"Yeah alright. Windsight needs a sort of... Awakening. Meditation to start with, and then you'll get your first level in it, and then practice. Casting is a couple of steps after that."

A thought suddenly clicks.

"I can feel it when you cast. Just, a kind of sensation on my mana, but without any real information or detail. Is that related?"

"That sounds like unhoned Windsight talent alright! It's still best to learn more in a relaxed setting, not in a random street. I kind of want to look for work now, so maybe after lunchtime?"

"Cool. I should do the same, probably. See you at lunchtime, then."

Elizabeth wanders off, humming contently.

Ame has a city large-ish town to explore. (It's not really a city by her standards, given that there are maybe forty or fifty thousand people here, at a guess.)

Ame spends the walk back to the inn, to stash her new books, considering how to spend her morning.

Coming to a decision, Ame leaves the inn and marches back to the red-light district, seeking the largest or most prominent of the brothels.

There's a small front area decorated with cool colors, and a hallway leading back. The art is a little more lewd inside but still not straight and open pornography. There's a row of line-art sketches of girls and a few boys on a wall, with names and a couple dozen lines of text under them each.

"Hello there," says a man behind the desk, looking up from where he was crocheting - in his thirties, wearing clean and neat but generic-to-the-local-style clothes, who could be any modern white collar worker by his attitude. "It looks like you're looking for work here rather than as a customer, unless I'm wrong?"

"Thanks. I try. My name is Ameron. I'm a powerful healer, and I'm actually here because I'd like to offer free healing to every whore in the city, and this establishment looked at first glance like the most obvious place from which to get the word out. I'll only be in town for today, so."

He blinks and squints at her.

"We take care of our employees fairly well, I'd like to think. What kind of healer, exactly?"

"Every kind. I was shot with a crossbow yesterday. This morning I just gave a kid with a birth defect a working hand for the first time in his life. And believe me, it's obvious you all maintain much higher standards of employee treatment than I'm used to dealing with. But good treatment doesn't make anyone immune to misfortune. You do bother to have that excellent Whore Card system at all."

"They're not called whore cards, they're- Nevermind. By what Skill or mechanism do you heal, and how might this be verified? Perhaps the kid's family is available? We have a Guild organized, so going to the other stakeholders would be the next step if I'm satisfied you truly can help."

"Sorry, that's what the person I learned about them from called them. I didn't know they had another name."

"What would satisfy you? I have a Rare Skill that allows me to impose a state of health directly, through willpower alone. I can aim the effect very precisely, and the Skill allows a reasonably flexible definition of 'health', so its very versatile. The kid's grandfather is a bookseller." Ame describes the bookshop.

Squiiiint. "...Mm. I don't think you're lying, unless you're high enough level in deception that it doesn't really matter, so that shouldn't be necessary. I would like to bring you over to Sister Valerie and have you heal one of her patients, and then have her verify that you've healed them. This is a one-time thing, you're leaving tomorrow?"

"That is the current plan, yes. Consider me motivated by professional solidarity and reputation, today. Let's go see Sister Valerie."

"That's probably for the best. I'm Hector, by the way."

Sister Valerie is in a modest outfit that somehow combines the aesthetics of a nun's habit and a white nurse uniform. She has dull green hair, somewhat notable given the Earth-standard hair colors Ame has seen so far. She's in a very recognizable church, with an altar and pews and everything! No crosses, though. Instead the holy symbol is the Holy Grail, a golden cup practically straight out of Arthurian mythos.

She seems irritated and concerned about Ame as Hector explains, but pushes past it. "Your presence is a blessing from the Lady of the Lake! It is good of you to offer kindness to those you feel are in need of it. Come, there are always sick and injured who have need of our care. We have a clinic out the side."

The church is worth a raised eyebrow, but not much more. She never interacted with churches back in Brockton. It's just a kind of building that can exist, to her.

Ame follows the fussy nurse-nun into the clinic.

Ame demonstrates her healing Skill.

Sister Valerie is very impressed! She's not going to try and drag her into doing house calls unless Ame wants to do that, but she would appreciate it so much if Ame would heal everyone (who consents to it) here instead of just one or two! (There are a couple dozen people in right now, injuries more than sicknesses)

Ame's time is limited, and she is prioritizing. If they want her to heal anyone who is not some manner of sex worker, today, it's gonna be one silver a head, and only if there is a lull in sex worker patients. Ame expects there will be. This town is nowhere near big enough to have that many whores.

The church is not exactly flush with cash, but that's perfectly fair of her. Really. Sister Valerie is not being ever so slightly petulant and passive aggressive at all, even if she quoted scripture several times.

Hector says, "I think it makes the most sense to send everyone to you rather than the other way around, unless someone is really badly off. What's the - threshold - on who you want to help? People who tried it for a week or two and decided to stop? Retired workers? Ancillary staff like managers and security? If one of the workers has a loved one who direly needs help?"

Your priorities are not my priorities, Ame doesn't bother to say to the fussy nun-nurse.

"Definitely. I'll be able to see an order of magnitude more patients if you can have them coming to me in a steady stream, at a central, preferably neutral location. First priority is anyone who would be working but currently isn't because of their malady. Then anyone who is working but in less than perfect health. Then close loved ones; morale. Then staff. Then retirees, regardless of career length."

"There haven't been any failed disease checks lately as far as I know, but we have a guild building a couple blocks away from the district, as it were. It would seem to make sense to set you up there once I vouch for you to the other major stakeholders? We also get a lot of - part time workers, who do craft whenever they don't have a client, and some of them probably have craft-related injuries... Hmm."

"I'll leave it up to your Guild's judgement which part-timers to sort with 'is working' and which to sort with 'retireee'."

"Well, I am a bureaucrat at heart. I will get you patients, you just need to have patience*. You aren't charging but if there's any favors we can do in return..."

*That is not actually a pun in the local language, sadly.

"I didn't have a specific favor in mind, but thank you," Ame says wryly. It's not why she's doing this, but having a favor banked with them is one of the benefits she hoped to gain.

Ame lets him lead her to their guild building and set her up there.

There are several irritating conversations with annoying busybodies. This man is not the most powerful person in the group, not by himself - there's some accountants, a couple of investors and landords, a noblewoman who seems to be involved specifically to spite her father - but when Hector gets fed up and deliberately cuts open his own thumb and gets Ame to heal it they shut up and set to arranging the provision of free medical services.

The various prostitution-related people who come see her all seem to be in reasonably good shape. While some are poor it's a somewhat less desperate situation in this town than in Brockton Bay, being poor.