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The Weary Spirit Infirmary (Sigil, Hive Ward)
The Weary Spirit Infirmary is a horrible place with a history to match. Founded by a man named Rednir Tetch, a man who lost a loved one to an incompetent temple healer, the Weary Spirit was created to be a place of science, to study the humanoid body and find cures for injury and illness that didn't depend on the capricious whims of the gods and their fallible servants.
As noble as that goal sounded on paper, Tetch's approach to realizing it was nothing short of nightmarish. The staff and doctors of the Weary Spirit saw their patients (almost exclusively the poor and desperate of the Hive) as raw materials and experimental subjects to be used and discarded as necessary. Sanitation was almost non-existent, and for every ten patients admitted, only one was usually lucky enough to survive. And even then, they usually left something behind… typically just an arm or a leg if they were lucky.
Over time the Infirmary attracted the sort of orderlies and doctors that could thrive in such an environment; bullies, sadists, and madmen. Cures and treatments included bone straightening, amputation, trepanation, leeches, or invasive and often unnecessary surgery. The promise of free meals and a warm bed were used to lure the desperate and the foolish in for treatment, but most Hivers knew the place as a sinkhole of madness and death.
Many wondered why the people of the Hive didn't band together and tear the place down. In truth, Hivers rarely show solidarity with each other, and a common culture of selfishness, hate, and cruelty ensured they never did. But the Weary Spirit was also rumored to have wealthy backers among the city's Factions and elsewhere. For all his madness and cruelty, Tetch was a man of science. While his cures were usually deadly, some of his research was useful enough to be worth gold to somebody, and the Infirmary received the funding it needed to remain in business.
This ended when the Planeswalkers attacked the Weary Spirit to rescue a Githzerai kidnapped by an illithid “doctor” in the Infirmary's employ. After the guards were either killed or driven out, Tetch was captured and detained, eventually handed over the Harmonium along with a stack of documents implicating him in various crimes against the people of Sigil. (14, 15)
The Infirmary was temporarily ran by Grant Kendrall and a group of Githzerai loyal to Helga Slaughter. Against impossible odds, they tried to turn the Weary Spirit into a true hospital offering proper healing and relief to the people of the Hive. As their reputation spread, however, the crowd of poor and desperate wretches at their door grew longer, taxing their scant resources to the breaking point.
Following the trial, conviction, and execution of Rednir Tetch, the Believers of the Source purchased the deed for the building on auction and put their resources towards funding and staffing it, using it both for healing and for proselytizing their philosophy to the disadvantaged of the Hive.
