RP:Defragging Bones

From HollowWiki

Synopsis: Kang arrives at the clinic with a chewed up, multiple-fractured arm thanks to his not-alpaca cub Glasgow Grin. Josleen sets his bones right with some magical booger-esque puddy made by Eleenin the shaman healer.

The Healing Room

Kang sits on the ground, heavily hooded and masterfully disguised. The only indication that this traveler is not one of the usual patients is the staff in his hand that doesn't look quite right, and the small creature hanging from his arm. She had already tore a chunk out of the mithril and tossed it across the room, the rest she was forcing deeper into the preklek's wound. Kang doesn't even flinch, but from the heavy breathing and the dilating pupils it is quite clear how painful the process is. "Gigi," he murmurs. "Knock it off." He shakes his arm, but the little Not-Alpaca remains firmly lodged. Long past is the time when he'd thought his arm was any match for those powerful jaws. He uses his good arm to pry the critter loose and put her muzzle on. He looks up to meet the doctor/surgeon's gaze. "Evening ma'am, it seems my little girl has a little too much energy. Is there any way I can get this restored?" He holds up his shredded and crushed arm. Faint scarring and bone fragments tell of many previous trips to the healer, all due to the small beast clawing at her lead.


Josleen is totally flattered to be seen as a doctor or surgeon, but no. She’s a volunteer nurse with about two years experience under her belt. The other doctors and nurses on staff were swamped with patients when Kang walked in, so Eleenin assigned the hooded preklek to the half-elf bard. Her eyes had bugged wide in alarm. The preklek race’s reputation precedes the warrior, and Josleen’s especially cowardly when facing a threat (imagined in this case) of physical violence. She slowly approaches the alien and his goat-thing, and, judging a book by its cover, erroneously fears Kang over Gigi. “Evening,” she bows her head without taking her eyes off him — just incase. “Hmm, that looks bad, but I am sure we can do something about that. Follow me, please.” Her bardic training keeps the fear out of her voice. His manners go a long way in calming her nerves as well. She leads him to an empty cot in the middle of the main room where everyone can see them should this encounter take a turn for the worse.


Kang follows behind, not paying the slightest notice of the nurse's discomfort. Gigi had gotten her muzzle off and was going for the arm again. He catches her by her scruff and hog-ties her, never missing a beat, though he needs to bite his lip to stifle a scream. "Apologies, ma'am. Little girl is tenacious, and I can't watch her all the time. I'll follow your directions best I can." He seats himself in the cot, and uses his good hand to tighten the knots around the struggling furball. This serves to distract him from the pain, and prevent further damage to the useless arm.


Josleen can’t suppress the amused grin at Kang’s hog-tying antics. Funny is preferable to violent. She visibly relaxes muscle by muscle. Maybe this is one of those fabled good preklek. “Not to worry. My name is Josleen. And yours?” Hopefully something pronounceable; you never know with aliens. As she chooses from bottles and salves, she experiments with some small talk. “A girl is she? What kind of animal is it?” The nurse interrupts her own chit-chat to get back to business, “How much do you weigh? On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain? 10 would be on the brink of fainting.” In this way she carries on two conversations with him - one to put him at ease, and another to improve the quality of her care. It’s a talent all nurses possess.


Kang turns to face Josleen. "The pain is about a thirteen, this is Glasgow Grin, and she's a Not-Alpaca. Most vicious creature in Lithrydel." He raises a hairless eyebrow. "I'm surprised you don't recognize the creature. She's native to Frostmaw. Fully grown they kill Frost Giants and devour the bones. To see one is a death sentence." The preklek leans over to scratch the kitten-sized creature behind the long fluffy ears, jerking his hand back when she nips at his fingers. "Not a good pet at all, but I hope to train her for guard duty and the like. A fool's errand, and costly. She can gnaw through even the highest quality metal, and she only stops to nap. Vicious little brat." The last is said with love, despite the horrific injuries she continuously inflicts on him. And the armor he'd had to replace no less than seven times, not that he's going to mention it. He won't need armor if he can't get his arm functioning.


Josleen shrugs at his surprise. “Brewed this myself. For the pain.” She hands him a large glass of cold opiate-based tea. “I’m native to Xalious and don’t venture into the western wilds of Frostmaw without good reason.” Talking and working without missing a beat, save to jerk her hand away from Glasgow Grin’s nips, she opens a small tub of green-goop salve. It’s the color of Kang’s flesh, coincidentally, and the consistency of boogers. With a ginger touch she cleans his wound with gauze, a bowl of warm water, and iodine tincture. “But I have heard of the species, now that you mention it. Never seen one. Maybe that’s why I am still alive,” she says with a cheeky smirk. “Let me know when the pain begins to subside. I need to set the bones with this puddy, but would rather wait until you can take the pain. The mixture is magically enchanted by Eleenin himself, the shaman chief.” Her forehead nods towards Eleenin across the room. “It acts as a cast and helps reattach tissue. What did you say is your name? Say, you wouldn’t happen to be that fellow named Kang? I heard a preklek by that name competes in the tournaments here. I’ve never been to one myself.”


Kang said, "Yeah, Kang. Sorry, my name. I forgot. The sore arm distracted me." Considering that a good portion of the arm needs to be rebuilt, distracting is understating the issue."I fight in the tournaments, with mixed results." He inhales and exhales slowly. "I can take the pain, I've experienced worse, or at least someone out there has. Passed on the memory," he doesn't explain himself. He keeps his eyes away from her work, distracting himself with teasing the infant furball. No matter how many times she lunges for his hand, she never catches it. Unfortunately, it only takes one moment of distraction to do severe damage. The arm being reconstructed, fixed, or what-have-you is a testament to Gigi's destructive power. "Fighting in the tourneys is the best way to learn the style of my foes. If I see it with my own eyes, I can anticipate. The hard part is correcting my own mistakes. Many of my kind don't realize how weak they've become relying on our tech. We need to defrag our own traditions and do a virus-scan of our lifestyle if we are going to succeed at even the smallest endeavor."


Josleen nods dumbly at the words defrag and virus scan. They go well over her head, but she’s learned not to dig or pry too much with patients. “Yea, I completely understand.” Uh huh. “This will hurt,” she says. She begins to massage and set his multiple fracture, using the booger-salve as a massage oil.The puddy sinks deep into his reptilian skin, leaving behind a shimmering gray powder. Kang will feel the salve constrict around his bones once they are properly placed, as if the bones themselves are sheathed in plaster. His strong muscles resist her petite effort, and the small nurse has to throw all her body weight into the task. Sweat shines at her temples. “So,” she grunts as she sets in a bone with a crack. “What do you mean.” HHNNNGGGGGGGGG. “Someone has passed on the memory?” She pants.


Kang tries to relax his muscles, but they spasm occasionally when the pain hits him just so. "Memories are passed from parent to child." Deep breath. "Not always perfect recall, but I remember being killed at least two thousand times. Pain is a constant companion for my kind. We're born and we race to her embrace only to repeat the cycle. New strategies are needed." He snaps a finger and a candleflame hovers in front of Gigi, distracting her for a few minutes while Kang tries to regain control of his body. Or maybe he just felt the need to pass out. The staff in his hand immolates and becomes a second candleflame that dances with the first. The two flames burn nothing and float around distracting the Not-Alpaca while her handler recovers. "Memories are all we have sometimes. Even a bad memory can be prized."


Josleen nods like everything Kang says makes total sense and isn’t insane at all. And frankly, maybe it isn’t. Josleen’s mind is fairly open to atypical belief systems, but it’s hard for her to empathize. without experiencing anything like what Kang describes. “I did not know that about your kind,” she says. She eyes his flame warily for a second then deems it safe-ish. “This salve will need to be reapplied every three days for another thirty days. Anyone here can reapply it for you.” The pain reliever should be kicking in, taking the pain to a manageable four. “I am not always in, so don’t wait on my account.” She begins dressing the superficial tears, which will heal slowly on their own. The deep gashes have been stitched by the same puddy. The arm is then bent across his chest and worked gently into a sling. “Keep it in a sling for two weeks, then slowly ease into movements, working your way to full range. Move too quickly and you risk serious ligament damage.”


Kang accepts everything Josleen says with calm acceptance. He'd heard it all before, and decided that he's more likely to get future care if he cooperates with the staff of these healing outposts. "Yes, ma'am. Thankee kindly." He gives a series of sharp whistles and the flames lead him and his mezmerized pet out the door. "I shall return for my treatments. What do I owe?"


Josleen sends Kang a bill for an appropriate amount, yes? Yes!