Joe felt better after using the ring to scrub himself clean and finish off a real breakfast. He wandered the market for over an hour not finding the training equipment he was looking for. He began to despair, wondering if the guild had the bags custom-made for them. He fortuitously caught a break when he found a stall that sold fighting wraps for unarmed combat and asked there.
The directions he received were long and convoluted. Joe had never been great with directions but he had been smart enough to get the name of the place and the street it was on. After another hour of getting lost and then getting new directions to Hem Lane, Joe finally found the tiny street. There were only five shops on each side of the little lane and all of them sported hanging signs depicting thread, needles, shears, or some other sewing item. It appeared Hem Lane was appropriately named.
Joe stepped into the Satchel’s Seams and found the storefront filled with beautifully crafted bags. There was everything from small coin purses to large duffle bags, even a few complex backpacks. Between his magic healer’s satchel, alchemy belt, and dim-bag, Joe was pretty much set for storage but he could not help but touch the fine leatherwork and wonder if maybe he needed one more.
His browsing was interrupted by a small man stepping out of the back room of the shop. He was a gnome with much the same build as the guild shopkeep, Puqmup, but where Puqmup was all gold, this tailor was silver. The man had long bright gray hair and mutton chops. What caught Joe’s eye was the way the man moved. He had a bit of a stoop to his back and his steps displayed a slight limp. Joe used his wound-sight and saw red through the little man’s body.
“Why in a world with healing is everyone putting up with so much discomfort?” Joe wondered. He had seen plenty of healer shops in Fort Coral. Unlike tiny Crowfield, Fort Coral was a large, popular community. There were more than enough magical medics, as far as he could tell, and yet everywhere Joe went he found people suffering with chronic pain.
Not wanting to get too sidetracked Joe tried to subtly trickle a bit of healing towards the old seamster. He cast [Healing Wave], a spell he infrequently used since it was so inefficient. Its big advantage was it could heal at range. [Heart Fire] could have worked for the healing too but a sudden materialized campfire would not have been in any way subtle.
You have restored 13% of Slunsnur Rydolber’s total health. His current health is at 100%.
The gnome’s expression brightened and he stood up straighter. “Good morrow to you sir. What can I do for you on this fine day,” the craftsman greeted Joe with a cheerful voice.
Your skill [Stealth] has increased to rank 7.
Joe almost chuckled out loud at the skill gain. His [Healing Wave] skill was even worse than his [Stealth] but because Joe had been concentrating more on the subtle casting than the ranged healing, that was the skill that was rewarded.
“Hello. I am looking for a training bag for martial arts. A merchant named Jendezroo on the south end of the market recommended you.”
“I have heard that name as you are not the first she has sent our way. We will have to send her a note of thanks. One moment, please.” The silver-haired gnome walked to the doorway and shouted, “Skadec! There is someone here for you.” Turning back to Joe he added. “I do the fine threadwork but for a punching bag, you need a seam stronger than these little hands can craft. Hence our partnership.”
A moment later a dwarven woman entered the shop. She was equally gray-haired but where the gnome was silver, she was iron. She looked to Joe and then stopped and turned toward her partner.
“What has gotten into you, Slun? You’re grinnin’ from ear to ear.”
“Dunno. Just feeling good. It’s a nice morning. I was thinking of propping open the front door.” He leveled a large smile towards his gruff-sounding companion and then pointedly tipped his head in Joe’s direction. “Customer,” he nudged with a quiet voice.
“Sorry. We’ve been working together too damn long. What can I do you for?” she asked in an almost terse voice. Joe looked her over and saw a few hints of red and pink in her aura but nothing stood out. She just must have a brusque nature.
“I am looking for a training bag for martial arts,” he answered. “Preferably a tall heavy bag I can use for kicks and punches.”
“No problem. What is your strength score?”
“Um. Five or seven depending on gear,” he answered embarrassedly.
“Oh, no worries then. If you had something nearing twenty then we are talking about a whole other type of bag but my bags are solid up to fifteen.” She stopped and looked at Joe’s hands. “Well, them claws are a problem. The hides I use won’t stand up to lots of slashing attacks. I have a buddy who can make you a chainmail sheath you can use to cover the bag with if you want. Usually takes him about a week. My bag will run ya forty-three gold. The chainmail another two hundred.”
Between the coins looted and the gems sold, Joe had the coin for it but paying five times the bag’s cost for the chainmail made him pause. He knew someone who made her own chainmail for cosplay and knew it was a slow process, so he did not begrudge the price, just questioned if it was necessary right now.
“So I bring them the bag?”
“Nah. I’ll just send him the measurements. You just leave us a deposit and how ta reach ya and we’ll settle up when it’s done.”
The more he thought about it the more it made sense. He surely was going to want to train with his claws now and then. Or make a mistake and lash a talon across the bag. Two hundred was the price of two chainmail shirts so the math added up.
“Ok, let’s do it.”
In the end, Joe took the bag Skadec suggested for him and left a fifty gold deposit on the mail sheath. He stored the heavy leather cylinder in his dim-bag but felt a bit of resistance as he did so. The punching bag weighed close to two hundred pounds, which was half of his dim-bag’s max capacity. With all the other stuff he had loaded into the dimensional space, he was just shy of its maximum weight limit.
By this time it was well past lunchtime. Joe had promised Sorura, the woman who ran with him, and Neknox, the dagger-fighter, that he would return to Swift Water this afternoon. Even though he really did not want more company, he also didn’t want to be the guy who blew off his promises.
‘Maybe it won’t be too bad,’ he thought as he turned and started walking east.
As he strolled through the streets of the city, Joe activated his [Eyes of the Healer]. Sure enough, there were countless people in Fort Coral who needed serious healing and yet they seemed to be struggling through their days in pain. He could understand how this could be back on Earth where medicine could not just magically fix an issue and required expensive resources. Here on Illuminaria, it made much less sense. The resources needed were constantly recharging and it was not like a basic healer needed a decade of training. They just needed the right spells.
When he entered Rosaline’s Ring again he was surprised by how it looked in the daylight. Last night it had been a blur of close conversations and dim lantern-light. Today it was a bright spacious room opened on two sides to include outdoor seating. These open arches let in the light of the sunny day, dispelling the intimate shadows that the room held once the sun had set.
“Ah. Our newfound hero returns,” called out a bartender Joe recognized from the night before, though if he ever got the man’s name it was lost on him now.
“Hey. I said I’d come back and do some healing. Do you know where I’m supposed to go?” he asked, stepping up to the long circular bar in the middle of the big room.
“Nope. Wanna use the deck?” the man replied pointing to one of the outdoor eating areas.
Joe tossed a thumbs up and headed for the mostly empty deck. As he passed the other outdoor area he could see why the deck was less occupied. The primary outdoor area had the shade from a large tree and it faced the sea. There wasn’t a great view but Joe could feel a breeze entering the enclosed room from that direction.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The deck wasn’t too bad. A canvas awning had been stretched to block the worst of the direct sunlight. Joe picked a bench and seated himself backward on it. He was facing another such table where he would want his patients to sit.
As he sat down he realized he should have grabbed a drink first but a moment later a waitress placed a tall sweating pitcher framed with a yellow liquid. “On the house,” she said cheerfully as she poured him a drink. Joe dropped a [Heart Fire] behind her in an unlit brazier. He startled her unintentionally but a second later she held her hand toward the magical blaze. Even though it was hot outside, the flames radiated comfort over just adding heat to the area.
“Nice,” she crooned, tossing Joe a wink. She rolled her shoulders in the healing field. “I’ll send folks as they arrive, Joe.”
----------------------------------------
By the time dinner was served, Joe had healed over three dozen people. This would have wiped him out if he had healed this many people back during his first days in Crowfield but he had grown a great deal since then. He had more than one hundred times the mana and a far better understanding of how his healing worked.
There was a tip bowl on the table that was nearly full of small coins. Joe planned to split it with the waitresses who kept bringing him more of the delicious sunny-colored juice as well as some very tasty bar snacks.
The folks he had fought the manticore with had shown up over the afternoon, except the machete-wielding Brayrrem. He was working the sugar cane fields to bring in one more quick harvest. Joe found out that you can brew a cheap rum in around a week. With Founders Days coming up, the town was stocking up on everything.
The rest of his fellow hunters were sitting on the benches with him, swapping stories. In one of the lulls between tall tales, Joe asked the question that had been hounding him all day.
“So how is it that in a city with plenty of healers, there are so many who need healing?”
“Healing ain’t cheap,” Neknox replied. “It costs as much to get healed as it does to get an item inscribed. Just the way of the world.”
“What you are giving away, Joe,” Michnul, the male spear wielder continued, “would cost many folks in Swift Water several month’s wages. For an accident, maybe you’d scrounge up the coins but for something that is gonna come back again and again, who can afford that?”
“Yer a fluke, Joe,” added Sorura. “The only other healer that gives healing away is Mercy Suku. The rest of them set up nice shops or try to get a private gig with one of the wealthy folks in West Heights.”
Joe had not been to the most affluent end of the city but from what he had heard from Kenda, it was not an exclusive community. It had the nicest houses and stunning views, but its residents were made up of as many salty sea captains as it was successful merchant families.
“I’d like to meet her someday,” Joe replied to the fleet spearwoman.
“Well then, you should gamble tonight 'cause you just called a winning hand,” Neknox suggested. “She heard you were coming and wanted to meet you too. Pretty sure I saw her enter the front door a few minutes ago.”
Joe did not have to wait long before a woman in the familiar tan robes of a Myrrhceeian stepped out onto the deck. She was a saurian. Light green scales covered her face and body, with yellow tones starting under her chin and running down her neck. She also had patterns of yellow around her eyes and along her cheekbones. She radiated wisdom and age.
Her back was bent and Joe immediately looked with his woundsight. There was no red in her stoop but he could sense age had weakened the muscle and bone. That was a potent reminder for Joe that, like Suku, he might live a long healthy life but they could not escape from time’s toll indefinitely.
“So this is our newcomer,” she hissed in a voice far less ominous than the one the naga, Madam Zanthiss, had used. “I have heard good things about you young man.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
“Mercy or Suku, please. Ma’am is so formal.” She sat across from Joe but not right in front of him. Michnul who had been on Joe’s right vacated the spot and Mercy Suku gestured for one of the waiting patients to sit. While Joe worked on a damaged knee, the saurian priestess tended to a teenager with a finger that had clearly healed poorly.
While her curative power flowed into the boy’s hand, there was a presence to it that Joe’s spells completely lacked. With the exception of [Heart Fire] which had a comforting aura, Joe had never sensed his healing. It just did its thing and only he and the recipient were aware of it at all.
Mercy Suku’s spells radiated a sense of benevolence and caring. Just being near the casting made one feel loved by the goddess of mercy. It was such a surprise that Joe faltered mid-casting of his own healing. Joe had felt this presence in the great church in Peregrine Harbor and during the ritual to purge the lycanthropy from him but he was not expecting it to be so potent from just a simple healing spell.
“Have you not worked with a cleric before, Joe?” the Mercy asked.
“No. Not really. I mean I have met some but only in passing. Your spells are beautiful. Mine seem to just be practical.”
“They have their own beauty, young healer. Mine are prayers to the Gentle Lady. They are answered by her and so have her touch upon them.”
Joe suddenly realized that the boy’s fingerbones were straight and healed. They had not moved to be straight or merged to be mended. They just were fixed. From twisted to perfect in the blink of an eye. The wounds that Joe healed did not just erase. They healed at a super accelerated rate but they did go through the process of healing. It was not just the presence of Myrrhcee that made their magic different. They functioned in completely different ways.
“You are not healing them. You are … erasing the damage, not actually fixing it,” Joe stammered.
“That is a question for the philosophers, Joe. The wound is healed, is it not,” the old cleric chuckled. She had an expression that suggested she would enjoy such a debate.
“Yes, but it seemed to me that you are wishing for the wounds to go away. Not healing them away.”
“Oh, that is clever.” The woman clapped her hands and leaned back to look at Joe. “That may just be one of the best distinctions I have heard for the difference between divine healing and accelerated healing.”
“I did not know there were different types of healing," he blurted, before muttering more to himself than anyone else, "Though it makes perfect sense that there would be.”
After a few more seconds, Joe asked another question. “Does all divine healing function like yours?”
“Yes. Mostly. There are some wicked gods like Toarmehnt who make the healing processes as painful as possible, but they are the outliers.” She scowled at this thought and then shook her head to dispel it. “Oh and then there is Llangore, the god of sleep. All of his healing only manifests after the patient wakes from the spell.”
“What about healing itself? There is divine healing and my healing which you called acceleterated. Are there other variations of healing?”
“Of course there are. There is an arcane form known as temporal healing. The spells move the injuries through time to either a point before they occurred or to after they have already been healed. It takes a very fine touch to work temporal healing.
“On the other side is the horrid practice of sacrificial healing. Taking injuries from one person and moving them to a victim. This process is very effective but fraught with corruption for the caster.
“Morphic healing is common among druids and other shapechangers. By involving a transformation they morph into a form that does not have the wounds.
“Let’s see what else is there,” the old priestess mused. “There is replacement healing where you replace the damaged part with something new but that is more of a facet of alchemy and artifice than the art of healers. I’m sure there are more but my old brain is coming up blank at the moment.”
“Can I pick that brain for another question? I am trying to heal a patient. He has a hunchback growth but no matter what I try I can’t seem to affect it. I can see the mass is just made of muscle and fat and yet it resists all my attempts to heal it.”
“Hmm. How old?”
“Ahhh. I don’t know for sure how long nus live for but he seems pretty old.”
“Oh. There is your answer right there, Joe. Nus are notoriously hard to heal because their bodies accept deformities as part of their natural state of being. You are trying to fix something that his body believes is supposed to be there.”
“Oh crap…” Joe moaned. As he thought through his healings on Runkbadok, Suku’s explanation made perfect sense. “Then how can I …”
“Let me. While your magic can only follow what the body wants, mine is directed by my goddess. If Myrrhcee is willing to remove the hump then the hump has very little to say about it.”
“That would be amazing, Suku. The place is called the Abaaka House on Serra Lane.”
“I know of it. It would be my pleasure. Now let’s get back to work and see to these folks here.”
Joe looked up and realized there was quite a line waiting for them. There were a few grumpy, grumbling faces in the crowd but they were a tiny minority. Most folks were not so entitled to begrudge the healers who were offering their gifts for free a few minutes of conversation. Joe recast his [Heart Fire]. Realizing he still had plenty of mana, he [Dual Cast] a second one on the other side of the deck. Once the waves of healing and comfort overlapped the occupants in line, even the surly ones, began to smile.