Kira was a skilled lockpicker and easily picked the lock on the general store's side door.
Inside the Old Barrel General Store, everything was just as it had been when Renato visited three days earlier. Shelves were piled in a corner, and odds and ends littered the floor.
In the open space at the center, Renato removed the female thief's leather breastplate, tore open her linen lining, and examined the wound.
The assassin who had stabbed Kira knew his trade. The wound, a little over an inch long, lay directly over her heart. Any ordinary person would have been well and truly dead.
"You're lucky, Kira. Your heart is naturally farther to the right. Now, bear with me."
He took out a small bottle of alcohol he had found in Petro's Bag of Holding and flushed the wound, washing away blood and any debris that might have lodged inside. Fresh blood gushed out with the alcohol and ran onto the floor.
Though the blade had missed her heart and lungs, its tip had severed several blood vessels. A Healing Potion could not save her, only delay her death.
"Aaargh! F***, that f***ing hurts!"
Renato gripped a parchment scroll. This was his first time using a spell scroll. This scroll of the first-level spell Cure Wounds was another of Petro's "belongings left behind."
He did not know why Petro had not used it. Perhaps the situation had been too urgent, leaving him no time to heal.
"Renato, do you remember how I just told you to use the scroll? Do you need me to explain again?"
Seeing Perly's concerned gaze, Renato took a deep breath and untied the ribbon around the scroll. The parchment trembled faintly, and its runes gleamed.
On closer inspection, each rune brightened in a regular rhythm, almost