The Lost Doctor's Soul - Chapter 28 - The Hospital

Looking at the other me in the mirror, I felt… so many things, but everything was muted, in the background. Above all, I was calm, too calm. Done with washing my hands, I stepped back into the patient’s room and scanned it properly for the first time.

The room had all the basic amenities one would expect of a patient room. There were towels, a first aid kit, a heart monitor, IV drip holder, privacy curtain, a movable table and so on… along with one of the most important things for any attending doctor or nurse, the tablet with the patient charts. Hospitals had mostly moved away from paper records to having everything digital unless a doctor or patient needed a print copy, and the same went for patient charts. Tapping the screen, I navigated the very familiar layout and opened the patient chart, before staring at the screen not able to believe what I saw.

Patient name: Gorgon Baire

Birthdate: 5967/3/12

Age: 32

Physician: Armin Fishcer

Birthplace: Border City Ka’el

Reason for visit: Murder

Registration fee: 40🜍

Suggested discharge: Assimilation

It only had basic information with no tests or medical history of any kind, not that I would expect that for a dead man but… even the information that was here was bizarre.

Gorgon Baire, I already knew his name the moment I saw him in this… place. I understood murder being the reason for the visit, though it pricked at my heart seeing it written there in the clear DIN 1451 font I had seen hundreds of thousands of times in the past several years. But there was a registration fee of 40🜍 listed, and that stunned me. I recognised it as an alchemical symbol. Once upon a time I read a few books on ancient alchemy, so I recognised it as the symbol for sulphur… and soul.

I didn’t understand the implications, or what 40🜍 even meant measurement wise. 🜍 was supposed to represent a single soul, an immeasurable concept. But it was so clearly marked 40🜍 here, was that supposed to mean 40 souls, or was that 40 units of a soul? What was a single soul’s total units then? I didn’t have enough information to even speculate with. What was the most concerning was the Suggested discharge, however. Rather than a date, it just said Assimilation. That was incredibly ominous, and I could innately tell that it was something I needed to seriously think about before I were to follow that suggestion.

Having taken in all of this information, a thought crossed my mind. Setting the tablet down again, I quickly turned and left the room, turning down the hall where my office and that door were. I reached my office in a single step this time. Looking in, I saw it just like I left it back on Earth… no, it was emptier. I remember having some documents on new machines and several books on new surgical methods strewn about, but the room was clean.

My computer was there, my desk, my printer, my chair, the filing cabinet, my bookshelf, my calendar, my pin board… but it was oddly empty. There were no sticky notes on my monitor, no papers on my desk, no paper in my printer, the filing cabinet was empty too, and it didn’t have the stuffed animals Anne gifted me… even the pin board had nothing but some thumbtacks neatly lined up in a corner, and my calendar had a different date system than what I was used to. It marked todays’ date as 5999/10/7 and there was a circle around 5999/10/3 with the words ‘Rebirth’ scrawled in my handwriting next to it. I didn’t notice any names for the months or days, but I also didn’t look through the calendar very closely. There were too many other things that took my attention first.

Sitting down on my very familiar chair, I took a moment to centre myself before looking at the monitor on my desk. It was a model from a decade ago, but well taken care of. I might be too young to say this, but I never understood computers too well, so I just smiled and nodded when the IT techs told me about what parts they replaced, so maybe it was just an old shell with new parts? It worked well and that was all I needed… though I swear the printer was cursed by a demon that just refused to connect or print half the time.

Hitting the power button, I heard the familiar whir of it starting up, but instead of seeing the name of the pc brand, the microsoft logo, or the login screen, I was met with a white screen with the words ‘Manage Soul-space’. Moving the mouse, I hovered the cursor over it and saw the text change to ‘Hospital management’. Doubting what I saw, I moved the cursor off the text, but it stayed unchanged. Taking a note of that, I clicked on the text, and the bright white background faded into a more bearable gray.

There was no desktop, just a simple interface with a list of options, and two icons in the top right corner, a cog and a door. The options were as followed:

Manage Patients / Staff

Manage Soul-space

Mail [1 unread]

And in the bottom right corner, I could see ‘40🜍’ marked.

It was a simple list with no flourish or colour, and it was all in simple words that I understood even if I didn’t know what they did in this context, but before anything else my full attention was on Mail [1 unread]. Who could that be from? A message from Starlight trying to wake me up? Still confused about what was going on, I clicked into the mail option and found a very simple black and white email interface. On the left were options I recognised like ‘inbox’, ‘starred’, ‘drafts’, ‘trash’ and labels, but there was one inbox tab, and only a single email in the inbox.

☆ A friend | A friendly greeting | 5999/10/7

Looking at that single email, it felt incredibly suspicious. But there was nothing I could do about it even if I felt suspicious, so I opened it.

-

Dr. Armin Fischer,

Hello, Director. I am ∑π∂∫Ω, it seems as though you have set yourself quite the little sliver inside oblivion! It was certainly not what you were given...

I'm sure you're quite busy, dealing with so many changes. But given your unique... position. You should understand that this space of yours is empowered and expanded by  the power of souls. Living, dead, forgotten? They all are caught by your domain of the weave. It seems your process is §ε∫_πΩæ_δæ«™△≈∞æΩ≈◎∞ₓₑₜ₌_ç∆æΩ_δæ«≈∏∆≈ø∑∆⧫. Keep in mind Dr. Armin. That this is not a dream... this space and the souls it collects are all equally at the mercy of your attention and scalpel.

There is much for you to do though, so I will leave you to your work. Speaking of which… I decided to give you 200🜍 as a welcome gift, with the hope you will use it to expand what you have here into whatever you decide. Feel free to call it an investment of sorts.

Perhaps when you expand and bring more people into your little corner, we can discuss an interesting... offer that you may be interested in.

Until next time Director, ∑<0>, §æ∫∑ . ∏∑æ|⧫πç

-

Leaning back in my chair after reading that email, I had too many questions to list. Rather than going over each line of the email and questioning myself as to what it meant, these were my biggest takeaways:

Someone, maybe the entity that brought me into this world, was out there watching me. This hospital was a space they gave me, and it adapted to fit me? This place eats souls to exist, and likely awakened because I killed a man… and ate their soul…

Jesus. My biggest question would be ‘Why? Why is any of this happening?’, but yelling at a screen wouldn’t give me any answers. Instead, after I processed the information far too calmly, I looked for a way to reply and ask this entity some of these questions. But there was nothing. There was no compose email button, no reply button, not even a forward button. The interface was so minimal and cleanly designed that it wasn’t me being an idiot and not finding it. There was just no way to reply… was this something he intentionally did?

Rather than using these symbols to refer to him as ∑π∂∫Ω or Sigma pi partial-derivative integral omega, I’ll use the closest letters those symbols look like it to Endro. This Endro mentioned that we could ‘discuss’ an offer when I ‘expand’... that meant two-way communication was possible, but not at the moment.

Clicking back to the main menu, I noticed that the number at the bottom right changed to 240🜍, his gift was five times what Gorgon’s registration fee was when I killed him, but I still didn’t have context for if that was a lot or not. Looking at the options on the menu, I clicked on Manage Soul-space, if there was a way to expand, it had to be there.

The minimalist menu faded away and was quickly replaced by a 3d map of this hospital… or maybe calling it a corridor would be more apt, since that’s all it was, just a corridor with two rooms; a patient room and my office, listed as the Director’s office on the map. Being promoted from a doctor to a director… It was my career goal back on my world, but achieving it in circumstances like this just left me feeling empty.

There were details listed such as a roster of patients, staff, and visitors, but everything was empty save for an icon representing Gorgon, the dead man. There were also buttons to add rooms and even floors.

When I hovered the cursor over rooms, they highlighted and I could drag them to new locations, but a confirmation screen came up saying that it would take a day to move a room and it would be inaccessible for that duration of time. I could right click on the patient room and I had the option to clean the room, expand the room, or change it into a different room. Cleaning was free, but the text was in red with a warning that it was in use. I needed to find some other way to handle Gorgon… Expanding needed 20🜍 and clicking to change the room brought me to a grid based listing of several types of rooms, but there were only patient rooms or waiting rooms in this listing, with no other categories.

Going back to the map, I clicked to add a room, but it led to the same list. Going back to the map, I properly scanned the page, noting there was a settings icon here too. Ignoring it for now, I looked at all of the options, seeing that I could add rooms, add floors, and there was an option to adjust the lights. Clicking into that, it had a list where I could change all the lights at once or adjust individual rooms. Then I noticed that at the bottom of the screen there was a single button labeled Add Facilities. With everything being in black and white, it was tough to see what was important at a glance, I mused, ignoring that Mark from IT once told me he could mark the biggest button with a pink elephant and I’d still miss it.

Clicking the button, I was brought to a large list of items, each with a simple description and cost. It was slightly overwhelming, even with the strange force muting my emotions.

Looking at this list, I felt amazed. I didn’t know the limits of any of these options, but they all felt like god-sends when I looked at them, and they very well may be. But before I could give any thought into what I might need, my eyes went to the top of the page, where the first line poured cold water over any of the excitement I could have.

Monthly upkeep : 50🜍

(If upkeep is not maintained, the Soul-space will collapse)

Jesus. I killed a man and only got 40🜍, how was I supposed to earth 50🜍 a month!? And that was a minimum, I needed many times that if I wanted to utilize this place properly.

Before looking at the list properly, I clicked out into the 3d map, just taking a moment to think. This wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t a game… but I didn’t know if it was truly real. I needed a way to test that before anything. And as I thought that, my eyes went to one end of the corridor, where I saw the large wooden door. Clicking on it in the map, it showed up as Unvisited Neighbouring Soul-space.

It was another soul-space, and it was a library, with someone who had purple hair. If their soul-space was connected to mine, there must be a connection between our souls… which made perfect sense if she was truly my patron.

Standing up from the computer, I left it running as I stepped out of my office. Turning up the corridor, I reached the wooden door in a single step, already getting used to movement in this place, I felt like I could walk normally if I wanted to. Chuckling at how absurd it all was and how well I was taking it, I placed a hand on the door. There was no handle, but it didn’t need one, it opened when I thought about it opening, the doors opening towards the corridor.

Past the doors, I saw a dimly lit library, just as I had seen last night. Hearring the door open, the purple haired woman who had her back to the door suddenly turned around, startled. “H-how did you get in here!?” she asked, as she suddenly stood up, knocking over a teacup as she whirled around to face me. It was her, the devil Starlight Von Aurora… but smaller?

“Hello, it’s nice to see you again Starlight.” I called out to her, involuntarily staring as the dissonance distracted me. Instead of a voluptuous and sexily dressed bronze demoness, Starlight was a pretty woman of average proportions, dressed in an oversized purple shirt and black leggings here. “Armin? How on earth did you get in here and what did you do to that wall?” she asked pointedly. I couldn’t blame her attitude, this wasn’t any less strange for me.

“I don’t fully understand it yet, but I woke up in a Soul-space of my own and found this door at the end of it.” I answered, keeping the explanation short. She just stared at me in silence before nodding her head at an empty spot, where a cushioned wooden chair appeared out of nowhere. Taking the hint, I approached and sat down opposite the very annoyed looking woman.

“First. You see nothing.” she said, crossing her arms as she glared at me, her playful attitude from outside nowhere to be seen. I simply nodded. “So, you have a soul-space… what kind of being are you? Did you play dumb all this time, taking over my warlock’s corpse just so you can barge into my library?” she asked, eyeing me up and down. “I’m sorry, but no.” I replied, feeling no pressure despite knowing she was more powerful than me. Taking my muted emotions into account, I paused to think a bit longer about my words to make sure I don’t say something rude.

“My soul-space was created when I killed that guard. His soul ended up there, and I believe some of it was used as a powersource.” I replied honestly, but decided to not mention anything about the message with ‘Endro’ just yet. Maybe once I learn more.

She was silent for a few seconds, before nodding. “I see… What do you plan on doing now?” she asked, massaging her hands as she stared at me. “I don’t know how to leave this place on my own, so I want you to wake me up in the actual world and tell me this wasn’t a dream.” I answered, it was the only way I’d believe that this was all real, it was the only way I could believe anything with this invisible force on my emotions.

“Fine.” she replied, resting her chin on a palm. “But I want to know more about your soul-space after that.” she added, and I suddenly felt hand shaking my shoulder. The world around me quickly faded to black and I once again fell, waking up with a start to see the… most succubus-like Starlight in front of my eyes. “It was all real.” she said as I rubbed sleep sand out of my eyes. Jesus, so it’s all true then, everything was real, I do have a strange power in this world… but it was powered by souls.

After having my emotions repressed in the soul-space, the anxiety hit me harder. Taking a shaky deep breath, I tried to process my emotions and the situation that caused it. Using souls to empower that place was evil, it was completely awful, and I would never do it unless I absolutely had to for a reason more than just petty survival. If the upkeep failed and the soul-space collapsed, I didn’t know if I would still be alive, but there was an alternative: Registration fees. I just needed to find a way to gather soul power without hurting people, that was it.

Knowing my problem and having a somewhat viable solution, I felt a lot more at ease. Next, I looked at the impatient devil still leaning over me. “How did you move your body here while you’re still there?” I asked in a low voice, not wanting to disturb the other’s sleep. “Practice.” she answered with a smug smile. “Well, it’s also because this isn’t an actual body, it’s just a vessel, if you remember what I told you.”

“I see… How long was I asleep for?” I asked, gently making her shift so I could sit up. I saw the blood samples on the other side of the room, she hadn’t woken me up because they stopped working, so maybe it hadn’t been too long?

“It’s been half an hour at most.” she replied, looking at the blood samples. “They’re both losing efficacy at the same rate.” she reported. So the soul-space and the real world didn’t have a time dilation… which didn’t explain why it felt like no time had passed inside since last night. It was also interesting to note that covering the blood didn’t have a noticeable impact on the rate the anti-magic faded.

There was too much to keep track of, and just not enough time. Looking at my other party members, Arashi was still having a fitful sleep, while Nisha and Vildost seemed to be sleeping fine, and Kanako was pretending to sleep with her eyes partly open as she stared at me and Starlight. Well. She’s probably a light sleeper. One thing I knew was that if I could figure out how to make my hospital function, it could become a great asset, not just in helping us recover the sword, but on my journey to find a way back home.

“Starlight, I’m sorry, but I need to explore my soul-space for some time. Can you wait for half an hour then wake me up? I promise I’ll tell you more about it when I know more.” I told her, making a decision. When she didn’t argue, I laid back down and went to sleep. With my training in the army and as a doctor, it was the easiest thing in the world. I tried to think about the hospital as I drifted off, the office was naturally my first thought, as it had the most I needed to learn about.

Opening my eyes, I was sitting in my comfortable chair again in front of the monitor. The computer was off, even though I left it on, but I simply turned it back on, clicking on the words Hospital management when it showed up on the white screen.

This time, I clicked on Manage Patients / Staff, and a list appeared with only the name Gorgon Baire, listed as a patient. Clicking on him, I saw the same information as the tablet in his room, a discharge button, and section for ‘patient data’. Looking at that section, I saw a novel’s worth of information shoved into several sections. It was dense and hard to parse through, but it seemed to be his life’s story, his memories, rendered in emotionless clinical text. It was sad, and when I thought about the man, I already knew all of this, though not with as much detail. It seemed killing people gave me their memories, but as information and nothing more.

Clicking discharge, two options came up: Release soul, and Assimilation (+40🜍). I didn’t even need to click into Assimilation to know what it meant, it would consume the soul completely. Did that mean that a complete soul was 80🜍, assuming there was no loss in the transfer from them to me? Whatever the case, it was something I could never do, and so I chose to release the soul. There was a three second delay before a confirmation message appeared stating that the soul was released, and I was brought back to the list of patients and staff, completely empty now. There was a button called records at the bottom of the screen now, and clicking it I could see Gorgon’s details again. Maybe I’d read through this more one day, but I was pressed for time.

Going to the room took less than a few seconds, and I could see that it was empty, but still as messy as I left it. And my bloody pike was still there. Looking at it, I wondered if it was a copy of my weapon, or the actual weapon itself.

Leaving it there for now, I approached the door to Starlight’s library, where I found her waiting on the other side, staring at me as I entered the door. “You can come in if you want, I don’t mind.” I said, wondering why she was just standing there. “Entering someone’s soul-space lets them have some amount of control over you… I’d rather not.” she said, grumpily. “Does that mean you have control over me?” I asked, not feeling any different. “I can prohibit you from interacting with any of the books, that’s about it. But I don’t know enough about your space to risk anything.” she grudgingly replied.

I noticed she was being rather co-operative with me… I assumed it was because she wanted to know more about the hospital. Knowledge for knowledge… even if she was a devil, I felt some respect for that creed now. “Can you check if my pike is still there in the outside world?” I asked, getting a raised eyebrow from her. “What are you talking about, of course it’s there, where else could it-” she suddenly paused, raising a hand to her mouth. “It isn’t. It was right there last night, so where did it go? I only see the sheathe.” she questioned herself, turning away as she seemed to look harder.

Without saying anything, I stepped away from her library, quickly reaching the patient room and picking the pike up. Then I returned with the bloodied weapon. “That’s your pike, how’d you bring it here? You can’t even use magic!” she exclaimed. So it was confirmed, I could move objects here… but how do I move it back?

“I don’t know yet.” I simply answered. “I need to investigate it a bit more, but I might be able to do something useful with it soon if my guess is right.” I stated, holding off on explaining for now. She stared at me quite fiercely for a few long seconds, before slowly nodding and waving me off. It was obvious how much she wanted to investigate it herself, but I was glad for her reluctance.

Stepping out again, I went to my office and sat down at the computer, setting the pike down on my desk. Going back to the main menu I clicked into Manage Soul-space, bringing up the 3d map again. This time, the door to Starlight’s library was marked as the Auroral library. Clicking on it did nothing. I clicked on the now empty patient room and clicked to clean it. A confirmation appeared stating that the room wouldn’t be usable for 4 hours, but the process could be sped up for 10🜍. If I wanted to use it, then cleaning it manually might be better. I just needed to change the mattress and the sheets.

Ignoring that for now, I clicked into Add Facilities and looked closer at the lengthy list of facilities I could buy.

Director's journal

20🜍

A Journal that the Director can write into and read from through a mental connection. Cannot leave their domain, but its contents can be copied into any writable surface at will within the domain.

Supplier

100🜍

Purchase hospital supplies for 🜍. Terminals that can access the supplier function can be placed in staff-purpose rooms.

Shop

100🜍

Purchase general items for either currency or 🜍. The shop is a physical module, but can only be accessed through the Director’s terminal if no staff is assigned to the module.

Storeroom

80🜍

Bring items in or out of the hospital for a transfer fee of 0.1🜍 per item larger than 0.1 cubic meter in volume. Items larger than 1 cubic meter in volume cannot be transferred.

Reception Desk

100🜍

Bring living people into the hospital as either patients, visitors or staff. Also serves as the exit. A registration fee of 5% of the patient’s 🜍 is taken. The reception desk is a physical module, and assigning a staff member to it increases registration fee to 10%.

Staff facilities

100🜍

Hire and manage staff, create rooms for staff purposes. One free staff-purpose room can be built immediately.

Lost and Found

30🜍

Recover personal items and memorabilia in exchange for 🜍.

Information System

100🜍

Extract experience from stored patient memories, and organise all information from the Director's memories.

Communication services

90🜍

Send mail through the Mail service for 🜍 based on distance and difficulty of communication.

Surgical facilities

100🜍

Purchase supplies related to surgery, including scanning tools. Also builds a free surgery room.

Pharmacy

100🜍

Purchase known medicine for 🜍. The pharmacy is a physical module, but can only be accessed through the Director’s terminal if no staff is assigned to the module.

Domain control

60🜍

Allows the Director to expand or contract their domain in exchange for 🜍. Expanding costs more and is currently limited to twice the radius.

Continuous operation

120🜍

Time is no longer paused in the hospital when the director is absent, unless willed by the director.

Remote operation

90🜍

Allows the Director to control the hospital even when absent.

Upgrade to Tier 2 facilities (locked)

600🜍

Unlocks tier 2 facilities, 2 active staff members required.

-

There was a lot. Everything in here looked incredibly useful, but looking at Continuous operation, I learnt that time is indeed paused in the hospital when I wasn’t in it. And with Communication services I could possibly get in touch with Endro again. My eyes lingered on Lost and Found a bit, but my muted emotions let me quickly move onto the other items.

If I wanted to use this hospital to heal my party faster, the Reception Desk was a must so they can come and go. After that, I either needed the Supplier or the Pharmacy. All three costed 100🜍 and there were likely further costs beyond that… thinking about it, I decided that the Supplier was more important since I could get a replacement for the now ruined blanket and mattress from the patient room. That would leave me with 40🜍.

With a 5% registration fee, assuming they all had 80🜍 like Gorgon, I’d receive 16🜍. Assuming the cost of the items I needed weren’t too high, I might have enough left for the first upkeep payment? For now, the pike was stuck here, but there were replacements.

Deciding to act now, I purchased both upgrades, receiving a prompt on where to put the reception desk module. I put it at the other end of the corridor from Starlight’s library.

With 40🜍 left now, I went to the main menu, seeing a new option now added.

Manage Patients / Staff

Procure Hospital supplies

Manage Soul-space

Mail

Seeing it, I immediately clicked into Procure Hospital supplies to see a nearly endless list of various supplies. I can’t even list out a quarter of them. There were tabs that separated them into categories like medical tools, furniture, clothing, cleaning supplies and amenities, and thankfully there was a search bar. There were so many things like forceps, stethoscopes, pillows, bleach, needles, hospital gowns, and so on. The prices… were quite reasonable too. Most items cost less than 3🜍, with larger things like beds and cabinets going up to 10🜍 on the higher end. There were a few items that cost less than 1🜍, even.

Buying a new blanket, a mattress and some bleach a cleaning cloth and a pair of single-use gloves cost about 6🜍, and gave me a prompt of where to place them and brought up the 3d map. There was even a button marked default location : none. I clicked into the patient room and put them there. Wondering how to get rid of the bloody mattress and blanket, I went to Manage Soul-space and brought up the 3d map of the hospital again. Zooming into the patient room, I could see the individual items. With a bit of fiddling, I selected the blanket and mattress and I got the option to Store or Recycle. Clicking Recycle, the two items disappeared and I got a notification that I received 1🜍 back. Interesting.

Going to the room myself, the metal cot of the bed was empty, with the new supplies in a corner of the room. Putting on the gloves, I got to work and thoroughly disinfected the cot and some of the floor around it before putting on the mattress and the blanket.

Satisfied, I wanted to take a look at the reception desk when I felt a hand on my shoulder again. Once more, the world faded and I fell back into the void, waking up with a start, seeing the purple haired devil standing over me again. It seemed I ran out of time, but at least I set everything up. I had a lot of work left to do.

Previous | Index | Next