"Well, wandering around a bunch of sick people in Old Korvosa sounds like a bad idea", Neva mused aloud. "I'd feel more comfortable about doing that if I knew more about this 'blood veil'."
She thought for a moment, looking especially at Rutter. "Let's go home for a day or so. I want to see if Rutter is really through this thing. I'll also go check on the child Brienna, too. In the meantime, we can keep an ear open to see if the Dr. and his physicians are having any effect. In short, we should stay inside in order to reduce our chances of catching and spreading this disease. But if we learn something new, we can act on it."
She looked around to see if this seemed alright with every one.
Aye, a sound plan, so long as we're not havin' the same problems gettin' back in here tomorrow that we be havin' today.
Rutter growls under his breath. "Well, I wouldn't want to get anyone sick... fine, I'll go out tomorrow. I'm sure we'll hear if anything unusual goes down."
Copper nods in agreement.
Despite Rutter picking up the illness first amongst you, he just as easily fights it off after Neva's first night of care. It seems all he really needed was a couple good nights of rest. The same may not be said for Pravlox. As soon as Rutter flushes the rest of it from his system, Pravlox picks it up instead. The physicians may just have the right of it, walking around with heavy herb-filled masks.
Pravlox doesn't actually notice that he picked it up right away because his life has been hard enough that one more bout of disease is just another day. When it is mentioned by someone else, he promptly removes himself from company, content to let it run it's course, whatever that course may be.
After Neva takes another look at him, Rutter can't help gloating a little, "See, Neva, I told you I was fine." He quietly adds, "Thanks, though."
"So what's next? Should we check in with Kroft? See if she has anything different to say while the queen's docs are out on their rounds? Or I guess she might have summoned us if she had... if she don't need us, she's prob'ly busy."
"I still want to follow one of those docs. With Copper's whisper trick, y'all could probably tag along way out of sight. How far's that thing work, Copper?"
"It works to about 45 yards right now, though the length at which I can cast and use spells seems to be growing slowly. I guess my magic is becoming more potent. If you want, we can slink along behind you, but otherwise I think we could cover more ground if we split up. Do you think you would be fine on your own if the rest of us, well, the three of us anyway, head elsewhere?"
"Yeah, no problem. Thought y'all would be interested, is all. But I didn't want y'all close enough to get noticed. I'll meet y'all back here this evening, then?
Neva gave Rutter a "don't-you-dare-do-anything-stupid" sort of glare before slowly softening into a caring smile.
"I'll take care of this one", she said, turning to Pravlox.
That the disease had come so quickly was worrying enough, but it also seemed to attack the body and mind from several directions. She decided to unleash another powerful prayer of health.
"So what do you think, Felgar?" Copper asks, turning to the dwarf, "Follow along with Rutter, stay back with Neva to try to avoid catching the disease, or find should we find something else to do?"
I'll be stayin' with Neva. Might be best not t'catch this thing.
"Sounds good to me. I could use some more time to look over my Thassilonian texts anyway. I'm still having a few issues grasping some of the more complex components of noun usage and verb tense within the language."
Turning to Rutter, Copper adds, "Before you go, little friend, at least let me cast a protective spell over you. I don't know how it will compare to your leather, but it may come in handy. Hopefully you won't have to find out how helpful it is, though."
Copper pulls a small piece of cured leather from his pocket, holding it in his cupped hands while reciting the words to the spell, "De door van de mage zullen beschermen mij.". He places a hand on Rutter and an aura of red energy surrounds the halfling for a brief moment before it disappears. It's magic used for the day, the ring on Copper's finger glows brightly for a second, then fades, causing the runic tatoo designs on his hand and arm to almost pulse and grow slightly thicker. Copper pulls his sleeve up to examine his arm, where the tatoo now nears his elbow. "Curioser and curioser.", he mumbles to himself.
Snapping back to reality, he tells Rutter, "The protection my mage armor offers should last near four hours. So be safe, my friend."
Aye, good luck, Rutter, be keepin' yer head down, but yer eyes and ears open.
"Suit yourselves. Cheers!"
Rutter practically skips out the door, eager to do some sneaking without his cumbersome allies.
Pravlox accepts the aid willing enough, not really worried about it's presence or absence so long as he can sit and do nothing while his body deals with the latest disease to ravage it.
Rutter heads towards the region known to be suffering the most, and his hopes of finding some of the physicians there are rewarded. He is able to find a small group, consisting of one of the doctors and two of the new queen's guard known as the Grey Maidens.
The physician leads a horse drawn cart, with a wooden hut on the back bearing a barred door, and the group moves from house to house. One of the maidens knocks, and when the door is answered they push their in with the doctor following. Periodically, they will exit with a citizen in tow, sometimes willingly, sometimes forcefully, and even once that he has seen with near deadly force. A wife, frantic as they dragged her husband away, clung to the arm of the Maiden, pleading for his release. The Maiden grabbed the woman by the shoulder, placed the tip of her blade against her throat, while issuing a quiet warning. The woman was shoved to the ground, and sat sobbing in the street as the wagon rolled on.
At one point the wagon came across another of its ilk, also with two maidens and a physician. The two doctors discussed where they have been and where they left off. The new wagon appeared to pick up where the first ended, as the original began to head toward its greater destination.
Rutter was able, all the while, to keep out of sight, following at a safe distance and keeping to the darkest corners. Nothing was evident to indicate that he had been seen, or if he had, that they even cared.
Rutter smiles to himself, I love it when I'm right! He follows the first wagon to find out where the 'patients' are being taken at the end of their shift.
Neva spent the morning trying to fuss over Copper, Pravlox and Felgar. But each in their own way demurred, and she soon found herself pacing with nervous energy and with entirely too much tea steeping in a nearby pot.
Sighing at own ridiculousness, she sat down to write out some long, calming prayers.
She got up only occasionally to force Pravlox to eat (and to force more cold tea on the overly-polite Felgar).
As the afternoon advanced, she found she had written quite a bit, and sat back, content.
Rutter follows them along their course, and finally it reaches its destination. In the warehouse district of the docks along the Jeggare river, not but a few blocks from Citadel Volshyenek, is a building bearing the label 'Hospoice of the Blessed Maiden'. Here the physician and the two maidens unload the wagon and bring the patients inside.
Rutter makes his way back to the 'Hospice of the Blessed Neva' and lets the rest of the party know what little he discovered.
"Traumatic, for sure. Don't feel like the best way to go about it, but maybe it is. I mean, you'd want it to stop spreading."
Neva frowned at Rutter's news. While it was true that quarantine could be an effective strategy, she felt a nagging fear about the level of care that might be given to those who reached this Hospice.
After a few minutes of thought, she addressed her friends. "The 'blood veil' is seemingly too virulent to be handled easily by the clerics and healers of the city. And thus Korvosa may be in for a terrible epidemic. I'm worried that the only official response seems to be to lock up the sick, where they will likely die without expert help."
"And it is difficult to sit here while the city needs my skills. My heart tells me to be out, tending to those, especially the poor, who need me."
"But I don't trust my judgement. Thus I cannot decide if we should just go and help those we can in the poorer neighborhoods, or if we should ensure that the Queen's Physicians are providing proper care."
"So, I put it to you all. Should we help as we can throughout the city, or should we investigate this 'Hospice of the Blessed Maiden'? That is, should we be supplementing the efforts of the Queen, or ensuring that her efforts are, in fact, appropriate?"
I am too distressed to know the best course."
"I'd just be worried if no one ever comes back from the Hospice. I'd think you can help people out in the neighborhoods for now, but we'll keep an eye out to make sure some of the patients return. Are any of the guardsmen working in or around the hospice? Maybe they could tell us what's going on inside."
"From how Rutter describes it, I think we can count on the Queen's people to gather up the people who have the sickness the worst and bring them all to the Hospice, whcih are the ones we would want to treat anyway. Once there, though, who knows if they are being given any care at all. I think our time would be better served to first check on the Hospice to see what they are doing with the people they bring in. If things look fine there, we can always move back out to the street to try to complement the Queen's staff."
I be agreein'. Do we really be havin' a reason to question the Queen now?
"Aside from the private militia, the framed painter, and the threatening writ? I guess not." Rutter punctuates his sarcasm with a grin to the mighty axman.
I be agreein'. Do we really be havin' a reason to question the Queen now?
"My only concern is that if we go in, we may not be able to come back out, whether it's because shady stuff is happening that they want to cover up or we get sick ourselves. If we just get sick, no biggie. I kicked it in a couple days, we can do it again. If it's shady stuff... even if we manage to get out, the Queen may think we're a threat to the story she's tellin', whatever it is."
"Maybe we should check in with Kroft, and see if she has any heebie-jeebies from the docs' and Gray Maidens' handling of the treatment before we decide what to do."
"Sounds like a solid idea to me, Rutter."
Aye, let's be talkin' t'Kroft.
"I'll wait here, no need to infect anyone else around here."
"Good idea, Rutter. Let's go first thing in the morning."
Neva spent the rest of the evening caring for Pravlox as best she could.
"Or a couple of us could go tonight. She seems like the type to work late, but in the morning she may be more likely to have company."
The three men head to the offices of the Field Marshal, while Neva mothers Pravlox in his sick bed. Arriving around suppertime, they do indeed find the Marshal in her office, looking like she is poring over ledgers or orders. As you enter, the dim light of the early evening plays shadows across her features, making her look a lot more ragged than she normally lets on during her previous meetings. She seems a little relieved to see your small group.
"Oh, well, looks like one less missive I'll have to write tonight. I was going to send you guys a note in the morning, asking to look into something for me. With this whole infection going around, it seems some are stepping up and doing their part, but others seem to be doing less. There's word that some of those dying are not making it to the Grey District. Specifically, they have turned to just dumping them in secluded alleyways. The first I heard of this was from Racker's Alley over on the west side of Old Korvosa. Do you guys think you could lend a hand and investigate what's going on up there?" She sighs, but it seems more like one of relief, like she is comforted that whatever the problem may be, she can rely that something will be done about it.
Be there any reports an who'd be dumpin' the bodies, Field Marshal?
She looks at the dwarf curiously for an instant, before she offers "When this thing first looked to be getting out of hand we contracted about a dozen plague carts to haul the dead to the Grey District. I imagine one of them is taking the easy way out. If you could catch them in the act, maybe we could prevent any more bodies from piling up, or any of the other bearers to take the same shortcut."
The name Racker's Alley is familiar, but not for the positive. The part of Old Korvosa it's in is known for their alley's having corners and turns in them that make for perfect cover during illicit activities. Racker's Alley is often associated with these kind of crimes.
"These carts working during the day or at night, or all hours?"
"How have people been taking to the doctors and the Grey Maidens? Does it seem like the doctors are getting people healed at the Hospice? That writ was pretty clumsily worded, if the doctors and Maidens really do have the best intentions."
The Field Marshal answers the questions easily enough, "The carts should be working whenever there's dead to cart. Regardless of time of day, though I would imagine they work more during the day when most people are up." She sighs and shakes her head, "As far as the Doctors and the Queen's new soldiers, I'm not real comfortable with them either, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. If they can get this thing under control, then the better for them, but it just don't seem right."
"Wouldn't it be to their benefit to actually deliver the bodies they have been hired to pick up? I dont know how the payment system works for the people picking them up, but I would think they wouldnt get paid if they showed up without any bodies."
Rutter shrugs at Kroft's assessment of the docs and Maidens.
He thinks about Copper's astute observation for a moment, but then discovers the flaw: "Well, if they were paid by the body, they'd be committing a whole other crime for their payday."
"If they're doing it day and night, we might as well wait until tomorrow. Doubt Neva will want to go out tonight."
If no one else had any questions, Rutter leads the way back to our place. He calls Neva out to another room, preferring to limit his own exposure to Pravlox, and tells her about the new job.
Felgar will join Rutter in his explanation to Neva.