Vampire: Dark Ages (Vienna) - Chapter 2: The Slums

[Goatkiller666]

[It is now the next evening. What would you like to do?]

[Corrozus]

Lament cautiously steps outside her haven and spends a moment or three looking around at the city. Not seeing any smoke or signs of battle, she slowly and slightly aimlessly wanders around the slums, gradually heading towards other areas of the city.

[Goatkiller666]

Wandering through the city, Lament can sense the tension in the people. When she comes to the pawper's church, half of the street is blocked off by white tents pitched near the Church's doors. It looks like a temporary hospital. She can hear the sounds of many injured inside.

Before now on her walk, she's seen no signs of combat, but clearly many people were injured somehow during the day. There are a few guards standing by the entrance to the tent structure, wearing a coat of arms that Lament has never seen before. [perc+etiquette, 2 successes: they're likely Hungarian, but she can't identify the specific house]

The bakery across the street seems to be empty, though she can see smoke rising from the cooking chimney, so they were still baking something. The ever-present smell of fresh bread was mixing with the sounds of pain and the faint taint of blood.

EDIT: let's assume that this actually takes place several days in the future. There has been no actual attack in that time, but the whole city is on edge.

As she gets closer, Lament notices that they're not guards, they're just armed men standing by the door to the tents. They look worried more than bored. They're not standing at attention, and several of them keep trying to look in through the tent's door flaps.

[Corrozus]

Lament approaches one of the men by the tent and murmurs softly to him, requesting permission to enter, noticing as she does that they appear to be hovering around moreso then guarding the entrance. The man glances down at her and nods, holding back the flap slightly and allowing her to enter.

She walks through the tent slowly, occasionally stopping to touch someone laying on a cot before continuing.

[Goatkiller666]

The men are speaking some language Lament doesn't know.

Inside, there are several areas, closed off with white cloth walls around them, each with one or two injured me. All told, perhaps 20 injured are here, some with fairly minor wounds, some who struggle for breath only long enough to finish confession to the nearby priest.

The wounds seem to be arrow wounds.

[Corrozus]

Lament looks around the tent again, whispering softly under her breath. She narrows her eyes and settles on one of the little makeshift rooms as she pushes her sleeves up past her elbows and flexes her hands. The room she heads towards has 2 of the more seriously wounded men. She pulls some cloth across the front of the little room, pulls a small flat bundle out of her robes and opens it up, revealing some needles, thread, bandages, cloth and herbs packed neatly in rows. She lays it on the end of one of the beds and starts examining the men, humming softly as she works.

[Goatkiller666]

Brother Jurgen is no doctor, but he has a deft hand, and this looks like his work. The first man has several arrow wounds. Both legs and one arm were hit multiple times, only the man's shield protected his left arm. Each of these shows a clear entry and exit wound, the width of which shows that large fighting arrows were used, not target arrows. More arrow wounds are on his chest. With these, the arrowhead had to be pulled out, and there is some sign that the one by his clavicle had to be dug out. The wound in his abdomen, on the other hand, still has the broken shaft of the arrow sticking out of it. Dark blood and other, fouler, humors can be seen. The smell of sewage is strong near him.

The second man is gasping shallowly. On closer inspection, he has fewer wounds, but one of them is through his neck. It exited cleanly, but cut through quite a lot of the muscles in his neck. His breath is exiting through the wound as well, which is moving the openings. When she touches his neck to look more closely, his hand shoots up to grab Lament's wrist. He tries to speak, but this only comes out as a strained gargle, then he collapses back to his litter. He lies there, breath coming more quickly, eyes wide in renewed pain.

The Malkavian manages to pull out the broken arrow without causing any further damage. She applies certain medicinal ointments to his several wounds and binds them. After that, the second man requires more care. She is able to sew his throat shut, but he moves a lot during the process, making it more difficult. His other wounds were less serious, and were quickly salved and bound.

As she the room with the injured men, their breathing deeper and more peaceful, she sees Brother Jurgen standing in the tent's "hallway", with another man in the same Hungarian colors as those outside. This man looks to be a lord of some kind, his clothes are very fine indeed. The two step outside the tent area and wait for Lament to follow. The noble says something in Hungarian.

[Corrozus]

Lament washes her hands and follows the two men outside of the tent, pushing her sleeves back down her arms.

[Goatkiller666]

The noble says something in what is probably Hungarian, looking at Lament. He switches to German, with difficulty. "They will live?"

Jurgen replies, "They will now."

The noble sighs with relief, then spits out a long angry burst of Hungarian, probably curses. He ends by spitting on the ground. He turns back to Lament and reaches to take her hand. "I give thanks for my men. They didn't need to die today."

[Corrozus]

Lament looks up at the nobel, her eyes going slightly unfocused, as she brushes her hand against his briefly.

"Why were they attacked if we are not under siege?" she asks in German.

[Goatkiller666]

"I am visit cousin, who is baronet near Vienna. When heard city might be attacked, I came offer help. I bring my men with. Stupid guards at wall thought WE is attack. So they shoot at us from walls." He spits again, and makes a sign with his hands. "None is dying yet, but these close. I give you thanks, Doctor. Much family in Hungary thank Almighty God for your help, I promise you. What is name?"

[Corrozus]

"I am Lament." She looks over at Brother Jurgen, then back at the noble, "What else is needed?"

[Goatkiller666]

Brother Jurgen waves down the "hallway" to the other tent rooms. "There are another five wounded that way. To the right is Milosh... he'll live, but I don't think there's anything I can do to save his leg or arm. He's barely twenty summers... maybe you can do what I couldn't?"

Milosh is in a room by himself, as the odd man out. One arrow has shattered the bone in his arm, near the right shoulder. Another has nicked the bone in his left thigh. [Apologies for not listing the proper medical terms. GM has no dots of medicine, and he's too lazy to go look all that up on wikipedia.] The marrow might be leaking out, poisoning the wound. Most doctors would need to amputate eventually.

The man himself is delirious now, he squirms away when you try to touch his wounds, but he's too out of it for real pain. He doesn't resist much, anyway.

[Corrozus]

Murmurs her apologies to the noble and heads to Milosh's room. She pulls the curtain across the "doorway" and examines his wounds, paying attention to his shattered Humerus (upper arm) first, checking for additional injuries to the other bones in the area before moving to his leg. She hum's softly to herself, ignoring the movement of the man laying in front of her.

[use Dementation 3 to first examine both wounds, then use Dementation 3 to help my int+med roll to attempt to heal the wounds]

[Goatkiller666]

[My previous post assumed Dem 3 for looking them over.]

It's slow and delicate work, but Lament does manage to fill in the nick to his femur so that the marrow won't leak into the wound and poison it further. The boy will need to stay off the leg for some weeks, but should be able to keep the use of the limb.

The shattered arm is much harder. Her understanding of chaos [Dem 3] does allow her to find the splinters of the bone and more or less assemble them into their original places. It is a slow and tedious process, but she manages it easily enough. Keeping them where they are so that they may heal again, that is the hard part. She manages to wind some string about the shards so they'll stay in place, then pulls the torn flesh back around the bones. As with the leg, he'll need to leave the arm alone for some time before it's safe to use, but he should recover the use of the limb.

[Corrozus]

Once Milosh is resting semi-comfortably, Lament goes to see the last of the injured men. She patches them up quickly, and without anyone seeing, attempts to take 2 blood from each of the least wounded men.

[Goatkiller666]

The last of the four men have only minor wounds, and are resting as best they can. Lament moves from one to the rest, checking their wounds, none of which are too serious. She takes a small amount of blood from each, and because of the ecstasy of the Kiss, and their dazed feeling from losing extra blood, they are each sleeping, or at least unconscious, when she leaves. [Character sheet updated with blood]

All will live, with all their parts still working, given enough time.

As she leaves the last room, the Hungarian lord is there again. "Good Doctor, Duke say he to pay for services. But, please, how can I pay you for this? This no good way to die. No honor in dying from other man's mistake."

[Corrozus]

Lament considers for a moment.

"The only payment I would be interested in is if someone you know would be willing to teach me how to speak Hungarian. If that cannot be arranged, then I do not require any further payment from you or your men."

[Goatkiller666]

"You want learn our tongue? Gladly we teach. My German not so good, but Milosh there speak both very good. When he good enough talk, he teach you every day. Him too hurt walk around anyway."

[Corrozus]

"Very good, I will be by to visit him in a day or two. Thank you."

Lament curtsies and turns to leave.