1/24 Artaghh's Bodily Maintenance and Meditation

Artagh would make his way quietly over to the water basin, depositing his adamantite cuirass underneath his preferred bed in the corner of the tavern's second floor before beginning the steady process of cleaning his wound for the night. Slowly unwinding the red stained linen that had been bound daily around his sliced open torso, the crunchy, crimson strips were steadily deposited in the flames before the washing began. Pulling up the stool beside the anvil and the basin, the one eyed soldier would breathe out steadily and steel himself in preparation for the pain before beginning his work.

Slowly, steadily, Artagh worked his way down the whole length of the grave flesh wound that tore from his left thigh to his right shoulder, the wound reopening and seeping droplets of blood onto the cloth the swordsman had preemptively left on the ground while he scrubbed the insides of the wounds. Each fleck of yellow puss and dried blood scraped off would cause Artagh to nearly crack his teeth with strain, the pain from having to force a rag inside his wounds to clean it without any degree of anesthetic one of the various trials he had adopted for losing his duel with the samurai. He would not allow it to get healed by magic, he must heal from this wound with his own grit and determination to grow better, to become the best swordsman there ever was.

Puffing away calmly on his corn cob pipe, he would go through multiple rags as each inch of his wound was scraped of puss and blood, progressively removing any potential infectants from the opened muscle tissue before finally completing his task as his thigh was thoroughly scrubbed. With a huff of tired exertion, he would begin to rebind his wound with fresh linen, rolled around and around his torso in one bundle before a second wrap was put around his left thigh where the slash had trailed on past his torso. Finally, the new linen seemed not to leak red just yet, assuring Artagh that he had successfully treated his wounds for the night.
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 Completing his treatment, Artagh trudge across the room all bandaged up before steadily lying in bed, the soreness of his wound aching heavily from both the recent cleaning, and the great strain that had been put on it during his training earlier that day. It was not helping the healing process for the wound in the slightest, and if the bald swordsman kept up his same regimen, it might not ever truly heal correctly. Yet, he had made an oath to Dawn to protect it and its people, to be their bulwark against danger and the symbol of order. If he was not strong enough to fulfill his own word, he was no man worthy of respect. He would keep on training day by day no matter how much it strained his injury. He would not accept it as something that made him weaker, but simply another handicap to put on himself to enhance his training.

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 Laying on his back in bed, Artagh puffed away at his corncob pipe as he slowly removed his eyepatch, revealing the scarred white mass of ocular tissue that remained behind it. He'd shrugged it off at first, made it seem like it made him look cooler so it wasn't really a loss, but losing half of his sight was not easy to adapt to. It took a lot of training to get back to his normal level, a large amount of adjusting to the missing field of view by heightening his hearing, spatial sense, and ensuring his remaining eye would simply grow strong enough to do the work of two. In time, he would adapt, but for now, he had to rest.

The wound ached, but still Artagh smiled. He had had the time of his life on the raid, gotten to do everything he could have hoped when he joined the Legion a few years prior. He got to see new sights, fight new people, and push his limits even further than before. If he continued to maintain his constant diligence in training, he might become a knight just as Siro had, and then he would be Artagh the peasant no longer. No, he would be Artagh, Knight of the Green Hill, defender of the poor, fighter of big things, slayer of fish. He could make his father's memory proud by making a real name for himself in the world, not just being some rock farmer on a strip of wasteland who would have never amounted to anything.

Closing his remaining eye, Artagh thought to the future, its mysteries, and excitement of it all. Dawn had not always been his home, but in the last three years of his life, it had become one. He would stand between the civilians and danger as long as he lived, use his strength and thick head for something more important than drinking and failing at farming, no. He could do good work, and feel proud of it when he saw the smiles of those that he cared for. Artagh would not stop training until he could ensure all of them were safe, even if it killed him.

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 Sleep did not come easy with the pain, and Artagh rolled about in rough linen covers in a cold sweat as he tried to progressively lose consciousness throughout the night. It was times like this when the pain was worst, when the wound restiffened and become rigid and sore. Keeping active put this state off as long as Artagh could, but even he needed to rest at the end of the day, no matter how much the pain seemed to stop him from attempting to do so. Puffing away clouds of minty smoke as he reopened his crusty eye, he would gaze at the sealing and try to think of something to focus on, something to keep his mind on that wasn't the four foot long chop of meat that was his torso and thigh.

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 Artagh determined that he would use nature's finest remedy to solve his ailments, and removed a bottle of moonshine from underneath his bed with a determined nod. The roughest, strongest, most unhealthy batch of magically refined grog stood in a dusty bottle before the one eyed soldier, and he gazed at its content with a gulp of anticipation as he looked the bottle over. It was not a comfortable feeling to know this of all things was rejected as a part of the menu, considering all the highly alcoholic beverages Siegmeyer kept on draft. He said only that this one was for when you simply wanted to not be conscious, and left it at that.

Uncorking the bottle, Artagh heard what could almost be the distant scream of a banshee as smoke seemed to rise in a light cloud from the container, the contents within sloshing like a storm in preparation for the imbibement to come. With a nod of determination, Artagh would close his eyes and empty the whole bottle down to the last drop, clearing the half filled container's liquid in a steady, pained consumption before immediately tossing the bottle against the wall with a smash, sprinting towards the closest flagon of ale before choking it down as he tried to remove the burning sensation that seemed to fill his torso.

Then, finally, came the numbness. Artagh felt the alcohol take hold as he fell from his feet, collapsing onto the bed with a belch as he felt his eye shut without any effort of his own. Just like that, the wounded, one eyed swordsman was knocked out like a light by the stiff, forbidden grog of Siegmeyer, the potency of the mysterious alcohol stronger than any blow from a weapon had ever been in its ability to instantly subdue the peasant like he was a small child. With a heavy snoring sound, Artagh would finally have his rest.