I follow my mom but soon I tell her to stop and grab the pixie from her arms she is about 8 months pregnant and moving with such a big belly it is difficult, she after seeing that I could carry the pixie, does not bother too much about it, and we make a beeline towards the hospital, the hospital is set up like a second mansion but with more bedrooms, less salons, less living rooms, and the hallways are more wide, I can see and imagine where some of the advice from the Heroes helped with the design of the hospital, also strangely I see Priestesses, Priests and other people on more normal clothing, but since we are in a hurry I do not ask anything, I’ll save my question for later.
- Here we are, put her on the bed, and don’t worry the casted a purification on the sheet – my mother says.
- Here mom – I say while putting the pixie on the bed.
Then after doing that I look around and I see that the room is very sparse with very few things, there are some chairs, a couple of small tables, bowls, cloths and bandages but I do not see any other medical instruments nor anything like that, then my mom calls to me and I look back towards her.
- Healing magic Carter tends to be the more expensive magic that we have, and it is a difficult branch sometimes with more things in common with praying than with casting magic – she says and then she prepares herself to cast.
- HEAL! - She commands
At that point I closed my eyes and tried to enter into the meditation mode to feel the magic, and then I see something unique, from my mom there is a stream of silver mana coming out from her hands, and also all around the patients more silver fireflies are appearing, the amount of mana is huge, and I see how it enters the pixie, after a couple of minutes I see my mom stop casting the spell, and she moves back, I bring a chair to her so she can sit down.
- Did you see? – She asks me
- Yeah you put quite a lot of mana, but what will happen now? What was her problem? – I ask
- I don’t know Carter, at least what little we know of healing we do it through asking the help of the goddess of healing, and then we spend the mana that is necessary for the patient to get cured, some patients require only one session others may require dozens of sessions, this pixie will probably require three or four sessions before she is completely healed, but at least the most critical stuff is done – she says.
- And are you okay? – I ask worried because of her pregnancy
- Yes Carter I’m fine, I come here every morning to work on healing the people that come from the front, we receive cases that are relatively urgent, they usually treat the worse of it in the fort itself before they ship them here for a more comprehensive treatment – she tells me – I do not think that you will be able to cast healing magic until you are older and have a lot more training, as you saw it was a really expensive magic and your reserves of mana are not there yet.
- Is there no other way of casting the healing magic – I ask
- If you were anybody else my answer would be no, but for you the answer is simple, we do not know, is there a more effective method, maybe, so far we have not found it and we have a method that works, I know you have been working hard on your other magical affinities, my own recommendation is for you to continue, the more you grow your mana the easier it will be to cast healing magic – she says then she tells me – go little one, go home and rest.
I go trying to keep my face neutral but as soon as I’m out of sight my face drops and I become disappointed, I was hoping for something more magical but it was just more of the same and with this one I do not know what to do, at least with most of the other elements I have an idea about what process I’m trying to use, but this one just bothers me, also seeing that goblin was weird, he looked deformed, maybe I should go home and write for a while any knowledge I have of medicine I can remember, I do not want to forget something important.
Also while I’m at the hospital I check to see what they have, the hospital is really big, it is a two story house, but it is so big there should be easily more than a hundred rooms per floor, and well it was not pretty, I see hundreds of patients, most of them people missing an arm or a leg, then I see a Priestess comes towards me.
- Hi, are they going to be ok? – I ask while pointing towards some of the patients.
- Hi you should be Carter, Katherine’s son right? – The priestess ask
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
- Yes I am.
- Well those people will be fine, they already received the first treatment at the fort and they put their arm or leg in a stasis spell, we will be doing rotations to reattach the limb but it will take a while, they should have the limb reattached by tomorrow and then after about a month of magical sessions they should be ok to go back and do some light exercise, then if they can they will go back to the front, or they will retire from the army – she answers my question.
- Are you sure you should be telling me that? – I ask her perplexed that she is being so forthcoming.
- Well I imagine that your mother brought you here so you could see the hospital and that tells me that you have affinity for healing, so coming here and seeing the work is a good way to measure if you will be able to do it in the future or not, so far it looks like you can do it – she says and smiles towards me.
- Why do you say that?
- Because you are here standing seeing all these people in suffering coming and going and you are not vomiting or in panic, you are here asking for how they are going to be treated – She answers me.
- Another question are they the only patients on this hospital? – I ask since I did not see any other patient but military ones.
- There is a second hospital in the city where most folks from the city go for their emergencies, this one here is the military hospital, we can deal with everything here, we have done all the pregnancies of the duke family and we have received all of you kids, but the main use we have are mostly military people wounded that come from the frontlines. – The priestess answer
- And it is always this bad? – I ask
- Did I not tell you to go home? – my mother comes from the hallway and when she see me there she interrupts.
- I was going mom, but I just wanted to see your workplace.
- Katherine your son is a sweetheart and he could be a healer, he has the calm that is needed for it, well Carter I will leave you to your mom, I have more work that awaits for me, and about your last question I’m sure your father can answer that for you – says the priestess and then she walks away.
- What did you ask her – my mom ask me
- Oh well about the demons and the amount of wounded and what type of hospital this was. – I tell her
- Patience darling patience, I also need to have some patience - she says this while being lost in thought and then she grabs hold of my hand and pulls me.
- Come on, lets walk towards the house – says my mother.
After a while walking my mother brings me towards the garden in the house and we sit in a bench on the garden that is fairly far from the house and isolated.
- Carter you ok? What happened at the hospital?
- Nothing mom.
- Oh come on, I first thought that you were not made to be a healer, because after I showed you the healing spell you were not excited but disappointed, since I did not see any enthusiasm from you I told you to go home, just so that I find you talking and flirting with the pretty priestess outside about treating patients, so what happen?
So much for being able to keep a poker face she saw right through me, I also blush about her telling me about flirting with the priestess.
- Well mom I was expecting more than what you showed, see how the magic fixed the pixie, for you to know what was wrong with her and tell what you were doing to fix it, but it was more of the same, pour magic into it until it works.
- Then darling why don’t you do what you did with the other magic classes? Make your own spell you have been quite successful in doing that for a while – says my mother while smiling at me.
- Mom what I know of medicine is extremely small, at best first aid and some general purpose knowledge, I was never a doctor.
- Yeah but we have some knowledge I told you that there is knowledge that was kept from the previous Heroes, I do not know how comprehensive it is but there is some medical knowledge on the royal library, and we have a copy of those books here on the library – she says.
- Really – I say surprised.
- Yeah we may not use most of the knowledge from the heroes but we have collected a lot of it, some of it that was considered important was kept, and the medical texts well we received a message from the goddess of healing that those were extremely important and we should have them and spread them, so we kept several copies, every noble tends to have a copy at their house so any healer may consult them, and the originals are in the royal library- she tells me.
- But if you have the knowledge, then why are you not using it with your spells – I ask
- I think it’s more a lack of a mental image, you know how when we cast a spell we have to have an image of what we want to happen, and with your own method we not only imagine what we want but also how we want it to happen, well I think we lack that – She says.
I look at her with a face of confusion, and she starts laughing hard at me, I get mad at her but then she hugs me and starts explaining a bit more.
- Oh little one, you have seen the results of your machines and your techniques on earth, so when you imagine the process you understand what you want and you can express that to the magic, how can you ask the magic to do something you do not know what to do or what to expect, the magical energies are amazing, if we imagine the final result and if we pour enough mana, the magic will find a way of making it work and give you that final image you wanted – she says and then she smiles at me and stares to the distance.
- You know Carter you were right all those months ago, we could never ask the Heroes about their knowledge, they gave us the knowledge but then they were busy fighting and dying, and something is missing, something to connect us, our magic and that knowledge brought by them, also for some of that knowledge I do not think the materials exist in this world – she says.
- I want to know the medical techniques of your world, maybe with those techniques we can save more people, we lose a lot of people because healing is one of the most expensive spells and we really cannot heal that many people, also people that get hurt on the front of battle need magical healing, normal healing does not work on them, and we do not know why, over time we have develop a system where most of our Healing is done magically because it is what works – and here she takes a deep breath.
- Also I have to ask for forgiveness from you, I rushed you too much, since you have been able to see spells from the other affinities and have been able to improve those spells and make them so that they become way less expensive on mana, I wanted for you to see our healing so you could do the same for us, maybe if we could heal with spells that are less expensive we could save more people.