The oozing wound in Jace's side bled fluid slowly onto the oddly swirl-patterned fabric of the couch, bringing with it the awful smell of pestilence. Chas knelt down to check Jace's fever and then whispered, "This is still a mistake! We should leave!" Henryk shook his head. +
"If we can save Jace, we must, and the wizard, it's said, can do so," replied Henryk. Chas let out a low growl. "He'll poison Jace and us too! Just being here breathing his air risks infecting us. You know he'll make us liberals too! He might even give us the gay." +
Henryk leaned against the interior doorjamb with one hand on the threshold. In the next room was the wizard's great scrying mirror, a massive flat crystal against the wall, showing scenes of other places, with a tiny symbol in the bottom looking like a cone with a diagonal line through it. 🔇 +
From beyond, Henryk could hear the wizard bustling around in his... laboratory? Kitchen? Impossible to tell. They might be one and the same. Soon the wizard returned with a small parcel and a bottle. He crouched down near Jace as Chas scrambled to move away from him with an angry glare. +
"Yep. Your buddy has an infected wound. Knife, looks like," said the wizard. "Knife? I was told it was a dog bite," said Henryk, looking to Chas for confirmation. "He was involved in a scuffle with groypers from Chan Clan. It could have been anything in the... chaos," mumbled Chas. +
"Can you help him?" asked Henryk urgently. The wizard nodded. He removed a lit from the bottle and poured a strange potion over the wound, which hissed and sizzled. Jace gasped and writhed in pain. "There there," the wizard said. "Have to get the infection out." He opened the parcel... +
... and produced a flat white square, put it to one side, and then tore part of Jace's tunic. He carefully placed the square against the wound. With deft hands he tore small strips from a roll of a strange fabric and placed them against the square, sealing it to the wound in Jace's side. +
Finally, he opened another bottle and produced from it a pill, which he fed to Jace carefully. From a third bottle he tipped a clear fluid into Jace's mouth. Henryk could not scent alcohol from it, but everyone knew water was not safe to drink... unless you were a wizard, apparently. +
"That will do for now," the wizard said. "His fever should come down in a day. It's up to you to change the dressing... uh, remove the bandage from the wound tomorrow, and put a new clean one on there. Do this again every day for the next three days. If he is awake by then, he'll live." +
"Thank you," said Henryk. "I am in your debt. But... why would you do this? There is no love for wizards among my people, or any of the clans of the Trailer Parks." The wizard simply shrugged. "You came to me in need of help, one person to another. So I helped." +
"Where did you learn such things?" asked Henryk. "I have never seen so many of the marvels in your sanctum." The wizard chuckled. "I went to college." That elicited another hiss from Chas. The wizard turned to disappear back into his chambers, then stopped... +