"What's going on– wait, shit, did someone else get sick?" Oh nooooooo. 

"Guess we're starting with the bad news, then - yeah but he was being a dumbass. ER janitor, touched the sword and didn't wash his hands. - antibiotics do work on it though, that's the good news. Not super well but it's got some sensitivity to piptaz and vanco." Fraser scoots back his chair. "Also. Please, please, next time you have a nice young lady and a Foley to be d'c'd, can you please do it yourself? So I don't have to feel like a creep?" 

"Oh." Yeah that had not even slightly occurred to Marian as a problem! "...Sorry." 

Shrug. "We're all good now, just, she -" Still sitting back in the chair, he does a dramatic impression of Samora looking alarmed and crossing her legs protectively. "- Oh, also, before I forget, what was the D&D alignment chart about? The one Samora drew. I didn't want to chuck it in case you were referring to it for something but it was very mysterious." 

"The wha– oh, the sandwich meme thing?" Riiiiiight of course the sandwich meme is a reference to something pre-existing. Marian might even have ever read, like, a fanfic or online serial or something that had references to D&D alignments, it's just that fanfic sort of happens in a different mental universe from work and it would really not have occurred to her to make that connection.

...She's still not making the connection, actually. 'Samora drew a D&D alignment chart' explains so few things! "Uh, we couldn't figure it out either. Are you sure it's that?" 

Shrug. "I mean, no, but Dr Chadha seems pretty sure, and he actually plays tabletop games. Which, by the way, if you ever did want a hobby, I bet you could ask him about joining a game and he'd probably propose marriage." 

Marian's brain is stumbling over several dumb and pointless responses, like "hey I do have hobbies, krav maga counts" and "ew why would I want Amir to propose marriage", none of which are pertinent. "Okay." 

"I mean, the obvious theory is that she's a D&D cleric who can do magic faith healing once the sun's up, that explains everything." 

...Marian is really not caffeinated enough for banter. "Haha. Right." It's edging toward actual shift change time. "Anyway, she seems like she's stable? What's going on here?" 

"Organ donor. Some poor du–" wait are the kid's parents in the room right now. Oh good no. "- poor dumb eighteen-year-old with a blood alcohol of 0.12. Motor vehicle accident. His best friend's in 112." 

"Oh." Oh no that's so sad. ...Good news for a lot of people on waitlists for organs, maybe, but ugh. 

People are now flowing toward the nursing station. She should probably get up and go join the shift report huddle, and then get a bedside report on Samora, and then - have another shift - she's not sure she feels incredibly prepared to get through another shift, apparently there's some kind of mental reset she gets from going home that isn't just about hours of sleep, but really it's only twelve hours... 

They make it back to Samora's room at 6:48 am. 

(Time of sunrise: around 6:50 am.) 

"Right," Fraser says tiredly. "She's been alert and oriented - well, 'oriented' is a tiny bit hard to assess with the language barrier, but she was asking what city she's in so she knows that part now - no respiratory issues, satting well on room air..." 

Samora can always feel the moment of dawn breaking, even when she's fifty feet underground. The spell structures for her used channels, and for Touch of Glory and Touch of Good, refill unmistakably with magic. But even if she had somehow gone a day without using any of those, it would still feel like something. Like a hand reaching out to her waiting for her to take it, or a fast-moving river she could leap into. 

Dawn breaks over Reno, Nevada, and Iomedae reaches out Her hand.

Samora pulls herself up to a kneeling position, fishes the dagger out of her boot still in its sheath, and holding it between folded hands begins to pray. 

Oh no what is she doing getting her fucking knife out. Does she think there's going to be a wolf attack. Fraser figured she could have it because he trusted her to be sensible with it and not get him in enormous trouble with hospital administration.

- okay no she's pretty unmistakably praying with it, which is really weird but not actually hurting anyone?? 

She did draw a picture of herself with a sword, that - Marian didn't pay a huge amount of attention to that particular element at the time, but it sure did depict her praying with a sword. Is that an important sacred ritual thing with any religion she's heard of? ...There's definitely a religion that involves carrying a dagger but she's blanking on which religion and also has no idea if it's involved in praying. 

...Whatever the case, it feels spectacularly awkward to interrupt. Also Marian doesn't think she got around to telling anyone about the dagger being in the room, including Fraser, and it'll be so mortifying if the charge nurse comes over and demands to know if she knew Samora had that 

(Fraser doesn't seem shocked and appalled about the sudden appearance of the dagger so maybe it did somehow come up?) 

Maaaaaaybe they can just. Quietly close the curtains to give Samora some privacy? She doesn't benefit a ton from a bedside report anyway, given the language barrier. 

Sure. That seems like the best path of action here. Maybe he can Google whether that's a thing for D&D clerics probably Fraser should instead focus on finishing his report, since after this he has to also go do a much more complicated report on exactly which paperwork tasks he's done versus left half finished.  

Here are the spells she wants, here is how she plans to use them to aid the causes of Good and Law, here are the pitfalls she sees ahead of her today and here are the ways she plans to avoid them . . .The spell interface weaves itself seamlessly into her prayers, filling her mind with spell structures. 

Marian can spend half an hour catching up on everything in the chart and then running fetch errands while occasionally checking if Samora looks more interruptible yet, but after that she kiiind of does want to sneak in and check her drains and central line and stuff? If Samora is still doing her prayer ritual or whatever it is then Marian can tiptoe in and try not be obtrusive, and feel very awkward but she’s not incredibly comfortable not laying eyes on a patient up close early in her shift.

Samora's eyes follow Marian, and she smiles a small but friendly smile, but she doesn't otherwise react.

 At the end of the hour, she has:

Fourth circle: Holy Smite*, Sending, reserved slot 

Third circle: Searing Light*, three copies of Remove Disease

Second circle: Bless Weapon*, Share Language, two copies of Lesser Restoration, reserved slot 

First circle: Shield of Faith*, Positive Pulse, Comprehend Languages, four copies of Remove Sickness that are probably just going to get converted to Cure Light Wounds but it's good to have options.

Orisons: Stabilize, Detect Poison, Detect Magic, Mending

*Author's note: Domain spell slots can only be used for domain spells and cannot be converted to Cures.

She heals her disease, pulls out her stomach tube and IVs (much more carefully this time), stows her dagger, considers doing a heal on herself and decides that with the treatment she's already gotten and how hard she's already betting on "no combat today" it's not worth the spell slot, climbs out of bed and opens the privacy curtain, grinning.

Marian isn’t actually there right now, being occupied on a fetch errand; her podmate, Callie, is on the phone, and startles. “Ma’am, should you be up—“ 

Wait shit that’s the scary iso patient (this is literally the only fact she knows about the patient, she wasn’t on yesterday.) 

“Uh, you just stay there, I’ll call your nurse over - MARIAN! Marian your girl’s out of bed! Get your ass over here!” 

This is audible even from the med room! Marian hurries over. 

…Okay, she’s confused. She’s SO confused. And can’t even resolve her confusion by asking Samora what the deal is! She’s just going to stand here feeling stupid!

Picture of her praying and healing herself! Point at the "standing up and healing other people" stage! Hand tentatively reaching out to tap her glove?

…Marian now feels even stupider because that sure is what’s depicted on the paper! It just also makes no sense.

She’s fine with letting Samora touch her glove, though. (Not because she expects it to help with anything, but it’s a thing her patient wants that isn’t, like, actively unsafe, and she has no particular reason to refuse.) 

The glove-tap is accompanied by another unfamiliar word and gesture, and then Marian instantly becomes fluent in a new language. It's a very pretty language and its name translates to "Celestial" and what Samora says next, totally understandably at least on the level of words, translates to: 

"Thank you very much for all the help! You and your comrades probably saved my life. Now that Iomedae has given me spells for today we can finally speak normally. I'd be happy to heal as many of your other injured people as I can, but I get the sense you might need an explanation of how empowered priests work first?"