Scroll: Holding Fort Zayes - Healer and Priest Crises
From FiranMUX
Summary
This scroll was written by Centurion Kelarik Cylisti during the Campaign for Ellish in 42 A.U.
Scroll Text
Holding Fort Zayes
Fort Zayes had been taken, yes. But only the physical fighting was done. Now, the focus was on trying to make that fort a viable and defensive structure for our forces, and dealing with the sickness that we knew was there.
It is with extreme reluctance that I relate that we utilized the sickness known as Red Bloom to aid us in the reclamation of Zayes. A pair of soldiers had taken that illness, somehow, and spread it throughout the fort prior to our advance, and in so doing weakened the goat forces so that we could more easily overtake them. It was a risky move on our part, and yet we knew how to treat it. I had sent back to Anarinuell for the supplies required to make many, many thousands of the garlic-ginger compresses which are used to cure it, and our healers were ready to heal freed slaves and soldiery alike.
What our healers were not ready for was to discover that, in addition, there was another disease running rampant at Fort Zayes - a disease which we have no name for, but which I think of as the 'privy sickness'. For that, in the end, is where it orginated from - or so the newly-freed Bonduins told me when I spoke with them. And there was some form of treatment, as well. A tea, made of what the Bonduins call coneflower, was the only 'cure' that we could decipher. Coneflower is apparently our echinacea, and the tea made from echinacea seems to help, but it does not seem to cure wholly. It does, however, help.
The slaves told Karana and Odoni, through my translation, that this sickness did not resemble the water sickness. And truthfully, the symptoms are all wrong for that, from what I've been taught. Privy sickness begins with headaches, and progresses onward into a stabbing stomach pain. From there, it moves onward into fever and delerium. The echinacea tea will ease some of the stomach pains and help to maintain someone until their body heals, but truthfully, there is no real 'cure' but time. However, it should be noted that the Bonduin slaves were quite explicit that those who were not injured seemed to fare better in fighting off the illness, where those who were injured when they made contact with it found it very difficult to survive. We are experiencing that right now with some of our soldiery.
We are also treating the privy-sick soldiers with a tactic that was used during the child-pox in Anarinuell. I remembered how the children had fevers, and how we used cool water and mint tea to try to keep their body temperatures down. We are utilizing a similar tactic now, sponging mint tea across the faces of the soldiers and priests who have fallen ill. Its astringent qualities are cooling, and we will take any cooling we can get to ease the delerium and feverishness.
In addition to the cleanup process for the Red Bloom and the treatment of it, and the treatment of the privy-sickness, as we still have not determined how best to clean up that cesspit, there is another issue which I must relate. In our actions, we have brought on the anger of the Gods - not by reclaiming our land and the Firan slaves, but by breaking the very laws which the Gods have set forth. In reclaiming his mother, Lady Lucretia, Prince Argin apparently granted a form of quarter to one of the goat rapists... and a woman by the name of Tagda took that quarter away moments later by shooting the Shamibelian in the crotch with an arrow.
The priesthood, myself among them, have found that the blessings we normally bestow on the people, on the soldiers, are no longer seeming to grant the favor of the Gods in truth after that event. And in truth, one of our leaders allowed one of our other leaders to break the God Laws. I can only hope that we can atone for that error, for it was told to me that the last time we'd held Fort Zayes, we violated those laws as well, and people died because of it. Hopefully the Gods will be merciful to us, as we have already done initial punishments towards those who broke the God Laws, and we surely will have more to follow.
Our healers are worn down to the bone, as is the entirety of the Fifth Division. So too are the priests who came to the front to aid with their prayers, and yet we all pray on, work on, heal on. It is what we do here, at war... we strive ever forward, marching towards victory, heads held high despite the odds and the cost. And we can see Ellish from here, from Fort Zayes. It is a looming presence in the distance, and we will be within its walls soon. Even as I write this, the first assaults on its gates have been made. We will prevail.
{Signature} The signature of Kelarik.
{Date} Dated Oct 13, in the year 42 A.U.
