While it was not outright stated, Sarbor knew that he too was a prisoner, the same as Cter was. Difference being that he was aware that he was, while Cter wasn't. He could take a walk through the camp, taking stock and awareness of what was outside his tent, but he was always followed closely. Always had a guard next to him like a second shadow. Even though he was under watch and guard he still managed to collect some information about both where he was, and how things were progressing throughout the days.

He was still a doctor, and with the camp's doctor on Monster Mage watch, Sarbor had work to do in stead.

For starters, the officer he talked with when he first woke up was nowhere to be seen again. The bottles of strong alcohol he had left behind were all the physical evidence left behind by him. When asked about him, the soldiers only told Sarbor that the officer was out to make contact with what remained of the chain of command, but prying anything more was like trying to pull out a mortared brick with a twig.

Sarbor was not even able to get the officer's name.

Nor where the camp was, exactly.

It was located in a glade surrounded by forest, dense enough that Sarbor could not see Clinic Hill. What he did managed to see was either Mt. Ebott or Mt. Ymmet when a hearty breeze ruffled the tree crowns. There weren't many forests in Xoff, but unfortunately the majority of them were located in the county that Clinic Hill stood. Due to the good air that would blow in from Mt. Ebott and Mt. Ymmet, filtered through the forests, and up Clinic Hill to help disperse the miasma, Dr. Sallus had argued.

Sarbor knew that it was a lie, and that Dr. Sallus had chosen the location for both its ease of access from the main trading roads going through the county, and the view. A view that he retreated to each time he needed to be reminded that despite all the death that he treated, there was still so much live that he needed to protect. So much more life that he wanted to understand.

That in his death he would leave behind something so not-understandable was a cruel twist of the knife of fate. That he died without any peace to be found while he'd made sure so many others passed on peacefully was cruel. Unfair and cruel to the doctor who had saved thousands upon thousands to have suffered such a terrible fate!

Sarbor had to carry on Dr. Sallus' legacy.

He had to do everything he could to understand what had happened to honor his mentor, and to learn. Learn from what had happened so that the future may never see it again! Was it a new crux of the plague? Was it possible that it could infect monsters too? Did the miasma react to the strong, magical aura of the Monster Mage Sund, to gain magical properties? Was there a new breed of the plague up on Clinic Hill that risked whatever happened to Dr. Sallus and Sund happening again?

It ate at Sarbor during the cold nights he spent in that damn tent! Imprisoned not by bars, but by crossed spears and stern palms asking him to please refrain from taking another step closer to where the Monster Mage was held. By the officer leaving on his own and not taking Sarbor with him to find the elusive chain of command. For all the respect he had implied towards Doctor Fech, the officer sure did not show any of it by leaving said doctor in his encampment with the vague orders to help wherever he could for the good of the nation.

The soldiers that returned in carriages from Clinic Hill had been ordered not to share anything with Sarbor, for reasons to not weigh him down further. Caskets were brought back, but the soldiers wouldn't answer whether or not they were filled.

That insulted Sarbor.

That they thought that he would not notice how deep the tracks the wagons was akin to telling a child that it was night while they were out in the blazing sun.

They wanted his help when injuries came about in the encampment. They wanted his medical opinion and expertise, but nothing else.

He was a prisoner.

Which meant that he had to escape.

But how would he?

And more importantly, to where would he? To Monster Country for Cter's sake? But where in Monster Country then? He could not just ride into the capital of Jarasevo, could he? Could he even ride into Monster Country to begin with? Getting through the county borders he could, assuming that the rugged officer had not manage to find the remnants of the chain of command. Sarbor, and the rest of Dr. Sallus' apprentices had been allowed free travel both in times of peace and in times of emergency, so within Xoff he would have a free pass assuming that he managed to shake off the inevitable pursuers. Once he gave it some thought, then getting through the border to Monster Country would be possible too since he was bringing along Cter.

While drawing up a plan inside his head where and which roads he would escape through did keep him occupied while alone in his prison tent, of which small roads would be worth the slower speed weighed against the smaller chance of being detected compared to the faster speed of a larger road which he wouldn't have to stop if he encountered traffic, the question of how he would even begin to escape still loomed over him like a dark cloud.

He'd never driven a carriage before. He did not know how to mount it on the horses, even less how to take care of the horses along the journey. Even lesser how to drive a carriage. Maybe if he could talk one of the soldiers into joining him all of that would be moot? The one that the officer mentioned was the best candidate, the monster who had reacted so strongly and turned the officer's carriage towards Clinic Hill?

Sarbor had seen her from time to time in the camp. A quiet, bird-like monster with brown and black-splotched feathers. For an entire day he had tried to figure out a way to get some words alone with her, but it proved to be difficult with his other shadows walking behind him with furrowed brows at his every move. He did catch some luck though when one of the returning squads from Clinic Hill beckoned for him to help categorize some equipment from one of the surgery rooms from one of the brick buildings.

The pieces were charred and twisted, but each one he could identify immediately, but only for himself though. As he turned and pretended to hum in thought at the poured-out sack of metallic instrument, he bid his time for when the bird-like monster would pass him by. "Excuse me," he had asked seemingly out of random. "Could I have your assistance, please?" He had then motioned for some parchments he was supposed to write down his identifications down on. "This is beginning to become something I need more than two hands for."

His shadows fell for his acting.

"S-Sure," answered the bird-like monster with her feathers ruffling in an excited inhale as if it was the first thing she had been asked in days. She plucked a feather of her own to write with and made some rudimentary ink with scraped coal mixed with water. "W-Where s-should I begin?"

Her stuttering was due to her excitement, yet Sarbor played it differently. "Are you still shaken from your reaction towards Clinic Hill?" he said with more doctor in his voice than he would ever have genuinely as he held up his first identified piece. "Item one, lookingscope." He looked to the monster with sympathetic eyes, and when she turned her head slightly to the side, he knew that he had hooked her.

"Not...really," she hesitated to share as she scribbled down with crow's feet on the parchment the first item. "I'm...I've been put on hold of duty due to my...actions." There was shame in her voice, and lots of it.

"You brought your company here," Sarbor had countered while picking up item two to make doubly sure about it by brushing it off one more time and bending it slightly. "Miasmatyn," he dictated before returning to his convincing sympathies. "Because of you the situation at Clinic Hill was discovered. You discovered..." He blinked. It wasn't hard to fake his emotions about the situation, for they were too real to make fake. "You discovered me and the Monster Mage." He glanced from under his bushy eyebrows at the bird-like monster turning her head towards where Cter was being housed. "You saved us, monster. You saved us, but I don't even know your name."

"Ihloe, sir," the monster answered with a bow following her name. "And no, I didn't."

"You did to me." Sarbor bowed his head even deeper. "I thank you, Ihloe From the bottom of my heart I thank you for saving me." He made sure to put emphasis that she had saved him, as he saw that the monster's glance was that of hesitation over to Cter's tent. There were some seeds of doubt that he could exploit. "And the Monster Mage."

The monster's beak looked as if it was about to curl into an ashamed scowl. "You were the one that carried her down Clinic Hill, doctor." With a tightening grip around her plucked feather she tried to bring the subject back to the identified items. "I just..." Her military poncho ruffled with her feathers. "I just followed something I shouldn't have. I defied orders and let myself be taken over by fear and panic. That's all that happened."

It was clearly evident by how her beak clanked together in her unconvincing explanation that there was a lot more than she let onto. More than she was allowed to say, and more than she felt comfortable saying. She hid something, and she felt bad for needing to do so. Sarbor had his angle of attack.

"Item two, ocularigant," he said as a show of goodwill to gain more of the monster's trust. He had planted the seeds of doubt, which meant that he needed to wait for them to take root. "Item three, gastropilate." Peering through the twisted items he held up for the monster to note down and sketch roughly, he again bid his time for when to say the right thing at the right time.

That time came when the monster ran out of ink after ten of the ruined items. Her bothered furrow hadn't left her, even after her many waves of ruffled feathers. When Sarbor was pretending to inspect the more broken items in greater detail she threw more worried glances over to the tent where Cter laid. When Sarbor had to repeat himself, "Item eleven, hinge from surgery room doors," to get the monster's attention he knew it was the right time. He watched as the military poncho lifted from the monster turning her head quickly back from where she was looking to hastily scribble down the item name and a sketch of its bent shape.

"I'm concerned about the Monster Mage," said Sarbor after the monster had finished the eleventh sketch. "About her being kept here." He lowered his voice seeing the bird-like monster's feathers perk up.

"How do you mean?" she replied with a hushed voice. With her wing feathers spread like a veil she leaned in towards Sarbor. "Something about..." The feathers relaxed as her beak again tried to form into a scowl. "Something about what happened?" She realized as soon as she said it how obvious her question was. "As in..." A flash of determination shot across her face, fighting through her hesitation. "As in something that's connected to what happened with me? She is a Monster Mage, so her soul's nature is as close to a monster's as can be."

"Really?" quipped Sarbor with faux surprise. He had to grease the wheels now that he had managed to get them spinning. "How do you mean?"

"A Monster Mage is considered a monster in all things magical. It's only their body that is human." The explanation gave the monster some breathing room to steel herself as to what she really wanted to say. "So if what happened to me was at a great distance, what happened with the Monster Mage who was at the center of it all? She keeps talking while she's unconscious about things she couldn't possibly know, and things that sound so confusing that it causes her pain."

The bird monster's eyes widened as she realized that she wasn't supposed to say that. Sarbor played it calm though even if he inside wanted to burst up on his feet and bolt over, and only put his curled finger on his mustache under his nose instead. "You might have a point there," he had said in thought. Not the thought he said though, but in a more hidden thought that he kept to himself.

He had managed to get the bird monster to open up to things she had most likely been ordered to keep quiet and away from him, so how could he move things along further?

"But I cannot for the life of me think of any way to even begin to answer that." Sarbor scoffed angrily to the side. "I do not know how to treat magical injuries to the extent that the Monster Mage has undergone. Not to in any way cast any shade over your company's apothecary, but..." He glanced over to Cter's tent. "I don't think he will be able to if I'm not able to. Even if Clinic Hill had still been standing I don't think there is any equipment or location here in Xoff where the Monster Mage's condition can be treated." He blinked once and deliberately at the bird-like monster. "The answers you and I need aren't found here in Xoff."

He did not need to say anymore, for it was already too obvious what it was he was suggesting. So much so that the bird-like monster handed the sketched parchment back to Sarbor. "Y-You shouldn't s-suggest such things," she suggested, still with her voice lowered. "Others m-might hear a-and..."

"You're a monster," Sarbor retorted. "You were the one that felt what was happening up on Clinic Hill. No other in your company felt that. I saw what happened up there, and you felt it. The Monster Mage," Sarbor again glanced over to the tent from staring deep into the bird-like monster's eyes, "she needs to be woken. She has the answers." He blinked back to the monster with his bushy brows deep over his eyes. "The answers for what I saw, and what you felt."

Slowly, yet deliberate, he took the bird-like monster's feather from her and admired its color. "You know I am correct in this, Ihloe. Cter needs to get to Monster Country and Jarasevo as soon as possible, and me with her." He put his forehead against the colorful feather with his eyes closed respectfully. "You do not need to involve yourself, but I ask of you your help." Slowly he opened them up again to display the sterness that he harbored. "Think about it, then come find me. You know where I am."

Ihloe stood with a stare, breathing slowly with her neck lowered enough that she could have hidden her head within her poncho. She very much wanted to. "I'll..." trickled from her tongue before her beak clamped together. She turned away quick enough to reveal that her wings were crossed like a harsh shiver underneath the lifted fabric. Her poncho settled just in time for her to blend in with the small crowd of soldiers reacting hungrily to the lunch bell ringing in the distance.

Sarbor followed with his eyes as long as he could the bird-like monster until he lost her among the peckish commotion. He did not rise to get in line as he had his own meals served at his tent. With the officer gone he was granted said gone officer's meals as a gesture of goodwill, so while the line formed next to Sarbor returning to document the many twisted and charred pieces, whispers began to murmur as to why he wasn't in his tent. Eventually it had begun spreading far enough that his shadows had to step out of the lines and insist that he returned to his tent with dismay and irritation.

"Fair enough," he agreed to. He had done what he set out to do, after all.

The rest of the pieces laid unidentified spread out on the burlap sacks they'd been brought down Clinic Hill in.

As did the plucked feather.

All that was needed was the right opportunity. His officer's lunch, dinner, breakfast, and another lunch passed by with him continuing to pretend to act the good prisoner. A prisoner that wasn't waiting for the right opportunity.

An opportunity that presented itself not so much as a part of the initial plan, but as something that Sarbor understood was exactly what he needed. Something he had not thought of at all despite having used it before.

"The children from Clinic Village?" he heard his stationed guard-shadows ask to a couple of soldiers who's silhouettes Sarbor could see through his tent's fabric. "They're here?"

"Yes, and we need Dr. Sallus to assess their health."

His shadows didn't have time to unbutton the tent flaps before Sarbor did, exiting out the tent with an acknowledging nod. "Lead the way." He did not know why, but deep inside him he felt strongly that it was an opportunity in disguise. If not, then he was still needed. Those children from Clinic Village were the only ones that remained, and he as the only doctor on site, be it prisoner or not, still had an oath he was under.

He wasn't about to degrade it to a suggestion anytime soon. He still had pride in his doctor title. The soldiers who had injured themselves while he was a prisoner he'd treated the same as if they were his patients at Clinic Hill, albeit with less supplies and instruments to work with. He had no qualms with any of them, not even his assigned shadows. They had their reasons, and he had his.

Nothing more, nothing less.

As he was escorted to the part of the camp where the military company had set up hastily built tents and beds for the children, his footsteps slowed down as he saw how the children had been brought there. He saw what had carried the Monster Mages to Clinic Village.

And what would carry the remaining Monster Mage back to Monster Country and Jarasevo.

His opportunity.

The carriage Cter and he had rode in from the bottom of Clinic Hill to Clinic Village stood parked behind the hastily built tents, looming with its ornate and intricate woodwork in contrast to the stained tents in front of it. At its front sat the same driver that had driven Sarbor. A monster veiled underneath a dark-blue robe who's hum was barely audible through the commotion going on with helping the Clinic Village children.

"We found the carriage with its driver at the bottom of the Clinic Village road up Clinic Hill. It had burst through the gate, bu had then stopped. It looked like it had slid down a ways considering the tracks stopping as if randomly," explained one of the guards to Sarbor's staring. The human then brought the doctor's attention to where it was actually needed. "What is your initial assessment?" the soldier asked while motioning his arm across the many children sat and laid on chairs and poncho's. "What do you need?"

Blinking away from his opportunity, Sarbor began to check on each of the children, starting with the one that looked the most ill. Strangely though, they did not look as ill as he had initially suspected. There were clear signs of malnourishment and follow-up illnesses that sprung up after a human had survived the plague, but considering it all, the children looked...fine?

As fine as they could have been, that is.

"The monster soldiers who were ordered to Clinic Village due to your suggestion report that the children thought that they were the Monster Country Royal Guard as they arrived," Sarbor's escorting soldier offered as context. "The Monster Mages had apparently been helping out quite a bit with relieving a single Royal Guard who had been stationed at the village to both take care of the kids and make sure that there was a village to return to after the end of the plague. They did not have much food left when our forces arrived, but that they had food left to begin with was a surprise, if you ask me."

"So they came back in that?" Sarbor pried while pointing over to the Monster Mage carriage. "Is that driver one of ours?"

"No," answered the second soldier. "That driver is apparently from Jarasevo, who's order to drive the Monster Mages back has been postponed further than was agreed upon. Our monsters managed to get it to agree to come along by stating that they knew where Cter was. Since they weren't lying, the driver agreed to get them and the children back here."

Excellent.

"Bring me gauze and cleaning alcohol," Sarbor ordered to the soldiers. "Make sure that the children are properly fed with meat and vegetables. Milk if there is any. Those that are sick should be given extra blankets and herbal tea to drink. Make sure too that they are kept with their siblings, even if one of them is sick. They've been through harrow and strife no child should ever see, and for that they need each other." He waited until the soldiers nodded with complete trust in his words to add his last...suggestion. "I should also come visit them twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, to make sure that those that are ill don't progress further."

Right around the shift of the guard.

"Sir!"

With the soldiers hurrying away to relay Sarbor's instructions he took the opportunity to begin checking up a bit closer on the children. He chose one of the healthiest first, which surprised the child. "You might be needed to help, that's why," he explained calmly to the older child while he began washing off some of the dirt on the roughed face. "You seem to be the oldest and..." Once the dirt had loosened, Sarbor recognized who it was! "Manny?" The child mage who had helped up on Clinic Hill!

Sarbor lowered his voice. "Can you still do magic?" He saw that the question caused hurt in the child's tired eyes. "It's for Cter, the Monster Mage." Hearing the name brought some color back to the tired eyes.

Excellent, again.

"Then I definitely need your help, Manny."