Zalia knelt next to the low bed of the soldier closest to the door. He was sat facing down, knees to his chest, hands over the back of his head, rocking back and forth. He was muttering something, gibberish or a language so dissimilar to Endarian that her translation powers didn’t work on it.

“Hey, I’m going to try something to help you, okay?” Zalia told him gently.

He didn’t reply or even make notice of her words from what she could tell. Deciding to go ahead, Zalia summoned the few materials she had. She was a little worried about causing more damage to the mind of the man so decided to include Adastem into the mix. Not only would it weaken the overall strength of the ritual, it would also provide it with an adaptability that might be more than necessary for what she was attempting.

Frozen Heart desiccated in an instant, floating up and crushing to a fine powder that hung in a swirling ball in the air. A good amount of it too, a small handful. Living trapvine was next, a little cutting of the giant bulbous plant that lived in Cormaine. This one crushed slowly into a paste, little more than a small drop that floated next to the Frozen Heart.

Finally, came the Adastem. The ever changing plant was left as it was, already in a form useable for her magic.

The Frozen Heart and Living trapvine, at Zalia’s command, gently floated over to form a little ritual circle in the air between her and her patient. It began glowing a light green, the colour of new growth and life reborn.

The Adastem soon joined it, twisting and forming until it made a slightly larger ring around the central one, its shape still changing yet glowing a deeper green than the centre ring, the colour of old growth and times past.

Zalia activated the ritual, yet managed to slow the speed at which it was released. Gently, the materials turned to a fine mist over the course of a few seconds, flowing towards the man whose head was lowered.

It spun around him before sinking into his skull, vanishing from sight. The rocking and muttering stopped.

Zalia waited a few tense minutes, unsure whether she should disturb the man. She decided not to, knowing that the mind was a brittle thing and interrupting the ritual may not be a good idea. Better to let it do its work.

Finally, the soldier raised his head, blinking bleary eyes as if truly seeing for the first time in a very, very long time.

“Hello,” Zalia greeted him softly.

“I- I’m. Who, where. Where am I?” he asked.

“You’re in a ward for people who need healing. What do you remember?” Zalia explained gently.

“I- I was, I mean, we were just… we were just following orders. The blood, oh gods the blood,” he croaked, his speech devolving into sobs.

“It’s alright, you’re safe now. It’s alright,” Zalia comforted, awkwardly giving him a pat on the shoulder.

“W-what happened to me? Everything is so… so blurry. How long?” he asked, his words jumping between too quick thoughts.

“Don’t worry about all that. You’ve been out for a while but you’re in a safe place. The people here have been taking care of you. Rest, get some rest. You can tackle it all in the morning.”

“I… gods. I knew it was wrong. We knew it was wrong… but the king. Orders. We had orders.”

“Don’t think about it, alright? Rest and when you wake up tomorrow, you can go see the sun once more,” Zalia urged.

“The sun. I’d like to see the sun again,” he murmured, already falling backwards to sleep.

Zalia focused a little bit more of her Healing presence on the man, letting its comfortable warmth pull the man into the embrace of sleep.

She let out a deep sigh, utterly exhausted after healing just that one man's mind.

“Excuse me, Zalia? How did you heal his mind?” The doctor who had been hovering over Zalia’s shoulder asked.

“Magic, herbs and a little bit of hope,” Zalia replied.

Zalia looked around, trying to find Boreal but finding her nowhere in sight.

“Could you teach us how?” The doctor asked.

“Not really, unless you know herbal ritual magic?” Zalia inquired.

“Well, no. We could learn though,” the doctor suggested.

“Well, you’d have to find someone who knew how to teach you. I certainly couldn’t. It’s all part of the class,” Zalia explained.

“Damn,” the doctor muttered.

Zalia agreed with the sentiment but she had also just healed the mind of a man who had been so thoroughly broken that time and words meant nothing to him. Well, healed might be an overstatement. It was more akin to picking up the pieces of a shattered glass, putting them back in their place and telling them to fix the cracks on their own. She wouldn’t be able to do that part for them. She could help, sure, but for the next steps others were now a better alternative than she was.

“I’ll come back another time and heal who I can. I don’t have much of this plant left and want to see if I can grow more before I use it all,” Zalia said.

“What is it? We can get some more for you,” the doctor asked.

“I highly doubt that,” Zalia said.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

There was only one place she knew of to find the plant and she sure as hell wasn’t going back to Cormaine anytime soon.

She left the ward, following the instinctive knowledge of where Boreal was at all times that was a part of the bond they held. She kept all her stealth abilities active, blending into the darkness now the sun had fully set.

She found Boreal in the process of assaulting someone who had just entered the war camp with a barrage of body checks and paw taps. It looked like she was trying to determine if the person was real or if she was imagining them. Zalia had to make sure she was seeing right as well, as she saw Ember.

“Boreal? What in the name of the gods are you doing here? You’re huge! Is… is Zalia with you?”

Ember was looking well from what Zalia could see. She still had her old twin bladed sword and heater shield, though it looked like she had managed to acquire a new set of armour somewhere. She had always worn a lighter set of armour made for mobility, a set with even less protection than Zalia’s first set of armour had. Now though, she wore what was essentially a full suit of plate armour. Despite what must have been an extremely heavy set of armour, she moved in it as if she had been born to it, lithely and with ease.

Zalia felt a little… nervous. She hadn’t been nervous meeting Indis again but Ember had always been a compassionate and caring person. Someone who had shared a deep part of her past with Zalia that she had not shared with any other.

Putting her nerves aside, she made her way towards the two.

“Where have you been?” Ember was saying to Boreal.

“Hey Ember,” Zalia greeted.

Ember’s head shot up and she stared at Zalia.

She blinked, once, twice.

“How the fuck are you alive?” she asked.

Zalia laughed and gave the woman a long hug.

“Good to see you too,” she said warmly.

“You’re… different,” Ember noted, pulling away and holding Zalia at arms length, giving her a critical look.

“As are you,” Zalia said, pointedly looking at the full plate Ember now wore.

“We’ve all had to adapt a bit as of recently,” Ember said grimly.

“Yeah.”

“But seriously, how the fuck are you alive and where have you been?” Ember asked.

“Long, long story. The short of it is when I messed with that ritual, it dragged me, Boreal and Juniper into Cormaine of all places. Juniper is dead now, while I survived. We can have a long chat about the whole thing another time and place,” Zalia explained.

“Fair enough.”

“And you, I heard you are going about on your own as usual, saving people and giving all you can and whatnot. Had much trouble out there?” Zalia asked.

“Have you been out there at all?”

“Yeah, yeah I have. It’s a welcome respite from the experiences of my past weeks? Months? I’m not even really certain how long I was there for,” Zalia said.

“A welcome respite? Bloody hell Zalia, it’s a nightmare out there. How bad was it in Cormaine?” Ember asked in concern.

“Bad.”

“You and I need to go get a drink,” Ember decided.

“Alcohol doesn’t really do anything to me, remember?” Zalia pointed out.

“Oh ho, no? Well, I’m certain Harrick’s brew will mess you up something good if you aren’t careful,” Ember disagreed, moving off into the camp.

“Harrick?” Zalia asked, following along.

“Gold rank chef with the brewer specialisation. Can you believe that? Gold rank!? It’s almost unheard of in a class like that,” Ember said.

Zalia frowned.

“Why is that?” she asked.

“What?”

“Why is it that it’s so rare to find Gold rankers of any type, but especially non combat focused ones. Not to mention I’ve not seen an Emerald or Diamond ranked person at all. I would have thought if such people were to make a showing now would be the time,” Zalia explained.

“Well, as you know, levelling is much, much easier when you go about fighting things. It’s hard to get enough levels to reach Gold within a normal person's lifespan through a non combat class. Harrick though, well I managed to get the secret out of him. He has found a way to make an age slowing drink! Won’t let anyone else have it though, too dangerous he says. As for higher ranked people, well… you know I’m not really sure. I’ve only ever heard tale of people reaching that rank, I’ve never actually seen any,” Ember said.

Zalia pondered it. She knew that Ro-ak and the thousand eyed demons were far beyond those ranks and there had been some Emerald rank elementals popping up towards the end of the rituals yet still, no humans of that rank to fight them off.

“Have the elementals still been attacking?” she asked.

“Nah, not since the ritual happened.”

“I wonder why that is,” Zalia muttered.

“Doesn’t matter much at the moment, does it? One less thing to worry about,” Ember said cheerfully.

Zalia gave her an odd look.

“You’ve definitely changed. I don’t think I’ve heard you talk this much ever.”

“Well, a lot has happened, you know? Indis has gone and drowned herself in even more responsibility, from some kind of guilt she has around your death. Well, supposed death. Zen, ah man, Zen. Fuck knows where he ended up. I still hope I’ll find him out there…” Ember explained, trailing off.

“How much impact have you had out there?” Zalia asked.

She had noticed that Ember was also Bronze rank, unsurprisingly.

“I’ve made a big difference in some people's lives. Saved a lot of people from horrible fates. It never feels like enough though. I’ve come pretty close to meeting one of those fates myself a few times too. There are a lot of terrifying creatures out there.”

“Yeah, that there is.”

They arrived at a dingy little building that had a surprisingly pleasant interior. There were only a few tables with three other patrons inside, all of them having a casual drink.

The warmly lit space also had a little bar fit into a corner where a large, jolly man leant against the wall, idly twiddling his moustache.

“Harrick!” Ember called when they entered.

“Ahh, Ember. Back from your little escapade again I see. Same as usual?” Harrick asked.

His voice was pleasant, smooth and neutral with a slight accent to it that Zalia didn’t identify as Endarian.

“Of course, the same thing for my friend here too.”

“Coming right up!”

They sat at a little table against one of the walls, nobody blinking an eye as Boreal pushed through and between the tables to sit next to them. Having a look around the room, Zalia realised the other patrons were all Silver rank. They had probably seen crazier things than Boreal in their time.

“I’m surprised Harrick doesn’t have more patrons for a Gold rank brewer,” Zalia said.

“He prefers it this way.”

“Right, fair enough.”

“Now, tell me all about where and what you’ve been doing,” Ember said, leaning forward intently.

For the second time that day, Zalia began telling the story of her recent experiences.