Chapter 12: Trouble In The Corridors

Tom had been brought into what seemed like a large bedroom, with multiple beds and chairs, and laid down. Sapphire had been placed in the bed next to him, so he guessed it was like an infirmary of sorts, okay that is good. After a short while, the old lady had returned with two assistants and what seemed like herbal supplies. Perhaps he really should have brought the medical kit up with him. Was he at a witchdoctor or something?

She had started on Sapphire. Well, at least that gave him an opportunity to watch first, it seemed the old woman was primarily checking that everything was as it should be. She had started glowing faintly with the same faint light as Dakota's hand when she closed his wounds. Maybe she was sensing if something was wrong? That sounded handy. When she had finished with Sapphire, she let her two assistants apply the herbs along the scarring left by the wound closing, combined with bandages and fresh splints to keep everything in place. Okay, so it definitely wasn’t like a one and done kind of thing, shame that would have been awesome. More like magical surgery he guessed.

She had moved over to Tom and started the same procedure asking Sapphire a few questions while working. She seems to be concentrating a great deal. It took quite a lot longer than with Sapphire too, perhaps working on someone, not your own species didn’t help. Her brow had furrowed more than once. Tom was desperately hoping it was out of concentration rather than worry. A worried doctor was never a good thing.

When the procedure was complete, he too was bandaged where the wounds were, even if they looked more like scars at this point. Must be something to help speed the process, hell it might be magic too, thought Tom inspecting his wounds. Afterward, the lady had talked with Sapphire for a while then made some gestures at Tom and the bed, accompanied by a raised finger.

He guessed he was supposed to stay in bed, he could do that for a while...

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Nunuk had seen to Sapphire's wounds and assured her she was going to be fine, though she warned her against accepting more of Toms medicine it was apparently incredibly potent. The bone would take a while to heal, but with crutches and a better splint, she would be walking tomorrow.

Tom, however, had been a more close call thing, he had started showing signs of infection, it seemed an intestine had ripped slightly, probably due to excessive activity. She had managed to treat the infection, but he would be bedridden for at least a week. Before she would allow him to move around by himself, as to not risk another tear.

After a night's sleep in a comfy bed, Sapphire had woken to Fengi softly shaking her awake.

“Good morning sleepyhead. We need to get you up, the others are getting impatient. I got your crutches”

“Well good morning,” Sapphire said looking around, no Tom… goddammit. Had he gone to get something? or just not understood he was supposed to stay in bed.

Fengi took her to the grand hall. Tom was indeed standing in the middle of the room looking bewildered.

“Ahh good of you to join us” Nunuk had called, sitting in her chair at the end of the grand table. “Sorry for waking you up, but we felt we needed to get this done before our guest decided to go further exploring”

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Tom had gotten up early morning as usual, and decided that staying in bed was for the dead and dying. There was bound to be so much to explore her. Besides, he could just feign ignorance if it came to it. So he had popped a painkiller and gone exploring, he had gotten quite far too. Seemingly no one was awake yet, that was until he had opened the door to what was clearly a bedroom, full of children.

He had tried his damndest to close the door quietly but the mission was a failure. One of the little critters had woken up, seen him, and immediately started rousing the others and boy did they seemed excited, and sadly they looked to have just as many teeth as the grownups. He had no clue what to do in this situation, so he did the sensible thing he could think of and ran. So there he was, running down the hallways being chased by a small mob of flying lizards, they varied a lot in size with the smallest ones being a little larger than a house cat, up to some being around the size of an 8-year-old.

This had proven sufficient commotion for a guard to notice, who went to inspect. The surprised guard had nearly drawn his sword, at the sight of Tom running towards him with children in tow. Tom for his part had elected to hide behind the guard, hoping he could control the children. This was apparently not so, the Guard had tried it seemed, but to little avail. The children had just stormed them both and were now crawling all over Tom, asking questions tugging at his ears and hair. One damn near got out one of his revolvers, another did manage to get the knife out and ran with it. Luckily this was when Esmeralda had arrived on the scene, and she was not in her usual calm friendly demeanor. Tom was honestly scared for a moment until it became clear he wasn’t the target.

Esmeralda had come down on them like an angry mother at the supermarket, and the children nearly fleed, before lining up in a row, and received a very stern talking to by Tom’s reckoning. The guard for his part had stood there doing his best to look like a disappointed father. Esmeralda had taken the children back to the dormitory. Leaving the guard and Tom to stand looking at each other. After a bit of staring, Tom had let out a whistle of relief and smiled, this prompted another signature head tilt, from the guard who gestured for him to do it again.

Well, no harm in that, Tom had thought and began to whistle the melody from expendables, he knew that one by heart. The guard had just continued staring, mouth slowly coming agape. Until Esmeralda had returned and then started speaking rapidly to her.

She had turned to look at Tom who just let out another little whistle. She had just started giggling again, apparently finding this hilarious too. Why though? of course! with a snout like that, they couldn’t whistle. Oh, he was such a muppet... Well, might as well have some fun with this. As she laughed he began doing his best songbird impression. When the guard tried to asking him something or just generally doing hand gestures at him, he would just look confused and whistle some more.

Esmeralda had caught on rather quickly and began trying to match the tones with her voice as if to communicate with him that way. To the clear and utter bewilderment of the poor guard. After a minute or two of this, they had both broken down laughing at the poor guy's expense. Esmeralda’s laughter had cut off abruptly. Tom turned to see a distinctly not amused looking old lady standing behind him.

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“What did he do this time?” Sapphire had let out

“He defied his doctor’s orders to stay in bed, woke the children along with most of the rest of us, gave one of them a knife, and managed to convince Kokashi he is a songbird” Nunuk had answered directly seeming more than a little tired.

“Ehhhh, I’m sorry, what?!”

“Esmeralda, can you make him do it again?” Nunuk gestured with her hand at Esmeralda who made some bird flapping gesture at Tom with her hands, who answered with the sweetest bird song.

“You're joking! What can’t this guy do” Sapphire had exclaimed, laughing a bit, it hurt this time though, she kinda wished she could have another of Toms beads.

“Well, speak properly, for one thing, Apuma you're up. Show us why I love you” Nunuk had answered slyly if still a little tired sounding.

“Right away bring him over here I prepared the circle already”

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Tom had been waiting in the big hall for some time, but slowly people had started to arrive, and sit down at the far side of the big horseshoe table, all looking at him. The table ran along the walls of the quite sizable hall. Tom counted around 40+ seats and that was with a big open space in the middle Damn… though it seemed not all were in use, at least not currently.

Sapphire and Fengi had been the last to arrive bringing the count to around 20 present. He had been moved to an inscribed circle by the older male and been instructed to sit down, so he did. Sitting in front of the old Lady who had healed him, she seemed to be in charge here, judging by the elevated chair.

Then the older male had then begun chanting. As his words rang out, they became twisted and weird sounding, almost blurry Tom thought, He started feeling dizzy, his eyes losing focus for a bit, by now it was just noise coming from around him until he heard a voice again?

“Hello anybody home?”

“Uhh hello?” Tom had answered.

“Arh, good, we may begin, you just need to stay within the circle and this should work for a while at least”

“Uhhh begin what exactly” Tom’s head was still spinning he was glad he was sitting down that was for sure.

“Questioning of course” As Tom’s eyes snapped back into focus, he saw the old male dragonette standing in front of him.