Panakeia followed the
Offending Party into Cirith Ungol with no little trepidation in her heart. Physicals and psychological testing. She uneasily thought of the voice that now chattered away in her head. How would she ever manage to pass the tests?
Oh stop it. Everyone has a nagging conscience at some point. Nothing at all to worry about.
I hope so. Nilp's strange case was not forgotten.
The Party, minus Sai, now came up to Dr. Hookbill's door. Muffled voices came from inside the office. Panakeia tried to make conversation. "I guess Sai's already in there. Think we'll have a long wait out here?" No one responded.
Panakeia sat down. An uncomfortable lump in her back pocket caused her to shift position. "What's in here?" she murmured, and drew out a clump of sandy hair. She had nearly forgotten about the toupee.
Shame on you, stealing that poor man's hair. You really ought to do something about it.
Alright, alright. She tapped Alli on the shoulder. "Do you have any paper? And a pen?"
"Whatever for?"
"There's something I have to take care of," Panakeia replied.
Alli produced the requested items, and Panakeia began to write.
Quote:
Dear Captain,
I'm sure you will remember me. I was the one who stole your head covering in Lost Angles. Please forgive me. I can offer no excuse for my actions, other than to say that I was motivated by need. Try to understand; I have been given a chance to leave Mordor. But to do so, I had to produce an item, the item most valued by a celebrity. And I chose the celebrity I admired most. You.
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Liar. You'd never even heard of him until you found that guide.
Be quiet. Nothing wrong with a little flattery. She returned to writing.
Quote:
But I behaved abominably. And I can't live with myself knowing that I've stolen from you. Even though I would be honored to keep a souvenir of our brief acquaintance, and even though I still have not completed the task which drove me to my unpardonable actions, I must return your property. Your item is enclosed, along with the Super Hair Stimulating Shampoo I promised in my original note. Dr. McBones was correct. It isn't likely to do much for you - it's just a bit of egg white and mayonnaise - but maybe you can put it on a salad and learn to think a little less badly of your friend:
Panakeia of Harad
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Note completed and boxed with the promised objects, she stopped a passing nurse. "Excuse me. Where can I send a package?"
"You might try the mailroom by the
Emergency Department. Follow the red line on the floor." Panakeia thanked her, and telling the rest of the Party that she would be right back, went to send her package.
The
Emergency Department was in chaos. But not from patients. Indeed, the department was deserted. Most of the disorder resulted from stacks of unfinished
paperwork. As Panakeia watched, a troop of Orcs came from behind a door marked "Records Room," a metal cart buried by a stack of voluminous charts in tow. They approached a doctor in a white coat. Spotting them coming in his direction, he turned ashen pale and turned to flee. Not quickly enough. The Orc in lead caught him by the arm.
The Orc clicked his tongue. "Just where do you think you're going? We have these charts for you to look at. They are deficient. Just look." The Orc picked up a chart and thumbed through it, pointing out various problems as he went along. "See? Each of these forms has to be filled out in quintuplicate. Yellow copy to the lab, white to the chart, pink as a spare copy, orange to the patient, and red, well I'm not quite sure what we do with the red, but it is procedure, after all. You didn't press hard enough to mark all of the pages. And these billing codes. Haven't you heard about the updates? You can't just mark off laceration. No, the section has been expanded. Now you can and must code for 25 different types of bandage and 50 different cleaning procedures (with and without soap, water, betadine, you see the idea). Oh, and that reminds me. Laceration is no longer a diagnosis. It's now a procedure, which means that the old diagnosis code is now superceded by the procedures coding section. So all of these codes that you checked off are now invalid. And you're coming off to do a chart review with us to fix all these problems." The Orc's face lit up. "Just think! At least a week in our records room. And what a time we'll have." The Orc started to lead the group away. "I'll tell you all about the latest coding revisions. Have you heard, for instance, about the the new numbering system? 8 digits to each code instead of 6, 9 is 1 and 2 is 5..." As the Orc chattered on and the doctor looked at him helplessly, they disappeared into the records room.
Panakeia shook her head and walked into the mailroom to send her package. Then she rejoined the
Offending Party, a smile on her face. Even if she accomplished nothing else on the rest of her journey, she had at least corrected one of her mistakes.