Obligation
Venden handed her his severed hand and showed her the cut on his waist.
He hissed as she poked at the injury with a finger, her expression unreadable.
"Hm… Perpetual Pain Imprint," she rasped. "Did all of you get injured by it?"
"All of us except Fate," Venden told her.
"Bah, I should've charged more!" she growled. "I can barely squeeze a few Lights out as a profit if this is the case!"
The Guard kept his mouth shut. He had dealt with fregog before.
Though they were greedy, they rarely reneged on a deal. They would gladly pocket any "excess funds" handed to them, as Jkn-ala displayed when she didn't give Fate his change when he first met the demon, but they were shrewd businessmen.
Going back on their word made them untrustworthy in the eyes of their customers, which in turn meant fewer customers to pay them.
The best thing to do in this situation was to just let the demon vent. The fregog hated losing out on profits, but so long as there were profits to be had, they would do as they said they would.
Jkn-ala did exactly that, taking tinctures and mixtures off the shelves and grumbling all the while.
She plodded back over to Venden and set the medicine on the table next to him.
"Your hand was cut off by what Grade of weapon?"
"Sapling," Venden said morosely.
The fregog patted his remaining hand sympathetically. "Then I'm afraid you'd need an Arch-Mage to reattach it. And since so much time has passed, I doubt even they would succeed.
"But," she continued as she took the lids off various jars and vials, "I've heard they're making headway in artificial hands. They don't have to be human anymore, don't you know?
"Metal, wood, I've even seen someone with a lizard hand, complete with all the benefits that bring. It's expensive, but I'm sure your family can afford it."
"I emancipated from my family," Venden sighed. "So if I get a new hand, it'll be from my own coin."
"Ah," the fregog replied. "In that case, maybe you can apply for imperial aid when you join the Guards. You are planning on joining the Guards, aren't you?"
"I am," Venden replied.
"Then there you go." She dipped her finger in one of the jars. It came back out covered in green goo. "This'll sting," she warned, grabbing Venden's left wrist with her other hand.
She pulled the makeshift bandage off of his stump and rubbed the green goo on it, eliciting a yelp from the Journeymen as it started to sizzle.
"Hold still," Jkn-ala demanded. "And relax. If you move the area too much, it won't seal properly."
"Easier said than done," Venden scowled. "It feels like someone's raking hot coals against my skin."
"That means it's working," Jkn-ala said soothingly. "And if you think this is bad, wait 'till we get to that laceration on your waist."
"What's going to happen then?" Venden asked, although he dreaded the answer.
"Let's just say that this stump of yours doesn't need as much… attentive care to seal up. There's not much muscle I have to replace, or fat to restore."
Soon enough, the fregog finished with his stump and allowed him to examine it in the dim light of the fregog's apartment.
It was as smooth as the rest of his skin, maybe even smoother. There was no indent or hole to be seen, it was just a mound of flesh and skin. The perfect shape for an artificial hand to latch onto.
"I suggest you bite down on this," the fregog told him, handing him a leather bit.
Venden reluctantly bit down on the piece of leather, clamping his eyes shut as Jkn-ala dipped her three fingers each into a separate jar.
A muffled scream came from the young man when the fregog put finger to flesh, wiping blue liquid onto the wound with one finger and letting it sink in before applying a red poultice, and then finally an orange poultice.
The blue liquid was the worst of the three. Once applied, black sludge with a faint red tinge started pouring out of the wound, which Jkn-ala caught skillfully with an empty jar.
Then the red poultice, once applied, gave Venden his healthy pink hue back, which had paled from blood loss, as his blood was replenished.
Finally, the orange poultice was applied seconds after the red one, and stitched the wound together in a very unpleasant manner, literally yanking the two edges of the injury together before searing it closed.
Jkn-ala nodded, satisfied, before doing the same to Cait and Samantha.
The latter proved more troublesome than the other two, as she had frozen her wounds over before falling unconscious. Jkn-ala grumbled angrily as she pulled a new jar off of a shelf and sprinkled some of its contents onto the woman.
What looked like red sea salt was liberally applied to the frozen areas, which melted the ice swiftly and unleashed a flood of partially-congealed blood.
The fregog shook her head disapprovingly at this sight. "If you're going to freeze a section of your body, you should at least know the side effects. She could've killed herself from blood clotting if this hadn't been taken care of quickly."
"Will she be all right?" Fate asked.
"She will, because you brought her to me," the fregog said, glancing at Fate skeptically. "I'm surprised you can even talk in that state. That hole in your chest should've taken out at least one of your lungs. Unless I'm rusty on human biology, which I doubt."
"It's my Skill," Fate explained.
"Hmph. Skills. Was it also your Skill that brought you into such a foolish endeavor as fighting with an aesh far stronger than you?" asked Jkn-ala as she went to work on Samantha's injuries.
"No, it was the obligation Mages have to defend our nation," Fate shrugged. "Better a few scrapes than prison or the headsman's axe."
Jkn-ala snorted again but declined to comment. Instead, she spread her medicine on the fist-sized cut on Samantha's thigh, prompting Samantha to startle awake at the pain, her fight-or-flight response kicking in.
A dagger manifested in her hand, and she stabbed toward the fregog.