First Pill - Door to Door Apothecary

[2mao]

[ Door to Door - Open to Recent Rescues ]

[ If you were freed in the last mission and brought to the Crimson Corsairs, you've likely been patched up and given a room - whether in Flotsam, Elysium, or the Vault. Well, no matter where you've settled in, so long as you're staying in a place the Crimson Corsairs provided, you'll be getting a knock on the door one morning or afternoon a couple days later.

At the door is a short girl - woman - teenager? She's dressed very simply - obviously a commoner - and has a small bag with her. ]

I'm here to provide a medical check-up. [ If you've answered right away, that's her greeting. If not, she's calling that in through the door. ]



[ Apothecary - Open to anybody in or visiting Elysium ]

[ If you're in Elysium, you might see a girl running around with a large basket on her back, just filled to the brim with herbs and plants. If you see her, you might also see the point where she's rounding a corner just as a man - in much finer clothing than hers - rounds it as well.

The results are predictable. The girl is not large by any means, and she's knocked to the ground, her basket spilling its contents all over.

The man gives her a look like he's viewing an insect that's particularly bothersome, but says nothing as he simply steps around Maomao and continues on his way.

The girl is back to her feet to bow to the man. ] Apologies, Sir. It won't happen again.

[ He makes no sound or movement acknowledging he even heard her, but she holds the pose until he's gone. And then she's kneeling down to gather back up her dropped herbs.

She could use some help, though. ]


[ Open Door Policy - Open to anybody visiting Elysium ]

[ Injured? Sick? Maomao's apothecary is open.

Granted, it's a bit out of the way - you have to head down the back and side streets away from the main thoroughfare of Elysium's red light district and the Vale of Flowers, but you'll find a very small and cramped shop eventually. But the citizens will be more than happy to direct any non-Imperials that way, especially if you seem to be in need.

Otherwise, this is an open prompt! Hit her up if you have other reasons to seek her out. ]

Comments

door to door

[redprayer]

[Maomao's knock gets a called response before the door opens:]

Just a minute.

[A few moments later Rezo emerges, looming a little over a foot taller than Maomao. This is probably not as much interest to her as two other factors of his appearance. First, he's visibly underweight, the way former Imperial servants so often are. Secondly, he keeps his eyes closed all the time, even as he tilts his head in Maomao's direction.]

A medical check-up? I don't recall requesting one.

[2mao]

[ Maomao probably isn't the type of person you'd expect to... see? From a doctor. Mainly that she's young and not wearing - well he wouldn't know that.

She takes in the sight of his body. Malnourishment she expected. The height... not unexpected. Outlanders tend to come in all shapes, many of them impressive. His eyes... less expected. ]

You haven't had one yet, have you? Not counting the one they do in the field - that's only emergency triage.

You've been through a lot, most people arriving here have minor injuries, malnourishment, and other health issues stemming from their forced servitude.

[ Of course, it's also a chance for her to get a first impression to report back to Musse, but that's just a bonus. She really is here to do a job, since nobody else seems to want to do it. ]

[redprayer]

[Rezo is familiar with the conditions she describes, of course. Not only did he have his own physical maladies to contend with, but part of his job had been keeping the other servants working even after they'd been injured.]

I see.

[She sounds young, and he can tell her voice is coming from somewhere considerably below his eye level. Part of him is suspicious of her credentials, but it's hard to gauge age from voice and height alone. Besides, even if she is inexperienced, every healer has to start somewhere.]

Did you want to come in, or do you have a work space I should go to?

Door to door

[curebootleg]

[ Preme opens the door after Maomao calls out why she's there. They look the doctor over with a blank, vaguely unimpressed expression. ]

I'm not sick or injured.

[2mao]

[ Honestly, if Maomao ever impressed somebody, she was doing something wrong. Even here, in the heart of the Crimson Corsairs, she does her best to remain unimpressive and... perhaps not forgettable, but at least overlookable.

Still, she does have a job to do, and she's here to see that done and through. ]

You might think you're fine, but that's only what you're aware of. The Empire isn't known for treating outlanders well, nor providing adequate nutrition. That's why a professional does a check-up.

[ While she's speaking, she's taking in this outlander girl - she looks pretty young, younger than most outlanders that come in. Her hair and eyes are.... unusual, but that in and of itself isn't terribly strange for outlanders. Her expression though.... oddly intense. ]

Open Door Policy

[creativiti]

It's not often Momo comes to Elysium, but operatives between the three Corsair strongholds often trade for items between each other as needed, either for missions or otherwise, and these transactions require couriers to ferry items. In this case, it's a shipment of books; a treatise on sedatives, what appears to be a lengthy dissertation on drug interactions, and a tome on monster biology, straight from the Vault's library. Ever the attentive helper to the archivists there, Momo volunteered to be the courier.

She gets a little turned around on the backstreets, but with some help, she's pointed towards the small, cramped store, and she realizes with some frustration she walked past it three times without ever noticing it was there. So this is where Elysium's resident Corsair apothecary plies her trade.

She's created a red hooded cloak to wear, since the mission requires discretion, and her "walking stick" can easily double as a weapon should it have been required, though fortunately she encountered no trouble besides getting lost.

Hopefully the delay wasn't noticeable.

She makes her way through the store towards the counter, sliding the hood off her head as she does so. The books are tucked safely away within the cloak's confines, and Momo's eyes are drawn by the store's merchandise as she approaches. Maybe there will be time to look around a bit before she has to return.

"Ah...Apothecary Maomao?"

[2mao]

It's less a 'store' and more of a shack where a trade is plied. There's a small desk with a mortar and pestle and a grinding wheel, herbs of all kinds hanging from the walls, and a cabinet with many different drawers where she presumably keeps finished medicine. But there's also a small bookshelf and even a small bed tucked away against the back wall.

A small table sits near the entrance, though, and is fitted with a couple chairs.

"Delivery?" The apothecary - presumably - is tying up a bundle of herbs at the desk. She's wearing a very simple commoner's robe and pants, and her vocal tone conveys... boredom? Or perhaps simply apathy. "You can leave it on the table."

As soon as Maomao is done tying up that bundle of herbs, hanging them up along the wall of her shack, she turns her attention to the courier. Her gaze is sharp, taking in the red-cloaked figure of Momo. Was that supposed to be discrete? A red like that would stand out like a sore thumb, especially among the peasants that made up this area along the back streets, where the nobles didn't venture.

She walks over towards the table and the entrance. "The literature, right?"

Door to Door

[lightnovelexperiences]

Medical… you’re healer?

(This outlander is clearly struggling with the language.)

Not locked. Please come in.

(The occupant of this room is a fox beastkin, red-haired and tall, in plain clothes with the first blue skirt she could find.

At first glance, she’s clearly been forced to do hard labor with not enough food or water, and her wrists and neck have clear signs of chafing, probably from suppression bands.)

Am… I am Deedee. Thank you for helping me.

[2mao]

Apothecary. [ The correction is instinctual, though the actual distinction might not amount to much. The term "healer" was more often used for those with curative magic, which Maomao had none of - and didn't particularly trust, truth be told. She wasn't a doctor either, since those could be counted on to perform surgery. But she did diagnoses and treatment plans, as well as making the medicines used in them.

Of course, she could also tell this girl wasn't used to the language yet, so the distinction was less useful, and she didn't bother to explain.

She looked the beastkin girl - Deedee - over as she entered the room proper. Malnourished as expected, but nicely muscled. That kind of build didn't come from nothing but manual labor, especially not with the kind of diets the Empire fed their "forced workers" - they didn't get enough nutrients to build proper muscles. It spoke of her time before being captured.

She'd need to see Deedee with less clothes to get a better idea of what kind of lifestyle she led before that point. One's body told a story of their life, and it rarely lied - unlike people. Regardless, some proper nutrition and she'd be right back to where she started, assuming her stint with the Empire hadn't resulted in any further complications. ]

My name is Maomao. I'm going to look you over, maybe run some tests. Is that okay?

Door to Door

[chosenkingoflucis]

[There's actually no answer to the knock on the door, nor anything when the woman just barges in, the room's resident fast asleep with the blanket over his head.]

[2mao]

[ ...Was this man seriously sleeping in this late? The sun's up already, the birds are singing. Come on.

Maomao loudly clears her throat, though she's not so crass as to enter any further than his doorway - not unless she has any reason to believe he might be in danger. ] Excuse me! You're the recent rescue and recruit, yes?

[ She's a little louder than necessary, to rouse him if he's actually still asleep and not faking it.

But she's also taking the moment to gaze about the room, seeing if she can discern anything from the decor, the general messiness, and any other personalization. The Elysium recruits are especially on concern to her, so she wants to get a feel for what kind of man he is.

....If the sleeping isn't clue enough. ]

Apothecary

[newmemorywhodis]

Fortunately, Maomao won't have to wait long for assistance. Although Link doesn't arrive in quite the expected way: rather than walking up, he drops down. Apparently, he'd been up on a rooftop somewhere.

Immediately, and without bothering to make any kind of verbal introduction, he starts picking up the dropped herbs. He's quick and efficient, but every now and then he pauses to look at one of the herbs with interest.

Link hasn't seen these particular plants before - what would they be like to cook with, he wonders?

[2mao]

Maomao isn't one to complain about people being silent. Just the opposite, actually. This halves the time she needs to pick up her dropped herbs, and she doesn't have to make inane chatter while doing so - a win/win situation in her books.

Sure, dropping in from the sky was... odd. The kind of oddity she'd expect from an outlander - is he one? She doesn't see a Suppression Band, but he could've been a rescue. He did look a little worse for the wear, but that could be said for any number of commoners as well.

Not that it mattered, she supposed - outside of the fact she was supposed to be keeping an eye on the newcomers and, presumably, reporting back her thoughts on them.

And... now he seemed to be examining one of her herbs.

"Be careful with that. It's a moderately strengthed poison if ingested."

Door to Door

[freearcadia]

[He actually opens right away, looking at Maomao curiously]

All right, I was expecting this actually.

[Harlock steps aside to allow her into his dorm, rubbing his shoulder]

So what do you need me to do?

[2mao]

You seem to speak our language well enough. [ She observes this as she steps inside. ]

It's going to be a fairly normal check-up. I'm going to ask you some questions, take your vital signs, and then do a cursory examination for any injuries you may have overlooked. The fact you speak our language well will make this go all that much faster.

[ She speaks with the confidence of a professional in her comfort zone - which might seem a bit odd to somebody coming in from another world, given Maomao's age. But her speech and confidence point to somebody to whom this is rote and familiar. ]

Door to door

[achelord]

[Is Ziel a rescue? Not really. Does he need medical attention? Technically no, or at least not of the kind Maomao is offering.

Does he LOOK like he needs medical attention when she staggers his way over to the door, his every movement weighed down by untold pain?

Definitely.]

...I'm fine.

[2mao]

[ Maomao just. Looks him over. ]

This is just my professional opinion, but you don't look fine.

Door to Door

[poormeowmeow]

[ Izutsumi thinks it's nice they've given her her own room, honestly, but she hasn't said that out loud. That'd be ridiculous. Instead she's been lazing around in the hammock she's strung up, swaying with the motion of the ship and mostly lost in thought.

The knock startles her and she sits up a little, eying the door for a moment. ]

...it's open.

[ She was in a labor camp for a few weeks. She probably needs the medical help. ]

[2mao]

[ Maomao takes stock of the room as she enters - how one leaves their room is a testament of a person's character, or so Maomao believes. But she takes it in quickly before moving onto the subject at hand - namely the room's resident.

Another beastkin girl, is it? A little more beast than she's used to, but she's not one to judge. Beastkin girls were fairly popular in the brothel where Maomao was raised, after all. ]

My name's Maomao. You're one of the recent rescued outlanders, correct?

Door to Door

[dreamflowers]

[Jade has had some complicated feelings about the fact that she's been given free room and board. But being stuck alone in an unknown world, her options are otherwise limited.

[It doesn't help to quell her suspicions when she's met with a knock on the door. It opens slightly, allowing her one good eye to peek through the crack, squinting.]

...

Aren't you a little young to be an Apothecaria?

[2mao]

I assure you, despite my height [ age ] I am a fully-trained apothecary.

[ Maomao can't make out much of the person gazing at her through a cracked doorway, other than he voice sounds older than Maomao and she seems rather tall - especially in comparison. ]

I won't take up much of your time. I'm just here to check for any lingering issues from your time at the Empire's labor camps and advise on how to best recover.

Door to door

[relentless_sentinel]

[Maomao's knock nets her a squeak from inside at first, before there's some rustling noises.]

C-comin'!

[When the door opens a moment later, the shorter girl is greeted by a very tall - close to six foot - human lady with bright green hair under a hat that shadows part of her face. She's dressed in some overalls over a blue shirt, an orange neckerchief around her neck, and she blinks at Maomao for a second.]

R-right, they said someone'd be 'round for that...[Dang, that's a country accent.] Um, come on in, Miss...?

[2mao]

[ Maomao's noted that she's having to do a lot of visits on Flotsam. It figures most recent rescues would probably want to avoid Elysium, where the Empire's nobility walked around freely, though.

Still, she wonders where this woman learned to speak their language with such an accent - certainly not from the nobility. She was an outlander, wasn't she? ]

Maomao. I'm an apothecary from Elysium. Here on behalf of the Crimson Corsairs, of course. [ She gives a small bow before entering.

Once inside, she's glancing around for a quick view of the room - taking in how it's been decorated, cleaned, and organized for a feel on how her new patient might be as a person. And then turning her attention to the person in question as well. ] I won't take up much of your time.

Door to Door - Open to Recent Rescues

[lyorning]

A check-up?

[Aerich didn't recognize the idiom, or else his own understanding of the local language was inadequate (again). He hoped the confusion came through.]

[2mao]

[ Ah. Yes, right. Most outlanders don't know their language. ]

A... medical examination? A health consultation. [ All of those words are bigger. ] I'm here to check on your health.