It's well past the worst depths of winter, even here on the north edge of the Worldwound- the temperature ekes its way above freezing occasionally, the days are only short and not miserably short, last night's snowstorm wasn't quite a blizzard. It is, nonetheless, fairly surprising when the patrol on their way to Fort #11 spots three figures in the distance trudging towards them from the north.
The concerning squashy spot on her head unsquashes, and her color gets somehow better, and the sluggish bleeding slows further. Once the channel hits she groans, and gasps in a long breath, and then starts coughing and trying (without much immediate success) to roll onto her side.
If she's conscious she can wait till the evening channel for another dose, he's not going to burn a prepared spell on an unwise wizard. "What happened?" he asks her.
Conscious but barely so and unhappy about it; it takes a moment for her to get the coughing under control and sit up, and by this point somebody has located the other two adventurers and they rush in with the same question, much more loudly.
Well, if she can't answer. "Report," he tells the interior patrolman.
"Heard an explosion, barged in, the wall was cracked and the blanket on fire and she was down, spellbook was out, brought her here and rang for you, sir."
He nods; that's about what it looked like.
(Omar translates this for Tariq, who's glowering around indiscriminately but looking more than a little scared under it, and goes to help her sit up.)
Khalida is still coughing intermittently and having to run more of her breathing on concentration than is really ideal; she caught 'spellbook', it being nearly the same word in both languages, but focusing enough to parse a whole sentence and formulate a reply is going to be a bit.
"Guiu, go collect her spellbook lest anything happen to it, and make sure the fire is out."
The blanket is thoroughly out, but as Txell picks up the book she can spot a sock blown under the farther bunk that the earlier patrollers missed, still smoldering slightly; it's not in a place where it could have lit anything else on fire before it burned itself out, though, between the stone floor and the stone wall.
Wonder of wonders, the spellbook has some crumpled pages where it landed but they're blank ones towards the end, none of the actual spellcharts are damaged.
By the time she returns, Khalida is sitting up unsupported and breathing almost normally. She also looks like she's coming slowly to the horrified realization of just how dumb she just was.
And she gets to do that right there laid out on a bench in the mess hall where hundreds of passing Chelish soldiers can watch her do it!
Txell stomps out the sock and brings the spellbook to its wizard.
Who clutches it to her chest with both arms like a drowning man clutches his log, or a mother her child, and then looks up at the commander like she's fearful he might take it away again.
"She thank you book," Omar says to the other wizard, still with a hand on Khalida's shoulder (knowing her well enough to tell that words won't be happening), and then to Artigas, "Also we thank you, for this healing. Very thank you." He gives Tariq a Look until the other man gruffly nods and seconds this.
A curt nod. "There will be an evening channel, at the usual time unless there is another emergency. Guiu, you're responsible for alerting the party if she's not present at the channel, whenever that might be."
"Yessir," says Txell.