ELN1817: ★ Sanzu 🌺

Few are willing to travel through Strynhalde's frigid wastes unless they absolutely must. The ice and snow alone make the trip difficult, and biting winds can quickly turn discomfort into danger. So why is it, then, that so many elnins leave through Skolvigaard's east gate to somewhere in the wilderness? What could make them so desperate to do so, even during the especially deadly months of Eyre's winter, when feyfolk wander and miasma flows over the land?

Much to Sanzu's displeasure, it's usually to see him.

It's somewhat of a mystery where Sanzu came from. Trinkets around his practice would imply that he may have come from Kyendi, or at least lived there for a time, but he's never been one to open up about his past. All anyone really knows is that he appeared in Skolvigaard one day with a disturbing amount of knowledge on the properties of living anima, then immediately inquired about a group of researchers in Strynhalde's wilds that hardly anyone knew anything about. After that, he vanished. Probably eaten by the abominable snownin, or frozen solid somewhere in the mountains.

However, just a few months later, travelers from Iorumund began asking about the doctor's office they saw outside the woods near Skolvigaard. No one knew what they were talking about- hardly anyone lives outside of the cities, and no one could recall seeing such a place, before. It turned out to be true; that strange, grim elnin had made himself quite comfortable out in Strynhalde's frozen wilderness. Stranger still, he was apparently running a doctor's office way out there. It wasn't exactly convenient for patients, which begged the question: Why?

The answer: It was never supposed to be like this. What was originally meant to be his private home, a quiet place to continue his research on anima and collaborate with like-minded academics, somehow became warped by word-of-mouth until everyone was calling it a "doctor's office" or "treatment facility." Despite his attempts to correct everyone who erroneously called it that, the building was known as "The Banshee's Clinic" within the year. He could hardly understand how it had happened.

The truth has two parts. The first is that Sanzu likes to take walks in the snow to clear his mind and sharpen his focus, and the second is that he can't stand seeing someone suffer. It became not entirely unusual for him to stumble upon delirious half-frozen "explorers" in the foothills and forests near his home, who were then dragged back to his house so he could treat them, yell at them, and then send them on their way. Not frequent, but just often enough that word began to spread of a ghostly woman who appeared during blizzards to rescue those in need of saving, only to reveal her terrifying true self...

Sanzu, who was neither a ghost nor a woman, was already stoic by nature and had little trouble ignoring these rumors when they found their way to him. However, it wasn't just rumors finding their way to him- after some time, elnins began showing up at his house on purpose. Word had apparently traveled about his particular expertise in treating complications relating to mana poisoning, and some long-suffering elnins began to come to him for help.

For Sanzu, this was unfortunately impossible to ignore. That didn't mean he needed to be nice about it- he was a scientist, not a doctor. If he was blunt, to-the-point, and sometimes even insulting to elnins that got themselves sick through their own foolishness, then that was what they got by going to him instead of a real hospital. Of course, he didn't ask for payment; doing that would only legitimize others' claims that he was, in fact, a doctor. That didn't stop grateful elnins from leaving food or other gifts outside his door to freeze overnight, but the attempt was there nonetheless.

These days, if one is in the region of Strynhalde seeking treatment for mana poisoning or other unique conditions of the anima, just about everyone will tell you to go to the Banshee's Clinic down by the woods outside of Skolvigaard. Whatever your malady, the doctor there will treat it, and refuse to charge even a single coin for it. Be warned- although his refusal of payment might make him sound like the kind and saintly type, the doctor is anything but. He has all the bedside manner of an enraged Daeva, and the poor elnins who come to him out of desperation sometimes finding themselves thinking they would have preferred to just stay sick rather than deal with Sanzu's expert care.