So, this took me a bit to get written. I've been busy. I'm glad for all the new readers, and the next chapter should hopefully be up soon. As always, let me know if I you spot any mistakes, and thanks for reading.

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Chapter 11

I had taken too long in returning. The hours spent in the baths had gotten away from me, and the sun was setting as I flew over the rooftops. My footsteps as light as a feather, and my body was a flicker of light in the glare of the sun. The world blurred as I passed over the heads of the crowds below and I felt truly weightless, like I was flying. My hair swirled around me like a halo of golden fire in light of dusk, and the blue coat dragged against the wind, cracking like a whip as its edges caught the current of the wind. When I was a child I had dreamed of being superman, taking to the sky like a bird, and as I leapt to the top of a building I launched myself upward.

The city fell away beneath me as I found myself hurtling through the sky like a bullet. Dust had kicked up beneath me on my leap, and I felt the pressure of the air as it passed over my body, heating up. The pressure gave away to a feeling of weightlessness as the clouds enveloped my form, and I passed beyond them in a trail of vapor. My mind struggled to find purchase as I kept ascending, the slowed passage of time extending the sense of weightlessness...and terror.

My body kept hurtling upward, as the ground fell away: one thousand feet, two thousand feet, five thousand feet, ten thousand feet. I struggled to react to the motion, but I had no purchase on the air. With nothing to grasp or halt my movement, I reached an apex above the clouds, and started to fall to earth. The sense of weightlessness returned as time resumed its normal rate, and I screamed. “MOTHER!” I yelled as I realized I lacked a way to slow my descent. I had used up my fabrication ability's creation to its limit today, and though I had materials on hand, I didn't have enough to alter to create anything like a parachute. As the cityscape moved closer toward me, I realized two things. One, I had overshot my destination by a good deal. Two, Kisk was apparently spread between a massive river leading to a distant sea. Both of these facts registered at roughly the same time, as I searched for the whore house my mother called a home, and simultaneously recognized I was headed for a watery grave.

I'm not sure exactly what was going through my head when I leapt, except 'Hey! I'm Superman!' This was in stark contrast to the thought currently running through my head of 'Hey! I'm a Dead Man!' Or I would be, if I were still a man...also, dying twice in so many days felt like pushing it to me.

My mind struggled at my options, as I realized I still had a tool in my chest; one fortuitously provided to me while a young 'noblewoman' was groping me earlier. I had yet to actually cast a spell, but I was desperately hopeful in my ability to use one as the waters approached. Summoning the image of the arcane symbols I saw Chalice craft earlier, I focused a circle of glimmering light on my palms, which I held toward the water. I began pouring mana through them as quickly as possible, as an explosion of water erupted from my palms. Nothing happened at first, so I poured more and more mana into the spell, until I finally began to feel to descent slowing.

The jet of water hit the river below, spreading outward in a dense white foam, creating a large bowl in the water below me. I adjusted the direction of the jet as my velocity slowed to a stand still. I quickly found it difficult to accurately control my aim as the pressure against my body grew. As the angle shifted slightly, my body was launched forward wildly. As I tried to regain my composure, the spell broke, my mana draining low enough to cause mental exhaustion. Moments later I hit the water, though at least traveling at a less than fatal speed.

I reached shore a few minutes later, taking a more leisurely pace this time. I had found it simple enough cross unseen beneath the water, emerging at the entrance to a canal. Blocked from the view of others as I ducked into an alley, I washed away the river water with a small jet, and then quietly used the fabrication system to adjust the location of the water that had soaked my clothing away from me, and repaired the tares that had appeared along the way. I hoped that would serve to 'clean' myself of whatever I might have picked up in the river...I really, really hoped, while trying not to think about what likely washed up into that river. Oddly the books and other articles I had in my satchel seemed untouched, leading me to notice an ambient magic that lined the inside of the bag.

It was a good twenty minutes before I finally managed to return to the Drunken Harlot, taking my sweet time. The street was quiet when I arrived, empty of the hustle and bustle that I expected during the late evening around this type of establishment. More than just the cheap bordello, the entire length of street was still. I looked around to catch a glimpse of movement in one of the buildings, as someone glanced through a window from behind a set of curtains, and then ducked back again. The sense of trepidation I felt was growing stronger by the second.

As I opened the door I felt my heart stop at the sight of blood pooled on the floor. A woman's body was gutted, and left in a crumpled mess at the foot of the stairs. Furniture was upturned and broken in pieces, while the bar was shattered. I ran to look at the body and found it trembling slightly, the head tilted as it gasped. I was amazed she was alive, if only for the moment.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I kept repeating over and over again, as I approached the woman on the floor. Her red hair had a thin coating of her own blood, and the blue silks of her garments were shredded and marred. “Aisha...” I said pushing against her stomach, where her organs were visible in the mesh. She twitched as I touched her, and her breathing was shallow and labored. “I can handle this...Hold on...I'm...Oh God.” I said as she grasped at my arm weakly.

I brought up the fabrication system, hoping I could do something about the damage to her body, but suddenly faced with my own ignorance. I realized I was panicking as I stared at her. The body was a jumble of fluids, tissue, and organs, and I wasn't sure where to start with the damage. Her bones were broken along her back, her ribs, her legs, and there were fractures in her skull. I breathed in deeply and tried to wrack my mind for information. Aisha was dying right in front of me, and I didn't know how to stop it.

Time slowed, and the light glimmered around me growing brighter, and in a moment I was standing in that endless library once more. I needed medical information, and I hoped that I could find something in the these shelves. I ran with a vague sense of the direction, finding a scattering of books on biology and anatomy. I had never really read in that area, beyond skimming texts in college, or reading for the required science courses. I didn't have any pure medical texts to pull from, but I grabbed the anatomy texts, absorbing their contents in a wash of light, or perhaps I was simply remembering what I had seen before. It didn't really matter, because it was all suddenly at my fingertips.

The world was still moving in 'bullet time' as I reentered reality. I started by taking a sample of Aisha's blood and saved the makeup. I pulled the pooled blood from the floor, filtering contaminants from it, while trying to salvage what I could of it. I pulled from some of the materials around me, forming a needle from iron and lining the inside with gold. Lacking plastics, I grabbed glass nearby and used the alteration function of the fabrication system to create silicone rubber tubing. The system seemed to follow the conversion process using my memory, even without the catalysts usually necessary to alter the chemical state of the silicate. Once I had a material to use, I created tubing, and a seal, running between one of two needles. The other emptied into a sterilized one liter silicone bag.

Looking over Aisha's damaged body, I quietly closed ruptured blood vessels, and tissue as her body was laid down on the floor. Her skin was pale, but at least the bleeding had stopped. Her heart was laboring and was likely to give out in the struggle any minute. The bones in her hips and limbs I repaired, as well as the fracture in her skull, but I decided to wait on her back until I had more time.

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Taking one of the needles I slid it into my arm, and blood began to pool into the bag. I formed a hook from the metal of a lantern, and set it into the wall beside us, before hanging the bag onto it. As I strung the bag of blood up, I compared Aisha's blood to my own. According to Identify we were both O negative, so luck was with me...I hoped it would hold. I used another set of tubing fashioned the same as the first, and used the other needle to inject directly into Aisha.

The effect was almost immediate, as I could see the blood passing into her like liquid light. The tone of her skin changed in seconds as her breathing became easier. I looked into her body again, and found tissue I had missed repairing itself, much as the tissue in her back was knitting back together. She'd lost more than a liter of blood...but not much more, and I could see it was having a dramatic effect. Even her skin looked oddly softer. I had done what I could for her, and I hoped there weren't others.

Stepping away from Aisha's now sleeping form, I moved into the next room and found Lily huddled behind the bar. She looked up at me crying and trembling, and almost immediately latched onto me. I held the hysterical woman in my arms as she tried to speak.

“Jasmine...They took your mother. Aisha tried to stop them, and one of the men...Oh Gods!” Lily said between wails.

“Calm down...Aisha is fine...It was only a flesh wound, she's all right.” I said patting Lily's hair.

“That bastard Brax practically handed her over. He had some jewelry he'd taken from her. He claimed she'd stolen it. Jasmine denied it, but wouldn't say where she got it from. Then some of those assholes Brax buys and sells black market goods from showed up. They were arguing, and then they said they wanted you. Jasmine tried to flee, but this large man in a black cloak grabbed her. Aisha tried to stop him, but...” Lily said, before stopping to wipe her eyes. “Brax just wanted the damned jewelry!”Lily said, pulling away from me.

As Lily moved to look in on Aisha, I heard a grumbling noise as a large man in his late forties with a gruff beard stumbled down the stairs with a bottle of spirits in hand. He raised a thick arm at me and grinned. “Well, if it isn't my newest whore!” he said as he looked down at Aisha's sleeping form and grumbled. “Got the paperwork all drafted up by some friends. Your mother didn't want to, but now it's all legal like, or will be soon as I file it.” he said kicking Aisha as he stepped over her. “I need to replace the dead bitch anyway.” he said, before taking another swig from his bottle. “And you...I think I'll break you in myself. A virgin's first time pulls in a pretty cintas, but I have money now. I can afford the luxury of popping you.” he said reaching out to grasp at my hair.

When his hand touched my shoulder, I twisted it, and pulled him forward. I could feel something snap as I crushed the bones in his hand. I grabbed him by the head and dragged him back into the bar room, while he screamed and struggled. Pushing ki through my body I doubled my physical stats, before I began pummeling him with my fists. I could hear bones crack and tissue tear as I struck him over and over again, his legs flopping around as I broke them with sharp kicks. As his screams died down I tossed him down onto the floor, and stepped over him.

“Listen to me, you perverted fuck. If you don't tell me where they took my mother, I will break you, and re-break you until you beg for death. I will expose you to pain the likes of which you cannot imagine, and I do so until your every waking thought is the hope that I might finally kill you.” I said, my mind numb with anger.

“STOP! STOP!” Brax bawled beneath me, flailing uselessly as he struggled in my grasp. “It was Caern! The shadow's enforcer! He took her!” he said coughing up blood.

“WHERE?” I yelled, my voice breaking as I glared at him.

“The slave pens! They run the southern market, near the docks. He'll have taken her there!” Brax said shaking, his body in shock.

“And my mother's jewelry?” I asked, staring down at him angrily as I released my hold.

He waved with his good hand at the stairs. “In my room...” Brax said weakly, slumping back.

I stepped away from Brax, and headed up the stairs, taking a moment to look at Aisha and see that she was still recovering. I found the jewelry I had made for Jasmine in one of the bedrooms upstairs. They were on top of a desk, beside a bundle of papers. They looked to be slave papers and certificates of debt for the women in the Drunken Harlot. I could see a faint aura of magic about them, and Divine Identify told me the effect was a geas. The last one looked to have been filled out for me, though it hadn't been enchanted yet. I took them all, and destroyed them. There was a moment of resistance, as if the magic in the paper made it resistant to normal damage...but I suppose being a God had its perks.

There was a thunderous crack like a gun going off as I sundered the documents, turning them to ash, and as I stowed the gifts I made for my mother in my satchel, women began peeking into the room. I could see a subtle shift in their demeanor from before, and a few of them looked to be crying joyfully as they saw the ash on the floor.

Stepping back into the hall, I reeled as the women began hugging and grasping at me. I realized that though I had freed them, they still had nowhere to go. “Get your things, whatever you have. There's a house...” I said thinking back to the documents I signed earlier, bringing their image to mind in perfect clarity. “Estres Plaza and Brooks Way. Go there and wait for me, all of you. When you arrive, if anyone stops you, tell them the Countess sent you. I need to go...My mother...” I said, my voice trailing off. The women looked confused, but they nodded and agreed.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw Aisha beginning to stir, her eyes a bit brighter than before, and her appearance more youthful. I knelt down as Brax was screaming from the other room “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!” he was yelling at me, though I simply ignored him.

Aisha trembled as she rose to her feet, pulling the needle from her arm. She looked at it confused, and I took them, not wanting to risk people getting a hold of even a bit of my blood. I didn't know if something could be done with it, but I didn't want to find out. “I'm...healed.” Aisha said, her voice weary. I leaned in and hugged her, “Go with the others. Estres Paza and Brooks Way. It's something I own now. “I whispered to her. “Go quickly...” I said looking at her for a moment and considered. “Be careful...and bless you Aisha, you tried to protect my mother and I won't forget that.” I said hugging her, a wash of warmth passing between us.

Blessing of Faith Bestowed A goddess whose domains are creation, knowledge, and magic, those endowed with her blessing receive a potent boost to magical strength. Enchantments or magic items require only half of the normal time to create, and the blessed of Faith have perfect memories. Finally path levels aren't restricted based on elemental affinities.

Beyond a faint look of 'relief' from the blessing, Aisha didn't seem to notice. I stepped away from her and brushed the strands of red hair from her eyes. “I need to hurry...” I said stepping away from Aisha. She tried to stop me, calling behind me, but I was gone in an instant.