The Pharmacist and The Prince

Textbook of Instructions

textbook /ˈtɛks(t)bʊk/ : a book used as a standard work for the study of a particular subject.

Ebony dragged the heavy table across the floor of her room. Her destination was the window that opened to the plain, providing a magnificent view of the sky and the castle. Her biggest worry was that the dragging the table would scuff the wood of the floor but she had been at it for five minutes now. No scuff marks.

It seemed that the floor was protected by some Anti-scuffing spells. No, not spells. Runes.

Spells were the intention to do magic. Runes were the manifestation of the magic. Mental and physical.

She had found out that wonderful piece of information on her ride back from the Guild of Textile Magickers. She also found out other fantastic bits of information. Like the fact that the castle was built in less than a month. And that this world actually had three moons but the third one would only be visible by winter’s time.

Even the two moons were mind-blowing enough for her. Imagine what the news of three moons had done for her mind.

In fact, her mind had been blown several times throughout the day. Maybe that was why she was dragging a table two times heavier than her across her room. But as she thought of the day’s events, she could only shake her head in wonder.

What a difference a day could make.

Ebony had visited the construction magickers, in a building that looked like something straight out of Mad Max, and they had informed her that the construction of nine, nine, isolation centres would be completed in less than a week.

She had left and traveled to the Guild of Textile Magickers, who were in a building that looked like it was stolen off the set of Barney. She had given them instructions to make PPE in a fantasy world. She would never forget the look they gave her when she had suggested that they make the PPE out of tarpaulin.

But Ebony had to admit that she knew where they were coming from. It was like someone telling her to use zinc roofing sheets as a blanket.

Add that to the fact that she had teleported three times and ridden a horse twice.

It was really a busy day. No wonder once she arrived at the apothecary, she walked to her room and collapsed on her bed.

She woke up with barely enough time for the evening meal. And now, she had to spend the rest of the night doing what she had planned to do in the afternoon.

That is, if she ever got the table in place.

Ebony’s original plan was undergoing some major reconstruction in her mind. The timeframe she initially had in mind had been thrown out by the construction magickers. By Sonntag, the isolation centres will be finished.

While she didn’t know when the PPEs would be finished, as the material still had to be adjusted to be breathable, she didn’t think it would take that long. Latest by Montag.

That meant that she had to be ready to admit patients by Dienstag (Tuesday).

It was a tall order. Considering she had barely started with her list.

But she had to start somewhere and somehow. And she started by getting the table to her desired spot.

Breathing hard, she placed her hands on her hips and closed her eyes. After getting her breath back, she walked to the original position of the table and picked up the chair. She dropped it and sat.

This was the view she wanted. The reason why she wrestled with such a massive table.

The iridescent night sky of the Seelsorger Kingdom. It was just too dazzling.

The nighttime view of the castle wasn’t anything to sneeze at, though. But strangely, whenever Ebony looked at the castle, the large building disappeared from sight and a certain someone’s face appeared.

The person she had spent the entire day with. Asking him questions about his marvelous kingdom and watching him swell with pride at each answer.

Yeah, that had to stop.

Once rested, she picked up her backpack and removed all the items in it and displayed them on the table. Sweets, water bottle, hand sanitizer, pharmacology textbook, jotter, pen and soft pillow.

Seven items in total. Staring at them, she was reminded of how things had changed so drastically. This would be the third night she would spend in this magical world. Strangely though, she felt…almost at home here. Except for the fact that she missed her family and friends, she could see herself spending the rest of her life here.

Provided the plague was eradicated.

Speaking of the plague, Ebony had to work hard and fast and smart to save the people. She knew what she had to do but she didn’t know if she could do it.

Slowly, though, the pieces where falling in place. She would return to the textile magickers tomorrow to see their modification of the tarpaulin to make it lighter and more breathable. Hopefully, they would be able to get it done in time.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight, she wanted to complete a “textbook” of instructions for the people who would be working in the isolation centres around the kingdom. Ebony would be based here, in the central region. While she would tour the centres frequently, she would spend most of her time here.

Therefore, she needed to write instructions for the health workers in the other apothecaries so they didn’t need her presence to handle an emergency or to safely transport the patients.

Aische had provided her with a bunch of Error-erasing parchment paper and an Ever-lasting quill to use. It took her a couple of tries but she finally got used to the fact that any words she crossed out would disappear instantly, leaving a blank space to be rewritten on.

Ebony begun with a brief explanation of the disease. According to the information she had reviewed in the medical records, she was almost certain that the plague was a viral disease. It was an assumption, a logical assumption but an assumption still.

If the assumption was wrong, well…let’s not think about that now.

If her assumption was right, that brought another issue to mind. Most viruses could not be cured. They had to be treated palliatively. Treating the symptoms and trying to relieve the suffering of the patients.

Then, leave the rest to the body. In a world that had no form of drugs and medication, that would be exceedingly difficult. Ebony would have to synthesize her own drugs.

That would be later. Now, she just wrote the symptoms of the disease and the manner in which she believed it spread.

The symptoms differed a little from patient to patient but the most common symptoms were fever, blocked sinuses, coughing, loss of taste and smell, nausea and headaches.

Due to the occurrence of three respiratory-related symptoms, Ebony was beginning to think that the virus was spread through droplets from infected patients coughing or sneezing.

She was writing about social distancing and the need to keep a distance from patients if they were sneezing when the thought struck her.

Masks.

Ebony shot up from her chair and facepalmed. “What is wrong with me and forgetting things? How could I forget something like masks? Face masks. We need face masks.”

Sitting back down, she stretched and picked up her pen, flipped her jotter and wrote “FACE MASKS” boldly on the side of her five-step plan.

Moving back to the parchment, she continued writing about the social distancing when she noticed something was wrong. The words she had just written on the parchment paper were faded, like the ink in the pen was dry.

She looked at the pen in her hand and frowned. When she had returned to writing on the parchment, she hadn’t picked up her quill. She was writing with the pen on the parchment.

But what was the problem?

The pen was working perfectly on her jotter, she had just tried it two seconds ago, and now, it was fading.

Why?

She stared at the pen in her hand and got the answer.

The pen was from her world. The parchment was of this world. The two worlds were mutually exclusive.

Ebony shook her head in wonder. She tried writing again on the parchment and the same thing happened. Faded words.

She picked up the quill and tried to write on her jotter. The quill couldn’t even make a mark on the lined sheet but worked perfectly on the parchment.

Wonders of wonders. Even the ink and paper of the two different worlds could not mix. But then…

Ebony tapped her chin. How exactly did the disease spread here and kill so many people? She had asked the Bookkeeper the exact same question but got a mystic response that did not answer the question.

It was definitely one of the mysteries that she would have to solve to eradicate this disease through and through.