Mark woke up feeling a lot better.

He was able to throw off his bedsheets and throw his legs over the edge of the bed, to stand under his own power, but only barely. Balance was difficult and Mark still had no Unionsense of the world, and all of his adamantium was gone, but he was already feeling better. He barely remembered last night.

He could smell again, at least. Mark hadn’t realized his sense of smell was gone until it came roaring back, along with his appetite.

The scent of butter and bread filled the air, smelling heavenly.

Mark left his room and entered the kitchen to find Sally making breakfast.

Sally turned. With worry rapidly transforming into soft joy, and with a soft voice and a gentle smile, she said, “Morning, Mark. You’re looking better. How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Mark looked around, trying to find Isoko and Eliot, because he had to actually look around to find them. He had no sense of anyone anywhere. He couldn’t see Isoko or Eliot, though, so he asked, “Are Isoko and Eliot here? I can’t feel them.”

Sally had a glint of something unkind in her eyes, but then that sight passed. Sally said, “Isoko is with Eliot, being his buddy for the day while he builds the tramway… So. Hey. I tried to get your adamantium back, but Aurora said that she wasn’t going to play favorites, and that you lost your fight… So. Uh… Sorry.” Sally smiled, adding, “But on the plus side! This shavallian stuff is very temporary. You got a big dose in your open wounds, but… Isoko cleared away the damage. I learned all about that stuff last night. It’s a concoction of poisons that paralyze the astral body. It takes a while to clear and healing doesn’t actually help… Or at least Freyala’s healing doesn’t help. I think Freyala has some sort of denial of healing shavallian happening, because it’s an old solution against criminals… But anyway. You’ll make a full recovery. Other good news! The only reason it worked so well on you was because Tartu’s Domain and those two wands that he snapped to cast those debuffing spells on you. Shavallian doesn’t normally work topically.”

Mark had practically collapsed onto a dining room chair while Sally spoke. All of that was very good stuff, but Mark got the impression that they had gone over all of that before. Mark furrowed his brow at the mention of wands, and at a memory that wasn’t quite working right. “I don’t remember him snapping two wands?”

“Eliot caught them on the cameras… Do you remember us watching the video?”

“Not at all, but I’d watch it again.”

Sally smiled a little. “You are feeling better.”

“I am, yes,” Mark said.

Sally nodded and tossed the pancakes as she said, “They were probably one-use generalized debuffers, to lower your Power Levels across the board and make you more susceptible to his Domain and the shavallian. He probably spent close to 15,000 gold leaf to take you down. He almost had a big payday, too…” Sally tensed, her back to Mark, and Mark unable to see her face. She was silent.

“I remember Aurora taking the adamantium as taxes,” Mark said, feeling a slight giddiness at that. Mark couldn’t recall the actual event, but he imagined how it had gone down, anyway. He imagined Tartu’s face falling while Aurora casually stripped him of his prize. He snorted, then gave a loud, “Ha!”

Sally turned, her face looking odd. “It’s funny?”

Mark shook his head. “Kinda? The adamantium will get used for the settlement, I’m sure.” Mark shrugged. “I lost a spar, Sally. It’s part of the Program, and this shavallian stuff is clearing up—”

“Why aren’t you mad?!” Sally exclaimed.

“I’m furious,” Mark quietly intoned.

Sally paused.

Mark was utterly furious, but trying not to be. Mark breathed, and after a moment, after the storm had passed, he continued, “But I’m not going to do anything serious. It was a spar, sanctioned in the Program, and Eliot didn’t get hurt, and I’m glad he didn’t step in, and Tartu’s team didn’t step in for him, so this was just a spar, between him and me, and I lost. It’s not the first time I’ve lost a spar…”

This loss stung deeper than others, though. This loss was personal, for some gods damned reason. Why the fuck did Tartu hate him so much? Mark found himself recalling last night, of some video that Eliot had taken of the fight.

Tartu had spoken about how healers should heal and not go into battle; Mark clearly remembered that much. There was… something about… how they were too valuable for the front lines? That seemed crazy, though. Healers were needed on the front lines most of all. And Mark wasn’t just a healer, either.

Mark asked, “What is Tartu’s problem with healers? You find out?”

Sally started, “Eliot…” She paused.

Mark looked to Sally.

Sally steeled herself, saying, “Eliot did some research…” She lost her words again.

Mark realized something. “You’re mad at Eliot?”

“Yes!” Sally said, practically exploding. “He was right fucking there and he let you get beat up! Like some fucking noble —just like he is!— he wasn’t willing to get his own hands dirty.”

Mark shook his head. “I’m not mad at Eliot at all. I asked him to stay back, and he did that. If he joined in then everyone would have gotten into a big fight.”

Sally sighed. “I know. You never get mad enough at anyone.” And then she Looked at Mark. “But Tartu planned that whole thing out, when he asked you for a solo fight, right? If Eliot had been involved at all, then you wouldn’t have gotten trapped and then shavallian’d. Eliot would have been able to disrupt any Domain that Tartu tried.”

… A dark rage simmered.

Mark had been tricked, huh?

Sally noticed. “So now you know why I’m mad at Eliot.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“It’s still not his fault, Sally.”

Being tricked and then getting stomped wasn’t anyone’s fault except for Tartu’s. Mark had expected Tartu to be honorable. To do a normal fight. A normal beating. They’d punch each other and then Mark would take the loss, and it’d be a good time for the camera. Or maybe Mark would have kept going for a win, and graciously let Tartu off with a warning not to take fights he can’t handle. Mark was never going to cut off feet; that’d be fucking crazy. A normal fight is all it would have been.

Mark had wanted to fight the guy because his Power of Domainer seemed cool. Tartu probably had a lot of tricks he could do with such a variable Power, for sure…

Too many tricks, it seemed.

And now Mark was mad.

The rage flowed, and Mark let it flow. He closed his eyes, and welcomed the dark rage flowing through his soul—

A spark.

A twitch.

The world flexed to something less grey, less dull. Mark opened his eyes and felt wisps of intent in the space around him, and sparks of adamantium inside of his bones. His Power was already coming back, and that was a world of relief. Mark almost forgot his anger, now that he knew, for sure, that this downtime would be short-lived. But as he left his eyes open, his Unionsense vanished and his sense of adamantium faded into the background. Panic threatened. So Mark closed his eyes again, meditating in the dark for several heartbeats. He recaptured his Unionsense. When he opened his eyes, when he stopped focusing wholly on his Power, his extra senses and limbs vanished, but they were coming back.

This was fine.

He was healing.

He would be healed.

He was fine.

Sally set a plate of pancakes down in front of him, quietly asking, “Your senses come back yet?”

With heavy relief, Mark said, “Yes.”

Sally smiled a little. And then she turned serious again. “So you want to go out and kick his whole team’s collective ass? Four on four would be fine, right?”

Mark snorted a laugh. “I don’t want to kill them, Sally.”

“Just cut off some feet and make them walk home on stumps.” Sally nodded. “A fine recompense if ever there was one.”

Mark winced. “Was that too much?”

“Yes,” Sally declared, cracking another smile. And then she shrugged. “Or maybe it wasn’t too much. People are already talking about you being a little crazy. Others are calling it a completely reasonable response to trauma.”

Mark snorted. “I’m sure we’ll fight again, but before we do I want to figure out how he did that at all, so I can replicate it with Union shut down Powers on demand.”

Sally stared at Mark a little. “… Uh? Would that be possible?”

“I have absolutely no idea what he actually did to me, but I want to know. I want to learn. And then, I’ll never be vulnerable to that ever again.” Mark said, “I’m sure if I find the right words and ideas I can replicate it, too…” With complete conviction, Mark said, “If Freyala can choose not to heal it, due to some godly compacts, or whatever, then she can choose to inflict it, too, and maybe I can do the same.”

Sally was right there with him, highly interested and serious. “Eliot did some research into shavallian. It’s high-class alchemy. He wasn’t able to find out much, except that it’s a controlled substance and it has a well-documented history of effects. It’s Mage Secrecy stuff.”

For the briefest of moments, Mark’s mind went to Grand Mage Rekaro Solari. He thought of seeking answers from him. Almost instantly, he remembered that the guy was Tartu’s father, and Rekaro had been less than helpful about other magical learning, anyway. The guy avoided talking with Mark about anything and everything, and Aurora had already offered to help Mark and Isoko learn flying magics outside of Mage Secrecy because she had foreseen… She had foreseen a lot of this happening, hadn’t she? She had.

Huh.

Archmage Blackthorn of Memphi would probably know stuff, though.

And now Mark finally had a question for him. An archmage’s answer about shavallian would only cost him a kilo of adamantium, which should take about a week of normal living. So not a big deal at all. Getting that adamantium to the archmage’s hands, back in Memphi, and having a chat with the guy was a much bigger issue.

Mark shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”

Sally smiled a little, and then pushed the syrup toward him, saying, “Enjoy the syrup while you can! This is the last one we get unless you want to spend points on extras.”

Mark happily dumped syrup over his pancakes, saying, “Not a problem. I was making 100 points an hour just healing people.”

“Syrup is 1,000 points per gallon.”

Mark balked, rapidly pulling the bottle up to stop the flow. “The fuck?” The bottle felt heavy in his hand, but not nearly as heavy as it should be. It was barely half full. “… But my pancakes!”

Sally snorted a laugh. “Extra syrup is extra expensive. We still have our normal allotment; same Basics as everyone else.”

Mark stared at his pancakes, swimming in syrup. “That’s fine, then.”

Sally grinned. “So, they’re allowing rebates if you take on certain foods, and I was thinking, instead of that fish you like, of getting some cricket cakes for dinner—”

“Not eating bugs! Feed the bugs to the fish and then we eat the fish!”

Sally laughed.