Piper, the vermite-exterminator Gallah mutt, visits Kassie, the vixen that he rescued from the sewers. She is recuperating at Roho's Hospice, having suffered a broken leg and a fractured arm, amongst other injuries. Piper learns that she was an apprentice to a healer, but that the healer had died, and that she was subsequently left on her own. Piper shares something of his own story, which bears some similarities, having served briefly on an airship to control pests, then finding himself left behind on Rephidim and forced to try to eke out a living on his own. Piper agrees to help the vixen by heading off to the inn where she was staying, to fetch her belongings.