jeon said with concern. "Panos, how are you feeling?"

Across from him, Gina quietly shook her head in warning. But the warning was too late, the Lambros prince tossing the dermo regenerator at the doctor. It seemed the young man was aiming for his face, but luckily the quick toss landed instead against the left collarbone.

"This must be funny to you! Or, these stupid devices, toying with us with them...is that how you get off?!" Panos' emotions quickly jumped, his face a warped story of pride and pain. The voice was loud; Jeon and Gina could hear the guard on the other side of the door clear his throat in discomfort.

Jeon frowned with concern as his hands jerked upward to catch the falling regenerator, then glanced with concern to Gina.

Gina held up a placating hand towards Jeon - I know, I’m sorry, it’s okay - as she shuffled closer and sat down on the bed near to Panos. Her instinct was to take his hand, but she wasn’t sure if he would want to be touched. She wished that Cal were here.

Instinctively, Jeon glanced around, then used his sleeve to dry the device.

“It’s okay.” Gina shushed Panos softly. “You’re right, no more gizmos. Let’s just take a minute until Cal gets back.”

"Okay," the Probe-shell sighed, heading towards the door. The stress the young man was under combined with a lack of proper food and rest was not good. Ideally, a prolonged rest would be ordered, with a therapist to provide counselling. Unfortunately, there was no place for that here.

Slipping out the door, 'Melvin' gave the guards a cautious nod, then headed down the hallway to the main room, looking for the staff. It wanted to return quickly, as people in Panos’ state were often very fragile.

‘Melvin’s’ search led him from the front of the longhouse shaped inn to the back as the owner guided him to the kitchen. The robot could scan the meaty, vegetable dense soup and realize that key oils and minerals were deficient in the meal, the cooking sciences having none of the sophistication of his time period. The population was undeniably dealing with subclinical levels of malnutrition, something it was going to have to take into account as it fed and ensured Jeon was healthy.

The Probe shell frowned as it surveyed the kitchen and the food. If Cal didn't have her own personal cook, it might have to step into the role to make sure they were eating right. Its onboard stores would stretch for the Zayan and the three humans, but it was completely inadequate to feed all of the marchioness' troops.

Of course, it could produce new "rooms" set up as automated farms, even create grow chambers for meat, where a nutrient solution was fed to a culture to grow a massive sphere of living, brainless muscle tissue - but that required sampling. Alternately it could reproduce Soylent pops - combining lentils and soybeans it could extrude as a meat-flavored filament that it could then wrap around a stick to simulate texture. But besides the power and massive time requirement, if 'Melvin' started feeding the troops from its pouch, there would be more attention brought to it and Jeon.

No, it would need to source local supplies and visibly transport them with the troops, even if they were reserved for the marchioness' personal chef. But how long were the troops going to be effective living on this swill?

'Melvin' smiles at the landlord as it drew on its internal supplies for four NutraBuns, wondering if it should insert meds into Panos' bun. "Please sir, may I have soup and tea for four?"

Hopefully Cal would receive better fare from this landlord, but she was more than welcome to its soup.

Back in the room Panos was crestfallen, tensing and holding himself stiff as he stared from his lap to Gina’s. The young man was trying to arrest his emotions, prevent them from escaping, but his body had to become rigid to attempt the restraint.

“You-you’re acting as if you pity me. I don’t need it…”

Gina shook her head. “I don’t pity you, Panos.” she said with quiet sincerity. “I get it, though…no-one wants to look weak, no-one wants to be a burden who needs help…I’ll admit that I fucking suck at it…”

She looked away to the side, her cheeks prickling at the admission. She remembered her room in West Hills, the steady hiss and spatter of water as she quietly broke down in her shower cubicle. Shutting herself away rather than let Cece and the others see how badly the events in the maze had gotten to her. Hiding because she remembered all of the students’ eyes on her; in fear, in hope, in relief that someone had stepped up and looked like they had some kind of plan. When you’re the leader you can’t be weak. Cal and Panos had been given no choice in the matter, neither in their own worlds nor here - they had been born into positions of responsibility and scrutiny of the kind that Gina had only taken up because no-one else would.

She realised she was fidgeting with the ends of her hair. Her heart was racing, and she didn’t know why.

The fuck, Gina? This isn’t about you.

“And yeah,” she added, moving her hand firmly back to her lap. “I guess strength is a whole lot more important when it’s someone like you and Cal, rather than a pleb like me. I promise you though, it’s not pity. I just worry.”

“She told you…” Panos realized with tears running down his pale face, failing to restrain the truth: he was internally suffering.

Gina bit the inside of her cheek. She could lie, but that wouldn’t be fair even if it worked. She sighed softly.

“Like I said, I was worried. I went to Cal and she said…she said to promise not to leave you.”

Gina glanced up at Jeon, feeling a second wave of guilt. She knew that the alien doctor meant only kindness. But she wasn’t going to talk openly about Panos’ trauma while anyone other than Cal was in the room with them.

Jeon caught Gina's glance. Had he known more about this group's stress before his battlefield injury that wiped out his memories?

What Panos needed more than anything was a long rest - but that wasn't likely with the situation they were all currently in. So the only alternative was pharmaceutical. Some brandy and St. John's Wart, assuming any could be found in this place, wasn't going to be enough to treat this, and he had no idea of the sort of drugs was in that cyborg's miracle satchel. Not to mention the potential for side-effects and the difficulties in getting Panos to take them. If only his medbot was here - but it would stick out like a sour thumb.

“So that’s what I’m going to do.” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear as she turned her head to look at Panos. “I’m not asking you to like me, or ask me for help. I’m not asking you to forgive me for showing up in your world and dragging you into…all of this shit. And I’m not going to promise it’ll all be okay. I’m just going to promise that I won’t leave you behind. None of us will.”

Panos nodded slowly, being impacted by her words.

So was he the target of whoever pulled him out of the airlock, or was it the cyborg they were in the midst of rescuing? Jeon was left in an awkward place when the sharp crystalline blue of Panos' eyes glared at him.

"Get out!" he barked at him, wet face holding with a stone cold grace and body stiffly held while he waited for the doctor to leave.

Jeon scowled, then kneeled down to pick up the spray bottle Panos had dropped earlier. Slipping the bottle and the dermal regenerator into his robe, he turned to the door, only to pause glancing back at the prince.

"I was treating a patient whose suit had been punctured and was running out of air when I got brought here," he stated plainly. "Whoever brought us here may have very well killed her."

”Whoever brought us here is going to answer for it.” Gina said, a muscle in her cheek twitching tight. It was easier to hate the Note Writer than to try and make each other feel guilty. And it was easier to hate the Note Writer than to think about the people she had left behind. How long had they been away now? A week? What could have happened to her friends in that time?

A trail of bodies. the black thought came to her, unbidden. That’s all you ever leave behind you, Gina. Hiss. Shriek. Bang.

Yes, it was easier to hate.

“We’ll come find you soon.” she promised Jeon, though her voice came out strained. “Then we’ll go to Thronehearth and maybe finish…this.”

Opening the door, Jeon stepped out.

"When you see my apprentice, please let him know I've got back to our room," the Zayan doctor asked the guards as he stepped past, closing the door behind him.

Perhaps, the Probe considered as the shell waited for the food to be dished out, Panos should get that long rest after all?

"Everywhere I go...I'm used like this..." Panos mumbled.

“It wasn’t your fault, Panos.” Gina said quietly. “None of this was.” She looked down at her arm. “And after one more of these…fucking symbols…we’re going to get out of here.”

Panos stared at the center place between himself and Gina. "I don't think there is anywhere I could go..."

Gina bit her lip, wishing she had more to offer than words. The room suddenly felt very large and very empty - too big for a pair of lonely, suffering souls. “If the Writer can send us anywhere…” she said, slowly, “Then what if you ask them to send you to Cal’s world? Then someone would always be there with you. Someone you know you can always trust.”

Calamity Isis Mae Sensibility, Gina Wright, & Panos Lambros

Just in the moment Gina invoked the young woman's mention, Calamity herself returned and, after swiftly closing the door, rushed to Panos to sit on his other side. They held hands and he closed lip smiled to her, but his happiness was painfully brief.

"Where is that man?" Panos asked with an unnerved reservation about Jeon. Gina’s spirits rose a little at the implication that he hadn’t truly wanted Jeon to go, right up until he added: "He is not going to do anything stupid on his own is he?"

Calamity glanced away, able to keep the steely act, but Gina could tell she was worried as her hand clenched her dress. “He is speaking to the Emperor's envoy..."

Panos paled.

Gina sucked her lip, remembering the way Theaobin had spoken to her. She briefly considered the Tarot cards, until it occurred to her that one chirruping at the wrong moment had almost landed her in trouble at Cal’s castle, and the same thing happening to Jeon when he was under suspicion of being a mage would be worse.

“What did he talk to you about?” she asked Cal quietly. “He told me O’doln’s his cousin, and he said he knows the secrets he didn’t want to share.”

Calamity walked further into the room, nearer to Panos and forming a wide triangle between the three teenagers. Finally her hand released.

"Oh," The young woman first responded to Gina's information, "He was trying to have me give him a solid answer about Jeon. I think he wanted me to want the worse for him. I can tell he is like my mother: he likes to use power, even to hurt others. He hid it in many other questions about Whitebar or my life, but he returned to Jeon and the 'magic'"

Sighing, she sat next to Panos' other side. The three of them now faced the door, together on a fur layered bedside.

"I tried to impress onto him that there was a lot of uncertainty at the time, and that the Draconian attack was worth the Emperor’s time."

"Another sadist in power, always." Panos looked between both women.

”How lucky are we, eh?” Gina agreed sardonically, and twisted a curl of her hair round her fingers. “Maybe I should try and talk to O’doln when we get to Throne-wotsit, see what he thinks of Theaobin and his motives?” She glanced towards the wall, and the adjoining room where Jeon was alone with the emperor’s agent. “As for Jeon…”

"Jeon has the wit of a koala.” The young man in the middle warned Gina and Calamity. “He knows how to do the thing he's best at, and can't comprehend anything else outside of that. He's an idiot doctor talking to a politician. We are going to have to interrupt that conversation to save him and us."

”He’s not an idiot.” Gina defended their absent companion, before slumping forward to rest her lips against her clasped hands. “But you’re probably right, we shouldn’t leave him alone, if only so we can keep our story straight between the four of us…”

She unclasped her hands and stood up, brushing down her skirts.

“Okay, what’s a good excuse for us to burst in? Do we need his permission to go through the portal or do we just announce that we’re going?”

"We need his permission, we cannot see the emperor unless Theaobin approves of our reason so." Calamity stressed with knitted brows and a tapping of her lower lip. "He is trying to learn if Jeon has magic or not, when we need him to see the attack on the city is the problem. If Theaobin keeps attention on 'Jeon's magic', I wonder if that'll get us, really, to the emperor at all or instead to that wizard we were told about?"

Panos sighed. "We are going to have to set the building on fire."

"What?!" Calamity stood with a jolt of shock.

Gina blinked, mirroring her friend’s surprise. “You…you mean this building?” she asked.

Cal knelt in front of Panos. "What are you talking about?"

Panos' sharp stare eyed the two young women. "We need an act dramatic and bold enough to lower Theaobin's guard or he's going to not let this go. A large fire that puts his life in danger may unsettle him enough to where we can have the advantage and get through easily."

“Okay, I get where you’re coming from.” Gina scratched her head as she followed Panos’ logic. “But here…we can’t just burn down this guy’s pub. What about Mari and her baby next door, they’re in no condition to move. What if they got trapped?”

She dug a thumb into her palm, trying to think of an alternative she could contribute.

“What if we tell him about the arcanium? Say you were wanting to tell the emperor personally, but if he’s the gatekeeper he needs to know what’s at stake. Lyina gave some to the Drac prisoner, sure, but who’s to say she didn’t give them more that we don’t know about? Let him picture them opening up portals in Greywall and Thronehearth next. Surely that’ll shake him. And it won’t contradict anything Kinglos or O’doln might have told him…and it might even get Jeon off the hook. I mean, who knows what kind of crazy Drac magic was going off during that fight?”

Jeon Smythe, & 'Melvin'

Jeon had the guard at the door watching him step away, only from Calamity to come forth from another, a strained look on her face. He caught it, a rare glimpse, before it was sealed under the cold façade of her current character. She hurried a couple of paces up to the man, leaning in to whisper.

"He likes to be entertained, don't give him any direct answers-" The teenager rushed out, wanting to share more insight but caught her conversation partner rounding the door into view.

With a stiff and icy body language Calamity straightened herself as Theaobin arrived. At first impression the dapper man looked displeased with Jeon's appearance, disappointed and bored. Then the man handsomely smiled and bowed gently.

"All this trouble is by you?" He asked with a light-hearted jest that was also a jab of his lowly first glance at the Zayan. "I am Theaobin, an envoy of the Emperor. I think we should speak together."

"Trouble, my lord?" Jeon blinked, confused by this sudden change. "Of course we can speak. After you?"

Jeon waved to the door Theaobin and Calamity had just stepped out of. Theaobin began to turn around and Calamity stepped to follow when he bowed his head in her direction and raised a hand momentarily. "Forgive me Marchioness, I am in need to lean more of him on my own." Jeon could see the man had ears not entirely Human in their shape.

If only medbot was here, I'd love a scan of that cranial structure and those ears, Jeon sighed mentally. I wonder what the muscle groups are like?

He was already mentally picturing the auricularis superior, the auricularis anterior, and the auricularis posterior muscles

"Very well." Calamity said, playing it cool while walking away. The teenager stole one last glance with the doctor as if to repeat her warning.

Listening in through the card in Jeon's pocket, the Probe shell was wondering what additional trouble the doctor was going to get them into?

When the door closed, Jeon bowed his head slightly and waved Theaobin towards the nearest seat.

"So, my lord," he asked, his voice crisp and professional as he watched the official move, "Please tell me where it hurts, this trouble of yours?"

I definitely need to set up some office hours. And an office. Theaobin laughed a warm chuckle while studying Jeon.

"My injury isn't a physical or a pain, but," One of his red brows twitched with a charming bravado, "A raised curiosity. You have my interest. Thank you sharing time with me." Politely the man sat his hands in his lap, eyes keeping attuned to Jeon. He was being watched, a deep stare over a warm smile.

”I see," Jeon said, politely. Those usually 'curious' about his profession were either wanting to become doctors themselves, wanting to be married to a doctor, or interested in some of the more unusual items in the pharmacology - especially their recreational use. Or all three at once.

Still, he had none of the tell-tale signs of a drug abuser, nor did he think the 'elf lord' would have problems obtaining whatever he wanted, illicit or not. So it had to be that other thing.

"If it's about the battle," Jeon sighed, shaking his head, "I must warn you that the only thing I remember about it is waking up inside a wheelbarrow outside an aid tent after the battle was long over, with some sort of short spear welded to my ruined suit that's going to be impossible to replace."

A bit of laughter jumped through the room.

"How amusing, magical practice can have wild consequences if not careful. I wonder what you did...that spontaneity is what often put my magically practicing cousin in harm's path." He shared with a contemplation while crossing his legs, "Magic can be such a danger when not measured and kept properly noted, don't you agree?"

"Anything can become dangerous," Jeon sighed. "I've heard some of the men talking, but I can't believe it, myself. That I dug a pit deep into the ground, shattered the enemy's portal, then leapt into the air throwing bolts at their wizard? That he sent one back at me but got impaled by another?"

"And you think that was all spontaneous?" the doctor scowled, looking up at Theaobin. "Do you see a lot of wizards who can do all that? Could you do all that?" The slight kick and quick tap of a finger told Jeon that his own questions pierced.

"Magic's capacities are near infinite, which is why we are so cautious, isn't that right?" Theaobin asked Jeon, still keeping to a politician's smile. "There are those of magical blood who act without consideration or consciousness. They have been called the wild mages, as a man of medicine you tease me with your innocence of this matter. Your memory loss is...worth consideration."

"Seems rather subjective to me," the Zayan doctor shrugged. "Someone sees something they don't understand, they assume it's magic. In the common room, there's a fireplace that keeps the room warm without an actual fire. Do we assume that it's because the innkeeper is a wizard?"

"I really don't know much about magic, myself," Jeon admitted. "But what I've been told is it needs this 'arcanium' to power it. Surely you control the source in the empire, yes? No one would have given any to me as we were going into battle, I'm just an apothecary. So how did I use it?"

"Or," he paused, eyes narrowing as he studies Theaobin carefully, "Are wild mages somehow able to work this magic without it?"

'Or were they the source of this material?' Jeon wonders, feeling a chill going down his spine. 'And if they thought he was a source, would they kill him to get at it?' As Jeon's questions continue to spiral Theaobin's stare settled with a hunting kindness, softly curled lips with eyes piercing and unwavering. The series of questions asked provoked the Elfin Human to tap his fingers once on the arm of his chair.

"Hmm. You have far wider knowledge than you let on" What that could mean or what the consequences of such an accusation could be were interruption of the door opening abruptly.

'Melvin'

In the kitchen the older man walked closer to 'Melvin', presenting a vat of soup rich in carbs, proteins, some minerals, and little else. The Innkeeper encouraged 'Melvin' to have as much as he'd be able to carry back to his room. Breaded bowls were nearby for use.

Picking up a tray, the Probe shell ladled soup into four bowls.

"Sir, the woman who gave birth earlier, has anyone checked in on her?" it asked the Innkeeper. The man seemed a bit scattered.

"I can't be sure...I'll go look after her." He walked around 'Melvin' to return into the hallway.

"If you excuse me, I have to deliver this tray," the Probe Shell said, passing him to head for the guarded door as the N-gate hidden within its frame opened slightly to release a pair of drug pellets, which got loaded into its launchers.

"I've brought food," the Probe shell told the guards at the Marchioness' door, "For the people inside. Could you please let me in?"