```metadata title: 'STORY: Family Practice' description: '' tags: [] systems: [] renderer: V3 theme: 5ePHB ``` ```css undefined ``` # Family Practice *Magic has been gone decades, and some that live no longer believe mortals could ever wield it. How wrong they are... **Tales from the Deluge** is a collection of Short Stories dealing with the fallout of The Weave’s return.* ### : “Greetings my fine friends and fair folks! Gather round! Gather Round! Press together and squeeze in! You most certainly do not want to miss what is likely to be the most amazing things you’ve ever laid your eyes upon!” The side window of the brightly colored Vardo had just dropped open with a loud thud followed by the cacophonous dissonance of wild organ music. A gaudy sign reading “The Miracle Cures of Dr Claxious Arren Heartly” lit up with sparklers spinning fireworks. There were maybe a dozen people milling about the village market area and well. Only a few of them seemed interested in the disturbance. “Friends, my name is Dr Claxious Arren Heartly, and I am a purveyor of medicines, ointments, tonics, and remedies for anything and everything that ails your mortal coil. I’ve got rubs and remedies. I’ve got potions and poultices. I’ve got the inoculation for whatever your afflict’u’ation. Step right up and tell me your conditions! Dr Heartly has got your prescriptions!” : No one lined up. Although one small child told Claxious that she enjoyed the fireworks. : He ignored her and continued his fevered fever pitch for his wares. This is how it was. At first the customers would pretend not to notice him. It was all a ruse. They knew he was there. But they wouldn’t come running. No, that would alert the neighbors to their ailments. No, no, they would slip into line much more passively. : “Passively” it was… Hours later, as the sun set, he had made three sales. Foot Powder. Peppermint Mouthwash. And some fireworks to the child he tried to ignore all afternoon. Not a good day… but enough to eat and set out for the next village. It wasn’t unusual to do poorly, but this was abysmal. Things had been getting worse lately. The people were less and less inclined to trust that he had their best interests in mind, which to be fair, he didn’t, but he also wasn’t selling them worthless powders and tinctures. His remedies were authentic, or at least as authentic as the next peddlers. : It was time to leave. Just one last stop and Claxious would be on his way. It is dangerous to infringe on the contracts of the Outsiders, who leech off of villages like these. It is also very profitable, as long as the Outsiders were appeased. Every settlement had some Fey or Otherworldly being living in the wilderness nearby. The village would supply these beings with their needs and treasures, and in return the creature would offer a form of care and protection. This was the way of things. So on his way out of town he asked an elderly local the whereabouts of their Patron’s Shrine so he could leave an offering. Something valuable so that his transgressions into its business could be forgiven and justified. The local stared back at him with a look of bewilderment “There is no shrine sir. We’ve not entangled ourselves in such dealings.” : Claxious nearly fell off of his wagon in shock at the statement. Surely the fellow was mistaken. He had never stopped in a village that had no fey in the forest, no witch in the wood, no watcher in the wilds… nor had he ever heard rumor of one. He found himself in an unusual state… he was at an actual loss for words. The local taking in what must have been a truly odd expression on the Doctor’s face awkwardly felt the need to expound on the matter. “We’ve not since I was a young man. Back then there was a wise woman, lived at the edge of town. She’d help with matters of sicknesses and with child bearing or unbearing, for a price, if you get my meaning. But she ran afoul of the local Noble who paid for a son to be born but got a daughter instead. He had her head off for that. They say she died cursing him and promising to return. But that never happened, and since then there’s been no one else, and we’ve managed just fine without.” : The depth of the notion began to settle in on him. The village wasn’t large, no more than a hundred people maybe two hundred if you counted local farm households, but it also wasn’t far from other villages. It could be a hub for his trade among the small network of local places. He turned his vardo around parked it back where he had spent the afternoon selling. He would ask around to verify the story and if it turned out to be true he would remain for at least a few more days and see what came of this unique situation. Perhaps he could do some real business if given the time to work the locals. : Over a decade later Claxious was married, with a daughter, and a thriving apothecary and medical practice. He had purchased a two story building on the market circle, running his business on the first floor and keeping his family on the second. His wife’s grandmother was an apothecary and healer but had passed years ago before being able to pass the trade down. She did still have a book of her recipes and formulae that were used to make medicines before the Drought. They were no longer magical per-say, but they worked quite well. Together he and his wife opened a clinic. \page He was happy, he was well liked, and for the first time since he left home, he was well to do financially. He didn’t need to trick or huckster his way into coin. He traded his skills and medicines fairly and still profited. Folk for miles would travel to their shop for remedies and cures, all of which were actually functional. He and his wife would treat illnesses, tend wounds, and deliver babies, and had become an honest and respectable purveyor of medicines and medical practice. It felt good to be honest. : One morning he was returning from the Sawmiller’s home. The man’s wife had just given birth to their sixth son, their tenth child. Claxious wasn’t sure why they had even called for him. The babe practically fell out of the woman, who was so practiced in childbirth, she could have delivered the child herself, riding a horse, upside down, with no saddle. Still, it was good for him to be there. An easy labor does not equal a healthy child, and the village had lost a few these past years. Fewer than before he had arrived, but it was still an awful thing to experience. : The sawmill was a good way out of town and the sun was only an hour up over the horizon as his trusty old Vardo pulled withinsight of home. After a sleepless night of babies and travel, he sighed at the sight before him, a elderly woman sitting on the bench outside of his clinic. He didn’t recognize her as a local or as one of his patients that traveled from afar. Strangers always took an exceptional amount of time to treat, and so Claxious resigned to the notion that there would be no sleep before work today. The woman was old and had skin like sun cracked leather covered in spots and sores. Her black oily hair was patchy and her fingers looked more like bones than functioning digits. She was filthy, as if she had crawled through the bog all night to get here. Flies buzzed around her, and even at a distance he recoiled at her odor. : “Good morning Madam, as you can see I’ve just returned, but if you give me a moment to stable my horse I can see to your needs.” Her head turned oddly, as if it caused her great pain. She was missing one eye completely from her skull like visage and the other was cataracted over so terribly that the entire eyeball was chalk white. She almost indistinguishably nodded. There was something odd to the movement, almost as if she was afraid her neck would break if she gave any further effort. : “Doooon’t beeee looooong. Weee haaave busssssinessss to dissscuuuss.” The woman’s voice rasped. It was an awful sound. There must be something wrong with her throat. Which would explain the odd movement. He hurriedly unhitched his horse, nervously looking over his shoulder. There was something very wrong with this woman, and not just physically. She was no longer looking at him but sat smirking patiently with her hands folded in her lap watching the sun rise. He opened the door to the stable to find his wife and daughter there. It nearly startled him to death. Maybe it was the late night or maybe the unnerving woman out front but something here seemed off as well. ; “We’ve been waiting for you to come home! It is someone’s birthday after all!” His wife said in an excited tone. His daughter leapt forward and threw her arms around his waist. He laughed at his fright and quickly closed the stall door for his horse. He took his little girl in his arms and spun her around. She felt heavier. Children change so fast. “My grandmother has arrived! Isn’t that wonderful?” ; “Your grandmother? I thought you said she died decades ago.” He was confused, and set the girl down. : “She did! She was beheaded by the local lord, but now she’s back, just like she promised. Isn’t that wonderful?” : Claxious took a step backward. The pieces of local history tumbling around inside of his brain like a puzzle still in the box. He turned to leave the stable but bumped right into the filthy old woman. He spun quickly staring into her horrifying face. It was then that he noticed the oozing black wound around her neck just below her cloak line, and the twinte stitching that held her head to her shoulders… He panicked and reached behind him to protect his family from the monster before him, only to feel soft hands with the strength of steel wrap around his head. He actually heard the sickening pop of his neck breaking and as his limp form tumbled to the ground. He watched with fading eyes as his wife and daughter along with the hideous woman stood over him laughing. : “Business concluded!” His daughter cackled. : Folk didn’t much question the disappearance of the Doctor. His wife simply told them that he had hitched up his wagon, took their savings, and left them, but not to worry, she and her daughter, along with their grandmother were going to continue to run the clinic, and now with magic having returned, their practice would become everything the three ladies ever wanted. The coven of Hags, would worm their way into every aspect of life in their little town. Things would once again be as they should be. : In their control.