The next eight months of my life passed without real incident. I continued to grow my repertoire of curatives, potions, and elixirs. Once I started receiving a cut of the elixirs I made, I even started experimenting on my own. This is probably the reason why Laurel never suspected the truly outrageous rate at which my essence regenerated itself. I myself didn't realize the enormity of it until much later in my life. I was fortunate to have it though, because it meant that I had the essence to spare for my personal studies.

Though these were my first forays into accessing the first of my talents, it was not until I visited The Rusty Bucket that I began my first tentative steps onto the path which would lead to the my receiving the title that I was known in Vern as: The Merciful Alchemist.

"Ethan?" Falia asked, looking me up and down, "You've certainly grown, though that is hard enough to imagine, considering how big you were when you first got here!"

I stared at her, "Falia?"

She grinned at me, "Something different you noticed about me?"

"You're pregnant!" I accused.

She put her hands on her hips, her swollen belly pointing at me, "Are you implying that I have gained weight young man?"

I stared at her in mortification until she burst out laughing.

"You caught me." She admitted.

"Who..." I froze, "Never mind, it's not important."

She smiled at me warmly, "It was Mike."

I felt tears prickle my eyes as I thought of my one time mentor and first friend in this strange world of Esturia.

"Is everyth-" I croaked, cleared my throat, then continued, "Is everything okay? With the baby I mean."

I would have killed to have an ultrasound right then, but beggars would ride if wishes were horses.

"My sister is a midwife," Falia explained, "She sent her daughter Elsie over to help me out with the Bucket. She says I shouldn't be straining myself so late in the pregnancy, but what can I do?"

"I can give you money if you need it!" I declared, "You don't have to work!"

She glared at me, "Ethan! I'll have you know that I've run the Bucket for almost a decade, and nobody, not even a babe, is going to keep me from my work!"

"You should be resting," I said, lowering my voice, "You're practically due!"

She eyed me, "What are you, some kind of white mage? What kind of man has his nose in women's business?"

"I was," I began, then struggled, "I've been trained as a surgeon!"

Technically not true. But my pre-medical days and work as an ER technician probably placed me somewhere in the top tier of the primitive medicine that was practiced in Esturia. Well, the kingdom of Aramor anyways.

"Well," Falia harrumphed, "If I need someone to chop of my leg or bleed me, then I'll be certain to call you."

"I'm an alchemist too!" I protested.

"I don't need a potion or elixir." She pointed out.

"I can help," I pleaded, dropping to my knees, "Please Falia!"

She tilted her head at me over her abdomen. Something in my eyes must have convinced her that I was serious, because she sighed and hauled me to my feet.

"Don't be so dramatic Ethan," She said, "If it's for the baby... then I think I can trust you."

I grinned, "Thank you Falia! I won't let you down!"

"So," She said, "What exactly are you planning on doing to me?"

I held up a finger, then lowered it. All of my training was based on having a level of medical infrastructure which was utterly lacking in this world. I wasn't a white mage, so it wasn't like I could lay my hands on Falia or her baby and command them to live. Come to think of it, if I were a white mage, I wouldn't be here. All I had here were my powers as a gray mage.

I needed to make some things, and fast.

Without responding, I ran for the exit. Slipping and sliding down the wet cobblestones, I quickly arrived at the door to Laurel's home. I began pounding incessantly.

"What the hell do you want?" Laurel asked, her eyes half-closed, "And where do you get off pounding on my door at his time of night!"

"It's not even tenth bell," I pointed out, "Why are you in bed so early?"

Laurel gave me an appraising look, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Nope. Definitely not.

"Look," I said, "What kind of things can we do for childbirth. Oh, and bleeding. Massive bleeding."

Laurel's eyes widened, "You want to tell me exactly what's going on? Did you get some girl pregnant before you became my apprentice?"

I shook my head, "Not enough time. Not my kid, but that of a dear friend."

Laurel sighed, "Wait here."

I stood in the rain for several minutes before she returned with an oiled satchel, "These go straight to the store and they don't go anywhere else, got it?"

I nodded, gratefully taking the package.

"Mandrin's guide to childbearing is the authority on the subject, though I would guess that you have some things to say about that," She explained, "It also contains several highly controversial potions that claim to restore blood. Just note whatever you use out of the stores and I'll deduct it from your next round of wages. I trust that you have the capacity to differentiate between a slurry of ingredients and a true potion?"

"Understood, yes ma'am." I said.

She smiled then, "You're a good kid Ethan. This girl must be something special."

"You have no idea." I replied, "I'll see you around!"

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I dashed off into the night to make my preparations.

The blood potions ended up being duds. Either I was not good enough to make them, or alchemy truly wasn't a healing art. I made a mental note to look into it further, then did the only sensible thing that a half-crazy man would do.

I built a centrifuge.

It was ugly, hand operated, and the vials I used to store the materials I was working with were co-opted alchemy equipment, but it did the job right. The intention of my magic somehow made up for my lack of mechanical engineering skills. Being gray sometimes had its perks.

It was much easier to file down a thin steel pipe into a large gauge needle, then sterilize it and some rubber tubing for use as a phlebotomy kit. The nurses at Central Mercy would have killed me daring to stick myself with something like that, but they weren't here to complain to me.

Over the next two weeks I managed to get two pints of blood out of myself, centrifuge it down, and pull out the red blood cells. I thanked my lucky stars that I was a universal blood donor, as I wasn't sure I could have convinced even Laurel go along with my insane scheme. Laurel even had a nifty little refrigeration device made with some kind of enchanting magic. I promised myself I would check it out later.

I poured myself into everything I did, literally. I don't know if it was my sheer desperation, or my growing powers as a gray mage, but I don't believe that there had ever been a more essence-laden operation carried out in the world to that point. I think Laurel ended up using the leftover blood products as an essence substitute for an elixir, which still makes me shiver sometimes.

I won't go into the details of the night when little Micah came into the world. I will tell you that I used every last drop of the blood I had gotten out of my body and a large amount of sterilized saline to keep Falia from bleeding to death after giving birth. I also taught the midwife how to perform a uterine massage.

It was the first time that I combined the medical knowledge I had brought with me and my powers as a gray mage. It was ugly, and Falia almost died anyways, but through a combination of reckless ingenuity and desperation, I managed to pull it off.

When I held baby Micah for the first time, I realized that there were some things in this world worth fighting for. When I handed her back to her mother, who was still alive thanks to my insanity, I decided that maybe I could do some of that fighting.

XXXXXX

"Are you Ethan?" A woman asked.

Looking up from my book on alchemical theory, I stretched, then nodded, "That's me. Welcome to Laurel's alchemicals, is there anything I can help you with?"

The woman looked around the shop, then her eyes rested on me. I could tell she wasn't an adventurer based on the way she dressed. In fact, she looked more like someone's mother, with her graying hair and pale blue eyes. It wasn't really common for non-adventurers to seek our services. Alchemy was the domain of those who lived fast and hard. Curatives were relatively cheap, but a commoner rarely had need of them.

"Falia tells me that you are an accomplished physiker." She said.

I scratched my head, then felt a small light go on inside, "Ah, you mean a physician."

"Yes?" She asked.

"I'm more of a technician than a physician," I said, fearing the wrath of those nurses, even from another world away, "But I'll help however I can. What seems to be the problem?"

"My son has rotgut." She said, as if that would explain everything.

"What?" I asked.

"The herbalist says that he will die by tomorrow morning," She held a hand up to her face, "Falia told me that you can do... things."

"You can go to Father Lyorcha," I said, "He's a good sort, he will help you."

"He tried," She sniffed, "He said that it was beyond him, he would need an upper priest for this type of sickness."

I glanced around, but Laurel was nowhere in sight. She was getting used to having me here, meaning she usually left me to manage the shop during slow hours. I shrugged and hopped off my stool.

"I'll come take a look," I said, "But I can't promise anything."

She nodded gratefully through eyes that had long since cried themselves out. I closed up the shop, indicating that I would return soon, and followed her for fifteen minutes until we reached one of the squat, cramped tenements which the local populace lived in. Vern was a frontier town, so space was a premium, as everyone had to fit inside the safety of the walls. While simple laborers were needed, they were packaged in to the point where I wondered if Firth's quarter was in danger of collapsing when I sometimes walked near it.

Ascending several flights of stairs, I found a small room with three cots laid out. On the one farthest from the door I saw a young man, probably just shy of his teenage years, breathing heavily. He had been stripped to his small clothes, and cooling cloths had been applied to his skin, but the sheen of sweat on him let me know that he was burning with fever.

The stench was horrifying.

I knelt next to him and began touching his abdomen. Within moments I knew exactly what was wrong with the boy. I stood up and turned to his mother.

"I believe your son has appendicitis." I said, "From the looks of it, it could rupture at any moment."

I could see tears well in her eyes, "D-does that mean..."

I sighed, turning to look back at the boy. There was no way that I could do anything about this. I didn't have access to antibiotics. I could make potions that would allow a grown man to wrestle a lion, elixirs that would unlock the potential inside of any person, and curatives that could bar the door of death in certain cases. I could even make a few poisons, though that was-

Poisons.

The alchemical gears in my mind began whirring. Medicine in my world was in many ways barbaric when compared with the power of white magic. White magic was a holy force that could heal injuries in a moment. In my world, we often had to cause damage to our patients to heal them. I was no white mage, but I was a gray mage. Intention was just as much a part of magic as science was of medicine.

I knew what to do. Kneeling down, I swept up a handful of soiled linens.

"I need these!" I yelled over my shoulder, sprinting out into the noonday sun.

I scraped a sample of the horrid smelling stuff off of the linen at my alchemy desk and dropped it in a vial, then added rathound bile and several curative ingredients to the mixture. When my brain stopped supplying ingredients, I started mashing them together. Focusing my intent, I pushed essence through the mixture. Tailored poisons were the realm of an assassin. An assassin was just an alchemist without morals.

A flash of light faded as I sprinted out the front door, right past Laurel, who managed to yell some kind of obscenity at me as I skidded around a corner. I arrived at the tenement in minutes, where I left several people in the dust as I barreled through the halls, praying that I wasn't too late.

The boy's mother was kneeling next to him, and I may have bowled her over in my haste. She didn't mention it later, so I can't be sure. In any case, I hurriedly forced the small vial of poison down the boy's throat. He coughed once at the rough ministration but managed to keep it down. I held him for long moments, my head pressed to his chest. If this was going to work, I would need supremely good timing.

The labored sound of his heart skipped a beat, then began beating at a terrifying rate. It was now or never. Whether he lived or not was now up to chance. Uncorking a rathound curative, I dosed him with it, praying that I wasn't too late. I continued to press his chest to my ear, every one of those ragged beats pounding out my guilt for failing to act quickly enough.

His heart slowed.

Over the course of five minutes his heart rate and temperature slowly dropped.

Sighing, I set him down, then collapsed backwards myself. I may have pushed myself a little too far.

"Mister Ethan..." The boy's mother said, her face appearing in my vision, "How can I-"

I waved a hand, "Don't worry about it. Just... let the people know that when this happens, they need to come find me immediately. Your son is lucky that he didn't suffer an appendiceal rupture. I'll teach you what to look for."

She bowed her head down, her forehead touching the floor, "Thank you."

I sat up and pulled her up, "You're welcome, but where I come from, nobody prostrates themselves before another. I certainly don't want to start something like that."

She held out her hands, a tarnished silver and a handful of coppers in it, "This is all we can offer. We can find more if you-"

I gently took her hand and wrapped it around the coins, "I don't need your money ma'am. Just take good care of your boy, that's reward enough for me."

Despite my earlier words, she touched her head to the floor, refusing to rise until I had left.

"I hope that was worth it," Laurel said, "You spent around three silvers to save that boy."

I scowled at my master, "I would have spent five gold pennies, or even a sovereign, if that is what it took to save a life."

Laurel regarded me for a long moment, then sighed, "You're such a troublesome kid. You remind me that there are still good men in the world."

I smiled, "Who's your favorite apprentice?"

"My favorite journeyman actually," She said, "I've been holding back for a while, but when you created a potion on the fly that could cure rotgut... Not even the Collegia Alchemica would deprive me my right to promote you."

I thrust a fist into the air.

In the coming weeks I started working on my own formulae, bound in a book that I had made myself. I spent a lot of time at the local herbarium, where I took the first steps towards becoming the first master of the art of medical alchemy.