Surgeon Gavin leaves the clinic and explores the bushes near the market and town square for the herbs needed to craft strong tonics and salves.
At the same time, Percival opens his stalls for business.
Gavin takes a break from herb gathering and walks over to the market to see about buying food for dinner tonight.
Just outside the market, a villager begins coughing loudly. Just from the sound, Gavin knows that it is not a normal cough.
Gavin spots Percival and intends to have a word with him later, for now, the coughing villager requires his attention.
The villager is walking away. “Hold it one moment!’ Gavin calls out to stop him.
The villager turns when he realizes that Gavin is speaking to him. Gavin can tell that this is one of the new refugees. He has never seen him before.
“I am the Surgeon here in Archolia and I could not help but hear you coughing.”
“Aye, this cough came on suddenly.”
“Allow me to examine you,” Gavin says. Gavin lays his hand on his shoulder and can feel that the villager has a fever. Gavin pulls out his tongue and sees that it is swollen.
Gavin looks the patient over and recognizes that his skin appears yellowed and clammy. As he blinks, Gavin can see the eye warts. Gavin realizes that Jolene was right. He has never seen such a combination of symptoms at one time.
Gavin pulls out a tonic. “Sir, you are very ill. I beg you to drink this.”
“What is it?” The villager asks as if he does not trust Surgeon Gavin.
“It is a mild tonic. It should make you feel better.”
“How do you feel?” Gavin asks after the patient has drank a fair amount of tonic.
“Worse than before…now I think I might vomit.”
“You will be just fine.” Gavin says keeping a smile on his face to reassure the patient, but inside he is very concerned. The villager finished the whole tonic, but did not improve. In fact, as Gavin stands there, the villager’s eyelids begins dripping ooze.
Gavin returns to the clinic and Percival closes his stalls and retires to his sleeping quarters to rest.
His wife Felicia comes to join him. Percival cannot say that their relationship is the most loving, but they get along and do not necessarily hate each other.
As a wife Felicia performs all of her wifely duties and never turns down Percival’s requests for woohoo.
Percival pulls her close. “I believe it is time for us to start a family,” he suggests. “What do you think of that?” He asks after she does not respond.
“I might like to be a mother,” she finally answers.
That is just what Percival was waiting to hear. Felicia lies back onto the bed and Percival leans over her. He and Felicia kiss.
Their love making is not necessarily passionate, but they are satisfied. They pray that their connection will bring them a child.
Gavin finally has all of the herbs that he needs to craft new tonics. In the back of his mind, he is very worried that the tonic did not heal the villager in the town square.
Gavin decides that he will seek the Merchant’s help in finding other villagers with similar symptoms to the villager that Gavin just examined.
