Pandora Unchained - B1C71: Casualties

Having experienced a harrowing battle, Sorin and Barbara's teams were taken off rotation one day early. "I just got here, and now we're already getting time off?" said Sorin, wincing as he rolled his shoulder. Flesh-melt poison and healing potions had prevented complications, but his arm would still need surgery to restore full functionality.

"Don't get too comfortable," said Stephan. "The shifts are three days on and one day off. We won't find out till later if we're stuck on nights or days."

"Nights are the worst," added Lawrence. "You can't see anything out there, and sometimes, the dead rise and attack us."

"Then I guess I'd better not delay my trip to the clinic," said Sorin. "How about you? How are your wounds?"

"My hide is a lot tougher than it used to be," said Stephan. "I only suffered superficial injuries."

"You chose to become a tank, you realize?" said Gareth.

"Just because I chose, it doesn't make getting scratched and bit any less painful," Stephan snapped. "Since you two are so idle, how about you go restock our potions and consumables?"

"I'm afraid I can't," said Gareth. "I finally saved up enough for the skill I want, and I need to practice. It looks like Lawrence will have to make do on his own."

Daphne hadn't spoken much on their way back. After overdrawing on her mana during battle, she required ample rest and would likely be out of commission for the rest of the day. Despite her completely drained state, Sorin could hear her mumbling under her breath about more potent flames or perhaps exploring detonations and impact as an alternate means of damaging enemies. Her mind never stopped working, he reckoned, even in the rare event that she had a proper sleep.

The medical clinic was located just north of the southern gate. This was because the gate saw 50% more demons on average compared to the northern gate. The Temple of Hope's placement just north of the western entrance was responsible for this anomaly. One-star or even two-star demons didn't dare approach the temple's sacred boundary.

The clinic had a capacity of roughly fifty beds. A total of three physicians and two apprentices were on shift, including Marcus, the city's only two-star physician, and Gabriella, Sorin's former student.

These individuals were all hard at work, with the apprentices focused on triage and the physicians doing their best to heal critical injuries before they become irreparable. There's a lot of critically wounded patients, thought Sorin as he tallied the severity of their injuries. Eight patients are beyond saving and have been administered anesthetics. Twelve are critically wounded but should pull through given prompt treatment. As for the others, there would be no long-term issues as long as they were seen in the next 24 hours.

"Apothecary Sorin, what brings you here?" Sorin was surprised by Marcus's respectful form of address but assumed it had to do with his reclusive activities in the outpost.

"I was injured in the scuffle outside the northern wall," Sorin replied as Marcus approached him. "Things look quite busy here. Do you require my assistance?"

Marcus shook his head. "All the critical cases are being addressed, so that won't be necessary. We're busy but far from overwhelmed."

"Did the southern wall suffer an attack as well?" asked Sorin.

"Indeed, they did," answered Marcus. "And unlike the northern wall's relatively organized defense, only one team dared to stand up against the demons and buy their comrades time to retreat. As a result, the slower soldiers and adventurers were hunted down. Those you see here are those fortunate enough to survive that disaster.

Sorin's eyes quickly scanned the wounded and spotted a familiar face: the ice mage from Haster's team. His leg had been torn off, and the physicians had been unable to stop him from bleeding out. His corpse was still warm and had yet to be covered.

"How's Haster?" asked Sorin.

"I can't discuss specific patients for confidentiality reasons," said Marcus apologetically. "But if he'll see you, patients are allowed friendly visitors. Does your arm need to be looked at now, or can it wait an hour?"He was clearly looking to start treating the next patient.

"It can wait," said Sorin. "A half-day, if need be, until nerve damage starts to set in."

"It won't be that long," said Marcus. "I'll send someone over once things settle down."

Since Gabriella was busy, Sorin entered the temporary clinic in search of Haster. The building was made of clean canvas. The walls had been scrubbed clean less than four hours prior, and the place smelled of disinfectant and freshly boiled fever medicine.

A helpful nurse brought Sorin to a bed on the far side of the clinic. He breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw that Haster's limbs were intact. The man's beard was starting to fill in, connecting his thick sideburns to what might become a bushy mustache if he let it grow. The usual redness in his face was nowhere to be found, though judging by the flask on his bedside table, Sorin suspected that had more to do with loss of blood than lack of liquor.

"I'm surprised they let you keep your alcohol," said Sorin, pulling up a seat. "It doesn't usually affect the medicine, but it puts an unnecessary strain on your liver and other organs."

Haster groaned as he turned his head toward Sorin. "I told them I'd refuse treatment if they refused me liquor. They were halfway to kicking me out when that uppity physician, Marcus, told them I was obviously chronically dependent on alcohol and keeping me from drinking would probably kill me."

Sorin frowned and looked over Haster's condition with Ophidian Eye. "There's some truth to that. Less because of your dependency but more because of your mana. I've never seen such violent mana in a cultivator."

"I don't know about that, but I do know I've always had terrible headaches," said Haster. "Drinking is the only way to chase it off. Numbing the feeling of losing my companions is just a bonus."

"I'm sorry for your loss," said Sorin, de-activating Ophidian Eye. "They struck us up north, too. We managed to reach Barbara's team just in time. The soldiers on corpse duty were able to get away as a result."

Haster sighed. "They were right to run away. I don't resent them. All they did was follow the plan. Hell, half my team wanted to do the same. But I saw what would happen if we didn't hold those demons back. I should have died out there, but here I am."

The adventurer reached over for his flask but dropped it as pain arced through his arm. Sorin picked up the flask and handed it over. "Do you need me to get you something stronger?"

"No need," said Haster. "This stuff is actually not bad – it's the taste that makes me flinch." He sighed once again. "I don't think I'm cut out for this adventuring stuff, Sorin. A drunken swordsman is good at killing, but it comes at a price. The drink makes us reckless, and that recklessness gets people killed."

"Your recklessness saved a lot of good men and women," said Sorin. "Don't second-guess yourself. You did the right thing."

"I know," whispered Haster. "I just wish doing the right thing didn't hurt so damn much."

Seeing as his presence wasn't too helpful, Sorin retreated to the curtain. "Do you need me to pass along any messages?"

"Yeah," said Haster. "Tell the guild I'm retiring. Tell them to split my loot up and give it to my team's families. It's not worth as much as their lives, but it should help them get through the worst of it."

"I'll pass on the word, but no guarantees they'll listen to me," said Sorin, closing the curtain behind him.

Many cases were much worse than Sorin's. Most of the outpost's soldiers were non-cultivators, and it was these lesser soldiers who went out to collect the loot, arrows, and cores that had gotten caught by the invading demons.

Three painful hours passed before a familiar figure approached Sorin. "Gabriella," Sorin greeted. "I saw you earlier, but you were busy. I didn't want to interrupt your work."

"As if I'd let such a small thing affect my work," said Gabriella. "You should have said hello at the very least."

"Are you here to assist a physician?" asked Sorin.

"Actually, I've been assigned to your case," said Gabriella smugly. "Assuming you think my skills are up to the challenge."

"I think you'll do alright," replied Sorin. "The procedure is relatively low risk, though I should warn you to take precautions against poisonous blood."

"Don't worry, I made preparations for that long ago," said Gabriella, rubbing her hands together—a shroud of protective life mana wrapped around them.

"The jade hand technique," said Sorin with approval. "It looks like you took the reading I assigned to heart."

"Most of us in the clinic had to learn the skill," said Gabriella. "Marcus's orders. It's mostly for handling poisonous ingredients in the lab, but it does have a few useful applications in the clinic."

Gabriella led Sorin to a curtained-off area. The hospital bed had already been covered in a sheet of protective mana foil. A thick layer of non-reactive absorbent pads would catch any blood that spilled. "We normally just take these out for extreme cases of corruption," Gabriella explained. "They were collecting dust in the back until Marcus told us to pull them out for your treatment."

"Speaking of Marcus, how is he treating you?" asked Sorin.

"Very well, actually," said Gabriella. "The trial period was difficult, but I understood what he was doing. If all goes well, I should be able to take the physician's examination in the new year."

"That's good," said Sorin, wincing as Gabriella pressed his shoulder with her mana-covered hands. Streams of life mana poured into his arm, probing his wounds and outlining the teeth marks that had crushed his flesh and even chipped his bones.

"No infection, surprisingly," said Gabriella. "Is your constitution immune to disease?"

"Highly resistant," Sorin admitted. "To corruption as well, assuming it's not too high grade."

"Your regenerative abilities are very impressive," said Gabriella, pressing into the deepest wound. Sorin couldn't help but gasp in pain. "Though, in this case, that isn't a good thing. Your wounds have healed over foreign objects." She pulled out a silver enchanted scalpel and cut at the boundaries of the 'room,' isolating it from the outside world. A silver light flashed as the enchantment on the scalpel purified all elements of disease and corruption floating in the air and on Sorin's clothes and skin.

Only then did Gabriella mark key areas on Sorin's shoulder with a marker. There were three places where his bones had chipped, resulting in obstructions to blood flow. As for the last and largest mark, it was reserved for the tooth fragment that had embedded itself in Sorin's bones and tangled with his nerves and meridians.

"I thought Marcus was exaggerating when he said your blood was corrosive," Gabriella muttered as she cut into Sorin's flesh. A small amount of blood seeped out before she managed to block his artery with life mana. She then proceeded to pull out the obstructing bone chip with tweezers. "I think I'll have to throw away this scalpel and these tweezers when I'm done with you."

"Just send the bill to the Adventurers Guild," said Sorin. "I'm sure they'll handle it."

"I'm sure they will, given the situation outside," said Gabriella. She repeated the procedure for the two other minor injuries before prepping for extracting the tooth fragment. "Do you need any anesthetic?" she asked.

"Won't work," said Sorin, shaking his head. "My poison resistance is too high."

"A pity," said Gabriella, making a face. "Hopefully, you're tougher than you used to be."

Sorin gasped lightly as Gabriella cut deep into his flesh and used forceps to pry apart his skin. A small piece of decaying yellow bone was lodged in his shoulder joint where a mass of nerves, veins, and one of his meridians met.

This confirms that I'm not completely immune to corruption, thought Sorin as he watched her pull out the tooth fragment from a black mass of flesh. She then quickly blocked off the blood flow and scraped away the corrupt tissue, leaving only raw, regenerating flesh where a putrid infection had once been.

Sorin had to admit that Gabriella had improved since his departure. Marcus had clearly been tutoring her and had not been neglecting her as he'd first thought.

Her cultivation has improved substantially as well, thought Sorin, activating Ophidian Eye. Her network of 12 naturally opened primary meridians and four naturally opened extraordinary meridians lit up in his eyes. Her talent was one of the reasons he'd taken her in despite his body's poor condition.

It took her only a few minutes to stitch up his wound. A few choice applications of a one-star healing potion took care of the worst of his injuries.

"Judging from your natural regeneration response, you should be good as new in half a day," said Gabriella, tidying up the blood in the area and throwing the bloodied materials in a mithril bin for later disposal. "You should watch out for yourself, Sorin. You might be an adventurer now, but that doesn't mean your life is disposable."

"But if I don't get hurt, how am I going to get to see you?" asked Sorin with a grin.

Gabriella chuckled. "Silly boy. You're older than I am, but you still can't figure out that you don't need a reason to visit someone, assuming you enjoy their company."

"I don't suppose you have time for a coffee or something?" asked Sorin.

"I'm afraid not," said Gabriella, shaking her head. "The clinic is extremely busy, and we've got a strict rotation to ensure that we're prepared for emergencies at all times. Also, there's the drug trials that are still ongoing."

"Drug trials?" asked Sorin. Her words piqued his interest. Was Marcus being so blatant as to perform drug trials out in the open?

"It's an experimental treatment proposed by the Kepler Clan," said Gabriella. "The idea is to use a simplified version of the Kepler Clan's meridian opening procedure to allow wounded veterans to recover their capabilities partially. They could then return to work or combat, depending on their preferences."

"Any results so far?" asked Sorin.

"There are a few promising subjects," said Gabriella. "Some soldiers in the garrison, for example. They'd retired due to their wounds but can now properly wield mana and weapons."

Sorin was skeptical about the validity of this so-called treatment but gave no indication of this to Gabriella. According to the potions being brewed, he's clearly trying to zero in on the original formula. This isn't a fine-tuning but an actual drug trial in disguise. Fortunately, the ingredients were all geared towards the primary meridian opening tincture. There were few permanent adverse consequences to receiving treatment with a sub-optimal tincture. At worst, the meridians in question wouldn't open.

Even so, Sorin vowed to investigate the matter. If Marcus got too ambitious and attempted dangerous experiments, he would do everything he could to put a stop to it.

Sorin and Gabriella chatted for a few more minutes before she escorted him out of the tent. He passed Marcus on his way out. The man was reviewing reports now that the number of critical patients had been reduced.

"Gabriella, make sure to bring those bandages to the hazardous waste bin," Marcus called out behind them. "We wouldn't want anyone getting poisoned because they're unaware of the risks."

"Right away, sir," said Gabriella. She gave Sorin an apologetic look before rushing back into the clinic.

Having finished recovering, Sorin decided to retire early and get some rest. The half-day he needed to recover would need active effort on his part. Moreover, the demon tide was still ongoing. All adventurers were still on call, and there was no telling when the emergency bell would toll, mustering all cultivators for one last bloody battle.

***

Shortly after Sorin left the clinic, Marcus personally took it upon himself to dispose of the clinic's hazardous waste. Most of it was just simple contaminated waste that required incineration, but there was one exception: the bandages and absorbent pads that had been used during Sorin's surgery.

Marcus gingerly recovered these materials before making his way back to the Growing Branches Community Clinic, whose small laboratory was currently not in use.

A short while later, Marcus walked out of the laboratory and took a seat in his office to review the test results. "Mostly acidic components, with a minor paralytic component," he muttered. "The tests can't determine what mysterious element in his poisonous blood is, but fortunately, I can." There was only one poison that was corrosive enough to inhibit two-star mana: manabane poison.