Through the winding dunes of the Imperial badlands, Arkash, Izzy, and Bants made their way. Blistering sun rained on them with every turn of the chariot's wheels. The intense resistance of the wind rushed through their clothes at every stretch.
Mile after mile they raced with the halfling in Arkash's hold. One hand was used to support the weight of his head while the other applied pressure to the bloody stomach wound.
Bants passed out long before they arrived at the Derelict, but the Rath kept up his words of encouragement through the deafening roar of the engine. Izzy rolled up that long hill with her foot flat on the gas pedal. The machine struggled with an occupancy of three as the wheels skipped and slid on the sand. With a few curses and a whole lot of fuel, they eventually made it halfway.
"Alright," Arkash spoke in his gravelly voice, clutched Bants with both hands and leaped from the back of the chariot. His knees bent as he met the sandy ground to reduce the impact on the injured halfling. "Easy," he said as Izzy suddenly sped ahead. "We're here, we've got you," he assured the slave, then began his own fight against the shifting sand of the hill.
Claws dug deep, he climbed to the top and kept the half Druskai from the nightmare of sandy wounds. Arkash's endurance, though impressive, did yield a slight rise in his breathing and heart rate by the time he'd made it to the top.
In the mouth of the Derelict's entrance was Izzy with her chariot beside her and her hand on the lever at the center of the platform. The moment Arkash stepped through the awning, she pulled the lever. The rocky cliff face began to rise behind him and the ground shook as he stepped onto the platform. As it moved into place and sealed them in the chamber, the burning sun's light gradually diminished and soon enough left them in complete darkness.
Though the Rath could see clearly, Izzy could not. He watched with amusement as she fiddled with her lantern in the pitch darkness, grinned a little, then blinked quickly as she soon got the light of the pilot going. The floor jolted, cranked, then began to steadily descend along the brass rails. Arkash sighed in relief and lidded his eyes to listen to the heartbeat of the young halfling. It was fast, surprisingly fast for someone asleep. "He's lost a lotta blood," Arkash spoke with concern as he looked up at Izzy. "His heart's workin' real hard wiv what he's got... It's not much but he's hangin' on."
"Ark..." Izzy began, and the Rath looked up at her with wide eyes. "I don't want to sound insensitive, but... Why do you care?"
The young Rathor fell into silence while he examined her facial expression. Izzy's features were neutral, as though she'd been sitting in the room waiting for some ten minutes. Arkash couldn't help but furrow his brow in turn. "Wotcha mean...?"
She scoffed a brief laugh. "Dude... I've watched you butcher entire camps of raiders and eat them without a second thought. I've brought you bags of chopped-up people and you haven't questioned who they were." She crossed her arms. "What's with this guy?"
In silence, the Cardinal pondered. He didn't meet her eyes while he tried to discern the reason he cared about the life of some half-Druskai in the Badlands. Before he could reach a solution, the elevator's platform met the ground level. Arkash then looked at Izzy with a glimmer of concern before he turned and proceeded quickly down the hall. He heard her sigh at his departure, then leisurely follow after him with her lantern in town.
Expertly, Arkash navigated the subterranean tunnels and soon landed in his surgery room. At once, Arkash placed the half Druskai on the table and ripped the tunic from his chest, twirled it, and wrung the fabric to squeeze some of the blood into his Mortar on that same surface. At once, the mixture of Sinew foam in the tool began to replicate Bants' blood.
Using the grafting needle, Arkash formed an airtight sac around the blood along with a tube that he connected directly to the median cubital vein close to the boy's elbow. He twisted the needle to set the etheric thread in the composition of skin, took hold of the sac with both hands, and steadily squeezed. Quite quickly, he filled the Druskai's system with more blood. Tapering was the beat of the boy's heart, which steadied and slowed significantly with the introduction of more material. Arkash sighed in relief, stitched fresh skin over the hole he'd created, and disconnected the biological injection sac.
"What's that?" Asked Izzy's voice from over his shoulder. Arkash turned his upper body while his feet stayed planted, and passed her a half glance. There she was, leaning against the doorframe with that sour look in her half gaze. Arkash pulled his lip in a slight smile and parted it to breathe deeply.
"Just something I threw together," he explained. "I used to use blood magic to put blood in people, but that's not an option anymore, so..." he took the device with both hands and showed it to the human. "This acts as a pump, I can squeeze the fluid inside into this pipe here, and through the end into the arteries of my patients."
Izzy hummed with mild enthusiasm. "Impressive," she nodded a little. "Bants is gonna make it then?"
Arkash nodded a bit with a smile, then set the contraption down. "The good news is that a lot of the wound has coagulated. The bad news is I'll have to open it all over again to fix his guts."
"Or you could just not..." She continued on her crusade.
"What do you have against him?" Arkash asked with a hint of irritation as he took his scalpel.
"Arkash," she began, her voice a little more forceful. "This place is a secret. We're supposed to just fix him up like a broken bird and let him go when he's done?"
The Rath shook his head a little as he began to glide the razor-sharp edge along the entry site of the shrapnel. The patient's heart rate elevated a little, and blood beaded along the length of the incision. "I didn't say that," Arkash clarified as he finished his lap around the debris, then opened the flesh a little further to peer inside the young Druskai's abdomen.
"So he's a captive? We're taking prisoners now? Slaves?"
"I didn't say that either," the Cardinal clarified effortlessly. The shrapnel appeared simple; a shard of the metal casing that had pierced straight through without any major branches he needed to work around. With a sigh, he set the scalpel down and took hold of the metal with both hands.
"If you let him go, he's going to tell people about this place. Everybody talks, Ark." She argued her disapproval.
Arkash shook his head again as he steadily withdrew the metal from the belly of the half-gnome. He cringed a little as the gnome's heart rate elevated and his fingers curled reflexively. Strain claimed the boy's expression and Arkash curled his nose. "Izzy..." The necromancer began.
"You know I'm right. I don't want to hear it," she continued.
"Izzy," Arkash repeated.
"What?"
The metal shrapnel came free of the boy's body, glistening with dark lifeblood in the low lamplight. "I need more Sinew Foam, yesterday." The wound began to well with blood. Vessels that had been obstructed and coagulated by the shrapnel were then made open, and Arkash needed material to fill the injury, and repair organs, muscle tissue, and the like.
She hesitate, her tension was palpable.
Arkash looked over his shoulder at the woman once again, a cold command in his eye. "Now, Izzy."
She exhaled, then pushed herself off the wall. Near leisurely she strode toward the table, took a dismembered arm from the far end, and began to mix it in the mortar with the pestle, fingers first.
The Rath flared his nostrils with the force of his exhale, took his grafting needle, and dexterously dipped the golden instrument into the wound. He began to bind the blood vessels together and steadily tapered the boy's bleeding to nothing at all. Heart rate still elevated, Arkash collected a sample of the Druskai's blood and dropped it in one of the jars of Sinew Foam Izzy had prepared. As the material converted to blood, he cast a glance at her. She stared down at the mortar while she mixed the material and refused to meet his gaze.
Arkash shook his head and began to weave a needle of bone with etheric thread. The needle was broad with a tapered tip, hollow on the inside. A small valve was installed to the needle that allowed for a one-way flow of fluid before he attached it to the end of the contraption he'd created and melded the skin to the bone. He poured more blood in through a small incision in the back, then sealed it a second time. Once it was airtight, he lifted the bag and opened the valve to allow the blood to push the trapped air out, then closed the valve when the Druskai's blood surfaced.
Carefully, he eased the needle into the arm of the halfling, opened the valve, and held the sac high as gravity pulled the fluid through the tube and into the blood vessels of the halfling. Again, the beat of his heart steadied, and Arkash leisurely hung the sac from the wall to allow more blood to fill his smaller patient.
From there, repairing the rest of the wound was relatively easy. Arkash needed only to repair the digestive tract with Sinew Foam, restore the branches of nerves with the Grafting needle, rebuilt the muscles of his abdomen, and then replenish his skin with Sinew Cloth.
In no time at all, Bants was fully restored. Arkash released a breath of relief, then looked to his companion with a kind smile. She didn't share the same sentiment, as she set down the mortar and pestle, briefly met his gaze with a neutral, flat lip, then took a seat at the far end of the room without so much as a word.
Arkash maintained his smile despite her demeanor, looked at the floor in thought, then nodded his head with a brief "thank you."
"Sure," she returned and crossed her arms. "Now what, Ark?"
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