Chapter 49
Police States And A Treatment
As it turns out, I am probably worse than big brother, when I want to be. As it turns out, Lenny true to his word took all my details and rewarded me for them all. At first he sent runners and spies to check out the first few. Then he sent more unscrupulous people to investigate the potential blackmail components. Finally, after 13 additional information dumps, I finally got the message I had so desperately been wanting.
Daily Quest (Repeatable): Thieves Guild Information Specialist: You have found yourself filling in as Lenny ‘Lucky’ Bigsly’s personal information gatherer. Each time you find out a piece of information worth sharing, make sure you tell Lenny. Conditions: Actionable Information Provided (1/1). Rewards: Experience (100), access to rare consumables needed for your Bloodline Quest.
Ding.
Level up.
Your level has increased to 21.
I had consumed my second vial for the day, and had it so Lenny would keep a ready supply of the potent consumables ready for me. Mentally I went through everything that had just happened. After reading to my book club for three hours and gaining a total of 180 experience, I then left to find out about this new quest line with Lenny that I then completed a total of fifteen times, two initial, plus thirteen additional times. Also of note, I now have a retainer at Lenny’s where I can get any of my remaining thirteen Strange Elixirs of Bloodline Cleansing. This is good as it means I don’t have to worry about finding more dirt between today and tomorrow, and I have a week’s buffer to work with. Well almost a week, six and a half days’ worth, but that half should be enough to find more dirt. Also, the potions themselves work for twenty-four hours. Given that I need to take two a day, at a minimum, I decide I will take one on my way into my book club, and one on my way out to reset the timer to be three hours later. After that, I will share any new gossip I have found, and then be on my way.
But first I need an escort.
***
“You sure you want to do this?” Lenny asks.
“Yes, I promised him I would and I will keep my word.” I state in a tone that brokers no arguments. I am still enjoying the feel of the wind on my face. With these potions my eyes have healed slightly, apparently, they no longer look like cold dead things that speak of the dark cosmos and ether. Now they are a dark purple, still indicative of a royal dark elf, but one that has been removed from the Shade Touched bloodlines. This is good, as it means I am now recognized as a noble, but not a princess who will need to be pitted against other bloodthirsty elves to have her bloodline either activated or stolen.
“Very well then, you will go with Glenn, my personal butler.” Lenny states.
Glenn of course is the giant hulking brute of an orc who all but manhandled the security guard elf. If Lenny was over level 450, then Glenn had to easily be over level 300 as well. The only real difference being that Lenny was an assassin type build, while Glenn was a warrior type build. While Lenny tried to hide it, sometimes his motions were just too quick, especially when he thought no one was watching him. Of course, I never insinuated that I could monitor his movements at all. In fact, I even went the next step of making it seem like everything that happened within guild halls was somehow blocked to me. I still had more dirt on various people around the town, but those were going to be emergency turn ins. For now I didn’t quite have it in me to explain how I knew what was going on inside the secure guild buildings, without some serious shenanigans to my name. Especially when it was well known that due to the recent run-ins with high level renegades destroying the town, I have effectively been on lockdown at the Mage’s Guild. This was part of why Lenny was assigning me Glenn as my personal bodyguard for these official healer functions. As I was technically under Lenny’s care while out and about. That was part of the terms and conditions that were given to Lenny by the Mage Guild leader.
“Yes, sir.” Glenn said, in a very dignified accent that spoke much to a sophisticated upbringing.
Hearing him speak, I couldn’t help but be impressed. I all but knew that his speech was part of a skill, it almost had to be. Also, it was clearly a social skill, meaning that my learning it would help out my low Social skills. I also had to do something with my ever-increasing number of Free Points. Currently I was sitting on 30, if I knew what I wanted my overall build to be in the future this would have been easy. Logically my class build was built towards Willpower, but given that I was gaining two points in Willpower every level, using Free Points on Willpower seemed wasteful. As did spending Free Points on my other Attributes that I would need to increase. Finally, I decided to spend my 30 points on a three-way split between Perception, Endurance, and Strength. Why those three? Well Perception was directly tied to nearly half of what I was doing currently. Endurance just because I needed to be able to last longer, and finally Strength was because I knew eventually I might need to lift or break something that would require a massive amount of physical force. I also know that Strength based skills are ones that I don’t seem to practice very much. I could likely go with weight lifting, or something equally boring, but that would be a waste of my time, currently. I much prefer running, jumping, and climbing to just weightlifting. The only problem is that I have already maxed out those skills, and thus my related Strength gains from those skills are capped.
“Are you ready to go?” Glenn the orc butler asks, in a very dignified accent.
“Why yes my good sir, I do believe I am.” I say, trying to mirror his impeccable diction. Then without warning, I was hit with a system message letting me know that my intent to actually learn this new skill was received and accepted.
New Skill Gained: Proper Diction has increased to level 1. Skill Proper Diction is a Personality, Sociability, and Attractiveness based skill.
Yep, a purely social skill, but I can use a lot more of these in my life. I know I won’t be able to justify spending any of my Free Points on these attributes, and unless I get a class or race upgrade that improves my social attributes, my working on skills that improve these attributes will be my only way to improve them in the short term.
Seeing the skill and wishing to capitalize on it, I decide to try to keep working on the proper diction and mannerisms that I think royalty should possess.
“I bid you adieu Lenny.” I say with a slight curtsey, as I follow Glenn out of Lenny’s office. Then I follow Glenn at a calm and respectable pace through the town. I almost feel that I should be using an umbrella, though I don’t know if I have one that will go with my White SWAG cloak from the Mage’s Guild, something to think about. Maybe I can get one of those gun firing umbrellas that are all the rage? Then thinking about it, I realize that I would likely rather have an umbrella blade. Maybe one with multiple blades, the obvious one at the far end. Then the cast away model where I pull out the handle and then have dual wielding daggers. Again, I am proficient in the blade, as I knew having a way to at least defend myself would be important, though I have long since given up improving those aspects of my style. For now, it is a lot easier to play off the sweet innocent child look.
As we walk, I am the one who is actually guiding us, but Glenn manages to walk at such a pace and distance that he seems to be able to anticipate my every command and therefore makes it look like he is in fact the one escorting me. Though given that we are going to the house of one of the guild’s employees, Glenn might actually know the location and just adjust his pace to mine. Regardless it is a nice stroll. The sun burning down on my skin is the only indication I have that it is still daytime, though the somewhat cold breeze lets me know that it will soon be nighttime.
The more we walk, the more new locations become available to my all encompassing bubble of perception. I can see the way the town is spreading out, each train coming in seeming to bring no less than two new families who wish to set up a family. Even families wishing to relocate from upper floors are coming, though they are apparently seen as second class citizens. It isn’t anything official, it is the way they are all forced to build little shacks on the outskirts of town. The more we walk, the more I can’t help but realize that the house we are going to now seems to be near the same area of town, though this house seems to be of good solid construction. While the shacks the next lane over look like they are one good attack away from toppling over.
As we walk, Glenn doesn’t seem to react, though I know that some of the people we are seeing are orcish in nature. I want to talk about it, to ask him what he thinks, but I decide against it, especially not in public.
Finally, we get to the house.
Knock, knock.
“Who is it?” The battered voice of the security guard speaks up, sadly I still do not know his name.
“Mr. Polimus, it is the healer, she has come as promised to tend to your partner.” Glenn states, once again his formal manners and diction are nearly perfect. I nearly want to clap at hearing him talk, maybe give him a phone book to read. I know, I just dated myself with that reference, but still, he can speak in a way that even I want to listen and I have a short attention span.
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“Come in.”
Wait, what? Oh right, the sick woman that he wouldn’t take to the Mage’s Guild is here. Glenn opens the door, and I immediately make my way towards the patient, being sure to avoid obstacles and random items that are strewn everywhere. It is clear that she has likely been sick for a while, as the place is in disrepair. While it might have been messy before, it was clear that having to take care of the sick woman was creating even more piles of clutter. Not saying all men are messy, just this one clearly thinks taking care of his partner is more important than giving her a clean house to live in. My personal notes of the living conditions aside, I immediately go to the woman, and realize there is something odd about her.
I look at her, but again my eyes can’t see anything, all I see is there is a strange alien energy that is coming from a wound in her body. Pulling the sheet back, I try to reveal the area and see if I can get a better view of the energies, once the bed covers are gone.
Almost immediately upon removing the covers a few things happen all at once. First, there is a giant bright light that seems to erupt from her chest.
Groan.
At the sudden exposure to the elements, she begins to moan out in pain, that is the second thing. The third thing is that the guard, Mr. Polimus, begins to dart towards us as if to try to cover her up. Fortunately, before he can get to me Glenn is there, blocking his path.
“I can explain.” Mr. Polimus begins.
“You have a Blight Touched, here? And you let our only town healer come here?” Glenn demands, even with when giving a scolding, he sounds so dignified, it is amazing. But wait, what is this about a stain touched?
I apparently asked that question out loud as both Glenn and Mr. Polimus turn to me in unison.
“You do not know?” Polimus asks.
“Of course, she doesn’t, up until now we have been shielding her from this.” Glenn spits out angrily, “now we have all been exposed.”
I almost want to ask what it is they are talking about, but instead I just begin trying to connect my magic with the patient’s. “I do have permission to treat you?” I ask the woman who looks like she has been sweating a lot and has not had a bath in quite some time.
“Mmm…” She mumbles something, as her weak body tries to react to me while the other two are still talking behind me.
“I’m going to take that as a Mm-hmm,” I say as I begin channeling my healing energy into the fragile girl.
Instantly I notice that there is a spark of life, as the wound she has begins to pulse and come to life. For a second, I feel the form reach out and grab onto me. Instantly I do what anyone would do when you stick your magical tendril into a random girl and you feel something grab your tendril, I panic and try to pull out immediately. The only problem is this thing will not let go.
“What are you doing!” Glenn all but screams, causing me to panic as I shake myself and turn to look at him.
“What?”
“We just said she was Blight Touched, meaning she is part of why the lands will die out. And now, you have been infected with her corruption.”
Blight Touched, where have I heard that before? I think for a moment, then I remember Octavia De’Arcaneri of Deolar, my first real doppelganger body and the one who got her doctoral thesis by coming up with a way of curing the blight.
I remember she had created a weather spell that would help cure the Blighted lands, not that this was the same, but I couldn’t help but feel that the name was not that dissimilar. I also realize that this is likely the sign of something bad, as the Blight is something that should be impossible to stop. Yet, clearly there was at least one spell that dealt with stopping the blight from expanding on the land. As a healer, well a spirit healer, I feel that I am likely one of the best suited for healing this disease, at least the way I am seeing it, as this is clearly a spirit linked spell.
Focusing on the tugging sensation, I close myself off to the tendril, this is not unlike the way I close myself off mentally from other Telepaths. Just take my mental links and twist them shut. I twist my own mana feed shut as well, while at the same time trying to create more of my own strings to strike at and prod the mysterious entity. I don’t think it is sentient, but rather it is able to move and react to outside stimuli. I say this as I get the other tentacles around the sides of the alien energy source and just hover, but nothing happens. Again, either not sentient enough to sense its surroundings, or unable to reach scan its local environment for more sources that it feeds on, and it clearly feeds on mana.
That is one thing, this creature, or entity, whatever it is, it feeds off of magical energy. The sad part is, everyone has at least a Tier 0 in magic energy, this is just enough to make it so magical items will innately work with you. It also means that if this is a magical sucking entity, which if the way it used my tentacle like a straw and suddenly began to pulse slightly brighter was any indication, then I think this is definitely a magical entity. Oddly, I am curious to see if I can overfeed it or do other things. Of course, I cannot do this to a patient, but maybe if I was somehow able to transfer it to myself I could work on it in my lab. No, I instantly shoot down that idea, for the moment I want to see if there is a way I can rid this patient of this.
Focusing on the circulating energy source, I find its resonance, then I try spinning my own tentacles backwards in an opposing resonance frequency. I don’t quite know if this will work, but I believe that was something that Octavia noted as part of her research. Well it was, the main premise of her spell that she created, I also remember the spiraling patterns she gave to the magical spell she created. She had a slightly different process, as it was designed to clear an area of taint, versus a direct location, but I think the only difference in this case would be scaling. Remembering this, I find the resonance and then modify the energy until it is a small trickle.
GRRIINNNDDD!
Instantly I feel the pressure and torque of resistance of my spell jabbing into the magical blob. The magical blob turns and almost seems to focus on my tendrils, even going so far as to reach out and touch them. The moment it does, the parts of its own tendrils begin to flake and burn away, as they get consumed by my own magical resonance.
“Oh!” The woman says, as her eyes open up and she leans forward to stare at me.
“Stop, you are hurting her.” Polimus shouts.
“No, it’s fine, she just…” the patient trails off as they seem to look a little embarrassed. Only now do I realize that the blob is near a somewhat sensitive area of her chest and likely causing a few odd sensations to be felt by her.
“Sorry.” Say, as I fully intend to keep this going.
“No, it is…oh…” The woman says, turning her head away and blushing.
“What? What is it Jalinka?”
“Perhaps we should give the doctor and her patient some space, during this delicate time.” Glenn says, as he grabs Polimus by the shoulder and all but forcibly pulls him away. Instantly Polimus winces in pain, but they are gone, which is good as it allows my patient, Jalinka, to relax for a moment.
From there it is just a matter of time and will. Gradually I increase the amount of mana I am feeding into the motion, I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t hurt the patient. But now that I am fairly certain she is safe, I go on with little to no concerns for her health or actions. Then after a few moments, as the piece gets smaller and smaller, I begin to first make my exit points smaller, then finally I go so far as to cleanse my own dead tentacle that it grabbed onto immediately. As soon as that happens I feel a tingling sensation run up my entire body, and instantly feel like I am being tickled in my mana core. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible, but now I do. I can also see why Jalinka felt so awkward as that seemed to leave a tingling sensation all over, all over.
“Wow, that is…” I pause as I stop knowing that my own magical appendage is now cleansed as well and that I can stop with this process.
“Yes.” She says.
Deep calming breath.
“Okay, so that just happened.” I say to myself as I begin to stand up. “How do you feel?”
“Me? I feel great.” She says, once again removing the quilt and then touching her side. That glowing mark is gone completely. I now realize why it was glowing, the disease, this Blight was magical in nature and likely got its color from draining Jalinka’s personal reserve of mana.
At that I nod, though I feel a slight rush to my head as I am clearly exhausted.
“You, you did it?” Polimus says, as he rushes past me, nearly spinning me about like a top to meet his partner. Fortunately Glenn is right there to grab me and support me.
“Easy. That looked quite intensive.”
“Yeah, but it was sort of fun.” I say.
“Fun?” Glenn asks.
“Yeah, you know going out seeing a new shiny toy, breaking it with magic, fun.” I say.
Glenn just shakes his head at my comment. Apparently, I was done, as that was the cue for the system to reward me.
Hidden Quest Complete: The Blighted Bride: You found Polimus’ bride to be stricken with the Blight. You managed to heal her of her affliction. Rewards: Experience, New Spell, Reputation with the town of Crossroads.
Experience Gained: 500
Then just as the quest noted, I did get a new spell.
New Spell: Spirit Blight Purification (C): A spell designed by Cassiopeia Spiritlight to purge Spirit Blight within entities.
That was an awesome spell, I also felt alive knowing that I was given full credit for the creation of this spell, meaning that I so far was the only one who could use it. Unless I told others, or sold the way to use the spell to others, no one would get it. Well unless they deconstructed my spell and did a similar process, which would be tough for most people, especially those without Angel’s Sight, but I guess still do it. I could feel both my Spell Theory, and Magic Theory going wild at that but nothing truly beat the way the two lovers were now embracing each other.
“Thank you.” Polimus said, then lowered his head. “I,” he pauses as he is clearly at a loss for words.
“It is I who should apologize, as I am unable to heal you of your own wounds. Though I know that if I did your employer would only proceed to put them back on.” I say as I give a glance at Glenn.
Glenn for his part just gives a curt nod, “Tis so I am afraid. Your husband and his conspirator have been made examples of what happens when you cross Master Bigsly.”
I shake my head, having nearly forgot little Lenny is named Bigsly, such good irony. Anyways, I am now tired, though I do think I could do this again.
“What did you do?” Jalinka asks, at which Polimus just lowers his head sheepishly.
“I did something I shouldn’t have.” Polimus stated.
“Mr. Polimus has been given an opportunity to redeem himself, mainly at the behest of our resident healer, Ms. Spiritlight.” Glenn said.
At that Jalinka just glares at Polimus for a second. Then turns to me and asks, “is there anything I can do to repay you? I don’t have much.”
I just wave my hand, somewhat dismissively, but then realize I can likely use this for more free experience. “Yes, actually there is, could you please direct anyone suffering from your condition to the Mage’s Guild for treatment?” I ask.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” I reply.
With that I make my way out of the house, so the two lovers can get reacquainted with each other.
“You do know that you are asking to take on a lot, right? The blight has spread to almost all new citizens looking to start a new life.” Glenn states in a matter of fact tone.
“Well then, would it not be best for them to start off their new life in good health?” I respond, as I make my way down the streets back to the Mage’s Guild. This was my first time leaving the Mage’s Guild, well first time I was allowed to go somewhere other than Lucky’s Gambling Hall, which is so close to the Mage’s Guild that it might as well be an extension.
Silence.
Finally, after thinking about things for a few moments, I ask, “would you care for a game of cards?”
Glenn pauses to look at me, “I my dear I am not a card player, that said, if you would like I am sure the master will make sure to open a table for your enjoyment. Especially after I tell him of your recent developments.”
Huff.
I sigh at that, as I realize that I too might need to tell my guild Master about this as well, which will mean no cards as I will have to be back to tell him everything. Then I get an idea as a smile crosses my lips.
“Does something amuse you?”
“Why yes, my dear Glenn, will you also make sure to have Mr. Bigsly inform the Mage’s Guild of this new development, but have them keep the source a secret, for at least a few hours? Surely this would be worth some recompense.” I say, again trying to put on the same casual charm that Glenn does naturally.
“Why my dear, I do believe Master Bigsly will be more than happy to take your information and reward you as normal.”
With that, I got a system message letting me know that I had once again repeated my daily repeatable task.
Daily Quest (Repeatable): Thieves Guild Information Specialist: You have found yourself filling in as Lenny ‘Lucky’ Bigsly’s personal information gatherer. Each time you find out a piece of information worth sharing, make sure you tell Lenny. Conditions: Actionable Information Provided (1/1). Rewards: Experience (100), access to rare consumables needed for your Bloodline Quest.
Seeing the message, I couldn’t help but smile to myself. That was 100 extra experience, a full seven days of my being able to take two potions of Strange Elixir of Bloodline Cleansing, all while being able to play a game of cards, this was the life.