[OPEN] Eshai Memorial Hospital May catch-all

[survival_isnt_living]

Characters: Hospital staff, volunteers, patients, visitors, and everyone else!
Date: All of May
Location: Eshai Memorial Hospital, Metal Sector
Situation: General Hospital a la Turtle-back
Warnings/Rating: It’s a hospital, there will probably injuries/blood/etc at some point.
OOC Note: Everyone, feel free to add your own thread headers for whatever you might need!

There are still signs of the damage taken in the bombings, but repairs are taking place and are obviously not keeping the hospital from its usual busy schedule. Some of the work seems to be plumbing related: with the city water contaminated, they are trying to get a back-up system in place easier to keep purified, and sometimes some of the staff and volunteers can be found doing just that. Everyone needs sanitary water.

Some of the rooms have been reassigned uses until the repairs are finished, usually in favor of keeping intensive care as flexible as possible. First aid training still takes place in the classroom on the third floor, along with classroom-friendly aspects of field training.

Upon request, the list of active field medics will be provided by the front desk, along with who is currently on-call.
Active Field Medics:
Septimus
Raine Sage
Frank Zhang
Zelgadis Graywords
NPC kedan healers

Comments

[survival_isnt_living]

Septimus wouldn't call that the political side of war; it's just another tactic. Then again, he was raised to handle politics for a life occupation, so his perspective might be more than a little bit warped. And while technically Septimus has no real grounds for claiming any of that authority outside the hospital itself...

That doesn't stop his mind from working on it.

That wry, pained grin is back. "I've never fought an urban war, so it isn't what I would have done. As far as the results itself go, though... frankly I don't think anyone is incompetent enough to stumble into results that effective by sheer accident." The grin turns into a sneer; as ruthless as it is, Septimus also thinks the whole thing is incredibly cowardly.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery would certainly agree with the whole thing being incredibly cowardly. But he can't deny how effective the individual explosions themselves were, or the strange effects they resulted in. Minimal loss of life? The only reason to aim for that in a war is to maximise the fallout - the chaos. To put insurmountable roadblocks in the hope of ever organising a rebellion.

The reason that doesn't make sense is there's already an organised rebellion. There's nothing to achieve but more of the same fear that already exists.

"What would you have done?" Skulduggery asks. He doesn't mention that he's fought in an urban war, or a rural war, and practically everything in between. Nor does he mention any of his suspicions regarding the bombs. It occurs to him, however, that he could ask about the suit of black armour, since it was apparently seen helping at the hospital in the aftermath of the bombings. If Septimus has a separate office, chances are he's secured that as well.

[survival_isnt_living]

"Not attacked civilian targets," is the instant response. After a moment, Septimus admits with a lopsided smile, "But then, most of my military experience is in enforcing Realm stability and borders against non-humans. His motivations aren't ones I..."

Understand is not the correct word here. Of course he understands it. It makes him at once sick, enraged, and determined to find a way to rip Malicant's support from under him, of course--but he does see the logic. "...was taught to consider," he finishes instead. "That said, I'll admit that if I had been in in a protracted siege, compromising supply lines would be my first step if it became obvious I couldn't break through defenses relatively easily. Here we are." Pushing the door to his office open, he waves at Skulduggery to follow.

There's no real reason to discuss the part where his last military engagement ended very, very badly--not that there was much he could have done about it.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery decides fairly quickly that he likes Septimus. It takes a special sort of courage to be as disgusted by Malicant's evil as the doctor so obviously is, and yet still be both willing and able to consider similar tactics. It speaks of a military honour much more rare within armed forces than it should be. Perhaps Septimus's world is fundamentally different from the one Skulduggery knows, but it's still a trait worthy of acknowledgement and admiration.

"Thank you," he says as he steps into the office after Septimus. In his own world, he would know if the office was secure as soon as the bindings on it drained him of his magic. Here, it isn't quite so easy to tell, so Skulduggery waits to let the other man speak first.

[survival_isnt_living]

Skulduggery would not be the first to be impressed by Septimus's integrity. In his lifetime, it was an entirely unconscious and intentional habit--not least because while Carna is indeed likely very different from Skulduggery's home, it is nonetheless quite bloodthirsty and murder is a not-wholly-infrequent part of Aleran politics (as Septimus could attest to). And yet, in it all, Septimus refused to abandon principles and idealism. To his mind, it is like victory in the minds of soldiers: expectation of it can, with cultivation, breed the result. Leading his people to that was ever and always the purpose of his life. Now that he has almost come to terms with Keeliai as a second home, that same drive is emerging.

It rarely fails to leave an impression.

After Septimus has the door, Skulduggery won't feel his magic being drained; however, if he is capable of the perception, he will feel a slight pressure on his eardrums. It is barely preceded by a faint gesture from Septimus's hand as he tosses up a windcrafting to soundproof the room. No trace of this will be heard outside. After indicating Skulduggery can sit, he makes his way to his own chair behind his desk. "You were saying, about finding ways to purify water."

[skeletonenigma]

He feels the slight pressure, if not quite on the eardrums he doesn't have. That was one of the most difficult things Skulduggery needed to adjust to after he came back from the dead; his senses all existed, but sometimes in very different places than he was used to them being. The change in air pressure is enough to convince him, even if Septimus's next question hadn't already.

"I'm a sorcerer," he explains, as though the phrase is a normal part of an introduction - which it is, both for him and very likely for Septimus as well. "An Elemental, to be specific. I can't purify the existing water supply, but I can add to it fairly quickly."

As a demonstration, he takes off his hat and clenches his hand above the brim. Within seconds, it's filled with sparkling clean water, like a miniature volcanic lake.

[survival_isnt_living]

For once, the term Skulduggery uses is actually one he can accept. Sorcery is the Aleran blanket term for things not furycrafting--although the Canim (and, though he doesn't really know it, the Marat) include furycrafting in it as well. Even more, 'Elemental' is a term he is entirely comfortable with. Something he can work with, finally; it's quite comforting, in some ways. The faint, unconscious smile--and gleam of interest as he watches that trick--leaves no question of that attitude.

"How much more and how quickly can you do that?" He fully expects them to need one at some point, honestly, so no reason not to address it as early as possible. Besides, it might help him get water to heal with.

After a moment more, he adds curiously, "Did you pull that from the air, or just... create it, somehow?" If the former, there is a distinct possibility he can kick around.

[skeletonenigma]

"As much as you need," says Skulduggery, "and as quickly as you need it. I put out many of the fires during the explosions, especially in the Water Sector."

Coming from someone else, that might have sounded incredibly arrogant. Coming from Skulduggery, it still sounds incredibly arrogant, but there's a measure of self-awareness in the words which makes it almost charming - endearing, even, in Skulduggery's humble opinion. It helps that the claim is accurate, of course. The only reason he hasn't tried distributing clean water himself yet is a certain unfamiliarity with the task. In the war Skulduggery fought in, there were plenty of Elementals to go around. There was no need to ration water, or to look for someone able to manipulate it if you needed the help.

There's a genuine smile in Skulduggery's tone when he next speaks. "From the air. All I'm doing is condensing the moisture in the air."

Even his relative modesty sounds slightly arrogant, coming right on the heels of his earlier comment.

[survival_isnt_living]

Septimus does not even notice anything remotely like arrogance. Instead his eyes just brighten with fascination and excitement. "How do you deal with the local ambient moisture not actually being infinite in supply?" he asks eagerly. "Are you able to pull that much from that far away?"

See, the thing is, Septimus knows about that trick, though he's not seen even the more powerful watercrafters be able to pull it on quite that scale and sustained rapidity. The latter, perhaps, any child of the High Families could do. He's never tried it himself, but he'd guess he could at least sustain the job for relatively long periods if he had to, though perhaps not quite as efficiently as Skulduggery seems to--and he has no doubt his father could. But then, he's used to furycrafters who can do that, who can face down earthquakes and volcanoes and hurricans, freeze floodplains... No. It might be somewhat arrogant, but as far as the Princeps and one of the most powerful scions of the House of Gaius is concerned? This is just par for the course, really.

So all he displays in response is absent acceptance and simply focusing on how very unexpectedly useful it is. And there's little arrogance in fact.

Though perhaps some of that resides in Septimus's own arrogance and overconfidence.

[skeletonenigma]

"You know," says Skulduggery thoughtfully, "I've never been completely sure. When I first discovered this ability, the world barely knew water could exist as particles within the air, much less what those particles were."

It was just past the turn of the seventeenth century, after all. At that time, many people in Ireland still believed faeries caused thunderstorms. Skulduggery had needed to do a lot of experimenting on his own.

"It shouldn't matter while we're on the turtle," he continues after a moment, head tilted and gloved fingers steepled in his lap. "The surrounding ocean provides more than enough for me to work with. I'm not quite capable of parting the Red Sea, but I can certainly keep water supplies replenished."