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"What about before a test?" someone asked.
Farik shook his head. "No, I don't think that would help like you want. You see, all of these plants have side effects. Nature makes some very impressive chemicals, but they're rarely without risk. Red Windroot would ease your anxiety, but it would also dull your mind enough to make it hard to remember the information you'd learned. Recall is slowed. Reactions can become sluggish. You feel addled. Taking more only makes you sleepy. Taking too much will cause toxicity in your liver. Chronic use would lead to death within a year. It's a medication that we use sparingly."
Then he moved to the next plant. "This one? It makes false tomatoes. It's called, of all things, a false tomato plant. The fruit it grows is small, usually half the size of a common tomato, but the skin is a dark red, verging on black in some cases. The fruit itself is bitter. Ingesting it will make the eater vomit and suffer debilitating diarrhea for up to two days. Eating too much - which rarely happens because of the bitterness of the fruit - can cause intestinal ulceration, and blood in the stool. It is hard to reach a fatal dose with the fruit itself, and yet drying and grinding the seeds..."
"Poison," I breathed.
Farik just pointed at me. "Exactly. Now say it louder, Nariana."
"The powder can be used as a poison," I repeated.
"And that is why these plants are here," Farik said. "The first symptoms of Tarey poisoning - "
"What's Tarey?" the guy beside me asked.
Farik murmured before gesturing back to the plant. "Tarey fruit is the official name of the plant," he explained. "But the first symptoms of poisoning is vomiting and diarrhea. This quickly leads to dehydration, followed with dark brown urine. Without treatment, the victim will have organ failure within the week, often as soon as three days after ingesting the toxin." He lifted a finger. "So why do we have this in our garden?"
Wen gasped and sat straighter. "It's a constipation medication, right?"
"Exactly," Farik agreed. "In very small and controlled doses, this can ease the guts. In a broth or tea, it can cause vomiting - which is useful if something worse was swallowed." Farik gestured across all the plants. "Mixing these medications is one of many options for those on the Path of Action. Dispensing them is the duty of those of us who practice medicine. Growing them is yet another option, and with our greenhouse, they are kept producing all year long. Sadly, the need for medication isn't something that follows the seasons."
Then he leaned his hip back on the desk and crossed his arms. "However, because these things are so easy to get, they are just as easy to abuse. Void Colwort, as an example." He tapped the next plant in line. "Smoking the leaves can create hallucinations. This is a recreational drug often used in poorer areas of Calseth. For us, we use a tincture from the sap as the basis of anesthesia. Injected into the vein, it renders the patient unconscious for a short time, and they wake with fantastical dreams and a feeling of euphoria. That euphoria helps with pain.
"The problem is when too much is used." Farik paused to look at each of us. "Often, we see signs of overuse. In minor cases, this can be treated and reversed. In other cases, only comfort care can be offered, and those patients are often recommended to the Temple of Compassion for end-of-life care."
"Not here?" Wen asked.
Farik shook his head. "Compassion has entire units dedicated to end-of-life care. Even our own priests will often be moved there so they can receive the most dignified end. On the flip side, we usually have one or two people a year brought to us by the Path of the Body. Can anyone guess why?"
All heads turned to me. Unfortunately, I had no clue either, so I shook my head. Farik patted the air, making it clear that he hadn't expected us to have the answer.
"Because Priests of the Body go into patron's homes. There, they might notice someone acting differently, especially if it is a regular patron. The Temple of Temptation, just like all the other houses of the gods, is here to serve everyone in Calseth, not simply ourselves. So, if a patron might be ill, they can be brought to us, or a Priest of Action can be sent to them. Sadly, poisoning is more common than most would like to admit, and it is often an expedient way to end a marriage or remove someone seen as an obstacle. It doesn't matter if that's in a job, a romance, or anything else."
"So how would we know?" I asked. "Because I'm likely going to be that person in the house, how would I tell if someone is sick or being poisoned?"
So he proceeded to list off the most common signs and symptoms. Jaundice was what was most often noticed. When it came on slowly, the yellowing of skin and eyes could be overlooked, assumed to be poor lighting, or a million other reasons why people swore nothing was wrong. Vomiting was the most common symptom patients admitted to, because diarrhea fell into the class of things that most didn't discuss in polite company.
Then he moved on to discussing how we could tell if food or beverages might not be safe. "This," Farik said, lifting up what looked like it would grow into a tree or bush, "is called Orange Thimbleberry. In the autumn, the leaves turn a beautiful orange color. In the late spring, the bush is filled with small white berries. It's a common decorative shrub, found lining the perimeter of most houses in the city of Calseth."
"What does it do for us?" Wen asked. "I mean, since you have it here."
He nodded at her in approval. "I see you're catching on. Well, those berries can be dried and ground into a powder. That powder will ease bruising, draw fluid from abscesses, and in very small doses will lower blood pressure when ingested. Very small and very controlled doses! Because, when too much is taken, it will stop the heart. Blood pressure will drop until the heart simply cannot function, and the patient will die - fast. From drinking to death will take no more than six hours."
That made everyone around the room begin to murmur. This was true poison. It wasn't a case of accidentally taking the wrong thing, or possibly someone mixing up one herb for another. It was a medication that could kill just as easily as heal.
"Would we even know if someone had taken it?" asked a girl near the back of the room.
"Yes," Farik assured us. "The dried berries are so intensely white, that when adding it to food, it gives it a chalky look. When mixing it with a drink, it looks like cream was added, but it will also curdle milk. That makes it a poor poison, and easy to catch before eating. However, it makes it very tricky to use as medication. Dosages must be exact, and pushing the threshold can cause patients to become dizzy, faint, or have heart issues for a short time. It also smells atrocious. We typically mix it with citrus to mask the unpleasantness as much as possible, but that merely makes the stench bad, not gagging."
"So not a common way to dispose of someone?" I asked.
"It actually is a common way to try, while still rare," Farik admitted. "Which is why I bring this up. If a patron mentions such a thing, it means they are at risk, and when Orange Thimbleberry fails, it's not uncommon for them to move to a less obvious, if slower, method. Sometimes, that potential victim could be one of you. Many times, it's the guardians or their desires. Husbands become jealous of their wives seeing a Priest, as an example. Wives are annoyed at the questions we often ask, or worried about that information getting to the wrong person. Regardless of why, the immediate care for someone who ingested poison is all the same." He pointed back to the first plant. "We make sure to get as much out as quickly as possible by inducing vomiting."
I was starting to get a whole new appreciation for the Path of Action. Not just the medical part that I found so exciting, but everything else around it. The thought of growing all of these plants that could either heal or harm? The exacting nature that must be required to make the medications for Farik and other physicians to use?
Action always got more credit than the Path of Obligation, and I was starting to understand why. Outside the temple, Obligation's work would be considered menial, or cheap. Action's duties were those that people referred to as "skilled labor." While both Paths were designed to serve the rest of the temple, the differences were finally starting to make sense in my mind.
The temple couldn't work without either Path, and yet their work was ignored as being less glamorous than Word, Body, or Protection. If anything, Action had to be as educated as Word, but they actually put their knowledge to use. The Priests of the Word merely studied for the sake of knowledge. Action did it to make lives better.
