Chapter 36: SUPPLY LINES

The module’s dossier on the physician candidate was twelve pages long.

[DOSSIER: PHYSICIAN CANDIDATE]

[Name: Doctor Wren Halloway]

[Age: 61. Practice: 30 years. Location: Millow Town, 4 miles east.]

[Specialties: field surgery, bonesetting, "telling powerful men they are being idiots" (direct quote from three patients).]

[Note: Served as army surgeon in the human coalition during the Demon Wars.]

[Note: The module has flagged a potential complication. See Appendix D.]

"What’s Appendix D?" Lyria asked.

Vael turned to Appendix D.

[Appendix D: Doctor Halloway served at the Battle of Ashfen.]

Silence.

"She was on the other side," Vael said quietly.

"She was a surgeon," Lyria said. "Surgeons don’t have sides. They have patients." She looked at him. "Do you want a different candidate?"

Vael thought about it. Then he folded the dossier shut. "No. If she can look at me — at what I am — and still take the retainer, she’s the right one. If she can’t, I’d rather know now."

"That’s very mature of you."

"I’m pending re-evaluation. Maturity is expected."

Morrigan, who had been reading over his shoulder, said: "PROCUREMENT REQUIRES SECURITY. I WILL ACCOMPANY YOU."

"No," Vael said.

"THE DOCTOR MAY BE HOSTILE."

"She’s a 61-year-old physician, Morrigan."

"THE MOST DANGEROUS KIND. THEY KNOW WHERE THE ARTERIES ARE."

Lyria patted Morrigan’s shoulder. "You’re staying here. Someone has to guard the battlements."

Morrigan drew herself up. "THE BATTLEMENTS WILL BE GUARDED WITH MY LIFE."

"That’s the spirit."

---

Millow Town was four miles of pleasant road, and Doctor Wren Halloway’s practice was a stone house with a blue door, a herb garden, and a sign that read: WREN HALLOWAY, PHYSICIAN. WALK-INS WELCOME. IDIOTS SEEN FIRST.

"She’ll do," Vael said.

The waiting room smelled of lavender and carbolic. The doctor herself was a small woman with iron-grey hair, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and eyes that did a triage pass out of pure habit — the way Lyria’s mother had, the way all women of a certain formidable generation apparently did.

"You’re the innkeepers," she said. "The Retired Demon King. Cute name." Her eyes stopped on Vael. Narrowed. "You look familiar."

Vael’s blood went cold. He was 28 in appearance now, a century removed from the throne, but—

"You have his jaw," Doctor Wren said. "Unfortunate for you. Sit down, both of you. What do you need?"

Lyria explained: the inn, the Family Route (she kept it vague — "we’re planning ahead"), the need for a physician on retainer. "For — eventually. Possibly. We’re preparing."

"Preparing." Doctor Wren leaned back. "At your age —" she looked at Vael, "— twenty-eight, thirty? — people don’t usually ’prepare’ this thoroughly unless they’re nervous."

"He’s very nervous," Lyria said. "He’s F-minus."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing," Vael said quickly. "We’re thorough. That’s all."

The doctor studied him for a long moment. Then she stood, circled the desk, and did what Lady Valcrest had done: took his wrists, turned his palms up.

"Sword scar," she said. "Old. Burns — newer. Kitchen?" At Vael’s nod: "Hm." She let go. "You were a soldier."

"A long time ago."

"Ashfen?"

The word landed like a stone in still water.

Vael met her eyes. "I was at Ashfen," he said. "On the other side of your lines."

A long silence. Lyria’s hand found his under the table.

Doctor Wren sat back down. She was quiet for a moment. Then: "I pulled seventeen boys out of the mud at Ashfen. Seventeen. Four lived." She looked at him steadily. "I don’t ask my patients which side their scars came from. I ask whether they can pay and whether they’ll follow instructions." A beat. "Can you pay?"

"Yes."

"Will you follow instructions?"

"...Mostly."

"Good enough." She pulled out a ledger. "Retainer’s five silver a month. I come when called, day or night. And —" she pointed her pen at Vael, "— you. You look like you haven’t slept properly in a century. Sleep. Doctor’s orders."

"I’m retired. I sleep fine."

"You have the eyes of a man who’s bracing for something." She wrote in the ledger. "Whatever it is — the rock, the route, all of it —" she glanced up, "— yes, Millow Town talks, your general told the baker — it’ll come when it comes. Bracing doesn’t help. Breathing helps."

Vael stared at her. "Did you just prescribe breathing?"

"I’m a physician. It’s in the job description." She stamped the ledger. "Done. You’re my patients now. Try not to be idiots."

---

The midwife was easier, in the sense that Mama Odette took one look at Vael, patted his cheek, and said, "F-minus, hm? We’ll fix that, sweetheart."

"How does everyone know about the F-minus?" Vael asked the sky.

"Morrigan told the baker," Lyria and Mama Odette said together.

Mama Odette’s cottage smelled of bread and lavender. She served them tea, asked Lyria three questions that made Lyria laugh, asked Vael one question that made him sit up straight — "And when she says stop, what do you do?" — and nodded approvingly at his answer.

"Stop," Vael said. "Immediately. No discussion."

"Good boy." She refilled his tea. "The module — the beige one — sent me a letter. Very polite. Asked if I knew what ’colic’ was." She chuckled. "I wrote back four pages. It DINGed at me for an hour. I think it’s learning."

"Are you — alright?"

Vael thought about the seventeen boys in the mud. He thought about 411 names on a memorial. He thought about a surgeon’s hands, turning his palms up, asking only whether he could pay and whether he’d follow instructions.

"She didn’t forgive me," he said. "She didn’t have to. She just — took the retainer." He was quiet. "I think that’s the most honest thing anyone’s done for me in years."

Lyria bumped his shoulder with hers. "For the record: I’d have fought her if she’d turned you away."

"I know."

"Good."

---

They stopped at the bakery on the way out of town, because Lyria wanted rolls, and because the baker — the same baker Morrigan had told about the heir, the origin point of all town gossip — took one look at them and vanished into the back room.

He returned with a small cake. On it, in slightly wobbly icing, were the words: GOOD LUCK, F-MINUS.

"It’s on the house," the baker said, not meeting Vael’s eyes. "For — for the route. The family one." He glanced up, quickly. "My wife and I — we had ours late, too. She’s worth it. All of it."

Vael looked at the cake. He looked at the baker — a man whose name he didn’t know, who knew his assessment score, who had iced it onto a cake anyway.

"Thank you," Vael said, and meant it.

"Don’t thank me yet," the baker said. "Wait till the colic." He winked at Lyria. "He’ll learn."

Walking home, Vael carried the cake like it was ordnance. Lyria carried the rolls. Neither of them said anything for a while.

Then Lyria said: "The whole town knows your grade, you know."

"I know."

"And they’re rooting for you anyway."

Vael looked at the icing — GOOD LUCK, F-MINUS — slightly wobbly, entirely sincere.

"I know," he said quietly.

---

They were half a mile from the inn when the crystal — which Lyria had taken to carrying in her pocket, "for morale" — DINGed:

[OBJECTIVE 2: SUPPLY LINES — COMPLETE.]

[Physician: retained. Midwife: retained. "Colic": now understood by all parties. The module has updated its files and apologizes for the earlier confusion.]

[STAGE 1: FOUNDATION — 90% COMPLETE.]

[Remaining: Phase Two — the succession chamber. The battlements await their fate.]

"They’re not touching the battlements," Lyria said to the crystal.

[Noted. The battlements are safe. The module has made its peace.]

They crested the hill — and saw Morrigan standing in the inn’s doorway at full attention, holding a letter above her head like a battle standard.

"MY— MANAGER!" she bellowed, the moment they were in earshot. "THERE’S A LETTER! FROM THE CAPITAL! IT HAS A SEAL! A REAL SEAL! I DIDN’T OPEN IT! I WANTED TO! I DIDN’T!"

Vael took the letter. The seal was real — the new government’s seal, the one that had replaced the Obsidian Throne’s. He broke it, read the first line, and went very still.

"What," Lyria said.

"It’s from the Ministry of Reconciliation." He read further. His jaw did the thing. "They’re conducting a — a review. Of war-era figures. Living in civilian life." He looked up. "They want to interview me."

"A review," Lyria repeated.

"A review," Vael said, "with a seal."

Behind them, on the counter, the crystal DINGed — once, quietly, the beige going a shade paler:

[NOTICE: External political attention detected.]

[The module has no objectives for this.]

[The module wishes to note, for the record, that it did not cause this.]

[It is, however, taking notes.]

Morrigan whispered: "IS THIS PHASE FOUR?"

And upstairs, in the campaign chest, the dead crystal sat dark among the maps — no advice, no DING — while downstairs, a retired Demon King held a letter from the capital and felt, for the first time in three years, the old familiar sensation of a perimeter closing in.