Zeth fell to a knee on the doorstep of the house, staring at the crossbow bolt sticking through his shaking hand.

Is this how I die? Shot in the head by some maniac with a crossbow?

He had no Hellfire Ritual circle prepared to defend himself with, and without his magic, he had nothing to fight with.

“Help!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, falling back and kicking away from the house. “Someone, help me!”

“Wait,” the voice from inside said, and Zeth frowned, recognizing it. “Zeth, is that you?”

“Turin?” Zeth called into the house. “Did-did you just shoot me?!”

He heard footsteps running to the door, and Turin’s head popped out from the doorway, his hand crossbow held out. He looked down at Zeth, eyes going wide. “Oh my gods, Zeth, you’re covered in blood!”

“Yes,” Zeth replied, trying to control his shaking voice. “You shot me through the hand.”

“I-I’m so sorry, I thought—Just, get inside, quick.”

Turin held out and grabbed Zeth’s good hand, helping him to his feet and hurriedly ushering him into his house. Upon stumbling in, Zeth found that the place was not as he remembered. Furniture was pushed up against windows, and the dining table had been flipped over in the center of the room.

“W-what happened here?” Zeth asked, clutching his hand to his chest.

Turin shut the door behind him and ran over to a couch that had been pushed up against his back door. “Here, lie down. I-I’m so sorry, I’ll get you patched up.”

As Turin rushed off into the other room, Zeth sat down on the couch, taking care not to jostle his hand or catch the bolt sticking through it on anything. He could feel every movement, the slightest air resistance flowing across his exposed innards.

He gazed around the house, trying to distract himself from the excruciating sensation. It was almost like the whole place had been barricaded against intruders, with every single entrance covered by something. And was Turin waiting with his crossbow pointed at the front door this whole time?

Turin returned from the other room with a kit of medical supplies in his hands, running over and hurriedly dabbing Zeth’s hand with a wet towel. Everywhere it touched him, the wound stung like it was on fire.

In response to Zeth’s groans of pain, Turin spoke as he worked. “This towel has a concoction on it that will help prevent your injuries from getting worse due to infection or disease. P-please hold still while I apply it; I don’t want to make the wounds any worse and make you lose any more blood. It already looks like you’ve lost a lot.”

“Turin, what in the gods’ names is going on?” Zeth demanded. “Y-you just shot me through the hand. And your place is trashed. Ow, that hurts.”

“I know, I’m so sorry, I just thought you were that Blood Mage at first, and—”

“You think I’m the what?” Zeth asked as he leaned forward, deathly serious. The pain in his hand practically disappeared.

“No, no, I was just mistaken. I-I don’t even know where to begin. Listen, let me get you patched up first, then I’ll explain everything.” He looked over Zeth’s body. “Gods, what happened to you, man? Practically all of your wounds have reopened. And it looks like you’ve got some bruising here on this side of your body, and a lot of your burns got torn apart, too. I-I know I shot you, and I’m really, really sorry about that, but something happened before that, didn’t it?”

“Y-yeah, I took a—” Zeth was cut off, grunting in pain as Turin swabbed a particularly nasty cut with that rag soaked in the mystery solution. “I took a fall. Tripped a little bit ago, and had to come here. But it doesn’t look like coming here to get fixed up was a good idea, if my best friend Turin was just going to shoot me.”

“I’m really sorry,” Turin said.

“Can you apologize by explaining why you did it? Because to me, it looks like you went insane, flipped your house upside-down, and then hid behind your dining table planning to kill anyone who walked through your front door.”

“I…Okay, that last part is kind of right,” Turin said. “Here, once I’ve finished wrapping you in bandages and it looks like the bleeding’s stopped, I’ll tell you.”

Zeth reclined on the couch, cradling his bandaged hand. Turin had removed the crossbow bolt after doing a lot of work cleaning everything up and ensuring he wouldn’t die of blood loss or anything, and after quite a bit of time, Zeth had reached what Turin considered to be a “stable position.” Seemed like all the research and training he’d been doing regarding becoming a Healer had paid off.

Once Turin wasn’t frantically scrambling around the house anymore, he took a breath and sat down next to where Zeth lay. He reached down to the floor and picked up a dropped object—his crossbow, Zeth saw—and held it in his hand. “Hey, what’s with that book you brought? You dropped it on the floor.”

“Oh, that’s something I got for Sophie,” Zeth said, remembering he’d intended to use this visit to escape suspicion before the whole ‘getting shot’ thing happened. “I stopped at the library on my way here in secret to get it for her, so don’t mention it to her or my mom if you see them? And, uh, tell them I got here, like, an hour earlier than I actually did. That way they don’t get suspicious.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Turin said. “Wait, you were seriously injured and found time to walk around in the library for an hour?”

“I wasn’t that hurt. Just a little bleeding. The librarians were nice about it.”

“That’s extremely unsafe. Next time you find yourself with wounds that bad covering your body, come to me immediately. Better yet, find someone who can heal you who’s closer than I am. I don’t even want you walking from your house to mine like that.” There was a faint sound from outside, and Turin glanced over at the front door, the hand that held his crossbow twitching.

Zeth frowned. “You’ve been doing that all day.”

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Turin looked back over at him. “Doing what?”

“You keep looking at the door like something’s gonna burst through and attack you. And you obviously thought something like that was happening when I walked in. What’s up?”

Turin took a breath. “Okay, so you know the fleshtaker attack yesterday? I was there when the monster got killed. I saw the Blood Mage myself.”

Zeth nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that. You and Sophie saw them up-close, huh?”

“Right. And, well, now I’m worried that he might come after me. I mean, I heard his voice. I saw him use his magic, man. That means I’m officially a witness to a crime. There’s no way he’s not gonna consider coming by to tie up loose ends, right?”

“...Right,” Zeth said. “But who’s to say he’s that bad of a guy, though? All we know about him is that he saved everyone from that monster, so maybe it’s a ‘using a bad thing for good purposes’ type of thing.”

Turin shook his head. “I thought the same thing at first. I mean, he seemed nice enough when I saw him. But earlier today, I went to go and report what I knew about the Blood Mage to the guards, and they told me something. Apparently, they’re pretty sure what caused the fire in town wasn’t some random accident—it was a demon.”

Zeth leaned forward, suddenly very interested. “What?”

“Yeah, man. A demon went on a rampage in town, killing people and setting fires all over the place before it randomly disappeared. But that got me thinking; no way the Blood Mage is a good guy if he’s setting demons loose in town, right? Hell, maybe he sicced that fleshtaker on everyone in the first place! And even if he is a good guy, if he’s got demons doing his bidding, there’s a chance another of them might go rogue and escape his command to try and hunt me down on its own! So, when you opened the door, all I saw was your hand, and it was red, and…I just freaked out. I’m sorry.”

“I…It’s alright,” Zeth said. The hole in his hand wasn’t even in his thoughts anymore. “You’re sure there was an actual demon that got summoned, though? That isn’t just a rumor?”

He shrugged. “The guards were talking about it like it was true. I dunno.”

Zeth frowned. He certainly hadn’t done anything like that; he couldn’t even summon a demon yet. Had it been the work of the real Blood Mage, then? Maybe they decided to summon a demon to protect themself from the fleshtaker, or something. Or maybe it was just hearsay that the guards just believed because they knew there was a Blood Mage around. Still, if that was true, there was no way Zeth would be able to take them down without a demon or two of his own to fight back against the raw power of his enemy’s summons.

“Was it just one demon?” Zeth asked. “Or more?”

“No idea,” Turin responded. “I ran and hid out at home as soon as I could after hearing about it. Just hoping he’ll forget about me.”

“I’m sure you’ll be okay. I mean, really, how would the Blood Mage even find you after just seeing your face for a couple seconds? And think about how many people probably saw what happened from afar. Even if he did want to tie up loose ends, there’d be way too many people to kill in order to get it done. I’d recommend you just forget about it. And probably don’t go to the guards reporting anything else you find out about him from now on. Just in case, right? Don’t wanna accidentally make an enemy out of him.”

“...Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I should just stay out of all this. It’s too much for me, anyway, man. I just wanna finish my Healer training, get my Skills, get the Class, and get out of this town. Too many weird things happening all at the same time. I’m honestly beginning to think it’s all connected—that weird cave-in with you, the fleshtaker, and now this Blood Mage business? I mean, nobody actually expected a cave-in to ever happen down in that one branch of the mine, right? They’d been talking about how it was unstable and threatening to collapse for years without it ever happening. And then the moment you and Nestor and the other guys go down there, it just happens to fall in on itself? Sounds kinda suspicious, right?”

Zeth nodded. “...You’re right. You should probably just stay out of it.”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, man. I’m just asking for trouble, talking like that.”

After that, Turin needed to leave to go to work—apparently management at Otis and Roul’s decided overtime was mandatory for all employees to repair the damage caused by the fleshtaker’s escape, so he had to work even on the days he would normally have off. He told Zeth to stay for as long as he wanted, and actually recommended lying right where he was for at least a few more hours, if not the rest of the day. Zeth was happy to accept the offer.

He planned on maybe finding somewhere he could safely practice his Skills and earn a Skill Point or two, but finally lying down after being awake for so long, Zeth felt exhaustion taking his body over, and soon enough, his eyes dropped shut, and he got his long-needed sleep.

Zeth awoke to the front door of the house opening and closing, finding Turin entering the house and glancing over at him. “You’re still feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” Zeth replied, situating himself on the couch. “Well, not okay, but not any worse than I felt earlier. Hand’s still killing me.”

“I sewed most of the wider wounds closed, but a hole straight through your hand will probably need more than simple stitching. You might need to see a real Healer to do some magic on you for that one.”

“Unfortunately, Healer services have long since been out of the budget for our family, and are definitely not possible now that we can’t even rely on my miner’s salary, even as little as it was. I don’t suppose you have any connections that you can pull favors with to get me discounted services?”

Turin chuckled. “I’m not even a student yet, much less on the level to start pulling favors. I mean, I can definitely help you pay, since I did it to you, but I don’t have enough money to single-handedly fund something like that. I’ll start saving in case you can’t get anything figured out sooner, though. Maybe you could try to ask Garon? You worked loyally for years, man, so even if you don’t work there anymore, it’s possible—”

“I’d rather die of blood loss than ask him for help. Not to mention there’s no chance in Hell that a greedy bastard like him would ever willingly give money to another human being for nothing in return.”

“...Uh, right.”

“But you’re right; he is rich. Maybe I could break into his house and steal all his valuables, or something.”

“It’s bad that I’m only halfway confident you’re joking about that. But if you’re not gonna be able to pay for a Healer, I guess your only option is to raise your Endurance on your own to help improve your healing speed. Or maybe find a Skill that can help you with it. Not sure it’ll ever get back to normal without some System help.”

Zeth looked down at his heavily-bandaged hand. “Yeah, guess I’ll figure something out with that. Thanks for the help, though. And I forgive you for shooting me. You thought you were protecting yourself.”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Well, thanks, but I should’ve been more cautious anyway. You had nothing to do with all that; there was no reason to bring you into my problems.”

I actually had quite a bit to do with it, Zeth thought.

“Either way,” Turin continued, “feel free to sleep on the couch tonight. I know it’d probably be rough to walk home alone at night in your state. Tomorrow, if your family doesn’t come by to walk you back, I can help you get there.”

Zeth nodded. “Thanks. Yeah, I think I’ll sleep here.”

It was late night at that point, and Turin went to sleep in his bedroom shortly after. But Zeth had just woken up from an all-day slumber, and wasn’t about to waste all night sleeping as well. He got up and silently exited the house, walking down the street and toward the forest on the outskirts of town.

The guards did a bad job of keeping the monster population out there culled, meaning it was extremely dangerous for anyone to spend an extended time in the wilderness, to the point where most travelers needed to pay for bodyguards to keep them safe the whole way. But Zeth would have to take the risk. And besides—if the guards didn’t regularly go out to kill the monsters in the forest, that also meant they wouldn’t go out and find his ritual site, either.

Drawing ritual circles seemed to leave behind some sort of mana residue that the investigators could detect, so it wouldn’t be safe doing it somewhere they might check. Out in the middle of nowhere, even if they did find residue, it wouldn’t lead back to him.

Plus, for Zeth, blood was liquid gold. He’d just changed jobs from extracting gold from the ground to extracting it from his enemies. And heading into this forest, full of powerful creatures that needed to be exterminated anyway, was like striking a vein that would last a lifetime.

He’d just have to ensure he didn’t die in the process of mining it.