First off, one resource for healing help is the help files available in game. [To access them, type: ?healing.]

Thinking about learning healing, but it's not your first skill? Try this out then.

Now, when you start out with healing, you get a whole set of supplies. Inside of your sack, there should be a sturdy cloth bag, which you'll most likely be using for the rest of your healing life. You can wear it if you want and let everyone know you're a healer or just keep it inside a sack. Inside of that bag are your healing supplies. Most of them you can't use yet, but don't dump them so quickly, you'll be able to find a purpose for them later on.

A list of supplies and the skills that use them are in Supplies.

Healers start with five basic skills:
(to see how to perform any new additional skill, type: SKILLS ?)

Rouse	rouse <person> with salts
Administer	feed <food/liquid/herbs> to <person>
Bandage Wound	bandage <part> with bandage
Arrow-pulling	Not Available
Diagnose	diagnose <part>

To use your healing skills, you TEND <person> or HEAL <person>.

Bandaging is the most important thing you've got, so you'll want to get more bandages before you're caught without any. Where can you buy them? Iskara in the Hospice sells them.

Experience

New healers can start gaining experience by bandaging and diagnosing wounds, or if someone is willing to be the patient, new healers can also force food down patients' throats.

If you can't find any patients, then you can find a nice place to sit down and tend to yourself. You don't need wounds to diagnose but it is an average skill (thus, harder to do) so it may be easier to just find a rat to scratch yourself up and then use the Bandage Wound skill (an easy skill) to bandage the wound. Some people prefer the hand or head since it's simple to just rip the bandage off and then slap it back it on without removing armor or clothes. The first skill to learn would probably be to Remove Bandage because you can get twice the experience by removing bandages and then bandaging the wound again.

Another good way to gain experience is to go to the Hospice [WALK TO the HOSPICE]and go to the room south of Melilia. An attendent will announce the bed number that a patient is occupying and you can go heal them. Typically, the patients in the beds through the arches need stitching or splinting while patients in the rooms straight south need only only bandaging.

To heal the patients in the Hospice, first tend to them and then ask them "What happened?". They'll respond with the problem and you can get to work. When you're finished, just say anything to the patient again and s/he'll pay you and leave.

A complete list of healing actions is in the training section.

Making Money (Or not)

As I said before, healing isn't a profession for making money. Most healers don't charge because healing's a profession of good will. Sometimes, people do pay anyway and those payments usually range from a couple of denar to few cents. Charging for healing will usually be like cutting yourself in the foot because some people would pay (or donate) higher than what you would charge. The patients in the Hospice pay you according to the service rendered, from 5 denar to 40 denar.

Getting Patients and Keeping Them Alive

Now, what's the point of doing all this if you're not gonna use it? You've basically got three ways to get patients:

• Keeping thoughts open and answering calls for healers (the best way)
• Taking the first step and asking in thoughts if anyone needs a healer (Don't abuse this by asking too many times, people'll get annoyed and you might end up losing patients this way)
• Going around to the hunting places or where ever there's a lot of people and asking if anyone needs a healer (Don't abuse this either)

Diagnosing gives you more information on the wound (like if it's bleeding, broken, burnt, etc). Usually, you can tell by looking at a person which wound should be dealt with first. All wounds should be bandaged.

Bleeding
When healing bleeders, you should bandage and stitch the bleeding wound first before going over other wounds. (This tactic gives you a leg up in intelligence over Fiona and Melilia [NPC healers]...they'll just work their way methodically and ignore bleeding wounds) It'll reflect badly if the patient dies because he bled to death while you were trying to diagnose or bandage a wound that wasn't bleeding.

Bandaging doesn't stop the bleeding all the way. It stops the bleeding only temporary until the wound can get stitched. If the bandage falls off and the wound isn't stitched, the wound will break open and start bleeding again. Tourniqueting is also another measure to stop bleeding. Tourniqueting basically ties a bandage above the wound to cut off blood circulation to the wound. It's an average skill so it's easier to learn than stitching which is an difficult skill.

Broken Bones
Broken bones must be splinted (average skill) and if possible, aligned. Setting bones is a difficult skill, however, and thus one of the least used.

Burns
Burns should have burn salve applied to them.

Indigestion and/or Poisoning
Strange as this sounds, indigestion can get pretty serious. It usually happens when patient ate something he shouldn't have, like tobacco or raw meat, and begins throwing up. Sometimes, it gets bad enough to the point of dry heaves. They usually can't feed themselves because they're too stunned. At this point you'll want to administer a vial of Stomach Settler, usually a sip is enough. Occasionally, you'll want to administer some food too, especially if it's dry heaves because they're probably starving at this point and death isn't too far around the corner. (Yes, you can die from starvation)

With poisons, you'll usually see blood oozing through the patient's pores or some other disturbing symptom. If they can't feed themselves, then you'll want to administer Blood Tonic. A sip is usually enough. With poison, sometimes vomiting also occurs, but once the poison is gone, the vomiting will come to a stop.