Before we left Quailbrook, we made two more stops. Serru stepped into a building she said was the post office, and rejoined me outside after only a moment—what she was doing, I didn’t ask, since I had no idea whether it was any of my business.
We also visited a general store. In that, Serru insisted on buying me several other things she decred to be essentials: a water fsk made from a gourd, some bars of travel food, a simple knife with a handle that looked like antler to my inexpert eye, a small hatchet, a lumina stone, a bnket that felt like very soft wool, and half a dozen tightly-wrapped packets, no rger than a paperback book and not a long one at that, that she said were tents.
The rgest was a staff simir to hers. The wood was polished smooth; one end had a wide ring of dark metal around it, and there were two narrower ones farther up, and the other end bore that same odd metal head, which was apparently very useful for gathering. The hook, she said, was most often used for extending one’s reach upwards into a tree or cliff or out into a body of water, and the spike could be simirly used for probing or dislodging things as well as testing the ground. In a pinch, it could be used for fending something off, but my question about whether it was a good idea to actually hit those mossy things with it confused her for some reason.
They all went into my new yellow-and-blue backpack. Even the staff. Somehow. Despite being several times the length of the bag. When I asked her how any of that worked, she just smiled and told me to reach inside to find one item.
When I did, I saw a kind of faint translucent grid in front of my eyes, like a heads-up dispy. Overid on it were two rge items, the medical cases, that took up multiple squares each, and the staff taking up several in a row, and a number of smaller things each sitting in a single square of the grid.
“I have an inventory,” I said, startled, although honestly, I should have been expecting that.
“How else would you find things? Here, before you answer that, these are yours too. I thought they might help you feel less... obvious.”
I’d noticed, in the store where we’d bought the bag, that she’d added other things to the counter, but hadn’t asked. We stopped briefly where I could step into the shelter of a stand of bushes surrounding a tree to change, stowing my own clothes in my bag.
The royal-blue top felt like a cross between my uniform shirt and a T-shirt, but it was hip-length and made of some soft drapey fabric that felt good against my skin; the V-neck was lower than I was used to, with a pair of silver spherical buttons to fasten it at my throat. The sleeves were elbow-length but the outer half of that was open along the top and secured by a pair of matching small buttons at the outer end that, undone, meant T-shirt sleeves that could be folded back and buttoned there or left loose.
The jacket was grey and waist-length and colrless, with a double row of bck buttons up the front, keeping it overpped if fastened; it looked and felt a lot like it was made of leather, but I wasn’t willing to bet on that.
How she found exactly the right size for both was a mystery to me, but they were the most comfortable clothes I’d ever worn, I was sure of it.
“Thanks. That does help.”
She just smiled, and handed me a triangur scarf of substantial size, the material soft as the shirt but not the same, woven in a curvy pattern of white and two shades of blue. “Healers of any kind usually wear something with an appropriate symbol, but it’s not mandatory. I’ve noticed a distinct trend in healers on the road wearing scarves of that general type. One told me they’re useful to apply pressure or make a quick sling, among other thing. Obviously others wear them, scarves of any shape are common, but it both may be useful and may hint to others.”
“Yeah, sounds great. Any particur way people tend to wear scarves here?”
“Any way you can think of, any way that is comfortable for you and not in your way.”
It had been a while since I’d worn anything but jeans and T-shirts or my uniform—it took too much effort and there were risks involved. I tossed the ends around the back of my neck with the triangle’s point hanging down the front, and adjusted it to be sure it would stay. The fabric had enough friction that I thought it would under most conditions.
“That looks good. You were going to tell me about organizing things?”
While we followed the broad, evenly-surfaced road, I tried to expin to her how much time and effort went into the attempt to make sure that medical supplies in anything from an ambunce to a first aid kit were organized and easy to find, let alone anything else in life from groceries to moving to cluttered living spaces.
She listened, but finally shook her head. “It all sounds very chaotic and complicated.”
“You’re definitely not wrong. No matter how much we fight it, it’s a constant struggle.”
“How does anyone have the energy for anything else?”
We had several hours of daylight left, apparently. We did stop once for a leisurely break and a snack. The travel food bar I chose at random reminded me of rather fruity chocote, dense and sweet with a pleasant fvour, and even though it was about the size of a candy bar, it left me feeling comfortably full. Around us, wildflowers grew in the patchy sunlight that trickled through the trees, with bees buzzing around them and brightly-coloured butterflies nding on them, but nothing tried to bite me.
While we were sitting down, I pulled out the medical kits so I could take a look at the documentation that came with them.
The basic one was quite a good first aid manual, with a clear table of contents listing crises. Each section spelled out exactly what to do in simple terms and left nothing ambiguous, and there were plenty of simple four-colour drawings to illustrate it where necessary.
It took me a moment to realize that I was reading effortlessly even though some part of my mind insisted that the characters were as alien as the words they spelled. I tried to bring up the way my own name looked, and I was absolutely sure it was not what I was used to but I couldn’t bring to mind how it should look. I gave up and turned my attention back to the contents.
A number of crises simply said, “Use a Quickheal and get healer assistance as quickly as possible,” which made sense for a potion that selectively targeted life-threatening conditions before moving on.
“Every household has Quickheal potions around,” Serru said. “Many people have one on their person. Often those are imperfect ones made by students, less effective but adequate for small everyday issues. A minor accident in the kitchen, tripping on the stairs, a headache from a difficult day. Even for piercings.” She tapped the rings along one pointed ear.
“Those sound incredibly useful.”
“Anodyne makes pain stop. Panacea cures any illness, we talked about that before, and Antidote neutralizes any toxin, most commonly the wrong mushroom or fish. Lulbye aids with sleep, Soce helps mood, Refresh allows you to feel alert and strong even with no sleep but you will pay ter, and Recovery is meant to help after something exhausting that causes a great deal of strain.”
Near the back of the booklet, it listed everything in the kit, and included the symbol on the stopper and the colour of the contents. “Got it. And Cleanse makes sure there’s nothing in a wound, recommended before Ointment which is a local topical mixture of Quickheal and Anodyne. Bandages have a local topical mixed effect of Quickheal and ongoing Cleanse. Splints have a local topical Anodyne effect and a unique stasis stabilization effect... neat. Shears, Tweezers, fine. A Tourniquet that adjusts its own tension correctly is good, people tend to leave them too loose to be effective. And stripes will change colour to show long it’s been in pce, which is a nice change from people forgetting to write that detail anywhere.”
“That’s a new development. The previous ones were more manual and not recommended in basic kits.”
Huh. So there were inventions and improvements here.
“So how long would it take a Quickheal to stop bleeding?”
“That would depend on the quality of it and how bad the bleeding is and from how many locations, and whether Ointment and Bandages are also being used, but I would expect at the very least a top-quality Quickheal would be able to greatly reduce any bleeding within an hour or so, perhaps? I suppose it might be longer if someone couldn’t lie still and let it work, or there was some other dangerous health concern at the same time, but if there’s something else as well I’d hope for someone with Softcure to help.”
“Still a question of hours, though? Even without a doctor’s intervention?”
“Yes.”
“Got it. That tells me what kind of scale. What’s a Water Bnket?” I scanned down the list.
“A thin and tightly-folded bnket sealed in a package to keep the contents saturated with water. Useful in case someone overheats or dehydrates.”
“Nothing for warming someone up?”
“Travellers will generally have an ordinary bnket at hand, which is enough for comfort and perhaps shock, and a tent, and a way of making a fire in extreme cases. But deep cold is much more of a risk in the Highnds.”
“No protective gear like gloves or masks, but then, you have potions that cure all disease, so okay, I guess. What about the diagnosis equipment you both mentioned?”
“I sent a message to a friend in a city. I’m working on that.”
“I hope it’s not expensive.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never had a reason to check, but I don’t expect it to be all that bad. Are you done? I have a pce in mind to camp for the night.”
“Sure.” I tucked the book away to look at in more detail ter and put the box back in my new bag. “Did I hear the name Elixir? It’s not in this one. What’s that?”
“A magic booster. Best kept for emergencies.”
Mana potions too. Most of what we’d just bought, however, seemed to be the equivalent of over-the-counter meds and household first aid kits. That was fine. You could do a lot with that if you knew what you were doing.
The road we were on met up with, and in fact terminated at, a road that was somewhat wider, though it still looked like hard-packed dirt. I saw a sign facing towards the new road but right next to the one we’d been on, and I could read in white-edged bck characters on pale wood the name of Quailbrook. Serru gestured to one side.
There was nothing really to do but talk, so we did. Everything I learned about this world felt strange and yet also sort-of familiar, things I would have accepted without question in a computer game but balked at in person. Serru was just as curious about my home, though she found much of it perplexing—to be fair, part of that might have been my expnations.
Now and then, as we walked, we encountered others coming the opposite direction. Sometimes it was a single person, sometimes two or more; sometimes they were on foot, sometimes they were riding horses or in carriages clearly meant for passengers or driving wagons full of goods. They were even more diverse than what I’d seen in Quailbrook, but what they all had in common was passing us with a brief greeting and acknowledgement. One, a scaled person on foot, did pause to ask whether it was much farther to Quailbrook; Serru assured that one that they’d certainly be there for dinner. I attracted a few curious looks, but the greetings included me and no one otherwise commented.
We passed a few side-roads, the sides alternating, each with a sign, which Serru confirmed led to other settlements. It reminded me of a highway with off-ramps leading into towns and rest-stops.
From the crests of the gentle hills, I could see quite a long way. As near as I could tell, we were in the middle of open grassy pins, extending off until they met the sky at the horizon, which expined the name ‘Heavenmeet’. They weren’t completely devoid of trees, but the trees were scattered and solitary for the most part.
It looked different from the valleys, where there were sometimes clumps or ribbons of trees and shrubs and lower vegetation that Serru said marked springs or small ponds or streams. It reflected, on a smaller scale, what happened around the rivers and small kes that adorned the Grassnds. Clearly, the region wasn’t particurly short on water.
By far the oddest thing I learned while we walked was that this was a nearly-closed system in a bizarrely literal way.
“If there are medical tools for stopped hearts, then people die, right?” I asked.
“Yes. It’s unpleasant, though, and can be highly inconvenient.”
“Sorry, back up. It’s not the end?”
“The end of what?
“Of that person’s life. Their existence.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. Death is sometimes the end of a life, but not of existence. Is that what happens in your home?”
“We don’t know. People don’t generally come back. Their loved ones grieve for them and then go on with their own lives. We just hope we’re reunited after death with people we love. Except some people who believe that death is just absolutely an end and there’s nothing after.”
“That’s... I don’t know how to feel about that. When we die by injury or illness, we reappear in our birthpce after a day-night cycle, healthy, although we lose belongings we had on us and it can be a very long distance from where we were. It’s what people will understand the situation to be if I tell them you are lost and I’m helping you find your way home, that you were born here but have spent your life far away. No one takes dying lightly, although it may be the better option if the alternative will be a permanent difficulty. That can get complicated and is part of why we highly value those who care for our health. If we die of age, we’re reborn in a new life and grow up all over again, although it’s common for a few fragments of old memories to surface and there are ways to work at seeking those if we choose to. Well, most can. Sometimes children are born who have no memories to regain. We believe they’re new to our world.”
“You don’t die. Not the way I understand the word.”
“We die. It’s just not a permanent state. There are two exceptions that can greatly dey the natural process. The Moss Queen’s moss is an infection passed on by a scratch or bite, and it works on animals and people alike. It’s a... a sort of collective intelligence that breaks down personal identity, driven above all else by her personality and priorities. It can take up to two years, but eventually her moss becomes too much for a body to bear and that leads to a normal death. The other is the Zombie King. That is a state which involves no sense of self or memory at all, only a need to obey with no other priorities, and again, it can take up to two years, but undead flesh will eventually degenerate too much and normal death will take over. It’s a complex subject with considerable effort at research and analysis of both states.” Her forehead furrowed. “Most people have experienced one or both at some time, or have lost someone beloved to one or both, or both of those things. It can be a painful subject and is not something one generally discusses.”
I made a mental note not to do anything like asking, in all ignorance, just how well-acquainted anyone was with Moss Queen and Zombie King. “So everyone here is just looping around again and again, with the popution slowly increasing when babies are born who are new?”
“There is a way out. It’s difficult to be certain but we believe that the new babies repce those who have chosen to leave. That’s the only way I know of to go elsewhere, so that’s where we’re going.”
“Obviously it’s not something someone can just fall through by accident.”
She ughed. “No. The Quincunx is five different locations. Four in a square and then the fifth in the centre. A quincunx. We can start anywhere as long as we visit all four around the outside before we go to the central one.”
“What happens at them?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never wanted to leave.”
“No one’s ever done one or two and talked about it?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
I could think of dark possibilities more suited to a gritty movie taking itself far too seriously, but in the warm golden sunlight, with maybe three different birdsong tunes being sung to us from a couple dozen directions, and Serru’s pleasant company, those felt like a stretch.
