Still Do No Harm

The stories and lives of the Grim. ((Roleplaying Stories and In Character Interactions))
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Mharren
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Location: Canada

Still Do No Harm

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She was getting old. Slow, stiff, and old.

Deaf too, apparently.

Mharren Sil’Orah cried out as she stumbled across the threshold of her new home: a quaint cottage in the hinterlands, tucked away in the hills that lined the coast; a hermit’s dream. Her only place of refuge.

Leaving behind bloodied boot prints that stained the unfinished wooden slats of the floor, she tattooed herself a path of red to the kitchen, pushing off walls and the few pieces of furniture the previous owner had left behind. Each structure she pushed off of steadied her and thrust her closer to her goal: the fireplace. She jammed a hand into one of her pants’ pockets and closed her fingers around her steel and flint—

—just in time to get her ankles tangled. She twisted awkwardly, her previously vertical frame falling hard into the floor ... just past the hearth: too much momentum had been put behind the ultimate entanglement.

She screeched, the wound in her side tearing further as the muscle and sinew that surrounded the foreign object inside squeezed, adjusting their hold in a way that gave the object a sickening slip of torque. She lay on the floor, her empty hand pressed so firmly to her wound that her arm shook. She pressed harder, zeroing in on the pain to keep herself from slipping into the inviting tug of unconsciousness that crept into the edges of her vision.

Eeeeaahhhhh!” She cried, as much from the pain as from her plight. Here she was, finally retired from her freakish duties in the Undercity, finally away from the talented monsters who called themselves scientists, and now she had never needed one of Sylvanas’s loyal stitch-knitters more than she did now.

Free at last...

She realized she was still clutching the flint and steel, the edge on the new flint shard biting into her palm.

Fire the kettle, do it fast.

Obeying her inner, much calmer self she heaved herself onto her side, sobbing at the results of her effort. Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself to the edge of the hearth. She looked up, the blackened kettle was already hung, water left over from her morning meal still inside. From so far below it was an ominous thing, and unknown object against a grey sky of stone, but it was also salvation.

Sterilization.

Using her feet to push off the floor, she crawled half onto the hearthstone, the lumpy lip of water-smoothed stones biting into the soft meat below her ribs. Her kindling was not within reach, but she always kept strips of birch bark on her person. She wrested these from their designated pocket and set them in a prime nook amongst the partially burned logs.

Fast. Gotta go fast.

Taking three shallow breaths to prime herself for the pain, she let go of her wound and descended upon the fire pit, striking the flint against the steel. Her wound loosed a wash of blood and other torn tissues, pooling below her and soaking her pants and the lower portion of her shirt. Ignoring this, she struck and struck, sparks flew but the fire didn’t catch. Her previously hot skin was flushing cool.

C’mon PLEASE.

The sparks caught, a tiny coal twinkling in the fluff of dried and frayed bark, she dropped her face to the ember, blowing long full breathes over it; it grew and soon the smaller pieces of wood caught, providing a base for the new fire to lick at the logs.

With the fire done, she rolled away from the hearth, bloodied hands sliding through the pool that had collected beneath her. She pressed both hands to the wound and forced herself up onto her knees. Her vision swam as her lowering supply of blood was diverted from her head down towards the big leak in her pipes.

So dead.

That was probably so, but she would not go without at least a bit more of a fight. Weakened and with time waning, she hooked one of the kitchen chairs with her boot and jerked it towards her, it toppled over, catching on a knot in a floor plank. This suited her fine, what she wanted was the crude cushion the previous owner had left affixed to the seat, that and one of its legs.

When she’d been jumped she had been fortunate enough not have her hatchet in hand at the time. If she had, she would likely have lost it.

Or I could have put it through that beasts face.

Regardless, she had it now. She yanked away the cushion, setting it aside then straddled the chair with her legs in a way that left her half laying on her inured side and half pulled into a sort of twisted sit up. She used the hatchet to weaken the joint of one leg, then drove her foot through it, severing the wooden limb from the chair.

Finally with some things she could use, she slithered out of her top, fingers leaving streaks of blood on her needlessly restrained breasts (Gods, she hadn’t been gifted on that front), and shook it out. The lower portion was heavy with blood, but it would still work.

Behind her, the fire crackled into a decent roar. She pressed the cushion to her wound, bending the flimsy padding around her side. She held the cushion in place, noting that despite the severity of her bleed it had not soaked through just yet; that was something. Using the cotton shirt, she wound it around her waist, pulling it taught over the cushion so that it was held snug against her. Then, entangling the chair leg in the twisted ends of the shirt, she began to wind the contraption, using the leg like a knob on a faucet. She wailed as the object inside her edged just a little deeper; not an ideal situation, but at the moment she was less concerned about it than she was about bleeding to death.

She cranked the massive tourniquet again…and finally she felt the bleeding to be held at bay. She had bought time, not much perhaps, but possibly enough.

Outside, somewhere in the forest surrounding her new home, the insects sang and the beasts hunted. Night was coming on quickly…and she was alone.
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Mharren
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Location: Canada

Re: Still Do No Harm

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The thing about old snip-and-stitch physicians like Mharren was that they were thieves. With minimal or no magical skill, they were addicted to preparedness. When the chemists weren’t looking, bottles of medicine were likely to go missing, when the nurse did her rounds, a bag or two of saline might get swiped. And gods bless the alchemists and their concoctions; a physician might even pay to stock some of those at home. If it was shelf stable doctors would steal it.

And my my had Mharren stolen. When the Undercity had fallen it had been Winterveil for her sticky fingers: the tunnels were on fire and the storerooms left open. Carts of supplies were abandoned in the halls and collections of concoctions sat forgotten on the shelves; all ripe for the picking.

When the alliance had come, Mharren made up her mind in that instant to quit. No more fighting, no more helping. No more horde-ing; she was retiring. While she’d had her pick of supplies to take with her she hadn’t exactly had time to think out a desirable inventory, so she’d simply grabbed transport sacks and emptied whole drawers of neatly sorted vials and trays of freshly made solutions into her first sack. In the other bag she had swept in supplies, emptying carts, snatching up handfuls of prepackaged disposables and over turning sorting jars.

She’d left the Undercity through the sewers before the first walls fell, with her she’d taken only her stolen pharmaceutical booty and her personal physician's bag; Those, and the frayed pictures of her loved ones from her quarters.

Now, bleeding and half macerated, she descended upon the bags like a fresh forsaken with an gargantuan appetite. She dumped the bags, spilling the contents across the floor under the work bench where she’d stashed them. From her loot pile of goodies she plucked out the things she needed as their plain labels revealed themselves in the frenzy of bottles, vials, tubes, and bags. She didn’t have blood, that wasn’t stable enough to have bothered stealing. She sure wished she did though....

No frost box around to keep them cool. No sir, I said no frost box around to keep them cool.

She hummed a broken and strained rhythm as she sang the ad lib song in her head. Singing was a sure fire way to up one's morale, and with it, their chances of not dying; she was a fan of not dying.

No sir, ain’t got no blood, ain’t got no blood to stem this flood.

They didn’t have to be good songs….

With an appropriate compilation of goods in hand she set about putting their contents inside her. First on the menu was the ringers solution, conveniently boiled and bagged by some proctor or diener who had worked his way up to chemist’s assistant. She tore open a new IV catheter with her teeth and connected it to the ringer bag’s tubing. One handed and without a tourniquet she did a shit job of sliding the needle into a skin noodle, but into the vein she did manage to place it. She’d be black and blue in the morning, but that be fine with her so long as she lived long enough to see it.

She opened the IV wide and slapped the bag on top of the work bench above her.

Keep it flowing, watch it go. Let it run, let it fly. Keep it pumping so you don’t die.

Working quickly, she administered several medications.

Crystalloid or colloid goo, doesn’t matter which one you choose. Just get it in and get it in fast. If you fuck this up, you ain’t gonna last.

Dipping into off-label usage however it suited her, she administered medications to keep her awake. There was no one to help her but her. When Mharren was her own physician she got a little loose with the rules.

Good idea Moron Mhar, ain’t no help near or far.

In the heap of supplies she found a vial of faintly glowing liquid, of a colour she couldn’t quite discern. She turned it over, searching for the label. She groaned, rolling her eyes: Nathandiel's name was on it, and he’d given it the very vague title of ‘regenerative.’ For all she knew it was vitamins.

Can't hurt.

She popped the top, breaking the seal and loaded a syringe. How potent could it be? There were no dosing instructions so sure use the whole thing; typically vials were one dose only. She pressed it into a port and slid the juice home. It was cold, cold and sort of--

“Oh, Gods,” she spat, a horrible sharp taste like stinging nettles and fried machine oil collecting at the back of her throat. “Asshole,” she spat, thinking of Nathandiel's smug, handsome mug. She changed her mind. It wasn’t vitamins, it was gonna be some sort of male libido enhancer or penile enlargement potion. “I tell you. That tree the night elves love has nothing on ME!” She could hear him saying.

"Whatever..." she muttered; enough medications.

Cringing from the awful taste, she crawled away, taking a handful of supplies and her IV bag with her. She made it back to the hearth and up onto her knees. Draping herself over a second kitchen chair for support, she took down the water and tested it, too hot but that was to be expected.

The pain medicine was starting to help, to put a dent in the agony so she could think beyond it. She touched the makeshift bandage, it was wet but the bleeding seemed to have slowed. Now she had a decision to make. Take the bandage off and attempt removal of the object and closure…or wait and see if —

"Ugh!" She doubled over, falling off the chair. Pain, and something else: A sensation that clutched her from the outside but also stemmed from her spine. Bright stars appeared in her vision.

Oh no, this is it.

She reached towards the hearth, seeking something to hold onto, something to keep her there.

Going down down down…down to dead man town…

All was black.
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