Maura left her cloak on the ground between two of the large runners on this sled before creeping to the side. She would be climbing up the left side between two sleds and her light brown and gray furs matched the wood and leather of the yurt-sled much better than her cloak. Part of her mind was scolding herself about being paranoid of detection, but all of her instincts had been honed for so long towards stealth that it was just a part of her she couldn’t shake.

As she kept her ears open and head on a swivel, she began her climb. The base of the platform was a little above head height for her, but the outermost runners had a few spots where she could stick her tiny feet to gain leverage. She kinda oozed onto the area of clearance between the edge of the sled and the tent. She didn’t make a noise as she crawled around towards the front where she stopped to check for movement.

Time to face facts, me. You’re too good at this.

Totally a bandit.

Or at least some sort of creepy stalker, which is at least half of a bandit’s definition.

Perhaps a scout? Like for an army? There must be some non-roguish profession based around these skills. I mean… besides a refugee talented in wilderness survival. I don’t think that counts as a job. I certainly wouldn’t pay me to do it.

As she mused to herself, she kept moving slow and steady towards the front of the sled. There was no sound but steady breathing coming from inside the tent, and the coast looked clear. She waited for a sentry that was patrolling around the herd of elop to move a bit further away before she smoothly slunk around the corner of the tent and quickly dashed through the flap and to the side so as to not leave a silhouette all in one single movement before freezing in place.

She kept perfectly still as her eyes adjusted to the dim interior and she studied the surroundings. The middle of the tent was raised higher than the rest and a small opening on top allowed the smoke from a fire in the center to escape. It was down to mostly coals with a few licking flames and had a metal contraption suspended above the flames with a covered clay jug hanging from a hook. Maura could smell a tangy herbal smell in the air so it was probably some sort of medicine being kept warm.

The main supports holding up the leather were made of wood with posts on the outside and thinner, almost woven slats along the sides and holding up the roof in two layers that swept prettily across each other. The floor was covered in a confusing variety of thick carpets and sturdy hides. All of the available space inside the tent looked to be used for something. There were tools and such tied down and things hanging in pouches from the ceiling and along the walls, some thin but sturdy shelves held other objects while baskets and jugs were on the floor. There were two gigantic stacks of firewood on either side of the flap she had entered which was the only exit to the outside.

Maura was almost overwhelmed with emotions as she studied everything and began breathing a bit harder. She was inside of a structure made by someone else for the first time. Well, technically the ruins she had been in fit that definition, but they didn’t count. She couldn’t stop staring at all of the objects around. There were some weapons, but also lots of tools like axes, hammers, shovels, etc. along with lots of more mundane things like patterned fabric or hammocks or even just bunches of vegetables and herbs hanging everywhere. It was a magical moment.

Finally her eyes found the people here, and that snapped her back to the present. There were actually four wounded people inside lying on thick bedrolls with furs piled on top of them for warmth. Maura yet again scolded herself for not being able to meet the people openly earlier. The two soldiers had time, but what if the other two didn’t?

She noticed the soldiers' armor and weapons lying in neat piles next to two of the cots, so she skipped them for now and danced lightly over to the others. One had armor and weapons lying next to their cot, but the other just had nice looking clothes folded to the side. She decided that making sure any civilians were safe first was probably the right thing to do, so moved towards that cot while keeping to the shadows as much as possible.

She crouched down near the head of the cot and studied the person. A human man between twenty-five and forty lay under the furs. He had straight medium length black hair covered with a warm hat and the beginnings of a short scraggly beard that was probably from not shaving more than on purpose. He had sharp features and might have looked pretty regal if he was awake and feeling better. Now that Maura was closer she could hear a faint rattle coming from his breathing. He looked a little pale and had a sheen of sweat covering his face.

Maura removed her gloves and let them dangle from their straps and slowly, gently, placed the back of her hand on his forehead. His skin was hot, but not dangerously so. She could smell the medicine on his breath and his brow was relaxed and his eyes and mouth didn’t look pinched, so he didn’t seem to be in any pain.

She gently and smoothly skittered around his cot and moved the furs out of the way one section at a time before replacing them until she found his injury. He was wearing well made undergarments and socks, but his right arm and chest were bare with some bandages covering his upper arm and torso.

If she were to actually begin healing, she would need direct skin to skin contact on the affected areas, but she could send a pulse of diagnostic magic from any skin nearby. She placed her fingers on the base of his throat just above the bandages and allowed her aura to pulse while she prepared to send mana flowing down her arm.

Before she could begin to diagnose anything she suddenly and viscerally realized that she was actually touching a real live person. She could feel the warmth of his skin and the beat of his heart. Her breath hitched and she stared transfixed at the sight. This was real, this person was real. He was also hurt. It took a few moments and some deep breaths before she shook herself out of her daze and began to cast.

She could have used complicated and lengthy mental spellforms with long mnemonic chants to cast spells as a mage, but she had been literally designed for what she was doing. Her eyes began to glow a brighter emerald, while hidden under her furs the center of her chest and all down her left arm the little patterns and runes etched in her skin lit up. Lines of subdued golden white light flowed out from beneath the furs around her wrist and followed lines on the back of her hands as other runes and patterns lit up on the tips of her fingers where she made contact with her patient.

It was the first time she had used her innate healing for anything other than butchering or working leather since she awakened, and it was a heady feeling. She was far more familiar with using her innate air magic than her healing due to using air spells almost constantly and subconsciously for a year, but healing was an intrinsic part of her core. It was the foundation that she had been built around, or at least foundation-adjacent, and using it for the intended purpose lifted Maura’s soul in joy.

Pulses of energy swept from the point of contact and through the man’s upper arm, head and torso in gentle waves. As the waves returned from the pulses pure data began streaming into her mind. She adjusted the man’s age in her mind to between thirty and thirty-five. He had some old injuries like a cracked rib and some scarring, but he had been fed well while growing and what she could sense from the pulses showed a mostly healthy body, though he could use more exercise. And a bath. But almost everyone she had smelled in the caravan could use one of those.

The only anomalies were the obvious gashes that began on his upper right arm and continued onto his torso. They had been bandaged well enough, but not stitched closed and there were signs of an infection beginning to set in. There was also some foreign substance spreading from the wounds throughout his body with small concentrations in the brain which Maura tentatively labeled a venom of some kind.

As she let the magic fade and sat back on her heels her brow scrunched up in contemplation and she realized her headdress was still on. She reached up and took it off to let it dangle down her back on its straps while she searched around the tent for supplies. It seemed like it was a medical tent, so it should have what she needed.

She located and retrieved a metal pot, a jug with water, fresh bandages and some mild soap. She poured water into the pot before removing the clay jar of medicine from the hook above the fire and replacing it with her filled pot. She checked the temperature of the jar before lifting the lid and smelling what was inside. She didn’t recognise most of the ingredients, so she wouldn’t be using it. She placed it on the ground near the fire to keep it warm.

Maura then placed the bandages in the water and reached under her right bracer to retrieve one of her small, thin, polished, smoothly bent and very sharp needles which she also plopped into the pot along with a thin spool of monster spider silk she pulled out from a flap right above where her waterskin was tied. She placed her hand on the metal surface and began chanting a spell under her breath. Soon enough the water was boiling, and she left it on the hook while she moved to the other person she hadn’t checked yet.

The caravan guard was a female Manza, or more likely half-Manza, with light blue skin and longer brown hair under a warm cap with her little horns barely peeking out. She was younger than the male and had the same clammy skin and slightly elevated body temperature though her breath didn’t have any anomalous noises. Maura repeated her actions from before looking for her injury. She felt a small quick stab of jealousy at the woman’s more impressive chest for some reason before she found the injury on her hip and down her leg that was also bandaged. Her diagnostic spell returned an age between twenty to twenty-four and had the same venom and beginnings of infection as the man.

Replacing the furs and considering for a moment, Maura decided she would need more bandages and that the two soldiers probably had similar injuries. She would check them later though because they had been injured just a few hours ago. Maura wanted to get ahead of the infection as fast as possible.

She found a larger pot then filled it with water. She moved some more bandages to place into the pot once she had removed the one already boiling. She found a wider shallow wooden bucket and placed water inside it before heating it with another quiet chant to a nice hot temperature, but not hot enough to damage the wood.

Maura then moved the furs off of the man’s chest to clear the area and began to remove the bandages. She had to use some air magic to brace and move the man around so she could reach under his shoulder. When she had those bandages off, she left them in a pile next to the wooden bucket before she washed her hands well with the soap.

Once she had nice clean hands, she went to the metal pot and reached right into the boiling water with a hiss of pain to retrieve the bandages, silk and needle. A quick cantrip took the water from her hands and the bandages and dropped it back into the boiling pot. She placed the larger pot above the flames and then placed four more needles and a large number of bandages in the new pot, cast the water to a boil, then moved back to her first patient.

While she was moving around and working without a sound, deep inside her mind a voice was growing louder that she was talking too long and it was only a matter of time before she was discovered. It was an easy voice to ignore for now: Healing is what she had been created to do, and she felt the need to help these people resonating from her very bones. She hadn’t consciously made the decision to help, and if she thought about it for any length of time she might have been nervous and hesitant, but something called to her from deep inside that she should assist the wounded. It was a part of her she hadn’t known but felt right.

She had been keeping still and checking for noises and such occasionally, but she had entered the tent right after whoever had last checked on them left, so she was fairly confident she would have time. Then she realized she was still trying to hide, and that the other person might have been a healer that she could have asked questions of to better diagnose her patients, but she shook the feeling off. She wasn’t ready, just yet.

It was easy to ignore her paranoia when she had a clear objective and people in need. She was chanting her mantra in her mind, but it was more of a focusing tool at this point than something she actively thought of.

She used some of the warm soapy water to clean the middle of the man’s chest as an improvised sanitary table to place her tools on. She cleaned around the gashes with the warm soapy water making sure not to get any near the actual wounds. She then washed her hands well and dried them with another cantrip before cooling the now sanitized water inside her first pot to near room temperature and using it to trickle water to flush out the gashes themselves.

The wounds had some dried blood and dead flesh that would need to be dealt with so before Maura continued she hummed a little ditty to use air magic to snatch her very sharp knife from its sheath above her butt and plop it into the boiling water, keeping her hands clean.

She used a small sterile bandage and trickles of water to clean out the wounds as much as she could. She studied the man’s face as she cleaned, and he was indeed feeling it. His brows were pinched and there was tension around his eyes and mouth, but he was still unconscious. Maybe from the medicine?

She stood and retrieved her dagger, hissing again in pain, then used a cantrip to clear the water from it and her hands and to cool it down. She returned to her patient and activated her diagnostic magic again then began to cut away any dead flesh with her very steady hands. Once the wounds were clean after another quick flush of water to clear any bits of flesh and the fresh blood she placed her hand next to the wounds and used her magic to study the venom.

She began to separate the venom in her mind from anything else, as there were other cells she didn’t recognise but were probably healthy or part of the immune system. Her internal lexicon was probably decades out of date at the very least, so she would only worry about the venom for now.

After she had a clear image of what made up the venom, she placed fingers from her other hand inside of the wounds themselves and let her energy surge.

There were only a few things she could do to help clear venom, but the easiest and most effective way would be to burn it out. She had to work slowly and carefully because she didn’t want to overload his body with either heat or mana. It took about ten minutes of concentration, but eventually she couldn’t detect any more venom inside his body.

Nodding to herself she pulled all of her energy back into herself and began working with the needle and spider silk to close each wound with neat stitches. It would significantly reduce scarring and allow the healing process to be quicker and to take less energy from her spells which would put less strain on the body.

Once the stitching was complete, she drew her finger gently along each wound and let her imbued spells flow into the flesh to give the healing process a huge head start. After she had finished, she re-wrapped each wound with the clean bandages, then covered him back up with furs. Now that she has finished his treatment he should be in significantly less pain so hopefully he would keep sleeping while she worked on the other patients.

She moved to the woman and began to repeat the process. It would take a while, but these people needed help and she would do her best.