Vel gave me a quick demonstration of the spell, in just a handful of seconds his right hand glowed with a soft yellow light and he quickly placed it against my chest for a moment. When he took his hand back the glow was gone and I could feel the magic slowly flowing over my body like a wave from the ocean. The healing magic was soft and gentle as it slowly healed a few unnoticeable cuts and scrapes I had, by the time it was gone I felt a little different.
“That was definitely something.” I said, my mind for a moment feeling both light headed good for a reason I could not explain.
“These types of spells tend to do that when they reach the brain, just a few tiny corrections that have a massive impact. I don’t recommend doing that often though, it can be addictive.”
“Healing spells can be addictive? That sounds worrying coming from a healer. Why exactly are these spells so addictive, does it do something like a drug?” I asked with my worry clear as day on my face. The idea of becoming addicted to a spell wasn’t something I had ever read about before or even heard about.
“In a way it does function similar to taking a drug, but since you aren't ingesting something it will not last very long unless the spell is specifically designed to do so. The reason it does that is because it is correcting all the little tiniest imbalances in your brain which creates a temporary rush. In the early days of healing and restoration magic it wasn’t much of a problem as it wasn’t really well known, but now with the formation of numerous mage grounds to share knowledge accidentally over using such spells on yourself can have problems.”
I listened to Vel as he gave his explanation. I had to admit he was very well educated in the field of restoration magic as well as biology, something that I was starting to suspect would become useful when it came to restoration magic and its effectiveness.
“Anyways that is enough about magic for now, why don’t you tell me about yourself. You can start with your interest in restoration magic if you want.”
An odd request even if it wasn’t phrased as a request, but I answered anyways to be nice. “Well I have in recent times found myself to be in some rather dangerous situations involving things from demons, goblins, bandits, and even vampires. Having some skill in restoration magic would certainly reduce the chances of death as well provide a skill to earn money from if in the future things don’t go the way I hope.”
“You have fought vampires?” The smile Vel kept on his face quickly dropped. “When was this? Where was this? You shouldn’t be seeking out such dangerous creatures until you are at least a conjurer, preferably a warden.” I could see in Vel’s hands by the way they were twitching ever so slightly and how he glossed over the demon I mentioned he had a particular worrisome spot for vampires.
“Well it wasn’t easy, that much is certain. But I would assume that demons would come off as more dangerous to just about anyone, it certainly was far more powerful than anything I fought, even all the four vampires combined.”
“You fought four vampires?” Again he focused on the vampires. “Why would you do that? Those are some of the most dangerous creatures anyone could fight against, and you fought four of them.” Vel’s breathing started to quicken as he continued worrying me.
“I didn’t fight them all at once. The first one tried climbing through my window so I killed him. The next two tried to defeat me and force me to submit to their leader, I killed them and fought against their leader. After a long and drawn fight I eventually managed to restrain him with twenty earth vines and stabbed him to death with a conjured longsword.” When I was finished with my explanation Vel seemed to relax a bit and sat down in a nearby chair, his breathing steadied somewhat and he didn’t say anything.
Suddenly a knock came from the door to the clinic and a young woman with a seven or eight year old boy holding her hand. “Excuse me, my little brother isn’t feeling that well. Can you help him?” The young woman who shared a striking resemblance to the boy asked.
“Of course.” I quickly answered. “Please come in.” I picked up one of the nearby chairs and placed it next to the spot I was taking people's symptoms several minutes prior. The boy slowly climbed into the chair and sat looking towards me, even without asking I could already see he wasn’t well. His skin was pale and he held his stomach with his left arm as if he was going to puke.
I kneeled down so that I was at the boy's eye level. “How are you feeling?” I asked him as I placed my hand on his forehead. I didn’t feel a fever and the boy looked at me like a zombie.
“My stomach hurts Mr.” The boy eventually said, though I almost couldn’t hear him.
“When did you first notice him feeling this way?” I asked, turning to the older sister.
“About a day ago, it was during dinner. He wouldn’t eat anything. I thought he just had an upset stomach so I let him sleep, when I woke up I found him looking pale.” I could feel the worry in the older sister's voice, she was worrying it was her fault.
“Vel, come over here.” I said waving Vel over to my side. “Do you know what this could be?”
“No, not with just a glance.” Vel grimaced when he saw just how pale the boy's skin was. Without me even saying anything he quickly started to cast a spell. It took him six whole seconds to cast indication it was a tier two spell, when he was done he touched the boy on the head and his eyes widened in surprise. Without warning he turned and almost ran towards the back room where Laelia was. He threw open the door and stepped inside.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Boss, we have a situation that requires tier three restoration magic at the minimum!” Vel shouted, pushing his way inside the room.
“Why? What happened?” Laelia asked, her chair scraping across the floor as she quickly stood up and walked out of the room behind Vel.
“A young boy has a parasite in his stomach, a really big one too. I don’t even know how long it has been there for, but the boy will likely die if we can’t get rid of it.” As Vel was speaking both he and Laelia exited the back room and walked right up to the bay. Laelia almost instantly casted a spell to confirm Vel’s statement and her eyes widened in shock as well.
“You made the right decision to call me Vel, this will require tier four restoration magic. You wouldn’t have been able to do this on your own.” Laelia didn’t hesitate and started casting several more spells in rapid succession, each spell left her looking more and more worried until the seventh spell. When she received the information back her eyes widened in shock, for a moment she didn’t do anything, when she came to her senses she quickly started casting a powerful spell that neither Arthur or Vel understood. When she was done she turned to Vel and I and gave us one order. “Keep the boy still.”
Though we were both confused as to why we needed to keep the boy still we both without hesitation gripped the boy by his shoulders and kept his head pointed slightly downwards. Laelia touched the boy's forehead and began concentrating on the spell she conjured. A small amount of yellow light was visible from time to time exiting the boy's body, but when the boy started gagging and lurching forwards like he was about to throw up. Vel and I managed to keep him still but it kept getting worse and worse as Laelia continued with her spell. Eventually the boy opened his mouth wide and threw up all over the floor barely missing Laelia who stood right in front of him.
Like we were expecting we saw stomach fluids and bits of food mixed together like anyone would, but we also saw something else that was far more disturbing wriggling around in the pile of puke. A thin and black fleshy worm thing wriggled around desperately trying to hide from us, both I and Vel covered our mouths in disgust while the older sister nearly threw up her own breakfast. Surprisingly the bot looked far better now that he didn’t have such a horrible parasite living in his stomach.
Then the black worm looked up at me and I looked into its crimson red eyes, those horrible red eyes that belonged to demons and demons alone. “Dear gods.” I muttered to myself as Laelia reached down with a large jar in hand that I didn’t even notice she had. “That isn’t just a parasite, it is a demon.”
Vel flinched in surprise at my statement. “A demon!? But I thought all demons were large and dangerous monsters that led armies of goblins!” Vel shouted as he backed away from the parasitic demon that looked me right in the eyes.
“I know what demons look like Vel. Those eyes it has, those crimson red eyes are something I have only seen in demons. There isn’t anything else it could be.”
“Quiet! The both of you are scaring the patients!” Laelia shouted at us as he used some sort of magic to force the small demon into the jar. It didn’t resist as she dropped the thing inside, but it still didn’t remove its eyes from me even as Laelia placed the jar on the table.
“I need the two of you to stay here and keep our current patients and any future patients that enter through the door happy and safe while I report this to the authorities. While this is happening I need the two of you to keep this thing under wraps.” Laelia pointed to the wormy demon in the jar as she spoke. “Don’t say anything about it no matter what you are told or offered. And for safekeeping I will be taking this with me.”
With that Laelia picked up the jar with the demon and entered the back room with it closing the door behind her. A moment later we could hear the lock on the door clicking as she locked it from the outside. For a moment neither Vel or I knew what to do, but when we looked back to the half awake boy and his older sister we quickly sprang into action.
“There is nothing to worry about ma’am, we just need to keep you and your brother here until further notice.” I quickly told the sister while I pushed her towards one of the chairs in the waiting room. “And your brother will be here with you during this unplanned stay.” Vel quickly picked the young boy up and placed him in his sister's lap.
“What was that thing in his stomach? Was it some sort of monster?” She asked with tears building up in her eyes. “Was this my fault?”
“No, absolutely not. You never could have known that such a dangerous thing was living inside of your brother. You made the right decision when you brought him here, your actions might have just saved his life.” Vel quickly answered, trying to ease the young woman who was now forcing back tears.
“But I wasn’t watching him, not for a long while.” She started sobbing loudly and hugged her brother tightly as the tears poured from her eyes. “He just returned home after being gone for several days. I didn’t know where he was while he was gone.”
The older sister continued to cry as she tried explaining what happened to her younger brother, from both I and Vel managed to piece together her brother went missing about four or five days ago and suddenly came back yesterday. Her brother didn’t even react like he was gone so she didn’t say anything about it.
While the four of us waited for Laelia a few more patients came in with lesser injuries that Vel dealt with using a few simple healing spells. Most were just suffering from cuts and bruises and wanted help with the pain they were having, I learned that just tier one spells were needed to heal such lesser injuries. I would have been very interested in the spells if I wasn’t trying to keep the older sister from losing her mind.
Eventually after around a half hour of waiting Laelia returned with a grim look on her face. She waved both myself and Vel over to the doorway in which she was standing below before she quietly told us of the situation. “I have contacted the restoration division of the mages guild and shown them the parasite, they will be sending someone to investigate it and the boy. Whoever it is will be here within the hour and will be dressed in a yellow mages guild robe, when they arrive bring them straight to me to confirm their identity. This situation is very dangerous and requires the maximum caution to keep things from spiraling. Do the two of you understand what I am asking of you?”
“Yes we understand.” Vel quickly replied while I nodded.
“Good. Now do try and keep the boy and his sister from leaving. The guild wasn’t to check them both out to be certain there aren't any more such dangerous parasites out there.” With that Laelia reentered the back room and closed the door. Soon we heard her locking the door and we turned back to our current patients.
I could hear Vel’s breathing becoming more unsteady as the stress of the situation started getting to him. I wasn’t unaffected either as the sisters' statements about the boy going missing painted a worrying picture in my mind, the possibilities of how the boy may have ingested the parasitic demon becoming worse and worse for us as I continued thinking.