The patient waiting room wasn't anything too fancy. A magical light illuminated the windowless room. Wood furnishings decorated the space. A bed in one corner, a chair in the opposite. Platon sat there. He stared at Crazy's bandaged arms.
The nurse who brought them in did that. The doctor? He mixed together maybe 20 bronze Isos worth of ingredients, then suddenly charged a whole silver Iso for the potion. A 5x profit—all because he went to school.
"Yaknow, Crazy," Platon began speaking, but the sleeping man on the bed didn't stir. "A silver Iso isn't that bad of a debt. An old buddy of mine once racked up a debt of a whole platinum..."
"He's still working for that casino to this day."
Platon had no reason to be sitting there. He couldn't help without jeopardizing his own family. There was nothing else he could do.
'Actually, he might be worthless enough for this to work.'
He stood up from his chair.
He walked down into the basement of the store and opened the nearly airtight stone door. A botanical air drifted out.
"Platon!" Mr. Histone shouted, looking up from his work.
Mr. Histone was bent over a wooden table, surrounded by an alchemist's ideal workspace. Beakers, vials, an assortment of glassware—and if any alchemist were present, they'd recognize his tools had proper measurements.
"Have you heard of knocking? Hurry up, close the door. There's a maintained humidity in here for the preservation of ingredients."
'There he goes again. Big Mr. Educated Man using Big Mr. Educated Man words.'
"Doc, you know I don't know those words."
"Really, now?" He raised an eyebrow, smug as could be. "I thought they were all relatively elementary."
'Prick.'
"I came here to talk to you about the man you got today."
Mr. Histone returned to his tools. "Go on, talk."
Platon took a deep breath. "Sir. He is worthless. He doesn't know Common, he ruined his arms on the first day of the job, and rumors say he slept in the slave stables last night after coming out of the slum jails."
Mr. Histone continued grinding up an herb while Platon spoke.
"I believe that he would earn you the most money as a miner in our company."
Mr. Histone spoke, uninterested. "Do you know that in the kingdom I come from, slavery wasn't debt-based?"
He took the herb out of his bowl and scraped it into a beaker.
"We simply took every single criminal we could."
He lit a fire underneath the beaker.
"I once stole a single page from an alchemist's tome."
A sharp aroma rose from the burning herbs. He used a glass tool to add in a precise amount of thick liquid.
"Of course... I got caught."
Platon stood there, letting the man go on his monologue. He didn't know what a tome was, but he didn't want to interrupt the guy.
"Where I went? An alchemist's lab slave."
He cut the fire and gathered what was now a paste into a vial—one of the many he had in his upstairs office.
"I will relieve 10 bronze from his debt every time I run an experiment on him."
Mr. Histone rose from his stool. "Walk with me."
"I need time between the experiments, though. Notes, research, all the boring shit. Oh, and make sure you close the door behind you."
Together they walked towards the young man's room.
"Doc, I know you like your smart words. But what is an experiment?"
Entering the young man's room, "It is just making sure that a theoretical isn't just theoretical."
He began unwrapping the bandages.
Platon stood behind him. 'Hate this guy, sooo much.'
The young man's arms were still cut open. The blood had stopped flowing at this point.
"Experiment 1, Palicade Ore Compound-A."
Mr. Histone's eyes quickly lost their typical uncaring gaze. He poured the paste into the young man's mouth.
"See? Easiest bronze a man can earn."
He said while taking out a book from a satchel on his hip and resting his pocket watch at the bottom.
Platon spoke. "How much time between these experiments?"
Mr. Histone gave him a cursory glance. "As long as I need, of course."
The blood that had stopped flowing in the young man started flowing again—a trickle, a pour—until his wounds were flooding with blood.
"Faster than I thought."
A grin formed quickly on the doc's face. He was scribbling aggressively in the book.
Mr. Histone picked up a bleeding arm and stuck his finger inside a particularly deep gash, previously exposing bone.
The young man suddenly rose with a jolt.
"Good morning."
Mr. Histone gave a brief greeting to the man, who promptly responded by screaming and collapsing—his head thudding dully against the bed as he passed out.
After some wiggling and mumbling, he put the man's arm back down on the bed.
"Welp, gonna have to change the sheets."
Mr. Histone, for the first time since they began talking, made eye contact with Platon.
"This young man will be returning with you in the mines tomorrow, Platon. Any money he earns he may keep, but I will not accept any money he earns for the debt. Only what he works for."
"Watch over him for me during that time. Try to help him learn the language. Make sure he eats proper food."
Platon watched as the blood grew more viscous, and poured out slower. It quickly turned into something akin to scabs over all his wounds.
"Why not just give him to the slave stall?"
Mr. Histone began cleaning the young man's arms and feet of the excess blood. Leaving the scabs alone.
"You can't loan a slave to the stalls. I wouldn't get him back."
He began applying clean bandages.
"Just try to make sure the kid doesn't die before he pays off his debt. He's going to need a good meal after this. Probably shouldn't work for a couple of days either."
Mr. Histone returned to his book, writing more notes. "If you would return him to the slums, please." Mr. Histone began walking out of the room, before leaving flashed Platon a smile. "Do send him back."
--
Fire. A flame that stuck to Thomas's tongue. And it grew. His eyes snapped open. He was in a room. Whatroom?
He sat up. His mind was riddled with fog. No, he was thinking clearly. He could feel blood pounding in his head. Not just his head. Blood was pounding inside of him. The worst feeling of a bloodrush entered his legs, his chest, his arms.
'Oh fuck. My arms.'
He looked to his left. There stood a man in strange clothes with an incredible amount of pockets, and glasses that took up half the size of his face. The most noticeable thing? His finger, inside of his arm. His bleeding arms. His heavily bleeding arms.
It looked like a poorly made slasher. 'Gotta act cool.' But finally, the pain kicked in. There was no single spot that hurt, everything hurt. There was either the pounding of his blood trying to escape his body, the fire in his digestive system, and this fucking asshole with his finger in my arm.
The air rushed out of his lungs, the pounding became unbearable, and as quickly as he arose he passed out.
--
Thomas drifted. Time was meaningless. Thoughts floated in, broken and incoherent.
It was taking too long. His first thought came. 'I hate it.'
An image of a ceiling came into view.
A hard surface upon his back.
There was someone speaking.
A man?
No, two of them.
There was a new image. It was his mentor and the guard.
'Thank god.'
The image went away.
--
There was a ring of metal. The one he heard for lunch the other day.
'Oh yeah lunch. What happened after lunch?'
Thomas stared at the ceiling of where he laid. He felt, mostly fine. 'I should not be fine.'
He raised his arms. They were bandaged. Incredibly poorly. There was little consideration involved. His hands were unusable. He couldn't even see his fingers—he had clubs of cloth for hands.
'Interesting. Well, I still have arms. I'll take what I can get.'
He looked down at his feet, which he remembered weren't too incredibly beat up. 'Clubs again.'
He was back in the stalls. The last two men he remembered were the guard and his boss.
'Where did they go?'
He was there, alone and hungry as can be. Like he hadn't eaten in his whole life. Beside him? There lay a single piece of bread, the exact same kind as the one he brought here the first time.
He brought his teeth to the end of the bandages and made quick work of removing them. With the poor work, it came off quickly.
'What are you supposed to expect? When the last moment he was fully coherent was his arms getting cut up. I mean... probably like, 30 stitches' worth? Most of them probably didn't even need attention. I'm fine, only passed out from a bit of blood loss.'
His arms were covered in patches of scabs all over. His cuts weren't put back together—there were scabs over even the missing chunks of him. 'Oh so this is why I am fine. Shit, I should probably go to work. I don't know if they'll pay me for yesterday. I have to pay back the boss.'
He removed his bandages on his feet, scabs all over them too. 'Maybe they'll let me mine today so I don't have to walk as much.' He grabbed his loaf, snacking on the way, and headed to the mines.
Just like yesterday there were men lining up to go in. He was one of the later ones today, but he saw his boss and hurried to catch up. Waving as he got closer.
--
Platon had a long day yesterday. Had to relive some bad memories, had to deal with lugging around Crazy, and today was supposed to be a normal day. Crazy should have been out of service for at least the day.
But there he was. Doing that weird thing with his arms again, the same eyes, the same smile. Only this time his wounds weren't pouring out blood. They did notlook good though. There was so much solidified blood over them that they looked like ritualist markings.
'I couldn't at least have one more peaceful day?'