The room was a cacophony of jarring sounds and voices, but little of it filtered through the horror I felt at the scene in front of me. Blood... there was so much blood, but none of it was fresh.

Several days had passed uneventfully, until just a few minutes ago when Tetra had come running and demanded that I follow her. All I had been able to get out of her was that there was some kind of emergency, and Lord Runax had sent her to summon me.

"Please! He is the only son of the captain!" pleaded an unfamiliar guard, kneeling in front of Lord Runax. "You... you don't understand... this will destroy Captain Thoan! And Yulfric is a good lad! He can't die! He just..."

The sound of a grown man breaking down and begging for help finally brought me out of my trance... but I still had no idea why I had been summoned.

"Calm yourself. There are children present," Lord Runax said in a deep voice, and I felt a shift in the room as the panicking guard abruptly fell silent.

"Y...yes, of course. My lord."

"Now leave the room, and don't let anyone else enter until you hear from me."

"Yes, my lord."

My heart hammered in my chest as I grimaced at the abruptly all-too-calm guard. He made his way out of the room, his gaze blank - was that the true power of Lord Runax's ability? I could feel an inexplicable heat coming off of the frog-faced nobleman, but it was strange that his power hadn't had nearly so strong an effect on me...

"Tetra, Heller! Tend to the boy. Heller, do what you can, if you can do anything at all. Tetra, assist young Heller however he needs, and beware your oath. Everyone else, leave the room immediately! I shall be in my office awaiting a report."

He watched the crimson-stained healers leave, then swept out of the room himself, barely sparing a glance towards the dying figure on the blood-soaked table, and the echo of his footsteps seemed to amplify the silence left in his wake. Soon, the loudest sounds came from the labored breathing of the injured boy lying on the table, and our soft footsteps as we moved to his side.

I had never been so close to a mortally injured person before, and the way the blood pooled around the boy's body was unsettling. But what was even worse was that all the blood I could see looked like it had been there for some time. It caked the boy's skin in thick, brownish-red layers, as if he had been lying there bleeding for hours. The sight made my stomach twist and my heart ache.

Tetra was the first to break the silence between us, gently placing a hand on the boy's forehead and murmuring soothing words. She then reached up and began to carefully remove some of his bandages, making sure not to disturb the wounds. I watched in fascination as she worked quickly yet delicately, gently cleaning dried blood to reveal rows of neat stitches that were too little, too late.

Without looking away from what she was doing, Tetra murmured my name. "Heller," she said quietly, "I think he was stabbed at least twice."

My mind raced as I tried to process this new information. All I knew was that it was a hopeless case, and Lord Runax seemed to be asking me to try and use whatever The Merrk had taught me to save the boy. Was this another test? But why healing, of all things? Those were questions that only Lord Runax could answer, but it didn't matter at this point. I had to decide what to do, and quickly...

I glanced towards Tetra, whose face was still creased with worry as she continued tending to the boy's wounds. Taking a deep breath, I swallowed to clear my throat and spoke up:

"Do you..." I began, wincing at the volume of my own voice. Too much time at the Smithy with my father had given me a bad habit of speaking overly loud at times, which always caused my mother to gently chastise me and my father to smile. I found myself wishing they were here... surely Mom would know what to do - she always knew what to do, Jaws's calming presence could make any situation seem less dire.

"Do you know why they asked me to come down here? I'm not exactly a healer..." I asked, keeping my voice just above a whisper this time.

The young girl nodded, her silvery scales and tiny horns catching the light as she moved closer to me, "It was my idea... I just... well, when I saw what you did to that beast-brained soldier in the arena, and then Lord Runax made me swear that vow of secrecy..." she shrugged, "I just thought..."

Her voice trailed off, but I could feel her hopeful look drilling into my brain as I stared back at her. I didn't know what to feel, but suddenly the thought of disappointing her seemed even worse than all the blood and gore - and knowing that this wasn't all a morbid game orchestrated by Lord Runax made me want to save the kid even more.

"Alright, Tetra, can you give me some space to work?"

Tetra nodded and retreated to the opposite side of the table, watching me as I stepped forward to take a closer look at the boy's injuries. The wounds were deep and severe, and it was clear that he had already lost a lot of blood. But there was something else... something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

I took another deep breath and focused, ignoring the heavy iron-tainted scent, and reached out with my senses to try and identify the source of the problem. And then, suddenly, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

"The wounds... they're not infected."

Tetra looked at me strangely, and I looked back at her expectantly for a moment before I remembered that our people never got infected. I winced, but she was still just looking at me as if waiting for more. Maybe she didn't even know what the word meant. After all, only farmers or people who worked with animals really needed to know the term.

I decided to just continue my line of thought, not caring if I said something that didn't make any sense. "So... if there is no infection, there is no fever."

I touched the boy's forehead, and he was startlingly cool to the touch. Next, I felt his neck, checking for his pulse... but I couldn't feel anything. Fighting back a mounting panic, I checked that he was still breathing, and was relieved to hear that he was. In fact, his breath was surprisingly strong for someone without a pulse...

I checked again, this time holding my own breath and closing my eyes, gently moving my hand across his neck until I felt a very fast, and very weak, pulse beating against my fingertips. I lost it again a moment later, but that didn't matter. I had my prognosis.

"Fast, weak pulse. Labored breathing, with a faint hissing sound when he exhales. Cold to the touch." I let out a lingering sigh. "Organ damage, and blood loss. I don't know the words for kidney or liver, but I'm pretty sure that one or both of them are in bad shape. Definitely internal bleeding, maybe perforation of his stomach or large intestine..."

It was the first time I had spoken English out loud since my rebirth (because I didn't know the equivalent words in my new language), but I barely even noticed. Most of what I knew came from first-aid classes, biology lectures, and, to be honest, watching medical dramas. Was my diagnosis correct? Who knows - certainly not me.

"Larange innesnstene?" Tetra asked, doing a surprisingly good job of mimicking the sounds when you consider how very different the languages were.

"Oh, sorry, just some words that... I heard somewhere. Anyway, the point is... umm... I guess the point is that he needs, uhhh..." I paused again, trying to come up with a way to describe 'surgery'... "A healer to cut him open and fix what is inside."

"Ah! A Silverlight healer. But we don't have one here," Tetra interjected, her voice filled with disappointment.

I nodded, feeling a pang of helplessness. I knew the legends about Great House Silverlight, but it was only the most powerful of nobles who might be able to help here: The boy's condition was critical, and without proper medical intervention, his chances of survival were slim. But then an idea sparked in my mind - a bad idea, maybe, but the only one I had.

"Tetra, do you trust me?" I asked, looking directly into her eyes.

She hesitated for a moment, her gaze searching mine for answers. Finally, she nodded, "No."

My breath caught at Tetra's response, but she continued breathlessly before I could ask what the heck she meant.

"I mean, I hardly know you - of course I don't trust you, but that doesn't matter. I'll do whatever you need me to do, so... yeah, I will trust you... I..."

I raised a hand to halt her flustered reply. "That's fine, good enough. I have to close my eyes and focus - please, just make sure nobody touches me. This probably won't work, and it might look... really weird. I mean, like really, really weird... but don't touch me until I am done. Okay?"

She nodded firmly, "Don't worry, Heller. I'll guard the door."

I nodded back to her, then focused as I gingerly placed my hands on either side of the boy's head. I idly wondered about his age. Maybe early teens, but he was well built and his shoulders were wide enough that I wondered if he had the same size-altering mutation as my father. If so, he could be much younger than he looked.

Closing my eyes wasn't actually a requirement of bringing up my System, since building that into it just seemed like asking for trouble, but it sure helped me concentrate.

My 'bad idea' was based on something I had originally designed with my parents in mind: Making someone else into an 'Ally'. It was an option I had come across in multiple games, but the basic concept was that in those games you would spend your personal character points to buy a companion. The power level of the companion was generally tied to your own, and when you increased in power your companion would generally 'level up' as well.

It was a strange concept when applied in real life, to be sure, and I hadn't gotten it to a point where I thought it was even remotely reasonable to try and apply it to anybody... but at this point, my patient and I were both out of options. It was possible, I realized, that I had a bit of a 'mad scientist' vibe going on... but surely it wouldn't hurt to experiment on somebody if it was also in their own best interests, right? Ahem...

Ethics aside, I knew I would regret it if I stood by doing nothing and the boy died, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. Besides, even if this failed, any data points I collect could help me save someone else in the future. But wait... wasn't that exactly what a mad scientist would think? I'd have to do a 'morality check' on the whole thing with Wolfram later... Regardless, no way I was stopping now, and I could always work on my maniacal laugh when there were fewer witnesses around.