The Great War: Chapter 45
Stick to your morals
The infirmary of Eros has drastically changed the last few cycles. While they still get the usual patients - the ill and the mildly injured - there’s not much healing to be done to keep all the wizards busy for long. Some of the cots have been removed, replaced by a long table decorated with folded notes and sealed letters. They all have addresses scrawled on one of their surfaces, half labeled “in” and half labeled “out”. For the healers that aren’t busy with other things, they pick a paper from the table and rush out of the tent to deliver it.
The system is crude but it works for what it is. Healers aren’t proper messengers, though it’s better than simply standing around all cycle with almost nothing to do. And besides, from what Jae has heard so far, spreading the healers out like this is already working in their favor. They’ve been able to assist those in other towns that are already understaffed with healers of their own.
“Hey, can you run a couple letters around town?” Jae asks a passing healer. “The pile is getting pretty big.” The healer nods back at her and approaches the table, scooping up a large handful of papers as per her request.
Jae also eyes the table, a small itch in the back of her mind. She’s also been running letters whenever she can, albeit within Eros. Seeing the smiles on other’s faces whenever she hands over her delivery creates that urge to deliver more. Being the overseer is boring, but it’s a job that must also be done.
She’s almost surprised at how little she has to actually do. If the medical supplies need to be refilled, she hardly has to ask before another healer offers to go restock. When a patient enters the tent, they’re almost instantly ushered to a cot to be examined. The work is simple enough that any sort of overseer position, such as being the Head Healer for instance, feels more like a formality than an actual job of special importance.
“Jae,” one of the healers calls out to her, drawing her attention. Their face is plastered with a troubled scowl as they hand off a small piece of paper to her, saying, “There’s a being outside who wants to see you.”
Jae takes a quick look down at the paper in her hand. One side is scrawled with long black lines; to any other being, it’d appear as nonsense. But to longtime healers, the short form handwriting is apparent.
Jae; Caution; Speak & Send Away
“Outside?” she checks. The healer who delivered the note nods back in confirmation. She can’t help but roll her eyes as she heads for the tent’s exit. Might as well see what Yumi is warning her about.
Stepping out into the bright light of the cycle, she spots a man standing nearby the tent, his arms folded as he eyes the opening with unwavering focus. He’s here on a mission and he won’t be leaving until it’s complete, whatever it is. Aside from him and the stream of healers buzzing about, there’s no other being in the area that could possibly be the one waiting to see Jae.
She tries her best to ignore the burn scar on the man’s face as she approaches, both wanting to try and heal it for him yet knowing that it’s most likely been on his face for so long that there’s nothing she can do now to make it better. With each step she takes, the air around her grows ever so slightly colder.
She holds up the paper to the man and gets right to the point, “What do you want from me?”
The man cracks a grin, one of devilish innocence. “The name’s Mitch. My employer has taken an interest in your operations and wants to offer her services.”
Jae places her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at Mitch. “What do you mean?”
“Some of your healers have been getting assaulted lately, no? We can provide them with more protection.”
“How do you know about that?” the healer breathes.
“My employer has eyes and ears all over Korodon,” Mitch replies smoothly. “Nothing happens without her knowing about it.”
“And what’s the catch?”
Mitch’s smile strains ever so slightly, though Jae can’t tell if it’s her straightforwardness that’s throwing him off or if he’s trying hard to hold back a more sinister side to his character from shining through. Either way, if Yumi went out of her way to write that warning for her then this being means nothing but bad business.
“You’ll have to work for my employer,” Mitch replies, “just like your friend.”
Jae’s breath catches in her throat, suddenly realizing who this being truly is. Were their letters back and forth inspected? Or does he figure that Jae already knows about the Head Healer’s predicament with the island’s underground? No wonder she received a warning.
“I don’t want anything to do with your syndicate,” Jae says firmly, doing nothing to keep back her disgust. “Is the Head Healer not enough for you? You’ve already got the rest of us in your pocket because of her.”
“Well, as her second-in-command-”
“No,” Jae interrupts. “Go peddle your deals elsewhere, but do not approach me or my healers again.”
“My employer isn’t one to rest on a denial,” Mitch informs her.
“Well, I’m not Yumi you’re dealing with here,” Jae replies. “You’re dealing with me, and I’ll be fighting on the front line before I ever take one order from your employer.” With that, she spins on her heel and struts back to the tent, ending the conversation then and there. As much as she wants to get protection for her healers to guard against those random attacks, they’re still so infrequent that they’re more of a nuisance than a proper concern to any of them. That also means that investigating each of them as they happen is slow-going.
She’s not been subject to one of these attacks herself, but other healers have, and they’ve discussed them with her as they’ve happened. It’s a strange thing to hear, of beings attacking innocent healers as they go about with their deliveries and help those in need. They’re not meant for combat, leaving them as prime targets for those with malicious intent. Besides, the less healers there are to go around, the slower the sick and injured can recover from their ailments. She can’t help but think that somehow some Guardians have managed to sneak onto the island and are trying to sow the seeds of chaos within their bastion, but she also can’t rule out the possibility that there could be some wizards that are siding with the Guardians for whatever reason, or even other unknown organizations that also seek the destruction of the small magical empire. Though it’s not like she can leave Eros to investigate these assaults personally, either. She can only hope that reporting these instances to the royal guard will yield some positive results.
Still, Jae doesn’t blame Yumi for getting involved with the underground scene. It was for the greater good of the returning sailors to get a temporary site set up as soon as possible. But if Jae can avoid them then she will. She doesn’t need their help, though even if she did she won’t sell them her soul. They’re most likely in it for the information gathering anyway, and she won’t compromise the privacy of the senders and receivers to a band of criminals just like that. The harder they have to work to obtain information, the less likely they are to bother doing it in the first place.
Stepping back into the tent, a healer breaks away from a small group stood around with looks of concern and panic and approaches her with a long white scroll sealed with gold ribbon clutched in their hands.
“What do we do with this one, Jae?” they ask her.
“Let me see,” she hums, taking the scroll from the healer’s hands. She turns it over lightly with her fingers, quickly coming across a wax seal stamped with the dreadful diamond of Light. This scroll came from the Guardians. There’s no doubt about it.
“Where did this come from?” she asks the healer.
The healer spins around and calls to another being, “Averline, where’d you get it?”
“A sailor handed it to me while I was running around Ica,” a nervous girl replies, her fingers laced together tightly with anxiousness. “He said it came from a Guardian ship…”
Jae can’t help but frown. It makes sense for the Guardians to play this way, seeing as if they were to land on Korodon themselves they’d be instantly swarmed. Though even if the document is official enough on its surface, it’s hard to say if it’s really from a Guardian ship or if it’s a well-crafted forgery. How did this sailor even get their hands on such a document in the first place, what with all of the ships being recalled?
The small group of healers stand around Jae silently, their anxiousness slowly starting to get to her as well. She wants to open the scroll to see what’s written inside, just to verify it isn’t some sort of distasteful prank, yet she hesitates all the same, for if the scroll is indeed real then it must only be opened by the king, his heir, or his advisor, and if she cracks the seal then she might be charged with tampering with royal documents. No wonder it’s not been delivered to the castle yet.
“Thank you,” she says to the group, “I’ll deliver it.”
“Are you sure?” she is asked.
She nods back and musters a reassuring grin. “I’ve dealt with the royals before. I’m sure they’ll understand if it turns out to be a fake if I explain.” If she manages to run into the prince then she’ll hopefully be able to manage expectations a bit better than if she were to go right to the king. At least, that’s the hope.
If the document is a forgery, heads will certainly roll. But if the document is truly written by the Guardians, she can only wonder what it could possibly be about…