Doktorun Yeri

Doktorun Yeri ("the Doctor's Place") is the clinic of Bruno Rossi in Aquila in the campaign Yeni Dünya ("New World"). It lies inside the walls near the Merchant Road, in a quarter of working people, and serves Bruno and his companions as a base as well as a surgery.¹²

Founding

Bruno found the shop on the ground floor of a three-storey wooden building, with a front room and a back room, and families living above. He meant the back room for treating the poor and the whole place as a base for the band. He did not buy it: he rented it first, with the rent to count towards the price should he buy it later.³⁴⁵

Having no physician's certificate, Bruno needed registration from the Guild Union as a barber and tooth-puller. So that the shop would not stand in his own name, he gave Sticks a hundred and fifty gold to finish the business. Sticks turned to a man called Otto, who had once opened warehouses in his own name for smugglers; Otto, who said he was a disabled war veteran entitled to tax relief, proposed to show the shop as a windowless storehouse and agreed to lend his papers for eighty gold a year. The name Doktorun Yeri was agreed for the sign, while Otto's wish to use the shop now and then as a store was left for later.⁶⁷⁸⁹¹⁰

The surgery

In time the paperwork was done and the sign went up. The back room held a place to sleep, a worktable for Finli and an old, battered dentist's chair, with medicines to hand; so many people came that the clinic was no hidden base. Bruno pulled a tooth for the child of the neighbours upstairs.¹¹¹¹²

Most patients pay nothing; a tip box stands for those who wish to leave money. On some days Bruno hangs a sign offering free care, though shortages of medicine and supplies keep him from helping everyone.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

The painting

The band brought the spoils of a mage's house here, heaping money and goods on the table in the back and propping a stolen painting against the wall, and took in the puppy Hobo. As they rested, a wind rose in the room and pulled the living into the painting; Hobo was left behind, tied to a silver rod that Bruno had fixed in the air.^16171819

When the band returned, they found Finli sweeping the shop. Only the painting had been taken; the gold on the table and the other goods were left, and someone had put food out for the dog. Questioned by magic, the dog said that curious tradespeople had come to look, that Otto had looked in and left, and that Travis and a few others had taken the painting from the back room and left it food and water. Travis later handed the painting back from his underground store, and it was carried back to the clinic.^20212223

Changes to the house

Finli strengthened the doors and window frames, fitted locks and agreed to make an alarm of bells that could be set and unset, though Sticks slipped the new lock unseen; Sticks also cut a sign on the clinic meaning "this place is ours". So as not to be drawn into the painting again, the chairs were nailed to the floor and fitted with belts.^2425262728

Bruno wanted a cellar dug beneath the house, and later a way out to the street or perhaps the sewers; Otto offered to send a crew of four brothers. Those who knew such work advised that moving to a place that already had a cellar would serve better, and the cellar was not dug.^29303132

Instead, Bruno agreed with the people living upstairs that they would leave in return for a hundred gold and the promise of treatment in future. Otto made plain that this was key money and gave no legal ownership, and a yearly tax for the use of the rooms was still due. The living quarters and kitchen moved upstairs; the front of the ground floor remained the surgery and the back room became Finli's, and a hatch and ladder now join the two floors from inside. Bruno spoke of opening a restaurant next door as his next dream.^3334353637

Healing and the church

After Bruno restored the sight of a poor old blind man, a crowd gathered daily at the door, going home at night and returning in the morning. Bruno set out a bowl of money with a notice that those in need might take from it, but people who could not read took it for a demand for payment and threw in copper coins, until Finli made the sign read itself aloud to anyone who stood before it. He also made simple mechanical arms for those who had lost one.^3839404142

One night an aide of a priest came to the closed shop with a young officer and two guards bearing the church's sign. He linked the speaking sign and healing by laymen to suspicion of dark magic, had the sign taken down and carried off, and invited Bruno and Finli to the temple; Sticks stirred up the waiting crowd, and Bruno helped to calm it. After the visit to the temple the public healing was paused, the crowds slowly thinned, and Finli went on making his artificial limbs.^4344454647