Chapter 56: First Taste of Silphium

Wearing her formal Medicine robes - similar to the Darkmoon uniform with an added streak of white resembling a stole - always made Suria feel more official. Sixty days into the loop and that feeling hadn't worn off, especially because she was learning so much in her healing classes.

Of course it meant all kinds of new inscriptions, covering everything from easing colds to mending broken bones. What had surprised her even more was the new theory, supported by advancing magnification spells in the Akrashic Union, that illness was caused by tiny animalcules on the body. Their effects on wounds correlated with the traditional healer's wisdom about the risk of rot, so it was easy to accept, even if the idea of it seemed so strange.

Yet though she was a much better healer, she felt as though the difficulty of the task had increased. Illness could be caused by certain spells that distorted the blood. Rapid regrowth of flesh could lead to disordered masses that eventually led to death. The body was such a complex system, so much easier to destroy than to rebuild.

With just what she had learned in a couple of months, Suria could have gone back home and been the best healer for leagues. But now that she had seen the standards for healers at Darkmoon, she knew that wasn't close to enough. If she wanted to be a true master healer, she had so far to go.

That day in Emergency Healing they had two actual patients, both of whom were dealing with some sort of ongoing illness - not immediately lethal, but disabling. Professor Gwaslos seemed to have diagnosed them instantly and was now guiding the class through the analysis, using both spells and consideration of symptoms.

Unfortunately, that was one area where Suria still came up short: spells to analyze the body for illness were unusually tricky, relying on a higher level of Perception education than she had. Since neither patient had obvious enough conditions, Suria was left on the sidelines, just absorbing what she could from the other students as they tried to figure out what was wrong.

Under normal circumstances these classes would have been some of the most engaging, but due to the time loop they would become onerous on repeats, since the supply of patients couldn't vary much. She wasn't going to enjoy all the repeated anatomy lectures from Fundamentals of Medicine, either. On a second loop, only the more free-form discussion courses in Emergency Healing would still be engaging, which could become a problem.

Unlike some other departments, which allowed students to take courses in many different orders, the Medicine department seemed to have everyone follow one primary path. That left Suria frustrated as she considered her plans for the next time she returned to the department - was there any way she could jump over the early classes? Except that might actually lead to shortcomings, if this loop didn't finish the term.

She hadn't found a solution before the other students solved one patient: the man was dealing with an infection in his gut that could be healed via purgative spells. Another type that Suria hadn't been able to internalize, since she had the soul talisman and so many other tasks taking up her time.

Everyone remained puzzled by the middle-aged woman. She had a wide variety of symptoms, from muscle pain to tension of blood to difficulty concentrating. Yet the only thing anyone could find wrong with her, at least via the analytical spells the other students could muster, was that something unhealthy had built up within her. Questioning her didn't reveal any obvious bad habits, and Professor Gwaslos cut off the theory that she was being intentionally poisoned as incorrect.

Suria wished that she could sweep in with a solution, but she was as baffled as everyone else. Healing open wounds was far easier than such vague symptoms. Such problems had actually been much easier in the village, when she had cast pain relief and prescribed a good night of sleep, since that was about all anyone could do. Here, she was expected to find a solution.

"Don't worry," Professor Gwaslos told the patient gently, "this is nothing incurable. My students are missing the solution because they don't know the same thing you don't. Here, take this potion and come with me..."

She exited the study room, giving the woman advice in a low voice, while the students all glanced at one another. Between the whole class they didn't usually fail to diagnose things, so this stung, especially because the professor implied that it was simple. When Professor Gwaslos returned alone, however, she didn't seem particularly upset.

"This case wasn't going to be solved via spells," she explained. "You were all too focused on asking her what she ate and you failed to ask about anything additional she might be taking. Patients take all sorts of remedies or home-made mana potions, and sometimes those can be the problem."

"But she wasn't a mage," one of the students objected.

"Correct, which narrows your options for what she might have taken. Anyone? If you'd asked thoroughly, you would have found out that she was taking silphium. It can be toxic even if prepared properly, and especially when mixed poorly."

"A contraceptive?" one of the younger male students asked. "But she's... uh... old..."

"Through having children, but not yet past her child-bearing years," Professor Gwaslos said with a stern look. "This is more common than you might think: there are many women out there with low levels of poisoning from silphium, they're just often hardy enough to push through it. Of course, better contraceptive methods would include purified essence of silphium or direct spells, but those aren't available to many, so keep this case in mind."

Suria nodded along with the class, though that lesson wasn't likely to be as useful to her unless she set up a ward here. Back at home, no one had been able to afford silphium, so contraceptive options were more limited. On a personal level it had never been that relevant to Suria, so...

So this might actually be just the right option.

"Can we talk about essence of silphium?" Suria asked.

"The preparation is more a matter for Alchemy," Professor Gwaslos said.

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"But say we need to advise patients, or analyze an unknown mixture... what are the basics?"

"Hmm, I could certainly give an introduction..."

By the end of class, Suria had a clear idea. She'd need a little help at first, but otherwise all she needed was a proper source of silphium, which shouldn't be hard at all. On her way back to her room, Suria thought through all the potential consequences. Based on what Professor Gwaslos had told her, different concentrations should be completely undetectable from the outside, so someone would need to run direct alchemical tests to determine silphium levels, and if that happened she already had a problem.

When she returned to their room, Suria found Xuhriha missing, so she forced herself to set the theory aside and return to her soul magic practice. Thanks to some suggestions from Qanti, she could extend her soul enough to make her stylus glow, just not very reliably.

That left her with the difficult question of when to approach Professor Huen: if she waited too long the loop might end, but if she went too early, she could disappoint the professor and cut off future lessons. Suria hoped that she would be able to pull off the technique semi-consistently within a day or two, so she was holding out for that as a demonstration.

Once she was exhausted with those efforts, Suria switched to her meditation training. It was difficult to keep her mind clear, especially because she needed to focus on her soul at the same time, somehow without thinking about it. She hadn't made any breakthroughs, but it reminded her of runic training where progress was slow but steady, so she kept at it.

After about an hour, Xuhriha pranced into their room. Suria was more than done with all her preparations at that point, so she waited until the other woman closed the door.

"I have an idea," Suria said. "We need to acquire essence of silphium."

"Oh, Suria..." Xuhriha shook her head. "Has no one explained these things to you? There's no risk of pregnancy if two women have sex, so-"

"Hush," Suria told her. "Obviously I want to use it as a method of suicide, since carrying it wouldn't attract attention."

"You're rejecting me? How cruel of you, to take a maiden's heart and-"

"I'm serious, Xuhriha. I want to figure this out."

"Okay, okay." Xuhriha dropped down onto her bed and sat back a little, kicking her legs as she thought. "Getting our hands on some won't be a problem, actually, there's lots in Darmkael. People love that sort of thing. But are you sure that it'd be a good method of suicide? I feel like it wouldn't kill you very fast. I don't mean taking too many seconds, I mean taking too many days."

"That's only for low concentrations. There are spells to purify the formula, so if we reverse them, we can reach arbitrarily high concentrations of the toxic elements." Suria pulled out one of her medical textbooks to show the information she'd just learned. "If I'm reading this correctly, a single vial could be quite lethal, and it probably wouldn't be very painful. Not perfect for an instant death, but it could be a quiet one."

"Hmm, I can see the value in that. A direct spell against yourself would probably be the quickest death, but that definitely attracts attention."

"Do you think we can get enough without it seeming strange?"

Xuhriha tapped a finger against her lips for a while. "I don't think one of the herbalists or apothecaries would be a good idea, actually, because some of them have contacts with the university. But we could probably get some from Bub's Bobs. He has a good reputation for discretion."

"Do you want to go now?" Suria asked.

"What? Are you being spontaneous? Are you sure you wouldn't rather make plans to go next loop?" When Suria frowned, Xuhriha giggled and hopped to her feet. "Sorry, sorry. I know you're tense with the end of the loop unknown. Sure, let's go to Darmkael!"

They headed out and it took longer than usual to get through the merchant quarter, entirely due to Xuhriha. Some of her diversions made sense, like picking up some alchemical equipment, but she also became fascinated by monster bones and Suria had to pull her away to get them to their destination.

Once there, they found Bub's Bobs open as usual, though it actually had a decent number of customers at this time of day. If Suria planned to frequent it in the future, she'd need to learn the schedule to avoid the crowds. Behind all the unusual items, there was a whole wall of various supplies, including practical reagents workers might use and, yes, silphium.

Did she buy it alone, or purchase other items as a cover? Back in her village, where gossip instantly spread across not just the village but entirely family networks, Suria would have needed to be careful about suddenly purchasing something like a contraceptive. Did anyone even care, in a major city like this? In the end she couldn't find anything else she truly needed, so she just took the silphium to the table.

"That'll be 157 oss for the lot," Bub told her without blinking. "Anything else?"

"All of these!" Xuhriha stumbled up behind her and dropped an armload of knives onto the table. "Don't worry, I'll be paying."

"Alright then, give me a minute..." Bub was equally unfazed by all the knives and he totaled up their purchases.

As she waited, Suria reflected that she really should spend more time in Darmkael, including getting to know the shops better, and finally investigating the theft incident here. But not this cycle, not with an unknown amount of time and projects on the line. In theory she had infinite time, so why did it never feel like she had enough?

Once they'd purchased everything, they headed back to Darkmoon to begin their experiments. They'd barely entered the gates, however, when they saw Herriot from the Akrashic faction approaching them with a grin on his face. It was so unusual for him that Suria instinctively reached into her satchel to grasp her shielding talisman.

"Did you hear about the crystal drakes?" he asked.

"I'm not sure what those are," Suria said honestly.

"What? Oh, they're a monster with natural mana crystals embedded in their bodies. They're a real prize for explorers or freelance mages. Forget that, did either of you do anything this cycle that could have stirred them up?"

"Huh?" Xuhriha gave him a strange look and Suria was surprised at how authentically puzzled she looked. Since she needed to play along, Suria widened her eyes and put a finger to her lips. She wasn't sure how effective it was, but Herriot seemed too excited to care.

"A whole swarm of them killed some merchant heading here," he explained eagerly. "Happened somewhere between Endelyth and the Taedric Colonies. Now, normally that would be too far away for us to care, but apparently the shipment was coming to Darkmoon. They're going to have a hunt. Anyone who passes a test will be sent out into the field - this is a chance to hunt crystal drakes!"

"I assume they're valuable," Suria said, "but I don't know how dangerous they are."

"Does it matter?" Herriot reined himself in, at last glancing at Xuhriha. "This is a huge chance. Not just to make a profit. Those crystals in their bodies can be used for all sorts of things, and this bunch is supposed to be unusually good. Doesn't matter your discipline, you can do something with them."

"Then thank you for telling me." Suria made sure to smile at him, but still felt antsy. "I'll try to keep track of things, and we can talk about it... later."

"Just get ready. The hunt will probably be in a day or two." His message delivered, Herriot rushed off into the city.

"Who was that?" Xuhriha asked, sounding surprisingly earnest. Suria sighed and led her away until they were out of earshot, where the other woman grinned. "But really, I don't know anything about this."

"Neither do I," Suria said with a sigh. "Something to figure out later."

She might end up on the hunt, and if it was really such a valuable opportunity, she might not be able to afford to miss it. Ignoring events in anticipation of a restart that might not be imminent could be just as fatal a flaw as short term thinking, after all. But as far as she was concerned, that was all the more reason to finish her projects.