No one stopped me when I left the line. A few ?ttir had used some choice words as I slipped between them, but I had better uses for my skill set, even if most of the company had no desire to take advantage of them. Also, the ?ttir didn’t need my help for cleanup.

  I rounded an ?ttar and found Dorian against the wall. I skidded to a stop in the open space in front of him. Not a single person had taken a break from the fighting to check on him. I feared the worst, but one look allayed my concerns. His eyes were closed, but his chest was moving, if a touch erratically.

  “Dorian, you’re alive!”

  He opened his eyes and smiled, only to wince as soon as he raised an arm in greeting. He let out a long breath. “I’ll live. Might scar, though.“

  I took a look at the only thing he could be referencing. Either the blow or the subsequent friction from skidding across the cavern floor had shredded his tunic. Multiple blood-soaked holes and tears revealed a long, bloody abrasion peppered with small puncture wounds. The injury ran down the majority of his upper arm and the back of his shoulder. Still, I could only let out a breath of relief and return his smile. “Better than I had expected, and let’s see what we can do about that injury.”

  Funny how fast we can adapt to strange situations. I hadn’t missed that flash of white when he moved his arm. Those puncture wounds went to the bone. At home, it would have…well, it wouldn’t have been pretty. The recovery, long. Here though, it was fixable, especially with me around.

  He lifted his potion, a pained smile on his face. “Should I?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” My words had no heat in them. Having the energy to sass me could only mean good things.

  He held the potion out for me to take. I grabbed the wood vial, its weight suggesting he had already used some. I juiced the potion and applied it, watching long enough to make sure it took effect properly.

  “I don’t think you will scar.” He frowned, and I shook my head at him. “Don’t you dare say you wanted one. A long scar like that could limit your range of motion.” I gave him another once-over, consuming what remained of the potion in his system. He had a decent number of internal injuries, but they were minor.

  I focused on the vial, channeling my skill into the potion. My forehead went cool as the skill kicked in. I handed it back to him before standing. “You should take another swig. If it isn’t fully healed, add a bit more to the wound itself.”

  “You aren’t going to stay.”

  “I need to get going. Others might need my help.”

  “Do you think they will want it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Perhaps.”

  I gave him a long stare. “That is not how my profession—class—works.”

  He just shook his head but said nothing more. Even if he was probably right, I didn’t have time to argue. This battle had resulted in casualties, and our company’s potion supply was running low. I hadn’t triaged last time, and as a rule, I avoided making the same mistake twice. Also, knowing Dorian, he would crack a joke along the lines of this world’s equivalent of “chicks dig scars.” I could do without that right now.

  With Dorian healthy, I stood up, rolling my shoulders. A previously unnoticed tension in my shoulder had released. I gave the room a quick scan, which gave me all I needed to know about my next steps. The ?ttir had cleared the room of most, if not all, of the stragglers. Their posture was too relaxed for anything but the certainty of the total elimination of all threats. However, things had not returned to normalcy.

  Clumps of people pointed to the different types of concerns. A few examined the walls of the cavern. Though I knew nothing about mining, it was a damned miracle that part of the cavern hadn’t collapsed. The stone from the burrower’s barrages had to come from somewhere, and the walls had many new craters and cracks studding them. Another group of ?ttir clustered near the burrower’s corpse, no doubt studying it. The corpse of a monster this size would have significant value. However, stripping and moving the plates of stone armor would require strength far greater than my own. The last clump was what I had both expected and dreaded. It was also the only place where I would be of any use.

  I ran to the group of people standing around a grievously wounded ?ttar lying on the floor. Only R?gnor was attempting something—trying being the operative word. Another ?ttar held his arm, preventing him from using the potion he held. Given the flaring of Marks, the argument had already escalated beyond simple words.

  “You’re wasting it,” yelled the ?ttar holding R?gnor’s arm. “We don’t have enough potion to spare. He’s as good as dead. Let him pass. No one will doubt that he died with honor.”

  With the brilliant plan of inserting myself into an argument between two giants, I came to a stop right next to the wounded ?ttar, who turned out to be our h?rlie. He lived, but based on his breathing pattern and injuries, that wouldn’t remain true for much longer. His body was a mess. His torso looked like it had taken a shotgun blast at point-blank range, which was true in a way. He had been one of the four keeping the tail pinned down, and in the last seconds of the fight, he probably took a barrage of stone shrapnel at point-blank range.

  The yelling had stopped, but I barely noticed. Since I had opened up my awareness to pick up that spider, the plethora of injuries had remained a constant, nagging presence in the back of my mind. It had spiked a few times, likely when a serious injury occurred, but I could never pinpoint the source. The distance and the ”noise” from other minor injuries made it too hard. However, at this distance, I could pare down the distractions and focus.

  What I saw was not good. The shrapnel blast had done far more damage than I had originally estimated. Even with a preliminary review of the injuries I could sense, I had to adjust his prognosis. His time remaining plummeted to the order of seconds to minutes.

  What can I do here? Anything?

  At home, the answer was clear: nothing. However, given what potions could do, I had to believe we hadn’t reached futility. Yet, they had limits. Was I seeing them now?

  I needed more time to think, to take in all the injuries. I just didn’t have that time because with each passing second, that ?ttar holding R?gnor back looked more and more right. How did I slow time down before? If I could, I—

  A prickling chill raced across my temple. My vision stuttered—motion in my periphery slowed to a crawl. The yelling stretched out into a droning monotone, diminishing until silence reigned. My body, or possibly my Mark, had delivered. It also served up an irritable ache behind my eyes. Pushing my brain carried a cost. The burn behind my eyes sharpened. It wasn’t just focus—this was something deeper, and I was spending Energy to fuel it.

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  Even when focused, my new awareness often only provided impressions, often vague ones at that. With a bit of concentration, I could push it to work on an organ or organ system. Even then, the skill provided, at most, a gestalt. Maybe that would change as I leveled up, but for now, it remained limited. I still wouldn’t trade it away. If I had this at home, deciding whether to wait for an abdominal CT or go straight to exploratory surgery would have been a breeze. I just needed more info than that now. The burrower had done a number on his abdomen. Even a first-year could tell that he needed to go straight to surgery.

  I empowered the skill, narrowing its focus to the two most severe injuries: his abdomen and his left leg. Nothing unexpected came from the abdomen, however, the leg did surprise me—at least until I gave him a proper look. Scattered across his body, the h?rlie had numerous lacs and puncture wounds, many larger than the one on his left leg. However, only the left thigh rivaled his abdomen in terms of how much blood had saturated his clothes. The leg wound also fit with the other impression that my new awareness screamed in my mind: hemorrhage.

  So, in summary, I had a critical gut and left thigh wound, and blood loss would be the cause of death. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if he was hemorrhaging at one or both sites, and of course, I didn’t have time to focus on both. I would have cursed if I could have moved my mouth.

  I clamped down on the hopelessness trying to overwhelm me. As long as I could withstand this headache, I had time to think. I could figure this out. I just needed to take it step by step. First, localize.

  Possible sources of hemorrhage in his abdomen?

  A spike of pain hit me, causing the world to shudder. I immediately shut down the source: [Eidetic Memory]. I waited for the throbbing in my head to return to its previous baseline, but it did not. Fuck. How much time in this flow state did that lapse in focus cost me? Seconds? Minutes?

  Note to self: skills could activate instinctively, and cognitive load from skill use was probably multiplicative, not additive. Thanks world. Also, please save completely unnecessary lessons for less critical times.

  Not surprisingly, the world didn’t respond, and I returned my focus to the task at hand. I didn’t need an encyclopedia of medical knowledge for this. While the abdomen contained numerous locations for severe hemorrhage, the leg did not. What had injured his left leg had lacerated his left femoral artery; nothing else would kill him in minutes. And what could be worse in his abdomen? Perhaps a ruptured thoracic aorta, but in that case, I would be looking at a corpse and not a dying person. So, something less severe happened in his bowels. Regardless, a femoral artery laceration wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

  But do I focus on his leg?

  It was a gamble. With my skills, I probably could heal it completely, but I might not have enough Energy or potion left to heal what remained. It came back to the argument between the R?gnor and that other ?ttar. This wasn’t new info. Dorian had mentioned it before—healing potions had a limit. Too much, they stopped working. Worse, after a point, they did the opposite of healing—injuries worsened. It came suddenly and without warning. A tipping point.

  Back at home, drugs with zero-order pharmacokinetics had a similar issue. Alcohol worked like that. So did phenytoin. Once you crossed a threshold, drug levels would spike, causing all sorts of adverse effects. Worse, the drug’s metabolization stayed constant, not linked to its concentration. That meant adverse effects lasted longer.

  “R?gnor, how much has he gotten?”

  “Too much,” growled another ?ttar behind me.

  I didn’t turn, instead keeping my focus right on R?gnor. I didn’t miss a subtle flinch at my question or the defensive tone. “He is strong. He can take more than the rest of us. The fact that he still lives proves it.”

  “But anything more may push him over.”

  He nodded slowly, a pained frown on his face. “I thought a skill…” His gaze flickered away, the words left unspoken.

  Had he gambled on me? On the chance that I had the skill to help?

  It didn’t matter now. I had a more pressing concern: toxicity. Ever since Dorian had mentioned it, I’d been mulling it over. A therapeutic window seemed a no-brainer. Too little was useless, and too much was toxic. Equating a potion’s metabolism to a drug’s was dicey—yet so much fit.

  Potions followed rules—everything did. But what if skills could override those limits? They had to, or I had nothing to add here. For me to save the h?rlie’s life, [Enhance Medicinal] needed to do something to the potion: extend its window, negate its limits, burn off excess—or just cheat.

  How was I supposed to decide without more information? If the skill worked, would I have enough potion circulating to heal both areas at once? Even if I did, would I have the mental focus to make that possible?

  Already, a deep fatigue, like at the end of an intense 30-hour shift, had started to set in. I needed to stop the bleeding in his left leg, but I hated gambling. Given his pallor, he had already lost plenty of blood. If I could replace it, I might have more time. Unfortunately, we weren’t on Earth and didn’t have the ability to activate the massive transfusion protocol. Of course, if this was Earth, he probably would have exsanguinated before reaching the OR. If he was somehow lucky enough to make it into exploratory surgery, he would most definitely lose his leg after they clamped the femoral artery to work on the abdomen.

  Save the leg; lose the patient. So often in medicine, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. But…could I here?

  My head ached, but I didn’t dare let this state drop. I was close. I just needed a bit more time—which meant time needed to remain slowed.

  Slow! Idiot! I had already fallen into the trap of wanting to fix everything with magic. However, what was my goal? Survival, of course, but that didn’t mean fixing everything. I just need to stabilize him, to slow down his march to the grave enough that the Vísir or Esper could arrive with enough time to heal him. I…I wasn’t the surgeon here. At best, I was just the medic trying to keep the patient alive long enough to get to a higher level of care.

  The plan fell into place, and I swallowed my pride. I could wallow later. I had a plan to tackle both his leg and his abdomen. Now, I just had to enact it.

  The world snapped into focus. Sound crashed back in—shouting, movement, the rasp of breath beside me. I pressed my hands onto the h?rlie’s wounded leg, earning a weak groan in return. It didn’t quite spurt, but far too much of the warm, sticky fluid oozed through my fingers. The potion in his blood called to me, but I resisted the urge to tap it.

  “Do you need the potion?” R?gnor asked.

  In my “flow” state, I must have missed the resolution of the argument between those two. “No. I need a belt.”

  “A what?”

  I couldn’t afford hesitation. “A belt.”

  Now was not the time to explain my solution: a tourniquet. Nothing fancy, but this was battlefield medicine always prioritized utility over everything else. I needed to stanch the bleeding enough to give myself the time I needed to focus on the abdomen. This would work. Limbs could go a decent chunk of time without oxygen. If this one couldn’t—the Vísir or Esper could prove their worth by repairing severe ischemia and reperfusion injuries.

  Nobody moved. I—the h?rlie—didn’t have time for this.

  “A belt now!” My forehead grew cold as I spoke the words, and the sounds of rustling cloth followed.

  R?gnor kneeled next to me, belt in hand. I shook my head when he offered it. I had planned to tighten the belt, but it was taking all my muscles just to hold pressure. I had seen tree trunks smaller than his legs. I would have no chance of holding it tight enough to cut off circulation. “Wrap it around the leg above the wound and—”

  Pain flared in my shoulder as a meaty hand clamped down on it. “Human, stand down.”

  “Helping,” I replied through gritted teeth.

  “Are you a [Healer]?”

  “Are you? Because if you keep doing this, you will be the person responsible for killing him. Now let go of me and let me do my job.” The cold burn in my forehead spiked, and the grip relaxed. It still didn’t make things any easier.

  The h?rlie’s pulse was weakening. He was hemorrhaging. Even if I repaired all his vasculature, the potion would not fix blood loss. “R?gnor, I need you to tighten the belt around his leg as hard as you can. It will slow, and if we are lucky, stop the bleeding in his leg. If you can’t maintain the pressure, give me some warning. But the longer you hold it, the more time I have to work on his abdomen.”

  He did as I instructed. Our h?rlie groaned as R?gnor lifted his leg up, nearly screaming when he cinched the belt—unfortunate, but without anesthesia, unavoidable.

  “Good.” Crap, I forgot to confirm the other key part of the plan. Sloppy. I looked up to stare at one of the onlookers I had attracted. “Make sure someone has gotten a [Healer].” No, that would just diffuse responsibility. I pointed at a random ?ttar. “You, send another runner now for a [Healer]. If you can’t find one, you go yourself. I don’t care if someone has said one was sent.”

  The sound of leather scraping against stone was all I needed to know that the ?ttar had obeyed my command. I returned my focus to my primary task, trying to ignore the subtle but steadily cool sensation along my forehead. It did little to help my brewing headache.

  I’m going to regret pushing myself this much later. At least, some of the ?ttir appeared open to following my orders. Small favors, but I deserve a bit of luck after everything else.