Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Saun 2, Arc 720

On the 2nd of Saun, shortly after he had returned home from university where the professor had decided to surprise them with a written quiz, Devin Thorn, thief, conman extraordinaire and incredibly skilled and experienced not entirely clueless Becomer, was lounging on the couch in his living room, trying to decide whether he should get high, drunk or both. He had just decided to drink a glass (or two or three) of wine and maybe smoke some bug berries afterwards when his roommate Aidan entered the room and informed him,

“There’s someone at the door who really needs a dentist.”

“Tell them to go away”, Devin retorted and reached for the bottle in order to uncork it. “I’m busy, besides, I don’t work as a dentist at the moment. My clinic’s closed. Unless …?” he continued as something had just occurred to him and looked at the older man incredibly slyly. “Is he hot? It’s a he, isn’t it? I don’t turn into women – or ugly people”, he pointed out. “If he’s hot and a race that I don’t have a totem of yet, he can come in, and I’ll even treat him for free”, he decided and lowered his hand.

The bottle of wine seemed a lot less interesting all of a sudden.

“I think he looks nice”, Aidan decided. In the beginning, the student had been a bit weirded out by Devin’s shapeshifting, but he had never seen him so passionate about it; besides, his becoming a mage had had an unexpected and pleasant side effect. He actually read books nowadays – voluntarily! In fact, he practically devoured the books on magic in the library in Scalvoris Town, and every visit just left him hungering for more!

“He’s approximately forty though”, he told him and added, as Devin suddenly looked very unhappy (Devin refused to shapeshift into someone that was older than thirty-five or so; he had little interest in becoming an old person as old age was something that he’d have to go deal with when it came to his own body before long anyway – he was still unaware of the fact that he was a Mortalborn). “He said he’ll pay you really well though. He’s desperate. His previous dentist was more or less a glorified butcher, but then someone told him about the great Doctor Devin Thorn. He said that you are his last hope.”

When he heard that, Devin’s eyes abruptly lit up because he liked being people’s last hope and getting paid really well. A moment later, he clapped his hands, jumped up from the couch and asked Aidan who was somewhat flabbergasted, “What are you waiting for? Let him in, take him upstairs to the treatment room and tell him that I’ll be with him shortly!” With that, he disappeared into his bedroom in order to find his doctor’s coat.

The man that was lying on the dentist’s chair and introduced himself as Mik’hail when Devin walked into his treatment room that had been his second bedroom once upon a time did indeed look nice. He was, judging by his numerous tattoos and his tanned skin, a Sev’ryn or at least half of one, he had shiny black hair, dark-brown eyes and a short beard, and he looked as if he were …

“How old are you?” Devin asked him rather than greeting him as would have been appropriate while he put his gloves and his face mask on.

“Thirty-eight, why?” the tanned man asked, looking a bit confused.

“Oh, I was just wondering”, Devin said and proceeded to walk over to him. “You told my roommate that your last dentist was more or less a glorified butcher? Why was he more or less a glorified butcher, and what exactly is wrong with your teeth?” he wanted to know before he bent a little closer. “They look …”

He had wanted to say that the man’s teeth looked fine to him, but they weren’t really. Fine, that is. He frowned as he inspected the man’s mouth, and then he frowned some more, and finally he proclaimed, “You have two cavities, and one of your wisdom teeth needs to go. It looks infected, and there is white stuff coming out of the gums surrounding it.” He shuddered a little as he said that and abruptly pulled his gaze away.

Devin was normally fine with dentistry because it was quite profitable (nearly everybody had teeth, and dental hygiene was a largely unknown concept in Idalos) and an easy way to harvest the ingredients for his totems that didn’t involve illegal activities, but pus coming out of someone’s gums was something that he could definitely do without.

“Well, rinse your mouth with this solution, and then we’ll get started”, he decided a moment later and handed him a cup that was filled with some vaguely minty smelling stuff. Infected teeth were disgusting, but he still really, really wanted all those nels that he’d been promised. “Oh, and tell me what your last dentist did to you. I’d very much like to hear that!”

“And please tell me why you aren’t crazy yet! This looks like a fistula, and fistulas are usually pretty painful. You should have trouble eating or cleaning your teeth!” he pointed out, looking somewhere between fascinated and kind of disgusted. If Mik’hail had found a way to become immune to pain, he wanted to know it!

“I did. It was pretty painful for a while. I thought that the pain would go away again if I brushed my teeth hard enough though”, the man admitted which caused Devin to just stare at him. Normally, he might have complimented him for actually brushing his teeth (a lot of people in Idalos didn’t do that), but brushing your teeth hard when they already hurt a lot seemed pretty weird to him. Apparently, he concluded, his newest patient was stupid, a masochist – or both. Maybe he was a stupid masochist.

“As for my previous dentist, he insisted on fixing my teeth without giving me something for the pain first, and furthermore, he claimed that bleeding a lot during dental surgery was a good thing because the bad stuff gets removed that way.”

“Huh”, Devin made. Once upon a time, when he had just been a conman who had pretended to be a doctor in order to be able to rob hospitals more easily he might have agreed that blood was a good sign and that the blood washed out the bad stuff, but now he knew better. So, without further ado, he gave the tattooed man who seemed to be somewhat nervous something to numb the pain before he produced his dental forceps and a drill and proceeded to go to work.

As he pulled at the infected wisdom tooth and pulled some more because it just wouldn’t budge Devin wondered why he was doing something that disgusting again and if this was really worth it. Right. He was doing it because he had been promised a lot of nels, and because dentistry was the easiest and safest way to get the ingredients that he needed for his Becoming totems (except that he wouldn’t make a totem of this patient).

After a lot of pulling and some swearing (mostly on his part), the tooth was finally gone, and Devin cleaned the resulting hole and proceeded to sew it shut. It was very hard work (which was something that he usually detested – he tended to avoid hard work). Devin was usually quite good at sewing various holes shut; teeth or rather the places where they used to be were really small though, and thus it took quite some time until he was done and turned to the cavities that were less of a pain to deal with but still kind of disgusting.

(Devin didn’t have any cavities, he always brushed his teeth, he rinsed his mouth with an alchemical solution and he even flossed which very few people did to his knowledge.)

Finally, he put the bowl with the wisdom teeth and his patient’s blood away and informed the Sev’ryn who sat up and touched his cheek, “I want to see you again in a seven-trial. I need to remove the stitches and take another look at the wound. By the way”, he then remarked and held out his hand. The man looked at it in confusion for a moment before he removed his wallet from a pocket of his pants and dropped a few shiny nels that Devin eyed greedily into it (he was a priest of the Immortal of Greed after all).

“Thank you, Doctor Thorn”, Mik’hail said as he handed Devin the money. “By the way”, he asked as he moved towards the door. “Can I send my brother to you as well? He might need a dentist as well.”

“Sure. How old is he though?” Devin wanted to know.

“Twenty-five, why?” Mik’hail asked.

“Oh, just curious”, Devin remarked and grinned as he bid the man farewell. Mik’hail had been a little too old for his taste, but maybe the little brother would make a good totem. He’d always thought that it was nonsense, but apparently, doing a good deed did pay off. He’d helped the older brother who had been so desperate (and even made a decent amount of money in the process), and as a consequence he might finally get his third totem!