Date: ???

Job Arseoth slumped on the cold surface of the Black Glass Plane. He would sit, but with only one leg he could not stay upright. He would lay on his back, but the pain from his charred chest and back made that too painful. So Job slumped on his healthy side, his one arm half-pinned beneath his body, his one eye inches from the floor. A cold ethereal wind blew across his body. Job felt it curl about his empty eye socket, caress the bun-scabbed expanses of his naked body, leaving a soothing numbness in its wake.

"+ Damn. Even with that , you really took a beating. +"

Job squirmed around to see a black leather boot a few inches from his face.

"Black Cloak?"

"+ Got it one. Damn, I don’t think I can patch you back up again, not without the help of another, like before. +"

"Why not?"

"+ I don't have the Life Domain. I can heal, but it’s a lot harder to do, and takes a lot longer. And total regeneration of limbs and intricate organs like eyes? I could do it, but you'd be 'here' for a month or more. Which would do Bad Things to your body back on the material Plane. +"

"How Bad?"

"+ Terminal. +"

"Oh."

"+ Yeah. Old B? It took him a full week just to get you tottering about again. The damage isn’t quite as bad this time, but… +"

"Shit."

"I've a day or so to work on you before the Red Oak makes port in Sapphire. I can’t fix everything, but I can get you walking, after a fashion at least. +"

"Crutch and hobble?"

"+ Exactly. Now hold still, this will probably hurt a bit… +"

. . . - - - . . .

Date: Third of April, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Job woke up screaming into a wooden gag.

"Damn son, you got some lungs on you."

Job spat the gag out, leaving it to bounce about the deck.

""

"Easy on there son, I don’t speak dragon. Doc Montoya. Cap'n asked me to take a look at you."

"And why are you picking at my burns? Fucking things hurt bad enough as it is."

"Changing the dressings on them. Healing Salve's only good for a few hours before it needs changing, and that means swapping the bandages. Didn’t expect it to take a whole raft of scab off your leg though. Never did that before."

Job looked down at his leg. It was... to call it a mess would be to call a collapsed building structurally sound. The latest strip of bandage to be pulled of left a long red mark that was seeping slow trickles of blood. Other exposed sections were a mess of half-healed burns, red-black flesh, and yellow, seeping puss.

"Healing Salve and Healing Potions aren’t working?"

"Not enough left to be healed, near as I can tell. Don’t know how the gangrene hasn’t spread up the leg. Anybody else, anywhere else, I'd have had to take the leg off, but…"

"Why not me? Out like I was, probably wouldn't have felt it."

"You'd have felt it. The gag wasn't for nothing."

"Then why not…?"

"That Mark on your back? Lady SiDiabolo is already on her way to investigate. And she's just about the best surgeon this side of the heavens above. If Anyone can save your leg, she can."

The hatch to the cabin slammed open and a tall female figure strode though it in a blaze of white, sterile dress and the long gown of a surgeon expecting a bloody operation.

"Sorry to disappoint Dr. Montoya, but it would take divine-level healing to reverse mass necrotizing fasciitis. Sir, that leg needs to come off, and now, unless you want to lose your man-bits long with your leg."

"Lady SiDiabolo!"

""

"Halfway done already. Doctor Montoya, get scrubbed. Now. I need…"

Job was already out, asleep and staying that way, before his head hit the pillow.

. . . - - - . . .

Date: ???

Job lay on his back on the Black Glass Plane.

"+ That didn’t work. +"

"No shit it didn't."

"+ Can't blame you for the anger. Still Can't believe I missed a spot and that was the result. +"

"Aren’t you supposed to be all-knowing?"

"+ Ehh, kind of? If it's been recorded by a human, I know it. Ask a question, and I know the answer all right… but not the steps in-between. Nor the answer to a question that I haven’t considered. Makes learning new things on my own a right pain. It's also why I don’t give out clear answers all that often. +"

"You want your followers to figure out the steps, and the questions you need to ask, and work form there."

"+ Got it in one. I asked myself how to get you walking again, at least long enough to get to SiDiabolo Tower, in the time I had available. I should have asked myself how to keep your wounds from becoming infected, and your body from rotting away, long enough for a doctor to get you to Lady SiDiabolo. +"

"Asked the wrong question, got the wrong answer. And it almost cost me my life."

"+ It did cost your leg, but I did get the right answer soon enough to save your life overall. +"

"Shit."

"+ Mhm. Tell you what. I've a method that can get your leg, arm, and eye back. It'll take a bit of work by Lady SiDiabolo, and a fair bit of gold, but I think She'll welcome the challenge to her skills. So! Metal, Stone, or Bone? +"

"What?"

"+Your new limbs: Metal, Stone, or Bone?"