Arcanist - Chapter 38

  The frequencies danced wildly over the Resonance as Valens focused on a worm nibbling at the lung of the unfortunate man. It wasn’t alone, as a host of them tried to gobble down the whole thing, oozing with pus and rot and anything wicked that he could think of. 

“Blergh,” Marcus belched out in the back, one hand pressed hard into his stomach, emptying his sins and wrongs into a bucket Celme had fetched from the carriages down the road.

“Can you do something about it already?” Valens scowled over his shoulder to Celme, who was busy patting the man on his back. “Whatever that it is, it’s clearly not working.”

“What do you want me to do?” the Berserker glared him one of her sharpest glares. “He’s at it for some time. I’m sure there’ll be nothing left soon.”

“So we’ll wait for him to be off with anything in his belly? That’s not wise.”

“But practical.”

“Not wise, and it reeks here.”

“It’s coming from those worms, not Marcus.”

“Really? I don’t smell it.”

“That’s because you’ve both your hands deep in that man’s guts. Take a step back, then you’ll understand.”

“Uh,” Valens grunted, turning back at the patient. It was the most severe case he’d seen during the short time since he’d turned this tent into a healer’s den. The rotten mana that animated the skeletons had infected the tissues of the man’s lungs. That wasn’t anything special on its own, but those infected tissues were turning into bloody worms at an alarming rate that flooded the man’s innards.

Keeping the Lifeward active around the area, Valens felt his hand squelch through the wriggling guts as he sent a Lifesurge up the lungs. Lifemana could kill these worms off with a wave, but to stop the constant reproduction he had to carve out the infected parts of the lungs while making sure they were still supplying enough air for the man to breathe.

Not that he’s in the mood for breathing.

He clicked his tongue at the fact that he didn’t have any sedatives to send the man into a blissful sleep. With him wriggling and jerking at every stab of pain, Valens had no other option to go elbow-deep in his guts. His new robe was all soiled with rotten blood already, and it was seeping inside, wet and sticky down his legs.

“I need hands!” he demanded at the indifferent guy who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, clearly not interested. “Hey, will you be interested in keeping this man from killing himself,” - he ducked under an arm swinging mindlessly toward his head - “and me!”

Garran shrugged and turned his head without uttering as much as a word.

“Some holy warrior, you are,” Valens spat. “So much for your Sacred Father, eh?”

Celme came stumbling over to the stretcher when Marcus went silent to Valens’s back, and fixed the man’s arms to both sides. Trouble was the man, like others, was a Level 100 Warrior with a handful of stats poured into Strength and Endurance, which was why Valens had to duck away at every swing of his arm unless he wanted to be flung away from the tent like a broken kite.

Would’ve been nice for a change.

Smoke started wafting off from Celme’s skin shortly, the woman using some skill of her Berserker Class which proved quite effective at keeping the man in place. He might as well have turned into a little kid by how he couldn’t even move an inch under Celme’s bloody hold.

“Good,” Valens said, feeling the worms with a Lifeward. He slashed a part of the lung with the tip of a Lifesurge, letting it resolve into a wave of lifemana to heal the area, before moving on to another part from which spilled hosts of worms into the man’s innards.

Flush. Cut. Stitch. That was the rhythm of his working, and slowly, painfully the lungs were cleared out of the angry worms trying to seep inside.

“Oh,” Valens breathed when the last stitch was done. Enough blood poured down from the guts that the man went ghostly pale, but his stats were doing some work under there, and Valens appreciated the little help. “Done with that, but guess this one’s not walking out on his own. Take him away, and give him some water.”

The normal procedure would be to keep an eye on the patient for a day or two in case the infection flared back, but normal hadn’t been a case for Valens lately, and it was much less here in primal conditions. 

But they have stats. I have stats. I need more. More of everything.

His mana reserve wasn’t much different than a roaring river by his heart, barely dwindling after having treated a number of patients. Granted, the pair of Lifesurge and Lifeward skills were nothing in comparison to keeping the Inferno active, but by general standart, he couldn’t have healed even a dozen people if he were to be, say, a Level 20 Arcane Healer.

“You’re sure you want to continue?” Celme asked as two men from the Duality Guild came to carry the patient outside. She looked worried. “Elmbury is not far here—“

“I’m good. This is good,” Valens said. He appreciated the gesture, but he felt oddly liberated working with the patients. Sure, the nature of the job had taken a different turn, and some cases were strangely twisted in a way that poked at the intelligent part of his brain, but either way the act of healing gave him a much needed relief. 

Trying a little too hard, aren't we?

He shook his head. Breaking the oaths was one thing, but it didn’t make him any less healer. A complicated one, perhaps, but he was due some complication considering how strange of a world he’d come to.

“I need this,” he said when Celme lingered there by his side, staring at him as though she didn’t believe him. “Fetch the next one, for me.”

“Right.”

…..

It was always bleak and dreary in the countryside, with dark clouds stirring anxiously over the naked trees, spread across the sky like a shroud too thick for anything to pass through. It would be raining soon, and it meant the roads would get muddy with the deep puddles waiting to catch any hoof just to add yet another hurdle to the already burdened people who had yet to migrate to the big, bad cities.

Captain Edric Solmere didn’t mind the weather. He liked it, even, as a hawk might like an occasional trip through the woods whenever its master decided to grant it some freedom. Off the cage of the brick monotony of Belgrave, for a change, off with the smoke belching out through the factories, the stench of manastones burning in the pits of fire, feeding into the ever-greedy bowels of the machine that is the capital.

Not by choice, of course, but you have to learn to cherish the little things. No other way round to go about your life. That’s what his Father told him once, before he excused himself out of his life with a rope round his neck.

You have to cherish the little things, Edric reminded himself as he gazed across the bare patch with dozens of broken men suffering in silence. Over his shoulder, toward the tents where the Sacred Father’s Priests were at work, then back at the tent he’d just stepped out. The other lines barely crawled on while the men carried inside by the armpits or over the stretchers walked out on their own from the Healer’s tent at every passing minute.

He wondered whether he should be angry with the inefficiency of the Priests, or the sheer foolishness of a guild going for a bite that’s clearly bigger than they could ever chew. Such things weren’t uncommon in Broken Lands, but here in Haven’s Reach there were certain rules to prevent mass deaths.

Somebody must've pulled some strings, then, to get the rights of the Rift from the authorities. Not to mention each and every one of the men here was clad in the Golden Church’s armors. These were not entirely considered as Sacred Artifacts, but were decisively close to anything magical a Blacksmith could make.

Edric squinted at the man who was ordering about the others as he passed through the tents. He wore simple robes smeared with stains of rot, and had a face that spoke of some respectable quality. An air of aura clung to him, suppressed masterfully but still felt by Edric’s deep perception.

[Lightmaster - Level 217]

A Light Mage? 

Now, that was a man who shouldn’t have belonged to some no-name Guild. Mages were already scarce in number, and a Light Mage with Two Trials under his name was a force to be reckoned with. A simple walk round the Broken Lands would have gotten him more invites from famous Companies than he could’ve counted. It made little sense as to why this man had chosen to lead a bunch of Pretrial people into a C-Tier Rift.

“Lightmaster,” Edric said as he neared the old man, giving him a quick nod. The battle-worn men of the guild snapped suddenly at his voice, eyes widening as they took sight of him. Hesitation. Fear. Uncertainty. Edric scowled at the mixed responses. “A word, if you will?” 

“Templar,” the Lightmaster said, and gestured at the other men to give them some space. The old man, as expected, handled himself with the confidence of a Master, barely flinching at Edric’s shining armor. “What do we owe your holy presence here on this dark day? I certainly didn’t expect to have a Captain of the Sacred Father’s Church be here to welcome us.”

“A coincidence,” Edric said, weighing him with a glance. “There has been a haunting case in Elmbury, and our service was needed. Some work of the bloody moon the other day. I see that you were a little busy here, as well? Things didn’t go as planned, I presume?”

“A Necromancer with a horde larger than we expected.” The Lightmaster’s answer was short, succinct, to the point that it made Edric think the man didn’t want to go too deep in detail. “But we managed to pull through.”

“Well, some of you clearly didn’t.” Edric waved a hand at the pile of dead bodies by the side. “You of all people should know that is unacceptable, Lightmaster. There’s a reason why we let the appropriate people handle the high tier Rifts rather than sending our Pretrial kids to their own death.”

“I have found, respected Captain, that certain measures and preparations hardly translate into the reality I came to experience in the Broken Lands. Caution is a code I dearly cherish, but too much of it muddles the mind into believing that a man could do anything so long as he’s cautious. That’s not how it works, though, is it? The horrors of Shadow don't always give an indication before they flood through the cracks round your skin. One has to learn how to deal with the unexpected.”

“Still,” Edric said with a scowl. “That doesn’t explain your suicidal expedition here. Who granted you the claim? I must—“

“I’ll have to stop you right there, Captain. Our permits are official and granted by His Majesty King Edmund, signed by the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor, aptly as law dictates. I should have the documents somewhere here. If you wish, I could have my men fetch them right away.”

Edric’s scowl deepened at the strictness of the Lightmaster’s speech. He didn’t have the authority to further question the old man’s true intentions with this Rift, nor was it his job to make sure the Rifts were cleaned and closed by the ones who had earned the claims of the rights. Besides, other than a handful of Priests, there were no extra measures taken against a possible Riftbreak here, which indicated that the authorities had some semblance of trust for this guild’s qualifications.

“What of the Healer, then?” Edric asked, pointing at the tent that odd man occupied. The line there streamed in and out in a quick fashion, the speed of which tempting the other lines where men had to wait in constant agony. “Surely you have an explanation for him?”

“A God-sent saint, I daresay, who offered his services free of any charge. Happened to be crossing this particular stretch when we were crawling out that Rift,” the Lightmaster beamed with a smile that twisted his lines in a way that made Edric uncomfortable. “A boon from the Sacred Father, don’t you think, Captain? As usual, he works in mysterious ways.”

“Blessed Father,” Edric said, and kissed the knuckle of his right index finger, touching it round his forehead. The Lightmaster did the same albeit with much less passion. “Another coincidence, then, if we are to believe your words.”

“Why would you suspect an old man?”

“That’s the job,” Edric eyed him, then scowled at the guildsmen around them. They had snake-shaped patches over their armors, likely the insignia of their guild. Odd that. He could’ve sworn he’d seen that symbol before. He turned with a tight-lipped smile. “You learn to expect the unexpected in my field, as well, Lightmaster.”

“Very wise of you, I must say, Captain. Our Kingdom is lucky to have men like you.”

“The Riftshard,” Edric said, waving off the Lightmaster’s apparent attempt at muddling the matter. “You’ll be sending that to Belgrave to be delivered to the King’s Court, right?”

“You know the Riftshards belong to the nation’s treasury, Captain.”

“Another coincidence, then! As we were on our way back to the capital as well,” Edric smiled the man a good smile. “Blessed Father and his ways, eh, Lightmaster? I would gladly accompany your men on their journey.”

“But—“

“And I’ll be taking that Healer with me, too. Can’t have a saint like him wander about all alone in these dark times, can we? A godless saint, but a saint nonetheless, eh?”

The Lightmaster visibly stiffened at the last part. Edric reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “You might have some strings waiting at the fancy of your fingers, but with me, here, we’ll do this a little differently.”

Edric weighed him up and down as he expected another tell from the man. Perhaps a twitch of an eye, or a pull at his neck. This whole operation reeked of wrong, and he was meant to see through that stench for good. Poke at it for the Blessed Father’s sake, as they usually went about with most things.

“Of course, Captain,” came the reply a moment after, the Lightmaster giving him a nod. “My men would be glad to have your holy company across the way, though I wish not to bother you—“

“Oh, it’s not a bother at all, don’t you worry.” Edric waved at him, lips curling wide. “On the contrary, I feel quite refreshed now that I know we’ll be having some interesting company on our way. Gets a little tedious with the same men and same roads all month long. You would understand, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. Have your men prepared, then. Once the Healer is done with the wounded, we’ll be taking him back home.”

…..

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