In Which Caroline Organizes a Town Hall

[headcheerbleeder]

Who: Everyone
What: Caroline holds court and everyone hashes it out over how to organize.
Where: The Heartstone.
When: After the leadership post on the network.
Warnings/Notes: Conversations may get intense due to the baggage characters are bringing to any conversation about authority, particularly structural authority. Threadhopping is encouraged; my notifs are off and you can treat this like a network post, just with face-to-face interaction. The mods reserve the right to shut down threads or the post entirely if it gets out of hand.

Caroline and Stacia have, by now, made little portable deer-hide cushions for every person they've counted up in the camp, all fifty three. It's taken them a while, and in the meantime, Stacia was on the mirror network announcing her candidacy for leadership, and Caroline was in the background making little tutting and tch noises. This is why she doesn't do the internet.

Finally, she gets her own mirror out and makes an announcement, then arranges the little cushions for everyone in a wide, multi-tiered circle, staggered so everyone has a view towards the center, all at perfect fifteen degree angles to the one next to them. She sets six little campfires to ensure everything's well-lit. And she folds her arms and she waits.

Comments

[okayimin]

[ There would be significantly more wrath, except Sawbones is actually interested in meeting another healer. ]

That so? Good to meet you, then. You can call me Sister Sara and I'm a sawbones more than a surgeon. [ Niceties over, straight to business: ] Have you recognized any of the local plants around here?

[ She indicated her basket. ] Some of 'em look familiar to me, but we're missing a few that're pretty prominent as far as healing goes where I'm from. Either way, I've got decent headway on getting us stocked with bandages.

[hourglasshalfempty]

[Oh, there's not going to be a scene. Excellent. Raistlin doesn't sigh in relief, because he has self-control]

I've recognized most of the plants in the area - let me see what you have, and describe to me what you're missing. Mostly, I've been making wound paste, and cures for common ailments. And insect repellent.

[Horkin always told him, you can never have enough wound paste or insect repellent.]

[garmr]

[ his work here is done. so he'll find a nearby tree to stand next to and let them get to it. ]

[okayimin]

Excellent.

[ She grabs a few pillows she deems large enough to set between them and then dumps her basket out neatly over the top. ]

And insect repellent is a good call, that's never one I think of myself. Now, my main fear is when the weather here turns cold. We ain't got any embrium as far as I can tell and that's the bulk of what we use for diseases of the lungs. Ain't seen a single sprig of elfroot neither. That'll make pain treatment tricky.

[ She also pulls out a worn leather journal from her pockets, along with a stub of graphite. Flipping through the pages, she shows him some of the common plants she's found that seem similar. ]

It's herbs and mushrooms mostly. Never could get a proper read on grasses and flowers are the like that'll either cure you or kill you.

[hourglasshalfempty]

[Raistlin gives an sharp, ironic smile]

As it happens, disorders of the lung are something of my specialty. I've been able to collect several common treatments for cough, shortened breath, and congestion of the sinuses. Here -

[while she was preparing their new workspace, he was taking off his pouches and taking out some of his own supplies. now he starts setting herbs down. he points at each one as he names it]

Mullein, wild garlic, marsh-mallow, nettle and licorice root. I can make a decent cold cure from any of these, in any combination. Are any of them familiar to you?

[okayimin]

[ Sawbones makes a pleased noise and begins inspecting the plants he produces, give each a touch and sniff before drawing hasty scrawls of them in her field notes. ]

The garlic and nettle. I've heard of licorice root, but with the war going on, trade's not been good. Excellent. If we can find more or at least this realms equivalent, we should be able to stock a decent bit before snowfall.

Reckon we'll need plenty of bandages and catgut in the meantime. And something for swelling. I prefer comfrey myself, does all right for some pains when there's no elfroot about. And lavender, but I'm only familiar with the type all the nobles grow in their gardens.

[ She frowns. ]

Pity we don't have a few of those fine houses available, that would solve a a portion of our problems at least.

[ In incredibly legal and above board ways, of course. ]

[hourglasshalfempty]

Bandages are easily done. We'll need to ask people to volunteer cloth, but if we cut it into strips and boil it, that should make them sterile enough. I haven't found anything that will substitute for decent catgut, though, you're right about that. I know of some methods, but I can't find the material for them, either.

I can show you where I found the herbs. There's plenty; we can take enough without exhausting the site.