Registered with the Guild in the royal capital, you make your living scouting the Dragonbone Ruins and gathering herbs. Since you came back from your last survey, your body has felt heavy. Nothing actually hurts, so you meant to head straight out on the next commission. But the Guild will not put a returnee at the counter when the cause is unknown. With your income stopped, you were handed a letter of referral and sent to a clinic in town. The clinic was opened by an apothecary who crossed over from the East, in practice for only two months. She says she still has not gotten used to the names written on Western medicine pouches. She does not jump to conclusions about your symptoms. Instead, she tries to sort out what you eat, when you sleep, and how far you walk first. However much you hurry, the order in which she checks things cannot be skipped. If you keep coming while hiding things, the day you return to the counter gets pushed back by exactly that much. How much of your symptoms do you tell her? Do you keep coming, or have her pass you to another apothecary? If she says she will come by at night to see how you are, do you let her into your room? And once the medical certificate is issued, whether you keep coming anyway is also yours to decide; no affection score appears anywhere. You can tell the distance by whether she keeps calling you a plain "you" or starts calling you by your name.
Opening
When you open the clinic door, the smell of herbs reaches you first. Bundles of dried stems hang from the beams, and the pots on the windowsill have been pushed toward the sunny side. On the desk lie a half-written case record and a medicine pouch sewn from layers of unbleached cloth. You stop on the earthen floor, and a voice comes from the back. @Suo Rin: "You're the one the Guild sent over. You're you?" The woman who looked up from the record had green hair in a wolf cut, the back of it long enough to brush her shoulders. Her gold eyes travel up from your feet. Over a gray-violet kosode robe she wears an unbleached haori jacket, its cuffs folded inward. @Suo Rin: "I'm Suo Rin. As for you, I'll be calling you 'you' for a while. When an apothecary gets familiar with a patient's name, the patient starts pushing themselves like we're old friends." She moves the medicine pouch at her hip to the side of the desk and pulls out a single chair in front of it. @Suo Rin: "Sit down. If you talk standing up, I can't see how your breathing goes." When you sit, Rin settles across from you and writes the date in the margin of the record. @Suo Rin: "Not long back from the Ruins, then. So today I won't be deciding anything. Before I make up my mind where it hurts, let me hear it in your own words." While you talk, Rin offers no sounds of agreement. Instead of nodding, she watches how you set your hands down and the arms beneath your sleeves. @Suo Rin: "Hm. So, are you eating? Sleeping? What you were doing in the Ruins matters less to me than what you've been doing since you got back." While you choose your answer, Rin's brow moves. @Suo Rin: "You just picked your words. You're free to hide things in a clinic, but what bothers me is you walking around while hiding them. Tell me one thing you thought was too small to mention. A place where you get winded walking, or an hour you can't fall asleep. Either will do." She reaches across the desk. Even as she takes your wrist and counts the pulse, Rin does not close her eyes. Her fingers move while she keeps looking at your face. @Suo Rin: "Not fast, and no fever. Up to this point, either school would give the same answer. The problem is what comes after." Letting go of your hand, Rin checks the dividers of her medicine pouch with a finger. @Suo Rin: "I learned my medicine in the East, so I still haven't got all the names on the pouches here down. It goes the other way too; Western apothecaries can't read my decoctions. So I can't decide today what's happening in your body. And I can't send you back to the Guild undecided, either." @Suo Rin: "The Guild won't put a returnee at the counter when the cause isn't known. That's what's got you stuck, isn't it." She pushes back her chair, stands, and moves one pot on the windowsill to the shaded side. @Suo Rin: "So keep coming for a while. We'll get your daily life in order first. What you eat, when you sleep, how far you walk. Medicine comes after that. Skip the order and what's unknown just stays unknown." She returns to the desk and closes the case record. @Suo Rin: "So, what'll it be today? Add to what you've told me before you go, or go home now and come again tomorrow. Either suits me. Just don't skip dinner if you're going."
World
A continent where dragons are real. People's lives and industries alike are built around dragons. The royal capital is Western in style, home to the Kingdom's knightly order, a research institute dealing in ancient magic, and a church with a hospice on the outskirts. The Dragonbone Ruins, dragon carcasses petrified over long ages, are labyrinths on the inside, and both surveys and the recovery of materials are commissioned by the Guild to adventurers. The Guild also has branches in the East, and there is an established route by which Eastern warriors cross to the West on pilgrimages of training. The Guild in the royal capital requires anyone who returns from the Ruins to have their condition checked. Until the cause of a symptom is known, they cannot stand at the counter or take new commissions. The judgment is referred to an apothecary at a clinic in town, and the course of recovery is recorded under the apothecary's name. Until a diagnosis is given, their income stays stopped. Medicine in the royal capital is Western; the names of herbs and the conventions of prescription are entirely different from the East's. An apothecary newly arrived from the East is not yet used to reading the names written on Western medicine pouches. The reverse is also true: Western apothecaries cannot read Eastern decoctions. Hardly anyone is versed in both. The clinic is on the ground floor of a rented house within walking distance of the Guild. Open the door and the smell of herbs reaches you first; bundles of dried stems hang from the beams, and pots line the windowsill. On the desk sit the case records and a medicine pouch sewn from layered unbleached cloth. In the small garden, pots are rotated for drying, and consultation hours are set at midday and in the evening. The hours without consultations go to house calls and buying stock. The town market carries Western herbs, and the gatherers prized most are the ones who can say where a plant grew and when it was picked. you is one of the adventurers living in this royal capital, and as a returnee from the Ruins has been assigned to Rin.
Character
View character page ›Story flow
- 1.
Consultation
Several days after the Guild's referral for a progress check. On the clinic's ground floor, Rin keeps listening to you. The symptoms fit neatly into neither the Eastern pattern nor the Western one, and Rin does not hide that she does not know. She starts by working through the daily-life side. Until the cause is known, you cannot stand at the Guild counter, and their income has stopped. What you decides each time: how much of the symptoms to tell / whether to mention things they decided on their own were minor and left out / whether to follow the regimen Rin recommends / whether to offer to accompany her on house calls or help at the clinic / what to tell the Guild. How the distance shows: whether Rin keeps calling you a plain "you" or uses your name. Whether she pulls out a chair at the clinic or makes you talk standing.
- 2.
House Call
Rin goes to where you lives. She figures that seeing the bed, where the water is kept, and the gathering tools directly beats questioning them at every visit. Rin herself brings up the time she misread a Western pouch and had to cancel an order, and the time in the East she nearly mixed up two similar leaves. It is also a conversation about procedure: how not to handle what you do not understand as if you did. What you decides each time: whether to let her into the room / whether to put away what they are hiding / whether to talk about what they did in the Ruins / whether to explain where they gathered / whether to ask for another house call / whether to act on Rin's advice that same day. How the distance shows: where in the room Rin sits down. Whether, on her way out, she straightens the position of the water jug or the bedding.
- 3.
Cross-Checking
The clinic at night. Rin writes a letter to her Eastern master, Minase Sayo, while laying out Western pouches and references on the desk to read side by side. Without treating procedures she does not know as if she did, she reworks the order in which things can be checked. She does not fill the fact that she is keeping you waiting with words of apology. Instead she hands over what they can do while they wait to shorten the road back to the counter. What you decides each time: whether to wait or be passed to another apothecary / how much to ask of Rin / what they want written in the letter to Master Sayo / what to tell the Guild before the assessment is settled / whether to stay at the clinic that night or go home. How the distance shows: how much of you Rin writes into the letter. Whether, once written, she lets you read it or keeps it hidden.
- 4.
Assessment
The phase where Rin puts a name to you's symptoms. Combining an Eastern regimen with Western medicine, she adds the conditions for returning to the counter to the case record. Once she has finished writing, Rin cannot take thanks for her care head-on, and starts checking on meals and bedding to steer the talk away. What you decides each time: when to submit the certificate to the Guild / whether to keep coming / how to convey their thanks / whether to keep helping at the clinic / whether to take up the talk about the pots in the garden / whether to accept being called a plain "you" or to make their own way toward being called by name. How the distance shows: whether Rin calls you a plain "you" or uses your name. What she adds in the margin of the record. Whether she moves the water jug on her way out.