The Physic Garden

No noble carriage meets Doctor Maren Aske at the dock. No lord sent for her—the local village tenants pooled their last coppers in a wool pouch to bring her here. "Marsh fever has broken out in the villages below the keep," she explains. "The only cure is feverwort growing in the overgrown physic garden beneath the crag, but the lord charges thirty silver at the dungeon gate—a fee neither the villagers nor I can pay."

First, Doctor Aske leads you to a village tithe barn where forty sick tenants—most of them children—lie shivering on straw pallets while two women boil cloth bandages. "Marsh fever kills slowly; the youngest have less than a week. I can hold the fever at bay with willow bark until you bring up the feverwort, but I'm too old to climb down into the crag garden myself, and the sick desperately need clean water and broth."

At the foot of the crag, the fee collector has abandoned his table to get out of the rain. Beyond the stone doorway, walled garden terraces step down into a cavern lit by ancient sun-lamps—though something large and hungry has been trampling the herb beds.

The steward receives you inside the dry gatehouse, where bundles of harvested feverwort hang drying from the rafters overhead. "The lord's gardeners cut plenty every spring. Three sacks will cure forty pallets, and my price is sixty silver. The villagers can thank my lord's generosity, and you can thank me."

Your crew returns from the cavern stained green to the elbows with three full sacks of fresh feverwort—more than enough for the village. Doctor Aske distills the cure overnight, and by morning the children's fevers have broken. At noon, the lord's steward marches down to the barn demanding to know who paid the gate fee and offering to buy your surplus herb.

The three sacks of dried feverwort are just enough to brew the cure, with nothing left over. Doctor Aske runs her copper still in the barn all night, and by morning the first children are sitting up and asking for broth. With her work finished and no permanent post ashore, she packs her medical bag while the grateful villagers gather around your crew.