It’s fairly common for adventurers to be idolized like rock stars or sports stars. The field of work has been heavily romanticized. This is because, in the last few decades, some adventurers recorded themselves and their doings to be released and viewed by the masses. The Adventure Recordings, also called AdRecs, are released to the public in a style that is a cross between a movie release and a sporting event. Combining recordings from the party members’ therra-nodes and from accompanying UAV camera drones are the most common styles of capturing the action. Sadly, because of this romanticization, tens of thousands of unwitting daredevils line up for the work only to die in the field or realize that constant near-death experiences aren’t nearly as glamorous as they look.
Day 120 Quenchenday
“Why didn’t you tell us that your uncle was THE Thallos Kiem?!” Rose exploded as we made our way to the medical center.
“I didn’t know he was that big a deal.” I rushed to defend, “He’s just been my uncle to me. I also hadn’t even met him till he tracked me down to bring me here.”
“You mean that you’ve never heard the stories about Mystagogue Kiem? How Kiem stopped an entire gang of bandits single-handedly? How he toppled a thief’s guild over the course of a month? Or how he was part of a party that took down a stigmagaunt?” Rose listed off these stories as if I was supposed to have heard them half a dozen times before.
“Not ringing any bells.”
Nel stepped in this time. “How about the adventuring party, Pale Shadow? You know, the party that hunted down a pack of wraiths that had been attacking Whitestone City every week, when the moon Secca was new.”
“Yeah, no.” I said, “I’ve still not heard of any of this.”
“Have you been living under a rock this last quarter?” Rose teased.
I scratched my neck with my good hand in embarrassment. The action aggravated my wounded shoulder, causing me to wince in pain. “Well, I don’t really listen to a lot of the hearsay since most of my free time consists of either training or tinkering.”
“Gee, you don’t say.” Ferris’s tone was dripping with sarcasm. “It’s almost like the only times we see you without a tool or weapon in hand is when you’re eating.”
“Technically, isn’t a fork still a tool?” I pointed out.
“That’s not the point, bolts for brains.” He snapped back.
“Wait.” Nel caught my attention. “Are you saying that you listen to nothing that goes on around you while you’re working?”
“Other than you guys, yeah. Most of the whispers that pass by my ear are from people muttering about me.” I ground my teeth at the thought. “Oh, look at his horns. Why is his skin like that? Aren’t his eyes freaky? I wonder if he could kill someone with his tail?” I made the quotes in a derisive, mocking tone. “By the fragments, I am so sick of people muttering about me, I tune out the world so I can focus and not want to knock out some teeth.”
“You? Knock-out teeth? Iver, if I hadn’t just seen you decimate four opponents, I would have called that a serious bluff.” Rose flashed me a smirk at those words.
“What are you talking about? Wasn’t he just as much of a badass when he saved my ass from those thugs that tried to kill me?” Ferris asked.
Rose burst into a gale of laughter that was only stemmed by an elbow from Nel to her ribs. She shot Nel a glare, whose response was to gesture to me with the chin. Rose turned to look at me, her anger curdling to shame as she saw the hurt on my face. “Sorry Ive.” She muttered towards her feet. “I was laughing at who you were, not who you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” pressed Ferris.
Nel was the one to answer. “For most of the year, Iver’s had problems with fighting.” She turned to me. “I’m sorry, Ive, but I need to be brutally honest to get the point through the boy’s head.” She turned back to Ferris, “His fighting talent was on par with a dying fish desperately trying to slap you with the side of his head.”
“Hey!” I shouted in offense.
“I’m sorry, Iver, but it’s true. That’s why Rose was laughing so hard.”
“Was he really that bad?” Ferris asked as we reached the medical center’s doors.
We passed through the entrance, and I checked in at the front desk. I made my way to the waiting area and took a seat in an uncomfortably sterile-looking chair. I was worried that my blood would smear on the white fabric seating and forever mar the pure surface with a stain of my presence. But I did my best to put the thought out of my mind while I used my therra-node to fill out all the forms for my visit. While I did this, the talk of my lack of talent continued among the other three.
“Oh, yeah.” came Rose, some pep put back in her step. “He was terrible, losing every fight he started.” Her expression turned pensive. “Although those fights were always with the same five thugs.”
“Well, those five are always making trouble. Iver is just trying to get the trogs to stop screwing with people.” Nel chimed in.
“You mean those same five that tried to ice me?” Ferris queried.
“The very same.” I answered as I finished up the paperwork and hit the send button with my good hand.
The talk went on, but I zoned out, my mind fading as I tried to ignore the pain in my shoulder and hand. I lost track of time, but after a while, the only thing that existed in my world was pain, throbbing, burning, aching pain. My wounds pulsed with red hot in time to my heartbeats. My fingers ached with a dull but searing pain, like leaving your hand in snow for so long the cold burned.
I was shocked out of my mental void by someone jostling my bad shoulder. I let out a growl of pain, turning to snap at whoever just touched me. I found Rose looking at me with worry. “What is it?” I said with a barely contained snarl. Wordlessly, she pointed to a nearby healer.
“Umm, Mr. Maverick?” Asked a gnomish girl timidly. Her skin was a light mint green, with hair of a deep royal blue held back in a tail and eyes of bright magenta. She stood only around three foot four, tiny by most species’ standards but a normal size for her people. I was hypnotized for a brief moment by her triangular-shaped pupils. I knew that was just as regular for Gnomes as her skin and hair color. All Gnomes had triangular pupils, but I had never met a Gnome in person before. They were a very uncommon species to cross.
I shook myself free of the trance and gave a hurried answer. “Y-yes, sorry. I’m in a bit of pain and starting to feel kinda light-headed.”
She flashed me a kind smile before gazing off at something on her therra-node, a flickering blue-green light displaying across her right eye. “No worries, Mr. Maverick. I am Trainee Healer Tessa, and I will be happy to remedy that pain. If you would be so kind as to follow me.” With that, she turned and led the way out of the waiting area. I stood and made to follow. As I trailed behind her, feeling drained, worn, and ragged, I made an active effort to keep my pace slow so I wouldn’t pass her. I also was actively taking short steps out of fear of accidentally stepping on her.
Tessa led me down hall after hall and up a flight of stairs before finally stopping beside a door. She keyed in an access code on a digital pad beside the door, and the door slid into the wall in answer. She gestured for me to step inside with one hand. “Feel free to make yourself comfortable. The doctor will be with you shortly.”
I stepped into the room and took in my surroundings. The walls were a sterile white with a blue-green stripe running around the perimeter at the upper third of each side. To my left was an alcove with a holo display to search a database of medical data. Beside the display was a wheeled stool. In the back corner on that side was a two-foot diameter holo display platform projecting a three-dimensional rendering of an Elven skeleton that slowly rotated. To my right was an examination table, complete with a full-body scanning apparatus. The table’s frame was made of silver metal with a green-purple sheen, mythril, a valuable metal used for everything from Deckra currency to armor plating. Mythril was as durable as steel but a fraction of the density. The table’s top surface was covered in cushioning beneath a layer of mint green faux leather that I could tell just from a glance would cling to my skin. Mounted to the side of the table was an omnidirectional adjustable arm ending in a half-circle crescent. The full-body scanning apparatus, or FSA, was used for in-depth searching of a body for wounds, errors, or flaws. These scans went deeper than the basic reading my therra-node gave me.
I took a seat atop the table as gingerly as I could manage. Sure enough, I had to peel my hand off the table with a slight sucking sound. As I waited, I watched the hologram of the skeleton, mildly entertained as the image flickered before shifting to display the muscle structure of an orc. I watch the image shift through several species, displaying anything from the skeleton to the nervous system of each species. After a bit, Tessa reentered the room, followed by a familiar face. Dr. Brooksheen, the Elven doctor who performed my physical when I first came to the academy.
“Ah, I remember you, young mister.” the doctor said with a gentle smile.
“Y-you remember me?” I asked.
“Well, of course. Not many Darklings come through the academy, and I have never met one with your skin pattern before. I am rather interested in how that came to be.”
“I was just born like this, as far as I know.”
The doctor stepped up to the table and had me lay on my back while she used the FSA. As she scanned me and reviewed the readings, she continued the discussion. “As far as you know? Did your parents never tell you?”
“No. I’ve never known my mother, and the man who raised me isn’t- wasn’t my biological father.” The correction brought back the old emotional pain. “The way my father told it, my mother dropped me off in the dead of night before fleeing to places unknown. He never even knew I existed until I was dropped in his arms.”
Dr. Brooksheen pulled back the scanner, stepped over to the archive display, and started typing as I sat up. “Well, I’ve never seen nor heard of any birth defect that causes your skin to manifest pigment in a pattern like that. But if you don’t know the details of your birth, then maybe it was caused post-birth by exposure to something. Do you have any other abnormalities about yourself that may be connected to your pigment pattern?”
“Well, there are my eyes. I’ve met no one with eyes the same shade as mine or with pupils shaped like mine.”
“I did notice that. He does have rather striking eyes,” came Tessa from the corner of the room. “His eyes almost seem to glow with how vibrant green they are, and when added to those diamond-shaped pupils, it gives a rather unsettling effect.”
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“My pupils are normally this shape, but when I’m exposed to bright light, they narrow down to a plus sign shape until I adapt.” I commented.
“I had noticed the eyes, but I know that Darklings and Brightlings can have their pupil shape inherited from a parent or even actively shaped by the alien parent for some reason if they are a fresh-gen.”
“Fresh-gen?” Asked Tessa. I silently thanked her for raising the question. I had never heard the term before, and I was rather embarrassed by that, given that the term was directly linked to my species.
The doctor spun around on her stool to face both me and the trainee before pulling herself to me by her feet. She gestured for Tessa to follow. As soon as the young healer was close enough to see my eyes, the doctor began to explain. “As you know, a Darkling is someone born into a bloodline with infernal or demonic lineage, just as a Brightling is someone born into a bloodline with angelic lineage. Well, in most cases, the otherworldly blood will pass from parent to child, no matter the species of their other parent. That child will have traits from both parents regardless of species, but if they have a Darkling parent, the child will be classified as a Darkling. Most Darklings have their infernal or demonic ancestor relations several generations back, if not hundreds, depending on the potency of the blood. A fresh-gen is a Darkling or Brightling whose direct parent is an angel or devil. I only bring this up because it’s not unheard of for otherworldly parents to mark their children. These marks are normally an alteration to the eyes or a brand-like birthmark. I would blame your skin pattern on this, but in all accounts, I’ve heard of these alterations, the marks never span the entire body, and they are normally designed as the sigil of the parent.”
“The thought of having a devil or fiend as a father sounds terrifying, but that might explain why my mother left me behind. Also, doctor, I’ve always referred to my pattern as my marbling.”
“Marbling?” asked Tessa. “You mean like on a steak?”
“I always thought of the pattern like the stone, marble. That’s what the pale threads and webs over my olive skin remind me of. My father always said it looked like I was covered in thick spider webs.”
“I can see the comparison. I’ll try to remember to refer to it as marbling moving forward. But back on the topic of your bloodline, what breed of Darkling are you?” Dr. Brooksheen asked as she moved on to a new scan before hopping back over to the database display.
“I… don’t know.” I admitted with no small amount of embarrassment.
She turned back to pin me with a quizzical stare. “Do you not know what you are, or do you not know what the different breeds of Darkling are?”
I winced and cringed at both parts of the question. After a mute moment, I gave a shy answer of “both”, my voice meek.
“Then I’m guessing your father taught you nothing about your species. Well, let’s start with the basics. There are four Darkling breeds: Devil-bred, Fiend-bred, Drude-bred, and Oni-bred.”
“Okay?” was all I could manage to say through my shame, my cheeks burning.
“Each breed has its own unique traits. The only thing they have in common is that they all have horns, serrated ear rims ending in a point, and can have a range of skin tones based on their parentage. Any Darkling has the possibility of being born with exotic-colored irises because of their lineage, but they can also have colored sclera if they have an Elven parent. Other traits that can manifest are things such as a tail and/or claws. You should also know that a Darkling’s horns are just as individually unique as their fingerprints.”
The doctor used her therra-node to alter the holo-display that had been showing a Human skeleton only a moment before. The image flickered before switching over to a nude Darkling man. His skin was a deep royal purple. The doctor stood from her stool and gestured to each part of the anatomy as she explained.
“Devil-bred Darklings can have any shade of purple skin pigment along with what they inherit from their other parent. Their horns tend to be the smallest and sprout from the brow, the hairline like yours, or just inside the hairline. If they have a tail, it’s normally simple and serpentine with slight ridges. If their eyes are a nonstandard color, they tend towards shades of red or yellow. Their personality tends more towards a patient and reserved nature.”
The image shifted to a female Darkling with ashen gray skin. I blushed and looked away from the nude figure, trying not to come across as a perv.
“Fiend-bred Darklings have the possibility of being born with skin tones ranging from a light gray to coal black, also referred to as deep black, although Darklings with a deep black pigment are very rare. Their horns normally are curved, curling, or twisted, with a possibility of them being barbed or throned. These horns are either at the temples or just ahead of the hairline. If Fiend-bred Darklings form a tail, it almost always has a spade or arrow-shaped tip, much like yours. If they have exotic eye colors, they normally tend towards purple or green like yours. Their personalities are prone to leaning into a more impulsive and mischievous. This breed is a large reason why Darklings have such a dark reputation.”
As she spoke, I forced myself to look at the display, my eyes locked onto the figure’s face. When the image flickered over to a new male Darkling, I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. I caught a hint of a snort from Tessa. I didn’t dare look at her. Instead, I chose to focus on the new image of a burning-red-skinned man, his horns sprouting from the back of his head, swung down to run in line with his jaw, each horn grown in ridged tiers, each tier branching into a downward-facing barb. His hands, forearms, shins, and feet looked to be painted with dark gray and black swirls.
“Next, we have the Drude-bred. Their exotic skin tone can span the range of any red color, normally with designs such as swirls, vines, tendrils, or spirals in any shade of gray, black, or purple on some part of their body. Their horns can grow from their temples, just above their brow line, or the rear of their head. These horns normally curve with the shape of the head or jaw. They can also be twisted, ridged, and or throned. Their eyes have the possibility to be a vibrant orange or a bright electric blue. Their personalities can tend toward calculating. They can have a penchant for wordplay and loopholes.”
The display flickered before changing the image to that of a truly massive Darkling. The large male's skin was a deep brick red with tiger stripes of a deep blood red marking all of his body. The body was dense with thick muscle. He displayed a single horn growing from high on his brow that curved slightly back. From his brick of a jaw sprouted a pair of sharp and curved tusks.
“Lastly, we have the Oni-bred. This Darkling breed is rather rare, even among Darklings. They can be born with any exotic skin color from the other Darkling breeds. Because of their Oni heritage, they are always born larger than most with the secondary lineage. This means that while a Fiend-bred born from an Orc will be as large as an Orc at best, the Oni-bred born from an Orc will always be larger than the standard Orc. Oni-bred can have either one horn that sprouts from the brow, as you can see from the display. They can also have a pair of horns develop at their brow or just inside their hairline. The Oni-bred are the only Darklings that will never be born with a tail, but they are always born with fangs and tusks in some shape.
Much like the Drude-bred, the Oni-bred have skin markings. In the case of the Oni-bred, they are either stripes or swirls of color in the same pallet as the rest of their skin, only lighter or darker than the rest of their skin.
Oni-bred tend to have rather short tempers and aggressive rage. Because of this, they tend to gravitate toward lines of work and lifestyles that require brute force and brawling. This means that many Oni-bred become gangers.
The doctor set the display back to the cycle it was at while I had been waiting. “I gave you this explanation because your traits are fairly baffling. You have horns akin to a Devil-bred, eyes and tail like a Fiend-bred, and a pigment design that I would say aligns you with either Drude-bred or Oni-bred if it weren’t for the fact that the color and the pattern have never been seen before. Regardless, I have gone far off track, giving you lessons when I should be doing so to Tessa and having her mend you.” the doctor snapped her fingers twice in the trainee’s direction before pointing to me. The trainee stepped up and examined my wounds.
“Mr. Maverick, if you would be so kind as to remove your uniform top to allow us ready access to the injuries. Do you need help?”
I nodded as I tried to unbutton my jacket with only a single hand. As I fumbled my way through the third button, the trainee stepped up and helped. With her aid, the process went much faster, though no less painful, when I needed to raise my arm and slip it through the sleeve. The gnomish girl didn’t even bat an eye when she saw I needed help out of the t-shirt underneath. She turned to the doctor and asked for her stool, which was passed to her with no issue. She stood atop the stool and did her best to help me out of the shirt. In all honesty, I’m pretty sure that she only made that bit of the process more painful than if I had fumbled my way through it alone.
“Now, Tessa, what can you tell me about the injury without looking at the scans?” Came Dr. Brooksheen from behind her student, gaze sharp as she looked for any flaws or errors in the examination.
The girl adjusted the placement of her stool by using her feet and the table for traction.
“The first thing to jump out at me is the puncture to the left shoulder, just on the lower edge of the left clavicle, but not all that way through the scapula. I’m willing to bet there are bone fragments in the wound and some minor chipping of the bones themselves. The muscular pectoralis head was cleanly punched through, but given the lack of excessive bleeding, my guess is that the attack barely missed the cephalic vein.” As she spoke, the young healer looked at the wound in minute detail from several angles. She even prodded the wound once and used two fingers on each hand to spread the wound wide. Both actions drew a groan of pain from me.
“Very good. Now, what do you see with the hand?”
The girl bent over and picked up my arm by the elbow and forearm as she almost pressed her nose against my swollen and purple hand, both of my deep purple fingers malformed and bent in an unnatural way. “Looks like a shattering of proximal phalanges two and three. Again, I’m expecting bone fragments, but neither of these should be too hard to mend.”
The doctor raised a hand, holding up a single finger. “One moment, trainee. I think you forgot something.”
Tessa turned her vibrant gaze to her mentor. “What am I forgetting?”
“How about you check the metacarpus?”
She turned back to me and gently prodded the top of my hand, pressing in a path from the knuckle and working her way up the hand. At both knuckles, I let out more hisses and again halfway up the middle of my hand.
“Prognosis?” Dr. Brooksheen gently queried.
“My best guess is that joints at the knuckles are jammed or impacted, and halfway up the third metacarpal, there’s either a bone bruise or a hairline fracture. I’d need to scan for more details.”
“A reasonable conclusion.” Replied the doctor. “I’ll forward you the scan results to look over. Then, I’ll walk you through the healing process. Are you ready?”
Tessa gave an enthusiastic answer of “Yes, ma’am.”
I watched as the elderly Wood Elf flicked her student the files. The young girl opened the documents and took a good few minutes to look over my results. When she closed her node’s display, she turned to her instructor. “It’s exactly as I thought. Bone shards in both locations jammed knuckles and a hairline fracture.” She turned to me, flashing a confident grin and two thumbs up. “I’ve got this handled. You’re in good hands, Mr. Maverick.”
I gave her a grin with a sliver of the confidence she showed. “I hope so. This throbbing is getting old, and I’m getting pretty tired.”
With that, I let out a weighty sigh. The sigh was meant to come across as something to show that I was being a good sport. But it came out with the weight of months of pain, emotional and physical, and something deeper. I didn’t mean to show that much, and once it came out, I knew the women noticed from the expressions they gave me, looks of sympathy and worry.
“I’m going to need you to lie back down so I can perform.” Tessa said as she pulled her stool again with her foot to beside where my head would be. I did as told, even as Dr. Brooksheen stepped up beside Tessa.
“Let’s start with the shoulder. We first need to remove the bone shards. How are you going to remove them?”
Tessa laid her hands on either side of my shoulder wound. “I’ll start by enhancing his body’s natural absorption rate and elevate the PH level of the local area while also enhancing his body’s resistance to the acidity.” As she finished explaining, her hands began to glow with a soft green light. My shoulder heated to an uncomfortable level in time, with the glow intensifying.
“Good, good.” cooed the doctor. “Now you need to mend the bone.”
“That’s simple. I’ll stimulate bone growth and overlay a framework of myst to prevent deformity or overgrowth.” As Tessa spoke, the glow dulled before intensifying again. This time, the heat was less than before, but now my collarbone ached something awful. My face contorted with discomfort.
“Well done. Now, you need to mend the tissue and skin. This should be the simplest of the process. But just to be sure, please explain how.”
“Easy. I’ll tie a myst latticework to either end of the wound and accelerate muscle growth while I guide the process.”
As she spoke, the light intensified even further, and my wound started to tingle to an insane degree. Feeling like hundreds of ants were racing back and forth under my skin as the muscle itched so bad it was an effort not to stick my fingers in the wound to alleviate myself.
Once the healing was complete and the discomfort faded into memory alongside the light, I sat up and tested my shoulder with a few roles and flexes. It was as good as new.
“You have done some excellent work, trainee. I don’t think you need my guidance for mending his hand.” Dr. Brooksheen said, visibly proud of her student.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Tessa herself was clearly also proud of her work.
The hand wasn’t nearly as bad as my shoulder. Once everything was said and done, I pulled back on my torn and bloody shirt and jacket. I thanked the two profusely before leaving to meet back up with my friends to go hide in the woods for a bit and try to forget about the day.
Little did I know that things were about to get a lot more complicated in the days to come.